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Our daughter-in-law's sister has just had a little baby boy, so happy for her and the little "baby" cupcakes that we were given, today!!
Flickr Lounge - Weekly Theme (Week 15) ~ Happy ....
Thanks to everyone who views this photo, adds a note, leaves a comment and of course BIG thanks to anyone who chooses to favourite my photo .... thanks to you all.
© All Rights Reserved - No Usage Allowed in Any Form Without the Written Consent of Connie Lemperle/ lemperleconnie or the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens
Link to Cincinnati Zoo's Web Site ..............
"Link to the Cincinnati Zoo's Flickr photostream".
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African Lion ... male named John
Panthera leo
Unlike other cats, lions live in social groups called prides that consist of a handful of females and their young and a coalition of two to three males. Males protect the pride and their territory by roaring and scent-marking as they patrol the area.
As the dominant predator on the African savannah, lions can take the largest prey of any other carnivore in the region. Working cooperatively as a team, the lions stalk and surround their prey, getting as close as they can before launching an attack. They are successful in only one of every four hunts.
Fact File
Where to see them: Africa Exhibit
Height: Male - Up to 4 ft, Female - Up to 3.6 ft
Weight: Male - 330 to 530 lbs, Female - 270 to 400 lbs
Lifespan: Up to 18 yrs in the wild
Habitat: Savannah, arid woodland, and scrubland
Diet: Primarily hoofed mammals such as gazelles and zebras; some small mammals, birds, and reptiles
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African Lion named John . He is 3 yrs old.
Have a pleasant night & a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Have a great week everyone, hope you enjoy these lovely pictures!
1. The Black Spot Again, 2. Treasure Trove Wall, 3. _MG_8978, 4. Hayakawa Momoko, 5. Stefka Burczymucha i jej Mucha ^^, 6. shoes2, 7. Kukuclara : Amber&Garnet, 8. sampler, 9. Escape~, 10. Happy Children's Day, 11. ♥ Anastasia e Anita, 12. novrav-114, 13. You know I said it's true.., 14. Sewing tiny bear butts into pants., 15. momoko's shoes, 16. Random pictures, 17. Alice C3 - Chapter 3 Cheshire Cat, Alice in Underland, 18. Work Room, 19. Untitled, 20. Waiting for the next train to come., 21. Perfect 10, 22. Curly Blue Babe, 23. Untitled, 24. FRED CALLERI --Tree of life--, 25. What've you got there, Toby?, 26. jaha, 27. Untitled, 28. NEW DRESS, 29. distress, 30. Untitled, 31. "Then comes Winter, with bluster and snow, that brings to our cheeks the ruddy glow..." - Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, 'The Four Seasons', 32. #liccalove, 33. Stitched Stories - Spuren, 34. Untitled, 35. Some #midcentury goodness just in including the latest #atomic ranch mag, New York at Mid-Century and Lisa Larson books plus a range of amazing #georgenelson clicks and #alexandergirard wooden dolls. In Melbs now and Sydney and Perth shortly, 36. Scan 13
Created with fd's Flickr Toys
The designs on these four hongpao packets combine to form the "Happy New Year", 新年快樂, greeting. Hongpao (literally ‘red packets’) are red colour envelops used to present money gifts.
February 2018
it's a birthday of my dear frind shaikha
God bless U sis ,as you can see I cannot give you any Gift this year , but I will pray for you to get your MASTER :D
wish you a beautiful life . :******
Happy New Year to all my friends at Flickr, may you all have a wonderful 2009! don't let the swans fool you, there is also a spectacular countdown
2011 update if anyone is in new york jan11 my documentary will be screening
New York’s Leading Screening Series
Now Celebrating Its Twelfth YearNew Tel: 323-302-5426
Tuesday, January 11th
On Tuesday 11th, NewFilmmakers NY presents a Documentary Series about the Envronment and a Short Film Program. Our Feature is Michael M. Bilandic HAPPY LIFE as part of “Abel Ferrara In The 21st Century” Program at Anthology Film Archives (January 7th thru January 18th).
The Evening begins with a 6:00 PM Documentary Series
about The Environment. Emre Ozdemir URVA (2010, 13 minutes) is a short documentary, which takes place in a remote village called Urva in Kastamonu, Turkey. The film documents a soon to be lost culture that has no room in the reality of modern Turkey and the world at large. In Karin Mak RED DUST (2010, 21 minutes), poisoned by the carcinogen cadmium in the battery factories where they worked, Ren and her comrades engage in a desperate struggle for justice. RED DUST captures rural and urban poverty and the risks involved in speaking up in China. John Dunstan THE SECRET LIFE OF… MY SMALL URBAN BACKYARD (2010, 20 minutes) is a remarkable nature film, made in a small urban backyard, with high magnification, and is an overview of insect and arachnid life as it takes place largely unobserved.
My nephew Cohen. A very happy kid, always has his chin up and a smile on. These metal stairs are located at the Louise Falls, Enterprise, NT, just a half hours drive from my hometown of Hay River. My family came up for a few days visit, and we almost always try to visit the falls when we're in the area; a beautiful way to spend any day.
Looking back I realize I haven’t taken many photos in the last month or two.
I have been busy with my photos, finding a reputable printer with amazing results, organizing my best and favorite photos, getting a lot of them printed, and finding various storage and display methods I like.
I feel fully recovered from my month of hell at work and am back to working out daily.
My shoulders are starting to hurt less from my falls/injuries in March. Still too uncomfortable for any motorcycling other than to work and back but getting better.
I’m one day away from two and a half weeks off from work.
I should be ecstatic.
Mama’s bloody discharge looks to be from a bladder infection, which has been cleared up, and not from something more serious. So far.
Jimmy’s ulcerated cornea seems to have healed with medication and doesn’t need surgery.
After two years of working with his new knee, Jimmy was getting along quite well, he had no problems going up and down steps, going for walks, playing and had become pretty independent again.
Unfortunately last Sunday while playing with Lola he tore his other knee. While he was using his already repaired knee a lot, he still had trouble sitting or bending it and was pretty shaky on it. Now he doesn't have a leg to stand on.We’ll meet with the specialist tomorrow to decide which repair method if any at all would be in his best interest. He’s over 8 years old and isn’t the strongest of the pack with his Brucellosis and daily seizures which are very well controlled with his meds.
I guess it’s good I’ll have the time and energy to continue carrying him up and down the six steps into the yard for a while. He isn't able to use the dog door now either.
I”ll be on a shorter leash than I’d like for my vacation which might translate into more time shooting pics. I usually get some of my best photos this time of year so here’s my happy face :)
English:
Happy birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Princesse Kendall, Happy Birthday to you! <3 I hope you have a fantastic birthday because you are the princess of the castle here and I wish all the best for you my dear sweetie <3 ILY Kendall!
Kendall's birthday is 12/19 but I wanted to wish her a happy birthday early because Ik I'll be busy by then, so happy birthday again Kendall! <3
French:
Joyeux anniversaire, joyeux anniversaire à vous, joyeux anniversaire Chère Princesse Kendall, joyeux anniversaire à vous! <3 Je vous souhaite une fête fantastique parce que vous êtes la princesse du château ici et je souhaite à tous le meilleur pour vous mon chéri cher <3 ILY Kendall!
Anniversaire de Kendall est 12/19, mais je voulais lui souhaiter un joyeux anniversaire au début parce que je Ik serez occupé d'ici là, si heureux anniversaire à nouveau Kendall! <3
Nefel and Patty wanted to surprise their sister who just came back, so they prepared her a party and offered her a lot of chocolates and cakes and candies! Florise was very happy that they were all reunited after such a long time ^^
My three sisters want to wish you a happy Easter! They hope you received as many chocolates as them! <3
Happy New Year, especially to all my flickr contacts. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2012.
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Digital picture:-
Taken with Nikon D50 and lensbaby composer
Good morning, everyone! Happy Christmas (Eve day)! Hope you all have a wonderful day today and tomorrow. In Calgary, the temperature is -5C, with a windchilll of -11C, supposedly getting up to 0C (windchill -5C) this afternoon, so we are lucky. What would Christmas be without a snowman? This one was made from a hollowed-out gourd and I just couldn't resist it when I saw it at my local garden centre : ) Stands about 10" high.
For many people, Christmas is a very difficult time, for various reasons. My thoughts are with them and, as always, with those who for one reason or another will spend Christmas alone. To those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, I hope today and tomorrow will be happy ones for you. If you will be on the road, please don't drink and drive!
Today, I am lucky enough to be going looking for owls again, with friends Cathy and Terry. I've never, ever been out this many times so close together, looking for these magnificent birds - three times this week : )
Wishing you all a HAPPY CHRISTMAS and all the very best in the New Year!
It was Bob's 4th Birthday last Friday, a belated happy birthday from Mike and Indy and all the Dogs Of Llanfairfechan. Indy is much better, his appetite has fully returned and he seems to have recovered from the worst of the stroke. He returned to the beachfront last Thursday and what was to be a 20 minute walk turned into a two hour session with meeting all his pals that he hadn't seen for weeks. Just the stairs to be negotiated safely now, I can get him up with a helping hand but whether he can get down safely is my major concern.
The Firehydrant..chapter one..Busted..an excerpt from a story set in 1973/74
After that first court appearance in the Windsor courthouse I was sitting in the back of the paddy wagon being transported along with a few other criminals to the county bucket a five minute or so ride from the courthouse. I was still pretty high, if you look at it from a different perspective, I’d been high for about four or five years. Once, years earlier at the Don Gaol in Toronto, I was serving a four day weekend when these two cool hip looking Yankee dudes asked me what the prices were on the streets for weed and hash, shit like that. They had all the hippie trappings, long hair, hawk like features from looking over their shoulders too often. Briefly I thought maybe they were cops, plants, but they were Americans and had just left the O.R. in Guelph where they knew my buddy Coop de Grasser who was the head of the inmate committee at that time. I knew the difference in body language and voices from that of common pigs, they gave me that term, “we’ve been high for seven years, then we got busted” they had a Cheech and Chong quality about them especially in the eyes, they were crazies too, coming from California I could grasp their earlier introduction to the Herb.
Sitting in that wagon, (nic nac paddy whack, paddy wagon gonna take ya back, lock ya up and thro away the keys) handcuffed to some murderer or child molester, it just didn’t feel right, or seem right. I was not in the same criminal category as “those” criminals. They were bad, I just sold recreational drugs, which made people happy. I looked out the unmarked vans wired windows at some familiar sights. There was the Ambassador Bridge the Hippies at school had marched on the year before protesting for an end to the war in Vietnam while the Simon and Garfunkel song A Bridge Over Troubled Water played over loudspeakers. It was the same bridge Pete Kalci and self used to score the Hookers, buy the case of Ripple Wine, cross over to attend the Ravi Shankar and Traffic concerts. The very same bridge that took you to Ann Arbour and all the hip people living near those Michigan campuses. I was feeling greasy, very dirty, sweat was stinking up my armpits, my new blue leisure jacket was all wrinkled from being used as a pillow in the police station cell the night before where I once again carved the initials CTuna into the institutional paint.
Prison is a very sobering experience. That morning in the courtroom a man in his thirties, a violent robber, he threatened the people he robbed, gave them a smack with a gun to get their attention, you’d think this guy was rock solid, wouldn’t crack, no matter what. He started to ball when they gave him eight years in Federal Penitentiary, His lawyer had pleaded for leniency as he had a wife and a new baby on the way. You could tell the judge wasn’t swayed by this plea bargaining, he had to protect society from this monster repeat offender. Downstairs in the dungeon like remand cells I stayed away from him he was so emotionally distraught he might of lashed out at me.
You don’t get to pick your company in jail. At the county prison where I would be held for six weeks waiting for my trial and sentencing I was put through the usual routines, fingerprinted, again as I had already been fingerprinted at the police station the night before when I was arrested. At the county jail your clothes are taken from you and put in a bag with your name on them. The intake officer instructs you to have a shower in this big stall that was doorless. Afterwards you are instructed to stand there while a another officer sprays you for lice with a pressure mister that resembles a brass plant and weed sprayer similar to one you would use in your garden to kill bugs. All loose things like lighters, smokes, pills, cough candies, change, had been put into a manila envelope with your name on it at the police station downtown. This included my teacher/friends Don and Carol’s car keys to their car which I had parked on one of the upper floors at the Toronto Airport before taking the flight to Windsor. The paddy wagon driver another pink faced anglo saxon refugee handed that manila envelope over to the guard on duty when we arrived through the heavy steel gates and through a small brick lined tunnel into the courtyard of the very old county jail, the steel gates clanked shut automatically.
The desk guard had each of us answer some rudimentary questions, sex, race, age, education, religion, he looked startled and upset when he heard I was Taoist (pronounced Daoist). This was my spiritual flavour of the month, a Chinese faith based on the worship of Nature.
My bed for the next six weeks was located on the second tier of the three tiered old thick stone building built I would think in the last century. On this tier there were three other wards each ward holding a dozen cages/cells/cribs, each cell comprised of a steel bed a dull once stainless steel washbasin and a similar steel toilet without a seat, a piece of four inch square stainless steel was mounted above the sink, the mirror. The tier was designed to allow a single guard to patrol all four wards on the floor from the command centre located in the centre of the unit. There were always two guards on each floor one in the booth, the other always roaming. A roll of toilet paper had been issued to me as well as a cheap toothbrush and some tooth powder a threadbare facecloth and a towel big enough to dry your face and hands. A twenty five watt bulb glowed in the ceiling above, it would be on from six in the morning, till lights out at ten.
Home Sweet Home. My roommates were of various criminal backgrounds, there was a tall skinny biker with greasy yellow hair like the kind a worker at a wrecking yard might have, he was in for rape, his partner slept in the next set of cells, a portly unshaven fellow possibly related to a black bear or Kentucky mountain person, he was also in for rape, the two of them belonged to the Loners M.C, the local biker club. Next to me in the adjoining cell was a guy named Bill Hoskins who was quiet, had a scared look on his face, hadn’t shaved in a while, slightly receding, looked a bit like Garth Hudson of the Band, he was in on a smuggling marijuana charge and was not pleased with his circumstances. Little Mikey was the ward comic, shit disturber, go between, who was the one who bridged social classes and intermingled with all types, a chatterbox. There were a few quiet chaps and there was a young likeable guy all tattooed with crudely tattooed LOVE and HATE on his knuckles who it seemed had spent most of his young life in jail. He was just hoping to get sent to a prison in the area The Burtch Institution, he spoke of Burtch the way we would usually talk about home. Besides this motley crew there was one guy who everyone liked, I don’t recall his name, it might have been Jim he was coming down from using junk, he was dark haired and sort of reminded me of the Veteres from my youth, my neighbourhood Mt.Dennis, this Jim, he was street wise, quick to talk, he’d been around for his young twenty something age.
In very quick fashion a new person is sized up by the powers on the ward of any prison in any country, and it isn’t very long before the new prisoners place in the prison pack is established. For some reason my popularity irritated the power and after a few days I was asked to give the bad guys smokes while we were out in the small yard strolling around getting fresh air, I gave this some thought and passed out a few TMs as tailor made cigarettes were called but not without some resistance, the bikers weren’t very pleased to have a smart ass comparatively wealthy guy like myself around who might wrestle the minds of the weaker members of the pack from them.
As usual I became quite popular, my ability to tell stories and write stories about the fabled life in Toronto, the apartment building full of drugs (Rochdale) had every ones eyes bulging out. By this time two black brothers from Detroit were in the same ward with a minor infraction, they passed themselves off as bona fide black 'gangstas', I bought their story, they needed a connection to some crystal meth in TO and I turned them on to a pair of bikers who were living in the west end and whom I thought might appreciate the referral. As it was I had a list of phone numbers hidden in my shoes under the lining which along with some of my street clothes I was allowed to wear after they had been fumigated and cleaned since I was on remand and not yet officially a ward of the government. The black guys got bail fast, I never saw them again. Later in life the guys I referred them to paid me a visit as I worked the day shift at the Queensbury Arms, they weren’t pleased with my introduction. It could have been curtains for me, had I not been able to think on my feet. They thought the black guys may have been cops..
There was a crooked screw (guard) on the floor who for a price would smuggle in drugs and other contraband for those who had money and cravings. His name was Sidney and he was very tight with the diverse criminal element. In every prison man ever created there have been bent guards. Up to this time in life I had only known the soft side of Windsor, the niceties of the University scene, this was a much different perspective as the other folk I was now incarcerated with thought this situation as one of their schools of higher learning, a step in the ladder of criminality.
To help make time pass we played cards at the larger than picnic table sized metal tables that were bolted to the floor along with metal benches that were also bolted I suppose so no one would use them to hit each other with. A box shaped colour TV set sat in one corner of the ward. It was hung on one of those hospital style adjustable mounts and it was only put on at certain times, in the evenings from 7 to 10 or a bit later if something that was important was being shown. On weekends that TV might be on all day, starting with cartoons in the morning, which I recall quite a few of the people enjoying, then sports, and then hockey at night. There wasn’t much to do on weekends everybody’s routines ground to a halt.
The news story of the day was Richard Nixon’s impeachment from office. The previous year it seemed as if I had lost touch with events in the world. On reflection it may have been a lack of interest in the news that television and other media fed you. Lacking very many options at this time I began to join the herd and watched and laughed at All in The Family. The dreaded hockey games were on Saturday nights. Hockey is a Canadian staple and there were fierce conversations about various teams. Being so close to Detroit made for a lively rivalry, there weren’t as many teams in the league, it was an easier sport to appreciate.
Besides these time fillers I wrote pages and pages of short stories, some lyrical, like poems or songs. One in particular was a rhyming story about a “Gypsy Caravan” that parked under the full moon and where my lost love wept for me as I’d been sent to war. There were numerous verses and choruses, it was in my eyes a grand work. Several of the inmates would gather around the table as I would recite these stories, I recall Jim the Junkie giving the story his blessing and that was quite important for me as his sense of beauty and appreciation was different than the others. The other prisoners on remand held him in awe for some reason, he was like a Robin Hood type, a criminal All Star born and raised in Windsor. He got out on bail and a short while later word filtered back that he had died of an overdose of heroin and I always felt good that I had painted this nice scene for him of gypsies and love along a riverbank in golden days, like a Van Morrison lyric and his praise still ranks with the praise of others given me over the years.
Perhaps that is where my new nickname came from, that story about the gypsies. Around then someone tagged me with the title ‘Gypsy’ and it stuck right through my prison life. It took a while at first to get used to the new title, after all, nicknames were nothing new to me, as a kid I had been called Brooks by Bud Walford after Brooks Robinson the ballplayer with the Baltimore Orioles, Barb Sue Kevin and Shane often called me Weaver “Hey Weave” when we were younger playing cards on Victoria Blvd, then early on I used to carve my initials into the poured concrete sidewalks all over our area called Mount Dinky. C Tuna I would carve, using a stick or a piece of rock. Around this time there was a cartoon character called Charlie Tuna who was seen in tv advertisements for the Starkist Tuna company, there was a jingle with the ads and the ads were based on the premise that only the finest Tunas were good enough for Starkist customers and old Charlie a suave, Jackie Gleason type of Tuna with slicked back hair was always thrown back in to the sea. C Tuna was scraped also in the odd prison cell of Toronto’s #12, #31 and #52 Divisions as well as the gritty Don Gaol and now Windsor. One time, in Toronto I woke up from a drunken stupor and a police man at the #52 Divison asked me, “are you Charles Gregory aka C Tuna?” I replied I was, and was curtly charged with being drunk in a public place. I went back to sleep and was released in the morning, I couldn’t have been much more than sixteen.
My long relationship with the drink started around fifteen or so. While hanging out at Nick’s Pool Hall on Weston Road near Eglinton I met guys who were a bit older and liked to drink, especially on the weekends. An older guy named Bud a good pool player would go to the beer store and buy us a box of beer, I had developed a taste for it. Today, when I reflect on this behavior I have difficulty in recalling why I drank so much to the point often of blacking out as the consumption of beer became mixed with that of hard alcohol, whiskey, scotch etcetera. A common Saturday night would find me drinking a dozen beers with a mickey of Johnny Walker red as a chaser. At one time, I had been arrested six weekends in a row for drinking under age, drinking in a public place, drunk and disorderly…My mom was fed up bailing me out on Sunday mornings at the local police holding cells, located in the police stations, 31 division and 12 division. The fine for such behavior was usually $25 or $35 dollars or three days in jail. Not once do I recall anyone saying, this boy needs counseling. I may have been such a ‘tough nut’ that they felt it would have been a waste of time.
My friend George Holmes loved shouting out “here comes Tuna Fish” up at the corner of Keele and Eglinton during my greaseball period. This period took place between frat days and hippy days. Around town in my greaseball days that name C Tuna was recognizable up in the Junction, over on St Clair at Blackthorn and as well at Lansdowne and St Clair, also farther west towards Jane and Wilson and in Weston proper. I suppose the greasers up at Dufferin and Eglinton like Kenny Tanaka and Danny MacDonald had also known my AKA. It wasn’t that I was a prize fighter or anything a moniker was more a Title like that of a knight or a duke, sort of a right of passing, like a coming of age. Lots of guys had nick names just like the TV gangsters of the day, or the good guy bad guys in cowboy films. Names that quickly come to mind are, Hook, Coop de Grassser, Gooch, Scarecrow, Mars, Jake the Snake, Crazy Ivan, Fat Jack Hamilton, Mod, Vern the Tern, Dump, Butler, The Kid, Toot, Count, one guy, my friend Dave Wellwood had several nick names, The Goat, News, The General, Pee Wee and on and on.
Chassly Gangbusters was a favourite of the Hook and Coop years, Herbie used to like calling me Storch it was his invention he’d say it ‘Storch’ then back off a few steps in case I’d give him a smack, I always gave him a nasty sneer when he called me that. Charlie, Chuck, Chas, but almost never Charles. My name comes from a friend of my dads, Charles Bishop who died in the second war. Lately Schmiddy has been calling me the Kaliph of Keene which I really like. In the tradition of moms father Leon Yamel, actually Noel Lemay I’ve often tagged myself as Selrahc Yrogerg, this dates back to my saying words backwards while I waited to get on the field at the Smythe Park baseball league.
After a few days in the ward I could almost feel the drugs leaving my system and after two or three weeks I’d never been so clean, voluntarily. Even when I had the Hepatitis at Rochdale earlier that winter I was toking the finest hash and bud available. I must admit there was a new clarity to my mental comprehension, I could not adjust myself with other substances, alcohol included.
The food was awful, repetitive, I smoked like a chimney, there was a few hundred dollars in my pocket when I was picked up, I don’t recall the figure exactly. These funds in prison buy a lot of tobacco! To keep the peace I gave out as many smokes as required to avoid the bad guys wanting to shank me. We played cards night and day to pass the time, if anything I can remember that in particular, the time passing real slowly. That’s what more seasoned guys were saying that once you got where you were going, once you were sentenced you would find that your days took on structure and time was easier to do. This kind of time, waiting to be sentenced is called Dead Time and rightly so.
Michael Snyder the lawyer supplied free via the government legal aid program was a little lame in court during my first appearance. I took him aside and chewed him out. I wrote a letter to the court system, maybe the judge or the Attorney Generals Office, I’m not sure. The crooked screw Sidney read the letter and informed the lawyer of my dissatisfaction this got his attention and he did a fine job afterwards. I wonder if that letter ever made it out of that place.
Bill Hoskins as it turns out was in for a serious smuggling rap that he was not telling any of us about. He was on a sailing boat that had come up from the Bahamas area loaded with marijuana. The pot was hidden in false walls built into the customized ship, tons and tons of gange. As advisory counsel for my defense he nixed my hand written ten page dialogue about my historical accounting of the events leading up to my arrest, from the dysfunctional family situation with big Al at home which I used as my starting point in the dialogue, nixed the U.I.C. appeals process where I was cut off pogey for quitting my position without proper reason, nixed it all. He said to get a bunch of people to write letters who could speak for your good side, which in point of fact wasn’t so long ago, just the previous year I was bringing the teachers apples and cleaning the chalk off of the blackboards.
Turns out Sidney the crooked guard did me a favour by reading the mail that I had addressed to the law society and others regarding my lawyers lameness. When the lawyer caught wind of this he rushed in to appease me. Three weeks in the bucket passed and I was anxious to get on with things, when asked how I wished to plead it was a no brainer, I pled guilty. In court the judge found me guilty of all the charges, trafficking in narcotics, marijuana, hashish, peyote, acid, there was no blow left and I guess they didn’t bother to analyze the salt like crystal meth, there wasn’t much of it. I sat in the dock, again resolved, resolved not to break down and cry when sentenced like that other guy had done. I had to wait three more weeks for sentencing as the judge had asked for a pre-sentence report, which is like a record of your life, the details of your life, your failures and your successes if any. I recall finding this worrisome, although in my mind, having recently attended university under trying (at home) circumstances as a mature student, I felt I was on the right track, just jumped off the track momentarily.
That morning back in the court holding cells this big young Coloured man, I repeat, this was a big, strong athletic mean and angry twenty year old who wore those thick soled, tan coloured boots that motorcycle riders wore in the day, Fry Boots was their name. A diddler, a full grown twenty something farm kid from the sticks had just been returned to the holding cells in the basement of the court house, he walked with his head down, ashamed and afraid at the same time. As if in a movie the cell area was dimly lit an invitation for terror.
The farm kid went into a cell at the back of the block, none of the cell doors were locked. In court it came out that a couple of young girls had been molested the day before, quite young, under ten or so. You know how they say the jail system has its own way of getting folk, well this kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That big negro boy took his hatred out on that boy, he went into that cell and put the boots to the farm kids face, his gut, his balls, his legs, you name it, he got hit real hard. Nobody, no prisoner, no guard interfered I just watched stunned, I didn’t try to break it up, I just watched in my own kind of terror, that’s the way it can be in prison for diddlers they get no mercy, they are garbage. The guards very slowly came and broke it up, put the diddler in a solitary area, by this time his assailant had left the cell, he just brushed pass us all, me the other prisoners, the guards and took a seat in a cell holding his head in his hands, the screws never even bothered to ask what had happened, then we all went to the jailhouse in the paddy wagon, the diddler got separate transportation. Funny, I never saw that black guy again, he may have gone up to court and been given bail.
At the county bucket they put the diddler in a cell on my ward. That night we got him there as well but in a different way. Myself and others made a mixture of shit and piss, cold tea, spit and saliva, toilet water any vile substance we could find and poured it all over him as he lay in a back corner of the ward, not saying a word, afraid for his life, afraid to say anything, I mean we really humiliated him, I was a big part of this humiliation, this hazing, it was worse than a military blackballing. I’d been involved as a recipient in a mild fraternity hazing, I suppose that is where I got the idea. Over the years I’ve had a lot of remorse about this event but I still hold that this punishment, this prison tar and feathering was better than him losing his life, his balls or an eye or an ear.
They moved the big scared blonde haired blue eyed farm boy diddler from the ward that night put him into solitary confinement. In the visiting room the next day Frankie Herbert’s dad Frank Sr. came to visit, my first visit in nearly a month. Mr. Herbert worked as a travelling salesman for a big novelty company, he toured Ontario selling kitschy stuff like bingo markers, and roulette wheels and all sorts of things fundraising organizations use in their work and that large corporate stores stocked. At the same time Frank Sr. was visiting the diddler was visiting his dad, telling his dad through his pulverized face that I was one of his enemies, one of the perpetrators of his black eyes and bruises. That diddler, he don’t know how close he come to dying in that cell downtown. Frank Sr. he just looked at this farm kid with the shiners, looked at me, Frank Sr. he knew what the score was, he just shook his head, my father figure, surrogate dad visiting his son in gaol. Years earlier, Mr. Herbert had put up bail for me when the RCMP had placed a bag of pot in our groups car (actually a stretch Cadillac limo) as we tried to enter the Rockwood Festival. We had heard via the radio that everyone was getting busted that heading to the concert so we had stopped and stashed our goods in the woods, a ways from the entrance. The other five people were given bail but I was refused because of a previous minor offence. The charges were all thrown out in court later. I told the RCMP, this guy last name of Ryan, that if I saw him on the streets, I would kick the shit of him!
A couple of university school chums paid a visit one day after I had been sentenced, Tim, a bright musician type from the university showed up with my old baked and breaded sardine dinner girlfriend, Mary Lewis. That was kind of them to show up at that depressing place, it was the last time I ever saw or heard from them except when I contacted Mary Lewis and she sent me a year book from the university. A book I looked at maybe twice then mysteriously wrapped in several windings of masking tape for thirty years and hid in a milk crate with several old photo albums on top, securing its hiding place, was that my soul in that book? Who was that guy?
Bill the Smuggler had a birthday card sent in from someone on the outside, in the card, on the nose of the clown they had poured some liquid LSD and Bill did some, offered me a taste, I declined, felt the surroundings not conducive to a good trip. Bill laid some on the bikers to secure their loyalty. Now here you have these three or four biker types running around all looney, higher than kites, grooving to the little AM radio playing in the corner, digging the tunes, staring at hallucinations only they could see. In a way it was like the lawyer in Easy Rider getting turned on, except these were bad guys, getting all soft and mushy, I stayed in my crib that night until the party settled down. I think I was scared the bikers might be able (through the power of acid) be able to see my true feelings for them. Like many a night I read to sleep. Dostoyevsky offered imaginable experiences to escape to.
Next day in the yard the bikers were hovering together, conspiring, they were good at that, at joining forces, intimidation by numbers. At some point this middle aged black inmate took an epileptic fit, started shaking all over, fell to the ground, I thought he had been shot, the guards blew their stupid whistles they thought someone had beaten the guy up. We all had to stand at attention while the screws came and took the fellow away on a stretcher. It was a cool forty five degree F morning, the sun was shining. The heavy grey cloth winter coats we’d been issued had to be turned in when we went back inside, it felt so good being out in the yard, the fresh air, the bit of Spring green showing on the small lawn. Another inmate pointed out where they used to do the hangings, there remained a shuttered doorway a few levels up I was also shown where they used to bury the bodies they had hung, this was becoming a real adult experience.
Lily-flowered tulips are named for the shape of their blooms, which resemble old species tulips from Turkey. Their long, pointed petals arch outward and, when fully open, look like a six-point star. They come in a wide array of colors including purple, pink, white, orange, red, yellow, peach, and combinations of these shades. Most varieties bloom late in the spring season.
Stems of lily-flowered tulips grow 1-2 feet tall. They are not as sturdy as some other tulip types, so plant them in a location protected from strong winds.
Hey.. Today is Vic's Birthday!
He likes to party
while listening to Iron Maiden and Ministry! He has let me trash his basement more than once...for that..I really like him.
he is some insignificant age this year...but go wish him a happy birthday anyway!
That's all for this week my friend. I hope you like my white satin cami set and the happy smile it brings to my face. Bye-bye, be well and see you again soon.
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY to all of my Flickr friends. I hope we all have a safe & enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. Take a lot of pictures!!!
Former Hastings trolleybus (DY4965) now fitted with a diesel engine. Seen in Rock-a-Nor Road, Hastings.
Happy New Year to all my flickr friends and all your dolls! <3 You make this a wonderful place to be.
I hope 2013 is a good year for you all :)
~
Pullip Galene
Dress from megawishes on ebay
Happy.
I've been testing out Canon's 50mm 1.4. I was thinking about getting the 1.2 version but it hardly seems worth it giving the already very decent image quality of the 1.4 and the significant price gap between the two.
© 2010 Jens Schott Knudsen | blog.pamhule.com | Twitter: @jensschott