You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, I told you about an encounter I had with a man sitting on a bench. He asked me for two dollars. I didn’t have any cash so we just talked pleasantly for several minutes before I had to move on. Later, when I went to select an image to accompany my article, I chose a painting entitled “Man on a Bench” by Horace Pippin, an African-American artist whose body of work was greatly influenced by the issues of slavery and segregation. Easy enough, but when I did a little additional research on Mr. Pippin, I found this image—a self portrait currently on display at the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia—among other examples of his work. That was when things got a little weird because this was undoubtedly the man I met on the bench. The only problem was that Horace Pippin died in 1946.

So now I find myself in the middle of a ghost story which is uncharted territory for me. I think I can believe in ghosts—restless souls still among us long after their mortal coil is gone—but I’m uncertain about the messages they bear. My encounter with this gentleman didn’t feel like a haunting and his presence was certainly corporal; I know because I patted his very solid shoulder. Moreover, he wasn’t cold as some people have described when they have encounter an apparition. I don’t even know what message Mr. Pippin had for me, other than to make me contemplate the existence of spirits, benign or otherwise. It’s a mystery.

Or maybe I can believe in something like a wrinkle in time when some oddity in the time-space continuum imposes a surprise sequence of events that falls outside our ordered understanding of reality. In his Theory of Relativity, Einstein proposed that matter can “bend” the fabric of space and time, making a shadow universe physically possible. I’ll be the first to admit that this falls way beyond my ken, but if time wrinkles are good enough for Professor Einstein, they’re good enough for me.

There is, of course, a third possibility. The man I met was not Mr. Pippin or his shade; he was just one of the legion of panhandlers who inhabit any big city and he happened to bear a passing resemblance to Mr. Pippin’s self-portrait. He needed two dollars to buy something unsavory, although I’m not sure much that is savory or unsavory can be purchased for two dollars these days. I assert that option here because it’s a plausible explanation for what occurred but I don’t really subscribe to that theory. It just didn’t feel like a shakedown. Plus, this was no mere “passing resemblance;” this was Horace Pippin’s self-portrait animated.

Anyway, since my initial meeting with Mr. Pippin (or perhaps his doppelgänger), I’ve returned several times to the site of that encounter hoping to reinitiate contact. So far, no luck. But I realize that since that day, I’ve been continually walking around with a third eye open on the off chance that Mr. Pippin is walking around looking for me because I failed to get his message the first time around. Do you think I’m crazy? I don’t, but then again, I’m biased. I assume sanity to be my starting point, but beyond that, all bets are off.

So let’s just imagine for a moment that I did encounter Horace Pippin (or his shade) on that bench two weeks ago and that there is some lesson still to be learned from the encounter. Maybe it has something to do with inflation. During the Great Depression, a displaced soul might have asked to borrow a dime, but today that dime certainly wouldn’t buy a cup of coffee. (Can a ghost even drink coffee?) Or was our conversation a manifestation of the possibility of connecting with someone from another time or world? That thought appeals to me; I would love to meet my seven-times-great grandfather who emigrated from Scotland back in the 18th Century, or, for that matter, any of my ancestors who could shed light on people and events that made me who I am today. I realize that sounds a bit egocentric, but whose shadow would you choose to encounter on a bench someday?

Think about it. Meanwhile, I’ll keep returning to the spot of my encounter with Horace Pippin. You just never know.

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

Our porch swing gave up the ghost over the weekend. I like to think it had a long and happy life. Once, it must have graced someone’s porch up county for a decade or two before my wife eyed it in a little antique shop nearly eight years ago. Despite its shabby chic condition, it was love at first sight; the only problem was the shop was closed. I stole away the next day and bought it to surprise her. When I returned home with it, you would have thought I had brought her the holy grail.

That swing was the little grace note that floated above the score of our porch and animated it. On spring evenings, summer days, or autumn mornings; with a good book, a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine; that sweet little swing held my wife in the palm of its gentle hand. Her feet just brushed the floor as she read or needlepointed, talked on her phone, or engaged a passerby in light conversation. It kept her secrets, comforted her pain, and amplified her laughter. She might share it with a friend for a moment or two, but make no mistake: it was her realm. No one else ever looked quite right there.

It was a common enough piece of porch furniture: all slats and screws and eye hooks and chains with a worn, grey patina and an occasional little squeak that a drop of WD40 would silence like morning fog. Over the years, it had seen a few close calls but with yet another infusion of cash and careful attention from handy friends, it would recover and begin again thanks to some new hardware or brace or fresh coat of paint. Like an old grandfather clock, it marked the hours of our days and the seasons of our years so when the deathblow finally came with a loud crack under the bottom of a large friend last Friday evening, time came to a crashing stop. The next morning in better light, a cursory examination revealed the deadly fault. I called the swing doctor and held my breath.

He came right away to examine the patient. He probed and poked and scowled. Like the surgeon who trudges down the dim hospital hallway with bad news for the waiting family, he shook his head. “I could fix it…again,” he said, “but the wood’s all soft and rotted. I think it’s time for a new swing.” My wife looked at me. I looked at the swing doctor. “You sure?” I said. He just nodded.

Life, as always, must go on. We mourned then we measured and set out on a Saturday pilgrimage. At our first stop, there was a potential candidate but the color wasn’t right and then another choice but the shape was all wrong. We weren’t going to settle for just any old swing; we were determined to find the perfect new swing. It was a beautiful September day and neither my wife nor I could contemplate her not having a new perch by nightfall. “Call Backyard Billie,” I suggested.

You may not know Backyard Billie. It’s not a person, it’s a place, the Shangri-la of outdoor furniture. It may not have much in the way of antique charm, but it has nearly everything else: Adirondack chairs, patio sets, a chaise for lounging by the pool, if you happen to have a pool. If there were a new porch swing anywhere in the nearby vicinity—and not all that ‘nearby,’ mind you—Backyard Billie is where it would be. My wife called and explained the object of our desire. I just listened. “You do?” she said into the phone, hope surging back into her voice like the tide. “Can you text me a picture?” We waited several minutes. Her phone dinged. “Let’s go!” she said.

We had already begun to consider our two options: wood was less expensive but resin lasts forever and with minimal maintenance, to boot. No garish colors, just basic white. Height of back and depth of seat were important factors: it had to fit her like comfortable shoes. That’s a tall order for a short girl but we were optimistic. We had seen a candle burning in the darkness.

I won’t bore you with the details. Or with the cost. The most important news is that we have a new swing, one that will likely outlast us and the probably the next generation, too. Even the swing doctor—a wood purist—admired it. It fills the old space perfectly. It gleams white; even the new chains glisten. Its most important feature, however, is that it looks and feels like it was built for a queen, my queen, the queen of the front porch.

We gently set the old swing, chains and all, on the curb with a sign saying “Free to a good home.” By morning, it was gone.

The swing is dead. Long live the swing!

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 like to be sure about whatever I’m undertaking at any given moment, but that’s not always possible. Sometimes hope supersedes certainty and I’m forced to live in the shady belief that I’m on the right course. But doubt can come creeping in, sometimes crippling in its effect. A plan stalls; I start over…

It wasn’t always like this. Back in February of 1306, one of my forebears, Roger de Kirkpatrick, was with Robert Bruce when he (the Bruce) arranged to meet with John Comyn, his principal rival to the Scottish throne, at Greyfriars Abbey in Dumfriesshire in southern Scotland. Bruce and Comyn got into a quarrel in front of the high altar and in the heat of the moment, Bruce stabbed Comyn, a grievous enough act anywhere but blasphemous under the circumstances. Bruce fled the scene, telling his henchmen who were waiting outside what he had done. But then he added, “I don’t know if I killed him!” to which Kirkpatrick replied (in good Scots), “I mak siccar!” Kirkpatrick went back inside the church, found Comyn bleeding but still alive, and finished the job. For this act of cruel certainty, Kirkpatrick was given a shield and crest with a hand holding a dagger dripping blood under the motto I Mak Siccar—I make sure.

So when I tell you I would like to be sure about whatever I’m undertaking at any given moment, pay attention: you know where I’m coming from, or at least from whence I came. Certainty is buried deep in my DNA. The problem, of course, is that murder in a house of God notwithstanding, certainty is a hard commodity to come by these days when every morning we waken to another incredulous news cycle. Mexico will pay for the wall. Tariffs aren’t going to cost Americans anything. I am the Chosen One. Today is Tuesday so I think I’ll buy Greenland.

So how does one discern certainty—the quality of being reliably true—at a time when fanciful lying has been raised to a Presidential art form? Where is the proof? Sure; there are ombudsmen and fact-checkers among us but who is checking their facts? If we’re left to rely solely on our own senses, how do we make sure that our receptors are functioning at full capacity and that what they’re receiving is untainted by even the faintest ghost of unintentional bias let alone fake news?

The problem with certainty—or more precisely, the lack of it—is that we are living in a constant state of dubious disbelief. Did that really happen? Did he really say that? What is that supposed to mean? Doubt is a desert; you can’t cross it without at least an occasional oasis of certainty. But a tiny speck of an oasis can be awfully difficult to find in a vast desert; absent a damn good map, a faint guiding star is the best we can hope for. I don’t know about you but I’m still looking for mine. In the meantime, I lurch from point-to-point, hoping things will change.

But back to the 14th Century and that church in Scotland. Kirkpatrick has dispatched Comyn but apparently that’s not good enough. Bruce needs proof. That comes when another of Bruce’s men, Sir Robert Fleming, exits the church holding Comyn’s bloody severed head aloft exclaiming, “Let the Deed Shaw!” Now the Flemings have a crest and motto, too. 

You can be sure of it.

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

If you’re old enough to remember The Beverly Hillbillies, you’re probably old enough to forget them, too. But in case you either too young to know what I’m talking about or you need a quick refresher, The Beverly Hillbillies was a 60s television show about the Clampett family, Ozark hillbillies who struck oil and now living the high life in California. According to the show’s theme song which has been inexplicably stuck in my head for more than a week now, Jed Clampett, the widowed family patriarch, “was a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed,” until (so the song continues) “one day he was out shootin’ for some food when up from the ground came a bubblin’ crude. Black gold. Texas tea.”

That lousy shot makes Jed a millionaire and so he packs up three generations of his wacky extended family and moves them all to Beverly Hills. (“Swimming pools. Movie stars.”) It is the quintessential American Dream story—except that it isn’t. The American Dream, our national ethos, is the idealized notion that anyone’s highest goals and aspirations can be achieved if he/she just works hard enough. The problem is that in Jed’s case, it wasn’t hard work that got him and his kin to posh Beverly Hills; it was dumb luck. He missed the squirrel but hit the jackpot.

Today, the American Dream is a bit trickier to conceptualize, let alone achieve. It conjures up images of migrant families from Central America, refugees from the Middle East and Central Asia, apparently even people from Baltimore. The 99% clawing their long, slow way up toward the 1%. Pretty long odds, if you ask me. Maybe even unreachable, as far away from fulfillment  as Don Quixote’s unreachable star.

It was James Truslow Adams who first introduced us to the notion of an American Dream in his 1931 book, “The Epic of America.” In it, Adams wrote about “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Adams knew of what he wrote. His paternal grandfather had deep Virginia roots, but his father had been born in Caracas, Venezuela. (His paternal grandmother was of Basque descent.) If ancestry.com had existed back in Adams’ day, it would surely have shown his DNA to be a bit of this and that—like most of us. But unlike many of us, Adams was lucky. He came from families of considerable means so his road to Dreamland was paved if not with gold, then at least with some pretty smooth macadam. So smooth, in fact, that it took Adams to a Pulitzer Prize in 1921—pretty impressive for a Venezuelan-born historian and freelance writer. 

Adams believed the engine of the American Dream was education: from vocational training to the liberal arts and the classics and everything in between. Education was the quintessential American antidote to the rigidity of the European class-based model. To Adams, a willingness to work hard and to acquire knowledge could equip anyone with wings to rise and to be sure, we can still see instances of that today. But we also see something else: people struggling, falling behind, people for whom the dream is fading, even becoming a nightmare. 

I wonder what Mr. Adams would think of today’s version of the American Dream. How would he accommodate all those seeking asylum at the border, all those tired, poor souls yearning to breath free who are wading the Rio Grande instead of sailing into New York harbor?  Mr. Adams died in 1949—more than a decade before the Clampetts moved to Beverly Hills or, for that matter, before the Jeffersons (another TV family) started moving on up from Queens to Manhattan. Would he be inclusive and share his American Dream with them, too? Or would his American Dream be exclusive—whiter, angrier, more prone to violence?

What about yours?

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

If you’re a faithful reader—as most of you are—you’ll remember that last week, I was off to bed on the early side. This week—as you might imagine—I’m early to rise. I’m talking bird early; farmer early; sometimes even rooster early. Cock-a-doodle-do!

Call me a crazy lark but I always savor the first few moments of a new day: the stillness; the anticipation; the coffee. Most pre-dawn mornings, you’ll find me in my porch rocker, waiting for the sky to lighten, the birds to sing, and that coffee to perk. I admit that on some of those mornings I still dream and drool about a fresh almond croissant or one of Mistress McGlynn’s bacon-and-cheddar scones, but most days I’ve learned to make do with a healthier bowl of my yogurt, blueberries, sliced peaches, and granola concoction. Sigh.

Over here on the Right-hand Shore, dawn doesn’t come sweepin’ down the plain like the wind in “Oklahoma!” It doesn’t even creep in on little cats’ feet like Chicago fog. There’s very little fanfare, almost no crescendo; the soundtrack to our dawn is more like Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” than it is to Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” An Eastern Shore dawn just gently illuminates the day, bringing with it a daily dose of hope and the anticipation of another twenty-four hours in our little corner of paradise. And for a few minutes, I feel like it’s mine alone.

Aristotle was an early riser. So was Ben Franklin. And we all know about that fat early bird that catches the worm—not that I’m likely to be competing with said bird for worms any time soon. But I’ll admit to a certain feeling of moral superiority knowing that I’m up and at ‘em while everyone else in the house, down the street, and across town are still slumbering. But let me not judge. Feel free to roll over and catch another forty winks while I knock off another chapter in the next great American novel or hop on my bike and set off on a twenty-mile ride. OK; perhaps that last part is fake news; even if the body really were willing, the flesh is, alas, tilting to the weaker side these days.

I’m not sure how I came by this early diurnal habit, but it has become a comfortable old friend. The first hours of the day are likely to be among my most productive, although the social 5 o’clock cocktail hour often comes in a close second. I relish my early morning solitude—that first jolt of hot joe along with all those unvarnished thoughts that flow from my previous night’s dreams like boats gliding downstream on a falling tide.

My early morning routine is a lightly toasted everything bagel schmeared with peace, gratitude, and hopeful anticipation. It’s fresh, not sullied by any to-do list or incongruent thoughts or even any overnight inflammatory rhetoric from the Mad Tweeter. Oh, I’ll eventually get around to letting the hurly-burly of the world in, but for a few still moments, I’m content to stay in my own slow lane and watch the world wake up one more time.

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 love to go to bed. At the end of the day, there’s nothing like that lie-down moment: the sheets are cool and fresh, my spine gratefully relaxes, there’s a good book handy, and it’s almost dark outside. That’s what I said: ‘almost dark.’ I’m as far as you can get from a night owl; 9 o’clock is late enough for me and 10 o’clock is way past my bed time; Midnight? I’ve always wondered what it’s like that late at night. Is it darker?

I vaguely remember a time when I would rendezvous with Johnny Carson but that was years ago. College, maybe. These days, I can usually make it past Jeopardy! but after that, all bets are off. Try as I might, I just can’t resist the call of high thread-count Egyptian cotton and a down pillow. You’re thinking I should be embarrassed to confess this; I think you’re just jealous that I’m getting a good eight hours…and then some.

I feel like I’m in good company—not literally, of course—when I retire early. Ben Franklin nodded off before dark, at least when he wasn’t flying his kite in a thunder-and-lightening storm. Farmers are notorious early-to-bedders, but then they have to be up before that infamous crack of dawn. I just happen to believe that when day is done and it’s time for Taps, why wait for the inevitable? So go get a good night’s sleep! You’re only going to get cranky if you stay up late or you’ll drink too much and feel terrible come morning. You’re better off counting sheep.

Or reading a good book. There’s just something so right about getting horizontal and getting back to where I left off about this time last night. If I’m really enjoying the book I’m reading, I can usually knock off at least a dozen pages before I realize I’m rereading the paragraph I just read, but most nights, a dozen pages feel more like sloughing through “War and Peace.” But that’s ok; my book is patient and will be ready and waiting for me tomorrow night.

I admit there is one problem with retiring early: on occasion, I encounter that dreaded 3 o’clock moment when I’m wide awake and the rest of the world isn’t. When that happens, I think about turning on the light and reconnecting with my book, but then I remember that I’m sharing the bed with my light-sleeping wife who probably just fell asleep a few minutes ago. That’s when I’m caught between the urge to rise and go elsewhere and the comfort of snuggling up to this lovely creature who keeps me warm on even the coldest nights. You can imagine which one of those two roads I travel.

So now you know: don’t call, text, or email me past eight pm. The phone is either off or on do-not-disturb. Whatever it is you want, it will have to wait ’til morning. But feel free to leave a message. I’ll get back to you bright and early—you’ll still be snoring when I’m on my second cup of coffee.

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