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dinner, volunteers

Volunteer Dinner

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This evening was the Tourist Information Center volunteer dinner. This is an annual dinner hosted to reward the loyal volunteers who staff our tourist information center / rest area near the interstate. The center is a joint project of the city, county, and state department of transportation and tourism. The city supplied the land and services, the county the maintenance and non-volunteer staff time, and the state the grounds maintenance and the buildings. The volunteers all tend to be sociable and gregarious retirees who serve donuts and coffee, supply information and maps, and generally act like a concerned parent for people traveling on the interstate and in the area. The volunteers are a fun group and I have attended their dinner every year that I have been mayor just to say thank you for their efforts. This was my final such dinner as mayor since I am term limited out of office in November.

Knowing that I won’t be doing things like this next year makes it more fun – you can enjoy the event and say hi to all the great people without having to worry. There are a couple of volunteers below the age of 60, but most are between 65 and 95. So every year there are remembrances of one or two who have passed away in the preceding year and the welcoming of a few more new volunteers to fill the ranks. It can be pretty interesting to see the combinations that form in volunteer teams. Each team typically has a time such as Tuesdays from 12-3 or Fridays from 8-12 that they cover. Then there are a few floaters that fill in whenever a regular team cannot cover their slot or are ill or … One team that has been active for at least the last 15 years is a pair of gentlemen who have known each other for more that 50 years and still find they enjoy the time they spend at the center each week with each other. One of the saddest things is when someone reaches an age or state of physical health so that they can no longer volunteer. One often spots what looks suspiciously like tears in the eyes of both the afflicted and the their fellow volunteers when they attend what will likely be their last volunteer dinner.

One of the old railroaders that worked with my Dad (in fact I believe he was stationmaster long before Dad ever started working on the railroad), Earl, passed away a couple of years ago in his mid 90’s and is still missed by the volunteer crew today. Of course Earl was a real joker and live wire even in his 90’s. Everyone remembers his jokes, usually because they were odd and funny and told exceeding well by Earl. I remember Earl because he introduced me to the hobbyist version of fanaticism when I was in grade school. Earl had a model railroad setup that covered a whole basement at the time. It was amazing to me to see a grown man so into playing with “toy” trains. In memory of Earl, I’ll repeat the joke he was fond of telling the year before he passed on:

Ma and Pa went to the doctor for Pa’s annual physical on his 90th birthday. Pa went into the room to see the doctor and duly answered the doctors many questions. Finally the doctor asked him a question that left Pa a bit confused, so he asked for a moment to consult with his wife.

Pa stuck his head into the waiting room and yelled, “Ma, do we have intercourse?”

Ma immediately stated railing at Pa with, “No! You know I told you that we have nothing but Blue Cross and Medicare!”

The moral of the story – if you get old enough, you will forget even important things.

With that, I’ll leave you to have a good night.

friday high five

The Five Oddest …

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Time for Friday High Five hosted by Angela

 
 
 
The Five Oddest Phone Calls I Received This Week

  • The rather confused gentleman who, when I answered,  introduced himself and then wanted to know if I desired to purchase his nearly new snow blower. Once I got over the utter confusion of why a stranger was calling me to peddle a snow blower on an 89 degree day, the story quickly came out – he knew I shoveled by hand and so he thought I might be the one to buy his beloved snow blower since he was moving to Florida. I had to tell him that I shovel for the exercise, so no I didn’t need hos snow blower.

  • The unknown lady who purse dialed me not once, but three times this week. Listening to her attempt to discipline her children might have been interesting, but the episode of kissy face with Mr. Unknown was a bit too much. I am tempted to call her cell and make a rude comment, but ….

  • The mechanical voice that sounded like a 1940’s movie robot. Once I finally had time to listen to the call all the way through, it was from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) reminding me that they had special renewal offers for early renewal this year.

  • The gentleman who called me and wanted to know if the city might not want to buy or have him buy the regional medical center. He was convinced that the current system would sell it to him cheap and that we (the city) could make a mint owning and running the hospital.The county finally got rid of the hospital in the 1980’s because it was such a money pit. Current conditions are no better, so I don’t think we want to do it. The problem is that the gentleman in question could very well shell out a few $million$ from pocket change and then give us the hospital. So I had to spend some time convincing him not to do anything rash.

  • The Spanish speaking senorita who called for three straight evenings at precisely 9pm and refused to believe me when I tried to explain the there was no one named Jose at this number. Evidentially Jose gave this number to the senorita and she desperately wants to talk to him. Wonder what the back story is there?
music, writer's challenge

When Is It OK ….

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This week Mama Kat asked the question, “When is it OK not to listen to the words?” The problem I have with this particular Writer’s Challenge is that, to me, it is almost always OK not to listen to the words. Music is meant to drive the primeval soul, to reach the core of our being at a deep level, not to be absorbed intellectually like a debate. (OK, OK, bad example, but you know what I mean!) So the real question becomes: which of the many songs that I love do I want to shred for their poor use of lyrical poetry and other such arcana? I decided to compare two of my anthems from a misspent youth, since one has lame lyrics and the other has lyrics worthy of a master poet.

The first song in this deconstruction is one of my favorites from the psychedelic 60’s, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly. This was my anthem in the late sixties and early seventies. Even today, it is not an uncommoon occurance to find me listening to the 17+ minute original version of the song. But the lyrics? Well … it is with a deep sense of guilt and quasi-shame that I admit to loving a song that runs for 17+ minutes with these lyrics:

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, honey,
don’t you know that I love you?
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby,
don’t you know that I’ll always be true?


Oh, won’t you come with me
and take my hand?


Oh, won’t you come with me
and walk this land?


Please take my hand!


-Repeat-


~solos~


-Repeat-

So there you have it, a song that it is eminently OK to not listen to the lyrics in any detail. It is hard to explain how moving and powerful this song is to me, how evocative of a certain mood and time, and then have to present those rather pointlessly pitiful lyrics.

Lest you think it is purely a by-product of the era that the lyrics to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida are so lame but the overall effect is so moving and downright good, let me present a song in which one should not only listen to the lyrics but study them: Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin.This song is another anthem of mine from roughly the same time period, in roughly the same style of music, but the lyrics are true poetry and carry meaning well beyond any musical association. Thus I give you Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin:

There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven


There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings
In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven
Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it makes me wonder


There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking
and it makes me wonder
really makes me wonder


And it’s whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forest will echo with laughter


***


If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now,
It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on
Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, Ooh, it makes me wonder


Your head is humming and it won’t go, in case you don’t know
The piper’s calling you to join him
Dear lady, can’t you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind


***


And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all is one and one is all, yeah
To be a rock and not to roll.


And she’s buying the stairway to heaven

To my analytical mind, it makes no sense that two such powerful anthems that speak to the listener so deeply and personally can be so radically different in lyrical content. In my college years, it was not an uncommon occurrance to hear these two songs played one after the other. There was no sense of cognitive dissonance or unease – they both seemed perfect and fit in well with each other. But if I were to present just the two sets of lyrics, you’d think the one was written by a master poet and the other by a rushed schoolboy. Couple the lyrics with the music and they can suddenly stand proudly, side by side.

So what is in your guilty trove of songs where it is OK not to listen to the words? Do you have favorites, like me, that are lyrical diametric opposites? What are they?

altitude, Boy scouts, music, weather

Spring Hath Sprung

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(I am trying an experiment here. I’ve included the music playing as I compose this opus between brackets for your perusal. Interesting? Or not?)

 
You know how it is. In the spring a young (and not so young) man’s fancy turns to the great outdoors. (Get your mind out of the gutter – I wasn’t going there at all! {*grin*}) On the basis of my experience today, it is definite that Spring with a capital S has arrived. The moisture from the rain and blizzards of the last few weeks coupled with the near 80 degree sunny days of recent times has caused green to break out. The grass has started to grow and turn green, the weeds are rioting, with the dandelions adding a splash of color in the front yard. Even the trees are starting to put forth some leaf buds.


It was so nice out today  that I decided to make a big walking circuit of my errands this afternoon. I walked cross town to a bank to make the monthly deposit for the Boy Scout troop (the committee meeting was last night). After that I walked to another bank to sign a form and pick up some papers for L and myself, then walked across town to the credit union to pick up some papers for Mom. It was a wonderful 80 degrees with crystal clear azure skies and just enough of a breeze to keep it from becoming too hot in the sun. The sun here can be very intense when the sky is cloudless. Even though we are in the flat lowlands of Colorado here, we are still at an elevation that qualifies for the high altitude baking directions. {*grin*} Thus higher UV levels than lubbers from down around sea level are used to.


My freewheeling mind has forgotten what I was going to originally write about, so I’l just have to make do with what the last paragraph suggests. I was interruted by the phone and then the dog and then …


First topic, the Boy Scout troop. This town was founded in the late 1800’s and the Boy Scout troop that I am on the committee for (and serve as treasurer of) was founded in the early 1920’s. It has been continuously chartered and operational since that time with the exception of a three year span in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. It is the troop I was a scout in during my youth. The people on the committee with me include several of the scouts I was a scout with. I often feel a bit left out in that crowd since I am the odd man out – I am the only one of the group who did not attain the penultimate rank of Eagle Scout. I opted to leave and go to a science institute at a nearby university and so stopped just short of completing my Eagle. It is also the troop that the Son followed a similar path through. Three of us who were scouts together in the 60’s and who now serve on the committee also all had sons in the troop at the same time. That sense of continuity and community is so rare any more. So what kind of organizations are you a part of with that kind of generational continuity?


Second topic, altitude (and cooking). Although we are at a paltry 3,935 feet here, the place in the mountains where L and the Son are is at roughly 9,200 feet. So down here there are only some moderate altitude effects on cooking, whereas up there the effects can be radical at times. Most of the effects are related to the boiling point of water and how it decreases with altitude and air pressure (lower air pressure -> lower boiling points) The relationship is non-linear and can be approximated by a quintic equation. Since I am aware that some of you are math phobic, I’ll protect your fine sensibilities. {*grin*} The pertinent data are are approximated by these boiling points of water at various altitudes:

  • 212 degrees F    Sea level
  • 205 degrees F    4000 feet
  • 194 degrees F    9200 feet

You can see that there is a sizeable effect at altitude. Anything that counts on the boiling point of water for thermoregulation is not going to work well at altitude. In fact there are some foods that it becomes impossible to adequately cook by boiling alone. Even if you can, the cook times are much  longer due to the lower maximum temperature reached as the water boils off. Do you do much cooking at altitude? Got any good tips or hints to share?



I once more got distracted, but I was essentially done anyway. (I cannot hear Layla without thinking of and missing L, so by the time my mind returns to reality, the chain of reasoning is long gone. {*grin*}) How do you like the inline music tags. Are they helpful in following my shifts of mood and thought?

bug, park, weather

It Must Be Spring

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Spring must be here even if it did attempt to blizzard again last Friday and Saturday. Why do I say that? Well, when Molly and I were out walking in the park today, I saw my first winged insect of the season. That is a pretty sure sign of the arrival of Spring in the local area. It wasn’t much of an insect as such beasties go, but it was a sign the the masses will be appearing shortly. I could have taken the cognitive leap last week and trusted that the fly I spotted buzzing the sink in the house was a harbinger of Spring, but I worried that it was a false positive since it was still snowing and blowing outside at the time. Fruit flies and other such annoyances seem to hatch out occasionally in the temperate climate indoors. But the bug that flew off today was clearly an outdoor bug.

So with the winds blowing and the temperatures back into the 60s after the attempt to join Denver and environs in the cold and snowy blizzard, a lot of people were out in the park. Molly got a chance to sniff and whine at an incredible number of dogs. Not only that, but there were a ton of kids out in the park doing everything from playing football and catch to attempting to fly kites. The winds were a bit too shifty for good kite flying, but the kids were trying anyway.

Last Friday was the official Arbor Day celebration here in town. Since the city has been a tree city USA winner for the past 21 straight years, you can count on the mayor being out to plant a tree for every Arbor Day. (Part of the criteria for being a tree city is that the forrester has to get printed publicity about trees in the local media every year. So that usually devolves to sending in the picture from the papers with the mayor planting away.)  Given how miserable the weather was here on Friday, there were only a couple of us in attendance at one of the city parks to plant the Elm cultivar. In only 50 or 60 years, it will be big enough to replace some of the beautiful trees we have lost over the last decade to Dutch Elm Disease.

The planting was in a park about a block from where I grew up. Other than the restroom and an old non-working cement water fountain, there isn’t a part of the park that is the same today as it was when I was growing up. The playground equipment has been replaced twice and is currently being replaced for the third time. The merry-go-round and teeter-totters have gone the way of the dokey bird in the mania of litigation fears and ADA accessibility. Even the swings and play sets no longer have sand under them, but have a special wood fiber product called Fibar that is both injury reductive and ADA approved.

Our town is rare in that we are small, rural, and have a lot of parks. Our four largest parks range from 40 acres down to 3 acres. Then we have a half dozen to dozen minor parks that range from a fraction of an acre to a couple of acres. The overall goal is to have every household be within walking distance (with toddlers) of a park. We succeed in general, but there are some areas where we don’t have all the parks we would like.

I will close by asking what the park situation in your area is like?  Do you have easy access to parks and facilities in the parks? How about tennis and basketball courts? Walking paths and nature trails? If not, why not?