At some point in time, should you live long enough, your entire life enters the retro stage. You stop trying to like “new” music and enjoy listening to old music that’s just been re-released and re-mastered for your — and your grandchildren’s — listening pleasure.
The movies you loved as a child — the ones that had plots, stories, and people who could act — and weren’t designed by computer — are still better than new ones. Funny movies from the remain funny. I can’t figure out most of the “funny” movies that are being currently promoted.
It isn’t the plots because they don’t have plots. Mostly, they just are not funny. They are often stupid and tasteless. Is that what we now call funny?
Late night TV hosts are funny, in a dark kind of way. Standup is funny. But movies? It’s like the Three Stooges, but without a plot. (You mean there was a plot for the Stooges?)
Silver Dollar Survey
Clothing has come a long way and closely resembles the stuff I wore in college, so that’s not a problem. And anyway, I don’t go many places that require “dress” clothing and since I also can’t wear dress shoes, if the event doesn’t let me wear pants, I’m not going.
In the TV and book world, mysteries stopped being mysterious and thrillers are utterly predictable. We can actually say the dialog before we hear it … and guess from the list of players “who done it.”
At least there’s variety in retro. Mind you, most movies ever made were pretty bad. For every “great” movie the studios turned out, they churned out three dozen others no one wants to remember.
I just won $1,000,000,000 — that’s one billion dollars — from the lottery. It is a bit mystifying since I don’t remember buying the ticket, but I’m not going to argue the point.
What’s next?
So there we were watching the news. Trump. Mueller. Some moron fell into the Grand Canyon trying to take a selfie. And then there’s this guy who just won the Lottery. Again. He won $10 million ten years ago and he just won ANOTHER million yesterday.
You don’t believe in luck? Really? AND he bought each ticket in a different location. I want some of his ‘not luck’ because whatever it is, I want a piece.
Winning the lottery is a major fantasy here on the Kachingerosa. I don’t know about you, but I can lull myself into a pleasant sleep imagining what I’d do if a huge amount of money — so much that I don’t even have to count how much I’m spending — were to come my way.
The only time I inherited money was when my father died. It turned out to be exactly enough to fix our dying septic system — and a new camera. It had to have been just about nine years ago because that’s when I had cancer.
The money and cancer arrived simultaneously. Everything has a price, it would seem.
Red-bellied Woodpecker
It was the defining moment of my unfortunate relationship with my father. He was much too dead for me to thank him, but it was the single nicest thing he ever did for me. No longer being alive, he could not, this once, ruin it with a lot of snarky not-funny jokes at my expense.
Home
After the executors finally coughed up a check, we had the septic system repaired. This meant we wouldn’t have to abandon the house and live in the car. We should have had the well done at the same time, but who knew it was going to pack it in? Anyway, it wasn’t enough money.
With no windfall or backup money, we’ve been paying things off.
But with a billion dollars … well, that would turn the tide. I could pay everything off, knock this house down and build a new one suitable for we aging folks.
A flat house. No stairs. Insulated windows. New heating and cooling systems built in. New bathrooms with great showers.
Two new cars. The non-winter vehicle will be something entertaining and sporty. When bad weather comes, our little sports coupé goes into the garage. The second car will be our winter truck, an all-wheeler that can plow through snow drifts and laugh.
Oh and an extra-large garage. Enough room for the cars we use and at least one we might want to use. Sometimes. AND room for the other “stuff” like snowblowers and lawnmowers and rakes and brooms and weed-whackers. A powerful generator so we can stop being terrified of wind and snowstorms.
Huge closets. Huge. Someone to come in and clean — and a cook!
How about a garden tractor? We’ll have a guy tend the gardens, clear away the leaves in the autumn. Run heavy errands which involve hauling and lifting — groceries for example.
We won’t forget our friends and family. We’ll make sure everyone we care about has what they need. Maybe we’ll have a compound so we can live in close proximity. Visit without driving long distances.
Photo: Garry Armstrong
Beyond this? Security for whatever years we have.
Life won’t have to be so hard. We can grow old and enjoy ourselves without wondering what weird laws the government will pass or which strange new rules will make it impossible to get medication. It won’t buy us more time on earth — money doesn’t matter when your number is up — but it could make the time we’ve got more fun.
More fun for us and for our friends and family. Maybe for you, too.
You should watch this. And don’t buy anything from ExxonMobil. Isn’t it great how giant corporations have done and continue to destroy OUR world so they can make an even bigger profit? They already have more money than anyone could possibly spend, but they want it all and the way things are going, they will get it all. And we will be left with the burnt out shell of our green planet earth.
There is no doubt in my cluttered mind that 1969 was the most memorable year of my life. None. Of all of the events that have happened through the years, I can not say that any other years stands out like this one.
When you are a Senior in high school and people tell you to enjoy it because these late high school, early college (if you go to college) years are the best years of your life, it is hard for you to believe.
Surely better times will come along, you think. You cling to that belief for many years. Then you realize something.
The years around your high school graduation may, in fact, have been the best years of your life. They are the touchstone. They are the yardstick by which all future events are measured. They contain the moments you treasure, and they are locked away in your memory vault for all time. They are the springboard that launched you into adulthood.
My first high school closed and I went to another for one year. Our class play is the extracurricular activity that introduced me to many of my classmates. Most seniors joined the spring musical which was South Pacific. It was a great experience as a large cast worked together at a common goal. It turned out well.
I’m in this group, just left of center.
Meanwhile, a series of astounding events filled the spring and summer of ’69. In April the convicted assassin of Senator Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, was sentenced to the death penalty in California, but the state would eliminate the death penalty and he would never be executed. He is still incarcerated and is now 75 years old.
In May Apollo 10 took off for the moon. It was just a dress rehearsal for Apollo 11. On July 20th the world watched in wonder as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon. President Kennedy had promised the nation in May of 1961 we could accomplish this by the end of the 1960s, although he did not live to see it himself.
A technician works atop the white room, through which the astronauts will enter the spacecraft, while other technicians look on from the launch tower at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 11, 1969. (NASA)
Also in May, The Who introduced their”rock opera,” Tommy. It was an album of rock songs that told the story of that “deaf, dumb. and blind kid” who “plays a mean pinball.” The “Pinball Wizard” may not have been the first rock opera, but it was the first album to call itself that. Others have followed to varying degrees of success.
The Beatles were still hitting the top of the charts. In May “Get Back” would reach number one. The song would later turn up on the “Let It Be” album. Who knew we were nearing the end of an era that in many ways never ended? In September The Beatles released Abbey Road.
Abbey Road
In ’69 I went to the movies a little more often than I do now. Midnight Cowboy came out in May and I recall seeing it in the theater. It was likely then that I first took notice of the Harry Nilsson song, “Everybody’s Talkin’.” It became a favorite. After the movie came out, the song received a lot of radio play.
In June the Stonewall riots took place outside a Greenwich Village, New York City gay bar. A confrontation between police and activists turned ugly over a few days period. Many say it led to the modern gay rights movements. The following year the first gay pride parades were held in several cities, including Chicago. I can not say that I was aware of any of this at the time. However, Stonewall marked an important moment in LGBT history in this country.
On two days in August, The Charles Manson “Family” killed 8 people in murders that would shock the nation. The gruesome details that came out over time were almost too horrifying to be believed. Manson was sentenced to death for his role in the killings, but, like Sirhan Sirhan, his sentence was changed to life in prison when California did away with the death penalty. Manson died in prison in 2017 at the age of 83.
By the time we got to Woodstock We were half a million strong And everywhere there was song and celebration
In August it may not have been a half million people who went down to Max Yasgur’s dairy farm 43 miles from Woodstock, New York, but the crowd was certainly in the hundreds of thousands for the “3 days of peace and music.” Perhaps a half million said they were there. Over the festival, 32 acts performed, sometimes in the rain, while organizers proved rather unprepared for the massive event.
I can not say I knew much about Woodstock in 1969. The film, the music and the many videos that have turned up taught us about the event. It meant little to some of us back home in the Midwest at the time it was happening. The 1970 documentary of the festival won an Academy Award. Joni Mitchell wrote a popular song that was a big hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young who played at the festival. Mitchell had turned it down.
The big news in Chicago that summer for baseball fans was the miracle collapse of the Chicago Cubs. On August 14th the Mets were nine games behind the Cubs in the standings and it looked like the long pennant drought for the northsiders was about to end. Then September happened. The Cubs lost 17 of 25 and the Mets got hot. They went on to win the World Series and the Cubs did not make it to the Fall Classic until 2016.
All the Eastern coast kits live down south, from Mississippi through Florida and out towards Louisiana. It’s not that we lack for hawks around here. We have both Golden (relatively rare as they prefer mountains to valleys, but sometimes you can spot them high above you, especially if are in the White Mountains in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, or Canada.
No hawks, safe to feed!
We see a lot of American Eagles, especially along the Merrimack — a much wider, slower-flowing river with lots of big fish and pollution to make me wonder if people really eat those fish. Nonetheless, many people nearby have boats and fish the waters of the Merrimack.
Red and yellow finches
American Eagles are lazy. Rather than do their own fishing, they station themselves in trees along the river, waiting for someone to catch their dinner. Then they drop out of the sky, grab the fish and fly off. I’m sure they are mentally grinning. Note: Beaks don’t smile.
Nuthatch on the tree
Very few people have enough character to fight off an eagle’s talons for a fish. Even a really big fish. American Eagles are not the biggest of eagles. I think the Golden is at least twice its size and there are some eagles in Africa and Asia that are also huge. Still, the talons on our Bald Eagle are no laughing matter.
Cooper’s Hawk – The white chest is a major giveaway for birders
I wouldn’t mess with them. I’ve been gored by a Cockatoo who wasn’t nearly as big as even a very small eagle and I nearly lost my thumb.
Birds have a lot of power in a lightweight body.
It’s rather like arguing with a bear over a basket of berries you are carrying across the moor. You can get more berries. You can buy them in the grocery store. Meanwhile, the bear doesn’t need a credit card and like the eagle, he’s glad enough you did the berry picking. He can as take your arm AND the berries for a healthy, balanced dinner.
To put it another way, “Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.”
Don’t run from the bear. Politely put down the basket and quietly stroll off. Don’t whistle. That might irritate him and an irritated bear is … well … an irritated bear. Even a small bear is a lot bigger than you are, so be nice, quiet, and go home. Light incense. Consider not scouring the fields for wild berries.
Cooper’s Hawk. Accipiter Cooperii. Jones Beach State Park, Nassau Co. NY. Juvenile Cooper’s hawk in close flight during autumn migration.
The closest we have to a kite here is the Cooper’s Hawk and its close relative, the Sharp-shinned Hawk. Both of these small hawks used it live largely far from humans.
Until the arrival of bird feeders. Since both of these hawks are bird hunters and considered remarkable fliers when they discover a feeder and do their famous flap-flap-glide through forest and bushes — there are those who believe these hawks could thread a needle by flying through its eye — the scare the feathers from the birds.
Comparing Cooper’s Hawk and Sharp-shinned Hawk
For reasons best known to the Mourning Doves, they least terrified of these small hawks (listed as “kite-like” in my “Peterson’s” guide). Doves are not the smartest birds in the coop.
Regardless, a single passing swoop by one of the two bird-hunting hawks, and the birds are gone. They don’t just disappear for a few hours. They are gone for days and if the Hawks are active, as long as five or six days.
Which is what the Cornell Institute and Audubon Society both suggest you do if you find that the Hawks have become a problem. Which is to say you have actually seen them more than once. They are not easy to see, either. They are exceptionally skillful fliers. The diver between trees and hedges and in fact, when they miss, they are frequently crushed because they hit a tree chest first. I guess seatbelts would not help all that much.
Cooper’s Hawk
It’s not that we don’t believe every creature deserves its dinner, but most of us don’t want to be setting the table for this particularly gastronomic feast. We invited the birds to come and chow down, so when it’s obvious that we’ve set them up as someone else’s main course, it takes a lot of the joy out of the party.
We also don’t fly paper kites around here. The trees, abounding as they do with bird life and trillions of insects, have their own killer instinct and will happily eat your kite.
The last time I flew a big kite, it was down on Cape Cod. The wind caught it and over the waves, it flew. Eventually, I ran out of string. I had a couple of thousand feet of thousand-pound nylon cord, so it was far away. Way beyond the breakers and invisible.
Sharp-shinned Hawk
There was no way I could bring it home. The outbound wind was strong and had taken it way out to sea. We could not see it. I cut the string and let it fly.
I wonder if anyone found it and pondered where it had started? In case it was you, it was on a nearly deserted beach in November on Cape Cod.
Doughnuts are not good for me. Or you. We know that. No matter how you slice and dice it, those yummy fresh-from-the-oven treats are nothing but fat, carbohydrates, and sugar, probably with a dollop of artificial flavoring. But gee golly whiz, there’s nothing like a couple of warm crullers and a freshly brewed cuppa joe on a frosty morning. Or, if you’re me, any morning.
I love my morning coffee. Much as I complain about the problems of getting old and being poor, retirement has a few perks. The biggest and most obvious is not having to go to work, not having to put up with the idiocies of bosses who know less about the job than the newest intern and base their impossible demands on a spreadsheet.
The other big perk is time. You don’t have to gulp your coffee in the car on the way to the office. Or drink horrible machine coffee in the office. You can brew your own, sit in a comfortable chair with the morning paper, a book, laptop or tablet and savor the experience.
Doughnuts are an extension of this top of the morning experience. As tasty as ever, you can enjoy them with your own or boughten coffee. Locally, the coffee and donuts emporium of choice has always been Dunkin Donuts. Unlike Starbucks whose “dark roasted beans” is a code for “burned coffee,” and whose donuts are clearly not fresh, Dunkin Donuts coffee is mm-mm good and the doughnuts are just out of the oven — at least until 3 in the afternoon.
A couple of times over the past year, in a fit of gustatory nostalgia, Garry picked up a small box of donuts from Dunkin’s to ramp up the quality of our morning coffee experience.
The first time I could barely contain my excitement. As I reached for a second forbidden but delicious doughnut, I discovered it was guarded by a militant-looking cockroach of considerable heft. One of the big ones who is obviously daring you to “bring it on.”
I took the whole box of donuts, roach and all, and dumped them in the trash. As far as I know, we don’t have roaches here. We have ants in season (like now, for example). Mosquitoes the size of sparrows and hungrier than sharks. Slugs and beetles of all kinds in the gardens and who knows what in the woods … but no cockroaches. So I fondly hoped this was an aberration. Surely our local Dunkin Donuts was not packaging cockroaches with the doughnuts? Tell me it ain’t so!
When Garry asked what happened to the donuts, I made some lame excuse like having knocked them off the counter and the dogs getting to them. Garry is a brave man, but he has two phobias: snakes and cockroaches. Both knock the Semper Fi right out of him. I chose to spare him the trauma.
Operating under the optimistic assumption that Dunkin Donuts wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t include cockroaches with their mouth-watering confections, I encouraged him to pick up a second batch a few weeks later.
I ate a couple of doughnuts. Garry ate a couple of doughnuts. And standing in the box guarding the remaining Boston Creme and Honey Raised, was General Cockroach. I think he had an anti-aircraft weapon strapped to his carapace.
I carried the box and its occupant to the trash. This time, though, I told Garry. He needed to know lest he spontaneously purchases a box of fresh donuts on his way home.
After Garry stopped shivering and muttering “I hate those things,” we agreed we’d take a pass on future purchases from our local emporium. There are plenty of other doughnut shops in town. In fact, the only shops of which our town has more than enough are hairdressers and doughnut shops.
For some reason, we’ve lost our taste for doughnuts. I don’t think either of us has eaten one since.
On my recent trip out West, we went to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA for a day. I was struck by the beautiful design elements and artistic touches I saw all over the California Park. There were also many California Craftsman style pieces as well as Art Deco, often in the most mundane places.
Walt Disney with a map of the original Disneyland
The park is dotted with artistic plant arrangements and mini gardens
California Craftsman style fountain. Similar to Art Deco style.
Pseudo Frank Lloyd Wright style building, with his iconic stonework patterns
My favorite – a total art deco pretzel stand! Gorgeous!
The birdies are blooming in breeding colors and there are buds (but no leaves or flowers) on bushes and trees. What is up really?
Bugs are up. Ants are up. Birds are nesting and beginning to breed. The temperature is finally swinging around and while we will get some more cold days and night, we aren’t going to get a long month of deep freeze weather … or at least so we hope.
Back from the south, Carolina Wren
I’m waiting for a flower to appear outside. We have giant amounts of forsythia, but they don’t bloom much because they are at the edge of the woods and there’s very little sunlight there. A lot of our bushes bloom very late and some no longer bloom.
Nuthatch who never gets dizzy upside-down!
Our fearless deck squirrel
My personal favorite odd couple …
The winds of winter took down a lot of trees and I’m pretty sure our giant lilac tree has finally been squashed flat. It had taken several hits before, but I think this year, it’s a goner. I would like to be wrong. I guess I’ll know soon enough. At least by the middle of May, if not sooner.
Another odd couple — Carolina Wren and Goldfinch
Down the trees stalks the Nuthatch
Our Carolina Wrens are back and the Goldfinch have turned bright yellow and gold. Young squirrels have come up and hanging around for hours, picking up pieces of seeds that have fallen from the feeders.
Bright little birds!
Red and yellow, oh my! Better than flowers!
It is not quite springtime in the Valley as it is in other areas, but for this part of the world?
Maybe not flowers, but definitely colorful!
This is spring. Or kind of springlike. More or less springish. We are working on it.
I saw him at the feeder on Monday. “That’s a new kid,” I announced, but of course I didn’t get a picture because I wasn’t holding the camera. Just watching the birdies flutter about.
This morning, I heard the call. The wild call of the Carolina Wren. He has the loudest call of any bird of that size, which is smaller than a Robin, but bigger than a Finch.
You can’t miss the call. You can hear it through closed windows and doors. This time, I heard it in the living room … and the sound was coming from the backyard. I went back there, missed him, but while I was standing there with my camera in my hand, staring at the empty feeder, who should land but the aforementioned and previously heard, Carolina Wren.
The Carolina Wren and his little yellow Goldfinch pal
As I was reading up on this little wren, there was a lot of commentary on how these migratory birds have largely stopped migrating. Partly, because of climate change and alterations to their environment, but even more because of …
me.
Squared. with pointed beak — Carolina Wren
People with feeders have dramatically changed the migration of birds. Whereas they used to fly to the tropics, many just fly down to like … Maryland or New Jersey … and now, many are not bothering to migrate at all.
I read an exchange between someone in South Carolina bemoaning her lack of Carolina Wrens and was answered by someone in Michigan who said, “Well, we just got a foot of snow and they are happily eating at my feeder on the porch!”
The last of the square pictures. Some of the shots just did NOT want to be square, not without losing a piece of wing or tail …
We feeder owners are supposed to report seeing birds showing up where they should not be … and especially if they seem to be suffering from an ailment.
It doesn’t take much to feel like a visitor from a foreign planet. Humans are good at making anyone even a little bit different feel like an alien. So I look at myself and realize I’m an anachronism. A stranger in a place that was once my home.
My body is a great place to start. It is rebuilt, an imitation of a human body. Fake breasts with no nipples. Replacement parts all over the place. Missing internal organs. No belly button.
Yet nothing makes me feel more out of time and place than reading posts on Facebook. The inability of average people to use grammar, to write in full sentences, to understand that “loose” and “lose” aren’t the same word. This leaves me feeling as if I have been inter-dimensionally transported to “The Planet Without Grammar.” Forget typos. I get that. We all make mistakes and usually know it. How often I have wished I could go back and correct them.
No, I’m talking about all the millions of people who don’t even know they are doing something wrong because they never knew their own language in the first place.
Then there’s music. I sound like every member of every older generation throughout history, but this didn’t start when I became a senior. It started when I was a music student and had to listen to 12-tone music. That was music? It sounds like Tom cats locked in a trash can. Howling, banging, shrieks, crashing, thumping. No rhythm. No melody. Just noise.
I can get into a rhythm without melody. I can enjoy a melody without rhythm. When you remove both?
What, exactly, makes it music? Please, someone, explain.
Where do noise and music part company? My inability as a young music student to grasp what it was about these sounds that made them admirable as music signaled a lifetime of “not getting it.” Whatever “it” has been.
There are so many things I don’t get. Politics. Ignorance. Movies without scripts. Books without plots. Published authors without talent. Voluntary illiteracy. An international lack of compassion for the poor and needy. Environmental destruction for short-term goals which will have permanent and devastating planet-wide repercussions. Genocide.
And the old standby, stupidity.
When I said I’m an anachronism, I wasn’t kidding. I am. Daily I grow worse.
Around here, geese and ducks and often swans have a strong tendency to line up. If you’re using a long lens, this can be a problem. If there are a lot of geese or ducks or swans, you can’t get them all!
Geese lined up n a green river
Cygnets lined up
Mom and cygnets
Ducks lined up and human legs in a line – Boston Commons
It was probably about a decade ago that Owen first noticed a big weasel-like critter running across the road around twilight. We were pretty well acquainted with weasels since we owned a couple of ferrets, which are tame animals. Very small. These have been pets for thousands of years and although once upon a time they may have been wild, it has been a very long time since any of these adorable little guys lived “a wildlife” in the great outdoors.
There’s a particular way that weasels run, almost doubling up on themselves. No other animal runs like that. I suppose it’s because they are so much longer than they are tall. Our two ferrets were Bonnie, a tiny brown girl, and Clyde, a big fat white boy.
Bonnie
Clyde
Neutered, so their sexes weren’t important to them or us. Except that Clyde was much bigger than Bonnie — like maybe three times her size. She barely weighed a pound and Clyde was a solid three-pounder.
They were a lot of fun. Our cat, Big Guy, adopted them. You might say that they were the pets of our pet cat. He adored them. They don’t live very long … maybe five or six years … and after they were gone, I didn’t get any more of them. They had a knack for getting into absolutely everything, including the inside of the sofa, the walls, under the floor.
Retrieving them from wherever they’d decided to take a nap was getting difficult for me. But we were familiar with weasels. There was no mistaking that gait.
Fisher “cat” (they really aren’t cats!)
Not long thereafter, I saw one too, so I call the Massachusetts Wildlife Division and asked if, by any chance, some rather big weasel-like creature had come to live in the Blackstone Valley.
Another fisher
The woman I spoke to was pleased. She had heard they had reappeared in the valley after having been missing since the late 1800s.
Closely related to mink, they have beautiful pelts and were heavily hunted for their fur. And land clearance pretty much finished them off. Unlike our ferrets, which are pets and have never lived wild, Fishers are wild animals and weight in at between 3 and 7-pounds. Their favorite food is (sorry kids) squirrels.
Usually, they are very dark brown — almost black — and maybe the size of a small raccoon. And yes, they do like eating cats if one happens to be roaming around. If you know you have fishers, do not let your cat roam. Given the plethora of predators — coyote, fox, raccoon, bobcat, and fisher — do your family a favor and do not let your cat roam outside. Between the toothy predators and the cars on the roads, they don’t have a chance.
From Massachusetts Wildlife.gov
We got to meet one up close and personal not long thereafter when one of them decided to take a nap in the one sunny place in our backyard. He was a gorgeous color of russet-brown. I could see him making a stunning coat.
When we tried to enter the yard, he hissed at us with just a hint of growling at the end. We retreated. Quickly. Between the bobcat who’d moved into my tepee and the fisher who’d taken over the yard, I developed a strong desire to stay on the deck.
Back of the Massachusetts State House where many weasels live!
But the wild weasels have every right to be here. They used to live here before being nearly hunted to extinction.
It’s the two-legged ones that work in the Statehouse and our Capitol that I resent. The wild weasels may take over the backyard while the sun is shining, but unlike the two-legged variety, they aren’t going to try to take away our medical care.
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The movies you loved as a child — the ones that had plots, stories, and people who could act — and weren’t designed by computer — are still better than new ones. Funny movies from the remain funny. I can’t figure out most of the “funny” movies that are being currently promoted.
When you are a Senior in high school and people tell you to enjoy it because these late high school, early college (if you go to college) years are the best years of your life, it is hard for you to believe.
In August it may not have been a half million people who went down to Max Yasgur’s dairy farm 43 miles from Woodstock, New York, but the crowd was certainly in the hundreds of thousands for the “3 days of peace and music.” Perhaps a half million said they were there. Over the festival, 32 acts performed, sometimes in the rain, while organizers proved rather unprepared for the massive event.
