Toys of Summer

Yes, I know, the book title was Boys of Summer, but in that book it became apparent that men remain boys and that interest in toys does not diminish as the years accumulate. So the pun is relevant, as last Sunday I stored my MGB for the season. There were dozens of people, mostly ‘boys’ gently, lovingly packing away their cars, boats, and campers for the winter. As we disconnected battery terminals, draped dust covers, and taped ID numbers we seemed deep in our private thoughts despite the busyness in the huge storage barn. This had been the best summer in the 11 years I’ve enjoyed the MG, so the memories of great road trips are more abundant than usual. I always stretch the driving into foliage season, and hanging up the keys back at home until late next April is a bit like hibernating. So many things are seasonal. We might think we’re above those powers with our 21st century technologies and science, but when it comes down to it, the days do get colder and shorter, and we put away our toys of summer.

10/10/10. My parents’ 57th wedding anniversary. Jill and I took them out to dinner to celebrate because time together is more valuable than more stuff they don’t really need. We had a great time on the round trip ride and during dinner. We went back to the site of Lindsay and Joe’s wedding reception, and I was struck by the comparison of the two marriages at opposite ends of the time spectrum. Both couples are in love. With the younger one it is more strikingly apparent, like brilliant sun shining in your face, everything is brighter, sharper, and crisper. With the older couple, it’s still the sun, but rather than the light, it’s more the warmth, a slower, more enveloping sense of comfort, stability, dependability. My parents met at the Champlain Valley Fair on a blind date, and they have returned to the Fair every year since. Dad not only sends flowers on their annual anniversary, he brings three roses on the 10th of every month. It may be cloudy occasionally, but after all these years, the sun is still shining!

Birthday greetings in the age of social media have removed geography, time, and 44 cents! Yesterday I received “many happy returns of the day” from thousands of miles and decades of years away, from former colleagues, relatives, former students, friends of my kids; most of whom I’ve not actually spoken with or seen in person for many years. It was startling to begin the morning with so many surprising, happy greetings. At the other end of the intimacy spectrum, my work team managed to schedule us all off campus for an extended brunch celebration at a family camp in the beautiful hillsides not far from the office. The food, foliage, and friendship made for a delightful escape. Then in the evening family gathered for dinner, wine, and affection. So, Face Book allows geometrically more contacts without traditional limits of time and space or even familiarity. It may be only coded bytes magically transmitted through space, but it is still a manner of reaching out and touching someone. And when those messages recall a time and place when the writer and reader actually were face-to-face, the soul is still there. The Internet will never replace the brunch at camp or the family dinner, but it does let us connect when otherwise we might not. So, if you’re reading this on your birthday, “many happy returns of the day to you!”

Clanggg! Clanggg! Yesterday I felt like I was living in a Kafka novel. I was being cut off from the world one step at a time with no idea why and no idea how to fight my way back in. First, by mid-morning I became unable to use any search engines, a tool I frequently turn to throughout the day for research. Rather than delivering vital information, I simply found myself being routed through an apparent mobius strip of “redirects” and “jump” sites. I struggled to no avail and finally gave up awaiting IT support. After several meetings, I returned to my computer in early afternoon optimistic that IT had solved the problem, but instead I found my screen black and unresponsive. No function, no activity, the power light the only one lit. Bad signs all around. The verdict: hard drive crashed. Had I done something to offend the technology gods? Had I forgotten to pay protection deposits to our IT director? And why had I saved so many handy files to my desktop instead of to the network? I received a new laptop, connected to the network but continued to feel increasingly cut off. None of my program or file shortcuts existed. None of my hundred or so internet bookmarks survived. None of my personalized email formatting remained. Every task that had been a click or two became a seemingly arduous and interminable process of manual keystrokes. Things that had only taken two seconds now took 15 or 20! The final straw was later in the day when my boss, the founder and president of the Stern Center, told me she’d been trying to call me fro her Blackberry but that the speed dial indicated my phone number was no longer available! I was frustrated, bewildered, and trapped. It was nearly the end of the day and coworkers advised, “Just go home. It will be easier tomorrow.” But I saw the voice mail light blinking on my phone and decided I could at least check messages that way. I pushed the button only to hear, “There are no messages.” Clanggg!

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” Plato

Last Saturday evening over 100 souls and imaginations gathered for a new community experience at the opening concert in the new burlington ensemble’s 90/10 series. The concept grew from conversations among three local musicians aspiring to make their music more accessible to new audiences while supporting broader community resources of the nonprofit world. The 90/10 reference in the series title illustrates the ratio of funding support between the nonprofit and the musicians for each concert. The founding musicians are developing programs which reflect the essence of each nonprofit partner, have secured a donated venue, and are seeking commitments from local and regional professional musicians. The opening concert benefited the Stern Center for Language and Learning with a program of Beethoven’s piano quartets written when he was only 14 years old, a truly Precocious Prodigy per the concert title and fully in keeping with the Stern Center’s conviction that ‘all great minds don’t think alike.’

As people lingered after the concert, still basking in the shared pleasure of fine music, conversations focused on both the quality of the performance and the wonder and simple elegance of music helping build community. It touched our souls and gave flight to our imaginations. It’s not Plato, but it reminded me of another famous quote, “Let it be.”

When I was a kid, fishing on Lake Champlain with my grandfather in his 15 foot, closed hull, outboard we paid serious attention to the weather forecast, especially the wind speeds. All afternoon each Friday I listened to my pocket transistor radio for the weather. “Small craft warnings” and “waves over a foot” smashed my fishing plans for Saturday. So imagine my adjustment when last weekend Jill and I were invited sailing because there would be “really good wind, with waves 1-2 feet!” Neither of us has been sailing more than twice and never on a 32 foot craft or with 2 foot waves, but we decided, “Why not?” and had a great time. I handled the wheel and learned a bit about tack and jib. The real sailors, our hosts, noticed I was clenching most of my muscles and advised that I relax, which I found easier said than done. Eventually I unclenched but never became “one with the boat!” (The photos prove the angle of the boat with the horizon in the background.)

I guess the point here is that we didn’t say, “No thank you,” but rather went for it despite our trepidation, and it proved really cool. Last year it was a hot air balloon ride one mile high. This summer was sailing when my grandfather would have headed for shore. I’m finding that often saying, “Yes” is more fun than, “No.”

The end of summer carries many clichés, many poignant memories of releasing our grips on long days, balmy nights, volleyball on the beach, smore’s at camp, shorts and flip-flops. State fairs. Leaves beginning to change. And school busses slowing our morning commutes. It’s that last one that still tugs at my heart the most. Having spent 24 years working in public schools, 19 as a principal, at this time of the year I feel like the geese being pulled toward a familiar, powerful destination. As I drove to work Monday (now at the Stern Center for Language and Learning, still education though not in the schools), I passed clusters of kids waiting for busses. Kindergarteners in crisp new clothes, clutching primary colored backpacks with one hand and a parent with the other. Teens slouching in T-shirts and boarder’s shorts, ear buds linked to i-Touch. Still, four years removed from the school scene, my heart bends just a bit, like a dowser’s rod, toward those kids, those schools, those days.