Connections: So Much to Do
Labor Day weekend is going to hit me like a ton of bricks. I can’t help feeling I let summer go by without taking enough advantage of its possibilities. Did I get to the ocean when it was calm enough for the likes of me? Did I meet up with the best of friends who are rarely here in fall or winter? Did I attend some humdinger social or political offerings? It would have been an absolutely crazy summer if I had tried to get out and about to every enticing event; the Guild Hall calendar alone was mind-boggling.
When I ran into Andrea Grover, Guild Hall’s executive director, in the lobby one evening in August, she suggested with a laugh that it might be time to put a cot in the basement for me because I was there so often. That seemed close to true at the time, although to be fair I live only a hop away across Main Street, and, furthermore, a quick glance at Guild Hall’s stuffed summer 2018 book gives proof that my forays were quite humble.
Nevertheless, it’s true that I was at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater on July 29, Aug. 4, Aug. 5, and Aug. 8. The program on July 29 brought together Neil deGrasse Tyson, the well-known astrophysicist and writer, and Questlove, an instrumentalist, D.J., journalist, record producer, and actor, for a rapid back and forth about creativity. Whoever made this match, whether Andrea or another, struck gold.
On Aug. 4, I was pleased to be there when Andrew W. Kahrl, an assistant professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Virginia, spoke at a gathering planned by the Eastville Community Historical Society about summer communities founded by American blacks, like the three long-standing communities of Azurest, Ninevah, and Sag Harbor Hills. Residents of these communities filled the hall, enjoying not only what Mr. Kahrl had to say but a 40th-anniversary video.
The next night was a concert by Bela Fleck, who apparently is the most revered banjo instrumentalist ever, and on Aug. 8 The Star’s East magazine took over for “Vengeance,” a program about mass incarceration and the criminal justice system. Whew.
Without these opportunities, the summer might, I am sorry to say, have had a lugubrious effect. The problem is that my husband and I are aging, and so are many of our friends. The good news is that despite a series of physical setbacks, one friend had enough stick-to-it-iveness and stamina to overcome them and is avidly playing chess again. Another, I learned just this morning, is out of the hospital, to which he had been sent after a fall, and “doing quite well.”
There’s only one thing to say: “There but for the grace of God go I.”