Characters

First Monday, as were

[Editor’s Note: My call for “character updates” went out to all of the blog’s staff members before I faced up to the fact that regularly scheduled columns weren’t working for me, and the call was graciously (if not habitually) answered by updates from a number of them. I trust that updates will continue to come in as our “characters” have something they want to share about themselves. We look forward to publishing these under their own bylines. To remind yourself who each character is, you may consult their blurbs in the sidebar. And remember that the link of each character’s name calls up all posts whose name they labeled.]

First Monday with Characters

[From ozphoter.com]

Susan C. Price, recently in Italy

This was REQUESTED, so...if it’s not funny or interesting, blame the requestor :-) (Oh, and yes, i have a sort of shopping...interest / addiction / whatever. In the years when i was working it made sense, as i wore something different five days a week. i still have the appetite...but not the...oh, lets call it “need”…I buy things anyway...and...i’m working on it, so judge away...but don’t expect me to listen.)

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

William Silveira, by train and car

Marylin and I recently completed a 19-day trip into New Mexico and Arizona with a couple of friends. We spent some time in Santa Fe and Taos, and at Red River in New Mexico.

First Monday with Characters

What long legs Envious has!

Edited by 
Morris Dean

Bettina Sperry, off to the races

While work on the farm had been settling down during the hot days of August, focus on my racehorse heated up significantly. There is so much more to horseracing than appears. Horses themselves can pose problems and race unpredictably, as has been the case with my boy. Horseracing is arguably hard on the people involved, for myriad reasons, though from the outside this can be conceivably difficult to understand. It is a world of constant problem solving, competition, and working towards improvement in racing – at the slow pace of one race at a time.
    I am also enjoying Franklin Hill's new thoroughbred foal [see photo]. Her name is Envious. At just a few months of age, she is gorgeous. She's a rough and tumble foal, and is mean spirited. She has been biting and kicking since day one on the farm. She recently left for her new home where she will be managed professionally during the months ahead. She is clearly a racehorse in the making.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by
Morris Dean

James Knudsen, from the 4th row

Among my many, hidden treasures – some hidden so well that I can’t find them, is a collection of old concert T-shirts from the 1980’s. As a teen-ager I made several trips to Fresno’s Selland Arena to see the headliners of the day; Cheap Trick, Van Halen, and The Scorpions were some of the acts I was lucky enough to see. And if my budget allowed, I would purchase a T-shirt that I would proudly wear to school the next day, and it would declare, “Yeah, I was there!”

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Susan C. Price, in juried art show

i have been working (not hard, just now and then ) on seeing if "fine" art (really, i cannot think of my work as fine...seems a silly term to me in this context...maybe ...interesting, bright...but not, fine) can "work" for me. By "work," i think i mean acclaim, notice, and cash. My brother claims it's just acclaim and notice...

First Monday with Characters: Tribute to Sgt. Pepper

Released 48 years ago today…

[Editor’s Note: In a departure from our usual “First Monday” column, today some of our characters express their personal tribute to the Beatles album that Time magazine declared “a historic departure in the progress of music’.” –Wikipedia]

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

James Knudsen, ready for AARP

Entering the second half-century of one's life means certain things happen. You become eligible to join AARP, certain manufactured home parks are now open to you, and your doctor recommends that you get your baseline colonoscopy done. Guess which one I did on April 30, 2015. I'll give you a hint: I ate bologna sandwiches on white bread for two days. No, I did not move into a trailer park, and I have yet to receive an AARP discount because I'm not yet a member.
    One of the world's great mysteries is why, when the medical professionals want to start looking around the last place I would consider looking for...ANYTHING, why do they insist that you eat the stuff you should not eat in order to remain healthy. Why?
    From the instructions I was given by the VA:

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Ralph Earle, his forthcoming book of poems
    From Melissa Hassard, Partner and Managing Editor, Sable Books:

I am delighted to announce that we are now taking reservations for the forthcoming chapbook from Ralph Earle, The Way the Rain Works, winner of the 2015 Sable Books February Chapbook Contest. If you’d like to reserve a copy of Ralph’s book, we’ll be glad to hold a copy for you.

First Monday with Characters

Our new calf, Midnight

Edited by 
Morris Dean

Bettina Sperry, calving

With all the snow and sub-zero temps, the days on Franklin Hill Farm have been spent ensuring that the newly arriving and newly born calf was greeted by the warmth of a cared-for mom. Beginning on Valentine's Day, I spent every morning and evening hauling water and hay to the cow. Finally, on Thursday, Feb. 19th, in single-digit temperatures, she calved her little one. Franklin Hill Farm has four more calves on the way in the coming few months. Our small business thrives.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Siegfried, at 6
    Siegfried’s sixth birthday was January 24. We commemorated the event with our cousins Duvall over lunch at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock [see André’s &Morris’s reports, below]. In the photo right, Siegfried, recently groomed, seemed unsure about being top dog. He's a modest companion, but demanding all the same. He has us well-trained, though, so it works out fine.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Geoffrey Dean, visiting

After a birthday and pre-Christmas celebration on the 21st, I and my significant other flew to Minneapolis to spend Christmas with her family before heading to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit my sister and relatives on my mother’s side.
    I hadn’t been to California in about a decade, and it was especially interesting to see it at this traditionally chilly time of year. California cold is, well, warmer than in most other places. The dark green pine foliage and high palm trees give the western shore of the Bay Area a Rome-meets-the-tropics feel. I enjoyed Christa’s enthusiasm on seeing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, and she called Sausalito “charming” rather than “touristy,” the preferred descriptive, I imagine, of the average Californian.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Kyle Garza, proposing

I proposed to my girlfriend of the last two blissful years, McKenzie, on November 16th, and she sobbingly said yes (tears of joy, to be sure).
    We went out on a casual Sunday after-church date to a monarch butterfly grove in Goleta, a verdant and picturesque spot flourishing with eucalyptus and ivy that most folks imagine is an enchanted forest when they see pictures. I had a handful of friends from church help me out with the proposal. They hid in bushes until a certain point in our walk along the park’s main trail: two musician friends who helped me serenade her with “our song” (All I Want Is You) and two others who worked photography and videography.
    Now we will start to endure the stresses of wedding planning and figuring out where to live together in the midst of a busy school year (since I teach and am working on my MA online and she is a full-time student working on her BS in Mechanical Engineering from CSU Northridge).
    If you know of anyone who knows a good So Cal wedding venue or realtor, please let us know!

First Monday with Characters

Edited by
Morris Dean

Rolf Dumke, greeting trick-or-treaters

On Halloween night, a couple dozen normal-looking neighborhood kids aged between four to fourteen rang our doorbell trick-or-treating. They were dressed nicely as devils and witches, with gargoyles’ faces or with store-bought plastic monster visages, some as cowboys or with other costume party uniforms that were handy, but out of place for Halloween.
    It shows that Halloween in Bavaria is still stuck in a quandary: is it a kind of costume party like carneval, or what?

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Tom Lowe, in remembrance

Fella by the name of Clemens complained years ago, “The coldest Winter I ever spent was a Summer in San Francisco”....He left too soon. From the middle of September to around Thanksgiving the Bay Area experiences the warmest part of its year. That’s where we are right now, with afternoon temperatures in the mid-eighties some days, and foggy mornings. A good season to get some work done, I’m hoping. Finishing my “Spring cleaning” would be a start.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

James Knudsen, in the garden

You're probably thinking, “enough with the bugs already!” But, this fellow... fella, I suspect it's a she, charmed me. She has made her home in the patch of mint off the back porch that has been there since my youth. And if you're wondering about the orientation of the picture, that's how I snapped it. Praying mantis' seem to enjoy hanging around upside down. They really do move in a three-dimensional way, forward/back, right/left, up/down. At some point this mantis decided, via her well-developed, binocular, stereoscopic vision, that I was nothing to be concerned about and started cleaning her forelimbs. That's what the camera has captured here.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

The Rogers, going with the odds

Sorry I left you believing Janie had Parkinson's Disease. We were told a couple of months ago by our neurologist in Costa Rica that she didn't have PD, and we wanted to wait until we saw our doctor in the States and she had an MRI before sharing that happy news.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

André Duvall, in accompaniment & solo

Last week, I performed with four other musicians in the second annual Peanut Butter & Jelly Concert for the Mid-South Food Bank, which services over thirty counties in West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. We raised several pounds of non-perishable items, as well as a good supplement of cash donations, for the Food Bank. For the majority of the concert, I accompanied three of the performers, including soprano Kallen Esperian. Kallen is dearly loved in Memphis and is sort of our “home town” opera star, having performed in almost all the major opera houses in Europe and toured with Pavarotti many years ago, and we were very fortunate to have her come and support our efforts. I also played some solo works for piano and organ for this concert.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Dawn Burke, at Decoration

I went to Decoration with my two daughters. Two of my three brothers went together, and my third brother took our Mum, since he and she would be staying a shorter amount of time than the rest of us. Mum only went to visit Pa’s grave; otherwise she would have stayed home.
    It wasn’t as hot as usual, Hallelujah! The girls and I got there right before 10 a.m., and the others arrived soon thereafter. I put our flowers out first. Then we took a shady spot and got our chairs out of the van and set up for visiting. It wasn’t too long before André Duvall’s parents and his Aunt Lisa arrived and joined us. We had a real good visit with them and others, including cousin Ernest Story, whose dad died in a water well with his brother when they were overcome by a pocket of natural gas they hit while digging the well. Ernest never knew his Dad. His mom was around seven months pregnant with him when this happened. So tragic and sad! This happened on August 21, 1936.

First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Chuck Smythe, on the go

My wife skied into a mogul field in whiteout conditions (at speed, of course) and broke her leg. Ever since, she’s been stuck in rehab, and I’ve spent much of the month as a gopher, bedside sitter, and general morale officer. So you haven’t heard from me much lately.