The Two Brothers in Dublin

Mark, my brother,made my year by coming to visit us last weekend, and we showed him the sights. One of our first stops was Burdick's, of course, where we treated him to an exceptional lunch topped off with their world famous hot cocoa. (By the end of the trip, he was begging for mercy because we kept taking him from one incredible dining spot to another.) For those of you that don't know already, Mark and his wife, Summer, are expecting their first child in September---a boy! Mark had never been to Boston before, so we headed in to town on Saturday to

give him a tour of Beantown. Our first stop was Harvard to visit the college and take this classic shot. We found it funny that we've both heard the reason you touch the founder's foot, but neither of us could remember it. We hung out on the campus for about 25 minutes, and then to no one's surprise who knows us well, we spent about twice that much time in Newbury Comics afterwards. Thank God we get older, but we never change... :)

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go..."

Oh c'mon, you can't bring someone to Boston and not force them to take this picture!

Mark was in his glory while he was in Boston... Get it? Ha! In his glory! The movie "Glory" uses this statue in the final scene. Oh, forget it. By the way, it's a beautiful statue and quite moving. I defy you to see it in real life and not put the movie on your Netflix queue that night.


Ah, Kimball's ice cream! The taste of summer. We took Mark to our favorite farm fresh ice cream stand in Jaffrey, NH to sample some of the world's finest frozen dairy products. It's tradition in these parts for locals to take visitors there and make them order a large ice cream, pictured, and then laugh when their guest is shocked at how big it is. It's worth it because a small is $3, a medium is $3.50, and the large is only $4. You might not be able to tell, but their large is about two pints of ice cream. We always order the kid's size, which is about two full scoops of ice cream.

Memorial Day in Dublin

Today was Dublin's Memorial Day celebration, and it was a truly wonderful time to be in New England. While Tampa has a parade, too, I don't think it comes close to equaling the simple charm of the event we witnessed today.

The whole Dublin School community started the day by meeting on our Upper Field to take a look at the five maple trees planted in honor of the five Dublin students we lost in World War II. Each tree had an American flag at its base. I was really surprised at how moving a tribute this was, and we'd never noticed they were there earlier in the year.

After leaving Upper Field, the whole school headed down to the Yankee Magazine parking lot to assemble for the parade. The parade starts in the town square and ends up about a half a mile down the road in the town cemetery. Many pups, like the one above, marched along with us. (Morgan sat out as we didn't know she was welcome. Maybe next year...)This is the color guard that led the parade of veterans. I might be able to march in next year's parade as any of the town's veterans can march. It was a thrill to talk to some of them beforehand and a few of them attended Dublin School in the 30's and 40's. One of the WWII vets was even tutored by our founding head, Paul Lehmann.

The Conval High School band from Peterboro, picture, led the procession to the cemetery. You can see the Yankee Magazine headquarters on the left and the town hall on the right.

The parade ended up at the town cemetery where we heard a wonderful speech from one of the town residents. I'm sorry this picture can't convey what we witnessed. Imagine these amazing men being honored with Dublin Lake right behind them and Mt. Monadnock in the background.

Happy Memorial Day!

Springtime in Dublin... and New Hampshire!

(Sorry for the "Producers"-inspired title!)

 Spring has finally sprung in New Hampshire and this time it isn’t one of my photographic tricks. The flowers are in bloom, the grass is green, and all the signs of snow have faded away with days full of sunshine to fight off the winter fatigue.

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Some of you might know that I’m filling in as the Dublin sailing coach for the Spring Trimester. Some of you might now be asking, “What the heck does Brian know about sailing a boat?” Some of you might now be answering to yourself, “nothing.” And you’d be right! Still, I’ve decided to step in and help out the program by following them around in the Sea Nymph pictured above to help out any stranded sailors in case their boat capsizes. I honestly can’t believe I get paid to putter around in this boat for an hour and a half on Dublin Lake, which is so beautiful, and soak up the sunshine.


This is a shot of one of the two boats my team takes out for practice each day without the rigging. They are 15-footers and kind of heavy and slow, but they get the job done and the strong winds on the lake make up for their weight disadvantage.


These next two shots are of the beach we launch from and part of the lake we sail on. I’m going to bring my camera out tomorrow to take some better pics of the kids under full sail, which I’ll post as soon as I can.


The best news about coaching the sailing team is that several of the more experienced kids are going to take me out to let me “crew” on their boat and possibly learn to captain. There is also a small chance that I’ll be training as sailing instructor this summer at the Dublin Lake Club and getting paid to learn to sail. What a country!

Apologies

I'm so sorry it's been so long since our last post, however, you can tell from the one before that things have been pretty depressing and hectic here. I promise we will have more posts and more frequent posts now that the snow has melted and the flowers are in full bloom.