Category: Life in Dunwich

My Adventures in the Mythical New England Town of Dunwich

Meanwhile Fifty Year Later

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Six down, one to go.  A fourteen-hour day just ended.  It went better than I expected.  It did end in failure and will have to be repeated in June but that’s a story for another day.  The main thing is I didn’t crash and burn in the middle and if I get through tomorrow, which will be easier than today, I can relax through my root canal or tooth extraction or whatever other dental horror story occurs on Thursday.

And I was completely isolated from the outside world today.  I don’t know whether aliens landed from the Andromeda galaxy and cured Joe Biden’s cancer and started flights of humans to their world based on a book whose title will eventually be translated to mean “To Serve Biden” (it’s a cookbook!).  I looked at the headlines tonight briefly and I couldn’t find anything of note but maybe I’m just tired.

While I was gone, I put Camera Girl in charge.  But the dogs know she is a pushover and they ran amok terrorizing her and just trampling her attempts to maintain order at the Compound.  It’s an old story.  She is acknowledged to be the world’s least effective dog owner.  She spoiled these dogs and now they neither fear no respect her.  I could restore order but what’s the use.  She refuses to discipline them in any meaningful way.  She just screams at them without any result.  But all of this is irrelevant.  Tomorrow is a day fraught with great significance.  Exactly fifty years ago tomorrow I first laid eyes on Camera Girl when she was just a seventeen-year-old babe at the beach in Brooklyn.

That day was an example of fate.  Neither of us was supposed to be at the beach that day.  And neither of us had ever met.  And just by the sheerest accident we each had a friend that knew each other and who had planned to meet at the beach.  So, by third hand luck we met and hit it off.  And now fifty years later we’re still keeping company and trying to figure out what the heck we’re going to do to keep this crazy merry-go-round twirling for a little while longer.

Fifty years is a considerable amount of time.  It’s basically my entire adult life.  The friend who knew her friend is long dead but still comes to mind from time to time because he may have been the funniest human being I’ve ever met.  I guess humor isn’t a good predictor of human success or even survival.  It is a very strange world we live in.  The unlikeliest chance can have a profound impact and steer the course of our whole life.

But all kinds of chance exist.  I had assumed we would celebrate our big day with some enjoyable event at our favorite restaurant.  But instead, I’ve got two chores to take care of and then I’m waiting on a root canal the next day that won’t let me enjoy food for a while.

What’s the expression?  You’ve got to take the good with the bad.  Well, that’s a crummy expression!  But also, very true.  Oh well.  It was a great day at the beach fifty years ago.  And there will be more great days to come.  So, on with the show.

Photog Agonistes

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About a year ago I bit into a pumpernickel bagel and there must have been a small rock in it.  Don’t ask me how.  Anyway, the molar I bit down with (I’ve since learned it’s called #31) was killing me so I went to my trusty dentist and told him I must have busted it.  He x-rayed it and poked and prodded it (Oh joy!)  And declared it okay.  Slowly it seemed to get better and I took a watch and wait approach.  Two weeks ago, I was chewing on oatmeal.  Oatmeal!  There’s nothing more innocuous than oatmeal.  Right?

Good old #31 made a cracking noise and provided me with a whole new definition of pain.  So, I knew I had a bunch of things that had to get done this week and next week so I decided that if I didn’t chew food on my right side, I could make it through and then go see the Doc.  Well two days ago that strategy failed catastrophically.  The tooth was throbbing and aching really awfully.  So yesterday I went to the dentist hoping he’d fix it before Saturday when I was starting a trip.  Instead, he punted to an outside endodontic practice.  Well, I wasn’t going to get an appointment yesterday.  It’ll be next Thursday!  In desperation I told him I needed something for the infection and pain and he gave me the generic amoxicillin prescription and a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Well, the amoxicillin has been in my system for a little over a day and it has brought the pain down from blinding stabbing pain to grinding ache.  But for some reason I’m incredibly tired and kind of feverish.  So, here’s the thing.  I have a super long travelling day tomorrow and a social occasion.  If I get home Saturday night, I’ll have Sunday to rest.  If I don’t then I’ll go from that directly to a two-day event at work with each day running about fifteen hours.  Then Wednesday I have to drive a friend to a doctor’s appointment about an hour away.  And then Thursday I get to go to the endodontist to be vivisected and dumped bleeding and groaning on the sidewalk before driving home.

This is a warning that output and quality on the site for the next six days will be very questionable.  If I start sounding loopier than usual it’s the gangrene talking and not me.  Well, anyway I’ll do my best.  The quotes and photos are already in queue and I will endeavor to get the stuff on the site but there may be some late posts.  Mea culpa, mea culpa.

Camera Girl tells me I’ve been like a pathetic loser and a baby who needs pity; pieta (although in the dialect of her family’s Italian it’s pronounced as if it’s spelled “peacod.”  Well, she’s probably right.  I would give a thousand dollars to stay home for the next week.  But promises were made and responsibilities are non-negotiable.  So, raise the curtain on my Greek Tragedy, “Photog Agonistes.”  Count no man fortunate until he is safely dead.

End of whine.

All the World’s a Stage

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The Bible (Psalms 90:10) says, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

So, seventy years are a little less than 25,000 days.  That seems like a big number.  But at the end looking back, it’s the blink of an eye.  That time is swallowed up in sleeping and commuting to work and drinking bad coffee and keeping your boss from firing you and fighting with vendors and trying to satisfy clients and paying the bills.  Hopefully you spent enough time with your wife and kids so that they had some inkling of who you really are.

The best days are carrying the babies home from a family party where everyone was glad to see each other and there was something to celebrate; a holiday or an occasion.  Or taking the kids to the seashore for a week or two in the heat of July.  Or maybe taking your wife out someplace special for a big anniversary.

And then the kids get married and then the grandchildren come along.  So, there’s a progression.  The cycle comes around again.  Only now you’re on the other side of the wheel.  Way out there on the far side.  You recognize the program but now you’re seeing it from far away.

So, the thing to do is try to make yourself useful and try to add a little something to the plot of the story.  You’re no longer the lead.  You’re not even near the center of the stage.  You’re kind of the guy in the wings with a copy of the script ready to whisper the lines to the actors if they forget their lines.  Well, it’s still useful and who knows maybe there’s a non-speaking role for you as a spear carrier.  That’s when you get to be backup driver for soccer games or band practice.  After all it’s honorable service.

But it is weird how life works.  You really can’t delay gratification.  You can’t work for forty years to make enough money to make the last years worth having missed what came before.  You have to figure out how to squeeze the joy out of the process of living.  You have to enjoy being a kid and a young man and your prime and what comes after that.  You have to find some friends along the way, go on those coffee walks at break time and go to your kids’ soccer games and their kids’ baseball games and volunteer around town and even do really annoying stuff like getting involved in local politics.

Like I said, it’s the blink of an eye.  Twenty-five or thirty thousand days is a short span when so much is eaten up by routine that is almost unavoidable.  I guess if you’re a billionaire it’s a little different but I’ll bet it’s still the same tradeoffs, responsibilities versus joy.

Of course I haven’t seen the last page.  As Shakespeare said,

“Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

Well, I better hurry up and get my ducks in a row.

Rufus Panhandles a Meal

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A funny thing happened yesterday.  I was heading out to take some photos of a patch of bugle weed that is in bloom.  I had my camera backpack on and I was carrying a small tabletop sized tripod.  And as I walked out on the deck in front of the kitchen a baby fox came walking past me on the upper driveway.  When I closed the door, he noticed me and stopped and turned.  What a strange moment.  Now Camera Girl loves to see the baby foxes when they’re denning in the swamp so I wanted to get a photo for her so I desperately tried to get my camera out of the pack and in hand but the little fox trotted toward the shed and disappeared before I could free the camera.  I followed him behind the shed and looked down into the woods and pond but he was gone.

Camera Girl was out shopping.  When she got home, I told her about it and she was very excited.  She always enjoys when any foxes show up on the property but especially when pups (kits?) are around.  So, she was thrilled when a little while later it returned on the driveway.  And she went and got a bunch of chicken scraps and started feeding it.  I told her to be careful and keep her distance.  A fox walking around in the open in the daytime is a questionable occurrence.  They say that rabid animals tend to show up during the day so I cautioned her.  Well, before you know it, she’d fed the creature and then she put out a small bowl of milk and at that point I’m afraid maybe it’s moving in with us.

I went out with my camera and saw him ducking in and out of a space under the shed.  I got a few not-so-great photos and watched him for a while.  He was young and he didn’t look that strong.  I tried to imagine how a kit that young would be on its own.  I wondered if the den was under the shed but I never saw any sign of the parents or den-mates.  Could his parents have been killed?  It didn’t seem likely.  Was he sickly and abandoned?  Maybe.  After a while he didn’t reappear so I went in.  Camera Girl left out more food and milk.  But by nightfall it was still there.

Last night I heard about how exciting it was that the little fox was about.  I warned her that it wasn’t so good having it around.  I told her it was a health hazard for the dogs to have a wild canid around spreading various diseases they could catch.  She yes-yessed me but I could tell she was hoping it would stick around.  I was preparing myself for the headaches this new “pet” would cause me.  Oh well.

But today Rufus was nowhere to be found.  Even a fresh portion of food and milk wasn’t enough to lure him back.  Is he gone for good?  Maybe.  Camera Girl is disappointed but I can tell she still has hopes.

To be continued.

Make Way for the Expedition!

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Voigtlander 10mm e-mount trees in vertical

Camera Girl is an excellent wife.  She understands the nuances and challenges of being married to a profoundly disorganized man.  And what she has done is become my enabler.  She knows how lazy and easily distracted I can be so she goes out of her way to find things in the real world that can help me in my stated goals.

For instance, I’ve been complaining about needing a photography trip to get a bunch of new pictures.  So, she took it upon herself to research day trips to photogenic locations.  Car shows, museums, stuff like that.  Well, she asked me if I want to go to a botanical garden on Friday.  Apparently, the weather is going to cooperate and she was able to get discount passes from one of her library friends (she loves discounts passionately).

“Perfect!” I said.  And so tomorrow morning I will assemble my gear and she will act as my native bearer or sherpa guide.  With her carrying all the weight, my inner vision will be free to unlock the mystical dimensions of the secrets of nature.  Like a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci (only without all the gayness) I will frame the photographs that will capture truth, beauty and small insects everywhere I go.

Like Frank Buck and Ali “bringing ‘em back alive” or Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquering Everest, we shall conquer new frontiers of arboreal greatness together.  I with my Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens and A7IV camera and Camera Girl with her 83-pound backpack with forehead strap to take some of the weight off of her shoulders.  To some this may sound excessive.  On the contrary, I’m leaving behind the laptop, larger tripod and the flash gear.  Everything I packed is critical; the portable generator, my yoga mat and the collapsible hammock for my 1:30 pm siesta.  After all we’re not barbarians, are we?  And she knows that the roll of a good producer is to, “keep the talent happy.”  After all, without my perfect composure and comfort the whole thing will be for naught.  Remember, art is the hardest thing in the world.  We must be perfectly in tune with the astral plane or it will collapse like a deck of cards or some other analogy.

As the kids would say, “I’m stoked.”  And I predict the most amazing results from this expedition.  I do intend to bring along some other lenses.  The 10mm Voigtlander should be useful for capturing some of the vertical shots of the trees and I’m considering bringing the Sony 200-600mm zoom for any shots of birds up in the higher branches.  And I guess I’ll bring the Sony 35mm f\1.4 for some landscape shots.  I’m not sure if I’ll bring the new 135mm f\1.8.  It’s kind of an in between lens.    Not really long enough for wildlife but too tight for landscape.  But it has great bokeh for backgrounds so I probably will bring it.  Ah, decisions, decisions.

So, I’ll be away for a chunk of the day.  The site will be quiet but I’ll be home in time to catch up with everything.  “Ali!  Where is my elephant gun you lazy heathen!”

Even Barabbas Couldn’t Dampen This Day

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Such a good day.  Camera Girl cooked up a storm.  Beef and pork roasts, vegetables, mashed potatoes, biscuits, gravy, stuffed mushrooms and more.  And then the desserts. At my insistence there were five different flavors of ice cream.  That’s because I know the kids crave it (well me too).  But she also made eclairs, tiramisu, ricotta cheesecake, chocolate cake (for the kids) and pineapple upside down cake.  I never even got to the pineapple cake.  I was too stuffed.  And the coffee was hot, strong and good.

The kids were busy with all kinds of silly games and gadgets.  But they were good.  When they started to get bored, I put on the original “King Kong.”  The family Godzilla aficionado was unimpressed with King Kong’s susceptibility to fifty caliber machine gun bullets.  He informed me that a real monster is unkillable with anything up to and including a thermonuclear warhead.  What could I say?  I pointed out that he did manage to kill a T Rex and also a Manhattan elevated subway train.  But apparently Godzilla is so incomparably superior to actual dinosaurs that conquering them is as nothing in the context of what Godzilla can do.  I was made aware that if Godzilla needed to, he has a mode called “thermonuclear” whereby he can emit the equivalent of a fifty-megaton hydrogen bomb against his surroundings.  This I was informed would utterly consume everything within a forty-mile radius around him.  I confessed defeat and asked if we could still watch the end of the movie where Carl Denham tells the cop that “It was beauty killed the beast.”  He rolled his eyes at the screen and shook his head.  Well, anyway, I still think Fay Wray is pretty good looking.  I don’t blame old Kong for carrying her off twice.

After they went home, I watched Barabbas.  That’s an old Dino DeLaurentis swords and sandals epic from the 1960s with Anthony Quinn as the title character who in the Bible is released instead of Jesus for the Passover clemency.  I’ll say with no hesitation that this is one of the worst biblical epics hands down.  Quinn is playing the same part he plays in Zorba the Greek and many other Mediterranean dramas.  His struggles in a Jerusalem prison, a Sicilian sulfur mine and the Roman Coliseum all seem self-inflicted and by the end of the movie I had to wonder if even St Peter wasn’t ready to kick his butt up and down the Roman jail.  Because Barrabas mistook Nero’s blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome with a real Christian plan to “burn the old world” Barabbas gets caught torching an oil warehouse and claims he’s doing it because he’s a Christian.  So, because of this St Peter and the rest of the real Christians are crucified by Nero.  What a genius!

As Barabbas is hanging on a cross at the end of the movie making what seem to be fairly meaningless comments, it seemed to me that the whole movie was absolutely pointless from every perspective; artistically, religiously, even logically.  As spectacle it was borderline ridiculous.  Quinn has a showdown in the Coliseum with Jack Palance in a chariot and himself on foot.  I’ve never seen a less convincing, more boring fight sequence.  At the end of the battle even the actor playing Nero looked like he wanted to be somewhere else but just couldn’t escape.

I also watched an old film noir called “Steel Trap.”  That was much more satisfactory.  I’ll review it soon.  Well, this will have to do for today.  A good day and a busy day.

Easter Sunday 2025

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Well, it’s here.  If there is any more primal marker for spring than Easter, I don’t know what it could be.  The resurrection of God is about as on the nose as you can get.  This is our chance to embrace life.  Even old codgers like me, maybe especially old codgers like me get to see up close and personal the immortality of the human soul.  We see our children and our grandchildren do all the same things we did forty and fifty and sixty years ago.

We can see the little ones hunt easter eggs and gorge themselves on chocolate and complain about any of the specialty foods they hate and get bored sitting too long at the table and chafe at any fancy clothes their mothers made them wear and want to go outside and play and complain about the may flies and ask when the desserts are served and fight and fight and fight with each other.

As it was in the beginning, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.  But of course, it’s not us without end.  For me I can see that my part in the pageant is drawing to the close.  A decade or two should finish me off and leave my kids to ponder on the mysteries of the spring rebirth cycle without the incredible wisdom that they’ve come to expect!  Boy what a relief that’ll be for them.

And that’s alright.  I actually get a kind of kick out of thinking that after I’m gone, I might be the subject of some stories that play upon some of my idiosyncrasies.  In fact, there already are several stories among my children about the crazy things I’ve done that they remember.

Among my siblings, stories about my father’s expressions, habits and failings are our most cherished memories.  And to be totally fair he could take a joke at his own expense.  If stories of that sort about me became fixed in the family lore I would feel greatly honored.  It’s much better to be gently mocked by your descendants than loathed.  I’ve seen both cases and to have your foibles as the source of laughter is very strongly to be preferred.  As I’ve said before, being remembered and talked about after you’re gone is a form of immortality.  And who doesn’t want to be immortal, I ask you?

And along with all the traditions something new is being added.  Camera Girl tried her hand at a new dessert; tiramisu.  It’s very nice and I commend her ambition and enthusiasm to extend her range.  But what I want is the Italian cheesecake and a large portion of vanilla ice cream.  I’m on a perpetual diet so I look forward to these holidays as an excuse to indulge my sweet tooth with something worthwhile.  And ricotta cheesecake, vanilla ice cream and some nice strong coffee is exactly that.

So, for everyone out there who will be celebrating Easter or even if you just used to enjoy celebrating it in the old days I say, “Christ is risen!”

Fiscal Madness and Buffalo Bill

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So last week I was shoveling snow and now I read that it’s going to be 80 degrees on Saturday.  That’s messed up.  But this is Dunwich and we’ve never restricted ourselves to reality.  Okay, I’ve been griping about the cold weather so I better shut up and enjoy it.  And I will.  We’re hosting Easter on Sunday and that will be pretty great.  We have Princess Sack of Potatoes here tonight.  Her parents are celebrating an occasion and we gladly invited her over.  Tonight, she watched “Stuart Little.”  I was busy but I popped in and saw a few minutes of the movie here and there.  Geena Davis is one of the main characters and later on I saw Dabney Coleman playing a minor character.  And that activated a very old brain cell.  I recalled that a very young and pretty Geena Davis was the eye candy on a tv show that starred Dabney Coleman as the eponymous “Buffalo Bill.”  He was the host of a tv talk show and she was one of the production assistants.  I remember one episode where Bill explained to her that once a woman reached the age of twenty-five, she was over the hill and her face began to disintegrate.  When Geena asked whether this applied to men, the much older Bill said something like, “No, as unfair as it may seem, men remain pretty much the same decade after decade maybe even getting more handsome over time.”  His deadpan delivery, in your face offensiveness and outrageous non sequiturs were what made the show fun.

Tomorrow Camera Girl will continue the Princess’s training in the mysteries of holiday cooking.  She will assist in the baking of a ricotta cheese cake and various other Easter dishes.  The main course is roast beast and even in the midst of my endless drive to lose weight I will indulge to a greater extent than usual because, who are we kidding?  That’s not something you pass up in this age of $12/dozen eggs.

I was talking to one of my sons-in-law tonight about saving money.  He’s got two kids that will be in college next year and we were discussing automobiles.  His two main vehicles have 200,000+ miles each and I asked him how much he wants to get out of them.  He said 500,000!  Now if it weren’t him, I’d have scoffed at the idea.  These are American vehicles.  They don’t last that long.  But he’s an extremely capable mechanic.  He’s worked on everything from helicopters to lawn mowers and I’ve seen him bring piles of junk back to life so I just nodded my head and said, “Yeah we’ve all got to keep what we already have on the road as long as possible.”

I was at a Dunwich committee meeting.  The talk was what is going on in the state.  The Democrats are all freaked out.  They claim that Trump’s austerity measures will force them to declare a fiscal emergency and ignore all rules against excessively increasing taxes and other revenue sources.  They’re calling Trump a fascist, a Nazi, you name it.  Needless to say, the towns will be the ones taking the biggest hit.  All of the state mandates will become unfunded mandates and we’ll have to pay for them on our own.  At the end of the meeting, we all looked around and you could see everyone was thinking the same thing, “It is what it is.”  We all shrugged our shoulders and walked out.  Well, I’ll enjoy Easter and then we’ll take it day by day.  Ah, New England.

The Mill Rate

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It’s once again time in Dunwich to produce the town budget.  And even though it’s a slightly unusual place, we still have to go through the whole public hearing thing with the First Selectman leading the proceedings and calling for the vote.  Of course, when the budget is rejected, it always leads to “problems.”

Last year when First Selectman Cthulhu asked for a show of hands on the nays it was very noticeable when one of the nay sayers was snatched off her feet by that irascible public servant and crunched and swallowed.  This was regrettable but it was noted that several nay voters seemed to change their mind in mid-count.  So, there is a history of gentle persuasion being brought to bear at these meetings.  That probably explains why over the years the voting population has progressively skewed pro-budget.

And that’s fine.  We really do need to be flexible when it comes to the finances.  With the COVID funds now completely dried up and New England state budgets straining under the weight of “sanctuary guests” from the third world filling residences and hospitals we can no longer expect the state to fund all the various mandates that they seem to invent by the hour.

Of course, Cthulhu has taken a decidedly idiosyncratic policy twist to the question of sanctuary guests.  He has been housing all of them in his own residence.  Funny thing is none of them have reappeared.  Strange kind of sanctuary.

But it is important that we keep our spirits up when the question of the “mill rate” surfaces.  In Dunwich what that refers to is the rate at which Bishop’s Mill is sinking into the swamp.  This year it was determined by the town engineer that it was sinking at a rate of two inches a day.  Now this doesn’t sound so bad but by the end of March the main entrance was entirely submerged and so the various flour products were being delivered to the customers by ejection from the third story window.  Which is fine except that a couple of times they crushed some of the customers.

This year the budget has included a special charge for the First Selectman’s rigging enterprise to raise and relocate Bishop’s Mill to higher ground.  Now this was done once before.  And it didn’t go completely without a hitch.  The mill broke up in the Great Old One’s claws and when Gerontius Bishop complained he sort of fell into the First Selectman’s mouth and sort of got eaten.  Kind of.

To obviate the same kind of situation the Bishop family has agreed to pay a special fee for extra reinforcement of the structure to allow for any miscalculations.  But the town has agreed to defray some of this cost and thus the Budget debate.  The estimate for this town expense by the riggers (the First Selectman) is $2,500,000.  Yeah, that’s a lot.

So as a kind of compromise action a few of us got together yesterday and went down to Bishop’s Mill and soaked it with gasoline and burned it down.  The First Selectman, who is also the acting fire chief of the volunteer force, arrived at the scene about twenty minutes after the flames had guttered out at the water line.  He announced that the rigging operation would obviously no longer be needed but that the contract would still be honored and the budget would proceed on the same basis.  He really is a very determined fellow.  And he is incredibly “persuasive.”

You know, you really learn how to roll with the punches in Dunwich.  You really do.