11 13 12

More back roads to the front of my mind

 

The farm belonged to his grandparents and lies roughly between Station Road on one side and Temple Road on the other.  The other two borders of the property are Smith Bridge Road and a nondescript one track railroad, along which a small stream held some errant trout and many creek chubs that helped develop the old man's love for fishing. 

 

The old folks [grand parents] were of the old and proper school that seemed to make children with a firm belief in God and Country.  Those people scratched out a living early on but were more successful as transportation improved and they had better ways to get their crops to market.  Great Grand Father was once the Secretary of Agriculture for the state of Pennsylvania, but this current old man could not seem to gin up any memories of him.

 

Grains such as wheat and corn were the primary crops, but mushrooms grew in six or eight buildings.  Stopping for a breath and view down hill he wondered which it was....six or eight?  They were all gone.  He did recall the times when he was allowed to go and help pick that crop,,,,A totally dark room which ran for some fifty yards and housed a half dozen levels of horse manure which was the soil of choice by those famous Pennsylvania mushrooms.  The houses were so dark that miner's lamps had to be worn just to see which delicacies to pick.  There was also a three acre plot where peonies were grown and in the spring the blooms would be picked, packed and shipped to the markets in Chester and Philadelphia.  Asparagus was another of the plants grown for home consumption and the market.  And of course there were some thirty to fifty dairy cows milked daily by a tenant.  Baling and storing hay and wheat straw was a dirty, dusty and sweaty job in which he had taken part.  Following the potato harvester and picking up the spuds was another tedious job he did.  At least he was able to pick up garden worms at the same time and that supported his growing fishing habit.

 

His gaze carried along the field bordered by Smith Bridge, looking west to the first childhood home he could remember.  Simply called the "Corner House".

 

 

The dwelling that seemed gigantic back in the day, but today would be seen as a Cottage.  Remembering that it was up until the third grade that he lived in that home.  Today he can see that the acre and half lot is really not the football field sized image of his historic recall.  Again there were other memories which bubbled forth.

 

Looking east past the central barn and over the primary cow pasture there is a low spot and a weathered tree, all that remains of the tenant's home and the old man's first childhood playmates.  There was "Jim T", the tenant and almost father figure.  Two of his children were Tommy and Herby and he can't remember the rest.  Certainly not the girls, because from third grade and younger who needed girls anyway.

11 12 12

A back road to the front of my mind 

 

The old man parked his vehicle in a maze of blacktop and white lines, all never meant to be found where they were.  Just like the brick buildings which covered a favorite rabbit hide of years past.  Instead of bucolic scenes of milk cows chewing their cuds, the county school system spread before him.  The early morning sun on the horizon betold of the time of day and the parking lot was still driver's choice.  But in a couple of hours he knew that choice spots would require a favored parking sticker obtained only by years of tenure doled out by a teacher's union for which he had little respect.  This Pennsylvania school district is of today and not the hundred and twenty five pastoral acres of his youth some 65 years ago.

 

With a heavy sigh and knees that scream at him as he swing his legs out the door, he none too gracefully lands on solid ground, holding on for dear life to the steering wheel and open door frame of the SUV.  Maybe it was time to give up his pride and get one of those smaller, foreign, "Green" cars which would not be so difficult to enter and exit.  One which would cut his travel expenses in half.  But then after all the years with the SUV's,  he would feel as though he were driving a skate board.  And if in a crash in one of those things, the only result could like a crushed egg in crumpled tin foil.  A smaller lower car would also only mean that he had to climb UP, instead of fall DOWN, when he got out the the vehicle.  And which was easier anyway.  And maybe this year gas would actually go lower, though he knew that was just wishful thinking on his part.

He had driven up the long drive past the homestead house and was now walking slowly down the hill towards "The Farm".  The Farm was and still is bordered by three country roads and a non-named single rail road track.  The walking stick had become a part of his outdoor activity in the past few years.  Mainly to fight off neighborhood dogs at first but now more for support when stepping on errant unevenness in the ground.  The ever present camera slung over one shoulder and sunglasses to give the impression of being hip, but more to cover  the glare from the cataracts.

  Somehow with all the "Growth", or was it urban sprawl, around him had completely changed the photos in his memory bank. The border of a three acre field was still maintained with the hedgerow of Lilac bushes, sixteen feet high 60 years ago.  A great place to push rabbits and pheasant alike to the end only to have them disappear rapidly into an adjoining wheat field.  But to a child's mind, the hedgerow held more anticipation than actual satisfaction of having shot something.  Shooting and killing was never really the point of it all anyway.

Further down the hill on the left was the primary pasture for the milk cows and then the barn.  On the right was one of the first mushroom houses in eastern Pennsylvania.  Past the barn, the complex roles  of  farm management and animal husbandry were played out in different buildings.  A circle surrounded by farm house, milk house, barn, mushroom house, all purpose office building and garage.  Now the farmhouse is an historical sight and museum with only the garage standing the rigors of "Development".  And so called renewal.

 

 

 

8 15 12

What a way to start a work day.

 

Sure it's Friday, but a work day still....We're not France yet!

 

The first cup needs to be replenished and warmed, just so.  Coffee seems to be my current recreational drug of choice.  So as soon as my fingers start to tremble  I will know the caffeine has taken hold I will be able to type much faster even though with perhaps with pretty much less clarity.  And that is my dirty little secret to putting together something for a somewhat awake readership.

 

For a large chunk of my adult life, my drug of choice has been alcohol, even though I am allergic to it.  Stuff makes me do and say stupid things. Inflames my liver which argues with my brain about when enough is enough.   But I would not make it illegal.  We tried that when a bunch of goodie two shoe woman forced the national no drink laws.  How'd that work for ya?

 

  I see a couple of states out west coast [where else], have just legalized pot [I really can't spell marijuana, and maybe that's why the also call it Mary Jane.]. 

 

 Now there is an idea whose time has come.

 

  We already have a vast majority of the populace who naturally have no clue about what's going on in the world .............. without drugs.

 

  Now we put those same people on pot and say "Have at it"!  A clear pathway to more hallucinatory govt activity.

 

To legalize pot is to just put stupidity on steroids.  But the ruling class has found another source of tax revenue.  So follow the money!  Maybe we should just legalize the whole damn bunch of illegal drugs and thin out the ranks of the stupid.  That way we could raise a bunch of taxes to pay for the mistakes Washington makes in their own display of stupid....................AND ultimately end up with all those that vote for large intrusive socialistic govment taking overdoses.  A road to smaller govt. growth through drug attrition.  Probably just create a who new bureaucracy to tax and control it.  It would probably work because the number of doctors needed to treat these hip, educated, publicly accepted potheads has already been reduced by the clairvoyant law called Obama Care.

 

And don't say that I have no sympathy for those poor addicted leader folks.  I do!  Just think how difficult it is to have to spend a few hours each day lying to one another, whilst standing erect on the house floor. thus making it even harder.   And then being forced to go to phony, plastic rock n roll cocktail parties each night with other shallow people, who talk only to themselves, and who daily decide the destiny of 300 some odd million equally stupid people stoned up on their own drug of choice.  And all the sexual high jinks with the leaders would never make it into the papers because, well who remembers anyway.  The press sure won't follow up on such silliness.....Hell they're part of it.   It is really a hard to lead..."Bless their Hearts".

 

We could even go so far as to draft a new bill of rights and wrongs for the lambs out in the public to follow.  "The dooby do bill of dooby do rights and dooby do wrongs" And before each congressional session, a huge cauldron is lit with of course only the best grass wafting through the chamber full of ethereal enthusiasm.

 

Hell, I may have stumbled upon a new direction for the country.  The new and enhanced "Sodom and Gomorrah" fine tuned by your hippity dippity senator  who can afford the better stuff than you and I which makes him or her smarter than you or I.  After all, we voted them into office.

 

Oh what fun..........Then we truly could "All just get along"

11 8 12

Remembering

 

It's 37 degrees this morning at 7:37 (interesting play on numbers there) and the cup of Pike Place Roast actually has steam rising over the edge where I place my lower lip.  The dog and I have chased the eighth million squirrel this month off the bird feeders.  For an urban setting things are pretty quiet still.  No sirens blasting over in the hood but I notice there is a train disturbing our world as they make their way through road crossings hauling their loads of granite from one of the two quarries.

 

 

These are actually awesome places to see and as I said we have two of them.  Columbia sits right on the line where the sand of previous oceans meet the rock of the midland plains which lead up to the upstate hills and eventually over to the Smokies of Tennessee.

 

Incidentally, there is a sizable of wild Elk herd roaming the northeastern part of the Smokies.  A long way in mind and deed from the quarries of the Midlands.

 

 

I have no idea who the urban mountain man is, but he followed us around for the better part of a week. 

 

Amazing just what a hot cup of coffee will do to the imagination of people.  But the squirrels are temporarily gone as is the train and once again I am left with my fractured thoughts.  I guess it's a sign of old (er) age that the mind wanders to things past more readily than things immediate....like "Why did I come into this room again?"

 

But I am not ready for the big dirt nap yet" 

 

 Which reminds me yet of another item of the past in a head stone company I frequented a number of times.  Remember it like it was only yesterday..... now where did I put that pen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11 7 12

Let the National hangover begin!

 

On top of the list is congratulations to the president and his loyal followers.  You have signed up for the following tasks in my opinion.  Tasks for which I will personally hold you liable.

 

This is what you have accomplished in the first four years.  Fear on the part of business, and unclear policies under which business operates.  High unemployment with not clear plan.  No National budget.  Higher taxes.  Disregard for the well being of those in the service of this country.  A crippling health care bill that is a threat to all but especially to seniors.  No plan for what to do about the national debt, medicare, or social security issues.  And on and on!

 

Therefore I task you with.... 

 

1.  Get unemployment down to manageable levels that give people "Real" hope and not just some slimy political slogan.

 

2.  Reorganize  "All" Government regulations that impact business.  Eliminate all that hinder the        expansion of the Capitalist ideals that have made this country successful. You haven't created those successes, you hinder them. 

 

2.  Get to the bottom of what really happened at Benghazi.  Review and strengthen the support for all of our people serving overseas.  Redefine their purpose.  Protect them.  OH and come clean!

 

3.  Review and support a complete overhaul of our armed service  so that they are paid appropriately and taken care of on a long term basis for their financial and medical needs.

 

4.  Pass a meaningful National budget.

 

5.  Redefine, simplify, and refine the way this country taxes it's citizens.

 

6.  Downsize Government.

 

7.  Finally, allow business to grow to the extent that a new "boom" will provide decent people a decent wage that will in turn create a tax income that will naturally help lift us from the pits of financial despair so that the National debt is eliminated.  See Ronald Regan!

 

8.  Finally, shut up and do that which the people of this country have hired you to do and stop it with the ideology bit.  We have an ideology, it's called the constitution.............Follow it!

 

Mr. President, if you can accomplish any one of the above then you will  have earned my respect. But we'll see. 

 

 I just have no faith in you based upon past performance or lack thereof.

 

 

11 5 12

History, Americana and other Cogent Imaginations

 

Quite tumultuous times we find ourselves wandering around amidst.

 

  As reported here, I spent the week before Sandy (WBA) in a few of the middle Atlantic states, namely Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey.

 

  Just after we left the area ....  then there was Sandy!

 

 

 

  And we spent the next few days checking on family and friends, their well being and property conditions.  You have all seen the damage reports and the destructive force of mother ocean.  It is just appalling.

 

What all that mess served to do for me, is to remind me of just how precious our current situation is and how quickly that can become "History".  So, it is no wonder for me, that some of the images I made in Ocean City, Md are, or can, become iconic representatives of  a time or era past.  Nothing From Cape Henlopen in Delaware north to and including the Connecticut shoreline will ever be the same.  It may be rebuilt, but never the authentic same.    It's sorta like buying antiques....be careful....because there are so many reproductions today that your investment could quickly become negative.

 

 

I don't know if that sign is even there anymore.  On the Boardwalk at Ocean City, MD.

 

Now, there is another storm which has been blowing for the past two years.  About to strike tomorrow and with the same force as Sandy!  If not more because it affects the entire World and not just the devastated east coast.  That's right..............A FREE WORLD ELECTION! 

 

It's DBE ... Day Before Election!  Where will you be ....Day Of  Election... (DOE)?

Voting, I hope.  Notice I did not say for who!  Or whom?  Spell check doesn't handle that!

 

Suffice to say your vote and mine with either cancel each other out or be additive.  In the former we will just have to let other and wiser minds prevail.  In the latter, lets just hope it's enough. 

 

Becauses nothing will be the same on DAE!

 

 

 

 

11 2 12

CATCH UP

 

It's been a busy time...I've been busy....you've been busy and those of you from the Northeast to the Mid Atlantic have been extra busy.  My thoughts and prayers have been with you.  We spent the week before "Andy" around ground zero.  Well at least from Ocean City, Maryland north to North Wildwood, NJ.  Of course it was great weather and then after we returned to South of the Sun, and like you watched the obliteration of much of what we saw the previous week.

 

We lost the son of a very dear friend just after the storm.  He was helping a friend clean up a tree that had been knocked down by the storm.  An errant limb struck him and he passed a day later.  Certainly a lot different than watching television.

 

  RIP Tom Frey, you were a good and decent man only trying to help a friend.

 

I have posted some of the iconic images of the shore which may or may not still be there.  God Bless all those folks in NY, NJ, VA, DE, MD, and NC.  I hope you all  heal well.