Friday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Friday

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3
Jul 15

More family visiting

Yesterday I completed the family circuit and hit my other grandparents’ home.

I walked around outside in the woods, as I did as a child. I got eaten up by mosquitos, as I did as a child. I was not told to be careful of snakes, as I was as a child. But probably only because my grandmother wasn’t home just then to warn and worry. She was at a funeral and I was killing time playing in the woods.

And then she came home and fussed at me, as she did when I was a child. And pretty much every day of my life she’s seen me.

It is a wonderful thing to be fussed at.

She’d had a big day so she had an early night last night. I played the Facebook where-are-they-now game. This is difficult to do in a place with limited cell phone service. It is even more challenging in a bedroom with only one electrical outlet, which is as far away from the bed as possible. These things didn’t matter much in the 60s, I guess, when the house was built.

Also, the mattress might be that old, too. And while I’m not that old, I always feel like it after a night in the back room.

But a lovely morning today. Huge breakfast. I washed dishes. More visiting and then this afternoon was timed to get on the road before the rain.

So with more traveling and visiting, I’ll just point out the obvious: when eight of 11 words on a label are that important, you pour yourself a big serving.

adventures / Friday / Germany / history / memories / photo — Comments Off
19
Jun 15

A few Berlin postcards

(Extra material from our trip to Germany.)

This wall relief is on display at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin:

It is from the temple-palace at Tell Halaf and was made from basalt and limestone.

Tell Halaf is a dig site in northeastern Syria, near the Turkish frontier and was the first find of a Neolithic culture, dating to the 6th millennium BC. The name Tell Halaf is a modern name. Tell means “hill” and Halaf meaning “made of former city.” The original name is unknown.

Max von Oppenheim excavated the site at the turn into the 20th century. Some of his finds were destroyed while on display during World War II. The surviving pieces went into storage until the beginning of the 21st century. Now more than 30 sculptures are on display.

This is a panorama. We got to climb to the top of the rotunda of the Berlin Cathedral, prominently featuring the iconic Fernsehturm:

Click the image to embiggen!

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off
12
Jun 15

On the road again

I love little things like this. I never notice them until some unusual moment, like standing on the top stair, catching my breath while loading luggage.

What news, what happiness has come through the pressing of that doorbell over the years? How many times has it chimed inside? How many of the people who stood there and pressed that button where trying to sell something?

We’re heading home. The good news is that the black cat is traveling with us:

The bad news is that Allie has to spend the best part of a day in the car:

She’s an excellent passenger, though. Probably better than we are.

There are only so many rounds of “I Spy” you can play in the mountains.

“Something green!”

And we learned we’re both pretty bad at 20 questions. We couldn’t especially remember the rules and had a hard time keeping count, which sort of blunts the purpose of the game.

But we are home at last. Our doorbell button looks undisturbed.

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off
5
Jun 15

We’re back in the US

And it is also National Donut Day.

So we celebrated by having donuts in two countries. Germany on the left, and in Connecticut, after a long day, on the right.

Our flight went through Amsterdam. Sadly, their airport does not have a Dunkin Donuts. How awesome would it have been to have donuts in three countries?

And, now, to sleep for about three days.

Auburn / baseball / Friday / friends / photo / Samford — Comments Off
8
May 15

Last day of class

Last two classes of the term today. I gave a quiz consisting of when their finals were due and so on, the traditional end-of-term easy few points. I gave my not-at-all famous end-of-term speech. The brain is like any other muscle, I say, and you must use it. In our case, write. Write for publication. Write for yourself. Just write. Writers write.

There are a few other points in that speech. Thank you for your patience, I hope you’ve learned as much as I have. (I always learn a lot, even as the person leading the room.) Deadlines matter, I remind them. And I remind them again that it is OK to be passionate about where their interests are taking them, and so on.

In the second class a student pulled up Boys II Men and I tried to hit the back post of the song with the speech.

I forgot about the last chorus and missed the post.

But the speech is good.

Afterward, as I was wrapping up still more grading and various on-campus errands I ran into one of our students who is leaving us at the end of this term. He was there with his father. The student gave me a hug and introduced me to his dad. That’s not a bad way to wrap up classes.

And I got home just in time to shoot this from the car, hustling as I was to the ballgame. There’s nothing quite so nice as a good sunset on the plain. This blurry, out of the car window, cell phone shot isn’t representative of that, but the feeling of being home can’t be described in words or pictures anyway:

At baseball, it was time for rally sunglasses. Almost everyone in our section participated:

Shame the rally sunglasses didn’t work. Ah well. Get ’em tomorrow.