Scott Ainslie

The Scott Ainslie concert was wonderful. Scott is a remarkable musician. He was playing on four different instruments, including a single string instrument made out of a pool stick, a cigar box, and fishing line, and played like a slide guitar. I think Scott made it himself; in any case it's the kind of instrument a young African-American musician would have been able to play on in the early 20th century because it was so cheap to make.  Scott also played on a metal acoustic guitar which you would swear was an electric guitar - it sounded amplified. It was a house concert, with about 30 people in the audience. We all fit into the living room-dining room area. So it was very intimate. It was a fantastic concert. I'll put up some pictures when I get a chance to get to a Wi-Fi spot. But of course the ideal would be actual sound, but I can't do that on my blog. Quelle dommage!

Scott Ainslie playing the single-stringed instrument

l. to r.: the metal acoustic guitar, single-stringed and a wood acoustic guitar Scott made himself with the help of a friend. The fourth instrument, not pictured, was a uniquely stringed banjo

This morning was choir at the Dummerston church, and it sounded great. We sang a contemporary shape-note hymn titled BOSOLD, a setting of Isaac Watts' paraphrase of 1st Corinthians 13, which was the scripture for the morning. The arrangement was pretty complicated, but they did well and I was proud of them.

This afternoon we enjoyed sitting on the deck in the sun and working on the Spelling Bee puzzle.  We both were geniuses in pretty short order – one of the easiest ones to come down the pike for a while. Letters. A + YCFLTU. Make as many words with five letters or more as you can; you can use letters as often as you wish, there has to be an "A" in every word. Words are worth one point, but if you use all seven letters it's worth three points. 24 points and you're a genius. There happened to be 3 3-point words in this puzzle.

Later in the afternoon, I went up to the church and downloaded all the music and MP3s for the fall session of River Singers. Mary Cay posts everything online and it's the responsibility of each person to download the scores and the audios. That took a while.

Later:
Went home and had supper; talked with John. He gave me a number to call for a septic tank inspection, which was recommended by the realtor we spoke with at Morningside a week ago Saturday. Our system is 46 years old - if we sell the house we need to know its condition in order to set a fair price if it needs to be replaced. 

Now I'm back at the church using WiFi while Ellen is at the supermarket.

Scenes from the past week

Here are some photos from events during the past week or so:

Keith Murphey (one of our favorites) performing in Bethany Church at the New World Festival in Randolph.

The "Good Shepherd" stained glass window in Bethany Church

Pascal Gemme (far left) and Nicholas WIlliams (4ith from left with head down) at the New World Festival

Chris Newman (guitar) and Maire Ni Chathasaigh (harp) at the Festival - two outstanding performers!

Horse pull at the Guilford Fair - we like the way they do it at Guilford better that at the fair in Maine. Guilford is kinder to the horses.

Prize-winning quilt in Guilford Fair

Today, we got a call from Kathy Leo about a Hallowell sing at Valley Cares in Townshend. Maurice was actively dying - could we be there in an hour - 11am? We said "yes," even though we were not dressed yet. We got there just at 11am, and learned that Maurice had died minutes earlier. The family wanted us to sing for them, and then, because the community there had experienced 6 or 7 deaths in just the past month or so, we sang for a group of residents and staff in the lobby. All very much appreciated.

On our way back down Route 30, we stopped at the Windham County Historical Museum in Newfane, which Ellen had never been inside of. It is open very infrequently.  We went in and Ellen found postcards! I could happily spend a day there - lots of local history resources. I was struck by the primitive beauty of this 1860 blacksmith sign;

1860 Blacksmith sign in Windham County Historical Museum

Then we headed to the Brattleboro Farmer's Market. Ellen wanted flowers - zinnias in particular - from the flower stand there. We also ate Indian food there for lunch which was very good. And a gelato!

The flower stand at the Farmers Market

Now I am at the Dummerston Church organizing choir music for tomorrow. This evening we are going to a Scott Ainslie concert at Andy and Robin Davis' house. We saw Robin and Emma earlier today - when we stopped for gas at the Irving gas station in West Dummerston, they were at a table in front of the store promoting Special Olympics - Emma is a prize-winning swimmer and skier! Today was "Circle-K Special Olympics Day" all over Vermont, they said.

A week has gone by

My, how the time doth fly! Here it is, a week after my last post, and it seems like yesterday!

We did indeed go to 125 Morningside Commons and looked at a ground floor condo. It had many good features: it was in very good condition, had two bedrooms, two full baths, a walk-in shower in the master bath, acceptable carpets, a very large kitchen with enough room for our dining table, lots of storage room, etc. Ellen felt the only thing she would want to change was the vinyl floor in the kitchen. I was disappointed in how dark the kitchen and master bedroom were - both in the back, facing north, and with a second floor deck shading the area outside the window in the bedroom. There was a patio off the kitchen, but it did not seem very attractive. The main problem was that an offer was already on the table and if we wanted in, we would need to make an offer within 24 hours. There were too many financial questions to be able to do that. So we let it go. But it had the effect of getting us off the dime, so to speak. We've started making a number of phone calls that we hope will eventually get us into a position to act more quickly with a good sense of what our resources are.

We talked with John about it, and it the process learned they were going to the New World Music Festival in Randolph on Sunday, so we went too! We had gone last year, and loved it. This year was even better, in my opinion. Lots of great traditional music, including our Quebec friends, Pascal and Nickolas, who we sang with in River Singers last year. We were there from 2pm until 9pm, home before 11pm.

Monday was Labor Day, and we went to the Guilford Fair, where I had breakfast at the Guilford Church Food Booth and watched horse pulling. But then the heavens opened, and we gave it up. Katie and Savanna had come too, but we all came back to the house and ended up having lunch there and a good time.

The only other event of the week was a Concert Choir Rehearsal Wed. eve - our first of the season. Lots of new people were trying out. many of them friends, so that was exciting.  The music this fall is Arvo Part’s Adam’s Lament and Ola Gjeilo’s Dreamweaver, both very powerful and sonorous pieces.

Otherwise, it's been a home-bound week, reading, mowing, organizing stuff, etc. A good week. Today I have a doctor's appointment, and tonight a DCC choir rehearsal.

Friday report

I digitized quite a stack of paper at the Putney library yesterday when I was there. Ellen dropped me there on her way to Northampton to meet Wallace. So I had several hours in Putney while she was in Northampton. One reason for doing that, was that I wanted to meet with Mark Kennedy and his wife, Cathy, who were driving down from South Hero, Vermont to Connecticut and wanted to just get off at Putney and see Ellen and me for a few minutes at the Putney Coop. The timing didn't work for Ellen because she had to get to Northampton, but it was OK for me just to be there and meet Mark and Cathy when they came through. So I met them at the Coop and we had lunch together and had a nice visit.

Mark and Cathy

My digitizing included a xerox copy of Kierkegaard's Works of Love, which is one of my favorite books of all time. Years ago I had lent my regular book copy to someone, but not before I made a photocopy of it; so I had the photocopy but I had forgotten where it was. A few weeks ago I wanted to find it because I wanted to read a portion of it to a friend who was experiencing something I thought was very relevant to what Kierkegaard was saying. But I had no idea where the photocopy was. But Wednesday I found it and I took it with me to the library and digitized it. So now it is on my computer. Now I can print out the passage that I wanted to give to my friend, make a file of it and send it to him.

When Ellen picked me up at the library yesterday it was just in time to drive to Brattleboro and meet the entire Feinland family at the Food Cart Round-up. Unlike the last time we went, it was a beautiful evening and boy, was this event packed with people! We got there early enough to be ahead of the crowd, and we had some delicious pizza and listened to some country music, not only with the Feinland's, but also with Eliza and Sarah and Phoebe and Maggie ( Cliff came along later ) and some other people we knew, and we had quite a good time. I had a chance to talk a bit with Max about  his recent trip to Boulder, Colorado to look at University of Colorado. He's quite excited about going there. Of course, he still has to apply and be accepted, but I have little doubt that he will be. That does still leave the issue of funding the education, however!  He is applying for Early Decision, but doesn't learn about his aid package until fairly late.

Today, Ellen and I went downtown. I dropped her at Hannaford's while she shopped and I went to the Brattleboro Coop to get some things, and then came back and picked her up. This afternoon she's been baking things for the Guilford fair booth while I do some work on the computer. Pretty soon we will leave to take all our contributions down to the Guilford church and leave from there (my contributions are small paper plates and orange juice). 

Tomorrow, we've made a date to meet a realtor at 125 Morningside Commons where there is a one-level condo for sale. We've had our eye out for a one-level condo there for some time and now there is one available. However, an offer has already been made on it by someone, so it may be too late. But it's always a good idea to take a look. You always learn something just by looking. 

Catching up

I have a little catching up to do. I posted Stewart's letter, but nothing about us for about a week. It is definitely not as easy to maintain my blog at home because I do not have computer access to the internet from the  house, and an added complication is that I cannot upload photos from my iPhone to my blog anymore.  I guess my 4S Apple smart phone is pretty much obsolete, though I am loathe to replace it, because for basics, it works fine.

So - what have we done? I'll go backwards. Today, I had a dental appointment for cleaning at 11:45a.m., and Ellen wanted to go visit Eliza before that. So we left a little after 10a.m., I took her to Eliza's and dropped her off. Then I had just a little time to go to the Putney Library to download email. But for some reason, neither laptop would let me download email! The MacBook  Pro would not accept my usual password for my Sover.net account, and the MacBook Air just wouldn't download... period.  No explanations. Grrr. Downloading on the MacBook Air has been working fine up until today. So who knows what's going on there.

At the dentist's I had a male hygienist. Alex. First time, I think, that I have had a male hygienist. He was very nice, and almost overly-solicitous. However, he used the "sandblast" approach to cleaning (which involves irrigation and suction) which I find unpleasant. But I got though it. No cavities. He said I seem to be taking good care of my teeth, but I have some "deep pockets" between my teeth in the back on both sides which are of concern. Using a water pic would probably be useful.

Then I ran a couple of errands and went back to get Ellen. Maggie, Sarah's  new baby, keeps them busy. She cries a lot and is not easily comforted. Someone has to hold her much of the time. So having Ellen there was helpful.

Yesterday, we had an excursion. Tom and Courtney MacLachlan invited us down to visit them in  Massachusetts.  They are friends that go back almost fifty years for me, back to my years at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. I was Dean of Men, and they were head residents in Trevor Hall, a men's dorm. So Tom was part of my Dean's team - HR's, RA's, myself and John Nissen, Ass't Dean of Men. We had a great time together. Lots of laughter. Tom was also Ass't Minister at First Congregational Church in Appleton, where we went to church. When we moved back to Vermont, Tom and Courtney came back east too, and for a while, Tom was an ass't minister at the Congregational Church in nearby Keene, NH. Eventually, Tom left parish ministry and became an academic, working in the Community College system in the Boston North Shore area. They live in Newburyport, MA now, but their daughter, Kate, and her family, live in Burlington, VT, and their son Alex and his family live in Northampton, MA. Alex teaches at the Hilltown School where Tamar has been a student all these years. Tamar actually had him as a teacher one year. So Tom and Courtney have been drawn to our area by family ties, and this year they bought a little cabin on a lake outside Northampton in Goshen, MA, about an hour's drive from here (and very close to Alex). We had not seen them for a while, and had never seen their cabin. So we met for lunch in Shellburn Falls, MA, near the famous Bridge of Flowers, and afterward drove to their cabin. They also have a dog, a 100% mutt named Caesar. We had a lovely lunch, take out from a pub right next to the Bridge of Flowers, sitting on some benches next to a stone wall. Then we explored the Bridge which is spectacular. Then went to Hammond Pond, where their cabin is. Very simple, but cozy. We had a very nice time, and vowed to arrange a future gathering in Wilmington,VT (sort of a central gathering point) that would include Mary Anderson (John Nissen's widow) who also knows them from Lawrence years and after, and lives in Bennington, VT (which makes Wilmington a good gathering point). 

We came back via Route 112 - a different way that took us through Jacksonville, VT - a place we rarely go - and ended up in Brattleboro in time to take in a movie at the Latchis Theater - The Farewell - which is a wonderful movie about a Chinese family stretched between China and New York City, and their resolve not to tell grandma she is dying of cancer but to all gather (in China) to see her anyway on the pretext of a wedding. Maintaining this pretense was very difficult, and almost breaks down. You are left wondering how much grandma really knows!

Monday was basically a be-at-home day. It was a beautiful day weather-wise. I did some mowing. Did some reading. Enjoyed the deck. I went up to the Dummerston Church to look for anthem for the choir (for September 8th) and didn't find what I was looking for in the file, but eventually found it in a book at home! We invited John and Cynthia for supper, but they were too tired to come (see Saturday below). We watched TV in the evening.

Sunday we went to a Union Service of the four churches (Guilford, Dummerston, W. Brattleboro and Centre Church) which was held this time at Centre Church in Brattleboro. We sang in the choir, which met at 8:45a.m. The organist and Choir Director, Mary Milkey-May, was someone we had never met before, and had never heard play the organ. She is excellent! She played a Buxtehude piece as a Prelude which was great! We liked her choir direction also, though she took the Introit, Be Still and Know, a bit faster than I do (we sing this in Dummerston as an Introit almost every Sunday). After church we bought a Sunday New York Times and got the Spelling Bee! So we worked on that in the afternoon, read the Times and listened to NPR in the evening. I worked on transcribing Stewart's letter while Ellen watched a movie on the TV.

Saturday was the day of the memorial service for Cynthia's sister, Lyn, who passed away last week (August 11th, actually). The service was held in the Hartford, VT UCC church, near White River Junction, about an hour or so away, and a place very familiar to me because when I was the UCC Annuitant Visitor years ago, I would hold Annuitant Lunches there every fall, so I knew the "kitchen ladies" very well. One of them was working on the reception luncheon and remembered me very well. John and Cynthia played at the service - very beautifully, I have to say. John had a particularly lovely solo on Irish whistle. They also played harp/cello duo. That was the high point of the service for me. But there were many thoughtful and emotional remembrances of Lyn and we got a good sense of her as a mother and grandmother and as a lively, feisty person. There was a luncheon afterward. Ellen was suffering from an allergy attack, so after the service she sat in the car while I went to the luncheon. I got to meet some of Cynthia's other siblings, and John pointed out other relatives as well. It is a big family. If John and Cynthia's music was the high point, the low-point was an encounter with a fundamentalist preacher who was at the service - not a member of the family. He was sitting right behind me and was very friendly at first, but when we got to talking afterward and he learned I was a UCC minister and approved of gay marriage, he dropped me like a hot potato and refused eye contact after that! Fortunately, he left early (maybe because of me!). We left at 9:30a.m. and didn't get home until almost five. We took a more leisurely drive home on Route 5 instead of I-91, and that was a good idea. The day was tiring, but even more so for John and Cynthia - it was draining for them,  and they were still recovering Monday.

Friday was the day we came back  from Maine. We hung out with Katie and Savanna in the morning, and then left around noon. Another gorgeous day! The trip back was not bad despite Friday end-of-summer tourist traffic (most of it northbound fortunately!). We stopped for bread at When Pigs Fly and for a late lunch/early supper at Bob's Clam Hut - our usual stops. No time to walk the beach at Ogunquit, unfortunately. Got home around 7:30 as I recall (a bit hazy on that). It was a cool evening and it got into the 40's at night. Great for sleeping.

So what else? Ah ---  waiting for me at home outside the front door was Robert Alter's 3-Volume, The Hebrew Bible: Translation and Commentary, which I had ordered online. That was exciting! More on that later.

Photos:

Evelyn "Lyn" Hughes McDaniel (1945-2019)

Tom,  Courtney and Caesar

A view from The Bridge of Flowers

The Bridge of Flowers is an old trolley bridge in Shelburne Falls which decades ago was converted into a garden which lines both sides of the bridge and provides a footpath down the middle. It is spectacular in every way, has an amazing variety of flowers, shrubs and small trees, is very well-maintained, and draws thousands of visitors.

If you didn't know that the artichoke is a member of the thistle family, this will convince you!

One of many spectacular blossoms

Looking down the bridge from one end

Me with Tom and Courtney near their cabin

Gotta run - more later.

Stewart Letter #9

  Here is the next letter in the Stewart series. He is still at home, waiting for a 2nd physical exam for the Army (after they found a broken bone in his ankle in the first exam  - six months old and not fully healed).                                                                

 

September 10, 1944

Dear Dad,

            Just to be sure when I could take my physical over again, I went to down to the Federal Offices Building and asked the man who took care of my mental examination. He said that I was not eligible for re-examination until Oct. 22 and since I want to get my dental work done at the U dental college, and there is nothing else to interfere, I am going to wait until then and take it over again then, since I will be able to pass it then instead of starting in at the U Oct. 2. I am planning to do a lot of reading in the next few weeks since I will have so much time for it. Already I have read The Undertow by E. E. Knowles,[i]  and I have read over half of Lincoln Steffins autobiography, starting from the beginning.[ii]

            Mother has not yet received the hundred dollars you sent at the beginning of August.  She has received the regular check, however.

           

            The first two terms of ASTP reserve training are the same for ERC and ACER members, but at the end of the second twelve weeks or at the beginning of the third term, the courses are divided between those who are members of the ACER, those in the ERC who were chosen in the second term for premedical training , and those chosen for engineering training. I am going to try very hard to be chosen for pre-medical training, for I would prefer that to the others. Of course, you understand, this training does not assure me of being allowed to participate in the ASTP in the regular army, but it gives me a better chance for having had the extra training. I must trust to my own ability in hoping to continue in the regular army, and, by the way, I probably will be in line for induction even though the war is over, because after the November election, it is likely that a law will be passed to draft young men as they graduate from high school to replace those that have been in the army for many years.

            Fall has come at last, although the weather has not changed perceptibly in acknowledgement of it. Larry has started at Marshall, taking up where I left off.[iii] Choir practice will begin again Wednesday night. and it is a good thing, because my throat has been getting sore every time I had to sing two or three verses of a hymn, simply because  I am not used to it.

            In just four years I will be able to vote in the national election, and I will, no doubt, be vitally interested by that time; of course, I am interested now, but not quite as vitally as adults, since I cannot vote, and I am busy getting my education.

            I believe that the American public should go on in their work as if the war were sure to last in Germany at least two more years, and then it would probably end much sooner than they are speculating, for, if we cannot think about Victory without becoming slack in our duty, then we have no right to think about it, even though this is just about the only country in the world where we can be slack and still win a hard war.

            I know that I will hardly be able to wait until you can tell the full story of what you are now experiencing. There are, no doubt, many others who are having experiences just as interesting, but these are happening to you, and therefore we are extremely interested.

            Do as much as you can to keep well with all the means at your disposal.

                                                            Your loving son,

                                                                        Stewart

---

[i] The Undertow was published  in 1906 by Robert E. Knowles (not E. E. ) who was at that time described as "Canada's most famous novelist." It was his second novel, the first being St. Cuthbert's. He was a Presbyterian minister. He died in 1946. The Undertow seems to be available online as an e-book. Knowles is the subject of a fairly recent blog post:

Robert E.Knowles, author of The Undertow

"Robert E. Knowles is the very sort of fellow one would expect to have been the subject of a biography. I'm thinking here of those dry, polite stories of a life, often penned by friends, that were published in the early half of the last century. Not only was Knowles "One of Canada's Best Known Novelists" – this according to the March 1909 Canadian Bookman – but he was once Canada's preeminent Presbyterian preacher, a man renowned throughout the Dominion for his sermons and oratorical skills."

[ii] Lincoln Steffins was a journalist, one of the best known of the "muckrakers" of the Progressive Era of the early 20th century. His Autobiography was published in 1931.

Lincoln Steffins

[iii] I started 7th grade at Marshall the Fall of 1944. The Junior High and Senior High were housed in one building. My career at Marshall was interrupted when mother and I moved to Kentucky in the fall of 1945 to join dad at Camp Breckinridge, and then was ended when we moved to Anamosa, IA in summer of 1946.

Whoops!

I went down to the cottage with the Subaru to let Brendon out and when I was turning around I got caught on a granite curb that I didn't see - it was under the hood in my line of vision. So now the car is hung up on this granite curb and I can't drive off of it because two of my wheels are off the ground! So, I've called AAA. I'm really getting my money's worth out of the AAA membership this summer.

Later:
AAA didn't come until about 7:45 - about 2 1/2 hours after I called - but they finally arrived, and the driver was an older guy who was knowledgeable about these circumstances. He used a big jack to good effect, and eventually I was able to just drive it free. The mud guard on the right front wheel got a bit crumpled, but it is still attached. Car seems to drive ok. So - thanks to AAA, it turned out ok. But the guy had to come all the way from Knox, ME - Sparky's Roadside Service. About two hours  away! I asked  him why AAA called him and not someone closer, and he said, "Because they know I know what I am doing." Worth waiting for!

Later yet:
Obviously, we are still in Owl's Head. We decided to stay here today and return to Vermont tomorrow. We hung out at the cottage this morning, went to a Scottish restaurant in Rockland for lunch, then met Katie and Savanna and went to Bixby's Chocolate Factory in Rockland which turned out to be really interesting - we got a 20-minute presentation about the history and production of chocolate which was very informative. They had good chocolate too. And gelato! It was coming home from there that I got stuck at the cottage. Oh well! Most of the day was great.

The Subaru hung up on a granite curb

The Bixby Chocolate Factory in Rockland,  ME

These are cacao pods, containing about 30 cacao seeds = beans.

This is where the chocolate gets made

Katie looking over chocolate wares