Quick! -- Before the world ends

In two and a half hours, it will be December here. For how long have we been warned that according to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar the world will end -- or at least come to some major reconfiguration -- in December 2012?  Should it come to that, the above picture shows my preferred way to depart -- aboard a narrow boat on a peaceful canal. Won't you join me?

Me, in Grade 4 of West Barnstable
ElementarySchool on Cape Cod.

My brother, Ralph Mitchell, also taken during those
Cape Cod years. He was always making something.

My aunt Helen Cahoon has gone beyond the reach of the Mayan calendar believers. The baby is my Leah at two months. We were visiting Cape Cod after giving Leah's Dad a send off from Quanset Point, Rhode Island. He was a photographer on the U.S.S. Intrepid, heading out to sea to spend his reservist's active duty scooting up and down the coast of Europe, taking official tourist pictures -- and making official photographic records of any planes that missed the deck.

Here is baby Leah tracking her Daddy's
Navy tour, from our perch in Parsonsfield, Maine.

Here is my Dad, Sandy Mitchell, also long since
gone beyond the reach of any end of this world.
It was a VERY snowy winter in Maine,
the year Leah was born.

This little lamb was born the same day as Leah.
My Dad never wanted him to reach the
end of his world, the way the other lambs
eventually found themselves in the stew pot.

Leah with her Dad, Tom Gallant. He, too has
gone into some new dimension. 

Leah and me in Parsonsfield. Can't take any credit
for the hue of the photos.

And here we are at Leah's 3rd birthday, at the
GAR Home in Bangor, ME, which Tom and I
"caretook" while finishing undergrad work
at Universtiy of Maine - Orono. 

Backing up a step or two, here are Tom and me with my bridesmaid (sister Beth), my parents (Eleanor and Alexander Mitchell) on the right and Tom's parents (Clifford and Barbara Gallant) on the left. Both sets of parents are gone, now. What were we all looking at, with such a mix of expressions? Only my Mom is in the moment -- and enjoying more than the bite of wedding cake.

Eventually another little girl joined
our family and we moved to Boston.
Here is Rachel visiting the office
where I worked at the Christian
Science Publishing Society.

Was life really this romantic? Yes, it often was. 

And Niagara is a good place to end this blog. My point tonight is that if the world should indeed end next month (now one hour and 45 minutes away), I have tremendous riches to take with me. And the riches have only been multiplying since -- check them out on my other posts and other blog.

autumn pipedreams

Listening via "Pipedreams" to a grand English organ on a chilly November evening, I feel like taking you on a walk
through my autumn.

I thought for sure this would be my last
kitchen-window bouquet for the year. 

But then, along came one last brave bud pushing skyward from our Queen Elizabeth rose.
Here is her final offspring for the season. What a finale!

Roy reignited his life-long interest in garden railroads. Here are a few shots of his autumn activity. I plan to do a more thorough job recording this project, another night.

"We been workin' on the railroad, all the live-long
day" The wee men break into song.

The box of little Preiser workers
arrived from Germany via Ebay.

Roy made his own photographic
explorations of the evolving layout,
which you will just have to wait to see.

We took a walk in the beech woods of Lost Valley
 late one afternoon. The glow is much more
remarkable than shows in this little photo.

In November, the most magical colors spring up among the shrubs and weed trees.
Here Roy is blowing the first (or maybe second, third?) leaf fall
away from the roadside, preparing for the approaching wind and rain.
We are using the bountiful leaves to build up the property on one end of the lawn.
The leaf compost makes a great place to grow spuds.

And the grande finale, the indisputable proof that autumn will soon shiver into winter. Our wood pile.

You are always welcome
before our fire.

The World's Best DQ

Garrettsville, Ohio, is an ordinary town with much to recommend it. In particular, I note its Dairy Queen. It's worth detouring off the highway to eat there. My pictures will show only some of what makes it special.

The owner has created an Americana museum.
His collections fill every possible display space.
Note also the homey seating -- chairs, not plastic
upholstered booths.

The "grands" and I were especially taken with the
antique gas pumps. Sunoco? Texaco? Note also
the framed art and memorabilia.

This is what it takes to distract a boy from
the immediate prospect of a waffle cone. And, yes, there
is some familiar booth seating --something for everyone.

And the place was clean, and the food was excellent. Come one, come all!

From Life's In-Basket

Life has been flowing almost too fast to stop and blog. But there are some events that should not be passed by.

At the end of a three-year lease I had to turn in my valued RAV4. Roy took some pictures to commemorate the end of such an important era in my life. The video of the hours I spent on Oct. 18 cleaning this buggy inside and out I cannot share at this time, but here is a still pic caught on his cell phone of my hug good-bye, in the parking lot of Bernardi Toyota in Framingham. Mass.

The turn-in at the dealer's was swift and low-pressure. But days later I received a bill charging me $372+  for EACH of two scratches, and $358+ for the missing cargo cover. I have fired off a letter of complaint, not for the conditions, but for the prices charged.

We recently had two door panels and a whole fender replaced on our Honda Civic, for less than twice the price of the repair of those two scratches. And cargo covers, new and Toyota-made, are available all over the Internet for less than one-third of what Toyota is charging me.

The missing cargo cover is my Mystery of the Year. We have searched high, low, and mezzanine both here and in my gold-plated storage unit in Maine  -- no cargo cover to be found. And my two pairs of snowshoes and poles are likewise missing. These things exist somewhere. Where?

I don't want to leave you with this leasing downer. Let's see what I can find to show you.

Old cemetery in North Wayland, Mass.

This illustrates what we accept as the passage of time. A body is planted, a stone is set to mark its place. A seed falls, a tree grows. And as it grows it embraces and then embodies everything its roots can absorb. Wonderful.