An article about Art Buchwald in the garden section (of all places) of the New York Times (here) descrbes his love for his "summer home." The rich and famous in large Eastern cities seem to have one of these homes to use as a retreat from work and the hustle-bustle of urban life. It's also a place where friends and relatives can visit. Even though he's now 80 and dying, Buchwald loves getting company. People like Walter Cronkite, Dave Barry and Carly Simon drop by regularly. He chose this summer home as the place to spend the waning days of his life. And he's still writing his syndicated columns. The article made me think a bout the "summer homes" of linguists and other academics.
Sometimes our salaries don't allow us the luxury of even one home, much
less two. But we can use our summer break time to give lectures or
teach courses in other places, attend conferences, and mostly do our
research and writing--because we love what we do. Some pick nice places
to do their research, like the mountains of Montana, where my fellow
Language Logger, Sally Thomason, researches the Salish language in the
Flathead. Before I moved to Montana I used to spend parts of my summers
here, my wife's home state, and I fell in love with this place. When I
retired from teaching at Georgetown, we moved here and, like Buchwald,
we made it our permanent "summer home." I now do my writing and
research here, far from the madding crowd (and any loose gerunds that happen
to be running around).
But it was the last quote in this article about Buchwald that hit me
between the eyes. His housekeeper broke into his conversation with the
interviewer and asked if he'd like some strawberry rhubarb pie: