Spring Frost

This was the front of "the Manor" eight days ago.

This is the scene this morning.

The well-flowered shrubberies of last week are the poorly tended bushes of this morning. Got me in that "Circle of Life" mood: Good, bad, inevitable, evanescent. Which got me thinking about Ponyboy, Sodapop, and "Two-bit" Mathews (no relation). What do you mean, "What the heck are you talking about?". Surely you read S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" in junior high/middle school? Oh, come on, I know there are more than that. Hold on, I know I got a copy of it somewhere. I'm going the kids' room. Don't go anywhere; I'll be right back.

Let's see... S.E. Hinton's "The Taming of Star Runner", S.E. Hinton's "That was Then, This is Now", St. Augustine's "City of God", Suess's "There's a Wocket in My Pocket" (apparently Dr. Suess really enjoyed his work). Hmmm. In any event, "The Outsiders" was about underpriviledged teens and preteens struggling in tough places and tough times. Soda and Ponyboy and the rest of 'em. One of the characters liked Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay". The poem puzzled him, and described him, them, us, nature. The poem, in case you have misplaced your copy:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Stay Gold, Ponyboy.

Smackdown Time, Cheese-style

Okay, the nominations are in. Thanks to John for the abundantly cheesy Pina Colada song, and to AndyMan for Afternoon Delight (the song. Not the Afternoon Delight. Aw, come on, he's my brother for cryin' out loud!).

Teenagers...

The lads turn 13 next month. They're the last boats on my armada of foals, and the last to enter the teenage years. Terrible twos? Bah! I scoff at your troubles. Wait, just wait, until your little angels hit the threatening thirteens. The twins are already exhibiting the characteristics of the teen years: selective hearing and memory loss; the inability to see clothes hampers, dirt, or mess;


and the inability to find glasses or cups after one use of said glasses or cups. The twelve vessels at left accumulated in less than four hours. Three residents. Twelve glasses. Four hours. Sadly, because they are males, these traits might never disappear. On the good side, their sense of sarcasm is growing, as is a healthy disrespect for authority.

It's not all bad, really. The lads and I baked a bundt cake this weekend (it's good, too!). I guess it beat doing their school project.

Cheese, Three, Four and Five

Why didn't I form a band in the 70's? Just didn't have The Knack. Now, a few years later, some dude stole my name and did make a decent living playing music.


If Harry Chapin had taken himself just a little more seriously, and dressed just a little more gaudily, he might have been make the poll; instead, the oh-so-earnest Terry Jacks is number four in the Cheese list.


Number Five? Well, usually, four is a set, but, AndyMan was absolutely right: no 70's Cheese poll would be complete without Alan O'Day. Throw in Charlie's Angels for good measure, pull out the leisure suits and let's get down!

Cheese, Two

Amazing Ultrarunner AndyMan almost convinced me to post Alan O'Day's Undercover Angel as my second entry. By anyone's calculation, Undercover Angel is consummate 70's cheese. I almost changed my mind. Almost. Ultimately, I "stayed the course" with this next entry: Bo Donaldson and the Heyward's "Billy, Don't Be a Hero". I'll stick with Bo (unless there is a groundswell of popular support for "Whaaat? Say, "OOooh-Weee!).

1970's Cheese Smackdown.

You know I love my smackdowns. It's been a couple a weeks now, right? I was commenting and reading comments on Chase's blog, and realized that the bands of my youth just won't go away. Aging Boomers grasping at the slipping memories of our youth continue to make Elton John, Billy Joel, Kiss and other bands whose heyday was in the 1970's tons of money. Elton and Billy probably deserve it. The Little River Band? Not so much. The 70's had some good music. The 70's had some awful music. The 70's had some music that was so bad, it was wonderful. High cheese is what I'm talkin' about. Let's start with a Scottish band named after a random town in Michigan: The Bay City Rollers. One of more than a few "next big things" that got exactly the fifteen minutes of fame Andy Warhol promised us all.

I Haven't the Foggiest I.D.

It looks, for the moment, like I won't have to use my passport to travel from South Carolina to see my friends in Florida, Colorado, Illinois or Missouri. For the moment. The federal gummit is trying to force South Carolina to use "Real I.D.s" which congress says all the states must use, instead of state driver's licenses or I.D.s which South Carolina, and most states currently use. The feds say that if we don't use their I.D.s and get into their specific data-base- to be used for who-knows-what?, by who-knows-whom?- Homeland Security will make S.C. residents present passports and go through increased security checks to travel interstate through airports.

Most states have asked for more time to comply; South Carolina refuses to ask for an extension, because it/we disagree in principle with a National I.D. Last time S.C. got really serious about a "state's rights" issue... well, there's a picture of Ft. Sumter (now, but not always, under the Stars and Stripes).

Now, my view of our Republican Governor, Mark Sanford, had always been colored by my party affiliation, Democrat, and my friends and acquaintances in the legislature, who have not had a particularly smooth relationship with the Governor. It's getting harder to stereotype Governor Sanford. The Charleston Post and Courier reports that Governor Sanford sent a letter to the director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, informing him that S.C.'s driver's licenses meet 90% of the criteria listed for "Real I.D.s", anyway, and that we wouldn't be requesting an extension, because we don't agree with the concept, and, get this, "Our greatest homeland security is liberty". Chertoff, for the moment has granted us an extension anyway, even though we didn't ask for it. Now, S.C.'s legislature actually passed a law prohibiting S.C. from complying with the "Real I.D." demand, but Sanford has never had a problem thumbing his nose at the General Assembly in the past. Say what you will about Sanford: he's got guts.