Heading Out to the Rogue’s Harbor
This has been the first day of of the grandkids here in Ithaca. While I spent my day getting the carriage house finished from my purge of memorabilia and ready for son Thomas’ arrival tomorrow night, Kim did what Kim loves to do, which is go out and shop for miscellaneous things we need for the weekend. We will have sixteen for the bulk of the holiday weekend, so we will undoubtedly run short of just about everything. Daughter Carolyn spent the morning cleaning the pool, something she takes a great deal of care with since the girls spend so much of their time in the pool. And, indeed, that is what the girls spent their day doing. Meanwhile, son-in-law John did what all guys his age tend to do, he worked. He sat at his computer by 8am and never left until after 5pm, doing whatever mortgage bankers do. It is an interesting feeling for me to see someone like John going out every day to kill the wildebeest for the family. I made sure to tell him how much I respect his work ethic and his sense of responsibility. What he is doing is what i did for many years. Being a good provider is how i defined myself and its very comforting seeing my daughter and granddaughters in the hands of someone equally driven to do what I did for so long. I am also happy that its him and not me.
John is easy to overlook or even ignore since he is relatively quiet and not prone towards self-promotion. But he is wicked smart and has a great sense of humor (many of his quips admittedly soar right over my head since he is so well read). For all the worry that Carolyn tends to exhibit, John is a rock and doesn’t seem phased by much. He seems to take everything in stride, which is a good way to be. I have to say this since it is easy to never voice such things, but I am so very happy that Carolyn married John. He is a father’s dream as a son-in-law since he is such a solid husband and father. That is all a father ever asks for his daughter.
Today’s meal program consisted of me running out to the local Ithaca Bakery / Collegetown Bagels cafe for coffee and pastries for breakfast. That is very much my job on these family gathering weekends and the first question I got while sitting on my bed getting my bearings was from my six-year-old granddaughter asking if I would be going soon. After a morning of getting the carriage house sorted out, I offered to go for lunch by picking up McDonalds for everyone. Some people avoid McDonalds like the plague, but I find nothing so objectionable about it even though I don’t crave it very often these days.
It’s amazing to me how long the girls can stay in the pool. It is a warm and sunny day, but hardly so hot that one needs to stay submerged. In any case, it gave me the time to finish the carriage house in a slow and diligent manner without wearing myself entirely out. Mission accomplished with enough time to spare to sit and catch up on my MSNBC news of the day. The way late breaking news is sloshing over the edges of our American cups right now, it is hard to remain unconnected to the latest releases for even a half day. The world seems finally to be hearing what most of us have always known about Donald Trump, that he is no better than a petulant child, subject to temper tantrums and devoid of any caring for the American people or the institutions he is sworn to protect, most notably the Constitution and the very essence of the democratic process. I actually believe that most Republicans understood all that the way a good hockey coach understands that his team goon is not abiding by the rules of the game. The hockey coach is prepared to abide by the unsportsmanlike conduct in order to win. Republicans also recognized in 2016 and ever since then that Donald Trump gave them the vehicle to combat the prevailing demographic trends that have been signaling doom for the white minority. Donald might have been a goon, but he was the Republican’s goon and looking the other way about his failings and flailings became a way of life for them.
Now, the ignore strategy has suddenly gotten harder to abide by with more and more Republicans standing up and bearing witness to the noxious goings on in the White House, particularly in the waning days after the 2020 election and leading up to the January 6th insurrection. It’s one thing when the rats start leaving the sinking ship, but it is another thing altogether when the rats decide that being the last guy holding Mussolini’s hat while the noose is getting thrown over the yardarm is a bad place to be and that they had all better start singing the anti-Trump tune before the music stops and they are left without a chair (how’s that for mixing a lot of metaphors?).
By the time I got my fill of the national news, it was time to get ready for dinner. My daughter Carolyn had asked that we go out to a local road house near my ancestral home, literally a few miles from my grandfather’s old farmhouse and a place that my mother worked at to earn extra college money in her day. The place has been where it is since 1830 even though it has gone through several different owners and just as many names. It came to be called The Rogues Harbor Inn after a series of tall tales about the place that included the discovery of massive amounts of counterfeit money in the walls. It was also both a stop on the Underground Railroad and yet equally a favorite spot to buy alcohol bootlegged in from Canada during prohibition. Since my grandfather changed his stars by running booze from Canada during prohibition, he probably made stops to deliver to Rogue’s Harbor.
Now Rogue’s Harbor is just a pub with a decent pub menu for dining out on the front porch. We had a nice meal and took a ride down memory lane to see the old family haunts in Myers down to the lake. We passed 17 acres that’s still in the family (owned by my sisters), the site of the old road house and gas station that were my grandfather’s primary businesses, my grandfather’s old yellow house, Uncle Joe’s house and Ronnick’s old general store building, which seems now to be split into condos or something.
This seems to be a day for Rogue’s Harbor, not just for a meal, but for a place of refuge for the scoundrels of the world. I think Rogue’s Harbor is on the verge of becoming a more and more popular spot. I’m expecting there to be a No Vacancy sign up on the door in no time at all, so that when Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn come with their bags hastily packed, they will be turned out into the cold night where they belong.