The Blog is Back!

I see that my last post on this blog was November 11, exactly one week before my mom died, down on Long Island.  She was 95 and had lived independently in the house I grew up in until the day before she died, when she went into the hospital with what was diagnosed as colitis and died the next day of a massive infection leading to heart failure.  

She had a great life and was a fascinating person.  She was the matriarch of the family history and heirlooms.  As the extended family gathered, we all acknowledged that she was the last of her generation, and the responsibility of being the "grown up" in a family that had descended from Revolutionary War soldiers and Jamestown settlers had come to rest on me, the oldest of my generation.  A weighty mission, indeed.  So, after a long period of time sorting and clearing out her house and fulfilling endless executor duties, I set off across the country to deliver the mementos of a great family to my cousins and sons:  photo albums, handwork, china, portraits, scrapbooks, journals, jewelry and accessories, an ancient rifle, mirrors, and nicknacks we had seen on her shelves for half a century.  In two and a half weeks I drove coast to coast, through a dozen or more National Parks, stopping at the homes of four family members, and, on the way home, taking an end run south around the Rockies to avoid an April snowstorm.   

I'm not sure who, if anyone, reads this blog, so I'm allowing myself luxury of writing about my mom and my trip west as a way to apologize for letting the blog go since November.  Life just got to complicated, and some things had to go.  I put a high priority on my job of representing you in Cooperstown - sometimes driving up from working on the LI house to attend a meeting, then driving right back - but it's been a disruptive few months.  And then in February a nearby school district lost its School Psychologist and asked me to fill in for the rest of the school year.  I'll finish my last two reports on Friday.  

So - my apologies for the gap.  I hope to pick it up immediately and then continue to provide you with communications from the County Board in Cooperstown.