� � � � � � � � � Life� ��������Times ���� ������� issue 6 | summer 2020 Our Neighborhood is Growing! Families are discovering Artis of Lexington as a place where their loved one with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease will truly feel at home with the support of specially trained care partners and the freedom to define their own days. Learn how we treasure each unique resident with person-centered dementia care that treats our residents and their families as valued members of our community. Call us for more information. 781.538.4534 Creating positive partnerships the Artis way! 430 Concord Avenue, Lexington, MA 02421 www.artisseniorliving.com An Equal Opportunity Employer-M/F/D/V ABOUT THIS JOURNAL issue 6 The Friends of the Lexington Council on Aging EDITORIAL BOARD are happy to sponsor this sixth edition of lexington Cristina Burwell LifeTimes: a creative arts journal, especially in Suzanne Caton this time of community stress due to the COVID-19 Nancy Hubert pandemic when even our Patriots Day celebration of Pamela Marshall April 2020 was cancelled. Pamela Moriarty This bi-annual publication, which showcases Cammy Thomas the creative talents of seniors who live or work in COPY EDITORS Lexington, was started in 2017 with a grant from Nancy Hubert the FCOA-funded Bright Ideas program. The Journal Pamela Marshall is overseen by a volunteer editorial board which sets Pamela Moriarty the criteria for submission and selects entries for Cammy Thomas inclusion. Distribution is primarily electronic with a MANAGING EDITOR & limited number of printed copies available. DESIGNER Starting with the Summer 2018 issue, the Journal Kerry Brandin has gratefully received underwriting support in the form of display ads from local businesses. If your FRIENDS OF THE business would like this opportunity, contact us by COUNCIL ON AGING sending an email to [email protected] LIAISONS Individuals can also support the Journal by Suzanne Caton making a gift to the Friends of the Lexington Council Janice Kennedy on Aging. Please help to keep this popular publication Jane Trudeau going! If you are interested in having your creative PRINTING work considered for a future edition, please see LPS Print Center the submission guidelines on the Friends of the Lexington Council on Aging website: ON THE COVERS WWW.FRIENDSOFTHECOA.ORG FRONT BY SARASUE PENNEll Fred: 1776-2018 (edited) RIENDS OF THE EXINGTON OUNCIL ON GING F L C A BACK BY CHARLES KETCHAM P.O. BOX 344 Pokeberry Redemption LEXINGTON, MA 02420 summer 2020 lexington LifeTimes 1 Table of Contents 3 20 Two Haiku Random Observations at BY JOAN SCHOELLNER the Time of Coronavirus ILLUSTRATION BY SON-MEY CHIU BY HEIDI TYSON, KATHY SANTOS, GARY FAllICK, JAMES BALDWIN, LARRY HO, DON YANSEN, 4 TAMARA HAVENS, ELIZABETH ROZAN, & JIll SMITH Gallery: Summertime 23 BY CHARLES B. KETCHAM, HELEN LUTTON COHEN, JOANNE BORSTELL, KATHY SANTOS, & DAVID BOVET Reflection BY JOHN EHRENFELD 7 My Honolulu 24 BY ELIZABETH ROZAN William Cooper Nell: Creator of 9 Antebellum Black Boston Milestones BY MARION KILSON Dance at Bougival BY MARY LEVIN KOCH 27 10 I Was Talking to My Dead Dog Today BY HAL FARRINGTON Demystifying the Wands BY IRENE HANNIGAN 28 Gallery: Lines of Communication 16 BY JUDITH CLAPP Meredith Baxter-Birney 30 BY RICHARD GLANTZ Jeopardy 13 BY CAROLYN LEVI Hawk 31 BY JAMES BALDWIN A Sonnet on the Common 16 BY ADELAIDE MACMURRAY-COOPER Robots Know Way Too Much 32 BY ROBERT ISENBERG The Lesser Celandine 17 BY GERALDINE FOLEY Gallery: Facetime 33 BY MARDY RAWLS, SARASUE PENNELL, & BONNIE BERMAN Contributors 2 lexington LifeTimes summer 2020 Two Haiku BY JOAN SCHOELLNER Mother’s Day Periwinkles bloom ─ The children are grown and gone. I must pick my own. June I wake to bird song; The mail man is wearing shorts. Summer is coming. SON-MEY CHIU Chinese Brush Painting Peach (1980s) 33 1/2” x 16 3/4” summer 2020 lexington LifeTimes 3 GAllERY Summertime CHARLES KETCHAM Photograph Summer Celebration (2019) 4 lexington LifeTimes summer 2020 HELEN LUTTON COHEN Watercolor Lexington Red Iris (2014) 22” x 15” JOANNE BORSTELL Ink and Watercolor Day Lily (2019) 8” x 8” summer 2020 lexington LifeTimes 5 KATHY SANTOS Photograph 3 Men on the Beach (2017) DAVID BOVET Photograph Lifeguard Chair, Good Harbor Beach (2009) 6 lexington LifeTimes summer 2020 My Honolulu BY ELIZABETH ROZAN I never had swimming lessons. There were not being able to feed his family. He would no pools in the yards of neighbors in the turn the car radio on to WJIB, which played earthy farmland where I grew up. But there “beautiful music,” familiar instrumentals was the smell of the ocean when the wind with a hum line that served as transport to blew in from the east. When it did, I sensed somewhere wonderful. Even its nautical- a washing away of all the heat and dust of themed call sign—a buoy bell and seagull— day-to-day living. seemed to contribute to the effect of the soft My father felt that too, sometimes, quiet sounds that didn’t demand too much, particularly after his long daily drive down the but created space in your head. Sometimes Expressway to his factory job near the docks. on those rides, I would imagine being Fred The boats from the Dominican Republic Astaire’s partner, dancing on a shiny parquet would pull into the bay and the sugar cane floor, following his feather-light lead, silky would be unloaded to be processed into gown twirling around me. two- or five-pound bags of sugar sold in When we got to the beach in the late the market. The production of sugar was a afternoon, the tide would be high, and my complex operation, which created the smell father would be ready before I laid out my of blackstrap molasses that permeated the towel. “I’m goin’ in,” he’d say, with a wink. air and often-overworked manufacturing I would sit on my towel, my knees pulled in machines. My father worked there with his close to my chest and watch him. My father father as a machinist. He could fix anything, was a great swimmer. Back and forth he’d go, having spent time in the Army in the outskirts his head looking small as it moved from side of Alaska fixing fighter planes during WWII. to side, his arms powerful as they propelled On those hot days, when the wind him in what looked like effortless joy of was just right, he would say: “I’m going buoyancy. swimming—anyone want to come?” I knew This beach had an elevated section of he had checked the tide table in the Record land that jutted out to the sea. It was a American, so it was now or never. sturdy barrier running perpendicular to the “Me!” I’d shout. “I want to go! Take me!” shoreline to prevent the beach from being I would bring the bare essentials, which washed away by longshore drift. I called was basically a towel. No lip gloss, hat, it a “raft,” but technically it was a groyne, sunscreen, handbag, wallet, book or any a jetty. Not visible when the tide was high, other accoutrements that weigh me down it gradually appeared as the tide went out. now. I wore everything else: bathing suit, I often wondered how swimmers avoided dress, flip flops. crashing into it, as there were no orange The ride to the beach was usually quiet. sticks or flags giving warning and marking My father didn’t talk much. He might be it off. I would sometimes walk out on it, praying, or thinking. I didn’t interrupt. He with the water just up to my knees. It was was a union man who carried the fear of a constructed out of concrete, and covered by strike, the fear of not being able to work, of barnacles, which I could feel as I walked, and summer 2020 lexington LifeTimes 7 that I sometimes examined at low tide. This tired, I turned and floated, my hair becoming was not a pink sand beach of Bermuda with seaweed around my head, my legs rising gorgeous turquoise water. It was not a beach to the surface, toes sticking straight up. I on an island of Hawaii, with huge Pacific stretched out my arms and said yes to the waves. This was Wollaston, a city beach, full element of water, feeling how different it of coarse sand and sometimes jellyfish. It is from earth, or air, or the fire of the sun. was the beach I shared with my father, the Floating in the saltwater ocean, I felt a part beach where the ships heading to his work of it all, my upturned heart at one with the were visible far in the distance; where people universe. sat on the breakwater, smoking, reading I turned and swam back to the raft landing. the paper, or talking; where the sidewalks The ladder was visible now and I pulled myself were alive with the beach familiars, tanned up. As I walked back to the beach, I could see from the sun, and able to describe the hazy my father, standing by the towels, shading his horizon line as seeming to round a bit at the eyes, and looking in my direction. I waved; edges. he waved, smiling. He held the towel for me After his swim, my father dried off and to dry off. “Hungry?” he asked. I nodded, slept a bit while lying on the sand. I wanted quickly slipping my dress over my head and to swim like my father. One day—that day— arranging the flip flops between my toes. while he slept, I walked out the length of the He held my hand as we crossed Shore Drive.