2006 Blog Archives

Basketball season has begun at the school, as the annual pep rally-Midnight Madness-was Friday night. Full house for it. Sounds like everyone had a good time.

I'm doing the site before I rewind the VCR and watch Doctor Who. Cretins. Sci-Fi Channel showed part one Friday night, then part two is in two weeks because of a Movie Marathon the night after Thanksgiving.

For those really new in town, the postoffice woodwork at the museum is from the post office when it was where Foothills Bakery is now. I still forget when they moved. 1996?

The Fairfax Historical Society will be meeting Sunday November 19^th at 2pm in the Fairfax Community Library. The program will be a discussion on Israel B. Richardson. Richardson was born and raised in Fairfax and went on to be a Civil War hero with the 2^nd Michigan Volunteer Infantry. We will also be discussing how to honor this native son. I have an idea.

We've forgotten about "Fighting Dick". He's a big hero in Michigan. We need to kinda reclaim him as one of us.

No, I'm not talking about the creepy-crawly things they stuck in Chekov's ear in The Wrath Of Kahn. Although some earworms do have a tendency to drive you nuts.

An earworm is a song that makes the rounds in your head. It can be a song you like. It can be a song you don't care about. It can be a song you loathe. Those can drive you nuts.

Back a while ago, I told you about a show called "Life On Mars", where the ads for the show used the song, "Ballroom Blitz". I even typed in the chorus. A few days later, a reader e-mailed me with a problem. He had the song running through his head for a few days. What should he do?

Listen to something else.

I've had different songs from My Chemical Romance's "The Black Parade" running through my head. The last two nights, as I am working on my site, I went to their site, then minimized that screen as the album played on low volume thru the speakers.

Happy me.

So then Wednesday night, I going around the Tech Ed shop, aka Industrial Arts, pulling garbage, when I happened onto a couple of displays. One was the different kinds of wood. Another had different shades of stain. One particular dark color was called......

Ebony.

Everybody!

"Ebony and Ivory

Live together in perfect harmony

Side by side on my piano

Keyboard

Oh the winery!

*Blink Blink*

Wait, that's not how it goes.

But anyway, you remember the song.

It's now on heavy rotation in you head.

You're welcome.

Earworms can be like a pack of gum. It's OK to share.

I remember back when I worked out in the lumber yard at Spartan Industries, where Morse Hardwoods is now, times like this would make me suicidal. Lumber would be brought in and we would stack it with sticks in between the layers of board to allow for air drying before the lumber was put in the kilns for proper drying.

We would have a week long stretch where it would rain every day. Yes, we did have rain gear, but you still were damp and uncomfortable. And by Thursday or Friday the thought would occur to climb up the sawdust silo, give a final salute, and take the quick route back down-sans ladder.

Obviously, I never did that. I was afraid of heights. And it was a long way up that silo.

There were great days during the summer when the sun was out and it was warm. Guys used to work without a shirt on. One summer I did. Any nice day, I took my shirt off. Got quite a tan that year.

To do so now, would be a horrifying sight.

Wednesday is supposed to be OK. I sure hope so.

I was up at the museum Monday morning with a film producer that is working on a documentary on Franklin County. It is being put together by Bill Doyle's history class at Johnson State College. Students went around and did interviews with local residents-Doug Webb was interviewed for Fairfax- and photographs were scanned to go along with the interviews. That's what the producer was doing today.

They are putting the final touches on it and it will be viewed in December at JSC, I think, but will also be shown out at the St. Albans Museum.

As the time gets closer, I will let everyone know what's going on.

We are supposed to get a free copy of the DVD, which will have the 40 minute documentary, plus extras, like the complete interviews of residents.

I took a picture of the photo of the double covered bridge that went out in the '27 Flood and paired it with the picture from last Friday.

Things are very different today.

I still can't get over the work that went into the stone walls back then. That took alot of hard work. A lot.

I was heading up to check out the museum Sunday morning when I noticed buds on a tree at the top of Hunt Street. This back and forth weather has the plant life confused. I've seen it before. We have a cold spell, then it warms up some, and the plants start budding. They're going to be in for a surprise when the temperature drops again. Weather is supposed to be nasty all week but the temps will climb to about 61 degrees on Thursday. Be interesting if the branches actually leaf out.

Gray and foggy Sunday. Didn't rain a whole lot but it was damp and raw.

It's interesting to stand at the top of Hunt Street or Main Hill. It looks like Mt. Mansfield got up and left.

What's really neat is a clear night, the moon may be out, and the air is clear, and you can see Mt. Mansfield at night. No light from civilization on it, but you can still make out the outline of the mountain.

That's the beauty of living in Vermont with all the hills. You can stand at the top of Hunt Street on a crystal clear day and you think there is NOTHING between Fairfax and the mountain. You can't make out where Cambridge or Jeffersonville is.

Makes for a short horizon, though.

Luke Eriksen is from Manchester, Vt and is a student at Champlain College. We met up with Luke a couple of years ago when he started racing sprints with the Empire Super Sprints. Great kid. Great family.

Luke is also a musician. He's recorded a CD and it will be unveiled at Higher Ground on Nov. 30th.

You can check out his website and hear one of his songs and click on his MySpace pagelink and there's a listing of four of his songs.

It's mostly acoustic and folk rock kind of music. Not bad.

Give it a listen:

http://www.lukeeriksen.com/