Summer of '13

Mumford & Sons Simcoe ON

No more winter here !  Posting only spring and summer.



View from the Bleachers Simcoe Fair Grounds

More Mumford to follow. . . What a great concert in Simcoe, ON, Summer 2013.

(Yes, my new PC is still in the computer shop 38 days and counting.  Limited  files/photos available. lbw.)


[. . . 39 days and counting.  We have asked for my computer and money to be returned. The store owner has not begun to install the new drives or, of course, transfer my invaluable files, family tree, photos, e-mail and addresses.  Customer service?  No communication?  No courtesy replies to my e-mail.  And yes, apologies to our regular repair man, we would have our computer by now, no doubt!]

 "  In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the dog." ~ Toussenel (1803-1885) French writer, naturalist.

"God sat down for a moment when the dog was finished to observe what He had created.  He knew that it was good, that nothing was lacking and that He could not have done better."

 

~1000 Dogs, The Presence of the Dog,  Raymond Merritt & Miles Barth, TASCHEN [photo files lbw thanks and apologies friends ~ without permission]

 

  

 

 

 

"It is a strange thing, love. Nothing but love has made the dog lose his wild freedom, to become the servant of man."

~ D. H. Lawrence

 "I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better."  ~ George Bird Evans (American Outdoor Essayist)

"My memory of being a kid is that my mother was available but rarely hovering or directing my activities.  My siblings and I did not have organized playdates.  We rode our bikes around the neighbourhood without adult supervision.  Our parents might have checked on our homework once in a while, but they rarely sat with us while we completed it.  Today, a 'good mother' is always around and always devoted to the needs of her children.  Sociologists call this relatively new phenomenon 'intensive mothering,'  and it has culturally elevated the importance of women spending large amounts of time with their children.  Being judged against the current all-consuming standard means mothers who work outside the home feel as if we are failing, even if we are spending the same number of hours with our kids as our mothers did."

~ LEAN IN ~ WOMEN, WORK, AND THE WILL TO LEAD, Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer Facebook) Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.  www.leanin.org

On Friendship ~

"You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends."  ~ Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)  Writer b. Ukraine.

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Amer. poet, essayist.

"He makes no friend who never made a foe." ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) Poet Laureate Great Britain & Ireland.

"Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship." ~ Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) Amer. writer.

"It is good to have some friends both in Heaven and in Hell." ~ George Herbert (1593-1633) English writer.

"Friends
to borrow my books
and set wet glasses on them."

~ Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) Amer. poet.

Random Act of Kindness ~  Cold temperatures, relentless winds, endless icy snowbanks on the streets and village sidewalks and today an act of random kindness.  Thank you, Grant Church.  Camera caught him helping downtown.

Suzanne Hurley "To the Stars"

Meet the Author Suzanne Hurley, reading today in The Neat L'l Bookshop.  Suzanne recently released her eighth novel ~ a popular mystery series and now a novel intended for young people who have experienced the loss of a loved one.  To the Stars has received glowing reviews.  To read more, visit the author's website www.suzannemhurley.com

                THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1:00 p.m.

"Everyone Welcome ~ coffee pot's always on..."

"There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."

~ Canadian writer, Mavis Gallant (August 1922 - February, 2014)
The Harper Book of Quotations, edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry. HarperCollins, 1993.

 

Mavis Gallant (August 11, 1922 - February 18, 2014)

Master of the short Story

 

Mavis Gallant, Canadian author who seldom gave interviews spent much of her writing years in Paris, France where she died at age ninety-one.

Best known for her short stories, Gallant wrote:

"There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories.  I am doing it now, because I may never have another occasion.  Stories are not chapters of novels.  They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along.  Read one.  Shut the book.  Read something else.  Stories can wait." *

~ *Preface of The Selected Stories of MAVIS GALLANT, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1996. 

 

 



 

 

The Literary Round Table

Welcomes

 

Suzanne M. Hurley

 

Caledonia Author

 

Thur. Feb. 20,  1:00 p.m.

 

 

Everyone Welcome

 

 

 

Caledonia author Suzanne Hurley's latest release is a new genre for this author.  Her previous books (eight now in total) were mysteries.  To the Stars is a fictional novel dedicated to all young people who have lost a loved one.  To read a glowing review by K.T. Bowes of Readersfavorite.com, visit www.suzannemhurley.com

 

Recipient of the Publishers' Best Seller Award four years in a row and having made the finalists for the Epic eBook Awards in 2012, Hurley is clearly on her way to becoming a well-loved author.

 

Join us in The Neat L'l Bookshop on Thursday.  Suzanne will be reading from her books and taking your questions.

Read Mike Burgess' story in the February 6 issue of The Sachem & Gazette.

 



"We all gather once again ~ young and old, introvert and life-of-the-party, freckled cousins and smiling grandmothers whose eyes brim with pride and happy memories.  What would the day be without brothers, dads and sons sharing the latest jokes and achievements.  It is a time for the family to reaffirm itself and grow, to bond with newlyweds and precious little ones, to reminisce about loved ones lost.  It's a day to laugh and hug and remember who we are."

[Suggested Thoughts to Record:]

Memories of our family life
Our most important traditions
How we celebrated the holidays

~ Donna Green, artist, author  www.donnagreen.com  To My Daughter, With Love/ A Mother's Memory Book, SMITHMARK Publishers Inc., 1993.

                 Happy Family Day ~                  

                 The Neat L'l Bookshop

The Neat Little Bookshop
 

Regular ole paperback ~

"Tablet computers, laptops and cellphones are all backlit, which stimulates the brain through the eyes, sending it a message that it's time to be awake.  'No screens in the bedroom, and not electronics after 10 p.m.,' says [Dr. Celeste] Thirlwell.  Read a regular paper book instead, and you will fall asleep faster."

 ~ Dr. Celeste Thirlwell, Toronto, Sleep Disorders Clinic, The Centre for Sleep & Chronobiology.
Chatelaine, March, 2014.
[We agree.]

 

 

 

      Olympic Stamp depicting the 2014 Winter Olympics Mascots ~

For the first time in olympic history a public vote was held to decide the Olympic Mascots.  The official mascots:  a polar bear, a snow hare and a snow leapard were the winning characters through a process including voting online and texting.

~ Wikipedia

Kinsmen Pavillion on The Grand Cayuga

     This has been the winter of snow and more snow.

Thinking Spring. . .March 20 (34 more days)

Says, "I Love You!" *

Take your sweetheart out for breakfast?  Lunch?  Dinner?  We have some of the best eat-out places around...


         HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

*Shelly's Family Dining in Kohler, ON

Early Post Card

Valentine's Day ~ Friday, February 14


 

Corner of Talbot & Cayuga Street

2014 Talbot Road Reconstruction

Reconstruction of Talbot St (Hwy 3) will begin in 2014  ~  The stretch between Montour* and Munsee being phase one.

For details visit Haldimand County Website:   http://www.haldimandcounty.on.ca/ourcounty.aspx?id=22683

* (Montour is beside Cayuga Cabinets; Munsee is Hwy 54.)

American actress, Shirley Temple Black*

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six.  Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."

*Shirley Temple Black (April 23, 1928 - February 10, 2014)  American actress, singer, public servant.

~ Harper Book of Quotations, Edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry.  Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, HarperCollins 1993 3rd ed.

Gizzo, dig out your red coat.  Friday is  Valentine's Day!

Smile for Today ~

"I have no desire to be equal to man.  I prefer to maintain my superiority."
~ L.M. Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables.

[Quoted by her son Chester Montgomery in The Story of L. M. Montgomery by Hilda M. Ridley, 1973.

"If a man understands one woman he should leave it at that."
~Bob Edwards, Publisher The Eye Opener.

[The Wit and wisdom of Bob Edwards, 1976.]

KING HENRY VIII TO ANNE BOLEYN  [c. 1528]

In debating with myself the contents of your letters I have been put to a great agony; not knowing how to understand them, whether to my disadvantage as shown in some places, or to my advantage as in others.  I beseech you now with all my heart definitely to let me know your whole mind as to the love between us; for neccessity compels me to plague you for a reply, having been for more than a year now struck by the dart of love, and being uncertain either of failure or of finding a place in your heart and affection, which point has certainly kept me for some time from naming you my mistress,

since if you only love me with an ordinary love the name is not appropriate to you, seeing that it stands for an uncommon position very remote from the ordinary; but if it pleases you to do the duty of a true, loyal mistress and friend and to give yourself body and heart to me, who have been, and will be, your very loyal servant (if your rigour does not forbid me), I promise you that not only the name will be due to you, but also to take you as my sole mistress, casting off all others than yourself out of mind and affection, and to serve you only;

begging you to make me a complete reply to this my rude letter as to how far and in what I can trust; and if it does not please you to reply in writing, to let me know of some place where I can have it by word of mouth, the which place I will seek out with all my heart.  No more for fear of wearying you.  Written by the hand of him who would willingly reman your

HR

 

~ Love Letters An Anthology Chose by Antonia Fraser, Penquin Books, 1997.  

Other End of the Bridge ~ Looking East

Other End of the Bridge ~

Quiet on a Saturday

[Photos Taken Sat., Feb. 8 Looking East Toward the Village ~ For larger image, click on photo. lbw]

Love Story ~

 

George Burns was looking for a "straight man" to feed him his lines to which he would deliver a funny response. . . The dizzy character that eighteen-year-old Gracie played was such a hit that all Burns had to do was stand there.  Eventually he decided to smoke a cigar onstage so he would have something to do.
Slowly Burns fell madly in love with his partner; however, the young Allen was set on marrying another peformer, Benny Ryan.  After a year, Burns proposed. Gracie laughed at him and no one mentioned it again.
Gracie was about to quit and marry Ryan when the duo landed a sixteen-week engagement.  It had always been her dream to see her picture in the lobby of the San Francisco Orpheum, the theatre she had spent so many afternoons in as a child.  Besides, the tour paid $450 a week.  Grace would need a steamer trunk so Burns carried one home on his back through a snowstorm.
It was during this trip that Burns again proposed and was again refused.  Until ~ Gracie became ill with appendicitis.  Burns borrowed two hundred dollars from her and filled her hospital room with flowers (Burns never sent a wire to Benny as Gracie asked.)

That Christmas Eve Burns received a card from Gracie, "To Natty, with all my love."  Burns laughed out loud and said, "All my love?  Ha, ha, ha.  You don't even know what love means."  Gracie left the room in tears.
Later she was to explain that Burns was the only boy who had ever made her cry; she must really love him.

Their career together spanned thirty years.

~ The 50 Most Romantic Things Ever Done, Dini Von Mueffling, Doubleday, 1991.

Quiet Saturday ~

 

 

 

 

 

[Taken Feb. 8.  For larger image, click on photo, lbw]

 

 

When vaudeville performer, George Burns, finally proposed to his show partner Gracie, she laughed so that he commented, "If I could have gotten that kind of laughter from an audience, I would have been successful years earlier.  I even bought a ring.  It sold for $35 but I managed to get it for $20.  It was a very special ring--the metal band actually changed colors as it aged in my pocket."

Gracie turned George down saying that she wanted security when she married and besides, she was in love with another performer Benny Ryan.  Time went on and circumstances changed.

The story of Gracie and George's courtship tomorrow. 
[Gracie wore that $20 ring for the rest of her life, until the day she died.]

~ The 50 Most Romantic Things Ever Done, Dini Von Mueffling, Doubleday, 1997.

"Oh where are you going?  Stay with me here!
     Were the vows you swore me deceiving,
                                                           deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
      But I must be leaving."

~ W. H. Auden (Feb. 21, 1907 - Sept. 29, 1973) Anglo-American poet

POETRY REVIEW - Vol 85, Number 3.


Note:  Interpretations of these lines [taken out of context] vary. 

Two Dollars & Under

Books Books Books ~ January Clearance in February!

Letter from Evelyn Waugh to Alec Waugh ~ 1936

Dear Alex,

     Many thanks for your letter of congratulation.

     I look forward greatly to bringing Laura to see you when next all three of us are in London together.  She is thin & silent, long nose, no literary ambitions, temperate but not very industrious.  I think she will suit me o.k. and I am very keen on her.  Wedding probably in February in the country.  Joan is very kindly standing me the honeymoon.  Busy looking at houses which I find very pleasant indeed.  Have found a lovely one but don't know if I can get hold of it.

Regards to your children,
Evelyn

~ The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, Edited by Mark Amory, Tricknor & Fields 1980/ George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd.

Lookout on Ouse St. ~ Snow-covered Thur., Feb. 6

Looking North-West

[Photos:  Thursday, February 6, 2014. Click on Photo for larger image ~ lbw]



Sweeping the Snow Off the Bridge

Follow Cayuga-on-the-Grand on www.Facebook.com

From A Very Double Life, The true story of MacKenzie King's incredible private world ~ His Sex Life, His Love Affairs, His Seances  ~

Regarding a lady by the name of Jean Greer, MacKenzie wrote late in his life about an entry in his diary for 1918,
     "There is a case of a door closing, all to one's advantage. . . . Had I married her as I evidently had been prepared to do [!]  I wd have become in all probability a citizen of the U.S. in association with large interests, not P.M. of Canada. . ."

"How did it come about that Mackenzie King, a man who so often got what he wanted, who set out with much apparent determination to find himself a wife, and who persisted in the project for a decade, ended up still a bachelor?
"There is no simple answer, but we can suggest a few obvious points.  First, King wanted too much;  he had in mind a paragon, and paragons are hard to find.  Secondly, he had extreme difficulty in making up his mind;  those doubts that had assailed him as long ago as 1898 when he was worrying about Mathilde Grossert, assailed him still.

              Dread in woman, doubt in man....
                   So the Infinite runs away.

"In these years the Infinite gradually ran away for Mackenzie King.  Finally, in the one case in which he had no doubts at all he seems to have made a fool of himself and frightened the lady off.  However, the case here may have been hopeless anyway;  it is quite possible that Miss Greer was already interested in the man she married in the following year."

~ A Very Double Life,  C. P. Stacey, 1976, Macmillan of Canada

From Charles Dickens Great Expectations ~

"Once it had seemed to me [Pip] that when I should at last roll up my shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe's prentice, I should be distinguished and happy.  Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt that I was dusty with the dust of the small coal, and that I had a weight upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. . .
"What I wanted, who can say?  How can I say, when I never knew?  What I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest, should life up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of the forge.  I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner or later find me out, with a black face and hands, doing the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me.  Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe, and we were singing Old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss Havisham's would seem to show me Estella's face in the fire with her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me ~ ..."

~ Charles Dickens, English writer, critic. (Feb. 7, 1812 - June 9, 1870) Great Expectations,  The Franklin Library

Remember:  St. Valentine's Day is Friday 14th.

Looking West

Bridge Over the Grand ~ Progress

[Photos: Monday, Feb. 3/14 lbw]

Looking North-West Upstream

 

The New/Real Bridge Built Side-by-Side w/the Old

 

 

Ice and Snow is the Reality

[Please Note:  We have overcome a myriad of technical difficulties to finally bring you new photos of our bridge. For larger image, click on photo.]

 

 

"Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others."

~ Virginia Woolf (Jan. 25, 1882 - March 28, 1941) British writer

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." ~ Sir Winston Churchill (Nov. 30, 1874 - Jan. 24, 1965) Former Prime Minister United Kingdom.

On learning of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, actor Jim Carrey said, "...for the most sensitive among us ~ the noise can be too much."

Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967 - 2014)

[Think Spring! lbw]

Jane Austen ~ "lived through an eventful period in English andEuropean history, and her own life was also eventful and resonant with the interaction of personalities within and without her own family circle.  For her, people mattered more than art, family more than literature.
When a friend whom she was to visit asked her what books she was going to bring with her, she received the following typical retort:

You distress me cruelly by your request about books;  I cannot think of any to bring with me, nor have I any idea of our wanting them.  I come to you to be talked to, not to read or hear reading.  I can do that at home;..."

[Letter to Martha Lloyd, 12 November 1800]

~ Jane Austen, Brian Wilks, Galley Press, 1988.

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817) English novelist.

Handsome gentleman Zeus
regularly visits the Neat L'l Bookshop.

(He brings his owner, Chris.)

 

 

 

 

January Clearance Continues...

Zeus says, "Come on in ~ Don't be shy."  Pick up a ballot for a chance to win a business-community gift basket.  "No hard sell here!"

Draw to take place on Monday, February 3.