Matthew Returns From Spain

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Diane, Robbie and Joe wait for Matthew to clear customs.
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The connecting tunnel form terminal E to Central Parking.
On the way home Matt talked about the architecture (of which he took many photographs), the museums (they are everywhere), the helpful and not so helpful people, the restaurants, the beaches (smiling at the thought), the painful train rides, the language (he and Cel had them all covered), the cops (laid back compared to ours), customs in France (non-existent), dinners (at midnight) and pretty much anything else that could be squeezed into an hourís car ride. He was so talkative weíre thinking of throwing him on a plane every month or so.

Photo Gallery to come.

Molasses Pond

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Molasses Pond, 5 AM, Monday morning.
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We were gonna come home Sunday night. But on the way to Molasses Pond, during lunch in Belfast, Maine, with the sea smells a waftiní and Diane enjoying a ridiculously-sized portion of steamed in garlic and tarragon mussels, she looked at me and said, ìLetís go home Monday morning. Early, before the traffic.î


Anyone want to go to the airport with us tomorrow to pick up Matthew? He arrives at 5:45 PM.

For My Brother

Story of My Life

Each day goes down in history, wets its feet,
bathes in clear or murky stream, drinks deep,
comes out to join past days on the other bank.

We go in with the bathing day, every morning,
brace the shiver on our skin, taste the slaking
of thirst, find footing on mossy rock. Climb out

with sleep, Waking, weíre back on the first bank,
wading with a new day into the kaleidoscopic
water. Days far from either bank are barely seen

and seem unseeing. There is no recording of them
that knows the cold and quenching of their moment
in the water. Yet I can not let them go, nor bear

the strong suggestion formed by their fading figures
that they have let us go and that those coming can not
be foretold anything actual of water, flesh, or stone.

Publisher holds out a large envelope, says, Sorry,
We canít publish your autobiography.

Man sighs, says, Story of my life.

All these words then, are only for the stream?
The stream is everything? The stream is not enough?
The specters on the banks are deaf but listening?

Jennifer Michael Hecht

Choices

From Joan:

Talking to HO about Aunt Mary Jane, Bill etc.
I said at least Michael has good sense.
HO said, “Well, he had the good sense to marry Diane.”

You had to hear the delivery / see arch of eyebrow.
I know… sounds like he hasn’t had a good idea since.

Jack Says Goodbye

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Toasted, not roasted, by a longtime friend and colleague.
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Jack sang three songs at his retirement party at The Sitting Bull Tuesday night and ended with, ìI know what you are thinking, donít quit your day job. Well, itís too late!î Since it was open mike night and there were many to follow, Jack speculated there would be much applause from his fellow work mates (there was), and that the other performers not knowing the set-up, would be encouraged, thinking, Gosh, that guy stinks and they still love him.

Jack didn’t stink, he was quite good, perhaps the best that night, his night.
(Jack met John at Yale in the seventies. We met Jack through John who worked with Diane at McLean and owned half our house before he married Ruth. I worked for a brief time with Jackís brother, Tom, in 1982.)