Blue moon

What is a blue moon anyway? I don't know... Elvis sang Blue Moon of Kentucky, a song by Bill Monroe in his bluegrass style, early on and, as far as I know, never recorded another bluegrass type song. He probably did, that hillbilly cat, I just don't know about it.

I only ask because once again it's been nearly a month since I've taken the time to sign on here and ramble at length about anything and nothing at all. I suppose I could blame it on the sleep debt but that hasn't kept me from playing WeBBoggle at all hours. Or staying up all night watching TV for eight hours I'll never get back because my wyfe- the one decidedly non-technical, non-TV-addicted soul in the household -figured out how to work the OnDemand feature of our cable remote. I don't know if that stuff runs out after the three-month intro package or not but I'm doing all I can to make sure we get our money's worth out of it before that rolls around!

Coupla old western movies and even a Rifleman episode on there, very cool. Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd. I've watched a LOT of Clint Eastwood over the years but I don't know if I ever watched that one before. Not a stellar offering but passable at least as western shoot-'em-up fare.

I could blame it on prepping our next move- I know, I know, it's been less than six months... hasn't it? I lose track, I'll tell ya... -but this time it's just up the lane in our little trailer community. A decidedly-

I like that word, 'decidedly'. Almost as much as 'ostensibly'. Or 'unequivocally'. How 'bout this- "Jed was ostensibly a mass media 'retrovista'; that is, decidedly unequivocal in his love of vintage television.". I just made that up- 'retrovista' -to describe someone who snobbishly avoids contemporary entertainment in favor of that representative of the 'good old days'. Make of that what you will.

Oh, and another thing: Speaking of retro TV, Mrs. Rankin, fourth grade teacher at Conestoga Elementary School, once marked a sentence writing exercise of mine with a big red slash through the proper name 'Jed', commenting 'No such proper name!' in red as well. Did the woman never watch The Beverly Hillbillies? I guess not. 'Jed', short for Jedediah. Admittedly not a common name even in, whatever year that was, 1970-71, perhaps, but, c'mon!... In her generation it had to have been a sight more recognizable as a moniker!!! What was her problem?!? Were my striped hip huggers just too Partridge Family for her? My rakishly combed 9-year old hair too reminiscent of those mop-topped British lads who caused such a stir over the last decade? So she took it out on my writing skills papers?!? Yeeshhh... I may have commented on this previously, I'm not sure, but it just sticks in my craw, I guess.

What's a 'craw', I wonder? I know... Let's go ask Jed!

But I digress... -a decidedly larger accomodation where we'll be able to line up abreast, arms raised and not bang into a wall. Pass side-by-side in the living room without turning sideways. Where my toymaking activities will be out of the main pathway, out of sight and out from underfoot. Where both the stovetop and the, ah, reading room are vented to the outside of the living space. Where having friends in doesn't mean having friends in your lap... And so on. Just generally more accomodating quarters for all parties involved and any and all activities which might conceivably occur therein.

Highlights also include two, count 'em two, built-in curio displays where I'll be able to stand up some of my little plastick men for the befuddled amusement of people who ask, 'What do you do again?!?" Which is almost invariably followed by, "Is there money in that?!?" Well, no, but then I live simply. And cheaply. Mostly becasue I'm simple. And cheap.

Sizable closet space for everybody also means my suits won't be crushed to death between weekly wearings. And I may not have to iron every shirt every time it comes out. Not that I ever do, I just make sure to keep the jacket on!

And my guitars will have a place of their own. I might even bring the Crate half stack home, though my pal Jimmy will probably wanna arm wrestle me for it at this point. He's been baby-sitting it in his basement for a coupla months since mumsy got tired of it taking up floor space in her spare bedroom. (Really, what's a spare bedroom for if not your grown son's guitar amp, record collection and rarely watched VHS tapes?)I hope he's gotten some use out of it.

All in all, it's like the Jeffersons- 'Movin' On Up!', fer sure. Should be an exciting next few weeks as we tote our worldly goods up the lane a hundred yards. More like fifty yards. Let's see, fifty times three...150... uh, feet... 75 paces... I dunno, it's not far at any rate. I could throw a rock from here to there. But then I'd probably throw my arm out. That wouldn't be good. That would be very bad.

Oh, my, look at the time! I'll never wanna get up in the AM! See ya!

Moons go by

   Well, one moon anyway. Hard to believe it's been thirty days plus three with nothing to say here. Well, okay, it's not that I couldn't ramble at length about something- or nothing -but the time just got away from me.

   It's no small task and requires a good deal of time and energy, after all, teaching a cat to fetch. Not really. The time and energy, I mean. The cat really does fetch! I don't know about anybody else and, granted, I haven't seen it all by a far piece but, 'cmon, who's ever heard of a cat that'll fetch?!?

   Coco, short for Coconut- though she's more often referred to now by one of a number of pet names: Miss Puss, Pussis, Wacko or my favorite given my recent penchant for the old-timey kiddie western The Cisco Kid, Loco. Cisco's sidekick, Pancho, had a horse named Loco, y'see? -has an orange feathered vaguely mouse-shaped thing that she just loves clawing and treating like prey. It's comical enough watching her toy with it, arching up and down, round the legs of chairs and up and over the sofa cushions, tearing it to pieces in her little cat mind, like a miniature lion who's just grabbed the juiciest young gazelle by the throat...

   But one day early in her tenure here I tossed the orange mouse across the kitchen floor and commanded, 'Fetch!', expecting an insouciant response which one might interpret as A) boredom B) aloof disregard or C) the all too familiar look in a cat's eye that says, 'What? You think I'm a dog?!?'

   To my surprise, she scrambled and skittered across the bare floor and screeched to a clawing stop, snatched it up and did indeed fetch it back to be thrown again. And again. And again! Stupefied and nonplussed by this quite unexpected turn of events, I played the game until she finally grew bored or tired and ambled off to the next room for a cat nap or some other less canine-like distraction.

   I wonder if this sort of thing has ever shown up on America's Funniest Home Videos...?

Settling in

For a long winter's nap, I wish. Weather seems to have moderated toward the wintry side all at once. On the plus side I won't have a lot of driving to do in the real messy weather and not much to shovel either. Of course, I can foresee some neighborly pitching in within the little community here given my preponderance of 'free time'. And the new kitten is settling in too. Coconut is now official, Coco being the short name of choice although she gets called everything but in the course of a days she spends alternating between bouts of sleepily lolling smack dab in the middle of every piece of furniture in the house- especially the middle sofa cushion where she takes the afternoon sun -and darting crazily from on end to the other chasing her tail or more often her toys- a balled-up plastic shopping bag which elicits all manner of gymnastics as she bats and claws at the crinkly lumpus, a balled-up piece of tin foil wound with a length of bright red yarn which usually ends up coiled tightly around the wooden leg of a dining room chair and an orange fuzzy felt mouse with feathers for a tail. She actually spent the better part of an hour playing fetch with the latter last night, unbelieveable as it may seem. I've never known a cat to fetch anyway, always seemed to be rather aloof creatures in not downright indolent and certainly disdainful of any demeaningly repetitive diversions as chasing after thrown objects for the amusement of their simple-minded food-givers and litter-pan-cleaners.

In other news, my spouse had a little misadventure all her own last week, displaying all the symptoms of a serious cardiac event. Four paramedics and one police officer responded to my 911 call and crowded into our itty bitty living space checking blood pressure and administering oxygen. Then they checked my wife. Seriously, it was quite a jolt of reality and not a little upsetting. So we followed as she took an ambulance ride and spent  the night and the next day in hospital being scanned and tested and poked and prodded and examined and re-tested and re-scanned. Ulitmately there was found nary a sign of physiological defect as a cause of nor untoward result from the whole episode with the exception of elevated cholseterol levels which will necessitate some changes in diet and exercise habits. I'm quite sure that when her six-week followup with the family physician rolls around I'll be dragged along kicking and screaming for some overdue testing of my own. Yay. Most days I just don't care enough about what's going on physically to change my habits leftover from a misspent and decidedly more active youth. Breakfast: Oatmeal or McDonald's Steak, Egg and Cheese Bagel? Dinner: Grilled skinless chicken breast or a Whopper and fries and a Dr. Pepper? Hmmmm... "I am the very model for a modern major fast food chain!", I always say. Actually I just made that up. Catchy, if derivative. I'm sure Subway will be calling tomorrow... Or not.

Aaah, phoo... look at the time. Seems like you get up at eight or nine, write some checks, get a few emails answered, leave a few more unanswered, check the snail mail, run to the grocery store for a few things, make breakfast for lunch,  tweak a few crafty homespun playthings, watch an episode of Bonanza, take a walk around the block, chit chat with some friends dropping in to check on the wife, play a few games of Boggle and >tick,tock< it's two o'clock... Where does the time go?

Well, tomorrow's another day. We all hope so anyway...

Cats on the desktop

Right smack dab in the middle of my great desk/workspace organization process yesterday, the wife shows up with a few friends in tow. And a cat. The friends got an eyeful of the pretty much floor-to-ceiling stacks of toymaking odds and ends, stuff strewn from one end of the room to the other and the cat...

Well, the cat's a teensy little fellow with the softest plush fur, rather long-haired with Siamese sort of coloring and see-through blue eyes. I am not excited about having an animal in such close quarters... but he- actually it's a she is hard to resist.

Of course, the first time I held her she got excited and leaped all four little paws onto my already scattered desktop, spilling the plastic container of dirty gray brush-cleaning water over everything within a foot or so. At least she didn't trample anything in soft clay or wet rubber while making her hasty exit!

Should make for some interesting adventures as she settles in, the little scamp. Not 100% on her name yet, Cocoanut, Cocoa, Puddin', GoGo, Zippy. All bandied about as possibilities. I suggested what seemed to me at least more practical appellations like 'Get Outta Here!', 'Get Offa There!' and, my favorite, 'Poo on Paws'...

Maybe I'm over-thinking it...

 

Chaos on the desktop

Hey, I know it's been deathly silent here lately; these half-baked musings have taken a backseat to my toy production, trying to inject some 'life' into that endeavor by creating new stuff, streamling processes and upgrading some 'standard' offerings. As I like to say 'More fun than humans should be allowed to have!'

Anyway, today's project- in addition to finishing the front half of a vintage-comic-book-style Green Goblin mask for the Dr. Evil doll(not Mike Myers' fruity villain, fer crying out loud! The original Dr. Evil is an old blue-skinned, bug-eyed alien figure, arch enemy of toy superhero, Captain Action!>fanfare<) -is organizing the chaotic mess that my desk/work area has become. There are so many doll parts, paint bottles, latex jars, half-finished doll boots, plastic castings, rubber molds, assorted tools, scrap papers, more tools, more molds, more paint, more lumps of clay...

There's no room anymore to spread out my drawing pads to work on the now-delayed( by my easily side-tracked, attention deficient, creative genius current 'wild hair'- which is, of course, the old wild hair, just somewhat re-invigorated)super-secret 2D art projects... and the scanner if I did have room to sit down and draw... well, I know it's under these stacks of boxes, papers, doll parts, craft bins, prototype Captain Action space helmet, comics- some guy keeps sending me piles of comics...! -and another box of who knows what dragged back from the 'remote studio'... somewhere...

I've got to make some sense of this area to begin with so I can drag out the drawing stuff again- and so the room can be organized somewhat- or at least passable -when the cable guy shows up tomorrow afternoon to plug us in. Yes, after an extended period of non-cable, snowy, grainy, broadcast quality TV viewing, we're going for the wire again. The guy showed up at the door, ostensibly checking in on a previous customer at this address, and had a swell offer for 'free this and that' and 'no commitment' and so forth. My spouse made the critical error of leaving the decision to me, the confirmed TV-holic from way back... Already my mind is awash in sweet expectant dreams of vintage TV Land programming, old movies on AMC , The History Channel, Biography, aaahhhhh....

At any rate, I don't want the installer tripping, falling, crushing a new mask sculpture and breaking a lamp and pulling over molds full of wet multi-colored latex on his way down, cracking his bean on a table corner, waking up in the hospital with a battery of lawyers at his bedside determined to sue me out of existence...!

Oh, man... just thinking about it makes me tired... I think I need a nap!

Filler

...or powerful ponderance(is that really a word? I don't think so...), you decide.

Asked about my personal tastes or 'favorites' by a fellow pop culture geek, I began to respond this way:

"I'm waiting for your top-11 lists.   Books,TV,Comics,Toys.."
 

Hmmm, let's see...

Comics:
 1) Batman - Natcherly! First of all, it's the suit. The idea of wearing a cape and looking that good in tights has always done it for me. The hood with ears, the mask, the gloves. That's stylin', baby! Despite the many incarnations- light-hearted and 'duly deputized agent of the law' or darkly menacing -unbelieveable stories(in the 50s the stories were sci-fi influenced, way out stuff!)and the changes time has wrought- Who was the Einstein that decided Robin should grow up? My two cents: Comic reality should be Never-Never Land. Batman doesn't get older, therefore Robin doesn't get older! Much less move out, go to college, change his super-identity, get replaced by another brazen youth and another and another...  -Anyway, the nerve of that guy, showing up in that crazy purple and blue getup, swinging from a Bat-rope while pretty much blinded by a mask...?!? Well, is there anybody who wouldn't wanna try it?
    I can't say for sure whether I'd read the comics before seeing the TV show so I don't know if I can separate one from the other. Thus all the other TV accoutrements have to factor into the equation for me- The Batmobile, Wayne Manor, the cave, the secret identity, Robin's quick-witted exclamations. Too many grabby suppositions in one place for a kid to resist!
    Later on the noble aspiration of avenging his parents' death added a new dimension to the Caped Crusader for me, who couldn't empathize with that kind of trauma?... Still, I prefer the surface value over the 'driven' aspects of the character. What can I say, I'm just not a 'deep' comics sort of fella.

 2) Tarzan - Any version but especially Joe Kubert's DC run. His Tarzan was elegant and primitive all at once. Rough hewn and refined, cruel and compassionate. We're accustomed to seeing Tarzan 'in the flesh' with all the movies and TV adaptations- Ron Ely and Mike Henry being my personal favorites -but Kubert's art really put skin on Burroughs' bone.
   It was recently commented somewhere- I can't recall where I heard it or read it -that Burroughs tale was inspired in part by the then-fairly-current Darwinian theories of adaptation of species which, of course, led directly to the predominance of today's evolutionary thinking.
    Good grief! It seems obvious, of course, but I always thought it was just fun stuff about wearing a loincloth in the jungle, swinging from vines and yelling at the top of your lungs!

 3) Swamp Thing (1-10) - Yeah, it was sometimes slightly 70s overblown auteurism but with it's muck-encrusted hero and a parade of far-out antagonists it aimed for the same sort of once-removed commentary on the human condition that Star Trek achieved by removing it's heroes to the future. Plus it guest-starred Batman in one issue!
   I like to say "Berni Wrightson made all his characters 'repulsively beautiful'." Actually I just now made that up...
    I lost interest after he left- I still remember the keen disappointment of that abrupt switch despite the art of Alfredo Alacala, a fine draftsman whose drawings I usually enjoyed immensely! -and on the rare occasion that I picked up a ST comic, just couldn't get enthralled without the 'attractive monstrousness' of his drawings. Plus the creature became some sort of elemental uber-being later on. Not nearly so interesting to me as the somewhat pathetic and tortured- not to mention heartbroken -Alec Holland, victim of change. 

Did I say I'm not a 'deep' comics sort of fella?!?

 4) That's only three?!? I don't know if I have eleven favorites....! Ay-yi-yi...

So that was that. Now that  think about it I can go on to:

TV Shows? That's easier.

 1) Batman 2) Star Trek 3) Bonanza 4)... Well, okay, maybe it's not so easy... Who really quantifies or prioritizes this kinda stuff anyway?!? Except magazine or TV people who get paid to crunch the numbers and tell their audience what's number 100 and count down to number one...!

After number three it's just a mess of shows I like: The Big Valley, Andy Griffith, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Wild, Wild West, Adventures of Superman, The Rifleman, Zorro, The Cisco Kid. And I'd like to see The Six Million Dollar Man again. That was big for me as a youngster. Batman in regular clothes, I guess. With robot arms.That's twelve...

Movies, in no particular order: Fantastic Voyage, Batman(again with Batman!), The Cowboys, Hidalgo, Cool Hand Luke, The Shawshank Redemption, Unforgiven, The Shootist, Jeremiah Johnson, Forrest Gump.

Books: John Jakes' North and South trilogy, any John Grisham but esp. The Rainmaker(although I liked the book I had to read it again after seeing the film. When the father, played by Red West- better known as Elvis' bodyguard and Wild, Wild West stunt player -silently displays the picture of his dead son in the courtroom... if that don't rip your heart out, well, you need to get checked. And fast....), I like James Patterson mysteries too and O. Henry's short stories; I can go back and read them every coupla years because, like the movies, I digest them and forget 'em.

Otherwise, I confess, I'm not as well read as I like to suggest by my attemps o' clever phraseology. Shakespeare I know only by his bust on Batman's desk! (Again with the Batman...) And a school field trip to the Skinni Mini theater in... tenth grade, wazzit? Mr. Dave Brubaker's English Lit class walked over the tree-lined streets of Millersville from our high school- a real trip for me, I lived out in the middle of nowhere and never saw more of that college town than was revealed by the daily route of my school bus! -to that pint-sized venue to watch Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting's butt in Romeo and Juliet. What an adventure!

Toys: Captain Action, Johnny West, Soaky bottles(guess whooo?!?), gum cards- I don't have a big collection anymore, used to have all the original Batman cards. One day long ago while making the rounds of local yard sales my wife got my attention while I diligently searched for toy goods to sell or trade, 'Look at these.', she said. I glanced quickly at a stack of cards, wrapped in a rubber band, sealed in a sandwich bag, 'Hmmm, what is it... James Bond...?' The first card was a guy in a suit jacket, hair slicked back... and I went back to the table of goods I was looking over. 'No! Look at them!', she insisted. I did. First card in the 'Real Photos' set, commonly referred to as 'Bat-Laffs' due to the captioned backs, is Adam West as Bruce Wayne in a suit jacket, hair slicked back... Holy Heart Failure! It was great find, missing about eight, maybe ten cards out of 55, if I recall. Plus some duplicates so I could trade for what was missing. -do you consider them 'toys' though? I do. What else? Coloring books. Arcade cards. I guess my Star Trek props would be considered 'toys' even though some are 'high end' they're still just glorified noisemakers! I've got an Enterprise model too that makes noises and lights up. That'll keep any child of forty-something entertained for a good long while.

   And there are the little plastic, uh, Batman... figures... My mom used to order one every year out of the Wilton catalog because I'd invariably dig a Batcave in the dirt embankment behind our house, it would cave in, trappping Batman under tons of dirt and rock, I'd get called in for supper and forget about him for a while and whence I returned, he was gone. This happened more than once so I'm starting to think my little brother- The fiend! -may have been digging them out, tying them to bottle rockets and launching them into space or just melting them down with matches, one or the other.

Boy, I'm getting off the track a little, I theenk. Besides, it's getting to be that time when my coach turns into a pumpkin. Or I go over and play Boggle for two hours, counting down the number of hours of sleep I'll get if I play just one more game... no, wait, just one more...

No lions but tigers and bears

   Oh my! I've finally gotten around to adding a few more shots from the wildlife park day trip to the ever-increasing Photo Archive. Including the tigers, cool! They just make you wanna climb the fence and pet them and pat them, they're so big and fuzzy and cuddly... Well, it's like that with all the animals! At heart we all want to be their friends, not their enemies. Or their food! Like Mowgli in The Jungle Book. And Tarzan. And Dr. Doolittle. And Grizzly Adams. There's a reason for the constance of characters of fiction who can relate to and befriend animals, I believe. All of them representative of the 'collective conciousness' of what used to be; pretenders to the role of Noah who obviously had no trouble bringing every sort of creature aboard his giant floating box. Except for the unicorn, of course...

    And it's a bea-YOO-tiful autumnal day, bright and sunny and breezy and cool but not too cool. I gotta get out there! I've done about all the damage I can do at the keyboard for one morning, emailing and posting this and that, and Mums has a willow tree to go in the ground this afternoon. Small, won't take much to plant it. Besides, I still have one or two boot forms in the 'remote studio' of her garage to finish up before dragging the rest of that paraphernalia home.

    It'll be nice to save the drive time and fuel costs but it's gonna be standing room only somewhere in this tiny abode until I get that garden shed readied for habitation by the pop culture collections and rubber and paint workshop accoutrements. Hey, it's only been five months... A project like that requires careful planning and forethought, not rushing in and hurrying through it. And it might actually be helped along by the threat of snow in a month or two...

  Before I forget: I topped the Boggle board for once! Can you imagine it?!? First of a field of 150 players to find six measly words on a board. Yesss! Score, baby! I had to print the page to believe it myself!  It takes a crappy board like that, when there are sixty or seventy words to be made I end up at the middle or below!

   I'm tellin' ya though, it's my lame typing skills more than anything that keeps me outta the top ten... Yeah, right!

Things I noticed...

...this week include: Andrew Jackson on the twenty looks a great deal like Herman Munster. Or Fred Gwynne, the guy who played Herman Munster, to be exact. I think with a little creative pen work, Jackson could be made into a right and proper Herman likeness. Not that I'm encouraging defacement of currency, nothing like that. It just occurred to me, that's all.

   Also: Whereas some have the cool custom of putting their sunglasses on top of their head, I have a habit, indoors or on intermittently sunny days, of resting my sunglasses on top of my prescription frames. I often think it must look to passersby like a guy with two sets of eyes. Maybe. Maybe not. At any rate, I also notice the distance between the sunglasses resting on top of the prescription frames and my hairline... well, seems normal. In other words, if I had a way to disguise my eyes as part of my cheeks and then drew cartoon eyes on my forehead probably no one would notice.

Maybe. Maybe not.

   And speaking of hair, I have to make mention- and I don't mean to gross anyone out here, it's just a sad fact of life, that's all -of the disturbing habit of one particularly aggressive nose hair of repeatedly showing itself to the world. It's not a shaggy growth but just one mutant swinging in the gentle breeze of breath when it's least expected. Like a single blade of grass that towers above the rest of the lawn, daring, perhaps even demanding to be noticed. And it's snowy white on top of that. And it tickles. I hate that. Is there Nair for nose hair, I wonder?

Or ear hairs, for that matter?!?

Why does hair grow where you don't want it but not where you do? These are the questions I'd like answered, by gum!

   Anyway, I'm headed out to bring a local toy buddy- I bought my first 'collection' of Captain Action stuff from this guy, Sheldon, almost twenty years ago...hmmm,maybe it was more than twenty years ago, I don't know, it's close on that long anyhoo... Anyway, he sold it and made his house payment and has been giving me a hard time about it ever since. And his wife blamed me for the infectious nature of toy collecting that started him on along sentimental road of his own, buying and selling all manner of pop culture collectibles in the years since. She's now his ex, sad to say, I hope it had little or nothing to do with toys although I know exactly how distracting- and divisive -that diversion can be - check out the right side of the little 'retail' display space I keep at The Hilltop Emporium in beautiful downtown Wrightsville, Pa. Abandoned by my former co-worker, Don, who got me in the door in the first place, it needs some super duper plastic goods to fill it up. It's cheap to rent and fun to show up every so often and see what has and hasn't sold and shuffle things around in the display case. Maybe Sheldon will have fun at it too.

It'll be fun for all this afternoon, I'm sure. More to come!

 

By the way...

If you're paying attention you know Yahoo! has reconfigured their Photo Album utility and I've reconfigured some of my archives too, adding mostly old timey photos of ancestors but a few vintage family pics as well. I'm a little slow figuring out just how to organize everything so while the first page of each album may be roughly chronological ensuing pages may not follow a strict pattern. At any rate, it's fun for me looking at these folks- and myself, of course -some of them I remember, some I never met.

sixbidfix

So, I've been two nights- or was it three? -without sleep this week and it is catching up with me in a big way. I'm Boggling worse than usual- excuses, excuses! -and thinking about sleep almost all day and thinking about nuzzling my big cushy pillow the rest of the time! My hands seem a little unsteady so that it's hard to draw and paint a straight line and when I do I just can't seem to get enough light on the subject. I did manage an afternoon nap one day but that didn't really dent the, whattta ya call it?, 'sleep debt', that's right.

So I've taken a little break from the current gee whiz project- which seems to be developing nicely in the hands of some obviously talented people if the single pre-animation sample I've seen is any indication! -in favor of the rubber shop which, for the most part, I neglected for a week or so. Did a little bit of organizing here at the desk, exciting. Which means I shuffled the stacks of paper and small boxes of stuff in various states of completion and plastic bins filled with various and sundry material- fabric and leather, buttons and beads, ribbon and buckles -so that it's less likely to crumble and kill or maim someone in its path. A few of those swell framed posters- how pleased I was just a few short months ago at having them properly framed and hung -now grace the corners of the corner of the room that now houses the sum total of my homespun enterprise with the exception of those few molding devices, a little messier than most, which still reside at what I taken to calling my 'remote studio'. Which is simply a glossy reference to Mom's garage.

Which, with winter fast approaching- it's the middle of September already?!? -has mi madre scurrying about, repositioning and shuffling- much like I've been doing here at my desk but with ever so slightly more elbow room... -stacking and racking the assorted yard sale finds and exercise equipment she's accumulated over the fair months to make room for her shiny late model vee-hickle so as not to expose it overmuch to the winter's harsher winds and precipitation. I can take a clue- in some cases, others I have to be hit over the head but usually only once -thus the effort to re-organize here and relocate those leftover devices and accoutrements despite the lack of real space and/or place for them.

It's either that or show up each week to find my doodads and gew-gaws handled and dandled from place to place, suffering the resultant deleterious effects of dust and precarious placement among the madding crowd jostling for space, as it were. Who wants that? It's created more than a few anxious moments already with one dog and three cats and seemingly every flying, leaping, creeping, crawling insect in southern York county given free rein about the place. They seem to be drawn by the pleasing smell of ammonia, just one component of the 'plastick' material used to fabricate the majority my wee widdle doll goods.

And it's just as well, after all, because those same dreadful conditions would make for no fun driving back and forth across the county as the days and weeks progress into the dead of winter. It bad enough doing it in good conditions with all the nuts that are licensed to drive between here and there, forget the added peril of snow and ice on the roads.

And the 'new' little car of our own is doing quite well. It was a low down, dirty, dog-eared shame to junk the last one- the Saturn was a great little car, handled like nothing I've ever driven, not that I'm an expert, and was quite zippy until the last major engine snafu -but it was either that or keep spending more than the car was worth to keep it on the road. So, one short trip to the nearest scrap yard and we were a hundred clams to the good and down one car needing several hundred clams worth of work. Besides, the little woman had to have a station wagon, good for pulling over and loading up the things other people throw out, bringing them home and deciding there was a good reason somebody else threw them out in the first place... but it's almost like a hobby with her so there you are. Sometimes it works out although I wouldn't hazard a guess at the percentages of useful vs. 'our trash goes Monday'.

Well, I need a nap before the pizza shows up. With momma gone for a coffe with her momma- they've spent some strange days re-connecting after a mutual estrangement of quite some time, mental illness can do that -the boy and I are on our own and leftovers can wait for tomorrow or the next day even. So it's Pizza Hut delivery and maybe some vintage cartoons or a bad afternoon movie, we'll see.

 

 

Juggling

Photos over at the Yahoo! Archives. Since the powers-that-be have seen fit to re-vamp the configuration of the albums and so forth(I'm not crazy about it so far...) I've decided to add some photos and shuffle things around a bit too.

I'll try and configure the photos so they fit together chronologically in some fashion- of it'll let me -and so if things seem a little askew for the nonce, headings and album descriptions out of whack, now you know why.

Received a note from the creative force behind the aforementioned seafaring feline(as well as several other 'top secret' projects in which he has graciously allowed me to have a hand!), seems at least one of his other co-contributor has the same dim view as my own, expressed in recent email, of the oft-repeated, overused, beaten like a dead horse, tired out, worn out, trite, hackneyed, rusty, misapplied, sarcastic, sardonic catchphrase, 'It's all good.'

Quote: "Totally unsolicited. (I never use the term) But just like you, he said, "As much as I hate the term..."It's all good".  Haha!"

To which I replied: "Well, they say 'great minds think alike'. There's your proof."

And to which I add the following:

"Points to ponder: If this true is of 'great minds', that they all 'think alike', then it must be true of 'mediocre minds' as well.

And of 'miniscule minds'.

So, logically then, all minds 'think alike'.

If that is true, why can't we all agree that sayings like 'It's all good! are, in fact, no good?!?"

Just something to think about. But not for long. Here's another nugget: They say 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Well, especially in light of the foregoing, would you imagine that 'The road to genius is paved with moments of madness'?

Or that perhaps 'The road to enlightenment is paved with used matchbooks'? Or with 'dead C batteries'? See?

See, I'm just rambling now. What is the source of that truism about the proverbial 'road to hell...'? I confess, I do not know. John Donne? Shakespeare? Alfred E. Neuman? Perhaps they also considered these other 'roads not taken' in their enlightened moments.

I'll tell you this much: I worked with a fellow not long ago who you would have guessed had the patent on that egregious phraseology-

 which, hopefully, will soon pass from the common vernacular into the bedarkened land of 'What Was' where forgotten characters of popular culture- Milli Vanilli and The Noid, for example -pass along the dirty sidewalks of even dirtier cities, giving each other dirty looks and muttering a cursory greeting of, 'Where's the beef?!?' and 'Fugeddaboutit!' then walk home to their dirty, rundown tenement flats and cry themselves to sleep each night moaning the lyrics to Flashdance(What A Feeling). Ewww, creepy...

because he used with every breath, like an addict! He enjoyed hearing himself say it so very much, I guess, he would interject it as the last word, the summation, the subject, verb and predicate, the crowning thought to every sentence.

Now, here's a thought... Maybe it was a great social experiment he was conducting all on his own, gauging the reaction to endless and meaningless repetition of the phrase to whomever he would meet. A social experiment the results and ramifications of which he alone is privy to... Maybe he actually did invent the phrase and now is doing his utmost to ensure it's survival in the everyday vocabulary of the population of the entire planet!

Frightening...

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!

Hey, after all the cloak-and-dagger exactly one of my latest pen products is unveiled; a little teaser, as it were, on the client's website. A simple feline character for all the cat lovers among you and, now that I think of it, right in tune with the latest pop culture phenomenon, the piratical anti-hero. Not that this furry little fellow is 'anti-anything' but he does have a big hat. And an eyepatch. And a sword. And a boat! Cool!

A seafaring cat.(Should that be hyphenated, I wonder?)Who'da thunk it?!?

Anyway, check it out if you've a mind to, right here:

Affable Comics' Uncle Fritz

Watch for more. Soon. Right here. Yay!

Burnin' the midnight oil

And how! It's been an exciting week- or has it been two? -it's all kinda run together, working up designs for several animation projects. What a blast! Definitely getting a workout for my under-utilized drawing skills; largely relegated to weekend doodles for, oh, nearly twenty years, they seem to be more than usable if not magnificent. Gimme a coupla weeks, he said, mustering a heaping helping of humility upon gentle self-deprecation, and it'll be at least super duper, Mr. Hooper.

The drawback- as always seems to be the case with illustrative endeavors -is the time factor. Ever since my high school art teacher, Mr. Klopp, recruited me to draw this and that for local businesses and what have you, everybody who needs art needs their drawing yesterday if not sooner! If I think about it honestly though, it's probably good for me: If I had three weeks to draw a stick man, I'd likely put it off until the night before anyway!

At any rate, I'll let you be the judge of their worth as soon as I can show them off. Right now it's still under wraps and highly guarded stuff(play 007 theme music here). But I think it'll be a swell credit and readily visible as an example of what I can accomplish when I knuckle down and put my mind and my pencil to work. Who knows, might be the thing that makes the next needful client say, 'Hey! Let's get that guy! He doesn't stink... and he probably works cheap!'

And that's all that's been going on of note really. Dry weather so mowing is unnecessary. Been too busy drawing for baseball or softball or volleyball. Waiting and watching the mailbox every day for two, count 'em two, oversized Cisco Kid coloring books. Which in all likelihood I won't color, just put them with the rest of the Cisco and Bonanza and Star Trek and Batman gewgaws and doodads, pull 'em out and look at 'em every so often.

At any rate, tomorrow's gonna be a long day. Resting my drawing hand until the weekend, taking a drive up country to see some places and things I'm sure I've never seen before. Worry about the cost of gasoline later... Honk, honk!

See how it all came back around to 'burnin' oil'... >bing!<

 

Highlights

...of the week include a walk in the sun con mi hijo. While mi esposa was off running errands all day and el carro numero dos is now officially a lawn ornament- soon to be replaced by another not-very-late model classic, more on that as details become available -we bravely braved the noonday sun and took off a pia for the Dover PO. Might be a two mile stretch, probably no more. But along the way we wet our heads and hats in a conveniently placed shrubbery sprinkler, thank you very much, and stopped on a bridge to watch a few oversized crawdads darting about in the stream below. We were hopeful of seeing one snag a passing minnow or at least get into a knock-down, drag-out claw fight but I guess they just weren't in the mood. So we amused ourselves waving our hands, making shadows on the water's surface, causing the mini-lobsters to dart away seeking shelter under rocks in the streambed.

Another notable moment was station-hopping the car radio and hearing the last verse or two of '99 Luftballoons', huzzah, huzzah. I forget who recorded this 80s one-hit-wonder of a classic but it has a line that goes, 'Everyone's a superhero, everyone's a Captain Kirk!' Hahahaa, so cool! Quite thrilling for this once-and-future Trekkie and card carrying aficianado of cape-and-tights comic book protagonists.

It was probably my favorite wacky Euro-disco-bubblegum ditty- C'mon, honestly, everybody has one, it's just nobody wants to admit to it! -until that little blonde girl came along singing... ohhh, what was that song now?!? Boy, I can see her in the video floating on a raft or an inner tube or something... singing in a breathy, little girl voice, 'Love me, love me, say that you love me...' Well, it'll come to me when I least expect it, I'm sure.

Gosh, I hope none of my erstwhile heavy metal pals read this...

Oh, and the last highlight: Boggle. Y'know, Boggle? The word game where you shake the cubes and have to form the random assortment of letters into as many words as possible before the sand runs outta the hourglass? Well, naturally it's available to play on the web with total strangers from who knows where with even stranger screen names. Oh, and fair warning: It is as addictive as anything known to man. The first night I spent hours playing it and it's drawn me back practically every day since. I can't type so muchas hunt-and-peck with two, sometimes three fingers, so it's hit-or-miss to say the least trying to get as many words down as possible. But I generally manage to end up somewhere in the middle of the pack, not among the brain surgeons or rocket scientists but not the  bottom of the barrel either.

Which, I suppose, makes me just average... yay.

Anyway, here's the link. WeBoggle  And don't say I didn't warn you!

Goin's on

Well, it's another exciting week at the ranch. Making rubber goods and drawing drawings for a fellow toy/comic geek and his startup animation project, all very top-secret at this stage of the game, but it's cool stuff and great opportunity to stretch some under-used drawing muscles. Plenty more to come in the next few weeks too, yay! He seems real happy to have the things he's thought up taking shape and it's a little mutual admiration society of two for the nonce, until it all goes public in one form or another. All I can show you right now is the 'brand' I made up for myself to add to the copyright info on each image, pasted in my Bittersweet Art Album. I like it, based on my usual scribble of a first-name-only signature, it's simple and elegant all at once. Well, okay, maybe it's not so elegant...

Boy, after all that rain a few weeks ago it's dry as a bone now in the wake of the oppressive heat of last week. So my big lawn mowing assignment was a no-go as there wasn't much growth to speak of. But here at home I got my licks in mowing my own little tract- about fifteen minutes worth -and that of the two neighbor ladies on either side. It's funny, as a kid we had sixty acres of campground to tend and probably half of that was grass so there was no shortage of mowing week in and week out, all summer long. Year after year. It got to be a drag, to put it mildly. Later I guess I still wasn't a fan of the job while living at home, especially during the time my Dad and I cut grass for a living. Now, of course, it reminds me of those times and I get real satisfaction from a newly cut lawn, manicured and trimmed out. I still don't care for raking the clippings though...

Yesterday and today

...have pretty much run together like the proverbial watercolor in the rain. The last week or so has been fairly miserable, sleep-deprived anyway, go figure. Not 'deprived' so much as fitful, dream-filled periods of somnolence. Not fun dreams either, more like, well, let's just say... well, let's not say. It ain't flying or falling, just put it that way. It's not caffeine because I'm not a devotee of the coffee bean and we don't keep my beverage of choice, green tea, around the house because when we do I drink too much and/or too close to bedtime and get the twitches or just plain non-sleep-itis. I guess it must be all the excitement of the daytime heat- global warming is just a myth, really! -and nighttime television or vintage DVD selections, too much to keep up with; finished first seasons of Superman and Big Valley but I've got  Zorro, Cisco Kid and Hanna Barbera cartoon superheroes to catch up on yet.

  No, it ain't that either, I've really slowed down the vintage TV viewing the past two weeks. They're still coming in here and there but I've been filing them away for another day, too time-consuming to watch everything at once! This week it's late nights with a drawing assignment, lotta fun but a lot of work too. Funny how what seems like it oughta be a breeze upfront can be not so breezy once you get your feet wet. But it's good exercise for my under-utilized drawing chops, fer sure. Not much drawing involved in my little rubber-and-paint enterprise so when I gets the chance to drag a pencil around for a few days it's a good thing.

   In other, uh, art news: Today, er, yesterday I painted the lawn mower. Spray paint. Flat grill black and metallic crimson. What fun. It just came back from my pal, Jerry, who cleaned the carb, changed the oil- you do that on lawn mowers too?!? -and sharpened the blade. Don't ask me how he did the last because I tried to remove and replace the blade a while back and there was no loosening that bad boy after years of service. So I just kept a-goin' as is, long as it would start. Which it always has, it's gotta be ten years old, more, because I got when we had our own place, first lawn I had to mow. Hundred bucks and it's started like a champ ever since, coupla priming pumps, one pull, two at most and away it goes. Well, ya gotta push it, of course. I never did cotton to self-propelled.

   Anyway, Jerry- two doors down and a mechanically inclined sort, not to mention an all-around swell fellow -said he was tired of hearing it rumble and spit like it was dyin' and he was sure I was no longer cutting the grass so much as beatin' it down so he took it away for a few days, gave me a loaner and brought mine back yesterday. I thought as long as it was fixed up elsewise I might as well apply a little paint, spruce up some rust spots and places in the deck where it was rotted through and spot-welded together. Didn't have a red to match exactly so the metallic crimson served for the nonce. I may go all flat black before I'm done, I don't know. That's about as big a decision as has come around lately. At any rate, I can hardly wait to cut the grass again and see how it runs like a top after its long overdue pit stop. Then again, five minutes of pushing in this heat is about all I can take all at once. Yow! So it's a mixed blessing...

  Anyway, it's too late to do anything but ramble- not that there's anything weightier ever goin' on here -and it's tomorrow already. Too soon it'll be another fun-filled day of adventure and unexpected thrills! Gotta be ready so I gotta go sleep! Perchance to dream, don' cha know?!?

Petting the elk

   Wow, talk about communing with nature! Today was a last minute day trip up the road about forty-five minutes, an hour, maybe, to a little place called Lake Tobias, a wildlife preserve featuring some 700 creatures of every stripe and feather. I'd heard of it before, of course, one of my nieces on a school outing had a close encounter with a long-horned bull on one of the safari bus rides, yow, and had the pictures to prove it. So, when the subject came up in conversation with some friends last night and the invitation to join the fun followed, we promptly gathered our wits and picnic basket for the day's adventure.

   I'll post my handful of pics ASAP- I've got to break down and spring for a memory card for the camera, the internal memory is far too limited to record such an experience! -of the emu, capybaras, crocodiles, bears, tigers, elk- if you could manage to choose a highlight of the day when confronted with such a variety of creatures it might just be hand feeding these giants. Very docile and very, very large, they came right up to the sides of the safari bus and lapped popcorn and crackers right outta your hand, stood still for some petting and ear scratching, but, whoa!, watch out for those giant fuzzy antlers swingin' around. What a treat that was! -monkeys, peacocks, zebra, deer, watusi, bison- another giant creature, they were just breathtaking up close with their huge fuzzy noggins which seemed outsized for their also giant shoulders... -llamas, puma, coatimundi, bobcat and the list goes on.

   After the safari bus ride, our picnic lunch under the pavilion wasn't spoiled at all by a drenching downpour, the dozen or so kids with our little group loved splashing about in the puddles and wet play equipment like kids are wont to do. The folks who were in the middle of the open-top safari bus ride were, I imagine, somewhat less enthused by the sudden precipitation. Somehow when you pass a certain age, slogging about for an afternoon in soaking wet shoes and underwear becomes significantly less delightful and something to be avoided rather than an opportunity for revelry. Plus we're more concerned about how our hair looks...

   But the rain cleared up, more or less, leaving the afternoon to browse the enclosures featuring those creatures which, alas, one cannot domesticate quiteso readily; the tigers and the bears and the mountain lions. The tigers seemed especially playful even while separated by wire and glass and a few feet of moat and rocks and then another fence. While one lazed in a corner, inviting the admiring gaze of onlookers, the other paced the perimeter of the enclosure following a small boy with a bright red backpack. When the boy realized he was being stalked he sped up with the tiger loping along in mock pursuit. This game lasted a few rounds and was quite amusing to the two-legged spectators anyway. The tiger, however, seemed somewhat more serious about the chase. My son was pretty sure it was the red backpack- matching the color of a big rubber play ball inside the cage -that attracted the feline. But I was reminded of a line from The Jungle Book- when asked by a soldier why Mowgli's panther pal eyed him continually, Mowgli replies, 'Because to him... you... are food.'

   There was also a reptile show which some attended but we ditched in favor of the monkeys and parrots and ring-tailed lemurs and a quick pass through the petting zoo where, in our haste to goggle the first monkeys we spied, we missed the uppermost end of that enclosure which was adjacent to the camel pen! A real live camel, I say! Oh, my...

   Suffice to say, it was an experience not to be missed and given only half the coverage it deserves here. Hopefully we can return ere long with a full load of digital memory and even more popcorn, prepared to see what we missed this time and pet the elk again. Now if only we could pet the tigers, that would be something else again...  >sigh<...

RRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr

     Rrrrrrrrrrrr... That's the sound of the Grasshopper today. The lawn mower, that is. Two hours of pure motorized meditative zero-turn-radius back-and-forth bliss. Mow and sing. Mow and think. Mow, mow, mow. I keep threatening to bring the camera along and get some shots overlooking the valley south of the property, maybe next week. It really is a great view. Or maybe I just enjoy looking out over the hills and far away. There's a golf course to see and the I-83 and other roads leading south out of South York. And a big ol' shopping plaza across the way. At any rate, there are always some birds flitting about to watch as well, mockingbirds and barn swallows. Sometimes the folks next door have the kids out in the pool. Last week I picked a handful of red raspberries at the border of the property, after okaying it with the lady of the house, of course. This week she kindly left a note inviting me to help myself to a squash from the garden, which I did, replying in kind 'Thanks very much!'. It's a big ol' yellow gourd and will be positively double yummy when it's sliced up and grilled al fresco, mmmmm.

   Yesterday was a Jimmy Rave day. Big Jim called the day before and asked if I could break away from work while he was on vacation this week. I had to laugh, 'break away', yeah. My schedule is a real killer...! Anyway, between confabbing with my doll clothes sewing lady in the AM and heading for the garage/studio in the afternoon, he and I had some breakfast at the Stony Brook Diner- used to be a regular haunt, the jumping off place when leaving town on family vacations and such, in the 'before time', alas, no mas -and made ourselves at home for an hour or so yakking about world-shaking events in our respective lives and general perspectives on history and time passing. We pretty much agreed that it's a drag feeling twenty-two while living life as forty-somethings. I would have said 'responsible forty-somethings' but, really, only one of us is pursuing what onlookers would call a practical course of life. We also concluded that people in general care too little about history; or rather about the people who are what history is all about, after all. Not dates and events so much but people like us but born years and years ago and maybe living half a world away but the same nevertheless. Who maybe found themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Or not.

   Afterward we made ourselves at home at his homestead, yakking some more while I showed him showing my latest creations, and finally wound up by making a little stringed instrument noise, naturally, in the basement where Jim keeps his basses and big ol' bass cabinet and my SG copy guitar. He kindly offered to host my Crate half stack and other guitars(which currently reside at Mom's basement rooms)knowing space is at a premium in my new digs. I may take him up on it, it would give us an excuse to get together more often and rock out. When his wife's not home, of course.

   Later I hung around Mom's yakking late enough in the afternoon to see my cousin Ronnie's wife and boy, the boy came over to work in the yard, earn a coupla clams for his thirteen-year-old pocket. As much time as we spent together as kids' I hardly know Ronnie's family but I hear the boy is a regular mandolin prodigy. In fact, a fellow named Mark Seitz- who used to come hang out twenty years ago when I played in a fledgling garage band with the Smith Brothers, Craig and Kurt. They made fun of his guitar playing calling his unusual fingerings 'Seitz chords'. Apparently his fingerings were mandolin chords and now he's recognized as one of the hottest mando players on the East Coast. Cool. -but Mark gave the boy lessons for  a while and says he has real talent and should stick with it. It's not too surprising, theirs is a musical family. I remember Ronnie's uncles gathering around the kitchen table at Uncle John and Aunt Jeanne's place, playing old-timey bluegrass music. Lynn played guitar and sang, Rick played mandolin, John- Ronnie's dad -played banjo. I don't remember if Tim or Mark played or just came along for moral support. In other words, for the beer and to make bawdy lyrics fit the gospel songs they played, yow. I didn't appreciate their homespun music at the time; in fact, bluegrass was about the farthest from what I called music then. The Monkees. The Archies. The Partridge Family. Anyway, maybe I can get some mandolin lessons from the boy one day soon.

   Man, it's two in the morning already. Time to close up shop. Friday's a big day- scout some yard sales, check things out at the Hilltop Emporium, mail some Plastick, do the banking for the weekend and make some more rubber goods. Got a figure set or two to hang together and plenty of pieces and parts to work up too. Hey, BTW there's a drawing job on the horizontoo. Preliminary to presentation for animation something or other for a fellow toy aficianado who's also got me working on a swingin' custom figure character for him. Gotta crack my knuckles and see if I can still draw a decent cartoony face and figure! If it turns out to be worth a look I'll be sure to include it in the Bittersweet Yahoo! Photo Archive. Yahooo-oo-oo-oooo!

Joke-O-Rama

On the way to the Buck the other week for the tractor pulls...

   What an unimaginably rednecked motorized spectacle that was! Tractors and trucks with these giant tires and engines dragging a big ol' weighted sled down a dirt track a coupla hundred feet before the weight stops 'em dead in their tracks, wheels spinnin', dirt flyin', smoke belchin'... Yow! There was even a class that you could hardly call tractors anymore as they were outfitted with not one but several helicopter turbine engines! I imagine if that sled left go those things'd leave the ground and speed all the way to Lancaster before they got stopped... I've got a coupla pictures, before the natural light began to fail and I tried the video feature and thereby drained the battery before the jet engine class started up, drat it all. I'll post those over in my Yahoo! Photo Albums on of these days. The friends who invited us with go a few times every summer, my son's been with them once or twice, this was the first time for my wyfe, I hadn't been since twenty years probably. I recollect that event largely because I learned to eat hot dogs with sauerkraut there and have eaten them that way ever since when I have a choice.

 ...but on the way I swapped jokes with the thirteen-year-old son of a friend. He had a handful to relate; of course, I remember none of them. But I was able to share exactly four jokes I can always remember of the hundreds or more I've been told over the course of the years(one of which, about the Lone Ranger and overheated Silver I've recorded herein previously), here's another one:

  Salesman is driving his route along a country road. Cruising along at a leisurely forty or so when he glances off to the side of the road and there's a chicken running along the side of the road. It's keeping up with the car, doesn't even seem to be breathing hard! So the guy presses the gas pedal, now he's doing fifty, then fifty-five, sixty miles per hour! And the chicken is running right alongside, it's legs a blur, feathers flying!

  Finally, the bird veers off down a farm lane and the salesman screeches to a stop, turns around and follows, determined to see where this speedy chicken came from. As he pulls down the lane and up to the farmhouse he sees the yard full of chickens... and they all have three legs! Three legs! Unbelieveable!

   The farmer comes around the corner of the house and the goggly-eyed salesman sputters, 'Mister! Your chickens all have three legs! Why, I've never seen anything like it...!' 'Ah, yeah, tha's right,' says the farmer. 'We bred them that way because everybody in the family loooooves drumsticks. We figured this way there'd always be enough drumsticks t' go 'round.'

   'Incredible! You could make a fortune from a chicken like that!', says the salesman. 'How do they taste?'

   'I don't know,' says the farmer, 'We've never caught one.'

Slacker

That's me! Been over a week since I've been over here and the silence is deafening, ain't it? Oh, well, it's a quiet venue anyway...

    Adventures in the last week included a trip to the famous Buck Tractor Pulls(photos coming soon!) and a short road trip to Bel Air MD to pick up a guitar case for the Charvel including a swell picnic lunch at Rocks State Park on the way back. Today's agenda is breakfast at the famous Dover Diner and then a mail run to the York Post Office. Wheee!

More later...

More from the archives

   My wyfe has been sorting through the shoeboxes and assorted small Rubbermaid totes that contain the photographic mementos of the days of our lives lately and as she does I've been shuffling just a few out for inclusion in the Yahoo! Family Album. Which, if I failed to mention previously and I probably did, has been split or, more correctly, appended with a second file or album as the first set was becoming more than a little unwieldly to view and sort. For me with my Flintstones-era pc anyway.

  The first album I tried to arrange more or less chronologically as I added photos so I suppose I'll do the same with the second. Although I'm not sure it makes sense because if you look at one, scrolling down to the latest, and then click over to the other... well, it'll be all out of order with the first one... Anyway, they're up there and that's that. If it's a little more diverting than confusing, all well and good. McCue Family Album Part Two

TV Geek Certification

    In keeping with the milieu of the last entry: Where do I apply for my official 'TV Geek' license? Because I am soooo geeked out right now on the old shows. To wit, watching a few more episodes from season one of The Big Valley. In particular a show entitled 'The Way To Kill A Killer'(said killer is an outbreak of anthrax which threatens the Barkleys prize bull...). Not only does it feature Martin Landau- seen recently as Jack's dementia stricken dad in Without A Trace -in another turn as a Mexican- I know I've seen him play the same ethinicity on Bonanza with his skin darkened and a very fake looking mustache to say nothing of his, uh, accent. Which is weird, because there are real Hispanic people in evidence in the episode yet Landau is cast as the primary antagonist. Who else has played Spanish but ain't? John Saxon, for one. How about Eli Wallach? Yeah, sure, in The Magnificent Seven. Pretty standard procedure in the days before political correctness and affirmative action for Anglos to portray not only Mexican but Native American too. Was white America so gullible, d'you suppose? Or averse to presenting real ethnic types on the broadcast medium, more likely -but one scene with a group of cowhands- or more correctly, since they are Mexicans, vaqueros, the Spanish term for cowboys which eventually got mangled into the word 'buckaroo' -I'd swear one fellow is wearing the orange speckled camiso(shirt) and another the distinctively decorated suede pantalones(pants) which once belonged to The Cisco Kid's sidekick, dear ol' Pancho Miguel Bernardo Gonzalez de Conejo.

   Hahaha, I had to rewind several times to get a good look, talk about your pure viewing satisfaction. Now, is that a sure sign of TV geek-ness or what?

Faces

   Ford Rainey. Mort Mills. Gene Evans. Jason Evers. John Anderson. Just a few of the familiar folks to be seen in the aforementioned Big Valley DVD. One of the cool things about these vintage shows collected is seeing folks like these, faces you know if you watch enough TV Land; if you're an aficianado like meself you start to learn and remember some of their names. They made the rounds of so many shows; Bonanza, Star Trek, Gunsmoke. Y'know, the only one I've ever seen lauded as an 'Unsung Hero of TV Land'- I think that's what they called it, people whose faces you know from a hundred shows but never as the star -was ol' Burt Mustin. Best remembered as Gus the ancient fireman on Leave It To Beaver and a familiar presence on a slew of 50s - early 60s shows.

    There's Bing Russell. Kurt Russell's dad: Sheriff Clem Foster on Bonanza. One of two traveling salesmen in The Magnificent Seven. Which, of course, starred Charles Bronson who shows up everywhere, making the rounds as a saddle tramp / ne'er-do-wel / misfit, long before he became a big 70s movie star. And Robert Walker, Jr. who seems to be playing much the same off-center wacko that he essayed on Star Trek, Charlie X, though a much less empathetic character here. And Dick Farnsworth, recently reknowned at the twilight of his long career as the aged farmer who rides his lawn tractor cross country to see his estranged brother, quick, what was that movie called? The Straight Story, right. In The Cowboys, when John Wayne's juvenile hands set out to recapture the stolen herd from Bruce Dern and his gang of baddies, Dick Farnsworth is the first of the rustlers to get his just desserts.

   At any rate, it reinforces the sense of familiarity of the television landscape. If TV unreality can be considered familiar that is. And if you can believe the same guy can be sheriff of Viriginia City one week and desperado in Dodge the next. Whoa, boy! 'Reality'. That's a slippery slope. I better call my pal Hoss and see what he thinks. Or better yet Mr. Spock. He'll have some highbrow exposition regarding the psychological ramifications of fantasy immersion and the maturation processes of the human male. Now,where's my communicator?

Water, water everywhere

        As in rainwater. Every day. A good part of the day and all night. I know because I was goofing around on the computer all night and it rained cats and dogs the whole time. I didn't pay too much attention because by all reports we're more or less high and dry here especially since a housing complex next door has diverted most of the runoff from what-used-to-be adjacent fields. But riverside and near creeks locally it's a different story, lotta messy scenes on the nightly news.

    It reminds me of the flood, of course. Agnes was a hurricane storm in '72. Or was it '73? Like my memory is to be trusted either way. I do remember to creek working its way over its banks and slowly swirling up and over the road effectively blocking escape, all the while dragging trees and picnic tables and trash cans complete with their concrete bases and all manner of washed away stuff merrily, merrily down the stream. So we trundled out in the middle of the night when the water finally threatened to reach our little house on the hill. Trundled out through the woods and over the hill to a neighbors' house where we spent a few days, maybe a week, while the waters abated. My brother and I had a swell adventurous time, fighting like we were right at home, sneaking copies of, well, uh, photographic... uh, art magazines from our hosts' bedroom stash and, perhaps most memorably, encouraging a younger neighbor boy, also displaced by the floodwaters, to pee on the property's electric fence. Boy, we caught some serious disciplinary measures for that, ouch!

   Went looking for The Wild, Wild West on DVD today and found The Big Valley instead. Very cool! I liked this show probably only a slim second after Bonanza for western fun and adventure. Of course, it didn't hurt that Lee Majors, Heath Barkley, went on to become another stalwart TV hero favorite o' mine, The Six Million Dollar Man. Hey, I'm missing part of the first episode already! Gotta go!

Quickie

    More or less just to displace that last downer from the top of the page. Yow! "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!", says Batman as he dashes about in search of a place to ditch the giant cannonball of a powder charge so as not to maim innocent passersby! It's true in the cinema fantastique, yes, and in real life too. So you just gotta give it a day or two, a month, maybe a year or longer and the lingering gunpowder smell will eventually dissipate to some extent.

    Did a little toy scouting this weekend, found nary a one vintage plaything but bought a big old metal bedframe instead. Not too ornate and in need of some TLC but it'll serve it's purpose certainly. Saw a batch of cowboy goods at another antiques emporium, too princely priced for my empty wallet so I just took pictures which excited some members of the staff. Apparently they've had experience with some unscrupulous patrons who will snap a pic just to sell the item at a profit for themselves via electronic marketplace. Note to self: Ask before jauntily snapping pictures in the next antique store you visit. And order Wendy's burgers plain because, boy, do they squirt on the mustard. Aaauuughh!

   Let's see, what else? Wyfe on another photo-finding mission in the family archives- a bunch of shoe boxes and mismatched containers under the bed -found a few more pics of the glory days of the Mustang and Van Halen hair. As she handed them over she made sure to add the proviso that should I start to think of recapturing that particular artifact- the car not the hair! -it would be at the expense of the toy collection, the guitars, the computer. Ouch! So much for the middle age car crazies! I'll post 'em to the Family album on day soon along with some guitar photos in that album.

   Spent some time in a cemetary yesterday in Millersville. Coupla Lehrs, my grandaprents' name, interred therein, even a few McCues, a lot of familiar surnames but only one I knew personally. That I got around to see anyway, couldn't see each and every stone. I remember this fellow in my art classes at school, funny kid, a year, maybe two older than me. They had engraved a guitar, mandolin and banjo on the stone. I never knew he was musical but then that wouldn't have been so interesting to me back then. I don't recall what happened to him if I ever heard...  We like to swing in on Sunday drives to graveyards we've never been to, check out the dates and names, see who we don't know and just consider the big picture; life, death, modern life vs. times past. Now that's 'bittersweet', baby. Always some tragically short lifespans represented, people almost certainly killed in wars. Moms and Dads, children. Gives one pause to appreciate every day, every breath, because, sad to say, somebody somewhere ain't enjoying that glorious pastime any more.

   Hey! I gotta get movin'! I've got grass to mow- both my Mum's mowing job- I love it, Forrest Gump -and her own lawn since she's laid up with a Franken-foot, all stitched up and metal-pinned -and the forecast is for rain all week long with today the least chance of thunderstorms. Th-Whack!  

   See ya next time! Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

  

Buffy and Jody

   Family Affair was one of those sugary sweet shows nobody seems to remember, like The Courtship of Eddie's Father or My Three Sons. Two dear little orphans taken in by their bachelor uncle and his manservant. The kind of stuff that wouldn't stand a chance next to the fascinating TV offered nowadays: scorpions crawling over screaming scantily clad women and small claims courts full of Jerry Springer rejects. But Buffy and Jody and Uncle Bill and Mr. French were beyond family friendly, even without a Mom. I guess older sister Cissy was sort of their stand-in Mother figure.

    The point is, I remember Jody singing- maybe Buffy joined in, I forget -on more than one occasion. The cheerful little waif was so earnestly freckly and dimply and... well, earnest. Once it was 'Any boy can be President, can be President... of the United States, United States...'. And the other was 'Open up your heart and let the sun shine in...!' Cheery, upbeat stuff, guaranteed to make you smile and think, 'Yeah! I need to open up my heart and let the sun shine in! By golly...!'

   Some days it's hard though to agree with that saccharine sing-song sentiment. That's what I wanted to write about today after a late-night, tear-jerking, hand-wringing, Kleenex-crumpling session with the wyfe over recent events six months old that seem more like ten years ago, with regard to one wayward daughter and broken family ties. Boy, how that real-life 'adult' stuff... stinks! I put no stock in foretellers of events but if somebody'd shown me a crystal ball twenty-two years ago I'd have bolted like the proverbial rabbit in my all-white... What was I wearing on my feet at the time? Had to be after the red three-stripe Adidas were retired but before the advent of Nikes... or was it? Anyway, I'd have raced away down Beaver Street in downtown York by the Central Market House where my Dad had come to pick up his camera at the camera shop and I was dragged along after dropping the Mustang at the Ford dealer for a badly needed brake job. Nah, I wouldn't have listened anyway. Too busy running toward trouble without recognizing it despite the best efforts of kith and kin. (What exactly is 'kith' anyway?) Besides, if we all had that ability or opportunity, to rewind or redo, there'd be no intriguing stories about 'What if...?' and 'Man goes back in time...'. The Butterfly Effect, never seen it, and Family Man, which made me actually like watching Nicholas Cage, and so on would never be written.

  The thing is, once you make a change to undo all the untoward events you'd like to wish away, >poof!< all the swell, heartwarming stuff goes right with it. That's why that kind of fiction only works in fiction. Because the people that have actually done it don't remember it! That's my supposition on the matter at least...

   But the bitterness, for me anyway, has abated somewhat today even thought the reality of the situation hasn't changed. I guess that's what made me think of Jody's song. If I 'opened up my heart to let the sun shine in' it might find some hard ground, a too-tough shell, kinda scabrous and scar-tissued in spots, to do any good. Maybe I'm kidding myself, maybe I'm too nice a guy- the opinions of some may differ - to be a heartless bastid, unfazed by the motives and actions of others. At any rate, I've more or less decided- as much as I make any decision in stone, which is to say, not many and not very hard and fast - not to expect too much good from most people and that way not be disappointed. And I guess that makes me officially a borderline cynic. Or over the borderline. For today at least. Maybe tomorrow I'll let the sunshine in...

   Y'know, I wonder now if maybe it was the Brady Bunch kids that sang 'Open Up Your Heart...'...? Or The Archies?

 

Silence of the Yams

...chirp, chirp... chirp,chirp... That's the crickets chirping, indicating silence and stillness in the woods. And in my little diary, er, journal. Been a while or at least it seems like it has been a while. So what's the difference between a diary and a journal anyway? Is a log the same thing? Or is that only on a ship? What if you carry your diary on a boat... Does it become a log then?

  Speaking of yams... No, I got nothing about yams. I just wanted to use 'silence' in the title and that's what came out.

So, I picked up my new mandolin this past week. Very pretty, tinkly little sounds it makes. I recalled one or two melodies I had learned and figured out one or two more. That's all I can do though, chording on the thing eludes me. The percussive 'chop' that's called for in the bluegrass style is beyond me. I have a video though that my son's guitar teacher, a man of all strings it would seem, loaned out to me. I'll have to break down and try and follow it, see if I can learn anything. But I have fun fiddling around with it anyway, something different. Somewhere I have Led Zeppelin IV, gotta break that out and take a stab at The Battle of Evermore. Isn't that the mandolin thing on there? I think so... Plus every time I hear Stairway to Heaven on the radio, rare these days, I'm reminded that I never learned the lead guitar part, always been content to do a fake three-finger-pick version of the verses, though I can never remember all the lyrics and the order they follow. I remember when a guy named Tim Moore- I think he played bass in a local country rock band at the time, I don't know where he is today. At one point he shotgunned the crazy husband of some woman he was running around, I don't remember how that worked out... -showed me the first few chords way back when. I was so excited, they were strange, twisty little con-finger-ations, not like the two-finger power chords I'd learned  the week before at all. Plus it was Stairway, dude! Now, post-Wayne's World, you gotta be embarassed to play it in a guitar shop. Not that that stops me...

Speaking of musicians: My pal Jim Lenz, late of Waysted Sylence(shudder!) reports his latest musical group, Pheonix Rizin, has gone belly up. Their guitarist had some kind of work-related accident which impacted his forearm/hand and maybe ended his playing days altogether(double shudder!). Last I'd talked to Jim, his wife, not a big fan of the scene at all, had come out to a show and afterward told him this was the best band he'd ever been involved with and if they decided to go on tour he should definitely give it a go. So it's a real drag for him, I know. I didn't get out to see them but Jimmy says they were hot, hot, hot. He even started taking bass lessons so he could step up his skills to keep up with the other musicians. Who knows, maybe it'll all work out...

Got in some baseball this past weekend, much preferable to the big, squishy softball for hitting. But then the ball moves faster in the field too, not so great for one largely sedentary of late. Man, my lower extremities have been like wooden sticks all week as a result of all that running and dodging around, argghh!

Toted me Mum to the foot doctor yesterday for a little corrective surgery on a pair of toes, so she's hobbling about in a ski boot with a metal skewer sticking out of one toe, prohibited from driving or doing much of anything but hanging around the house for two, three weeks. So I'm filling in that lawn mowing job again, yay! I got a late start today but had a great time anyway. Green grass, big sky view out back, bunnies running here and there. There's even a Wendy's close by so when I have to stop to pee- Hey, it's two and a half hours of bouncy Grasshopper ride on some bumpity, hilly terrain! And you gotta keep yourself hydrated... -I can get a Frosty to cool down. "Mmmm, a delicious soquid you eat with a fpoon!" Ahhh, the power of advertising!

You know, that's just the kind of conversation Jim and I might have had about the nature of a Frosty and the implement you use to eat it. Though we more often brainstormed actual menu items given his considerable experience in food service and my considerable experience in, uh, food consumption. Things like "SpudGhettis"- spaghetti served over mashed potatoes -and fried chicken delivery(everybody delivers pizza. Who delivers fried chicken?!? Uh, no one!)have been Jim's pet ideas for years. My big ideas have been (A) the Chicken/Whopper sandwich, possible trade name, "The Chopper"- a Whopper, yes, but with the addition of a grilled chicken breast on top of the burger! Brilliant! and (B) "The Quarter Mac" - a Big Mac, yes, but made with two Quarter Pounder burgers instead of those slivers of burger which are overpowered by lettuce in the 'standard' sandwich. Have it your way, indeed! That's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It's late and it's been a long, long day; hard to recall all the fast food genius that's been like water under the bridge.

  Well, if I had anything more of little or no importance to record, I've forgotten it. You know, I think of stuff all the time- usually while driving from one end of the county to the other -and never manage to remember it when I get over here. The screen's like a blank slate and I end up with... well, what you've got here. And now you're stuck with it! Ciao, baby!

Tangible memory

If you've been paying attention, the last entry copied over a survey I completed on a mailing list about toy collecting in general. I mentioned the last lone vestige of my boyhood toy stash, not a 'toy' so much but an artifact nonetheless of that bygone era when men in tights and capes were all the rage on Wednesday night TV: a white Batman mug. I remember having it early on in my collecting days- shortly before the first big-time WB Batman movie with Michael Keaton hit screens there was so much buzz about it and I remarked to a workmate how as a wee lad I oft imitated Adam West as the Caped Crusader with a towel around my neck. Said workmate turned up a few days later with a Starlog magazine featuring an interview with Mr. West and a set of super photos, real eye-poppers in living color, all navy satin and purple tights. Man, how I loved that suit! That mask! Those swoopy painted eyebrows! It was the impetus for the onset of my second childhood and I began hunting and hoarding 60s era Batman artifacts in earnest not long after -but I can't recall where the white Batman mug got away from me. I'm sure in a rare day lacking sentiment I traded or sold it away for some other souvenir that seemed for the nonce more enticing somehow.

    Well, naturally after stirring that recollection for the survey I had to go and make a search for one. Snagged an nice example from the mighty eBay for a few measly bucks, all the way from Medford, OR, no less, and I'm watching the mailbox for it in the next few days, yay! I'm imagining hot chocolate tasting so much better served in a glass mug emblazoned with Batman on the sides. Though I'm more tea and hazelnut cream these days; the cocoa beverage is mostly reserved for snow days after shoveling out the cars. My wyfe stirs it with a stick of cinnamon, makes for a snappy tingle on the tongue, a little bite on the edge of the soothing warmness... Mmmmm-mmmm...

Survey said...

Here's a little aside from my Captain Action eMail group... Filler?... maybe... Well, I find it interesting anyway...

captainaction@yahoogroups.com writes:

Cool, Roy! A questionairre to fill out... I needed something like this to fill some free time...

1. What is your favorite item in your collection?

   This might sound goofy given the overreaching obscurity and costliness of our plastic pal, Captain Action, but it's likely my '66 Whitman Batman coloring book(s). I recall spending a LOT of time coloring in the laundromat as a kid, it is a powerful sense memory; dryer exhaust and crayoning Batman scenes.

  2. What is your least favorite item in your collection?

   Hmmm, tough question. Does this question really mean, 'What am I embarrassed to display or show off to visitors?', right? Well, I'm fairly shameless about the 'girl dolls' like Jane West and Xena dressed in a Captain Action outfit... So, I'd have to say Jay West. My boy loved him best of all the Marx dolls but I just never had much real interest in him. Plus his skinny little forearms break if you even look at them too hard.

  3. What is the rarest item you own?

  I have a toy buddy who swears it's the purple Captain Action suit but I'm of the opinion that's just the result of fading, nothing more, and thus not 'rare' at all. Am I wrong?!? Given that proviso, it's probably a simple cardboard box that housed a Bonanza figure and horse from one catalog outlet or another, I don't even know. It has a wood texture drawn on it and the words 'Bonanza Storage Chest', that's it. It was pretty much given to me by another Bonanaza aficianado who just didn't care to display it because it was so dull an object. But I've never seen another one so it seems pretty obscure to me.

  4. What is the rarest item you would like to own?

   Dr. Evil's Sanctuary, hands down, no doubt. I have a friend who has one and I keep offering to store it for him, keep it safe, y'know? And he just doesn't see the sense in that. Some friend!!!

  5. What is the most expensive item you own?

   Hmmm, I'm notoriously cheap so this is  a hard question too. Most expensive? Most I PAID for something? I guess my boxed Dr. Evil. It was a super-duper, under-the-radar eBay deal- and I bid without thinking I had the proverbial snowball's chance of winning -but still a lot of moolah to me. And I'm happy I went for it. Same deal with my Action Boy with box, I needed that little plastic boy doll to make my life complete.

  6. What is the least expensive item you own?

   We're talking 'least' versus it's 'perceived value', right? It'd have to be the first Captain Action I 'collected'. Bought from a little old lady who ran a baseball card/comic shop, complete with box for 25 clams. I bought my first Action Boy- never had one as a kid -at a yard sale for two dollars and fifty cents- '"That's old.", the woman said. -but I'm not sure I still have that one so it doesn't count.

  7. What item do you still have from your childhood?

    Sadly, nuthin'. When I collected 60s Batman in the late 80s I still had my white Batman mug but it got lost somewhere along the way. Waaahhhhh....!

  8. What item did you have in your childhood that you would like to get back but cant find?

   Gosh, I have more toys at forty-something than I ever dreamed of owning as a child! I can't think of a thing. Besides, it would show up on eBay tomorrow if I could remember something...

  9. What Item is the last thing you would ever part with?

   I've bought and sold my toy collection down to the barest of bare bones at least three times since I began collecting in earnest so it's all expendable when the kids are barefoot and hungry! I've managed to keep that twenty-five dollar Cap though and I always buy back the Batman and Robin Soaky bottles first. And the Batman Viewmaster set. So that's four things...

  10. What item would you burn before someone else gets it?  ie. through divorce.. etc..

   Hahahaha, you mean somebody in their right mind would actually WANT this stuff?!? You gotta be kiddin' me...

Hey, thanks for lettin' me run on. And on.

Wes


Wes McCue
The Classic Plastick Toy Company

News

   Music news: My wyfe knows I've been wanting to replace my mandolin- victim of a horrible household, ah, accident -and so an otherwise routine visit to a small local music emporium, RLH Guitars, became an excuse to blow some money better spent on other things. Like food and electricity. A little wifely arm-twisting and >ouch!< we put a chunk of change on a sweet little instrument expecting to finish off the balance at the end on the month. As always, the best laid plans went aglee, I came up fifty bucks short after I paid the bills, dratters! So maybe next week I can bring it home. That's okay because Randy said he'd throw in a soft case for it and that hadn't come into the store yet. I dunno, I like to go the cheap route and buy instruments- eBay, pawn shop, auction -but this one  normally sells this one for X dollars and he sold it to me for almost half X dollars, so the sales pitch went anyway. But it's all dressed up, inlays, bound edges, solid carved woods and so forth so it oughta hold it's value. Now all I have to do is learn to play it! I've forgotten most all the licks I learned for it! But, what else could I do? She practically made me buy it...really!

   The store had a truckload of vinyl albums somebody had traded on a guitar so we had fun nosing through those too. Picked out one or two for son-boy- he's all vintage music-inspired lately to go along with his muscle car fascination of the same era, I suppose -Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd. I held back from buying any for myself seeing as how in the great unloading of  possessions preceding the move I gave my phonographic stereo away. But I was sore tempted by Helix, Van Halen. Okay, okay, I did break down and buy one, just one Kiss record, Creatures Of The Night. I gave it to the same kid I gave the stereo and asked him to tape a copy for me so I could learn a riff or two. Only Kiss record I ever owned way back when because it had one super neat guitar intro to the title song as I recall. Don't remember much else about it. Except that my mother almost had a conniption when she saw my younger brother had converted me to his awful rock music, oy! Especially that awful Kiss!

   I've got that last dimestore acoustic I bought still needing a trip to the guitar repair dude to replace a tuning gear, two electrics sitting about missing strings and one that I just got outta the case today for the first time in three months, maybe more... So I need another instrument like another hole in my head I guess. I think it's a sickness, really. Like some women buy shoes, I wanna buy stringed things. It's worse than the old playthings even. They take up more room and reqiure more care! They snivel and cry in the dark when you don't play them enough...

   Other news: A lovely topic- The aforementioned poison nastiness has pretty much dried up and blown away, thanks to the miracle of modern pharmacology. Steroids be praised! Funny, I don't see any attendant growth in muscle tissue, hmmm, different kinda steroid I thinks.... 

   The birds out back are eating me out of house and home! We had a regular little clientele of sparrows and wrens, tiny little fellows, at the last residence. I could fill the feeder and watch birds all week... Here we got big black fowl, lots of 'em. Cackling and clawing, they'll devour a feeder full of fruit, seed and nut mix in half a day! I think their overbearingly determined demeanor keeps the cardinals and the turtledoves at bay. Not to mention the red-winged blackbird. I haven't seen him since the first day I set the feeder out... 

    Street rods are in town this weekend. York Expo Center, formerly known in a simpler time as York Fairgrounds, home of the Great York Interstate Fair, hosts a huge gathering of vintage vehicles of all shapes, sizes and colors, all tricked out in paint and chrome and so forth, every year. The town becomes a virtual traveling custom car show as they roll in and around town, round the downtown 'loop' and out the highway round town. People line up in lawn chairs along the thoroughfares where trains of shiny antique and custom cars parade by one after the other, day and night. I've only taken a passing interest through the years, once a coupla the cars and their owners stayed at my folks' when they offered bed and breakfast in their Log House. It was interesting watching them coming and going at a snail's pace over the stone and dirt driveway. I guess when you spring thousands of dollars in paint you are pretty careful about small stones and dirt flying up and potentially dinging or denting said paint. Anyway, we drove by the fairgrounds today and could look through the fences at some of the gathering cars, I thought son-boy would give himself a whiplash, swiveling his nugget to and fro exclaiming, 'Sweeet! Sweeeet! Suh-weeet!!!', like a mechanically obsessive teenage mantra. If the weather cooperates we might find time and place over the weekend to situate ourselves for a while and watch the procession along with the rest of the car nuts...

   One last thing: I finally added the rest of the photos of the East Prospect Walking Tour to my online photo albums, both those from the original go-round and some newer shots featuring some great springly color, blossoming blossoms and neat stuff like that. Am I repeating myself? Repeating myself? I hope not, seems like I wanted to mention that here but didn't... Anyway, I guess I should think about making a space for Dover color now that I'm planted here, I just don't know much of the surroundings yet to think about what there'll be to show...