Jack O' Lantern's 2024

 

Takin' The Dog For A Ride

 

Halloween Houses 2024

 

Speak Your Own Truth Or Forever Keep Your Humble Opinion To Yourself

   Friend at the gym this morning said "Every person has a certain civic responsibility to speak their own truth at the ballot box."

   He followed up that statement with "My truth is that they're all crooks and I'm not voting for any of them."

   Which of course lead to a few quips banded about by the group of five of us who were then currently doing more standing around the equipment than using it, that not voting is in fact giving your vote to whoever you dislike the most, which is a moot point, I know.

   When pressed for what my own truth might be I steered far off topic and stated that I honestly believed that the best work the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac did in the 1970's was all on Warren Zevon albums.

   After that we all started working out again.

Dull & Devastating Realty At The Bus Stop

   She kept telling me that her only shortcomings were the occasional overdoses and the lack of personal hygiene. Other than those two minor issues, she was a good person and easy to get along with.

   So she said.

   Without invitation she had sat down close to me on the metal bench in the bus shelter and proceeded to mumble quietly about people being mean-spirited and narrow-minded, never giving her a chance to freely express herself without criticism.

   I had to stand up and move a way from her within minutes of her claiming a seat, as the smell was overwhelming. A combination of dead fish, music-fest port-a-potty, and the sweat of a hundred convict laborers after a day walking a back highway picking up trash in the middle of July in South Carolina. 

   She looked up at me when I moved away with blank eyes that said nothing other than "eh," obviously accustomed to the reaction.

   I felt compelled to stand there and listen to her talk however. Her voice was clear and she was well-spoken, though the contents of her dialogue was a seriously disconcerted ramble.

   She spoke of being at school and never having any real friends (for about one full minute), then about a stranger who offered to buy her new clothes the next (with a clear indication that the stranger was offending her with the offer). She also repeatedly stated that the transit police constantly harassed her, even when she had a valid fare card.

    I just stood and listened. The tale-tell scabs and scars of at least ten years of meth addiction were present on the exposed skin of her malnourished, prisoner-of-war body. She sketched and scratched her right calf with her right hand as she rocked slowly on the metal bench. 

   As with all meth addicts, especially women, it was difficult to ascertain how old she was. She looked like a hard fifty but most likely was still in her twenties.

   Her less-than-coherent banter finally turned to the one topic that she had most likely wanted to open with. She asked if I could give her some money, at least a few dollars. She stated without embarrassment that she would take off her top if I would give her five dollars.

   All of which I'd heard before from other lost souls. I shook my head no and when she said "C'mon man, why not," I said as stoically as I could that I had no intention of playing a role in her slow suicide, which is my standard reply when approached by panhandling addicts.

   She simply retorted "f*ck you man," collected her things, stood up, and walked away. 

   It was another ten minutes before the bus arrived, during which I watched as she walked down the long concourse before she approached another commuter to attempt to get a few bucks. 

  The thoughts that filled my mind were the same thoughts I always had in those situations - that she was someone's daughter or sister or even possibly mother, and she lost all connection with her family and friends due to the power of her addiction.

   I felt the same twinges of guilt I always did for not being able or willing to provide any help, and the same there but for the grace of god go I sense of gratitude.

   Meth is the devil.

Surfs Up

 

The Crime Scene

 

When you travel a little, and you utilize public transport a lot when you do your little traveling, chances are high that eventually you will stumble across a crime scene.

Chance Snippets Of What Had To Be Interesting Conversations

   Overheard three (loud) conversations this morning. I place the word loud in parentheses as a means of emphasizing that all three of the conversations were, indeed, loud, and that it was impossible not to overhear them.

   The first of the conversational snippets was shared between two old men, probably in their mid-70's. The second of the snippets was between a young woman and her phone, ane the third was between a woman and her mid-20's son.

   They are as follows:

   "If I can get the second on the house I'll have at least 100k to play with. I can make at least two or three thousand buying and selling every week."

   "How am I supposed to get pregnant if you're not going to stick your penis in me?!"

  "No I haven't voted and I'm not going to. All of the candidates are lying m************s I wouldn't trust for a second. Voting doesn't change a thing, just keeps rich people rich."

A Nice Long Walk To Change The Mood

   Every so often I get into a strange little funk. It's not depression, it's more like a feeling of being out of sync with the world, being out of sorts.

   It took me a little time to realize the single best way I can get my head sorted was simply by going on a nice long walk.

The Park Bench Art

 

A Great Walk Not Yet Taken

   A friend (more of an acquaintance, actually) of mine asked me a few days ago if I would be interested in walking from Lakewood to Fort Collins with him.

    A little backstory here; this is a person I met a couple months ago while I was walking around the Main Reservoir Park, a place near my home with a tree lined, short (one mile) trail that circles the small reservoir and has a beautiful view at both sunrise and sunset, so accommodates both morning and evening schedules.

   Most days I'm on that trail in the late evening, which is also when he takes his walk (with his two dogs, rescued mutts named Katy & Davy). We walk two or three laps while engaging in conversation about art, literature and baseball (mostly).

   We also talk about other great walks we have taken in and around the Lakewood area - if Lakewood has a feature worth talking up it's all the great public walking trails. 

   To clarify, we are talking about walking, not hiking tails - Lakewood has a great many hiking trails, too, but walking and hiking are two different types of trails - walking trails are generally short (1 to 100 miles, +/_), level, improved surfaces (concrete, asphalt, brick, or hard packed dirt) that are not very challenging - one literally just walks at a comfortable pace enjoying the view and chit-chatting for a few hours, while hiking trails are dirt trails that might require moderate to strenuous effort to get over or around obstacles, can go up (and down) hills or mountains and can take a few hours or a few months.

   Walking to Fort Collins from Lakewood is possible - Wadsworth Avenue (Colorado State route 121) runs through Lakewood to Broomfield where it marries up to a section of Colorado State route 287 that runs all the way to Fort Collins, and the entire way has either concrete sidewalks or is paralleled by other types of improved trails - for about 60 miles due north.

   60 miles is a lot of walking, and at my walking speed (3 miles an hour, give or take) would require at least 20 hours, one way. That's a long time to be walking, would definitely require an overnight stay (or two).

   I have been mulling over his request in the few days since he asked and I've gone from "no way in hell" to "that might be pretty cool to do". I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but I am considering it.

   Seriously. I'd just have to figure out how to squeeze that much time out of my schedule, and maybe get a few longer day walks in, such as the Clear Creek Trail from Youngfield to Harlan and back - that's good walk right there, 10 plus miles at least.

   

   

   

Your Safety Assured By Monkeys With Cooties

 

Close Up At The Car Show Part II

 

Close Up At The Car Show

 

Early Contender, Best Halloween House In The Neighborhood

 

This is either the worst corn maze ever, or an early contender for best Halloween House of 2024

The Hyperbole Rules

   Journalists, they are all about the reporting of facts about events that have transpired that have been deemed to be noteworthy, right?

   Journalists, they all religiously stick to the who, what, where, when, why order of operations when composing a story which is intended to disseminate information accurately, right?

   Journalists, they are all above reproach, never for a second using their exposure to the masses to spread propaganda or make exaggerated claims of dubious veracity or quantifiability, right?

   No.

   The most cursory review of most magazines, newspapers and websites that have deemed themselves to be reliables sources for news reveals that there is either little to no editorial control of content, or that there is a direct effort to create content that is intended solely to distort facts or situations, and to foreswear reliable sources, evidence, and rationale.

   Take for example, the reporting on drought conditions anywhere in the world. Can there be any doubt as to the scientific accuracy of an article covering drought conditions?

   Yes, specifically if the article contains any assertions that "we are running out of water." That statement right there, especially if it's been inserted by the writer into the article as a statement of fact and is not quantified as an opinion or is not noted as a quote from an interview of a person being affected by the drought, is just plain bad reporting.

   Here in Colorado, USA, that statement pops up in newspaper reports whenever the weather turns unseasonably dry or is dry for any duration whatsoever, or can be construed as possibly becoming dry via exaggeration of the "potential" for a prolonged dry spell. 

   This happens so often that I have become convinced that, even though NOAA has a large research facility in Boulder, not one of the news sources publishing the stories about drought apparently has access to any of the esteemed scientists / meteorologists that are walking the halls there.

   Scientific fact. Water does not "run out". It simply moves from one place to another via transpiration into one of three states of matter, or it flows out.

   Water is matter, either fluid, steam, or solid, and it covers over 70% of the earths surface - and always has, at least for the past 4 billion years of earth's history (according to researchers who published findings in August of 2020 that have not been contraindicated).

   Matter, for those that are not aware, cannot be created or destroyed. The Law of Conservation of Matter, which is taught in Chemistry 101 and general elementary science classes for those who have no interest in Chemistry, explains that rather well.

   Matter can change it's physical state however, and that's exactly what it does all day, everyday. Water has a cycle, known appropriately as the "water cycle" - liquid to gas (via evapotranspiration) then back to liquid (via condensation) and from there to precipitation. 

   The water cycle is constant and unfailing, with the observable variable that water moves around the planet when it's cycling, so sometimes water that was one place ends up going somewhere else. 

   The people who once benefited from the water that was in the former place start fretting when that happens, and start proclaiming that "we are running out of water!"

   No, a thousand times no. The water has simply gone somewhere else in some other state of matter, and if you want some of it, you better go to where it is now. It's not a new process, it's how the planet has always worked.

   To further cast light of the current journalistic tendency for hyperbole, let's look at the terms that are now being used to describe events (weather and otherwise) that have occured over the past few years.

   For starters, let's look at all the "geddons." Everything is a geddon these days. If something occurs that is either larger or more prominent, it becomes a geddon. Blizzards have become snowmageddons, a heavy presence of bugs have become cicada or locustmageddons, traffic jams are now carmageddons, a lack of employable people has become a labormageedon - the list goes on (and you can add "aclypse" or "pocalypse" to a otherwise pedestrian event, too).

   Generally, one can spot the hyperbole just by counting how many times the words "raged," "erupted," "torrential," "violent," "wanton," and "unbelievable" are used to describe what has transpired (or threatens to transpire).

   Not to be all hyperbolic, but hypercole has become so commonplace in news reporting that we may have reached a point of exaggersaturation.

   Yeah, I coined that term.

The Artist & The Wake

   All he ever wanted to do was paint. For awhile he had allowed his desire to paint to consume him, rejecting anything and everything else in his life as being of little to no importance.

   It was during that period of his life that he met the woman he decided was his muse. She was small in stature, but large in personality, and seemed to emanate an aura of goodwill and happiness. 

   He met her at an exhibition of his work being held in a warehouse that had been converted into a large number of small studios and featured a very large gallery space, which allowed the artists in residence to sell their works and pay rent as well as contribute to a general fund that was designed to pay for advertising and other necessities for the gallery's operations.

   She had been staring at one of his larger surrealist pieces, and was tilting her head far to the left when he first caught sight of her.

   She spied him staring at her and tilted her head back up and then turned to face him. "You're the artist, are you not?" She more stated than asked. He nodded, caught off guard by her candor and directness.

   I like the colors you use, bright and bold, full of life. The subject matter is somewhat derivative - religion and sexuality? Been peeking at one of Dali's old portfolio's?"

   "Well, uhm," He stammered. "Yes, I confess I am greatly influenced by Dali's early works, especially the period right after he met Picasso and Miro in Paris and became aware of Tanguy's landscapes."

   "Nice of you to owe up to that - one meets an overwhelming number of artists who refuse to admit they have been influenced by anyone, they all want to be seen as unique and original, which of course in this day and age of the recorded and reprinted mediums, is next to impossible."

   He nodded his head in agreement with her statement, and immediately felt as if he was being mesmerized by her words - words that could have been his words, too.

   He had often thought that was his one and only true premonition.

   Premonition or not, as he stared at the program in his hands the feeling seemed to wash over him just as it had that day 34 years ago. It was as if he had been hurled back in time to that exact moment when he first met her and was hearing her speak for the very first time. He involuntarily trembled slightly as the memory shock crashed right through him.

   For not the first time today, and certainly not for the last time, tears welled up in his eyes. Dabbing at his eyes with a damp kerchief, he looked over the gathering crowd, and he seemed to recognize everyone. 

   Robert was over there, looking like a homeless street urchin. Next to him stood his wife (3rd or 4th, he couldn't recall). She was sipping from a tall fluted glass. There were three men to the left of her, all vaguely familiar but all also not quite recognizable. He thought one of them might have been an early patron.

   Suddenly a person was at his side. "Quinn, are you doing okay? I know this has got to be harder than hell for you, but you really should come into the larger parlor and receive some of the guests. Her brother and younger sister are here, and so are several of her old friends, ones you two knew in Brittany all those years ago."

   "Yes, you're right Stephen, I must. It's just, I needed a little air. She was everything to me, you know, and though I know I will manage eventually, I'm just having a little of a rough go of it at the moment."

   "I understand Quinn, truly I do." Take as much time as you need, but if you need to lean on someone, I'm here for you."

   "Thanks Stephen, you are a great friend. It's an odd thing, you know, surviving her. I mean, what exactly is an artist supposed to do when his muse dies first?"

   

The Best Joke You Will Read Today

 A man visits a zoo

The only animal in the whole zoo is a dog

It is a Shitzu

The Free Library of The City of Philadelphia

    Philadelphia is a city of impressive...everything. Founded in 1682 by William Penn in an area that was inhabited by a loose confederation of First Nation people now known collectively as the Lenape, Philadelphia is probably second only to Boston in historical significance regarding the development of the United States.

   Penn was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, specifically the Quaker denomination (there are currently about 380,000 adult Quakers worldwide, about half of which reside in the African countries of Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi).

   The Quaker movement sprung up in England in the 17th century and was unique in that every member was enabled to be a minister, women included. Quakers adopted beliefs and behaviors that entailed a staunch opposition to drinking alcohol, opposing slavery, forgoing the taking of oaths, and refusal to join the military. The Quakers also dressed as plainly as possible and said "thee" a lot.

   Beliefs which factored heavily in William Penn's behavior toward the first peoples he encountered. Even though Penn had been granted the land by King Charles II of England, when he encountered the Lenape he negotiated with them the purchase of the land and signed a treaty of friendship with the Lenape chieftain Tammany.

   This approach of peaceful cohabitation with the First Peoples lead to a rare and wonderful tolerance for diversity in beliefs and practices, which in turn lead to the rapid development of Philadelphia as a trading port and seat of government, and in less than twenty years it became the single most important city in the British Colonies.

   Flash forward another 20 years and a young man named Benjamin Franklin appears on the scene. He had fled Boston at the age of 17 to escape a suffocating apprenticeship - you no doubt have heard of him and may even be aware that, as human beings with intellectual capacity goes, he was pretty much at the head of the line. 

   Franklin's beliefs were steeped in pragmatism, and one of his great skills was an ability to gather like minds and get them to focus their energy and resources for mutual self-improvement and for the benefit of the community they lived in. 

   This eventually led to Franklin and his friends opening a subscription library (pretty much a book co-op) in Philadelphia, which provided a means for the subscribing members to access the books owned by all other subscribing members, and to collectively purchase more books that all the subscribers would be able to read.

    But it wasn't a true public library. The distinction of being the first true public library in the United States belongs to the Franklin Public Library in Franklin, Mass, a city that named itself after Franklin during the American revolution - the first town to name itself after the great man. 

   When Benjamin Franklin became aware of the honor, he donated 116 books to the small town (instead of the church bell they actually wanted) and the town council decided the books should be available to all, free of charge. Thus, the first truly public library was created.

   What does all that have to do with the Free Library of the City of Philadelphia? I'm glad you asked. In the early 1890's Doctor William Pepper was bequeathed $225,000 from a wealthy Uncle for the purpose of building a Free Library in Philadelphia. The charter for the Free Library was signed in 1891, but a few other private libraries (academic, medical, religious, etc.) wanted the money for themselves and protracted court battles (which Dr Pepper ultimately won) resulted in the Free Library not opening until 1894.

   From 1895 until 1920 the library was housed in various buildings that were contemporarily described as "unsuitable", "unsafe", "unsanitary", and "overcrowded". Not exactly glowing reviews, and certainly not up to the grand and glorious free libraries that had been built in New York City and Boston.

   In 1917 ground was broken for the construction of the Parkway Central Library building on Vine Street in Philadelphia, which was to be the equal of any library building found anywhere on the the globe (unfortunately, Dr Pepper did not live to see this magnificent structure, as he had passed away in 1898 at the age of 54 from heart disease).

   The Parkway Central Library is the main library and administration center for the 54 branches of the Philadelphia Free Library system. It houses several hundred thousand books, everything from children's literature (which includes original artwork and hand written first drafts) to rare illuminated manuscripts that are 500 to 900 years old.  

   It's much more than books though. It's also an art (and craft) museum, the world's largest lending library of classical music, and can boast a collection of over 130,000 maps from all over the world.

   It took a full day to visit each of the floors and departments, a very full and enriching day. if you are ever in Philadelphia, I highly recommend a visit.