Day 9--the house next door, back porch, 2:30 a.m.

This is the scene outside my window in the middle of the night. Light from the neighbor's porch spills onto the green lawn below the porch railing and barely reaches their picnic table just beyond. I'd love to paint this, like one of the artist Robert Berlind's paintings of the camp at Piseco. The gleaming houses soothe my eyes and spirit.  I hear no sound, no crickets, although I know they are calling. Occasional fireflies flash in the grass. This is a small town nestled right next to Washington DC, a real hicksville with 100-year-old bungalows and big yards filled with azaleas and honeysuckle, maple trees. After the sun goes down, before the sky gets inky and quiet, before I put my hearing gadget in its dry box for the night, a last train of the day makes its mournful sound down by the Anacostia river. 


On June 2, 1897, 114 years ago today, my mother was born in a small town in northwest Germany.  She was the youngest child in her family, and her own mother, my grandmother, died a little more than two years later. Mom was six years old when Grandpa, at age 47, and the other children--Anna, Joe, Tony, Frances, Henry, and Adam--moved to America in 1903. They came through Ellis Island, then took the train to Iowa. Mom told me Grandpa's brother had already moved there and found a place for them.That's all I ever heard about this brother. Did he keep on moving?