Mary Beth at RevGalBlogPals says:

I'm showing my age...this was an anthem of my high school years. Wanna hear it?Give this link a try.
While you're bopping along to

that (or perhaps holding your ears...?), let's think about VACATIONS! I certainly am!"

Well, this certainly shows that Mary Beth is younger than I am, I was more about "Here Comes the Sun" or something similar. But here goes:

1) What did your family do for vacations when you were a child? Or did you have stay-cations at home?

We spent most vacations visiting family in Maine -- my mother's family in Bowdoinham, some of whom had farms and even if they didn't, the places felt farm-like; and my father's family in Harpswell (lobster, boats, etc.) and Durham (more farming). I can't think of a nicer vacation to this day. But also, the times in between my father's various changes of station (he was in the Army) were sort of like vacations -- I especially remember the drive from Texas to Maine via northern Ohio (where my aunt lived) in 1955 and later the same year, when we joined my father in Germany, the weekend at an inn in Bad Schwalbach.



2) Tell us about your favorite vacation ever:

When Onkel Hankie Pants got out of the Army, he came to Berlin to spend the summer with me. Just before he had to go back to Minnesota to start work, we took time to visit his cousin in Munich, where we were royally entertained and saw all the sights, and then took a train and a Rhine River cruise as far as Coblenz. Many wonderful memories from that time. Here's a picture of us with the cousins.


3) What do you do for a one-day or afternoon getaway...is there a place nearby that you escape to on a Saturday afternoon/other day off?

I sure like boat rides, and there are a number of them available as I've probably mentioned before -- ferries to the islands in Casco Bay are very reasonable.

4) What's your best recommendation for a full-on vacation near you...what would you suggest to someone coming to your area? (Near - may be defined any way you wish!)

If you can really afford a full-on vacation, I'd rent one of the cottages on the Maine coast near here. You'd have to do your own cooking or go to one of the many fine restaurants nearby -- keep the cooking simple, just get lobster or clams or whatever. Farmer's markets abound for fresh vegetables and other meats, baked goods etc. I myself would just sit on the deck or porch and look at the water, but some people might like to sail or kayak. And for culture, there's plenty of great summer stock, community theatre, music festivals, and museums. Come to Maine!

5) What's your DREAM VACATION?

I'd like to rent or exchange for a house in an English village not too far from London -- it would have to be a long vacation like a year! I'd like to explore the UK, hunt ancestors, see places where favorite writers lived, and just do ordinary things in a different place.

Bonus: Any particularly awful (edited to add: or hilarious) vacation stories that you just have to tell? ("We'll laugh about this later..." maybe that time is now!) I really can't think of any -- I tend to go with the flow so I generally laugh during the vacation, even if things go a little awry.

December Stories and Songs, Part 21

As the days grew closer to Christmas of 2006, I began to anticipate my daughters' arrival to spend Christmas in Maine. So what better tale than R. P. T. Coffin's classic memoir, Christmas in Maine? Robert Peter Tristram Coffin was a poet, essayist, historian and memoirist who was born in Brunswick and grew up in Harpswell, on a saltwater farm on Great Sebascodegan Island. He is the only native son among the four writers with ties to Brunswick who are honored with plaques in our Maine Street sidewalks. (Can you guess the other three?) We have a school and (I think) a swimming hole named for him, and he still has a number of relatives in the area. His memoir describes a simpler time, when Christmas gifts, food and fun were all handmade at home. It's been anthologized more than once, for example in A Christmas Treasury edited by Jack Newcombe, and there is also available, from used booksellers, a 24-page edition published in 1941 (which would be a nice present for Auntie Knickers).
My father was also reared partly on Great Sebascodegan, in the hamlet of Cundy's Harbor, and one of his aunts who died young is buried in the Cranberry Horn Cemetery there, where R.P.T. Coffin and his wife are also buried. I don't really know how much Daddy cared for poetry as a rule, but I do remember that he carefully copied down and typed out this epitaph, one of Coffin's own poems, from the slate gravestone in Cranberry Horn:

This is my country, bitter as the sea
Pungent with the fir and bayberry.
An island meadow, stonewalled, high, and lost,
With August cranberries touched red by frost.
A juniper upon a windy ledge,
Splendor of granite on the world's bright edge.
A lighthouse like a diamond, cut and sharp,
And all the trees like strings upon a harp.
I, made of clay inflamed with sun,
Something solid still have done.
I have kept the ancient law,
I have written what I saw.
(R.P.T.Coffin)

The song that seemed most appropriate for this reading was God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen -- one of the carols Coffin mentions his family singing. I chose a rendition by the BBC Welsh Chorus as giving the best approximation of the Coffin family's lusty singing. It's on a very nice CD called Celebration: Christmas Fanfares and Carols. (I'd like to mention that I've had very good luck buying used CDs from various sources. This is a nice album, but it's not $50 nice!)
(Note: the sleighride photo is from flickr.com, and was taken by This Handmade Life, who has many other nice photos there; check 'em out!)

Election Wrap-Up

I'm not sure I've been successful yet in removing the Decision 2008 widget from the sidebar. If it's still there, you may have noticed that North Carolina is no longer grey. Its electoral votes went to Barack Obama, by a very slim (in the low hundreds) vote margin.  I attribute this to Onkel Hankie Pants's cousin's daughter, who has been working very hard there in a responsible position for the Obama campaign (there is more about her on her aunt Julie's blog, also referenced in my blogroll).

Although there were some grave disappointments (especially Prop. 8 in California, and the stupid Fed Up with Taxes referendum here) and some cliff-hangers still pending (Franken-Coleman-Barkley in Minnesota), I can hardly remember an election when so much of the voting went "my way." Wheeee!  Yes, Republican Susan Collins is still in the Senate. I can't say this is a bad thing, although I voted for her opponent. I am represented in Congress by 3 women now -- Democrat Chellie Pingree in the House and Collins and Olympia Snowe in the Senate. Collins and Snowe are the kind of moderate, reasonable Republicans who are all too rare nowadays, and I don't believe they will be filibustering any time soon just to be obstructive.  If the Republican Party has good sense (always a questionmark), they will move toward a Collins-Snowe style and substance, and forget this Palin-2012 nonsense.

Many other bloggers have mentioned that they feel at loose ends now after spending so much time thinking about the election and reading all the political news.  There are a lot of challenges ahead, and the President, Vice-President, and Congress can't meet them alone. It's time for all of us to be thinking about what we can do to be the change we seek.

What Would Jesus Drive?

I don't know. But God drives a Ford Focus. It's not a hybrid, but probably gets pretty good mileage. God has the "vanity" license plate "IMWHOIM," [Exodus 3:14] -- that's how I knew it was God's car. Also, the bumper sticker "I put snow in its place" [Job 38:22, Psalm 147:16, Psalm 148:8].

God also has some ambivalent feelings about schnauzers, if we are to believe the other bumper sticker, which has two schnauzers, one dressed as a devil and one as an angel, with the legend "Naughty and Nice."

God eats locally sourced, organic Mexican food, as the restaurant that serves it is where I observed God's car a few minutes ago. Unfortunately I was walking the dog and didn't have my camera along.

And God lives in Midcoast Maine. But you knew that, right?

We have had 59 inches of snow this winter

and although some of it melted during our January thaw last week, quite a bit is still here. So in response to requests, here are more pictures of snow!

This first one is "Why do I have to wait?" which is what Rusty is thinking as I am taking the picture. The big mound in front of him represents partly fallen snow and partly shoveled snow from the walk. All the photos were taken about 3 pm so it is getting on for sunset already.



The second photo shows our "back yard" such as it is, and a bit of the Mansion House behind us. Our house stands on what was once the majestic front lawn of this house, which has now been added to and contains apartments -- all of which appear to be rented by very nice, quiet people. Our deed says that we may never build a house higher than 1 1/2 stories on our lot, to maintain the ascendancy or at least the view, of the Mansion House (it's called that in the deed). Most of our back yard is the slope up to where the trees are. I think the light is pretty on the snow.




Next, looking over our side and front yard -- the corner of our lot -- toward downtown.
Here is a picture of our house as seen coming back from a walk on Maine Street. You will note we have not shoveled the front steps and walk. This is because (a) it's Maine, no one uses the front door, in fact in the country houses often have front doors but no steps up to them; and (b) the walk is a bit steep and tends to get slippery very easily, so this is for the protection of UPS delivery people and such, who do try to use the front door because that's where the address is. (The mail carrier delivers to the side, where the mail slot is. No complaints from the USPS here.)

We like our big 50s picture windows because they let lots of light in, and on sunny days like today we get free heat, which is not to be sneezed at these days, when a gallon of heating oil costs as much as a gallon of gasoline. The white, non-snow thing visible at the lower right corner is the electric door to our garage, which opens into the basement. In all the years we lived in Exile (aka "40 below keeps the riffraff out"), we never had an attached garage, or a garage door opener, and indeed for the most part did not have a garage our car would fit into. So we think we are living in the lap of luxury now.