On becoming obsolete, and the spring bulb show...

(a mental dance and rumination illustrated with pictures taken yesterday at the annual Spring bulb show held in the 120+ year old conservatory of the Smith College horticultural department.)

My computer, a desk top, is aging.
It is slowing down; it's innards are constantly examined for viruses, but they are not the problem.
It stays updated, but the updates seem to add stress.
It's use of the fan has increased; it tries to keep cool as it deals with changes.
It seems as though it no longer has the ability to quickly process the ever increasing amount of data required for its ability to quickly complete what should be simple tasks.
Sometimes I wonder if all of this is a metaphor for the person who operates it.
I was going to write, "the person who owns it..." but that raises a few uncomfortable questions about the true nature of our relationship.
Certainly, it runs programs designed to keep it trouble free more than it once did.
It runs them so much, in fact, that I often have problems getting it to let me use it.

I've encountered this problem before.
It was solved with the purchase of a newer more powerful computer.
That event was in early May of 2011.
As the purchase was a discounted model from a chain store, I suspect that the computer was introduced the previous year.
Which means that it is old in computer years.
I can't believe I just wrote, "in computer years".
(sigh)

Sometimes it seems that most of the electronics are breaking down.
The tv works without a hitch, but the cable box often refuses to respond to commands as it busily updates the schedule page, or spies on people, or whatever it is really doing when I only want to see what else is on, or to simply change the channel.

Some days the internet pauses, takes a few breaths, and acts as though it is about to demand a vacation. It reminds me of the days when someone on the east coast could tell that it was after 5pm on the west coast - even simple internet searches slowed down when so many people got home and turned on their computers.




Over the last year I've explored streaming audio-visual content from services such as Amazon and Netscape. The hope was that I'd be able to cancel a large portion of my cable-phone-internet package to reduce costs. If there is a holiday, or a storm which keeps a large number of people home, streaming becomes a problem. One never knows where the problem originates, of course. Is it with Comcast, slowing down my service now that they can? Is it due to so much demand that Netscape or Amazon can't handle it? Is it a part of the electronic infrastructure somewhere in between the coast on which I'm located and the coast on which the streaming service originates? The reality is that when there is a problem, there is nothing we can do about it, whether or not we understand why it is happening. Is that a metaphor for life in the current version of America (or the world)?

These aren't new complaints, of course.
A minor problem can now have major repercussions.
I no longer carry more than a couple of dollars on my person.
If my bank's system, or the internet, or the company that screens for fraudulent purchases for the bank, or the grocery store's system hiccups, or is down, for any reason, I wouldn't be able to purchase groceries (this has happened to me couple of times).

The modern way of using plastic cards to access the 1's and 0's that represent money has been frustrating for some time. I still haven't forgotten my attempt some years ago to make a purchase in New Hampshire, a state that borders the state where I reside (Vermont), in a town about a half an hour's drive from my apartment. The purchase was around $100.00, and was for the business for which I worked (to be reimbursed). The purchase was denied. Luckily, this was during banking hours, so I called the bank. They quickly determined that the problem was that I seldom bought anything in New Hampshire, and seldom spent that amount of money on a purchase, so it had been denied as suspicious. They would authorize it so the sale would go through. Only it didn't. Another call to the bank revealed that they paid a company to flag what it considered suspicious activity on an account, and that company hadn't yet released my own funds to make the purchase. They would call the company while I waited on hold. I was eventually told everything was okay. Except it wasn't. All told, it took about 45 minutes to an hour just to be able to spend my own money which was in my own account.

When everything works the way it is intended, the modern electronic digital computer world can be quite an improvement over the old fashioned, low quality, slower analog world in which I grew up.
As long as one can afford it.

So why do I sometimes wish for a simpler time, a more gregarious time when people connected in person rather than through devices, when movies were screen in theatres and watched with a hundred or more friends of the dark in a shared experience?

The older folks always seem to complain that life was simpler, more beautiful, better crafted, more enjoyable, more social, more (fill in the blank) when they were young. That is when they weren't complaining about how difficult it was when they were young.

Now that I am of that older generation, I hear these same contradictory complaints from myself, see them in the things I type out, and revel in the open space, the balance between them, while accepting that there is nothing I can do, and that it doesn't do any good to try to understand. Then I try to understand.

 

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the computer, simply pushed beyond my capacity by the newer programs, that don't work as well as the older programs. If, in short, I am becoming old fashioned, and obsolete. I also wonder if I care about it in the least.

For now it is snowing, yesterday I reveled in the promise of Spring at the annual bulb show , and I plan to spend the rest of today reveling in a world passing away, a world that, like myself, is busy becoming obsolete.

addenda - While uploading the pictures for this post, the internet paused, lost the connection, and the program became stuck trying to upload the last picture. Tomorrow, I'll try to upload pictures from the conservatory rooms that aren't part of the bulb show. If the technology lets me. In the meantime, I'll be left to ponder whether the systems are simply breaking down, or becoming obsolete. I'll try to let pictures of spring flowers distract me. Before they become obsolete too.

Playin' rondo variations on the sciatic nerve

Grump, grumpy, grumpola, to grump, or not to grump... do you see where this is going? Do I? Should that be "Do eye" just to be contrary and upset grammariticians? No, I'm not just trying to cover up for my lack of posts, or the fact that I'm now behind by three radio show links on my own blog. If I thought anyone actually read any of this or listened to my shows through the posted links in any sort of regular fashion, I'd be horrified. Something is wrong. I'm having the worst attack yet of pain from the sciatic nerve. It's so bad that I can't think off hand if this is the beginning of week three or week four of this go'round. I'm out of any kind of painkillers, and it will be another two hours before there will be a bus to the market. My spine is now making complaints. I wonder if has to do with the rainy weather? My skin condition has been acting up - it's not supposed to be painful but it is at times, and I seem to be in one of those times. It's enough to make me wonder if there is a doll somewhere that looks like me with any number of pins stuck in it.

I've been goofing off and watching movies again. Last week, all but one of the movies I watched had some bearing (not that much really) on my radio show. I've just deleted a couple of paragraphs about the interconnectedness of the movies I watched. I shall try to get back to pondering such things a little later - after I get to the store and purchase a giant bottle of Aleve. For now, I'll just catch up with posting the last few weeks of radio shows.

I'll start off with the program from April 16th. The legislature in my state has had a major push to decriminalize the use of marijuana. The bill passed the Senate, but once it got to the House it became the unhappy subject of legal shenanigans. A committee decided to delay, stonewall, and obfuscate by re-writing the bill, and took out the decriminalization part in favor of just discussing regulations. They passed their version to the next committee, which put everything back, plus added a clause which would allow folks to have two plants for their own use. (The two plants thing was standard, if unacknowledged, 'look the other way' practice in Vermont some 20 years ago.) With the "four-twenty" a few days away, I thought I'd do a show featuring viper songs of the 1930's. ("Four-twenty" is a pot culture reference, and a day on which "smoke-ins" are held to encourage repeal of anti-hemp and anti-marijuana legislation. It grew out of a meeting of students at the appointed time to search for a fabled abandoned field of pot. These things take on a life of their own.)



The above, by the way, is one of my most played shows on Soundcloud. It was almost lost - the station's recording computer program burped and ate my show. Luckily, one of the DJs wanted to hear it, didn't know about my recording and posting my shows, and set his home computer to record the program. His volume was set a little high and there is a bit of distortion - particularly during the first few minutes - but I'm extremely grateful the show was saved, and that someone likes my show enough to record it. Another listener used to record it on cassette tapes and send them out to his friends.

Up next, the show from April 23rd, which took note of the birthdays of Lionel Hampton, Shirley Temple, and one of the show's Patron Saints and Goddess of Song, Ella Fitzgerald. It was also the start of Passover. In all of the surviving radio shows which are generally available, there are only a couple which even mention it. Those two mentions were from "The Eternal Light", a drama series. I assume that shows like "The Goldbergs" had Passover themes, but those shows are not among the survivors. So, for friends who celebrate the holiday, I included a segment I made last year which edited together scraps found of a NYC Yiddish radio station. Included in that segment, the Barry Sisters sing "Yiddle Mitn Fidl" in both Yiddish and English.



Just as a by the by kind of thing, "Yiddle With His Fiddle" was the most successful Yiddish musical ever filmed. (I think the actual citation is that it is the most successful movie in Yiddish.) It starred Molly Picon, a wonderful entertainer now largely forgotten. I screened a 16mm print of it when I lived in NYC, but don't remember much of it. I can't find a reference to this anywhere, but I'm fairly certain it was a stage show long before it was a movie. I have a memory of discovering that a theatre on Second Avenue (or was it on Third?) on the Lower East Side whose existence was endangered had been where the show played, with Molly Picon as the star.

And that brings us to the most recent show, which "played a few" for the birthdays of Blossom Dearie, Duke Ellington, Kate Smith, Lorenz (Larry) Hart, and Bing Crosby. There were also segments for Walpurgisnacht and May Day. Whew! Too much to do, not enough time. Many years ago, I did a show called "Bing and..." which was only Bing Crosby and various other performers in duets and etc. It was, I think, the most fun I ever had in the 'doing' of one of my shows. Maybe this Saturday I'll do more for Bing. And Kate Smith only got one song. Few now remember  that she was a jazz baby singing "hot" songs.



Well, now that the posting of the radio shows has been caught up, I can go writhe in pain until it's time to catch the bus. I shall try to get back later (today, tomorrow, or whenever) to record impressions of the movies I've watched, as well as the garden and this year's attempts at Spring.

Onion rings for breakfast

Do you know what happens when you get too busy for the daily chores of life? You get onion rings for breakfast. My schedule got messed up again thanks to stuff at the radio station (all volunteer, including humble self) and I never got to the supermarket for groceries. As I don't have a car these days, I have to rely on the bus. I missed my planned excursion on Friday morning, with the result that while I have plenty of leftovers for dinner, I'm out of cereal, eggs, and well, just about everything. I could make rice and veggie dishes for dinner for a couple more days without a shopping trip, but I've been trying to be better about actually eating breakfast. Balance and all that. Last night I wasn't all that hungry after doing my radio show, so this morning I was primed for some nice scrambled eggs with veggies, French toast, cereal - something. But the cupboard for the necessary ingredients is bare. (Studio apartments don't have much in the way of cupboards.) All that's in the freezer is some turkey stock, and the onion rings. They made a good brunch.

Logging in to the blog made me realize that I never posted last week's radio show, which was the 16th anniversary edition. The show has gone through a few evolutions, but lately I haven't been able to spend the time to do the shows the way I want to do them. Between running the station, and being President of the station's non-profit, there is just too much to keep me busy. ("If only I were paid rather than a volunteer", he thought to himself for the 1,474th time.) Over the last few years the show has concentrated on the mid 1940's. This has been mostly due to the number of music oriented shows from that period which have become available. Those episodes, when the entire broadcast was spent in a certain week or two with various excerpts from radio shows of the weeks involved - including the news - are the shows of which I'm proudest. But I've been feeling like I'm stuck in a rut. There's no time to listen to the radio shows of the period, no time to make new clips from the shows, I've just been re-using the clips I made in the year and a half I wasn't running the station. I was thinking of calling it a day last August with the show that marked the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII. At the time I didn't think that I'd accomplished what I had wanted with that show, so I figured I would just keep at it for awhile. Since then, I've had an increase in the odd verbal mistakes I've been making ('senior moments'), and an increase in the feeling that I'm not putting together the quality of shows that I want to accomplish. And I feel like I'm done with the WWII story for awhile. Over the last few weeks, I gave a lot of thought to calling it a day. Just before the anniversary show, I decided that while I'm done with the WWII shows for awhile, I'm not done with the show itself. That decision had a lot to do with my thoughts about Delores deleting her blog. I wrote to her, by the way - she's fine. She didn't say why she deleted it, and I didn't ask. At any rate, here's the 16th Anniversary edition of Recycled Radio:



Another thing that got away from me this week - I'd intended to start writing a bit about the movies I've been seeing. When I first started collecting 16mm movies, I began a practice of noting the movies I showed - mostly as a way of tracking bulb life. When I worked in film distribution, I took home a lot of movies from the company's non-theatrical library. Now I wish I had made notes about the films as well. I remember my assistant asking me to show him Mario Bava's 'Four Flies on Gray Velvet', but I'll be darned if I remember much about it 40 years later. I actually went out to the movies at a movie theatre last week to see - oh, great - I can't remember the name. It's a Marvel anti-superhero superhero movie. Ah, "Deadpool". (Bless the ability to instantly look things up on the internet.) It was in its last week at the local theatre, a late era smaller town movie palace, built in 1938. I've posted about the Latchis before. For its last week the movie went back to the main auditorium which is mostly intact and still has an old fashioned big screen. (The only change of consequence to the main auditorium was turning the "crying room" into a separate screen.)

I've not really seen much of the wave of superhero movies of the last decade. While the special effects made possible by computers have opened up a whole new world of possibilities, I can't say that using them for ever bigger explosions and more intense battle scenes has any kind of innate appeal for me. Plus, I was never a Marvel kind of guy. My era was DC comics with the likes of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Justice League of America, et. al. Over the years I've known a number of people who have toiled in the comics industry - when I used to manage that big bookstore in NYC in the 1970's, the guys from Marvel were regular customers. At that same store, I gave several autograph parties for various illustrators. So I've been aware of many of the problems of the artists, especially the shameful way Jack Kirby's heirs were treated, and etc. So a part of my boycott of superhero movies was due to my feelings about Marvel specifically. At any rate, 'Deadpool' makes fun of its own genre without really making it to the levels of camp. It's a movie for the teenage boy still hiding inside of adults no matter what chromosome set they have. It's got the best opening and end title sequences in recent memory, and is highly entertaining. But even though it was very enjoyable, it was kind of like popcorn without butter on it - something was missing, it was satisfying in an empty calories sort of way. Now I have no problem with sheer silly entertainment for entertainment's sake, after all, one of my favorite movies is "Cobra Woman" with Maria Monetz as twin sisters. The problem I have with this kind of big budget film making may come down to the budget itself. When one is spending over a hundred million dollars to make one two hour movie, problems with protecting the investment arise. The necessity of having every single thing planned out leads to a certain lifelessness. This kind of filmmaking used to be the B picture, inventiveness due to budget constraints was required; there was a kind of 'make it up as you go along' giddiness to many of them. Now, it's a very studied affair, a linked group of set pieces told in broad strokes and broadswords. Even the cheeky vulgarity seemed too planned. When I see things like this, I keep wondering what if Kurosawa had been able to use this technology while making 'Dreams', or if Orson Welles or Dali had been able to use it.... etc.

I keep thinking that I must have seen a movie at home this week, but I can't recall having watched one. I did watch a few pieces of movies on the Blue-Ray player a friend lent me to test the format. And one day was spent at the Smith College annual bulb show. Tuesday night a friend without tv came over to watch the primary election returns, and to bitch about the current state of politics.

Spring arrived at 12:30am this morning. We've had a temperature drop, and at one point snow was predicted. No matter, it's Spring. My radio show had its annual 'Swing Into Spring', on last night's program, which also played a few for Stephen Sondheim's birthday on March 22nd. 'Senior moments' intruded when I noted Ted Lewis as Al Lewis; and totally forgot to credit a lovely piano solo on "Meditation" to Marian MacPartland, whose birthday is today, March 20th. These kinds of mistakes have been increasing in frequency. My memory doesn't work as well as it once did - or as quickly. This morning I read that statins, which I take for high levels of bad cholesterol, can cause this kind of thing as a side effect. I once went on a specialized diet for many months without any change to the cholesterol reading. My doctor smiled as she said, "this is genetics laughing in your face". When compared to the size of my father, his brothers, and my brothers from both my father and my mother's later family, I may be taller than my Dad and his brothers, but otherwise as far as bulk is concerned, I'm the runt of the litter. Also possibly contributing to these little lapses in memory are the antidepressants I used to take. Ditto the anti-anxietals I used to take. Luckily I got off of those years ago. Next time I see my doctor, I hope I remember to discuss the statin. At any rate, here's the annual "Swing Into Spring". As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show.


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Fast away the old year passes...

The title of today's post is from an old holiday song, "Deck the Halls", an 1860's version of a much older Welsh song, which dates back to the 1500's. The original, "Nos Galen", was a song meant to be sung on New Year's Eve. An English translation of the lyric, published in 1794, has it as, "Oh! how soft my fair one's bosom, fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la. Oh! how sweet the grove in blossom, fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la. Oh! how blessed are the blisses, words of love, and mutual kisses, fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la."

At any rate, I should note that the 'hall' hereabouts was properly bedecked and festooned for the season yet again. Once of these years I keep expecting that I'll stop doing it; but it hasn't happened yet. Acquiring and putting up a tree and etc. has been my own little statement of victory over the vicissitudes of life, a triumph of survival for another year. There have been years when it almost didn't happen, but fate (and the kindnesses of friends and strangers) has always intervened. And so the tradition continues. The tree sports the decorations which were given to me over the years, and the little niceties (such as two little birds touching beaks) once arranged by a close companion. It's my annual tribute to missing friends, the family I was building before time and disease changed things.

In better days, when I had jobs with real benefits, I always took some of my vacation time during the week between Christmas and New Year. My father used to do that. Both of his brothers did that. I liked the idea and continued it whenever possible. They all lived close by each other; there wasn't any real need for them to do it for family visits. Although, when I was young, their Aunt Norma, my Great Aunt, would come up for the week from Washington, D.C. where she lived and worked. And their Uncle Less and Aunt Arlene, both of whom lived several towns and some distance away, would make their yearly pilgrimage to see their visiting sister,, as well as the rest of us. The years, and changes in employment practices (both theirs and mine), eventually ended the week of holiday vacation time off. When I was a teenager, one of my aunts declared that the family should henceforth only give presents to the children (she had the only two at the time). The family, never close to begin with, began to drift apart. Perhaps my attempt to continue the vacation tradition, and my insistence on continuing to use the kinds of Christmas tree lights and decorations prevalent in the late 1950's and early 1960's, was/is really an all too typical longing for family, and a more innocent time before we all changed and grew apart. Maybe it's just because I like that style better than what followed.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. As I grew into my teens in my small town, I would join family members in staying up to watch Guy Lombardo and His Orchestra play in the New Year from a nightclub in New York City; a brilliantly lit ball would slowly descend a mast on the old Times tower until the New Year was declared in dazzling lights, cheers from the assembled crowd, cheers from the nightclub where Mr. Lombardo's wheezy band played 'Auld Lang Syne', 'Always', and other chestnuts of a lifestyle which had already faded and passed. As my father began going away on business trips, and then started dating again, I would find myself sitting home alone, pathetically watching the same routine observances year after year, vowing that another year would not find me in such circumstances. Of course, the next year did, and the years after that. The year I moved to New York City, I headed down to Times Square to join the hoopla. While being part of the madness was fun, I was somewhat uncomfortable in the crowd. Partly, it was the crowd. And partly it was the same kind of discomfort I always felt at parties where I didn't know anyone, and routinely moved myself to a corner where I could watch other people having a good time. I've never been comfortable at parties, even when I know the people there. I wanted to be, I wanted to have a good time, I just didn't know how to go about it. I was too socially awkward and shy, with little patience for some kinds of small talk, hiding that fact behind manners and a ready smile.

I went to Times Square on New Year's Eve one or two more times. At one point, I managed a large bookstore at 43rd and Broadway, right in Times Square. At 2pm on December 31st, we would close the store, put plywood over the windows, and get the hell out. I often joke that that approach was good advice for life. I never thought of that until I was past 50, however, and often never had that much sense when it might have done some good.

I never made enough money to go out to the nightclubs of my own times. I never did get to go to, or stage, any fabulous New Year's Eve parties. There were a few years when that night was held close in a lover's arms, but to tell the truth, I don't remember them very well. The years do tend to blend together. I became content with being a single person. Except for the occasional New Year's Eve, watching whatever passes for the party I could never get to, when my teenage self knowingly mutters that not much has changed in 50 years. And when that little bastard appears with his remonstrations, I just smile, and adjust an ornament on the tree.

For last Saturday's radio show, the old Philco's tuning mechanism got a workout as we sampled a number of different Holiday Week programs over a number of years, listening to broadcasts with everyone from Duke Ellington (performing 'Let the Zoomer's Drool') to Bing Crosby, Artie Shaw (with Roy Eldridge), Tommy Dorsey, Kay Kyser, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong. And, of course, Guy Lombardo.



As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show.

Once more unto the breech, dear friends...

There still seems to be little to no time to write. Or arrange and caption photos. I think of Springsteen's line, "The poets down here don't do nothin' at all, they sit back and let it all be." But I'm not in Jungleland , and all  the use of the quote does is prove that I'm good with a quote or two.

Life has taken on its old familiar satirical nightmarish absurd quality again. I will turn 65 soon. The Federal government insists that my excellent state health insurance program, which uses funds from the Federal program Medicaid, is no longer adequate as I'm now officially a "senior". Therefore, I am being removed from my current insurance and placed on Medicare. Specifically Medicare Parts I and II. They didn't ask, I had no choice. For this service, my Social Security check will have a deduction  of over a hundred dollars taken from it, beginning with this month (August), even though I won't be on Medicare until September. Parts I and II do not include a prescription plan, so I have had to sign up with another insurance company for coverage of some of my prescriptions. For another $26 or so dollars a month, two of my prescriptions which would otherwise cost me over $300 dollars a month each, will suddenly and magically be available without a co-pay. But wait - this new coverage won't cover all of my prescriptions. The answer? Re-apply for my state's Medicaid program (as in the one I'm already on). If I'm lucky enough to be accepted, then those last remaining uncovered prescriptions will be covered. For now. Until the next change. If I'm accepted. Plus, there are various programs that will help me afford to live by assisting with the amount Social Security is automatically deducting from my paycheck. If I'm lucky enough to get back on them - that's right - they are the program I'm on until the end of the month. If I'm fortunate enough to get back on the program, they will send the over $100.00 a month charge to Social Security, which will then issue me a refund. I will then send a check for that amount to the state to repay them. I'm not making this up.

There is a Federal program for help in affording the Medicare, but my Social Security income is $5.00 or so a month over the limit. If I keep all of my receipts from my co-pays, I might get the Federal program to help me afford the Federal Program.

I had help in figuring all of this out by following the recommendations of the State Medicaid representatives, and consulted with the Council on the Aging. Except that the Council on the Aging no longer exists. It is now called Senior Solutions, thank you very much. That took another 10 minutes to figure out that I had indeed called the right number. All of these organizations seem to have several different names - it's like a Russian novel.

The State Medicaid program, meanwhile, which has changed its name every couple of years, offered to send me various necessary paperwork to get back on the program I'm already on. I accepted and waited. And waited. Over two and a half weeks later, I got an envelope from another organization, which I thought was associated with the insurance I used to have at my last job. I didn't open it for several days as I was fairly busy. Turns out, it was the long awaited paperwork. Now, for the old state program I was on, all the forms can be filled out and submitted online. Not these. One of them can be filled out online, but then it must be printed out and mailed.

It's a system that seems designed to drive one mad. I suppose they are hoping I will become so confused I won't look crossing the street, or will simply end my life out of confusion and despair. The paperwork, as life slows down, speeds up and increases. And the best part? The annual  "window" for decisions on healthcare companies will open again in October. According to these folks, at that point, I'll get to do all of this over again! I can hardly wait.

Here's my show from last Saturday.
It is not designed to drive one mad.
After playing a couple for Count Basie's birthday, the old Philco tuned in August the 18th, 1942.
I hope any listeners enjoy the show.

It's July

It was 20 years ago this past May that I gave up my life in the cities and moved to Brattleboro, Vermont. I'm not one of those people who doesn't expect or want things to change. Change is necessary. Things evolve. The human species may be devolving, but that is another story, or another blog.  (By which I don't mean a different blog - the thing I mean is a different blog entry. Sorry for the clarification, but following the most recent style of usage is, to my mind, unclear.  But then so is much of life these days.) It should not, however, be assumed that I approve of some of the changes that have occurred over these last two decades. Not that my approval is required, or, for that matter desired.

As I garden, I am somewhat familiar with the changing patterns of the weather. As I've aged, I find that I now have difficulties with high heat and humidity. Twenty years ago,  June was paradise. July began to get warm; the last two weeks would have temperatures in the 90 degree Fahreneight category (and up) accompanied by high humidity.  Some sanity would be restored in August. These last few years, it gets hot by early May, humid by early June, and stays uncomfortable until late September. Plants flower at different times now. There always was a bit of variance, but every year the differences have expanded and grown.

 I now find it difficult to work in the garden in direct sunlight as it gets towards noon. I'm fine in cloudy weather - well, as long as the temperature isn't up into the 90's, or the humidity so bad that I wonder if our species will evolve gills. (Like the old days?) I don't think my reactions are entirely due to changes brought on by the aging process. No, it's hotter in the sun. The more delicate flowers don't last as long as they once did. The intensity of the sun has increased. This morning, taking a photo or two of the garden resulted in becoming immediately drenched in perspiration to such extent that even items in my pockets were soaked through. If there were still handkerchiefs, I'd have had to wring mine out before using it to wipe my brow. And that was a little after 8am with a temperature in the upper 70's and with a cloud cover.

The thing of it is, even if the climate wasn't changing, mid to late July would be an uncomfortable
mess. There is something in this weather that is mean. Everyone gets cranky. And one can't blame them. And then there are those of us who don't have air-conditioning... so, during last night's radio program, I found that the tuner on the old Philco was acting up. Maybe it's a tube. Maybe it's the humidity. What can I say? It's July. 

It is Spring again...

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems...”

                                                                                       - Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

Spring has been lurking about. It always starts slowly, generally arriving here about a month or so after the vernal equinox. It used to unfold like a flower filmed in slow motion. When I wrote a garden column many years ago, I remember musing that Spring in New England was so spectacular I suspected God vacationed here in May and June. Now-a-days most Springs seem to last for a few minutes. Perhaps that perception is colored by my advancing years. When I was young life was a summer of exuberance. In my 40's, autumnal changes revealing true colors assumed the status of favorite season. Now I seem to have a distinct preference for the impatient headlong rush of Spring; renewal and stunning beauty too briefly expressed, a seasonal touch of the poet.

 

These last few years, Spring has arrived and passed into early summer with undue haste. Last year Spring seemed more like her old self, allowing one time to luxuriate in blossoms and scents wafting upon the breeze. This year we are back to the 21st century Spring explosion and action extravaganza.  Just as the magnolias blossomed, a wave of early heat wiped them out before cooling down again. Just as the apple trees turned the landscape into billow white clouds, the heat returned and the blossoms faded and fell.

 

It is in Spring that I miss living in Boston. The residential area known as the Back Bay is comprised of Victorian era row house mini mansions built on landfill. The Boston Horticulture Society was involved in selecting the plantings. Frederick Law Olmstead planned the park system, known as the Emerald Necklace. Walking down Marlborough Street on a sunny day when the magnolias are in bloom is a heady experience. I dare say to the Victorian upper crust the overwhelming fragrance and visuals were as close to decadence as could be reasonably handled.

 

I've been scanning a few of my old photos - I'm fairly sure this is one side of Commonwealth Avenue.

Ah, now this is one corner of Marlborough Street.

A 'cup and saucer' magnolia. This one was in front of my landlord Ralph's home in the South End.
I'd never seen them before, and later showed this very picture to family. My aunt, born and raised in Georgia, sternly rebuked me, "That is not a magnolia, it's a tulip tree". Now, my landlord was a scientist, one of his degrees was in horticulture, and I had no reason to doubt him on the matter. As a member of the Horticultural Society, I used their library to do more research and it is indeed a magnolia, "Magnolia × soulangeana" to be exact. I knew better than to say anything to my aunt. Over 25 years later, living in Brattleboro, I became friends with a Ralph from the radio station who had lived for many years in Boston. I mentioned missing Spring in Boston with all the magnolia trees. "Tulip Trees", he corrected.

The Public Garden, which borders the Common.

Tulips in the Public Garden.

There is a lagoon and suspension bridge in the Public Garden. An entrepreneur, back in the day, was entranced by a scene in Wagner's Lohengrin in which the hero was transported in a boat pulled by a swan. The swan boats have been a seasonal fixture of the Public Garden ever since.

(One year, I was passing through the Public Garden just as the Swan Boats were being returned from their winter storage... )

On the Esplanade, a strip of greenway which separates the Back Bay and the Charles River.

Of course, before Spring arrived here this year, as I was reminiscing about missing Spring in Boston, two different friends announced they were going to Boston and asked what to see. A third friend, who lives in Boston, called.  Luckily, just at that time, Spring arrived here in Brattleboro.

 

Two weeks ago, early heat provided an explosion of bud and color just as prom goers wandered through the Common.

 

Last Saturday the temperatures soared into the 80's. Another riot of color appeared in a day's time.

Up by my garden at Solar Hill, the sweet violets bloomed in Elaine's mandala.

In my garden, the 'back 40' was originally shaded by trees no longer with us. I worked to create a 20 foot long woodland walk. Now that one portion gets lots of sun, the Solomon's Seal has spread like crazy. The bloodroot has gone wandering, popping up here and there. The Jacobs Ladder is currently a wave of blue, the Virginia Bluebells are gone, as is the native columbine. But the English bluebells will bloom soon, and all will be right with the woodland walk.  

With the high heat, the crab apples bloomed and faded within three days...

but the walk home from the garden was still pretty nice

 

The lilacs have been blooming all week. This picture of the Common was taken two weeks to the day from the 'prom night' picture above. Spring passes so quickly now. But then again, at my age, it would.

 

This week's radio program took note of the birthdays of Irving Berlin, Bobby Darin, and Woody Herman. Like Spring, I must rush through to other things. I hope listeners enjoy the show.

   

Best Wishes.

Welcome Hill and just another day.

It's been another busy week full of sturm und drang, various vicissitudes of life, and a few blessed moments of pleasure. The pleasure part involved not one, but two trips to Welcome Hill. And this year, I got to talk to the son of the man who started it.

A short jaunt across the river into New Hampshire brings one to a small cemetery started in the late 1770's. It is on the corner of a highway and Welcome Hill Road. The area is hilly and was home to hard scrabble farms going back into the colonial days. Occasionally, the farms would change hands. One family finally gave up and decided to sell; their land was bought by Leslie Hadlock not long before he went off to the war, the "big one'. He was stationed somewhere around the Netherlands.

As the story has it, as Mr. Hadlock returned after the war, the family in whose home he had been billeted gave him a gift - daffodil bulbs. Mr. Hadlock and his wife Marjorie began a garden. Every year they added more daffodils. On one side of the road there is a hill. On the other there is an outcropping with two benches, and a small path leading down into a dell. The woodland floor is covered in daffodils. Forsythia appears around the glade, as do a few varieties of magnolia. It is a magical place.

Mr. Hadlock passed some years ago. His wife passed a couple of years back, at the age of 102. (The obituaries had her age as 101, but her son said she was 102.) The son is now in his 70's, and has difficulty maintaining the garden; with the rest of the family farm and land there is too much to do. His children have moved away. If I had a car, I'd volunteer to help. He still has the hand painted sign that welcomed visitors, requesting they not pick the flowers - but it doesn't get put out anymore. Also gone is the tradition of putting out guest books for visitors to sign. I recall that one year the table they always used for the guest book was stolen. The younger Mr. Hadlock mentioned that his father used to greet visitors who came from around the world, and would talk with them for hours. During the war he'd seen enough of the world; after returning home, he and the Mrs. never left the farm again.

When I was a kid, May the 8th was marked in red on the calendar. Underneath the date, text used to read "VE Day". Over the years, as I grew up, the date stopped being marked and May the 8th became just another day. Once, it celebrated what was arguably the world's greatest accomplishment. On May the 7th, 1945 what was left of the German government surrendered unconditionally. Most of the nations of the world had banded together to put an end to the madness that had engulfed Europe for six years of total war. They formed the United Nations, and drew up a Declaration of Human Rights. This week's radio show took note of that day 70 years ago, still within the lifetime of people who lived it. Listen in - after a couple of songs du jour, to the music and news of a remarkable week, and a day that used to be marked in red on the calendar.