Guests at the Farm
09/26/2007
Back in August The Nancy and I had guests at our humble abode. The Nancy’s aunts, Sara and Connie, and Sara’s husband John spent two nights with us.
We welcome any chance to have company and to entertain them on the Farm. Mostly we like to show it off. Not that the house is anything special; it is, after all, a work in progress…very slow progress. The magic of the place is simply the benign, transformation everyone seems to undergo when they visit. There is almost an instant peacefulness that overtakes anyone who spends time at the Millennium Farm…it begins as soon as they turn off the hard-surface road onto the half-mile gravel drive to our house. It is truly magical. This time was no different.
The Nancy has almost as many aunts and uncles still living as I ever had. These days I have but one left (and that’s another story for another day). The Nancy’s favorite aunt, and this is me talking, is, hands down, her Aunt Connie. Aunt Connie is the kind of aunt we all would love to have had. Headstrong and adventurous and chocked full of stories, Aunt Connie left home at the tender age of eighteen and wondered off to the far reaches of the southwestern United States and a fairytale life as the wife of a career Air Force fighter pilot.
Aunt Sara and Uncle John came in from their longtime home in Texas. Sara is The Nancy’s youngest aunt, and not too much older than The Nancy, maybe six years or so. Both she and her husband are younger than me, but I still get to call them Uncle John and Aunt Sara, and you can bet your bottom I love that.
The three of them split their visit with us. They were at our house on a Friday evening, spent that Saturday in the Washington , DC area and came back to spend Sunday night at the Farm and visit with us, once again.
The really neat part of having these wonderful people share our little slice of heaven was watching how my wife interacted with them. The Nancy eyes were wide with wonderment as she and her aunts and uncle recounted their histories and that of the family. I was simply ecstatic as the three of them explored their genealogy – both present and past. The Nancy was taking it all in; her big smile indicated her enjoyment of the moment as Aunt Connie and Aunt Sara shared lots of neat stuff. It was equally as neat to watch her as she learned of family rascals and previously unshared family secrets, and she was admonished to never breathe a word of anything she heard. We now call her our own “Sgt. Schultz.” She knows nothing! What happens in Beautiful Downtown Berkeley Springs stays in Beautiful Downtown Berkeley Springs – that’s our motto.
Aunt Connie reminds me of my Aunt Mary, both in her mannerisms and her throw-caution-to-the-wind, my-way-or-not-at-all, carefree view of this journey we call life. My Aunt Mary passed away a few years ago and I really miss her wit and wisdom. Now I get to have a new Aunt Mary in Connie. I am feeling pretty lucky these days.
And that is all I have to say about that…