a few more Connecticut photos for those interested

Connecticut 2

Connecticut

walking woodbury

Beautiful day for a walk .  So I went along Flanders Road and bore right along  the main road through town . The town is Woodbury , Connecticut , about 3000 miles , I guess ,  from my home in Arcadia .  I brought along , I admit totally by accident,  the warm weather from California .  They have had a bitter winter here , I hear , up until I arrived .  But , since I’ve been in Woodbury  , the weather has been warm , hot in the middle of the day . We’ve been working , painting and dry walling ,  cleaning out the garage , and running around the countryside shopping for an  upcoming wedding .

But , today I walk . My two hosts, the bride-to-be and the groom-to-be ,  were busy with their own projects .  I would be on my own .

New England .   Clues all over the place blowing its cover  , from the bright yellow blooms of forsythia to the old colonial houses ,  to the birch , elm , and whatever-other-trees  forests everywhere surrounding  , to the stone walls ,to the town hollow . There was an Earth Day celebration at the hollow yesterday .

I also , speaking of hollows , passed near Sleepy Hollow in New York yesterday on the way to a Yankee game . Didn’t detour over there , though .  The Van Tassels have probably moved out by now , anyhow .  I wouldn’t mind having a little talk with Icabod Crane , teacher to teacher , maybe counsel him a little .  But , of course , he’s long gone . I imagine there might be a Sleepy Hollow Motel there and , maybe ,  a  Headless Horseman Restaurant , and maybe even a Katrina Van Tassel hair and nail salon .  Maybe . But I don’t know ’cause I didn’t go there .

The town of Woodbury is , conveniently , stretched out along the main drag . It’s not spread out , here and over  there , but is all clustered together , the center that is , along a few -mile strip . Most of it is sidewalked with an asphalt walkway . It’s picturesque . Many of the old residences have become antiques shops or lawyers’ offices . Lots of vehicle traffic through town . No doubt lots of tourists in the summer wander through here hunting antiques and photos of traditional New England .  In Woodbury , fortunately , there aren’t any kitchy tourist traps named , for example , such things as   ” Ye Olde Card Shoppe ”  or  ” The Witches’ Brew Coffee Shoppe ” .

Tomorrow will be a liqour run for the upcoming wedding . We’re driving up to Massachusetts  to buy it because the prices are significantly lower up there , I’m told .  Or down there . Or over there .

I’m a little lost . 

turning 60 in connecticut

The Connecticut Yankees were all complaining that it was cold ,  but it wasn’t . I was there a week . Sunshine except for one day of rain . I got sunburned a little despite my 30 sunscreen . ” Sorry about the cold weather , ” they’d say . Connecticutians complaining to a Californian .

My friend Willie had a 60th birthday .  His girlfriend Jan planned the party . I saw her notebook that had lists of guests and what each guest promised to bring . Lists of those with chairs and how many chairs and those with tables and how many tables , and those with tents . Yeah , tents . Three tents were set up , mostly as a plan B measure in case of rain . There was a fourth tent but I spent  half an hour trying to figure how to set it up and by then Willie , Jan , and I decided that it was too complicated . Maybe we could have got it up and maybe not . It was Army green and  Willie and I missed basic training way back when . The  other tents set up easily and quickly . The Army tent sat in the garage .

We set up tables under the tents . Jan’s ‘s mother and I put bouquets of blue and purple flowers on each table . Nice thick paper table clothes held down with tape . Plenty of folding chairs of various types lent by several people . Neat . Organized .  Ready for rain . And everyone later sat up on the deck in the sunshine . No one approached the tents .

Willie had friends from all periods of his life there . One guy who now lives  in Arkansas was there with his wife . He had lived in the New York City apartment house with Willie when they were small kids . There were some former college roommates of his there and musician friends from various past times there . And local people .

Jan had the food plan arranged , potluck , so that there would be  plenty of food . But she and Willie went out and bought tons more of cold cuts and fruit and chips —- just in case . There was enough left-over food for an army  . There were twenty -five bottles of red wine left over . There was enough for another party or two . Or three .

Willie’s brother composed a song for Willie , kind of a ” this is your life ” review of experiences . Jan recited for him a poem that she had written about how he had affected her . His friend Heafy filmed the event  and promised that a video would  arrive some time in the near future .

At one point Willie , Jan , Willie’s brother , and Willie’s nephew were playing music for the crowd . ” We have one more announcement ,” Willie said at the microphone . Then he and Jan sang ” going to the Chapel ” and the crowd roared . The sun was still shining . Willie was crying . ” I just kept looking out and seeing people from all parts of my life in front of me ,” he said .

Turning 60 is a big deal for some people . Willie’s turning was marked in a big way . He looked about the same when he was 60 as when he was 59 , I thought . Maybe a little tireder . But it was a nice marker along the life path  for Willie . A big event . People came from New York and Virginia and Arkansas and California to attend . Weather was excellent and it all worked out . Everone got a guitar pick with an inscription and a chocolate guitar to take home as a party favor . There was a cake as big as a small car . It had Willie’s picture on it . I thought that Jan was lucky to find a cake with Willie’s picture on it in Woodbury , Connecticut . What are the chances of that ? Sure , maybe in Waterbury or Hartford ……………………..

I turned 60 the same month as Willie . We had a house full of friends for a dinner cooked by Ada and I asked them all to say how they’d met me . It was wonderful . We had originally planned the dinner for outside.  But it rained .  There was no poetry and no one sang . I looked about the same at 60 as when I was 59  I thought . I felt about the same , too .

There is something about round numbers , though , I suppose . When I was 18 one of my roommates at UCLA turned 20 . Big round number . As far as I was concerned , he could have been 60 . How could  I have a roommate so old , I wondered ?