Whew!

Once again, we have survived the Christmas season.

We seem to do this more and more easily each year. Don't get me wrong. There is still, and I suspect always will be, a certain amount of holiday hysteria. But each year it becomes less and less as we and our extended family understand more and more about the real importance of the season. It's not that we didn't before, but now we seem more able to enjoy each other as a Christmas present (instead of racing around after last minute gifts that mean little). The more that happens, the more I look forward to and enjoy the whole experience.

My oldest son, his wife and 2 children, my brother and his wife, and my youngest nephew, his wife and baby were all here for Christmas day. We did sit around and do a gift giving thing, but way more important was everyone just having a really good time. (Of course, the grand kids did have their new iPod touch gizmos to play with, but they did so in the same room as all of us and even occasionally conversed with us old fogies.)

It was a wonderful day. We had a ham dinner with way too much food and it was well after dark before anyone started to leave.

The tree is still up and will be till new year's day. We have one more party to have, that being the new year's eve card party we've been having for a number of years. I'll fry a turkey, which will disappear like magic and we'll all sit around playing pitch until the wee hours. The hours are actually not quite as wee as they used to be, but 1:30 AM won't be a surprise.

Mother nature does seem to have her own little sense of humor. It snowed this AM and when things started to clear off and warm up, I went out and cleaned off driveways and walkways, and salted the hilly drive that needs it constantly all winter. Half way home, it commenced snowing again. Oh HA HA!! Very funny mommy N.

Tonight is the last Meg's Kitchen rehearsal before our First Night gig, at the Bethany church, in Montpelier, on 12/31, at 5:00 PM.... The song list has come together nicely, with two songs that actually require singing. We don't do that too often, so it will be an interesting experience. It will be nice if I can get through my song without the yodeling that sometimes appears unexpectedly.

Time to cook supper. Split pea soup and grilled "last of the ham" and cheese sandwiches. Good warmth food.

It's been a long November and December (so far) without snow, until today.

Today's is a mixed blessing.

We really do need the snow. It supports us in the winter months when a major part of Vermont's livelihood depends on snow related activities. Skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, cross country-- it all depends on a good ground cover of white gold.

At the same time, it is a serious life adjustment, with which some seem to have trouble.

Yesterday was a little squally, with intermittent snow showers occurring around the state. One such dumping involved a heavy 10 minutes of white out just outside Richmond, about 15 miles north of Montpelier. It also involved route 89. The result was icy conditions on the highway and a 16 car pile up beginning with a tractor trailer and a car. There was little foresight involved with this mess. A small helping of caution could likely have avoided it, but when you're on the interstate going 65 or 70 mph, slowing down isn't always the first thing to come to mind.

This seems particularly true to those of the driving public who travel in all wheel drive vehicles. Apparently the prevailing opinion is that if you have this marvel, you can go as you please and do anything you want. It's kind of like a moving version of the "You can park anywhere if you turn on your 4 way flashers." rule.

Just a few years ago, it was possible to drive the 35 miles to Burlington and see pristine snow banks by the roadside all the way. Not so any more. After a storm like today's, there will be several dozen places where the banks have been pushed back by surprise plowing incidents. Sometimes they keep going long enough to get back on to the road, but mostly they just go further than necessary into the median. It's interesting that as the winter progresses, this phenomenon continues. Experience doesn't seem to make a difference.

However, even though I'll spend the next several hours plowing and shoveling, the snowfall is a welcome occasion. It looks as it should, it feels as it should, and with any luck I'll keep out of the gutter myself now that I've complained so perfectly about all those other all wheelers.

Charlotte went for her final resection check up today and got a clean bill of health.

We've been talking about this whole episode and about how quickly everything has happened. In hindsight, it's nearly as if it hasn't happened at all. They discovered the polyp and removed it, did a colon resection a few days later and now she's back at work. The biggest memory of all this is having to drink the damned electrolytes to flush her out. It was the worst part of the whole thing.

We haven't really had a chance to think about any of this. Cancer is discovered; fffft, it is removed, and on we go. There's no call for follow up treatment and Charlotte is free to do anything she feels can be done. In a weird sort of way, I almost feel like saying "Wait a minute. Is that it? Isn't something else supposed to happen?"

The specter of cancer is such an ugly thing. All my life I've been conditioned to be terrified of a cancer diagnosis and yet, when it actually happens, it's all over so fast that I don't have a chance to give it any thought. How can anything this disastrous and important be resolved so quickly? Do we now have to wait for the other shoe?

The doctor at today's appointment, who did the surgery, is very happy with her condition. He foresees no problems, and other than regular checkups and colonoscopies everything is headed to normality. Obviously this is what we want to hear and it makes our lives much easier hearing it.

But, we can't carry on as if none of this ever happened, even though that's what we would like. Each one of these occurrences gets added to life's portfolio and there it permanently changes the future in some way.

It did finally snow yesterday. Not much, but enough to make white scenery. So, time continues to pass at high speed and events continue to unfold. This blip hasn't slowed the progression down, and we're thinking it shouldn't slow us either.

It's been an eye opening couple of weeks since I last wrote.

My wife went in for a colonoscopy and in the process, a polyp was removed. The biopsy revealed cancer, so the recommended course of action was a colon resection. Of course, there were a multitude of additional diagnostic tests which needed to be done before the operation, including a sigmoidoscopy to determine where the polyp was and to tattoo the location for the next surgeon. Of course, this all meant that flushing and cleaning had to occur 3 times, a process that's almost worse than the laparoscopic surgery itself.

Everything went well, and what they discovered was stage one rectal cancer, so we are quite happy that it's gone and no further chemo or radiation are necessary.

This does cause a sudden change in ones outlook however. Charlotte is now a cancer survivor. Although she has thankfully not experienced the protracted post operative care that would have been necessary had the cancer progressed past stage one, the cloud of future care is around us. We must suddenly be vigilant, with frequent exams and an awareness of day to day health that was not there before.

In more youthful times, I can remember not understanding the age related failings of the older generation. These things will not happen to me, sayeth I. But guess what. Regardless of your intent to continue in your youthful ways, they happen anyways. I have come to realize that at night, I can no longer see beyond the approaching headlights as I used to. Nor am I able to work for 8 hours cutting wood in the forest and come home to party into the proverbial wee hours. In fact, I don't really want to party into those wee hours even after an afternoon nap.

The trick is to accept the change without altering your outlook. The way I feel about things and the intensity of my reactions has not changed. I am beginning to understand that they never will. How old you are, or your physical ability to deal, doesn't alter your mental reactions to your environment. This is a phenomenon commonly misunderstood by youth. How could an eighty five year old want a corvette, or for that matter a fifty year old mate? Well, don't let the age thing fool you. Age doesn't change what you want. It only sometimes impacts your ability to achieve the desired end.

On Friday, October 30, 2009, an old friend of ours died at the local hospital. Years of difficult breathing and other health problems finally took their toll and his heart gave up the battle. He was there for a problem other than heart, and his death was a horrid and sudden surprise to us all even though he was not a healthy person. We are saddened by his passing.

But sadness isn't the only emotion here. I had not seen him for several years, but this unexpected event has brought back memories I forgot I had. There are no bad ones. Only the laughter and foolishness has survived. The dumb things we did and managed to live and laugh through, the every day occurrences and the special events we all enjoyed - that's what I can remember now.

This sadness for today and happy remembrance of the past is a curious combination. One minute we laugh about some goofy incident and the next there is a silence occupied only by pensive thoughts. I guess it's all part of the grieving process. The mind doesn't want to accept such awful change so it searches for lightness to make the process easier. I have found myself laughing out loud about traits my friend had or things that we did, and at first there was a short pang of guilt afterwards. But not now. He would be laughing too were he still here, and as the days pass I am less likely to suppress a gutty chuckle when a quick memory flips by.

There will be a memorial service tomorrow at the church next door to his house. We will go and give our last respects, and there will be a gathering afterwards in the church basement. It will be the same curious combination, only magnified by the number of people there, and we will come away feeling better about the sad occasion which brought us all together.

My friend will never come back, but the memories will. And they're all good ones too.

I had an interesting experience yesterday. Actually, it all started about a year ago.

I was walking down Langdon St. in Montpelier VT and I spied a WWII enlisted man's army hat on the sidewalk. There is a coffee house at the end of the street where numerous young people wearing this type of clothing congregate and I suspected that it belonged to one of them but when asked, no one would claim it. At the time, I thought it would make a good addition to a halloween costume, and I put it in my truck to save for future use. It remained there for some months and moved from truck to garage during the next hoeing out of accumulated truck junk.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was hoeing out the garage in an attempt to create room for my car's winter abode (I have yet to use the mythical hoe in my garden!). I again found the hat, and this time noticed a name and dog tag number printed in the hat band; Nimtz 35161292. Finding more information about Mr Nimtz sounded like more fun than garage hoeing, so I took a little time to do some web searching.

It took about 20 mins to find a web site where I could get free army info using his service number. This gave me date of birth, date of induction, place of induction, stuff like that. I kept typing the name into google in different ways until I ran across an election record which stated that he was elected to the house of representatives in the 1957 to 1959 session. The Congressional bio. records supplied enough information to send me to the South Bend IN Tribune where I found a reference to the 12/13/05 news release from the S.B. mayor's office about the F. Jay Nimtz Award:

"This award was established to honor the late F. Jay Nimtz, a former U.S. Congressman,

long-time President of the South Bend Redevelopment Commission, and attorney and

community preservationist. F. Jay set the standard for community advocacy and commitment to

building a better South Bend. Created in 1989, the award is given by the City of South Bend and

South Bend Heritage Foundation to an individual in the community who has shown exemplary

public service through long and varied volunteer activities."

By now, I had learned enough about Mr. Nimtz that I wanted to find something better than halloween for his hat. So, I called the mayor's office. The woman I spoke with knew Mr. Nimtz, who died in 1990, and was quite excited about this find. She indicated that there are a couple of museums in the area that would be interested in having the hat and I sent it to her in the afternoon.

It's almost scary to me. Finding a significant amount of information about someone I'd never heard of, who lived a third of the way across the country, with only a last name and service number to start with was quite easy, particularly for a clueless web browser (me) who didn't really know what they were doing. Within about an hour, I had the man's full name, service history, political history, place of birth and had spoken with someone who knew him. 6 degrees strikes again.

Someone more knowledgeable about the process can probably do all this in less than 5 mins. If you are seeking anonymity, good luck. On the other hand, the amount and accessibility of information available "out there" is staggering. I guess I knew this all along, but my first experience in actually trying to use it was a real eye opener.

Karma is an interesting thing.

A few weeks back, I borrowed my son's Kubota tractor to do a little landscaping. The lawn has sloped toward the house ever since I put an addition on the kitchen. This was the year I decided to change the slope to direct rainwater away instead of into the cellar. The tractor is an amazing tool and was quickly changing the slope when suddenly one of the hydraulic hoses on the bucket split open. The ensuing fog tsunami of hydraulic fluid coated the tractor and this driver with an even layer and since it's a hydro drive, the entire beast was disabled and unmovable.

Within a couple of hours, I had a new hose installed and finished the job without further incident.

Fast forward to today. In order to maintain at least the appearance of even, flat lawn, I borrowed an old Troybuilt tiller from my good friend John. It's one his father bought when he was in high school and has been salvaged from the scrap heap many times. I was tilling merrily away and had about two passes to finish smoothing things out when there was a sudden belching of thick blue smoke from the engine, which faltered miserably and nearly died. I shut it off, drove the truck onto the back lawn, loaded it in and returned it with many apologies. John wasn't overly concerned and seemed to almost expect it of a 30+ year old machine, but I feel crappy about it nonetheless.

Since I was almost done, I decided to just roll the lawn out, seed it, put on the straw and call it a day. I rented the roller, hooked it to the lawn tractor and rolled the whole patch - almost! with about 15 mins work left, suddenly the tractor wouldn't steer. One of the tie rod ball joints had come apart. No amount of coaxing would keep it together, and I can't get the mower shop to answer the phone. When I do, I won't expect them to have one.

What is it about this lawn project that is so anti? Virtually every chapter has been fraught with mechanical breakdowns, for no apparent reason, other than bad Karma.

I managed to get the tractor into the garage , with the 500 Lb. roller attached, but now I think I'd better go out and make sure the roller's not not leaking water all over the garage floor!

The longer I manage to stay alive with the ability to maintain some semblance of cognitive thought , the more I realize the need to live for today.

Yes, I do understand that planning ahead is a necessary evil, but it's not the most accurate or reliable way to live one's life. The advantage to planning ahead is that it gives one purpose. With the right amount of planning ahead, you can convince yourself that you have laid the foundation for the success of whatever event you have in mind. This creates a comfort zone in which the planner can happily live, that is until the plans are changed from without.

The trick to planning ahead is in realizing that all things can, and will, change without forewarning. One cannot plan for the changes since any prediction about what they may be will likely be inaccurate. I have often seen otherwise calm and rational people totally lose it in the unraveling of their anticipated future. I am a victim of this as much as anyone else (although the rational part of this equation has sometimes been brought into question). My wife is less subject than I to the syndrome, which seems to rear its ugly head most often in driving situations. She spends drive time which would otherwise be consumed in the pages of a good mystery trying to calm nerves frayed by a wrong turn or too much stop and go traffic.

But - recently, I have tried to be more amenable to the "make lemonade with life's lemons" theory. Sometimes it's difficult to create opportunity out of unexpected change, but this often can be done. It is all in my flexibility, expectations, and ability to avoid trying to manage the outcome. Knowing things rarely happen exactly as intended regardless of the plans I make is a good start. In other words, plan for change. And, don't presume to predict what that change may be; just know that its going to happen when least expected.

Right now, I plan to replace the worn out strings on my guitar and practice a few tunes.

Waukeena farm party

Every year for some time now, my oldest brother (I have 2) and sister in law have had an annual pre-Thanksgiving party for family and friends. We tried to remember when this all started at the party last weekend, but none of us were sure. Suffice it to say that if you can't remember, it's been awhile.

A few years back, I started arriving a day early to help set things up, and I began bringing my turkey frying pots and flame thrower to add fried turkey to the menu. This is in addition to the 2 roast beef, smoked ham, sometimes smoked turkey, bean hole beans and smoked pork loin that we serve. Everyone else brings potluck.

The number of people who attend varies year to year, but there is always a pretty good crowd with several families camping out in the field.

The day after, Sunday, we cook a pancakes and bacon breakfast for anyone who shows up. It's often almost as big as the previous day's party.

About 5 years ago, I bought a 3 burner Camp Chef outdoor stove to hasten the pancake cooking. Then my brother got one for his birthday, so there's now 2 in operation. For about 3 years now, Marion runs the second one.

Marion is my teenage 1st cousin, once removed. Those genealogists among you can figure that out for yourselves. She is firmly ensconced as the second breakfast cook and has successfully withstood the annual takeover onslaught perpetrated by her other cousins. Cooking pancakes with her has become one of my favorite weekend events at this party. Collectively, we are the pancake czars and take no abuse from anyone without meting out equally satisfying retribution. "No pancake for you!!" is a terrifying threat to the hungry masses.

It's a wonderful thing that my brother and sil are happy to have this party. There are times when it is the only chance we have to see other members of the family and, in some instances, their friends that I also grew up with. Because it's really a 3 day event for me, it's an opportunity to actually catch up and spend time with people instead of trying to jam it all together in a few hours. There are few things that are more important or satisfying than this.

We took a trip to the Boston area this weekend, and now I want to know why the hell everyone is in such a hurry all the time.

Actually, the question is more closely directed to how the hurrying is done rather than why. We drove and were, therefore, subjected to the driving habits of the Boston area population. These habits are not pretty, nor are they something with which I have no experience. I grew up there, drove, and owned a cab there for a couple of years in my early 20's. In fact, that is one of the reasons I now live where I do. But now I've had years to think more about the experience and I still don't fully understand the inability of drivers to understand the relationship between weaving speed, danger to life and limb and the miniscule advantage gained by this insane activity.

The nature of traffic is that those behind catch up to those in front whenever there is an increase in the number of cars causing a slow down. So, if you are on the highway going 80 mph and you come to a little construction, heavy traffic or accident, you loose the entire advantage gained by the excessive speed for the last half hour. All those cars you passed catch up to you and indeed, if you are in the wrong lane, may actually go by.

Hurrying while driving doesn't work. It may make one feel better, but it gains one little or no advantage. I once read a report on a test in Germany in which there were 2 cars crossing 1000 km or so of the country. One was told to go as fast as possible and the other to obey the speed limits. At the end, there was a 15 minute difference in a 6-7 hour trip. Big deal.

I find this holds true in other aspects of my life. Whenever I hurry something, the resulting mistakes invariably cause so much additional time consumption that the whole process takes more, not less, time.

So if you get behind me and become impatient because I'm only going 5 mph over the speed limit, relax! Your nose up my exhaust pipe won't make it happen any faster.

Indeed, perseverance does work.

Charlotte and I went to camp this weekend to start closing things up and just relax in the quiet. We left Sat. AM and stopped at the Farmer's market in Groton VT for a blackberry pie. The woman who makes them does a great job- yes, we've had one before.

It was pretty cool in NH, so out came the heaters and firewood. Had supper at the local fish place and fell asleep in front of the fire trying to read.

6:30 AM was time to go fishing. I layered up and went out with coffee and an apple from the apple guy, Ed, on the Kankamaugus Highway. I had been out for a little over an hour when I heard a loud splash behind me. Turning around, I saw a loon in the water, twisting and turning and battling something. This is where the perseverance comes in.

Whatever it had was almost dragging the loon under water.

The loon was thrashing around and kept jabbing its beak into the water as if it was bobbing for apples. It soon became evident that it had caught a rather large fish.

This fish looked like it was way too large to swallow and, of course, it had to be swallowed whole or not at all. The loon would get it one way and another, but seemed unable to find the right combination of direction and placement to actually swallow it. this went on for about 15 mins., by which time the fish was obviously dead. Repeated pecking and chomping had taken their toll.

Finally , the loon got the fish in its mouth head first.

It was obvious to me that the fish was rather larger than the loon's head and I gave it no chance of actually swallowing the catch. Then, the loon raised the fish in the air.

and started gulping and gagging

And down it went, swelling the loon's neck to an admirably large size.

This was followed by a considerable amount of wing flapping and a look of "See what I did."

as he/she paddled slowly out into the lake. I figured that a fish larger than the loon's stomach could possible be would satisfy any hunger urges for a couple of hours anyway. It was a small mouth bass that weighed at least 1 1/2 pounds. But no. By the time I started in about 10 mins later, the loon was fishing again.

We went for a pontoon boat ride, but the engine unaccountably stalled down next to the boat launch area and wouldn't start, so I took this as a sign and we pulled it out and trailed it back to the house. This required getting the trailer out, pumping up the tires, and checking the lights which didn't work. To hell with the lights - Charlotte drove trailer down to the boat launch while I went in the Minnow (my fishing boat) to drag the pontoon boat in. This was relatively uneventful, and we got it home and in the yard. Then, I decided to bring the Abby B, my sailboat, home to VT. It was my turn for perseverance.

I went out in the Minnow, tied up to the Abby B and started the process. Took the jib off, took the mainsail off, stuffed it all into the cabin, took the boom off, took the tiller and rudder off, placed the mast crutch and lowered the mast.

This took about 20 mins. When I got the mast down, I realized that the minnow was floating way further away than the length of the painter, and getting more distant by the minute. We were no longer attached. Fortunately, it was floating toward the shore.

I hollered for Charlotte, who climbed aboard the Minnow and paddled in the wrong direction for awhile. Fortunately, she did avoid the rocks, and I was able to paddle the Abby B to shore, collect the Minnow and tow the Abby B to the boat launch. Came back home, got the trailer which had been pushed over a log and had to be dragged out by car rather than by hand, managed to back up over the hitch and sever 2 of the light wires, fixed the wires, and finally got ready to leave. We were now an hour later than we wanted, but we picked up the Abby B and left exhausted.

But, the loon taught me a valuable perseverance lesson. Open your mouth wide enough and you can swallow a huge fish whole.

We didn't have a clue. We didn't know that we didn't have a clue, but we didn't have a clue!

I was 20. So, of course, I knew everything. My wife, or soon to be wife, was 21 and knew only very slightly less than I since she was slightly older. She still is, but percentage-wise, I'm much closer now.

We were married by a Chinese Justice of the Peace, Dr Teyhi Hsieh (pronounced Tay-he She). He was an ex- Buddhist, married to an ex- Methodist. Interestingly, she converted him and he converted her. He was "the" person to get married by at the time. It was 1966, in Boston - Club 47, hootenannies in the basement, folk singers all over. Everyone who was anyone in that scene and getting married went to him. He was also the Honorary Chaplain of Curry College in Milton MA, the managing director of the Chinese Trade and Labor Bureau and "The Roosevelt of China". (His wife was Madame Chiang Kai-shek's personal secretary for a number of years.)

My mother gave us about two weeks notice that we were to get married. We, who collectively knew almost everything, hadn't given it much thought. But there was a child on the way and it was not in our parents stars to have this birth occur without a marriage first.

Charlotte had not a dress to wear to her wedding, but we had a friend, Ed, who purported to be a designer and who agreed to make her one. He did, and she actually wore it, although her grandmother insisted that she wear a string of pearls to help cover the expanse of bare skin showing above the plunging neckline.

As we entered the Chung-Mei Chia (It has occurred to me only as I write this that there was no Chia pet in residence - at least not that I saw.) Chapel in Brighton, MA, which was also the home of Dr and Mrs Hsieh, he greeted us with plastic leis to put around our necks. There were two 30 gallon trash barrels full of wrapped gifts and we chose one from each barrel. Dr Hsish didn't want anyone to get married without wedding gifts. We got steak knives, and two small, black and white tiled ash trays which we still have.

There were 7 of us in the wedding party. My parents, Charlotte's mother, my 2 brothers and sister-in-law, and Charlotte's grandmother. It was a very interesting ceremony, half Christian, of sorts, and half Buddhist, of sorts. During the ceremony, Dr Hsieh included a number of Chinese figurines representing love, friendship, etc that were on the mantle over the fireplace. He also included his much beloved saying (that is also printed at the bottom of his hand cartographed marriage license):

"Love each other for what you are;

Forgive each other for what you "AIN'T"."

I noticed during the ceremony that Charlotte's Roman Catholic Grandmother kept looking wishfully out the living room window. As it happened, we were directly across the street from the residence of Cardinal Cushing, which was quite visible through the window. In fact, at one point during what must have been for her a somewhat strenuous experience, she turned to Charlotte's mother and asked "When this is all over, will they really be married?"

Well, Something must have been right. We've been married through 2 children and 43 years and we haven't killed each other yet!

Human nature is an interesting thing. That's probably why so many people study it.

I keep running into the Spitzer Syndrome. Y'know - that's when the one thing that a person objects to most vehemently is what that person is doing on the side in secret. Bashing gay men while your feet are under the bathroom stall wall, family values put forth by pedophiles, cleaning out prostitutes while you're visiting them. The more a person expounds their virtues against their pet peeve, the more suspicious I become. There must be some kind of rational inherent in this, something that says if one is verbose enough against the practice to which they object and takes sufficient action to defeat it, it's OK to do a little of it yourself since you've so obviously saved so many others.

The Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas was in town recently. It's the second time they have been here. They are anti just about everything, but specifically gays and lesbians in their visit here. Vermont is the first state to legislate same sex marriage and they arrived on the date upon which it was to take effect.

They carried signs: "God Hates Fags", "God Hates America", "You Will Eat Your Children", etc. etc. I thought that they should be totally ignored, especially by the press and TV, but it was not to be. Five members of the "church" were met by about 200 local citizens. Fortunately, everyone remained far removed from physical violence, but there was a lot of yelling and such.

According to Wikipedia, "The group maintains that God hates gays above all other kinds of "sinners" and that homosexuality should be a capital crime."

This was all started by one Fred Phelps in 1955. I am very suspect of Mr. Phelps.

Why do people sign on so aggressively to extreme ideals? I think it stems from a human need to convince others that your way is right. This seems particularly true in organized religions, but it also happens in virtually all aspects of life. The need to get other people to agree with your point of view often supersedes the original subject. Extreme radicals of all kinds are perfectly willing to bomb, kill, maim, lie to and mutilate others who don't agree with their viewpoint. This need seems, in fact, to be the reason for most wars. If you can't get people to agree with you then the next step is to force them into submission, where you can work on them until they have no choice but to agree.

To some degree, we are all guilty of this. I am certainly no exception. I argue my thoughts to the point of distraction because I don't want to be wrong.

But even though it may not always seem like it, I am trying to change. Just because there is an opposing idea doesn't mean it's wrong. If I can actually force myself to listen to a different viewpoint, maybe it's a beginning. Maybe it will spread--

It was 1967.

We were sitting around in my parents house one day and I was pontificating about when our children were old enough to leave home, I wanted to move from the Boston area to VT. I had this whole plan that was to occur in about 18 years. My mother said "If you really want to live in VT, you'd better go now because if you wait, you will have put down roots and you'll never leave."

I'm sure that my wife, who wanted to live on Brattle St. in Cambridge, must have gasped in horror, but I didn't hear it.

Charlotte's best friend Kitty and her husband had just moved to Montpelier. We had visited once or twice, and if we were indeed going to go, it seemed that was the place.

We moved to Vermont in 1968, in time for our youngest son to celebrate his first birthday in his new state. Charlotte expected covered wagons and an outhouse, with kerosene lamps as the only light source since electricity certainly couldn't have been extended to the far north wilds yet. This was only passing fancy though, and we arrived in a rented truck with everything we owned and no place to live. After 2 weeks living out of the truck (the U-Haul folks were getting just a little nervous by then) and with our friends, we found an apartment and our life in the frozen north began in earnest.

I worked as a painter for my landlord, and in a local printing shop, and I then went to work for an insurance company home office where I remained for 32 years.

In the early days, there was no money. I was making just over $4,000 a year and Charlotte stayed home with the kids. I can remember sending unsigned checks to the electric company to try and get a few extra days before the next paycheck.

The fact that there was no money is really the point of all this. We did move into a rented house in about a year, and wound up buying it about 3-4 years later. Our mortgage payment was $80.56. We had trouble with that!

The things we did have were family, friends and fun. Entertainment was going to Kitty's for cooked to death "lamb briquettes" and helping to move the pigs around or fix a fence. We went there, they came to us--. No one we knew had any money, we all just pooled whatever resources we did have and laughed a lot.

In those days, when we went to Maine to visit my parents for a week everything the 4 of us needed for survival fit into an old Volkswagen bug. (I got to the point that I could change out an old burned up VW engine for a slightly newer hopefully working one in less than 2 hours. There were always 1 or 2 replacement engines awaiting their turn in the garage.) There were no kid electronics or trunks of toys and we just enjoyed whatever there was wherever we were.

My kids grew up to be wonderful people, even though they were so deprived of stuff. They spent hours outside doing God knows what and still have great memories of their childhood.

It must be obvious what all this is leading up to by now. Is it really better to have the vast quantities of modern technology and all the stuff that goes along with it? Don't get me wrong - here I am blogging on a computer and enjoying doing it. The technology is great, but not to the exclusion of simpler things. I am convinced that one of the reasons my kids turned out so well is because we had to make due for so long. We depended on each other, friends and family, for sustenance to nourish mind and body.

Although my grandchildren have more things and opportunities than their father and uncle ever dreamed of, they are being raised with much the same view of what's important. I spent 4 wonderful days with my grandson in NH this Summer. We were supposed to be there in warm weather, fishing, swimming, maybe a little sailing. Instead, it was cool and rainy the entire time. So, we played cribbage, the trumpet (him) and guitar (me), and read books in front of the fire the whole time. No schedule, no pressing need to do something. It was great and a time I will remember always.

That's what's important.

Weekends are a wonderful thing - even for this "retired" person. I usually try to sleep late, 7:00 or so, AM that is. I actually got to ride on Sunday. A friend and I went to a BMW Picnic at White Rocks recreation area in Wallingford. It's quite pretty there, with a good view of a steep hillside with, surprise, white rocks. Big ones.

Riding a motorcycle means that you are all by yourself. There is not much that will penetrate the skin of leather, helmet, ear plugs and wind noise. Left to my own devices, I have a tendency to think music. It's a good chance for uninterrupted thought about tunes I'm trying to learn, refine or just get better at. Got to be careful though. While imagining what my fingers should be doing on a guitar I have to remember what my fingers should be doing on the handlebars. I can get lost in thought, but not too lost.

Fiddler Susan won't be at practice tomorrow, and Michael has a photo shoot and some kind of meeting to go to. Tuesday nights have been a regular music event for me for 11 years or so and this is the first time I can remember that it has not happened at all. There have been times when I have not been there, normally because I've been too far away, but no jam at all is rare. I surprised myself with my reaction. It's like my week is incomplete, a big hole in the middle. Think I must use the jam-turned-rehearsal as a release more than I thought. My plan is to sit in front of the computer tomorrow and practice for at least 2 ours. Maybe I'll get the 3-4 tunes I'm learning down. Maybe not. I find I have to play one tune at least 200 times before I'm comfortable with it and then another 200 or so to straighten out the final fingering, which is never really final.

Changing even one finger stroke is a major deal for me once the muscle memory is set, and this happens several times during the learning process. I suspect learning tunes is one of the reasons that I have dreams about trying to get somewhere but I can't because other things keep happening.

I learn by listening. No music reading here. The more I listen to a tune, the more I hear. I learn with a sort of instrumental Karaoke process. That is, I play the tune on my computer and play along with it. I use a program called Amazing Slow Downer. It slows, or increases, the speed of a tune without changing the key in which it is played. This is a great program and has improved my ability to hear the chording and timing I'm trying to learn, but I still need to hear it many times before it starts to come together. I am encouraged by the fact that Susan's ex, a world class pianist, goes through the same scenario, albeit with the advantage of reading the musical score. She remembers being driven nearly crazy by endless repetitions of the same line, the artist seeking perfection. I'm trying to avoid the Spousal Insanity Syndrome by practicing mostly while Charlotte is not here, but it must get pretty monotonous sometimes.

Tonight, I made about a gallon of apple sauce from some of the apples in the back yard. The turkeys, crows and deer have been busily eating them for about 2 weeks, so I decided it's my turn now. Just tasted the result. It is definitely worth the effort.

There isn't much to do besides steering when you are driving around your lawn on a mower. The brain power for this activity does not strain my capacity (although there are some who would disagree) so my mind has a tendency to wander elsewhere.

There has been such a concentration of high visibility death recently. A Jackson, two Kennedys, a soldier from St. Johnsbury in Afgahanastan, 2 bigwigs in the TV News community, Farrah Fawcett. One of the things said about all of these people is that they were, in some way, great people.

What is great? What must be done to attain greatness? Is it fame, fortune, infamy, the number of people who morn your passing or appreciate your life?

By all accounts, Sen. Kennedy did horrible things during his lifetime. We'll never know the truth about Mary Jo or the drunken rape scandal. His first wife divorced him, in part due to his philandering. He drank too much, frequently. But he achieved greatness in the minds of many, including mine.

Michael Jackson lived in a swirl of constant questions about his sexuality and yet half the world mourns his end of life.

The young soldier who died in vain in a foreign country's war had not enough life experience to attain greatness, until he was blown up by an IAD.

Farrah Fawcett was mostly just a very beautiful woman with great hair, and a pretty good actress.

Did these people have any common thread which contributed to their Great designation?

I don't think so. In fact, I don't think that greatness is all that special. Anyone can be great with perseverance and the right attitude. It happens to thousands of people all over the world every day. The only thing the people mentioned here had in common was fame, which has nothing to do with it. Fame only means that everyone is going to be told stuff about you whether or not you want it.

But people need to hear about it. There is an innate human desire to associate in some way with the perceived good in others, and to ignore the occasional, or frequent, strays into a less than perfect life. (As an aside, how much longer will we be hearing about Michael Jackson than Ted Kennedy?) After all, it's just who those people are and as long as the meandering doesn't become a permanent lifestyle----. In the end, we can forgive the famous for their indiscretions, as bad as they may be, but we have trouble offering the next door neighbor the same consideration when he backs in to our trash can by mistake.

We are all guilty of occasionally showing less consideration to the people around us than to strangers. It's one of those offbeat pieces of human nature that I just will never understand. What I do know is that in my world, I have a need to try and understand the opposing point of view. How can I understand my own opinion fully without that?

Charlotte tells me, fairly often, that I need to shave off my mustache. She says it makes me look old. She read an article somewhere, written by someone who has much to say about such things, that mentioned all the older men wondering around with mustaches, grey hair and ponytails and how they all look like they are still trying to live the 20 year old life of a Dead Head but no longer look the part. This is being used against me. Damn fashion writers. I happen to like my mustache, so it's still on my face. I think I have a solution though. I'll just grow a ponytail and let my sideburns get long. That should solve the problem!

I had to replace a hallway light bulb in an apartment building today. The light hangs from the ceiling with a glass bowl under the bulb. These bowls normally get a pretty good layer of bugs at the bottom which are easily visible when the light is on.

As I set up the ladder, I noticed that even though not lit, this light was obviously no exception. I unscrewed the hangers and lowered the bowl, careful to avoid dumping the contents in my face. Inside, there were the usual bugs, and a sheet of ripped up paper with printing on it.

Someone ripped up some unwanted thing and lofted the pieces into the light 7 feet off the floor! I've found light trash before in the form of gum wrappers and small wads of this or that, but this took effort and the necessary skill to throw 15 or 20 small paper pieces into one light bowl. What is that? What kind of brain fart does someone have that says "rip up this paper and put it in this light shade"?

Of course, not content with simply emptying out the trash, I've been thinking about this off and on all morning. It's no big deal, but it is a matter of curiosity. People indeed do strange things, but whatever one does, they generally don't do it thinking to themselves "this is stupid, but I'm doing it anyway." No! Whatever one is doing at any given moment is an action that the mind involved has somehow rationalized as being OK to do. In this instance, how did the perpetrator come to that conclusion? As an addendum, one floor down, there is an empty waste basket in the hall---"Better not use that, it's someone else's."?

Got up, went out to breakfast, came home, played on the web and Playa del Carmen site, vacuumed the house, cleaned the screen porch and back porch, practiced a new tune, played more on the web, washed the kitchen floor, went out to get corn for supper (realized that my per ear calculation was wrong half way home and had to go back to make up the difference in the money jar at the corn stand, whereupon the corn guy who was now there told me that someone stole $4.00 from the jar yesterday), came back home and am preparing to make supper and go to Tuesday night practice.

Casio tells me that my camera is fixed. They will send it back for about $89.00. That's better than the $415 it just cost me to have the septic tank pumped and cleaned. If we didn't have all this stuff-------

So - why did mother nature invent mosquitos and fruit flies? They seem to be equally useless and almost equally bothersome, except the mosquitos are worse.

Every year at about this time, fruit flies appear, brought in on bananas or some such. Whenever I throw something in the kitchen trash, a small cloud of them flies out, darting about in their impossible-to-smack way. They are so small that against anything but a white background they quickly disappear. Then, every so often, a tiny black speck meanders aimlessly across your line of sight - just long enough to bug you (no pun intended) and too fast to clap. For the duration, the kitchen trash has to be sealed and removed every day, or maybe twice, and all surfaces must be spotless. No leaving tomato juice on the cutting board during supper or they will congregate in hoards.

This year's corn crop has been pretty sketchy so far. The first ears I got at Legare's vegetable stand were small, irregular and not very sweet. This is unusual since their corn is usually one of the best around. I have decided to shop around and see what's up at other places. Passing a sign at Boulevard Gardens that said "Sweetest Corn in Vermont", I stopped and got some. It was good, but not as good as my memory of fresh corn. I tried Paquette's with the same result and today I went to the organic guy I mentioned above. Haven't had a chance to test it yet, but it looks good anyway. I did return to Legare's for another try and it was much better the second time around.

One of the ATT requirements when they bought Cellular One is that you have to order a new service, even though your contract with the previous company has not run out, if you want to retain the same phone number. This is a total pain in the you know what, but I took the opportunity to upgrade to a new more option riddled phone. They were free with a 2 year service agreement. After a few months, I know why they are free. It's a total piece of crap. The battery door fell off in the first 2 days and disappeared. A new one was $15.00, plus shipping, from the only place you can go in the US for service (TX) and battery doors are not included under any warranty since they are a removable part. Pretty convenient for Pantech, the phone manufacturer. I suspect a large part of their profit margin is due to this clause.

I did convince ATT to pay for the door, which promptly fell off again in a day. This time I outsmarted them though, so far. I taped the door on. Now, the battery comes loose about 1 or 2 times a month and the phone won't work at all until I remove the tape and door, take it out and reinstall it. Of course, you don't know that you are missing calls until you try to use the phone.

ATT will be happy to upgrade the phone to an iPhone for a mere $250 (refurbished) and a new 2 year contract. I plan to call them and speak my piece of mind.

James Byrd of Clarksville GA has bees that make the best honey I've ever tasted from Sourwood blossoms. I bought a jar on the Southern Tour one year and was so impressed that I looked him up on Yahoo when I got home and called for more. He sent me 6 pounds at $2.50 a pound. For a product that normally costs 3 times that, I thought it was a pretty good deal, so I sent him money and a quart of Morse Farm's best maple syrup with a CD of Meg's kitchen. The next time I called, he refused any payment and sent another 7 jars. I sent more syrup. Today when I called, he said "I was just going to send you some more - I thought you might be out by now." This is turning into an excellent relationship. I think I'll send him a set of Floons in thanks.

For those who don't know about Floons, they are home made wooden flipper/spoons that are quite handy for many things around the kitchen. My entire family has them, some more than one pair. They come in right and left hand configurations and flip eggs, stir stew or soup, turn wok contents and serve salad with equal ease.

Time to start cooking. See you on the flip side, so to speak.

Sunday AM - mostly spent slaving away over the hot blog. After realizing just how stiff my neck was becoming, we decided that it was time to go out somewhere. I called Matthias and Amy to see what's up and they were going blueberry picking at Owl's Head farm in Richmond, VT. This seemed like a good idea, so Charlotte and I started in that direction. I wasn't sure where it was, so I took the GPS. Gotta use that thing once and awhile.

Knowing that Richmond was the destination, and knowing how to get there, I left Rte. 89 before I was instructed to do so by the unaccented woman's voice. This caused a reconfiguration of the directions and we were now sent over all kinds of back dirt roads, including the one that goes past Huntington Gorge.

This is a rather famous place for a not so good reason. The gorge could be a spectacularly good spot for swimming, except that is is truly dangerous. It is a deep and narrow cut between solid rock ledges with one place where all the water goes through a fairly small hole. Anyone swimming above this hole is in danger of getting swept in and if this happens, they cannot get out. Extraction is only possible with block and tackle, and does not occur before drowning. There has even been an instance when a roped up rescuer drowned trying to extract a stuck swimmer because he could not be pulled out once he was in.

The beginning of the Gorge. Note the flat river very suddenly changes to a deep cut between jagged rocks. The current is quite swift and the probability of slamming into the rocks is high.

A closer view:

This is the small hole through which the entire flow of the river passes, and in which people have become stuck. The hole is not in a shape which will allow a human to pass through, and there is an instant cork effect if one gets stuck in it.

These are the outflow just below the hole and a pool a little further down.

The agony of all this is the number of needless deaths that have occurred over the years - mostly young and indestructible people having a fun day. There is a memorial sign warning of the danger

This is a place of both extreme beauty and sadness. I go there every couple of years to see it, but this visit was a surprise sprung on us by the GPS.

When we arrived at Owl's Head farm, Matthias and Amy were just returning to their car. It was 4:20, and they close at 4:00 on Sunday, so we didn't get any blueberries. We made arrangements to meet at their house for a little visit and went off to Burlington to find a house Charlotte wanted to look at.

At M&A's we were greeted by a sleepy Emmeline and tail wagging buddy, Keena (spelling?) Keena has one of those bull whip tails that cleans off a coffee table in seconds, and I feared for the safety of Emmeline, but she was fine.

The dear pooch has lost a front leg to cancer, but this has not slowed her down much. She still manages to chase rabbits and dig holes with the best of them.

Daddy and daughter:

Giving great ant Charlit the hairy eye:

Amy returns to work on Monday, so Emmaline needs to be weaned off of mommy only feedings. She warmed right up to Charlotte and sucked the bottle dry in about 2 mins, a good sign for the future.

We had fresh roasted green beans, taters, chicken and home made peach ice cream on the patio and managed to get everything all cleaned up before the day's rain started. This whole daily rain thing is becoming rather old at this point. Leave it in the Northwest, I say.

It didn't rain and we did play the farmer's market gig. As expected, there were many fascinated dancing children and it was a great time. It was also hot and muggy. I had trouble playing because my hands were so sticky I couldn't form chords or slide up and down the guitar neck. Things improved toward the end and our final set was better than the first.

Happy Meg's musicians:

Happier Meg's musicians:

Although the plan was to play with sand, bricks, septic tank and chipmunk destruction in the afternoon, all things change. I got up early and had the septic tank recovered before breakfast. Having gotten the worm, so to speak, Charlotte and I decided to go for a ride in the PM. I had lunch at the farmer's market, which was a plate of very tasty jerk chicken (I've been told it's appropriate for me to eat jerk food) and curried rice and we left soon after I returned home. We decided to go visit Queechee and maybe stop at a large antique mall there to do a little window shopping. We don't need anything, but it's fun to look.

I decided to take the back road from Bethel to Woodstock (Rte 12) instead of the interstate, which actually takes you about 10 miles south of Queechee Gorge where the mall is. A small detour on the way down took us down River Rd which is on the opposite side of the Ottouqueechee River from Woodstock. The Billings Farm is on this road, as well as several other beautiful and obviously well funded operations.

Billings Farm manager's house (Photo from web site):

The main house

Frederick Billings established the farm in 1871 and, as a conservationist who was concerned about the lack of forestation in VT, he planted over 10,000 trees in the Woodstock area. The billings farm, now a farm museum, is still run as a farming operation and is also a successful tourist attraction. There is more at Farm History

The Miller place, down the road.

Maplewood Farm further down the road - many horses, lots of white fencing:

Once in Woodstock, the rain was still holding off so we walked around for awhile and had ice cream at a local parlor where it is made in small batches. The downtown area of Woodstock is full of architecturally beautiful buildings and houses. Much of this is due the the influence of John D. Rockefeller and his grandson, Laurance. Laurance was responsible for burying all of the towns electric power lines underground, where they remain to this day, and he endowed 550 acres to the National Park Service for the new Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Park which was opened in 1998. More at: Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park - History & Culture (U.S. National Park Service)

Downtown, there is a beautiful town square surrounded by equally beautiful buildings.

The Norman Williams Public Library:

The Woodstock Inn (taken in April - no leaves yet). This building was replaced in the late 1960s by Laurance Rockefeller who determined that the original 1889 building was no longer salvageable. I was in high school in South Woodstock at that time and seem to remember a fire at the original inn after which it was purchased and rebuilt by Mr. Rockefeller, but I could find no such information on the web in a brief search. The Inn now looks like it's been there forever and has a 6 foot wide fireplace opposite the front door which has huge 6 foot logs burning all winter. It's quite an inviting greeting on a cold day.

The front lawn:

Of course, there was a wedding:

After wandering around downtown,

we went on to Queechee Gorge.

The gorge is 165 feet deep at the bridge, upon which I stood to take these. As you can see it was by then pouring rain, and we decided to skip the antique mall.

The rain soon stopped, but by then we were on our way to West Lebanon for a quick stop to TJ Max, which we seem unable to avoid if we are within 100 miles of one. From there, it was a quick trip home.

All said and done, a very enjoyable day.

Muggy, hot, rainy at times. What's new??

Every time the washing machine dispenses it's effluent into the septic system, the bar sink in the kitchen gurgled and bubbled foul smelling air into the atmosphere. This was controllable by wedging the stopper in the drain, but I knew that a more serious solution was just around the corner. When the same belching putridness started with the mere washing of dishes in the big kitchen sink, it was time.

There is a brick patio off the back door, under which resides the septic tank. When I put the patio in, I marked the tank location with different colored bricks and installed a box over the tank cover, so accessing the cleanout is a simple 20 min task. I did the digging last night and the honey wagon arrived to pump it out today. The problem is solved, with the additional process of cleaning out the line to the drain field with a jet stream hose.

My wife is convinced that all this is the fault of my chipmunk buddy who has been furiously digging out winter habitat under the bricks all summer. They (the bricks) are now starting to collapse into the excavation and more work for me is imminent. I have tried to capture the miniature felon in a have-a-heart trap with no success. He does come to visit and chatter whenever I am outside on the patio, but I guess I need more tempting bait in the trap to lure him in. Peanut butter isn't doing it.

Tomorrow, if we're not washed away in the predicted storms, I plan patio work in the PM, both the refilling of the holes I dug and my buddy's tunneling.

The AM, pending dryness, will be filled with a gig at the local farmer's Market where Meg's Kitchen is scheduled to play from 10:00 to 1:00. I really enjoy this particular gig since we are simply background music and have the opportunity to say hi to friends who drop by. It's always a charge to see little kids dancing to the music, and there will be plenty of them there.

Last year

Unfortunately we've run out of CD's, they were so popular we sold all ten of them, so we can't put any out. This won't slow us up much though. We'll still have fun.

Fiddler Susan gave my wife Kahlua Chocolate Chip cookies for her birthday. These are amazing little desert snacks. It's time to go eat one.

Once again, it was a hot day - not particularly conducive to mowing lawns. So I cleaned hallway and porch areas instead. In hindsight, I don't think it was any cooler than mowing.

The Tuesday night jam session that I've been going to for 11 years as changed. The core three of us who attend virtually every Tuesday, and who call ourselves Meg's Kitchen on those occasions when we play "out", have decided to use Tuesdays as rehearsal time. We decided that if we are going to play in venues where people are actually listening, rather than as background music, we should probably work out a few arrangements and try to sound a little more together. THis seems to be working. Some arrangements are thought out first, and some just seem to happen by accident. It's different from just a session. The one thing I don' like so much is telling others, who come expecting a jam session, that it no longer is.

It was so hot tonight that I had to put a cloth over my guitar because it was getting all wet and I was sticking to it. At the end, I had a big guitar shaped wet spot on my shirt. The music was good though, and our fiddler brought cookies - Kaluah Chocolate Chip. It don't get much better than that.

Music is certainly a saving grace. Being able to play with good friends on a regular basis is a great way to relax and straighten out the week.

It's 11:15 now - time to hang it up for the day. I still need to mow lawns tomorrow, or sometime soon.

After sitting here doing bills and cleaning up my desk from the last month's accumulated nonsense, I am going to go and inspect furnaces and electrical boxes with a rep from my insurance company. This means hunching over in too short basements filled with spiderwebs on the third straight 90 degree day with a flashlight.

Well, at least the basements were cool. The ins. guy tells me that all electrical boxes need to be circuit breakers. one house isn't, so I expect to get a letter from the ins. Co. any day now. Boy does that make me happy!

I guess I'll go murder some grass with the lawn mower and pull out a few 6' tall goldenrods that are trying to take over my monk's hood. It's only 92 degrees F out there now-perfect timing for outdoor work.

So I was out mowing and I realized that my weed strewn lawn, filled with wild strawberries, dandelions, the infamous tall spiky things and wild blackberries, is green and lush looking. My neighbor's lawn, enhanced by professional treatment of some sort, is kinda brown and krispy looking. I'm thinkin "Hooray for the weeds." My "If it's green, mow it" philosophy seems to be working.

I've been coming back to this silly blog all day, and I still haven't come up with anything worth saying, so I guess I'll call time and go get corn for supper. It's beginning to sound too much like a loooong twitter.

Talk atcha later

Wow - I haven't written anything since July 6 ?!?! Where has my lazy butt been?

Oh yeah - in NH, where I spend my summers in a cottage on a lake. There is no computer access there, which some might view as heavy withdrawal-which I welcome with open arms. I enjoy the entertainment and communications options one has with a computer, but not having one is also nice. It's good to take a break now and then.

It must be a well known fact by now that the weather normally reserved for Seattle WA as, instead, been assigned to the Northeast. It has rained about 20 inches in NH this Summer, while raining only 1/2 inch in Seattle. The mean temp seems to have been about 68 degrees F and the lake water has only recently begun to warm up to it's usual 78 degrees F.

Essentially, it has been a Summer of fishing, sailing, swimming (brrr) and maintenance projects, with a good sprinkling of shopping included. No. Conway, NH is a shoppers mecca, with virtually every national clothing sales place amply represented in the vast malls. I stay away from all this as much as possible while my wife enjoys the experience.

Here's a few pics which will explain why NH is our Summer time place of residence:

The camp, outside

The camp, inside

The lake

The Loons

This is quite interesting. Somehow, the loons arrange fishing parties which include loons from other lakes who fly in for the occasion. I don't know how they let each other know about this party, but I have seen up to 14 loons partying on a lake that has only 6 loons in residence. They corral the fish and feast on them, all the while playing and calling to each other. I took a video of the 9 I found this summer at YouTube - Loon fishing party . If you watch the whole thing, the first loon to leave the party takes off, running across the lake to get air-born, it's feet whacking the water as it goes.

The Sunset

The moon rise

We are now home for 2 weeks, after which we will go back off and on through October. It's a 3 season house, so there is no heat or water in the winter and the camp is shuttered up.

Now, I have apartments to clean and rent, so it'll be busy for the next couple of weeks. Today, and yesterday, it finally turned hot, but of course we are no longer near the lake to cool off. It often happens that way----