CAPE COD REPORTS, 2007 These Cape Reports were originally letters to friends and family. They were meant to follow the sound email policy of never saying anything you wouldn't want the world to read, but if you see something here that offends you, let me know. No offense was intended, and I apologize. Many last names have been suppressed, so as not to intrude in friend’s lives. You’ll have to sort out the characters by context, if you care. JANUARY February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December 17 Jan 07 A friend once asked N how old you have to be to like classical music. We're not sure she was serious. In my case it was 16 listening to a friend's new coaxial speaker. In N's case it was much younger. It's all we've listened to for decades, which is admittedly small minded. Fortunately there's plenty and a fair variety. How old do you have to be to like great contemporary 'literary' novels? Seventy one? I've read lots of them for book groups over the past 30 years, and while many were okay, few got me excited. N and I both loved Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety, written in 1987, this month's book group choice. Stegner was a 'western' writer who taught literature and writing and lived from 1909-1993, close to my father's dates. Crossing to Safety is a simple story of two couples, both of the men English professors. What makes it great is the writing. Next month's book is The Brother's Karamazov. The chooser sent an apologetic email saying it’s long and hard going and just to read the 'Grand Inquistor' chapter if you found it too much. I read it when I was 18 and liked it. I started it yesterday and still like it. I'm keeping a list of the names, two apiece for most characters. I must look on the web for a cheat sheet. Whether I have the stamina for 900 pages of small print remains to be seen. I remember thinking then that I wished I could read Russian. Still do. Learn some foreign language while you're still young enough to remember new words. -- N is reading Stegner's Angle of Repose at the moment. -- There were eleven at the book group meeting, a full house. It was at Kathy's house which I always enjoy. She's a wonderful watercolorist and always displays her latest paintings. What a treat. We can't all be all things, so we must enjoy each other. Our neighbor is off to Florida until May but says send her the new list by email and she will rejoin the group when she comes back. ECEC Friends seems to be the organization-that-cannot-die. We've been saying for months, okay this is it, but then it goes on to the next month. Doesn't really matter to me; I just deposit checks. We have $7500 in the bank which we plan to give to ECEC, the worthy organization which provides an after school program for Eastham elementary school. Badly needed by busy working families, who hang on by their fingernails in Eastham. The discussion of Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation” Sunday night went well. Six visitors came, all very bright people with much to say. Everyone was polite and thoughtful, so my job as moderator was easy. I'd hoped we would have a bit more diversity of opinion, but I'm afraid all the serious Christians stayed home to watch the Patriots. Two women and I were the closest thing to a dissenting voice. N stayed home and watched the Patriots. We'll do this again next month with another book. Any suggestions welcomed. Any subject. N suggested we check out American Islam. I was thinking “The Gifts of the Jews.” The “Book of Coffee” might be better yet. I bought a $6 piece of wood to make shallow shelves for the 'pantry' door to hold cracker boxes, etc. The soup cans are stacked 3 deep and hard to see. I rather enjoy stacking them. There is less and less waste space in our house. "The decapitation of Saddam Hussein's half brother..." NYT 16 Jan 07. Get it? We're to have winter tomorrow, teens to twenties, then back to Spring by Thursday. 26 Jan 07 It was 9 degrees in Eastham this morning. Perhaps today is our winter. It should be in the 30's again by tomorrow. We shopped yesterday, and may or may not suit up for a short walk today. There are a few inches of handsome snow on the ground. Nice to look at from inside. We saw "An Inconvenient Truth" last Sunday morning. I thought we would be the only ones not to have seen it, but we weren't. It's a beautifully done award-winning propaganda film, much slicker than anything of Michael Moore's. Supposedly everything is political at bottom. No doubt each of us has some agenda, but is it always a complicated one? Do hawks, coyotes, and field mice really need ulterior motives? I expected to be taken in, of course, and was. A little too much Al Gore maybe, but he has the right to be annoyed, and without him it would have been less convincing. Scary stuff. The message was that it's not too late. The meta-message may have been that it is. Still, we'll press on, using high-efficiency light bulbs (which really work!), driving slowly (works too), and cheering for windmills. Tom Friedman says he used to think we needed a Manhattan Project for energy. Seems sensible to me, a better idea than Iraq. But now he thinks we just need to explore everything at once, all forms of renewable energy and energy conservation too. Why not. -- I noted that “An Inconvenient Truth” was playing on the small screen at the Birdwatchers General Store, which generally has a DVD about, guess what, birds. I've been thoroughly enjoying a new book, “William James, In the Maelstrom of American Modernism,” by Robert Richardson. This is the chap who wrote the books on Emerson and Thoreau that I gave talks on a few years ago. These are true intellectual biographies that delve pretty deeply into the work of their subjects. I might try a talk on James this summer, mostly on his pragmatism. I own a copy of James's Pragmatism, which he wrote in 1907. -- There's quite a bit in the Richardson book about Charles Sanders Pierce, a brilliant, tragic, etc., contemporary and friend, a fellow member of the “Metaphysical Club” (another great book), who James credits with having invented pragmatism. Lots of good quotes. Pierce could write a problem in logic on the blackboard with one hand and the answer with the other, and he knew much of Shakespeare by heart. Don't you just hate those guys? Here's a quote from Pierce: "Thought is a thread of melody running through the succession of our sensations." -- Ain't it the truth. And a quote from James: "It is a pleasing confidence that...by working without stint day by day on the one line we have chosen, without looking ahead or thinking much of the final result, we are sure of waking some fine morning, experts in our particular branch, with a tact, so to speak for truth therein: a judgment, and ideas and intuitions of our own -- all there without our knowing exactly how they came." William James, Letter of 8 April 1871. -- Sounds good to me. Too bad I never really chose a line. -- James quotes Ruskin, "Your work should be the praise of what you love." Nice work if you can get it. And James told Gertrude Stein, "Reject nothing," and she took it to heart. I picked up “American Islam” at the library, a book Nancy thought might be a candidate for the Fellowship evening book discussions. Essays about 7 American Muslims and their current struggles. Although the vast majority of American Muslims are good citizens and patriots, there's more agitation and Muslim extremist preaching and action in this country than I realized. American Muslims are only 26% Arab, by the way, and 36% South Asian, 20% native born blacks, and 20% other. There are 3 to 6 million of them, impossible to say exactly. They are mostly middle class to well-to-do, well educated and well integrated, quite the opposite of their condition in Europe where there are far more and far less integrated into society. Hence the serious problems in France, England, etc. The book is good, illuminating. “Instersting,” as one of our children used to say. ”Russ, Thanks for update on the discussion-- and for the good news that you survived. I'm sure you're right-- it was a well-behaved meeting because of unanimity of opinion. Cause after all, humans do seem inclined to kill each other over disagreements of faith and belief. Even simple ones. I agree many very smart people hold improvable beliefs. But I'd characterize it as "faith," rather than "delusion"-- although I'm puzzled about how it happens. Maybe it has to do with the fact that faith-related material gets taught and learned in early childhood, before critical thinking skills are well developed. Then it remains in a walled-off compartment and, like some delusions, can operate side by side with fact-based views ( woops-- this might be the kind of analysis that would cause people to be less than courteous in a more heterogeneous discussion group). Also, I agree that religion isn't responsible for the world's ills, we are-- but it seems some people use religious beliefs to conclude that those who disagree need to convert or die. This might be a puzzle in logic: but it could add up to be the same as saying that religion is in fact culpable in some way. Anyway, thanks for passing on such challenging material to think about. It keeps the old mind active. Also, thanks for the invitation to do another talk. Will give it some thought. I don't know much about Frost's poetry, and had to read "I Could Give All To Time" over and over to try and decipher the metaphors. So far as I can tell, it's about the relationship between man and nature and death/loss-- that the environment keeps changing over time, but that man's inner core (of truths? beliefs?) remains stable; and that he manages to take that core with him (slipping past the sleeping customs officer, whatever that represents)) when he crosses over to death (safety). Does this analysis fit in at all with Stegner's theme in Crossing To Safety? (which I haven't read). Or maybe the poem means something else entirely! Cheers.” FEBRUARY 5 Feb 07 We went to "Bobsie's" funeral last Saturday. It was pretty good as funerals go. One of her nieces is a concert pianist and played our Sony piano. Various people spoke, many that she and Herb had known through the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod, which they had founded many years ago. A sculptor came from Maine and spoke about Bobsie's excellent pots. The head of the Welfleet Audubon Reserve spoke about starting a bird-watching club with her long ago. Bobsie was a very busy lady who was known by all to be very kind and thoughtful. I liked her, although I found her a bit imperious. As Bobsie Stevens (of Stevens-Pepperill Sheets) she was a friend and school-mate of Aunt Elizabeth's at the Hartridge School in Plainfied in the 1930's. We arranged a successful reunion over an old Hartridge yearbook at Bobsie's house a few years ago. -- Confusion: Nancy's Uncle Howard ("Uncle Bop", a contemporary, was called "Boppie", and another founder of the Fellowship, who still live across the street and ocassionally comes to meetings is named Bob Seay, pronounced "Bobsie." One stepchild of Bobsie's told a great story. Around Christmas a nurse was recording Bobsie's wish not to be resuscitated. She had to ask a few questions testing Bobsie's mental competency. What year is it? 2006, Bobsie said. What state are we in? Massachusetts. And what is the name of the President of the United States? Bobsie thought a long moment and then said, "I can't remember his name, but he's an ass!" Brought down the house. And scowls to the faces of a few Republicans. The food was catered and delicious. Roast beef and crab salad sandwiches. Bobsie hadn't wanted a funeral at all, but the notion of paying any attention to the wishes of the departed is silly, risky perhaps but silly. My mother didn't want a funeral either, which we used as an excuse not to have one. It would have been for her two remaining old friends, the nurses she had so greatly annoyed, and a number of nonagenarian bridge partners. We had intended to take the two old friends to lunch, but they weren't speaking to us. We had lunch as Al Fresco without them. That was when we first had grilled portabella mushroom and cheese sandwiches. Yum. Sunday we had no speaker so we talked about grandparents and grandchildren. Most of the members had grandchildren but most talked about grandparents. We realized that few see a great deal of their grandchildren. Bob and Marion have 9 children between them and 17 grandchildren, and they see them all (briefly). I told several stories, one about when I was acting up in my grandmother Chenoweth's house and my mother tried to corral me. My great grandmother Jenneman, who lived with my grandmother, rose to her magnificence and said, "Eva! Let da kid have fun!" All laughed. And about the morning, when I was 11, and my grandfather and grandmother Frohock and left the hotel in Clarinda, Iowa on our way to California. We'd driven for a few minutes when I said, "Dad (what I called M.A. Frohock), if we're going west, how come the sun is in our eyes?" My grandfather said nothing. We drove for another mile. Then he slowed the car and turned around. We never spoke of it again, but I felt that my stock had gone up. Also the time, late in her life, that I drove my grandmother Frohock to see the surf at Pemmiquid Point, Maine. It was a beautiful day, and we found a good place to watch and stayed there half an hour. She was so happy and so grateful that I felt bad that never had I expressed the same amount of gratitude for her lifetime of love. Of course, it wasn't necessary. So it goes. We visited a couple we know to bring them half a chicken (cooked!), string beans, and apple sauce. She is dying of cancer. He under great stress. But they seemed fine and strong, considering. We had a good long visit. 19 February 2007 N has been clumping around on one foot for the past week after having a corn removed. All is well, and she will be able to wear shoes she hasn't worn for a while. Today is her first real outing, to our book group. The book, as you recall, is The Brothers K. Elizabeth said try to read at least through "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter. And that is what N and I did. Kathy read it all, but I doubt many others have. I had read and enjoyed it at 18, but I realize that much of the turgid drama and near hysterical philosophical discourse was new and fascinating to me back then. Now I find all these people ridiculously emotional, wordy, and dreary. The Grand Inquisitor is worth re-reading every now and then, as it bears on totalitarianism of all sorts. I realized with some surprise that I am now partly in the Inquistor's camp. Man may not live by bread alone, but he does need to eat. Freedom to starve isn't exactly freedom. Be interesting to see what the ‘other’ ladies have to say. -- You'll recall one of my favorite stories from The Reference Desk: the person who said to me, "I was talking with one of the other women..." And I didn't even have my hair in a bun. Stephanie from Wild Care spoke Sunday morning. She was great. Unfortunately we couldn't make the video projector work with her laptop (some secret TR didn't tell us before he and Bets went off to New Zealand). But fortunately that worked out fine. We could see the laptop, and we could see Stephanie, who was an excellent and very enthusiastic speaker. They care for hundreds of injured and abandoned animals, mostly birds, but a few squirrels, rabbits, and even mice! They can have our mice if they like. They (Wild Care, not our mice) are in the big farm house that overlooks the Orleans traffic circle. She asked for volunteers, and Jan who is 85 volunteered herself and a neighbor. I mentioned to Stephanie (after the talk) that I had visited a seabird rescue center in Florida and found it admirable but smelly. "Oh, yes," she agreed, "it's very smelly." Sunday evening we had the "What is Religion" discussion with Zak, a mid-twenties Americore volunteer who studied at Oxford. A pleasant group of twelve, with dessert and coffee. We all enjoyed it, although occasionally Zak would say, "Er, I think we've wandered a bit off topic." Not really. To sept- and octo-genarians nothing is off topic. If Zak really wanted a good definition of religion he wasn't jolly likely to get one and didn't. I go with Bertrand Russell: kindness and veracity. N came up with a great idea. Extend the north end of the house by about six feet. Then enlarge 'my' powder room with a shower and add the upstairs laundry center. Alas, she won't let me dig the foundation, mix the cement with a shovel, and build the frame, so this plan will have to be sub-contracted some years down the pike. It's fun to have projects. I want to add one pane to the front living room window, 5 in all with a very slight bow. Shouldn't require either a foundation or extra header. Also down the road. The dining room bay window is planned for this year or next, but with the wedding and thoughts of London, Truro, and Edinburgh, it may get put off. No matter. I painted our bedroom, white ceiling and light yellow walls. N says let's wait for spring and fresh air to do more. Also this spring, I plan to move the two butterfly bushes and the rosa rugosa and plant a vegetable garden in our back yard. This, and high-efficiency light bulbs, will be our contribution to Global Warming. Well, you know what I mean, like "Support Mental Illness." -- Did I mention we saw Al Gore's really good film? Now the AAAS has come on board. When will everyone realize that the Administration expects to be ‘raptured’ before it gets to hot? While we get shafted. I read about Carl Sagan's posthumously published Varieties of Religious Experience, his Edinburgh Gifford Lectures of 1996, and saw it at the library. N has now read most of it. She loves it. So, it's highly recommended, and I get it next. Paul brought his copy to the Religion discussion and read a passage. I said that N had quoted the same passage to me just about an hour before! Small world, which we work at making smaller. -- The title was an intentional echo of William James Gifford lectures of 1900, which resulted in the famous book, "Varieties of Religious Expereince." This I also read as a kid. I can't imagine why. Did someone suggest it to me? It undoubtedly marked me for life. -- N reminds me that it's time to make our periodic suggestion that The Chosen and The Promise, in that order, are great novels, by Chaim Potok. That's about it. I listen to France24, RFI, and Deutche Langsam Gesprochene every morning. I make slow progress, I think. MARCH 1 March 2007 We had a lovely snow on Monday morning, coating every twig, but it melted away by afternoon. That's the story of our winter. Quite a few days in the tens and twenties though, hopefully enough to kill the cooties. A little ice fishing by, you know, the ice fishers. Hopefully you are all diligently thriving. We think of you all often from our hideout on Runway in the boondocks, and wonder. Do take care. -- N's foot is doing fine, back in a shoe. We don't do walks yet, but soon. We did drive up to Marconi just to look out from the lookout. Fine and spare, a calm sea sloshing on the shore, and but for a few cottages a mile or so to the north and a couple of antennas far to the south we could have been on a verdant moon. The old military reservation is rather moonscapeish with it's stunted pines and cedars, and moss and lichens, no doubt caused by depleted uranium in the soil. Ignorance is advised. Upcoming is the annual potluck with Am ha Yam. Good food and good company. A bit smaller each year, alas. We live in life cycles not surprisingly. Sunday evening the 11th will be a discussion of "Life is a Miracle" by Wendell Berry (a well-known public farmer/intellectual I hadn't heard of) and "Consilience" by Edward O. Wilson, professor of entomology at Harvard, Renaissance man and public academic, author of "The Ants", a thousand page formic thriller, and Sociobiology, one of the first shots in the evolutionary biology wars. Discussion to be led by NH, a retired (but extremely active) psychiatrist friend of Fellowship members from Wellfleet. Wellfleet is the summer home of all East Coast psychiatrists - where they go to get recharged. NH is a champion of Berry. Unfortunately I don't much like Berry and do like Wilson and so will have to be diplomatic. If you're interested there is a good (Wilson slanted) article about the two books on the web. Just Google "crucifix for dracula". Berry's book is largely a brandishing of garlic and wooden stakes at Wilson's. Both decry the effects of large corporations, specialization, professionalization, and industrialized universities. I may have to point out that nearly everyone in the room will be there in large part thanks to Big Pharma. The deconstruction of my lavatory proceeds. It still looks unchanged from the outside but has been gutted, wood deposited in the basement, wallboard in the garage. Next will be to build a new wall 4-6 inches out from the old one and fully remove the old. All is complicated by the fact that the rafters run parallel to the wall and probably won't intersect with the new one, but I'm sure it will work out. I tend to plan about 10 minutes ahead. Which usually works for me. Of course I'm not invading Iraq. Our neighbors to the south, are adding a 12 foot addition to the end of their house. The surveyors found the lot line was wrong, and they will encroach on the 25 foot sideline setback, so they will have to get a variance, but we won't object. The builder is a nice friendly guy (of course he wants our indulgence, but I think he's probably friendly anyway). N wants to add 6 feet to our bedrooms. When we get to that a few years hence we'll look him up, if we like the look of his work. Anyone want our really scrumptious recipes for beef burgundy and braised country style pork ribs? Not vegan. Not yet anyway. And again I ask for book titles in your field of interest and novels either for fun or for book group suggestions. If you haven't read him, try the Sunday Philosophy Club and 44 Scotland Street series of Alexander McCall Smith, set in Edinburgh. I haven't tried his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, set in Africa. 2 March 2007 by N: Many thanks for your most welcome letter – I am so glad you were able to get to Myrtle Beach and avoid the worst of the New York winter. Certainly New York has had more than its share of snow in recent weeks although I don’t suppose it was as bad in Oneonta as farther upstate. We’ve had a very mild winter – good for the heating bills but not as attractive as usual with very little snow. There is plenty of ice, though, in the bay and around the edges of the marshes – it looks like an Arctic wasteland from the beach. We really enjoy the peace of winter, with its short days and clear, starry nights. We had a most pleasant holiday season. Christmas Eve we listened to the live broadcast on Boston’s public radio station of the Service of Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, and it was lovely. We spent Christmas Day here quietly, then got into the car on December 26 for visits with 3 of our children in Philadelphia. They all are thriving and it was great to see them. Sara converted to Judaism last year so we send a Hannukah gift and will try to see her later this year. In any case we’ll all be together at John and Megan’s wedding on July 28. I have been somewhat housebound these last few weeks recovering from foot surgery. It all went very well and is healing on schedule with less pain than I expected. I have to spend a lot of time sitting with it elevated and I find I don’t really mind – I still have reading, knitting, TV, and radio and R is willing to do necessary errands and is a very good cook. One interesting book I read was “The Varieties of Scientific Experience” by Carl Sagan. He was an astrophysicist whose writings and TV program “Cosmos” were very popular. He died in 1996 but this book is a collection of lectures he gave in 1985 edited for publication by his wife, Ann Druyan. The title is a deliberate echo of William James’s “The Varieties of Religious Experience” and the essays are most readable and fascinating discussions of science and religion. At the other end of the reading spectrum I also read “Espresso Tales”, Alexander McCall Smith’s lighthearted sequel to “44 Scotland Street”. Both take place in Edinburgh and feature a collection of interesting and amusing characters. Both were originally written as serials for a newspaper – lots of short chapters and very amusing. We continue to be active in the Nauset Fellowship, a Unitarian-Universalist group in Eastham. I still consider myself to be an Episcopalian and never thought I’d be comfortable anywhere else but the people in this fellowship made us welcome immediately and the local Episcopal Church did not. It’s an independent group tied to the general association of U-U churches – we have officers but no minister or other paid staff, and have a variety of lectures and other programs on Sunday mornings rather than formal services. We meet in the small historic Chapel in the Pines, a most attractive old Victorian building next door to the library. We also have women’s group lunches and men’s group get-togethers every month, and a number of pot-luck dinners, all very convivial and giving us a real community. My school volunteer work seems to have dried up – even the kindergarten is heavily curriculum driven and standardized testing looms. There is no time for the sort of developmentally appropriate activities I so enjoyed helping with. I still make and sell photo note cards to help raise funds for the after school program, a most necessary feature of modern family life where 2 parents must work. The cards have proved to be most successful, an idea I got from Elizabeth who took wonderful pictures of the flowers in her garden and sent them us on note cards. 7 March 2007 J, You asked me to look a "The heart of our faith" by Guengerich in the Spring 2007 UUWorld. I don't think "our faith" or anyone's can be "clear and simple." Our "orthodox" view is freedom. I agree. I don't believe "all names for God point to the same mystery" or that "all creation shares the same destiny." It doesn't look that way, and how would I know? How would anyone know? Guengerich says religion is constituted by two impulses: awe and obligation. Personally I often feel curiosity and delight, rarely if ever awe. Awe implies weakness, helplessness, inequality (the purpose of "shock and awe"). The size of the universe compared with me isn't "awe-full", it's ludicrous. I don't think I/we "feel" obligations. I think we choose them. What kind of obligation must be forced on us? An illegitimate one. Practice: for Jews obedience to God's laws, for Muslims submission to God, for Christians love. Love I agree with, but in all cases what happens in practical terms is that believers come under the authority of some other person: pope, mullah, charismatic preacher. Gratitude? Gratitude to whom, God? I/we don't believe in God. Gratitude for what, my nice little life? What about the billions of nasty, brutish, and short lives of quiet desperation? The suffering of innocent children? The "vale of tears." "Life's a Bitch and then you Die." Do they pay for my good life? Sorry, I can recognize my relative and shaky good fortune, the beauty of the natural world, art music, literature, friends, but to make a discipline of gratitude would seem to me laughable. A kind of Boston Braham God's in his heaven, all's right with the world. "Gratitude is the appropriate response to the nature of the universe." Gratitude for the destruction of a million advanced civilizations every time a galaxy explodes? Pretty for us, but awkward for them. "The role of religion." I say religion simply "is." If it has a role, it has many, not all laudable. Yes, we are indeed the relationships between bits of dust that participate in countless other relationships at the same time. "The discipline of gratitude is about knowing how much we have been given and acknowledging the scope of our dependence. It's about saying, "thank you" to the people we love, to the world we enjoy, to the universe we inhabit, and to the God who holds us all in a divine embrace." Keep "gratitude journals." Clasp hands and repeat psalm 118.: This is the day we are given ("that the lord hath made") let us rejoice and be glad in it." I don't want gratitude; that's merely embarrassing and almost inevitably off the mark, too much, too little, wrong guy entirely, etc. I want anything/anyone I give to/help/encourage to thrive. That's our reward. So why should we burden others with gratitude? 7 March 2007 By Winter we mean snow, a dusting of dry white powder to prettify the landscape, not 10 degrees for a week! We'll have to venture out, as we're low on coffee and popcorn, two serious staples. We also need to shop for the Am ha Yam potluck, our usual salad. Our salads are simple and good. Some salads are neither. The potluck went well on Thursday, although Am ha Yam members outnumbered the Fellowship. Twenty five of us fit cozily at four big tables in the meeting room, which was fortunate as the temperature outside was in the teens and the main room was too cold. Two of our tablemates were born and raised in St. Louis. I'm always surprised to meet fellow St. Louisans, but I'm more surprised that anyone is still there. It has a 'continental' climate, beastly hot in summer and nasty cold in winter. The food was good. Always is. I'm meeting with a Keyspan Energy Rep at the chapel on Friday to see about conversion to a gas furnace so we can have our ailing chimney removed. This is the Fellowship's spring entertainment. I was feeling poorly for a couple of days, so the powder room re-do just sat. Poor N, she has only to say, 'what if..", and I'm reaching for the wrecking bar. She seems quite philosophic about it now. She, like me, adjusts as well as one can to the twists and turns of the universe. Another day's work should bring the first comforting intimations of the new half-bath. -- Back at it, and it's almost ready for wallboard. There will be more to do, new floor, shower, new toilet and sink, new window. I feel a bit guilty at doing all this for 'my' bathroom, but I think N sees it more as removing a serious blemish. H gave a good introduction to Wendell Berry's "Life is a Miracle," on Sunday night, which was welcome and badly needed. I did tell several people on Sunday morning that they should come even if they hadn't read the books. Alas, only I and the discussion leader had done all the reading. Some others couldn't come If more had been familiar with Berry's book I'm sure the discussion would have centered on the social problems both writers addressed, although I would have had to point out that a few of us were present largely thanks to Big Pharma. -- I forgot to make the point that E.O. Wilson's interest in consilience (silly word, I wish he'd stuck with 'coherence') was motivated in part by the extreme compartmentalization of academic research, and that he thought all scholars would gain by recognizing that there were useful connections among the disciplines. -- As to the 'spiritual' side, I feel inadequate to the task, but I think those of us to whom the scientific world-view makes sense have an obligation to try to explain how, in a material universe, self-consciousness, wonder, love, hope, beauty, justice, kindness, compassion, creative imagination, suffering, and evil actions can all be real. -- I imagine we'll continue our book discussions as long as Jari and Shirl have the energy. I wonder what we'll discuss next time. It occurred to me that the Fellowship could probably talk sensibly about a word picked at random from the dictionary -- perhaps the kernel of a new TV reality show! I tried it and fingered the excellent word 'evaluate', but when I checked the words around it I decided it might not be such a good idea after all. -- Joan N said they were the Wilson's neighbors in Lexington. They'd met them on the street but never talked about anything but the weather. The Omnivore's Dilemma is excellent. I'm not sure 'enjoyable' is the right word for it, highly interesting perhaps. (I remember very-small-Sara's cautious query when I suggested a TV show: "Is it an 'interesting' program?" (i.e. deadly dull) Omnivore isn't dull at all, on the edge of horrifying in fact. It's one thing to hear about agribusiness and industrial farming in bits and pieces, another to get it all at once. I image PETA is quite familiar with the book? Probably a more effective argument than some more earnest productions. We like the Diane Rehm show weekdays 10-12. We listen in the car, and on Fridays at home to the two hour Friday news roundup. I listen on the web sometimes (drshow). She's my age but sounds like an old lady because of a stroke some years ago. A great interviewer, though she's been out with pneumonia for a week or so. One of her sessions was on stress/depression/exhaustion in youth. Take heed, young folk! Reach, but don't overreach. It can creep up on you. Know your limits, and live to fight another day. Etc., etc. -- Consider our President! He knows how to pace himself. Create a lot of mayhem, cut a little brush, go on vacation. He's nearly destroyed the country and shaken the foundations of the world, but does he look stressed or weary? Does he show self-doubt of concern? Alas, not. 29 March 2007 We get the occasional spring-like day now. The woods look dead but not as blasted as they do after a winter of heavy snow. The garlic mustard is waiting to leap into action and challenge the invasive species cleansers. N is walking fine again. The foot doctor says the foot progresses normally; it's just a long process. While we were in Hyannis for the doctor we stopped at Home Depot and bought a shower stall kit. It won't be delivered for a month, which leaves me plenty of time to finish the bathroom enlargement. It's coming along. N points out that these projects always take at least twice as long as I think they will. This one is well past the messy stage however. A little sanding of the joint compound and painting, and the outside will look innocuous. N wants new fixtures and window in the bathroom too. Should keep me entertained for some time. I've moved the butterfly bushes and the rosa rugosa to make way in our back garden for vegetables. We're going back to the land this year. I asked Ken, a retired economics prof who has a big garden behind his old farmhouse, if he thought it made a difference. "Well," he said, "not really. But it's nice to do." Fair enough. I think John and Megan's notion of attempting to live sustainably while making less impact is the sensible one. Probably it's what we all try to do these days. We buy a lot of organic food, use organic cleaners, use power-saving light bulbs, recycle religiously, keep our thermostat at 65, have rain barrels, drive as little as possible, etc. We bring all our plastic bags back to the Stop & Shop. I do hope they really recycle the plastic. Other suggestions would be welcome. Tom Friedman had an article in the Times about the moral bankruptcy of the Bushies re science and climate change, but I think/hope we've passed the tipping point. I finished The Omnivore's Dilemma. Interesting and revealing. I could have done without the boar hunt, but I guess it helps his point about our connection with the earth. I can see that it might not be a poster book for PETA as Pollan thinks eating happy animals is okay. I don't know, but I'd agree that eating happy animals is better (and better for you) than eating unhappy ones. PETA is sensible about accepting amelioration. I like the sound of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm. It reminds me of my godparents Marion and Bob Towne's gentleman farm in St. Louis. I used to visit often as a child and read in a hammock in the company of free-range cattle. Very peaceful. Mostly it was Marion's father, Captain Goodin, a retired police captain, who ran the farm. Bob had a doctorate in chemistry and was an executive of (gasp) Monsanto. They had great dinners. Lots of food, not yet genetically modified. APRIL 4 April 2007 John, the friendly builder working on the addition next door gave, me a 28 foot length of old gutter to use for our garage. Very heavy gauge metal in good condition. I didn't think the garage needed gutters, many Cape houses lack them because of the sandy soil, which is more like dirty sand actually. But I like to maintain my reputation as a scavenger, so I accepted it gratefully. And lo, I realized I could transfer the water barrel operation to the back of the garage where it's less intrusive. We'll want the water, as we are planning a vegetable garden. We met our neighbors, the ones building the addition, and found them very pleasant. They said they like their work in New Hampshire, although they didn't say what that was, and don't plan to retire for another 3 years. -- Someone else is building a new 2 bedroom, 3000 sq. ft. house out of sight across Herringbrook Road from us. Only 2 bedrooms are permitted per half acre lot in Eastham, but there's no limit on how big the rooms can be! -- We ordered an Andersen window for my bathroom, sort of a practice run for doing more windows. For my doing more windows, that is. It should come by the end of the week. The shower stall may come the week after. Later the new sink, toilet, and floor. Good entertainment. The Easter brunch was very pleasant. We sat long and talked, the women at one table and the men at another. Politics at the men's table, word origins at the women's. Sometimes that happens. Without any planning the food is always good, with excellent coffee donated by The Chocolate Sparrow. Both the men and women's meetings were at our house this month, and we do refreshments next Sunday. The book group also meets here next week for our annual lunch and book selection meeting. Busy us. Any book suggestions? I think The Omnivore's Dilemma is a bit long and specialized. We usually do novels or biographies. I think for my choices I'll subject them to "Officers and Gentlemen" volume two of Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor Trilogy, a "man's book." I tried the first volume at Penn with less than an enthusiastic reaction as I recall. Only fair though, as I've been reading "women's interest" book group selections for 30 years. Maybe also the new biography of Einstein by Walter Isaacson. Good reviews although "weaker on the science" says the Times, but so are we. N put together a superb yellow split pea soup, worthy of the best Paris restaurants. Not veggie, though, using lot of peas but also 3 pieces of bacon and a can of beef broth. We made excellent grilled sandwiches with tomato, fresh basil, and smoked mozzarella. Why would anyone need restaurants when there are such possibilities? We've had our annual (sometimes semi-annual) brie bash. Brie, tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, and olive oil tossed with hot pasta. It's even better the second day. We're making the poor basil plant work hard before it succumbs to the black spot. Reading another good book about Paris. I hope we can go back someday. No return visit is ever the same, but that's good as well as bad. Jan sent us Garrison Keeler's op-ed about walking (as opposed to going about in a metal egg.) We walk every day. Walking in the city is good too, very good if you have a beautiful and safe city to walk in, like Paris! Also a history of the founding of Australia, long an interest. Don't know why, but maybe because it's one of the few well reported settlements of virgin territory by Europeans. Jamestown was too long ago and too poorly documented. Australia was the motherland to the aborigines, of course, but they were so different that the English hardly noticed them at first. David Azzolina was fascinated by Australia and has visited several times. TR and Bets, our veggie friends, had a long trip to New Zeeland last month and loved it. Fabulous countryside. I think of cities, museums, and restaurants when traveling but do hope to see the Scots highlands some day. Less interest in the rockies. So it is with humans. Ever greener grass. We keep thinking we'll drive to Gilmanton, N.H. and look for Thomas Frohock's grave, but we haven't. We rarely go to Boston except to get to the airport. John and Anna go there often to the symphony, but they are several brackets above and always fly from P'town. We took a sandwich to P'town Wednesday and walked to Race Point. 45 degrees but blue sky and sun with little wind. Very pure! The bearberry looks a little brown. We hope it's all right. If the bearberry goes, it's all over. Two tiny boats in the vast sea. A bit sad, not that I want to go out in boats, but we like to see them. I miss Thoreau's mackeral fleet. We also saw two turkey vultures close up at Salt Pond. We were a bit intimidated. They were not. Min died. She and Bob had the house next to the Rockwood Place on Herringbrook that we rent in the '70's. There was a view of the bay from the nifty covered porch and the kids could play in the woods. (No poison ivy or ticks?) We know them both well. Bob taught poli sci at Bard College. This is the downside of living in Lalaland, Oz East, the Magic Kingdom of the Sea, These Fragile Outposts. But it's a nice place, and people die everywhere, and the universe goes on expanding (for now). 13 Apr 07 I very much appreciate being included in the think tank. I think President Bush is intelligent, but I don't think he's a grand strategist. He's made it pretty clear that he has little personal curiosity and likes to get his information and ideas from brief reports by trusted advisors. The democratization of the middle east is more a desired outcome than a strategy. (And I believe only the fourth or fifth justification for the invasion and occupation of Iraq?) It's a worthy goal, however, and possible even in Muslim countries. I don't think it can be brought about by force. It might be inspired, even against the protests of the mullahs, by the example of a West, primarily the US and Europe, that functions well for all of its own citizens and is generous, rather than economically predatory, towards to the rest of the world. That's where we should be putting our Easter eggs. Enthusiastic support for the faltering UN could be a big part of it. As many folks have pointed out, terrorism is a method, the method of the relatively weak against the relatively strong, and not a movement. It is a permanent threat, as ever more deadly weapons become available to ever smaller groups and even to individuals. Military force is no protection. The only protections are: 1) reducing supposed justifications such as economic and political injustice and personal isolation and desperation -- This is a job for all of us. 2) good international intelligence and cooperation. Our country could have a major role here, but it strikes me that our actions, particularly in the last six years, have been counterproductive. The sort of big-thinking global strategist we really need nowadays is someone who recognizes the threats to peace and even survival of climate change, environmental pollution, resource depletion and the resulting vast inequalities in the world and begins to think and act accordingly. 20 April 07 The Andersen window has been installed in my bathroom and looks just fine. N has long had a hankering for these. "I suppose they'd each take three weeks?" she enquires a bit plaintively. Maybe not, now that I have the hang of it, although the thrill fades with each repetition. My Achilles heel. The shower comes next, and the porch rail. John and Anna's party was very nice, a French-group party in English for the benefit of spouses. Interesting people, mostly Europeans with exotic histories. Much talk about the water issue on the town meeting warrant. Seventy million bucks over twenty-five years to install a treated water system in Eastham. It would cost three times as much to get a sewer system, which is what we really need. There is fear that the elderly rich and impoverished young will vote it down. I imagine we'll vote for a study at least, but it is questionable. Most of us aren't likely to live to benefit from it, and the bay and marsh continue to become contaminated with nitrates and bacteria. What to do! My contribution is inspired by the Port-a-Potty installed next door during construction, which is pumped once a week. I doubt it will find much favor. "These fragile outposts," is the title, you will recall, of the basic film at the Visitor’s Center. A quote from Thoreau? Not sure. Descriptive, though. The Cape slowly sinks under the weight of development and its effluent as the sea rises around us. We still love and cherish it. Oreland was okay, but I felt claustrophobic there for 30 years. Here the ocean, although an unfriendly wilderness at heart, and the often brilliant night skies open on infinity. "Fragile outposts" is not a bad description of ourselves, for that matter, although most of the time we manage, as Pascal says, to conceal the abyss with a pretty poster. “Fragilite” is an issue in the French election this Sunday. The equivalent of our need for a social "safety net". Nicolas Sarkosy, conservative young Turk, is slightly ahead, but I have hopes for Segolene Royale, the attractive Socialist. Turnout is expected to be high, as the candidates are young and many French were frightened by the good showing of Jean Marie Le Pen 5 years ago. He is quite a character, a wild but by our standards rather mild-seeming anti-immigrant right-wing nut. Last week's chapel program on Darfur was interesting. I'm ashamed to admit to being rather weary of Darfur, as it is disgraceful, but this dynamic high school English teacher from Barnstable, with a student and a camp follower, made an excellent presentation. He's pushing for divestment by the state of Massachusetts and the "Genocide Olympics," because of China's rather cynical support of Sudan. Thank you and good luck we all said. The Fellowship puts most of its depleted energy and contributions into Cape charities. The disenchantment of age perhaps. This week's program is on "Love of Animals" and is by one of the Fellowship's younger Friends, a true activist. The news is certainly more entertaining these days, with the emboldenment of Congress and the roasting of the Attorney General. We have hopes, not high ones, but still... -- And as always the news is mixed. The tragedy in Virginia hits home with S living in the Gun State, K and D in the big bad city, and J and M hanging around a large campus. I guess my general reaction is similar to m reaction to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. They were all awful but not "pure evil" as some would have it, and not without our playing a supporting role. It's what happens eventually when you simply ignore fear, anger, suffering, or injustice. It was good that NBC showed the grim videos. -- I gather that half the homes in Eastham are armed. With Rhoda's encouragement, we are revising all of the Morris stories with a thought to publishing a collection someday. They are really my sketches of Cape Cod. She's a good editor of the knife-wielding sort. Yoga and rock climbing, of course. Drumming? Conjures many disparate images. I once heard African polyrhythmic drumming on the radio. Amazing sound. When we went to Mort S.'s memorial service a couple of years ago there was a drum circle of formidable women in front of the chapel. In the event it was so crowded we left our contribution of brownies and went home. Mort was a nationally known peace activist. -- On our next to last visit to San Francisco N and I wandered through a meadow in Golden Gate Park and past a large group of hippyish drummers. The meadow was thronging with what we thought were people until we noticed a few scaly tails and faint third eyes. We returned by another route. I'm glad III wears well. Do they have interesting (and revealable) plans for the future? Not "grow or die" plans which is one of the more depressing ideas we're saddled with there days, but just the thrill of novelty plans. N says of each new absurd little electronic device with which you can view videos while, e.g., frying fish, 'Why would anyone..." Because they CAN, I say. I understand it perfectly. I took a look at Cyark. I like the idea lot. These places interest me, and I don't expect to get to them in this life-time. Some thoughts: Although I have a broad-band connection the site seemed quite slow. It would be nice to be able to make the photos and the nifty panning videos full-screen. Although I have all the required software, the 'point clouds' seemed pretty much just that, clouds of points. Am I missing something? Should I be viewing them through colored lenses? MAY 9 May 2007 "Cape Cod weather," the sort which we used to say reminded us of Cape Cod. Hope it holds, as D has arranged for the diseased chapel chimney to come down in two weeks, and the new furnace is only 'promised' by the end of May. We shall see. If any renter is cold we can return their almost non-existent donation. -- The plants and trees look faintly spring-like. Went to a pleasant candidate's coffee at a house overlooking the marsh behind First Encounter. Lovely day, good coffee, interesting and well-qualified candidate for selectman. I talked with our host about the water and sewerage issues. I see no solutions. Town water will take over twenty years, much money, and will provide safe drinking water but will not help the marshes and bay. A town sewer system would take much longer and cost more. The state will force us to act when the nitrogen levels in the marsh get too high. We shall see. We enjoyed an excellent Cape Cod Symphony concert on Sunday afternoon. A neighbor stuck in Florida sent us the tickets. I guess I was surprised to find the symphony absolutely first rate. It was the final concert for their conductor of 27 years (and still good) so there was much ceremony, etc. As a 'thank you' he arranged an encore of two of Elgar's Enigma Variations, one of my favorite pieces and one which I had never heard live. It was good to be reminded that a live symphony orchestra is a mighty thing, although for the most part we are quite content with the Bose. The shower arrived. It should be fine but at the moment reminds me of the most nightmarish of Christmas Eve "some assembly required" projects from the dim past. N found a highly satisfactory wedding garment: pants, shirt, jacket. 19 May 2007 Many inches of rain have filled the swamp to overflowing, and there's nothing more cheerful that a wet swamp. We're concerned about the shortage of frogs, however. We've seen only two this year, or possibly the same one twice. Frogs in the swamp are our canaries in the mine, like the gradual disappearance of the bees, which is no joke. It would be oddly pathetic if that were the real threat and not a nuclear al Quaeda. I've cut the chapel grass twice and the peat pit once. The peat pit is an experimental alternate septic system which only half works so the chapel has to have a standard Title V system with leach field as well. It's a 15 by 40 foot pit filled with tons of peat moss, and naturally it sprouts all sorts of unwanted foliage which has to be mowed. One of the world’s stranger tasks. -- The ailing chapel chimney will come down in a week or two and the new furnace go in around the same time, so I'm involved with contractors. Not spending your own money makes it more entertaining. -- Inspected the chapel attic for insulation. What a mess. If I were younger I might be inspired to do something about it, but I'm not. The shower is about done and looks pretty good, almost like the real thing. I have to mount the two window boxes N bought for the porch rails. She means to grow lettuce and perhaps herbs. We are becoming very green. At Men's Group, TR showed off his new 40" TV/Computer monitor. He needs it because of his eyesight. He played a U-tube interview with President Bush and Governor Bush contradicting each other and a slickly done video in which a fake Steve Jobs introduces Apple's newest product to a focus group: the i-Rack! Very funny. When did we get an entire alternative world? Not to be outdone by art, the Department of Justice seems to be a soap opera these days:the hospital room interview. Bill N. told a joke: Bush and Cheney are having a working lunch, and the waitress presents Bush with the menu. He looks it over and with a boyish grin says, "I'll have a quicky." "Right here?" says the waitress. "I haven't been asked for one of those since Bill Clinton was in office!" Cheyny leans over and whispers in her ear, "He means a quiche." Book Group Monday, Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. N found it readable. I've struggled, first front to back for a hundred pages, then back to front, now middle to end. N rolls her eyes, but this is my desperation strategy. The one interesting thing about the novel is that it is set in a mid-sized mid-western city in 1920 which is not very different from St. Louis in the 1940's and is still much like normal US life almost 90 years later. Babbit and Zenith, Ohio are a straw character in a straw place and are a little sad but could be worse. Sympathy for Babbitt. 29 May 2007 We had a brief foretaste of the tourist season over Memorial Day weekend. The roads were crowded and the houses around us were mostly occupied. It seemed like dozens of families walked past with children in strollers and dogs on leash. Runway Lane and the block formed with Edgewood and North Forty makes a pleasant and safe circle. We like the relative solitude of our 9 month off season, but it would be churlish not to welcome the summer visitors. Even so, many of the mini-mansions along Western and at the bay were empty. They all went home last night, to return gradually over the next four weeks. We heard that from 1 to 5 Monday afternoon there was a continuous 15 mile backup at the Sagamore Bridge. Not surprising, as the Flyover doesn't increase the number of lanes on the bridge. It was hot over the weekend. We walked twice at the beach, once from Campground to Kingsbury and back (2 miles) and once only to Thumpertown, as we were tired. The tide was fully out and many square miles of flats were dotted with hundreds of tiny human figures. We see TV ads for the Cape. In all towns the commercial classes want more homes and visitors and the retirees want to close the bridge. As so no doubt it was once long ago in Samarkand. We had hamburgers Saturday night and hot dogs Sunday night and noticed only afterwards that we had eaten picnic fare purely by accident. Memorial Day is the big yard sale weekend. I don't go to any, as I would almost certainly buy something, and we have enough junk already. The Fellowship's Tag Sale was pleasant as always. I got a copy of Graham Green's The Comedians, about Haiti, and a nice window shade I could cut down for my half-bath. Martha the librarian from next door says she always goes and finds a few neat things. We made only $700 this year instead of the usual $1200 or so. There are fewer of us, and we have probably already gotten rid of most of our 'valuable property'. I did get to eat my cherished annual doughnut. Not that we eat so healthily otherwise, but doughnuts are easy to avoid. We used to have only one Brie bash per year (brie, tomatoes, basil, oil, garlic, and hot pasta - evilly good), but now we have two or three. Treats are best if spaced out. The power mower is surging and burning gas. I bought it for the chapel 6 years ago and have done nothing to service or preserve it. If no Fellowship member is a small engine expert we'll have to have it fixed or replaced. Jan wants to go back to professional landscapers, because "you [I] shouldn't have to do it." Meaning of course "you do it as and when you please," which is true enough. Jan is a serious gardener. She would like the chapel to have a real lawn instead of a "Cape Cod lawn," which means if it's green salute it. I contend that we are environmentally sound and save $700 we can give to the Cape homeless but I'll be happy to let the group decide. Ah the politics and the heavy weight of executive responsibility. Our garden suddenly created itself. We have six tomato plants and six yellow pepper plants. They are guarded temporarily with a roll of fine black mesh I found washed up on the beach at Audubon, held aloft by pieces of lobster trap. a real mariner's garden. I'll send a picture. Also of the porch and window boxes as soon as the lettuce rises over the edge of the boxes. I'm reading a book on the US and the Middle East from 1776 to the present. Interesting. The Barbary pirates are what caused us to have a navy and, for good and ill, a foreign policy based on force rather than appeasement. JUNE 7 June 07 Wednesday last week was a beauty, sparkling and cool. We went up-country (or down Cape as they say) to Small's Swamp. Here the surrounding dunes block all sounds other than the insects and the frogs. This is true frog country, with thousands of twanging rubber bands and a few bullfrog jug-o-rums. Serious birdwatchers were on the heights doing the raptor count. They wore hats with many Audubon insignia and had seen 25 hawks that day. The counters at Militia Hill claimed up to 20,000 on the busiest day in September. We'd look and see not one. -- We ate our tuna sandwiches in the parking lot at the Beech Forest and took the shorter walk. We saw turtles in the big pond and a huge snapping turtle swimming under water. As we were leaving, a group of Asian tourists was headed with their baskets for the picnic table by the lake. A dozen Canada geese were cruising innocently just off shore. I wrote a story about this once. We left before the mayhem began. When you drive all the way to the end of Commercial Street in P'town and then come back on Bradford, you fairly soon pass a strange establishment on your right filled with welded metal works of art. This is the welding shop of Michael Kacergis which was featured in the Cape Codder this week. His father Clarence (91 and still comes to the shop every day) started the business in 1940. Michael has an engineering degree and taught some years at Cape Tech but now does mostly commissioned original metal sculpture. Michael's son Peter lives down the block from us. We've chatted with him and his wife quite a bit lately. He's a pilot for Cape Air and is working on restoring an old car in his garage. We know the grandson too. Aaron is presently in the Air Force and will be in Afghanistan in October. We watched an hour and a half interview with Barbara Kinsolver about her new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Sara had mentioned it. Sounds great, we'll get a copy. If I were younger, much younger, I'd love to be an organic farmer (part- time of course, as well as part-time successful writer or dot-com entrepreneur, with a pied-a-terre in Paris!) The talk was given at Cooper Union in New York. We were there for an NYU intro. Lincoln gave an important speech here. Very historical place. The shower is finished, and I have used it three times. "Are you planning to put a checkmark on the wall each time?" N asks, a bit riskily it seems to me, as, like all women everywhere, she encourages more showers than men are inclined to take. The shower works fine. I found a piece of stainless steel at the dump and made a convincing faux dryer vent to conceal the outside drain. Nancy insisted on this. I consider it an "outside" inside shower, my ploy for avoiding the necessity of a plumbing inspection, as well as to use gray water for irrigation. The bush beans are up in the garden. I hope I can protect them from their enemies (actually the sort of friends one doesn't need, like birds and slugs). The web had few suggestions other than the right "companion plants," an interesting concept. I've heard of companion animals (aka pets), but companion plants? I suppose for sedentary individuals. No, actually just plants that play well together, a notion that's beyond our capabilities at the moment. I've arranged for a speaker on wastewater problems from the Association for the Preservation of CC in July. Bobsie’s husband Herb started the APCC 30 years ago. -- We're not as bad off for waste as Naples, but we're getting there. A related and interesting article by Natalie Angier appeared in the Times Tues May 29 about nitrogen or, as the French say, azote. Quote: "The body, any body, needs nitrogen to grow, but obtaining it isn’t always easy.” You might think it would be, given that 78 percent of our atmosphere consists of nitrogen, with most of the rest being oxygen. But while atmospheric oxygen is biochemically priceless to us as is, gaseous nitrogen is nearly inert and of no use to our cells. Before we can absorb it, the ambient nitrogen must be chemically transformed or “fixed.” A lightning bolt can do it, which is why a lawn after a thunderstorm turns green and bushy virtually overnight. The electrified rain delivered a shot of properly fixed nitrogen right into the soil. More often, plants rely for their nitrogen on the generous efforts of root-dwelling bacteria that absorb atmospheric nitrogen and excrete a fixed form of it as waste. Plants are also receptive to incidental animal droppings and on seasonal store-bought toppings from gardeners. Please, be sparing. Nitrogen is necessary and nimble and deserves its moment in the sun, but a little bit goes a very long way." Isn't that interesting, particularly the bit about lightning? The sarsaparilla is fully up in our back yard. It grows all over the Cape but spottily. Why in our back yard? Who knows, but we feel blessed. One day it isn't there and the next it's a foot tall, dark maroon at first and almost invisible. Another week and it's green and carpets the forest floor with its 5-lobed compound leaves. It turns bright yellow in the fall. It does no harm. A perfect plant. -- The hydrangia, which came to us in a pot, is up and blooming beside our front door. There was a hydrangia theft ring a year or two ago. Thieves stole the blossoms to supply blue weddings in Boston. -- In fact everything is up and green with so much rain. The lushness! The lushness! (We're reading "Heart of Darkness this month.) Yesterday was Women's Group, N had a dental appointment, I bought a new lawn mower for the chapel, Dave E. and I worked on the chapel fence railings, and N and I went to "The Catch of the Day" for our 43d anniversary. It was delicious. Tomorrow we are commissioned to take pictures of the Eastham Arboretum for cards. So it goes. June 19, 2007 I had a very nice Father's Day, not that we take these occasions too seriously. I’m sure we still celebrate national pickle week, a standard joke on the old Jack Benny Show, but it may have been lost in the many other overlapping national and international weeks, months, and years. The weather was lovely and we went to a delicious pot luck lunch at Rosemary's and sat outside in her excellent garden. Lunches are good, no hurry, we're still awake, etc. I noted that the conversation inside was serious (politics, etc.) and outside was more frivolous. Monday was our book group, Heart of Darkness at X's. Interesting juxtaposition: well-dressed professional women (and one temporarily neatened up old gent) discussing Conrad's dark novella on a deck overlooking a truly lovely garden, spruce forest, and bog. The house is modern with cathedral ceiling, skylights, etc., and much amazing original art, including (gasp) 6 Miro's as I may have mentioned. The owners are both retired engineers. X's last task was to have been an assessment of some large project in Nigeria. She was delighted that the company didn't get the job! Anyway, what a contrast. The facilitator often does a little biographical background, but otherwise our discussions are highly phenomenological and often personal. And always enjoyable. Good coffee and apple-cake too. -- Side note: "...the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." But in the book it's not the Congo! It's the Thames! I did remove the old wooden gutter in front. I had to make a jig to create tapered 3/8 plugs for the many carpenter bee holes before I could paint the facia. I discovered that the bees don't drill all the way through but tunnel sideways, rather weakening the wood. Man versus nature. We will see if our soil is porous enough to do without a gutter in front, old Cape Cod style. I like the clean look. We're having an explosion of chipmunks this summer. The mild winter? Open a door and half a dozen dash for safety. N almost stepped on one the other day. Striped mice. They're adorable, but we could use a little balance. Where are the coyotes, foxes, and velociraptors when we need them? -- The rosa multiflora has gone wild too, everywhere, reaching 15 to 20 feet and covered with white double blossoms. We enjoy nature's excess but fortunately seem to have avoided the Asian carpzillas that are attacking the middle west. I've discovered the debats in France 24. I usually can understand several of the participants although others talk too fast. Eventually they all start talking over each other like Americans. Often a foreigner will take part (English, German, Spanish). They always speak a little more slowly and carefully and are easy to understand. The occasional American is usually pretty pathetic. We don't do languages well. N found Animal, Vegetable, Miracle at the library and is enjoying it thoroughly. Friday: Grilled bluefish marinated 2 hours in a little soy, sesame oil, garlic, and ginger is heavenly, but N has decided that tonight will be a tiny piece of flounder for fried fish sandwiches. Later, Washington Week. The sky's the limit. 29 June 2007 Saw a little of Tony Blair's last Question Time in Parliament, (French voice-over, but still funny). We love this stuff. To be a Prime Minister of GB you really have to be able to think on your feet. To be an MP at all, for that matter. "My right honorable friend can stuff it in his ear..." Well, I made that up, but you get the idea. Much laughter, and they do seem to pass an occasional bill unlike our legislature. N. Sarkosy is going great guns in France. He got the European mini-treaty through and is now working hard on other issues. His cabinet is young and very mixed, half women, several Muslims. His conservatism looks like socialism to the US. We went to the Mall Wednesday. We do this 2 or 3 times a year at need. N tried Payless and Macys for her white sandals. I helped her look. It is amazing what pointlessly ugly and uncomfortable shoes the mind of man can design. She finally found just one pair just right (a strap at the back and heels that won't sink into soft asphalt) at Sears. At one time, half the population of the US depended on the Sears catalog for everything. -- We had lunch at the food court. N reminded me (I remembered but wasn't going to say anything) that it was my turn, so we shared a plate of fried rice with "chinese" vegetables (cabbage, carrot, onion, and broccoli). Very tasty and just enough. Then we went toilet shopping. Not something we do too often. Not something I've ever done before in fact. There was a positive embarrassment of riches at Home Depot. Evidently you buy the bowl, the tank, and the seat separately. A large choice of each, presumably with mysterious differences. Too many permutations, so we chose a large box which contained a "total" toilet for $99, a good price. Weighed a ton, but we maneuvered into an oversize shopping cart (there was a distinct shortage of flatbed dollies) and managed to get it halfway into the trunk. I had planned to get a toilet slightly smaller than the one N is eager to get rid of, but out of the box it turns out to be considerable larger and vaguely resembles the space shuttle. Should do the job, nonetheless. -- Floor tiles seemed to cost from about a quarter on up to plusiers bucks. N found an acceptable box of 45 for $13, so we took it and ran. We were home by 2:00, a highly successful expedition. -- Including a color copy at Staples of our miniature of the Edward Hopper painting of the Chapel in the Pines to give to Zak, our frequent Americore drop-in, at a potluck next Sunday. -- The only lack of success: no one had any cotton nightgowns. Some of us wear cotton nightgowns in the summer. The library says we've read 2,700 books since 1999. Actually we've read most of them twice, as we share books except for English cottage romances and some dry non-fiction. We read a lot of mysteries and thrillers. Occasionally a book is too violent for N, but not often. Lee Child writes serviceable thrillers. Two quotes from Bad Luck and Trouble: p.97 "There was stuff from an organization called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Swan had been a contributor. Big money. Therefore a worthwhile cause, Reacher guessed. Swan was nobody's fool." p. 375 "and the third call would be to make one last donation to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in the name of Tony Swan's dog, Maisi." Good show. This after the good guys have bumped off about a dozen villains. The bad guys were worse. I'm halfway through Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. N finished it in a day. I like it, and perhaps more to the point agree with it, but am having a harder go. N agrees it's a bit mono-level, and BK tends to preach. Waited all morning Thursday for the gas meter man to call about the chapel. He (or she?) didn't. I'll call again next week. As long as we have heat by October. We go to Barry and Lois's for lunch today, and then to a walk (really just a talk as he has bad knees) at the Visitor's Center by Dana Eldrich, a large sweet Cape Cod author. They had to cancel a month ago, so we went to Dana Eldrich's talk anyway. We never told them this, so will go again. Please send us any extra rain you might have. JULY 4th of July 2007 Rain, finally! We haven't had any for a month. Things still looked green but were on the edge of collapse. My water barrels were nearly empty and quite vile, the way barrels must have become on long sea voyages, and however romantic they may sound in books, my one long sea voyage was more than enough. -- More rain Thursday night! Excellent, we'll stay in this morning and listen to Diane Rehm's weekly news roundup. We've become minor news junkies. I listen to world news in French every morning, and we listen to Diane on public radio from 10-12 on some weekdays, both in the car and at home. She's an excellent interviewer once you get past her strange slow speech (she had a stroke a few years back). Friday is her weekly analysis with several guest newspersons. We also listen The World each evening and to Washington Week on Friday nights. I set the timer so we don't forget. My grandfather was a news junkie in retirement, but he had only AM radio with the same commercial news all day. Still, he listened. A very smart man who sadly didn't read at all. I'd think he was partially dyslexic except that he won the Boston Latin School Latin prize. My never-ending search for strange breads provided two breakfasts of day-old croissants, two plain and two glazed. Glazed croissants sound perverse and can't be heated without disaster, but I ate them with a fork and save the real ones for N. I also picked up some garlic chiabata sticks. Heated and buttered, these are sinfully delicious. Much better than a poke in the eye, or a long sea voyage. -- The Stop & Shop is one of our adventures. I found a small jar of Chinese chili paste which I hope will abet a memory trip to the food trucks at Penn. Ah, food nostalgia. After French group this week, I painted 5 of the metal rails of the chapel fence with POR-15. Dave got a sample from a friend who runs the Pizza Barn. Strange stuff, I had to cut the skin on top with a sharp knife. I'm glad I wore gloves, because when I looked up POR-15 on the web I found that although it isn't supposed to be harmful (so says the manufacturer) if you get any on your hands you wear it for 3 weeks until the skin sloughs off. Okaaay. In the car I heard part of a program on songwriters Doc Pomas (1925-1991) and Mort Shuman who wrote dozens of songs. "Why must I be a teenager in love?" was a Doo-Wop hit which established Dion and the Belmonts as a major pop group in the late '50's. It was explained that in Doo-Wop the lead singer is accompanied by background harmonies made up of nonsense phrases. "Well, if you want to make me cry, that won't be hard to do And if you should say goodbye, I'll go on loving you Each night I ask the stars above Why must I be .....a teenager in luh-uve." "Save the last dance for me," was recorded in 1960 by the Drifters. Doc Pomas (a pseudonym to protect the family of a young white guy from Brooklyn singing in black supper clubs) had polio and wore leg braces. His wife like to dance, so they often went to a ballroom where he watched her dance with other men. But they always shuffled around the floor together for the last dance. Hence: You can dance every dance with the guy Who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight You can smile every smile for the man Who held your hand neath the pale moon light But don't forget who's takin' you home And in whose arms you're gonna be So darlin' save the last dance for me Poignant, what? And why do I mention this? Because I know the songs. 1959 and 1960 in the army were the two years I was exposed for many hours a day to pop music. "Manhattan Spiritual" brings back the snack bar at Fort Sill. "The Happy Organ" (electric!) brings back the mess hall in Darmstadt. Usw. Also, they were catchy tunes with pleasant and completely comprehensible lyrics. Need I say more? I majored in English literature at Rutgers in the '50's. In this era we read poetry and prose and were supposed to analyze it entirely off the top of our heads. This was fine with me as I was already a world-class bullshitter on paper, but I don't think I learned much. It seems to me the object should have been to help us read and understand writing from the last 300 years as it would have been read by its contemporaries. (Not quite post-modern.) This would have required a deep study of social history and of the Greek and Roman classics which we never got. I don't understand much contemporary poetry either. How will anyone be able to interpret it in 50 years? I think the whole point of writing is to produce something that can be immediately understood and absorbed by your intended audience (which could be educated and sophisticaed or not) and without any need for deciphering. -- Note: the Spellchecker suggests for “bullshitter” “bulls hitter.” Yeah I guess that would do in some circumstances. We have a nihilistic love of garlic mustard, a tidy plant that winters small and green along the National Seashore nature trails, unseen except by those who know that some spring day it grows an inch and then a foot a week until its swaggering ranks of alien invaders, topped off by the tiny emblems of their trade, can occupy another stretch of forest floor. All efforts by well-armed nativists to beat it back have failed to stem its fanatical advance. We wink in passing, hide our smiles, and wish it well. Later on the day that I wrote this poem, I read in The Modern Temper, by Joseph Wood Krutch: "It is not by thought that men live. Life begins in organisms so simple that one may reasonably doubt even their ability to feel, much less to think, and animals cling to or fight for life with a determination which we might be inclined to call superhuman if we did not know that a will to live so thoughtless and so unconditional is the attribute of beings rather below than above the human level. All efforts to find a rational justification of life, to declare it worth the living for this reason or that, are, in themselves, a confession of weakness, since life at its strongest never feels the need of any such justification." Krutch wrote The Modern Temper in 1929. Twenty years later he wrote the somewhat more optimistic Measure of Man, but he never repudiated this thought.. We note that air travel in the Mother of All Nations is deeply troubled this summer. Nothing much to do about it, I guess, but hope for the best. Snow, at least, seems unlikely. We fervently wish you all good flying. ----------- Nice little poem you've got there about garlic mustard. Interesting language and rhythms -- and you can play with it as metaphor or not and enjoy it either way. Thanks for sending those great olde tyme lyrics that anybody can relate to and understand without hiring an interpreter--such a pleasure. And what an interesting story behind the Save The Last Dance lyrics. I'm recalling a note I once received from a poetry journal editor. Scrawled across the top of the usual rejection form letter : "Thanks for sending your poem-- we enjoyed it." Apparently, enjoyability is insufficient grounds for publication. It's the best poem rejection I ever received. I should have written back saying: Had I known you don't publish enjoyable poems I would have sent you some piece of crap no one can understand. ---------- I don't know how to respond to you, R. This war has gone on for 6 years. That is ridiculous!! The whole world should have risen up in anger and let these terrorists know in no uncertain terms that this sort of action will not be tolerated. That could still happen, but there are too many people like you for that to happen! ------------- 10 July 07 On our walk to the bay we saw a mother Bob White and 10 baby quail cross Western Avenue in front of us. We've started to hear Bob White near the bay this spring, after a long silence. The babies look like schmoos and can run extremely fast, their little legs a cartoon blur. We stopped a car so they could cross safely, an SUV from Florida. The man didn't seem at all pleased. I'm not sure he could even see the birds. I guess we were lucky he could see us. I, of course, looked like a demented homeless person, but N looked pretty respectable, as always. The compost bowl has changed our lives, ever so slightly. It's amazing how outside lettuce leaves, coffee grounds, and apple cores can mount up. We dump the bowl on the compost heap every day. N says she's not sure she'll be willing to battle ice and snow to do this in the winter. We fancy it is a small step for mankind. My bathroom is finished: new floor, window, toilet, and shower. It looks nice. I like it. Next and last is the "vanity." I mildly object to the name, I like to kid myself I keep my vanity in check, but that seems to be what a sink set in a cabinet is called. I found a couple of nice little louvered doors at the Stock Exchange and will build the cabinet myself, but we have to find the sink and a faucet high enough that I can wash my hair without getting my head stuck in the sink. The program Sunday was an excellent talk by an aged art historian on paintings of "Couples." The first painting was "The Betrothal of the Arnolfini," by Jan van Eyck. This has been one of my favorites for decades. We made a point of seeing it at the National Gallery in London and were surprised at how small it is. The speaker pointed out that in the 15th century private betrothals, without benefit of clergy, were common. The Church only later required a priest. I pointed out that, even so, it was still Catholic theology that the couple were the officiants in the sacrament. The priest merely offers a blessing, something any of us can do, should we choose to. The pot luck Sunday night was delightful as well. Zak, our frequent young visitor from Americorps, is leaving to take a job with the Red Cross and was our honored guest. Without planning, these occasions always fall into place, this time with a variety of cold salads and three excellently yummy desserts. It's hot. I'm between odd-jobs. An excuse, an encouragement to work on The Chaplain and the Pig, on the Eastham Wildlife database, and on a possible talk on Palestine for August or September. Did I say that I found the best narrative so far in pages 15-45 of Dennis Ross's humongous book The Missing Peace, the Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace? Both the incompatible Israeli and Palestinian views. I made myself a note to say something about habit, but I can't remember what. I do remember something about actions becoming habits, habits becoming something, and something becoming civilizations, but I don't think that was it. Don't see why it would be true anyway. We have many small traditions these days but few habits it seems to me. My early morning walk is a mixed pleasure, a bit of effort but good for me and usually nice to do and to have done. French news likewise, a usually interesting bit of self-improvement. Grilled marinated bluefish has become a mild addiction, but we'll tire of it eventually. The fish go away anyway. We do religiously listen to The World at 4:00 and begin wine and cheese at 4:15. I guess after-dinner espresso is close to a habit. I used to do this some years ago. John will remember the folded piece of paper I used, to pour the ground coffee into the little basket. I used the same paper until it acquired a patina and a character. With organic French roast from the Sparrow the espresso is even better. Bookfinder.com is an easy way to check approximate book prices for first editions. -------- It is a bit puzzling. But, for good and ill, other presidents have had and used power: Lincoln, the two Roosevelt’s. It's a powerful office and meant to be that way. Perhaps the "balance" of power will work in the long run: President, Congress, the Supreme Court, and, don't forget, The People. Bob K. seems to think the pendulum still swings, and he's an expert, although an aging expert, like the rest of us. George is not an idiot, no, but what is he? Not well educated certainly, despite his schooling at Yale and Harvard. Not knowledgeable and evidently not at all curious. It was joked once that he brings a new meaning to "assisted living." Yes and no there, too. Front men have gotten out of hand before. Hitler was the classic example. I think GWB is motivated by Cheyney et al, conservative ideology, religion, envy of and distain for his father, and maybe a little pure meanness and arrogance. The cheerleader, the class clown, the fuck up, the drunk, suddenly put in charge of it all? My mother once said to her black maid, "If I were king, Lillian, I'd...." And Lillian said, "Oh, do you play that game, too, Mrs. Chenoweth? We play it all the time!" -- What is Laura B's role? --------- 20 July 2007 Sewer Sunday was a considerable success. (We didn't actually call it that.) We had enough members and visitors to be welcoming and festive, and the speakers were excellent. I knew about nitrogen and eutrophication and algae blooms in general but learned more. For instance that algae darkens the water in the estuary and near shore, which reduces the sunlight that reaches the eelgrass. Eelgrass is a flowering plant that grows under water but needs light and that provides a nursery and habitat for many varieties of fish and shellfish. Ergo, we must reduce or stop the nitrogen compounds in our septic tanks from seeping into the aquifer and making their way to the marshes. Most of the eelgrass is gone from Nauset Marsh already; what we see are the spartinas. Our area of north west Eastham from above Herring River(First Encounter) north to below Sunken Meadow is a minor offender, as our effluent flows directly into the Bay. -- Now that we know all this, what do we do about it? Not surprisingly, that's the hard part. A sewer system for Eastham would take half a century to build and cost half a billion at today's prices. Don't look to N and me! The more likely course would be neighborhood-sized full-nitrogen removal treatment plants, beginning with the worst offenders. The most likely course is, alas, to do nothing at all. In theory, the State of Massachusetts, which controls the estuaries, can make us do something. We shall see. -- What do other places, countries, do, we asked? It seems that we are unique. Most urbanized areas of our size have sewer systems. I've almost finished In Spite of the Gods; the strange rise of modern India, by Edward Luce. India is indeed a rising economy, but it has lifted the boats of only the upper and middle classes. More that half the population of India is still impoverished and illiterate and can't subsist on their tiny farms. Fathers and sons tend to move to city slums, where they find little work that they are qualified to do. India is indeed a democracy, the world's largest, and has defied the expectations of the experts by holding together, but politics and the civil service are almost totally corrupt. Money and programs to help the poor always end up helping the affluent. (We've noticed the same phenomenon here, of course, as in New Orleans.) Private business is much better but doesn't help most Indians. China is not a democracy, but is doing far more to provide services and education to its rural population. -- And this from a guy who lives in India, is married to an Indian, and really likes the place! Like many other areas in the world, I would like to see India, but I doubt now that I will ever make the effort. I watched an interesting discussion on France 24 about Iraq, among the TV newsperson, the Editor of the International Herald Tribune, and a Moroccan newsman. The interesting part was that it was almost exactly the same discussion we hear every day among American talking heads. The French don't have an independent angle. Big problems, chaos, no easy solutions, Bush is stubborn, and Congress probably can't override a veto, etc., etc. It's still a thrill to watch and by-and-large understand French TV news and discussions. (Films and ordinary elliptical street talk will probably always be beyond me.) But in time, as I find the Frenchies saying exactly the same things we hear on American TV, the thrill may wear off a bit. -- Also watched an interview with Sup. Ct. Justice Stephen Breyer. He speaks good French! We have a crop! A good pound of fresh bush beans this morning, with which to make faux salade nicoise. Faux because N is not really interested in laboriously whipping up a true vigarette. Do we have black olives? Not sure, but I never found them a necessity. They are quite cheap compared to other olives, for which there may be a reason. We have been enjoying lettuce from our porch rail boxes for nearly three weeks. -- We have few necessities, in fact. We have enough coffee and cheese and are ahead of the game in reading books and strange breads at the moment, although we use them up fast. I usually keep the web open when the computer is on, because it's easy to do and because I often want to Google something. I don't agree entirely with Tom Friedman, we see plenty of nationalism and insularity in the world, but information-wise the world is pretty "flat." African and Indian farmers can visit the Vatican Library, and we can get around even Rupert Murdoch, for the moment at least. But, not surprisingly, people seem to choose mostly reinforcement over enlightenment. -- Some information possibilities go begging. We badly need a Manhattan Project to develop the science of solar and other alternate energy sources, but more money goes into dead-ends like biofuel and coal processing. Did anyone notice the Livermore Lab physicist who, because he likes old music, developed a non-destructive microphotographic method for reproducing (and digitizing?) crumbling old 78's and wax cylinders. Neat. We listen most days to at least part of the DR Show (Diane Rehm). Great discussions, even handed (although some would find Diane on the liberal side), and reasonably controlled. She lets no one get away with being impolite or vague or trying to dominate the conversation. Today the discussion is of the expanding use by government of private contractors, or "how to use Big Government" while dissing it." Following Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" warning, a 1962 Report predicted gradual loss of public control, but nothing was done. Acceleration of privatization took place under Clinton and has gone much farther under Bush. There are many regs and guidelines, but they aren't used. Many undocumented no-bid contracts. Our car had its 30,000 mile servicing this morning. I mention this only because it's an excuse to have breakfast across the street at the Hearth and Kettle while we wait. What a rare treat! N has a short stack of strawberry pancakes, and I have fried eggs and sausage. It's so great that eggs are good for you again. Sausage is just good. I ran across a mention of the archeotherium, an extinct cow-sized fanged warthog. Sounds like it would look great on a T-shirt and be a good mascot for a particularly aggressive sports team. AUGUST 4 August 07 It was great to see you guys. We knew there wouldn't be enough time to really visit with anyone, much less with everyone, but it was nice to have us all together at a happy occasion. And all dressed up! You make a very handsome couple. As N says, we really do want to visit you folks in Virginia. ("God's Country" as my father's Liggett and Myers colleagues would have said. They were all from North Carolina. One friend did a double-take after speaking thus and said to my father, "I guess God's country for you, Russ, is Missouri." My father, who loved New York City and had been delighted to abandon St. Louis, laughed and said, "God's country is anywhere I hang my hat.") The bruschetta at Nichols and Beal was so good that we made it last night with very flavorful cherry tomatoes and basil from our trusty plant. Andy could do as we and put a thin slice of Swiss on top and run it under the broiler to hold it all together. I will look for the vegetable cooker you mentioned, Andy. You just brush a little olive oil on the vegetables? Anything else? What vegetables does it work well with? Sounds good. Ah, the infrastructure. Maybe the wealthy could use some of their tax savings to buy themselves a bridge. Or maybe, Andy, Oceana could put appropriate sensors on all our bridges. Now there's a contract... -------- I was thinking about what our speaker said on Sunday morning (not that much really) and what you said that evening. Nancy and I have pretty much gone with the flow all our lives. We've eaten what we pleased, in moderation, and are comfortably retired and in as good health as we're likely to be at our ages. So what, if anything, is a problem? Seventy years ago we all read Black Beauty and Albert Payon Terhune and believed in kindness to animals. Most of our food came from small to moderate-sized family farms. Live stock, if not treated gently, was at least free range. Chemical fertilizer was just beginning to be used and by-and-large chemical insecticides, antibiotics, and genetic modification hadn't been invented. The country was isolationist and slowly coming out of the depression, thanks probably more to time than the New Deal. So what's changed? Ten years ago our oldest daughter left Wyeth Ernst to work for the American Anti-Vivisectionist Society. Five years later she began working for PETA. She's never preached to her meat-eating parents but we've at least become aware of the institutionalized cruelty of factory farming. The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Polan, is a easily readable introduction by a good-natured fellow meat eater to some of the consequences of agri-business. We haven't read Barbara Kingsolver's new book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," but we saw an hour and a half interview with her about it on Book TV and look forward to it. You said, "Isn't it a matter of health?" It is with many people, but with us it's mostly taste and principle. The organic chicken, beef, and vegetables we've been tending to buy in the last couple of years just seem to be more flavorful. It's worth the extra money. Most organic farming is still agri-business. The food is still trucked all across the country at considerable expenditure of energy, but at least it reduces the amount of chemicals and anti-biotics that go into our food chain. We'd like to encourage true local farming, at least indirectly. Who better to feed us than folks in the food business? Hmm. We and our kids are most likely here only because of big pharma, which rests on big corporations and big research facilitities. Hard to argue that's not good. Huge increases in agricultural productivity have allowed the world population to double in these years. This seems less a good thing. How can it end well? -------- I know Nancy has expressed our pleasure, gratitude, and admiration for the wonderful wedding you folks arranged. Everyone in our family had a terrific time. We knew we wouldn't be able to visit thoroughly with anyone, much less with everyone, but it was nice to have us all together at a happy occasion. And all dressed up! I haven't worn a tie in seven years, not even to funerals. What to do with oneself upon retirement? Nancy is quite content to read, listen to music, knit, watch TV, and attend to our small home, family, social, and civic duties. I retired at 64, full of tiny plans and have done and continue to do many of them. Nothing that will nudge, much less shake the world, but they keep me busy. What do our friends do? Most are older than we but not all, and several still work, a psychologist, an economist, a hostess in a fancy B&B, and a stockbroker. Another psychologist has gone whole hog into poetry. Most seem to be in book groups, some in more than one. (We like our group, all women except me, which makes us read stuff we would never have thought of.) One, whose husband was a playwright is in a play reading group. One engineer, now dead at 89, put up a windmill, alas before the current technology made it really practical. He also installed a geothermal heating system (which does work) and was big in wine tasting. Another engineer built his own house and still adds to it. He just installed solar panels, the sort that feed back into the grid. He figures this will pay for itself around the 20th anniversary of his death. Several are in local Council on Aging discussion groups. Most volunteer in town government, the schools, local charities, service organizations, and historical societies. We are always being asked to support some octogenarian’s walk for X. A retired former NYC fireman and social worker was a poet, environmentalist, and cracker-barrel philosopher(not a criticism). A retired industrial arts teacher has a metal shop in his basement and makes great stuff to sell for charity. Several are rather mad social activists. One of these invited herself to tea at our house when we first moved here (she brought her own herbal tea) to ask us if we were "activists" as had been hopefully rumored (we were "young"). I assured her that I was a confirmed inactivist, and she went away. Several us spend time holding The Chapel in the Pines together with chewing gum and duct tape. I think it likely that everyone on Cape Cod (except Nancy who's a photographer) is at least a closet painter, although many are out of the closet, and many take classes or work with tutors. Many take courses at the local adult schools and some at "4-C's", the Cape Cod Community College, a two year school with an excellent reputation but too far away for us, 25 miles. You folks have Colgate! Anything there? Several of us maintain web sites, one a travel site from which (in theory) he makes money. A woman a bit younger than we writes and sings children's songs and has published two CDs which sell well. They all travel, within the past year friends went to China, Peru, New Zeeland, and India. One one-eyed octogenarian toured the length of Africa. We love to travel, too, but it takes money and energy, and besides Philadelphia, Virginia Beach, and San Francisco, have taken only shortish trips to London and Paris. We hope to do Edinburgh next year if the dollar doesn't collapse entirely. Most people we know garden, ornamental or vegetable or both. The Cape's sandy soil is good if you compost a lot. We do little gardening but are raising bush beans, tomatoes, yellow peppers, and basil this year. We have a million chipmunks, but they seen content with our birdseed so far. Home repair sounds good. As we've said, two of our Philadelphia neighbors were furloughed from Philadelphia Electric, started home repair businesses, and have done very well. On the Cape, craftsmen are scarcer than hen's teeth! I might have to build our addition myself (heh heh). How about converting "Mark's 31" to plug-in hybrid? Exercise. I think all of our friends, of all ages, go to gyms and indoor pools. We do neither, but we do walk just about every day, regardless of the weather, except during thunderstorms. I carry my camera and add minutely to my online "Eastham Natural History" database of facts and photos. We hope our splendid children are having a great time in Greece. I carefully avoid checking the news and weather from the eastern Mediterranean. They are serious travelers; so be it. None of the Stoic adages is worth a pin. We worry. My mother worried about us until her death at 94. I read that the cost of raising a dog to age 13 is $11,000. The cost of raising a child is infinite. 8 August 07 Thank you for the card. I may read it aloud some Sunday morning as my "humanist wisdom" opening, "plus you get cake!" being the significant message. I instituted this reading with my 'Presidency', to give the slightest flavor of liturgy to our Sunday meetings. It has been met with favor. It's usually upbeat and lighthearted. I thought I might have trouble finding appropriate paragraphs, but they crawl out of the woodwork! As I have explained, humanist wisdom is anything written by a human. -- I missed that it was Ellen the first time I looked at it. I like Ellen. Who doesn't. -- We did go out for my birthday. I had Pad Thai at The Royal Thai. Quite good. Then we went to hear an illustrated talk at Town Hall on Edward Hopper. Also good. It was about his less well known sea paintings. He was a great sailor until his wife made him give it up. These interfering women! Actually she seems to have been very smart and very funny and much more valuable to him than small boats, so it worked out okay. Clemmie made Winston give up flying, after his third crash landing. The world thanks her. Winston was fearless, alcoholic, vastly overweight, and lived to be 85. We thought for a while only the Philly contingent would dance. Ultimately I think mom and I were about the only ones who didn't. I plead great age. I think I may have been the oldest in the room other than Aunt Clara, the agreeable character in the old-ladies leisure suit from Florida. My mother had an outfit just like that one. Yes, Sunday was okay, cheerful but a bit of a disappointment. He was wise to bring his own audience. (The word is weird. In German ie/ei always takes the sound of the second letter. Odd. I used to be a terrible speller. Now I'm pretty good. Eventually I will no doubt be perfect.) Who would have predicted that Teddy would someday be the grand old man of Democratic politics!! By and large I agree with him, except over immigration and Cape wind. Bluster all he will, it's still a blatant case NIMBY, Not In My Boat Yard. Luved Garrison! Well yes, I guess I am THAT sort of old-fashioned conservative. The thought of getting a dime without earning it, or getting credit for something I didn't do, or doing something pointless, makes me sort of ill. I was baptized a Lutheran after all. I resist Dan McCullough, but I have to admit, he's good. Thank you for the elegant card. Minimal R'us. Sorry about your flight. You predicted the predicament. Good of Blake not to let you molder all night. Let down is quite natural. Good you had a good visit with Connie. Death is a hazard of age. We lose good friends yearly. -- Come back in fall or spring. Or winter, but bring a warm coat and boots. 14 August 2007 The Cape is good. It was cool and bright this morning at 6:00 am. The clouds were side-lighted by the sun and dark on their bottoms. I think of bringing my camera on my dawn walks, but you can't photograph the wind in the leaves, the birdsongs, or the smell of sea and flowers. The sweet pepper bush is blooming late this year, stronger than honeysuckle but not as overpowering as Russian olive. The Red Maple Swamp is full of it, as is our yard thanks to my transplantation efforts. Remember Dorothy Sayers "Busman's Honeymoon", a Harriet Vane, Lord Peter Whimsey murder mystery? The opening letters about the Whimsey-Vane wedding are priceless. -- We thought the Chenoweth-Manchester wedding went off in similar capital fashion, the little box of tissues in each pew at the Hamilton College chapel being liberally used. Upstate New York met inner-city Philadelphia and Oz East and West with warmth and festivity. We understand the bride and groom greatly enjoyed an archaeologist's honeymoon at Athens and Paros (not Paris) in 97 degree heat as only the young and imaginative can do. -- Back in Oakland, M returns to her delicious computer job at Innovative Interfaces and J to his beloved graduate studies at Berkeley. He spent the summer digging in Jamaica and Tortola. Hot and buggy, but evidently archaeologists like that sort of thing. It was good to see S much relaxed, having exchanged her fast-paced work as Ingrid Newkirk's executive assistant at PETA for a job in the accounting department and a home life with A and Rose the rabbit. K was delighted to trade in 10 years of 24/7 social work with troubled youth for a 9 to 5 job with C.A.R.I.E helping troubled seniors. D is doing well and helping others do well. We, as always, read, write, knit, walk, build, photograph, and fulfill our small social and civic duties. We read "Suite Francaise" for the book group and recommend it as good writing even in translation and a fascinating insight into pre-war French society suddenly under unbearable pressure. I love the French, but this was not their finest hour. Alexander McCall Smith's "The careful use of compliments," an Isabel Dalousie novel, is delightful, his best ever. Philosophy, wit, humor, kindness, and Edinburgh. What more could one ask of a book? -- I'm working on an illustrated talk on Palestine for the fall. My qualifications are that I'm neither Jewish nor Christian, not an historian, have never been to the Middle East, don't speak the languages, and am trying to cram 3000 years of confusing history into an hour's talk purely for my own entertainment. -- I love my French group and wish I had done something like this long ago when I might have been able to become more fluent. Even so, with the web it's possible and entertaining to learn at any age. O.W. Holmes studied Greek at 95, "to improve my mind." The Nauset Fellowship U/U (www.nfuu.org) is like one of those old wooden ships which have had almost every plank replaced and yet remain the same. It gives N and me pleasure and is a delight to serve in small ways. The Chapel-in-the-Pines provides an attractive body inhabited by our collective soul. I've put up a few wedding pictures on my web site. See: http://home.comcast.net/~chenoweth01/ There is no excuse for maintaining a web site other than personal entertainment. The short stories have been polished, particularly the Morris stories of a gangster retired to the Cape which serve as my sketchbook. "The Chaplain and the Pig" is a complete novel and resting momentarily but not finished. "Newhouse," the fictional biography of my father is half done, the second half, a purely fictional adventure I think he might have liked, is in progress. "Marshfield Manor" was cut too much, I feel, and needs to be partially restored. -- Comments are always appreciated and considered. -- The Journal is a sort of very slow blog on the passing scene. -- I check "What do I know?" every now and then and find I know no more but know it in different ways. -- The Eastham Natural History database has grown quite a bit lately and has a new search engine. I also uploaded four family histories as sizable Word documents with illustrations. They are in progress but lying fallow this year. They're not linked publicly, so must be addressed by name. Everyone should write a family history. Colorful is even better than true. There is "The Dark Side," too, the most entertaining of all, but I didn't put it up. We like Obama. How could anyone not? Hillary seems to grow in stature (except in upstate New York). Actually we like all the Democratic candidates, including Mad Mike and Dennis the Red, and we gleefully endorse all the Republicans as well. We feel momentarily slightly more upbeat about our great country. --------------- I found a book at the dump, "A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament," by Brown, Driver, and Briggs. Oxford, Clarendon, 1952. 1126p. 2 columns. It's in excellent condition and would be quite expensive to buy. Would you like it in connection with your Hebrew and biblical studies? It's a protestant Christian production, of course, but I think purely scholarly. I could send it or keep it indefinitely. Or take it back to the dump. 17 Aug 2007 I imagine that by now things have fully quieted and all is accomplished. J remarked that everyone looked so happy in the pictures. I think everyone went into the weekend pleased and happy and were duly delighted at how it all worked out. Thanks for the coffee. It didn't seem to be decaf, so we've been feeding it into our morning coffee one scoop at a time and are all the perkier for it. And thanks for the postcard, M, and the inspiration to look at my box of old cards. They were given to me by my great grandmother, and as a child I used them to build multi-story card houses. They're much better for this than playing cards as they're larger and less slippery, but unfortunately it was a bit hard on the cards. I had never read the messages before. These are simple but are voices from 100 years ago of relatives I had heard of but never met. I found a couple from 1908 of the Eire Canal which I will send you. You, or someone, mentioned that you are interested in the history of the canal. A camper! There are a number of good campsites here on the Cape. I believe they are quite popular and require reservations considerably in advance. Nancy's Aunt and Uncle and 4 children used to camp here, in a station wagon, a tarp, and 4 pup tents. They were tougher than we. Your work at the colleges sounds good. As I've mentioned, I wanted to telecommute after I retired, although I'm not sorry now that it fell through. My boss was going to retire at 60, but she got a new job she loves and is going strong at 63. There's no pastime better than productive work, as long as you enjoy it. J and M's slides of Greece were wonderful. You wouldn't know from looking that it was pretty hot! They appeared to be having a great time in a beautiful place. They do seem to know how to extract pleasure out of the simple things. We remember when they came back from Montreal some years ago, J said, with obvious delight, we like to travel in the same ways! And how nice that they both like good food and stay slim. We have been enjoying our tomato crop and basel plant. I was inspired by Nichols and Beales' excellent bruschetta. 24 Aug 2007 It's getting darker and cooler at 6 am. I'll have to start walking later. Things are quieting down as folks get ready for school. Noel Beyle's sign at The Innermost House reads "11 days to Labor Day." Wouldn't think he'd be so gleeful, as among other enterprises he sells used paperback mysteries at the Welfleet Flea Market, but all resort areas get weary of their summer visitors. We've devised obscure ways of getting in and out of Orleans that may take as long but rarely make us sit in traffic. I ran into a Common Time alum who remembered me. Well, I was less changed by the years than she, I suppose. I occasionally think of my Grace Church Youth Group. To my considerable surprise I enjoyed this part of my job a lot and became very fond of them. In retrospect they seem amazingly innocent. They'd be just entering their sixties now, if they survived Vietnam, and life. Strange thought. We made glorious bruchetta from our own excellent tomatoes and rejuvenated basil plant, on thick slices from a boule of some sturdy bread. Our contribution to the Green Revolution. I know you all enjoy music, and indeed some of you make it as well. We've never been sure what you thought of classical music. Perhaps we inoculated you to it as you were growing up. I heard almost none until I was seventeen and was introduced to Shostakovitch's noisy 10th symphony on a new coaxial speaker in a kid's basement and got hooked. We're more into chamber music these days. Try classical again if you haven't in a while. There's some amazing stuff and lots of it. It probably has a far larger audience now than ever before in history but a very small percentage of the market. Good books, all readable and, so far as I can tell even-handed: Anton La Guardia, War Without End: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land. NY, St. Martins, 2001. 408p. -- Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: the inside story of the fight for Middle-East peace. NY, Farrar, 2004. 838p. The first and last chapters. -- Walter Laquer, Dying for Jerusalem: The Past, Present and Future of the Holiest City. 2006 352 p. -- Karen Armstrong's One City, Three Faiths is good too. We'll order the Anderson window for N's bathroom next week. I'll buy a sink while I'm down near Hyannis for an eye checkup. I may do the inside work for the dining room bay window, new lintel and posts. It rolls on. 24 August 2007 Greece is in terrible shape! This may give developers a bad name. Weren't J and M fortunate to get in ahead of the fires? And Jamaica, too, brushed with a category five hurricane. Yes, N said. Just after we'd visited the Wayside Inn and the Old North Church they burned to the ground. You always have to wonder if you'd flapped your wings a little differently.... Why is there a potato on the counter? To remind me to cook it, she explained. Faux salade nicoise requires cooking the potato and string beans early, so they can cool. Multi-stage dinners become more of a challenge with age. I still remember the Portuguese corn bread that I cooked all one afternoon with many kneadings and restings and splashings of water on a brick in the oven. It was delicious. I had a tiny piece before our progeny ate it all in five minutes. N never had any, and I never baked it again. Don't have the energy now. -- Tacos last night. My, these are good, I said. Thank Sara, N reminded me. -- Do you have bluefish, we asked the fishmonger. Yes, she said, but we can't sell them. Oh, why not? Well, she said, a bit reluctantly, rigor mortis hasn't set in, and we can't cut them. So glad we asked. -- America's Test Kitchen pronounced O'Doul's best for beer beef. But what do you do with the rest of the bottle? Is O'Doul's tasty? Come quick! There's a huge snake in the living room! I came quick. It was a baby black racer, 5 inches long. Huge, I said, and she looked as sheepish as it's possible for someone with a sense of humor to look. I scooped it up and tossed it out the front door. Very cute. The babys have bright yellow rings around their necks. So their mothers can find them in the tall grass? I know evolution always has something in mind, but sometimes it's obscure. I went to the dentist and afterwards to Home Depot and bought a vanity and faucet. I still think "vanity" is an unfortunate name. Oh, Bob, come see my new vanity. Gosh, Ed, that's a really swell vanity. Should do the job, though, after a little carpentry and plumbing. There'll be a place for tall bottles, toilet paper, etc., and the half-bath can be pronounced complete. On the way back I stopped at Staples to buy the Chapel a new answering machine. They didn't have any. How odd. So that's it. Work hard guys. The world is falling apart almost as fast as you put it together. SEPTEMBER 6 Sept 2007 We know it's coming, but it always surprises us. Twenty five thousand summer Easthamers disappear the week after Labor Day. All the houses around us are empty. We walked to the bay through a well manicured ghost town. There were a dozen people enjoying the bright sun on ten miles of beach. It's very peaceful. I needed a sweatshirt and jacket on my walk this morning. Could have used gloves, as I'm getting a bit wimpy with age. Did see an elderly foursome start off for a brisk stroll in shorst and tee shirts. Many of our elderly friends swim daily year round (in indoor fountains of youth.) The half-bath is finished. What was the skuzziest room in the house is now the newest and shiniest. I like to see it spotless. How long will that last? Hard to photograph. The shower pic was taken through the window. 12 Sept 2007 I, of course, thought that "We didn't light the fire," was something new. Should have known. I suppose it would be like a new opera in the manner of Wagner. There are lots of things I don't know, but fortunately I have my 85 year old friend to keep me current. I thought the rant by the Arab woman was excellent. What we need, though, are some outspoken Muslim moderates. The old Imam says, "Oh, well you're a heretic," and he loses interest. Jan sends all kinds of stuff. And I pass it on. Utube is sort of a menace in an over busy world, but you can always whisk it away with a mouse click. The Cal Berkeley Sports Center story in the Times is interesting. It makes you wonder about the people who run universities. I used to wonder about the people who ran Penn. The top guns seem interested in only one thing, and it's not sex. Depressing. I have a hundred pages of drafts and notes for a 1-hour illustrated talk on Palestine. Still needs work. My intention was an even-handed chronology, which I imagined would probably be favorable to Israel. Well, guess what. You hear of people who go into a project expecting one outcome and get another. They must come from another planet. There are, as always, great illustrations on the web. I wonder, does anyone teach anything these days without using a video projector? Fifty of N's photo cards sold for the benefit of the Eastham Arboretum on Windmill Weekend. She was quite pleased. As Bruce says, "It's not really an Arboretum, it's a forest." It is. Hundreds of native trees and shrubs have been planted throughout the woods around Wiley Park. There is a small "Heritage Forest" where the natives are grouped together and labeled. They used one of my digital photos for their thank you card. Arboretum or forest, it's a nice thing, and quite symbolic. Most of people working on it have been in their 70's and 80's and are unlikely to see the trees get much taller than 20 feet. Some youngsters expressed interest though at the Windmill Weekend booth. We're good, as you say. Had some rain. It's cool and bright. 23 Sept 07 We ran into an Englishman on the Nauset Marsh trail. He was from Dorking in Surry, so N and he shared geographical details. He seemed to know the Fannie Burnie House where Raymond and Sheila once lived. He comes each fall, he says, to this "heaven on earth." There's a lot of that. Gordon Brown, the British PM came to Chatham until this year. Distancing himself a bit now. Sarkosy vacationed in Vermont. Maybe it's the cheap dollar. The Cape is a great place, but there are others surely, even in England one would think. Nice marshes in Scandinavia, too. Perhaps Spain is too crowded. Maybe they like P'town, or the Chocolate Sparrow. The NYT is free at last, online. Their explanation was a little obscure, more advertising revenue than subscriptions evidently. Hard to believe, but they must know what they're doing. Depressingly, the first thing I read was Friedman's column on the new "American-style" city of Doha, which eats the fruits of our 20 best energy-saving tips by lunchtime. We need a new generation of energetic young to demand a world fit to live in. We watched a bit of a TV interview with George Soros, Teressa Heinz, and Wendy Kopp, who started Teach for America. All very inspirational, for what it's worth. We've seen the sort things Kopp asks for at GFS and at the Orleans Lighthouse Charter school. Go for it, G! Our best hope. We talked green at the Men's Group. Most have Priuses, but they don't do too much better than our Civic at its best. All use power saver light bulbs and complain about the absentee savages who run their flood lights all night, and all day too in some cases. All recycle. Paul's solar panels have cut his electricity bill in half. They'll pay for themselves in 20 years! I didn't have the heart to mention Doha. It's chili season again. N was getting tired of summer fare, salads and such. We've discovered, by accident, that we like chili made with black beans better than with kidney beans. Exciting stuff. N was down on pizza for a while but has agreed we should try a spinach pizza with the readymade pizza dough balls that Stop and Shop sells. There are too many spinach pizza recipes on the web, so we'll have to use our best judgment. N's favorite dish at the moment is yellow pea soup, probably for tonight. -- Does anyone have any nifty new recipes to suggest? Fall always invites experimentation. -- All agree, the pizza was excellent. A Stop & Shop dough ball, 1/2 pack of frozen spinach well drained, cheese, onions, mushrooms. I made a couple of neat online discoveries: www.liredanslenoir.com provides hundreds of French books and parts of books in audio for free. www.ebooksgratuit.com provides free French texts of many more. There's even a bit of overlap, so you can listen to the full text of a novel and read it at the same time. Good for the ear and for vocabulary. France is big on selling the French language worldwide. Some resources (particularly in Germany) are clearly intended for recent immigrants and guest workers. It's gratifying to see in France 24 interviews how many non-French public figures can speak French well, Americans even. I'm sure there are similar resources for most languages, say Hebrew and Spanish? It seems late in life to take up a third language, but why not. If Justice Holmes could study Greek at 95... Rrhhooddaa (I have some strange friends) is in a classical Greek group. I think I prefer a living language at this point. I have the best head start on German, and there's good stuff on the web, but others appeal as well. It's good to have too many possibilities rather than too few. We have decided to buy the 30 degree bay window for the dining room. I get to start cutting holes in the wall. N's idea. She said wouldn't it be nice to have it before Christmas. We didn't go the boat trip today, but it was such a beauty that we went to Bearberry Hill. Lovely as always. While on top of the hill we watched a large helicopter come in from the sea, as if from Spain, dragging below it a long black and red tube with fins. If you don't hear from us for a while, check the news. OCTOBER 4 Oct 2007 What will N do if the Series pits the Red Sox against the Phillies? An agreeable quandary. She doesn't say. Alternate days, as Hillary says? We went on the Eastham Arboretum tour Saturday morning. We're members. Excellent coffee and cookies and a walk through the Arboretum. It's really just Wiley Park woods with 160 native-species trees and shrubs planted inconspicuously, and more to come. A very nice idea. I said to someone, "A good investment in the future and cheaper than Town Water." That set off a long lecture. -- They sold 40 of N's cards from their booth on Windmill Weekend. To our great surprise, the $73 million (sic!) water issue didn't pass at Town Meeting. We are the only town on the Cape not to have town water. Many are now working on the much more expensive town sewerage. The water issue failed at the meeting in May, passed at the subsequent election, and failed again, more convincingly, at Monday's special Town Meeting. A money bill requires a 2/3 majority and got barely half. N and I didn't go because we weren't sure how to vote and would rather not annoy half our friends without having strong convictions. Too many unanswered questions. We think we'd rather see regional sewerage systems to treat the most offending areas (which is not ours!) A town well would do nothing about the septic spoliation of the local marshes, which is pretty important to us! -- $73 mil is steep for the 5,000 residents of Eastham, many of whom are just making it. Most of what you see is pretty well to do, what you don't see are the tiny houses on dirt roads where the working population lives. I went to Mid-Cape and bought a new Andersen window for N's bathroom and an Andersen Casement Bay Window for the dining room. The cost seemed a little high, and as I studied the printout I had questions. I went back the next day and talked with Contractor's Services. They were very nice and we got what we had asked for at 2/3 the previously quoted price. A good morning's work! The new posts and header are in, the wall board replaced, and I'm all ready to saw out the rough opening when the window arrives in 3 to 4 weeks. It comes to Barnstable in a kit, gets assembled, and delivered in one piece. I'll need to draft a few strong arms to help lift in into place. Should be all pretty by Christmas. Not quite our last territorial demand. N still wants the 6 foot extension of our bedroom, for a closet to replace the present closet which is eventually to become the laundry. It's good to have projects in waiting. Heard a news story on the 1 year anniversary of the killing of 5 school girls in Amish country. One of the Amish is a trained counselor. Getting his education meant loss of income from the farm, so his wife, Ann, started a booth at a local market. Her hand-rolled pretzels were so popular that I'm sure you've eaten one (can you eat only one!). Aunty Ann's Pretzels! I like the fact that I can now read the editorials and op-eds in the Times, but it doesn't always get my day off to a cheery start. I suppose every country is dumb in its own way. I like hearing the French news, but they don't have any more answers than we do. It's just that we're so big, the great clumsy oaf in the china shop. Oh well. We take considerable interest in the activities and projects you all mention in your letters and emails. Do keep us up to date when you can. We're a small but enthusiastic cheering section. IMAGINEPEACE.COM Fascinating. Thank you. I'd never heard of this. It's a nice antidote to this morning's Times editorials. We stopped getting the Times delivered a couple of years ago because the price had gone up and delivery had become erratic, and because, as N said, the news was always bad. It isn't of course, good things happen, but there's a problem with imagining all the people living together in peace. "Evil" may be an empty metaphysical concept, but it seems to be the case that, as one of us was told a couple of decades ago, "...some people are just mean." Imagine the entire world held hostage for another year to the narrow convictions of an ignorant but cocky windshield cowboy. 11 October 2007 It's too bad about the Armenians. When N and I were children we were told to clean our plates because of the "starving Armenians." At the time I wondered how that would help, but was only much later that I realized the Armenians in question had probably long since starved. I guess "genocide" is a useful word sometimes. The Shoa was a genocide, as were the Rwuanda troubles, but the in sheer numbers even more destructive Stalinist purges and Maoist Cultural Revolution were in-house, as were the grisly Cambodian killing fields. The semi-intentional destruction of the Native Americans was the most thorough genocide of all. I think the more important part is acknowledging that these things happened whatever you call them, and America is halfway decent at doing that, up to a point. Massive denial seems all too common elsewhere in the world. -- Armenians, by the way, fire-hardened by adversity I guess, seem to be a pretty effective force in the world today. There was an interesting Tom Friedman article in Wednesday's Times on "Generation Q" (for Quiet), the 20-somethings. "I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be. I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be." -- It seems to me that optimism and idealism are a good thing and are possible at any age and probably have more to do with the state of one's life than the state of the world. I hope political engagement doesn't have to mean chaining yourself to a tree. There nothing wrong with that in theory, but our children seem to have more useful things to do. It's us old geezers who have the time to be concerned about the future of the world, and by-and-large we are. I've always wondered why the rich, who are most able to enjoy it, are not more concerned about the degenerating physical environment. We saw a little of David Horowitz about his book "Indoctrination U" on book TV. I thought he had interesting things to say; N thought he was condescending and jerky. His quarrel with PC was much about Berkeley where evidently he taught. Do you think this is the case? I never thought I met with any real bias at Rutgers or Penn, but perhaps I was too naive to see it. Maybe Horowitz just means that more profs are liberal than not. Seems reasonable to me. "Live the life without paying the price," an ad for a glitzy Boston furniture store which could give one pause about our chances for the future. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "Infidel" is terrific. She's the Somali woman who was born in Somalia and lived in Saudi Arabia and Kenya before escaping an arranged marriage at age 22 to Holland, where she became a legislator, ex-Muslim, women's rights agitator, and author, produced a brief but forceful film with Theo van Gogh who was subsequently murdered, and brought down a Dutch government. She is a Dutch citizen "pursuing her work in hiding in the Netherlands." The first part of the book is quite grim, the later chapters triumphant. Does anyone of you have some great recipes to suggest, or, for that matter, great restaurant meals? I wouldn't say "it's ALL about the food," but food is important and we're always in the market. We're still big on grilled marinated bluefish, braised marinated pork, French style beef burgundy, bruchetta, chicken soup, spaghetti and spinich, yellow pea soup, and black bean chili. We do a few hotdog, tuna sandwich, hamburger, and pizza meals too. What were your favorite dishes of all time? Mine were, let's see, an omelet aux fruits de mer at La Terrasse in Philly, a seafood crepe at Bon Apetite in Dunedin, duck and creme brulet (not together!) at Bofinger (the ambiance was admittedly a factor), beef burgundy at La Citroelle, also in Paris, and I have fond memories of, fresh caught bass and perch in Maine, giant Italian sausage pizzas at Crone's in Westfield, and a barbecued beef sandwich at a dumpy roadhouse near the painted dessert in Arizona when I was twelve, perhaps my first true gustatory experience. My grandmother refused to go in. That's enough I think. Probably more than enough. It's sad about the 15 thousand Wildebeast that drowned in Africa. We need all the Wildebeasts we can get. Why do some people suggest I'm not serious about these things? I'm always serious. October 2007 Too much, too long, but here it is, the result of a tedious email exchange over a prayer that the Reverend Joe Wright laid on the Kansas Legislature a while ago. It caused quite a stir and was felt to be the potential saving of the nation. I commented. 1) "Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.” -- For good or ill, we have only each other. But that's pretty good. I'm a humanist and not a theist. I really think we humans are stuck with the job of making ALL our rules and values, but we can help each other. -- Tricky job: I just heard on the radio that our troops in Afghanistan were startled to learn about the traditional Man-boy Thursday Afternoons! I was a bit shocked myself, but there you go. We make the rules, god help us. 2) “We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good’ but that is exactly what we have done.” -- Haven't a clue what he has in mind here, although I'm sure we all do this all the time. Some things seem unbelievably awful to us, but "Evil" pre se is an abstract idea, not a reality. It's very unhelpful to call anyone or anything "evil". It expresses emotion but means nothing. I have no idea what he thinks is evil: Free speech, free thought, freedom of action? 3) “We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.” -- I suspect human nature is pretty much unchanged since cave days. "lost our equilibrium," "reversed our values." This is, pardon me, meaningless babble. I presume he means I or we are doing things he doesn't approve of. Well, guess what! 4) “We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.” -- Agreed, although with inevitable ILLEGAL gambling they get NOTHING back. See I DO agree with him. I think gambling is kind of dumb and harmful for many people. But it seems to be an invincible human tendency. We could lock people up, shoot them, take their children away, lobotomize them, torture them, etc., but I think in general they'd be better off just gambling. -- Our governor says he will take some of the revenue from the projected Mass. casinos and apply it to various abuse-treatment programs. Good idea. 5) “We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.” -- Nonsense, most people want to work when they can, and if there IS work. Some people ARE lazy, even some rich people, but I suspect it's related to emotional disorder more than to "misbehavior." But I feel sure that the number of even pretty blatant "welfare cheats" is miniscule compared with the families genuinely in need. We don't take away EVERYONE'S license just because some people are irresponsible drivers. Most civilized countries have far a more generous and better administered social safety net than ours. It's a disgrace. 6) “We have killed our unborn and called it choice.” -- Abortion is tragic but a matter of personal conscience. What more can I say? No one is PRO abortion except those who make their living opposing it. 7) “We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.” -- We all agree with this, surely? It's murder by firearm, and we do LOTS of that in the good old USA. 8) “We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.” -- Most children become responsible adults, except those too badly beaten. Raising children is a tricky art. We know we didn't do everything right with ours, but they came out okay, pretty good actually. "Warm and firm" is what the psychologists say. We tried to be. The kind of "discipline" the Pastor probably has in mind (what? caning, chaining, pillories?) usually backfires, (unless it creates a Stepford Child. Dreadful thought.) 9) “We have abused power and called it politics.” -- And we always will, as Plato, Lord Acton and many others point out. Cops, teachers, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, parents, and ESPECIALLY preachers abuse power constantly. Fie on them. 10) “We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.” -- I've never quite seen the fun in coveting. Ambitions can be good or bad or both. I don't really know much about this, as I've had only very limited ambitions, like writing good stories and novels, seeing foreign cities, and walking in the woods, most of which I've indulged and enjoyed. More money was always okay but never worth much effort. Fame would be positively unwelcome, and more than a little power a distressing responsibility. What little I've ever had I tried to use wisely, and it was a chore. I think you'd have to be either a saint or nuts to ENJOY the exercise of power. 11) “We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of speech and expression.” -- That's what I'd call it, free speech, the life-blood of democracy. Too much profanity does seem to indicate ignorance and lack of personal control, but a little spices conversation, and it's never bothered me much. Pornography? Neither here nor there I'd say, UNLESS, a big unless, it involves exploitation of women (or men) and CERTAINLY of minors, or causes physical or psychological damage, etc. etc., all of which are quite possible. BUT, other activities cause injuries, pain, emotional disturbance, and angst, too: sports, social drinking, automobiles, gambling, violent movies and video games, and, alas, money, politics, and religion. Life is a fatal disease. 12) “We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.” -- And we could use a lot more such Enlightenment!!! I used to think education was the answer to everything, but there were (and are) NAZIs with Ph.Ds. BUT, ignorance is never the answer to anything. A good number of the time-honored values of our forefathers were dead wrong: we must kill witches, other races are inferior, the sun revolves around the earth, tomatoes are poisonous, homosexuality is a sin/crime, atoms can't be divided, no one needs a personal computer (well, maybe we don't actually NEED one), and on and on. 13) “Search us, oh God, and know our hearts today. -- Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!" Sin is probably the most destructive idea we humans have ever had. Even beyond the futility of probably talking just to ourselves, sin and guilt are BAD ideas. We DO what we DO. It IS what it IS. People cheer or boo depending on whose ox is gored. (First it was the Afghan poppy fields, and now it's the Thursday afternoon Afghan man/boy get-togethers..., and these are OUR guys! But then, so are the Blackwater thugs.) I DO think it's a very good idea to try to point out to people the probable **CONSEQUENCES** of what they are doing. Like when they smoke crack or invade Iran. And I think it's necessary to get together and try to agree on some ground rules to make life possible. Alas, no rules are truly all-purpose and eternal. It's always back to the drawing board. 18 Oct 2007 I've been thinking of buying driveway crack-filler for 7 years, a macho activity which totally puzzles N. Presumably men view driveways as women do bathrooms, but I'd been remiss in this area. I finally bought a gallon jug at Mid-Cape and have filled the major cracks. I draw the line at getting a vast vat of driveway surfacer. I like our driveway the way it is, gray and easily ignored. Remember Walt? You could eat off his driveway; he never parked his car on it. And Gene, who rinsed his with the hose every day? Maybe now that I've filled the cracks in the driveway I'll buy asparagus seeds. I've been thinking of that for forty years. We love asparagus. It takes 3 years to produce eatable shoots, but we could have been enjoying our crop since 1970. KC thinks the young are more politically aware than Tom Friedman does. That's good. I hope it's so. I think we old ones are pretty aware if not all that active, (except for my friend X, who wants someone to walk nude with him down the main street of Chatham carrying a vulgar anti-Bush sign). I wonder, though, if this isn't somewhat illusory. It's all on the web and going around by email, etc., but going around always to the same folks. -- I heard that Rush Limbaugh was proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm not sure that's true, but why not, with Photoshop you can turn W into his mother. All things fan be proposed in cyberspace if not necessarily accomplished. I've decided to branch out and work on an additional language. I've poked at Spanish and Russian over the years, not to mention Hindi, Sanskrit, and classical Greek, but I have a head start in German. I watched a TV interview, voice-over in German, with Paris pedestrians, fish-mongers, etc. Very entertaining. Wait long enough and we may not have to know anything but English (and maybe Mandarin). I heard a French TV newsperson say someone had gotten themselves "dans un corner." "Coin" (quawn) is a perfectly good French word. You can ever "coincer" someone, e.i. drive them into a "coin". Evidently English is just more a la mode these days. Saturday was particularly beautiful so we went to P'town and walked in the Beech Forest. I got a good picture of a red squirrel. The pond was almost dry but inhabited by large ugly ducks. After our picnic lunch we parked toward the east end of Commercial Street and walked all the way to Wa. Wa is in a new and bigger store and is full of lovely stuff, more pricey than ever. There's even a Buddhist garden in the back. N had a long conversation with the proud proprietors about how much we and our kids enjoy their store and how we come every year. I had to smile. It's all true, but I doubt we've spent $10 in all that time. It was Women's Week in P'town (and elsewhere?), crowded and festive. All the stores and houses fixed up and shining, "like a million bucks," you could accurately say. The restaurants seemed reasonably priced, although we weren't hungry. My Palestine talk drags on. I read an article in Courrier International from MAARIV in Tel-Aviv "Spring Hill," (in French, alas, I know no Hebrew), "Israel, a Society Sick of its Minority." In 1990 40% of Israelis thought it might be a good idea if all the Arab Israeli citizens could be encouraged to migrate out of the country. "Transfer" is the euphemism. Now 62% think so, largely a result of the al Aqsa Infitada. A long, sad story, with blame all around. To be honest it had crossed Hertzl's mind a hundred years before, and Ben-Gurion's, and even Weissmann's. The Arabs have never been very enthusiastic Israelis. We saw a guy on TV talk about his big new book on Indian history since Gandhi. He spoke brilliantly for 30 minutes without taking a breath. I wish I had a memory. And lo, the book was in the Eastham Library, so that's my break from the Middle East. It's pretty good. "India after Gandhi; the history of the world's largest democracy," by Ramachandra Guha. Flu shot yesterday morning. Men's group this afternoon. Pot luck tonight. Help dig holes at the Arboretum for 15 maple trees tomorrow morning. Plant said trees Saturday. Never a dull day. NOVEMBER 5 November 2007 We did plant the trees, 15 3-foot swamp maples, red maples as in the Red Maple Swamp. Very nice. Down the trail along the pond from the parking lot, on the left. Check them out a few decades hence. The poison ivy was particularly magnificent in Wiley Park. Thank goodness it's a native. We heard from D about Matt Baauer's father's funeral and the 400 Pagans on motorcycles. Good old Oreland. This is motorcycle country too. The come up Herringbrook Road with P'town as the destination, but only in season. The program last Sunday was very good, an actress/artist and her actor/cabinetmaker husband and little girl. No, not a family act, just a good talk and discussion. She seemed pleased, verified, is that the word? Justified, certified? Whatever, we were all pleased. The Fellowship can do that. This week the business meeting. I find these pleasant too. The president is so laid back he's hardly there. We did our outreach (giving money) and decided to let Bob W. give us spotlights to light up the building from dusk to 9:00. I checked with our one neighbor, and it was fine with him. A little pizzazz. The new sign may take longer, not as long, we hope, as the 3-years it took to buy the chairs. Nice chairs. Our aged friend Jan lost all her eyesight for a few days. We took her shopping and she took us to lunch. A tasty little place next to Friends Market. Good fish sandwiches. She had a "procedure," but still couldn't see well. Then she figured out her eyes had changed with the operation. Se needed now glasses! And once again, she sees. All stories should have such good interim endings. The foliage is particularly nice this year, much more colorful than it usually is. More maples than we had thought. Eastham is becoming prettified. We'll never be Vermont, however. Not enough rocks. 23 December 2007 We've had a busy couple of weeks (for us that could mean two car rides in one day), and by now it's all a bit lost in the mists. Our trip to Virginia Beach was very enjoyable after a long start. We were up at 4:30 and by 11:00 were at Logan, 100 miles farther from Virginia. The flight was delayed an hour to change the tires (so they said, better than "rebuilding the engine" which I swear they said in San Francisco) so we had only a 2-hour wait at Kennedy. Tiny planes with 3 seats in a row and 4 inches of clearance above my head. What do tall people do? We had our books and munchies, and all went well, and yet we were totally exhausted by the end of the day. Not complaining, just observing. Driving would be worse. Oh for the olde coastal steamers, except that we both get seasick. Walking would take a month, but we might arrive in better shape. Yes, I know everyone flies all the time, and you can all tell far worse tales, but we're old! The Temple service on Saturday morning was fascinating. I was all in Hebrew except for the sermon. Everyone can follow it, but Andy says only around 10% really know Hebrew. Well I think they should! If I can find a Hebrew class (no more than 10 miles away) I'll go. Great potluck lunch (loved the smoked whitefish salad), and the rabbi sat at our table, a considerable honor. He seemed like a very nice guy. Andy says he's much in demand, and I can believe it. All organizations, alas, depend a good deal on the strength of their leaders. Well, perhaps not the Fellowship, but that's another story. I found Jamestown more interesting than Williamsburg. I'd missed going on the Mayflower and so enjoyed seeing the small ships and the fort. Lacking the dirt, the smells, the dangers, and the high mortality, it's a little hard to imagine life back then, but good to see. Still two hundred years short of the high point of a wood technology. The museum is fantastic. A place you could spend a day, although I'm sure few do. I could spend a week at some museums, in this country and abroad. Men's group at my house Wednesday, Thanksgiving pot luck supper at the chapel Thursday (we bring the ritual creamed onions), book group Monday. The book was Mayflower, interesting if not great. Much more Indian war than I had ever imagined. And the First Thanksgiving was a wild party, not a particularly religious occasion. A good discussion as always, an exemplar of how people can be forthcoming and yet courteous. On Thanksgiving Day we were invited to lunch at the Heath and Kettle by J. S. ("Hearth and Sparrow" I said groggily on the phone). She invented this occasion several years ago. Her son J, her friend/neighbor M, an interesting paralegal, R, and us. J is a retired engineer who plays various instruments in jazz and rock bands. He lives in Maine and vaguely knows Stephen King (another musician), who he says is a bit scary. I ate too much. Sunday I give my slide/talk on Palestine to 1948, and then I can move on to other projects. If it goes well, maybe I'll do since 1948 in the Spring. I have most of the info. All the while the bay window is progressing. Dave and Paul (combined age 162) helped Nancy and me lift it into the rough opening (about 160 pounds). It has been secured, cabled, roofed, and caulked. The inside trim will take a bit of thought and time, but it should be resplendent by Christmas. It truly does make a big difference. Quite amazing considering it's really only a few inches wider on each side. So it goes. I think I'll clean up the junk on the computer this morning while we listen to Diane Rehm's weekly news commentary. It's a panel, like Washington Week, only less formal and scripted. Diane is always fully in charge without being at all oppressive and is a reliably liberal hostess. DECEMBER 5 Dec 2007 It's cold. Theoretically we like this, a little variety in our year, but we weren’t quite ready for single-digit wind chill. And all the bundling and unbundling. Fortunately we have pretty good outfits. My winter boots are fine. I wanted Beanboots when I was twelve, the first and for a long time only mention of L.L.Bean, but I never got them, because they cost $12. We heard about a guy who walks to the store and hasn't bought gas for 11 months. He also closes off most of his house and pays only $75 per month to keep one room heated to 78 (his wife is in poor health). We have to drive a bit, although we try to keep it down, but I've closed off two bedrooms, sometimes all three. It's not that we can't afford to heat them, it's a matter of being responsible. Friedman had a great op-ed about how afraid Iran was we might actually try to conserve energy and develop alternative sources, and what a relief it's been to them that we haven't. I forget things occasionally. "I think I've told you that three times," she says. "Yes, but not during an official memory-intake period." We both admit that we can listen carefully to the weather report and not register it. I always introduce myself to visitors at the chapel and never remember their names. Various: Ah, a breakfast of Chocolate Sparrow Decaf Organic French Roast coffee and 2/3 of a day-old Stop and Shop cappucino muffin. It's not "Deux cafe-cremes et deux croissants, s'il vous plais," but it's pretty good. We picked up a two-pound boule of S&S's day-old pumpernickle as well, a real treat. -- This Sunday Bill O. talks about "The End of the World." You never know what Bill is going to say. It's always interesting. Not always reassuring. -- The Chapel in the Pines floodlights are up and are nice. Amazingly the two floods use a total of only 80 watts. -- N feels strongly about chicken soup. Small Stop and Shop chickens are roasted in a cooking bell, reheated for another meal, and then souped. -- I looked up "best bitter" in Wikipedia. I think I've got it now, although I still have the feeling that if I ever ask for "two half pints of your best bitter, please," the publican will fall on the floor laughing. -- We make lentil soup. Excellent. Someone mentioned Margalit Fox and her book "Talking Hands," about a village in which many are deaf and all talk in sign of their own devising. Perhaps some standard sign language could be the international lingua franca, and we'd never have wars again? Except for civil wars, of course. Having a truly common language might even facilitate misunderstanding, or inconvenient understanding. "So that's what you think of us, you bastards!" A friend bemoans Holiday political correctness. I couldn't disagree more. The two principles which make our country work are a free press and the separation of church and state. We attended, and I assisted at, a really big, gorgeous Episcopal church in Philly for years, with a brilliant preacher and genuine nice guy for a minister and charming fellow parishioners. They had wonderful church music (which Nancy helped produce), and great food, and they did a splendid Christmas pageant. But do we need big Christmas deals at the local public high school of the sort we enjoyed in our youth, where they'd sideline if not offend the sizeable number of Jewish, Buddhist, black Muslim, and other non-Christian families now in town? There are always plenty of non-invasive, all-purpose holiday decorations around, and plenty of Christmas stuff on TV. We find Christmas now no less festive than it ever was. So what's wrong with being considerate? -- The Times editorial about Mitt's speech on religion was good. Just what we need, a culture war: the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, and Animists against the last of the secular humanists. The outside of the bay window is finished and the inside almost finished. I need to do some painting and to install Nancy's new single-lever bathroom faucet. We picked it up at Home Depot along with some flashing tape during our annual foray to the Mall to buy things for the Adopt-a-Family program that N does for the Chapel every year. She loves buying things for kids with someone else's money and no need to be concerned about they're received, as it's all anonymous. We shared a lunch from the Fast Chinese stall. Pretty poor; I really miss the great stuff woked in Lee Ahn's truck behind the Penn library. 10 Dec 07 We're expecting 8"-12" of snow this afternoon, We genuinely like snow, but even here most people seem to grouse about it. Unfortunately we can't park at the end of the driveway because the oil truck is coming tomorrow. We'll shovel it slowly. Physical and mental exercise preserves the brain, we read. And preserving the brain is good. I hope studying a foreign language qualifies as exercise. I'd prefer it to crosswords and Sudoku. From the ill-wind/live-and-learn department: I got an email from Comcast offering the new free McAfee Security Suite, so I dutifully removed the older version and downloaded the new. Which then snarled at me, "Sorry, pal, you have insufficient memory." I knew I had a lousy memory, but I hadn't realized that my computer, too, a Dell Dimension bargain deal, had only 128MB, the absolute minimum. The new McAffee programs require 256MB. So off to Staples, where a salesman with a kindly smile more or less told the old geezer that his computer was a gig short when he bought it. So now it has its gig, and all is well. Better than well, in fact, the computer now acts like it's actually heard of the speed of light. As the Thomas Kuhn bumper sticker has it: “Shift Happens.” Speaking of such things, the NY Times has gone wild. The latest blog stuff from the online editorial section is fascinating, if you have a few million lives to take it all in. From Errol Morris Zoom, NYT 10 Dec 07 editorial blog about photography and post-modernism, pick one: (1) Truth is socially constructed or, worse yet, subjective; (2) Truth is in principle absolute but we cannot know it; (3) Truth is knowable, but there are endless impediments to knowing it. (E.g., people tend to ignore it or even reject it.) I've been Reading "Churchill and the Jews, a lifelong friendship," by the English/Israeli historian Martin Gilbert. It's quite good, and combines two of my for-no-particular-reason interests. With here and there a decision mostly in favor of Britain, Churchill was a loyal supporter of Zionism all his life, with significant interventions at important junctures. Of course when you read about these events 80 to 100 years after the fact, the huge prejudgments on all sides leap out. It's like old science. I was discussing Huckabee with TR who dismissed him as 'faith not science,' (on which we of course agree,) and I had to make my usual case for the leap-of-faith aspects of science, too. Think of science 100 years ago, all those paradigm shifts. The difference is not that faith is wrong and science is right but that science is falsifiable and correctible and Mitt, George, Fred, Mike, Alan and all that crew are simply incorrigible. I'm glad to see some horrified editorializing about Romney's religion speech. It would be amusing, if not so grim to think of all those strange birds of a feather who brought us religious wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades, witch hunts, and inquisitions standing shoulder to shoulder for once against the satanic threat of secular humanism and the separation of church and state. 20 Dec 2007 An odd week. We were snowed in on Sunday morning, so I'm not sure what "Keeping the flame kindled" was to be about. The week before, Bill talked about "The End of the World," an historical, not an eschatological approach. We discussed various folks who had expected the world to end, and I pointed out that we all expect the world to end, although hopefully not for some time unless we're massively careless. This Sunday it's "Christmas Memories" a standard December fallback program. Very cosy, we just sit around eating and drinking coffee and take turns talking. What could be more civilized? Monday's Book Group meeting went well. "Water for Elephants" is puzzlingly popular. I enjoyed it but thought it a bit hokey, and I'm not all that hard to please. Most interesting to me was the picture of American society in 1931, still almost medieval in many ways: no Social Security, no health care, little law and justice for the poor. Pretty much everyone for himself, mitigated only by grudging charity and personal kindness (and of course money), the way I gather some of the Republican candidates would like things to be again. Always nice getting together with the book ladies. Tuesday morning we took the car in for an oil change, which is really an excuse for our twice yearly eggs and sausage bash at the Hearth and Kettle across the street. The car needed a $180 part, an oxygen sensor (which looks like a long-tailed mouse). It was ordered up from Hyannis, and I'll get it put in today. I looked on the web out of curiosity. They cost from $44 to $278 and come before and/or after the catalytic converter. Sorry I looked. I'll just go get it put in. At noon Tuesday the man from Comcast came with our digital converter box. We miss Book TV (the baysters moved it to digital channel 247), so N inquired and found it was only $3 per month to get digital. (Why do I sense we'll end up paying far more?) It sort of worked for half an hour and then stopped. Someone was supposed to come Tuesday evening, then Wednesday evening, and now Thursday noon. Have they finished building their castle in Philadelphia, K? The friendly lady (the third one, in Plymouth, MA this time, not Mumbai) said to call her at noon if they don't show, and she'll get on to them. We'll see. The complexity! The complexity! We can't check the Weather Channel on TV, but on the web the ten day online looks okay for the Cape, not too cold, not too wet or snowy. We'll hope for the best. Cape weather seems tied fairly directly to the flap of a certain butterfly's wing in Yucatan. We've been food shopping and very much look forward to seeing you all. Take care and take your time. You're all most valuable to us and to the world. Fliers, I guess it would be well if we had Airlines and flight numbers, and maybe give us a call from Providence at some appropriate point. And so it went. See you next year.