Recent Doings

It's been a fairly quiet couple of months in my home town and in my life.

I've reconnected with my spiritual director and have met with him in each of the past two months and will meet with him again next week. I'm hoping to go on retreat at the monastery next month.

With summer's arrival, I've already helped run the sailboat races on a couple of Saturdays and a couple of Thursday evenings. I also got to be on a sailboat for a race last Saturday, thanks to a friend who joined the yacht club this year, with me as his second sponsor. He has a regular crew of about a half dozen who did the real work, but I got to help in a couple of non-strenuous ways. The wind was light, and it was a pleasant way to spend a day. One of the people on the boat was a guy who was a race committee boat driver as a teenager about 36 years ago. Back then he was pretty good looking. It was interesting learning about what he had done since then (including being a crew member on America's Cup competitors).

My car was hit by a bus on June 26. I was on the side of the street, getting ready to enter traffic from the parking spot. The street was congested, and the bus swerved to the right and hit my left rear bumper and fender. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but I'm sure the fender will have to be replaced. I hope the bumper can be saved because I've got a couple of stickers on it, and they wouldn't be easy to replace. My collision insurance has a $300 deductible. I hope the appraiser will value the repairs high enough to cover the rest of the cost.

My cousin will be visiting the area from Iowa for about three weeks. Some of the time he'll be at a family vacation place in New Hampshire. When in town he'll stay at my aunt's. We'll probably get together two or three times — maybe take in a baseball game of a summer college student league, maybe go to dinner at the yacht club.

As usual, I went to see the town's Memorial Day parade. There are ceremonies at a park and in the town's major cemetery. I'm glad we have that tradition.