Existing In BFE

Got 22 minutes?  A rather nice modern day Christmas fable. This old pic has a lot of appeal for me.  It is a nighttime snowy scene with an old Texaco station with vintage cars.  It was probably taken in the early 50's.  I guess that explains the appeal:  night, old cars, snow, red in any night scene, and the Texaco sign is just like the one we had in Seaton.  I don't know where this is, but it could have been in any number of thousands places in mid-century America. OK, so I threw in a pic each day and now onto the next year.  Woo hoo (I hope)! 

Christmas Weirdness

Nostalgia Noir

Kitschland Kitsch

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM KITSCHLAND

And this last picture was recently uncovered and never displayed on this blog before.  One of the very few pictures with all of the Blythe boys.   It is Christmas around the Wombie and my senior year in high school.  Any later and our long hair as Freshman at IWC would have been more pronounced.  Bro Phil would have been a Junior at college and we would be entering in about 9 months.   The folks, or rather Marj, was drawn toward the flocked tree look.  They would find a tree, hang it by a rope around one of the rafters in the garage and then it would be sprayed by cans with a kind of paint that turn green needles into white.  Perhaps that is why I prefer a flocked tree to this day, but have never had one.  Hmmm.  I'll have to kick that upstairs to see why. As you have probably surmised, lounging around the home was a casual thing.  If you have ever noticed from past Flashbacks, shoes and socks were seldom...

I have moved from one place or another far too often in the past decade. It is what I signed up for, I guess, when I decided to come to Kitschland to join the family.  I have attempted to escape to Northlandia a couple times but I have been found and dragged back to the Scrub State. In a year or so I will be free from my babysitting commitment and hope to rejoin my heart, on a more or less semi-permanent basis, which resides somewhere north of Peoria and South of Moline.  But I digress. All of that is to say that in various moves and the Great Flood of North Henderson I have lost many items that I collected whilst journeying through life.  I seem to have lost a wooden Seaton Wolves token that belonged to my father.  Most recently I noticed in going through my boxes that I have lost, or misplaced, my Master's Thesis.  Neighbor Tim wanted to read it a while back, the only person who ever asked, and darned if I can find it anywhere.   Ultimately these th...

Dear:  Papa  I'm sorry that Ayla was being bad today and Ayla threw brown paper on the floor (sic) and the markers happy holiday! Alfred isn't the easiest kid in the world to babysit.  Norah was.  All she wanted to do was cuddle up and watch cartoons with me,  We would go exploring and wanted to please me, so she was very receptive to directives.  Alfred, however, is blazing a different path - she isn't interested in Toy Story, feels cuddling is for losers, and is hellbent on exploring, but not so sure about following orders.  Its why I'm ditching this gig at my earliest opportunity.  But I digress.  After a somewhat contentious day of sitting, that didn't entail much of that, Norah, bless her huge heart, wrote this note for me.   I was amused at her little note on the back. ++++++++++ The Sinkhole Estates is blessed with one of those heated pools, so Norah and I went swimming on Friday morning.  The jo...

This is a re-post from a Flashback Friday from 2013.     This is a Christmas photo showing us Blythe boys in our natural habitat.   I just want to point a few things out.  That is my grandfather Dick (Leonard Westlake) sitting on the couch.  He was the cool one who was full of fun and mischief.  He would egg us guys on then claim innocence when Marj would have to intervene.  He worked for Sinclair Oil Company and after leaving Ponema was transferred to Quincy.  This picture was taken a couple of years after he lost his wife and our grandmother, Mona.  He drove Mercedes because he admired their engineering, and would eventually come up and live with us until he went to the Aledo Nursing Home.  He would live another 17 years after this picture was taken.   Next, look at that tree.  You don't find those in your corner tree lot.  I'm not sure where they found this one, but it is huge, wide and took up all of that...

Birthdays.  Everyone's got one.  Dead or alive.  That date remains as the start of it all.  What we write after that date depends on a lot of things, mostly us.  But there it is and will remain forever.  I've come full circle - as a kid I wanted them, and now as an old guy I do again.  As many as I can get.  There were a couple decades that I wasn't so hot for them.   But I generally like 'em quiet.  And most are - forgettable.  But not so the last one, thanks to Mrs. Wombie who, on the way to Emerald City from the airport threw out a throw away line like "sandwiches  and finger food on Sunday at beer Bellies".  She and I had not compared social calendars so there was a conflict - I needed a soul-warming session at the North Henderson Community Center.   I was expected at the bar.    Not to worry, I did both.  After a bit of time at the NHCC I loaded up the proprietor, barkeep and greeter ...

While in Northlandia and the weekend the kids were up, we were invited to the Barton's in Burgess for a good old fashioned summer cookout.   Chef Richard manned the dogs and the amount of food brought in by participants was a declaration that no one would go home hungry. Because my kidlings were there my presence in the pool was mandatory.  Besides having them here from Kitschland making it a rare and valued visit, but to see them having fun was even better. Naturally Alfred was beguiled by the doggies.  And she seemed to have invented new ways to win at bag toss. A big thanks to Andrea and Richard who extended the invite and who always host such fun-filled get-togethers.   

Progress isn't always good.  Somewhere along the way I lost the ability to record stuff on TV.  I know they have something called DVR, but with my cable bill rates that function became a bridge too far.   ++++++++++ “The warrior ethic has damaged us. As we move into the twenty-first century we need to mature beyond war and warriors. I disagree with those men’s movement writers and activists who speak so highly of the warrior. I appreciate some of his traits—like courage, teamwork, loyalty—but the archetype itself is bankrupt at this point in history. We surely need guardians, boundary-setters, husbandmen, and citizens. If we are to survive on this planet, so threatened by war and warriors, we must get beyond the obsolete archetype of the warrior and value images such as the peacemaker, the partner, and the husbandman who cares for the earth and animals.” I'd need at least a three beer lead to tackle this subject. ++++++++++ And then apparently tired...

I feel like one of my wordless photo essays today.  Besides, what could I add that would make these pictures any better?  When in Northlandia I try to make it as often as possible to the river to get pics just like these.  I think they are beautiful:  things happening at night, and interplay of light, the mystery of water.