"The sign had been taunting passersby with that loathsome extra s for who knew how long.  It hung on a wooden fence around a vacant lot next to a dentist's office.  NO TRESSPASSING.  Sure, I'd noticed this sign before;  dozens of walks to Davis Square had occasioned dozens of silent fist-shakings at this very spot.  This time, though, the sign's offense struck deeper.  How many spelling mistakes had I noticed over the years in shop windows, street signs, menus, billboards, and other public venues?  Countless, I thought.  Not an enterance, NYC Pizza and Pasta at it's best!  Cappuchino!  Pistashio!  Get palm reading's here!  To/too, their/there/they're, and your/you're confusion, comma and apostrophe abuse, transpositions and omissions, and other sins against intelligibility too heinous to dwell on.  Each one on its own amounted to naught but a needle of irritation thrusting into my tender hide.  But together they constituted a larger problem, a social ill that cried out for justice.
For a champion, even."

~ Jeff Deck, THE GREAT TYPO HUNT / TWO FRIENDS CHANGING THE WORLD, ONE CORRECTION AT A TIME, Jeff Deck, Benjamin D. Herson, Crown Publishers, 2010.

Tomorrow:  Jeff sets out to "change the world, one correction at a time."

www.GreatTypoHunt.com

SMILE FOR TODAY ~

Pouring the Concrete ~

 

 

 

 [Photos:  Monday, April 28 lbw]

 

 



 

Take a look ~ you won't see Jim Gibson standing still again.  Jim manages Towpath on the Grand, The-In-Between Antique Shop, The Blacksmith's Garden and William Biddle's Gallery.

 Visit Cayuga-on-the-Grand on Facebook for a "step inside" The Blacksmith's Garden.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Ready to Pour Concrete on New Bridge ~

 

 

 

[Photos:  Saturday, April 24 lbw]

 




Almost Ready for Pouring Concrete

 

From The Village Blacksmith ~

Under a spreading chestnut tree
   The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
   With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
   Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
   His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
   He earns whate'er he can;
And looks the whole world in the face,
   For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
   You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge
   With measure beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell
   When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
   Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge
   And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
   Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

Tree A LIFE STORY ~ a charming little book telling the story of a single tree:  a Douglas Fir ~

"...but it could be any tree... All trees attest to the wonder of evolution, the ability of life to adapt to unexpected challenges and to perpetuate itself over vast periods of time.
Rooted securely in the earth, trees reach toward the heavens.  All across the planet, trees ~ in a wonderful profusion of form and function ~ literally hold the world together.  Their leaves receive the Sun's energy for the benefit of all terrestrial creatures and transpire torrents of water vapor into the atmosphere.  Their branches and trunks provide shelter, food, and habitat for mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, and other plants.  And their roots anchor the mysterious underworld of rock and soil.  Trees are among Earth's longest-lived organisms; their lives span periods of time that extend far beyond our existence, experience, and memory.  Trees are remarkable beings.  Yet they stand like extras in life's drama, also familiar and omnipresent that we barely take notice of them."

~ From the introduction of Tree A LIFE STORY, David Suzuki & Wayne Grady.  Art by Robert Bateman.

"Every fruit or berry has its mission to man hidden away within it.  Therefore, set out a strawberry bed, if you haven't got one. . .Plant currants. . .Border the fence with raspberries.  Walk around your place during the early spring days, and make a mental inventory of every spot where you can stick in a fruit tree or a berry bush.  Plant something."

~ From a nineteenth-century health guide, as quoted in The Great Patent Medicine Era, by Adelaide Hechtlinger.

It's Earth Day

 

www.earthday.org

 



"In my early years I read very hard.  It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now."

~ Boswell's Life of Johnston, vol. i, p. 56. 20 July 1763

Talbot Road (Hwy 3 over the Bridge)

Look for the Flower Lady

"We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden."

~ Johann von Goethe

[For larger image, click on photo.]

Smile for Today ~

A Portrait of Queen Elizabeth ~

by British photographer, David Bailey, unveiled on Easter Sunday to mark the monarch's eighty-eighth birthday.  The Queen's birthday is April 21; however, she officially celebrates it each year on a Saturday in June.

Especially Grand on Easter Sunday ~

"All of us are better when we're loved."

~ No Great Mischief, Alistair MacLeod

(1936 - 2014)

 

Add caption

Wishing you a safe and happy Easter weekend.

 

Community Dock Caledonia Fair Grounds

Grand River ~

"The Grand River rises near the village of Dundalk, Ontario near Georgian Bay and flows 290 kilometres to Lake Erie, dropping 352 metres through pastoral farmland and the historic communities of Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Paris, Brantford, [Caledonia], Cayuga and Dunnville.  The entire Grand River watershed of 6,965 square kilometres, including its tributaries the Nith, Conestogo, Speed and Eramosa, was nominated to the CHRS in January 1990, and designated in January 1994, for natural heritage including glacial potholes, wetlands and wildlife, and scenic and natural beauty in gorges and canyons of the Niagara Escarpment, cultural and historic value of early Canadian settlement, and recreational opportunity."

~ VOYAGES Canada's Heritage Rivers, Lynn E. Noel, editor.  Hap Wilson, maps & illustrations.

"Nothing is so beautiful as spring." ~ G. M. Hopkins

 

Pedigree ~

Many of us will meet with family this weekend.  Do you know the origin of the word "pedigree?"  "Back in the Middle Ages, people were just as proud of their ancestry as many are today; in fact, numerous instances in the Bible, especially the First Book of Chronicles, show that such pride is very ancient.  It exists among all races.  But in England, the study of genealogy began to assume undue importance in the fourteenth century when, after the Norman Conquest, matters of inherited rights came into question.  Scholars, usually monks, were employed to trace back the lines of descent claimed by noblemen, or to prove that some remote relative was the legitimate heir to an estate or title after all the direct descendants had died or been killed in battle.  Hence, just as among scholars of our day certain signs or symbols have acquired particular significance--as the asterisk (*), the dagger, the double dagger--so did the genealogists of the Middle Ages also employ certain conventional significant symbols.

             Thus, it appears, the line of descent that one was engaged in tracing was marked by a symbol that was easy to make--a caret or inverted V having a straight line extending from slightly above the apex down through it to the base. [Sorry, if the keyboard has this symbol, I haven't discovered it; however, it looks like a bird's track.]

 

Some monk, probably, knowing the tracks that birds make in mud or snow, must have seen the resemblance between this symbol and the track made by a crane and, French being the court language, called it pied de grue.  The name of the mark was retained, and, marking the lines of descent, the line itself came to be called pied de grue, eventually corrupted into the English spelling, pedigree, under the influence of the French pronunciation."

~ 2107 CURIOUS WORD ORIGINS, SAYINGS & EXPRESSIONS from WHITE ELEPHANTS to a SONG and DANCE.  Charles Earle,Galahad Books, 1993.

 

HAPPY EASTER WEEKEND ~ Enjoy the holiday with your pedigree!

 

 

 



For Sale

Road to the Tennis Courts

Grand Flooding

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1844 - 1889) Victorian Poet.  In a period of traditional verse, Gerard Hopkins experimented with rhythm and imagery.

Today, Neil Paul, will be in The Neat L'l Bookshop reading and discussing Hopkins.  1:00 p.m.

Come by ~ stay a while;  "The coffee pot's always on."

"Nothing is so beautiful as Spring ~ "  G. M. Hopkins

Author, David Richard Beasley

Speaking at the York Grand River Society, author David Beasley, described his family's military history through the rebellions in New York State followed by the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the formation of Upper Canada.

Follow one family's fascinating, well-researched story through the War of 1812 and their contribution to the building of a nation.  From Bloody Beginnings / Richard Beasley's Upper Canada by David Richard Beasley. 2008.
www.davuspublishing.com

Other books by D. R. Beasley include:  Sarah's Journey, The Canadian Don Quixote, the Life and Works of Major John Richardson and Beasley's Guide to Library Research.

One hundred and two years ago today the British passenger liner, the TITANIC, sank tragically losing 1,490 lives.  In 1912, the largest ship in the world, Titanic, was supposedly unsinkable.

Over the century, the sinking of the Titanic has crept into everyday dialogue.  British Conservative politician, William Hague said, expressing his opposition to joining the single currency, "It was inevitable the Titanic was going to set sail, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea to be on it."

Roger Morton, on losing five of the last six primaries as President Ford's campaign manager, said, "I'm not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic."

And Bob Dylan sings:
"Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And every body's shouting
'Which side are you on?'
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers."

        'Desolation Row'  1965, Bob Dylan, (b. 1941)
        American singer and songwriter, www.bobdylan.com

The Oxford Dictionary of QUOTATIONS, Oxford University Press, 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

 

~ SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642 - 1727)  Brewster's Memoirs of Newton.  Vol. ii. Chap.xxvii

 

[please click on photo for larger image, lbw]

 

 

 



"Everyone Welcome. . ."

Third Thursday

 April 17 at 1:00 p.m.

 

Neil Paul

Reading & Discussing Poetry

of

Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

"Coffee pot's always on..."

 

 

[Informal ~ If you can come for only a short time, that is okay!]

 

  



Spring
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring ~
  When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
  Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
  The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
  The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins  (1844 - 1889)  Victorian poet, A Philosopher's Stone and Other Poems.

"Whether The Weather Be Fine

Whether the weather be fine
      Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
       Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
        Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not."

                                         ANONYMOUS

~ The Children's TREASURY of VERSE
Illustrated by Patricia Ludlow, Kibworth Books, 1999.

Day Later ~ All Under Water

 

[Photos: Friday, April 11]

 

 

Smile for Today ~

"In 1936, shortly before [US producer] Thalberg's* early death from pneumonia, his literary scout Al Lewin brought him the synopsis of a book about to be published.  He was greatly excited about its potential as a film and as a vehicle for Clark Gable.  The book's title was Gone With the Wind.  Thalberg agreed to read the synopsis, but kept putting it off.  Lewin went on reminding him and asking him about it until at last Thalberg said that he had read it and he agreed with everything Lewin had said about it.  'But,' he continued, 'I have just made Mutiny on the Bounty and The Good Earth.  And now you're asking me to burn Atlanta.  No, absolutely not!  No more epics for me now.  Just give me a little drawing-room drama.  I'm just too tired.' "

~ Irving J. Thalberg (1899 - 1936) had an important place in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most famous films.

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

CAYUGA BRIDGE WATCH ~

 

When Complete, the New Bridge Will be Moved Into Place  ~ Hwy 3.

 

 

 

View From the Riverbank Ouse Street ~ Looking North

 

[For larger image, click on photo.  lbw]

 



 

 

One might conclude that there are giant moles invading Haldimand County

 

 

Controversial Landfil Site ~ Edwards Station Outside Cayuga.  Multiple Fire Trucks Were Dispatched to the Site on Tuesday, April 8.  

 

 

 

[For larger image, click on photo. lbw]

 

 

On Sir Isaac Newton* ~

"Newton owned a pet dog called Diamond, which one day knocked over the candle on the scientist's desk and started a blaze that destroyed records of many years' research.  Newton, viewing the destruction, said only, 'O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the damage thou hast done.' "


"Newton cut a hole in the bottom of an outside door to enable his beloved cat to go freely in and out of the house.  When it had kittens, Newton cut a small hole next to the original one." (Probably a traditional joke, foisted on Newton.)

* (1642 - 1727)  English physicist & mathematician

S A V I N G S ~ Drop in, stay a while.  Many fiction trade-paper-back books are reduced; health and fitness including many recipe books are on sale in time for spring workouts!

Please note our current email address:  neatlittlebookshop@gmail.com

[Our old email address remains; however, it will eventually be phased out.]

Visit us on Facebook Cayuga-on-the-Grand.