Update -- Long delayed.

Confession, said the old Baltimore Catechism, is good for the soul. The absolution that accompanies the rite removes the burden of sin and sets the spirit soaring, making one square with the diety. Of course, in the Catholic Church, absolution is predicated on an act of penance, under the theory of “no free lunch.”

So here’s my confession: I’ve been a lazy slug, I’ve not written anything meaningful in months, and I haven’t even really thought about writing much after my tour of jury duty.

Call it job-loss post partum depression or just plain laziness. Both are probably accurate.

Now. There. I feel better. Confession complete.

(Penance to be performed when I figure out what it should be. All suggestions wll be considered.)

So what’s the news? What’s been happening?

The usual stuff.

Life.

As Walter Cronkiet used to intone on the ‘50’s TV show You Are There, “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there."

So let’s go “there,” and talk about trips to Vermont, jury duty, summer nights, semi-employment, the race for president, the family, protential presidents, and watching politics from afar.

The home front
Everyone is fine. Within reason.

Dolores and daughter-in-law Joy are both working far too hard:

Dolores because there’s all these really sick people on the 18th floor of Stony Brook University Medical Center; but then, it is the trauma unit where the sickest of the sick are sent, so no surprise there. And with her work ethic, it means Hercules had an easy job cleaning out the stables. Fortunately she’s got a “partner,” Roy, the social worker on the unit, who is as smart and hard-working as she. He and his wife have become some new good friends.

Joy, working in a new school right near her home on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, is saddled with teaching two grades; that’s tough enough; but add an autistic, inclusion child, his parents from hell and an aide who is worthless and the job becomes a major mountain to climb every day. All that, plus a one-year-old, Tom’s new job with the Seattle fire dept., an eight-year-old, and the silly desire to live a “normal” life and it’s enough to exhaust anyone, even Joy.

Michael continues with his job creating the inside of Boeing’s now and future jumbo jets and doing great by any measure of success; but he still hasn’t found his dream job/career, so the search continues. His girl friend Sarah has moved to New York for two more years of art school. Michael isn’t coming East. Draw your own conclusions.

Margaret finished her summer of organic agriculture (check out her blog at http://margburke.blogspot.com/ > She survived; the cattle survived (them what didn’t get turned into steak and rump roasts) and the vegetables were enjoyed by hundreds of Northern Vermont residents, Dolores, my mother, and me. Yummy stuff.

The big news from up north, Margaret fell in love with…..wait for it…Vermont; and found a new job/career there.

She’s the field trip coordinator for a 1,400 acre, historic, world-renowned, environmental education facility, Shelburne Farms, near Burlington. Here’s the web site: http://shelburnefarms.org/index.htm Visit it -- both the web site and the actual farm. The place is off-the-chart world class absolutely wonderful, they make some of the best cheddar cheese you’ll ever taste, and you can join and help support their mission; and, if you send in enough money, Margaret might even get a raise.

Of course she loves it. She has a new apartment in Burlington; a new, used car (picture to follow); and a bunch of new friends.

Travelogue
Me mum is doing fine, still playing and winning at cards and maj jong, suffering silently with some knee problems, and she spent a week with Dolores and I as we took the grand tour of New England – Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont -- via CT and MA.

It was a great trip. If you want the details, send me an email and I’ll write ‘em up. I’ll just say here it was quality time; the food and lodging were outstanding (especially “The Squire Tarbox Inn,” near Bath, Maine. It’s owned by a Swiss, former-Four-Seasons-chef and is precisely what you’d dream a down-east bed and breakfast/inn should be.) Plus it was great to see my uncle, Tom Craddock, who lives nearby and visit Margaret on the farm up north.


We find for the defendant
The next big deal was jury duty. District Court in Riverhead and a civil case. We were asked to decide: was it medical malpractice and a colonoscopy gone wrong; or just nature and a body failing? Our conclusion: nature is a mother, no fault on the Doctor’s part. It was two full weeks of my life and I know more about the exit end of the alimentary canal/digestive system than I ever wanted to know. But it was nice to watch two pros work their magic: the attorneys were great and their performances were impressive.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t have come at a worse time as it interrupted freelance work I was doing for the Times/Review newspapers. Freelance is tough. When writing from a home office, one is isolated from the interaction of the newsroom, one misses the vitality and excitement of being with coworkers, and communications with editors is mostly via email, which ain’t the same as face to face talk’n.

A National Tragedy
Looking at the presidential campaign...well, maybe it’s better not to look and just go out and vote for Obama.

If there really is a “Manchurian candidate” in the race, it’s John McCain, not Obama. Whatever brain washing they did to him all those years ago apparently worked. (I’d like to think it was brain washing and not that he’s just a common, venal, cheap, self-centered child of privilege, who’s gotten old and delusional and is being used as a tool by even more venal, cheap, common ideologues who have no regard for the country and are only concerned with keeping power.)

Could anyone be doing more to divide this country, making it impossible to bring dems and reps together after the election, than John McCain? He’s achieving the prime objective of every enemy the US has ever had – splitting the unity of the American people.

Now unity wasn’t our strongest suit to begin with; thank Carl Rove for that. But most folks got the idea that Bush was/is a disaster. We could come together on that. And we all know we’ve got to fix what he broke (virtually everything), another unifier.

But now McCain/Palin are dividing the country not on issues, but on character/culture/geography/class/pro and anti Americanism/global warming/race and religion and more. They are inflicting wounds that will take years and years to heal, if they can be healed.

What a dream-come-true for Osama, Uncle Ho, Nikita, Che, Fidel, the Dear Leader, the Ayatollah, and Putin. McCain, the great American hero, does what they couldn’t do, split the country into “us” and “them.”

What can he be thinking?



Summer Nights
Summer Friday nights that is. Our new friends, Roy and his wife Margare introduced us to the Snapper Inn’s Friday night happy hour/dance/live music dinner. What a wonderful way to end the week, sipping something relaxing on the banks of the Connetquat River; dining on fairly fresh, nicely cooked seafood, and spending time with truly interesting people.

We’ve continued into the fall now, with last Friday night spent drinking pumpkin flavored ale at John Harvard’s pub, in Smithtown. Decent pub grub plus and they make all their own beer and ale. Fresh and delicious.

Politics from Afar
Not now. I need to do some catching up on Brookhaven and the County.

‘Nough for now…..more to follow.