One of our loyal readers, Deb Peterson from Oregon, closes all her letters with “All you need is love.” While we might argue the point on other days, on Valentine’s Day we’ll concede to Deb the benefit of the doubt. Besides, we like people with her convictions. Deb is probably the kind of person who brings chicken soup over when you’re down with the gout. She’ll probably even take your dog for a walk. People who sign out this way never steal your newspaper in the morning or make sarcastic comments about your towheaded offspring. But what the hell IS love, anyway? If we don’t know the answer to that one, how will we know whether we’ve got what we need?
We know all about mother love, love of family, even intense affection for Spot and Puff, the beloved pets, and that’s all just fine. We’re not so sure about the love for inanimate objects, sad as it is to see the old car go after fifteen years of loyal service. We knew a guy once who held a funeral for his defunct motorcycle. And last year, baseball fans in New England held one for the Red Sox. But we don’t think that’s what Deb is talking about.
The love that is the subject of poetry and songs and soap operas since the Dawn of Antiquity is the love that crops up between two strangers who suddenly intersect and are smitten, either instantly or over time. Ah, but a careful examination is in order to decipher the true nature of this phenomenon. Is it love? Is it self-interest? Is it merely infatuation? Someone once said that infatuation may not be love but it will do for the time being, which is all well and good, but some people can’t tell the difference. Someone else said the less physically attractive a potential partner is, the more likely it’s love and not infatuation, an interesting observation. Young people, particularly, are bowled over by beauty and more likely to confuse infatuation with love, bereft of experience in these matters as they are. Sometimes, this young love is cured by a period of close contact during which one or the other partner discovers his or her potential mate possesses a horrendously unacceptable trait, like having proclivities toward mud-bogging, renaissance fair participation or voting the straight Republican ticket. Wisdom arrives slowly, with experience.
Mature (okay, older) people have a better handle on True Love. They’ve been around, they can separate the wheat from the chaff. They know that after the ball is over, it might be nice to have a partner who can actually carry on a conversation, who will always be there in a pinch, who can see both sides of the coin. Even mature people are not always so mature, however. Men, in particular, can be extremely parsimonious in acknowledging love, as if the utterance of the words will instantly bring about a raging maelstrom from the skies, placing their very existences in danger.
“Well,” said my friend, Stuart Bentler, once, “you have to be careful with that sort of thing. If you tell a woman you love her, she takes that to mean you’ll be getting married some day. Like the song says, love and marriage, horse and carriage.” I think Stuart is largely right about this but it is a sad comment, nonetheless. If you think it is possible to love someone you don’t expect to marry—as I do—there should be some forum in which to announce it in which the declaration will not be misconstrued. Most of us have had people in our lives, now gone, to whom we wished we said the words. If any of them are still lingering in your world, best get on it. The time is right.
Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie. On Second Thought….
Always on the prowl for new modes of fun and frolic, I noticed in the Gainesville Sun last week that a folksinger named Cosy Sheridan would be performing at a venue called the Prairie Creek Lodge, a renovated hunting lodge owned by the Alachua Conservation Trust, which acquires land in and around the county to protect natural, historic, scenic and recreational resources. For a couple of months now, I’ve been following their schedule of performers with interest, figuring to sooner or later drop in. The place is less than half an hour from our house. I thought Cosy Sheridan might hit the spot, she having won awards at the Kerrville Folk Festival and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, not to mention being a fellow-New Englander and a graduate of the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the two best prep schools in the country. I googled her, watched three You Tube Videos which had lousy acoustics and were pretty twangy, but decided to go anyway. Her lyrics were good and I thought the sound would be better in the Prairie Creek building. Ended up, I was right. But the fun was in the foreplay.
Before Cosy could get on stage, we had the requisite announcements, which, in this case, were, um….formidable. An earthy guy wearing a shirt full of zebras got up on stage and told us all more than anyone wanted to know about the Conservancy, which is, after all, to be expected. But THEN, he delivered the Zinger. He told us that the conservancy was now holding natural burials right out there on Paine’s Prairie. Whoa! I had gone to the Lodge with Siobhan and our neighbor, Jennie Hollis, of chicken fame. I looked at Siobhan. Siobhan looked at me. Siobhan looked at Jennie. Jennie looked at Siobhan. I looked at Jennie. Jennie looked at me. What the hell was this guy talking about? You could bury actual people out on the prairie? I knew this sort of thing happened in Mafia circles but not with respectable people. Anyway, everyone leaned forward in their chairs. The zebra shirt man had certainly piqued everyone’s interest.
“Cremation,” he went on, “is popular now among many of our friends who don’t want to be a burden to the earth. But cremation, sad to say, releases many poisonous toxins into the atmosphere, including even mercury. Cremation is not the answer. The answer is here, with natural burial.” Geez. Mercury. Who KNEW? The astonished audience obviously wanted to know more but it was now Music Time so the jolly mortician danced off, leaving poor old Cosy Sheridan standing there with an expression like “What just happened?”
Anyway, inquiring minds want to know more. Like what sort of burials are we talking about here? Are we going to stake people out on anthills? Are we feeding them to the alligators? That would be natural alright, but not so great for on-site mourners. Maybe they could do it like the Indians did, erecting those tall platforms and sticking the bodies up there where the buzzard visitations would be less visible. Or maybe they could conduct Viking-like funerals, where they dump the remains in a long boat, light the thing afire and send it off down the creek, although this seems like an awful waste of a good boat to us. I mean, before long you would be running out of boats, right? I’m not sure this natural burial idea is going to float. And if I’m Cosy Sheridan, from now one I want to know who the hell is opening for me.
Internet Hero Eats! (Part Two)
Hi Bill.
Margaret and I finally got a chance to get out to Café Pacific with several friends at the end of a gorgeous Spring-like day. We had a wonderful meal (ahi tuna for her and pork tenderloin for me, with exotic side dishes, if The Flying Pie requires details) and a lot of fun—so much so that I think we cleared out the upstairs alcove area where we were seated. Thanks so much for your generous contribution to our Food Bank! Margaret will be watching closely for her 2 minutes of internet fame.
Court Lewis
Scarlet Siren To The Fore
Well, Hannah finally got a name, and no, the siren part of it does not refer to a noisemaker, as one or two of you seemed to think. Scarlet Siren is scheduled for her first quarter-mile work Saturday at Eisaman Equine, where Puck (aka Cosmic Flash) will have his second. The latter is almost on his way to the track and, barring snafus, should race in mid-April, while Hanna is about ten days behind.
It being mid-February, the early favorites for the Kentucky Derby are beginning to poke their heads up. Last year’s two-year-old champion, Shanghai Bobby, is prominent but was beaten in his first start back by Itsmyluckyday at Gulfstream. The latter is saddled by Eddie Plesa Jr., a Calder trainer, so good luck to him even though we don’t like horses with jammed-together names. Three others to watch are Verrazano and Violence, both trained by Todd Pletcher, who has a mere 29 horses nominated to the Triple Crown races, and Flashback, a Bob Baffert horse. Baffert has a plebeian 23
.
The Gun Report
Our other Internet Hero, Harry of the Austin Ghetto Line, reports that New York Times op-ed columnist Joe Nocera is reporting every recorded gun death in the country as they occur. Just in case you find yourself with time on your hands, the link is http://nocera.blogs.nytimes.com/
Off To Cedar Key
Adhering to our long tradition of (two years) Valentines Day dining at Cedar Key, Siobhan and I are off at 4:15 for the champagne, the sunset and, eventually, dinner at the intimate Island Hotel. Most of her days have turned into giant encumbrances, which is the price you pay for launching a spanking new business, so it’s a good idea to get away from it all every now and then. The phones will have to ring silent for awhile. We’ll take pictures of the quaint little town and insert a few next week. And don’t worry—I’ll be sure to tell her I love her.
That’s all, folks….
We know all about mother love, love of family, even intense affection for Spot and Puff, the beloved pets, and that’s all just fine. We’re not so sure about the love for inanimate objects, sad as it is to see the old car go after fifteen years of loyal service. We knew a guy once who held a funeral for his defunct motorcycle. And last year, baseball fans in New England held one for the Red Sox. But we don’t think that’s what Deb is talking about.
The love that is the subject of poetry and songs and soap operas since the Dawn of Antiquity is the love that crops up between two strangers who suddenly intersect and are smitten, either instantly or over time. Ah, but a careful examination is in order to decipher the true nature of this phenomenon. Is it love? Is it self-interest? Is it merely infatuation? Someone once said that infatuation may not be love but it will do for the time being, which is all well and good, but some people can’t tell the difference. Someone else said the less physically attractive a potential partner is, the more likely it’s love and not infatuation, an interesting observation. Young people, particularly, are bowled over by beauty and more likely to confuse infatuation with love, bereft of experience in these matters as they are. Sometimes, this young love is cured by a period of close contact during which one or the other partner discovers his or her potential mate possesses a horrendously unacceptable trait, like having proclivities toward mud-bogging, renaissance fair participation or voting the straight Republican ticket. Wisdom arrives slowly, with experience.
Mature (okay, older) people have a better handle on True Love. They’ve been around, they can separate the wheat from the chaff. They know that after the ball is over, it might be nice to have a partner who can actually carry on a conversation, who will always be there in a pinch, who can see both sides of the coin. Even mature people are not always so mature, however. Men, in particular, can be extremely parsimonious in acknowledging love, as if the utterance of the words will instantly bring about a raging maelstrom from the skies, placing their very existences in danger.
“Well,” said my friend, Stuart Bentler, once, “you have to be careful with that sort of thing. If you tell a woman you love her, she takes that to mean you’ll be getting married some day. Like the song says, love and marriage, horse and carriage.” I think Stuart is largely right about this but it is a sad comment, nonetheless. If you think it is possible to love someone you don’t expect to marry—as I do—there should be some forum in which to announce it in which the declaration will not be misconstrued. Most of us have had people in our lives, now gone, to whom we wished we said the words. If any of them are still lingering in your world, best get on it. The time is right.
Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie. On Second Thought….
Always on the prowl for new modes of fun and frolic, I noticed in the Gainesville Sun last week that a folksinger named Cosy Sheridan would be performing at a venue called the Prairie Creek Lodge, a renovated hunting lodge owned by the Alachua Conservation Trust, which acquires land in and around the county to protect natural, historic, scenic and recreational resources. For a couple of months now, I’ve been following their schedule of performers with interest, figuring to sooner or later drop in. The place is less than half an hour from our house. I thought Cosy Sheridan might hit the spot, she having won awards at the Kerrville Folk Festival and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, not to mention being a fellow-New Englander and a graduate of the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the two best prep schools in the country. I googled her, watched three You Tube Videos which had lousy acoustics and were pretty twangy, but decided to go anyway. Her lyrics were good and I thought the sound would be better in the Prairie Creek building. Ended up, I was right. But the fun was in the foreplay.
Before Cosy could get on stage, we had the requisite announcements, which, in this case, were, um….formidable. An earthy guy wearing a shirt full of zebras got up on stage and told us all more than anyone wanted to know about the Conservancy, which is, after all, to be expected. But THEN, he delivered the Zinger. He told us that the conservancy was now holding natural burials right out there on Paine’s Prairie. Whoa! I had gone to the Lodge with Siobhan and our neighbor, Jennie Hollis, of chicken fame. I looked at Siobhan. Siobhan looked at me. Siobhan looked at Jennie. Jennie looked at Siobhan. I looked at Jennie. Jennie looked at me. What the hell was this guy talking about? You could bury actual people out on the prairie? I knew this sort of thing happened in Mafia circles but not with respectable people. Anyway, everyone leaned forward in their chairs. The zebra shirt man had certainly piqued everyone’s interest.
“Cremation,” he went on, “is popular now among many of our friends who don’t want to be a burden to the earth. But cremation, sad to say, releases many poisonous toxins into the atmosphere, including even mercury. Cremation is not the answer. The answer is here, with natural burial.” Geez. Mercury. Who KNEW? The astonished audience obviously wanted to know more but it was now Music Time so the jolly mortician danced off, leaving poor old Cosy Sheridan standing there with an expression like “What just happened?”
Anyway, inquiring minds want to know more. Like what sort of burials are we talking about here? Are we going to stake people out on anthills? Are we feeding them to the alligators? That would be natural alright, but not so great for on-site mourners. Maybe they could do it like the Indians did, erecting those tall platforms and sticking the bodies up there where the buzzard visitations would be less visible. Or maybe they could conduct Viking-like funerals, where they dump the remains in a long boat, light the thing afire and send it off down the creek, although this seems like an awful waste of a good boat to us. I mean, before long you would be running out of boats, right? I’m not sure this natural burial idea is going to float. And if I’m Cosy Sheridan, from now one I want to know who the hell is opening for me.
Internet Hero Eats! (Part Two)
Hi Bill.
Margaret and I finally got a chance to get out to Café Pacific with several friends at the end of a gorgeous Spring-like day. We had a wonderful meal (ahi tuna for her and pork tenderloin for me, with exotic side dishes, if The Flying Pie requires details) and a lot of fun—so much so that I think we cleared out the upstairs alcove area where we were seated. Thanks so much for your generous contribution to our Food Bank! Margaret will be watching closely for her 2 minutes of internet fame.
Court Lewis
Scarlet Siren To The Fore
Well, Hannah finally got a name, and no, the siren part of it does not refer to a noisemaker, as one or two of you seemed to think. Scarlet Siren is scheduled for her first quarter-mile work Saturday at Eisaman Equine, where Puck (aka Cosmic Flash) will have his second. The latter is almost on his way to the track and, barring snafus, should race in mid-April, while Hanna is about ten days behind.
It being mid-February, the early favorites for the Kentucky Derby are beginning to poke their heads up. Last year’s two-year-old champion, Shanghai Bobby, is prominent but was beaten in his first start back by Itsmyluckyday at Gulfstream. The latter is saddled by Eddie Plesa Jr., a Calder trainer, so good luck to him even though we don’t like horses with jammed-together names. Three others to watch are Verrazano and Violence, both trained by Todd Pletcher, who has a mere 29 horses nominated to the Triple Crown races, and Flashback, a Bob Baffert horse. Baffert has a plebeian 23
.
The Gun Report
Our other Internet Hero, Harry of the Austin Ghetto Line, reports that New York Times op-ed columnist Joe Nocera is reporting every recorded gun death in the country as they occur. Just in case you find yourself with time on your hands, the link is http://nocera.blogs.nytimes.com/
Off To Cedar Key
Adhering to our long tradition of (two years) Valentines Day dining at Cedar Key, Siobhan and I are off at 4:15 for the champagne, the sunset and, eventually, dinner at the intimate Island Hotel. Most of her days have turned into giant encumbrances, which is the price you pay for launching a spanking new business, so it’s a good idea to get away from it all every now and then. The phones will have to ring silent for awhile. We’ll take pictures of the quaint little town and insert a few next week. And don’t worry—I’ll be sure to tell her I love her.
That’s all, folks….
