LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

I guess Queen Elizabeth II has lived long.

She's 89 and today she became the longest ruling queen of the United Kingdom in history.

At something less than 23, 227 days she surpassed the reign of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.

Elizabeth was characteristically modest when commenting on the event, "Inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones - my own is no exception -but I thank you all and the many others at home and overseas for your touching messages of great kindness."

I can remember the day of her coronation very well. I was a 12 year old boy living in North Dakota, about 50 miles from the Canadian border. At that location our a.m. radio could pick up stations from Regina, Saskatchewan, and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Of course the stations were carrying the coverage of the event live from London and I listened to it all day.

By this age, I had become engrossed in the tales of Sherlock Holmes and was a budding Anglophile so the radio broadcasts were like a dream to me.

63-plus years ago now.

Congratulations, Elizabeth!

TUESDAY TRAVELS

The political trail.

Some of the press badges I collected in my travels covering politics, from the 1968 national political conventions in Chicago and Miami Beach to the 1984 meets in San Francisco and Dallas. With stops along the way at Richard Nixon's 1969 inauguration and Queen Elizabeth's visit to California in 1983 and the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984.

The top row includes badges my grandfather and father collected attending Republican national conventions back to 1924.

What a long, strange trip it's been.

HAPPY LABOR DAY

So I left the house (rare these days) to see what I could find to photograph for the holiday.

Here's what I quickly saw through my windshield.

You will note a few scattered raindrops.

A little later, this was the view through my moonroof.

It let up briefly, allowing me to snap some pictures (for posting later in the week) but then it came back with a passion.

I found a high ground location to take the following series of photos.

The big building is our local Sam's Club warehouse. The barely visible hills beyond it are where StoneRidge (and we) reside.

That last one is looking east toward the heaviest rain.

I'm not complaining. 

We can use the rain.

I'm just wondering how the Faire on the Square in Prescott is . . . faring.

At least they've had two previous days of decent weather.

IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE, IT'S . . .

I was taking some photographs of a big storm cloud over the mountains yesterday.

When I transferred them to my computer and viewed them I saw a mysterious figure in the sky.

Right there in the center of the photo is . . . something.

Cropping the photo didn't help much. I still couldn't figure out what it was.

Is it a plane?

A big bird?

Maybe one of the ravens that inhabit our area?

Or maybe an insect that landed on my lens momentarily?

I took one other picture just after this and whatever it had been wasn't there in the second photo.

Just that nasty looking sky full of portent.

(The portent allowed only a few drops of moisture to hit the ground in our area.)

But writing this, this morning, did make me think of Jim Morrison.

A PRICKLY PRESENCE

Something you don't want to mess with in Arizona.

Just one of many different varieties of cactus that live in the Great Sonoran Desert and surrounding areas.

This one is a Prickly Pear and it's very sharp spines covering the pads are a few inches long.

But the smaller hair-like bristles are the dangerous ones as they detach easily from the cactus and can become imbedded in one's skin.

In Mexico the cacti are known as nopales and are eaten as a delicacy.

After the needles are carefully removed, of course.

But me?

I think I'll just keep on avoiding them and watching where I step.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

'Tis the last weekend of summer, so they say. 

So let's put it to bed with a bang. 

Or at least a laugh. 

Maybe a non-P.C. laugh or two.

Did I mention that some of today's humor is non-P.C.?

O.K.

Just so I warned you.

A special thanks to my contributors this Friday.

Have a terrific weekend and always remember to keep laughing.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Same trip that took me to the Hello, Dolly set (last week's post). Sometime in the mid to late 1960's, RTNDA convention in Los Angeles. I was over-exposed by the photographer at CBS Television City studios, where we were entertained by the Smothers Brothers, among others.

The bags under my eyes and the lines in my face tell me it was a great boozy trip.

SMACKDOWN!

This scene sort of resembles a WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) match.

Blackwell reigns and rests in the chair.

Muggles lies on the floor after being flattened.

But it wasn't that way.

It's just afternoon nap time.

Blackwell has found the chair to be comfortable for her snooze.

And Muggles, as is her way, collapses on the floor on her back.

At least part of her. 

Her top half appears to be on it's side but her bottom half rests facing the ceiling, with her rear feet poised.

I've never understood how cats can sleep on their backs but Muggles does it frequently.

By the way, that tube behind her on the floor is her favorite toy, packed with catnip. It's pretty stale now, I would assume, but she still plays with it.

Probably out of habit.

Like her sleeping posture.

Ho-hum. This post has made ME sleepy. Guess I'll join the felines in a bit of a nap.

TUESDAY TRAVELS

A rather disheveled-looking Captain Catalyst studies the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon in California a few years ago.

"What was that? Did someone say 'Rosebud'?"

IN THE SAME YARD

And then there's . . .

Anybody have a clue?

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Is this a camelia bush? SWMBO thinks so.

The bluish-purple blooms are dying pink ones.

Whatever they are, they're gorgeous.

MMMM, GOOD!

Yes, they are.

Double-chocolate banana bread cupcakes.

Light, moist, sweet, delicious.

Recipe from the Smitten Kitchen here.

I've made it in the loaf form but this time SWMBO suggested I make it as cupcakes in a muffin tin.

She said they'd be easier to freeze and pull one out and thaw it when we wanted one.

I don't think they'll last that long.

Experienced bakers may know this but just in case: the baking time is about half what the recipe states if you make cupcakes instead of a loaf.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

Some people just need a laugh more than others.

Who are they?

You'll just have to guess.

To the anonymous "them" I dedicate this edition of The Friday Funnies.

That's it, friends, all the humor I could find this week. Thanks for the contributions, have a fantastic weekend and always, always, remember to keep laughing.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

The young news director on the "Hello, Dolly" set in Hol-ly-wood in the 1960's.

This was an era when attendees to the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) were wined and dined by corporations.

(He's thinking "This is a long way from Bismarck, North Dakota.")

TUESDAY TRAVELS

I've shown people this picture in the past and they always ask if I went to Vietnam.

The answer is "No".

This photo was taken at the entrance to Hope Village, near Weimar, California, in the early 1970's.

It was a camp set up to house Vietnamese refugees who had fled their country after the War came to an end. 

My photographer (the late, great Howie Shepherd) and I had gone there because John Wayne had offered some land of his in Arizona to house some of the refugees. We had heard that the former premier of South Vietnam, Nguyen Cao Ky, was at this camp and that he had been talking with Wayne. So we flew over to Sacramento (on a milk run that stopped in San Diego and Los Angeles before getting there), rented a car and drove to Weimar.

We arrived in the early evening, checked into our hotel, and then with nothing to do until the next day, looked at a map and promptly drove to South Lake Tahoe, about 100 miles away. 

Well? Isn't that what the network boys would have done?

Next day, after little sleep, we interviewed the former premier.

His wife was very pretty but he didn't seem thrilled to meet me.

Next we flew home to Phoenix, did our reporting and a few days later another photographer (Tim Terrific)* and I flew again to California where we interviewed John Wayne. Now THAT was a thrill.

The Duke was dressed in seersucker slacks and a camel hair blazer and was incredibly gracious with the two young guys from Arizona.

He offered us coffee and a great view on the bayside patio of his home in Newport Beach.

In spite of this photo where he seems to be about to say "isn't it about time for you guys to get outta here?" he was curious about Tim's camera and even invited us to go view his operation where he was trying to turn old discarded tires into oil. (There was a shortage going on then.)

We didn't scare him or Premier Ky off but the refugees never did settle on Wayne's land in Arizona and Ky ended up running a liquor store in southern California.

But it was a great week for some visiting newsmen from Arizona.

* - Tim is now a vice-president of a different television station, apparently still trying to rise to this level of grandeur.