Sunset

Tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day. The remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole are moving up the coast, promising heavy rain all day. Tonight, however, the approaching fringe of the storm gave us a spectacular sunset. It came on suddenly, as the gray clouds thinned and the sun reflected off them in bright deep pink. As we watched, the sky--not just the western fringe, but most of the sky, gradually turned from pink to gold and then to a deep orange-red as the sun sat. In the east, it gave us an arc of rainbow. It was wonderfully beautiful, and we could do nothing but stand and immerse ourselves in it.

It is good to be reminded that, with all the trouble in the world today, the world itself can still be breathtakingly beautiful.

Folk Music

All of a sudden, it seems, I have rediscovered 60s folk music. This is not a complaint: I am loving music again. I’ve created an iPod playlist of 101 folk songs (including some that are closer to jazz, but sound enough like sixties folk to be on the list). I’m addicted to Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” and Iz Kamakawiwo’ole’s always odd version of “Over the Rainbow.” But I am also captivated by newer Joan Baez stuff and (tonight, for instance) occasionally just get swept away by Judy Collins’ “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”

I am not sure why it happened, but I think I know how. It has been a meandering process. I moved a lot of my albums to iTunes, which gave me a chance to listen freshly to Paul Siebel and others. Then, I saw a documentary about Joan Baez, after which I understood her “Diamonds and Rust” for the first time as a song about Bob Dylan, who I continue to think writes music that tells the story of our generation (Lyrics like “Not dark yet but it’s getting there” and “I used to care, but times have changed” resonate with us aging boomers in ways only we can understand.) I started listening to Joan again. “Joe Hill” struck me as particularly fresh in this age of greedy capitalism. I downloaded “The Day After Tomorrow” and heard a fresh, more reflective sensibility in her music. It was great to see her still digging deeper. Along the way, I saw first Taj Majal and then Judy Collins at the State Theater here in State College. Then, somewhere along the line, I installed Pandora on my iPod, created a Rita Coolidge channel, and discovered new singers—Mraz, Iz, and Jack Johnson, especially. Before I knew it, these small steps had led me back to looking for guitar tabs for folk (and folk rock) songs.

Like I said, I am not complaining. The wonderful thing about this reflective, serious but often playful music is that it reminded me that I live, every minute of this life, in a world where things—good and bad—are happening and that feeling the reality of these things can make us, at minimum, more aware of the joy of being alive. That’s a good thing.

Transcendentalism

Today, I was reminded of a moment in my undergraduate education at Penn State Shenango Campus. It was in the introductory American Literature class. We were about to begin studying the transcendentalists. Dr. Leon, with a bit of a smile on his face, acknowledged that transcendentalism was a difficult concept to understand.

"But," he said, "perhaps we can understand it better if we break it down into its component parts." He wrote the word on the blackboard and proceeded to underline its component parts:

"We all know 'trans,'" he said. "It indicates something that goes across. And we know 'ism'--a belief in something. And, of course, we know that 'dental' refers to the teeth."

"So," he summarized, turning to the class, "We can hypothesize that 'transcendentalism' refers to a belief in something that goes across the teeth. What remains is this little part--'cen.' There's the mystery!"

I've remembered that bit of academic humor--it could have come from Twain--for more than 40 years. I wish I could thank Dr. Leon for giving me a gift that has lasted that long.

Memorial Day

The other day I went to my hometown, Hermitage, Pennsylvania, to put flowers on the graves of family members—my mother, my aunt, my grandparents—for Memorial Day. It is a tradition that I have followed for most of my adult life – a quiet and personal way to visit with and honor the people who were once the very center of my life.

I pulled off I-80 and up Route 18 toward Hermitage, but then turned left rather than take the main road to what has become the commercial center of the town—the Mall. Instead, I worked my way around the edge of town, past the hospital where my mother worked (and which, I discovered, is now a UPMC—University of Pittsburgh Medical Center—site), down Strawbridge Avenue where my great-grandparents lived and lent their name to a side street—Knapp Avenue—and then across the Freeway onto Smith Street, past the redbrick house where my mother was born, and, finally, a right onto Griswald Avenue where the old Golden Dawn had been and a left at the old playground (now just a neatly trimmed empty lot) to Baker Avenue, my old neighborhood.

Everything looked familiar, but different. The empty lots, where we had played basketball and football as kids, were filled in. The old houses has been updated, vinyl-sided, expanded. Several people were talking in front of the house where my Aunt Sis used to live, but I didn’t know them. A young man was just entering the front door of the Hilliard’s house, which had been completely remodeled. Up the street, Grandma Elliot’s house, which had been a two-tone green shingle house when I was a kid, was now brightly vinyl-sided in a way that showed off its old craftsman styling. Smocks Dry Cleaning, where I briefly held my first job, is still there. My house, Grandpa’s old temporary place built on the back corner of his lot, of course, was gone, replaced by a raised ranch that sits up front on middle of the lot, completely transforming the old place.

At the top of Baker Ave., I turned right onto State Street and headed toward the cemetery. This was the main highway of my childhood. I had the same sensation as on Baker Avenue: I knew where I was at all times, but nothing looked familiar. Messersmith’s market, where my mother was a clerk and where I traded in pop bottles for bottles of pop, was now a Pizza Place, the font totally remodeled. The Red Barn--which had been an Italian restaurant where my mother waitressed when I was a boy--had again morphed, this time into a Mexican Restaurant. Some of the old buildings had been totally replaced. I dropped in at Arby’s, which was in the same plaza as the store where I bought flowers for the graves and which I had helped to open in 1965. It was on the same lot but everything else was new construction.

Sitting at Arby’s, I realized that it has been more than 40 years since I lived in Hermitage. Heck, it wasn’t even called Hermitage when I lived there. It was just Hickory Township. And then it struck me: Yes, I am from there, but I am no longer of there. It is harder and harder to find connections—or even memories—there.

In a way, it is a liberating realization. It makes clear that the “rest of me” will not be found in my past, but in moving forward.