chance meeting

I'm still working on the hallway illustration. But I couldn't resist a quickie in colour.

UPS

The UPS folks finally got their act together, and sent someone to verify the damage they did to my computer.

The man who checked everything out said he's approving the claim, but he didn't know when the check would come, so I still don't know when I'll get it repaired. I'm hoping like hell it's this week.

Meanwhile, I've been sketching out a piece depicting my floor and one of the people living there...but it won't be ready for another few days.

...feelin' nostalgic again.

I was walking down SW Higgins, and noticed that the Senior Center is having Pinochle Night. Damn, but I miss Pinochle. I’m still too young to join the seniors, and folks my age are busy cruising the chatrooms or watching CSI.

I miss the sound of people chatting over the kitchen table. I miss the power going out at least once a week, and mom heating coffee over a candle flame.

Growing up military, everybody's parents played Pinochle. It was the poor man’s Bridge. They played partnership when men were home, and cutthroat when they were gone. And if the power went out, that didn’t matter. They’d play Pinochle by candlelight.

Pinochle for our parents always included refreshments. The table was always crowded with victory mugs, open beer cans, cigarette packs, Zippos, and ashtrays. Back in the day, everybody smoked. Cigarettes were practically free to GIs. I can still see them all talking with cigarettes in their mouths, squinting against the smoke burning their eyes!

My dad used to smoke 4 packs of Pall Malls a day, and my mother, 3. I can’t remember a single adult who didn’t smoke at least 2 ½.

Remember when ashtrays were a part of the décor? Ceramic, ironstone, and glass…and some even of crystal. There was at least one in every room. I remember some butt ugly ones carved and polished from granite and marble. Some even had matching lighters. I think they came from Italy. Very, very large. Of course, no one actually soiled them with cigarette tar and ashes. They were just for saying, I was stationed at or near Italy.

And you could pretty much tell which family’d been stationed where. People who’d been to Germany always had an over-carved, Black Forest cuckoo clock. People who’d been to Turkey had the requisite, decoratively engraved, matching ensemble of brass bells, brass decanters, brass ashtrays, and brass end tables. And people who’d been to Japan had geisha dolls and silk lampshades – pagoda shaped, of course. (These are the days before Japan started dominating the electronics market.)

And every house on base had a hideous, gigantic wooden fork and spoon hanging on its dining room wall. I don’t know where they came from. We had to be the only Air Force family in 50 states that didn’t have the set. Although we did have an obscenely large wooden bowl my mom served salad in, with its own too-large wooden fork and spoon. And yes, I think they matched the set hanging on those other walls!

Odd Ducks

This morning I watched some 30 odd ducks standing around on the Rattlesnake waiting for the ice to melt.

Yep. Gonna happen any minute now…



This drawing is of the Rattlesnake, looking north from Finnegan's. (if one were standing on the roof, that is...the perspective should be flatter, since I sketched it while sitting at one of the window booths.)

heroes

I remember once when I was struggling with a heavy box of books - my arms were in such agony, I was near tears, and a man in a little scooter came up beside me, and offered to drive the box to “wherever” I was going.

I remember another time, I was paying for groceries at Albertson’s, coming up a dollar and 20 cents short. The cashier pulled 5 quarters from her pocket. She added it to the money in my palms, and said, “I know you’re good for it.”

Then there was the time, the windchill was a good 30 below, and I was waiting for the bus, bundled in a hooded parka, 2 scarves, earmuffs, and thinsulated gloves. The young woman next to me stood shivering her stylish blue silk jacket and no hat. I gave her my earmuffs, my glove liners, my scarf, and a good talking to about cold weather injuries. She hugged me, and I wanted to cry.

We breathe for the trees around us, and they breathe for us. A fragile stem pokes out from the snow, and a bird settles there, suspended from the icy ground. And as he lifts his wing to fly away, his talons pierce a pod of tiny seeds.

We give, and we accept. We need, and we are needed.

[the linework is with couple of pencils, and using my thumb and an eraser to "emboss" the bird into relief. the hill behind him is mount jumbo.]