Three Beautiful Things 07-30-2022: Cruisin' the Gut with Stu, Watching Gregory Peck in *The Gunfighter*, Bogart as a Felon With a Tender Side

 1. Stu invited me to join him at the Silver Valley Hoops event to watch his son, Jeff, compete in the 3 on 3 tournament. I declined. I didn't want to get sick sitting in the sun and heat. 

I was blogging away or doing something similar when a knock on the front door echoed through the house. 

It was Stu.

He wondered if I'd like to take a ride in the huge late 1960s Oldsmobile he purchased a while back. 

I said, "Sure!", got dressed, and we took a spin through Sunnyside, cruised on uptown, noted who used to live in different houses and other changes throughout town, and then Stu brought me back home.

With the windows down, the ventilation in the car was very good and I was happy to have had a comfortable ride through Kellogg, as if Stu and I were high school kids again, cruising the gut. 

2. Well, as far as going out of the house, my ride with Stu was it.

I decided to stay cool in the house and return to Vizio University for more movie viewing and film history study.

While flopping around the World Wide Web, working to increase my knowledge and understanding of movies made before 1960, I came across references to the director Henry King. You'd think I would have heard of Henry King given that he directed over 100 movies, from 1917-1962.

But, I established Vizio University largely because my experience with movies is very similar to the vast open plains and deserts so many Westerns are set in: there's a lot of emptiness.

After watching High Noon, I read that Gregory Peck had turned down the role of Will Kane because it seemed too similar to the role he played in Henry King's The Gunfighter.

That fact caught my attention.

If the story of The Gunfighter, I mused, in any way parallels the exploration of conscience I experienced watching High Noon, I want to see this movie.

And so I discovered that it's a Criterion Channel offering and I fired it up.

In The Gunfighter, Gregory Peck plays the notorious outlaw, Johnny Ringo (John Wayne played him in Stagecoach). 

In The Gunfighter, Johnny Ringo has decided to reform. If this movie were The Wire, Johnny Ringo would be getting out of the game. Johnny Ringo arrives in the frontier town of Cayenne, looking to reconcile with his estranged wife and eight year old son, hoping they'll leave Cayenne and join him on a ranch far away where they can start over again as a family.

Johnny Ringo wants to change his present, change his future, but he cannot change his past.

The Gunfighter explores how things that have happened in the past take on a life of their own. They weigh down on Johnny Ringo's life in the present moments of this story. While Johnny Ringo spends much of this movie in contemplation and self-examination, searching his conscience, looking for ways to leave his life as an outlaw behind, he must also some to grips with how, in many ways, he is who he has been and his past has a power and force in his life that must be overcome if he is to become a new man, a reformed outlaw.

I've watched four US made Westerns in the past five days.

I'm wondering if essays exist in the world that explore the American Western movie as akin to Shakespeare's history plays -- I know I'm seeing this parallel and want to contemplate it further,

3. This evening, I decided I had enough energy and concentration in me to watch a second movie.

I'd been deeply impressed with Humphrey Bogart in his last film appearance in The Harder They Fall and decided to go back to the first movie he appeared in playing a leading role.

Once again, subscribing to the Criterion Channel paid off -- High Sierra is available on this streaming service.

They are not clones of each other, but The Gunfighter and High Sierra are both about a character who has lived a criminal life and wants to "crash out", not only from prison, but from life as a criminal.

If only it were as easy as just wanting it.

Bogart's character, Roy Earle, does get released from prison at the movie's outset, but he did not receive a Get Out of Jail Free card. A crime boss paid a bribe to get Roy Earle released and the kingpin wants a return on his investment.

Roy Earle cannot escape his obligation to commit one more crime, head up one more heist, and the movie centers around Roy Earle's last job.

The movie takes a few detours from the central story of the heist. It develops subplots that work to unfold that Roy Earle can behave like a hardened criminal, but deep down he is tender-hearted. We see that if he can pull off this last job and escape being captured by law enforcement, he has it within him to be a good man and to live a life free of robbery and homicide. 

Will he escape? Will he find a way to crash out from his criminal deeds and live a free life, free of crime and free to love? 

I'm not saying.

But the movie does answer the question and if you want to know, you'll have to watch High Sierra yourself! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-29-2022: Humphrey Bogart at Vizio University, Ahhhh! "The Year of the Cat"!, Jammin' with Daryl Hall

 1. Being outside in this heat makes me nauseous. It's that simple. Fortunately, I have a varied and fascinating indoor life and currently it revolves around watching black and white movies at Vizio University. 

Today, I decided to move Vizio University into the living room and be in the same room as Debbie while class was in session.

So, I fired up the Criterion Channel on my MacBook and headed straight to a currently featured Criterion Collection, In the Ring: Boxing on Screen. 

My recent studies at VUniv have had me ricocheting around the World Wide Web and somehow I came upon a Richard Brody micro-review of Humphrey Bogart's last movie, the gripping The Harder They Fall.

Today I watched it for the first time. 

Bogart plays Eddie Willis, a hard-boiled writer. His career as a boxing reporter and columnist recently ended when the newspaper he worked for folded. Out of work, he accepts a job from a corrupt boxing promoter and organized crime boss, played brilliantly by Rod Steiger, to work as a publicist for a boxer who can't fight. 

The Harder They Fall fit perfectly into my current studies at Vizio U. It's a meticulously crafted movie, very much in the film noir style, shot in black and white. Unlike the Westerns I've watched for most of the week, The Harder They Fall is an urban movie. Its cast of corrupt figures make deals over straight whiskey poured in short glasses, occupy hotel suites, crowd themselves into the locker rooms of boxing arenas, sit near ringside at fight after fight. Director Mark Robson does not romanticize the fight game. This movie is a work of realism, its fights carefully and brutally choreographed. I could see how Martin Scorsese had to have been influenced in his making of Raging Bull by this film's grittiness, its harsh portrayal of boxing and the corruption inside and outside the ring.

As the movie's story develops, Bogart's Eddie Willis' conscience awakens. He must decide how long he can continue to work in the corrupt world he has not only hired into, but contributed to significantly.

It's the perfect Humphrey Bogart role. Eddie Willis' resolve to help further the corruption he's a part of begins to crack and it's moving to watch Bogart portray this character's soul searching and how he ultimately resolves to be able to live with himself. 

To me, The Harder They Fall critiques not only the corruption of the boxing world, but of any business in which the lives and well-being of human beings are rendered worthless thanks to the callous pursuit of money and wealth undertaken by those who run the business and to the endless efforts of businessmen to preserve their own legacy and reputation with lies, cover-ups, and fake publicity no matter the harm their practices inflict on those under their employ. 

Nothing about this movie, released in 1956, seemed dated.

I experienced the corruption it explores as current, contemporary, and ongoing. 

2. Once the movie ended, I couldn't get the opening lines of Al Stewart's "The Year of the Cat" out of my mind: "One a morning from a Bogart movie/In a country where they turn back time/You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre/Contemplating a crime . . ." 

The song didn't really have anything to do with the movie I just watched except that Bogart's name is in it.

So I played it on YouTube for Debbie and me and enjoyed fond memories of when I bought the album and it brought to mind Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" and I played it, too, and enjoyed more memories of living in Spokane for two and half years after graduating from Whitworth and how much I loved that time in my life.

3. Well, it turns out that Al Stewart recently made an appearance at Daryl Hall's house and I found a YouTube video of Al Stewart playing "The Year of the Cat" with Daryl Hall and the other musicians gathered in Daryl Hall's home studio.

I didn't listen long because I wanted to hear other segments of other episode of Live from Daryl's House and stayed up past midnight listening to Elle King, Joe Walsh, the O'Jays, Billy Gibbons, Coe Lo Green, Cheap Trick, Rob Thomas, and Anderson East all perform either their own songs or Hall and Oates songs with Daryl Hall and the musicians Daryl Hall has in his house. 

I love Live from Daryl's House. Not only has watching this show elevated my already high regard for Daryl Hall, it's also helped me understand more fully and deeply popular music I've been listening to for decades. 

One last thing: the show works because Daryl Hall is such a generous soul -- not only as a musician, but as a host, a supporter of other musicians, and in the sharing of his home and studio with all these men and women making uplifting and thrilling music together. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-28-2022: *High Noon* at Vizio University, *High Noon* as Timeless Allegory, Martin Short Lightens Up My Day!

 1. If there's one thing I begrudgingly enjoy about summer heat waves, it's that they keep me indoors and I don't for a second feel like I should leave the house.

These days, staying in the house, for me, means one thing: Vizio University is in session.

I'm creating the current Vizio University film studies course syllabus day to day. My current course of self-education will, before long, include The Last Picture Show.  For now, though, I am continuing to reach back many years to Westerns made before The Last Picture Show to get a better idea of the ways of telling a story and the movie making methods that Peter Bogdanovich might have inherited.

Today's feature: High Noon (1952).

For my entire movie watching life, I've heard High Noon referred to countless times and, for some reason, I've never watched it. This is true, actually, for many Westerns.

High Noon is famously unique in that it tells its story in "real time". The movie focuses on a ninety minute period of time in the frontier town of Hadleyville, as the town awaits the return of released convict Frank Miller, an outlaw arriving on the noon train bent on killing the Marshall, Will Kane, for having "sent him up" to prison for murder. The movie chronicles these ninety minutes, one after another, as they take place. 

So, the repeated image of the clock, of the pendulum swinging back and forth as the clock's hands move forward, much like the mythical sword of Damocles, recurs.  The nearly minute to minute crawl of time not only creates building tension, but heightens our sense of inevitability that the momentous confrontation/showdown between Frank Miller and Marshal Will Kane is fated to occur.

2. Okay. The movie's plot moves like a slow train toward its climax, but at the heart of the movie is Marshal Will Kane's moral dilemma whether to stay in Hadleyville and face Frank Miller or leave town with the woman he married at the movie's outset. 

He stays. He journeys from one social gathering and one home or business to another in Hadleyville looking to round up a posse to help him confront Frank Miller and Miller's three outlaw companions.

My studies at Vizio University today taught me that High Noon works as a political allegory opposing the Hollywood blacklisting occurring at the same time as High Noon's production. 

On a broader scale, my view is that the movie explores, through allegory, not only an individual's fidelity to his conscience, but also examines whether, in a time of crisis, no matter the time period, members of one's community are willing to work together to support that individual's moral decision. When do members of a community rally behind an individual faced with a life and death decision to act on his/her principles and when and why do members of the social body decide not to be of help? We see this conflict acted out all the time. High Noon locates it on the Western frontier in what appears to be a point in time in the distant past, but the movie's portrayal of this dilemma rings true universally. 

3.  When I was younger, I sometimes watched two or three movies in a day. I surely had the time to watch another movie this afternoon or evening, but I decided High Noon was enough.

So, I watched a whole bunch of YouTube videos of Martin Short playing the part of talk show host Jiminy Glick. I could hardly stop. Everyone of them killed me off.

I also love to watch Martin Short's appearances on David Letterman. Debbie and I enjoyed having a party this evening. I enjoyed a couple gin and tonics enhanced by fresh-squeezed mandarin orange juice and I played, at the end of our party, a fifteen minute clips of the time Martin Short began his chat with Letterman by acting like Dave had announced his retirement from show business when, in fact, it was Regis who had made this announcement. He then told a so bad it was good story about when he as a med student and he capped off his appearance with a Vegas styled performance of a song describing rehab as the key to re-igniting a slumping celebrity career. It was hilarious. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-27-2022: *Red River* at Vizio University, John Wayne's Superb Acting, A Welcome Uncooked Dinner

1. Kellogg is enduring a heat wave, making it all the more inviting to spend hours in the air conditioned comfort of Vizio University and continue educating myself in the world of movies. (Several years ago, I learned that the word for a self-taught person is "autodidact". The word does the job, but it's not a word I like the sound of, so I doubt I'll used it much.) 

I continue to prepare myself to watch The Last Picture Show. I'm going to watch select black and white movies that precede it and take a look at filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich knew very well and admired. 

He admired Howard Hawks. I read in the Criterion booklet about The Last Picture Show that the last movie shown in the Sam the Lion's movie theater in The Last Picture Show is Howard Hawks' Red River (1948). 

I also learned that in 2008, the American Film Institute listed Red River as one of the ten best Westerns of all time -- number five, in fact. (If you'd like to see the titles of AFI's top ten Westerns, scroll to the end of this post.)

So, I rented Red River from Amazon with a couple of things in mind. First, I wanted to ponder why, in a story about a dying Texas town, Peter Bogdanovich chose Red River as the last picture show to be screened at Sam the Lion's movie theater. I have nothing to write about this question just yet.

Secondly, I wanted, as best I could on the relatively small screen of our Vizio television set, pay special attention to the visual aspects of Red River, knowing, as I had learned, that Howard Hawks determined that shooting this movie in color would be too garish, and so it's presented in black and white.

The visual content of Red River is stunning. For one thing, for much of the movie it is unrelentingly out of doors and so the forces of nature subject the cattle drive that dictates the movie's movement from scene to scene to intense conditions of heat, storms, and rough terrain. Frame after frame of this movie is filled with the movement of thousands of cows and steers and horses, always set against the stunning panoramas of expansive skies, cottony clouds, wide open spaces, and striking hills and mountains rising out of the landscape. Nature makes this cattle drive a grind and the demands of the land and the elements weigh heavily on the mental states of the movie's characters in such a way that the overwhelming and unrelenting demands of the natural world give us pictures of the overwhelming pressure the cattle drivers are under. 

These panoramic cattle drive scenes contrast with the camp scenes. These camp scenes struck me as claustrophobic, not because the men were in closed spaces, but because the demands of this long, long cattle drive were wearing them down, eroding their morale, fraying their nerves, exhausting them. These scenes reminded me of the soldiers' long march to Agincourt in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, but Red River stands in contrast to Henry V, thanks to the character played by John Wayne.

2. Whereas Henry V is able to inspire and rally his beleaguered troops on the eve of the battle at Agincourt, John Wayne's character, Thomas Dunson, is a hardened, obsessed, stubborn, legalistic, inflexible leader. Wayne plays this callous character's descent into Ahab-like madness brilliantly in subtle increments, masterfully portraying Dunson's psychological and physical decline. When the camera moves in close on John Wayne, gone is the charm and vigor we saw in his portrayal of Kid Ringo in Stagecoach. In this movie, Wayne's character does not draw us near to him but repels us. Not only do the cattle drivers he's leading come to despise him, we as viewers find him unappealing, too.

I'm going to leave it at that. I'd rather not give away how matters come to a head on the cattle drive, what happens, and how it affects the rest of the movie. I'd much rather you watched the movie to find out. 

3. The heat suppressed my appetite. Today I went to Yoke's to purchase a six pack of Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA. I knew neither Debbie nor I wanted to cook, so I bought some salami, chips, salsa, celery, crackers, and seltzer water thinking that we could make ourselves a platter of cold food items whenever we wanted to eat. 

I emerged from Vizio University, pumped up from my enjoyment of Red River, and, after feeding Luna and Copper, I fixed myself a very small gin and tonic and squeezed the juice of a mandarin orange into my glass. The drink was short and refreshing and whet my appetite for salami slices, slices of a Cosmic Crisp apple, and saltine crackers. I enjoyed drinking a light cocktail and a very light and uncooked dinner. 

For dessert, I went online and read more essays praising and analyzing Red River. 

AFI's Top Ten Westerns 

1. The Searchers

2. High Noon

3. Shane

4. Unforgiven

5. Red River

6. The Wild Bunch

7. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

8. McCabe and Mrs. Miller

9. Stagecoach

10. Cat Ballou

Three Beautiful Things 07-26-2022: Self-Education, Preparing for and Watching *Stagecoach*, Cool Air/Cool Yakkin'

 1. From time to time, without regret for what I did in my life, I imagine myself pursuing different courses of study in graduate school rather than what I did. Repeatedly, I most often imagine myself becoming a film/movie student. Because I didn't do this, I tend to experience movies as if they were written stories, thinking about them and discussing them much like I would novels or short stories. 

Over time, I've wanted to expand my experience with movies and become more able to understand and use the vocabulary of film making, to be more attentive to elements in movies like long shots, deep focus, lighting, and many others.

Today, I read up a bit on terms like establishing shots, master shots, and others. I'd read that the producers of The Last Picture Show were originally frustrated with director Peter Bogdanovich not shooting more master shots. I didn't really know what that meant -- and I'm still working on my understanding -- but this will give me something to pay attention to when I watch the movie soon.

I'd say that I am embarking on an informal course of self-education in movie watching. 

2. To further this project today, I listened to interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Michael Cunningham as they discussed the 1939 John Ford movie, Stagecoach. 

I was less interested in their discussion of the movie's moral content and cultural importance (both of which I'm very interested in!) and more interested in John Ford's direction, not so much of the actors, but of the camera, shot composition, and lighting. 

I'm not articulate enough right now to write in much depth about these things, but I can say that I took notice of Ford's dramatic use in Stagecoach of close ups, his (I would call it) love for panoramic shots of the Monument Valley region, and his use of deep focus to often pack particular frames of the picture full of action or of characters' reactions to certain moments. 

I listened online to other directors like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and George Hill talk about all they learned about filmmaking from watching John Ford's movies. I read that Orson Welles watched Stagecoach about forty times as he directed Citizen Kane and was significantly influenced by John Ford's approach to filmmaking and story telling. 

3. I emerged from the Vizio room when Debbie returned home after socializing in Kellogg for a few hours. As is so often the case here in North Idaho, as the sun disappears, the day's scorching temperatures fall. Debbie and I sat in the back yard and talked for nearly two hours about the history of filmmaking in the USA, the parallels between breakthroughs in movie making and song writing, how and why these breakthroughs might have happened. There might not be clear explanations for the emergence and influence of Bob Dylan or John Cassavetes, of Joni Mitchell or Martin Scorsese, but not arriving at definitive conclusions hardly deterred us from talking about what we've experienced and observed over the course of our lives in the worlds of movies (and television) and music. 

I know one thing: I feel very fortunate to be alive in 2022 and to have grown up with the movies and music of my lifetime and even more fortunate that technology exists to be able to watch movies made over the past century and listen to decades of music and not only dive into the significance of it all, but to let it carry me away. It's also fun to discuss and write about. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-25-2022: Movies for My Future!, The Making of *The King of Marvin Gardens*, Family Dinner on Christy's Deck

 1. The Criterion issued six Blu-ray box set of movies produced by BBS entitled America Lost and Found arrived today and I am fired up. I immediately got out the box set's booklet entitled The BBS Story and began to thumb through it. If you are at all familiar with movies issued on DVD/Blu-ray by Criterion, you know that they issue superb essays with the movies (this parallels all the insightful material available at www.criterion.com). I turned immediately to the essay by Graham Fuller written about The Last Picture Show. 

Now, I already knew that Peter Bogdanovitch (died in Jan 2022) was one of cinema's eminent film historians, but only in a general way. This essay unfolds Bogdanovitch's debt to director John Ford as well as the homage he pays to Ford in the making of The Last Picture Show. 

Ah! 

This was just what I wanted to learn and now, since I haven't watched many John Ford movies, I'm going to watch some, if not all, the movies Graham Fuller cites in his article, and see if these movies deepen my appreciation for The Last Picture Show.

If we Westminster Basementeers agree to watch The Last Picture Show and talk about the movie over ZOOM, who knows? Maybe I'll learn a thing or two worth sharing with the others. 

2. After looking at the box set's booklet, I put The King of Marvin Gardens in the Blu-ray player and watched the disc's supplemental material. 

I watched interviews, mostly with director Bob Rafelson, but the material also included parts of interviews  with the movie's Director of Photography, Laszlo Kovacs, actors Bruce Dern and Ellyn Burstyn, and others. I also watched an video piece just over an hour long of Rafelson's commentary on specific scenes from the movie.

Listening to these interviews and this commentary broadened and deepened my understanding and appreciation for how the movie was made and how Bob Rafelson worked with Laszlo Kovacs and with the movie's actors. When I watch movies, often my first impulse is to try to sort out the movie's meaning, especially its philosophical or political substance. I am still thinking hard about what The King of Marvin Gardens invites its viewers to think about. But learning more about how Rafelson wanted scenes to be shot, about the extraordinary work Kovacs did with lighting and framing, and learning more about how the actors, both in rehearsal or by improvisation, brought specific scenes to life fascinated me. 

The King of Marvin Gardens is about being lost in America. It's about loss, isolation, alienation, delusion, and the intoxicating make believe qualities of the American Dream when lived out as a fantasy. 

Learning more about the production of the movie strengthened my understanding of the ideas it explores.

Today I also took a break from studying movies from the 1970s and watched the first two parts of 30 for 30's four part documentary entitled, Once Upon a Time in Queens. It's the wild story of the rise of the New York Mets in the mid-1980s, culminating in their 1986 World Series victory. It's also the story of the seeds of demise that existed within the Mets right alongside the greatness that made these Mets such a powerful baseball team. 

3. I arrived at family dinner with a head full of baseball and movie history and three Heidelberg beers in hand for Christy. I poured myself a glass of tonight's cocktail, Bobby Flay's Mediterranean Lemonade, and eased out of the Vizio room and into the present moment, seated for family dinner on Christy's back deck.

Christy served dried tomato crostini with salmon dip as an appetizer and in a short while we all filed into Christy's kitchen and made ourselves a ranch bacon pulled chicken sandwich. Christy had combined chicken breast, cream cheese, a packet of ranch dressing mix, and bacon in her crockpot and we put this pulled chicken on a potato bun. Debbie made a cabbage, cucumber, and dill salad and after we finished our dinner, we ate Carol's cherry crisp for dessert. 

I don't handle heat well, especially as I age. I hoped Christy's deck wouldn't be too hot and it wasn't! She ran a fan, which helped, and we were out of the sun which was good. We didn't get together until six o'clock and I think that made a difference, too, because from six o'clock on, the temperature got gradually cooler and cooler. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-24-2022: Bill Reminisces on ZOOM, Bridgit's Promotion, *The Last Picture Show* Discussion on ZOOM? Stay Tuned

 1. For me, today's time on ZOOM with Diane, Bill, and Bridgit was momentous. Until today, I had not known that Bill's dad, like mine, enjoyed drinking Heidelberg beer. The subject came up because I cracked open a tall boy of Heidelberg to drink while we ZOOMed. I'd say I cracked one open to sip on, but one of the wonders of Heidelberg beer is that it's not a beer anyone wants to drink slowly. Once it gets warm, even a bit warm, it's really awful. I succeeded today in finishing my can before it got lousy.

So Bill took us back to his youth and summers with other families and funny things they did on Fox Island. The families that hung out together there not only played music and sang songs together, they created make believe worlds, carried out tongue-in-cheek rituals, and often accompanied their frivolity with Heidelberg beer. 

Later, I asked Bill about his time in Spokane earlier in the week with longtime hiking friends of his. Three of the guys, all Whitworth alums, didn't make it to Spokane, but Bill rode over with the one guy in the group who didn't go to Whitworth and they paid Alan Hicks a visit at his home north of Spokane.

I enjoyed Bill's story of the guys' return last Monday to a hilltop near Indian Painted Rocks, what Bill called in a photo he posted, The Original. I think that means this peak is the original spot where these guys hiked and camped about forty-five years ago and out of this original hike and time of camping emerged a tradition of getting together and heading into mountains in Washington State. 

I enjoyed Bill's account of the challenges he faced making this modest hike because of the chronic maladies that affect his legs and hands and that makes being in any kind of heat very difficult. 

Bill triumphed. He ascended The Original, loved being with Alan and Paul (and a newcomer, Alan's nephew, Johnny) and was able to spend much of Tuesday recovering, sitting in a cool creek.

Bill also updated us on what's happening with Alan's father, the retired and most esteemed Professor of Biology at Whitworth University. I don't feel I'm at liberty to write what Bill told us, except to say that Dr. Hicks' is, in this late stage of his life, a sweet, loving father and friend whose mental capacities have diminished with age. 

2. It's a great time right now in Bridgit's life, too. She recently received a promotion and will supervise about seven resident care social workers in the Kelso/Longview area. If I understand her new job correctly, this means Bridgit will no longer be working in the field, no longer making nursing home visits, no longer making home visits. With the onset of the pandemic and the recent surge of cases, especially in nursing homes, Bridgit's work had become riskier. Bridgit inspired all of our respect and admiration as she described the graceful and conscientious work she did in leaving her former job, making sure that case files were in order and that those who took over her case load could move readily forward with Bridgit's former tasks. 

Colette couldn't make it to our ZOOM time today -- and for good reason. MORE GOOD NEWS! Colette completed her Master of Fine Arts at Eastern Oregon University and this weekend she received her diploma at the graduation ceremony. 

It's been quite a week for our Westminster Basementeers!

3. At some point toward the end of our time together, we shifted our conversation to movies made between oh, let's say, 1968 and 1975 with the addition of 1980's Atlantic City. Bill and Diane recently watched two Mike Nichols' movies from that time period, The Graduate and Catch-22, and I had watched The King of Marvin Gardens. Our discussion led us to agree that it might be fun to all watch and discuss a stirring movie from this time period, The Last Picture Show. We haven't arrived at a consensus about this yet, but thinking about doing this together made me wish we lived in closer proximity to each other. I just received my shipment of a 7 disc boxset of movies collected by Criterion under the title, American Lost and Found. 

One of the movies in this set is The Last Picture Show and its disc features a promising looking collection of extras -- interviews, commentaries, and other things. If we lived closer to each other, we could gather in one place, watch the movie together, decide whether to also watch some of the extra material, and discuss the movie. It would be something like the days in my apartment in Spokane about forty years ago when I'd have students and friends over to watch movies together. In fact, a couple of times, in January of 1983, I squeezed my entire Family in American Drama class into the apartment and we put on MTV preview content and then watched movies I'd recorded on my Betamax. It was kind of crazy. It was really fun. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-23-2022: Reassuring Copper and Luna, Chillin' at The Lounge, Relaxin' at Carol and Paul's

 1. I retired in the middle of the day to the bedroom where Luna and Copper were resting. I lay on the bed to nap and Luna immediately got up on my chest and Copper placed herself close to me, but didn't make contact. I put one hand on Copper's back and pet Luna with my other hand and soon I fell asleep, completely in touch with both Luna and Copper the entire nap, all of us relaxed and contented, and couldn't imagine a better way to assure them that they live in safe and loving home. 

2. Around five o'clock, I dropped into the Inland Lounge. Cas had two customers. Charlie was down in the VIP section playing the house digital jukebox with his cell phone app and Ginger was was at the bar. Ginger, Cas, and I are all in the same fantasy baseball leagues and we got to yakkin' about the leagues and our successes and failures. Before long, thanks to our reunion last weekend, the conversation turned to Heidelberg beer and Ginger mentioned that, if I could let go of some of my stash, she has a friend with a birthday coming up. This friend loved Heidelberg when it was widely available.  I am happy to report that it will be a great joy and a pleasure to help Ginger make her friend very happy! 

3. After our family dinner blowout on Tuesday, there were leftovers -- chips, margaritas, and maybe other things. Carol and Paul invited Debbie, Christy, and me over to their house to enjoy leftovers. Gibbs joined in. So did Riley. It was pleasant on Paul and Carol's patio. Cleo and Riley and Gibbs seemed to get along all right. I joined the party a little late after my visit to the Lounge and had a relaxing time with everyone. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-22-2022: All-Class Reunion Committees, Progress on the Patio, My Contact Info Project Continues

 1. Debbie and I are having a basement window and the Sube's windshield replaced. Shoshone Glass emailed us a proposal, we signed it, and I took it down to Shoshone Glass's office to turn it in and put a payment down on the proposed work. 

I went in person because I wanted to talk a bit with Lori Sawyer about next summer's All Class Reunion (July 21-23, 2023). 

She's the chief organizer of the reunion and, as of now, not many people have volunteered to help out. I learned that her primary concern right now is finding people who are will willing to chair committees. A few minutes ago, on Facebook, Lori posted a list of committees that need a chair person.

Here they are:

Food trucks

Transportation

Booklet

Opening and closing ceremonies

Publicity

Wooden nickels, bags, and signs

T-shirts

Choir and band

There will be an All Class Reunion meeting at what used to be the Kellogg Middle School (now a community center) on August 15th. Past meetings have been at 6:30, so I'm thinking this one will be, too.

I am kind of raring to go on helping make this All-Class Reunion happen. 

I had such a great time at our Class of 72 reunion last weekend that I'm motivated to get involved with the All-Class as well.

2. Debbie and I decided we'd like to have a concrete patio and today we scheduled the work for that job and should have a place to sit outdoors, under our already constructed roof, in about three weeks. 

3. I worked all afternoon on continuing to update the KHS Class of 72 spreadsheet so that the contact information will be current and all located on one document. This project requires concentration, a nap or two (!), and a measure of diligence, but, lo and behold, I'm having a great time working on it. I think it's going to help us out a lot in the future as the need arises to contact our classmates. 

For example, soon I'll send out to the Class of 72ers an early mark your calendar notice -- and recommend that people start thinking about lodging -- for the All-Class Reunion.

As I might have mentioned, it will be held July 21, 22, 23 in the year of our Lord 2023. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-21-2022: Project Continues, Gene and Diane on Christy's Deck, Tonight's Hearing and Beer

1.  I am highly motivated to get all the Class of 72 contact information onto one spread sheet and I moved this project significantly forward this morning by picking up the reunion registration slips from Diane. 

2. Everett's son, Gene, and Gene's wife, Diane, visited Christy today. Debbie dropped in on Christy's deck to join their party and I did, too, once I finished writing my blog post about movies made between 1968-75. When I arrived, Gene and Diane were telling stories about their life traveling the USA in their mobile home and what their plans are for future trips. They are seeing a great deal of the beauty of the USA and are figuring out better and better all the time how to make their life of living on the road work.

3. Until today, I've watched all the Select Committee hearings by myself in the Vizio room. That's been all right, but, tonight, I found out Debbie was also watching the hearings in the living room on her laptop.  We didn't need to be in the same room taking this in because what really mattered was being able to talk about what we saw and heard after tonight's hearing ended.  It was also a great pleasure to split the last two Hammerhead Ales, one during the hearings and one after. The hearing was disturbing. The Hammerhead was a great pleasure. So was talking with Debbie. Enjoying the beer worked really well for both of us. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-20-2022: Another Reunion Project, Debbie and I Drink Hammerhead, *The King of Marvin Gardens* and Movies from 1968-1975

1.  Today I accidentally unearthed a spreadsheet of contact information for the KHS Class of '72 that I didn't remember I had. How did I find it? Well, I was going to go to work on creating my first ever Google Sheets spreadsheet and when I clicked on the Sheets icon in my Google directory, I found the spreadsheet. Looking it over, I found contact information I could have made good use of about four or five months ago and I discovered mailing addresses and email addresses that are obsolete.

So, this is my next project. I will get the 50th reunion registration slips back from Diane and go to work updating and expanding this spreadsheet in preparation for keeping in touch with classmates about next summer's All-Class Reunion to be held July 21-23, 2023.

If you are a KHS grad and reading this blog,  BLOCK OUT THAT JULY, 2023 WEEKEND and plan to come to Kellogg for a fun-filled weekend.

2. I'd let them chill for a couple of days and, today, I popped open two tall boys of Hammerhead Ale and split them with Debbie. Today, the Hammerhead seemed to me to have a subtle roasted nut flavor underlying the Cascade hops, almost as if the Crystal Malt triggered that flavor. Debbie thought her beer had a hint of cloves and I loved that idea. This is what makes drinking craft beers fun -- Debbie and I almost always have slightly different experiences with our beer and it's fun to try to describe those differences to each other.

3. I got to thinking tonight, after watching the 1972 Bob Rafelson movie, The King of Marvin Gardens, that if I could own a little theater or host film festivals in another venue, among the first movies I'd screen would be small budget movies made between about 1968 and roughly 1974 (pre-Jaws). Some film historians regard this short period of time as a renaissance in USA movie making. I know that I love to watch movies from this period, especially ones like The King of Marvin Gardens. The screenwriters, directors, and cinematographers of these movies see movies as a vehicle for exploring troubling aspects not only of human characters, but of the culture of the United States. 

So, let's say I had access to a small movie house and let's pretend that there were people interested in coming to these movies. The audience would be made of viewers who do not go to movies to escape life's discomforting realties, but want to explore and discuss the movies' difficulties, the ways they complicate the idea of The American Dream, the innovative ways they are photographed, their sharp and often intricately structured screenplays, and the complex and often unlikeable characters they feature. 

Thanks to the movie curators at Criterion, I have a six disc collection of movies from this time period coming to my front door early next week, entitled America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. (BBS is the production company that brought these movies into being.)  In my dream (or is it a nightmare?) film festival, I  feature four movies from this collection along with a documentary that BBS produced.  Here's the list of movies:

Easy Rider

Five Easy Pieces

The Last Picture Show

The King of Marvin Gardens

Hearts and Minds 

Hearts and Minds is the lone documentary. Its subject matter is the war in Vietnam. 

If the film festival didn't pan out, but I thought there was an audience for a double feature, I'd screen The King of Marvin Gardens with another great Atlantic City movie that came out in 1980, entitled Atlantic City. In spirit and production values, it's akin to the those "renaissance" movies made between 1968 and 1975.

I wrote out this dream of hosting movie screenings because this evening I watched The King of Marvin Gardens and I wanted to talk about it. I didn't want to assign it stars or give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I didn't want to discuss whether other people liked or didn't like the movie.

I wanted to talk about the movie's troubling characters: a depressive, existentialist low key overnight FM talk radio show host played by Jack Nicholson; this character has a brother, played by Bruce Dern, who is an extroverted con man, always on the hustle, always lying, hustling, scheming, and trying to make his deluded vision of the American Dream a reality. I wanted to talk about the two women in the Bruce Dern character's life. The older of the two is a bipolar middle-aged former beauty queen and prostitute, played by Ellen Burstyn and the younger is her stepdaughter, played by Julia Anne Robinson. (Robinson's life ended in 1975 in a house fire in Eugene.) Together, these four characters are a combustible blend of oddness, fragility, perplexity, desperation, uncertainty, and disaffection. 

I also wanted to talk about Laszlo Kovacs' work as the Director of Photography. Kovacs' work, much like that of Gordon Willis in movies like The Godfather and All the President's Men, is superb in low light environments. Visually, we see mounting evidence of the decay and decline of Atlantic City. Kovacs, on occasion, gives us long views of the boardwalk that give viewers the sense of Atlantic City being like a Monopoly playing board. His work with empty spaces, whether on the shoreline or in a performance hall with no audience helps reinforce the inward emptiness of the movie's characters and the way their lives seem headed nowhere. 

Not having fellow admirers of this kind of movie to talk with, I did the next best thing. I went to the World Wide Web and read essays about The King of Marvin Gardens and about low budget, non-escapist movies made when I was in high school and college.

And then I wrote about these movies in this blog post! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-19-2022: Perfect Volunteer Work, Resting Up, Birthday/Anniversary Family Dinner

1. To be honest, I'm not particularly looking forward to being finished with KHS Class of 72 50 year reunion business. I thoroughly enjoyed the tasks I gladly volunteered for, especially doing my best (and not succeeding 100%) to gather contact information and keeping in touch with classmates about their plans for coming or not and trying to keep everyone informed about how events developed over the weekend.

I really enjoyed keeping track of registrations, making lists, and sending out messages. I didn't have to deal much with money, consistent with my wishes, and I could do almost everything from the quiet of our home. 

It was perfect.

Now, starting yesterday and today, I'm starting to think ahead about next summer's All-Class Reunion.

Its dates are July 21, 22, 23, 2023. I don't know what the All-Class committee has planned yet, but I am certain that many of us who planned our 50th reunion will plan some kind of get together for our class over next summer's all-class reunion weekend. 

So, I'll get the contact info I've gathered organized even better, possibly gather some more information, and I'll be ready to send out notices to our classmates with information about a KHS Class of 1972 gathering during during next summer's All-Class Reunion. 

2. Okay! That said -- and I mean it -- about enjoying doing behind the scenes work on the reunion, today I needed more time to recuperate from the weekend and our HOFGG breakfast on Monday. 

This afternoon, on two different occasions, I slept. 

I enjoyed my rest. Copper and Luna definitely enjoyed my company!

3. Today was Carol and Paul's 36th wedding anniversary and we are just a few days past Zoe's 28th birthday. Several members of Paul's family arrived in Kellogg today: his mom, Pat;  sister, Laurie; brother, Kevin; sister-in-law, Linda; and daughter, Zoe.  Christy, Debbie, and I bolted over to the Roberts' back yard for a birthday/anniversary/family dinner celebration. We joined Carol, Paul, and Molly -- and later Molly's pal, Ryan -- for the party.

Paul grilled burgers and others contributed salads: a fruit salad, crunch Romaine salad, a pasta salad, and a potato salad. We had chips and guacamole and a variety of drinks including pre-mixed margaritas, wine, and soda pop.

The evening was comfortably warm. Conversation was lively as we talked about middle names, the marvels of New York City, and family histories. We told some family history stories and had fun flitting from one topic to the next. 

We enjoyed a time of gift opening accompanied by brownies and Neapolitan ice cream and some pepper jelly syrup. 

I quietly left that gathering at one point. All of the past weekend's activity caught up to me and I went into Carol and Paul's t.v. area and stretched out on an old sofa of Mom's and rested, maybe even slept a bit. I'm so happy that I could quietly leave the party, do what I needed to do, and not raise any alarm (What's wrong with Bill? Where did he go?). Nothing was wrong. I just hit the wall and needed to retreat from the gathering. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-18-2022: Hall of Fame of Great Guys Convenes at Elmer's, Hammerhead and Recuperation, Pork Stroganoff

 1. I revved up the Camry and swooshed out to Kingston, picked up Ed, and soon we landed at Elmer's on Appleway in Coeur d'Alene for breakfast with a superb representation of members of the Hall of Fame of Great Guys. Stu had organized this breakfast, but then he fell ill. We missed him, but carried on, and the following HOFGG members (and I) came together in a back room at Elmer's that we had all to ourselves:

Ed Hanson

Mike Stafford

Ron Jacobs

Bruce Larsen

Jim Byrd

Craig Burkhart

Roger Pearson 

Terry Turner 

We had an uproarious time swapping stories, sharing memories, getting details from the past straightened out as best we could, telling each other what we're up to now, and simply enjoying each other's company. I've known every one of these guys for over 50 years and some for over 60 years and it was a blast to be sitting at a table together and relishing one another's company! 

2. After we ate, Terry pulled a gift for me out of his cooler in the back of his pickup: a four pack of McMenamin's Hammerhead Ale in tall boy cans. Oh! My! I might have written this before, but this weekend with Don having brought me a generous supply of Heidelberg and with Terry giving me these Hammerheads, I have two awesome beer drinking experiences in my future I never thought I'd have in Idaho! For one, I never thought I'd see Heidelberg beer again (and it's back! in Tacoma!) and, two, Hammerhead is only available at McMenamin outlets located in western Oregon and Washington State and I just figured I'd always have to wait until I made a trip west to enjoy this best of pale ales again. 

You might think that since I'm so fired up about having Hammerhead in my possession that I must have popped one open as soon as I returned home.

No. I came home and went straight to bed!

It's been quite a while since I've had as much go on in my life over four days as I experienced over this reunion weekend and I needed to catch up on more sleep!

My nap was blissful. 

I was happy to have had all the fun I had that tired me out a bit and I savored today's time of further recuperation.

3. I had slow cooked a pork shoulder on Friday to take to our reunion get together up the North Fork on Saturday. It turned out, though, that we had enough leftovers from Friday's party that I didn't need to take the pork to Sharon's place. In the meantime, Debbie found a recipe for pork stroganoff and she fixed it today with egg noodles and it was a perfect way to turn that roast into a delicious meal. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-17-2022: Winding Down, Debbie Accepts a Teaching Position, Dinner at Rose Lake

 1. After such a flurry of reunion fun on Friday and Saturday, I rested today. Even though I was tired, that was primarily because I had a short night's sleep -- I'm not used to staying at The Lounge until closing time! I enjoyed how the reunion continued through the day as classmates began posting pictures, writing comments on Facebook, and expressing gratitude for such a fun weekend. 

2. I also posted on Facebook today that Debbie has accepted an offer to teach third grade at Pinehurst Elementary School this coming year. Debbie loves working with children and, if you read this blog much, you know that she has seized several opportunities since we moved to Kellogg to teach as a sub in Eugene and in Kellogg. After some deliberation, so that she could work with children more and work within the structure of a school day, she decided to apply for a position. She interviewed and, later on, the principal offered her this job. 

For those of you unfamiliar with Kellogg's school district, most of the elementary students in the district go to Pinehurst. They bus to the school from Wardner, Kellogg, Smelterville, Pine Creek, Elk Creek, Big Creek, Elizabeth Park, Montgomery Gulch, Page, Pinehurst, Kingston, and other parts of western Shoshone County.  In the far west part of the district, there's one other elementary school. (When people my age were kids, the district had, I think, seven elementary schools.)

The Pinehurst Elementary school building is about 5.5 miles from our house. Debbie can be to work in 10 minutes or so -- it'll take longer when the roads get snowy and icy in the winter. 

So that's the latest news from our home! 

3. Around 4 o'clock or so, Debbie and I piled into the Sube and rocketed out to Jake and Carol Lee's house on Rose Lake. Mike S., Terry T, Bruce L, and Jake played golf until about 4:00 with Rod Plank and Roger P. and, along with Ed, we all got together for a delicious dinner afterward. We enjoyed grilled slices of marinated flank steak, cheesy potatoes, corn on the cob, bread, and watermelon after enjoying some chips, salsa that one of Jake and Carol Lee's neighbor made, and guacamole that Debbie made. 

It was a relatively quiet time. We were all tired after a jam-packed weekend of seeing longtime friends, eating, drinking, dancing, golfing, and, in many other ways, enjoying ourselves. The dinner and the relaxed conversation made for an enjoyable way to wind down. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-16-2022: Walking the Halls of Kellogg High, Relaxing Up the River, Dirty Betty and Closing Down The Lounge

 1. After our lively and mirthful reunion party on Friday night, our reunion Saturday started out in a relaxed and mellow fashion and gained momentum and joyousness as we moved through the day.

At 10:00 this morning, the local school superintendent opened Kellogg High School for about a dozen or so of us to stroll through the building, remember how things in there used to me, and, for me at least, marvel at the building's expansion and improvements. It's a much more colorful learning environment than I remember the high school being back in 1969-72. Now there are walls with colorful murals and inspirational and encouraging words and sayings have been posted up and down the halls and as one climbs up certain stairs. Andrews Gymnasium looks awesome. The old bleachers have been replaced with new purple ones. The gym floor is beautifully polished and shiny. Banners celebrating the success of teams in several sports have been hung. 

I thought about what a welcoming and handsome learning environment has been created at KHS as I strolled up to the second and third floors, checked out the band and choir room, and as I admired the greened up landscapes of Jacobs Gulch and the view of Wardner Peak and other hill tops to the south. I was very happy I took part in this reunion activity.

2. Not long after I returned home, I grabbed six Heidelbergs out of the fridge and drove up the North Fork of the CdA River to the relaxing Waldo property that sits a bit above the river and has plenty of shaded areas to sit and relax. I enjoyed on Heidelberg in memory of my dad and his love of the North Fork. I had a several quiet and relaxing conversations and enjoyed some cold pizza and Caesar salad. 

Around 2:00, knowing that our dinner party tonight was staring at 5 and running until at least 10, I returned home and assumed the prone position on my bed for over two hours. I rested, slept, enjoyed being with Copper and Luna, and simply charged my batteries so I would be fresh and ready to have a great time at the Kingston HillTop.

3. Debbie and I arrived at the HillTop about 20 minutes or so after the Happy Hour time scheduled for 5:00 had begun and we walked into a joyous mob scene. Scores of classmates and their spouses/guests had already arrived. Seated around tables throughout the back deck and patio area at the HillTop people were getting caught up, telling stories, laughing, smiling, enjoying one another, and some were drifting around, mingling, talking to a variety of people. 

I was delighted to see everyone, but I felt especially happy that four of our teachers from 1969-72 accepted our invitation to come: Clarence Moore, accompanied by his son Butch; Larry Curry, with his wife Ann; Mike Dunn, with his wife Donna; and Ron Wood accompanied by his wife Sheila. It looked to me like they visited with many of their former students and they all were smiling broadly and were noticeably animated by being a part of our HillTop party.

Around 6:00, the HillTop servers brought out the food. Buffet lines formed. We dug into our dinners. As we completed our meal and as Dirty Betty, tonight's tight and rockin' band got ready to start playing, Diane's son, Matt, and daughter-in-law, Leah, managed to round up all the Class of 72ers in attendance for a group picture. 

Then the music started, and, for me at least, this party went from second to third to fourth gear and on into fun and joyful overdrive.

Dirty Betty is a superb cover band, playing songs ranging from artists like Deep Purple, The Cars, Pat Benatar, Journey, The Pretenders, Prince, and many others all the way up to 2022 and Billie Eilish. 

Maybe the band played one or two slow songs, but the vast majority of their tunes were infectious dance tunes and we so-called Senior Citizens flooded the gravel surface in front of the bandstand and danced  and danced and danced -- you might say we partied like it was 1999. Ha!

I got to dance with several awesome partners, including Donna Dunn and Ann Curry, and it was a total blast. It's hard to pinpoint a peak moment during Dirty Betty's playing, but I admit to having been out of my head fired up when the band played Deep Purple's mighty "Highway Star", one of my favorite songs of all time. Off of their album, Machine Head, "Highway Star" features soaring vocals by Ian Gillan, covered masterfully by the awesome woman vocalist fronting Dirty Betty and an intoxicating keyboard part played by Jon Lord (Praise the Lord) and covered beautifully by Dirty Betty's keyboard man. But, with song after song, whether "Sultans of Swing", "The Final Countdown", "867-5309/Jenny", or "Separate Ways", Dirty Betty pumped us up with contagious energy and decades of memories, helping transport us back to our days of abandon on the dance floor at the Northwest Metal Workers hall or the cafeteria at the high school.

You'd think the night would be over with the band's last song and a couple of last dances.

But, no.

A handful of us decided to extend the night at the Inland Lounge. 

Whew! I was really happy when I agreed to drop into The Lounge that over the course of five hours at the HillTop party, I'd only drunk three beers, all light Placer Pilsners.

In fact, by the time we left the HillTop, it had been a couple of hours since I'd had a beer.

So, I was in good shape to drive up to The Lounge. Once we arrived, I sipped for about 15 minutes on a shot of tequila, drank one Miller High Life, and then, until we left The Lounge about an hour and a half later, I drank water only so I could be a reliable driver for friends who needed a lift to where they were staying. I continued to have a ton of fun yakkin' with my friends, watching them enjoy their nightcaps, and having some time to talk with Cas. As we cleared out some time after 1:30 or so, I gladly fulfilled my designated driver duties, gave two friends a lift, and returned home, wound up, in need of some time to slow down my excitement, but eventually ready to go to sleep. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-15-2022: Setting Up the Reunion Party, Working the Registration Table, The Return of Heidelberg Beer!

 1. Arrived at Diane's vacation rental around 1:00 and joined other early arrivers getting things set up for today's reunion party. Our school colors are purple and gold and so we had purple and gold streamers, signs, a banner, and balloons. Ysidro handmade a bunch of handsome purple and gold braided key chains to hand out.  We set up a bar, put beer, water, and soft drinks in coolers, prepared salads, got the registration table set up, created displays with pictures of reunions gone by and of class members who have died. We put out yearbooks and other memorabilia. I thought we had a great set up for a fun and lively party.

2. Between 40-45 classmates joined the party at one time or another, filling Diane's house and the patio area in the back with stories, laughter, updates, discussions, good cheer, and mirth. I got to see everyone who came in because most of the time I sat at the registration table, checked off people's arrivals, found out if they plan to go up to the high school on Saturday morning, and handed out badges on lanyards with our names and a picture from high school. It was a fun place to be. Different people hung out at that table and I got to listen to all kinds of stories and find out fascinating details about different classmates. We have scattered far and wide over the last 50 years both in the USA and overseas. I did my best to take it all in. It was invigorating and it was a lot!

3. I guess you could call it a dream come true. A while back, I discovered that 7 Seas Brewing in Gig Harbor/Tacoma had decided to resurrect the old Heidelberg beer recipe and brew it at their Tacoma location -- the site of the old Heidelberg brewery. I had hoped and dreamed I could figure out a way to get a hold of some of this beer, knowing that the brewery distributes in only in the Tacoma area.

Well, classmate Don Knott was also very interested. His dad, like mine, was a Heidelberg man. Don also had a beer route back in the Heidelberg days and delivered tons of the beer.

Last weekend, Don drove to Tacoma and purchased 14 cases (that's 336 16 oz cans) of Heidelberg. I ordered two cases. Wanda did, too, for her husband, Gary. 

So, today, when he arrived at the party, Don had a cooler stocked with ice cold cans of Heidelberg beer. He grabbed one for each of us, we popped them open, and I, never thinking I would have this experience again, initiated a toast to Norm and Pert (our fathers) and took a deep velvety draw from the Heidelberg tall boy and it was blissful. It brought back all kinds of memories -- getting cans of beer for Dad from the fridge and stealing a little sip when I popped his can open, drinking Heidelberg with my Dick and Floyd's slow pitch softball teammates, since one of our guys ran the distributorship that peddled Heidelberg, and I remembered the last time I'd drunk this beer. 

It was in July of 2003. Family and friends celebrated Carol's 40th birthday with a big party in Mom's (now our) back yard. Dick and Renae Costa dropped by that late afternoon or evening and, even though Dick's dad was an Oly guy, I wanted to drink Heidelberg with Dick in memory of my dad who'd died in 1996. So I bolted down to Stein's IGA. Earlier, I'd spotted Heidelberg in their beer case, so I grabbed a sixer of tall boys and Dickie and I stood in the back yard and drank them, gaining and expressing more and more expertise on life in the USA with every sip and every can.

Just for the record, we didn't stop with those beers. We finished the Heidelbergs and made our way down Cameron Ave. to Eddie Joe's and continued our beer drinking marathon that night. It was my first visit to Eddie Joe's and Ed Miller (R.I.P.) himself was at the bar. We hadn't seen each other for several years and he called Don Knott to tell him I was in the house, but Don couldn't make it down that night. 

That was an epic night of fun with Dick Costa after Carol's party ended and taking that first sip of Heidelberg at the registration table in the company of my KHS Class of 72 classmates brought it all back. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-14-2022: Slow Cooked Pork, Resting Up, Cool Cats

 1. I decided to slow cook a pork shoulder today to take to the get together up the river on Saturday. I got it done, but now that it's cooked, I'm not sure what to do with it. I'll figure something out -- leaning toward taking some kind of break along with the meat to offer sandwiches to the potluck.

2. I rested a lot today. I have two days with more activity than I'm used to coming up on Friday and Saturday. I'm already trying to plot out ways to save energy, but I might experience some adrenaline surges -- that could help! 

3. So we had this new heating/cooling system installed in May and it's working well for us humans in the house. It makes me very happy that since Copper and Luna spend their days behind closed doors in the Vizio room or the bedroom that I can keep those rooms comfortable for them while it's hot outside. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-13-2022: Not Quite a Journeyman Electrician, Fun Trip to Worley, Hammerhead on Its Way

 1. I'm not particularly handy around the house, but in recent weeks I have stopped the toilet from humming, and gurgling before that, and it seems like there was some other small problem I fixed. Overnight, we had a booming thunder storm with intense blue flashes of lightning. When I got out of bed around 5:30 this morning, I noticed that the digital clock on our gas range was blank and when I tried out the burners, they didn't work. After checking the breaker box in the basement, I pulled out the stove to make sure it was plugged in and seized the opportunity to sweep years of old popcorn, rice, and other debris out from the space the gas range occupies. (I should do this more often.)

Then I remembered that we have wall outlets that click off if things I don't really understand happen, so I checked the outlet near the gas range and, sure enough, all I had to do was push a rectangular button and click the green light back on and we had an operating gas range again. 

It was a good start to the day.

2. I fired up the Camry and blasted out to Kingston and picked up Ed and we made our first trip to the CdA Casino together in many many months. In fact, the last time I was even in a casino was back in April when Ed, Mike, and I spent a couple of nights at the Wild Horse Resort in Pendleton. 

I almost never have any luck playing machines. I plan on that and budget accordingly. Today was no different, but with my sparkling new FitBit on, I walked around a lot and accumulated nearly 3,000 steps! Ed's luck was much better and he kept at it, wanting to keep his hot streak going. Early in the afternoon, though, we went to the Red Tail Bar and Grill and I enjoyed a tender and fresh prime rib sandwich. 

As always, the drive down and back was really fun. Ed and I had a lot to yak about, got in a lot of laughs, and had a really good outing.

3. In a text, Terry Turner asked me if I'd like me to bring him any beer from Oregon. My favorite of all Oregon beers, both for how it tastes and for the countless great memories I have attached to it, is the Hammerhead Pale Ale from McMenamins. Terry is going to bring me a growler of Hammerhead and until today I never imagined that I would ever have a chance to enjoy some fresh Hammerhead right here in Kellogg, Idaho! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-12-2022: Unpolished Testimony, Superb Poetry, Ready to Count Steps Again

1. I watched today's Select Committee hearing and then listened to a number of people on television provide analysis and commentary. I haven't watched many people give testimony in front of Congressional committees over the years. So, I'm not sure if it's common or uncommon for an unpolished, down to earth, former cabinet company supervisor, an everyday guy, to testify before these committees. But Stephen Ayres did today. His often ineloquent and raw honesty as he described why he joined the march to the Capitol and why he went inside the building as well as his story about how he regrets having done so was powerful. I've heard a lot of powerful testimony in these hearings. I've been the most shaken and deeply moved by the two people the least connected to the worlds of politics and government who have told their stories. Stephen Ayres was the second such person. The first was Atlanta elections employee Shaye Moss (well, and a third on tape: her mother, Lady Ruby). 

2. Watching Bill Davie present Poetry Break tonight perfectly balanced out my day. He read a wide variety of poems from the mailbag. Some was original poetry written by regular viewers of Poetry Break. It was fun to hear one of Jim Page's poems as well as more submissions by Mark Kenny. Bill read a few of his own poems about growing older. He's presenting his early drafts of these poems.  If he later revises these poems, I don't know if he plans to read the more polished versions to us at a later time. Bill ended the night with some professional poetry. His reading of some Robert Creeley poems reminded me of a day in London back in 1979. I went to a bookstore to hear Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko read some of his poetry. I bought a book of his and then went through the autograph line. When I reached Yevtushenko, he asked me what country I was from and when I told him, his response was that he admired poets of the USA, especially Robert Creeley.

3. I redeemed a Christmas gift card last week, finally, and one of my purchases was a FitBit. I activated it today and now I can go back to the days when I had a pedometer around my neck a lot. The FitBit is on my wrist and I'll keep track of daily steps again. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-11-2022: Reunion Tasks, Family Dinner Prep, Successful Family Dinner

 1. Today Diane sent out a task schedule for this Friday and Saturday to the reunion committee members. It sure looks to me like if we do what Diane has laid out for us that the open house on Friday, the visit to the high school Saturday morning, the get together (another open house) up the river afterward on Saturday, and our dinner and dance late in the afternoon and on into the evening on Saturday should go really well.

2. Debbie and I hosted family dinner tonight and Debbie took charge of the planning and the cooking. She fixed a superb mess of calico beans and a perfectly built Amish pasta shells (or macaroni) salad. Debbie had found a recipe for a pitcher drink that combined bourbon, ginger beer, and raspberries. I mixed it up. 

3. Carol fixed dill pickles and spicy asparagus spears and cream cheese wrapped in thin slices of lunchmeat as an appetizer and Christy baked a peach pound cake served with vanilla ice cream and Crown Royal peach whiskey for dessert.

As a youngster, I must not have been paying close attention to potluck offerings at the United Church. Talk around the table at dinner tonight led me to believe that calico beans were a popular item at these church spreads, but, as I ate Debbie's bean dish today, it felt like the first time (the very first time) I had eaten them. I loved the way the dish's saltiness and sweetness played off of each other along with the slight acidity of the tomatoes that Debbie added to the beans.  I also enjoyed the variety of beans in this dish, their textures and how they tasted. Likewise, the pasta salad was packed with different flavors and took me back to the occasional childhood outings we went on to Pottsville where some kind of macaroni salad always seemed to be served. 

We had a lot to talk about before, during, and after dinner, especially given that Paul and Carol hosted their first day of Grow Your Creativity Camp for middle school-ish aged kids across the street at the church. They reported on how the first day went (pretty well, I gathered). We also talked about dogs, Title I school programs, and other things and made wise cracks about stuff.  In short, we had a successful and spirited family dinner together. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-10-2022: Breakfast at Wimbledon, Overcoming Dehydration in CdA, ZOOM and the Liberal Arts and Movies

1. I was out of bed at 5:30 this morning to watch the championship match of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. It promised to be a fascinating match between the great Novak Djokovic, the three-time defending champion and top-seeded player, and Nick Kyrigos, a volatile, athletic trickster of a player who reached the final as an unseeded entrant.

In the first set, Kyrigos relied largely on his howitzer serves, a service break, and his athletic prowess to win it, 6-4.

I thought to myself, hmmm, I've seen Djokovic in this situation, it seems, 1,000 times. He often starts matches a bit shaky and, it seems, always has to face his opponents' best stuff in the first set.

Sure enough, Djokovic settled in. He returned more and more of Kyrigos's blistering serves and simply didn't make mistakes. His composure and steadiness slowly wore Kyrigos down and he swept the next three sets, 6-3,6-4,7-6 (7-3). After the match, Kyrigos, who often wows spectators with spectacular shots between his legs and in other improbable ways, commented that Djokovic hadn't done anything amazing to win the match. At first, I wondered what he meant, but then I realized that he was complimenting Djokovic's composure, his largely error free play, and his vast experience, his know how when it comes to winning major tennis championships. 

2. After the match, I drove to Coeur d'Alene to do a little shopping. First, though, I grabbed a seat at the counter at Giorgi's for breakfast. A man plopped into the seat next to me, a self-described yakker ("As you've probably noticed, I'm a real talker!"). It wasn't long before we discovered we both at roots in Kellogg. His name is John Nelson (KHS, Class of 65). He went to Pinehurst Elementary, but by the time he was in junior high, his family moved to Elizabeth Park. 

We found out people we knew in common, most notably, Jerry Turnbow (John spoke briefly at Jerry's funeral), and talked about having worked in the cell room. John worked in other areas of the Bunker Hill, too. 

I worked my way through my Eggs Benedict and John Nelson and I wrapped up our conversation.

I headed over to Fred Meyer and while I was shopping and after a trip to the men's room, I was feeling weak, a bit faint. The store felt warm to me and I realized that my bathroom trip combined with having drunk too much coffee all morning long, the sodium level of my breakfast, and the temperature in the store had dehydrated me. I went to Starbuck's and purchased a bottle of water and just sat for a while, drinking water, and started to feel better. 

I finished my shopping at Fred Meyer and found relief in the Sube with more water and the air conditioning. I gassed up at Costco and went inside to purchase a few things. I still wasn't feeling 100 per cent, but at least I knew I felt well enough to drive back to Kellogg. I had a few moments in Fred Meyer when I wondered if it would be safe for me to drive home. 

But, I did fine, arrived home, brought in my purchases, filled a water bottle, and joined our 2:00 ZOOM meeting about twenty minutes or so late.

3. The ZOOM conversation with Val, Bill, Bridgit, and Diane was really fun. I enjoyed learning that Diane is loving her new life as a retiree. I also very much enjoyed our discussion of what each of us values about our having completed liberal arts degrees, but how we also have come see that much of our coursework was rushed -- we completed courses that crammed too much reading into the several weeks that comprised a semester (or quarter) and have, in the decades since college, come to value savoring books, taking our time with them, enjoying them more slowly. I confessed, and I think about this often, that, as an instructor,  I was often guilty of assigning too much reading, of moving students too quickly through the plays of Shakespeare or a syllabus of World Literature, primarily because I felt the institutional pressure of "coverage", of exposing students to as many different titles as possible in an academic quarter or semester.

Bill can hardly play his guitar any longer and has, instead, immersed himself in poetry. He told us how much he's enjoying this experience and how he's having the invigorating experience of coming to enjoy and being enthralled by poets and poems that, in previous years, had not affected him much. His experience with poems is growing larger and more enjoyable by the day. 

We also talked about movies. Bill and Diane had recently watched Five Easy Pieces and it set us off on a wide ranging discussion of independent movies from the 1970s, the troubling misogyny portrayed in Carnal Knowledge, our sympathy for Beth in Ordinary People -- many viewers find her totally unsympathetic --, and the kinds of movies we tend to seek out now that we are in our sixties. It was a delight to learn that for the first time in many years, Bridgit's mother had gone to a theater to watch Elvis. We discussed how the demands of life and the sorry state of the world around us often moves us to seek out lighter fare. Bridgit, in particular, told us how much she's looking forward to the upcoming movie, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.

I love conversations about movies, especially movies made in the 1970s and on into the 1980s. I love the independent movies from those two decades, but also quite a few major studio made movies. I enjoy returning to them, talking about them, and remembering what was happening in my life when I first saw them. I saw many of these movies in small art houses in Spokane and Eugene, others in classrooms and lecture halls at the University of Oregon when different organizations showed movies on campus on Friday and Saturday nights, and others I watched (and often made tapes of) when I first subscribed to cable tv and purchased a Betamax machine back in 1982. One weekend, in the spring of 1983, I hosted a film festival in my little apartment on Colfax Road in North Spokane and Whitworthians streamed in and out of my apartment all through the day and into the evening watching movies I wanted to share with others. 

While I love having access to so many movies in an instant at home in 2022, I miss the ways I used to watch movies. I miss the going out, the seeing movies with other people, and the conversations that often followed. I miss the great times I had showing movies to students and friends in my Spokane apartments in 1982-84. Yes, those days are long gone, but I'm sure glad they happened and will live with me forever. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-09-2022: The HillTop Numbers, Ice Cold Gin and Tonic, No-Cook Pasta Sauce Meal

 1. I am confident that after triple checking the list I made of dinner attendees against the registration slips our classmates mailed in that I arrived at an accurate number of how many people will be at the dinner at the HillTop and what their meal choices are. Things are falling in place for the big upcoming weekend! 

2. I don't know why I've never done this before, but late this afternoon when Debbie and I decided that a gin and tonic would be refreshing, I put ice in the cocktail shaker, added gin, and shook the shaker for about a minute or so. The gin got really cold. (Wait! Why don't I just keep the gin in the freezer?) I poured the gin and the ice in a cocktail glass and added more ice and added tonic and fresh squeezed lime juice. I was very happy with the resulting cold and refreshing gin and tonic. 

3. I was about to put a pot of rice on the stove and figure out what to make for dinner with it when Debbie told me she'd prefer having pasta. Great! We both immediately thought the same thing: let's have a pasta dish made from one of my favorite cookbooks, No-Cook Pasta Sauces.

I successfully found a recipe that called for ingredients we had at home, "Black Bean, Tomato, and Feta Sauce". 

It's a simple and very delicious sauce.

All I had to do was combine a can of black beans, a can of drained diced tomatoes, the zest of a lime, olive oil, oregano, cumin, and Frank's RedHot Pepper Sauce in a bowl. I boiled a half a pound of radiatore pasta, drained it, and combined it with the sauce. Debbie snipped some fresh herbs from outside, added them, and we both dished up our servings and added our own amounts of feta cheese crumbles. 

I loved the texture of this dish -- the pasta, the beans, the tomatoes and I thought the subtle heat from the Frank's sauce gave this meal a most enjoyable kick. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-08-2022: Finalizing the Reunion Rundown, BBQ Delivery and The Lounge, A Party Breaks Out at Christy's

1. I had fun today communicating back and forth a bit with Diane and checking out the river conditions with Sharon and then being able to put the finishing touches on my email to our classmates running down what they can expect when they come to our 50 year high school reunion next weekend. 

2. Ed swung by today with a backseat full of BBQ'd meat along with macaroni and cheese, iced tea, and a bag of sauces to be delivered to a party at a house in a gated community in the Hayden Lake vicinity. With the help of GPS, we arrived at the gate, punched in the code, entered, and found the house almost right away. 

We made the delivery and returned to Kellogg and rewarded ourselves for not screwing up the delivery by drinking a few cold beers at The Lounge. That was fun! I hadn't seen Cas for a while and John Sevy was in, enjoying his 75th birthday. I will protect the identity of the person whose level of intoxication led him to address me as Donald Trump because, he said, "You're a handsome guy, just like him." I got a good laugh out of that one and a free beer, too! 

Rarely a dull moment at the Inland Lounge! 

3. Back home, Christy was with Debbie in the back yard and her phone rang and it was Carol announcing that she and Paul, Cosette, Saphire, and Taylor wanted to come to Christy's back yard and watch the solar lights come on.

Oh, man! Kind of bad timing for me. I had had a few beers at The Lounge and I was crapping out but everyone else was just getting started and were ready for an evening party. 

So, I snuck in a little nap, spent time with Copper and Luna, and shuffled back and forth between being in our house winding down and going over the Christy's where the action was.

Not long after the party started, Diane's son dropped her off at party central and she talked a bit about the number of people who would be at next Saturday's dinner at the HillTop during reunion weekend.

Her numbers sounded a little off to me, so I returned home, made my own count, double checked it, triple checked it, and reported back to Diane. 

I think we are getting really close to having the numbers in place for the HillTop.

The party at Christy's broke up. Diane visited with me and Debbie for a while in our living room and, rather than have Diane's son come back down again to drive Diane home, I gave her a lift, returned home, and a very busy late afternoon and evening drew to a close. 

(Donald Trump? Really? 😂😂😂)

Three Beautiful Things 07-07-2022: Solid Walk, Last Details in Place, Reunion Letter About to Go Out

 1. It may not seem like a walk to Yoke's is all that much, but today's stroll to pick up a couple of prescriptions got my blood flowing, kept my blood pressure where I want it, and left me needing a short nap later on. My legs felt fine. My wind was good. Even though the temperature was moderate, the sun bothered me quite a bit. I thought about how, when I was younger, sunshine energized me. Now it saps my strength and dehydrates me in no time.

2. I think the last couple of details regarding the KHS Class of 72 50 year reunion are in place. We can meet at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday and go inside the high school building. Diane's daughter-in-law has stepped forward to say she'll take pictures of people during the Friday open house and take a group picture right after dinner at the Kingston HillTop on Saturday.

3. With those details in place, I can now put the finishing touches on a letter I'll email out to those registered for the reunion. Among other things, the letter describes what happens each day, lets our classmates know where to park, and lays out what the deal is regarding food and drinks for Friday's open house, Saturday's get together up the river,  Saturday's dinner and dance at the Kingston HillTop, and Sunday's golf outing.  My hope is that the letter anticipated most questions people coming to the reunion might have and answered them. We'll see if I succeeded! If I didn't, I hope people will send me questions so that nobody has any doubt about what to expect as the weekend gets underway on July 15th. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-06-2022: Spiffing Up the Sube, Back Yard Party, Gordon Willis: Prince of Darkness

1. The Sube turned eighteen years old in April. Today seemed like a good day to shampoo the "carpeting" on the floorboards and in the hatchback. We borrowed Christy's spot removing rug shampoo machine, Debbie vacuumed the "carpets", and I got the shampoo machine running and performed an initial cleaning. I will return on Thursday and give it a second go around. It'll never be perfectly clean, but this project is improving the old Sube's interior.

2. Shade began to crawl over the north side of our back yard. Our patio project isn't done yet, so Debbie and I sat in chairs in the shade and talked very positively about our near future. For these sessions, I enjoy taking out a small glass or a martini glass, pouring some gin over ice, and squeezing fresh citrus juice into the gin. Tonight I drank small pours of gin and lemon juice. Before long, Christy joined us. Riley had come over a bit earlier. I fixed Christy a vodka and lemonade. We yakked about all kinds of stuff, enjoyed the cooling air, and the peace of the fading day.

3. Christy had an online appointment and left to meet it. Debbie and I returned to a favorite topic of conversation: the awesomeness of the movie All the President's Men. Rather than bring the Vizio out of the Vizio room, Debbie suggested that I put the movie on my laptop. She would mess around online, we would continue drinking small portions of liquor (gin for me, bourbon for Debbie) mixed with fresh squeezed citrus juice, and I would watch and Debbie would listen to the movie -- again. 

We love the screenplay of All the President's Men. It's tight, memorable, rhythmic, eloquent. Listening to it can be like putting on music, especially jazz or classical compositions. 

Because I was watching the movie (again!), I got to marvel time and time again at Gordon Willis's cinematography. Willis is known as the Prince of Darkness because he was so skilled at filming in dark places -- you know this if you've seen his work in The Godfather movies or if you've watched Klute -- and in All the President's Men his work is brilliant as he photographs the burglars in the Watergate Complex, the conversations between Woodward and Deep Throat in the Roslyn, VA parking garage,  Woodward winding his way through DC and on to Roslyn, switching taxi cabs, at night to meet Deep Throat,  Woodward and Bernstein rousing Ben Bradlee out of bed and the three of them talking in front of Bradlee's house, and other dimly lit nighttime scenes. His photography is remarkable in the daylight, too. For my money, though, his work in the darkness of this movie's world is stunning and brilliantly metaphorical as the movie takes us into the dark reaches of the Nixon administration's corruption. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-05-2022: Back on the Trail, Early Clay/Ali Documentary, *Poetry Break* with Bill Davie

1. For the first time in way too long, I returned to the Health and Wellness Trail over near the hospital and huffed and puffed up the trail to where the picnic tables sit. It actually went pretty well. I stopped and caught my breath a few times, took advantage of both benches on the trail and sat for a while, and stayed hydrated. I thought a lot about my inward will and why it took me until today to will myself to go through the difficulties I experience on a hike after not having done it for a while. 

So, yes, I suffered a little bit today, but, on the whole, this hike today, even though it's not that long, energized me and helped me feel much better both mentally and physically. 

Now to will myself to stay at it. 

2. After doing some housework and paper organizing, I tuned in once again to the Criterion Channel's collection of boxing movies and watched a documentary released in 1970, a.k.a. Cassius Clay. 

Simultaneously, and, I'd say, inevitably, this movie documented both the African-American history of the USA from about 1960-68/9 as well as the emergence of Cassius Clay as the world's best heavyweight boxer and his conversion to the Nation of Islam when he became Muhammed Ali. 

When I was a boy, I pretty much experienced the rise of Cassius Clay and the emergence of the boxer and political activist Muhammed Ali through the eyes of my father and his adult friends. 

They were, to say the least, turned off by Clay/Ali's clowning, his rhymes, his proclamations ("I am the greatest!"), and his predictions. They were especially outraged by Ali's refusal to be inducted into military service and his political and spiritual affiliation with the Nation of Islam and, more specifically, Malcolm X.

So, today, I found it very interesting to watch a movie made during the most controversial years of Ali's life that, I thought, was doing its best to understand Ali from within him. All of my perceptions about Ali, when I was young, had been judgments of him from the outside. I never heard anyone try to understand Ali's mind, heart, or soul. In private, as a young guy, I tried to understand him as best I could and had I seen this movie when it was first released, it would have helped me in my young efforts to understand not only Ali, but the complex world I was growing up in. 

Let me be clear: this movie is about Ali as a boxer, his technique, his strategies, his growth as a boxer before he was banned from the sport. At the same time, it's about Ali's place in our country's culture and history. It had to be that. Ali was a lightning rod, a highly public figure, who was outspoken about the war in Vietnam and about the experience of being black in the USA. 

3. At 7:00, I tuned into Bill Davie's weekly online presentation, Poetry Break. Both Bill and his wife, Diane, have been recovering from a persistent case of Covid. Bill didn't do his show last week and tonight he sounded better than he had last time we Zoomed, but he continues, after two weeks, to be a bit hoarse, prone to some coughing, and feeling the effects of fatigue.

Bill read poems he's written while ill. 

He then turned to poems listeners have sent into him, including a prophetic Marge Piercy poem, "Right to Life", a couple of excellent works by Seattle poet John Gorski, the superb poem "The Journey" by Mary Oliver, and the poem often known as "When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple", but is actually titled, "Warning" by Jenny Joseph. 

Bill read the Mary Oliver poem as well as the one by Jenny Joseph as a way to commemorate Diane's retirement, not even a week old yet. 

Congratulations to Diane! 

Three Beautiful Things 07-04-2022: Napping with Copper and Luna, Holiday Hot Dog Dinner, Luna and Copper Endure the Booms and Blasts

 1. Copper was more insistent than ever that I release him from the Vizio room after Gibbs and Debbie had come down from upstairs. He wants to be in the bedroom on the ground floor, but he has a history of not always using the litter pan in that room, leaving solid, rarely liquid, waste on the bed. He doesn't do this if I'm in the room, by the way. He doesn't do this in any other room in the house. 

I gave in.

I got out a pretty ratty blanket and covered the bed with it and l left Copper and Luna alone with the door closed in the bedroom.

Copper, with my help, crawled into the canvas laundry bag I keep in the bedroom closet.

Copper did not relieve himself outside the litter pan. 

Early in the afternoon, I decided to take a nap and joined Copper and Luna.

Copper came out of the laundry bag and joined me.

Luna took advantage of me being able to sleep on my back when I nap and settled in on my chest and under my chin, a welcome and comforting weight. 

It was a great scene. 

I was happy. Copper and Luna were happy. We all slept for a while. 

It was peaceful.

2. When it came time to scoot over to Carol and Paul's house for our 4th of July hot dog dinner, I put Copper and Luna back in the Vizio room. I didn't want to push my luck, even with the ratty blanket on the bed.

We had a relaxing and simple holiday dinner. Paul grilled hot dogs. We had plenty of potato chips and Cheetos. Debbie made a cool and tasty cucumber and tomato salad. There were leftovers available from Carol's birthday party. We also had plenty of soft drinks.

I think we all knew that Molly had been spending time out and about with a man named Ryan. At some point while we were sitting and eating and yakking on the patio, Ryan arrived and we met him. Turns out that Ryan is traveling back east in August to help memorialize his grandmother in Nova Scotia and, while away, will watch the Yankees play the Red Sox in Fenway Park. It was fun talking with Ryan a bit about the Red Sox, especially teams in the past, and I enjoyed talking about what major league parks Ryan and I have visited over the years. 

3. Debbie and I didn't stick around until it got dark to watch local fireworks being put off in Kellogg. In fact, once home, I liberated Copper and Luna from the Vizio room again and we all hunkered down in the bedroom while all the booms and blasts went off all around us. Copper and Luna didn't freak out. Copper spent some time under the bed, but mostly he, like Luna, stayed close to me. Sometimes Luna slid under the covers. Other times she cuddled close to me. Copper never wants to make full body contact with me, but she lay close enough to me that I could pet her or lay a reassuring hand on her back.

The booms and blasts ended at a reasonable time and Copper, Luna, and I settled into a pretty restful night. Luna was occasionally restless, but I've learned how to respond to what she wants and helped relax her. 

Three Beautiful Things 07-03-2022: Stir-Fried Broccoli, Indonesian Fried Rice, Birthday Dinner and Honoring Everett

1. It's July 3rd and on this date in 1963, Carol was born. Carol loves her birthday. This year, she put Christy in charge of her birthday dinner and Christy gave us all cooking assignments centered around the Indonesian Ginger Chicken she decided to cook as the main dish.

Christy assigned Debbie and me to bring Asian side dishes. I got out a magazine I bought several years ago, Cook's Illustrated All-Time Best Asian Recipes.

For me, Asian cooking in Kellogg presents a bit of a challenge because we don't have an Asian grocery store nearby. Yes, Yoke's carries some Asian items and, if I go to CdA, I can find items in different stores. I enjoy Asian markets, though, and I miss the ones I shopped at in Eugene and Wheaton, MD. 

All the same, I was pretty sure I could make this work and I told Debbie that I'd take charge of both side dishes.

First of all, I decided to try out a recipe called "Better Stir-Fried Broccoli" and decided to make the orange ginger option. To be honest, I wouldn't have exercised this option if I'd known (or remembered) that Christy's chicken dish was also ginger one, but no harm done.

So, in one little bowl, I put vegetable oil, grated ginger, and minced garlic and in another I combined chicken broth, fresh squeezed orange juice,  and soy sauce. 

I cut three pounds of broccoli crowns into smaller pieces and, in one Dutch oven, stir fried three batches of broccoli. Once fried, I put the pieces in a second Dutch oven, soaked them in the ginger-garlic oil and then added the orange sauce and cooked each batch until the sauce thickened and covered the broccoli.

2. To get things going on the other side dish called "Fried Rice, Indonesian-Style", I made what Cook's Illustrated calls "Faux Leftover Rice". The idea is that leftover rice is the best rice for fried rice, but we don't always have leftover rice on hand. So, I followed the instructions: rinse the rice, fry the uncooked grains in oil, add less water than usual to the rice, cook it until the rice absorbs the water, put a dish towel folded in half over the pot and put the lid back on, let the rice sit for a while, and then put the rice on a ridged baking sheet, let it cool, and then put the tray of rice in the fridge.

The "Fried Rice, Indonesian Style" directed me to get out the food processor and make a paste of green onion and garlic. I did that and then, in a small bowl, I mixed brown sugar, molasses, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Earlier, I had thawed a good amount of raw shrimp, so next I removed the shrimps' tails and then put the garlic/onion paste in a pool of hot oil in the larger Dutch oven, fried the paste for about three or four minutes and then added in the shrimp and cooked them for a couple of minutes or so. I pushed the shrimp up the side of the Dutch oven and poured the brown sugar mixture into a puddle and heated in up until it bubbled. I combined the shrimp with this liquid and then worked the rice into into the pot, working to make sure it was all combined well.

At this point, Debbie took over and made rolls out of egg to put on top of the rice and shrimp and she chopped stalks of green onion into small pieces to further garnish the dish. Lastly, she cut limes into small pieces and placed them around the inside rim of the Dutch oven, giving those who wanted to squeeze lime juice onto their serving the means to do so.

Fo family dinners, we keep our dishes mildly spicy, if spicy at all. Therefore, I did not include Thai chiles in this dish. The recipe called for them, but I had Paul put hot sauces on the table instead. 

Someday, I'll make this dish again for Debbie and me and I'll include the chiles. I will enjoy the combination of heat, sweet, citrus acid, and saltiness. Sweet, salty, and acid-y was very tasty today. I would, however, enjoy the added dimension of the Thai chiles and the heat. 

3. Our dinner itself was quite a feast. 

We started with a Lemon Meringue Sangria and pieces of bruschetta Molly made. For dinner itself, we served ourselves helpings of Christy's Indonesian Ginger Chicken, the side dishes I described above, and a melon salad. 

Zoe baked Carol a beautiful, moist, and delicious German Chocolate Cake served with vanilla ice cream.

Carol opened her gifts.

Then, because today was also Everett's birthday, we raised a shot of Fireball, poured in our shot glasses with Everett-isms etched into them, and toasted Everett, remembering and honoring him on his 92nd birthday. 

We were going to have Grasshoppers as an after dinner drink, but I recommended we wait until July 4th. The Grasshopper is a sweet drink and I didn't want to add more sweetness to the cake and ice cream and shot of Fireball we had already consumed.

Carol consented to my recommendation and so we'll have Carol's birthday dessert drink after our hot dog roast on the 4th.