Big weekend coming!

The next few days are full to the brim! Katie and Christian arrive at Bradley Field near Hartford, CT late tonight - 11:41 p.m. - and will go into a Days Inn motel via shuttle near the airport. Tomorrow morning, Ellen and I will drive down to the motel and pick them up and bring them to the Enterprise Rental agency in Brattleboro where I have reserved a car. They'll drive to NH for the wedding Katie is in and come back Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, Ellen will bake and I will vacuum and mop Friday afternoon, and at 6 p.m. Jim and Mary will meet us at Panda North; John and Cynthia will join us. I'm looking forward to having Mala Tofu, my favorite dish at Panda North. After supper, Jim and Mary will come home with us and spend the night. Saturday is the big day: Savanna's memorial service, followed by a reception, followed by a family supper at Julie's. Ellen has a big role in the food part of all that. We are also both readers in the service. Jerry Hochberger's service will be going on at the same time out in Batavia, IL, and Daniel Crockett will be reading something I wrote for that. Katie and Christian will be here at the house from Sunday through Tuesday, when we'll take them back to Bradley airport to fly back to St. Louis. I'm not sure just how we will spend that time together, but I'm sure John and Cyntha will be part of it. So that is what the next four days look like.

Christian and Katie

Guilford Community Park

Sunday afternoon, we came back from Maine and arrived in time for the celebration of the opening of Guilford community park. This is a park, which is next to the Guilford Community Church occupying land which the church acquired a few years ago. It includes the new pavilion, a labyrinth, a children's playground, a fire pit surrounded by benches, and soon, a basketball half-court. There were some speeches and tributes, and the expressions of Thanks and appreciation for supporters, but the real feature of the occasion was Zara Bode's Little Big Band. What a fantastic group! It's made up of Zara herself, vocalist, plus guitar, bass, percussion, clarinet, trumpet, saxophone. They do swing-era classics, and boy, are they good.

Zara Bode and her Little Big Band.

Scenes from Sunday evening.

At the Farnsworth Museum with Phil.

A Louise Nevelson exhibit from the Farnsworth holdings - it has the second-largest collection of Nevelson's work in the world, exceeded only by the Whitney Museum in New York. Her early work was in oil paintings, which have features that prefigure her later sculptures. At a certain point she beeame a sculptor and never looked back.

This was a new experience of an art museum for me. I was in a wheelchair, and my friend, Phil McKean, was pushing me. We went through several galleries together and it was really quite different from doing it on my own. It was slower and we both felt we really experienced the art in a new way. Who knew? There were two special showings: the one of Louise Nevelson, and the other was Andrew Wyeth, titled "Wyeth...Every leaf and twig," (a quotation from Henry David Thoreau, whom Wyeth admired). The latter focused on Wyeth's botanical paintings and drawings and included many works never before seen in public.

Here is a wide range of Nevelson's unique sculptures:

And here is a sample of Wyeth's botanical watercolors, created in the early 1950's:

Very sad news

Our dear friend, Jerry Hochberger, passed away last Monday. Becky called us soon after he died and left a voicemail message on Ellen's cell phone, but we didn't see it until Tuesday. His death does not come as a surprise - we visited him in Sherman Hospital on Wednesday, August 30th, and while he talked about being discharged to a rehab center, we sensed that life and death hung in the balance. I called him from Vermont on Sept. 15th - his birthday - and he had a hard time speaking. He died three days later. I am so glad that we made it to Elgin before turning back home, and actually got to spend time with him. He has been such a delightful friend, especially over the past two decades when Ellen and I started making regular trips to Wyoming, and we always stayed with Maggie and Jerry, on our way out to Wyoming and usually coming back as well. Jerry was a wonderful host and always made us feel so welcome, and often helped us deal with little problems we might be having at the moment. We are going to miss him very much. Maggie is bravely staying slone at the house - as she says, she is used to being along because he has been in the hospital so much - but there is talk of Becky possibly coming to live with her eventually. His memorial service will be on Sept 30th, the same day as Savanna's service, so we will not be there. I think we would try to drive out for it if at all possible otherwise. It will be held at the Calvary Episcopal Church in Batavia, IL that he and Maggie attend, with "Father Mike" officiating. Ellen and I have worshipped there many times, and have sung in the choir. Farewell, Jerry - we love you!

Gerald "Jerry" Hochberger (September 15, 1942-September 18, 2023)

Advanced Directives

After a productive session with Dr. van Dyke that also involved Ellen and John, i have a new Advanced Directive for Healthcare form and a new DNR form. I have filed the ADH form with the Vermont Registry. The DNR is on the fridge in a red envelope. We've been pretty active. Saturday, we sang with a Hallowell group at a funeral in the Dummerston Church. It was standing room only. The service was for a young man who was dealing with both Lyme and black mold. He was an extraordinary person in every way: intelligent, creative, caring, the works, but he was hopelessly debilitated and took his own life. It was very sad but also a movingly beautiful service. **********
Later on Saturday we visited Jerome, and went to church on Sunday. After church we went to the home of Mary Lila Gregg and sang for hèr. Yesterday, in the midst of all the ADH work, I even got to Planet Fitness! Photos: Top: Hallowell rehearsing before the service.Middle; During the service. Bottom: Mary Lila Gregg.

Making progress

I feel that I am making progress - both with respect to healing from my fall, and also with respect to my long "To Do" list. The bruising has almost completely faded and the pain, soreness and swollenness - both in knee and back - is much less. I can sleep on either side and walk more comfortably. I had a session with Angelina today and she helped a lot - both my back and opening up my shoulder. I have not yet gone back to Planet Fitness, but am ready to. I think it is not unreasonable to think that in a couple more weeks, I'll be back where I was before my fall. I feel very fortunate! With respect to the "To DO"list, I have written drafts of new paragraphs for my "Advanced Directives" and we (Ellen, John and myself) have a date with Dr. Van Dyke next Monday, to go over all that. I have contacted a potential new lawyer to help with updating our wills. I have given thought to options for disposal of my body, and have a date for a phone conversation with a friend who is involved in green burial. I've notified my insurance agent about changing my auto insurance coverage and I have made a date to have the brakes on the Subaru repaired, and also a date for oil-undercoating. I have a dentist appointment. This is by no means everything, but it is a good start. ****************** Yesterday, Ellen and I went to Shutesbury and spent some time with Katie, and a little with Brendon. Brendon seems to be having a good start at Greenfield Community College. We looked at Katie's draft of an outline for Savanna's memorial service, and we shared some poems we had found that might be read - in my case, poems by May Sarton. No final decisions on that as yet. In reading through poems and other writings on death and dying, it is quite clear that there are two major camps of attitudes toward death: (1) death is a natural part of life that can be welcomed, and (2)death is an "enemy" to be resisted. Dylan Thomas' poem epitomises the second attitude: "Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light." A children's story I told years ago at the Guilford Community Church, expresses the first attitude well, I think. It was based on a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. "Mapey and Leafy Let Go October 27, 1991 This morning I'm going to put on a little play for you. I would like to introduce to you the two main characters in our play: this is "Leafy" who is an old and wise leaf, and this is "Mapey" who is a little younger, very inquisitive leaf who asks a lot of questions. And I myself am going to play the part of a tree. Do I look like a tree? M: (in a higher pitched voice) "Hey, hey Leafy! Hi there! You're looking really beautiful today! L: (in a lower, pitched, "wise" voice): "Why, thank you Mapey! You're looking pretty special yourself. I remember when you were just a little bud." M: "Yeah, and I remember when you were all green and there was a big fat, green caterpillar crawling all over you." L: "Why, I remember that day! And look at us now. We've turned all golden and orange and the sun shines right through us like a stained glass window." M: "Yeah, we've really changed a lot. But...but Leafy? L: "Yes...?" M: "Could I ask you a question?" L: "Well, sure." M: "I've been wondering. Where have all our friends gone? I haven't seen them around for a while." L: "Why, Mapey, don't you know? We've come to that time of year called "Letting Go." M: "Letting Go? What's Letting Go?" L: "Letting Go is the last great thing we do before we join the earth again. M: "Well, what's it like?" L: "Well, I don't know exactly because I haven't done it yet, but I understand that its a wonderful feeling of freedom, and you go twirling and dancing down through the air, like a....a ballerina." M: "Why do we have to be Letting Go? L: "Mapey! Didn't you know? We leaves are not just leaves! We're part of this great big life that's called "Tree." Letting Go is just part of the life of the Tree. We come out as buds in the Spring, and then we turn green in the summer, and we get golden and orange in the fall, and just before winter comes, we let go. M: "Winter? What's winter?" L: "Winter is when it gets cold, and there's snow on the ground. And we leaves..well, we decompose." M: "Decompose! That sounds awful!" L: "No, it isn't awful. It's something we leaves do very naturally. We're really good at it. That's how we become food again for the Tree, so it can have leaves again next year." M: "Leaves like us?" L: "Yes! I tell you, Mapey, we leaves are really important." M: "Well...Leafy....does letting go...hurt?" L: "No, I don't think it hurts,,,you go down on to a nice big pile of leaves and soft pine needles; it's a lot like going to bed." M: "Well...when are we going to be letting go?" L: "I'm not sure...it's just something.......(Leafy lets go and falls to the ground) M: "Wow! Leafy! You did look like a ballerina! Are you okay? Leafy? Leafy? Are you okay? I guess he can't hear me. Wow! This Letting Go is really something. I just hope that....... (Mapey lets go and falls to the ground). Larry: I'm going to take Leafy and Mapey and put them back with all these other leaves, and when I get home I'm going to put them out on to the the forest floor where they will be with all the other leaves, under the snow, where they can decompose. Prayer: Dear God, we thank you for the life of the leaf and we thank you for our lives as well. We thank you for the way that you are with us through all the changes of our life, even in the times when we, like the leaves, let go. Thank you, God, for the wonder and the mystery of life and of death. Amen." I don't really know why one person is in one camp and another person is in the other. I'll have more to say about that in a later blog post.

Dylan Thomas

Isaac Bashevis Singer

A very long “To Do” list.

We had a very important session with John and Cynthia yesterday, which has left me with a very long "To Do" ist to follow up on all the things we mentioned. The session was about issues of death and dying: we had a very candid discussion of how I would like my final days and weeks to go if I had my druthers. It is the sort of discussion every family should have, especially in my case, being 90 years old, and having Parkinson's disease. We talked about specific cases of what to do if…, how I would like my body disposed of, and mostly about letting me die, and not trying to keep me alive when there really isn't much chance of a meaningful life. I have a list of probably at least a dozen calls to make growing out of that discussion. I just made one with my PCP, to set up a time for the four of us to have a candid discussion about advanced directives and everything related to that. So that is good! I am still recovering from my fall, which was a little over two weeks ago, and I do feel that I am gradually getting better. My knee and leg are still somewhat swollen, bruised and sore, but less so. Same with my back. I had a knee x-ray last week, which showed nothing seriously wrong, so that was good. Dr. van Dyke actually liked the way the joint looked in the x-ray. So I am actually optimistic that I will get back to where I was before the fall, or close to it. But it will take time. Otherwise, I have been doing a lot of reading. I read a novel by William Trevor, and another one by James McBride. Trevor, who is Irish, published "Love and Summer," in 2009. It is about a love affair, which spans one summer, between a shy and retiring young farmers wife and an eccentric photographer who bicycles everywhere he goes in the fictional Irish village of Rathmoye. It is beautifully written.

William Trevor************

The Mcbride novel, "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store," is a totally different kettle of fish. Set in a small Western PA city in the early 20th C., it has an amazing cast of characters: Jews, African-Americans, other immigrants and white Europeans, interacting in very complex relationships. At the core of the story are "Miss Chona," the vibrant, generous, outgoing wife of Moshe, a Jewish theater owner, and "Dodo," a young black man who loses his hearing when a stove explodes in his face. Around them are scores of violent, funny, treacherous and saintly characters. It's a mighty good read!

James McBride and his book.

Warm days of recuperation

I'm sitting by the hearth in the living-room; Ellen is reading on the couch. It is very warm, though a bit cooler here than it is outside where it is 87 degrees. If I want to get cooler, I can go downstairs where it is quite comfortable. But this is okay. I've been keeping pretty quiet this morning, but I just called to confirm an appointment with my neurologist - a date which I thought was on my computer calendar but seems now to have disappeared. I also left a message for my PCP, Dr Van Dyke - just want to bring her up-to-date and get more specific instructions on what I should be doing and not be doing exercise-wise, with my knee, especially. Otherwise, just taking it easy. I re-read Pastor Elisa's farewell letter to the Guilford Church, a very thoughtful and loving message which also holds some important challenges to the congregation. I hope everyone will reflect on it deeply. It was read during the service this past Sunday and now has been mailed out through email.*********************** I think it is going to take some time for the injuries from my fall twelve days ago to heal. They are better, but still painful. The big question in my mind is what exactly should I be doing to help them heal, and also is there anything I should NOT be doing that could aggravate the injury. ******************* I talked with my granddaughter, Katie, yesterday, and learned that she is coming out our way at the end of the month, with Christian, to be a maid of honor in a friend's wedding over in New Hampshire, and they will spend some time with us around that. In fact, the plan is that we will pick them up at the airport and drive them to the wedding, then go back two days later and bring them back here, and then back to the airport. That will be very interesting and fun. It falls on the same weekend as Savanna's memorial service, but they will be at the wedding during that time. Katie sounds good and seems to be happy. She really likes her work, and her friendships. Interesting development: her pronouns are now "they/them/their." She becomes the fourth person in Ellen's and my larger family to be exploring "gender identity" - Max, Brendon, "B," and now Katie. Quite a revolution is going on under our noses. ********************** Pastor Elisa sent her letter out under this photo she took of a sculpture over in Bennington:

Back home and hopeful

it is Labor Day, and I am home alone for a bit while Ellen goes to the Guilford fair, where she will meet with Katie and Brendon and see the horse pulling contest. My right knee is still pretty sore and stiff, so walking is possible but uncomfortable. So I'll take it easy here at the house, dozing, reading, working on the computer. It is a beautiful day, so I may sit on the deck. I'll call Dr. Van Dyke tomorrow. *******
I don't think I have shared the pictures I took in Penn Yan, NY, on our way back Saturday. We had breakfast at our favorite diner, the Penn Yan Diner. It has been in continuous operation for 98 years!

A big decision and a big disappointment

We have turned back toward home! I slept very poorly Wednesday night at M&J's and weighed all the pros and cons of continuing on the trip. i decided the cons won. When Ellen woke up, we talked. I offered to fly home and let Ellen continue on her own, but she would hear none of that. I thought I could figure out companionship at the house - a team effort involving John and friends - but Ellen felt it would be better just to drive home. I agreed. It is a huge disappointment, but we are hopeful Ellen can fly out at some point. i need to recover from my fall. My right knee and lower leg are badly bruised, stiff and sore. That was not the case when we left last Sunday. So we drove to Ohio on Thursday and will be in Bath, NY tonight; home tomorrow. So be it.

The reservoir above Kinzua Dam, northern PA on State Route 59.

Seeing Jerry and Maggie

We drove to Sherman Hospital in Elgin, IL, where Jerry Hochberger is a patient, on Wednesday morning. We had spent the previous night south of the Chicago area in Gilman, IL in a Budget Host Inn (cheap but with a very noisy AC unit), and drove up Rte. 47 west of the Chicago suburbs and thus avoided dealing with crazy Chicago traffic. We found Jerry in room 1020 on the fifth floor, quite a walk for me. He had lost weight since we had last seen him in Sept. 2022, but had the same indomitable spirit. Maggie soon joined us ànd it was great to be together again. It was past lunch time for us so Ellen and Maggie went to the cafeteria and brought back food - a cup of broccoli/cheese soup and a tasty bacon, chicken, cheese melt sandwich for me, and we had lunch and went through all our respective medical and family news - lots to discuss! Time flew by and Jerry needed a nap, so we said our goodbyes. Jerry hopes to be discharged to a rehab unit near their home in Bartlett, where "he can learn to walk again," as he put it, and eventually get home again, but we all know there are no guarantees. Maggie invited us for supper and the overnight at their house, with Becky joining us for supper, so we went to Pasta Mia in Bartlett and brought back a nice assortment of tasty Italian food for a great supper, and we watched "Frasier" on the Cosi TV channel after supper - we hadn't seen "Frasier" for ages!

The four of us at an earlier time!

A "Welcome" mural at Sherman Hospital.

Becky and Maggie at the house.