GETTING CAUGHT UP

I've been very negligent in posting recently. So here's an attempt to bring y'all up to date.

Carol and the kids and I have been doing and going and going and doing. And I've been having a ball. In August we drove to a small water park near here to "practice" for our BIG trip to Emerald Pointe a couple of weeks later. It only has one slide. I hurt myself. I've had a life long problem with an 18 yr old living inside of me that just won't leave. "He" tried to do so many foolish things when my kids were teenagers that for 4 or 5 years I listed an Orthopedic Surgeon as my Primary Care Physician. Because I never got sick, I just broke bones regularly.

When my kids grew up and left home, the 18 yr old stopped trying to do stupid things and I've had many years of undamaged bones. But now I have a 12 yr old and a 7 yr old in my life and "he" is back. I saw the sign that said, "Sit upright on the slide" but "he" saw all the young people lying down and going a LOT faster. The first few times I sat up but then "he" laid down and we really flew down the slide. Until the last turn when I banged my knee. Really hard. It hurt so much that I called my Dr. who said that since it was not a weight bearing incident he was pretty sure I didn't tear anything. If anybody offers you a "bone bruise", tell them you don't want it. It's two months later and it still hurts.

Then off to Emerald Pointe. Although the 18 yr old showed up, he stayed calm and reasonable and I returned to VA unscathed. We had a wonderful day. Even thought the lines were long, we got in lots of rides and came home happy and exhausted.


A couple of weekends later we drove to WV to take the kids to visit Carol's Grandmother. On the way back we hiked to Cascade Falls in Giles County. It's about a 2 mile hike along a beautiful stream. The weather was perfect. The were only a few people and they were all friendly.

I don't know if it was the 18 yr old or just my New York childhood, but I went swimming. While almost everyone else, including Carol, Emily and Andrew stood ankle deep or ran through the edge of the falls. SHIVERING AND TURNING BLUE. We didn't get the water temperature but it was either refreshingly brisk or freezing, depending on who you asked.




Well, that hardly made a dent in the last three months. But it's a start and I'll really try to post more regularly.

Life is so good.

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PART OF THE COUNTRY

I'm settled in with time to go riding! I needed to go about 4 miles to a Goodwill store to buy a suit. But there's a wonderful twisty mountain road that gets you there, and it's just an extra 10 miles or so.

"Twelve O'Clock Knob" was named by farm hands who knew it was lunch time when the sun was over its peak. Our first house, which we purchased in 1969, was the farm house that was built in the 1920's on the farmland at the foot of what became - to us at least - "our" mountain. Lots of good memories and a wonderful sunny ride. I even stopped twice to watch deer. I wasn't quick enough to get pictures of them, but here is a view looking down at Salem.



A great ride, but not as much fun as it would have been if Carol had been on the back.

SO - on a beautiful Saturday morning, WE headed to the Paint Bank General Store, in - of course - Paint Bank, VA. It's a favorite ride for bikers and car drivers as well because of the restaurant that serves buffalo. When I told a friend that we were headed to Paint Bank, he said, watch closely for the overlook about half way up the second mountain. It's spectacular, but the turnoff is very easy to miss. "You'll sit and listen to the bees and an occasional bird." Even with the warning, we almost missed it. What a view - Here's a panorama that I stitched together. Remember you can see a BIG picture by clicking on this image.



For the first few minutes there was total silence, then the bees came back - just like my friend promised. Hard to believe we're less than 40 miles from downtown Roanoke. Really. Look at that picture again.

The restaurant has great food but their forte is definitely marketing, as you'll see if you clicked on the link above. When you arrive from either Roanoke or Lewisburg, WV you don't drive by their farms. But after you enjoy your Buffalo steak, burger, whatever, you can drive down a side road and see the animals who will be on your platter the next time you come.

The big ones didn't have any effect on Carol - they're big, kinda ugly with lots of matted down fur.



But if she'd seen the calves before lunch, I think she'd have ordered a salad.






We continued our ride to Lindside, WV to visit Carol's Grandmother. Then back through Rich Creek to US 460 along the New River, through Blacksburg and home. About 150 miles of some of the prettiest country anywhere.

Here's a map.

The green on the map is National Forest land.

And some Google Earth views -






Life is Good.

BACK IN SALEM

On July 27th I packed up everything and headed south to Salem. Uneventful trip, beautiful drive. Everything working fine. Arrived at Salem Village Mobile Home Park mid-afternoon and went to see Carol and the kids. It really felt like arriving home.

I spent the next week getting settled back in. Post Office, Banks, etc etc.

Boring.

But very nice to be greeted and welcomed by name. Salem really is home.

Then the weekend was here and I had visitors !

Remember Karen Alley? The incredible young hammered dulcimer player from State College? Well, she and her Mom stopped for a night in Salem on their way to a dulcimer workshop in NC. We had a wonderful talk and dinner at my favorite Salem hangout - Mac and Bob's. Just as I was telling them the story of the place, Bob Rotanz, the owner, came by the table and said, "I thought you ran away from home." I told him it seemed that I was an intrepid "world traveler" - for about 90 days. Then I got so homesick for Salem that it was pitiful.

And that was BEFORE Carol and the kids came into my life.

After dinner, we came back to the Airstream and jammed for a while. Karen had just had four wisdom teeth removed and wasn't completely up to speed. It was hard to tell from her playing. It was fantastic. She just didn't play as long as I would have liked. But, then, I would have happily listened to her for the entire weekend, so I may not be a good judge of her stamina.




I loved accompanying her, but several times I stopped, just to listen.

Although this next video was made later at the dulcimer festival, she played it at my place, too.



I've stayed in touch with her Mom via email.

She just finished reading Tinkerbell Jerusalem and said,

"I finally finished Tinkerbell Jerusalem - she hit on the head so many things about the way I try to live my life. There is just so much around that can be enjoyed if people would only open their eyes. I remember one time in Madison WI, I was cutting through the State Capitol on my way back to work. Madison does really wonderful things with their grounds around the building and this was fall, so there were lots of colorful orange and yellow marigolds (or maybe mums, but that color). On this particular day, a monarch migration was passing through and there was a butterfly on virtually every flower - hundreds of them. I wanted to jump up and down and grab
every passer-by and make them notice. It was so exciting - and sort of depressing watching the number of people (it was a very busy time) who walked by and never even looked.

I have always believed if the only thing we passed on to our children was an active sense of wonder, they wouldn't need much more."


Thanks, daily, for a gracious God Who provides such wonders as butterflies, music, and people like Karen Alley - who appear at just the right time and place, dragging a funny shaped red case on a luggage cart to bring wondrous Joy into our lives.

And "Thank You" to Bonnie Kelley Kaback for writing "Tinkerbell Jerusalem" and being such a good friend.

Life is Good.

LAST DAYS IN STATE COLLEGE - FOR NOW

It's going to be hard to leave Casey, Sarah and Ben. I've had a wonderful two months, seeing them every day. Providing some baby sitting, lots of transportation and having a great time playing, reading, walking to the parks, picking -and eating - blackberries.

Before I left, we had another great day, this time at Greenwood Furnace State Park.

Wow, what memories - it was where I went with friends 40+ years ago when I was at PSU.

As beautiful as I remembered.






Even though it was a hazy day, the sun was warm, the water was chilly and we were all kids again, for a little while.




On one of the last days was there, it actually rained and I had to go to town in the truck instead of riding the Honda. Tom took advantage of working from home and went out with the kids to play in the rain.







When I rode "up the mountain" to Seven Mountains Campground, a double rainbow greeted me at the top of the mountain. The second one is very faint - to the right of the primary one.




And it was still there when I got to the the Airstream. This picture is taken from my "living room".




What a great end for a wonderful visit.

Life is Good.

CASEY ANN COOK - BALLERINA

The Dance School that Casey attends during the school year had a summer camp program this year. It ended with a short recital in the studio and it happened before I headed back to Salem - HOORAY !

YES, I'm one of those obnoxious proud Grandpas. Deal with it. She's beautiful - of course, the other three are, too. Whoops - Sarah is beautiful, too. Tyler and Ben are HANDSOME!

But this Blog is all about Casey.







Life is so good.

A BIG MUSICAL INBETWEEN

On Arts Fest Friday I met the family in town and we roamed around, listening, shopping, eating and playing. A little before 3:00pm we were all pretty tired, so we headed back to the house. A young lady passed me on the sidewalk pulling a luggage cart with a big dark red odd-shaped case on it. I said, "Excuse me. Is that a hammered dulcimer?" When she said, "Yes." I asked when she was playing and she said, "As soon as I get set up." So I told the Tom and Ann, "I'm not going yet. I'm gonna follow this pretty girl wherever she goes and listen until she's finished playing."

The hammered dulcimer is an ancient stringed instrument that is popular in Appalachian Mountain music.




As you can see, the strings are VERY close together. It's kind of like playing the vibes, except the margin for error is measured in eighth's of an inch instead of inches.

Being born with virtually NO dexterity, I've always been fascinated by the instrument and love hearing someone play it IF they're good. Since Karen was a featured youth performer, I figured she was good.





I had no idea HOW GOOD.

OH MY GOODNESS, she is incredible.

She brought tears to my eyes.

Really.

It's a difficult instrument and she played everything from Celtic pieces to Gospel to some she'd written herself. Well, actually, "composed" is a better word because she hasn't "written" anything down.

A couple of minutes after she started, a woman sitting next to me on the grass turned and said, "Not many people know what a hammered dulcimer is, much less recognize one just from the shape in its case. You must be a real fan." Turns out she was Cindy, Karen's mother. We talked - between numbers - and then for a while after Karen finished. They had bought her her first dulcimer at a music camp four years ago. When I commented on how well she had learned to play in such a short time Cindy said, "We bought it for her over lunch hour and that evening she was playing in the fast jam. She works with two instructors, one in Baltimore and one in Columbus."

I SO wish I could put a clip of her playing on my Blog so you could hear how incredible this young lady really is. But she hasn't recorded anything yet. KAREN - This is Tom - AND your Mom talking - you NEED to get this stuff on a CD !!

Karen just graduated from State College High and is going to Colgate in upstate NY, majoring in music and geology. When I asked why she was going so far away, she said that Penn State wouldn't let her major in music with the hammered dulcimer as her instrument. She is also an accomplished flute player, but really wanted to work with the dulcimer. Colgate said, "We've never done it before. Give us a minute to figure out how we can do it............OK, we can do it."

Another reason for going away it that her Dad is on the staff at Penn State and she "Didn't want to work in his shadow. It'll be hard enough at Colgate." When I asked if he was a Colgate alum, she said, "No, but he's pretty well known everywhere in the Geology world."

OH - THAT Richard Alley?

Author of "Two Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change and our Future"

The one who was one of members of the Intergovernmental Panel in Climate Change that shared a Nobel Peace Prize. The author of "Chapter 4: Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground" for the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. He participated in the joint UN/WMO panel since 1992, having been a contributing author to both the second and third IPCC assessment reports. Here's an NPR interview from last year.

We tried to find time to jam before I headed home but her schedule just didn't allow it. She's headed to a Music Camp near Asheville early in August so I may see -and hear her again soon !

What an incredible INBETWEEN. Passing on the sidewalk on my way out of the Festival.

Life is good.

ARTS FEST 2008

The Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts started in 1967 and has gotten bigger and better every year.

Early on the organizers set up Wednesday, the "first" day for a Children's Sidewalk Sale. From their website

"The Children and Youth Sidewalk Sale is a fun way for boys and girls to express themselves visually. CPFA encourages young people to develop their artistic potential through personal expression in individually crafted, original objects. Artists ages 8 through 18, who live in or have relatives in Blair, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Huntingdon, Mifflin or Union Counties, are encouraged to participate. All work must be designed and produced by the entrant; work made from kits is not permitted."



Casey, with a little help, made tie dye things. Sarah was too young to officially participate, but Casey shared her booth.



In spite of a rainy day, the crowd was big and sales went well.

The next few days were fun too. A "Dumping Buckets" stage was a favorite.




One of the "crafts" people was Tim Bradford, a blacksmith from Pleasant Gap, PA.



He was using a portable forge - almost exactly like the one my Grandfather used around the turn of the century.



Tim was very friendly and took a few minutes to show my grandkids how everything worked. I told them, "Your Great-Great-Grandfather worked with a forge just like this one. And I have his back in VA. So when your Daddy comes home one day with what looks like a rusted out iron birdbath with a blower on it, you'll know what it is."

It caught in my throat a little to say, "Your Great-Great-Grandfather." I KNEW this guy for crying out loud. My, how time - and generations - fly by.

Tim is a Harley owner and said, "Call me next week and we'll go riding." I did and we did. A great Sunday afternoon through Amish country. I remembered from 40 years ago that driving quickly required extra vigilance when there are lots of horse and buggies on the road. But since all my prior experience was in a car, I didn't fully appreciate the obstacles they leave in the middle of the road. Didn't matter too much in the car, but it's a different story on the bike. That stuff is really slippery when it's fresh. But what beautiful country.



And lots of other fun things for the kids.






The Festival includes live performances at several stages around downtown and campus. This one, "Rustical Quality String Band"

was a "can't miss" for me because several of the members are people with whom I've jammed during my stays in State College. ALSO, a second washboard player joined them for a few songs. Here's a close up.



For those few of you who might not recognize him, on the left is Penn State President Graham Spanier. HAH - and YOU thought Joe Paterno was the only cool guy at Penn State!

4TH OF JULY IN STATE COLLEGE

Carol drove to Seven Mountains Thursday after work. On Friday we went down to Tom and Ann's for a celebration of the day. Carol didn't arrive until late Thur evening so we missed Friday morning's bike parade.



We got there just as Casey was starting work on her Tie-Dye shirts, socks and baby clothes for the upcoming sidewalk sale. More about it in a later blog. Carol went into "bus man's holiday"mode and worked with Casey. Also with Sarah, who was making Pet Rocks for the sale.



Then she took Casey, Sarah AND Ben to the park to see the playground and pick black raspberries. When they returned, she and I went for a ride around campus and downtown.

Back to the house for a wonderful picnic. Then we left early to go see the stuff at 4th Fest. There was music, food, animals, dancing, lots of fun stuff to do while waiting for the fireworks. Which are spectacular. I don't know what the average is for some of the other displays around the country, but I remember three or four rockets, then a short pause of a few seconds, then a couple more. THIS one is 45 minutes of 4 per second, then the finale of 49 per second -YES, PER SECOND. Here is a YouTube video of the last regular segment and then the finale. This guy was sitting near us. The sound on the video is poor. What we - and he - didn't know is that it was being broadcast on a local FM station so we were supposed to bring a boom box. Because all the fireworks are choreographed to the music. We were completely out of breath when it ended.

Saturday we went on a 2 hr ride on the Honda through some of the prettiest country in the East.



Remember - if you click on the picture, you'll go to a large version.

Over Pine Grove Mountain into "Happy Valley"



Saturday afternoon the family came up to Seven Mountains Campground for the picnic hosted by the owners. They had bar-b-que pork, ribs and chicken catered and everyone brought something. WAY too much food !

Too short a visit - Carol and I went down the mountain Sunday morning for Church and to say her Good By's to everyone. Then she drove back to Salem. Uneventful except for the thunderstorms. She pulled into a rest area, called me and said, "Look at the weather radar, please. How much of this stuff is there and when will it be out of my way?" I was able to give her good news, "Wait about another 15 minutes and it will all move east of I-81." She did. And it did.

The trailer sure seems empty. I'm making plans to return to Salem at the end of the month.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST

The weekend after Casey's birthday, a group of Penn State Alumni gathered at Mountain Acres for a long weekend of "pickin' and grinnin'".

In the early 1960's the student union building - Hetzel Union Building - or "HUB" had a music listening room with sound proof booths around two sides where students could listen to albums (remember THOSE??).

A group of us known officially as the "Penn State Folklore Society" but generally called "those Folkies" were completely wrapped up in playing and listening to folk music. The group ran the "This and That Cafe" to showcase local talent and also sponsored concerts - Tom Rush, Doc Watson, Bonnie Raitt, and many more that have been lost to my old memory. And played almost every day and evening in the HUB music room. I played string bass back then and although I hadn't played in years, I could never bring myself to sell my bass.


Here's a 1964 picture of me, Stan Jay and two unnamed players.




Stan Jay is now the owner of Mandolin Brothers simply the best guitar shop in the world.

I had lost track of the folks until I overheard a conversation at a bluegrass jam last winter. I had been attending the weekly jam for a few weeks when I heard someone say, "It was so cool. After the concert Doc Watson came to some guy's house and jammed all night long. At about 6:00AM we drove him and his son to the airport." I said, "Excuse me - that was Joe Head's house, I think on Burroughs Street. 1964 or 1965. Yeah, it was a GREAT party." Then I learned that the "Old Folkies" had been holding reunions every two years.

So here I was, camping just two miles from Mountain Acres. I made one trip with the truck to move my bass - I haven't figured out how to carry it on the Honda - and commuted daily on the bike to meet old friends and make new ones.

Tom, Ann and the kids came up for an evening of music. On the way out, Ann said, "Your friends are such a warm friendly group of people." Yes, they are.

Here are some pictures of us, all a little older than in that one from the HUB.





The fella on the right in the last picture is Jamie Ackerman and I've a GREAT story about him. Mary Ann and I lived in NJ just after we were married. And our friends from the little hick town where we were raised came down to "go to the City." One of the nicest, but most innocent and sheltered ones was Betty, younger sister of Mary Ann's best friend. We took her to the Village to "see the sights." She was amazed at the, shall we say, "diversity" of people there. When she saw a white boy with a huge red afro walking towards us on the sidewalk, she dragged us out into the street so she wouldn't have to pass him on the sidewalk. As we walked down the middle of the street, "afro" yelled, "Tom and Mary Ann. What are YOU doing here?" and ran out into the street to hug us. Betty melted into the pavement. When I told this story to Jamie and his wife, Judy, guess what she pulled out of her wallet !



Great music, wonderful food and drink and hours of engaging conversation.

Life is so Good.

My Ballet Girls

The BIG weekend of June 13th included not only Casey's 10th birthday, but also the latest performance of the dancers from the Arts Conservatory of Central Pennsylvania .

Casey and Sarah study there and this was the first year that they were BOTH in the performance.

The main feature was a Hillbilly version of "Peter and the Wolf." Cameras were not allowed at the performance so you'll just have to take my word that they were both ADORABLE.

Here are some "green room" shots.