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Other Cool Pix

 

 

January 21, 2023
my house

This is an extreme close-up of a 3/4" fridge magnet, so it's actually about a quarter of the size it looks here. So, I was looking at our fridge letters and thought there was a hunk of lint or something inside this one. Turned out it was one of the so-called "glass spiders" (because you can see inside them) that have lived in our kitchen for decades. It stayed in there for several hours. We named the spider O.

 

 

 my house
November 1, 2022

While my daughter and son-in-law went on a date together (!!), I watched the kids. One was interested in doing a paper pumpkin project kit bag that my lovely wife had picked up at the library. What's cool is that not only did she make the paper pumpkin, but we ended up making something out of every single thing that came with the kit. The pumpkin, of course, but notice the person sitting on it made out of an extra pipe cleaner that was in the bag. The bag itself became a bag puppet with big teeth. The directions became the large airplane, and the tag on the bag showing what's inside became the small airplane.

 

my daughter's house
March 22, 2022

I popped in at my daughter's house for a brief visit on my birthday, and my granddaughters had made me this GIANT birthday card. On the inside, each of them had filled one side of the page with things they associate with me: bananas, bikes, games, gardens, tools, flowers, birds and bird feeders, etc. Just before she clicked the photo, the photographer said, "Okay, put on your best banana smiles," and two of us actually did!

 

 

September 12, 2020
Bickford Slides
Stow ME

On a tough hike to see a waterfall in the White Mountain National Forest, we discovered this dead tree just absolutely covered with chicken of the woods mushrooms... so much, in fact, that if we had harvested all of it, it would have taken us a few weeks to eat all of it. (BTW: we didn't take any --- it's a National Forest: "Take only photos, leave only footprints.") The lower photo is a straight down close up of the clump in the foreground on the lower right at the near end of the log in the upper photo. This stuff is amazingly gorgeous! Delicious, too.

 

 

 May 2020

So, which is it?

 

 

 April 10, 2020
artist Phil Shaw
"Shelf Isolation 2 - the story so far..."

In the middle of the 2020 pandemic, British artist Phil Shaw created a series of works on being quarantined. Read the titles left to right to get "the story so far".

 

                         

February 11, 2020
untitled drawing
Charlotte Brooks (age 7)

 

 

 July 19, 2019
Museum of Everyday Life
Glover VT

The main exhibit was called: "The Pivot and the Blade: An Intimate Glance at Scissors". It was wonderful! BTW: I love scissors! (And here's another reference to scissors on this page.)

 

 

 

March 2019
TREVOR in Lego
by Aston Harris (age 5)

 

 

At our summer camp on the clear, cool waters of the Saco River in Fryeburg Maine, we spent every single afternoon down at the river when I was a teen. There's a great beach, plenty of shallow water for the tots, plenty of deep water for the swimmers, canoes, a raft, and this awesome rope swing! The bank is at least 20-30' above the water; plus, you could climb another 10-20 feet up a tree before swinging if you wanted to, so the actual arc of the swing was HUGE! 

To do a Bat Hang, as soon as you jump off the bank, you swing your legs up over your head and swing over the water back first upside down! My hair usually dragged on the water, it was that close at perigee. But at apogee, you were 20-40' above the water depending on where you took off from! And, if you timed your release just right and swung your legs back over just right as you let go and arched your back just right in the air, not only could you add several more yards to your run in free flight over the water, but you'd also present a gorgeous sweeping arc through the air and enter the water feet first. It was simply beautiful to see it done just right!

 

 

 

 

 

These next three, only my lovely wife and I (and maybe a few close friends and relatives) think are cool, but, hey... it's my website!

 

My lovely wife grew up to be a geologist who's into sedimentary petrology. (That means she loves sand.) This is a picture of her nearly a decade before I first met her at age 11.

 

 

Here we are together at Camp Blairhaven about 15 years later. I was 26 and camp director. She was 17 and camp dishwasher. And like I said under a photo of us in TREVOR's Hat Parade!, "she loved me then, but I didn't have a clue."

 

 

August 1999
Fryeburg ME

And here's us holding up our wedding quilt which my little big sister Laura made for us. She made all the squares, and we got to help arrange them and rearrange them and rearrange them again until we all liked it. Then she sewed them all together. It's a wonderful quilt that we use on our bed Spring, Summer, and Fall. (In the winter when we have a heavy down quilt we use for warmth). 

 

 

 

 May 12, 2018
Watch City Steampunk Festival
Waltham MA

This is my ConCardia gaming card from the Watch City Steampunk Festival. Concardia runs a gaming table at various cons, fairs, and festivals. You can buy a starter deck, but you can also collect custom-designed cards from vendors, performers, and presenters at the event. Rock/Paper/Scissors is part of the game, as well as the action described on the card.

I got to pick what was on my card, so let me tell you why I picked what I did:
1. I picked a stiltwalking photo because it's so visual. Also, it will make it much easier for participants to find me at the festival.  
2. I picked Scissors because when I'm on stilts I'm definitely a cut above everyone else, and like I said above: I love scissors.
3. I picked that you get to look at everyone else's hand at the end of your turn because when I'm on stilts I can see EVERYTHING.
4. And I picked that you get another turn because when I'm on stilts I take two steps to everyone else's one.
(hee hee hee) 

 

This is a clipping from a magazine (National Geographic, I think) that I clipped out as a teenager and still have five decades later.

 

 

Found this photo somewhere and saved it because I'm an avid bike rider and an amateur upright bass player and I have a bike cart like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 December 31, 2015
Charlotte's Chair Road
Florence MA

For a while there, my granddaughter Charlotte was into making roads out of chairs. This is the aerial view of the one she made New Year's Eve Day. It starts at the black wooden chair on the right, and ends by the dog in front of the couch.

 

 

 April 2013
Parsnip Beard!
my living room

Parsnips are one of my favorite vegetables. I grow lots of the in my garden every year. One of the cool things about parsnips is that they are better/sweeter after they've been frozen, so I let them overwinter in the ground and harvest them in the Spring after the soil is completely unfrozen. They are the first crop of the year and a very welcome fresh vegetable every April!

 

Shawn said casually one night at Fire & Water in Northampton MA, "I always wanted to learn to walk on stilts!" So I called her on it. We made an appointment and she did great! Learning to walk on strap-on stilts is a lot like learning to ride a bike: you're really unsteady at first and feel like you're going to fall down a lot. But then you get it, and with a little practice it becomes easy, and with even more practice it becomes second nature and you don't even think about it while you're doing it. Notice that first she walked holding on to the railing. Then she walked along the railing without holding on. And then she took off on her own. Yay Shawn!!

 

Chia Hat!

 

 

 

 

1968 or 1969

Webster Groves MO

 

This is my all-time favorite picture of me as a kid. We're playing dodgeball. The cameraman is crouching behind a chain link fence with his lens looking through one of the holes in the fence. My target is standing practically right in front of him. That's David Watt behind me and that's his garage behind us. Our little cluster of houses had four homes with 21 kids between them! We played together every single day. We played dodgeball, baseball, kickball, badminton, kick the can, midnight, ring-a-leevio, even golf. We also played cards and board games indoors. We put together several neighborhood plays that were very well attended. We built a six-story tree fort! We had an awesome sled run in the winter. The Watts had an apple tree in their yard. We called it the Wapple Tree. They also had a great climbing tree that stretched out over their garage. Each of us had our own "spot" in the tree. We'd all climb up it, get in our spots, and hang out talking for hours. But don't be in the Watt's house at the wrong time or else Mrs. Watt would give you eardrops, too, when she gave them to her own kids!

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 1982
Camp Blairhaven
South Duxbury MA

 

Another of my favorite photos of me. This was on Kingston Bay on the beach when I was camp director at Camp Blairhaven, a two-month children's residential camp run by my church.

 

 

 

 

 

Hardwick MA

 

The actual may pole at May Pole, a weekend family camp-out I've been going to for decades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 2004

Philadelphia PA

Cats and crossword puzzles. I was just sitting at the table doing my daily crossword puzzle at my sister-in-law's old place in Philly, and their cat Herman jumped up on the table and — as cats so often do — nagged me into petting him. So the left hand petted while the right hand clued. The left hand got tired before the right hand did. Herman had already curled up, so he just took a nap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's a natural object! You may not remove that! Two of my brother Ian' kids, Ryan and Rose, goofing around at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.

 

 

 

 

 

early 2000something (I think)

Weiler, Germany

When my big sister Jane and her husband Don went to Germany (for their honeymoon, I think), this was a billboard on the side of a barn just up the road from Don's relatives' house. A rough translation is: "Rural youth living what others dream. Baden Rural Youth Union. Rural Youth of Weiler in the campaign against the boredom... Leisure time is FUN." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a night-blooming epiphyllum. It has one of the most amazing blooms I've ever seen. First of all, it only blooms at night. Secondly, the blooms only last one night. Thirdly, blooms only happen on two-year-old leaves. And fourth, their scent is very, very strong... amazingly good, and very, very strong. Oh yes, and fifth, they are stunningly beautiful!

My mother gave me this plant after having it for 8 years without a blossom. Another 8 years went by and she gave me a how to take care of houseplant book for my birthday in March. So I did what the book said: moved nearly all my plants around for optimum light, put little notes on each one about how much to water it and how often, and fertilized the ones that like that sort of thing. All my plants were suddenly noticeably happier.

In August the following year, we got home from two weeks of camp in Maine around 9:00 p.m. and were greeted at the door by an overwhelming, wonderful aroma that filled the entire house. I walked into our living room where the smell was even stronger, turned on the light, and there were nineteen (19!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) blossoms open all at once! It was absolutely stunning. It's bloomed ever since. Not that many all at once, but 1-3 at a time opening over a period of a few days once or twice a year. What a wonder!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My daughter the dancer! My daughter, Myrrh, the artist, has always been a dancer, too. As a child, while the boys played with trains, she would often be in the background somewhere dancing to music only she could hear. This is one of my favorite pictures of exactly that.

Now she's an adult and is still a dancer. She's taken so many dance classes, I can't remember them all: ballet, modern dance, contact improv, swing, ballroom dancing, African, and more and more and more. I'm pretty sure she goes to more than one regular weekly dance, and is well-known in dance circles in her area. She met her husband swing dancing and so they, of course, had swing dancing at their wedding reception.                                       

 

 

 

 

 

March 1979

my niece Anna

 

 

This is Myrrh's cousin Anna just a few days after her birth in March of 1979. Shhhh. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And here's Anna again a few months later

 

 

 

 

 

 Christmas 1968
Webster Groves MO

 

 

Now there's a 60's Christmas card! That's my family. That's me seated on the left in the front row. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my Pop's 80th birthday party

May 28, 2001
Sharon MA

 

 

Before moving to Maine in 2004, my parents lived in Sharon MA, a suburb of Boston, for 30 years. My father was a huge fan of the New Black Eagles Jazz Band, a local dixieland band. He went to most of their local shows. He knew all the musicians personally. He knew all their substitute musicians. He knew all their wives. He knew all their songs. He knew all their arrangements. He owned all their recordings. In fact, I recently acquired Pop's tape collection and about 20% of it was NBEJB! The point is, my father was a total Black Eagles groupie.

 

So when Pop turned 80 in 2001, my siblings and I planned a big house party for him at his house. He was all adamant about we couldn't have a party at their house. His first excuse was that the septic system couldn't handle it. So we ordered a PortaPotty. Then he said we couldn't have all those people in the house. So we ordered two big tents. Then he said we just plain couldn't do it. We said, Too bad, we're having a party for you and you're going to like it. He said he wouldn't go; he'd stay in the house the whole time.

But what he didn't know because we didn't tell them, is that I'd hired his favorite band to play in his back yard for his 80th birthday! So when the band showed up and started setting up under one of the tents, Pop came spilling out of the house all smiles and surprise! From then on, he proceeded to have a great time for the entire party!

 

 

 

 

 
"Waffles T. Clown sings the Red, White, and Blues"   
Performance, walk-abouts, and workshops for all ages. For additional information call
(978) 544-7210
P.O. Box 96, Wendell MA 01379

<http://www.wafflestclown.com/>

A political clown who also actually makes awesome waffles for parties!

This man is terrific. He does political actions that are both funny and politically poignant. Once, in full clown garb, he drove a schoolbus to a nuclear power plant, parked it sideways across in front of the entrance gate, hand-cuffed himself to the door of the bus, and threw the keys into the swamp. He goes to jail regularly, but also gets lots of media coverage regularly, too.

 

 

 

 

August 1972
Kankamaugus Scenic Roadway
Conway NH

I got my driver's license in March of 1972, the day after I became eligible. My father's car at the time was this monster-sized, olive green Checker sedan that we affectionately called The Tank. It was HUGE! It had a red interior with fold down jump seats between the front and back seats... we are, after all, a family of ten. We all fit quite comfortably, too. 

My actual road test when I got my license still amazes me. I drove to the registry in Brockton MA with Pop in the passenger seat and parked the Tank directly in front of the registry. Pop went in and got the test instructor who came out and hopped in the car and told Pop, much to his surprise, that he had to wait there.

The guy told me to pull out into traffic, take the first left, take the next left, take the next left, and then turn left into this little alley where he had me do a 3-point turn (which was actually about a 7-point turn because the Tank was so big), then I turned left out of the alley, took the next left, and parallel parked in my original spot directly in front of the registry. He then handed me my license. So basically, I drove around the block, turned around in an alley, and parked in a parking space. That was it. It took less than five minutes.

This photo has me behind the wheel of the Tank at Passaconway, one of the scenic stops on the "Kank" just 5 months after getting my license. I was driving a car load of teenagers on Outing Day from summer camp. I guess my Pop trusted me. (Actually, I think he was more relieved that he didn't have to drive a carload of teenagers around on Outing Day any more!)

 

 

 

 

 

August 17, 1998
Guemes Island WA

 

 

So, I'm glad to know there's a town in Wisconsin named after me! (There's also a street named after me in Enfield CT.) Pacific Puzzle Company was two of my younger brothers' wooden puzzle company. They made great stuff. But they shut it down in the late 90's and have both gone on to other things. I still have a lot of their puzzles, though. 

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy Thomas took these photos of me in May 2002 in Greenfield MA at the Green Fields Market Grand Re-Opening. I was more than a little surprised to get this postcard in the mail a few days later. 

 

 

 

 

 Chanuka Extravaganza
Chabad House
Northampton MA
December 21, 2008

 

Whoever made this poster for their event, made me look decidedly Jewish! *chuckle*

 

 

 

 

 

 Christmas 2007

Fryeburg New Church Assembly
Fryeburg ME

 

This mailbox is not nailed to the tree. It's on a post. Now that's a lot of snow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas 1996
Sharon MA

Way back in the early 70'so my little big sister Laura made me the Indian headdress on the left based on an authentic native design. She asked me to bring it with me this particular Christmas because she was giving two of her boys these cowboy and Indian get-ups and wanted her youngest to have a headdress for this photo. 

 

 

 

 

 

 May 1987 (?)
Hartsbrook Waldorf School
Hadley MA

 

My son Jason's 2nd grade class photo. (There was also a "serious" one.) That's my boy standing at the far left in the blue shirt with his sleeves pushed up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's Jason (and his sister, Myrrh) a few years later in April of 1991 at the Oakes Ames Estate (now Borderlands State Park) on the Sharon/Easton MA town line. I went here regularly when I was in high school in Sharon, so it was fun to take my kids there 20 years later and show them all the cool places at the park I used to hang out at with my high school buddy Sandy Solomon. Somehow, despite his rubber boots, Jason got his feet soaking wet (he's a Pisces). Notice that first he squeezes the water out of his sock into his boot and then dumps the water out of it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 4, 2008
Fyeburg New Church Assembly
Fryeburg ME 

 

Streaming hair, streaming beard, running barefoot across the lawn during Sparks Games at camp. Bliss.

 

 

 

 

I spent over half an hour very closely watching this baby turtle. It kept swimming ashore (3-5 minutes of effort to overcome the outgoing waves), resting for a few minutes, and then swimming out again (another 3-5 minutes of effort to overcome the incoming waves) and then just doing that over and over and over again. I've never seen anything like it. Was it practicing? Training? Actually just out enjoying the waves? I'll never know. But it sure was cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Day 1998

Landis Supermarket parking lot

Lansdown PA

 

My sister Laura and her husband Harold have 5 boys. As kids, they did some pretty cool stuff. And as they got older, they did even cooler stuff. One of the really cool things they did was build a hovercraft from scratch using a lawnmower motor and mostly stuff they found in their basement. They said it was "really easy to make," and it sure was a blast to drive! I got to drive it for about 20 minutes in this big empty parking lot on Thanksgiving Day. It was absolutely awesome! The hovercraft went really fast (hence the goggles!) but turned really slowly... sometimes waaaay after where you wanted to turn! It took a while to get used to it and remember to start turning way early. Really! It also drove more like a forklift than a car; i.e., the back "wheels" did the turning, not the front. So while I was bombing around this parking lot at 20+ miles an hour, I not only had to remember to turn way early, but I also had to keep thinking in terms of swinging my tail end around instead of pointing the nose where I wanted to go! I only went over the edge once! WHEEEE!!! OOOOPS!!!  AAAIIIIEEE!!! YAHOO!!! What a blast!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 2000something

Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory

Deerfield MA

The Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory is a huge greenhouse with a whole lot of live butterflies of lots of different species. You pay the fee and you can wander the greenhouse at your leisure. Somehow, I remembered that if you wear red (or yellow, but especially red) butterflies will land on you more. So I just wore as much red as I could from the waist up, and within four minutes of entering, this gorgeous butterfly landed on my wrist bandana! It stayed for quite a while, too. I was actually walking around with it on my arm like a hawk for most of 10 minutes. I love this place!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 August 1965

Fryeburg New Church Assembly

Fryeburg ME

 

My cousin Sarah sent me this old family photo of all of us at camp gathered in front of our school bus camper: my parents, 5 boys, 3 girls, and a big old schoolbus that Pop made into a camper that sleeps 10! It was awesome. I loved this part of my childhood. That's me in the white shirt on the upper right just below the red light. 

 

 

 

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PO Box 463, Haydenville, MA 01039