Last Night, The Jamestown Christmas Parade and Brrrrr...A Cold, Gray, Saturday Morning Sky

7:30

Pre Christmas Parade Libation at the Brazil Craft Beer and Wine Lounge

Up before 7:00, just in time to listen to Only A Game, watch the dark sky turn a threatening gray.  It makes me feel good to be sitting inside, warm and comfortable in front of our fireplace.  I did notice a bevy of Tundra swans feeding still in the neighborhood on the flight south.

We did not do much yesterday, still recovering from our trip West perhaps, not ready to get back into our routine of hiking.  And it was cloudy, overcast, with some wet snow on and off during the day. I did force myself to walk a loop around the campground and it felt good to be outside in the cold air even though it was gray and wet most of the way.  Evie put together a great lunch, her vegetable soup and an egg and mushroom wrap.  We are trying to follow the New York Times Mark Bitman's healthy way of eating: vegetarian until dinner, something we tend to do anyways.  It's just hard finding something to put in a wrap each day that's different.  I've been reading Steve Jobs biography, by Walter Isaacson, a book highly recommended by my son Tom.  Surprising myself, I have found it readable and fascinating, not your typical entrepreneur, moody, mean, a druggie early in his career, a follower of Zen Buddhism, vegetarian, egotistical yet charismatic.  He could have been Jim Jones in another reincarnation.  He just happened to live at the right time when computers were just starting to go mainstream and he lived at the center of what was happening in Silicon Valley, like Bill Gates, a combination of luck, geography, and genius.  Had he lived five years earlier or later, he probably would have been a nobody, at least according to Malcolm Gladwell's theory.

Happy Catholics

Firemen Cometh

At 5:15, we drove off to Jamestown, parked just out of the city in the Riverside Plaza because Jamestown was having their Christmas Parade at 6:30 and we wanted to be one of the thousands standing along the streets, watching the fun.  We had it planned so we could take a ten minute walk into the city, stopping for a couple of beers at the new Brazil Craft Beer and Wine Lounge on 4th street. We have been there two or three times before and liked it.  Fortunately, even though it was a Friday night, we were able to get a couple of seats at the bar and struck up a conversation with a guy who works at a large manufacturing plant in Falconer, once called TWR, which makes bearings for airplanes.  He was a big guy, as tall as me, but much heavier.  We had a good time talking with him; he's also a kayaker and has been on the various rivers and was able to tell me what it was like to kayak the Chadakoin River out of Jamestown.  The bar is now serving appetizers so we ordered a cheese plate, brie and manchego, a goat cheese from Spain, with bread, a perfect accompaniment to our beers, a couple of local micro brews and one German beer.  We were there until about 6:45, then walked out into the cold and light snow and managed to work our way through the throngs to standing along the curb of 3rd Street.  The parade was just what we expected.  Almost anyone or any  group, if they wished, could sign up and be part it (we could have marched as Woodlawner's) so there was no theme other than the holidays.  It was led by a huge locomotive, sitting on a huge trailer, pulled by a truck.  It was followed by just about anything you can imagine, lit by fire works: church groups marching, veteran's with flags, marching ROTC students, trucks with snow plows, fire engines, police cruisers, marching bands, majorettes with flags, ambulances, bicyclists, Randolph's state champion football team on a trailer, car dealers, WCA hospital, and others that I have forgotten.  It was a great night to be there, a light snow, no wind, lots of lights on the buildings, street lights and of course the parade.  Both sides of the street were packed, with guys hawking various toys, food stands selling caramel corn and even a teriyaki/ noodle stand for those who were hungry.  We stood with the locals, four or five deep, for about forty five minutes, watching most of the parade then decided to beat the crowd out of the area.

Jamestown Marching Band

Grand Marshall Lee Harkness on Viscose Company Locomotive

Flag Carrying Majorettes

Crows Watching From Trees

We were going to eat downtown but decided on a fish fry at the Rod and Gun.  We walked to the car, about ten minutes, and were at the Rod and Gun, sitting at the busy bar by 8:00.  The crowd at the Rod and Gun was beginning to thin out, so we did not have to wait for a seat.  We both ordered fish fry's, along with a beer, and were on our way home just before 9:00, a quick stop for us at the Club.  We got home in time to watch another episode of The Good Wife before I went to bed, to read more about the eccentricities of Steve Jobs.

Rod and Gun Club's 7.95 Fish Fry

This morning, we are off to Dunkirk, to support the local Empty Bowls project.  Potters in the area spend weeks making bowls to support the soup kitchen in Dunkirk.  Today thousands of them will be on sale to support the kitchen.  And with each bowl, you get soup to enjoy and listen to music, a  great way to spend a Saturday morning.