Carolina Comments: A Mystery & Reflections

MYSTERY: JIMMY PEREZ IS BACK

The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves

It’s been seven years since Ann Cleeves published the final Shetland mystery, Wild Fire.  She thought she was done with detective Jimmy Perez and ready to move on to other stories.  But earlier visits to the Orkney Islands called out to her.  It’s gentler than Shetland, and she’s set her new Jimmy Perez novel here.  

Jimmy is nicely settled in with Willow and son James and anticipating the arrival of another child.  Willow was his superior or boss on Shetland, and sometimes they work together on cases, as she is responsible for all of the islands.  When Archie, Jimmy’s best friend from childhood is murdered, he both mourns and is impelled to find out who did it.  

Neolithic-era stones with symbols on them play a role as does Archie’s father Magnus, and Tony Johnson, a professor researching the area’s Viking and earlier history.  Local teacher George Riley is writing a children’s book about the stones.  Add in Archie’s grieving wife and two teenage boys plus Archie’s friendship with a local artist, and clues and complexities abound.  How they all might connect to death is a puzzle for sure.

I watched the entire Shetland TV series but had never read one of Cleeves’ novels.  This book was most satisfying; so much so, that I will now read Wild Fire.

REFLECTIONS: LOOKING BACK AFTER 50+ YEARS

Early Years

November 27, 1970, was the day after Thanksgiving.  It was a cold and dark November day, even at 2:00 in the afternoon.  Some relatives found it strange that we chose a Friday on which to get married.  But we were graduate students in the Boston area, and Friday meant we could travel home to upstate New York, have a wedding and a brief time away, and still get back to work and school on Monday.  Our siblings, a total of three sisters and two brothers, had roles as bridesmaids or ushers with my close college friend, Suzy, as maid of honor.  A number of relatives came from out of town.  

We were married in the Presbyterian church my family attended and had a simple reception of punch and cookies in the church Social Room.  Then we were on our way.  

Little did we realize all that lay ahead.  After graduate school, we moved to the Albany-Schenectady area.  He worked at GE for seven years while I was a librarian at SUNY-Albany and earned a master’s degree in English.  We lived very close to his parents and saw them frequently.  Then son Tim was born, and we moved to Philadelphia a few months later; not exactly a popular move with any of the grandparents.

Life in Philadelphia & the Lehigh Valley

Together, we spent almost 20 years at the University of Pennsylvania.  He moved up the ranks from associate professor to ultimately, dean of the engineering school.  I meanwhile took on increasing responsibilities in the main library.  We lived in Wallingford and then Swarthmore on a great one-block street with wonderful neighbors. 

Tim thrived in a nearby Quaker school, played T-ball and softball, and took up the drums and was in a school jazz ensemble.  Later, in his teens, but before he had his license, his dad did yeoman service driving him and his drum set each Sunday afternoon to practice with his ska band colleagues. Their band played a number of gigs in Philadelphia, so we made the rounds, sometimes late at night.  In his middle and high school years, we made many trips to his then new school in Bryn Mawr.  Those were good years, and we enjoyed some fun family trips abroad, along with vacations in Maine and North Carolina (visiting grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.) 

The timing for our next move was perfect.  Tim had finished his first year at college and had returned to the Swarthmore nest during school breaks.  We moved north to Bethlehem and lived smack dab in the middle of the Lehigh campus.  (Always think about what you’re wearing when you go out the front door!)  

He was the president of Lehigh University, and I had several positions in the library and development departments along with being a hostess.  Our historic president’s house (Gothic Revival style built in 1868) was spacious and gracious, and we did lots of entertaining.  For me, that was one of the highlights of those years.  That and serving on several non-profit community boards.

Westward Ho!

After 8 years at Lehigh, we headed west.  We were excited by the opportunity to live on the other coast, particularly in San Francisco, that gorgeous city by the bay.  The culture is different there, and we very much enjoyed the seven years we sampled it.  It offered a great restaurant and foodie scene, short drives up to Napa and Sonoma for lunch and wine tasting, wandering among the redwoods in Muir Woods, and farther north, charming Mendocino with rocky coastal views and the Gallery Bookshop.

He was the CEO of the California Academy of Sciences, a museum, aquarium, planetarium, and research institute all under one roof in Golden Gate Park.  Its new building was designed by Renzo Piano, and we arrived there a little over a year before the grand opening.  I initially worked in the Academy library and eventually became director of lifelong learning.  

The museum had a colony of South African penguins, Claude, an albino alligator, and a myriad of fish—quite a different environment from the university campus.  And we met business and political notables who were supporters of the museum.  I even had the privilege of giving Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer a tour of the building!

From One Coast to the Other

When it came time to retire, we knew we would return east.  At that point, 2014, both our mothers were still alive and happy to have us back on this coast.  I know we surprised some people when we chose to live in Florida, on its gulf (west) coast.  We owned a condo there, which hadn’t seen much of us since our move to California. 

Florida’s warm climate and its lovely setting overlooking Sarasota Bay had great appeal.  We made good friends, enjoyed socializing at the pool and on the boulevard, and capitalized on our proximity to the richness of Sarasota’s cultural scene (orchestra, theater, bookstore, et al.).  

We could have lived in Florida longer, but age and reality have a way of creeping in.  We worried through every hurricane season, we needed a car to get anywhere, and it didn’t seem like the best place for this later phase of life.  We diligently visited four or five CCRCs/senior retirement communities, surveying what each one offered, considering what climate we desired, and pondering how far away from our son and family we wished to be.  

Life in the Real South

Our first choice of a CCRC kept changing the longer we looked, until we visited Glenaire where we now live in Cary, North Carolina. We moved 700 miles north from Florida, but Florida is not really the South, and North Carolina is.  Cary’s urban setting attracted us, and close by, we have my sisters and nieces and their families, a bonus.  Plus, it’s a short flight to our granddaughters in New York.  

So, where has 55 years gone? The C.P. and I have been fortunate to have lived in different places, to have traveled, to have made friends here and there, to have good health, and to know the joy of being grandparents.  We have much to be thankful and grateful for.  I would never have experienced all this without him as my wonderful partner!  Onward we go. (~JWFarrington)