Life in Cayuga

Yesterday was my birthday.  I’m 69 years old.  I know everyone says this, but I really and truly never dreamed I’d live this long. But, here I am.  I never really got into birthdays. I never liked birthday parties, even as a child.  I hate birthday cake. When I was a kid, almost everyone’s mother smoked, mine included.  We had homemade birthday cakes then and they all tasted like an old ashtray! Now everyone buys birthday cakes. Store-bought birthday cake is one of the nastiest foods ever invented. The icing is nothing but shortening and powdered sugar.  It’s so sickening sweet it sets my teeth on edge. My ex couldn’t understand that I didn’t like it and always got me one anyway so she could eat it, because birthday cake is her very favorite food.  I would ask her to make me a pound cake or some other cake that I liked but she insisted that it had to be birthday cake. My sister made me a lemon icebox pie yesterday and I much preferred it to a cake. ...

 “Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season.”  One of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs. There are a lot of people reasoning with hurricane season today as Hurricane Helene heads toward Florida.  I had to do a little reasoning a few weeks ago when Francine made landfall in Louisiana and headed for Central Mississippi.  Thankfully, she wasn’t as strong as they predicted and she made a slight turn to the East that spared my area the worst of the wind and rain. But I had my generator ready, water drawn up, and non perishable food stocked up.  I live 150 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, so you’re probably wondering how a hurricane can affect me.  Hurricanes are large.  Very large.  Their rain bands and winds can go out hundreds of miles from the eye.  In 1969, Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast as a Category 5 storm with the winds nearing 200 mph. There was near total destruction of the coast. By the time the eye got here, it was still a...

Today is 9/11. Another day which will live in infamy.  Another of those days where we remember where we were, and what we were doing when the news broke about the attacks.  I was at a training class for rural water board members.  I heard on the way that a plane had hit one of the towers, but details were sketchy.  Just as I got there, my father called and told me what was going on.  Several people in the meeting were board members from towns and cities.  They left because they might be needed at home.  They dismissed the entire class early. My wife was frantic because our oldest son had just left for his freshman year at Mississippi State.  There was concern that colleges might be targeted because of their research programs   I remember getting back to my office and watching with my parents the horror of it all.   But the thing that touches me most about this day is the eyewitness account from a friend of mine who worked on Wall Street....

 Several times this past week, I was in public places where there have been a lot of elderly people, mostly couples in their 70s and 80s.  Most of them had one person who needed assistance, either a wheelchair or a walker or cane. The one thing I noticed about all of them was how the able partner helped them get up, sit down, or get around.   For some reason I watched them a little closely, and I saw one common factor with all of them. The able partner looked at the one who needed assistance with an expression of pure love.  Not once did I see impatience or aggravation, fatigue, or any negative emotion.  It was only love.   It got me to thinking how lucky those people were. Both of them. True, unconditional love is the greatest gift one can give. It’s something we all need.  It blesses the recipient and it blesses the giver.  What I saw was the wedding vow “in sickness and in health” put into action.  May we all experience that kind of love i...