Rough, plate 10

Mouse winding up on the pitcher's mound, ready to hurl to a young frog batter while a cricket waits to fetch.

I picked up a ball and gave it a gentle, underhand toss right into the zone. She held the bat out, letting the ball hit it and bounce back to me. “That isn’t the way you teach pitching, is it, coach?”

She took her stance again, looked me right in the eye. I didn’t want to embarrass either of us with another soft pitch, so I wound up and let one fly towards an inside corner. It wasn’t my fastest pitch, but it had some pepper on it. She dropped her left shoulder a bit, started to crouch, then swung. There was a crack, and something flew by my left ear.

“Coach, we only have two balls. You have to catch them, or we’ll spend all our time in the woods looking for them.” I picked up the second ball and she took her stance. Her eyes didn’t leave mine. I took a few steps back so I’d have more time to react. This was a tough player. My eyes locked on hers. I wound up, then curved one over the outside rear corner. Or, at least, that’s where it was heading when she smacked it. It came back right in the same place as the last one, but I managed to get a glove up. It cracked into the glove. She was aiming her hit so I could catch it. I’ll be darn!

Laurie’s photo

When Laurie posted the image on Facebook, I was caught completely by surprise. My eyes filled with tears and I stopped breathing. I had no pictures. My mother had saved a few, but by the time my brother and I cleaned the house after mom passed, the pictures were gone. Mom loved Celeste, too.

A writer. A thinker. Compassionate, soulful and deep. Her eyes look at me now accusing – and I don’t have the words to respond. She teaches Blake, Coleridge, and Wordsworth to spellbound students at Berkeley. I just survived. She deserves more now. She deserved more then.

Celeste. She was an undergrad at Penn, getting her bachelors and masters concurrently, destined for doctoral work through a fellowship at Yale. On a whim, she took a part time job at a pizza shop just off campus, within sight of the highrise dorms. I was running the ovens in the shop and closing up at night. She was different than any of the other students we’d hired; different than anyone I’d known. Tall, lean, agile, she was quick to laugh, quicker with a comeback and brilliantly engaging in even the most casual conversation. Through her influence I read Mysteries of Udolpho and Melmouth the Wanderer. I developed a fondness for Blake and Coleridge, and an immature awareness of Spencer and Milton. I was engaged by the criticism of Harold Bloom, and the place held by Marx, Nietsche, and the Transcendentalists in literary criticism. I appreciated the simple and anticipated the profound. Celeste.

Mouse color plate 9

A young frog in a pink tee shirt probes a honey cell in a comb inside a bee hive.

“Careful, coach,” Hailey warned me, then came past me to grab a bundle of wooden slats. She unrolled it between the combs so it would provide a solid footing for me. “And this is the brace,” she said as she picked up a metal pole that I hadn’t seen. “Help me push this comb a bit,” she said as we both leaned on the same comb. It gave easily, swinging on some sort of pivot up at the top. The little tad dropped one end of the pole between a floor rod and the comb then let the comb swing back to rest against it. “That should make it easier!”

“Thanks! You really know what you’re doing in here don’t you?” She was ahead of me again. I hung back to watch. She picked up a long metal tube with a hose coming off one end. “Is that the ‘extractor’ your dad mentioned?”

“Yeah. We don’t have to pull anything into the tank. Just a little into the tube… like this.” She turned to the comb and found a spot to plunge the tube into. It seemed to sink in easily. Hailey smiled and pulled up a handle on top of a canister that I now saw the hose was attached to. Just that quick she pulled the tube back out and took a small tool of some sort and pushed the wax back in place. “Hold out a finger.”

BASD “B” (Part 1)

A sans serif uppercase B with a lowercase e superimposed, both double stroked in white and black.

Read part 2 here.

On May 31, there was a post from the Bellefonte School District on facebook.The district wanted to be able to trademark their “B” logo and requested the submission of a more ‘trademarkable’ letterform. They used a googledoc to convey the particulars for creating and submitting, and there’s also a link on the District homepage:

A classic sick Mac in a walker.

Opportunity to Brand the “B” Logo
The district has a Branding Committee and it is opening up the opportunity to staff and to the community to help brand the “B” logo. The current red “B” is not unique enough to be copyrighted. Therefore, the district would like a version created that can be copyrighted in the future. This opportunity was originally available to students at the middle school and high school levels, and now the Branding Committee would like renderings submitted from the community.

Please watch the following video for more information. You can find the form to submit a rendering in the description section of the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQnPf50AmaA

The committee allowed the inclussion of a one page artists statement, but I chose to let the work stand on its own. After all, it will have to. My rational, though is very simple. The District uses “Be” as a tag line on posters and web campaigns; as in “Be Responsible, Be Respectful, Be Kind…” There’s a list, but ultimately, the charge is “Be”. Just “Be”

So that’s it. I got rid of the clichéd slab serif, switched to a contemporary sans stroked for consistency, then superimposed one letter over the other to maintain the historic “B”. It includes a subtle Raider’s “R”.

I think it’s exactly what’s needed. We’ll see what the committee thinks.

Edit: October 6:

Just dawned on me that this might be better. Oh well. Too late. Download a pdf or download a pdf of reverse art

A slab serif uppercase B with a lowercase e superimposed on an angle, both double stroked in white and red.

first birthday picture

Three lizards climbing on the deck, waiting for a friend to come out to play.

I’ve done over 30 birthday cards for my daughter. I recently found this- the first picture I did for her birthday when, I think, she was three. It wasn’t a card, though; it was a framed pastel. The actual card had only one lizard on it and a poem/riddle that spelled out her name. The first name is also written in chalk on the deck. Now, the cat in the window is long gone, the large maple growing through the deck is gone, the deck is collapsing and the yard is overgrown. Ah, time.

If it was not for an “E,” not an “r” or a “d,” I think a lizard you would have to be

for anne

Simple line drawing of a young girl cradling a book against the wind.

My intent was to run this every June, but with other things going on I forget. I make a drawing of my daughter at her current age every year on her birthday card. This is Anne Frank in a birthday remembrance that I did a few years ago showing Anne at roughly the age she’ll always be, wearing a detective’s outfit and cradling a book against the wind. Happy Birthday, young lady.

D Building

Large brick building that's deteriorating' with broken windows and vines climbing here and there.

The photo is of an empty and deteriorating D Building at the deserted Pennhurst State School and Hospital. I worked there from 1970—when I was about to turn 18—through 1972. During that time, we moved from D-4 (second floor, upper right) to D-1 (first floor, lower left), then up on the hill to C-2. C-2 has been torn down. I met some wonderful people: some worked there, but most lived there. There’s been negative press and non-judgemental exposé, and I’ve found that my memories differ from most of what I’ve read. As I’ve gotten older, and been privileged enough to have had a good time doing so, I’ve often thought about the guys I knew at Pennhurst and how their lives turned out.

I remember them clearly, most by name but some are just faces. I see little mental vignettes of interactions. Larry saying, “that butt?” as he tried to bum my lit cigarette. Max saying, “Be in tomorrow?” and laughing when I said yes. Joey clapping his hands and spinning in place with a big smile. Recently I read an obituary for one of the youngest residents: a young man with Down syndrome who was two years older than me at the time. There were pictures and he looked happy. I imagine most have passed. Each of them deserves a memoir. Each deserves to be remembered. The very least that I can do is to try to remember each of the residents and list their names if I can.

Guys? I remember you, and wish I could’ve done more. I wish I would’ve known more.

  • Philip Allen
  • Larry Arnold
  • Eugene Dolan
  • William Edwards
  • Dennis Eshinour
  • Anthony Felicione
  • Rocco Ferra
  • Randy Garner
  • Max Goldman
  • Norman Glassman
  • Edgar Graham
  • David Heintzelman
  • Frankie Hinkle
  • Jerome James
  • Joey Johnson
  • Clifford Jones
  • Larry Klinger
  • Bobby Keown
  • Richard Kutz
  • Joe Langoon
  • Hetadora Lopez
  • Bill McKeever
  • Merritt Miller
  • John Milton
  • Bobby Montgomery
  • Tommy Moorehead
  • Vern Nicholson
  • Chester Olshefski
  • Arthur Ressler
  • Glenn Rhodes
  • Nelson Rivera
  • Freddie Rogers
  • Joey Rozman
  • Richard Savage
  • Tony Scarcella
  • Dominic Scaramazzini
  • Donald Scurry
  • Danville Sharp
  • Arnold Sokolof
  • Arthur Tonkins
  • Barry Van Pelt
  • Tommy Wartowski
  • Bobby Watts
  • Walter Washington
  • Tommy Weaver
  • Byron Welser
  • Tommy White
  • Arnold Wood
  • Joe Zelinski