A Birthday Celebration

Mom's 93rd birthday is today. For the occasion she received many phone calls from friends, children and grandchildren all of which she greatly appreciated. She also loved the presents she was sent. While the pain in her left leg continues to bother her and bewilder us, she did agree to let us take her out to lunch. And so we sallied forth to a quaint little restaurant called 'Up The River' (see picture) in Millington, a small town about 15 miles from Chestertown. The setting reminded me of a restaurant in Spring, Texas that Prue had taken us to. The ambiance was down home but the food was very good. Believe it or not mom actually ordered a root beer float to go with her meal and appeared to enjoy every drop of it.

After lunch we went back to her apartment and had ice cream cake (two servings of ice cream in a couple of hours didn't do her in but just about did it for me). We left after a couple of hours to run some errands. Mom was still going strong and, I think, throughly enjoyed her birthday. Would that we all do so at 93 and beyond.

Friends and a Tea Party

Three things of note happened this week. We had friends over for dinner one night and had an interesting discussion of France and libraries, we volunteered to help out at Chestertown's annual Tea Party and Barack Obama won a mojority of elected delegates.

Some friends of ours recently returned from a three week trip to France (mostly Normandy). They came to dinner along with another couple to regale us of their exploits. They brought with them a spectacular vase of blooming peonies (see picture) from their garden. Basically they spent most of their time in rural France and loved the food and the life style. It has become their 'favorite' place. We also discussed the future of libraries. I'm attempting to write an unsolicited paper on how I think libraries will look in the not to distant future and suggestions for our local library to prepare for a changing role. The conversation was lively and many good ideas were tossed around. If you have any thoughts on this subject, I'd love to hear them. Just add a comment of this blog.

On Saturday Chestertown held its annual Tea Party celebration. Chestertown held a tea party similar to the one in Boston about 6 months later and they celebrate it with music, a parade, vendors, games and a reenactment every year on Memorial Day weekend. About 20,000 people usually show up. Our local UU church puts up a booth and sells lemonade, water and lemon peppermint sticks (a peppermint stick is stuck into a lemon and one sucks the tart lemon juice up through the sweet peppermint stick resulting in a few swallows of a sweet tart drink). Once the party got going we had a slew of customers. It helped that the weather was near perfect - 70 degrees under sunny skies. It was fun even if a bit tiring.

On the political front, Senator Clinton hangs in the race. I've heard comments about pressure on her to quit because the Democratic primary is hurting the Democratic party. My opinion is just the opposite. The primary has been good for whichever candidate wins the nomination as it's made them stronger for the real race ahead. And it's been good for the country as issues have been debated and we've all gotten a more in depth look at two good candidates. In the long run I think it will also be good for the Democratic Party. They've registered many new voters and have sparked interest in the political process among citizens who have never been interested before. Can't help but be good for our nation.

Preakness and a Birthday

Among other things we watched the Preakness with mom on Saturday (May 17, 2008). We even dressed for the occasion (see pictures). It was an amazing, to me, race as Big Brown easily pulled away from the pack in the homestretch. Mom seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.


The next day, May 18, 2008, was Nancy's birthday. There was an annual meeting at our UU Church where Nancy was elected president of the church board for the next year. After that we attended a concert by 3 musicians from Philadelphia (a violinist, cellist and a pianist). Great concert especially since it was in a relatively small space and we could interact with the performers. Since we'd been eating out a lot because of our schedule, Nancy decided she wanted a dinner home which is what she got for her birthday, including the traditional cake with a candle.

This week Sayaka, Nancy's Japanese mentoree from Washington College, came out to the house for a kayak paddle (see pictures), dinner and a concert. It was the first time either of us had been on the water this year. I'm also reading a book by Nathanial Philbrick entitled "The Sea of Glory" about the first US navel expedition to Antarctica, the Pacific islands and the Columbia River. All this real and vicarious water travel has got me wondering what's the attraction that water has for so many people, including me. Here at Creek's Edge there's a definite peacefulness and communing with nature aspect of being on the water. In the sea stories it's more of a battle between men (and it's almost always men) and the sea. An epic struggle which, truth be told, the sea always wins even when the ship arrives safely back in port. I enjoy the sea stories but enjoy even more the quiet times on the water on our own Shipyard Creek and the surrounding creeks, rivers and, of course, the bay. There's always time to let go and just enjoy the paddle and in so doing often the daily concerns slip away like fog melting in the sun. Sometimes I find vexing problems that I've been wrestling with are cleared up by the time I return without conscience thought on my part. A great way to spen a couple of hours and become physically and emotionally recharged.


I read this week that Google had made a proposal to use the space between the analog TV channels (buffer space) for a nationwide broadband internet network. Since the analog channels go away early 2009, the buffer space will no longer be needed. This sounds like a terrific idea. The frequency is lower so the signals can penetrate buildings etc better than the higher frequency digital TV and phone signals. This would give the USA a ubiquitous broadband network which would put us on a par or maybe even slightly ahead of many other developed countries. The proposal is potentially particularly attractive to us out here in the woods without DSL or cable service. We can and do use satellite access to the internet which is much better than dial up but is expensive and goes out with bad weather. In addition it takes some time for access so, while a download goes fast once it's started in good weather, it may take several seconds prior to the start of the download to get access to the satellite channel and the specific web page. This, of course, prohibits any real time use such as Skype type phone calls. If the Google proposal ever becomes a reality we may be able to get a radio signal through the trees and then enjoy true broadband access. One can always hope.

Nancy bought a new car, a Prius, last week (see picture). So far we've used it for a trip to Charlottesville (mostly highway driving), a trip to Shenandoah (mostly up and down driving) and almost a week of driving close to home (both highway and stop and go driving). We've averaged about 50 MPG over all this driving. Now if we, in the USA, are really serious about energy reduction, it seems we've already got an existence proof of a partial solution. There's talk of requiring a 30 MPG minimum on the auto companies. Why not a 50 MPG minimum or even higher with maybe some exceptions for pickups and certain large cars? We don't think we gave anything up except perhaps some acceleration in moving the the hybrid car. I suspect the longer range answer will be an all electric car. GM is supposed to come out with an electric car called the Volt sometime in the next year or so. There are a few hurdles to get over such as recharging stations, the carbon footprint of generating the electricity and the amount and type of new electrical generating plants that will be needed. These hurdles sound a lot less to me than the hurdles currently faced by the hydrogen fuel cell car.

This Wednesday we woke up to find that Barack Obama had all but secured the Democratic nomination for president. It's been a wild ride and I for one am reluctant to totally count Hillary Clinton out. Admittedly her chances don't look very good right now, especially since Obama has tied her in committed super delegates and leads her in primary delegates and in the popular vote. I have to give Senator Clinton credit for fighting as hard as she has for the nomination. She's hung in there even though she has taken some big hits. I also think that the press has been quite biased when covering her campaign which hasn't helped. Senator Obama, on the other hand, has, up until recently, been treated somewhat easier by the press. Some have called him a transformational leader. I have mixed feeling on this. He voted with the majority of Democrats in the Senate over 90% of the time during the 3 years he's been there. His public appearances on the campaign trail do support the transformational title he's been given but, as usual, actions speak louder than words. Were he to become our next president, I only hope he can make at least some of his expressed ideas a reality. It's going to be interesting to see how the Democratic party brings this primary to a close, including the Florida and Michigan situations. Guess we'll all just have to stay tuned.

This week Nancy and I visited Sara, Wes and Ella. Ella is two and a half years old. That's she and Nancy in the picture. Being with her reminded me of the lessons our three young grandchildren have taught us. These include:

• If things don't go your way it's seldom the end of the world.
• Life is to be enjoyed, cherished and celebrated.
• Wonder is contagious at any age.
• Ask questions.
• Naps are good.

After the visit we went on to the Shenandoah National Park for a couple of days of hiking. While there were many people in the park, it was a little before the real season and the trails were mostly empty. On one hike we ended up at Blackrock Mountain. This is a mountain made up of boulders piled one on top of another. The boulders ranged in size from a foot or so across to ones the size of a small room I scrambled to the top of the heap of rocks (see Picture) which wasn't all that difficult as the trail ended about 3/4 of the way up. At the top the wind was strong and I couldn't help but wonder how long the rocks had been there. There's something about mountains, even ones made out of a tumble of boulders, that reminds one of permanence, of solidarity and of quiet and immutable strength.

We celebrated our anniversary that night with a bottle of wine brought from home, a good dinner at the Skyline Lodge and a lot of conversation about our experiences and what we'd like the future to hold. It was good to get away for a few days , reflect on life and commune with nature.