On Weeds and Life

Tonight, we watched a DVD about Pete Seeger's life.  It was touching, inspiring, filled with good thoughts, good ideas, good ideals, and also good music.  He is a lesson for us all, although I doubt if many of us would be able to take the equivalent of being blacklisted for 17 years as well as he did.  I met him once, years ago in Los Angeles, when I was doing publicity for a folk music club that was sponsoring one of his concerts.  I had dinner with him the night before the concert, along with a dozen other people.  He was charismatic even over dinner. 

And now he must be close to 90 years old, and seems as strong and lively and filled with hope as ever.  Good for him.  For myself, not so strong and lively and filled with hope, I think, but this may largely be a result of the remarkable heat we have had for the past three days.  I can't complain too much, because it didn't even get to be 90 degrees (although it was 88 in the house), and the 'heat wave' lasted only for three days (tomorrow it's supposed to be back to 67 degrees).  But, I did notice that every day of extra warmth produced about a ton more bindweed blooming in the more difficult places to reach in my yard.

A friend says that we are lucky to be living in a place where even the worst weeds are beautiful.  This seems to me to be the wrong message: if they're so beautiful, why am I trying to get rid of them?  And the answer is because there will be nothing out there BUT bindweed if I don't keep at the task.

This summer, grandchildren have been around quite a bit.  Both the grandchildren and their parents have been more than happy to help us with the many bits of work that need always to be done, but no one is very anxious to help with weeding, I find.  In fact, I saw in my 13-y/o granddaughter's eyes, as she watched me weeding, weeding, the conviction that I was nuts.  After all, the thing is, I pull them up, and then they grow back next year.  Don't I see that this is going nowhere? 

Well, to everything there is a season and also a time for every purpose under heaven.  And in this season, my purpose is to pull up those bindweeds, even though their roots may stretch lo unto many feet in length and even though they will return next year.  Did Seeger give up just because wars keep occurring?.  I think Pete Seeger would, if not admire my dedication, at least recognize a similarity between us with respect to sticking to one's view of what is the right thing to do, even though others might think it foolish or even wrong.  His life has been spent encouraging peace and harmony and group singing and generosity and compassion.  At the moment, mine feels like it has been spent at war with crab grass and its fellow noxious weeds, bindweed being only one of the latest in a long line.  Maybe tomorrow, out in the fields of bindweed, I'll try singing 'We Shall Overcome."

Knowing Good and Bad

As it happens, I have made two trips to Bellingham and back in the past two days.  And both times, there have been things of an edible nature in my car.  What I have not taken into Canada is a potato, an apple, a pear, a peach, a nectarine, a cherry, or a blueberry.  An what I have not taken into the U.S. is a lemon, an orange, a lime, a grapefruit, a green onion, a chive or any gathering of chives, a dragon fruit, a starfruit, a mangosteen, a kiwi fruit, a tomato, or a green pepper.

On Wednesday, when I went from Canada to the U.S., I brought with me 5 tomatoes that were grown in Washington and as I came through the border, I confided to the the U.S. CBP person that I had five tomatoes from Canada, and he said that was good and I might go on my way.  However, on Thursday, word came down from on high that tomatoes from Canada were no longer good and they may not come here any more.

But, I still have those five tomatoes (or, actually three of them now) sitting on my counter and I say to them, "Are you good? Or, are you bad?"    It is hard to know.  The comforting thing, of course, is that bananas can go either way without anybody caring.  And that is good.

Postal Gardening Concerns

For those who have been concerned about the deteriorating condition of the three planters in front of the local post office, here is an explanation.  The post office lost its gardener and the planters and their plants fell into the slough of despond with the news.  However, there are new plants on the way and I guess a new gardener, although I did not inquire about the latter.  But it is good to know that the post office still cares.

Round the Point, Again

We are personally adding to all the weekend festivities (well, I extended the weekend yet another day...now it's Thursday to Tuesday) by having Ed go up in the helicopter today with a pair of photographers (one at a time) to photograph the Point Roberts coastline from a 300 foot elevation and 600 foot elevation (i.e., that was how high the helicopter was flying when the photographers were shooting).  The point of this Point documentation is to see if there have been noticeable changes.  But one can also look at the pictures and see who's out on the beach and in their yard from about 1-2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 6th, 2010.

I had both hoped and expected to be able to see Lily the Llama and her companion goats, but though her corral is clearly visible, she was not outside at just that moment.  I spoke to one of her owners who reported that she was having her hair trimmed today, so I guess we caught her at a bad moment; or failed to catch her at a bad moment. 

It will take a while for Ed to process these photos and get them synced up and posted on our website, but I'll put a link on the blog as soon as it happens.  He's been planning this second round of pictures for about a year, so it's a treat to have it actually happen.

A Good Parade

One's idea of a parade, I think, is formed when one is a child.  As a result, parades one sees as an adult don't quite ever live up to one's idea of the, as it were, Platonic/Ideal parade.  When I was a kid, Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey would come to town in Pocatello, Idaho, and provide us with the best parade I had/have ever seen.  It had elephants, lions in wheeled cages, horses, a calliope, a band, clowns, and general all round excitement.  By comparison, all other parades look pretty tame to me.

Fourth of July parades here in Point Roberts have, in recent years, been on a downhill slope.  There were the years when we had a large contingent of white dogs, which was good.  And years when we had horses and ponies of various sorts, some with decoration, which was good.  And years when we had the Vancouver Police Motorcycle Drill team, which was also good.  But last year, and I think the year before that, we have had none of those.  There have been some good attempts, but ultimately disappointing.  And especially, no music, no bands, no calliopes.

This year, I was sort of inclined to let it pass me by, but at the last minute I grabbed a folding chair and got myself down to the parade's end to see what had passed.  And it was a delight, although not Ringling Brothers.  It began with an assortment of Point Roberts Fire Dept. equipment, followed by someone in a convertible associated with the movies.  And then it got serious.

A marching band from Canada was the first serious entry, and it was either ironic or funny or strange that it was playing 'The Maple Leaf Forever,' for an American Fourth of July Parade, but let that go.  It was a band and it played like a marching band and it meant that the parade had music.  Throughout the length, other music appeared, including the splendid quintet of bagpipe players (above) whose traditional attire was entirely missing after you got the kilt taken into account.  The headgear looks like tukes of some sort, and the sandals/walking shoes with and without socks were pretty daring.  But four of the five had paired a kilt with a Hawaiian shirt, perhaps a first for a bagpipe band.

Later on, there was a group of cymbalist/drums from a Canadian Chinese Benevolent Society, which also included a substantial group of older, staid but smiling men in suits, ladies in matching vests and pants who were doing some kind of dancing or drill team work, and a couple of dragons.  All to the good, though not particularly Fourth of July-ish.  But certainly benevolent.

Lots of people walking in various groups passed by, including an especially charming appearance by a faux Queen Elizabeth wishing the colonies good luck.  She was accompanied by two of her corgies and one of her hats.  

Sterling Bank gave us a float populated with people whose hair and faces were a strange green color reminding one more of moss than money; Neilson's brought us two small Neilson children high up in a fork lift; the Historical Society, PREP, Lily Point Defenders, all got themselves together for a good showing.  And the Rose Society brought us some beautiful little Rose Queens smiling and waving.

A lot of individual or small groups of people in costume or out made their way down the street, dressed in unusual attire without entirely clear purpose. More in line with the parade theme (which had to do with the Oscars), there was a Scarecrow, a Dorothy, and a Cowardly Lion celebrating the movie, 'The Wizard of Oz,' and I was so engaged in figuring out whether the lion was my friend Rose that I forgot to take a picture of the trio.  It was Rose.  The Oscar Mayer wiener company seemed to have offered its support to a number of businesses (in line with the Oscar theme), so that there were a lot of people with mustard covered hot dogs on their heads, or wrapped round their bodies.  As well as dogs so enwrapped, which was a tad alarming, as if we were to think about eating these 'hot' dogs.

The Point Roberts lawn mower precision drill team reminded us that power mowers of large size are now ever present.  It did, however, look like that drivers might, in general, benefit from a little more pushing of mowers than riding on mowers, but their pleasure at whizzing around on their machines was clearly more about driving mania than about mowing OR about exercise needs.  An exquisite demonstration of why it is so hard to get people interested in using less oil.

The Tsawwassen Shriners, who have often appeared in the Point's July 4th parade, were here again, but this time with several floats and without the little, tiny cars.  One has to wonder about the Middle Eastern appearance of the group's symbols and whether a dozen old guys in topees with camel illustrated vehicles sporting a kind of Turkish star and sickle/crescent emblem go across the border easily. 

All in all, an excellent if somewhat unusual Fourth of July parade.  But what else could one hope for or reasonably expect in Point Roberts?  Next year, perhaps, elephants?  Caged lions?

More pictures posted here.http://www.flickr.com/photos/65924740@N00/?saved=1

Festive Events

What a weekend! Canada Day, Farmers Market Day, July Fourth parade, not to mention all those speeding tickets being issued to the unwary. While not doing much of anything, I managed to see two of them issued today: one on Tyee and one on South Beach.

But let's go to today's event..the farmers market held in the Community Center parking lot from 9-1 p.m. Today was the first such market, and it is to be repeated every two weeks this summer.  This event turned out to be a virtually perfect kind of event for Point Roberts...not too ambitious, not too demanding, not too long, not too serious, expectations not too high.  And further, useful and friendly, and filled with wonderful pictures, but I forgot to take my camera (which just demonstrates that I'm not a serious photographer).  Great people pictures, including one little girl dressed like a circus of amazing colors, and a little guy in a soccer(?) shirt about 40 sizes too big plus yellow boots; great dog pictures as well, including an Italian whippet and a shaved Pomeranian.  We were there for the entire four hours because Ed decided to take postcards of some of his 'Somewhere in Point Roberts' series in order to assist in having this first market get off to a good start.  There were a few other people there with photos, books, and art stuff, but there were also people selling a Persian rug, some amazing Barbie dolls, a barbeque, extra clothes, and a coffee pot, among other garage sale type items.

And, of course, the real farmer's market stuff: herb bouquets, sour dough bread, lovely lettuces of several kinds, cucumbers, and garlic and green onions: all the early garden goods.  Plus pear butter and strawberry-rhubarb jam and cherry pies.  And a couple of people brought plants for those whose garden is still to be planted.  Most of the attendees showed up promptly between 9 and 10 in order to get some of the edibles, which moved out quickly.

What I liked most about the event was its sociability, its multi-tasking nature, and its low-key scale.   Somebody was teaching kids about bicycle maintenance and helmet safety; somebody was playing music without the benefit of any amplification system, somebody was selling pulled pork barbeque sandwiches for $3.  Nobody was looking to make big dollars; everybody was friendly and happy to talk to one another.

The kind of thing that makes Point Roberts, just for that little while, look like the utopia that we all wish for, including gentle breezes and sun.  Not too much to ask for on a July Saturday.

Mini-Ferries

The other day, we made a trip up to Vancouver with visiting family.  It was yet another opportunity to ride the Canada Line, of which we are big fans.  I have railroading ancestors (both my grandfathers were engineers on the Union Pacific, one a switch engineer and the other a passenger train engineer), so I am sort of obliged to like trains, but I actually do like them and think that one of the great losses of the late 20th Century in the U.S. was the general disappearance of passenger trains.  The Canada Line isn't that kind of train, of course, but light rail is yet in the family.  However, as much as I like it, I can't quite figure out how to make it a viable feature for Point Roberts.  We could have one that goes from Point Roberts to Bellingham, I suppose, but it's hard to believe that would ever be economically viable.  But at least I get the opportunity to appreciate Vancouver's offering.

But the even better part of this trip (whose goal was Science World) was the ride on the False Creek Ferry System, and specifically the aqua boats.  That was indeed a marvelous little turn and, though I've never been in Venice to ride the gondolas, I can imagine it has something of that kind of feel.  Further, it does seem as if we could use them here.  I know nothing about boats, so it is probably the case that we couldn't use these mini-ferries to take us from here to Blaine or from here to Bellingham, and especially not arrange it so that one would leave every ten minutes.  I assume the distances would be too great.  But maybe we could just have them to go around the peninsula itself: grab a mini-ferry at the foot of Gulf Road and take it over to the beach at Lily Point, for example.  That would be a fine entertainment and would give everyone here on Canada Day (today!) something extra to do.  But it's probably not enough for an economic development plan.  Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians!