1st Turning Point.

Great online resource.  They published an essay of mine called Public Speaking for Shy Writers. The link is for my essay, but please be sure to read the other excellent writers who have posted.

Bisbee Arizona

Our writers chapter went there to have a retreat.  We stayed at the Gym Club and Suites, up the street from the Copper Queen Hotel and the Museum.    (Use the Gym Club Link for links to Bisbee landmarks and activities).

Some of us were there just for a quiet place to write.  Others were looking to brainstorm ideas.

This is not unique.  If you read Robert Massie’s biography of Peter the Great, when Peter visited the London of 1698, it was full of coffeehouses.  Lloyds of London, for example, began in a coffee house where Maritime Insurance was discussed.  In other coffeehouses writers worked out plots and dilemmas, which is what we were doing.

Bisbee is fun and quirky.   Differences are tolerated.  It is a 100 minute drive from my home in Central Tucson.    It is a half hour South of  Tombstone.  I would not want to live there.  Too far from what I do.

Lunch Friday was @ the Copper Queen Hotel, according to Google Maps, 242 feet from our hotel, downhill.  We passed the 105 year old Presbyterian church which on its sign had a great phrase.  “Visitors Expected.”

Dinner was for fourteen of us farther down the street at a Mexican restaurant called Santiago’s  The food is great, but next year, we will make sure to make reservations.  According to Google, Santiago’s is 217 feet from the hotel.

Durning the day, waked Main Street, the Honey Store is an interesting place with a chatty, funny owner.  The library is above the post office.  The hills surrounding the town have some unique houses on them, and some of the Linden trees growing there give a feeling of Tuscany.

Definitely plan to return.

Kicking Pigeons

Growing up in Brooklyn, pigeons were a constant nuisance.  Getting birded is not fun and had happened to me.  We grew up with a little ditty.

Pigeon, pigeon in the sky,

Dropped a whitewash in my eye,

I wont care, I wont cry,

I’m just glad that cows don’t fly!

There is always the Tom Lehrer song, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.  Well it is almost impossible to kick a pigeon, but one day as a thirteen year old walking up Montague Street (The main street of Brooklyn Heights), I successfully kicked a pigeon in the butt.  It flew ahead like a football being kicked through the uprights.  And the kick…Is good!

All on the street laughed, some clapped.  Except for one elderly lady who came up to be and said, “Young man, that was a terrible thing to do.

Others in the street scattered.  Then she saw a police officer.  “Officer I want that young man arrested for animal cruelty!”

I am incredulous, wondering can something really come of this.  The police officer ordered me to stand still and motioned the lady over so he could speak with her.  He nodded gravely and then came over to me.  He was smiling and said, I will pretend to give you a stern talking to.  He punctuated the points and the woman kept wanting to come over and here what was said.  He took out a piece of paper, pretending to give me a summons and told me to get lost.

The elderly lady was enraged.  “Officer, you aren’t going to arrest that young man?”

I did not hang around.  I ran.  Luckily, I never saw her again.  Wonder how THAT would have gone.

Mary Poppins with My Silliness

I have been driving my family and friends mad with this for two days.  For those who remember the Mary Poppins movie, she gives the children tuppence to pay for bird seed to feed the pigeons.  (I grew up in New York City.  Feeding the little buggers is not really a good thing, because of the end product.  Hopefully I do not have to explain).

Well anyway, the father takes the children to his employer, Bank of England to deposit the tuppence.  The kids have not told Dad what the real motive for the money was.

The aging bank director coughs and chokes, “When stand the Bank of England, England stands, choke choke, gasp.  When fall the Bank of England, England Falls!  Choke choke gasp.”

“All for the lack of Tuppence.”  The young lad does not hand over the Tuppence.  In my version, the next person you see is Queen Victoria with the Household Guards.  “Young man,” she intoned.  “That tuppence is the difference between success and disaster.”

“I am sorry Your Majesty, but the tuppence is to feed the pigeons.”

“WHAT?!  Why you young brat!  We have Zulus and Fuzzy Wuzzy’s in the Sudan to keep in their place.  I’ll have that tuppence now!”

With that, the Queen ordered her Household Guard to get the tuppence.  They picked the lad up and shook him upside down.  The tuppence clattered on the floor.  Dad scooped it up and placed it with the clerk.

And thus, Mary Poppins was sternly disciplined,  and the realm and empire were saved.

Two Examples of Yerbie Silliness

This week, Yerbie provided us with two examples of silliness.  First one was, we did not understand why he would cry at night.  Now we know.  If one goes to bed before the other,  he is miffed.  He does have his routines.  He gets to shut the house down.

They get treats when we arrive home from work.  Yerbie as cat burglar.  He knows how to open the cabinet.  Putting a rubber band over the knobs vexed him so!

Yerbie watches everything you do.  He then tries to imitate it.  He can be just a touch too smart for his own good.

Cuba 46 Years Later.

As a child, I enjoyed watching Luis Tiant, known as El Tiante.  With his unique pitching windup, skilled pitching, and off the mound with his moustache laughter and cigars.

Last night, ESPN showed a documentary about the NOvember, 2007 visit Luis Tiant made to his native Cuba.

It was hard to see him have a hard tme, because so much in the lives of those he left behind had changed.

An interesting insight into a country so close and yet so far.

Why Every Experience is Important

I was once a librarian, but am not now.  Doesn’t matter, every experience is a learning experience, if you pay attention.

Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Many who know me know my love of history.  There is a great book by Arthur Herman called How the Scots Invented the Modern World, where he spoke briefly about the ‘45 Jacobite rebellion.  Mr. Herman mentioned about how when the redcoats set battle lines at Culloden, only then did the prince realize just HOW much trouble they were in.  Pretty dim, the Prince was.

Then again, congressmen and their wives had picnics on the battlefield at First Bull Run.  You have to woner about people.

Daddy, Don’t Leave Me.

Yesterday, I was only home long enough to drop Elaine off, take the garbage can to the curb, and leave for TV Toastmasters.  Yerbie punched at the window.  I heard it from him when I got home.

Fears of Yerbie Part 3. Thunder and Lightning.

Well I know he is afraid of it, but what made it funny, was he did not run at full speed, but at a trot, trying to look dignified.