And Then There's This Song, Too

Missing my Honcakes!

I'd Like to Dedicate This Song to JoAnna

"Without you, I'm nothing."

That 'just one look' took place on June 19, 1984.  Call me instantly smitten, though it would be another month before I asked her out on a date.

Yeah, but it all worked out just fine!  26 years of bliss.

Remember When It Stood Out All On Its Own?

Link to current occupant.

Song of the Day: "I'll Be There" by the Spinners

Just because it's so damn good!! It's a tune Retiring Guy never tires of hearing.

Happy Father's Day, Dad

Cart Evert Reinhold Nelson (1915-1999)

Rockford East High School.  As picture here in 1933.

Augustana College.  1939.  The first member of his family to graduate from college.

Augustana College Seminary.  1943, and the start of a 38-year ministry that affected so many people in very positive ways.

• Messiah Lutheran Church.  Auburn, Washington.  1943-1952.
• First English Evangelical Lutheran Church.  Great Falls, Montana.  1952-1957.
• St. Paul's Lutheran Church.  Warren, Pennsylvania.  1957-1981.

Thanks for the valuable lessons you taught us through your compassionate and benevolent examples.

Love, Paul

Grandpa Nelson and his Milk Wagon, Rockford, Illinois (1910)

And coincidentally, the history of Father's Day in the U.S. goes back 100 years.

Old Middleton Road: The Day Before the Start of Reconstruction

Looking east, near the entrance to Middleton Village Rehabilitation Center.

Looking west from Old Middleton Road.

Looking east from Old Middleton Road.

Looking west from Heim Avenue.

Looking east from Heim Avenue.

Looking west from Capital Avenue.

Eddie: Ready for Australia

But is Australia ready for Eddie?

Song of the Day: "Cry to Me" by Loleatta Holloway

This song, which I'd never heard until today -- courtesy of Soul Town on Sirius Radio -- made it to only #68 on Billboard's Hot 100.

#99 for week ending 3/15/1975.
(#1 "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers)

#89 for week ending 3/22/1975. (Star performer)
(#1 "My Eyes Adored You" by Frankie Valli)

#85 for week ending 3/29/1975.
(#1 "Lady Marmalade" by Labelle)

#77 for week ending 4/5/1975.
(#1 "Lovin' You" by Minnie Riperton)

#68 for week ending 4/12/1975.
(#1 "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton John)

#71 for week ending 4/19/1975.
(#1 "Philadelphia Freedom")

The Search for the Suitable Stuff Sack

The gray one will do quite nicely, thank you.

You’d think that buying a stuff sack for a sleeping bag wouldn’t be such a big deal. Not the case, as it turns out.

The one we purchased at REI last week is too small, no matter how tight we try to roll up the down sleeping bag I’ve owned since the early 1980s. (In spite of years of storage in the garage, no critters got to it. And after airing it out for two days in the back yard, it smells almost new.)

Yesterday Eddie and I made a return trip to REI but discovered that the next larger stuff-sack size was out of stock. Eddie didn’t leave the store without lightening my wallet, however; he found a travel pillow, one of the suggested items on his International Student Volunteers list, that rolls up into a tight little cylinder.

At Dick’s Sporting Goods, we found a large, varied, and colorful display of stuff sacks. But just like a variation of the “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” story, they were either too big or too small. None just right.

Walking into the Gander Mountain outlet store, we both experienced a weird vibe. It looked as though we had entered someone’s idea of a supersized garage sale. The clerk, a young man sitting at what appeared to be a makeshift counter, turned his head in our direction but didn’t remove his bored expression. To his credit, though, he did point us in the right direction when I asked if there were any stuff sacks in stock. What we found was made of flimsy material and suitable only for the type of collapsible chairs you see everyone carting around nowadays.

Eddie plans to resume the search on his own today.

Marvin Isley (1953-2010)

Link to June 7 San Jose Mercury News article, "Marvin, youngest of Isley Brothers, dies at 56".

Time to listen to one of the best songs of the 1970s.

1 West Wilson Street

Clematis in Bloom