Coming to theaters near you

Fall!  Too many trees are turning already.  But, this week holds out for some summer weather, just in time perhaps for the first tomatoes to ripen.  It's been a cold summer, and predictions are for an even colder winter.  Winter is usually colder than summer.

Anyway, we enjoyed a summer, family week.  First camping on the beach at Assateague, then the arrival of all three children and husband (!) and significant friends/partners or whatever boyfriend and girlfriend go by these days.  Then on Saturday the entire Boyle clan who descended on 5 Hancock Road for a good old fashioned family reunion.  Let's take each of these in reverse chronological order.

The photo says it all, but it's been years, decades even, since we saw some of the Boyles, the families of each of the five children of Dan and Loretta.  Tim came the farthest, in both physical distance but also health-wise as a couple of weeks ago he was hospitalized for an intestinal blockage.   Patrick came from Colorado, and Leonore from Portugal/London.  Erin and Christopher from just up the road at Pontoosuc Lake.  Margaret and Andrew also came from Mexico, as they had a vacation at a place just north of Cancun, an island paradise by the sounds of it and a potential future destination (get the details from Margaret.) Even Marj and Lew came up from Rhode Island.

Back to the reunion: Lots of food, lots of drink, a short drizzle, games, lots of catching up with new jobs and new addresses, new schools and even new hair-dos.  Highlights included the arrival of the greatest generation members - Loretta's sisters, Ann and Mary - stuffed Rhode Island clams from Steve and Maura, Tim's ceviche, Kara's fruit salads (a healthy antidote for her mother's cheese cake tarts), Natalie's multi-colored cake, and a nice bonfire, started by Andrew and propelled by Pauline.  Young Danny even unearthed Mary's rotary phone from 7 Hancock Rd. Lots of stories, and a sign of success were comments about another one next year.  

The party had actually started a few days earlier with the arrival of Joe and Leonore, and then Annie and Greg, and finally Margaret and Andrew.  We corralled them all to head off to Arrowhead to hear my tour on Herman Melville's home (joined by John and Marilyn.)  There was hiking, shopping, canoeing, swimming and, yes, eating and imbibing.  Wonderful evenings.

We had all just been together the previous weekend at Assateague, with Jeff and Melodie.  There, we encountered Dickson luck with rain, as it poured on the first night, and Joe and Leonore arrived late, just after the storms had left, but had to put up their tent in the dark and wet sand.  Jeff and Melodie arrived Friday.  Camping on the beach requires suspending one's clean genes, if you ever had any, and getting used to sleeping in sandy tents.  Camping near the cute Assateague ponies turned out to be its own adventure, captured by Annie's hashtag - #Assateagueponiesarejerks.  Still, a good time was had by all, with extended beachtime, swimming, boogie-boarding and campfires and food!  We even had a crabfeast.  Ask Melodie about her superhero powers as a human metal detector.  Ask Greg about sandwalls in high tide.  Ask D about walking on the hot sand.

The busy weeks included garden harvesting (beans and lettuce and our first surprise potatoes) and a barbecue with Mary's swim team, where she got a top ten in the nation medal for a relay she swam in, a few months back. Friday, we celebrated with champagne Annie's job offer with Bank of America next year. Hooray and phew! 

It's quiet around here now, as Annie and Greg were the last to leave this afternoon.  The kitty has re-emerged after a few days of hibernation in the basement from all the commotion.  So, even if the kitty is glad to have his house back, we miss you already.  

Love from up here.  

Road Trip!

We are back from our road trip to Chicago and other points west. We had a blast. Here are some things we did and saw.

Most of three days with Andrew, Lur, Claire and Daniel, and Bill, Jen, Miles and Auden. On Friday, we had some of Andrew's patented ribs, although he was obviously too ashamed to cook them on The Grill. On Saturday afternoon and evening Andrew, Lur, Janet and I were guests of Cap'n Bill and First Mate Jen on their pontoon boat; we traveled around several lakes -- did you know about all those lakes? -- tied up at a dock and had dinner at a lakeside restaurant and then watched fireworks from the boat. When the show was over, we then headed home, but I was in the very first boat traffic jam I have ever seen. Claire was kind enough to watch Miles and Auden while the (alleged) grownups partied.

I had a devil of time whenever I talked to Claire or Daniel. Ask one question and they just never stopped talking. I did learn a lot about Hope College and oboes, and about Daniel's college ambitions and athletic prowess. He was at the gym just about the whole time when he wasn't rebuilding the fire pit in their back yard. I also learned that Claire will study in Vienna next year. Lur is taking guitar lessons! They are having their back porch screened in and the whole house repainted. Thank you, all of you, for a fulfilling time together. Andrew's retirement means that my oft-felt daydream of his being promoted and moved to the company's NJ headquarters won't come to pass, but it was plainly the right decision for all sorts of reasons. I do wish we lived more closely together.

Janet has already FB-ed about her conference on the arts and disability in Chicago, and the many dedicated people who do her kind of work. I enjoyed some of them at the evening receptions. While she did her conferencing, I spent two and a half days wandering around the city and enjoying it thoroughly. While it's a troubled city, the lake area and downtown are very walkable and enjoyable, and the mid 20th century architecture -- office skyscrapers decorated like Gothic cathedrals and such -- is stunning. We had a very nice hotel room with great views and extended our stay so that we could spend a day together at Chicago's world class Art Institute. Much to Janet's delight, it has a huge collection of French impressionists including a whole bunch of Monets.

We had great weather, no punishing August heat and almost no rain. Much of the driving was done with the top down. Northern Ohio is FLAT. Indiana is FLAT. Central Illinois is FLAT. Most of southern Ohio is FLAT.

Fracking is for real. Across the northern tier of Pennsylvania the interstate was dominated by trucks, many of them carrying all sorts of fracking equipment. Did you know there is a town in north central Pennsylvania called Jersey Shore? In our motel in Marietta, Ohio -- not far from the W. Va. border -- the parking lot was full of oil service industry trucks and the lobby in the morning was full of oil service industry types. Marietta seems to be a once thriving industrial town that is getting a reprieve from fracking.

Interstate America is organized such that you can get off at just about any exit and find an inexpensive place to stay, no need for reservations. Nice touch. Interstate America is a culinary wasteland. McDonald's, Denny's, Hardee's, KFC, Arby's, Burger King, on and on, over and over, everywhere, ad nauseum. It is very hard to find nutritious food. And this country does have a very serious obesity problem, you see it everywhere.

I thought lady Bird Johnson had gotten rid of all the billboards on the Interstates. Ugly. And quite a few of them were not in use. My favorite was one that pronounced "Recession-proof your business. Rent this billboard." Well, the billboard business itself isn't recession-proof, is it?

We enjoy getting off and exploring. On our way out, we got off the interstate and spent some time, a dinner and one night on the shores of Lake Erie. Nice dinner at Old Prague in Vermillion -- great name, huh? -- and a night in Sandusky, which reminded us a lot of Pittsfield. In a funky old coffeehouse we saw a photo of a crayon factory circa 1930 that employed over 400 people.

And in Sandusky was a nice piece of serendipity: the Merry-Go Round Museum, staffed mostly by volunteers who have rescued and lovingly restored many old horses, giraffes, frogs, carriages and other riding things, and an entire carousel, which you can ride on, accompanied by a magnificent (and loud) Wurlitzer organ. New Jersey still has eight active carousels. A very moving example of that "simpler" time when these were serious entertainments. Janet absolutely loves merry-go-rounds, so you can imagine what a treat this was. We bought a number of chances for a drawing for a newly carved horse. We shall see.

After Chicago we went south to Springfield and enjoyed the Lincoln Museum and the four block area that the National Park Service has restored to its nineteenth century setting around the only house that Abe ever owned. We saw many reasons why he is still revered as a great President.

Driving around Indian Hill is a mixed blessing. It resonates with memories of a happy and meaningful childhood. Much of the village is not changed that much. I was surprised at how uncrowded the memorial grounds of the Indian Hill Church seemed; I would have thought it would be filled after all these years. Some very familiar names: Black, Fullgraf, Hagist, Tucker. I can't believe that we walked down and up that long driveway at Cunningham Road every day for the school bus, and I can't believe that we rode our bikes down that loooong hill and back to Camp Dennison to spend 5 cents on a candy bar. That store is still there. Yet it was a bittersweet time, too. I was reminded that I miss Mom and Pop, a lot; they had built themselves a good life and good lives for us and stayed our friends for life. I was reminded of the enduring sadness of Ann's illness and passing. I was reminded of my first encounter with death, Grammy's. I am not nostalgic, I just wish they were still with us.

And boy, the ugly, tasteless mega-look-how-much-money-not-taste-I-have-mansions are a constant reminder of the cheapening of American life. The high school is bigger than an airport terminal. The big supremely ugly house that replaced the Wrights/Kites house burned down in a spectacular fire in January that made it to Good Morning America, and the cause is still undetermined six months later. I vote arson, not because the owner came to his senses about taste, but he is in the construction business.

The Julius Fleischman estate whose gate house Mom and Pop rented is now an "arts center" -- with a large indoor horse riding ring. The Given Rd. house and the Hagist house across the road are both long gone in favor of big houses.

On our way back, we stopped at Serpent Mound, about an hour east of Indian Hill, which I had seen on a class trip and whose mystery has never left me. They still don't know when it was built or by whom.

All through the trip, we closely followed Donald's progress! Sometimes – well, often – this social media stuff gets old, but at time likes this, it's wonderful.

We had some grand meals and lodgings. Along with Old Prague in Vermillion, there were Chicago steakhouses Shula's and Morton's, the Cincinnati rib house Montgomery Inn surrounded by autographed jerseys of Reds and other players, and a Marietta brewpub. Staying in the Mariemont Inn was a real highlight. The food and staff of The Spa At Roslyn Road were outstanding. Once again, we cherish the bonds of family. Once again, we know how beautiful and seemingly endless this great country of ours is.

What's in your DNA?

A few weeks ago, I made a passing reference to the Dickson family origins, based on a National Geographic study of our DNA.  Yes, that's right, I swabbed my mouth and sent in my saliva to National Geographic.

 

After a few months of study they came back with a 13 page review tracing both Mom and Pop's lines out of Africa and up to the Middle East and eventually into Europe.  Mary did a version of this and found out that she was 97% from the British Isles.  Surprised?

 

The Dickson family is a little more complicated with a few surprises.  Some conclusions:

 

-- populations that most closely resemble our make-up are in the British Isles and Germany

 

-- you ask our make-up: 45% northern European, 36% Mediterranean and 18% southwest Asian

 

-- almost all humans have DNA traces between 1% and 4% that link them to Neanderthal and Denisovan.  Dicksons have 2.3% Neanderthal and 4% Denisovan.  The average for humans is 2.1%.  Maybe we

Re a little less evolved than we thought we were.  Get out of the trees, Dickson.

 

-- the analysts did a heat map of our maternal and paternal lines, tracing what they thought would have been routes out of Africa that our ancestors took, perhaps 70,000 years ago.  They did this by identifying markers (or mutations) and identifying where they took place, and where others have those same markers.  Looks like Pop's ancestors went a little further into Central Asia than Mom's who headed right for Europe from the Middle East.

 

-- If you're wondering why Pop looked so tan in his wedding pictures, it may be that one of his markers is shared with 38% of the men in Spain and 8% in Italy, 5% in Oman and 1-2% in Lebanon and Iraq.

 

-- Mom's DNA has markers as well that are shared by 21% women in Iraq, and percentages in the high teens for Croatia and Switzerland, hovering around 10% for Greece and Belgium.  Go figure.   That marker goes back 19,000 years from women leaving West Asia.

 

-- Many of Mom's markers show up as well in eastern and Central Europe, indication that her acnestors passed through here on their way further west and north, with many staying put and not continuing the journey.

 

So, who's skeptical?  How do they know?  That would certainly take more than the 13 pages of results that I have to explain.    

Thanks a lot Mark Zuckerberg

Looks like Facebook is taking over Pops Weekly Letter.

But the posts on Facebook in the past few weeks, replete with photos have been spectacular.  We're so happy to see progress for Donald, to see photos of mother, father, grandmother and grandfather each holding Donald.  It has to have been an intense period for Tina and Matthew, with little sleep and a lot of worry.  But you look so well and with such big smiles.  As his great grandfather might say - FANTASTIC!

Other pictures come from Illinois and Peter and Janet's trip out there.  Not only did we see a trip on Jen and Bill's boat, but also pictures of Miles and Auden, very actively enjoying life.  Janet has her audio description conference in Chicago and they combined for a road trip and visit to Andrew and Lur's.  Summer is great.

And on Facebook, we also see that Timmy is home, after a short spell in the hospital for an intestinal blockage, a recurrence from an episode a year ago when he had surgery.  Sounds a lot like Johanna's issue, and she also posted on Facebook her anniversary bout with the issue.  We're looking forward to seeing Timmy and all the Boyles up in Pittsfield in a few weeks.

We are writing from Montreal, where Mary is minutes away from her first race in the pool.  She is in a few relays today and then her individual swims are over the next two days. We arrived yesterday and made our way around the city for registration and then the pool, where there were thousands of swimmers from all over the world.  Not sure how we did it, but we did find her teammates, one of whom won his race to be the world champion for his age group.  

We left home just hours after our ffriends from Joe's baby group in Lagos left - the Locherys and Henk and Marja from Holland (never knew them as anything but Henk and Marja.  We had last seen them 15 years ago in Rhode Island when they and their three boys visited us; I believe the Peter Dickson and Dan Boyle families also met them then.  Three cute little Dutch boys?  Ring a bell?

We played host in the Berkshires to them and found some new things to do as well with them:  Mt. Greylock, Hancock Shaker Village, Arrowhead, Clark Institute and Appalachian Trail hiking.  We re-traced the route that Annie and Greg had done a few weeks earlier to a beautiful pond and ran into a number of young, fired up through hikers.  I even got my trail name (after three hours)  Cincinnati.  Can you guess why?  A certain baseball hat.  The crowning event was to have been Tanglewood on Parade, but a fierce storm ended our evening picnic on the lawn and we found shelter in a small, hospitable office and made the best of it.  In a short respite from the rain we went home and listened to the program (1812 overture ending) on the radio.  Still fun.

Speaking of fun, Margaret was having none of it, in her move to a new apartment near Adams Morgan.  On top of all the headaches with the move, she found out the apartment had an infestation of bugs and had to deal with that when the landlords were unreachable.  

Not sure if Joe is having any more fun, in his first month back, looking for a new place and getting settled.  We hope to have more fun this coming weekend at Assateague, camping on the beach.  A first. 

On a sad note, I think I have detected some leaves turning orange and yellow.  First week of August.  No fair.  

So, keep posting on Facebook, and I'll keep stealing from it.

Love from up here. 

​

 

Hello Donald!

Happy news, wonderful news.  Welcome Donald Franklin Dickson.

Congratulations Tina and Matthew and Oliver.  

A joyous occasion.  Where's he going to go to school?  What sport is he going to love and which team will he root for?  When will we see him?  Which instrument will he play?  Math or history?  Boy scouts or lead guitar?  Or both?  We can't wait to find out.  Love and joy.  

Hit the pause button

This week, walking back from the lake with Mary, in the evening, in the fullest of summer, I wondered why there wasn't a pause button.  These great days are going by too fast, and we need to spend a little more time right here.  She is, as I write, driving back from dropping Annie and Greg off at the train station (an hour-plus away.)   They had come up for a weekend in the country, away from the city.  They are both having pretty intensive internships this summer and getting a lot out of them.  

They packed it in, with only a weekend to get it all done.  Yesterday they hiked almost ten miles, joining a friend along the Appalachian Trail.  We picked them up and went to Jacob's Pillow that does a free, outdoors dance performance each Saturday and had a small picnic.  After that, we returned home for 7 seconds, and then they (I went to bed) went up Mt. Greylock for a stargazing event.  Today, was quieter: waffle breakfast, canoe ride, shopping and then back to the train.   Wonderful to see them.  They also got a chance to see John and Marilyn who stopped by today after their golf game.  They had spent a few days on the Cape this week with two of their grand-daughters, Natalie and Sage.

Oh, and we had a week-late birthday celebration, on Friday evening.  For her birthday, Annie had a day at a bar, with people stopping by throughout the day.  Margaret and Andrew were two of those people, as they had come up from DC for the occasion.  And Johanna also stopped by to celebrate.  It's a far cry from the pool parties she used to have.

The big news is Joe is back on this side of the Atlantic.  It sounds like he has had a whirlwind couple of weeks, leaving and then settling back in.  He is full-time now on the China desk at Treasury.  Not much to do there, probably.  Actually, for all that involves, it looks positively tame compared to Ukraine, Syria, Middle East and Iraq.   We long for the days when China currency valuation was the big news.  Anyway, it's nice he's back, but he was fighting a bad cold, probably from all the extra effort to wrap things up at the end of an assignment.

I spent some time on the phone with brothers this week, mostly to make plans for our weekend in Cincinnati in early September.  Andrew got tickets behind the Reds dugout for one game, and behind the Mets dugout for the other   Andrew sounds like he has a long list of things to do for retirement, including unpack boxes that he brought back from Meadow Lakes with him a couple of years ago.  Peter sounds busy at work (sorry).  David is unable to join us as he is getting ready for a presentation at a seminar on worker compensation fraud the following week with the New York attorney general's office.  He and Paula are also eagerly awaiting the arrival of young Donald, just a couple of weeks away.  I imagine so are Tina and Matthew!  And Oliver!

Our garden is coming in, and we have stopped buying lettuce and blueberries.  Got a few more weeks before tomatoes and beans and squash come in.  We even have a bumper crop of raspberries, at least ten times more than last year.  That means we have had about 30 raspberries total. Mary has been expanding her flower beds, which are looking great, even if the deer have chopped off a few of her perennials. 

She has also started her summer tutoring job, working with three Ghanaian boys who have had interrupted schooling.  There is quite a growing group of Ghanians and West Africans in Pittsfield.  Surprising, especially given the cold.

I am frantically working on a couple of history projects.  This week, I completed a video for a presentation, on the preservation of the old library in town.  You can see the 7 minute video by searching for "Preserving the Old Athenaeum in Pittsfield" on youtube.  I am also working on a website tour of the mills in Pittsfield, which is still under construction: milltour.org. Hope to have it done before the end of July.  And, I finally got my thesis approved from UMass this week - I had been correcting some formatting issues that the graduate school thesis committee caught.  

On a final note, I got for my birthday a National Geographic DNA analysis, and the results came in recently.  I will try to put together a synopsis for this letter - but here's a little teaser:  remember those pictures of Pop at his wedding when he looks a little Italian?  Turns out he has a fair amount of Mediterranean in his background, much more than Grandma, who is almost all northern European.  Mary, on the other hand, is 97% British Isles.  Go figure.

Well, happy July.  Enjoy these great days.  Love from up here.   

Happy 4th!

Dateline:  Green Lake, Wisconsin.  It really exists  Green Lake, I mean.  It's not just a figment of Andrew's imagination where Bobby Kermey lives.  It's a real lake, large, clear and full of fish, jumping out of the water, and birds swooping down and getting the fish, and boats and weather changes and docks and swimming.  A place for a real vacation, just to sit and unwind.

That's pretty much what we've done since we arrived, a few days ago.  Andrew and Lur, Claire and Daniel and his friend Satchel had been up here for a few days already.  Andrew had just heard that his request for separation had been accepted, and so he's finished with work.   At Merck anyway.  He's going to take a few months to assess the situation and then maybe look for something part-time.

Claire has had what looks like a very good first year of college, very busy with courses and music extracurriculars. We've seen Hope shirts and water bottle bottles and bumper stickers.  Daniel is unrecognizable, tall and fit.

We've watched a few of the World Cup games, and played dominoes and had some great barbecues.  A real vacation, and it all ends tomorrow.  Sigh.  Reminds us a little of those great beach vacations in Rhode Island.

The trip out was fairly easy, since we took it in a couple of legs, stopping first in Fairport to see David and Paula.  We went out to eat at a great restaurant on the Erie Canal, and were joined by Matthew, Tina and Oliver. (Thank you David and Paula)  Oliver, too, is unrecognizable, growing too fast.  Tina looks as if she could have the baby any minute.  They have, by the way, decided to name their son Donald Franklin, after their grandfathers.  We saw Jeff and Melodie for breakfast the following morning.  They had come up from DC for a baby shower for Tina and to register their car in NY.  That proved not so easy, as we hear they had to stay on for a couple of extra days to get repairs before it could be registered.  David helped me get my never-before-used fishing pole set up and ready for action at Green Lake.  (Caught a few small ones off Andrew's dock.)

From Fairport, we headed for Toronto and stopped off at Niagara on the Lake which we had missed when we lived in Canada.  Lovely little town with a Shaw theater festival each summer.  In Toronto we visited with foreign service friends from our training who were in Mexico with us as well.  We then headed for Wisconsin, by way of Lake Michigan, on a ferry, instead of driving through Chicago and Gary Indiana.  Highly recommended, as was the cute little town of Luddington Michigan.  We gave Andrew and Lur a day off, and took a day trip up to see a Peru friend (Jennie Burns) who we had visited in Wisconsin probably 12 years ago.

Before we left, we celebrated Marilyn's birthday with her children and grandchildren at a brunch with too much food and too much good food.  You know what that means.  Time for another cleanse.  

As we write Annie is on her way to the Adirondacks for the weekend, and we suspect there are a few more get-togethers in DC and in New Jersey. We know David and Paula are having a crowd come over as well which we won't be able to make due to the long ride home.  

Summer time seems to be more than just warm weather and greenness.  It seems to be the season of catching up.  We come out of our winter hibernation and check in and check up on family and friends, after hunkering down through the cold winters.  All very wonderful.

Hopefully, you all are enjoying the summer in these special ways.  Love from out here.