Over here on the Eastern Shore, stranded as we are between the ocean and the bay and suspended just a few feet above sea level, we tend to pay attention to weather phenomena. That said, the recent high tides around the Delmarva seem to have caught most of us by surprise. In retrospect, I guess we can blame them on the marriage of October’s Hunter Moon (no relation to Hunter Biden, thank God!) and Tropical Storm Melissa (no relation to Ms. McGlynn as far as I know)—a one-two punch that produced quite a diluvial effect, not quite of Biblical proportion, mind you, but impressive nonetheless.

Over there, across that awful bridge that’s as clogged these days as Bernie Sanders’ arteries, other storms are raging, albeit man-made, not natural, ones. While we’re not immune from these tempestuous events, they seem slightly at a remove when our docks are underwater, our basements are flooded, and our socks are wet. But they aren’t.

John Donne, in his unmatched and infinite wisdom, knew full-well that “no man is an island entire of itself; we are indeed each a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” So true; like it or not, we’re bound to the God-awful mess on the other side of the bay just as we are to the real-time human tragedies unfolding in lands far beyond as well. That’s the way this world is now; isolationism is a worn-out trope of the past.

But I promised my wife and editor that I would not be a prophet of doom and gloom, that I would stick to the higher, drier ground of light Musing. So I will. I have to admit that I was enthralled by the recent high tides. Maybe they were providing us with a glimpse of things to come, a window into the future of our climate-change world…oh, sorry, there I go again.

OK; now I’ll just stick to the facts. How ironic is it that Iffy couldn’t go out on his boat because his dock was underwater? Or that Crumpet’s once-dry basement was now a lake? When in the ring with Mother Nature, all bets are off. If your money was on a full moon up in heaven and a tropical storm far out to sea creating havoc down here on the Eastern Shore, then you were a winner. Ignore the old girl at your peril; she still packs a wallop. Just ask our friends in Tokyo. (They are still our friends, aren’t they?)

The tide isn’t high just over here. It’s on the rise everywhere and contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s not floating all the boats in the harbor. A few yachts may be rising but most of the smaller boats are, in fact, sinking fast. As for me, just when I think I’m cocooned and immune from the rollercoaster of the daily news cycle over there that’s spinning like another tropical storm, I’m once-again reminded of Donne’s elegiac humanism: “I am involved in mankind.” That bell you hear? Don’t send to know for whom it’s tolling. It’s tolling for all of us.

There I go again.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

I know quite a few people—good, honest, hard-working, thirsty people—who have come to appreciate a local phenomenon known as “the Landskroener pour.” It’s nothing more than an exercise in common sense, albeit one that innocently challenged an industrial norm by asking one simple question: what do we mean when we ask for a glass of wine? Let me explain…

One evening, Theodore (call him Ted) Landskroener was having dinner out at the country club. As was (is) his wont, he ordered a glass of wine with his dinner.  (Interruption: “What? I don’t know what he ordered, meat or fish; it doesn’t matter!”) Anyway… (Second interruption: “I don’t know. Red or white. What difference does it make? I’m trying to tell a story here!”) So the server takes Mr. Landskroener’s order and a few minutes later, returns with his glass of wine. The server sets it down on the table and turns to leave. Mr. Landskroener says, “Excuse me. I ordered a glass of wine. Not a half glass of wine. Take this back and bring me a glass of wine.” 

There might have followed an explanation about a standard pour, some scientific or mathematical, normative, quantity-oriented explanation centered around the time-honored premise that in a restaurant or bar, the standard measure for a glass of wine is precisely 190 milliliters which is five ounces, or about one-fifth of a bottle of wine. Or that there is more glass than wine to allow the wine to breath (something wine plainly does not do!) and for the person drinking the wine, the pleasure of savoring its aroma before consuming it. As I said, such an explanation MIGHT have happened, but of course it didn’t. The server took one look at Mr. Landskroener’s purple face, picked up the half-full glass in front of him, and whisked it away. Moments later, she..(Interruption. “I think it was a ‘she.’ It really doesn’t matter. A ‘server’ is a gender-neutral term…I don’t know why we don’t use ‘waiter’ or ‘waitress’ anymore. We just say ‘server.’ That’s the way it is now and anyway, IT DOESN’T MATTER!”)

Anyway, as I was saying, or trying to say, the SERVER returned moments later with a new glass of wine for Mr. Landskroener, this one filled to the brim—and I mean the brim!—with wine. She/he set it front of Mr. Landskroener, careful not to spill a drop, and headed for the hills. Mr. Landskroener, for his part, took a moment to admire the physics of surface tension at work, then carefully raised glass to lip and took history’s first recored sip of a “Landskroener pour.” Ahhh…Finally, a glass of wine truly worthy of its name!

It takes courage to challenge deeply-held beliefs, norms that the rest of us sheep mildly accept as conventional wisdom or, worse, just as the way things are and ever-will-be. Maybe if we ordered a cup of coffee and the server returned with half a cup, we would have revolted long ago. Or maybe we’re lacking a spine. We’ve been waiting for someone, maybe a contemporary Oliver Twist, to challenge the establishment with a “Please, Sir, I want some more!” but then a revolution could hardly begin over something as mundane as a bowl of thin gruel. It had to begin with something more romantic, more like the proverbial nectar of the gods, something like…wine.

So you see, in the end, it took just one brave man—mild-mannered, unassuming (Interruption: loud SNICKER!) Ted Landskroener—to stand on the Concord (Grape) Bridge and fire that shot heard ‘round the world, the one that created an oenophile’s very own Big Bang theory. The once revolutionary notion that a glass of wine isn’t a glass of wine until it’s a full glass of wine has now been firmly established at almost every watering hole and establishment in town. So next time, when you ask for a glass of wine, just (politely) tell the server (Yes! S-E-R-V-E-R!) you want a Landskroener pour and he/she will know exactly what you mean.

Cheers!

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Almost without my knowing it, my musing mind has been hard at work, mulling over the annual changing of the guard we call migration. But this time, my thoughts weren’t prompted by the departure of our osprey friends or by those tiny flying jewels, hummingbirds, stocking up on nectar before heading off to Central America. Nor was it the recent arrival of our Canadian cousins who have just started to announce their presence back here in great honking V formations that got me pondering migratory patterns. No; this year, my harbingers of seasonal change were the drunk drivers of the airways, the ones who couldn’t walk a straight line from one side of the garden to the other if they had to, those beautiful flitting stained-glass creatures we call monarch butterflies.

As summer has lingered for the past couple of weeks like a happy houseguest blithely prolonging her visit, I couldn’t help but notice (as I swung in my hammock) the profusion of monarch butterflies crashing my end-of-summer party. They were all over and around the phlox that remained, in and out of the fragrant grape ivy atop the fence. I kept hoping one would come and land on me so I could observe it close-hand, but the kings of the butterfly race had better landing pads in my mind so I imagined myself to be Chauncey Gardner, the hero of Jerzy Kosínski’s novel Being There (and also portrayed by Peter Sellers in the film of the same name) who always just “liked to watch.”

As beautiful as monarch butterflies are, there is, I’m afraid, sad news to report. Despite their proliferation in my garden this year as well as their reputation for being “the personification of happiness,” monarchs are on the tipping point of extinction, that moment when their numbers drop to such a low point that the species can never recover. Climate change, loss of habitat, and pesticides (among with many other man-made problems) have wrecked havoc with monarch butterfly populations; scientists estimate their number has decreased by more than 80% over the past 15 years and they may well be extinct within the next 20 years. Greta is so right: how dare we!

And the sad news keeps on coming, hitting ever closer and closer to home. Just a few days ago, folks on Kent Island collected bucketfuls of dead monarch butterflies; mosquito spraying is thought to have been the culprit.

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is an example of planetary interdependence in which a small change in one nonlinear system can effect a much larger change in another unrelated system. The term itself is associated with the work of Edward Lorenz who metaphorically postulated that the flapping of a single butterfly’s wings in the Amazon rainforest could influence the formation of a tornado in Kansas. If that notion seems far-fetched to you, think about what is happening in the Amazon rainforest today and what effect that disaster will have on us for years to come!

But back to my garden and the monarch butterflies who are apparently using it as a rest stop on their long journey (almost 2800 miles!) from Canada to Texas and then, over or around the wall and onward to Mexico. During the summer breeding season, monarch butterflies live for only 2-6 weeks but we now understand that the ones who migrate to Mexico are born in late summer, stay alive all winter by hibernating in oyamel fir tress south of the border before migrating back north the following spring. In all, it may take several generations to complete the migratory cycle from Canada to Mexico and back again.

What a mysterious and wonderful world we live in; how sad we don’t keep a cleaner house. So please: plant some milkweed; don’t buy or eat genetically altered food; wear long pants when the mosquitos are hungry. If all else fails, then at least be like Chauncey Gardner and just watch. You might see something.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Otis Redding—God rest his tired old bones—liked to sit on the dock of the bay. Thanks to Daniel Chester French, the great Abraham Lincoln sits forever enthroned in his marble Memorial, contemplative and weary. Michelangelo sculpted Moses, the Lawgiver, seated (albeit about to rise). I have my porch for sitting…but you knew that.

In these frantic and fractured times, it seems to me that the patient art of sitting has been given a bad rap. Today, it’s all about doing and moving, not sitting. Doctors advise us that exercise is good for us—and they’re undoubtedly right—but so is sitting. It’s reflective; it’s relaxing; it’s time with friends or a beverage, or better yet, both.

I’ve been thinking about this partly because we’re moving into autumn, that most reflective season of the year, and patly because my wife is a guilty sitter. She can sit for almost three minutes before she thinks of something she has to do or worries that something is being left undone. I, on the other hand, can go for an hour or two before I get restless and need a chore like sweeping the porch or raking the leaves in the front yard. But as soon as whatever that chore is done, you can bet I’ll need a place to sit for a while before recharging my batteries and tackling the next item on my honey-do list.

When Archimedes first realized the potential of the lever, he boasted that given a place to stand, he could move the earth. Well good for you, Archimedes! I prefer to listen to Annie Oakley who said, “For me, sitting still is harder than any kind of work.” Right on, cowgirl! And Ms. Oakley is not the only sharpshooter to appreciate stillness. Blaise Pascal put it this way: “All man’s troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room.” So true, although I prefer the porch, but that’s just me.

Now I’m not trying to make the case for sitting still all the time. Just some of the time. Progress implies movement but even progress requires a place and a moment when momentum is gathered. Any physicist will tell you that a great leap forward must be preceded by a contraction of energy and what better place to contract energy than in a comfortable chair?

Oh, I can hear all the movers and doers among you mummering, “Lazybones! Get off your duff! Time marches on!” While that last exhortation is surely true, why can’t I just sit back and watch the parade pass by? Do I really have to get up and march in it? Every great play needs a quiet audience and I’ve never yet met an audience milling around when the play begins. Maybe we need an addendum to Ecclesiastes Three: “There is a time to sit and a time to mill;” I mean, even God rested every once in a while.

So I’m with Otis. Maybe I can’t quite see the tide roll away from where I’m sitting, but I can see the sun rise in the morning or a thousand bright stars at night. I can think or read or chat with you if you happen to walk by. I can even write this Musing. OK, so maybe I can’t move the earth, but maybe if I sit here long enough, I’ll summon the energy to give it another try.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, I told you about an encounter I had with a man sitting on a bench. He asked me for two dollars. I didn’t have any cash so we just talked pleasantly for several minutes before I had to move on. Later, when I went to select an image to accompany my article, I chose a painting entitled “Man on a Bench” by Horace Pippin, an African-American artist whose body of work was greatly influenced by the issues of slavery and segregation. Easy enough, but when I did a little additional research on Mr. Pippin, I found this image—a self portrait currently on display at the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia—among other examples of his work. That was when things got a little weird because this was undoubtedly the man I met on the bench. The only problem was that Horace Pippin died in 1946.

So now I find myself in the middle of a ghost story which is uncharted territory for me. I think I can believe in ghosts—restless souls still among us long after their mortal coil is gone—but I’m uncertain about the messages they bear. My encounter with this gentleman didn’t feel like a haunting and his presence was certainly corporal; I know because I patted his very solid shoulder. Moreover, he wasn’t cold as some people have described when they have encounter an apparition. I don’t even know what message Mr. Pippin had for me, other than to make me contemplate the existence of spirits, benign or otherwise. It’s a mystery.

Or maybe I can believe in something like a wrinkle in time when some oddity in the time-space continuum imposes a surprise sequence of events that falls outside our ordered understanding of reality. In his Theory of Relativity, Einstein proposed that matter can “bend” the fabric of space and time, making a shadow universe physically possible. I’ll be the first to admit that this falls way beyond my ken, but if time wrinkles are good enough for Professor Einstein, they’re good enough for me.

There is, of course, a third possibility. The man I met was not Mr. Pippin or his shade; he was just one of the legion of panhandlers who inhabit any big city and he happened to bear a passing resemblance to Mr. Pippin’s self-portrait. He needed two dollars to buy something unsavory, although I’m not sure much that is savory or unsavory can be purchased for two dollars these days. I assert that option here because it’s a plausible explanation for what occurred but I don’t really subscribe to that theory. It just didn’t feel like a shakedown. Plus, this was no mere “passing resemblance;” this was Horace Pippin’s self-portrait animated.

Anyway, since my initial meeting with Mr. Pippin (or perhaps his doppelgänger), I’ve returned several times to the site of that encounter hoping to reinitiate contact. So far, no luck. But I realize that since that day, I’ve been continually walking around with a third eye open on the off chance that Mr. Pippin is walking around looking for me because I failed to get his message the first time around. Do you think I’m crazy? I don’t, but then again, I’m biased. I assume sanity to be my starting point, but beyond that, all bets are off.

So let’s just imagine for a moment that I did encounter Horace Pippin (or his shade) on that bench two weeks ago and that there is some lesson still to be learned from the encounter. Maybe it has something to do with inflation. During the Great Depression, a displaced soul might have asked to borrow a dime, but today that dime certainly wouldn’t buy a cup of coffee. (Can a ghost even drink coffee?) Or was our conversation a manifestation of the possibility of connecting with someone from another time or world? That thought appeals to me; I would love to meet my seven-times-great grandfather who emigrated from Scotland back in the 18th Century, or, for that matter, any of my ancestors who could shed light on people and events that made me who I am today. I realize that sounds a bit egocentric, but whose shadow would you choose to encounter on a bench someday?

Think about it. Meanwhile, I’ll keep returning to the spot of my encounter with Horace Pippin. You just never know.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Our porch swing gave up the ghost over the weekend. I like to think it had a long and happy life. Once, it must have graced someone’s porch up county for a decade or two before my wife eyed it in a little antique shop nearly eight years ago. Despite its shabby chic condition, it was love at first sight; the only problem was the shop was closed. I stole away the next day and bought it to surprise her. When I returned home with it, you would have thought I had brought her the holy grail.

That swing was the little grace note that floated above the score of our porch and animated it. On spring evenings, summer days, or autumn mornings; with a good book, a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine; that sweet little swing held my wife in the palm of its gentle hand. Her feet just brushed the floor as she read or needlepointed, talked on her phone, or engaged a passerby in light conversation. It kept her secrets, comforted her pain, and amplified her laughter. She might share it with a friend for a moment or two, but make no mistake: it was her realm. No one else ever looked quite right there.

It was a common enough piece of porch furniture: all slats and screws and eye hooks and chains with a worn, grey patina and an occasional little squeak that a drop of WD40 would silence like morning fog. Over the years, it had seen a few close calls but with yet another infusion of cash and careful attention from handy friends, it would recover and begin again thanks to some new hardware or brace or fresh coat of paint. Like an old grandfather clock, it marked the hours of our days and the seasons of our years so when the deathblow finally came with a loud crack under the bottom of a large friend last Friday evening, time came to a crashing stop. The next morning in better light, a cursory examination revealed the deadly fault. I called the swing doctor and held my breath.

He came right away to examine the patient. He probed and poked and scowled. Like the surgeon who trudges down the dim hospital hallway with bad news for the waiting family, he shook his head. “I could fix it…again,” he said, “but the wood’s all soft and rotted. I think it’s time for a new swing.” My wife looked at me. I looked at the swing doctor. “You sure?” I said. He just nodded.

Life, as always, must go on. We mourned then we measured and set out on a Saturday pilgrimage. At our first stop, there was a potential candidate but the color wasn’t right and then another choice but the shape was all wrong. We weren’t going to settle for just any old swing; we were determined to find the perfect new swing. It was a beautiful September day and neither my wife nor I could contemplate her not having a new perch by nightfall. “Call Backyard Billie,” I suggested.

You may not know Backyard Billie. It’s not a person, it’s a place, the Shangri-la of outdoor furniture. It may not have much in the way of antique charm, but it has nearly everything else: Adirondack chairs, patio sets, a chaise for lounging by the pool, if you happen to have a pool. If there were a new porch swing anywhere in the nearby vicinity—and not all that ‘nearby,’ mind you—Backyard Billie is where it would be. My wife called and explained the object of our desire. I just listened. “You do?” she said into the phone, hope surging back into her voice like the tide. “Can you text me a picture?” We waited several minutes. Her phone dinged. “Let’s go!” she said.

We had already begun to consider our two options: wood was less expensive but resin lasts forever and with minimal maintenance, to boot. No garish colors, just basic white. Height of back and depth of seat were important factors: it had to fit her like comfortable shoes. That’s a tall order for a short girl but we were optimistic. We had seen a candle burning in the darkness.

I won’t bore you with the details. Or with the cost. The most important news is that we have a new swing, one that will likely outlast us and the probably the next generation, too. Even the swing doctor—a wood purist—admired it. It fills the old space perfectly. It gleams white; even the new chains glisten. Its most important feature, however, is that it looks and feels like it was built for a queen, my queen, the queen of the front porch.

We gently set the old swing, chains and all, on the curb with a sign saying “Free to a good home.” By morning, it was gone.

The swing is dead. Long live the swing!

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

I was across the water, on my way to a meeting. I had parked the car and was navigating my way toward an office building when I passed a man sitting on a bench. I said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning to you, sir,” he replied. I noted the formulation—it was as precise as it was unexpected—but I was running late and hurried on my way. My meeting was not long, a half hour at most. I retraced my steps to the car and found the gentleman still sitting on his bench. “Friend, do you happen to have two dollars to spare?” he politely asked me.

Whatever happened to a dime? I patted my back pocket. “I’m sorry,” I said. “The cupboard is bare. I don’t have a cent on me.” (My wife can confirm this is not an unusual state of affairs for me.)

“That’s alright. Not to worry. You seemed in a hurry; where did you go?”

“I had a meeting. As a matter of fact, with my financial advisor.”

His eyebrow arched. “Oh; you have a financial advisor, do you?”

“I know; ironic right? I have a financial advisor, but no money.”

“Incongruous. You might consider another advisor.”

I was struck by his calm demeanor, the timbre of his voice, the cadence and distinct patterns of his speech. His voice was rich, mellifluous. Maybe a bass, but certainly a baritone. His diction was precise, confident. This was an educated man. He held my eyes when he spoke and there was no distance between us. I looked around; maybe I had unwittingly barged into a live audition of Waiting for Godot. No; just us.

“I noticed your footwear,” he said.

I looked down. I was in meeting attire—button-down shirt, moleskin pants—but I was wearing flip-flops. “My usual summer attire,” I said, somewhat apologetically.

“They wouldn’t let us wear those in the army,” he said. He was cleanly dressed, pressed shirt and pants, blue canvas shoes, laced but untied. I pointed to his shoes. “I like your footwear,” I said.

“My feet hurt; I never tie my shoes anymore.”

Then we just fell into conversation. I don’t really remember what we talked about—small talk, I suppose—but all the while I couldn’t help but notice the way this bench-sitter commanded my attention. He was worldly, wise. Insightful. At one point, he said something like ‘you looked like the Lone Ranger when you walked by the first time. A man of stature. A man of your stature shouldn’t be wearing flip-flops. To a meeting. With your financial advisor.’ There was no irony in his comment, just an observation. I didn’t disagree.

At some point during our conversation—me standing, him sitting—I became aware of the time. I had told my wife I would home for lunch. “I’d better be going. The boss is waiting for me at home.”

This caught his attention. “Oh; you have a boss at home, do you?”

I nodded. “You better believe it.” I patted his shoulder. It was solid. “I enjoyed talking to you.”

“As did I.” We parted.

The next day, I went to the ATM and took out some cash. I made sure I had two one-dollar bills. I went back to the place of my encounter with the bench-sitter. He wasn’t there. I’ve gone back a few times since, hoping to rekindle our conversation, but he’s never there.

The image that accompanies this Musing is titled “The Park Bench.” It is by Horace Pippin, an African-American artist whose work was greatly influenced by slavery and segregation. Born outside Philadelphia in 1888, he worked primarily from a studio in New York. He died in 1946. When I thought to do a little research on Mr. Pippin, I looked him up on the internet. I was stunned: the photograph that accompanied his biography looked exactly like the man sitting on the bench.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

I like to be sure about whatever I’m undertaking at any given moment, but that’s not always possible. Sometimes hope supersedes certainty and I’m forced to live in the shady belief that I’m on the right course. But doubt can come creeping in, sometimes crippling in its effect. A plan stalls; I start over…

It wasn’t always like this. Back in February of 1306, one of my forebears, Roger de Kirkpatrick, was with Robert Bruce when he (the Bruce) arranged to meet with John Comyn, his principal rival to the Scottish throne, at Greyfriars Abbey in Dumfriesshire in southern Scotland. Bruce and Comyn got into a quarrel in front of the high altar and in the heat of the moment, Bruce stabbed Comyn, a grievous enough act anywhere but blasphemous under the circumstances. Bruce fled the scene, telling his henchmen who were waiting outside what he had done. But then he added, “I don’t know if I killed him!” to which Kirkpatrick replied (in good Scots), “I mak siccar!” Kirkpatrick went back inside the church, found Comyn bleeding but still alive, and finished the job. For this act of cruel certainty, Kirkpatrick was given a shield and crest with a hand holding a dagger dripping blood under the motto I Mak Siccar—I make sure.

So when I tell you I would like to be sure about whatever I’m undertaking at any given moment, pay attention: you know where I’m coming from, or at least from whence I came. Certainty is buried deep in my DNA. The problem, of course, is that murder in a house of God notwithstanding, certainty is a hard commodity to come by these days when every morning we waken to another incredulous news cycle. Mexico will pay for the wall. Tariffs aren’t going to cost Americans anything. I am the Chosen One. Today is Tuesday so I think I’ll buy Greenland.

So how does one discern certainty—the quality of being reliably true—at a time when fanciful lying has been raised to a Presidential art form? Where is the proof? Sure; there are ombudsmen and fact-checkers among us but who is checking their facts? If we’re left to rely solely on our own senses, how do we make sure that our receptors are functioning at full capacity and that what they’re receiving is untainted by even the faintest ghost of unintentional bias let alone fake news?

The problem with certainty—or more precisely, the lack of it—is that we are living in a constant state of dubious disbelief. Did that really happen? Did he really say that? What is that supposed to mean? Doubt is a desert; you can’t cross it without at least an occasional oasis of certainty. But a tiny speck of an oasis can be awfully difficult to find in a vast desert; absent a damn good map, a faint guiding star is the best we can hope for. I don’t know about you but I’m still looking for mine. In the meantime, I lurch from point-to-point, hoping things will change.

But back to the 14th Century and that church in Scotland. Kirkpatrick has dispatched Comyn but apparently that’s not good enough. Bruce needs proof. That comes when another of Bruce’s men, Sir Robert Fleming, exits the church holding Comyn’s bloody severed head aloft exclaiming, “Let the Deed Shaw!” Now the Flemings have a crest and motto, too. 

You can be sure of it.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

I have just returned from another of our annual pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint Rehoboth. It was a two-week affair and at its frenzied height, we had thirty-two fellow travelers around the dinner tables, fifteen of whom were under the age of nine. Among that throng were various members of seven related families casting a wide net of cousins, most of whom got along extraordinarily well—most of the time.

We lost the matriarch of our clan, great-grandma Dar, in January. She was ninety-four. No one will ever take her place. Still, there were five grandparents among us this year to provide back-up support to the next generations of beach-goers and to ensure that the annual rituals and traditions of the beach are properly maintained. Even without Dar presiding from under her straw beach hat, I have no doubt that this year’s memories will be every bit as sweet as those of years past. 

Is there chaos? Noise? Tears and tensions? An occasional meltdown? What do you think? Of course; but there is also an overwhelming abundance of love and laughter as families reconnect with each other in a place that has literally cradled some of the adults of the tribe every summer since Eisenhower was President. (Truman was my first President but then I’m a relative newcomer to the beach scene.)

The adults may nominally run the show, but let’s face it: it’s the kids—the riot of cousins—who call the tune. In fact, it may well be the youngest (currently Blake, age 2) who steals most of the scenes. Alas—or better yet, fortunately—this will be Blake’s last year in the spotlight. There’s another cousin on the way to set the pace next year, one more at the table, another cherished soul to practice the time-tested art of napping on the beach.

Cousins are people—in our case, often younger, littler people—whose closest common ancestor is a grandparent. When you think of it like that, it makes those of us who have reached grandparent status important links in the family chain. Without grandparents, there wouldn’t be any cousins, but of course these cousins don’t think like that. They only think about each other and how much fun it is to play in the surf or dig holes on a wide sandy beach, leaving us parents and grandparents to sit under umbrellas and worry about the next big wave that will come rolling in. 

Cousins exist to create family confusion. They are not ancestors, descendants, siblings, aunts or uncles, nieces or nephews. They’re just cousins. They may be bound together by family ties, marriage, age, or geography. They may be first cousins, second-cousins, cousins-once-removed, paternal or maternal cousins, distant cousins or kissing cousins. This year, we had two second cousins (both four year-olds) who decided they would get married someday but time is on our side—I hope. We love each other, but not like that.

Watching this band of cousins, I couldn’t help but think of my own. With the exception of two who are far away FaceBook friends, I’ve lost touch with all of them. I miss them and the merriment that accompanied our annual family reunions at Uncle Dale’s house on Conneaut Lake in Pennsylvania. I learned to waterski with my cousins. I sipped my first beer with cousins. We raked huge piles of leaves in my cousins’ yard then exploded them by jumping in. In the morning, my cousins and I would come down to breakfast after a long night on the sleeping porch, following the sweet scent of pancakes and bacon. Aunt Bubbles made us all laugh when she would sing “I’m Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage.” Those days may be long gone now, but in my mind, they’re still fresh and funny.

Anyway, cousins, in all their varieties, mayhem, and glory are a good thing and the beach is as good a place as any to celebrate them. And on some mornings, the house still smells of pancakes and bacon and the sounds of running feet and the shouts of little cousins still cascade down the stairs like a waterfall.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

If you’re old enough to remember The Beverly Hillbillies, you’re probably old enough to forget them, too. But in case you either too young to know what I’m talking about or you need a quick refresher, The Beverly Hillbillies was a 60s television show about the Clampett family, Ozark hillbillies who struck oil and are now living the high life in California. According to the show’s theme song which has been inexplicably stuck in my head for more than a week now, Jed Clampett, the widowed family patriarch, “was a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed,” until (so the song continues) “one day he was out shootin’ for some food when up from the ground came a bubblin’ crude. Black gold. Texas tea.”

That lousy shot makes Jed a millionaire and so he packs up three generations of his wacky extended family and moves them all to Beverly Hills. (“Swimming pools. Movie stars.”) It is the quintessential American Dream story—except that it isn’t. The American Dream, our national ethos, is the idealized notion that anyone’s highest goals and aspirations can be achieved if he/she just works hard enough. The problem is that in Jed’s case, it wasn’t hard work that got him and his kin to posh Beverly Hills; it was dumb luck. He missed the squirrel but hit the jackpot.

Today, the American Dream is a bit trickier to conceptualize, let alone achieve. It conjures up images of migrant families from Central America, refugees from the Middle East and Central Asia, apparently even people from Baltimore. The 99% clawing their long, slow way up toward the 1%. Pretty long odds, if you ask me. Maybe even unreachable, as far away from fulfillment as Don Quixote’s unreachable star.

It was James Truslow Adams who first introduced us to the notion of an American Dream in his 1931 book, “The Epic of America.” In it, Adams wrote about “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Adams knew of what he wrote. His paternal grandfather had deep Virginia roots, but his father had been born in Caracas, Venezuela. (His paternal grandmother was of Basque descent.) If ancestry.com had existed back in Adams’ day, it would surely have shown his DNA to be a bit of this and that—like most of us. But unlike many of us, Adams was lucky. He came from families of considerable means so his road to Dreamland was paved if not with gold, then at least with some pretty smooth macadam. So smooth, in fact, that it took Adams to a Pulitzer Prize in 1921—pretty impressive for a Venezuelan-born historian and freelance writer.

Adams believed the engine of the American Dream was education: from vocational training to the liberal arts and the classics and everything in between. Education was the quintessential American antidote to the rigidity of the European class-based model. To Adams, a willingness to work hard and to acquire knowledge could equip anyone with wings to rise and to be sure, we can still see instances of that today. But we also see something else: people struggling, falling behind, people for whom the dream is fading, even becoming a nightmare.

I wonder what Mr. Adams would think of today’s version of the American Dream. How would he accommodate all those seeking asylum at the border, all those tired, poor souls yearning to breath free who are wading the Rio Grande instead of sailing into New York harbor? Mr. Adams died in 1949—more than a decade before the Clampetts moved to Beverly Hills or, for that matter, before the Jeffersons (another TV family) started moving on up from Queens to Manhattan. Would he be inclusive and share his American Dream with them, too? Or would his American Dream be exclusive—whiter, angrier, more prone to violence?

What about yours?

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com