Re: Midwest flooding
 

Patti - LOL I used to have hubcaps on the folks ole Chevy wagon in High School when we snuck in those drive-ins... its long gone. Now I drive a 4WD Dodge truck where hubcaps would be.... superfluous, if not too "pimped" or "bling" if I have the colourful colloquialisms right...for a regular guys ride.... LOL fun memories
~geo steve

Re: Midwest flooding
 

Yes Nightingale - you're right - Balasko was the ghost of the man with the unnaturally short legs he lamented in the movie - thats the one ! imho Vincent Price I still believe was in the old B&W House On Haunted Hill where he gave everyone pistols out of party-novelty mini-coffins at the start... and the rope climbed into the impressionable young polly purebread, who was a real screamer pro, and was of course saved by the [I]de rigeur[I] regular guy - the reporter/hero with the press card in his hat for no discernable reason. I am sure you're right though, my memory is probably crosslinked on a few bad sectors. I wonder if the doc can defrag and reformat me ? LOL
-geo steve

Re: Midwest flooding
 

Hi Steve,

This is funny because after I thought about if for a while, I decided that you are right...lol.
Whatever...maybe we both have it wrong...lol.
I do remember the movie you are talking about. I remember that acid pit...pretty good scary movie:)

Jaws...oh my gosh! Now that was a scary movie!
That opening scene still can give me nightmares...poor girl, bobbing up and down with that confused "what the heck is eating me" look on her face:(
Brilliant! Such a classic...

Re: Midwest flooding
 

Nightingale

Yeah, whichever one was the old B&W one, with the acid pit and the skeleton pushing people into it -- and I gotta say that poor old skeeelatin (as I pronounced it when I was a kid per my parents lol ) looked like a nerfball would send him blown apart into the acid pit himself.... well THAT movie I saw on a Saturday afternoon on TV, and I got so scared by myself downstits in a BIG house - not expensive just BIGGGG, that I got sick to my stomche from fear.

So I matter of factly according to my mother years later told me that I turned the movie off, came upstairs, and said "Mommy, that scary of a movie is not right for a kid my age, it makes me sick I get so scared. So, lets not allow me to watch that "spooker" theatre on Saturdays anymore, OK mommy ?" LOL she said she tried very hard not to laugh, choked on her coffee (she was in a neighborhood coffee "klatch" [ is that correct nomenclature?] and I had said all of this in front of her friends in hats and gloves and stuff and she lost it.....

And so I went back outside into my glorious woods behind my house, climbed a rope in a tree, jumped in leaves (it was near Halloween as I recall) and thought I was the first man to ever explore the trails I went on, having just read the night before one of the science-series books my folks subscribed me to, to "stimulate my mind....", this one was on "Surveying and Mapping" and in the woods I remembered fancying myself to be the weatherhardened nd gravely serious mathemetician standing on the mountain-top, while his "assistant operated the short wave radio". Great memories and scary movies.... later....

Re: Midwest flooding
 

Ok, time to get this thread back on topic!!!
this is a pic that my wife took in Cedar Rapids today... (Cedar River)
Iowa's idea of a houseboat!

Re: Midwest flooding
 

PeterBro and RM:

Sorry for the tangent I went off on there..... man that picture is hard to reconcile with my mental image of Iowa.... that is so sad... and how quickly we forget some things like this. As in - the gulf coast, New Orleans, whole urban areas relocated around to the SW, and _most_ of us start to forget...

It is admirable there are those among us at any given time who are cognizant of the bigger picture going on. I like how the Denver Rocky Mtn News refers to the natural phenomenon/disasters: "Earth Diary" - a daily column that speaks of immense forces of nature around the planet....entire peoples being rendered homeless, whole regional agricultural season's work washed/blown/torn away ., etc... at least brings it to our attention daily....all in a little 4" x 4" column...

Beside it will be a half page article on the cultural aspects of the food festival in downtown Denver..., which, while important, in relative terms overshadowing a whole city being washed or blown away in the little column by it....suggests we need a paradim shift, or at least talking of it for a few minutes every day in schools, etc... not that the cultural aspect of food festivals is not important....

Thank you for reminding us of what, a long days drive away from me, is disaster that ought have more attention paid. I'm embarrassed..... but applaud you for keeping the subject on the table.. I may have missed your mentioning it earlier, but if your wife is in Iowa versus Illinois taking pictures - is she a journalist/photographer, or in insurance or FEMA, etc. ? Is she professionally involved in it , in any event ? I do not mean to ask too personal of questions, only curiosity.

Thank you for reminding me of this...its so easy to loe site of that bigger picture some times. Then again, if we did not cut up, here and there, listen to some Lightfoot, and speak of life's little pleasures or troubles, what a sad world it would be as well. All things in balance.

I am trying to think of the right GL song and/or verse that encapsulates part of this balance of the big and little both warranting attention.... can't bring it to mind... somebody help me here...

Maybe in Don Quixote, looking just at the societal extremes coexisting minutes apart would fit some of this dichotomy: "see the Gentry in the country riding off to take the air..., (only Lightfoot can paint that kind of picture lyrically and musically to me), see the children wake to find the table bare" I thing that is how it goes by memory.

Thanks P-Bro
~geo steve

Re: Midwest flooding
 

I liked seeing him sing, "Reaching for his saddlebag ... "

Re: Midwest flooding
 

Patti,

Yeah, I can smell the harness leather in those saddlebag's as Gord sings it; I know what you mean.... " reaching for his saddlebag, he takes a battered book into his hand, and standing like a prophet bold he shouts across the ocean to the shore, 'til he can shout no more.."

Patti when you say you liked seeing him sing about reaching into his saddlebags, did you see him sing DQ in concert, and were reminiscing of that, or was it a simple typo and you were gonna say "hearing him" :headbang: ,
no matter, only curious. :)

PeterBro : BTW - what is that floating in the river ?; looks too flat for the roof of a house... partly my eyes, but I can't quite tell.


~geo steve

Re: Midwest flooding
 

In the picture of the Cedar River, it is indeed what's left of a house.
My wife and the kids were camping just north of Cedar Rapids this past week, with her sister who lives in Cedar Rapids. They spent last night in Cedar Rapids at my sister-in-law's house, which I suppose I should mention was high and dry, (2 blocks from the flood evac zone) before returning home later today. Dani, my wife, who toured the city with her sister related the sad conditions there and just a handful of stories of those who lost so much!
Just an aside here, I generally come to corfid with a light heart... this is where I get some diversion from the stresses and struggles of everyday life. I didn't mean to draw anyone down, I was rather just joking. I suppose I ought to apologize, as that is what's left of someone's Home! But sometimes a bit of leviety helps.

All in all, I was a bit amused at how far off topic we corfidians can get! and with Dani sending me this pic, I thought I'd share it with all of you. I've always been fond of Iowa, and can't hardly imagine what they've had to cope with.

G-man, as George Carlin would say... Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff!!! take care of yourself!

Peace to you all....

Re: Midwest flooding
 

Steve, I liked seeing him sing it and also I like what he sings after each time he says it, ... he takes a battered book into his hand ...
... he takes a rusty sword into his hand ...
and
... he takes a tarnished cross into his hand ...

you were looking for a song or verse that encapsulates part of the balance, so since you were already into the Don Quixote song, I thought that would help out some.

So much is going on and some like Don Quixote, do care so much, but no one seems to hear them. ...

Peter Bro10, I know people along the Mississippi in Iowa. I've been there a few times years ago. It looked so beautiful by the river.

Re: Midwest flooding
 

:headbang:Patti Oh I totally get what you are saying on DQ - thanks for adding to my thought of the social disparities, and the imagery in DQ of Nobility and the quest for justice, it surely can tie into social indifference... Very admirable what you added. Sounds like you were exposed to some of the sadness down that way in the flood...makes you think. DQ is my opener in my myspace playlist - not that THAT will matter a whit in a hundred years - but Gords music, and most certainly the flood - will.
You surely caught on and added to the imagery and nobility of what I was reaching for myself there - thanks for the imagery you reminded me and everyone of in DQ too.

Peterbro I hear ya -I come here for many of the same reasons.... good people.... good thoughts,,its infectious, when you're down, invariably someone reminds you of a song that cheers you up, and vice-versa ! :headbang::headbang: . Sounds like an admirable quest your wife Dani was on - to not turn her head to strife, to go and see and feel it, and see if anything reaches out to the humane side we all to often forget.
- Naw I wasn't sweatin' it as G Carlin said - just being polite in cognizance of the important stuff you brought in the thread - and come to find out - you meant some levity as well....very thoughtful...

All's cool PeterBro, I thought I had perhaps impolitely strayed myself to far from the important subject of the thread.. now I know you're not at all sweatin' the little things, and advise I don't either. Sound advice, my man.

When you get down to it, most people only ( in my experience) give just a minor glimpse into some of the greatest humane and compassionate things - or brave/heroic things they have done, and typically out of humility, pretty much do not advertise it or verbally brandish it in social settings. I've been astounded at just the people I have met in this corfid venue, and some of the heroics and personal sacrifice they have endured, and given of themselves, and nary a word of it, unless they feel it will help someone further.What a group of people ~ :clap:

~geo steve