Journal of a Sabbatical

April 9, 2000

49 is a big number

Today's Reading: Early Spring in Massachusetts: from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H. G. O. Blake

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Pedro Martinez

No tree branches made it into Nancy's apartment, though there were plenty of branches - and trees - down along the streets of the East Side as we drove downcity for breakfast at the Downcity diner before driving north to La Madre's for the family gathering for my birthday. Later we heard on the radio that the winds had gotten up to 50 mph.

Snow. Thomas called my attention to it during dinner, reminding me that it's traditional for us to get snow on or near my birthday. The wind whipped it around big time. What a spectacle! This reminds Kevin of the time he had to leave my birthday party early because there was a hundred year flood. I used to give huge birthday parties for myself, but I gave it up because every time I had a party some violent cataclysm occurred. Once it was a hundred year flood. Another time my mother fell and broke her shoulder, went to the hospital, had to have her wedding ring cut off, and my Dad died the next day. Then there was the time there was almost a fight among guests with broken beer bottles. I think that was before both the 100 year flood one and the broken shoulder one. My recollection is hazy. Once we got 6 inches of snow on my birthday, but that wasn't a year that I gave a party.

Besides being the day after my birthday, it's the 11 year anniversary of my father's death. I can't believe it's been that long. He would have predicted snow for today. Whenever you asked him for a weather prediction, he predicted snow. It was kind of his signature joke. But today he would have been right.

BiB called to wish me a Happy Birthday. We discussed the Red Sox pitching rotation and other important subjects like that. I told him he can get live broadcast with local announcers over the Internet. With the satellite delay I keep talking over him. I can never seem to get used to that. Kosovo seems very very far away, almost a different planet.

You're only young once but you can be immature forever.

Old Henry is giving me fits again. Who the hell is Camilla rippling over the field of grain? Dogged searching of dictionaries reveals nothing. Thoreau Home Page reveals nothing except more references to Camilla without explanation. Many search engines later a clue appears and I follow it doggedly to discover that Camilla was a virgin warrior character in the Aeneid. Damn, I knew I should've let those nuns in high school talk me into taking Vergil instead of physics!