We need a little Christmas, We need a little Christmas now!

December 14, 2012.  

The Pootatuck River in Sandy Hook

The first inkling I had that something was wrong was when I saw an entry on Facebook posted by my niece that read "Many prayers are needed in Newtown."  Then the sketchy reports of online news services, confirming the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, ushered in a week that I think is the saddest I have ever spent.  

I don't know if our family's connection to Sandy Hook in Newtown made the events of December 14th more horrible in my mind than it may have been in the minds of others.  Or, maybe the savagery of the attack at the school was so horrendous that, around the nation, we all felt equally sickened and unable to adequately process our feelings.  All I do know is that I spent the better part of a week drawn to the daily news of frustrating and unbearable heartbreak.  I spent the week trying to will strength and love and mental health to the families of those affected.  I spent the week thinking about my family, friends, all those close to me who mean so much to me.  

I spent time thinking about my own teachers over the years, and thinking about friends who have been teachers themselves and who have helped to raise thousands of schoolchildren in their careers.  Debby Palmer, Pat White, Joe Somok, we owe you big time for the dedication you gave day after day to the little ones entrusted to your care.  Thank the Lord that you and your children remained safe.
 
With the last funerals in Newtown taking place on Saturday, I was able to begin to change my obsession with the tragedy to something closer to a resolve.  A resolve that I will be be pro-active in the discussion of guns and mental health.  

I need a Christmas, a Christmas to get me out of the past week's funk of shock, horror, and sadness.  I need a little Christmas now!

From The Newtown Bee -- Editorial Ink Drops:

First Steps To The Future

It is difficult to think about the future when the crucible of the present moment is still too hot to touch.  But we do know that when Newtown emerges from this awful and intense chapter of its continuing  story, things will be different. The trauma of this time, the sorrow it has stitched into our hearts,  and this new enduring suspicion that security is a mirage, will frame the future we construct for ourselves. It is gratifying to know our first steps away from this painful present will be taken in honor of those we  have lost: a detailed and thorough police investigation of why so many good people had to die at  Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14; an outpouring of material support for those  most grievously hurt by the crime that took those lives; and tributes and memorials now under  consideration or soon-to-be-proposed so that we never forget this time. This is where we need  to start so that we do not keep circling back around to unresolved questions about what this tragedy  means to us as a town. All we know for sure is that this is the season when we defy the darkness with celebrations of coming  birth and renewal. And with those celebrations, light creeps back into the world.  While its return may  be slow at first, it is as certain and as unstoppable as the sun.  (Copyright © 1999-2012 Bee Publishing Company)

December 22, 2012 - a week later --
MY ESCAPE TO OREGON

The joy of living near a small commercial airport, Charles Schultz Airport in Santa Rosa (home of Peanuts, Linus, Schroeder, Margaret, etal), was experienced on Sunday, the 23rd of December, when I climbed aboard a flight to Portland where I would catch a flight to Bend, Oregon.  Counting the 10 minute drive to the airport, the entire journey took just over 3 hours.  Less time than a Harry Potter movie!

Arriving in Bend and seeing that it was covered in new-fallen snow, I realized it's been many years since this New Englander has had a White Christmas.  The family sent a driver with studded snow tires to get me at the airport.  Twenty minutes later I was surrounded by Brother Dick and his Wife Fran, Nephew Brandon and his Wife Jodi, and new Grand Niece, Stella Nicole, who is 10 weeks old.  We were gathered in a cozy and warm house on the side of a snow-covered mountain.  

Wonderland

Dick and Fran have come up from San Diego to spend time with their first granddaughter.  This opportunity to meet Stella was extended to me, her Grand Uncle, and to Fran's sister Nicole, her Grand Aunt.  Sadly however, Nicole and her family had to cancel the trip due to an emergency surgery.  Stella is a healthy, happy little girl.  Hardly any crying, and lots of inquisitiveness in the big blue eyes.

Stella and her Gram

Wonderful food and togetherness.  Food like families have.  Not food like a single getting-older man has.  Pork chops and a board game on the 23rd.  Cioppino and snowfall on Christmas Eve.  And prime rib and Yorkshire pudding on Christmas Day.  

While unwrapping our gifts, a small package from our Sister in Connecticut had a gift card that read, "this gift is for all of you!"  For as long as I can remember, our family at holiday dinners always had celery stuffed with something Kraft Foods called "Roka Blue Cheese" that came in a little glass jar   At our house it was as honored a tradition as was canned jellied cranberry sauce from Ocean Spray.  But, for several years now the product hasn't been on the shelves at the market.  Can't find it anywhere.  It's been gone so long that a new generation of store personnel doesn't know what I'm talking about.  And it's been missed so much by Brother Dick (and the rest of us) that enterprising Sister-in-law Fran made her own version last year by mixing cream cheese with a hunk of real blue cheese.  Not the same, however.  So, getting back to this Christmas morning.  Maureen had sent us a jar of original "Roka Blue Cheese!"  I understand she found a source online, bought herself several jars, and shared one with us.  Each jar cost 10 times what it normally would, but it's worth it to get stuffed celery back on the menu!  

Stayed another day and night and came back to Charles Schultz Airport on the 27th.  The airport recently moved it's luggage retrieval off the tarmac and has built a carousel inside.  They've also enlarged the waiting room, but it is still an easy friendly place.  It's about the size that SFO was back in the 1970's when I started those bi-coastal years.  Used to be able to leave The City and 20 minutes later park my car and run across the road to the terminal.  No longer.  But that's the way it is now at Charles Schultz.  Hope is stays that way for a long long time.  

Picked up the pooch from the "pet resort" (not that he was anxious to leave his friends there) and was home in no time.  Sandy Hook continues to cope with its tragedy.  The reality is that it will never be far from my/our consciousness.  But, thanks Brandon and Jodi for a nice warm, yet snowy, Christmas in Oregon.  And best wishes for lots of happy warm Christmases to come for you and my Grand Niece, Stella Nicole!   

It's Been a While, Folks!

They say time flies when you're having fun -- it's been almost a year since I've written -- so I guess I've been having lots of fun...(actually, I have been).  

Too Much Free Time?

Where to begin?  

DOG:  Well, Topper turned 4 years old in January.  He has become a wonderful, lovable, well-mannered pooch.  The transformation from that first year, when he bounced off the walls and did not hear one word I said, to now, being Topper Grown-Up Dog, is amazing. He still often races with wild abandon from room to room, leaving 125 year-old soft fir floors the worse for wear in his wake.  He still hears imaginary visitors walking up the front steps several times a day.  He still freaks out when Sam the Cat dares to stroll along the back fence.  He still has his allergies and itches, but enjoys his special diet and takes his meds.  So while things aren't idyllic, they are definitely under control.  He loves to go to his day-care/camp.  When we get there, he drags me through the door.  That place is heaven magnified a hundred times for a wire fox terrier.  While there, all the dogs get to play together, so his usual at-home slower paced day is put aside.  And later, when I pick him up to go home, he curls up in the back seat of the car and, plumb tuckered out, falls asleep within minutes

Yes, We've Been Talking about You

ANCESTRY:  Talking about how fast time flies:  I've spent many days this past year working on our family's history.  Not only have we gotten from way back then to right now in a flash, but also, when working on this, it seems it's quickly 2 a.m. each day before I know it.

Back in the 1980's I was fortunate enough to have asked aunts and uncles lots of questions about what they remembered of their older relatives.  They relayed stories and found old photos and clippings for me.  That, then, formed the basis for the present research.  And now, through ancestry.com I've met 2nd and 3rd cousins, of whom I previously knew nothing, who are doing ancestry research also.  We are able to collaborate on common family lines, and it's been very rewarding.  

Jerome, the son of one 2nd cousin, has built an amazing documented family tree with over 60,000 (!) people in it and has shared a huge amount of his research with me.  Joan, the wife of another 2nd cousin, had written three times in the 1970's to my (unresponding) aunt asking for information about her husband's family.  I came across those letters after my aunt died in 2000 and now, more than 30 years later, I was able to find this lady, and we've corresponded.  Joan is a genealogist (among other things) in real life and has had books published of her family's histories.  Also, in the meantime, as a gift to her husband, she did a very comprehensive search of his ancestry and produced a genealogical report going back several generations.  And...since her husband and I have the same great-grandparents, his family is my family too!   Jerome and Joan have each traveled to towns where our ancestors had lived, and visited the town halls, newspaper offices, churches where the relevant 18th and 19th century records were kept.  What a trove of information they have unearthed, recorded, and shared with me.  Thank you, Jerome, and thank you, Joan!

I did my own sleuthing in Bavaria last spring.  I spent a day at the Catholic Church Central Archives in Würzburg and poured through meticulously-kept microfiche of pages from 18th and 19th century church ledgers from St. Stephen's Pfarrei (parish) in Wülfershausen-an-der-Saale where I found birth, marriage, and death records of my maternal grandmother's family going back to the 1700's (until the German script turned into an even older version I was unfamiliar with).  Other days, I tramped around cemeteries, finding headstones of long-lost relatives indicating the dates and places of their lives.  

The walled churchyard of old St. Stephen's Kirche in Wülfershausen-an-der-Saale in the foreground.
The steeple in the photo is the newer Church of St. Vitus in the middle of the village.

I must tell you about my sister-in-law's branch of the tree.  I've been able to trace her family back directly to Gaius Julius Caesar I, II, and III, by way of a woman, Flavia Maximiana Fausta, the mother of a certain King of Brittany, born in a.d. 305, named...wait for it... Conan (the Barbarian, no less!).  (That explains a lot!  lol)

GARDEN:  What else has been happening during the last 12 months?  Almost went overseas again at Christmas, but didn't.  Been mainly hanging around the house.  Spending lots of time on the "new" one year-old deck and in the "new" two year-old renovated shed/studio. 

Our Favorite Spot to Enjoy Fresh Northern California Air

I do a lot of my writing and ancestry work in the shed.  Topper snoozes on the daybed (and makes room for me at times) while I play Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, or whoever writing whatever. 

Nap Time in the Shed

But, of course, as I'm wont to daydream and thereby gaze out the windows, I oft see things that need some attention in the gardens.  And then the day becomes a little of this and a little of that (all unplanned)!  Here are some of this year's spring and summer blooms, borne of that puttering:

Gillian Blades

Spring Iris - 2012

Artichokes - 2012

South Porch Tree Roses

North Hydrangea

Volunteer Sunflowers

A Natural "Spray" of Karl Lagerfeld Roses

First Year Asparagus Patch Gaining Strength -- Yay!

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.

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.

Spring Tulips & Topper

A photo of a complete nose-to-tail Wire Fox Terrier is nearly impossible. They move faster than the combination of a human mind and a camera's shutter allows. Hence still-life tulips and frozen-in-place 7/8 dog.

I dug these tulips up late last spring after they bloomed in a garden where I didn't want them any longer. They spent the summer heeled in some rich compost, part of the fall in the refrigerator, and all winter in these pots. Then voila, 10 days before the official start of Spring 2010, tulips in full bloom.

The Swiss Chard survived the winter and looks better than it did all last year. Overdue for picking, I'd say.

Topper Looks for "Truffles"

Topper's great fun this time of the year is searching for fallen walnuts with the gusto of French swine looking for truffles. Arf! Oink! Arf!

Cosmo Topper McWire

This is the little guy who arrived at SFO on March 1, 2008.


He was born January 4, 2008 in Kansas.



Life as I know it will never be the same