2025 Life Logs, Day 200: Ollie’s ASLP Graduation
Date: Saturday, July 19, 2025
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 77, Low 69 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I can’t keep up with my family. All in one day, we are scattered here and there. Heather, Jed, and I went to Mass Maritime for Ollie’s graduation from their two-week summer college-like residential experience. It is called Advanced Studies & Leadership (ASLP) and is for 7th and 8th graders from the Cape and Islands. Ollie loved it and hopes to go for a second-year next summer to try and win one of the scholarships to Mass Maritime. Ollie’s team won the boat building and race contest and became very close with their counselor, a cadet at Mass Maritime. The rooms were typical dorm rooms, but his had a view of the canal.
I asked him if he was really interested in going to Mass Maritime after high school and he responded with an enthusiastic YES! It could be a good fit for him. Right now, he is just excited because he had such a positive experience. But the prospect of a college scholarship excited him even more.
I came home and went to the Saturday Freedom Rally on the Green. Sam and Jonah were both working at Corner Cycle today, and Heather and Jed went to work on the boat. Tonight Heather and Jed took Jonah to see the Trombone Shorty at the Melody tent in Hyannis. This was part of his birthday present from Grammy Marti. And after Ollie got home from camp, he went boating with his good friend Seton and family and didn’t get home until 9:30 pm. That left just Sam and I at home to have dinner together before he took off for the evening. Sam experimented with salt brining steaks that he then grilled. We had steak, salad from Heather’s deck garden, and the best corn on the cob I have had in a very long time.
Then there is the crew in Puerto Rico. Justin and Ziggy took off on Friday evening for Lake Guajataca for a weekend canoeing adventure. I sent a “Have a Great Time” text to Ziggy and that got us into a back forth texting adventure. He sent photos of the lake when they arrived, breakfast the next morning, and even a bird that we identified together. He thinks it was a moorhen. Fom the photos, I thought it was a juvenile black-bellied whistling duck. But regardless, how much fun it was to communicate back and forth.
