Jorma's Thoughts Page: Thoughts From Hillside Farm

Last Update: Monday, June 14, 2010
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Latest Entries

Monday, June 14, 2010 Athens, Ohio

This past weekend was a rare one for me at home… It was really the first time I have been able to enjoy the pool this year. Izze and Vanessa were there as well as my sister in law Ginger and my nephew Montana. As we were sitting around enjoying life it occurred to me that June 12th was my Mother’s birthday. If that lovely lady had still been with us she would have been one hundred years old… and there is a milestone in the passage of time. She passed twelve years ago and as I sat in our yard here in the Ohio River Valley I thought about her in the 20’s with Ben and Vera living not far from where we live today.

Ben and Vera have been gone for almost forty years now… Time is always moving and we are each surrounded by the fragile universe of our lives. The years may dilute the intensity of the passion, but not the warmth of memory. We are here today… what a blessing.

Happy birthday Mom!

Thursday, June 10, 2010 Scotch Plains, New Jersey


At this point in my life, the passage of time has come to mean many different things. On the one hand, our children grow and we share in the splendor of their discovery and on the other hand, the ones who brought us here complete their journey as their time comes and we are saddened by their loss and enriched for having known them. I think of a Robert Duvall line in one of the many great westerns he did.

‘From the sweet grass to the packing house, from birth to death, we travel between the two eternities.’

The other day I got a note from my friend Chuck. His father in law Dave had just passed away. Chuck and Donna have been my friends for, well… a really long time. Sometimes I think we grazed on the sweet grass together, but that is another story. Anyway, I was up at Chuck and Donna’s recently in El Dorado County in California and in their lovely home was a little shrine to Dave. There was his flying gear from WWII. My Dad and my two uncles were WWII vets so I think I focused more on those items… but there was more… the trail of a lifetime.

Indeed there is more… his widow Toby has been an active friend of mine for some years. We email, she comes to shows occasionally and she and my wife, Vanessa, are buddies. She, and all of them are family to us too.

Dave had not been himself for some time so in some small way, there had been a long goodbye in progress. This does not make the final chapter any easier.

Still on the road of destiny his children, Michelle and Donna, a grandchild and Toby journey with eyes toward the future. The final chapter of his book has been written but it is there for us to re-read at any time.

Yesterday my friend Barry and I went out to Michelle’s place in Long Island to sit shiva with the family, pay respects and tell stories. We brought food… it was a cool rainy day… unusual for this time of year but a nice setting for reflection. There were somber moments, but also lots of laughter. That is all as it should be.

Dave was buried with full military honors in Long Island as he should have been. In his time he soared with eagles and perhaps back in the world he may have soared even higher as he raised a grand family. Toby shared her strength with us and I thank her for that.

An afternoon with friends in a moment of transition… a beautiful page from the book of life.
Fair winds and following seas Dave… Say hi to my Dad.

Friday, May 28, 2010 Sonora, California


I write this from the somewhat small town of Sonora, California. My pals and I are here for the Furthur Festival at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds. Myron and I came in late yesterday afternoon after an all day airport event starting in Columbus, Ohio. Yeah… living the dream. Being on East Coast time I was up at 0430 and couldn’t go back to sleep. Oh well… Anyway, Myron and I found a breakfast café in Jamestown which was only a couple of miles away from our hotel. Down home food at California prices. That’s OK. I’m in California.

When I came out of my room into the parking lot of the hotel, I was greeted by that forest mountain smell that you only find in the west coast of the United States. My Mom, may she rest in peace, used to live on Talmont up in North Shore Tahoe. It always smelled like that up at her house on the side of the mountain overlooking the lake.

The smell of these trees in the early morning transported me back decades. We would visit her up there, Vanessa and I, and drink in the surroundings of those ancient trees. It was a delightful taste I will never forget.

May 8th was the twelfth anniversary of my Mom’s journey beyond the stars. It slipped by me unnoticed this year. Sadly I notice that as time passes there are indeed more memories than a heart can predictably hold. I’m sure my memory will be just as fragile when my time comes, but that is as it should be. I miss Mom always. I miss her advice whether or not I chose to take it. That too is as it should be.

In the late eighties, Mom moved back down from the mountain to Mill Valley, California. The thin air of the High Sierras was too difficult for her aging lungs to negotiate. She loved these mountains with all her heart and when she moved back down to the Coast she said goodbye to what might have been the most serene twenty five years of her life. Even now twelve years after her passing and twenty one years after she gave up the house on Talmont , when I work in North Shore Tahoe someone is sure to say, I remember that name, Kaukonen. I think I saw it in a newspaper in the seventies or eighties. That would have been my Mom or Dad trying to fix some perceived wrong in the community. That would have been Bea or Jorma Sr.

On this morning up here in Calaveras County, for a brief moment she walked with me again as I breathed in the evergreen air of this magnificent California landscape. I smelled the mountains, and the trees and the wood smoke and I could hear her voice in a distant whisper of memory. When I would call her in the last years of her life, I would ask, ‘How are you Mom?’ and she would say, ‘I’m here Jerry, I’m still here.’

You know, in that corner of my heart where love always lives surrounded by the memories of my life, she still is… here.