TOURIST IN YOUR OWN TOWN.

I feel fortunate that I have a friend who not only brings me brownies, but will, at the merest suggestion, drive me downtown Murphys where we pretend to be tourists. That is Jan Stewart. Always ready to seize the day.

I hadn’t been to Hovey’s tasting room in ages, nor had I seen this clever sign.

Inside I was pleased and surprised by the variety of craft beers they support. The public likes wine but they also like good beer.

Another sign drew us into Frog’s Tooth, a wine I’d never sampled.

At 10:00 a.m. neither of us were in the mood for wine tasting, but they had a barrel full of good reds to be had for $12 a bottle.

Of course, because of Mark Twain, frogs are a prominent feature in Calaveras County, but what I liked here is the warmth and friendliness of the staff. A very inviting atmosphere.

This customer is wearing a shirt from a tasting room in  an old school-house, I believe she said in Grass Valley. It reflects the grammar school punishment of writing on the black board over and over again, I Promise Not To Hit Tommy, or some such. Cute.

Town was loaded with motorcycles, all coming for the “Jumps”, as they relate to the Calaveras Fair and Frog Jumping Jubilee. Nationally famous after its small beginnings. I remember a picture of Little Flower, Governor LaGuardia who attended the Jumps as fascination with jumping a frog spread far and wide.

Both bikers, the guy on the left hugged Jan and said,”I know you!”  He is her chimney sweep. His buddy said, “If anybody had told me I’d be a biker with multiple tattoos on my body, I’d have said yer crazy.” I had to laugh to find they are locals from Murphys. Tourists just like us.

I liked this gal’s leathers and took a picture and she said, “No, no. You caught me with a phone and I’m constantly pushing people I know to put their damned phone away and look up.”  So, she posed for me on her bike.

Creative. Guess we can call her Spider Woman, and, by the way, she is from Murphys.

She looked askance at the big hogs lining the street and said, “If one of these guys tips his bike over, he will not be able to pick it up by himself.”  We concluded they are for show and pride of ownership as well as performance.

There were some out-of-towners.

I wanted a picture of this guy’s curled mustache because it reminded me of Joe Cardoza, a former neighbor and local character who grew his curled and waxed mustache about seven inches long for the local Whiskerino Contest. He had too much to drink and went for a haircut. Jack, the barber was a known prankster and cut half of his mustache off, I expect with Joe’s consent. I thought it was cruel, even so.

There were street musicians.

The Murphys Hotel hired a band. The courtyard was packed with people eating, enjoying the music and even getting up to dance in the tight space around the musicians.

A couple local vets told us they placed 400 flags on veteran graves with Memorial Day coming up. They do it every year.

Among  those who served I knew Norm Tanner and a couple others. Norm was a good friend to my husband. I’ll be sure to remember those close to me who were vets; I may not get to a grave, but there will be a knot in my heart has I put out the flag on my deck.

TIME OUT.

I didn’t do anything yesterday but swim, read, paint and eat. I wanted to go to a polo game in Indio, but Jim wasn’t up to driving anywhere so we just stayed home. The above sculpture I thought of naming Back Pain, or  Writers Block, and then decided on Constipated as in our activities were constipated yesterday. (This sculpture is in a Reno arts gallery.)

This unusual bench came from the same gallery. The first word of the bench spells Inhale.

And, again from that gallery, this is a water “dish”. Rain collects in a circular trough near the center and holds water for birds or other small critters. Their “rock” collection is unusual.

Since my bike was stolen, I’ve been think a lot about bikes and this painting is one I liked really well but I’ve forgotten where this painting hangs.

I’m a fan of Rene Wiley and she recently did a series of paintings on bikes that I liked so I’ll post a few of them. Her gallery is in Galveston, Texas on Post Office Street.

Her paintings are for sale on-line, as well.  This is Green Cruiser.

Colorful Cruiser.

Blue Cruiser.

I think I’ll try to paint bikes, though yesterday I started with palm trees. The only problem is, I have yet to get another brush. Maybe today.

I’m hoping to do the Walking Off Pounds program again today at 9:00. The snacks I ate yesterday should disappear today, right?

SEATTLE’S ST. PATRICKS DAY-NUDESTOCK

Three Peta activists shed most of their clothing and donned bright green paint to celebrate St. Patricks’ Day and get their message out at the same time: “Meat’s Not Green”. They passed out leaflets about eating a vegan diet.  Abandon meat, eggs and dairy products and go vegan.  The meat industry is a polluter that also gobbles up natural resources. This information and the pictures come from Josh Trujillo’s Seattle blog.

The Peta ladies are tastefully covered for most sensibilities. But, we are a culture that shuns the naked body and public nudity as though there is something wrong with the natural human body uncovered. But, Seattle also hosts Nudestock, you know, like Woodstock?  Only it is a nude fest. People disrobe on street corners, go to work on public transit sans clothing, enjoy a parade and nudity in general.

There’s just something fun about getting nude and enjoying the breeze, so  they say. And the watchers don’t seem to mind one bit.

Peta activists were present at Nudestock along the parade route too. This time protesting the use of animal skins.

Looks like a fun crazy day whether you participate or observe.  Everyone smiles, no one is being ugly or in your face. I like it! And, the top o’ the mornin’ ta yuh whether yee be green or orange.

THE GOP HATES BIKES?

 

—By Stephanie Mencimer

| Tue Oct. 25, 2011 9:24 AM PDT

Bill McNeil/Flickr photo

Over the past few months, as Republicans have focused their attention on cutting what they see as wasteful government spending, they’ve zeroed in on a surprising new target: bicyclists, and the programs that serve them.

The federal government spends about $40 billion a year on transportation projects. Of that, about $928 million has been devoted to what’s known as a “transportation enhancement” program, which provides funding for projects—including rails-to-trails conversions, bike lanes, and bridges—that make cycling safer, and thus more viable as a commuting option. But as Congress gears up to reauthorize the massive transportation funding bill this year, Republicans are arguing that states shouldn’t be forced to use scarce transportation funds to encourage bike commuting when bridges for cars are falling down.

“We’re doing all these things that, if we had extra money, if we were running a surplus, sure, nobody would really be complaining about it,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told the Washington Post. But, Coburn added, “We can no longer have silly priorities get in the way of real needs.”

States spend only about 1 percent of all transportation funds on projects devoted to cycling or pedestrian improvements. Yet Republicans see this as an area ripe for cutting. Over the summer, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) targeted DC’s nascent Capitol Bikeshare program, which provides cheap rental bikes at subway stations and other strategic locations in the Washington Metro area (including northern Virginia) to encourage bike commuting.

The program has been wildly successful and has inspired other cities to replicate it as a good way of reducing traffic congestion and air pollution (not to mention obesity). But Cantor sees only waste. As TBD reported in August, Cantor used the GOP’s “YouCut” website to highlight Capitol Bikeshare as a foolish venture ripe for elimination. Cantor also complained that bike-sharing programs were one reason that federal transportation spending was vastly exceeding the revenues brought in by the gas tax.

The actual reason that gas tax revenues aren’t meeting demand for infrastructure improvements is that Congress hasn’t raised the tax since 1993, so its value has been eaten up by inflation. But no matter. Targeting bike programs to try to tame the federal budget seems to fall in line with the GOP’s belief that the whole deficit problem could be solved if we just got rid of NPR and Planned Parenthood. It’s an ideological battle rather than a viable budget solution. Bike programs are associated with liberal Democrats who believe in climate change and care about the environment, so Republicans like Cantor would like to get rid of them, even if those programs make it much easier for some of his constituents to get to work every day.

Thank you Stephanie Mencimer for writing my blog today.

What a bunch of horseshit.

THE HENRY FORD MUSEUM, DEARBORN, MICHIGAN

Henry Ford was like many of us, he liked to collect “things”. When titans of industry collect it touches every walk of life: invention, history, work, employment, people, machines and how they changed and grew America. Sectioned off into themes, Truth and Justice, Jewelry, Pewter, and Prefab Housing- those are the places we didn’t get to. Art, Sue, Jim and I must have walked ten of the twelve acres under one roof, because the transportation and wheels of industry collection is immense. When you walk in the door, you are face to face with one of the biggest train engines ever made, the 1601, an Allegheny, built with two engines working in concert. Its 76 feet long and could haul 27 million pounds of coal up over the mountains at a fast clip of 60 miles an hour.

A surprising number of successful electric cars, including some made by Ford, were in this museum. In fact, his wife liked the quiet, easy starting car so much, he bought one for her from a competitor after he quit making them. It was considered a ladies car from the start. They didn’t have much range but distance wasn’t an issue when the roads were bumpy and people didn’t travel far from home.

This electric car was one of Henry’s. He sold a lot of them. Others were much earlier models from the late 1800’s made by small companies that faded in time.

The convertible that Kennedy was killed in, with the steps on the back for the secret service. A top was made for it from bullet proof glass and President Reagan used it.

The first motorized school bus made was assembled by an employee of Ford Motors. He built a box with bench seats and attached it to the bed of a Ford Pick-up. It fell apart on the bumpy roads. He quit Ford and began making buses in earnest on a Ford Chassis and started the Bluebird Bus Company that still makes school buses today.

Every Day the museum is open,  a new Model T is assembled on the spot with the help of people visiting the museum. It will run when finished, except, it has no gas in it. They build one each day and are now on their 845 one. Not only do you get to see it put together, and sit in it, etc. but a mini assembly line floats above with the parts for a complete car hanging on wires overhead and moving to their position on the line.

Besides just about every imaginable vehicle, their development, engines and builders, the museum contains unusual vehicles of interest such as one of Charles Kurault’s motorcoachs from his famous television show, On The Road With Charles Kurault.

And Hector Quevora’s Model A, driven from South America to Detroit  because his son wanted to see the museum. There was an early diesel-electric hybrid, from the 1920’s I believe, if memory serves me, and every early bicycle and tricycle known to man.

Consider this “ten speed”.

And this home made model with a fancy eagle head bar.
It was actually bikes that led to flight as Oliver and Wilbur Wright tinkered in their bike shop.

This model of the Kitty Hawk has the actual fabric from the real Kitty Hawk.

There were many women pilots, including barnstorming daredevils in the 1930’s. It only seems like Amelia Earhart was the only woman flier. Bessie Coleman was the first African American Woman in the world  to get her pilots license. (In 1921.)
Then there were the bizarre things in the museum, such as a sealed tube with the last breath of Thomas Edison captured in it. And this letter from Clyde Barrow.

Clyde Barrow so admired his stolen 1934 V-8 Ford that he wrote Henry Ford a congratulatory letter about his “fine car.”  Not long after this letter was received by Ford, Bonnie and Clyde were shot to death in that very car.

He lived wild and free until the guns brought him and his Ford to an end.
Then the little oddities such as this sheet music in the museum.

Jack Frost wrote two songs about the Ford, You Can’t Afford To Marry If You Can’t Afford A Ford and I Didn’t Raise My Ford To Be A Jitney. What a hoot!

I got a kick out of this ad with the sorry looking Amantha and her Cod Liver Oil fan.

And when you read about the wheels of industry? They really were wheels.  Gigantic wheels, that turned turbines and kept those early steam engines pumping.

The oldest known remaining steam pump is in this museum. You will find farm equipment, huge combines and corn planters and threshers, both old and fairly modern. There are craft shops here for younger people to learn how to run and maintain and build working machines of all  types.

If you are traveling with kids, there are a number of places in the museum that have kid’s activities. Here kids are making vehicles that can be tried out on a couple of slide roads.

Or maybe you might simply want to wrap yourself up as a hot dog in the Oscar Mayer Wiener exhibit.
We certainly could have spent another day in this museum. We started the day with breakfast with Art, Sue, Art’s parents and a friend, Lillie. And ended it with the Lambart’s traditional Sunday dinner at home with Art’s parents.

In fact, Lillie, on the right, wrote a song for Faith Hill, the country singer. They were waitresses together when they were young girls.
For more pictures, check out the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/1579penn/82210FordMuseum#