Easter Sunday

the capstone to April School vacation.

Every time I sit down to write one of these things I struggle to come up with a title. There is a temptation to be clever or pithy. However I have found that the advice of urban scholar and faux rock star David St. Hubbins rings true. “It’s a fine line between clever and stupid.”

Today is Easter Sunday and that has different meanings for different people. Some more devout than others. One common thing will be families getting together, as will mine, for a meal.

It also marks the end of school vacation for my sons and return to the office for me. My oldest will return for the last quarter of his Freshmen year of High School. I am not sure how that happened as it was just yesterday, or so it seems, that we took him to my in laws for his first Easter. My youngest will go back to seventh grade and I remember when he started coming to Easter dinners too.

It’s been an interesting week, you don’t know how badly I wanted to add; “in Lake Woebegone”, but this isn’t the Prairie Home Companion and I don’t want to run afoul of Mr. Keillor or his lawyers. I was a big fan of the PHC and it was a joy to listen to Garrison Keillor’s deep baritone voice as he spoke of his fictional hometown. In 2003 while in Iraq, friends sent me a tape of one of the shows. My good friend Sean and I would listen to it while driving all over our part of Kurdistan. We listened to it until we could quote lines and sing along with the Wailing Jenny’s.

It’s been a good week for the most part. It started off cold and damp. We had a fire in the fireplace most nights. Though I will freely admit that I have contemplated having one in August with Air Conditioning blowing full tilt. That seems a bit decadent, even for me. I had set a few ambitious goals. Clean out the Florida Room, which has become a repository for broken toys, discarded papers and furniture awaiting a purpose. It drives me nuts.

I meant to clean up and organize my office which had become overrun with books, papers and clutter. The Florida Room clean up was deferred and but the office is halfway there. I meant to call the furniture repair place and have them come pick up two antiques that desperately need some attention. I managed to get some writing done.

The early part of the week was spent hanging out with the boys. Watching tv together or just talking. The added benefit of the extra chromosome is that my youngest hasn’t yet developed the teenage indifference to his parents that most teens have. Which to be fair, his older brother seems to lack as well. My youngest likes to climb into my chair, and squish in next to me. He holds his tablet up for us both to watch whatever his latest passion on Youtube is. He laughs uproariously and it’s impossible not to envy his joy. It’s pretty cool and I know I am lucky to have that.

Wednesday was coffee with a friend who retired last summer. While I miss seeing her at work I am glad that she’s retired. She put in her time as a social worker and deserves to enjoy life. She’s also a fan of the books and I owed her signature for my latest. We had coffee and caught up at a coffee shop in South County.

I was meeting another friend for lunch at the Matunuck Oyster Bar. I had an hour to kill between and decided to drive around. I drove into Wakefield and took some back Roads and found myself on the route that I used to drive from the house I rented to campus. I had been wanting a new URI hat for long time and ventured to the edge of campus to get one from a store that sells such things.

Then retraced my steps to get to lunch. The drive, the weather and the time of year all left me feeling a little nostalgic. I know where the last thirty years have gone and I have few regrets. I arrived, uncharacteristically, on time for lunch with a good friend and mentor. The meal was excellent and the conversation matched it.

Thursday was a memorial service for my friend’s late husband. The weather was beautiful and the service was beautiful in a way that those things rarely are. In the midst of grief, there was great love and an outpouring of emotion for my friend.

Friday was a trip to the American Heritage Museum in Hudson, Massachusetts. If you have an interest in history, especially tanks, I highly recommend it. My friend Tim, a fellow veteran of the Army, my oldest son and I made the trip. My son and I had been there two years ago but Tim never had. It was fun to watch him view the excellent collection of militaria from World War I right through to our war in Iraq.

One of the more poignant things for me was the up-armored Humvee in desert livery. It was nearly identical to the one that my team and I drove around in 2008. It brought back good and bad memories. Mostly it made think of my driver “G”, who survived the war, and deployments afterwards only die days after coming home from his last deployment.

Today is Easter Sunday. I will spend the day with my family. We will eat a nice meal and talk about this and that and of nothing particularly important. It won’t be exciting but it doesn’t have to be. I know how fortunate I am.