Tuesday, April 26, 2011

wedding bells?


In fact, wedding bells are NOT what I heard today ... though I guess we'll be hearing them soon enough (from the opposite side of the the Atlantic). All I heard today were foghorns — it was seriously foggy. Foggy like I imagine Maine to be foggy. Foggy like Mr. Betty's and my long ago wedding is foggy. Sort of — in other ways it's as clear as can be. What am I driving at? I haven't the foggiest idea. It (what?) is just something that occurred to me as I looked up at the lost-in-fog steeple of St. Mary's Church this afternoon and considered Newport's own erstwhile royal wedding ...

Oh, and do click HERE to hear the bells.




Tuesday, April 12, 2011

kids


I took a really nice walk on the Cliff Walk recently. The best part was the second half. People often think of the earlier stuff (Forty Steps, even Ruggles) as the highlights. They are highlights. They're terrific (!). But the best stuff most definitely comes later: that little beach at Marine Avenue, the funky tea house at Marble House, the dark corrugated (creepy?) tunnel shaped somewhat like an Easter Egg that socks you in, in blinding darkness, while promising a return to light at the other end ...

But before I got there — to the tunnel & beyond — as I was just about to pass Rosecliff, I spied some kids. It's all relative, of course; anyone younger than oneself is a kid. Or that's how it seems after a certain age ...

Anyway, these kids — who may have been 20-somethings, though I've really lost all ability to judge — were engaged in assorted harmless if dubious activities such as skateboarding (on the Cliff Walk?) and climbing up for a peek over the Rosecliff wall.

I felt such pleasure at their pleasure ... then I got on my way. Past the tea house, through the tunnels, on toward Rough Point, all the way to Ledge Road, where I turned around. On the way back I saw other things — that's always the way — including any number of numbers I'd never noticed before and a weird T-shaped bar driven into a rock.

Then I saw the "kids" again ... and they saw me looking at the T-shaped bar.

"Did you get some good pictures?" the leader of the kids asked, with amused (cynical?) innocence.

Kids. They think they're the only ones who do stuff, who try stuff, who break the rules (a little), who know how to have fun ...








[N.B. Click any image to enlarge.]