Bits and Pieces

Another great-looking Sunday seems to be ahead of us. I won't be riding my bicycle down to Lake Chelan today. Instead, I am going to go in the opposite direction and ride the bike out to the point where you actually enter the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. There are no bikes allowed on the trail that begins there and which will take you on to either Hart Lake or Holden Lake. I plan to hike into the woods a bit, probably to the point where the trail splits, one fork to Hart Lake and the other to Holden Lake.

Today was to have been one of those really, really special days. Ben and Kim, Andrew and Rosa were to have arrived on Friday and as a part of today's Sunday service, Andrew and Rosa were to have been baptized. Instead, they are somewhere in central California after having endured a military "space available" flight on a jump seat in a C17 flight from Hawaii (there was always plenty of space....the flights were canceled before taking off). This flight got them to Travis AFB in California from which point they decided they were too exhausted to try to make a visit to Holden and Seattle (driving up in a car rental) and besides, Ben had used up almost half of his leave just trying to get on this flight. So they are there and there are many disappointed kith and kin here and in Seattle who had hoped to see them. They will make another attempt in late September or early October. They haven't said as much to me, but I doubt they will even consider the "space available" option.

I have left the laundry to another caretaker/slave master and have finished my first week of work/training in the post office. Initial assessments indicate the new position will require far less physical work but a lot more attention to minutiae. There is always a swap-off, it seems. The winter combination of Postei/laundry may turn out to be a good balance.

Holden Village's version of Graduation Day was yesterday. The ceremony was held out on the Village Green...we made ourselves comfortable on yard blankets. There was one graduate and the audience hummed (loudly) "Pomp and Circumstance". The graduate wore a graduation gown from the costume shop, an official looking mortar board, and flip-flops. His graduation certificate was hand-carved by a village carpenter and was quite lovely. There were speeches and remembrances and songs and poems. A great day.

The night before we had enjoyed the traditional Graduation Dinner. This year the graduate himself selected the menu and was in charge of preparing the dinner. He had worked on a senior project on sustainable farming in general and grass-fed vs. corn-fed meat products specifically. He had done all the research, written all the papers, investigated local sustainable farming practices, ordered the food from those local farms and the meal was his final achievement...roasted ham, mashed root vegetables, sauteed fresh spinach, and meringues with berries and whipped cream...we were of one mind that he had passed the test! He had also made a presentation on his findings to the villagers gathered one evening and answered their questions...an equivalent to "orals" i would say.

This week promises to be relatively quiet...I think. Next Sunday 160 volunteers arrive for Work Week. This event is held every two years and people come in to volunteer to work on major projects (construction, painting, trail work, etc.) for a week. I have never been at Holden for this event but I am told that much-needed work is done. I know that much planning and work has gone into the event already as all the supplies and tools and whatever have to be here when the volunteers arrive. There is no Home Depot just across town.

Weather! We have to discuss the weather! Very chilly. There has been snow for several nights now...not in the Village itself, but at higher elevations. It is quite beautiful, really, to walk out every morning and see a dusting of new snow on the mountaintops. "During the night, the Unseen Hand gave cast..."

...but those were the first lines to a poem I wrote a long time ago...a poem written on a Sunday morning in Florida in the summer. I was broke. My air conditioner was broken, and I couldn't afford to get it repaired. I was at my "desk" which was a card table situated in a window to catch the slightest puff of a breeze. The paper on which I was writing was literally adhering to my arms from the perspiration. The kids were out running the street on which we lived...Bobby Lane...which was a fairly dangerous thing to do in those days as Bennett Rich might at any time came down the street (naked except for his plaid bathrobe tied with a rope) packing heat, the holster clearly visible outside his bathrobe...but I digress...I do not exaggerate, but I do digress...other days, other ways...and we survived, somehow.