26 - 31 May 2026
Clark and I spent the week after Memorial Day weekend with him working on the boat (big surprise) and me preparing for our trip to Williamsport, Pennsylvania for my college graduation 50-year reunion. I have not been back to Lycoming College in 25 years. The campus has expanded in size and changed considerably. Upon arrival, I recognized nothing!
Many of the buildings now on campus did not exist when I was there as a student or even when I last visited. Many buildings that did exist when I attended there have been repurposed. It was quite disorienting. Clarke Chapel, the dorms I lived in, the student union center, the original academic center, and the old admissions building were the only buildings that felt familiar, but even those had been remodeled inside and repurposed such that they too were mostly unfamiliar. When I attended we had one quad at the center of the campus. Now there is an upper and a lower quad!
I did not feel sad that things had changed; growth is good. Until we got to the small corner of the grounds where I spent 90% of my time, I just did not feel "at home". Once I stood in front of the Student Union building, things felt comfortable and familiar.
Out of the 330 or so students in our class, about 28 attended the reunion. As attendees, we were somewhat dismayed at the low attendance. However, we were told by the administration that our numbers were on a par with other classes celebrating 50 years. Interestingly, the current graduation class had about 100 or so students - considerably less than when I attended. The school is looking to expand to include new majors as well as introducing a master's program as a way to attract more students.
Clark and I took oodles of pictures, and if anyone is interesting in viewing them, they can be seen at Lycoming 50 Year Reunion.
On the home front, it seems like every time we turn around something needs to be repaired. Even Clark's guitar had to go to the guitar hospital for major surgery on its frets. That took several weeks to come back home. The house is constantly making demands on our time, and of course the boat is a constant source of items to include in Clark's "to do" list.
I decided to take a break from chores and spend an afternoon with my acrylic paint. I looked through my hundreds of boating pictures and found two that I "joined together" to produce the one shown below. The original background scene had a seagull instead of a pelican.
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| New hole in boat! (Tiny hole to bottom left of access hole is drain hole.) |
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| Access panel covered |
Meanwhile, he did major repair on the salon. I do not have a "before" picture where the panel was hanging down. We had to clean out old sealant and heavily apply glue to re-stick the panel.
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| Headliner pushed back up in place |
Unfortunately, the repair was still obvious with a slight bow to the panel, so Clark decided to add trim to provide support for the panel and camouflage the work done on it. Clark found a lumber store where we could buy cherry wood trim, brought it home, cut it to size, and screwed it in place. We stained the trim with cherry stain and polyurethane sealant before installation.
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| Using screws for easy removal if needed in future |
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| Trim installed - starboard side (Clark shown in mirror installing port side) |
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| Finished work - port side |
One can only hope that the leak will not reappear, but Clark is ready if it does!
5 -6 June 2026
Ever since we got home at the beginning of May, we have been trying to find a day where we could get to see our Connecticut grandchildren. With the kids still in school and soccer / sports every weekend, finding time has been difficult. Finally, an opportunity presented itself for us to at least see our son, Chris, and his son, Jack, for an overnight visit. Chris attended a friend's baby shower near Philadelphia and left Jack for us to enjoy while he was away.
Jack was ready with a full agenda of things he wanted to do while visiting us. At the top of his list was a dinghy ride with Papa Clark.
When they left for their outing, Chris was still here, so I stayed home and we chatted for a while before Chris took off for Philly. Besides the dinghy ride, Jack spent time with Clark playing tunes on our piano. He's getting good at playing "Happy Birthday to You". Jack played with Clark coaching! Next, it was my turn. Jack wanted to paint. When I offered watercolor, he was aghast. "I want acrylic paint!" Like Nana like Jack, I prefer acrylic as well. We did a painting together.
I pulled up pictures of Pokémon on my iPad for him to look through. Of course he picked out the most difficult one of all. To expedite the process, I printed out the picture onto paper and then, using carbon paper, I traced the picture onto the canvas. So the carbon would not leave trace evidence in the paint, I sprayed the canvas with hairspray (a trick I learned in an art class), let it dry, and voila we were ready to paint. He painted the characters. I filled in afterwards with the background as he did not like them "floating" in the air with no land to stand on!
Jack had one more item on his "to do" list - play games. Very quickly, we agreed on playing Skip-Bo, and we even got Papa Clark, who never plays games, to join us!
Of course the day flew by. We agreed with Chris beforehand that we would drive north to meet him on his way back to Connecticut to grab dinner together and hand over Jack. We picked a pizza restaurant that had highly-rated reviews online. After a quick look at their menu, that did not match the one online, we decided to relocate to "Olive Garden" nearby where we enjoyed a very filling dinner before we parted ways.
7 June 2026
Clark and I celebrated 46 years of marriage today. We kept it simple - church in the morning, followed by lunch at a favorite restaurant, "The Turning Point" in Little Silver, a rest to let the food digest, and finished off with a bike ride to Carvel for ice cream. Perfect day!
8 June 2026 - Boat Maintenance Run
Clark finally received a part he needed to repair a leak in the exhaust hose on the port engine. He said it was hard to get the old one off and the new one on, but he got the job done. Of course with a repair like that, he wanted to take the boat out afterwards to make sure the repair was successful. Given that, we put on our jackets (chilly wind today) and went for a maintenance run over to Sea Bright and past Monmouth Beach and back home again.
Day markers for Pleasure Bay and the entrance to our creek are still missing after this winter's bad weather, so it is a bit tricky navigating around the shoals in the area. We have been aiming for near high tide for our travels to give us more depth when we go out.
Clark checked the engine a couple of times while we were out and again when we got to dock and said everything looked good, i.e. no leaks.
Meanwhile, the paving-stone stairway in our backyard going down to the dock has eroded to the point of being extremely dangerous. The wooden "railroad ties" have rotted through and, in some cases, collapsed. I have been timid about using the steps for fear of a tie collapsing under me and twisting / breaking an ankle!
Repair for this was discussed two summers ago. Major boat repair / costs got in the way. Then, ridiculous estimates for repair work were collected last summer. $38,000 to repair the steps and redo the bulkhead that did not need replacing! Finally, this summer we got a recommendation from a neighbor, a much more reasonable estimate, and repair work has begun! First step, tear out the old, rotted timbers.
9 June 2026
Clark's lab partner from college is having some health issues, so we took a field trip today to go visit her in the Philadelphia area. Google Maps guided through some pretty sketchy sections of Philly suburbs to get to her place. We spent a few hours visiting and then left to make our way back home. My navigation skills were severely challenged as we tried to override Google's default directions. After going in circles for a while, we finally made our way to route 76 and our way out of town. Phew!
A fill up of around 11 gallons of gas cost us about $44 when we got near home. That's better than whoever was at the pump before us as their tab showed over $110!
