Fredonia’s Not Klopstokia…

…but I rode out there anyway, last Saturday morning.

Fredonia, or Freedonia – I don’t recall which, is a fictional European country that borders on another fictional country, Sylvania, in an old Marx Brothers film.  The Marx brothers were, along with Charlie Chaplin, a sort of Alan Alda and/or Jerry Seinfeld of the black and white era of comedic film.  Self-important, sometimes funny, very well paid, and so forth.

When it comes to fictional European countries, I prefer Klopstokia every time.

Here are some photos from my Fredonian ride – an easy 21 mile loop from Pixley, in Pot County, Tennessee, where I took my car to get new tires early Saturday morning, through the Fredonian countryside.

Saturday 5 August 2017 was the most beautiful August day I can remember in about 20 years living in Tennessee.  Warm but not hot.

I returned to the modern world riding across Interstate 24 and then on in to town, loaded my bike back up on the station wagon’s bike rack and drove home on new tires.

Bruce Campbell, Time Traveling Actor

For your consideration –

Here’s that wikipedia link – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Campbell

Parties, Houses, No Paddling This Weekend

My youngest brother’s youngest child turned six, so my mom had everyone over for a birthday party Friday night.  On Saturday, we celebrated the 94th birthday of the oldest surviving male in the family.  Young Seventy-Six was a happy baby Friday night, and a fussy baby Saturday.

Since we got a new DVD player sans VHS player, we’re getting rid of your VHS tapes.  Gave several of them to my brother’s family at my mom’s house:

1. Dr. No
2. From Russia With Love
3. Goldfinger
4. Thunderball
5. The World is Not Enough
6. Braveheart
7. The Fifth Element
8. And some Anne of Green Gables collections for the little girl

Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I drove out into the country to look at a house on four acres in a neighboring county.  Barns and outbuildings.  I liked it, but it’s out of our price range.  We drove through a neighborhood that’s got five houses bigger than ours for sale well within our price range.  But the neighborhood.  Creepy.  Not a Twilight Zone neat-as-a-pin with no one about creepy (which sounds pretty good to me), but a grubby X-Files creepy.  Last time I really drove through there, maybe seven or eight years ago, it looked a lot better.

We’re planning to go out again with a realtor this afternoon to see the insides of some houses.

Caution-Lady’s going to bag church today as she’s stressed about upcoming parent-teacher conferences, and wishes to get some things done.  Cafe-Church pastor had surgery to remove cancer and a kidney last week, so he will not be in the pulpit today.  A Sewanee student from Flintville will be preaching.

I really need to wash the white car sometime soon.

Got all the line-trimming, mowing done yesterday afternoon before dark.  I’ll be glad when the pear tree is done producing and dropping fruit for the season.

Mortality

Yesterday I read this interview feature quoting Clint Eastwood’s reasonable response to the criticism he’s received from Spike Lee. Look at the guy’s face in the photo. He’s gotten old.

When I was a kid, I mean in elementary school, I remember we, the boys, used to love talking about war movies we’d seen on TV. That was back when it was a big deal to see a fairly recent motion picture televised. Like ABC’s Movie of The Week. One of our school yard favorites was that Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland movie about a bunch of WWII soldiers in Europe stealing SS gold with the collusion of the Panzer commander guarding the treasure.

I’m more than halfway to old, now. Last night, I woke up thinking about Clint Eastwood: Old Man, and then thought about the passage of time, or my journey through time, and how I’ll end up old someday pretty soon. Contrasted that with infant son sleeping in his bassinet. Will he remember me as the active and healthy man in early middle age I am, now, or as whatever it is I’ll be when I die?

My father died at the age of 58 after having lived more than a hundred normal human years. I remember him as the angry tyrant I loved carrying us through Europe wearing Bermuda shorts and Robert Culp I Spy sunglasses – shades, he always called them. I remember spending Saturdays going to garage sales with him. I remember his road rage – that’s where I learned about creative name-calling. I remember his funny voices and the brilliant way he was able to do impressions of popular and classic actors. Probably the actors he grew up watching at the cinema. I remember Dad’s sailboat, and our nocturnal scavenging sessions at local boatyards picking up a sail here, an outboard motor there. I remember more than I’ll write here. I remember Dad throughout my life up to the time he died.

His birthday was in early June. I can’t even remember the date. I don’t remember the year or the date he died, either. Strange lack of recollection. Dad was one of about three people I always knew loved me. He was the one who disappointed me most frequently. Those disappointments were agonizing.

Harry Houdini Silent Films

This is a must-have boxed set. Probably won’t get it until Christmas. Houdini was apparently an extreme white-water canoeist, as well as an aerial stuntman.

I read an article the guy wrote in an old Vanity Fair, and thought he was pretty bright. I’m not that old – the article was reproduced in a large-format coffeetable book my friend Valyrie brought home from the Long Beach Public Library discards bin at the branch where she worked. That was 1986 or 87. I’ve still got the volume on a shelf on an endtable in the livingroom.