Another Morning on the Mountain

Friday morning on the Mountain.  Quietude, a word a love.  Watching the Sewanee campus wake up from the front porch of Stirling's, one of my favorite coffee shops. 

Students straggle in for breakfast before morning classes.  Tired and mumbling quietly to each other.  Faculty walk up the front steps, too, looking for their morning coffee.  More energy.  Parents - teachers at Sewanee or St. Andrews Sewanee - comparing notes about their young children.  A woman and her two dogs walk in front of me, in my rocking chair on the front porch.  There's such a sense of community on campus up here. 

Playing in the background, "Rich Girl," by Hall and Oates.  A staple from the mid '70's.  A light fall breeze rustles the multicolored leaves in the trees shading the front porch of Stirling's and across the street, as well.  

A perfect morning?  Pretty damn close.

As I've written in this space so often before, things move at a slower pace on the Mountain, even on campus.  Maybe I move at a slower pace when I'm here because I'm away from work and home.  

Yesterday was our first full day at Three Dog Farm, a place we've never stayed before.  The boys kayaked and canoed and fished in the lake.  JP caught seven fish for the day, fishing from the small, anchored dock in the middle of the lake.  Joe caught a solitary fish, which JP had to remove from his line after he kayaked back out to the dock to help.

JP and I ran 4 miles on the Trail of Tears greenway.  At my urging, he left me the last mile.  A passing of the torch?  Perhaps, although I'm still congested and fighting a sinus infection.  The Z-pack I'm taking doesn't help my breathing when I run.  That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.  Either way, he's a damn strong runner, a point of pride for me, for sure.  

Yesterday afternoon, we rented bicycles on campus from Woody's Bicycles.  JP and I rode around campus for a bit.  While Joe and I worked on teaching him to ride a bicycle - that's a story in and of itself - JP rode around campus some more and Jude walked on Abbo's Alley, a favorite hike of hers.

We finished the day with an early dinner on the porch at the grill at Sewanee's golf course.  Mozzarella sticks and burgers, as we watched a Sewanee golf team member practice from the team's facility adjacent to the 9-hole golf course.  After dinner, JP and I rode our bicycles back to Woody's, locked them up, then drove to our place.

After Joe went to bed, JP, Jude and I - and a white cat with different colored eyes we've temporarily named "Max" (after Dodgers' pitcher, Max Scherzer) - crowded together in the bed in the master bedroom and watched the Dodgers beat the hated Giants, 3-2, to clinch a spot in the National League Championship Series.

No cable, so JP "mirrored" by iPad to the bedroom television, so we were able to watch the game on TBS. There were a few technical difficulties late in the game, when we had audio only.  Still, Bellinger got the game winning hit, and the Dodgers move on.

Time for me to move on, too, to the grocery store, as "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," by Tears for Fears, plays in the background.  Mid '80's, complete one hit wonder, but the song survives.