Something Whimsical

I don't know why it's here, or who created it. It sits alongside a fairly busy, yet rural road (Crissey Rd north of Angola.) I smile every time I see it. How could you not? Today I finally brought a camera along and stopped to take pictures. It's on a vacant corner lot, far enough from any of the nearby houses it's hard to tell who owns it. I figure it's not all that different than planting flowers, or adding a decorative fence, or even a concrete goose with clothes to your yard. They built it because they enjoyed doing so and hoped it might brighten the day of the people driving by.

It started with the big tree stump, which became a "house," and the other details came long over time. It's far enough back from the road I didn't want to walk up too closely to get pictures but now that I think about it, perhaps next time I'll go leave a note in the mailbox and thank them.

not covered under warranty

This story made me laugh to begin with, just the absurdity of it making international news. "Drunk guy blasts his mower with a sawed-off shotgun! Says it's his yard and his mower, so fuck off!" I'm sure anyone who's battled to get a mower started on a hot day can relate on some level. Still what made me laugh out loud is the comment about his actions voiding the warranty. No!? Shotgun blasts aren't covered?! Who knew?! hahaha


US man charged for shooting mower
Witnesses told police Mr Walendowski appeared to have been drinking
A 56-year-old man from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin has been arrested after shooting his lawn mower in his garden because it would not start.

Keith Walendowski was charged by police in Milwaukee with disorderly conduct and possession of a sawn-off shotgun.

He could face a fine of up to $11,000 and a maximum prison sentence of six-and-a-half years if convicted.

Police officers said Mr Walendowski had told them: "It's my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want."

Police found the shotgun, a handgun and a stungun, as well as ammunition, when they detained Mr Walendowski in the basement of his house.

Witnesses told police that he appeared to have been drinking.

The lawn mower was found sitting outside Mr Walendowski's house, which he shares with his mother, with the rubbish on Friday.

A local retailer said that Mr Walendowski might now have difficulty getting his lawn mower repaired.

"Anything not factory recommended would void the warranty," said Dick Wagner, of Wagner's Garden Mart in Milwaukee.

Last minute late night post: Toledo on AOL welcome screen

So I see this headline on my way to bed, and my first thought is "it's probably best not to joke with someone who is holding a taser." Then I click and it's freaking Toledo! Gads, do we ever get any good publicity?? Oh and the opinion poll shows "he should sue" as taking a big lead over the other 2 options. When people are supporting someone's right to sue, you know there's a problem.

Grandpa Sues Over Tasering
Says Comment to Guard Was a Joke

CBS Newsposted: 3 HOURS 3 MINUTES AGO
(July 25) - A grandfather and pastor is suing a Toledo, Ohio, hospital after being Tasered and beaten by security guards at the facility.
Much of the incident was caught by surveillance cameras.
Use of Tasers Questioned
CBSNews.com
A pastor has filed suit against a Toledo, Ohio, hospital after being Tasered and beaten by security guards at the facility. Much of last year's incident outside St. Vincent Mercy Hospital was recorded on video.
Al Poisson, 67, says he was visiting a friend in St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center a year ago and was in a very good mood when he came upon a glum-looking guard and joked with him.
"I said (to the guard), 'Are you happy today?' Poisson told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Friday. "He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Well, you oughta tell your face!' "
Poisson added that, "It went downhill from there" and turned into an "atrocious, unbelievable situation, to say the least."
The guards wound up taking Poisson outside the building, where they used a Taser and/or stun gun on him, dropping him to his knees and, he says, beat, kicked and "manhandled" him when he was down.
It all happened in front of Poisson's son and Poisson's 6-year-old grandson.
The Web site of CBS affiliate WTOL-TV in Toledo cites Poisson's lawsuit as claiming Poisson's son pleaded with the guards to stop because Poisson has a bad heart.
The Web site also says a police report quotes the security guards as asserting that Poisson provoked them and that, once outside, Poisson elbowed one guard and tried to pull his hair while on the ground.
The guards called Toledo police and had Poisson arrested for alleged assault, but those charges have since been dropped.
Poisson says he used to go to St. Vincent's regularly to pray with patients, but no longer can cope with doing that. He also says he's had to give up his duties at a local soup kitchen that's since closed.

Poisson is seeking punitive damages of an unspecified amount, along with damages for pain, suffering, medical expenses and lost income. The lawsuit also says the hospital doesn't train its security personnel properly.
St. Vincent's issued a statement saying, "According to our policy regarding physical aggression, the use of a Taser is warranted if someone attempts to physically attack a staff member, patient or visitor. We conducted an internal review of this incident that determined the response to the aggression was appropriate."
"That's not true at all," Poisson responded to Smith when the statement was read.
Copyright 2008, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2008, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2008-07-25 17:46:49

Crane Creek (no longer a) State Park

"Sunset at Crane Creek," courtesy of Sally Wehner, Sally's Photostream

Living in rural northwest Ohio, we mostly swam in ponds, pools, and at some of the smaller lakes in Michigan, where we'd spend the day at family cottages. Those were magical times: jumping off the docks, taking peaceful rides on a pontoon boat, running across rough wood floors in our sandy bare feet. For a child who grew up with so little water in her life, there's no explaining my love for it now. I understand the draw of other landscapes: the majesty and beauty of mountains, the quiet stillness of forests, the beauty of great architecture, or the thrill of walking through the world's grand cities, but for me, I would pass on it all to be on an ocean beach. As a rather landlocked Ohioan, what I have instead is Lake Erie.

From the first time I spent a day at Crane Creek State Park, I was smitten. For 30 years, in spite of the fact it was never a convenient trip from the places we lived, it was a regular destination for summer days. In the early days we swam on the smaller, less well maintained beach, with Davis-Besse nuclear power plant lurking along the horizon. We had so much fun, scouring the beach for trinkets, creating monuments from driftwood.

Later they turned that beach over to the birds, so we would walk along the shore there after a day in the sun, or take the dogs to run and swim.

We had picnics and parties on the larger, busier beach. The seagulls were bold there, bold enough they would sometimes steal food right off hot grills. That beach had breakers, so if the wind was right, we could play in big waves. Most of the time though it was a peaceful place to sit and read a summer novel, watch boats and birds go by, and then watch the sun set from the same spot on the beach where the first photo here was taken.

For ages I whined about how I had never seen a bald eagle, even though there are dozens in this area, and I spend a lot of time on the lake and hiking along the Maumee River, in areas where they're known to be found. Last summer I would have missed my chance, if it weren't for excitement of the other people on the beach calling our attention to one as he flew by. This one was the doing the flight equivalent of "booking," straight down the shoreline, singlemindedly heading to wherever it was he needed to go, oblivious to the awe of those of us on the beach underneath where he flew.

For a few years after it was opened, we defected to Maumee Bay State Park because it's closer. It is a truly beautiful park, more polished than Crane Creek. Eventually though, I realized for a few more minutes' drive, I could go back to the beaches at Crane Creek, where the waves came in along the breakers, where we could take long walks along the shore as the sun was setting.

Since one of the reasons I loved it there was how quiet it had become, and how often we were amongst only a handful of people on the beach on any given day, it might have occured to me that eventually they would stop keeping it open just for us. Still I was saddened when the state closed the beach this summer and added the entire park to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Of course more shoreline for nesting is a good thing for the birds, and the park itself is still open to visitors. We took a drive over there one day, after leaving Maumee Bay because of afternoon storms. It was completely deserted and somewhat unnerving. Already the beaches are becoming more wild and unruly. We explored several places within the larger park that we'd never taken the time to investigate before. Now that spending time on the beach is out of the question, we will make the drive over there to walk the trails and look for birds and wildlife, which is after all what the real purpose of the parks should be.

Let All The Children Boogie: concert flashbacks

Not all that often, just now and then, I spend the day with classic rock radio stations on AOL. I promise I haven't lived in the past musically for the last 30+ years. There's a lot of songs and bands I've barely thought about since I originally collected the albums, and the greatest thing about internet radio is the next arrow to skip through songs I don't ever need to hear again. Just as often I rush over to turn the volume up, loud. I usually have to take these trips down nostalgia lane when my kids aren't home or they tell me to turn it down, MOM!

(On a related note, did you ever consider what boomer nursing homes will be like? "Dazed and Confused" blaring on hallway speakers. Old guys with walkers playing air guitar to "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Some former bar band singer putting "Smoke on the Water" on repeat until his neighbors storm the room to make it stop.)

Always, one song can lead to many more, and many memories. Today that song was "Rebel Rebel." My very first live concert, at the Toledo Sports Arena was David Bowie, during his Diamond Dogs tour. I was 15. We loved Ziggy Stardust . I can probably still sing most of the songs on that album by heart. As long as no one's in the room.

That may very well have been the best concert I went to, right then and there. He had no opening act. The lights went out and there was Bowie. He played and we went wild, perched on our seats in that hot, smoke-(of all kinds)-filled concert hall. Later he took an intermission and came back onstage to the opening notes of Space Oddity. A spotlight picked up his face, hovering in midair. As he sang, he floated down in the light, until the whole stage lit up and we saw he was actually on sort of rock version of a cherry picker. Great stuff!

I don't remember all the concerts we went to, and even when I know I saw someone, I can't remember much of the show. I saw Queen (and thanks to google I can even pinpoint the date: 1975: Tue 11th Feb - USA, Toledo, Student Union Auditorium.) I can remember Freddie Mercury on stage, his cape flying around him as he stomped around the stage. He was an amazing performer.

(What's somewhat amusing or perplexing now is that in spite of my taste in bands during high school, I had no conscious awareness of homosexuality at all. Were Bowie or Freddie "out" at all back then? If it were discussed anywhere by anyone it went over or through my head. What a lonely time it must have been to be gay in those days. Not that there was even "gay" or "out.")

Over the years, in order of memory, not occurence, I saw Jackson Browne more times than I can count. We borrowed a friend's Jeep and wore our long skirts to see Joan Baez at the Masonic. I saw Dan Folgeberg during his "Twin Sons" tour with Tim Weisberg, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Bob Seeger (twice), saw Simple Minds in Ann Arbor in seats so high up I spent most of the concert in the hallway to avoid vertigo. More recently, I saw Counting Crows, and took my (then) 15 year old to see Mest at Howards Club H in Bowling Green. She had a great time. I wore earplugs.

I of course didn't see more bands than I can list but my most regretful close call was almost seeing U2 at their Live at Red Rocks concert. I was living in Denver when the concert schedule came out. I was on my way back to Ohio and nearly postponed the trip for that concert.

And another thing: Stairway to Heaven is a truly great song.
And Free Bird always sucked.

Sorry about that, Patsy Ramsey!

DNA is an amazing enough tool on its own, now we can isolate DNA from a touch? Wow. What else has solved as many crimes, helped successfully prosecute more scumbags, allowed more innocent people to finally go free than DNA? Let's toss as much money as it takes into creating labs and training scientists so we can test every bit of evidence out there, without any backlog. Since we have never been able to strike the fear of God or blind justice into those who prey on others, let's at least slap them down with their own skin cells.
I'm sure it's quite a relief for the remaining Ramsey family and the people who stood by them that DNA evidence reportedly clears Ramsey family Still, it's a bit too little too late for Patsy Ramsey, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, I can certainly see how the Ramseys were an easy family to dislike. Like anyone, I was shocked and a bit appalled to have the reality of child pageantry shoved in my face in the form of pictures and video of that overly made-up and costumed now-dead child. None of that made them guilty but it doesn't seem to matter. Even now, Patsy Ramsey is still being blamed! If you had a feeling she did it, why would an official exoneration based on actual science convince you otherwise? We do it all the time. Make a list: Polly Klaas, Natalee Holloway, Adam Walsh, Madeleine McCann, and as quickly as you can say the names, someone will tell you exactly why the parents are somehow to blame. If they aren't the out and out killers who got away with it, then they certainly did something wrong, something the person sitting in judgement would never ever do. I don't get it. I've made plenty of mistakes as a parent and I consider myself to be damned lucky none of my mistakes resulted in any of my children being front page news. And I never stop praying I can still say the same on my last day on Earth. Yes I realize sometimes it really is the parents, but if there is a chance it was someone else, doesn't common decency suggest we refrain from reaching a verdict until we know? Perhaps we feel safer believing that these sorts of things are preventable, that if we never turn our back, walk away, go to bed early, cry too much, cry too little, look too long, give up too soon, then the worst possible nightmare that could ever happen to any parent will never happen to us.
Don't we all sometimes pause and look at our children and feel our heart catch at the possibilities? We dedicate our lives to raising happy children, children who will be strong and alert but not fearful, who will enjoy childhoods full of fun and learning and who will grow into adults who love life and make a difference. Meanwhile in a parallel world, other children are being scarred and branded and twisted into becoming the predators that are a part of our world. And all we can do is pray to whatever version of God or fate we believe in that their lives will never intersect.

Send Pesticides!

We live in what was formerly known as the Black Swamp. Poetic name isn't it? In a hypothetical sort of way. No one really wants to live in a swamp but over the past few years we've gotten so much rain, it's becoming easier to imagine just what it was like in the days before proper drainage systems.
I don't have to look up stats or records to know that torrential downpours every couple of days is not typical for summers in northwest Ohio. I know this because since childhood I have always mowed the lawn, and since most of the lawns I've mowed were in the country, people in the country do not waste water by keeping that grass nice and green. When it stops raining, the yard dies and you don't have to mow it anymore! Then later it rains and grows back. The rules are you should get at least an occasional week off in July and August. Sometimes you get most of July and August off entirely. It's just the way it is and the way it should be. Hot, dry, no mowing. Instead there is standing water everywhere, water washing out fields, covering yards. Flood warnings and watches are the norm. We had some storms last week with so much rain the roads around here were literally washed out, as in, "Holy shit! I'm not driving through that! It's halfway up the bumper of that freaking truck!!!"
I feel for those early settlers, hacking their way through weeds and trees, sinking up to their thighs in never-ending mud. Mostly though what would have surely been enough to turn me back are bugs. Especially mosquitoes. I'm all for organic gardening and nurturing Mother Earth but right now all I want to hear is the sound of the county's mosquito spray truck driving down our road at dusk. I betcha there's a real market for illegal pesticides right about now. I live in a wooded area first off. You cannot leave the house at night and daytime isn't much better. We have cans of Off and Cutters sitting around everywhere. And my house is old. It has gaps in the windows and tears in the screens. The mosquitoes are so thick that just drifting around out there or whatever it is they do, a whole lot of them end up inside. What can you do? Nothing, nothing except slap your hands together, only to watch them skitter away, or smash them gleefully on walls. If anyone has come up with a way to smack them on the monitor without knocking it over, please let me know. It can't last, right? They'll come through and spray any day now which will knock them back for a short time, and then before we know it, winter will arrive and I'll have something else to complain about!
Credit for the mosquito picture goes to this website. What a great site! I can sit here for another hour or so just reading about the mosquitoes I loathe. skeeterbite.info Gawd I love the internet.

blogging

Surely by now every third person has a blog of some sort. That means it's a technical impossibility that all of these blogs are being read by anyone on a regular basis. And still, we all sit here and type, type, type.
For years I kept journals. I still remember the first time someone gave me a "blank book." Wow, a bound stack of white paper! And it's all mine! Back then, we kept our journals tucked away in a nightstand and worried our moms might get ahold of them if we died. No more of that! The internet has made us all exhibitionists and voyeurs.
I can rationalize the dog blog because perhaps rescue will be of some interest, most likely to other rescuers. This one is the modern version of talking to myself. Not only do I always have a running monologue going on in my head, generally I find myself to be fairly amusing. If you don't, just keep those thoughts to yourself and move along!