HAWAIIAN SKIES

My good friend Tom of Light Breezes has been filling his blog and my email box with beautiful pictures from his current stay in Hawaii. 

I've never been to Hawaii.  

I appreciate his photos.  

Even though it makes me a little envious.  

Since I've heard that envy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins I am pleased to be able to respond to his photos in kind today.

This was our sunset sky last night.

And a slightly different angle over our neighbor's home.

It ain't Hawaii but it ain't bad.

THE VOLCANIC ERA

Is this a volcano?

It certainly looks like one to me.  It is in the Bradshaw Mountains foothills just to the south of StoneRidge in Prescott Valley, where I live.

It pokes it's head up above the other hills around here.  Here's a photo to show how close it is to the surrounding development.

If it is (or was) an active volcano I suspect it is long extinct.  Just the other direction is Glassford Hill, the landmark of Prescott Valley and a proven extinct volcano.

Photographed from these angles it doesn't really look like a volcano to me.  No cone shape. But a little further around the side and you can see where the lava flew 10 to 14 million years ago.

They're not real good photos.  The entrance road to the property that I discovered was not closed off or posted but I decided not to get any closer.  By cropping my photo you can get a bit better view.

You may notice some towers up at the peak.  Those are various radio transmission towers that the town and the county administer. I'd love to get up there to the top at 6,177 feet but I believe it is restricted territory.  There's probably a locked gate somewhere up the road aways.

But if that other one, to the south, ever decides to come to life the residents of StoneRidge may be in for a rude awakening.

BBQ

I love reading the behind-the-scenes stories about historical figures. One of the most recent I read was about the man whose legacy we recognize today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  

He was often compared with Mahatma Gandhi but King didn't like that comparison because he said their methods were different. King practiced nonviolence but it was not the same as Gandhi's passive resistance.  Once someone was telling King that Ghandi had begun yet another of his seemingly endless fasts to try to achieve his aims.

King listened, then jokingly commented "I guess he's never tasted barbecue."

While not exactly a noble quote with which to remember him, I think it brings out the humanity and humor of the man.

CATTLE KATE

Many years ago, when I was a television news reporter and producer in Phoenix, I made the acquaintance of Jana Bommersbach.  Like me she was originally from North Dakota.  But she was a newspaper reporter.  Later she wrote for magazines, won nearly every award for her work known to modern ma. . . er . . . woman.  She has written the definitive book on the so-called trunk murderess, Winnie Ruth Judd.  She has been a teacher and a television commentator. Actually Jana has done damned near everything and been great at all of it.

So it was a treat to attend a lecture and book signing of hers at the Prescott Public Library the other night.

Jana was talking about her latest book and her first try at historical fiction.

She knocked it out of the park.  Cattle Kate is the story of another woman wronged, represented as a whore and a cattle rustler for over a hundred years.  But Jana put her investigative tools to work and wrote an entirely different story about Ella Watson, a homesteader in Wyoming in the 1800's whose presence and refusal to sell her land so angered a neighboring rancher that he and a handful of other men eventually lynched her and her husband.

Jana spoke for an hour in an impassioned delivery that kept a crowd of more than 60 people spellbound, interspersing her heroine's story with historical facts about some amazing women of the Old West.

After her bravura performance, she signed my personal copy of Cattle Kate in typical Jana-fashion.

Apparently it's my week for lectures.  This afternoon SWMBO and I attended a talk at the Phippen Museum about the legendary Kolb brothers of the Grand Canyon.  In the very early 20th century the two brothers from Pittsburgh built a photo studio at the head of the Bright Angel Trail just below the rim of the South Rim.  Eventually one of the brothers left for California but Emery Kolb stayed for the rest of his life, until he died in 1976 at the age of 95. After the very interesting talk by historian Phil Payne I spoke with him and told him I had done a television story on the brothers' photo studio and interviewed Emery shortly before his death.

All in all, it's been an interesting week.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

The Friday Funnies kick off another weekend with the sorta sad tale of a homeless man.

Wise guys finish last.

Continuing right along, there's a common theme to this next bunch. I call it "Six Reasons Not To Mess With Mother Nature."

If that hasn't convinced you to stay safely inside the four walls of your house, take it from the obligatory cat picture.

And with that last comment purring in your ears, let me just add A BIG THANK YOU to my contributors this week.  You know who you are.  Have a great weekend, folks, and . . . keep laughing!

THROWBACK THURSDAY

I can't be exactly sure where or when this photo was taken but I'm suspecting it was in Austin, Texas sometime between late October of 1991, when we returned from our sojourn in Mexico, and mid 1993, when we returned to Arizona.  Hint: the framed picture which is the one I posted just last week of our 20th anniversary.  That photo was taken on April 7th, 1991 and we left Mexico the following October.

Computer historians will note the age of that c.p.u. and monitor on the desk and the green letters on the screen.

And longtime fans of Oddball Observations may recognize our beloved Chulapay, the (sorta) Siamese cat who climbed up to be with his master (and under the warmth of that lamp!)

The brownish-blonde hair and the reddish-brown beard?  I remember them well. 

BLUE SKIES

As I have said too many times to count, when it snows in my part of Arizona it never lasts very long.  Before a day or two the temperatures have risen, the skies have cleared and the snow is melted away.  Yesterday's snow barely had a chance to stick to the ground and today it's back to temperatures climbing into the 50's, sunshine and plenty of blue skies.

And speaking of changes, who would have thought . . years ago . . that a raspy-voiced British rock star would become a ballad singer? Who indeed?

SNOW AGAIN?

8:00 this morning in my neighborhood.  (Arizona foothills)

THE BEARD - #7

All right, folks, here it comes.  

The 7th and (to paraphrase what Tina and Amy said on the Golden Globes last night) the last photo of The Beard.  

It has reached a point where I don't feel further progress reports are necessary.

And just to satisfy all those thousands of you who have been begging me for a smile . . .

Kind of looks more like a grimace to me.

Like someone who has just eaten something he didn't like the taste of but is trying to make his hostess happy.

And for those of you without instant recall, here's how this whole thing started out.

Your very own Catalyst on December 1st, contemplating growing his beard out.

Thanks for watching!

FIERY FOLIAGE

These three photos are all of the same plant in our back yard, lit by the sun to blazing glory.

As usual I forget the name of it but it's a dazzler.

And finally, the innermost view.

The last one reminds me of Br'er Rabbit's plaintive cry from that Uncle Remus book of my youth, "Oh, please, don't throw me in that briar patch!"

I LOVE A RAINY . . UH . . .DAY!

A rainy day in my part of Arizona.

Just to put some music to it . . .

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

The leaves of summer, the snow of December, both now gone.

(I swear.  Some day I'm gonna read that feller Proust's books.)

One more thing gone.  The Arizona Cardinals great season.  For those of you who still have a team in the mix . . good luck this weekend.

I'll be waiting for baseball season to start.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

It's been a tough week in the news but if we stop laughing who knows what would happen.  
So . . here are this week's Friday Funnies.

And with that box of cattage, I'll bring this week's moment of hilarity to an end.  Along with, of course, my usual thanks to contributors and theft victims alike.  Have a wonderful weekend, folks, and always remember to keep a smile on your face.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

April 7th, 1991

Our 20th Anniversary party

San Antonio Tlayacapan, Jalisco, Mexico

(Now we're coming up on our 44th!)

Je Suis Charlie

ONE WORD WEDNESDAY

SNOW MELT . . OR NOT

After a day or two of snowy weather last week, the back yard looked like this.

But cold weather and snow never last very long in Arizona and today, with the temperature in the 50's for the second day in a row, most of the snow is gone.

Last week, the front yard looked like this.

And today . . .

Well, ahem.  The difference comes in the direction the house faces. The front yard lies to the north and is protected from the low-hanging winter sun by shade from the house.  The back yard is nearly fully exposed to the sunlight so the snow disappears there first.

All of which won't make a darned bit of difference next August.

Last week when we were having our snowy, cold days the rest of the country was enjoying mild weather.  Today it's just the opposite. Down here in the southwest corner of the country, it is usually warm and storms like last week's occur rarely.

Which made me think of something else that has irked me for a time. Take a look at this map of the United States.

Take a look at Texas.  How do people get away with saying that state is part of the Great Southwest?  To me, it looks like it's in the South, an area that more aptly should be named the Southeast.  And when I lived in Indiana, that part of the country was called the Midwest.  Who do they think they're kidding?  Indiana obviously resides in the eastern third of the country. Seems like they should say it's in the Middle East.  But then that could be confusing, too, (said the old grouch as he went off to bury himself in his maps.)

THE BEARD - #6

Now it's starting to look like a beard.

VICTORIANS

Here are a couple of the famous Victorian houses dating back to Prescott's early days.

This one was built by Henry Goldwater, an uncle of the late Senator Barry Goldwater.  He came to Prescott from Yuma, married a school teacher who raised money from the Carnegie's and local residents for the town's first library, ran a cigar store on Whiskey Row and worked with his brothers in their eponymous store just down the hill from this house.  He was also somewhat of an inventor but he moved on, to California.

The house is now a vacational rental.

A NOT-SO-CRAVEN RAVEN

There are many ravens in this part of Arizona.  Many people mistake them for crows but there is a distinct difference.

This one was perched on a light fixture when I passed by.  He was so brazen as to stay there even as I stopped and took his picture from only a few feet away.

Inside the community center I showed the photo to the young lady working the desk and she told me it was one of a pair that apparently have roosted on the roof.  She said she had looked up ravens in a text and learned that they are generally monogamous and mate for life.  

That can mean around 20 years for ravens in the wild though the famous birds that live at the Tower of London have been known to live for 40 years.  I remember seeing them there and hearing that because of the lore that if they ever leave the British Empire will fall the ravens wings are clipped so they can't fly away.

Our ravens, with their loud calls, seem to have no inclination to leave.

No.  Nevermore.