Leo Dodd with Rochester Brick & Tile brick in driveway
This is a followup to yesterday’s post on Brighton’s new Brickyard Trail. This picture shows the only Brighton Brick & Tile brick my father ever found. Actually another Brighton resident, Casey Walpert, found it when he was rehabing the Skylark Lounge on Union Street downtown and he gave it to my father. We talked to a number of people after yestererday’s presentation who expressed how much they liked my father. Mario Daniele from Mario’s was the first one so say something to me. And then there were a couple of guys who had never met Leo but wanted to know more.
Richard Carstensen invited us to walk the trail with him. He is a naturalist, living and working in Alaska but back home in Brighton to help settle his recently deceased father’s affairs. He grew up near the Brickyard Trail and revisited it while he was back here. He didn’t just revisit it, he studied it in depth and prepared this amazing presentation. He told us he kept coming across my father’s work while he was doing his research and he wished they had been able to meet. Here’s his presentation about the former clay fields.
David Kramer was working on a piece on the park in conjunction with the ribbon cutting and asked a few questions about Leo. His story works a ghost tale into the mix.
Three politicians, Cheryl Dinolfo, Anthony Daniele, Bill Moehle, at opening of Brickyard Trail in Rochester, New York
We were surprised to see so many people gathered on the sidewalk across from the Brighton town hall this morning. A ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Brickyard Trail was scheduled for 11 and there were already more than a hundred people. Cheryl Dinolfo, Adam Bello, Joseph Robach, Joe Morelli, Sandy Frankel, Anthony Daniele and his father, Mario, Mayor Bill Moehle and Brighton town board members were all there to give an hour’s worth of tedious, self congratulation on accomplishing something so simple. I was asked to say a few words on my dad’s behalf and I was last on the list, the only non-politician to speak.
Fifteen or so years ago my father started uncovering the history of Brighton’s brick yards. The glaciers had generously deposited the right combination of sand, clay and lime in the Pinnacle Range. Cobbs Hill is named after brick maker, Gideon Cobb. Leo Dodd, one of the founding members of Historic Brighton, produced a book for the organization on the early brick industry. My father essentially brought to life the brickyards, the kilns, the train tracks that moved tons of clay from the fields to the furnaces, the homes the workers lived in and the baseball fields they competed on. His passion for art, engineering and history enabled him to depict this pre-photographic past in watercolors and 3D cad drawings. Peggi and I provided technical support as he developed the Brighton Brick book and then presentations and websites on the town’s early history.
He continuously pressured the town, most of the same politicians who were gathered here, to recognize and preserve the remnants of its past. Saving the Buckland House and the meadows behind it where the Bobolinks visit every year, preserving at least one of the old barns on Westfall Road, naming the woods after the Edmunds family that once owned it, the Edmunds family whose diaries of daily farm life my father transcribed, these were all issues he went to bat for. There would be no brickyard trail if it wasn’t for my father. I reminded the crowd of this when I spoke, just as the fire trucks showed up to respond to a woman who had fainted during the politicians’ drivel.
The Brickyard Trail runs through one of the former “clay banks.” The town was developing it while my father was still alive. We’d pull in the temple’s parking lot on the way home from his doctor’s appointments and check on the progress. My father was too sick to get out of the car on the last visit so he had me take photos. The politicians managed to cut the ribbon and the Brickyard Trail opened. We walked the trail with a small crowd and quite a few people made a point to tell us my father would have been proud. As modest as he was he would have proud.
Street performers at Jazz Fest 2016 in Rochester, New York
Nacka Forum is the name of one of saxophonist, Jonas Kullhammer’s, bands, one that was formed to explore music like the band’s heroes, Ornette, Art Ensemble and Sun Ra. With great players on trumpet, bass and drums they bring their European roots to the jazz table and pay tribute to the greats. Our jazz fest buddy, Hal Schuler, alerted us to the fact that this drummer was here with Blake Tartare, one of our favorite shows ever at Jazz Fest. Jonas has been here many times with other bands but he saved Jazz Fest 2016. Finally a real, loose, swinging, musical, jazz group in the tradition but completely their own.
Nacka Forum was in Kilbourn Hall last night. They have two shows at the Lutheran Church tonight. I would not miss them. I’m keeping track of a small portion of the Jazz Fest here.
Cosmo Grille Dress Code sign in downtown Rochester, NY
Wandering around downtown between Jazz Fest acts is a good way to assess the city’s progress. Nothing stays the same. The city core was hurting and nearly emptied out but for the past ten years or so it is definitely on an upswing. Development and rehabbing are visible everywhere. The buried portion of the Inner Loop is a huge step in the right direction.
Clubs come and go. Jazz Fest venues are different every year. For me old memories are connected to buildings all over downtown. I never heard of the Cosmo Grill but this sign is posted near the door of a building on East Avenue. You can tell a lot about a place by the rules they set up for themselves.
Cosmo Grille Dress Code
In order to maintain a quality level of entertainment we request that our guests adhere to the following dress code standards:
• No Athletic Wear
• No Excessively Baggy Clothing
• No do-rags
• No oversized chains or medallions
• Baseball caps must be worn straight forward or backward
• No torn or soiled clothing
• No profanity
• Shirts must be worn
• Mens shirts must have sleeves
The management and security staff reserve the right to refuse entry to anyone they feel is not dressed appropriately. Thank you for your co-operation.
Budweiser’s new America can on the ground in Durand Eastman
So we rode our bikes down to Sea Breeze and got sucked into the scene down there. Funky fishermen mixed with people feeding bread to the ducks. A Canadian duck was standing on a rock on one leg. It was chewing at its right leg that was bound to its body in a rat’s nest of fishing line. A family of white mute swans swam by, two adults and four brown little ones. A county employee was telling a family that they were pretty but mean. He had stats on how much the birds of invasive species eat in one day. And just as he was talking we watched one of the adult swans go after the Canadian duck. Duck feathers flew while the duck tried to stay afloat. The county employee called a nearby vet for advice. There wasn’t much anyone could do.
I was struck by his conversation. He was on hold for about ten minutes and when he reached the receptionist he began describing the scene with the “So.” I keep hearing this in radio interviews where the so called experts pretty much know what the question coming their way will be. They begin their response with “So.” This has trickled down to county employees.
Kandace Springs behind piano performing a he Rochester International Jazz Fest in 2016i
Soccer matches have gotten in the way of both nights of jazz fest this year. We had to catch the Flash meet the bottom placed Boston Breakers on opening night and we were treated to seven goals from our favorite players. We saw patterns develop that we knew were there. And last night we came home early from the festival to watch the US lose to Colombia for the second time in this Copa America. Tonight’s final between Chile and Argentina is also irresistable. We did manage to see a really great trio last night at the Lutheran Church.
At Harro East last night Kandace Springs played piano and sang mid-tempo, soulful jazz tunes. She was accompanied by bass and drums but she probably would have sounded better on her own. The band had a hard time following her loose, personal groove. She did a fantastic version of John Coltrane’s “Soul Eyes” which also serves as the title of her new album. She has a great voice and, of course, the look.
Amish or Mennonite people on Charlotte Pier in Rochester, New York
Brexit was all anyone wanted to talk about today. That and the hit their stocks took. Texit is next. It’s also the first day of Jazz Fest in Rochester, a perfect day for my camera to go on the fritz. Maybe it’s time to end my obsessive documentation of the acts we catch.
It was very hard to watch Spain lose their EuroCup match this afternoon. The only thing that made it palatable was the amazing energy the young Croatian team played with. Spain’s skillful, studied, possession game was no match for youthful enthusiasm and it felt good to be reminded of the wondrousness of this most magical resource. Back on our side of the pond we are bracing ourselves for the US/Argentina Copa América semi-final.
First day of summer here was hot. We spent most of the afternoon down at the pool and I jumped in again in the evening for good measure. Our road is being repaved so no mail and we’re hoofing it over to the next street where we parked our car. The woods was hot too. We came across a few deer who couldn’t be bothered to get up. And there was some sort of crow scuffle going on above us. We stopped to listen because the screaming was so intense. There were at least three crows harassing another bird, one with a wholly different call for help. Not sure what that was all about.
The trees are all dropping seeds and buds and cotton-like stuff. The small lakes and ponds in the park are covered with pea soup. We watched a snapping turtle, maybe a foot and half in diameter, slowly swim by in front of us. He stuck his head out to check us out. We scared a baby raccoon up a tree and spooked a groundhog on the way back. We did our duty.
Thankfully, the pace of football matches has slowed. The Euro Cup today has only two games and they are scheduled at the same time, something that theoretically prevents teams from playing for a result that would give them an easier go in the elimination round. We are scheduling our day around the France vs. Switzerland game at 3pm.
Back in the Copa America we felt like we had to watch the Argentina vs Venezuela match last night to see what the US will be up against when they meet Messi’s team in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. And it is always a thrill to watch Messi, a natural wonder. It would be a miracle or a fluke if the US could advance with Argentina and Chile ahead but we will be screaming for them.
We took a break from the telly to watch a live soccer math between the first place Portland Thorns and WNY Flash. Despite the fact that Meghan Klingenberg went down in warm-ups, Christine Sinclair and Tobin Heath proved to be too much for the Flash. The Flash were not moving the ball from the back to the front as they had been. Even Hinkle was booting it out of our end in hopes of a happy landing. With Zerboni back in the center I would think they could feed her and Mewis and poke it through. It was a disappointing result that I hope they learned something from.
Wreckless Eric played here on Thursday. Before his set we sat with him at a table in Abilene’s courtyard and I deliberately did not talk football even though England had beaten Wales in a dramatic comeback in stoppage time earlier in the day, while Eric was driving from his gig in Detroit. Amy Rigby came up by train for the gig and the hope was she would join him on stage. But no, she was just a fan snapping cell phone photos during the gig. Eric has some tremendous new songs, a slow menacing, blues song about murder and a sweet ballad that he threw in his encore after his wall of feedback. He told us he liked the Detroit crowd because they yelled stuff at him while he was playing. And he particularly liked how two guys up front had an argument between themselves while he was playing.
Sam was playing music for the members of the Friendly Home when we stopped by. He was playing guitar in the sun room and about half of my mom’s group was asleep in their chairs. Sam threw a ball to the ones that were awake and had them roll it on the floor. The ball had numbers on it and whatever number came up Sam would play a song from that decade. He had the sheet music for hundreds of songs in his iPad. His version of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was so sleepy I almost fell asleep. But then he’d pull out an old chestnut like Irving Berlin’s “If You Don’t Want My Peaches, You’d Better Stop Shaking My Tree” and I’d be singing along.
I took my first walk in the woods today in over a month. Just how did that Wales player in this morning’s Euro Cup match get back on the pitch in six weeks after a broken leg? I went down the hill I tore my calf muscle on and couldn’t get over how much lusher everything was. The Jack in the Pulpits were still standing erect. An old rotted oak had fallen right across the path. We spooked a couple of Pileated woodpeckers that may have been mating and we walked by a deer that was so comfortable it couldn’t be bothered to get up. And then we came across this friendly toad and watched him for a bit.
The tail end of our vacation in Spain was spent in the mountains of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands. We rented a house there from a friend of our nephew’s girlfriend. The place came with a pool and if that wasn’t enough, Mediterranean beaches were thirty minutes away in every direction. I did a lot a swimming, even got a dip in while I was waiting for the water to boil for coffee. For the last few days I had water trapped in my left ear, trapped behind wax.
I tried everything. Q-tips, rubbing alcohol, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, a hair dryer. I tried creating a vacuum with my finger to plunge it out but no luck. Back home I made an appointment to see my doctor. He had me hold an ear gutter under my ear and he squirted warm water from a big stainless steel tube into the ear. He explained that he was trying to get the water behind the wax to force it out. After four liters he gave up and referred me to an ear, nose and throat specialist. They scheduled an appointment for the 28th. I couldn’t believe it. I had not been able to hear out my ear for a week and now I had to wait another two.
I said I was desperate and they got me in with a cancelation. The specialist used no water at all. He had some sort of vacuum that sucked out the wax. He started with my good ear and showed me the clump. The left ear was problematic. All the products I had used made the wax gooey and it was completely sealed. He kept warning me, “This is going to be loud.” And it was. Louder than a rock concert but it worked. It was the most satisfying doctor visit I have ever experienced.
Sun glasses on the back of someone’s head in New York airport
I hate everything about airports, the security, the expensive water, the waiting and mostly, the people. No one is at their best in this situation but these places seem to attract creeps. This guy was sitting behind me and I snuck a few photos of the back of his head.
Spain had possession in the seventy percent range for most of yesterday’s Euro Cup match with the Czech Republic and yet they couldn’t get through the final third to the net until the final minutes. Most of the match was played in that zone, lateral passes that were beautifully executed, back and forth until Iniesta poked one through. Some players are smarter than others. They are always in the right place even when they don’t have the ball and they always know where everyone else is when they do get the ball. Iniesta is brilliant at this and a joy to watch.
My father was scheduled to do a repeat of his presentation on Edmunds Woods on Saturday afternoon. The Brighton town historian filled in for him and she talked over my father’s slideshow. It was a small crowd that gathered in the park shelter next to the woods but it was a giant reminder of my father’s former presence. He had mapped the wildflowers, the trees and the wildlife of the this tiny bit of remaining old growth woods. He began calling it “Edmunds Woods” after the family that worked the near farm and we hear the town is planning to officially designate it so.
We watched three Euro Cup soccer games yesterday, an activity just my speed with only one working leg. We watched Switzerland and Wales win and then the upset, Russia over England. And then we headed out to the stadium to watch the WNY Flash play Alex Morgan’s team, the Orlando Pride. Morgan hardly got the ball and when she did she was shut down by the Flash’s Hinkle/Eddy/Erceg/Dahlkemper superb back line.
I was really worried when I saw that D’Angelo, our first string goalie (as well as Canada’s national team goalie), was injured but the Flash scored early and held on for the 90 to move into first place in the NWSL. It is so much fun to watch this team get better and better as we get to know them. The US Women have the best team in the world and our city has the best team in the league. It was even fun watching Orlando, the newest team in the league. They have Spencer, Edmonds, Edwards and even Morgan, who all previously played for the Flash.
Fruit tree wrapped for protection in Mallorca Spain
I hadn’t had an IPA in a while so I ordered one when sat down in the Uptown Brasserie at JFK but they were out of the Goose Island so I went with a Stella Artois, something that tasted exactly like the Spanish beers we had been drinking for the last few weeks. We sat near the window and had an ocean view. They were playing jazz on the sound system, Chet Baker, Duke Ellington and piano standards. We found an oasis on our way back to Rochester.
Back home we were stunned by how green everything was. Not just green but lush and overgrown. Pink Rhododendrons in full bloom. And it’s now impossible to see our neighbors through the backyard trees. If I could walk like a normal person I would be out in the woods with my tick-guard on.
Fruit tree wrapped for protection in Mallorca Spain
We are going to have see if we can get the “Vicious” radio station that our rental car was tuned to when we picked it up at the Majorca airport. We never changed the channel the whole week and although I think of it as club music, it suited the windy mountain roads with hairpin turns, the autopistas and dead end, dirt beach roads perfectly. Thump, thump, thump. One song meshes with the next.
In sync with the thump we tracked down one of Mallorca’s top ten beaches, a place that was described as quiet and beautiful with a restaurant. We parked in the town of Deiea and walked about an hour on a footpath that included all sorts of scenic vistas and diversions. Donkeys, persimmon trees, olive groves, religious shrines and eventually a cove of turquoise water. We headed straight to the outdoor patio and ordered Pimientos Del Padrón, Tortilla Española, Pulpo a la Gallega, Escalivada (eggplant) con Pimientos y cuatro cervezas.
Another day, another beach. This one with a fish shack/bar that was cranking “Vicious” nonstop the whole time we were there. We sat in the shade and watched people dance in the sun. And I must say, I am enjoying the secondhand smoke everywhere we go. They still sell Ducados in the cigarette machines but we haven’t smelled the black tabac anywhere. Those folks may have all left us.
We met our friends, Jeff and Mary Kaye, in Mallorca. They flew from Toronto, through Frankfort, and arrived with a bottle of Duty Free champagne. We quickly stopped following Donald Trump stories and and even checking email. The last email of any import was from our neighbors back in Rochester. They informed us that our spinach had grown huge and was already bolting so they ate it for us.
Here we hiked and explored swimming spots for the last few days and watched an endless stream of ciclistas working their way up the mountain where we had rented a house. Jeff got the bug and we found a Ride Mallorca shop where we dropped him off so he could rent a bike. Mary Kaye, Peggi and I walked to this small cove where we swam and studied the multicolored rocks.
Josep de Togores. Couple à la plage (Couple on the Beach), 1922. Painting. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Collection, Madrid
Maybe we’ll go to an island for a few days. Madrid offers one hour flights to the Balearic Islands. We could beat the high season, just barely. We’ll have to make this happen.
Lobby in the Fundacion Telephonica in Madrid, Spain
Last night we had a drink in a bar/restaurant where Cervantes sat and wrote. The place has half a millennia of history. This morning we walked around the convent where they recently discovered Cervantes’ remains. There is so much to see in Madrid, we like to just get out there and wander. It helps that the Spanish government continues to fund first class art shows. We picked up a Fundación Cultura guide on our first day here and we tracked down shows with that.
A Vivian Meyer show opens tomorrow but we won’t be here. Yesterday we saw the same Joaquín Torres García show we had seen at MoMA a year ago. Today we walked to the Museo Del Romanticismo where the great Czech photographer, Viroslav Tichy, has a show that opens on June 3. We were two days early for that so I’ll have to satisfy myself with with Google image searches.
We found a funky, relaxed part of the city near the Museo, maybe due to the nearby colleges, and we asked the museum workers for a recommendation for dinner. We got with the program from the onset here and have been enjoying our main meal at midday. We sat on a park bench in Plaza de España in front of the central statue of Cervantes with Sancho Panza and Don Quijote and Peggi pointed out that we were right across from the sight of Goya’s “3rd of May,” the masterpiece we had seen a few days before.
Last night while wandering around, a most enjoyable activity and one that local couples, especially ones in our age bracket, appear to be doing in large numbers, we spotted some religious stores on Calle de la Paz. We made a note to check them out in the morning in hopes of adding a few gems to my holy card collection. This one place, “Santarrufina,” looked especially promising. The ornate sign above the door read “Compañia Española de Artículous Religiosos” and the year “1887” was written in an oval at both ends.
This morning we learned the store catered directly to churches with life sized crucifixes and chalices and priestly garments and incense burners and whole sets of the fourteen stations of the cross to choose from. We asked if they carried holy cards and they said no. A shop across the street from them had statues of Pope Francis and the Virgin in its windows and plenty of holy cards on a spinning rack inside but they were smaller than the standard size and more garishly printed with a goofy raised gold seal in the bottom corner. They had hundreds of saints but some of them were suspect. I bought a few of those, “Yemanya” and “Santísima Muerte.” Most of their goods were related to Catholicism but they also carried crystals. There was a giant one in the corner. And they had a section devoted to Buddha, a rack of essential oils and candles shaped like penises.
