A hundred years on the eastern shore

[sovay]

spatch is home. The mermaid brought him safe back to me. He was in central Maine to bury the ashes of his aunt and his grandmother and his grandmother's last two cats in the cemetery that goes back at least five generations in the family; the family itself goes back to the seventeenth century in this country. It would have been his grandmother's hundredth birthday. She always said, he told me, that the moon landing was the greatest birthday present a person could ever wish for. I'm glad he was able to celebrate her. On either side there seems to have been a truly impressive amount of travel snafu, not limited to the MBTA, but also some very good meals and time with his extended family; he brought me a stone from the cemetery, two nautically appropriate used books from Portland, and some pictures of Old Orchard Beach. Earlier in the evening I used a taxi to get us takeout which we just finished eating and am now about to essay lying on the couch and watching a movie. It is much too hot in our apartment and has been all weekend. The cats are sweet.

Comments

[asakiyume]

The seventeenth century! Very cool. *Remembers surname* WAIT. There are Many Historical Personages w/that surname.

... anyway, I'm glad the mermaid brought *your* personage safely home.

[spatch]

Many, yes, and many of the Hamlins which was the family on my grandmother's side. sovay and I did some research last night over email and rootsweb and found the Hamlin who was born in England and came to the colonies when he was but a small child, and among whose sons were the one from which I am descended and the one from whom Hannibal Hamlin, first vice-president under Lincoln, was descended. So that was a nice connection to make.

[sovay]

There are Many Historical Personages w/that surname.

The Noyes side of the family furnished the background of this poem.

... anyway, I'm glad the mermaid brought *your* personage safely home.

Me, too! She kept him safe from all hazards inland.

[asakiyume]

OMG. I just finished up a unit on the Salem witch trials with my students!

[asakiyume]

How marvelous!

A Hamlin coming to this country as a small child seems to tie in with the Pied Piper of. He led them not under a mountain but across the sea.

[gwynnega]

I hope that intense heat wave abates soon!

[umadoshi]

I'm glad he's home safe. *hugs*

[oracne]

I hope your weather cools off soon. Ours is supposed to ease up tomorrow.

[sovay]

I just finished up a unit on the Salem witch trials with my students!

What did they think?

[sovay]

I hope that intense heat wave abates soon!

Thank you! It seems cautiously cooler and greyer today, which would be lovely, because last night it was so hot we hardly slept.

[sovay]

I'm glad he's home safe.

At the point where he was on a night bus whose driver didn't know exactly where they were going, it started to seem a close thing!

*hugs*

[sovay]

I hope your weather cools off soon. Ours is supposed to ease up tomorrow.

Thank you. Supposedly tonight there will be rain. Fingers crossed for you, too!

[sporky_rat]

I hope your heatwave eases up. Ours won't for a while, but that's life down here.

Y'all are the cool, stony New Englanders who build for cold and wet and brine. You don't need heat.

[sovay]

I hope your heatwave eases up. Ours won't for a while, but that's life down here.

Thank you. I hope you are comfortable nonetheless, in a land where people actually expect it to get hot in the summers and conduct their lives accordingly.

Y'all are the cool, stony New Englanders who build for cold and wet and brine. You don't need heat.

That's how I feel about it! I've never lived in a house that didn't cunningly trap heat for the winter, which is great in winter, which this is not.

[nineweaving]

She always said, he told me, that the moon landing was the greatest birthday present a person could ever wish for.

This is lovely.

I'm glad he was able to celebrate her.

And I'm glad the mermaid brought him there and back again.

Nine

[sovay]

And I'm glad the mermaid brought him there and back again.

Me, too!

[asakiyume]

I never answered this!

They weren't as interested as the last cohort of students were, but they did register alarm at the notion of spectral evidence!

[sovay]

They weren't as interested as the last cohort of students were, but they did register alarm at the notion of spectral evidence!

It's alarming!

The Salem witch trials were one of the pieces of American history I was never taught, I just found on my own by reading (in elementary school), and it seems like such a strange thing to try to explain to people actually happened.