The year begins. Time moves us on inexorably to the next moment and makes telling the adage: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life!” But as I write these words it is still 1997. We have our first houseguests. Well, we had our first houseguests; they now are examining the wonders of Universal Studios in Orlando. They arrived on Saturday Evening. Sunday morning the twins, Sean and David, joined us in church. We had the pleasure of having the Pastor greet them and us. Later his wife came over to our pew and gave us more words of praise. She reminded us of how lucky we were to have two such handsome guys as grandchildren! They took it well and I beamed with approval. It was a fitting way to begin their visit here in this strange new land of their grandparents. After the service, we returned to their two younger brothers, Eric and Paulie, and their parents to prepare for the coming of the Christ child. He’s expected on Thursday, but with Eric, Paulie, Sean, and David in the house we feel He’s already here.
I want to report I survived my first appearance as the ” pianist” in the Shore Acres Christmas Party. We even managed on a few songs to stay with the singers. It was easier on the carols, then on songs like “Rudolph” and “Santa’s coming to Town”. So now I have completed my first “gig”, as my son Andy, the musician, calls them. I wondered where the word “gig” comes from. Does it stand for: “Getting Into the Groove”? The dictionary is little help. It states it is slang: “A job, esp., a booking for musicians (Orig. unknown).” After a week of anxiety over my making a fool of myself, I actually had fun. The guests and residents alike were kind enough to applaud my efforts. Now with a little more practice…next, Carnegie Hall! Well, maybe not, but it reminds me, I had the opportunity to play there one time. Well, it wasn’t actually to play but to strike some of the keys while sitting at the piano there on the stage. I was the guest of Tom Baker and my daughter Sue. We were touring the Hall. Tom was at that time an employee. As I approached the piano, sat down and was about to strike the keys, a voice pleaded: “Please Daddy, don’t, please… etc. etc.” So I acceded. Thus today I cannot say, “I played the piano at Carnegie Hall!” I still love her. And I still can say that I have not played the piano at a great number of places.
I opened one my Christmas gifts. It came in the mail from Dan and Marge. It is a pocket book. It is “Winnie Ille Pu”. What is a 68 year old man doing reading “Winnie the Pooh”? Well, if you notice it is “Winnie Ille Pu” this book was “…the only book in
Latin to ever grace the New York Times best seller list.” It is not just ‘Winnie the Pooh” but “Ille Pu”, or “that very important Pooh”, so says Christopher Robin. It is slow work translating since the colloquial and vernacular and is not what I have been translating. It is however, a strenua inertia (energetic idleness).
Christmas day came and went under clouds. Christmas ’97 is history. For the weather watcher, it was another wet ending of the year. We had a record year in “96 in Philly, and now a record in ’97 in St. Pete’s. We are beginning to wonder, “Is it us?” No, we believe it is our visitors! They must have brought this weather down with them, after all, this is the “Sunshine State”, and so it couldn’t be us, right? All further suggestions and such conclusions will be denied. The decision having been rendered, it is final!
Most of our guests left us this morning (12/28) at 5:20AM heading down the coast and across the state to camp in the Keys. I say, “most” since Mary Lou who arrived by air, stayed with us until Monday December 29th. After taking her to the airport in Tampa June and I spent the day at Busch Garden.
Ah, the energy of youth and the dividends it provides! We hardly seemed to have had them with us and they are gone. They came in Saturday evening, around nine: Sunday went off to the football game; Monday packed up a left for Orlando and
Universal Studios: returned on Tuesday Christmas Eve, and were off to the Mall then we all celebrated by attending a candlelight service at LCC. Christmas Day, the young Santa believers were surprisingly not up until 7:30 AM. It was a day of unwrapping with “Ooos and Aahs”, as each new item brightened the Living room floor. The rain dampened their anticipated Friday visit to Busch Gardens in Tampa. Saturday they made a run to Fort Myers to try the sun, the beach and visit an old friend. Another day, I think, Christmas Day, Dad took the two youngest guys to Fort DeSota Beach.
I am weary just recording their undertakings. They exemplified the energy and enthusiasm of the young. I also agree that they didn’t “waste” any of their time. Such activity belles the sarcastic quip of GBS: “Youth is such a wonderful thing it’s a shame it’s wasted on the young.”
We had some good game playing together. Grandpop had just received the games “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy”. They are played on the computer. Grandmom even jumped right in and showed the “young ‘uns” she’s no slouch when it comes to words and trivia. I had the opportunity to show Sean my Latin lessons since he expressed an interest in the language. He is thinking of taking it next year. He will be in the 10th or 9th grade depending where he attends. He and David are being considered for scholarships to Germantown Academy. They are among the finalist. But if they go to Germantown they must repeat the ninth grade. If they stay at Abington they will be in the 10th. Tommy McSorley is also in the scholarship run. I believe he has accepted a full one to Holy Ghost Academy.
The “twins” were 14 years of age on December 30th. We should correct ourselves in that now there are two sets of “twins” in the clan. Thus it is no longer just “the twins”. We received some pictures of the newest pair, Alex and Aidan, now coming up to 10 months. They looked almost two years old in the pictures. Looking at their plump smiling faces reminded us of Sean and David at that age. They were and are both budding Buddhas.
The twin, Sean, left among the pile of clothes temporarily left in my room and Penguin Pocket Classic: ‘The Plays of Euripides” I don’t think I was reading Euripides in the ninth grade at West Catholic High. I decided to read it. I would like to say, “reread” it but my memory doesn’t agree. All I could think of as I read it was so this is where the expression “Greek chorus” originated. In Junior College, I had an English Teacher who kept expressing it. He would say: “What does the Greek chorus think or say re this or that? “He’d toss the question at us after he had offered an idea or proposition. He was the same professor who remarked after we read Thomas Merion’s “Seven Storey Mountain”: “He left the best parts out!” “Seven Storey Mountain” was Merion’s biography up till his entry into the Cistercian monastery. It recorded his spiritual struggle to find himself and God. So the professor was inferring that we should have had more on his sinning than on his “saving”. But we were never exposed to “Medea” in the ninth grade I suppose because of the sex, adultery, murder, and general acceptance of violence that was rampant in the play. Today it would be considered mild next to just an everyday soap opera!
Medea and it contents reminds me of a cartoon It appeared in the NY Times Book Review Magazine. It was set in ancient Rome. A toga dressed man was pleading to another who was seated behind a raised desk. He, the pleader, was extolling the qualities of a book that was then a best seller in Judea. He noted, for his listener, that it was replete with sex, murder and general mayhem in places. The man on the bench we can now see is a Publisher, since behind him in bins are numerous rolled parchments, he agrees that those parts of the book are good, BUT…he has to worry about his investors, critics, etc. etc. and doesn’t think it would sell. He then suggest to the pleader: “Try the Greeks, they’re into that sort of thing!” Thus according to the cartoonist, the Bible was first published in Greek, not Latin.
The ninth grade is where I am comfortable in my Latin translating. I was advised o this by the authors of the Cambridge Latin course which I have on my computer. I must agree the authors know how to reach ninth graders since even though it comprises stories of the citizens of Pompeii, it get updated by throwing in a word like “space shifter”. A space shifter, for some of you non-Trekkies, is a character in “Deep Space Nine” There is a story about a centurion, called a tabula mirabilis, a strange story. The narrator sees a centurion who roars at him and then removes is clothes and disappears! When he approaches where the soldier stood he sees only a “stone”. He concludes: “…Ule centurio erat versipellis”; that centurion was a space shifter! A good “ninth” grade word.
The visit of the gang, brought to mind other days and nights of full houses.
They were in Avalon. It seemed appropriate though, since we are still on vacation here. The floors covered with suitcases, clothes, sleeping bags, etc. The plumbing seeming to be running constantly. The kitchen counters cluttered with extra cereal boxes, coffee cake boxes, etc. In my early morning ventures, as I work my way to the kitchen, I quietly and carefully step over bodies. These are “vacation” experiences. But how can it be?? It’s Christmas time! We continue to feel we are just at the shore, and sometime soon we will be heading back to Philly!
Now as I write it is 1998 I It is a cold day for these parts. I think somewhere around 39 degrees. It is warm though when I look at the pictures of the snow piles in Syracuse. I wonder if Andy in Oswego and Dan outside of Rochester, in Hilton, are digging out. It is hard to believe but I played golf yesterday and had to remove my jacket to cool down. But “hard to believe” is not an appropriate phrase since the climate only delivering as “advertised”. It is that I can’t resist tossing in comments as to “how warm it is, etc.” to confirm the wisdom of our move!
We look forward to ’98 and the adventure of a new place, new home, and new fuses. We look forward to the visitors coming to join us in our enjoyment. We expect Andy and Paul the weekend of Jan 8th through to the 13th, John and Mary (June’s sister) MacDonald near the end of January; Winnie and her gang in mid February; Dan and Marge at the end of it; Bill in there sometime after spring training opens, and possibly Jerry and Betty Hopkins (the other grandparents of Sean and David) sometime around Easter! Being in the warm has the great dividend of having visitors. The door is open. You are all invited; just give us a bit of warning…so we’ll be sure to be here!
We wish you and yours a Happy New Year! One full of the best of joys, like we had when we were little girls and boys!