PopWars

It finally happened. We were driving by the intersection of Westfall Road and East Henrietta and we WEREN’T in a hurry to get somewhere. So pulled over to look at these beautiful old buildings that have been all but swallowed up by nature. There are about ten buildings all in the same state of rot. I took a few photos and then spotted another couple taking shots. I asked my father what these buildings were and he said this one, Number 5, was a County run run TB ward and he remembered visiting a friend here who was suffering from TB.

Number 5 is the biggest of the buildings in the complex and the ivy has not engulfed it like it has the others. The Visual Studies Building in yesterday’s post recently had its ivy removed. Ivy sucks the moisture out of the mortar joints and it eventually found its way inside the the VSW building. This is an ongoing problem here. I remember Dave Mahoney in the late sixties up on a later removing ivy from this same building. I used to meet him for breaks and we’d walk up to the corner store for cheese crackers and a coke.

I was talking to our neighbors down the street while their dogs were yapping away. I took this shot and our neighbor said, “Oh you’d like pictures of our dogs?” I can give you hundreds of pictures of our dogs”. I said no thanks but then I got to thinking what that would be like. I could make a scrapbook of them like I did with pictures the former owner of our house left here. He had a wandering telephoto that sought out women’s butts. I break the scrapbook out at parties if the mood is right.

Bruce O’Neal is the best tree surgeon in town but I bet he wouldn’t want to be called a surgeon. He stopped over to look at a few our dead limbs and he was talking about his daughter going to school for nursing and then switching to criminal justice. His advice to her – “Money does grow on trees.” Our trees.

Next blog please. So Many Records has an sensational entry up there now, “He Cried” by the Shangri-Las, an over the top song with Incredible production. It was fun hear Peggi singing along as I gave it a spin. Why can’t they make like this anymore.

I wasn’t going to take a picture of these orange shelves in their obsessed with state until I saw the way our Hoosier Boy box looked on them. The box was on the way to the trash after all these years. I had electrical parts in it or something. We had this box since Bloomington. It reminds me of the tomatoes we grew in southern Indiana. I’d start with one stake and then another on the same plant and by the end of the season I’d have five stakes holding up the same overloaded plant. Of course the summers there were so hot and humid they would take the life right out of a person. That is unless you were hanging out at the quarries.

We’ve had a generous amount of rain this summer, not enough to keep you indoors but enough so we haven’t had to water the garden. And there has been just the right amount to produce a wide variety of mushrooms in the woods. We’ve seen the ones that look like donuts and the brilliant orange ones that that woman ate and – I can’t remember if she died but she got in the paper for eating them. The ones above look like tropical coral.

We live vicariously through our friends and neighbors, Rick and Monica. They take vacations and we enjoy those. Tonight they went bowling over at that place that has only six lanes on Merchants Road.

We stopped down at the pool today after our walk and we were talking to one of the neighbors about the new people that have moved onto our street. We told him we had met them yesterday but neither Peggi or I could remember what the guy’s name was. Our neighbor set us straight. He too had talked to them the day before. They moved here from Reno and our neighbor heard that the woman telecommutes to work somewhere in the bay area. He asked us if we telecommute. Peggi said, “I guess so, we never leave the house.” I am still trying to imagine what telecommuting is.