vividreports: Company Galore

This past weekend we were visited by four people: two women friends of Ellen's from Salem, Oregon, and two men friends of mine from California (and Maine). None of them actually spent a night here at the house, but Ellen's friends, Bonnie and Shelby, spent part of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday here, and my friends, Phil and his son, Tom, my godson, met me for breakfast at the Guilford Country Store Sunday morning at 8:30a.m., and after breakfast we went to church at the Guilford Community Church (which is about a 100 yards from the store), and they left early to go to Logan airport in Boston for Tom's flight home to California. Phil returned to his summer home in Maine and will fly to Claremont, CA next week. Bonnie and Shelby flew home to Oregon yesterday. Bonnie and her husband, Roger (who died a year ago yesterday), became Ellen's friends when she lived in Salem and her then husband, John Peel, was on the faculty of Willamette University, where Roger taught art history. For a while, Ellen worked with Bonnie at The Arbor Cafe, which Bonnie co-owned, in Salem. Bonnie is also an artist. We have visited them frequently in Oregon since I came into Ellen's life, and we have had many wonderful times together. Ellen started sending Bonnie a post card every day some years ago, and came to call it her "snail blog." She has now sent Bonnie over 5000 post cards! Shelby, who is a VP for Development at Willamette, and whom Ellen had not met before this visit, heard about the "snail blog," saw the boxes of cards at Bonnie's house, was entranced, and wanted to meet Ellen. She wants to put on an exhibition of the snail blog in Salem! So she came out with Bonnie, and recorded an interview with Ellen talking about the whole project. That interview will provide a sound track for a video that will accompany the exhibit. Eliza and Robin came over on Friday to meet Bonnie and Shelby. Saturday, Ellen and I had supper with them at Burdick's Restaurant, in Walpole, NH, Sunday they went to church with us, and Monday Shelby made her recording. There was a lot of visiting at our house along the way. A very special visit. When we went to Burdick's, I had a big bowl of mussels, as did Shelby. I ate them all, by golly. While I was eating, Bonnie made a sketch of me on the brown paper used to protect the table cloth, tore it off and gave it to me. My time with Phil and Tom was much shorter, but still special. Tom is ratcheting up his involvement with music and is preparing both a concert and a CD (or whatever substitutes for a CD these days). He is a singer-songwriter and accompanies himself on the guitar. 26 years ago, he accompanied me when I sang at his sister, Susanna's wedding in London. In talking with Phil, I mentioned John Cobb, whom I had learned about from Shelby - a faculty member at Claremont School of Theology whom Shelby came to know when CST (a Methodist school) was considering merging with Willamette (also a Methodist school). Turned out Phil knew John Cobb because he is a resident of Pilgrim Place, the retirement community where Phil lives in Claremont. And while I had never heard of John Cobb, a bit of research revealed that he and I shared a teacher at U of Chicago Divinity School: Bernard Loomer, who taught my Constructive Theology course. John Cobb (like Loomer) is a "Process Theologian" and has written extensively on process theology and the ecological crisis in ways that seem similar to my son John's work on "Contemplative Ecology." So ... lots of resonances in these visits!