The Start of Autumn 2011

It's here, the autumn equinox, the official nail in the coffin of summer.  When I was teaching I rarely had the opportunity to enjoy beautiful autumn days outside, something that drove me a little wild.  Now that we are both retired, fall is a great time to take off on short trips and enjoy this pleasant time of year.  Our getaway coming up starting Sunday at Dillmans promises fine weather.  I am not sure, but I imagine that the colors will be starting further north.  The weatherman says we can expect days in the 70s and nights in the 40s, which sounds just about perfect to me.

Tonight is the Wisconsin Regional Artists Association's annual Evening With the Arts in Madison on the University of Wisconsin campus, and tomorrow is the state level awards presentations and the last day of a month long exhibit of artworks chosen from regional shows over the course of the year.  Both events promise to be fun, a chance to see some terrific art, to reconnect with other Wisconsin artists, and to do a bit of snacking.  My entry in the Tiny Treasures exhibit and sale this year is getting an award, and will be featured in the WRAA calendar for 2012.  All the Tiny Treasures entries are 2.5 x 3.5 inches, the size of Artist Trading Cards, created in a variety of media and the sale will help support the WRAA.

Speaking of nice recognition, I was surprised and pleased to learn that my Late B(l)oomer web log is being featured as a "Best of the Web" blog on a site called Pocketchange.  I understand it will be there a week, and there are others interesting blogs as well, including one about small houses, one about craft beers, and a couple others about arts and crafts.  You can see the site here:  Pocketchange

Become.com
Online Shopping

Limping Out of Summer

8x10 inches, mixed media collage

It's almost the equinox, almost autumn, and summer is running, or in my case, limping, out.  I'm limping because I did what I swore I would never do again.  I stubbed my pinkie toe and probably broke it a week ago.  I did this once before and for years remembered to wear shoes in the house, because the truth is I am a semi-blind klutz.  I run into things.  Shoes protect my tender toes.  I was busy ordering something I probably didn't need online, and I couldn't make out the security code, which is tiny and wearing off the plastic credit card because of constant use.  So I ran, barefoot,  for magnifying glass, and crashed into the wooden leg of the couch.  So, I have been not-so-graciously dealing with a foot that has been swelling and turning more colors than autumn leaves.  It will eventually heal, but in the meantime I am morbidly fascinated with examining the bruises.

What I should be doing more of is assembling materials and beginning to pack for an upcoming workshop at Dillman's Resort, five hours north, with acrylic artist and teacher Robert Burridge.  I went to Dillman's when I first returned to painting in 1997, but alone. Besides being frustrated at my lack of skill compared to everyone else in class, I was lonely.  This time my dear husband is coming along so the loneliness issue is covered.  As for skill, I am more philosophical about workshops than I was when I started out, and more experienced.  I go to classes be inspired, to experiment, to have a real good time, but I don't go expecting to either create a masterpiece or compete with other artists.  I'm hoping to see eagles and trees turning colors, which brings me to today's project.

I learned about altering National Geographic pages with Citra Solv from Burridge's Artsy Fartsy Newsletter a couple years ago.  The process in short is to get a National Geographic magazine from the last ten years or so (it has to do with the ink they use), then paint the pages with Citra Solv cleaner.  The cleaner smells like oranges, and it cleans just about anything, just in case you buy some and don't want to make funky collage papers.  After a half hour or so you put on rubber gloves, tear out the damp pages and lay them on plastic or newspapers to dry.  The images dissolve and make beautiful textured colors that work in collage.

I did something different here.  I chose some pages, or parts of pages, for the colors they featured, then I adhered the National Geographic pages to a sturdy canvas board with acrylic gel medium.  When that was dry I painted the mounted papers with Citra Solve, and covered the whole thing with crinkled plastic wrap.  After it dried the textures and colors were rich and lovely and organic, and looked nothing like the original photography.  To keep the inks stable I coated the altered surface with a coat of gel medium.  Then I deepened the golds and turquoise areas with a sheer wash of liquid acrylic paint.  I let that dry, then added birch trunk, which are actually just strips of text from NG pages with no photos.  When I was playing around with arranging the trunks I decided the ones further back should be darker, so I added a wash of a charcoal color before I glued then down with more gel medium.

I'm not sure if it's completely finished.  I'm toying with adding more suggestions of branches, but I'm going to wait to decide.  When I decide it is done, I'll give the whole piece a coat of gloss gel medium to unify the surface and intensify the colors.  It's my first celebration of autumn.

Into Each Life - Rainy Weekend and Some Longfellow

Lee Jones begins her street painting in the lower courthouse park

This part weekend was Janesville's Art Infusion event.  There were art demonstrations of various sorts, live musical performances, and street chalk painting.  Over at the fairgrounds the Rock River Valley Carvers were showing and selling their creations, and there were all sorts of other late summer events going on, fund raising walks, farmers markets, and fall festivals.  All had one good day - Saturday.  Friday and Sunday it just rained and rained and rained.

 Jones, a bit further along on Saturday

Another street painter at work on Saturday

I clumped around downtown on my sore foot, taking pictures, watching people of all ages chalk the sidewalks, listening to music, and munching Kettle Corn at the farmers market until my tootsies couldn't endure another minute and I went home to crash.

Then it was Sunday, and the rain just pounded.  When it let up a bit at about 11 in the morning I went to see how the pro was doing, and found her at work finishing up her scene of Rotary Gardens in a borrowed tent.  A couple of nice paintings across the street were covered with plastic, and all the kids' colorful creations were gradually washing away.  There was almost nobody else in sight downtown.

Sometimes the process has to be reward enough. I hope it was.

The Rainy Day

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
  And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
  And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
  Some days must be dark and dreary.

Street Painting Workshop - Lee Jones

When I was little I didn't know a thing about chalk art, street painting, except when my friends and I took some of our schoolroom chalk outside to put down hopscotch squares.  Never saw it.  Of course I lived on a farm where there wasn't much concrete except in the barn, and that wasn't any place I wanted to get down on my knees.  Living here in Janesville, I see children's chalk drawings on the sidewalks occasionally, but the only professional street painting I've seen has been on the internet.

So - when I learned that Rock County's United Arts Alliance, partnered with the Janesville Convention and Visitors Bureau were hosting an arts festival dubbed the Art Infusion, and they were bringing Wisconsin native street painter Lee Jones to demonstrate and give a free workshop I was excited. 

The workshop, held last night at the local PAC, interesting and fun.  Jones is a congenial woman, patient with the uninitiated, and well prepared.  She had spent the work day giving workshops to elementary and high school classes, and now was talking to a small but enthusiastic group of adults. Good note taker that I am after years of being both a student and a teacher, I came prepared with a notebook, but was pleased when she handed out notes on the history of street painting , as well as a list of suggested supplies and tips for creating a successful street painting.  She had lots of personal stories, comments about street painting festivals, and names of other well-known street painters.

The very short version of what she told us is that street painting is an old art, begun in the 1500's in Italy by itinerant artists who were too poor for paint and paper, but would use chalk (pastels) and paint in front of businesses, hoping for painting commissions.  Most of these early street paintings featured biblical scenes  with the Madonna (Virgin Mary), hence the group term for the painters - Madonnaro.
These street paintings are not permanent, they wear and wash away eventually, and only recently have been photographed extensively to make a record.

Of course street art isn't all religious, especially in contemporary times.  Jones told us that artist Kathy Koury from Santa Barbara saw a big street art festival in Grazie Di Curatone, a city in northern Italy, and was so impressed she started a festival in California.  Street paintings appeal has been steadily growing here in the United States, and now we're even trying it here in Rock County.

After her presentation Lee took the group outside to the sidewalk and demonstrated the process, then we had a half hour or so to experiment before it got chilly and the light began to fade.

Jones begins by selecting an image, something rather simple and bold.  Here she used a photo of a friend's child. which she enlarged and drew on a large sheet of paper.  Then she uses a transfer wheel, the sort of thing I used to used to transfer a pattern to fabric, making little perforations around the outlines of the drawing.  Then she takes the sheet down on the sidewalk, and shakes talcum power over the whole thing.

After "pouncing," tapping, the paper, the power goes through to the pavement below, and the paper can be carefully pulled away, revealing the outlines.

Her next step is to use her pastels to get the outlines down, and from there she adds thing layers of chalk to build up the image, adding highlights and shadows.  She uses things like foam brushes and chalkboard erasers to blend the first layer into the pavement, and after that uses a gloved finger.  It's hard work - hours on her knees, bent over, rubbing.  It's as hard as scrubbing a floor, which is one reason I will be an observer this weekend instead of a participant.  That, plus I don't have anything of the performance artist in me.  I love creating art, but am happiest in my studio.

I hope that lots of artists who have better knees and backs come out to create street art though.  This is something that is great fun.

Interested in seeing more street paintings?  Check out these links:

Julie Kirk

Genna Panzarella

Melanie Stimmell

Kurt Wenner

A Couple Reflections

The reflective surface of a downtown bank mirrors Milwaukee Street

The same building, this time reflecting Main Street

I took these two photos last weekend as I was walking home from my walk to the local farmers market, and was struck by how interesting it was to see the street scene doubled in the mirrored surface of the bank.  The vanishing point pulls your attention into the center of the picture and makes you look to see which is reality, which a mirror image.

That sent me looking for a poem that featured reflections, and this is the one I found.  It doesn't have a thing to do with downtown bank buildings, but rather with how an artist, Vincent Van Gogh, used color to reflect the natural world in late summer and autumn, both in sunshine and in shadow.

Vincent, Homesick for the Land of Pictures 

By Peter Gizzi

Is this what you intended, Vincent
that we take our rest at the end of the grove
nestled into our portion beneath the bird’s migration
saying, who and how am I made better through struggle.
Or why am I I inside this empty arboretum
this inward spiral of whoop ass and vision
the leafy vine twisting and choking the tree.
O, dear heaven, if you are indeed that
or if you can indeed hear what I might say
heal me and grant me laughter’s bounty
of eyes and smiles, of eyes and affection.

To not be naive and think of silly answers only
not to imagine answers would be the only destination
nor is questioning color even useful now
now that the white ray in the distant tree beacons.
That the sun can do this to us, every one of us
that the sun can do this to everything inside
the broken light refracted through leaves.
What the ancients called peace, no clearer example
what our fathers called the good, what better celebration.
Leaves shine in the body and in the head alike
the sun touches deeper than thought.

O to be useful, of use, to the actual seen thing
to be in some way related by one’s actions in the world.
There might be nothing greater than this
nothing truer to the good feelings that vibrate within
like in the middle of the flower I call your name.
To correspond, to be in equanimity with organic stuff
to toil and to reflect and to home and to paint
father, and further, the migration of things.
The homing action of geese and wood mice.
The ample evidence of the sun inside all life
inside all life seen and felt and all the atomic pieces too.

But felt things exist in shadow, let us reflect.
The darkness bears a shine as yet unpunished by clarity
but perhaps a depth that outshines clarity and is true.
The dark is close to doubt and therefore close to the sun
at least what the old books called science or bowed down to.
The dark is not evil for it has indigo and cobalt inside
and let us never forget indigo and the warmth of that
the warmth of the mind reflected in a dark time
in the time of pictures and refracted light.
Ah, the sun is here too in the polar region of night
the animal proximity of another and of nigh.

To step into it as into a large surf in late August
to go out underneath it all above and sparkling.
To wonder and to dream and to look up at it
wondrous and strange companion to all our days
and the toil and worry and animal fear always with us.
The night sky, the deep sense of space, actual bodies of light
the gemstone brushstrokes in rays and shimmers
to be held tight, wound tighter in the act of seeing.
The sheer vertical act of feeling caught up in it
the sky, the moon, the many heavenly forms
these starry nights alone and connected alive at the edge.

Now to think of the silver and the almost blue in pewter.
To feel these hues down deep, feel color wax and wane
and yellow, yellows are the tonality of work and bread.
The deep abiding sun touching down and making its impression
making so much more of itself here than where it signals
the great burning orb installed at the center of each and every thing.
Isn’t it comforting this notion of each and every thing
thought nothing might be the final and actual expression of it
that nothing at the center of something alive and burning
green then mint, blue then shale, gray and gray into violet
into luminous dusk into dust then scattered now gone.

But what is the use now of this narrow ray, this door ajar
the narrow path canopied in dense wood calling
what of the striated purposelessness in lapidary shading and line.
To move on, to push forward, to take the next step, to die.
The circles grow large and ripple in the hatch-marked forever
the circle on the horizon rolling over and over into paint
into the not near, the now far, the distant long-off line of daylight.
That light was my enemy and one great source of agony
one great solace in paint and brotherhood the sky and grass.
The fragrant hills spoke in flowering tones I could hear
the gnarled cut stumps tearing the sky, eating the sun.

The gnarled cut stumps tearing the sky, eating the sun
the fragrant hills spoke in flowering tones I could hear
one great solace in paint and brotherhood the sky and grass.
That light was my enemy and one great source of agony
into the not near, the now far, the distant long-off line of daylight
the circle on the horizon rolling over and over into paint.
The circles grow large and ripple in the hatch-marked forever.
To move on, to push forward, to take the next step, to die.
What of the striated purposelessness in lapidary shading and line
the narrow path canopied in dense wood calling
but what is the use now of this narrow ray, this door ajar.

Into luminous dusk into dust then scattered now gone
green then mint, blue then shale, gray and gray into violet
that nothing at the center of something alive and burning
through nothing might be the final and actual expression of it.
Isn’t it comforting this notion of each and every thing
the great burning orb installed at the center of each and every thing
making so much more of itself here than where it signals.
The deep abiding sun touching down and making its impression
and yellow, yellows are the tonality of work and bread.
To feel these hues down deep, feel color wax and wane
now to think of the silver and the almost blue in pewter.

These starry nights alone and connected alive at the edge
the sky, the moon, the many heavenly forms
the sheer vertical act of feeling caught up in it.
To be held tight, wound tighter in the act of seeing
the gemstone brushstrokes in rays and shimmers.
The night sky, the deep sense of space, actual bodies of light
and the toil and worry and animal fear always with us
wondrous and strange companion to all our days.
To wonder and to dream and to look up at it
to go out underneath it all above and sparkling
to step into it as into a large surf in late August.

The animal proximity of another and of nigh.
Ah, the sun is here too in the polar region of night
in the time of pictures and refracted light
the warmth of the mind reflected in a dark time
and let us never forget indigo and the warmth of that.
The dark is not evil for it has indigo and cobalt inside
at least what the old books called science or bowed down to.
The dark is close to doubt and therefore close to the sun
but perhaps a depth that outshines clarity and is true.
The darkness bears a shine as yet unpunished by clarity
but felt things exist in shadow, let us reflect.

Inside all life seen and felt and all the atomic pieces too
the ample evidence of the sun inside all life
the homing action of geese and wood mice
father, and further, the migration of things.
To toil and to reflect and to home and to paint
to correspond, to be in equanimity with organic stuff
like in the middle of the flower I call your name.
Nothing truer to the good feelings that vibrate within
there might be nothing greater than this
to be in some way related by one’s actions in the world.
O to be useful, of use, to the actual seen thing.

The sun touches deeper than thought
leaves shine in the body and in the head alike
what our fathers called the good, what better celebration.
What the ancients called peace, no clearer example
the broken light refracted through leaves.
That the sun can do this to everything inside
that the sun can do this to us, every one of us
now that the white ray in the distant tree beacons.
Nor is questioning color even useful now
nor to imagine answers would be the only destination
to not be naive and think of silly answers only.

Of eyes and smiles, of eyes and affection
heal me and grant me laughter’s bounty.
Or if you can indeed hear what I might say
O, dear heaven, if you are indeed that
the leafy vine twisting and choking the tree
this inward spiral of whoop ass and vision.
Or why am I inside this empty arboretum
saying, who and how am I made better through struggle
nestled into our portion beneath the bird’s migration
that we take our rest at the end of the grove
is this what you intended, Vincent.

Great River Road Trip

The past couple days we took off on a spur-of-the-moment trip along the Great River Road of the upper Mississippi River. We usually drive some on both the Wisconsin and the Minnesota side; both are beautiful.  The weather here has been sunny and dry, and comfortable for doing almost anything.  We've been taking similar trips most of our marriage, often staying in bed and breakfast places or small inns.  I keep trying to capture the beauty of the area, and I never come close.  These shots were taken from Buena Vista Park, far above Alma.  We'd never visited this park before and were well pleased by the  scene below us, the town, railroad track with endless freight trains, and lock and dam.  In winter I've heard the town is a great place to watch bald eagles.

We stayed further north in Maiden Rock, in a restored school house, now turned bed and breakfast, called the Maiden Rock Inn.  It's off the main high a block or so, a little farther from the railroad tracks that run along the whole highway than we usually stay.  The owners saved the old brick school from demolition in the 1990s, and were happy to take us on a tour of the large building.  Our room was beautiful with high ceilings, tall windows like the ones in the two room country school I attended as a child, but with comfortable air conditioning and a jacuzzi.  This picture was taken in the hallway outside our room.  In the evening we shared wine with the owner before we headed off to the Harbor View Cafe in Pepin (a favorite place for supper).  In the morning we were treated to a late breakfast of organic chicken paprika and spaetzle. It was all very decadent.

Nearby on the River Road is the little town of Stockholm.   We always stop here for something cold to drink, and a wander through the galleries and antique shops.  These mannikin heads caught my eye this time. There's an art tour coming up in October and I am tempted to go back and tour around all the galleries and pottery places.

We drove home slowly, stopping at scenic overlooks whenever we felt like a stretch.  We took a little side trip at Cochrane to revisit a favorite folk art site called Prairie Moon.  Its several acres of cement sculptures created in the late 1950's and 1960's by a farmer and fiddler named Herman Rusch.  There's a building that apparently has photographs and more information, but we have never found it open, and in fact have never seen anyone else at the site, though it is nicely mowed and planted with flowers.

There are all sorts of constructions here - planters, a 250 foot arched fence, life sized sculptures, painted or decorated with bits of broken glass or seashells.  I like this tableau of a Norwegian pioneer battling with a brown bear.  There's a life size polar bear too, and a huge snake. All of it is kept by local volunteers and by the Kohler Foundation.

I didn't take any photo of the historic Trempealeau Hotel, when we stopped for a late lunch, but that is another favorite place for us, nothing fancy, but always with friendly service and excellent food along the Mississippi River.  We sat and watched a grain barge while we ate.

Our last stop was at Peck's farm market outside of Spring Green.  I wanted some early Macintosh apples for eating and baking, and I am a sucker for the animals they have for the kids.  The lady who checked us out modeled her new weiner hat for us, and I am sharing the photo with her permission.  Too fun!

We're back home again, and while it was very pleasant to revisit the river, it's good to be back. 

Then and Now - Rock River Thresheree

Vintage tractor at the 2011 thresheree

Earl Pierce on his Farmall tractor, 1920's

I've lived in Rock County since I started teaching in 1973, but I had never gotten myself out to the Rock River Thresheree.  Part of the problem is that I am always more compelled to go to the Walworth County Fair, which is held at the same time, and is much more familiar.  But this year my dear husband expressed a wish to see all the old tractors and farm equipment so we decided that Saturday was the day.  Although showers were forecast for the afternoon, our thought was that we'd browse around a couple hours, get some brats for lunch and then head home before rain turned the place into a giant mud volleyball pit.

God laughs at our plans.

We drove out at around 9 AM, parked easily in a big field of cut alfalfa, rode the tractor powered shuttle wagon to the grounds and were enchanted by the rows and rows of old tractors.  I had rolled my eyes before at mature men fascinated by vintage equipment, but was unprepared for the visceral reaction I had when I saw a perfectly restored little 1950 Ford tractor, gray, with red trim.  This piece of equipment  was more evocative of my childhood than either old Barbies or the smell of baked bread.  I was transported by the shifting lever, the foot pedals, the metal seat.  I could just imagine my father, me standing next to him, hanging on the fenders.  I experienced some serious nostalgia, so much so that some elderly farmer came up to chat.  That little Ford was the first vehicle I ever drove by myself.  My reaction to the midsize red International Harvester was similar, though for some reason the John Deere tractors I saw while the skies were still clear didn't move me as much.  We see more of them around, perhaps. Dick was feeling it too; he made a point of showing me the tractor his dad owned when they lived in Greenfield, with a similar look on his face.

Dad, plowing out our quarter mile driveway, about 1951

The event features lots more than tractors.  There's all sorts of old equipment, much of it steam powered.  There are old mills of various sorts, pile drivers, threshing equipment.  There is a Civil War Encampment.  People demonstrate all sorts of things, woodcarving, blacksmithing.  Not that we saw all of it, because a half hour after we arrived,  it started to sprinkle.  We shrugged our shoulders and looked inside the log cabin, the saw mill, the pole barns with giant generators.  The rain increased.  We still thought it would let up, so we lit into a couple Johnsonville brats with a helping of kraut.  Still the gray skies wept.  We rode the narrow gage railroad around the park, stalling for time.  More rain.

Grandpa, with some sort of harvesting equipment in the 1920's

So I dragged my dear husband to the place where volunteers were grinding corn and buckwheat, since I had a yen for buckwheat pancakes.  The inside of the barn was plastered with old seed company signs - from the days when there were many local hybrid seed companies.  Our farm raised hybrid seed for Simons for years, though the small family business was swallowed up years ago. It continued to rain.

Grandpa Pierce with Sicy Simons, maybe 1930.

So we decided to get back to our car and get out while we still could.  Trouble was, we waited too long.  Neither of us wore raincoats or carried an umbrella, so soon we were soaked through to the skin.  The temperature started dropping and I was getting pretty darned cold, but the worst was still ahead.

I should have known we were in for trouble when the smaller tractors quit shuttling people out to the field because they were getting stuck.  After twenty or so minutes of rocking, spinning up mud, and trying to push our car up rises slick with wet mud and clay we admitted defeat and caught another shuttle back to the park where we threw ourselves on the mercy of a friend parked in a better place.  We left our car where it was, rode home with our friend, and worried about it all evening.

Today was dry, breezy and sunny, the perfect thing for drying out mud.  The organizers of the thresheree started a shuttle from Milton High School, so we took that back to the park today, and drove out with no problems.

I'll have to check out the Parade of Power and flea market some other year, preferably a nice dry day.

Back to the Fair

The Walworth County Fair is back in full swing.  I took myself on Wednesday, before it was too terribly hot, as it turned out to be on Thursday.  Almost none of the original reasons I loved the fair as a child have any relevance to my adult self.  As a kid I loved going to the fair because there were crowds of people, and I knew most of them.  I could wander through any barn and find several 4-H friends, or kids I knew from school.  I could mooch a quarter off my grandfather, who reigned over one busy corner in a seed-corn tent with sample stalks tied up along one wall.  I could ride the Ferris wheel, Tilt-a-Whirl, or swings until vertigo compelled me to flop on a bench.  I always had 4-H projects to watch during judging (the small cash premiums were nice) , or at least once a style show in which to participate.  I ate a fair amount of Malone's salt water taffy in my day too.

But times change, and the fair has come to mean something different.  It looks pretty much the same, with old white clapboard buildings housing the fair office, the cream puff stand and the Methodist dining hall.  Some of the old wooden building are gone, replaced by metal pole buildings. The old wooden horse barns burned years ago, as did the grandstand, though the latter was rebuilt in a probably safer way.  The smell is the same too, a bit of fried food, some grilled sweetcorn and barbequed pork, a bit of dust (or some years mud), of cattle and swine, of sweaty people.  But I seldom see anyone I know.  Maybe they are there, but I just don't recognize them, disguised as well all have become, by years.  I like walking through midway, watching the excited kids lined up for rides, the bored looking carnies slumped at controls or double checking harnesses.  I don't ride any more; I just take photos, hoping to some day use them as a reference for painting.  Carnies don't like being photographed.  Any time I ask they turn me down, so sometimes I just snap quickly and hope to capture them leaning amongst their giant stuffed toys and bowls filled with goldfish.  The man who ran the camel ride concession confided to me that some of the carnies have run afoul of the law and don't want their pictured published anywhere.  They're safe with me - no one will ever recognize them from my paintings.

This year I bought my fresh cream puff from the nice men wearing paper hats and aprons at the Knights of Columbus stand, and did a reasonable job of eating it without getting powered sugar all over myself. I snapped pictures of the camels, the little racing piggies, kids on rides, and wary chickens in the small animal barn.  Then I was hot, footsore, and maybe a little lonesome for my grandfather, long dead, and my old friends, unseen, so I walked back downtown to my parked car and headed back home.