The Lake Blessing

Beach glass has always fascinated me – my grandma and I used to collect it when I was little – Grimsby Beach, Lowbanks, wherever we could find it.  I still have a precious few bits of this glass as well as pretty stones and bits of shells that she and I gathered on our trips to the shoreline.

Grandma couldn’t swim, and my Mom wouldn’t go near the water, so despite my Grandfather’s occasional dips and my Dad’s love of swimming, I never learned to swim.  My fascination with the lakes came from the treasures on the shoreline.  I still remember battling with my poor dear Grandma over which one of us had first seen the tiny perfect bonsai-shaped piece of driftwood (and I am ashamed to admit that I won the battle!).

For over 40 years I have lived a half mile from the lake and other than crossing over the river each day, I have been quite lax in giving the waters my due attention.  It seems, however, that the lake has been trying to gain my attention of late – first by sending an awe-inspiring man named Magilla into my shop with the many dramatic photos of his global community of friends - the agile and graceful surfers of the Great Lakes.  Magilla clearly loved the waters of the Great Lakes and spoke glowingly of his life as both a surfer and a photographer.  He also told me that he was dying of a terrible rare form of cancer and did not have much longer to walk the earth.

Then last week the lake nudged me for a second time when old friends presented me with a shoe box full of beach glass. They said they had been picking up pieces for me for years in their travels around the Great Lakes.

What a treasure trove! I have been playing with and sorting these wondrous pieces for days now.  The cache has been sorted into three piles – the first pile of course contains my favorites which I will greedily keep forever (and I must admit I continue adding to this pile every day). The second pile holds the beach glass that I am sharing with others - artists, friends, and customers.  One man (in his mid-forties) was so amazed by it – he had never even heard of beach glass!

The third pile contains about three dozen pieces which I am entering into my newly devised “Beach Glass Catch and Release” program.  These pieces are still too clear, too sharp on the edges - they need the action of the water and the stones to grind them down a bit more, soften the colors, round out the shapes.

I plan to find the perfect location of rock and wave, create a suitable ceremony, and re-gift the lake this small bit of treasure-that-will-be.  Perhaps by next Spring or Summer, Mother Nature will have finished her portion of the artistry and another Grandma or artist child will find them and be thrilled all over again.

This re-gifting ceremony will be dedicated to the memory of Magilla, the Great Lakes surfer, photographer and philosopher who left this world on November 10, 2009.

He's Baaaaack!

In the last couple of days I have made the discovery that my little feathered nemesis, the SOB (son of a bird) woodpecker has been back and very busy drilling yet more holes into my house.  I fill them in with fiberglass insulation, cover them up with can lids and he drills more.

I have tried to reason with him, pointing out the 32 acres of woods and trees which surround my house, filled with many dead and decaying trees - perfect homes for many tasty insects and many snug housing possibilities for himself and his kin. He simply twirls his way up a nearby branch, giving me that smug look and I know the minute I leave my house he will be back at his appointed task.

I received a letter from my insurance company last week - my house insurance evaluation and thus my premium has doubled.  They added a paragraph at the end of the cover letter that there was a possibility that my house may be "overinsured."   Wait until I show them the hundreds of little round holes that my little SOB has drilled into my siding.  Overinsured - ya think?

The Gift from the Maple

Several years ago we had a perfect summer with ideal weather for maple trees.  As the days became shorter the back alley behind my shop filled with the most astonishing array of huge and colorful maple leaves:  red with yellow, yellow with green, green with red and yellow! These leaves blew into my alley from a tree which I assume is located several backyards away.  I  scooped up as many of these treasures as I could find, sorted through them to pick the most perfect, sprayed them with varnish (to bring out the colors) and then scanned them and made copies of various leaf arrangements.

 

I was new to the world of computers back then and I never saved the scans – all I have are prints on plain paper.  But I figured next fall I would do the same thing – this time saving the scans!  However the next year was a rainy, soggy one and to my great disappointment, the maple leaves all had big black spots on them apparently due to the excess levels of moisture.

And so it went for a number of years – I kept searching for some of those splendid maple leaves and every year all I found were the ugly black spots.  Each autumn had been a letdown - until this year.

One morning last week as I was putting out my sidewalk sign, there it was – the gift from the maple – one tiny perfect maple leaf:  only an inch across but with reds and yellows and greens!

I searched the alley and found a few regular size maple leaves with vibrant colors and one massive leaf still bright green, washed the dirt off of them, made a quick arrangement and took some photographs of them.

Whether this is the year I have been waiting for or not it doesn’t really matter. For that one tiny perfect maple leaf is the reward I have been seeking from a tree I have never even seen.

Thank you, maple tree – I have framed your tiny perfect gift in a tiny perfect frame.  (Well, I'm a framer - what else am I going to do?)

Fleeting Glimpses (#3)

Nash Road, North Tonawanda/Wheatfield

Remembering the Limelight

Since my last tale was about the Continental, I thought I would describe my very first forays into the world of live music in Buffalo – the Limelight coffee house – located only a few blocks from the Continental but worlds away in both time and just about every other criterion one could imagine.

The autumn of 1964 found me in my first semester at Buff State (I might mention that it was frowned upon in those days to call the school “Buff State.”).  I was 18 years old, very young and naïve (compared to girls that age nowadays). One evening, a group of us girls from the Cassity Hall decided to go to the Limelight, that “beatnik coffeehouse” over on Edward Street.  We were very excited with the adventure of it all – “going out – to a coffeehouse – in the big city” (we were all small town and country gals).

We called an extra large VanDyke taxi that would fit the seven of us and all piled in for the short ride from Elmwood Avenue over to Edward Street.  When the taxi pulled up in front of the Limelight we peered into the dimly lit establishment – it looked so dark in there – we could see a person with a guitar on the tiny stage, and people seated at small tables - pretty scary for our first time out!

The taxi driver sensed our fear and hesitation and gallantly offered to escort us in the door, or at least wait for us for a few minutes to make sure we were OK.  His obvious concern only served to escalate our fears and we chickened out and had him drive us back to campus.

Later on, accompanied by a proper date, I did brave the environs of the Limelight and found it to be a wonderful place indeed – real folksingers on stage and hot chocolate with real whipped cream!  Yum!  I spent hours dreamily listening to the buttery voice of Jerry Raven.

In communicating with old friends who shared the Limelight experience, I asked each of them, “What were your favorite songs that Jerry used to sing?” No two people have mentioned the same song!  We each had our own list: mine included “Spanish is Loving Tongue,” “Hava Nagila,” and Tom Lehrer’s “Pollution.”

Jerry was the perfect host for the Limelight –he booked a great variety of both local and regional acts into his warm, intimate little club, he played guitar (de rigueur for guys back then!), and he was a walking encyclopedia of music from the Child ballads to English Music Hall silliness and of course the creations of contemporary singer-songwriters.  He had a wicked sense of humor – and all the girls were mesmerized by his twinkling eyes and dark curly hair - and – oh! That voice!

One of the Limelight’s most memorable solo performers was Terry Knight, from Flint, Michigan, who later went on to some fame with his group Terry Knight and the Pack which later morphed into Grand Funk Railroad.  Terry was our own version of Mick Jagger, complete with a mod wardrobe and a Prince Valiant haircut, and he sang soulful and brooding ballads such as his signature cover of “I, Who Have Nothing.”

The group I loved the best, however, was a local band called QSL (Steve Wagner and Larry Bradley) who eventually ended up recording a brief (but in my humble opinion perfect) concert at my house in the early seventies.  These guys were multi-talented, clever and zany and always fun to listen to or just be around.

Jerry Raven, nevertheless, remains perched at the top of my Limelight list and I am so very pleased to hear that he has finally been inducted, in 2009, into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame.  It’s about time - congratulations Jerry!

Original chair from the Limelight

Tearing Down the Continental

Oddly enough, John Hartford’s song “They’re Gonna Tear Down the Grand Old Oprey” is going through my head right now because I just found out that Buffalo’s punk landmark, the Continental, is being torn down.  The Ryman Auditorium was saved.  The Continental has been doomed to its fate for several years.

I began going to the Continental in early 1982.  My new best friend Kim dragged me there – a group called 1.4.5 was playing that night and after somehow ending up in a closet for a brief smooch with one of the band members (Ducky), I became totally hooked on going there – 2, 3, even 4 nights per week.

As more of a teetotaler than a drinker,  I began bringing my camera and I spent all of my money on film and processing and fell into documenting several of the bands that caught my fancy – how I wish I had thought to take more photos of the patrons, the staff and of course, my friends.  I believe I have a photo of Frank and one of Bear, but I do not have a single photo of Bud Burke!  I have hundreds of photos of the Fems and not one of the Goos!

Even though I was in my thirties when I started going there, I think of the Continental as my second high school – only this time I got to hang out with the cool kids.  Many graduated with flying colors from their years at the Continental School of Rock, many flunked out with equally flying colors, and way too many souls were lost along the wayside.

Most of the best friends I have today can be traced back to the Continental.  This goes for real life friends and Facebook friends.  The Continental was a marvelous motley mosaic of freaks and geeks, gays and straights, punks and poseurs, young and old.  What tied us all together was the music – live bands: local, national and international playing on the scummy little stage – and the throbbing dance music playing upstairs on the mirrored dance floor.  And of course the never-ending parade of fashion and hair and makeup and jewelry.

“Hey, did you know that guy who used to go to the Continental?  You know who I’m talkin’ about – the guy in the black leather jacket…”  “Yeah, I knew him.”

For those of us without cable TV, we got to see music videos on the big screen.  I still hunt these down on YouTube and think of the Continental.  “Smack Jack,”  “Heroes,” “Mexican Radio,” “Safety Dance.”  Talking Heads, Psychedelic Furs, Devo, Ramones, Shakin’ Stevens.

The music was so deafening that the building shook, the stench of the place was indescribable and unforgettable – the floor was sticky, the rest rooms were disgusting. I once bought slide bolts and installed them in the ladies room stall doors and Bud was so astonished and pleased he presented me with a bottle of Champagne.  These door locks lasted about a week.

The Continental rocked along for years after I stopped going there for anything but the Fems’ Christmas show.  To me it was just not the same old place anymore after the stage got moved into the back and the patio was mostly closed and of course the people were all strangers to me and everyone was so young or maybe I just got old.

I dunno, but the Continental will always be in my heart and for that I thank Kim for dragging me there, and Mark Freeland and his multitude of talented friends for the music and Bud Burke for bringing the whole thing together for as long as he did.

“Everyone is trying
To get to the bar
The name of the bar
The bar is called Heaven
The band in Heaven
They play my favorite song
Play it once again
Play it all night long”
(David Byrne & Jerry Harrison)

Fleeting Glimpses (#2)

This was photographed on an entrance ramp to the QEW in Fort Erie - for months there have been a pair of black shoes along the curb, looked to be in new-ish condition. Then suddenly one disappeared and now that remaining one has a fetching and no doubt reflective yellow stripe running perfectly down its middle.