Actually...it's Halloween!

“Actually, I want some dessert,” Austin tells me in all seriousness.  

“Actually…I don’t want to take a bath!”  Or “actually, lets go trick or treating now!”  Austin starts many of his sentences with “actually” which, (actually), because he’s a 3 1/2 year old ,gets my attention every time.  I don’t know where he picked up the word but he uses it frequently either to reiterate what he wants or doesn’t want, or when he’s contemplating a decision. 

“Do you want to go out in the back yard and rake leaves?” I asked.

“Actually, no!” replied Austin.

     I wonder if he doesn’t just like the sound of the word and emphasizing it.  After all, he has always been an unusually verbal child with an ear for language and repeating things perfectly.  But starting sentences with such a reflective adverb is an attention-getter for sure. 

This visit Austin treated me to counting perfectly in Spanish from one to ten and with some help, up to 20.  Spanish is my language, and so it is a thrill to hear him repeat things I tell him or that he has learned in school.

612 15th St. N.E. Washington D.C.

Thinking back on our visit to Washington D.C. with Austin this past week it felt different.  Helping Austin dress in his school uniform of navy blue pants, white collared shirt and navy sweatshirt I realized how fast he is changing.  Then, he put on his colorful penguin backpack with the red class folder labeled “AUSTIN” neatly tucked inside along with his “snack cup” and took his Daddy’s hand. They crossed 15th Street at the corner crosswalk and headed in the tall rod iron gates of Miner Elementary School. He looked so small against the very large two story red brick school.  As I watched him go, I remembered Hayden, perhaps a year older, walking out the back door of our Randolph School house, skirting the soccer field to walk to the elementary building where he started school.  I remembered how Hayden lived the closest of any student at Randolph, as does Austin now!  We chided Hayden constantly for living the closest of anyone and being the last one to get to class!

 Miner Elementary School

PreK - 3 Student at Miner

In the late afternoon, we headed back to Miner, signing in as Austin’s grandparents, to pick him up in the classroom where he goes for After School Day Care.  We peeked through the window in the door to pick out the only blonde curly headed boy playing with the other children.  As we walked in, the teacher assistant called “Austin…it’s time to go…”  He glanced up in recognition and came right with us, backpack and all.   It truly felt like a milestone to be in Austin’s first school. (I try not to think about how old we’ll be when Austin is in high school somewhere!)

“How was school today?” we’d ask on the short walk across the street to get home.  His response was simply “good”.  At home I opened the red folder to read a line or two from Mrs. Mukendi, his teacher, about what the main activity of the day had been.  I learned that asking a specific question like “did you plant pumpkin seeds today?”  or “did you go for a walk in the neighborhood to look at trees?” elicited more conversation. Austin did share that he gets to go to the “big gym” on Fridays for PE with Mr. Robinson.  That seems to be a highlight of the week for him.  We met Mr. Robinson briefly when Austin showed us the gym, and it was no surprise to hear him say that Austin is quite competitive in PE. Austin does come home tired and I suddenly missed the days he loved to take his scooter out around the neighborhood and visit one of the many nearby playgrounds.

This year we celebrated Halloween unlike any time since Hayden was little. Even then, I don’t remember such a lively trick-or-treating neighborhood as the one Austin lives in.  Dusk came after 6 p.m. and I helped Austin put on his Captain America outfit that he had worn all day to school but took off for a rest at home.  A one-piece royal blue shiny suit fit over his sweatpants and t-shirt, with a blue plastic head and face mask, and a red Captain America shield with a big A.  Austin loves his costume and had put it on numerous times.  Once dressed he became Captain America and erased his usual sweet smile and looked mean.  He is in no way a mean little boy and so, for those of us who know him well, it’s amusing to watch him putting on his tough face and going into an aggressive stance.

We met Austin’s friend Kyle around the corner dressed as Cat Boy. - two little boys who grew up together with the same nanny but now go to different schools. Where Kyle is aggressive and walked right up to every house ringing doorbells and banging on doors, Austin followed hanging back until someone would come to the door with treats and then he was right up there choosing some candy.  At one point I heard Kyle’s Dad telling him not to bang on the glass storm doors as he might break the glass.  Austin, who never misses anything, picked right up and kept admonishing his friend, “Kyle, be careful, don’t bang on the glass!”  Two opposite little boys who know each other well and are good friends.

I came home missing Austin but realizing he’s growing up and is adjusting  beautifully to school this fall.  With Mommy and Daddy as his anchors and we grandparents in the background, Austin is launched into a new phase of his young life. “Actually,” as Austin would say, “school is good.”  And I remind myself, “Actually, change is part of life...

Reflections on my 50th Class Reunion

I never imagined when I was a student at Cornell College that I would be back  50 years later for a reunion.  That seemed beyond comprehension.  Yet, I was at Cornell last weekend at Homecoming 2017 and those of us from the Class of 1967 were honored all weekend. As a college freshman I could not imagine being who I am now….a 72 year old woman.  I struggled some to remember who I might have been in 1963.  It goes both ways…

On the long drive home from Iowa to North Carolina, I thought about the pros and cons of class reunions.  I also thought about my difficulties adapting to this small liberal arts college on a hilltop in the middle of the corn fields of Iowa when I had grown up in big cities in South America.  The gap in cultures was hard to bridge and I often felt like a misfit on the Cornell campus.( I went to Cornell to be near my Cedar Rapids relatives when my family lived abroad.)  I considered why I would want to go back. With persuasion from my roommate Terrie, an enthusiastic alumna, and the lure of visiting my cousin Julie in Cedar Rapids, along with my desire to show Art where I had spent my college years before we met and married, I decided to go.

Terrie, an enthusiastic alumna and my college roommate

Showing Art "The Hilltop" campus

There is a sense of freedom and total acceptance interacting with classmates you haven’t seen in 50 years.  Gone are the labels of “most popular”, “best looking”, nerdiest”, “super jock”, “brainiest”, and all those other names we affixed to peers and worried about when we were in our teens and early twenties.  Gone are the insecurities that come from youth and the preoccupation of “fitting in”,  and being popular.  It’s all easy after 50 years except for the strain of pretending ,when you fail to recognize someone you should have known.  There is a lot of peering down at name tags hoping you can read a name to jar a memory without succumbing to grabbing reading glasses!  There is much looking intently into people’s faces to catch some recognition ….shape of the face without the wrinkles … the gray hair, and people’s figures, most of which have become heavier and some thinner and more frail. There is surprise at seeing friends you remember struggling to get up stairs, and noticing many wearing hearing aids (something I am tuned into now that Art wears them). 

Preparing for dinner at the Elmcrest Country Club

I began to relax when I realized that 50 years is an equalizer for us all.  Just attending reunion weekend puts everyone on the same plane.  All the barriers we held up for ourselves and our peers in our youth are gone.

Having thought about the positives I admittedly am uncomfortable when so much focus is on our past lives.  That is when I am reminded of my own mortality. It brings to mind the question I don’t think too much about - ”how much longer will I be alive?”  But that is inevitable and a reflection of me as I tend to live my days in the present and future.

Most of us from the Class of 1967 attended a Memorial Service in Allee Chapel on Sunday morning in remembrance of those who had passed away.  We shared stories and reflections of classmates we had not thought of for a long time who had passed away too young.

“This will probably be my last time on the Hilltop,” I overheard someone in my class say.

“I probably won’t be back,” said another.  “Somehow a 55th doesn’t have the same importance as the 50th,” someone else said.  I silently agreed as I noticed that our class were the “stars” of the Homecoming Weekend.

Purple and White wrist corsages for all the women in the Class of 1967

Speeches at a 50th reunion, scrutinize historical, scientific and cultural changes of the last 50 years.  Welcome speeches include reference to all we lived through from the Civil Rights movementt to the war in Vietnam, the death of President Kennedy, the invention of the Internet and computers, the Cold War and Soviet dominance to the age of terrorism.  I was reminded of a 100th birthday party I had been to some years ago where the woman celebrating her one-hundredth birthday made an articulate speech enumerating all the changes she had lived through in 100 years. I was awed by her recollection of so many decades.

I came away feeling a commonality with classmates - all of us who had survived 50 years and were back on the Hilltop for the same purpose…celebrating our having reached this milestone. Personally I was reminded of my mother and father who had met at Cornell, graduated in the class of 1941. While browsing in the college library I noticed a new,  wall plaque listing all students inducted into Phi Beta Kappa since it began.  There was Richard Salda Sampson, my father, under the Class of 1940 - a validation that he really was here.  Reuniting with my cousin Julie in Cedar Rapids where we stayed for the weekend, reminded me of the love I have for my Iowa relatives  which began during my years at Cornell 50 years ago.  They were close by when my own family was far away.  I now realize how they have enriched my life in the last 50 years.  

Phi Beta Kappas 1941

Relaxing at my cousin Julie's home in Cedar Rapids

Remembering Past Generations...

“Wouldn’t our parents be pleased that we are together?” says my cousin, Julie with her lovely smile. 

“I remember what fun Mom and Dad had when Virginia and Richard would come to visit.  So much laughter,” continues Julie. “Dad and Richard teased each other incessantly.”

I sit on a black wicker stool at the kitchen counter while Julie cooks dinner and am overwhelmed realizing I am really in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Iowa is the place my family came during my childhood when we took long home leave visits to the States.  Mother’s family lived in Des Moines and Dad’s, lived just two hours East in Cedar Rapids. Fifteen miles outside Cedar Rapids is Cornell College where Mom and Dad met and graduated in 1941. It is where I went to college.  While I am trying to grasp the reality of being back for my 50th Class Reunion at Cornell, I am looking for that little girl and those memories of family so long ago.

Julie and I pick up where we left off which was only a few years ago when we visited her and Cam in Boca Grande, Florida, and when she came to Asheville for a weekend. Being with her in her large Cedar Rapids home furnished with many of her parents antiques and valuable Iowa paintings, I feel the spirit of all the relatives who are now gone.  My memories of Jean and Bob, Virginia and Vincent, Aunt Libby and Uncle Doc and even Grandma and Grandpa Salda are vivid. 

Julie finishes her dinner preparations and says, “Shall we go for a walk before dinner down to Grande Avenue?”

“Oh, yes!”  I exclaim remembering that the entire family lived up and down Grande Ave. from the time my father was a little boy. (Did one have to live on Grande to be family or is this merely coincidence, I’ve always wondered.)  We set out on a brisk walk about a half mile to Grande Ave., a wide but quiet residential avenue with tall oak and maple trees.  Many of the homes are old, all are different and have more land around them than most modern suburban neighborhoods. 

“Here is 2200 Grande Ave. - Mom and Dad’s house,” Julie stops in front of the two story white Colonial with green shutters.  Without the white picket fence in front I wouldn’t have recognized it.  I always remembered it as the American Christmas card house because Aunt Jean and Uncle Bob always sent a photo card taken with the snow and a wreath on the front door.  Memories of addressing letters to Aunt Jean at 2200 come back to me.  She was a wonderful writer and being a letter writer that I was, I loved corresponding with her.

Bob and Jean Vane's home where Julie grew up

A few blocks further we come to  Virginia and Vincent’s home where my cousin Susi whom I talk to often in Houston, grew up.  The house is now painted a dark brown and I am looking for the gray blue one as it used to be. Yes, that’s it, right next to Never Park.   I do recognize the bedroom with the corner windows in the front where I stayed often for weekends when I was a student at Cornell College. 

         Heading  back the other way we come to 2000 Grande Ave, Aunt Libby and Uncle Doc’s brown brick home with the pointed roofs like a gingerbread house.  It looks exactly as it always did. Libby and Lumir were my Czech great aunt and uncle (he was a dentist and we called him “Doc”). They loved us children whom they didn’t see often as we lived in South America.  A bit further down in the more modest end of Grande Ave. is #1619 where Frank and Anna Salda lived (my Czech great-grandparents) who raised my father from a baby when his mother died of tuberculosis. Grandpa Salda, who came from the Old Country and worked as a tailor in Cedar Rapids, was blind by the time I knew him. He died when I was very young.  Grandma Salda lived a few years longer but I was always afraid of her perhaps because as a little girl she seemed very ancient to me.

Aunt Libby and Uncle Doc's home - 2000 Grande Ave.

Grandma and Grandpa Salda's home - 1619 Grande Ave

House where my father grew up.

Julie drives me to the Czech cemetery the following morning, a place I have never been.  She and Susi did preliminary research earlier in the summer and mapped out where some of the family tombstones from long ago are. The cemetery is large as there were many Czech immigrants who settled in Cedar Rapids.   As I gaze out across the upright marble tombstone I see a large one, clearly visible from a distance with the name SAMPSON (my maiden name).  No one ever told me about this or took me here.  On the back side of the same tombstone is the name SALDA. It is here that the grandmother, Tillie, whom I never knew because she died at 29 , is buried, along with her sister, Nina, who also died young from the same disease.  Both left babies to be raised by others - my father was one. Grandma and Grandpa Salda are here as well.

When I lam with Julie I see her mother’s big smile which radiates a special warmth.   We have each often been told “you look just like your mother”.  And we do.  What I am aware of this visit is how we are not like our mothers but daughters of a much different generation than theirs was..  We are independent and talk more openly about family and relationships and agree that many things in our childhood were not spoken of.  Julie tells me of a little girl, a sister, who lived and died before Julie was born and was never spoken of. Julie and I are alike in that our focus is on exercise, healthy eating and living , continuing to learn, and staying connected any way we know how with our grandchildren.

“I just bought a book on football,” Julie tells me.

“What for?” I ask.

“So I can understand what I’m watching when I go see Jack, my grandson, play next week,” she says.

It is such a comfort to be with someone who has known me all my life. I know Julie feels the same about me.  We talk of how we miss our mothers, yet we don’t think of ourselves as “old ladies” and will not be defined at this age in the same way our mothers and grandmothers were. 

On my way back to Asheville from our stay in Cedar Rapids I wish more than anything I could call up Mother and tell her all about the visit.  She, more than anyone, would loved to have known Julie and I were together for a weekend catching up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa! 

A Birthday Well Celebrated

“Pick up Austin as soon as you get there,” were our instructions for when we arrived in Washington last week.   We dropped our suitcases off at the house and walked across the street to Miner Elementary School, with a real sense of anticipation.  Kids of all ages, black and white, were coming out from the playground.  Older children on their own and younger ones accompanied by an adult.  We rang the bell at the front entrance and were let in to sign in.  Then with instructions of how to get to the PreKindergarten After-School-Program classroom we headed down a hall. 

In the classroom a dozen children were engrossed playing with toys on the rug and right in the middle was blonde, curly haired, blue eyed Austin.  He looked up, and came over to us, his eyes big with surprise. We explained to the teacher that we were Austin’s grandparents and were taking him home.  New backpack on his back, wearing a light blue t-shirt, and navy shorts (his school uniform) Austin walked between us.  “Austin seems all grown up,” I thought to myself and it felt like a huge milestone to be walking him down a  school corridor for the first time.

Once home, we asked about school, took a peek into the backpack and his folder for class.  It wasn’t long until he was back to the Austin we know, eager to see what we’d brought - homemade granola, some new school clothes, and Lightening McQueen cars and stickers.  My iPhone dinged with the text from Jess at work, “Did you get him?”  And so our visit began.

“Actually, Grandma, I want granola,” Austin said to me. ("Actually" is one of Austin's favorite words). Then he was ready to take his scooter and helmet and ride along beside us in the neighborhood as he loves to do.

Saturday was my birthday.  When Austin came down the stairs in his pj’s, he proudly carried a beautifully wrapped present with a card addressed to “Grandma” on it.

“Happy birthday,” he said shyly.  “I will show you how to open it.”  He instructed me to open the card first. Then he helped me  take off the bow and paper to find a bound copy of this blog, “View from my World” as my gift.  Nothing like a 3-year-old’s enthusiasm to get this 70+ year old grandmother excited about another birthday.  That is why I had to come to Washington this weekend.  It was the start to a day full of celebration.

“Mommy, I want to make the cake,” Austin started in after breakfast. 

“We’ll get a cake later,” Jess told Austin.  That was not the answer he wanted as a birthday is not a birthday without cake-making and sprinkles. Austin loves to help in the kitchen.  He stands on a small stool in the kitchen next to Jess who gives  him a task such as cracking the eggs when she is making pancakes.

“Grandma, do you like sprinkles?”

“Sure,” I replied.  

“Mommy, I want to do the sprinkles,” Austin begged.

Jess managed to distract Austin as we enjoyed a late morning brunch at a French bistro, followed by a walk to the Library of Congress, despite the showery cool rain.

“Mommy, when are we getting the cake?” said Austin, impatiently.

“Later,” Jess said patiently.

It was nap time…it rained more. The day was dark, cool, and wet.

  Nap time over and Austin continued his refrain, “I want to do the sprinkles on the cake.”

     “Grandma, what kind of cake do you want? Carrot?  Chocolate?”

  Late afternoon we piled in the car for a trip to the grocery. Jess and Austin disappeared into the bakery and we picked up dinner.  The cake was bought.

“Grandma, there was no carrot cake. It’s chocolate,” Austin told me when we got home.

“Perfect.” I told Austin. Jess gave Austin the jar of red sprinkles and he carefully put them on the cake and helped add candles.

He was ready for cake, but was told we had to have dinner first and the cake for dessert. Another delay…

Finally the moment of lighting the candles came and Austin stood next to me to say, “I will help you.”  Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and together Austin and I blew out the candles, cut the cake, and finally sat down to eat it. 

It had been a long day of anticipation for a 3-year-old  but I felt completely loved.  It had been a perfect birthday as shared through Austin's enthusiasm for celebrations.  What more could I ask for?

Reflections on Vermont

“You look just like your mother!” Judy exclaims when she sees me. We have just pulled up behind a car with Georgia license plates parked on the Town Green in Rochester.  It is Judy and Bill, back for the summer from their winter home in Brunswick, Georgia.  I have known Judy since Mother moved to Rochester in 1970,  to oversee the building of a new house at Gt. Hawk Colony. While Dad was posted to Saigon, Mother happily threw herself into small town village life with an enthusiasm I had rarely ever seen. She had come from an adventurous life abroad that most townies in Rochester could barely imagine but she wanted to belong here.  On Sundays she went to the services in the white steepled church on the hill (despite her strong Unitarian background), joined the Bible study group, sat in Rilla Allen’s living room with two grand pianos, listening to piano concerts, befriended Lillian Marsh who had lived all her life in Rochester, volunteered at the town library, and took solitary walks through the hills of Vermont. She regularly had tea with Helen Pierce, Judy’s aunt, who lived on the Green and who helped raise the three Pierce children when their mother died.  Mother was determined she would not be an outsider and she wasn’t. Judy still remembered her.

Coming back to Vermont since moving six years ago, it only takes a day or two of walking the familiar roads before the memories flood back.  The total silence of being far from the constant hum of traffic and city noise, the soft rustling sound of the leaves moving in the mountain breeze, and the dirt roads lined with periwinkle colored Paint Brush,  clumps of delicate Queen Anne’s Lace, and the gold Black-Eyed Susan’s, fill me with a sense of total contentment and peace.  I feel at home in a landscape I have known for more than half my life.  Walking along these country roads I feel the firm roots that I put down decades ago when I came here in my twenties. It was the first time I had ever felt a real connection to a place because I had grown up overseas.

  Being in Vermont connects me to my Mother, and to the spirit of many people who came into my life here. As we walk the Gt. Hawk roads we exclaim, “Look…there is a new owner sign on the Breu’s house….I wonder who the people are who bought it?” Or “Remember when Mary Cornwall lived here so long ago?” “ I wonder how they Eddy’s are…they finally sold their house.”  “Quint’s house is up for sale! Is she still alive?”  “They are renovating the Townley house! It’s about time!”” Doesn’t Peggy Schwarz’s house look wonderful since the new owners bought it?”  All these are friends who have passed away and whose spirits live on in our remembering them.

      Walking up our own Sparrow Hawk Road where we lived on and off for 21 years, we glance across the street from our old house and I jokingly exclaim, “Oh my gosh,  Beethoven has moved!”.  For years we were neighbors to the composer of contemporary music, Steve Reich, and his wife Beryl, an artist from New York City.  Steve composed all his music in Vermont and this summer his house had a new owner sign.  We stood gazing at it for a very long time remembering those encounters on the road with famous people we now read about in the New York Times. 

Once, I told a friend who is a classical musician, that we lived across the street from Steve Reich and she immediately responded, “Do you realize, that is like living across the street from Beethoven?”  I never forgot that. Mr. Reich is still alive but over 80 now. Perhaps coming to Vermont got to be too difficult.

Staying at the old “Todd Marble house” which is now, of course, is the Yelland's home, we continue the connection to a place that will always be part of us.   Dinner on the Weden’s large deck with warm conversation hovers around “do you remember when we sold you our red Sentra?” Or “remember when Hayden was off in Moscow for an internship in Dick’s office…he liked it so much we were afraid he wouldn’t come home to finish UVM!”  They, too, are old timers like we are still coming to Gt. Hawk in the summers but there are fewer of them.  Mary and I talk now of our grown children and grandkids but we also can talk about our love of this place without explanation.  Mary says, “These Hawk houses need people and it’s only then that they seem to take on a life of their own.”  I know exactly what she means because I feel that having come to Yelland’s, opened up the house, and felt it almost sigh with relief all around me.  The house comes to life when we are there.  I used to feel that with our own Hawkcrest.

      One day walking down the road, we see a figure wearing a bandana and baseball cap, carrying a tall walking stick and wearing dark glasses.  Of course, it’s Marcia who is in her 80’s now and struggles to get up to her Vermont house each summer. I know it’s a place that connects her to her long deceased husband,Peter,  and memories of the little girl Vanessa (now grown up) who summered happily here.  Marcia is frail and can barely see. She is bothered by sun and bugs and the chilly nights yet bravely walks the hills at Gt. Hawk.  She is an inspiration and one of the few “old timers” left.

Another day we visit Lina, our Russian immigrant friend who lives in Connecticut but keeps the second home at Gt. Hawk . With Valery’s sudden passing two years ago, we still mourn his absence.  This summer we get to meet Valerik, her one year old sturdy grandson born after Val died. It is bittersweet and I think how hard it must be for her to stay in a house she and Val loved so dearly together.  I take note of how brave she seems carrying on the tradition of coming to Vermont.

  I receive an email from Lesley inviting us to her home off the Bethel Mountain Road to meet the professional musicians she is hosting for dinner.  I was once on the Rochester Chamber Music Society Board and their last concert is Sunday, which we plan to attend.  I happily accept and we drive over to her beautiful home with wide views of the Green Mountains and gardens that she has planted and nurtured each summer.  It is as lovely as I remember it and she greets us as if she had seen us yesterday.  Dinner with professional musicians who are experts in Renaissance music is a new experience for us.  Where else would this happen?

We pick buckets full of blueberries at the organic blueberry farm on the outskirts of Rochester.  We’ve been going here for years and hear that this summer the berries are better than ever. The owners are ecstatic after several bad seasons and trying to sell the farm.  A younger woman picking at the farm one day when we are, greets me with “Hi, Kristina”.  She looks so familiar… but why?  “Remember me, Pam…from the Randolph Bank?”  Of course, I say, relieved that she has nudged the memory of our friendly interactions over the years taking care of bank business.

One day I stop at the Rochester Public Library which is now a showplace in a small town of 1200 people .  It’s only open 3 days a week.  The library is in an old church which, over the years and with much fund raising, has been beautifully renovated down to the original stained glass windows on the second floor.  I spent much time in this library and when I left, I donated half my book collection.  I can never come to town without “taking a look”.  I see a book I’d like to read on the new book shelf. Jeanette, the librarian, greets me with “Hi, Kristina!” as if I’d never left.  I ask her if I can borrow the book during my visit. “Go ahead,” she says, “as long as you are still in the computer.”   I take it to the checkout person and my name is still there…no problem!

One morning I meet my friend Susan in the North Hollow for a walk.  I remember how Susan and I met at Bethel Elementary School in 1995 and have been friends ever since.  We are the same age and same coloring  - we both had short strawberry blonde hair (now turned white blonde).  She was Mrs. Rule, the music teacher and I was Mrs. Aaronson, the librarian.  The students would confuse us and call me Mrs. Rule and her Mrs. Aaronson.  She drives over from Bethel on a sunny summer morning and we greet each other as if we’d never been apart. We walk the gravel roads on the North end of Rochester. There is not another soul out walking and only some cows in the field who flick their tails lazily as we walk by. Occasionally a car or truck will pass us with a wave from the driver, but all is silence and beauty.  There are wide open views out to the Green Mountains and miles of green open meadows. Once this was all farmland.This has always been my favorite walk in any season, and we do it easily while catching up on our lives, children, grandchildren, and exchanging the joys of being retired now.

A visit back to Rochester calls for a walk or bike ride out the Bingo Road.  Having no bikes, we drive part way and then get out and walk the familiar shady dirt road.  Above us, the maple trees create a tall canopy shading us on a warm summer walk.  “Remember how buggy it used to be out here? “ I say to Art.  He nods.  “Well, it still is,” I say as I swat the gnats buzzing around my ears.  It’s all as it was.  Several miles down the road we come to Harlan’s house built “off the grid”.  The roof has neat solar panels and there is a very large vegetable and flower garden on the narrow plot of land.  Harlan’s house is the most pristine house on a country road with many neglected and falling down “camps”, log cabins, and shacks.  Harlan delivered our mail for years.  As we walk by we see a thin man with long gray hair wearing a bandana and shorts come out of the house headed towards the garden.  Suddenly Art heads across the lawn and reaches out his hand saying, “I’m Art Aaronson.  Do you remember delivering our mail at Gt. Hawk?”  “Of course, I do,” he replies without hesitation.  And so the conversation ensues from the question “how have you been?”  Harlan is happily retired now as we are.

Our two weeks are up so quickly and it is time to go back to our “real life” in Asheville.  We take our last walk up and down the familiar roads glad that not much has changed since we were last here.  I don’t wish we lived here full time any longer because our needs have changed and we live in an easier place.  But I am comforted knowing I still feel a strong connection to Gt. Hawk and Rochester and always will.  As we drive down the mountain to head South I muse to myself, “I wonder if people will walk by our house and remember it as the “Aaronson house”.