Cleve Duncan

The Penguins, (top to bottom) Bruce Tate,
Dexter Tisby, Cleve Duncan, Curtis Williams

I've just discovered the sad news that Cleve Duncan passed away earlier this month at the age of either 77 or 78. Mr. Duncan was unknown to me, but his voice wasn't. He was a member of the doo-wop group the Penguins, and sang lead on their only hit, "Earth Angel". His voice soared.

"Earth Angel" was a huge hit in 1955. It was recorded in a garage as the "B" side to "Hey, Senorita" . Then a DJ started playing the flip side. It moved up the charts until Billboard listed it for three weeks as #1 on the r&b chart, and simultaneously at #8 on the pop chart - a rare feat.

It is regarded as the first #1 rock and roll song in America.

In those days, many groups would perform and or record their own versions of hit songs. The Canadian group the Crew-Cuts released a popular version that went to #3 on the pop charts, and started them on a career of doing r&b covers. But I grew up near Philadelphia, then a hot bed of music and early TV. Philly radio stations gave preference to the Penguins. It was still popular when I was a teenager in the 1960's. I can remember slow dancing to it at the monthly teen dances in the old American Legion hall before that venue was condemned as unsafe. And it was still on the jukeboxes in area diners. As a kid, I bought the 45rpm re-release on the Mercury label. The Penguins never had another hit; their manager spent more time on, and gave the better material to, his other clients, The Platters. In 1958, the Penguins disbanded. Mr. Duncan would later re-form the group with a succession of new members. The new group lasted another 40 years, and were still performing earlier this year. Of  "Earth Angel", Mr. Duncan said, “I never get tired of singing it, as long as people never get tired of hearing it.” I can't speak for anybody else, Mr. Duncan, but I sure won't.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Duncan, rest in Peace.

My patience, like autumn, is fleeting...

Two and a half weeks. Every few minutes I tell myself, it will all be better in two and a half weeks. In two and a half weeks, the elections will be over. With any luck, the Democrats will then stop sending me twenty plus emails a day begging for money. Some of their emails show the level of my contributions - which are nil. I have explained to them on multiple occasions that the economy, reluctance to hire older workers, and the lack of decent jobs in my area have all conspired to leave me unable to contribute to the obscene amount of money they have collected and spent already. I guess they are trying to shame me into a donation. Better yet, in two and a half weeks, on November the 10th, I will become officially retired. I will be living in genteel poverty, but hell, I've been doing that for quite awhile, and I will actually have a better income than I have now from my place of employment after 5 years of subservience. (I'm not joking about that - one of the first things they do is make a name-tag for you, which you must wear, which uses your first name so that people may address you as though you were the stable boy or the scullery maid.)

(Not quite) soon enough it will all be over. Although the election is troubling - it turns out that the company which makes the voting machines in the make or break state of Ohio is owned by a company with heavy investment by Romney's son Tagg (the one who wanted to "take a swing" at Obama). Who names their kid Tagg? Well, today I suppose that is a conservative name.

With the day off, I started digging to find those photos of Newfane in autumn that I promised to scan. The first box I picked up had its bottom give way just shy of where I was going to put it. Most of the photos in it were ones that I was looking for last Spring. I didn't find the Newfane shots, but I did find a few others that I took some years back. So here, from two different scanners, two 35mm cameras and one low price digital camera, are a few pics of autumn in New England. (note- Blogger is acting up and not putting the photos where I want them. With any luck, I can still make this make a little bit of sense....)

 Taken by the side of the road at a Gentleman's Farm in Rhode Island

The next Gentlemen's Farm down the road....

Another farm in Rhode Island - okay not especially autumnal,
but I liked these Scottish Highland wooly cows - this guy came over to check me out.

When I had a car, I used to go visit an old friend - meaning a friend who has known me for a very long time (although he is now getting along in years just like myself), who lives just over the Vermont border in New York State. On the way to his town, this old diner sits abandoned by the road. I love diners, so I had to take and share this picture, oaky?

On the way back from the above visit... I just liked this scene - it cried out to be photographed.

I used to live in Boston, so it's only fair that I post one of two pics from there.

The above was taken in the Back Bay Fens. On the other side of that bridge are the old Victory Gardens.
Across the street to the left of the photo is Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox.

I can remember taking this in a Boston park, but I can't remember which one ---
I think it was the Esplanade  but it looks more like the Arnold Arboretum. 

Just a short train ride from Boston in Concord, Mass.

Monument Mountain in western Mass., near the spot where Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville had a picnic with friends (which I seem to recall included Thoreau) - and  let me tell you, those Victorians had to be pretty damn hardy to carry a full picnic up to this spot.

Just a little south of the above, across the border into Connecticut. I used a version of this shot with people in it (towards the left) so there is a reference point for the scale of this waterfall.

Somewhere around the Mass/Ct. border.

I don't remember where I took this -
I thought it was near the Wachusetts Reservoir in MA,
but I could be wrong about that.

A "Kodak moment" by the woolen mill in (upstate) Johnson, Vermont

The Cemetery in (upstate) Hyde Park, Vermont

Now, I do have a thing for cemeteries - particularly New England cemeteries in autumn. The tombstones in Vermont's "Northeast Kingdom" are especially wonderful - Italian stone cutters were brought over to work the granite quarries, and they carved wonderful monuments. Here's an example from the town of Hardwick:

The Hardwick cemetery is situated on a hill. As I walked up the hill to take the photo above, I saw one large headstone, which was very plain. The husband's name was on the left, and the wife's name was on the right. As I passed the stone, I noticed something carved on the thickness of the right hand side:

I walked around the headstone to the husband's side.

And  there I discovered this:

Just because

Every time I start to write in this blog, something happens. A long phone call. Writer's block. The antidepressants kick in. The antianxietals kick in. The computer starts spinning its hidden drives and refuses to do my bidding -  I wonder what it's up to; paranoia kicks in. I start falling asleep from exhaustion. Something - anything - distracts. I open a  window and am seduced by ephemera. My dear friend over at austanspace spends most of an oxycleaned post hooked on Led Zep. I stumble on the following image. Synchronicity of events. I start to post it, but something - anything - distracts. Just now it was a problem at the radio station. I renew my pledge to myself to dust... Oops. Gotta get ready for work... so here, then, for austanspace- just because.

Go ahead and click on it !