Just outside of Ludlow, on the climb up toward Mt. Holly we saw a female moose just off the to the side of the highway; she looked a bit perturbed since she was faced with having to climb a very steep bank up to get herself out of the ditch she was in. Either that or head back tot he highway. But as we stopped and watched her she stopped and watched us – and soon we all went about our business; Sue and I to Rutland and the moose off to wherever moose go when they stop watching humans.
Soon after we arrived I dropped Susan off at the hospital and I swung over to drop my computer off with Bill Dugan at Computer Assistance. (It had been acting odd lately – which is only natural I suppose – but I was particularly concerned about my wireless card, which didn’t seem to be working properly.)
I picked up our mail – two USPS tubs’ worth I might add – and then returned to pick Susan up. I met her in the ED where several of the “A crew” were working so Susan got a chance to catch up with some of her friends in the “pronto soccorso”.
We then ran a couple of other errands and stopped back to find out what was up with the computer (operator error apparently: I had inadvertently screwed up the settings for my wireless card).
We said hello to my Apple laptop and goodbye to Bill and Phil, gassed up the car and left for the Maine woods to celebrate a niece’s transition from childhood to adulthood. It was an easy, uneventful drive to Orono, Maine and we arrived at Joyce and Carl’s in the early evening – just in time to have some leftover supper. (Joyce is one of Susan’s two younger sisters.) Susan’s mom had arrived earlier in the day and so we had a grand time talking about all the changes presently underway in so many lives. We spent the night with them but the next afternoon checked in to the Black Bear Inn. (The Bergmans were going to have a full house for the weekend and we had already scheduled ourselves to stay at a nearby hotel.)
Saturday was a day just to catch our breath and spend some time enjoying the wifi connection in their house (yeah!).
Sunday was the Big Day for our niece Rachel – her graduation from High School – an event she was eager for in no uncertain terms. She cannot wait to get off to college and is excited about the change presently underway in her life.
We enjoyed the ceremony that evening – the keynote speaker was a woman who teaches at the University of Maine; and although I have forgotten her name her speech was short and sweet. In fact she quoted from Thomas Friedman’s latest book, the World is Flat (he is an op-ed writer for the New York Times). The thrust of it all was how globalization and the quickening speed of technology is making the world an increasingly even playing field and how these graduates, these “adultids” (my word) will be faced with great opportunities but also unique challenges. Some important ideas were certainly cast over to the graduates that evening.
The rest of the evening’s presentations were the fairly typical “living your dream” sort of speech. The HS chorus sang a song and after the diplomas were handed out Rachel actually sang a solo. What a sweet voice, so full of promise and I cannot wait to hear it in another two or three years.
The next morning, Monday, we hit he road early and pointed our cart west, mid-west to be specific and drove for about 12 hours, stopping at a Hampton Inn in Amherst, New York, just outside of Buffalo. This was our first experience of having free Wi-Fi in our room, and as we continued our drive westward we would see that this has become the hot-button free feature in just about ever hotel/motel advertised along our route. Amazing and too cool – of course we are getting way spoiled so our return to Florence and the hit-and-miss broadband available there will hit hard.
On Tuesday we got another early start and got to Susan’s mother’s home in Grand Rapids by about 2 in the afternoon. We unloaded the car, relaxed and got ourselves ready to head off to Stan’s birthday party. In 2001 we were fortunate enough to be able to share in the celebration of our friend Stan’s 60th birthday and so we felt it fortuitous that we could be here in Michigan for his 65th birthday.
It was a surprise party of about 30 or so friends, gathered at one of the Heritage Hill homes in Grand Rapids, and our old friends from our Michigan days Dick and Kathy had come all the way from Pennsylvania for the event. The local Culinary School at Grand Rapids Community College provided the food while the wines came from Martha’s Vineyard in Grand Rapids. The group was a diverse collection of people who know the meaning of the word Fun (spelled with a capital F) and the entire feeling that evening was as if we were in someone’s home (which in a sense we were of course).
It was a grand evening, of toasts and roasts – we had no idea that Stan was going to run on the same ticket with Hillary Clinton; their motto as advertised on the bumper stickers handed out that evening was “Lower Morals, Higher Taxes and Better Food”. I think we can all live with that. It was a wonderful time of great comradeship – we met some wonderful people.
Our return to the US has been defined by a search for loose ends and tying them carefully; but must also be seen as a fortunate (for us) time to share in a celebration of not one but two transitions in two very different lives: our young niece Rachel and in Stan’s birthday. We feel ourselves lucky indeed.
After a breather in mid-week we are off to Illinois to spend a little time with my family in the Chicago area and in central Illinois (:the heartland of America”). We hope to be back in Michigan late Sunday afternoon and will bring you all up-to-date then.
Until then,
Wish we were there,
Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment