All I Have To Do Is Dream

I used to wonder how Robin’s mother, Dorothy Clark, felt as she neared 100 years of age, when so many of her contemporaries had already passed away. Including the entertainers whose work she had enjoyed as a younger woman. I thought it might be a depressing state of affairs, but couldn’t really put myself in her shoes.

Now, of course, those shoes fit really well. My entertainment heroes are not exactly dropping like flies, but every week somebody famous and once important to me shuffles off this mortal coil. This past weekend it was Don Everly, the last remaining member of the Everly Brothers. A duo that was so big in the 50s and 60s that they influenced a whole generation of rock and country musical stars.

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Robin’s sister Jill took flight from Paradise on Tuesday afternoon and returned to South Dakota. The week she spent with us absolutely sped by. What did she do? She visited the Grand Mesa, the funky ice cream shop in Ridgway, our Black Canyon National Park, a kids’ theater performance in Durango, the Peach Festival in Palisade, and did some serious tourist-shopping in Silverton.

She came a virgin to the daunting Million Dollar Highway and left a smiling and seasoned veteran of that sometimes sphincter-tightening experience.

Hmmm … not a bad week.

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From The New Yorker

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There is a tall tree a few blocks away that is in full view from our back yard and that has completely gone over into Fall color. No matter that it’s the only one in town that has done so. It’s a trend-setter. A breakaway from the herd. Marching to the beat of a different drummer, and all that. I have to admit that the sight is unwelcome. I was still hoping that some of what is great about Summer could be salvaged before we make our way into another season.

Because this past summer has been a killer. You can see plantings around town that have given up from the stress of the relentless heat of 2021, and there will no doubt be more fatalities along these lines. Our tiny garden suffered, producing tomatoes with odd discolorations and leathery interiors. Here in Paradise we had adopted a survival strategy that involved staying indoors most of the day and then venturing out in the early morning and late evening hours. In the mid-day heat the parks and streets were nearly empty. On the city golf course down the street the players scooted from shade tree to shade tree, got off their machines just long enough to have a desultory smack at the ball, then climbed aboard for another dreary few yards advance toward the clubhouse and the end of their ordeal.

It has been a kind of cosmic joke that the days when we suffered least from the sun were those where the smoke from western fires provided us some protection against its rays. So Autumn is in the odd position of coming too soon on the one hand, and none too soon on the other.

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