The Crazy Store

Tags

coffee, crazy, friends, Running

I stopped at my favorite local coffee shop yesterday after a good sized run of about 6 miles.

The sun was warm and with only outside coffee service available all of the sidewalk tables and chairs were occupied. No matter, I was getting mine to go.

I was still in running gear which included shorts on a day with temps in the high 50’s when I arrived at the coffee joint.

I got my order and stopped to chat with a couple of friends who were enjoying what might be the last decent day to sit outside in warm sunshine until maybe sometime next March.

Ok, to the point.

One of my friends introduced me to his table mate saying this is Phil and in a nod to my apparel he said – ” He usually dresses normally, not in shorts.”

I said I appreciated the normal comment but that I had been to the Crazy Store on the crazy side of town and of some of their ideas were not so crazy anymore.

No one seemed to take issue with me or my shorts or my mention of the Crazy Store. In fact, it seemed like a good idea to everyone who joined in the conversation.

Being crazy that is.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Tags

Beach Boys, car radios, Eagles, Fun, Phillies., seasons

It’s come to this I suppose.

( That was the first title to this piece until I decided the three Funs made a superior lead in). What does anyone think?

Barely after 5:30 pm here on the east coast mid south central Pennsylvania Middle Atlantic States region just off the DelMarva region somewhere above the Mason Dixon line smack in the middle of Amish country.

Barely after 5:30 in the evening and it looks and feels like midnight. Solid dark. This is not good for my mental health and or outlook.

We have another month of days growing shorter, well, days with lessening daylight or and or sunshine before we jump on that great orbital axis tilting planet earth wheel to start begging the sun for more of itself.

Maybe if we all lean left or start jumping up and down we can accelerate the shift.

Naw, that would be screwing with the natural order things and we all know how well we’ve done in the climate department.

Meanwhile, it’s fire season once again in Australia. We used to have four seasons, now we can add fire to that too I suppose. Hurricane season anyone?

I am inventing and conniving new strategies to cope with the lack of natural sunlight.

These days there’s no chance of Icarus flying too close to the sun from these parts.

I’ve loaded up my car with music from those Beach Boys. Any port in a storm I suppose. Fun, fun, fun.

My car’s radio has been been on the fritz for a couple of years only pretty much picking up a radio station if I am the parking lot where the station’s transmitter resides. That cuts down a lot on my AM/FM options.

The radio waves that I do pick up consist mainly of NPR – Happy news times all around, the local Philadelphia Phillies AM station, the local Philadelphia Eagles FM station and the local sports jerks shouting match station.

All three of the main dashboard radio options mostly make me want to drive into a ditch as the Public Radio news is never good these days, the Phillies were awful and the Eagles are terrible.

At least my friends on the western end of the state can tune in those undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers for entertainment and distraction once a week for about three hours until their season inevitably goes south or maybe not.

Ya do what ya can.

This Happened

Tags

coffee, houses, men, observations, traffic

Last week I was downtown enjoying a cup of coffee in a small vest pocket kind of park right off one of the main streets in town.

If you happen to be on the curb of this street you often get subjected to all sorts of noisy cars with loud mufflers and exhaust systems that are loud either by design as in on purpose or as in neglect as in the tailpipes fell off and you don’t care or can’t afford to repair bill.

The park sits back from the street and offers a respite from the din of relentless traffic.

I have s streak going with coffee and this park that I started last summer and I hope continue until the weather makes the streak untenable.

Drinking coffee, minding my own business as I was the only one in the park until an older fellow came walking through occasionally leaning on a cane he was carrying.

” I don’t really need this,” he offered, ” showing me the cane but it helps with my sore leg. The one I broke and had surgery on to repair.’

” I need to get back to work” he said although judging from his struggling gait and his age I thought work would or should out of the question for him.

He mentioned something about being a roof and then I knew for sure his working days needed to over. I know a roofer once who said that by the age of 30 your knees were shot from all that squatting and balancing on pitched surfaces.

We agreed the cooler weather was no friend to broken bones even after they had healed.

The man said he had to go find his brother and just like that he was gone.

A passing conversation reaching out for a friendly face, mine I guess, which leads me to another story about an older man.

I once wrote post about him called ” The Grey Man” but it seems to have disappeared from these pages.

There is a house on the corner of two intersecting streets that once was most likely covered in red brick. The red brick remains but sometime in the past it was covered on that sort of fake grey stone that seems to have pink tint buried in it.

At one time the building was probably a bar or hotel judging from the angled front steps and what’s left of what must’ve been a sign over the door and the fact the whole door and step units were placed at an angle facing both streets.

Now I think it’s just apartments or maybe rooms, certainly not in the high rent district.

I was driving to work one morning. It was early. The sun was still below the horizon and the sky was a half light grey as though you knew it was going be cloudy all day anyway.

There was a man seated on the steps wearing old and dirty clothes and no matter color they might have been at one time the clothes were now grey. His long beard was grey and the smoke from his cigarette provided a grayish haze around his face.

He was the grey man in front of his grey house.

More Paris

Tags

jazz, music, Paris, WWll

More on my week long Parisian vacation with some musical notations added.

Before I get too far down the page I have to admit my two biggest regrets after I returned home from Paris.

One – I didn’t stay longer and two – I didn’t spend more money.

Ok, got that out of the way and before I lose my train of thoughts I have a few more recollections from The City of Light.

I was stunned to see how how any current and live references there are to the Second World War in Paris.

Correct me if I’m incorrect but I seem to recall a metro station named for D-Day, The Sixth of June and there is an FDR stop. Maybe one for the Battle of Stalingrad too.

I remember walking down the Rue du Winston Churchill which was near a street named for FDR. It was on this street corner that my daughter and I ran into a local with whom we had a very lively and enlightening conversation.

Maybe we looked like Americans, I don’t really think so as we were both dressed rather smartly. Americans stand out in a Paris crowd and we tried to blend in with the locals and the surroundings.

Somehow we struck up a conversation with a Frenchman from Morocco and the talk turned to great world leaders, remember while we were there we were on the cusp of the anniversary of the 70th of the liberation of Paris.

I remember how this fellow said DeGaulle’s nickname was “Deux Metres” since he was much taller than the average Frenchman in those days. He stood 6’5″ which meant he towered over almost everyone he met. He used his height to his advantage as one should I suppose.

By the way, the current occupant of the White House is nowhere near the purported 6’3″ he claims. He wears lifts in his shoes and is probably closer to 6’1″. The lifts make him lean forward all the time.

The Moroccan man was a real joy speak with and seems to be genuinely happy to be conversing with his two new found American amis although we never got his name.

Earlier in the day we visited Napoleon’s Tomb and spent time at the adjoining French military museum.

The history of warfare in Europe goes back to just about forever as the locals always seemed to be either carving each other up, bludgeoning each other, blowing up, shooting and mangling soldiers and non-combatants alike from the air, the sea and at ground level too.

It feels good to recall those memories especially these days. We rented a rowboat at Versailles, rode the train to Caen and visited the Canadian D Day beach.

When I saw the statue of Charlemagne at Notre Dame Cathedral all I could think of was the Steely Dan song” Kid Charlemagne.” That’s on me.

Our days were full, we walked almost everywhere and by evening we were bushed so there was no nightlife for us. Another regret – No Paris jazz.

” The Last Time I Saw Paris” was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein soon after the Nazis occupied Paris.

“April in Paris” written in 1932 by Vernon Duke ( Autumn in New York, I Can’t Get Started) and E Y Yip Harburg ( Somewhere Over The Rainbow).

Possibly the best big band song ever is Count Basie’s version of the tune replete with the “One More Time” coda.

Finally, ” I Love Paris” from the show “Can Can’ and Mr. Cole Porter.

And still more finally, ” Midnight in Paris” the Woody Allen film.

Maybe the sense of history doesn’t hang on as much in the air these days for Parisians as it did for me. Time marches on as they say. Perhaps there is too much to occupy the local’s time and minds in the present environment.

I felt the weight of history like I was wearing a jacket with all the pockets stuffed with the years 1940 – 45.

The oldest structure in my neck of the woods is probably a log cabin from around 1600 something or so.

And since adding a new follower who recently added a post about visiting Philadelphia I distinctly remember looking at buildings in Paris and saying – “Gee, these look just like the Philadelphia City Hall.” And they do.

It was built in the Second Empire Style or as it is also known Napoleon III style.

To the Colorful Sisters – in your post about visiting Philadelphia you left out 30th Street Station, one of my favorite places to be ever.

I wrote a post once titled ” The Birds of 30th Street.” It’s somewhere out there in the mist and fog of the internet and WordPress.

As Casey Stengel said ,” You could look it up.”

I Love Paris

Tags

Paris, Remembrance Day, WWl, WWll

This post is inspired in part by Jackie B’s writings about Remembrance Day in England.

I visited Paris during the summer of 2014. While I was there the 70th anniversary of the liberation Paris was approaching as well as the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WWl.

The sense of history surrounding me was overwhelming as I thought I may be walking down on same street that my father did after the war. He served as an infantryman in a rifle company in Italy, France and Austria,

I have some of his souvenir postcards from Paris as he was probably on his way home.

There were exhibits everywhere. I recall one particular photograph of a square in Paris which featured a huge statue of a lion with about a dozen people climbing on it who were celebrating the liberation.

I walked passed that exact spot some 70 years later. I was there, they were there, my Dad might have been there. Maybe you know where it is located.

Hard not be awed.

And here we have bases named after confederate generals. That doesn’t seem to be right so many levels.