Happy Monday.  You see the Wolf Moon the other night? Spooktacular! I always wonder who might be gazing up at the moon same time as me . No doubt, some day some computer whiz-bang will figure a way to harness brain waves and enable moon-watching communications.

Tiz Groundhog Day and overcast here. Bring the Pa. woodchuck here! Last Friday was the memorial and wake for our friend Art Missias. The memorial at the Igloo at the high school was packed and the first thing I faced was a line of the sweaters of some teams Art had coached over the years. I had to take a real slow, deep breath.  Son Matt did a great job organizing and talking about his dad and daughter-in-law April offered the best, most meaningful prayer I’ve ever heard at one of these things. The whole intent was to celebrate Art’s life and this was accomplished. Lots of his current and former players showed up.

This morning a note from my good friends Marie and Roel Renard, who dwell now in France (Belgians by birth). They are happy and prospering  in their retirement. Marie is a fine painter.  Roel and I spent many a night arguing all sorts of booze-dredged philosophy and literature. It is wonderful to re-establish contact with people who have played an important role in your life.

Any of you in Facebook? Geez, you get all these request for friends that seem to be generated by the service’s computer and not from actual people, which makes it a pain in the dew-pa. But the service came in handy notifying people about Art’s events last week.

Coming back from the memorial Jambe Longue and I stopped in her classroom and we snapped up a couple of artsy hands her students made.  Below also, a painting in progress. It grows every day.

Things tough and scary now? In 1951, under the shadow of a potential nuclear war, New York City issued dog tags to all schoolchildren so their remains could be identified in the wake of a nuke exchange. Apparently said officials were largely clueless about how almost everything would be vaporized — as happened at Hiroshima. I heard a US Navy vet yesterday talking on C-Span about flying over the city in 1945  at 2,000 feet (a little macabre sightseeing); he said all that remained  were marks where streets had once been, and twisted pipes protruding from the ground. Lot of good dog tags would do, but hey, I’m sure the pols made hay from it. The pols always make pay (er hay). Let me rephrase that: They make hay, whilst the rest of us pay.

Over.

Memory Lane of Hockey Sweaters

Marie Renard, Painter Extraordinaire

Roel Renard, reading reading reading — in several languages.

Hey, how do you KNOW I was hunting mice?

Funny how you can create the nub of a story merely by placing objects in proximity.

Work in progress, entitled. "Rusty's Tree." 3 by 4 feet.