Fall Has Fallen

A cyclist takes a break, American River Parkway.
 

“Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.” (Author unknown, reported by Jessica Sager, Parade).

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Unofficial Memorial Plaza on the American River Parkway

From this site on a bluff along the American River, a wheelchair ramp and a stairway lead down to the water's edge.  There a pier supports people who come to fish or to watch fish swim by, and, yes, you can actually see fish in the water at your feet. 

Original Americans once lived and roamed here. Gold seekers came, and they brought with them a dredge that nosed into shore and began scraping away in search of the precious metal.  When not enough gold materialized, dredging switched to taking gravel from the land.

Over time, visionaries took over and created an outdoor recreational gem, the American River Parkway.  A true escape from city life, the parkway enables users to fish, swim, kayak, run, bike, paint, or just sit a spell.  

At Mile 13 of the parkway. a sign by the parkway's bike trail identifies the Disabled Fishing Access.  A placard near the sign says that salmon, steelhead, perch, trout, and catfish occupy these waters.  Parking lots and restrooms are nearby. 

In recent years the Disabled Fishing Access has also become an unofficial memorial plaza as people have inscribed the names of loved ones on table pedestals.  Most of the names are those of men; I recognized one as a history professor I took a couple of classes from at Sac State.  A few couples are memorialized here, as in this heartfelt tribute:

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Waiting for.....Autumn.... Fall.....Whatever

It's now been 275.31416 5/9 days since rain last fell in Sacramento. That's an exaggeration, of course, but our long, dry summer--except for a few drops of precipitation one August morning--is running its usual course. It's the kind of weather that makes it hard for TV weather folks to think of new and entertaining ways to avoid saying "more of the same."

Before I came to Sacramento I had lived in Houston and Chicago. Houston, besides having hot, muggy summers, gave residents another treat in the winter--the blue norther. I could stand on the flight line, which offered an uninterrupted view to the horizon, and watch a line of clouds colored in blues and black roll in from the north and feel the temperature drop. And that night my buddies and I would drive into town and stand outside a convenience mart drinking beer and people would walk by and ask, "Aren't you cold?"

"Cold? I'm from New Jersey (Connecticut, Boston, Chicago). This ain't cold."

Chicago weather was another story. In a city that offered mile after mile of fine beaches on Lake Michigan and plenty of municipal swimming pools, there were summer heat waves and summer days too cold to warrant a swim.

And then there was a day in February 1951 when the temperature in Chicago dropped to 15 degrees below zero. That day stuck so sharply in my memory that I felt it necessary to verify it with National Weather Service online records.

Did that really happen? Yes. it did. And that was the last winter I lived in Chicago. And to be clear, I left not because of the weather but because some nut in Korea started a war and I enlisted in the air force before I could be drafted.


American River Parkway, October 18, 2020
Fall colors beginning to show.

The air force moved me around, and I eventually arrived in Sacramento early in May 1957. Six months later the air force transferred me again; other moves followed. Ah, but the military works in strange and wondrous ways, and in 1966 I was back in Sacramento, and am still here more than a half century later.

It's a benign climate. For much of the year you can plan a picnic on Monday for Saturday and know that you're going to have good weather. It's hard to say that about a lot of other places.

But it's boring.

By this time every year, I'm ready for rain and clouds; gimme some gloom. I want to need a jacket when I go out. I want to hear geese honking when they fly over the house. A few appear on the parkway, but they could be permanent party who see no reason to migrate anywhere.

As for fall colors--next month.

I'm waiting.

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When the geese come back. . .

By calibrated eyeball estimate, there were more Canada geese at my favorite spot on the American River than at any time since, well since they left to spend the summer up north.  Sorry, no photos of geese available today--when I drove in they left.

Now, if the air quality would get better and if the temperature would drop a little and if the rains would come,  by and by we could have a nice autumn.

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Gadzooks! Forsooth! Yea verily!

 

This space reserved for a forsaken blog into which words should be pumped.

It’ll happen.  By and by.

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This Just In , , ,

I was bored, and I went searching for news in the world's media.

“Australia gets second wave of toilet paper hoarding as coronavirus cases spike.”  Straitstimes (Singapore), June 25, 2020.

“Antarctic penguins are 'happier with less sea ice', scientists find.”  Sky News (United Kingdom), June 25, 2020.

“US politics:  'Please for the love of God do not vote for my dad': Republican's daughter voices opposition.”  The Guardian (United Kingdom), June 26, 2020.

“Sign up for St Petersburg News, a daily newsletter full of things to discuss over drinks and the great thing is that it's on the house!”  St Petersburg (Russia) News, June 26, 2020.

“Coronavirus: US hits record high in daily cases”. . . “Pence hails US 'progress' despite new surge.”  bbc.com/news (June 26, 2020).  

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The "Radetzky March": Who, or What, Was a Radetzky? And Why a “Radetzky March”?

While cruising around the internet I came across a link for “Radetzky March…Chinese Version.” 

Well, the Radetzky March is a popular concert piece, but what’s so special about a Chinese version?  And, most important, why is there a “Radetzky March” at all?  Did anyone actually march to this piece, or was it strictly a concert selection?  And what is it with the hand clapping?

Johann Joseph Wenzel Anton Franz Karl, Graf Radetzky von Radetz was born November 2, 1766, in Trebnice, Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic) and died January 5, 1858, in Milan, Italy.  Joseph, Graf Radetzky, as his name is often shortened to, lived at a time when European rulers were preoccupied with making war, which was something he was good at.  He joined the Austrian army in 1784, became one of the army’s most fearless and effective field commanders, was idolized by his troops, and ended his career as a national hero.

Johann Strauss Sr. wrote the “Radetzky March” to honor the Austrian hero.  Strauss the father—not to be confused with his son who became known as the Waltz King—was a popular composer who turned out works in several forms—waltz, galop, polka, march.  To honor a military hero he chose the military form, the march.

The work debuted in 1848.  At the first performance, attending Austrian officers caught up in a patriotic fervor stomped their feet and clapped their hands.  Since then, audiences have  clapped along with the rhythm of the piece.

Heard here is a traditional performance,this one in Vienna, staged during every New Year's celebration and televised to viewers in more than 70 countries worldwide.

This is the Chinese performance  mentioned earlier in this post.  The conductor is Chen Xieyang, here leading the China National Traditional Orchestra at the Wiener Musikverein (Vienna Concert Hall) performing a Chinese New Year concert in 1998.

Besides being a concert piece the "Radetsky March" is also marched to.  I went looking for a marching video to fit in here and came up empty handed. 

Then I got sidetracked into watching and listening to the "Pizzicato Polka," by Johann Strauss Jr. and Josef Strauss.  It's performed by the same Chinese orchestra that played the "Radetzky March" above.  Not only is the polka well-played, but I like to watch the conductor pluck notes out of the air around him.

That's enough culture for today.  Thanks for stopping by.   

(A biography in the online Britannica is my source for the few words about Radetsky written here. Key words in the text can be searched to find additional sources.)

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I Have This Window; Part 2--They're Gone

The crowds have dispersed.  Several weeks ago, the scene outside my window was one of people, people, people.  They couldn’t go to work because doing so might spread the coronavirus, so they stayed home and went out for walks.  

During that period I could see that I actually had neighbors, that those houses up and down the street weren’t just arrangements of lumber but wooden boxes in which real, live people resided.

But this is California.  We expect perfection in the weather.  Cloudless skies and seventy-five- degree temperatures are just fine.  But rain brings on the fear that like metal we might rust, or like sugar we could just melt away.  And heat drives us indoors where we can inhale deeply from the air conditioning outlets, like an asthmatic getting a fix from an inhaler. 

And this is what happened.  A couple days of drizzle flushed the streets of dust, dogs, and people.  The return of mild weather didn’t last long and was followed by temperatures above the century mark.  Then a few days of cooling came, then heat again.

Now most everyone seems to be inside.  Or maybe they’re back at work.  One never knows about these things. 

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I Have This Window…

I have this window.  It came with the room that I acquired years ago when the previous occupant, our oldest daughter, moved out.  Before she had a chance to look back over her shoulder, I had secured my presence by moving in a desk, chair, and computer.  Bookcases and a file cabinet soon followed.  As they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law. 

I prize my window because I lived eight years of my life in an air force unit that spent a lot of time on alert, and the alert building was a concrete bunker with no windows.  If I wanted to verify the presence of trees and grass and sky, I had to step outside.  Having a view of the outside world became a necessity for me.

So I have seized control of a window.  And it is a window with not much of a view.  It faces out onto a street of urban tract homes, pleasant to look at but not spectacular.  On the left of the view is a neighbor’s garage.  To the right is a long stretch of the side of another neighbor’s property, with a curb and walkway unscarred by driveways.  It’s sort of a curbside overflow parking lot for when people have parties.

Delivery van drivers sometimes pause there, probably to update info, or maybe just to take a break.  A couple of stolen cars have been abandoned there, the last one a sporty Mercedes-Benz that showed up at night; the license plate frame and a sticker on a window hinted that the car’s home was near Stockton, some 50 miles south of here.

That intrigued me.  How did a car thief find this empty stretch of pavement in the back of a neighborhood that is a tangle of twisting, turning streets?  When you get to our house, you either know exactly where you are or you are hopelessly lost.

Several weeks ago the view changed dramatically, as in, Where did all these people come from?  The answer is easy:  They are neighbors who have been told not to go to work because of the coronavirus.  Therefore, they get out of the house to exercise or to escape boredom, maybe both.

There’s no organized parade, just individuals, twos and threes, family clusters, humans on bikes or skates, kids on sidewalk toys—and dogs, lots of dogs, many of them possibly wondering why suddenly their humans are home so much and why they’re being walked so often.

It’ll all end someday, and we’ll all be glad.

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Aah, a Haircut!

"You're only as good as your last haircut"--Fran Lebowitz.

The switch from civilian to military life can be enough of a jolt to implant scenes that last in the memory for years.  These are some of my scenes.

In Chicago's downtown recruiting office, I enlisted in the air force on a morning in August 1951 along with a bunch of other guys.  We sat around the recruiting office until we were herded into a bus and driven to Midway Airport.  In mid-afternoon we climbed aboard a civilian DC-3, a workhorse of WWII.  At some time in the night the plane landed at an airfield near San Antonio, Texas.   Again we sat around, this time until daylight when a sergeant showed up and began barking at us to get in line, keep eyes front, stand up straight, and a lot more.

During the course of that day we were driven to Lackland Air Force Base and marched to the chowhall for breakfast, then to a building where we were issued uniforms, to another building where we were given a partial payment of our first month's pay, to the Base Exchange where we spent a good chunk of that partial pay on toilet articles and other necessities, and then to tent city.  The tent city came into being because the barracks were overcrowded due to the Korean War buildup.  And the tents were a blessing, because we could roll up the walls at night and let cool breezes flow through, a welcome relief from the daily blast of hot air in that part of Texas.

Tent city had a building with showers in it.  Showers!   I was used to tub baths at home, but here on the Texas prairie was a modern touch.  And after a day of marching and drilling in the hot sun, there was nothing more refreshing than a shower.

Now I come to the part I like best.  On that first day we were marched to the base barber shop to be sheared.   Like everyone else I was given a crewcut, or a GI haircut, whatever you want to call it.  Gone was all that hair--it was now on the floor--that I'd grown to despise.

When I was a boy it was curly.  As I grew into adolescence the curls morphed into waves, a marcel.  Whenever I was introduced to an aunt or a girl cousin or just about any woman, I would hear the remark, "I wish I had hair like that."  I cringed:  I disliked my hair.

It had to be washed frequently, brushed, tended, like a field crop.  As the adolescent wave became more pronounced, more dominant, I bought a comb.  When I ran the comb through my field crop, the comb's teeth trapped a layer of gray slime.  Greasy kid stuff, ads accused me of having.

I feared a row with my mother if I had a barber cut it short.  Like any other boy whose parents don't measure up to his standards, I endured.

But now, on that first day in the air force, the military had solved the problem for me.  Gone was the comb.  No more slime.  No more greasy kid stuff.  My instructions to the barber became very simple:  "Number 3 blade all over."

And from August 1951 until just a few weeks ago my hair was short.  Blessedly short.  Man, did I like it.

But you know what happened.  Large chunks of the world shut down.  The local barbershop closed. 

My field crop returned, and flourished, for weeks, and weeks, and weeks.  My mood grew dark.

But then, the clouds vanished as if in a dream.  Bugles sounded, the Red Sea parted, help appeared.  Mark, our youngest son, volunteered to cut my hair. 

Date, time, and place remain unnanounced.  No photographs, please.  I wish for nothing to spoil the event.

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Musical Interlude: "The Java Jive" ("I Love Coffee, I Love Tea")

Musicians inside my skull are playing and singing "The Java Jive."  The words make little sense, but the tune is catchy.  It's the kind of song you can have fun with.

Ben Oakland and Milton Drake collaborated to write the song, which was published in 1940.  The Ink Spots made a hit recording of it that year, and since then it's been recorded by just about everyone else.

You can hear it by clicking on this link.  That'll take you to the YouTube slot of the Ink Spots recording.  From there YouTube offers a lot of other versions of "The Java Jive."

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Painting the Restroom--Really?

I don't mean to come across as flippant or unconcerned, for the current epidemic is indeed serious business, and it does indeed worry me.  Nevertheless, I think  that maybe an occasional offbeat diversion helps ease the strain.

For instance, I made a morning drive today to the American River Parkway for a diverting and restful view of a beautiful stretch of the river.  At the parking lot, one of the restrooms was closed, a sign over the door advising, "Restroom being painted."

Painting the restroom?  How can they?  At a time like this!  Don't they know there's a crisis?

Ah, yes, but that ordinary activity of painting a restroom is a reminder that life goes on regardless of news media bombarding us with grim stories and body counts and frightening guesses of what could come.

Or maybe we're going to win this one with a cliche.

"Your actions help 'Flatten The Curve,'"  Kaiser Permanente emailed me.  I guess, that here in the New America, we've moved away from dramatic battle cries like "Remember the Alamo!" and "Give me liberty or give me death!"  Instead, the order to flatten the curve seems to be the marching order for the fight against COVID-19, judging by the millions of hits on search engines. 

And then there's Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who in Newsweek (April 3, 2020) turned loose of a  sports metaphor:  "We're not even at halftime . . ." Fauci, a prominent member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, said.

Fauci went on:  "What would be really nice, to continue the analogy, is 
that if we can just hold our own and then when we get back in the
second half, just come out, like, blazing. And that's what we really need
to do; otherwise, this stuff is going to be really, really very harmful to us
as a society." 

Give him credit. He didn't say, "Win one for the Gipper."

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"Welcome to the New America"

Let me see if I can get this blog restarted.

I took my wife's car (she's not driving because of illness) out for a drive this morning.  It's a hybrid (the car, not my wife), and its batteries seem to thrive on activity.  That plus the one-time mechanic in me says that precious mechanical fluids should be kept sloshing around the seals otherwise they'll dry out and leak their fluids onto the garage floor and the dog will come along and slurp them up and only God knows what'll happen then.

My route took me to the American River Parkway, the parkway's Disabled Fishing Access picnic pavilion to be specific.  I didn't see any crippled fish there, but there were a few magpies, some wild turkeys, and a lot of Canada geese.  I got out of the car and ambled around to get a wider view of the geese.  A few flew in from time to time, and a few left.  Otherwise, the grassy areas were blanketed with geese pecking for seeds, greens, fiber, who knows.

How could so many birds be so blind to the crisis we've got going on?  They seemed oblivious to the smell of human panic (?) anxiety (?).

On my way back to the car, my path set me on a collision course with a man striding in from my left.  The six-foot social distance rule was about to violated if one of us didn't do something.

I stepped back and remarked, "I 'd stand closer, but I don't want to breathe on you."

He grinned and said, "Welcome to the new America."

Well, there you have it.  The New America should provide plenty of topics for blog posts.  And as a nonessential guy doing nonessential stuff, I should find something to say.

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