Having lived most of my life a thousand miles from the ocean and then moving to a home by the sea for retirement means that there are a lot of new things to learn about the place where I now live. With about 40% of the world’s population living in coastal areas, it is possible that there are a lot of people who know things that I am only just now discovering. Prior to moving to the coast, we often visited and I learned bits of information over many decades of being a tourist. But there are things that I now notice of which I was only vaguely aware when my experience was that of an occasional visitor.

As I child, I thought of the ocean mostly in terms of waves. We would visit beaches and play in the waves as they came crashing to shore. Even when the water was cold, we ventured into it because the way it moved was so fascinating. Besides, we were used to playing in a river that was only a few miles from the snowfields in the mountains and was always very cold. The way the water moved in the ocean, however, was very different from water in a mountain stream.

As I grew older, I began to look forward to the rich store of seafood that was available when we visited the coast. These days there is more seafood available in the middle of the country. Seafood can be frozen and transported to the interior of the country. There are also places where the seafood is iced and flown in and sold fresh far from the coast. It is expensive, but seafood is expensive on the coast, too. It is different, however, to think of salmon, rockfish, and crabs that are caught within walking distance of my home. There is a big crab derby in Birch Bay this weekend and the bay will be full of extra boats and the beachfront bars will be full of extra partiers.

One thing that I hadn’t though of much before moving here, however, is how rich the ocean environment is in terms of plants. Until recently, I though of seaweed as seaweed. It all seemed about the same to me. Walking along the shore on a nearly daily basis, however, I am learning how rich and varied the plant life of the ocean is. Those who know what they are doing can harvest all kinds of edible plants from the ocean as well as animals.

One of the things that we learned is that autumn is a season of more ocean plants washing up on the shore. Sea plants have annual cycles similar to those of plants that grow on the land. They thrive during the summer when there is more light and die back in the autumn and winter as daylight decreases. Those in the know tune into these cycles and know when to go to the beach to pick up sea lettuce and other edibles from the shore.

There are several signs of the change of seasons on land. A few trees are beginning to show colors in their leaves. The pathways have a few more fallen leaves on them. The nights are growing longer and it gets a bit cooler at night now. There is a crispness in the air that hints of autumn’s coming. Along the shore we are beginning to see the first strands of bull kelp washing up. We know there will be a lot more in the weeks to come. Bull kelp is one of more than twenty varieties of kelp that grow in the Salish Sea. It is classified as a brown kelp as opposed to a green kelp such as eelgrass. It is a very rapidly growing plant, forming underwater forests that are habitat for crabs, red sea urchins, kelp greening, kelp perch, and Pacific herring.

The kelp plant anchors itself to rocks on the seafloor and a stalk grows towards the surface absorbing energy from sunlight to sustain the plant. The upper part of the stalk is a bass-filled bulb that acts as a float to keep the top of the plant near the surface where it can increase exposure to sunlight for photosynthesis. The blades of the kelp sway in the current.

Bull kelp is an annual plant. It grows from spores in the spring and summer and dies in the winter. Fall and winter storms wash the plants to the shore. The kelp can grow to about 100 feet long depending on the depth of the water where it grows. On long summer days the plants can grow as much as 10 inches per day.

Like all parts of the earth’s complex ecology, the kelp forest lives in delicate balance with all kinds of other plants and animals.

Researchers in the Salish Sea are concerned about declining numbers of kelp forests in some parts of the area including the south Puget Sound. One of the effects of global warming is that there is an increase in a condition called sea star wasting syndrome. This has lead to declines in sunflower sea star populations. Without sunflower sea stars to keep the sea urchin populations in check, the spiny urchins consume the bull kelp forests before they can grow to maturity. Healthy bull kelp forests are critical in the cycling of nitrogen and carbon. The decline in the kelp beds contributes to rising carbon levels which leads to increased temperatures and more problems from sea stars.

All of this is new to me. I am on a steep learning curve. I take a walk along the shore, see the bull kelp washed up on the beach, and wonder about it. Fortunately for me, Western Washington University, located in nearby Bellingham has a wonderful program of marine ecology and conducts studies of the sea. The research vessel Kittiwake, operated by the University of Washington Marine Labs, studies the sea around the bay and the islands.

A walk along the beach raises all kinds of questions for a newcomer. I’ve moved too late in life to become an expert, but I can share the fascination of this unique part of the world with the dedicated researchers and students who are learning and teaching more about our environment each day.

Part of adjusting to our home here in Washington has been getting our bearings about direction. Both my wife and I grew up learning to navigate and have relatively good senses of direction. We know how to take clues from the position of the sun to discern directions. We both have navigated rural areas and learned to find our way in cities. We both are fairly good at reading maps. We’ve navigated a lot of trips in our lives with one of us driving while the other reads a map and gives directions.

Somehow, however, there is something different about directions in this place at this phase of our lives. Like most other things in life, there are many different factors that come into play as we have been getting our bearings.

Part of the adjustment is the nature of roads and streets as they wind around physical obstacles. If you drive bay drive which follows the shoreline in our town, you could have the water to your north, west, and south without changing streets. The streets in our subdivision are curving. We turn right to go north onto our street and follow it to our house where we turn left to be going north as we pull into our driveway. Winding roads are not new to us, however, We grew up in and around mountains where roads curve and wind and change direction.

Part of the adjustment is that sun angles are different in a more northern location. This is the farthest north that we have lived. The difference between the length of days in the summer and in the winter is more dramatic than other places we have lived. In mid-summer it appears that the sun rises in the northeast and sets in the northwest. Because we use the sun as an indication of direction, our internal sense of direction is skewed by the position of the sun in the sky.

Part of the adjustment is that there are more gray days when overcast prevents seeing the sun. It is easier to lose a sense of direction in the fog, and it is easier to lose a sense of direction under a heavy overcast. We get more cloudy days here than other places we have lived.

Part of the adjustment is that we have spent most of our lives on the east slope of mountains and hills. The places we have lived have often had mountains to the west of our home. Here we have mountains to the east as well as to the north. It takes time to learn individual mountains to know which ones you are seeing. Heading towards the mountains on a cloudy day it is easy to begin to think we are headed west. To make matters even more challenging, there are high hills on islands to our west shaped like mountains. I’ve learned to ask myself, “is there snow up there?” when identifying what I’m seeing.

I’ve written quite a bit in my about shifting from a sunrise location to a sunset location. There is something to that shift in our lives. Sunsets are generally more dramatic here than sunrises. That is a big change from being in the hills with a view to the east over the badlands and prairies. The change is symbolic of retirement for me as well. I am learning to appreciate endings when other phases of my life have been more about beginnings.

One of the gifts of this summer for me has been the purchase of an electric bicycle. The pedal boost of the bike enables me to ride farther from home than was typical with my other bike. I have been exploring some new roads and streets and I have been looking freshly at the territory close to my home. Most days recently I have been riding out to the end of a spit of land that forms the western border of Drayton Harbor. With the harbor on my right and the Salish Sea on my left as I ride out the spit, there are dramatic views in both directions. Since I like to ride early in the morning, I have found myself pedaling out the spit at sunrise as the days are getting shorter. I know that soon I’ll have to adjust and ride later in the day for safety’s sake, but recently, I have enjoyed riding as the sun begins to appear.

I’ve been treated to the beauty alpenglow on the mountains to the East as a sunrise phenomenon. I used to think of alpenglow as a form of beauty to appreciate in the evening, but I am learning to appreciate it in the morning. Yesterday as I rode my bike, the timing was right for the mountains to be silhouetted by the rising sun. The snow at the tops of the mountains reflects the light in dramatic ways and the view is dramatic. I am aware that the colors are more dramatic because there is plenty of smoke form wildfires in the air, but the colors have been beautiful and I have found myself stopping to just look. I am reminded of so many mornings watching the sunrise from my canoe on the surface of Sheridan Lake in South Dakota. My exercise is spiced with moments of calm and quiet. An activity that is about motion gets interrupted for moments of stillness. Even though I am now retired and my stillness is not as rare as was the case when I was busy with many work responsibilities, I still find myself in motion most days and I am grateful for the moments when I can just stand or sit in quiet contemplation.

Being still is another way of becoming oriented. Taking time to carefully look and really see helps me develop the perspective to appreciate the subtleties and nuances of a place. If I pause long enough the sun will make its appearance and I am reminded of both my sense of direction and of the season of the year.

I may have moved to the sunset coast, but I am delighted to discover that there are still many sunrises in my life to delight me.

We have a neighbor who is a young adult. I don’t know his exact age, but I think he is in his twenties. We often talk about gardening with him and we have gotten to know his mother and his maternal grandparents during the time that we have lived here. His grandmother has a small greenhouse operation from which we purchase our tomato plants and some of our annual flowers. Another thing I know about this young man is that he is in the same line of work as his mother. In a recent conversation I learned that he will be working on Labor Day while his mother has the day off even though they work for the same company. He will be taking advantage of the extra pay for working a holiday. She has more seniority and therefore has more days off than he. Our conversation with him sparked a conversation between my wife and I about the different options for meaningful work and a workable economic path for young adults in today’s culture.

When we were High School students, there were several options for our classmates upon completion of secondary education. Some went into the military, though there were more military options for men than women in those days. Some went to college, which is the path we followed. Some went into apprenticeship programs offered by several trades. Some followed their parents into family businesses. I have a high school classmate who recently retired from a retail store that now is run by his daughters. His entire working life was in the same store, in the same building, as had been his father’s career. His grandfather founded the store some eighty years ago.

I had the option of joining my father’s business. He had taught me how to fly and I was a licensed pilot. I hadn’t pursued advanced ratings, but he would have fully supported me in doing so. Had I wanted to focus on the farm machinery side of the business rather than the flying, there would have been a job for me in that business, too. I wasn’t pressured, however. My father was supportive of my education and proud of my educational accomplishments. After I had completed my degrees, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the college from which I earned my undergraduate degree. Our shared degrees was an important bond between us.

So I became a minister. I never lost my interest in aviation, however. When we were called to our first parish, in North Dakota, I became a bit of an airport bum. I would spend some of my spare time at the airport, talking with the pilots, looking at the airplanes and such. I couldn’t afford to own an airplane at that time, but I rented one from time to time and continued to fly as a hobby. I would occasionally fly to a church meeting, but it wasn’t really practical transportation for that phase of my life.

One of the airplanes that came to our rural airport on a fairly regular time in the summer was especially fascinating to me. It was a repurposed T-28 armored airplane that had been repainted from its military colors and bore the registration N10WX. I loved to talk to the pilot and hear about its missions. The airplane was operated by the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in cooperation with the National Science Foundation, and the Institute for Atmospheric Sciences for the federally funded National Hail Research Experiment (NHRE). It was a cloud seeding airplane, equipped with systems that fired pyrotechnics into storm clouds. The small explosions aerosolized silver iodide. When everything worked right, the silver iodide caused the moisture in the clouds to freeze more quickly. The result was more hail stones that were much smaller than what otherwise would have fallen. The airplane was operated by SDSM&T from 1969 to 2005.

By the late 1970’s when I became familiar with it, it had earned a few hail dents in its armored surface. Of course any on flying surfaces had been quickly repaired, but there were a few “battle scars” on the airplane. The airplane was designed to take much more intense turbulence than the light aircraft I flew. I couldn’t help but recognize that it had a back seat which was empty when it went on its missions. The plane had, after all, began its life as an Air Force training plane. I tried several schemes to get a ride back there. Of course the leaders of the program were well aware of the limits of the insurability of such a venture. Insurance companies weren’t going to tackle the liability of having a passenger on dangerous missions. I was at that time working part time for a radio station, and I tried to convince them that it would be good press to have me go on a ride. Ours was a very small market station, however, and the project didn’t need local press. I got to sit in the cockpit on the ground, but I never got to fly in that plane.

I remembered that airplane as I read an article about the on-going Alberta Hail Suppression Project. There are still major projects that engage in cloud seeding. The Alberta program operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week from June 1 through September 15. It employs a team of 13 pilots flying five aircraft. The program has its own dedicated radar station staffed by five meteorologists. It has an operating budget of $3 million per year. What caught my eye, however, was where that money comes from. Back in the ‘70s I saw the insurance company as a barrier. They wouldn’t grant permission for me to ride in the plane. But in today’s world, insurance companies are funding cloud seeding in big ways.

Hailstorms cost insurance companies big money. A single storm in June 2020 resulted in 70,000 claims costing roughly $1.4 billion. That makes cloud seeing a cost effective proposition for insurance companies.

The planes are still flying. The pyrotechnics are still occurring in the clouds. Had I followed my father into the flying business there is a very slim chance I might have been able to get a job flying one of those planes. As it turned out, however, I became a minister. I’ve never gotten a ride near a thunderstorm in an armored plane.

I don’t regret my decision, nor the path my life took. However, I still take notice when there is a story about cloud seeding planes. It would have been fun to have that experience.

I met a gentleman over a cup of coffee yesterday. We started talking while waiting in line to order our drinks. We struck up a conversation and continued to talk as we drank our coffee. I’m pretty sure that our entire conversation was over in about 15 minutes. We had never before met. I doubt if we will ever meet again. Still, I know quite a bit about him.

He is sixty-five years old. His mother will turn 90 on her birthday which is a couple of days after our daughter’s birthday. This is significant for a couple of reasons. We plan to be with our daughter on her birthday and he plans to be with his mother on her birthday. His trip to visit his mother involved flying into Vancouver, BC. Our visit to our daughter will involve flying out of Vancouver, BC.

Besides being in line at a coffee shop and both being somewhat outgoing and interested in other people, the thing that sparked our conversation is that we both arrived at the coffee shop on bicycles. He pulled up a little bit ahead of me, but I saw him riding his bike as I approached the shop. We both were wearing high visibility clothing, but both of us had left our helmets outside with our bikes when we entered the shop.

If he remembers anything about me, it would be that I am six years older than he and that I have a new-to-me electric bicycle. If he doesn’t remember my age, he might remember that he said he might consider getting an electric bicycle when he turns 70 and I waited until after I was 70 to get mine. He might remember that I am shorter than him, that I am nearly bald on top and have a white beard. He might remember that I had a plain cup of decaf coffee. At least I remember that he had four shots of espresso in his drink.

He’ll need the energy. He is on a solo bike trip from Vancouver, BC to the Los Angeles area of California. That’s a trip of over 1,300 miles. He’s traveling solo and he’s traveling light. There wasn’t much luggage on his bike. A trip of that distance means that part of the gear on his bike would be a few tools, spare inner tubes, maybe a few spare spokes, and probably some lubricant.

Of course there are a lot of things about him that I do not know. I don’t know if he has siblings who will be present for his mother’s birthday. I don’t know if he is married or involved in a significant relationship. I don’t know if he has someone he calls on the phone to report his progress. I don’t know if he crossed the border on a Canadian or US Passport, and it is possible he is a citizen of some other country and flew from that country to Canada. He speaks English well and without a significant accent from my point of view.

I don’t know if he will vote in the US Presidential election in November or how he plans to vote if he does. The subject didn’t come up in our conversation.

I know that he had to ride in the rain for the first 40 miles of his trip from the airport to Blaine and that he crossed the international border at Peace Arch in Blaine. That was the first day of his trip. I don’t know what time his flight arrived in Vancouver or how long it took him to go that distance. I do know that he will have to have several days when he rides longer distances if he is to make his goal. I do know that he headed off into a swift headwind. I stayed at the shop a little longer than he. At 71, I don’t pass up many opportunities to use the rest room. I headed off in the same direction he was going, but didn’t catch up to him before it was time for me to turn up the hill to my house.

We live for connection with others. We naturally look for the things we have in common. There is joy in conversation about a common topic even if there are many other topics about which we have not connected. I hope that our brief connection gave him a bit of joy in a day that will include frustration and hard work. I imagine that such a long trip alone on a bicycle will give him plenty of time for solitude and reflection. I know my mind wanders when I ride my bike. A long trip by bike might provide an opportunity for self reflection and even self evaluation. I know my mother took the longest bicycle rides of her life as she processed the grief of my father’s death. She was a bit younger than the man I met yesterday at the time. It is possible that he has know a deep loss. I know that my brother, who wrote a book about riding his bicycle from the West Coast to the East Coast of the US twice, did a lot of reflecting and had his way of thinking changed by his long trips. Neither my mother nor my brother traveled those distances alone, however. It will be different for the man I met yesterday.

I wish I had a way of knowing more of his story. It would be fun to be able to follow his progress. He’s going to pass through some very beautiful country, but it is possible that clouds and smoke will prevent him from seeing some of the scenery. He could have some very warm days as he heads south and he’ll need to be able to carry lots of water for some portions of his ride. I hope he is prepared for the rigors of the journey. I pray for his safety. An injury could derail his plans. An accident could make him late for the celebration.

Along the way he will certainly meet a lot more people. Some of them he will get to know better than was possible for him with me. If he made the progress I expected yesterday, he’ll face partly sunny skies and a high in the seventies today. It could be ten degrees warmer for him the next day and he might need sunscreen. By then he may have forgotten the guy he met at the coffee shop the morning of the second day of his trip. After all we never did learn each other’s names.

I am by nature a morning person. I have always enjoyed getting up at the start of the day. I have no desire to linger in bed once I am awake. It seems to me that I can always take a nap if I need more sleep. This personality trait has served me well throughout my life. As a college student I was able to have the job of opening the library as my work study position. This meant that I would arrive at the library building, unlock the doors and turn on the lights. I would process the books that had been returned in the night deposit box, but I didn’t have to shelve them because I was responsible for the front desk and keeping my eye on the door. I could do some filing in the card catalogue while watching the door, but the reality was that my work chores were light. I was being paid for my presence as much as for the accomplishment of certain tasks. As long as the doors were open and the lights turned on at the same time every day, I was free to sit at the desk. I was able to do some reading. Often this was the best time for me to catch up on reading which was an important part of my education.

As a pastor, my colleagues would occasionally complain about all of the interruptions in their work days. When they wanted to concentrate on sermon preparation, letter writing, or other tasks, the stream of people needing various types of conversation made it difficult for them to get time for work. Some of my colleagues had a work day when they didn’t come into the church office. Others had a secretary tell visitors that they were not available. I could simply arrive at the church before people came in. Most of the time I could get a couple of hours each day for the things that required uninterrupted focus. I developed the practice of going through my sermons to an empty sanctuary. Some weeks I would sit in the pews and imagine worship from the perspective of the congregation.

My tendency has served me well in my marriage and family life, too. Because my wife is a bit of a night owl and I’m an early bird, we could cover for each other at the ends of the day. Each of us also had some private time built into our day. We were also blessed with one child who was a night owl and the other who was an early bird, so we could allow our children to live into their natural rhythms knowing that there would be a parent available when they were awake.

At first our retirement lifestyle didn’t seem to fit my early bird tendencies. When we were working and living in South Dakota, I would often rise when it was still dark, take a canoe to the lake and watch the sunrise from the surface of the water. I attempted to do that here, but getting on the water means shifting one’s schedule to the ebb and flow of the tide. If I wanted to paddle at the same time every day, I would end up having to portage my boat over the wide mudflats of low tide on occasion. I couldn’t seem to get my sleep patterns adjusted to the cycle of the tides. Some days when I get up the tide is in. Other days it is out. Both have their beauty, but favor those who view from the shore as opposed to those who venture out on the water. Mariners around here adjust their activities to synchronize with the tides.

With time, however, as I relaxed into retirement, I learned to sleep in a little bit. I also developed other habits for the beginning of my day. I tended to exercise outdoors a bit less in the early morning. I spent a bit more time in my recliner reading poetry. I added a few yoga poses to my morning devotions.

Recently, however, I have obtained a slightly used but new to me electric bicycle. The bike enables me to cover more territory and venture farther from home than was the case with my other bike. It is also equipped with a powerful headlight and a bright flashing tail light to make me visible when I ride. I also have a bright high visibility vest that I wear when riding the bike. This enables me to bike over the hill to a spit of land at the edge of Drayton harbor where I have the Salish sea to the west and the harbor to the east. When I venture there in the morning, I have been treated to some very beautiful sunrises, including a few over the water of the harbor.

While I am content that I am living on the sunset coast in the sunset of my life, I find that I am still a big fan of sunrises. And, in general, sunrises occur a bit later here with the mountains to the east which gives me a bit more laid back lifestyle than was the case when I was working. I have even taught myself to linger in bed for five or more minutes upon waking to reflect and get my bearings before standing up.

The truth is that we are surrounded by beauty. To view the northern lights one has to be awake in the middle of the night. There are days when the mountains are bathed in pink at sunset as the snow reflects the setting sun. There are gorgeous sunsets over the bay. But there are also misty mornings with the sun burning off the fog and revealing the land, a gorgeous morning alpenglow as light fills the land before the sun appears over the mountains. There is much to behold at each time of the day.

The rainy season is coming. There will be days when I won’t feel like going for a bike ride first thing in the morning. There will be other days when I will need to put on rain clothes in order to ride my bike. But for now, I am reveling in the blessing of calm morning bike rides and the beauty of the place I am learning to call home.

John Tinniswood was born the year that the Titanic sank. He recently turned 112 and according to Guinness World Records he became the world’s oldest living man in April when 114-year-old Juan Vicente Pérez Mora died. Mr. Tinniswood will need to live for a few more years in order to become the oldest man ever. Jiroemon Kimura, who died in 2013, lived to the age of 116 years 54 days. The world’s oldest living woman, and oldest living person, is also from Japan. Tomiko Itooka is currently 116 years old. When interviewed by BBC news recently Mr. Tinniswood said he had no secret to his longevity. “Why I’ve lived that long, I have no idea at all,” he said. “I can’t think of any special secrets I have . . . You either live long or you live short and you can’t do much about it.”

His line about living long or living short came to me as I reflected on a bit of our family history. Back in 2010 my brother died of a sudden heart attack. He was only 52 years old - less than half the age that Mr. Tinniswood is now. “You either live long or you live short.” I guess my brother lived short. Yesterday we received the news that his widow has now passed away. Like my brother she was several years younger than I. From my point of view she lived short, too. The trajectories of their lives makes me wonder about my niece, their only child. She is young to have lost both of her parents. In her thirties and a mother herself her life’s journey has been a hard one. I don’t know many of the details of her life. Somehow despite being relatives, we have not been able to remain close to her. I only had the opportunity to be with her a few times in her life. Although we have kept in touch over social media and an occasional phone call, I have not been with her face to face since just after my brother passed away. Not knowing as much of her story as I wish, I don’t know how she is weathering the storms of this life. With my brother’s genetics, I hope she is keeping track of her heart health, but I do not know. Stress and heart disease often go together and a young mom trying to make her way in the world without the support of her parents certainly has stress in her life.

There are so many stories of people that I simply don’t know.

Yesterday, I was riding my bike. It was a beautiful day here and there were a lot of people out enjoying the last weekend before the start of school. I had just passed a cluster of other bike riders when a car suddenly backed out of a driveway onto the road on which we were riding, crossing the bike lane. I was easily able to avoid the car and was just wondering why the driver had failed to wait for the bikes to pass when the driver honked the horn of the car. I often hear car horns and can’t figure out why they have been sounded. It isn’t as if the loud noise has a consistent meaning. Maybe the driver was startled by the bikes and sounded the horn in alarm. Maybe the driver didn’t know the law and thought the bikes should have yielded to the car. Sometimes drivers of cars act as if they should always have the right of way over bicycles. Maybe the driver was trying to warn the bicyclists of the presence of the car, though it was a bit late for that. We all knew that the car was there by the time the horn sounded. Because of the way I think, I decided not to let the blast of a car horn ruin a beautiful day and rode on without knowing why the horn was sounded. There is a story there, however, that I don’t know.

As is sometimes the case, I stopped for a decaf coffee when I was out and about. I was sitting on the deck outside the coffee shop enjoying the day and enjoying watching people when a cluster of folks came out of the store across the parking lot. They made their way over to where their vehicle was parked near where I sat. There was an argument between them. One member of the group wanted to get a coffee at the shop where I was sitting. She argued with the others and tried to convince them to come with her. Failing to do so, she asked them to wait while she got a coffee. Another person threatened to drive off without her. I don’t think it would have happened, but they spent more time discussing whether or not to have a coffee than it would have taken her to get one. Then they started getting into their vehicle. It was clearly a small car with room for only five. The woman who had wanted to get coffee was the sixth to get in the car, cramming herself in the same seat as another occupant. I didn’t see any seat belts getting buckled. There is a story there that I don’t know.

I took a short cut through a park that has gravel walking paths on my way home. The walking path is lovely, winding through birch and evergreen trees. The birch trees lost a lot of leaves during heavy rainfall and winds a couple of days ago. The yellow leaves make the pathway even more idilic in my opinion. We often walk there and I was thinking of returning soon without my bike just to walk in the leaves with its comfortable fall feeling. However, as I approached a corner, I could hear the roar of a small gasoline engine. I slowed at first thinking that someone must be using a chainsaw in a nearby back yard. What I discovered was a man with a large backpack leaf blower clearing the pathway. It was a Sunday afternoon. I don’t think he was doing maintenance for the park district. He might have purchased a new leaf blower and wanted to try it out. Or he might have one that is too big for his own yard, so he takes on clearing the pathway for the fun of it. I know from experience that had he not blown the leaves away the wind would have done so in a few days anyway. And it is early enough in the fall that there will be many more leaves in the weeks to come. If he wants the pathway to be free from leaves for a reason I can’t imagine he will have to return. It doesn’t make any sense to me. There is a story I don’t know about a man and his leaf blower.

Maybe Mr. Tinniswood is right. There are mysteries in this life that we will never know. You either live long or you live short. You either honk your horn or you don’t. You get a cup of coffee or you pass up on the coffee. You blow the leaves or you enjoy them where they are. I suppose there are some secrets there, but I can’t think of what they might be. Life holds many mysteries.

Having been raised in an aviation family and having been a pilot myself for many years, I have learned to pay attention to official accident reports when an incident or accident involving an airplane has occurred. I have also learned to take news reports with a grain of salt. When a tragedy occurs, which in aviation is usually an accident involving loss of life, people are quick to seek answers. They want to know what happened, what caused the accident, and how to avoid such a tragedy occurring to them. Pilots share that concern. What can be learned from this situation that will make flying safer? How can I learn from the mistakes of others? Is there something mechanically wrong that should be corrected in other aircraft before they return to service?

The problem with general news when it comes to accidents is that careful and thorough investigation takes time. The news media is interested in quick answers. The attention span of the public is short. After a few days in the headlines, the cycle of news moves on. This means that often what we can learn from reading newspapers and websites is only part of the story. When it comes to aviation news, I have found a few trusted sources that deliver facts, avoid speculation, and offer follow-up news as official reports from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are released.

Applying what I have learned from the world of aviation to boating, I am confident that those of us who have learned from the news about the tragic sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian, resulting in the deaths of seven people, do not have information to draw conclusions. Investigators are working hard to learn what they can, but the ship is still at the bottom of the ocean, 50 meters underwater. Electronic devices that contain critical information have yet to be recovered. The ship is largely intact, which should provide investigators with additional information, but raising the wreck will be a huge and expensive task.

Investigators have access to other critical information that is sometimes lost in accidents. The captain and the crew members who would have been responsible for keeping watch, managing the safety of passengers in the event of the need to abandon ship, and other duties, all survived. The only crew member among the victims was the ships cook.The other victims included the owner, his daughter, and some of the guests. Surviving crew members can be interviewed about details. Human memory, especially memories of those who have experienced trauma, however, is imperfect. Investigators will need to gain information from multiple sources and weigh the psychological effects of the tragedy on the survivors as they seek to understand what happened.

Of special interest to investigators will be the events of 16 critical minutes. 16 minutes passed between the time the ship lost electrical power showing that areas of the ship with electrical circuits had been flooded and the time the GPS signal was lost, indicating the moment the ship sank. 16 minutes is a significant amount of time to assemble all people on board, distribute life jackets, load and launch a lifeboat. However, divers located the bodies of the owner and his daughter inside of cabins inside of the ship indicating that they may not have been aware of the crisis in time to get up on deck.

There are also many other unanswered questions. Independent observers have noted the severe thunderstorms that were part of the ships distress. However, one report I read spoke of a waterspout. Another reported a microburst. Those are two different phenomena to which the ship would have responded differently. Since the ship was at anchor, it would have faced directly into a microburst, while a waterspout might have caused it to spin sideways to the weather.

The ship was of modern design and should have had hatches and bulkheads that could be secured to prevent water from entering the ship even in the most severe conditions. Even having the ship blown over on its side should not have caused sinking if all hatches and bulkhead doors were properly secured. Were there hatches left open despite the approaching storm? Since other ships and their crews in the area retreated to safety, what preparations did the crew of the ship take before the storm bore down on them. Were they aware of the coming weather? A crew member should have been responsible to monitor weather using the onboard radar and other equipment.

It appears that the ships keel was retracted at the time of the accident, something that certainly would have affected its stability given the height of the mast. The ship was equipped with the world’s tallest aluminum mast. If indeed the keel was retracted, why was it not lowered? It is possible that lowering the keel required electrical power and that the crew did not attempt to lower it before power was lost.

I could continue to speculate more and more. In a press conference local prosecutors said they have begun an investigation into potential crimes of manslaughter and negligent shipwreck. While it is appropriate for prosecutors to investigate, it is premature for the public to reach conclusions. The ship’s captain was an experienced and well-respected mariner. If he somehow was responsible for a series of catastrophic errors, it would be out of character. The trade union Nautilus, which represents seafarers and captains, has called for restraint in passing judgment.

Despite our urge to know what happened and desire to prevent other tragedies of the type that resulted in the deaths of seven people, we have to be patient as we wait for the results of investigations. The press has already begun to leave the area. There seems to be little for them to report. Soon the story will disappear from the newsfeeds and headlines. Our attention will be diverted before the truth can be discerned.

I hope that mariners and ships captains are diligent in reading accident reports just as I have learned to be when it comes to airplane accidents. The process of uncovering the truth and learning any lessons from the sinking will take time. Hopefully there will be many who have the patience to reserve judgment and wait for more facts to be known.

The Dalai Lama said, “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” Rebecca Schweiger expanded that idea:

“At least once a year, I go someplace I’ve never been before.
To know that the ‘stuff’ that matters, I can carry on my back and in my heart.
To expand and learn and grow.
To see through new eyes and open to fresh perspectives.
To make new friends and delight in old ones.
To leave the routine, remember the magic, and bathe in the beauty.
To remember that through compassion and our shared humanity, no matter where I travel to, we are all much more similar than we are different.”

We have lived our lives taking opportunities to go to new places. Although there were many years before we discovered the quote and became intentional about it, I’m pretty sure that we have managed to visit some new place every year.

I came by that sense of adventure naturally. My parents both loved to travel and to have new experiences. My father was known for taking side trips just to explore. Growing up with parents engaged in the aviation business offered plenty of opportunities to visit new places.

My parents, however, also taught me the joy of welcoming guests as another way to gain new experiences. They discovered ways to invite people from around the world into our home. International students were invited to holidays. They belonged to an organization that opened our home to guests from other countries. They taught me to experience new places through the eyes of others who came to share our table.

I was fortunate to meet and marry a partner who loves travel and adventure. One year into our marriage we moved to Chicago - a whole new place with a whole new set of adventures. In the first five years of our marriage we lived in eight different apartments. Although we have been fairly stable as pastors, serving in just four calls over 44 years, our work gave us ample opportunities to explore new places. Youth events, conference meetings, writers conferences, mission partnerships, and other church activities helped us to explore and open our lives to wonder and joy in new places.

We’ve gotten to go to several new places this year even though our retirement lifestyle hasn’t yet involved as much travel as we once expected. We went through Canada to Point Roberts just to explore the place. We found a campground that we had not previously visited to explore with our grandchildren. We have plans for a trip to visit our daughter and her family in South Carolina that includes a visit to several places we’ve never previously been.

One of the lessons I learned from my parents, however, is that as a person ages, travel becomes more challenging and it is likely that we will never travel to all of the destinations we can imagine. My mother was able to travel quite a bit as a widow, taking American Cycling Federation tours, a few cruises, traveling with her brass group in Europe, and such. As the end of her life approached she often talked of other places she would like to visit and there were many places where she was not able to go. It will happen to us, too. We will come to the point in our lives where going new places will require choosing destinations close to where we already are until one day we too will lie down and our spirits will travel beyond the limits of our bodies.

We have a long time friend who turned 78 this week. He has been a world traveler. As a child he immigrated with his parents from England to Australia. He became a dual citizen. He has two passports, one from each country. We met him because he traveled abroad to Chicago with his family for his graduate studies. We invited him and his family to travel with us to Montana and they traveled to other states as well before returning to Australia. His ministries involved significant opportunities to travel. As minister for multicultural ministries for the Uniting Church of Australia he traveled extensively throughout the south pacific and Asia. Long service leave trips took him to Europe and the Americas. Serving in his church’s national setting led him to visiting churches all over Australia. He has visited us in every home we have lived in since we met fifty years ago.

The day that his wife died from a sudden stroke they had been to the travel agent and purchased tickets to fly to Greece to attend the wedding of a grandson. He and his son were able to use those tickets and make the trip despite their loss. He has continued to travel. His life’s journey led him to marry again. His second wife was also widowed. Together they have traveled extensively, visiting Europe, several states in the US, and many places around the world. The passing years, however, have brought them signs that there will be limits to their travels in years to come. A recent trip to England brought the discovery that after one’s mid seventies, one can no longer rent a car. Fortunately for them, his wife is a bit younger and was able to rent and drive the car, but the years will soon bring her to an age where they will have to travel by different means.

As his birthday came this year, they have decided to focus their travels on visiting places closer to home this year. He would like to re-visit some places he had previously visited in Australia and show her some places she has never been. There will be opportunities to visit a few new attractions and discover a few new places for him as well. Their love of travel and exploring will continue to enrich their lives even if destinations are a bit closer to home in years to come.

His birthday, however, comes as a reminder that there will be a time in the future when we will not be meeting face to face. Fortunately we have video conferencing that will enable us to connect even when we cannot travel to each other’s country. It is a reminder to us to treasure each trip we are able to take and each new destination we are able to explore. We do not know the future. We do not know how many more times we will be able to travel to new places. Each new destination is a gift worth treasuring. May we continue to open our lives to the newness so that even when we are no longer able to travel to distant destinations we will be able to embrace experiences we’ve never had before.

When I was a kid, we wore shorts all summer long. By shorts I mean cutoff jeans. Holes in the knees of jeans were common in our household. If they occurred when the jeans were relatively new, they were patched. Our mother seemed to have an endless supply of jeans material to make patches. We were allowed to wear jeans with holes in the knees on occasion, but only for play. If we were heading to school, our jeans had to be free from holes or have the holes patched. Each summer, however, we were allowed to wear jeans with the legs cut off. Of course there were places where we were not allowed to wear cutoffs. We wore dress pants to church and the only time we could wear jeans was rodeo Sunday, which was only one day peer year. We wore jeans to school, but always long pants. Cutoffs were reserved for summer days when we weren’t going to church or someplace special.

We would never have been allowed to wear jeans with multiple holes torn in them as is considered to be fashionable especially among teens these days.

I can’t remember our father wearing short pants. He always wore work pants to work and dress pants to church. He’d slip into a bathing suit that consisted of short pants for swimming at the pool, but usually when he was fishing, he wore an old pair of jeans and just got them wet as he waded.

As a result, when I grew up, I wasn’t much for short pants. I owned a few pairs of short pants and I have worn them on occasion at camp or on vacation, but my go to pants have long legs and these days I very rarely wear short pants. There are a couple of pairs of cargo shorts in my drawer, but they don’t get worn very often. Part of the reason is that I have had to have skin cancer treated on my legs and I have no desire to expose more skin to the sun than necessary. I am not much for short sleeved shirts these days and I put sunscreen on my face and hands as a daily ablution.

I am, however, not typical for retired men in our area. I see lots of men who wear shorts. Of course retired men are rarely fashion trend setters. There are plenty of men who wear socks and sandals around here, but that isn’t a look I intend to imitate. I do own a pair of Crocks brand clogs, and I have been known to wear them when walking to the mailbox, but they are mostly reserved for trips to the back yard to garden. And they cover up more of my feet than a pair of sandals would.

There are a few men that I see around our area who wear knee high compression socks with shorts. It is a look that I have no intention of imitating.

Of course, I am not a fashion trend setter. I still wear dress slacks to church. Although it is less common for me to wear a tie to church in the summer, I almost always do so in the winter and I occasionally wear a tie in the summer. I even own two suits that are light weight and suitable for summer wear. It is not at all uncommon for me to be the only man wearing a suit and tie at church.

Summers in the United States continue to get longer and hotter as global climate change shows its effects. People are turning to clothing that is more cool and comfortable. And for lots of folks, that means short pants. Fortunately for me, we now live in one of the more temperate places in the country. It is not at all unusual for the temperatures here to be ten or even twenty degrees cooler than inland locations. However, temperature is not the only factor driving fashion choices. I know several adult men who wear short pants often, including on winter days. A couple of days ago, I went for an early morning bicycle ride and saw a gentleman walking near the beach wearing short pants sandals with socks and a parka zipped up with the hood over his head. I thought the parka was a bit of overkill. It wasn’t that chilly. But perhaps he was on vacation and had neglected to pack a sweatshirt or sweater.

One of the advantages of being retired is that I don’t have to worry much about what to wear. I can pretty much wear what makes me feel comfortable every day. Then again, I have never had to pay much attention to my clothing. In my early career, a suit and a tie or dress slacks with a blazer or sport coat was pretty much acceptable for everything except yard or farm work. I dressed more casually when visiting folks on farms and tried to always be wearing clothing that was suitable for joining in the work for work days at church or visiting on farms and ranches. But my dress shirts and ties were a kind of uniform. I wore similar things each day and didn’t have to put much energy into thinking about what I would wear.

These days, sun protective fishing guide shirts and cargo pants are pretty much my go to clothing for everyday wear. I don’t have to invest much energy into fashion choices. I do, however, have plenty of dress clothes for occasions. I can have a fresh tie for every day for a series of meetings when needed. Of course when I do, I’m usually the only man wearing a tie each day. I don’t care. One of the gifts of being an elder is that I can get away with appearing old fashioned.

Most trips to the grocery store involve me seeing people wearing clothing that I would never consider wearing in public. I am often surprised that people are dressed the way that they are. My surprise, however, is probably just part of being an old man, so I keep my comments to myself for the most part. I’m comfortable allowing others to set the fashions.

We paused to sit on a log down at the bay late yesterday afternoon. We often pause for a few minutes during our daily walk. The beach was almost empty. There were a couple of gentlemen sitting on a log admiring the view a bit farther down the beach. The weather was a bit cooler than it has been. It wasn’t quite chilly, but it wasn’t warm, either. The sky which some might describe as gray, was mostly overcast, but the setting sun rendered everything silver. the sea, the sky, even the boats flowing on their moorings. The tide was nearly all the way in, but there were no people heading out in the boats. Although it is crab fishing season, regulations don’t allow for crab capture in our bay on Wednesdays.

Tourist season is ending around here. One of our friends, a school teacher, says that she always knows when it is time to head back to the classroom after summer vacation. It might be a rain shower or just a chilly day. There is something in the weather that shifts, demonstrating that autumn is just around the corner. It is that time of year, I guess.

There was almost no breeze. The water was flat, with just the gentlest of swish of water against the shore.

For a moment, we were calm and all seemed peaceful with the world.

We know that we are a part of a county that has far too many people who are experiencing homelessness. We see people pan handling on the street corners and sleeping against storefronts. We know that there is an epidemic of meth addiction and that unscrupulous drug dealers are selling drugs tainted with fentanyl that are dangerous and that people become addicted and fall victim to overdose. The small town of Ferndale, just a short drive from our home, has the state’s first public matching that dispenses medication that reverses opioid overdose. The medication is free. It is a sign of how serious the problem is right in our county.

We know that there is a bitter and close presidential election nearing with one candidate already publicly saying that he and his followers do not intend to accept the results if they lose. The threat to constitutional democracy and the peaceful transition of power that has been a hallmark of American democracy is real. We are not blind to the biter divide in our country.

We read the articles about the terrible tragedies of war in Gaza. We have witnessed the tragedy of tens of thousands of innocents killed in the attempt to wipe out terrorists. We read with horror the stories of entire families destroyed while others are left without access to food and medical care.

And yet, despite the horrors of the world, despite the suffering that is so real, despite the threats of violence and the violence delivered, yesterday for a few minutes we sat on a log and felt peace. And the peace we experienced was real. The opening lines of a hymn came to my mind:

When peace like a river attended my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say
It is will, it is well, with my soul

The author of those words, Horatio Spafford, had seen an incredible amount of tragedy. His four-year-old son and namesake died suddenly of scarlet fever. A year later a massive fire swept through downtown Chicago. It devastated the city including many of his properties. Almost 300 people lost their lives. 100,000 were left homeless. Two years later he decided to take his family on a vacation. He sent his wife and four daughters ahead on the steamship Ville du Havre. The ship was struck by another and sank within 12 minutes. All four of his daughters perished. His wife was found unconscious, floating on a plank of wood. Upon arriving in Cardiff, South Wales, she sent her husband a telegram including the words, “Saved alone . . .”

It was reported that while rushing to join his wife, Spafford was summoned to the bridge of the vessel on which he was riding and informed by the captain that they were passing over the spot where the Ville du Havre had sunk. He retreated to his cabin and wrote the first lines of a poem that became the hymn. He later wrote to his wife’s sister, “On Thursday last, we passed over the spot where she went down, in mid-ocean, the waters three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe . . . dear lambs.”

Peace is not the absence of grief. It is not an escape from tragedy. It is not ignorant of violence and death. Peace is a gift that acknowledges the realities of life and death, of suffering and loss, of grief and division. Spafford’s powerful lyrics that can affirm “it is well with my soul,” even when “sorrows like sea billows roll,” are one way of expressing what the bible calls, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.” (Philippians 4:7)

Not far from where we were sitting on the log yesterday is the mariner’s memorial at Drayton Harbor. It lists the names of those lost at sea, including many fishers who died while pursuing a living for their families. A short ways from that memorial is the Vigil sculpture at H street plaza commemorating the families who were left behind while their loved ones went to sea.

We don’t have to look far to see powerful symbols of peace that comes despite the tragedies of this world.

When we greet one another by passing peace each week in worship, what we are sharing is a genuine expression of courage in the face of grief, hope in the face of tragedy, life in the face of death, peace in the midst of a violent world.

Some evenings our sunsets are fiery orange displays of color. Some days the view is more subtle, silver shimmers on calm waters. Each day, we are grateful for the gift of peace. None of us knows how many times we will be given that gift. The span of our lives is short and the supply of such moments limited.

Peace is a precious gift not to be taken lightly.

We played tourist yesterday, driving across the bridge over the Swinomish Channel onto Fildago Island and then south across the Deception Pass Bridge onto Whidbey Island. At Deception Pass we walked across the bridge and watched the salmon fishers below then proceeded to the town of Coupeville for a seafood lunch. Our adventure included a visit to Fort Casey State Park and the Admiralty Head Lighthouse. We had a look at the WW1 coastal fortifications and artillery post.

I have been visiting Whidbey Island for decades. Years ago my brother lived on the Island. I also had a cousin who lived on the island for many years. Our visits to the island, however, mostly involved exploring the southern end of the island whereas we are more likely to visit the northern part of the island these days because we live to the north.

Whidbey is interesting to visit because it can be accessed by crossing bridges from the north. The main access point from the south is the short ferry ride from Mukilteo, near Everett, to Clinton on the island. My brother lived both at Clinton and also in nearby Langley over the years. Our visit yesterday didn’t take us that far south.

We have also taken the ferry from Fort Casey across the Puget Sound to Port Townsend in the past.

Having visited the island previously, but not really having explored the many state parks and other attractions of the area means that there are plenty of new things for me to see when I visit. The island is interesting enough to invite more visits and I am sure that we will continue to explore the area.

I have to be a bit careful, however, to avoid sounding like an old man when I talk about our previous visits. I really do remember earlier times. The times we’ve taken the ferry to and from the island we have never made reservations. I remember when reservations were not needed to get a car on the ferry. We simply drove up, entered the line of cars waiting and were able to board the next boat when it arrived. There is too much traffic for that to work these days. Had we been able to simply drive onto a ferry, we might have taken the ferry to another island yesterday. I checked online to make ferry reservations and found out that you have to make those reservations far earlier than my attempt. I think I could have gotten onto the ferry for the 4 am or 6 am sailings, and return would not have been convenient, either.

I guess that part of being more than 70 years old is that there are a lot of “I remember when” statements that I could make. Memories are indeed a precious part of my life, but I don’t want to become a person who complains about change. It is not that I want to avoid talking about my memories. I enjoy sharing stories with others. However, I’ve spent enough time listening to others complain about changes that have occurred to know that becoming a complainer is not something I want to undertake. I want to practice sharing my memories without dwelling in the past.

There are a lot of places in my past that simply have more people than used to be the case. Seattle traffic is worse than was the case 40 years ago. Campgrounds are more crowded than they used to be. The world continues to change and part of living joyfully is learning to adapt to change.

Part of the joy of our tourism adventures is memory. We enjoy visiting museums and learning about the past. As a pastor, I often told stories of the past of our people. It is important for us to understand the context of the events of the present. It is reassuring to know that ours is not the first generation to have faced significant challenges. We aren’t the first to have known grief and loss. We aren’t the first to have wrestled with the meaning of life and death. There is much we can learn from the past that makes living in the present more meaningful. Being able to share the past in meaningful ways is one of the tasks of an elder in any society. So I don’t want to shy away from sharing my memories.

Back in the 1940’s when the world was undergoing incredible change and conflict, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr sought to provide faithful leadership for the church. As he and his contemporaries struggled with their German heritage and the deep conflict of a World War in which that country contributed to the violence, he wrote the prayer that has come to be known as the serenity prayer. It is a prayer that has informed generations about the nature of change. The prayer has had many different versions over the years and has been adopted by many groups, including Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Niebuhr’s original version was something like this:

“God give me the serenity to accept things which cannot be changed;
Give me courage to change things which must be changed;
And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.”

Three requests equally important: serenity, courage, and wisdom. It may be vanity, but I think that I have achieved some progress in each arena as I have aged. People who knew me in my twenties probably would not have chosen the word serenity to describe me. These days, however, I do find myself calm and at peace in many different situations. I am learning to accept a lot of different things and to deal with the realities of the present. Courage and wisdom may be qualities that are best observed by others, but I feel like I have a bit more courage and even a measure of wisdom these days.

Whether or not it is a sign of wisdom, I know that part of the joy of our visits yesterday is the ability to let go of my sense of the way it was to explore the way it is. This is a fascinating world with incredible beauty. I hope I continue to be able to see that beauty and experience awe as we explore. I’ll continue to be grateful for the prayers of others as I go.

I decided to do a bit of Internet research this morning. I realize that it is difficult to do Internet research and that obtaining quality information from the Internet requires seeking multiple sources, comparing the credibility of each source, and a bit of critical thinking. The topic might require additional work, but here is a bit of what I have discovered so far:

First of all, cats have two types of meow. If you spend time with cats, you’ll observe that there is a quiet, demure mew. Cats also have a much louder sound that is difficult to ignore. When they are determined, vocal cords in the larynx vibrate intensely, sometimes enough to strike each other. Simultaneously another muscle group controlling the size of the opening creates varying pitches. The physiological process of a cat making its louder sounds is very similar to a human singing. Think of a yowling cat as an operatic performer. Like opera, appreciating cats may take a bit of education and practice.

I make this point because it is important to note that although there are many differences between cats and humans, the structures in their throat and larynx, including vocal cords are very similar. This thought brings us to the point of today’s journal entry, a bit of self defense following a conversation that we had with friends last night.

Dear friends are visiting from South Dakota. They are staying in their camper on this road trip and they have brought their two cats with them. The cats ride in a crate in the back seat of the pickup when they drive and when the camper is set up they have access to both indoor and outdoor spaces. Their food dishes and litter box are conveniently located and they have been trained to walk on leashes for more extended exercise and explorations. Our friends have years of experience of traveling successfully with cats.

They are currently staying at our son’s farm which has a convenient place to park a camper. Their two cats are a big attraction for our grandchildren, especially the two girls, who have been making frequent visits to the camper to see and pet the cats. The cats know how to hide when they have had their fill of the children, but are friendly and enjoy a bit of attention.

Last night we had dinner with our friends in their camper. After the meal we were petting the cats and talking about them. I tried to explain a certain feature we share with cats, but hadn’t really done my homework and wasn’t quite sure of what I was talking about. As I wrote, these are dear friends, so a bit of bumbling conversation is accepted. The talk, however, left me wanting to do a bit more research.

Cats, like humans, talk and sing, or perhaps meow and yowl, by forcing air from the lungs over their vocal cords. This means that the sound is produced only on the exhale. Neither cats nor we can make the same sounds as we inhale. The best we can do is to breathe through our mouths and make a whistling sound with our lips as we inhale.

However, when they are contented and comfortable, cats make another sound. A cat can relax and allow the muscles of the vocal cords to vibrate slightly on both the inhale and exhale. As air pushes in and out it flows over the vocal cords enough to create a pulsating vibration that is slightly different on the inhale than on the exhale. But the sound doesn’t stop there. The true sound that we hear comes from the bones.

All cats have something called a hyoid bone. The bone is at the back of the throat and supports the tongue and larynx. When the vibrations from the cat’s vocal cords hit the hyoid bone, it begins to rumble. That low-frequency reverberation is purring. It is amazing how calming it is to have a purring cat sitting on your lap. Not only is the cat relaxed, it helps the human to relax as well. The soft fur adds a touch element to the soothing sounds to make holding a relaxed cat an exquisite pleasure.


That is not all, however. Among other similarities shared with various mammals, especially with cats, humans have a hyoid bone. Just like the cat, we have a bone that sits in the back of our throat and supports the tongue and larynx. Which gets to the point I was trying to make last night. Humans should be able to purr also.

I have made several attempts and when I do, I can get a bit of a rumble in the back of my throat. However, when I attempt to demonstrate this skill to others, all I get are strange looks and giggles. My wife maintains that I cannot purr at all, which is frustrating. How can I learn to purr if she makes fun of me every time I practice?

However, I got no sympathy from our friends. These are people that we have known for more than a quarter of a century and with whom we have shared some exciting adventures and deeply personal moments. We have sat together in hospital waiting rooms and funeral homes. We have watched our children and grandchildren grow up. We have traveled to foreign countries and shared both stories and missional service. The speed with which they took my wife’s side in the conversation was mind boggling!

For now, I guess, I am left to practice my purring when no one is watching or listening, though I confess the sound is very quiet. I don’t need to develop a loud purr. I’ll leave that to cats who have been purring since they were tiny kittens. All I need is a hit of a rumble, enough vocal cord vibration to get that hyoid bone to rumble in harmonic unity. So far, I can’t get it to work on the inhale. What I can do is to trap a bit of air in the back of my throat and then squeeze it out with the muscles back there. I’m not sure what can be heard buy others, but there is a definite bone vibration in my ears. It sounds like purring to me. I guess, however, that it is not yet ready for public performance. At least not if I want to avoid being laughed at.

Then again, laughing together creates wonderful memories with dear friends. I’m glad they brought their cats on this trip.

I think they call them “popup” stores. They are seasonal businesses that rent empty storefronts by the month and sell goods for part of the year. the ones I notice are the halloween stores. Sometimes they occupy a place in a shopping mall. With the changes in the way that Americans purchase and the increase of online retail sales, most shopping malls have empty stores. Around here the halloween stores also open up in strip malls and other locations. For the most part, I ignore those stores and I have never actually gone into one of them. We don’t decorate for Halloween. In the neighborhood where we live we don’t feel any need to decorate. We have plenty of neighbors who go all out with Halloween decorations. We are able to celebrate by purchasing several bags of treats to give to children and sit on our front porch on Halloween evening watching the children and their parents come and go. Our grandchildren come to our neighborhood and make our home their base for going trick or treat because the houses are closer together where we live.

I haven’t been thinking of Halloween much lately, however. After all it is August and Halloween is the very end of October. I’ve still got two and a half months to get ready, and the way we celebrate the holiday doesn’t require much preparation.

However, I noticed back in July that there was a section in a local membership warehouse store that was devoted to Halloween. Since I wasn’t thinking of the Holiday, I didn’t go over to that section of the store. I prefer to dash in, get the specific items I want, and get out as quickly as possible. I think they probably had large bags of candy on sale there. They specialize in large quantities of nearly everything they sell. What I noticed most about the display was that it features several very large outdoor decorations. There were a couple of motorized figures that were moving about. The display was at least 20 or 25 feet high to accommodate the large figures.

Not long afterward I noticed that there is an aisle of costumes and candy in a local grocery store where we shop. I suppose that I could purchase candy treats to pass out on Halloween, but since I won’t need any for more than two months it seems silly for me to have to store the candy and for them to have my money at this time. I’ll wait until the holiday draws closer to pick up the treats.

The creepiest of holidays is experiencing holiday creep. Each year the marketing around that holiday creeps earlier and earlier and the season of marketing gets longer and longer. Slightly intrigued by the holiday creep, I went online to see if I could tell when the popup store would open. I discovered that there are two of them that are already open in nearby Bellingham, and a dozen more scattered in and around Vancouver, BC, just across the border. There are even two on Vancouver Island that are open for business.

It certainly seems like the popup stores must be signing three month leases rather than opening for just a single month. I haven’t been paying attention. Maybe they operate for six months of the year. It seems strange to think of a halloween specialty store opening in May, but maybe they do. I don’t know. I guess it is possible that some stores that specialize in the business operate year around like a few Christmas stores of which I am aware.

I’m probably old fashioned, but I think of Halloween as a children’s holiday. I will have treats ready to hand out when the day rolls around because I like children and I enjoy seeing their costumes. The way the holiday is celebrated in our neighborhood is safe, with lots of adults keeping track of their children. Most of the groups that come to our house have a parent with them. A few groups of teens will come by, and I feel like our neighborhood is safe for them as well.

I don’t plan to have a costume for the celebration. The children who come to our house don’t care what I am wearing. I’ll go with buy usual attire. I think that the costumes are for the children who enjoy stirring their imaginations. Some families, however, have definitely given a lot of thought to their preparations, entire family groups will have theme-matched costumes. I guess those people might be already planning for their night out.

I like having a children’s holiday right before All Saints. The day after Halloween I will think of those who have served others well during their lives and gone before. They are an inspiration for me to engage in service to my community. I like having memorial services in our church and remembering those who have contributed to the community we enjoy. Good things, however, are often more enjoyable because of anticipation. Halloween and All Saints are meaningful to me in part because they are special days. If the costume store operates year round and the big box store has its display of goodies out for months, it seems like the holiday is diluted. Everyday Halloween seems like it would be boring.

I guess it isn’t boring for someone who needs the job. The employees in the seasonal stores probably count on the income from the work and are pleased to have the popup stores open for a few extra weeks and months. Maybe they would like to see the businesses remain open and offer their jobs all year round.

For now, I plan to enjoy August with trips to the beach, visits to the mountains, and a bit of camping. I’ll let the Halloween treats remain on the shelves in the stores for a while even if it means that some of the stores will be decorated for Christmas by the time I get around to purchasing treats for our celebration. I also plan to keep my streak of never having gone inside a popup halloween store intact. They’ll have plenty of customers without me.

Many years ago I was serving as a chaperone with a delegation of youth from Oregon and Idaho who were attending the General Synod of the United Church of Christ being held in Texas. The event involved staying in a downtown hotel and walking back and forth between the hotel and the convention center where the event was being held. Together with other adults I was responsible for the safety of the youth. On of the challenges of the event was keeping track of all of the youth to make sure that they stayed together and no one was lost or left behind. I was constantly going through the list of participants in my delegation to make sure that everyone was where they were supposed to be. One evening I was encouraging the youth to rush to get inside because an intense thunderstorm was about to occur.

I had some experience with thunderstorms on the prairie. I had served congregations in Southwestern North Dakota for seven years. I had seen a tornado descend from a cloud not far from where I was located. I knew to take shelter and be careful about wind and hail and heavy rain. I understood the dangers of intense lightning storms. The youth in my delegation, however, had never seen a cumulonimbus cloud that loomed over 40,000 feet high. The dark color of the cloud was amazing to them. And when the rain let loose the intensity of the torrent was something totally new.

I was rushing the youth under the covered entryway of the hotel and trying to get them to go inside. They were lingering and awestruck by the power of the storm.

After assuring the safety of the youth and making sure that everyone was accounted for, I reflected on the contrast of our reactions to the storm. I had been worried and a bit short with the youth. They had been amazed and awestruck and reluctant to respond to my somewhat fearful urgings to take cover.

At the time we were living in Boise, Idaho where I used to speak of the wimpy thunderstorms that came to the area. Boise doesn’t get the kind of thunderstorms that occur on the open prairies. The clouds simply don’t have the time to form. It practically never hails. When a storm is accompanied by microbursts and intense wind, the area is small and the winds are nowhere near as powerful as occur in other locations. I joked that not only were the thunderstorms wimpy, so were the trees, which because strong winds were rare, would drop branches in what seemed to me to be a mild burst of wind. Prior to living in Boise I didn’t understand that it would be possible to miss the wind, but having grown up and lived in windy places all of my life prior to our time there, I found the air to be frequently stale and stagnant and longed for windy days.

Where we now live we get wind. There is often an onshore wind blowing in from the Salish Sea. While we get foggy mornings, especially in the late fall and winter, we also get our share of clear skies. Our winters, however, are filled with gray days and frequent rain showers.

But we don’t live in thunderstorm country.

The forecast called for a line of thunderstorms to pass over our area in the early hours of this morning. An upper level low pressure system off the Pacific Northwest coast triggered rain showers and thunderstorms. The forecasters called for lightning, heavy rainfall and blustery winds. They warned of damaging winds, downed trees and local power outages.

I have lived here long enough to dismiss the warnings of the weather forecasters. I knew that we weren’t going to see a towering thunderhead like those that roll across the prairies. I noted that the forecasters were noting that the last time a band of thunderstorms swept the area was 2017. Thunderstorms every seven years? Now that is different from living in the Dakotas.

So far, the thunderstorms have been as wimpy as those I experienced in southwestern Idaho years ago. I think I heard one crack of thunder. The rainfall on our skylight was moderate for a few minutes, but we have seen much heavier rainfall with other weather systems.

I think that thunderstorms in the forecast sound here really is a prediction of spotty showers that drop rain off and on in small areas. It could be one of those days when we use every speed of the variable windshield wipers on our car as we drive to church this morning. I doubt that rain will disrupt any of our plans for the day though we may end up taking our rain jackets with us when we head out.

Someone warned me that we would need to get used to replacing the windshield wipers on our cars more frequently living where it rains more often, but so far that hasn’t been our experience. I think that windshield wipers deteriorate more from sitting outside in the sun than from being used in the rain. Because we have a garage for our car our wipers seem to last just fine. I think we’re on our second set since moving here nearly four years ago.

The real dangers posed by thunder showers probably will be more evident farther east than they are out here on the coast. The Cascades have had lower than normal rainfall this summer and dry conditions have spawned several wildfires. Lightning strikes could be responsible for additional fires, though increased humidity and rainfall that accompanies there storms might dampen fires that are ignited.

I don’t mean to ignore the warnings of forecasters and I seek to be prudent and sensible when it comes to the weather, but we don’t often have to plan our activities around the weather. We can go walking in the rain. We can drive on the roads in the rain. We can go about our lives in the rain.

And once in a while we can take a trip to the midwest and experience the awe of a true prairie thunderstorm. We won’t get that by staying at home.

Being a pastor has involved a lot of conversations with people where the topic of death comes up. I don’t want to imply that the vocation is overly morbid, or that it is depressing because it is not. However, being a pastor has given me many opportunities to be with people as they were dying and to be with people as they experienced grief and loss. The overall effect of these experiences has been hopeful and joyful. I learned early in my career that there is nothing I can do to ease the pain of loss and grief. When people experience the death of a loved one their pain is real. There are, however, ways to share that journey of grief. Sometimes it simply involves being there with another and listening to what they have to say. Sometimes it involves conversation. Sometimes it involves sharing inspiration and faith that has been passed down for generations. There are no simple formulas for being with those who are experiencing grief, but experience does help calm fears and grant courage for the process.

Having been given these opportunities to be with those who are grieving means that I have had a lot of conversations with people about not only the process of dying, but the nature of what happens after someone dies. One of the things that being a minister does not do is to give firm answers about an afterlife. We don’t have special insider information about heaven. What I have been able to do is to listen to what others believe and to share with others a bit of what I believe. I also have studied scripture, tradition, history, and literature about death and life beyond death from a Christian perspective.

One of the assurances I offer to others that is a conviction I apply to my thinking about my own death and the deaths of those I love is that death is not the end. The beauty, the worth, the meaning, and the love of someone does not come to a sudden end with nothing to follow. There is ongoing relationship with a person who has died in the form of memory and story. There is a legacy that continues. Our children never met my father face to face. Both of my parents died before our first grandchild was born. But our children and grandchildren know and can tell stories of my father and mother. They are real characters in the life stories of those children.

Memory and story are not the only forms that life beyond death occurs, but they are meaningful forms that are relatively easily accessible to those who are grieving.

One of the hopes that many people of faith share is that there is some form of reunion that accompanies the experience of death. I write of this as a hope because we do not have firm knowledge or direct experience of dying. There are many stories of those who have had near death experiences, but as far as we know dying is a singular event that those of us who remain alive have not yet experienced. Since we know that death is a reality, we naturally speculate about what it would be like to die. Those speculations have been shared with generations of people and passed down to us in the form of faith and that faith is a source of hope when we think about the death of those we love and about our own deaths.

We all know that we are going to die, but we do not know what that will occur or what the experience will be like. To be fully alive, however, means that we must have faith and hope so that we are not overcome by fear and regrets.

In speaking of the nature of death, I sometimes use deep friendship as an example and a sign. There are some people in my life with whom I can continue a conversation that was started earlier. We may be apart for long periods of time, but when we get back together, the conversation comes easily. It is as if we can pick up a conversation right where we left off. I am always eager for opportunities to be with those friends and each time we get together is an occasion of deep joy. I know that they accept me as I am and that I need no pretense. I can let down my guard, say what I think, risk making mistakes, and simply enjoy their presence.

I believe that after death there is some kind of reunion with those who have gone before. I can’t say what form that reunion takes place, but I hope that it involves the continuation of those conversations that we left when we last parted.

For thousands of years our people have told the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. The descriptions of the event in the Gospels make it clear that the experience was beyond description. Words fail to accurately express the actual event. What we do read is a description of three people, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, each who lived in a different time, engaged in a conversation at one time in one place. Those who had died were present in the one who was alive so much that it seemed they were sharing a conversation. I find that image to be particularly powerful for me. There are ways that we connect with those who have gone before that defy the way we usually think of time. The past becomes present in a very real way. I can’t describe it fully. It is beyond words. But just because I can’t find the words to express something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

I live with hope about what comes next. I know how precious reunions with dear friends are and how much they mean to me. I treasure the conversations we have had in the past. I revel in the conversations we are given in the present. And I live in expectation of more conversations in the future.

None of this eases the pain of grief and loss, but for me it calms the fear of dying.

If you didn’t understand the geography of the Salish Sea, you might think that the little bay where we live is a lake. When the weather is clear and there are no clouds or fog on the horizon, you can see a string of islands from the shore. Most of the Islands we see are part of the Canadian Gulf Islands. Vancouver Island is a huge island with high mountains that lies beyond Galiano Island, a narrow island across the water. Looking south, we can easily see Orcas Island and when the weather is clear we can identify Sucia Island. Sucia and Orcas are part of what is known as the San Juan Islands.

The San Juan Islands were an area of competing claims and tensions between Great Britain and the United States in the 19th Century. Throughout the period of settlement both Great Britain and the United States had claims to various parts of the Pacific Northwest including the place where we now live. After a long period of dispute, the Treaty of Oregon, signed in June of 1846, established the border between British Columbia and the United States. The treaty allowed the British to retain control of Vancouver Island where the territorial capital, Victoria is located. It established the 49th Parallel as the border. The treaty, however, was vague as to the national status of the smaller islands. The British claimed that the boundary cut through Rosario Strait. The United States claimed that it was Haro Strait. The difference between the two countries left both claiming the San Juan Islands.

Both countries had a presence in the San Juans. The British Hudson’s Bay Company established Belle Vue Sheep Farm on San Juan Island while U.S. citizens continued to move to the island and lay claim to land there. Both nations ignored the rights of the indigenous Coast Salish people who had lived on the islands for thousands of years. After a short period of relative peace and calm in the islands, tensions burst to the surface in June of 1859 when US settler, Lyman Cutler, shot a pig belonging to Belle Vue Sheep Farm. The pig had been rooting in his garden. Hudson’s Bay Company demanded that Cutler pay $100 for the pig. When he refused to pay they threatened to arrest him. US citizens on the island asked the US Army to protect their interests.

By the end of July, a company from the 9th Infantry from Fort Bellingham landed on the island, led by Captain George Pickett. Britain responded by sending a warship to the coast of the island. In an attempt to avoid armed conflict, representatives of the two nations agreed to jointly occupy the island until the conflict could be settled. The Americans established and encampment on high ground north of Belle Vue Sheep Farm. The British Royal Marines set tip camp at Garrison Bay.

The official history of the conflict reports that no shots were fired, other than the one that killed the pig, and no soldiers were killed in the conflict on San Juan Island. The dispute between the two countries was resolved by mediation in 1972. A three-member arbitration panel, led by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, ruled in favor of the United States and the boarder was established where it currently stands. British troops withdrew. The American Camp ceased to be an official military installation a couple of years later. Private citizens homesteaded the area where the two camps had existed.

Although the so-called Pig War was peacefully resolved, there were fatalities among the soldiers on both sides. Seven British soldiers were interred in a cemetery on Young Hill. Four were drowned. Two died of unspecified causes. The final one was accidentally shot by his brother when the two were hunting. The cemetery remains, having been maintained by private citizens before becoming part of a historical park on the island.

U.S. soldiers also died during the conflict. Two died by suicide. One died of typhoid fever, another of a stroke, and a another drowned. One death was caused by a morphine overdose when a medic treated himself for a toothache and took too much of the medicine. U.S. military personnel were originally buried on the island, but their remains were moved to Fort Townsend in 1874 and when that Fort was closed to San Francisco National Cemetery.

Like all military operations the Pig War resulted in loss and grief for families. The deaths by suicide were of note when I read about the conflict because suicide has occurred throughout the history of armies and military action. More military veterans and active duty service members die by suicide than in battle. It is estimated that four soldiers died by suicide for each battle death. The suicide rate among active duty military service people is 2 1/2 times that of the general population. Suicide rates are also higher among veterans than others of similar age.

Suicide carries significant stigma and often is not discussed or studied. The rates have become so significant that an official Military Suicide Research Consortium has been established by the Department of Defense. The result has been that accurate reporting has become publicly available. Increased support is now available for military members, veterans, and their families.

Despite increase research, however, the exact causes of suicide remain a mystery. A crucial piece of evidence is lost in each suicide. The thoughts and the intentions of the victim die with that person. What we do know is that exposure to trauma is higher for those in military service than those in civilian life. Loneliness and disrupted schedules are also frequent realities for those who serve. It is important to note also that those who serve in the military have an elevated capacity to complete suicide, with access to firearms that are part of the equipment of soldiers.

A brief reading of the story of the Pig War reminds me that the risk of suicide is not a new phenomena. Service, even in peaceful situations, can result in fatal circumstances. The Pig War may have ended peacefully, but loss and grief are part of the legacy of the conflict.

Yesterday, when I rode my bike down by the bay it was obvious that it was not going to be an ordinary day for the residents of our little community. Anchored in the middle of our bay was a genuine U.S. Coast Guard Cutter. It wasn’t one of the special rescue cutters, that sport white hulls with distinctive Coast Guard orange stripes on the bow. The Henry Blake has a black hull, but it does have the Coast Guard stripe and the words, “U. S. Coast Guard” plainly printed on her sides.

After I rode from one end of the bay to the other, I stopped for coffee and the cutter was the talk of the coffee shop. Mind you at the time there were only three other people, including the server, in the coffee shop when I arrived. Ours is a sleepy little village and most of our tourist traffic occurs on weekends. The few locals who stop by the coffee shop before 8 am tend to be like me, retirees who get plenty of sleep.

Ours is a shallow bay without much distinction. If you start at the U.S. - Canada border, the first inlet is Drayton Harbor. It is a neat, well-protected harbor that used to be home to a sizable commercial fishing fleet. There are still a few commercial boats based there and there is a crab market and oyster farms in the harbor. Mostly, however, Drayton Harbor is a safe haven for recreational vessels and a few larger yachts. It also is home to the tiny passenger ferry, the Plover, that carries tourists from Blaine across the harbor to Semiahmoo Resort. The resort is located on a spit of land where there used to be multiple canneries.

Moving south, ours is the next bay. It is shallow dip with a tiny marina for recreational boats at one end and a few mooring buoys scattered along the edge. It is pretty rare to see a boat larger than 30 feet in length in our bay.

Off the south end of our bay and around the corner is Cherry Point, where there is a BP refinery and a terminal for unloading crude oil from tankers and loading refined fuels onto other tankers. Beyond Cherry Point begins Bellingham Harbor, which is a proper harbor with cranes for unloading cargo and a real Coast Guard station.

So a 175 foot long, 850 ton cutter with a 58 foot mast powered by a pair of 1,000 hp Cat diesels and a 500 hp bow thruster anchored right in our bay is enough to spark all kinds of coffee house chatter.

The primary mission of the Henry Blake is tending navigation aids along the coast and among the islands. She is equipped with a powerful crane that can lift buoys from the water onto her deck for maintenance. Like all vessels of the Coast Guard, however, she carries equipment and trained personnel for search and rescue operations. In the past she has responded to sinking vessels and airplane accidents at sea. Since her presence in our little bay was unusual, there was brief talk of a possible rescue mission, but the weather was calm and there had been no news of craft in peril.

The true story is probably a lot more boring. The Blake is designed for the crew to live and work at sea. Equipped with enough staff for night watches and a complete galley for meal service, the Blake can travel 2,000 nautical miles between fueling. She is officially based at Everett, but is only at her home port of maintenance and refueling. The rest of the time she is at sea, traveling from job to job. She is known as a keeper, a term carried over from the days when lighthouses in remote locations required ships to supply them and conduct major maintenance. These days lighthouses and navigational aids are automated and require regular inspection and maintenance.

The Blake is also equipped with a large tank that can be used to pump oil and polluted water from the sea when leaks or sinking occur. She has transfer pumps that can be used to empty tanks from vessels in distress to prevent environmental damage. She has other special equipment for responding to environmental operations. Once she recovered 1,400 feet of nets from a fishing boat wreck.

By mid morning the Blake had lifted anchor and headed off to her next job. I rode my bike back home and looked up the Blake on Wikipedia. As Coast Guard cutters go, she is relatively new, officially commissioned in 2000 after sea trails that took her from Marinette, Wisconsin where she was built to her base in Everett, stopping in four countries and eleven states along her maiden voyage. In place of a conventional rudder the ship is equipped with a pair of Z drives that can be aimed in the same direction or in different directions for precise maneuvering.

I’m sure that the talk at the coffeeshop will return to the usual banter about the weather. Things are going to be pretty stationary for the next few days, with a high pressure area bringing hot temperatures to inland areas and the middle of the state. Here on the coast, our pressure should be a little less and our temperatures will be cooler. Highs will be in the 60’s and 70’s, which is a bit chilly for midsummer, but appreciated by locals who for the most part aren’t accustomed to high temperatures. Those who have lived here for a long time don’t notice a few clouds in the skies so what outsiders and newcomers call partly cloudy is referred to as clear skies by locals.

I’ll keep scanning the horizon as I ride my bike by the bay. I know I’ll catch an occasional glimpse of a tanker or cargo vessel and perhaps a BC Ferry on its way to Vancouver Island if there isn’t too much mist on the bay. And I’ll keep looking at the boats that do come into the bay and anchor for a night. There are always interesting things to see when you live by the sea.

I sent out an email notice of an upcoming meeting early Sunday morning. The team usually meets via zoom, but periodically we hold a face to face meeting. The meeting, which occurred last night was one of those face to face meetings.

After I sent out the notice, Nancy replied to all of the people in the email chain, “I will bring veggie lentil soup, ideas, and a prayer for blessing.”

I replied, “I will bring some kind of bread and honey from this year’s harvest.”

Jeff wrote, “I’ll bring a spinach salad.”

Darlene responded, “I will bring fresh fruit salad.”

Cynthia added, “I’ll bring delicious organic red charred from Lake Chelan.”

Mark sent, “I’ll bring cookies.”

In my meeting notice, I didn’t announce a potluck, but a potluck occurred. In addition to the food offered by those who responded to the meeting notice when we filled our plates there were buns with homemade jam, baked beans, cowboy caviar (a bean salad with corn and black-eyed peas), banana bread, and maybe a few other foods that I have forgotten.

Without any advance planning or coordination, plates and silverware were put out, a delightful meal was enjoyed and clean up was accomplished by teamwork. Another group meeting in the building at the same time, asked, “What group is this?” When we responded they said, “WOW! You sure know how to eat!” It was a very good meal.

Yes, it was a church meeting. We’re practiced at potluck.

I serve on the board of a nonprofit that is not affiliated with the church. We had a meal with our annual meeting a while ago. There was a committee to plan the menu and arrange for the catering and another to host the meal and do the cleanup. It too was fine meal. But now that I am in my seventies, I don’t have patience for meetings to plan meetings. I would have been glad to bring food. I would have been glad to set tables and clean up. I did not, however, volunteer to serve on the planning or serving committees. I don’t need more meetings in my life these days. I’m sure I’ve attended my fair share over the years and don’t owe anyone any more meetings.

Not every church committee is as natural about potluck as the crew that met last night, but last night definitely wasn’t the first wonderful potluck that I’ve shared in our church. I was a bit rushed because we had just gotten home from a camping trip with our grandchildren, so I popped a tray of biscuits into the oven while I showered and grabbed a jar of honey from the shelf on the way out the door. I could have stopped for bread at a local bakery had I needed to cut my time even shorter. As it was, I was romanced by the smell of freshly-baked biscuits in the car on the way to the meeting. That aroma blended with a crock pot of lentil soup and a dish of baked beans. Folks were picking a few cherries to nibble on as the group gathered.

It wasn’t just the food that made the meeting meaningful.

After we had shared our meal and conducted our business, folks lingered. We checked in with each other, heard tales of summer adventures, found out about an upcoming surgery and ongoing medical treatment, shared tips on gardening, and found out that a local sports store has bargain priced bamboo cutting boards in their camping section. I don’t happen to be in the market for a cutting board, but were I, I doubt that I would have thought about shopping in that particular store even though I have wandered through their camp cooking and canning section while our grandchildren pondered the selection of toys in the basement of the store.

More important that the business of the group, more important than the meal shared, what nurtures me is the fellowship of good folk who share a common cause. We have planned and hosted a community fair, guest speakers, panel discussions, and other events. We have created a sharing ritual that is used in worship each month. We have read books together and discussed their contents. We have become friends.

These are people for whom I have written prayers. They are people who have prayed with and for me when I have faced challenges.

One of the members of our group has been widowed for several years. She happened to comment on one of the challenges of living alone. Another person quickly offered to stop by later this week and share that chore. That is the kind of community we have formed.

I tried to think about the lives of our children, who are less involved in church as adults than they were growing up in a household where both parents are ministers. I don’t know if they have any communities in their lives where friends offer support and fellowship in the manner of the group with whom I met last night. They do have good friends, and they do belong to groups dedicated to serving others, but sometimes I worry that their lives are a bit short on community.

Like other Christian churches, ours has declined in membership and participation, especially in the wake of the Covid pandemic closures. People got out of the habit of attending worship regularly. There seem to be fewer workers for projects and ministries. The church budget is shrinking as expenses go up. I can produce a long list of problems and challenges. But at least in some groups, we still remember how to do pot luck.

We still remember how to pray for one another. We still have blessings for shared meals. We still know how to work together to clean up a kitchen in a few minutes. We know where the dishes are stored and how to run the church dishwasher. We know who to call when we need a ride to the doctor’s office.

I hope that others continue to notice that we sure know how to eat. Maybe one of them will accept our invitation to join us. We’ll definitely have enough food to share. After all we know how to do potluck.

I’ve owned a mountain bike for at least 35 years. Mine isn’t he fanciest, nor is it the most rugged or the most light weight. Mountain bikes have evolved a lot in the time since I got mine. At the time I got mine we lived in Idaho and I had some friends who were doing quite a bit of trail riding. I took a few rides with them and got to use the lowest of te 21 speeds on my bike. I also got the thrill of rushing down a steep trail, avoiding obstacles, taking small jumps, and such. I learned quite a bit about keeping my weight over the center of the bicycle and using my brakes effectively.

Around the time I got my bike our son bought a slightly better mountain bike. His had suspension in the front forks with shock absorbers. It isn’t a full suspension bike, but the ability to take a few hard hits with the front wheel makes quite a bit of difference. Although I enjoyed that bike a bit, it isn’t quite the right size for me while my mountain bike is just right for a short legged one like me.

I never got into trail riding, however. For the most part I have been an occasional bike rider who will even less frequently take a small jaunt off road. Still I have kept the bike and kept it maintained and read to go. In the last couple of years my bike riding has mostly consisted of following my grandchildren as they grew and developed their skills as riders. I don’t think my bike has been out of the middle range of its gears for more than a few brief tests for over a decade.

Following grandchildren, however, does mean that I have to speed up as they gain skills. i’ve watched grandkids progress from pedal less Strider Bikes up to their first pedal bikes and then to bikes with multiple speeds. At present we are camped in a beautiful state park with a fairly good trail system. The park is at the edge of the Skagit River which means that there is quite a bit of altitude variation. We are alongside Mount Baker and so the land rises dramatically. There is one paved and accessible trail that leads toward the river’s edge. It passes through dense forest as it descends and the roots of the trees have caused several bumps and cracks. Although the trail is labeled “Accessible,” it would be a real challenge to attempt it in a wheelchair. I’m not sure that it would be possible for many who use wheelchairs for mobility. However, there weren’t many visitors in the park yesterday and we pretty much had the trails to ourselves.

In addition to the paved trail, which was a challenge for our youngest granddaughter, we tried out most of the other trails in the park. Riding with our two oldest grandchildren meant that I had to push myself a bit on the winding and sometimes steep trails. After a few loops, I began to regain confidence and was feeling pretty much at home. I was also feeling happy that I have kept my mountain bike for adventures such as this. Although I own a shiny new e-bike, it is a cruiser and would not be appropriate for the winding trails we were riding yesterday.

As we rode I was observing, as grandpas do, that my grandchildren are growing. Not only are they getting more skilled on their bicycles, they are simply taller than they were a few months ago. I’ve adjusted the seats on their bikes, but they are nearing the maximum for the size of the bikes they currently have. In the middle of the afternoon I decided to try an experiment. I lowered the seat on my bike and had my grandson take it for a test drive. I adjusted the seat on his 8 speed bike and had his sister take it for a spin.

I’m not sure that I am going to get the opportunity to ride my bike today. We have to leave the campground to head home around noon and the kids will be eager to ride the campground roads and trails a few more times before we pull out. And both of our older grandchildren have sped up enormously by having the opportunity to ride bikes that fit them better.

The good news is that I kept and have been hauling around our son and daughter’s bikes since they left home for college. They are currently hanging in the barn at our son’s place. Both will need tune ups and lubrication. They probably will also need new inner tubes and will need to have the wheels trued. The owner of the bike shop where I got my new bicycle is a friend and although he is busy, he will appreciate the business of a couple more bikes to get ready. I think our grandson is going to enjoy the bike that was his father’s and I think our granddaughter is big enough to step up to her aunt’s ride. Observing our youngest granddaughter riding around the campground, I’m pretty sure that she will be ready to step up to her big sister’s bike before long, too.

One of the advantages of having four grandchildren living in the same house is that there are a lot of things that get handed down. I notice clothes that have been worn by a sibling, though the kids seem to go through jackets quickly enough that they rarely last long enough to be worn by the next in line. Bicycles are a different matter, however. They are far from worn out by the time a child has grown enough to pass it down to the next one. Although they ride the bikes enthusiastically, there aren’t many good places to ride on the farm, which is located on a busy road with no bike lanes. We have to haul the bikes to find good trails to ride and I don’t get the chance to do that too often.

I think the way for me to get my bike back now is for me to get busy and help the kids step up to their next rides. In the meantime, I guess I’ll get used to watching my bike zoom past being ridden by a child who is really enjoying it.

At Allison Pass in the Canadian Cascades lies the source of the Skagit River. Close to its source, it flows northwest, traveling into Manning Provincial Park. From there it makes a sharp turn to flow south into Skagit Valley Provincial Park. Along the way, it receives water from other streams: Snass Creek, the Small River, and the Klesilkwa River. It flows into Ross Lake which spans the border between British Columbia and Washington. Still high in the Cascade Mountains the river enters Ross Lake, a reservoir that is nearly 25 miles long formed by Diablo Dam. Additional creeks drain into the lake. Below the dam it enters Gorge Lake, formed by the Gorge Dam. The three lakes of the Skagit, all formed by dams are part of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. The hydroelectric project was an important part of the efforts to support the United States war effort during World War II. The electricity generated powered aluminum plants that produced aluminum for airplanes that were being manufactured to fight in the war. The aluminum plants are no longer producing and much of the hydroelectricity produced helps power Seattle City Light.

Downstream from the dams, the river forms the boundary between the sister cities of Burlington and Mount Vernon, Washington before flowing into the Salish Sea at LaConner. The river is around 150 miles long and drains 2,600 square miles. The water flows by at 16,500 cubic feet per second, but can flood to 180,000 cubic feet per second.

For most of its length the Skagit has an aqua green color caused by the large amounts of granite dust suspended int he water. The grant dust is the product of glaciers that are wearing down the Cascade mountains.

Like the other rivers of my life, the Skagit has a story to tell and every time I am allowed to spend time near the river there are lessons for me to learn. For a year, from October 2020 to October 2021, we lived in Mount Vernon and we often walked along the Skagit and marveled at the great variations in depth and flows.

The Skagit is a salmon river. Prior to the building of the dams, the ocean-going fish would return not just to the Skagit, but also to all of the tributary rivers and streams to spawn. The various kinds of salmon had different seasons for the annual journeys. Kings and cohos and pinks each had a time when they filled the river. This made the river banks a natural place for people to live, but they quickly learned that the river was prone to huge floods. Spring thaws combined with abundant Pacific rainfall and caused the river to swell well beyond its normal channel in places. The river would fill with dirt and debris from the shore. Banks would be undercut and trees would fall into the water. The logs would jam and create dams that in turn would be washed out sending walls of water downstream.

The cycles of floods created an extremely fertile delta for the river. The land around the lower Skagit is very productive for farms. After settlers arrived in the area vegetables and grains were planted. The region produces delicious golden baking potatoes and other root crops. Because of the flooding, skilled engineers from Holland were invited to come and help build dikes and diversions. They brought with themselves bulbs and planted tulips and daffodils. The lower Skagit now produces the majority of tulip bulbs planted int eh United States and the blooming fields provide huge loads of cut tulips to florists nationwide.

Offshore in the Salish Sea, the salmon attracted sea mammals. Seals, sea lions, dolphins and orcas all feasted on the salmon as they made their way to the river. Sometimes the mammals would follow the fish up into the river itself. The fresh water from the river mixes with the salt water of the ocean in the delta and ocean creatures thrive in the lowest part of the river.

There is so much more to the story of the Skagit than I can write in a single journal entry. I am only one of those who have Skagit stories to tell. I try to listen carefully to the stories of others, seeking out opportunities to listen to traditional indigenous elders, scholars, and others who know parts of the story of the river. In turn, sharing the stories of the Skagit with our grandchildren has become an important task for our generation. Even though the children now have moved to a home in Nooksack country, a drainage to the north of the Skagit, they can see Mount Baker from their farm. The Baker river is a major tributary of the Skagit. The snow that is on the mountain year round is part of the source of the waters of the Skagit. Furthermore, their father is the community librarian in Mount Vernon. Their family used to live in Mount Vernon, which is how I came to learn the stories of the Skagit.

This year, as we did last year, we have some of our grandchildren with us as we camp in Skagit country. Last year we camped near the Baker River and played in Baker Lake. This year our campsite is alongside the Skagit. The river has created wonderful sandy beaches in this area, yielding a great area for the children to play at the edge of the river. The river is close enough to the snow and ice of the mountains to be very cold so the children don’t stay in the water very long, but they are learning first hand lessons that children have learned alongside this river since time immemorial. In the evenings around the campfire we tell stories, including stories of the river and the creatures that live in it.

Grandparents have been camping with grandchildren and telling Skagit stories in this region for thousands of years. Surrounded by a lush forest of giant Cedar, Douglas Fir, Hemlock and Spruce trees we are sheltered from the winds. Leaving their technology behind the children have time to play and read books and tell stories.

Grandpa has his computer and sneaks a few moments to write in the night, but soon it will be put away for another day of playing, learning, and growing together.

Please note: For the next couple of days we will be camping with our grandchildren. I expect that I will have cell phone service in the place where we are camping and will be able to publish my journal as usual. However, cell phone service can be spotty and unpredictable in the north Cascades. If you don’t see my journal for a couple of days it is not an indication of a problem. I’ll be back at home Tuesday afternoon and will publish journal entries when I return if I am unable to do so while we are camping.

In 1862, stargazers Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle, working independently, both discovered a comet orbiting the sun in our solar system. As is the tradition, the comet was named after its discoverers. Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is a large comet. Its nucleus is 16 miles across. That is more than twice the size of the object that struck the earth leading to the end of the era of dinosaurs. Swift-Tuttle is not posing any threat of collision with our planet, however. Its orbit around he sun takes a long time. Its closest approach to the sun occurred in 1992 and it will take 133 years for it to return to the place in its orbit closest to the sun in 2125.

Comets, however, leave long tails of debris behind them as they travel through the universe. The earth, in its annual revolution around the sun passes through the tail of the comet each year in August. When tiny bits from the comet enter the earth’s atmosphere they burn up brightly and form bright bursts in the night sky that we call “falling” or “shooting” stars. They aren’t stars at all, but the streaks of light appear as bright as distant stars because they are so close to the point of our observation. The annual trip through the tail of Swift-Tuttle is known as the Perseid meteor shower.

During the peak of the Perseid shower viewers can see as many as 100 meteors per hour. these pose no danger to people on earth. They burn up completely and penetrate only to a height of 50 to 60 miles from the surface of the earth. Furthermore, these are very small objects. Most of them are only about the size of a grape seed. A particularly bright example might be as big as a pea.

The ability to see the meteors is dependent upon how much light there is from other sources, so the best place to view the Perseids is away from urban lights. The ability to see the objects can also be diminished by a bright, full moon that lights up the night sky. Tonight and tomorrow are projected to be the height of the shower for this year and the viewing should be good as the moon is a waxing crescent and will be at its brightest right after sunset. Those viewing the night sky will have the best opportunity to see meteors an hour or more after sunset.

We will be camping with our grandchildren tonight and tomorrow. Our campground is in the North Cascades, away from the lights of Vancouver that usually interfere with our watching the night sky. It should be as good as it can get.

However, we probably won’t see any meteors this year. The forecast is for clouds all of the time that we will be camping. Our grandchildren are natives to this part of the world and we have lived here long enough to have adjusted to weather in the Pacific northwest. A few clouds will not dampen our adventures. Even a little rain won’t keep us inside. We have a gas fire pit, approved for use during droughts and fire bans in state parks and campgrounds. We’ll likely be sitting around the campfire toasting marshmallows for s’mores when it is dark. It might be perfect for watching meteors, but there will likely be a layer of clouds between us and the light show taking place a few miles above our heads.

It won’t be the first time I’ve missed seeing the Perseids. I think I’ve missed them more often than I’ve seen them. I did get a fairly good look at them a couple of years ago. I was outside on our deck at this house and I saw not only the meteor shower but the chain of satellites known as star link passed overhead. That train of lights is always interesting to view. Combined with the frequent flashes of light as bits of the tail of Swift-Tuttle burn up entering the atmosphere, I was given a real treat that evening.

The ancients spent a lot of time gazing at the night sky. Even though they didn’t fully understand the movement of planets and stars and comets and other astronomical phenomena, they were observant enough to notice the position of lights in the night sky and trace the movement of objects in relationship to the earth. Even though Swift-Tuttle was “discovered” and named only 162 years ago, the annual meteor shower was observed for millennia before its cause was known. Stories and myths grew out of the observances of phenomena in the night sky.

Shooting stars have been interpreted as signs of new beginnings and of endings. Some cultures associate shooting stars with spiritual awakening or deepening. Some of the ancients believed that shooting stars were the manifestation of spirits and even that their appearance could be interpreted to predict a future event. Other ancient observers viewed meteors as the souls of departed loved ones, traveling to the afterlife. Modern science has given us its own stories and explanations of the bright lights that appear in mid-August each year. We are observing an event that people have observed on earth since time immemorial. Even though our stories are different from theirs, we have a connection with those who have gone before.

Whether or not we see any shooting stars in the next couple of evenings, we will be sitting around the campfire with our grandchildren and we will be telling stories just like our ancestors have done. We may even tell some of the stories of those ancient ones. Their stories connect with ours as we share experiences that will feed stories in years to come.

In my career as a pastor, I was careful about expressing my political opinions. I worked hard to build diverse communities in the congregations I served. It was important to me to have the church be a place where people with different political opinions could worship together and discover their common humanity. It was important that we learn to serve together despite political differences. It wasn’t that I was hiding my political opinions. It was just that I chose not to tell others how they should vote.

I have taken a similar approach to the entries I publish in this online journal. For the most part, I have avoided writing about politics. I’m sure that regular readers of this journal have a pretty good sense of where I stand politically. I have not hidden my feelings about certain political issues. But it is important to me to be able to communicate with those who disagree with me as well as those who agree with me. I want to listen carefully to those whose opinions are different from mine.

I’ll give you fair warning. This entry contains political commentary. You don’t have to agree with me, but I hope you will try to understand my position. I want to make two observations about politics in the United States today. In doing so, I stand in a long tradition of Congregational ministers who have spoken of the relationship between faith and politics. In there heritage of the United Church of Christ that I served is the strain of Congregationalists. The church of the Pilgrims and Puritans had its roots in politics. Differences with the King of England was at the heart of the reasons those people of faith left Europe to settle in what was to become the United States. 14 signers of the Declaration of Independence were members of our church. The Mayflower Compact was an important predecessor document to the US Constitution. Congregational preachers used to hold election day sermons in which they spoke about the relationship of faith and the elections that were being held. Our church is a grassroots organization, governed by democratic voting and representation in our churches denominational settings.

My first political observation is that there are many who claim the name Christian who have strayed far from the teachings of Jesus. The relationship that certain evangelical churches and leaders have with MAGA republicans is not a holy alliance. Before slavery was abolished in this country some claimed that since slavery is mentioned in the Bible, Christians should be pro slavery. The leaders of our church, however, argued against slavery on Biblical grounds. Congregations of our denomination were labeled illegal in several slave states because of the outspoken abolitionists in our church. The fear of immigrants, the separation of immigrant families, and other central tenants of the MAGA movement are not Biblical. Tax breaks for rich people and corporations is the opposite of Jesus’ teachings.

There is nothing new about the abuse of scripture in support of political gains. It has been going on throughout history. It is important, however, for people of faith to speak out against the popular notion that Christian values align with Republican values. Look no farther than the top of the Republican ticket. Misogyny and racism are not Christian values. Affairs with porn stars and rape don’t reflect Christian tenets. Revenge is not a Biblical teaching.

My second political observation is one that is very important to me. This could be my slogan: “Every state is a purple state and every vote matters.”

I will use President Trump’’s appearance in Montana last night as an example. Political pundits have questioned the decision to appear in a state with a small population where the three electors went for Trump in both of his runs for president and where the polls show a lead by President Trump in the 2024 race. There is no question in my mind why the appearance took place, however. Montana has two senators, one Republican and one Democrat. Both won by narrow margins. The democrat, John Tester, is up for re-election this year. President Trump carries a grudge against Tester because Tester served on the committee that investigated the nomination of Trump’s personal physician, Ronny Jackson, to become the secretary of Veterans Affairs. The nomination was eventually withdrawn after Jackson’s record came out in testimony before the committee. Trump sees the defeat of Tester as an opportunity for political revenge.

I know John Tester as a Montana Wheat farmer. After he had been elected to the US senate, he worked for a day alongside other ranchers raising a new house for a neighbor. That neighbor was my cousin. I have a personal stake in Montana politics. So it is important for me to note that although President Trump won all three electors from Montana in the 2020 election, 244,786 Montanans voted for his opponent. Gallatin County, where Trump spoke last night went for Biden in 2020. Montana is not all of one political opinion or one party.

South Dakota, where we lived for 25 years is seen as a “solid red” state. All statewide offices are held by Republicans. But only 308,000 of the 608,000 registered voters are registered as Republican. To say that the state is red is to discount the votes of nearly half of the population.

Every state is a purple state and every vote matters.

In Montana as in South Dakota, it is important to consider how people vote on the reservations. Native Americans no longer are the majority in either state, but their perspectives are important. In both states the reservations tend to vote Democrat in presidential elections. Listening to our indigenous neighbors is a very important part of understanding our communities. How they vote tells an important part of our story.

Everywhere we have lived we have had neighbors who hold different political beliefs and who vote differently from us. A couple of years ago there was a vote in our neighborhood over a proposed tax increase to support our local library. The measure received a majority of the votes. In fact, it fell only six votes shy of a 2/3 supermajority. Those six votes, however, ruled the day because according to the law, a 2/3 majority was required for the measure to pass. Funding for the new library was not secured.

Every state is a purple state and every vote matters. Whether you agree or disagree with me, I sincerely hope you vote each time you have the opportunity. Every vote matters.

I remember the mixed feelings I had about moving away from Montana. I love the state of my birth. I saw myself as a person of the mountains. I thought that I would always live there. I wrote stories and poetry about the places I loved: little-visited waterfalls and remote lakes that could be reached only by backpacking. I delighted in natural wonders: hot springs, glaciers, snowfall and spring flowers. I found joy in the high country and nothing soothes me to sleep like the sound of a rushing mountain stream.

However, the education we wanted to pursue was simply not available in Montana. There are no theological seminaries credited by the Association of Theological Schools in that state. Our college grades were good enough to earn us a place in a good graduate school, so we limited our search to the three places in the United States with clusters of graduate theological schools that allowed cross registration: Boston, Chicago, and Berkeley. When we were accepted to Chicago Theological Seminary and offered fellowships our search ended. We had several mentors who had graduated from that school. We left for Chicago with the promise to ourselves that we would work summer jobs in Montana. Nine months in the city and three months in the mountains. Although the pay was not as much as we would have earned in other jobs, we became managers and cooks at the church camp in the mountains where we met and where I had gone every summer of my life.

There was genuine disappointment when upon graduation there were no congregations in Montana searching for recent seminary graduated. Accepting the call to two congregations in southwestern North Dakota. Our new home was 75 miles from the Montana border and definitely not in the Mountains.

The surprise to me is that I not only fell in love with the people, I was stunned with the beauty of the place. Where we lived we could see the weather coming hours before it arrived. The drama of summer thunderstorms was awe inspiring. I quickly found places where I could stand on a hill and look around seeing no human-erected structures other than a fence line. The wind in my face was invigorating. Fields of sunflowers, each blossom facing the same direction were magical. I quickly felt at home amidst the prairies and cattle ranches. The area where we lived was the place where the last truly large herds of buffalo roamed and it was the land where the last tribes to be forced onto reservations lived before the final waves of homesteading. The community where we lived was young - only 75 years old. We moved into the face of the looming farm crisis that brought hard economic times to the region and forced people to seek community that they could build themselves. It was a good time to be a pastor on the prairies.

We almost got our chance to move to the mountains with our next call. After our North Dakota Years, we received a call to minister to a congregation in Boise, Idaho. Boise was a city and I have never been much of a city person, but Idaho has dramatic mountain scenery. Boise sits at the very northern end of a great desert basin. The annual rainfall is very slight, but 25 miles from town you are up in truly dramatic mountains covered with lush forests. In Idaho I was able to return to my mountain roots, but I also became familiar with the beauty and natural diversity of the high desert.

And then we moved to South Dakota, our home for 25 years. As a Montana native, I couldn’t let myself fall into the local way of calling the Black Hills mountains. I persisted in calling them hills. What I couldn’t deny is their amazing natural beauty. Our home was near a pine forest half way between the church and a reservoir where I loved to paddle. The sunrises in the hills are amazing beyond description and there are all kinds of places where one can be alone with a short walk or paddle. I hiked, rode my bike, and paddled to places of great natural splendor. Standing at the top of Black Elk (formerly called Harney) peak and looking to the east, there is no natural feature of any kind anywhere east of that point in the United States that is as high. I used to tell my friends that “it is all downhill from here.” Of course that refers only to the view to the east as the Rocky Mountains to the west rise thousands of feet higher.

And now, following the lead of our son and his family, we have arrived to a home in the corner of the United States. We live where Washington meets Canada and the Pacific Ocean. And there is no doubt that we are surrounded by natural beauty. From our bedroom window we an see snow-capped peaks. A short drive up a steep road brings us to high country where the snow never melts. A 15-minute walk takes us to the beach of a lovely calm bay of the Salish sea. I’ve taken to ending our daily walks by saying to Susan, “Thank you for taking me to such a beautiful place.” It isn’t just a line. I really do feel deep gratitude for being able to live in this place.

I know that last night’s dramatic sunset over the bay was the product of wildfire smoke in the air. The offshore winds have stopped as high pressure moves into our area and the smoke in the air is from fires in our state. There are active fires on the east slopes of the Cascades north and east of where we live and a couple of fires right on the border with British Columbia. Yesterday’s weather allowed the smoke to drift our direction, making me sneeze more than usual and creating a dramatic sunset.

Regardless of the reasons, the sun setting over the bay was breathtaking. We sat on a log in silence and simply took in the beauty. 50 years after moving from Montana, it is finally beginning to sink in that there are many beautiful places in this world. I am incredibly fortunate to have lived in several of them. Natural beauty restores my spirit in ways for which I wall always be grateful.

We met a new neighbor yesterday. While we were taking our daily walk to the beach, a woman who was out walking her dog asked us for directions and our conversion continued as we answered a few more questions about our neighborhood. We aren’t old timers. Our third anniversary in this house is coming up in October. But a couple of years is enough to bet oriented and understand a bit of the layout of our neighborhood. It can be confusing as the streets curve around. When we come from our son’s farm, we make a right turn onto our street and we are going north. But by the time we get to our house the street has turned 90 degrees and is going east-west and when we turn left into our driveway we are once again facing north.

For those who are new to the neighborhood, the confusion isn’t helped by the real estate advertisements. Nearly every house in our neighborhood that comes up for sale features photographs of the roof of the house taken by a drone. The photo faces the ocean, so the water is visible in the background. Just because there is a view of the water from the air above a house doesn’t mean that you can see the ocean from the house, however.

As we talked, we found that the woman had just moved into a house down the street from ours. We watch the for sale signs go up and down in the neighborhood as we walk around so we know which house she has just moved into. We don’t know much of her story, but one of the things she told us as we were standing there is that she was absolutely amazed to be able to go outside for a walk in the middle of the day in summer. Since we are used to walking every day and often walk in the middle of the day we asked where she had lived prior to moving to our neighborhood. She has come from somewhere in Texas. She said that last summer in that town there were a couple of weeks when it got above 110 degrees every day and it remains above 100 degrees even overnight some days. Folks there go from air-conditioned home to air-conditioned car and don’t spend much time out doors in the summer.

It is hard for me to imagine living in such a place. We’ve visited some hot places over the years and I know how hard it is for me to go to sleep if I am too hot. The days are warm here and some days we turn on our air conditioning for a little while to cool our house. One of the luxuries of having solar panels is that they produce more electricity than we consume at this time of the year even if we run our air conditioning. Thus we don’t have increased energy costs if we turn on the AC. However, it cools enough in the evenings that we can turn off the AC and open up our windows. We sit outside on our deck to eat our dinner most days. Most days it is very comfortable to sit on our front porch with our morning cup of tea. Furthermore, this isn’t our rainy season, so we don’t have to wear rain gear to go for our daily walk as is the case for many days in the winter.

Compared to many places around the world we have very temperate climate. Not only does it not get too hot here in the summer, it doesn’t get too cold in the winter. We see a little snow and sometimes it will snow enough to make a snow man before it melts, but locals don’t own show shovels. For the most part people just wait for the snow to melt when it falls. Since we’ve lived here the snow hasn’t ever lingered for more than a couple of days. I own winter gear from living in South Dakota that remains in my closet because I don’t need to dress that warmly here.

We did not move to this home because of the weather. We moved to be close to our son and his family. The weather is a bonus. There have even been a few times when I missed the sunny skies of South Dakota during a stretch of cloudy days. I even miss having a good blizzard, though any amount of snow causes folks to stay home around here. The schools here have more snow days than has been the case in any other place we have lived despite there being a lot less snow here.

I don’t know much of the story of the neighbor we met yesterday, but it strikes me that she is among what I suspect will be a continuing trend in years to come. People moving to our area because of the temperate weather and moving away from places that once were comfortable but have become too warm because of global warming. It isn’t just the summer temperatures that create climate refugees. People who have lost their homes to flooding or wildfire may seek to relocate to places with lower risks of those dangers.

There are more people in the world than ever before and the increase of human population continues to accelerate. All of those people are not spread evenly across the globe. People have long clustered together in cities. With the rise of remote working people may choose to live a bit more distant from urban centers. However, the majority of the people in the world continue to live on coasts near the water.

Our entire region is experiencing a shortage of houses. There are more people than there are houses. This drives the price up and there is an increasing population of people who have no home to call their own. This makes a place, like ours, where one can survive outdoors without freezing and avoid becoming ill from excessive heat, desirable.

More climate refugees are headed our way. Not every one will find an affordable place to live. It remains to be seen how deep the influx of people will change our communities, but change is certain. Conversations like we had yesterday will become more common. I hope we can continue to be welcoming and open to new people as they arrive.

Down at the waterfront in our little community is a restaurant that has historic photographs on its walls. The photographs show scenes for the amusement park that was located in our village. Many of the attractions were next to an on a long pier that extended out from the place where the restaurant is now located. I’m not sure of the exact timing of the photographs, but the cars in the photos appear to be from the 1950s. A promotional postcard of the Birch Bay Amusement Park described it as the “Coney Island of the Northwest.” The park featured a carousel, a rollercoaster, a ferris wheel, and a row of booths featuring games of skill with stuffed animals as prizes.

Amusement parks figured in several family vacations when I was growing up. One memory is of the amusement park that we didn’t visit. When I was eight years old, we took a family vacation. It was our family’s second big trip with our twin-engine Beech 18 airplane. Two years prior, we had made a cross country flight to Washington DC, with a fuel stop in Indianapolis and a visit to Chicago on the return. Such trips were a big deal and pretty expensive for our parents. Our folks saved he money that they estimated they would have spent on smoking if they smoked and it amounted to at least fuel money for the airplane for a big trip every other year. My father’s work schedule didn’t allow for much time off during the summer, but one week every two years could be accomplished with planning.

When I was eight years old the planned trip was to Salt Lake City and on to San Francisco with a nonstop return. For us kids, the main reason to go to Salt Lake City was the Lagoon Amusement Park. The park is still operating, and I’m sure it has many more rides now than was the case back then, but I remember at the time looking forward to riding the merry go round, the tipsy tea cups and the roller coaster. We knew about all of the rides because we had seen the advertisements for the park on television.

Because we lived in a small town next to the mountains, we couldn’t receive television signals on the conventional television antennas of the day. A couple of entrepreneurs in our town erected a large antenna on airport hill and delivered signal to televisions in town via cable. Ours was one of the first towns in our area to have cable television. The system delivered two stations from Billings Montana and two stations from Salt Lake City as well as a local camera that was focused on a set of weather instruments set up near the antennas. I don’t know why we had signals from Salt Lake. Perhaps it had to do with FCC licensing, or the quirks of signals traveling through mountains. Whatever the reason, we received two stations with advertisements for Lagoon. I was pumped to go. It seemed to me that it would be the high point of the trip.

We arrived in Salt Lake and it took some time for our father to arrange for the rental car. Then there was the challenge of navigating from the airport to our hotel with paper maps. In those pre-GPS days we used paper maps for all of our navigation, whether traveling by air or by road. Our mother was the navigator who sat with the maps in her lap and gave dad turn by turn instructions. I think there was some confusion about directions and perhaps a missed turn or two. The tension in the car was rising. And we were a gang of kids in the back and not paying much attention. Our excitement turned into bickering and I’m sure we were getting louder and louder. At one point our father declared, “If you kids don’t settle down, we won’t be going to Lagoon!” The threat had been issued. But we couldn’t settle down. My parents believed in keeping promises. We never went to Lagoon.

Instead we took a tour of the Mormon Tabernacle. It was an impressive visit. The acoustics in the building were amazing I remember dividing our family into two groups and going to opposite sides of the building where we could clearly hear the other group way across the big space. We weren’t Mormon, so we couldn’t go inside of the temple, but there was a lot to see in downtown Salt Lake City.

The next day we headed to San Francisco. I think we had been better behaved since we lost out on the visit to Lagoon. At any rate, a visit to Playland was included in the plans for San Francisco. I don’t remember a lot about the place. I did ride the carousel and ferris wheel as well as some smaller rides. We drove bumper cars with two people in each car and sparks flying everywhere. And I was too short to ride the roller coaster. My big sister got to ride, but I had to watch from the ground.

Playland has now been closed for fifty years. There aren’t that many people around who remember it. I wonder what happened to the animated devise dressed with a woman’s dress and a long-haired wig that laughed as people walked by. I marveled at it. There was a house of mirrors and a place where jets of air came up from the floor as you walked by.

I’m sure that the costs of maintenance and insurance probably don’t make amusement parks into large profit generators these days. The amusement park at Birch Bay is only a memory for old timers. No one seems to know what happened to the carousel. The other rides were probably dismantled and hauled to the junk yard. Up on the hill stands a large waterslide park that failed to open this year. There have been rumors that the owners are working at getting things repaired and inspected to open next year, but it sure doesn’t look like it. The weeds are getting tall and the slides are showing the effects of sunlight and years of use. I suspect that they too will be gone in a few years.

Maybe we can still claim to be the Coney Island of the Northwest. After all that amusement park closed permanently last year. I have never been a fan of roller coasters and I don’t think I’m getting any taller.

It is official. Our grandson’s first day of Kindergarten has been delayed. From my point of view, school starts early in South Carolina. The schedule had been for a “meet and greet” with teachers and a look at the classroom tomorrow and the first day of school on Friday to give kids a weekend to adjust before going into the full week-long schedule next Monday. However, the new schedule is for the first full day of school to be Monday with an opportunity for parents to see the classrooms and meet the teachers after school. Our daughter isn’t happy. As a former preschool educator, she would be more comfortable to know exactly which classroom her son will be in. Sometimes, however, you have to make adjustments. No one can control the weather.

They are going to see some weather where she lives. The rain is falling hard there right now and is predicted to increase. The forecast is for nearly 9 inches of rain today with more than five tomorrow, a couple more inches on Thursday and nearly an inch on Friday. That’s a lot of rain. Flooding is likely. It is a big storm.

I read an article on why tropical storms are arriving earlier, becoming bigger, and moving slower than ever before. I confess I didn’t understand all of the technical information in the article, but increasingly violent storms are part of global warming. Unlike some tropical storms and hurricanes, this one is moving only about 7 mph with the center of the storm remaining just off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina for a couple of days before making landfall and heading on towards North Carolina and Virginia.

A huge roaring storm that gathers water from the ocean and dumps it on land means that the danger from this storm will be less from high winds and more from heavy rainfall.

The storm has been named Debbie.

The practice of giving human names to storms became common during World War II. The use of aircraft for warfare demanded a rapid increase in the study of weather for strategic purposes. Meteorologists fell into the practice of giving storms names so that they could easily be distinguished from one another, especially tropical storms, which were a huge factor in the Pacific theatre of that war. Naming cyclones and hurricanes also helped with communications with the public. When multiple storms struck a region, naming them helped people keep from confusion and made it easier to track the progress of a storm across a region. After the war the practice continued with the selection of short, easily remembered names.

I confess that not all of the names are easy for me to remember, but Debbie falls into the nasty to remember category.

I don’t want to cast dispersions on another person and I fear that folks who knew me as a child will easily make a direct identification, something that I usually try to avoid, but Debbie wasn’t my favorite classmate when I was in elementary school. She lived at the end of our block and she and her big sister were a formidable team.

Her father owned and ran the soft ice cream stand that sat on a pad adjacent to our father’s farm supply store. The ice cream was good. The attitude of the owner’s daughters not so much so. Now I happen to have married the daughter of the owner and operator of a small town Dairy Queen store, so I doubt that the attitude of the daughters was caused by their father’s line of work. On the other hand my wife’s father sold the Dairy Queen and worked as a master electrician by the time I met him. And Debbie’s Dad became a banker in our town.

Girls tend to mature a bit more quickly than boys and I wasn’t one of the biggest or most quickly developing boys in our class. By fifth grade Debbie was huge compared to me. And she was not at all reluctant to look down her nose at me. At one time she tried to institute inspections of our fingernails for cleanliness. I don’t know what made her think that she had the authority for such a practice. I just know that my fingernails were constantly dirty. I liked digging in the dirt for worms and getting greasy at our father’s shop. I thought muddy boots were the mark of a man and didn’t mind that mine frequently smelled like a barnyard. I could see no reason to have one’s fingernails inspected and didn’t submit to inspections willingly. Debbie, however, had the strength and speed to catch me as I walked to school. She’d be lurking somewhere on the schoolyard and getting away from her wasn’t easy.

I doubt that the inspections lasted for more than a week, but they left a lasting impression. Tropical Storm Debbie promises to leave an impression too. At least five people have already been killed by the storm. According to PowerOutage.com, more than 150.000 homes and businesses are without power in Florida with another 36,000 in Georgia and South Carolina. The numbers without electricity in Georgia and South Carolina will increase as the storm’s fury continues through Thursday.

Sometimes it just makes sense to rearrange schedules in the face of a storm. The governors of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina all declared states of emergency.

Forecasters predict that this hurricane season, which continues through November, to be a busy one. Debbie is only the fourth named storm of the year in the Atlantic, but additional large and slow moving storms are likely to follow. As the world heats unevenly, winds circulate in the atmosphere and storms develop over the ocean and intensify before coming ashore.

We live 3,000 miles away on the opposite coast where tropical storms rarely have an impact on our weather. Frankly we could use a little rain with wildfires burning all across Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

And I have made it into my seventies with little or no lasting damage from childhood trauma. Something tells me that our grandson will also get through Debbie in good shape. It may be that it is just one of the trials of childhood that build character.

Back in the days when we subscribed to a printed newspaper I would occasionally read the daily column on astrology. As I remember it, there would be a couple of sentences of generic prediction about how the day would unfold and perhaps a bit of advice for each of the astrological signs. The column had dates with the astrological signs so that a reader could determine to which sign that reader belonged. According to the charts, my sign is Gemini and my wife’s sign is Aquarius. I think I once read an article that had generalized personality traits associated with the various signs. Sometimes we would read the astrology column to each other and laugh at it. I never put any confidence in using it to make decisions or to predict how my day would actually unfold. Astrology has never appealed to me.

Not long ago I watched an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. The astrophysicist is a very effective and entertaining communicator and I usually learn a little bit about science from listening to him. In this particular interview he was dismissing astrology as a pseudo science. Among the things that he said is that the Zodiac shifts in relationship to our planet. It shifts about one degree every 72 years. That means that the constitutions of the Zodiac are not in the same positions that they were when the astrological system was established. An example given was that a the summer solstice used to occur in Cancer but now it occurs in Gemini. The latitude lines named “Tropic of Cancer” and “Tropic of Capricorn,” named for when the sun crossed those lines at the solstices, now might be called the “Tropic of Gemini” and the “Tropic of Sagittarius.” The conversation with Tyson was interesting while I was listening, but I didn’t retain much of the information because the bottom line is that I don’t pay attention to astrology and don’t care about it. Whether or not my astrological sign has shifted one constellation over is not something that captures my attention for very long.

The ancients paid attention to the movement of the planets in the night sky in part because in a time before many technologies there was time after dark when people were awake. It was natural to look to the skies and to observe patterns of movement. In an agrarian society, leaning the cycles of nature is critical. Knowing when to plant crops, being able to predict rainfall, temperature, wind, and sunlight were essential skills for survival. In times before the development of scientific method, there were no distinctions between “true” science and “pseudo” science. People made observations and recorded them. Conclusions drawn from their observations sometimes were accurate and sometimes were not. Astrology has its roots in that prescientific time, perhaps as far back as two or three thousand years before our common era.

The tools and information for observation that we have were not all available in ancient times. There were no telescopes. Different people had different observations because some had better eyesight for distance vision than others. Observations were not very precise. Over many generations, however, understanding of the patterns of the movement of celestial bodies began to grow. Somewhere around the first century BC people began to observe a common optical illusion that makes planets appear to reverse direction. If you recall being a passenger in a car that is passing another car on the freeway, sometimes it will appear that the slower car is going backwards from the perspective of one riding in the faster car. The car isn’t actually going backwards, it just appears to be doing so from the perspective of one riding in the faster car. That same process occurs with the movement of planets.

Beginning today, the planet Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, will appear to be going backwards. Astrologers call this phenomenon retrograde. People who pay attention to astrology have been making a lot of posts about the phenomenon, offering advice and predictions about today. Supposedly technology is more likely to have problems and not function properly when Mercury is in retrograde. Astrologists predict that life will have more obstacles during this time. For those who are strict followers of astrology plans should be put on hold. For them it is a bad time to start a new job or begin a new venture.

The effect of astrological predictions on me is that sometimes I seek to engage in the opposite behavior just to prove that the observed phenomena has no impact on my life. Just as I would go out of my way to behave differently than the predictions in the newspaper astrology column, I have a desire to start something new today just to prove that an optical illusion in the observance of the motion of Mercury has no effect on me whatsoever.

I’m not sure what I am going to do. Social media advises against technology purchases, but I have all kinds of tech and have no need of making any purchases in the near future. I guess I need to think of some new project to launch, but I already have so many projects going that it doesn’t seem practical. My list of unfinished projects is pretty long and I could easily spend the next few days just catching up on projects that have already begun.

Besides doing the opposite is just another way of taking astrology seriously. What I really intend to do is to ignore the phenomena, which is not quite possible because I have read a couple of articles about astrology and planets in retrograde. After all, today, as Mercury goes into retrograde, I’m writing an essay on it. That is hardly ignoring the phenomena.

So this August my advice to you is that I have no advice for you. A minister is a poor person to consult for technological advice in the first place. I’m not very good at financial, legal, or medical advice, either. If, however, you enjoy looking at the night sky, give Mercury a glance. You might be able to observe a bit of celestial illusion. It is not really going the other direction. All of the planets in our solar system rotate around the sun in the same direction. We’re all in this together.

There are some books that I have read many times, that have made an impact on how I understand the world, that have influenced my professional growth, or that have touched me in deep ways. They become a part of me. Sometimes, after many years, the words of an author become words that I use in my own thinking and speaking. In a sense the words of the author become my words. Sometimes I go back to the original text, read it again, and discover that there is a nuance that I missed. Sometimes when I re-read a familiar text it presents me with a fresh and exciting new understanding.

People who are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian are sometimes referred to as “people of the book.” Because these three religions share common scriptures, our religion and worldview are shaped by shared words. The scriptures that have been called the Old Testament, those originally written in Hebrew, are shared by all three religions as sacred writings. Muslims recognize all of the Christian Bible as scripture and have an additional volume, the Quran. For centuries our people have shared the same words, read them over and over again, gained insight for living, and incorporated them into our religious ceremonies and activities.

As a student of scripture, I continue to find new meaning in words that our people have treasured for generation after generation. Sometimes I have been honored to serve as a teacher of scripture, sharing with others some of the history behind the words, and some of the ways in which those words have been used by religious leaders and followers. I enjoy teaching in part because I always learn when I teach. Preparing for class and engaging students opens new understandings and meanings for me.

Of course my life is touched by other words as well. Libraries are among my favorite places in the world. I love browsing through stacks of books where I see some volumes that are totally new to me and others that have become friends over the years. I often to to the sections inhabited by familiar authors just to check to see if there are new books by that author. Books have a special place in our home. Many of our books reside on shelves in the first room one enters upon passing through our front door. It is a wonderful place for me. I often will stand and look through the titles on the shelves, pulling out a volume, rearranging the order of the books on the shelves, thinking about how ideas influence one another.

Some of my favorite books have been on shelves in many different rooms. One of the books that has been around for a long time was purchased on the second Valentine’s Day that Susan and I shared. It was purchased at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, an institution of which we are still members. the price was $6.95. I know these details because in those days I wrote in pencil on page 31 of each new book the date, place, and price of purchase along with the catalogue number from the Library of Congress. This particular book falls open to pages 30 and 31 because they are part of a section that I have read over and over and over again.

The Book is titled, “The Intimate Marriage.” It is by Howard and Charlotte Clinebell and was published in 1970. At that time Charlotte was a psychiatric social worker practicing family therapy at a clinic in California. Howard was professor of pastoral counseling at the School of Theology of Claremont. I am quite sure that the book had been recommended to us by teachers and pastors. The fact that I was willing to spend nearly $7 on a book that wasn’t required as a textbook in the leanest days of our student experience means it was important. We’ve shared 51 Valentine’s Days as wife and husband and I doubt if I’ve spent that portion of our resources on a Valentine’s gift for very many of them. I suspect that the holiday somehow gave me permission to splurge on a purchase that I had been contemplating for some time.

In the book the Clinebells write of many different facets or dimensions of intimacy. They observe that each relationship has its unique balance of these different qualities. Emotional intimacy is sharing feelings and meanings. Intellectual intimacy is haring ideas. Aesthetic intimacy come from sharing experiences of beauty. Creative intimacy comes from sharing skills in generating something new. Recreational intimacy comes from playing together. Work intimacy comes from sharing common tasks. Crisis intimacy comes from a variety of challenges over which the couple has little or no control. Commitment intimacy comes from understanding that together a couple is dedicated to something bigger than themselves. Sexual intimacy, (which the Clinebells discuss first) is physical closeness. Spiritual intimacy comes through the sharing of ultimate concerns and meanings of life. Of course this paragraph doesn’t begin to justice to the book, but perhaps it gives a flavor for someone who has not read it.

For me this list of dimensions of intimacy has been central to understanding the marriage I share with my wife. It has also been central to the teaching and counseling I have shared with couples over the decades of my career. These different ways of drawing close to another human being have helped me identify strengths and challenges in the marriages of couples who come to me for help. They have been helpful to couples preparing to marry who have come for counseling prior to the ceremony.

Beyond the use of the book in my professional life, it has given me a framework to explore the precious gift that we have been given in a long and loving marriage. We have been fortunate to have worked together, side by side as members of the same leadership team for 44 years of our marriage. We have job shared, handing off tasks to one another. And we have co-parented and co-grandparented. Our life together has been a gem with many facets and the Clinebells have given us a framework to understand its beauty.

The book is either still in print, back in print, or available on print on demand. Used copies are available from many online vendors. Next February our copy will have been in our home for 50 years and it seems to be in good shape for many years to come. Like so many other volumes, it is a treasured friend.

My first job for pay was sweeping the feed warehouse. It was a job that had to be done once a week and it took enough time that it didn’t work as an after school task. I swept on Saturdays. I don’t remember how much I was paid, but it didn’t take much money for the things I wanted to do in those days. As I grew older and gained skills, I had a variety of other jobs around our father’s farm supply business. Some of my jobs focused on facility maintenance like sweeping the feed warehouse and painting. It seemed like there always a painting project underway. Other jobs were more directly related to the business. I did a fair amount of assembling machinery. Many of the machines we sold arrived on train cars partially assembled, with boxes and bundles of parts that had to be added before the machines went to work in the field.

I remember wanting one of the jobs around the shop. There was a 25 gallon propane tank on a dolly with a weed burning torch attached. The torch was lit with a striker like a welding torch and the tank was heavy, not unlike the oxygen and acetylene bottles used in the shop. The shop was surrounded by gravel lots on which machines for sale were displayed. Weeds grew up through the gravel and periodically someone would go through the lots with the torch to burn off the weeds.

As soon as I got the job, I was pretty much tired of it. It was hot and dirty and the tank was heavy. The small wheels of the dolly were too small for the rough gravel surface and the hose attaching the torch to the tank wasn’t long enough to reach very much without having to move the tank again.

Over the years there were other jobs that I ended up doing that I didn’t like. One fall an out of town combine crew was loading a self propelled combine onto a truck when something went wrong and the machine was damaged as it fell off of the truck. My uncle bought the damaged combine from the insurance company and spent the winter making the necessary mechanical repairs. Combines have a lot of sheet metal. Much of the metal could be straightened, but the paint was damaged in the process. My cousin was trained in auto body repair and had the equipment to do the painting. Before painting, however, the combine needed to be sanded. The areas with paint needed to be sanded to rough up the surface to take new paint on top. The edges where the paint had to be sanded to make the surface smooth. A few places where surface rust had appeared over the winter had to be sanded down to bare metal.

A combine is a really big machine and even though large areas could be sanded with an electric sanding disc, there were lots of corners that had to be sanded by hand. Day after day I would work at the task, covered in paint dust. The combine was red and I showered daily to wash the red out of my hair and off of my body. I didn’t enjoy the job, but was proud of my work. The combine remained a part of my uncle’s harvest fleet well into my adult years and each time I saw it I remembered the summer of sanding.

The work of a pastor is varied. There are the public tasks that are seen by the congregation. Preparing sermons is behind the scenes, but it is evident each week when the sermons are delivered. Visiting in homes, hospitals, and care centers is also pretty visible. The job, at least the way I approached it, involved a lot of meetings. I’ve spent my fair share of time listening to people who needed to talk, sometimes extending meetings well beyond the amount of time it took to do the work. I tired of meetings at times.

I used to joke that ministry was 50% moving furniture. Churches are equipped with moveable furniture. Folding tables and chairs provide for flexibility for a wide variety of different activities. Big churches have paid janitors and sextons to move furniture and set up rooms. The congregations I served depended upon volunteers to do the work. I did a lot of working alongside other volunteers setting up and taking down furniture.

I was also the go to person for clogged toilets, jammed printers, computer network connections, copier toner refills, closet cleaning, responding to spills, and a lot of other chores.

I imagined that being retired would involve a bit less of the jobs I don’t enjoy and a bit more of the tasks I like. However, I find that I have the ability to get involved in jobs that I won’t describe as fun. For example, when we bought our house it came with a hot tub. The hot tub is big and it is old. It was filled and useable for the first year we lived in the house but a slow leak became bigger and one thing led to the next and the tub was declared to be beyond repair. I drained it and disconnected it from its electric supply. I procrastinated about hauling it away because I couldn’t figure out how to get the job done. I asked a hot tub company about having someone pick it up and haul it and the minimum charge for the service was more than I was willing to pay.

I spend much of the day yesterday jacking and blocking and lifting and prying and have succeeded in moving the tub a little bit. I also have moved it enough to know that the task is beyond my abilities. Perhaps if I had three or four strong people to help it could be tipped on one side and rolled onto my trailer. At least that was my theory. For now, however, the job remains undone and I have visions of the summer of sanding the combine. I really don’t want this job to take up all of my time. Options include figuring out how to cut it up and haul it away in pieces and, of course, paying to have someone else haul it. I haven’t decided what I am going to do. Being retired, however, does seem to involve jobs that I didn’t imagine before I got to this place in my life.

My brother had a cat named Priscilla Mullens. We knew part of the story of Priscilla Mullens as children. I’m not sure how much we learned in school and how much was part of the stories we learned from friends. Our family Doctor was Vernon Standish and his family was about the same size as ours with children about the same ages. Jim Standish was in my grade at school. The Standish family claimed to be direct descendants of Captain Miles Standish. It was either from the Standish family or from school that we came into contact with the prom by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” According to the poem, Standish asked his good friend John Alden to propose to Priscilla on his behalf, to which Priscilla responded, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”

We learned a bit about the various pilgrims who traveled to Massachusetts aboard the Mayflower, but our stories were always a bit incomplete. We learned that Priscilla was a teenager on the Mayflower and the only survivor of her family of the first winter in Plymouth. In the stories we were told she was the only woman of marriageable age in the colony. Captain Miles Standish, the military advisor of the colony was widowed. Standish’s friend, John Alden was also single. Two men and one woman was the scenario of Longfellow’s poem, but we knew that somehow Standish had succeeded in finding a wife after having been widowed because we knew people who claimed to be the descendants of Standish. They did have the same last name.

I think the poem, and probably the history we were taught in school were a bit romanticized. According to historical records, The Alden-Mullens marriage was probably the third wedding in Plymouth Colony.

History, legend, and poetry aside, the cat Priscilla Mullens was known to have several male suitors and was a prolific producer of kittens. My father used to stay that there are three stages with kittens. Stage one is when he puts a sign up in the feed warehouse that says, “Free kitten with the purchase of a bag of cat food.” Stage two is when the sign is changed to, “Free bag of cat food if you take a kitten.” Stage three is when there is no sign and he says to a customer, “I’ve loaded your feed into the trunk of your car. Be sure to open the trunk when you get home.”

Veteranary care of pets was a bit different in those days. There wasn’t as much information about spaying and neutering pets. And people in our town didn’t routinely have pet cats vaccinated. The wisdom was that if a cat survived distemper it wouldn’t ever get the disease again in its life. I don’t know if Priscilla ever had distemper, but she seemed to remain healthy while a number of her kittens succumbed to the disease.

I didn’t get along with Priscilla at all. The cat was rather mean to me. Once when I was wrestling with my brother the cat landed on my back with all of its claws out and proceeded to bite me drawing blood from several locations. In our family my brother was the keeper of cats while I preferred dogs.

Our daughter, however, changed my attitude towards animals. She was a lover of cats and kittens and claimed that some of the cats that she brought into our home had adopted her at the shelter. I grew fond of all of the cats she had as pets as she was growing up. I rather enjoyed having a cat on my lap as i read a book in the evening.

These days, however, we don’t have any cats in our family. Both of our children have had pet dogs as adults. Our daughter-in-law has wanted to have a cat around the farm and made an attempt to adopt a couple of cats, but they left the farm as soon as they were allowed to range free from their carrier in the barn. I have been planning to adopt a couple of shelter cats and keep them in he shop at the farm, but I have yet to make those arrangements.

So, I guess as far as politics go, our family is not childless and we do not have cats. However, I think you might count me as a fan of cats and the people who care for them. And since the slur, “childless cat ladies” has been applied to people of both female and male genders, I guess I might fall into that category. At least I can’t see any problem with having cats in the family.

Ours isn’t the only country where cats are making political headlines. In Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, people are angry about a proposed law that would require cat owners to purchase an annual license and provide proof of vaccination for their pets. The law also would require cat owners to confine cats in heat. Opponents of the proposed law suggest that the proposal is simply another example of imposing taxes and claim that it would be unenforceable because most of the cats are stray or feral. They suggest that cats can’t really be owned and as to confining them when they are in heat, the noise would certainly cause problems with the neighbors.

Cats and humans have lived in close proximity for a long time. Cats were domesticated in ancient Egypt 10,000 years ago. In Egyptian mythology Bastet is a half-cat, half-human goddess of fertility and childbirth. In Greek mythology the goddess is Artemis and Diana in Roman myth. Diana could transform into a cat. In Norse mythology, Freyja, the goddess of fertility rode on a chariot led by two cats. Cats and cat ladies continue to be part of popular culture. Catwoman is a major character in Batman movies. In the LEGO movie Mrs Scratchen-Post is the owner of 20 cats. 20 years ago Robert DeNiro was featured as a cat lady in a Saturday Night Live performance.

It remains to be seen what role cats will play in the 2024 US Presidential election, but in my experience, attacking cats and the people who care for them is not a good move. One thing I learned from Priscilla Mullens is that if you mess with a cat owner you’ll end up bloody with wounds to nurse.

There is a part of me that can be competitive. I certainly brought a competitive spirit to earning grades in college. Susan’s and my grade point averages were so similar that you had to go to the third place after the decimal to determine that I had a slightly higher GPA than her. That’s right! .001 points was all that separated us. It was, of course, a friendly competition. We married after our third year of college. I would have never earned the grades that I did without her help. And I contributed to her academic success by typing some of her papers. We have approached life as a team for 51 years and it works for us. Still, there is an element of competition in our relationship.

I used to be competitive with my brothers. I had to learn as an adult not to compare myself with them and not to try to convert them to my ways of thinking and behaving. There were some pretty intense arguments along the way and it was a steep learning curve for me.

I have not, however, been a competitive athlete. There are a lot of activities that I enjoy while knowing that there are others who are far better than I. In school, I participated in basketball, wrestling, high jump and pole vaulting and did not stand out in any sport. I did not earn a letter in sports in my high school career. And I did not go out for an sports during my college career.

As an adult I have enjoyed skiing, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, and bike riding. I am not interested in any of those activities as a competitor, however. I just participate for fun.

I have, however, enjoyed watching others who compete in sport. When we were younger, I thought that one of the things I would like to do would be to attend the Olympic games. In 1988, we made plans to attend the Winter Olympics in Calgary. Our plan was to stay with cousins in Calgary and take my mother along to take in some of the cultural activities and visit Olympic Village as well as provide some childcare for us. Our children were too young to spend the amount of time outdoors required of those who watched downhill skiing events and tickets to stadium events such as ice skating were very expensive for our budget. As it turned out, however, we made our event ticket purchase not from the official vendor, but rather from a very deceiving scammer. Our check was seized as part of the investigation of the scam before it was cashed so we were not out any money, but by the time we found out about it, there weren’t very many event tickets available. We might have been able to be in the crowd for one downhill ski race, and perhaps one round of curling, but there were no tickets for medal rounds left. We decided that the entire trip was bit too expansive for us and cancelled.

I did watch a lot of Olympic highlights on television that year.

In the years since I haven’t watched as much, either in the winter games or the summer games. I catch headlines about the games from the sources I read on the Internet, but I haven’t watched any of the games live. There is, however, one paddler whose story captures my imagination. The Australian canoeist, Jessica Fox, has made the Paris games the high point of her career.

She started out with a healthy dose of genetic ability for sport. Her father competed for Great Britain, winning five K1 titles. Her mother won Olympic and K1 medals for France. Born in France, but growing up in Australia, she showed promise as an Olympic paddler early. She has earned a place on the Australian team for three successive games. She won silver as an 18-year-old at London in 2012, bronze in 2016 at Rio, and again earned bronze in Tokyo in 2020. She missed out on gold medals at those three games by a combined margin of six seconds. Olympic canoeing is won or lost on the slimmest margins of fractions of seconds.

The Paris Olympics of 2024, however, have proven to be her games. She won gold in canoe single just three days after winning kayak single gold. She is the first athlete to win two canoe slalom gold medals at any Olympics. She is also the only Olympian to have stood on the medal podium six times. And tomorrow she will compete in the time trials for the kayak cross event, a race that is marked by a bit of chaos and is always unpredictable.

She is an athlete worth watching.

Sports writers are including thoughts about her possible retirement from the sport in nearly every article about her success. At 30, she is getting old for an Olympic athlete. And she does appear to be at the peak of her game. Unlike sculling, which is a team sport, C1 and K1 are individual competitions.

I can tell that I’m getting older, too. I no longer feel the need to watch the competitions live. I’m happy to read about them a day or two later. And just reading about a 30-year-old earning Olympic Gold reminds me that I’m over twice her age. And that has me remembering that my whitewater kayak has not been in the water for five or six years. I’m not sure why I have kept that little red boat for as long as I have. I doubt if it has any value were I to try to sell it. Kayak design evolves rapidly and my boat is heavy and clunky when compared to the nimble boats available these days. I think it still has some fun in it for a heavier paddler who isn’t interested in winning any competitions. There are plenty of scrapes and bumps on it that are testament to fun that has already been enjoyed.

Even though I’ve never been a competitor, I’ve had a joyful life packed with fun activities that has included paddling. And I have witnessed greatness in the successes of true athletes who go for and sometimes win the gold. I’m glad that I’ve paid enough attention to read about Jessica Fox’s success.