The kids got married on Muir Beach North of San Francisco on Saturday and headed off for their honeymoon. I am "home alone," unless you count the cats.

I took the 71 Muni up to Haight Ashbury late Saturday for a trip to Amoeba Records, the repository of most of the world's used CD's and vinyl records. Before I left Panama my dear wife reminded me that her favorite Marco Antonio Solis CD is nowhere to be found. Then she reminded me that she REALLY likes country music, OLD country music!

So, I spent a pleasant late afternoon browsing through titles at Amoeba. I came up with two of Marco Antonio Solis’s CD’s. However, the treasure I am bringing back is a pair of Flatt and Scruggs early recordings in CD format. My wife, who hails from the center of Colombia (Manizales), has loved old country music from the first moment she heard it. She does not like the new artists and always enjoys dancing to Lester and Earle’s music. It was when she first heard old country that the expression "EE HAH" entered her vocabulary. I think I will be a returning hero when I give her the CD’s, not to mention a care package of Tupperware doodads that my daughter is sending with me.

Since my daughter lives only a block from the ocean I have taken a stroll or two along the beach. It is the same ocean that I live close to in Panama but it sure is colder. I have decided that the fact that men in San Francisco seem to dress better than folks in southern California merely has to do with the fact that they wear sport coats and suits because it is cold here.

I spent a little time this morning looking at the wedding photos, thanks to the one hour photo department at Walgreen’s. My little girl is married and I am intensely proud of her. My mind is full of memories of children on swing sets and in sand boxes, bed time stories and tucking in. Maybe we cannot really go home again but the memories are always there if we just pause to reflect.

See you in Panama.