... this is what it was like for us, walking, almost home, in the late afternoon. I love this view in this light, and I've appreciated it many, many times over the last 25 years, usually alone. It was good to share it with you.
August 18, 2011
At the 5:30 Café...
... this is what it was like for us, walking, almost home, in the late afternoon. I love this view in this light, and I've appreciated it many, many times over the last 25 years, usually alone. It was good to share it with you.
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52 comments:
Sweet.
In other news, President Obama has called on President Assad to resign.
And the weather has been absolutely perfect for walking this entire week. Perfect Perfect Perfect.
More please!
Man was not made to be alone.
That is a very nice view, Madame. As I've said before, you live in a very nice place, one that says, "Home".
Thank you for sharing.
Dare I take it this wistfulness in part is because the is the last week of summer and Monday begins another school year?
PS I'm also glad you don't have to take that walk alone any more.
As one who spent a lot of his life living alone, I understand how much having someone to share something dear and meaningful with you can be.
"Dare I take it this wistfulness in part is because the is the last week of summer and Monday begins another school year?"
This view has been most common when I am walking home from school in the fall. I love the feeling of school starting, the cooler weather, and the long shadows at 5:30. It's the end of summer, but I'm not wistful about it. I like it.
"Am I free?
And was that me?
Why is it always 5:30?"
- Robert Downey Jr. "5:30"
Coming late to the extended marijuana child/child neglect thread, let me bump this classic and influential "Grass Kills" scene from TV's Dragnet where casual marijuana use leads to child neglect and death.
Exaggerated and stilted though it is, it really is quite heart wrenching.
The Big High.
The Big High was an episode of the American television series Dragnet. It aired on the NBC network on November 2, 1967, the program's second season... It is sometimes called "Grass Kills" and is considered comparable to Reefer Madness in terms of exaggerating the marijuana threat.
Los Angeles police officers Joe Friday(Webb) and Bill Gannon (Morgan) are visited one day by one Charles Porter, a wealthy man who's very concerned about the welfare of his only grandchild, Robin Shipley. Porter's concern rises from the fact that his daughter Jean Shipley (Scott) and her husband, computer programmer Paul (Donnelly) admit to using marijuana...
Time passes and Friday and Gannon get a break. One Fred Ludden (Oliver) is arrested for possession and the two detectives get him to admit he got the marijuana for free from the Shipleys. In short order, the police raid the Shipley home, where a pot party is still in progress. The Shipleys, both high, seem more annoyed than anything else at first, even when Gannon retrieves a bag of reefer, about 1 ounce. But when Gannon notices Robin is missing from her playpen, Paul Shipley can't remember where she is, Jean tries to remember, but is having trouble - then runs fearfully to the bathroom. When she gets there she and the detectives see the bathtub is overflowing, Robin still in there, drowned. Jean and Paul, both heartbroken, break down crying. Gannon has to leave the room to throw up, leaving Friday, still holding the bag of grass, to walk towards the camera, his face out of shot. As the familiar Dragnet theme plays, Friday's hand tightens around the bag in rage.
In the end, Paul Shipley is found guilty on a charge of involuntary manslaughter and is placed on probation. Jean Shipley, apparently driven mad by her grief, is not charged but sent to a mental institution.
In the Simpsons episode "Weekend at Burnsie's" the scene where Mr. Burns is found dead in his bathtub is apparently inspired by this episode.
Ann Althouse said...
"Dare I take it this wistfulness in part is because the is the last week of summer and Monday begins another school year?"
This view has been most common when I am walking home from school in the fall. I love the feeling of school starting, the cooler weather, and the long shadows at 5:30. It's the end of summer, but I'm not wistful about it. I like it.
Good for you, that you walk toward something in the fall. Most people miss the warm weather, but you have your profession to embrace.
Another thing in which you are very fortunate.
David, I thought it was the other way around: President Assad called for President Obama to resign.
Either one will have the same effect.
The Presidency of useless gestures.
I also love late afternoon light.
Pretty amazing what these rascals managed to find via the internet.
So green. And, yet soon to turn to autumn's colors. The seasons. Not so where I live. Where the changes just go to dark before 6:00 O'Clock.
What's that two wheeler parked?
No memories for Brooklyn? And, the Bridge?
That's a beautiful picture.
Peter
10:37 PM: PERFECT
Isn't there a Dan Akroyd movie with a takeoff on Dragnet?
If only cops were really like Jack Webb we'd have a bit more faith in cops than we do of what appeared once on TV.
REMEMBER THE RULE: When a cop approaches to ask you a few questions. Remember to say: "OFFICER, AM I FREE TO GO?"
I dated Gov Perry..
Call me.
I always thought strolling down a well kept neighborhood is much nicer than being surrounded by unkempt nature.
And the bears stay away.
Man seems to be a social creature more than he is a loner...well most men.
Your neighborhood picture is sweet.
I had a very nice summery dinner tonight. Cod with strawberry coulis. Would you like to see?
"I've appreciated it many, many times over the last 25 years, usually alone."
I started visiting here about the time you met Meade, but I read later about you living solo all those years. You clearly chose that until a sweet guy pushed that option out of your mind. I love both of those chapters.
I'm happily alone at a similar age. I've had long term relationships, raised a family, and moved on to this mostly solitary life now. I assume you enjoyed it as much as I do, which I do very much.
This blog has been a wonderful part of my solo life. Something I share with no one, yet share with thousands. What a strange, and wonderful thing. There are many moments like that when you are alone and at peace enough with it to appreciate those moments in the quiet and perfection of solitude.
When I think of you alone during those past years, being appreciative of the sublime and beautiful, I feel close to you, a complete stranger.
The internet, a wonderful strange piece of magic... invented by Al Gore.
How do people live where they don't have trees and lawns?
I like it when the light turns pink in the evening. It takes ten years off everyone.
WCPE (.org, if you want to listen) plays a 5:30 waltz every weekday, so their listeners can dance their way home.
"This view has been most common when I am walking home from school in the fall. I love the feeling of school starting, the cooler weather, and the long shadows at 5:30. It's the end of summer, but I'm not wistful about it. I like it."
Me too. I love autumn and winter, and it has always filled me with renewed vigor, which had been baked out of me by the summer. I despise summer.
Pads you despise summer because it requires less clothes.
bag, you're a poet.
Carol_Herman said...
Isn't there a Dan Akroyd movie with a takeoff on Dragnet?
Yes, with Tom Hanks as his partner and Henry Morgan reprising his role of Joe's last partner. You get to see some of Webb's favorite old character actors.
As one review called it,
Dum da dum dum DUMB.
That's a very attractive neighborhood.
The internet, a wonderful strange piece of magic... invented by Al Gore.
And yet Governer Perry, who managed Gore's presidential campaign out of Texas, stopped supporting Gore after he invented the internet. What has Perry against wonderful strange magic?
5:30pm - around the time my dad always came home from work.
End of summer - a time my mom always liked because we kids were getting ready to go back to school and she was tired of hearing us saying "we're bored".
Re: Ralph at 12;16am WCPE (.org, if you want to listen) plays a 5:30 waltz every weekday, so their listeners can dance their way home.
All that makes me think of my parents dancing on our back patio to no music, just because they loved to dance with each other and how after my mom passed away my dad saying "I am going to miss dancing with her".
How random comments from complete strangers can make you cry and remember some wonderful things about your life.
WCPE - great station, totally supported by listeners, no government handouts. I am glad the announcer who always said "RALPH Vaughn Williams" is gone.
Ah...Russ Feingold says he isn't going to run for Herb Kohl's senate seat, nor will he run in a recall election against Gov Walker.
There will not be a recall of Scott Walker. Either Tommy Thompson or Ted Kanavas will be elected to replace Herb Kohl.
Sweet.
I can understand the President not wanting to "unveil" his new economic plan while Congress and everybody else is on vacation.
What I do not understand is his going on TV to announce that he has this plan, but he is not going to tell us what it is for another month.
And then he goes on vacation.
Gorgeous - and green (with envy too). Hotter than hell, and damn near arid here in fly-over country.
Obama jobs plan:
Raise taxes [some stuff happens] (poof! more jobs spring to life)/additional regulations = mandate for re-election.
He is innumerate.
I am glad the announcer who always said "RALPH Vaughn Williams" is gone.
Well pooh on you. Considering the ferrin names they have to pronounce, that's a small beef. I'm tired of them always saying "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," as if they were frequently playing Leopold or Wolfie Gee.
I think it's the station manager who whistles his esses.
Obama jobs plan:
1. Print money
2. ???
3. Jobs!
The picture reminds me of perhaps our greatest poet, Thornton Wilder, continually stunned by the miracle of the quotidian, the miracle of home.
A small beef perhaps, and since your screen name is Ralph, maybe I will just shut up and listen to the music. It's a good station.
It's funny how annoyed I am by the Brewers' loss yesterday. They've won 19 of 21, and I'm annoyed they didn't sweep the Dodgers. Even 1 year ago, winning 19 of 40 would have sounded good. So mediocre for so long, and now the bar is raised and I want more more more!
Music and sports. Beats politics when the walk home is so nice.
ricpic said...
The picture reminds me of perhaps our greatest poet, Thornton Wilder, continually stunned by the miracle of the quotidian, the miracle of home.
@ricpic: Do you know of any writer or poet who captured that exact scene in words? The view, translated slightly to the right, reminds me of the view from my bedroom window growing up.
Ugggghhhhh.... In-laws arrive in 5 hours for a weekend visit. I am not enthused.
I think Chip Ahoy needs to add a Lefty Madison Flash Mob to this pastoral scene.
Good luck Lincoln, I hear you. My wife's parents split and each remarried, blessing me with two sets of in laws. Her parents are usually fine, their respective spouses, ehh, not so much.
Why anyone listens to a jive turkey is beyond me. Especially after finally realizing he was a jive turkey all along.
What a gorgeous picture. I saw it this morning and said to my husband, "Oh, let's move." I think after 33 years in Georgia I would like something different. Of course, then I worry about uprooting my kids...
Thank you for sharing.
chicken - here's a quote in the general vicinity of what you're looking for...very general.
Emily: Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?
Emily, looking at a day, a quotidian home day in her life, after she's died. From Thornton Wilder's Our Town.
Thornton Wilder was a homosexual.
Thanks ricpic. Althouse's photo is like the first scene in a very visual memory I tried to write about here. I remember a street scene just like that but slowly filling with strange cars.
A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun."
(W. S. Merwin, The Love of October)
Thornton Wilder was a homosexual.
Well in that case forget everything I said about him!
Very pretty, my daughter lives and works in Madison.She went to underaged at UW Madison and her last year of Law School as a transfer student from Florida State. I have recently just begun to actually like the city and some of the pretty neighborhoods .Of course the downtown area is well known to man of us Wisconsinites.
Should read undergrad at UW Madison.
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