We spent the latter part of October in the North. We went to help with the recovery of my former spouse Katherine from knee surgery. I slept and had breakfast at my daughter Mary’s home in Yardley and June lived in Katherine’s apartment. We had hope we could both live in Katherine’s apartment but the bed provided was too soft for two people. So that is why I slept about four miles away at my daughter’s home. We arrived on Thursday October 18th. Katherine had had knee surgery and she was released from the hospital on Sunday October 21st .We didn’t arrive back in ‘warm’ Florida until November 11th. The fact that my wife volunteered to help with my former spouse’s recovery form the surgery surprised many. Katherine and June have been friends for at least 20 years. My son Dan married Lori in 1988 and the wedding took place in lower New York. We, June and I, flew from Philadelphia to Binghamton. June has a fear of flying. In this case that fear was overwhelming since we found ourselves in a small prop driven plane. It had a row of seats down each side of the cabin. The pilot or co-pilot was also the steward and door handler. On leaving the plane June assured me that she was not going home on that plane or one like it. She expressed those sentiments to Katherine and was told that if I didn’t rent a car to drive us home, June was welcome to ride with her and her friend Madge back to Philadelphia. I rented a car.
Besides being friends it happened because of the character of both women. Katherine in her ability to forgive and forget and June in her being able and wanting to care for others regardless of any other factor, other than that care was needed. Both women ignored ‘status’ or at least considered it unimportant when it came to giving and accepting care.
About the same time my sister Marge suffered a bleeding in her head which caused her to be hospitalized. Marge recovered and went home while we were still there. We did get to visit her in the rehab center before she went home. Being in the Philadelphia area found us able to visit an old friend Bill King before he died from cancer. Bill had been in hospice care I believe since late September. June and I got a quick visit with him and his wife Bunny prior to Katherine’s discharge from the Hospital. He was coherent though very sleepy during that visit. I got another visit him on November 9th. He was semi conscious then and he died early the next morning. We had been friends for over thirty years. We ran races all over the East Coast. We had met at a “jog in” in the early 70’s and went on to the Boston Marathon twice and many other runs. Since coming to live in Florida in 1997 we stayed in touch by phone and mail. On most of our visits north we managed to have a lunch together. We knew for some time that his cancer was considered terminal but it still didn’t soften the loss. He and his wife Bunny were ‘friends’ in the fullest meaning of the word. “Friends are family we select” I read somewhere and it certainly applied to Bill and Bunny.
Mary, my daughter, her husband Ron, and their three boys live in Yardley which is located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania north of Philadelphia. The Delaware River borders it on the east. Lower Makefield Township surrounds it on the north, west and south. Katherine lived in Lower Makefield Township but it was colloquially referred to as “Yardley”. William Yardley first occupied the area in 1682. He obtained the land by an agreement with William Penn. Neither Philadelphia nor Trenton existed when Yardley was founded. The Yardley family occupied the land for more than 150 years. It became a village in 1807. During the Civil War it was a station on the Underground Railroad under the eaves of the Continental Tavern, known then as the Continental Hotel. We have eaten in the Continental Tavern a few times while visiting Yardley. The information reported here on Yardley was obtained from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the Net. My walking around the area while living at Mary’s let me view enormous trees of many varieties. Some were over 100 feet in height and spread some 20 to 40 feet in width. They were in full fall bloom and awesome. They led me to believe they had been around for some time. So that and some historic placards with dates in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds made me curious about the area’s history.
Besides the beautiful trees the area was covered with single homes of mostly one story and some with two. Each had at least 50 to 60 feet of area in the front and rears of the properties. The streets were paved but there were no sidewalks and only a few curbs. They have one street near Mary’s home called ‘Moon Drive’. The streets running off that drive were Milton, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Rickerts. All were poets but Rickerts who as I later learned was a writer. But it was easy walking by such great poetic names in the presence of such awesome signs of nature to be filled with thanksgiving for the wonder of it all.
“No wonder there is no wonder. We’ve figured it all out” Knowledge should increase our wonder, but seeking more knowledge seems to be the only result. “We are more impressed with the discovery of the light switch that the one who invented electricity” (M.Lucado) We look at the stars and thus decide to study astrology. But see not its glory and wonder but struggle to show how it came about. We would rather believe in a ‘big bang’ than a ‘blessed creator’. It makes you wonder! Like noted above we are more delighted and overwhelm with the light switch that the inventor of electricity.
When I looked at the trees as I walked I had no problem with being filled with wonder. On Mary & Ron’s property just at the end of their driveway was an enormous tree. It was six or seven feet around the trunk, rose some forty to fifty feet in the air, and had branches of various sizes spreading out some ten to twenty feet. I would start my walk with a giant to look at and then continue to see many more as ‘wonderful’.
I get to see lots of trees when I walk here in Florida, but not as broad or as tall. If you do look about more carefully you can find the occasional broad and tall fir tree. I remember how impressed we were with the trees when visited Gainesville one time. It reminded us with its trees and some hills of the Pocono area in Pennsylvania. But most of the trees you see here are palms and they are tall and thin. They only have blooming at their tops. The ‘wonder’ here while walking is the water and sky. The sky seems continually blue with white puffs. As they move the puffs grow or shrink in various sizes making one try with his imagination to see figures like furry dogs or large monsters. Clouds are made of water so when you see too many together you are pretty sure you’ll soon get some rain. We live within a block of the Tampa Bay. Walking along the street with enormous house you can peer out over the bay feel the wonder of the changing hues of the water, its movement with a slight breeze, and how it looks to go on and on right into the horizon. Water is another wonder.
I came across an article promoting an exhibit on water at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It was entitled “H2O = life”. Water has been in the news recently with regard to bottled water, droughts in Florida and Georgia, the shrinking of the Great Lakes requiring freighters to lighten their loads, etc. The article referred to some interesting facts about water. For example a single molecule that evaporates into the atmosphere… “spends 11 days in the air before condensing with its companions and falling as rain” The typical American uses 151 gallons of water a day while a resident of the United Kingdom uses only 31 gallons! Incidentally no bottle water was sold at the Museum store.
November closes with “Thanksgiving”. I certainly have much to be grateful for starting with the love and care of June. Then I am grateful too for all the loving children and stepchildren as well as the grandchildren. They bring joy constantly to my life.
I am reminded that at Thanksgiving just a year ago I was coming down with what would be bacterial pneumonia. I ended spending time in the hospital from the Sunday after Thanksgiving to the middle of December. We also remember sitting on the porch around December 20th and being serenaded with Christmas carols by a group from church. With so much to be thankful for it is very easy to celebrate Thanksgiving.
We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day. Just living in this country is one big reason we all have to be thankful. Until next time, Pax Tecum.