My friend Larry A. and I were talking about our grade school education in Catholic schools (his in NYC, mine in VT), and the experience of nuns as teachers. It was a fine start to our education, we both agreed, emphasizing as it did those all important basics like reading.
I am extremely grateful to those teachers – and my parents who so believed in education – for giving me every tool they possibly could to prepare me for what lay ahead. If I have any regret, it’s in my own lack of attention to what was offered.
MANY MANY THANKS to each of you, wherever you are now.
Alternate Title: Where E-Readers Fear To Tread.
Tagged as:
at play,
ME,
ocean,
summer,
water
Vermont poet David Budbill – whom I never met and know only through his poems, a birthday tribute earlier this year, and the stories of a mutual friend – recently passed away. He said that stacking firewood was one of the great joys of life. A NYT obituary is here.
I suspect he would immediately understand that the wood in this photo was not put up for personal use, but for commerce. From what I glean from his poems, his firewood aesthetic was more akin to ours when I was growing up: the wood stacked neatly in a barn, with kindling in a separate adjoining room. Our stacks were easily eight feet high at the start of the season. I have no idea how many cords we used, but it easily could have been six a season; the wood stove was the only source of heat in a two story house up until I was ten or so.
There really is nothing like wood heat to take you through a long winter.
Rest in peace, David, and may your continued journey be filled with Light and Love.
Tagged as:
autumn,
book,
current favorites,
VT,
yankee structures
There’s a photograph of the Nubble Lighthouse on the Voyager spacecraft – launched in 1977 – that’s one of 115 images chosen to represent the earth. Interesting discussion of some of those images here. Back on earth, that’s the Full Harvest Moon coming up a few days ago.
Tagged as:
ME,
ocean,
summer,
water,
yankee structures
