Sorry.
If you have become a faithful follower of this site, you have no doubt noticed there hasn’t been a new post in more than a week.
My lovely wife and I don’t travel much anymore, but for the last week or so, we were back in my old stomping grounds.
I wonder why they call them “stomping grounds.” I never stomped much.
We were in Northern Virginia, the second of four places I lived for at least 10 years, to bury my mother. You’re probably aware that she died in November, but since she was being interred with my dad, who died in 2008, we were on the military’s timetable.
You can probably figure it wasn’t an open casket funeral.
“Daddy, why is grandma dripping?”
Anyway, both of our children are in the Washington, D.C., area this year, so we took advantage of the trip to see them and our grandchildren.
I spent part of one afternoon at my parents’ house going through things of mine I had mostly forgotten I had. Not to mention a few other things I had no idea I ever had.
I knew my maternal grandfather had served in World War I — it was one of his proudest experiences — but I never met my paternal grandfather, who died before I was born.
But Charles Albro Whitcomb served too, and my only knowledge of his experience was that he enlisted in June 1917 and served in the U.S. Army. It was certainly fascinating to see a picture of him for the first time.
My parents were sort of pack rats. My brother said he found papers from our dad’s job in the 1950s, and I found my fifth grade class picture from 1959-60. I recognized myself and I knew which one was the teacher, but none of the faces of my classmates elicitied even the faintest of memories.
The time spent with my kids and my grandchildren was a lot more fun. Pauline and her husband Johnathan are doing such a great job raising their blended family, and while it drives my 71-year-old ears crazy to hear 6-year-old Albanie shriek with joy, it makes me smile just thinking about it.
Tunisia will be Pauline’s sixth foreign posting, her second in Africa. We didn’t visit her in Cameroon or in Indonesia, but we went once to Beijing in 2008 and twice each to Jamaica and Guatemala more recently.
The 2008 trip resulted in one of the best days of my life, holding my two-week-old granddaughter on my lap for an hour and singing her to sleep.
The later trips were at Thanksgivings and Christmases,
Anyway, we’re home now and I’m posting again.
More tomorrow.