Public Ivy in Maryland

St. Mary's College of Maryland is the state's public honors college. Its campus is on the St. Mary's River near the Chesapeake Bay, where two ships from England, the Ark and the Dove, landed in 1634 with settlers for the new colony of Mary's Land. The college sailing team is ranked number one in the country.

Our friend Nicole Casasa-Blouin is a St. Mary's sophomore.

How 'bout them dawgs?

There are some things about my life that I'm not completely proud of, and I guess one of them is my willingness to traffic in cute pet pictures. But here goes:

Sarge is a 7-month-old bloodhound, 90 pounds now, who lives in Arundel, Maine, with the family of Ryan Toussaint. Ryan is incoming captain of the Deering High School wrestling team. When Sarge is full grown, he's expected to weight about 140 pounds, but I'm thinking that for this 2008-09 season, he could probably go 103.

But which one is VP?

A few election cycles ago, John and Ted stood at the lectern in the White House, which was then inhabited by the administration of Bush I. My parents' neighbor, Donna Barron, worked in Barbara Bush's office and arranged a special tour for them.

The boys didn't do much during their brief flirtation with the, um, seat of power--a few signing statements, perhaps, and of course, as they were leaving, a pardon or two. Or not. It's not clear whether the experience left them lusting for power or infatuated with the American dream. Or not. But just in case--guys, we knew you when.

Which Rockette?

David and Toby Peltz, at the home of their daughter Michele. You'll want to ask Toby which of these Rockettes was her, back in the day?

At the bottom of the front

Still life with petrified wood, pumpkin, non-blooming geranium, and 5 quinces.


Still life with petrified wood, pumpkin, non-blooming geranium, and 5 quinces.

38 score and 4 years ago

Perhaps this contemporary view of the Old City of Tallinn, Estonia, looks a little like what the Danes saw in 1227 AD, when they sailed to the eastern end of the Baltic Sea with invasion on their minds. Although Tallinn was walled, fortified, and high on a hill, the Danes managed to conquer it. So did the Germans, and then the Swedes, and eventually the Nazis and the Soviets. In 1991, after 764 years of almost constant subjugation, the Estonians won their independence.

Yard ducks

The rain yesterday brought down a serious storm of leaves, which made me think of this picture, in which cousin Jess feeds the ducks in our backyard in Alabama. I'm sure the leaves haven't fallen yet this year in Alabama--the picture was taken at Christmastime. Probably fifteen Christmases ago.

The duck with the black spot on her head was named Penny, for reasons unbeknownst to me. She was once hit by a car and lost part of one foot. She walked with a bad limp, almost a hop, but it was a very fast hop.

The writing on the wall

In the little hallway at the top of our basement stairs is a wall where we have taken the measure of many a man, woman, child, and also a dog or two. The day we moved into this house, in the summer of 2003, we started marking heights. Some people grew, and others didn't. Some grew a whole lot, others just a smidge. We haven't marked feet or inches, or meters--just names and dates, because the story is all about relative heights: who's taller than whom, and when did they get that way.

Peter observed recently that he is now shorter than his mark from a few months ago. Evidently, the wall preserves error as well as truth. In other words, there's all of history, right there written on the wall.

Tallest at the moment is Izaak, a 16-year-old friend of Hank's who almost has to stoop to get through the door--and who is doubtless still growing. Shortest is Dobby the dog. In Alabama, they have a saying: Thank God for MIssissippi. The saying stems from the fact that without Mississippi, Alabama would likely rank at the very bottom instead of the near-bottom on measures of social and cultural poverty. Steins can say thank God for Dobby, who makes everybody else look wicked tall.

America in Cuba

The notorious and disgraceful prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the Bush administration has been torturing prisoners and stashing them away, perhaps forever, is located on the grounds of a U.S. naval base that also houses a commercial district where sailors and their families can find familiar American-style stores and restaurants. It has been reported that when prisoners cooperated with their American interrogators, they might be rewarded with french fries from this McDonald's.

G'morning, g'night.

Sunrise on the Mahoosuc Trail in the White Mountains in Maine. Photo by Hank Stein.

Sunset from Mt. LeConte in the Black Mountains in North Carolina. Photo by Carol Stack.

At least he's clean

Not much to say about this picture. I could point out how old John is, but really, how could that help?

Renovation

For 30 or 40 years, Carol Stack's house in the Lockridge community near Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was an A-frame built into the side of a hill--all roof and few windows, dark and cramped. It only took four solid years of remodeling to change all that.

Don't try this at home.

Truth: The boy stuck the nose in the dog's mouth.

More truth: No dogs or boys were harmed in the making of this image.
Even more truth: The crowd booed and screamed "Puck you, Palin!" when Sarah dropped the first ceremonial puck at the Philadelphia Flyers hockey game Saturday night.

Snow senator

In the great tradition of trying to get your town into the Guinness Book of World Records, the people of Bethel, Maine, last year built a 122-foot-tall snow person, the Olympia Snowe-woman. She had skis for eyelashes, trees for arms, and truck tires for buttons. By the time we visited in April, her mascara needed freshening, but she was still formidable. I don't think she ran for re-election.

Spiderman

Patrik Maldre works sideways along the cliff face near Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth.

Pat spent a couple of weeks in Maine this summer, between his military service in the Estonian army and the start of his freshman year at the University of Illinois. Most of the time he was here, it rained.

Almost Italy

I'm afraid I owe Alex Manno an apology --he really did not want his picture taken in his grocery-story getup. Presumably, this is not how he wants this stage of his life to be remembered. 

But he put in the hours and saved his pay, and now he'll be going to Italy next spring on a school trip. So this picture can be thought of as a placeholder, until he sends one from Italy that will capture what he really wants to remember.

The flash of brilliance

Looks like Jumping Jack Flash, right? Leaping from the rocks at Kettle Cove. 

The thing is, though--this is Jumping Joe Flash, not Jack. Cuppa Joe. Hey Joe, whaddya know?

Our man Joe. Not Joe Sixpack, or Joe Biden. Purely Joe Stein, with a spring in his step and a song in his heart, and probably the sun in his eyes.

Yo ho ho, the wind blows free

There's not much to say about this painting, which hangs in the lobby of Alumni Hall, an auditorium / coliseum on the campus of the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I do like how the sailors on the deck of the aircraft carrier are standing in equation formation.

Photo by Ted Stein.

What did the groundhog see in August?

On a winter afternoon this past August, the sun pushed aside the clouds and warmed the river in Henley Lake Park in the town of Masterton, near the southern tip of New Zealand's North Island. This picture is from a photo by A., in the Kiwi branch of the family.

A couple of days later, winter returned to that end of the earth, and up in the mountains above the city of Wellington a light snow briefly stopped traffic along the road through the Rimutaka pass

But that's all ancient history. Now that it's October, spring has come to New Zealand, and Henley Lake Park is all greened up.

Incomplete

Obviously, Allen is going to miss this catch--but that's okay, for several reasons. First, he's showing good hustle. Second, he doesn't have to make his living playing football. Third, there's no brick wall or gutterfull of broken glass anywhere near the spot where his shirtless body is about to yield to the rule of gravity. (As opposed to the circumstances surrounding an undocumented catch a few minutes later.) And finally, the sky is blue, the grass is young and green, the redbud tree is red with bloom--on a day like this,  getting outside in the yard, in the sun, throwing a football around-this might be about as good as it gets for a spring afternoon.

A spring afternoon?

It's October... Football season...

This is a little complicated. 

1. The picture was taken in the spring of 2007, in Pennsylvania.
2. October is the fall of the year in Pennsylvania and most other places in the northern hemisphere. But it is possible to get a little too hemisphere-centric about these things.
3. Some people on this Good Morning list live in a completely different hemisphere where October is springtime! Spring is busting out in their neighborhood as you read this! I'll prove it to you tomorrow. 
4. In the meantime, back to football: (a) Deering High School Rams are undefeated. (b) Alabama Crimson Tide is ranked #2 in the nation, though they didn't play like that against Kentucky yesterday. (c) Navy beat a team ranked in the top 20, for the first time in a million years. (d) The Patriots could be doing worse.

Go 'Skins!

Karlsruhe from space

A cartographer-friend of mine is a graduate of Karlsruhe University in this college town at the edge of the Black Forest in Germany. At her suggestion, I obtained satellite imagery of the town so we could see how its double-ring layout looks from 500 miles out in space.

The colors of the image are not exactly what the satellite "saw." Its sensors picked up infrared energy as well as visible light, and each pixel here represents a combination of visible and infrared light intensity. I fooled around with the colors in photoshop to enhance contrast and make everything look sort of normal but also a little more interesting than normal.

Prince Karl built the purple castle near the center of the picture in 1715, or so I've read. The street running south from his castle into the downtown area has always been the main market street. East and northeast of the castle is Karlsruhe University, a scientific and engineering school and research institute. Near the edge of town--but intentionally cropped out of the picture--is the largest oil refinery in Germany.

The band I can't introduce properly on network TV

Ted is the lead singer and songwriter for Evil Empire, a Rage Against the Machine cover band in Washington, D.C., that performs at rallies and benefits for excellent causes. They have devoted fans who scream and dance at their concerts and chant the words of their songs.

A couple of weeks ago, Ted asked if I would introduce them at a concert they were doing to raise money for Iraq Veterans Against the War, among aother organizations. I was honored, and I thought long and hard about what to say and how to say it. I tried to think of some jokes. I don't often share the stage with big-haired rockers, so it was all pretty exciting.

When I got to the scene of the show, however, in a courtyard next to a half-finished condominium complex, Ted told me the deal. He wanted me to go up on stage and introduce Evil Empire exactly the same way that the mother of the drummer in Rage Against the Machine used to introduce that band. My prepared remarks were not needed. The Rage Against the Machine drummer's mother, who must have been about my age, used to go out into the middle of the stage--or so I'm told--and just stand there with the mike, waiting for everybody to get quiet. Then she'd say,

"And now for the best f--ing band in the whole f--ing universe!"

Easy enough. And after my flawless introduction, throughout a summer night of rappin and rockin, I was a celebrity. Some people are nothing more than a hockey mom, but I'm a hair band mom--which might even be about half a step up from my former life as a wrestling mom.

And you know what? The band is really, really good. Best in the whole fucking universe.

Good apples

October. Good baskets like these are hard to find nowadays, but good apples still grow on trees.

A Chewonki education

Hank Stein, the bear hugger at right in this photo, is one of 40 high school juniors participating this semester in an educational program in Wiscasset, Maine, run by the Chewonki Foundation. The students live in summer-camp cabins, which they heat with wood they cut  themselves.. They help care for livestock and crops on Chewonki's farm, and they eat what they grow (along with food that other people have grown). Most of the courses they take have themes relating to the environment--Hank's art class, for instance, is called Art and Nature. I do not know what class , if any, the mud is for.

For the month of October this year, I'm going to try reviving the Good Morning photos. If you have pictures to share, or people to add to the list--of if it's time for you to get off the list--just lemme know.

Meanwhile, best wishes to all for a happy and healthful new year.