PopWars

High winds were forecast until 4 PM so we planned a route that would circle our house in case we had to run for cover. It was raining when we left and pouring before we got to the end of our street. A small stream of water was running along the edge of the road at the top of the big hill on Hoffman. It grew bigger on the way down. Jack Koffman was out at the road picking up his paper. We surprised him. He said, “It’s raining guys.”

There is a big drain across the street from him where the runoff goes down and then under the road before emptying into the creek. The creek was overflowing as it raced further toward the lake. Tom from Whispering Pines was out by the road in rain gear. He laughed and said, “You guys are hard core.” He pointed to the impromptu stream that was flowing across his property, run off from his son’s ATV tracks, and then to the drain that he had just freed up in hopes of keeping his yard from flooding.

By the time we got to the marsh the rain was letting up. We confirmed that it is just as pretty on a dark, wet, dreary day as it is on a sunny one. The birds didn’t seem to mind.

When the 4 o’clock hour passed we went out with a wheelbarrow and picked up sticks around the house. We use them for kindling and may just start a fire tonight now the temperature has dropped.

The tops of these trees are turning green. It seems like a miracle. And the call of the red winged blackbird alerted me to this observation.

When we lived in the city, Carrol’s was our corner bar. We’d walk up there just before noon on the 17th. Shamrock Jack’s is the closet Irish place to us now but that has gotten crazy. I think already had a huge tent set up in their parking lot last when everything shut down. You can’t beat crowds there so we looked for greener pastures.

Google Maps estimated it would take us an hour and seven minutes to walk to the Bayside in Webster. We called before leaving home and ordered two corned beef sandwiches to go. I put two beers in my pocket and Peggi and I celebrated Saint Patty’s at a picnic table overlooking the lake across the street from the restaurant. The McKeil Spirit was just pulling out of the Port of Rochester after dropping a load cement at Turning Point terminal. The sun came out while we we eating and turned the water turquoise.

We looked in on the premature post-pandemic scene at Shamrock Jack’s on our way back. The picnic tables in the parking lot looked safe but the bar was crowded and loud. A good place to test our vaccine but we moved on.

We learned yesterday that the last of the Tierneys has passed, my mom’s cousin, from the Maloney/Tierney side. We will toast her with some cherry water tonight.

We nit meeting around. We’ve picked some forsythia clipping at different stages and their yellow blossoms are popping in our living room. We brought home a few clippings of fragrant witch hazel and our house smells like butterscotch. We have our seed packets out and the little plastic pots. The garden season has begun. The red wing blackbirds are our official bird and they are back, the early arrivals anyway, atop the tall grasses and dead trees that surround the marsh. Their call stops us dead in our tracks.

We had a 3 o’clock appointment at Kathy’s house today to sit by the bay and watch the birds. Mostly gulls fishing at the edge of what’s left of the ice cover, but a few Junior Bald Eagles floated overhead. Kathy haunts estate sales, the tail end of them that is, when prices have been slashed, so she had a box of binoculars. Mine were made by Bushnell and Peggi found a Sears pair that worked for her. We spent most of our time looking at the houses on the other side in Webster. Some had staircases built into the hillside that descended five or six stories at least. The temperature was seventy when we left at five and the two hours felt like a mini vacation.

I feel like the ground hog in Punxsutawney at the beginning of February wondering if it is really safe to come out now that we have had the second dose of the Moderna vaccine. We are one step closer to feeling comfortable hanging out with vaccinated friends inside sans mask, playing with the band, visiting NYC or even traveling to Europe.

A handmade sign at Aman’s read “Face Masks 25% Off.” We walked home with another $2.99 bushel of apples and will make more apple sauce in the next few days. Peggi and I each got red peppers. Didn’t realize that til we got to the cash register. I was in the cooler picking out some Guinness for the upcoming holiday.

As I mentioned earlier we couldn’t decide who to root for when Real Madrid met Atlético Madrid. It turned out to be really easy. Atlético was on fire in the first half and they scored an early goal. Two star players were back in the line up, the Belgian Yannick Carrasco (injury) and Englishman Kieran Trippier (gambling suspension). The second half got tighter. I think Atlético was tired. Carlos Casemiro, the Brazilian, set up the Frenchman, Karim Benzema in the final minutes and tied it for Real. Final score as it should be Madrid 1, Madrid 1.

The ice formations on the lake are starting to recede and will go pretty fast with the 60 degree weather. I will miss it. It was the best winter ever.

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.