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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 16, 2016 - 10:03am PT
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Morning, Dingus.
Have some CV poems posted to your CV Photos thread.
On M Street in Merced looking across Main in the 1950s.
The Yosemite Drogstore, now BS Computing; the venerable El Capitan Hotel; an old mission-style building which I have forgotten, but it might have already been razed when we came here in '61--beginning of Urban Renewal here; the Shaffer Building, and the old Merced Hotel, later leveled in a fire.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 16, 2016 - 01:55pm PT
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Hotbeds
from Piece Work by Charlie Mariano
It's almost misleading to say we were farmers, because we weren't a real farm with mega-acreage, or with goats and chickens. We didn't even have a barn. We farmed, but didn't own the land, we leased it. If someone saw us, we'd look like a scene out of the Grapes of Wrath movie, only we weren't Okies, we were dark-skinned faces, firmly rooted in the Central Valley soil.
Growing the big garden was Daddy's thing. My brothers and I helped out when needed, but no matter how much we did, no one put in more hours, worked harder, than Daddy. He worked year round in fields and orchards all over Merced County and points beyond, preparing crops or orchards, pruning trees, tying grape vines, prepping the ground. In summer, it became backbreaking sweat from sunup to sundown.
One day Daddy decided he wanted to try his hand at growing his own, rather than working for someone else. He wanted to grow a big produce garden like the Filipino familes we knew. We'd go visit the Filipino farmmers out on Gerard Avenue and marvel at their efficient equipment and big, strong sons and daughters. They never treated us badly, always welcoming us, but we felt like the wide-eyed, peon cousins. Daddy wanted what they had, a successful farming operation. Never mind that he didn't have a green thumb, that it would take many failed years before getting it right, he was bound and determined. This was his calling. In that sense, it became ours.
We'd always work in the fields around Merced in summer to get extra cash for school clothes, or for the Merced Fair in June, but nothing like the farmworker families that came in seasonally from Mexico. These people were on an organized mission. We were just random armies huddled on the sidewalk with the rest of the ragtag desperados, waiting for the work buses. By the time I was old enough to carry a bucket or swing a hoe, I was chopping, picking, pruning everything. If it grew out of the ground, sooner or later, we worked it.
When Daddy got the growing bug, it changed the way we did farm labor. There was no more piece work or working by the hour. It was working with Daddy, side by side, with my brothers, as a family. There was always plenty to eat, tomatoes, bell peppers, watermelons, sweet potatoes, straight out of the ground.
We never got rich, but there was a great sense of pride now. This field, this food, and the hard work and sweat it took to make it, was ours.
Before any planting reached the fields, there were the hotbeds to tend to. That was the seedling-to-plant nursery during winter, before transplanting to the big field, a critical part of the growing process. I remember first seeing the hotbeds in the back yard of the house on Cone Avenue, two streets past Calvary Cemetery, near the Los Banos Highway.
The house itself was an ugly, rundown square box with a flat roof, that looked like it was slapped together with scrap wood and cardboard, then painted over in patchwork brown. the first time I laid eyes on it, I thought, "This place should be condemned."
It was the backyard though, that Daddy was sold on. It was basically the neighborhood dumping ground with overgrown weeds. I saw a junkyard, Daddy saw hotbeds. He needed space to set them up, and the house on Cone had it. It took days to clean out the area in back, before Daddy started forming the hotbed layout. He set two long rows of side boards on each side, pounded them down, then firmed those up with stakes.
I looked at it curiously, then looked up at my father. "This is where the plants are going," he told me. I still couldn't see it. The side boards had to be a precise distance across each row, because we had to lay about twenty big frames, end to end, all the way down. The best way to describe these frames, would be that they looked like large old fashioned window frames. These were laid flat across the side boards, covering every open area in the middle. This was to protect the plants during winter, and reflect optimal light when the weather was good.
As the plants grew larger, longer sticks were needed to give more space to grow, or until they were mature enough to transplant to the big field, which was a leased patch of land somewhere around Merced County, always a different place. It was common knowledge among the Filipino farmers, not to farm the same produce year after year on the same ground. So Daddy was out scouting long before summer, sometimes the year before, negotiating a deal with a local farmer to lease eight to ten acres of their land to plant our big garden.
By the time I was eighteen, and during my first year at Merced College, in a very...experimental phase of growing up, I tried smoking marijuana. That particular winter I ran across some really strong weed in town, one was called Panama Red, and the other Acapulco Gold. In those early days, even though everyone was doing it, the laws about smoking and possession were scary. After I'd finished my stash, I'm not sure why I thought it might be cool to save the seeds from the Acapulco Gold. So I put a few seeds into an old sock, then hid it in a drawer.
In those days I was very naive and extremely paranoid about the seeds I'd saved. I was afraid Daddy would find them, and me, the "supposed" good son with the brains knew better. The longer I thought about it, the more it freaked me out. I imagined the police finding the seeds and me going to prison. So one day I grabbed the old sock and sneaked out the back door to the furthest end of the backyard to hide them. Without really thinking about it too much, I lifted the frame of the hotbeds, sunk the seeds deep into the moist soil, then forgot about them.
About a month later, when we were alone, Daddy called me to the living room where he was watching television. "You need to get those things out of my hotbeds," he said to me point blank. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about, then it hit me, and my whole face and mind just crumpled.
"Wha...wha...what things?" I answered, not really wanting to hear the answer.
I have no idea how he found out it was me who did this, but suspected my brother Jimmy ratted on me. "Charlie Boy, take those plants out of the hotbeds before we get in trouble," he insisted again. I knew it was useless to deny, it was right there in my deer-in-the-headlights face. What bothered me more than anything else, was I felt I'd let Daddy down. For most of my life, I was the one he had high hopes for, the one that was going to do something with my education, making him proud. All I could do now was hang my head in shame.
The strange thing about all this was the way Daddy told me, the tone of his voice, the expression on his face. He wasn't angry, didn't even look disappointed. He seemed almost amused. "Whatever those things are," he said, trying to keep a straight face, "take them out of the hotbeds. They're pushing the glass over." that part didn't register right away.
"What? I mean, yes, ok." I walked out of the room and raced out the back door.
Daddy had the glass frames propped to the highest possible point without tipping over. There they were, three huge plants, with stems that looked like small tree trunks. I was shocked to see these things fully grown. I never imagined they could get this big. They looked like they were on steroids. Then I thought about how much time and nurturing Daddy put into the hotbeds for all the plants, feeding the soil, watering, raising the glass every day, covering at night. During the early growth stages, these mysterious baby plants grew firm and strong and just kept growing.
I got close to these monster plants, braced my feet across and pulled a good five minutes on each, to get them loose from their roots. I didn't know what to do with them. The last thing I wanted to do was smoke them. It was 1970, and in those days, laws regarding marijuana were strict, and I knew if I got caught, I was headed to the slammer. I stuffed them into three garbage bags and threw them in the car trunk. While driving away, even through the trunk and back seat, the skunky smell of the plants was overpowering. I was scared to death a cop might pull me over. I could already see headlines in the Merced Sun-Star:
HUGE POT BUST IN MERCED COUNTY.
I made it to my friend Benny's house and told him the story. He laughed, long and hard, then gladly took the plants off my hands. Benny was a heavy pot smoker, and being gifted homegrown Acapulco Gold plants was like hitting the mother lode. I just wanted out of there, away from all the illegal drug activity. "My hands, my clothes, the whole car smells like a giant skunk!" I complained. He was still laughing loudly as I drove away, peeling rubber.
The next day, I cleaned most of the smell out of the car with freshener and disinfectants. I kept thinking over and over abut the trouble I almost go Daddy in. What if the police had raided the house and found the illegal plants? Knowing Daddy, he'd never give me up, and would take the rap for me. That would've broke my heart, because it was my fault, and he meant the world to me.
I thought again about the look on Daddy's face when he first told me abut the plants. Daddy took real good care of them, watering them, watching over them like they were babies. That's when it hit me. There were his babies, his prized babies. The look on Daddy's face that day, was the look of a proud papa. No doubt about it, Daddy had a green thumb.
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Jul 16, 2016 - 06:15pm PT
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The State of our Onions
I've made no peace with discontentment
Not content that there's no peace
Not with the state of our union
Nor with onions in the least
Discontent with progress
Begrudging the rapid change
Towards trivial entertainment
And the ever rapid downward spiral
The dumbing down of intellect
So prevalent in this age
The blame lies now with each of us
We've become so easily lead
With hero worship marketed
Like lies, and soda pop, and bread
What's worse
No leaders I can see
Would be better than the whole of us
To blame or to follow
Would ring as hollow
As to shout and rant
And yet we can't
Ask others to die for nought
To sacrifice what we don't got
Other's sons and daughters
So as I took through my binoculars
At myself in the mirror
To spy a fly so busily
Removing the manure
From a hole he's drilled into my nog
With his arm he spoons
Like a hungry dog
Greasy globs of my grey matter
Like cookie dough
He wolfs the batter
Not believing this nor
Mad as a hatter
To say our descent's
No laughing matter
It's no news to some
That humankind's
De-evolution
Has left us blind
The fruit flies they don't wait
To feed on our remains
They've always known
We had sh#t for brains
I've made no peace with contentment
In a world discontent with any peace
Not with the state of our union
Nor with onions in the least
-bushman
07/16/2096
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jul 16, 2016 - 06:45pm PT
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As I recall it, DMT hit the streets big time, around 1967. Even Charlie Manson wouldn't take it.
" .. Got a lot of forks and knives and they gotta cut something"
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 16, 2016 - 06:59pm PT
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Veggie Vilification
dedicated to the brave members of the KKK
Them yellow and red onions especially
Cause tears from my eyes to fall on me
They make me bawl and sneeze some too
The way that nothing else can do
Beets, yellow squash--even one lowly violet--
All make me nauseous, make me sweat
And now whenever I see a granite dome
Ho-MAN, you'd best just take me home
Did I say exfoliation makes me puke
It's worse by far than a simple cuke
Which gives me hives as I take my knives
And cut them up for to put in to nuke
Yellow and red apples--bananas or a peach--
They make me pale and make me reach
For Pepto, Rolaids, Tums, and such,
Yeah, I watch TV, but not too much
But they've sold us all on the easy cure
They've got us to believe their manure
About how this malaise will go away
If we only take some thrice a day
We chug our beers and swallow our pills
Forgetting for a while our everyday ills
And turning in each night I say
I think I can take another day
[It's not so bad if you load it down with Chilo's Chile, Mesilla's finest.]
Time in composition: 9:39:17, including edits.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 16, 2016 - 07:27pm PT
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Tomatoes, potahtoes,
Pinky toes, and great toes,
Let's call it digit stew."
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 17, 2016 - 01:21am PT
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He ya go again it only shows what yo have already posted there is only one 1st missing number one to see what was to be found at number way into #1888 or some such in lockers photo file .
There was one other snap I liked I've included it in the next post.
Christmas in July, I poached a shot of Locker's " nifty little trailor" like the thing that bears a red stripe next to that sweet robins egg blue bike
Mickel mikel motorcycle
Not so much to his disapproval .
Sorry sir, it was in no way meant to en-flame. . The danberry's ,Come Give It
]http://youtu.be/nseUmvIh3GE
had never heard the Danberrys before they try hard, and
I'm hooked on the them a bit ,
for a bit
thnx Hooblie [Click to View YouTube Video]a 9 minute end of show -NotFadeAway-,
http://youtu.be/SGRgVyUYyO0
that show-cases the bands individual abilities
I scrolled to the end then back avoiding the Fiddel
Which I find whinny? Whinney ? Too shrill at four in the morning
Bob's harmonica too.
The Danberrys Do a middle-ing Catfish John,
http://youtu.be/fh6lb5vXn3s
I'm happier with the fuller sound, with violin but
the four-some can look tight. They have a lot posted just looking to see
If any thing
SHINES
A bit off ?a bite of? A bit vov ? A bit ov a view I hope for you!. . . . . . dew you ?
I wouldn't anyway but I do not know where id get a drop - although drip drip drip
What's that upon the pillow?
Just watching the US elections is almost as groovey ~ knott
=not to mention I no not to mention so I'll not mention but Illinois & Missuree
Zoundz about right
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jul 17, 2016 - 07:33am PT
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I was wearing my Tom Cat t-shirt one day when a guy told me his grandfather owned the brand.
Tulare (better than one lare, I supppose).
These actually came from Cuba as Fidel, but there was a trade embargo on.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 17, 2016 - 07:43am PT
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Easy Skankin, I used to have a crazy boot-leg cassette, of an interview where BOB
says something along the lines of
" God live s in da high , Jha live in in da high da high it beds livienjha, "
It was a staple of my listening I've not found it on the YouTube ?
I thought given certain Rhode Island electricians,
it might have been a Boston show ? Or Holland, Amsterdam ?
but 1978 seems not old enough ? I'd have guessed '71 or '73 ?
zB? Any ideas ?
This from '76, to Hear 'Brother Bob' Scroll past the mid-point, to 52:00 (or 50:50 for some, "Kinky Reggae)
http://youtu.be/-kdNJ5UKqKc
Next ; a short share from an amazing show - All or half of it is on YouTube
That Other BOB & The Wailers at a golf course .[Click to View YouTube Video]
So what means to you the big take over?
The words, when strung together ?
What do yo think of ?
What 1st comes to mind? When you read or hear the words
The Big Take over ?
For me it was the fanzine of punk rock produced by a high school friend Jack Rabid / ne' Corradie,
He was from a big Catholic family, went way punk, but stayed at a finance job. ....
or
it was the de facto punk rock song from the Bad Brains.
I'll spare all here hearing them,
The Bad Brains & The Big Take Over, makes an apperance on the Angel of death thread,
A New meaning Now, ( I like commas more than comas ) parentheses ? Oh please!
Here is a double dose of the new from New Paltz New York a de facto good time
The Big Take over
[Click to View YouTube Video]
I'm not sure if the vibe gets across?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 17, 2016 - 09:24am PT
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I think I found it not that it gets you anywhere near the Valley
[Click to View YouTube Video]nO No that's not it but close so why doom it to watched not shared, that when she found I'd kept, dumped without asking it is a ?reacuring theme in my life.
a year ago, or when ever, I lost the good camera.
I've been making do with the
not as good, small responsive,
better to have from funerals to rocky summits
the Olympus,
A Year thing?
I had basically hoped that I'd put the small black case down, and it slipped behind a pile of this or a stack of that. The shed is still a slot for a yard toy mower two deep if only I had two that ran. Then on the sides are hose to bogey boards.
This year we jettisoned the gas grill but
The car camper two burner Green Colman, and shortie Webber style for the beach & a stand
Up un-used dark blue charcoal ( provides both cooking and heat )remain, given a reprieve from the junk heap.
Now that I've searched and it's been hot & dry (until afternoon thunder & Lightening)
I'm leaning more to the chance it was nicked out of the un-locked car?
The story of loss includes the all time find
A fresh washer & dryer on the side of the road. This from a house. We knew to have new appliances ! I do not know anyone with a truck so it was hunt the neighborhood to find a pick up
Cold knock, and ask if I could use the pick up in the driveway to move a washer / dryer set?
Yup I did that
Fuller brush , take that !
Anyway that day was kinda , ? Hectic.
The last pictures that I took were of the rock on shelter rock road.
A large industrial park has now swelled to such an extent that the rock is exposed.
It has some of the better quality short stuff,
the hard short wide
[photoid=
and overhanging
crimpy edges.
[photoid=
Not to be confused with this place
where I jammed my right index finger just for you trying to take my 1st & L@ST
Selfie.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 17, 2016 - 11:06am PT
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Yeah, well I was pulling this string in the drain in the bathroom tub and...
I pulled out YOUR FUNKY OLD GAS GRILL!
The sink is working, though.
"Creation...creation."--Marley the Emancipator
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jul 17, 2016 - 11:27am PT
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Did Bob Marley ever play Cuba?
Funny that you should ask.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
However, Rita was born July 25 1946 in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, which makes her older than me.
If life gives you lemons, try a Fiona Apple
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 17, 2016 - 12:35pm PT
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Now I just said and I thininnin' thaz waz what'z you ment but the kitchen sink here!
Did I mention?
No I'm sure I'd have add something, but our one here was plugged up.
A catastrophe ( would be / could be )
as neither of us bends into your under sink crawl space anymore.
I have few home owner tools
but I've faught stuck pipes before. I've got a new-ish ' snake'.
The trick is to go early then if anything breaks, it can be replaced.
Old PVC the fun thing is it still has a cheese corrosion prone thin aluminum couplings between joints. Now, in only the straight & vertical runs all connections to the traps I replaced.
So I've seen to it that plumbing broken plumbing fixed, snaked, cleared.
Wier Ed
but I'm in that, 'yer mutha' mood or
is it my mother?
Jorma?[Click to View YouTube Video]that'll do bo
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 17, 2016 - 01:00pm PT
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LURKER LOCKER,
My word that was fast,
your not Guilded or salted ,. . . ~ . . . good I prefer smoked.
The meaning of the captured and reposted picture is as random
as the chance of six numbers rolling on the dice.
If you want to play I set some ground rules. I take it as in Pool; call your shot,
it is so random, to get a hit, is to get a CLIMBING content picture.
Anything else is to get a called shot treatment,
that stays if you call, say, politards and the Six
you draw leads to a fool political share, then you chose to keep or discard. .
. You all play this game right?
So going on I do think about and call more cat agonies meow, I hope that your not offended if it helps I was thinking of finding a way to ask what's up I need stiff shoes, I'm also winner of the two sized feet one a 39.5 the other almost 40.5,
Roll them dice is it fair? Fowl ? A bird a climbing shot?
I was thus thrilled to have while think inking of a pair of old blue Ballets that sound again to small , your picture came up and I thought perfect, it stays.
If it needs to not stay say so I'll take it down just say hay not hey
He said nay nary a word was so disturbed relocated that picture to his private stash I've apologized, and know now not poach locker snaps....
Again totally random
woowhoo, that's really good commentary
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 17, 2016 - 02:34pm PT
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"Locked out of the factory, he ain't got no shoes,
Lurkin' in the alley, lookin' for his glues,
And I'm not in the valley, I'm still payin' dues."
My left knee "locked up" last night. And my back is not "straight."
I'm hobbling, hooblie!
I take shorter steps when I hobble, it's iffy that the knee will support me if I have to descend the stairs here, even. I'm shelving the trip till later.
Absolutely crappola and "bunk" but nothing to be done except bite the bullet, sniff some glue, suck it up, in fact.
No, that's fantasy. Actually, I have a "tisane" I'm drinking.
It's "shake and bake", which has to be steeped and not smoked. It has that mild soporific effect we "heads" call a "buzz."
All this keeps me from dancin'.
[Click to View YouTube Video]And that really blows.
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