I just love the big trees. We have sycamores here in California, too, though I've never seen a big one like that. There is a nice spreading one in our neighborhood that I'll have to take a picture of for you. Here is someone else's picture of a sequoia, though:

Leah, I love the SS convertible pictures. The On Q girls are O.K. too.

I locked on to that big sycamore tree three years ago when I moved up here. It isn't too far from here, in Simsbury CT. We are about ten miles east of hartford, and it is about 5 miles north west of the city.

The amazing thing about it is that not only does it have a massive trunk, but the main branches are bigger than most huge trees, and go out almost at right angles and keep on going. The tree covered area is 146 feet across! Any angle that you look, it surprises you. Here is a link to a registry that rates it at the top of a list in New England. I haven't dug into other trees stats, but who cares if it is "the biggest, fattest, or barkiest"? It is wonderful.
http://www.uark.edu/misc/ents/sne.sycamores.html

I guess I have to throw in a little nostalgia, so I have to say I always liked the patchy bark and the look of sycamores. I can't believe it, but I still have a six inch piece of sycamore branch that I cut and saved in boy scouts- c. 1959. I'm just not sure what box it's in.

By the way, where is that huge sycamore tree located? It looks like one of our redwood giants! I looked online to see if anything appeared under "giant sycamore tree" and among other interesting things, I found World's largest sycamore stump . Maybe this was AFTER your visit to the giant sycamore tree?? Sure hope not.

Very nice photos, Bob! I also enjoy repetitive patterns with bright colors.

For more photo enjoyment, you can take a look at some new quartet pictures. We went up to some vineyards in Windsor and had a photo shoot for our upcoming brochure. On Q photos

On my page I linked to some pictures of things, not people. Just to show you I do have a people side, here are 15 of my favorite people pictures, not all taken by me. I know the family has seen most of these, but the things didn't complain, so I hope the people are as forgiving.

http://members.localnet.com/~rgb2000/log/people/page_03.htm

Blog by Barb
Years ago, when Leah and I were visiting family in Brockport, I remember sitting in Meredith's kitchen discussing the Apollo 9 astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. If memory serves (and it often doesn't), she had just seen a TV special about him and the depression he suffered after returning to earth. But what interested her was that having been reminded of his name, she now heard it everywhere. Upon returning to California, this turned out to be true for me and Leah. There is probably a fancy name for this syndrome of focused attention, fly fishing within the universe of informational overload, but we've always thought of it as the "Buzz Aldrin syndrome."

It's happening again and this time, the man who is popping up with surprising frequency is Marc Hanna. As in, Boss Hanna of Ohio--your relative.

I learned of your illustrious relative during the first year of meeting Leah. I suppose it is something of a courtship ritual to let the other person know what a complete nerd you are and wait and see if they still love you. In this case (one out of many), I revealed to Leah my political button collection--viola! Still tacked onto the same thumb tacked, black felt-covered cork board that I'd assembled in junior high school. LBJ buttons, Kennedy buttons, flashers that showed two images depending on your angle, a 1962 Nixon for Governor button, a button from Kansas Governor Alf Landon button in the shape of a sunflower--he who had the stupidity of running against the immensely popular second-term FDR.

Well, maybe it came out of the discussion or maybe it came after Uncle Jerry sent Leah long letters of the family history, but at some point she told me about her connection...through Marjorie's biological mother's lineage, of your relation to Marc Hanna.

And Marc Hanna is the father of political buttons, you see. As boss of Ohio at the turn of the century, he masterminded the election of William McKinley. He invented the "whistle stop campaign" techniques of sending candidates on railroads to speak to gathered crowds. He organized a consortium of businessmen to donate large sums of money to retire President McKinley's campaign debt--and thereby started a persistent and long tradition of private interest campaign financing. (Makes it kind to interesting, doesn't it, to read various jeremiads against campaign finance abuse when it was all started by your own family member!)

Anyway, in somewhat rapid succession, his name appeared in Robert Caro's third volume biography on Lyndon Johnson. Johnson, you see, invented for the Democrats what Hanna had invented for the Republicans. (And Johnson, FYI, invented it during the 1930s and thereby preserved a Democratic Congress for FDR's third term. Indeed, the change-of-the-guard symbolized by Eisenhower and more cruelly by McCarthyism could have happened ten years earlier under Roosevelt had it not been for a young and ambitious Lyndon Johnson. One more interesting point--Johnson secret sugar daddy in terms of political money (bags and bags and bags of political money) was a Texas oil and construction firm called Brown and Root. That company was later acquired and renamed Halliburton--financial home of current VP and ex Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney.)

Oh, how I thrilled for Marc Hanna to be discussed in the same breath as Lyndon Johnson! Next, two weeks ago, I flipped across the cable TV channel and caught mention on Biography of Robert Taft, the great mid-century senator from Ohio. I paused and sure enough, short mention of Ohio's stature in the U.S. Senate having been initially carved out by Marc Hanna at the turn of the century.

And then, this Sunday, while reading the New York Times op-ed piece, there was a mention of Marc Hanna again in Maureen Dowd's column. Very parenthetical--she was talking about Bush's advisor Karl Rove and his off-beat historical theories. One, for example, is that McKinley was actually smarter than Boss Hanna.

So there you are. Next time one of you tries to win a kitchen-table debate, I think we should all remember there's a genetic predisposition to rule Senate chambers, to sit on wicker rocking chairs on expansive porches and map out the future of the United States government, to consider presidents mere playthings that can bend to your will. Mark Hanna really did leave a mark on this country and I, for one, love feeling connected to him!

You can see his picture at
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Trail/1756/over500.html

I guess that war, as well as peace, is in our human nature. Here is an interesting quote:

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
-Baruch Spinoza

We can find a state of peace in every small gesture of kindness and justice, especially in a world riddled with war. It is so true that only in the stark contrast of evil can we appreciate the good. And a daring act of goodness can be witnessed and then told as a story again and again to keep us going despite the traumatic events of the day. Go see the movies "Monsoon Wedding" or "Kissing Jessica Stein" - in those stories, the brave loving parents emerge as the heroes of the tale.

War...War...War... What is it good for???

I went to see the Attack of the Clones. Leah said my attendance would help her get a fabulous winter vacation. I told my neighbor Catherine, I thought it was a good movie but..."there was too much war". And Catherine said "Well what do you expect , its called STAR WARS!" What do I expect? Then I started rereading The Lord of the Rings Triliogy. And again all about war... Evil against Good , thousands of orcs and men fighting epic, volume filling, wars. Even the trees are involved, the ancient tree spirits causing the destruction of the Evil stronghold.I read on but didn't like it!! And then on Thursday I went to Stratford, Ontario to see Romeo and Juliet. It is a play written in 1500's about a feud (war) between two familes, and how the innocent children of these families are destroyed by the hatred between their fathers. I left the theater in tears.1500 to 2002.... war, war ,war... I protested! Why subject myself to this as 'entertainment' when agression was so pervasive in the world. Its been overwhelming with Sept 11th, America's response of a holy war against terrorists and the daily news from Israel. Fear and agresssion everywhere.
"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie." from "All's Well That Ends Well" ......................

The next day, Friday, I went to see "All's Well". After the play we went shopping in the town of Stratford. I went into an art store called Gallery Indigena and was priviledged to see the sculpture of Stewart Steinhauer, a member of the Nishnawbe First Nation in Alberta. I began to understand that Shakespeare really knew what he was doing.( I still not sure about George Lucas and Tolkien.) I found that the experience of Shakesperean tragedy had set that stage for a deep appreciation of amazing carved stone bears. I am still groping to explain what it seems Shakespeare knew 500 years ago. Confronting fear can happen in a 'safe' theater setting, and emotional growth is the result. As Prospero says in his postscript speech to the audience in 'The Tempest" "Now I want, spirits to enforce, art to enchant; and my ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer, which pierces so, that it assaults mercy itself and frees all faults." Or from another source: When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy."Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Stratford has all this and black swans too. Now I'm back home. I drank too much coffee on the trip home and can't sleep. I guess I'll finish reading The Return of The King.

I still have, in the attic, my old silver sax from high school. Of course the pads have rotted and it probably needs lots of work. How much would it cost and is it worth it to get it refurbished? And the real question: Would I turn into Bill Clinton if I started to play it again??

Well, first of all, I do like the new look around here. You must have cleaned out the paint department at Sears to do all this re-decorating. Is Sears still relevant? Speaking of Sears, (nice segue) I digitally clipped some pages from an old mail order catalog from 1923 a couple of years ago for one of the concert band web pages I was doing. I put one clip here for old time interest. and because the "C Melody Sax" reminds me of Dad, who of course had one in Meadville as a boy, as I remember it. $69 in 1923. A good sax today is a thousand easy. Of course the host of this fine blog page has a connection to saxophones as well. Fire up the way back machine.

---

Other prices showed trombones $10.75 ,bugles $4.50. But as interesting as the prices is the fact that they had such a rich assortment of instruments available, that you only see in music stores now. Times change, The page I did still exists. If you want to browse it, see http://members.localnet.com/~rgb2000/music/ but it is a little clunky if you are on modem dialup like me.

What a beautiful bird! I was wondering about the word piliated, and found that it comes from the Latin pletus, wearing a pileus, from pleus, felt cap. When I was Ariana's age, in 3rd grade, we had an assignment from Miss Calvert to pick a bird and draw it. I chose the red-headed woodpecker. I remember using colored pencils and spending a great deal of time looking at the photo in the encyclopedia, and much erasing and beginning again. There was a boy in my class named Jimmy White. He drew a beautiful bird picture. I can't remember what bird it was! but oh! it was so realistic, it nearly flew off the page. There was a big hoopla, because Miss Calvert did not believe that Jimmy could have drawn such a perfect picture. After all, he was only 8 years old. His parents were called in, and they confirmed that he did it by himself. I still wonder about him and if he was able to develop his obvious talent, after such an embarassing mess. That was the year that President Kennedy was shot.

I heard a loud knocking sound and looked out my bedroom window one morning this week. On the large tree closest to the house was a piliated woodpecker. It had rained very hard the night before and the bark of the tree was very wet and punky. He was having breakfast and making a racket. Pilated woodpeckers are the largest woodpecker, larger that a big crow. Seeing this wild bird was a wonderful gift to start the day. My friend Anna told me later that day that woodpeckers do not make that sound with their beaks. They are actually knocking their foreheads against the tree. Their beaks do make a noise but it is not very loud. And yes, Woody the Woodpecker was a piliated woodpecker.

I just can't seem to stop running into the FROG connection to everything! Take a look at this fabulous website about art kites: http://bhc.com/Dancingfrog/

Who's afraid of a big bad carnivore?
Big bad carnivore, big bad carnivore !
Who's afraid of a carnivore?
Nah nah, nah nah nah.......

You can huff and puff but you can't blow my house down!

<>------<> <>--------------------------<>

My. oh my! Lands' sake. Thats the cutest little frog. I can't hear him, though.
Click here for a little Bluegrass.


<>------<> <>--------------------------<>