I was shocked to hear today that Chad and Jeremy would be performing locally. Shocked that they were both still: a) living, b) performing together, and c) welcome in NH.

In probably 1966 Patty of the Cher-hair and I had sat stage right, front row in the u-shaped wrapping balcony of the Keene State College gymnasium, waiting impatiently through an interminably bad opening group, and boisterously joined the throng of stamping feet, whistles and catcalls for the main event. Finally Chad and Jeremy emerged. After three songs the President of the Student Senate rushed on stage and implored us to give them a big hand. Which was very confusing. Till we realized they were departing. And then we were told that one of them wasn't feeling very well. Stamping feet and catcalls returned as a drama unfolded backstage. The college refused to pay, citing breech of contract; and then there was some breaking of furniture.

I didn't see Patty after that. Dropped her off at home and never called back. We'd been out maybe three times, it might have looked from a passing bus that we'd be a good fit, but there was simply no spark. And even less maturity.

43 years later I'm hoping Patty is also still alive; and if she remembers me at all I'm hoping that she does not do so with the same glower that I reserve for Chad and Jeremy.

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Oh, but memory fails. And are we surprised? It was only designed to suggest possible locations of car keys; 43 years of personal dust bins is way out warranty. Never was Chad and Jeremy was it? Was Peter and Gordon (who maybe only had three songs).

Thanksgiving featured fourteen far flung friends from Vermont, Maine, New York and Massachusetts, as well as New Hampshire; stories from around the world. The old place was humming for a day and sweet stragglers graced our transition on Friday, but by Saturday the house had cleared out, leaving just the two of us, a bulging refrigerator, one groaning dishwasher, and simplified communications, as in: "So . . . pie?"

Whenever my daughter sees one of these warning signs she points a finger and says: "Ha! Whose idea of a child is that? Look at those muscles -- that's an Olympic athlete!"

But no, I say, those aren't the thighs of a long distance skater, that's just a stout child wearing the short, bulky britches favored by boys rolling hoops down Main Street at the turn of the 20th century, and he's got himself a nice warm sweater. (The right hand is, I confess, a bit troublesome; if he's not wearing a baseball glove this child must count lobsters in his ancestry.)

Whatever the case it's a waste of a good sign; with that 12 foot running stride, what's the chances of hitting one of the little buggers anyway?

Two ancient apple trees, run amok, canopy the addition on my house. On windy November nights they rake like skeletons across our second story bedroom roof.

When I was a boy they were proper little apple trees, stout stems with afros; and they enjoyed the luxury of an open field. On summer evenings, after the field was mowed, my brother and I would hit baseballs; many a ball was snatched from the low branches of that first apple tree. If you could hit a ball into the second apple tree it was an accomplishment indeed, you might be allowed to lean on the bat to admire it for a moment. And if you could throw a ball back from the second apple tree . . . well you couldn't throw a ball back from the second apple tree . . . but if you could have you'd have been superhuman. So we tried.

So here's the thing . . . when you decide that the 25 year old wood stove in the living room has become more threat than comfort, and then you sell it on eBay to someone with imagination, and you buy yourself a nice new stove, and when the new stove weighs 445 lbs., and you decide to spend money that you shouldn't to have a splendid section of Mexican wall tile installed, it's a reallyreally good idea to get the tiling completed before you have the stove delivered.

Someone in my work world, someone I don't know a bit, is making life difficult.

Puts me of a mind of my uncle Archer. Archer Pleadwell. Archer, dead now, meant no harm even at his most vital; but during World War II, while stationed in Guam, the Irish boys in his company treated him like dirt, wouldn't have a thing to do with him. I imagine Archer, twisting one way then the other in front of a mirror, trying to see what they saw.

Months passed before one of the lads let slip that the first English tax collector in Ireland, some 200 years prior, was a deeply reviled man named Pleadwell (Plaidwell, he called him). Sins of the father.

You just never know who might be trying to get in touch, so I keep a cordless phone in my darkroom.