May 9, 2024: A Very Big Year

 

The lake at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health
May 9, 2024

Our 37th year of marriage has been a momentous and eventful year, indeed! 

We began the year in Chicago (see our 2023 anniversary post), winding up some family time for James' birthday.

Our next adventure was to visit Maryland, where we spent Pam's birthday at a special exhibit of Jim Henson's work at the Maryland Cultural Museum in Baltimore. We then had dinner with family.

Friends from our Greater Boston PFLAG group were part of the GLBTQ flag raising in the nearby town of Mansfield, where James had been invited to be the keynote speaker. It was a great opportunity to let a broader community know about the support that PFLAG provides, and for us all to learn a bit more about the history of a group that has been very important to our family.

James spent much of July fulfilling a long-time desire to take an extended journey in the Amazon, sharing the adventure with Dr. Miguel Nenevé, the very first friend he had made in South America, back in 1996. This was the fifth visit to the Amazon for James and provided a great opportunity for learning and reflection. James drew heavily on this experience in a course about the region that he taught for BSU Senior College in the fall. As she often does, Pamela helped with the title: Forest and Fables.

After returning from Brazil, James went back to Chicago, this time to help Harvey move into our Fairhaven home. He spent the year figuring out his next chapter while spending a lot of time with Crumpet. Near the end of the year, he was accepted to library school at the University of Rhode Island. We are very proud, and now James has to be more careful with his use of the phrase "my favorite librarian" because he has two of them!

We have been supporters of the historic Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford for quite a few years. In August, we had the opportunity for a behind-the-scenes tour of the theater, which was also a preview of the very extensive remodeling that is still underway there. Even more exciting was our chance to see the last performance before the extended closer of the theater: a dazzling performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. We had heard of this play for years, but had no idea just how, well, amazing it would be!

Pam continued her work as a public scholar of information literacy by teaching a Senior College course on Banned Books, which was very well received. She was later part of an interdisciplinary panel on book banning at Bridgewater Public Library during Banned Books Week. Another notable achievement in this area was Pam's publication (paid!) on the blog of the Heterodox Academy.

A highlight of the autumn was a much-anticipated opportunity to hear Lech Walensa speak at our university. He was a hero in our young adult years, a labor leader who brought down the Soviet Union with non-violent protests and became the first elected president of Poland. Sadly, his speech fell a bit flat and included him excusing the pope for his role in the global scandal of sexual abuse by clergy. 

After years of not being directly involved in local environmental projects, James wore two hats this year -- one as a member of the Bridgewater Tree Committee and the other as part of a project to design and build a public trail on conservation land associated with the correctional facility in Bridgewater. 

For the second time, we traveled to Maryland on Veterans' Day weekend to complete the 10k walk across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, this time with both Bob and Teresa, whose home is conveniently located near the eastern end of the bridge. This was our second time completing this event (our first Bay Bridge walk having been before we were married, and closer to 5k). We were fortunate to have perfect weather as we completed the journey with 36,000 of our new closest friends.

For the first time in several years, we met our friend Tim Kelehan when he was in Boston for a conference. This is an occasional treat that we had not had since before the pandemic. Tim was one of Pam's closest friends in college but now lives on the opposite corner of the country, so this was delightful.

In December we created a special project for ourselves, we watched a different movie adaptation of A Christmas Carol every day as an advent countdown. Most of these were films (and of course we blogged about it), but we also attended a book discussion at the local Congregational church and the famous reading of the entire book sponsored by WBUR in Boston. We had heard about this event and although it is no longer held in the same hotel where Dickens first read it, the reading/performance was as marvelous as we had heard. 

We were fortunate to attend several other special performances during the winter. The whole family enjoyed John Waters Christmas special and we both went to Washington DC for a performance of Swept Away, a whaleship story that is, as we write this, going to Broadway. Both of these performances were genuine treats, and we very much enjoyed spending time on our own in DC. We finally made it to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History.

In January, James led his first travel course since the pandemic, Geography of Coffee in Cape Verde. Harvey eagerly joined the course, and learned enough Portuguese from Duolingo before we went that he actually was able to put it to use during the visit. Harvey earned his first graduate credits from his participation, which was characterized by very keen attention to questions of social justice. The entire family was exposed to COVID-19 just as the trip began, with Pam and Harvey both testing positive. This complicated things somewhat, but the trip was successful. During the trip, James decided to change the focus of his next (and final) sabbatical to further study of coffee in Cape Verde.

The entire family was able to continue the Cape Verde experience in the spring semester, when the Rector of the University of Cabo Verde visited our campus. We arranged for our family to join his entire delegation for lunch to talk about scholarship in general and librarianship in particular. It was wonderful to spend time with an academic leader who is an actual academic, something that has become rare in this country. These and other growing connections with the country will allow all of us to collaborate in various ways, especially as James' 2026. sabbatical approaches.

Soon after James and Harvey returned, the whole family experienced an extraordinary performance of Moby Dick with puppets. This globally traveling production would be difficult to describe and will not be forgotten!

Soon after that, we began a process that consumed much of our attention for the rest of our 37th year and that continues as we write this (belatedly) at the end of June. We began the process of Pam's retirement and our retrenchment to a single home. What began as a weekend getaway in Fairhaven will be our permanent home. The process began with finding a contractor/designer and wrangling the financing so that the equity in our Bridgewater house could be used to completely overhaul our Fairhaven house. At this point in mid-summer, the Fairhaven house is mostly an empty shell, with no walls, floors or ceilings in most of it. But the whole family worked with Quinlan Company to design something that will be our only home -- and a lovely one -- by the end of the calendar year.

Another entertainment highlight was the Boston production of the Cher Show. We have been mostly casual fans, although we were known as Hace Sol y Compartir (Sunny and Share) during our 1989 summer program in Mexico. This show was surprisingly emotional for us. James might have cried twice.

On April 8, we had a great family experience, though not exactly together. Almost a year ahead of time, we reserved a room in Lydon, New York for the total eclipse of the sun. Harvey opted not to join us, so he was to stay at home with Crumpet for a partial eclipse. Just a couple days out -- before dog care could be arranged -- he decided to go with his friend Kady to view the eclipse in northern Vermont. With the dog. This seemed a crazy plan but something we would have done at that age. In the end, a good time was had by all, though Harvey had to contend with considerably more traffic!

The last big event of our year was solo for James -- racing in the Wicked Whaleboat Challenge for the first time in a number of years. Usually James is busy serving coffee during the event. Last year participants got by on Dunkin' (the horror!) while we were in Chicago. This year, James brought decent coffee to the event and it was gratifying that so many racers from throughout New England had been anticipating the good coffee. The Shiverin' Timbers did very well in a race that we helped to design, placing 6th in a competitive field of 17 teams. 

As shown above, we celebrated our anniversary with a three-day stay at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Accommodations and meals were simple -- a dorm room and a healthy buffet. It was good for body and soul, as we attended a few yoga and divination classes and walked the grounds. We were quiet and offline most of the time. Scandal alert: we did sneak some Malbec in to toast the occasion. And we'll probably do all of this again before long!

To end: the view from our room. It really was this lovely.

 

May 9, 2023 - visit to Chi-town

Popopa and Izta at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago
Photo credit: Harvey Hayes

Year in Review
 

This matrimonial year began with our long-anticipated Vermont Inn Walking Tour. We had a medical emergency on the second day, but still managed to share a great adventure, to see some old friends, and to meet a couple new ones. We even had a close-up view of a beaver dam and lodge for the first time ever.

Right after the hike, we drove north to Burlington, to visit our good friend Korin in her family's new home there (new to them and to us, but a vintage house similar to what they left in Massachusetts, though decidedly more in-town). It was a lovely visit, and we stopped for an underwhelming exploration of the filming location of Beetlejuice on the way there.

We then celebrated Pam's birthday in Maryland, as has become our wont. May is full of celebrations for the Hayes-Bohs!

We each participated in the prestigious visit of Mandela Fellows to BSU. Pam gave a lecture on fake news, which the Fellows found very interesting and useful. James again set up EarthView and the Africa floor map. This time one of the Fellows came up with the perfect way to photograph the entire group on the map. Pam has been invited back for the July 2023 program.

In July James also led a week-long course on coffee for in-service social studies teachers with our friend Judy Otto at Framingham State University.

Also in July, an inattentive driver totaled our beloved Gretel (2008 Mercedes E350 wagon). James had minor back problems for a few months as a result. Our friends at Motorcars got us into Angela (as in Merkel), a 2013 E350 wagon -- much slicker, but we were happy with the old one and a bit bummed by the savagery of the insurance industry.

We got the new car just in time for a drive out to see Harvey in Chicago. Another knucklehead -- this one on a motorcycle eastbound in our westbound lane -- did his best to total Angela and himself. I am still not sure how we managed not to Darwin this fellow.

We enjoyed a visit, including some museums we had not seen before, and took both Harvey and Lia to visit family in Appleton, Wisconsin. We always love our times there, and this was no exception.

Just after that motorcycle near-miss, we had enjoyed a stay with our friends Ben and Emily in Muncie, where we admire these stalwart progressives in the land of eroding civil liberties. We also know we can count on them to show us the best pubs in town.

On the way back from Chicago, we visited Detroit for the first time ever (even though James teaches a class on the city every fall). We stayed less than 24 hours, but learned quite a lot!

From there we went to Poughkeepsie, where our friends Jeff and Yoyo introduced us to the amazing student dining hall (overlooking the Hudson) at the Culinary Institute of America. It was especially interesting for us, since a book about one of their more famous (and slightly deranged) students was among the many we read to each other recently.

Throughout the summer, James had the amazing opportunity to mentor a project through Sea Grant at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Carolyn King's project continued under different auspices at the academic year and was well regarded campus-wide. It is culminating in a story map that will be used at Cape Verde-related museums on Cape Cod and in Cape Verde.

We ended the summer with a blissful few days in Niantic, staying near the waterfront and near our friend Lisa's family house. We enjoyed the boardwalk, and amazing Mexican restaurant, and an even more amazing used book store. James has been daydreaming of this stay ever since.

A routine dental visit resulted in a referral to a dermatologist for James, and ultimately to three surgeries for basal cell carcinomas, including the very specialized Mohs surgery on his nose. This is the mildest form of cancer, but it had James -- and Harvey -- very much in his head for several months. Harvey flew home to drive James home from the surgery. Pam and Harvey took excellent care of James throughout, including his shaken mental state.

Part of spiritual preparation for the surgery was a day Harvey and James spent at Maribett Farm with our good friend Ron.

We had the wonderful treat of a visit from our friends Jeff and J.P., who had moved from Cincinnati to Denver not long ago. They were visiting several people in New England, and we were glad they started their vacation with us. They had dinner with us in Bridgewater and then stayed in Whaling House before continuing their tour. Years pass between our visits with these two, but we always find so much to talk about.

In October, we went to Veteran's Hall in Providence to see David Sedaris. It had been the site of James' last big-crowd outing before the plague (having seen Angelique Kidjo there on February 22, 2020), and it was the first return to a crowded venue for both of us. The caustic wit of David Sedaris was a perfect way finally to return from lockdown.

Because the One Book One Community read was about potatoes -- Stephen Puleo's Voyage of Mercy -- James was asked to give a talk on the tubers. Far from becoming the potato maven he had hoped for, he did manage to give a popular talk on potato geography for the community in October. James took another digression from his usual focus on coffee in public talks, by teaching a BSU Senior College course on the geography of migration early in the fall semester.

He then jetted (well, drove) to the 100th annual meeting of NESTVAL, this time being hosted at Salem State. He very much enjoyed a stay with our "Gang of Six" friends Judy Otto and Brian Cacchiotti. 

We spent Veteran's Day weekend in what might be a new annual tradition for us -- we walked across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We had done this walk when it was a much rarer and informal event. This was highly organized and secured, and really a treat. We walked with our SIL Teresa, and stayed at Bob & Teresa's house near the eastern end of the bridge. 

Harvey visited again, this time for Thanksgiving -- a very welcome return to our traditional Thanksgiving with the Water-Rue. We were glad to have him back in the roost a month later, this time for Christmas. One reason he came back so soon was to meet our newest family member: Crumpet, named for the David Sedaris alter-ego in Santaland Diaries, and adopted after a bit of a hard start to life in Arkansas. Pam and James had spent a year not even able to talk about adopting a dog after the loss of Perry, but once we were ready, a new space opened in our hearts (all three of us) for this lovable goof.

January 1 was the beginning of Pam's much-needed and much-deserved sabbatical, beginning to official countdown to her retirement at the end of June 2024. She has spent the time recuperating from bad management, welcoming our new dog, and doing important research on media narratives around the January 6, 2021 insurrection/riot/tourism. 

While Pam and James both had some time off from school, Harvey returned to help with some household chores, as we took some preliminary steps toward downsizing.

In March, we had another delightful visit with friends near the sea, this time staying in the spare house of our friend Jody Kluver and visit her family in Westerly, Rhode Island. It was a very welcome and relaxing break. 

After spending a lot of time with her online throughout the pandemic, we were delighted to see the amazing Margaret Atwood in person at Sanders Theater at Harvard -- where we had first seen David Sedaris many years ago. Being in a room with her was electrifying. 

Next in this very busy year: James presented a paper at the AAG meeting in Denver and we both took full advantage of the opportunity to see some sights in and around the city and best of all to visit friends. We had some wonderful meals and stayed a couple days with the aforementioned Jeff and J.P. We also saw our friend Falu and had a brief mountain hike with our friend Camila and her beau. 

We both very much enjoyed a visit from Diane in April. 

James found ways to economize his involvement with end-of-semester academic work so that we could enjoy a 60th birthday road trip to Chicago, with a mini-roadtrip to northwestern Illinois and a day in Iowa. This was the best birthday James could have imagined; again, Pam and Harvey made him feel very loved.

The birthday trip also became our anniversary trip. Harvey took the photo above on our actual anniversary, and it began our new tradition. We begin each day with the greetings "Good morrow, My Lord!" and "Good morrow, My Lady!" because of a special anniversary gift Harvey got for us: a patch of land in Scotland! 

Other Highlights of the Year 

Early in the year, James was asked to give testimony at Town Council about the value of a tree committee -- not to join such a committee, but just to make the case. So yes, by the end of the year, James had been sworn in. It is both seriously good work and somewhat amusing, like a New England stereotype come to life.

Tragically,  in January we lost our dear friend Alfredo in Nicaragua. He was the only person who had been part of all 12 trips James had led in Nicaragua, and Pam had stayed with his family on three of those trips. He was the light and life of his little community La Corona. Joining his funeral via Facebook was devastating.

We welcomed a new family member as niece Kate and nephew Fraser had the lovely Laoghaire in February, whom we got to meet at the end of May.

May 9, 2022: Coral Anniversary

Our 35th anniversary is the first that we are marking with a digital remembrance. Our previous 34 anniversaries have been marked with a very analog ritual: we have put a photo taken on (or near) May 9 into a special album hidden within a frame that holds a now-famous photo from the wedding itself. We have then spent part of the day (or a day soon after) writing memories of the previous year onto index cards, each of which is tucked behind that year's photo. It is the closest thing we have to a journal of our lives together -- aside from coverage by actual journalists in the New York Times and Bridgewater Magazine. 

Celebrating on the eve of our anniversary with a selfie at the 
Immersive Frida Kahlo in Boston.

Year in Review, starting May 2021:

Harvey came to visit in Bridgewater in May, with an open-ended ticket. The three of us went to Maryland in June to visit other family members and cicadas. Careful readers will note that this was our second cicada anniversary, having been married during the swarm of the 17-year Brood X in 1987.

After Harvey returned to Chicago, our next highlight was an August trip to Vermont. We stayed at the Golden Stage Inn and made plans to join Vermont Inn Walking the following year!

Meanwhile, in July James gave a one-day professional-development workshop for teachers, entitled Sodade: Cape Verde is Migration, through the global education program at Framingham State University.

As our semi-pandemic life entered its third academic year, we decided to join the 21st century and migrate the Sacred Kitchen Calendar to an online version! It is still the case that the first one to stake out a date usually wins, but it is with phones and computers now, instead of pencils!

In October, information-literacy specialist Pam gave a presentation at the Bridgewater Senior Center entitled Don't Be Tricked! She offered expert guidance on scams and frauds.

Later in October, Pamela hosted a Zoom event in which Rev. Naomi Tutu made a virtual visit to our community. It was both a great honor and a poignant occasion, as she was with her father Rev. Desmond Tutu for what was to be his last birthday.

On November 3, both of us presented a virtual workshop on sustainability for a New England-wide academic audience through NERCOMP.

In November and December, Pam taught a course on Free Speech and Censorship for BSU Senior College. (Note: during this year we came to realize that we are now old enough to be participants in all of the programs we provide for area seniors.)

James taught three courses on coffee for senior citizens during this year -- virtually for BSU Senior College in the autumn and spring and in-person at the rather peculiar Linden Ponds compound for the aging wealthy in Hingham. The second BSU program included chocolate and tea, by popular demand!

Throughout the year, James continued to work with friends in Nicaragua and friends of those friends elsewhere, to support the amazing program Aqualí. It is a model of environmental education and youth professional development in the most challenging of circumstances.

On December 30-31, we traveled to Boston for a Van Gogh immersion experience. At the last minute, we learned that it was one of two competing exhibits, and that it was not the first one. It was a wonderful way to learn a lot about an artist we knew only vaguely. And mild weather made it a good time to explore Dorchester. We were happy to find dining and lodging options that were both enjoyable and very Covid-conscious. It was the first time we ever stayed in Boston overnight together.

On February 11, we went to see our friends Jim Quinn and Lisa Troy -- theater educators who are married to each other -- perform Love Letters at a community theater in Braintree. 

During the spring semester, James did his first formal online teaching collaboration through a program called COIL. The collaboration with architecture professors in Monterrey, Mexico and with Dr. Boah Kim here at BSU was a little complicated and awkward, but it was very rewarding. Students compared the quality of life across several specific dimensions in Monterrey and the Massachusetts communities of Dorchester, Lowell, and Brockton. 

In April, we joined James's brother Bob and his wife Teresa for breakfast at Vic's Waffle House in Lowell. They were in town for nephew Taylor's lacrosse game between UMBC (where Pam and James first met) and UMass-Lowell. 

Also in April, Pam hosted a virtual author talk by Lev Golinkin in connection with the One Book One Community reading of his book A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka.

As the year came to a close, we both enrolled in training to be parent facilitators for Boston PFLAG, whose Easton meeting we have been attending for several years.

We celebrated our anniversary on May 8 with a return to Boston -- just for the day this time -- for Immersive Frida. We will not be going to every art immersion program that comes to our area, but we are huge fans of Frida and found a lot to enjoy from the experience. It was Mother's Day, so we avoided the trendy places for brunch, and had a low-key experience in a classic diner just outside of Chinatown. 

Near the end of the spring semester, we collaborated with one of our favorite alumni to host the visit of an amazing group of five artists and advocates from Nicaragua. One member of the group was our friend Nohelia, who had served as a professional guide on some of our visits to Nicaragua. The group stayed at our house while attending the Specialty Coffee Association conference in Boston, where they promoted Origen.Photo.Projet -- which connects photography, coffee, and community development throughout Central America. 

Pam noticed that the theme gift for a 35th wedding anniversary is coral. Rather than give each other actual coral, we gave the gift of coral protection. That is, we made a donation in our own name to the Mesoamerican Reef Fund. Not only does the organization promote the protection of coral reefs, it also promotes sustainable community development in a part of the world that means a lot to us. As a bonus, its acronym MAR means "sea" in Spanish. Bonus points for being clever. 

Memoriam: During this year, the most notable losses were the death of our beloved miniature pinscher Perry -- who was mourned not only by our family but by many of our friends who had been her caretakers over the years -- and our good friend and tremendous human Frank Yeatman. We miss both terribly.