Have you ever had so many things that you wanted to say, to talk about, to write, that they congested your mind such that nothing can get out? Maybe when you're ninety years old you'll remember my question and know exactly what I meant and how it is.  Maybe not. But that's how I'm finding it these days. There's all this stuff. I can't even get it organized in my head anymore, it's a jumble. For one, retiring from the work of getting a sermon together; for the best years of life, sermon prep every week, then for more years a privilege one Sunday in three or four but nevertheless and ongoing - - a task of thought, organization, composing and reduction - - was a mental self-discipline that has slipped away. Satisfyingly retired, I do not want to resume that chapter of life: as well as mental, it's a physical strain that's beyond me. Sundays anymore then, my work is to show up, listen and hear, not to walk around up front and do most of the talking. It...

We bought at Tanya's Garden, and Linda cooked, turnips, one of my lifelong favorites. Mixed the white turnip roots with a can of Glory brand turnip greens. Although usually a bit spicy, Glory does a decent job with the Southern vegetables I grew up with.  Of greens, I love fresh spinach, cooked not raw, also Popeye's brand canned spinach, which I try always to have a can or two in the pantry. Love collard greens too, we never had them at home when I was growing up because Mama couldn't stand the smell of them cooking, so my first taste of collard greens was that summer 1954 when I worked my seven days a week job at Edgewater Gulf Beach development of single story brick multiplexes, a resort at PCB, and the group of Black women who worked there used to cook collard greens and chicken & rice in one of the empty apartments for their noon dinner, and sometimes invited us (the other boy who was working with me and me) to eat with them, which I recall as a treat of deliciousn...

So here we are with this today, not a big threat at the moment but looks like it could curve around and maybe give us fits this Time next week? Maybe, maybe not. Our hurricane kit of food &c is ready to go on a moment's notice, but we'll need a tank of gasoline. Not to mention bringing all the stuff in off 7H porches. Thinking positive, though. In event of evacuation, where to head out to? The worst would be out on the road stuck in unmoving traffic as a major hurricane sweeps through. And as always, my concern would be Kristen. The place having stood strong (but with damage) through Category 5 Hurricane Michael in October 2018, we might be safest sticking right here in Harbour Village no matter what, eh? As Yul Brynner pondered in The King and I, "... is a puzzlement." Time will tell. ++++++++ Earth continues its course around the Sun and the calendar - - an earthling construct of Time that means nothing in the greater immensities of the Universe - - moves on suc...

My father was born 115 years ago today, June 11, 1911 in Pensacola, Florida. Several days later he was brought home to St Andrews on the steamer SS TARPON, by his parents A D Weller and Carrie Lee Godfrey Weller - - the coming home event was recorded in a current issue of The St Andrews Bay News.  Somewhere around here I have a photograph of Mom, my grandmother, holding my father as an infant as she sits at the top of the steps out front of their house, which at the Time was where The Old Place is now but before it was built. It was the blue house that is now at the SE corner of 9th Street and Calhoun Avenue in St Andrews. My father's oldest memory was as a baby, watching the electric lightbulb hanging down from a wire in either the dining room or the kitchen, swing back and forth as that house was rolled across Calhoun Avenue on logs, from its old place to where it is now, so The Old Place could be built on its lot.  Somewhere around here also, I have a photo of my fathe...

My drive to blog is expiring. Even the loosened fingers perch idle over the keys as I think about going back to bed - - up way too early, but WTH, last evening I was so exhausted that I was asleep for the night between seven-thirty and eight o'clock, opened eyes to look at the clock reading 11:30 PM and back to sleep. Open eyes again at 1:30 AM ending a weird dream in which five men, shady characters,  were caught having a meeting in my bathroom and refused to leave even when I brought in a police officer to force them out. The officer went out and returned with a rifle, but they ignored us and went on with their meeting. In hospitality, I brought them a plate of sandwiches, which led the police officer, a woman, to think I wasn't serious about expelling them. When I woke up at 1:30 they were still in there.  It was a big bathroom, with huge, comfortable brown leather English-club-type chairs.  Anyway, up at 1:30, sat outside on 7H porch enjoying life, Time, and the Unive...

  Ten-thirty church and now back home digging into my snack, a jar of Vita brand herring in sour cream, with a sip per bite of martini on the rocks: splash of dry vermouth, splash of olive juice from the olive jar to make it dirty, two giant green olives, an unmeasured and generous pour of Boodles gin. Stir stir stir because it's in a drinking glass, not a martini shaker. Herring and gin martini go well. I also enjoy Vita's pickled herring in wine & vinegar. It's all a treat that should be enjoyed with ice cold vodka, which I've done, but poured and stirred a haphazard martini this Time, usually I'm more measured and precise, but to hell with that, nomesane?  For upcoming Fathers' Day I've ordered enough frozen lobster meat to make us a couple of lobster rolls, Linda prefers the tail meat, I prefer the knuckle and claw, so some of each. Also for Fathers' Day I'm considering ordering from NYC Russ & Daughters' Deli, a couple of their herri...