Sonny's Sunshine Corner

I don’t have a single topic this week in which to write a featured blog for you. Therefore, I decided to borrow a concept from the old Courier Gazette’s Black Cat column and bring you my own “Sonny’s Sunshine Corner.”

Sonny, as seen in this photo, is brother to Butchie, seen in the lower left. I apologize for this picture as my scanner/printer is out of order right now. But I promise to bring you a better one later if I do this column again in the future. Here he’s sitting on the diner table, one of his favorite spots. This is the old diner. We still have this furniture.

We adopted these litter mates about nine years ago at a Pet Smart adoption day. They are both grey tabbies and we named them Butch and Sundance (Sonny for short). As Sonny was the lightest in color of the two we decided to name him Sundance. As it turned out, that name suits him as he has a sunny disposition, unlike Butchie, who likes you some days and some days he doesn’t.

Anyway let this column serve as a way to update you on my life and what’s been happening in that life of late.

Here in Georgia Spring has sprung with all its glorious flowering trees as well as the pollen they produce. We keep hoping for rain to at least wash our yellow cars off. The count was over 9000 last week. Not very good for breathing. I find myself wishing I could smell the fresh air of Maine and the lilacs that will soon bloom up there. Yesterday, in this mega-apartment complex I live in, I heard the call of a lone phoebe bird. My mother loved owls and the sweet call of the phoebe bird. I feel her presence whenever I hear one.

I am in a technological funk this week because my nearly brand new printer went on the blink. We’ve decided that the problem is the stupid firewall on the computer which is not recognizing the wireless printer. Therefore a USB cord has been ordered and hopefully it will fix the problem.

On another techy front, this week I received my new MP3 player in the mail which I got for free through my bank’s award program. I got their version of an Ipad earlier. I can work some features on the Ipad thingy, but this MP3 thing has me stumped. Yesterday I plugged the thing into the computer and downloaded everything they wanted me to. Well I came across an instructional manual and guess what? Most of the pages were blank. There is a message that came with the package that said, “Please call us at this 1-800 number before thinking about returning this device.” I guess they expect people to have problems with it.

Oh, and I downloaded ITunes also. It’s so complicated that they have a tutorial to tell you how to use the site. Ahhhh vey. I need to sit down with a twelve-year-old I guess to figure all this stuff out. Meanwhile, I’ll probably end up calling the dang 1-800 number.

On a happier note, I received email this week from Colby Swan, whose folks bought our house on Fulton Street in 1967. He grew up there and his folks still live there. I might stop by and say hi when I go home again. Colby now lives in Iowa.

Colby, like me, thinks that the EPA some people groan about has been a Godsend to Rockland. We think the environmental rules and regulations and laws have made it possible for Rockland’s revival to come about. Rockland is now known internationally as a nice place to visit.

Family-wise, we have two weddings to look forward to in the near future. One is my great-niece, Danielle Sylvester and the other is my great-nephew, Jon Peabody. Hopefully we will have new little ones in the family in the next few years. We only have three at the moment, great-great niece, Alyson Sylvester and great-nephews, Matthew Tavares and Nicholas Harlan Ruddy.

Jon’s mother, my niece, Brenda Peabody, sent me a packet this week containing our 84-page family tree. Some information is blank, but most of it is there. Brenda did a terrific job collecting all this info.

Brenda included a note with the package telling the story of one relative, Mary Bloom. She was born in 1714 in Pemaquid, Maine; and died in 1803 in Falmouth, Maine. The rumor is that she was a Native American woman who, while living on Matinicus, was captured and sold. She lost touch with her family. All but her son, Joseph, were massacred as retaliation for something her husband had done (he was white.) She eventually found her way back home. Think this would make a good historical novel?

Some of our family tree goes back to the 1500s in England. We also have Irish relations. On my mother’s side, we are mostly German.

I have to ask Brenda though if there is a typo on page 15 which makes Thankful Crowell 111 when she died. Many of the family lived into their 80s and 90s which was very unusual for those times. I also see many young women dying young, probably many from death in childbirth, which was very common.

Yesterday, I also received in the mail the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce’s new magazine, “Discover the Jewel of the Maine Coast”, The Official Guide to Camden, Rockland and Beyond. See the separate blog about this special publication which everyone interested in Maine can use as their Bible when they have interests concerning Maine.

So that’s Sonny’s Sunshine Corner for this month. Today I will find out the results of the MRI on my right knee. Wish me luck and thanks for listening.