Today, the ancient peach tree lit up the back yard, and...
the four year-old persimmon tree lit up the front yard.
the four year-old persimmon tree lit up the front yard.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
While On the Front Porch
This afternoon, after 3 days of drippy rain, Topper and I enjoyed some autumn sunshine and watched the world go by from the front porch. At around 3 p.m., seeing the kids walking home from school reminded me of something from my childhood. I wrote about this memory in 2007 when I was retiring from Old First in San Francisco. I'll use this opportunity to get that farewell essay into my blog.
Then off I went to a Jesuit prep school and college, where I ingested the lifelong fruits of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and closely followed the conjugate-able and decline-able exploits of J. Caesar, Marcus T. Cicero, Publius Virgil, and others.
After college I moved to New York City, where for 15 years I played a lot, lived a lot, drank a lot, and found a Higher Power, who saved my life.
In the mid 70’s, a New York management consulting firm sent me to San Francisco to assist Levi Strauss & Co. in managing their phenomenal growth. Levi's was my client for five years; I traveled all over the world coordinating the way they moved their piles of paper from place to place.
Levi's wanted me to work longer in the Far East, but I decided to stay in San Francisco and open a dessert bakery. I supplied restaurants like the Carnelian Room and hotels like The Clift with desserts and made wedding cakes and mail-order cheesecakes. After six years, though, the work was more accounting and personnel than bringing joy to people's palates, so I sold the business and started looking for something else to do.
That was October of 1988, and my partner, Don Briggs, was leaving the Administrator’s job here at Old First. Interim Pastor Bob Vogt (the second in a line of four successive interims) offered me the job, and I took it.
The church was very quiet during those "interim years." I spent long lunch hours soaking up the sun in Lafayette Park. I had planned to work here for only a short time while I searched for a "real" job. But days turned to weeks, and months to years, and I found that this congregation had a hold on me. I learned this was my real job.
During this time at Old First, most of my good friends died of AIDS. I am very fortunate to have been here. I have relied on the friendships established here probably a lot more than I would have if my personal support group had not dwindled. How lucky I’ve been to be part of the Old First family.
It has also been a privilege to work here. The examples of faith put before me have been awesome. It's going to be hard to break the daily ties, but in some ways I will take a piece of you all with me. So now, 14 pastors, 369 new members, and more than 1,000 Sundays later, it's time again to start looking for something else to do.
I am not going off to O'Malley's Home for Wretched Aging ex-Catholics. I have plans to finish restoring my old house in Healdsburg and take some classes in Botany. I hope to get seriously into sculpture. Maybe during the rainy winters I can finish the quilt I started during a gray 1979 winter in Brussels. Maybe I'll bake a cheesecake.
Each spring and fall, maybe I'll sit on my front porch, watching the kids walk home from school while I put together a jigsaw puzzle that has little holes pricked in all the pieces. Half a century ago, old Mr. Davis gave each of us kids a puzzle after he worked it. This puzzle and I have traveled hither and yon; we've made it this far.
I wonder if the puzzle still has all its pieces. I know some of mine are missing! I’m leaving them at Old First!
Say “Goodnight,” Gracie.
A FEW WORDS IN PARTING
September 2007
I was raised in Connecticut, where I lived near a pond with polliwogs and skunk cabbage, where I played in Mr. Peck's orchard and Mr. Davis's pasture, where I walked past Mr. Davis's big foursquare stone house every day on my way to and from school. Up a long sidewalk with tall hedges on each side, most days on the broad front porch there sat 90-year old Mr. Davis. Sometimes we just waved as we went by. But frequently we stopped to visit and most often he was in the midst of putting together a jigsaw puzzle, stabbing and lifting each piece with a dental tool because his fingers were frozen stiff with painful arthritis. We kids sat with him for a while and he often entertained us with adventures of his growing up in the mid-1800's!
Then off I went to a Jesuit prep school and college, where I ingested the lifelong fruits of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and closely followed the conjugate-able and decline-able exploits of J. Caesar, Marcus T. Cicero, Publius Virgil, and others.
After college I moved to New York City, where for 15 years I played a lot, lived a lot, drank a lot, and found a Higher Power, who saved my life.
In the mid 70’s, a New York management consulting firm sent me to San Francisco to assist Levi Strauss & Co. in managing their phenomenal growth. Levi's was my client for five years; I traveled all over the world coordinating the way they moved their piles of paper from place to place.
Levi's wanted me to work longer in the Far East, but I decided to stay in San Francisco and open a dessert bakery. I supplied restaurants like the Carnelian Room and hotels like The Clift with desserts and made wedding cakes and mail-order cheesecakes. After six years, though, the work was more accounting and personnel than bringing joy to people's palates, so I sold the business and started looking for something else to do.
That was October of 1988, and my partner, Don Briggs, was leaving the Administrator’s job here at Old First. Interim Pastor Bob Vogt (the second in a line of four successive interims) offered me the job, and I took it.
The church was very quiet during those "interim years." I spent long lunch hours soaking up the sun in Lafayette Park. I had planned to work here for only a short time while I searched for a "real" job. But days turned to weeks, and months to years, and I found that this congregation had a hold on me. I learned this was my real job.
During this time at Old First, most of my good friends died of AIDS. I am very fortunate to have been here. I have relied on the friendships established here probably a lot more than I would have if my personal support group had not dwindled. How lucky I’ve been to be part of the Old First family.
It has also been a privilege to work here. The examples of faith put before me have been awesome. It's going to be hard to break the daily ties, but in some ways I will take a piece of you all with me. So now, 14 pastors, 369 new members, and more than 1,000 Sundays later, it's time again to start looking for something else to do.
I am not going off to O'Malley's Home for Wretched Aging ex-Catholics. I have plans to finish restoring my old house in Healdsburg and take some classes in Botany. I hope to get seriously into sculpture. Maybe during the rainy winters I can finish the quilt I started during a gray 1979 winter in Brussels. Maybe I'll bake a cheesecake.
Each spring and fall, maybe I'll sit on my front porch, watching the kids walk home from school while I put together a jigsaw puzzle that has little holes pricked in all the pieces. Half a century ago, old Mr. Davis gave each of us kids a puzzle after he worked it. This puzzle and I have traveled hither and yon; we've made it this far.
I wonder if the puzzle still has all its pieces. I know some of mine are missing! I’m leaving them at Old First!
Say “Goodnight,” Gracie.
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