Letter from the Vineyard

It is grey and overcast outside; warmish but not so much as yesterday, a bright and beautiful day in the Hudson Valley.  Yesterday, with my friend, Pam, I went down to the Farmer’s Market, still held this time of year in the Parish Hall at Christ Church, purchasing a ganache for dessert, a freshly baked baguette and a few other things.

Since I have volunteered to lead the charge for Easter Brunch at church, I tarried while Sally Brodsky, the chief kitchen person at Christ Church, showed me how to operate the stove and ovens, which had befuddled me.

As I type this on Sunday morning, I am sitting in the living room with shards of sun slipping between the clouds.  Pamela is showering and Tory is catching a few more winks of sleep.  In a bit of time, I will be taking them down to the Hudson Train Station, sending them off to New York, where both have business this week.

They have been together for twenty-six years; Tory and I have known each other for thirty-one.

As everyone does these days, we talked politics as the fantastic scenario of this year plays out.

Trump rallies have grown violent, left wing protestors and Trump supporters clashed in Chicago.  Conservative reporter Michelle Fields has claimed that Trump’s campaign manager assaulted her when she tried to pose a question to the candidate.

Marco Rubio is making Tuesday’s Florida primaries a make or break it for him, as Kasich is doing in Ohio.  If they cannot carry their home states, what hope is there?

Just moments ago, former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, endorsed Kasich.

There seems to be an effort by many Republicans to rally around Ted Cruz in an effort to stop the Trump momentum, a thought only slightly less scary than having Trump as the Republican nominee.

Hillary Clinton made an appearance at Nancy Reagan’s funeral and absurdly praised the Reagans for their leadership in the AIDS crisis which unfolded during his administration.  Anyone who lived through that era, and I did, will remember that they were famously silent on AIDS. 

What was Hillary thinking?

While all eyes here are focused on the race for the presidential nomination for the Democratic and Republican parties, there are major elections happening today in Germany, a major test for Angela Merkel’s open door to refugees and migrants.

I don’t think of the Ivory Coast as a vacation spot but in that country, Grand-Bassam, is a popular destination for Ivorians and foreigners.  Gunmen roamed its beaches and killed many; the number still undetermined and for reasons still unknown.

Suspicion, of course, goes immediately to IS for this kind of attack.  At the same time, it has been revealed that IS is forcing females to use birth control so that pregnancy will not interfere with their use as sex slaves.  You can’t rape a woman if she’s pregnant, so birth control is being use to prevent pregnancy and allow for continued rape.

The world’s oldest man is a 112 year old survivor of Auschwitz, a former confectioner, living in Haifa, Israel.  It took awhile to confirm his status as so many records were scattered during the war.  But he has been now affirmed, a living monument of a terrible time.  The oldest living person is a 115 year old American woman, who was born in 1899.  What they have seen…

Not so long ago, the head of IS’s chemical attack force was captured.  It did not prevent them from launching a chemical attack in which 600 were wounded, a child died and thousands fled their homes.

I’m home now, after dropping Tory and Pam off at the train station for their trip into the city.  We had lunch at Vico, on Warren Street, where we all had a great burgers and wonderful fries.

In the time since I’ve left home, now about three hours, the Ivory Coast has confirmed 14 dead and there has been a suicide bombing in Ankara that has killed at least 27 and wounded 75. 

So the world beat goes on, while I am now seated on the deck, looking at the creek slowly passing by, a mallard having just taken flight to the north, bleating as it ascended into the sky.

When I came here, there were hundreds of mallards.  Most are gone now.  It is quieter but somehow less peaceful.