Author: Paul

We drove out El Rincon in Sodus but they were closed. The website said they were open on Tuesdays but the place was dark and we were starved by the time we got there. Opened by the wife of what they used to call a migrant worker this place in the middle of miles of fruit orchards on the southern shore of Lake Ontario still has the best Mexican food around. Muy Tipico! The ride back did give me the opportunity to photograph this dreamy sign.

Speaking of dreams I awoke from one last night and scratched my head. I thought I felt what I imagined to be a deer tick, all bloated and engorged in my scalp. I didn’t want to wake Peggi so I put a piece of masking tape on the spot so that I would remember to have her take a look at it in the morning. Turned out to be just another mosquito bite but I couldn’t get the masking tape out of my hair so I left it in there. I had to take the car into Jeromes for new brakes and Mike, the mechanic, was showing me the corrosion on the parts he was going to have to remove when he interrupted his presentation to tell me I had a piece of tape in my hair. I told him I knew that but I was having a hard time getting it out. I tried swimming but that didn’t seem to loosen it so I just took a pair of scissors to it.

People often comment on my bike saying things like, “Wow, that’s an old one.” Actually it’s not all that old and all sorts of retro bikes are back on the street. What these people might mean is that this thing has been through the ringer. It’s a fat tire, one speed, back pedal brake, city cruiser but I put a sprocket with less teeth than the standard issue on the back wheel so the bike is in like sixth or seventh gear on a ten speed.

I used to ride to work downtown in rain, snow or shine to work. Use to pass Arthur Shawcross on his bike as he was headed to work at G&G Foods on East Main. The bike had a fair amount of rust on it and it was hard to tell what color it was. So I took a wire brush to it and Peggi buffed the rims with some steel wool. Today I painted the frame Rust-oleum Sunburst Yellow. I’m thinking safety after what happened to our friend.

Last time I painted a bike was back in Bloomington where I went to school for a few semesters. I used some brown, lead-based paint that we bought at the dollar store on Kirkwood. I was living in a trailer and mowing lawns for the University. My boss smoked Lucky Strikes and had mouth cancer. His jaw was deformed and he had open sores on his lips. First time I ever saw what cancer looks like.

A thunderstorm passed while we were eating dinner on the porch. It never rained here but it couldn’t have been more than a mile a way. That makes it one of the few days this summer that it hash’t rained. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying it’s green around here. Our tomato plants need more that one stake to keep them out of the mud.

We stopped in to Abilene over the weekend to hear JD McPherson. The Goner’s bass player, Brian Williams, recommended them saying “they are really well thought out,” the exact opposite of Margaret Explosion. They did sound good but the place was too crowded to get a glimpse. It was great to hear sax and piano featured in a timeless R&R setting.

I’ve always kept scrapbooks. Who doesn’t? And I have a whole shelf full of them that won’t make any sense to anyone when I’m gone. They make sense to me and I’m still here so I put one online. Eventually I will have all my photos on Flickr, my movies on YouTube, my sign collection on Tumblr and my scrapbooks on Issuu. What am I forgetting?