Tag: my home town

Mysterious Encounters on the Sidewalk

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967 Sidewalk Waving Stock Photos, High-Res Pictures, and ...

In a vain and fruitless effort to buy tart cherry extract to treat my hip and knee pain, which my doctor reckons is arthritis, I forced myself to walk (hobble?) downtown to buy it at the health food store… which was closed. Not supposed to be closed, but closed notwithstanding. (How many times do you get to type that word?)

But here’s the mysterious part.

As on my weary way I trod, three different persons, none of whom I know even slightly, smiled at me in passing and said “Hi, how are you?” Totally unexpected. Also totally nice. I didn’t get my cherry but I did get three friendly greetings.

Have I suddenly taken on a more harmless and benign appearance? Does more of the old spirit of this town survive than I thought? I remember (five years old) going downtown with Grandma–one hand for me and one for her cart–and seeing all sorts of people stop and exchange greetings with her. It was a lot easier, back then, to know almost everybody in the town.

Anyway, it was nice and I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

 

Hell Night

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Hoboken, New Jersey, USA. 28th Feb, 2023. Repair crews work on a water main break on Observer Highway in Hoboken, New Jersey. Earlier Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) broken open the

It was just about bed-time last night, around 11:00, when all the lights went out. Presto! No electricity. Our whole block went dark.

Call the police, hoping to get some information. “That’s PSE&G’s problem, nothing to do with us.” Call the PSE&G hot line. “Hi! Hot, sexy women are ready and waiting to talk to you!” “What???” Must have misdialed. Try again, get a robot. They’re workin’ on it.

Around 1 a.m. I went out to see if they were making any progress. In the opposite direction, just three blocks away, downtown Metuchen was lit up like the Fourth of July. I cannot imagine why. Who’d be shopping at one in the morning?

I walked five or six blocks through the snow and slush, following the brightly blinking yellow lights that showed me where the PSE&G trucks were parked. When I got there, they didn’t seem very busy. A driver told me they were working on it.

After 3 a.m., Patty was sleeping on the couch and I was nodding over our candles. Something bad might happen if I fall asleep there. The only option was to go upstairs to bed. By then I could hear men working somewhere in the night.

Around 5 a.m. the power came back on, hallelujah, and I rushed downstairs to wake Patty so she could get her oxygen, normal service resumed.

I reckon I got, all told, some two hours’ sleep. I’m not used to that anymore. I may have to go back to bed before the afternoon’s half over.

NOTE: Iowa caucus victory for Donald Trump; pygmies routed.

‘So You Want to Give More Power to the Government?’ (2015)

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Waste, waste, waste…

They’re spending like crazy (I mean that literally) up on Capitol Hill these days, increasing our national debt by trillions of dollars at a time–in addition to financing Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Local governments are just as incontinent.

So You Want to Give More Power to the Government?

Yeah, my town has got yours beat in the waste derby–we tore down a school while we were still paying for its construction. Eventually they’ll have us paying for buildings that never get built at all.

Memory Lane: Rec League Basketball

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16,980 Kids Playing Basketball Images, Stock Photos & Vectors | Shutterstock

I had a basketball team in our high school recreation league. We weren’t very good, only one winning season out of four, but nobody cared–it was fun.

One year a bunch of big black kids formed a team and entered it in the league. They called themselves The Dogs. They were very, very good at basketball! It was fun to play against them, even though we didn’t have a ghost of a chance at winning.

So they beat us, 85-15 (ouch!) in a 30-minute game. I was guarded by Billy, who grew up to be a police sergeant and a board of education member. The one bright spot for us in that game was when I made a bounce pass through Billy’s outstretched legs and we got an easy layup out of it. Everybody had a laugh–especially Billy’s teammates.

Everybody there enjoyed the game, even the referee. Until I learned otherwise, I thought sports were supposed to be like that.

Billy, you were a mighty good cop; and I’m sure your father was proud of your work on the school board. After all, he served on it before you did.

A Little Time Off

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Jack o lanterns hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy

We’ve had a rough morning, what with computer problems and grocery shopping; so I’m going to take Patty out for a ride around town, to see this year’s Halloween decorations. It might be better at night, but we’ll be too sleepy to appreciate it.

Last year’s Halloween displays were mostly rained out. We’ve had some sunny days, though, so it shouldn’t be a total loss.

I’ll try to put up a few more posts when we get back… if we get back in time.

Colors of the Fall

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Five Tips For Photographing Fall Foliage - Digital Photo

I had to take the laundry this morning, hop into my car–and holy cow! You wouldn’t believe the glory of our trees!

My town has always been known for its beautiful trees, wherever they can stop orcs from chopping ’em down; and this fall, wow! Some of the leaves are so bright, it looks like the tree’s on fire–like Moses’ burning bush.

This is the work of the Lord, His mind, His hands. Nothing in this world is perfect, but the Fall season does have its compensations.

Oh, I wish you could see these trees…

‘Memory Lane: Shoe Stores’ (2017)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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Back when you could make sure they fit before you bought ’em…

A few of you live in states where they still have shoe stores. Count your blessings! My little home town used to have two shoe stores right here on Main Street. Now we have none.

Memory Lane: Shoe Stores

Somehow all the “progress” we’ve made in our town consists of losing things we’d rather not lose–bookstore, shoe stores, pet shop, stationery stores, and (heaven help us!) both our hardware stores–and replacing them with trendy little boutiques and dance studios that go belly-up in just a few weeks.

You’d think that people living in such a prosperous country as ours could at least buy shoes that fit.

But then it remains to be seen whether our prosperity can come back from the Chinese Wuhan Death Virus. Maybe the Democrats and socialists have finally got their wish, and America’s great days are over.

Gone the way of the shoe store.

 

No Nooze is Good Nooze

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Well, I tried to collect nooze today; but as you can see by the results, there’s not much going. The behind-closed-doors, no formal vote, no Republicans allowed, bogus Democrat pseudo “impeachment” circus is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Do these slimy partisan hacks really, truly, believe they can actually remove a president by this technique? No defense, no cross-examination: you’d think it was a Canadian “human rights” tribunal.

Americans need to get much madder at all this than they are.

Anyway, the day being drab and rainy, Patty and I went on our annual Halloween tour, cruising all over town to look at people’s Halloween decorations. Harmless fun. My favorite was somebody’s giant ghost in ratty robes with a rotting pumpkin for a head: squirrels had added their own unique touches to it.

I enjoy a scare that turns out to be totally imaginary, nothin’ to it–as opposed to the kind of scares you get in the nooze: stuff that doesn’t just go away. I’ll trade them in for ghosts and goblins any day. The Mummy can’t hurt you, but Democrats can.

So we’re back, we had a nice time, and I’m looking forward to seeing the trick-or-treaters make their rounds on Thursday: always brings back pleasant memories.

Space Aliens Have Taken Over My Town

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This won’t be easy to explain, but I’m going to try.

In a movie I was watching last night, a character had occasion to pass by his local American Legion hall. That reminded me that my town’s American Legion hall, with its front yard adorned with real howitzers carefully modified so as not to shoot, is no more. Gone. Vanished. Torn down, paved over, not a trace of it left.

It has joined our Italian-American Club, our woodland, our spring of cool, pure, delicious water, our local farms, our Dairy Queen, and so much else, more than I can bear to list, in oblivion.

Now, you can’t just take away all these amenities from a small town without turning it into some kind of gulag. All the buildings that have replaced the real places are tall, featureless cubes.

This is why I think the powers that be in my home town are from another world. Because they can only imitate human life without having any feeling for it. That’s why the yards are so small on all the new houses, and no one ever comes outdoors.

To replace what they’ve torn down and paved over, our reigning space aliens plug in things and events they think ought to be part of small-town life, periodically blocking off Main Street so they can have a Classic Car Night or a Winter Solstice Festival or some other kind of celebration of something that you never heard of. These would be all right, I suppose, if they had grown here over time. But these are just plugged in. It’s not the same as a farm whose owners, once upon a time,  fought in our War for Independence. It doesn’t make up for the little field of wild tulips they’ve destroyed.

So overnight these artsy Special Events spring up out of nowhere, because entities from Mars or Diomega Orionis IV think this is what a small town in America ought to look like.

At best they mean well, and are trying to install homey touches to replace what they’ve bulldozed away. At worst it’s entertainment for them. They watch us and go tee-hee.

Those old places were real; they belonged here.

The new ones aren’t, and don’t.

‘So You Want to Give More Power to the Government?’ (2015)

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If you go on a diet that’s supposed to make you lose weight, and instead of losing weight, you just keep getting fatter and fatter…. do you stay on that diet?

So You Want to Give More Power to the Government?

Of course you wouldn’t. Why, then, do we keep on giving more and more power to a government that doesn’t know what to do with the power it already has?”Let us Save The Planet!”

No way, sunshine.