Author Archives: caivon

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Today was the vote for the money for a new high school. Vote yes, and we get a nice, new, state-of-the-art building for a fraction of the total cost, thanks to state reimbursements; vote no, and we get to pay much more to keep the old school from falling down, all with our own dough. I love the old school, the way it looks, its Estes Kefauver High entrance & cafeteria, its bust of JFK, but it’s outdated, run down, and beyond saving.

We let Tom fill in the space between the fronts of the arrows and their backs on our ballots with a black marker, then slide them into the ballot-counting machine, registering 99 & 100, so that he could vote for the construction of his own high school.

I have voted in so many elections by now, even ones where folks were running unopposed, but I think I am more emotionally invested in this election than in any other in which I’ve voted. Funny what having kids will do to you.

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There are books that make me cry. Kids’ books. Books I read aloud to Tom. The crying part is usually at the end, which means I can manage to just struggle through, voice cracking, eyes spilling over, reaching the end just in time to pause to regain my composure. So far the major offenders are “The House at Pooh Corner” and “An Owl and Three Pussycats,” and “The Selfish Giant.”

So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing

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On the way to pick up T from preschool, I thought I saw a plane flying over the car, coming from the Turner’s Airport. But when I craned my neck to see, leaning forward to look up through the windshield, I saw it was a bald eagle. It was enormous & its head shone in the late afternoon sun. I’ve heard there is a pair at Barton’s Cove so it makes sense that I might see one.

Was it my sister who told me it’s good luck to see an unusual animal? I choose to believe it’s true.