Canada Geese & A Meme...
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Hey Mum, Ontario Wanderer, Laura and all you other Canadian blognuts up there-
Dallas and I ran across a bunch of your Canada Geese the other morn (first time this winter that I've seen them) lollygaggin' and sun bathing down here near the 34th Parallel. We'll send 'em home when we're through with 'em but right now we're enjoying their antics.
O.W., & Lene-
I'm going to play the meme game again just because Lene did, so here goes.
Four jobs you've had in your life-
1. The Victory Car Wash in Van Nuys, California---a fun outdoor job for a kid.
2. Christmas help at Macy's Department Store, NYC 1964/65---a great experience.
3. Food prep & dishwashing at the Canyon Kitchen for Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl---cool times indeed!
4. 30 years as a Mailman---a great way to become part of your community.
Four movies you could watch over and over.
1. Koyaanisqatsi - Francis Ford Coppola
2. The Private Life Of Plants - David Attenborough
3. The Weeping Camel - Byambasuren Davaa & Luigi Falorni
4. The Blue Planet/Seas Of Life - David Attenborough
Four places you've lived
1. Greenwich Village, NYC
2. Topanga Canyon, California
3. Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, California
4. Big Bear Valley, San Bernardino Mountains, California
Four TV shows you love to watch
What's a TV?
Four places you've been on vacation
1. British Columbia
2. Three Months Hitch-hiking through Mexico
3. The Sierras - Yosemite, Sequoia and the eastern side, Mono Lake & Lundy Canyon
4. The Grand Canyon Of Arizona
Four websites you visit daily
1. ENN - The Environmental News Network
2. GNN - The Guerrilla News Network
3. Earth Home Garden and all the blogs linked to it.
4. The comics page at Yahoo News
Four of your favorite foods
1. Broccoli
2. Yellow Crookneck Squash
3. Tomatoes
4. Buffalo
Four places you'd rather be
1. Outside
2. On a footpath through the woods
3. Naked in a hot sulfur spring
4. In bed with Peggy
Four albums you can't live without
I can live without any albums, but here's some favorites
1. Any Bob Dylan album
2. Any Greg Brown album
3. Any J.J. Cale album
4. Any Joni Mitchell album
Four to pass this meme along to
You know who you are, if it tickles yer fancy, go for it.
GOOD NIGHT ALL...
posted by Jim at 9:45 PM
9 Comments:
Hey Jim, Keep those geese as long as you want. Their cousins, up here, are fertilizing the parks where children like to play so much that children can hardly use them and they, the geese, like the parks so much that many of them don't bother flying south for the winter any more.
Thanks for sharing with the meme. I guess they are contagious. I presume you have seen the Bob Dylan DVD. If not, try to. It has a lot of old footage of not only Dylan but also many of the old folk artists that influenced him. (I only saw part of the DVD as we bought it for my daughter's partner at Christmas and only convinced him to show part of it to before he went back home.)
Those cracked me up, Jim. I'm curious about your time at Macy's. For some reason, that one surprised me. The Weeping Camel is a good one, isn't it? I haven't seen the plant one. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for prompting (though it's been a long time, I know) and playing again.
OW-
Thanks, we can always use a bit more fertilizer here, although some might say I'm already too full of it. ;~)
...and I do have that No Direction Home DVD, drop by and watch the rest of it with us when you get a chance, there's some nice hikes around here, Mt. San Gorgonio for instance.
The last time we saw a bunch of Canada geese, Runner-Bean said "Looks like dinner".
Lene-
About Macy's. I had hitched a ride to NYC and landed at Grand Central Station on my 19th birthday, in November of '64. I had the clothes on my back (light California wear & a thin windbreaker) and about 10 bucks in my pocket. After a week or so of sleeping in Grand Central Station I made a friend, who let me stay at his place, and found work at Macy's for Christmas. I was there about 6 weeks I guess and then moved to the Village where I became a friend and assistant to the legendary Harry Smith, compiler of the famous 'Anthology Of American Folk Music' (Folkways-1952) who was also an acclaimed painter, animator, anthropologist, musicologist and a lovable eccentric stark-raving lunatic, among many other things. We used to go out drinking with William Burroughs (The Naked Lunch) who said he would like shoot me because I was too optimistic and didn't know when to keep my mouth shut, in hindsight I'm sure he was right!
Macy's was how I kept from starving in the meantime, but the place was an adventure in itself.
It covered a whole city block, and I forget if it had 16 or 19 floors of retail space, including everything from bargain basement junk to $10,000 Asian rugs (way back in those days) and gold plated plumbing fixtures on the upper floors. I was a stock clerk and worked in most of the departments, and one of the funniest things I can remember there is me trying to clumsily undress a redress a female mannequin (whose arms & legs kept coming off)in a window with hundreds of shoppers watching me as they passed by (I've since seen an old Charlie Chaplin movie with a very similar scene in it, but he was much more gracefully clumsy).
Mum-
Yeah, they're big & plump, had me thinking about dinner myself. ;~)
greg brown...every time i hear him i chuckle, that's my partner's name.
hey! i updated finally! i did the meme too.
i plan to update more regularly. lots to think about now.
Love the Macy's story. Wish I knew the characters you were hanging with. Sounds like you've led a wonderful life, Jim, and you continue to inspire us with your warm smile (and attitude). Glad you didn't let Burroughs influence that part of your path. :)
canada geese..how i love them! when i go out for a run, i often see them flying overhead. their honking fills me with a feeling of such peace and joy..:)
unforunately, where i live they are seen only as pests,but we have so much urban sprawl here, there are few wlid places left for them to go. office parks build ponds next to busy roads,which attracts the geese and they are often killed by cars and trucks as they land or take flight. it's rare to find anyone who still appreciates their grace. i'm glad that you do.
In Regina those geese are pretty thick on the ground around Wascana Lake. I've heard that there was a time when the geese were quite scarce, and there was a recovery project based in Regina. Big success, apparently! Now they have an annual roundup and truck a lot of the young-of-the-year geese out to other water bodies around the province, get them settled there before the migration begins, and that way they migrate back to those other places instead of Regina.
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