{"id":937,"date":"2009-02-20T22:10:26","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T02:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/2009\/02\/20\/crash-bucket-chronicles-%e2%80%94-epilogue\/"},"modified":"2009-02-21T17:21:21","modified_gmt":"2009-02-21T21:21:21","slug":"crash-bucket-chronicles-%e2%80%94-epilogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/archives\/937","title":{"rendered":"Crash Bucket Chronicles \u2014 Epilogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDeath is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with this friends, but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which give to it an air of awful mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
\nTwo Years Before the Mast<\/em>
\n \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We navigate in a sea of souls…<\/strong>
\n     Grim reality has a way of sweeping aside all the self-absorbing trivialities that clog a journal like this, but rather than ask myself \u2014 \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of it all?” \u2014 why not scratch ahead with a continued search for meaning? Maybe for me. Maybe for you. Maybe, maybe not. If I stopped believing it worth a try, this would be my final post.
\n     Not long after the bulk of our community had shaken off the surprise of our shared crisis, most of us were shocked to learn that the life of a respected local leader had been tragically lost. If his name was added to the list of Kentucky\u2019s weather-related deaths, it is unknown to me, but what is clear is that he was found in a vacant house where he\u2019d been working with a generator. The coroner said the circumstances were consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning. It was a mild day. He wasn\u2019t attempting to heat the building. People speculated that the wind blew the door shut while he was operating a sump pump. The precise circumstances remain a puzzle. I didn\u2019t know anyone active in town affairs that didn\u2019t consider him a friend. He covered the leadership bases\u2014from business to social service. He made multiple trips to the Gulf Coast as a volunteer to help with the Katrina response. He was highly intelligent, compassionate, and knew how to do almost anything. The Chamber of Commerce named him \u201coutstanding citizen\u201d over fifteen years ago, but he never slowed down. He took to his grave an unmatched knowledge of the County\u2019s industrial development history and infrastructure. He was the last of a breed of quiet men who had made a truly significant difference. The abrupt vacancy was painfully felt. I spent two hours in line to offer his family a few words that wouldn\u2019t sound trite. I\u2019m not sure that I succeeded.
\n     I didn\u2019t attend the funeral the next day, but paid a visit with my friend Danny to the Abbey of Gethsemani. It was my first time there. It was raining and in many respects would have been considered a dismal day, but others were also making the same pilgrimage, and I found a sense of peace in the setting that defied personal understanding. God is everywhere, but keenly present in some places, and that suggests to me the appropriate use of the word \u201csacred.\u201d We also stopped at the Saint Rose church in Springfield to meet Father Murray, and I had my first look at the extraordinary Bavarian-style windows. Father Murray is extraordinary, too. At age 87, he looked to me to be in his mid 70s. He told me, \u201cWell, I\u2019ve always gotten a lot of exercise.\u201d He pointed out 70-year-old trees damaged in the ice storm that he helped plant when he was a novice. The seminary was moved east long ago and the associated buildings demolished, but the church remains, a splendid structure full of artistic treasures, including a 13-figure Last Supper<\/em> and a 12-figure Pentecost,<\/em> all wood carved in the Italian fashion. Danny wanted to show me the Convent near Loretto and to check on any damage to the outdoor Way of Sorrows.<\/em> It was evident that huge limbs from the tall grove of surrounding trees had crashed all about, but the only casualty was The Crucifixion.<\/em> We marveled that each figure of Our Lady had escaped harm, but that \u201cChrist took the hit.\u201d
\n     Several days before, Joan had an opportunity to meet Danny when he joined Joan, Dana, and me at the Hub for coffee after one of Hayley\u2019s high-scoring victories. It was another meaningful, in-depth discussion about heavy subjects. Joan thought she might have intruded and skewed the conversation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Danny told be later he was pleased to meet her and said that my sister was a \u201cstrong soul.\u201d He is correct, of course, but I\u2019ve already known that for some time. Danny is quite a soul himself. The word I would use is \u201cmagnanimous.\u201d Yesterday he brought over his pole saw and tied himself to my chimney so he could deal with the big branches that were still jack-knifed on our rooftop. One of his earliest memories is watching his father top trees as a lumberjack in the high Sierras. He seems to have the right tool for everything and knows how to use them safely. I can\u2019t say how much I appreciate that in two hours of work together, his generous favor of skill has saved me hundreds of dollars in tree-service fees (or maybe more, from what I’ve heard around town about what people have been charged since the storm).
\n     So, with power now restored for Mombo and Clan Valley and the last of my storm-related headaches resolved, can I say that circumstances have returned to normal? \u201cNot hardly,\u201d as the expression goes. I think I\u2019m battling the same virus that put Bruce back in the hospital yesterday with pneumonia. We\u2019re sleeping on the floor because we made the blunder of giving away our old mattress before FedEx delivered the complete replacement set (and, wouldn\u2019t you know it, they lost part of it). I have no complaints. Things are picking up in the studio, and I have a fun project to work on with KK & K. It\u2019s time to put the Crash Bucket away and begin preparing for the March Exercise<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDeath is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with this friends, but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which give to it an air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,33,66,75,17,78,12,68,21,18,8,69,38,36,37,44,73,10,14,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}