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Author: Anne Cassidy

A Diller, A Dollar

A Diller, A Dollar

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When my children were young, I used to read them this Mother Goose rhyme:

 “A diller, a dollar, a 10 o’clock scholar. What makes you come so soon? You used to come at 10 o’clock, and now you come at noon.”

I feel like this blog is becoming the 10 o’clock scholar — if I hurry, that is. If I don’t, it will be the 11 o’clock scholar. 

The non 9-to-5 world, of which I have recently become a member, is good for leisurely mornings. Which is not to say I don’t have plenty of to-dos. It’s just that they can less hurriedly be to-done.

(These ducks don’t seem to be in much of a hurry either.)

The Place To Be

The Place To Be

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I’ve visited Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms a couple dozen times through the years, but this is the first time I’ve seen them through the lens of a good camera.

Though I am a novice photographer, I’m an expert blossom-navigator. I can slip through crowds, skip over puddles and keep moving through the inevitable hordes of tourists.

Yesterday the Tidal Basin gave back with picture-perfect weather, peak-bloom blossoms, and the picnickers, strollers and flower-lovers that made this the place to be in the DMV.

They’re Calling

They’re Calling

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The cherry trees are calling … and I’d like to answer them in person. It’s been three years since they were open for business — a funny way to describe them but true since the trees that encircle the Tidal Basin can be (and were) cordoned off.

It’s different when you have a perishable to-do in mind, something that won’t stay put if you wait too long. The cherry trees are a perfect example. They’re in peak bloom now, but all it will take is a hard rain or a brisk breeze and they will be but a shadow of their current selves. And even without those, there’s only so long they will last.

Unlike other things I mean to do then, visiting the cherry blossoms has an all-too-real expiration date. 

So I’m looking at my schedule and hurrying up my homework … and with any luck I’ll visit soon.

Connections

Connections

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In my continuing quest to  explore the untrod paths of my immediate environs I found myself  the other day not exactly lost “in a dark wood,” but flummoxed on a bright, leafless hillside. 

In short, I was stymied by a creek that seemed much deeper and fast-flowing than I remembered it being the last time I was there. Since the last time I was there was several years ago, this was understandable. But it didn’t help me across. 

For that I had to circle back to the shoulder-less two-lane road I’d crossed to get there. I trotted quickly along the side of the road facing the traffic, stepped over the guard rail, and made it to the other side of the creek before the next car sped by. 

I enjoyed the rest of the stroll alongside the creek, sauntering, thinking, except, I’ll admit, for a vague unease about getting back. I needn’t have bothered because I discovered on the way home a more direct passage to the trail by staying in my neighborhood’s common land until it reaches the stream valley park. There was even a little homemade bridge to guide me. 

I’m not sure, but I think there’s a lesson in here somewhere … 

Russian Rhumba

Russian Rhumba

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We lost Dad eight years ago today. He was spared the pandemic, the University of Kentucky’s Thursday night loss to the St. Peter Peacocks in the first round of NCAA basketball, and now, the worst street fighting in Europe since World War II. 

I wondered this morning, what he would say about Ukraine? I imagine he would think we should be doing more, but he would also recognize the difficulty and delicacy of the U.S. position.

I do know he would be retelling one of his favorite WWII stories, about the time he visited Mirgorod as part of the shuttle bombing missions known as Operation Frantic. 

Dad was in the second of those runs, which departed England on June 21, 1944, part of a task force that included 114 B-17 bombers and 70 P-51 fighters, which Dad (and many others) called “little friends.” I probably owe my existence to these little friends since their addition to the war halted the unsustainable losses of the heavy bombers and their crews. 

Dad’s plane, part of the 95th Bomb Group, landed in Mirgorod, which, as Dad later wrote in an article he called “Russian Rhumba” published in a bomb group newsletter, proved to be a good decision. The 43 B-17s that landed in Poltava were destroyed in an overnight raid by the Luftwaffe, and, says Dad, “it didn’t take a Ph.D. in foreign affairs from Harvard to see the outrageous deception of our Russian allies.” 

Dad ended up flying deeper into the Ukrainian section of the Soviet Union, landing in what was then known as Kharkov and spending a few days with Russian soldiers. One of them “wanted to exchange firearms with me,” Dad wrote. “I was wearing a G.I. 45 and he was wearing a Russian issue. Needless to say, I had to say nyet to that proposal.”

Reading this story, so full of “Dad’isms” that make me smile and cry at the same time, is a good thing to do today, when our hearts reach out to the descendants of those people my father met so many years ago.

Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage

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I hadn’t intended it, but on Wednesday I nearly walked around Lake Audubon. I’d started with nothing more than a different route: down Glade to the nature center, along paths untrodden for years. But that road led to a paved path, then a waterside trail, then a bridge I hadn’t known was there.

When I found a street again, I was past the high school, on my way around the lake.  This was significant, my version of the northwest passage. I could now (sort of) circumnavigate the lake where last summer I felt briefly lost. 

Further proof that my ambles have purpose if not destinations, and further proof, also, that my home is Reston. But more on that later. 

To Be in Ireland

To Be in Ireland

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On this day of gray skies and soft rain, it’s not hard to see the green fields of Ireland, the shaggy cliffs, the ever-present sea, the darling lambs. 

It’s not hard to imagine climbing the hill to St. Benan’s church on the isle of Inishmore, a place so silent and still, so holy, that even the most committed skeptic could not fail to be moved by it. 

It’s not hard to wish I was in Ireland again, knowing that St. Patrick’s Day is probably the day you should least want to be in Ireland … but wanting to be there just the same. 

A Cry in the Night

A Cry in the Night

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I was awakened at 4 by the barking of a fox. This is not a rare occurrence. What made it memorable was how close the fox seemed to be. Right beneath the bedroom window from the sound of it. 

For years after we moved here I thought this sound was the screech of an owl or some kind of wounded animal, so distressed did it seem. It troubled my sleep, made nightmares of my dreams. The night itself seemed to be speaking, issuing a warning, sounding an alarm.

I know now that this howl is the bark of a fox, going about its foxy business, further proof of the wild kingdom that flourishes just outside these four walls. 

I no longer fear this sound, even if it wakes me up.  I just read for a while to settle my jangled nerves, taking comfort in the fact that we share this place with the animals who were here before us.

Leaving Normal Behind

Leaving Normal Behind

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Trading this…

For many of us, today marks two years since we left normal life behind.  March 15th was a Sunday in 2020, and the Monday that followed was a workday unlike any other I’d experienced. 

I was at home — and so was everyone else, of course. It seemed then like a snowstorm without the snow, a temporary break from routine. 

Little did we know how the virus would upend our lives,  how it would take the weak and terrify the strong, how it would deepen the political divide and turn our downtowns into ghost towns. 

But all that and more was in store for us on that March Monday, two years and a lifetime ago.

... for this.
… for this.

The Lexingtonians

The Lexingtonians

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Yesterday’s memorial service paid tribute to a husband, son, brother, uncle, cousin and friend. But most of all, it paid tribute to an artist.

My cousin Pat was a painter, musician and filmmaker. He was, as many recalled, a man who created the life he wanted to live … and managed to live it in the town where he was born.

I think many of us in the audience thought about our own lives, weighed them against his, measured the tradeoffs, the staying put versus the leaving.  

My cousin Brian, Pat’s brother, summed it up best when he spoke: “Today I’m not just proud to be a brother, I’m proud to be a Lexingtonian.”

And though the family members in attendance now reside in Brussels, Paris, California, New York, Michigan, Virginia, Ohio,  Maryland and D.C.,  yesterday we were all Lexingtonians.