A Walker in the Suburbs

We went to the beach for a day last weekend — we had enough time to walk the shore, explore the boardwalk, wade in the surf, spot dolphins beyond the breakers. We had time to get sunburned and wind-whipped and eat too much ice cream. But we (or least I) came back to a house transformed. The place looked tidier than I remember leaving it. And the mental break seemed much greater than what 15 hours could merit — it felt like we’d spend a long weekend at the shore, at least. All of this from just one day away.

An update on yesterday’s post: I called the number, listened to the sad announcement that the service would be discontinued and then, miracle of miracles, heard Rob Luchessi’s brilliant forecast. Was it just my imagination or was there a special lilt in his voice when he said, “Have a GREAT day!” The Verizon weather line has been spared. Hooray!

I dialed the number this morning, just to be sure — but it’s true. The message we’ve been hearing for months — “Effective June 1, 2011, Verizon will no longer offer time of day and weather services” — is all I hear when I dial 936-1212. No more Neal Pizzano, Howard Phoebus or Rob Luchessi — voices we’ve come to know through years of hearing them say, “Here’s the latest weather forecast. Brought to you by Verizon.” A service that’s been offered since rotary dial phones became popular in the 1930s is gone.

People don’t need dial-in forecasts when they have the Weather Channel, weather.com and scores of other ways to plan their day. But we aren’t big TV people, and it’s easier to pick up the phone than to fire up the computer. Besides, you learned more than just the weather. Pizzano, who was profiled in the Washington Post a couple years ago, might tell you that it’s National Peach Cobbler Day or Hug Your Sister Day. And he always remembered to say “have a nice day.”

So today we mourn the replacement of the little with the large, of the personal with the anonymous. Today we miss the friendly voice on the other end of the line. Today we’re going to boycott the weather.

Photo from Past Times.

I’ve sometimes argued with folks about the existence of this day. “May has 30 days,” they’ll say. “We’re sure of it.” And in the old days, when May 30 was Memorial Day, May 31 did seem like an afterthought. An inconspicuous date tucked between two showy months. A sliver of a possibility. An opening.

I know May 31 exists because it’s my birthday. But now that I’m older I wouldn’t mind if we skipped it every year. I would still be here, would still exist (non-existence being the chief reason to embrace the birthday when it comes, since it is ever so much better than the alternative), but I would be spared the reminder that I’m another year older.

It’s not that I’m a birthday dreader. I’ve always approached the day with an attitude of celebration. It’s just that time moves so quickly; there is so much to do and an ever-declining amount of time to do it in.

But May 31 is still on the calendar, and I’m still here, so there is nothing left to do but to greet the day and live the day and think about all that other stuff tomorrow.

Late yesterday I learned that the space shuttle Endeavor blasted off for the last time yesterday. I knew its final lift-off was in the works, but hearing the news on the way home from Suzanne’s commencement was a fitting way to cap a day that was about endings and beginnings, about leaving the known for the unknown.

Today Suzanne graduates from college. Family and friends have gathered to wish her well, to celebrate her achievement and to send her off into this new time of her life. A phrase from the baccalaureate yesterday stays with me: We are who we are because we were here together.

I think about my own college friends — one of them my husband!— and how I treasure them more every year. I think also about my own college graduation. Once my parents arrived it was the beginning of the end.

Suzanne said as much to us yesterday. The real Wooster, the Wooster that has been changing and sustaining here these last four years — that ended a few days ago. So this weekend has been a long goodbye to the campus and the way of life she had here; to friends who (though she will stay close to many) will not be here, in this particular composition, again.

For us it is a goodbye to a place that seems tucked away in time and space. While Suzanne will undoubtedly return here we most likely never will. As of today, she is an alumna. We are just “the parents of.”

The horses this Derby aren’t up to speed, I’ve read. Foreigners (“furriners”?) have bought the best mares and sires and whisked them away. They are breeding now on other shores, their progeny are bypassing American tracks; they are racing in Europe and elsewhere.

I don’t compare times. When the horses pound the back stretch and round the final turn, they always seem fast to me. But I wonder if there is a collective failure of nerve, an unwillingness to take risks. I wonder if we’ve stopped looking for the bright eyed foal who can’t behave himself. If we are too enamored with ease.

We went to Indiana last weekend for a gathering of Tom’s family. And it was there, by the shores of a rain-water-swollen Lake Monroe, that we heard the news of Osama bin Laden’s death. We had just begun to realize that our cache of Scrabble letters was far more than the board (or our attention span) could use when we got a call telling us the news. Those of us with Blackberries and iPhones (this does not include me) found news sites were crashing from all the hits. So since the cottage has no television or wi-fi, we cranked up the radio in the old stereo receiver.

As we bent toward its sound, I felt we were drawn not only into a new, post-bin Laden era, but also into the past. We were like the people in “The King’s Speech” listening to George VI rallying his fellow citizens, minus the sonorous soaring of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU03byh6O1M

We strained to hear the scratchy sound coming out of the box, the narrow frequency fading in and out during the president’s brief announcement. We were startled from our lethargy, hungry for information, searching for a community in the airwaves.

Last night I went to an awards ceremony for a writing contest I’d helped to judge. I wanted to see the people who’d written the essays, to match face with voice. The winners were younger than I imagined they would be. One of them I’d thought was female (our entries were identified only with numbers) was actually male. Two of the three honorable mentions were married to each other.

As the evening progressed, back stories emerged. Enough of them that I knew we had picked the right winners. Enough of them that I knew we, the judges, were the real winners after all.

Twenty-four years ago, in Lexington, Kentucky, it was snowing on this day. It had been an unseasonably warm March, but the weather changed when the new month blew in. And by April 4, our wedding day, it wasn’t just flurrying, it was snowing hard, drifting and accumulating, slowing traffic and obliterating spring.

We drove behind the plow on the way to the church, tiptoed through slush on our way to the reception. The snow left a delicate filigree on car windows, buried the daffodils and bent near to breaking the just-blooming dogwood trees. Friends from up north, expecting balmy breezes, braved the weather in light floral prints and big-brimmed hats. The day was a joyful blur of blossoms and snow flakes.

It was not what we’d planned or expected, and was therefore a good way to begin married life. More than two decades later, no one has ever forgotten our wedding day. We certainly haven’t!