64 Lincoln Convertible

The Hat Lady returns

Saturday I was at the grocery store sliding down the frozen aisle when I turn the corner and I realise I'm looking at the Hat Lady coming the other way except she's wearing a regular hat not one of her grocery bag creations and I blurt out "You aren't wearing one of your hats" She looks at me and says"Oh,so you noticed" and from the way she said it I half expected her to add Darling. Mind you this is the first time I ever spoke to her and I tell her I've seen you all over the westside for like six years riding the bus and waiting for it.She is smiling now and says"Perhaps you should be my Chauffer".I tell her I don't drive in Los Angeles anymore as I hate driving here and she says like Oh that's too bad.I walk off thinking maybe she didn't understand me saying I rode the bus and her talking about me being her chauffer when it dawns on me maybe she's one of these older ladies who has some vintage Caddy or Lincoln sitting home in her garage and she was saying she should get this classic out of the garage and let this young man drive her to and fro in it.So now I'm picturing myself driving a 64 Lincoln convertible with her in the backseat(I know the model year is really stretching it but it's my fantasy)I'm pretty sure she lives in a house a few blocks up but there happens to be a guy robbing elderly women who live alone in the wee hours in this area so the idea of staking out her block trying to see what she's got in the garage probably isn't a great idea.Maybe I'll buy a Chauffers hat and start wearing it on the bus hoping to run into her.

Barns

The pic of barns is a new poster from my hometown of Pittsford,N.Y.. I've slept in a few of those barns,made out in a few and done illegal recreational drugs in a few of the others back in my day.The third one down on center I'm fairly sure was the small barn in a friends parents back yard though it wasn't that odd shade of green back then and when they went to Canada for the month of July and or August each high school summer during the mid 70's and a few after his yard was the site of"The Barn" parties with Moe the black cat.The best thing was the barn was only a backyard and the hardware store parking lot walk over to the village watering hole"Thirstys" So there was a lot of back and forth between one and the other which was conducive for the flow of Recreational drugs.A few times in late 70's summers I drove home from North Truro on the Cape for a few days visit and went right to the house with the "barn parties" on Church Street knowing somebody would be there.The night of the great Brou HA HA(As the local weekly called it) in Pittsford when we took over Thirstys and things started flying after our annual clambake and the State Police were called in as backup to the Sheriff a few of the boys hid in that barn after running from Thirstys including a friend who was chased after giving a trooper the number 1 finger because another friend had opened the back door of a police car to release a captured friend and then was thrown in with him after he thought the trooper wanted to play pattycake instead of cuffing him.The whole night was sort of like the end of "Animal House" before "Animal House" was made a few years later.I'm just sayin.Of course the five guys arrested for disorderly conduct of about 50 of us became the "Thirstys Five" and were local celebs for some years.You see the trouble Barns cause.

Pittsford Barns

My Olympic Moment

Seeing Michael Phelps make history tonight was great and for some reason triggered my own gold medal moment that happened when I was 9. In 1964We took a two week camping trip to Cape Cod and Maine that summer and I still recall wearing my blue Cape Cod Mass sweatshirt for months afterwards.We went to Maine on the second week and camped in Acadia Natl. Park.We went to a place called Abel's Lobster Pound(still there) and for all I know my dad tried to claim we were long lost Abel relatives from Rochester,N.Y. to get us free meals.But my gold medal moment came in the campground.My two brothers and I each one of us a year apart would explore together leaving our older and younger(would have been 2)brothers to do their own thing.There were a lot of woods and big mossy rocks to climb around on and we met this kid named Artie who was okay for a couple of days but on the third day we ran into him and he was being a pain.One of these types who said things like my father has a nicer car and he could beat up anyone an annoying little twit.So we were building this fort and he starts telling us how crappy it was and kicking in sticks on it.Then he starts throwing pine cones and small rocks at us so I walk up and deck the kid knocking his glasses off and he gets up blubbering about how we were in big trouble now.So we avoided that arear for a few days and then on the third day I was standing on the road right where the trail led to our fort and I'm waving and smiling at the family camped next to us as they drove by when all of a sudden I hear Arties voice from the next car"That's the kid that punched me and broke my glasses dad" The car pulls up and the father gets out saying "I want to talk to you,you little ruffian" and at that I turn and am off down the trail like a jet engine.I'm running really fast and not looking back and then I look to my side and I spooked a bunny.I'm running side by side with the bunny for what seems like a good twenty five yards thinking man I'm keeping up with this freakin bunny when the bunny does a little right left fake and then takes off to the right while I keep heading down that trail leaving smoke.I ran till I was almost back to our campsite and was so revved up I didn't really feel it till I stopped.After that I stuck to the very edge of the camp roads only to cross and spent the rest of the time going through the woods.My brothers were across the street on a rock and saw the whole thing telling me they loved the look on my face when they saw the dad get out and then me taking off like a bullett through the woods.

Indian Encampment Late Afternoon 1862,Albert Bierstadt

Remembrance of Things Past

I was reading my friend Susans blog"Trout Towers" which you all should search out since I'm a dummy when it comes to linking other blogs and she was talking about taking her kids blueberry picking and childhood memories when I thought what a great idea to "borrow".I sometimes recall moments like that with my brothers kids but as for my own childhood memories of the sort most involve our family camping trips.Most of these can be backed up with slides or photos but some just live on in memory.When we first camped we went to the Adirondacks each summer and my enduring memory is going to the dump at dusk of whatever town we were near.For in those black and White days the dump at dusk in the Adirondacks meant the Bears came out for pre theatre dining.It was like going to the drive in.A bunch of cars would be parked by the dump mostly station wagons and one by one the bears would appear to start ripping boxes open and eating garbage.Sometimes a dumb human would roll down the window of a car and offer food which brought the bears out into the audience.In 1965 we went west to the natl parks and the bears were all over.In Yellowstone where we camped the trash cans were in the ground at each site with the lid at ground level.My father one morning saw a small bear pull the lid off so he told us to stand behind the trash can for a pic.So my brothers and I stood while my father adjusted his lens and adjusted some more while the bear started taking backward glances at us and my father continued to play with the camera and just as he snapped the shot the bear rose and it wasn't so little anymore.Luckily the noise of the camera shutter spooked it and Yogi ran off into the woods.Another great childhood memory on that trip was some town in Wyoming ,Thermopolie or something close where my father made us all take the sulfur/mineral baths in a large indoor tub.My mother refused to go on the ladies side and she said we smelled like rotten eggs for two days.There was the trailer park in South Carolina where my brother yanked off a sink faucet and flooded the bathroom my father and the owner of the place digging a rather large hole in the ground to find the shutoff valve and the owner giving us the Stink Eye when we pulled out next morning and a year later in South Carolina a bit farther south in a trailer park on our way to Florida my father got a bargain price at the end of a meadow by some tracks that turned out to have 9 trains come through that night.I'll never forget the sound of the first one as it came close and then sounded as if it was coming right through our camper trailer.By the third one we were all laughing though you couldn't here us because of the roar of a wide open freight train by a meadow in the South Carolina countryside.Forget the tourist things I have a lot more of these memories than any Monument or battlefield.