A Morning of Reflection

Mornin ... Mornin! Everyone doing ok? Seems we’ve been having an awfully good time so far.

Vince, Vince ... are you sitting down?? We’ve arranged to be home for today and the two days following! Yep, and what’s more?? We’re done working Saturdays!!! We looked at the calendar and figured out yesterday that we still had 4 ½ days we NEEDED to take off before June 30th, or we’d lose out on vacation and personal days. Fortunately, the sick days will carry over. So, we cancelled going in for the last 3 Saturdays, arranged to be at work the full week Sr. Will be gone, and took off a full day this Monday and a half day the last Monday.

Pretty good, huh??? Feels FANTASTIC!!! I figured I’m going to lose my special Saturday working days anyway, and it was better to be in during client hours as much as possible. But, there’s absolutely NO WAY I’m giving up FREE days!

What made everything SUPER cool ... hmm using a lot of caps ... umm anyway what’s super cool is that I got in the few books I’d ordered which included, Mortimer Adler’s book on, "How to Read a Book," which was the first book of the BIG collection that I wanted to read. I just couldn’t be more happy!

I know, I know ... it might appear that I know how to read already :)

But, this is way different.

Adler writes, "Thus we can roughly define what we mean by the art of reading as follows: the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help from outside, elevates itself by the power of its own operations. The mind passes from understanding less to understanding more. The skilled operations that cause this to happen are the various acts that constitute the art of reading."

Adler wrote this book, originally in 1940 and he revised and updated it in 1972. It is like a classic! Adler was the one most responsible for the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Great Books, and The Annals of America series. Oh gluttonous one that we are ... have all these books! We’re saving them hopeful for our retirement as best we can figure. If we die before 80, we are going to be majorly upset! Yep, yep it doesn’t matter what nursing home they place us ... these books are coming too ... hehe maybe by then, they’ll have instead of computer cable a filtering system where the sun powers our computer!

Very excited ... we plan to spend our next three days between the journals, reading, and writing to our web site. Oh joy of joys. Just titillated to the hilt!

Ok, ok ... calm down here :) We woke up and made it around the J-block about half way, when we decided to stop over in the park to nap on a bench. Then we walked around the rest of the block. Ok, ok ... so the bench looked more like our living room couch ... but, in spirit we were out there in the elements of shady trees and flowing breezes!

Shoot, look at the time! It’s already 10 am. I guess that all took a while :) Time for the apple, hold on. Hmm. Last cup of coffee for the day too. Pretty good, pretty good... Ahh as I like ‘em sweet and juicy :)

There wasn’t much accomplished work wise yesterday. I found the AOL site that showed the whole day of processions in honor of former President Reagan (without commentary!). I had to leave my computer for about half an hour for the client’s lunches, but Sr. Theresa had the big TV in the multi-purpose room turned on to the church service and she had the individuals not talking through the service. It was very good.

I think I was really lucky that Sr. cared. She insinuated that she had stopped working and that we might do the same to see the ceremonies about 10 am. We made a day of it. I loved the presentations given at the church ... maybe not so much the young Bush or the minister’s, but the others. I thought the ceremonies outstanding to see everyone coordinate to every moment dignity and respect and we were very, very impressed with the dignitaries that were in attendance.

I’d been watching for about 24 hours all the people coming in to say their last respects while President Reagan’s body was in the rotunda. During the early morning hours there was just one camera focused on the event, but during the day several cameras captured hundreds of facial expressions of his visitors. Very, very touching. We also read quite a few stories of his life. Just a remarkable life to have followed the footsteps of only 39 men who had gone on before him. Out of millions and millions of people, he was a chosen leader.

My favorite story read was the one where after being hospitalized, he was "caught" cleaning off the floor due to water he’d spilled rather than allow the nurse to get in trouble. Very humbling, indeed.

The part I feel dismay was that after having gotten home early to continue watching, we only made it through to about quarter after eight. We were still following along withthe helicopter the long drive to the library, but we couldn’t force ourselves to stay awake one more moment. So, goes the turning of the world’s ways.

Throughout ... like millions of others, we were fascinated by Mrs. Reagan’s strength and courage. I hadn’t realized before how close she had been with her husband throughout their long years married. I didn’t understand much about politics during his years in office, although we followed somewhat. The same remains true to this day. We have always devoted our keener interests to psychology and human development. We’ve trusted our abilities as frail they are to be understanding human relationships, especially revolving around growth and development of the mind.

Then too, we were just at the beginning of raising our family during those 8 years of office. We were just out of college and delivered our oldest son, Macadam, the day President Reagan was voted into office. Through his first term, we had given birth to two more sons. Tanner, the second son was born within a couple of months of Prince William and Jacob, our youngest son was born the same year as Prince Henry. The next four years were our happiest. Our husband, boys and ourselves were young and on the move.

We were 21 when Macadam was born and worked from home. We felt to be a very devoted mother active in student advocacy both with gifted children and those who were developmentally disabled. We also had found our dream home ... an 18 room Victorian in need of restoration, and we bought another Victorian house made into six apartments.

Lastly, we’d lived next to a young Bostonian, "house father" who was finishing up his doctoral work in English. He encouraged us to write by giving us lessons in exchange for typist work on his dissertation. We put together our own 600 page manuscript throughout the year 1987 called, Castles and Carriage of Crystal Ayn Corey. We worked lovingly from our newly shelved library and were extremely happy with progresses made on our Apple IIe. ‘87 was a remarkable year for us, because it was our house’s 100 year birthday and we were very proud of our families part in its "history."

After that ... I don’t know ... the story line changes. I do know that those 8 years were a wondrous time to be alive. We were always cash poor, but felt connected to the world and life processes. We’d invested and were a part of the American dream ... *Giggle* still we admit, during the early years, we turned off the 10 pm news to be watching MASH. Hehe - Then I’d become groggy as my ex tuned into his favorite show, Dr. Who ... K-9 was more to my grasp.  Go figure! Together we were living the life.

Ok, ok ... enough of those thoughts. Days go by too swiftly, with always so much more ahead. It’s about time we turn to our book, all eager eyes and ears forward! Please be having the best of days today ... and drop us a note as you go by. We’ll be just --------------------->over here!