Springtime celebrations

Two-day-old Northern Cardinals await parents'return.The eldest granddaughter graduated from college Saturday, first in her familial generation to be so accomplished. Even the gods were joyful, judging from the graduation eve celebration and fireworks. The rain started Friday evening as the celestial band tuned up, beginning with a soft breeze and a few drops, growing rapidly progressively windier and wetter with each hour. Then suddenly, amid the cloud-to-cloud arcing,  the lights went out, as though one of the young gods, overcome with his own revelry, had stumbled into the switch.

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Oh! to be a robin at the window

My first grandchild takes seat after receiving H.S. diploma(First published in the Gettysburg Times, 5/17/2013)

The backyard this year is full of birds, more species at one time than I remember. They build nests, lay eggs that turn into young birds, and one day the young are gone. I wonder whether the mom and dad birds find themselves stretched between “get out and make a world” and “there’s still so much you need to learn.”

When our son graduated high school in 1991, he was already 18. He left our home for a few weeks, and came back, and stayed long enough for us to have a few skirmishes about whose castle is this, anyway, now the junior male resident was officially an adult.

One afternoon he was preparing to wash clothes, Continue reading Oh! to be a robin at the window