How The West Was Won

Matinees & Drive-ins

How The West Was Won, 1962

I remember making a trip downtown for a matinee show at one of those big theaters that was specially outfitted with the three screens to show the film in Cinerama. It was spectacular for 1963 when we got to see it.

I watched it again yesterday on TV and it really was weird seeing the special effects on the small flat screen. I'd seen it a few times over the years but not in a very long time. Cast of thousands too.

It was also somewhat disturbing to see the blatant glorification of the conquest of the West including the destruction of the environment, the slaughter of the buffalo and the genocide of the natives.

John Lewis Funeral

Today I watched the televised funeral of an American icon of the civil rights movement and an inspirational leader in Congress.

This TV event was on all morning and most of the afternoon on CNN, MSNBC and even Fox. Three former presidents were there speaking including George Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Even the sickly Jimmy Carter had someone read a statement to the congregation for him at the funeral. It was a coming together of Americans but with the glaring exception of that racist in the White House.

I was in and out of the room throughout much of the day but I did hear a lot of wonderful gospel music and saw many of the speakers firing up the crowd including a very inspirational eulogy by President Obama which closed the ceremony. He made a powerful call for voting rights in America on the very day that Trump was calling for a postponement of the upcoming elections. 

Stuart Davis

The Influence of Art

I first came across the art of Stuart Davis at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I was learning about art seriously for the first time in my life. I was taking my first art history class at Temple University. There was something about the art of Stuart Davis that struck me.

The piece I remember first was this painting titled Something On The Eight Ball from 1954. I think I liked the graphic nature of his work and the using of text. There was a certain amount of communication going on here and I was taking communication and advertising courses at the time.

I would go on to look at and admire much more of Davis' work for all the different periods of his life. 

Those Magnificent Men

At the Drive-In...   Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, 1965.

Our parents had just bought a brand new 1965 Chevy Impala 9 passenger station wagon and we all climbed in to comfortably watch this movie at the drive-in theater. Dad still drove the '55 Chevy to work every day.

Can't say I remember much about this movie other than a lot of British wacky comedy and I don't think I've seen it again since. I mostly just remember that car which a few years later I drove to get my driver's license. 

The Influence of Art

The influence of art in my life.

I’ve never really had the urge to make any art even though I’ve been living and sharing my life with an artist and art educator for the last 44 years. I was a media arts major in college and studied film and video but it was more of an observer and commentator rather than a maker of the art. I always liked writing and my interest in media eventually led me to computers and librarianship but from early on as an adult I was fully surrounded by art in all the various forms.

Our home is full of artwork. I recently went through the house and counted 53 pieces of original art framed and mounted on the walls of our home. Our bookshelves are also filled with art books of all kinds.

I married into a family of artists. Both of Becky's parents have been exhibiting artist throughout their lives.  The paintings in the photo above are works by her mother on the left and her father on the right. Her parents owned an art supply store from the mid 70's through the 90's. It was a family business and I worked there from 1981 through 1989. I didn't know much about art at all when I stared but learned as I went along about art materials, processes and techniques. I had to know something because people were always asking questions about the products we sold. It was a challenging experience.

Much of our social life and many of our friends have come from the local arts community. I spent five years on the board of directors of the local media arts organization Squeaky Wheel in the 1990’s. I was originally involved in the group because of my training and computer skills that I was using for the public library internet programs. I taught workshops for online databases and website creation for the arts community. There was also a social life based on all the people we knew from the art store. We were always getting invited to art shows, parties and events from people that were customers at the store. It was a significant vector in our social life.

Becky went to UB for her masters degree in art. She taught studio art and art history in several colleges throughout the area. Later she worked as an administrator in the Fine Art Department at UB and also taught classes there every semester. That UB connection opened up lots of opportunities for art related social activities.

We travel a lot and wherever we go we make time to get to art museums and galleries.  Seeing these art resources is also very important for Becky as an art educator and working professional artist for tax purposes as write offs. Earlier in the late 1970’s when we still lived in Philadelphia we would go to New York City regularly to visit art galleries and museums during the day and then go to music clubs at night. Fun times.

During my years at the Temple University School of Communication and Theater (1974-1978) I took some art history courses. I’ve never done this before but I’m putting together a blog project that will create a list of all the artwork that I’ve come to love and appreciate or that has influenced me in some way. I will do blog posts about this art just like I do ones now about albums, books, films, beers, etc. These will mostly be artwork I’ve seen somewhere in a museum or gallery. I’ve seen a lot of art over the years and I’ve approached it much differently than Becky the artist has. They will not be in any order other than what I have come across at the time and they are not ranked in any way. This will be fun.

I should add that in my early Catholic grade school days we would have a “picture study” class every Friday. I remember all those paintings displayed in our little book. They were mostly classics and I was always excited to come across one of them later on in a museum.

I already know the first art work I will write about is something I admired very early in my experience looking at art with Becky. Stuart Davis is the artist.

On Wearing a Mask

Pandemically Speaking

His and hers basket of masks.  

The pandemic has had a direct impact on everyone for about four and a half months now. The world has known about this event for three months even before that. We watched people around the world wearing masks but many people in America thought "it can happen here".

It is amazing how the simple health precaution of wearing a mask has become so political and actually a symbol of the mismanagement of the pandemic by the administration. It has also caused the deaths of thousands of Americans. The president has downplayed the virus and in particularly the wearing of masks. He has blood on his hands.

My wife Becky was an early advocate of wearing a mask in public. She started wearing one in stores almost immediately and at a time when people looked at her funny and disbelieving that she had a mask on but she was right. She was protecting me and herself. 

Buying masks online has been a challenge and she made purchases from a variety of sources with different results. Overall though we now have a nice selection of masks. She wears them every time she goes to her studio but in the studio itself. She been wearing a mask in stores long before they were mandated. We have masks with us when we go for walks in the neighborhood and put them on if we encounter people on the street.

Nobody likes to wear a mask but it is for the common good. This pandemic has brought out many awful things about America and one of those unfortunate traits has been selfishness. Americans like to think it is the rugged individualism that conservatism is built on but the reality is now apparent that a large number of people in this country are just plain selfish, uncaring and inconsiderate of other people including their own families.

Mad About Tenors

I'm listening to this CD right now as I write. I love opera. When and how did this happen?  

Mad About Tenors: The Greatest Stars and The Greatest Music according to the CD cover.  This Deutsche Grammophon compilation album gathers many of the current superstars singing the most popular arias.

Placido Doningo, Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras. Celebrity tenors that dominate their field and have a long legacy of recorded music. 

I love putting this on in the morning while I'm getting breakfast or cleaning up... like today.  There is something about a great aria to get you going in 

the morning. 

I'm not sure when I first started liking opera. It was a gradual process. Probably first heard it in movies. I never watched whole operas on TV and never saw an opera live in a theater. We've had season tickets to the orchestra and for chamber music but never anything with opera. Yet, I was drawn to the tenor singing the aria. I don't really like listening to an entire opera and the woman singing opera does not draw me in like a Pavarotti singing Puccini. Maybe it's because I sang in a choir as a kid.

Pavarotti's album Ti Amo: Puccini's Greatest Love Songs was the first CD of opera arias I became focused on. I listened to this all the time. I never had any opera on vinyl so it was probably at least the late 1980's and more likely the 1990's that I started listening intently to opera. We do have some full opera CDs around but they don't get heard near

as many times as the collections.

I also listen to a lot of other vocal music and have grown to like it more over the years.

Horn & Hardart

These photos brings back memories. Hanging out at a Horn & Hardart automat was a thing for teenagers in the 1960’s. There was one up on Germantown Avenue a few blocks from our house near a record store that I hung out and regularly stopped by the H&H. There were plenty of them around the city and especially downtown. There was a time when you put change into a slot next to the window displaying the food. The meal was cheap.

Another one I went to a lot was located at Broad and Erie where I transferred from one trolley to another on my way to high school. Stopped by that one a lot especially when the trolleys were running slow because of snow.

I’ll bet someone is looking at that old business model again because the food automat concept works well in the pandemic world.  Walk up to a counter, get the food off of a shelf behind a little door, take it to a cashier behind a plastic barrier and pay, then walk to a table to eat.

Flipper at the drive-in

Yep, we saw Flipper at the drive-in movie theater. All of us piled into that green 1955 Chevy in the summer of 1964 to watch a movie about a kid and a friendly dolphin. We actually if I remember right, saw a double feature of two Flipper movies. The second one had come out in the spring and the new TV series was getting ready to premier in the coming fall season of 1964. Flipper mania.

The first movie had Chuck Connors as the father and a crabby fisherman who somehow changed into Brian Kieth as a nice park ranger. And someone else in the TV show. 

Deaths of Despair

The Book List

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, 2020.

I just finished this book and will need some time to go over the shock of these troubling revelations. This intriguing and disturbing data driven book looks at flaws in capitalism that has become fatal to the American working class with a significant rise in deaths of despair that include suicide, alcoholism and drug overdoses. The book emphasizes the social and economic forces that are making life much harder on the working class. The groundbreaking book is written by economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton.

The long detailed review in the New Yorker... Why Americans Are Dying from Despair.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

In the Summer of 1964 Dad and Mom piled us 6 kids into the back of our 1955 Chevy and saw this movie at the drive-in theater. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World releases in late 1963 and of course we saw later when it got to the drive-ins. I also saw it at a Saturday afternoon matinee at our local neighborhood theater. I was old enough to appreciate all the familiar stars that were scattered throughout the film and I could also follow the somewhat convoluted plot. All the fast moving slapstick comedy and wisecracks kept the whole family glued to the screen... and the popcorn.

It turned out to be one of our favorite all time movies. My kids loved it too.

It was a perfect drive-in movie for kids. We saw lots of movies at the drive-in with our parents. It was a regular family entertainment treat.

Green '55 Chevy

My Dad drove a green 1955 Chevy most of the time I knew him. Writing about him recently on the 50th anniversary of his death made me think about that car. I vaguely remember the earlier brown car but mostly as a fleeting image rather than a memory. We went everywhere in that green car. Dad always did the grocery shopping and would take two or three kids with him each time. We went on vacations in that car to the shore, to the mountains and on all those day trips. We especially loved going to the drive-in movies in that car.  Six kids would be crammed into the car and some of us would fight over who got to sit on the floor hump. There was no radio and as a teenager I always wanted to have my transistor radio with me. There were also no seat belts in that car.

I know that someone in the family has a picture of Dad standing next to that car and I'll be asking around for a copy of it. Right now I'm using a stock photo of a green '55 Chevy for this post but will replace it at some time.

The family got a second car in 1965 that my mother would often drive. It was a Chevy Impala 9 passenger station wagon. Dad still drove his '55 to work every day. All the neighbors knew his green car parked on our street. Parking was always tough because there was parking on only one side of Greene Street although most of the neighbors across the street had parking available in an alley in the back of their homes. Some even had garages back there. 

My dad tried to teach me to drive on that '55 Chevy but it was a standard shift that had a worn down transmission that only seemed to respond to Dad's particular way of shifting the gears. I could never get the hang of it and ended up learning on the big station wagon which was probably a good experience on the tight city streets of our neighborhood.

After he died in July 1970 the car sat outside the house in Harleysville. Mom eventually sold it to a local gas station owner who had expressed interest in it to my dad many times.

The Steer - Places

I miss going to bars and restaurants. We would go out two or three times a week. This is the first post on our favorites that we look forward to visiting again sometime.

The Steer on Main Street has been one of our favorite restaurants for many years. It's nearby and only a few minutes away. There is a nice sized lot with plenty of parking. We also enjoy the fireplace in the main dining room.

The food is always very good and the owners are very serious about the service and quality items on the menu. Despite the name there is a very good selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes being served along with burgers. I should mention they also have an outstanding veggie burger called the buddha burger. They have outstanding pizzas. We love their fish fry too.

There is always a good selection of craft beers on tap. Some of the taps remain the same but another group constantly changes with seasonal brews. You can always count on getting a good pint.

The restaurant is located near the SUNY Buffalo south campus and has the many characteristics of a college bar but it is also a neighborhood tavern too and a destination restaurant.  We often see parents having dinner there with their college age children that they are obviously visiting. One of the great things about this place is that there is always something on the menu for everyone.

The size and layout of the restaurant is misleading in it's perceived simplicity. I always like a bar that is circular or square. All the patrons can see each other which makes for a more interesting social mix. There are high top tables and booths surrounding the bar on two sides and there is a large fireplace at the end of the bar. There is a large open kitchen including a wonderful pizza oven that can be seen from the bar area.

The main dining room is very spacious and also has a large fireplace that we often sit near during the winter. The room has been recently renovated and has new tables and chairs. Very comfortable. It is close enough to the loud bar area to see what is going on there but far enough away to have quiet conversations.

There is a patio along one side of the building that overlooks the street, parking lot and sister restaurant the Lake Effect Diner. Upstairs there is a large room for special events. I've been to campus related parties up there. There is also another patio on the second floor.                         

Slade House

The Book List 1970 - 2020

Finished this creepy haunted house ghost story in bed last night. Slept well. Mitchell is one of my favorite authors and this book takes place in the same world as his book The Bone Clocks which was also a great read. Now I wait for his new book.

Porch Cactus

Our porch cactus suddenly grew a long bud yesterday which means there would be a bloom in a day or so. Today the bloom started. Now I wonder how long it will last.


The last time we saw the cactus bloom was in 2018. Last year we were out of town at Katie's house for several weeks and missed the one day bloom.


By the end of the page here... it's gone.

Updated 7/22/20

Going, going, gone.

Dad - 50 Years Ago

50 years ago today Dad died from a ruptured brain aneurysm. It was a long day which started for me that morning when some friends at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center came by my barracks and said the base chaplain was looking for me. It’s never a good thing when the chaplain wants to see you. I went over to his office and he told me that my father was seriously ill and in the hospital. He handed me a phone to call home.

I called and knew immediately that something terrible had happened. I didn’t know who answered the phone because of all the screaming and crying. My Aunt Kate took the phone to talk to me and was trying to get people to quiet down. Apparently just a few moments before there was a call from the hospital with the word that Dad had just been pronounced dead. Mom was at the hospital and it was Uncle Ed or Uncle Jack who called the house with the tragic news. So Aunt Kate had to tell me the news that Dad had died. I was in shock. The chaplain helped me through the process of applying for an immediate two week emergency leave and then helped me get airline tickets from Chicago to Philadelphia that same day. I was numb on the flight that afternoon wearing my dress whites with a black armband the chaplain gave me. Everyone who saw me could tell I was going to a funeral. The next few days were a blur.

I don’t really remember much about those days after I got home. Everyone was shocked and grief stricken but we were surrounded by a comforting extended family. The funeral was somewhere in the Souderton area because the family could not take having another funeral back in Germantown where we had lived for decades. All of the recent family funerals had been at the Gillespie Funeral Home down the street from our old house and across the street from the parish church. My father’s family lived in that house through the 40’s and early 50’s until my grandmother sold it to the Gillespie family after our grandfather died. The family could not bear to go there again for the funeral of another family member. Now in 1970 things were different. People in the family were more spread out.

The wake was an awful experience and it too was mostly a blur. Everyone was happy to see me home but the circumstances were horrible. My brothers and sisters were devastated. Danny was only 8. Cathy and Rita seemed to be really taking it hard and Rita particularly was blaming herself because of some argument she had with him a day or so before. Mom was a mess.

Some of my friends from the old neighborhood came up to the wake in a couple of cars. We heard some people make some remarks about them not being dressed for a wake but they had come out that night not knowing about my father, not knowing they would be going to a wake. Some had gone down to the corner as usual and then heard about my father dying. They all knew him and liked him. My parents were welcoming and had always let us have our friends over to our house to hang out. We often had teenage parties in our basement rec room with loud music. So our friends piled into a couple of cars for the almost hour drive to the wake out of respect for my father.

Another group of people there were the men that Dad worked with at Brandywine. For the previous almost two years I had worked there with my Dad prior to going into the Navy. I was part time there for the first year and full time after graduating from high school. Dad was the foreman and plant supervisor. I really got to know a whole different side of my father. I saw him as one of the guys. As a boss who was respected and admired by the people who worked with him. I saw and heard that all the time while working there. All of his fellow workers were there at my father’s wake to pay their respects. They were there to see me too. I had worked with them. I was their helper kid who did the clean-up work and had left to join the Navy to see the world. They were excited and impressed to see me wearing my sailor uniform and they listened to my stories. But they were hurting too. And also shocked at their loss.

It was a hard funeral and most of it I’ve blocked out. I really don’t remember much except the crying. I walked into the church behind the pallbearers and the casket with Mom on my arm and in my uniform. My brother Tom was one of the pallbearers and I can still see the tears in his eyes as they walked past us with Dad. Mom sobbed. I didn’t cry at all during that two week leave. It would be years before I cried for my Dad but when I did it lasted hours.

It was a quick two weeks and then I returned to the base at Great Lakes and back to my studies at the Navy Ship Engineer A School. I didn’t do well after about a month I dropped out of the Navy Nuclear Power training program. I talked to a Navy counselor about taking a hardship discharge to come home to my family and help out but Mom would not hear of it. She wanted me to stay in the service and I did. Life went on for me but it was much harder for my brothers and sisters who stayed with Mom and the aftermath of our father’s death.

Etta for Dinner

Kitchen Listening. So we had a nice summer dinner listening to Etta James. It sounds wonderful as always.

This is a wonderful compilation album that covers her career from 1960 to 1970.

I had some of her songs on soul compilation albums in the 60's and I really liked her song At Last but she was mostly under my radar until much later. It's amazing how many albums she had over her long career.

My album collection also includes All The Way from 2006, The Dreamer from 2011 and the 4 CD box set Heart and Soul: A Retrospective also from 2011.

I would like to read her autobiography Rage To Survive: The Etta James Story

Summer Fest - Glass of Beer

Summer Fest 2020

Sierra Nevada Brewing

One of my favorite summer beers I look forward to every year. A refreshing Czech style lager goes great on a warm evening while sitting in the backyard cabana. 

Sierra Nevada has been one of my favorite brewers for a long time.

On Writing

I’ve always liked to write. Over the years I’ve taken the time and made the effort to write but never kept it up enough to accomplish anything. Lots of ramblings here and there but no coherent and sustained project. Eventually all I ever wrote were reports for work which I actually liked doing and I think were well done. Then I retired and I thought I would get back into writing for myself which I did a little every day. I was doing more writing but there was no pattern. No real organized effort. Just random writings here and there scattered over many documents on a computer.

About a year into retirement I started using my old blog for writing. It originally was mostly used to organize my music mixes and to have a place where they were available to see all in one place. I started also using it for observations and memories but it was still mostly random ideas.

Last year I started trying to be a little more organized in my various writings and started keeping directories of documents containing anything and everything that I had been writing down including social media posts and comments. These were now in the cloud and available from any device. I would always try to write serious post in a document and edit a couple of times before posting online. All of those writings were saved in a directory on a drive.

Then came the pandemic of 2020 and all that came with it including the stay at home quarantine orders. It was then that I got serious about the writing and the organizing of thoughts and observations. I also realized I was writing about more and different topics. My niece Marissa had been asking me about family history and that I should be writing down memories. She was right. I had been doing some but they were totally random and not in a usable format.

In addition to family memories I was writing more about books, movies, music and in different categories about each. I was posting a lot on Facebook about these subjects as some kind of pandemic exercise. I was also writing more about traveling and different places, about different beers I've tasted, our gardens, politics and my time in the Navy. And of course I’ve been writing about making my mixes.

I then got very organized in using the blog for my writings. I was backdating some blog entries to correspond when I wrote something I found in my older documents. I was putting them in the context of the time I wrote them. I was also using a feature of Facebook to go back and see posts from a particular time period. I was editing them, elaborating on something, fleshing it out, expanding on it and fine tuning a document. I’ve done the same with Instagram posts and my Untappd check ins.

Interesting times.

Navy Ship Fire

It has been shocking for me to see the images of a Navy ship burning alongside a pier in San Diego.  The fire onboard the Amphibious Assault Ship USS Bonhomme Richard LHD-6 has been raging since yesterday morning. The many photos are horrific and fortunately no one was killed but several sailors have been injured. It was also fortunate that most of the crew were not on board over the weekend. The other good thing was that this fire didn't happen while at sea.  

I was stationed for awhile in San Diego and was familiar with the Navy Base and the area. I also served on a ship as part of an Amphibious Assault Force where I spent three of my four years at sea. A fire on board a ship at sea was always a scary thought. During my final year in the Navy my duties included my position as our division Damage Control Petty Officer. Part of my expanded duties also required me to attend Navy Firefighting School at the naval base in Philadelphia. That was an intense experience having to go to the fire, to walk into the flames and learn how to overcome the many kinds of fires possible on a Navy ship. Fortunately I never had to use those skills during my time in the Navy but seeing the story of the Bonhomme Richard sent shivers down my spine even now almost 50 years later.

More on the USS Bonhomme Richard fire in the Navy Times.

The Covid Test

Pandemically Speaking

Becky and I went to the CVS drive thru for a Covid-19 test. It was easy to register online for the test on the same day as the test. We signed up for a 10:30 test on Friday morning June 26^th. We filled out the proper paperwork and had the subsequent phone interview. The test was a simple procedure we accomplished together in the car at the regular pharmacy drive thru. After completing the test we were told to register for an online account with a username and password and we received instructions and a direct link by email. We were told to expect the test results in two to four days.

We wanted to take the test because we were going on vacation in the New York State Adirondacks with family members. We would be renting two cottages on a lake and we wanted the peace of mind of knowing we were carrying the virus to our kids and grandchildren. It would not be like our usual Adirondack vacations but we wanted to spend time with our family whom we haven't seen since Christmas.

The Sunday and Monday after the test I logged into my covid test account looking for test results. In the meantime the country had a surge in new coronavirus cases due to so many red states ignoring the scientist and medical expert recommendations and opening everything up too soon. It was obvious this would happen after seeing how people gathered together over the Memorial Day holiday weekend for parties and activities. The response to the virus became political and the president was even declaring that wearing masks had nothing to do with safety but was actually a protest against him with the intent to hurt his reelection campaign. What a moron and a dangerous one too. 

He was also constantly bragging about how good virus testing was in America and the best in the world. He said America led the world in the numbers of testing done and the accuracy of the test for the virus.  He bragged that anyone who wanted to be tested could be tested. That was certainly not true anywhere in America.  Testing has become another indicator of the failed administration response to the pandemic. As more and more people came down with the virus, as more businesses and institutions opened up then more people became aware and afraid which caused and even greater need for more testing... and getting results.

So back to my testing. I tried several times that week to get test results. Nothing. Finally a week after getting the test and the day before leaving for vacation I called the CVS where I was tested and talked to a pharmacist who was very apologetic about the lack of results. He claimed the system was overwhelmed by the numbers of test requests around the country and the test kits were sent to a centralized location for processing and notifications. I would hear from them through my testing account but it would probably take a few more days at least. He was right. It was another week. I finally got my results on Friday July 10th. Becky would get her results the following day. So much for timely testing. Fortunately we both had negative results or as they said... no virus detected.

Cloud Atlas

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, 2004

Read in Nov. 2010

David Mitchell is one of my favorite authors and Cloud Atlas is one of my all time favorite books. I was fascinated with his unusual style and complex structure of this novel with it's interconnected and nested stories within the narrative. The Guardian ranked in 9th in it's 100 best books of the 20th Century.

I recently saw in the New York Times Book Review that he has a new novel coming out. Utopia Avenue is about the birth, rise and demise of a British rock band in the 1960's. It apparently is also about the long family history of one of the band members and refers back to Mitchell's earlier book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet which I read in 2010. I also read and enjoyed The Bone Clocks and Ghostwritten. So a lot of people have been talking online about David Mitchell and I'm one of them.

I enjoyed the movie too.

His novel Slade House came out in 2015 and how did I miss it. It is available as an e-book from the public library right now and I'm reading it while waiting for the new book to become available.

Update: David Mitchell novels I've read

Cloud Atlas, 2004 - November 2010

Ghostwritten, 1999 - February 2011

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, 2010 - April 2011

The Bone Clocks, 2014 - February 2015

Slade House, 2015 - July 2020

On the patio

Pandemically Speaking

Our first time going to a restaurant since the pandemic started for us in mid-March was at the Long View Lodge in Long Lake NY during our Adirondack vacation. We stopped for a beer on the outside patio. We had the round of drafts and called it a day.

It was me and Becky, Ashley and Sean and Katie. Todd was back at the cottage with the kids. Some of us had done a little shopping at Hoss’s and we decided to show them the newly renovated hotel and restaurant. However, it was a hot day and we were sitting in the sun on the patio deck. There was only one other table on the deck in use at the time so it was a good time to be there except it was hot. We had walked through the restaurant and the bar area. The restaurant was empty but there were a few people sitting socially distant at the bar. When walking through the building a mask was required but we could remove them when seated at our table. The waitress who took our beer order wore a mask when interacting with us. This was the new world of the pandemic.

We had a long history of going to the Long View Lodge for dinner going back three decades. It originally was a very traditional Adirondack hotel and restaurant with a group of cottages directly on Long Lake through the 80’s and 90’s. We loved going there and later with the kids. It was always a special occasion. I liked getting the lake trout dinner. Then later it had new owners. A couple of retired school teachers. It was still good but was noticeably slipping in food quality and service. Then it closed for nearly 10 years.

It recently was completely renovated and reopened by the next generation of the family that owns Hoss’s, a Long Lake tradition itself. The family member running the restaurant had recently owned and operated a high quality restaurant in San Francisco. Last year Becky and I stopped by the newly renovated bar for a couple of drinks and talked to the bartender and the owner. We had a very nice time there but could not get back there for dinner that year. We were anxious to stop by this year to show Katie and Sean. They loved the restaurant when they were children and teenagers. The new dining rooms were very impressive and the menu looked very tempting with a Southern cooking flavor.

A couple of days later we watched the kids in our cottage while Katie and Todd went out for the first time for dinner without their children since February. They sat on the patio under an awning and had a wonderful dinner. Becky and I are looking forward to going back next year for dinner with the entire family after the pandemic.

Around the campfire

Pandemically Speaking

Sitting around the campfire in the evening has always been a traditional part of our Adirondack vacation experience. We have almost always stayed in cabins that were part of a group with several other families. Sometimes we also had several cottages filled with family members. We have also hung out with some families over different years. One of the families this year we shared the campfire and beach with two years ago. 

We sat around the fire this year with different folks talking about their pandemic experiences. Their jobs, their families, their lives. All while maintaining social distancing.

4th of July: on the road

Pandemically Speaking...

We drove through the villages of Inlet and Old Forge on our way up to Long Lake as we do every year but this time something was very different.  Our rental cottage was Saturday to Saturday as it usually is every year but the actual 4th of July was Saturday and the official holiday weekend started on Friday.

The traffic on the thruway was very sparse for a Saturday during the summer. We thought that maybe people weren't traveling because of the pandemic but the probable answer was that most people traveled on Friday or earlier for the long holiday weekend. We were stunned by the large crowds of people walking around Inlet and the then Old Forge. There were also cars everywhere. The towns were mobbed. We were also shocked by the large numbers of people in both places walking around not wearing masks and  not maintaining social distancing. People were shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalks, in the parks, on the porches and patios, Seemingly everywhere. We did see some folks coming out of stores and restaurants wearing masks which they promptly took off when outside.

We also saw many lighted road signs on the thruway and on the roads leading to these communities stating "Wear Masks" "Covid is still a threat" "NY Tough".  As we made our way along route 28 we saw many of the other smaller villages with large crowds and cars everywhere. It made us think that perhaps every 4th of July was like this but later that day while watching fireworks on Long Lake we heard a couple of local guys talking about the especially large crowds seen in Inlet and Old Forge over the weekend. 

Fireworks on Long Lake

In all the decades we've been going to Long Lake and other communities in the Adirondacks this was the first time we've been here on the 4th of July.

We stayed at Sunset Point on Long Lake and there were also several other families in the group of cottages on the property.  Some of the guests gathered on the point near a lean to and bonfire for a wonderful view of the village fireworks over the lake. The reflections in the water were spectacular. Everyone was maintaining social distancing. 

The Empty Stadium

Pandemically Speaking

The Premier League games have recently started up and I've watched some minutes of several games this week of soccer being played in empty stadiums while doing some chores around the house. However, there has been plenty of crowd noises including chants, taunts, and songs that seem to reflect the flow of the game.

The crowd sounds are taken from video game recordings and used by a DJ like engineer for a live broadcast. They work with an assortment of sounds from the previously recorded matches that have been used in video games. It was strange but worked in the sense that I heard the cheers and chants from the "crowd" while in the other room when a goal was scored so I could go in and watch the replay. It was a little disconcerting to hear the crowd while looking at empty seats but the game goes on... even with the fake crowd noise which has been controversial. 

The NFL may do a similar crowd sound processing.

Here is an article about the canned sound from TechRadar...   Football's canned atmosphere.