Memorial Day

Our neighborhood gathering for Memorial Day had to be one of the best ever. All the neighbors you’ve seen before were here, as well as two new ones, a couple of temporary ones, family and friends. What a convivial group we had!

Before the party, our street looked normal until grandson David carried six chairs and four small tables outside. They were stack-able, so he made two trips. I caught the action as John and David set up the long table.

The next time I looked out, the grills were in place, and a round table appeared. When I started carrying food out, Holly was decorating the long table. How festive! There are two things I’d like to feature – the cook and the cake. Jeff deftly grilled all the meats to perfection. Someone suggested I take a photo of the cake Shawn made before it was demolished. If I hadn’t been blinded by the sun, perhaps I would have taken the flag flying in the right position. It’s history now, as the cake found a welcome in our tummies. Delicious!

Many people make a party fly, doing things no one sees. Jeff’s household provided paper plates, utensils, garbage bags, and the removal of filled garbage bags. Everyone brought food, and several provided chairs. At the end of the party, the grills were dragged back to their homes, and the more able-bodied carried tables and chairs inside. Several people said they missed David and wished he could have partied with us instead of going to work.

In this set of photos there was one extra body (the white dog) and one big omission. I didn’t take a picture of everyone’s favorite boy, Logan!

Spring Activities

John and I stay busy, but many of the things we do are not worthy of a blog post. Often neighbor CAT walks with us, and lately she joins John on the retaining wall for a leisurely scratch.

One of the first days we ate breakfast on the porch this season, we had blueberry pancakes. John thought I was just taking a shot of the food, so he sat there quietly, not smiling. I might have done a retake if the pancakes had not been getting cold.

Logan came one afternoon, playing checkers with first John and then grandson David. Three of us also played Set, using real cards instead of doing it online.

Daughter Lise sent a selfie showing her new Danish passport and haircut. From New Jersey, daughter Kate shared her new haircut with us and Lise.

John always notices and comments on the flags the town of Waynesville puts out for Memorial Day. Each flag has a name of a resident who died in war. We’ve seen this done in other towns, too.

This flame azalea, a native of our mountain region, is close to one of the streams near our house. Cultivated azaleas have varied pastel colors, but this local is always a distinctive orange.

David has been running the sound board at church for the late service. The man who taught him that asked him to stay after choir to learn about the organ. We don’t have a substitute organist right now, and our regular one will be out of town one Sunday in June. Using the organ, she recorded the music that will be needed that day. John took this photo of David’s hands on the controls. He will make the organ play the recorded music for the liturgy, as well as all the hymns, at the appropriate time. It would scare me silly to do that, but he said it was easy.

Do you have activities or events that are not worth a blog of their own?

Hit by a Squirrel

How we wished for instant replay! John and I were walking under trees near home when there was a commotion above us. I felt something graze my head, and John said something brushed his leg. CAT was walking with us, and she jumped back. A squirrel hit the road right at John’s feet, instantly scrambling to run in the woods. I wondered if a branch had broken with the squirrel on it, but there was nothing on the road to support that. Both of us are glad the squirrel didn’t land squarely on us and scratch us trying to escape. Speaking from experience, I say this was better than being hit on the head by bird poop.

CAT and John after the squirrel landed among us

Photographs from England 40 Years Ago – May 16, 1982

Both John and I think I wrote a letter to him every week when he started his new job in New York, but neither of us has a clear memory of it. For two years I had regularly written a letter a week, which he copied to send to our mothers and kept the original. There is a very slim possibility that he kept the last ones, but we haven’t found them.

The words have disappeared, but we still have a few photos from this time. One of my favorites was John $pencer taking things out of the cabinet. He got there on his own, perhaps by climbing on a toy. I wrote on the slide, “TROUBLE at work”.

In the back garden I took a shot of the children who played together the most – Kate, Philippa, and Lisa. This photo was on our Aura frame for a month, and I saw it at least ten times before I realized John $ was in it, too, standing in front of Philippa.

One day $ examined gravel, so Pippa and Kate flopped down to join him. One girl posed for the camera, and the other began to really look at the stones.

John was probably still with us when we went to Leith Hill. I don’t remember anything other than the huge rhododendrons in the garden.

This looks like an ad. What could the boy have been selling? Shoes? Children’s play clothes?

My Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day had pleasant surprises, beginning with my discovering Danish daughter Lise had joined my Aura frame and posted several photos. Once she accepted an invitation to the frame, she could post photos from anywhere in the world to display almost instantly on our kitchen counter. Kate, David, Nathaniel, John, and I could see her pictures on our phones, as well.

As we pulled into the church parking lot, son John $pencer called to wish me a happy day. It was 7:00 am 2,000 miles away. Rose joined him, and we had a lovely chat. A day or so later $ sent me a photo taken that Sunday when they were hiking.

After church, Kate went up to the choir loft to see David shutting down the sound board he runs for that service.

No one complained about my wanting photos of us.

I particularly like the one with Kate and David, because they bought the balloon for me. It had been a lovely day from start to finish.

A Satisfying Day

You’d think walking to the creek would be a humdrum event. I found it exceptionally pleasant with daughter Kate for company.

This day Kate spotted an abandoned Easter basket bobbing in the water. Of course, we wondered who lost it and why, knowing it would remain a mystery. A few days later, when John and I went to a meeting at the firehouse, I walked across the parking lot and found the blue basket on the creek bank, a foot or so above the water.

The rain clouds bearing down on us caused a pause for a photo and much faster footsteps to get home.

We took pictures from the overlook on the way to Cataloochee and the six elk we found grazing in the valley.

Kate and David posed in a big barn and sat at desks in the old schoolhouse.

Mother and son requested a picture of them on the bridge in Cataloochee. We all enjoy mountain streams, and I took home five video clips when one should have been enough. I took the one below while standing where Kate and David had been sitting.

We found it very satisfying to wander through the day, enjoying each other’s company.

Spell-check Amusement

I was extolling the pleasures of grandparenthood when the spell checker flagged the word “grandparenting”. It suggested I add a hyphen to make it grand-parenting.

The second choice made me laugh. It was “grandpa-renting”.

John has 49 cumulative years of grandpa experience. How much do you think I could get to rent John out as an experienced grandpa???

Celebrating Nathaniel’s Graduation

Nathaniel and friend Sarah came for almost 24 hours so that we could celebrate his university graduation. This was my favorite photo of the two of them.

We had the celebratory meal at the Blue Rooster where we could hear and see each other.

Nathaniel sat right under one of the blue roosters in the dining room.

A Nathaniel creation was planned from the beginning, and he made a strawberry shortcake with the berries he, Sarah, and friend Dakota picked the day before. Sarah did a beautiful job of preparing the berries.

When the cake was half way finished, I asked them to pose with it.

Everyone waited patiently for the official photo and a close-up of students and cake.

What you can’t see or hear was all the cheerful chatter. It was wonderful to have these hours with them, and I think we made the most of it. Congratulations on your graduation, Nathaniel!! We are very, very proud of you.

Kate is Here!

Want to walk with us to the creek? Daughter Kate is with us for a week, and we are loving every minute. I won’t take photos of our sitting and talking, but we have recorded things we’ve seen outside.

The first amusing thing we passed was a neighbor’s vegetable garden. I always wave to the scarecrow the first time I see him in the Spring, not realizing that it isn’t a real person. This year Warren added two pink flamingos, which made us laugh. In the middle is a sprinkler he has hooked up to a pump in the little stream that runs beside his property. I’ve never seen it operating, but his plants are never thirsty.