Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday

Noel Laflin

4-12-20

If I was watching the news right now, I would note that this is an Easter Sunday unlike any in my lifetime.

But as it is Easter Sunday, the news is off currently, and we carry on as if it is just another Easter Sunday – except we have rain coming down at the moment – something unusual for this day out our way; although, now that I think about that, I do remember an Easter downpour some twenty years ago. It wrecked the backyard Easter egg hunt for a while. But the sun eventually did come out, and the children were happily scampering about grandmother May’s lush garden. They liked finding my hidden plastic eggs especially, as I would fill mine with coins and paper currency. One even held the likeness of a Jackson. It made one seven-year-old very happy, as I recall.

Today’s Easter activities include David studying up on gardening ideas – something in which I am delighted to share with him. In fact, we have seeds drying out on paper towels and platters of cuttings scattered about sunny locations throughout the house, just waiting for more tiny roots to appear so that they can be transplanted to pots in the garden. More potting soil has already been ordered through Amazon – a first for this kind of delivery; usually its books delivered via my iPad. But strange times call for strange solutions.

So, we plan for a future in an uncertain future. But, that’s life.

Meanwhile, I type this on my laptop while ear buds connected to my iPhone deliver the tunes of Aaron Copeland to my brain. Good music is always a comfort in trying times. Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Eastern Festival Overture will be coming up shortly - it's a favorite and seems appropriate for the day.

And so, this is how we are celebrating Easter Sunday 2020.

I just pretend it’s twenty years ago, waiting for the rain to stop, so that I can watch the expression on a seven-year-old's face when they find a certain egg that I was sure I had hidden better. But never underestimate the young.

Oh, hey, the song just switched to a Handel tune.

Hallelujah indeed.

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Canal

Canal

Noel Laflin

4-6-20

There are miles and miles of a concrete-lined water canal running from north Orange all the way to Newport Beach.  It’s about ten feet deep and just as many feet in width. It collects both runoff from rain events as well as excess yard watering. The section here runs directly behind our property.  I shot this about an hour ago when the rain took a break. It has never overflowed, but has come close in years past.

From our house, it’s about a quarter mile run to our neighborhood treatment reservoir/pond.  It’s what keeps it full, year-round.

Water in the pond sits for about a week, baptized and cleansed by sunlight, and then is released back into the canal to rush on to the Irvine Marsh and eventually Upper Newport Bay.

I am grateful to city/county planners of long ago for protecting us from flooding, as well as taking an old ditch and creating our pond.

I think that I speak to the ducks, geese, turtles, egrets, herons, fish, etc., for that last part too.

And Just Like That

And Just Like That

Noel Laflin

4-2-20

Meanwhile, with the help of a hundred kids, the cabin took shape. With old two-man saws we scored the ends of the logs. We then turned them on their side and chipped out the large notches with hatchets struck by mallets. It was with some trepidation that we tested our first notched logs. They fit beautifully. We were off and running. There was always tinkering of some sort. Deepening or widening of a notch could be maddening, but necessary. Chain saws would have made a big difference too, but we adhered to our self-imposed rule, no power tools. Consequently, our tools were simple: hammers, axes, hatchets, bow saws, two-man saws, bark scrapers, and mallets.

The whole project seemed to take on Tom Sawyer-like qualities. I told the kids signing up for the Pioneering Merit Badge class that they would be expected to contribute at least one hour a day to the project. Many of those guys stayed all day, foregoing other activities and free time.

And just like that, or so memory teases, we built a cabin.

Thanks, Jim Donovan, for what just might be the last photo of our old cabin as it stood in Camp Ahwahnee. I had not seen this particular picture before, but it's now a nostalgic favorite. Jim took the photo in the fall of 1980. The cabin was built during the summers of 1972-73. When the Scout council closed the camp in 1980, the cabin was sold, dismantled - just like a giant Lincoln Log set - loaded onto trucks, and reassembled in a neighboring Boys Club camp seven miles away. The Running Springs fire of 2007 destroyed their camp, burning every structure to the ground, including the cabin.

But we've got Jim's photo here. And for that, I am most grateful.

Thoughtful Orchid

Thoughtful Orchid

Noel Laflin

3-23-20

This cymbidium usually blooms, like clockwork, around the first week in March. It’s been doing so since my father died the first week in March thirteen years ago.

This year it held off till March 20th, which had me puzzled until I remembered March 20th marked the first year anniversary of the passing of David’s father.

Orchids are thoughtful - as are the friends that first gave me this particular beauty some thirteen years ago in early March.

Shuffling Memories

Shuffling Memories

Noel Laflin

3-11-20

Lost a long-time friend yesterday. John is the handsome blond fellow in this photo.

His death was not unexpected, as he’d been quite ill for sometime. But that does not diminish the pain many of us are now experiencing with his passing.

John was funny and kind. He was hard to resist when he had his heart set on something and insisted that you join him. He was an excellent dancer. In fact I could never master the shuffle unless he led, and then you thought you had been born to dance.

He was a fine roommate - I envied what he could do with a tiny ten-by-ten-foot room configuration. 

He helped me when I was hurting long ago and I think I was of help to him in return.

What more can friends ask of one another?

Some things you just never forget.

Thus, I am going to miss him greatly.

Pea Ridge

Pea Ridge

Noel Laflin

3-7-20

The battle of Pea Ridge in northern Arkansas was fought on this day in 1862.

I bring this up as it’s the only Civil War battlefield that I have ever visited, and even then, it was not on our road trip agenda thirty years ago.

But there were the signs along the highway telling us of the famous roadside attraction as we departed our log cabin motel in Hot Springs early one June morning. So we stopped in for a look round.

We had the grounds practically to ourselves that beautiful summer morning. I even have a photo, somewhere lying about, of handsome young Jeremy petting the head of a handsome young fawn that emerged from the woods in order to check us out. We quickly departed, however, when the youngster’s daddy showed up. He was a magnificent looking creature.

We viewed ancient cannons still in place, read of rebel and Yankee engagements, learned how five Indian nations assisted the Confederacy throughout the battle, some even taking a few Union scalps. But it was all for naught as Mr. Lincoln’s Army eventually won the day.

And although I hope to see Gettysburg or Antietam Creek some day, I know I’ll never have the opportunity of photographing a beautiful young man stroking the head of a beautiful young fawn, without another soul in sight for miles about. Well, with the exception of the magnificent buck looking on, who disapproved, of course.

Butterflies and Daughters

Butterflies and Daughters

Noel Laflin

3-1-20

Years ago I placed a butterfly decal on the sliding glass door right about at eye level. I thought the decal, which is actually something cooler than that, was a freebie in some junk mail maybe; then Krysten reads this little story and reminds me that it was something that she made in art class when she was little. Who says kids don't always read your posts? Anyway, all ll I know is that placing that decal/art project on the door seemed like a good reminder to open the door first before trying to exit the house. I remember a friend from years before who ran right through a sliding glass door in his home. Sure, he was only eleven at the time, but hey, it can happen to anyone. The good news about his unfortunate experience is that he survived without a scratch. The door was not so lucky.

Now, I should have placed a decal, or maybe a full out stop sign on my own door years earlier when I tried to walk right through it.

It wasn’t really my fault, of course, as the window was sparkly clean for a change, thus allowing me to think that I was entering the great outdoors uninhibited. And speaking of inhibited, I further blame the half empty bottle of vodka in my hand when I tried to walk through the glass as being a major culprit in my miscalculation.

Fortunately, for both the door and me, there was no crashing of glass – just a major sense of embarrassment on my part, and a goose egg of a bump on my forehead.

Subsequently, I no longer drink vast quantities of vodka in one afternoon, or do I keep the glass so sparkly clean.

And should I fail in either of those endeavors, I have a butterfly to remind me to open the damn door first.

I am now looking for something similar to place on the screen door, as in my haste to view a bird upon occasion, I have walked pell-mell into it, knocking it out of its frame.

The screen is always quickly righted while curses fly. And speaking of flying, that’s just what happens to the birds that get away.

Madame butterfly snickers each time.

But as she’s only a decal she’s stuck with me.

And so is my daughter.