White Lady legend depicted by Mother Nature in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, New York
In high school we used to go down to Durand for the submarine races. We’d find a spot along the lake, turn off the car, and neck. That’s when I first heard of the White Lady legend. I didn’t pay much attention to it but gathered she was apparently getting revenge for some guy who who had gone too far. Frank LaLoggia, someone I went to high school with, made a movie based on the legend. Frank had a movie theater in his basement, I watched Little Big Man down there, and he cast a mutual friend, Brad Fox, in a key role in his White Lady movie.
We walked over to Kings Highway the other day to see where Mother Nature had depicted the White Lady in our recent windstorm. I have to say she did much better job than the depiction of Christ in front of Hickey Freeman. Guess its time to read “The Hidden Life of Trees,” the book both Martin and Duane have recommended to us.
Maureen gave me a set of 8 Biggies (Alphacolor Brilliants) for my birthday and I got a chance to take them for a spin this afternoon. I love them! They’re basically kids style blocks of of opaque watercolors. “Opaque” like in you can go back over dark brown with a white!
My new favorite album is Art Blakey’s “Orgy in Rhythm”. I don’t know where I got it but it is a recent addition. You know how it goes today – a friend visits and they slide a batch of songs onto your drive and then you don’t even hear them until a few months later when they pop up in a shuffle and knock your socks off. This record reminds me of the times Brad Fox and I were in our teens playing two sets of drums for hours on end with no other instruments.
There was an article in the travel section this morning on Cartagena, Columbia. Guess it’s sort of safe to travel there again. Peggi and I were there in 1984 when I sold my baseball cards. My mother was ready to toss the old cards when they moved and I took them home. I saw an ad for a sports memorabilia sale at a hotel on East Ridge Road so I took the shoebox out there and stopped by a few booths. One of them was manned by my old high school math teacher, Mr. Setek. He said he would take them all but he wanted to come by our place and study them before he offered me a price.
My first cards were given to me by an older kid who lived down the street from me on Brookfield Road. They were mid fifties stuff and interesting but my most valuable cards were the three Pete Rose rookie cards from 1963. I was at the peak of my buying power with pockets full of cash from my paper route and I also was losing interest in the cards so they were in pristine condition. I had a complete set of Topps that year plus duplicates. He offered me 1400 bucks and I took it. Then he told me he was going to put the cards in a safety deposit box and use them to put his kids through college.
Peggi and I studied the travel ads and the cheapest destination was Cartagena. We found out why after we booked the trip. There was a drug war going on and a travel advisory had been issued. We stayed in the Hilton with armed guards patrolling the perimeter but we did venture out and fell in love with Cumbia. Maybe it’s time to go back.
We started last evening at the Village Gate with extreme entertainment from Watkins and the Rapiers who were playing outdoors on the patio. We had planned to meet Rick and Monica there for a bite to eat but we got there too late for that and they didn’t seem to mind. Rick had already celebrated his last day at work with his fellow employees and then met Monica there. He asked if I could drive his car home so he could keep celebrating.
Latin Night at the Public Market
After their set Peggi and I headed over to the Public Market for Latin Night. They had a great turnout, mostly Puerto Ricans and us. Unless I’m missing something, Puerto Ricans do a lot better job of mixing the races than we do.
Our final stop of the evening was Abilene where a band with a lot of horns and no vocalist was playing on the back deck. Peggi and I both ordered a Scottish style ale in a can called “Old Chub” and talked to a Ron Stackman who had just returned from Stockholm. He told us he had seen Patti Smith perform there and she played the worst clarinet he had ever heard. We headed back to the Village Gate to pick up Ricks car. It is a stick shift Subaru and it was a lot of fun to drive. I followed Peggi home down Culver. It took me about half the trip to find the volume control for the stereo so I could turn it down. Rick likes Americana singer songwriter stuff. I this one lyric stuck with me. She went to school while I hung around. I ain’t never gonna leave my home town”. I was thinking of me and Peggi.
We did a little yard work today, mostly cleaning up after ourselves, and opened the windows so we could hear our stereo in the back yard. It rained for bit so I cme in to work on some web pages. I called Bill Jones for tech support. I’ve been doing this since the day I met him back at Publisher’s Workshop. I will never catch up to Bill.
Party Shuffle in iTunes was cookin’. The eighteen minute “Little House I Used To Live In’ from 1969’s Burnt Weenie Sandwich came up with Sugercane Harris’s violin solo. I remember learning the Art Tripp drum parts with Brad Fox. And then I remembered that someone broke in to the house Dave Mahoney and I lived in while we were out tripping somewhere in Bloomington. When we got back the stereo was gone along with our copy of “Burnt Weenie” which we left on the turntable. Th empty album jacket was still there. And then I put it all together that that was “the little house I used to live in”. This place was tiny. It was the size of single car garage. The bed was in the living room. There was tiny kitchen, just big enough to make peanut butter sandwiches and Progresso Minestrone soup, and a shower.
“American Gangster”, from Netflix, is waiting for us in the living room.
