This is what I saw in your eyes: Defiance. Intensity. Love.
Didn’t you know how strong you are? How powerful? In a burst of passion you would make your break to freedom and then graze blissfully along the shore as if nothing had ever happened out of the ordinary. What a pleasure to watch you run unbridled, feet pounding, earth shaking, grass flying.
I will never shape your words, or presume to finish your thoughts. I will only seek to understand who you are, and stand my ground in awe and wonder as you gallop nearer and nearer to me.
At the end of day, I will come to you with a handful of simple pleasures and lead you home. And it will be full of warmth and light and laughter and friends.
And you will always be free.
(Dave Clark, August 5, 2001)
Category Archives: Family
The First of August
Today is the Swiss National Holiday. I grew up celebrating this holiday at a family picnic hosted by the Swiss Home in Mount Kisco, NY.
The Swiss Home was a retirement home for elderly Swiss Nationals. As kids, my brothers, sister and I couldn’t have cared less about the inhabitants of the home. The attraction for us was to spend the day running amok with the offspring of other Swiss immigrants.
There was bratwurst to eat, a roulette game that was so exotic to us, a large bell on the hillside just daring us to ring it and a band playing the Swiss Landler music that our parents loved to dance to. Best of all, at dusk we walked in a “lampion” parade from the bottom of the property to the site at the top of the hill where a bonfire was lit. It was magical.
Tonight it is too hot for a bonfire, but I miss it all the same.
Luck o’ the Swiss
It’s St. Patrick’s Day. None of us here are Irish — as far we know, although Cammy’s full name is Cammy O’Rose so that might mean something.
Oddly enough for me, I am wearing green today. It wasn’t intentional. I always resented the pressure to wear green on March 17th when I was in school. I wonder if my high school had an unusually high percentage of Irish descendants.
Dave is not letting his lack of Irish ancestry get in the way of a good celebration and will be playing with the Gully Boys at Firestone’s this evening. They’ll be playing things like “Danny Boy” and “Cockles and Mussels,” as well as Grateful Dead songs and some originals.