Virginia Is For Families

The weather has become much more pleasant in the past few days so I decided to get out and explore Richmond for a few hours. First stop was the Virginia Historical Museum which sits right next to the Museum of Fine Arts and all the construction that is going on there. I was particularly interested in anything they might have on display about desegregation and events fifty years ago here in Richmond. There has been a lot in the news on this anniversary about the lunch counter sit-ins and black college students who were arrested at Woolworth’s Department Store in this city.

I took a few photos including one of Martin Luther King talking to some children and then headed out for the park while I was still thinking about the insanity of trying to force one group of people to sit in a different area from another group of people. There was one instance of a black woman named Irene Morgan who was taking a bus in 1944 from somewhere and going to Baltimore but when she got to Richmond they told her she had to change her seat and go to the back of the bus. She refused and legal action resulted that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that Virginia could not impose their rules on interstate travel and she was vindicated.

Good job. So the park was fairly deserted except for a few of my barnyard friends including Dan the donkey and Morgan the goat. A woman was taking her little girl in a stroller around for some fresh air and stopped right in front of Morgan. The child took one look at his wonderful eyes and let out a shriek that caused all the birds in the area to rise into the air.

Oh well. Goat eyes are a little strange. I took a photo of a wonderfully large tree. Lately I have been thinking about trees and their expressiveness. They often seem to be reaching out to the sky as if to embrace the heavens.

And then it was time to go but I decided to call Zachary my younger son who lives in the area and he was receptive to a visit. He wanted to show me an area of downtown that I had never seen and away we went. We journeyed down to the James River and a very long pipe that has a walkway on top of it. There are rapids underneath and train tracks above and many, many herons nearby sitting in the trees a safe distance away.

So I took some photos of all of this and then it really was time to go home and rest. Zachary was driving back to his place and on the way he showed me the new VCU gym which he says is the best college gym on the east coast. Apparently it is a huge playground and a great place to lose calories. And it’s for ALL the students isn’t that great?

And then we rode by his workplace. He has been working in a small restaurant and reports that they really like him because he’s never late, never misses shifts, works hard and keeps his shirt tucked in. He hopes that he will be promoted soon to waiter status and will begin making more money.

He has a lot to learn but he doesn’t have to worry about insane seating arrangements that would break his heart.

Good. So I wished him well and ventured home in my own car dodging pot holes that have opened up everywhere since Snowzilla visited us a few weeks ago. Some of the photos seem to have turned out well. You can click on the photo for a full- screen slide show if you wish. And here’s a little music to go with it.

Play Earth, Wind and Fire – Getaway

And now it’s back to watching the Olympics and sedentary living for awhile.

It’s six am and still no sign of light out the window as I sit here at the desk and type a few words while headphones bring forth the wonderful music of the season.

We don’t want to disturb the guests and especially the little girl who sleeps down the hall. Or her mother or grandmother or the dogs. Or anybody really because sound can slip through the cracks in a sleeping house while the darkness holds so many thoughts and emotions within its four walls.

And they somehow settle into our dreams as we (hopefully) play across the landscapes or dreamscapes we create at night.

Over time so much of this is brought forward into the light of course and our lives take form in ways that often surprise us.

What we think and dream and carry out the door in the morning is important and I hope we will all take whatever is most important to us on our journeys.

It is Thanksgiving today a most wonderful holiday unencumbered with the commercial concerns of a nation trying to somehow gather its economic salvation together in four or five short weeks.

, originally uploaded by Davidlind.

And there will be lots of things happening as everyone gets together for a few hours. Our relationships with family members seem so complex at times! Our families are so complex! But were they ever simple really?
It’s difficult to remember a time when they were at all that way. It comes down to moments perhaps when things seem simple.

Like now. While everyone is sleeping and Andrea is singing in my head. While the light begins to find its way into this room and one thought has a chance to wrap itself around my feeble brain.

Please God

Bless Us

Every

One.

Play God Bless Us Everyone

From time to time I enjoy reading the newspaper and learning about what is going on in the world. It’s not something to do every day because too much news is not a good thing. In fact, too much news can drive you crazy. I used to follow the news closely until one day I found myself downtown trying to find the office of our number one elected official so I could discuss something with him.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I had gone around the bend and ought to find something else to do. So I stopped watching or caring about the news and became a blogger. Now a giant wave could pass outside my window here in Richmond, Virginia and I would simply note it in a blog post, take a few photos and resume playing Lord of the Rings Online.

It’s so nice to be sane once again. I’m really proud to have made such progress in so short a period of time.

I enjoy reading about things that are happening in the world. But it’s like eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. You really have to limit your intake or you will die way before your time.

Speaking of death I was sad to see in the news yesterday that two motorcycle drivers had a head-on collision here in town over the weekend and passed away. Condolences to their family and friends but how do you have a head-on collision with another motorcycle driver? Don’t people drive motorcycles so they can go around things? I see them all the time in traffic going around cars that are stuck in one place. Perhaps these two were related in another lifetime. Maybe they were brothers who went off in different directions and missed each other terribly.

Now they are together again in heaven. Angels are tenderly trying to separate them so that they can begin their heavenly training.

I also enjoy reading about what happened on this day in history. On July 1, 1867 Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain. This news also is causing me some confusion however. Doesn’t the word dominion have something to do with the word dominate? And isn’t the concept of self-government different from the notion of domination? It’s a little like what happened to Prince Charles on this day in 1969. Because he was formally invested as the Prince of Wales by his mother. He was given a position of great authority and prestige on this day.

And here we are forty years later and he’s still got the same position and precious little authority! Henry V!!! who has been so vividly portrayed lately on Showtime had his wife’s head removed based on some trumped up rumors about her infidelity. But Prince Charles had to watch while his wife went tooling around Paris with her boyfriend in a luxury automobile for the whole world to see!

Boy things sure have changed in the last four hundred years.

Maybe.

Canada did manage to get a national anthem on this day in 1980. It only took 113 years to come up with some music to mark the occasion.

In 1946 on this day the United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. But on this day in 1968 the US, Britain, the Soviet Union and sixty other countries signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Between these two dates
in the 1950’s above ground testing was conducted out west in the US near Las Vegas! People were encouraged to go out in their yards and watch. In fact they were given radiation badges that were collected and analyzed.

Some of these folks later discovered that they glowed in the dark except on one little area where the radiation badge had been located!!

Oh, I just made that last part up!

Maybe

Marlon Brandon left us on this date five years ago. Maybe he can welcome our two motorcycle brothers into the fraternity up there and do a quick replay with them to figure out how they went wrong.

And, finally, a bevy of beautiful babes are enjoying birthdays today. Olivia de Havilland, Karen Black, Deborah Harry, Genevieve Bujold, Lisa Blount, Pamela Anderson, Liv Tyler and Jamie Farr are all having special days.

And I have completed my adventure into a world full of news and history and insanity. Clearly its time to relax and do some deep breathing. My wife always hides the car keys for awhile when I do this so no one will be tempted to go downtown. Not that I would actually try and go anywhere to see someone about the current state of our terrestrial paradise.

Who would I talk to anyway? It seems like no one is in charge in any meaningful sense. We are all just drifting along through time waiting for the last day when history is able to amaze us.

And we become it.

So enjoy!

Every once in awhile someone comes up with a very bright idea for a blog.  Here is an interesting blog with photos from the 1850’s to the 1950’s.

http://www.shorpy.com/

And while we are at it why don’t I find a few photos  from the 1950’s when I was just a little guy and put them  up here.   Shorpy has put me in the mood.   They  may not be as fascinating as some of these photos but they are  from the same time period!

I keep trying to tell people that when I was small I was made to  shovel the front driveway and the snow was sometimes over  my head.

Well here’s the proof!   I’m suprised they took photographic evidence of it.  What’s the “statue” of limitations on this sort of thing?  Oh wait.  I’m the statue and a frozen one at that.  Nevermind.   There’s also a photo here of  my dwarfish style  period.  I was a big fan of Snow White.

Time certainly flies does it not?  I’m sorry that none of the younger folk will ever have photos of themselves from the middle of the last century.  But that’s the way it goes.  At least you had computers when you were growing up.

And you didn’t have to shovel truckloads of snow in central Massachusetts.