I like Earth Day. I remember when it started and think it is a great idea. I’m a member of the Green Party.
I keep an ecology flag flying outside my studio. It’s the one in the picture above. This shot is from April 22, 2020. We were in lockdown. Frenchtown was quiet. No stores or restaurants open. Just some take out. It was breezy and I thought I’d set up my flag somewhere and get a photo of it flying in the wind.
It wasn’t quite working out and then a friend walk by and I got an idea to recreate a photo I had taken a few years earlier during Riverfest when I recruited Mike Tyksinski to wave the flag proudly.
The symbol which looks like the Greek letter theta is a blend of O for organism and E for ecology. Wikipedia credits Betsy Boze, a 16 year old environmental advocate, with being among the first people to fly the flag in a public venue, her high school. The school initially denied her request but then Betsy sought and received authorization from the Louisiana Legislature and Louisiana Governor. Nice!
Today is Earth Day. …
What flavor? Grape has a pretty bad rap. (We don’t want to go there.)
Maybe cherry.
No need to drive around in a school bus, though. It’s not as much fun. Not too many merry pranksters around. They’re retired and probably driving monster buses instead, camping in Walmart parking lots as they seasonally migrate between cold and warm climates.
I’d love to see a monster bus with a colorful paint job. It might tell us something about the operators …
Pat has a thriving business washing windows throughout Frenchtown and other locations. He is independent, efficient, reliable and subtle. The storefronts in town glisten but you don’t often see Pat at work. He works quickly.
But, sometimes you hear him. Well, not him (he’s quiet). You hear his chorus, his soundtrack on the days that Pat enjoys “Take Your Dogs to Work Day.”
The dogs enjoy it, too. They wait comfortably in the truck announcing their presence and reaching out to every local hound that passes by.…
I don’t know if fish bite better in the fog, but who cares. Fishing isn’t always about catching fish.
The fog was so thick on Lake Nockamixon very early one morning that you couldn’t see the water. I walked around to check it out and happened upon someone who got there before me. He was comfortably relaxed with two poles in the water waiting for a perch or a bass to take the bait.
A union carpenter his whole life before retirement meant being out in cold weather was no big deal for him. Fog? Bring it on.
The best part he told me is no one telling him what to do.…
Most posters in found hanging waiting rooms are painfully generic. A lot of times they are about the business you are visiting or maybe a well-worn motivational quote.
“There’s always a rainbow at the end of the ally by the dumpster.” (No doubt you’ve heard that one many times.)
I recently visited my local phlebotomist and I noticed a small poster on the wall. I looked closer and saw it was a group photo with cheerful message from the staff. …
This could be good or bad. When you are cold you want to be warm. You may want to be warm so badly that you are willing to resort to stealing wood. It is clear what happens to people who steal. They get warm.
It’s interesting how this works out.…
I came across a field of nothing but fragments. Pieces left behind following multiple shooting sprees. Hunters, gun enthusiasts having blasted them out of the sky. It is considered to be acceptable. There are even places, like the location I visited, where things are all set up to facilitate the shooting.
I doubt anyone is especially worried about it. There are more where these came from. It is unlikely that they will go extinct.…
Archie is locally famous. If you ever walked the aisles of ShopRite in Flemington (especially the meat and produce sections) you know of Archie. He was ShopRite’s ambassador and seemed to know everyone, especially the ladies.
Archie is still around, but COVID forced him into retirement in his nineties. There have been plenty of articles and some news specials about him. (Even a blog or two.) My guess is that he is still vibrant and full of life bringing his energy to everyone around him.
…
A few cups of delicious coffee at the counter of a classic diner. Plain white cups and saucers. Rich brown coffee and a little cream (real cream). Far different from the dripped coffee you may have at home or the stuff they call coffee at work.
Sitting at a diner watching the buzz around you. Not rushing. Would you like eggs with that?
It’s a memory and an aspiration.…
Some men chop down trees, swinging a sharp ax again and again, chipping away at the trunk until it breaks and the tree comes crashing down. Some use a saw, sometimes a two-man saw, drawing it back and forth, back and forth, slowly grinding into the tree trunk until it is completely severed and topples over.
Most use a motorized saw, tearing voraciously into the tree, motor screaming and fumes spewing.
And then there are some who shred, reducing the tree to fibers. …