My son John is home from college this week on Spring Break, and we met with him and his mother tonight for dinner, along with also my mother, and the family of my brother (John's namesake). It was a tremendous joy to be able to have this time with him.

One of my great passions is baseball: specifically, the Detroit Tigers. Given the success they enjoyed in 2006 and the sky-high demand I knew would result this year, I certainly never expected to be able to get Opening Day (April 2) tickets. But when the Tigers put up a contest a few weeks ago for the opportunity to buy them, I threw my name in ... and then I was DELIGHTED recently to receive email saying I'd been selected. So I bought a pair of tickets, and am going with my good friend Doug.

Having returned from last week's mission trip to the Gulf Coast a few days ago, I still find myself staggered and haunted by the devastation we witnessed there. Our work crew of 5 worked on building a home for Mary Brooks, a sweet woman in her sixties whose octogenarian mother lives next door to her, and whose home was totally destroyed in the August 2005 storm. (Hurricane Katrina) We worked on installing drywall ... when I told one of my work colleagues about this after returning, he grinned and asked, "So you're a carpenter now, eh?" And I typed back to him quickly, "No ... but a darned good carpenter's helper!" It was very enjoyable, and now I'm pondering whether to go on the next such trip, in November. (They project that these rebuilding efforts will need to continue for 4-6 more years yet.)

Allen's FAR better half, Michelle

Allen and choir director Carolyn Thibideau after his arrangement of "Rise Up, O Men of God" was used at First Presbyterian Church, Pontiac, Michigan, on Sunday, March 4, 2007

6 AM on Saturday, March 17 (my 50th birthday)

It is cold (mid-forties) here at the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance camp where we are staying in Pearlington, Mississippi, but that doesn't matter ... my heart is warm, as we are headed for home (Michigan) this morning, planning to depart after breakfast and group devotions.

Just musing, but on this mission trip to Mississippi, working with our work crew leader Dale Bernhardt (a 58-year-old retired Ford employee, and an excellent drywall installer), and the good man-to-man friendship we have developed, reminds me of a curious fact. As my Dad was only a few weeks shy of 50 when I was born, and used to emphasize to us constantly when we were kids that "a person doesn't even BEGIN to mature until about the age of 25," the combination of these two things made me consider myself still a "boy" until well past the age of 40 (bizarre though this seems). I only then began to consider that it was OK to regard myself as a "man," and even now, in these waning days of my forties, as 50 looms very large on the horizon, I sometimes feel like an imposter. But my kids regard me as "ancient" ... and I have to admit, that I AM starting to get up there.

THE AUTHOR

Allen Loyle Borton, taken from a family photo
of December 2005

John and Christy Borton

Here are my wonderful kids, John and Christy, a few years ago.

Tuesday evening, March 13 - Today we had a very good day of work here in Pearlington, Mississippi. Our work crew of 5 continued with the home we were working on yesterday, for an older woman named Mary Brooks ... a real sweetheart. We have been putting up drywall, and see the light at the end of the tunnel on that project, as well as "mudding" it (filling the joints between sheets of drywall with a special compound). It's kind of a culture shock to be dealing with temperatures in the high seventies, after the single digits we were experiencing quite recently in Michigan! And, of course, the devastation here is staggering. We learned that the storm surge at the time of Katrina had water 17 feet deep covering Pearlington, and it didn't abate for 24 hours.

A long time ago

Allen Borton (on right), a man who turned 50 this month, with his younger brother John and his dad in front of their home at Devils Lake, Michigan, around 1965.

November 14, 2006

Allen conducting a composition of his with the Emerson Orchestra on November 14, 2006.

The Borton family, Christmas 2005

John, Allen, Michelle, and Christy Borton, December 2005

Early Tuesday mornng, March 13. I woke about 4 here in Pearlington, Mississippi, and forced myself to stay in bed until 5, but am now (5:55) ready to go at the day!

Monday night, March 12, and I am on a short-term mission trip from our church to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance camp in Pearlington, Mississippi, which we've been told was pretty much "ground zero" for Hurricane Katrina. Water was 17 feet deep here, destroying everything, so we are working at construction ... rebuilding (or, more accurately, building) homes for residents who lost everything. We are part of a larger contingent of about 120 from churches throughout the Presbytery of Detroit. There are 13 of us here from our church in Ann Arbor. It's truly staggering to witness firsthand ... this is the fourth such trip the Detroit Presbytery has done since the August 2005 hurricane, and they say they expect the need to remain for 4-6 more years. Today we spent installing drywall in a home, and mudding it (filling the seams between sheets of drywall). I was part of a small, five-person work team ... good people. As I have told a fellow missionary, "The friendships you make on trips like this have to be one of the very top benefits." We left Ann Arbor Saturday morning, arriving in Mississippi Sunday evening after two very long days of driving (well over 1000 miles), and leave to head back next Saturday morning.

Here is my first posting to my newly created blog. I'm doing this at the suggestion of a very good friend (Doug Tidd), and at first, I thought the idea of me creating a "blog" sounded kinda highfalutin' and more technically oriented that I really am. But, after I pondered it slightly more, I realized that I expend considerable effort keeping family and friends in touch with the details of my life, so that this might actually end up being MORE time-efficient. I look forward to expanding upon it later.