Autumn Colors Slowly Arrive

I found a tree that has changed to its autumn colors. This photo is from Friday, yesterday, and was taken at St Paul's Battle Creek Park while I was on a quest for colorful trees. This guy didn't seem stressed, so I guess the foliage change is in progress.


A photo from my refrigerator. These young fries have not yet learned to write all the characters correctly (note the backwards "n" and "¢" on the sign), but are actively engaged in capitalist behavior. And they are pretty cute. It's 1986 and it's taken in the front of the homestead on a hot day.


Tennis was played by the geezers this morning at 9 pm. We managed to hold the session to two and a half hours. The weather was a bit brisk, but the predicted precipitation didn't materialize. I am not the oldest of the players, just second oldest. Bill C. is 68. I should actually get photos of these old guys to prove that we are actually playing all this tennis. Maybe next week.

The rest of the day was more restful. I did a little cooking this evening. It's autumn food time, so we had spaghetti squash and new red potatoes, along with fried chicken thighs. Nothing too special, but a good sign that fall has fallen is the urge to devour squash. I think that we'll have an extended fall this year. The weather is predicted to remain in the 70's through much of this week.

Some old photos again

Saturday is often predominately a tennis day for me, but today was more so than usual. As usual, I played with the older gentlemen this morning at Marie Park. It was the second tennis day in a row, but it was pretty social and I played well enough to split sets. The US Open men's semifinals and the women's finals were played today and were televised on CBS. Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer won their matches in straight sets and will meet for the championship tomorrow after the Vikings play their opening season game. Justine Henin won her seventh major championship pretty easily over Kuznetsova. She's a very good player and has a better serve than most men.

And I bought some tennis balls and a tennis shirt at a local sporting goods store to load up for next week's matches.

Adam is still in Chicago, but I used his scanner again to move these photos to digital format. They are both from 1990 - 17 years ago when times were much different. This is Kelsey with a fish she caught in Wisconsin at Fred Prouse's cabin that summer. It's the only fish that I know she caught - ever - and she was pretty excited, and cute. I used to have the picture on my desk at work.


This is also from 1990. Adam and his buddy, Andy (Mr. Excitement, we called him), were making movies with the video camera. I think they did some sound dubbing and maybe some story boarding for their mini-classic, "The Package." The footage is still in existence and can be made available for a modest fee. This film making was fitted in between the video gaming sessions that went on quite a bit in those years.


I tried to do some digging today to find out why that Friedrich Schiller guy has a statue in Como Park. There was some googling to do and a pass through Wikipedia. It seems that Schiller made Carver's Cave in St Paul popular in some of his writings and thus may have encouraged some of his compatriots to emigrate to Minnesota. Carver's Cave used to exist in Dayton's Bluff in St Paul, but was destroyed many years ago in an orgy of railroad building. It had been a sacred site for the Indians when they owned the land and was reputed to be quite lovely. Another example of unplanned urban development.

The lightening prevails

There was some tennis today. We had enough time for a little more than two sets of doubles. The scores were 4-6, 6-1, and 2-1 in the third when the dark sky lit up with nearby lightening. We nearly immediately decided that the third set was not worth the risk of a frying death. We quit and on the way off the courts the sky opened and it rained hard again.

About noon I went to Como Park to check on the tree harvesters. I walked around the lake. The chain saws and the Park employess were hard at it. Many of the downed trees are still being removed. There are painted red rings around the trees that are too wounded to continue living. The mercy killing will go on for some more days. It's a sad place for tree huggers, but a bonanza for free lance tree services.

Whose birthday is portrayed here? There appear to be eight candles on the cake. Maybe it's Tom. Then it is May, 1949. Then Gino would be less than three years old. He looks older than that to me. If it is October, 1950, it is TT's birthday and Gino is four years old. I think we moved to the Iron Range in the fall of 1950. Whose birthday is it?

Noah had an ark

It rained all day. Sometimes a hard rain, sometimes a drizzle. It was a slow Sunday here. Parts of southeast Minnesota, near St Charles and Winona, close to the first of our MSTRAM routes, had a deluge over night. There were reports of 17 inches of rain in spots and six people were killed. It's been a bad month in Minnesota - the bridge collapse, the Como windstorm and now the deluge. Someone is apparently angry at us.

This is another photo of SS (another LuLu for NM), this time from 1948 or so, judging again by the age of the baby boy on Lillie's lap. That baby is Mr. Moohoo. SS is the blond, Dorothy Anderson (at the time, then McCune), Lillie's sister is at the right. Hansine is there, too, on the left, but it's not much of a photo of her. They are sitting on the steps of Hansine and Richard's homestead, a house that no longer exists. What I find interesting is the expression on Lillie's face. It is a stern look, perhaps some anger, perhaps just introspection caught in the camera as the moment passed. SS looks pretty content, not under any stress, so who knows. Incidentally, GZ is wearing some kick-ass booties.

Tunnel Parking

The hill at Tunnel Park is an attraction for visitors to the Tulip Capitol of Michigan. Here we have UH and KS, along with the SLO's, running up the hill, in a display of youthful vigor. The county keeps this part of the dune as sand so that when we visit there is a place for the crazies among us to have some fun. It's a great event. I claim the record for the oldest downhill runner at this venue, unofficially, of course. I haven't run uphill in years.


An old photo from about 1949 - just guessing from the apparent age of Gino. I don't remember the car, nor do I know the location of the shot, but I know the people involved - Santini, the father, Gino, TT, and GPa. I scanned it in early in August and used iPhoto to fix it up some. Does anyone know where it was taken? And is that the family car that is serving as a bench? Santini says she was noted for her lack of modesty at that age, but who really remembers? She and Gino are wearing shoes.


This afternoon I found the picnic table at Como Park where I had sushi on Tuesday with Kagami Sensei. The City of St Paul workers were busily loading the oak trees and branches into trucks to be transported elsewhere for chipping. The place smelled of oak kindling.

The West Coast Eagles are the defending champions of Australian Rules Football.

Nice Neckties on an Elm

The last time I rode up the gut-busting Benhill Street hill, I stopped at the top and took this photo of some excellent elm tree art. It's a special catagory of art, because it nearly always resides on the boulevard and it relies on the death of a large, regal elm tree nearly a century old, for its raw material. The people who live by this carving are really into this attraction. They have planted flowers at the base and have blessed the characters - Christopher Robin, Pooh, and Eeyore (I think) - with really colorful neck ties. It's nice to arrive at the top of Benhill and be greeted by these denizens of the Hundred Acre Woods.


Another old scanned in photo from 1945 or 1946. Santini is the "baby" and I know when she was born. The guy in the sailor uniform is Julius Hanson, my mom's first cousin, son of Jake Hanson. I scanned this in because one of my second cousins called and was looking for old photos of her side of the Hansen clan. Her dad, Nels, is not in the photo, but her Uncle Julius is, and looking good in uniform right at the end of WWII. It's a nice shot of Tommy, Santini and T. Tousan. Santini is the only child civilized enough to be wearing shoes. It has always been thus.


I played a single set of tennis with the Gang of Geezers tonight. It was humid and the sweat was flowing off my body. I've always been a pretty good sweater, a sort of lost art. [There must be a pun there somewhere.] Jerry and I won an 8-6 nail-biter.

I see that Vino was not completely fried yesterday at the French Bike race. He was able to snatch another stage victory in the high mountains. I wonder if he was doping today. He looked quite strong.

Ms. KS returns on a jet plane tomorrow in the afternoon for blueberries and Thai food.

Herb's New Skates

Happy Bastille Day.

I played tennis on a pleasant, but windy morning at Marie Park. The courts were wet from some overnight rain and we had to sweep the courts. I seem to be in a slump. Perhaps too much tennis and not enough biking. I lost two sets - close but no cigar. 5-7, 6-8.

The Bastille Day photo is Unky Herb wearing his Raggedy Adam disguise and looking happy. We've been having some fun using Kagami's Raggedy Ann hat and very red wig. I had to use iPhoto to take out the red-eye from this photo of a very brown-eyed guy. I love iPhoto.


Herb has new skates - well, actually roller blades. They are called Land Rollers and feature large wheels and reflecting material on the boots.


SS sent me some old B&W photos. One was of Paul Bunyun in 1952 with four kids standing at his feet. I used iPhoto to crop and enhance the part of the photo that has the kids in it. It's better this way, although you can't see much of Paul. He may be still standing in Bemidji looking much the same as he did in 1952. The kids have aged significantly, but are still doing pretty well.