Old Friends, Memories, and Workshops

On my sixtieth birthday,  my wife exceeded any expectation for a celebration.  She managed to get five of my oldest friends to come to North Carolina for an epic party, high school friends who kept me more or less sane through that difficult period of anyone’s life when we begin to, finally, grow up.  Dozens of my local friends showed up as well for a party at Durham’s Boxcar bar and arcade.

The one person who wasn’t there, of course, was my father, and during this past year I’ve spent many insomnolent hours thinking about him, his life, and the long shadow he cast on my life.  My father died at age 85, my mother at age 63.  Genetically, I’m approaching that range of years when my demise is more likely than not, when the years ahead of me are far fewer than the years behind.  And, partly due to the mental paralysis of facing that end, and dealing with the grief of my father’s passing, I’ve been woefully neglectful of this web site.  Procrastination is something of a strong suit for me, unfortunately.  

From Sandy Sandy’s diary of a 2005 Rockland ME painting workshop.

But over that same time of procrastinating and doing anything but posting on this site, my father’s old friends and students have reached out in various ways that have surprised me.  What a gift!  Recently, Sandy Sandy, a fine artist with wonderful paintings of the birds and the bees (always a good subject!), flowers, and landscapes, shared a link to her diary of  an August 2000 workshop in Rockland Maine with my father.  The diary is out of date, but available through the marvelous Way Back Machine.  Check out her diary to get an idea of what my father’s workshops were like.  

I have other memory posts that people have graciously shared, going back since my father died.  Procrastination, my Achilles heel.