Nice uneventful day at the cape. Diane and I went for a run this morning through a really nice set of trails near Jen’s folks. The countryside is sandy with stunted evergreens . It’s so different from the woods in Vermont. I dropped Diane off at the house then ran down to the beach again to say hi to the ocean. I noticed that the SamStone we placed there yesterday had already been moved. That’s good. We want people to pick them up and either keep or replace them. 

 Which reminds me.. Once again… If you used SamStones.org to tell me that you’d placed or found a SamStone  in the last 6 months, there’s a good chance I missed it. If you can, please resend the note and any pictured you sent.. again so sorry for the trouble.

After all the kids were up we packed into two cars and headed down to Harwich Beach.. it was beautiful beach.. fairly packed with people. The water was warm and pretty good for skim boarding.. I’ll never be a beach person… but this was nice.

 

What would a day at the beach be without fly over advertising ?

The beautiful kite store in Harwich

Around 1 the kids had enough so we went back to Jen’s folks house for lunch and (at least for me) a short nap. Around 4 we decided it was time to head to Falmouth to meet my folks.  Jen and Deb and the kids drove with us for awhile until we got to one of those rental go-kart places. We all went once… then some of the kids went again. It was a hoot ! It’s the kind of thing I would never have down before.. but since Sam died I’m up to just about anything.. why not ?

 

They even had rides for the big kids !

From there Jen and Deb and co. headed back to Harwich and we continued on to Falmouth. My baby seeeeeeeester Mary (or SPG as we call her.. because that’s how she used to spell her name, has rented a house here for 2 weeks. My folks are coming down to help with Mary’s kids’ Ellery  and Jake…Mary’s husband John is coming in on Thursday.     Turns out that Mary and my folks were caught in traffic on the bridge so we got there about an hour before they did.. Time enough to explore the environs..   We found a cute beach a short walk off with a jetty that just needed to be explored..

 

 By the time we got back to the house, My folks and Mary had arrived. We got our first face to face look at our new nephew John Samuel / Jake.. You all may remember that Mary and John called me in Shanghai to tell me that he’d been born… It was great  to finally meet the little guy in the flesh. He’s gorgeous… and that’s not just me as his uncle talking. J. It was great seeing Ellery too.. she still thinks I’m Santa Claus.. “hi HoHo: she said when she saw me.   My folks seem great too… It’s nice to be together.. Nice.. and as you would expect.. hard too.

 

Me and Pa

Me and Jake

Diane and Jake

Ellery

Pa

Ma and Jake

My mom and I took off to get a few groceries and pick up Chinese food.. right now we’re sitting around in the post-take out glow talking to some of Mary’s friends who live near by…   It’s very peaceful… I better post this now. Not sure I’ve got an internet connection.. We’ll see !

 

 

OK.. More tomorrow.. G’nite all.. G’nite Sam.

-me

 

 

 

We’re staying at Jen’s folks house on the Cape (South Harwich).. Her parents are really nice. I got here around 11:30 a;last night after a nice quiet ride down.

A shot from the car while moving

Diane got us up at 6AM to walk to hike down to the beach for morning yoga. It was a great way to start the day.  

Nothing better than yoga on the beach !

Some cool creatures down there

These too !

Diane making left foot only tracks !

We got back to the house in time for me to take an 8:30 work call. The cell signal is so bad, If I moved my head it dropped the call.   I had to prop my cell phone on the window cell to get enough bandwidth to use my computer.

  I took the rest of the day off which was really nice.  We packed up a ton of food and piled into two cars and headed up the cape.

 

First stop was Marconi beach. The site of the first commercial transatlantic wireless station.  There wasn’t much left of the original site.. but there was some cool signs  describing what the site once looked like.   The ocean had eroded most of the site off the map.. it was quite pretty. We saw a bunch of seals playing in the water right off shore.

 

Mr. Marconi (Actually Count Marconi. I believe)

His circuits (It was a big rotary sspark gap tesla coil that evidently could be heard working from more than 4 miles away)

I’m fascinated with the story about Marconi. Many kids are taught that he invented Radio..  In fact, that story is incorrect. According to the Supreme Court  of the USA, Nikola Tesla invented Radio. They overturned Marconi’s  patents in 1946, claiming that Marconi’s work infringed on Tesla’s 1888 work in Colorado.

From there we took the half hour drive to Provincetown I’d never been there… and didn’t know what to expect. It was a much bigger town than I’d imagined. Our first stop was to eat our picnic in the parking lot where we parked.

From there we took the 170 step climb up the Pilgrims Monument. This place commemorates the first landfall of the Mayflower.

 

It was a great hike up. The view from the top was gorgeous.. as was the breeze. It was a perfect place to put a few SamStones.

 

After taking in the view, we all trucked down the tower and headed into ‘downtown’ P-town. It was wicked  hot, packed with people and was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Very colorful and diverse.

We popped  in and out of some of the wild stores along the main street.

 

I like this place !

Some of the diversity that makes Ptown so interesting

Frank Zappa.. one of my heros !

My favorite Puffer

This car dealer’s name plate sums up the whole place !

Eventually we had enough of the crowds and piled back in the car and headed down to Nauset beach to let the kids do a little boogey boarding. The waves were amazing. We didn’t stick around much because the water was freezing..  

We headed up to Brewster beach to watch the sun set. It was an amazing place.  When the tide goes out, the water recedes over a mile. We walked out on the flats to the edge of the water to skim board. The kids were really good at it.

 

Me pulling Gabe… (this is wicked fun !)

As the kids played, we went out and brought back pizza which lasted about 4 minutes. I’m glad I got my hands out of the way…

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The day was really nice… really, really nice… It was just missing one very beautiful kid… Oh my Sam…  sometimes having fun is really hard.

-me

 

 

 

 

Friends…
    Chai and I are sitting in the house panting. I don’t function over 70 degrees…It’s 93 outside and it must be 90 inside here. Ugh… I wanted to make a very short post before  I start the drive down to the Cape. Diane and Gabe are with Jen’s family down in South (East ?, West?) Chatham and I’m meeting up with them tonight. We’ll meet up wiht my sister and her family and my folks down on the Cape on Sat. I’m not sure if I’ll havei internet along the way.. so if not.. this is it for today… Somehow the thought of spending the next 5 hours in an air conditioned car doesn’t sound too bad.  I’ll be driving until about 11.. if you’re bored and you see this.. gimme a call at 802-578-0985 and just say ‘hi’.   More later (or maybe tomorrow) Stay cool ya’ll.

-me

Quiet night here at home. Diane and Gabe decided at the last moment to go down to the Cape with the Kenny’s and Townsend’s.   Leaving me here all alone with ‘only’ 7 Voices house guests tonight. Poor me J.. I ‘m going to use the quit to catch up on my sleep.  I got up this morning after 5 hours of sleep feeling pretty groggy. I wondered over to the computer to check out my MySpace and was pleased to see several messages about the article that Kate and Adam at WCAX had done on the Friends of Sam benefit last night. This is one of those few days when I regret not having real TV in the house I checked the WCAX website and was surprised to see the Friends of Sam story on their front  page.

 

The article is here and includes a media link and this  transcript

South Burlington, Vermont – July 30, 2007

Teenagers having fun at the Talent Skate Park in South Burlington have already learned life has its ups and downs. The toughest downturn: when their friend Sam Cohn was hit by a car and killed in November. He was just 14.

“When we lost Sam it was shocking,” 15-year-old Hannah Townsend said. “Really shocking.”

“Losing a best friend, it doesn’t hit you at first,” explained 14-year-old Sumner Williams. “And a few weeks in, you’re like, ‘Wow, I can’t do anything with this person anymore. It’s just so hard.”

Townsend said none of them had lost a friend like this, so they didn’t know how to grieve. But they knew Sam — a skater, snowboarder, guitarist and athlete — wasn’t the type who would want them to sit back and mourn.

“We wanted to do something for him because he would have done it for us,” she said. “He was a really good kid. We had to do something.”

That something turned out to be raising money for other kids in need. They collected money at the skate park’s door and sold ice cream and pizza that had been donated by local businesses. It was the third fundraiser the group had organized. Just a month after Sam died, his friends raised money to buy Christmas presents for kids who might not get any. Then they raised almost $3,000 to help a paralyzed snowboarder make his house wheelchair accessible.

“They’re not only raising the money, they’re finding the people who need it,” Sam’s father, John, said. “It’s really a kids-to-kids connection, and the rest of the adults are sitting back going ‘Who knew?’ It’s really cool.”

Sam Cohn has already saved four lives — his parents donated his organs when he died. Now he’s helping more people live better lives.

“I think he would have been really proud of his friends,” Cohn said. “And to the extent that he’s somewhere watching, he’s probably bummed he’s not here. We certainly are.”

Sam packed a lot of life into 14 years. But even in death, he’s making a difference.

“It’s amazing how big people’s hearts are,” Cohn said.

Kate Duffy – WCAX News

I’m still struggling  to download the media link so I can put it on a CD..   for now, I just recorded this on my camera… see the link  above for better quality video

 

I was so proud of Sam’s friends (and Sam) after seeing this article. They really are doing something great here.

I was talking to my friend Deanna and we were discussing different folks approach to grief. I showed  her the Friends of Sam video and she commented that it looked like we’d found a way to convert some of our grief into goodness. I liked that thought.. Nothing we do is going to fill the hole in our hearts left by Sam’s passing.. but it still sure feels good to turn our missing Sam into fun and helpful efforts like the benefit last night, SamStones and the work we do with Sam’s Foundation. I can’t imagine surviving without that.

 
OK.. Time for bed. .   I came home after snacks/dinner with friends Doug, Mark. Paul. Adger and Bryan,  

and fell asleep on the floor petting Chai. have to get more than 5 hours of sleep tonight.. Gnite all, gnite Sam.. you’re still doing good in the world !

 

-dad

 

ps. here’s a montage of skate board deck art I made last night.at Talent .. They are real works of art ! (thanks again Talent-people .. you’re wonderful)