Tourism: a Retrospectable

All things considered, I am not at all sorry my friend followed through on her promise to get me on a cruise. I am sorry she was uncomfortable from the cold, but I'm glad we both got to see a whole new piece of America. Without her insistence that we go, I would likely never have seen the things I saw this summer. For that, above all else, I have to thank her.

Were it not for my own depressions, and the difficulty I have every day trying to overcome my eremitic leanings, I suspect I'd have been less of a disappointment to my friend and her family. I know she wanted for us all to have the wildly, extravagantly good time on this trip that she had experienced on her Caribbean cruises, and I also know that the party life was never attractive to me, even in my days of youth, when I could hold my liquor and act with some reckless abandon.  I wish, in many ways, I could have shown her how much pleasure I found in just sitting quietly and drinking in the scenery...even just to look out at the open, ever-changing  ocean, or the rolling waves of earth that are the Prairie. Even when I was in pain, the light reaching my eyes did ultimately touch my soul.

I wish, also, that my body and mind were not so much my enemies. What would, for any normal, healthy person have been two weeks of unequalled delight were brought lower, especially on the last two days of our vacation, in large part due to pain. That, of course,  is unlikely to improve.

In spite of myself, though, I brought home some memories I will cherish until the day my mind is gone, whether that be before, or after the rest of me leaves the planet. For all of this, I have my friend to thank.

Mary, you have been a very good friend to me, and I am grateful to all the powers that be, that we met.

(Click on any picture to embiggen.)

Friends, memorial, Nebraska

Happy mountain is happy

John Palmer (EclectEcon) came to Monmouth

I finally met John Palmer face-to-face (pardon the redundancy).

And he brought a band with him...

Here is the band in concert, at Monmouth's Faith Presbyterian Church, Saturday evening.
(click any image to enlarge it)

If you look just past the director's music stand, you can just glimpse the top of John's head... I think he was hiding from the camera. Because, when you're in the middle of playing music with a fine ensemble, the first thing you always think about is cameras...





(click image to enlarge)

Here in wee Monmouth, there were some logistical... um... challenges, putting some stress on the original plans to have every one of the Goderich Laketown Band stay with members of our own municipal band, so my parents were among the few Monmouth families to be able to accommodate an extra person or two. Jackie & Bill Urban had guests in whom they delighted, and Mom & Dad hosted John and young clarinetist Ryan Bearss.

We didn't have nearly enough time with these two... they were wonderful company, engaging in lively conversation and a little geocaching (if I were able to travel more, I could see myself getting into the game, as well).


Anyway, the John and the rest of the band stayed in Momouth the entire weekend, and only just left here after the little storm (here are pix from a few miles north, in the Quad Cities, where power lines are still down in some neighborhoods) cleared the area, a little after 8 a.m. today. Before they left, we had a photo opp. in front of the off-campus student housing complex where the other half of the band members stayed.

The bus driver was very accommodating about taking group shots with everybody's cameras.

I left my camera in my folks' living room as we packed up Mom's car to get John & Ryan to the bus, so I, this morning, learned to use my new phone to take & send pictures:


I managed to capture John in a more traditional fashion a few seconds later, with Ryan in the near background.


Mom wants to know if she can trade her second-oldest kid for either of these guys...

Update: Pop told Mom that those guys were all right. He'd have them back here any time. Expressed approval from Pop is harder to get than dandelions in January, so John and Ryan certainly did wow the crowd.

Happy Birthday, MacGyver! and thanks for something special

Well, really, tomorrow is Richard Dean Anderson's birthday. I have no idea what date the fictional character, MacGyver, has as his natal day, and I don't really care so much. In fact, I hadn't committed Anderson's personal data to memory, either. I'm not some freaky obsessed fan. I was just setting up the next Fortune Teller post and came across his name. I've enjoyed a couple of his tv series over the years, and all, but what this is really all about is friendships not forgotten.

More than twenty years ago, my folks and I moved to Virginia, settling eventually near Williamsburg as Mom and I found work in the historic area, in costume. Two doors down from my parents' townhouse was a crazy lady. It was destiny. Two households Chock Full O' Nuts, as it were, chatting across a lawn about unusual nonsense.

The crazy lady and I had much more in common than simple insanity and became fast friends. She was always welcome at my house and that of my parents, and her family welcomed me at passover. I served as her proxy in the classroom for a year or two as she was undergoing treatments for a painful disability (substitute teacher on a very regular basis). We were fans of the same sorts of music, enjoyed the same types of art and literature, and were especially fond of the then-new series, MacGyver (although she felt more attracted to its star than I did -- at that point, I just liked the stories and the inventive nature of the show and its main character). Eventually, we made it a point to get together to watch the show, and best of all, to make fun of it when one particular director spent too much camera time on Richard Dean Anderson's posterior in those 1980s tight jeans... we were not grownups. We were disappointed when Anderson started moving into the baggy pants phase.

I haven't seen or heard from my friend since the early 1990s. Nevertheless, she had a rather deep impact on me. I discovered I enjoy working with children with all levels of ability, I enjoy laughing aloud at television series even when they're not intentionally funny (especially when they're not intentionally funny!), and for twenty years I've had the policy that I go nowhere without my Swiss Army knife, Mackie Messer.... There is more, but this blog doesn't hold syrup.

But, aside from all the other serious and silly things we did together, there is one which refuses to die a natural death. This month I've been pet-sitting, again, for one of my best friends from childhood, and a picture keeps burbling up from the deep, from a little book we once put together, 50 Ways to Use Your Duct Tape. The image, from a duct-tape bound "Little-Golden-Book" sized work, was rather like this:

I still have the book and the duct tape. I'd trade it all, any day, for word from an old friend, though.

Duct tape went a lot of places, in the 1980s. Friendship went a lot more.

Happy 25th, Mr. & Ms. Eclectic!

Today is the 25th wedding anniversary of the EclectEcon's John Palmer and his missus. I wish them many, many, many, many more happy ones.

It's official: The End is Nigh

Charles Johnson has found the evidence the end of days, and presents the Nightmarish Vision of Apocalypse.

For the record, I've hated this song since my teens, when heading out to the park and "parking" was still the way to spend a late Saturday evening, and, while in uh... fond embrace... the music in question came on the car radio, and my date stopped nibbling on my neck to play air guitar on my back.

I walked the mile and a huff home.

It took him 20 years to regain my respect, but I still won't go parking with him (even if his wife were to let him).

Gratuitous postcard: Happy First Anniversary, Jenn & Eric

May the honeymoon never end.