What, Nudity wasn't among them?

Before I wrote this essay I did a Google search on "American Couple".  Why, you may ask. Because it was one of the 10 top keywords that people searched that brought them to my "Drinking of Elder Men" Blog and I wondered why. I got a lot of pages with that search, but didn't find anything referencing anything I wrote.

One of those mysteries of a writer's life.

Surprisingly the word "Nudity" was not in the top ten. This is wondrous because one of the most popular essays I ever posted was titled "There is Nudity in This Post." In actuality there was no nudity in that post, unless you count some statuary in Phoenix, Arizona and the word nudity itself. It getting the most hits must say something about the public mind.

By the way, there is nudity in this post. It is right there on the left in plain sight - Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase", 1912.

Anyway, have you ever wondered just what drives people to click in and read what you wrote?  Some of the keywords are understandable, some are puzzling such as that "American Couple" and some are downright disturbing. Would "nudity" fall into the category of disturbing or humorous?

I understand "Peg Tube" and "gravity feeding bags". These terms turned up in several posts I did about my mother's struggles after she suffer a stroke two years ago on April 1. I am certain a number of people came up against those terms in similar health issues and were searching for explanations or descriptions of the procedure. I would say this was likewise with "tylenol arthritis" since I have written many times about my arthritis, and also specifically mentioned tylenol on occasion.

"Devils Road in Delaware" and "Cossart Road" were  popular keywords, not un-expectantly, for many are fascinated about this weird and popular urban legend around these parts. Everyone likes a good ghost story, plus I provided film.

It was a nice drizzly gray day when I took that ride, too, which really added atmosphere to my tale of eerie trees and mysteriously appearing pickup trucks.

Harold Bennett made the top ten. I did do a couple posts about the British cast members of "Keeping Up Appearances" and "Are You being Served", but of all the actors in those two shows, why Young Mr. Grace of "Are You being Served?" would be the featured attraction I have no idea.

I suppose searching for him and finding me is at least reasonable, I am not so certain about those who came to me after searching "Happy Tomato", but there it is coming in right before "Harold Bennett" on the list. Sorry, Mr. Grace, but happy Tomato beat you out.

In the section I would call disturbing, and in the upper half of the list, was the term, "Biblical king that poked eyes out". This is a bit nasty, is it not, but I did mention just such a character or two in my reviews of the History Channel's, "The Bible Series".

Finally and at the very bottom of the list, but still in the top ten and a little disturbing nonetheless was "hot men boobs". This is a popular search item and it led people to me? I mean, really!

Hmm, now I wonder if this post will prove popular because I used the word nudity in the title. We shall see.

Tryin' to Get My Mojo Mo-ing Again…or Is It Jo-ing?

I looked at my content list and see I have only done four posts since the year began. I have done even less on my other Blogs. I have suffered writer's block occasionally in my life, but never for such a long stretch. After all, since I was a wee lad I had a compulsion to write. And if this be writer's block it is different from any other I ever endured. I haven't been bereft of ideas. No, I have run many potential screeds through my brain while out upon my morning walks. Perhaps I have thought too much about it as I strolled. I may be writing too much in my head and then I lose it when I actually sit down to type.

Anyway, this can't go on or I'll bottle up too much inside for my own wellbeing. I am in need of a laxative for my creative constipation. It has been advised by several in the field of advising writers that one method of breaking the block is to simply sit down and write about anything. I will give it a whirl or write.

This is "Throwback Thursday" which are people posting old photos on Facebook. I began doing this a couple weeks back and this morning I posted several photos of me with the girlfriends I had in my youth. It seems a bit self-congratulating, but I am going to tell some tales about my romances.

Frankly it surprised me one day to discover how many girls I had dated. You have to understand I didn't have a great deal of self-confidence in my teens; in fact, I was pretty shy. I would go to school dances with my friends and become a wallflower while they whirled about the floor with a lovely creature in their arms or given the nature of rock 'n' roll dancing, at least wiggling about in their general vicinity. My best effort might be to slouch up to a fellow wallflower of the female persuasion and ask if they cared to dance. This was met 10 times out of 10 by rejection. I was literally shocked to realize Lois wasn't even in the first dozen of my girlfriends. But last is best, is it not? None of the others lasted with me for 53 years.

I liked girls early. My first friend was a girl, although I have very little memory of her anymore. That is her and I on the front porch at 424 Washington Avenue, Downingtown in 1942 in the top photo and her and I in our "ride" to the left. Her family and mine were long time friends and Sandy and I were often play penned up together in those toddler years. We were even baptized together in the Grove Methodist Church. Sometime in those initial years we went off on separate tracks. She did outgrown those bulky playsuits and turn into a very beautiful young lady (right in 1959), but by that time I was entranced with others of the fair sex.

My second best friend was a girl as well. Her name was Iva and we continued to be playmates all the way into junior high school and we are still friends.

At the time (1946) when that little pig-tailed banjo player and I posed together we were both redheads. She kept her gingerness,  but my locks turned a very dark brown and appeared nearly black a few years forward.

Of course by 1946 I had a number of guys in my gang, but Iva remained one of the regulars. She was a Tomboy anyway in grade school. I probably had a crush or two on her by junior high and maybe if I hadn't moved I would have eventually got around to asking her out.

I had two other close feminine friends in my early elementary years, Dottie and Patty. I have no pictures of Dottie, much to my sorrow, but on the right is a photo of Patty and I sharing a moment in a flowered field along the Brandywine near her home in Lenape. Both these girls remained friends into my adulthood. (Dottie was a couple years older than I and at one point was my babysitter.) Patty married one of the ushers in my wedding.


My first serious crush was for Mary Jane, a bespectacled blond in my

class that I thought was the most beautiful creature on the planet at that time. She come to my birthday parties and she lived in the same building as the boy who would become my best friend, Ronald Tipton.

The photo I posted in Facebook we are standing with our arms about each other and you can see the silly expression on my face from being so close to this exquisiteness. This is her posing on the front walk at my then home on Washington Avenue in 1948 taken during one of my birthday affairs.

I had just turned 7.


My first girl trouble came around 1953 with the girl across the street, Michelle. She and I often played together, which was perfectly fine, but one fine day during recess I chased her about the sliding boards and jungle gym until I caught her behind a tree and kissed her full on the mouth.

Her father was not happy about this, although I meant no harm. Sex wasn't yet in my vocabulary and I was not quite into puberty either.

Still, I got a couple lectures and kind of stayed a distance from Michelle after that.

These were all early girls. I wouldn't call any of them "girlfriends" as we use that term. They were just friends who happened to be girls, although I really did like that Mary Jane a lot (and maybe Michelle a little).

It was when I moved from Downingtown after ninth grade that any serious dating occurred for me. Maybe tomorrow I can take up that phase and if I can it might mean this writing drought is over.

Sneak Thieves in the Cyber Night

"Some will rob you with a six-gun,And some with a fountain pen." - Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd"

And some do it with a keystroke and mouse click - Larry Meredith, just now.

I'd say these curs lay about in the bushes at night waiting for the unaware prey to amble unsuspectingly by, but they probably figured out some robotic way of doing their dirty deed.

Well, everybody's out to make a living, I guess or at least a couple bucks. It's just some of us have been willing to work for our bread and butter at something that gives a benefit to somebody in some small way, stockbrokers, insurance companies and politicians exempted of course. Even phony beggars have the guts and decency to show their faces on the streets and put on a show.

These people are basically worthless mold, useless fungi, boot scrapings marring the pathways of our lives. They are practitioners of virtual kidnapping and extortion. They are domain snatchers. I suppose we have to grant them being a step or two above hackers who poison the web world with vicious viruses and identity thieves, but that doesn't make them nice people. Probably what they do is perfectly legal, but it shouldn't be.

Can anyone give me any justification for what they do?

Here is what they do. They troll about somehow looking for domain names that they think have a value to someone and then they snatch the name and offer to sell it for a higher price. They seem to come in two flavors, both about as tasteless as the other.

One kind of buys up domain names they think will be wanted, such as a product name, business or person gaining fame. Hey, you're an emerging singer named Sandy Songbird fresh off American Idol, just gaining some rep and you want a domain to promote your blossoming career. You want people to be able to search for sandy songbird.com and have you pop up, but you discover some mud-encrusted bottom feeder has already snatched up "songbird", "sandysongbird", "songbird", "songbirdsandy" and any other convolution of your name they can think of, and they have done it for .com., net, .org, .info and every other dot whatever out there. However, they'' be happy to sell you the right to your own name for a few thousand dollars.

Then there is the other form of these germs. These watch the registries of existing names about to expire and if the holder doesn't renew on the tick of the deadline, they snatch up the name. Then they can offer it back to that holder for a high price because they believe the person has established their whereabouts and won't want to lose that domain.

Yeah, that's what just befell your's truly. I had three domain names kidnapped this past summer, www.nitewrit.com, www.nitewrit.info and www.lemeredith. They were my oldest Blogs, including my first, "Night Writing in the Morning Light". They other two were my "Nitewrit's Own Companion and Commentary of the Gospels" and "Write On; The Official Website of The Kid and The Old Goat". 

It's my own fault for not keeping on top of things. But I have been dealing with a major family crisis the last six months and not doing much else. Anyone ever following me, if there still are, will have noticed my absents from the blogging scene for mucho weeks recently. Thus, I wasn't thinking about my domain renewals coming up in July.

In normal times I wouldn't have had to. You see, I had my domain's set for automatic renewal against my credit card. Should have been seamless, really; except my bank was acquired by another bank at the end of last year and that bank replaced all my previous cards, including THAT credit card with new ones of their own brand and so when automatic renewal time came about, the domain keeper couldn't find my bank anymore and my domain was quickly snatched up by these bottom feeders.

I tried at first to simply change the domain to one at Blogspot, but they had barred any domain change. Fortunately in Blogger you can retain all your previous posts and comments by a simple download and then upload to a new Blog, so my Blogs still exist, just at different domain names. I'm not going to charge someone some ridiculous fee just to get my old domain names back. Having your own private domain is kind of a pride thing anyway, not really all that important.

I did lose my statistics and, sadly, my followers. So I have the challenge of building new followers or hope some of those who liked those Blogs will find me again. I am planning to be actively scribbling my thoughts and opinions regularly once more at "Night Writing in the Morning Light," now at www.lemnite.blogspot.com and add to "Nitewrit's New Own Companion and Commentary of the Gospels" at www.lemcompanion.blogspot.com. 

I just hope whoever gloms on to my old domain addresses doesn't post anything salacious or scandalous in case an old reader stumbles upon them thinking I have turned to the dark side.

Quiting the Writing Game

Okay, don't anybody gets too excited that they will not have to read anything by me again. I said, " The Writing Game" not writing.

It is easier for an alcoholic to give up drinking than a writer to quit writing. Writing isn't like an addiction; it's more an incurable disease. One doesn't give it up anymore than someone gives up cancer.

I'll continue writing until they pull the keyboard from under my cold, dead fingers. I've been writing professionally for 60 years if you count the newspaper Stuart Meisel and I wrote and sold in the school hallway in 1952-53. It's been 55 years if you count it from the song "My Little White Lamb" my first New York published piece. I have been published somewhere or other in every decade since.

I have written almost every day since I was 12 years old. It may turn into gibberish if I go senile, but someone would have to shoot me to stop me. (Now I fully understand some people may say I already write gibberish. To them I say, "@&#*!" Just typing gibberish, translate at your own risk.)

The Writing Game has very little to do with actual writing. The Writing Game is what you play when fame and fortune is what you think you want. It is the desperate rules you follow to be published and see your name in print. It is the conventions you cow tow to in order to impress an editor. In other words it is pandering to please someone else's dictates of what writing is, but it is not writing.

In every art form their exist a coterie of elitist snobs who claim privy to what is and isn't proper. Well, there is another kind of privy and that is where their opinions really belong. If we depended on the considerations of these mutually declared haut monde of culture we probably would not have the great variety of art we enjoy. Like most elitist these person's main purpose is to keep things to themselves, for to share is anti-privileged  They tend to cling to the last best thing or speak mumbo-jumbo to declare something unfathomable as insightful. We must remember these people generally have stood in the doorway of evolving art for centuries and one wonders how many artists they have killed figuratively speaking over the years.

One must remember Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime. Kathryn Stockett was rejected by 60 agents before one agreed to market her novel The Help. We probably would never have heard of such people as Beethoven, Jack Kerouac, William Faulkner, James Joyce or Jackson Pollack if those elitist who think they uphold the pillars of the media had their way during their times.

Now don't misunderstand, I am not trying to place myself on the level of those I just mentioned. As a teenager I was content to dream of being a hack writer of horror stories. Basically I achieved that and had some success as a pulp writer. If anything I have written rises about that level, then fine. I don't care. I've quit the writing game.

I have seen my name in print many times and it is no big deal. I am tired of changing things to suit some editor or to avoid upsetting the politically correct applecart. We have the internet now and the freedom to write what we would write to the best we can write it. If some read my words and enjoy them or think about them that is enough. If people read my words and dislike what I wrote then they are totally free never to read my words again. That won't stop my words.

What finally persuaded me to quit the writing game was some criticism of a story I wrote. It was made by a college professor, someone very much in a position to poison young mind. Her criticism was not of my style or content per se. Her statement was, "You didn't describe if your character was white or black, American or Canadian or whatever nationality or race; therefore, I could not relate to your character."

Is this what we have come to? This kind of bigoted need of superficialities to understand a story? These things did not matter in my story. The main character could have just as easily been of Asian ethnicity. The main character could have been a black man or a Hispanic woman, these random accidents of birth had no bearing on the story. It was about a human being dealing with life. If the color of her skin had a bearing on the plot I would have put it in there.

I thought, "Gimme a break! Are you kidding me?"

No, from now on I write what I write. Read it for what it is worth. If you like it, come back and read some more. If you don't like it, then go away. That is the freedom we all have now.

Hot and Hazy: Words Writers Write and Bloggers Blab, Great Blue Herons, Man Boobs and other Rambles, The Series Continues

I was going to call this series "Hot and Bothered". It seemed a good enough theme. A heat wave of possibly deadly proportions settled over the area for the week. It is 82 degrees out as I key this at 6:30 AM. It is supposed to reach, according to The Weather Channel, 103 this afternoon with heat indexes up to 115. For Arizona this is a shrug; for here it is abnormally hot. Plus we have humidity.

Therefore Hot was certainly suitable to use in the title and theme.

Since it was a series containing several posts dealing with "bothers", some for me, some for others, it also seemed appropriate using Bothered.

However, putting these words together not so much. Given the slang connotation, one long in existence and in the mind of many, the combination of "Hot and Bothered" would conjure up images not so proper for a PG rated Blog.

It is one of my pet peeves that so many fine, upstanding words have been gutterized into sexual and drug-culture slang. But this is the mind of man and such vulgarizing has always occurred and always will I imagine. Still, it is something a writer must be aware of. Nothing can kill your piece more than having everybody giggling like adolescent 15 year-olds, beer and bong-infested Frat boys or those...well, jackasses from Jackass, just because you use some street code for a private body part or sexual act.

Actually using the wrong word in any context can destroy your effort. Not only can this change your meaning, it is a distraction to the reader.  It is akin to attempting to speak in an unfamiliar language. You try to impress a beautiful French lady by saying she has the face of a flower —  "Vous avez le visage d'une fleur!" Instead, you purr in her ear, "Vous avez le visage d'un furet!"

Comparing her face to that of a ferret will probably not get you the reaction you hoped for.

Believe me I have been guilty of the wrong word faux pas many times. It can be quite embarrassing, even harm your credibility or reputation.  I wrote a poem called "Exhibition", which became quite popular at readings, but only after I changed one line and eliminated one word. The first time I ever read it publicly I was totally humiliated because of that word. I was describing a painting of a nude woman, which was very much paramount to appreciating the humor in the poem. My original line read something like:

"With breasts unrobed and arms and legs akimbo".

I finished and immediately a fellow in the audience said, "She must have been quite the contortionist to have her legs akimbo." This stole all the meaning and craft from my effort and brought him a laugh at my expense. I had wanted to show the woman was quite exposed and thought the word akimbo meant "spread wide apart". The word actually means to have your hands on your hips and your elbows pushed out and forward. If the lady had also had her feet upon her hips with her kneecaps pushed out and forward she would have been a contortionist indeed.

I changed that line to read:

"With arms down, breasts disrobed and legs audacious."

This is using the wrong word, a technical malfunction either from vocabulary deficiency or spell-check deception. It can be corrected by carefully proofreading or having someone else look over your work. But should an author be concerned about the actual content of their writing?

The obvious answer is yes. A lot depends on your audience. If you are writing a story for a children's publication you certainly want to avoid the use of certain expletives and subject matter; whereas, If you are writing for "Hustler" you will not be telling the story of a cute, fluffy bunny-rabbit's adventures in the cabbage patch.

But that is marketing. Something you do if you are out there trying to sell your stories to whatever magazines are left buying work from freelancers. The old world of words has changed. It isn't the same in many ways since I was a young man. One great difference is there is no longer an editor or publisher standing between you and having what you write in the public forum.  The Blog is here and good, bad or indifferent, Bloggers are everywhere.

Which is what I am today and probably what readership I have is also. So we are free to write what we please, put down what is in our mind, be it grand philosophic thoughts or the mundane deeds of our daily life. Some things don't change, though. What do we dare say or what should we not say in our Blog? We have no editor to put a check on whether we cross some line of good taste. We don't have some style booklet or subject framework of a newspaper or a magazine. We have nothing between what we key on the screen and the whole wide world except some form of a button saying, "Publish".

Do I have any rules for writing?

First, if you are overly concerned about what people will think of you, don't ever consider writing. It isn't going to matter how inconsequential or bland your post, chances are somebody, somewhere is not going to like it, not going to like you and is going to be highly insulted and offended for some reason over something you wrote. If this fact bothers you, then write in your journal and keep it locked up in a drawer. If everyone has to like you or agree with you or never utter a negative criticism, this is not the game for you.

I have been doing this a long time, long before the Blog, the Webpage, the World Wide Web or the Internet ever came along. I'm not a household name, hardly rich and famous and not in demand for interviews on the Today Show, but nonetheless, I am a professional writer. Why so? Because I have been published and paid for my work and that is what a professional is. I have been so in seven decades, my first published pieces in the 1950s and my last just this year. The only decade of my life in which I was not published was the 1940s, so I guess I wasn't a child prodigy. Actually, my first published-for-pay articles were when I was 11 years old. Yes, I have put my hide up on a fence post for public potshots for a long time indeed.

I've been peppered with some literary buckshot over the years. I had boxes of rejection slips. I've been praised and vilified. I had a handwritten rejection slip from a magazine editor some decades back. Now normally a handwritten rejection is a positive thing. If an editor takes the time to personally comment on your piece, even if they don't buy, it means you show promise or they want to see more of your work. Not in this case. This editor called me some very nasty, and I might add unprofessional, names and told me my story had insulted the intelligence of every person living in the Southern United States. I had the feeling if I had hand delivered my opus the good citizen's of that state would have tarred and feathered me at best.

So Rule Number One: grow a thick skin and a sense of humor.

Rule Number Two is be true to yourself and it is only second because if you don't adopt Rule Number One, you shouldn't be writing anyway. This is especially so if you are writing a Blog. When I was young and hungry to be a much-published and potentially rich writer, I wrote as a mercenary. I tried to write to the market and what I thought some editor wanted. Just like any job, sometimes you have to do it the boss' way even when you know your way is better. Not so anymore. I am an old man and I made the decision that what I write from now on will be what I want to write. In other words, I will be true to myself and write my way. I'm Blogging. No one has to read it. Besides, writing to please others eventually pleases no one.

This doesn't mean you never listen to criticism or stop trying to be a better writer. We all can learn to be better and we all make mistakes. It means, though, my content is going to be true to me and my style is going to be true to me and I'm not changing my voice because someone thinks it is not simple enough for today's reader.

However, in writing a Blog, one must be cognizant that it is out there for anyone who wishes to read. It may be someone on the other side of the world you will never meet. It may be many such strangers who pass through your domain, read your thoughts and never comment. It may also be you next door neighbor, the gang down at your favorite hangout, fellow employees where you work, your boss, your boss' wife, your best friend, your worst enemy, your parents, the people in your parent's church, or your church if you have one. It can be anyone and everyone.

This knowledge of who might be reading can become a stumbling block and keep us from good writing, true writing. I have three rules for dealing with this situation, unless, of course, you are the rare bird who truly doesn't care what anyone else thinks of you and isn't worried if everybody in your life comes to despise you.

My last rules:

Write nothing consciously or maliciously to hurt another person or betray a trust or reveal a confidentiality between you and another.

Write nothing that may harm you.  This means give it some thought before you push that publish button. For instance, did I say something that if my boss reads it I will lose my job? Or, did I say something my friends will find so insulting they will no longer be my friend? Maybe you don't need that job and don't care if you lose it and maybe you feel you don't need friends, but if you do, then maybe you want to hold off writing what you just did until another day, like publish posthumously.

This doesn't make you a sell-out or a coward. It just means you seriously consider the consequences of what you do. If you can live with the consequence, then go forth. If you will lose sleep even considering the consequences, 86 it.

My last rule is think hard and deep and long before jumping on a fellow Blogger because you disagree or feel offended by their Post. I have never known two people in my life that agreed 100% of the time on 100% of everything. There is also no right not to be offended. Part of the problem in this country anymore is everyone gets too easily offended. People get shot because someone felt they offended them somehow, perhaps they raised an eyebrow at the wrong time. Choose your battles  is what I am saying. Some are worth fighting and some are better ignored. Also remember, you want the freedom to write what you think and in your way. Give others the same freedom, even if sometimes it hurts, because most likely, you wrote something at some time that hurt someone else and they gave you a pass.

Besides I would bet that 80%, maybe even higher, of the things people get bend out of shape over and offended by are misinterpretations and not substance.

If you keep these simple rules in mind you can freely write in the way you wish about what you wish. But most important of all, be true to yourself.

Now just as a coda, I recently had a story criticized by a college professor no less. I will consider some of what was said, but whether I will change anything I don't know. I'm not impressed by the number of letters behind someone's name. One of the criticisms really bothered me though. It concerned my main character: "Is she black or white? American or Canadian? As a person, she is totally lost to me."

What the...!!!!!

This is how you determine a person? By the shade of their skin or their ethnicity? Perhaps I failed to shape this character as a living, breathing person, but the color of the characters skin or where they came from had absolutely nothing of pertinence to do with either the character or the plot or the theme of the story. This is something I have spend much of my life fighting against, this judgement of who a person is by such superficial things as race, sex, religion, etc. I made a determination several years ago not to identify my characters by race unless this had a true baring on the plot. This constance stereotyping, pigeonhole approach on film and in literature is part and parcel of continuing the suspicion and divide between we people. We need to show people as people first, not as some template of race, sex, etc.

I am surprised this professor did not assume the character was Jewish because her name was Goldie, a possible stereotypical Jewish name in some people's mind. Her name was Goldie because every female character in the story was purposely given a color as a name, Goldie, Rose and Amber. These names were part of the sub-theme of the story, beyond that they meant nothing as far as nationality, religion or whatever.

When I create a character I will give as much description as necessary for the tale. I gave Goldie's age, for that was an important detail, but I didn't give much else. I didn't say what color eyes or hair she had, how tall she was, even if she were pretty or plain, because these didn't matter. Let the reader fill in the blanks sometimes.  Give the reader the freedom to see themselves  as the character. What was the magic of radio? You couldn't see the characters, so their looks were seen in your head they way you imagined them.

If you are white, you can imagine Goldie as white; if you are black, you can see her as black. It does not matter, she is a human being facing a psychological crisis in her life. Actually, Goldie didn't even have to be a woman. It could have been a man, perhaps with a few adjustments. It could have been an Asian-American woman. Frankly, the main character could have been a Drag Queen, although I suppose if it had been about a Drag Queen people would have read more into the story than intended and taken it away from what was my subtext.

At any rate, write what is in your heart and head and don't lose sleep over what others think as long as you've been considerate to their secrets while bring true to yourself.


TO BE CONTINUED -- NEXT: The Great Blue Heron and Violations on the Trail.

End of Year What To Do?

Well, here we are coming to the end of yet another year. Each time I have the urge to make changes. Last year I split things up into a million blogs; this time I compressed them down to a handful.

I again apologize to some who I have email connection with because I didn't remember to erase their email address in the settings soon enough and am sure I buried them with old and unwanted posts by the hundreds.  I'm sorry. At least I caught this before I did all my shifting of posts.

But that isn't the problem this year. I began this Blog several months ago, but I wonder if I shouldn't end it. I don't think anyone is reading it; I get no responses at all to it anymore. I see I get more volume of people reading the Blog I stopped adding to six months ago much more then this one.

So now I am thinking, after doing a lot of shifting about, maybe I shall just stop Blogging all together, at least publicly. Or maybe I will remove everything but "Night Writing in the Morning Light" and go back to just adding to it.

Still considering what to do, but it seems silly to just keep on talking to myself.




Illustration is "Father Time Overcome by Love, Hope and Beauty" by Simon Vouet, 1627

Cauffiel

There once upon a time was a quarry. The Bellevue Quarry and they use to haul the rock down this way to barges on the Delaware River.

As old as I am, that was before my time.

Now where that use to be is the Bellevue State Park and down the track where the hauling went is a continuation of the Delaware Northern Greenway.

This skinny stretch attempts to connect the Bellevue State park with Fox Point State Park, but it doesn't quite complete the link...yet.

Sitting over from the trail, across the Bellevue Boulevard up on a hill is the Cauffiel House.

That is it mostly hidden by the trees. I guess if this was August or any summer month the house would be completely hidden from where I stand snapping this photo. With the leaves blown away in this early December morn you can just see the building.

There is a driveway further up the Boulevard that winds its way up to a parking lot by the house. You can drive up and visit, take a tour or perhaps attend some function it is being lent out to from time to time.

I had already went past the entrance of that drive, so I wandered up through a stretch of ground between crop fields to look it over.

Straight ahead is a gazebo. All these old estates around about here would be incomplete without a gazebo or two, or three in the case of Rockwood.

I like gazebos myself and would have liked one in the yard, but there were always more pressing needs for my money than buying one of these things, so I remain gazebo-less.

Still, I visit enough of them in my walks and wanderings to feel some odd ownership in the gazebo world.

As usual, I like to take a shot thought them.

I'm looking through this one at the main house, The Cauffiel House atop the hill. The style is called Colonial Revival.

The house was build by or for a Mister Daniel Cauffiel back in the early 1920s. He lived there with his family of wife and seven children during the summer. He lived in Wilmington the rest of the year.

Mr. Cauffiel was an advisor to the duPonts. I don't know what he advised them about, just that he did.

There is little in this neck of a land piece other that the Cauffiel Estate, the road and the trail. You can look out across the stretch of empty fields down to the Delaware River, watch the oil tankers go by or count the clouds in the sky.

Of course, the Cauffiels are no longer here. The duPonts must get along without Daniel and the house belongs to the County. The County picked it up in 1993 and now it is a tourist site and used for things like corporate meetings, weddings and varied types of social events. I imagine there is a fee involved somewhere for the privilege, although technically the house belongs to the public now, meaning you and me.

You might wonder about that odd shaped little building. From a distance it looks almost like a chapel or perhaps a bell tower. It is neither. It is a small structure housing a cream separator in the lower portion. Milk would go in one end and cream would come out the other. I have no idea what the upper part was for.

I didn't go over and look inside, maybe another time.

It felt a bit eerie wandering about here. There wasn't another sign of life, no one about but me. The parking lot was empty. I felt like an invader creeping about in the yard.

Actually, I am often the lone intruder at places. Is it because I come so early or does no one else care?

It is always nice that someone cares enough to preserve and keep-up some of these past properties, remnants of the long ago so we can see how life was. There are many pockets of history for visit around the country and we've been to many.

Of course it can get out of hand. Every time some dilapidated or unsafe eyesore is on the verge of demolition there seems to be some group that appears with pitchfork and torches and the claim we are destroying history.

Well, you can't keep everything and if these people feel so strongly why don't they take up the restoring and preservation.

Each of us carry fond memories of places from our past, usually ones remembered through the distorting mists of childhood.

The house I lived in the swamp when a child is gone now, so is the swamp. There is a college parking lot on that ground. I have but a couple photos of a small portion of the exterior of the place. I wish I could go and take the whole of the building from each side and traipse again through the rooms to record them, but it is too late.

I know little about the history of that house. I believe it was a summer home, like one nearby where no one seemed to come. Who built it and who began to renovate it, I don't know. Why was it left half renewed with the workmen's scaffolds still up along one side?

I know it had no real historic significance, unless by some weird twist of time I should become famous and then people will say The Old Goat once lived there.

Now, looking over at the Cauffiel barn it occurs to me I don't know the historic significance of this place either.

A man, probably well-off had it build on this hill where he could see the Delaware in the summertime. He was an advisory to the duPonts, but not a duPont. Was he anything more than that? I can't seem to find much about him. He isn't in Wikipedia, so he and I share that lack of honor. What I know is he was from Johnstown, Pennsylvania and moved to Wilmington, Delaware. He craved a summer retreat and loved the Bellevue acreage, land once occupied by the Lenni-Lenapi and then by early Swedish settlers.

Is it the architecture? It doesn't seem that unique. It certainly isn't that old having been built in the 1920s. It was a popular site from Claymont down  for the wealthy to built estates along the river. This Cauffiel place was sometimes called "The Last River House". I don't know if it was last in line or the last one build.

Perhaps it is the location.

It is a nice site with the view of the river from the back windows and what then may have been but woods when built. Even now it is fairly uncrowded by the progress and growth of the last 90 years.

Even though the morning has slipped by nothing has changed. The clock has passed the eight o'clock hour when this place is officially open, but there is no sight of life beyond me here.

No cars come up, no one opens a door, no footsteps of some caretaker with a key hurry along the path.

It stays still and silent and chill.

It is time to continue on with my purpose here today, the objective of my walk and my real reason to be in this place to take it.

The house was just a side diversion from that.

What I came for is down there.

I'm looking down from the driveway of the Cauffiel House parking lot. The road you see is Bellevue Boulevard. The pavement you see curling around just across the road is a continuation of the Delaware Northern Greenway.

I really came down here to walk this link since it is a section of the Greenway I haven't walked to date.

I already was down that curving path and on the trail. The trip up the hill to the house was my going off on a tangent. It really came after the fact, so to speak. I am thus going to treat where the path ended as the beginning and walk us back from that point.

You see the trail actually ends here, up against the side of Governor Printz Boulevard. If you consult information about the Northern Greenway you are told you can walk it from Fletcher Brown Park in Wilmington to Fox Point State Park on the Delaware. Technically this is true, but in reality the trail doesn't connect to Fox Point. You would have to hike a fair distance up along Governor Printz to Edgemore Road to get across the Boulevard, I-495 and the Amtrak rails, then walk along Lighthouse Road a bit to get into Fox Point. They hope someday to connect that park with this, but it isn't
now.

So we begin here where the trail stops.

Perhaps you are wondering about who Governor Printz was to have a highway named after him. You probably took a guess that he was a former governor of Delaware.

You'd be wrong.

He was a governor of what became a part of Delaware, but not of the state.

Johan Bjornsson Printz, son of a Lutheran Minister, was born in 1592.  In 1653 he became the governor of New Sweden, the Swedish colony on the Delaware River. The Lenni Lenape, who lived here when the Swedes arrived, called Printz, "Big Belly" since he weighted over 400 pounds. Obviously he made a big footprint because a number of things have been named in his honor.

As you can see this isn't the most used of the trails in the area. It is kind of off the beaten track, you might say. I was very much alone here. It isn't the wider paved paths of most of the parks. It is fairly narrow and basically a dirt footpath through a narrow stretch of woods.

Except for the Cauffiel House and the Bellevue Boulevard it is pretty barren to the one side. On the other is a line of houses just beyond a small creek.

Where the trail ends there are also the businesses that line Governor Printz Boulevard, things like auto wrecking yards and truck rentals.

This is where the creek comes up against some piping under the Boulevard.

The creek zig-zags through here and under a series of small bridges, which adds some interest to it all.

Otherwise, it is pretty bleak and lonely wandering down this trail.

The sun is to my back here throwing my shadow on the ground before me. Since it is early morning not long after sunrise, I must be walking in a westerly direction.

For some reason, I always feel I am going south to north when in actuality I am walking east to west.

See how easy it is to be disoriented as to direction without a compass? No wonder people get lost.

Of course as long as I stick to the trail I won't get lost.

See what I mean about a series of bridges. Already I am approaching another.

Actually this photo was taken from the other side of the next bridge. You can see some of the homes that run along the tree line and path in the background.

From here the path will be wider and paved and will parallel the Bellevue Boulevard. This was the point where I crossed that street and went up the hill to the Cauffiel House, but we are going to pretend I just kept going up the path.













Just throwing in a couple more shots of this section of the trail before I leave the tree line behind and move on.

We come out of the woods and now follow the street.

It was odd when I came walking down here along this trail. A car came from toward the river and slowed. The driver seemed to be looking at me, studying me. I thought he was going to stop, but he didn't. He finally sped away to where ever he was going.

It left me wondering what he was thinking. Did he recognize me from somewhere? Did he think I was someone he knew? Or was he just surprised to see someone walking along this section?

I don't think I looked quite as much like a bum as I often do. I had on my "good" winter coat, one new a year ago. I was all in black this morning, the black jacket, black cap and black jeans. It was pretty cold. I had on a dark gray hoody under my jacket, but I'm not sure I had the hood up. I don't think I did. I believe I looked quite respectable.

Oh, the street ahead is Philadelphia Pike. We will reach it and cross it soon.

Anyway, I don't always look this respectable.

Often I look less so, I guess. These chill mornings, especially if a wind, will find me wearing my old light brown jacket. It has its own hood and comes down long on my thighs. It is fairly warm against blustery weather. The problem is it is quite old now, faded and stained, much like myself,  and worst of all ripped down the left sleeve. The tear is bad and the inner stuffing between the outer layer and inner lining puffs out through it. It gives me a somewhat down and out  look I fear. My middle daughter gave it to me many moons ago for Christmas, when she was still in her early teens. I always liked the jacket. It got ripped at a super market one day. I was pushing my cart into the checkout and my sleeve snagged on the edge of some kind of display rack they had and it just ripped.

We have crossed the Pike and caught the Northern Greenways path once more. It is now going to lead into Bellevue State Park.

See, the path curves away from the highway up toward that stone wall.

This takes us by the Mt. Pleasant Meetinghouse, a Quaker church from 1838. It is on the historical registry and owned by the County. You can have events here, too.

We need remember this part of Delaware was once part of Pennsylvania, owned by William Penn. The heritage of much of this area is Quaker and you will find a large number of small meetinghouses scattered about and a confusion of Meetinghouse Roads.

I guess if I were to learn the history of this particular meetinghouse I would have to go on one of the occasional candlelight night tours of the building and the cemetery behind.

Although over the years the Little Woman and I, and sometimes our kids when young, were frequent visitors in Bellevue, the trails here are new to me.  I just never had occasion or reason to wander down this way in the past. I wasn't even aware of this little graveyard.

These are more less frequented paths. They are very much corridors, kind of dark and forgotten, even though they run silently behind a parking garage servicing a corporate plaza next door.

I have to admit, I haven't met another soul this whole time yet. It is as if I were the last man on Earth.

Here is an information board and a bike rack, totally empty of any bikes.

The path weaves about this station.

It is all first time places to me.

I come past these evergreens and meet the first person this morning, a lady jogging down the trail. We say hello and she jogs down the path I just came.

These are empty places and I wonder at the women I pass out walking or running alone through these woods. I've done it all my life and it never occurs to me how isolated many of these trails are. But I'm not a woman, although I suppose as an old man I am someone vulnerable too. Still, I pass these women all the time on my walks, alone and so often dressed in revealing clothing.

You are probably thinking, "Well, yes in the summer when they can wear shorts and halters, but this is late fall and a nip of early winter is teasing the air. They must be bundled from the cold." They are not bundled how we think of bundled, in bulky coats and heavy scarves. They ware skin-tight running suits or tights. I don't know, The Little Woman says she would be nervous on the trails alone.

But now as we get more into this corner of Bellevue we begin to meet more people.

I'm not the Lone Ranger anymore.

I'm still not into the parts of the park I know well, so I am still exploring it is just I am not the only one on the trail and am saying hello here and there.

There is a couple strolling ahead.

I have much on my mind. I am still thinking about the future of my Blog in the coming year. I feel I have been wandering in some cyber back woods lately, that I am alone on my path of words.

No one is reading it, I am just walking along here talking to myself and not getting any answers.

I like to wander these forests alone, but I am not sure I see the point of writing to no one but myself.

Maybe it is time to pull the plug.

Ah, with this bench I have come back into territory I have walked before and the bench is a welcome sight. Not because it is familiar, but because my shoelaces have untied themselves and it is a convenient place to retie them.

That chore accomplished, I continue up this trail on my walk. I will go up a bit and cross over into woods again.

It will be a path in that woods where I will meet the deer I posted about the other day.

Again, no response from anywhere about my deer encounter, no comments, no feedback, just another sign that this Blog has served its purpose, if it had one.

There in the distance, distracting me from my gloomy thoughts is a couple walking some dogs. I meet a lot of dogs on the trails.

Now I meet the deers and then I go almost down to Bringhurst before doubling back.

I go up onto the oval track and follow it around to go back to the parking lot.

Sitting beneath a tree I see a new old friend.

He is just sitting there until he sees me and then he gets up and ambles down to me in greeting. He rubs against my legs and looks up.  I guess he does live here. It's nice to see him again and it's nice he remembers me. Somehow I always have animals to cheer me up.