Greetings and Welcome back (to me, to you….to us all):
“I will lead you to fields you know nothing of”………………………………………………………………..William Carlos Williams
“Through the ample open door of the peaceful country bran,
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horse feeding,
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.”………………………………………………Walt Whitman
“Blow up your TV throw… away your paper….Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches, Try an’ find Jesus… on your own”…………………..John Prine
And we more or less did just that. Did you miss me? Did you notice? Been gone fishin’…more or less. Been a long two weeks comin…gonna be long two weeks gone…It begs the question…how much does or should one man have to say. ..I believe the answer at the moment …is…not much……though…. the answer, my friend, may be blowin’ in the wind…
Just back last night from ten days of family vacation on the North Carolina beach…
We managed to avoid the hurricane by a day, and the area was in good shape…
Spent the week before (the one you all missed) dealing with my latest mystery health adventure (much better), taking care of our ailing Jewish Fish Monger, convincing the Dumpmaster that The Queen would indeed be back, and readying for our departure on that Friday….then down the mountains to the first airport in the US (the capitol of the great state of New York) and off the Charlotte…
Spent a few nights with my eldest niece and nephew , Missy and Omelio….together with the wandering prodigal jetting in from San Diego and Tees, Jake and Bebe – who had motored down from Cowtown..
Then it was off to the Beach for a week…Sunset Beach on the NC/SC border, where my childhood friend Rick has a condo he lent us…and then it was the disparate family there together for a week of old time rock and roll….it was record setting, Ungodly hot with day temps in the 90-95 range, so being out with Bebe was somewhat prohibitive during most of the day…did our excursions early and late…good pool sessions with the little one…legendary Calabash style fish to eat… a highlight trip to Southport along Cape Fear (yes, that Cape Fear….could almost see Robert Mitchum lurking in the shadows)….had some excellent beach walks and swamp visit….and did mostly the things that families do when they don’t see each other in a while and are not used to living together (I’ll let you fill in those blanks on that one)…
Friday afternoon we put Max in an uber to skip up to Wilmington for his flight home and the rest of us headed back to Charlotte, for another night with the extended family, now including my younger niece, Melanie and husband Les..
I don’t think there is much more to say about all that…you’ve all been on a family vacation and know the drill…the hassles and negotiations can seem a bit much… the time together is PRICELESS…
Back at the Inn now…where Fall is setting in, in earnest….quite a shock to go from 95 to 45…but very good to be home…where little Lucy looked like she might keel over with a stroke with excitement at our return
It’s Jenn’s birthday today so we went to the Johnnycake in Rutland for brunch …and I’m off to make birthday dinner…and in truth….a picture is worth a thousand words…so knock yourself out with these….
Happy Trails,
Papi
