September 8, 2026- We told Hana that it was important for us all to keep quiet, while a workman was doing a sonic test, in different parts of the downstairs. She was very careful to stay quiet, until she knew he was finished. Then she had all kinds of things to say about her lunch, of which she ate every bite.
Hana was surprisingly attentive to what he was saying. Most infants don’t attend very well to adults, other than their closest family members. She wants to at least hear what people are saying. It may stay in the back of her mind, until some day in the future, when she will recall hearing it somewhere. and put it to use. I’ve had that happen. She is also very much attached to certain books, my Baha’i prayer books among them. We spent about fifteen minutes, this morning, with my turning to random pages of “Baha’i Prayers”, and her looking at them with a fair intensity.
HANA’S NOTE- I feel happy when I hear Papa saying prayers. I also want to make it easier for my Mommy and Daddy, so I don’t get into mischief, even when it seems like it would be fun.
YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-2022 I got less than a year with the Saturn Vue. It took me north and east to Massachusetts, and two visits with my mother, then to coastal Maine, and on to North Sydney, NS, and then from Channel-Port aux Basques, NL,on up to L’Anse aux Meadows, at Newfoundland’s northern tip, south and east to St. John’s, and back across to Nova Scotia, then clear to Mountaintop, PA. That is a town where my brother and his family once lived, and I felt a bit of nostalgia, having visited them there in the mid-1990s. When I was on my way out of Mountaintop, passing through its nearest southern neighbour, on the way to visit my niece and her family, I was stopped at a traffic light. BAM! A lady had fallen asleep at the wheel and rammed into the jeep behind me, which was then pushed into the Saturn. The light turned green and I led the way to a safe place for the three of us to stop and wait for the police. The jeep and the rearmost vehicle were attached at the bumper. The police officer looked at Saturn and said there was no damage to the exhaust or gas line, so I was free to go.
I continued on, to Exton, where my niece and her husband grilled some burgers and I relaxed for a time. I then went to Oley, where it was Dave Glick’s birthday (as well as Aram’s) and enjoyed a cake, coffee and conversation, then spent the night, as I often have. Next came a two-day stay in Crossville, TN at the home of friends Laureen and Chuck, followed by the State Capitol and Parthenon, in Nashville, a segment of Natchez Trace, from Nashville to Hohenwald, Once there, I found a pizza place open on that Sunday night, had a decent meal and went on to Florence and Muscle Shoals, AL. Mississippi, Louisiana and east Texas followed, without any indication of trouble. I spent three days with Aram and Yunhee, in Grapevine, and made the rest of my way to Prescott. Then I took Saturn to my regular auto body shop. It was pronounced totaled. Maybe it was the initial collision, or the wear and tear of a seemingly uneventful drive homeward-or maybe both. I turned the warhorse over to my insurance company, got a settlement with the PA woman’s insurance agent and bought KIA Sportage.
Some presences in life are rich, but fleeting. So it has been with all three of the Saturns I’ve owned.
