Summer

Yay! Back to the 21st century! It only took a week but the Comcast technician finally got here today and did a fantastic job fixing things. In spite of my best efforts to get him up the telephone pole in the backyard because that's where I was convinced the problem was, he wanted to keep both feet on the ground and try all the connections in the house first. I'm glad he did because he "fixed" every lame connection that I had done when I ran the cable myself over the last couple of years. I don't have a crimping tool so he installed the cable ends professionally and also changed my splitter. But, to no avail. Even with him fixing everything, I still had a fuzzy television and no internet. Finally, he broke out the ladder and went up the pole. He was about to completely change the cable into the house when he saw the problem. The cable had completely come free of the connection. It was something that I could have fixed easily had I just gone up the pole myself, but then he wouldn't have fixed everything else, so I'm glad it worked out the way that it did. I know...waaay too much information, but when things are done right, I like it.

So, anyway, things are back to normal. Without an internet connection this past week I have been disconnected from many things including the weather (that was BIG this past week!), crabbing information, not to mention email. It was a little surprising to find how much I rely on technology, and especially the internet, but with all the rain and runoff from the last storm, I was worried about how crabbing would be affected from the major influx of freshwater into the bay. From the reports that I was able to read today, it looks like things are going to be okay, and in a couple of weeks, they should be perfect. Anyone interested in captaining the skiff?!?

Speaking of the rain, it does look like I've lost four of five tomato plants. They just drowned in all that water. It's not a big deal except that it's hard to find tomato plants this late. None of the local hardware stores have any but I'm going to the beach for the weekend and holiday, so hopefully I can find some at one of the great roadside stands that dot the eastern shore. In the meantime, I'll cut back the plants that I have and see if they recover. By the way, the rain wasn't all bad. Check out that zuchinni on the right. That blew up to be that big in just two days.

Okay, out to the riding mower to cut the rental property grass. It's a perfect evening for watching the shadows grow long, and there's nothing better than a cold drink in the cool of a summer evening while puttering around on the mower. I like pretending that I'm on a Zamboni preparing the ice for the final period of game seven of the Stanley Cup. After that, it's back home to finish cleaning the house (Is it just me or does everyone hate coming home to a dirty house?), and then pack. The beach should be fun, and it will be good to see my brother and his family. And the rates are cheaper than the Red Roof Inn or the old Seabonay. And I'm really looking forward to watching the fireworks out over the ocean. It should be beautiful.

Hmmmm? What's this bright yellow object in the sky? After 4 days of relentless rain, the sky is finally sunny. An estimated 8 to 12 inches of rain fell through the area since Saturday evening and although much of east coast is inundated, my only loss looks to be just four tomato plants, and even those I will try to save. Not bad considering that the backyard resembles the Okefenokee Swamp. Still no internet connection and as a result, I am writing from fellow colleague, and friend, Chris Marsiglia's front porch. After feeding the the hundreds of ants that are escaping the deluge of my yard by hanging out in my kitchen, I made a cup of coffee and walked down here to see how she fared through the storms. In exchange for downloading the CLC client onto her laptop, she let me check my email account and do a quick journal update. Like me, her flooding inconveniences are minor compared to neighboring Laurel, Rockville, Belair, and other parts of Maryland which are FEET below water, and with the rivers not expected to crest before tomorrow, things will not improve for them. Chris had some water in her basement but nothing compared to some other neighbors where pumps are working as I type. Oh, and the leak in my roof is fixed. I couldn't stand it any longer, so I put on my bathing suit and went out on the roof yesterday evening during one of those sweeping torrents to try to find and fix the leak. I think I found it and all through the night, the wall that just Monday was a blister pouch of water, remained dry. What a relief. I have heard that this event is being considered a "once in every 300 years" event. I hope so. That would mean that I only have one or two of them left in my lifetime.

So yesterday, at 8:26 AM, the earth reached its place in its long revolution so that the northern hemisphere is tilted most directly towards the sun The earth tilts on its imaginary axis at about 23.5 degrees, and yesterday, for one precise moment, the northern axis was as directly pointed towards the sun as it gets. That precise moment is the beginning of summer. At least for us. Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere, their axis is pointed as far from the sun as it gets and it’s winter.

But yesterday was an important day. The beginning of summer is an important moment. It shouldn’t be taken lightly. As I look out my window now and watch the makings of a morning thunderstorm, it’s important to realize that everything that I see is a result of something much bigger. Don’t worry. I’m not getting religious on you and your doorbell isn’t about to ring and you won’t find me standing at your front door dressed in a shirt, tie, baggy pants, and a drug-induced smile holding a pamphlet that says, “When Will the Terror End?,” trying to strike up a conversation with you that you don’t want to have in the hopes that you’ll eventually just pay the nickel to get me off of your porch. All that I’m saying is that I have an appreciation for the mechanics of the universe. It amazes me how it works and continues to work. Day in and day out, it just happens. We don’t have to do anything to keep it. That’s pretty cool. And it amazes me.

As a kid, I liked erector sets. I never had one of my own but my oldest brother did, and by the time I was old enough to get my hands on it, he had already dissected it and lost many of the pieces so that when I played with it, it was nothing more than a bunch of pieces of metal and broken gears. But I still liked it. I liked the box it came in. I used to try to make something that resembled the picture on the box but I never could. I eventually got so frustrated with the missing pieces and the lack of direction so that I gave up. The universe is like that for me. It’s just too much for me to take in right now. I don’t know if it’s that I’m too young or too immature, but I’m not ready to understand it. The difference between the erector set then and the universe now is that I accept that I’m not ready. I’m not going to frustrate myself with the need to understand something that I can not simply because I’m still a Neanderthal. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy it. I don’t have to understand it to find pleasure in it.

So, instead, I work and build with what I do know, like my house and my garden and my boat. Through those relatively very small things, I can at least appreciate that the mechanics of the larger picture are incomprehensible. And that is the first step. Accepting that it is incomprehensible and then not getting a headache from the thought. I just have to accept it. I don’t fight it because the fight would consume me. It becomes a mission to understand how and why, and before I know it, much time has passed and much energy lost, and how awful would it be to look back at the loss and feel no closer to the answer than I was when the questions first started haunting me?

Summer began yesterday morning. I have many hopes and ambitions for this summer, and I’ve got a lot of pictures of the things that I want to do so that it’s etched in my memory forever. I don’t like missing opportunities. Especially when you consider that the earth is still steadily, silently making its way on its path and that moment when the axis was most directly pointed at the sun has passed. The days are now already dissolving. They are now getting shorter.

Last night I dreamed of a distant thunderstorm. In the dream, the muffled roll of the thunder and the flash of the lightning were unsynchronized. I can't recall what it was that I was doing in the dream, but I felt the sense of worry. The storm drew closer and closer until it was impossible to discern what came first, the clap of thunder or the flash of lightning. Over a house I saw a funnel cloud and the makings of a tornado, yet I didn't run. I wanted to see it so I stood my ground, but my fear must have gotten the best of me because I finally opened my eyes. When I opened them, it was just light outside. The larger chestnut tree in my backyard was swaying furiously in what looked like a gale. I strained to listen for thunder and expecting pounding rain thinking that the reality of a real storm had forced my unconcious into the dream. When neither came, I puzzled over the meaning of the dream. Here it is nearing noon, and I still don't know but the sense of urgency has passed. Daylight is like that for me. Its glaring light forces me out of myself and into the real world. Likely, though, the dream was just a reprecussion from the thunderstorm that blew threw here yesterday afternoon. It was a terrific storm and one that we needed since its been so dry. The sky cracked and flashed directly above me as if the storm was being born there, and the clouds unleashed a fury of rain. My yard and garden accepted the gift graciously. When I went down for a cup of coffee at six this morning, the large yellow-orange flowers of the squash plants were open for any early insect visitors, the petunias and marigolds in the bed around the fire pit stood rigid as if at attention waiting for orders from the commanding sun, and the birds in the yard were busy plucking fat worms from beneath the recently laid mulch.

The mulching chore has been on my list to get done since the beginning of March, but with work, coaching, and the opening of the baseball season (I work at Camden Yards), I never could catch up. It won't take long now though. As a matter of fact, I'd be done this load already but I stopped to give the weeds a little time to ingest some more poison. The spraying of a few days ago certainly damaged and killed many of them but some are suddenly springing up from the dead, so I hit them again. I'll let that dry and then go out and finish. It's a job I enjoy. The mulching, I mean. It's really dirty work but I like the neat look of it when it's done. I especially like the contrast of the blackened mulch against the fresh blooms of the marigolds and petunias. If Crayola does not have the color "Marigold Orange" in their collection of 64, they should. "Mulch Black" would be good too. And once the purple cone flowers and black-eyed susans bloom, the effect will be even more striking. By the way, play "Eye Spy" with the picture of marigolds on the right and see if you can find the grasshapper. I don't know if the photo is formatted to do this but on my computer, even after clicking on the picture, I can zoom in one more time. Imagine how the world looks for that little guy.

It's funny how even the littlest things can bring us pleasure, like even the straight edge separating the green of the yard from the black mulch in the garden beds. In several of my many jobs before becoming a teacher, I worked for landscapers and even a nursery, and it was there that I learned that there is a technique to mulching. You can't just haphazardly go at it and expect to get that finished, polished look. I was taught that you should always pull mulch towards you. Never push it towards an edge. It won't give you the sharp edge that you want. Instead, pile it in the center, then, while working in a circular pattern around the center, pull the pile out with one open hand and catch it at the edge with the other. And never, ever step on your finished work. Mulch should look light and natural.

Speaking of my yard, any of my neighbors will tell you that it's a thing of beauty, although it's really nothing special. I live in the old part of Pikesville in a little gem of a neighborhood called Ralston. When I moved here I was somewhat worried of being this close to the city, not that I fear for myself physically, but rather financially, and probably not for the reason you are thinking. When I bought this house, it was your typical square, pre-World War I house with a front porch to sit on in the evening to escape the furnace inside that a day of toasting in the sun will typically bring. It was a wonderful little home and I am still excited that the previous owners were not only the original owners, but they built the house, raised their family here, and the last surviving parent, Lucy Mason, actually died in the house back in 2003. I am told that she was sitting in her favorite chair in the living room when she expired at 92 years of age. My neighbors across the street had moved in the day before she died and when they woke the next morning to find the coroner out front, they feared that they had killed her. But, like I said, it is a wonderful neighborhood in the heart of Pikesville. I can walk to just about anything I need, although I, too, have been American-ized and why walk six blocks when you go sit at traffic lights with the windows rolled up and the air-conditioner on, insulated from the rest of the world? But that's my point when I say that I was somewhat worried about the financial impact of the house. Not that I can't afford it, but rather what if the city creeps into this area and my investment plummets? I mean,

yes, I invested some money into this place, but also, a lot of time and effort, and that can't be measured in dollars and cents. Don't get me wrong. I like the city but I don't want some of the problems that come with it. In other words, I like being insulated. But I've also learned a little through my life and worrying about the trivial details hardly seems worth it. By the way, it was fellow teachers Steve Matters, his ever-able sidekick, Larry, Jonathan Browne, Marcus Lewis, Thomas Browne, Ken Hovet, and I that did the majority of the work. See what a little geometry can do?

My point is that I try not to worry too much about the things that I can not control. My yard on the other hand, that's something I like to control. So, today I'm up early and out watering trying to get a jump on the day. After all, it's Father's Day and this evening is a small get-together here with family celebrating Dad and also the move of my brother and his family to Lewes, Delaware. I checked on the crabs that have been in the refrigerator of the garage since being caught early Friday morning, and they seem fine. Very lethargic and probably a little peeved, but you would be too if you had their fate. But yesterday, I spent much of the day spraying for weeds throughout the grass and in the beds, and although I know that I hit every single one of them, for if I am nothing else, I am diligent, but I swear some of them look healthier today than they did yesterday. Control is something I cherish and something that I need. It stabilizes me in a world that is ultimately uncontrollable. So when I see these little spiky weeds that hurt like heck to pull out, and the creeping Charlie that I swear will one day cover the earth except, of course, for my backyard, surviving my best efforts of yesterday, you would think that I would get angry. But no, that's not the feeling that I get at all. Ironically, I like their resistance. I like that they are tough. I know that I have a battle on my hands and I can assure you and every single one of those pesky weeds, that I will win. By the way, I don't have children of my own, but if I did you can be sure that they would need serious therapy as adults. I can hear them now with their $250 an hour shrink, shrieking through the sobs and tears, "All that he cared about was that damn lawn and getting rid of those stupid dandelions!! And I LIKED the dandelions!! And he always loved his tomato plants more than me!!" So far I've done the world a favor by not multiplying.

Anyway, as usual, I digress. I actually came on to write quickly because of the ants that are marching up and down my two young birch trees. Seriously, you should see them. Have you ever read the book, Hope for the Butterflies ? It was written during the whole "Make love, not war" era, and being the product child of a mother that was stuck in the seventies for decades, I was fortunate enough to read it as an early teen, if not earlier. I didn't get its point then, but it had wonderful little illustrations and was about love and caterpillars and butterflies, so I could care less of the point. I liked it. I won't go through the details of the book, as I'm sure now that you've heard of my endorsement you are running out this very moment to buy it, but there is a point in the story where a mass of caterpillars form a tower. Hundreds, if not thousands of caterpillars, where the sole purpose for every single one in the wrangled mass of slithering bodies is to get to the top of the tower. Huge, high towers packed with caterpillars. As I recall, there was a very traumatic point in the story where two or three caterpillars fell from the top of the tower to their death. I was shaken by that, yet the battle cry from the remaining masses still rang loud, "The truth awaits at the top!!," So, as I'm out watering the flowers around my birch trees today, I see this steady march of ants up and down the trunks of the trees. As I said, the trees are young and only ten feet high, but to an ant they must seem like Kilimanjaro and Everest. I immediately wondered if some of the ants had enterprised this whole affair and we're actually charging other ants in exchange for a path to the top and carrying their gear. Sherpa ants, if you will. But I saw no food changing hands and no Panama hats or weighted down ants with packs, so I finally figured that they were much like the caterpillars in that old book. I couldn't stand it any longer, so I screamed at them, "There's nothing at the top!! Leave my birch trees alone!!" They didn't listen, so I went in the house and made my famous concoction of sugar, water, and a little boric acid, plucked some leaves from the birch trees, forced them into the mulch at the base of the trunks and along the path of the ants to make a makeshift pool, and filled them with the potion.

On Tuesday, June 14th, the first full day of exams, Aubrey Pettyjohn and I departed school after our 3^rd period exam and headed down to Kent Island for the first crabbing expedition of the year. After baiting 1000’ of trotline with 200 chicken necks, we headed out to my usual spot and hoped for the best. Usually under a cloudless, sunny sky such as Tuesday, crabs generally drop off the line well before getting close enough to the surface to be caught. However, this day was an exception. Maybe it was because it was June and the crabs are exceptionally hungry, or maybe it was Aubrey’s piloting abilities, or because of my fast and furious dipping technique, but likely it was just blind luck. Our first run netted a full dozen fat, dark, and heavy crabs. We knew the math department’s crab feast would go as planned the next evening!

Throughout the afternoon we caught crabs, toasted the ending of a school year, and generally chatted about odds and ends including Aubrey’s move next year to London with her husband, Nick. By 5 PM we were nearing a full bushel of crabs and Nick joined us for the evening crabbing session. By then the shadows had grown long across the water and we were into our second bushel. I thought for sure that a low, lazy, setting sun would bring us a flurry of activity, but to our disappointment, the tide slacked and the crabbing slowed. We left there under the canopy of a beautiful summer evening with a bushel and a half of crabs and made our way to Cantler’s Riverside Inn for a much deserved dinner.

On Wednesday evening, with just one day left in the school year, many current members of the math department, and even an old member, Bill Craig, gathered at my house for the first crab feast of the year. It was a wonderful evening in spite of the passing thunderstorm. We were easily able to move the party into the garage for the hour-long storm, and then worked our way back outside for s'mores by the fire pit. Although it was a terrific time and enjoyed by all, it is still sad to think that many of our friends will be moving on to new and exciting places next year. Things will certainly be different.

As mentioned on the OM math page, Marisa Hollencamp leaves us for the Roland Park Country School in Baltimore, Aubrey is moving to London for a year, Tom Clifton is retiring, and Bill Craig is not only retiring for the second time, but also looks to be moving to Richmond, VA, to be closer to his son and his family. As exciting as change is, and regardless of how positive the change will be, there is always a sense of melancholy for me in the change. We all want the best for our friends and family, and maybe it’s my fear of what the unknown will bring that tugs at me. And yet, even having this tug at me now, I know that as each of us goes through the process of change, we will adapt and grow into a place that will feel as comfortable as, and even better than, that evening’s festivities did.

Thursday, June 16th and the last day of school. There was no bugle sounding, no marching band, and no moment of silence to mark the end of the school year. It came and went, and yet, from the moment that I had my final checkout for the year in Mr. Eastham’s office, it was finally summer vacation. You may think that kids live for summer vacation, but I can assure you, teachers do too! It is a much needed respite, and frankly, I sincerely believe that the school year could be, and should be, condensed in a manner such that school ends on the Friday after Memorial Day and resumes on the day after Labor Day. That is an argument for another day, but I assure you that it is not only that I am a teacher that I would make that argument. And also know that I say that it can be done by providing the same number of hours of class instruction. Maybe one day I will make a proposal to the school board to that end.

Anyway, Friday was another crabbing day with my friend, Jeff, in preparation for Sunday’s event here at my house. Besides being Father’s day, and in having my Dad and other family over to celebrate the day, my brother, John, is leaving his principal job at Sherwood High School in neighboring Montgomery County, for a move with his family to Lewes, Delaware. He was offered the opportunity to be the principal at Cape Henlopen High School and is looking forward to a more relaxed life style. I am sure to envy him every day next year when I am stuck in Baltimore and Washington rush hour traffic trying to get to work. At the same time, I now have a place to grab a shower when heading to the beach!

The results of yesterday’s crabbing venture was similar to Tuesday’s. We caught another bushel and a quarter of crabs even though I overslept by two hours. Sorry about that, Jeff. It’s funny to wake up and think that you’re supposed to be somewhere but at the same time know that for the next nine weeks you don’t have that many responsibilities. My sole responsibility that morning was to have met Jeff at 4:15 AM and I blew it. Thankfully, he’s got a great sense of humor and laughed it off. I’m not so sure I’d have felt the same especially after it was me that insisted we get out on the water for an early start.

So, that makes me current. Today is Saturday and I’m spending the day figuring out some nuances of the web page, framing my summer puzzle over the fireplace, and also working out in the yard and garden. The peas have climbed up their make-shift trellis to completely surround the birdhouse and are loaded with fat pods. The tomato plants are already waist high and growing daily. Oh, by the way, I got my earliest tomato ever! June 17^th and I’ve already got a red tomato from the vine. Not to mention two large green peppers. And the new asparagus bed has come to life. It will take several years for the asparagus to be ready to harvest, but it all bodes well for a banner year in the garden.