2011 Summer Reading

America America by Ethan Canin

The Doomsday Key by James Rollins

The Last Summer (of You & Me) ** by Ann Brashares

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Return to Sullivans Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

Shannon by Frank Delaney

Sun Going Down ** by Jack Todd

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs

** recommended

Goodnight Irene

With apologies to Messrs. Ledbetter and Lomax. Didn't get much sleep during the night due to the heavy rain. A little before 4, I began washing dishes, and at 4:10 there was a huge crash. It would have been louder if my windows weren't all super-sealed. There was minimal damage to my fence, but my neighbor had some major damage to his roof and side.

Tree guys came and I was curious as to how they were going to get the tree off of the house. But all they did for the five hours was trim all the small stuff. And that was impressive on its own since the day still presented huge gusts of wind that I was sure were going to bring down another tree. Maybe they'll be back tomorrow with larger equipment.

Elsewhere, the power never went off, the Cable/Internet just came back on after about 12 hours, and there was some water in the basement.

Amy

Four summers ago, I was channel surfing one night as I always do and I happened to stop on Channel 25, WNYE, a New York City public television station. They were showing a small club concert featuring a female singer I had never seen nor heard of. It was Amy Winehouse. She was an English singer with long black hair including a large bee-hive. She had back-up singers and a good sized band including a brass section! But it was the sound that caught my attention--it was refreshingly new. It was a fusion of soul, blues, and a little bit of 60's pop. When the show was over, I went to youtube and watched several other performances by Ms. Winehouse. I found out that she had two released albums, but I didn't know that she was a Grammy winner. I then went to Amazon.com and purchased her second album, "Back To Black".

Just a few weeks after receiving the CD, the first of many scandalous stories about Amy and her drinking and drug-related behavior hit the media. The stories continued for a few years, each one detailing her continued downfall from musical prominence. I always wondered if she would be able to pull herself out of her dark hole and produce another album comparable to "Back To Black". Unfortunately she would not and she died this past Saturday at the young age of 27.

No Gold Watch

In October, 2002, while working at Prudential, I was told that the jobs in my systems area would be going overseas to India (you wonder why I don't watch the show OUTSOURCED). At the time I had 19 years with the company and they were nice enough to "bridge" my years of service to 20. When I turned 55, I became eligible to collect a pension, and I finally decided to do so this winter.

Today, on February 1st, my first pension check was direct-deposited into my banking account. It feels good to be retired, even though I'll still be working 50-60 hours a week as a teacher/coach at my high school.