PopWars

We hadn’t been swimming in the lake since we sold our boat five years ago. We hiked through the woods with Duane on Saturday and then followed the path around the pond to the lake. There were some loud picnics going on up on Log Cabin Road and there were a number people fishing from the edge of the pond. One little kid was reeling in the tiniest sunfish when we walked by. His dad was helping him get it off the line. He was all excited. Lake Ontario’s water felt warm and refreshing at the same time.

We brought the paper down to the street pool on Sunday and we were the only ones there. I read the reviews of the new Woodstock books to Peggi revealing who was tripping while playing and how much the bands were paid. Someone was quoted as saying, “If the transportation was better, ninety per cent of the people would have left. I was there a full day early and watched the soundcheck but eventually left on the second night. Dave Mahoney thought we going to starve to death and he may have. He had to eat when he was hungary. And I read that thousands of people left there sleeping bags there. My brother came home with about ten and gave them away. I always assumed it was because people couldn’t find their campsite but it was because they were full of mud. We went down there with no sleeping bags or camping equipment and no food but we did have tickets that we sent away for through WSAY.

Our neighbors, Rick and Monica, came home from their vacation last night and Monica was wearing a Woodstock t-shirt that she bought at Target. She said some skateboarders that she was starring at flashed the peace sign at them. They missed Joey’s party. One of our other neighbors asked if they could use our driveway on Saturday because they were having a big party. We said sure but no one parked in our driveway. It might have had something to do with the arrow on the sign that Joey’s mother made. It was pointing away from our driveway.

Nod closed out the three day Boulder Fest in style and when I say “in style” I mean cowboy style (with disco ball). There were a handful of dancers (Nod is a great dance band) and then there was this cowboy doing his thing. The second song in Nod’s set was “World Still Wants You” and it is one of our favorites.

We planned to eat outdoors on our deck and we just sat down when it started raining AGAIN so we moved indoors. I saw a figure out front in the middle of a torrential downpour and watched as he moved toward our front window. It was our neighbor, Rick, testing his new rain gear. He was smiling and he had what appeared to be a sacred heart on his chest. It was a reflection from a light in our kitchen.

After dinner we checked out the opening of the bi-annual Rochester Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery. This is always a fun event and we were really looking forward to it. We were surprised to find parking spots in the lot and the grounds were eerily quiet. They had to move the outdoor band in because of the rain and maybe the rain scared people away. Or maybe there is just damn much going on here in the warm summer months. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that they only had twenty eight artists in the show.

One of them did manage to fill a good portion of the space with an inflatable elephant. You usually can’t see the show at these openings but we had plenty of room to take it in. I didn’t see my “Local Crime Faces” over there because they were not accepted. We found Anne Havens’s “Box Of Sighs”. We hung out by the box and marveled at it and the onlookers as they discovered it was making noises. We filled out ballots with Anne’s name on them for the “Popular Vote Award” while Bleu Cease was filling out his ballots at the same time and we presume in the same way.