Social Distance Connections

Uncle Irvin was a hermit - I never met him. He lived in the woods in Canada. I have his beaver hat - it fits. You see how stylish it is in the picture below. He died in his late eighties, probably with a smile on his face. My dad retrieved the hat at Irvin’s life’s end, over forty years ago. Other than my daily touch with my dear multi-generational home family, I feel like a hermit, especially now with Covid-19.

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Birch Bowl

I have a personal (usually) retreat on our land. I call it the Birch Bowl - a natural perch for a Adirondack chair , ground-covered with Vermont clover, surrounded by gray birch, and with site-lines to the Green Mountain foothills. I love it - a little Irvin in the genes, I suspect.

I have warm feelings when I think about Patty and a couple of my dad’s brothers. She connected - a special gift she has - with the old men.

Patty was about twenty - before we engaged. She was working at Glenlake Sanatarium. One evening, looking down the hall, she spots the future me, a half century out. She asked, who’s that? He looks like my boyfriend is going to look. They said: that is Alfie…. Alfie SIPE. Who knew? - I didn’t.

I was unaware of Alfie’s existence - even though my oldest siblings knew - they were young when middle-aged Alfie lived with the family. My parents committed Alfie to the sanatarium (that’s another story). Alfie didn’t talk (even though there was no medical reason he couldn’t) while in the sanatarium - at all, ever. And, he slep with his eyes open and head off the pillow - suspended. Like no one else, Patty got him to smile and had an eye to eye connection. She would sneak up to his bed during night-shift to see if she could catch him with his eye’s closed and head down - she never caught him out of character.

Ted, my dad’s oldest brother, close to ninety at the time, would call Patty, just to talk - maybe it was because of her connection with Alfie. Or maybe it was because she listened - she cared.