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Mariecarnes
Springfield, IL
Long-time legal secretary, paralegal, virtual assistant (always looking for work), WordPerfect pro, mom, blogger, 50 something, friend to friendless.
Interests: Law, politics, photography, sketching, food, drink, war, history, Lincoln, technology
Recent Activity
Our family did a lot of camping and my brother and I would carry buckets of water up from some river or lake so there would be something to put out the camp fire with at the end of the night. My water carrying days ended at an early age, thankfully. I was almost out of breath just watching you carry the water up that hill. Great demonstration, Dan.
Hill Climb
Yesterday, to demonstrate a point--water is heavy and it takes a lot of energy to move it--I walked with a cubic foot of water on my back up Marin Avenue, a well-known hill here in Berkeley. A cubic foot of water is 62.4 pounds. To get it into a relatively manageable state--water has a min...
Dan, I've been hearing about this all week. Thank you so much for writing this up and for the links. I found my dad in the City of Springfield in about 20 easy clicks. He was 14. Also, I'm going to look at more of the census sheets from his neighborhood in the hopes of finding his best friend, Stewie. I never knew Stewie's last name, but I'm sure he's in that same neighborhood. Finding my mom is going to take a little more effort. Even though they lived on numbered street that was lined up with the same numbered street in Springfield, her family was then an unincorporated area outside of Springfield.
Even though I've never been to 83rd and Racine, thanks to Chicago's wonderful grid system, I could go right there. It's going to take some major pondering to come up with a plausible explanation as to why the twins are not listed. The first question that comes to mind is, is it possible they lived with someone else during that time?
Again, thank you!
1940 Census: The Enumeration
The west side of the 8300 block of S. May Street, Chicago, in the 1940 census (click for a larger version.) A while back, it occurred to me I'd better start recording the basics of some of the "how we're related" family stories I'd heard for a long time from my mom and dad. Not that the storie...
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember my grandma telling me that maples have an extra big crop of seeds every seven years. Not sure if that's true or not. Probably not.
People around here have planted trees in the parkways with very little thought. I have two trees in my parkway - a sweetgum and a sycamore, both over 50 years old, and both of which are too big to be that close together. The city will remove them if there's a good reason to. Unfortunately, the city hasn't deemed it necessary to get rid of them. So far, they've just been "hat racked." Or, I can remove them at my own expense. Ha! I'd love to cut them down and get a single not-too-tall flowering tree.
Here's Springfield's current list of recommended trees if you're interested:
http://www.springfield.il.us/Green/Tree%20List07.pdf
Red, White, and Blue (and Green)
The city of Berkeley has planted new street trees around our neighborhood. We've seen a variety in the past, from scrubby, less-than-robust-looking Chinese pistaches, liquidambars, and this-one-with-rough-bark-that's-quite-beautiful-in-the-autumn. There's a stout-looking eastern oak across the...
You are such a good person, Dan.
Birthday Celebration
It was raining hard last night when I left work, so instead of hiking over to the ferry as usual, I walked over to the 16th Street BART station, and rode downtown. I strolled across the rainswept plaza to the Ferry Building. Inside, I stopped to fiddle with some important matter on my phone. A...
Excellent.
The Dog on Ground-Hog's Day
We're out the front door. The sky is clear. He sees his shadow, But reads nothing into that, No early spring, no late winter, Sees only his place in the day And the stretch of sidewalk to the corner. Part boarder, Part collie, Part astute sharp-nosed observer of the passing scene And wh...
Fascinating fish. I remember some science class (maybe 4th or 6th grade) where we studied the life of the salmon. They brought a projector in the class and most memorable part was seeing hundreds of these fish furiously swimming up what seemed like a fast waterfall. (Also, the film was narrated by that unseen, but familiar, monotone male voice.) Anyway, I just wanted you to know I appreciate all the work you've done on this story, Dan. Good video, too.
Oncorhynchus Kisutch
I used to have a route across Marin County when we were going up there from Berkeley. Most of the time, we'd be headed toward Point Reyes. I had an impression of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, formed by long-ago holiday weekend drives, of a long, slow winding slog that involved a big slice of subu...
We must be in the same weather system, Dan. We've been having exceptionally warm weather for January in the Midwest. Yesterday it got up to 60 and someone went water skiing on Lake Springfield. I think that was a first. Amazing.
Another One of Those Days
Another one of those days, meaning: clear, warm, bright, and dry. How dry? So dry that today there's a red flag warning for high fire danger in parts of the Sierra Nevada because of high winds and low humidity and the utter lack of snow. I've been in California for 35 years, and that's the fir...
Very cool. I love the lighting. Happy New Year, Dan.
Further Greetings from the Friday NIght Ferry
Kate and I drove down to Jack London Square for the last Friday night ferry of the year. A low sky, with the cloud ceiling down around the tops of the Bay Bridge suspension towers. Somehow, that made the usual port light show even more intense than (or maybe just different from) usual. Among s...
That! is a beautiful moon. Thanks for getting up early so we don't have to, Dan.
Curbside Eclipse
This morning's lunar eclipse, shot across the roof of a house across the street. Not many this morning trod the frosty street, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, but when Kate and I went out to watch, about 6 o'clock, we heard voices of a couple of neighbors down the block. So we had a small viewing ...
I remember that earthquake like it was yesterday. I'm sure you do even more, obviously. We had just moved back to Springfield that summer, and living with my mom, she was intent on passing her love of baseball to my young girls (it worked on one out of two). The sound of the announcer guy's voice as the screen went dark was so haunting to me. It was one of a handful of times I found myself standing in front of the TV with one hand over my mouth, the other over my heart.
Oversight of the Month
Confronted by all sorts of anniversaries this month: the centennial of California's much-overexercised initiative system; the centennial of women's suffrage in California; the twentieth anniversary of the Oakland-Berkeley Hills fire disaster; the twenty-second anniversary of the Loma Prieta eart...
You bring back old memories, Dan. My favorite time at Wrigley Field is on a sunny Sunday morning in late August. You pay $6.00 for a double header, both games of which will easily be squeezed in before dark. You and your best friend settle into your seats high up under the ledge behind home plate. Even though the temperature in the rest of the world is already in the 70s, it's so cold up there in the shade from the breeze off Lake Michigan, you need a coat or a blanket to stay warm. By the first pitch, you look around and realize you can sit anywhere, so you ease on down to the sunny $10.00 seats above first base - maybe even the first row. By the middle of the third inning, you and the strangers you met at the game are in a bar at Clark and Division sipping Bloody Marys, having brunch, laughing, and making new memories. It was a long time ago.
Ballpark
On the walk to the ferry tonight. When I have time, I like to walk by AT&T Park on the waterfront side. It's always cool to see the stadium, something of a waterfront jewel, landfill be damned. One of the features along the water frontage is an arcade where you can see into the ballpark from f...
P.S. I never said "the Jewel" until I lived in Chicago.
Witness to Terror: The Great East Coast Quake of '11
Pre-post update: At 11:37 p.m. PDT, just as I was about to post this, we had a little five-second earthquake I could feel in Berkeley. Amazing -- I felt shakes on both coasts today. Update 11:52 p.m.: The U.S. Geological Survey says this evening's quake was a 3.6-magnitude shake centered in the ...
I've been fascinated by earthquakes since I was in one on a Saturday morning at the age of 10 (or about). My brother and I were home alone. My mom was at a funeral in Peoria and my dad was out running errands. I was in one room and my brother was in the living room, and I yelled at him to stop stomping around because he was shaking the house. LOL. I don't know how long it lasted, but I remember the only way I could walk to the living room was by holding onto walls and furniture. I know I've told you this somewhere before because I remember you telling me you were at the Jewel with your dad and he was inside and you stayed in the car, I think, during the exact same event.
Great write-up, Dan. That you felt earthquakes on both coasts on the same day is an amazing thing. Also, I especially enjoyed your terror tweets.
Witness to Terror: The Great East Coast Quake of '11
Pre-post update: At 11:37 p.m. PDT, just as I was about to post this, we had a little five-second earthquake I could feel in Berkeley. Amazing -- I felt shakes on both coasts today. Update 11:52 p.m.: The U.S. Geological Survey says this evening's quake was a 3.6-magnitude shake centered in the ...
All new roads should have bike lanes. The time has come.
Road Blog: Chicago Sidewalk Bikes
I note a change in the local street culture while strolling in my sister's Chicago neighborhood (West Rogers Park, which for auslanders means "far North Side"): lots more people riding bikes on the sidewalk around here. Impressions are undependable as data points, but I'd say that I might enco...
Amazing. The coyote must feel very safe there.
Also, that tree in the first picture? I wonder if they've figured out how to get that out of there before it falls and takes some of those grave stones out. I worry about things like that.
Chicago Cemetery, with Coyote
Part of a ritual we've taken up recently on visits with my dad in Chicago. We "go for a ride," as he used to say when we were kids, across the North Side. We stop at the Dairy Queen on Irving Park Road just west of Central Avenue. Then we might drop by Mount Olive Cemetery, where much of his (...
Quite a record. Also, depending on how long it takes to sentence Rod, and allowing for the inevitable appeal and possible continuances, we could have two governors in prison at the same time. Ryan is due out in about two and a half years. I think.
Sidenote, some mornings, many years after he was out of office, I would ride the Sheridan bus with Governor Stratton. I don't know where he got on, but it was always before me at Belmont.
Second sidenote, it was a cold and snowy winter night many years ago when I first discovered your blog upon doing a search for anyone who might be blogging about George Ryan's indictment.
Your Illinois Governors: Felony Update (2011)
Update 12/7/2011: The judge has spoken: Blagojevich gets 14 years n prison. With the news that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been convicted on 17 of 20 counts of corruption, it's time to freshen my list of recent Illinois governors whose legal trouble reached felony level. As I said back...
Several years ago, my youngest daughter's then boyfriend, now husband, hit a dear a block from my house.
As for me, I think I'm driving on borrowed time having never hit one, but coming close three times (that I know of). One time was in the middle of the night driving south on I-55 just outside of Bloomington. Fortunately, traffic was mostly non-existent as I came to a full stop as a giant buck with giant antlers saunter across just feet in front of me. Also crossing the road in the same place was a large raccoon and a large turtle. Actually, seeing the turtle from way back is what made me stop.
I was glad to read that you're all okay.
Road Blog: Deer vs. Cars--the Numbers
When you tell people you hit a deer while driving, you find out everyone has their own story. One of my brothers hit a deer he never saw while driving a truck in western New York State (he was checking a mirror when the animal ventured onto the roadway; his passenger explained what the loud bang...
Wonderful photos and in a perfect slide show.
Day at the Beach
Below: a slideshow of an afternoon up at Point Reyes (on the Pierce Point Road and at Kehoe Beach, to be more specific). It was utterly gorgeous on the strand, which looked like you could walk it all day and never reach the end. (And by way of explanation, we went out there with our neighbors an...
Great videos, both. I don't remember getting news from Channel 32 when I lived in Chicago. I do remember Saturday morning reruns of Blondie (the series, which they must have had the franchise on, since I never saw it before or since), Sunday afternoon movies, and commercials for Empire Carpet, which I would like to once and for all have removed from my brain.
One Last Thing About That Snow
Before I bid adieu to the subject of the Great Groundhog Eve's Blizzard (a bullet I dodged, I suppose, but whose trajectory I got to enjoy from afar), a couple final keepsakes. First, a segment from Chicago's Fox affiliate, Channel 32, which takes a look at its coverage of the 1967 blizzard. Ent...
Dan, I saw the title of this fly across Twitter earlier today when I was at work, and wondered all day, literal or figurative? Now I know. And it is just splendid.
Toilettes au Clair de Lune
We had a brilliant, clear evening last night, and a full moon. Turning the lights out before I went to bed, I noticed the way the moonlight was coming into the house, especially through the skylights. And this--this was the scene in the bathroom, which I couldn't quite pass up. I've never seen...
Oh, man, I have so been gaffed. Several times. I just didn't know what it was called.
That was a very well told story, Dan, about a very smooth gaff. You (and the guy) really had me.
The Gaff
The late Utah Phillips was both a practitioner and connoisseur of life on the bum--a phrase with no pejorative overtones for him or for me. Not that I imagine myself embracing it. Yes, every once in a while I think about what life might be like on the streets and how I'd make out hustling spare ...
That happens to me all the time. As does the opposite.
Knowing and Not Knowing
"Whenever the ratio of what is known to what needs to be known approaches zero, we tend to invent 'knowledge' and assume that we understand more than we actually do. We seem unable to acknowledge that we simply don’t know." --David L. Rosenhan, "On Being Sane in Insane Places" (1973)
Those stairs were heart pounders.
The REM Chronicles
Sometimes you get a signal that maybe you're a little preoccupied or anxious about work. Yesterday, I had the following dream: I was at the radio station editing the afternoon newscasts as usual. We had a stand-in anchor doing the casts, and our regular anchor was in the office but on some sort ...
Working on trying to get ahead at work.
Working on trying to get ahead at work. Continue reading
Posted Sep 27, 2010 at Mariecarnes's blog
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Wonderful writing, Dan. Just wonderful.
I'm always awestruck flying from Springfield south in the winter and there's not much to see, but you go over the farm fields when they're bereft of corn and beans and green, and soon you're over Southern Illinois banking towards Evansville and right before your eyes you see the ground go from smooth black dirt to course reddish dirt. Well, it's not exactly a hard line. But I always think to myself, something happened right here millions of years ago.
Cross-Country
(Above: Looking south down the Los Angeles River, center, and across the junction of Interstate 405, the San Diego Freeway (running right and left) and Interstate 710, the Long Beach Freeway (which runs down the river's western bank). Long Beach Harbor is in the distance. Taken just after takeo...
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