Morning all:

“The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.” — Henri-Frédéric Amiel

The past couple days have produced a flood of sun which brings out an honest smile and a spring in the step—if only it wasn’t for the unbearable humidity. Still, it’s cool right now and as soon as I post I’ll enjoy a second mug of coffee on the deck.

Yesterday I happened to read that on June 6 in 1933 in Camden, New Jersey, the first drive-in theater opened. While you are enjoying your own morning coffee and reading this post take a moment and let your mind explore a bit. Now follow me here, if, today, they would celebrate the opening of that particular American phenomenon by holding family re-unions in each, then I wonder just how many attending grandkids would be able to trace their very beginnings back to each theater. I suspect that there were probably more attempts than success stories; in any case there are a lot of stories.

But then, maybe I am just reflecting on my own foibles back around 1957, sitting in the backseat of my friend Eddie’s ’50 Ford convertible V-8, 3-speed on the column (at that time in life the car stuff was the apotheosis of excitement to me, more so than were our dates).

It was heaven sent! For several years Marcia and I have been looking for a rustic waterfront cabin in northern Ontario, Canada—and been disappointed a few times. Late last week brother-in-law Donn, spending the weekend up north, called that a cabin on the lake had just gone up for sale. Apparently an offer had already been put in by someone and it had fizzled. I called the listing agent.

4 PM on Saturday Donn, Marlene, Paul, and Dia acting as our eyes and ears plus a whole lot more blew into the cabin like a northern gale, grilled the agent, took a memory stick full of photos, and redesigned the place to meet Marcia’s tastes—all in just one hour. Did I mention that Donn and Paul are engineers and that Marlene and Dia are artists? How good can it get?

Yesterday morning we had an accepted offer-to-purchase for the cabin of our dreams; complete with all furnishings plus a newish 20’ pontoon boat with 30 hp motor, a .7 acre lot, a 12’ X 15’ shed/bunkhouse, and a dock. Marcia and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Let the party begin! Oh wait a minute, a wee bit of detail; first I better put the financing in place.

This week we had a series of storms come through with straight-line winds of 80+ mph. I was fortunate that Tevita scooted into one of our one trees, the one with some serious dead limbs, and had taken these out. He did this over a week ago well before this storm. We suffered no damage just some twigs on the ground.

Then there is our neighbor. He had a 60’ tree behind his house, which is also where he parks his cars. Like ducks in a row there sat Cadillac Escalade # 1, Cadillac Escalade # 2, and a non-descript mini-van. Early the next day a local television news crew recorded the demise of one tree, 2 Cadillac Escalades, and one non-descript mini-van.

The guy across the street with the huge dead tree in his yard suffered zero damage. Not a single one of the dead braches let go. It only proves the line from the old song that goes something like, “only the good die young.”

Now that our heat and humidity has cranked up to ‘high’, just think of how those poor United Nations delegates suffered attending the climate conference in Bali, Indonesia a few months ago—now it’s easier to sympathize.

However, it appears that some were downright disturbed when attention pointed to a temporary air conditioning system set up to keep the 10,000 delegates cool. It seems that the A/C not only used ozone-destroying CFCs, but the system, which used plastic pipes, was noticeably leaking. They counted 700 cylinders containing enough of the refrigerant gas to cause as much damage to the atmosphere as 48,000 tons of carbon dioxide — “nearly the equivalent of the emissions of all [the] aircraft used to fly delegates to Indonesia in the first place.” (Sydney Morning Herald)

Make it a great week. Keep your cool.

Cheers,

Dirk