Meeting new "neighbors"

We just came back from a visit down the road a bit to our friends, Wendy and David Baker, who live just off Kipling Road about half-way to Hannaford's from our house - a ten-minute ride at most. They wanted us to meet their new neighbors, Bruce and Rona Gordon. Before the Gordons arrived, we got a little tour of David's shop. The Gordons have recently bought the house next door to David and Wendy's. Bruce is on the faculty at Yale U and Yale Divinity School. Rona is a Lecturer in the Yale English Department, teaches a course in writing, but mostly is a consultant to academic writers. She grew up in Scotland, and you can hear that in her speech. Bruce is working on a book about the Bible - i.e., about the Bible as a book that has been published for centuries in many different cultures and countries, in many different languages, under very various circumstances and sponsorships, etc. It sounds really interesting, and I know of nothing like it that is "out there." It will be titled The Bible, A Global History. It must have required an immense amount of research, made easier, no doubt, by the Internet, but also probably made more complicated and tricky as well. It also turned out that they, Rona especially, are BIG fans of the "Swallows and Amazons" children's book series, which I am also a big fan of and Rona is also a Quaker in her background, as is Ellen. So it was interesting and fun to meet them! We snacked while we talked, and I never really thought to pull out my phone and take a picture. But I found some things online - good old Internet! I hope we'll have a chance to know them better. They said that this is now their home - they can do quite a bit remotely and will commute when they need to. Sort of amazing!

Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Prof. of Ecclesiastical History at Yale

Rona Johnston Gordan, Lecturer in Yale U English Dept.

Wendy and David Baker's house

A few of the hundreds of violins in David's shop