Snowed In

It’s noon, and there’s already a foot of snow on the ground here since midnight. Another foot or so is predicted over the next twelve hours.

There is some good news. It’s very cold and dry outside with blizzard-y wind, so the snow at this point is light and fluffy and some of it is drifting into areas I won’t need to shovel. Still, there will be a lot of work to do later this afternoon and tomorrow.

I’m hoping it stays cold like this, minimizing the chances for power outages from heavy snow knocking down power lines, because that really sucks. Every electronic device is plugged in, and chargers have been topped off.

The only thing missing today is an afternoon of playoff football like we had last Saturday. That will have to wait until tomorrow when all of this is over.


Mid-January

April may be the cruelest month, but January is my least-favorite month.

I live near Boston, in a house built in 1941, so during the cold weather months I’m always checking the furnace’s water level and whether or not the space heater is on in the garage (to insure the water pipes don’t freeze and burst like they did a couple of years ago).

Walking is my primary form of exercise, but most days in January are not fun for walking outside. So I’m forced to walk at a mall or a big-box store like Costco. This is kind of fun most of the time, since retail has always been in my blood, but when it has to happen more than once or twice a week it gets old very fast.

These are surreal times.

The hope that existed early on during the Covid-19 pandemic that things would return to the way they were before the outbreak - the Before Times - has vanished. There is concern about new variants of the virus. The breakdown of social norms over the past five years worsens, and we retreat deeper into our own personal protective chambers.

It’s more and more difficult to imagine things getting better anytime soon. In fact, it feels like they’re going to get worse. But I remain hopeful. And baseball is just a couple of months away.

So to occupy my indoors time, I treated my Martin D-18 to new strings and a thorough cleaning and polishing. Now that I’ve built up some calluses again, my fingers are starting to remember songs, riffs and melodies, especially Bob Dylan songs from the mid-to-late 1960s, like My Back Pages and Desolation Row, when I engage with my guitar and with these songs, memories of the times that were changing then flood back, and that suggests other songs.

I’m good.


The Falling Man

I’ve never been able to get over the horror of seeing people jump out of upper-floor windows in The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, when death by smoke and fire was their only other alternative.

Although several images of falling people were captured live, the networks had no stomach for re-running the footage, and rarely mentioned it. Today, unfortunately, that story would lead the broadcast, and be re-run endlessly.

Over the past twenty years, books and articles have documented that horror, but nothing has made it any less disturbing.

My Facebook Suspension Became A Life Sentence, And I’m Okay With That

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Facebook has deactivated me permanently, and I’m okay with that.

There is the occasional twinge while trying to avoid doing the work I’m supposed to be doing because i can’t check in on what certain of my friends are up to on Facebook, but that’s offset by the large amount of free time and headspace I now have during the day that I hadn’t had before the banishment.

I still have no idea what triggered the ban, and I really don’t care anymore.

The most regrettable casualty of my life sentence was my book’s Facebook page. It was fun interacting with people who have enjoyed my book over the years, and those who had just discovered it for the first time. And now that is gone, without the opportunity to say goodbye to them. But by this time, most of them know where to find me online

Life goes on and there are other (and better) ways to connect with like-minded people these days.


I’ve Moved On From Facebook

At the top of my gmail inbox this morning was a message from Facebook, informing me that they had disabled my account because I’d posted something that violated their Community Standards.

There was no indication what the offending post was, but this has happened to me several times since I opened my Facebook account many years ago. I had the option to have Facebook review the offense and I reflexively pressed the “Review” option as I had done many times before.

Then I had second thoughts. Regardless of the outcome of their review, I’m out. I’ll find other ways of keeping up with my friends and promoting my book.

I’m @FredCHarris on twitter, and fred_c_harris on Instagram.

And I’ll be spending a lot more time here.

Charlie On The MTA

I was waiting for a Green Line train at Park Street Station this morning, and noticed an informational sign on the platform that seems perfectly appropriate. I always knew there was more to the story of The Kingston Trio’s greatest hit.

Park Street Station is over 100 years old and certainly shows its age, but Alewife Station is less than half that old and is literally falling apart - especially the garage, large parts of which have been fenced off. The parts of the garage that remain available for parking do not inspire confidence that your car will not have been crushed by the prematurely crumbling roof.

Infrastructure, baby…

Martha Raye

I was watching Apocalypse Now recently, and was reminded that “entertaining the troops” in Vietnam was pretty common and usually pretty cliche. Then I remembered an account I’d read about one of Martha Raye’s visits to Vietnam and how very different that one went. You’ve probably never heard of her as an entertainer, but she was certainly a hero.

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"It was just before Thanksgiving '67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF west of Pleiku. We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the back.

All of a sudden, we heard a 'take-charge' woman's voice in the rear.    

There was the singer and actress, Martha Raye, with a SF (Special Forces) beret and jungle fatigues, with subdued markings, helping the wounded into the Chinook, and carrying the dead aboard.  ‘Maggie' had been visiting her SF 'heroes' out 'west'.

We took off, short of fuel, and headed to the USAF hospital pad at Pleiku.   

As we all started unloading our sad pax's, a 'Smart Mouth' USAF Captain said to Martha,

“Ms Ray, with all these dead and wounded to process, there would not be time for your show!"

To all of our surprise, she pulled on her right collar and said,

“Captain, see this eagle?  I am a full 'Bird' in the US Army Reserve, and on this is a 'Caduceus' which means I am a Nurse, with a surgical specialty, now, take me to your wounded!"

He said, "Yes ma'am.  follow me."

Several times at the Army Field Hospital in Pleiku, she would 'cover' a surgical shift, giving  a nurse a well-deserved break.

Martha is the only woman buried in the SF (Special Forces) cemetery at Ft Bragg.”

I Went Down To The Chelsea Drugstore, To Get My Prescription Filled

Well actually it was NETA in Boston, but earlier this week I renewed my Massachusetts medical marijuana card, and paid the $160 annual re-certification fee and did the live consult with a State-approved mmj Doctor.

The bad news: the annual $160 fee.

The good news: a $200 voucher got posted to my NETA account.

So with my normal 10% medical marijuana patient discount, and the application of the first of my four $50 vouchers, I paid half of what a recreational patient would pay for the items i bought.

Anyone have a light?

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