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I just had the opportunity to spend a couple days at Gordon MacDonald’s place in Deeering, New Hampshire.  I had a great time with Gordon, his wife Jennifer and their BEAUTIFUL daughter, Nellie.  I also got to meet Jennifer’s mom, Eileen.  They were all so kind and generous with their time and their home.  (I feel like I need to apologize for my use of adjectives and adverbs – the words I come up with don’t accurately capture the experience I had, which was memorable and truly special.  I have to rely on these cliches, even though they don’t actually capture the depth of the experience for me) 

Before I left on the trip I went to Mom’s place in San Diego and we spent an afternoon (from 12 – 6:30)pm) going through boxes of pictures, looking specifically for pictures of Aunt Marcelline I could give to Gordon.  It took us a while, but we hit the jackpot, the best find being an actual original picture from Marcelline’s graduation from the Mount.  We found some excellent pictures of my father’s generation of Kuglen siblings, which included some pictures of Aunt Marcelline when she was a girl and a young woman – including another gem for Gordon, a small black & white photo of Aunt Marce holding a baby ( we assumed it was Gordon) with Bom Bom in the background.  I was fortunate enough to present Gordon with some original pictures of his mother as a young woman, along with a copy of our Kuglen family DVD, which has some other glimpses of Marcelline from my parents’ wedding all the way through Aunt Emily’s wedding.  He showed me a few pictures his Grandmother MacDonald had given him, including a remarkable picture of the four Kuglen sisters at Aunt Emily’s wedding – and I told Gordon he was over at our house on Kerwood, with all the other kids, helping us decorate the car for Aunt Emily and Uncle Carl’s getaway.  As we were talking, Gordon spoke of the “family reunion” we had a few years back to celebrate Uncle Bob and Aunt Carolyn Salle’s fiftieth wedding anniversary.  Aunt Mary Anita and Aunt Carolyn had been telling him about Marcie and that meant a lot to him.   He asked when we would be having another – he wants to bring Nellie and Jennifer to meet the family!

Bottom line for me is that Gordon is a great guy, a great husband and a wonderful father - all in addtion to the fact tha,t for me, he is nearly a dead ringer for Grandpap!

Since I didn’t get any pictures of Gordon, Jennifer and Nellie, I am going to try and compensate for my negligence by showing you a few of his place – an old colonial house.  He showed me the foundation last night – made of solid granite, and 23 1/2 inch wide maple floor beams (if they were 24 inches, beams were sent to England for shipbuilding).  Pretty cool. 

Here are a couple views of the barn – a 90 foot beam runs across the ceiling.

Oh yeah – the sky is amazingly blue. He aslo gets his water from an underwater well – you can see it in the next photo. 

This last picture is “the backyard” but it actually surrounds the property.  This is what he gets to see every day out his kitchen window! 

Thanks, Gordon, for sharing a small part of your life with me.  It was a wonderful opportunity for me and I am glad I had the chance to take advantage of it!