'Twas the Month before XMAS

From summer direct into winter, apparently: as we drove out 231 for Tallahassee yesterday the thermometer in Linda’s car read 34 degrees and in the fields along the highway the weeds were covered with frost shining in the rising sun. Sure enough, the electronic device that TJCC gave me for Christmas some years ago reads 52, so I guess winter is upon us early. Not quite ready yet, but as long as the temperature doesn’t drop, it’s cool, Baby. A bit chilly for sitting on the porch. Here in my blue lift chair, feet and legs covered with a light blanket, sliding glass door open to let in the Month Before Christmas. Across a calm, dark Bay, Shell Island beckoning but no takers, and Life Is Good. Retired with plenty going on to exercise mind, body and soul, lots of people to love, and I’d rather be 80 than 20 and starting my senior year of college.

Well, I don’t know, what I’m thinking about right now with this weather is that it feels just like my first week at Navy OCS in Newport, Rhode Island, July 1957. I thought I'd moved into a refrigerator. That was fun, I might go back after all. Or spring 1978 and 42, retired from the Navy and heading off to Australia for the first time. Oz at the time was like stepping back 75 years, and by the time I’d been there five weeks, one thought was to migrate to Sydney. 

Yesterday morning we attended for the last time, the wonderful Grandpersons Day at Holy Comforter Episcopal School. Next fall, Charlotte will go to public middle school and Caroline will be a high school freshman. Both girls are musical, Caroline plays flute and Charlotte trumpet in their school bands, maybe those interests will continue in their next schools such that there will be reasons for us to keep on enjoying their school days with them.

In the news, horrific events since 9/11, and building, the Paris atrocity, and now a NATO nation shooting down a Russian warplane, feels grotesquely like living into the first chapter of Alas, Babylon, The Day After, On the Beach, or The Road. I think I'll take my past over your future.

Anu Garg again.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We haven't yet learned how to stay human when assembled in masses. -Lewis Thomas, physician and author (25 Nov 1913-1993)