"Easter Ode to a Cupola"

"In my walking I have seen you, standing steady, proudly ringing. Gather all your children, Steeple! Far and widely scattered are they: busy working, tired of learning, tired of being classroom-seated, tired of writing poems on paper, tired of doing sums and reading, tired of what you have to offer. Bring them back with hearty pealing! Make them eager for your learning. Make them into men and women. Make them wise and make them loving.

"All of us depend on YOU!"



















(photo credit: Andree in Vermont... "Fiske School")

Early Warning Easter

Have you seen how early

Easter

is this year?

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon
following the Spring Equinox. The date is obtained
from the Lunar Calendar Hebrew people use to
mark the Feast of The Passover.

With our present day Gregorian
calendar, the date moves around.

(Easter can occur as early as March 22,

but that is pretty rare.) This year Easter is March 23rd, 2008...

the earliest Easter any of us will ever see!

Next time Easter will be this early--- 2228.

The last time--- 1913.

Only the most elderly of our population

(you'd have to be 95)

---have ever seen it this early.

and the bottom line is:

.....no one alive today will

ever see an earlier Easter!

(A big hug and thanks to Gail Slaughter)

"The Train Table"

This is a picture from Andree in Vermont. When I was strolling through her blog at midnight and things were quiet, no mail coming in, no axes to grind, no phones ringing, nothing burning on the stove, no duties to do, I came across this. It took me WAY back to my childhood and my train set. My father had a table built for it, about ten inches deep, held up by pipe legs screwed into flanges underneath. It was made of plywood, and a fellow owed an oil bill he couldn't quite pay, so Dad had him build this table instead.

The table was covered over with two half-sheets of thick plywood, concealing the train and tracks and whatever inside, and this allowed its use as a ping-pong table. It got an awful lot of use...my brother became an expert on that table and could not be beaten. At festive occasions, that table was used to carry the weight of all the great potluck dinners we had with the neighbors and relatives. It bore all the Christmas presents when we moved into the basement of our uncompleted brick home, the one Mom designed.

But it held my train, too. And the tunnel I built for it: plywood and chicken wire and paper mache. And this picture brings all of that back, and more!

"The Road to Happiness at Henry Ford"

We went to the Henry Ford Museum today and I was quite taken by the display of "The Road to Happiness"... here is a photo..............

An Old Georgia Barn

This one I really love... it's a picture by Dot, from "Strolling Through Georgia", a blog you can link to from "Everything in Particular" if you head that way, or simply by using a pogostick:

http://strollingthroughgeorgia.blogspot.com/

Lighthouse

People who know me know I love lighthouses... the older the better... but this picture almost looks like it could have been painted on a cave wall! Actually my good friend Mary Stebbins Taitt sent me a beautiful work she did of the Lighthouse in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and I did this detail from it in Picasa, just for fun.
(See http://nerdshot.blogspot.com/2008/02/grosse-pointe-lighthouse.html for the original)

More Barns, from Michigan

Old Barns! Not-so-old-Barns! I don't care, I love all of 'em! Once found everywhere in rural America, many have passed into memory and history, and many have fortunately been preserved. Some survive without any assistance, somehow, because they were built to last for a hundred years and longer. Both sets of my Grandparents were farmers with barns, and I played in such wonderful places when I was a young'un.
(These pictures were taken by Mary Stebbins Taitt)

"Leeds Castle"

Any "boot" who trained at the Army Engineer's School will find this picture familiar. This is Leeds Castle in England, and a stylized version was officially adopted by the Army in 1902 as the symbol of the Engineers. I trained at Fort Belvoir in Virginia in 1984.
(Photo: Google Earth)

The Bell Tower

This is Beaumont Tower, the iconic image of Michigan State University, where I received my BA in Radio and Television.

The campus is beautiful and very scenic to walk, known especially for its many varieties of trees and its botanical gardens.

The campus is well worth the visit, and is located in East Lansing, Michigan, about 35 miles north of my home in Jackson.

"Old Schoolhouse"...a picture by Mary Stebbins Taitt

Old postal card...Jackson, Michigan as it was...

Old postal card...the "Engine Arch"...I attended classes here in 1969...University of Michigan

Old postal card...the Rose Garden at Ella Sharp Park

Old postal card...City Hall...now sadly gone

Old stomping grounds...University of Michigan