It is now Wednesday, May 3; Thursday, April 20, began our sojourn to Martin, Kentucky, to bury the ashes of Larry Benton Qualls in the Dingus family cemetery in Martin. Originally, Barry and i had planned to fly down, but then Charles Lahti got in touch with Barry and suggested that we drive down. Charles promised that he would do most of the driving. So we decided we might as well do that.

So Friday morning (April 21), the three of us started the drive. We set out from New Jersey around 9:30 AM. With rest stops, time to eat, and a stop to refuel, it took us about 12 and a half hours. We finally got into Martin around 10 PM.

The little burial ceremony took place on Sunday, April 23. Luckily, it was a fairly nice day; we met up at the cemetery with some of Barry and Larry's relatives, including their nephew Jimmy Rey, their cousins Julianne and Bonita, and other friends. In all, i think there were 12 people. Barry gave a little speech about their childhood in Kentucky and Florida, then i put the box with the ashes in the gravesite, along with three objects of sentimental value to Larry: the recent CD of the earliest recordings of Joan Baez (his favorite singer), a copy of our play THE SURFACE EQUILIBRIUM WHICH CANNOT BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT DESTRUCTION, and two Christmas Nutcracker figures (in honor of how Larry loved to decorate for Halloween and Christmas). 

After that, we all went to Linda's Cafe in Paintsville for lunch. A lot of lively conversation about Larry and the family. 

Charles, Barry and i finally left Martin on Tuesday, April 25; first, we had to go to check about the headstone for the grave. Got home on Wednesday, April 26.

Since then, have been feeling very lost. And then it was cloudy and rainy all weekend. A disaster: we had flooding in the basement! Seems it was widespread: saw a report on ABC News about flooding in many neighborhoods in Queens. I'm still trying to dry out the basement.