Breaking News From the Empty Nest

7/9/2017

One July 9, we were in Rome, right near the Via Veneto, with our three little children, one of whom had a birthday. My wife found a cake and some candles and borrowed the roof garden of the hotel for a little party.

My wife has taught the children a love of music and art and poetry and cooking and family. I taught them how to say, “Tre gelati, per favore,” so they could walk down the Via to an ice-cream stand and order their favorite flavor.

Today is Corinna V. Wilson’s birthday; her family is fussing over her in Pennsylvania.

I went out on the deck of our family home on Long Island and looked at the empty nest discreetly hidden on a branch. A few weeks ago, the nest held three blue eggs, guarded by the mother. Then there were three wide beaks, waiting for her to get back from our front lawn, where she had discovered a stash of meals.

For a few days, the three birds were flying at low altitude, watching their mother forage. Now they are full size, and they flit and feed and sing.

Happy Birthday.

Mendel

7/9/2017 02:32:57 pm

"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land."

Happy Birthday, Vecsey clan!

Wally Schwartz

7/9/2017 08:30:22 pm

Corinna and George,

Two birthdays within five days! May you enjoy many more with your wonderful flocks of admirers.

George Vecsey

7/9/2017 10:04:39 pm

The rabbi and the judge. What an honor. GV

Hillel Kuttler link

7/11/2017 01:19:51 am

Thoughts for the parents of an empty L.I. nest on a baby bird's birthday. A mango gelato for me, please.

7/12/2017 09:56:17 am

Shalom, Hillel:
Mille grazie.
GV

bruce

7/13/2017 06:26:16 pm

george,

congrats on your daughter's birthday.

i think my kids are getting so old that they might just catch me.

blue eggs meaning your guest is a robin?

as you know, i walk a lot. hearing birds signing many steps of the way makes me realize just how much i miss them during the winter months.

bruce

Alan Rubin link

7/16/2017 08:10:13 pm

George,

Having been a member of your blog since December 2011, I feel like I’m part of an extended family.

Empty nests are bittersweet. Parents have done their job well when their children have shown person growth, gained maturity and achieved independence. It continues to get better as the grandchildren also come into their own.

We are proud when they work hard to overcome obstacles and setbacks.

The grandchildren are either in college or preparing for the next step after high school.

The cute babies and rapidly developing adolescents are distant memories.

The down side is that we are mortal and our time will eventually run out.

The most powerful incentive for longevity is to be around when the grandchildren have also reached independence and have begun their part of the family cycle.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
"Among the things that have long fascinated people about Jesus and explain his enduring appeal is his method of dialogue and teaching. "He asked a lot of questions and told a lot of stories in the form of parables. In fact, parables form about a third of Jesus’ recorded teachings. The Gospels were written decades after he died, so his questions and parables clearly left a deep impression on those who bore testimony to him....
"Some of Jesus’ questions were rhetorical; others were meant to challenge or even provoke. In some cases, Jesus used questions to parry attacks by religious authorities who set traps for him. In others, he used questions to enter more fully into the lives of others and to help people look at the state of their hearts. He asked people about their fears and their faith. Jesus used questions to free a woman caught in adultery from condemnation and to inquire whether people considered him to be the Messiah. He probed deeply into questions not many had asked before him, like “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
---(Peter Wehner, long-time White House consultant and writer, in the NYT last week about Jesus Christ’s method of teaching by asking questions.)

"Would that I could mention all the illuminating details in this biography, for example, why Wells praised Black Americans so highly, saying, 'I took a mighty liking to these gentle, human, dark-skinned people,' and 'Whatever America has to show in heroic living today, I doubt if she can show anything finer than the quality of the resolve, the steadfast efforts hundreds of black and colored men are making today to live blamelessly, honorably and patiently, getting by themselves what scraps of refinement, beauty and learning they may, keeping their hold on a civilization they are grudged and denied.''
-- "How H.G. Wells Predicted the 20th Century," Charles Johnson, NYT Book Review, Nov. 19, 2021. ***".

...the monsters arrive."
"They come in a deafening, surging swarm, blasting from lawn to lawn and filling the air with the stench of gasoline and death. I would call them mechanical locusts, descending upon every patch of gold in the neighborhood the way the grasshoppers of old would arrive, in numbers so great they darkened the sky, to lay bare a cornfield in minutes. But that comparison is unfair to locusts.
"Grasshoppers belong here. Gasoline-powered leaf blowers are invaders, the most maddening of all the maddening, environment-destroying tools of the American lawn-care industry."

---The great Margaret Renkl, from Nashville, one of my favorite NYT bylines, Oct. 26, 2021.
(She describes our Long Island enclave to every decibel, every stink.)
lwww.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-california-emissions.html
---

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