Time Again for Victorian First Night.

Earlier in the year Spice Drawer Mouse joined Ginni and her dog Shadow in the story of their visit from Three on a Pilgrimage Quest.  Once again New Year's Eve came, time again for Victorian First Night.  As Ginni put on her red hat the mail carrier arrived.  In the box Ginni found a nice card which featured a photo - a nice reminder of the Three, Porter, Rudyard, and Sylvia. They had waved goodbye to her as they flew back to the North Pole. 

Ginni usually gets her cards mailed out by Twelfth Night.

Choir Tour of Finland Diary Entry - by Linnea Gord, Piano Accompanist

14th, 1930 - HELSINGFORS, FINLAND   JUNE

We all took advantage of our holiday by sleeping late.  Then we washed clothes and hung them about the room to dry.  At twelve we had lunch at Kappellet and from there we were taken to a museum to while the time away.  At 3:30 we were taken by boat to Sveaborg, the fort.  We went directly to Ehrensvards' grave, where we stayed about an hour, listening to a long speech by some man.  We then walked over the whole island and saw the various cannons and outlooks, picked flowers and went through all sorts of dark tunnels. We were not allowed to take pictures.

Back in Helsingfors again, we went to dinner and then to the station to see Somppis, Mr. Frederickson, Mr. Goldman and Werner Aura off.  They all took the train for Vasa, so we won't see them again until we come there.  We spent the evening at a theater.  We saw Lon Chaney in "Laugh, Clown, Laugh".  It was pretty good--not talking, of course.  The words were in Swedish and Finnish.  Skratt, Pajassa!

 

Blog Added - Darryl Cunningham Investigates

Added a new blog to my list, Darryl Cunningham Investigates, the author of Psychiatric Tales.  Psychiatric Tales is a digital novel about working at a psychiatric hosptial.  Below, a wonderful Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell which celebrates the holdiay season.

Picture Added for Holiday Value

Runeberg Choir Tour Concert in Helsinki June 13,1930

The photograph:  Members of the Runeberg Choir in Helskinki 1930.

December 6th is Finland’s Independence Day. In December 2010 I included two blog posts about the 1930 Runeberg Choir Tour to Finland. I did transcriptions of two entries in Linnea Gord’s diary about the trip, an entry about Marieham and a second Marieham entry and an entry about  Åbo. . She was nineteen years old and the choir piano accompanist. It was fifteen years later, after World War Two, that she married and became the mother of my sister and myself. Part of our experience was the Runeberg Choir.
(Since those entries I have learned about the identity of the building in the photograph of the arrival of the choir at Marieham, which is explained in my previous blog post.)
The choir left Tacoma's railroad station in the Runeberg Express, their train car, on May 25, 1930. During three weeks of travel there had been many experiences before they arrived for the planned series of concerts. By the time they reached Marieham and then Åbo they had rehearsed at train stations along the way and performed on board their steamship the Georgic III.
Vocabulary: strömming are little herring, fished in the Baltic Seas.

JUNE 13, 1930 - HELSINGFORS, FINLAND
We left the little town of Åbo at 11:40 and arrived at the big metropolis of Helsingfors at about 3:40 in the afternoon. There was a big crowd at the station to meet us, and the reporters were there to take our picture for the Huvudstadsbladet. Rooms had been "preserved" for us at the Hotel Fennia, across the square from the railroad station. My! what a grand hotel after our quarters at Åbo. The Fennia was a veritable palace, with wide stairways, thick rugs and what not. Blanche, Auntie and I had a very nice room on the fifth floor. On the same floor was the Somppi family, too, so Edith and I were together most of the time in Helsingfors, too. We had dinner that evening in the Kappellet--a restaurant near the park in which a statue of J. L. Runeberg stands. We had strömming for dinner, and boy! it was good. Our third concert was in the Vita Salen at 8 o'clock. Every seat had been sold out for weeks. We sang our first program, Mr. Jofs talked and Blanche sang. We received three beautiful bouquets, one of which had a poem of welcome attached to it. Then we were all presented with a Finland emblem. After all our songs on the program were sung the people just wouldn't let us stop. They clapped, whistled, hollered, and there was a regular riot. We had a request for "Engelbrekts Märsch" so we sang that and "Vårt Land". Still they weren't through. When we went outside they were all crowded in front of the entrance cheering. They all followed us through the streets of the town, and we stopped at Runeberg's statue and sang "Vårt Land". That moment will remain in our memories forever. On to the Muntra Musikanters hall, where we had a great reception in our honor. The hall was packed, and we were all mixed into the crowd as we were the night before. They had a very nice program and then dancing--which lasted until two o'clock. Walking back to our hotel that morning (at two o'clock) it was almost broad daylight.

The Old Customs Building of Marieham

When I included a photo from 1930 in my blog in 2010 I found no image of the building shown anywhere. During some discussions recently about MLK one intern, Nicholas Richter, recognized the building in my photograph. He could show me the building from Google Maps. On Google Maps I located a group with a Facebook Page with a photo of the building you located. On Facebook I asked about the building and they sent this answer: “The house you are referring to is the old customs building of Mariehamn (tullhuset or tullpackhuset in Swedish). If I am correctly informed it was built in 1899 and the name of the architect is Lars Sonck. It is beautiful, isn't it!” (Ålands fredsinstitut - The Åland Islands Peace Institute.)

Lars Sonck is listed on Wikipedia as a leading architect of Finnish Romanticism, architect of Kallio Church in Helsinki and Tampere Cathedral, as well as the home of Sibelius.

Thanksgiving Bird Count Results, 2012

My illustration includes the bridge and part of the pond fence from before the restoration.

There were rushing sounds of both a little waterfall and a fountain in the middle of the pond during my choice of the pond at Wright’s Park for my Thanksgiving Bird Count 2012. It was Nice weather without rain, and on each side of the pond was the sandwich board reminding visitors of a fine of over four hundred dollars for feeding any wildlife. I stayed for an hour during the morning, after ten.

Inside the count cylinder were -

1 Leucistic mallard, female

1 seagull flew over yellow on beak

3 female, 2 male mallards

Outside -

6 juncos

2 dozen seagulls

6 additional mallard 3 m, 3 f

On the internet I had learned that the Blond Duck that had puzzled me was a leucistic mallard, a mallard with missing pigmentation in some of the feathers. The coloring is very pretty - cream upper wings, cream in tail feathers, with brown like mallards in flecks. I had wondered if this was another kind of duck, I never saw a mallard with cream colored feathers before.

Open House December 5th for MLK Subarea Plan - link to bios

Wish to link to this part of the MLK Subarea Plan.  The open house is on December 5, 2012.

Many Autumn Leaves, Adjusted and Corrected

The long-ago photo from a post, its on-its-side position, time to correct that from long ago.  Well, lego-style. 

Many Autumn Leaves

November and on a day with sun there are many autumn leaves along the ground.  Time to shift a long-ago photo from its side, time for something correct and adjusted.  However the image is all Kaliedoscoped by the many autumn leaves and their sounds.

Delay in Installation of new library system

Library users in Tacoma will probably have a new book circulation system and card catalogue on Monday afternoon.  According the the library, though, there is a delay in installation.  Just increases our faith in the system and its buildings, including the old Carnegie which is over a hundred years old.  Photo of me by Library Steps.

More regarding the 1962 Brodac System

More regarding the 1962 Brodac Sytem - an explanation of how it looked.  The Thermography machine top lowered onto the cards.  Once they were firmly held in place in special grooves, the worker pushed the two buttons, the thermography machine top lowered, the light flashed to make the record on the paper.

I wanted to include a tiny slide which replicates a news photo of the Brodac Machine in the article from the News Tribune, February 25, 1962 - I have drawn in the machine to illustrate how the machine worked - the special paper reacted with the heat to copy the information from the book title card, the transaction card, which had holes punched in it, and the borrower's library card.  The roll of paper flowed toward the worker, who needed to watch each impression.  If the impression was too faint to read, the worker pushed the two buttons once again and another impression was made.

July 3, 1924 Order of Runeberg Dance newspaper advertisement and link to dance song.

Finska Valsen is listed in the program for the First Grand Concert of the Order of Runeberg Singing Society fo Southwest Washington - by H.P.Sather, performed by the Tacoma Choir.  This song probably was also a part of an advertised dance earlier in the summer at the B Street Hall in Hoquiam. 

A Few Snapshots of Buildings Present During the 1924 Labor Day Weekend First Annual Runeberg Songfest

This summer I made two bus trips to Hoquiam to view the records of the Runeberg Lodge, which are part of the collection of the Polson Logging Museum in Hoquiam, Washington.

The Runeberg Choir had its beginnings in 1913.  Eleven years later, during Labor Day Weekend of 1924, leader Martin Carlson and organizer Leonard Svedberg planned the first songfest of The Order of Runeberg Singing Society of Southwest Washington, which featured choirs from Tacoma, Olympia, Aberdeen, and Hoquiam.   Held under the auspices of the local lodges of Hoquiam and Aberdeen, the performances, on August 30 and 31st, 1924, were held at the Masonic Temple of Hoquiam, Washington. 

When I visited I was interested in viewing buildings that were part of the songfest.  The Masonic Temple building was new, built in 1923.  The Masonic Hall's Doors were locked, however a representative of the food and clothing bank at the building allowed me to take snapshots of the original woodwork inside the entry hallways. 

Polson Logging Museum

The Polson Mansion, on the other side of the river, was present at the time of the songfest. 

A choir photograph was taken at the Finn Hall.  As it happens, the Finn Hall, or B Street Hall, was only a few blocks from the Polson Museum, somewhat back from the riverfront.  Presently it is a family home.   

                            Vasa Hall                                 Finn Hall

Along the river road before the Polson Mansion is a hall the Museum Director explained to me as a Vasa Hall.  These are modest photos, and I wish to include a photo of a Gray's Harbor Transit Bus, just turning a corner near the Museum.

Punched Cards and the Holocaust - the Lecture by Edwin Black, IBM And The Holocaust

The Book by Edwin Black, IBM And The Holocaust, reinforces its descriptions of the role IBM played throughout the six different phases of the Holocaust with meticulous evidence. I found the narrative about the many boxes of proof that flowed to the author as he worked on his study, the many boxes arrayed all across his basement floor and filled with file folders several people hurried around at a time to cross reference very moving. On the internet we learn that Brad Pitt is working on a film version of the book.


During the free brown bag lecture at PLU yesterday by Edwin Black, author of IBM And The Holocaust, my thoughts often returned to the punched cards I worked with at Tacoma Public Library for my last two years of high school. At the Pacific Northwest Room the librarian gave me a file folder and ordered scrapbooks from 1965 from their storage. I found a pamphlet from February, 1962 that explained the Brodac Thermography System and a newspaper article (February 25, 1962) about the installation of the new system throughout the libraries. This year it is fifty years since the BRODAC system was installed at Tacoma Public Library.

The originator of BRODAC was Arthur Brody of BRODART, a library services company. Their website explains includes a memorial for Arthur Brody, June 30, 1920 – May 10, 2012. He invented the plastic book jacket, among other library supplies, and developed magic tape.

This is from the internet, Library Technology Timeline

1956

Brodart introduced it's circualtion system "Brodac" at the 1956 ALA conference. Brodac used heat sensitive paper, similar to film to recod circulation transactions.

Source: Library Trends, October 1956

This was my experience with punched cards: Early during a shift a page would stamped the due date on a lot of transaction cards, red cards for seven-day, green for children's books, and black for adult books. Separate transaction cards to cut the numbers used in half. The numbered transaction cards went out with the checked-out books in numerical order, and they were the cards with punches. They came back at random. Clerks returned the cards to numerical order by running a spindle or wand through the holes in a certain order. They stacked the cards together by shoving and tapping them as though they were shuffling a deck, then they ran the wand through a big stack. Some cards remained on the spindle, and some fell. The clerk did this many times, until the cards were in order.

Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1962 Columbus Day Storm

Fiftieth Anniversary of the Columbus Day Storm

When Laura and Mom came into the back door after kitchen committee, Pop stood up from the chair with his paper in light from the floor lamp. Glad to see you.


Guess Elizabeth has not gotten back yet.

No. The power is out in different places.

When Betty came back from the movie she told the story about the flashlight and the shadow puppets. Someone had a flashlight and did shadow hand puppets on the screen.

Laura and Mom were at the Valhalla Hall in the storm. That evening as they drove along the streets the wind had battered rain against the windshield. As they carried boxes of sandwiches to the door of the Valhalla Hall, they had to walk along hard and push against the high wind.

Then they were inside the swinging doors with glass windows and up the stairs to the foyer. In the dance hall, which was always locked on meeting nights, was a gallery that looked down over the dance floor. Off that third floor gallery was the main dining hall on the third floor. A narrow staircase led up from the foyer to the dining hall. Its small door was always locked on meeting nights. The Runeberg Lodge rented only a small dining room on the second floor and the meeting room on meeting nights. There was a piano in the dance hall and a piano in the meeting room and there was also a piano in the small dining room. The piano was closed and locked. Inside the small dining room they all reflected in the black night at the windows - herself, her mother and Aunt Pearl, with the long old tables and rolls of paper to cover them.

There should be thumb tacks under there. Where is Elizabeth? Aunt Pearl wanted to know. She had a small greenhouse in her yard where she grew her own seedlings. Uncle Gilbert always drove her where she wanted to go. Aunt Pearl had on a dress with a pleated chiffon skirt. After the meeting there might be dancing or song practice. They spilled dance wax over the wood floor and pulled back the straight chairs so everyone could dance, to the schottische or the hambo.

Elizabeth had a date tonight. They went to a movie.

Laura stood beside the window. Across the street in the streetlights and dark a window in another building shuddered and shook so that reflections of the streetlights shimmered. The wind blew the power lines around. It was very dark outside. The light shimmered on the window across the street. Then suddenly the wind shook the window very hard, the reflections shook hard, then there was a curtain of glitter and shapes, for the window had shattered and was falling in a glitter cascade down to the sidewalk.

The wind blew out a window.

Laura noticed that Aunt Pearl had moved back from the window. But Laura kept standing there, still watching the storm.

Var sa god! The lodge members from the meeting room crossed the foyer to the kitchen door. The kitchen counter swung up on hinges toward the wall to allow in the kitchen crew, and the lodge members put quarters into a cup on the counter, then each one carried a cup a coffee and a heavy white plate with sandwiches and cookies from the platters along the counter through the other kitchen door into the small dining room.

This storm is swinging all the power lines around. This is real hurricane. Covered my boat before I drove here. But everyone had to finish their sandwiches and cake while the wind kept blowing onto the windows.

Back to the Library - Books@12:10

Back in 2010-2011 Books@12:10 lost the funding that provided staff time. However, a group of us regular members persevered, another group member reserved the meeting room for 2011-2012, we each chose titles and shared in group discussions as volunteers.

Although we had discussed another year to start this Autumn, other volunteers emailed me not long before the September event that they had joined other reading groups.  Without the regular participants (perhaps temporarily) at this point Books@12:10 is volleyed back in to the court of Tacoma Public Library. (The reading group name is their own invention, the contact reminds me.)

And volleyed back to Tacoma Reads Together – the future of the project is also now returned to them. The group began at the end of 2002 as a lunchtime reading group as a spin-off of the project, Tacoma Reads Together. Our first selection was a novel by Sherman Alexie, and our list of novels and an occasional non-fiction work has been nice for everyone.

Nice Autumn Weather for Biking

Biked to the store and to the market, where I bought carrots.

Quiet Visit To The Puyallup Fair Exhibits

Because I had checked the lists of Exhibits Wednesday before I set out Thursday morning to visit the Puyallup Fair, I got to the Cooking Demonstration by Kathleen Merryman, which was listed as a News Tribune event although the columnist has left The News Tribune.


Kathleen Merryman intoned in a flourish that today the audience would be eating the demonstration. I had to recall another time when I viewed Kathleen Merryman at the pie judging, in which the large audience was forced to watch four judges as they ate pie for what seemed over an hour. I had a nice portion of the earliest dish, Mexican PopOver – was it one cup of flour with two cups of milk and two eggs? With cheese on it, then salsa. They started the Mexican PopOver on the stove top, then it went into the oven while Ms Merryman, her daughter on a visit from Hawaii, and her assistant friend in a blue apron clowned around.

Mexican PopOver / Rissotto / Eggplant / Corn with Milk and Cheese / Bread Pudding with Nectarines

My schedule checking got me to the Expo Building from the Draft Horse Demo. Interesting to me that for a half hour I was alone on my side of the arena. At last more audience started to arrive. I think the approach to Gate 6 was harder to recognize because of a car display. When I was leaving Gate 7 a truck larger than I had ever seen blocked my exit, it was moving slightly. This felt so dischordant. As I made my way out, I saw three very large trucks, they seemed to be trucks that carried cars from the car display.

An Almond Roca Exhibit at the History Museum provided a free Almond Roca Sample earlier and before that a News Tribune stand provided a free paper. I also got a granola bar, a piece of candy, a bracelet, a smootie sample, and dip samples with pretzel sticks.  The counter worker liked my Hillary Supporters for Obama Biden pin, so there might have been an extra pretzel stick there.

I had watched a Four H riders exhibit in the arena and had walked through some 4 H Horses and beautiful Poultry in the barns.  When I visited the Rainforest Exhibit the very beautiful animals I had never seen before were rested, they seemed so sensitive and ready to meet a new day. It was just after ten o’clock. I walked past the New Construction on Roller Coaster and to the Sky Ride It was brought to Puyallup after the 1962 World’s Fair, so this year was its 50th anniversary. I wish to include two of my own snapshots from my childhood camera which include the World’s Fair Sky Ride.

Nasturtiums During the Summer

Flowers came out on the nasturtiums.  As September continues, I think there will still be a few more.  This has been really nice.  

Elegy By Richard Brautigan

At the event for Books at Twelve Ten at noon today, September 11, 2012 there was to discuss a poem, an elegy for his uncle, by Richard Brautigan.  The Autumn Selections and the Autumn Plan for 2012 has not been determined.


1942

Piano tree, play

in the dark concert halls

of my uncle,

twenty-six years old, dead

and homeward bound

on a ship from Sitka,

his coffin travels

like the fingers

of Beethoven

over a glass

of wine.



Piano tree, play

in the dark concert halls

of my uncle,

a legend of my childhood, dead,

they send him back

to Tacoma.

At night his coffin

travels like the birds

that fly beneath the sea,

never touching the sky.



Piano tree, play

in the dark concert halls

of my uncle,

take his heart

for a lover

and take his death

for a bed,

and send him homeward bound

on a ship from Sitka

to bury him

where I was born.

Celebrated Nicholai Grundtvig at Church This A.M.

At church this morning, at the early service in the fifty-year-old Futurist Chapel,  I found we were to sing hymns by Nicholai Grundtvig.  I see a connection to the Folk Schools initiated by Grundtvig and the Highlander Folk School in the United States.  I think Grundtvig must have written a favorite hymn of mine on the Pendant Ocarina, because Bright and Glorious Is The Sky can be played on the Pendant Ocarina.   Maybe there is some parallel between the pendant ocarina and the church steps with the large speakers outside for Listen Live At Lunch, over now of course now that it is September.

Link To A Blog from South Carolina History Museum about An Exhibit About its State Mental Hospital

A link to a blog from South Carolina History Museum about an exhibit about its state Mental Hospital.

Created a Poster for the Upcoming Books At Twelve Ten September Event

Everyone Is Welcome to Join


Books At Twelve-Ten

A Discussion Group with Ten Years Background at Tacoma Public Library



At A First Meeting of 2012-2013

Tuesday, September 11, 2012 at 12:10 Olympia Room, Main Library

At this First Meeting We Will Choose Titles For Autumn

And Discuss

Richard Brautigan’s Poem titled 1942, (Published in 1968 in The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster)

And chosen excerpts from



William Hjortsberg’s



Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan




Tuesday, September 11, 2012 at 12:10 Olympic Room, Main Library

Adding A Blog Called Pony Book Chronicles to my List

Am adding a blog to my list, Pony Book Chronicles - this seems interesting.

Crosswalk Near Stadium Found From Years Gone

Not long ago I left the grocery to discover just past the door a crosswalk.  In the past, the late seventies and early eighties, this crosswalk was to find its way into the lost.  A clerk explained once, it was covered over when they paved and never replaced.  It is there again, has found its way into the found. 

A Review For the Summer Reading Club on Sweet & Natural by Janet Warrington

In the introduction to Janet Warrington’s Sweet & Natural: Desserts Without Sugar, Honey, Molasses or Artificial Sweeteners, Lenden H. Smith, M.D. writes, “The sugar is still there but she uses Mother Nature’s packaging so it doesn’t have the quick rush that the refined products do.” I found most of the sweetness is dates and raisins, with some pineapple.


Carbohydrates are a challenge, a reminder of how they are categorized always helps. Interesting to learn in the section about exchanges for diabetic diets that starchy vegetables are treated as Bread Exchanges – corn, peas, limas, potatoes, yams and winter squash.

And to find listed among dips (page 93) – “thin peanut butter with a little apple or orange juice..’ this is a children’s fruit or vegetable dip, nevertheless I would want to try this. I did try the recipes for Sweet Milk (I used Soy Milk), Raisin-Nut Muffins and Applesauce Raisin Cake. These both seemed as sweet as anyone would want cakes or muffins to be.

A Book Report on Motherland by Fern Schumer Chapman

For the Summer Reading Club I read Motherland by Fern Schumer Chapman




The book Motherland has a subtitle – Beyond the Holocaust: A Daughter’s Journey to Reclaim the Past. As this narrative unfolds, the story of Fern Schumer Chapman on a trip to Germany with her mother, the reader realizes the word daughter in the subtitle refers not to the narrator but to her mother. Chapman’s mother was a very young girl when her parents arranged for her to escape from Nazi Germany to Chicago, and only in 1990 did she return. In this book Chapman first sees a photo that shows her resemblance to her grandmother – it is also Chapman’s visit – but it is clearly her mother’s story.



In the prologue Chapman writes, “No one escapes the grip of a homeland, the first ground etched in childhood and memory.” The story begins as the pair fly to Germany, throughout the flight and throughout the story the mother’s long ago family in Germany are remembered. The closeness of the airliner is outlined with clear imagery, also the town in Germany where they meet classmates from Chapman’s mother’s school and find their way to a close friend.



The book has lines from a poem by Maxine Kumin at the front – about Russian Dolls inside one another:



…May we, borne onward by our daughters,

Ride in the Envelope of Almost-Infinity,

That chain letter good for the next twenty-five

Thousand days of their lives.

Book Report from Tacoma Public Library Summer Adult Reading Club

Earlier I read parts of Truth Like The Sun, a new novel by Jim Lynch which I liked very much and became interested in reading the Murray Morgan Book about the Seattle World’s Fair. According to the internet at Village Books Chuckanut Editions, Chuckanut will publish a new edition of Morgan and Wilson’s Century 21: The Story of the Seattle World’s Fair, 1962. It was first published in 1963, by Murray Morgan with a photo essay by Steven C. Wilson.




Both the Lynch and Morgan books present two clear points of view, the Lynch book alternates chapters between 1962 and 2001 and the Morgan book alternates with the photo essay. Interestingly, Morgan is the name of a Lynch protagonist. Both books begin as the fair starts, the Lynch books continues from there, and the Morgan book returns to the first thoughts of the fair to explain how it came to be.



Morgan develops the idea of the fair as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exhibition and the character of E. E. Carlson, who played a strong role in the fair and in the idea of the Space Needle. Among the photos are portraits of the many people, mostly males, who originated the fair along the way, which “materialized at a martini luncheon at the Washington Athletic Club in January of 1955. Since there was such a luncheon, that is as good a place as any to begin this improbably success story.”



Morgan explains that he was doubtful about the fair. The organizers faced trouble getting the money and official recognition in many ways, their long effort over seven years is Murray Morgan’s main topic. The photo essay is sensitively arranged by idea of place to reward the close study a reader would give. The photos are very good and interesting. I look forward to being able to look at a new edition.

Link to An Article, Prostitution In Old Oslo, about an exhibit at the Oslo Museum of Art

I want to link to an article, Prostitution in Old Oslo, about an exhibit at the Oslo Museum of Art.

Notifed The Library Desk that the Two Cars Were Towed

I watched tow trucks drive away a red lancer and gray sonata  from corner of South 11th and Tacoma Avenue, up 11th Street with a police car following.   There had been three fire department vehicles and an ambulance.  When I brought a book in for return at the library desk I mentioned this to them and I asked how long ago it had been, the library employee said they noticed it about ten minutes before. 

I think they only get notified about what happens at their corner if the library visitors bother to alert them. 

Sometimes there are emergency trucks in front of the county city building.  I hesitated and hesitated to make sure it was permitted  to keep walking ahead to the end of the block where the activity was.  As I passed a mom with three kids, two who stood and one in a little stroller, who was loading them into her car, a girl hurried in the opposite direction.  The mom said she was rude to pass them too quickly.  I could only think of saying,  We really try. 

Photos of Browne's Star Bar and Grill from the Mid-Nineties

My father was born in 1902 and worked his way through the U of Washington School of Pharmacy.  He worked as a pharmacist, in World War Two he was at Fort Lewis as a Tech-Five (Pharmacist), and he met my mother.  After a year and a half in England with the Army he and my mother got married, and he worked at pharmacies in Tacoma.  He worked at The Economy Drug for nine years.  The Economy Drug was at the address where the Browne's Star Bar and Grill was in the 1990s.  

I went on a tour of Hilltop's old buildings in 1994 or 1995, I took snapshots, these are four that show the Bar and Grill. 

Browne's Star Bar And Grill From a Blog Post on the Internet

Wanted to connect to a link that talks about Browne's Star Bar and Grill years back.  http://craigrecommends.net/wordpress/archives/172

Nasturtiums

Got potting soil in April and planted Nasturtiums seeds in May.  This weekend The Nasturtium Flowers had color and the first one came out this morning.  It is pale orange, several others show color.  They seem to do well with frequent water.  There are lots of great leaves the leaves themselves make a luxuriant bouquet.  

---

All-Open-Mile at The Distinguished Writer Series in July and August

Yesterday evening was the July All-Open-Mike at the Distinguished Writer Series, with a second planned for August.  Determined Open Mikers assembled at King's Books, took the microphone one at a time and found it interesting. 

(1.  King's / 2. Laura Jensen / 3. Chestnut Tree)

 

Other Fireworks and Other Hail

On the dark sky past one building edge a distant blue effervesces and cascades.  In a next quadrant of the sky the large full moon - the face looks over there.  All that is other for me no chance the moon sees and sees.  And when early this morning something in the distance - then hits and rattles down.  All that is other, except it being so other reminds me of the moon.  The hail is the size of small marbles, or are they the size of lego bricks, the lego bricks from the library book of the Old Testament in Lego Bricks.

At The Proctor Market

An apple, carrots, eggs, onions, potatoes, romaine lettuce, and a zucchini at the Proctor Market.  All such pleasant weather and a nice walk here.   (An earlier photo from an earlier year, which includes a rain puddle from rainy weather at the Proctor Market some time back.)

Blog About Swallows and Amazons

Wanted to connect to a blog about Swallows and Amazones, by Arthur Ransom.

A Walk Into the Stadium Historic District

Apricots, carrots, potatoes, and zucchini at the market this morning.  All of this is to be commented on as Subareas.  For some time it has been MLK Subarea.  

Yesterday's walk from Listen Live At Lunch at First Lutheran, in the MLK Subarea, brought me along a frequent bike ride, then just across "I" Street to the Stadium Historical District, which is at one end of the North Downtown Area which reaches as far south as the Foss Waterway.  All of this probably has to be commented on.   At a bus stop it was only a moment before the bus stopped and headed just a block ahead into yet another area, the North Slope.

As a Public Library User, Once Again I Started Doing Book Reports for the Summer Reading Club - Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life And Times of Janis Joplin

It is 45 years since 1967 and the Haight-Ashbery Summer of Love. In June the Monterey Pop Festival featured Janis Joplin, it might have been the festival cd liner notes that describe her as sometimes singing two notes at one time. I read the book by Alice Echols, an historican specializing in the 1960s and Feminism, Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (1999). Echols theme resonates that Janis Joplin did not enjoy her life as a rock and roll star, but suffered as a heroin addict and died of a heroin overdose. Of Haight-Ashbery, Echols writes on page 157: "From the outset thought, it was evident that this paradise was going to leave some wicked scars." Echols lists many interviews and sources. I looked through two of Echols' sources: Janis Joplin, Buried Alive, by Myra Friedman (1973), and Love Janis, by Janis Joplin's younger sister Laura Joplin (1992). These list the same facts but with other emphases. Myra Friedman's evocative descriptions use imagery to carry the reader to sights Janis experienced, for example, the dark Texas highway. Janis Joplin's sister Laura Joplin opens the family album generously, she earned a masters in psychology and a doctorate in education, and writes about the family life Janis Joplin tried for over a year to regain as she tried to leave Haight-Ashbery behind. According to Laura Joplin, it was the place (page 241) where "being cool meant being high". The performances one can view and hear are remarkable. However, the talent of Janis Joplin might have taken some other direction. (I may have begun slightly before June 2)  

In MLK Subarea Until The Mid-Sixties, There Was A Synagogue

My sister and I rode with our mother in the Chevy, the green Chevy or after 1961 the Chevy Biscayne.  One ride brought us from the church parking lot, gravel, later asphault, three left turns then past the front of the church, past the park on the way back home.  Over weeks during 2012 so far I have participated in some events about Martin Luther King Way as a Subarea slated for density.  In the area is First Lutheran Church. 

While I listened at Listen Live At Lunch I thought I could explain by linking to Ernest Bloch's On Jewish Life that we passed a synagogue on this trip.  The synagogue had a star of David in the brickwork.  It was late in the 1960s that the synagogue moved to 12th Street near Tacoma Community College.  The building on I Street was called Temple Sinai, according to Temple Beth El, and was built in 1925.

Ernest Bloch wrote Jewish Life in 1925 in Cleveland.

Photographs At The Gig Harbor History Museum

Photographs At The Gig Harbor History Museum

Photograph 1

It is not the dress at all.  It is her.  We already know the strapless bra with set-in wire structure, the permanent wave, the painful heels were going to be folded into a box.  Maybe the lens is seeing the camera's enemy, it is the photographer's chance encounter with a woman making an effort to become a fashion model.  Maybe she has no professional clockwork glow to summon.  Maybe from other experiences, like anxiety, she is constrained.  The title of the portrait is a Scandinavian name, maybe the staid Lutheran church continues as a mortification in so much nakedness.  It cannot reach her, the soft material, no sleeves, no straps, the structured top and the full skirt cannot move her face express anything but her in already work-worn early twenties.  In the portrait I see no happiness, no self-confidence, no pleasure. 

Photograph 2

In another photograph of a Northwest Rock Band in Canada, a girl's shoulders appear to wear a knit shift dress, which suggests - go-go-boots?  There is a package of cigarettes. 

Photograph 3

There is - Corning Ware.  It is tiny in the very large square photograph, the two casseroles stacked unmistakeable beyond the living room in the distant kitchen.  There are two stories, all windows, with all the lights on and the dog's home on the bedroom deck.   The photographer's home in Gig Harbor, photographed in Northwest Modern - Eastern Religion and Nature.  It is the size and the theme of art downtown when I was in Junior High School and could find that location of the museum and go in there.  (This is a list from a postcard of the public library's Random. Modern. in early 2008 - Inez Hill Bailey, Virginia Banks, Dorothy Chase, Bill Colby, Polly Crane, Louise Gilbert, Thomas Cooper Harmer, Yvonne Twinning Humber, B.J. Hyde, Julia MacFarland, Viola Patterson, Ruth Pennington, Lola Wheeler.  Selected from the collection of Hagen / Waer.)  Emotionally, to spend time with that point of view once again was warm.  This photograph in this size repeats that warmth.  That is about my background.

The museum is now seven dollars instead of six.  I had brought the card about the exhibit along.  The address was quite a ride along the waterfront in downtown Gig Harbor's strange traffic jam.  Not a lot of crosswalks and these are necessary.  The card has been a beautiful thing to view on the refrigerator door for some time, I am happy that I did go out to see this gallery of Jini Dellacio photographs. 

History Tour Emphasis and Density

I remain interested in the discussion ongoing about the Martin Luther King Boulevard Subarea Planning.  (An earlier post about the planning did not include this paragraph completely because of a technical error.)  It is so interesting to me that this building is a hundred years old this year.

History Tour emphasis and density - History tours focus on separate single family housing.  Their usual emphasis leaves them not flexing to include apartments.  Off Sixth Avenue at Wright Park is a sign that identifies a building as a hundred years old.  This hundred-year-old density can be an example for planned density.  History tours can also do walking tours as well as drive-yourself tours. 

Proctor Market

Apples, Asparagus, Lettuce, Peas, and Spinach at the market today.  Also sunshine.  Singers:  Jim and Kristy Nebel. 

Waste Not Want Not

A person passed me in McCormick Park and said, "Like your pin."

"Oh - good," I have on my Hillary Supporters for Obama Biden button. (A button for Obama "08 must do - hard to locate mine on the internet.)

Washington Grade School Project - At The School

Yesterday I attended the presentation by architects at the Washington Grade School "gym" (which was the lunchroom years ago), where they explained there will be a Mobile Architectural Studio waiting for visitors at the school this week.  It is still the lunchroom.  In 2006 I attended the celebration for the 100th anniversary of the school.  I want to share this photo taken by Linnea Jensen, my mother, of the Last Day of School , 1953, it shows the annex, which was on the Northwest Corner of the school grounds, kitty-corner from the post office.  It was during the first grade of my sister.

 

Washington Grade School Annex, Last Day of School, 1953

Mobile Architecture Studio
BLRB architects will set up a "mobile" studio at Washington Elementary the week of May 21 - 25. They will be working on the project in the basement of the school, so that students and parents can stop by and see the progress to date and talk with the architects/provide feedback.

Throughout the week the public is welcome to come by. You will need to check in at the main office to sign in and receive a pass. The architects will be at the school between 8:00 - 5:00 each day.

Martin Luther King Subarea Plan - Tomorrow is Their Open House and I Have More Comments

Boomerang density / Service organizations, density, and green / History tour emphasis and density / Non-car buildings, public transportation, and density / Pebbles On The Pond / Women-owned businesses, women's concerns and density

Boomerang density - density can be re-examined in reference to anticipated boomerang adult children. 

Graduate boomerangs should be appreciated as achievers, if unemployment immediately follows graduation, their concerns should be met appropriately.

If difficult financial times bring adult children to their old childhood neighborhoods, their presence in their family home turns that home into a home of two families because an adult in its own right is a family of one, or an adult child with children of his or her own is a larger family.  Sometimes this is tangible in the presence of a car-dependent adult child with a car parked at the family home.  Neighborhoods have a zoning code, the presence of more than one family in a single family house will be in violation of the zoning code. 

If the parents wish to remain in compliance of the zoning code, they will encourage the adult children to relocate.  The density apartments at the high density areas may anticipate a progression like this.  Perhaps group housing would be a happier progression from the return to the childhood home.  Perhaps several old houses on a block could be reused as housing in rooms with one manager at one house where breakfast and dinner were prepared five days a week.  Boomerang adult children may need gathering places where they can get away from the family home and can assess their situation. 

Service organizations, density, and green - Mr. Anderson pointed out that there are many service organization that wish to be involved in the MLK Subarea.  Many ordinary people are asked to recycle and do other green things.  Service organizations should not feel that in budgeting money and time they need to forgo green.  The largest groups in the MLK should especially focus on green to set the largest example.  New buildings should be green buildings.

History tour emphasis and density - History tours focus on separate single family housing.  Their usual emphasis leaves them not flexing to include apartments.  Off

Non-car buildings, public transportation, and density - To encourage alternative transportation use, non-car buildings could be built - apartments would have built-in wall racks and the buildings would have bike cages and racks.  Windows would be away from the traffic streets, a setting of seclusion would reward those who do not use private cars for an Earth-friendly behavior.  Perhaps separate wings with different floor plans could serve non-car couples or aging non-car people who might use a trike.

Recently I learned that an important mental health program, Pebbles On The Pond, has stopped temporarily because of funding issues.  The presence of psycho-education classes is not common-place in communities, but Tacoma has featured this service since ___.  When faced with a psychological diagnosis the chance to learn about Psychology and Psychiatry's interpretation of mental health and mental illness is can be very important.  There are many helpful books at the public library but Pebbles on the Pond is a survey course which clarifies the whole topic. 

Women-owned businesses, women's concerns and density - At the city website I see a reference to women-owned businesses and prioritizing. 

sixth avenue

at Wright Park is a sign that identifies a building as a hundred years old.  This hundred-year-old density can be an example for planned density.  History groups can also do walking tours instead of drive-yourself tours.  

A Poem Titled 1942, by Richard Brautigan, Published in 1968

By Richard Brautigan, from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, published 1968.

1942

Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
twenty-six years old, dead
and homeward bound
on a ship from Sitka,
his coffin travels
like the fingers
of Beethoven
over a glass
of wine.

Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
a legend of my childhood, dead,
they send him back
to Tacoma.
At night his coffen
travels like the birds
that fly beneath the sea,
never touching the sky.

Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
take his heart
for a lover
and take his death
for a bed,
and send him homeward bound
on a ship from Sitka
to bury him
where I was born.

(I remember reading some Brautigan in 1969 and on, but only recently I read this poem, which mentions Tacoma and which I like very much.)

Tacoma Reads Together Discussed Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella 2012

A part of Cheney Stadium for people who were students in Tacoma in 1963 was the speech by President John Kennedy when he had started his re-election campaign in autumn 1963.  All the students were brought to Cheney Field to hear him speak.  I was brought by bus from my junior high school and remember seeing President Kennedy.  I was of course at the baseball stadium.   It must have been more than ten years later that I went to a ball game with cousins on a summer evening to gaze quietly at a huge American flag on the near horizon. 

The Fred Meyer store used a flag that size because they were the view from Cheney Stadium. 

Present at King's Books April 25th at 7 p.m. for the discussion listed in the Shoeless Joe program were Mayor Marilyn Strickland, Past-Mayor Ebersol, and Library Director Susan Odencrantz.  Mayor Strickland and the Tacoma Reads Together Group, she said,  picked "a book about  baseball" for the 2012 selection because they were dedicating part of Cheyenne Avenue as Clay Huntington Way this spring, a piece of road close to the Ball Park.

The Tacoma Reads Together Group hoped Kinsella would come to Tacoma to read, because he lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.  This was not possible.    Kinsella was an Iowa Writers' Workshop student from 1976 to 1978.   Shoeless Joe is about Iowa and Iowa City.  I was a student there from 1972 to 1974.   I scanned the photo in this blog entry at the Fred Meyer store, the site of the enormous American flag.   There I had first read on a poster on a metal stand at their door about scanning.  The description of this photo service was completely understandable and interesting.  It is my 1972 photograph of a farm outside Iowa City where two other students and I were at a Fiddler's Picnic. 

I had always accepted the sight of the store's very large flag without more thought about myself or others and Cheney Stadium.  

Children's Book Week - Louisa Mae Alcott

After the computer catalogue Tacoma Public Libraries reused cards in their scratch sheet dispensers.   Once I drew this on a yellow card with a longish, narrow notch in the upper left corner.  j / Ed.a / c.2 / Alcott / Jack and Jill.  Underneath the typing is stamped:  SO 38TH JAN '50 /  SO 38TH OCT '55 / BKMBL A AUG '57.   Today I brought Jam Squares for our Books At Twelve Ten Group discussion of Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella.  Jack and Jill turns up on the back of my Jam Squares recipe card, copied from a book about cooking for Acid Reflux.  Jam Squares:  350º  8"     /    1 1/2 c flour  / 1/3 c marg  /  1/4 c gran sug  /  1 tsp bak p  /  1/2 tsp van  (this is all included in a inky bracket) Pastry blender / combine until brumbly / press 3/4 batter into (word here is no legible)  1 c jam - spread on /  sprinkle remaining batter on top  /  bake 45 to 50 min - let cool & cut

Quilts, Research About the Quilt Blocks With Stars

The following is a quote from Collecting Quilts:  Investments in America's Heritage by Cathy Gaines Florence, from American Quilter's Society, Paducah, Kentucky, 1985. 

The "Le Moyne" star design was a favorite pattern in America.  It was based on the crest of two French-Canadian brother explorers.  In 1699, one brother, Pierre, the Sieur  d"Iberville helped found colonies near what are now Biloxi, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alabama.  Pierre died of a fever in 1706 at age 45.  The other, Jean Baptiste, Sieur de Bienville, settled some French colonists by Lake Pontchartrain in 1718 and called the settlement New Orleans.  When Napoleon abruptly decided to sell the French holding in America, trade flooded down the Mississippi and ladies were quick to notice the Le Moyne crest as a design worthy of their quilts.  Two hundred years later, their "flag still flies" in quilts throughout the land!

First Day of the Downtown Tacoma Market

With my pumpkin muffin, I stood well-clear as the Master Gardener and the muffin salespeople unloaded their waterfalls from their canopies.  In my tote I also had spinach and onions.  Saw lilacs among the tulips on sale.

Sara Paretsky's 2012 Novel - Some Information About Mental Health

Sara Paretsky's 2012 novel Breakdown stays far from revealing the identity of the killer until close to the end.  The private detective, V.I. Warshawski, parks her car and walks into the action, in a cemetery in a dark and stormy rainy night.  We are with her as she works at gaining information, meeting characters, and continuing situations with her supportive friends.  "You need to go right into the hospital," her friend the doctor says to her, and a familiar conversation continues in a familiar way. 

People in our time have only an incomplete overview of psychology and psychiatry as a part of public life and this inadequate awareness is addressed in the novel.  General information and details about mental health are included in Breakdown - the power of psychotropic medication, the danger of overdose and mixing with alcohol.  Unequal quality of care, and details about, especially, a colleague of V. I. Warshawski who has a bipolar disorder that is severe, are included in the story.   

After a time on the list at the library, I read Breakdown by Sara Paretsky and am returning it - it is Earth Day, on my bike ride earlier I saw a blue jay.  It is supposed to be 75 degrees today.

Lyrics to Loyalty, a duet by Pat Boone and Steve Allen

Loyalty, a song from the movie, Mardi Gras -

Loyalty, Loyalty, we got a lot of that Loyalty.
Pat Boone:  If I'm dining with a doll and I run out of dough -
Steve Allen:  Well, I'd pick up the check and chick and blow, man, blow.
PB:  Thanks Steve.
Loyalty, Loyalty, we got a lot of that Loyalty.
SA:  Suppose your sister went and fell in love with me.
PB:  I'd have both her heads examined by the best M.D.
SA:  Hah, hah.
PB:  I would climb the highest mountain. 
I would be as faithful as a pup.
SA:  I would cross the burning desert. 
I would travel anywhere to louse you up.
PB:  My Pal.
Loyalty, loyalty, we're really loaded with loyalty.
PB:  If I went in for politics and all that jazz.
SA:  Well, forever true, I'd visit you in Alcatraz.
PB:  I knew I could count on you.
PB:  If I broke a leg my buddy
Would you rush to me by plane or blimp?
SA:  If you broke a leg my buddy
I'd come running just to teach you how to limp.
PB:  My friend.
Loyalty, Loyalty, we treat each other like royalty.
PB: Will we always stick together, rain or shine?
SA:  Absolutely, Positively, Pal of Mine,
That's the mission of, Great Tradition of, Definition of Loyalty.

Daffodil Parade Float Snapshot

This float had two awards - I liked it immediately. On the other side there are rhubard plants in topsoil which look like they are really growing there. Behind the windmill, behind the float there is a giant rhubarb stem carried along by Vikings during the parade.

Must Fill In Tax Form / And Equal Pay Day

Equal Pay Day 2012 is almost here - a female must work, in addition to their work in 2011, until Tuesday to earn as much as a man earned in 2011. I have to fill out the tax form really soon because the last day is tomorrow.

Remembering Tom Heidlebaugh, from The Distinguished Poet Series

A daffodil beside the moving marchers was too long unclaimed so I went and got it. It is impolite not to pick them up, but at that point the daffodils are fresh. And I met the canoe from the canoe project, stepped back from its dark side with words in Native American language. That left me with thoughts of Tom Heidlebaugh. I worked with Tom Heidlebaugh from 1993-1996 on a poetry series.

When I worked with poetry with a grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, several poets from readings in Tacoma united to do The Distinguished Poet Series at Arts Walk downtown. Although my heritage group has been The Order of Runeberg because my grandmother came from Finland, I studied some Johan Ludwig Runeberg and Scandinavian Culture at the University of Washington.

Johan Ludwig Runeberg was a Swedish-Finn who was a national poet of Finland. To understand national poets of Finland and Finland one might think of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and The Song of Hiawatha The Song of Hiawatha was modeled upon the Kslevala, and used the metrics of Elias Lönroth's recreation of the Finnish folk tales. The national poets of Finland used the official language, Swedish, to enrich the cultural consciousness of all of Finland.

With Tom Heidlebaugh's Canoe Story group, I could contemplate this outreach of cultural consciousness, Elias Lönroth and the Kalevala, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the Song of Hiawatha, myself and Tom Heidlebaugh's Canoe Story. And our series turned out to be very multicultural.

Earlier than that, after Tom Heidlebaugh had been diagnosed with cancer, he established a road trip poetry voyage through Mexico to Central America. Actually, I remember when I met him, at the Antique Sandwich Company at a reading when he presented a story of his travels. He was able to work although he was not well. Each group member gave a reading themselves, I remember The News Tribune wrote an appreciative article about his reading. We were often at the Pantages Rehearsal Hall. The group members met one week after each reading to talk about how it went and work on plans for the reading of the next month.

Tom Heidlebaugh died early in 1997. Around the end of June, 1997, there was a memorial service for him at Steilacoom's Sunnyside Park. One week later I found myself heading back there. I wrote about it in a journal:

I thought of the readings followed a week later by meetings - that if by any chance Tom's spirit had returned for the meeting someone would stop for a little at Sunnyside. I walked up the beach and past the shelter.

In the water skin divers, from the walk out of Steiacoom I could not tell if they were pilings or birds or seals - only a few people at the parking lot -

At the Lakewood Mall there was a rose show and I smelled a Queen Elizabeth Rose - one my mother had - I smelled a Queen Elizabeth Rose again...

At Sunnyside I was thinking of Tom's t-shirts he left to people - and found a green hair-tie washed up in the rocks - which reminded me of a pink hair-tie from Scandinavia and the walk to see Blå-Slipper - and I guess I did not want a bird to eat it - the color green- natural.

At the memorial service people watched a small object on the horizon become a canoe as it came near - the rowers pulled the canoe up the rocky beach and they carried a box which contained t-shirts that had belonged to Tom Heidlebaugh, which were awarded to friends at the service.

Tom Heidlebaugh's canoe book's title - Great Canoes: Reviving A Northwest Coast Tradition