luck

No, I'm not talking about St. Patrick's Day, although I may as well be, given that the holiday is upon us once again (how can that be?), as evidenced by a stroll past a packed Fastnet Pub a little earlier this evening.

Tomorrow, during and after the parade down Broadway and beyond, it'll be more packed still.

But, no, when I say "luck," I'm referring to the luck of the recent winner of the Powerball jackpot: a BIG jackpot. The fifth or sixth biggest in U.S. history — I'm not quite sure. The winnings were paid unto an entity called the Rainbow Sherbet Trust. Or is it the Rainbow Sherbert Trust? Again, I'm not quite sure. I mean, I watched the proceedings on TV a week or two ago (whenever that was) when a perfectly lovely Newporter named Louise White, age 81, came forward to accept one of those big, phony, representative checks. It was made out to the Rainbow Sherbert Trust, as that was the coveted item that had sent Louise out with a family member on that fortuitous evening to Stop & Shop on Bellevue Avenue, where she ended up with the combination of randomly picked numbers worth $300+ million. And that left me wondering.

About the spelling of sherbet, that is.

Then, a day or two after the big announcement revealing the identity of the winner that the local world (and press!) had been awaiting so anxiously and not without speculation, I found myself out walking down & around the Fifth Ward — that's the historically Irish neighborhood in town, and coincidentally where the St. Patrick's Day parade concludes — and found myself by sheer happenstance standing before the winning Whites' abode. It wasn't on purpose; really, it wasn't. But there was the "White" name on the gate and a lone unplated car in the driveway upon which a bumper sticker said, "Just Say Thanks."

I'm sorry; I was undone. So much so that I hurried home to determine, once and for all, if the rainbow-related substance was sherbet or sherbert, as somehow it seemed really important to get it right at that moment, and I'd recalled during my walk that Mr. Betty & I had an aged carton of the frozen confection in our freezer. No doubt it was leftover from last summer. Very nearly crystalline. But no matter.

Turns out, the answer in my freezer wasn't quite what I'd anticipated. But along the way — and again today — I was really feeling the sentiment ...

That's Chaz (right there ^) who happens to be the grand marshal of this year's St. Paddy's Day parade. Mr. Betty & I had the good fortune of meeting him and enjoying a nice chat at Fifth Element during a parade fundraiser that involved buying/trying Newport Storm Spring Ale. Speaking of luck. Seriously ....

rusty

It's been a while ... for no particular reason other than I find myself with so many little strangely-interdependent projects going on that somehow my mind ends up in a tangled mess of things that should make sense and do make sense if only I could make sense of them. Know what I mean? Then when I'm not sure what to do next, or even first, in the daily chain of events, I resort to the logic that the fresh air afforded by a walk or bike ride might help clarify matters, might even point the way, but usually it just takes up time on top of adding something else to the pile of stuff to think about.

Then there's the pile itself to think about, and that's enough to get me feeling entirely unhinged ...

Things aren't really that dire; sometimes I just get carried away. I guess works in progress and a state of general rustiness offer their own sort of beauty. Still, a bit of direction (other than downward) would be nice ...

FYI: The sea wall at Brenton Point as well as the one at Easton's Beach along Memorial Boulevard apparently were built by way of the WPA; there are plaques in the concrete in both locations. That big rusty tank or weight or whatever-it-is (above) lies on the southernmost tip of Sachuest Point, whereas the graphic signage is a quasi-new feature of the Cliff Walk. As for Rochambeau (see him pointing boldly forward at King Park?), I frequently look to him when in need of focus or resolve ...

valentines

youth?

Mr. Betty and I received the most thoughtful gift from Darling Daughter for Christmas: a couple of tickets to something called "Forever Young" at the Narrows Center in Fall River.

I'm not sure DD had any idea what it was (all) about, but she dug the concept. As did we.

She also knew that Mr. B & I have been to The Narrows on a bunch of occasions and tend to enjoy it. What's not to enjoy? They offer a diverse schedule of live music that's affordable (relatively) in a very cool space where the acoustics are great and all seats are up, close & personal. The crowd is a little older — ahem, our age — so we're comfortable there. And, on top of all that, it's BYOB.

BYOF, too, if you want.

"F" is for food, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, "Forever Young" — which took place a few weeks ago — was OK. The voice most closely resembling that of Neil Young, which I hadn't anticipated but which makes perfect sense, was that of a woman. They did a fine rendition of "Old Man, look at my life; I'm a lot like you were" which was a little hard to take on a conceptual level but nonetheless enjoyable. Somehow, though, perhaps because Forever Young is such a big group (so many guitars!), Mr. Betty and I lost sense of the individual talents and their contributions, which in turn lessened the impact.

Not so Friday night, as in the night before last, when we returned to The Narrows to see Pousette-Dart. There were just four guys, each of whom was terrific (to our amateur ears) and whose music stood apart in a big way while simultaneously contributing to the larger sound. A sound I remember so well from high school and college days. I remember it too well, it could be argued, in the sense that holding onto all those old lyrics in my head must diminish my capability to remember more recent (more important?) matters.

I was thinking about that — the whole forgetting/remembering thing — when they played "Amnesia." Funny how you think about the same stuff differently as time goes on.

Funny, too, how you notice stuff like a guitar player's bandaged wrist and resulting limited movement and think, "Ouch. That must hurt. But good for him for carrying on ..."

Meaningless aside: I always assumed The Narrows was so-called because it's a long, narrow space. Or because the historic mill building in which it's located is near a narrowish spot in the river beneath the highway near that battleship (the USS Massachusetts) that looms large, even from above. But then, Friday night, as we scrambled to make the show but were running late and looking for a parking space, I noticed a standard-issue yellow street sign just before the venue that said, "Traffic Narrows." Now I'm thinking that was the inspiration.

It doesn't take much.

On that note, I looked to my left at some point between numbers and said to the woman sitting beside me, "Excuse me, may I take a picture of your hand?"

She looked puzzled, just for a sec, before saying, "Sure. It's an old hand."

It's as if she'd read my mind ...

maturity

I just topped off a trip to First Beach with a trip to the grocery store. That's one of my favorite end-of-day walking routes that happens to kill two birds (how awful!) with one stone. Anyway, the dear sweet teenager working as a cashier in the particular aisle of Stop & Shop where I stood unloading salmon, kale, potatoes and way too many little containers of yogurt onto the conveyor said, "How are you today, Miss?"

Miss? Me?

("Ma'am" is just the pits, by comparison.)

Then, when my favorite teenager — my own kids are 20+, so I can say that — finished ringing me in and I was fumbling in my pocket for method of payment, he said, "Your total is 21 even. Don't you love it when that happens?"

Yes, I really do ...

all gone

The phone rang yesterday afternoon. It was Grandma Betty.

"It's warm!" she said. (She was calling from Miami.)

"It's warm here, too!" I told her. "The snow's all gone."

It didn't take long, did it? A day or two tops, and now we're back to normal, or to what feels like normal. If not normal, it's certainly this year's norm: warm. Thus I found myself on a bike ride yesterday afternoon, January 24 (!), after I'd hung up with Grandma Betty ...

I headed out on my usual route — Ocean Drive — just because it never (ever) gets old. There's always (always) something new or at least previously-unnoticed to see. This time it was a sign coming around the corner by that endless construction site, the place that's called The Play House, or The Bird House, or The Bird Cottage, or some such thing. It used to have little round holes (for birds?) up under the eaves; that's why I think the moniker has something to do with birds, but I may be mistaken. Anyway, it's been under re-construction for a year or two or three at this point. It does look great. The site is priceless. The view is awesome (even through a chain-link fence). OK, so there's mud, but that's reality. They'll get to landscaping once springtime rolls around ... unless it takes another whole year.

And, for that reason, when I saw the "SLOW DOWN" sign, I had to smile.

Slow down? Me? I was probably traveling at speeds in the single digits, though I can certainly imagine slowing down, or the desire for things/processes to slow down, in other senses.

The property owners? They're probably thinking quite the opposite: "Hurry up!"

Passing cars? OK, the words of caution certainly apply at that exceedingly tight, shoulderless corner where someone (like me) might be walking along or standing astride a bicycle while peering through a construction fence at the view of the picturesque cove/inlet/whatever.

And around the next corner I saw something else, though I may not have noticed it at all unless I read about it in the Newport Daily News. You know those picturesque — seriously, they've been featured in many pictures and paintings — telephone poles along that straight, reeded stretch near Gooseberry Beach? Well, they're all gone. Local property owners contributed toward putting the power and phone lines underground. Much to the chagrin of all the birds who used to sit there, I imagine, but there are plenty of other places to perch and/or chat with family & friends ...

Grandma Betty called again this afternoon.

"Hello?" I answered, in inquisitive fashion, even though there was no question as to who was on the other end.

"I'm sitting by the pool!" she said, then added quickly (lest I feel badly?), "I wish you were here."

"Thanks," I said, picturing exactly where she was, having been to South Beach myself on more than one lucky occasion. "But I'm happy to be here ... "

See? No more telephone poles. Only flag poles. Works for me ...