Lumberton Paddle

     Lumberton sponsored a nice event on Saturday, September 22nd.  It was the second annual Lumberton Paddle and Village Fair.  Mike and I went with our nephew Michael and his girlfriend Crissy.  We rented canoes for the very reasonal price of $15.00.  The fee included a bus ride to Ironwood Outdoor Club where we put in our canoes.  We paddled down the Rancocas Creek for about an hour, leaving the creek near the Florence L. Walther School.  The highlight of the voyage was meeting a nice lady who was kayaking with her pit bull terrier, Cassius Clay.  Cassius sat in the kayak patiently waiting until the end of the ride when he would be allowed to jump out and swim to shore - an hour of waiting for a 60 second swim.  You're a good boy, Cassius.
     After paddling, we had a look around the Lumberton Fire Company.  They let us climb on the trucks, and Chrissy got to blast the horn.  It's hard to beat that.  We also spent some time at the Gaun Community Center.  They have three rooms of antiques and memorabilia.
     What a great day - beautiful weather, a little exercise, a walk back in time - all good clean fun.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/row-your-boat/article_2dec2cb1-f968-568e-98dd-cc0c0a9d7e02.html

Chrissy and Michael took the lead.  Mike and I followed.  This photo was taken by Burlington County Times photographer,  Dennis McDonald.

    

I'd Like to Buy a Vowel

       Actually, I'd like to buy a whole bag of vowels.  I cooked up a craft project recently that required alphabet beads - those beads the hospital used for labeling newborns back in the 1950's. My plan was to buy a 97¢ wine glass from Walmart and add a wine charm that spelled out the name of each guest.  I studied up on wine charm construction  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqKwxwZVFIM, made a run to Joann for wire and beads, and got down to business.  It was all good until I ran out of vowels.
     In first grade we learned that the English language has a 26 letter alphabet.  There are five vowels and 21 consonants.  The five vowels are used 37.7% of the time - 19% of the alphabet is used almost 40% of the time.  Here are a couple of resources that explain letter frequency:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/what-is-the-frequency-of-the-letters-of-the-alphabet-in-english

     I bought Darice Alpha Beads.  Each bag contained 104 beads.  I thought I was playing it safe by purchasing 3 bags of beads - a total of 312 assorted beads.

     Here's what I got:                                      Here's what statistics say I should have gotten:                                                
          A - 7                                                               A - 26
          E - 8                                                               E - 34
          I - 8                                                                 I - 23
          O - 8                                                               O - 22
          U - 7                                                               U - 11

I got 12% vowels instead of 37% vowels.  I was spelling out names, not writing prose, but let's assume that the percentages remain the same for spelling names.  I would have had to buy lot's of extra beads to get the necessary vowels, and I would have had a plentitude of unusable letters. One bead containing the letter Q (a letter that occurs .19% of the time in English) would have been more than enough in 312 beads, but I got eight of them.  I could read a novel and not encounter eight Q's.
     The bead packaging contained the Darice company web address, so  I sent them an email suggesting that they sell bags of just the vowels.  Four days later, I got a response from a Darice representative which thanked me for my suggestion and assured me that my comments would be passed along to a buyer.  On top of that, they are sending me a couple of bags of beads.  I can remake my wine charms with full names.  Thank you to the Darice company for being responsive, and thanks a bunch for the beads!

http://www.darice.com/ecom/default.aspx

Kathleen had to settle for "Kath" and Rose had to settle for "Rosi."  Some people got only their initials.

                                                        
         

What If...

     I just read an article about the 1987 film "Fatal Attraction."  Originally the film ended with Glenn Close (Alex) killing herself with a knife from Michael Douglas' (Dan's) kitchen.  Dan gets carted off to jail since Alex successfully made her suicide look like murder.  Test audiences hated this ending.  They wanted Alex it "get hers," and they wanted more action.  The bathroom knife fight, near drowning, and shot to the heart became the ending in final version.
     Movie makers, TV producers, even hand cream formulators have test audiences and mall survey takers to help them get it right.  The rest of us just muddle along.  Even the most cautious human being - the one who uses common sense, does his research, consults an expert, and prays about the outcome - sometimes winds up disappointed.  Somewhere down the line we start reflecting and asking, "What if...."
     I might speculate about what would have happened if I had chosen the second of two alternatives. What if I had joined the Peace Corps instead of marrying Husband #1?  What if I had learned to play the drums in high school instead of accepting my mother's assertion - girls don't play drums? What if I majored in Spanish instead of English?  Y si....  Or I might come up with some off the wall stuff.  What if I had been born without thumbs?  What if I knew what you were going to say before you said it?  
     There is a whole world of "what if" out there.  The aforementioned movie industry has made a lot of what if films.  Have you seen "Sliding Doors," "The Family Man," or "Run Lola Run?" Have you heard Jason Derulo's song "What If... ?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qQCx9mxV9g
Marvel has a comic book series called "What If... ?"  What if Dagwood Bumstead woke up on Dick Tracy's couch?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_If_(comics)
From 2006 to 2008 a couple named David and Phoebe wrote a blog titled "What If ...."
http://whatiftheydid.blogspot.com/  Why did they stop, and what if they had continued?
     Pondering the alternative or engaging in completely fantastic thinking is mostly a waste of time. What's done is done, so live real, and live now.  Turn "what if" into "why not."  I'm not going to join the Peace Corp, but why not take up the drums?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykEd9YUsjgQ


  

Follow Up: A Girl Named Eva

     On March 21, 2012, I blogged about Eva Priestley's book, her memoir titled A Girl Named Eva.  The book is now for sale on Amazon for $2.99.  At the moment, only the Kindle edition is available, but a paper copy is in the works.  Don't fret if you don't have a Kindle.  You can download a free Kindle reader program from Amazon to your PC.
     I think Eva's book should be mandatory reading in high school history classes and women's literature classes.  It's also a book club must read.  Don't miss this insight into another segment of the "greatest generation."

http://www.amazon.com/GIRL-NAMED-EVA-MEMOIR-ebook/dp/B009368P7C/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1347633306&sr=1-2&keywords=a+girl+named+eva

    

Roadside Memorials

     I have what might be an unpopular opinion concerning roadside memorials.  I don't like them.  They can distract drivers.  As time passes, the silk flowers fade, and the display becomes choked with weeds.  Mainly though, I don't like seeing someone's grief set out on the side of the road.  Here is a memorial I noticed recently:

On Rt. 38 and Midlantic Drive

 
     I don't know of any local controversy surrounding these displays.  When I began researching the practice of setting up these shrines, I learned there is lots of controversy out there.

     In the Unites States, the practice of building the memorials could have had it's start in the 1940's and 1950's when the Arizona State Police used white crosses to mark the site of fatal car crashes.  The police probably borrowed the idea of white crosses from the Hispanic tradition of placing a cross at each stop in a funeral procession where the pall bearers halted to take a rest.  Arizona police no longer mark accident sites, but residents continue the practice.  Roadside memorials are common in other countries.  There is even a tradition called the ghost bike - an old bicycle is painted white and placed on the side of the road where a cyclist has died.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_memorial

     As the numbers of memorials have increased, and the tributes have become more elaborate, the government has gotten involved.  In one area of the United Kingdom, memorials are removed after three months.  Some states charge fees for memorials.  Colorado, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin have banned memorials.

     The message behind the monuments is, "Drive safely."  I like what the state of West Virginia has done.  They will post a sign containing a safety message and the name of the deceased.  The sign will remain in place for three years for a fee of $200.  For an additional $200, the sign will stay for another three year period.  After six years, it will be taken down.

http://www.transportation.wv.gov/highways/traffic/roadsidememorials/Pages/default.aspx

     I think this is the nicest sort of memorial.  It has permanence.  It is dignified.  Tattered artificial flowers and soggy teddy bears don't honor the deceased and get the message across the way this simple marker does.  This changes my opinion of roadside memorials, and I would like to see the Burlington County Highway Department offer something like this.       

       

San Diego Zoo

     No trip to southern California would be complete without a visit to the San Diego Zoo.  What started from a bunch of exotic animals abandoned after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, has become possibly the best zoo in the United States.  The zoo pioneered cageless exhibits.  It started the Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species in 1975, and it is one of four zoos in this country that displays giant pandas.  The San Diego Zoo has been the most successful zoo in breeding giant pandas.  They have had five births, and all but one of these babies have been sent back to China to participate in breeding programs.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Zoo
     The first thing we did when we got to the zoo was take a bus tour to get the lay of the land.  When we entered the big cat area, our bus driver pointed out that cheetahs are paired with dogs from animal shelters.  Unlike big, hungry, man-eating tigers, cheetahs are fraidy cats.  They are more afraid of us than we are of them.  Dogs give cheetahs confidence by being their friends.  Check out this video of a zookeeper walking a dog and cheetah side-by-side.  http://shine.yahoo.com/animal-nation/dogs-cheetahs-unlikely-friends-185400115.html
    

She looked thirsty.

The Most Dangerous Animal of All

        The zoo is also an arboretum.  They grow 40 kinds of bamboo for feeding the pandas and 18 kinds of eucalyptus for feeding the koalas.  They also have a safari park, but we're saving that for another vacation.        

Hollywood

     A trip to California would not be complete without a stop in Hollywood.  We took a tour of Paramount Studios.  We chose Paramount over Universal because we weren't interested in the theme park that Universal offers.  Our tour lasted four hours and included lunch.  Our guide was a young lady who has aspirations of writing for television.

 Our badges proclaimed that we were VIP guests!

This bench is from the movie Forrest Gump.

This "New York City street" was used in the TV show "Castle."

Dr. Phil is produced at Paramount. 

We went into one film vault.  These days movies are stored on hard drives.  Besides the film vault, we toured the carpentry shop where we saw how they make film sets.  We also went to the print shop where they make posters, street signs - anything required to make you believe the setting is real.

Do you recognize this from the movie "The Ten Commandments?"  California skies rarely have clouds.  They use the clouds painted on the side of this building for a more realistic looking sky.  The parking lot you see is sunken four feet.  In order to film "TheTen Commandments," they set the Isrealites up in the parking lot, marched them out backwards, and started pumping in water.  When they had the footage the needed, they ran it backwards for the movie.  That's how they parted the Red Sea.  Low tech, but effective.

     My favorite part of the tour was visiting the set of the TV show "Community."  They were on a filming break during our visit.  We saw a bunch of extras hanging around waiting for filming to continue.  Our guide told us they earn minimum wage - not much of a living.  We'll be watching "Community" this fall to see if we recognize anyone.
     It was a whole new perspective on acting and the movie business.  Everyone knows movies aren't real.  Knowing it's not real is not the same as knowing how completely fake it is.  The sets are shabby and dirty.  Evidently, they don't vacuum the floors because the floors never show.  They can hang fabric screens to make day look like night and night look like day.  If you open the door of a shop on the New York Street set, you won't find a deli counter, just piles of lumber and trash strewn about.  That's entertainment.