Fred Bird | dual personalities

August 5, 2016

“Why do stars fall down from the sky Every time you walk by?”*

by chuckofish

Daughter #2 and Nate arrive today for a long weekend of celebrating in flyover country. We even have tickets to the Cardinals game on Monday night! It’s my flyover university’s first ever Night at the Ballpark–should be very interesting.

I hope Fred Bird makes an appearance and that he dances with our chancellor! I mean, how great would that be?

The weather isn’t even going to be that bad.

Meanwhile my friend Gary has finished stripping the wallpaper off the front hall, stairway and upstairs hall and painting it all. It looks fantastic. He even hung up my pictures so the OM would not have to engage in a battle of hammering to do so.

I will also note that Saturday is the birthday of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), Poet Laureate of Great Britain. You might spend some time this weekend brushing up on your Tennyson poetry. It is pretty great. Here’s a section of “Ulysses” to get you started:

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’

Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!

As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Go ahead: follow knowledge like a sinking star! Shine in use! Use it or lose it! Have a good weekend!

*The Carpenters, “Close to You”

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September 16, 2013

Weekend update

by chuckofish

Oh fall weekends! The heat finally broke here last Thursday and the temperatures plunged to where they really should be. Sweet relief.

On Saturday I decided to throw away my list of estate sales and instead I walked downtown to view our flyover town’s annual Greentree Parade. (Please forgive my iPhone pictures!)

Motorcycle cops ~~showing off~~ skillfully driving in circles opened up the parade.

They were followed by the High School band and cheerleaders,

motley groups of scouts,

local vendors,

Yes, that’s a giant bison he’s pulling!

bagpipers,

a giant motorized shopping cart,

and various groups of equestrians,

In addition, of course, the elementary schools and middle schools in town all had floats. A lot of churches also participated as well. The Methodist church always has the best entry and this year was no different with their own super-cool rockin’ Christian band blasting their live music.

Seriously, I always want to join their church after seeing them rock by. But my own Grace Church tries so hard—you have to love them despite the fact that they might as well hang a banner that says, “Yes, we’re Episcopalian nerds–join us!” We had music too, but we piped in hymns like “Let Us Gather at the River,” because we always stick to the yearly theme—this year it was “The Wild, wild West”. At least for our trouble we were awarded 1st place in the category of theme interpretation!

I took this picture on Sunday morning outside our church where it was proudly parked.

I did not take a picture of our float at the parade because I was so distracted by this friendly Episcopalian who was trotting around very much in character (“Howdy, Ma’am”).

(I found this better picture–with cacti–on our church website)

He handed out these invitations.

Real wooden crosses handmade in Bethlehem!

We may be a small congregation, but we are always classy! (No candy or dog treats for us.)

As if all this local excitement wasn’t enough, the boy and his bride invited us to go to the Cardinals game with them that evening.

Our seats were in the seventh row behind the home dugout–how perfect is that? Besides seeing the game at a great vantage point and the players up close and personal, we had many opportunities to see this guy.

Fred Bird never ceases to amuse and entertain me.

We may have lost the game, but the day was spectacular. God bless America!

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April 9, 2013

April is…

by chuckofish

A new calendar page:

crazy weather:

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.”
– Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, 1926