This year’s destination . A closer map view . We’ve tried twice to walk into Rainbow Lake and both times we’ve failed. This year we won’t fail; we’re flying in with Katahdin Air. .

Diane reminded me that after our first failure to gain access to Rainbow Lake, we decided all we lacked was some kind of device with which to ferry our gear. Hence the birth of our overland transportation carts .

Karen, I don’t know where that photo was taken. Nahmakanta Lake? First Debsconeag? I bet Adam knows.

Marcy lives on a quiet street in a modest house bordered by similar looking homes. She’s blonde, about my height, and though she claims to be forty-two she looks ten years younger. Her parents are both walking that ever-narrowing balance beam between living in their own home and moving to some kind of independent/assisted living set-up, or maybe even to Marcy’s house. Though she has siblings, Marcy is the principal care provider. “It’s easier on me.” “My brother lives too far away.” “My kids are older.” One suspects she’s always had this role.

As I sat down at her breakfast table, Marcy said, “I’ve got a story to tell you.” In front of me – a cup of too-hot-to-touch coffee and a blueberry muffin. Just like the first day I arrived to help her fashion new closets. She doesn’t ask; she just gives. And her stories are told in much the same way. You can be having a laughter-induced epileptic seizure and she’ll dead-pan on. Most people, myself included, play to the audience. If a line gets a laugh, it’s expanded upon, but not Marcy. She’s much more in control.

As I sip my coffee, she begins:

“I was in The Christmas Tree Shop and …”

“They sell something other than…”

“Christmas stuff? Think of Pier One.”

“You mean junk no one needs?”

“You were with me? I’m walking through the aisles with my shopping cart and I hear over the loudspeaker, “If anyone has mistakenly grabbed the wrong cart, will they please return it to the Service Desk.’ I think to myself, What dumb bastard would take someone else’s cart? Then I look at my cart, which should have been empty, but it’s full. I was horrified. This woman must have been shopping for an hour.”

I can’t leave out how hard I’m laughing. As Marcy is talking, I’m watching Diane gently wrestle the wrong grocery cart from my hands. Sometimes, when I’m alone, and I’ve latched onto the wrong cart, I keep it. I figure this is the only way I’m going to leave this store with its  veritable cornucopia of choices without the same six items I always buy.

Marcy continues, “The last thing I want to do is return the cart and have anyone see me, so I sneak it back to the Service Desk and as I’m walking away I hear, ‘Oh, Sally, there’s your cart.’ I walked right out the front door.”

“Empty handed?”

“I didn’t buy a thing. That night after dinner I tried to tell my husband, Ken, what I’d done, but he wouldn’t let me.

 He said, ‘Please, Marcy, I don’t want to hear anymore stories.’ ”

Adam’s last comment provided me with the perfect time to post this photo .
For better or worse, now that Diane has a camera of her own, there are now photos of the photographer.

Last Sunday we celebrated Patti’s fiftieth birthday a bit early. Okay, so there aren’t many photos of Patti, none of her opening any presents, nor of her blowing out candles, but there are good shots of Kate and her friend Mallory.

A while ago, Susan gave the blogmeister a high compliment. She said he keeps his own ego mostly off the blog. That is intentional. Well, I can’t this time. I have to acknowledge how hard it is for me to move past those entries dedicated to my brother-in-law. I will, in fact I have, but it doesn’t feel right.

Last Sunday we celebrated Patti’s fiftieth birthday a bit early. Okay, so there aren’t many photos of Patti, none of her opening any presents, nor of her blowing out candles, but there are good shots of Kate and her friend Mallory.

A while ago, Susan gave the blogmeister a high compliment. She said he keeps his own ego mostly off the blog. That is intentional. Well, I can’t this time. I have to acknowledge how hard it is for me to move past those entries dedicated to my brother-in-law. I will, in fact I have, but it doesn’t feel right.

These two photographs taken of Jimmy in his (Victory?) garden in Columbia Heights, MN arrived in the mail today. Diane flew home on Saturday with a container full of his tomatoes. On Tuesday, we sliced two and used them for our first and only BLT of the season.

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The house is quiet, night has settled in and I’m back in South Haven chillin’ in Jimmy’s easy chair as he sits at his computer and plays songs I request. In his retirement, Jim has digitized his past – from old albums to black and white family photos and far beyond. We’re listening to Kris Kristofferson’s version of “Loving Her Was Easier(Than Anything I’ll Ever Do)”

Dressed in dark slacks, and a long-sleeved blue knit shirt with matching suspenders, Jim searches his song files as I ask,

“Jim, I suppose you had tomatoes by the fourth of July?”

“It was a dry summer, but yes, there were tomatoes.”

“You can’t imagine how many people I brag to about your early tomatoes.”

Laughter

“I’ll wait for the right moment. Someone will complain about our short season, or they’ll come from a more southern state and announce how they used to eat them by sometime in July. I then drop the bomb. ‘My brother-in-law’s in Minnesota are ripe by the fourth.’ “

More laughter.

“But you know what? No one is as impressed as I am. Maybe it’s because I gardened for so many years, maybe because I love tomatoes so much. I don’t know.”

“You’ve seen my mulch piles. You know I get started early. When we moved from Columbia Heights, I was worried about how much sun they would get down by the lake.”

Kris’s voice trails off and I ask for another song,

“How about Willie Nelson’s ‘You’re always On My Mind,’ or ‘Always On My Mind,’ or ‘I Don’t Have a Mind?’ It’s one of those. “ Again, not an iTunes download, but another song from his album collection.

“You know, Jimmy, another thing that keeps rattling around in my brain? Remember when you told me the one person you’d like to talk to, if you could bring anyone back, was your father?”

“I didn’t know him very well, and now that I’ve been working on my family tree, there are so many questions I’d like to ask him. I know more about the Gansers, on my mother’s side, than the Stochls.”

This week, I relived our family visit two summers ago to Torroemore, Susan and Jim Stochl’s property in Minnesota. I’ve done it often since our visit. Usually I leave out the conversation and simply settle into Jimmy’s brown leather chair waiting for him to queue another song.

I’ve found myself adding bits to what we used to talk about and finishing some of the sentences. Because these dialogues now exist only in my head, they feel like cold, dry echoes. But they’re really unfinished conversations given birth by death.

My sister-in-law, Susan, called last Saturday morning to tell us, “Jimmy died,” that he awoke at 2 AM feeling sick and was gone minutes later in spite of her cries, “I love you, please don’t die on me,” and the paramedics’ best attempts.

I can’t speak for Susan, I’ve probably said more than I should, but I know how I feel. My daily tasks are littered with short conversations with Jim, or, like the one above, entire vignettes assembled from the past and added to by the longing of the present.

When I convert a taped recording of “This American Life” to a CD burned on my computer, I listen to his instructions. When I move a stone, I see Jimmy’s latest terracing project. When I’m cutting through an electrical line, I hear his cautions. When I look at Matthew, I feel not only my love, but his love and admiration.

When I think of that summer, I want one more song.

Jimmy was shinydome on the blog

I meant to repost these photos yesterday.
Two of my favorites.

Emma and Jimmy

Matt and Jimmy

Matt gave me a CD full of Cel’s photos and I’ve posted only a small number of them. Yes, I did edit some, but mostly I tried to keep my grubby fingers off.

Matt gave me a CD full of Cel’s photos and I’ve posted only a small number of them. Yes, I did edit some, but mostly I tried to keep my grubby fingers off.

Cel’s Spain Photos.

One-armed rakkity has been camping in the wild west. And on his return home, “My cast & two pins (titanium 8-penny nails) were removed from my wrist this morning. Calloo callay!”
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