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Sandstone Architectural Detail – last on the card, April 2023

The facade of our local department store had been “refreshed in either the late forties or early fifties. But, unfortunately, the materials employed in its construction hadn’t aged well. And parts were thick with old pigeon nests, accumulated dirt, and rust. Sporadic cleanings hadn’t kept up with the effects of age, pigeons, and downtown pollution.
Unlike many small city department stores, ours hadn’t seen a mass desertion of customers to mall stores. It managed to live on while its nearby mall counterparts recently closed. Perhaps feeling flush with its survival, management decided to redo the storefront.
Off came the old, and the older sandstone carvings of the 19th-century facade came into view. Not all had received kind treatment from workers slapping on the “modern” facade in the forties. The one illustrated here, part of the older, more formal front entrance, was severely damaged while slapping on the modern materials.
I will see if they restore the original or go “modern.”

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Love

Sometimes the simplest affirmations are the most moving. Yes. One syllable, clear and not open to detailed interpretation. Just yes. Like the morning when my fiance, now wife, said yes.
We reaffirm that single yes every day. For me, it’s like entering homeport after a long voyage. Nothing is better—neither the rain nor the sunshine, storm, or clear weather matters that much when I take your hand.

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Zombie?

When I have a nightmare, it never involves zombies, mummies, or fantastical creatures of classic horror. That’s a way to evolved a terror. Without flinching, I’d whip out my katana and remove their essential bits.
No, a true nightmare is much more basic and possible in real life.
Let’s look at it this way. Between 2001 and 2005, the NIH conducted a study that found that over six percent of the population could fit within the parameters of Narcissistic Personality Disorders, and about five and a half percent would do with Anti-social Personality disorders.
Having had poor taste in who I selected for romantic relationships, infatuations, and flings, I met a few who fell within those categories. During one of those relationships, I came very close to being shot to death.

So while you run down a deserted street pursued by howling zombies, I wake up in terror, imagining that I had married one of my personal nightmares. I’ll take a good old-fashioned zombie or mummy any day; thank you very much!

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Trash

A good day by the water involves at least a bit of time looking at ripple marks, jetsam, and flotsam. Jetsam is those things people have tossed overboard, and flotsam is the many things that can be found floating. After a storm, a fantastic array of goods can be on the shore.
Back when you could spice up a day at the waterside by telling the kids stories based on what was found. Now you fill a trash bag with plastic debris and deliver a talk on environmental responsibility. Unfortunately, that is not my definition of an exciting sea story.

One represents a creative venture where almost anything is possible through exploration. The other is a sad commentary on litter, a lack of environmental responsibility, and industrial cupidity. As we leave, we notice that we are not the only ones with a bag of collected trash. Others are also interested in leaving the shore a better place than they found it.

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Mail

My woodstove & the recycle bin are the primary beneficiaries of what arrives these days by Snail Mail. Yes, the utilities still send out bills, and there is a brisk exchange of cards at Christmas. But on average, it’s mass mailings from real estate investors (Do you want to sell your house!), car dealerships, and at election times, political screeds from politicians whose presence I’d run from if I saw them
What goes into recycling gives me a feeling of teamwork with others who find a useful way of repurposing awful ads and terrible commercial claims.
The political stuff is fated for the fire. I feel it’s not only expedient but appropriate that some of the homophobic, sexist, and racist trash be consigned to the fires.

My only question is, how did I get on their damn mailing list?

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Once upon a time in the Navy

Daily writing prompt
What makes you nervous?
View all responses

Fights always make me nervous, scare me and make me almost ill. I was taught and trained to avoid them, and if not able to avoid them, end them.

Being graceful in your interactions with oafs shows that you have character. This advice was from my mother.
Various ministers also lectured on turning the other cheek and the many virtues of peace.
Later on, my senseis in martial arts reinforced this; dignity and respect for others were the marks of a real martial artist. Courtesy and kindness deflected many conflicts. Students of their dojo were not to swagger about and provoke conflict.
Then there was my father, the former Marine and Merchant Mariner engineer, ” Louis, don’t start a fight. Just be prepared to finish one if you must.”

So there I was, standing in the Blue Anchor with my arm around this heavenly young woman I’d been dancing with. Four fast dances left us elated and slightly out of breath. Then in walks the boyfriend. Sweet Jody, the young woman, runs over to him, kisses him, and clutches him possessively. Seeing how things are developing, I try very hard to make myself small, inconspicuous, and unnoticeable. Walking slowly back to the table where my buddies are waiting, I hope the boyfriend is not an oaf and interested in starting a fight. I have my apologies ready for the ordeal.

Sure enough, he comes sauntering up to me as I approach the table and makes the error of grabbing my shoulder. I turn, brushing the hand off. I told him I had not known the young lady had a boyfriend. From the look on his face, I see that he really didn’t care; he just wanted to have a bit of fun with me. Past him, over his shoulder, I see Jody with an expectant look on her face. I should head for the exit, except that never happens because Oaf-boy has already started to swing a roundhouse punch at my face. Never use one of those theatrical roundhouses on a martial artist. I grabbed him in a wrist lock, twisted his arm so the elbow pointed upward, and levered him to the ground. His arm was mine to snap if I so wished. I now shifted my grip so I could twist his pinky finger. The pain from this is sublime. I whispered that one form of this hold allowed me to dislocate his shoulder and snap his neck. But if he apologized nicely, I’d let him lick my boot. He groaned.
Several of his friends had entered the bar at that point, but seeing the four Marines I had been drinking with, decided that oaf-boy was on his own. My Marine buddies were howling with laughter; docs aren’t generally known for fighting skills.
I pushed Oaf-boy away and went to my table. The bouncer was already on his way over, so my friends were preparing to leave. None of us wanted to be taken in by the Shore Patrol.

On the way out, I saw Jody throwing me a kiss; I looked away. I pitied her boyfriend.

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Early Influences

I was asked a serious question the other day about the shapes of my treen – the wooden spoons, forks, and spatulas that I make. So, of course, I gave my usual pragmatic answer. The shapes are meant to be adjustable for different grips, hand sizes, and user preferences. Unfortunately, most commercially made stuff is square, straight, and unsuitable for alternate grips and use.

I’d get bored making the same thing over and over again. I’d get surly…a surly woodworker with sharp tools might need a long sabbatical somewhere other than at a show where the object is to sell cherry treen.

So everything I’ve said up to this point is completely true. But it’s only part of the story. That night I had one of those dreams where I found myself back in Baltimore in my mentor’s studio. On the bench were a small block of waste walnut wood, my small gathering of tools, a series of clamps, and a mallet. Nearby stood Warburton, not my master, but my mentor. I had, at last, mastered sweeping the shop, ricking and stacking wood, and learned to sharpen my basic tool kit. This was it. I was going to be allowed to carve something. But first out came a stack of books. Warburton looked at me and said, “You’re going to investigate the world of shape, transition, and form. Spend as much time as you like reading. Then, when you feel ready, try something you’ve found that inspires you.
I read on and off for a few weeks. They were art books about Jean Arp, Henry Moore, Dali, and Picasso.
I impressed Warburton when I told him I’d casually stumbled into Dali as a kid in New York City. Yes, that’s right. I ran right in Dali while running full tilt down Sixth Avenue. The Maestro had helped pick me up. Warburton asked me what the master had said. “He said I should be more careful.” Warburton replied: “From the mouth of the master to the ear of the student.” Then, he shrugged and left me to my studies.

My first carvings turned out to be invested with the influences of Arp and Moore. While the significant body of my work as a carver has been rooted in the late 18th and 19th century as a maritime carver, all my early carvings were sculptural forms that echoed the contents of Warbuton’s selection of books. My first small sales and my first gallery appearances were those types of work.

Now back to treen! Those spoons and spatulas and the small bowls? That’s how those early influences ooze out. But despite my early personal interaction with Dali, I don’t think I’ll be carving any surrealistic eagles.

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Making the Scene

Scene? As in making the scene? Digging the scene or maybe splitting the scene? These were essential parts of my life at one point. I have a rather intense memory of a conversation between a group of us who were about to split one scene about where the scene would be in 1988. We decided to meet at that location at that point. It was an intense discussion; so many good locations with great promises to choose from. We never could decide, and the following day, we split the current scene for other places with scenes we were interested in checking out: Toronto, Denver, Frisco, Boston, Philly, and Athens.
Eventually, we lost contact, but on July fourth, 1988, I paused on the National Mall in Washington, DC, to think about my friends and where they might be. Of course, the terminology was already years obsolete. Still, I could almost imagine them wandering the Mall during the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife and agreeing with me that this was one hell of a good scene. We’d casually wander into each other and remark, “Hey man, this is it, isn’t it? Where is the party happenin’ later on?”
I admit that working for the Smithsonian and helping to create just a tiny bit of that incredible scene was incredible, and it was where the scene was at.

If we had met up, the next thing on the agenda would have been – where next, brother?

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Catch-and-release

Spring? Meh. I yearn for summer at the pond! Frogs to chase. Plop, plop, plop, as they dive into the pond in terror to escape my claws.

I sometimes attempt to supplement my diet by sneaking them into the house. But father insists on a strict catch-and-release policy.

Still, the thought of stocking the basement with my captive frog supply is so tempting. there’s nothing sinister in my plans; I only want to give them a safe place to live. I am a, what’s the word mother uses, a “humanitarian.”