I’m piggybacking on Adam’s post (further shoving the unholy duo on down the page) to add this photo from that spring trip to Aziscohos. I talked myself into believing it too was an April excrusion, but I looked at the back of the photo and saw May of 1999. That means it was Memorial Day, when the snow lingered. Damn.

Two more pics:
Rope Swing
and
Pebble Beach

Condi Rice and Zorg from the Fifth Element

This Much I Do Remember

It was after dinner.
You were talking to me across the table
about something or other,
a greyhound you had seen that day
or a song you liked,

and I was looking past you
over your bare shoulder
at the three oranges lying
on the kitchen counter
next to the small electric bean grinder,
which was also orange,
and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.

All of which converged
into a random still life,
so fastened together by the hasp of color,
and so fixed behind the animated
foreground of your
talking and smiling,
gesturing and pouring wine,
and the camber of your shoulders

that I could feel it being painted within me,
brushed on the wall of my skull,
while the tone of your voice
lifted and fell in its flight,
and the three oranges
remained fixed on the counter
the ways stars are said
to be fixed in the universe.

Then all the moments of the past
began to line up behind that moment
and all the moments to come
assembled in front of it in a long row,
giving me reason to believe
that this was a moment I had rescued
from the millions that rush out of sight
into a darkness behind the eyes.

Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
my middle name,
and the meaning of money,
I will still carry in my pocket
the small coin of that moment,
minted in the kingdom
that we pace through every day.

–Billy Collins

I don’t know about rakkity, here pictured with the future Mrs. rakkity in 1977, but I sure wish he still had that shirt.
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The Wedding- Tree Growers Meadow – 1978


Diane, Molly, the happy husband and his blushing bride (this will teach rakkity to send me photos without annotation).
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Mike, Ed, Beth, Kathy, Beth’s sister, and the Justice of the Peace
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My first wedding, my first and only best man role and my first toast. I don’t know about the happy couple, but I was one proud guy.
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Willow last night with the jazz saxophonist, whom I believe is married to the guitarist. I offered to break our Friday night routine, but Diane claimed she had been dreaming of sushi with a bowl of white rice.

I’ve been searching for prints of rakkity, and this all I can find so far. Back when he lived with us on Beacon St. in Somerville. Beth to his left, Bill Connet to his right, and Keiko, Peter’s girlfriend across the table.
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Mrs. rakkity.
Sorry Mrs., I know this isn’t the most flattering photo but it’s better than the one of you on our infamous whale hunt, bundled in a blanket, a pale shade of green, doing your best not to become an over-the-sider.
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Dash Ruthenburg
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Dash’s dad.
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Bill Connet, Patti and Diane. I’m not sure, but I think Diane or maybe Susan made that quilt.
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I had to add another of Diane as Glen Close in Fatal Attraction. Next to her is Karen Schiff and “Speed Freak.”
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Peter, Diane, Eileen Foley, and Linda.
One of my all time favorites…taken when we moved from Linda’s house on High St. to Central.
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Dan (“toothpick”) and Greg, Somerville, 19 something something. We stil have Patti’s hanging macrame plant holder, but the bell is gone. Diane made a dress of the same material as those curtains and somewhere I have a photo of her standing in front of the living room windows, with the huge avocado to her right.
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Matt has a snow imposed, two hour school opening delay. Not what he hoped for, but better than nothing.

Joan, Paul and Jayne Dearth. Jayne met Peter at Holy Ghost Hospital and for a time, lived with us on Beacon St.
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Barbara, Joan and Ginger. Any guesses which one is Ginger?
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From rakkity:

Mike & Diane,

Very interesting tale by two bikers on their way around the world.

They passed through Esteli, Nicaragua on their way south. Cindie,
the main writer of the pair, spoke to a young fellow in Esteli who said
he was a Sandanista and hated capitalism. Cindie shamefacedly admits
that she told him they were canadian, the only time she couldn’t confess
to being americans.

They continued on to the Nicaraguan coast and then down to Costa Rica,
where they saw the elusive Quetzal bird (we tried, but failed) and saw the
same kind of monkeys we saw in Baru. This fearless biker couple seems to
be in Chile now.

How is Matt’s knowlege of recent american history? Does he know about
Ronald God Raygun’s messing around with Nicaragua? If not, he will sure
learn about it while learning Spanish in Esteli!

I borrowed Adam and Tricia’s scanner, after failing to solve the scan line problem with mine, and as you can see, they are still visible, but less so. I’m not sure what I’m complaining about, because the scanned, monitored pics are infinitely clearer than the poorly exposed, faded originals.

Ginger pressured me to post my afro pic, taken on the Cambridge Common in 1971. I don’t know what happened to the grass (maybe all the fertilizer was used in growing my hair), but the Hertz moving truck suggests the beginning of the school year.

The next photo is, I assume, from Brian and Ginger’s wedding party. But why, if that is her, was Patti there?

Shinydome sent me this Shoe cartoon which is funny and wonderfully illustrated, and if you back into macnelly.com, you’ll find the history of Shoe. The Globe doesn’t carry the strip, and I assumed when Jeff died, the strip did too, but nay, nay.

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I procrastinated assembling a photo album for Flo to take to Arizona, but Saturday, with carefully selected pics from birthday parties, vacations, and Susan’s archive, Diane and I arrived at Chris’s. I figured the easiest method was to use her iPhoto to upload to Kodak to publish a book of ten pages to send directly to Flo and her sister Doris in Sun Lakes. I used an online company in the past to create the book format, and she had loved it.

However, when we arrived – and after Chris totally ignored me to wrap a warm hug around Diane – she opened iDVD on her Mac and played a movie, with Moon River as an accompaniment, of essentially the same photos I had chosen. Totally independently. There it was, my “job”, all done. Not an album, but better – a DVD playable on a computer or your friendly television.

Diane and Chris edited it slightly, added more photos, and therefore a different, longer sound track, and I’m mailing it this morning. A guaranteed tear jerker. It just is. Diane tells me we’ll now have to buy Flo a DVD player for her TV. After we left, Chris went back to the blog, pulled more Miller-oriented pics and made one for my mother. What a friend. Even if she doesn’t hug me anymore.

Acton Village Video (or as Travis would say, Herb’s) Friday night.
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“Haven’t a clue”