Saturday was a transition day. It was the day we were to leave the Rockland contingent of the family and the day we were to drive to East Livermore to Dad and Kellee’s house. We were in no great rush, so while Mer visited with her family, I looked at Dale’s printer. He had not been able to print, and I found out that it was because he had left the power cable at home. It was a special non-standard cable that I guessed was going to cost twenty or thirty dollars to get and not be easy to find. I recommended buying a new printer instead and leaving it in Maine. To that end, I want out to Office Max in town. They were not open yet, so I drove down to the breakwater and walked along it for a few minutes before heading back to the now-open store. I was looking at cheap inkjet printers, but I came across a sale on a twenty-four-page-per-minute Brother laser printer for really cheap. I could not pass that up, so I bought it. The salesman warned me that the printer did not come with a USB cable to hook to the computer, but I had seen that Dale had two in his computer bag, so that did not worry me.

I got back home, unpacked the printer, and powered it up. I hooked up Dale’s computer, and it “saw” the printer and started to load the software. It then had an error. I tried a bunch of things, and after a long and frustrating hour, I tried Dale’s other USB cable, just out of desperation. The computer saw the printer and loaded it just fine. That was kind of how my summer with computers had been going.

We then packed up the car, took our leave and then Route 17 to Augusta. Once in Augusta, I decided to try to find the Maine State Library, which I actually managed to find after a little hunting. I wanted to see if the archives had the old newspapers from the late 80s so that I could look up my old cross country race times. The library had the Lewiston Sun papers on microfilm, so I spent about forty-five minutes looking through old newspapers while Mer read. Although I seem to remember seeing race results in the paper, I found very few of them, and those tended to be large races where only the top twenty spots were reported. So, sadly, I gave up without finding too much more than a few stories of old friends who played football.

We got to Dad’s in the mid-afternoon, and we sat and talked out on the back porch. Dad made some burgers for supper. The, in a surprise to me, Mer announced she wanted to take me to the Theater at Monmouth. I had heard of it before, vaguely, but I was game to go. It turns out the theater is only about twenty minutes from Dad’s house, and is located in a wonderfully strange building with bright colors and turrets. It is also home to a professional theater group that this night was doing Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing.

I was fairly astonished that there was a classical professional theater so close to my house, and that I had never been. I was eager to see how it was. It turned out to be excellent. Much Ado is a fun play, and the leads were very strong. In one scene, the male lead “accidentally” overhears how the lead female is supposed to be in love with him, and it was great fun watching him “hide” behind a bush, under a bench, in the audience, etc. The set was basic – just a backdrop of a terrace, and on the stage were a few benches and shrubs. It was a very well-done production. They were doing several plays in repertoire, one of which was King Lear. Mer indicated that we would be returning the next night to see that play.

We got back to Dad and Kellee’s around 11:00, and the stars were out and were amazing. We stood in the driveway and just started. You could even see the Milky Way. I forget how much light pollution we have, even when we don’t live in a major city like Chicago. It was great to see the stars so clearly.

Friday was the last of “my” days in Rockland, so I wanted to hit some more coastal sights. I started the day off going south, to Wiscasset. I had found a description of an intriguing-sounding museum that I wanted to take Mer to see. It is on a back street of Wiscasset, and is housed in an old, huge house that used to belong to a sea captain. The museum is called the Musical Wonder House, and it is the largest collection of music boxes in one place in the United States. I like music boxes, and Mer has been fascinated by them for years. So, it seemed like a good destination.

I had no idea how elaborate music boxes were in the late 1800s. There were huge, well-finished wooden boxes that could play multiple tunes and even had interchangeable cartridges. Some cartridges had over ten thousand dots on them to pluck the musical tines. Some had such full sound that you could feel the bass notes through your feet. Some music boxes had bells and percussion in addition to the tines, and one Russian box even had a small pipe organ in it, the sound of which you could add or take away as you saw fit.

There were round record-like cylinders that were made of metal and played as records would later play. There were music boxes used to elaborately serve up after-dinner drinks or cigarettes. There were artificial birds that sang and moved, and seascapes where the boats bobbed up and down. They even had two player pianos with “recordings” of Gershwin and Rachmaninoff that the composers had played themselves. It was fascinating. The entire tour, led by a quiet ex-teacher, took over an hour.

I could have spent a fortune in the gift shop – the music boxes were beautiful. I did manage to get away with a CD of some of the music boxes playing various hymns.

On a whim, we wandered up the street to Castle Tucker, a slightly misleading name for an older mansion that was open for tours. We took the tour, and it was very enjoyable. It was just Mer and I and the tour guide. The house is very pretty, but what was fascinating to me is that most of the furniture was from the 1800s – the house had passed down through the family, and the last woman to own the house changed very little. She donated the house to a trust, but she is still alive in a nursing home. It is astonishing that no one threw out the “old fashioned” furniture over the years. It was a very worthwhile tour, especially for five dollars each.

We drove out of Wiscasset, and on another whim, I took the road to Fort Edgecomb. The fort overlooks the river, and is a wooden blockhouse which is a (restored) original. There are not many left. As Mer liked to point out, lighthouses and forts tend to be in very scenic areas, so not only was the blockhouse interesting, but the grounds were pretty was well.

On yet another whim, I followed signs to Pemaquid Point. It took a fair amount of time to get there, but I figured anywhere with the word “Point” in the name that was close to the ocean was likely to be pretty. I was not wrong. The road really does end in the point of land, at the Pemaquid Point lighthouse, which turns out to be the lighthouse seen on the back of the “Maine” quarter. The keeper’s house now holds an eclectic small museum that focuses on fishing. We toured that, but it only takes a few minutes. The real sights are the lighthouse and the grounds. The lighthouse was open, so after a short wait we were able to climb up into it. We could see all around the point, and it is breathtaking.

The grounds are all granite rocks, and they fall jaggedly to the sea. The waves hit the rocks in multiple directions, which create cool waves (and, according to the warning signs, very dangerous undertows). We walked around the grounds and looked at the outbuildings (an old bell tower for foggy days, and the old lamp oil storage shed), but mostly we just sat on the rock and watched the ocean. What an amazing place.

On the way out from the Point, we swung by Fort William Henry, which is the ruins of an old fort with one reconstructed tower. The fort at one time had been the northern extreme of British holdings against the French, and so the fort had been built up and destroyed two or three times. We read about the history of the fort, and climbed the tower, which overlooks Pemaquid Beach. It is hard to think that the beach is only a mile or two from the rocks of the point. At the beach, the water was calm, and the beach was sandy.

We took a very scenic drive back home, with my intention to eat in Waldoboro (for no great reason other than whim). It turns out that Waldoboro is a dinky little town, and we did not see anywhere to eat. We moved on to Thomaston, to the Thomaston Cafe, which was open. It turns out their supper menu is on the fancy side, with entrees from about twenty dollars and up. We moved on again, landing back in Rockland and eating at the Park Street Grille, which specializes in southwestern-influenced food. We did also pick up another set of whoopie pies and a cookie from the Rockland Cafe for dessert at home.

On Thursday, it was “my” day still, so I took advantage of an offer that Carleton had made to me. He had indicated that if we wished to climb Mt. Battie in Camden, he would be happy to drop us off at the trail at the base of the climb, and he would drive to the top and wait for us. I like the Mt. Battie climb, so I told Carleton that I would be happy if he could help us in such a way.

Carleton drove us in his car, and after a brief bathroom stop at the public landing in Camden, we were dropped off at the trail head. There were a couple of other cars in the small parking lot, and this was borne out when we met two different parties of people climbing down the mountain while we climbed up. This caused Mer to remind me that we (including when she was growing up) had never had to climb down Mt. Battie. We have always met someone at the top, which is happy since I think going up is easier than going down.

The climb up Mt. Battie is surprisingly difficult in places. There are several steep parts, and two areas of bare bedrock that you have to scrabble over. Mer did pretty well – she only required a boost in a couple of places, and was only surly (because she was scared) once, on a difficult bedrock stretch. When I mentioned the spectacular views, her response as she concentrated on climbing was, “Bully!” It was rather amusing.

We made it to the top in about forty-five minutes. We stopped at several places along the way to admire the sweeping views of the ocean and nearby islands. It is a pretty climb, and the day was fairly clear with just a hint of haze in the distance.

Carleton met us at the top, and lent us his binoculars with which to look around. There is a fire watch tower at the top, and we all climbed it to see better (including Carleton, who is eighty-nine – he is my hero!). We enjoyed the panoramic views, which now included the mountains behind Mt. Battie. We spent about thirty to forty-five minutes on the top.

Carleton took us the scenic way home, through Rockport, along the sea the whole way. It is a very pretty drive. The Rockland-Rockport-Camden stretch of coast is one of my favorite places to visit.

We got back home, and Mer and I headed out, to go back to the Samoset Resort. I wanted to eat lunch on their patio and look at the ocean. We had some excellent Italian food, and the views were beautiful and relaxing. We almost had the deck to ourselves (there was one other couple); it appears the weekday lunch crowd is small. I was especially happy at the bill – it was under twenty dollars for our meals, with tip, and the ambiance is hard to beat. I recommend the lunch at the Samoset if you can get good weather.

Later in the afternoon (I think it was about 4:00), we walked over to the docks in Rockland. I had reserved space for us on the fifty-five-foot ketch sailing boat Morning in Maine. We had some amusing delays as I lost Mer in plain sight while she waited on a nearby bench, and then I had to run to a bank since the boat only took cash. We still made it on board, and the ship even left a tad early.

It was a two-hour cruise, mostly under sail (we used a motor to get away from the dock and nearby boats). The captain described the day as a 9.5 out of 10 – a good breeze of about ten mph, lots of sun, cool temperatures, and fairly calm seas. We sailed across the bay past Owls Head and out into open ocean. We got to see the Owls Head lighthouse and, on the way back, the Rockland breakwater light. We even got to see a couple of nesting ospreys in the harbor. There were about twenty people on board in all, and my only disappointment was that I did not get to pilot the ship. The captain made the offer, and it was taken by all the kids on board, but left no time for adult children. Next time. It was a great sail, and the only time I had been on the ocean while not on a ferry (I have been on the Rockland and Vancouver ferries).

We did swing by the Rockland Cafe on the way home to pick up some whoopie pies for dessert. Mt. Battie, the Samoset, the ocean, and whoopie pies – a pretty great Maine day.

Wednesday was the first of “my” days in Maine, so I was in charge (or chadge). We slept in, but once we were underway, I drove us down to Boothbay, to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

Mer and I have become big fans of botanical gardens. They have tons of pretty flowers and lots of places to walk, and they are all slightly different. The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens are fairly new, having only opened in 2007. They have done a spectacular job. They kept and used the exposed bedrock in the gardens, and they have lots of pine and other fir trees around the grounds mixed in with the flowers. They have an extensive and fun children’s area that is beautifully planted, and they have several major gardens, including a rose garden and a rhododendron garden. Finally, there are three major trails that go through the gardens and the woods. Some of the trails lead down to the tidal river, so you even get a water aspect to the gardens. Between the fir trees, the water, and the bedrock, it is a good representation of Maine. Mer and I spent about four hours there, and we saw the entire gardens with the exception of a few small connector trails. I really liked the children’s area since it was whimsical, and I liked the rhododendron garden for the large artificial waterfall located there.

After the garden, we drove the short distance to Boothbay Harbor, which I had heard much about. We only stayed about forty-five minutes. I was largely unimpressed. There is no well-defined main street like in Rockland or Camden. The shops felt very touristy, and the streets were crowded, and parking was hard. You could not see the harbor from much of the town because the streets were all built up. We wandered into a candy store and bought two really expensive chocolate-covered Oreos, which we ate near the harbor, and then we left town. I’ll take Rockland or Camden any day.

We swung back through Rockland and picked up Dale and Carlene to go out to supper. Our first pick, the Thomaston Cafe, was closed, so we drove up to Camden and ate at the Village Restaurant, which has windows that overlook the bay. The food was excellent and the views were fabulous. We had had a very pretty day.

On Tuesday, I actually set an alarm for 4:30 am, much to Mer’s enjoyment. The sun comes up early in Maine, and I wanted to take full advantage of cool temperatures to get in a long run. I was out the door at about 5:00 for a 12-plus-mile run out to Owl’s Head lighthouse and back. It was a cool morning, but somewhat humid. That was okay, but what turned out to be difficult is that there were three major hills on the road to Owl’s Head, and a bunch of minor ones. I made the full run and was back before 7:00, but I was a tired boy.

Once we got underway later with the official touring day, we started out heading down Route 17, but turned back after a few miles. It had started to sprinkle, and Mer had been planning a hike in the woods, but did not want to get stuck in the woods in the rain. So, she went to Plan B.

We drove over to Thomaston, to a mansion called Montpelier , which is a recreation of the home of the Revolutionary War’s General Knox. He moved to Maine after he retired from government and built a large mansion. The mansion passed down through the family, but they could not afford to keep it up, so the original was torn down in 1871, less than a hundred years after it was built. The Daughters of the American Revolution felt that something should be done as a memorial for General Knox, so they spearheaded the effort to rebuild Montpelier on a nearby site. About a century old, the rebuilt house still exists, so that is what we toured.

The house is furnished with furniture from the time, although most of it is not original since the family furniture had all been sold off. Our guide was an older man who was a retired theater teacher, and it showed. He was affable and had a wry sense of humor that I liked very much. The tour was supposed to go about forty-five minutes, but went more like one hour and fifteen minutes. We learned lots of fun facts along the way, but the one that jumped out to both of us was that General Knox was a little over six feet tall and three hundred pounds, and Mrs. Knox was about five feet tall and about three hundred pounds. They appear to have lived well.

After touring the house, we went back to Rockland and then went to have lunch at the Brown Bag restaurant. Sadly, it was a bit of a botched outing. The food took over an hour to get (keep in mind that most things were soups or sandwiches), and three of the five orders had something wrong. It was weird, but Carleton thought about it and placed the blame (probably rightly) on the just-installed computer system. At any rate, I hope things smooth out for the Brown Bag.

In the afternoon, Mer and I headed out to the Olson house, which was made famous by the artist Andrew Wyeth. It is the farmhouse seen in the background of the painting Christina’s World. Wyeth actually painted a lot of paintings inspired by the house, so happily the house was given to the Rockland-based Farnsworth Museum about twenty years ago, so the house is now part of the museum. We toured the house, which has several replicas of paintings in the house showing the view that Wyeth was looking at as he painted it. Our guide told us how Wyeth became acquainted with the Olsons through his future wife, and how he became a very close family friend. We found out that the Christina of the famous painting was actually an amalgam of several women since Christina was at the time fifty-five years old. Wyeth also took some liberties with the view of the farm buildings as well, but Christina approved of the paining very much.

After the tour, we wandered the field that Christina was painted in, and we visited the cemetery located at the far end of the field. Christina and her brother are both buried there (they died in the 1960s), and Wyeth is buried there as well (he died in 2009). It was an interesting day to tour the two houses and contrast the opulent living of the one with the simple and somewhat difficult living of the other.

To round out the day, we headed over to the Owl’s Head General Store with Dale to get supper; the store serves excellent hamburgers. We dropped Dale off at home and went and got dessert at Dorman’s ice cream stand. The servings are huge there – I need to remember to get a small next time.

Monday was Mer’s first full day of being in charge of touring. We headed out of Rockland on Route 17, and made a quick stop-off at one of Mer’s childhood swimming holes. It was on the southern end of Lake Chickawaukee, and is a small beach and a floating dock. There are bathrooms and a changing room, and it is a nice little swimming area. It was pretty crowded on Monday morning with about twenty “tweens” swimming and splashing around.

After the short stop at the beach, we drove out to Union and parked in a gravel parking lot in a field next to the St. Georges River. Mer had found information on a two-mile trail-walk along an old canal. The canal site is supposed to be the oldest canal in the U.S., and the subsequent canals built in the area never made any money and fell quickly into disuse. The trail was fairly easy, with a few tricky spots, and we only met two people walking their dogs along the entire out-and-back trail. Much of the trail had a view of the small river, and it was all in woods. The woods is owned by a sawmill, and they let people use the path, which is very good of them. The brochure Mer picked up does read a little bit like pro-sawmill propaganda in places, but that was amusing. The walk was very pretty, and quiet, and smelled of pine and other fir trees. It was a great (and easy) walk that was very relaxing.

Even the drive out to and back from the walk was gorgeous. We had to take a detour because of road repair, and the detour took us to the top of a hill overlooking a farm field that went down to a lake, and the lake was framed by small mountains. Not too shabby.

We then headed back to the coast and went south along Route 1. We stopped in Port Clyde, a small seaside town that seemed to be full of art galleries and restaurants. We ate on the dock at the Dip Net restaurant. The food was good, and the views were wonderful. I like looking at the ocean and seeing boats coming and going. Mer pretty much had some form of seafood all week long, usually in the form of chowder. I pretty  much did not.

After lunch, we headed over to the Marshall Point Lighthouse and the small museum that now occupies the old lighthouse keeper’s home. The Marshall Point lighthouse is very pretty (most lighthouses are situated in rather dramatic settings), and is most famous for being the lighthouse that Forrest Gump runs up to in the movie of the same name. The museum is small, and wonderfully eclectic, with lighthouse memorabilia, boat models, stories of the lighthouse keepers, and more. We toured the entire museum and then wandered the grounds.

We ended the touristy day by going over to the nearby, and very small, Drift Inn Beach. The beach was sandy and nice, but was probably only about three hundred feet wide, and I’m guessing it almost disappears at high tide. We sat on the beach and had an amusing time watching some kids (and a mom) paddling around on Florida-style kayaks, which are huge surfboards meant to be paddled from a kneeling or standing-up position.

We got back to the house about 6:30, and I went up to my room and fell asleep by 7:00. Touring can take it out of a guy! 

We made it to Rockland, Maine, around 8:00 pm on Saturday. We had an uneventful drive, and had eaten at Moody’s diner in Waldoboro on the way to Rockland. Mer’s grandfather lives in Rockland, and her parents stay there in a small apartment in the back of the house during summers. Since my dad and stepmom also live in Maine, we get a lot of relative visiting done when we come to Maine.

New to us this time was that we had decided to actively act as tourists while in Maine. We did not want to ignore our families, but we wanted to see some of the cool and pretty things Maine has to offer. So, we decided that during the days we would play tourist, and in the evenings we would visit with family.

Sunday started with church, which happily started at 10:30, so Mer and I were able to sleep in some. Carleton, Mer’s grandfather, has gone to the First Baptist Church of Rockland for his whole life (and he is now eighty-nine), so I am happy we are able to go with him when we visit.

After church, Carleton hosted brunch at the Samoset Resort, which is something he tries to do when we come to town. Both of Carleton’s children (Mer’s mom and uncle) and two of his three grandchildren were able to make it, so it was a fairly good-sized gathering (I think it was eleven people). The restaurant at the Samoset looks out over the ocean, and the food is amazing and plentiful. We had a very good time and ate too much.

Sunday was Mer’s day – she was in charge of the first three days in Rockland. So, we jumped in the car and headed over to the nearby town of Owl’s Head, to the Owl’s Head lighthouse. We had been to the lighthouse before, but it is pretty and worth going back to, and as a newly available (just in the last year) opportunity, the lighthouse is open on weekends for visitors to go up into. We both wanted to take advantage of that. The lighthouse is only about one hundred feet above the water, and it was hot and cramped, but the views are pretty great, and we were able to see the lens and the light of the tower up close. It was pretty great. After we clambered around the lighthouse, we walked the short distance to the beach. The Owl’s Head beach is a good Maine beach – mostly rocks instead of sand. We dipped our feet in the water and enjoyed the afternoon.

Mer then took me over to the nearby Birch Point State Park, where they have a real sand beach, which was relatively crowded (but, being small-town Maine, it was not packed). This was a great beach for walking in the surf, and was framed on either end by granite rocks which you could climb on, which we did. We got out to a point of rock, and just sat and watched the ocean and the boats for awhile.

We headed back to Rockland, and went to evening church, although we came into the service a few minutes late. We joined Carleton and enjoyed singing several hymns (our home church does not do many hymns any more). Mer’s mom, Carlene, was not feeling good, so she and Dale stayed home.

After church, Mer still had another outing in mind – we went to the Rockland breakwater and walked out to the lighthouse on the end of it. The breakwater is massive, about a mile long and made of thousands of granite blocks; it took twelve years to build, finishing around 1900. The breakwater is one of our favorite places to visit, and frames the harbor with Owl’s Head Light directly across the bay, so our getting to both lighthouses made for a symmetrical day.

Back at the house, Mer visited with her parents, and Carleton and I chatted in the living room. We talked about a bunch of things, including how Carleton met his wife (who passed away two years ago), and we talked a long time about his service in the Pacific back in World War Two. Mer joined us for part of the talk, and we talked on until about midnight. It was a fascinating talk. A few highlights:

– Carleton met Leona at a church gathering at her church after he had been invited by a friend.
– On an early date, they went on a fair ride which went backwards, which made Carleton ill (including throwing up after the ride), but the relationship still panned out.
– Carleton was drafted with about five hundred other young men, but he and seven others (based on high IQ scores) were sent to a different school where he could have become an officer in the artillery. However, Carleton had not taken geometry in high school, and opted out of taking it through the army, so he became an enlisted man in the artillery.
– He ended up becoming a clerk in the headquarters battery (field HQ), taking care of records and payroll and the like.
– He spent two and a half years in the field without ever going home. He never saw his daughter (Mer’s mom) until she was about two.
– He slept in a hammock over a foxhole, so he could jump right into it during bombing raids.
– Most of his service was in New Guinea, with some in the Philippines.
– He was nicknamed “GI” because he followed the regulation book so closely on health matters, and he never got malaria or jungle rot.
– Late in the war, he identified a single Japanese plane coming in by the sound of its engine, and encouraged the men around him to jump in a trash pit with him. The plane bombed the ammunition depot about three hundred yards away, which exploded.
– Men were mustered out based on a point system, and Carleton missed the cut by one point (seventy-nine out of eighty), so he thought he was going to Japan with the occupational forces, but there was a second round before he went, so he was able to go home.

As I said, a really great conversation.

Last Tuesday, we were able to go to a gathering hosted by our friend and former colleague Art. Art used to work at CVCA, but he has been working at a school in Haiti for several years now, and so when he is home, we are always excited to catch up with him  to see how things are going. This time around, Art and his family hosted a drop-in at a park so that it would be easier for everyone to come and see him.

We got there, and were pleased at the number of people we knew. Art was there, of course, and, exciting to us, so was his fiancee – he had proposed just two days before. His fiancee is a lovely Haitian woman who has spearheaded an effort to provide school tuition to Haitian children, as well as getting a school built after the earthquake from two years ago. She is a remarkable woman, and we are very happy for Art. We did get to chat with both of them for several minutes at the party, and we saw and chatted with several CVCA folks as well.

On Wednesday,w e headed over to Porthouse Theater to see the play Sunshine Boys. Our friend Brandon designed lights for the production, and he recommended it. The play focuses on two old men who used to have a vaudeville act together; they had split up years before and had not spoken since. Now, CBS wants to feature them on a show about the history of comedy, and the play follows their attempt to put their differences behind them and put on the act one more time.

We liked the play – it was smile-worthy throughout, and laugh-inducing in several places. The humor was subdued a bit by the well-acted anger the two men felt toward each other, but that was key to the plot, so I cannot take anything away from that. There were two main sets – the living room of one of the old men, and the TV studio – and both were well done and detailed, including water stains in the living room.

One unexpected thing not in the play was that it was really hot that evening (and all week, actually). There were several points in the play where the actors commented on being cold, and put on sweaters or extra blankets. You could hear murmurs of sympathy go through the audience.

On Thursday, we headed up to Aladdin’s restaurant for supper. One of Mer’s favorite former students was again waitressing there, so we wanted to say hi. The former student is about to head to Case Western to work on her master’s degree, so this may well be the last summer she needs to waitress at Aladdin’s. She is a great person, so we both hope she does extraordinarily well. She will actually be teaching a freshman English class at Case, so Mer was pretty pleased by that.

On Friday, we made it to one last graduation party, as well as heading off to Maine for vacation. The grad party was one hosted by two students, both of whom were in Royal Fools, my improv group, so I was pleased we could make it. Dubbs was there, and a bunch of students from Mer’s English classes, so we had a great time. That also acted as supper for us so we did not have to stop for supper on the road. We made it as far as Rochester on Friday, which left about nine hours to drive on Saturday.

Last Sunday, we had our second summer Hopkins study with Matt and Liz. Hopkins was a late nineteenth century poet and Jesuit priest. His poetry is highly regarded, even by secular scholars, and it is in many cases very difficult. Hopkins had a wide command of language (he knew Latin, Greek, and Welsh in addition to English), and he often uses obscure words, uses secondary meanings, or uses words in unexpected ways. His poems generally tend to be about God, with a smaller number of poems that romanticize and celebrate nature. Since his poetry is so difficult, Mer and I decided to hook up with Mat and Liz so the four of us would be encouraged to read the works – plus, Matt and Liz are seriously smart people.

We had a good lunch of pizza, which we ate out on Matt and Liz’s back deck. It was really hot out, but we had some shade provided by an umbrella. After lunch, we moved out to the back yard and sat under a huge shade tree and ate brownies. We also did our poetry study there. We covered four or five poems, but left off before we covered Hopkins’ most famous work, “The Wreck of the Deutschland.” It is a long and difficult poem, so we decided to not try to cram it into a few minutes. Mer had to leave to go to the anniversary party of some family friends, but I stayed behind and chatted with Matt and Liz, which is always a good time. Liz is a lawyer and Matt has his PhD in English, so they are very interesting people, and they have a very cute toddler who is fun to watch.

After Mer and I met back up at home, we ran out to our only grad party of the weekend. This was in yet another new-to-us park. I think we are determined to see every park in northeast Ohio, but it may take us our entire career to get to them all. This was a good-sized park with a fishing pond and a fountain, and the party was set up in one of the picnic shelters. We got there on the late side of the party, so by then it was a small gathering of mostly family. The mother had put together a photo album for her daughter, so we flipped though that and chatted with the mom, and then with Jasmine, Mer’s student. We ate some cake (we were still full from our late lunch), and enjoyed the evening. We headed back home a little after 7:00.

Last week was quiet again, but on Friday we did manage to go out to Ruby Tuesday’s in Canton. It was a good dinner, but expensive – I have reconciled myself to forty-dollar meals at Cheesecake Factory, but I am not used to it at other restaurants.

On Saturday, we had a happy day. We spent the early afternoon at Ray and Sara’s house as part of the celebration of their fiftieth anniversary. It was an informal affair, with kids running around everywhere and people dropping in and out – just how a George celebration should be. Aunt Mary was there, and we were able to see Ken and Janet as well as the George children and grandchildren. Fifty years of marriage should be celebrated, and it was a fine gathering. Somehow, the kids even tracked down all of the attendants from the wedding, so the entire wedding party was together again – that was neat.

We had to leave the party a bit early to go to a wedding celebration. Mer had her first former-student marriage. Two of her former students who’d graduated in 2007 got married a few weeks ago in South Carolina, and they were having a local celebration, to which they invited Meredith. It seemed a fitting follow-up to the fiftieth anniversary party.

The party was held at the bride’s parents’ home, which is lovely and large enough to accommodate the fifty or so people who were in attendance. I made myself comfortable on the back porch, where we could chat in smaller groups. We were both happy to see Mer’s former student Cara show up – she is quirky and fun. Also, the family of one of my Ceili Club students came, although Robyn herself could not make it. Again, it is rather nice being part of a community like CVCA – it surprises me how many places we bump into people we know.

The dinner was fabulous – it was catered, and I ate way too much. One of the caterers was one of Mer’s classmates back at CVCA, and it was the first time they had seen each other since graduation twenty years ago. Actually, that was the second such occurrence that day – the salon where Mer had gotten her hair done that morning is the workplace of another one of her classmates whom she had not seen in twenty years.

Although I will probably not be around to see it, I wish Calvin and Allison their own fiftieth anniversary party.

Later that evening, we hooked up with Dubbs and drove over to Blossom. Blossom is an outdoor concert venue, and is also the summer home of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. On Saturday, the Blossom Festival Orchestra (and men’s chorus) was being employed in providing the soundtrack to the movie The Pirates of the Caribbean. I am fond of the movie, and I liked the idea of hearing the soundtrack played live while the movie was playing, so it was an appealing evening. I had never been to the music part of Blossom before (Porthouse Theater is on the same grounds); it is massive. We had lawn seats where you sit any way you like on the grass slope of a large bowl that looks down on to the stage. We got there late enough that we were on the upper edge of the bowl, but we could still see one of the three movie screens, and we could hear just fine. It was a bit hard to see the orchestra because they were so far away, but the sound quality was excellent.

We sat in camping chairs, and we had a fun time. The orchestra did take one intermission, but otherwise played much of the two-hour movie. It was fun to see the film with the live music, and it was great to share the experience with two-thousand-plus people (it was packed) while still being able to visit with our own party. The people in front of us had some knowledge of Dubbs, and so offered us chocolate cake. I was stuffed from the wedding, but Mer and Dubbs both had some and said it was excellent. It was a happily social day.