PopWars

Maybe this is what old people do. Without a job you are left to fill your days as you please. And there are many rabbit holes out there. I recently posted a video of our old band performing “Heartbeat” at a concert at RIT in 1984 and the audio was a bit rough so I looked for a cassette recording the show. I had one but we had filled the cassette by the time we got to the second encore and Heartbeat was not on it. I found a cassette in that box from a show we did with Pylon at the Ritz but there wasn’t a date on it so I googled “Pylon Ritz NYC” and found a Stephen Holden review of the show from May 29, 1983. The review was not live text but a scan of the actual newspaper. I’m guessing we have access to this by subscribing to nyt.com.

It’s Peggi’s father’s birthday today so I looked up the front page of the paper for the day he was born. WW1 was still raging and there were no photographs in the paper at that time. The Committee for Democratic Control took out a half page ad that asks, “Do the People Want War?” It advances the notion that only Wall Street does.

I looked up Peggi’s birthdate next and found a Macy’s ad for Modern furniture. By the time of our birthdays the papers were full of photos and on my birthdate I found one of the Yankee’s manager, Casey Stengel, and catcher, Yogi Berra, arguing with the umpire in a game the Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox. And next to that photo a capsulized version of another New York team’s (the Giants) loss to the other Boston team (the Braves). Pitcher Warren Spahn, a favorite of mine when the team moved to Milwaukee, went nine innings and scored the game winning run after successfully bunting the tying run in.

Across from the sports page was a full page ad for Collier’s Magazine whose new issue featured an article about movie censorship. Westerns were being censured in some towns for too much violence, a comedy was banned because the star had divorced and a negro singing star’s scene was cut from a film because “there are plenty of good white singers.” A not so idyllic past.

Peggi once told me that winter is her favorite season. She was born in February and she suspected that might have something to do it. I love winter too especially when it is what hearty people call “a real winter,” long periods of below freezing temperatures with plenty of snow. I feel especially fortunate that we are able to share our enthusiasm for the season with each other.

I like shoveling snow and when they are calling for a significant amount I get out there a few times to reduce the load and just because it is fun. I shovel in my slippers when I grab the papers. We had a neighbor, last name “Painting” (which I thought was pretty cool), who would keep his driveway spotless in winter and we assumed he was obsessive. The neighbors surely think that of me now.

Winter naturally is a time to hunker down. We go out to ski in the woods and then come back to hunker (I assmue hunkering includes projects). Winter during a pandemic has been deep and rewarding. We miss going to to galleries but have found a bounty of beauty in the woods. The art pieces there are all three dimensional. Photos do not do them justice. The form of each tree is unique especially in decay.

This morning we found this big snow roll at the bottom of a hill near our ski path.

I don’t usually plan these these posts until I sit down but the lake was so dramatic this morning I knew I would use a photo of the beach. And if a person was in that photo it surely would have been Peggi, my valentine. But I didn’t take a photo of Peggi this morning, she took this one of me and it captures the wonder.

We skied through the woods, across the golf course (where there were so many people out it looked like a ski resort) and then out onto Eastman Lake. We spotted ski tracks out there and followed them, past a dozen or so ice fishing holes, all the way up to the big lake, the Great Lake, Ontario.

I am out on the big lake here, skiing between the two sand bars closest to shore. This was the twenty-fourth day in a row skiing. We are counting! The days are getting longer. It is 5:30 EST as I type this and it is still light out. I am already missing winter.

We skied along the lake and on the lake this morning. We traveled east to west between the small mound in the center of this photo and the line of bigger mounds nearer the open water. I’m guessing the ice mounds form where the sand bars are and if this winter continues, we’ll soon have bigger mounds on the next sand bar. Tomorrow will make twenty days in a row of perfect conditions.

This is the earliest picture of Steve that I have. He was my assigned roommate in the dorm my freshman year at Indiana University. This was our crew. I’m thinking the photo was by Rich or Kim since both them were missing. Steve was from New Castle, a small town outside of Indianapolis. His father owned a jewelry store on the town square and there was a Chrysler factory outside of town. Steve was already a junior and he drove a white Baracuda with Led Zeppelin’s first album in the 8-track player.

Steve called us yesterday to report in. He was excited to have an appointment this Wednesday for the first dose of the vaccine. He had bought GameStop stock, sold some, made fifty bucks a share and he was hanging on to some options. He works part time at a car dealer in Charleston and had to drive a new vehicle to the other side of Atlanta, a 600 mile round trip. He was upset because he missed his grandson’s basketball game that day where he scored five points.

Steve asked if he had told us that he was being sued. He hadn’t. He was driving a company car, about to make a left hand turn and And the bicyclist ran into each other. The guy (Steve called him a wino) was riding the wrong way down a one way street. He fell off his bike and he is claiming he has headaches and soft tissue damage.

Steve owns some rental property and the tenant says the water pressure is too weak. She is threatening to move out. Steve says he can’t work on the place because the woman is a hoarder and she has stuff all over the place.

Steve said his next door neighbor told him that Biden would not be inaugurated. Steve bet him one hundred dollars that he would be inaugurated. The neighbor has not paid.