o beautiful

The long road home

The weather is perfect, the river is perfect, the Goose is perfect. Only thing is, I have work to do. So will hope to satisfy the readership with this picture.

backwoods barbie

Big Girl

Missy

She bills herself a hillbilly (should that be hillbillie?) and Backwoods Barbie. Missy, 29, says she has hundreds of kerchiefs and overalls for all seasons. She loves animals, good food, margaritas and ink. She's got a zipper tattoo over the scar on her leg and something (pistons? screwdrivers? haven't seen) on her thighs. She has bear paws on her breasts, put there because an ex with huge hands still couldn't engulf her big girls. "You'd need bear paws," she said. So she inked 'em.
   Sorry, boys, keep your paws off: She's taken.

floating bigtime

Someone wound up up shit creek without a paddle. Or a cooler. Or a shoe. Or a hat. Or a wedding ring. A John-boat rescue was involved. Someone else floated the Eleven Point for three hours and five miles sharing the kayak with a water snake. It was discovered by the terrified outfitter at Turner Mill when the water was dumped out. But other than those two moments of excitement, the float was quiet and beautiful.
Wild river indeed.

the last ride

Denise takes the wheel

I no longer have an old truck and a new truck. I only have a truck. Yes, I was sad. I believe there are many more years in the old F-150. But Denise needed a truck, and I don't need two. Her old truck had a blown head gasket and, alas, croaked on the way to the junkyard, where she was planning to sell it. But my old truck is her new truck, and it's gone to a good home where it will hopefully live a long and happy life on the farm.

beautifying the goose

Note new pots. Crepe myrtle not visible—or blooming either.

New pot with maypop vine.

The hope is that the crepe myrtle will frame the pillars and the maypop vine will grow up the pillars. We shall see. The crepe myrtle planted last year has been disappointing but is still alive.
Now if I could just find someone to mow the freaking lawn. . .

what?

Near Black Rock, Arkansas

What on earth were these people thinking when they named their chain of gas stations?
In other news, the shakedown run went well, and the new ride is back at the Goose.

The new ride

Certain people have criticized the new truck for being a city slickers' truck. I suppose that is a just critique, as I was indeed hoping it would be easier to park than my last truck. And, yes, the bed is small.
However, there is room for the garbage cans, the bales of Bounty, and for the potting soil and giant pots currently catching a ride, so thus far it meets my needs.
Also it has AC and automatic shift. I must be getting old.

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new truck/old banana

Tradition is important

the yard

Airstream in the yard

OK, just spent $10,000 more on a silver Toyota pickup than I spent to buy the Goose and its yard. I'm fainting. Don't call me.

neighbors

Older bro: Having a problem with his Christian brothers and sisters in Missouri

Younger bro: The newest addition was thought to be a piece of paper on the roadside.

Went to dinner with the neighbors and their four dogs! They showed me their rooms. Very fun. More later. Things have gotten a little nutz here.

summertime

 And the livin' is easy. . . especially when Kate does the cooking!

they're from texas

The Airstream joins the soon to be ex-truck in the yard of the Goose

Kate does her hell yeah y'all Texas thing

That would be one Texan, two Ozarkers or maybe three

They rolled in like a silver storm, bearing figs and smoked brisket, talk and out-of-state tags. Lo Lady Kate and Dennis (far left) fraternized with the locals at an Entertainment amidst the mosquitoes and chiggers. The tiki torches, sadly, have seen better days and might have to join the free pile. Well, they would if anything on the free pile was left. Someone swooped in yesterday and scooped up the lot.

there goes the neighborhood

Many of you have asked for Bear sightings. They have been few—he appears to be living in the woods as he often does in summer. And who could blame him? Despite natural air, the house across the street looks to be pretty hot in the summer. The two vehicles are his old rides, but at least the Nissan is out of my yard, and he's off-loaded the restored two-tone Chevy pickup. He's driving some kind of old maroon car now.
    He won't speak to me. He said, "I told you when I give back your keys—I'm done."
    All or nothing with Bear. Either over for dinner every day or MIA.
    The rest of the neighborhood is pretty vacant as well. The house next door to Bear's was razed a few years ago. The Shady Lane church has been on the market for a couple. The cafe across the street shut down in October. The beer store is long gone. My next door neighbors have moved a few houses away. They are some of the few people with kids here.
   Rural America is emptying out, folks, except for the second back-to-the-land movement.

mighty mississippi

I like rivers. I like big famous rivers the best—the Amazon, the Yangtze—but I like the Mississippi best of all. I'm always trying to take its picture. But with, in this case, a large semi headed at me on a narrow two-lane bridge, I couldn't. Mostly the pictures aren't that good anyway—some trusses, some water far below. But still. The Mississippi.

going to the y

Going to the Y means something different here in Thomasville.

The Y is where the road to Thomasville meets the main road at the top of a hill. You will often see folks parked up there on their phones, because down in the town, in the Eleven Point River valley, there is little reception, and none for AT&T. Which I have. However if you need to reach me you now can as, a week late, my land line (same number as last year, one benefit of a dying town) has been hooked up and my Internet is sterling. I can play Words With Friends again! Read the Times! Talk to my grandkids on Face Time! Huzzah!

Location: Tville

The open road

Fifteen hours of driving. Stopped in Beaver Dam, Ky.

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put yr kidz in a box

Stuff to mention.
Johnny has 2 weeks in July available on Block Island. Check this link.
If in NYC, there's Daughter of Bad Girls  gallery show. Jessica Rath's are the red, um, lingums or whatever.
And in the Art department note Chien-Chi Chang's gallery show in the south of France.
On Block island, a lovely blog post about Edie's garden.
A BI beach won kudos from Yankee Magazine as one of the 10 best.
Also, your correspondent will be headed  out to the Ozarks manana. Word is the place is dry. 
I mean, no floods. The water is turned on. Missing the grandbabies already

gun control

Did you know that movie extras take classes in how to handle guns realistically? Me neither. But our own Catherine took such a class. Appropriately, the class took place in Georgia, where approximately everybody is packing weapons and they have just enacted the most liberal carry laws in the nation, allowing guns in bars, schools and airports—to the point that the police are frightened.
    "I couldn't really follow the teacher's instructions," Catherine said. "So I just stopped listening and did what felt right."
   Apparently, like many Georgians, she didn't need much instruction. In frustration, the instructor finally said, "Well, if you need any more tips just copy Catherine. She's a natural!"

cooked Goose?

This is what the Eleven Point Rover and the Goose look like in flood.

I'm packing up to go to the Goose in Thomasville, Mo., when I receive this link, dateline Thomasville, saying that the Eleven Point River is in flood and has crossed Rt 99.
   To be clear, the Eleven Point River is half a block from the Goose, which is on Rt 99. The Eleven Point River has actually come inside the Goose, though not while I've had ownership. So who knows what I'll find when I get out there. Flash flood warnings posted until Sunday. I was kind of thinking of arriving on Friday. If I can get there. . .

say it loud

Gay Pride, Stonewall, 2011

Happy Pride Day, all you gays and guys and gals and other!

contact

 The Artist Known As Chang accepted the adulation of his friends and fans at a Magnum party at Milk Gallery. The photographers were mostly old, and the fans were mostly young. The show was of contact sheets, and as you might imagine, having made the contact sheet itself into an art
 

form, Chien-Chi Chang was represented in the show. Doesn't mean viewers weren't mystified. Also mystifying was his schtik of dropping a full wine glass on the gallery floor. But this is how you prove yourself an artist and not a mere photographer.

not resting in peace

In happier times, as they always say when they don't know exactly when a pic was taken.

Two of the three a year ago this week, overlooking Yankee Stadium, Bronx, June 2013

I went up to the Bronx knowing that it was almost exactly a year since I was last there. Elaine's birthday was coming up—it's on Saturday—and she was planning to go on a country retreat. Barb and I were alarmed by her obvious jaundice, but only Barb was brave enough to call her on it. I hid in sleep. Elaine got mad. "I have eyes," she told Barb. "Do you think I can't see?"
   What should we have done?  Probably by that time, nothing. The last time I saw Elaine was in September. I know because it's on my blog. Goodbye New York/Goodbye friends/Goodbye conversation that never ends.
   Well, that conversation ended. A month later I was on the Amtrak train home when Barb called, hysterical, to say she had found Elaine's body. I wrote this obit.
   I love Elaine, but I was mad at her. I guess I'm over it, though, because I recently dreamt that she and Barb and I were going out to dinner. "Elaine," I said. "I thought you were dead!!"
  Happy birthday, Elaine. Miss you mucho.
  

found in a trunk

Naval maneuvers 1912, Old Harbor, Block Island

 Ironically, as the sister-in-law of the President of the Block Island Historical Society, I know very little about history (about as much as I know about gardening, actually—maybe less). But my cousin was moving, and he found this pic from an aunt in the attic. My cursory investigation of Wikipedia showed that the Atlantic fleet, including the dreadnought battleship U.S.S. Wyoming, maneuvered off Block Island in May 1912. Not sure what maneuvering is or why they were doing it, but the picture is amazing. Any naval historians in my audience?

This date doesn't make sense.

between

Roberta's kitchen window in Block Island. Maybe I should post on the Book.

This virtual life is odd. I am still in Block Island, dealing with grills and linens and trash and weather—and hoping that all systems are go for the next three months—and I am in increasing communication with my friends in the Ozarks, who I am missing and hope to see soon, but I am physically in New York, seeing people in person who I mostly talk to these days via Skype and text. Then there is my family: aging parents in Mexico (thank you Google Translate for the ability to e mail with caregivers) and Alabama; my delicious grandbabies whose fast growth I try to keep up with on Face Time. There is this blog, plus Facebook and Instagram, not to mention Words With Friends. Communicating on multiple platforms (often simultaneously) undreamed of a decade ago takes up much of my time, as does hooking up modems and berating telephone companies. I know I am hardly the first to write about this—but still. Where am I? Betwixt and between.

solstice

Summertime arrives along with Litha, the summer solstice, and, ironically, the darkening of the days. And speaking of the darkening of days, I have two dentist visits today. Two.

roundup

A familiar view of the old side of the Gasner Compound shows up in a new show at Jessie Edwards' gallery in Block Island.
And speaking of Block Island, we made the top 10 in USA Today's best U.S. islands lineup.
Not to mention the island starring as a location on Family Guy.
Somehow I managed to visit Providence without eating at a single one of what the Boston Globe dubbed destination restaurants.
In other news
If you need to keep cool, buy a DVD of Keri Pickett's The Fabulous Ice Age doc about her uncle, now available on Amazon and I Tunes. Check out the latest press.
If you like it hot, check out CBA's offering of a lapdance movie prop on eBay.
A great site that posts old pix from National Geographic.  Speaking of which, Lynn Johnson has just been named one of four photographers to be Nat Geo fellows. She is the shortest and the only female.
In other photographic news, Donna Ferrato is in Seoul teaching—what? Must find out.
And for just plain funny, this music video by a man stuck in the Las Vegas airport.

summer in the city

How their garden does grow—Cherokee purple tomatoes on vines!

Setting up for the first time last Sunday by the Providence River.

Ah, summertime, when Hannah decides she doesn't have enough to do and starts a new business, usually involving setup at a fair—in this case the Providence Flea. For her homeopathic Bach flower remedies check out Calm-A-Mama.
  For me summertime seems to involve a lot of quality time on the phone with telephone companies about nonworking internet. Tough when you have an internet business. . . Working at Deb's today.
   And in other family news, here is Eva totally kicking her father's butt in jujitsu—she is the last person on at about 11:30. Have we got some cool girls in this family or what?

meanwhile, back in the city

Baby birds on my porch in Block Island; what looks like won't be baby birds on my windowsill in New York.

what should have been in the truck

Oops: Illegal vehicle.

Evidence of current registration would have been nice.
 As I took the truck to a guy on Block Island to inspect, I noticed that the registration had expired in 2011 March. I felt so Ozarkian. The inspector didn't notice—he noticed that a ball joint was about to fall out. So I got that fixed and tool it back to the inspector (all of you on Block Island know who that is, because there is only the one) and he passed me. Nice new inspection sticker. No registration.
  So when  I loaded my tables into the truck and the truck onto the ferry and left the island hopefully until September, I drove (in the pouring rain) directly to the DMV. "I don't really know what to do," I told the woman after I had been standing in line for like ever. I told her the situation. She told me I had to re-register the truck and added, "Boy are you lucky!"
   Three more hours of waiting later and street legal, I had to agree.

two down

Showtime for Claudia's Surf City, Block Island

Last of the lists

I'm bound away, not cross the wide Missouri quite yet, but across the Block Island Sound. It's tough being a real estate mogul, even with a lot of help, in a place where the wind and rain and sun are always trying to take your place down to the foundation (or piers, in my case). And you no sooner paint railings than the baby birds are learning to fly from the corner of the porch and shitting all over the new white paint. But don't cry for me. It's worth it.

reality sucks

View from Hannah's Hideaway, Block Island, by Kate Knapp (in progress).

Same view from Hannah's photographed in same light post waterlily-bloom.

Art beats the shit out of life every time.

one down

Hannah's Hideaway, Block Island

Mastered

One house is ready for prime time, one still far from it. Ana has yet to work her magic at Claudia's Surf City. . .

meanwhile

Milla tries out the new hammock at Hannah's Hideaway, Block Island

As the countodown really begins—I'm outta here for the season on Friday—my previous life is in an uproar, as Time Inc. spins off from Time-Warner.

after the rain

Came an evening of unbelievable beauty, as the sunlight swept away the lowering clouds.
   Now in final countdown: One week til departure for the season. Still working out bugs in the systems. Gas leak appears to be solved. Silverfish on their way to extinction. Railings painted. Door closes. Shower leak fixed. Roof replaced. But there's still a list—mainly a laundry list!

north view

I hope the painter can compensate for flat light better than this photographer could. Check Kate Knapp's blog for the season's opening salvo of Block Island.

a perfect day

View of Crescent beach from Johnny's little barn, Block Island.

Actually, this is the second in a row. Sunny, upper 60s, no wind. Tired of freezing our asses off out here. Good painting weather. Of railings and pictures. Good for  cleaning windows and screens. For teaching fledgeling sparrows to fly. For turtles and Dowlings to bask. It's a perfect day. And here is the soundtrack, from Lou Reed and Luciano Pavarotti, possibly the weirdest set ever.
  Word to friends and relations: All cell service kaput on BI. Call land line 2468 or 2209.