Monday, wandering way too far off track
Early this morning, Louisville, Kentucky, snow in Joe's driveway. BTDT, don't need any snow but pictures the rest of my life!
Memories, personal and family memories are stirring this Monday because of my most excellent breakfast of leftovers: wild rice topped with chopped up bits of lamb shank, and olive oil poured over.
Mindful that this is my blog not yours, it doesn't bother me that I tell stories over and over again, and just so this morning.
This memory starts with the end of summer 1952, fall semester beginning my senior year at Bay High, and the annual fall resumption of our Sunday evening youth meetings at St Andrew's Episcopal Church. I was president that year, after having served a year as vice president with Tom Sale as president, Tom was off to W&L University in Virginia.
Linda's boyfriend, my best friend Philip, had a new girlfriend, and my girlfriend lived hundreds of miles away. So Linda and I sort of drifted together, for the dancing at church after youth group meetings, and either she or I managed to make sure she sat next to me the driver, in the middle of the front seat, for the Sunday evening drives in my family's station wagon, to and from the Cove, where we all lived, to church in St Andrews. That's how we got started over 71 years ago.
A few months later, by the Time of winter dances, Christmas Balls at the armory and at the yacht club, came around in December 1952, it seemed fine.
That's the PCNH newspaper clipping from the article about young people at the yacht club Christmas ball, December 1952. Girls in gowns, Linda wearing a corsage my mother made with camellias growing in our yard; boys with white dinner jacket, black bowtie, black pants, me obviously with a fresh, too close haircut. I was 17, senior at Bay High, Linda, 16, a junior.
By the Time another year or two went by, I was a regular presence at Linda's house, including often at mealtime, dinner, the noon meal, being prepared by Virginia, their cook, always excellent. For beef, their favorite seemed to be pot roast until the day a whole roast appeared on the dinner table, along with a serving bowl of rice, and a gravy boat with ladle that was filled with thin, black gravy. I remember at the end of the meal, complimenting Virginia and Mrs Peters on the roast beef. Linda's mother said, "that's lamb, leg of lamb." I'd never had lamb before, and it instantly became a favorite.
That evening I told Mama that I'd had roast leg of lamb at the Peters' house, and I asked why we'd never had lamb at our house. Mama said, because when your daddy was at the Maritime Service officers school in New London during the War, they were served mutton every single day, and now he can't stand even the smell of mutton or lamb.
Which - - it's my memory, starting with my breakfast this morning - - takes me to the visit that Mama and I made to New London the summer of - it was either 1943 or 1944, I was either eight years old or about to turn eight.
Mama, Gina, Walt and I drove from PC to her parents' house in Pensacola. Gina and Walt stayed with our grandparents the week or two that Mama and I went to Connecticut to visit my father, and while we were away, they got into memorable trouble. But to go on. We traveled by train, from the L&N Station in Pensacola to Montgomery, where we changed trains for WashingtonDC. My memory includes feeling grown and trusted as, dark night, I waited alone on the train platform between tracks, looking after our suitcases while Mama went inside the train station. We stopped in WashingtonDC to visit EG, my father's older sister, for several, to me very magical days, climbing up and down the steps to their little balcony halfway down the hillside overlooking the Potomac River, riding the electric streetcars, at the zoo where I saw my first, horrifying tarantula, walking around way, way up high in the dome of the capitol, climbing the Washington Monument, one day riding out to Skyline Drive in their 1939 Chevrolet; most exciting, visiting the bookstore on the sidewalk level at Woodward & Lothrop's Department Store.
After several days, back on the train to New London, Connecticut, where we stayed at the Quaker House Hotel downtown. My father had brought me an "officer's cap" with black bill, which I loved wearing and thought it made me look adult. One day we walked a short distance, stopping halfway across the bridge that stretched across the Thames River, to watch a WW2 US Navy submarine sail under the bridge, probably on her way to war. As we stood looking from the bridge, a sailor on the sub''s conning tower looked up at us, caught my eye and saluted me, and I saluted him back. Excitedly I exclaimed, "He thinks I'm an officer." My father corrected me, "He's being nice, he probably has a boy of his own just your age."
My balloon was popped, the basis, perhaps, for a psychological diversion some other day, but eighty years on, that summer, and that train trip, and seeing my first submarine, and getting my first salute, is still there in what that same aunt, EG, decades later, called my "treasure chest of memories."
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What I actually meant to do this Monday morning, having slept ten hours 8:30 PM to 6:30 AM, was show and briefly discuss our Lectionary readings for next Sunday. Maybe tomorrow then.
The Collect
Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
The Psalm
Psalm 62:6-14
6 For God alone my soul in silence waits; * truly, my hope is in him.
7 He alone is my rock and my salvation, * my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.
8 In God is my safety and my honor; * God is my strong rock and my refuge.
9 Put your trust in him always, O people, * pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.
10 Those of high degree are but a fleeting breath, * even those of low estate cannot be trusted.
11 On the scales they are lighter than a breath, * all of them together.
12 Put no trust in extortion; in robbery take no empty pride; * though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
13 God has spoken once, twice have I heard it, * that power belongs to God.
14 Steadfast love is yours, O Lord, * for you repay everyone according to his deeds.
The Epistle
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
The Gospel
Mark 1:14-20
After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.