Soggy end of the weekend...

...but we got some much needed rain. As I begin to write this at 7:30 Monday morning a light rain still falls. We are 8 inches below average so we are finally closing the gap. Since the writing of a blog has become more of a weekly endeavour for me I suppose I should sum up the previous week. I got up and went to work, ran errands, got a hair cut, found a small brick house on the National List of Historic Places while walking off a serving of ice cream. Heard the sound of fighter jets screaming over my store location for the second time in two weeks.

The house I mentioned above is one at tiny side street off a main drag in a hilly area of the city. The Jonathan Wade House is a brick house on the National Register of Historic Places. I won't go into detail of who Johnathan Wade was but lets just say one reason this house is listed is because it's old.

This is not my picture. I found it on the web. I wouldn't have cut off the top of the chimney.

Above you are looking at a three quarter angle shot of the front of the house. The curious thing about this house is that above the front door is the date 1683 suggesting the original construction date yet if you go around back of the house there is another door. The back of the house also looks like it could have been the front of the house at one time with the date 1650 over the door. I have found no reference to this second date, only the first. I should go around town and take pictures of all the places on the National List of Historic Register around here. I'm not talking Boston but my home town just north of Boston. I may have mentioned this in the past, but until I got my first digital camera I never really appreciated the things that surrounded me. Whether it was my home town, Boston, Massachusetts or New England. I had nothing to do with being born here. That was the result of some decision made long ago, 4000 miles from here. It's taken me about 50 years to get goose bumps when I realize that I could walk out my front door, walk for about 15 minutes and pass the location of a tavern where Jingle Bells was written and stand near or on the spot where Paul Revere stopped to wake Issac Hall to gather the local militia because the British were coming. That house is still there, though it's now a funeral home.

    


The Issac Hall House.

The house now. In the past they would recreate Revere's ride and he would stop here shouting for Issac Hall to wake. Hall would then look out a second floor window to acknowlege the call to arms. Revere would then continue on to Lexington and Concord.

Chalk it up to getting older. Hitting a certain age. To me New England is a special place. I don't mean to sound Like a homer, it's just that I am just beginning to really appreciate life on a different level. It's not about just working and material things. At this point I am  happy to be alive and  to enjoy living as best I can. By the way the ice cream I mentioned earlier was  a simple small cup of chocolate with chocolate sauce and walnuts. The walking around started after the ice cream to ease the guilt of eating the ice cream in the first place. It's the only way I can keep myself from pigging out.

It was the home opener  for the Red Sox on April 13th. I work in a location about 2 or 3 miles from Fenway Park. In recent years the home opener is marked with a flyover by fighter jets. I was working at the time when I heard the scream of 4 fighter jets passing over the store. I couldn't tell you if they were approaching the park or had just flown over it but they were fast and low.

Flash forward to 3 days ago and it was the 100th anniversay of Fenway Park. Can you do that? Flash forward into the past? Another flyover was scheduled before the game with the much hated New York Yankees. This time it was a fighter jet and a vintage WW II fighter. I happened to be outside on a break when I saw them fly by the store. It was pretty neat to hear the sound of the vintage planes prop engine. The flyover was timed to be at the end of the National Anthem. I wonder how they do that? Here's a YouTube video by someone who was at the game.

I toured Fenway back in 2008. I know I posted the pictures back in the days of Spaces and there still there on the Windows Live photo album deal. I don't remember if I posted the video clips I took. So I put them together last night. They wouldn't allow us on the field on that particular day which was a dissapointment. Still it pretty neat seeing what we did get to see. After the tour we stopped to get something to eat and perhaps an adult beverage when the skies opened up.

 

 So here we are at about 12:15 on Monday. Videos can take a while to upload. It has stopped raining and we are supposed to see the sun at about 3 this afternoon. While I was waiting for the video to finish I have cleaned my bathroom and packed some glasses and cups to give away. Who needs 40 coffee mugs? This is part of my ongoing effort to lighten my load. There are still glasses and dishes to be sorted through. I don't need dishes for 36 people. I live alone. I will never be hosting a fancy dinner party. I have two more target areas for today. Then I will call it quits. I have opened a can of worms and I have to see it through.

When, as I do, manage about one blog a week, ideas tend to back up and the blogs get a bit long. Sorry about that. And though I don't have much of a readership I still enjoy putting a blog together and I DO appreciate those of you who do comment.

OK I still have some cups to pack then some paper to shread. A bit of cleanup in the kitchen and then perhaps a snooze. Tomorrow it's back to work. Who knows, perhaps I will encounter the woman who likes her cold cuts "slicely thinned".

I'm outta here.