what i been doing.

i been having moments of reconnection with my old jamaican pen pal hopeton gray. back awhile i get this message from an old page on this site. it says

He is my Unlcle-in-law and just released his second novel and CD-visiting USA from Australia presently. Just left visiting him this evening! Please let me know who you are in order to pass on your info.

this from debra who had apparently plugged his name into google. guess who has the primo hopeton gray page on the web. i would be that person, having referred to him in the journal of my senior year of high school 1967-1968. the second page is a description of his second book Planet One Drop. i replied to debra and she wrote back to say she'd passed on my note to her uncle-in-law. my old friend hopeton. several days later i receive a letter in the mail - the real mail, a real letter to hold in my hand, in real human handwriting that bespeaks of actual human personality and challenges the eyes and mind to decipher. there is a return address to staten island ny - and there is a phone number. when i call no one is home so i talk to the machine, and the next day a voice redolent of jamaica - england - australia says, "Tom?" i say "Hopeton, hello". he wonders how i knew it was him. so there we go. i knew him a bit through the mails almost forty years ago - and he me. now after a lifetime of living here we are. two older guys from two different worlds. we talked some more. i wrote to him last week but haven't yet heard back from him. i hope he decides to stay in touch. it's possible he won't. sometimes these things don't work out.

what i been doing.

took a trip down to mom's last weekend. we had a thingumbob with a big crowd from the family - mom, sisters, brothers, in-laws, nieces, nephew, grand-niece and nephews. eating, swimming, laying around teasing the kids. i can't remember doing much of anything but i had a good time doing it. on the way back from there i stopped in joliet and passed the evening with my old buddy don - reconnecting on the deck above the shimmery moon in the retention pond. our old haunt.

what i been doing.

school is coming. yesterday found me in a workshop for online grade posting. got a peek at my class lists. one poor darling in my junior britlit is signed on for her third year of brtom. (i hope to get her transferred to another class. i have enjoyed her presence the past two years, but i fear a third year is too cruel and unusual a punishment for her... and i'm sure she will agree.) i been switching rooms, moving across the hall to 208. if i get books moved tomorrow i should be in good shape. too many books, not enough bookcase.

what i been doing

got around to reading erin's and jacqui's recent journals. erin's involved insomething called JournalCon to be held in Chicago in October - a gathering of people who write online journals. is this something i need to think about? probably not...but a nice idea.

what i been doing.

slogging around the track in that hour just before during and after sunset, singing along with the bugs and the birds, sweating profusely and wondering if we have enough bananas, listening to the marching band over on the baseball field, glad to be jogging and not standing at attention in rank and file.

what you been doing.

The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.

Karl Marx