We're in Alpine, WY

We've arrived in Alpine, WY after a 3400+ mile trip! The last leg through Wyoming yesterday was hard - strong winds rocked the car and blew snow over the roadway constantly. There were times when we were grateful for the snow plow stakes along the side of the road - they were the only visible indication of where the road was! But Ellen did a great job and got us here in good shape. We've both felt sort of wiped out today so we've taken it easy. I've spent most of the day resting in bed. Ellen has been up talking with Paul and playing with Max, but also rested during his nap. Today was a big milestone for Max - his crib came down. He's sleeping tonight on a mattress on the floor - a first! He'll get a regular youth bed when Paul has a chance to make it. We're all interested to see how this will work! But ... to go back

DAY NINE (Tuesday, 1/24): After our stop at the Center of the United States we drove up to Holdrege, NE, not too far north of the KS line. It was dark by the time we got up there and just as we were entering the town we were stopped by a Nebraska State Trooper - our right headlight was out, both low and high beams. He was very courteous and gave us a warning and Ellen signed a promise to take care of it. So we found a motel in Holdrege and spent the night and then found a service station the next morning where it was fixed in no time flat. From there we headed up to Scottsbluff, NE -- almost 300 miles (Nebraska is a BIG state) -- where we had never been before. There we found the Scottsbluff National Monument, which commemorates a major stop on the Oregon Trail. We enjoyed the visitor center -- we are real buffs of National Parks and Visitor Center displays, watched the video, Ellen got postcards, of course, and we drove up an access road to a lookout point. The late afternoon light was really beautiful.

From the Visitor Center

From the Top













There were two RoadFood Mexican restaurants in Scottsbluff - Rosita's and Taco John's. Rosita's seemed to have gone out of business so we went to Taco John which had an $8 Combo plate. It was not outstanding but it was ok. After supper we decided to stay in Scottsbluff and found a room in the Capri Motel which was economical and cozy.

DAY TEN (Wednesday, 1/25): This was a long driving day from Scottsbluff, NE to Alpine, WY - 570 miles. We came through Torrington, Douglas, Casper, Muddy Gap, Lander, Pinedale, Hoback Jct and finally, Alpine. It was quite a trip. What do we do besides Ellen driving and me sitting in the backseat with my legs stretched out (the front passenger seat having been removed)? Well, I read aloud. We are reading Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, a book recommended by Ellen's son Paul. It is pretty philosophical (recall that last year we were reading a biography of Wittgenstein), but it affords many opportunities for thoughtful discussion between the two of us, which we love to do. Interspersed with that, we are, believe it or not, working through a Latin Grammer! Reviewing the declensions and conjugations, etc. Something I have been wanting to do for some time, and Ellen enthusiastically agreed. And then on the lighter, delightful side, we are enjoying Arthur Ransome's Peter Duck (we've read four of the Ransome books so far in the Swallows and Amazons series. What fun!). And I make us little snacks out of our food box - P&J sandwiches, Cabot cheddar on Ak-mak crackers, dried apricots, nuts, chocolate, etc. Or we just ride along in silence and look at the scenery. I also do work on the computer and sometimes play iTunes in "shuffle" mode which gives us a wonderful variety of music from the thousands of "songs" on my hard drive (I have an attachment which allows us to play the computer through the car radio). We make regular pit stops, Ellen gets iced tea, I usually just drink water all day. It's wonderfully companionable and the miles fly by. This day, however, had its tense moments when the road disappeared in the blowing snow, and during those times, there are no distractions!

So, here we are. I've been working in bed on the "Shirley's Letters from Wellesley" project - Shirley is by now at the end of the first semester of her sophomore year, and is regularly dating an MIT student, Bruce M., who she repeatedly tells her parents is a "really nice guy." She was double-dating with a Wellesley friend, June, and her date, another MIT student, Mike, captain of the MIT basketball team. It is a steady round of dancing (at places like "The Meadows," a restaurant owned by the singer Vaughn Monroe - remember Ghost Riders in the Sky?) And would you believe - I tracked down both June and Mike and talked with them on the phone today. Amazing! They gave me Bruce's email address and I wrote him. We'll see if he responds. June ended up marrying Mike (but they were divorced 13 years later), but fortunately for me, the Shirley/Bruce thing came to an end after her sophomore year, and two years later, we met and "the rest is history," as they say. But it is pretty interesting to be learning about all this now. Shirley loved to have fun, and her sophomore year, she had a lot of fun!

A New Trip

We are on another trip west, and here we are in our ninth day and I haven't had a chance to post anything! We are in Holdrege, NE at the moment. We were stopped by a state trooper last evening because the right headlight is out, so we have to get that taken care of today. But we had a wonderful weekend at Cape Girardeau, MO where we saw my granddaughter, Katie Shay, in the opera Cosi fan Tutte. She was great! I'll eventually post more information and photos. But here is one.

Katie is Dorabella, on the right. It was a very enjoyable production and Katie not only sang well, but she also acted well and proved herself a very good comedienne. If you know the opera, it is very silly and very funny. We were so glad to be there to see it!

DAY ONE (Monday, 1/16): We left Vermont in the early afternoon, took the Mass Pike to the Taconic Parkway and on down over the Tappan Zee Bridge to New Jersey and on to Swarthmore, PA where we spent the night with our friend Wallace. Ellen and Wallace had a good “catching up” visit.

DAY TWO (Tuesday, 1/17): We were heading to Ann Arbor, MI this day, to visit Ellen’s goddaughter, Ruthie, whom she had not seen for at least a decade or so. So we decided to take the PA Turnpike and then head up to I-80. Neither of us had ever visited State College, PA, so we stopped for a quick visit there. We found the Berkey Creamery on the campus of Penn State, run by the Ag program there. Good ice cream! I picked up a campus newspaper and there were several articles concerning Joe Paterno and the whole sexual abuse scandal there. There were excerpts of an interview with Paterno in the Washington Post, in which he confessed that when he heard about Gary Sandusky’s behavior he “didn’t know what to do,” and turned it over to someone else. And then I guess he just forgot about it. Sort of amazing. The president of Penn State had been holding “town meetings” with alums all over the state. While a minority of alums expressed concern for the victims of the abuse, a majority seemed to be outraged - not over that, but over how Paterno was fired! They asked the president, “When are you going to honor Joe?” Little did they know that he would be dead within a week.

We went on from there to Ohio, stopped at one of our favorite restaurants, The Aladdin, in Oberlin, OH, and spent the night next to Toledo in Perryville, OH.

DAY THREE (Wednesday, 1/18): We drove up to Ann Arbor and met Ruthie, Ellen's goddaughter, at her workplace, NA Publishers. Her company is in a new field of publishing – they create bound collections of articles/readings for use in college courses. A recent development is preparing readings to be downloaded to an iPad. Just a few days later we read that Apple is entering the college textbook field – you will be able to download an entire textbook to your iPad for $14.99, a huge savings. Plus, it will be an interactive textbook with videos, etc. If this succeeds, it will make an iPad obligatory for college students. We went out to lunch at a Bagger Daves burger place with Ruthie, and she and Ellen “caught up.” We extended an invitation to Ruthie to visit us in Vermont.

From Ann Arbor we drove across MI to I-94 and down to Chicago and on to Elgin, IL where my brother lives.

DAY FOUR (Thursday, 1/19): We stayed with Stewart in his guest room in his new little apartment, which seems to be working out well. Maggie and Jerry Hochburger came by in the late morning with pastries and we were joined by my niece, Susie, and her husband, Dennis, for a “breakfast party.” Jerry has just started treatments for colon cancer, and so far is feeling ok. We learned that Susie and Dennis’ son Ryan and his partner, Alicia, will be getting married this summer and hope to move to Seattle where Ryan wants to enter U of Washington, get a degree in computer science, and work for Google! After the “party” Stewart drove us up to Algonquin to see my grandniece Rachael Costello’s new home – what a place! Really nice! And then we had lunch at a Richard Walker restaurant in Crystal Lake, which was very pleasant. After a little rest back at the apt., we went over to see Becky at Stew’s old house and see the improvements she’s made there, especially in the kitchen. Lots of changes! In the spaces between things, Stewart devoured the Crockett genealogy notebook that Betsey gave me for Christmas – lots of new information about our ancestors going back to Huguenots in 16th c. France!

DAY FIVE (Friday, 1/20): We left Elgin with the threat of snow and sure enough, it started to snow in south Chicago, but it did not affect the road surface and we eventually drove out of it as we headed south to Cape Girardeau, MO. So we dodged that bullet! Behind us in Elgin, they got 8 inches. We stopped in Tuscola, IL for lunch and ended up helping a woman jump start her car. We went into a huge “Amish Barn” which contained antiques and a restaurant – but although open for business, no one was there. It was eerie. We decided not to eat there (would the food be fresh?). On the radio we learned about a documentary film titled “Oka” which features a remarkable tribe in Africa which has astonishing musical ability. When we arrived in Cape G., Katie was involved in a rehearsal for her opera, so we went to our motel, a Drury Lodge Motel, where we learned that our reservation had erroneously been made by an internet agent (who was probably in India somewhere) for a Drury Lodge in Atlanta, GA! And in Cape G., they were booked for the night, as was everyone else, because of a big country music concert! No room at the inn! They were very nice and found us a room up the road about 11 miles at another Drury Motel. I had to spend an hour or so on the phone straightening all that out. We were able to come back to Cape G for Saturday night, and got a room next door to Betsey and Rob Shay (Katie’s parents).

DAY SIX (Saturday, 1/21): We met Katie in the late morning at her dorm and we had lunch at one of Cape G’s nicer restaurants, Bella Italiana. Then we drove around Cape G with Katie and she showed us the sights, including an apartment complex where she hopes she can live next year with some friends – sort of “off campus” but still all student housing. Very nice looking, with suites, private baths, etc. Betsey and Rob arrived later in the afternoon and we hung out with them for a while and then went to eat at Cape G’s most popular restaurant, Brussards, featuring Cajun. Good food! Later we watched the returns from the South Carolina primary and the Republican turmoil they created.

DAY SEVEN (Sunday, 1/22): The day of the opera! After a generous and yummy complimentary breakfast at Drury Lodge, we went for a drive with Rob and Betsey before the opera matinee. We drove down to Cairo, IL, (pronounced “Kay-ro”) about 30 miles south, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and that town is a story in itself. The downtown is a ghost town.

Abandoned downtown Cairo, IL

I’ve never seen anything quite like it. An historic section of town still has lovely old homes from a former era, but many are empty and the town as a whole must be endangered.

Magnolia Manor, a faded beauty in Cairo

Last fall, the Corps of Engineers opted to break levees on the Missouri side to flood farm land instead of Cairo, and some thought they would have done better to wash Cairo off the map. When you Google Cairo, you learn that some people, at least, believe that the demise of the town has its roots in an old and persistent racism; others suggest that local land owners blocked economic development. Whatever the reason, it is one of the most dramatically “dead” towns in the U.S. The comments about it on line are very interesting and worth reading.

We got back to Cape G just in time to get bouquets for Katie and get to the opera, held in the beautiful, new, performing arts center at the River Campus of Southeast Missouri State University. There was a good audience and wow! The opera was really enjoyable, Katie was outstanding as a singer and actor. The opera, Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte, is very funny, a totally silly plot, but with gorgeous music of course. Katie is a real comedienne. She had never had a role this huge before, never had to sing this much before, never had to act this much, be on stage this much – it was quite an accomplishment for a sophomore. She didn’t miss any lines, she had great stage presence, we were so proud. All the students did a really good job and it was a very enjoyable performance. It was in English, which we questioned in advance, but the reality was that it unified the music, the words and the acting so that the comedic element was very effective. The staging was good, the orchestra was good – there was really nothing to criticize as a student production, and the audience loved it. We were so proud!

We hugged Katie after the show and then she joined her many friends – she clearly has sort of a fan club – to strike the set and we drove back to Columbia (through heavy rain) and stayed the night chez Shay. A good day!

Katie with her proud parents after the show

DAY EIGHT (Monday 1/23): We got off to a fairly good start (8:45a.m.) and took a back road route up to St. Joseph, MO and then continued on U.S. Route 36 across northern Kansas. That took us past the geographical center of the 48 states near Lebanon, KS, so we stopped there. It was interesting in an unexpected way. What is a “geographic center?” A postcard describes it in this way: “It is the point where a plane map of the 48 states would balance if it were of uniform thickness.” Another description has four persons starting to walk from four designated points on the U.S. boundary, N, S, E & W. If they walked at exactly at the same rate toward the center of the U.S., they would all meet at this point at exactly the same moment. This point is marked by a stone pyramid with a plaque, topped by a flagpole and flag. That has some interest just by itself.

But what is even more interesting is the history and culture surrounding this spot. First of all, it was a while before anyone thought to commemorate this center point. When it was identified, it turned out to be in the middle of a pig farm. The farmer wouldn’t give permission for the marker, so it is located a short distance away from the true “center.” The residents of Lebanon, plus some 2,000 others gathered one day in the summer of 1941 to dedicate the marker. There was band music, speeches and high hopes that this marker would put Lebanon “on the map” and make it a popular tourist destination. It seemed to be working for a while. A motel was built nearby the marker. On August 7, 1952, 20,000 people came to this place from all over Kansas and 18 other states, to build an entire dairy farm in one day! It was called “The Hub Dairy,” part of a Topeka, KS radio station promotion. But, the motel went bankrupt in 1970 and the farm is no longer in operation. The “boom” never happened. The motel is still there – owned by Texas hunters who come once a year to hunt pheasants. Christians who have melded their religion with patriotism have discovered this spot and built a tiny chapel. Inside are six tiny benches, with a lectern holding a Bible, behind which is a map of the U.S. with a cross planted on it, and above a carved wooden sign which reads “Pray America.”

A literature stand holds evangelical Christian tracts. There is a book where you can write names of persons for whom you want prayers, and a locked box for donations. The entire chapel was heavily vandalized in 2009, but local folks restored it. We learned that the town of Lebanon has lost its schools, but it still takes pride in its “Center.”
We took a little walk while we were there - you get pretty stiff driving long distances – and discovered that the road was “gumbo.” That’s what the folks in Iowa where I grew up called mud with a high clay content that sticks to your boots and dries into concrete. The farmers had to use a hammer to knock it off the feet of chickens so they could walk. We had to use a knife to clean our shoes before we got back into the car, and later, at the motel, it took a lot of hot water and more knife work to get them clean. Ellen commented, “Now we know what adobe is like.”

Catching Up!

Good grief! I've let a month and a half go by since my last post. I never even posted scenes from the dedication of the new CTS building. It's all a matter of a shortage of time available to spend at a Wi-Fi hot spot. Even now I feel pressured because snow is coming tonight and I need to bring in some wood that I cut up in the woods yesterday.

So the short story is that we are doing well. One big event of the past month was a trip to NYC to sing at a memorial service for Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist. Our Guilford Church choir went down along with several others from Vermont. It was a powerful experience, singing at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine along with Paul Winter, and many dignitaries present. You can see us on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVSaei6XD5o

Well, that's all I have time for. I'll try not to let 6 weeks go by before the next post!

NCAA disillusionment

I had trouble sleeping last night, so instead of lying awake in the dark I turned on the bedside lamp and read an article in Atlantic Monthly: "The Shame of College Sports" by Taylor Branch, award-winning author of a magnificent 3-volume history of the civil rights era.

I knew that college sports were being corrupted by money but I hadn't fully appreciated what a villain the NCAA is until I read this article. I'm afraid I'll never be able really to enjoy "March Madness" again in the way I have in the past. Branch believes that the whole concept of the "student athlete" is not only a fiction, but is an hypocrisy which exploits college athletes in much the same way that slave owners exploited their slaves. College athletes at the big-money schools are bringing hundreds of millions of dollars into the coffers of both their colleges and the NCAA, mainly through TV contracts, but if one of those athletes sells his jersey to someone, he has violated the rules and is suspended (even while his university bookstore is selling replicas of his jersey for $39.99).

A remedial English teacher at one of the NCAA schools, under pressure to insure that the athlete she was tutoring would get passing grades and thus maintain eligibility, did a stupid thing - the athlete was taking a test online and clicked "done," and left before he had completed the test. His buddy was there, so she had him open the test and finish it. She was fired, she sued and lost, and was blackballed by the NCAA. Although a competent and compassionate teacher, she couldn't get a job in any college in the US. She now works in a prison. Another teacher at an NCAA school was being pressured to fake grades so an athlete would pass. She refused and was fired. The university made clear to her in no uncertain terms that their star athlete was a lot more important than she was! She sued the university, but the NCAA didn't support her case.

Branch thinks that the NCAA is probably doomed. This may be wishful thinking, but there is a movement among the big football schools to bypass the whole NCAA-run bowl games and run their own national playoffs to determine the national football champion - sort of a "March Madness" for football. President Obama supports this idea. Branch figures that if they are successful at that, college basketball's "March Madness" itself will probably not be far behind. The schools may just figure out they don't need the NCAA. Eliminate the middleman! If that happens, the NCAA will lose 90% of its income. But it probably won't help the "student athlete."

Maybe there should be a law banning commercial TV cameras from any college sports event. If that happened (it never will!) I would miss "March Madness," but if I want to see basketball so badly, maybe I should just go to my nearest college and support the team in person.

Chicago Trip

Another month has whizzed by. There is definitely a correlation between having access to the internet while I'm lying in bed and frequency of blog entries! The bed I'm lying in at the moment is in Elgin, IL., at the apartment of my brother, Stewart. There is a WiFi network in the neighborhood here that I can take advantage of. When I'm at home, I have to drive to the library, or some other WiFi hotspot, in order to access the internet.

I'm in the Chicago area not only to see my brother, who is doing pretty well, by the way, but to attend the dedication of a new building for the Chicago Theological Seminary. For 90 years, CTS has occupied a lovely neo-Gothic complex in the very heart of the University of Chicago campus. But maintaining that building had become hugely expensive, and in many ways it had become an albatross, despite its architectural beauty. So, it worked out a deal with the U of C which acquired the old building - which, thank goodness has not been torn down, but has become the Becker Friedmann Institute for Research in Economics (there is some irony here because Milton Friedmann's free market economic theories were diametrically opposed to the prevailing mindset of the seminary). In return for the building, U of C gave CTS a huge bundle of cash and on top of that had built it a new building which it will lease to the seminary for 100 years at $1 a year, including exterior maintenance. This is a modern-looking, state-of-the art (LEEDS, digital everything, etc,) building which has everything the old building didn't have (e.g., accessibility, adequate classroom space), but, alas, lacks the older building's graceful beauty, and for someone like me, it's sentimental meaning. My father attended there five years in the 1930's, I attended there three years in the 1950's, met Shirley there, served as Pastor-in-Residence there from 1999-2001 - so it is an important place for me. The seminary is also leaving behind a beautiful chapel with a very beautiful tracker pipe organ - it would have been too expensive to move it.

However, in an era when seminaries are going bankrupt and dropping like flies, CTS has a forward-looking physical plant, which will undoubtedly serve it well for 100 years, a large endowment, and the assurance of a continued existence.

The new building is in a good location - a few blocks from the old building, across the Midway (that beautiful swath of green cutting through the U of C campus which is a vestige of the Columbian Exhibition of the 1890's), and down opposite International House. The dedication is this Friday, and I'll be there with an old seminary chum.

Here's what has been left behind:

Here's a rendering of the new:

I'll post some photos from the dedication at the end of the week.

I came out to Chicago yesterday by Amtrak. The train was late but through no fault of its own. A connecting train from Boston was hit by a falling tree (!!) and we waited in Albany for hours until all those passengers could be brought by bus from Springfield, MA to Albany. As I understand it, this was a late effect of tropical storm Irene - the tree's roots had been loosened by all the rain we've had.

Elders and Waterfire

I'm writing from the Renaissance Hotel in Providence, RI. I've been attending a conference for Annuitant Visitors of the Pension Board of the United Church of Christ.

Renaissance Hotel

The Hotel is a renovated Masonic Temple, and is immediately across the street from the RI State Capital, as you can see. It's pretty posh, but our expenses are all paid by the Pension Board.

What is an Annuitant Visitor? There are about 150 of us spread across the United States. We are charged with keeping in touch with about 6000 retired ministers who are receiving a pension from the United Church of Christ. I myself have about 50 such retirees under my care in Vermont. I try to visit or call them regularly, and am available if they have a specific question or concern. Once a year, these 150 Visitors, all of whom are themselves retired ministers like myself, gather for a three-day Seminar to get caught up on the information we need to know. This year's conference was particularly interesting.

First of all, let me introduce you to Michael Downs, CEO of the Pension Board.

Michael Downs is a remarkably gifted manager. He has been head of the Pension Board for nine years, and it is considered one of the best managed pension funds in the world, with assets of $2.6 billion. Its administrative costs are 3/4 of 1% (0.75%) - one of the lowest of any fund, anywhere. Auditors of the fund regularly give it the highest ratings. Despite some very rocky years, the fund is growing, and UCC pensions have not decreased one penny in the last three difficult years; some have increased (depending on the balance of stocks and bonds in your retirement package). He is a very wise person when it comes to financial affairs, and we always look forward to his presentation every year. He does not see the economy getting better soon. He thinks Greece will default in October; Europe is going to have a difficult time, and that will affect our markets, since Europe is our largest trading partner. Nevertheless, over the long haul, he is optimistic.

One of the AVs from California gave a pep talk about being an "elder." It was funny, poignant and wise. I liked the story of the "elder" single man and woman who happened to meet at a conference. They sort of hit it off and went for a walk together, and then had dinner together, and then she invited him to her room. In the room she said, "You remind me of my fourth husband." "Good grief," he said, "how many times have you been married?" "Three," she said.

One of the most substantive presentations for me had to do with the role and calling of a retired minister. A very articulate retired woman minister, The Rev. Marti Baumer, held us in thrall while she led us through a comprehensive overview of what it means to be called to ministry, and particularly what that means in these later retirement years, when we are not actually serving a church. I think she stimulated every one of us to think more deeply about what we are really about.

So, we got a lot of intellectual and spiritual nourishment. And the hotel food was remarkably good too. About the best I've ever experienced in a hotel. Needless to say, the room is posh. They've done a great job transforming this historic Masonic Temple into a hotel. It would be $129 a night if I had to pay for it. But I don't.

Room 436

Tonight, after supper, we were free to wander. It happened to be the night of one of Providence's spectacles - the WaterFire. It is quite a sight. The Providence River (which was sort of a cesspool when I lived in Providence in the 1960s as a grad student), has been cleaned up, opened up, and made accessible downtown by creating a park on both sides. There is a promenade which ends in a large lagoon surrounded by an amphitheater and bridges. Every month or so, they stage a ritual in which Venetian-type gondolas filled with folks in medieval costumes go up the river and around the lagoon with huge torches and light pyres of wood that are located on rock pilings in the water - maybe thirty or more such pyres in all. There were thousands of people gathered to watch this spectacle, and with the city-scape behind, people of all kinds walking along the promenade, sidewalk cafes, music being played over huge speakers in the background (sort of mellow pop classic and jazz), it created quite the ambiance. It made Providence seem like a very lively and interesting city. Which I think it is.

WaterFire in Providence, RI

I lived here from 1960-1967, and it was going through a depression then. Department stores were closing, the downtown was seedy. I was happy to be here tonight and see the transformation. After watching the WaterFire I walked up the hill to the Brown University campus and in the lovely, warm evening, I walked by places which had been so familiar and deeply meaningful to me 45-50 years ago when I was in graduate school. Memories galore came flooding back. E.g., as I stopped to get a drink from a water fountain in the student union, I realized that I was standing on the spot where, 48 years ago this coming November 22nd, I had looked up at a TV monitor and seen my first glimpse of news that President Kennedy had been shot.

I did all of this by myself. Ellen is in Maine this weekend with her brother Jim and his new wife, Mary, She is attending the Common Ground Fair in Unity, ME, sponsored by the Maine Organic Growers Association. That too is a wonderful event, and at just about the other end of the spectrum from what I witnessed here in Providence tonight. It would have been fun to have her here with me, but it will also be fun to share our respective experiences when we are together again on Monday.

Time flies!

Well, it's been a full month or more since my last blog entry. A lot of water has gone over the dam, both literally and figuratively, since then. For one thing, it has rained and rained. That includes Tropical Storm Irene, but we got almost as much rain the next week also. I haven't seen total figures for the past month, but it has to be over 10 inches. Fortunately, our home and driveway were not damaged by all this rain, but we know folks whose houses were swept away. Towns near us, like Wilmington, were damaged terribly, the business district changed forever. The state has done a great job of getting roads open again - e.g., Route 9 is open between Brattleboro and Bennington now.

Since my last blog entry Ellen and I went to Maine for her brother Jim's wedding. Jim and Mary were married in Union, ME, on Aug. 20th; Ellen was in charge of the food for the reception, while I was the officiant.I was also her helper, roasting lamb and helping schlep stuff from place to place. It was a lovely wedding, but we came home pretty tired. A week ago we went back for a couple of days to enjoy Jim's house while Jim and Mary were in London for their honeymoon. We love going to Maine.

The day after Irene, I went into my woods to inspect what the impact was of all that water that flowed down the mountain. It was impressive. But I tripped, fell on my chest and hurt my ribs - bruised probably. Anyway, it's been pretty sore. It's gradually getting better.

Everything is "starting up" again: The Concert Choir started up last Wednesday - we're doing the Salisbury Vespers by contemporary British composer Bob Chilkott. The Chorale is preparing a concert for October 2nd - a Memorial for Blanche Moyse. We're singing three Bach Cantatas: #30 Freue dich, erloster Schar, #42 Am Abend derselbige Sabbats and #147 Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben.

My grandchildren are calling. Bye for now.