Coke vs. Pepsi ~ that sort of thing.
This Is Like Really Mundane
“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down the cost of living for American families, to unleash American energy, to bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.“ – Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection Agency
Do I have to say how sad I find this.
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It bugs me when we pass somebody who says, “Nice day for a walk.” I always want to shoot back, “Any day is a good day for a walk.” That being said, we could not have picked a better day to walk across the swing bridge into Webster. The bridge closes on April 1 and we had not been down this way in a bit. We walked to the end of our street, into the woods, out to Culver and then down to the lake where the road gently curves and follows the lakeshore as Lake Road. In the photo above the bay is behind me and the lake is on the other side of this mound, the old Hojack rail line. We turned around at the end of the new Sandbar Park. There was a time when we walked all the way around the bay in preparation for the Camino. Turning around here would make for eight miles or so.
Culver Road is my favorite road in the city and the north end of it is the coolest. In the day it ended on Hot Dog Row. Today it has more of an international flair. The bowling alley has changed hands. The mural outside slants youthful. Their sign in the window is looking for bowling league members. The Parkside Diner was packed at noon and the Asian place was all lit up. We went to the door of Frametastic to check on Joan but a small note on the door read, “Out for Lunch.” The parking lot for the Irish bar was full. Union Tavern looked like they were open. Nick’s, where my father met his Kodak buddies for lunch for years, had a sign that read, “Open for Dinner Only.” The pizza place looked busy and Anatolia’sl was hopping. We would have had lunch at the Bayside if they hadn’t torn it down. We stopped at Don’s Original on the way back for a chocolate Almond Custard. It was stuffy inside so we sat outside in the sun.
I mentioned above that any day is a good day for a walk. Yesterday was too. We parked at the CoOp and walked downtown. The city looked like an expressionist painting.
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We spent a day in the garden before getting back to “our project,” one that took us the better part of three days.
First, the garden, because that was a breeze. We went down there intending to plant lettuce and arugula but we discovered our mache lettuce, sometimes called “corn salad,” had survived the winter. It had spread from its original location so we transplanted the clusters back to where they belonged. We did a bit of weeding and and turned over the earth for two new rows of lettuce and arugula. Peggi counted at least a hundred garlic sprouts. She picked some collard greens to bring home. They were left from last year as well. We tried to do a little raking but it got too windy to keep all the leaves in one place. So windy in fact we heard and then saw the top of large white pine snap off and land in our neighbors’ yard.
Yesterday we finished “our project.” One of our oak trees fell, away from the house, and it landed in a way that one of the branches kept the tree mostly off the ground. A lot of really good firewood, except we had enough firewood. So we let the tree lay there for three years before tackling the project. I cut the branches off and we carried them down our hill and piled them up by the road. I made log length cuts in the trunk and let the chunks roll down the hill. Peggi was down there but safely off to the side, making sure there were no cars coming by. It was impossible to control where the big logs would roll. Some crashed into trees on the way down, others careened across the road. We rounded them up, rolled them up a board into our car and drove them up to our woodpile.
While we were down there I took a photo of the new road sign. It’s kind of an eyesore.
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Not sure who took this photo. Kim had a journalism degree but her camera is in her lap. I’m thinking it was Rich with a timer. He looks like he just slid into place and is trying extra hard to be nonchalant. That is just a guess. Rich and Andrea had a darkroom. Peggi and I did too but there is no way I could get that comfortable after releasing the shutter.
Peggi and I had driven to Mississippi where Steve was living and the three of us got in his pickup and drove all the way out west. We slept in the back. I remember Peggi playing her sax back there while Steve drove and I rode up front, not the whole time of course, but long enough to nail the Hi-Techs recording of “Boogaloo Rendezvous” when we got back.
We stopped in LA to spend some time with Peggi’s sister and then drove up the coast to San Francisco where Kim and Dave and Rich and Andrea were living. It is time for another visit, planning stage anyway. And we are adding another leg to see Matthew and Louise in Honolulu. We will do this one by air.
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Back in grade school at Holy Trinity Joe Barrett’s brother Tom coached our 6th grade soccer team. We beat the seventh and eighth grade teams and it was thrilling. I fell in love with the sport.
I went to high school at Bishop Kearney for two years and played there. I remember trying out for the varsity team and stealing the ball from the central midfielder, John Numetko, but getting kicked in the shin with his cleats. They were those hard plastic football style shoes back then and I still have a scar on the front of my leg. At the same time I was playing summer soccer in Webster at the old high school. Most of that group was older than me and I learned the European style game under Ralph Wager.
My father used to scour the FultonHistory site and he had a subscription to Newspapers.com. He was always doing research on something. On a family tree related search for info on his uncle, Paul Dodd, a semi pro ball player, he found Paul’s box scores and an article where his Uncle Paul got busted for playing craps. He also came across articles where my name was mentioned when I was playing soccer. He gave me the articles. On match days in high school my father would often stop by on his way home from Kodak and he took a few photos of our matches. About twenty years ago my high school girlfriend sent me the clippings she had saved when we were going out. So I’ve been sitting on this stuff long enough. I have posted it all here.
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We had some Manchego cheese and wine back in our room that we planned to make a small meal out of but it turned out the little CDB and Beer store near our motel didn’t have any bread or crackers. We asked the clerk if there was a store nearby that was open on Sunday and he told us there was a convenience store about ten blocks south. On the way we walked by a Subway and stopped in there to see if we could buy one of their rolls.
The only employee there was wearing a mask and mopping the floor. When she finished I pointed to one of the rolls on the rack behind the counter and she took it out, put it on the cutting board and cut it in half. We said, “That’s it, how much is it?“ It became clear she didn’t speak English. I tried “solamente pan” and she looked at us blankly. She wanted to know what we wanted on it. We were thinking of the scene in “Five Easy Pieces.” Somehow she caught on that we only wanted the bread and she shook her head. “No.”
We continued on and found the 24 hour convenience store. The door was locked and there was a woman outside who told us the store was open but the clerk was going to the bathroom. He unlocked the door and we asked him where the crackers were. This was the kind of store where the owner buys big boxes from Costco, cuts them open and sells the individual packets, the way they sell one cigarette in some stores, so we picked out a packet of what looked like Keebler Club crackers, no label, just a clear package. At the counter. He told us the packet was one dollar.
It was getting dark by the time we got back and I took the photo above.
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We only crossed paths with three other x-country skiers today. The skate skier that wizzed by us said two words, “so good.” With three or four inches of fresh snow the conditions were excellent and it only got better once the groomer reconditioned the trails. This could be the best year yet for us.
I have not worn this playlist out yet. Compiled from the stack of 45s near our turntable. Spotify has clean copies!
We have a fresh 7 or 8 inches since I took this photo. The snow was so deep yesterday we didn’t even make it up to the lake. We could hear it roaring though, big waves crashing on the ice mounds that have built up along the shore.
We heard five bands in the last six days. Kahil El’Zabar at Bop Shop, again, maybe the twentieth time we’ve seen him, New Dawn Trio at Sager-Stoneyard Pub (the crowd had no idea how good the band was), the guitar/cello duo Wren Cove at Red, White and Brew on State Street and later that night, Debby Kendrick Project at the Little Café. On Saturday we caught up with Daniel Aloysius King and Los Pajaritos, as close as we are going to get Spain for a while.
On our down time we watched “The Girl with the Needle,” on Rich’s recommendation. Easily last year’s best movie.
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This house, a block behind the World of Inquiry School No. 58 has been torn down. My grandfather grew up here with ten siblings. He and two of his brothers opened a store, Tierney Market, at the intersection of North Street and Hudson Avenue. My grandfather would walk to work. I am so happy they gathered in front of their house to pose for a photographer on their parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. Could they have imagined we’d still be looking at this photo today?
The stories we heard of Pa’s drinking and abusive behavior don’t exactly jive with this photo. The couple reached the half century mark! My mom, Mary Tierney, wasn’t even born when this picture was taken but her oldest sister, Rita is shown in the lower left. She was the first child of my grandfather, Raymond Tierney, top left, and his first wife who died in childbirth. My grandfather rather quickly married my grandmother, upper left and by all evidence they had a wonderful marriage unlike Ma and Pa. I still remember my grandmother in her 90’s saying “I miss Ray.” I miss him too.
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Years ago we decided to strap ice cleats on a pair of worn out walking shoes and just leave them on the shoes for days like today, Christmas, with a thin layer of fresh snow on top of icy streets. At the bottom of the steep hill on Hoffman we ran into Daminika. She rolled down hr window to say hi. She was wearing a headband that looked like a Christmas wreath. Peggi said, “”I like your headband” at the same time as I said, “I like your halo” so Daminika said, “What.” We laughed and pointed to her head. She said, “I hate Christmas. I’d rather be out skiing.”
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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. “
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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, Diego Simeone, is celebrating his birthday today as well. The stars are aligned for victory.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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