It Is Hard To Forget

There was a time, before they were married and had children and then went on to excel in their respective careers, that Uncle Luis and Uncle Joe had a very, very intense and negative relationship. It affected the entire Universe. Click here to see what I mean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnSnfiUI54

a quick fix

I was presented with an opportunity to get a ride two hours away from Niagara Falls (Erie, Pa) - I accepted immediately.

So this past Friday I left Chicago at 1pm and drove to Erie with a friend and his son. We got into Erie at 10:10pm and I picked up my rental car. I was at Joanie's by midnight. It was so nice to be with her!!!! We chatted and fell asleep looking forward to the rest of the weekend.

On such short notice I was hoping to get to see everyone.

Saturday morning just as I was finishing my run, Phil pulled up to Joanie's and we had a chance to visit. The time was short - but very precious to me.

Joanie and I went over to Mom and Dad's - I was able to surprise mom (she did not know I was in town) we had a wonderful relaxing visit. Her new dear friend Fodumo (I'm sure I have not spelled her name correctly) came for a visit and I am so happy that I could visit with her, she is a delight and her children only want "Anna" to stay with them when their parents are not home.

Dad came home from his errands with a basket of the most perfect peaches I have had this year, there is nothing like tasting western New York produce!!!!

Natalie, Sandy, Phil, Jay with cousin Mike Smith, and friend Paul all were at mom and dad's. Wow!!!! Thank you all for stopping by.

I was invited to join Phil and Sandy to their friend's Diane and Craig for dinner - yum it was so good. After dinner we headed to downtown Niagara Falls for a free concert by Rusted Root. The weather was perfect and the music was fabulous. They played for two hours and an encore. We went back to Diane and Craig's to finish what was left from dinner. Lots of laughs and good stories. I was back at Joanie's by 1am.

The next morning mom was at the door just after 7am, Tom jumped into the kitchen and soon after that Dad was with us and we had a great visit before I left.

I was on the road by 8:14am Sunday, met my friend in Erie at 10:30am and we were in Oak Park by 5pm Chicago time.

My visit was such a treat for me - thank you to everyone for sharing your time with me this past weekend. I wish I could get "home" more often and stay maybe a little bit longer, but it was a good quick visit and I look forward to getting back soon.

Theresa

APAWS FOR THE CAT, PLEASE!

The cynics who hold that new music is meaningless may feel vindicated by Lithuanian composer Mindaugas Piecaitis's CatCerto. But, for the rest of us, the combination of cuteness and creativity compels congratulations.
Nearly 700,000 YouTube visitors have already watched the June performance by Nora, the talented tabby, and her accompanists, the Klaipeda Symphony Orchestra, with the composer conducting.
Enjoy:

Speaking of trees Speaking...

I recently had my own awe-inspiring tree experience. Last week I and five of my friends backpacked through the backcountry of Yosemite for three nights, with one day of campground-camping on either end. We got off the trail with plenty of daylight left to explore a few of the more "touristy" things the park had to offer. Our first stop off the trail was a grove of Giant Sequoias. Let me tell you, if you have never seen these trees, there is nothing that can really prepare you for them. They are big, bigger than you think, bigger than I can make you think. To put it in biblical terms (it's always bigger when it's biblical) they were big when Jesus was a born, and I don't mean that there were also Giant Sequoias in the time of Jesus Christ, I mean that the same tree I was looking at last week was about 1000 years old when he was born. They are the largest living things on the planet, but they are neither the tallest nor the oldest. It wasn't their size that did it for me however, I'm not sure what word to use to describe what these trees were making me feel about them, but the words "majesty," "awe," "reverence," and others that I associate with being in the presence of something divine, or much greater than myself.

This is how they start out.

This is what they look like when they die.

For scale.


A live one!!

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, "Ah!" -- Joseph Campbell

You can hug them, climb them, get shade under them and you can PLAY them.

The musical fun shown below reminded me that all things have what is called a "natural frequency." Tap it, shake it, blow on it or rattle it and you have Music. I found a cool and clearly written lesson on the physics of resonance and standing waves, if you want to know more, (I promise you won't get a headache from reading it). In musicians' terms, the lesson is this: You can't use not having a symphony orchestra in your backyard as an excuse for just listening to cicadas.

Here is Italian-born Burbank, Calif.-based sound designer/composer Diego Stocco's "Music From a Tree":

-- Joe

Double - Hibakusha

Just after 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, then a 29-year-old ship engineer with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was walking to the company shipyard in Hiroshima. Right then, "Little Boy", the world's first strategic atomic bomb, detonated in midair less than two miles away from Yamaguchi. The blast knocked him unconscious, burst his left eardrum and burned his upper torso. But Yamaguchi did not live in Hiroshima. To recuperate, he went home -- to Nagasaki. Three days after his injury, back home in Nagasake, Yamaguchi was recounting his story to a skeptical boss when "Fat Man", the second strategic atomic bomb, exploded all over that city, also less than two miles away. The shock wave tore off Yamaguchi's bandages. On August 15, 1945, when Yamaguchi was home, recuperating from his injuries, burns and high fever, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's unconditional surrender. "The reason that I hate the atomic bomb is because of what it does to the dignity of human beings", he recently explained to the London Times.

The very real argument is simply put: was the use of the Atomic Bomb, which killed 120,000 people instantly, a proper use. The answer is either, yes, because it saved American soldiers' lives who would have slogged through at least another year or two of war in the continent of Asia, or the answer is no, because in inhumanely targeted civilians and military indiscriminately. Whatever the answer, Mr. Yamaguchi cannot afford to be too judgmental. The Mitsubichi plant that he worked at made the planes, tanks and ships that devastated Pearl Harbor, China, and most of southeast Asia, the South Pacific, in a murderous rampage. Mr. Yamaguchi should probably read "The Rape of Nanking" to inform his opinion about what Japan's army and military-industrial complex did to the "dignity of human beings."

Still, a very interesting debate. Our former neighbor, Tom Immerman, God rest his soul, lost an eye on Guadalcanal. When I first moved in next door, he saw that I drove a Toyota. All he said to me is something I cannot print. He was a great guy. Years ago, when I was a kid, my grandfather was in a bar downtown in Niagara Falls with some WWII veterans. Japanese tourists walked in the bar and asked for directions to the Falls. One of the men at the bar looked at the unfortunate tourists and said, "Go to Hell. You had no trouble finding Pearl Harbor." The feelings still run deep...

For a fascinating re-enactment of the drop of the bomb, (if you have about ten minutes to spare) follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rHrV2QhArA