Birthday II: Sixth Floor Museum

 

For my birthday celebration Little One came over on Saturday and she, the Mrs, and I drove down to Dallas. After five years in Texas I was finally going to visit the Sixth Floor Museum in Dealey Plaza. The museum resides in what was once known as the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald worked 63 years ago, and on the sixth floor he fired the lethal rifle shots that killed President John F. Kennedy.

About fifteen years ago I did a huge deep dive into the JFK assassination. Before that I had seen the Oliver Stone film in the theaters, and over one Memorial Day weekend five or six years later analyzed the book Six Seconds in Dallas by Josiah Thompson. Over a two-year period around 2009 / 2010 I put away a dozen books on the event. The most convincing ones I found were Case Closed  by Gerald Posner and the magnum opus 1,650-page Reclaiming History by prosecutor-turned-researcher Vincent Bugliosi (I did not read all 1,650 pages).

I believe with about 95 percent certainty that Oswald was the lone gunman. However, all those connections he had – with the military, the CIA, the mafia, the left-wing, the Soviet Union – seem almost beyond coincident and its understandable why so many fall down this tantalizingly intriguing conspiracy rabbit hole.

Here are some pics (of the 135 I took!) from my visit to the museum:

This is a scale model of Dealey Plaza used by the FBI during the initial investigation back in 1963. Forget the exact scale, but it was something like 1 inch = 3 feet. The diorama was huge, maybe 10 feet by 10 feet by 6 feet in height.

Me looking at the Sniper's Perch, that sunlit corner twelve or fifteen feet beyond the glass partition, where Oswald fired the shots from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

Took this pic because I have never seen it anywhere else: the interior of the 1961 Lincoln Continental which drove JFK, Jackie, Governor Connelly and his wife, and two secret service men on that terrible day. You can sort of see how the jump seats in the middle, which look folded up, are slightly lower and more centered, than the rear seat in which JFK sat. 

There were lots of memorabilia for JFK, Oswald, and Ruby. For some odd reason I found these brass knuckles and pistol holster, found in Ruby's car after killing Oswald, interesting. He really was a rough fellow, mob connections and strip club ownership and all.

Since the sixth floor Sniper's Perch was closed off by a glass partition, you had to go up to the seventh floor to look out for the approximate view Oswald would have had. It's not as far as you'd think. There are five vehicles following the curve on the right side, Elm Street. The middle vehicle just passed the X mark where JFK suffered the fatal head shot.

Directly outside the Texas School Book Depository, renamed the Dallas County Administrative Building many decades now. Oswald fired from the square window six stories up from ground level on the far right.

The famous Grassy Knoll. The fence, where there may or may not have been another shooter, has been replaced several times in the past 63 years, but always with a replica for historical reasons. The knoll itself is a slight incline of about 20 degrees, and it's about sixty or seventy feet from the sidewalk on Elm to the wooden fence.

Hopper posing at the wooden fence, smiling at photographer Little One after scouring the ground for any evidence which might have been overlooked of a second gunman.

The spot in the middle of Elm Street where JFK received the fatal wound.

Birthday I

 

My birthday fell in the middle of the week a few days back. Unfortunately, I was the only one around. Well, me and the dog. The Mrs. was in Houston. My oldest was 45 minutes away in her apartment still adjusting to her new teaching gig. My youngest was 1,640 miles away at college. So it was just me. Which I don’t mind. I shun the limelight. However, I was plummeting head over heels into full-blown sickness.

That sickness is viral bronchitis. I’ve gotten it several times over the past decade; in fact, it’s pretty much the only way I get sick. However, and maybe this is due to the dry heat of Texas, I haven’t gotten it in over three years, whereas up in Jersey I was lucky if a winter went by without me catching it.

So I knew it – knew it! – back on Monday when I first felt a little … off. The wife had just left to drive the four hours to Houston, where she’d be inspecting her team and counters down there until Thursday night. I got a bite to eat and when I got home something didn’t feel right. A little dizzy, a little woozy, but nothing debilitating. I thought nothing further of it.

The next two days I went in to work. The first day I was fine. The second day I felt a little fatigued. When I got home, the coughing started. Not much, but just enough to set my warning bells off. There was a family FaceTime to wish my youngest a happy 18th birthday (she was born the day before my birthday). After hanging up, I decided to take a hot bath, because suddenly I was flat out exhausted.

I slept mostly through the night, though drained of energy. The coughing deepened and grew more frequent, and I became aware of phlegm or mucus in my chest that needed to come out. I had taken the day as PTO, so with nothing pressing I basically sat in a chair for three hours and watched YouTube videos. Finally I mustered strength to drive to CVS in the 95 degree heat. I bought Robitussin, four orange Vitamin Waters, and powdered vitamin C, and began aggressively self-medicating.  

My daughter planned on driving over to watch a movie with me, but I canceled. Didn’t want her to get sick and, well, just didn’t feel up to it. The next two days I struggled and while I didn’t get better, I didn’t get worse. But I had to get better for the birthday weekend, because we had things planned. So off to CareNow I went, in search of potent medication.

In the past azithromycin always cured me. But for some reason the doctors never want to give that to me. Yes, it’s an antibiotic and the bronchitis is viral, but from what I understand, the sickness begins as viral and transitions to a bacterial form. Usually after 7-10 days of infection. Well, I was on Day 6, and I wanted a z-pack.

They insisted on giving me a … ready for this … a Covid test. Now I know I didn’t have Covid. I was more than familiar with how a bronchial infection feels and what it does. But I guess the good folks at CareNow get reimbursed $$$ for every Covid test they administer, so they take every opportunity to administer a test. As expected, it came back negative. The doctor gave me a prescription for azithromycin, and off I went.

Before he left I asked for some off-the-cuff speculation: Could my pulmonary vein stenosis problems after my atrial fibrillation ablations fifteen years ago make me more susceptible to bronchial infections? He admitted that yes, what I went through could have “changed the architecture” of my pulmonary system where it cannot clean out infections as optimally as it should. Though he caveated this was not his specialty, and I assured him I wouldn’t hold him to his opinion.

Now, less than 24 hours later, I am a thousand times better, though still coughing. The new cough suppressant allowed me to sleep mostly though the night (I was getting 4.5 hours a night the previous three days). Plus the z-pack is knocking the infection out very quickly, as it always does. I’m ready to go back to work tomorrow. Well, physically that is.

Coming next: Parts II and III, where I detail what we did for my birthday, with pictures. It made a lousy birthday a million times better. In fact, it was probably the funnest birthday I’ve had down here in Texas.

 

College Road Trip II

 

Saturday morning of the 22nd was warm and sunny as we pulled away at 8:20. The wife said a tearful goodbye to Patch and I as we drove off … and had to return from a couple blocks away realizing we forgot one of her gifts. On our second departure we stopped at Sprouts for some snacks and sandwiches, and hit the highway.

 

We made good time that day. Patch, with her newly-minted drivers license, volunteered for two hours behind the wheel as we crossed into Arkansas. We drove over the Mississippi, watched the Corolla’s odometer flip from 129,999 to 130,000 with much aplomb, drove through the briefest of rainstorms (the only time on the College Road Trip it rained while we were in the car), and avoided a five-mile-long traffic jam (thanks Waze!). There was a little drama as we encountered what had to be a drunk driver – swerving, accelerating, braking, and even once riding right up to my bumper.

 

Patch found us a hotel via Priceline at a Comfort Suites in Lebanon, TN. We stopped for dinner at a connecting restaurant (I had a cheeseburger, she a Caesar’s salad). Next morning we raided the continental breakfast and checked out, back on the road by 10. Patch volunteered more time behind the wheel – this time, three hours! – as we meandered through the gorgeous Appalachians in Eastern Tennessee and Virginia. Dinner was short and sweet at a Wendy’s. (Our first choice was Chik-fil-A, but we couldn’t figure out why it was closed, until we realized it was a Sunday.) By mistake Patch booked a hotel 140 miles up the road, so we continued on through West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and up to New Columbia, Pennsylvania in the dark until we stopped at a Comfort Inn by 9:30 pm.

 

After another continental breakfast raid we were back on the road by 9:30. We had but four hours to reach my parent’s home in Pennsylvania’s northeast corner. What a joy and blessing it was to arrive at their house that afternoon. I rewarded myself with two Heineken NAs as Patch unboxed all the college dorm supplies we had shipped. My mom made us taco soup with large egg noodles for dinner. They went to bed by 8, and Patch and I stayed up a little bit longer, watched a Matt Pat video (why the eagles couldn’t just fly Frodo to Mount Doom) and a funny, over-the-top cartoonishly gory Cory Kenshin game.

 

Tuesday was a day of leisure. The weather was overcast and cool – at least by Texas standards. After egg-in-the-baskets we drove to a thrift shop where Patch bought a couple of black shirts and I picked up He Leadeth Me by Walter Ciszek and the St Joseph Baltimore Catechism. Back home Patch made 60 – sixty! – cookies, which she planned to hand out at school to her dormmates the next day. My parents took us out to dinner (and my mother bought me a T-shirt the restaurant sold). Then, taking advantage of the remaining daylight, we loaded my stepfather’s Camry with Patch’s supplies, and everything fit, though we accidently broke her five-foot long mirror. Another Cory video, then bedtime.

 

Wednesday was school drop off day. My mother joined us as we left around 8:30, again after packing a couple of sandwiches. I drove to Patch’s school 90 minutes away. We arrived by 10:15 and I was so impressed with the school’s handling of Move In Day. It seemed there was a student helper in school colors every fifty feet to answer questions. We were guided to the building where Patch picked up her ID and room keys, then were guided to her dorm itself. We drove up a short winding road and parked – and were immediately surrounded by a dozen students who helped unload the car completely and brought everything up to her room on the third floor. Turns out the building was elevator-free, so those college kids saved me a potential heart attack or two.

 

We spent the next three hours unpacking and setting up her room. Her roommate and her family were there, too (we met them a few weeks earlier at a school mixer in Texas). A quick trip to Target for a pillow and replacement mirror, and we ate our sandwiches. Patch gave us a quick tour of the campus (what she remembered from her visit the prior summer), which included the student center, the bookstore (I bought a pen, my mother a shot glass, and Patch a school pennant and key chain). We made a quick stop at the chapel, which was cool and peaceful.

 

Then – the Goodbye. Patch hugged her grammy and then me. I had a lump in my throat as we said our farewells. Our eyes met one last time for the briefest – and longest – of moments, then she disappeared inside her dorm. My mom and I then drove home.

 

Thursday was another day of relaxation for me before my solo return voyage. My mother brought me to three local bookstores she found, and I wound up purchasing The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, Dr. No by Ian Fleming, and the Civil War nonfiction paperback Terrible Swift Sword by Bruce Catton. She also gifted me with eight of my stepfather’s golf shirts he no longer fits into. We ate at a locally-famous wing place for dinner, then I read and relaxed after we got back home.

 

I left Pennsylvania at 8:20 Friday morning and pretty much drove straight through until checking in to a Red River Inn at 6:15. I went out for dinner at – finally! – Chik-fil-A. I chatted with the Mrs. for a bit, showered, then read a hundred or so pages of my current read, Father Elijah by Michael D. O’Brien. I left again at 8:20 the next morning, stopped at a McD’s for dinner (and used a minimum-wage-worker replacement kiosk for the first time), then checked into a Super 8 at 6:30, and repeated my evening ritual. Left at 9:25 on Sunday and got home in Texas a little before 2 pm.

 

My 23-hour-drive home was quite an experience for me. I did not listen to any music or the audio book I downloaded. I kept the odometer between 75 and 80 and let anyone and everyone pass me whoever wanted, no questions asked. It was an extraordinary Zen drive for me. I thought a lot – a lot – about big, existential questions. I was floored by the utmost beauty of middle America – Virginia and Eastern Tennessee standing out to me, as well as sections of Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and West Virginia. The time and the miles flew by inexplicably fast, and when I got home, I was ready to go back on the road again.

 

All-in-all, the College Road Trip of 2026 had a total mileage of 3,135. Basically the distance between Augusta, Maine and San Diego, California. My old 2013 Toyota Corolla drove like a champ, the unspoken MVP of the trip, never giving us a scare, never failing us. My 18 hours driving out and 23 hours driving back was easily a record for me. Patch herself impressed me with five hours behind the wheel with 18-wheelers in front, back, and beside, with no issue at all despite still being a brand-new driver. It was a great tip, a great bonding experience. We talked about college, about life, nostalgically chatted about things past, and things that might happen in the future. She napped in the passenger seat and I looked at her, remembering all those pictures she drew as a child, all those soccer games and practices I watched her, and all those times we made each other laugh.

 

All-in-all, a great Road Trip.

 

College Road Trip I

  

Sooooo … it’s been a crazy long, crazy short, crazy summer of change down here. I’ll recap it in the next few days, but what I want to set down for the record now is the Great 2026 College Road Trip.

 

My youngest daughter, known as Patch in these electronic pages over the last eighteen years, has chosen to study fashion at a school in upstate New York. A big factor is her love of the Adirondacks, the cool Falls and snowy Winters, the comfort of memories of her grandparents at their house in northeastern Pennsylvania. She got accepted back in June and we faced the problem of getting her – and, more pressingly, all her stuff – to her dorm room half a country away.

 

Now, her school is just shy of 1,600 miles distant from our doorstep here in the northern Dallas suburbs. My logical, less-pain-the-better way of thinking, along with the Mrs, was

 

1)    1) Ship as much stuff as possible to Grammy’s in PA

2)    2) Fly the three of us into LaGuardia 

3)    3) Rent an SUV, pick up stuff at Grammy’s, and move her in to her dorm

4)    4) Drive back to NYC, return rental, fly home

 

And this is where it stood for six or seven weeks.

 

Then, Patch began scheming. Then she brought her mother into the scheming. And I should mention that things had changed a bit, since due to an immovable business product launch, my wife was not permitted to take off during the week we were expecting to move her in.

 

Sometime about a month ago, just after a delicious home cooked dinner she made for us, Patch presented me with a proposal printed out on a piece of paper. Two columns. Column One: Fly to College. Colum Two: Drive to College. Beneath each a listing of anticipated expenses in dollar form.

 

She wanted to drive to college, mainly because she wanted assurance she could bring everything she needed to her dorm. The Mrs. wanted me to drive her to college, mainly because she saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime bonding experience for me and my daughter. I hesitated. One, I don’t like seeming last-minute changes to schedule, and two, the car we’d have to take is my ancient 2013 Toyota Corolla get-me-to-work-and-back car I drive four times a week.

 

Sensing my hesitation, Patch sweetened the pot: “Dad, we have three remaining Thursday movie nights before I have to leave. I’m willing to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy with you if you say yes.”

 

How could I respond other than in the affirmative??

 

So it was decided. Per her sheet it would cost twice as much to fly and rent as it would to drive and stay in motels. I factored some of that savings in and brought the Corolla into the local shop. $750 later I had two new tires, all of them rotated and balanced, oil changed, new air filter, new fuel filter, and the coolant system flushed. Right away we noticed an improvement in the car’s handling. My confidence this machine would make the trip increased from Never to Possibly.

 

Based on our trip from New Jersey to Texas during the Big Move back in 2021, we knew it would take about two and a half days of travel. Waze had it at around 23 hours. We planned on two full days of daytime driving (from 9 am to 6 pm), stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks. We’d take some sandwiches, drinks, and snacks from home to save money. In the late afternoon on each day Patch would get on Priceline and book a hotel / motel room an hour up the road. On the third day we’d arrive at my parents’ home in Pennsylvania in the early afternoon.

 

We’d have a day of rest in PA where Patch would unpack all her shipped items and we’d load them all into my stepfather’s roomier Camry. Wednesday my mother and I would drive her to school, empty the car, set up her dorm, walk around the campus, and say our goodbyes. Then I’d spend a relaxing Thursday with my folks and depart for the 1,600-mile ride home Friday morning, returning to my front doorstep early Sunday afternoon.

 

Patch could help me out on the drive, at least on the way up. She got her driver’s license in June (that’ll be in the future summer recap post) but had never done any highway driving. She volunteered for two hours a day, and that seemed reasonable to me.

 

It was settled. On Thursday, August 20, we watched the final entry of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, chomping down some Jersey Mike’s sandwiches. We started this “movie night” tradition when her big sister went off to college four years ago, and over those four years watched 199 movies. Everything from Kill Bill to Airplane! to The Corpse Bride to Despicable Me. Those Thursday nights themselves were quite a bonding experience.

 

The next night, after work, we all met at a local Asian restaurant – me, the wife, Patch, and Little One, fresh from her second week of teaching fourth graders in a school 45 minutes away. We dined on ramen noodles and sushi and promised to celebrate again in four months, when Patch returns from the Great White North for Christmas break. Afterwards we all hit a Baskin Robbins then returned home, where the girls watched a Charmed while I read my current read.

 

Little One went home later, and we all turned in. Patch and I needed a good night’s sleep, for the next morning, Saturday the 22nd, would be the first day of the Great College Road Trip of 2026.

 

… to be continued …

June in the Rear View Mirror

 

 

Is it that time already? Has the first third of the summer triad glided from “The Present” into “The Past” so soon? Is it really six weeks since my oldest became a college graduate, my youngest a high school graduate, and me an aging man facing an empty nest around the corner?

 

Sadly, yes. I now can confirm, through experiential rigor, that time does indeed flow faster as one gets older.

 

Anyway, June was a pretty decent month. A bit of downside, yes, but overall a plus.

 

Let’s start inwards and work outwards, but saving meself for last.

 

Little One, the college graduate, has kept herself busy for the first half of summer in various nanny and babysitting gigs. I must admire her hustle. Why, last night alone she received a last minute request to babysit at a house 20 minutes away. After a brief phone interview she took the assignment and returned home four hours later $90 richer. She’ll be working full-time in less than a month preparing her fourth grade classroom for her first year of teaching math. Couldn’t be prouder.

 

Patch began the month with a triumph: she obtained her driver’s license. We’d been practicing since Labor Day, a total of 32-plus hours behind the wheel, going out over 60 times putting over 350 miles behind us. That was a Big Win. Since then she’s continued work at a boutique across town, though her hours have been cut during the summer. To compensate she’s selling more clothes through Depop and to various local thrift shops and is weighing the option to return, on a case-by-case basis, to the balloon company she worked for as a sophomore and junior. She leaves for college in upstate New York in six weeks. And wouldn’t you know it, time picks this moment, right now, to start accelerating.

 

The Mrs. is facing challenges through work, though nothing she hasn’t handled in the past. She’s weighing lateral moves to another company to give her options and leverage. She is the hustler who has given the hustle to her children. (Hustle, however, continues to elude me.) She has a bustling social life down here in Texas, and has made an amazing transformation of herself in other, non-blog ways.

 

Me, I’ve been plugging along at my accounting job, at my bible study, in my reading. Still at a loss for finding a passion that 1) I’m good at, 2) the world needs, and 3) someone will pay lots of money for. Perhaps that is my cross to bear. I make up for it in other ways. The girls let me know on Father’s Day. Heck, the made-from-scratch meal alone, Italian meat loaf, tells me I’m loved and valued more than I realize.

 

I’ve been making incredible progress with my guitar playing. I’ve been focusing on learning guitar solos, and have a nice arsenal. Among the more recents are the solos from “Lights” by Journey, “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen. Why was this plateau not conquered in my late teens? Had it been, you wouldn’t be reading this; you’d be paying $250 a ticket to see me and my band’s latest Farewell / Reunion tour.

 

My reading has been hit and miss. Read and dropped what will most likely be my Worst Fiction book of the year, plus another one that was so damn boring. Since time is traveling by quite fast, I must be very judicious in how I spend my time. However, I read a neat little thriller and am working my way though a nice epic. Which is a nice way to manage stress and wash the day away.

 

I’ve been in a decent stretch of working out (i.e., lifting weights at the home gym) and walking 1.5 miles a day in the modest Texas heat (mid-90s). I know I’ve lost a few pounds, but I’m avoiding the scale, and I feel my torso start to tighten. A lot of mirrors at work, full-length mirrors near the bathroom especially, so I want to like what I see when I walk past. Not vanity, mind you, just health and well-being and a touch of confidence.

 

The bible study is fascinating to me – how Jesus is concealed and revealed in the Old Testament. It’s led by an older man who was in seminary for a time, back in the day when I was lugging my guitar and amp to various garages. I’ve learned a fair amount regarding Old Testament typology, and am thinking about a master post here. I know I haven’t been posting, but perhaps this might jump start me back into putting things up that interest me for future reference, and might interest you. Also among that is a weird but incredible pull to re-open my college calculus textbook. I think after losing my car keys and wallet a couple of times I want to – no, need to – sharpen those synapses. We’ll see about that.

 

Anyway, thus was June. Hopefully more, with more frequency, in the future.

June is Dedicated to the Sacred Heart

 

Manic May

 

Oh, man, what a month! I’m only now beginning to recover from the dual graduation festivities of the past two weeks.

 

Let’s see. May began easily enough. At least for the Mrs. and me. The girls were under a bit of pressure, finishing up papers and projects and such, though it seems to me Patch took a lot of senior days off. Little One was fielding job interviews and secured that rarity of rarities for 2026 college graduates: a full-time position beginning at the end of July. The Mrs. had a week touring with higher-ups out in southern Texas and had to juggle booking restaurants. Me, I had to cope with the threat of the upcoming social engagements and the looming empty nest.

 

Let’s leave those thoughts apart for now.

 

Little One’s college graduation came first. She finished her degree in education cum laude and interviewed and accepted a position in a local grammar school teaching Fourth Grade math. Couldn’t be more proud of her. The risks she took and the successes she attained in the past four years I’ve never seen before. She’s a completely different woman – confident, assertive, decisive. And we chose her college wisely, because it didn’t transform her into a blue-haired bull-ringed lesbian who hates everything her parents believe in. In other words, she’s a normal kid who transitioned into a normal adult.

 

Her celebration started off on Friday the 15th with a mass with the Archbishop of Dallas a few towns over. The wife, Patch, and myself attended with my sister-in-law and Little One’s boyfriend. Little One herself was somewhere in the hundredsfold of graduates in the center pews. We only glimpsed her as she went up for communion. Afterwards we all went to a trendy local place for dinner (I had fish tacos, for anyone keeping score). It was loud and raucous and I had trouble hearing. But that, too, is another story.

 

Saturday was her graduation ceremony. We drove into the city where it was held and discovered said city was simultaneously holding a 5K, 10K, and a marathon. Traffic was brutal. Police would not let us in to the arena, so we had to find street parking a half-mile away. And I had to trudge with Patch and the Mrs. in my suit in 80+ degree weather. Ugh. But the ceremony, while lengthy, was quite touching. The keynote speaker was retired Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan. While not a fan, he gave a personable, rousing speech. And when I saw Little One go up on stage to receive her diploma, my eyes watered and I felt a huge lump in my throat.

 

After that we went to brunch at a French bistro. Everyone from the prior night attended, as well as her boyfriend’s mother, sister, and grandparents. There I had a burger that was quite delicious as only the French can make it. An interminable round of photos at the back of the bistro followed, then an hour’s reprieve at home, where I changed out of my grungy suit and got into shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. In the evening we visited Little One’s roommate and her family, who flew in from Vermont and rented an Airbnb in a Dallas suburb. I had another burger as we all ate around the pool until it got dark and a foraging opossum chased us all inside. We left around 10 pm and fell asleep exhausted once home.

 

Next Friday, the 22nd, was Patch’s high school graduation ceremony. I took a PTO day and lifted some weights and went for a walk, before helping to tidy up the house and hang up Happy Graduation decorations. Little One and her boyfriend came over in the afternoon and we all carpooled to the Dallas Cowboys practice facility where the ceremony was being held. We got pictures of Patch on the jumbotron as she accepted her diploma. I held it together pretty much, until the very end when all the graduates threw their caps into the air. Then it hit me. After sixteen years, I will no longer have a child in a nearby school. In August Patch will be going to college 1,500 miles away.

 

We went to a favorite local hangout to celebrate with drinks and dinner. In addition to the Hopper family we had Little One’s boyfriend, Little One’s roommate, and Patch’s best friend from high school in attendance. We ate, drank, and were merry. I had a spicy shrimp and pasta dish. Afterwards we drove to Handel’s for some top-notch ice cream cones, then returned home to relax and refresh for the long holiday weekend.

 

The wife gifted the girls with some hand-me-down sentimental jewelry, as well as supplementary baubles from Tiffany. I wrote a heartfelt paragraph in each of the goofy cards I got them. The wife wrote a lengthy epistle in one of their cards that could’ve began with, “Call me Ishmael.”

 

This past week Little One moved home from her college apartment, so now I have piles and piles of clothes, toiletries, and small pieces of furniture laying about. Oh, in addition to Sweet Potato, her seven-month old orange tabby cat. Charlie is stressing out adjusting to that. She’s planning on moving out into another apartment with her college roommate before she starts her teaching gig in seven short weeks.

 

Patch and I have been driving several times a week. Her driver’s test is scheduled for mid-June. Two days ago we started parallel parking. She got it down by the fourth attempt, but still needs a lot of practice to fine-tune it. So I have that drama to look forward to in three weeks.

 

All drama that I will miss as summer looms, and with it, the end of summer and the girls beginning their life journeys outside my home.

 

Men at Forty

 

by Donald Justice

 

Men at forty

Learn to close softly

The doors to rooms they will not be

Coming back to.

 

At rest on a stair-landing,

They feel it moving

Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,

Though the swell is gentle.

 

And deep in mirrors

They rediscover

The face of the boy as he practices tying

His father’s tie there in secret,

 

And the face of that father,

Still warm with the mystery of lather.

They are more fathers than sons themselves now.

Something is filling them, something

 

That is like the twilight sound

Of the crickets, immense,

Filling the woods at the foot of the slope

Behind their mortgaged houses.

 

 

Justice (1925-2004) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1980. He wrote this poem in 1967. Know next to nothing about him; might check out his work. Then again, might not, as the poem above, though sounding some tones with me, is of a pitch too bleak for me, as my sonar attempts to navigate this existential leitmotif which fills the woods behind my own mortgaged house.

 

Limits

 

(Some random math humor found without attribution on the internet ...)

Anniversary

 

Yesterday the Mrs. and I celebrated 25 years of marriage. A quarter of a century. Damn, that’s a long time. We went out to one of our favorite restaurants last night and had a good time. I treated myself to lobster fettucine; the wife had sea bass over risotto.

 

We’re kind of tapped out financially. There are college and high school graduation parties and gifts on the horizon, as well as air fare and car rental fees to move my youngest in to her college in the northeast, dental and eye surgery for the dog, heavy duty maintenance on my Corolla and my daughter’s Accord, necessary home repair and bills, bills, bills. So we decided that next year, our 26th, will be our REAL 25th Anniversary. We’re going to take four or five days off and drive out west a couple of hours. Find a nice B&B where there’s history to explore, good food, and relax and get away from it all. Something to look forward to.

 

A lot’s happened in that quarter century. Two children, both now young adults, both on their way to their vocations and living and thriving with varying degrees of independence. Most importantly, both healthy. We’ve lived in three states in two apartments and two houses. Ten or twelve cars. The Mrs. has held four or five  jobs, always onward and upward when she moved on. Me, with my health issues 15 years ago, haven’t been so lucky. I’ve been treading water with 9 jobs and left each one due to layoffs or geographical relocation.

 

There have been times of plenty and times of scarcity. New friends and old friends, friends that came and friends that, sadly, have left. I wrote two manuscripts and 15 or 20 short stories that reside on a flash drive. I’ve written three or four album’s worth of songs. I’ve done a couple hundred workouts and walked a couple hundred miles. More importantly, I’ve read just shy of a thousand books, more than a handful being exceptionally moving and beautiful and changed me profoundly.

 

We’ve seen several close loved ones pass on, and have weathered many, many storms, personal, private, and public. We’ve had arguments big and small, but never went to bed angry with each other. We’re on the same page with most things, and though I find that the Mrs. and I seem to be drifting apart in various ways as we get older – for example, our tastes in entertainment have been changing, with mine becoming more and more conservative and hers become more and more liberal. But despite this, our love has become stronger, cemented in the years and accomplishments we’ve achieved.

 

When I started the Hopper in March of 2009, I was married just under eight years, with a four-year-old and a six-month-old toddling about the house. Now, I’m looking at an empty nest in a few months. Time goes by so so fast. Yes, I’ve distracted myself turning many hundreds of pages over the years but I’ve also reflected a lot on what was happening and recorded many such slices of life here at the Hopper. Every now and then I peruse the archives and reminisce. It’s not a bad way to pass the time.

 

Now, to figure out what to do for the next 25 years …

10 Movies to Get to Know Me

Saw this going around on the Internet recently, and thought I might use it as a jump-start to overcome my negligent lack of posting this year.

 

10 Movies to Get to Know Me

 

(in order that they came to me…)

 

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Signs (2002)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Watership Down (1978)

Ben Hur (1959)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

Rear Window (1954)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

 

Not necessarily my favorites, but movies that I see myself in, movies that exemplify me in whole or just significant parts of me, in various ways, shapes, and/or forms. Find out their commonalities, and you have a nice Platonic ideal of your host here at the Hopper.

A nice exercise to try at home in your down time.

The Ark IV

 

Okay, last one.

 

Yesterday I went with some friends to their Baptist church to visit its “Good Friday Experience.”

 

Inside the church lobby there was a huge line which meandered over the course of an hour, until we reached the “Experience” entrance. Over the next hour we moved through darkened corridors from one room to another, each room holding museum-quality exhibitions describing some key events of the Passion: the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Cross and the instruments of torture, the cloth and perfumes to anoint His body. And this, the Ark of the Covenant:

 

Now, as we know, the Ark was lost to history in the year 586 BC. The Ark was included in the exhibition to show us how the curtain inside the Temple – the one that separated the Holy of Holies, the Ark, from the outer Temple – was torn in two, from top to bottom. I took this stealth pic, and in hindsight I should have also taken one closer up from a side angle so you could sense its height and depth. If I stood on the stage, my hips and lowered hands would be equal to the poles extending from the sides. The ark in this picture, to the best of my reasoning, had the same dimensions and same design as the historical Ark.

 

The exhibitions really triggered your tactile senses deep down. I held a replica of the whip which scourged Christ – felt its weight and heft, touched the barbs of bone and stone tied to leather straps that tore into His flesh. I tried lifting the surprisingly heavy Cross. In the Garden a cool night breeze touched our skin – and the soft hooting of owls and other wildlife echoed past. It was an intriguing and worthwhile experience, and something that really furthered my understanding of the Passion.

 

Would definitely recommend.

The Ark III

 

So what happened to the Ark of the Covenant? Where is it, and if we don’t know where it is, well, what was its fate?

 

The short answer is that it’s been long lost to history, around the time the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah in the year 587 BC. Though it is not specifically mentioned during the passages describing the fall of Jerusalem and the pillaging of the Temple artifacts, one can make a good case that the Ark was taken to Babylon.

 

That’s the first possibility. And in Babylon, it could either have been destroyed (if God allowed such a thing), hidden, or transferred somewhere else. The trail runs cold.

 

Second, perhaps King Josiah from the previous post hid the Ark yet again as the Babylonians advanced on Jerusalem. Maybe in the First Temple, or in a catacomb or some other underground chamber beneath it.

 

Third, there is a mention in the Book of Second Maccabees 2:4-10 that the Prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave on Mount Nebo, the mountain where Moses overlooked the promised land before he passed on.

 

Fourth, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims that the Ark is housed in the northern city of Axum in Ethiopia, at the Church of Out Lady Mary of Zion. No one is allowed inside to view it, so we have little choice but to take them at their word.

 

Fifth, the Lemba people in southern Africa state that they posses the actual Ark, and keep a replica in Zimbabwe. The Lembas trace their lineage back to Yemeni traders and do practice a form a semitic religion.

 

Finally, there is a Samaritan tradition the holds the Ark is kept at a sanctuary on Mount Gerizim, about 35 miles north of Bethlehem. (However, there is also a Samaritan tradition that Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Gerizim, when most biblical scholars believe the sacrifice was to take place on Mount Moriah).

 

So, in summary, the six most plausible (if such a word can describe the fate of a holy object lost nearly 2,600 years ago) locations for the Ark of the Covenant appear to be:

 

1)    1) The ruins of Babylon in Iraq

2)    2) Beneath the location of the First Temple in Jerusalem

3)    3) Mount Nebo in Jordan

4)    4) A church in Ethiopia

5)    5) A undisclosed location in southern Africa

6)    6) Mount Gerizim in Israel

 

But I’d like to think of a seventh possibility:

7)    7) A nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. …

 

(In all seriousness, my amateurish opinion probably lies with #2)