My brother, Fran, doing a flip off diving board with Brad Fox in 1968
We have been watching mostly soccer at this Olympics but Peggi did watch the Artistic Swimming event last night while I was showering. In my freshman year at IU I took a diving class with Hobie Billingsley. He was the Men’s Olympic diving coach at the time and I loved the way he got us to trust him on the first day of class. He had each member of the class climb the ladder of the ten meter tower, walk to the edge of the platform, turn around so our heels were just touching the edge and then fall backwards while keeping stiff as a board. If you did that you would do a perfect 360 and enter the water feet first. I have told this story many times because it was such a dramatic experience for me.
The filmmakers, Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck, capture that moment beautifully in their short film. “Our objective in making this film was something of a psychology experiment: We sought to capture people facing a difficult situation, to make a portrait of humans in doubt. “
HOPPTORNET (TEN METER TOWER) by Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
My youngest brother, Fran, never went to college but he would not have flinched if he was in my diving class. He came out to Bloomington to live with Peggi and me for the summer between his junior and senior year in high school. You can see how fearless he is this photo of the two of us jumping into one of the quarries.
Paul and Fran jumping off edge of quarry 1973Leave a comment
It is hard enough for Peggi and I to get the Zoom recorder set up and running before our gigs and then harder still to remember to write the files before unplugging it. On top of that the batteries stopped working so if someone trips on the cord we loose the recording. And now it sometimes shuts off in the middle of a set, so we bought a new one, the Zoom H4essential. It comes with an eighty page pdf manual and whole new interface. We spent most of the day before Wednesday’s gig trying to record us saying “hey” into the mics at home. We used the old recorder at the gig and it worked.
The gig was hectic, the day before the 4th, but we managed to find some nice space on a few songs. We had relatives on both sides of the family there. Our niece, Lora, and her son, Dylan and his girlfriend were in town from Colorado. And my cousin, Colleen, was there with her friend. Peggi bought some beers at the break. I get woozy if I drink while we play. It was especially hot in the Little and I pretty much chugged the beer when we finished. We came home and took a midnight swim in the pool down the street.
Lora came over the next day with her two other sons, Lucas and Jude, and spent the afternoon in the pool.
Our brakes have been squeaking, not when we use them but when we go around corners. Pretty sure it is just rust build-up due to not using the car much. It prompted us to look at the little stickers on our windshield. Not only was our car overdue for an oil change, it was months past due for NYS inspection. We dropped it off at B&B Automotive at 8 this morning and took a walk in Seneca Park while they serviced our car.
We walked by John Gilmore‘s house on the way to the park. The shades were all drawn and he surely was sleeping so we walked on by. We stopped at a garage sale on his street and bought an orange ceramic bowl with turquoise trim, perfect for a summer salad. It was two dollars and there were two of them. We settled on one. We told the lady we would be back in an hour or so to pick it up.
John’s street ends at the zoo. We skirted the boundary and walked along the big wooden fence that keeps the freeloaders out and the animals in. We stopped every few minutes to look through the cracks and and at the far end would found some knotholes in the wall. one at Peggi’s height and one at mine. On the inside but behind a chain link fence were three zebras. As they moved about the fence and the stripes played moire tricks with our eyes.
“Flat Fix” sign along Main Street in Niagara Falls
We’ve stayed at the Giacomo in Niagara Falls so we were ready for funky. The building was built in 1929 and is owned by Carl Paladino who ran for NYS governor on the “Take Out The Trash” platform. The radio in our room was tuned to a Toronto jazz station and “Blue Monk” was playing when we arrived. There was a Gideon bible by the bed. I opened it to a random page and landed on Psalm 19.
1. Give unto the LorD, O you mighty ones, give unto the LORD glory and strength. 2. Give unto the LoRD the glory due to His name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. 3. The voice of the LoRD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LoRD is over many waters. 4. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the LoRD is full of majesty. 5. The voice of the LoRD breaks the cedars, yes, the LoRD splinters the cedars of Lebanon. 6. He makes them also skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox. 7. The voice of the LoRD divides the flames of fire. 8. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the LorD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh. 9. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everyone says, “Glory!” 10. The LorD sat enthroned at the Flood, and the LoRD sits as King forever. 11. The Lord will give strength to His people; the LORD will bless His people with peace.
Our friend, Pete, illustrated the Psalms. They read like journals from psychedelic trips. The voice of the LoRD thunders over the waters. And we were just two blocks away from the Falls. We had walked along the river gorge from Whirlpool State Park to the Falls and back. We cleaned up and headed out to my Uncle’s wake. I have a big family and he was our favorite. My brother and his wife came up from New Jersey and we had dinner with them in the historic Red Coach Inn. I love Niagara Falls, the New York side, but parts of the city are so run down it will make you cry.
The young priest made my Uncle’s Mass of Christian Burial meaningful and welcoming. The organist was a one woman choir. As he shook the incense burner over my uncle’s casket the priest said, “May the martyrs come to welcome you.” I remember my Uncle Bob picking out a Thomas Merton letter to share with my dad when he was dying. He lived his faith.
When we got home we watched Marilyn Monroe in the 1959 movie, “Niagara.” The honeymoon capitol looks empty but the Giacomo Hotel building towers over the city in quite a few shots.
We had already walked to this spot earlier in the day. This time we came by car and barely found a parking spot. The beach was crowded and although you couldn’t see people in the dark you could smell the pot. Just before ten everyone, nearly in unison, exclaimed, “Oh my god!” We had just watched “Melancholia and I felt like we were the lead characters in Part 3. The eclipse and now this in one month!
Atletico Madrid match on Diego Simeone’s (and my) birthday
When I spotted Jason Wilder’s Wilder’s Sun Ra Sunday post I knew what we would be doing to celebrate my birthday. We were about a half hour late leaving the house and the police and fire department had Culver Road completely blocked off for some reason. They directed all the traffic into a neighbor where there were ‘No Outlet” signs on every street so there was a traffic jam in there. And then it started raining. It had not been forecast. There was a half marathon going on downtown and it stopped raining by the time we parked. There was a band playing in Parcel 5 and by the time we got to Cornerstone Park Jason had pulled the plug on his event.
We took a walk around downtown and crossed the river and walked along it for a few blocks. We stopped for coffee at Feugo and sat out on the sidewalk. I had to take another photo of Main and Clinton. I waited til all the traffic passed to accentuate the bleakness.
We had dinner last night at Rocco’s, my favorite restaurant. We split a fantastic strawberry vinaigrette salad, octopus appetizer and a smoked salmon and ricotta pizza.
We saved the Atletico / Athletic Club match for tonight. We’ll pair that with dinner and some Spanish wine. Atleti’s coach, DiegoSimeone, is celebrating his birthday today as well. The stars are aligned for victory.
Three of the eight teams in the Champions’ League quarterfinals this week were from Spain. Our three favorite teams, in fact. Only Real Madrid will go on to the semis. The matches took a lot out of us and we were only watching. And screaming at the tv.
We saw an outdoor table we liked at Pottery Barn but they didn’t have any in the store so a huge box arrived by UPS. Peggi read the directions while I put it together with the tiny Allen wrench they included. It took about two hours. The instructions showed four small feet that screwed into the bottom of the legs in order to level the table but we couldn’t find them in the mountain of cardboard. We called the store where we ordered it from and they connected us to a national help desk. That person said they couldn’t send us the parts but they could send us another table! And they couldn’t guarantee that the feet would be in the new package. I asked if they could refund us for the missing feet and I was put me on hold for about five minutes before they agreed to credit our card twelve dollars.
We only have one bedroom in our place so for years guests sleep in our finished basement on a roll-up mattress. When we asked how they slept they all said great. We had high wind warnings a while back and Peggi and I slept down there. It was not comfortable. So we bought an inflatable mattress and pumped it up for guests. Can’t remember why we slept down there again but the mattress was either too rigid when fully inflated or too bouncy. When Peggi’s came to visit we gave her our room and we put the roll-up mattress on top of the air mattress and it was more comfortable than our own bed.
We agreed to engage in a rather unusual video conference in Sodus New York. Once we were inside of our friends’ storage locker we called Bill, a shipping company representative, and waved our front-facing camera around so he could provide an estimate for the cost of shipping the contents to Hawaii. The cell coverage was spotty and we kept losing our connection so we shot still photos and texted them to the representative. I used the wide angle lens to make the contents look small. Someone was struggling with a washing machine in the locker across from us so I helped him load it into his truck. He thanked me and added, “God is good.”
The ride out along the lake was beautiful. The apple trees, pruned to maximize yield while growing close to the ground, looked ever so sculptural. Up on 104 we stopped for gas and I took a photo of a train on the other side of the road. I can’t see the train in the photo but I like it. On the way home we stopped at Abarrotes Mexicano, a store that caters to the migrant workers, and we bought some peppers and hominy.
Sutton Park Apartments on East Avenue in Rochester
US News & World Report ranked Rochester as number 9 on their “Best Places to Live for Quality of Life” list. Aren’t they the same organization whose list of Best Colleges was found to be suspect for some reason? I have always liked the fact that the city is under the radar. It’s small enough to get most places in fifteen minutes and big enough to not run into the same people all the time. It still holds surprises for me.
We stopped into Canaltown this morning to pick up a few bags of coffee beans and while they were bagging the coffee we walked up East Avenue toward downtown. Past the apartment building Anne and Stewart used to live in, the one Frank and MaryAnn lived in, the one Bernie lived in when he was in Personal Effects, the one we considered for Peggi’s mom when she moved up here and the one Jeff’s parents lived in at the end of their life. Peggi and I joked that we’ll be looking at that place again for ourselves. We walked by the Frank Lloyd Wright house, stopped at Wegmans and came back to Canaltown for a latte.
We can sometimes walk through the park and get all the way to the lake without seeing anyone but the sixty degree weather brought a lot of strangers out. We ran into two couples on the trails who both asked us how to get back to the parking lot. Our response was the same. “Which parking lot.” The roads are closed in the winter and you can park at any of about ten entrances. Oddly, neither of the couples had the patience to sort it out.
Young Peggi
We’re celebrating Peggi’s birthday all weekend. Dined at Lucano’s last night and picking up Mexican to go from Atlas tonight. We’ll watch Atletico Madrid play Athletic Club (Bilbao) tonight in the first their two home and away semi finals for the Copa Del Rey. We determined this the fiftieth of Peggi’s birthdays that we have celebrated together.
My cousin, Greg, playing guitar with Peggi on Hall Street in Rochester
Tidied up my desk this morning. I still have one with a desktop computer. I have a drawing table too from my mechanical art days. All old school. I sorted the piles of oddball items that cover the entire surface and found a small piece of paper with my cousin’s last phone number on it. It wasn’t his direct line. He was living in a home out west and a monitor would answer the phone and pass it to him. I’m throwing this number away because Greg passed away over the summer.
Greg was the same age as me. We are always pictured together in the extended family photos. He was abused by a soon to be priest at our summer camp. His family (my mother’s sister) lived behind us on the next block. We double-dated in high school and even went out with the same girl twice (two different girls, two different times). He went to McQuaid, the Jesuit high school, and his parents threw a graduation party for him with all the aunts and uncles. Alone in the kitchen Greg said “Don’t tell anyone but I didn’t graduate. This is my parents’ idea – a sham.”
Greg had Tourette Syndrome with a variety of facial ticks and sometimes full body contortions. For a while he felt compelled to do a full turn, like a figure skater, every few steps he took. And he suffered from bi-polar disease or whatever they call it today. Wild mood swings and notions that festered. He would remain hyper focused on a slight and torture his parents. But mostly, when we saw him he was up, observant of the finest details, inquisitive and sharp. He was one of the funniest people I ever knew when he was on a roll.
He worked at Gray Metal in Webster across the street from Maracle industrial Finishing where I worked for year. We’d meet at lunch and go out at night. He and his first wife bought a house near Peggi and me in the city. He had two Great Dane’s in his basement and I watched him scoop up the piles of dog business with a snow shovel. As a farrier he shoed the Rochester Police Department’s horses. I was working for the city at the time and I’d visit him there on my lunch hour.
He move to Delaware, horse country, got married again and had a daughter. And then he started to wander. He stayed at our house a few times, once with his camper and a new dog. He was spending most nights in Walmart parking lots. He came out to hear our band and left during the second set. We expected to find him in our driveway in his camper but he was gone.
Greg visited us in our new place before moving out west and that was the last time we saw him. He had shock therapy and tried to describe that to me and then more health problems. We’d talk on the phone but the spark was gone. He came down with Parkinson’s and then Covid did him in. His family hosted a memorial gathering at a hotel downtown and there was an overall sense of relief. Greg was finally at rest. I will miss him.
We took a train up to San Sebastián yesterday and found it warmer than Madrid for some reason. Eighty degrees Fahrenheit called for a walk along the beach. We found a Chillida sculpture overlooking the bathers and then had some calamari at an outdoor restaurant.
This morning we did some exercises in our room and had our coffee and yogurt then headed across the street to a café for more coffee. We walked to Monte Orgul, the park at the end of the peninsula that wraps around La Concha. It is a good climb with many paths to chose from and lots of steps, a cemetery and the remains of old forts.
There was a Oteiza sculpture at the base of the mount. We chatted with a couple from Vancouver and stopped for a beer at the “Secret Bar” near the summit. The park was gorgeous with plenty of stunning views of the bay, the city and the mountains beyond. We ended our hike in the old section of San Sebastián and we stopped at the first place we saw for lunch. It was so crowded we had to stand but it was fabulous. We split three tapas and had a glass of Rioja.
Just a few blocks away was the Garry Winogrand “Women Are Beautiful” show we had seen advertised at our hotel. But when we got to San Telmo Museoa they told us that show had ended in January. We went in anyway and saw their permanent collection, mostly historical in nature. I copied this passage from a wall tag, “In a Europe ever more intolerant and immersed in religious wars, the witch-hunting processes revealed the extent to which the social limelight of Basque women came up against the Official Church Rites that were pagan in nature, quarrels between neighbours, and even childhood fantasies, were interpreted as acts of the devil. The result: scores of people were either burned alive or hanged, and hundreds were jailed, exiled and humiliated. The most notorious witchcraft trials in the Basque Country took place from 1609 to 1612.” We picked up a bocadillo on the way back to our place and arrived as the sun was going down.
It is still a mystery as to why oak trees yield a small acorn crop some years and then a bountiful one. This year the squirrels, chipmunks, birds and deer have struck gold. This bonanza is botanically referred to as a ‘mast’ year. We have had a long stretch of unusually warm dry weather and the slightest breeze releases the nuts. We’re still sleeping with the windows open and when the nut clusters hit the metal roof of our house we get a riotous cacophony and some crazy dreams.
Peggi Fournier, Jeff Munson and Nina Gaby at RL Thomas Reunion in 2023
I go on Facebook to post Margaret Explosion gigs and this time I found some photos from last weekend’s reunion of RL Thomas high school. I snatched these two of Peggi and Jeff Munson. They’re shown talking to Nina Gaby (in the foreground.) I was sitting to Nina’s right and am thankfully out of the frame.
The reunion was a two part affair and we went to the first half, in the dismal upstairs room of the American Legion on Ridge Road. There were plenty of complaints about the stairs during the cocktail hour but it was mostly joyous, “happy to be alive” conversation. It was another opportunity for Doug Click, one of the first friends I made when I moved to Webster in the middle of fifth grade, to remind me how we used to hit balls over the hedge in right field to catch a glimpse of Wendy Williams (eventually the vocalist for the Plasmatics) sunbathing in her back yard. According to Wikipedia “She had her first run-in with the law at the age of 15, when she was arrested for sunbathing nude. Williams attended R. L. Thomas High School in Webster at least partway through the 10th grade, but left school before graduating.”
When the food came out Peggi and I sat down with Nina and Lauri Bortle. I have reconnected with Nina because we run in the same art circles. As I vaguely remember Nina was one of those girls in high school who were too cool or self assured for me to approach. Come to find out she lived near and hung out with Charlie Coco, later one of my best friends. Charlie was always surrounded by girls, not because he was a ladies man or anything but because he sort of was one of the girls. I remember Lauri fondly from Mrs. Sweeney’s class but I was struggling to remember anything else about her. Back home I looked her up in my yearbook and found this note, written at a 45 degree angle across her senior picture, carefully avoiding her features.
“Paul, Only you could come into class late every day and always make the wrong comment and still remain so innocent. Your personality is so perfective, it’s darling. Best of everything, Lauri
When I transferred from Bishop Kearney to R.L. at the start of 11th grade a guidance counsoler told me if I took Senior English the next summer school I could graduate after my junior year. But no way. I was having too much fun. So many of the notes from my classmates were about “ball-busting” or soccer. I shudder to think what I wrote in their yearbooks. Of course, these are all revisionist memories but I found the notes from my teachers to be the most informative. An eye-opening glimpse of immaturity, something I am still working on.
From my Physics teacher – “Paul, It’s been a struggle, but we’ve almost made it. Here’s hoping. Best wishes and rots of ruck, G. Ross
From Mrs. Clapp, an English honors teacher – “You seem charming in your myopic way. I thought you were great in “Teahouse” (Teahouse of the August Moon play)
I wish I had asked all my teachers to sign my yearbook especially my favorite, Miss Gertrude Wilder (math). She was so quick and witty. She would outsmart the smart Alecs and she made an heroic effort, in a meeting after class, to get me to apply myself.
Today, if you are college bound and planning to live in the dorms, you provide the school with information about yourself that pretty much guarantees your roommate will share your interests. I feel lucky that some fifty years ago this decision was left to chance. There is so much more out there. As a freshman I arrived in Bloomington three days before my roommate. The name “Hoy” was on the door and in my first call home I told my mom, “I think my roommate is Asian.”
Steve was already a junior and he had this college thing down. I helped him unload his car, a white Barracuda with an eight track player and Led Zeplyn’s first. Our room had two desks and Steve asked if it would be ok to put one of his huge stereo speakers on my desk. The rest was academically downhill for me. My intentions, to turn a new leaf and apply myself, went out the window. But my priorities were set straight.
When we left the dorms we moved into a small, coal fueled house in town. Steve wrote a paper for me, a creative writing assignment, and chose a Sci-Fi theme. Entitled “The Fourth Dimension,” I got an “A” on it with a note from the professor that read “Very nice Mr. Dodd.” It was the best mark I got in that class.” The landlord kept the deposit because he said we had “painted the rooms hippie colors.” Who wouldn’t want a black ceiling?
Steve and Paul. Photo by Rich Stim.
Later we lived into a trailer near the Monon Railroad tracks. Steve bought a guitar and I had my drums in the back room. The Chinaboise were born. Steve was our spiritual leader but Rich was the real leader. The band merged with MX-80 and moved to the Bay Area. Steve was the best man at our wedding. Peggi and I met him in New Orleans in 1980 and drove to San Francisco in his pickup. We slept in the back of the truck. Peggi brought her sax along and rehearsed Hi-Techs songs on the way. We stopped in the Grand Canyon and Steve crawled out on the ledge (pictured above.) Peggi and I were standing behind the fence while people around were pointing at Steve. “Look at that guy out there!”
Steve is inquisitive and he loves to talk, about anything. He is so much fun to listen to. His Hoosier accent is part of the fun but it is mostly the way he connects the dots. While we were talking to him a few months back Peggi had her phone on speaker and I recorded a snippet of the conversation on my iPad. I played it for Steve when he was up here last week. We laughed.
Yesterday the beach was quiet (above). Today it is packed. We can hear the power boats from our house. Every picnic shelter in the park is full. Sound systems are cranked. Skunky weed is in the air. Groups, clustered by nationality, are picnicking along the lake and the beach itself is crowded. We found ourselves saying excuse me as walked along the shore.
It is already past four and Rick hasn’t asked if we’re going to play horseshoes today. I’m thankful for that. I’ve been carving out files for an upcoming cd. We had hoped to put both an lp and a cd out at the same time, each with different songs. The album has been at the pressing plant for five months and I’m just getting going on finalizing the songs for the cd.
We have a World Cup match to watch, Spain vs Switzerland, so we’re staying away from the news. Our red lights are on. I’m wearing my Spanish jersey. Peggi is making Shrimp Adobo and we’re chilling some Rioja.
We upped our garlic game this year. We planted one hundred cloves last October. We picked the scapes in July, roasted a few batches and made pesto with the rest. Today we picked the heads, one hundred of them. I built a rack in the garage, just two long skinny boards tacked to the rafters and the plants are drying upside down over my table saw.
Saint Martin DePorres wood statue from Animas Traders
After recommending it for years we rewatched “August, Osage County” and it was just as good as we remembered it being. Fantastic script, amazing cast, it feels real and maybe that’s why no one has thanked us for the recommendation.
Our friend, Pete, asked us to pick up some paper at Rochester Art Supply – Italian Bristol 100 lb., 14 x17″ sheet by Fabiano. While downtown we stopped at Fuego for a Cortado. Over at Pete’s we found him sitting at his drawing table and acting like he had turned the corner after seventy-three days on the sixth floor of Highland Hospital. Our next stop was Brad Fox’s on Royal View Drive. We had taken his stereo amp to Hi-Fi Lounge last year to have a short addressed. It worked for a while but the short came back, one of those intermittent problems that convince you the problem has been addressed when it starts working again. I would not want to be the technician trying to track that down.
The first boathouses lined The Canandaigua City Pier that was built in 1848. By 1888, over eighty small wooden structures lined the pier. In 1903, the pier was enlarged to accommodate train and trolley tracks to service the steamboats transporting farm produce and passengers along the lake. As cozy as they look today the Boathouse Owners’ Association enforces the strict rules prohibiting people from living in them or using them as cottages. We were in Canandaigua to celebrate our anniversary. We walked up and down Main Street before having dinner in the Lake House and after dinner we explored the pier before driving home.
You can see the smoke filled air in the photo above. The Air Quality Index has improved considerably since yesterday but the Canadian fires are still burning so it will probably be back. Our niece and her boyfriend came up from the NYC area and spent the weekend with us. We were sort of afraid our lifestyle would be too low key for them but it turned out that was just what they were looking for. We took walks around Durand Lake and the beach to the north and then the following day, east down Seneca Road to the bay. If they were here for a third day we could have walked west to the river. We swam in the pool, family stopped by, beer cans piled up and they left for the week’s work.
Tires dumped in the park on Zoo Road. Photo by Merrypad.
Pete and Emily were out walking before Peggi and I this morning and they sent us this picture of tires that someone had dumped in the park. The two piles had been cleaned up by the time we got there and we spent some time trying to figure out how they got into the park because the yellow gates are locked at dark. We talked to a dog walker and he speculated that they came in early in the morning just after the park workers opened the gate and before all the park goers arrived. That would make them pretty bold on top of really rude.
