Merry Christmas 2024!

It’s a good time to be alive!  The second time I caught COVID, it almost earned me a suite in Forest Lawn.  My last bout -- two months ago –- was more like a medium-bad cold.  And, for the first time, Debbie and I caught COVID together, displaying a familial solidarity heretofore unenjoyed in the exciting world of virus production.  But she got over it in about a day, whereas I suffered for another long week.  Now I know why.  I stumbled across a podcast that explained everything.  “There are only two ethnicities that seem to possess some natural degree of immunity to COVID -- namely, the Chinese and the Ashkenazic Jews.”  As it happens, my wife is part Ashkenazic Jew, from her mom’s side.  COVID didn’t even phase her.  Hitler would disapprove.

I like to travel, but Debbie doesn’t.  So, sometimes I travel without her. ☹  Three big trips this year.  I’ve known my buddy Kurt since eighth grade.  We played together in the Warwick High School band back in the late ‘60s, and both of us attended Penn State.  Kurt had a terrific career as a flight instructor for the Air Force and a Delta airline pilot.  Kurt and his wife Patty own a wonderful little slice of paradise on Florida’s west coast.  Kurt majored in civil engineering and has the patience to perform most any construction work needed at his property.  My cousin Jim and I flew down to visit him last March and stayed at a lovely bed & breakfast right on the water.  We tried fishing from the pier, but enjoyed only modest success.  The best part was watching a large fish breech about thirty yards from our pier.  When a large fish breeches, it means there are even larger fish trying to eat him.  Or aquatic mammals.  A couple of seconds later, a ginormous dolphin swam by our pier.  Catalog that under, “Things You Don’t See Every Day.”

In November, Jim and I took another trip to Kentucky’s bourbon country, traveling in Jim’s Tesla.  The scenery is incredible, looks like God’s own country.  Did you know that, in Kentucky, Bourbon County is “dry” and Christian County is “wet”?  Prohibition leftovers.  We stayed the night in Lexington, also known as “Party Central.”  Block after block of wonderful bars and restaurants and lots of people having a good time.  Well, I could live there.  I wasn’t about to pass up a nice shot of Weller’s Bourbon, even at $20.  Keeping one’s principles is important.  The next day, we visited three distilleries, including Buffalo Trace, The Old Taylor Distillery Company, and Woodford Reserve.  At Taylor, the main attraction was the surrounding beauty -- hills, forests, and mountain streams.  At Buffalo Trace and Woodford Reserve, we picked up some, uh, souvenirs.  We also drove to Louisville, but it was so rainy and dreary, we spent all our time in the Mussel and Burger Bar.  Burgers are great, but mussels?  Tiny clams with a dank aftertaste.  But the drinks were good.  Another wonderful shot of Weller’s! 😊

Jim’s Tesla, by the way, is a remarkable feat of engineering.  My favorite part was the information display in the middle of the dash, showing precisely where your car is situated within the context of the other vehicles surrounding you.  This display makes the blind-spot monitor on our own sanctified Lexus RX350 seem like it was discovered in an ancient Hittite dig.

My buddy Steve McLaughlan and I traveled up to Boston back in... I can’t remember precisely.  September?  October?  That’s a solid eleven-hour drive.  I was on the hunt for another bass trombone -- a 1976-made Holton TR180, a bone that I was hoping would blend well in a big band trombone section.  By “blend”, of course, I mean overpower and conquer.  Steve helped me navigate the soul-swallowing traffic patterns that radiate more than a hundred miles in every direction from New York City.  If the United States were an old man, I-95 in New York City is where traffic and constipation form an unholy alliance.  Most of Boston’s shock value is financial.  My VISA card blanched in horror at all the charges for lodging, parking, and eating.  Boston is the home of the modestly-named shop called “Virtuosity Music Instruments.”  They had advertised a bass trombone that I thought just might just fit my requirements.  Steve is a musician, too (sax and clarinet) and served as my second pair of ears.  He and the music store folks were great.  I bought the Holton.  It needed a few minor technical changes, but Debbie says it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever made on trombone.  Wow.  Impressing her with a bass trombone is not easy.

Debbie and I are both getting over a particularly nasty cold right this second.  Life since ten days ago has been like having a team of little elven millwrights turn our heads into highly-productive snot factories.  That hasn’t stopped me from playing a bunch of trombone gigs, but I can’t be sure how my music colleagues felt about all the viral sound effects.  I haven’t been this busy since our Omaha days.  I played more than a dozen concerts with the Tidewater Winds, plus a solo in church.  Debbie seems to have found the right balance with her lung condition treatments, which have enabled her to keep playing flute.  She also loves giving lessons to the younger string and flute students at our church.

We’re poised to wait out the unpleasantly chilly Virginia Beach winter, which is less about snow than having frigid, blowing rain.  Nor’easters are climate’s little hemorrhoids, designed not to freeze you, but to make your entire body pucker.

But, without all the distractions that good weather portends, we are perfectly situated to remember what the birth of the King means to us all.  The Son of God, even knowing the depravity of our sins, willingly took our place, suffering our punishment, and died on the cross for our sake.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!