July 22, 2024

We learned that Thomas Farrell had been murdered. The crime occurred in Nashville on May 29, 1913. Farrell, a police detective, was shot by a bad guy, who then was arrested. This and more news was reported two weeks ago at the Harper family reunion. Farrell was Sandy’s great uncle, or maybe a great-great uncle.

We drove for six hours to a state park in Tennessee to attend the gala event, a meeting of the Harper (Sandy’s maiden name) clan and two other families, the Maybrys and Pritchetts, who are distantly related. Of the sixty-plus folks who showed up under the park pavilion, I knew about a half-dozen.

In a cosmic, big-picture way, family is the foundation of human history and culture. Family connections dictate the form and function of governments worldwide. British history is a fifteen-hundred-year story of family, if we date from the Plantagenets (1154-1216), who reigned after the Normans, and were followed by the houses of Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, down to Windsor today.

In the same way, the rule of the Bourbons and Romanovs, until ended by gruesome political violence, guided the histories of France and Russia for centuries. The consciousness and constraints of family hold in Asia, the Middle East, everywhere, for good or evil. No one escapes. Hermits, cloistered monks, and prison inmates serving life have families. For all of us, family may be a primal source of joy, or heartbreak.

Family ties endure, but for many they become strained and remote. American families—parents, siblings, children have scattered. Our oldest daughter is in New Orleans, the youngest lives in northern Wyoming. We have nieces in Seattle and cousins near Miami. A couple of cousins live in New York, and an uncle and more cousins in southern California. That’s life. Everyone knows it.

Sandy’s family actually bucked the trend. She has some family in Michigan on her mom’s side, whom I first met at a funeral last summer. One day they were there, the next day they were gone. The Harpers, though, mostly stayed in Tennessee within 20 or 30 miles of Nashville, where Sandy and I met all those years ago.

Twenty-five years ago my mom staged a reunion. It was the same type of thing—a blur of aunts, uncles, cousins and their children, stories, singing old favorites, a few drinks, for some more than a few. The older ones all are gone but the memories remain, which really was the point. The kids at that reunion have kids of their own. Grandkids have shown up.

The Harper gathering followed the pattern. One guy, first-cousin Mike, shouldered the work of putting it together. We knew he was interested in genealogy. Mike went all-out, creating whiteboards of the family tree complete with dozens of ancient photos and blurred copies of birth, marriage, and death certificates. He arranged the boards on tripods near some picnic tables.

The exhibits took us back to Michael Farrell, born in Logford County, Ireland, about 1840. Various documents report that in 1855 he stowed away and sailed to America. In 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate Army and fought at Shiloh and Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was wounded twice and discharged when the war ended.

In 1867 Michael married Bridgett Hollaran, who had come from Galway County, Ireland. They had ten children, including poor Sheriff Thomas. Michael bought land and farmed for a living. He died in Nashville in 1932.

From Mike’s research we learned that Michael’s and Bridgett’s daughter Annie, born in 1869, married John William Harper, a telegraph operator, in 1895, starting their Harper line. Annie and John had six kids, including Peter Gaines Harper, Sandy’s grandfather. Peter married a woman named Duel Sisco. They had five children, including Sandy’s dad, William.

Mike stopped there, but he could have gone down another level to Sandy and her siblings and their spouses. The next branch would be our kids and their cousins. He already has reserved the same pavilion at the same state park for another reunion next year. Maybe he’ll tack on those people.

We stood around chatting for hours, grazing on a massive potluck buffet. We met, with some confusion, a few Maybrys and Pritchetts, as well as the dozens of cousins, nephews, and nieces, fitting everyone into the family puzzle. We took pictures, someone took a big group shot. As the late afternoon heat simmered, the crowd packed their picnic baskets and folding chairs and headed for their cars. We stayed over at the park.

As with any family history, odd facts show up. Somewhere the documentation reported that John William Harper’s father, Peter Leboun Harper, fought with the Union Army. With Michael Farrell a Confederate veteran, we were looking at a blue-gray dynamic. How did Michael like his daughter marrying into a Yankee family? Trivial, but fun.

Our son Michael later asked what now seems an obvious question: since the Harper name didn’t show up until Annie married John Harper, why start with the Farrells, a generation earlier, instead of John William? I wondered myself.

But then we realize a family tree can start really anywhere because, like all human history, it has no clearcut beginning. Those patriarchs of the 18th century and earlier, nobles or paupers, landlords or tenant farmers, are descendants as well as ancestors. Annie, wife of John and mother to Sandy’s granddad and five other Harper children, was first a Farrell. Her earlier relatives were Farrells and others.

The line advances into the future. Louis XVI lost his head in 1793, but the Bourbons returned to rule France in 1815. Even after the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas and his family in 1918, a few Romanovs escaped to Europe. Their lineages remain, obscure, but real. People marry, have kids, change names.

Connections, while distant, endure. That’s the principle behind all this visiting. We’re already talking about who will appear on Mike’s 2025 whiteboards. Right now we’re planning to be there. Maybe with the kids.

July 15, 2024

We arrived in Tellico Plains, Tenn., in the far southeastern corner of the state, finishing a four-hour trek from midstate Chapel Hill, that’s also Tennessee, not North Carolina (the town was named after the North Carolina city). The plan for Tellico was to get a look at farm property a friend is buying just north of town. Then there’s the Cherohala Skyway.

From Chapel Hill we headed east through pretty country, then paused at a Bell Buckle café for coffee. The town offers eccentric Middle Tennessee charm along with the usual antique and curiosity shops. We’ve stopped there a couple of times over the years. The coffee is tangy and good. The town, really a hamlet or village, is home to the Webb School, a small but prestigious boarding school for grades 6 through 12. The kids wear uniforms.

Sitting in the café, we noticed the few local folks who wandered in, a young woman with two kids, an older couple. I guessed this is exactly what we should be doing at this moment: sipping caffeine in a quiet place in the middle of nowhere. It suited me.

We drove south on I-24 to Chattanooga then north on I-75. We crossed the Hiwassee River then exited at Calhoun. Twenty miles along, Tellico Plains sits in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, where the 656,000-acre Cherokee National Forest rims the few settlements in the area. Maybe 800 people live there, maybe 700, I asked, no one was sure.

Once there you’re cornered between mountains and forest, miles of forest. The Smokies spread across the boundary region of two states. The Skyway, starting at Tellico, extends 43 or 50 miles, depending on how it’s measured. Tennessee has about 25 miles, the rest is in North Carolina. The route (eastbound) ends at some indefinite point just west of Robbinsville, N.C., birthplace of country music legend Ronnie Milsap.

Cherohala combines the first two syllables of “Cherokee,” and “hala,” the last two of Nantahala as in National Forest, which covers 531,000 acres of western North Carolina. The Skyway rises more than 4,000 feet to around 5,400 near the eastern end. The road starts in town and continues tamely for a few miles, bordering the crystal-clear Tellico River.

We stopped at Oosterneck Creek (1,045 feet) and watched the river rush by. As we chugged forward a half-dozen bikers cruised past us heading to Tellico.

The forest air cooled to a refreshing crispness. The Skyway curled up, up, then down, then up. At Lake View we were at 3,360 feet. The deep green of the mountains loomed through pale mist. We watched the mile markers and puttered on. At Brushy Ridge we were at 3,750, then 4,100 at East Rattlesnake Rock trailhead.

More bikers roared past, a couple of cars lined up behind us as we poked nervously forward, we pulled into an overlook to let them pass. We crossed the Tenn.-N.C. border, climbed, then descended, then climbed again, in some stretches at a 9-degree slope. I stopped at Haw Knob (4,890) but crawled past Huckleberry Point at 5,300.

The vernal mountain forest stretched to the horizon. The road turned and descended. We gritted our teeth, the van’s brake warning light clicked on. Wright Cove was at 4,150, Obadiah 3,740, Hooper Cove 3,100. The road twisted down, falling. Suddenly we hit Santeetlah Gap at 2,600 and saw signs for Robbinsville.

We were done with the measured Skyway but the narrow two-lane pavement kept twisting through dense woods, sunlit and beautiful, bordering a rocky creek. A few homesteads showed up alongside small garden plots and woodpiles, meadows and pastureland. Then the forest closed in again.

Eventually we found outer Robbinsville. We saw a church steeple and a couple of signs urging “Repent,” then a courthouse. Highway markers appeared announcing state roads 129, 143, 19, backwoods routes carved through the rough country.

We passed the last point on our state map. No internet connection, no Google Maps. I went old school and yelled at a guy in a parked pickup: “Which way to Bryson City?” He opened his door and pointed.

“Turn around and go back and take the first left. Go to the first light and go right. Keep going ‘til you pass some guys working on the road. Turn right at the next light, then right at the one after that, then stay straight and you’ll see a sign for Bryson City.” I stared at him. “Turn around—” He started to pull away. “I hope you remember that,” he yelled. “I won’t,” I called back and got back in the van.

We squinted again at the signs, I studied the map, baffled. Suddenly the internet kicked in, we got our maps. We oriented to 129 and headed out of Robbinsville. We passed the guys working and pressed on. The road straightened out. We saw a sign: “Bryson City, 23 miles.” The city street became a country highway.

We veered alongside fast white water, I guessed the Tuckasegee River, which flows through Bryson and east. The river rushed past, we saw a bright orange inflated raft float by, the paddlers in their helmets stroking with the rapids. Then another, then a third. The Nantahala closed in around the river and the road. The Tuckasegee flowed by, more rafters riding the fast water.

The forest opened up to white-water businesses, rental places, shuttle buses, a few cafes and bars. Rafters were unpacking vans, lugging gear. The woodland road widened to three-lanes. We saw signs for Dillsboro, Sylva, and Waynesville, which calls itself “Gateway to the Smokies.” We crossed the Appalachian Trail and dozens of other remote pathways.

The peaks towered around us through eastern Nantahala, still lush and jungle-dark, the kudzu hanging in thick tangles from massive oaks. Passing Sylva, we looked north at Black Rock Mountain, green and gorgeous, 5,700 feet of rock set gracefully among the Plott Balsam range. Then the Pisgah National Forest, Nantahala’s junior partner, full of waterfalls and other wilderness magic, stretching east to Asheville, and south toward home. 

July 8, 2024

We drove with son Michael and daughter-in-law Caroline from Glen Mills, Penn., maybe 15 miles to Centerville, Del. The point was to visit Chadds Ford, technically in Pennsylvania, but really straddling both states. Chadds Ford, in its sweet pastoral hills, pastures, and rural settlements, is both an unincorporated place and a state of mind.

We’ve been there a couple of times. We visited the Brandywine Museum of Art and the Brandywine battlefield in December 2019. Last December Michael and Caroline took us back to Longwood Garden. I wrote about the beauty, gentility, and history of the Chadds Ford world. I tried to describe how those qualities of place translate to an elegance that, tucked in a hard-to-find corner of mid-Atlantic country, is distinctly, supremely American.

Glen Mills is roughly midway between Philadelphia and Wilmington. We headed southwest on Ridge Road, which merges with Smithbridge Road through Chadd Ford’s rolling, forested country. In a couple of miles we crossed into Delaware, then approached Smith’s Covered Bridge, built in 1839, the longest of the state’s three covered bridges.

The bridge spans Brandywine Creek, which echoes with the history of the place. On September 11, 1777 11,000 American colonials faced off along the creek against 18,000 British redcoats determined to seize Philadelphia. American commander George Washington massed his men where he guessed the Brits would attack.

British General William Howe also knew the territory, and sent a small unit in a feint at Washington’s men. His main force attacked from farther north, outmaneuvering the colonials. The two armies fought for 11 hours, the longest single-day engagement of the war. The colonials retreated, the Brits marched into Philly. The battle is memorialized at Chadds Ford.

The East Branch and West Branch of Brandywine Creek flow southeast for roughly 30 miles from Pennsylvania’s Chester County. The branches merge near the city of Coatsville, where in 1810 local people founded Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory, later Lukens Steel, using the power of the creek’s flow.

The mill created steelmaking jobs and earned the city the nickname “Pittsburgh of the East.” The creek continues south to the Christina River east of Wilmington, which then flows into the Delaware River.

We crossed the bridge and passed through quiet places you might call villages: Centerville, Quintynnes, Williamhurst, where stately homes and specialty shops appeal to people accustomed to affluence. We browsed the displays in Adorn Home Goods, a chic little place where you can outfit your dining room in style. Wine glasses are $30, a large demilune basket tote is offered at $190. We wandered through, the only customers that Sunday morning.

Longwood is the other anchor of the area, reached on lovely, winding country lanes. Pierre DuPont of the DuPont chemical legacy started developing the gardens when he bought 200 acres of woodland in 1906. Over decades he and his descendants added acres, now more than 1,000, and created stunning beauty with some 10,000 plant species. Awestruck crowds come throughout the year.

We’ve visited twice, the second time just before last Christmas, when the place was more than spectacular. We strolled the Flower Garden Walk, heavy with seasonal poinsettias, lilies, and hyacinths among the fountains. The DuPonts lived at Longwood, the house, on a gentle slope is filled with family photos and treasures. The Conservatory is the heart of the garden, exploding with the color of 4,000 exotic species, sometimes more.

Chadds Ford was the home of the Wyeths, America’s first family of fine art. At Brandywine you find the work of illustrator and patriarch Newell Convers (N.C.) Wyeth and three of his children, Andrew, Henriette, and Caroline. Their paintings are displayed worldwide—our Greenville, S.C., art museum shows a selection of Andrew’s watercolors, hypnotic in their beauty.

Henriette married artist Peter Hurd and moved to New Mexico and created gorgeous landscapes. Andrew and Caroline spent nearly all their lives in Chadds Ford, masters of oil, watercolor, and egg tempura, a medium Andrew developed with Peter Hurd. Jamie Wyeth, second son of Andrew and his wife Betsy, became prominent with both oil and watercolor, and painted portraits of John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.

The Wyeths devoted their lives to creating art by observing their Chadds Ford surroundings and its people—farmers, artisans, mechanics, people close to the land.

We moved on, making a circuit through wide, rolling pastures. Solitary colonial estate-type homes are perched on broad hillsides amid thick, vernal woodland. Downtown Philadelphia is an hour away, but it seems a century distant. I thought of “Christina’s World,” Andrew’s graceful, world-famous masterpiece, full of richness and pathos.

Many places all over America show unique rural beauty. Ten years ago we drove north from another verdant stretch of country blended with small outposts, between Elizabethton, Tenn., and Damascus, Va. The route, TN 91, winds through the gorgeous, rolling Cherokee National Forest to the lovely hamlet of Shady Valley. You then cross the state line to Damascus, a way station on the Appalachian Trail.

The Chadds Ford environs are a far different world. The place unfolds naturally from the City of Brotherly Love into genteel Quaker farming and cattle country. Much of the land was acquired by captains of industry through the Gilded Age years of the late 19th century, many of those family connections remain. The place offers no national park-style tourist dazzle, but tranquil beauty framed in the region’s rich history. You visit once or twice, you want to return.

July 1, 2024

Accidents happen, we all say. You and your wife or husband and extended family and friends may go for years without a scratch on their fenders. Then Boom! You’re exchanging insurance information with some other driver. Or the experience may be worse, far worse.

We all know about the appalling human cost of auto accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported 40,990 traffic deaths in the U.S. in 2023, actually a decrease of about 2,000 from 2022. Beyond fatalities is the litany of further tragedy, serious injuries and costs of medical care for victims, and sometimes years-long trauma.

The economic costs are the next punishment—enormous sums laid out for repairs, some covered by insurance, some not, legal costs, the bickering with insurance, replacements for totaled vehicles. Then the deductibles and rate hikes for people who file insurance claims. And so on.

Twelve years ago Sandy skidded on an icy highway ramp, the car scrunched against the ramp. No injuries, but the car was totaled. Years earlier I collided with another car, no injuries, both vehicles still drivable, but everything else, waiting for the police, a traffic ticket, repairs, higher insurance rates: scary, nerve-wracking, expensive. But you don’t swear off driving. If you live in the suburbs you need your car.

You almost always stay lucky. We grind our teeth at the guy following too close and yell when somebody cuts us off or merges without signaling, but the vast majority of drivers reach their destinations in one piece, day after day. The morning and evening news reports are full of coverage of road “incidents.” Traffic reporting is by itself an industry. But in any community a tiny minority are involved. Rush hour flows slowly, but usually safely.

Even so—everyone has their awkward car story, or sobstory. We pulled into a a Stop ‘N Go to pick up bottled water. I ran in and ran out, climbed back in the passenger’s seat. Sandy backed out. Then the crunch. The parking lot had a slight upgrade. A car parked in a space twenty feet behind us was not clearly visible to her, maybe our rear-view mirror was out of line. But we crunched. She let out a yell and pulled forward. We jumped out.

The woman who owned the other car, a white 2021 Subaru Outback, had just parked and was halfway to the store entrance. She turned and walked towards us. “Oh dear!” she said, or something like that. Sandy was upset. She apologized, and apologized again.

The white-haired lady was pleasant and understanding. “I turned around and thought, is that my car? But it’s not that bad,” she said. “It could happen to anyone.” She and Sandy talked, slowly calming down. “I’m seventy,” she added, for no clear reason.

“I’ve always driven BMWs, but I got this Subaru because it’s supposed to be safe,” she said. “I guess we need to exchange insurance information?” I walked to our car and retrieved our insurance card. She reached into her glove box and rummaged around for hers.

I looked at the rear of the Subaru from ten or so feet away, it looked okay. I got closer. The bumper was scratched, with black marks against the white surface. Looking closer still, the panel next to the bumper above the right rear wheel had separated an inch or two from the body.

From where I stood the rear end of our car also appeared intact, but from closer the right side of the bumper was punched in, the ride side panel pushed slightly out. A tail light was smashed, the red glass in pieces on the ground.

We all recognized what had happened, really not much. The NHTSA doesn’t count this kind of accident. Two vehicles, only one moving, one occupied, the other empty. No complicated circumstances, no rain or fog or alcohol or distracting other traffic. A collision. Not much of a collision. But still.

It was high noon, about 95F. The sun blazed down on us. The lady seemed not to notice the heat. She suddenly reached for her cellphone and said she needed to call her husband. We waited while they talked. “He wants us to call the police,” she said. We shook our heads. “We’re in a store parking lot, they won’t come,” one of us said. She nodded. “My husband Bob is coming, he’s just a few minutes away. He’s eighty.” I nodded, puzzled at that.

We stood, sweating. Ten minutes later Bob drove into the lot. I didn’t know what to expect, but he shook my hand, then looked at the damage and shrugged, as if to ask what’s the big deal.

We took photos of each other’s insurance cards. We were all the same ages or close, we could have been friends. But we waved and drove away. At home I called the insurance company. After waiting on hold for a bit, I was transferred to someone. I scribbled her directions and gave her the other driver’s insurance information.

Later that afternoon an adjuster called and made an appointment for us at a local body shop. “You have a $500 deductible, we pay the rest,” she said. “We’ve reached out to the other driver.”

I thought I could hear in her voice a note of—well, boredom. A back-in to a parked car in a parking lot. Not exactly high drama to an insurance adjuster. As trivial as they get, she probably was thinking.

The damage was bumper work, barely visible, but had to be done. Not traumatic, not life-changing, but our accident, our 12-year-old Volkswagen versus her three-year-old Outback. I guessed the body shop guys would look at our bumper and exchange puzzled looks. They would jump right on repairing the nearly new, stylish Outback.

We’d meet our deductible and hold our breath waiting for the rate increase. Eventually we’d get our car back with the bumper good as new. We’d keep driving it, maybe a bit nervously. We’ll take care to adjust the rear-view mirror, and watch out for white-haired ladies in parking lots.

June 24, 2024

A year ago we were still talking about our wood picket fence replacement. Finally we chose the contractor who gave us a discount. We were relieved to get it done. Later I noticed some of the segments were a little out of line, some installed higher in the earth than others. Was it the slope of the terrain? Or me picking the low bidder and not checking his work.

The new fence was treated for moisture protection, so we thought. Now the anchor posts, pickets, and crossbars were dark and gray. The contractor had quoted $500 for painting, another guy said $800. As usual with home improvement, we put it off.

Here we encountered the homeowner’s perennial conundrum: which repairs and upgrades do you contract out and which do you attempt? After all, people who would never unclog a toilet will hammer a nail to hang a picture, or even mow the lawn. Actually, around here few people mow lawns. Our next-door neighbor, whose postage-stamp-size lawn is smaller than ours, contracts for mowing.

At the time, $800 or even $500 seemed like a lot to paint our fence, which is all of 185 feet long across level ground. Now, a year later, it would cost more. So—obviously, that is, to me—this would be “do it yourself.” It would involve no climbing or heavy lifting. It was not time-sensitive—we already had let it go a year. It would require no complicated, expensive tools or materials. It’s painting, after all.

We’re veteran painters. Over 20 years we painted the interior walls of our Virginia house two or three times. The worst of it was covering a rich, deep red with light gray. The red shone through one coat of the gray, even with primer, then two coats. Eventually we needed five coats, drawing our rollers over the same square footage again and again. Lesson: never paint your walls red.

You can gaze at something you want to change in or around your home and envision the work completed. We had looked at the deep red of our walls we had tired of and saw instead the delicate light gray we had chosen to replace it. Now I stared out at the dingy gray pickets and saw them as bright, glowing white. But we had to actually do the work.

At Home Depot I asked the paint guy for three gallons of white. Three gallons seemed like a start. He reached beneath the shelves and pulled out a five-gallon drum and carried it to the counter. “Five gallons works out cheaper,” he said. He lifted it into my shopping cart, and this was a skinny guy.

In the parking lot I strained to lift the drum into the van, it must have weighed 100 pounds. I heaved it in and stood for a moment catching my breath. At home I lifted it out and paused again, gasping. I shoved it in the garage.

Part of the DIY plan was to hire the grandsons, pay them a few bucks, let them paint for a couple of hours, or until they got tired. They could slap paint on and learn the rewards of work. They could be my Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, I would be Aunt Polly. The ten-year-old proposed $75.00 for two hours’ work. I thought, whoa, let’s talk about it.

That would be a few weeks off. Painting to protect the fence from moisture meant more than slapping paint. The edges of each picket had to be painted. And the crossbars and undersides. And the undersides of the crossbars, both upper and lower.

I walked the length of the fence and counted: 288 individual pickets. Most of the undersides of the pickets were embedded in the soil. That meant excavating an inch or two beneath the surface to unearth them, just to draw a single brush stroke across the underside. Would a contractor do that for a $500 paint job? I don’t think so.

The work suddenly got complicated. Utilities run beneath the yard and beneath the fence. We called the utility people to mark the gas, electrical, and fiber-optic lines so I didn’t cut them with my shovel. They spray-painted the line paths in yellow, red, orange. The orange ran under the fence at a couple of points.

In mid-June South Carolina is hot. One side of the fence is shaded, the other two stand all day in the blazing sun. I had bought the paint ($200.00) and brushes. No turning back. Slowly, deliberately, I started at the north end and brushed grass away from the pickets. One picket, two, three. I dug down, clearing soil. The sun broiled the yard. I gulped water.

I set the shovel down and painted the lower 12 inches and the undersides and edges of the half-dozen pickets I had excavated. I moved on and cleared another half-dozen or so. I quit after an hour, went inside, got out of my dirty, sweaty clothes and sprawled in a chair.

The next day I clipped away the brush and weeds on the easement side of the fence facing the neighbor’s yard, tearing through his overgrown ivy. I pounded away with my shovel, picket after picket, two, four, six, ten.

For the painting I lay on my back on a tarp and daubed at the edges and undersides. I stretched and twisted, reaching behind my head in yoga-like positions to do the hard-to-reach edges. One picket, two, three, and on and on. In the far corner of the yard I tore through weeds and old shrubbery to access the pickets. I dug and painted, dug and painted.

This went on. Days later I finished the shaded side of the yard and emerged in the 85F-plus sunlight. I pulled my tarp forward, painted a few more pickets. At the far end of the yard the pickets were embedded in tough weeds and tree roots. I chopped away with the shovel to get to the picket ends and finished a few more.

Each morning I stirred the paint, poured it in a pail and painted away, dug away, painted a little more, pausing to gulp water. On Father’s Day afternoon I was out there, digging and painting. I turned the last corner of the yard and pruned the sharp leaves of a yucca plant that grew hard against the fence.

The next morning my neck, shoulders, and arms ached, as they had ached for a week. I stirred my paint and grabbed my shovel, the blade now dulled by unearthing thousands of rocks and chopping thousands of tree roots.

I finished the last picket of the final section, which met the gate on the south end of the yard. I tossed the brush on the tarp and leaned on the shovel and looked at the work. The lower 12 inches of each picket gleamed uniformly white, like well-polished teeth. The upper ends remained bare, dingy, waiting for paint. The grandsons will take care of it. That’s the plan.