Father's Day, 2010 CE

This is the 100th anniversary of Father's Day and to celebrate it I am going to sit back, relax, and do nearly nothing. I'm going to skip my daily walk. That's my idea of a fine Father's Day celebration.

Mike and JoAnn gave me a Father's Day gift... a set of four rechargeable AA-size batteries and a 15-minute Battery Charger. Now I will not have a good excuse for missing an important shot.

Thanks Mike and JoAnn.


My most recent walk (yesterday) was down Calle Del Valle then left onto Calle de Coronado then down Soldier Trail to East on Fort Lowell Road for about a half-mile and then back along the desert path alongside Fort Lowell Road to Calle de Ricnon to Calle Del Valle and home. About three miles. I took some pictures, mostly intriguing trees and mountain views. Saw no new animals on this trek though.

There was a building with a rustic fence surrounding it. The sign identified the building as the Hermosa Montessori School, but it was fairly well hidden behind the fence and trees and scrub.

Hermosa Montessori School

While walking that walk, I mused upon the recent blog posts contributed by Anthony V. Toscano. That gentleman is a true poet (in my opinion) but he seems to be hung up on his lack of perfection as a writer. He seems unable to grasp the fact that the random reader views his words and absorbs their meanings, but those meanings are shaded by the reader's own background and experiences in life. What might seem mediocre to AVT can be breathtaking beauty to a reader who is necessarily disconnected from the poet's own inner-self and sees meanings not at all apparent to the author of the words.

Or so it seems to me.


I am fascinated by the variety of trees I encounter while walking along the roads and over the trails trodden out through the desert. These trees occasionally present, without words, a quiet tale or a silent poem, soundless insights unclouded by loud and intrusive noises that twist the natural plots, stories (thankfully) not fraught with human errors in interpretation -- reportage without an audible language -- but they can bring to the thoughtful observer a myriad of peaceful pleasures in that plethora of intimate stories.

Such as --

An Unpretentious Silent Declaration

Naked And Unadorned I Stand

Ah, yes . . .

Later that afternoon, as I sat out near the pool listening to Talk Radio and penning some notes regarding the characters in my novel, I sipped a tall frosted glass of icy...

Pepsi-Cola Throwback

"Throwback" is a refreshing and delicious beverage manufactured by the Pepsi-Cola company with sugar as its major sweetener instead of the Johnny-come-lately corn syrup used in the modern iteration. If you have not tried it, I suggest you do so as soon as possible. Throwback is much better.

Much, much better.

I've often been told that, "Life Is What You Make It" and that our attitudes and outlooks can be strengthened, weakened, nullified, or even completely reversed by consciously selected actions.

As in the following:

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

--Herman Melville
Moby Dick

.