"Food Glorious Food, Hot Sausage and..." organic chicken?

My sister Ruth can cook.

The other day she told me that she had made three kinds of soup, a batch of spaghetti, and some chili. My stomach grumbled. I asked that she send some over, but alas she lives in Oregon. However, she said it was easy, really.

All I had to do was take an organic chicken, throw it in a pot with a lot of water, cook it until "you have nothing better to do", stop cooking it, take the bones out, throw in anyting that is in the fridge, plus barley, carrots, onions, celery, squash, spinach, garlic, and mushrooms.

Ruthie says that it is good for whatever ails me and lasts a long time - two weeks at the least.

Great.

She wasn't too far into the instructions before it became apparent to me that this simple exercise would certainly require a stove. For all of its hospitable amenities, the Tillery Garage on Knotts Island does not have a stove. Given the space limitations of the "kitchen area," the garage would, in all liklihood, never have one either. Such an addition would require the elimination of either the bathroom or the Harley Davidson motorcycle workshop. I knew better than to even ask.

What to do?

I headed 25 miles up the road to look at gas grills. All this talk about boiling an organic chicken had me starved for a completely inorganic rib eye steak.

My first stop was Home Depot, as it was the closest. After some casual looking around, I had three wonderful revalations. First, gas grills don't have to cost a lot of money. I set my budget at $300 (gas can not included) and actually stayed within it. Neat. Second, most grills now come with a separate gas burner on the side. That meant that I could grill my steak and boil an organic chicken at the same time. Wow. The third point was heaven. All of these stores now assemble the grills for free!

My now son-in-law Brad Elmer and I once undertook to assemble a new gas grill right out of the box at night by flashlight in the middle of winter. We were guys. We were hungry. How hard could it be? Nearly impossible, as it turned out. I finally completed the assembly in the spring, months after Brad and his appitite had departed. Throughout the winter and early spring, as I toiled away, I'd occassionally call Brad with revelations that I felt certain would be as astounding to him as they were to me (hey, Brad, remember that funny screw that was left over after we realized we'd put the upper assembly on backwards again...?)

Having set my budget, identified the necessary features (4 main burners, 1 side burner), I set out to find my grill. Those who know me will not find the following behavior to be out of character. I left Home Depot grill-less, headed across the lot to Wal-Mart, went up the street to the new Super Target, went around the construction fence to Costco, drove down the road to Sears, and finally marched into a Lowes store which I was sure had not been there two weeks before. In point of fact, not one of these stores had been there even a year ago.

Despite my rigid "I'm a guy who knows what he's doing, don't fuck with me" exterior, a pleasant and knowledgable sales associate appeared and, within minutes, had sold me a Char Broil Gas Grill (Commercial Grade!!!) for $299 (gas can not included.)

Two days later, I drove back up the 25 miles to Lowes and picked up my grill. Planning ahead, I had already swung by Costco and purchased $234. worth of steak, pork, and chicken, and everything else on hand that might relate in some way to a grill. I also grabbed a case of plastic freezer bags to store it all in.

Within the hour, back at the garage, the grill was unstrapped from the back of the car (I might ask for help, next time), the can was connected, and the tank turned on.

With the turn of a dial and the push of a button...

...woooosh…

I was in business.

Thanks for the inspiration, Ruthie.

Thanks to the rest of you for visiting.

Jack

"Beautiful Boy"

Before you cross the street,
Take my hand,
Life is just what happens to you,
While your busy making other plans,

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,
Darling, Darling,
Darling Sean.
John Lennon "Beautiful Boy"

An early morning phone call from an old friend can set the stage for a terrific day.

Plans to be made?

Laughs to be had about old times?

Old friends provide a unique leveling balance.

Such was not the case this morning. Vietnam buddy Terry Tillery called to tell me that Sean Mecham, the 31 year old son of our former Navy Hospital Corpsman, had died yesterday. The cause of death was reported to be a staff infection run wild.

I had breakfast, put on a jacket, and went for a walk.

I am in Cheshire, Connecticut. Although it was bright and sunshiny outside, one glance at the tightly closed rhododendron leaves told me that it was very cold. Undaunted, I turned down the street, and headed off in no particular direction while thinking of the Beautiful Boy that I had never known.

After years of searching, I’d reconnected with Mac four years ago. He was living in Sacramento, not far from his childhood home. He was happily married, had two grown children (a boy and a girl), and had a good job. On the surface, all was well – even better than well. We loved having each other back in our lives.

I walked through Cheshire’s suburban neighborhoods, cut through back yards, was stymied by several dead ends, and was soon largely lost. My mind was elsewhere. How does a 31 year old man just die from an infection? We have become so inured to the miracle of modern medicine that early natural death is nearly incomprehensible.

I pointed myself back in the general direction of Cheshire’s Main Street and, some time later, reemerged a mile south of town between the 7-11 and Dunkin' Donuts. Braced against the wind, I headed north, up the hill towards the center of town. As surely as he had lived, Sean Mecham was now dead. I could not walk away from that terrifying fact.

Once back in town, I noticed a curved wall in front of the brick City Hall. It was the Cheshire War Memorial. It contained the names Cheshire residents who had served their country in conflicts going back to the Civil War. It is impressive. To one side, was a bronze plaque honoring 1st Lt. H.C. Barnum, USMC, a son of Cheshire who had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for service with the Third Marine Division in Vietnam the year before Mac Mecham and I arrived in country. I knew Barney, as he is known. He and I had met on occasion in Washington and had friends in common, including Bill Negron, Mac’s and my company commander in Vietnam.

Wow, I thought, small world.

Prior to our recent reunion, I had last seen Mac in the summer of 1968 at the Oakland Naval Hospital where he and other comrades were recovering from horrific wounds suffered while our unit was under heavy attack months earlier. Mac recovered, met and married Lise, and several years later, had their first child – a boy - who they named Sean.

I never met Sean, but knew that he had had a difficult life. He suffered from severe addictions that had torn at his family, friends, and community for most of his adult life. Mac and Lise struggled as parents in ways that few of us can imagine. Some times it was scary, some times it was a nightmare, but at all times it was their beloved son, struggling with unspeakable demons deep within his soul.

Standing in the cold, staring at the bronzed name of my friend Barney Barnum, I realized that towns do not build memorials to young men like Sean Mecham. His brief life, unlike those commemorated on the Cheshire Wall, was one that we as communities try to forget rather than extol.

Where is the glory in the life of a young man who clawed every minute of every day to get past the inbred monsters that precluded him from living a normal life? In 31 years, he never even got to the starting line that the rest of us assume and expect.

This day, we rightfully continue to honor Barney Barnum as we have for 43 years. His service was extraordinary and stands as a paragon. Mac and I were Marines. Barney was a great Marine.

May we now add Sean Mecham and the thousands like him living and passed who so inspire us all, often by executing such seemingly simple tasks as getting out of bed each morning, dusting themselves off, and trying to get back in the game.

That is how I define courage.

Thank you for visiting.

Jack

"You did not desert me, my Brothers in Arms"

Bill Negron called to remind me that it was the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive. Every day is now the 40th anniversary of something that happened to us in Vietnam.

Our company was fortunate during Tet. We were near Con Thien doing bridge security at a position we called the "Washout." Cam Lo, a small village several miles south of us, was the northernmost civilian location in South Vietnam.

Vietnam veterans often did not get the positive recognition that veterans of America's other wars received. Today, in honor of Tet, I'd like to recognize Corporal Larry Leonard Maxam, then a 20 year old boy from Glendale, California. He was my Brother in Arms.

Days after the beginning of the Tet Offensive, I accompanied a sergeant on a trip down to Cam Lo to get a situation report for the Skipper on some recent activity. Two squads from Delta Company had been sent down from the Washout the previous afternoon to bolster security following the NVA ambush of an Army convoy.

We had stood lines in Cam Lo for several days shortly after my arrival, so I was familiar with the layout. Nothing, however, could prepare me for what I saw on this sunny February morning. Coming into the tiny village, we spotted six U.S. Army trucks on the side of the road, still smoking from the rockets that had leveled them the previous afternoon. Their frames were twisted. Several were on their sides. Blackened bodies lay in the cabs, burnt into the seats, all but irremovable.

We paused for a brief moment, and then moved on. There was nothing there for us to see and nothing there for us to do. As we drove around the corner, another horrific sight came into view. There before us was a pile of dozens upon dozens of dead bodies stacked as high as they could be thrown.

Gooks?

Yes, thank god they were all gooks.

The Marines from the two squads of Delta Company that had come down from the Washout the day before to provide security were now methodically grabbing body after body from the barbed wire that encircled the small perimeter that they had established. The only sound was that of our idling motor. The only smell was the omnipresent stench of cordite – the detritus of modern battle. The bodies had only been dead for short hours. It was a remarkably surreal scene - indescribable and instantly etched into my permanent memory.

Years later I was sure that it had only been a dream.

The previous evening, those two squads from Delta Company had held off a vastly superior force of NVA that had targeted the previously defenseless Cam Lo village as part of the Tet Offensive. In one night, these thirty-five boys confirmed 160 N.V.A. dead (with dozens of others certainly carried away.) Enemy body counts in Vietnam were routinely inflated by the higher ups. In this case, however, you could walk over and count them one by one. Thirty five other NVA were captured along with several enemy trucks and a flag signed by all of the troops that was to have been raised over the village after their anticipated victory.

Delta Company lost one Marine killed.

Nearby, the Army lost several more in the passing convoy that had been ambushed to begin the attack.

The entire scene was so far beyond anything that my sane mind could comprehend that, after a time, I forgot the incident but for recurring nightmares that continued for decades. Like many grunts, I had dozens of such memories that hung between the real and the surreal. They became part of our DNA. Therapy could bring some out over time. Most however were destined to remain right there, deep inside, as surely as if they inhabited a bone. They would not depart my body before I did.

A Delta Company Marine, Corporal Larry Leonard Maxam, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor that night. It was awarded posthumously. The citation reads as follows:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a fire team leader with Company D, First Battalion, Fourth Marines, Third Marine Division in the Republic of Vietnam.

On 2 February 1968, the Cam Lo District Headquarters came under extremely heavy rocket, artillery, mortar, and recoilless rifle fire from a numerically superior enemy force, destroying a portion of the defensive perimeter. Corporal Maxam, observing the enemy massing for an assault into the compound across the remaining defensive wire, instructed his Assistant Fire Team Leader to take charge of the fire team, and unhesitatingly proceeded to the weakened section of the perimeter.

Completely exposed to the concentrated enemy fire, he sustained multiple fragmentation wounds from exploding grenades as he ran to an abandoned machine gun position. Reaching the emplacements, he grasped the machine gun and commenced to deliver effective fire on the advancing enemy. As the enemy directed maximum fire power against the determined Marine, Corporal Maxam s position received a direct hit from a rocket propelled grenade, knocking him backwards and inflicting severe fragmentation wounds to his face and right eye.

Although momentarily stunned and in intense pain, Corporal Maxam courageously resumed his firing position and subsequently was struck again by small arms fire. With resolute determination, he gallantly continued to deliver intense machine gun fire, causing the enemy to retreat through the defensive wire to positions of cover. In a desperate attempt to silence his weapon, the North Vietnamese threw hand grenades and directed recoilless rifle fire against him, inflicting two additional wounds.

Too weak to reload his machine gun, Corporal Maxam fell to a prone position and valiantly continued to deliver effective fire with his rifle. After one and a half hours, during which he was hit repeatedly by fragments from exploding grenades, and concentrated small arms fire, he succumbed to his wounds, having successfully defended nearly one-half of the perimeter single-handedly.

Corporal Maxam's aggressive fighting spirit, inspiring valor and selfless devotion to duty reflected great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.”

Corporal Maxam was just one of us. He had been a corporal, a fire team leader, a veteran of December 6, 1967. Until the day before, he too had been at the Washout, digging pissers, burning shitters, filling sand bags, and going on endless perimeter patrols. He was now the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, as surely as if he’d been Audie Murphy himself.

In point of fact, Corporal Maxam could have been any one of us. This realization and the horror of what our Delta Marines had endured, snapped many of us in Charlie Company back to the reality that, although times were slack, the war was all around us, and it a matter of minutes we could again be in the very thick of it.© Jack McLean 2007 All Rights Reserved

Thanks, Larry. We all miss you a lot.

Semper Fi and God bless.

Jack

"Sunshine Superman"

SUPER SUNDAY!!

O.K., it's not Christmas or the Fourth of July, but it has been around long enough to conjur memories.

This is my first Southern Super Sunday in years (I don't aknowledge McLean, VA to be Southern.) I've been invited to Bill and Barb's pool house next door to watch the game. Chili and beer will be served. Excellent.

An interesting insight into Knotts Island is that one need not have an actual swimming pool to have a pool house. Bill and Barb do, but Johnny Barnes down the street does not (Johnny is just completing a major renovation of his pool house to include a small bedroom.)

Pool Houses are places where guys go to drink, watch football, and fall asleep in big lounge chairs. They are decorated to look like island tiki bars. I wasn't introduced to the concept until I was too old to get away with it in my own life. Happily, however, I now have an entire garage that serves as my personal pool house. All my stuff is here and I can fall asleep with the TV on and no one gets on my case.

It is warm. Pool house doors are open, guests are arriving (see photo above), grills are being fired up, bags of ice are being dumped over buckets of beer, and all seems right with the world. I'm looking forward to the game and am glad that Bill and Barb invited me over. Who wants to be alone on Super Sunday!?!

I spent my first Super Bowl Sunday in the South and I was, for the most part, alone. I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, the sprawling east coast anchor for the United States Marine Corps. I was a Private First Class, attending supply school, and learning the one transferrable skill that I took from the Corps - typing.

That Saturday morning I was granted a 48 hour pass and decided to visit Andover friends that were attending the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. I rose early, took the base liberty bus (known as the "vomit comet") into the neighboring town of Jacksonville, and boarded a Greyhound bus for Durham. Eighteen stops and 6 hours later I arrived to transfer and take the final three stops to Chapel Hill on a connecting bus.

I was young, excited, and free so have little recollection of the journey. I arrived, found some friends, drank a lot of beer, and flopped on a dorm sofa. Had I remained on base, I would have found some friends, drank a lot of beer, and flopped on my rack. The contrast seems less obvious to me now that it did at the time.

Sunday morning I was given a brief campus tour that included the college basketball stadium. I was stunned. Basketball was nothing at Andover. Even with the Glory Celtics, basketball was nothing in New England either. Hockey ruled! And yet, here was the home of the legendary North Carolina Tar Heels - a college gym bigger than the fabled Boston Garden itself.

I felt as though I was in a foreign land. Why ever would so many people want to watch a basketball game. Even my former classmates had been converted. Twenty years later, I moved with my young family to Charlotte. Several months after that, I began to understand the allure (the Tar Heels suck - a subject for a future blog.)

Super Bowl I must have begun around 3 in the afternoon as it was being played in L.A. It wasn't all that big a deal. In fact, it probably didn't become known as Super Bowl I until the next year when some genius decided to call the second rendition Super Bowl II. The Vince Lombardi Packers were playing the Hank Stram Kansas City Chiefs. Everybody was a Packer fan.

At halftime, I had to head back. I took a cab to the bus station, retraced my steps to Durham, and after a wait, boarded a Greyhound bus for the eighteen-stop six-hour journey back to Jacksonville. This trip I remember vividly. Every stop.

Raleigh. Zebulon. Bailey.

We reached Wilson at twilight.

I was now the only white person on the bus. It was a foreign country. We'd stop every few miles. People would get on and people would get off. I was miles removed from the Marine Corps and an entire light year from Andover or Chapel Hill, for that matter. The towns were small and ramshakle and the ground was perfectly flat. A single naked light bulb marked the bench that comprised the bus stop in each town.

Goldsboro, Kingston, New Bern.

New Bern?

My great-great grandfather came to the United States from Scotland with his brother. They were stone masons. When they arrived, my great-great grandfather went to Patterson, New Jersey (birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and consequently the epicenter of brick) and his brother came to New Bern, North Carolina. New Bern had been the capital of North Carolina prior to present day Raleigh. I made a point to return to New Bern in the daylight to review my great-great uncle's work. I've yet to go.

Pollocksville. Maysville. Belgrade. Jacksonville.

I disembarked with several other Marines who had joined the trip along the way. The Comet arrived around 11pm and we made the lonely last leg to Mountfort Point, Camp Lejeune. I flopped on my rack and during the brief instant before I fell aspeep, I wondered about what a long strange trip it had been.

Seven hours later, I was sitting tall in Sgt. Lerma's Monday morning class.

"Type 'A', you worthless motherfuckers, type 'A'.

It was good to be back.

"Songs For Beginners"

My Nursery School teacher was Miss MacMaster. The class met three mornings a week in a small brick building adjacent to the Memorial Field playground in Summit, New Jersey.

My memories of Nursery School are fond, or at least uninvasive.

On one particular morning, workmen were banging and sawing away next door while we were singing, of all things, the Marine Corps Hymn. The louder they banged, the louder Miss MacMaster would have us sing. It was lots of fun. We were all singing and screaming at the same time, with her approval and encouragement.

Needless to say, I have never forgotten that moment. One thought that occasionally recurs is that we were in Nursery School and ALL of us - boys and girls - knew the words to the Marine Corps Hymn.
The Fifties were like that.

When I was little, we weren't all that far removed from World War II. There were war movies, war heroes (Audie Murphy), war ship models to be built, old Army uniforms stuffed in the attic, and endless war games to be reenacted with friends throughout the battlefields of the Watchung Reservation.

So why was it a surprise when, during my senior year in prep school, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps? It had been my childhood. It was how I was brought up. Patriotism, guns, war, and the Marine Corps were all very cool. Given the opportunity, the choice seemed obvious.

That being said, I’d like to turn you my readers, into you my listeners, for a peak at Miss MacMaster’s Nursery School class circa 2007. You can almost hear the workmen next door.

Semper Fidelis.

Thank you for visiting.

Jack

"It's a Small World, After All"

Perhaps your young family endlessly sang this Disney classic. Mine did. It was a reminder that, despite our differences in culture and appearance, we are one as people of the world. Years later, Tom Friedman wrote The World is Flat in which he set forth our global economic interdependence. It had nothing to do with culture or appearance and everything to do with money.

Either way, for better or sometimes for worse, we are one people inextricably interconnected.

November 10, 2007 was a day that continues to remind me of the global village which Disney and Friedman acknowledged. Were I to write the movie trailer, I say that "it was a day of war and peace, love and hate, wealth and power, birth and death, honor and tradition, family and friendships spanning generations, with an all star cast."

My camera would then zoom in on the stars - My Granddaughter, Terry Tillery, Bill Negron, Tim Heck, and - reluctantly - me, all sitting around a table at Tun's Tavern in Philadelphia. The United States Marine Corps was founded at Tun’s Tavern on November 10, 1775. Hence, that day in 2007 was the Corp's 232nd birthday.

To mark the occasion, several survivors of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division were celebrating at a reunion in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Coincidentally, the day also marked 40 years since several attendees (me included) had arrived in Vietnam.

Others were busy that day as well.

In Hong Kong, 7,600 miles to the west, on that very day, my first Grandchild was born.

In Baghdad, Iraq, 7,300 miles to the east, on that very day, an American and a Marine Corps flag were being flow in my honor over Firebase Spiteful in Camp Fallujah - the definition of hell on earth for a new generation of United States Marines. I only became aware of this yesterday when the flags and accompanying citations arrived in the mail.

Margaret came first. Given the time difference, we awoke to the wonderful news. Most of our day was spent visiting Angel Fire, a stunning memorial near Taos created by Victor Westphall to honor his son David, a 4th Marine brother who was killed on our watch in 1968.

That evening we celebrated. Marine Corps Birthday rituals were followed to the letter. I rose to toast Bill Negron, our company commander on this his 71st birthday and Margaret on her birth day. I also read an email that I’d just received from 1st Lt. Tim Heck detailing the activities of his unit during the previous week at Camp Fallujah, Iraq. Bill, Margaret, and Tim each received a standing ovation.

After dinner, a raffle was held. The prize item was a Marine Corps baby quilt beautifully created by the wife of one of our group. In addition to the Vietnam service ribbons and eagle globe and anchor, the date and our unit markings were embroidered in. The winner was Terry Tillery. Terry wasted little time in quietly presenting it to Bill Negron in honor of his birthday. Several minutes later, Bill walked over and, without fanfare, handed the quilt to me.

“Here,” he said in a whisper. “Please give this to Margaret with love from all of us.”

The evening ended, but I had yet to see the actual conclusion of the day until yesterday. In the mail, I received a package from Tim Heck. Tim was a Georgetown neighbor during his undergraduate years. Each fall, as new students arrived to reside on our street, I’d ring several doorbells wearing my Marine Corps sweatshirt to let my new neighbors know exactly how it was going to be for the upcoming year. It was a stunningly effective strategy which gained me hours of additional weekend sleep.

Tim opened his door, gave me a quiet Indiana up and down and remarked,

“I’m going to be one of you.”

I was stunned. This was a first. “One of me,” I responded?

“”Yes sir, one of you. I’m in Naval ROTC. When I graduate, I’ll be commissioned a 2nd Lt. in the United States Marine Corps.”

My first reaction was to ask the poor misguided soul if he was in full possession of his faculties. There would soon be a war going on and Tim wanted to be an infantry officer.

“Semper Fi, brother” were my only words.

“Semper Fi, sir,” he responded.

Tim and I became friends and have stayed in touch. He loves the Marine Corps and thereby, by extension, loves me. I love Tim as well. It’s one of the reasons that the United States Marine Corps is older than the country itself.

Yesterday, a package from Tim arrived. It included a Marine Corps flag, an American flag and two documents. The first document was a formal citation that read:
This Flag was flown over Sierra Battery Gun line at Camp Fallujah, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom 06-08.1
Presented to:
Jack McLean
It included appropriate seals and signatures. I was, needless to say, blown away.

The second document was a memo to me, Cpl. Jack McLean C/1/4, on the unit’s letterhead from Gunnery Sergeant M.D. Hamby, Position commander of Firebase Spiteful, Camp Fallujah, Iraq. It reads as follows:

Subj: For Your Loyal Service to the Marine Corps

1. The enclosed flags were flown in your honor by First Lieutenant Timothy G. Heck of Battery S, Fifth Battalion, Tenth Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team Six, aboard Firebase Spiteful, Camp Fallujah, Anbar Province, Iraq on November 10, 2007.


2. The flags were flown with the ideals of General Lejeune’s original birthday message animating our thoughts and actions. The Marines of Spiteful Battery are currently carrying on the legacy set forth by the Marines that have preceded us on the battlefields both here and elsewhere and the warrior ethos you have passed on to us. The Marines here are the successors to the legacy of Chapultepec, the walls of the Peking Legion, the wheat fields of Belleau Wood, the volcanic sands of Iwo Jima, the frozen expanse of the Chosin Reservoir, and of your own battles in the DMZ.


3. We hope these flags will be a small token of our appreciation for the heritage and standards you have established for us. The Marine Corps is in good hands as a result of your work.


4. May the Marine Corps enjoy many more birthdays as our legacy for honor, courage and commitment continues to be built daily by the Marines of Spiteful Battery.
   
   Semper Fidelis!
   
   Semper Fidelis to you as well, Gunny, and to Tim and to Terry.
   
   To Bill, Margaret, and the United States Marine Corps, Happy Birthday!

Thank you for visiting.

Jack

"The Ragpicker's Dream"

We have all moved.

Several months ago I moved into an apartment over the Tillery's garage in Knotts Island, North Carolina. (Note: There is no house to this garage. The Tillerys live miles away.)

My relocation to the garage last fall was precipated by a desire on the part of my soon-to-be-former wife that I vacate the marital premises with all due haste.

Our house was placed on the market and, yesterday, sold. Our final act as a couple was to execute a parking lot exchange of the detritus that had wound up in the wrong camps. Mine was contained in a cardboard moving box. I picked it up, bid adieu, and moved on with my life.

Early last evening, I arrived back home at the garage, tired from the long drive, exhausted from the process, and, enormously relieved. I unloaded the car, put the food in the fridge, laundry in the washer, mail on the desk, and the box on the floor nearby.

• Hours later, I became curious about that which I had somehow left behind. I thought that you, my loyal readers, with memories of your own last departing looks at former houses after a move, might have an interest as well in knowing the contents of the box:Seven audio books and CDs including 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, The Odyssey, A Tale of Two Cities, The Iliad, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, The Anventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Farewell to Arms, and Jim Lizotte's 2005 Christmas CD.
• A small dark Vermeeresque framed print of a lone woman in a white hat reading alone. From earlierst memory, this picture has given me the creeps. Why do I insist on keeping it? It was my mother's.
• A severely tarnished sterling silver Owl Club ice bucket which I have never used and of which I remain incapable of disposing.
• A small red carved Japanesey box that used to live in the top drawer of a mahogony drop leaf side table. Inside the box are four two inch sections of leg, sawed off years ago to assure the table's fit in whatever space it was then accommodating.
• Two Tiffany paperweights, each a parting gift after a speaking engagement.
• Two tire pressure guages.
• A liner adjustor for my ski helmet.
• Dozens of McLean family snapshots, some framed, some in plastic baggies (one, in fact, a Jacobi family snapshot.)
• A single polished stone bookend.
• A beaded keychain with a NATO 7.62 rifle bullet attached.
• Two picture holders swipped from a table at Sarah & John's rehersal dinner.
• A Washington, DC region bike map.
• A cork McLean of Duart coaster.
• Assorted unopened credit card offers touting breathless interest rates.

It was like Christmas, of course. Each item a treasure (I always wondered where those ski helmut pads were...I wonder if they'd work on my bike helmet.) The book end is now holding up books, the paperweights now secure papers from pesky ocean breezes.

As I write, I am transferring items to the most excellent key chain. The family snapshots have renewed immediate interest given my brother Don's recent passion for the subject.

I never did listen to For Whom the Bell Tolls, still have interest in Optimum Health, and REALLY missed Jim's Christmas CD this year.

The Vermeer will be rehung, continue to give me the creeps, and forever remind me of my mother (kindly ignore the association.)

Anybody want a DC bike map - still in the original plastic sleeve?

It goes on EBay next week.

Thank you for visiting.

Jack