Common Ground Fair - 2010

This was my first visit to the Common Ground Fair hosted by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). This despite the insistence of several of m friends who have been pleading with me for the past 15 years to attend.

The weather wasn't ideal, but the fair was great anyhow.  Here are some photos. I'll post the short videos on YouTube and all of the images on Flickr.

Enjoy!

The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee

A Pirate

Perhaps it is because today is the first day of the Maine Lobster Festival, but for some reason I have been thinking about a poem I learned as a child many years ago.

Attending St. Angela Hall Academy (elementary school) was a memorable experience and a particularly memorable SAH tradition was The Assembly. An almost monthly affair, The Assembly was organized by the classroom teachers and supported by the music teacher, Sr. Mary Cecilia and the "poetry teacher" - and resident ogre - Miss Looney.

The Assembly took place in school auditorium where all of the elementary grades were marched in - to the sound of the piano playing - and made to sit in orderly fashion; eyes forward. Beginning with prayers and announcements from the principal, the core of the event followed and included a set of performances by the students from one pre-selected grade who gave their recital from the stage. The performances usually included a poem, several musical selections and perhaps a musical solo by one of the students. The whole thing probably lasted for an hour and a half, but the preparation would take months to accomplish. I must admit that I enjoyed the performances as a spectator and particularly as a performer. But I didn't enjoy the preparation.

Sr. Mary Cecilia was a particularly talented Josephite who probably could have been a professional musician had she not "put on the habit." I greatly enjoyed her music classes, but they were too brief and too infrequent; a case of one teacher spread too thin. I think Sr. Cecilia may have seen something in me in terms of musical ability and I think she actually liked me. I had a pure boy soprano voice in those days and on one occasion was selected to sing a descant role in one of the song. I still remember the part. Goodness knows what might have happened if I had had some real music training.

I will save the complete description of Miss Looney for another time, but for the purposes of this article let me provide this imagery. If you have ever had the occasion to see the movies Throw Momma From the Train or The Goonies, you are familiar with the character actress Anne Ramsey. The talented Ms. Ramsey played "Momma" in the former production and the mother of the bad guys, "Mama Fratelli,"the Goonies chief nemesis in the latter. Well, except for the blue Brillo-hairdo and the fact that Miss Looney was a real person and not an actor, they could have been twin sisters.

Looney was a witch. An authoritarian, intractable, just plain nasty - she clearly didn't like children and regularly scared the shit out of me. So it was completely natural that the poem chosen of our 4th Grade Assembly was the Mildred Plew Meigs masterpiece, The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee. In another life, Miss Looney could have been Bluebeard himself.

The learning of the poem for the annual Assembly was the most onerous task. Each week, Miss Looney would terrorize us into learning the selection to perfection. Diction and form, attention to annunciation, execution, proper posture were all emphasized and of course, the whole work had to be memorized to perfection; something lost in today's classrooms. The curriculum of the 50's and 60's were heavy on memorization and drill. It may have been painful, but it worked.

As I sit here nearly 50 years later, I can still remember some of the lines from that poem. I was particularly fond of the line, "And struck in his belt where he buckled it through, were a dagger, a dirk, and a squizzamaroo...", although I remember it as a "squige-a-maroo."

No worry, here is the whole poem for those who just have to read it.

Suggestion, do your best pirate imitation and read it aloud. Arrrrgggggh!

The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee
by Mildred Plew Meigs

Ho, for the Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee!
He was as wicked as wicked could be,
But oh, he was perfectly gorgeous to see!
The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee.


His conscience, of course, was as black as a bat,
But he had a floppety plume on his hat
And when he went walking it jiggled - like that!
The plume of the Pirate Dowdee.


His coat it was handsome and cut with a slash,
And often as ever he twirled his mustache
Deep down in the ocean the mermaids went splash,
Because of Don Durk of Dowdee.


Moreover, Dowdee had a purple tattoo,
And struck in his belt where he buckled it through
Were a dagger, a dirk, and a squizzamaroo,
For fierce was the Pirate Dowdee.


So fearful he was he would shoot at a puff,
And always at sea when the weather grew rough
He drank from a bottle and wrote on his cuff,
Did Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee.


Oh, he had a cutlass that swung at his thigh
And he had a parrot called Pepperkin Pye,
And a zigzaggy scar at the end of his eye
Had Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee.


He kept in a cavern, this buccaneer bold,
A curious chest that was covered with mould,
And all of his pockets were jingly with gold!
Oh jing! went the gold of Dowdee.


His conscience, of course it was crook'd like a squash,
But both of his boots made a slickery slosh,
And he went through the world with a wonderful swash,
Did Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee.


It's true he was wicked as wicked could be,
His sins they outnumbered a hundred and three,
But oh, he was perfectly gorgeous to see,
The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee.

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Poem located at All Poetry
Photo licensed by Creative Commons- Tom Raftery

Maine goes mobile

Since having an iPod Touch for the past 16 months or so, I've become a bit of a "mobile" snob. Granted, I am not a "smart phone snob," but I have become a bit (more) annoying.

But there is much to be said about making sure your website design looks good on mobile devices. It is something I have worked on with my own sites and those of my jebswebs.com clients.

If you are running on WordPress, there is a free (and a paid) template that is optimized for viewing on mobile devices. Basically, it is another set of style sheets (CSS) that get called up when the server detects that the user agent is a mobile browser. That's geek talk for - it's magic!

Anyway, I am happy to report that the State of Maine's website - maine.gov is now optimized for mobile devices. And they have taken it a step further by adding autodetect, HTML5 and geolocation so not only does maine.gov know where you are, it can customize its offerings to show you local treats. And, it will automatically sense your device and provide the proper style.

Read more about maine.gov's mobile portal.

Businessmen in politics

It's primary season in Maine and for the next two weeks we have to put up (again) with the endless barrage of political ads on TV, in newspapers and in the mail. Ah, Democracy!

This year there is a large number of people running to be their party's candidate for governor of the fine State of Maine as the current guy is term-limited out. I've lost count, but there were over a dozen folks running between the two major parties.

Just about all of the Republican candidates are touting their experiences as "businessmen" as the primary reason for being elected. This continues a tradition that goes back as far as I can remember and was most memorable during the presidential debates with Texas businessman Ross Perot. You remember the "giant sucking sound guy...?"

It is absolutely amazing to me that anyone would ever consider that being a businessman was a positive qualification for politics. The organizations (business and government) are diametrically opposite each other.

Hello....Mr. Republican businessman....I hate to tell you this....but businesses ARE NOT DEMOCRACIES!!! Governments cannot be run like businesses!

If you are a CEO you don't do anything by consensus. When was the last time you made a business decision in your organization where you sought the opinions - and VOTES - of all the employees? If you did that, you would be either out of business, or a miracle worker. So what makes you think you have any qualifications to run for governor? Oh, so YOU think that running a state IS just like running a business?

Do you really think by you putting your buddies into the positions to head up the various state departments that all of a sudden all the state workers in those departments and related organizations are going to start to do the things YOU tell them to do?

What a bunch of boobs.

Yes, history tells us that the only "really successful" governors and presidents (and I will not define what "really successful" means) have been "dictators;" albeit benevolent dictators. But it was always because they were unique individuals who were able to persuade large numbers of people (the voters and the elected representatives) to come around to their way of thinking...and that usually required a lot of bargaining and compromise. And that my dears is called politics, not business. In other words, in my estimation, the best governors and presidents have been really good politicians.

The last of the masterful governors who did this well in Maine was probably Angus King. Yes, he was a businessman, and he ran on that. But he was also a TV personality and had that great persuasive talent...you know like Ronny Reagan. But even King was not able to change the whole system and was smart enough to choose his battles carefully. But, I'll bet if he wasn't term-limited out, he'd have won again.

There appears to be no one in the current crop of contenders running for Maine governor that appear to have the panache of an Angus King or a Ronny Reagan. I guess we'll just have to see what politics brings.

Oh, and Mr. Republican businessman, good luck with that election.

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Image from eaves.ca

Maya Angelou in Maine

When it looks like the sun wasn't gonna shine anymore,

God, put a rainbow, in the clouds.

This is how poet Maya Angelou began her talk the other night at the University of Maine at Augusta.

I choose to call Ms. Angelou - poet - because, though she has done many things, and has served in many capacities, the role of poet, I believe, is most fitting, and most descriptive.

You can read all about the evening, its purpose, and who was there in the press reports on the local TV station's website or even view a clip of some of the evening's activities on the Kennebec Journal's website, but I wanted to bring you Ms. Angelou's words. So, I transcribed some of them for you here. Feel free to share and comment:

That statement, from a 19th Century slave song, was inspired by a statement in Genesis. In Genesis we are told that rain persisted so unrelentingly that people thought it would never cease. And in an attempt to put the people at ease, God put a rainbow in the sky. That's in Genesis. In the 19th Century, some African-American poet, lyricist - probably a woman, I'm not sure on that - said God put the rainbow, not just in the sky, but in the clouds themselves.

We know the suns, the moons, and stars, novae, and comets, are always in the firmament. But clouds are so lower and loud that we cannot see the promise of light. But if the rainbow is put into the clouds themselves, that means that the worst of times, there's a possibility of seeing hope. I am here because I wanted to come here. I wanted to come to the University of Maine at Augusta, particularly, because I think of your university, your institution of higher education as a rainbow in the clouds.

I had every reason to apologize and not come. This day, these days, I'm feeling the loneliness of the absence of a great woman whose been a mother to me and, uh, my heart is very heavy. But because she has been a rainbow in my clouds, and I would be speaking at her going home services at the National Cathedral on Thursday, I said I must come here, because I know that there are re-entry students who come here. People, women and men, who come here, who may have not had the energy, or insight, or the smartness, or the money to continue years ago. They come back, and they reenter at the University of Maine at Augusta. I said, I must come. I want, I have so much to say to you, and I'm just starting. Really, really.

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Image from Kennebec Journal - Andy Malloy

On ash clouds...

The anxiety currently being expressed about the Icelandic volcano ash, and its adverse effect on air travel, has got my attention. While only a few have apparently speculated about this, one has to wonder what would happen if this thing continues for weeks, months or years?

For the time being, the media seems to be focused almost entirely on the disruption to air travel both between the US and Europe and within Europe itself. But it makes me wonder what other things might be effected.

Of course the first thing that comes to mind is what is happening to the lungs of the 200 million people in the wake of this thing. That can't be good. And while it is understandable that ash in a fanjet engine at 30,000 feet above the Atlantic might have grave consequences, I wonder about other machinery too.

I'm actively wondering if the cruise ship industry is paying attention. It would seem that if this thing goes on for weeks, months or years, that there will be a need for some kind of alternate transportation across the Atlantic. The option of taking the Orient Express to Asia and a plane from there to the US is likely not to be an option. But a return to transatlantic ships and intercontinental trains does hold some romantic notions for me. But then I get thinking that volcanic ash is probably not too good for cruise ship engines or locomotives either.

Of course, most business can continue to function with telephones, e-mail and video conferencing. But the travel industry isn't going to like this, and I had completely forgotten about the postal and express shipping industry. All the more to wonder about that global economy thing. Local subsistence is sounding smarter and smarter.

So, get the Queen Mary 2 spiffed up and get it ready to take on the masses. I'm sure a four day passage to NY would be preferable to sleeping on the floor in Heathrow for another night. Update: Apparently, things are going well for Cunard due to all this - April 22nd passage on two ships is all booked!

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Image from Financial Times ft.com.

Spring Snow

So, alright already. I overslept this morning. I didn't have to get up for anything.

So, at 7:45 am I rolled over. And I did that again at 8:45.

But then I slept until 10:07 am and had to really drag myself out of bed.

But I almost jumped back under the covers when I looked out the window and saw patches of snow on the ground and the cars in the parking lot covered. I felt like Rip Van Winkle and thought I had slept through the remainder of spring, all of the summer and most of the fall. Was it already late October?

It sure looked like it. Ugh.

Thinking this was just a brief setback, I went out and got bagels. Fortunately, the ice scrapper was still on the floor of the back set of the car 'cause I had to brush off the snow to be able to see.

Throughout breakfast it continued to snow and sleet, but the accumulations had stopped. Then, at about 11:30 am, it started to snow even harder...those big wet flakes that you get in spring snow storms in March.

When it started covering the ground again, I got out my trusted camera and took this video.

I'm thinking about going back to bed...

Testing

I am trying out the new Blogger interface thingy...Looking around for cawazeey wabbits!

Image upload doesn't work #FAIL!

Word Play

Someone sent this to me via e-mail. It was pretty neat, but I don't know where it came from. So I am sharing it cause it is cool. If you know who created it, drop me an e-mail or a comment and I will note that info here.

Olympic Reflections

Dear Dick Ebersol and NBC Executives:

Thank you for the Olympics. They were exciting and even outpaced the over-hype you guys poured out over the past six months.

But you blew it.

I have mixed reports about whether today’s Gold Medal contest in hockey between the US and Canada was televised live on the west coast of the US. If you did not televise the game live: shame on you. Shame on you for all of the tape delayed broadcasts over these past weeks. Shame on you.

In this world of Twitter and Facebook, of internet in your pocket, of round the clock news reporting. In these times where the number of people on this planet connected to the web exceed the number who have running water, you need to get with the times NBC. Never again can you tape delay the Olympics or any other international event. The world demands real time everything.

Admit it; you blew it.

So, as the Olympic torch fades out and the memories of Vancouver 2010 become permanently burned into our brains, let us pledge to all the folks who worked so hard on this event that their legacy will be that they witnessed the last Olympics ever to be tape-delayed.

UPDATE: 3-1-2010

Looks like I am not alone...Did NBC's Coverage of the Winter Olympics Suck?

IN HIS PANTS!

I hope someone has checked on the whereabouts of Dave Letterman...

From WHDH-TV

A Framingham man is accused of a bizarre crime at a Springfield mall.

Police said Chamil Guadarrama stuffed 75 bottles of body lotion into his pants at the Eastfield Mall.

The suspect had so many eight-ounce containers that he could barely run, as his pants were nearly bursting at the seams.

Guadarrama also had a tough time getting into the cruiser. Officers had to remove some of the bottles before he was able to bend down to get in the car.

Wizard of Young

Last week on the Last Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, Coco's final musical guest was the legendary Neil Young. Neil sang one of my favorite post-CSNY songs called Long May You Run. But, more about the music later.

I was thinking that time had not been too good to poor old Neil. He was looking a little past his prime, and the performance was not his personal best. He is "getting up there" after all. Neil turned 64 last November and has led a bit of a "hard life." I'll leave it at that.

But as I watched the performance on Conan that night, Neil - in his current form - had begun to look like some other well known person. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then this morning, there was a piece in the local paper about Neil Young being honored at a pre-Grammy affair last night "for his decades of philanthropic service," according to the news release.

There it hit me....in the photo accompanying the article, Neil was looking almost exactly like ... The Wizard of Oz. I mean, THE Wizard of Oz. The 1939-Judy-Garland-as-Dorothy-and-Toto-her-little-dog Wizard of Oz.

The actor Frank Morgan, who played the part of the Wizard and several other characters in the film you will remember, had those robust pink cheeks and the thinning hair combed straight back. Check out the photo and tell me Morgan and Young are not related.

Getting back to the music, the song Long May You Run was released on an album of the same name in 1976. A final collaboration with former bandmate, Stephen Stills, this was one of the best cuts on the album.

In the summer of 1982, I was driving back east on a cross-country jaunt and decided to head up into Canada for the last leg of our journey back to New Hampshire. Leaving Ashland, WI in the morning, we passed through Sault Ste. Marie around dusk and turned onto the TransCanada. It was well after dark when we passed through Blind River, Ontario and Long May You Run began to resonate in my head. Good memories still to come.

To Conan and Neil: long may you both run.

Christmas has gone back to Banada

"Christmas has gone back to Banada" at my house.

This was an expression used in our family when I was a child. The reference relates to the day when the Christmas tree, and associated Christmas decoration are taken down indicating the official end of the Christmas season. As you can imagine, this was not a happy experience for me as a young child who, like all kids, wanted to have Christmas last all year long. Fortunately, in my family, we were usually often late in this tradition. We would always delay this date until after "Little Christmas" - January 6th - the Feast of the Epiphany, the day Christmas is celebrated in the Greek Orthodox Church. Depending on the timing, this meant that the tree may stay up until 12-13th of January. This year, the trip to Banada was January 10th.

The best I can tell from a Google search, Banada refers to the ruins of an ancient abbey dating back to the 15th Century located in County Sligo, Ireland. This figures since my maternal grandparents were all born in Sligo. But other than that, I am not sure of the true meaning of this expression.

But, unlike the days of my youth, I don't take all of the Christmas decorations down at the same time. In fact, I usually leave the window decorations and the ones on the porch up until....Lent? Easter? In any case, it will be months.

I guess I've never really grown up...

Herbie has to go

I followed this story last summer, and I may have even blogged about it, but the death and removal of a 230-year-old tree makes me sad.

The story of Herbie the 230-year-old elm tree in Yarmouth, Maine is better told by the folks at the Portland Press Herald who have been following and reporting on the story of Herbie's demise. It seems the date of the final day has been announced, January 18, 2010 and there is an expectation that a crowd will be there to watch and record the event.

I'm not exactly a "tree hugger," but I admit that I like trees, and elm trees in particular. I remember the good old days when lofty American Elms graced many streets and roadways in America. I particularly loved the stretch of US 1 in Thomaston, Maine where these great giants created an incredible canopy over the road enjoyed by many tourists each year. It was so sad to see them slowly disappear.

So, here's to Herbie and thank you for your good life. Unlike humans, your physical remains will continue to be enjoyed for many years to come. And we're lucky for that.

Happy New Year

Just wanted to see what the date would look like: 1/1/10

HNY2010

Wadda ya gonna call the new year?

Just to let you know about how my mind works (maybe the word "operates" is a better term), I have been pondering for the past few months about what to call the new year. Is it going to be "two-thousand-ten"? "Twenty-ten"? Or some new combination I haven't thought of?

I know, I know, get a life, you say. But this is interesting...well, at least to me...and at least at the moment.

For most of my life - which now exceeds a half-century - we were satisfied with saying something like "nineteen hundred and ninety-nine" or more simply, "nineteen-ninety-nine." There was virtually no one saying "one-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety nine," right? So, then along comes the new millennium and everything changes. Did anyone refer to the new year as "twenty-zero-zero"? or "twenty-ought-zero"? or "twenty-hundred?" No, from the very beginning it was simply "two thousand" and occasionally, we seemed to feel the need to qualify it by saying, "the year two-thousand."

Then for ten years we simply used the same convention, "two thousand-one," two thousand-two," right up to "two thousand nine." So, logic would dictate that the New Year starting tomorrow will be called "two thousand ten," right?

Wrong.

Everyone around here is referring to it as "twenty-ten," including me. And, God-willing, in ten years I will be calling the New Year "twenty-twenty" and those people on ABC News will be happy (even though their "news-entertainment" program is probably supposed to be referencing the notion of 20-20 vision. Indeed their program is actually listed as "20/20.")

Part of me wants to call this new year "two-thousand-ten," but perhaps because this almost past-decade sucked for so many folks, most people seem almost happy to change the vernacular. But maybe it's just because I am basically lazy and "twenty-ten" is easier to say.

So, what will it be, folks? Wadda ya gonna call the new year?

As my father was fond of saying to these rhetorical questions, "we'll see."

Happy New Year! Whatever you call it.

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image licensed through Creative Commons by photonbomb

Has blogging "jumped the shark?"

Confession: I have stopped reading blogs.

Well, not exactly. I've stopped reading the blogs that I used to read on almost a daily basis eighteen months ago. I actually only read them now when someone has put a link to one in a tweet.

I'm not sure why, but it seems that I'm not the only one. And, it seems, people may be blogging less.

I just went through my lists of blogs using Bloglines, my blog aggregator, and noticed about two-thirds of the blogs I have followed in the past have not had a new blog entry for several months. Some have stopped blogging altogether. Many of these blogs used to post at least once per day. If you look at their datelines, their prolificacy - at least in terms of blogging - seems to have waned dramatically in the past year.

Blame Twitter and Facebook with their zillions of members "tweeting" and "facebooking" (I don't care if this is a word or not) as the cause, perhaps. When you think about it, blogging requires a thoughtful concentration of time and energy. And whose got time and energy when you're busily tweeting away. Have we all become airheads?

For the purpose of full disclosure, I find myself posting to Facebook and Twitter a fair amount also these days, and a simply look at the datelines here in this blog and you can see my pattern of posts has declined in the past year or so. But what is perhaps more remarkable is that apparently others are doing the same thing.

I guess we could also blame this on the economy, or maybe blogging has really jumped the shark.

What do you think?

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Image from Wikipedia. Caption says: Fonzie in a scene from the Happy Days episode "Hollywood, Part Three of Three," preparing to jump over a shark on water skis.

Christmas Blog 2009

When I wrote this missive a year ago, I was in the last stages of planning a trip out West to visit friends and family for the holidays. In fact, I was away almost the entire month of December and the trip was a real odyssey. While I was there, the folks from California to Washington were experiencing some of the toughest winter weather in many years and the cities of Portland and Seattle were basically closed. After spending a delightful 2½ weeks visiting friends in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area, my path led me north up I-5 through snow-packed mountain passes and into the fog-shrouded and ice-covered roads of northern Oregon. Apparently, the locals don't know much about snow plows and road salt and even less about winter driving. The last leg of my trip from Redding, CA to Portland, OR, which should have only taken 6½ hours, took nearly 12 hours. Thankfully, Mr. Hertz who rented me my transportation, knew better and put me into a Ford Escape instead of the tiny, economy car I had ordered. Driving the last 30 miles into Portland at 15 mph on 3-inches of ice made me thankful for that decision.

Having the Christmas holidays in completely different surroundings was rewarding and delightful. Sister Mary, who was my reason for traveling to Portland, was a wonderful host and we had a great week of visiting and sightseeing. Although the weather could have been better, we did enjoy having a White Christmas, although many Oregonians told me I should take my snow and...leave immediately.

I returned to a very cold and snowy Northeast, but spring eventually arrived on time. Summer on the East Coast was almost non-existent this year and we had enough rain for five summers. Needless to say, there was not much outdoor summer activity until the mid August when the weather changed. Gratefully, we've had one of the best falls of recent memory. I was playing golf up until the middle of November, and although we've had more rain, the temperature the other day, December 3rd broke a record of 65º here in Augusta.

It is snowing as I post this on Saturday night. Ah, New England!

This was a tough year for a lot of folks. Between economic failings, job losses and that H1N1 thing, there has certainly been enough suffering. Fortunately, everyone in my circle of friends and family have remained healthy and getting by. I hope it has been the same for you and yours.

As we approach this special season - the Season of Light - and look into the new year, I am hoping that things improve for everyone and that we have left the darkest days behind us.

I pray that your Christmas season is blessed and equally hopeful. May you find peace and happiness in the New Year.

John Eric Brandt

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Image licensed through Creative Commons - Tochis/Flickr

Black Friday

I braved the cold rainy weather to head out to a couple of the local stores this afternoon to observe the Black Friday activities and to pick up a few things. I headed to the newest shopping center in the city which just happens to be around the corner from my house. The "mall" has a Target as the flagship and also sports a Lowes (home center), Best Buy, Staples, PetSmart and a Moores craft and art supply store. This shopping center opened a little more than two years ago, just months before the economy tanked. Needless to say, it has been a pretty sad place most times.

Fortunately, things looked pretty good today. The parking lots were about half-full; the most I've ever seen in the place. Target and Best Buy seemed to be doing the most business. Staples had the least number of customers, but still not bad...usually I am the only one in the place and all of the sales people descend on me like sea gulls on fresh catch when I walk in the place.

But what struck me the most as I darted from car to store to car, in the driving November rain, was that the stores looked essentially the way they had a week ago, or a month ago. Except for Target, which had some snowflakes pasted on their windows and a few hanging from the ceiling throughout the store, nearly all of the stores were devoid of any Christmas decorations.

I started to think about Christmas shopping in Brooklyn in my youth. Many neighborhood shopping areas would not only decorate the store windows, and throughout the store, they would decorate the street with decorations hanging from the street lights or, in a few instances, with special strings of lights that would be hung across the streets from tall temporary wooden posts, all affixed to guide wires anchored to hooks in the sides of the buildings. For the 4-5 weeks before Christmas, it was like carne-vale.

Then there were the large department stores with their amazing window decorations and lifelike displays. People would come downtown just to see the window displays. If you have seen the movie A Christmas Story - and who hasn't - you'll remember the opening scene in the movie when the family goes downtown to see the parade and window displays. Brooklyn in the 1950s and 60s was just like that.

But Augusta, Maine of the 2000s is far from it. Just a couple of lousy snowflakes.

Not sure how well Black Friday was monetarily, but the stores were apparently saving money on decorations this year.

~j

Gobble Gobble

Here's wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving... or to the people in the rest of the world, Happy Thursday.