when I'm 64

What's it like to turn 64? It's kind of like the Beattle's song, but not much like it.

Here's what you do. Have lunch in Skippack with your family and open gifts.

Here we've made it to dessert. Son Joel is sipping his coffee and I'm contemplating devouring the pudding in the chocolate cup beside the caramelized banana slices.

Beside him you can picture Stephanie. Opposite end of table sits Ryan. Then, Sarah. Beside me, Dorcas.

Will you still be sending me...birthday greetings bottle of wine...will you still need me, will you still feed me,When I'm sixty-four (big YES)...I could be handy, mending a fuse (qualified yes)...You can knit a sweater by the fireside ('fraid not)...Sunday mornings go for a ride ('fraid not, I had just played a service at Zion,mostly music older than this schmalty song)...Doing the garden, digging the weeds,Who could ask for more(yes)...Every summer we can rent a cottage,In the Isle of Wight (how about Long Island?)

That's how you turn 64. And you thank your daughter for the photo.

Photos: Miller Reunion June 2008

Miller Reunion June 2008

more cherries

These are North Star Cherries--just plain ol' sour cherries, chosen to be tough and disease resistant, needing no pesticide.

Here's some of the Lehman gang picking. L to R--Anna Lois, Helen, Milton, Evie, and Lois. Loretta's in there somewhere, too. In the 1950s we picked cherries at the Lehman farm close to Lancaster. In the 1970s we picked seconds at a Beiler neighbor's orchard.

cherry picking

Here's my brother Milton holding his granddaughter Helen. And here's grandma, Lois, after the cherry picking today.

The crop this year is small but deep red. Both trees were swarmed by my sisters Loretta, Anna Lois, and Evelyn and husband Gary, besides the three in the pic and Dorcas and me.

The trees came from the nursery 20 years ago and one is sorely diseased. But, what a family time!

family restaurant

Just off Interstate #68, in Grantsville, 30 minutes west of Cumberland, Maryland, sits the Casselman. Here it is, in all it's summer glory, a year ago. Inside is a family restaurant where Dorcas held down her first job--waitress.

Upstairs are about six rooms for lodging and the offices for the motel which has about 40 rooms.

You'll also find a bakery and a gift shop. Friday through Tuesday this'll be our home.

www.thecasselman.com

off the grid for a week

Back online after a backward week. And I mean a week. And I mean backward.

A storm took us out. Amazon orders I had to ship backed up. Who knows what online bills did not get paid.

The sage said, Teach me to care but not to care too much. I'll make that--give me online service but not get hooked on it.

the meetinghouse

Saturday, Rachel's memorial service was held in this Quaker meetinghouse in New York on Rutherford Place beside Styvesant Park.

As a child we chanted the rhyme: Quaker meeting has begun, no more laughing no more fun.

The space seems somber, but somehow lighter than earth. It especially appeals to me esthetically when it is empty of people. It's a light collector.

Dorcas gave the major eulogy. Brother Mel was there; we sang "Gott ist die Liebe" in a small choral ensemble. Monroe gave a profound tribute and benediction.

more landscape

There's the lamp post. Beside it a shrub. Another detail of what I see when I walk from the car to the house. My nomenclature is behind the times. It shall for now have to be the shrub that is what it is. If you don't mind a reference to Genesis. And we shall not touch the shrub reference to the White House.

construction

More than corn and hay is sprouting up from the fields around Monterey. A new spurt of building is going on. Go through the village square and a mile east on East Eby you'll see this chicken house.

I'm assuming that's what it is. The kind for fertilized eggs for vaccine production.

new flower

What is it? The name? Dorcas and I don't know. She planted it three years ago in the perennial patch and finally this year it produced this flower. Zoom in and see the delicate veins.