...That Couldn't be Beat

We went to Bethesda, Maryland, for a Thanksgiving Dinner with my family. We alternate where we eat turkey each year, but always manage to spend time with my clan and with Karen's.

My folks hosted all seven of their kids, their seven sons- and daughters-in-law, fifteen of their seventeen grand-kids, and my brother Matt's in-laws. That's thirty-three people, including my Mom and Dad.

Everyone brings something. We had two turkeys, white potatoes mashed and sweet potatoes too. There were two kinds of stuffing. There were veggies and gravies and many, many desserts.

We had a tub of sodas and a tub of beer. I took responsibility for bringing the beer; I started with a mixed case of Dogfish Head beers and added another mixed case of other non-mainstream beers.

We arrived early and had a chance to admire the old family dining room (seen here backwards) before it filled with people. There were several different tables set up, from the long dining table of my childhood, to the round gate-leg table in the sun-room.

Soon the family started to filter in. My nieces and nephews range in age from their mid-thirties down to first grade. We have golden-haired little princesses and cow-licked rambunctious boys. We have dancers and swimmers and ball-players. We have aspiring writers, musicians, actors, and activists.

Among my siblings and their spouses are lawyers, librarians, and managers; teachers, writers, artists, accountants and librarians. We are all readers and talkers. It is never quiet when the Mahaffies gather.

We ate. We talked. We laughed and we shared. Eventually, we started to disperse. As we did, teams of kids gathered and stowed the folding chairs. We paired-up to move tables back into place. A brother started a first-load in the dish-washer. By bed-time the old family home was put back together and tolerably clean.

As the only out-of-state guests, we spent the night at Mom and Dad's. After a pleasantly quiet breakfast, we drove to Karen's sister's house where we ate left-overs with her parents and some of that side of our family. We watched our great-nephew and his half-brother play video games and wrestle good-naturedly. We got to play scrabble with my Mother-in-Law; she is the Michael Jordan of scrabble.

As dusk fell, we were headed back east across the Bay Bridge. Back to our cats. It was a fine Thanksgiving holiday.

A Labor Day Sunday

We spent the Sunday of our Labor Day weekend at North Bethany with my folks, my older sister Margaret and two of her grown kids, and my brother and his lovely wife and brood. And their large, happy, friendly, rambunctious, overgrown puppy of a black lab, Titan. (He has grown a good deal since last summer.)

Matt and his two girls are geocache enthusiasts. Their plan for the early afternoon was a walk down the beach into Bethany Beach proper to find three caches. Matt's wife Lynn, having run for what I calculate as about 20 miles that morning, was going to relax for a bit. Christina and I went along for the walk; I'm always interested in a chance to look for new things to photograph.

The beach is usually fairly generous with subject matter; on a crowded beach, though, a middle-aged man with a camera generally should keep his focus on seabirds, waves and things out to sea.

We were entertained on the walk by several pods of dolphins fishing and bouncing, apparently happily, just off shore. I tried, but failed, to get a decent photograph of them.

Once in Bethany, we were successful finding two of the three geocaches. The third was somewhere under the boardwalk, an area now off-limits to help protect new dunes that have been built. One, found by the Bethany Beach Bandstand, was what one might call a "micro-geocache."

When we got back up the beach, we found our friends Andy and Lynn had brought their girls along for some beach time. We had a pleasant few hours of surfside conversation, a chance to jump into the ocean, and a clear, sunny afternoon.

After a taco dinner that couldn't be beat, we had cake and ice cream and sang happy birthday to Margaret about six times. Her birthday is still a week away, but when you have a chance to sing to your sister you take it.

It was a find Labor Day Sunday, spent just the way a holiday should be spent; with friends and family.

Bragging: An Item for My Portfolio

I sold a photo to Delaware Today and they have used it as the cover of their fall Beach Guide. I am very pleased.

The picture itself was taken on Labor Day Weekend in 2005, on Sunday evening. It is a sunset view across the dunes and beach in North Bethany. This would have been after a family dinner at my parents' house.

We'd spent the day on the beach with my folks and my younger sister and her husband and kids. We showered and shared a leisurely meal, then wandered down to the beach to look at a quiet ocean and reflect on the passing of the day.

This has long been a common way to spend summer Saturdays or Sundays in our family. It is a tradition I love, but it is harder and harder to organize as all of our kids get older and more busy.

This, by the way, is my second photo in Delaware Today. I sold them a view of the Old State House in Dover for a Kent County Guide earlier this year.

I've slowed down my photography habit lately. But looking back over these shots, and the giddy pleasure of seeing them in print, makes me think I should head out with my camera again.

In Mahaffey, PA

We spent only about an hour in Mahaffey, Pennsylvania; we had a long drive back to Delaware. But I'm glad we stopped.

We found our way (with thanks to directions from my cousin Don Mahaffey Weaver) to the Borough of Mahaffey graveyard. There's a monument to Robert Mahaffey in the center of the graveyard. It is surrounded by several sets of Mahaffey family plots. There's a lot of history here.

The town of Mahaffey, the Borough, is quite small. The downtown, such as it is, is next to a bridge across the upper reaches of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. There is a restaurant, a gun shop, a funeral home and a few churches.

There is a town park, Scout Community Park, according to Google, though I saw references to a Mahaffey Park which was to host a fireworks show that evening. Scout Park includes a ball field, always a good sign in a small town.

I'm glad we had a chance to visit Mahaffey. It's a part of the history of a distant branch of my family, but I've been studying family history for a while now and I was excited to see the place.

Looking Out Over Johnstown

We made a flying visit to central Pennsylvania this past weekend. We were there for a family event in Karen's family and took the opportunity for just a small amount of looking around.

We drove out on Friday. Interstate 70 in western Maryland was packed and reduced to a crawl. After ghosting over one mountain at 10 mph behind a truck, we abandoned the interstate system and hooked up with the old National highway -- US 40. We took that through Hagarstown and then took back-roads out to Breezewood and on to Johnstown.

On Saturday, we had a family lunch at the City View Restaurant, overlooking Johnstown. The restaurant is next to the Incline Plane which carries people and cars up and down a substantial hill. We took the ride down; then back up. For a flat-lander, like me, this sort of elevation play is great fun.

Sunday, we took a quick ride up north from Johnstown to visit Mahaffey, the Borough founded by a second cousin of my great-great-grandfather. It's a visit I've been thinking about. I'll have a few photos from there later.

I will say that it was very interesting, and it was fun. And it was a great excuse to do more driving on two-lane highways in the hill country.

Congratulations, Lady Ravens

The Sussex Tech Women's Lacrosse Team posted a 6 and 6 record for the season that just ended. Considering that this was the first season that this school has had a Women's Lacrosse Team, that's not at all bad. And, as a team parent, I am proud.

At the start of the season, their inexperience showed. They had a core of girls who had played field hockey and knew both hustle and field strategy but lacked ball-handling skills. They were augmented by a group of girls, including Colleen (my eldest), who had been part of a lacrosse club last year and had some stick and ball-handling skills, but lacked game experience. They featured lots of sprinting towards the goal and plenty of shots, but little passing and strategy. Good teams beat them easily.

By the end of the season, though, the team had come together and found a nice balance. They still had a breakaway threat, but as often as not these girls made skillful passes, set-up plays, and manufactured goals with a touch of finesse. In their second-to-last game, they fought Caesar Rodney, one of the best teams in the league, down to the wire in a see-saw game that they lost only by one, last-minute goal.

So, congratulations, Lady Ravens. I'm looking forward to next year.

Purple Prose Enlivens a Tale of the Emerald Diamond

I've been checking through old newspapers at the Library of Congress' Chronicling America site. I'm searching for references to my various forebears; it is a low-return fishing expedition, but great fun.

For example, a search for references to any Mahaffies in California in newspapers from around the turn of the 20th Century has turned up several sports-page notes about a baseball umpire named Mahaffy. I doubt that he is a direct relative, though he may be a very distant cousin. What's great about this, though, is the prose in which I find him.

Here are two paragraphs from Page 42 of the September 30, 1906, edition of the San Francisco Call. William J. Slattery writes about a game between the Portland Beavers and the San Francisco Seals (in first and second in the standings at the time).

Neither team played anything that looked like high art. Errors happened frequently and did a deal of damage. Neither pitcher was there any too strong and and both of them delayed the game as much as possible by indulging in a series of senseless winding ups and warming ups between the rounds.

Maybe it was because of the banishment of Cousin Park Wilson that San Francisco did not perform according to the tips of the wise brigade. Cousin Park assayed to engage in an oratorial contest with Umpire Mahaffy in the eighth spasm and before he realized that the worst was yet to come, the indicator man had already made a mysterious high sign and given Park notice to skidoo. He also informed the leader of the Seals that his pay envelope will be shy five dollars when the next day of reckoning with Cal Ewing is at hand.

The Seals were not doing well in their season series with the Beavers in 1906. The Beavers won this game, 3 to 1, moving to a record of 98-47 and a won/lost percentage of .697. The cellar-dwelling Fresno team, by contrast, was at .335 percent at 51-101.

Photo Archive Memories #1

This is Boots, a German Shepherd/Beagle mixed breed who was part of my family in the 1970s. He was the dog part of whatever "a boy and his dog" aesthetic my life has ever held.

Boots was one half of a doggy duo with Joey, an older Beagle. They got along fairly well, as I recall, with a tired and wise Joey teaching a young and rambunctious Boots all about being the family dog.

I remember Boots being very frightened by thunderstorms and managing to wedge his not small body behind a bookshelf during one storm.

I have a memory, and I think it is accurate, of Boots resting his head on my feet as I sat in the living room. I remember walking him and I think he was along one day when my mother, at least one other brother, and I hiked out into a several-foot deep freak snowstorm late one winter.

This photo was taken late in Boots' life. He lived a long life and I think he was happy. He certainly did not lack for kids to romp with.

He did have to learn to live with a large number of cats over his lifetime. At times there were probably three cats, and sometimes a rabbit, in the house with him.

But Boots was a good-hearted sort. Not too bright, but ready to love and be loved.

Field Trip Needed: Mahaffey, PA

I need to make a visit to the Borough of Mahaffey, in western Pennsylvania, somewhat southeast of Punxsutawny. I'm adding it to my list of places to visit to learn more about family history.

View Larger Map

Mahaffey is the only populated place in the US that I know of that is named for a relative of mine. There is a small lake named Mahaffie created by the US Farm Service out in Oklahoma.

I had been aware for some time that there is a place called Mahaffey in Pennsylvania, but it is only recently that my genealogical wanderings led me to a reference to the person it was named for, Robert Mahaffey, who was the grandson of my great-great-great-great-grandfather's brother. That makes him my second cousin, four times removed. It's probably more useful to say he was second cousin to my great-grandfather, Doc Mahaffie.

Back around 1750, a group of Mahaffeys emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania, settling originally in Cumberland County. There were either two sets of two brothers who were cousins, or more likely there were four brothers. Records are sketchy; our best source is a family history from the early 20th century.

In any case, one of those original American Mahaffeys was Charles, whose son Andrew changed his name's spelling to Mahaffie and produced JB, who produced Doc, whose son Charles was my grandfather. The elder Charles Mahaffey's brother Thomas, meanwhile, fathered William, who fathered Robert Mahaffey, who appears to have founded the settlement that now bears his name.

I had already shown Robert Mahaffie (1815 - 1900) in my family tree, but it wasn't until I found an extract from Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, and Representative Citizens, by Roland D. Swoope, Jr. (published by Richmond-Arnold Publishing of Chicago in 1911), that I had a reference to a founder of Mahaffie:

Robert Mahaffey equaled his father in enterprise. He engaged also in lumbering and later cleared up a large farm in Bell township and also conducted a general store and in addition, operated a mill. His various enterprises prospered and each one assisted in the developing of the other and ere long many settlers had been attracted to his neighborhood, a village resulted and in his honor was named for the man of energy and progress, who had had the foresight to select this certain section of the wilderness as his place of investment.

Today Mahaffey is something of an also-ran among the many municipalities and boroughs of Pennsylvania. I couldn't find a town government in my Google-searching. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania doesn't link to one. And I couldn't find anything via the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities or the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs.

The 2000 US Census found 402 residents; all of them white with a median age of between 39 and 40 years. According to the Bell Township/Mahaffey Borough Joint Comprehensive Plan (found via the PA County Planning e-Library) prepared in 2000, population at Mahaffey reached a peak of 801 in 1920. A lack of economic opportunities, likely tied to the shift away from an agrarian economy in the eastern US, led to high levels of out-migration.

But Mahaffey looks like an interesting place. It sits among the hills and along a mid-sized stream. There are some recreation areas nearby and a Mahaffey Camp, "A Christian Center for Spiritual Growth," up the road.

I think I may need to take a field trip to see the place for myself.

Finally, A Place to Put My Stuff

This is the Mahaffie Warehouse (PDF), on Mahaffie Circle, in Olathe Kansas. It showed up in one of my ego-search feeds in a space-for-rent listing from bizspacekansascity. (Photo Credit: The Tutera Group [I think])

It looks like there's about 12,000 square feet of space available right now. Other tenants are Pump It Up ("The Inflatable Party Zone") and Center Point Community Church. I need to think of some business to place there; something related to history or to mapping?

As I have mentioned here before (endlessly), two of my great-great Grandparents, JB and Lucinda Mahaffie, were among the first settlers at Olathe. They established a prosperous farm that included a hostel, of sorts, as a way-station on the Oregon Trail. Several of their children stayed in Olathe and had businesses. The family name has stuck there, adhering to streets and buildings.

Of course, at the center of my family history in Olathe is the old Mahaffie House, now an historic site and park.

Aside from the Mahaffie Warehouse, you'll find the Mahaffie Retail Center on Mahaffie Circle. It has a Quizno's and everything. Elsewhere in town, there is Mahaffie Elementary School (home of the Knights) and the Woods of Mahaffie subdivision (the web site seems to be down).

I found an interesting (to me) coincidence as I researched this post. The headquarters of Garmin International is in Olathe. It's mailing address is on 151st Street, but I note that both Mahaffie Circle and Mahaffie Place run through the Garmin Campus.

Here's the coincidence: Garmin makes GPS tools and is a part of the geospatial industry. A major part of my professional life is coordinating the use and sharing of GIS tools and geospatial data. It's not a major, earth-shaking sort of coincidence, but it does suggest to me that I should seek out the Garmin booth at the next GIS conference and say "howdy."

Where Has This Week Gone?

I'm a little surprised to be sitting here on Thursday night, headed into Friday, with little posted despite the fact that it has been a busy week.

Tuesday was the first day of school at the Southern Delaware School of the Arts. Karen and the other teachers had been hard at work for at least a week before, getting things ready at their new digs at the old Indian River High School building between Dagsboro and Frankford. The original SDSA building, the old Selbyville Middle School building, is up for a desperately needed rehab. For at least this year, SDSA is in the old high school.

The SDSA teachers are focusing on The Gilded Age this year. They are organizing the curriculum around an exploration of the nation in the latter part of the 1800s. For the first day of school, they set up an Ellis Island experience.

The buses were greeted by Karen, dressed as the Statue of Liberty and standing on a pedestal in front of the school. Kids started at the cafeteria and were led, in class groups, though the school to the gym. Once there, they faced an inspection, not health, as at Ellis Island, but of their school uniforms. Then parent volunteers snapped a "passport photo" of each kid and released them into their grade's "holding area" from which they were dismissed to class.

I took the morning off so that I could help out. I took portraits of 58 seventh graders. It was fun; these older kids had a good sense of what was going on. They were comfortable and familiar with how things re a bit different at SDSA sometimes. So I could play the Ellis Island Immigration Guard a bit.

Then, yesterday evening was given over to a special meeting of the Lewes Planning Commission to review the draft preliminary site plan of the proposed "Showfield" development, which is asking to be annexed into Lewes.

This is a large plot of land. It could support more than a thousand units. The developer seems to be trying to be responsible. He's hired one of the more progressive local land planning and
design companies and together they've put together a plan for a bit more than 600. It's a good-looking plan, but there's a great deal of work to be done in reviewing it and fine-tuning it to the point where we can make a recommendation to the City Council.

That meant a three and a half hour meeting last night. We had the mayor and city solicitor with us and more council members in the room. We had lawyers and designers and environmentalists and concerned neighbors. We had a productive and open discussion.

But it took the whole evening.

And this evening we all met after school and work at Sussex Tech, where Colleen and the rest of the Ravens Marching Band put on a preview of their half-time show for the band-parents.

It has been a busy week.

The Costs of Education

We're just about to head back into the school year here in Delaware. I know some other folks around the nation are already into their 2007/2008 school year. Two timely headlines caught my eyes yesterday. Here are two facts to bear in mind about the re-start of school.

The News Journal ran a story yesterday (Teachers spend out of pocket on kids) on the costs borne by teachers as they prepare for the first day of school.

Teachers nationally spend an average of $475 of their own money on classroom supplies and materials each year, according to a study prepared by Quality Education Data Inc. for the last school year.

Meanwhile, the Marketing to Moms Coalition has released a report (Back to School 2007 [WORD]) that found that parents are also slapping down some cash at this time of the year.

"School Age Moms" (mothers with children aged 7-12) will spend nearly $450.00 on average on Back to School 2007. School Age Moms with two children between 7 and 12 will spend nearly $600.00.

As a parent of school-age kids, and as the spouse of a teacher (and friend to other teachers and parents), I can attest to the truth of each of these reports.

LabraCockerSpeagledors!

My brother Matt and his family have adopted a cute puppy. This is a photo of Lynn, Shelby and Grace with their new pet. Matt is off to the left with his camera.

The puppy is a mix of Lab, Cocker Spaniel, and Beagle; a Labracockerspeagledor.

Our neighbor's son brought his family and their dog, who is busy with nine (yes, nine) puppies, for a visit to Lewes this past week-end. Each of my girls had a friend over on Friday evening when we discovered a yard full of puppies next door. Immediately there was a yard filled with girls cuddling puppies.

We were sorely tempted, but ours is not the sort of life into which one should bring a young puppy. Karen and I both commute 45 minutes in different directions, the girls have school, and their evenings are filled all week long. We are not set up to properly raise a puppy. They are damn cute, though.

So we called around. My brother Matt and his wife Lynn had been toying with the idea of a dog . They've been spending some vacation time down in Bethany. When Karen called to suggest a puppy, they were immediately interested.

We set up a family visit to the puppy yard. Matt and Lynn and their girls came up Sunday along with my folks. Another brother, Bob, was in town as well. He and his wife Karen are experienced dog-raisers. So they came along with their two sons. At last we had more people than puppies.

It didn't take long for Lynn to find the puppy that fit her; Grace and Shelby agreed and the deal was done.

We stayed around a bit longer to allow Todd (the puppies' human) to share some basic puppy info with Matt. E-mail addresses were exchanged.

Some tears of farewell were shed, but they were shed by the humans. The puppies were all too tuckered out. They lay down in the grass where-ever they happened to be playing and went right to sleep.

Third Golf Game of 2007

Andy and I played golf for Father's Day this morning. We were back at The Rookery again. The place was filled with guys and their young sons, older men and grown sons, and grandfathers too.

I actually played fairly well. Not great. I still can't putt worth a damn. But my drives are getting better and my irons aren't too bad. There's hope.

And, as Andy noted, it's a bit more exciting when its competitive. For a while there, before I blew up on a par three , we were neck and neck.

Afterwards, we joined our wives and kids at the Jungle Jim's water park outside Rehoboth.

It was a good Father's Day.

Why Don't We Write This Way Anymore?

I'm still rooting around in the past, looking for ancestors. This evening I have been reading through portions of William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, published in 1883. He gives an early history of the town of Olathe, where parts of my family settled and prospered generations back.

I love the way Cutler describes events from what was, for him, only a few decades ago. For example, in his section on early inhabitants of Olathe, he has this to say about one gent:

John P. Campbell, a cousin of James K. Polk, came here from Nashville, Tenn. He was looked upon as a brilliant and promising lawyer in the State, but he impaired his faculties by the use of alcoholic stimulants, and died of consumption in the early years of the war.

Later, in his section on newspapers in Olathe, he recounts the effect of an attack by Quantrill's raiders on the town's only Democrat newspaper at the time, the Olathe Herald, which had been a growing and healthy concern:

Quantrill paid the office a visit September 6, 1862, after which John M. Giffin, its editor and proprietor, gathered up its debris and sold it for $306; original cost having been $3,500. In addition to his newspaper office, Mr. Giffen also lost through Quantrill's efforts, accounts and notes to the amount of $13,000, and the manuscript of an algebra, for which he had been offered $5,000, and fifteen cents royalty on each book sold.

My favorite, though, is his description of the "Reformed Presbyterian, or Covenanter Church." A congregation formed in Olathe in 1865, and split into two in 1871:

This denomination wherever founded is radical in its character, forward in reform movements, and never received into, nor tolerated slaveholders in its communion. While its members have borne arms in every national conflict for right and liberty, yet they refrain from the exercise of the elective franchise--believing the National constitution to be, though in many respects most excellent, yet in some things infidel and immoral.

Seems like I've read similar sentiments on modern day blogs as well.

Where I'm From

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking into my genealogy, playing around on a site called Geni which is an on-line family-tree tool. I've looked into family past before, of course, but now that I've started working on the family tree I've found a great deal of material on-line.

As part of this, I've put together a map of the birth-places of my direct ancestors; at least those whose birthplaces I could determine.

The earliest Mahaffies I could find -- they were Mahaffeys back in the 1700s-- were from northern Ireland. There were Beckers, from my Mother's side of the family, born in Germany in the 1800s.

In the US, there was a steady progression west by my branch of the Mahaffie family. They were in Pennsylvania, then Ohio, then Indiana. My Great-Great Grandfather JB Mahaffie started his family in Indiana and then settled in Olathe Kansas in 1857. He was one of the original settlers.

My Great Grandfather George Mahaffie had been born in Indiana. He started his family in Olathe, where my grandfather Charles was born. George took his family west to Oklahoma as homesteaders.

My grandfather was a Rhodes Scholar, studying at Oxford for a time. He became a lawyer and lived and practiced in Oregon before going to Washington DC, where my Father was born. My Grandmother had been born in Washington State, but raised in New York City, where many of her forbears were born.

On my Mother's side, Farrars, Beckers, Bartletts, and Redmonds were mostly around New York. I also had forbears in upstate New York and in Vermont.

If any of these names and dates match names and dates in your family tree (and you are not already part of my family tree), let me know. I'm always eager to expand the tree.

More Bragging About My Niece(s and Nephews)

Back in January I did a little bragging about Jenna, my brother Jim's eldest. She's a swimmer, and a good one.

This week, she was exhibiting some of her art work at the Arts Festival at Walt Whitman High School. It looks like she's a pretty good artist too.

Jenna's Mom is an artist and Jim, who now makes his living as a writer, was also a pretty good graphics guy in high school. I have a memory of going to see his work at the same school some 25 years ago.

Most of my large family was able to attend the arts festival this week (I'm the only one who has moved out of state). My mother tells me that a friend of Jenna's asked her the other night if she had much family at the festival. Jenna reportedly just gestured at the large crowd that was gathered around.

Jenna is part of the latest generation of Mahaffies on the east coast. There are 17 of them, ranging in age from 4 to 32 years old. They are talented baseball players, lacrosse players and swimmers, musicians and singers, writers, horse riders, and dancers. The few that are already adults are a writer, an actor, an activist and a museum curator.

My brother-in-law Lou took this picture (I'd asked Jenna to send us a photo). I'm hoping Jenna will share some of her titles with us in the comments.

For Karen, Mom, Baba, My Sisters, My Sisters-in-Law and Moms Everywhere

Happy Mother's Day!

I was trying to think what to do for a Mother's Day post. I toyed with presenting facts for the day from the US Census Bureau. Or a collection of photos tagged with "mom" from flickr. But it seems best to simply talk about some of the moms I know.

My mom is Judy Mahaffie. She was born Judith Farrar, one of three children of Roberta Farrar, the daughter of Susan Becker.

I never knew Susan Becker. But I remember my Granny, as we knew Roberta Farrar, teaching me card games as a child. She moved to live near us towards the end of her life and was a part of activities with my mother when we were small.

I also remember being taken to lunch by both of my grandmothers at that time. I remember my brother Matt and I riding in the back of Granny's car with Grandma, my father's mother, in the passenger seat.

Grandma was born Isabel Cooper, daughter of James Cooper and Honora Cooper (born Honora Henry) in Seattle Washington. She was raised in New York City and worked as an artist starting in the 1920s (or maybe earlier). She traveled with scientific expeditions painting watercolor pictures of their finds. This was before color photography.

My father has collected and published her letters to and from my Grandfather, who lived in Washington DC, over the several years of their courtship. But that's a story for another day.

Grandma was known in our neighborhood as "Groovy Granny." She always had cool cars and dressed with style. Her home was filled with art and inspiration. Her baby grand piano now sits here in my home.

The mom at the center of my life now, of course, is the lovely Karen, mother of my daughters and sometimes den mother to the younger teachers she works with. Karen is patient and inspiring. Though neither she nor they will readily admit it, she is doing a wonderful job raising two delightful, bright and creative young ladies.

Karen's mom is Christina Hudack. She raised three girls and serves as Baba to six grandchildren. She was born Christina Stongosky, daughter of another Christina Strongosky, who came to this country from eastern Europe and made a strong impression on her grandchildren as a determined little woman.

She also left us a smattering of Slavic language that still crops up in this otherwise Irish household.

Moms are important. They are the strongest links in the chains of parenting that connect us with our past.

A Busy Day Off

I took the day off from work today. Colleen had a normal school day, but Christina was off from school for a teacher in-service day. Karen is out of state at a Music Therapy Conference.

I spent the day just as I wish I could spend most days. I saw my daughter off to a fun day at a friend's house. I did some back-road exploring on a sunny day. And I took a brisk hike in the pine woods at Cape Henlopen State Park.

Christina's friend Morgan had invited a small core of fifth-grade girls over for a day of crafts and cake and fun at her home north of Milton. So, after getting Colleen off to high school, and a quiet morning of the news and the laundry, I ran Christina up to Morgan's house.

I knew she was in for a fine day when Morgan and her young sister Emma came bouncing out their front door as we pulled into the drive. They were, quite literally, jumping for joy.

So, I headed west, intending to see where roads I've never driven before might take me.

I wandered up through the village of Lincoln and was swinging south again when I saw smoke in the west. I let the smaller roads lead me west and north again until I found a small brush fire being brought under control.

Now the challenge was to get back to Lewes, following as few familiar roads as possible. I took good advantage of Old State Road, a two-lane that was replaced by DuPont Highway, and other small back roads. My goal, as always, to see new things and perhaps to photograph them.

I stopped for a light lunch in Milton and headed for Cape Henlopen State Park.

I have been meaning to complete a wander I took in the back part of the Park two weeks ago. I had gone out from the campgrounds, along an old military road, toward the Salt Marsh Spur. This is a thin neck of upland that extends out into the Salt Marsh between Lewes and the Cape. I was slowed by very wet conditions, and had to turn back without following the whole of the spur trail.

This time, I went in via Herring Point and made the full three-mile round trip out the spur and back in just over an hour.

The fellow at the Nature Center told me that there is said to be an Eagle building a nest out the spur. I kept my eyes on the tops of the trees and snags, but I didn't see it. I wasn't particularly quiet moving along the trail. I didn't have the time, or the skill, to be stealthy.

After returning to the car, parked by the old battery at Herring Point, I headed back out to Morgan's house to pick up Christina.

We came home tired, but satisfied with our day.