Best Road Trip In Ages Pt. 2

4 Generations of Prices:  Jackie & Glen, Barry, Dylan, and Logan

Even when you're having a great time travelling you still think of the folks back home.  We were lucky enough to get the 4Gen pic above when Mom & Dad came up from Tennessee for a visit.  We really miss having them closer by.

We had a pleasant night at Dan & Rosario's place.  We rarely sleep through the night, what with trips to the bathroom, muscle spasms, and round-the-clock kid traffic, so the chugging of trucks & Harleys on the nearby road and the crowing of the rooster in the yard were not disturbing.  No sirens, much different from back home.

In the kitchen, a pot of coffee and a big cast iron skillet with fresh eggs scrambled with some spicy peppers that Mark brought from his garden.  Toast, bacon, forks clicking on plates, quiet conversation as we watch the hummingbirds & dragonflies buzz past the window.

Hey Nigel-cat, did you ever see that movie about your alien duplicate hatching from a pod to replace you?

Rolling gargoyles gather no moss.

I poked my finger 3-4 inches into this soft green cushion and it never hit bottom.

Mike Lebens, Mark Schlembach, Marcy Price, Nan & Eric Day, The Other Dan Johnson, Dr. Dan Johnson, and Lisa (Mrs. Other Dan) Johnson.

Hmm, what could this gift be?  Nan is acting so innocent...

Best of all, it's microwaveable!

Nan is a soil scientist and also has an asparagus farm in Virginia with her other half, Eric.  She says you shouldn't use a knife to harvest asparagus, but just snap it off.  It knows the right place to break.

Fresh zucchini for dinner tonight.

Sun inside.

Mike Lebens, a social worker in Pensylvania.  He made a couple of varieties of real nice beer for the party.  Delicious and hearty,  dark strong foamy stuff, still alive, I think.  Mike was in attendance when Dan's parents' let my old band Ruff Midget set up a stage using haywagons and box trucks in their front yard.  Most of Morgan Township must have heard us that full-moon summer night, and half of them came to Dan's to join the party.  Was that a special occaision?  Does anybody have pictures?  By, the way Mike, you gotta try the fresh-picked broccoli, steamed with wild lamb's quarters that was growing right next to it.

Dr. Dan dons his hardhat to extinguish the inferno.  Good thing they didn't put all 50 candles on the cake or we'd have needed an open burning permit.

Happy Birthday, Dan Johnson!

We went to bed that night relaxed and happy.  What a nice bunch of people!  What a lovely place!  We expected a good sleep with motors and roosters and a great day tomorrow, and we were not disappointed.

Best Road Trip In Ages Pt. 1

We made sure that grand-daughter Logan got to her doctor visit before we got ready for the trip.  Gosh, so long since we went anywhere, and never without the kids before!  First, an instruction sheet to tell the kids our expectations for the dog & the house.  Next, a call to Fifth Third Bank to let them know that the money for our mortgage payment won't be in our account for the forseeable future.  We've been working through the list at http://savethedream.ohio.gov/ to see what can be done.  The Bank says the automatic Billpayer 2000 (woo, sounds futuristic!) is already in action and can't be stopped.  It's the rise of the machines!  So we'll get hit with overdraft fees on the checking account and late fees on the mortgage.  But they said it's realy not even considered delinquent for 30 days.  I said we know, we're working the approved programs, we're just being proactive and communicating, not dodging, but no money.  Please don't beat us to death with overdraft and late fees!  But I hear that's how banks make money these days, aside from bailouts of course.  For the record, we tried.

Dan Johnson, summer 1984

I've known the Johnsons about as long as I can remember. I must have met 2nd-grade Mike on the playground when I started in 1st Grade at Morgan Elementary. No kindergarten at Morgan back then, but we never missed it. Dan started school the year after me. As we grew up we found that we shared some interests in science, music, and country life adventures. He once invited me over to his house for some squid and taught me everything about them but the names of their children.  One summer our work & school schedules converged to allow us to spend many a summer day cruising the back-country roads in my 1967 Mustang Convertible. Did I have an 8-track tape player in that car? Why yes, I do believe I did. Endless loops of Yes and sunshine and King Crimson and cornfields and ELP and big skies.  One day we went to play Frisbee golf and then see the Symphony In The Park, which was all great. On the way home I hit a pothole at the side of the road in Hamilton which flattened both tires on the passenger side. Who carries two spares? The police stopped by to chat about our situation but would not help us. Dan and I ended up walking to Millville and waking his ex-girlfriend's dad to ask for help. Considering the circumstances, he was extremely gracious in giving us both rides to our respective homes in Shandon and Okeana to sort things out the next day. Thanks again, Mr. Bastian. Anyway, Dan graduated from Ross and went on to Wilmington College. When the college sent him away to Mexico for a winter term, he met another student from Wilmington there. Her name was Rosario Iglesias.

Rosario & Erica Johnson, summer 1984

Dan & Rosario fell in love amongst the magic of the ancient Mayan pyramids at Palenque.  Just look at them - how could they not have done so?  Those pictures above may have been the last time we saw them, possibly Dan's college graduation party.  That was the day that he called us out to the garage and hoisted a pillowcase writhing like Medusa's head.  He reached in for a handful and baby boas ran through his fingers like Scrooge McDuck with his gold.  So Dan's life path of raising a family and becoming a doctor took him farther away from "home" and for longer periods, until we rarely heard from each other, until this past year.  Then he sent out the message:  Dan is turning 50 and is calling in his tribe to help celebrate at his place in Ashville, Pennsylvania.!

Mark Schlembach, summer 2010

We probably could not have made the trip had it not been for Mark joining us.  He's been married to Dan's younger sister Sue for some 3 decades now and the whole family is quite close.  In fact, they are neighbors of Dan & Sue's parents, Jerry & Maureen., out there near Shandon.  Well-planted.  Mark just found out that after 15 years of doing corporate accounting for a hospital chain, his job is being eliminated.  Consolidation, you are a satellite office and the funding goes to headquarters.  So if you are looking to hire an experienced corporate accountant, you should interview Mark Schlembach.  I can attest to his good attitude and his energy, his systematic way of thinking, the way he throws himself into a task wholeheartedly, always ready to pitch in.  The company that hires him is a lucky one, but don't get your hopes up.  After seeing him drive our van on the long trek to the Allegheny Mountains and back I told him he should drive a truck.

I drove from Cincinnati up I-71 through a lot of glacially-planed flat land that contained things such as amusement parks, tennis stadiums, outlet malls and cornfields.  We turned east on I-70 and the terrain gradually became more rolling.  I handed over the wheel to Mark around Wheeling, West Virginia, since he was more familiar with the drive ahead, and I was way behind on taking pics.

The beautiful landscape is a treat for my weary, jaded eyes.

See the windmills just above the treeline near the middle of the picture?  They have quite a few of those scattered across the horizon, making at least some attempt at clean & independent energy.

We're there!  It's Dr. Dan's welcoming committee!

Everyone named Dan Johnson who is also having a birthday this weekend please raise your hand.  Strangely enough the guy in the brown hat at the left is also named Dan Johnson.  They're old college buddies, probably had all kinds of document mix-ups back in the day.

Boris is a 1-year-old Doberman who keeps bears out of the yard.  He's still not made his mind up about me.

Mama Rosario soothes the beast.

Little Kings from home, just what Dr. Dan ordered.  Thinking about tearing into those two Crave Cases of White Castle sliders that Mark also brought for him.

Wilderness begins at the edge of the yard.

Mark lights the bonfire to keep evil & beasts at bay.

Dan planted jewel weed to use as a remedy against poison ivy.

The chickens have indeed come home to roost.

Tomorrow's breakfast!  Look at those colors.

Sitting hens are pretty single-minded and sometimes forget to get up off the eggs to eat or drink.  He lost this one.

Fresh free-range eggs.

A gaggle of geese, guarding the garden gateway.

Marcy breathes easier in the clean, fresh mountain air.

It's cool & green everywhere you look!

We spent the evening around the bonfire under starry skies with good people who have long histories together.  Some of the it was catching up and some was new, but it was all good.  Marcy & I hit the hay that night looking forward to tomorrow.

reply to imag @ Boing Boing - Why do you even post this?

So I tried to get noticed on Boing Boing and got this comment:

1 Comment • Add a comment

imag • #1 • 11:59 PM Saturday, Jul 31, 2010 • Reply Why do you even post this? You just want people to visit your blog? You don't even have a post about the middle class in the first page.

So I had to reply but BoingBoing displayed some kind of error message when I tried to post it there, so I have to vent here to get it off my chest:

  

@imag - Thanks for your comment! Why do I even post this? Because Boing Boing is reputed to have a somewhat intelligent readership with a certain creative slant. I was hoping for insightful comments and evaluation. I thought this was the point to The Submitterator but maybe I missed an inside hipster joke somewhere along the line. Am I that ugly date that snarky frat boys take to the Pig Party? I dunno. In addition, I feel that a way of life is disappearing. I feel like I'm (we're) sinking, and I don't want to sink without a ripple. I don't want to become invisible. You know, one of those "poor" people who have nothing to contribute, so, since we can't just make them into Soylent Green, we grudgingly pay taxes to provide welfare or make ourselves feel like good people and donate to a charity to provide for them (us). I want to feel that I matter.

Do I just want people to visit my blog? That would be a nice start. Reading, viewing, commenting, advising, networking, uprising would be better.

I don't have a post about the middle class in the first page? I find that comment fascinating. Maybe I'm like a fish blogging about his fishy way of life, not bothering to mention that all us fish swim in water until he is gasping on the dry banks. Maybe I'm like one of those RenFest "Knights of Ye Rounde Table" that I used to go see when I had money, dressed up in a tin can and poking broomsticks at each other, pretending to be something that maybe never even really existed. I try to avoid loading up on jargon from a sociology text or using "talking points" language from political parties or talk radio or punditry, but if you want to map my reality to those frameworks then that's cool. Maybe the label "Middle Class" has been so kicked around that we aren't seeing the same thing, our society so fragmented in terms of geography, age, occupation, education etc. that it takes on a different meaning depending on what the user wants it to mean, like gay used to mean happy, catholic used to mean well-rounded, liberal used to mean free. Maybe there really was a Middle Class and it began to die just as I was starting to arrive late to the party.  What do you think?

Once again, imag, thanks for your comments!

Vote For Me On Boing Boing!

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Ohio RenFest

I'm seeing references to knights from sources as varied as my blog-buddy at The Archdruid Report to tonight's episode of House, so lest anybody think I'm all rant and no fun, here are my vids & pics from Ohio Renaissance Festival.  Huzzah!  Blogger is being finicky about letting me post more vids so I may have to add more music and jousting in separate posts.  Enjoy!

No More Tiers

So this is our grand-daughter, Logan.  It's our first time watching her for more than a few minutes for a run to the store.  She's a good baby, so I taught her to stick out her tongue.  She's not quite 4 weeks old.

Mommy's out doing foxy boxing tonight and it looks like Logan is, too.  Dynamite comes in small packages!

That's my size 10+ foot next to the biggest mushrooms I have ever seen.  Wish I was better educated in whether they are edible.  Too risky.

I spent a lot of time on the phone yesterday with different branches of Ohio Job & Family Services.  The first call I made was to unemployment.  Actually I had tried them on Monday and their outgoing message said that people with names that start with "P" should only call on Wednesday,  so being obedient and orderly and a former call-center drone, I called on Wednesday.  Sometimes the outgoing message says that call volume is too high, please call back at another time, this call is now ended, but I managed to get through.  The menu choices didn't fit what I wanted so I punched # and 0 until I got that sickeningly peppy light jazz hold music and I waited a very long time.

Finally a human answered the phone and I was able to ask my question.  I said that I had not received a benefit payment for several weeks and could not even file a weekly claim online so I assumed that I was one of that new class of people in today's economy called a 99er.  I had even logged in to the unemployment website and counted payments and it looked like I had used up my legally allotted 99 benefit weeks.  The reason for my call was that I had just received a direct-deposit payment after that gap of several weeks, and I wanted to make sure it was legitimate before I spent it, because I would not be able to repay it if it was a mistake.  The call center agent told me that it was indeed legit, that it was my 99th payment which just happened to get held up by that tug-of-war that had been going on in Congress.  So unless Congress passes a Tier V, it's the end of the line for my unemployment benefits.  I'm still applying for jobs though, so any phony statistic from the government or media that says that I have given up is just baloney.  There is a growing number of people like me who can now be left out of the official unemployment numbers and ignored, like a shadow army growing increasingly frustrated and desperate.

That bottle in the picture is a little experiment we're trying for the first time.  It's homemade blackberry wine!  And it turns out that blackberry wine is kind of a family tradition from back before my Mom was born, and it created repercussions with the Patriot Act, but that's a story for another post.