majrodgers

And so the equinox is come and gone, the harvest moon is soon to be full and we are reminded that dread winter is just around the corner. In much of the US last year the winter was a mild one, in fact in Florida it was like an English summer, all of which makes everyone think that we are in for a heavy one this time. Of course I shall do my best to minimize my exposure to it as I have arranged to spend three months in Sarasota, starting December 1. Anyone who actually reads this blog will know of my love affair with Sarasota, and they will also realize that this love is an inconstant thing, since I pick up and leave her at the approach of spring in Tuscany.  I have been fortunate to have made some special friends in Sarasota; it is people like these that make life an enjoyable adventure. On a lighter note, there I have made the acquaintance of a barber, and for this I have to thank my friend Zsuzsa, who seems to be very much aware of the doings in the town. This barber, whose name happens also to be Mike, is one of life’s characters. He has a wicked sense of humor and you always have to be on your guard for his very personal barbs, some of which you don’t see coming until it is too late. His other job is that of announcer and caller at the Sarasota greyhound racing stadium; I have never heard his performance there, but I would wager that he is very funny; I must go during my next sojourn in Florida.  Another part of Mike’s charm is that he charges me the princely sum of just $9 for making my head and beard look respectable; my barber in Bowling Green, another comedian, charges $21 for the same treatment.

Last night (Saturday) Emily and I went to the season-opening concert of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra-yes, there is such a thing. It was an all Rachmaninoff affair, the 3^rd symphony and the 2^nd piano concerto. I had thought, when first seeing the announcement that it was the other way round, i.e., the 2^nd symphony and the 3^rd piano concerto-a little bit of dyslexia, presumably a fragment of my advancing senility. I have a particular fancy for the 2nd piano concerto with its haunting C minor passages. Regardless, we both enjoyed the performance; it was a pleasant daughter-father interlude. The piano soloist was a young Croatian lady, name of Martina Filjak, and if you have the opportunity to attend one of her concerts, my advice is to do so, she is dynamite!

Another event that has given me a lot of pleasure of late is that I changed my car; I loved my Pontiac G6, but after five years she was becoming a little worn around the edges. So, on an impulse I went out looking and I did not have to go far before I had fallen in love again, this time with a 2013 Hyundai Genesis Coupe, beautiful styling, modern comfort and amazing performance from a 2 liter, turbo-charged engine. Here she is perched on my driveway for your admiration.

Finally I leave you with a poem that I wrote a couple of weeks ago in a, perhaps poignant, memory of a beautiful summer…

At Summer’s End

Fair August now has slipped away

And autumn steals in ‘ere we know

From cool September nights we rise

To dewy morns whereon we find

Autumn now before our eyes

Say not farewell to summer’s blooms

Stay! Wide trumpets of Hibiscus

Carpels proud out-thrust you lure

A belated pollinator

Bustling by to make detour

Like silent shroud upon the land

There loiters eerie cloak of mist

Lit now by feeble borrowed glow

Of silver waning crescent moon

Softly lighting all below

Green shoots that early showed in spring

Thro’ summer’s months grew tall and silked

Corn that withstood rain’s harsh cascade

Is now stiffly dry and brindled

Ready for the reaper’s blade

With mournful honk ungainly geese

In ragged vees fly overhead

Directing soon their compass steer

Toward the south and warmer days

Quitting winter’s icy mere

Though summer’s long, now school’s back in

And yellow buses ply the streets

With bulging packs on tender spines

Close-clumped kids wait for bus to take

Them to their school’s snug confines

And so we welcome season new

In fervent hope it long stays bright

And warding year-end’s frigid air

Until it nothing more can do

And we lapse to winter’s lair

This is addressed mainly to those who knew Tony Gorman.

Tony died on Sunday August 19 of the wounds inflicted during his battle with life.

Ann remains for the time being at their house in Skye, her mailing address being;

4 Kilmuir, Portree, Isle of Skye, UK  IV519YR

I am certain that she would pleased to hear from anyone and everyone.

As a tribute to Tony, one of my small band of blood brothers, I wrote a few lines of blank verse:

To Gorman, in tribute

The longest-serving of my blood brothers

Has now quit the accursed mortal hell

That he endured throughout these past few years.

As he drew his final breath so perished

That malignant beast that had gnawed at him

So unrelenting and unwavering

He and his beloved Ann fought it hard

And heroically, but unable

Were they to terminate its awful creep.

And so at last his soul has been released.

At this ill-fated time we best recall

Those days when Tony lived and was vibrant;

A dedicated seeker in research,

He was the one with the most restless mind

Never content that others had it right,

He was unremitting in his pursuits

Searching ever deeper for hidden truth

And not resting until it was reveal’d.

Not a sufferer of fools, he shunned those

Whose work he was unable to respect.

Tony was a teacher of immense talent

Making efforts of Herculean force

To impart knowledge to the precious minds

Of the students in his purview, and they

Respected him for those caring efforts.

Many are the scholars in today’s science

That bear a lasting affection for him

Recognizing his dedication and

Commitment to their training which has giv’n

Them a useful start on their career tracks.

.

Tony was a social animal who,

Although a tad aloof at first meeting,

Once you showed yourself to be a person

Above his high threshold for acceptance

You would be invited into his sphere

And if you were, like him, partial to beer

That threshold would not be a major hurdle.

Fortunate was I that the two of us

Grew tightly close some forty years ago.

I thank you and salute you, dearest Tone.

So here I am back in the USA at my house in Bowling Green, Ohio after a long and pleasurable sojourn with my friends at CDP and elsewhere in Italy. As the title implies I arrived there a few days prior to the Vernal Equinox and departed a few days after the Summer Solstice. The only big disappointment was that for logistical reasons I was unable to visit my friends in Piemonte and Lombardia .

For the final month of my stay Michael was with me and we were able to travel back to the US together. As we approached the day of our departure, the weather became very warm and I remember one sweltering night in a hotel in Siena and the next day going by train from Florence to Bologna where the temperature was 40 C (104 F) when we boarded a plane for London, only to disembark into a temperature of 16 C (61 F), an unbelievable drop. We got to our hotel in London later than scheduled so we missed most of the final match of Euro 12 between Italy and Spain; in fact we arrived just in time to see Spain’s third and fourth goals. Michael and I were supporting Italy since England had been eliminated, so it was a huge disappointment for us to see them so badly mauled .

The next day we boarded an AA flight to Chicago where again it was near 100 F, so our temperature excursions over 24 hours were phenomenal. We stayed one night with Jane and Sam and the next day Emily (who had come to Chicago to meet us), Michael and I drove to BG where again we found heat.

I have a gadget on my screen that tells me the temperature in Siena and I have been noticing that for the past two or more weeks it has stayed in the 90’s for the daytime highs, similar to what we have here; the difference being that here I live in an air-conditioned house, go to the air-conditioned gym in an air-conditioned car, shopping for supplies in an air-conditioned store, and partaking of drinks in an air-conditioned bar, whereas most of my Italian friends enjoy only some of these benefits. We are told that the citizens and residents of the US are profligate with the energy resources of the planet, but during the height of the summer here, I tend to subscribe to the attitude that it is a problem that my children must deal with, I want my comfort!

During my stay in CDP I had occasion to spend quality time with friends made in previous visits. Not only that, but I am delighted to report that I found new friends on this visit. Just at the city end of via Remota, a new bar/restaurant opened in March, just as I arrived there. It is called Bistro 22; it has a very warm atmosphere and I came to spend an hour or so there most days. It is operated by the Bertozzi family and in particular it is managed by Alessandro and Greta, brother and sister. They, along with their parents Marguerita and Roberto, are splendid people and are very easy to get on with. Anyone that read my previous post will recall that I wrote a poem about my time at Bistro 22. Here I append a couple of photographs taken on the White Night festival (June 28), hence their “formal” dress.

Several of my readers have requested that I write shorter posts as my verbal meanderings have been known to challenge the attention span of some. With that in mind, dear friends, I bid you farewell.

Much to my surprise it seems that I have been bitten by the poetry bug. Early samples have already appeared hereon, now here are a couple more for your delectation. One of them is my first venture into blank verse and iambic pentameter; the other is of the rhyming variety. Here goes:

LIBECCIO

The sounds of shutters rattling and the squawk

Of plastic chairs being buffeted around

 Outside the house did me from slumber wake

And thus I guessed Libeccio was in town

Some girl that is! So massive strong was she

To ope’ the door unto the terraced yard

To look for any damage she had caused

Took almost all my manly strength to budge

Out there, the booming roar assailed my ears

As chunks of sea were lifted up and thrown

Upon the shore, there shatt’ring into foam.

Libeccio does not gentle tap on door

To get in, but with her ferocity

Unbridled she kicks it down to enter.

At one with her majestic power she

Whirls around making flagpoles creak and groan

Flags snap and stand straight out ashamed to sag.

Sailing boats moored in the marina

Toss around at their docks as she causes

Waves uncommon rough to haste up channel

Tight hawsers hum her tune and strained halyards

Are set a-chattering against their masts

As she calmly twangs them while going by.

She bends the trees and liberates some leaves

Sending dozens of them swirling all round

And harried sweeper vainly tries to push

Them into piles ere loading them in cart.

Coming from the north of Africa she

Has a Moorish shade but squeezing thro’

The Strait of Boniface she garbs herself

In her Napoleonic warring dress

And races from that Strait and now with naught

In her path she gallops fast, in mad dash

Across the Tyrrhenian Sea to slam

Herself hard onto the Maremma shore

And shake my shutters to drag me awake.

So much for blank verse, now for a rhymer:

THE VIEW FROM BISTRO 22

Ensconced within the Bistro yard

I sit and watch the world go by

Oft close enough to reach and touch

But rare a contact with the eye

Uncertain why our pathways cross’d

Could Dame Fortune be awry?

While townsfolk stroll to left and right

A flowing placid promenade

Young children in chaotic flight

Dance back and forth through the parade

And tiny dogs on lengthy leads cause

Trips and oaths in high tirade

In groups of three or maybe four

Girls in early teens do caper

Babies born with a woman’s wiles

Yet conscience clean as silver paper

Unrealized charms that will rise

And fade like hazy vapor

On platform shoes and spikéd heels

Gals in tight leggings teeter past

By skimpy blouse cleaved flesh revealed

And gaily flaunted unabashed

Cascading curls on shoulders fall

Painted pouts plight pleasure vast

Boys with shorn heads but not yet men

Waylay the girls with merry flirts

In hope to find a chance to play

Upon the knolls beneath those shirts

But girls are not so easy led

To offer up sweet desserts

Aged dears plod with wearied gait

Cling on the arm of friend or nurse

Do they recall those days long gone

When youths pursued and would coerce

To bare their secret fruits and yield

Their all to ardent outburst

And old men yearning for lost youth

Hair combed across a balding crown

Eying chicks in skintight leggings

Aroused by urges not yet gone

And not by thoughts of time gone by

Nor of poor decrepit crone

The Bistro then is now the place

Where this old boy can quell his parch

Aley and engaging Greta

My splendid hosts, and now their verge

My delectation dome has ’come

For the evening’s first perlage

Has a monster been created? Watch this space…

Question: What happened yesterday that has not happened for 44 years?

Answer: Manchester City Football Club became the champions of the English Premier League.

Yes, they finally did it. For almost a half-century, their fans, and indeed the children of their fans have hung their heads whenever confronted by the fans of that other Manchester football club which yesterday thought for a few minutes at the end of their game with Sunderland, that they had won the Premier League for the 12^th time. But it was not to be, MCFC scored 2 goals in the time added on for injuries and stoppages; the winning goal was scored with the penultimate kick of the game-at the death, as they say! It was interesting to watch the reactions of the crowd as the match see-sawed back and forth. At half time City were leading 1 to 0 and the 40,000 or so fans in light blue were laughingly confident that their team was on the way to an easy victory. But just after the re-start of the game the crowd was stunned to a shocked silence when the opposition scored an opportunist goal following a defensive blunder. Then after 65 minutes play City were 1 to 2 down due to another opportunistic goal; now the crowd was in tears, were City flattering to deceive as they had so consistently done over the years, nay decades? At 90 minutes City were losing and everybody thought that the other Manchester club-the one that wears red shirts-would be champions again?  But an ugly incident during the second half had stopped the game for several minutes and so the officials provided City with another 5 minutes to get the job done, and they did just that. By now the fans in light blue were delirious with joy!

In the post-game ceremonies many of the players came out draped in their national flags, which brought home the fact that this squad (and its coach) has been assembled from around the world through multi-million dollar purchases, thanks to the bankroll of the billionaire Abu Dhabi owner. The scorers of the three goals yesterday were an Argentinian, a Bosnian and another Argentinian. Of the first-team squad of 28 players only 8 are home-grown and thus eligible to play for the England team. I have not yet found the composition of the squad that won the championship in 1968, but I would wager that they would all have been eligible to play for one of the countries of the United Kingdom.

Sic Transit Gloria…

Let’s up and away and go for a day

Unto the Tyrrhenian Sea

To a spot that I know, a pretty bagno

In a town that I call CDP

We can sit by the shore, in sunshine galore

Using words like prego and pago

We can linger and dine, sip a glass of white wine

From the Tuscan Archipelago

We’ll gaze at the dolls enjoying their hols

Clad in their miniscule suits

Near-naked girls with cascading curls

Forbidden mouth-watering fruits

Behind our sunglasses we’ll check out those lasses

Recalling our youthful era

Those times! Those days! That gay polonaise

With Tina and Lola and Sarah

And so many others enjoying their druthers

Would dance for a handful of pennies

And on went the ball with girls short and tall

Most of them still in their twenties

But all that has passed and life’s speeding fast

We must be content with just viewing

Those lasses, nigh bare, with clothing so rare

And our earlier romps eschewing

        Go City!!

Word travels fast in this town!

Let me give you an example. Yesterday evening I went into the grocery store in the center of town to buy some cheeses-pecorino and gorgonzola- and some wine. The store owner, a jolly lady of about my age (at least her husband Sergio is) asked me if I had enjoyed Vittoria’s minestrone. I was somewhat flummoxed-how did she know this? Vittoria, you may recall, is the lady who lives in one of the houses in my building, the one at the street level. She is the mother of Antonella, my landlady, who with her husband Daniele, live in another part of the town. Vittoria is also probably around my age as our daughters, Antonella and Jane, were born a few months apart. Every morning as I go out for my exercise walk I descend the 35 steps that take me from my level to the street and at step 30 or so, I pass close to the window of Vittoria’s kitchen. Most mornings, except the very cold ones, her window is open and the aromas issuing from it are out of this world. Always some pan is on the stove in which her latest creation is simmering, be it meat sauce, fish sauce, minestrone, soup, or whatever, and the resulting whiffs are incredibly deliciously. If she is in the kitchen or outside tending her flowers in their various pots we exchange greetings and more. Today she was gardening and was distressed about her roses, pointing out the aphids that were chewing up the buds. She had a spray bottle in her hand and a determined look in her eye and I didn’t give much of a chance that those little devils were going to be around when I returned.

I have discovered that the magic words are “Che buon profumo!” (figure it out for yourselves) and when I utter these with the appropriate gusto in my voice, she takes me into her house and proceeds to ladle a couple of servings into a bowl for me to take up to my place, which I do with great enthusiasm; the tastes always live up to the smells, I can tell you. I am careful not to use the magic words too often as I feel that it could lead to my welcome becoming worn out, who knows, maybe her generosity knows no bounds?

Anyway to get back to yesterday morning, the magic words resulted in my being rewarded with a bowl of minestrone a la Vittoria, loaded with legumes and other vegetables. Needless to say, it was delightful. The point of the tale, however, is not to extol Vittoria’s cooking and her generosity, magnificent though they are, but to relate that word of this big-hearted act at about 10 AM had reached the grocery store by the time I went in there at about 5 PM. The way by which the word was transmitted, perhaps from one person to another, will surely remain in the realm of the arcane.

Vittoria and I live on a street called via Remota, at number 20, as indicated by a pair of decorated ceramic tiles, one with the numeral 2 and a matching one with the numeral 0, attached side-by-side on the gatepost. As the name implies, the street is remote, not so much in the sense of physical distance but, at least to my mind, in the sense of character. To try to explain this I want you (that is anybody who is still reading) to get a mental picture of the geography here. Castiglione della Pescaia sits on the provincial road 158 (also called SS 322) that connects the relatively large towns of Grosseto to the east (more-or-less) with Follonica to the north west (more-or-less). Imagine yourself in a car driving west from Grosseto, as you enter CDP from the east, you first have to make a crossing of the river Bruna, and then circumvent the rocky outcrop on which the mediaeval village was built. Thus you follow a serpentine route through the town always at, or near, sea level. On passing the obelisk dedicated to Christopher Columbus, the road, now called Corso della Liberta, makes a right hand sweep of a quarter turn and on your left side you will pass the Financial Police building, the Italian Red Cross building and the old town hall. On your right side, on the inside of the curve is a continuous line of shops of all kinds, luring the tourists. If you had X-ray vision and could see through the shops, then you would be looking into via Remota, which runs behind the line of shops on the same curve. If you wish you can open up this link and see a map, and even street view, if you want.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=42.762138,10.881143&spn=0.002107,0.005284&t=m&z=18&vpsrc=6>

If you do look at the map you will see that the street behind SP 158 is called Via Mazzini for most of its length, only becoming via Remota near to the town itself. However, it seems that in this town you can decide for yourself what your address is. Vittoria’s place is in reality at the center of the right hand sweep of Mazzini, but she labels her house as via Remota. A little further to the west is a house with a mailbox that is doubly-labeled as 12 via Mazzini and 12 via Remota-all very quaint.

As I said, the remoteness is in the character or personality of the street. On the main street, only the thickness of a shop away, there is the rush of much traffic and the hustle and bustle of people, shopping and window-gazing, or gathered in clusters, meeting and greeting. And yet, jump over the shops and you find yourself in a completely different world; no traffic, few people, quietness-in a word, remote. Best of all the 35 steps bring me to my abode, sitting atop another one that, in turn, sits atop Vittoria’s. The climb, now a “breeze”, is completely worth it because it brings me to the reason I live at this place, viz., the magnificent terrace overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea.

I close with the following piece of nonsense that was inspired one evening on the same terrace looking at the night sky.

Sitting on my porch last night

My eye perceived a flash of light

It was so fleeting bright

I thought it was a meteorite

But wait!

I must to think again

It might have been an aeroplane

Aflying off to Rome or Spain

Or Timbuktu or the Ukraine

But hold!

No ‘plane could cross the sky

In such a passing blink of eye

Methinks that I must say goodbye

To thoughts so very far awry

So now I feel a great delight,

That my first thought last eve was right

And that which then I saw in flight

It surely was a meteorite

Looking west from my terrace in CDP last night (March 26) just past 8 PM yielded this beautiful sight of a Moon-Venus conjunction.  A few degrees below the moon, Jupiter was also becoming visible in the darkening sky, but for the camera to capture it, the moon had to be overexposed, thereby detracting from its elegance.

The Vernal Equinox of 2012 has been and gone, and on the Tuscan coast it brought sunny skies and warm temperatures-magnificent!  Jane and Sam were here with me for a few days in Castiglione della Pescaia, hereafter referred to as CDP.  They arrived in Rome a week ago as Sam was to run in the Rome marathon last Sunday. I arrived in CDP about one week ago also, and on Saturday, the day before the marathon, Laura came here to bring all my stuff that she had stored for me in her house since last June-giant TV, Sky decoder, parabola, docking station for iPod, printer, clothes, and so forth. Then she and I proceeded to drive to Rome, arriving at the great metropolis in the late afternoon. We picked up Silvia, Laura’s sister in Eur (a district of Rome), and then off we set to meet up with Jane and Sam somewhere in the center of town. Not only was there a major international rugby game between Italy and Scotland being played that day at the Olympic stadium, but there was also a huge manifestation by some unions on via Cavour, the street on which Jane and Sam happened to have their apartment. Thus driving was a true nightmare, but we (that is Silvia) persevered and eventually the girls dropped me at Termini station, where I found Jane waiting.  The Parisi girls turned around to go back to Eur to meet their parents, because we were all meeting for dinner that evening at a restaurant in Trastevere (another district). Joining us were Phillipa (Pip) and Pete, friends of Jane and Sam from Manchester (the girls were at Manchester High School together for one year before the Rodgers’ family took off for Austin, Tx in 1976) and my Roman friend Giusy, of whom much was writ last year. With the Parisi family we were a party of ten and everyone agreed that the dinner and total occasion at the restaurant Roma Sparita in Piazza Santa Cecilia was excellent and we recommend it highly.  The dinner fare was traditional Roman and superbly delicious.

The day of the marathon dawned fair and warm and our hero set off for the start along with tens of thousands of other hopefuls and their support groups. After a 9 AM start the throng took off and Jane, naturally wishing to see as much of Sam as possible, led us all over the streets of Rome to seek vantage points for viewing his progress.  All very well for the young ones, but rather a trial for the not-so-young. At the end of it all I felt that I had walked the 42 km of the course at least three times. Sam finished in a time that to me seemed more than respectable, but with which he was not satisfied.  After a cooling-off period (for me) I took off for the train to CDP, arriving in the early evening.

The only things of interest in that return trip were that I went to Roma Termini with Jane in attendance, a little father-daughter interlude, where I approached the robotic ticket dispensers brimming with confidence, only to have my hopes dashed when my debit card (bancomat) was rejected, not once, not twice, but three times! I later found, through my nice banker Elena that I had entered the wrong PIN three times!!! and such an event causes the card to be blocked.  As a last resort I used cash and the bloody ticket emerged.  Alas, this was not the only ignominy for your correspondent.  I went on an expedition to view the departure board for the trains, to see that the Pisa train was a few minutes delayed and the platform was not yet known.  So Jane and I mulled about, buying newspapers, getting coffee, etc, until I eventually realized that the board that I had been studying was the arrivals board!!! By the time this realization came upon me my train had gone and the next was a regional one that would take 2.5 hours and make 13 stops ‘ere arriving in Grosseto where I would perhaps find a bus to go to CDP. It seems that stupidity has no bounds.

So the Great Trek 2012 is over; it started on the morning of February 29 in Sarasota, Florida with your correspondent driving out of the garage of the house on Black Oak Court  where he has lived in for the last month of the Sarasota sojourn, and it ended on March 14 in CDP. Stops along the way included Macon GA, Chattanooga TN, Louisville KY, Bowling Green OH, Chicago IL, London UK, and Rome. Chattanooga turned out to be an interesting place. By chance I took a hotel for my overnight stay smack in the downtown area, which so happens to be on the south bank of the Tennessee River. The city is only just inside the state of Tennessee and looking at the map you would think that the Tennessee-Georgia border would more sensibly be the river itself. If this were the case, then Chattanooga would be in Georgia, but it is not.  The city was established in the late 1830s in what was territory of the Cherokee Indian nation.  The city fathers have done a fine job in constructing today’s Chattanooga. There is a recently built Aquarium and an Art Museum in the riverfront area and a pedestrian bridge over the river at the bottom of Walnut Street that is a boardwalk from one bank to the other.  Many of the original brick buildings in the riverfront area have been renovated as cafes, bars and restaurants. On the south bank the land is very hilly and some streets descend to the river level with alarming slopes.  Altogether, Chattanooga looks to be a pleasant town with a friendly modern face.

The road from Sarasota to Chattanooga is Interstate 75 which makes a sharp right turn on the approach to Chattanooga and heads off north east towards Knoxville, crossing the Tennessee River just to the west of the city and then doing a sharp left turn to head for Lexington KY, Cincinnati OH and points north.  Anyone who has read my earlier posts will maybe recall some of my lyrical waxing about this highway, but from Chattanooga on I abandoned it in favor of I 24 which takes me northwest to Nashville where I switched to I 69 which takes me through Bowling Green, KY up to Louisville, KY.  This detour to Louisville is because this is where Michael lives these days and by leaving the direct route to BG, OH I have the opportunity to spend some time with him-a very worthwhile detour, I think.

I left Sarasota on February 29 and the Sarasotans that I had spoken to reported that this winter has been the warmest in living memory. I can add to this by saying I brought a whole set of cold weather clothes with me and I have never taken them out of the bags. In previous years, especially in January and February, there were occasions when I had to wrap up to keep warm, but not this winter.  As I drove north out of Florida, it was clear that the warm winter was not confined to Florida. In southern Georgia, while the deciduous trees were still in their leafless winter garb, I had glimpses of peach trees in blossom and here and there a red bud shyly dressed in its pink blooms, and on the approach to Atlanta I spied a splendid magnolia in full bloom. While in Sarasota for the winter months I enjoyed the company of Alex and colleagues at Ultrafast Systems. The company is ten years old this year and in the years since I left it has definitely prospered. The accompanying photo shows a group of colleagues and former colleagues enjoying a little conviviality.

On March 2 I arrived in Louisville KY, pronounced “Lewvul” by the locals, and the day did not start well.  Michael called me early in the morning and reported that he had been sick for the last couple of days with a sore throat, headache and “wobbly legs” (his description).  He was somewhat better on the morning that he called but still had the sore throat. I resolved to keep to the plan as far as possible and defer a decision about meeting until I arrived in Louisville.  Not long after starting out from Chattanooga I ran into one hell of a storm, thunder, lightning and slashing rain, and I mean slashing; there were times when visibility was down to zero. Eventually I decided that enough was enough and pulled off at a town named Manchester, of all places!  I was not off the road but about ten minutes when the muck went away and the sun was out again, so off I set. I kept the radio on as I was driving north and I learned that there was a line of violent thunderstorms replete with tornadoes sweeping across the mid-west.  When I arrived in Louisville the TV in my hotel room was showing nothing but the weather picture, and horrible it was. Tornadoes were all around southern Indiana and northern Kentucky, destroying property and killing people. Fortunately, nothing hit where I was, so Michael and I were able to meet up and spend a happy evening and morning together.

So I arrived in Bowling Green where I found Emily and my house in good shape. I had little time to enjoy my daughter’s company because the next day she lit out to Sarasota (of all places) with her girlfriends, arriving back the following Friday full of congestion and a sinus infection. I did not let my time in BG go to waste though, as Tom K and I, by dint of determined application, were able to spend many an evening hour in the Reverends’, our favorite watering hole, downing margaritas.

Then it was off to Chicago (driven by Emily) to stay a few days with J and S prior to our catching our various planes to Europe, thereby ending the great trek.