Written in Murfreesboro Tenn

I am one thousand miles away as the crow flies and a million miles away in my head on a road trip as I write this. I have left the 13 degrees and piles of ice and snow in my driveway in NEPA and headed south for reasons that will be explained towards the end of this. Today it’s 40 degrees warmer where I am. It’s spring here. The grass is green and the flowers are in bloom. The pansies nod their colorful heads in the soft breeze. The silly daffodils bend and bow and brighten up the landscape with their improbable yellow. I write this not to make you jealous for the spring that I am in and you are not. I write to give you hope that soon you too will be walking around again in a t-shirt instead of layers of sweaters and coats. You will be able to grasp objects made of metal out of doors without gloves. Your feet will be in flip flops instead of clod hops. And you can drive with your window down and your elbow out. Heck I even ran the air conditioner for a few minutes just for the feeling of it. It’s nice down here and the only problem is I know that soon enough we will be headed back the land of ice and snow and courthouse woes.
I am near Nashville Tennessee in a town called Murfreesboro. It’s 13 hours by car from my driveway in NEPA and took me two days to get here. It was well worth the trip. Not just for the break in routine that I needed after a long cold hard winter. Not for the fried okra and other southern cooked delicacies that seem as foreign to us as haluskie would to these slow talking southerners. And not just for the rebirth that my soul felt when I stepped out into this sunny southern weather although that surely is one of the trips pleasures. No, I am here for a birth of another sort. Late at night last week or I guess I should say early in the morning my oldest son and his wife brought a new Rising into the world and though some may question if another one was necessary or even wise I myself am over the moon with joy. He is a tiny thing, just under 6 pounds and about 18 inches from toes to dark haired head but so full of life and bringing all around him so much happiness that he might as well be six foot three. So go ahead. Call me Grampa. Haven James Rising and I don’t mind a bit. And keep a shovel warm for me.