Home Again – Part 2 – April 13

We have returned, and my intention to blog about the trip has been thwarted by arriving home to a busy weekend here. Now I have found my way to my desk, so I will step back to last Monday.

We had a pleasant flight to Washington, DC and arrived at a lovely old hotel. Our good friend, Mary, met us for dinner at a restaurant within walking distance, the Lebanese Taverna. We managed to get lost on the walk, because we stupidly tried to use a GPS. Finally, we asked an actual person, and were redirected, arriving a few minutes late, but happy to see Mary unchanged since we last saw her. Of course, I was overstimulated and completely forgot to take a picture of Mary, but here are two pictures related to her. Mary is definitely one of the most interesting people in the world, but I haven’t the skill, or time, to do her justice. Suffice to say, our first dinner of the trip was fun, intellectual and emotional.

On Tuesday, we took a cab to The National Cathedral for the funeral of Clint Hill. Clint Hill was a Secret Service agent, who jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine during the Kennedy assassination, thereby saving Jackie’s life. He lived 93 years, so although it was a moving and sad occasion, it was also a celebration of the life of an extraordinary man. We were invited by Lisa McCubbin Hill, Clint’s widow, a writer and a NY Times best selling author, after she called Harry about a possible sculpture. That may never happen, but it was a great honor to attend Clint Hill’s memorial.

There were three eloquent eulogies, each highlighting different aspects of Clint Hill’s remarkable life. First, Lew Merletti, who was the 19th director of the U.S. Secret Service, had been mentored by Clint and inspired by him. Then, Mike Rowe, who had met Clint at a neighborhood bar when he was intrigued by the order of a “Clint” drink, a recipe of which Clint provided on business cards he carried. Mike Rowe was a brilliant storyteller, and told of becoming a good friend to Clint and Lisa, his neighbors in California. He interviewed them on his podcast in 2022 – “The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe” – episode 276. Finally, Lisa, the widow, talked about meeting Clint and falling in love, providing fifteen years of an extraordinary marriage in which they wrote books together, all of which were NY Times bestsellers. We were moved and uplifted by the unforgettable service at The National Cathedral.

Being “country mice”, we had forgotten to make arrangements for the cab to pick us up, so we needed to Uber back to the hotel for the reception, cabs being hard to find in that area. As we struggled to download the app, we were rescued by the kindness of Sheila, who was herself taking an Uber, and invited us to join her. Sheila was a longtime friend of Lisa’s, and readily became a friend to us. We arrived together at the reception, and Sheila introduced us to Lisa’s parents, and then to Lisa herself. Harry was delighted to also meet Antony Blinken, a hero to us (and a neighbor of Sheila, who lives in DC). They had a good conversation about the state of the world. We couldn’t stay for long, because we were taking another plane to Boston.

In Boston, we had a spectacular room at the new Marriott hotel near TD Garden. We could look out of the window and see Harry’s big bear sculpture in its prominent location at Portal Park. The two meetings scheduled with the Bruins people had been canceled (one for illness, and one called away to New York), so Wednesday was completely free for a visit from a good friend, Shari, who took the train from New York City (a four and a half hour trip!). Harry had never met Shari and I hadn’t seen her since the 1970s, when we met at a riding school in England. Our reconnection is another story for another day.

Wednesday was very cold, but became a beautiful day. We found Shari, who is, of course, adept at mass transit and Uber and all modern urban things. We saw the Bobby Orr sculpture, outside the station at TD Garden, and the nearby big bear, of course. Then, we Ubered to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a gorgeous and eclectic collection in a unique house, most famous for the 1990 theft of 13 works of art. The thieves have never been caught, and the world’s only seascape by Rembrandt, along with other irreplaceable pieces have never surfaced. A ten million dollar reward remains on offer, and the frames remain on the walls, vacant.

Time with Shari was not enough, but Harry loved her, as do I. It was hard to imagine that decades had elapsed since we last spent time together. We picked right up where we left off, and she has hardly changed in half a century.

Michael and Amanda came into the city from their home in Concord on Thursday and we went to Charlestown to visit Harry’s old haunt at The Naval Shipyard. We went aboard Old Ironsides, the heavy frigate. A destroyer, like the ship Harry served on as Chief Engineering officer long ago, was unfortunately not open for tours, but the ferry was running, so we walked to the ferry, past a magnificent Massachusetts Korean War Memorial, and traveled across Boston Harbor to a restaurant where we celebrated Amanda’s upcoming (April 16) big birthday. I won’t mention her age, but she will be ten years younger than I am.

To walk off the big and delicious meal (Harry had his lobster!) we went to see the Tony DeMarco sculpture near the North Church. It was a beautiful day, marred only by my losing my iPhone when we stopped and sat on a swing. The horror was short lived, and the day redeemed by the kindness of strangers who had found the phone and were hoping to find its owner, which they did, as I ran back to the swing in a panic.

Friday, we traveled home to our animals, well cared for by Karen, and having had visits from Jane. It was a fun week, but we missed the animals, and we do love life here in this little quiet patch.

Stone came in limping badly and I pulled his right front shoe. He had twisted it, and he was standing on the clip. So far, he seems fine, despite wearing only one shoe. Life is never boring here. The weekend will have to wait until tomorrow.

It is a truly exceptional Spring, with dogwoods and redbuds blooming together in the woods. Often the redbuds finish before the dogwoods come on, but the cool weather has been perfect this year for all the blooming trees.

Be safe, be well, be kind and stay strong. Slava Ukraini! God Save America. Peace…