Jim and Joy

We have guests! Jim and Joy Harris, who live in Cherry Hill, NJ, are vsiting us for a couple of days. They are not actually staying here at the house overnight - they are at the Hampton Inn - but we had supper out and the evening with them here at the house yesterday, and earlier today, I went on a little trip with them over into New Hampshire, and they will have supper with us this evening before Ellen and I go to a Dummerston Church choir rehearsal. Jim is Shirley's nephew, the son of her brother, Ladd Harris. Ladd died, tragically, on July 31, 1960, at age 38, when Jim was only six years old. Jim has two siblings, an older brother, Robbie, and a younger sister, Patty. His mother is no longer living. Joy is his second wife, and they are a happy couple. Jim worked much of his adult life as an assistant District Attorney for the state of New Jersey. He has a son, Matt, by his first wife. Joy has a son by an earlier marriage, whose first name, coincidently, is Harris. He lives in Boston, which is the main reason for this trip. They will go to Boston tomorrow. Jim is retired, and in his retirement, he has gotten very interested in his inner life, and has become an author. His first book, Banishing Snakes by Fire: 13 Rituals for Recovering Your Authentic Self, draws on the work he has done in his own iife to heal the trauma of his father's death and its aftermath, and he is currently working on a novel about a man whose dreams prefigure what happens to him the followimg day. They arrived just before supper yesterday, and we ate together at Panda North. I had my usual Mala Tofu ad Ellen her ginger chicken chicken string beans, and Jim and Joy shared a shrimp appetizer and a main dish I forget. We had a surprise sitting at the next tabe was Ken Burns, the well-known PBS film-maker! He was with what looked to be a granddaughter. That was cool! Today, we went over to Harrisville and Dublin, NH, which are important locations in Jim's family tree - nothing to do with the Harris family- that is another coincidence - but rather with the Townsend family - his great-grandmother was Kate Townsend Langley. We visited the house where Kate was born and grew up in Harrisville, and the graves in nearby Dublin where her father amd mother and other Townsends are buried. Harrisville is a lovely old mill town, beautifully kept amd restored, and we had lunch at the General Store, which is an extremely popular gathering place. The Dublin cemetery proved to be a challenge for me because of hills and rough ground, and it was very cold and windy, but we had a good time.

Joy and Jim at Panda, with Ken Burns in background.

The Townsend house in Harrisville as it looks today

The Harrisville General Store, outside and inside

Time marches on!

Gosh, it has been two weeks since my birthday - my last post! How did that happen? A lot has taken place in those two weeks. Two friends died: Don Hazelton, who was my Dummerston neighbor decades ago, and Elliot Freeman, whom I have known for 40 years through the Guilford Church. Don was 93 and arranged his death. I visited him at Valley Cares a few days before he died and recorded a half-hour of conversation about his early life. Elliot was younger - 80 years old, just a few days short of his 81st birthday. We had sung for him at his home in Dummerston a couple of weeks ago. He had Alzheimer's. We went to Elliot's calling hours just yesterday evening, and in addition to talking with Diane, Elliot's wife, I saw many friends I had not seen for years - many from my years at the School For International Training, back in the 1970's.

Don Hazelton (1930-2024). Don was a farmer, orchardist, maple-sugarer - a lifelong resident of Dummerston. His wife, Bunny, died a few years ago (cf. my blog post, December 6, 2019).

Elliot Freeman (1943-2024). In earlier years, Elliot was a Navy pilot and Flew helicopters all over the world. Elliot's wife, Diane Larson-Freeman, is world-famous in English-as-a-Second-Language circles. "An applied linguist, known for her work in second language acquisition, English as a second or foreign language, language teaching methods, teacher education, and English grammar, she is renowned for her work on the complex/dynamic systems approach to second language development." (Wikopedia). Elliot and Diane have been faithful and important members of tne Guilford Church. Both Elliot and Don were gentle, lovely men.

Two photos from Elliot and Diane's wedding album which was on display at the calling hours. They were married in Ann Arbor, MI in 1974. ****************************** Despite these deaths, I think that what has dominated my thinking these past two weeks has been my work on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). This parable has proved to be quite a challenge. I've devoted two sessions to it - the first session was just before my birthday and the second was this past week. I called the first session a microscopic view of the parable, and the second a macroscopic view. I.e., in the first, we zoomed in on specific words and unpacked their significance; the second, we tackled big questions like "what is the basic message of the parable in its original contexts in the Gospel of Luke and the teachings of Jesus?" This question has proven to be not easy to answer. When I get a chance, I'll insert some examples from my lecture notes. Other things? The UNC Men's basketball team - the TarHeels - won five games and will play for the championship of the ACC Conference tonight; the Academy Awards happened. I'm reading about Thornton Wilder; we sang at a funeral in Guilford and in Shirley Squiers home; we've been practicing with the Dummerston choir; we've been going to River Singers; we went to Town Meeting, etc.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Wow, what a birthday weekend! My actual birthday was Saturday, March 2nd. Saturday was a family day, Sunday was a big celebration day. Saturday I had a leisurely morning in bed, and Ellen prepared a sumptuous breakfast for me and then she took me to John and Cynthia's at about 11a.m. or so. Maybe it was noon. Anyway, I spent the entire afternoon with them, which included going to Bellows Falls with them, where they took me to lunch at the Moon Dog Cafe: a sort of hippie restaurant where I had a Vermont Brie, Apple, Grilled Cheese Sandwich with potato salad. It was good! The rest of the time we sat by the stove in their living-room and enjoyed visiting. Then at 4p.m., I tuned in on my phone to the Tar Heels BB game against NC State - an excting game in which the first half was dominated by NCS, who had an 8-point advantage at the half, and the second half by the Heels who won by nine. The Heels are having a good year! Then at 6p.m. or so we went to Panda North where we met Ellen for supper. I had my fave, Mala Tofu. Yum!

My birthday breakfast prepared by Ellen. My phone was dead when we were at the Moon Dog Cafe, but I got these photos off the Internet:

This is exactly where we sat: J&C sat on the purple couch and I sat opposite on the flowered chair.

An interior picture of the Moon Dog Cafe. And here are two I took at Panda North:

Cynthia and John at Panda North.

Panda North interior. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sunday, we went to church at Guilford in the morning, and afterward, Ellen brought me home and left me there while she came back to the church to get ready for my brthday celebration, which started with a 1950's themed pot-luck supper at 5:00p.m., followed by a hymn-sing at 7p.m. The supper was fantastic! CLose to 100 people came - from thw Guilford Church, the Dummerston Church, River Singers, Hallowell, and beyond. The food table was full to the brim, and there were exactly the same number of people as there were chairs at the nine tables set up. There was a wondeerful energy in the room, we sang "Let Union Be," and "The Silver Rain," Brendon sang "My Way," Andy Davis wrote and sang a "Hymn for Larry Crockett," there were four birthday cakes (needed to hold a total of 91 candles). Many, many people came by to give me greetings, it was all just over the top and wonderful. I felt utterly surrounded by and wrapped in love. Scores of photos:

Andy and Robin starting things off.

Singing before we ate.

My plate of food.

The incredible food table.

Cutting the three-layer carrot cake made by Ellen.

Me with John.

Me with Ruth Barton and Merrill Barton. Ruth. was in the teen-age youth group in Dummerston when I was pastor there 1956-60.

Me with Sue Miller who was a two-year old girl when I first came to Dummerston in 1956.

With Arthur Davis and sweet, little Iona, just two months old - the youngest person at the party!

Four birthday cakes with candles! Because of COVID I didn't blow out the candles. We ended up extinguishing them by waving a paper plate over them like a fan.

The past week

Quite a lot is going on that I haven't reported here. Last Sunday at the Guilford Church (February 18th) it was the first Sunday for our new Interim Minister, The Rev. Allyson Platt, who was the interim Minister back in 1997-1998 right after Shirley and I retired. She was very much liked, back then, and people are very excited to have her returning. The church attendance has been quite good both last Sunday and yesterday. She sat in on my Bible Study session yesterday, which was nice of her.

Rev. Allyson Platt and her therapy dog, Hero. **************************** Otherwise, I had River Singers Tuesday, had a session with Holly King (massage therapist) on Wednesday, Dummmerston Choir Rehearsal Friday evening, a Deacon's Dinner at the Dummerston Church Saturday evening, and Bible Study after church on Sunday. So it wasn't a super-busy week but just right. I had time to prepare Bible Study - the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) -- and I think the session went okay on Sunday. We had 15 people there - including Ellen and me. The one thing that didn't go well was that the recorder I use ran out of storage space and the recorder stopped after 12 minutes - unbeknownst to me. I'm supposed to be erasing past recordings but I haven't been - it's a reccorder I borrowed from John. So I got no recording of that session to send out to people. I will have a Zoom session Thursday covering the same material, so hopefully I'll get a recordong of that. Right now, I am at Planet Fitness while Ellen is at the Guilford Church with her Prayer Shawl knitting group. I just worked on three machines - the bike, the arm pedal and the leg squeeze. They have a nice lounge room with comfortable chairs and WiFi.

Concussion revelations

Saturday afternoon Ellen and I went to a talk and exhibit in Northampton at the New England Visionary Artists Museum. The star of this event was Abbie Steiner, an artist who lived at Pathways, a co-housing facility in Northampton, where Julie and Jerry also owned a house, and whom we therefore got to know and actually came to own a couple of her prints. One hangs on the wall beside our bed; the other is near the dining table. Her work back then was very intricate montages of images and words, often Hebrew words and letters. In 2011, all that changed. She was walking late one night through a dark public parking garage when her head hit a canoe which was mounted on top of a minivan and sticking out behind it - it struck her just above her left eye. She collapsed to the ground, having suffered a concussion. The effects of the concussion were profound. The symptoms worsened over time and led to having to give up both her work - as an Alexander Technique Therapist - and her art. Her vision and the way her brain worked fell into a kind of chaos, unpredictable, changing constantly, painful and exhausting. But she didn't give up. Two years later, she began drawing for a few minutes at a time, whatever she could tolerate, and gradually did more and more. Her art was completely changed and became a kind of journal of her recovery. This went on for years and still goes on today - 13 years later - though she has almost fully recovered. But she is a different person, a different artist. The event Saturday included an exstensive exhibit which was stunning, and included detailed descriptions of her physical and mental condition and symptoms at the time the work of art being displayed was being created. I have never seen anything like this before. There was also a panel in which Abbie herself talked and showed some illustrative works of art, and she was joined by one of the caregivers who was a big part of her healing - Dr. Naomi Clay, O.B., a vision specialist - and a friend, Nancy Pick, who is an author of books about science. I learned a great deal about concussions (e.g., no two are alike), and found the whole experience fascinating and inspiring. I was particularly inspired by Abbie's courage to "hang in there and keep working" when it would have been very understandable if she had just said "to hell with it" and given up. Julie and Jerry were there also, and afterward, we went to their house and saw Tamar and had a snack with them - including soft pretzels just made by them, dipped in cheese sauce. Tamar seems to be doing well at Brandeis. She has just started the second semester of her Freshman year. It looks like a year of study in Japan is definitely in the future. Here are some photos of the Abbie Steiner event and samples of her work.

Abbie at left and Nancy Pick looking at a fairly recent work by Abbie.

Dr. Naomi Clay, looking at the same work.

Above: Three works by Abbie, all since the concussion, but otherwise unknown dates, taken from her website.

Two pre-concussion works by Abbie - the upper one in our bedroom, the lower one in our dining room.

Opera on the Air

Sunday afternoon, we attended a charming production of three short operas at U Mass, staged as live radio productions. The three operas were: Samuel Barber: A Hand of Bridge. Libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti; Gian Carlo Menotti: Old Maid and the Thief; Douglas Moore: Gallantry: A Soap Opera. A Hand of Bridge, was only about ten minutes long, and only one act: Four people, two unhappily married couples (Sally and Bill; Geraldine and David) sat around a card table playing bridge. They bid until they reached a contract of 5 Hearts. As the game progressed, each character expressed inner thoughts and desires, mostly about their unhappiness. Old Maid and the Thief, is about a middle-aged woman and her maid who are unexpectedly visited by a mysterious and handsome young man, a "beggar." He is invited to come in and given food and a place to sleep. Later, a neighbor rushes in and tells the two women that a man - a notorious thief - has escaped from a nearby prison and has been seen in the neighborhood - and his description seems to fit with the "beggar" they just took in (who the women are explaining is actually a distant cousin!). This announcement sets off a train of events - the women don't want to antagoize their guest so they go overboard in giving him things - especially money, which they steal from their neighbors! I.e., the women are becoming the person they think they arw harboring - but it turns out he is not the thief after all. He is a wandering poet. But it all comes to a surprising climax. Gallantry: A Soap Opera, is a wonderful satire both on social mores of the 20th century and also radio commercials. A surgeon and a nurse get romantically involved, but the nurse is also in love with a patient the surgeon is operating on, and there are moments you are not sure what the surgeon is actually going to do with that scalpel he is holding! Meanwhile, a woman off to the side is using all her wiles selling hand soap and floor wax! It's all pretty hilarious. Ellen, Katie and I went to the opera workshop and then went to Shutesbury for the Super Bowl! We knew Savanna woud have wanted it that way. We had yummy snacks, Brendon was there, of course, and it turned out to be a pretty exciting game which went into overtime- not common in football. The game went late, and it was after midnight when we got home - well after midnight!

The mysterious "beggar" in The Old Maid and the Thief."

Selling "Billy Boy Wax" on the radio.

Surgeon, patient and Nurse.

The casts of all three plays giving a curtain call.

In Maine

We came over to visit Jim and Mary in Owl's Head on Friday, arriving c. 5:30p.m. We stopped at Bob's Clam Hut along the way, but not at WHen Pigs Fly, for bread. Ellen brought a tasty dinner of Swedish meatballs on noodles, with squash and lignonberry sauce. In the evening we watched a show that they have been watching which they like very much, but we were unaware of. I can't remember the name of the show, but it was fun. Saturday, I slept late, fixed a breakfast of orange juice with Kiefer, scrambled egg and cereal. Then Jim and Mary took us out to lunch at Archers on the waterfront, where I had steamed mussells. Yum! We thought we would go to the Farnsworth Museum afterward, but when we got there, we found they were closing within a half-hour, so we came home and went to the Farnsworth on SUnday. Saturday evening was the TaHeels/Duke MBB game, which I watched on TV. Great game which the Heels won handily. It looks like they could be Final-Four material this year. That would be exciting. They have a very deep bench this year - a large number of real stars, capable of double-doubles (10 or over in both points and rebounds). Hubert Davis does a good job of rotating through them, giving his starters a chance to rest. Sunday we went to the UU church with Jim and Mary. The pastor "preached" on equity and equality - I use quotes around "preached" because I don't think he mentioned God at all. But it was interesting and timely. Then after church (which included sort of a "lunchy" coffee hour), we didgoto the. Farnsworth. Ellen puched me around in a wheelchair and we pretty much saw everything. I got a chance to sit in front of virtually every painting/print in the museum without getting exhausted. That was great. We paid special attention to An exhibit of Wyeth's "botanical" watercolors - trees and shrubs. See below! After the museum we came back to Jim and Mary's, and I rested a bit and we had supper and played Scrabble. I had miserable luck on drawing tiles - all vowels and 1-point consonants. I came in fourth, but witha higher score than I would have expected. We also bought a toilet seat extender - on Sunday, almost too late to use it. It will be useful at home and whereever we visit someone. It's getting harder and harder to "get up." The extra five inches of height makes a big difference. I brought Richard Ford's "Be Mine" with me to read, and I finished it this morning. It is about Frank Branscome abd his son, Paul, who is 47 years old and has ALS. They go to the Mayo Clinic and then make a side-trip to Mount Rushmore, before Paul dies. Paul's symptoms and physical challenges are very siimilar to mine, so the book cut pretty close to the bone. Paul's attitude is different from mine, but 47 is very different from 90! It' a brilliant book in its exploration of the father-son relationahip, which is sort of universal regardless of peculiar individual traits. And now, as I write, we are heading home. We left a little after 11 a.m. It is sunny but cold and windy.

At Archers, having mussels for lunch.

At Rockland UU Church after the service.

Wyeth print.

Wyeth tree.

ANother Wyeth tree.