And, of course, despite my best intentions, I still ended up doing a little bit more yesterday than I really should have. But I think on balance it was worth it. Enjoyed a nice assortment of visitors after church, then a very exciting come-from-behind Red Sox win, followed later that evening with a blow-out Celtics victory and pizza from Bonobos -- my favorite neighborhood wood-fired pizza place. Having my friend Jerry here visiting has really been good for me, in a way that's hard to explain. It feels so "normal" -- just to sit around shooting the breeze about literature, politics, whatever, while taking in the game and pouring back a few Ginger Ales. So yes, I stayed up past my bedtime and ate a few things I probably shouldn't have. But I think it was worth it. Definitely.
Today is Patriots Day here in New England: the anniversary of the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, when British regulars from Boston marched into the hinterland in order to seize and destroy a cache of weapons being stockpiled by the local militia, and ran into a swarm of Minutemen who mustered at the Old North Bridge and chased the British all the way back to Charlestown. It's ironic, in a way, that today we should celebrate our Patriotism by celebrating an insurgency. But you know, that's history.
But in any event, since Carlisle was/is the next town north of the Old North Bridge, Patriots Day awas always a big deal at the last church I served. The Minutemen reenactors would gather on the Town Green in front of the Meetinghouse and fire off their muskets, then lead the procession through the woods down to the Old North Bridge to join in the festivities there. And, of course, it is also the date of the Boston Marathon, which attracts runners from all over the world.
But for me, this year here in Portland, it's just another day in the hospital. Another day of waiting. Another day of wondering what's next, and trying not to worry about that too much. Another day to watch another ball game, and eat another meal, and to spend some time with friends. Maybe not such a bad way to spend a day after all....
About Me
- The Eclectic Cleric
- Portland, Maine, United States
- Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, sailing summers in the San Juan Islands and warding off the gloominess of the incessant winter rains by reading voraciously and drinking more than my fair share of Seattle's Best espresso. Five (count 'em) college degrees, making me an honest-to-God Crimson Dawg Duck Beaver Viking. Have served Unitarian Universalist congregations in both Midland Texas and on Nantucket Island (which made the 2004 election VERY interesting), as well as numerous other smaller UU fellowships along the I-5 corridor in Washington and Oregon. More recently, I relocated from the affluent faux rural suburbs of "the Neighborhood of Boston" (just beyond the Old North Bridge and through the woods, about five miles from the site of Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond), to the bustling shores of Casco Bay at the southern edge of "Down East." But my ministry at the First Parish in Portland ME was cut short by a diagnosis of Lung Cancer in February, 2008. I currently live outside of Sacramento CA, retired with a permanent and total medical disability, as I battle with my disease and continue to ponder what God has in store for me next.
4 comments:
Hi Tim,
Well, it's vacation week here at Casa da Banshee. While I was at work this morning my son decided to make himself a few new swords. He was very creative with his use of the materials on hand. He sawed one of my rakes into several pieces! Can I interest you a homemade sword? No? How about a mischievous boy? No again! Been there, done that, you say. Oh, peshaw.
Another day almost at an end. Another day closer to home. Tomorrow you will know more.
Tim
Your Blog gives me an abundance of energy while I wait to see you again on May 1st. Love You1 DAD
Hi Tim,
Good to see the earlier picture of you and your dawg! And I'm glad you got to go outside--spring is finally here. I am finally, I hope, getting over some sort of minor but persistent bug, so I soon might be healthy enough to come for a face to face visit.
Best wishes on the latest tests, and may the setbacks melt away like the snow that is gone.
Myke J.
Loved your description of Patriots' Day morning at the Carlisle Meetinghouse. The other week when I was in Cambridge for J.D. Bowers' lecture (you were missed), my hotel was in Bedford. It was impossible to drive through the last stretch of road, now preserved by a donation of conservation land, and not be trasnported to the paradoxical experience of those men, of feeling so exposed in a space so enclosed in the midst of such comfortable trees. Yes, that was the British, but there were dead on both sides. And after all these years, does it really make a difference in our sympathy with their lost lives?
NPR had a beautiful story this morning of some kamikaze pilots who had survived their missions, and are now visiting high schools around the world to talk about their experiences, the abuses rather than training by which they were "prepared" for their missions ("Even death is better than this") and the dangers of excessive patriotism. One part of the clip had an American survivor of a ship that went down after a kamikaze hit, and a kamikaze, telling each other, "You were just doing your job, like I was just doing mine."
And yet, it does make a difference for what someone fights. Our own heroes died for something a lot of other folks are still willing to die for; the kamikazes went home to a country that joined you in loving American baseball -- not only for itself, but as a symbol of newly shared values.
SOOOO, dear Eccentric -- how about those Sox?
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