New Year's Eve

Enjoyed spending New Year's Eve in Grantsville, Maryland, with family.  In the final hours of 2013 we gathered in the Casselman dining room.  One family of four children makes music as a string quartet.  I stopped in the center of town to look at this antique store in blue lights.

more funeral pics

Here are more photos of the funeral:

http://www.box.net/shared/09myxc64eq

short Grantsville get-away

To see Esther as her health was declining, we drove to Grantsville Friday evening. Turns out, Saturday was her last full day on earth. It was overcast and Guy's Tires seemed to be telling me the truth about things as I went to get her last vial of morphine. The hitching post sign, across the alley, was putting on a cheerier face but seemed conflicted with its digital communication dishes gawking at the buggy and getting messages from the sky.

roofs

I'm just playing with visuals and words. I see eight roofs, nine pitches, and four complete gables. Hint--one roof is 99 percent hidden behind the wooden shingle roof lower left. If the steeple shingles are slate or asbestos, then I also count four different materials. Location? Garrett County, 39.7 degrees latitude north. If the plural of hoof is hooves, what is the plural of roof? I shot this two weekends ago.

Photos: Miller Reunion June 2008

Miller Reunion June 2008

last hurrah of the suitor's coat

Here's me, wearing for the last time what we called my Russian coat, heavy enough to tough out whatever chilly tortures nature had in store for me in New Hampshire or Grantsville.


Bought during my first church job, in Exeter, N.H., at a rummage sale for (do I remember correctly?) $2.50, it saved my life, kind of, during my first, solo trip to Grantsville, New Year's Day, 1977, in a green VW bug with a totally useless heater. In this coat, coasting on a sled on a hill near Mapleshade Farm and probably on Dorsey Hotel Road, Dorcas thought, she tells me now, that maybe things will work out with this guy. I was already hooked.


The rest is history. She was right. I was right. Over 110 trips to western Maryland later, time to junk it. I'll put it on one last time.

The first year we were married, travelling again in the VW with no heater and by now a rust hole in the back floor, this coat helped me survive. At Chambersburg at midnight we stopped at a Howard Johnsons along I 81 and warmed up in the lobby. The graveyard shift clerk was either apprehensive or afraid, but what could she do as we stood over the hot air vent. If I were superstitious I might call the coat a talisman. The coat did hold me when the big moment came--choosing Dorcas.

Actually, it's that beauty by my side that did most of the keeping warm.


After about 15 years of just hanging in the closet, it's time to put it down.

Western Maryland leaves

I won't even tempt you with a single photo here. Just hit the link.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lehmangd/GrantsvilleOctober2007