Pilgrimmage to Hamdom's Mecca

Two days ago we were sweltering in 85 degrees in a summer that has seemed truly never ending. Today we are enjoying the sounds of a howling wind outside and temperatures in the 50s in Rockport, Mass. To make that transition, we spent 12 hours yesterday driving through heavy rain all up the East Coast as we clocked more than 600 miles to add to the almost 300 from the day before (not counting a 200-mile detour to attend a funeral). It was not much fun pushing on in the dark to make our way around New York City on the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Freeway. Doing it at rush hour didn't help any either. When we finally hit the sack last night in Cromwell, Connecticut, we were fully tired and ready for rest. Then we got up this morning early to make our way over to W1AW, the headquarters station for the American Radio Relay League, the U.S. amateur radio group. I toured the ARRL headquarters and found talking with the people who edit and produce the league magazine (QST) and many publications very interesting. There were geeks aplenty and it was great to meet and chat with them. Then came the icing on the cake, a chance to sit at the controls and operate W1AW, the home station for the ARRL. The equipment and antennas at W1AW are a ham's dream come true and I had great fun making a contact with an English ham who was operating in his car in Southport. We chatted for a while and then it was all over, another item on my "bucket list" neatly checked off!

Deja vu, all over again

I occasionally despair at what American politics has become, especially all the current fawning over and kowtowing to the tea party movement. According to U.S. media, they can do no wrong and they will eventually wipe all the Establishment away and will provide us with an era of Prosperity and Happiness to last at least as long as that of the Third Reich (wasn't it supposed to last a thousand years?). I used the Nazi analogy since the tea partiers tend to liken President Obama to Adolf Hitler so I thought turnabout was fair play. The only real consolation I have now is that "this too shall pass." The tea party is only the latest in a long line of such movements. I am currently reading a biography of Robert A. Heinlein, a popular science fiction writer who was required reading for boys in my teenage years. We were all caught up in the Space Race after the great Sputnik debacle and probably all thought we would some day be living on the moon. What most of us didn't know at the time was that Heinlein had a previous life of activity in liberal Democratic politics in California. He eventually moved over to the Libertarian side, but when he was a California Democrat, he had to continually fight against various leftwing movements (socialist, communist, etc.) that were attempting to take over that party just as the tea partiers are attempting to take over the Republican Party today. But the politics of the era was very reminiscent of today. A Democratic president was attempting by any means necessary to pull the country out of a Depression and was being branded a socialist, communist, etc., by those powerful interests who didn't like the direction the country was going. The party in power saw its approval ratings go down, down, down. The GOP was preaching "trickle down" economics. Lies and slander were abundant in the political talk of the day and the Republicans did everything they could to try to keep Democratic voters from being able to vote by challenging their qualifications at the polls. It all sounds vaguely familiar.

An Apology to Summer

Back on August 24, I foolishly wrote that summer was on the wane. Summer, it seems, read my words and was not happy at being shoved aside so easily. Although the remainder of that particular week saw only one more day in the 90 and above category, September has been almost as warm and toasty as August, with 14 of the first 19 days reaching 90 degrees or above. A couple of those days that didn't make 90 just barely missed it, by only a degree. So here we are, two days from the beginning of autumn and the temperature today will be 95. Sorry for dismissing you so quickly, Summer. Honestly, it was nothing personal. But really, isn't it about time you left the stage? Autumn is in the wings, awaiting your departure. Please, don't make a scene. Just go. Please.

A Long, Hot Summer

Summer's heat is finally waning and that's a good thing. It has been a long, hot summer here, air-conditioning notwithstanding. A check of climatological data a week or so ago showed that by mid-August we had recorded three weeks more of 90-degree temperatures than we did last summer (which was closer to "normal"). And we had more successive runs of day-after-day of 90-plus temps. But the days are getting shorter and the heat is not building up to those oppressive mid-90 levels one after the other. The nighttime temperatures are dropping into the 60s (rather than 70s) and the humidity is falling as well. You can actually go outdoors in the morning and evenings and not feel like you are wrapped in a warm, wet blanket. And, as we approach September (and autumn), the outlook is for the 90-degree days to fade, fade away. All of this is what is normally expected this time of the year. The seasonal calendar moves forward predictably each year with minor variations, give or take a week or two. But some years you look forward to the change more so than others. This is one of those. The cooler days of fall will be greatly appreciated when they settle in.

My Cup Runneth Over

We're down to four teams remaining in the World Cup. My first choice to win, the U.S., got knocked out early. Then I hitched my wagon to Argentina's star, but they just fell ingloriously to Germany. So which team should I jinx now? I have a feeling Spain and Germany are the favorites at this point, so I will go with an underdog: the Netherlands. Why? Maybe I like orange jerseys. Sorry, but the Germans dressed in black remind me too much of World War II stormtroopers. Or maybe, there would be a certain irony in the Dutch winning the World Cup in South Africa.

Otherwise, my thoughts at this point on the officiating and rules. At minimum, there needs to be another official on the pitch. One official just can't keep up with everything that happens on such a large field. Even better, allow for some form of instant replay capability on calls within the box or involving a possible goal. As for rules changes, consider allowing the referee to award a goal when the defenders blatantly use their hands to stop the ball from entering the net at the mouth of the goal. I'm fine with a penalty kick for a handball within the box, but the blatant actions of the Uruguay players to stop the ball from entering the goal in the game with Ghana wound up rewarding them for their actions when the Ghana player missed the penalty kick and the game went into overtime. In basketball, such a blatant foul is called "goaltending" and the referee awards the basket to the shooting team.

On the Road: Taliesin

I have been a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture since I discovered him as a college student. For years I carried around a copy of The Living City, his futuristic look at what cities could someday resemble. But mostly I was a fan of his plain and simple forms and the idea that a building should be part of its surroundings, not overwhelming them. And the idea of inside spaces and outside spaces converging. He was very much influenced by Japanese ideas of the harmony of all things natural. So it was natural that a trip to the Upper Midwest would include a visit to Taliesin, his home near Spring Green, Wisconsin. First of all, the home is in a beautiful setting, especially in summer. The surroundings are rolling hills, a beautiful valley river, and gorgeous countryside. A double-wide trailer would look good here and have beautiful views from any window. But Taliesin is lovely, though as our guide told us, in need of much restoration work just to keep it from falling down. Wright spared no expense when spending his clients' money, but was cheaper and more willing to cut corners with his own. But it was nice to be able to sit in the great room at Taliesin and look out at the beautiful landscape and feel perfectly at home, at ease.

On the Road: Minnesota

We're in the "land of sky-blue waters," Minnesota. We are spending the night at the Kettle Falls Hotel, which could be reached only by boat or air. We rode over in a boat captained by the hotel's owner. It's very isolated here (though we have Internet access!) and we have just spent a pleasant hour or so sitting on the screen porch chatting with fishermen who come up here on fishing trips every year. They are a very convivial group. Now we are heading for dinner and then perhaps we will go out for a little canoeing or boating. It stays light very late here and gets light very early!

On the Road: Copper Harbor, Michigan

We're just back from Isle Royale National Park, spending another night in Copper Harbor, Michigan. The 3.5 hour ferry ride to the island was nice and smooth yesterday, but bumpy and foggy today. We took a nice 4 mile hike to Suzy's Cave (heard wolves howling) before retiring to our cabin for a home-cooked meal of bacon, scrambled eggs and beans. The island's only hotel (and restaurant) hasn't opened for the season yet so we stayed in a cabin and our supper came from what was available at the small dockside store. There's something about not having food readily available that makes you hungrier (and think about food!). Anyway, supper was good and we had cereal for breakfast and odds and ends snack foods on the ferry. We're looking forward to supper at the Harbor Haus! After they kicked us out of our cabin this morning, we sat around in a portion of the lodge that was opened for us and sat by a nice hot fire, talking with other vacationers in the same situation.

On the Road: Mackinac Island, Michigan

It's a beautiful day here on Mackinac Island. We came over on the ferry this morning and took a three-hour bike ride around the island. We had the road to ourselves, except for other cyclists and the occasional horse-drawn vehicle. Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw and sometimes even spelled that way) outlawed motor vehicles in 1898 and has not seen fit to change the law since. It makes for a very pleasant place and certainly one that children enjoy. We have a room with a harbor view at the Chippewa Hotel and we watch the comings and goings of the ferries at the nearby dock. Other than being automobile-free, the town is famous for its fudge and we plan to try some of that later. For now, though, we are just taking it easy and enjoying the view of the harbor from the balcony of our room. We can't linger, though. Tomorrow a big government conference is convening here for the rest of the week so we will push on, across the Mackinac Strait's famous five-mile-long bridge that runs from Mackinaw City (on the mainland) to the Upper Peninsula at St. Ignace.

On the Road: Fairlawn, Ohio

We drove up from Berea, Kentucky, to Fairlawn, Ohio, today. We made it in time to drop by Brandywine Falls (a 60-foot drop; Amicalola in Georgia is 730 feet) at Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. The most interesting thing about the park (so far) is that it's a large natural preserve in the midst of a heavily populated urban area. I suppose that's the reason it exists, but just why it should rise to "national park" status mystifies me. I guess some politicians could answer that one. Otherwise, it seems like an area that could qualify as a national recreation area. We will visit again tomorrow, get our national park passport book stamped, and then hit the road for Mackinaw Island, Michigan and, in a few days, the Upper Peninsula.

On the Road: Berea, Kentucky

Once you get past the usual Interstate highway trappings: McDonald's, Wendy's, etc., and reach "downtown" Berea, Kentucky, about a mile east of I-75, you find yourself in a town dominated by the local Berea College. It's also an artists' town, with lots of shops devoted to locally produced pottery, textiles, woodwork etc. A number of these encourage visitors to watch the artists at work. We're staying at the Boone Tavern Hotel, which is also owned by the college. Berea College dates back to 1855 when an abolitionist minister established a school dedicated to educating whites and blacks, men and women. He was driven out by pro-slavery forces during the Civil War but came back to establish the Berea Literary Institute after the war. It had an enrollment of 96 blacks and 91 whites. The college also emphasizes work so students must work at least 10 hours per week in college departments to earn a portion of their fees and to gain some spending money. The campus is beautiful and a bell tower announces the hours and the quarter-hours. All in all, a very charming place. I especially like the woodworking shop with its beautiful handmade dulcimers.

The Morning After

The election is over in Great Britain and the fun has only just begun. The UK vote has resulted in a "hung Parliament" (just curious: does "hung" have the same slang sexual meaning in England as it does in the States? ) This means the BBC will have nothing else to talk about for weeks on end. Endless speculation. Perfect for radio. Lots of words, signifying nothing. I have an easy solution: Turn the government over to the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. It seems they are the only ones capable of governing at this point. I was largely unfamiliar with the OMRLP until last night, but a check of Wikipedia (solid reference source!) provides the following as planks of the OMRLP's "Manicfesto." These positions make more sense to me than those being put forward by the major parties. For example:
Introduce a 99p coin to "save on change";
Any MP whose constituency sells off a school playing field for development will be required to relinquish their own back garden as a replacement sports facility for the school;
Traffic cops "too stupid" for normal police work will be retrained as vicars;
All motorways to become massive cycle tracks instead;
Drivers can go straight over a roundabout when there's no traffic coming "to make driving through Milton Keynes more fun";
Withdrawal of MP's 118,000 pound expenses allowances with the money "in future to be distributed to the poor and needy so that they can waste it instead";
and perhaps best of all:
Banning semicolons since nobody knows how to use them.

A Vote for Blowers

I was looking for coverage of today's elections in the U.K. when I ran across BBC Live Five Sports Extra coverage of the England-Pakistan test match cricket from Barbados. This is one of those Twenty20 matches and some sort of qualifier for something. I don't really follow cricket from abroad much, other than those big blips on the radar, such as the Ashes. But, given that the polls had not yet closed in the U.K., I listened in (on the computer). The announcing team included the wonderful Henry Calthorpe Blofeld, aka "Blowers." Blofeld is now 70 and a cricket announcing legend. He is well-known for providing commentary on all sorts of things other than cricket. But, given the length of a cricket match, an announcer needs to be able to comment on many other things. However, Blowers doesn't restrict himself to chattering on at length about the players, their statistics, cricket gossip etc. He can wax eloquent about buses on the street outside the stadium, umbrellas glistening in the rain, the travels of a beach ball or the progress of the "Mexican wave" in the stands, various birds (he's a big fan of pigeons) and other creatures that he might spot, or the quality of the food being served at lunch. Today from Barbados, he carried on a detailed discussion of the sound system that was amplifying the steel-drum version of "God Save the Queen." And, in typical Blofeld fashion, he quickly spotted a frog hopping across the pitch and provided ample commentary on its movements. Elections are a dime a dozen, but Blowers is priceless.

Big Chicken

I had lunch at the Big Chicken yesterday. This means I dined on Kentucky FRIED Chicken (original recipe) at one of Atlanta's best-known (at least in Atlanta) landmarks, the Big Chicken. The Big Chicken refers to a large chicken-shaped sign that towers over the restaurant on Cobb Parkway in Marietta. The sign is so well-known that locals use it as a point of reference: "Turn left at the Big Chicken," or "Go two miles beyond the Big Chicken." (Just as Parisians probably say, "Hang a left at the Eiffel Tower and you're there." ) A few years back the sign was ripped apart by strong, tornadic-like winds. There was talk of taking the remnants down. A hue and cry ensued and KFC received more than 10,000 letters, phone calls and emails urging the company to restore the Big Chicken to its former glory. They did (to the tune of $300,000) and gained immeasurable goodwill in the process. Strange, but in all the years of hearing about the Big Chicken and passing by the Big Chicken, it never dawned on me that you could actually stop at the Big Chicken and eat there. (Sorta like passing the Eiffel Tower and not realizing you can travel to the top; I suppose also there's a restaurant there). So yesterday I did. There is a display inside of various newspaper stories about the restoration of the BC as well as information about the location and how the BC came to be. Which came first: the restaurant or the chicken? There are also schoolkids' drawings of the BC. Inside, the restaurant boasts two posts or support pillars which, carrying through on the theme, are made to look like chicken legs. Outside, the chicken's beak opens and closes! So I enjoyed my first visit to the Big Chicken and look forward to many more! I even bought a souvenir Big Chicken coffee cup.

Nashville Cats

We're in Nashville, waiting to attend the Grand Ole Opry. I first heard the Opry as a boy on my dad's radios. He was always tuned to a country station (back when country was more country and less cross-over). He also liked bluegrass and gospel and I guess I owe my appreciation of that music to him, though at the time I cringed at it because it seemed too country and not as sophisticated as the do-wop and rock 'n' roll I was listening to. Ricky Skaggs is on the show tonight and I'm looking forward to hearing him. Also Jimmy Dickens, who was around when I was a kid (unless this is a son or grandson). He was known as Little Jimmy Dickens because of his small size. We enjoyed our stay at Mammoth Cave, Ky., and took two two-hour tours of the cave. The cave covers more than 350 miles (maybe more unexplored) so there are several tours that take you to different areas. We enjoyed both tours and found the park to be a pleasant place to visit. Because of school holidays, there were lots of children and we enjoyed seeing them and sharing their enthusiasm. We'd like to bring our grands to visit the cave some day.

Bluegrass Night

We are halfway through our roadtrip through parts of Appalachian North Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. We spent the night in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and had dinner at the very "eclectic" (or is it "eccentric") Cranberry Thistle cafe last night, one of only two places to eat within walking distance of our hotel, the Eureka Inn. The cafe greets you with a sign suggesting you "Relax, You're on Jonesborough Time." We took the sign at its word and so sat for about 20-30 minutes without anyone acknowledging our presence before I went to the register and asked the woman there if we were supposed to order at the counter or what? She got up and hobbled on her cane to the back and produced the one-and-only server who came to our table and cheerfully asked "You here for coffee and dessert?" "No, we came for dinner." "I'm sorry but the kitchen closes at 7 " (it was 10 past, we had arrived about quarter till. Then ensued a discussion about how she had just been over in our area and "hadn't seen us" but I later surmised that since we were the only non-locals in the place, we were probably invisible to us for she had passed by us not once but several times. Anyway, she said they would be glad to reopen the kitchen and serve us dinner and proceeded to take our orders etc. All the while, in the background, from a back room of the restaurant came the soothing strains of bluegrass tunes, most of which I had never heard before, and occasionally some fellow in jeans would amble by, instrument in hand, and join the group. For the next 45 minutes or so we sat and enjoyed the concert coming from the back room. Turns out it was local musicians who get together every Wednesday night to jam. It was a real treat and worth the wait.

Jonesborough is the oldest town in Tennessee and home to a major Storytelling Festival every summer. The town features lots of old, historic buildings and a Storytelling Center. In the summer they close off the main street downtown on certain days for music events. It was also home to some of the first pro-abolition, anti-slavery newspapers in the U.S. Andrew Jackson was once a lawyer here and Washington County was the first in the U.S. named after President George Washington. It and two other counties were originally part of North Carolina but seceded and formed the State of Franklin, which was eventually absorbed into the territory that became Tennessee.

St. Patrick's Day birthday

We gathered at the Roswell Red Lobster yesterday for our oldest daughter Heather's 43rd birthday. All the kids/grandkids were in green and decked out in enough Irish regalia to leave no doubt as to their shamrock heritage. Chloe had a blast whacking the birthday balloons, which she calls "balls," and a good time was had by all. Except, of course, the lobsters, who definitely came up on the short end of the stick on this particular day.

Returning to Normal

Jet lag hit me hard a couple of nights ago. Seven-thirty p.m. and I crawled in bed, clothes and all, and simply collapsed. Since then it's gotten better. Nine-thirty and last night about 10:30. And, instead of waking at 4:30 as I was the first few days, I'm sleeping in till the late hour of 7 a.m., which is about normal for me. Getting back into the home routine has helped. Picking up the girls two days a week at school, Wednesday morning out with Bailey, trips to the library for all. Cooking supper a couple of nights. It's all part of the regular hum of life. Things are returning to "normal." I haven't made it back to the gym, but that will probably happen today. It takes time to get back into the rhythm of things. But it happens.

Back by Popular Demand

The blog has been on hiatus. I wish I could say because the blogger had been soaking up sun in some part of the South Pacific out of range of the internet. Does such a spot exist? But no, the blogger has simply been his usual slothful self, more interested in avoiding any semblance of effort ("work"), and has been "taking it easy." However, as Conan Doyle discovered when he tried to kill off Holmes, you can't keep a good blog down. The clamors for the return of the blog have been simply, in a word, overwhelming. The blogger has received requests for its return from as far away as England! Yes, England, where the literati have access to Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Chaucer, Marx, yes, and his mercantile companion, Spenser. Therefore, this blogger is truly "humbled," as celebrities with bloated egos always say at the Oscars and Baftas etc., and can do more than obey the wishes of an insistent public. So, the blog is dead, the blog is dead.... long live the blog!

A Quiet New Year's Eve

I spent much of New Year's Eve mindlessly watching TV "bowl" games between mediocre teams that I don't care much about. Granddaughter Ann-DuPree was visiting and she's very interested in all the bowl games (all 34 of 'em) because she has entered a football pool being run by someone out of her old neighborhood and has visions of somehow winning the big prize, which is several hundred dollars. Alas, her record so far is not much better than mine so unless she has an incredible rally, she doesn't stand much of a chance. (I'm not in the pool, just have made my picks so that she and I can compare notes.) At some point, we flipped back and forth between an out-of-hand bowl game (our team was winning handily) and "Akeelah and the Bee," a movie she had asked me to record. It's a heartwarming tale of a good kid being rewarded for hard work and for making the right choices at the right time. "Akeelah" is fiction, but it's so closely tied to the real national spelling bee that you kinda wonder if it's not real. Alas, there was no real "Akeelah" though her struggle no doubt mirrors the struggle that many bright kids face, living in an anti-intellectual culture. And, she doubtless is a composite of many kids who do work hard, miss out on the social aspects of that stage of adolescence, and achieve their goals. So, it's not a "true" story on the purely factual level, but it certainly ought to be, and I'm sure on another level, is "true." After Ann-DuPree went home, I settled in to some New Year's Eve concerts on the tube and Pat and I toasted the New Year as we watched the ball drop in Times Square, New York. Then it was off to bed and a good night's sleep.