The Wine Commonsewer

Ocotillo Sunset (Tucson, Arizona)

Filler' Up (Stuff You Don't See Much)

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Silver Eagle Service, Green River, Utah
(where nearly every female under 30 sports a lip ring, precisely centered on her lower lip)

As Ever,

TWC

That's What A Hamburger's All About

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

In the days of my vagrant yoot there were only a dozen or so of these places in the entire Southland (So Cal). Ducking out from behind the Orange Curtain and on to Azusa or Baldwin Park to get one generally took the better part of a Friday evening.

Neither time nor distance dissuaded us, it was what we did. We were the poster kids of the now maligned car culture. Driving equaled freedom. Accordingly, every couple of weeks we'd pitch in for gas, pile into somebody's car, and take a ride.

That's The House Blond (click for a higher resolution photo).

Don't know if In-N-Out would be torqued off about the picture or flattered, but there it is. 

Oh yeah, these guys also invented the drive-thru. Now all you Gen-Xers know who to thank as you idle away from the window at Mickie Dees eyeballing the gooey catsup squirts on the Odyssey headliner.

Photo Credit: Mrs TWC

As Always,

TWC

Saturday At Casa de las Rocas Grandes

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Just so we don't look like The Three Stooges Go Camping, The Boy and I practiced pitching the new tent down by the swings. All went smoothly and we both swiped our Man Cards  after wrapping up.

Been promising the kids for years that I'd make them a drinking fountain for those scalding summer days. Now that Jake is done with junior high, voila! The greenery you see, Gentle Reader, is a California Pepper Tree that was grown from seeds the kids gathered when they were quite small. All California Pepper trees are descended from this one.

The fountain sits behind a retaining wall where the water is piped through a ceramic pot at ordinary drinking fountain level. The design is such that an ordinary grade school hooligan cannot clog it up with a well-chewed stick of Juicy Fruit. Guaranteed. Or so the instructions said.  

Just in time for water rationing, TWC wrapped up the second phase of the new water line project as well.

TWC is a firm believer. If you want a job done right, you're hired.

As Ever,

TWC

On Being Catholic & Gay

Human Statue of Liberty

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Unlike so much that makes the email circuit, this picture is genuine. The image  can be found in the U.S. National Archives and is credited to photographers Arthur S. Mole and John D. Thomas.

The photograph is captioned as follows:

18,000 Officers and Men at Camp Dodge, Des Moines, Iowa. Colonel William Newman, Commanding. Colonel Rush S. Wells, Directing.

This 1918 photograph was part of a series taken by Mole and Thomas during and immediately following the War to End All Wars. All were shot at military bases using soldiers or sailors and took as long as a week to compose and shoot . The 11 x 14 camera was situated on an eighty foot tower.

Original prints sell to collectors for as much as $5,000.00 US

As Ever,

TWC

Tip of the glass to SA

Orange Thievery & the Road Less Traveled

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

TWC generally takes a morning constitutional out to the ridge with the dogs. From the ridge one can meander several different routes until reaching the sole remaining grove of oranges on the plateau. The oranges appear to be navel but they are highly acidic, much more than you'd expect from a navel orange.

On occasion, TWC encounters the orange thieves, an elderly couple whose Asian ancestry is somewhat hidden in the shadows of their floppy-brimmed straw hats. 

With all the guile of a four year old grabbing a couple extra oatmeal cookies off the cooling rack when Ma ain't lookin', they take great pains to disguise the plain truth from me. Which is that they are filling each other's backpacks with pilfered oranges. I hang back, not to give them the guilts, but because the dogs are easier to manage that way and I don't feel like going back the way I came. About the time the waiting gets tedious the orange thieves move further into the morning cool of the grove and we pass on with a wave and a mawnin'. They probably shouldn't be borrowing oranges but I don't care much, most of the leftover crop will eventually thud earthward and moulder in the dirt until a coyote or ground squirrel gets hungry.

There's a lot of dirt roads around here and a Friday change of pace seemed right. Dropped The Boy at his bus stop and swapped the hike out to the ridge for a dusty track wide enough for a wagon or a Model T. Dogs found it to their taste. The road wasn't entirely unknown to me but when you're on foot instead of 4WD you notice stuff like this.

The fires burned through here a couple of years ago and just this spring the rocky hills were carpeted in poppies and purple wildflowers.

We never got out to the groves because some mangy yard dogs and a couple of Chihuahuas had a farmhand's double wide to protect. It's all good, though.

As Ever,

TWC

Sixty Five Years Ago This Morning, 6:30 A.M. Local Time

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

My folks were High School kids during the Big War. Every morning they awoke with the gnawing fear that the Nazi flag or the Rising Sun would be unfurled over the capitol in Washington DC. These guys made sure that didn't happen. 

Some didn't come back. 

If you can't see it, the video is here. 

As Ever,

TWC

Found Under the Playhouse

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Lileks once observed that if you put a boy alone in a room, his right side will declare war on his left, or the two will join in mortal combat against The Chair.

Boys tend to be predictable, but now and again they'll give you a startle.

Built that playhouse as a cliff dwelling on a 70 degree slope over a boulder the size of a Yugo. Cool as I thought it was the kids rarely played in it. This spring they've taken a renewed interest in the swings however. Invented a new game. New to them anyway.

 
the leap

Jake sticks the landing for a 9.35

There is a deck above the swings and every so often one of them gets a little too exuberant and bangs their noggin on the underside of it. 'Spose OSHA wouldn't approve.

As Ever,

TWC

In A State of Grace

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Promised Mrs TWC long ago that I'd not ever say anything in public that'd make her face flash crimson. I might be pushing that a little today but, Happy Anniversary Darlin'. 

I don't believe in destiny
Or the guiding hand of fate
I don't believe in forever
Or love as a mystical state
I don't believe in the stars or the planets
Or angels watching from above
  But I believe there's a ghost of a chance we can find someone to love
And make it last.....

Great live version is here.

Twenty four years ago this morning our paths converged.

As Always,

TWC