Back Yard Gardening

Little did I think when we moved to this new home, about a year and a half ago, that one of our big pleasures would be, of all things, a back yard. Unless you're living in a high rise condo or an RV, I suppose you've long ago gotten used to having one.

But it's new to us. For the past 28 years our "back yard", if it can be dignified as such, was a sand and gravel pile and parking lot that mostly grew catbriers and trouble. Ann put her great talents to work on the front and on the trim around the house, and I managed to plow up a spot of scruffy weeds that passed for grass in order to plant enough day lily and daffodil bulbs so I'd never have to mow it again. It was, as beach houses go, a pretty attractive layout, but we were still short a real back yard.

Now we have one.

The deal when we moved in here is that the homeowners association would take care of maintaining the front and side yards while we'd have the back. Several of our neighbors, scarred veterans of years of suburban lawn upkeep, opted for a house with a mini back yard, and then went and spread a thick layer of pine straw over that. We, being subdivision newbies, took the road less traveled.

It's become a yard filled with as many bright colored flowers and green shrubs as Ann can find and I can plant, and we're getting ready to put into place a small wandering-walk along the edge of the yard. I push an old-fashioned reel-type mower around the small lawn, much to the entertainment of younger neighbors who have never seen such a strange contraption. While our back yard will never make the Garden Tour, it's our back yard.

Something else out there in the back yard, nestled in spots just out of reach of the squirrels, is a half-dozen bird feeders of different shapes and sizes. So we've had birds, lots of birds, and enjoy their daily visits: bluebirds and redbirds, upside down nut hatches, chickadees and cardinals, finches both purple and gold, hummingbirds, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, jays and doves and others whose identities I haven't a clue. Along with an occasional visiting butterfly (which we used to call "flutter bys"), they're all fun to watch and enjoy.

Morning and evening we provide a diet of meal worms for the bluebirds, who come to their table when we whistle, and every other day or so we have to reload the other feeders with seeds. (Those miserable bluebirds, I regret to report, get their free meal here but nest and raise a family in a neighboring yard, the ingrates.) A small garden fountain that we bought at a downtown street fair gurgles with reasonably clean water to wet their whistles and songs.

As back yards go, I suppose, it's not much. But it's peaceful and quiet and green and ours, and we love our back yard garden.

The End of the Books?

The end is near. Yep, the end is near of being able to read two or three books a week, just for fun. It's become increasingly obvious to me, at least at this beginning stage of my legal education career, that I'm going to be reading a whole lot of not-for-fun books in the next few years. In plotting out my law school study program, I'm allotting 30 hours a week, six hours a day for five week days, to do the necessary reading and study. In addition there will be various lectures, conversations and discussions to absorb. Not much time in there for pleasant reading.

I'm going to miss it, too, for "fun" does not suggest frivolous, at least not in this case. Part of my reading is pure fantasy and escapism, part of it is to expand some of my horizons, part of it is to enjoy the pure beauty of words. I don't expect to get any of that in reading casebooks, briefs or texts, none of which have any pictures in them and none of them can be characterized as "fun" reading. Perhaps this sounds like whining, but I hope not. It's just a bittersweet goodbye.

Some good books have piled up on the coffee table, and I've pushed through them in the past week just to close out my not-read account. One of them is the Harlan Coben mystery spellbinder, "Just One Look", which falls into the Fantasy & Escapism category. Truth be told, I'd never heard of Harlan Coben and don't read many mystery books, but an article in the current Atlantic magazine http://www.theatlantic.com/200707/harlan-coben persuaded me to check it out. This book defines a "page-turner": I read it in one (late) night. Great story!

Several months ago son Jerry had recommended Kurt Vonnegut's "A Man Without A Country", and since then (a) it has lain unread on the table and (b) brother Vonnegut has passed on to whatever his reward might be. The book defies classification, but I suppose we can call it a collection of mini-memoirs, a valediction, that is often clever, occasionally poignant, and scathingly on target: "The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon."(p. 40) Thanks for a good recommendation, Jerry.

On the bottom of the pile was a book I picked up impetuously while wandering through Barnes and Noble, "Baseball Haiku". I've always been fascinated with the drama and beauty of baseball: the incredibly lush green field set in such a meticulous pattern, the hush that falls in the second or two before the pitcher throws the ball, the ballet of a 5-4-3 double play. To describe all that with the delicately powerful words of a haiku had never occurred to me, but this book is filled with them, like...

alone
in the autumn night
the home run ball

or

crack of the bat
the outfielder circles under
the full moon

It will be hard to give up books like these for the stirring prose of Somebody v. Somebody. I suspect I never will.

Anniversaries

Although the monarch butterflies regularly return to Mexico and the swallows always make it back to Capistrano every March 19th, it's we homo sapiens who most regularly celebrate anniversaries. Hallmark and the FTD, in fact, have a made a pretty going concern of encouraging this trait among us. We love to have annual reminders of whatever special days in our lives need to be remembered.

For me, two of those days occur in the month of June. One we just passed, June 11th, the Feast of St. Barnabas. It's not a day to mark with candles and great whoop-de-do, but on that day in 1961 my life was inalterably changed when I was ordained into the ministry of the Episcopal Church. It's been quite a ride! Forty six years, over 2,300 Sundays, many "Easters" and more than a few "Good Fridays", and a spiritual and emotional journey that I wouldn't trade for anything.

I have always had, truth be told, a lover's quarrel with the church (apologies to Robert Frost), but that has never, not for a moment, diminished my respect and affection for the institution. Sometimes the rigidity and imagined self-importance of its leaders is a source of embarrassment and frustration, making me want to hide my clerical collar where it can't be found. Other times, however, and more frequent times, I've been almost sinfully proud to be a part of the Episcopal Church.

The other June date is the summer solstice, June 21st, but known around these parts as our wedding anniversary, the day when, back in 1958, Ann and I embarked on a truly remarkable journey together. Over the years, 49 of them now, we've experienced something that we never could have imagined when we began, a relationship that is unspeakably deep, grown to become filled with mutual respect, absolute trust, and profound love.

There is a scientific principle (used also in theology) called synergism, which describes what happens when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's not a very romantic term, I suppose, but it pins down the essence of our 49 years. Our lives individually have been good, of course, but our life together has raised the stakes to an entirely different level. Anne Lamott, one of our favorite philosophers/theologians, describes a good marriage a little more eloquently by saying that it is one in which each secretly believes he/she got the better deal!

From time to time and ever so often we get the whole family together, and it's always important to get the group picture taken. All of us. All 18 of us. And this picture of us with our grandchildren, children, and spouses, says it all.

Law School

I have already been accused of going over to the Dark Side. No, I haven't begun rooting for the Yankees, nor have I switched to the GOP, but I am going to Law School. (Did you note the capital letters?)

After years of laughing at lawyer jokes and making snide comments about bar associations, it was time to learn how the other side lives. Rather like an extended cultural exchange, for I've even found an attorney who wants to go to seminary!

It all began, it seems to me, when earlier this year I read a fascinating account (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/01/29/070129fa_fact_groopman) written by an MD of how doctors think, how their minds work, in the practice of medicine. I have always been intrigued, in much the same vein, with the whole legal process and how lawyers think <insert lawyer joke here>, and after reading a few books on the subject (Scott Turow's "OneL" and Martha Kimes' "Ivy Briefs" were two of the better ones) it dawned on me that I might enjoy studying law.

Two realizations quickly followed. One was that I had no intention of going away to a campus-based law school; it was too expensive, too demanding, and I sure didn't want to be away from home that much. The other realization was that I certainly wasn't ever going to actually practice law, so the dreaded bar examination was thereby finessed.

The obvious solution was to make application to an online law school (headquartered, you'll probably not be surprised to know, in California) http://www.nwculaw.edu/cgi-bin/nwcu where, come July 1st, I'll plunge into the basics: the law of contracts, torts, and civil procedure. It's not Harvard Law School, of course, but it is a "real" law school and will cover much the same territory as residential schools and give me a general sense of what a legal education entails. Freed from the constraints of the bar exam I can progress just as quickly or slowly as life allows, and with on-line video conferencing and live discussions I'm able to participate in the law school process as much as technology allows.

A good friend, a nearly-retired physician, traveled the same road several years ago, and for the same reasons, and his encouragement, as well as that from another friend who's an active member of the local bar, gave me the push I needed. It promises to be an interesting and challenging couple of years, and, I trust, just enough fun to keep the process alive. But, please: no more lawyer jokes.

Lebanon Chapel

Last Sunday morning was big for lots of us: worship services at Lebanon Chapel resumed for another summer! I know, I know: on the "thrill scale" that may rate somewhere between Lindsay Lohan's party plans and another World Series of Poker tournament, but for those of us who measure life in small pleasures it was a major event.

Every summer our church (St. James Episcopal) has, in addition to its regular schedule of Sunday worship services, two additional services at a little place called Lebanon Chapel. Officially its title is Mt. Lebanon Chapel, built in the early 1830s on Wrightsville Sound to serve those folks who vacationed in the area during the summer months. (A "sound" around here refers to a body of land, as opposed to a "sound" up there which is a body of water.)

As you can tell from the picture above, it's a small, wooden frame building, set in the midst of the lovely 155 acre Airlie Gardens. A neighboring parish (St. Andrew's on-the-Sound) was built in 1923, after which the little chapel was no longer needed and became basically abandoned for 50 years and eventually trashed by vandals.

In the mid '70s the renovation process slowly began, and in 2000 St. James once again held services in the Chapel. There are now, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, three services every Sunday, as well as numerous weddings, baptisms, and special occasions. In my "retired" status I get to enjoy sitting in the congregation, and not having the responsibilities of leading the worship. I'm a happy follower, especially in this comfortable old setting.


Inside, about a hundred people can squeeze in to sit on the plain wooden benches, enjoy the spring fragrance and breeze coming through the open windows, keep an eye on the magnolia and live oak trees dripping Spanish moss, and imagine a horse and buggy convoy delivering more parishioners. There's no music during the simple worship service, and dress is about as casual as you want to make it. (The guy with the dark shirt is our son Jerry, chatting with Ann before the service begins.) You can pick up details of the history and and some more great pictures of Lebanon Chapel at http://www.stjamesp.org/Chapel.html

Two things in particular make these Sunday mornings in the Chapel special for me. For one thing, the dress code is "comfortably casual": sport shirt, khakis, no socks, and boat shoes is the rule for guys, quite a change from the "big church". There a coat and tie is pretty much de rigueur for worship services, so the more casual is a pleasant change. It's also pretty consistent with the Chapel's ambiance, whereas the coat and tie feels right downtown.

Chapel services are special, too, for it gives us a chance to reconnect with old friends who have moved away and yet return every summer to Wrightsville Beach and Lebanon Chapel. It's an extended family reunion, and a wonderful opportunity to get caught up with each others lives. Nor is it unusual to see three, even four, generations worshiping together again in the Chapel. This is an important, even essential, component of our life in this old congregation.

I'm not sure what ecclesiastics or theologians would say about all this, but for me and for many others, Lebanon Chapel in the summertime is a joyful and profound spiritual experience.