How Dare You!

 The "You" in this case being "I"  

I must admit that I do use a wall calendar, retro as that may be, to write in my appointments or other significant doings. This year, it was the complimentary offering by the Hoosic Valley Volunteer  Fire Co. that I hung on my refrigerator, and charted in all my life happenings. That is, up until I wanted to add a future appointment, and found that the last month of the calendar was  October 2023. So I related this disappointment, somewhere, on some site. 

    You would think I had impugned the integrity of  firefighters in total, according to one response. He stressed how many years of his life he had dedicated, volunteered, to his work as a member of the Fire Company, explaining that the calendar ended in October because that is Fire Prevention Week. 

   Well, that is an important point to make, but it really makes no sense, does it. If the purpose of the calendar is to provide publicity for the Fire Company, and thereby elicit donations, it would be beneficial for the people who have the calendar to display  and  use it year-round, as a constant reminder of their valuable work. 

 I will not use this iteration of a calendar. I will use a calendar that has 12 month pages, from January to January. Whoever came up with the October Ending should reconsider, and add 2 more months. Why the heck not...

One Never Knows

 Once in a while, when memory calls, I try to locate people from the past. I see nothing new about Gus or his long-missing daughter Amanda. I knew his younger sister, Barbara Fredette, died several years ago. We used to see her and husband Werner and their 3 kids at camp in Cossayuna.  Werner had died and the 2 boys later  in life had health problems, but evidently still survive. The oldest child, Kim, was a year or so older than M. so they enjoyed each other's company. Kim was pretty, smart and became a Registered Nurse. She had 3 daughters, all lovely and accomplished, as I recall from past viewings.  She remarried and moved to Florida several years ago. Today I find that in January , she suffered a massive heart attack while hiking, followed by a stroke, and was near death. According to subsequent post, she recovered and is back hiking. No updates lately...

Spectrum Specter

 After a week or so of problematic television viewing, with blackouts, interruptions and countless rebooting, I finally called Spectrum. They (Albert) checked, and said there were no outages in the area. He rebooted from their end at least twice, and concluded the cable box needed replacing. The service call was set for Wednesday July 5. Tonight I received an email from Spectrum an ALERT,  advising that  "Service has been restored in your area." and I can cancel the appt. if I want to. Oh what to do, what to do. I mean if you can't rely on Spectrum, who can you trust?

Of all sad words of tongue or pen,

Ah, The Mystery of Life

 A week or so ago, I tried to print my literary masterpiece from 
CHAT GPT. I could read the brilliant words but the print feature did not work. This morning the floor by the printer is rife with pages---all those that did not print last week. An embarrassment of riches...

"The saints and poets, maybe ." Answer to Question from "Our Town"

 Does anyone understand the value of life while they live it?  Emily Webb chose to relive an ordinary day in her life after she had died. She chose her 12th birthday to revisit the past. 

  I can't exactly recall all the events from an earlier day in my past life, but this is an approximation:

  It's a warm summer day and I've driven the kids to my mother's house in the village. The back yard is like a plaza, life abounds. My mother is there and Helen and foster girls, and family next door. There is a well-used old porch swing beneath the cherry tree in the little flower garden. My mother might have been working in the garden before sitting down to rest for a while. Helen would have been watching what  the kids were doing, carefully but non-judgmentally supervising the play of the five young cousins. There was an abundance of animals, including not only dogs and cats, but chickens, rabbits, a sheep, and even ponies. The smell of homemade tomato sauce may have permeated the air. 

  After visiting for a while, I decide to take my youngest child for a walk upstreet. The stroller is kept there at the house, a newly purchased item in orange and yellow; the other strollers worn out now and discarded, after several years of being no longer needed. I pass the Valley Inn. The doors are ajar, windows open and unseen voices call out as we pass by. I smile and wave, and keep walking. Near the corner on the other side of the street, Gloria is standing and I'm sure gossiping with Bonnie and maybe Julie. We exchange greetings and keep on with our journey. When we get to the duplex house, formerly Griggs's, Emma is sitting on her front porch, joined by Sharon who lives in the other part of the house. We say hello, but Emma, as usual, wants to hold the baby. So we visit for a while. As we leave, Alma is sitting on her porch across the street and calls for me to come over, to talk for a while. She comments on the baby's hair, which I've combed in a curl on top of his head. She says she used to fix her son's hair that same way. As we cross back over to "our side" of the street, Sharon calls out, asking to join our walk. She has undergone a recent tragic accident with her husband and needs to get out of the house for  a while. So she joins us on our stroll, in pleasant and ordinary conversation.

   My memory of this resurrected day does not include the homeward path, but that does not detract from the atmosphere of the day. I'm not sure that even saints or poets could have foreseen the value of such an ordinary day.

While Still In Bloom