Monday, August 21, 2017

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY: Rock Singer, Kevin Abbott, Age 10 (SCHOOL OF ROCK SUMMER CAMP)




Summer camps are wondrous things. Kevin attended camps where he improved his guitar playing, built robots, learned to dive, sharpened hockey, baseball and tennis skills, made computer games, and sometimes just played. School of Rock has turned him into an avid guitar player. No doubt he will have a garage band. Hope he gets the President he deserves sooner rather than later.

Loved SUNBURN by Laura Lippman.(Not out yet).

Enjoyed my book group's discussion of Hillbilly Elegy (J.D. Vance) How much I admire how hard these women work to get the most out of a book. The book group is in its 16th year and I hate to miss a meeting.


The Dream Cruise...40,000 classic cars and over a million people cruise Woodward Avenue from Detroit to Pontiac, perhaps a 20 mile stretch over the third Saturday in August. Although the events spill over into the days preceding it. They pitch tents, set up bleachers, set up food, and watch cars go by. The vast majority of cars (and perhaps spectators) are from the sixties to the eighties. But there are plenty of earlier ones to see. Living a block away from this now is mostly annoying. But I grew up with a father working in the car industry so cars are kinda in my blood.I sneaked over and watched in as it began on Saturday. Kind of thrilling.




 And Megan's birthday is on the eclipse today. We had a special necklace made to celebrate it. It's gold with a moon and two stars with peridots in them.



What about you?

13 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Cool. I never went to summer camp but I hear lots of great stories of it

George said...

Katie flew in from Boston to attend a friend's baby shower. While Katie was here, she installed our new APPLE iMac, fixed NETFLIX and HULU, and tweaked our SONY HDTV settings. It's great to have tech-savvy kids!

I'm getting ready for a theme week on my blog next week. Should be fun!

My former boss at the College keeps calling me with offers. New York State now offers "free" College tuition so enrollment surged. Now, after giving me an Incentive to retire, the College wants me to return to teaching because they don't have enough professors now.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Don't do it. The same offers were made to Phil but they wanted to have him teach at an adjunct rate. Ridiculous.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Very nice. My brother and I went to camp for six years (1957-62). The specialty of the camp was horseback riding (no movie camp or rock camp then, whippersnappers), and in the last year (I was 13) I took care of a horse for the summer. I got her in from the pasture in the morning, brushed her, cleaned out the stall, saddled her (and got to ride for the first hour), got the next group on the horse, came back before lunch and again after lunch and at the end of the day, fed her and turned her out in the pasture, unless there was a horseback overnight (we got to go on the first one, of course). It was a great way to learn responsibility. Of course, I was a responsible kid already.

My nephew has been to similar camps to the ones Kevin has gone to and has grown tremendously (he has high function autism) over the years.

We saw a preview of PRINCE OF BROADWAY (opening this week), covering 17 shows in the amazing 65 year career of producer-director Harold Prince.

I read the latest Sheriff Rhodes book by Bill Crider, DEAD, TO BEGIN WITH, the highlight of this week's reading. It's always fun to visit the gang in BLacklin County, Texas. It's the little things that it make so fun for me, like a character quoting from RIO BRAVO.

Gerard Saylor said...

1. 40,000 cars? Wow. I saw some of the photos on Instagram and was guessing a lot of those cars were souped up and extra loud.

2. I was grouchy yesterday because a family trip into Madison took up the bulk of the middle of the day. I did not get to go and do some things I was hoping to do. I should be happy I was able to spend a solid four hours with everyone. But, I'm still grouchy about it.

3. Last week I went outside to find that new bicycle was gone. "Did I leave it up front?" I walked around the house and no, bike still missing. "In the garage?" No. And Boy #1's bike was used by Boy #1 to go to cross country practice so he did not take mine. Therefore some a-hole stole my bicycle from the back of my house.

I went to the police station and reported the theft. I went online and reported the theft on my Facebook page and shared the information on a community page used by many people in the city.

After being at work for an hour I thought, "Well, I should check with Boy-#1-who-has-to-mess-with-every-bike-in-reach to see if maybe, MAYBE, he did something with the bicycle." Sure enough, the night before he took my bike down to the basement to futz with the front wheel. Dang it. I had to call back the police report, the Facebook posts, and all the personal gripes I made at work over my 'stolen' bicycle.

I am VERY glad my bike was not stolen. And over the weekend I bought a ligth kit so I can ride during the evening and solar eclipses.

Jerry House said...

Anyone who reads your blog knows that Kevin rocks! And a very happy birthday to Megan.

What things make me happy? A solar eclipse, for one. I promise not to look directly into the sun.

Our beautiful niece Lizzie stopped by from Arizona for a few days. Super-great to see her.

My brother and his youngest daughter (Lizzie's sister) marched in Boston. Very proud of them and the 30-40 thousand others speaking up against hate that day.

Steve Bannon is out. Could Gorka and Miller be next? Or even the orange cheese doodle? One can hope.

Everyone is settling in at school. Jack got a green card every day for his first week (green card = good; red card = bad) of kindergarten. (Although Jack almost didn't make it to school this morning because he misplaced his shoes. "Jack, you had them in your hand. What did you do with them?" "I don't know." Grr.)

A neighbor in my old home town reported seeing a bobcat chasing a young deer on her street.
(The deer got away.) Brought back some memories because the street happened to be named for me. (My father was a building contractor; when he put in three new streets, he wanted to name after after his three kids -- Kenwood Street for my brother Ken; Linden Street for my sister Linda; and he and he couldn't come up with a name for me so finally he said, "What the hell, call it Green Acre Lane. It took almost twenty years to come up with a name, put in a street, and call it Jerridge Lane. So I'm the only person in my hometown to have two street named after him. Ah, fame.)

pattinase (abbott) said...

Taking care of horses must be the dream of most kids. So enjoy reading about all of your activities. Wish I had more family stuff to report but we are a small family.
I will be in Florida for six weeks from January to end of February. Hoping to see Jeff and who knows who else.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Oh, and I went to camp for six years too, Jeff. 9-14. It was in the Poconos and I loved it. I cried when my parents came to take me home.

Steve Oerkfitz said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jeff Meyerson said...

Can we assume that was Not-Steve? Bizarro Steve?

Gerard Saylor said...

There was a fake movie plug a couple weeks ago as well. I do not recall if it was under Steve's name but after reading it I figured, "Hey, Maybe I should go see that."

pattinase (abbott) said...

Yep, fake Steve only talks about movies and only in hyperbolic language. The real Steve has gone away because he can't get his comments to stick. I tried to fix it but the only sure thing is to register like Jeff did.

George said...

Patti, don't worry. I'm not going back to the College. I told my former Chairman, "You gave me an Incentive to Retire, you'll have to give me an Incentive to return." Of course, the Adjunct rate is around minimum wage levels.

I'm happy reading books and watching movies and listening to CDs. Why would I want to go back to the hassles of work.