Just back from gabes lacrosse game.. His last high school lacrosse game…ever .. Strange feeling. I've truly loved watching him and his brother play since middle school. He's so graceful and fast… How many days have we sat in broiling sun, rain, cold and watched him and his team sling that ball around
I think thats the first 'last' i can think of in his transition to college. Last test, last high school prank, last etc…. Its a good thing.. These transitions.. Still, i cant help thinking about them and marking them. Its my nature..
Gabes stick broke tonight.. Its almost poetic that it did
I was talking to my freind Leo this afternoon and he reminded me that tonight Is Shuvuot (שבועות) the Festival of Weeks… . It is when Jews mark the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai . There are some cool and crazy customs around Shuvot.. My favorite one.. is that you are supposed to take of work.. and goof off.. (if praying in the synagogue can be called goofing off) You’re supposed to eat rich dairy foods like cheesecake and blintzes .. and ‘make merry’. to celebrate the gift of Torah. . And you read he book of Ruth . What’s not to like ?
My favorite custom is that you’re supposed to stay up all night and study Torah.. I remember this because last time I actually even partially observed Shuvout was at the Continental Club in Austin Texas sometime in the late 90’s.. I was with my good buddy Brian .. we’d gone to see a feind of his play. We were listening to a bluegrass klezmer band (yes.. thats right ) i like called ‘The Bad Livers‘ ..At some point I realized that most of the folks in the club were jewish.. and one of them shouted ‘It’s Shuvout’ Party all night.. so we did (allmost)
This morning was the Mount Mansfield Union High school Awards ceremony. and just as in the last 7 years, we awarded the Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award . ( i came across this article about Sam and his music from 2007)
Our Sam loved music.. He was as happy playing head banging music on the drums as he was playing Ibeniz on his classical guitar. (here’s Sma’s guitar teacher James playing that piece at Sam’s memorial .. take a listen) I used to love hearing him play .. To celebrate Sam’s love of music, we give away a guitar or bass of the winners choice through a generous deal with Advance Music . a teacher or a peer can nominate another person.. for the award. They write up a short paragraph to say why the nominee has a musical soul.. We then put all the names in a bowl and pull one out at random. It’s a way to give Sam a chance to vote 🙂
Todays’ winner was Colin H.. here’s what his nomination said..
I love that — ‘clear melodic tone’
Colin was really psyched. He willingly accepted the conditions on the award.. which is that the guitar can not be used to play billy joel or elton john…( since Sam didn’t like their music )
I left from the ceremony happy and sad… often happens like that
This morning Diane and I headed back to UVM to pick Gabe up from his UVM Orientation and take advantage of the yummy brunch that school had put out for the parents.. We sat through one more session.. then headed home. I guess that makes us diss-oriented ?
The only other thing I did all day was to mow the lawn.. then about 6 hours of work work..
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This morning was the Mount Mansfield Union High school Awards ceremony. and just as in the last 7 years, we awarded the 
