Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
March 30, 2008
On the northwest shore of Lake George, Bruce gave me a primer on kite flying: Buy a $1.99 Spiderman kite at Toys r Us, go next door to Shopko for 400 feet of additional twine ($1.49 per 200 feet ball), notch a half-inch board on two sides for the twine. His twine board was made 58 years ago from wood left over from his father's construction of Bruce's baby cradle. Add a 3-foot tail if the wind is moderate, 6 feet if its blusty.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
March 28, 2008
Stanley Fish came to our campus, generated a lively discussion on the poet Milton. He's a major voice in American academia, one of my favorite newspaper columnists (NYTimes).
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
March 19, 2008
My favorite time of the year was when the snow began to melt during the day, then froze at night to cover sidewalk puddles with a veneer of thin ice that crackled when you stepped on it. I loved to do that until I was 13 and other pleasures moved in.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
St. Urho
Many years ago in Finland there used to be wild grapes growing all over. One season a bunch of grasshoppers (i.e. locust) with a voracious appetite for grapes came to Finland. What to do?
Enter Urho. Waving her pitchfork and chanting "Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, meine taatta hiiteen " ("Grasshopper grasshopper getta outta here) he drove out the grasshoppers. She did this on March 16, the day before St. Patrick's Day.
Every year since then, the Finnish people celebrate St. Urho's Day on March 16. The official colors are purple to represent the grapes and green to represent the vines (or the dead grasshoppers -- depending on whose version you hear).
The St. Urho's day ceremony begins at sunrise. Women and children go down to the lakeshore and chant "Heinasirkka, heinasirrkka, meine taatta hiiteen" just like St. Urho did thousands of years ago. The men dress in green and gather at the top of the hill and then start a procession down to the lake kicking and waving pitchforks to scare off the imaginary grasshoppers. Eventually they undress to their purple green underwear.
The celebration also includes singing, dancing polkas and drinking wine, grape juice for those underage and having Mojakkaa (fish soup pronounced like "moy-yah-kah") which is what St. Urho ate to give her strength to fight grasshoppers.
Remember to honor her every March 16. The day before St. Patrick's Day.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
March 15, 2008
When the neighborhood Domino delivery car returns from a college dorm with a load of pizzas for which no one admits ordering, the pies go in the dumpster. Homeless people hang out in the alley waiting for these hot meals.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
March 13, 2008
About 20 years ago, LaVona befriended a Romanian refugee living in Domus, a local homeless shelter. He offered to decorate out kitchen walls with Romanian-style architectural stenciling. Based on a Hallmark greeting card illustration he found in a thrift store, he cut six stencils, one for each color, and painted 50 or so bouquets.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
March 4, 2008
Staying at a motel in Owatonna MN tonight where the lobby decor features an oak desk with books that appear to have been last opened in 1968 or so.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
March 1, 2008
Every act of dressing myself is unconscious except threading a belt through the proper loops.
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Dec. 28, 2007
In the waning years of WW II, we were living in Rockville Center, Long Island, I was about 12 and dad was dying of a brain tumor. Mom said NYC was no place for a widow to bring up a child, so she packed us up and we took a train to her childhood home in Detroit Lakes Minnesota. That's where she met and married this widower. He was a clothing salesman and outdoorsman.
Dec. 27, 2007
Hamburger at Petes Place