Sunday Fiddler
Month: November 2022
Ognisko, Fall 2022
An Apt Poem for Now
To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl
by Billy Collins
Do you realize that if you had started
building the Parthenon on the day you were born
you would be all done in only two more years?
Of course, you would have needed lots of help,
so never mind, you’re fine just as you are.
You are loved for simply being yourself.
But did you know at your age Judy Garland
was pulling down $150,000 a picture,
Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory,
and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room?
No, wait, I mean he had invented the calculator.
Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life
after you come out of your room
and begin to blossom, at least pick up all your socks.
For some reason, I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey
was Queen of England when she was only fifteen
but then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model.
A few centuries later, when he was your age,
Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family,
but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies,
four operas, and two complete Masses, as a youngster.
But of course that was in Austria at the height
of romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland.
Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15
or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17?
We think you are special by just being you,
playing with your food and staring into space.
By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes,
but that doesn’t mean he never helped out around the house.
Bank Book
The little deposit book I carried with me everywhere and could use to withdraw money from some banks and almost any post offices...
Winter Walk
The weather is turning cooler: I head out for an evening walk with the dog wearing a jacket and sweat pants, covering my bald head with some cap or other. In the morning, we crank our cars a few minutes before leaving so that they're warm when we begin our journeys.
Later this week, it's supposed to drop into the upper twenties; next week, it's supposed to get into the lower twenties. It will only stay that way for a few days at most, though: we're likely to get back into the sixties for a few days at some point before Christmas.
Which is to say that, no matter the date, we'll not likely have any winter walks as we did twenty years ago.
The Start of the End?
I heard the news in the late afternoon: a missile strike on Polish territory. It's what we've all been worried about, consciously or unconsciously, since Russia's unconscionable attack on Ukraine began almost nine months ago. "It wouldn't take much for a Russian missile targeting western Ukraine to strike in Poland," we thought, and it appears to have happened.
Monday Evening Swim
It's slowly becoming a tradition borne from the limitations of scheduling and the necessities of an otherwise-sedentary life. Almost every Monday evening, we head to the local YMCA around seven to swim some laps.
We've been doing it for a few weeks now.
I swam in high school and find that although I've lost most of my strength and cardiovascular fitness, I continue to have a decent stroke and make decent progress through the water. Still, my lack of fitness means that I can't swim the distances I used to. About eight laps -- 200 yards -- is my limit at this point, and I usually keep it at four-lap segments. So I work my way, 100 yards at a time, through at least 1,000 yards of swimming over the course of forty minutes or so, which was not even the distance we swam in high school as a warm-up and more than double the time it took then.
"What can we say -- we're getting older," is K's refrain. I refuse to believe that, though. It's not age. It's lack of fitness. It's lack of movement over the last fifteen years. It's lack of swimming: I haven't really swum any since I finished high school over thirty years ago.
The best thing about regular exercise, though, is the progress you see over time. Our first time out in late summer or early fall, I couldn't even swim 500 yards. In a few weeks' time, I've doubled that.
Next, 2,000 yards at a time.
The Boy has experienced similar improvement. Today, he swam 300 yards in 100-yard segments. Once he was done, he decided to do one more 50-yard segment.
Next goal, 500 yards.
Conestee Afternoon
Recognition
The local hockey team, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, invited the Mauldin girls to come out for some recognition of their achievement of winning the state championship.
They pulled off a last-minute (truly) goal to tie the game at 2 before scoring the winning goal shortly after overtime began.
"We're their good luck charms!" the Girl proclaimed.