Twenty-Five Years Later

Many of us are thinking of 9/11/2001, when the terrorist attacks on the US was made. Just before 8:46, when the first plane hit, Warren came downstairs and sat quietly next to me on the sofa, holding my hand. 

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I wrote and posted the piece below. We are not the same country and this is not the same world that we lived in even 15 years ago, but I think this still speaks for what I still feel.

One Decade

Even if we are not all writing about it today, we are thinking about it. Even if we claim we are not thinking about it, we are.

Those of us who experienced September 11, 2001, carry a psychic wound deep inside us. We know where we were when we first heard, where we were when it sank in this was not an accident.

My law partner Scott came to the office some 20 minutes after I did that day and told me he'd have been there sooner but there'd been a plane crash at the World Trade Center. He happened to have a radio in his office and so found a news station. Minutes later he yelled in disbelief as the second plane hit. Then they were saying something about the Pentagon.

By then, I was in Scott's office. We looked at each other. The Pentagon? What the ...?

The first tower came down as Scott and I were driving to my house to get in front of a television set. We both started yelling in disbelief and shock as the radio blared the news. The second tower came down just as we turned on the television, and we yelled again.

Flight 93 had already hit the ground.

Scott's friend, Bob, a New York firefighter, was already dead. His body would later be found in one of the tower stairwells. He died trying to save lives.

My boys were both in school that day. Ben, then a sophomore, spent the day in the same classroom as they suspended the schedule and kept everyone in front of televisions. Sam was at the 5th-6th middle school, and someone decided to keep the story from the students so as not to alarm them. Rumors leaked out all the same, and finally Sam and others learned the story from the gym teacher.

Sam was only 11.

Ben was only 15.

For the next 24 hours, everyone everywhere stayed in front of a television set. Even when I finally slept, I saw the towers peel down in my sleep. The next morning, I snapped the set back on and resumed watching.

Last Friday night I went online and looked at pictures and videos of that day. I was stunned at how much I had already forgotten in a decade.

Two memories I have carried close through this whole decade. The first is the members of Congress addressing the nation that evening from the steps of the Capitol, then singing "God Bless America." Raggedy at first, they finished strong. When I saw it ten years ago, I burst into tears. When I saw it again Friday night, I wept anew.

The other memory is that of Sam creeping into the television room early on the 12th while I watched international coverage. The story was delivered in French; the footage showed military boats racing across the water. Sam watched intently, then turned and asked "are they coming to bomb us too?" When I said no, that was a French story about the US military response, tears trickled down Sam's cheeks and I hugged him hard, my tears falling on his head.

My life has changed in innumerable ways, so very many of them for the better, since that terrible day. Our country has changed in innumerable ways, not all of them good, since that terrible day.

My boys are now grown, now 2500 miles away. If something of this magnitude happens again, I will send my swiftest prayers and hopes to their sides.

If something of this magnitude happens again, I will send my swiftest prayers and hopes to this country.

It has already been a decade.

It has already been a lifetime.

It has only been since yesterday.

Inch Eleven and a Half: Another Piece of the Past

Work by Brian Blum ©1980 

In my last post, I reached back to law school days after finding a copy of One L in one of our local Little Free Libraries. (And yes, it is bringing back memories of that whole first year experience.) At about the same time, I received an email from the law school announcing upcoming faculty retirements. One of the names, quite possibly the last professor I had decades ago who is still teaching, was on the list.

It has been 45 years, after all.

And, it turns out I have an unexpected tie back to my law school past beyond just recognizing that name.The retiring professor, Brian Blum, was (and perhaps still is) an artist. I am not talking about his ability to teach law (although it looks as if he had a long and distinguished career); I mean he was an artist in the traditional meaning of the word. And I have had one of his works in my possession for the last 45 or 46 years.

Not unlike my first copy of One L, the art piece came to me courtesy of my late father-in-law, Sid Lezak. I believe he and his wife Muriel had me and my then husband (their son) over for a meal with Brian Blum. Don't ask me why; there was some connection, possibly South Africa, that resulted in this meal. Sid knew Blum was also an artist and, if shaky memory serves me, asked him to bring some of his works to the house. My birthday was in the vicinity of that evening, and Sid told me to "choose one," gifting it to me on the spot.

I did choose and my Blum original has traveled many, many miles and many, many years with me ever since. That's it at the start of this post.

In recent years, as I begin to sort through possessions and think about what I want to pass on to my friends and family, I have thought of reaching out to Professor Blum and asking him if he would like his work back. Seeing the notice about his retirement spurred me to write him an email, telling him of how it is that I have one of his pieces, and asking him if he would like to have it back for his family or have me donate it to the law school in his honor. 

I then took a deep breath and hit "send."

It is a holiday weekend and I hope that NO professors are reading their email (the year is over), especially a retiring one. But I admit I hope that I do get a response. And if he says he would love it back, I look forward to packaging it carefully and shipping it back, carrying more long ago law school memories with it as it goes.

Inch Eleven: A Reread

 Because of things going on this week, I knew last week that I needed a book that was lightweight and that I could throw in a bag without worrying about it getting rumpled or crumpled. A few weeks before, stopping at one of the several Little Free Libraries that are between our house and my dad's apartment in Assisted Living, I saw One L and pulled it out. It is a paperback, already worn around the edges, and fits what I need. 

Oh my. Talk about memories flooding through me.

I first read One L, Scott Turow's account of his first year at Harvard Law School (1975-1976) in 1978. Given that the book came out in 1977, my copy may have been a first edition. I did not buy the book. Rather, my then father-in-law, the late, great (I mean that) Sidney I. Lezak, gave it to me, writing on the inside, "The best is yet to come, Sid." (Yes, Sid was a lawyer, to say the least.) I was beginning law school in the fall of that year, and he wanted me to know he was supportive.

I read One L when I got it. I read it several times over the following years. Years later, I  may have sold it, or donated it, or neither. It no longer had its dust jacket; a later spouse abhorred dust jackets and proceeded to denude any and all books in our home wearing one. (He also resented that I still had a book signed by my former father-in-law, but no need to rehash that issue.) 

This month, probably right around now, marks 45 years since I graduated from law school. I remember our commencement speaker—the renowned civil procedure specialist and legal ethicist Geoffrey Hazard—not because of what he spoke about, but because he was a close friend of Sid's and his son Jim and I were friends. (I have no idea what Geoff spoke about.) I remember being relieved that law school was done, done, done. 

This copy was also bought as a gift for a to-be law student. The front page is dated 12/05 and is to "Mary." It reads "May you study hard so you may achieve your dreams. This law primer is in my opinion, one of the finest works that encapsulates the first year of law school. Remember that you may achieve anything that you desire. God bless you!" I don't know if Mary has been the sole owner of the book for the last 21 years, but on flipping through it, I see sections underlined and occasional marginal notes in both pencil and ink, including one, undoubtedly Mary's, where she wrote "I wonder what it is like in 2006?" (reacting to Turow's commentary towards the end that law schools were changing in their approaches, especially with younger and more diverse faculties). 

On the verge of rereading One L again, I am wondering what my response to it will be 48 years later after that first read, and 45 years after graduating. Almost every professor I had back then, some of whom would have fit right into Turow's account, has retired; I just got an email that one of the youngest professors of my era is now retiring. (Most of my former professors have also since died.) To the extent any of us in my class respond to calls for Class Notes, most of my classmates have, like me, also retired. 

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." (And yes, it was 1977 when we first read those lines.)

Let's see what galaxies, if any, One L transports me to. 

Skyward

Photo by Samuele Bertoli on Unsplash

Yesterday started very early. I had a 7 a.m. appointment in Columbus with my oncologist, which meant getting up at 5:30 to be on the road by 6:15.  I dressed and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Waiting for Warren to come down, I stepped out on our back deck to see how much the temperature had dropped overnight. It was still dark with no hint of sunrise, so I looked up to see if there were any stars visible.

There were stars and there was Orion, hanging in the northeast sky, brilliantly lit. It was my first fall sighting of it.

Orion is my favorite constellation. Robert Frost put Orion in his poem "The Star-splitter," which has been a longtime treasured poem in my mental poetry collection: "You know Orion always comes up sideways..." Orion is one of the very few constellations I can readily identify, which is certainly a part of why it is my favorite. And way back in my misty past, I first saw and had someone identify Orion in a brilliantly dark Wisconsin night sky, seeing it from the outside walk surrounding the telescope dome at Yerkes Observatory. That first view of Orion, of knowing what I was looking at, has stuck with me.

I called Warren outside to see Orion and we both marveled at the sky. Then we went on with our morning.

The time came for Warren to head to class, I walked outside with him to give him a kiss and wave goodbye; both are important to us. When I turned to go back into the house, I noticed a moth resting on the lintel between the storm door and the house door. It must have fluttered on it when we stepped out. I opened the storm door wider: "Go on, little moth. You don't need to be in our house." 

It was then that I noticed that one of the moth's wings was badly damaged, almost as if something had bit a chunk out of it. 

Oh. I figured I would have to pick it up and set it on a bush.

The moth had other ideas. When I bent closer, it fluttered up off the lintel and flew into the front yard, heading towards one of the flower beds. True, it flew in a jagged, erratic fashion, but fly it did. 

That moth made an impression on me. "That's me," I thought. Or rather, I hoped that was me: yes, damaged but still able to move forward. Maybe jagged and erratic at times, but still going.

Orion in the morning and a moth giving me a lesson in flying midday. And all I had to do was look up.

Reflections on Pickles and Poetry

Of course I still have this book on my shelf! 

Way, way, way back in the day, I purchased (through Scholastic Books, the source of all my school-era books), a slim volume of poetry with the enchanting name of Reflections On a Gift of Watermelon Pickles and Other Modern Verse.

The copyright is 1966; I probably bought it in 1967 or 1968 (when I was in 6th or 7th grade). Looking through it now, as it nears 60 years of age, I smile at what passed for "Modern Verse," both in light of who the book was intended for (young adolescents) and what the poetry choices are. (The times they were a-Changin' even then.)

But the book resurfaced in my mind in recent days not because of poetry, but because of pickles. And reflections on pickles. Not watermelon pickles, but just old-fashioned homemade sweet pickles. 

My grandmother Nelson, who pops up in these pages every now and then, canned everything she could—tomatoes, beans, corn, just to name a few—especially at this time of year as the garden started to hit maximum production. And one of my sharpest memories of her canning still is the sweet pickles she put up every year.

They were delicious. Period. Only once decades later did I taste a homemade sweet pickle that recalled hers. The vendor at the farmers' market selling them never returned, so I could never talk pickles with him. 

Decades later from my grandmother's kitchen, looking at the recent gift of a cucumber, I wondered whether I could find a recipe to make refrigerator sweet pickles. Google complied and there I was, pickling away.

Cutting the cucumber:

Preparing the pickling syrup:

And pouring it over the cucumbers:

After that, I let them set for a day or so in the refrigerator, then tasted them. Ehhh, not quite what I was looking for, but not awful. That night, talking with my Aunt Gail, I told her about my experiment, first telling her how I still missed the sweet pickles that Grandma (her mother) made. Gail chuckled and said, "Mom made a 14-day pickle," which I have since Googled enough to know that is more work than I am willing to invest. 

"These pickles just aren't the right flavor, Gail," I said, explaining that the recipe took only celery seed for its spices, and I thought I would pour off the syrup, add a hefty shake of pickling spices, and reheat it.

Gail agreed immediately, then said she would add some extra sugar to boot. "You often have to do that with sweet pickles, April. Not a lot, but you know what I mean."

And indeed I did. The next day I poured the syrup off, added pickling spices and sugar, and poured the "new" syrup back over the cucumbers. 

The next day, I tried one. Okay, now we're talking.

The pickles are not my grandmother's, but they are close enough to bring back memories, all of them sweet.

I know, they are not watermelon pickles. Truth be told, I have never had watermelon pickles. But these words I am penning now are a result of the gift of a cucumber to be turned into refrigerator sweet pickles.

And that is close enough. 

As for the poetry collection itself, which you can find on Wikipedia, probably the real reason I have carried this book along with me for so long is the poem on the back cover, Eve Merriam's How To Eat A Poem:

Some poems stay fresh forever, pickled or not.

Around the Kitchen Table

Note: I started this post several weeks ago. Before I got very far on it, life intervened in the form of my broken wrist. While I continue to figure out ways to incorporate more writing into my daily life (and that means dictation), I decided I would return to this post and finish it. My observation about the state of our living room is still true today.  Thanks to the wrist fracture, as well as some other recent issues involving my left knee, the living room still reflects a lot of medical trauma. It is what it is!

***************************************************************************

I have never hidden or shied away from revealing my working class background. Or, to be more truthful, my working class poor background when I was a young child. And, as this is a divider, still, in this town, my hometown, I have never hidden the fact that I come from the East side of town, which still, all too often, immediately translates into poor, uneducated, and worse. We are "those people," as if those of us from that side of town are some strange aliens (in the extraterrestrial sense) who somehow were plunked into this community. 

And sometimes, even without anyone talking about origins, there are things that I do or say that immediately reveal my background and upbringing. 

Which brings us to the kitchen table. 

In my family when I was growing up, and in the families of friends in my youth, the kitchen table was a gathering point. (Oh, additional note: there was no dining room table in either of my childhood homes. Or dining room, for that matter.) The kitchen table was where my parents and their friends would socialize with pots of coffee and endless games of euchre. The kitchen table was where, if there was a serious discussion to be had, you sat and talked. 

That is where life happened.

I was a young adult before I learned that other people, and that includes "nicer" (more refined, more educated, more whatever) people, socialized and talked in the living room. Not around a kitchen table, but sitting on sofas and in upholstered chairs, with coffee tables on which to set down food and drink and such. 

Huh.

And that learning experience has stuck with me to this very day. Friends or family come over and we visit in the living room. Yes, we use the kitchen table for eating (I got rid of my dining room table years ago), including with others, but the talk, unless it is during or immediately after a meal, is almost always in the living room.

How other people live...okay.

So recently I had two friends, sisters in fact, come over for tea and talk. I made sure the living room was picked up (it is still showing signs of recovering from my lengthy medical catastrophe; even a little bit of picking up makes it look better) because I knew we would likely put some food on the kitchen table (to then put on a plate and carry into the living room), I made sure it was clean too.

Kell arrived first. She came to the door carrying a box of goodies, made a beeline for the kitchen (which you can see from our front door), and asked, without even a pause, "Does it make a difference where I sit?" 

I almost fell over.

Someone just automatically assumed we were going to sit at the kitchen table? Be still, my heart!

Kell’s sister, Shell, arrived soon after and didn’t even blink when she found herself sitting next to the City recycling tub tucked away on the back side of the table. 

“What a great idea! I am always wondering what to do with mine!”

For the next two hours, the three of us sat at the kitchen table and talked, laughed, cried, shared. It was a heartwarming visit with good friends. And it all took place around the kitchen table.

So here's to kitchen tables. Here's to life.

This Year's Gardens: Part 11

 This year's gardens continue. I just this morning started clearing out the Hej garden to replant zucchini in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, we get a crop. I have had a month of more medical appointments than I want (August has contained eight—count 'em! Eight!—counting the two this coming week) and they take a toll on my durability, so I suspect it will next weekend before the Hej is cleared, tilled again, and planted. That task aside, I continue to eat tomatoes (Oh, joy! Rapture!) and think about doing yet another batch of pesto with the late August basil. 

This weekend, however, I was reminded again (always) of how gardens never fail to delight and amuse. This year's gardens are no exception.

Delight #1: Any other summer, the lettuce is usually burnt out by mid-July due to heat and sun. Oh, there are a few straggly bits here and there, and sometimes a volunteer or two will pop up in the fall once things cool down, but lettuce is NOT a summer crop around here.

Until this year. The lettuce beds are going strong and we are in the third week of August. We have been picking and eating the Black Seeded Simpson since early July (maybe late June) and now are adding the Butter Crunch to the salad bowl as well. Fresh-picked lettuce is so delicious that I told Warren I am not sure I can return to eating store-bought lettuce when the season is over. I have not bought tomatoes from a grocery store for years because of the qualitative difference; I wonder if lettuce will be the same. 

I remind myself that back in my youth, lettuce out of season was something you did not see in our local grocery stores. Can we go without lettuce-based salads for several months? Hmmn.

Delight #2: Still in the lettuce bed, but this is a totally unexpected joy. Because the lettuce burns out so early, I have never seen it go to seed. Ever. I could not even visualize a lettuce plant going to seed. 

Until this year. The Black Seeded Simpson has been so hearty and so prolific that it has started to flower. I nipped off a number of the flowering heads to prolong the lettuce, but some I am letting go to full flower. 

A flowering lettuce plant is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. 

Look how delicate those flowers are.

I did not note in my gardening book anything more than the names and locations of the lettuce beds in my garden, but from what I can find online from checking a number of seed companies, Black Seeded Simpson is a heritage lettuce, which means they will grow from saved seed. I am tempted to harvest some of the seeds and hold them for next year.

Amusement of the summer (as in "the joke is on me"): the Cherokee Trail of Tears black pole beans. Not the product; these beans are prolific! No, it is my ignorance in realizing how these beans (and maybe all pole beans) take care of themselves when it comes to drying. I went out to pick more of them today and realized about three bean pods into the harvest that they have been drying themselves. All I need to do was pick them and pop the pods open. Out roll those beautiful beans. 

"Why have you been working so hard, April? We know what we are doing."

My beans picked last week were fine; I dried them for soup when the weather changes. Today's beans will join those, but right now today's beans are laughing at me, saying "Duh, April. You don't know beans about beans." 

As this realization hit me (the work being done by the sun and the beans themselves), I thought back to my past experiences with beans. There were always beans in my grandparents' garden; Grandma Nelson canned green beans by the quart. My parents also grew beans and Mom canned as well. Heck, even I grew and canned beans. But they were bush beans, always something in what I will call the "green bean" family, and you ate them fresh or canned them, period. I have no memories, even stories passed down, of anyone growing pole beans (which can also be eaten fresh). I do not remember seeing poles or structures for them in any of the gardens. I certainly do not have any memories of anyone (and this would have been on my dad's side of the family, as they were the ones whose gardens I knew growing up) drying beans. 

But now I know. 

A phrase several of my medical providers have been using lately is "knowledge is power, " referring to some of the testing I have been going through. I am going to steal that phrase and apply it to my beans: Knowledge IS power, and the power here is not working so darn hard for the same outcome! 

Today's haul 

This Year's Gardens: Part 6

 While the tomatoes take their sweet time about ripening and the zucchinis vines lounge around like long-ago debutantes in their big yellow blooms, the basil has been coming on like gangbusters. Enough so that I could cut quite a bit and make pesto this weekend. 

How do I make pesto? The very best "recipe" I ever read came out of the New York Times several years back. The reporters were on a hunt for the best in-house pesto on the menu of restaurants in the Hudson Valley. When they decided they had found the best (using such criteria as taste (of course), texture, and consistency), they asked the restauranteur if she would share her recipe. Absolutely, she said. She put basil leaves, olive oil, garlic, parmesan (or other) cheese, and pecans into a food processor and started it up. She would add more of any of those ingredients if she felt the batch needed it, and would throw in some salt and sometimes pepper. 

That was it. She made pesto totally by feel and taste and sight. Did it look right? What did it taste like? Was something missing? What was the consistency? Was it pesto to her? If not, then she would add this or that of the basic ingredients to make what she wanted and expected her pesto to be.

I read that article and adopted her approach wholeheartedly. It has never failed me. As an extra bonus, my beloved Grandma Skatzes comes to mind when I make pesto. She was almost entirely deaf and had very little vision in her later years, so Grandma cooked by feel and by taste. Although she never tasted, let alone made, pesto in her life, Grandma would have understood the approach immediately. 

I gladly share my "recipe" when asked. The recipe always baffles the person asking for it.  "So how much basil do I need?" As much as you want. "Well, how much olive oil?" Whatever it takes. Just trust the process and trust your senses. I think it is that last comment—just trust your senses—that throws the person off. Just trust my senses? What does that even mean?

Here is my weekend adventure in three abbreviated steps. 

Cut and wash the basil:

Throw everything in the food processor and hit the start button:

Check to make sure the results pass your personal pesto test (look at it, stir it, smell it, taste it):

If the end product tastes like pesto to you, you are golden! Pack it away in small containers (pesto freezes wonderfully) and clean up the bowls and food processor. Life is good. 

There will be more pesto making in the weeks ahead. In the late summer, I will let the basil go to flower (I have already been nipping buds off with my fingers) so the bees can enjoy them. 

And one of those days, one of those tomatoes will ripen! 

Commonplace Quote: A Chair

 

Photo by Kelly Miller on Unsplash

"Remembering is a chair that is hard to sit still in."

Sarah Broom, The Yellow House

"A chair that is hard to sit still in."

I have to think about that concept. 

When is it hard to sit still in a chair? 

When you are waiting for something to happen or someone to arrive. That happened to me last week when longtime friends who live far away but were in town for family matters said they would come over "sometime" that afternoon. Indeed they did come over, but for the last 30 minutes or so before their arrival, as the afternoon wore on, I found it impossible to stay seated for more than a few minutes. Instead I kept prowling by the front window to see if they had arrived yet.

Even reading could not hold me.

When else is it hard to sit still in a chair?

When the chair is uncomfortable. Goldilocks, of course, had this issue: too big, too hard, too whatever. I don't mind a hard chair, provided it has a sturdy back (our kitchen chairs, now in their 21st year of service). I have not had too many experiences with a chair that was physically uncomfortable to sit still in. 

So let me go back to the "remembering"  that starts the quote. 

If I am remembering something good, something warm, something satisfying, I can sink into that memory, let it wrap its arms around me like a comfortable, broken-in chair.

The chairs I can see from the couch in our downstairs study - those kitchen chairs, the green chairs in the living room  - those trigger some warm memories. I bought them all when I was moving out of the house my then-spouse and I had bought 12 years earlier with such high hopes. These chairs were my steps in making a new home for myself and my sons. They served us well then, they continued to serve us well when Ben went off to college and Warren joined our home. They are now in their 3rd home since their initial purchase, and I cannot imagine our house without them.

If I am remembering something that hurt me something that did damage - then the chair of remembering is indeed hard to sit still in. No matter how far I have come from that long ago event, it can still sting or worse. At that point, I am all over the place, wriggling on that chair, until I can let the memory go, take a deep breath, and once again sit easily in the chair. 

I saved that quote in late 2019. I would probably save it again, even when I find it easy to sit in that chair of memory. While typing this out this morning, my mind went back to my grandmother Skatzes and the study chairs she sat in - kitchen or living room - and the joy of sitting beside her. 

That is a chair of remembering I could sit still in for a long, long time. 

Past and Present

 

I was at a City Council meeting—our City Council—last night for the first time in years.

Years.

I went with Warren because Council was talking about a long-delayed reboot of its flag and banner policy. The Symphony has banners for Concert Week that have not been flown in months as the City has been slowly reviewing its policies in light of the Supreme Court ruling in Shurtleff v. Boston. (Note: Not much progress was made last night either.)

I had a small sense of Old Home Week when I walked into Council chambers. I used to serve on our Civil Service Commission, so there was a joke with our Police Chief (who'd been a captain back in those days) and I was able to congratulate our interim Fire Chief, someone I had gotten to know well from those years. (The firefighters union, to my delight, was ever-present at our meetings; our interim Chief was in that bunch back then.) The head of HR, also someone I had known forever, came in behind me, tapping me on the shoulder and leaning in to tell me she was glad to see me. And I sat right next to the young person who I will be voting for in the next Ward elections.

I do not know most of our Council members at all anymore, although I still know the City Manager and, of course, the City Planning Director. ("Of course" because I also sat on our Historic Preservation Commission for several years. Plus I was a zoning lawyer , so even thought the current planner and I did not overlap extensively in that era, I still worked with him and his department before I hung it up.)

I found myself thinking back, way way back, to myself as a college student, to the year I was in between schools, and all the hours I spent at council and school board meetings during that time.

When I withdrew from Chicago at the end of my freshman year, I retreated to Delaware,  moving in with my Aunt Ginger and my Grandma Skatzes. It was a long period of putting myself back together — in every way imaginable. I did not work those months. I volunteered at my high school, teaching classes with the greatest English teacher I ever had. And I started attending council and school board meetings.

I had met a newly elected council member on Election Night that fall, and he encouraged me to see what city government was all about. As I was thinking of staying in Delaware, I started thinking maybe I should get a better idea of how the school board operated as well.

It ended up being a fascinating time – I made friends I still have, I felt at home at council meetings (never school board, interestingly enough), and I began to learn how this city functioned. I knew the insider jokes and side comments at Council. I change my career goal to law school, realizing that, if I was going to stay in Delaware, as I was strongly thinking I would, I wanted to make a difference and have a say in how the community operated. I started to have plans to run for Council at the next election cycle.

That was in late 1975, early 1976. By that summer, I was back in Chicago, eventually on my way to living out west for several years. I did not return to Delaware permanently until the fall of 1990.

I did become a lawyer. And when I moved back, I ended up practicing in the office of that Council member. I had met so many years earlier.

I never ran for City Council. That was not a goal by 1990 and thereafter. I almost ran for school board, but had a conflict, so did not. My service on the two city commissions was enough.

I did not sit there last night full of  nostalgia or wondering "What if...?" Maybe I had a sense of relief that I had not ventured into politics. But maybe not even that. Maybe just a sense of being there, listening to Warren make his public comments, and then heading home.

And that was more than enough. 

Small Moment

 

I recently emailed a friend and began a sentence with the phrase "It goes without saying." Even before sending the email, I was pulled back decades to a young boy, an amazing book, and a shared moment in time.

The young boy was my son Ben. He still is my son, of course, only now Ben is 36 and not 9 or 10 or whatever age I am remembering. 

The amazing book was (and also still is) The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I have referenced it from time to time in this blog, but never in the context of Ben and our shared moments.

I have written before about sharing my love of reading and books with Ben from his earliest days. Over time, as the home dynamics withered around us, reading to him every night before bedtime became a quiet moment of quiet and love and safety. We kept that up well into his middle school years for the comfort of the books and the comfort of one another.

The Phantom Tollbooth was an early share between us. It is a book full of clever puns and literary allusions, and Ben enjoyed them all. We followed Milo on his trip through the Kingdom of Wisdom to bring back Rhyme and Reason, laughing together at times, Ben quiet when the plot took an ominous turn every now and then. 

We did not read it together again, but Ben read it several times on his own. In 2011, when a 50th anniversary edition came out, I bought it and sent it to Ben. 

Of course I did.

So back to the phrase that sent me down a rabbit hole or, more appropriately, through a tollbooth into the lands beyond: "It goes without saying." In Dictionopolis, the king's cabinet members rush Milo to a small wooden wagon so they can get to the royal banquet on time. Milo starts to ask how the wagon is supposed to move, and the Duke of Definition answers.

"Be very quiet," advised the duke, "for it goes without saying."

And indeed it did.

And still does. 

This Year's Garden, Part Two

 I know gardening time is coming because the daffodils have started to bloom.

Seeds at a local nursery/garden center are 33% off right now. (My favorite farm center, where I will buy my tomatoes, peppers, and other starts, doesn't open for another two weeks.)

And, a few weeks ago, after looking at the gardens, looking at Warren's schedule and the demands on his time and energy, and being honest with myself about my ever diminishing physical capacity, I brought in heavy reinforcements.

I called my dad and let him know about the tiller. Before telling him I had bought one, I asked him if he planned on gardening much this summer. My father is 89 this summer, and age is taking its toll on his body. He said "Well, maybe just a tomato plant, but..." and let his voice trail off.

My dad has always gardened. He grew up in a family where the vegetable garden fed them both in season and over the winter as my grandmother canned everything she could. My parents gardened and canned through all of my childhood, and even when the canning went by the wayside, there was always a garden for the summer.

I told him I had an electric tiller. "I figure you might like to borrow it," I said casually. I could hear an intake of breath in surprise. Then Dad said, "Well, maybe I'll do a couple of rows after all."

You could hear the happiness in his voice.

Ghostbusters, Ben, and Me

 Yes, I know. The correct grammatical construction of the title is "Ghostbusters, Ben, and I," but I'm following E. B. White's sage advice that sometimes it's better to go with your ear and not the rule. Thank you, Andy.

The original Ghostbusters movie came out in 1984. My oldest son Ben was born in late 1985. Thanks to a bootleg video copy made by my brother Mike sometime in 1987 (I think), Ben and I watched Ghostbusters not just once or twice, but easily two dozen times or more.

Probably more. We knew every character, we knew all the scenes, we knew it all.

How could you not love this this scene?  

So when Ghostbusters II came out in 1989, Ben and I were at the movie theatre in Sacramento on the opening day, our excitement of seeing it the very day it opened outweighing the hour drive to get there.

Ben was not disappointed. Neither was I:

Time moves on. Little boys grow up, interests change, and the once beloved movie or book or game ends up tucked away in fond memories.

Then in late 2021, Ghostbusters: Afterlife came out, reuniting much of the original cast. When I heard about it, my first reaction was, "But Harold Ramis died. They can't do Ghostbusters without Egon."

I didn't go see the movie. (Confession: I have seen no movies at a theatre in these Covid times but neither did I rent it to watch online.) I doubt Ben saw it in any format. I do remember sending him a quick email noting the new movie. After that, I put it out of my mind until I caught an interview with Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, and Ernie Hudson, the remaining Ghostbusters, in which they talked about making the movie without Harold Ramis, but also with Harold Ramis, being careful not to give out any spoilers.

Then I saw an interview with director Jason Reitman (whose father directed the original two movies) in which he explained how they went about bringing Harold Ramis or, rather, his character, Egon Spengler, back using a combination of a body double and CGI. (Brilliantly, I might add.)

What is YouTube for if not to see bits of movies? Including the ending of Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

Without recapping a movie I have not watched, let me just say that the movie's final battle brings back Gozer (from the original movie) against the remaining Ghostbusters. When all seems lost, Egon's granddaughter Phoebe, who has been discovering and learning the lore and knowledge that her late grandfather had stored about the earlier battles, steps into the battle with Egon's proton pack on her back. She loses ground against Gozer until a translucent adult hand appears to help steady her aim. It is the ghost of her grandfather, who returns her amazed look with a gentle smile and helps her battle on until his former companions can rejoin the fight. 

The part I have watched repeatedly is the final scene, after Gozer has been defeated, between Egon's ghost and his estranged daughter, Callie. Callie's version of family was that her father had abandoned his family and her heedlessly. Egon looks at her longingly. Will she forgive him for seemingly running out on her so many years ago? Will she understand that he left his family behind in order to protect them?

Spoiler alert: yes, she will and she does. She goes into his arms. and they embrace. His hope fulfilled, Egon's dissolves into the night sky. 

Ben and I are not estranged. We live far apart, true, but we stay connected. So I don't have that element. But if wishes come true, when I transition from life to death, I would love one last opportunity to meet up with Ben, my Ghostbuster pal of yore, and have that one last loving embrace.

And then Ben, not unlike Peter Venkman in the end of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, can go have some hot cocoa. With or without marshmallows. 

A Different Penny Story

Last week after posting about pennies, I thought this penny story needed to be shared. 

My friend Cindy feels that when someone close to you dies, they remind you they are still out there, still watching you, by dropping a white feather in your path. It has happened to her many times in her life, especially when she has been thinking or talking about someone who has gone on and while you may roll your eyes and chalk it up to coincidence, it gives Cindy a measure of comfort and sweet memory.

I've had a white feather incident once or twice in recent years, but not so much that I look for white feathers. I have no problem embracing the idea that the line between us the living and them the dead is a fine one indeed, the sheerest of curtains, the briefest of breaths. I just am perhaps not as aware or tuned into that other world. 

It amuses me writing that last line, given my close tenancy with Death, who has yet to evict me. Maybe I need to be pay more attention. And maybe I am paying more attention than I think. Hence my penny story.

Earlier this week I came across two shoeboxes of photos from Aunt Ginger's stash. I had gone through many of her photos back in 2017, when I moved her from her apartment to assisted living. These were boxes I had not gotten to and then misplaced. I am now going through those boxes slowly, again thinking of which photos to pass on to my cousins or my brothers, which to throw away because they have no connection to any of us in the family.

In doing so, I came across this photo, with 1958 penciled in Ginger's hand on the back of it:

I know that room, I know that life. The little girl, looking fearful almost, is me. Judging my size and what I am wearing, I suspect this is autumn of 1958 and I would have been two and a half years old. The woman I am leaning against, who has reached back to hold me close, is my grandmother Skatzes. She would have been 65 years old in 1958, the age I am now. I do not remember her hair still having color to it, nor her ever wearing anything less than a full bib apron (she always wore an apron), but after over six decades, I am sure there are other very young impressions that have been replaced by my impression when I was older.

We are in the living room of the house on Flax Street, the house my grandfather, probably with the help of his father, built, the house my mother was born in, the house I lived in until I was 14. The teapot on the gas stove (the house had no central heat) was Grandma's way of keeping some moisture in the air. Every stove in the house had a teapot on it for that very purpose. The bric-a-brac corner shelf on the wall would have been my grandfather's work; for all the evil he brought to the family, he was a skillful woodworker whose pieces decorated our homes.

That was on Tuesday. On Thursday, taking a long, long walk, I crossed the river (one of the visible and invisible dividing lines in this community) and walked around the East side, looping over the street that would carry me down the hill and around the corner to the intersection of Flax and Carlisle. My grandparents' house sits at that T-intersection on the northeast corner. I walked by the house, glancing up at the windows. I then looked down as I made ready to cross Flax. And there, in the middle of the intersection where Carlisle tees into Flax, was this:

Of course I picked it up and carried it home.

Pennies from heaven? A hug from my grandmother? Just a stray coin? 

Or maybe all of the above. 

That Moment of Then Now

 

That table is long gone.

That kitchen is long gone.

Three of the women around that table are long gone.

That moment of then now.  

The kitchen is my Grandma Nelson's kitchen at the farm that she and my Grandpa Nelson owned for all of my childhood into my adolescence. I knew every bit of that kitchen. No running water, only a hand pump at the sink for water. All food prep was done on the table as all of the very limited counter space was filled with containers and canisters, there being little to no pantry area. If you look just past the head of the woman seated at the center of the table, you will see the pots and pans needed for this meal stacked up to be washed later.

The open door beyond the pots and pans was the door to the side yard, the only yard any of us used. Beyond that door is a small wash area (remember, there is no running water) that held a small bath tub (filled with buckets) and perhaps a wringer washer (filled the same way).

The house that held that kitchen has been down for over forty years. 

My grandmother is the woman on the left closest to the woman seated at the end. She is the woman with glasses, her hands to her mouth, possibly removing a chicken bone or a string from a green bean out of her garden. Grandma was not a warm woman, but she could make fried chicken better than anyone in the world. 

The woman at the end of the table, white haired, aproned, looking down? That is Grandma Gullett, my great grandmother, Grandma Nelson's mother. She taught me how to braid hair, using my troll doll. In her younger days, she was a crack shot with a rifle, something my grandmother was also. Grandma Gullett lived to be 94, so I had her in my life for many years. 

Another of her daughters, Aunt Venice (my great aunt) is also at the table, the dark haired woman on the left next to my grandmother, her sister. Aunt Venice could make fried chicken like my grandmother, so perhaps both of them made the best fried chicken in the world.  Where Aunt Venice could beat the whole world was in quilting; she was a master quilter and quilted right up until her final months of life. 

All three women gone. 

The occasion in this photo? Maybe hay bailing, maybe soybean harvest. The men would have eaten first so they could get back out to the field. And, let's acknowledge it, they were the men. In fairness to all, it was a small table. At our noonday Sunday dinners, my grandparents and my family of six made for a tight fit, manageable only because four of the six were children. With adults only at the table, as in this picture, six would fill the table.

My grandparents sold the farm in 1970, when I was 14. They moved to a small ranch outside of a small village, maybe all of eight miles from the farmhouse. The farmhouse had been on the outskirts of an even smaller village, so the move was downright urban. Central heat replaced the coal furnace in the cellar; there was indoor plumbing. There was a larger table to sit down at and eat. 

And that was over a half century ago.

The farmhouse, as I noted, was torn down with the outbuildings sometime after the farm was sold and the land subdivided. Where there was once a lane leading to a small farmhouse and on deeper into the fields there is now a small cluster of homes and a stubbed township road.

But that photo. That moment of then now. I remember. 

I remember. 

Channeling Grandma

I rinsed out the just emptied spice container and got ready to toss it. (As a 5, it is not a recyclable plastic in our town.) My Grandma Skatzes stopped me.

Not literally, of course. Grandma has been dead 42 years this month. But like many people who make a deep impact on my heart, she is still with me.

As a child in a multi-generational household, I spent many hours listening to my Grandma's stories. Many of her stories were about the Great Depression and how she and her family and, indeed, the whole community, got through those years.  She made sure her family was fed and clothed, and she did everything she could, on the precious few pennies she had to work with, to make sure neighbors did not do without either.

I have carried her stories with me for six decades. As an American history major in college, my greatest disappointment was I was never at a campus where a class on the 1930s was offered. My thesis was on Isaac Ingalls Stevens, the first governor of Washington Territory, and the treaty talks he held with tribes in that area of the world. It was a good, solid thesis, but what I really would have loved to write about would have been something along the lines of "Living Through the Great Depression: The American Homefront."

Over a decade before World War II brought the slogan to every home, Grandma lived by "Use it up, Wear it Out, Make it do or do without." That is what stayed my hand with the spice container. The uncertainty of what is ahead as we as a community, state, nation, and world go through this pandemic causes me to reassess what I need, what I do not need, and, yes, hang onto a few things that normally would have hit the trash or the recycling.

Or the yard waste pile, for that matter. Two months or so ago, while lazily talking out loud about this year's garden, I announced to Warren that I was going to dig out the sage plant that continues to winter over and produce each year. We don't use a lot of sage in this house and it takes up a lot of space, even with being cut back each spring.

The sage after being its pardon 

So when I started out to work in the garden this Saturday past, I was resolved to dig it up and be done with it. Then I looked again and thought of Grandma. And...ended up cutting it back but keeping it.

As it turns out, you can make pesto with sage. Really? I will be planting a large basil patch again for traditional basil pesto, but the thought of adding another type of pesto to my repertoire (and the freezer) delights me.

Thinking of you, Grandma.

100 Words

Warren and I had a long evening last night for First Friday. We ate at home, then went back down, Warren working,  Amanda and I chatting with parents looking for their children’s artwork on display.

Once back home, we were tired and cold and hungry.

“What about popcorn?”

So we made a bowl of popcorn and sat together on the couch eating, the shared contentment reminding me of my childhood. Popcorn was the go-to snack in my family when I was growing up: it was cheap, it was easy to make in quantity, it was filling.

There was always enough.

Small Moment: Washing The Loaf Pans

I made zucchini bread Friday night as I had a lot of zucchini that needed cooked, baked, or cut, bagged, and frozen. I ended up making a triple batch of bread: six loaves in all. When I turned them out onto the cooling racks (including yours, Katrina!), I just ran water into the pans and let them set overnight.

[Note: My zucchini-less status lasted until Saturday morning, when my dad brought by another grocery bag of them, possibly, maybe the last of the season. We just finished dealing with them this morning: freezer for some, supper tonight for the rest.]

Saturday morning I turned my attention to the loaf pans. All, even the non-stick ones, had been greased well so cleaning them was not an onerous task. I washed them in groups: the two smaller non-stick pans, the two larger aluminum pans, a small glass pan, and a large pottery one.

I ran warm, soapy water into the first two (while the others still held water from the night before) and started in. For the next 15 to 20 minutes, I cleaned them one by one, pouring the soapy water from one into the next one. There is a window overlooking the backyard at the sink and the sunlight played on the water as I washed.

I paid slow attention to each pan instead of my usual brisk, swipe and wipe pace. You heard of the Slow Food Movement? This was the Slow Washing Movement. As I washed, I thought about the pans. Warren remembered his mother making molded jello fruit salads ("all the time," per Warren) in the glass loaf pan. The two aluminum pans, standard size, were the remaining ones of the eight or ten I bought and used the summer I kept our household (my two sons and I) afloat baking and selling breads and pies at our downtown Farmers Market.

The heavy pottery loaf pan came from a long ago client, a young woman whose divorce I handled for free because she was having a hard enough time keeping her children and herself fed, let alone scrape together the money to pay an attorney. When the divorce was all over, she came into my office and presented me with the loaf pan filled with something delicious she had baked. My client explained that her mother had bought the pan to make her offering extra special. Then she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Thank you. Thank you."

Just her "thank you" was enough. The baked dessert was more than enough. And the pan? Well, I still use it and I think of that long ago client every single time.

The whole washing episode was a peaceful, quiet start to my day. It was a small moment, a routine task. It was a way to be more mindful, more grateful, as I stood there just washing the pans.

Finally Walking Those Hills

Back in March, 2010, nine and a half years ago, I wrote about wanting to take a trip to Kentucky with my dad, to the area around Greenup, Kentucky, where the Nelsons and the Gulletts have lived for many generations. At that time I wrote: It has weighed on my mind for some time now that before too much time passes, Dad and I need to drive down to Kentucky and visit the family cemeteries while we can still explore them together. 

Later that same year, working with my dad on cleaning and repairing a rental property of my brother's, he and I spent many hours in his truck driving to and from the site, and many hours working alongside one another. We had not yet gotten down to Kentucky; my brother's broken leg and his needs intervened. Then I wrote: Dad and I are racing to get the harvest in before the snow and the dead of winter. We are each on a small combine, the small beams stabbing the growing dark, combing the fields and wanting so much for one more season together. 

I wrote again in late 2012, after my Aunt Eunice died, that Dad and I had not yet taken the trip. By then I was doubtful we ever would. Mom was sinking deeper into dementia and, even without that hanging over our heads, the reality was we were all getting older. Dad was looking at 80; I was by then eight years into a disease with a prognostic lifespan of only six to seven years. So the trip went on the back burner, perhaps indefinitely.

Time went on. Uncle Burl died, but I did not make it down to the funeral. My brother Dale died. My mom's dementia increased until she went into memory care late last fall. Dad coped with being alone after a lifetime spent as a couple.

And then we took the trip down home, that trip I was not sure would ever happen. On the fourth Saturday in June, from early morning to early evening, Dad, my brother Mark, his wife Jackie, and I all piled in a car and headed south.

So why now? A variety of reasons: age (again, always), health (again, always), wanting to see those sites one last time, wanting to mark places in my mind with dad. Any number of reasons.

And what a day it was.

Greenup is the county seat of Greenup County. By the time we rolled into Greenup, it was close to lunch and we needed to eat. Not knowing the lay of the land (and Google being little help), we parked across from the county courthouse and Mark crossed the street to where a store proprietor was watching to ask him about eating. A few minutes Mark waved us over.

"This guy is asking all about which Nelsons we are," he explained. "I figure Dad can answer the questions."

"This guy" was Charley Osborne, proprietor of a small antique and junk shop (his words, not mine). He and Dad started talking. In about five minutes, they had connected several dots as to who knew who in which family. In another five minutes, they figured out that Charley was related by marriage; one of his brothers had married one of Dad's cousins.

Charley and Dad talking about a cane press

Well, of course.

Charley and Dad talked for some 20 minutes, much of which Mark recorded on his phone. Dad talked about where his family had farmed and lived up in the valleys and hollows of Greenup County. Dad talked about going up on Shell's Form and Charley came back with "Well, go on up and over one hill to Hood's Run and that's where I was raised." He showed Dad some paintings by a local artist of a sugar cane press; Dad responded with that was what his grandfather did and he had memories of it. They talked about moonshine and stills. "My grandfather pulled two years [in prison] for moonshine," said Charley, added that other family members had "pulled some time" for the same. "They done what they had to do to make a living," commented Dad, "This [area] went through a lot to make a living."

It was a great way to start the day.

After taking our leave of Charley, with hugs and handshakes all around, we headed out Route 2 along the Little Sandy River. Dad commented on a few things as Mark drove; we were headed to the Gullett-Lambert cemetery, Dad's maternal side of his family.

A comment about Kentucky family cemeteries, which are common throughout those hills. The cemeteries are at the top of the hills, with a road, usually gravel, winding up to it from the main road. That means you pull into the driveway, sometimes the main one, of someone's home, requiring a brief explanation of why you are there ("Got family up there," I said at one stop) and getting a nod and a "go on up" in response.

And sometimes you chat with the family below, even though you have never met them before, just to be sociable. The man living below this cemetery welcomed us, told us his dogs wouldn't bite (and one, Wayne, went up with us), and that they were expecting cousins in later that day from Ohio.

My great-grandparents are buried in this cemetery: Galen, who died before I was born, and Myrtle, my beloved Grandma Gullett. Grandma Gullett lived until I was well into adulthood and I have wonderful memories of her laughter, of her welcoming arms. She taught me to braid, using one of my troll dolls, when I was young. And she was a great shot with a muzzleloader, apparently able to put a candle flame out without disturbing the candle. Mark shared that story as we were driving along, causing Dad to add "Yeah, Mom [his mother] was a great shot too." Apparently Grandma Gullett and Grandma Nelson, her daughter, spent a lot of time shooting "just for something to do," according to Dad, as once the late fall set in, roads in that part of Kentucky were pretty much impassable until the spring, and you stayed close to home for months on end.

From that cemetery, we went looking for the original Nelson cemetery (there are two). Dad knew more or less where it was: you take Shell's Fork until it turns into gravel, then pull into a little side cemetery, the McConnell cemetery. "Right there," said Dad. "That bench up there is where the Nelson cemetery is."

My brother Mark got out of the car and looked up the hill, puzzled.

What?

"I'm looking for a bench," he explained.

The bench is just above the trees on the hill, where they level off 

I cracked up. "The bench is that flat strip of land up the hill, up there in the trees," I pointed out. "Not something you sit on."

Dad and I alone made the short trek to where the cemetery was as Mark and Jackie were wearing shorts and the site was clearly overgrown. We climbed up and looked around. There were some stones, but not family names. Dad was sure it was over to the left, but the vines and undergrowth covered so much he couldn't tell. We veered that way, stumbling on the ground, and then found what he remembered: his great-great-grandparents' stone.

Nancy and George. Somehow I did not know or had forgotten that my great-great-great grandmother's name was Nancy. I think of Nancy as a modern name, but with a birthdate of 1817, she was a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, whose mother's name was Nancy.

Nearby George and Nancy was their son Jacob, my great-great grandfather. Jacob Nelson fought in the Civil War, for the Union. Looking at the dates on his fading tombstone and the military marker, I suspect he was the last Nelson buried in that cemetery:

 When Dad and I made our way back down to the car, Dad said, reflectively, that we would probably be the last ones ever to set foot in that cemetery. In another five years, "it'll be all gone. The land will take it back."

I could not disagree with his assessment. Mark was quiet. "I wish I'd worn jeans so I could have gone up there too."

We turned around on the narrow (narrow) gravel road and made our way back out to the main road. The Nelson cemetery sets off of Route 2 and we were soon there, explaining again to the householders at the foot of the hill where we were headed and could we park our car there? Of
course; they waved us up the hill.

I was last in the Nelson cemetery in 1975,  many, many years ago. If Mark had been up there, it would have been a long time ago also. The climb to the Gullett cemetery is considerable. The climb to the Nelson cemetery makes that one look and feel like a cakewalk. Whichever Nelson started it clearly picked the highest hill in the family, then carved a road up, which has to twist up because you can't climb it in one straight shot.

A small portion of the road up 

When I was there many years ago, for a family funeral, relays of community men waited at several points up the hill, because there was no way a hearse could get up there, and no way just one team of men could carry a coffin that far up.

Now that's steep.

The Nelson cemetery is where my great-grandparents, Linnie and Iven (pronounced I-ven with a short "i") are buried. Iven was Jacob's son. Linnie's parents, William Skaggs and his wife, are buried nearby in a sinking grave. (I do not have her name and the stone is too far sunk to pick it out, if indeed she is buried there.) Many of my grandfather's siblings are there, as well as my dad's cousin Athine, who died in 2011. I suspect, but do not know, that Athine was and is the last burial up there.

After we came down from that third, we twisted our way around the area to see a few key spots. This cabin, moved to this site and restored by cousin Athine, was where the Nelson home where Iven and Linnie lived:

 And up on the flat area behind the RV just sticking into the photo? That's where the log cabin sat that my dad was born in:

He pointed out his grandparents' property a piece down the road and set way back: as a little child (somewhere past two, but not much past three if at all), his mother would set him on a path to spend time with his grandparents. He walked it alone, soon out of sight of one cabin and not yet within view of the other. Looking at the distance between the two sites and thinking of how short a small child's legs are, I was stunned at the expectation that he take himself there. Dad had only shared that story with me recently; seeing the lay of the land and the distances staggered me as to the enormity of that walk.

Soon after turning of W Hollow Road onto Route 1 (where Grandma Gullett lived in a little tiny house when I was growing up; one that it turns out her husband ran a small store out of), we headed back to Ohio, sharing a meal along the way. Our talk turned to other matters; we were all tired. Twelve hours after we left, we were home.

When we dropped Dad off and said our goodbyes, I thanked him. I told him I had wanted to go see those spots with him for a long time, and I am glad we did it before one or both of us weren't able or were gone.

Dad was quiet a moment. "I wasn't sure I'd ever see those places again," he finally said. "I'm glad I did."

I finally got my walk with Dad. And what a walk it was.