Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay

Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay

Western Sky At Night

Buffoons are Dangerous and Attracted by Food Too

On the Docks ...

Old Man On A Dock ... Two Views

A Rose by Any Other Name

Screw Waldo Where's Uncle Stew

Screw Waldo Where's Uncle Stew

Pirates Parked In Malta??

There was An Old Man Who Lived In Sault

There was an Old Man Who Lived in Sault

He Sold So Many Brass Bell(s)

He Didn't Know What To Do

(All marked clearly ... Titanic) ...

... And True ...

He only showed them one at a time ...  

The Bells 

All sat behind him ...

In their Prime

One at a time

They sat there as bait

Alluring as Hell.

Waiting on the Tourist/Trout to sniff and smell.

(If you Look Closely

You Will See ...

Just Ahead of the Grey Porcelain Ball

A Brass Bell Waiting there for Thee)

Unbeknown to the World of Traveling Lost Trout ...

There were tons of them ... 

... Just out of Sight ...

So the Old Man just sits there Fishing you might say...

... Just Trolling for Tourists On Hot A Summers Day ...

Schools and Schools of them Sailed by 

The North American Trout/Tourists are the Anglers Choice ...

"Look Gladis ... Look What I found" ...

They would cry ... 

The Hook now deeply Imbedded

and

With that cry of

"Gladis look see" ...

... Now That Hook was Set ... 

They were no longer Free.

They all went home with Brass Trophied Bells ...

A Treasure they Never ...

Ever thought Possible ..

.... Ever ...

... But Lucky For Them ... 

They Can

And there sits that Old French Fisherman ...

Angling for Tourists and Trout

in the Village of Sault

Now Those Brass Treasures Festoon 

Fireplaces ... and ... Hearths

All Across North America ...

Coast to Coast

A Solitary Bell

Salvaged and Saved... 

Off of the Deck of the Titanic

From a Very Deep Watery Grave ...

Shhhh

Tons of Them in the back room

Main Street Dutton Ontario ... I was Young then

When I was Five this was the center of the universe for me...

I would ride my trike up and down the sidewalk ...

Sometimes I would even dare to cross the street.

There was a comic book store, malt shop, dry bar and what not shop ... over there, across the street ... just off to the right in the photo. 

Sometimes I would dare to venture out into the unknown and raid the comic books that were set out for strangers to buy.

Then there was the Blue Willow Cafe, my very first piece of Boston Cream Pie. I did not know what they called it ... but it was good and I was 12 when I realized other places served it too ...

It was next to the bicycle shop that Peter owned and that was next to my Grandfather's Hotel (just further along in the photo) ... 

The bicycle shop was run by a very kindly elf of a gentleman ... Peter ... who smoked odd shaped pipes and had numbers tattooed on his inner forearm.

I would not really understand how he got to have the tattoo on his arm until long after he was gone. 

I got my very first bike from him ... it was red and had solid rubber tires ...

 All my bikes and trikes came from his shop until he passed ...

My Grandfather handled all the arrangements.  Peter never really seemed to have any family.

And

I was Neil Dougall then ...

That's what they called me ...

I would sit up on the high stool behind the wet bar in the hotel and open bottles of beer for my grandpa who in turn passed them off over the bar to Charlie Rutledge, the man serving the beers to whoever was in the beverage room at the time... and there were days when this place was full to over flowing ...

John Kennth Galibraith talked about the coming and going both in the hotel and behind the hotel in his book "The Scotch." I can attest that he did not exaggerate the shinanigans one bit. 

The Hotel sold 100,000 gallons of beer a month by bottle ...

Not bad for a town of 786 people ... give or take a few. 

And there was nothing my Grandfather could not do ...

And if I wanted something ... he produced it.

Everything from Candy Bars ... to riding on horse drawn hay wagons ... to being able to play, imagine that,  playing in the blacksmith's shop at the back of the hotel ... while Fred, the blacksmith, worked and told me stories and let hit a hammer on the anvil when ever I wanted ...

Imagine that ... I got to watch him shoe horses and on some days a whole bunch of horses.  

I can still remember the smells ...

The Kitchen in the Hotel ... Martha at the stove ...  

The smell of chewing tobacco that seemed to predominate all the other smells behind the dry bar ...

The smell of the blacksmith's shop ... the horses  ... the hay ... the farmers ... good food and peach pie.

They all have sweet memories for me ...

Life for me then was a wonderful place to be

Summer 1952

Mothers and Daughters and Focus

Yet at the same time drawing the net

of their Mother-Daugterness more closely

around them by simply sharing these moments

at a garden shop on Mothers Day

Grey on Grey

Where There is a Will ... There is a Way

Sometimes standing is just a little trickier then one would think ...

But Where There is a Will There is A Way

Trash Cans with a Message Hummmm

Girl on a Street ... Kow Loon

A Hungry Lion ... Guangzhou

I was visiting my son in China in 2003 ... he was teaching school there ... I was left to my own devices to wander about the city ... I was standing in front of the Bank and there are two Lions there ... I took one shot then the other ... and right in the middle of my second shot some fellow walked thru ... Now if you run them in order it looks like the Lion had lunch

Mississippi Morning

Misty Cliffs ZA

My Friend Stewart and His Bike

An Ocean, A Cave and Time

A Bench, A Wheel Chair, Two People and a Tree

Where is Waldo?

The Is An Old Lady Who Lives In A Shoe