So, without further ado:
I arrived at Harvard Yard around 4:30 Friday afternoon, after an uneventful straight shot across the Mass Pike from the Berkshires. As it turned out, I was just in time to walk with Lindsay from Grays Middle to Nora's day-care center down on the Cambridge bank of the Charles River. I'd hoped to have a current picture of Nora for you, but I've already mentioned the camera casualty that rendered that impossible. Here's one from a year earlier...
The face and hair are more filled-out, but the personality is just the same -- albeit quite a bit more verbal.
That evening, Brad and Lindsay (and Nora) treated me to a birthday dinner at John Harvard's Brew House, a popular Cambridge watering hole with a pleasant rathskeller ambiance and a menu of some old favorites as well as some unusual items, such as pulled-pork sliders and pizzas built on crusts baked from dough incorporating spent grain from the brewing process. It was good to see the kids -- all three of them -- and settle the dust from the road with a bite of food and a glass or two of the local ale.
Back at the apartment, Lindsay whipped an ice-cream cake out of the freezer and we polished off a decent chunk of it at a table in the Yard as evening descended and the campus began showing early signs of the impending rush of summer students expected the next day.
One of the objectives of this trip was a visit to my Dartmouth classmate and best man John Kornet and his wife Diana (best known as Pokey). Brad and Lindsay had a function to attend on Saturday afternoon, so I headed down the South Shore to Cohasset, where the Kornets live in waterfront splendor. After almost being completely stymied by weekend traffic bound for Cape Cod (which makes Philadelphia-to-South-Jersey weekend traffic look like a walk in the park by comparison), I arrived to find the annual Arts Festival in full swing on the grounds of the First Parish Church...
This was a gala function indeed. John was manning a display featuring a group (whose name I have sadly forgotten) whose function is to produce and distribute complete portable disaster relief shelter and equipment packages for rapid deployment to worldwide disaster sites such as post-earthquake Haiti. It was fascinating to see how much equipment, including cooking equipment, utensils and a tent to shelter up to ten people, could be packed into a rectangular box not much larger than a full-size household refrigerator-freezer. Here's a shot of John and Pokey...
As always seems to happen when I get together with these folks (altogether too seldom), the years fell away and we were reminiscing (and swapping lies) about the good old days and wondering where the time had gone. It was a great visit. Too short, but a great visit. I drove back to Boston in a thoroughly mellow mood, enjoyed a home cooked dinner with the kids -- all three of them -- and watched a movie (whose title I have conveniently forgotten) about the mistreatment of women in certain Muslim societies which, although nauseating, couldn't dampen my good spirits.
Next morning, it was time to bring my Road Trip to a merciful end and head for the barn. I took my leave after breakfast (that Lindsay knows how to make pancakes) and was home well before sundown.
I don't know what all this proves -- if anything -- other than the realization (which I've hinted at before) that we can revisit old haunts and old friends and cherished relatives, but we cannot turn back the clock or the calendar. That isn't news, I know: perhaps Rabbie Burns said it best in the ballad of Tam O' Shanter:
"Nae mon can tether time nor tide..." v>
