1. I extended my walking route a bit today and headed up the trail to the high school as far as the steps that go down to the hospital parking lot and made my way back home on Jacobs Gulch Road and Cameron Avenue. My legs felt better and I enjoyed listening again to the opening sections of The Warmth of Other Suns. I wanted to let those first pages settle more securely into my mind. The opening pages of this book elegantly establish the epic nature and immense importance of the great migration, during much of the 20th century, of black citizens out of the South into the Northeast, Midwest, and the West.
2. As I printed out and started to read the research essay Val is going to submit as part of her graduate school application, I realized that it had been nine years since I'd read a research paper. I got a little ways into her paper and long unused habits of reading kicked in and I made a mark here, another one there, wrote a comment at this point and another at that point. Did I suddenly long to have a stack of research papers on my desk, all needing to be commented upon and graded? No way. In fact, after working with Val's paper, I needed a nap!
I enjoy Val's essay a lot. Its thesis is grounded, in part, in the book Rising Tide -- I was very happy that Val had sent me the book and I read it.
Now, I need to get my mind geared toward writing Val a letter of recommendation. I wrote a letter of recommendation for Colette a couple or three years ago, but I'm not in the habit (like I used to be) and I'll need to oil some of the rusty gears in my brain in order to get this letter written! I look forward to it.
3. One of my private eccentric pleasures is making nostalgia driven coffee orders online. I'm not talking about my day to day coffee, but, rather, occasional coffee at home. I'm talking about coffee blends that bring up memories and feelings of times I've enjoyed in the past. So far, I've made a couple of such orders of Peet's coffee. I've ordered blends unavailable at Yoke's.
Today, I ordered a couple of pounds of Eugene's Full City Coffee. Full City used to have a coffee house at the corner of 13th and High, near St. Mary's Episcopal Church, and I enjoyed sitting in there from time to time over the years. They also have a shop on Pearl St. in downtown Eugene and I had some very enjoyable times on my own and some wonderful coffee meetups with friends at that shop. Debbie and I dropped in there occasionally years ago and I loved that. So, I'm hoping, that when this order arrives and I make myself a cup of Full City Blend that I'll be able to return to days I enjoyed in Eugene, think about friends I rarely see any more, and enjoy the warm feelings that come with getting nostalgic. A full blend indeed!
* The fund to defray Ken Lilyblad's memorial service is now 545 dollars short of reaching the $4000 goal. Here's where to go to chip in: https://gofund.me/540b3f06
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