celebrating iz

 

So today is Isaac's birthday. And also the first day of school.

The Program made a film of Isaac. You can watch it here on You Tube.

what year was this?

Someone who knows cars would have to tell me when the black and white was taken. The color was taken about 15 minutes ago. Yes the place on the right is where I live. No one believed me when I said I bought an old filling station, but here is proof: Cities Service. I heard the place was built as a jail in the late 1800s.

   Bill Dugan found this pic, and according to the guy who posted it, this was the poor side of town. "Who remembers that Thomasville had a tenement or slum area? he wrote. "It was called 'Shanty Town.' The owner, the landlady, was elderly and rented to several (4 or 5) families. I attended school with some of the children. We moved away when I was in the 7th grade and moved back as a Junior in High School and I don't remember what happened to Shanty Town."

  Well, I can tell him. Most of the buildings are gone today, several wiped out by the flood a few years ago.  The church in that picture still exists, though you can no longer see it and it is no longer a church. The stately elm is still there, too. We have no gas station, no store, a wedding chapel, glamping and a cafe that's open Tuesday through Friday. And there's a New Yorker living here now. Fill 'er up! 

blue spring again

Yesterday my new swimming hole partner and I went to Blue Spring. The spring actually comes out of a cave to the right of this frame, so the water is warmer upstream. So clear. And no one there all morning. On the way home I saw this dead tree I've been meaning to take a picture of. I did not see the similarity between the two pictures until just now.

rocky falls again

 

Ozarks swimming holes are something special. The water is cool—but not the icy New England water—clear, and moving pretty fast. But even among the wealth of options Rocky Falls is something special. Novelist Katie Estill and I got there pretty early and had the place practically to ourselves with a front row seat. By afternoon, however, the falls were crowded with frisbee players, dogs, kids jumping off the rocks or sliding down the natural chute, the pool was full of floaties and fishermen and the "beach" was covered with picknickers and suntanners.

  In a related note, I have not been able to get the country ditty Rocky Top out of my mind, for obvious reasons. Here's a '60s version of it. Nice jackets, dudes. 

 

conflicts

 

Chien-Chi is in Ukraine again, presumably en route to Donetsk today, where he will be embedded with the Ukrainian army. Both Ed and I think that labeling yourself may make you a target. So I can spend some time worrying about him.

   And then there's Block Island. Fights broke out on Reggae Night on V-J Day at the notoriously drunken Ballard's bar on the beach (fortunately far from my beach). People get on the ferry, get shitfaced and then head to Ballard's. I once saw  a bride wearing a veil and a white bikini staggering her way to Ballard's across the ferry parking lot, if that gives you any idea of how different this watering hole is from the rest of rather WASPy Block Island. 

   Anyhow, I don't know if you can see these links, but fights began to break out at the bar, here on Insta.  According to my friend Waldyn, who waited three hours to get on the last ferry off island that night, girls were peeing and men were fighting on line. Once on the boat, everyone was still drinking booze and smoking weed (which is legal in RI). Fights broke out on board and Waldyn heard a gunshot. There were razors pulled out and people bleeding. As they neared the harbor in Point Judith, a boat full of Narragansett police pulled up to the ferry and armed policemen started arresting people. Maybe you can see this on Twitter here.  Ambulances and more police met the boat.

  "Were you scared?" I asked Waldyn.

   "Nah," he said. "Esther had my back." Esther is his five-foot wife. "And Emma." Emma is their fierce French bulldog.

 

  

a celebrity at the auto repair shop

I was sitting at Gary's Tire in West Plains, Mo. I was sitting there for three hours, and I began listening to two men talking to one another as they, too, waited for their cars. It turned out that one of them was Eric Lewis, a bluegrass musician of 79 who has been performing for 59 years. He is still performing, and now he sits on a stool and sings, but doesn't play. He uses a walker to get around, and has had many health problems (which he is happy to talk about). His left hand can no longer chord. "People say, why don't I play guitar  the other way around," he says. "My fingers can't even hold a pick." Three months ago he sold his beloved old Martin guitar to his son.

    He is very proud of the career he's had, and of his band, which is currently called the New Kentucky Colonels, after an honorary title he received from the governor of Kentucky. You can listen to some of their music, find out upcoming dates and learn more about Eric on their website here. I'm going to try to make a show before the summer's out.

     I offered to send him these pictures, but his vanity was offended.

    "No," he said, "I look too old."

 

through a lens

 

The class of 1972 was asked to contribute to a reunion book with an emphasis on Vassar and how the college contributed to your life. I did not write about the mescaline (some of the class ahead of me were dropping acid at Timmy Leary's nearby place) or the hedonism. But it's true as far as it goes.

the difference a day makes

 

Two rivers converge just east of Thomasville. The above is looking at the Middle Fork downstream on Friday and Saturday. Same view; different water level. The Middle Fork is the one that sometimes crosses the road at the slab. Due to a drought since Masy, there has not even been enough water to get wet in at the slab. But after five and a half inches of rain in a couple days it was a different matter. Below is looking upstream from the bridge from one day to the next.

The flooding on the Eleven Point River was not as dramatic. It got higher and muddy, but didn't overflow the banks. Eleven years ago it did, as you can see in this video I made. I wasn't around for the one that wiped out my house a few years ago. Anyway, this is what the Eleven Point looked like on Friday and Saturday.

Old Carl, who used to own the house downstream on the left, had to be rescued from the second floor by boat in the big one four? years ago. And yesterday, the slab had a bit of water running over it, but not so much that I couldn't get through.