My town has a bell.



Some mischevious soldiers brought it home from Japan at the end of world war II. They found it on a scrap heap and thought "what the hell?"
Lots of years later a visiting teacher from Japan heard about it and did some research. He found it was thought lost when all the ancient bells were melted for their war effort. It was the only remaining bell from a famous ancient temple.
So we gave it back. It was the right thing to do. Talk is cheap actions are not. they gave us a copy and some money to build this pavillion. It makes a rich deep sound. I rang it tonight.

I thought I was done with this seasons canning and jelly and jam making then I drove past a crabapple tree.



When I was growing up we were poor. All I really wanted was to have the same type of life as my friends. Without money my mom had to be resourceful. If we wanted to eat in the winter we had to grow it in the summer. When it came time to make jelly we headed down to the river where the crabapple trees grew. I was always mortified because people could drive by and see us picking apples. What if one of my friends would see us. I'm sure I whined and cried and let my mom know what a awful mom she was.

What a brat. Now I'm thankful to my mom for teaching me skills and giving me the gift of value, of knowing what is truly valuable. That time and energy are worth so much more than anying comming out of a factory jar.

I wish she were still here to tell that to.

Had i read vb's blog on sat. I would of eaten this fella on sunday and saved myself the mon. tues. and wed. i've had.



Now I know!

So I got a PM from a man whose pictures I had commented on. Mind you I had never said anything overly sexual or anything (you know me by now) He said "I am not gay and would prefer you not comment on my pictures".

O.K.

But the thing i found really funny was that I was the only one who had commented. E V E R I had only commented because i felt bad he didn't have any comments.
Apparently not comments are better than comments from a gay guy.
I am still laughing.

Frost tonight. The Last of these beauties deserved a pic for all the joy they bring my tummy. Yummy.

I live in a bad neighborhood. Not bad like murders and crack whores, just bad like kids with no one to encourage them and way too much time unsupervised. My house was really cheap and since I am too we were a perfect match.
Tonight on the way home from work I was stuck for a bit waiting for a truck to back into a dock. I saw an city worker pause for a bit and approach a 12 year old boy who was standing in his driveway tossing a baseball up and down. The guy encouraged the kid to back up so they could toss the ball for awhile. I watched them for a few minutes and then the guy got in his truck and drove off.
The look on that kids face was one of the most beautiful things I've seen for a long time. Kind of a bewildered awe. How do we know what affect that might of had on that kid? How do we know how many opportunities like that we might pass up every day?
If those were my tax dollars at work...take all you need!

As some of you long time depotguy blog readers may remember (all 6 of you!) I live in a harbor town that celebrates it's gay/lesbian/bi/trans/allied/inter/whatever festival in the fall. We pack 500 people into two harbor cruise boats and have ourselves what we affectionately call the "fruit float"
One of the highlights for me are these flag wavers who drive (rather rapidly,i must add) all around the harbor and display the pride flag to all of us drunks on the boat. I especially love the poor guy out fishing who happened to get caught up in a barrage of homosexual hoopla. Poor fella....sorry!
A very good time was had by all. And i must say even though the events are held mostly for us gay boys and girls, I was happy to see lots of hetero mommys and daddys out for a day in the park with family in tow.
As I was getting on the boat a beautifull latina girl came up to me and said "I wanna go!" I told her there were still a few tickets available. She said she was there with her whole family and grandma didn't want to. Maybe next year honey! (the boys
threw a big handfull of beads at her and didn't even make her flash!)

from my weekend......then I'll stop pestering you.

Just back from a wonderful trip to Madelline Island. One of my favorite places in the world.
Also celebrating one year of blogging. I might not write often, but I always write from my heart.
This photo is a glacial pond on the edge of the island.

On the island, night time is for grown ups. Everything gets quiet until the beer is flowing steadily. The kids are supposed to be asleep, just like we were at that age. The grown ups act more like the kids when the night wears on. Some go hop in the sauna, some for a swim or late night boat ride. These are the days we work for. This is what I call the human dream....not the american dream. We all want a ;place to be with those we love...and re-connect.