Deer in meadow near Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, New York
Last time I posted a picture of a deer Steve Piotrowski painted a picture of it and used it as his holiday card. The card arrived today and is stunning. I’ve known Steve since our Holy Trinity days. We were in a split class together, 5th and 6th in the same classroom, about fifty kids in the class.
We were just talking about Catholic school at dinner last night. My memories of it play like a Fellini movie and I have a deep well of stories but they go over best with other one time Catholics so I’ll restrain myself.
I ran out of spray fixative, that nasty crap that you coat a charcoal drawing with so that it doesn’t smear. And it was Sunday and Rochester Art Supply is closed so I started calling around. Staples put me on hold for about ten minutes and Home Depot had never heard of the stuff. The bay bridge at the end of Culver is open in the winter so Webster was an option. Peggi wanted to look at some fabric so we headed out to Jo-Ann Fabrics.
We drove along the lake and turned up Baker Road toward the village. Most of Webster has been swallowed up with housing tracks and they are sprinkled between old farm houses so it makes them all the more depressing. There are still some open spaces and we spotted one on our left. There was someone out in a field struggling with a huge kite. I pulled over and we watched while this guy get the big red kite off the ground. And then he took off but never left the ground. He was wearing cross country skis and a helmet just in case. He traveled the length of this field in less than a minute.
Turns out we were looking at the Gosnell Big Woods Preserve, a 163 acre woods with oak, hickory and hemlock trees that are 350 years old. If we get some more snow we plan to head out here to ski the trails. I think we can manage without the wind propullsion.
You know how when you’re on vacation somewhere and there is a band playing and they aren’t anybody famous or anything but they sound so damn good that you really dig the music even if it’s Neil Diamond or Van Morrison? The songs are all covers but they are chosen so tastefully from the world’s giant fake book that you get to just sit back and enjoy the music. Mike Allen at the Mez last night went south of the border and down to Brazil even. He channeled Ray Charles and Ertha Kitt. He and his four octave keyboard are a one man band with really cool arrangements. I felt like we were on vacation.
Peggi and I were talking to Mike after the show and he told us he has a cd of his band playing “The Dictionary” teen center in Webster in 1965. I went to high school with Mike Allen and he was in a working band back then. I’m dying to hear this.
