vividreports: Many things!

A great deal has happened since Katie was here and Spring arrived! Of course, there has been March Madness - the NCAA Men's basketball tournament. North Carolina has done amazingly well! It played UCLA - a #4 seeded team - in the Sweet Sixteen round on Friday night, and UNC won. It was a nerve-racking game that had many ties and lead-changes, and UNC just didn't seem able to ever get ahead by more than a point or two, but toward the end they had a spurt and won 73-66. That advanced them to the Elite Eight. In that round they played a team that had become the "Cinderella" team of the whole tournament - Saint Peter's University (Jersey City, NJ), a #15 seeded team that had defeated three more highly-ranked teams against all expectations. So everyone was rooting for them as the underdog. But UNC won handily, and now they are in the Final Four next weekend. And who do they play? DUKE! Their archrival - who they have never played in the NCAA Tournament! They have played something like 136 games over the past nine decades or so, but never in the "Big Dance" as they call it. So that will be a huge game. I'm sure Duke will be the favorite, but you never know - UNC defeated them just a few weeks ago on Duke's home court in the last game of the regular season. And they sort of rained on Coach K's parade - the last home game of his career at Duke. Duke will be looking for revenge, I imagine. We watched the UCLA game at Katie and Savanna's, stayed overnight, and went to a funeral the next morning with them (see below). The Saint Peter's game we watched at Cliff and Eliza Bergh's, and that included a lovely supper that Ellen prepared. ************************************* We sang at a funeral in the Guilford Church last Thursday, and went to a funeral in Belchertown, MA last Saturday. The one in Guilford was for Joy Amidon (no relation to Peter Amidon) who along with her husband, John (who died in 2015) was a very dedicated member of the Guilford Church Choir for several years. Joy had developed dementia and was in a nursing home all through the pandemic, so we had not seen her for some time. But we had met her sons when John had died, and they were there Thursday, of course, and actually sang in the choir with us. The anthems were well-chosen gems because Joy was a lover of music, and they were beautiful. This was the first in-person funeral at the church since the pandemic started and it was really quite lovely and moving. It was also Pastor Elisa's first funeral since becoming pastor in Guilford, and she handled it well - not surprisingly. She follows in the footsteps of two pastors (Shirley and Lise Sparrow) who had a special gift for funerals. Elisa has a special gift for worship leadership in general, and that was evident in this funeral service as well. ***************************************** The second funeral was very different. It was for JeeJee Plouff (rhymes with "fluff")- a woman who was, in effect, one of Brendon's grandmothers. I say "in effect," because she was not related to him. But his mother (Krystal, Katie and Savanna's adopted daughter), had married JeeJee's son Fred Plouff after she gave birth to Brendon, and JeeJee took a real interest in Brendon. (Brendon's biological father has never really been "on the scene"). This was Brendon's first experience of the death of someone he would feel was family. It also sort of brought home to him that the people closest to him are all pretty old. So we wanted to be there for him. The service was held at a funeral home in Belchertown, and was led by a woman on the staff of the home. A lot of people came - JeeJee clearly was part of a large community of people. One room was devoted to a slide show of her life. We learned a lot about her - as one often does when one goes to a funeral! We were glad we went. On our way out from the funeral, we went by a demonstration of Trump supporters there in Belchertown, waving flags supporting Trump in the 2014 election. That was a first for us - witnessing a live demonstration for Trump.******************************************* Last week was also our course session on Uncanny Journeys. This session was on the stories of Franz Kafka. His most famous story, The Metamorphosis, (Gregor Lamsa wakes up one morning to discover he has become a dung beetle), was part of our reading assignment, but it was clear that the story that grabbed the attention of many of the class members was In the Penal Colony. The centerpiece of that story is a machine - an exquisitely bizarre machine which is used to execute prisoners condemned to death. But it does so by torturing them for 12 hours by inscribing the sentence imposed on them using needles going ever deeper into their skin all over their body. This machine was created by a former Commandant at the Colony, now dead, but passionately remembered and defended by an officer at the colony who administers the machine. It is a strange story and strangely compelling. Kafka had a very fertile imagination, especially for bizarre forms of evil! *************************************** This was also a week when spring showed some of its many faces - e.g., beautiful sap buckets on big maple trees near the Dummerston Cemetery (buckets are rare today - most people now use tubing, which is not aesthetically pleasing!); and crocuses by the Guilford church - brave little flowers! ****************************************** Also, on Sunday morning, Ellen and I read the scripture at the Guilford Church, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, in a dramatic way - I was the father, Ellen was the younger son. (Peter Amidon was the elder brother and Pastor Elisa the "narrator."). ******************************* Oh, and we received a very interesting item from Maggie and Jerry - a biographical sketch of "Saint Gerald." who is the patron saint of the disabled and physically challenged! Someone I can turn to! Jerry is, of course, Gerald Hochburger. So we have a saint in the family! The original "Saint Gerald" lived in the ninth century, in the French province of Aurillac. We know of him through Odo of Cluny. Jerry even looks a bit like Saint Gerald! Wow! *************************************** I guess you could say it's been an unusual week!