Totally Relaxed

Step back about twenty feet and I'm seated —in the shade—reading.

Small Treasures

Found on a Walk
Originally uploaded by Handcrafted

I found this treasure on my morning walk. I added it to my collection of small crab apples—slipped into my pocket earlier in the walk. It appears as if one season is in bloom and yet another season nips at the heels. The local corn hasn't been harvested, yet the apples know their time isn't too far away.

How to Write a Novel

For years I've thought about writing something substantial—a novel. Not that I believe I have enough discipline or more than a modicum of slight talent.Suppose I really challenge myself and consider the completion of a first draft as a successful accomplishment. Imagine holding a hefty sheaf of papers and knowing that you started and worked your way through to the last period?

As for what it will be about, I'll cite Hemingway's words: You lose it if you talk about it.

Where Does it All Go?

When something disappears, is dismantled, relegated to a scrap heap only the memories survive—or photos.

This is a photo of Gateway lobster during its last throes—you can hear the door closing and the latch barring the way of reentry.

Some photos simply trigger memories even when they stray from the photo itself. I can think of two people I've known in the past few years who died—one by natural causes and the other by fending off personal demons that became too large. Sometimes it's hard to realize that they are gone and what does that mean? The winter is gone and the spring replaces it, but with people it's different.

When I think of my cousin Bobby, I think of the sojourn to the Bronx to see the old neighborhood. And the old neighborhood is a shell, a graffiti shell. But the school is still across the way, but the trees are gone. But the handball court stood in its usual place. My father's gone, but the wall where he played handball stands. I recall the hard black ball and the gloves the men wore. Do people still play handball?

Where is my hula hoop and the double dutch jump rope? Did my jacks get lost or did I outgrow them? What happened to the Chinese laundry and the man who used the heavy iron to take the creases out of starched shirts? How about the butcher with sawdust on the floor, or the shoemaker who could hold nails in his mouth as he repaired shoes? Did his booths become wood for s stove? Where did my grandmother's ball of rubber-bands go?

If I haven't seen Coney Island's rides since I turned twelve, do they still exist. Has the wood rotted on the steeplechase? But somethings remain. Palisades , the Hudson River, the Grand Concourse. Did I really sit in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium or go to the Polo Grounds? Did I hear the Lone Ranger? Have some of the books I took out of the library been replaced by newer copies.? Do any children read Nobody's Boy and Nobody's Girl?

Time moves things and people . It creates new spaces. Sounds get lost:the sirens on a city street, the old man calling out that he sharpens scissors, the old clothes man, the sound of the truck, its sides filled with glass seltzer bottles. I can only remember the feel of the rocks in the Davidson River, or the cool water running over your blisters after climbing Old Rag, or the softness of a baby. What happened to my mother's Maj Jong group calling out "Four bam"? Where is the platter containing the leftovers —white fish, sardines , cold cuts.

Sometimes when I'm out walking in the morning my mind conjures up a different scenario: I'm walking to the bathroom at White Birches campground where the bugs are monster sized and not shy; I'm on a bicycle in Central Park; I'm walking to Fort Ticonderga where I'll take a picture making it look as if I am being shot out of a canyon, I'm on the roof of the Lewis Morris building sixteen stories above the ground

I'm listening to Pete Seeger singing freedom songs, I'm listening to Union songs, I'm listening to Joan Baez's anti-Vietnam songs and Peter, Paul and Mary singing 'We Shall Overcome.' And I'm thinking that we need to revive some of those songs for this new time. So at that point the past and present merge. Perhaps I'll find my skate key and ball bearing roller skates.

Abstract of Outrdoor Lobster Steamer

For eighteen years four of us traveled up to Acadia at the end of June and on the first night we met at Gateway Lobster for our first lobster of the year. Two years ago we found another Lobster place —one that overlooked Bass Harbor and seemed more 'Down East'. I guess we shifted our allegiance, but there was still an aura about nearing Acadia and seeing the Gateway sign.

After all this was the place that served home made pies. Rhubarb-strawberry cooked by a local woman. In time she moved away and the pies became pedestrian and from a box. At one point the owner of the place constructed a gazebo for dancing and at least once a year she invited an Elvis look alike to entertain the lobster eaters. Music blared over a tinny amplifier and Elvis mimed the lyrics.

For years you had to make a foray outside to find a ladies room and then one year she installed two indoor bathrooms. The owner of Gateways had a store connected to the eatery. Shelves and tables were piled high with cups, stuffed animals, sweatshirts, kitchen ware, baubles. In fact there was almost nothing you could name that didn't have a representative piece on a shelf. Over the years the stuffed items poured out of the shop and ended up on tables in the restaurant until you felt squeezed out by Beenie Babies. The walls were decorated with plaques, paintings, boats and newspaper articles.

One year the flowers from a funeral service ended up as centerpieces on the tables. Another year a cloth stuffed banana tree adorned an entire wall. Through all these manifestations of individual creativity the hard shell lobsters were cooked perfectly and the onion rings were neither too greasy or too salty. For years we bought beers down the road at an IGA and brought them back to the restaurant until the year they received a license to serve beer and wine.

Why then did we switch our loyalty to another place? Perhaps it was because the pies came from a box, or because the tables remaining for patrons was dwarfed by the number of tables for stuffed animals and lobster cups. Perhaps it was because the place was getting that worn down at the heels feel. When she was grand she was very grand and at one time you couldn't beat the rhubarb pie.