Dispatch from the Land of Poetry

This dispatch comes to you from the living room couch of the McGrath Family ancestral seat in Johnston County, North Carolina, where I am reliably informed a great literary debate rages over this State's obvious love of poetry. It is written on my iPad, so please forgive the mistakes. I arrive yesterday, after a deliciously selfish evening of steak and conversation with a brilliant friend, and then sweet repose in the luxe bunk afforded me by a posh hotel in Arlington, obtained for fifty dollars and some Hotels.com reward points.  I rose early (for room service breakfast) and then got on the road for Chesterfield Va and the home of much older brother Tom.  There, slightly younger brother Pat and his family were abiding, waiting on my arrival to whisk his issue to NC to consort with their cousins and grandparents for the week.

Puberty is an awesome force, demonstrated by little Liam greeting me at Tom's, a manboy of 14 and somewhere north of five ten.  From his angelic face boomed the deep yet unready voice of manhood, and I found I conversed with him differently than I had in the past, as if his explosion of hormones had somehow qualified him for a new level of intellectual access. His sister Emma is a girl of interesting depth, and I aim to plumb a bit of it while I am near.

I am here for a periodic visit, timed somewhat to coincide with my sainted mother's 79th birthday. Both she and my Dad are well, in full possession of their feisty spirits, but also dealing with a variety of skeletal maladies that mark the passage of time. Dad hasn't golfed since February, but I have confidence he will be back swinging again in a few months.

There is little on my agenda for the day, save for a nap later in the afternoon. I arrived here yesterday at quarter past two, and was sound asleep by half past three. The room they put me in seems to exert an oddly gravitational pull in the afternoon, and I am powerless to resist. My folks have become used to my post arrival naps, and take no offense therefrom.

Now I will put this down and watch golf with my Dad, something I've done periodically for my whole life.  With great pleasure.