what bruce said about pete

it is always nice to learn that someone who you admire for one reason should and can be admired for other reasons as well. bruce springsteen plays great music and campaigns for causes that we both believe in. because of that and the fact that he cuts a fine figure, i have always had a bit of a crush. right, more than a bit. but last weekend, he gave such a moving tribute to pete that i transitioned from a crush to true and lasting love. if you want, you can watch it here. or you can read it:

"as pete and i traveled to washington for president obama’s inaugural celebration, he told me the entire story of “we shall overcome,” how it moved from a labor movement song and, with pete’s inspiration, had been adopted by the civil rights movement. and that day as we sang “this land is your land” i looked at pete, the first black president of the united states was seated to his right and i thought of the incredible journey that pete had taken. my own growing up in the 60’s in a town scarred by race rioting made that moment nearly unbelievable and pete had 30 extra years of struggle and real activism on his belt. he was so happy that day, it was like, “pete, you outlasted the bastards, man. you just outlasted ‘em.” and it was so nice. it was so nice.

at rehearsals the day before, it was freezing, it was like 15 degrees and pete was there, he had his flannel shirt on and i said, “man,” i said, “you better wear something besides that flannel shirt,” and he said, “yeah, i got my long johns on under this thing.” and i asked him, i said, “how do you want to approach this land is your land?” as it would be near the end of the show. and all he said was, “i know i want to sing all the verses. i want to sing all the ones that woody wrote, especially the two that get left out about the private property and the relief office.” and i thought, “of course. that’s what pete’s done his whole life. he sings all the verses all the time, especially the ones that we’d like to leave out of our history as a people.”

at some point, pete seeger decided he’d be a walking, singing reminder of all of america’s history. he’d be a living archive of america’s music and conscience, a testament to the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push american events toward more humane and justified ends. he would have the audacity and the courage to sing in the voice of a people. despite pete’s somewhat benign grandfatherly appearance, he’s a creature of a stubborn, defiant, and nasty optimism. inside him he carries a steely toughness that belies that grandfatherly façade and it won’t let him take a step back from the things he believes in. at 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country’s illusions about itself.

pete seeger still sings all the verses all the time. and he reminds us of our immense failures as well as shining a light towards our better angels on the horizon where the country we’ve imagined and hold dear, we hope, awaits us. and on top of it, he never wears it on his sleeve. he’s become comfortable and casual in this immense role. he’s funny and very centric(?). the song, uh, i’m going to bring tommy up, the song tommy morello and I are about to sing, i wrote it in the mid-90’s and it started as a conversation i was having with myself. it was an attempt to regain my own moorings and its last verse is the beautiful speech that tom jode whispers to his mother at the end of the grapes of wrath which says, “wherever there’s a cop beating a guy, wherever a hungry newborn baby cries, wherever there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air, look for me mom, I’ll be there.” well, pete has always been there."

and then he closed with something like: "pete is going to join me on stage in just a few minutes and you might think he is just like your grandfather, but only if your grandfather could kick your ass."

pete

i have so many photos to post from a weekend chock full of adventure. although the blog might expire soon, i am going to try to provide a full recap of the last few days before i'm done for good. so let's start with this, one of the highlights:


yeah, that's bruce. he sang like this:

best thing about rain delays

the new shea

the very first day the new citi field was open, the red sox played the mets in an exhibition game and it rained and the red sox lost. on the second day that citi field was open, the red sox played the mets in an exhibition game and it was really windy and it kind of misted sometimes and the red sox won 9-1 and i was there. it was awesome.

color

i sure was happy to see these guys last week.

happy st. patrick's day!

in the woods today, i found a leprechaun.

hard times come again no more

i saw eddie from ohio at the center for the arts in natick last weekend. except for the fact that you can't see robbie at all due to cranium o'connor and coughie mcgee ruins a few key moments, i thought this video turned out pretty well.

10"

little bits of loveliness can still make me feel good about the snow- even at this time of year.

more art than you can shake a stick at

last weekend, i went to new york and saw some friends and some art. i feel like i should go back and put the word art in quotation marks. i'm not sure how i feel about the microphones around the melting ice or the pink room with the white noise that kind of made me queasy afterwards. i guess i have a long way to go before i can call myself a connoisseur.

hard at work

one of my favorite things about tuesdays is that sometimes two of my favorite colorers come to visit oak knoll.

look how far we've come

i got to spend some time with my friend todd thompson this past weekend. i've known him since approximately 1994, which is close to when this first picture was taken. we've changed a lot since those good old days. for one thing, we no longer wear matching outfits.

no sudden movements

last night, i went to the door to let jake out for his before-bed barking stint. usually he knows exactly where i am headed and follows close behind, but when i got to the door, he wasn't there. i called him, but still nothing. i retraced my steps and discovered my brave dog, cowering in fear before the monster perched in the kitchen doorway, unable to pass until i restrained the beast and assured him i wouldn't let it get him.

nest

blue heron down

one perk of running a nature center is that people drop off animal carcasses on a regular basis. two days ago, someone brought us a great blue heron. today, as temps are expected to exceed 50 degrees, i made room for it in the freezer.

no longer needed

i've been doing some pre-spring cleaning at the office. i can't tell you how happy i was to throw this away today.

25 things because everybody's doing it

i'm finally succumbing to the latest facebook trend of writing 25 things about yourself, which i will now share with the few close friends, many associates, and bunches of border-line unknown people who are now linked to me through facebook.

1. my left thumb only vaguely resembles my right thumb, and i have an extra line on my left pointer finger. in college, a guy named manish tried to read my palms and had to call his grandmother in india to find out the meaning of these things. i am not sure what he discovered, but i do know he never really spoke to me again.

2. i once talked on the phone for 15 minutes with a man named tony who i later discovered was anthony edwards (aka goose). i bet i would have been a lot less funny and a lot more uptight if i knew who i was speaking with.

3. i consider myself to be a good driver but have gotten in three accidents in the past ten years. i fear it is starting to sound less believable when i say that none of them were my fault.

4. i used to play a lot of soccer- almost every night of week when i lived in minnesota- but i tore my ACL in april of 2007 and still haven't gotten it fixed and haven't played since.

5. i can recite "the lorax" from memory. i consider that, along with my ability to remember childrens' names instantly, to be my two greatest talents. oh, and i can find four leaf clovers on demand.

6. i can beat you at scrabble.

7. i am so glad that my sister married someone who i already considered one of my closest friends because now i have a brother-in-law who i love having as part of my family.

8. and partially as a result of that brother-in-law, i have the cutest neice and nephew in the world.

9. despite many years of trying, i still can't steer with my knees (note: my attempts to develop this skill have NOTHING to do with the car accidents).

10. i'm afraid of heights. on my second-to-last day on the clearwater, i climbed aloft to the crosstrees, 80-ish feet above the surface of the water and thought i would die up there because i was too scared to climb back down. a good friend once told me that people who are afraid of heights are more highly evolved than everyone else. to people like us, it's just common sense, like not eating poo- we know it's not healthy.

11. i really admire everyone on facebook who took the time to write meaningful, revealing, introspective lists of 25 things. my list seems to be lacking in those three qualities. sorry.

12. the cat i currently own is the fourth cat i have had since senior year in college. the first got hit by a car, the second disappeared, and the third i gave away to a lonely old woman who wanted him so much more than i did. when i brought him to her house so she could cat-sit over the holidays, she had two bowls of (bottled) water out for him - one at room temperature and one chilled, so he could have his pick of what he liked better. she deserved him more than i did. i let him drink out of the toilet.

13. i hate hate hate washing dishes. this has, in part, led to the downfall of at least one (and maybe more) of my past relationships.

14. i love love love to rearrange furniture.

15. i was a vegetarian for 11 years, but last year, i joined a meat CSA and got 10 pounds of grass-fed, locally-raised pork, beef, lamb, and chicken every month. ohhhh, the bacon. i loved it. i can't decide if i am going to keep eating "good" meat- i do think animals can be an important component of a sustainable farming system, but i still feel like it is better for me and better for the planet if i don't eat them. i am intrigued by the idea posited by mark bittman in his new book, "food matters" that you should be vegan until 6:00pm. breakfast burritos for dinner? don't mind if i do.

16. i worked on a boat for two years on the hudson river and it was the greatest and most rewarding job i could ever imagine having. and since i don't really like boats and i have an over-developed need for privacy, it seems hard to believe i could love a job that forced me to live onboard for seven days at a time, sharing my space with 11 other people (many of them total strangers, some i had known for a month or two) with nothing separating me from them other than a sagging curtain around my bunk. and we had a bucket for a toilet.

17. i have a hard time keeping track of socks.

18. i am really bad at staying in touch with people, but am grateful that facebook allows me to learn what folks are up to without any real effort on my part. this is exactly the system i have been wishing for for years.

19. i was fired from one job in my life and i will never forgive the man who fired me. however, although i find it slightly upsetting that they talk to him, i have managed to forgive all the people who are still friends with this man.

20. i am very jealous of people close to my age who own their own homes.

21. i love my birthday and one thing i am very excited about is the number of people who will be able to acknowledge my birthday this year, thanks to facebook.

22. i have never seen "titanic" or any of the indiana jones movies.

23. if i ever win $11 million in the lottery, i will buy a farm, make sure my neice and nephew can go to whatever college they choose, adopt a lot more dogs, and then pay bruce springsteen a million dollars (plus an extra million to a charity of his choice) to put on a private concert for every person i have ever met (this means you, my facebook friends). it's going to be awesome.

24. i have trouble remembering to do things and i hate it when people say, "oh, remind me to do such-and-such..." because i can never remember to take care of my own stuff, much less help somebody else remember to take care of their own.

25. almost three weeks in, i still smile every time i hear the words, "president obama."

the bees are out and about

blogger's remorse

i went to look at matt's hive of russian bees today- he had said with the warm weather, they should be active, flying around the hive and reminding everyone that spring is not too far off. jake came with me, and although i called out a stern but non-specific "jakie- no!" when he headed out on the frozen pond, he continued to walk across it, not understanding the relationship between air temperature and ice security. when he did fall through, he was very close to the edge and stood there, up to his chin in icy water and mud. and for a second- just a second,, mind you- before i scurried over to help him out, i wondered if maybe i should first take a picture for the blog.

help from miss manners

so what is the proper protocol in this scenario?:
you're standing in the crowded dog park, where 25-30 dogs are frolicking about, chasing balls, sniffing butts, humping, etc... and suddenly spot your mild-mannered, gentle, harmless dog walk up to a woman wearing an ankle-length down jacket, lift his leg, and pee on her. and here's the kicker- she doesn't notice. do you say something? something along the lines of, "excuse me, but i think someone's dog just urinated on you." or do you just pretend you never saw it happen (which is the course of action i elected to take)?

so many ways it could have been worse

i spent most of the day today checking to see if classes would be canceled at dean college tonight. we got a fair amount of snow followed by some sleet and rain-ish like stuff, and i was confident i was going to get a snow day. the internet did not give me the good news i was hoping for, so a few minutes before it was time for me to leave, i called the college just to be sure. it was a fact- there was no snow day and i was going to have to teach tonight. and then, on the way to dean, this happened:

someone driving towards me on a very narrow country road spun out and i had nowhere to go but directly into the rear of her car, which, quite unexpectedly, appeared in front of me in my lane. no one was hurt, but the prius took a beating. it had to be towed out of that snowbank and i imagine it is going to require some expensive repairs- and, as everyone knows, only elves are certified to work on priuses, so there might be a delay because so many elves are still on vacation at this time of year.


in a way, i got the snow day i was hoping for.

how do you expect us to nap if you keep using the flash?

two weekends in a row

another day, another burst pipe. approximately two inches from the where the last pipe burst and despite the fact that i had wrapped the pipe and insulated along the roof line. what fun!

guess what i'm going to spend the next two weeks trying to antagonize earl into doing?

"dammit, you cat poster- stop mocking me! i will get you!"

infiltration

matt sent me this link today:
watching the growth of walmart

obama day

a quick stop by oak knoll to get snow shoes yesterday revealed a ceiling mysteriously dripping water and a program room quite abnormally saturated.




it was a disaster narrowly averted, as we caught it in time to clean up the water before more damage was done, and found the burst pipe before the entire heating system was drained.

i had to spend most of the day today not attending the meeting i was supposed to be at and instead waiting for the carpenter to come repair the ceiling. i took advantage of this time to do the only thing i really wanted to do with my day:

it bears repeating

even for those of you who have heard the story, i'll just say that one time, i got pete seeger a beer. i was sitting next to pete seeger and i finished my beer and i said, "pete, i just finished my beer. i'm going to get another one. can i get you one?" and he said, "why yes, that would be delightful."

this video cuts out before you get to watch pete jog across the stage at the end looking gleeful and spry- but given the circumstances, would you really expect him to be any other way?

if you ever think snow is nice, then this is nice snow

police log

remember when i posted the police log from dover? frankly, it pales in comparison to the montpelier police log (except for that one time there was a typo (i think) and the entry read: "resident reports discovering large snack in his basement"), which appears weekly in the times argus. i waited a day for aaron to post this on his own blog, but since he hasn't, i will share it with you.
These are some of the calls received by the Montpelier Police Department from Jan. 5-11:

Jan. 5

A Mechanic Street resident called police to report she believes she thwarted theft of lamp globes.

Vehicle tires were reported slashed on East State Street.

A plate was reported missing from a vehicle.

In the space of four hours, during the morning, police received reports from three businesses on Elm Street located in the same block that they were broken into overnight.

Police received a report of a tire in the right turn lane in the River Street area.

Under suspicious activity: A Vermont-registered vehicle's driver's door was open in a Main Street parking lot.

Police received a report from a person who believes someone has been staying in a Main Street church.

A citizen found a Samsung flip phone and brought it to the police station.

A vehicle was reported parked on the sidewalk on Berlin Street.

Police received a report from a woman whose ex-husband is one hour late bringing the children back.

A caller reported their car was struck by a tire from a vehicle in front.



Jan. 6

Under suspicious activity: A Woodrow Avenue resident reported they heard what sounded like a car door close.

Police received a complaint from a Monsignor Crosby Avenue resident about a blue SUV that speeds nightly after 2200 (hours).

Police received a report that a delivery truck hit a parked vehicle on Kent Street.

An area male called to report his 10-year-old daughter's name was used to get a phone.

Police reported a man in a tan Chevy S-10 pickup truck in the cemetery.

A Berlin Street resident reported an attempt to pry open the door to the residence.

A Main Street business turned in three credit cards that were left.



Jan. 7

A Mechanic Street resident called because she believes she scared off burglars.

A kitchen fire was reported on the stove and wall of a State Street address.

An anonymous caller reported a tree touching a wire, some sparking, on Downing Street.

One caller reported finding cash.

A School Street resident reported a New Hampshire-registered vehicle parked directly in front of the driveway.

A concerned male reported traffic lights out at State and Main streets.

A female caller reported she witnessed a vehicle hit by another, left scene.

Police received a call from a male who thinks his handgun was stolen from his car while parked in the commuter lot on Dog River Road.

A male reported his jacket missing from the sidewalk.



Jan. 8

A Barre Street business reported receiving repeated prank calls.

Another Barre Street business reported a check for $104 returned for account closed.

Police received a request to assist a delivery truck stuck in snow.

An elderly female was reported in road shoveling snow.

Police received a report of an adult German Shepherd running down the street.

A citizen reported they found six keys by a Main Street business.

One caller reported minor damage to his vehicle at a Main Street business.

Under suspicious activity: A male came into office (on State Street), asked worker out.

A vehicle was reported for blocking a driveway.

A camera was reported missing from coat pocket, was on hanger.

An Elm Street female reported her son was assaulted by an older boy after school.

A female reported she lost her keys somewhere in front of a Main Street business.

A vehicle was reported off the road into the snowbank on River Street.

An Elm Street resident reported a red plow truck hit a red car.



Jan. 9

Police received a report that a dump truck plowed snow against the doors of the school.

An Elm Street resident reported the driver's side front door (of a vehicle) was damaged.

Police received a request for an officer to standby at the middle school in case of a problem.

Police were asked to assist with a Vermont-registered vehicle driving erratically on I-89, in the southbound lane, south of Exit 9.

A concerned citizen reported protesters blocking the sidewalk/crosswalk.

A female from Williamstown called reporting possible fraud.

A moving truck was reported for being parked, blocking good part of road.

A white dog with spots was reported for running loose in the area of Deerfield Drive and Dunpatrick Circle.

A Mechanic Street resident reported being concerned about their neighbor's well-being.

Police received a call from a woman reporting her 20-year-old son is not following directions.

Williston 9-1-1 dispatcher reported continually receiving calls, no emergency, from the above mentioned neighbor on Mechanic Street.

A couple reported they found two small white dogs running in the road.



Jan. 10

Police received a report of a couple arguing, may be fighting on Main Street.

Police reported being out with a male who advises his car was stolen.

A city resident requested an officer check her business.

Police received a report that a white Dodge Charger pulled out on Elm Street.

Police reported picking up a couple of hazards in the roadway.

A Main Street business reported a customer left their wallet behind.

Police received two calls to assist another agency with a roll-over on I-89 between mile markers 44 and 45.

A woman called to report her foster daughter receiving harassing messages.

Police received two complaints about a large round bail of hay in the road in the area of Berlin Street and Blodgett Avenue.

A female reported a car tailgating her, swerving back and forth in the area of Berlin and River streets.

Michelle A. Borsellino, 30, of Johnson was cited to appear in court to answer to charges of operating under the influence.



Jan. 11

An officer reported hearing some type of alarm in the area of U-32.

One caller reported a vehicle with flashers on Elm Street between Spring and Vine streets.

Police responded to a 9-1-1 hang-up from a phone on the second floor hallway of a building on College Street.

Police received a report about a brother who has been drinking for two weeks.

An area resident reported vehicles parked too close to the intersection of College Street and Kemp Avenue.

An annoyed citizen reported that snow had been blown out into the roadway earlier in the area of River Street.

A Subaru was reported off into median.

A citizen reported two vehicles in no parking areas in back of a Main Street business.

A concerned citizen reported a 2-x-4 in the roadway near the intersection of Sibley Avenue and College Street.

Police received a report of a sideswiped parked vehicle.

A Gould Hill Road resident reported two snowmobiles came down the middle of the road.

A Shamrock Lane resident reported receiving harassing calls from stepson's ex-girl.

everyone knows he was a good boy

nikki had to say goodbye to padrino this week. the world's pitbull community lost their sweetest and greatest ambassador.

kids aren't the only fearless sledders

pop has a go on the saucer. it does not end well.

christmas time sledding year 2

two cute and fearless kids take to the slopes of high meadow lane

all i want for christmas...

... is a bigger bed