I’ve been traveling this week and still am. I apologize for the sporadic updating, but it has been largely unavoidable. You probably want to hear about Boston Comic Con. I met some wonderful readers in Boston. I had so many people come by and say such nice things. However, so many kind words were prefaced the same way: “I used to read you all the time in the newspaper!” Of course, I would point out that I’m still in the newspaper, and they’d say, “Yeah, well, we don’t get a paper anymore.” Aside from being flagrantly reminded how far the scene has shifted from my professional turf, Boston was great. I will talk a lot more about it in days to come. Vermont Comic Con is yet to come!
213 responses to “Boston Is History”
Ghost Sweetie, if we could, we would be with you in person right now, but you know that we’re with you in spirit and supporting you in our hearts and prayers.
Thank you, Jean dear, and all of you, for your thoughts, prayers, and expressions of concern and caring, at what is a very trying time for me.
I haven’t been “sick” a day in 25+ years, so of course today I woke up feeling very ill. It started Friday evening, got worse yesterday, and was much worse this morning, with sore throat, cough, and heavy congestion. Undoubtedly something I picked up at the ER or hospital Wednesday or Thursday.
My usual and nearby Doc-in-the-Box is closed on Sundays, But there are like six of them locally, so I went to another one for an injection and a ‘script. I’ll rest and medicate myself today, and I’ll be at the funeral home in the morning if I have to go by ambulance. My mom, rest her soul, had to take so many ambulance rides in the past year I think I know all the EMS crews and they know me.
Jackie, did I read that correctly, or did my meds just kick in funny? John Welsford banned you from his blog??
Ghost, you take care of yourself my friend. I have been afraid of this very thing happening, you becoming I’ll with some awful infection and collapsing. It brings back really bad memories for me, I am not normally phobic.
Jean is right, we all wish we could be there to support you. I suspect you’d have gallons of chicken soup and hot tea for your own recovery.
Ghost, yes. You read it correctly. I am allowed to post only under rigid censorship. And mostly have had all posts from past deleted.
Perhaps the best thing about this group is the generous spirit of its members, as demonstrated by your caring responses to others’ personal struggles. One of my cousins, and the team at Shands that is caring for her, could use some of those healing thoughts and prayers. What she thought was a toothache turned out to be a tumor in her sinus. The surgery tomorrow to remove the cancerous tissue and then to repair the damage done in the process is expected to take 12-14 hours. She has a very supportive family but a little more can’t hurt.
Hard to believe that someone with a college degree in music, and who wrote/arranged so much music, accomplished same without the ability to read even a single note. Very hard to believe, indeed.
At least you know them and in that you are fortunate. I don’t understand why they are not famous. I am going to Amazon to look for a cd and yes, cd’s are the peak of my technology and will be as long as they still make them and probably after that. I always read my comments at least twice although obviously errors sneak through, typos, run on and incomplete sentences and all. Are they afraid of the water?
Ruth Anne, I wish that that you had let me know that she was at Shands. I was there Wednesday and Thursday. I would have been glad to drop in and say hello. You can be comfortable knowing that she has the best care and the best surgeons in the world.
Jerry I got both their CDS last night The Great White Skunk and Rumors of the Great White Skunk and I am giving them to Mark as a get well present since he liked them when I suggested he listen. Yes, I think they should be famous too.
Cliff and Gina are good parents, he owns an insurance agency and a ranch in the True Grit book area. His insurance office is actually in building that is one of locations in the book. He is trying to restore bees to area and there is a great youtube video of them releasing a rehabbed owl back into wild.
And they tour weekends mainly, driving the bus with the lights, sound system and instruments. Cliff’s right arm has been surgically rebuilt three times. I count myself lucky to know them.
Jerry – I know that you would have done that, but I don’t think she was there then. She lives just down the road in Ocala and with her doctors approval went to a wedding in Colorado about a week ago.
I went through Ocala too, had lunch there actually.
Ruth Anne, I believe in mystical powers that circle around us and through the universe. We reach out in many ways and voices and who of us knows whom we reach or touch? Yes, I think all prayer that is positive is good for we do not know where the ripples end.
May your friend feel the powers of a thousand voices, perhaps the eternal echoes of some only with us in those faint reverberations. They remain forever.
Who are you really and what have you done with Jackie?
Just woke from a long, restorative nap. Headed for the chicken soup shelf of my pantry.
Jackie, if I ever have a blog, you will always be welcome there, anytime, anyway, anyhow. In fact, we might discover who has the most “interesting” vocabulary, a Boat Widow who has spent a lot of time around sailors or a Ghost who probably remembers every bawdy word and phrase he’s ever heard.
I have been doing the liturgy at our church this month. This morning I recounted two miracles that I knew of personally, and reminded the congregation that miracles happen all around us, every day – we just need to keep our hearts open in order to recognize them. We who participate in this blog have been witness to many.
I am officially on vacation! Tomorrow I shall fly to FL to spend a week with my son and his family in Spring Hill. Will try to check in, but if I cannot – no worries!
Ghost, I will be thinking of you.
Thank you Jerry, I am one of those complex women that you cannot make up your mind about. Some people believe I am an angel, all my life. Some think I come from another world and am an “old soul.” I think I am just a person who sees beyond the veils sometime or the wizard”s curtain. I love people and care, you know the beauty queens who say they “Want to save animals and have world peace” while making sure their hair is done and their nails groomed.
And thank you Ghost. Fortunately I still love the boats and those who build them. Good people. I am on my way to Port Aransas, TX in morning to continue work on the boats I began as a cancer fundraiser. Going to sand and scrape and try to get the one ready for paint.
It has been on my mind that everyone I know swears that sailing a boat is directly related to flying a plane and that if you can fly a plane, you can sail. It is quiet, peaceful, one of most tranquil things you can do, which is why I love it. You have no sound but the water, waves wind, birds, rigging. Unless you have a speed need in which case flying a glider might not appeal.
Chicken soup *does* make one feel better when one is under the weather. I know that’s a cliché, but if something isn’t true, it would never become a cliché.
Jackie, I believe I mentioned the time some years ago I flew a well-to-do local business man to the coastal area where he owned a condo, to check on some marina work being done on his not-at-all shabby boat. I met his captain, a young man about my age, and we immediately hit it off, the way I usually do with other aircraft pilots. When we talked about the requirements for a captain’s license, I realized why…other than the fundamental elements through which our craft traveled, the training and skill sets needed for our two vocations were remarkable similar.
That is why I think you would take to sailing like a duck takes to water, another cliche. I lack those skills, just love the elements and the vehicles. Of course, I felt that way about small aircraft once long ago.
Stella Maris my new boat is not a luxury yacht but a beautiful wooden boat equivalent of a English luxury car, she gets instant response because of what she is. She is not a long distance cruiser but a perfect coastal cruiser for all of America’s water. And she garners instant respect and admission into the top tier of the wooden and classic boat world. She is elegant and both a coastal and blue water trailer able boat, able to go anywhere.
Well, when she gets her new axles and wheels and tires! And I get her from almost Csnada.
MN just lost a crop duster who’d been in the business over 40 yr. New guy wire he didn’t know was there. Prayers.
Ocala. Know a fellow Stuyvesantian and Cornellian, former BSU English prof. and provost at an Ohio state u., who is retired there. Wife cannot abide cold, but lived some decades here. Didn’t know him either at Stuyvesant or Cornell. He’s only early 70s. Two new words in my dictionary.
Peace,
Here’s something unusual: A die-hard Star Wars fan who had avoided all spoilers to Episode VII finally was able to watch the film. A friend thought to record her reaction to the death of her favorite character:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=41157802&nid=1017
Although not my student, there was a young man with whom I flew and recommended for his check ride for his private pilot’s certificate. He passed it with no problems and got his ticket. A few weeks later, trying to return home from a business trip, he flew into very marginal weather conditions as he approached home base.
As he was a very low-time, non-instrument rated pilot, you can probably guess that did not have a good outcome. He hit a TV tower guy wire, taking off one wing and spiraling to the ground from about 500 feet. Neither he, nor his father-in-law passenger, survived the crash. I will always remember that episode, as a reminder of how quickly a bad decision can kill you.
“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”
Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group, London, 1930’s