All photos ©2008 Nancy F Little unless otherwise noted

 

 

  

    Yesterday, River Valley Market opened for business. Our new food co-op  on King St. in Northampton MA has a wonderful feel to it, which is especially strong in those of us who have been actively working on this amazing project for so long. So even though I didn't really need to go food shopping again (we were there yesterday for opening day), today found me back at the co-op again.
    Here's me and River Valley Market board of directors president Betsy Powell at the co-op groundbreaking last year. You get to see this picture today not only because it's appropriate, but because yesterday at the opening Betsy told me she had a great picture of us together. I asked her to email it to me, and I guess she went right home and did just that because it was in my In Box the next day. Thanks Betsy!

 

    And once again, today, my lovely wife and I stopped in at River Valley Market. That's three days in a row! That's how GREAT this feels! Yahoo!!! We're open after a decade of diligence and hard work.
     So, today we were shopping at RVM to buy supplies for the annual May Day Celebration weekend family camp-out we go to in Hardwick - an event I've been attending for more than two decades. In the past, we've left in time to get there by dinner time Friday evening; but this year, due to my wife's wonderful unemployment, we were able to leave significantly earlier. After a delicious lunch at the co-op (YAY River Valley Market!), we arrived at the site around 1:15, leaving us lots of extra time to set up our tent and screen house and make our site all comfy. And then we had plenty of time to socialize and catch up with old friends before dinner. It was really nice to get there early.
    My lovely wife should be unemployed the first Friday in May more often.

 

 

 

    For the first time in more than two decades, I was actually able to stay at May Day on Saturday! Wow! It was great! Usually, I have to leave to go do a gig. Often I'm not there pretty much all day Saturday. But today, because it was just pouring rain, at my lovely wife's suggestion (she's sooooooo good for me), I checked my phone messages... and sure enough, my gig had been postponed until next weekend. I could have used the money, but it sure was nice to spend the entire day on site.
     When I went to tell our host the news, I jokingly said, "I've never been here all day Saturday before. What happens?" Eric jovially replied, "It just means you can get started earlier!"
    So I spent a lot of time today talking with friends who's names I forget from year to year. When I go to events like this, I want a button that says: Tell Me Your Name Anyways or something like that so I don't have to keep saying "What's your name again?".  It's just so tough on Mr. Memory when there's all these people I love but only see once a year for a day or two. It's even worse when they miss a year or come back five years later, because most of the time I remember them very well... I just don't have any name attached to that memory!

    This afternoon, thanks to the rain, I was able to do a May Day project that I usually have to somehow squeeze in after supper but before dark on Saturday: making all the ribbon dancers (that looooong ribbon-on-a-stick toy) for the May Pole parade tomorrow! A big Thank You to everyone who helped with this bit of festiveness this year, especially Joy Auciello who stayed and helped all the way to the end. By the way, it was a pleasure to meet Joy's boyfriend, James, who attended for the first time this year. (Hi James!)

 

 

 

    The actual Hardwick May Day Parade & Celebration is today. After a grand breakfast around the campfire and morning ablutions, quite a few people start the prep work for the day's events: the musicians gather to practice in the corner of the lower field; the (mostly) women gather nearby to prepare the fabric they've brought for the actual May Pole; I gather a crew of children to help "plant" the ribbon dancers all along both sides of the parade route; Eric brings out the tall, thin (but strong) pole he's cut; the Jester, the Green Man, the Bandana Man, and others prepare their outfits or get into their costumes;  and we clear a big space in the middle of the upper field.
    And then it's time for the festivities to begin! Eric (our host) pulls his curled hunting horn out of the rafters of the pizza oven shelter, and with a loud blast lets everyone know that it's time to gather. As he slowly makes his way from the upper field to the lower field, he continues to regale us with occasional blare from his horn, alerting all to the impending affair.
    The (mostly) women have the May Pole all ready with seven bunches of seven ribbons wrapped around the pole. It is the children's right to carry the pole at the front of the parade. So all the children 12 and under on cue pick up the pole and the parade begins! ------------------------> (This photo shows maybe a third of the kids & pole.)

    There's 50-60 ribbon dancers (that looooong ribbon-on-a-stick toy) all stuck in the ground every 5 feet or so on both sides the entire length of the parade route, so all along the way, anyone who wants one can pick up one that they like and add to the merrymaking and color with a simple arm motion!

    So as the parade passes by, everyone falls in behind the children, waving ribbon dancers, blowing noisemakers, and making merry. And then our special May Day musicians bring up the rear: fiddles, mandolins, guitars, drums, and other instruments weave a wonderful musical spell with jigs and reels and hornpipes from beginning to end.
     Following Eric's lead, the children march the May Pole from the lower field, across the brook, up the hill, and then circle around the upper field to the hole Eric has prepared. With the entire population circled round and the musicians' fine tunes sounding loud and clear, the pole is ceremonially erected in the center of the field. 

    Traditional May Pole dances are nearly always done by women - it is a fertility rite, after all - but ours is far from traditional and not at all choreographed. But we do usually entreat the women and girls to hold a strand first, and then fill up the remaining ones with that other gender. Once all 7 times 7 strands are being held by 49 people, the May Pole dance begins!
     Like I said, we're not very orthodox about this. No traditional "pattern dances" that are gorgeous but take days, weeks, and sometimes months of practice. Not this crew! Nope. With us it's very easy: some people circle to the right and some people circle left, weaving over and under to the sounds of a merry jig, with a few extroverts (including moi) dancing and prancing around them with ribbon dancers, bubbles, and other festive accessories, while the rest of the crowd watches with whoops and hollers in a huge circle of friends.

     Gradually, over several minutes, the May Pole is woven in a delightful array of colors. As each holder reaches the bottom, they tuck the end of their strand in or tie it off and join the circle. And when the last one finally reaches the bottom and the May Pole is covered from top to (nearly) bottom, there's whooping and hollering and horn blasting and drum beating like many of you may have never heard before! Wowzer, but it's loud and cheery! It's a really highlight for me to hear everyone expressing Springtime joy!
    While everyone is in high spirits, the musicians play one final tune to bring that part to a close.
    And then it's time for the games to begin! As I spread out my large rainbow-colored parachute, all the children and many of the teens and adults, too, come streaming over and grab ahold. We make lots of waves and play a wide variety of parachute games like Cat & Mouse, Mushroom, --------> Mountain Climbing,  Popcorn, Bake the Cake, Duck Duck Duck, and Blue Eyes Under�.

    This year, I had such an enthusiastic crowd, that when the parachute games were over they wanted more. And of course, I was more than happy to oblige. So we played a bunch of my favorite active New Games and Cooperative Play afterwards, including Elbow Tag, Buddy Tag, Everybody's It, and Funny Faces Tag. Mostly, I think, it was my job to just run 'em ragged... these kids had so much energy!

    And then the event begins to wind down. Many people, especially those with long drives home, were all packed up and ready to go before the parade began so they could hit the road the instant it was over. Others begin to break camp as soon as we're finished with the games. And others, like my wonderful wife and I, take our time, have a leisurely lunch by the camp fire, hang out some more, and stretch the enjoyment out until late afternoon. There's even a few lucky ones who are able to stay over one more night.
    So Nancy and I packed up, said our goodbyes, and drove the brief hour home, all the while talking about another wonderful May Day!!

 

 

    Last night, my lovely wife and I made plans to hike up Mount Toby at the Mount Toby State Forest in Sunderland today. So this morning, I got up at 9:25, jumped into my clothes, climbed into the car, and drove to the little parking lot on Reservation Rd just off the north end of Rte 47 at the Montague/Sunderland town line. From there, we took the orange blazed Robert Frost trail that begins just north of the parking lot where the Tower Road hits Reservation Rd. On the map at right, we started at the top, went up the mountain on the left-hand trail to the peak, and then down the mountain on the rest of the loop back to where we started.  
    It's kinda steep in parts but way less popular than the easy (but just as long time-wise) walk up the Tower Road. It takes about 1½ hours to get to the top either way, and it's delightful all the way! Except this week, evidently, because just before we got to the top we bumped into a work crew with chainsaws that was clearcutting the brush below the power lines that go along the Robert Frost Trail on the section near the top. In our brief conversations with the workmen, we discovered that what they were actually doing was the prep work for replacing all the telephone poles all the way down the mountain. As one of the guys said, "The old ones have been condemned... they're all coming down."  
   At the top of the mountain is a small but nice grassy lawn with a picnic table for lunching at as well as a very tall lookout tower. Today, there was also a pile of about 7 telephone poles there, too.
    When the rangers are there, they're always nice enough to allow climbers up into the enclosed lookout room at the top of a mighty lot of very steep metal stairs. When the rangers aren't there, it's still okay to climb the tower, you just don't get to go into the little observation room at the top. But the view is still awesome from the top flight of stairs as well as from most of the landings on the way up, too.
    After our very buggy lunch, my lovely wife had no intention of climbing the stairs, so I zipped up several flights alone because there was no way I was hiking all the way up that mountain and not going up the tower! I only went about a third of the way up, though, to the first good viewing point. The view is awesome! From where I was, I could see nothing but forest and mountains. At the top, if I recall correctly, you can see a road or two somewhere in the distance, but I didn't go up that far today.
    Then it was time to head down. We both like to do loop trails, which is another reason Mt Toby appeals to us so much: we really like to take the narrow, winding, less known, and kind of steep,  Robert Frost Trail up and the wide, easy to walk on, gently sloping Tower Road that nearly everyone uses down. The Tower Road was originally built as a carriage road to the top, so it's a really easy walk. It only takes an hour to walk down. So it's a really nice 3-hour round trip, including half an hour at the top.
   Partway down, we met more workcrew guys, this time driving up. The first vehicle was a jeep with a couple of men in it. It was followed by a skidder pulling a trailer with 7 more telephone poles on it. There were several places along the way that I sure wouldn't want to be driving a vehicle across these big ruts, over those big hunks of Mt Toby Conglomerate (rocks), or around that washed out spot on the edge of a steep drop-off.  We knew they had already made it to the top once, though, because of the telephone poles that were already at the top. But I was really wondering how they were going to get those monster-sized poles from the top down the steep parts of the very narrow trail and how in the world they were going to get them vertical and into the ground. There was a big drill truck and a telephone cherry picker truck parked at the bottom of the mountain, but I can't imagine either of them driving down the steep side of that mountain where the power lines run. However, it somehow had been done before, so I'm sure they'll manage to do it again.
     On the hike up we met only four people: two people way faster than us caught up with us from behind, and two mountain bikers going the other way. On the way down, we encountered nearly twice as many folks including two joggers. I'm not sure I'd want to run all the way up and down Mt Toby, but if you're in that kind of shape, more power to you!
    Afterwards, we made plans to hike the entire 8+ miles of the Robert Frost Trail "next time". It's only about 25% longer than walking up and back from the northern end. The Robert Frost Trail runs from Bull Hill Rd near the Sunderland-Leverett town line at the southern end of town, over the top of Bull Hill, then over the top of Mt Toby, and down the other side to Reservation Rd (where we started today) at the north end of town. We'd have to take two cars and park one at each end, but they're only 10 or 12 minutes apart by car. I've never hiked more than the first 10 minutes of the southern section, so I'm  really looking forward to "next time".

 

    Then, this evening, we had a completely different kind of delightful event: a potluck at our new minister's home. We are at the very beginning of planting a New Church in the Valley, and this was one of our social gatherings of the few people in our denomination that already live here. We had a delightful meal, some fine socializing, and a brief "taking care of business" time.

 

    My datebook lied to me today! My datebook said that tonight was supposed to be the monthly Open Comedy Mike at P.A.C.E. in Easthampton MA. My datebook said it was rescheduled from it's usual time on the first Thursday of the month. My datebook lied.
     When I got there all ready to laugh my head off, the only comedian there was Owen Askew... and he was playing a guitar in a circle with 6-8 other people also playing acoustic instruments. They were making some really nice music with Owen doing a really nice blues solo when I walked in.
    When the song was over, they asked if I was here for comedy and I said yes. They stated the obvious saying it wasn't tonight and that several other people had showed up a little earlier. Well, I really enjoyed the one song I'd heard already, so I stuck around for the next one.
    At the end of another really fun song, Owen decide to take a break. He asked if I played guitar at all. When I said yes, he handed me his guitar and invited me to join them. So I did.
    Evidently they were taking turns around the circle starting a song for everyone to join in on. And, evidently, it was my turn because I was the newcomer in the group. So I launched into one of my favorite songs to play on the guitar, my uncle's New Church Assembly Blues - a jazzy tune about the weather at our church's summer camp in Maine. I ended up staying and jamming for about an hour before I decided it was time to go home.

    I had a really good time and am grateful to the group for allowing me to join in. I don't play music nearly enough.

 

    Over the past two days, I've been basically goofing around having fun putting together a new page for my website. This afternoon I finished it. Please check out the latest addition to my site:  TREVOR's Stilt Shoes Gallery on the Photos page. My absolute favorites were definitely the Yellow Sneakers. You'll be fascinated by the half dozen pairs of shoes that have been on my stilts since I first learned to use them in the 80's.  You'll be entertained by the witty commentary. And you'll get a kick out of the fine use of space. Well, at least I did. I was just having a little FUN!
     But I had completely forgotten about the red sneakers that were my second pair of stilt shoes.

 

    Late last night, well after I got home from Not Comedy Night, there was a very welcome, brief message from my son Jason (pictured right) saying that he and his girlfriend Kelly were going to be in the area this evening and would love to join us for dinner. (He's my son; he knows he's welcome any time.) So tonight I had an unexpected very nice visit with my son and his companion.

    My lovely wife (the good cook) made this awesome squash and sweet potato soup. It was so good, I pretty sure that all four of us had seconds. During dinner and afterwards lounging in our living room, we talked about all sorts of stuff from soup to nuts, dance to wood floors, old memories and into the future.
    Jason's a self-admitted computer geek so he had a really cool hand held computer that does pretty much everything your phone does and more. (By the way, he's my webhost for this site.)
    Nancy and Kelly started talking about knitting and crochet. Kelly's a "knit wit" but doesn't crochet, so Nancy gave her a little beginner lesson while Jason and I continued to talk. It was great to catch up on their life and just plain be together again for a little while. YAY!!

 

    At Rohan Park, at the corner of Sargeant & Chapman in Holyoke MA was the place to be beginning at about 2:00 this afternoon. Dalton Wainwright's 10th birthday party was the event!! The crowd built slowly from just a few to at least 20 kids ages 5-13 or so. I did Dalton's 7th birthday three years ago, so it was good to see him again. He sure seems to be a happy kid, I'll tell you that! He was cheerful and happy and helpful all the way through. YAY Dalton!
    Rohan Park is a very new park in Holyoke. It's only 3 or 4 years old. It's got a nice playground, comfortable picnic area, plenty of grass to run around on, fences along the sides to keep the kids in, plus a biffy. In other words, an ideal place for an outdoor birthday party.
    So I wheeled my stuff the very short walk from the street to the picnic area where mom Rhonda Wainwright had set up at one of the picnic tables. She had wisely tied a helium birthday balloon on a long string to the table so arriving guests could easily tell where to gather.
    By the time I had my stilts on, most of the kids were there. I got some really wide eyes when I first stood up! After a whole bunch of high fives, it was time for the show to begin! With a few blasts on my horn, the children came running.
    The Outdoor Special is what I do at outdoor children's birthday parties. The first half is my stiltwalking show; the second half is either parachute play or running games. Dalton had picked running games. So first the kids (and the adults, too!) laughed a lot, and then I ran 'em ragged. It was SO MUCH FUN!!
    In fact, it was so much fun that quite a few people who just happened to be in the park at the time were watching the show, and several neighborhood kids participated in the games, too! And several "standers by" also snagged a copy of my brochure afterwards!

 

    I got back home a little after 4:00, packed a bunch of stuff into the back of my truck, and then my lovely wife and I first went to River Valley Market (surprise, surprise) and then drove up to the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont - where 3 out of 5 of her family "clusters" live - for a 3-day visit. Her parents house (called The Chicken Ranch for traditional reasons) in E Burke VT was our base camp for this excursion... which I am calling a "vacation" just because it sounds better than "going away for the weekend". Besides, we were there Saturday - Tuesday, which is significantly more than just "the weekend". 

 

    So this morning we got up and drove 20 minutes north to Nancy's brother Pete's house in Island Pond VT. Pete is leading a dual existence, splitting his time between Vermont (where his house is) and Michigan (where his 5-year-old daughter is). He's home for a while now, so we got to spend the day at his place today. He's got 75 acres of mountainous, forested and fielded land with a cozy little house, an outhouse and an "inhouse", a long steep and windy driveway, an 18-hole disc golf course, gravity-fed running spring water, a really, really cool series of waterfalls, a bunch of great hiking trails he cut himself, a beaver pond, lots of snow in the winter, raised bed gardens in the summer, a snug little barn, and a 100+' sand cliff among other cool things.
    Pete's girlfriend Sarah was there for the weekend, so we lucked out that we just happened to be there at the same time. We really like Sarah. I got to chat with her several times throughout the day.
    Shortly, the parents and the younger sister's young family arrived for a Mother's Day lunch together. George (dad) got the grill going outside while Debbie (mom), Wendy (little sister), Nancy (my lovely wife), [and maybe Sarah, too, I don't remember] put together some food in the kitchen and kept an eye on Wendy's kid Chloe. Pete and Jon (Wendy's husband) played "the front 9": the first 9 holes of disc golf; while I worked on a crossword puzzle in the sun on the porch.
    When the food was ready, we all dug in and had edjamacational and amusing conversations over a delightful meal together. There were, in fact, three mothers there... so we had a lot to celebrate.

    Afterwards, Pete & Jon played the "back 9" while the rest of us just relaxed together. When the golfers got back, we all (except George) went on a walk to through the woods on some of the cool trails Pete's cut on his land. We went to the waterfalls, the huge  beaver dam, and on his newest trail.

    Then, shortly after Wendy & Jon and Chloe headed home, around 4:00, my west coast brother Ian and my extreme northern New Hampshire cousin Sarah A arrived within 10 minutes of each other.

    Ian is a senior editor at Home Power magazine and is at the NorthWoods Stewardship Center in E Charleston VT leading a hands-on seminar on small scale wind-electric power this week. Pete used to live and work at NorthWoods and since it's only 10 minutes from his house, it was extremely convenient for Ian to come over to Pete's place while we were there. It was wonderful to see my long lost brother again. He does come east regularly, so I sometimes actually get to see him once a year if I'm lucky. Ian's terrific and I love him, so it always great to spend time together.
    Ian was pretty tired because of lingering jet lag on top of a full schedule of work, so he didn't talk as much as he sometimes does, but that doesn't really make a lot of difference to me. I like the talk, but it's the together time that really floats my boat.
   Sarah A, on the other hand, lives and works in Colebrook NH, which is only 45-minutes from  Pete's place. For the past at least 6 or 7 years, I've been visiting Nancy's relatives up here and I never' realized until this time around that my long lost cousin Sarah A was only about ½ an hour away all this time! I haven't seen Sarah in years and years and years. I love her, too, so it was great to get together again with her, too.
    Sarah A, on the other hand, was her usual cheerful, bouncy self. She talked quite a bit to just about everyone there.
    And just to confuse the Sarah line even more: not only is Pete's girlfriend named Sarah, and not only is my cousin named Sarah (Sarah A), but just to keep the Sarah circle going Sarah A's brother is married to a woman named Sarah, too. (She's Sarah B.)
    So we all did a lot of schmoozing, went on another walk down to the waterfall, had another nice meal together, and then everybody but us went home. Nancy & I stayed and hung out with Pete & Sarah for another hour or so before we, too, headed back to the Chicken Ranch.

 

    Saturday night we spent at the folks' place, and Sunday we spent at Pete's, so today we drove north to  Wendy & Jon and Chloe's -----------> place for most of the day. Jon was at work, of course, so we hung out with Wendy and her little daughter Chloe. We got there just before lunchtime so the first thing we did is eat. Then we basically talked and played with Chloe for a while inside before we decided it was time for some fresh air.
    First we walked all the way down to the bottom of their driveway. Higgins the dog and Elijah the cat came with us. Across that dirt thing they I think jokingly call a "road" is a cow pasture with an electric fence around it. As we neared the bottom of the driveway, all the cows suddenly began to move across the field in front of us. We were guess it was milking time at the barn or something because all of a sudden they all just got up and began moving across the field at a fairly good pace. But when the heard us coming down the driveway (we did have a small child with us after all), all the cows suddenly stopped and began staring at us. We, of course, were already staring at them.

    This went on for a minute or so until one of the younger cows began to amble slowly towards us across the field. Very soon after that, the entire herd was right in front of us on the other side of the wire. Several cows seemed to take as much interest in us as we had been showing them. Higgins the dog, on the other hand, got a little too close to that electric fence wire and got quite a jolt. He really yelped! And then he went whimpering to Wendy and stood between her feet just shaking. Poor dog. But I bet he doesn't do that again soon!
    Well, after the novelty wore off, most of the cows were chowing down on the grass and only a couple cows showed any interest as we walked back up their fairly long driveway to the house. But we didn't go inside. Instead, we began to work on their yard. You see, Wendy & Jon only bought this property about a few years ago. In that time, they've built a nice little house themselves, cleared and smoothed the driveway, built a storage shed and a work barn, and now Wendy says this is "The Year of the Yard" in which lots of outdoor projects are going to get underway.
    We'd seen her list inside, so we asked her if we could help. So, while Nancy dug up some irises that were growing around the old cellar hole from the original (long gone) house on the site, I began moving rocks to finish a rock border a small flower garden beside their house at the tip top of the driveway. By the time I'd finished with the rocks and begun weeding, Nancy was back with a boodle of plants in a bucket. We made short work of the weeds together; then as Nancy planted, I went back and dug up the rest of the irises from the hillside. When we were done, it looked really good!
    When we asked Wendy if she wanted us to start working on the slabstone patio they want behind their house, she said what she really wanted was a stone walkway between their front door and the driveway. So I grabbed the wheelbarrow and began collecting a whole lot of big flat rocks. So I spent the next hour carting rocks and dirt and building a pretty nice (if I don't say so myself) raised stone walkway.
    Meanwhile, Nancy and Wendy were continuing with the flower work on the side of the house. By the time we had finished with all those projects, I tell you, things there were looking pretty good!
    We had told the parents we'd be back by supper time, so after cleaning things up a bit, I snagged a bunch of forsythia cuttings for our back yard at home and Nancy & I headed back to the Chicken Ranch for a delightful supper together, followed not all that very much longer after that by a fine trio of snoring while I watched two Robin Williams movies sort of back and forth at the same time.

  

 

    Time to go home today. So we packed everything back in the truck and headed down the highway.

    First stop: the Gas 'N Go in Lyndonville VT -- a $44 fill-up (ouch!).

    Second stop: the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge spanning the Connecticut River between Cornish NH and Windsor VT. It's the longest covered bridge in the USA! I had just discovered this place this morning in Vermont Life magazine at her parents' place.  It's on the way home just a short distance from the highway between exits 8 & 9 off Rte 91 a block or so east of Rte 5 in downtown Windsor VT. I just love covered bridges, so this one was a real treat. It's so long! It's nearly 450' from one end to the other! It's a truss lattice bridge (which I'm not going to explain) and was renovated fairly recently. It looks great! And, in fact, they won an award for it's restoration.
    Third stop: Putney Food Coop for a little late lunch and a quick food shop.
    Fourth stop: Black Mountain Nature Preserve in Dummerston VT. Nancy just discovered this place this morning in a brochure at her parents' place. It's a little bit further from the highway than the covered bridge is but still pretty much en route. This place is on a dirt road that hugs the edge of the West River. There's a little pull-off that holds maybe three vehicles across the road from the trail head.

    Black Mountain Nature Preserve is a recent acquisition of the Nature Conservancy, so the trail system there is still in it's infancy. We crossed the road and headed up the rustic trail through several different environments. After a while, the trail got pretty steep. After a beautiful walk, we reached our time limit and turned around and headed down again.
    Final stop: home. It's going to be nice to sleep in our own bed tonight. (Well, actually, I can hear Nancy already enjoying it as I write this. [ZZZ-zzzzz-ZZZ-zzzz-ZZZZ])
    I had nearly a dozen phone messages and quite a few emails waiting for me. Several groups want to book me to perform at an event, but the funnest contact was a friendly email from Christian Duquette along with a bunch of great photos from his dad Conrad Duquette's 50th birthday party that I did last month at the Yankee Pedlar in Holyoke MA. (See the April 5th entry for details.)

    On the left  is a picture of  Conrad and me at the beginning of the show. At right is me with a bunch of the younger generation who obviously all were having a boodle of FUN!
    And below is a group shot of one side of the banquet hall during the opening game of The Party Game Show. The game we're playing is called Who's the Leader? How it works is the birthday boy has to figure out which one of his friends and relatives everyone in the group is imitating!

    So these three photos are by Conrad's son Christian Duquette.
    One thing I learned about my website while I was at my wife's folks the last few days is that if someone (like my father-in-law) makes the type larger so that it's easier to read, then all the arrows that I so carefully place so they are pointing from specific text to what that specific text is describing are no longer pointing directly at the image I intended. Most of them are out in the middle of nowhere pointing sort of in the general direction of the picture. And some of the horizontal arrows are so far below their intended photo that they are merely pointing to some random point on the side edge of the screen.

    So I tried to add text directly to the margin of the photos here, but my Photo Browser wouldn't accept them with any text. So I couldn't use them like that, and now I'm kind of stuck. I have no idea how to solve this problem. I thought that attaching a caption to the actual photo would solve my problem. (Well, it would have had it actually worked, but.... )

 

    This evening, my lovely wife and I went to an interesting and entertaining presentation by Scott Barton at the Lilly Library in Florence MA on The London to Brighton Emancipation Run. It's an antique car commemorative "race" in England that was originally done in 1895 to draw attention to the then-new automobile and to encourage the repeal of several repressive laws, including one that required all automobiles to be proceeded by a man carrying a red flag! This law in particular kind of negated the whole idea: if the car is only allowed to be moving at walking speed, what's the point?
    So when this event got revived decades later, they decided that since the last one in the original series was held in 1904, that only cars manufacture up to 1904 would be eligible. They have an extremely strict vetting of this rule, with a committee of professionals and old car enthusiasts making sure that your old car really is that old.
    The presenter purposely bought a 1904 car specifically because he wanted to participate in this event. His slide show and talk were both educational and entertaining.

 

    Today, I went to the co-op, read comics and science fiction, and watched a movie. 

 

     The Byram Shubert Library in Greenwich CT has booked me several times since the first time in 2004. They are in the middle of adding a huge addition to their absolutely gorgeous library. I think I heard someone say that it will more than double the size of the library!
     Today was their 2nd annual ice cream social anniversary party outside in the parking lot and field behind the library. There was a clown and face painter, a caricaturist, a great dixieland band (that instantly played my request! (Three Little Words)), bubbles, hula hoops, a free book of your choice for everyone, me on stilts doing a mighty lot of high fives and then a little show, and of course free ice cream!
    There were old people, young people, children, elders, and all ages in between there to celebrate the library. What a delightful community event!
    After more than an hour of stiltwalking, just after their official presentation, I did a brief 20-minute show for the children in the lawn. There were a couple of disruptive boys (Now there's a big surprise.), but thanks to an attentive dad, they were dealt with and the show went on. I had the audience applaud the dad just to encourage that behavior. So many times when I'm doing a show, parents just sort of expect me to deal with of their children's excessive behavior. So special thanks to that father.

    It was great to be back at the Byram Shubert Library for the seventh time! And I'm delighted that they'we asked me to return for their grand re-opening this Fall, too! YAY!!

 

    From there, I drove about 15 minutes to the north end of town to the Greenwich Audubon Center:  285 acres with 7 miles of hiking trails, lots and lots of stone walls, an old apple orchard, wildflower meadow, a holly grove, several ponds, bogs, and vernal pools, a couple of elevated bird blinds, original homestead buildings, and a large Education Center. I was going to hike counter-clockwise around the entire perimeter of their trail system -- a 3-mile hike -- but about 10 minutes out, it began getting dark and windy and threatening rain, so I didn't want to be a mile or more from the parking area if the sky decided to open up. 
    So I settled on a smaller loop. But ten minutes later, it was all blue sky and sunny again. So I ended up walking what was probably more than 3 miles because although I didn't do the outer loop, I did walk nearly all the rest of the trails on the map (except the ones all the way on the right side of the map). There's also a few trails off the top of the map (which I didn't reproduce here because I didn't walk them either), but it sure was a nice walk. I really enjoyed this place. One of the reason I go into the woods is for solitude, so I was pleased that although the parking lot was jam packed with cars, I only met a very few people on the trails.
    My main motivation to go to this particular site is the amazing giant tulip trees on the property. Mature tulip trees are huge! Taller than oaks. In the woods, they grow straight and tall with most of their branches at the top. The bark is deeply furrowed all the way up to the top.
    The leaves of the tulip tree (pictured right) are rather unusual in that they have lobes but don't have a central point at the top. There are only a few other trees like that. In fact, the only other one I can think of right now is the ginko tree.   

    And the flowers really do look something like tulips.

    The Greenwich Audubon Center has  a lot of tulip trees on their site. Most of them are exceptionally large. I was suitably impressed.
    All in all, it was well worth the price of admission ($3) for the 2+ hours I was there.

 

    From there, I drove back to the welcoming comfort of the Pioneer Valley, but I didn't go straight home. Instead, for a laugh I went straight to the Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton (PACE). Well, actually, for a lot of laughs because it was another wonderful Girls, Girls, Girls all-women comediennes comedy show hosted by our own hilarious purveyor of comedy: Jennifer Myszkowski (who also hosts the monthly open comedy mike at PACE the 1st Thursday of every month).
    But this was not open mike night. This was a real show of professional comediennes. I got there about half an hour after the show started, so I actually missed Jennifer's part of the show. She boo-hooed a little about this afterwards because she had some new material and I missed it. You see, I'm a PACE comedy groupie: I go to the all of the comedy shows there if at all possible. So Jennifer wanted me to hear her new stuff.
    So anyways, I got there about half an hour late, and the performance space was so packed I had to bring my own chair in from the lobby. The place was stuffed to the gills! And as far as I can tell, everyone really enjoyed the show. Lots of laughter. Lots of guffaws, snickers, chuckles, and outright hoots of laughter from every part of the room, too. (hee hee hee)

 

    After my lovely wife went to bed very early tonight (she had a really long weekend), I sat here at the computer and spent 2½ hours up-dating my website page on The Party Game Show by adding the great photos Christian Duquette sent me of his father's birthday bash last month. I mentioned Christian's kindness in my entry last Tuesday just above, and also put some of his photos there just to show you how fun they are.
    Anyways, I'm totally thrilled with how the page looks now. For some reason, I have very, very few photos of me working with adult audiences. But these ones are perfect. They totally capture the spirit of the show, how much people enjoy it, and how much just plain FUN it is! So a big THANK YOU TO CHRISTIAN DUQUETTE once again for the great pictures! I think the page looks awesome now! (Next, I'm going to add a few of them to other places where they are also sorely needed.)

    I also spent just a few more minutes on a brand new page: TREVOR's Recommendations. So far, it only has one thing on it... but that's because it's brand new.

 

    Today, I was a few minutes late to a gig for the first time in about a decade, and it didn't really matter at all because everyone was still eating dinner. This evening I was in Springfield MA at the Early Childhood Center of Greater Springfield working with 72 day care providers. I was leading my A New Approach to Team-Building staff development training.

    When they all had finished eating, we pushed all the tables to the edges of the room and began. A New Approach to Team-Building is a unique staff development training: it is composed entirely of cooperative games for adults! The whole concept of cooperative games means that these people will be actually enjoying working together towards common goals. And that's exactly what happened this time, too. Usually at the  beginning of a workshop like this, most of the people are kind of closed down. But by the end, everyone was smiling at each other and saying how much they liked it. One person wrote on his evaluation sheet: "I had a bad attitude coming in. I'm smiling now." Another wrote: "This is the first time... that I've seen the whole staff laughing and having fun together."
    Watching this group work together, two of my favorite games were "Shape Up" and "Instant Replay". "Shape Up" is a group creativity game. Everybody gets into groups of 7-12 or so. Then I call out a number and they have to figure out somehow to form that number with their entire group. Then I call a letter and they make the letter. And then a shape. We did several rounds, each one successively harder than the one before, and every single group aced it! One of the interesting things about watching this game is that the group dynamics is so different from group to group: in this group, one person assumes leadership and everybody else goes along; in that group, three people become co-directors and group lead; and in that other group over there, everybody takes part in arriving at a solution. There is no "right" way — they all work just fine. I find it very interesting to see how differently each group handles it. 

   "Instant Replay", on the other hand, is a large group circle game. I start by stepping three steps into the circle, saying my name and doing an action, and stepping back again. Then in unison the entire group does an instant replay of what I did! And then it's the next person's turn. Normally when I'm doing an education workshop (that is, one designed to teach them cooperative games to use with the children) and I introduce this game, I cut it short after the first five or six people have had a turn, just so they get the idea of the game. But this was a team-building workshop, and this group was so into this game that I let it go all the way around the entire circle. Man-o-man did they get off on that one! 
   This group worked so well together and participated so fully in everything that it was a big surprise to me afterwards when Sherry Manyak, ECCGS acting education director (and the person who booked me), told me that they'd been having a big morale problem with practically the entire staff. Well, let me tell you. That attitude was a little evident at the beginning; they made me work for it at the start. But, as I said at the beginning of this entry, by the end....
   

    [Okay. My bad. I just googled the ECCGS and discovered that I had the wrong street # written down. It's #15, not 16! Usually, the Post Office returns mail with the wrong number even if everything else is right, and I had sent them a confirmation letter that didn't come back, so it didn't occur to me that the # I had written down was wrong. Oops.]

    End of confession. 

 

    Anyways, this group was great! It was wonderful to see them go from 10 tables of attitude to a large circle of co-workers having a blast all sitting down in a very tight circle together, and actually sitting on each other's lap around the circle in the rousing closer: "The Lap Game"! And rousing it was! They were whoopin' and hollerin' when they successfully sat in a circle together without any chairs but their own laps!

 

    For maybe the fifth time, it was my terrific pleasure to entertain lots of the school families for 4 hours today at the <----SABIS International Charter School Picnic & Sports Jamboree in Springfield MA! What a wonderful event! The picnic committee does a great job every year. There's always some sort of huge inflatable, like a bounce house or obstacle course... this year, it was a double slide that had a line the entire length of the fair, so it must have been really fun! Plus there was face painting, food, a high school dance demonstration, several ball games, and me. I did most of two hours of stiltwalking, then my Outdoor Special, which is my Aerial Delights show followed by 30-45 minutes of parachute games, and after that I set up Project: Ribbon Dancer for the last hour of the fair and everybody got to make and decorate their own ribbon dancer (that loooooong ribbon-on-a-stick toy) to play with and take home. It sure adds lots of festiveness when the kids are all waving them around in the air all over the entire area.

    It seemed like there were more people here this time compared to last year. I suspect that this year's addition of the "Sports Jamboree" part to the traditional school picnic was at least partly responsible for upping the attendance. Good idea, picnic committee! YAY!!
 

Dear Nancy--

    I'm so glad you're home. I've missed you so much while you've been gone these past 5 or 6 days. It was really nice to talk with you on the phone a few times each day, but as far as I'm concerned: it's so much better in person. It's so good to once again be able to see your lovely face shine when we're talking. I'm really glad you're back. Our home (and my heart) has been feeling rather empty without you here. Welcome home, my darling.
   I love you so much...

                                                                                  Your devoted husband,

                                                                                                                   --Trevor

 

                                                                                        P.S.  ...just the way you are.

 

    As a member of the Eastern Cooperative Recreation School (ECRS), I enjoy their regular homey newsletters full of all sorts of fun, interesting articles about ECRS activities as well as info about ECRS members. A recent newsletter had a logic puzzle (also called Minute Mysteries) in it. Basically, they are brief mysteries that you have to figure out by asking Yes-or-No questions. It's a game I use regularly with adults, teens, kids, and even preschoolers believe it or not, so it was no surprise that I already knew the one in the ECRS newsletter.
     But in the latest issue where they announced the winner and how he worked out the right answer... that got me thinking. I love Minute Mysteries (which is why I use them so much), and would love to share them with a bigger audience.

    So, this is to announce a new inter-active page on my website: A Minute Mystery for you to solve. Read the clues and email me your Yes-or-No questions. I'll post your questions and the answers right there on that page to help you and everyone else figure out the mystery!

 

    Tonight we had our first ever River Valley Market Outreach Committee meeting that was actually held in the store! Yahoo! We are so psyched!

 

     About a week ago, I got a call from my friend Amar Fuller, who runs Khalsa Childcare in her home, about doing one of my Weekly Games Classes with the preschoolers in her day care.

She secured funding through the Community Partnership for Children program of the Erving School Union. So today was the first of six (mostly) weekly morning visits.
     It was really fun to play with Amar's 8 "older" kids (ages 3 & 4). I love this age group. We did a lot of silliness first just to get the kids used to me. They warmed up really quickly.

    First we did some clapping activities, then some leg movement stuff, and then some all-body things: gross motor skills it's called (although there's nothing gross

 

 

[This page got cut off somehow and the rest of it is lost forever.]

trevor@trevorthegamesman.com

PO Box 463, Haydenville, MA 01039