Dear little boy,

This summer, you’ll probably see me stopping to simply look at you more than usual: smiling, deep in thought as you play uninhibitedly, unabashedly enjoy the merry-go-round every Friday afternoon before we meet Grandma, and as you playfully skip though the sprinkler during hot afternoons in the backyard.

This summer feels a little different from the last thirteen summers of your life, and certainly the summers to follow this one will also be quite different indeed. This summer, you’re turning 14, and the next you’ll turn 15. And although you still have that little boy look about you now, by this time next summer, you will have grown so much more that calling you a little boy will no longer do.

You won’t look like my little boy, you won’t sound like him, and the rest of the world will no longer perceive you as little. You’ll be taller, your facial features will change, your voice will become lower, and a lot about your body will change as you develop into the man you’ll be in such a short while.

But before this happens, I’m going to need some time to prepare myself. I foresee that this summer is going to be a summer of ‘lasts’ – the last summer of the little boy.

Lately I’ve been looking through old photos and watching videos of you during your little boyhood. I remember thinking there was always so much more time, almost like this summer would never come and we would stay like this forever.

Last week you stood in front of me, and I noticed your eyes are now just a couple tiny inches below mine. I paused to settle into the realization. You used to look up at me with raised arms and I’d lift your little body and hold you, facing each other at the level at which you do now standing before me. I couldn’t recall the last time I picked you up and held you. Strange how that happens. For years, a mother bends to pick up her child and then at some unnoticed point in time she just stops and it’s over. Forever.

I asked you if it would be okay if I picked you up one last time, to hold you up one last time as my little boy. You put your arms around my neck and when I raised you up, you wrapped your long legs around my waist and laid your head into the curvature of my neck, both of us silent as I swayed slight and slow, back and forth, the mother-child dance we shared for so many years. I squeezed you harder as if that could make the moment last longer or imprint it deeper into my memory – the way you felt, the smell of your hair, and then the final bump of your feet as I put you down, the space then between us.

You said to me in all your innocence and sincerity, “I will hold you forever, Mom. I’ll always hold you,” and I said back that I would hold you, too, forever.

Little boy, you’re not little anymore. You’re barely even still a boy. I have always considered myself blessed that your little boyhood has stretched this far into our lives. Since you were a baby all those milestones came later than other kids. Your babyhood and toddlerhood were also equally stretched out, allowing me more time to enjoy that phase of your life, of my life just a bit longer, despite the challenges and difficulties you faced growing and developing on the autism spectrum, and despite how hard it was as your mother to see you struggle and fall behind. I enjoyed you as we moved through life together at your pace. But for some reason, now feels like the time to grab on more tightly to each handhold, relish each high-pitched giggle, and remember each brush of your baby-soft cheek against my face because no matter the pace at which you continue to unfold, there is no stopping biology.

You still love doing many of the same things you still enjoy – riding your bike pretending to be a train, watching Baby Einstein videos and pretending to be the conductor of the orchestra, running from ride to ride throughout Thomas Land at Edaville Railroad, and pumping your arm at passing vehicles from the sidewalk hoping for a beep. And little boy, that is all fine with me.

While the rest of the world might see a young man and wonder why he’s in line for the carousel, I’ll be watching, looking on proudly as you stay true to yourself, pure in spirit and in joy, unconcerned and unaware of a world that expects differently from a young man, and hoping you never outgrow that.

Until then, though, little boy, I will be mindful and experience every moment of this summer with you with an open heart. I’ll remember this year as the last summer of the little boy and savor each and every little ‘last’ it has to offer. I’ll take my time as I say my goodbyes, on my own terms.

Goodbye little voice. Goodbye little laugh. Goodbye little hands, little feet. Goodbye, little boy.

This Imperfect Life

By Jean Perry

Now in its 21^st season, the Buzzards Bay Musicfest returned to Tabor Academy in Marion this past week, bringing with it exceptional selections expanding all the way from Mozart to Sinatra.

The five-day long festival spanned from July 12-16 and featured two orchestra concerts, two chamber music concerts, and a special salute to the Big Band Era.

This year’s guest conductor was Catherine Larsen-Maguire, a long-time professional bassoonist and conductor based in Berlin. The festival also featured Phil Sanborn, director of the Tri-County Symphonic Band, director of instrumental music at Tabor Academy, and bandleader of the “Buzzards Bay Musicfest Swing Band.”

The musicians are friends and colleagues of BBMF’s Artistic Director and Concertmaster Charles Stegeman, and they travel from all over the world to participate in the festival. Many of these incredible musicians perform professionally with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra and teach at a variety of reputable institutions. “Some of the best musicians in the world are here to perform,” said Stegeman in the festival’s program book, “and I invite you to sit back and enjoy!”

For me, a music major at Boston University, it was incredible to witness the collaboration of all these artists and hear the stunning performances that they produced. I was able to attend the Thursday night chamber music concert as well as the “BBMF Swing Band” Salute on Friday evening. Chamber music concerts, such as the Thursday and Saturday concerts of the festival, feature musical selections performed by a small ensemble, typically with one instrumentalist per part. Thursday’s concert featured Gounod’s Petite Symphonie, Bax’s Quintet for Strings and Oboe, Barber’s well-known Adagio for Strings, and finally a chamber arrangement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36.

I found the Bax to be the standout performance of the evening. Oboe soloist Gordon Hunt stunned the audience with his wonderfully warm, rich tone and brilliant technique. The strings – Rachel Stegeman on violin, Eric Tanner on violin, Michael Strauss on viola, and Claudio Jaffe on cello – provided support when needed, but had their moments to shine throughout the piece as well. Everything was well balanced and had an excellent sense of musical direction.

Friday’s “BBMF Swing Band” Salute under the leadership of Phil Sanborn, while more light-hearted and casual than the previous night’s concert, (where else other than a jazz concert are you allowed to applaud a soloist in the middle of a piece?), was just as exciting and engaging. The band guided the audience on a journey though the greats of the Big Band Era, featuring tunes from Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, and Glenn Miller.

The concert included some excellent solo and improvisational playing as well as balanced and blended ensemble work.

“We love to play, and this is a whole bunch of fun for us!” said Sanborn. By the tapping feet and dancing in their seats, it was a ‘whole bunch of fun’ for the audience as well.

The Buzzards Bay Musicfest and its board are dedicated to bringing high-quality classical and jazz performances to the South Coast without charge.

“It’s just terrific,” said Lewis Lipsitt of Marion, who has been attending the festival with his wife Edna since its inception. “And it’s such an honor for the town to have such talent available free of charge so that people who don’t have much money can come and enjoy ‘Class-A’ music.”

The Buzzards Bay Musicfest is certainly one of the best festivals of its kind in the area, bringing to the community delightful and memorable performances for the past twenty-one years.

Years of ‘Class-A’ Music

By Ashley Perry

The wood duck is a cousin of the Asian Mandarin duck with an inherited oriental and iridescent plumage, red eyes, and a distinctive white flare down the neck. The less colorful female has a whitish throat, but with a crested head like the male.

Color in nature is not just a means of concealment. Most male birds benefit by brighter plumage than their mates, perhaps to put on a show to impress them at the time of courting.

They both have crested heads and are classified as perching ducks with sharp claws for climbing and perching on trees. They usually nest high up in a hollow opening of a tree 20 feet or more, to discourage predators from getting from seven to twenty-five eggs that only incubate for about thirty days.

Amazingly enough, a day or two after hatching, the mother calls to them to climb to the edge of the nest entrance and jump to the ground, preferably over water to soften the impact of landing since they are unable to fly yet. The mother does not help them in any way, and they already know how to swim and look for food.

They feed by dabbling and walking on land and mainly eat berries, acorns, seeds, and insects, making them omnivores. In temperate regions, they may nest more than once in a season before migrating south for the winter.

The population was in serious decline in the late 19^th century due to habitat loss and market hunting for meat and plumage for the ladies hat market in Europe. Next to the mallard, the wood duck was and still is the most hunted duck in America.

After the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, numbers began to recover slowly by ending unregulated hunting and implementing measures to protect remaining habitats. The development of the artificial nesting box gave a big additional boost to convenient production. Also, the return of the beaver population with their industrious work ethic building dams and creating wooded swamps, ponds, and widening streams, greatly increased the wood duck’s feeding and nesting habitat.

Often the nesting boxes appear to be unused, and a recent tagging study by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows they are more likely to take occupancy in boxes that they pass on their way south, remembering them on the way back.

If you have ever seen the remarkable spectacle of ducklings jumping down from a tree nest a day after hatching in a beaver pond, as in my illustration, it may well be an unforgettable impression as it was for me. And it may be a lasting imprint in the survival of species from predation that makes them more comfortable for them and entertaining for bird watchers.

By George B. Emmons