Today was a really good day.. which I know surprises folks to hear. Let me talk a little about Father’s day.. since I know folks are wondering. Of course any ‘big’ day like this looms large in our minds now.. the image of all those hallmark  card dad’s smoking their pipes in their lazy-boys surrounded by their families has been everywhere this week .. in the papers.. on the internet.. on TV .. .Sure… seeing all those happy face stirs up memories for me.. but today is not that much different for me. The fact that Fathers are being celebrated today doesn’t make my thoughts of Sam any stronger. They are always strong I’m thinking about Sam and my family all the time now.. every waking moment.  The think that’s so different about today is that everyone else realizes I’m thinking about him. .. and I don’t mind that at all.  I need … and get… peoples support and energy today.. and everyday.       And .. I handled today the way I try to handle every day.. I tried to make it the best day possible. And I turned out to be a really  great day….

    Thanks to the folks who called and emailed.. I got a really nice picture from Coco of the kids in her class holding SamStones..

 

I also got a pair of spy binoculars to take on my trip to Moscow this week (Mary is pretty sure I’m a spy.. should I tell her the truth ? )

 

   One of the things that made today so fun was that it was Max’s 19^th birthday.

He slept a good portion of the morning because he and Jessie had stayed up at Project Grad.. an all night party held by the school for graduating seniors in Jessie’s class. Diane went and picked Max up at 6 AM, brought him home and dropped him in bed.. then she went and picked up Gabe and shuffled him off an hour away to Middlebury for the final Lacrosse games of the season. I slept in and had a few hours of puttering time.. this is the nicest gift I could have asked for. I went for a great run with Chai, went swimming then went out to weld Jessie a graduation present.

    Around 12 I woke up Max and he and I drove down to Middlebury to see Gabe’s final game.

We got there just in time to see Gabe score.. Life should always be like that. Gabe seemed both happy and sad that the season was over.. 

 

Max left from there to go to a Voices Movie rehearsal in Duxbury .. another hours drive from Middlebury/ Gabe Diane and I headed back home.

   Right after we got home, Gabe wanted to go up tot eh Bolton potholes for a swim. Just as we were leaving, my good friend Juergen from Germany showed up on our doorstep. I knew he was coming to town this week, but I’d assumed that I would miss him because I was traveling. It was so good seeing Juergen.. we had so much work and social stuff to catch up on.  Juergen decided to go with us up to Bolton.. we (Diane, Gabe Scott, Chai and me)  drove up to the Towsend’s and  picked up Ian and Jessie’s sister Jackie  and headed back down to the ‘upper potholes’ . The upper potholes is a series of stream cut pools and caves just below the UVM Outdoors Club house on the Bolton Access road. It’s incredibly beautiful.. and .. today at least.. incredibly buggy. There were some very deep pools gouged out of the rock by the water.. there’s a very cool cave behind one of the waterfalls too.  We spent about 45 minutes swimming and climbing around.

 

One of the best sites is ‘croc rock’.. a natural split rock that some clever person decorated with stone ‘teeth’.. I wish I had thought of that .

 

Around 5:30 we headed back to the house to intercept Max for his birthday celebration.   As we were climbing out, Jessie and her father John met us on the trail.. Juergen and I caught a ride back with Jessie and her dad so Juergen could get to his dinner meeting. I took the chance to give Jessie the graduation present I had welded her.. a 15 pound solid steel graduation mortar board complete with tassle holder. She even tried it on for a picture.. I’m sure it hurt !

 

    We timed our homecoming  perfectly, as  Max showed up just after Jessie and co. dropped us off.  We sho-ed Max upstairs into a room and frantically wrapped his presents in a collection of towels, underwear, and sweatshirts. We all gathered downstairs and summoned him down to begin opening his haul. He made out pretty well. Some of his gifts were practical.. e.g. A new camera tripod.. other’s were just simple essentials.. like this  sparking  wind up nun.

 

Still others needed some explaining.. like this solid marble rock with Max and my favorite made up word, ‘Monkass’,  etched into it.

 

‘Monkass’ is a nonsense word that Max once used in a scrabble game.. then artfully lied about it’s origins (a medicinal plant used in medieval times) and convinced us it was real. Yesterday. Gabe and I stopped over at Homers just to show Gabe around.. and the three of us ended up cutting the word into masking vinyl and sandblasting it into apiece of rock. We put a nice pit of silver paint in the etched letters to brighten it up. It looks pretty sweet and I don’t believe there’s another like it in the world. . Everyone should have a Homer handy when shopping for their loved ones !

 

  

This picture made me think of the three boys together.

After presetns were open, We all piled in the car and headed for dinner..  we also had to drop off the van for servicing.  Plan A was to go to Nicco’s.in Taft’s corners. but we found it closed.. we quickly formed a Plan B around doing take out at Marco’s pizza (the best !)

We dropped the van, picked up the food and Max drove us  back and started watching the ‘Planet Earth’ DVD’s that he had received for his birthday. They are amazing.   Abbot, Carolyn and Tom M where here when we got back which was nice.

 

     After a bit of that, we’d saved up enough room to go downstairs and have cake. We some how found 19 candles.. and proceeded to sing happy birthday. Max wooshed them out with a single breath which created a huge cloud of smoke.. that’s what happens when you start getting up in years 🙂

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At that point it was bed time… I started doing some prep for my upcoming trip.. I poured myself the dregs from a bottle of tequila I had been keeping.. this last bit had the work in it.. (‘El Gussano’).. I sat there wondering if I should drink/eat it or not…  What would you do  ?

 

Cheers to all fathers out there.. Cheers to you all of my sons.. Happy birthday Max !

 

-dad

 

ps. Here’s the message I got from Sam last night.. anyone out there speak firefly ?

 pss. We had several wierd electrical disturbences in our cars today.. I heard several other firefly and electrical stories.. Sam is near us.