Smile for Today ~

"If I Only had a Brain" ~

"Act your age, not your shoe size!"
                      Kate Flax (Christina Ricci) to her older sister Charlotte (Winona Ryder) in Mermaids (1990).

"The only difference between genius and stupidity, my boy, is that genius has its limits."
                      Zeno (Turhan Bey) to Sammy Curtis (Trenton Knight) in  The Skateboard Kid II (1994).

"You couldn't find big time if you had a road map."
                           Fast Eddy Felson (Paul Newman) to Vincent (Tom Cruise) in The Color of Money (1986).

"That boy is so smart he'd dry snow and sell it for sugar."
                Honey Wiggin (Eugene Pallette) about The Virginian (1929) (Gary Cooper).

"I don't look as dumb as I am."
                             Ned Ravine (Armand Assante) to Lola Cain (Sean Young) in Fatal Instinct (1993).

"Do you remember how dumb I used to be?  Well, I'm better now."
                             Laurel & Hardy Block-Heads (1938)

~ VideoHound's MOVIE LaughLines, Quips, Quotes, and Clever Comebacks.
Visible Ink Press, 1996

The Best Journalist can Confuse Adjectives.

 

Excerpt from   Prime Time at Ten ~

"One of the mixed blessings I found in my first year of anchoring The National was the number of invitations to judge things, everything from beauty contests to hog-calling competitions.  One such affair, which included both plus a number of other events, was the annual Binder Twine Festival in Kleinberg, Ont., just outside Toronto.  The emcee was the Squire of Kleinberg, Pierre Berton, dressed like a top-hatted circus ringmaster.  Cartoonist Ben Wicks, an old friend, my wife Lorraine, and I did satisfactorily in judging the hog-calling, the milking, the dancing, and the nail-hammering, but we ran into an arithmetic problem with the beauty contest.  The problem, frankly, was Ben.  He'd mixed up the scoring, giving low marks to the best and high marks to the least best, the reverse of what it should have been.  Our numbers were added up and when Berton announced our choice as the winner, we were all as astonished as Pierre and the audience.  Boos and cat-calls greeted our apparent selection, but she gamely came forward and accepted the honours.  The verbal abuse and protest at the judges continued interminably, while we puzzled over what had happened and finally discovered Ben's error.  In momentary panic, confusion, and embarrassment, it was decided to award two first prizes, one to the real winner and the other to the unfortunate lady we had mistakenly announced.  Neither Ben nor Lorraine and I have ever been invited back.

~ Knowlton Nash, journalist, foreign news correspondent, TV anchor, author.
Prime Time at Ten, Behind-the-Camera Battles of Canadian TV Journalism.

[Please click on letter for larger image.]

Saturday, May 24

"Television news will never and should never replace the printed word of newspapers, magazines, and books, and if it's doing its job in the years ahead it must stimulate people's interest so that they read more not less."

Knowlton Nash, Canadian journalist, foreign correspondent senior broadcasting executive and TV anchorman.  (Nov.18, 1927 - May 24, 2014)  Prime Time at Ten, McClelland and Stewart, 1987.

Tourist Country

 

Today on The Grand

Smile for today ~

"You gentlemen date back one hundred thousand years.  You oughta be wearing leopard skins and carrying clubs.  Politics! Business! What is so masculine about a conversation that a woman can't enter into?"
~ Lesley Benedict (Elizabeth Taylor) in Giant, 1956.

"You know, if it weren't for two things you'd be a terrific dancer.
What's that?
Your feet."
~ Gracie (Gracie Allen) and George (George Burns) in A Damsel in Distress, 1937.

"I tell you, it's a whole different sex."
~ Jerry/Daphne (Jack Lemmon) in women's clothes in Some Like it Hot, 1959.

[VideoHound's Movie LaughLines, Visible Ink Press, 1996.]

THE STORY OF A STONE

There is a stone in the blue fields of midnight,
And finally the stone is its own story; the stone
                   will always tell you nothing about itself.

What lives inside the stone?
                                           Miracles, strange light.

The stone is a superior star;  it invents itself,
                    makes history, pursues itself down
The same hill forever, or just lies there being
A stone.

~excerpt from poem, THE T.E.LAWRENCE POEMS,
by Gwendolyn MacEwen, Mosiac Press, 1982. Canadian poet 1942 - 1987

[Shadowmaker: The Life and Times of Gwendolyn Macewen. A video of Toronto writers including Margaret Atwood discussing the poet.]

 

Historic Mount Olivet

 

~ Heritage Grand River ~  Cayuga ~

 

 

 

 

~ ORIENTATION REQUIRED ~ 

 

 

 



Sunday Morning ~

...at the ballpark.

"...While our sports shall be seen
   On the Echoing Green.

Old John with white hair,
   Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
   Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
   And soon they shall say:
Such, such were the joys
   When we all, girls and boys,
In our youth-time were seen
   On the Echoing Green."

~ William Blake (1757 - 1827) English poet, The Echoing Green

Need to Know ~ Village of Cayuga Residents

Unfortunately, numerous recent reports of break-ins.  Screens cut, access gained to buildings and garages.  Wise to secure properties.  Currency and alcohol possible motive.  These crimes will hopefully be posted for public awareness.

Update: After weeks of havoc, on Monday evening, May 19, O.P.P. "...caught him."  One culprit caught around 11:00 p.m. in the Village of Cayuga.  Thank you to the O.P.P.

Scott's Sign's Up Again ~  Sign of Summer!

SOLAR FIELDS ~ Mount Olivet Area

 

 

[Click on photo for larger image lbw]

 

IMPORTANT:  ALL CANDIDATES MEETING

TUESDAY, MAY 27 at 7:00 p.m.

 

Haldimand Agricultural Centre, 1084 Kohler Rd.

Haldimand Federation of Agriculture.

 

 

 

"I read the newspapers avidly.  It is my one form of continuous fiction."

~ Aneurin Bevan ( 1897 - 1960) British politician.

Bridge Update ~

Tale of Two Bridges

 

[Please click on photo for larger image.  lbw]

 

 

 

Word Watching ~

The Origin of the word loophole:

"In the late Middle Ages, a loop was a narrow window, in a castle or other fortification, through which an archer could direct his missiles, but so narrow as to be a baffling target for an opposing bowman.  The masonry of the window widened inwardly to permit a wider range for the defending archer.  Possibly to avoid confusion between loop, and "window," and loop, "a fold," the first became identified as loophole."

~ 2107 CURIOUS WORD ORIGINS, SAYINGS & EXPRESSIONS, Charles Earle.  Galahad Books, 1993.

Niagara Falls May 18, 2014

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?"
~ William Henry Davis (1871 - 1940)

After the Rain

Safe & Happy Victoria Day Weekend ~

from Cayuga

 

[Same beautiful tree ~ different angle lbw]

Thistle and darnel and dock grew there,
   And  a bush, in the corner, of may,
On the orchard wall I used to sprawl,
   In the blazing heat of the day;
Half asleep and half awake,
   While the birds went twittering by,
And nobody there my line to share
   But Nicholas Nye.
Nicholas Nye was lean and grey,
   Lame of a leg and old,
More than a score of donkey's years
   He had seen since he was foaled;
He munched the thistles, purple and spiked,
   Would sometimes stoop and sigh,
And turn his head, as if he said,
   'Poor Nicholas Nye!"

~ Walter De La Mare,  Nicholas Nye (April 25, 1873 - June 22, 1956) English poet, novelist.

"A poor book that furnishes no quotations is, me judice, no book ~ it is a plaything."

~ Thomas Love Peacock (1785 - 1866) Engish poet, novelist.

 

 

 

"Mirror, mirror, on the car. . ."

While researching his family tree, author David J. Forsyth vowed to someday record his own story for his descendants.  Dafydd is that story.  Growing up in rural Ontario in the forties and fifties, David describes the crystal radio kit that his brother received as a birthday gift, the stone boat that his father used to clear stones from the fields and the fishing trips to beneath the high-level bridge in Hamilton.  With all his recalled incidents, he concedes that "recollections can never quite capture the excitement of youth."

Join us today ~ 1:00 p.m.

 

We welcome David today in The Neat L'l Bookshop ~ reading and discussing his book.* 1:00 p.m.  Join us.

* Dafydd, 2012. Fifth Concession Publishing, Printed by Carruthers Printing Inc., Smithville.  Bound by Van Huizes Bookbinding & Finishing Ltd., St. Catharines.

[Check out the May issue of The Free Press, Serving Haldimand Communities.  An excellent article on the author.]

Back to Country ~



Dandelion Wine

Golden Green ~

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Thank you Laurie Miller for these kind comments:

"The delicate greens in those pictures [the sand mill] ....remind me it's that shortest season of the year when 'Nature's first green is gold.'  Robert Frost is right.  The first green of new leaves in spring *is* gold;  I see it in those pictures.  And the leaf buds, as they break, *do* look like flowers.  But only for 'an hour.' "

Laurie, through your familiarity with poetry, you raise our awareness of nature's "first green." Thank you.

"Before retiring to bed, [Theodore] Roosevelt and his friend the naturalist William Beebe would go out and look at the skies, searching for a tiny patch of light near the constellation of Pegasus, "That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda," they would chant.  "It is as large as our Milky Way.  It is one of a hundred million galaxies.  It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun."  Then Roosevelt would turn to his companion and say, "Now I think we are small enough.  Let's go to bed."

~ THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman General Editor.

Moulds for iron castings ~

The sand for making moulds was ground from a particular rock.

The ruins of the sand mill, circa early 1800s, are located near Dry Lake in Haldimand County minutes from Cayuga.  Extensive in their lay out, the ruins are barely visible when the leaves are on the trees.  Today the property is owned by an aggregate company.

[Photos: May 11, 2014 lbw]

 

 

 

 

Haldimand's Ruins ~ Do you know what they are?*

*Tomorrow

When David J. Forsyth began researching the lives of his ancestors and filling filing cabinets with his findings, he committed to providing his descendants with a record of his own life growing up in rural Ontario in the forties.  Dafydd is that book.

We are pleased to have David in The Neat Little Bookshop on Thursday, May 15 for the Third Thursday or for what we call our Cayuga Literary Circle.

Please drop in ~ "The coffee pot's always on..."

"Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength ~ in search of my mother's garden, I found my own."

~ Alice Walker (b.1944)  In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, 1974.

"Give a little love to a child , and you get a great deal back."

~ John Rushkin (1819-1900) The Crown of Wild Olive,1866

        
         Happy Mother's Day !