The Merry Minuet

Posted on October 24, 2012October 24, 2012 by Dusty Roads

I’m going to digress from my usual insubstantial banter to share an experience I had with a co-worker. Now understand that this person is not just a co-worker but I also consider him as friend so I am not being critical. In fact it’s because of his comments that I got to thinking about how much or how little the world has changed.

My friend is about 30 years younger than I am. He is very political and passionate about this upcoming election. I happened to ask him if he was aware that neither candidate was planning to extend the payroll tax cuts from the Bush-era. That would mean about $20/week more in taxes or $80/mo. out of my paycheck. I suppose I can live with it because the argument is that Social Security needs it but I haven’t seen the economy improve. Everything costs more and keeps going up…except my paycheck. Anyway that simple question had him off and running.

His biggest point was that America is worse off now than ever before. The world hates us, they had the bombing in Libya that killed 4 Americans, the economy is the worse it’s ever been etc.

Well, when I got home the last presidential debate was on almost all of the channels. So I got to thinking…Are we worse off than ever before? My conclusion is no. We’ve had recessions and depressions before. Humans are warlike people. Wars have been going on since the cavemen learned to use clubs. It won’t matter who is president because we don’t have a dictatorship. There are checks and balances. Congress (who I blame for our troubles more than the president) has as much if not more to do with our policies than the president.

But I don’t want to get too long-winded here and I’m not a fan of politics so my opinions are just that…opinions. But music has always been used for protest and social commentary so here are the lyrics from a song from 1958. It was performed by the Kingston Trio.

The Merry Minuet

They’re rioting in Africa, they’re staving in Spain.

There’s hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.

The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.

Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.

And I don’t like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil, and thankful, and proud,

For mans’ been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud.

And we know for certain that some lovely day

Someone will set the spark off, and we will all be blown away.

They’re rioting in Africa, there’s strife in Iran.

What nature doesn’t do to us , will be done by our fellow man.

In 2009 a comedian updated the lyrics by plugging in the names of the countries that were squabbling at that time. Afghanistan showed up then and Iran was still there. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find those lyrics again But my point is, all we have to do is plug in the countries doing battle today and everything still rings true.

I’m not clever enough to do it but I can see Iran is still in there, throw in Egypt. Florida’s still getting hurricanes and Texas is still in a drought. Pakistan needs mention and we’ll keep Afghanistan too. So my conclusion is that the only thing that changes is the name of the players.

Once it was Britain hates France..then Britian hated us (1812) and so on. World Wars and conflicts… someone is always hating someone and the United States, since it’s birth, has always been right in the middle of it. We were born of conflict.

I’m not condoning all the bickering and fighting. Makes me think of a dysfunctional family out to murder each other but do I agree that we’re worse off now than ever before? No I think it’s business as usual. That’s just the way of the world and any other catch phrase you can think of to mean “Its all the same”.

Maybe we won’t have to worry about it much longer if the Mayan’s are right. Guess we’ll know if we’re all still here on 12/22/2012.

Beautiful Blue Skies

Posted on October 22, 2012October 22, 2012 by Dusty Roads

I haven’t been doing much except working…no trips or adventures to share…but there’s still beauty all around. Take these pictures from the parking lot at work. Love the blue, blue skies of this time of year.

Taken just before sunset…the golden hour was just beginning.

Photo of the Week~ Week 42

Posted on October 20, 2012October 20, 2012 by Dusty Roads

Finally, a Beautiful October Day!

Posted on October 19, 2012October 19, 2012 by Dusty Roads

I’ve been waiting for this..bright blue skies with puffy white clouds, a cool nip in the air, some wind to blow the falling leaves around…now that’s October and it gives me an excuse to share one of my favorite poems.

This was required reading for an English class I took in school. I think it was 5th grade English but I could be wrong. No matter when I was introduced to this poem, it’s stayed with me all of these years.

October’s Bright Blue Weather…by Helen Hunt Jackson

O suns and skies and clouds of June

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October’s bright blue weather.

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And Goldenrod is dying fast

And lanes with grapes are fragrant.

Went gentians roll their fingers tight

To save them for the morning.

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs

Without a sound of warning.

When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining.

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining.

When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing.

When springs run low, and on the brooks

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting.

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,

By twos and twos together.

And count like misers , hour by hour,

October’s bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together.

Love loveth best of all the year

October’s bright blue weather.

One more food post

Posted on October 17, 2012October 17, 2012 by Dusty Roads

Ok, I get it. You like the travel posts better than the food reviews, Ahh if only I could afford to travel enough to keep you, my loyal followers, satisfied. Every now and then I have to unpack my suitcase and spend some quality time with my cats, work some overtime to replenish the travel fund, and recharge my own batteries.

I love traveling but I subscribe to the Go, Go , Go philosophy of travel..so much to see, so little time. I would never be able to hang out on a beach, I’d feel like I was missing too much. That’s not to say a beach vacation isn’t a perfect one for a lot of people…just not me. Since my vacations are so high energy sometimes I need to get home and back to my normal routine to recharge my batteries. That’s when finding interesting topics to share becomes a real challenge.

So the bottom line here is that I have one more food tale for you then I’ll leave that subject for a while.

The Sailing Cow Cafe has closed up for the winter season now. The last weekend was Columbus Day which seemed early this year. As part of the last weekend festivities they had a band and the invited me to come down to take pictures of their customers. They called it Photos on the Beach by Dusty Roads Photos.

My friend Nancy and I went down for 10 am and stayed until 3pm. It turned out to be a beautiful day, if a bit cool by the water. The Cafe had us put a sign in the window and gave us a table outside to set up a display. Nancy is a power house when it comes to talking to people. She was busy handing out my business cards and brochures while I talked to the people who stopped to look at the cards and pictures I’d brought for display.

Everyone was enthusiastic and we gave out a lot of information but that was as far as it went. No one was up for a picture of themselves. Oh well, as far as publicity it was a great success. We met 2 women trying to get a dog park off the ground. They were very interested in the pet photography side of my business. I got ideas of things to make another such event more successful.

Being at The Sailing Cow from 10:00- 3:00 meant we had a chance to sample the food. We had muffins for a quick breakfast and all I can say is WOW. They were great. The breakfast menu had all the usual breakfast items and they looked good too but we wanted to keep it light. Others must have felt the breakfast was good too because they had a full house.

After we finished our agreed time frame (10am-2pm) we stayed a little longer to listen to the band and have a quick lunch.

One of the owners had told us they made the best onion rings so I had to try them. They were great. Very thinly sliced and fried crisp… they were excellent. The side order was easily large enough for both of us.