When your surname is like mine—it literally means “Patrick’s church”—people tend to assume you’re Irish. To be charitable, they’re probably half right. It’s likely that a generation or two of my ancestors did pass through Ulster on their way to America from Scotland, part of a subset of Scots who sought a new start in a new world…but that was a long time ago.

Unless you’re a direct descendant of Chingachgook, we all came here from somewhere else. Some of us arrived voluntarily, some of us were indentured, and some of us were bound in chains. Like it or not, immigration, whether chosen or forced, is the underlying theme of the American story, and like all good stories, it is still being revised and rewritten today. Nothing is ever truly finished.

Nevertheless, I still think about my own immigration story a lot. Not so much about the ancestor who arrived here in 1763, but about what he left behind. What finally drove him to sail away from everything he knew, the people and place of his birth? Was he headed to a new place or running away from a haunted old place? The distinction was probably important at the time, but it doesn’t much matter now. For better or for worse, we’re here to stay.

These days, my own little family’s migrations are smaller, not nearly so bold. I moved away from my hometown and eventually came to rest in a new place that I love not all that far away. My children have travelled farther: one to Colorado, the other to California. They made new starts in the same country, hardly the stuff of legend, but important nonetheless. Migrations are as much about establishing identity and independence as they are about flight or survival or capture. Motive matters.

In the current political climate, immigration has became a hot-button topic. While I understand the reasons for that, I rue the debate because it obscures something profoundly important in the human condition. We all want a better life. We all want to be safe and secure, to be able to provide for our loved ones, and to realize our dreams. But in today’s world, immigration implies more about threat, privation, and competition for what are perceived to be limited resources. I suppose those narrative themes have always been a part of the immigration story, but now they seem to be driving it over a cliff onto the scree below. What once made us who we are and bound us together, now threatens to drive us apart.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. I know it’s something of a faux holiday here—in Ireland it’s hardly celebrated at all—but it’s noteworthy nevertheless. For a few hours, some of us will don something green and celebrate the old cuttings that have grown new shoots in this fertile soil. There are similar celebratory days for other cultures: Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, Hanukkah, Eid, Diwali and more: each a savory dish in America’s multicultural feast. So come in, sit down, and make yourself at home. There’s plenty for all.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

Life is transient; life is fragile. I often wonder what is on the other side. Maybe someday I’ll know. Or maybe I won’t.

This past year, death has been too much with us. So much loss. While Covid-19 has claimed its unfair share of victims, that terrible viral infection hasn’t been the only culprit. We, the living, bear the burden of remembering our loved ones. The manner of their death is important, but so is their legacy—how they live on through us.

I’ve been thinking about this because in the last few months, we’ve lost several friends and family members: my sister, the father of a dear friend, two more family members, the husband and brother of another friend, and just last week, my wife’s brother. Only one was taken by Covid, but all are gone nonetheless. And suddenly, too. Death arrived unbidden on our doorstep, came in and made itself brazenly unwelcome in our home, leaving nearly overwhelming grief in its dark wake.

I don’t believe life ends in oblivion; it certainly doesn’t end like that for those of us left behind. Back in 1968, Blood, Sweat & Tears covered a Laura Nyro song that included this lyric: “I can swear there ain’t no heaven, but I pray there ain’t no hell.” Maybe so, but in my mind, there is a midway point between the extremes—a place of crossing over, some sort of bridge spanning the void that lies between the consciousness of this world and the great unknown on the other side.

In the film “Field of Dreams,” Terrence Mann, the JD Salinger-like character portrayed by James Earl Jones, is invited by the ghostly baseball teams playing in an Iowa cornfield to come with them to the mysterious place beyond the outfield. At first, he is both reluctant and intrigued, but eventually, with a little coaxing from Shoeless Joe Jackson, he walks out across the green grass of life toward the limit of Ray Kinsella’s field. Tentatively, he reaches into the tall corn that borders the diamond, only to draw back his hand in wonder. He takes a deep breath, then steps in and gives one last wistful look back before setting off down the rows, fading away as he goes, leaving behind only the music of the stalks rustling in the wind. I’ve always liked that scene; it may be Hollywood’s overly romantic answer to the imponderable question of death but it’s comforting nonetheless.

The last lines of that aforementioned Laura Nyro song go like this: “And when I die, and when I’m dead, dead and gone, there’ll be one child born and the world will carry on. Carry on.” In the months to come, there is likely still more grief to come but there’s also hope. I find a fair measure of comfort in the belief that our pain, intense as it may be in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s death, will ease over time and life will return to something akin to normal. It is our lot to remember all those who have crossed over the bridge and to carry on.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

 

The geese had been gathering for several days: huge flocks assembling, sheltering together in the fields, gossiping, gleaning, making preparations for their long journey back to the Canadian tundra. Suddenly, sensing the celestial clockwork of the season, they lifted off early in the evening of the full Snow Moon (February 27 this year), using its bright light as a beacon to guide them on their northbound way.

Meanwhile, to the south, the flyways are full of ospreys making their way back to their summer nests on our rivers and Bay. My bet is that within the next few days, we’ll have had the first annual sighting of these soaring beauties, keening on high as they fish for dinner.

And then there are the tiny luminescent hummingbirds. They, too, are making their way north, having left their winter feeding grounds in Central America to wend their way through Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas before arriving in mid-April at the feeders in our gardens and backyards.

Oh; and let’s not forget one more airborne journey: monarch butterflies—the only migrating species of butterfly—are flitting north, more than half a million of them returning to the places where they were born, repopulating as they go. (The lifespan of a monarch butterfly is only a few weeks so it takes several generations to complete the complete migratory cycle.) This year, the East Coast population of monarchs began their northward migration from Mexico on February 24 and by summer, God willing, their lovely stained-glass wings will again be folding and unfolding here.

Spring is literally in the air. Depending on your personal perspectives and preferences, all this vernal avian movement is either a divine mystery or just another explicable, rational fact. Take your pick. Either way, it’s a fascinating display of the wonders of the natural world—the one that surrounds us, the one we so desperately need to care for.

And therein lies the problem. You see, there’s something else in the air, something colorless, tasteless, and odorless; something invisible, silent, and, sad to say, dangerous. It’s carbon dioxide (CO2), a naturally formed trace gas consisting of a single carbon atom covalently bonded to two oxygen atoms. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is about .04%, or 412 parts per million. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s a higher level of atmospheric carbon dioxide than at any other time in the past 300 million years of our planet’s history, and it’s accelerating at an alarming rate.

Unless you are a true non-believer, paleoclimatology is not for the faint of heart; it’s a sobering science that seeks to explain life on Earth as a function of climate. I don’t pretend to understand all its scientific nuance, but this much I do understand: as the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere increases, so does Earth’s temperature. And because we live on such a capricious planet, even a small increase in temperature can have profound environmental consequences. Ice will melt, seas will rise, and weather phenomena will become evermore virulent.

In the pre-industrial age, the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was about half of what it is today. While there are many natural sources of carbon dioxide—volcanoes, geysers, even groundwater—there are many more human-derived sources, primarily fossil fuel emissions and deforestation, the two leading causes of global warming and ocean acidification. The evidence of cataclysmic change is already before our eyes and it’s not a pretty sight. Earth’s warning lights are flashing bright red.

All this may seem a long way from where I began, but it’s not. The great avian migrations that have signaled the coming of spring for millennia may seem like a timeless component of the rhythm of life on earth, but the patterns and numbers of these migrations are changing rapidly. Loss of habitat, competition for resources, pesticide use, and rising temperatures are having a major impact on these wondrous events, perhaps forever changing our previously simplistic notion that, once again, spring is in the air.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

 

 

 

I think it’s safe to say that most of us are ready to move on from winter. This last round of snow and ice has left me walking gingerly along the path toward spring, muttering to myself about that nasty polar vortex that descended on us from our supposed friends up above the arctic circle. “Bah humbug,” I recently told one of my winter-loving pals who can’t get enough of the white stuff. “Show me some green!”

But between you and me, the truth is, winter’s chill showcases our world in crisp, clear light. Summer has its subtleties of light and shadow but winter tells it like it is. It’s the most mathematical of seasons: we measure snowfall in inches; we count degrees on the thermometer; we plow long, straight lines along our roadways to keep us in our proper lanes. In summer, we may choose to wander through leafy glades, but come winter, we go from point A to point B as fast as we dare. Pythagoras would be proud!

Wait a minute…who? Pythagoras, that’s who, the ancient Greek philosopher whose school of thought influenced the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. High schoolers know him best for his eponymous theorem that teaches us that a2 + b2 = c2 but that bit of mathematical wizardry is almost an afterthought in his legacy. Before he turned to triangles, Pythagoras postulated the lovely notion of musica universalis—the doctrine that the planets move in accordance with mathematical equations that produce an inaudible symphony known as the music of the spheres. And if that’s not impressive enough, Pythagoras is also credited with introducing mankind to metempsychosis—the transmigration of souls—the belief that holds that all souls are immortal and when one body dies, its soul enters into a new body. It should also be noted here that Pythagoras was a vegetarian, a lifestyle that might explain many of his revolutionary ideas. Come to think of it, that’s not unlike my own vegetarian friend, Eggman.

Anyway, all this was certainly not on my mind as I drove down a little-used county road a few weeks ago and came upon a starkly beautiful winter scene—a tidy farm, all angles and shapes and colors that seemed to float above one of its snow-clad field. It seemed the very manifestation of winter geometry: pin-neat, measurable, defined—the kind of solvable equation that would have captured old Pythagoras’ estimable attention. In summer, the farmhouse and its outbuildings might well have been obscured by tall stalks of corn, but on that cold, clear day, that farm’s plentiful potential was revealed in all its latent glory. That’s winter’s way: it distills an object or a scene down to its base essence. Nothing is hidden, everything’s in plain sight. What you see in winter is what you get.

A few weeks from now, all this snow and ice will be gone and that barren field will be plowed, seeded, and reset to life. That is as it should be, but for now, here on winter’s cusp, I’m reminded that even in paucity, there’s beauty and bounty…if only we are willing to see it.

I bet Pythagoras would agree.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.

On May 23, 1618, three Catholic officials were tossed out of a top-floor window in Hradčany Castle by an angry mob of Bohemian Protestant activists. Such defenestrations—the act of throwing someone out of a window—had actually happened twice before, but this particular incident became the catalyst for the Thirty Years War, Europe’s bloodiest conflict. All matter of plunder and pillage ensued: nobles and common citizens were tortured and executed, their heads impaled on iron stakes and hung from a bridge near Prague’s central square. By the time thirty years of bloodshed finally ceased, more than 8 million people lay dead, some from wounds suffered in battle, but millions more from famine and disease.

At the risk of diving into the shallow waters of partisan politics and breaking my own neck, I’ve decided to devote this Musing to the defenestration of reason that recently took place in Washington. Another impeachment trial has now concluded and while no one was tossed out of a Capitol window, an angry mob and the individual who incited it literally got away with murder. When fifteen Republican Senators—supposedly impartial jurors in this trial—decided to absent themselves from their Constitutional responsibilities and another handful of GOP Senators deemed it appropriate to consult with defense counsel, the outcome of this impeachment trial became a forgone conclusion. When all was said and done, the defendant in the case was acquitted for an unprecedented second time and a new series of events of potentially disastrous consequences was likely set in motion as a result of lickspittle Senatorial cowardice. As someone once tweeted before that social media plug was pulled, “Sad!”

It is unfathomable to me that so many of us simply refuse to accept reason. Facts, science, truth, the results of a free and fair election—all denied and tossed out the window. Apparently, there is another compelling reality, some parallel universe, of which I’m not aware. In that realm, the rule of law is supplanted by hypocrisy and hate, and the blind eyes of the elders and their devoted mob refuse to see the bodies that are falling from the sky. Remember that in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, many more innocent people died of hunger and disease—the social and economic pandemics of their time—than fell in battle. Today, we’ll be counting the dead differently. These new casualties have fallen to a global pandemic, to racial injustice, to a devastated economy, and even to the deadly onslaught of climate change. And those among us who have chosen to defenestrate reason don’t give a fig.

Strangely enough, even though the three officials who were defenestrated in Prague in 1618 fell more than seventy feet, they all survived. The Catholics who were present said the three were saved by angels; the Protestants who witnessed the same event said the three all landed in a steaming dung heap. Either way, they were lucky to survive, but the eight million folk who didn’t survive the defenestration’s aftermath weren’t so fortunate. They paid the price for the folly of an angry mob.

I fear we’re seeing history repeat itself. Again.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

 

 

I have a couple of friends who are gung-ho on snow but I have an ambivalent relationship with the white stuff. Sure, it’s pretty and yes, it does create a lovely hush over all the world. Kids, of course, still pray for a snow day to release them from the tedium of school and I even confess that when I was teaching for a living, I did, too. I admit that snow can be fun: dogs love to romp in it, pandas can’t resist a good downhill slide on it, snowmen couldn’t exist without it, and what skier isn’t thrilled to make new tracks in fresh powder? Snow even has a rhapsodic quality: who can forget Julie Andrews singing about all those snowflakes that stayed on her nose and eyelashes and all those silver white winters melting into spring—these were a few of her favorite things and I don’t disagree.

But there’s another side—a darker side—to snow. The shoveling of it, the skidding on it, the muck and mess of it. A day or two into a big snow storm and the charm of all that whiteness begins to wear on me. By the third day, I get restless. I go out to the golf course to take a walk and that shimmering white expanse taunts me: no golf for you for at least another week or two. You thought winter was over? Sorry, sucker. That groundhog knew what he was talking about.

Some of us never lose our childish delight in snow. I admire those types but I’m not one of them. I’m fine on the first day of a good snowfall but soon enough, I begin to itch and twitch, the first symptoms of cabin fever. A good book can divert me for an hour or two but there’s a limit to page-turning. I turn on the television and maybe I get lucky and find a golf tournament that transports me to Hawaii or California or Arizona or Florida—anywhere where snow is the last thing on anybody’s mind. But one peek out the window and I’m thrown back into that pile of snow in front of the house, up to my neck in endless winter, dubious of the promise of spring.

Don’t get me wrong. I still can get vicarious pleasure out of watching the grandkids bundle up and head out to the sledding hill, probably all the more because I don’t have to be the one to take them out in the cold. I’ve earned the right to stay home in front of the fire and enjoy the welcome quiet of a suddenly empty house. But by the time the kids return, cherry-cheeked, runny-nosed, and missing a mitten, it will be my job to drop a chocolate bomb in a cup of warm milk and hear all about their eskimo adventures.

In his poem “The Snowman,” Wallace Stevens reminds us of a simple truth: “One must have a mind of winter.” Maybe I do, but only up to a point. Whereas others may dream of yet another foot or two of the white stuff, about this time of year, I begin to look for signs of spring: the first little green shoots that poke their heads up through the snow in my neighbor’s yard, all those geese gleaning the fields in anticipation of their long flight north, the afternoon light that stretches just a little longer each day.

Snow is winter’s fine handwriting. While I appreciate its message, I find myself waiting for a postcard from my old friend spring. But I’ve learned that until it arrives, you just never know so I’ll keep my snow shovel handy…just in case.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Last week, we got a gilding of snow, just enough to leave a skim coat of white on the ground that served to mark my passage to the shed in the backyard. But more on that later…

Buildings have footprints. So does Bigfoot. Even carbon has a footprint these days. Robinson Crusoe found Friday by following his footprints in the sand.  Footprints are but the ephemeral impressions left on a soft surface like sand or snow, or on a concept like time or the environment. Unlike fingerprints which can serve to identify individuality, footprints are generally anonymous. I find a fingerprint and with a microscope and a little forensic training, I can tell you whose hand has been in the cookie jar; I see a footprint and I wonder who has passed this way before. Fingerprints can lead us to certainty while footprints retain an air of mystery, unless, of course, you’re one of those canny, old-time trackers on the trail of an outlaw or a wounded buffalo in a John Ford western.

Footprints are all around us. If you think about it, even time leaves a footprint: the rings that count the seasons of a tree, the carbon-dating of an artifact, the wrinkles that come with our own advancing years. These are the footprints of our lives, the ones that help us remember all that we’ve done and all that we’ve left undone. And if, God forbid, we should ever lose our way in this world, it’s the footprints of our lives that can help us retrace our steps and find our way back home.

I’m thinking about footprints today because this Musing is my 260th consecutive weekly offering. If you do the math, you’ll see that 260 weeks adds up to five years. So, with your permission, I’m bending my arm to pat myself on my back for five years of writing about the world in which I live, the place I’ve come to call home, the people that I love. Like my footprints in last week’s dusting of snow, these Musings mark my way through the landscape of my life and while I probably won’t get lost going to the shed out back, my footprints will always lead me back to my own doorstep. 

Five years in, there are some people I want to thank: Dave Wheelan, publisher of The Spy newspapers, who gambled on me five years ago when I first posited that a flock of northbound geese were much better prognosticators of spring than a grumpy old groundhog in his burrow up on Gobblers Knob; Jim Dissette, who helped me collect over a hundred of these Musings and turned them into two lovely little books; my friends who simply smiled when I wrote about their exploits on the golf course or about their businesses in town; to readers who have encouraged me with kind comments in print or in the checkout line at the grocery store; and, of course, to the wee wife who is always the first reader of my early drafts and the person whose footprints I would follow anywhere. My muse.

Musings are my happy disciplines. One of the questions I’m asked most often is “How do you come up with something to write about week-after-week?” It’s a fair question, one that I’m not sure I can truthfully answer. Maybe someday the well will run dry, but so far, these footprints of my mind not only follow me on my own journey, but they also push me forward along the path to wherever it is I’m going.

Today’s forecast is calling for snow, maybe even a lot of it. Think I’ll go take a walk… 

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

Sometimes an old language gives us a new word. In this case, that old language is Scots Gaelic and the new word is Dualchas.

It’s not an easy word to define in English. Certainly, dualchas contains the notion of patriotism and patrimony but it transcends those concepts. Implicit in the notion of dualchas is love of one’s history and culture, even the landforms of one’s beloved homeland. I’m saying the word  now because it is the word that best describes my emotional response to the inauguration of our new President and Vice President. Yes, I felt hope and a tremendous sense of relief in our new reality, but more than that, I felt a renewal of my own American dualchas.

Two weeks to the day after an insurrection almost destroyed the U.S. Capitol and all it stands for, there was a powerful display of American resilience and our unshakeable resolve to preserve our democratic institutions. A new President and Vice President were inaugurated, two calm and steady individuals committed to the healing of our nation, not to personal gain. There were moving performances: Lady Gaga’s rendition of the National Anthem; firefighter Andrea Hall’s eloquent voice and hands leading the Pledge of Allegiance; Jennifer Lopez’s vocal tribute to Woody Guthrie and the common bonds of his song, “This Land”; and Garth Brooks’ a cappella version of Amazing Grace. But the person who stole the show was a self-described “skinny black girl” named Amanda Gorman, whose poetry and elegant gestures moved me to tears. (The memory of it still does.) Somehow, this young woman captured the essence of my own American dualchas in her graceful and mesmerizing poem, “The Hill We Climb.” Somehow, she was able to finally make America great again in stanzas that flowed with rap-like rhythm and rhyme, stanzas that were devoid of anger yet full of the promise of the nation we can still become. Ms. Gorman is a joyful young-but-old soul and if she ever decides to fulfill her promise and run for President some day, she’ll have my vote, even if it’s from heaven.

We have come through a difficult and trying time. We’re not through it yet by any means. There is still a pandemic stalking the globe, still terrible economic pain for millions of Americans, still the legacy of racial injustice, still a climate in crisis. President Biden—doesn’t that sound wonderful!—refers to these concurrent challenges as “cascading crises” and he is not wrong. Still, I finally feel hope because there are competent hands on the wheels of government again, men and women fueled by dedication to the common good and not by petty vindictiveness or self-aggrandizement. This concept of the common good is another implicit element in the notion of dualchas because it implies a superseding love of country founded on the notion that all people are indeed created equal and that it is possible to love one’s neighbor as one’s self.

Centuries ago, in the mountains and glens of Scotland, on the banks of its rivers and lochs, in its cities and towns and villages, people understood what dualchas meant, even if they did not always practice it. There were long-standing feuds, cattle reeving, religious strife, deadly uprisings, petty jealousies and rivalries. But beneath those divisions, there was an underlying sense of unity and common purpose that held a tenuous country together. The word those Scots used to define their strong and loving identification to a place needs to find its way back into common usage here, today, from sea to shining sea.

Say it with me: Dualchas.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

The path led us straight east into the rising sun. It was a frigid January morning and although we did not know it at the time, we would encounter all four seasons of weather within the next few hours. This was the second day of our hike on the Fife Coastal Path, a meandering journey along Scotland’s North Sea coastline.

The details of that journey have been previously recounted. In a nutshell, my friend Robert and I had planned a trek of about 25 miles through picturesque fishing villages, over rugged beaches and even through a farmer’s boggy cow pasture. It was a leisurely ramble but one with a deadline. I had to be back to St. Andrews University by three pm on the second day to attend a meeting and we still had miles to go.

The details of our walk are fading in the midst of my memory but one image still stands out clearly. It’s a segment of path, running straight and true toward a new day, the sun just breaking over the horizon. We had slept well the previous night and this new day dawning beckoned to us like an old friend. New days can be be like that, full of hope and promise. On the other side of that same coin is the letting go of things past: the mistakes, the failures, the broken promises and the hard lessons learned. New days bring new opportunities, new possibilities. The future is built on the past, one new day at a time.

Obviously, there is a point to this: tomorrow is America’s new day, the first day of a new year in the life of our nation. I am filled with hope and cautious optimism. At the same time, I am not blind to the enormous challenges that lie in wait along our path: a terrible pandemic, a deep internal divide, centuries of injustice. There they lie, stones in the road to our future. They can bring us a screeching halt or we can work together to heave them out of the way. It’s our choice.

We are on the cusp of greatness or despair. There can be healing or fresh, new wounds. There is either a new day dawning or the continuation of an endless night. No doubt there are some who will choose the darkness but I’m betting that more will embrace the dawn.

The last leg of our journey back to St. Andrews was not easy. I got lost for a while and had to retrace a mile or two of my steps. The cows in farmer Logan’s field were less than hospitable. The time grew short; I feared I would miss my meeting. But then we crested a hill and there below us was St. Andrews Bay and just beyond, the “auld grey toon” itself. We picked up our pace and as I turned down the lane than ran to my house overlooking the North Sea, I knew I had just enough time to put on fresh clothes and hurry over to my meeting.

When I got to the university, I told my host what I had done. He looked at me, thunderstruck. “You even mucked through Logan’s field? Never liked that man or his cows, for that matter.” And that was that. We moved on.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

Last week, while our nation was spiraling down toward chaos, we lost a precious man. Actually, Alex Trebek had left us several weeks ago but through the magic of television, he had remained with us like a ghostly dividend of kindness and decency at a time when those essential human commodities seemed in exceedingly short supply. 

I did not know Alex Trebek, but I felt (I suspect like many of you) I did. For many years, he had been a welcome guest in our home despite the fact he always seemed to show up right around suppertime. He had been the host of Jeopardy! since 1984, presiding over that iconic show for more than 8,000 episodes, a mind-bending run of longevity in a medium characterized by gnat-like attention spans and dominated by jaded viewers “what-have-you-done for-me-lately” mindset. Alex would be the last person ever to brag, but he won seven Emmy Awards for his hosting ability, which was likely the natural offshoot of his modest and charming persona. Over the years, he rose to become a one-man electronic Mt. Rushmore, the face of intelligent television—I know; that’s almost an oxymoron—yet he never came across as a dilettante or a know-it-all. Like all good teachers, he made learning fun by allowing his viewers to challenge their recall and to unlock and assemble their own puzzles.

Alex was a celebrity who never seemed comfortable with that status. He was kind, sincere, uncomplicated, decent, resilient, and unequivocally brave in the face of a dreadful disease. He was a handsome man, sober in dress and temperament. Born in Canada (he became a naturalized American citizen in 1988), Alex had a wonderfully understated sense of humor and a twinkle in his eye. Through no fault or ambition of his own, he achieved one-name status—think Cher, Sting, Serena—with just a little bit extra. Johnny Gilbert, Jeopardy!’s long-time announcer, always introduced him as Alexxx, before adding the surname ‘Trebek’ almost as an afterthought. 

Jeopardy! was unique: a television show with an appealing format and a personable quiz-show host who already knew all the answers; all we had to do was ask the right questions. It was entertaining, informative, and, dare I say, fun. I have aging friends who watch Jeopardy! to keep their minds sharp and young friends who enjoy its competitive challenge. I’ve even caught myself yelling at contestants when I know the correct answer and they don’t. (It happens occasionally.)  Alex would surely have frowned at such a display of poor sportsmanship.

Ken Jennings, a former Jeopardy! champion who holds the record for the longest winning streak (74 games) in the history of the show, will succeed Alex, for now as a “guest host.” He certainly will not replace him; I doubt anyone ever will. Mr. Jennings, who is lightening quick and highly intelligent, seems nice enough, but (in my opinion) he’s a bit smug. Still, I wish him well. However, as to whether or not he’ll have an open-ended dinner invitation in our house, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Last week, Alex walked off the set for the last time. As was his custom, his departure was both sweet and self-effacing. He gave a humble little wave and murmured his signature “So Long!” as he turned and walked backstage. I like to think he now knows the answer to the ultimate Final Jeopardy question, the one that awaits us all in the end.

All too often, the public persona of an individual doesn’t seem to align with what we discover about his/her private doppelgänger. By all accounts, the Alex we saw on television was, in fact, the real and true Alex. These days, perhaps more than ever, we don’t need heroes as much as we need honest, decent people who understand that kindness, caring, and community matter profoundly. These were Alex’s watchwords. Now, they are his legacy.

So long, Alex. Fade to black.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com