DAY 16: Slitherin'

I had been waiting for a moment like this. I had thought I might get a picture of a robin on the rock. We also have a mallard in the area that likes to perch on garage peaks. A few times I thought my dog would go close enough to Stumpstone that I could capture an image or two of him near it.

Today I was lucky enough to find a worm slithering across it. I was surprised by the speed of the worm crossing over the back of the rock. The moment reminded of the Nietzsche quote about rocks in the road and how we either let them stop us or use them as stepping stones to something greater. I think the worm just wanted to get over the hump. 

STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Coins, gold ornaments, stone implements, etc, if dropped on the surface of the ground, will infallibly be buried by the castings of worms in a few years...--Charles Darwin

DAY 16: Slitherin'

DAY 15: Fossilized

 Shortly after I moved into the Stumpstone house, I took my son over to the nearby city park. The area is heavy in mastodon bones. When they were widening a major road near us, an almost complete skeleton was found. The bones now reside in a local museum. 

A river passes through the park. Fly fishermen like to cast in it. They catch and release and their efforts to preserve the area have actually strengthened the ecosystem. A boy not much old than my son at the time found a mastodon jawbone along the river bank. I lured my son to the park under the auspices of us finding our own piece of history.

We took our shoes off to wade through the shallow water. Almost instantly he found a perfect brachiopod. Crescent-shaped. Ridged. No bigger than a penny. I attributed his keen eye for spotting it because he was closer to the ground than I was. Also, he didn't have to be keeping watch on a six-year-old child. Regardless, it was a beautiful find. 

He asked if he could take it to school with him. I said yes, but he had to keep it safe. A couple of weeks later I asked him where the fossil was. He told me it was at school in the teacher's desk. I asked why it was there and he said it was the safest place he could think to keep it.

I think it's still there.

DAY 15: Fossilized

STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY: 

If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song. --Carl Perkins

DAY 14: Ah, Wilderness (State Park)

 A few years before my parents bought the property in northern Michigan, we went camping with the people who lived behind us. My Uncle Tiffin and his family joined us. The story stone in the pewter ice bucket that reminds us of this trip is a simple, flat stone. There's a very thin line of chain coral on it. Chain coral is a type of fossil. It looks like a segmented tapeworm is wrapping itself around the stone. If you break open a chain coral, the fossil is not inside it. They formed about 450 million years ago.

The story goes that we were finding a lot chain coral along the shores of Wilderness State Park. All the families were partaking in the hunt for semi-precious stones. My mom had her eye out for something called the Isle Royal Gemstone, a green gem she felt we were sure to find since were at the tip of the lower peninsula and the upper peninsula was only five miles away across the Straits of Mackinaw.

My Aunt Pat was growing bored of picking up green rocks and asking my mom if that was what she wanted. After a while Aunt Pat stopped and began tossing rocks she knew weren't what my mother wanted back into the lake. At one point she tossed a stone over her shoulder announcing it was 'just another damn piece of chain coral.'

The stone hit her daughter in the forehead. My cousin survived but had a knot on her forehead the rest of the weekend.

DAY 14: Ah, Wilderness!

STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY:

The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

James Fenton

DAY 13: Liverworts

Stumpstone appears to be suffering from a bad case of liverworts. A type of fungus known to grow on rocks and stonework. According to the all-knowing Googleplexity, this is a good thing. It shows the maturity of the garden. I can't say Stumpstone actually exists in a garden. It is in a spot on the lawn near a thick sugar maple tree. I suppose in the grand scheme, the Earth is one big garden and we're the liverworts growing on its back. 

Right now I am more interested in the fact that Grammarly is not underling Googleplexity in red. I thought I was muggling up a new word. Now I see that like Googleplexity, muggling is also not being flagged. 

Neologism: spreading like lichens and liverworts throughout our vernacular. 

Go figure.

Day 13: Liverworts

STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY

He who steps on stones is glad to feel the smallest spray of moss beneath his feet. -- Anna Katharine Green

DAY 12: The Rock

 

Day 12: No Escape

I was in San Francisco in 1992. That was fifty years after my mom took a train from Norfolk, Virginia where my dad did his naval training to the Golden Gate City where my father would be temporarily stationed before shipping out to war. I'm sure a lot had changed, but some constants remained. 

Trolleys. Lombard Street. The Beuna Vista Cafe. The big red bridge.

And, of course, Alcatraz. The Rock. The backdrop for classic movies like The Enforcer (Dirty Harry), The Birdman of Alcatraz, and The Rock with Connery and Cage.

I viewed the landmark from Pier 39 while eating crab cake sandwiches and drinking a can of beer wrapped in a paper bag. I was there with a dozen other people but no one wanted to go over t other island. Instead, we watched sea lions swim and bark and sun themselves. I was fairly certain it would be like visiting any other historic site. A guide or a plaque would indicate 'Here's where....happened.' Still, sometimes you just want to stand where the notorious stood.

San Francisco was memorable for many reasons. I made a dinner reservation at a swanky seafood restaurant for fourteen. When we all sat down, everyone looked at the one empty chair. The waiter asked if we were waiting for someone. I said we were all there. One of the guys in the group asked why I made a reservation for fourteen. I told him no restaurant of any worth would ever take a reservation for thirteen. The waiter called me wise and told the party of the fire at the Coconut Grove.

Frisco was also the trip where I bought neckties from a guy on the street. Three for five bucks. A block later a merchant was yelling at a truck driver, 'What do you mean you lost a box of neckties? They were sitting right there...'

We ran into the man who screamed, 'With NAFTA you get the shaft-a!'

There was the super model in the limo who looked at me and said 'Hi. What's good to eat here?' and all could say was, 'Gravy.' I think I meant to say 'groovy' which still wouldn't make sense but it was more apropos than gravy.

Finally, it was in San Francisco where my buddy and I met Chuck Gideon. In a thick beer fog, I misunderstood what my friend was saying. I finally said, 'Wait wait wait. Who is Chuck Gideon and why did you push him out of the window?'

A San Francisco legend was born that night.

STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY:

'Is the NAFTA a stepping stone to the new world order? Absolutely.'--Used because of the paranoid man on the streets of San Francisco.

DAY 11: Rock Hunting in Daytona

 After years of trekking the shores of  Michigan's Great Lakes, my parents set their sights on a new coastline. 

Florida.

The rock-hunting era was coming to a close. My father discovered he didn't really enjoy the jewelry-making hobby. The rock tumbler was breaking down more than it was running. My mom was becoming more frail. She had undergone a triple by-pass when I was in seventh grade. We found out many years later two of the three failed. She didn't have as much energy she once had. On top of all of this, she continued to smoke until one she didn't have the breath to ignite the cigarette.

Before that day came, the Florida Years arrived. We stayed. in Flagler at a place called Bev's on the Beach. The sunrises were spectacular.  Our first trip down my nephew and I got what the locals called a Yankee Tan aka sunburn.

In the evening, we'd walk the beach looking for seashells. There were some interesting ones. We put some in the plastic bag bearing our name and my dad put the bag in the car. Shell collecting just wasn't the same as rock collecting. Shells were fragile. You couldn't really do anything with them. On top of it all, the shells stank as we found out the next afternoon when we got in the car to find a place to eat because even with the AC going full blast-a in the Shasta it was too hot to cook.

We left the shells in the bag on the picnic table the next night. They still stunk.

STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY:

 "Yes, if the stones that we walked upon could talk, they would surely tell our story." --Nico J. Genes, Magnetic Reverie 

DAY 10: Ya Gotta Have Art

 For as long as I can remember, the city where I live has hosted an annual art fair. Not an arts and crafts show but an actual fair. I grew up not far from where I now live. The art fair was always a nice way to spend a Saturday in September. There were food tents, live entertainment, and plenty of art to look at or buy, depending on how much cash was in my pocket.

Over the years we've watched it grow. We've established bonds with some of the artists from whom we've made purchases. The one thing we've yet to do as residents is volunteer for a shift of asking for donations, handing out programs, or working the information booth. However, this isn't to say we haven't left an imprint in the event because we have. At least my daughters have.

Day 10: Grasstlas (Holding up the Stumpstone)

Just before the pandemic shut the festival down for a year, my daughters got into the habit of painting stones. They are both very talented artists but shy away from any accolades. Daughter Number One is going into engineering. Daughter Number Two is leaning towards nursing. My wife and I are both educators, although I retired in 2017 missing the pandemic fiasco of online classroom teaching. We dissuaded our children from following in our footsteps. 

A couple of weeks before the fair, they would collect rocks from tree islands in parking lots or along the rails-to-trails trail. The stones were flat, gray or white or sometimes a dusty blue. They would paint an image on one side and on the other some affirmation. They weren't classic affirmations like 'Do unto others...yada yada yada...' Or, 'A penny saved is a penny earned. Nope. Nothing like that.

Instead, they left messages like, 'Beware of Santa Rhebus!' or 'If you take this rock, I'll know...' or 'Surprise! You found a painted rock. Take it to the River Bank for a free experience.' (Note: These were ones I suggested. They came up with similar ones on their own.)

The art fair runs from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Thursday night the park where it's held is full of people putting up tents, directing artists to their spaces, or driving golf carts back and forth.

This was the time my daughters chose to plant their stones. Forty-eight hours later they went back to the park to see how many stones were left. Sometimes they would actually see someone find one of the rocks during the fair. The finder would look around and if no one was looking, drop the stone in a bag or slip it in a pocket or hold onto it.

The novelty lasted for three years. Daughter Number One is a full-time college student living on campus and Daughter Number Two is about to enter her last year of high school and spends her time either working or studying at the library.  When I stopped driving, she got the van. Nothing like having wheels.

I can only imagine where their painted rocks ended up. Maybe someone else has a pewter ice bucket full of story stones. Perhaps they were given as gifts or sit on someone's desk as a paperweight. I think they did a dozen stones a year for three years. Somewhere someone has one. To them, I say, "You're Welcome!  Flip stone for more information."

The message, of course, repeats on the flip side.

STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“A great sculpture can roll down a hill without breaking.”
— Michelangelo