Pam made a quilt for Honor

 

She'll give it to our granddaughter when they come down from Brooklyn for Christmas.

Clouds

 I never understood why people sometimes say, "What a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky." Ever since I was a kid, I liked looking at clouds, and when I started taking trips by airplanes I was able to see them from both sides, like the Joni Mitchell lyric.

Here are some clouds from a few days ago:

Walking around my old neighborhood

While one of the cars was being serviced last week I walked around my old neighborhood which was nearby. I had believed that the neighborhood name, Daniel's Park, in north College Park had long lapsed into disuse until it popped up on my phone as a location identification. This was the house I lived in from about age one, when my parents moved to Maryland from upstate New York, to about age ten when the family moved into the Hollywood area of College Park. I think my father said he paid $5,000 for it in 1948.

Below is the first house Pam and I bought which is just up the street from the house above. We bought it from a woman who remembered me when I lived in the neighborhood and still called me "Dougie."

This is a side view of that house. The garage has been enlarged since we lived there and the structure to the left of it was originally a chicken coop. We lived there from 1978 to 1986 and have fond memories of that house.

One of my walking partners

Copley is my friend Stan's granddoggy and frequently accompanies the two of us on our morning walks. Named for Copley Square in Boston, he is a mixed breed and one of the nicest dogs I've ever met.

Rainbow over Colesville

We've had a couple of nice ones over the last week or so. Pam took this shot:

Class of 2020 Commencement in the Park

Yesterday evening we heard the sound of "Pomp and Circumstance" coming from the park. Upon investigation, I saw that someone had the excellent idea of doing the graduation ceremony via a caravan of cars. Given the present circumstances of the banning of large indoor gatherings, it was the next best thing.

The dominant colors are apparently the school colors of Blake High School which is up New Hampshire Avenue from us.

The graduating seniors showed themselves through sunroofs and windows. Car horns were honking away.

I had a great time clapping and cheering these kids.

I noticed that sometimes one of the kids would recognize someone they knew in another car and shout out to them, reminding me that these students hadn't seen each other in months.

Pam's temperature blankets

Pam has been working on a crochet project in which the color of each row corresponds to either the high or the low temperature of the day. There are two blankets, one for high temperatures and one for the low, and she selected a different color for each interval of eight degrees of temperature:

 

The Arthurian Legends

King Arthur has been on my mind since I've taken a class on this subject this semester. The course has made me aware of the popularity of these stories that continues to this day. This popularity of the tales of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, and rest of the members of the Round Table goes beyond the English-speaking world as they have been told in French, German, Italian, and other languages.

The question that I continually ask is: Why? What explains this popularity?

One of the first books among the extensive reading list for the course was The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth that goes back to 1136 which is about 600 years after Arthur is thought to have lived. Geoffrey devotes much of the book to Arthur and portrays him as a great warrior. Britain in the fifth and six centuries was chaotic following the withdrawal of Roman troops and invasions by other Celtic people and German tribes from the continent, and the little documentation of those years was performed by monks, often much later. Some of those monks mention a great warrior who rallied the native Brits to some important victories against the German Saxons, but he was not a king since the society was too fractured for a single monarch. Although the book is more Welsh folklore than actual history, it is a start to the study of the Arthurian legends.

The oral Arthurian legends were also written down in France during the twelfth century, most importantly by Chretien de Troyes and a poet named Beroul. These authors expanded the roles of Lancelot and Tristan as opposed to concentrating on Arthur. Tristan's romance with Queen Isolde became a tale retold in many variations including an opera by German Richard Wagner in the nineteenth century.

Published in 1469, Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory has become the main source for subsequent accounts of the Arthurian stories. Although an Englishman, Malory follows the French authors by concentrating as much on stories of the Knights of the Round table as on Arthur. Maybe that's why he gave his book a French title. The great battles between armies that were so prevalent in Geoffrey of Monmouth's book have been crowded out by individual conflicts often depicted as tests for the knights. The many scenes of jousting tournaments would not have taken place during the years the historical Arthur is presumed to have lived but were more indicative of the age that Malory wrote.

King Arthur's character faded so much into the background in Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, written the nineteenth century, that he seems wooden and colorless in comparison's with his subordinate knights. In his memoirs, Tennyson explains that his Arthur was intended to represent the human soul while Lancelot, Tristan, Gawain and the rest added the human element.

The popularity of these stories did not diminish in the twentieth century as the success of the musical Camelot on the stage and screen demonstrate. The Arthurian legends remained common settings for other modern movies including, of course, Monty Python and the Holy Grail whose authors must have been very familiar with the written versions that were lampooned hilariously in the film.

Okay, I believe I've demonstrated the popularity over nearly a millennia, but the question remains as to what is the explanation for the continuing appeal of the King Arthur stories?

I think that part of the reason, especially during the Medieval years, was religion. The historical Arthur probably was a Christian, and the theme of a Christian hero prevailing against the pagan Saxons would have a receptive audience. The tales increasingly included Christian elements such as the search for the Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus drank from during the Last Supper, and King Arthur took on Christ-like attributes including prophesies of his eventual return from the dead.

However, there were other heroic defenders of the Christian faith, so I decided there must be additional explanations and found some ideas in the introduction to Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain. The author of the introduction Lewis Thorpe dismisses the criticism that the book fails as political history as irrelevant because Geoffrey of Monmouth should be read as romanticized history that has more in common with epic poetry such as Virgil's Aeneid which is mentioned more than once by Geoffrey. The History of the Kings of Britain was printed many times for a medieval text, and even though our modern view of the Arthurian tales owes more to Malory's Morte D'Arthur Geoffrey should be considered, in Thorpe's words, "as a source book for the imaginative writings of others, as an inspiration for poetry, drama, and romantic fiction down through the centuries that has few equals in the whole history of European literature."

By the time of Geoffrey's writings, the Britons that Arthur had commanded lived on in what we now call Europe's Celtic fringe- Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany in France where the oral tales of King Arthur flourished and combined with existing Celtic myths. Merlin's magic in setting the scene for Arthur's conception and Arthur's transportation to the mystical island of Avalon following his mortal wound in his final battle establishes, again in Thorpe's words, "the air of other-worldliness and mystery."

Moreover, Geoffrey's identification of Arthur with the new ideal of chivalry in Western Europe and the attractiveness of Queen Guinevere and Arthur's favorite knights all contributed to subsequent authors using Arthur and his court as models for expanded stories.

Despite all my emphasis on the importance of Geoffrey of Monmouth for the popularity of the Arthurian stories, I wouldn't ignore Thomas Malory because the picture he presents of Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable reflects, I think, a universal yearning for wise and just leaders ruling over a stable and peaceful land.

I don't know if my ideas are correct or not, but I've certainly had fun thinking about them.

Bamboo burn on Brantford Avenue

Tuesday afternoon I was reading and dozing when I heard repeating banging noises which I couldn't identify. Once I was satisfied the noises weren't gun shots, I quit worrying but still was curious. Soon came the sounds of sirens, and I noticed fire engines and police cars up the street. I walked up to check out the scene and discovered firemen fighting a fire in the backyard of a house which backed up to the parkland where there is a large stand of bamboo trees. Burning bamboo apparently produces the popping noises which everyone was hearing.

According to reliable reports from neighbors, the cause of the fire was arson, and the arsonist was a resident of the house where the backyard was burning. Yesterday afternoon I revisited the site from the park and took this photo of the damage:

Nobody was injured and other than the trees, which appeared to be mostly on the parkland, nothing else burned. It could have been much worse. Why would a person purposely set a fire so close to their own home? We live in crazy times.

Saturday's rainbow

In the late afternoon I got out of the shower and noticed rain and sunshine out the bathroom window. "Got to be a rainbow around somewhere, " I thought and went for a closer look, and sure enough there was a beautiful rainbow spanning the sky to the east. As I threw on some clothes I called out to Pam, but she was already on the deck taking photos. I took some too, but hers were better:

Yesterday afternoon from our deck

It was an unseasonably warm, beautiful Sunday. In anticipation I mowed the lawn, front and back and I hope for the last time this year, and did other yard work on Saturday, so I could goof off without guilt yesterday.

I admired the gardens from a number of vantage points and visited the park a couple of times. Knowing that there will be few days remaining when a person can relax outside in the sun makes days like this even more precious. From the deck I was contemplating the foliage change and periodically checking the movements of the clouds from the strong northerly winds when I noticed these cloud patterns which I found satisfying.

Living in the moment

A few years ago when I was riding with my friend Lou back from a fishing trip he mentioned that he was trying to live more in the moment. I had enough familiarity with the concept to answer only that it was sometimes difficult. For a number of years Lou has been a practicing Buddhist, and I know that living in the moment is something that religion stresses.

This subject is on my mind because lately I found myself dwelling too much on the future. The future isn't a cheerful subject for a man close to 70 years old because the little he has left is often unpleasant because of age-related physical problems or loneliness. Likewise, too much reflection on the past often leads to pointless regrets and Monday morning quarterbacking. Better to appreciate the surrounding world and people as time unfolds.

It's ironic that this problem should occur now because I've generally had a natural tendency to live in the moment. To me, living in the moment doesn't mean ignoring prudent planning, financial and otherwise. It means to appreciate the now rather than hopefully anticipating better times in the future or attempting to recapture some perceived golden past. I'm invariably in the moment while I'm fishing, and vocationally I was fortunate enough to find work sufficiently challenging to stay focused. My friend Bill once brought up a neighbor who for years when Bill called out a greeting would respond with how many days he had until retirement. Bill and I agreed on how pathetic a statement about that person's work life that was. Beyond the financial aspects, I never thought about retirement until I actually retired.

From her studies of Buddhism, Pam is going to look over her books to find readings that may help me. Like many situations, recognition of a problem is an important first step, and I already feel I'm getting better.

Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day in America
Everybody’s on the road
Let’s remember our fallen heroes
Y’all be sure and drive slow...

-James McMurtry

Like many Americans, I suspect, I don't often think about what this holiday celebrates, but today I've tried to correct this.

The Viet Nam War was my generation's war, and the combat deaths of those I knew personally came from that conflict. Two of them, Otis Keys and James Jones, were high school classmates who I remember more from times after we graduated. Otis worked with me in a brickyard the summer following graduation, and I remember him as a quiet guy, medium tall and muscular. He was on the school football team, I believe. Most of my memories of James were from my first year at the University of Maryland. He was one of the guys who gathered in the lobby of the one of the buildings where between classes we drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. Habits changed, so I didn't realize he had either dropped or flunked out of college until I ran into another of that group who told me a semester or two later that James had been killed in Viet Nam. He too was quiet but always seemed to have a friendly smile.

There may have been more from my high school who died there who I don't recall. Despite the toll of that war, there were so many of us male baby boomers that the war had less of a personal effect on the rest of us than you would think. There are some that I knew who served in the armed services during those years but didn't see combat. Some served in the Navy while others were in the Army but spent their time in Germany where we still had a major military presence. Still others were in Viet Nam but in a support capacity; one was a jet engine mechanic, and another ran the projector for the movies that were provided to entertain the troops. The projectionist enjoyed his role so much he signed up for another tour of duty. The only time he was in any danger, he once told me, was when he had arranged to show the Beatles film, Yellow Submarine. He heavily promoted the showing with posters throughout the base the week before, but unfortunately he found out at the last minute the movie hadn't been shipped in. When he made the announcement to the troops who had crowded into his theater well prepped with drugs, they rioted and he was lucky not to have been hurt.

Two others I knew were technically not combat deaths but died later as a consequence of serving in the infantry. Being exposed to agent orange resulted in their deaths years later of cancer. Larry Seeley, a tall, blond guy who wore glasses and who I had known since junior high, was one, and John Bernard whose children went to school with ours was another. I'm thinking of Larry and John today as well. Then there were those who survived combat but came back different men than the boys they were before. Not all the wounds of war were physical, and these guys lived with emotional scars and sometimes chemical dependencies. I'm also thinking of them.

Plastic water bottles

I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.

I'm not talking about the re-useable ones. My hate is directed at the one-time use bottles which apparently require the user to discard wherever he or she happens to be at the time without taking the time to look for a trash container. Wherever I go outdoors these are the overwhelming main source of litter. I heard that San Francisco has banned them, and good for those citizens if that report is correct. I hope everywhere else bans them too.

Walking indoors

A few years ago my doctor recommended that I walk at least 150 minutes weekly which works out neatly to 1/2 hour, 5 days a week. I adapted well to this recommendation since I like being outdoors in the fresh air, and I usually do my walking in the nearby park which provides wildlife and plants to view. Pam sometimes goes with me and once or twice a week my friend Stan who lives on the other side of the park meets me in the middle. Having someone to talk with seems to shorten the time.

Before long I was considerably exceeding the minimum amount because I became addicted to the point that I feel uncomfortable on the few days when I'm unable to walk. Those exceptions usually occur because of obligations such as travel or multiple appointments. College classes don't pose a problem because I just do the walking on the large University of Maryland campus.

Weather is seldom a factor during the warmer months because walking in the rain doesn't bother me as long as I wear a rain slicker. Cold weather onto itself won't keep me from going out, but a cold rain or snow is something else. On such days during the school year I head for Cole Field House on campus where I encounter other walkers and runners on the concourse of the large athletic building. Unfortunately, Cole is undergoing a major remodeling which makes it unusable for these activities, and the Comcast Center which replaced Cole for basketball games is often restricted.

Fortunately, we have treadmill in our house which has been idle and collecting dust for years. Other household members have used it in the past, but I never developed much of a fondness for it. Recently, however, necessity has caused me to reconsider it. I've found that listening to music while using it relieves the boredom and works pretty well for me. Keeping the lights out in the room prevents me from focusing on the treadmill timer which detracts from the music and makes the time seemingly pass more slowly when it  grabs my attention.

Walking outdoors will always be my preference, but I'm glad I now have a tolerable indoors option.

No hidden treaures...

A few days ago I cleaned out my bedroom closet and removed old clothing to be given away to charity. Just now I went through the pockets of that clothing just in case something of value was left in any of them. I found:

matches
a valentine (from my daughter when she was in elementary school)
a handout from a business luncheon in 1999
a yarmulke (likely from a bar mitzvah)
lots of Kleenex

The handout and the yarmulke were in suit pockets. I'm keeping the valentine and the yarmulke.

Thinking about trees...

There's a couple of spots in the back yard that I've decided I want trees in, largely because we lost an oak in a June storm and I'd like to restore some of the lost shade and privacy.  Right now I'm thinking that rather than buy anything I'll relocate a holly and a magnolia which have sprung up on their own on our property. I realize that neither are likely to grow quickly because it's still rather shady back there, so I may decide on another solution.

However that decision goes, this time of year is a good time to be thinking about trees.  In the summer trees blend into a seemingly solid mass of green so that I'm not too conscious of the individual species.  In the winter with all the deciduous leaves down, differentiating among the types is more difficult.  It's the months of change, mostly in October and April, that the individuality stands out.

Reservoir still showing signs of drought

Despite the constant rain last week, Triadelphia water levels are way down. In spring when we put the canoe at its mooring lock-up, the reservoir water was touching the end of its 15 foot length. Now, the levels are about a boat length lower:

The reduced water level may improve the fishing as the fish are concentrated into a smaller volume of space. At least this fisherman hopes so:

"The sky is 9/11 blue..."

That's how Pam described it this morning, and it's true that today's sunny, clear sky is reminiscent of that terrible day 14 years ago.  I'm prone to superstition about weather and significant days. When I was young I thought Good Fridays always seemed to be rainy and gloomy.  They weren't always, of course, and even when they were, raining days are hardly unusual in the spring just as clear days of low humidity and bright sun are not unusual in the early fall.

Back in the work force temporarily

Agreed to a consulting gig a few weeks ago, and it will run for a few more weeks. This is the second such deal that came my way since I retired six years ago. When I retired people asked me if I planned to do the consulting thing, and I answered that I wasn't willing to go out and market myself which would have been necessary for any kind of steady income. Besides, we live rather simply and don't really need the money.

The first consulting deal came in the first year of retirement, so this present one is my first exposure to the work world in five years. The experience is both familiar and new.

One oddity for me is having only one project to focus on and dealing with people with multiple projects, just as I always had when working. Last Friday, for example, I was expecting one important phone call and one important e-mail and all day wanted to be near my project file containing all my notes. Even though I kept the file with me the few times I left the house, neither the call nor the e-mail came, so I felt the day was somewhat wasted. Neither person was being really negligent by not getting with me that day, and during my work career I wouldn't have thought twice about it because I always had plenty of other things to do.

Technology has, of course, changed some things in the last five years but not everything. Not being certain of what has changed and what has not makes me uncomfortable at times. Real estate and industry-related numbers which were always in my head before are now often fuzzy or absent. The client seems satisfied though.

I have mixed feelings about the thinking I do about the consulting project in the off-hours such as when I'm taking a walk or lying in bed at night. When I'm in school those thoughts tend to be more elevating, like thoughts about history, philosophy, or the arts, and I'm happy to have them replace work thoughts. (Other thoughts, mundane or elevated, always take a back seat to fishing and sex in my head.) On the other hand, I kind of like this minor exposure in the competitive environment of the business world.

Will I do it again if the opportunity comes around? Maybe, but probably not during the school year. Also, I've seen in the last few days my involvement starting taking some turns I neither wanted nor anticipated. I took a stand that made this deal work out ok, but not before having a bad day that might make me think twice about accepting a future offer. Timing is also a factor.  Luckily this one came along at a time when the smallmouth rivers I would normally be fishing have been too high to wade because all the rain we got in June. The levels are getting close to acceptable though, and the rivers are calling. Fortunately, my work is wrapping up.