My wife and I go for massages once a month, which has turned out to be a solid therapeutic routine. As is the case with any spa, the air is diffused with pleasant scents as well as soothing instrumental music. They also overlay a soundtrack of birds, as if to place you in the out of doors. The sensations are designed to relax and they do their job; so well in fact I’d swear I was transported to the shores of a pond. More on that in a minute.
Candidly, it’s not often I notice the background music in a spa. I focus on breathing deep and keeping my eyes closed instead. But I couldn’t ignore the music when “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables started playing. Whatever playlist the spa chose included a simple rendition of that song; just piano and violin. It was beautiful, and suddenly I was back in the Broadway theater where we saw the show years ago. I would’ve put “Bring Him Home” on “repeat” if I could have.
But we’re not talking about Les Miserables today. We’re talking about a pond. “Bring Him Home” was followed by a nameless instrumental piano piece, and again my mind began to drift. Then I heard the birds. Piano keys. Birds. And there I went… back to “On Golden Pond”.
Several instrumental movie soundtracks will reside in my brain forever. Whenever their signature melodies play I’m immediately returned to the film itself. I’m not talking about the bold, orchestral works of John Williams (think Star Wars or Jurassic Park) but rather the simpler repetitive tunes that still somehow define the story on the screen. Chariots of Fire is a good example. Cast Away is another. Leap Year was a so-so movie but the soundtrack is wonderfully catchy. And the music of A Little Romance – Diane Lane’s debut film – was so well done it won 1979’s Oscar for Best Original Score.
So you see, this is how a massage becomes a trip back to On Golden Pond, a movie from almost fifty years ago. The piano plays. The birds sing (even if they aren’t loons). And there it is, that simple poignant story playing out in front of my closed eyes as if I’d just seen the film last week.
Was I ever a fan of Jane Fonda? Not really. I remember her more for her workout videos than her movies. But On Golden Pond was the exception because she’s on screen with Henry Fonda, her father in real life and her father in the movie. The movie is about the struggles of their father-daughter relationship, which surely echoed real life. Add in Katherine Hepburn as the mother character and the bar is raised well beyond the movie itself. The story is good enough, but who from my generation wouldn’t watch Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in anything together?
Henry Fonda died less than a year after the filming of On Golden Pond. Katherine Hepburn made a few more movies but this was pretty much the conclusion of her career as well. So On Golden Pond is something of a swan song for both. If you have any recollection of the film, try this: Ask Alexa for instrumental piano music. Ask Siri for a soundtrack of birds at the same time. Then close your eyes and relax. You may be transported back to a golden pond. It’s pretty cool.
Some content sourced from IMDB, the “Internet Movie Database, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
I should pay more attention to the actual cost of things. A movie ticket is fifteen dollars… until you add in concessions, preferred seating, and online processing. A dinner out can be reasonable… until you add in the taxes and tip. And rental car companies add so many fees to the base rate it’s like you’ve just been bumped to a new tax bracket. With that in mind let’s visit the airport today, or more specifically, getting to the airport.
How do I get here?
Flying is expensive; always has been. But it’s easy to overlook the cost of the airport itself. Maybe you already know, a portion of the ticket you just bought goes to a landing fee (LF) – what the airline pays the airport for the privilege of pulling up to the gate. Maybe you also know another portion goes to a passenger facility charge (PFC), which supposedly goes to improvement projects in the name of airport safety and security.
I don’t trust PFCs. I think they really go to things like art exhibits, children’s play areas, pet relief areas, and smoking lounges. I mean really, how much less would that plane ticket be if all you had for an airport was a ticket counter, some security and restrooms, and a gate to board your plane?
You pay dearly for this space
The airport needs more than LF’s and PFC’s to pay its bills, of course. It’s the reason you pay so much for parking. I mean, think about it. Once the parking garage is built it requires little to operate. Mechanical systems and a few employee salaries yes, but certainly nothing in the neighborhood of say, $30/car/day. Which brings me to my current conundrum.
By taxi? Cost-prohibitive
Most of you don’t have the following challenge. When you fly, you’re close enough to the airport to where you can get a ride from a friend or take mass transit. Me? I have a choice of three major airports here in the South… but each of them is a two to three hour drive from my house. Which begs the question, how does Dave get from his house to the airport and back for the least amount of money?
Simple but Expensive. Dave drives his car to the airport, parks, and drives his car back to his house after he gets back. Works for short trips but what if I’m gone for three weeks (starting next Saturday)? Parking at Atlanta-Hartsfield is $30/day (and that’s long-term). Throw in a tank of gas for the car and I’m north of $700 just for the airport to/from.
Simpler but Even More Expensive. This idea unexpectedly sent me in the wrong direction (financial, not travel). I put in for a quote for car and driver from a service right here in our little town. They got back to me almost immediately. Little did I know my car is a limo and my driver wears a tuxedo. My wife and I can “sit back and enjoy their ride” for $520 each way. Gratuity not included.
Slightly Less Expensive. Here’s a fun option/comparison. Drive to nearby (tiny) Augusta Regional Airport and fly to Atlanta. The two round trip tickets plus parking? Less than the cost of the drive and parking at Atlanta. If flights out of Augusta were ever on time I might actually consider it.
Clever But… Drive to nearby (tiny) Augusta Regional Airport, rent a car, drive to Atlanta, and return the car. Repeat the procedure in reverse when I return. No. The rental car companies want $300+ for Augusta to Atlanta. Multiply that by two to get back home.
By shuttle? “Cozy”
Less Expensive but More Cozy. We have shuttle services nearby; van companies where you share the ride to the airport with strangers. $200 gets us the trip to Atlanta and back. Okay, but now we’re driving our car just to get driven by a van just to get flown in a plane. Seems like a lot. And you leave when the shuttle service says you leave; not when you really want to.
Five solutions in and I still haven’t made it to Atlanta with any sense of fiscal satisfaction. I’m starting to think I should just skip the airplane and drive all the way to our destination. Or ride my bike with a pile of luggage on my back. But wait! There’s always 6. Entirely Less Expensive. Convince local son-in-law to drive us to Atlanta (and back). He can’t charge me more than the options I presented here, can he? Er, not if he doesn’t read this blog post first. I better call him… stat.
Before another Independence Day celebration completely fades into the July of last week, I want to visit a story from early early American history. In 1973 I began middle school at Palisades-Brentwood Junior High, so named because it straddled the limits of both towns just outside of Los Angeles. But I never knew it as “Palisades-Brentwood”. A year after opening in 1955 it was rebranded Paul Revere Junior High. So Paul and I have a little something in common. It’s like we’re compatriots, only separated by two and a half centuries.
If you know nothing else about Paul Revere, you’ll recall his courageous “midnight ride”. In the months leading up to the Revolutionary War in 1775 Revere took to his horse outside of Boston to alert “minutemen” of the approaching British troops. Minutemen were residents of the American colonies trained to defend “at a minute’s notice”. Revere himself was the notice, at least for what would become the early battles at Lexington and Concord.
Longfellow’s impression
Were it not for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow a hundred years later, Revere’s legacy would’ve faded as quickly as last Friday’s fireworks. Instead we have the poet’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” as the chronicle, with these well-known opening lines:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: Hardly a man is now alive…
Thanks to Longfellow’s poetic license (lots of it), we have a skewed version of what Revere did and did not do in April, 1775. For starters, he was one of three riders spreading the news that “The British are coming! The British are coming!” (so why didn’t the other two riders get any poetic love?) Further, Revere never said the words “The British are coming!” but rather some disguised version of the warning to fool the Redcoats already hiding in the countryside. And the famous “one-if-by-land, two-if-by-sea” lanterns were put in place by Revere, not for him.
Boston, MA
Revere didn’t even own a horse. He had to borrow a neighbor’s steed (named “Brown Beauty”) to make the ride. And instead of galloping all the way to Concord as the poem suggests, Revere and his horse were captured by British troops somewhere along the way. Lucky for Paul, the capture turned into a release when the Brits realized they were about to be overwhelmed by the locals. So they took Paul’s horse and fled instead.
Enough of the history lesson (real or poetic). Why a West Coast middle school would go with “Paul Revere” is beyond me, but the campus culture certainly embraced the name. A select number of boys (including me) were the “Minutemen” who raised and lowered the American flag each day. A select number of girls – “Colonial Belles” – were responsible for some similar task. The school yearbook was known as the “Patriot”, while the newspaper was labeled the “Town Crier”. And students called “Silversmiths” did something-or-other, but it certainly wasn’t casting fine products in Metal Shop.
Our school even plagiarized Longfellow (and not very well), as in:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the growing pride of Paul Revere. On the twelfth of September in Fifty-Five Our middle school began to thrive.
If all I can point to is my middle school’s name, it’s a weak argument to claim Paul Revere and I have something in common. We have nothing in common. Revere was a Jack Paul of all trades, dabbling in roles from military leader to dentist, artist, and silversmith, before finally settling on copper caster. Revere became the best caster of church bells in all of young America before his midnight ride became his signature accomplishment.
You’d be better off saying Revere and I were polar opposites. I never served in the military. I’ve only been the patient of a dentist (too often at that), I have zero art skills, I don’t make the silver (I just polish it), and the only casters I’m familiar with are the ones under a couple of my rolling chairs.
“Revere Ware”
Thanks to the church bell thing, Revere Copper Company became a successful business which still exists to this day. You may remember their “Revere Ware” products, most of which are considered collectibles today. Maybe I should collect a few pieces myself. They’d remind me of the guy I seem to think I have something in common with. Or at least, they’d remind me of junior high school.
Some content sourced from the Paul Revere Charter Middle School website, the History Channel article, “9 Things You May Not Know About Paul Revere”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
In the years we raised our family in Colorado we made a lot of friends and acquaintances… but none of them were bugs. Actually that’s not true; every now and then a spider would introduce itself; somehow enduring the region’s high altitude and low oxygen. But the other 99.9% of the world’s insect population flew south for the winter… and stayed there. Or rather, here. Right here on the property where we now live. On that not-so-exaggerated claim let’s you and I make a deal. I’ll happily take all of your cicadas, wasps, and fire ants in exchange for my countless gnats.
You-see-um?
A gnat may be the most annoying living thing you’ll ever encounter, (including every last one of your family members). Anyone who’s experienced an out-of-nowhere cloud of these little dive-bombers knows what I’m talking about. Gnats are so tiny instead of “now you see ’em, now you don’t” you just say no-see-um. Gnats are so whiny you’ll swear your ears are being perforated by dozens of microscopic dentist drills. Finally, gnats have such a sense of smell that once you give off your particular scent (i.e. sweat) they’ll happily follow you to the ends of the earth.
Here’s what a gnat looks like (blown up a million, billion times). I’m not surprised to see they’re a relatively simple-looking creature. After all, there can’t be much to something beyond microscopic. In all fairness, a gnat’s virtual invisibility has to do with a preference for shade, nighttime hours and things that grow. At least that’s my experience. I’m out there walking the dog on a humid summer evening and it’s as quiet as the “g” in gnat. Suddenly the little air force shows up out of nowhere and for the rest of the walk you’re swatting your head every time you hear a dentist drill. And it’s not like you kill gnats with your swats (or maybe you do but they’re so small you have no idea if you did, so why bother?)
Entering this third summer of my newfound cloud of Southern friends, I decided it was time to go on the offensive. My wife bought a stack of human-head sized mosquito nets. These nets work great in that you’ll no longer feel that slightest of sensations when a gnat lands on your ear. But the little sand grains still knock-knock-knock on the net with their dentist-drill buzzes. You still swat and you still no-see-um. Not to mention, a sweaty mosquito net is really uncomfortable.
A month or so ago we were at our local farm supply and came across this product at check-out. The cashier was all about it, so I figured I’d give it a try. Gnats don’t like particular botanicals: citronella, lemongrass, rosemary, and geranium, and No Natz has them all in a nice little spray cocktail. Darned if the stuff doesn’t work! You put it on like sunscreen, you smell like an entire can of Lemon Pledge, but the gnats keep their distance. For a little while anyway. Eventually you sweat off the No Natz and then it’s “mo natz” all over again.
Flower power
I might have to try a batch of pyrethrins instead (my new favorite word). Pyrethrins are compounds found in chrysanthemums which, conveniently, target the nervous system of a gnat. Gets at ’em from the inside out. The idea of a gnat spiraling out of control like a wounded helicopter is entirely appealing in my present state of mind.
Per Wikipedia, there is “no scientific consensus on what constitutes a gnat”. Whichever ones are my new best friends here are harmless because they just buzz around your eyes and ears making their dentist-drill noises. Other varieties prefer biting and blood so I guess I should be grateful. Doesn’t make “Gnatus South Carolinus” any less annoying.
Maybe subscribing to the alleged origin of “no-see-um” will put me out of my misery. The word is rooted in skeptical theism. That is, if a human (me) thinks hard enough about a given thing (gnat) and can’t come up with a single God-justifying reason for permitting such an organism (nope, not one), AND considering said organism can’t be seen (they’re invisible!) then perhaps I should entertain the notion that a gnat doesn’t really exist.
Figment of my imagination?
Yes, let’s go with skeptical theism. There aren’t any gnats in South Carolina after all (hooray!) Ignore the previous 500+ words of this post. My countless friends were all in my head. Or uh, around my head? Whatever.. guess I’m just hearing things.
Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
Now that I have young granddaughters, the songs and nursery rhymes of my own toddling days bubble up from the long forgotten frontiers of my brain. Humpty Dumpty is together again and back up on his wall. The sky is unstable if Chicken Little is to be believed. And the debate rages anew whether “pease porridge” is hot or cold (even if it is forever nine days old). The list goes on and on but none of these tiny tales holds a candle to the one bizarre question asked of Mary. So let’s ask her again, shall we?
I wouldn’t have remembered Mary were it not for the daily online puzzles of the New York Times. Two weeks ago they devoted an entire word search to the sentences of this odd nursery rhyme. Which got me to thinking, just who was Mary, why was she “contrary” (other than a convenient rhyme), and what the heck was going on in her garden?
As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. As Google goes, be careful what you search for. Jack and Jill really did go up a hill. Old MacDonald had a farm. There’s at least one itsy bitsy spider on the water spout. But Mary and her garden? She doesn’t belong anywhere near your grandchildren.
The first interpretation of “Mary, Mary” I came across was completely sanitized from the original. It claims Mary is the Mary (as in, Jesus’ mother). Mary’s garden is the growing Catholic church. Silver bells are the same jinglers used in the church service to recognize miracles with “a joyful noise”. Cockle shells refer to faithful pilgrims, as in the badges worn by those completing the Way of St. James. And pretty maids are nuns, lined up for a life of devotion.
Badge of devotion
If we stopped right there, Mary would be heartily embraced by the rest of the kid-friendly characters in my granddaughters’ nursery rhymes. But more likely we’re singing about “Mary I”, Queen of England in the 1500’s. This Mary was no saint. In her brief five-year reign she cleansed her country of heretics… by burning hundreds of them at the stake. “Bloody Mary” – her apt nickname – somehow became a drink at the bar (which I will never order) and the subject of a child’s nursery rhyme.
Not-so-nice Mary
Mary I was at odds with her father King Henry VIII’s agenda; hence she was “quite contrary”. Okay that’s fine, but I wish the rhyme stopped right there. Her garden was likely a reference to a graveyard. The silver bells and cockle shells describe torture devices of the time (and I won’t be using a Google search to learn more about those). The maids were innocent women lined up for execution.
This is the stuff of nursery rhymes? I’m trying to picture little girls back then, sitting around in a circle and coming up with short songs from what they see right in front of them. Like Rosie and her ring, if some interpretations are to be believed. As for Ms. Contrary, I think I’ll go with a garden similar to the one shown here. But since the origins of her rhyme continue to be debated, I’m steering my granddaughters clear of her. Instead, we’ll sing about the other Mary, the one with the little lamb.
Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
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About Me
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
Candidly, it’s not often I notice the background music in a spa. I focus on breathing deep and keeping my eyes closed instead. But I couldn’t ignore the music when “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables started playing. Whatever playlist the spa chose included a simple rendition of that song; just piano and violin. It was beautiful, and suddenly I was back in the Broadway theater where we saw the show years ago. I would’ve put “Bring Him Home” on “repeat” if I could have.
Several instrumental movie soundtracks will reside in my brain forever. Whenever their signature melodies play I’m immediately returned to the film itself. I’m not talking about the bold, orchestral works of John Williams (think Star Wars or Jurassic Park) but rather the simpler repetitive tunes that still somehow define the story on the screen. Chariots of Fire is a good example. Cast Away is another. Leap Year was a so-so movie but the soundtrack is wonderfully catchy. And the music of A Little Romance – Diane Lane’s debut film – was so well done it won 1979’s Oscar for Best Original Score.
So you see, this is how a massage becomes a trip back to On Golden Pond, a movie from almost fifty years ago. The piano plays. The birds sing (even if they aren’t loons). And there it is, that simple poignant story playing out in front of my closed eyes as if I’d just seen the film last week.
Henry Fonda died less than a year after the filming of On Golden Pond. Katherine Hepburn made a few more movies but this was pretty much the conclusion of her career as well. So On Golden Pond is something of a swan song for both. If you have any recollection of the film, try this: Ask Alexa for instrumental piano music. Ask Siri for a soundtrack of birds at the same time. Then close your eyes and relax. You may be transported back to a golden pond. It’s pretty cool.
If you know nothing else about Paul Revere, you’ll recall his courageous “midnight ride”. In the months leading up to the Revolutionary War in 1775 Revere took to his horse outside of Boston to alert “minutemen” of the approaching British troops. Minutemen were residents of the American colonies trained to defend “at a minute’s notice”. Revere himself was the notice, at least for what would become the early battles at Lexington and Concord.
Enough of the history lesson (real or poetic). Why a West Coast middle school would go with “Paul Revere” is beyond me, but the campus culture certainly embraced the name. A select number of boys (including me) were the “Minutemen” who raised and lowered the American flag each day. A select number of girls – “Colonial Belles” – were responsible for some similar task. The school yearbook was known as the “Patriot”, while the newspaper was labeled the “Town Crier”. And students called “Silversmiths” did something-or-other, but it certainly wasn’t casting fine products in Metal Shop.
Here’s what a gnat looks like (blown up a million, billion times). I’m not surprised to see they’re a relatively simple-looking creature. After all, there can’t be much to something beyond microscopic. In all fairness, a gnat’s virtual invisibility has to do with a preference for shade, nighttime hours and things that grow. At least that’s my experience. I’m out there walking the dog on a humid summer evening and it’s as quiet as the “g” in gnat. Suddenly the little air force shows up out of nowhere and for the rest of the walk you’re swatting your head every time you hear a dentist drill. And it’s not like you kill gnats with your swats (or maybe you do but they’re so small you have no idea if you did, so why bother?)
Entering this third summer of my newfound cloud of Southern friends, I decided it was time to go on the offensive. My wife bought a stack of human-head sized mosquito nets. These nets work great in that you’ll no longer feel that slightest of sensations when a gnat lands on your ear. But the little sand grains still knock-knock-knock on the net with their dentist-drill buzzes. You still swat and you still no-see-um. Not to mention, a sweaty mosquito net is really uncomfortable.
A month or so ago we were at our local farm supply and came across this product at check-out. The cashier was all about it, so I figured I’d give it a try. Gnats don’t like particular botanicals: citronella, lemongrass, rosemary, and geranium, and No Natz has them all in a nice little spray cocktail. Darned if the stuff doesn’t work! You put it on like sunscreen, you smell like an entire can of Lemon Pledge, but the gnats keep their distance. For a little while anyway. Eventually you sweat off the No Natz and then it’s “mo natz” all over again.
Per Wikipedia, there is “no scientific consensus on what constitutes a gnat”. Whichever ones are my new best friends here are harmless because they just buzz around your eyes and ears making their dentist-drill noises. Other varieties prefer biting and blood so I guess I should be grateful. Doesn’t make “Gnatus South Carolinus” any less annoying.
I wouldn’t have remembered Mary were it not for the daily online puzzles of the New York Times. Two weeks ago they devoted an entire word search to the sentences of this odd nursery rhyme. Which got me to thinking, just who was Mary, why was she “contrary” (other than a convenient rhyme), and what the heck was going on in her garden?
As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. As Google goes, be careful what you search for. Jack and Jill really did go up a hill. Old MacDonald had a farm. There’s at least one itsy bitsy spider on the water spout. But Mary and her garden? She doesn’t belong anywhere near your grandchildren.
This is the stuff of nursery rhymes? I’m trying to picture little girls back then, sitting around in a circle and coming up with short songs from what they see right in front of them. Like Rosie and her ring, if some interpretations are to be believed. As for Ms. Contrary, I think I’ll go with a garden similar to the one shown here. But since the origins of her rhyme continue to be debated, I’m steering my granddaughters clear of her. Instead, we’ll sing about the other Mary, the one with the little lamb.
Life In A Word 