Blue Ridge Mountains Relaxation -- jcarolek

Last weekend my friend and I took a little jaunt, about three hours from here, to a destination in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stopped in Louisa, VA to visit my daughter and her husband and shared a meal with them. After spending the night in Charlottesville we took Saturday as a long relaxing meandering day...driving first to Monticello and looking at the slave's graveyard on the grounds of the Thomas Jefferson estate. I was saddened by the lack of care shown to the graveyard, and the apparent lack of respect for the dead buried there. A vinyl fence separated the graveyard from the excavation site... of what appears to be preparation for more parking lot space.

We opted out of catching the shuttle bus to the mansion for the tour of the estate, preferring to examine this little graveyard that had no visitors...

Material -- jcarolek

A couple of days ago I received a letter from an old friend. This old friend has found himself in a position in which I would never wish to find myself. He is sitting in a state correctional facility. Once a major provider of material goods for his family, he is now facing some hard realities. He can no longer provide that which he knew to be the bread and butter of raising a family, and considers himself a failure, both for his inability to do so and for choices and judgments he made which resulted in his being in this position today.

His letter was a hard one to read. Not only because of his immediately-familiar-once-again scrawl

Sometimes -- jcarolek

Last Saturday I had my shindig. My plans had been to invite family and friends to a cookout, bonfire, music-playing good time. Of course, I was not thinking ahead to the fact that my son will be getting married in October and many of my family will be traveling here for that celebration...so another trip (everyone is out of state) during the times of high gas prices, etc. was not feasible. Still, there were those who could come and I went forward with my plans.

And Saturday dawned a beautiful day. We set about the final preparation for guests, making the back yard into a little camp ground of sorts. My sister and my niece arrived

Summer Vacation -- jcarolek

When I was a kid, summers always meant the family vacation. Our destination was the same each year and I always looked forward to it with great excitement. The "Pond House" as it was always known to us was a small three "room" house on a quiet lot on Long Pond, in New Bedford, MA. To call the place "modest" is an understatement. To fathom it was where my father and his then-three siblings lived their early life is almost unimaginable to me. And yet, as a vacation spot, it was ideal..... well, maybe that outhouse thing was not so cool.... and maybe that bathing in the big metal washtub, placed squarely in the middle of the "living room" floor was not so cool.... and maybe having to pump water from the iron handled pump at the sink was a bit more primitive than I'd have liked.... but still, I loved that place.

The pond house holds many memories for me. Fishing with Dad and my brothers was always a treat. Being taught to swim by being tossed overboard in the pond, well, let's just say I had a mighty big fear of water for a while, and when I reached shore, I let out the loudest and longest

Summer Vacation -- jcarolek

When I was a kid, summers always meant the family vacation. Our destination was the same each year and I always looked forward to it with great excitement. The "Pond House" as it was always known to us was a small three "room" house on a quiet lot on Long Pond, in New Bedford, MA. To call the place "modest" is an understatement. To fathom it was where my father and his then-three siblings lived their early life is almost unimaginable to me. And yet, as a vacation spot, it was ideal..... well, maybe that outhouse thing was not so cool.... and maybe that bathing in the big metal washtub, placed squarely in the middle of the "living room" floor was not so cool.... and maybe having to pump water from the iron handled pump at the sink was a bit more primitive than I'd have liked.... but still, I loved that place.

The pond house holds many memories for me. Fishing with Dad and my brothers was always a treat.