Via wi/fi at Station-Inn in Cresson, PA
“OKAY MOM, WE’VE SEEN THE IRISH-SETTERS. CAN WE GO HOME NOW?”!
Yrs trly is not in this photograph, but I think my dog, “Scarlett,” is. She’s at right with the guy that held her while I waited at a Porta-Pottie.
Rochester held it’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade Saturday, March 15th, 2014.
A two-mile orgy of bands, dancers, drunks, blowing car-horns, and screaming sirens.
The Irish-Setter Club of Western New York (ISCWNY) marches their Irish-Setters in this parade, and my Scarlett-dog is an Irish-Setter.
The first St. Patrick’s Day parade we marched in was maybe 10 years ago, and my wife came too.
We’ve always marched our dogs in the St. Patrick’s Day parade; we’ve always had Irish-Setters.
I think this parade was my fourth or fifth, and my first since my wife died.
I wanted to do it last year — my wife died almost two years ago — but I couldn’t connect.
The St. Patrick’s Day parade is always a crap-shoot for weather.
Once it was 70 degrees, other times freezing cold and snowing.
The other day wasn’t too bad, about 38 degrees, but my hands were getting cold by parade-end.
That St. Patrick’s Day parade 10 years ago was my first blog sent to Marcy, who worked next to me at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper.
I don’t know why I sent it, but she thought it hilarious. I was reporting bare-kneed staggering drunks shivering in kilts, and members of a volunteer fire-department openly urinating on the manicured lawns of Rochester’s mega-rich out along East Ave.
We’ve lost track of that. It wasn’t actually a BlogSpot blog. I’d flown it on my family’s website.
And so began sending similar stuff to Marcy, which she collected.
Marcy is my number-one ne’er-do-well.
It was Marcy who suggested BlogSpot. That was eight years ago.
If anything, my blogging has mellowed since, although I occasionally get flashes.
I used to call my brother-from-Boston “The Almighty Bluster-King,” but not any more. He’s a tub-thumping macho Harley-dude, but has mellowed with age.
I think he’s also giving me a break since my wife died.
So here I am marching our dog in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
It eventually started after a 50-minute delay. Crowds lined the streets — they were cheering and screaming. It was all I could do to keep from crying. The St. Patrick’s Day parade is a thrill, and my wife is gone.
I had to keep biting my lip.
That first parade the Irish-Setters were right in front of a local ambulance service, sirens blaring. It was unbearable.
And we were behind a giant black ’57 Chevy stretch brimming with buxom tart wannabees. The car was once used by Bo Diddley to transport his band, and we kept marching into it.
This time we were ahead of the blatting Pittsford Fire-Department Marching-Band, and trombones were in the lead; one trombone was green.
I can’t walk that fast, so the drill was to avoid getting swallowed by that band.
I had the advantage that the parade would stall. A group of tousled lassies was in front of us dancing an Irish jig. Waving little girls were on a trailer pulled by a honking dually pickup.
The parade would stall and I’d end up amidst the dancers.
The parade goes at least two miles including down the main-drag through Rochester.
I’m not young any more. I ache all over, but I kept going.
Next time I’ll march the middle of the street.
I’d head for the curb, to give spectators a chance to pet my dog.
Not a smart move! She scarfed anything and everything.
Supposedly chocolate is bad for dogs, but she probably scarfed every Tootsie-Roll she could find. She also glommed a discarded chocolate-chip cookie before I could snag it.
I had a dog with an upset stomach the next day, but now she seems okay.
Parade finished, I had to hike all the way back to my car, at least a mile-and-a-half — with a lunging, pulling dog.
And Rochester is no longer the Rochester I knew. The southeast corner of Main & Clinton had been reduced to a grassy field. That is, all the buildings that once crowded that corner are gone.
I found myself hiking up South Clinton toward Main St. — the police had Clinton blocked off.
I cut through to avoid Main St. — the parade-route. It used to be you couldn’t, but now you can.
I found myself passing Windstream headquarters, the supposed anchor of development in this block.
Windstream is fraught with controversy. First it was gonna locate here, then it wasn’t. Windstream is getting a substantial tax-break.
Yet it occupies only a small area of the block.
I passed Windstream’s front-entrance on a large concrete apron.
Is it possible to save downtown Rochester? Or must it become all grassy fields and aprons?
I passed the shell of what once had been an office-tower. The top was still there, but the bottom was nothing but rusty steel I-beams.
I’d say my dog was the least civilized of our group. All the others dogs were nervous — trembling.
My dog wasn’t shaking. Pig-out city awaited! Pizza, crackers, candy!
My dog was probably the oldest-looking dog, perhaps not the oldest, but more gray in the muzzle.
The other dogs were placid; mine was rambunctious.
Apparently the long parade was ending as I got back to my car.
A giant pink front-end loader was passing. Usually front-end loaders are yellow — why not green for St. Patrick’s Day?
I could comment about a front-end loader being in the parade, but such things are normal and expected.
About 10 tiny pizza-delivery HHRs passed, horns blowing, some white, some black.
The parade is as much advertisement as anything.
“We can dig it” was painted on the pink front-end loader.
• Station-Inn.
• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Los Angeles. (Mahoney is also pictured.)
• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
Yrs trly is not in this photograph, but I think my dog, “Scarlett,” is. She’s at right with the guy that held her while I waited at a Porta-Pottie.
Rochester held it’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade Saturday, March 15th, 2014.
A two-mile orgy of bands, dancers, drunks, blowing car-horns, and screaming sirens.
The Irish-Setter Club of Western New York (ISCWNY) marches their Irish-Setters in this parade, and my Scarlett-dog is an Irish-Setter.
The first St. Patrick’s Day parade we marched in was maybe 10 years ago, and my wife came too.
We’ve always marched our dogs in the St. Patrick’s Day parade; we’ve always had Irish-Setters.
I think this parade was my fourth or fifth, and my first since my wife died.
I wanted to do it last year — my wife died almost two years ago — but I couldn’t connect.
The St. Patrick’s Day parade is always a crap-shoot for weather.
Once it was 70 degrees, other times freezing cold and snowing.
The other day wasn’t too bad, about 38 degrees, but my hands were getting cold by parade-end.
That St. Patrick’s Day parade 10 years ago was my first blog sent to Marcy, who worked next to me at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper.
I don’t know why I sent it, but she thought it hilarious. I was reporting bare-kneed staggering drunks shivering in kilts, and members of a volunteer fire-department openly urinating on the manicured lawns of Rochester’s mega-rich out along East Ave.
We’ve lost track of that. It wasn’t actually a BlogSpot blog. I’d flown it on my family’s website.
And so began sending similar stuff to Marcy, which she collected.
Marcy is my number-one ne’er-do-well.
It was Marcy who suggested BlogSpot. That was eight years ago.
If anything, my blogging has mellowed since, although I occasionally get flashes.
I used to call my brother-from-Boston “The Almighty Bluster-King,” but not any more. He’s a tub-thumping macho Harley-dude, but has mellowed with age.
I think he’s also giving me a break since my wife died.
So here I am marching our dog in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
It eventually started after a 50-minute delay. Crowds lined the streets — they were cheering and screaming. It was all I could do to keep from crying. The St. Patrick’s Day parade is a thrill, and my wife is gone.
I had to keep biting my lip.
That first parade the Irish-Setters were right in front of a local ambulance service, sirens blaring. It was unbearable.
And we were behind a giant black ’57 Chevy stretch brimming with buxom tart wannabees. The car was once used by Bo Diddley to transport his band, and we kept marching into it.
This time we were ahead of the blatting Pittsford Fire-Department Marching-Band, and trombones were in the lead; one trombone was green.
I can’t walk that fast, so the drill was to avoid getting swallowed by that band.
I had the advantage that the parade would stall. A group of tousled lassies was in front of us dancing an Irish jig. Waving little girls were on a trailer pulled by a honking dually pickup.
The parade would stall and I’d end up amidst the dancers.
The parade goes at least two miles including down the main-drag through Rochester.
I’m not young any more. I ache all over, but I kept going.
Next time I’ll march the middle of the street.
I’d head for the curb, to give spectators a chance to pet my dog.
Not a smart move! She scarfed anything and everything.
Supposedly chocolate is bad for dogs, but she probably scarfed every Tootsie-Roll she could find. She also glommed a discarded chocolate-chip cookie before I could snag it.
I had a dog with an upset stomach the next day, but now she seems okay.
Parade finished, I had to hike all the way back to my car, at least a mile-and-a-half — with a lunging, pulling dog.
And Rochester is no longer the Rochester I knew. The southeast corner of Main & Clinton had been reduced to a grassy field. That is, all the buildings that once crowded that corner are gone.
I found myself hiking up South Clinton toward Main St. — the police had Clinton blocked off.
I cut through to avoid Main St. — the parade-route. It used to be you couldn’t, but now you can.
I found myself passing Windstream headquarters, the supposed anchor of development in this block.
Windstream is fraught with controversy. First it was gonna locate here, then it wasn’t. Windstream is getting a substantial tax-break.
Yet it occupies only a small area of the block.
I passed Windstream’s front-entrance on a large concrete apron.
Is it possible to save downtown Rochester? Or must it become all grassy fields and aprons?
I passed the shell of what once had been an office-tower. The top was still there, but the bottom was nothing but rusty steel I-beams.
I’d say my dog was the least civilized of our group. All the others dogs were nervous — trembling.
My dog wasn’t shaking. Pig-out city awaited! Pizza, crackers, candy!
My dog was probably the oldest-looking dog, perhaps not the oldest, but more gray in the muzzle.
The other dogs were placid; mine was rambunctious.
Apparently the long parade was ending as I got back to my car.
A giant pink front-end loader was passing. Usually front-end loaders are yellow — why not green for St. Patrick’s Day?
I could comment about a front-end loader being in the parade, but such things are normal and expected.
About 10 tiny pizza-delivery HHRs passed, horns blowing, some white, some black.
The parade is as much advertisement as anything.
“We can dig it” was painted on the pink front-end loader.
• Station-Inn.
• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Los Angeles. (Mahoney is also pictured.)
• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
posted by BobbaLew at 5:13 PM
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