Friday Tidings

My mom and her sister spent many childhood summers at a small rustic cabin deep in the woods next to a pristine lake. They hiked, fished, read books, and played lots of board games.   Those summer memories lasted their lifetimes.  And they helped give me memories in the same place. I remember one summer when my aunt latched together three small logs, covered them with leftover plywood, and made me a raft to explore the lake shoreline. I had a big stick to push myself along and spent hours on the water. That was nearly sixty years ago, and I can still recall the glittering sand and pebbles as I peered over the edge of the raft. I can feel the stick in my hand and the sun on my face. That’s the power of summer memories. Each generation can pass along summer memories. When my nine-year-old grandson was visiting, I found a piece of driftwood that would float in the creek. I gave him a large stick to propel himself, and he was soon barefoot pushing himself along. More recently,

We’d been storing the huge window panel in our shed—it was being kept for “one of those days” when it could be used for a greenhouse.    So, there it stood waiting for one of those days to arrive.   But during our recent clean-up effort, my husband accidentally tapped the bottom corner of the large window. It was such a slight tap that he didn’t even turn to look, but then he heard the distinctive cracking sound of the tempered glass slowly breaking across the entire panel.   Once perfect, now it seemed to have a million interwoven lines.    It was a beautiful masterpiece of tiny glass fragments.   Thousands of pieces could have gone everywhere, but one sturdy frame held it all together.    I was thinking about our nation and the framework around us that holds us together.    We are free to have our own ideas, and like our glass panel with a million tiny lines—our personal fragments create a unique design.    While we may disagree on how to accomplish some of our goals,

During the summer months, in an outside seating area, a delightfully painted piano sits with a sign that says, “Play me”.   It was just before 8 pm as I walked past the piano. My bus would be arriving soon, and I still have another ten minutes to walk before reaching my bus stop. But no one is around. It’s a beautiful warm evening. I pulled out the piano bench and sat down. The sun was behind me, and the piano keys reflected its glow. I had no music in front of me, only the songs within me. Notes drifted into the air.  In those brief moments, the magic of music and summer came together. Isn’t that how it is? Summertime music has a way of lingering in our minds and lasting a lifetime. As I stood and grabbed my things, I heard distant clapping—I guess I wasn’t alone, after all.

I was visiting my grandparents at their remote cabin, deep in the woods of Northern Idaho. Read: no electricity or indoor bathroom.   They were trying to fix the leaky roof. But all cabin repairs needed to wait until next door neighbor, Dr. Bundy’s curtain was open—a sign that he was awake.    Without electricity, all the construction tools needed to be powered by a loud generator—and Dr. Bundy “Didn’t come here to rest and listen to that confounded noise.”   My grandparents would only do quiet work before his curtain opened. They respected his request—but a failing roof, and fixing a sagging porch required daylight hours and some significant sawing and hammering.   Construction was limited to the hours between 10:30am-and 3 pm—which meant the project took at least twice as long but gave those adjacent to the work a respite from the noise.   Even though I was only seven, I remember watching my grandparents wait for the daily curtain opening. When I asked Grandma why they had