Backyard Pictures

Mid-summer pictures.  It's a work in progress.

I set the stones yesterday.

I'm not finished with the roof, but it's close.  Finally.

As my father said, "The problem with owning a home is that no matter where you look, there's something you should be doing".

Chloë when a Kitten

A Hole in the Wall

Today I drew plans for a hole in a six inch thick concrete wall at the jail in Salinas. It will be large enough to drive a truck through it.

мой дом!

I came across an article about Soviet cartographers, and it happened to include a 1980 detail map of the neighborhood where I lived in San Francisco in 1970.   The end of the Cold War was decades away

That's our place at the corner of 17 Улица и  Cтанян (17th Street and Stanyan) !

I have difficulty reading Russian cursive in which all the park labels are written, but I can read most of the street names. That's Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle in the middle of the map.  You can see Stow Lake, where we used to canoe on quiet and serene Sunday afternoons and paddle gracefully for hours.

Kezar Stadium is in the lower right corner of the park. I remember one afternoon when I was painting the bedroom walls, I could hear through the open window the  cheers of the 49er fans at Kezar in the playoff game against the Cowboys, if I recall correctly.  As the game progressed, the cheering became infrequent and muted.  I knew the game was lost.  Afterwards, I happened to be outside when the dispirited fans walked past my place on their trek to their parked cars.

Monterey Tea Dance

A Sunday afternoon Tea Dance at a hotel in downtown Monterey drawn from our table.

Woman Decending a Staircase --Gerhard Richter

Woman Decending a Staircase  --Gerhard Richter

LOCHLEVEN APARTMENTS

LOCHLEVEN APARTMENTS



I visited the apartments I lived in 55 years ago, and I was surprised at how well they've aged.
From the street, they look just as they did a half a century ago.

The first difference I noticed was the low fence atop the concrete retaining wall.  Civic codes were likely updated and required it.  My choice would have been concrete bollards with stone veneer and wood panels to match the building siding between, tho..



I had a job sweeping the driveway when I was 13, so I noticed how spotless it was.

Our apartment was on the first floor.  The annoying No Parking sign is new.  The small, horizontal windows are bathroom windows.  It was in our bathroom that two teenage boys, one of whom was wearing a spooky Halloween mask and wielding a butcher knife while the other produced eerie sound effects, terrorized their father in the shower just weeks after having seen Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho".  It was surprising how good-naturedly he took the prank.

It was a studio apartment.  Our furniture consisted of a picnic table, a bookcase made of boards and bricks, a small table and two aluminum cots for my father and brother.  I slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.

Rather than high-rise buildings and a park, this view from the corner was once of Bellevue Junior High.  

The park is a magnificent example of urban landscape architecture.

Ella Rae

Ella Rae.  So precious..

The 9th Planet

PLUTO

This is the best image we had of the most distant planet on the 13th of July.

On the 14th,  the view was much clearer.

'After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface -- roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India – making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth'.  NASA

Pluto and it's moon Charon.

The New Horizons mission.

Earth's Weather

Weather patterns at a global scale!

Click this Link 

Down Along Cove

Cobb in the Minors

IN THE HOLE.. (second from left)

ON DECK

A HIT UP THE MIDDLE

ON FIRST

MOVING TO SECOND

WAITING TO BE DRIVEN IN

COBB SCORES!

GAME OVER!!!

The Shrine of the Báb

The Shrine of the Báb on Mt. Carmel, Israel, drawn from near the Pilgrim House in 1990.

The Soul Can Only Acquire Good Qualities

This is an excerpt from a letter to the Bahá'i community of Ireland from Counsellor Adib Taherzadeh.


THE SOUL CAN ONLY ACQUIRE GOOD QUALITIES

We notice that in the physical world, the embryo in the womb of the mother starts its life with one cell. With the passage of time the cell multiplies, limbs and organs come into existence, eventually the embryonic life comes to an end, and the child is born as a perfect being. Here we see the vast contrast between the first cell at the beginning and its consummation at the time of birth.

The same phenomenon occurs with the soul. At its inception it is without experience, and its qualities and powers lie latent within it. As a result of its association with the body in this womb-world, its individuality develops and it later acquires spirtual qualities and divine attributes which it carries to the next world. But the soul cannot take with it bad qualities, for in fact these are but the lack of good qualities and do not exist, just as poverty is the lack of riches. If a man has lived an ungodly life, his soul is impoverished and can take only a small measure of goodness with it to the next world.

From study of the Writings we gather that similar to this world where there are degrees of existence such as the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and man -- and even in each kingdom there are many divisions--in the spiritual worlds of God the souls of man will also progress on different levels depending on what good qualities they take with them to the next world. Those on a lower level will not be able to understand those on a higher one. Here we see an example of how the same principle which operates in the physical world, namely the diversity of God's creation, is also operative in the spiritual realms.

Vali Samadani

VALI SAMADANI

Vali was gentle and moderate.  I was surprised when a member of the Universal House of Justice-- while serving me tea and upon learning that I was from Santa Cruz, California--inquired as to his well-being.  It was a testament to Vali's stainless character.  How grateful I am for having known him.

Requiescat in pace, Sam V

sam winston

O my God!  O Thou forgiver of sins, bestower of gifts, dispeller of afflictions! Verily, I beseech thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world. O my Lord!  Purify them from trespasses, dispel their sorrows, and change their darkness into light.  Cause them to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse them with the most pure water, and grant them to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

The Stars and Stripes Forever

Glen Canyon Road

Glen Canyon Road

United Nations, New York City

UNITED NATIONS

Soon as I Get Paid

Terrific West Coast Swing. Thanks Terry West

Ring a ling went the telephone

Is the man of the house at home?

Your master card is over due

Mr. Mo we need a payment from you

Right now, right now, right away

Look here

I ain't got nothing to send you today

But I'ma give you all your money

Soon as I get paid

Soon as I get paid

Well, now the joint was jumping

It was Saturday night

Her hair was long

And the dress was tight

I looked at her

She looked at me

And the champagne stared flowing

To a quarter to three, yeah yeah, oh yeah

To quarter to three

Look Mr Bartender

I'm gonna make it okay

I'll give you all your money

Soon as I get paid

Soon as I get paid

Monday morning, money gone

It's a dog gone shame

Don't worry, I get you straight, you'll be fine

You know what, you'll get yours, when I get mine

Uh, whoa, oh, got a letter from the IRS

Your tax return is a terrible mess

We want our money, we don't like to wait

Please come an see us on such and such date

Right now, oh yeah, right away

Well, I ain't got nothin' to send you today

But I'ma give ya all your money

Soon as I get paid

Yeah, soon as I get paid

Well, well, soon as I get paid

Thursday and Friday evening

Soon as I get paid

Better catch me before Monday

Soon as I get paid

Oh yeah, soon as I get paid

You heard me

Soon as I get paid

Soon as I get paid

Ethel Avenue

A LITTLE SPANISH-STYLED BUNGALOW IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY


I lived in a great little house in North Hollywood with my family in the mid-1950's.  It was adjacent to El Camino Real--the King's Highway--which linked the missions developed through California in the 1700's by the Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church. Leave it to my father to find an interesting home for us to live in.

The development of the valley was accelerating mid-19th Century, and two-story apartment houses abutted our place on two sides. There were still many vacant lots in the valley, however, and cities like Encino, Tarzana, North Hollywood and Studio City were distinct places along Ventura Blvd. with orchards or undeveloped land between them.  


Here are the only pictures I have of that house and time..

This was taken at the backdoor on my 9th birthday, I believe.  As a nine year old kid would do, I'm proudly showcasing my rabbit's foot which is hanging from a belt loop. 

(The damage to the photograph was done by my dog many years later)

We used the structures in the backyard  alternately as "The Bank of Bud", and a chemistry lab.

This one, which was probably built and used as a chicken coop, became a puppet show theater.

Our dog Rusty won "The Homeliest Dog" award in a pet contest in Mill Valley a few years before this picture was taken of him in the driveway.

I think I had to pay my eldest brother 25 cents to take this photo (he caught the entrepreneurial spirit at an early age).  I wanted a picture to send my grandparents in San Francisco.  I combed my hair, donned a clean shirt and put a toy cigarette in my mouth in my best Humphrey Bogart impression.  

A family picture (minus the bro behind the camera) taken around my mom's '52 MG.  Not long after this, I was living with my grandparents in San Francisco.

I'm nostalgic, so you can imagine how chagrined I was when I visited North Hollywood fifty years later and found that my house and front yard had become a parking lot.

Even so, the backyard, where I spent many hours playing alone and with my brothers, had become a retail sculpture garden.

This is the view from Ventura Boulevard (El Camino Real).

It is a special place to me, and I'm glad that it has been preserved.

A Most Practical Gift

It seems as if I can't make it through a day without using this..

They Love Their Naps

James Robert Horton

In his later years, my stepfather told me of his experience during the assault of Okinawa during WWII. He was a Navy Signalman on a support ship.  The ship next to him incurred a direct hit from a Japanese Kamikaze, which he witnessed from the signal deck.  He told me how the sounds of battle moved from the shore and then inland over the course of a few days.

This is a Naval map of the ships involved in the assault.  I brought it with me when I last visited him. I wanted to know about his life, but he left us that night.

Stuck in the Middle With You