Category: Life Is A Spell

Electricity and water make strange bedfellows. Our neighbors were taking a midnight dip in the street pool and the underwater light went out. None of the current members remember ever having to replace it so we collectively stumbled through the whole process. There was an engineer involved so I could never catalog all of the methodical steps.

We waited til the end of the season and drained the pool enough to figure out how to get it out of its recessed home. We discovered a cord coiled up inside, long enough to permit changing the bulb while pool is full. The bulb itself is enclosed in the housing and the Pleasantville New York Pool Company that made the fixture warns you to only burn the bulb when the housing is submerged. We struggled to break the seal on the housing and almost destroyed the thing trying to get it open. Some members were already talking about getting rid of it and plugging up the recess when we managed to break it open. Peggi ordered a new bulb online and I stood on a ladder in the water and put the fixture back in its place.

I haven’t been out enough to grab any new photos so I reached into my vault for this one. Sort of picked it at random. Steve was our mailman for about twenty years. We used to trade music and he used our bathroom most days. And we got an earful of the new post office regulations as they rolled them out, efficiency methods that took the life out of his job. You know how you see someone out of context and it’s like wow. Peggi must have been driving when I grabbed this.

Our current mail person is a woman. Our neighbor says she’s “cute as a button”. She delivers from her truck and turns around in our driveway. It’s not the same.

The big pumpkin I pictured here a few days ago has officially escaped the garden. It broke off the vine under its own weight and dropped to the ground. We carried it home but don’t expect it to last until Halloween.

There are so many August birthdays in our family that we celebrate them all at once at my brother Tim’s place. It was his birthday in fact. My mom was born in August too but we already celebrated her birthday. My brother, Fran, who celebrated his birthday a few days ago, brought the corn. He soaked it in the husks for ten minutes or so and then threw it on the grill the way guys do. It was fantastic.

Another brother, John, also born in August, brought this old picture of our great grandfather to give to our dad. My dad, the family historian, said his grandfather was born in Ireland and worked in the shoe factories of Manchester, England before moving to Rochester. He guessed this photo was taken in front of his Hayward Avenue home.

The newest member of the the August club, our niece’s daughter, Lennon, made her first appearance at one week of age. Named after John, she would have been named Jagger (but not after Mick) if she was a boy. She wasn’t even big enough to make a racket when she cried.

Tom Kohn wasn’t even there last night to see how the performers he booked for the “Fourteen Fridays” at the Village Gate went over. They packed the courtyard, drew more than any of the bands. It got me thinking about how bands are overrated. What people really want is entertainment.

Rick Simpson from “Just Foolin’ Around” had performed between Margaret Explosion sets the last two years and this year Tom gave them their own night. Rick lined up a vaudeville show with jugglers, hula hoop dancers, a saw player, an accordion/percussion player, a string duo performing Neil Young songs, a story teller/sound effects dude that reminded us of Tall Tales Audio and best of all a batch of corny jokes that Rick delivered as he he introduced each performer. We watched a guy juggle five volleyballs. Bob Mahoney was pulled from the audience to assist in an Houdini style escape gag. Two hours flew by before the fire juggling finale.

Peggi and I had seen a show like this in Europe, a traveling mini circus with a handful of performers wearing many hats and this show was every bit as good. It is possible to appeal to all ages without the dumb down, smarmy antics of, you know, the stuff that makes you want to be anti family. Rick, like Pee Wee Herman, rocked the open air, all ages house last last night.

On our way back from Pike we stopped along a dirt road near this batch of windmills. We have seen before, mostly in Spain, but we had never gotten so close to one. They’re sort loud but beautiful. I say, “Not in my backyard but my maybe in my neighbors”.