Monday, August 22, 2011

I was out yesterday but today I'm in.

I went to Walden Pond yesterday ( Sunday ). There are a couple of small beaches like this one that I know of. The picture above is 3 shots stitched together. Usually an easy thing to do but these shots involve moving people. The first shot was taken on the left, then the middle then the right. People move in the time it takes to take the 3 shots. The result are some ghostly images at the place where each photo is stitched together. I was aware of this effect but I took them any way.

Waldon Pond is a lovely place. It's still just a large pond in the woods. It's fame, that is if you've heard of it, comes from a man named Henry David Thoreau who wrote a book called Waldon. In a nut shell. Thoreau lived in Concord Ma. He walked into the woods about two miles and built a cabin to live by the pond. He lived there a little over two years though he wasn't a hermit. He would go back into town and people would visit him. It seems to be about simplifying your life and being one with nature. He wrote on other things as well. Anyway the land he built his cabin on belonged to a family friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. I know zilch about him.

I used to fish at Walden Pond with my friend Jimmy. Mostly we caught rainbow trout. That was about 40 years ago. Sunday was a beautiful day. Waldon was close by, about 15 miles or so. We took about an hours walk in the woods and along the shore. Apart from the two little beaches I saw, people were jumping in at many spots along the shore. So much for peace and solitude. I did take some pictures but there's nothing remarkable about them. It's just water and trees. This will be a destination in the fall though.

I decided that I was in the mood for ice cream so we stopped back in my hometown. I parked across the street from the ice cream parlor and happened to look diagonally across the street. I see this old colonial style house, which has been a funeral parlor for at least 60 years, which is always part of the re-enactment of Paul Revere's ride. This is the Issac Hall House. He was a Captain in the militia and Revere stopped here to warn of the coming "British Regulars". I had my camera in the trunk of my car and decided to take a picture of this house, which is on the National List of Historic places, and as I zoomed in I noticed the date on the front of the house. I keep forgetting the history I have walked past over the years and taken for granted right in my home town.
The ice cream was great. I haven't had real ice cream in a year or so. Nothing fancy for me. Just a cup of Chocolate with hot fudge and walnuts. I guess it doesn't sound like a real exciting day but it was pleasant. I got some walking in woods time, though it was a bit more popular with people than it was in Thoreau's time. 

Not my best blog, not my worst blog. It's a blog. I have blogged and I am now blogged out so...
I'm outta here.

  

5 comments:

  1. This is a happy blog Paul and I think there is a reason and you will let us all know when the time is right.
    You are surrounded by history and that is wonderful. Before I moved I was surrounded by corn fields and now I am surrounded by the cemetery and traffic.
    The picture you stitched together is beautiful! Good job.
    Ciao!!

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  2. You did a really good job putting the photos together. Very nice. Your day sounded wonderful. Real ice cream, yum! Very interesting about the history you never seen before right in your own backyard. Sounds like something from the wizard of Oz. Thoreau I admit not knowing much about, but Emerson I do!

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  3. Hi Paul,
    Are you expecting a lots of yourself:-)
    I think your blogs are always interesting post.
    You can't post of the topics for all the time?
    Enjoy your day,
    Michiko

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  4. I like the ghostie effect of your photo.

    I grew up right near a home in Morristown NJ where Washington stayed and I never toured it! (Washington's Headquarters/Jacob Ford Mansion at Morristown) As a young Girl Scout, we went camping at Jockey Hollow, where Washington and his army camped. The 1,200-acre Jockey Hollow Encampment Area housed 10,000 soldiers of the Continental Army during the winter of 1779-80.

    WHY couldn't they have taught us in grammar school how important history is? I hated history classes.

    Thank you for reminding me of my nation's struggles.

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  5. Blessings...
    "we stopped back in my hometown" We? care to say who the e in the we was? nosey right, oh well if you don't ask you dont know.

    Not all days the entries are exciting.....its like life.

    have a grand weekend..
    Rhapsody

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