Musings about a fall day

I was walking downtown the other day. I had just visited my new friend Jim at my cell phone vendor. Jim is one of those guys that, like many artists, (He’s a chief) is doing what he has to do, so he can do what he wants to do. He’s cooking part time, and I’m guessing for little money, to help a young friend get her restaurant off the ground.

I know a lot of people in the same situation. It’s not that painters that work in bookstores side by side with writers, poet’s, and musicians don’t enjoy their work. Many times the job of clerk, bartender, receptionist or cook offers that leave it at the office kind of job and doesn't have the stress levels of many occupations that crush the creative spirit.

The street was a half-step into fall leaving summer in it’s wake of fallen leaves and balmy temperatures, but not so cool and dark that some of my sidewalk companions were still wearing flip flops and shorts.

My attitude was one of kind of contained joy. I had just returned from a visit with my grandson’s in LA. I was musing on the someday possibility that I might walk down this same street with them on either side of me and they would breath the same air of discovery that I do when I’m in the city. but rather than wonder about the solid historical statement the buildings around us make in the slightly graying skies, I would be able to share the secrets the sky-scratchiers in Milwaukee hold from those who only look and don’t ask.

Than I saw a group of students leaving the University classes held in the downtown mall. these guys were in their late thirties, but the books and conversation gave them away. they were talking about an instructor that they got to laugh with them for some reason I didn’t get.

The bus stop was crowded with a mixture of kids from school, shop girls, business types and me of course. I guess one of the reasons I like the bus is it takes me back to my youth in Cleveland when we rode these freedom wagons all over the city on our student bus pass. I was going to read on the bus, but I ended up people watching.

Comments

Ring The Bell

It appears there is a tradition in the radiology department at Ascension Hospital that patients, upon completing their course of treatment, ring a bell. ( We know not for whom this bell tolls.) Ring the Bell with My Sweetheart Jeanne. Jeanne drove me to all but two of the appointments. Pam Frautchi took me to the other two. Today, after being zapped thirty-two times, I rang the bell. This begins a roughly one-month recovery period where the effects of the radiation abate and, I'm assured, a return to normalcy occurs. In my case, I anticipate more energy and greater awareness. Books, Books, & More Books I am simultaneously celebrating the end of the third year of volunteering for the All Saints Hunger Book Sale. Next week, we will wrap up the preparation for the sale and open our doors on August 3 for the public. I ran into this humourous but quite accurate cartoon on a T-Shirt that shows most of the volunteer's sentiments at this point. If you think the printed and bound p...

One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ. I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by. Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...

It's time again.

It started in 2004 when we moved to our condo off Downer in Milwaukee. Then we mover to the Westside of Milwaukee when we rented from Ken Karr, the former landlord, now a current friend on Highland and 29th St. Then we moved to Mandeville Louisiana for a little less than a year. Returning to The Fox River Valley, we rented a home in Fox Crossing, formerly The Town of Menasha. When the tree fell on the roof, and the landlord felt no urgency to fix it, we moved to W. Commercial in Appleton. Here is a shocker. Are you sitting down? We are moving. No, I don't mean off the couch and out to the patio. There are too many damn mosquitoes for that to happen. No, we are packing our stuff, or at least the stuff we unpacked from the last move and moving to a home Maria purchased on Mason and Glendale in Appleton. Let me unpack that last sentence (pun planned for). We are moving at approximately the end of September to a house. The house has been in t...

Point Made

Search This Blog