What to do on a cold day?

There are a host of things one could do - I likely chose the wrong one!

At least I stayed in doors all day - except to run to the mailbox. Alas, nothing there worth getting. What I did decide to do was to rummage in my hard drive for something I put together early last year and to re-create it in a new format. Sort of like deciding to make a different shaped sausage, I guess.

The reasoning behind this madness emanated from a collision of two or three loosely related events. This time last year, I was embarking on my 'Bucket List Trip' - which was to include meeting a few people in Wales that I had conversed with on-line, on-the-phone, on-Skype, etc. I was to spend part of my trip in Wales on St David's Day - March 1st. This year, on St David's Day, I will be on this side of the pond - possibly conversing in one or more of those modes with one of the people who 'hosted' me last year - and the following day, will be 'lunching' with a group of people here who will gather for their annual St David's Day celebration at Dressel's Pub in the Central West End of St Louis. Some of those people are, like I, ex-pats from Wales; others are descendant's of emigrants from Wales. Many, I am sure, have heard of various parts of Wales, but may not know where those parts - I'll call them 'Pieces' - are (or were). So, that set me to thinking I should give them the chance to learn a little of their ancestral homeland.

Back to the 'Bucket List Trip' for a moment - one of the acquaintances I met while in Wales, happens to run a website - called World Wide Celtic Community * (I call it WWCC) - to which I make frequent written and photographic or video contributions. I recently inquired of him about posting PowerPoint materials to that site. He informed me of an alternate vehicle - though the simple fact is that I CAN upload PowerPoint files there (if less than 5 MB). Well, the 3rd-party that he suggested to me, has the potential for tossing my creativity to place it may not otherwise go. So, the allure of that got me into the mode of posting a few 'second-hand' PPS items there in the past few days - and having 'got the bit between my teeth', I decided it was time to combine all these aforementioned reasons and knuckle down to make that different sausage. The presentation I am about to unleash contains many 'hot link' urls - but I am not sure what happens if you click on one of those in the midst of watching the slideshow. If it kicks you out, just cut and paste them into your browser or clipboard for later viewing. You may also download the PPS file that I have uploaded to my Swansea Jack's Stuff blog on WWCC.* You can also open it there - complete with 'hot links' - see, I told you it this was about making sausages!      

* Updated mid June 2014 - the WWCC website may be 'going under' - if it does, then these two hot links will become as cold as a mackerel - at which time I will remove them, but that will not affect your ability to view the 'Pieces of Wales' link posted below.

If you haven't already fallen asleep, take a look at my latest endeavor - that should do the trick. Enjoy - or be bored:

Pieces of Wales

I am going to get a hot cup of coffee and sit by the fire!

One year later

On February 21st 2013, I was about to embark on my 'Bucket List Trip' - a trip lasting until early April, and recounted in several postings here. On this date (24th), I was over the jet lag of a 3,000 mile flight into London, and was sitting in Merry Olde England, preparing the next leg of my trip - by train - westward about 200 miles.

I arrived in the 'Land of My Fathers' (Wales - known as Cymru to Welsh speakers) on February 27th. I visited old friends, 'never-met-before-in-person' friends and visited places with similar affinities - including a few shown in this slideshow:

Land of My Fathers (author unknown)

G.O.D. knew best!

Expecting a sermon? No – notice I said ‘G.O.D.’ – not ‘GOD’ – though had I said the latter, that should bring no argument either. I refer to the ‘Grand Old Duke’ (of York).

The Grand Old Duke of York

He had 10,000 men

He marched up to the top of the hill

And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up

And when they were down, they were down,

But when they were only half-way up

They were neither up nor down!

No matter what we may think of his (G.O.D.’s) regimental calisthenics, we do owe it to him that he was ‘prepositionally’ precise – all without the aid of ‘Sat-Nav’!

You see, this is all about conventions and whether one should say (of their journeys) that they ‘went up’ – or ‘went down’ to a certain place. Leaving aside the double-entendre associated with that randy pair – Christopher Robin (and Alice) and their Buckingham Palace escapade we can move on to the purely geographic, or cardinal points (sorry for the pun) of this discussion. 

My ‘directional references’ seem habitually at odds with those of my wife. She, living in (more or less) the center of Ireland, would say that she would go DOWN to Belfast, and UP to Cork. Now, I could understand that if her selections were out of disdain for the former and reverence for the latter – but, no; they seemed be founded in no such ‘logic’!  Mine, on the other hand, are totally ‘Spockian’ – and given her starting point, would be the opposite of hers. In fact, neither of those locations offers very many starting points from which HER directions could possible be correct. Let me expand the geographic setting for better comprehension of this.

I think almost everyone (I dare not poll my wife on this) would, if they lived in the Northern Hemisphere, say they would go DOWN to Australia – or to ANY place in the Southern Hemisphere. Crocodile Dundee would just as likely, if sitting under a billabong tree, say he would be going UP to London to see the Queen (if invited, of course). While that all seems quite, well ‘OBVIOUS’, consider that our Aussie friend’s ‘matey’ in Glasgow would likely pack his best trews and sporran to go DOWN to London for the Royal meeting.

You see, it becomes a matter of the cardinal points – North and South. Well, how about those other two – East and West? Ah!  More difficult now – no longer a concept of going UP (for going Northward) and DOWN (for going Southward)  – but a sideways element to add to the confusion!  Have no fear: cartographers and those who dabble in such have a convention. Not one of those ‘conventions’ where people go on the pretext of doing or learning something, but instead just focus on revelry and debauchery; I mean they have that orderliness of thought; that kind of ‘convention’. Such a convention in the minds of these map-makers (‘cartographers’ are not people prone to hauling hay in a contraption drawn by a donkey) envisages that the ‘big-bang’, the Genesis, the Darwinism, the beginning (or origin) of directional science is at some place on the bottom left corner of page. In maps, that is the extreme south-west corner. That is why, when looking at co-ordinates on (most) maps, one sees ‘Eastings’ increasing in numerical value (and so, ‘UP' toward the east); similarly with ‘Northings’; the further north one goes, the greater (and so ‘UP’) the ‘Northing’. Back to the Irish dilemma for a moment: the ‘origin’ there would be someplace near Dingle Bay on the coast of Kerry and so almost everywhere in Ireland has to be ‘UP’ from that point – whether expressed in terms of going UP to the East, or going UP to the North.

The US has such a convention for its Interstate Highways. Those traversing (generally) north-south are odd numbered, and those primarily aligned east-west bear even numbers. Each increases in numeric value toward the north-east. For example Interstate 5 runs up the west coast of the US and Interstate 95 runs up the east coast. Interstate 10 lies near the Gulf of Mexico while Interstate 90 traverses the country almost in sight of Canada!  If you happen to be lost in the US, look out the window – if you see the junction of Interstates 44 and 55 – you are in St Louis; call me and stop by for a cuppa!  Clearly (see the ‘proviso’ below), if your Interstate number is increasing, you are going east and so ‘UP’, or north, and so ‘UP’ - to your destination. Of course, the corollary exist; as ‘your number’ decreases, you are going west – and ‘DOWN’; or going south – and ‘DOWN’.  

For example, start at Times Square in New York - and if you can get out of there un-mugged or assailed by a New York cabbie - head west towards Arizona; you will be going DOWN to it. I was there in the early ‘70s, and yes, was ‘standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona’.  OK – now the ‘proviso’: not everyone STARTS their journey at the SAME south-west corner. Even if you stood (as I did) on that corner in Winslow, Arizona – there are places that are further south and west of there; Yuma is one! You could even be lucky enough to meet up there with someone driving eastward in a flat-bed Ford UP from Yuma! You see, there are places that are south and west of YOUR point of origin. So, you have to view yourself (at YOUR point of origin, not in the bottom left corner of the page – but at the center (are we all a little ego-centric anyway?) of your page (your universe).

Conventions are not always straight forward (no pun intended – not directly, anyway!  LOL) because the world, from your point of origin, is not one of hemispheres that that lie simply on either side of north-south and east-west axes. Would it were that simple! Take the apparent conundrum of (well, me for instance): here I am in the center of my world (my point of origin) in St Louis. I plan to go (orange line) to, say, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Let’s, for folk in the UK, say you are in London – going (orange line) to Manchester.

Now clearly Minneapolis (and Manchester) is north of our point of origin, so we should be going ‘UP’ to that our destination. But wait! Minneapolis (and Manchester) is also westward of our point of origin – so shouldn’t that make the case (‘a la’ the westward trip from New York to Winslow) of going ‘DOWN’ to that place? Oh my! The solution is that the hemispheres we envisage are NOT about the north-south and the east-west axes stated above (and shown in black on the maps), but are on either side of an axis (green on the maps and aligned north-west to south-east) that bisect the ‘conundrum quadrants’ – the north-west and the south-east quadrants. So, in this case, Minneapolis (and Manchester) being in the 'dominant part' of that divided (here, the north-west) quadrant, dictates a journey (that orange line) that is ‘UP’.

The REAL conundrum is in cases where the destination is precisely on that (green) axis – as may be if I were to travel to Des Moines, Iowa – or you to travel from your home in London, to Birmingham. Why would either of us be so daft?  In such cases, the direction of your journey is as much a ‘coin flip’ as G.O.D.’s mid-point stand-off – ‘. . . neither up nor down!’

To this point, we been talking in a two-dimensional arena and there are, or course – or there should be - some intuitive exceptions. Who could rightly assert that Mr. Haikiti of Tokyo would leave his sushi bar, with Nikon in hand, to go DOWN to Mt Everest to photograph its majesty – even thought that mount is clearly in a westerly ‘downstream’ direction, as well as (albeit marginally) ‘downstream’ in its relative latitude - from his point of origin. Damn; these Orientals are so much smarter than we and being in the east, clearly have the upper hand!   

     

   

Thank you, Mr. Bell – maybe!

The Mr. Bell I speak of is Alexander Graham Bell. Never heard of him? Think ‘Ma Bell’. Not heard of her? May I suggest ‘Google’?

OK – good. Now we are on the same page – as far as characters are concerned!

Just what prompted this posting will be revealed further down the page, but first let’s take a trip into time – 'sans Tardis'.

Mr. Bell bears ultimate responsibility for this, and similar devices:

In the USA (short for United States of America) we call it a ‘cell’ (short for ‘cellular’) ‘phone (short for ‘telephone’), whereas in the UK (short for ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) they call it a ‘mobile’ (short for ‘mobile’) phone.  

As you can see, this one of its forebears certainly would not have been able to make any sort of claim to mobility.

As you may have noticed, back in the dinosaur age (a period in which I made my first encounters with Mr. Bell’s creation), the means of entering the desired ‘phone number’ was not by poking a finger or thumb (or both) on to a screen (much less simply speaking to the device and commanding it to connect to the required number), but one had to insert said digit into a hole in a ‘dial’ and rotate that dial to its stopping point, let the dial spring back to its starting point – and then repeat the process for as many times as was required to complete the desired ‘phone number’. That is why the contraption was called a ‘rotary phone’:

Easy-peasy, eh?  Au contraire, Pierre!  Such was the case in the later stages of the dinosaur age. I grew up in at the dawning of that age. No! Not the Age of Aquarius; pay attention here!  I am talking of the age when probably fewer than 1 in 200 people had telephones. I was not one, but my brother was.

In the days when I was conferring with the people in the US (short for USA, short for . . . . ) to discuss their employment offer and immigration arrangements, it became necessary for me to undergo quite an involved process that would blow people’s minds today. First, I had to catch a bus from my house to downtown Swansea then catch another bus to a different part of Swansea (Townhill) where my brother lived. That 40 minute expedition was the rapid part of the process. Next, I had to pick up his phone, insert a finger (it wasn’t important which) into the hole marked ‘0’ and rotate it clockwise. That action brought a lady’s voice from the a series of tiny holes on one end of the handle-shaped device announcing, “This is the operator. May I help you?”  I then had to speak into the ‘spittoon’ on the other end of ‘the handle’ and say, “Yes, I want to place a reverse-charge * call to the United States”.

[* I think the Yanks called it a ‘collect call’]

After providing her with the 10-digit number, along with the number of my brother’s phone, she announced that she would ‘call me back when a line becomes available’. Like ‘the line’ was a plastic tube running from Swansea to the USA and only so much stuff could be put into the funnel at one time and I had to wait until it was empty before MY stuff could be put into the tube! It was usually an hour or so before the tube was unblocked and ready for me! The bell on my brother’s phone would ring, I’d pounce from my slumber to grab the handle and wait for the voice to say, “Go ahead now, sir. Your party in America is on the line.”  I had to repeat that ‘ordeal’ several times before I was to arrive on this side of the pond a few weeks later. 

Remember that second picture above – the one with the wooden box?  That is petty much like the one that sat on the wall in my wife’s home in Ireland. Actually, it had a few more holes and wires alongside it. Her home served as the Post Office – and all phone calls into and out of that tiny village went through that box on the wall in her home. Long before I met her, she was one of those voices in the phone receiving and filling requests for phone calls ‘to America’. [Nobody ever said ‘the US’, ‘the USA’, or ‘the States’ – it was always, ‘America’ – as if everyone understood it to mean ‘that part of North America that is the USA, and not Canada or Mexico, which are also in North America, and certainly not anywhere in Central or South America. Her home village is called ‘Dowra’ – the first town on the River Shannon – and the Post Office (Offig an Phost in Gaelic) had the unique number: ‘DOWRA 1’. Oh what a fun number!

Soon (and for several years after) we arrived in the US, the ritual of my phone-treks to my brother’s house were relived – in reverse, but with an added twist!  To call ‘home’ (to her parents in Dowra) my wife had to first get an operator in the ‘Ma Bell’ system here in the US of A (not often do we hear that variant, eh?) and request ‘a line to Ireland’. That sometimes was available immediately, but NOT around Christmas time. At that time of year, the trans-Atlantic tube and funnel was full – from stuff going the other way! It often took a couple hours to get unblocked. The bigger problem was trying to convince the ‘Ma Bell’ voice that the entirety of the phone number wee wished to connect to was, in fact, ‘DOWRA 1’ – nothing more, and obviously, nothing less!  “But it can’t be. It HAS to have more numbers than that” the ‘Ma Bell’ know-it-all insisted. [Keep in mind, the entire town only had 6 or 7 telephones; there were only 80 people in the place for God’s sake! But, being Ireland, and by that same divine providence, the town had 8 pubs!]  My wife firmly (and with the grace and patience from a supply that had long been depleted before my turn in line came around) explained, “I lived there for 20+ years during which time I placed and received thousands of calls, to and from the United States, Canada, England, Australia and South Africa – all through that switchboard there. The number is DOWRA 1 (ONE)!”  Mercifully, at same stage – many years later, telephone number there acquired a string of numbers and the need for ‘Ma Bell ladies’ became obsolete. There was, as if by way of an ‘in-your-face’ satisfaction, a period (in the early ‘70s) when I was working in an equally tiny town in Utah; when my wife needed to phone me at the 8-room motel there, she would ask the ‘Ma Bell lady’ “I wish to be connected to Hanksville 12, please” – and I’m sure she grinned broadly at the irony of it. 

Fast forward to the modern era – people use their cell phones, mobiles, iPhones, Androids and ‘whatevers’ as much, if not more, for things other than making phone calls. That is a whole other topic.

In our house, we also have (what some call ‘land-lines’) – a sort of quasi ‘mobile’ phone system: a base station with a message center and 4 ‘satellite’ cradles into which cordless phones can sit to be recharged. Each unit will display an identity (name and number) of any (well, most) incoming caller; ‘caller ID’. That, Mr Bell, is a great means of ‘screening’ calls and selectively ignoring those incoming calls that may be unwanted. However, it used to require leaving whatever task one was engaged in, to look at the on-phone screen to see the ID. Our latest system has an audio announcement – so now we only have to listen to the ID being announced, and do not need to see the small on-phone screen. [I have frequently got one from ‘1-111-111-1111’ – that is hilarious listening to the automated system doing what sounds like a Mel Tillis impersonation!] Better yet, when watching TV, if the latter’s volume ‘drowns’ out the phone’s audio announcement, the ID appears on the TV screen too! Those, Mr. Bell (along with the ‘magic’ of cell-phone capabilities) have me in your gratitude and wishing that you may be enjoying haggis in heaven every day – not just on Hogmanay. 

I KNOW it is not Alexander Graham Bell’s fault, but there is one wee bit of thistle in me trews that I canna abide, mon! That is the robo-callers. Those feckers that have a computer dial my phone, but leave no message when I ignore the call, letting my answering machine announce “Please leave a message”. The bastards repeatedly do it – until their ‘controller-fiend’ concludes there is nobody at that number. NEVER pick up the receiver – most of the time there is nobody there, but that action lets ‘Mr Fiend’ know there IS a live (but stupid) body in that house; he WILL call back, then. I have received one such sequence 4 or 5 times in the past few days from 1-816-482-3222 with the caption (visible and audible) saying ‘IMPORTANT’. Duh!  So damned important they don’t leave a message?  Scam & Spam. It’s enough to make me want to tell them (and, you, Alex G Bell) just what Charles Krauthammer, in pages 61 – 63 of his new best-seller, ‘Things that Matter’ (ISNB 978-0-385-34917-8) so eloquently calls ‘the deuce’!

The Welsh St Valentine

Oh yes - it is not only those 'Latins' who can be passionate. We Welsh, though maybe not first-choice candidates for 'personnae dramatis' in 'Fifty Shades of Grey', are given to affairs of the heart. Setting aside all the snide innuendos regarding affinities to ruminant mammals of the genus Ovis, we have been known to woo one another. Not always successfully, as anyone familiar with that beautiful song, 'Myfanwy', will attest.

Enough! I am here today, January 25th, to alert you to just what this date means. It is known in the Welsh community as St Dwywen's Day. Here then, is a piece I compiled (in another forum) to inform you of that event:

St Dwynwen's Day is celebrated in Wales on 25 January and commemorates the patron saint of friendship and love. She is also the patron saint of sick animals.

St Dwynwen, also known as Dwyn, Donwen, and Donwenna, lived in Anglesey during the 5th century and was, by all accounts, one of the prettiest of Brychan Brycheiniog's 24 daughters.

The following text is extracted from the National Museum of Wales article of St Dwynwen. The photos are mine, taken during my Bucket List Trip (see elsewhere in these blogpostings) early in 2013. 

The story goes that Dwynwen fell in love with Maelon Dafodrill, but unfortunately her father had already arranged that she should marry someone else. Maelon was so outraged that he raped Dwynwen and left her.

In her grief Dwynwen fled to the woods, where she begged God to make her forget Maelon. After falling asleep, Dwynwen was visited by an angel, who appeared carrying a sweet potion designed to erase all memory of Maelon and turn him into a block of ice.

God then gave three wishes to Dwynwen. First she wished that Maelon be thawed, second that God meet the hopes and dreams of true lovers and third that she should never marry. All three were fulfilled, and as a mark of her thanks, Dwynwen devoted herself to God's service for the rest of her life.

Remains of Dwynwen's church can be seen today on the island of Llanddwyn, off the coast of Anglesey. 

During the 14th century, on visiting the island, the poet Dafydd ap Gwilym witnessed a golden image of Dwynwen inside the church, and was bold enough to request her help as a messenger between himself and Morfudd, the girl he hoped to win — despite the fact that Morfudd was already married!

Also situated on the island is Dwynwen's well, where, allegedly, a sacred fish swims, whose movements predict the future fortunes and relationships of various couples. Visitors to the well believe that if the water boils while they are present, then love and good luck will surely follow.

The popularity and celebration of St Dwynwen's day has increased considerably in recent years, with special events, such as concerts and parties, often held and greetings cards printed. Although still not as popular as St Valentine's Day in February, St Dwynwen is certainly becoming better-known among today's population of Wales.

Read more here: St Dwynwen  - and see my photos:

To be (a busy bee) - or not to be (one)

A TRUE 'multi-tasker' conducts several ('multiple' -hence 'multi' - doh!) tasks simultaneously (concurrently, if you wish). I'm not sure what (or if there is a) term is applied to describe one who performs multiple tasks consecutively. Maybe 'wife'?  

I guess I have 'worn both hats' - at different times, of course!  

The opposite is often said of a person who does NOT possess that 'multi-tasking' attribute:  '(S)he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time!'  For me, that is a non-starter; I do not chew gum, no matter what other activity I may choose to be involved in. 

My most recent 'multi-tasking' was as I penned this - I typed and and I ate lunch, concurrently!  Not exactly a major accomplishment, but at least it is illustrative. Perhaps another, equally mundane, is when I walk on the treadmill (performing the task of 'exercising') whilst watching a recorded football match on TV (performing the task of 'entertaining' myself). Again, not a Herculean task, but they are two of MY tasks in my retirement. As I progressed through my career, there must have been more worthwhile and important occurrences of 'multi-tasking' - but I care not to even attempt recalling them. I'd be happy to hear (or not) of others' endeavors in that vain.

I am glad to report that I have absolutely NOTHING that needs to be done today! However, there are a few things that I intend to do.

I will pull out the applicable Federal and State forms, my check book, pen and postage stamps to mail my quarterly estimated taxes. These do not need to be postmarked until the 15^th, but I’ll fill them out today and gleefully wait until Wednesday to mail them.

Next, I’ll go to the hardware store to buy a piece of PVC piping to use as an electric cord conduit to install a spotlight for my house. The conduit will be buried so that my wife won’t trip over the cord as she pushes the lawn mower around the lawn once or twice every week this summer. It will be deep enough, tree roots permitting, so that the tines on the lawn-aeration machine won’t puncture it. 

There is no rain in the forecast for today so I’ll be unable to ‘legally’ delve in to one of the many ‘rainy day’ projects I have been putting off for a long, long time! The one that promises to take as a long as a biblical flood would last, is to dig through several boxes of decades-old photos, dump the ‘useless’ ones and scan those ‘worthy of being digitized for posterity’. The more I ponder THAT Herculean task, the more I’m praying for a dry Spring and Summer.   

Penance, playtime and preparations

Finally the weather has broken to the ‘above freezing’ realm. As such, I was able to get out yesterday and complete my penance – for having left a plastic and a wooden ‘holy family’ out in the deep snow and frigid temperatures beyond Epiphany!

The plastic ‘holy family’ were un-tethered from the plug-adapters, lifted off their wooden stakes and deprived of the ‘bag-of-rocks-in-their-socks’ which had prevented them tipping over in the wind while they adorned my front yard for about six weeks. They, including the milk-crate manger, were all hoisted into the attic-space above the garage where they’ll remain until next Advent. They may find it a bit uncomfortable up there in July and August when it is 100F (38C) outside – and probably 150F (66C) up there, but at least they’ll be dry!

From the other side of the driveway, I had lifted the wooden ‘holy family' off their re-bar posts and picked up the spotlight that had blinded them for the past six weeks. Their home until next Advent would be against the firewall in the garage – behind the ladder that I had just descended from after stowing their plastic clones. These too would now be safe from the damp – and being in, rather than above, the garage, the ‘woodies’ would not be as hot as the ‘plastics’.  It may seem a little odd to put the ‘family’ more likely to melt, in the hotter storage area, but placement was more a consideration of space, than comfort! 

I got out the step ladder, changed the flags on the porch – from Christmas-themed flags, to a small ‘Stars and Bars’ and a ‘Birds and Bushes’-themed larger one. That also made it possible to remove the Christmas lights that had been strung across the porch and around the front door some weeks ago. I merely unhitched those strings of lights, leaving their ‘boxing up’, along with the hundreds of feet of those on the bushes, to my wife’s capable hands. I am not allowed to get involved in that part of the celebratory actions. I am ‘willing, able - but not allowed’!

Nicer weather today than yesterday, so also time to get some of the grand-children out to play! So, after a phone call or two, I was on my way, with my youngest son, two of his kids and my elder daughter’s oldest son, to ‘watch the eagles’. No, not they of ‘Hotel California’ and ‘Long Road out of Eden’ fame, but the American Bald Eagle.

Our trip was to Winfield Locks and Dam 25 about 20 miles away on the frozen Mississippi River. There, each year at this time, these majestic creatures gather to feast on fish in the segments of the river that are ice-free. Besides the raptors, there were hundreds of gulls – sitting on the ice and in the water’s edge, upstream of the locks and dam, where barges had passed through earlier. We saw six Bald Eagles – one perched 60-feet up in a tree quite close by, and five standing on the ice just in front of three duck-blinds almost a ¼ mile away towards the far bank of the ‘Mighty Mississippi’. We drove ½ mile downstream, below the locks and dam, to where the Winfield car ferry was making its ‘every 20 minutes’ trek across to the Illinois side of the river then back to the Missouri side.

Just 100 yards upstream from the ferry-landing, on the right bank of the river, we were treated to the sight of about 30 Bald Eagles – in one large tree. Every few minutes or so, one would glide in from high above the river and gracefully land into the branches. The three grand-children, barely showed any effect of the cold (it was sunny but breezy) as they marveled at the sight before them, eagerly looking through their binoculars. ‘Playtime’ over, we headed back for a lunch at a fast-food joint and then I headed home where more tasks awaited me.

Next up on my list of tasks was to shovel as much snow as I could manage – my wife was out shopping and so deprived me of the pleasure of simply handing her the shovel while I directed operations – from the curbside. Our city’s snow-plows had thoughtfully pushed a pile of snow, 3-feet high that extended 6-feet from the curb, just where I normally park my vehicles. Sure, I had my vehicles parked in my driveway since before the 10” snow fell, but tonight, I needed those curbside space as well as the driveway spaces. Why?  

My younger daughter was having a bachelorette party; the more than two-and-a-half-dozen celebrants, clad in 80’s garb, were assembling at our house where a bus was to take them to places I thought it best my wife dare not go!  So, I had clear the garage to accommodate two cars, direct the arriving guests to park six cars and SUVs in the driveway and have snow-free curbside available for six more vehicles. My truck had no space where it could be parked, so was left in the center of the cul-de-sac until the bus had departed! No matter, I was NOT about to be disturbed by a bunch of liquor-filled young ladies arriving back at the house just in time to wake the rooster and stumbling in and out of bathrooms or trying to hold on to windows that would insist on chasing doors until they sobered up. I had arranged to spend the night at my other daughter’s house with her husband and their three kids. That I did; I arrived just as the twins (1 year-old) had been put to bed. With their older brother sound asleep on the sofa, I popped my first can of beer since New Year’s Eve and ‘dad’ and I watched a bit of an NFL match on TV until I started to doze off too. I climbed the stairs, crawled into bed and my busy day was ended.