It looks like all of us are busy these days. It's been hard to find the time to sit at the table and shoot the breeze. (what did the breeze ever do to me?)
Last weekend I was the Master of Ceremonies for the Men's Chorus concert on Friday and went to painful memorial services on Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday, Ruth went to a Sisters are doin' it brunch organized by our daughter and no sooner did we get home than we headed off to a picnic and a gospel concert by a wonderful black couple from Boston. This morning, I did almost the whole church service at the church pictured on the cover of my book. During last week my son Pasha and I redid the split rail fence on our proerty (where is Abe Lincoln when you need him) and I drained our above-ground swimming pool which we're planning to take down in the next couple of weeks along with three trees. No kitchen table time in sight.

When I type it out, I realize that I've been through an emotional wringer these last two weeks... some very painful, draining experiences, and some very spirituall uplifting ones, too. In the meantime I've started a couple of chapters which I'm anxious to get back to.

The church service went very well... an unfamiliar experience for me. I did all the music, and the sermon. I found it touching that even though the church is magnificent, there was just a scattering of people. Most of them were older than me, which is going some. Clinging to the life raft, it appears. There were less than 30 people there and no more than three people in any pew, with most pews empty. I ended up doing 8 songs and read from four chapters in my book as part of my "sermon." I've been asked to come back and provide music for their service again, and look forward to it.

I also had a very humorous experience a couple of days ago that I may have to explain for my UK friends. The most intense rivalry in baseballs is begtween the New York Yankess and the Boston Red Sox. I've never liked the Yankees, so I've always rooted for the Red Sox.
These last couple of weeks, they've been tearing up the street next to ours, laying new water lines and I walked over to see how they were coming along. I was wearing a Boston Red Sox t-shirt and when one of the workmen saw me he asked if I was a Red Sox fan. I told him I was and he said, "There's a guy sitting in a gray truck on the other side of this truck who loves the Red Sox. Why don't you go over and talk to him?" When I walked around the large truck, there was a large man sitting in the cab of a small pick up truck. He had his window rolled down and was talking to another workman. When he saw my t-shirt he said, "Are you a Red Sox fan?" And I said, "yeah, the Yankees SUCK!" Turns out, both of the guys are rabid Yankee fans! I had been set up. When the man who'd set me up came around the corner laughing his head off, I said, "Hey, thanks for setting me up! I'm lucky the guy didn't flatten me!" "Naw, he wouldn't do that. He hasn't gotten out of that truck in a week and I was just trying to get a rise out of him." We all had a good laugh...

Jerry