Category Archives: Family

Nephews & Uncle, 1988

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The picture doesn’t need much explanation, except to say that that’s me – I’m the large monkey in the see-no-evil pose – with my nephews Sam (speak no evil) and Dees (hear no evil). Since the picture was taken by my brother Jay, their father, in late August 1988, the boys have gone on to be grown men.

I’m wearing my Hog Heaven, Hog Hell t-shirt, which depicts a one-panel cartoon by Sam Hurt: pigs lolling around on clouds, pigs finding themselves on plates next to fried eggs. I think I got it in Austin that year. I’m not sure what happened to it – maybe I lost it in one of my moves since 1988.

Not Quite a Nap

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Finally, a day worthy of the name summer, at least in the North. Sunny and nearly 90 F.

But regardless of the outside temps, summer’s a fine time for afternoon naps, especially if you stay up late to finish something, but don’t finish it, and then get up early the next day to finally finish it. Because it must be done.

After the task is complete, you recline on your comfy couch, not even for a real nap, but to rest your eyeballs (a phrase I learned from Festus Haggen). As lethargy takes over, a certain dog shows up on the couch and burrows her way in. You’re too tired to shoo her off. Another resident of the house, one of your offspring, takes a picture of the scene.

Dog

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When it doubt, take a picture of a dog. Especially a photogenic one. Ann went on a spree of dog photo-taking recently. Included were some profiles.

Some closeups.

Many shots of the napping dog.

Of course, the dog isn’t always so peaceful. Ann also manged to catch her warding off imaginary enemies.

And greeting someone on the other side of the fence.

Her basset hound heritage is evident in this shot. The others seem to illustrate her lab side.

Gettysburg

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Got a postcard from my nephew Dees last week, the nephew who’s the drummer for Sons of Fathers. It describes the 12th Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival earlier this month, in which the band participated. The photo on the right depicts the only known first-name Deeses of the world, together about this time last year, when Sons of Fathers played at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, Ill., and I went out to see them. He’s the hale fellow with facial hair.

A little further in the past – 1991 – I found myself driving from Boston to Chicago during this time of year, and I stopped at Gettysburg National Military Park. I missed the 128th anniversary of the battle by a few days, and presumably whatever commemoration events they had. I thought of that when I was reminded by the newspaper today that the 150th anniversary of the battle is upon us, beginning tomorrow, of course.

There were some other visitors when I was there, but not too many.  It was a hot day, fittingly, since it was a high-summer battle, which must have added to the misery. This image captures the summer conditions of the site pretty well, besides the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument, which has its own intricate history, and which was knocked over by high winds only last week.

Here’s another view of the Angle – the stone wall that Pickett’s men managed to reach (Lewis Addison Armistead’s men, but let’s not be too pedantic).

I haven’t seen one of these quarters yet, though I’ve been noticing a number of national park quarters in change lately.

Right Time for a Nap

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I’ll say it again: Sunday was a crummy excuse of a day for early June, dank and cold. And it isn’t like we get to have a pleasant warm day in early December in return. Except that we did, and maybe this is Old Man Winter’s way of balancing things out (just because it’s June doesn’t mean that old man is idle).

Late in the afternoon on Sunday, everyone but me sacked out in the living room. Left to right: Ann, Lilly (can’t see her face, but note the pink-framed iPod next to her), the dog, Yuriko.

It was a lot like a pic I took on the cold May 31, 2012, except the floor was even more crowed this time around. Plus ça change doesn’t just apply to big-picture events or overarching social conditions, but quotidian moments too.

Dogs From Space

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Back again after Memorial Day, which falls three days before Decoration Day this year. Another example of an earlier occasion within a later one, such as Armistice Day within Veterans Day, or to take it back further, the various pagan holidays bundled up within Halloween and Christmas.

Lilly threw a tennis ball in the air not long ago, intending for the dog to chase after it. To everyone’s astonishment, the ball stuck in the back-yard tree. Not in a thicket of branches, but jammed between two small branches that aren’t budding yet, and in fact might be part of a dead branch. You’d have to throw a ball I don’t know how many times to get a result like that. This isn’t the first time Lilly has managed to toss something with astonishing results.

We’ve been expecting the wind to bring it down, but so far – it’s been roughly two days – the ball has stayed in its arboreal home.

Also not long ago, we were out in the back yard with the dog when she took a sudden, inexplicable interest in the sky, running around, looking up, barking a little. I thought she might have spotted a bird, which happens sometimes, sending her off on a vain ground-based chase of airborne creatures. We couldn’t see any birds, or even distant airplanes, which she occasionally looks up at (baffled, maybe).

“She’s getting ready for dogs from space to rescue her,” I suggested. No one was impressed. “No, really, an intelligent race of dogs are on their way from a planet around Sirius to free their brother dogs. Sister dog, in her case. Earth dogs have been waiting for thousands of years for their freedom. One day, they’ll come.”

Again, no one was impressed. I don’t think I made that idea up, but I can’t remember where I heard it.

Juvenile Amusements

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Not long ago I was getting rid of debris on one of my computers, the main one I use now for my work since the older one is bronze age in computer terms, and I found the scan on the right. A pizza delivery receipt. We rarely have pizza delivered, so I’m pretty sure it didn’t originate with us. I suspect it’s something Lilly put in the system, sent to her by a friend.

Probably the name “Bonquiqui Butts” had something to do with it. Turns out that refers to a character I’d never heard of, but which Lilly and her friends must know about.

Also found on my computer taking up space: a video made by Lilly and a couple of her friends in our back yard. I don’t think it was last summer, since the grass is much too green; probably the summer before last. Which would make them junior high antics.

It only goes to show that kids aren’t spending all of their time with electronic entertainment.

Rocket Girl

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Clear, warm, summerish day today, with light winds. A perfect day for launching a rocket she called “Payton.” One she built.

Ann is seen here holding the thing, which, like most good rockets, has a detachable nosecone. It measures about 12 inches, has three fins, and is yellow. Before we painted it that color, I toyed with the idea of painting it like a V-2, even though it doesn’t otherwise look much like the German weapon (to start with, the V-2 had four fins). But that seemed like too much trouble for a joke no one would get.

Earlier this year, Quincy Adams Wagstaff Elementary inaugurated its rocket club – actually, the entire school district seems to be in on it – and to my mild surprise, Ann joined. For an hour every Thursday, she stayed with the club after school to work on a rocket (though it came home for painting last week). Everyone did his or her own, with the promise of a launch for each in the spring. And so it came to pass on May 14, 2013. More about that tomorrow.

Green Grass & High Dogs Forever

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Finally it’s warm(ish) and more-or-less dry outside. Time for some action shots.

Lilly has a pink tennis ball. The dog wants it.

That hound has some strong hind legs, that’s for sure.

At last, the tennis ball is hers, and she runs off with it.

Tinkertoys Across the Decades

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Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and Legos – the big three among building toys, as far as my younger self was concerned. I thought about that recently when Ann latched on to the two tubes of Tinkertoys that we have around the house. At some point long after I quit using them, the tubes migrated from my mother’s house to mine, maybe in anticipation that one of my children would use them. Until the other day, no.

The tubes interest me now more than the toys themselves.

I think my grandparents bought that taller tube for my aunt in the late ’30s – it has her name on it (I saw her last month; maybe I should offer to return them, since isn’t 80 the beginning of second childhood?). In any case, it says Tinkertoy, the Wonder Builder, a product of The Toy Tinkers Inc., Evanston, Ill. I didn’t know Tinkertoys were from Evanston originally.

The design of the longer tube clearly carries a 1929 copyright, but the image, especially of the boy, harkens back somewhat further. Maybe the artist was middle-aged and recalling his boyhood.

My mother probably bought the shorter tube for me ca. 1970, though it’s possible my grandmother got it for me. Note that it doesn’t promise constructions as intricate as the earlier tube. It still has a retail price sticker on it: Winn’s, 77 cents. Winn’s was a dime store near our home in San Antonio that was there until the age of dime stores was over.

Surprisingly little is available on line about Tinkertoy history, at least on casual inspection – there are suspiciously many hits with verbage the same as other sites. Did the inventors of Tinkertoys really hire midgets to play with sets in department store windows in the early days of selling the toys? That’s a repeated story, and I’d like to think it’s true.