Visiting Family

Not a lot has happened in the past week.  I've done some more work around the house and passed a few more days without stepping foot out the door.  It's been a dreary time of recollection, remembrance, and restoration; it's continuing nonetheless.

It's time the scenery changed.  Going along with things, it wouldn't be fitting if we were anywhere else other than my mother's childhood home; that of her parents.  I'm exhausted, but Pappy (my Grandfather) of all people is telling me it's too early for bed, I suppose it's only nine.  Spending time with my grandparents used to be such a drag, they were too old to understand, in all reality they weren't even people anymore, they were grandparents.  Thankfully that has changed.

I was just listening.  I listened for hours with an occasional attempt to interject a story from my experiences.  But really, I was just there to listen.  Pap has stories and I was there to listen to them.  I felt as he told me his stories that I wasn't just supposed to be listening, but that I should be taking notes, drawing pictures and transcribing this oral history into something more, something longer-lasting.  But I just kept listening.

He spoke of the personal anecdotes of being a toddler during World War I.  Pap recounted the days of living in the dorms when he was one of 8 in the entire college hoping Hoover would lose the election (he did).  The river no longer freezes in the winter, but I heard stories of entire towns relying off of its ice for summer storage and Sunday ice cream making.  Markets sold flour and some other dry goods, but grocery stores didn't exist back then, everyone grew their own food and made their own molasses.  We sat in silence.  I did my best to imagine what I would remember at his age, and find someway to relate; he kept remembering.  We discussed the time before penicillin and his father's fatal tuberculosis; for the rest of the family it was a vaccine.  He talked about hearing the first radio, seeing the first movie and watching the first television.  He spoke of the first telephone, the first computer and even the first cellular phone; the internet is beyond his reach.  Pap is 93, his sister is 98 and they are the only two of the family still alive.  He believes that he has lived during the best century in human history.  Before the industrial revolution and through both World Wars; they raised flower children and they loved grandchildren of Generation X.

I wonder if it really was the best century in which one could have lived.  Perhaps it's the way he looks at life.  If you hadn't the choice, then why wouldn't it be the best?  I hope to be 93 and recounting my stories with my grandchildren.  I hope to look back on life and believe that it was the best time in which I could have ever lived.  I hope.  I can only imagine that he didn't expect to live through these things, a few times I'm sure he would've bet that he wouldn't.  Either way, I'll be glad to pass on his torch.  He's a beautiful man, my Pappy.  He thinks this might be the last time he sees me.  I hope not.

Prologue: The pre-pandemonium.

It's been a while since I've spent some time here, in Dryden. But just as before I can find the same familiar faces in the same familiar places. It's been nice to relax for the last little while, especially after such an epic journey through Turkey. In the meantime I have been making some extra cash cleaning out the basement and putting up trim throughout the house.

Rummaging through old boxes of hidden middle school treasures I came across trinkets, pictures, love letters, and stories lost to the pubescent awkwardness of growing up. It's a funny thing that love is so easy to declare at such a young age, it's later in life, when we're really in love, that owning up to it becomes so difficult and managing it so hard to navigate. I threw the old love letters away alongside the flashy toys and gameboys of a generation weaned from intimacy to electronics. I moved then to other things: bedding, lumber, golf clubs, the inane collections of objects that generation upon generation has amassed in the depths of cellar storage.

It has been nice to reminisce and relive the simple times of high school and before, but it's also nice to dream of the life I have ahead. I've been burying myself in the preparation, packing and paperwork of the Peace Corps in order to keep myself thinking of the future and not getting too caught up in the happenings of the past. I have just over two weeks before I leave for Madagascar and I'm really excited for it. The second guessing and cold feet have subsided and the security and excitement have settled in. I'd love for everyone to keep in touch and thought that a blog might be easiest. You can subscribe to it to keep up-to-date and if you don't find it until later, then you can catch up by reading old posts. I can also add pictures much more easily. Also, this is the address that I'll have until I get my assignment (sometime in May). Feel free to send letters, gifts, etc. They say that boxes having a hard time getting to their final destination and that envelopes tend to make it much faster and more easily.

MARSHALL MCCORMICK, PCV

BUREAU DU CORPS DE LA PAIX

BP 12091

POSTE ZOOM ANKORONDRANO

ANTANANARIVO 101

MADAGASCAR

Well, I'm off. I'm going to a show at a cafe just outside of Dryden. The artist is a woman that I went to high school with, Maddy Walsh. I guess it's not so easy leaving things behind after all.

Take Care,

Marshall