Josephine
Murray’s gone home. The lives of all the Slates on the north side of the island
have returned to their usual ways. Urch and Harry have moved back into the farm house. Erma and Brenda are busy
“ laying up ” houses for the winter. Betty and Frank, the island newly
weds are back at work, having brought order to the little house where they
live, across the road from the church. Tom and Jay are fixing the truck in
Brenda’s back yard. And quiet has
returned to the island.
We
woke up so cold this morning that I cannot imagine that the party at Potter’s
Beach lasted long after the Saturday night dance. In any case, John and I, old
folks, walked slowly back down the hill from
Dodge Hall only a short time after we arrived, knowing Sunday morning
would come before we were ready for it. We were already feeling too relaxed to
even think of doing the “
cotton-eyed-Joe ” dance the young people out on the Hall floor were doing with such energy. Some of the new dances ( the one we watched, the
Macarena, the Chicken) remind me of the
forties and the days of the Big Apple.
It is interesting to see the single dancers on the floor begin to pattern
their steps in unison, sort of lining up on an informal grid, as if someone
pressed the “ table key ”. It ’s as if
the dances image our modern multitude of
individual workers, each one working at an individual computer, singly.
Every dancer seems to know what to do. It’s intriguing to imagine what the next
style of life, style of dance will be.
The
full moon’s light glowing on the dust of the road, made our flashlight
unnecessary as we walked home, the silver-bright leaves catching its light
seemed as unreal as a photographic negative. Next day, early yellow sun on a
silky river washed like a hymn over autumn’s
peace.
On
Sunday morning, at the last church service, Margaret Taylor’s dusky bouquet of
Sumac bowed elegantly over the corner of the kneeling rail. Their reddish mauve
matched the kneeling pillows Dick and Mary Petry had made this summer and
arranged along the also new kneeling bench Sylvia Anderson Shoultes and Bob
Meacham had just finished. Next year we will kneel more comfortably to receive
communion at the altar. But all that must wait until winter is past.
The
congregation, chilly at the beginning
of the service, was warmed by bright sunlight by eleven-thirty as we made our
ways, at the end of the last hymn, out the narrow aisle to gather together
again in the church yard . After Dick
Petry’s sermon asking if this is what it all comes to, after Carol Marsh’s lovely singing of the
“Lily of theValley”, after the children had sung “Jesus Loves Me”, after we had made our traditional last-Sunday’s
circle around the great poplar tree in front of the church, after we had sung
our parting hymn, after the benediction, we made at least one of the wise
decisions Dick begged us to make: Most of us walked up the road a bit to the
Marra’s shaded yard that circles into the other shaded yards of
island family homes at the end of the road, for our year’s end
Squatters’ Picnic. There, we sat down at round tables, oblong tables, square
tables many tables, to enjoy a long, lazy, potluck lunch together before going
our separate ways until next June. With love gifts for the Whitten family,
we sent prayers for Liz, wishing the
family could be with us at that last get-together.
Pastor
Dick was joined by Andy Davison in
thanking all the people who have
helped this summer in the running of the church, and Dick, , never one to say this
is what it all comes to, announced (in the bulletin) that at 10:00 a.m. on
Sunday, June 23rd, 2002, the adult choir would rehearse! We hope
Dick and Mary will be back with us then. To remind us of the happy summer and
the good friends we’ve shared, both Dick Petry and Karen Lashomb brought collections of sharp and clear
photos of the many, many good people
we’ve had such a fine time with this summer. And they gave them to us! Grindstone is a generous place.
And
Grindstone is a place well and lovingly kept. Urch Slate tells me that when the
Save the River team went to clean up Potters’ Beach this morning, they found
two cans, only two cans! That may have
been because Jeff Marra took his boys to the beach earlier last week to do a
bit of cleanup themselves. So we are
leaving the long length of Potter’s sand and brush in pristine condition
(almost) to await our return! We’re
sorry to leave. We’ll be happy to come
back. So it is. Aminta Marks