D_____ - the new Dresden?

The spring of my senior year in high school [May 27, 1987], some big Sherwin-Williams paint factory or warehouse or some such caught fire and burned for days near here.

On Night One, we were all gathered at my buddy Mike's folks' house, where, if my memory doesn't exaggerate, one could see the glow of this immense conflagration on the horizon in the dark. Mike's dad, sensibly enough, came barreling in the room where we were hunched over a four-track recorder and said "C'mon, boys! Let's go see a FIRE!"

The civil authorities were trying to shoo people away from the toxic fumes, and the area was being evacuated, but we burrowed further into oncoming traffic, trying to get close to the blaze. Did not get there that time!

HOWever, today we have a 3000 car junkyard fire going, so close to my home that we are supposed to stay indoors (when I woke up this morning, I smelled a certain acrid odor in the intense [unrelated] fog, but thought little of it, other than that it was like my favorite Stephen King story The Mist)! So, I should call Pops (as he is known) and tell him that, this time, I will drive us right up to the precipice!

Tomorrow: the night Mike's dad came home from work to find our bass player's strung-out scrimshaw-pale girlfriend lying on his front lawn with a ferret on a leash under a fanned-out newspaper! Well, that's the whole thing, actually.

Also, if we were to get a "Good Citizenship" grant or something...

...don't think I wouldn't insist we spend the whole thing on a yarn-portrait of Harry Dean Stanton!

(via someone on etsy!)

The Barrel Fairy has been by!

OH! Garden!

Yes, all the plants are in at the South Park Community Garden/Urban Farm and Sorghum District Constituency Confab (tm).

Here is the water/hydrant doodad, in place and functioning, put in place by the good graces of my John Henry-like, supple and ultimately muscle-rippled upper body:

(water barrel projects are also underway - see next post!)

Here is the proud instigator of the whole shebang in ACTION:

And even the local yokel neighbor tots got involved! M. (center) showed an aptitude unparalleled for watering, and was also quite adept at taking a red Sharpie and drawing on leaves of a nearby tree, while her sister L. (right) looked stylish in silver vest and shared that she had a "four-wheel bicycle." That's not strictly a bicycle, darling, but good for you!

This pic of Marge freaks me out

How little can the old girl look? Pretty little, it turns out. I mean, what does she even weigh? Two pounds? One? None?

Then there's the "face half in shade"/Two-Face aspect. It's your destiny she's considering, like one of the Three Fates.

And the Matt Mahurin-ness.

Picture this man of 41, then...

...spending his birthday wondering whether Weezer's "green" album would have been made better if "Island in the Sun" was replaced with "Fearless" by Pink Floyd.

What do I want for my 41st birthday tomorrow, you ask?

Understandably, I want your change. What's in your pocket, or your purse or in your coffee can of change in the kitchen. Those two nickels, a dime and four pennies sitting in the saucer that the sick African violet lives on? Give them to me.

You can put it all in a box and leave it in front of my house in a box marked "BOOKS." Believe me, no one will touch it.

You could count it up and paypal it to me, but that defeats the sweet jingling.