Two days ago, I fell into a manhole. I never saw it coming but it must have seen me because as soon as my foot hit the unsecured cover, it opened wide its maw and in I tumbled. Stunned, shocked, scared: “My leg!” I screamed; I thought one was broken, maybe both. My torso lay above ground, my legs were suspended below. The pain was intense but I managed to pull my lower half out of the hole and waited for the bees to stop stinging me. I turned my head and saw a face I didn’t recognize—an African-American man with a beard and wearing a red flannel shirt was kneeling next to me. He had soft brown eyes, a quiet voice, a calm, reassuring presence. “Did you hit your head? Is your back ok? Can you move?” he asked. I thought I could so he helped me roll over, then gently helped me to my feet. I leaned into him, our eyes locked. I could stand; my legs could bear my weight. For the first time that morning, but not for the last, I thought to myself, “There are angels among us.”

I was surrounded by friends: kind, worried, solicitous. “Should I call 911?” “Should we call an ambulance?” “Notify the police.”  I could feel blood running down both legs and now those bees were really starting to sting but I was pretty sure nothing was broken. I felt faint but the good Samaritan in the red flannel shirt was gone. I remember looking around and seeing him in a car across the street with his family watching me. I gave him a thumbs up and whispered thank you before he drove away. I never saw him again.

We had been visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Rehoboth and my wife helped me hobble back to their home. She had me stand in a bathtub and helped me remove my pants, socks, and shoes. There were multiple messy cuts and abrasions as well as a large hematoma above my left shin. Gently, she hosed my legs with warm water and I watched ribbons of blood snake away down the drain. I took deep breaths. The bees really started to sting again when she poured hydrogen peroxide on my wounds. She gently daubed them clean, slathered on an antiseptic ointment, and wrapped them in gauze. I wasn’t scared anymore and for the second time that day, I knew there were angels among us.

There were a few people waiting in the ER when I limped in. I told the duty nurse that I had fallen into a manhole. She looked at me for a long moment, then asked for my name and date of birth. I fumbled in my wallet for insurance cards but she didn’t need them, just my driver’s license. She fixed a band around my wrist and told me to take a seat. It was just another Sunday in the ER but I thought I glimpsed another one of the angels among us.

When you’re in pain, waiting is hard, but pretty soon, another nurse called me into the triage room and checked my vital signs. She laughed when I told her I had fallen into a manhole, but she was both amazed and sympathetic. She made me feel better, even laugh. One more angel among us.

Some more waiting, but then I was admitted to a bay in the ER. A doctor came in, weary but gentle and kind. He helped undress me and gave a low whistle when he saw the extent of my wounds. He asked me to wiggle my toes and smiled when I could. He examined the large hematoma over my tibia and ordered a precautionary X-Ray. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he said, “but let’s make sure.” He was optimistic and he made my wife and me feel the same way. Yet another angel among us.

A technician with a portable X-Ray machine appeared and took four images of my left leg. She was gentle and professional. She told us the doctor would be able to read the X-Ray in three minutes and wished me well. I could tell she meant it and then she disappeared, one more angel among us.

In a blink, the doctor was back with us. The X-Ray was negative. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me I would be fine. He would send in a nurse to clean and redress the wounds and give me a tetanus shot “just to be safe.” Before he left to see another patient, we thanked him. He said it was his third Sunday shift in a row, but that was fine. Next week, he was taking his family to visit Japan. 

Another nurse came in right away and began to clean and disinfect my wounds, She was impressed by my wife’s field ministrations. Her name was Jillian and she was a happy young woman who knew what she was doing. When she was finished, she rolled me onto my side and administered a tetanus shot in my behind. “There,” she said. “You’re free to go.” Another angel among us.

I was stiff and sore, too banged up for a long drive back to the Eastern Shore so we changed plans and returned to my brother and sister-in-law’s home. They were happy to have us back. I rested for an hour, then joined family and friends for dinner, leg iced and elevated, and oh-so-grateful to be whole and surrounded by people who loved me. A whole band of angels.

Our nation is divided, angry, scared, and confused. We seem to have fallen into a manhole. But believe me: there are scores of angels among us.

Yesterday was Veterans Day. I woke up thankful for all the sacrifices made on our behalf by all the veteran angels among us.

There are a million angels among us. Sometimes, you just have to fall into a manhole to see them.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

And just like that, the tall ships are gone. Sails are furled; masts are stepped. For three dazzlingly crisp November days, we imagined ourselves back in a time when canvas, wind, and tide ruled the world. We danced to different rhythms then but now we reach for our smart phones and snap another image while yearning for simpler truths. Sorry, friends, that genie is out of the bottle and long gone.

Still, this Downrigging Weekend, coming right on the heels of Halloween and First Friday, was a superb spectacle. There were the tall ships, of course, with their sails billowing, their spider webs of lines weaving precise order out of what appears to be rope havoc, their captain’s cries and canon salutes echoing down the river. This year, there was also endless bluegrass music, plenty of good food and drink, a new marina and a refurbished riverfront restaurant—promising signs of hope and renewal in a friendly little town working hard to stem the modern flood tide pushing hard against its shore.

The weather certainly played its part to perfection. Yes, the temperature dropped thirty degrees in twenty-four hours but the sun and wind that came in on the coattails of the cold front let us see ourselves in clearer light. Details came into sharp focus. Up at our house, we lit the first fire pit of the season and I can’t tell you how many people walking by thanked us for the sweet aroma of woodsmoke wafting down Cannon Street. We bundled up as fall came home in all its autumnal glory; friends gathered on the porch morning, noon, and night—talking, laughing, sipping and eating. It’s a lovely town to visit but it’s oh-so-good to belong here.

Here’s the thing: Downrigging doesn’t just remind us of the way things were; it also helps us to see things the way they are. Today is Election Day in our town and we’ll be voting on our future: financing the new marina, debating the fate of the police department, helping small businesses thrive, improving schools, repairing streets, assessing taxes. The lines of a small town life are as complex and vital as a tall ship’s rigging. What lines do we haul and tighten? Which ones do we slacken? For every give, a get; for every loss, a gain. We tack and tack again, slow but steady progress into the wind.

One by one, they slip away with the tide: Kalmar Nyckel, Virginia, Lady Maryland, Lynx, The Pride of Baltimore, Sigsbee, until only nimble little Sultana is left to undress for winter. Seeing them depart, I admit to something like weary happiness tempered with relief—the same feeling I get when the party’s over and it’s time to clean up and go to bed. I like to replay the events of the weekend in my mind: the faces of friends, the smell of the fire, the ballet of the tall ships on parade. If there’s even a hint of Monday sadness, it passes quickly because I know those ships aren’t gone forever. They’ll be back next year because a lot of good people work hard to keep their dream alive.

I’m grateful; I daresay we all are. Thank you: volunteers, event staff, Sultana, and our tall friends.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

It’s that time of year when Mother Nature’s palette shifts from soft summer hues of blue and green to dazzling autumnal shades of scarlet and saffron. We admire her handiwork, then rake up her mess. There is a crispness in the air that soothes the senses; the heat and humidity of summer is a distant memory, the bitter cold of winter lies in wait. We drift lazy as smoke through an in-between time carried along by a wind that rustles the brittle brown corn stalks and the off-key music of hungry geese busily gleaning the stubble in the fields.

It’s that time of year when we turn back history’s clock to watch tall ships come sailing up the river, graceful reminders of a time when wind and tide and canvas ruled the world. It’s also that time of year when we turn back our bedside clocks to gain an extra hour of Sunday sleep. I don’t know about you but that first day of five o’clock darkness sends an unwelcome shock to the circadian rhythm of my body clock.

It’s that time of year when majestic full moons have evocative names like Harvest Moon, Hunter’s Moon, Moon of Falling Leaves.

It’s that time of year when kids turn into dinosaurs or storm troopers or fairy princesses. That time of year when jack-o’-lanterns glow on porches, ghosts flit through the trees, witches stir their cauldrons and skeletons rattle their ivory bones.

It’s that time of year when everything’s in play: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. If you’re lucky enough to have a dog in the World Series fight, you’re short on sleep and mesmerized by two teams chasing history. One of these two will elevate an entire city to dizzying heights, the other will break hearts.

It’s that time of year when fires crackle and woodsmoke scents the air. That time of year when the sun is low and shadows are long.
It’s that time of year when we turn over the closet. When long pants replace shorts, sweaters replace t-shirts, socks and boots replace flip-flops. Scarves, gloves, and hats wait anxiously in the wings.

For Shakespeare, it is “That time of year thou mayest in me behold/When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang/Upon those boughs which shake against the cold…” For Rilke, it is that time of year when “It is time, Lord, to let the great summer go/Lay your long shadow on the sundials/And over the harvest piles let the winds blow.” For Keats, it is “the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”

It is that time of year when abundance collides with melancholy, when the promise of youth and growth succumbs to mourning and the inevitability of old age. That time of year when what was alive and awake goes to sleep, sometimes forever.

It’s that time of year when we retreat to wait out the gathering darkness; when we take stock of what’s in the larder; when we patch the chinks and repair the breaks. It’s that time of year when we make preparations for what we know is coming.

And you know what else? It’s that time of year I love the most.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

I try to stay above the fray in these Musings—honestly I do—but sometimes I just can’t help myself. When I watch a public unraveling the likes of which none of us have seen before, I just can’t pretend that it’s business as usual. So (spoiler alert!) as much as I’d like to write about kinder, gentler subjects—two sweet kids in a sunny meadow, for example—I’m compelled to go down in that hollow and explore the cloudy world below.

The spectrum describing recent Presidential behavior runs the gamut from “childish and impulsive” (at best) to “insane and downright dangerous” (at worst). That leaves adjectives like “deranged” or “unhinged” somewhere in the middle. Subversion of legitimate foreign policy goals to serve domestic political agenda: we got it! Corrupt practices in direct defiance of the Constitution: we got that, too. Impulsive and ill-informed decisions that betray our allies and cost innocent people their lives: check. Boorish, vulgar, petulant, and vindictive behavior that sets a new low bar with each passing day: so what else is new?

It’s clear to me: whether by impeachment and conviction or by ballot, this President must be removed from office. His gang of thieves, too. The stakes are too high, the risks too great to pretend otherwise. This is not about overturning the election of 2016; this is about saving our country from madness and ineptitude. As much as I wish it were otherwise, it’s simply not possible to stay above this fray.

When a fabric frays, it unravels or becomes worn at the edges, usually as a result of constant rubbing or friction. Fraying ultimately leads to breakage and we’re now at that sorry point. And the fabric in question is not the stuff of clothing. It’s the very fabric of our society that’s at risk and when the tear finally comes—as it surely will—how will we hold ourselves together? We’ll need a seamstress or tailor of exceptional skill to repair this rupture. “Who?” you ask. I have no idea. I wish I did.

This much I do know: the sidelines are no longer an acceptable vantage point. Each one of us must choose a side and I’m under no illusion that many of us, some friends included, will choose the side of chaos. Their choice worries me as much, if not more, than the chaos itself. I can understand why some people feel disenfranchised or threatened by the profound changes happening within our society. What I cannot fathom, however, is why these same people are not dissuaded by blatant corruption and moral turpitude—actions or behavior that so clearly violate acceptable societal norms. There is something at work here that defies rational understanding. If someone can explain it to me, please do.

Down in the vale, the clouds hang low and heavy but up on top of the hill where it’s always sunny and bright, there is hope. I would rather be up there watching the little ones run about, not unconcerned or oblivious to real problems down below, but at least not drenched by this daily deluge of malfeasance and corruption. Believe me when I tell you that I would much rather remain above the fray, but for now we’re all lost down in the fog.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Over here on the Eastern Shore, stranded as we are between the ocean and the bay and suspended just a few feet above sea level, we tend to pay attention to weather phenomena. That said, the recent high tides around the Delmarva seem to have caught most of us by surprise. In retrospect, I guess we can blame them on the marriage of October’s Hunter Moon (no relation to Hunter Biden, thank God!) and Tropical Storm Melissa (no relation to Ms. McGlynn as far as I know)—a one-two punch that produced quite a diluvial effect, not quite of Biblical proportion, mind you, but impressive nonetheless.

Over there, across that awful bridge that’s as clogged these days as Bernie Sanders’ arteries, other storms are raging, albeit man-made, not natural, ones. While we’re not immune from these tempestuous events, they seem slightly at a remove when our docks are underwater, our basements are flooded, and our socks are wet. But they aren’t.

John Donne, in his unmatched and infinite wisdom, knew full-well that “no man is an island entire of itself; we are indeed each a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” So true; like it or not, we’re bound to the God-awful mess on the other side of the bay just as we are to the real-time human tragedies unfolding in lands far beyond as well. That’s the way this world is now; isolationism is a worn-out trope of the past.

But I promised my wife and editor that I would not be a prophet of doom and gloom, that I would stick to the higher, drier ground of light Musing. So I will. I have to admit that I was enthralled by the recent high tides. Maybe they were providing us with a glimpse of things to come, a window into the future of our climate-change world…oh, sorry, there I go again.

OK; now I’ll just stick to the facts. How ironic is it that Iffy couldn’t go out on his boat because his dock was underwater? Or that Crumpet’s once-dry basement was now a lake? When in the ring with Mother Nature, all bets are off. If your money was on a full moon up in heaven and a tropical storm far out to sea creating havoc down here on the Eastern Shore, then you were a winner. Ignore the old girl at your peril; she still packs a wallop. Just ask our friends in Tokyo. (They are still our friends, aren’t they?)

The tide isn’t high just over here. It’s on the rise everywhere and contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s not floating all the boats in the harbor. A few yachts may be rising but most of the smaller boats are, in fact, sinking fast. As for me, just when I think I’m cocooned and immune from the rollercoaster of the daily news cycle over there that’s spinning like another tropical storm, I’m once-again reminded of Donne’s elegiac humanism: “I am involved in mankind.” That bell you hear? Don’t send to know for whom it’s tolling. It’s tolling for all of us.

There I go again.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

I know quite a few people—good, honest, hard-working, thirsty people—who have come to appreciate a local phenomenon known as “the Landskroener pour.” It’s nothing more than an exercise in common sense, albeit one that innocently challenged an industrial norm by asking one simple question: what do we mean when we ask for a glass of wine? Let me explain…

One evening, Theodore (call him Ted) Landskroener was having dinner out at the country club. As was (is) his wont, he ordered a glass of wine with his dinner.  (Interruption: “What? I don’t know what he ordered, meat or fish; it doesn’t matter!”) Anyway… (Second interruption: “I don’t know. Red or white. What difference does it make? I’m trying to tell a story here!”) So the server takes Mr. Landskroener’s order and a few minutes later, returns with his glass of wine. The server sets it down on the table and turns to leave. Mr. Landskroener says, “Excuse me. I ordered a glass of wine. Not a half glass of wine. Take this back and bring me a glass of wine.” 

There might have followed an explanation about a standard pour, some scientific or mathematical, normative, quantity-oriented explanation centered around the time-honored premise that in a restaurant or bar, the standard measure for a glass of wine is precisely 190 milliliters which is five ounces, or about one-fifth of a bottle of wine. Or that there is more glass than wine to allow the wine to breath (something wine plainly does not do!) and for the person drinking the wine, the pleasure of savoring its aroma before consuming it. As I said, such an explanation MIGHT have happened, but of course it didn’t. The server took one look at Mr. Landskroener’s purple face, picked up the half-full glass in front of him, and whisked it away. Moments later, she..(Interruption. “I think it was a ‘she.’ It really doesn’t matter. A ‘server’ is a gender-neutral term…I don’t know why we don’t use ‘waiter’ or ‘waitress’ anymore. We just say ‘server.’ That’s the way it is now and anyway, IT DOESN’T MATTER!”)

Anyway, as I was saying, or trying to say, the SERVER returned moments later with a new glass of wine for Mr. Landskroener, this one filled to the brim—and I mean the brim!—with wine. She/he set it front of Mr. Landskroener, careful not to spill a drop, and headed for the hills. Mr. Landskroener, for his part, took a moment to admire the physics of surface tension at work, then carefully raised glass to lip and took history’s first recored sip of a “Landskroener pour.” Ahhh…Finally, a glass of wine truly worthy of its name!

It takes courage to challenge deeply-held beliefs, norms that the rest of us sheep mildly accept as conventional wisdom or, worse, just as the way things are and ever-will-be. Maybe if we ordered a cup of coffee and the server returned with half a cup, we would have revolted long ago. Or maybe we’re lacking a spine. We’ve been waiting for someone, maybe a contemporary Oliver Twist, to challenge the establishment with a “Please, Sir, I want some more!” but then a revolution could hardly begin over something as mundane as a bowl of thin gruel. It had to begin with something more romantic, more like the proverbial nectar of the gods, something like…wine.

So you see, in the end, it took just one brave man—mild-mannered, unassuming (Interruption: loud SNICKER!) Ted Landskroener—to stand on the Concord (Grape) Bridge and fire that shot heard ‘round the world, the one that created an oenophile’s very own Big Bang theory. The once revolutionary notion that a glass of wine isn’t a glass of wine until it’s a full glass of wine has now been firmly established at almost every watering hole and establishment in town. So next time, when you ask for a glass of wine, just (politely) tell the server (Yes! S-E-R-V-E-R!) you want a Landskroener pour and he/she will know exactly what you mean.

Cheers!

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015.  A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” was released in June 2018.  Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com