THE THINGS YOU SEE ON ROCHE HARBOR ROAD…

Doctor Seuss would have liked Roche Harbor Road.

Anyone living on San Juan Island knows what I mean. RHR is home to some strange sights. Probably the most famous, and the only one alive, is Mona the Camel… just past San Juan Vinyards on the way out of town. Or maybe ‘Mona the Mooch’… she does like a treat, but don’t tease her. I don’t know how long Mona has been standing sentry on RHR, looking for a handout or maybe just some company. If you pull off the road and go over to the fence, Mona will come over to say hello… if she’s feeling like it. She usually is. She has to be more photographed than the Lighthouse at Lime Kiln State Park. My friend Catherine of Sacramento visited, and of course I gave them the Grand Tour. Her husband Anthony is an artist and is photographing Mona… he has just given her some grass, and she is posing. We had just been to the Lighthouse… instead of taking a pic, he painted a watercolor.                                                                               Mona & Anthony

Roche Harbor Road runs from Friday Harbor to Roche Harbor, after 10 miles it ends up at the Resort, once the home to Roche Harbor Lime and Cement Company… the largest lime works west of the Mississippi… a major force on the island, a century ago.

In Second Place, has to be The Cow & The Pig. The Cow & The Pig celebrate all major holidays and have been known to make political and social comments, as Laurie sees fit to let them. I have taken a lot of photos of The Cow & The Pig.

     The Cow & Pig in Autumn…  The Cow & Pig at Halloween…  The Cow & Pig at Christmas

RHR starts at the High School, and barely 100 feet along RHR, a guy had parked his riding lawn mower collection on his lawn for awhile… alas, I missed that photo op, I think there were six of them. I wish he would do it again sometime… there’s only one there now.

A little past The Cow & The Pig is an interesting garden, and in good weather a mannequin stands watch. She would have her outfit changed every other day or so, but I don’t think they did that as much last year. Maybe this year. I’ve taken a few pics of her.

Gardens, waiting for Spring

At about the 9 mile mark, a local artist has started to mount his sculptures, a display of his talents… kind of a visual business card.

Nicholson Studio

Just before Roche Harbor Resort is the Sculpture park, but that’s a whole different story. It’s much more mainstream… and this isn’t about mainstream.

So, I guess what started this, was while driving back to town yesterday, I spotted a new display along the side of the road. As I zipped past (45mph of course), I was struck with how amazing the minds of our RHR islanders are. I had to wait a bit for a drive to turn around in to go back to see what kind of statement was being made there. Maybe none, at least I can’t think of one, but fun to see, and quite colorful to say the least. My friend Ken Serratt warned me to “beware a gang of three year olds”.

WRITING IN 2012…

This is a piece I wrote on Blogger to introduce my writing… and explain the sudden surge of blogs suddenly appearing.  I will continue to write on both.  Stay posted and please subscribe to receive fresh pressings in an inbox near you…

I have been writing a blog on WordPress called TedBook.  I shamelessly ripped off Mark Z. and hope they don’t find out, because they will probably sue my ass.  Actually, he probably wouldn’t care, but you know how those corporate things go… if it was Nike they sure would!  There is a dive bar in my town called Herb’s Tavern… they’ve been there for decades, and make t-shirts to sell to the tourists.  One year they made a tee with the words “Just Drink It”… Nike sued them to ‘cease & desist’… they had made the mistake of putting a kind of ‘swoosh’ under the words.  They ceased & desisted.  Really… a small tavern in a little town?   But, that’s the way it goes I guess… you can’t make exceptions.   I logged a lot of hours on Herb’s stools back in the day.  I never met Herb and don’t know if there ever was one… there must have been, but that old bar’s had a lot of owners over the years.  I was told the name would change, but would always go back to Herb’s Tavern.But, that’s not what I was going to write about… how did I get on Herb’s?  Oh yes, TedBook.  Like everyone else, I have a list of things I would like to try.  Who hasn’t thought of writing a book or creating a great work of art?  Or maybe climbing Everest or going deep sea fishing.  Or maybe being a great cook or trying out in a play.  Those are all things someone can do if they try… maybe not reach the top or be great, but at least have the experience of doing.  That is so easy to say… says the master of procrastination.  But, I have a little more time on my hands these days, and finally got tired of thinking about trying to write something.  I started to check into people’s blogs I would see.  I was getting ready.  Somewhere I saw a site called Plinky, they do an ‘idea a day’ to get bloggers motivated … that got me going on my first piece… My Favorite Summer Memory.  That was June 28, 2010… at 10:22a.m. I was a Published Author.  I thought that was pretty cool.. my name in print… the name of my blog in print… my thoughts in print!  Well, I don’t want to get to full here, but I was pretty proud of myself.   Especially when the 2 or 3 people who read it thought it was great.  Okay, they were my daughters!  But, I think I am getting better… at any rate, it is fun and very satisfying.  A few days later, I went out to a farm and took photos of bales of hay and a guy on a tractor, and added graphics to my blog.

Now I was Big Time.I wrote 8 Blogs in 6 months in 2010… in 2011 I wrote 1 Blog.  This is it…

2010 in review
I THOUGHT THIS WAS AN INTERESTING SUMMARY TO RECEIVE, AS I NEVER KNEW IF ANYONE EVER REALLY SAW MY EFFORTS… other than my family and friends I coerced into viewing.  My New Years Resolution is to make the time to do this more often.  For those of you who do read TedBook.. Thank You.  Thanks to WordPress for a great blogging experience.  ~  Ted

WordPress had sent a review of my blogging experience, and that was my lead in at the top.   I was full of hope for 2011.  They didn’t send me a review for 2011.

 A number of factors contributed to my lack of writing.  Some beyond my control, and some completely within my power… of those, two stand out; facebook satisfied a lot of my creative urge, posting photos and writing little things, and the other was some kind of writer’s block… and it wasn’t the kind where you can’t think of anything to write about.  I had been wanting to do it for so long, and not doing it.  I had friends writing blogs… and the only writing I was doing, was on their blogs… in the comment box.

So, on New Year’s Eve I got a prompt, not from Plinky, but from Amy Winehouse.

On January 2, 2012, one year to the day, I published my next blog.  I’ve published 3, not counting this one, so far this year.   I have now moved over all my old blogs from WordPress to Blogger and will post on both.  Here’s the one that brought me back… http://tedinfridayharbor.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-amy-winehouse-saved-tedbook.html?spref=bl

   Check Plinky out… http://www.plinky.com/

SOMETIMES IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS…

I made some toast today, and immediately thought of my mother, Edna.   I love Orange Marmalade.  I put it in a lot of things, and when I put it on my toast, I use a spreader I got from my mother.  It was a spreader I grew up with.  In fact it is older than I, as  my mom got it from her mother.  When I say I got it from my mother, that’s not exactly true.  My mom died almost two years ago, and anyone that knew her knows she was very well organized.   (In fact, she would put J. Edgar to shame… there were files on everyone… from me all the way down to Ula)  She had made arrangements to have everything of any value, monetarily or sentimentally parceled out to her family.  My sister Marja helped her organize at the end and I know my mom was very grateful for the help and maybe more importantly the company, as my Father had monopolized everyone’s time and energy, and my Mother got the short end of the stick so to speak.   I will be forever grateful to Marja for that.

So, everything was pretty much decided about ‘what went where’.

As I was helping my sister’s dispose of things… giving things to our Mom’s helpers and friends and us taking some things… “Hey, I need a storage container that size!” (anyone knowing our Mom knows about storage containers!)… I came across this spreader in a drawer with about 5 other spreaders… God forbid we would run out of spreaders.  My Mom had a lot of duplicates… I guess that’s what happens in 90 years of life.  The cabinets were almost sagging off the walls with the weight of all the dish sets.

But, back to the Spreader… This one spreader, was one I used when I was a child and had advanced to making my own toast and sandwiches.   I used it every time I went to Sacramento to visit.  So, I pocketed it that day.   Every time I make toast or a sandwich I think of my Mom.

Tonight, I’m going to The Palace Theater to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo… I will think of my Mom, as she loved to go to the movies more than anything else.  I saw more movies with my mother than anyone else in my life.  She would go to see anything with me.  She said she wanted to see ‘Sin City’ (my daughters were aghast when they found out I had taken her to see ‘Sin City’, I said “Hey she really wanted to see it!”) so we went.  But, I was the one who really wanted to see it,  found out later she really didn’t like it and was just looking out for her son (I know that feeling myself), and I loved her for that… she was my Champion in life.

The perfect day for my Mom, was to go to Arden Fair Mall.  Have lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen or the Cheesecake Factory… actually her favorite was to get a Polish Dog in the Food Court… then we would browse Barnes and Nobel looking at books, maybe buying a few… well always buying a few… then on to the show in the Mall or nearby Century 21.  That was our day… and in the old days when she was in good health we would sometimes go to 2 shows.  So I saw a lot of movies with my Mom.

Of the all things of value she wanted me to have, it is the little things that spark memories… those are the most important.  Because it’s the memories that are most valuable in our lives.

I used to hear people say “I miss and think of my mother every day”… I now know what they mean.   Although I may not think of her every day, there are so many little reminders, it’s hard not to.

Photos are great reminders… I have a lot of my Mom… here’s one of my favorites.

                                                       Washington, DC  ~ 1942