22 July 2025

I’m was up this morning far earlier than accustomed for this retiree, as Levi Ellis and his painting crew arrived at 8 am to restore my shower and apse ceilings and our big deck to their original pristine state.  And it’s unusually cool for mid-July in New Hampshire, a welcome reprieve from the heat of past weeks:  66^o upstairs with no ac and widows open, low humidity.  Brilliant blue sky.  There’s the drip drip drip of the Trump/Epstein saga on recently defunded NPR, and I woke to a tick crawling on my neck.  But the day is too fine for pessimism, and however sleep deprived, I’m thinking of what’s been a very fine July so far.

For one thing, last Thursday’s “Good Trouble” rally on 17 July, the fifth anniversary of John Lewis’s passing, I judge a success.  Ninety hot minutes at the intersection of Washington and Central Ave in Dover, New Hampshire garnered some middle finger salutes, but also lots of approval honking, some even from big rig 18-wheelers.  I stand by (and below) my protest sign:  Only Ongoing Organized Outrage Overcomes Oppression.  Maybe, just maybe the Opposition is gaining some momentum, and we shall overcome.

It’s the month of celebrating the birth of what my late husband always called the Un-tied States—now, it seems, as untied as ever before.  But I’ve always loved the Fourth of July, forever associated with my bon vivant Uncle Kenny, his glamorous wife my Aunt Mart, and their beautiful daughters, the “Big Girls” Bevy and Bobbie, respectively four and two years older than me and always gorgeously turned out.  Every summer the Murphy family made the 3-day pre-interstate drive from St. Pete to Dayton to visit the Murphy grandparents, and every Fourth we went to the Senseman home in Kettering adjoining a country club; in her terraced back yard Aunt Mart would stage a big cookout always followed by a tremendous fireworks display over the neighboring golf course.  Every year one firecracker was launched with a parachute which, if found and claimed, meant a prize (of indeterminate worth), and every year, flanked by the Big Girls, my beautiful cousins, I ran through the dark, half flying because suspended by the grasp of the taller cousins, to Find The Parachute.  We never did.  Didn’t matter.  The thrill remains.

My beloved Uncle Kenny died on the Fourth of July 1984, the evening I was in the parking lot of the Danville Manor shopping center out on the Danville, Kentucky bypass with the Centre College Chair of Humanities, Milton Reigelman, who took me to see the fireworks after my day of hunting for an apartment where I would start my first year as a just-hired assistant professor, the beginning of a new life.  I toast Uncle Kenny every Fourth, and try to celebrate as often as possible the Spirit of ’76, which this year takes on a new urgency.

This year the serendipitous simultaneity of invitations from two different sets of friends in western Massachusetts got me the first road trip of summer.  First stop:  Easthampton, where good friend and colleague artist Brian Chu currently has his first show at the Oxbow Gallery, and friends of my baby professor days Ann and Sheldon now have a lovely home with their son Peter close by their daughter Rachel, son-in-law Joe, and new grandson Simon, truck aficionado and light of everyone’s life.  Brian’s paintings, another of Ann’s gorgeous dinners, catchup time on the porch (with the appearance of TWO foxes), and a visit to the Smith College art museum next day were a real delight.

And then it was off to Granby, where Wendy (retired from the Mount Holyoke Art Museum and now practicing underwater seamstress), Nora (ABD art historian just returned from Rome), and resident guard dog (Gali)Leo were immersed in delayed Fourth of July party prep.

How delightful to be back at Bencontenta, the temple house that helped inspire David’s and my Gnawwood.

Back in NH for a day, I was soon off to Maine for my first visit to the venerable Ogunquit Playhouse, famed summer stock venue since 1937, to see a fine production of the 1950 musical Guys and Dolls with my stylist of 30 years, Teri, followed by a fancy dinner at MC in classically Downeast Perkins Cove.  I’m happy to report that “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” remains a show-stopping success.  And who could say no to MC’s Pavola (cold brew gelato, caramel, chocolate, and coconut crumb)?

July’s been good.  Beloved, gracious, and well-spoken Rotarian Ric Erickson was honored with a bench at the Madbury Public Library while he was still around to enjoy it, and the Library initiated its premier free July concert series:  first the Southern NH Ukelele Group, then last Tuesday, Portsmouth’s New Horizons Band.  Nothing says summer like a band concert on the lawn.

And my favorite series, The Bear, is back for a fourth season, which has me wondering why the Democrats can’t implement Chef Escoffier’s hierarchical brigade system.  As Will Rogers opined:  “I’m not a member of any organized political party.  I am a Democrat.”  But still, the Strafford County Dems, however ungainly, are organizing. 

And the peach crop is in at Union Lake Orchard, the daylilies are in bloom, and fresh coats of paint inspire a fresh take on cleaning, organizing, and downsizing as the second half of 2025 is well underway.

Soon I’m off to hear the UNH Sea Trek Program’s Sea Chantey Singers on the Library lawn, and I plan to enjoy it all—for summer’s lease hath all too short a date.