News From Italy

 A wise man once said, "If a communist calls you a fascist, you must be doing something right."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-left-fear-italy-s-new-prime-minister-giorgia-meloni-and-that-is-why-they-vilify-her/ar-AA12jUdt?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare 

Another Perspective on Climate Change

I've always thought of The Atlantic as a liberal publication, and maybe it is, but this article makes a lot of sense to me.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/what-many-progressives-misunderstand-about-fighting-climate-change/ar-AA12dyme?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

Olden days

 Let me open this post again with a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzPVqT5vW4M

Most likely I have shown this video before but the dawgs are almost as old as I am and perhaps have forgotten. It happened in 2014 which was not that long ago but I like to think that it captures the attitude of the pre Disneyfication of Wrigleyville.

I returned to Chicago in the late eighties and while the neighborhood had distinctly gentrified, the bars surrounding were still somewhat seedy.  There used to be a Byron's in that odd triangular area just outside the ballyard and just as spring training was closing and spring herself, though still a shy, green-gowned, maiden, was closing in on the windy city.  We'd settle into a booth with our dogs and then we'd pull out our Cubs schedules and figure out what games we would be attending that summer.

Those Cub schedules, they were ubiquitous in those days.  Usually at the liquor store.  You'd be paying for your twelve pack of Falstaff, and there would be this little box of Cub schedules printed on some glossy, but not thick, paper with three folds that, tucked into your wallet and pulled out for consultation often, they would last oh, as long as the Cubs were still in mathematical contention which was time enough.

Now they are an app on your phone.  I would like to think that rather than because he had taken off his head, what had happened was somebody asked when the Cubs would be playing the Phillies again and while Billy Cub was fumbling in his wallet for his schedule that other guy had pulled out his phone and was thumbing through the screens and that's why he clocked him.

Not a jury in my perfect world would have convicted him.

I like those cadence things, a little bit of poetry to them and a nice cynical ring, I guess a way for the marchers to hang onto a little bit of dignity while being marched all over god knows where.

In a month I will have lived here thirty years, not too far from half of it.  The least interesting part of my life but the most comfortable.

Will be leaving for DC on Monday, two weeks later I will be headed to Newark Ohio to see a newly restored Sullivan bank, and two weeks after that I will be getting my other eye fixed.

Probably won't be writing much during those adventures, but I am sure one of the dawgs will step in to pick up my slack.

Pulling the Plug

 I clicked on Uncle Ken's You Tube link and I agree that new space song is pretty lame.  For me, the Russian space song did not follow either.  Instead, I got "The Top Five Army Cadences".  They didn't sound anything like the cadences we used to sing back in my day.  Ours were simpler like:

"Ain't no use in going home, Jodie's got your girl and gone.  Ain't no use in feeling blue, Jodie's got your mother too."

"Ain't no use in looking down, ain't no discharge on the ground."

"Sergeant, Sergeant, don't feel blue, Frankenstein was ugly too."

"GI beans and GI gravy, GI wish I'd joined the Navy."

"First Platoon's a bunch of WACs, carry Kotex in their packs."

"Sergeant Jones is feeling green, someone pissed in his canteen"

Be that as it may, my screen locked up during the last cadence, and I had to pull the plug and start up all over again.  Pulling the plug was my last resort after unsuccessfully trying to shut down with "Control-Alternate-Delete".  My first computer had a reset switch in the back, but my current model does not.  

We have lived in four places since we got married in 1969.  The second one was in Indian River, some 20 miles south of here, but the rest have been near Cheboygan, but not in the city limits.  We have been in our current location for 22 years now.

Times gone by

Gentleman, I kid you not.

Jesu H. Christo!  We are fast approaching peak Idiocracy.  Check out the comments on that YouTube page; quite amusing with many references to the movie Starship Troopers.  When the video ended I didn't see any Soviet anthem; the Master Algorithm gave me a monologue from Jimmy Kimmel instead.  And when I saw the subject line of the post I was wondering what a Toyota Supra had to do with anything, and now I know.

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Although I have never eaten a mango, I trust the judgement of my esteemed colleague.

A good, ripe mango is wonderfully sweet and juicy but a bit of a production to eat.  I suggest viewing a tutorial video before giving it a try because it can get messy.  It may be the juiciest fruit I've ever eaten.

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...living a few blocks from Wrigley Field in that seedy neighborhood that it was at the time.

You're not kidding, Uncle Ken.  I moved into that area in 1979, well before all the modern Cubs hooplah and rent was cheap.  I think the Latin Kings scared a lot of people away.  There were no night games and the day games during the work week were poorly attended with the bleachers half full.  Tickets were cheap, too.

The neighborhood was nothing like the economic powerhouse it is today, more of a "Mom & Pop" vibe to the area.  Some of the bars in the area, and there weren't that many, would only be open during baseball season.  Their owners made so much money off of the fans that they could close up shop and move to Florida for the off season.  It was great and I'll never forget Franksville, Pete's Freeze, and the Yum Yum Donut Shop.

As I wandered down memory lane I found the obituary of an old pal of mine from a few years back, Floyd the Bartender.  Here's a good article about him, giving a good sense of the time and place.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/3/15/18313880/floyd-saunders-dead-at-92-wrigleyville-bartender-poured-shots-for-stars-fans

I hung out at the places that are mentioned and knew a lot of the folks in the article, too.  A great feeling of community for those who like to hang out, drink, and socialize; a very curious big, happy family.  If you liked music you were at ground zero with Tut's, a 4am bar with live music 7 days a week, no cover charge.  I made some signs for the owner and I was there more often than I should have been but for a newly divorced guy it was heaven.  You want to talk about your Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll?  You wouldn't believe it, and I will say no more.  But then the Cubs got more successful, more popular, and they put lights in Wrigley Field.  There went the neighborhood.  My little apartment went condo and I was priced out, forcing me to move out of the area.  More bars opened up and over-served fans flooded the area and it just wasn't fun any more.

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Speaking of moving, I see that you guys are well settled, having lived in the same places for decades.  Circumstances forced me to move five times since 2001; couple of places went condo and family obligations made other moves necessary.  But now I think I'm in my final place and it's all good.  As I gaze out the windows of Casa con Queso de Geezer Chateau I can see the tree canopy is beginning to change color as the season is changing.

Easier to see, too, since I had my final cataract surgery this past Monday; both eyes are tuned up with new lenses.  A big improvement I'd say but there's still a month of eye drops and more time required before I know how successful the whole process was.

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Was I experiencing this thing going around called mindfulness that I have heard tell of?

Wait, you're just figuring this out now?  I though you were hip to it via your many readings of all things philosophical.  But better late than never, I say.  And as you reminded us of the words of Mr. Natural many years ago, "It don't mean Sheee-it!"

Semper Supra

 Gentleman, I kid you not.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSV3Q4ztGaA&t=1s

If you stay with youtube the next video will be the soviet space anthem which, for all its bombast is way more dignified.

Tuesday, Tuesday

I was a little careless unplugging my control center Tuesday morning.  After all had I not already taken it apart and put it back together?   And of course they did not come promptly at nine, it was more like eleven.  And the rug that had looked like a charming rusty red in the photo turned out to be a bland boring brown.  But it feels soft to my bare toes, and isn't that what it is all about?  And there were a couple tense moments in the replugging, but it all came out fine, and looks so much more ordered than it did previously.

So all is well (nay better, better ordered and softer to the toes) in the House of Uncle Ken.

Except for the thing that prompted me to write this post, that moment of satori, when I was cast adrift of my control center, where I was adrift without the angry squawk of CNN, or the breaking news of the websites.  Ok there was the cat on my lap and the heavy tome, but my cat had nothing she wanted to say, and the book was on the nature of religion, which is kind of timeless.  Was I experiencing this thing going around called mindfulness that I have heard tell of?

What it means to be mindfulness?

Mindfulness means living in the present moment. Essentially, it means being (intentionally) more aware and awake to each moment and being fully engaged in what is happening in one's surroundings – with acceptance and without judgment.

Well sort of

Well that kind of sounds like what was going on.  And I tell you, it felt pretty good and good for me.  You know that I am a political guy and I think it is the good fight, but is it necessary that I keep up on every little niggling detail, especially since about the only thing I do about it is to shoot my mouth off about it?

Logically no.  So hopefully I can enhance my earthly experience to take some time out every day, and just be, well mindful.

But since the guys left with their rug that is soft on my toes behind, I have plugged in everything, even a little excited about the stuff I had missed because of that mindfulness, so I am not so sure that I have learned anything.  But is that not the way of the universe?

Monday, Monday

 The queen is going to her final resting place, and Uncle Ken is getting a new rug for his frontroom. Oh and here is her coffin, flowers and royal jewels atop it, red coated fellows toting it along.  Meanwhile Uncle Ken sits in his frontroom, almost empty now because you have to empty out the room for the guys.  Well you can leave the big pieces, they'll deal with that, but the miscellaneous little crap has to be stuffed into the bedroom.  And anything plugged in has to go which leaves me the tv and the computer cable stuff and the computer, and this large box of cords and wires and crap shoved into a spaghetti arrangement in a large cardboard box.  I have carefully wrapped a piece of tape around the endpoints of each cord so that once I have unplugged everything why I can just look at the endpoints and plug them in and bingo, I will be back in action. Yeah likely. 

They have not been unplugged yet because I want something to entertain me while I wait for a call from the guys who will be coming in a couple hours, though it could be later, all out of my hands.  The queen meanwhile is in some kind of courtyard surrounded by limeys in sailor suits and those beefeater red coats, and I thought I saw some Vatican type guards too.  Oh and some suited muckety mucks who the tv people have not identified so I guess they are not royalty.

Well as you can imagine this whole queen thing (Westminster Abbey now, very impressive building) is boring me to tears so the tv with its mysterious array of cable and internet crap is soon to go.

****

At this point, knowing that the guys were coming soon, I pulled all the plugs.  No computer, no TV, no connection to the outside world.  Actually I didn't care about the TV because it was going to be all about the royal funeral, and I still had my phone so I could check emails and go on line and all that stuff.  But still you know that computer and my tv standing next to each other are like my Command Central.

But then it turned out they weren't coming soon.  They were going to come at twelve, but of course that turned out to be two pm.  And then it turned out that they had come all the way to my place with the wrong sized rug.  They will come here promptly at nine AM with the right sized rug tomorrow.  They promised me.

But before I knew that, while I was still waiting, I was kind of tired, maybe a little nap, and there was this huge book I have been wanting to read, and Sweetie did not like her little place in the cluttered bedroom, so she took her place on my lap on the lazy boy, and you know it is not so bad being unconnected to the world.

****

This is Tuesday morning.  After the guys left I got out my computer and tv and my big box o cords and wires and put the whole thing together without nearly the trouble I was expecting.  So I was fired up last night skimming the web, the channels, the streaming, getting back into the swim with the queen now resting peacefully underground, or in one of those crypt things, I didn't catch that.

I'll have to take them apart before the guys return, and I will be spending a few hours back in my retreat, free from the cares of the world.  It will not be so bad at all.

This is a little scattered, I'll put it more together later.

the old ballgame

 Living in Champaign and guzzling way too much beer forty or fifty years ago, I can't say that I ever gave much thought to the future.  I was operating in those years under the totally absurd theory that every place was pretty much like everyplace else so you might as well stay where you were since that was easier than moving.

I did have a thought in those times that things might happen that would find me living in Chicago in my dotage.  I imagined myself living a few blocks from Wrigley Field in that seedy neighborhood that it was at the time, and spending the summer going to every home game and stumbling home drunk every afternoon.  That rather appealed to me, a little thought to tuck into my hope chest.

But when fate finally put me in Chicago, the neighborhood was far from seedy and the tickets were sky high, so basically I went once a year.  I missed a couple years because of covid.  Remember those empty stadiums and the crowd noise played like muzak with the announcers juicing the boom box up whenever the team scored a run or two, and commenting wryly "And the crowd goes wild."  They way overdid that, but I never got tired of the joke, it just seemed so fitting.

Anyway went to a game last night.  One of my Champaign beer drinking buddies, now living in Missouri, rented a skybox and invited me and some other Champaign people and her son and his son, and a couple of her neighbors.

Skyboxes.  Oh I hate them, the flaunting of privilege over the poor schlubs of the fans in the stands.  Of course those poor schlubs likely paid a hunnert bucks for their lowly streets, so I dunno.  

You know one thing I needed was a new Cub hat, and I recalled all those rickety stands along Addison with profane and scatological t shirts and cheap hats.  I would pick me up one of those.  But there was one stand at Addison and Sheffield which only had t shirts, none of them offensive in the least, and all the way down Addison nada.  No place for them, the street was chock a block with shiny new buildings, all part of the new Cub Disneyland, all the money spent within a block or two of Wrigley is funneled right into the Ricketts' coffers and much of that ends up in Trumps coffers.

And those guys selling programs and peanuts and bottles of water, all gone.  There were a few scalpers, but dollars to donuts they were agents of Ricketts.  I didn't get a new hat.

I had some kind of app on my phone which produced a ticket on the screen and then I walked down a bit and there was an elevator and then I was in skybox row.  All the workers were obsequious and cheerful.  I wanted to say something mean, but of course they were all poor schlubs, who maybe manned the stands or pushed the peanuts only now they were in the hallways helping out fatcats like me, and having to be damned cheerful about it and probably making half of what they once did.

And damn those boxes were fancy, but as I went down the hallway, they got smaller and less sumptuous, and the one we had was at the end of the row and deep into right field.  I imagine the high rollers in the big boxes over home plate referred to us as poor schlubs.

But it was nice enough.  There were fat hot dogs and the beefs weren't bad, but the only beer they had was Budweiser, which okay, I choked down three or four.

The Cubs lost.

I have tasted of the fruit of the mango tree and found it to be good.  If we ever get a logo, and guys, shouldn't we be thinking of this right now, I think a mango tree would fit in nicely somewhere.

I like the new developments in Ukraine of course but I am a little skeptical of things spoken of in the past that did not come a cropper.  Remember all those stories about how Putin was on death's doorway?

I thing there should be another category, like you are guilty of being a mope or asshole, and it would be on your  "permanent record."  Or you would be known as not being trustworthy, or something like that.

I don't know that sounds a lot like that Chinese Social Credit thing.  Of course if we, meaning me, got to decide who got what score it would not be so bad at all. 

Slava Ukrainian!

Friday evening, I caught part of a concert by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra on PBS.  They did a flawless performance of "The New World Symphony" by Anton Dvorak, one of my favorite pieces of music.  At the end, the lady conductor faced the audience, raised her fist in the air and shouted "Slava Ukrainian!", which means "Glory to Ukraine!"  I also noticed that at least one audience member was wearing a t-shirt with the same slogan.  I concluded that Ukraine must have at least one other battle cry in addition to the familiar "Idit Ebat Sebe!"  I suppose somebody decided that this other slogan was more appropriate for use on prime-time TV, which was probably for the best.

Speaking of Ukraine, it looks like the tide of battle is finally turning in their favor.  Good for them!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/on-the-eastern-front-a-stunning-week-of-ukrainian-success-and-russian-failures/ar-AA11I0S9?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

I have no objection to the mango becoming the official fruit tree of the Beaglesonian Institute.  Although I have never eaten a mango, I trust the judgement of my esteemed colleague.

The beagle is indeed one of the hound breeds.

Nice pictures of the sun and moon.

Return of the Red Mango

Quite a heavy rainfall hit the neighborhood this morning, the most intense I've seen in many years.  When you can hear manhole covers bouncing because of the intense air pressure in the sewer lines you know there is a lot of water running through those pipes.  At one time there was about 4 inches of standing water in the middle of the street outside my windows; funny watching unsuspecting drivers hit those patches of deep water....whoosh!  I bet a lot of viaducts were flooded this morning, maybe even a few basements.

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Nice link to Michigan's legislative hooplah, Mr. Beagles.  I thought the explanation of the legal system and how laws were enforced made a lot of sense.  It's impossible to enforce all the laws all of the time, you have to do the best you can to maintain a sense of order and stability.  Instead of misdemeanors and felonies I thing there should be another category, like you are guilty of being a mope or asshole, and it would be on your "permanent record."  Or you would be known as not being trustworthy, or something like that.

And that link showed me a new word for me, "contumeliously."  I can't wait to work it into a conversation someday.  The phrase "age of discretion" needs more usage too, I think.

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As I was scoping out my weather sites I noticed that there was a full moon Friday night, and the moonrise was only about ten minutes after sunset.  I've never actually sat and waited for a moon rise but it's never too late to try something new, amirite?

Here's a last peek of the sunset...

              

...and here's the moonrise.  I thought I had the camera pointed in the wrong direction because it didn't appear when it should have.  Turns out it was hiding behind one of the high rises and taking its own sweet time to say hello.
 

 

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A couple of months ago I posted about the mango that I started from seed, or more properly, pit.  This is the same guy yesterday; the longest leaf is 10 inches long.

The big droopy leaves remind me of the ears of a hound.  Basset, Blood, Plott, Blue Tick, take your pick.  I believe that the venerable Beagle is also of the hound persuasion, and if that's the case, I'm going to declare the Mango to be the official houseplant of the Beaglesonian Institute.  Any objections?

The Queen's Landing

 The Beatles thought she was a pretty nice girl, and not having a lot to say, is not such a bad thing when you are a symbolic monarch without the power to lop off anybody's head, and pretty well-behaved considering other members of her family who were often in the scandal sheets.

Her dad was that stuttering guy who overcame it and helped win WW II according to that movie, The King's Speech.  I don't remember him dying, but I do remember the hoopla when his daughter took the throne.  It didn't mean much to me, but my sisters got caught up in it with coloring books and maybe paper dolls, you know all that girl's stuff. (It suddenly comes to mind that all the great minds of The Institute grew up with sisters, we shall have to discuss that one of these days).

Princesses.  Back when I was subbing and the talk was all about what did the girls want to be for Halloween, they would say, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian chief, and I would lean down like the devil and whisper "Who wants to be a princess?" "Me, me, me, they would all answer all excited.

I never wanted to be a prince, it seemed like if you were one you would have to dress up all the fucking time.  And in the stories that we were told princes were never fighting wars or crimes, they were just the backdrop for drippy stories about yucky girls.

But the big story that I have been leading up to is that in 1959, she visited Chicago.  Not that surprising that the Queen of England would want to visit THE GREATEST CITY INNA WORLD is it?  I looked into it a little, and what she was doing was mostly visiting Canadian provinces along the Route of the St Lawrence Seaway, which as a kid, made me so happy because now ships would no longer have to drop off their goods in snooty New York, they could take them straight to Chicago, and who wouldn't want to do that, and it would just be a few years until Chicago took its rightful place as the biggest city in the USA.  I don't know why that never happened.

But anyway the royal yacht took a left not long after passing by The Freehold, and headed straight down Lake Michigan to the toddling town.  She dropped anchor just off Buckingham Fountain, took the Royal Rowboat ashore and crossed Lake Shore Drive to get to the fountain at what became forever known as The Queen's Landing. 

Some years ago some idiot, in the purpose of speeding up traffic on Lake Shore Drive, eliminated it, taking away the stoplight and putting up a fence.  But it turned out that pedestrians, to honor The Queen, or maybe just to save themselves a two block walk to the next light, kept braving the deadly stream of traffic, so after a few years they put it back the way it was.  There was talk at the time of putting up a bridge, stately, or cool modern, or whatever it would be a boon to the city.

The Queen is dead.  Long live The Landing.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery

When Roe v Wade was overturned, an old Michigan law passed in 1931 arose from the dead.  It seems they never bothered to repeal it, so it's still on the books.  A proposal on the ballot of the coming election seeks to remedy the problem by enshrining the right to abortion in the Michigan State Constitution.  I thought from the beginning that it would be sufficient to just repeal the 1931 law, but nobody cares what I think.  Now it comes out that more things than abortion are prohibited by the 1931 law, and the proposed amendment does not address most of them.  So, if the proposal passes, it will be legal to have an abortion in Michigan, but illegal to commit adultery, cohabitation, seduction, sodomy, blasphemy, and my personal favorite:  "The publication or sale within this state of any circular, pamphlet or book containing recipes or prescriptions in indecent or obscene language for the cure of chronic female complaints or private diseases....."

Michigan abortion law also bans cohabitation, adultery & blasphemy (cheboygannews.com) 

Ben Franklin, sex, drugs and rock and roll, and death to aphids

 Talman's was huge in the hood.  Benjamin F Bohac was a revered name in Gage Park, sort of a Benjamin Franklin, a penny saved is a penny earned.  Thrift, thrift, young man, that is a better way to go than west.  There may be gold in California but you will not find a solid brick bungalow in that land of earthquake and drought.  

I remember going up to the counter I could barely see over and pushing my account book to the imposing teller who looked something up and in perfect handwriting wrote in the interest that I had earned in the last quarter and then totalled it to give me like seventeen cents more than I had the last quarter.  I was getting rich.

Fridays it was jammed with folks with paychecks, more money to go into the account, maybe by January you would be able to pay for that new dormer to make the attic rooms more pleasant for the kids, so they could study harder and get into college and become a doctor or lawyer or whatever.  Moving on up.  The American dream.

But it was not a bank, it was a savings and loan, a kind of wheeler dealer form of bank, well not Talman's who was interested only in giving solid citizens mortgages to buy homes and loans to fix up those homes, but those other guys, they engaged in all sorts of money shenanigans, and when the blade came down on their necks it came down on Talman's too.

I've had bugs before, mostly spiders.  High rise buildings create updrafts and those carry bugs right into the webs of high living spiders who live the easy life up in the sky.  I've had dragon flies, and rarely a butterfly.  One nice thing about life in the sky is no house flies and no mosquitos.  I've had morning glories for years but I don't think bees are attracted to them.  They like to walk the prairies of the eye of the sunflower, and I believe this summer's bumper crop is what brought them here.

When I was speaking of fun in the sense of it being less fun the older you get, I was speaking of things like sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and all the discomfort that comes along with pursuing them.  I certainly didn't mean stuff like gentleman scientist fun where you are basically just fiddling with stuff in the privacy and comfort of your own home.  Fiddling with a fiddle seems more like comfort to me, but not skateboarding and unicycling which seem a lot more like sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  I remember the subject of unicycles coming up during our Friday night seminars, and I remember a little juggling experiment that left The Owner's oranges the worst for wear.

Well you all know that I am a good liberal and like to spread my kumbaya to all god's creatures, but I have to admit that I had a little thrill thinking of all that hornet poison coursing through the highways and byways of the Kingdom of Hornets, remembering the morning when I woke to find aphids (horrible insects who are born fertile) covering the green expanse of my garden.

Helping Mother Nature

 My neighbor used to keep honeybees, but I don't think he does anymore because I haven't seen any around the house in years.  There have always been a few wild bumblebees around, and then there's those hornets, aka yellow jackets or ground bees.  You can tell them from the honeybees because they don't have that rusty orange tinge, they're just yellow and black, but by the time you identify them by sight, it's usually too late.  

Hornets are the most aggressive of all the bee species around here.  If you get near one of their nests, they will try to kill you.  This is not an exaggeration.  My daughter unknowingly staked one of her dogs next to a hornet's nest one time, and it died a horrible death.  Their nests are not easy to spot, usually just a small hole in the ground or sometimes in a pile of lumber or firewood.  Once you are stung, however, you know that you're near a nest.  Back off a bit, they won't follow you very far, and try to see where they came from.  Then get a can of wasp and hornet spray, approach the nest cautiously, and empty the contents of the can right into the hole.  I know it's not their fault, they're just doing what comes naturally, but I think it's necessary to take them out lest a child or small animal stumble into their circle of death.  The fact that the spot they stung you is still swollen and throbbing has nothing to do with it. 

I recently read that monarch butterflies have made the list of threatened species.  They said the way you can help them is to plant milkweed.  No need to plant it around here, it grows wild in the ditch.  We used to only have a little of it, but it has spread prolifically since we moved here.  I like to think my laid-back mowing schedule is responsible for that.  I only mow once a year in September or October to keep the land I have cleared from reverting to forest.  I have found that, if I mow much earlier than that, it just grows back, and I have to mow it again.  By the time I get to hacking down the milkweed, the seed pods are ripe and ready to burst, scattering their contents to the four winds.  I do mow the marsh in August because that's the only time it gets dry enough, and the wild irises that grow there have proliferated just like the milkweeds have on the dry land.  

We walked the Mackinac Bridge several times in our younger days.  We quit when it started taking longer to get over there on the bus than it took to walk back.  Now they don't allow busses or any other motor vehicles on the bridge while the walk is in progress from 6:00 AM to 12:00 PM.  You can start from either end, walk all the way, part way, or both ways, as long as you're off the bridge by noon.  Too late for me, I sure can't walk like I used to.

 

Fiddling around

But the next day when they took off the bandages I could see for miles and it knocked my socks off.  Did Old Dog's socks remain on his feet?

My experience was different than Uncle Ken's; the socks remained on my feet, or they would have if I was wearing any.  No bandages, instead they taped a clear plastic shield over my eye, kind of like a sneeze guard and removed it the next day.  I had to wear it while sleeping for a few days, though.  I was expecting a pleasant drug induced haze from the anesthesia but no dice; I told them they need a new dealer for better drugs.  Not much waiting around after the surgery, only about 45 minutes and I was outta there.  Walking was a little tricky because the right eye now had very good vision but the left eye was still crappy.  Less than two weeks from now I'll have the other eye worked on and then it's just a matter of time before I get used to my new eyeballs.  Maybe I won't need glasses at all, but we'll see, ha, ha.  I'll be glad when I can't stop with all the post-surgery eye drops.

-----

Labor Day already, how tempus fugit.  A big deal in the Beaglesonia area, the walk across the bridge.  That's something that I just learned about, and something that I wish I would have done earlier in my life.  Maybe it's not too late but five miles is quite a hike and then you have to go back.  Has Mr. Beagles ever taken the trek?

-----

After Uncle Ken posted the images from his visit to the old 'hood I couldn't help but go to Google Earth and try to get a better sense of the area.  I'd forgotten that you Sout' Siders went to different grade schools so it took a while for me to get my bearings.  I had no idea what Talman's was but I learned it was a bank and quite a major institution unless Google is lying to me.  The building was razed in 2013 so that Starbucks is newer construction.  And it's a good trick to go south of Cicero, don't you think?  

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Good to see a honeybee on your balcony, Uncle Ken.  Is this the first time you've seen any?

My own little indoor garden is moving along, albeit slowly.  Some seeds have germinated but they haven't gotten any further after I put them in potting soil.  Maybe I'm re-potting them too early, or too late.  Plants can be fussy that way.  The date palms have really slowed down, only 8" tall so far.  I have some honeydew melons creeping along the windowsill; their leaves don't look as green as I think they should be but at least they're growing.  The mangos are looking very good, and I think I have a good Valencia orange growing, finally.  Other plants are still in process but until they poke through the soil and show good signs of growth I'm not going to mention them.

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The way I always looked at aging is that the older you get fun becomes less important and comfort becomes more important.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, I think.  It could be that I am hard-wired to be contrary and like to do things the hard way, just to see what happens.  Comfort is fine but it's not a big priority for me; no padded furniture and I'm still sleeping on the floor.

And "fun" is more important to me now that the clock is ticking down and the days are numbered, but maybe I have a weird notion of "fun."  Fiddling with my plants is fun, experimenting in the kitchen is fun, learning new stuff is fun.  I don't know if I'll be picking up the old accordion but I have some new harmonicas, so that's fun too.  My sister and her husband are moving into a new home, not far from their current place, and in the process of going through old crap she found my maternal grandfather's fiddle.  He was quite a character and scared me as a little kid but now I can appreciate what he was doing.  I've already got a new set of strings and I figure, it's never too late to learn how to play a fiddle.  Why not?  Sounds like fun to me.  The skateboard and unicycle will have to wait until next summer, I think.

bees knees two

 He was a veteran of WW II, though not on our side I think.  But not a very bad guy because they allowed him to come here after the war where he was a waiter at the Bergoff from which he retired.  He was one of those toymaker Germans and not a storm trooper, and he grew sunflowers out of tall elegant white pots.

When he died I got possession of those pots, probably because it was easier than hauling them down to wherever one hauls big tall pots.  In honor of him I grew sunflowers in them, and in the ensuing ten years they have self sown themselves all along that part of the balcony. Which is fine with me, everybody is welcome at the summer party which is Ken's garden.  They don't seem to get in the way of the tomatoes and their stalks give those manic morning glories a stairway to heaven.  

And then maybe three weeks ago I was sitting on the balcony reading my newspaper and caught a dark spot out of the corner of my eye which I first thought was a floater but closer focusing revealed that it was a bee, a honeybee, hovering right in front of the brown expanse of the big eye of the sunflower like one of those little pod ships trying to dock on the space station.

And dock she did and then she was rooting through the tall grass for nectar making a mess of the pollen.  

This is a big deal.  The dying off of honeybees has been all over the media and yet here in THE GREATEST CITY INNA WORLD, here is an amateur gardener who is providing succor to that very beast facing extinction.  I know that there is, or was, an aviary on the roof of City Hall.  If you are some visiting mucky muck of sufficient stature upon leaving our mayor, Lori Lightfoot (who will probably not get a second term, but whoever takes her place will be roundly hated in a few months as much as Lori is now), will gift you with a jar of City Hall honey.  You can't buy it in a store.

That's where I think my honeybees come from because I can't think of any closer apiary.

Well I guess that is the end of my story.  What have youse guys been up to?

the bees knees part one

 Sometime early in my youth a big box of comics hit the frontroom floor of the bungalow.  I don't remember where they came from, my guess is some older cousin or whatever outgrew them.  As if anybody could ever outgrow comic books.  Maybe he got run over by a truck, who cares, because here was a great big box full of Donald Duck and Little Lulu and Superman and Batman.  I suppose if we had sealed the box then and there to keep our greasy fingers away from them why it would be worth big bucks now, but life is for the living is it not?

And sure playing baseball on the corner in the summer is living but lying on your bed all afternoon with a stack of comics is living too.  Comics, comics, comics.  There were those hard bound books for kids, but they were so staid, so morally upright, and even when they had pictures, there weren't that many and none of them had those balloons by their mouths so you could tell what the guy was saying.  Why would anybody ever read anything that was not a comic book?

And then one Christmas when I was maybe twelve years old, I discovered a book under the tree for me.  A book???  But it was about The Ant Men!!!

Pretty cool. I took it for a spin.  Not bad at all.  I had graduated to hard bound books.  I went through all the Winston Science Fiction books.

I also developed an interest in ants.  Really cool little guys, actually gals, they are all around you and they are all around the world, and they have all these different tribes that do all these clever things that you would never imagine bugs would be able to do. 

Much cleverer if you asked me, then bees who can fly and all but never seemed all that clever to me.  And then maybe ten years ago my neighbor, the German, died.