World War II Weekends Photographic Memory Book

   Available as an ebook on Kindle, soon to be released in paperback, World War II Weekends is over a hundred full color photographs from five June World War II Weekends at The Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania. Join Ike the doll, avoid the sun and crowds, to see everything World War II: airplanes, tanks, cars, motorcycles, a French village, and lots more. 

Go to World War II Weekends

WWII Weekend

  Ike has been getting around this year. Ron and I also had fun as usual at WWII Weekend up the road at the airport, The Mid Atlantic Air Museum. I got some fabulous authentic WWII souvenirs too. The mermaid patch is a liberty cuff. They were inside the sailors' cuffs. When they were off duty they would roll their cuff up revealing the siren. I'm going to frame her and hang her on the wall. The bitty paratrooper is a German "pin". Children sold them to raise money for the soldiers' winter coats. I lost my yellow flower Ron got me from the French village, so he got me two more purple ones. I've got six now. Afterwards we watched one of my favorite films from 1945 Scarlet Street, starring Joan Bennett and Edward G. Robinson. I love those two. Then we went to a diner where I had disco fries. I had an orange float and a pretzel at WWII Weekend. Oh, I almost forgot the addition to my sticker collection. Schultz is another childhood favorite. Ron had got me the crochet grape doily there years ago, another thing I've admired since childhood. This is the first time we went after hours: much cooler and less crowded. Good times. 

 

Laurel Hill Cemetery: Picture Paperback & Ebook

  Available in paperback or ebook, Laurel Hill Cemetery is another Pennsylvania picture book with 107 color photographs of a late autumn day in an old Philadelphian cemetery. The paperback has a new poem on the back.

Laurel Hill Cemetery

Dreams 9/24

 Dreamed that I was at a girls' school with Katie, it was night. Al Pacino was her dad, and he was livid about some guy who was picking on her or something to that effect. Al was driving a fast dark colored SUV, the roads were slick and wet. He wore a long white coat and black belt. He was rather young, forties, maybe. He sped up through a parking garage wanting to know where Katie was and drove off crazed. 

Stolen Car

Dreams 9/16

 Finally was able to catch a bit of sleep only to be embroiled in an epic nightmare. I was working at The Pittsburgh Job Corps but as is often the case with dreams it was something else entirely. I was in my thirties. Donald Trump was in charge. An important family was coming to visit from Russia with their three children, two teenagers and a little boy. Donald had assigned me to watch over them as their goodwill ambassador, and I was over the moon, and felt honored. I went shopping for clothes to meet and greet them in and decided on a little white tee shirt with an impressionist print of a Russian scene with trees in yellow and pale blue that resembled a Matisse to wear beneath a dark brown beautifully cut jacket and a black skirt. 

  In the meantime the family had arrived and were setting into their bright city apartment where they were supposed to be staying for sometime. It had a lot of windows and was haunted. I did not know what haunted the place, only that the family was not the first victims. The specter had taken out the balding father in his navy blue suit, the mother, with her short curly dark blonde hair, and the two teens, a girl and a boy. I did not witness the deaths, only a trail of blood, and another sort of spirit, something else entirely, like a faery or a doll, hiding the little boy dressed in blue fuzzy pajamas, clutching a toy, in a bottom kitchen cabinet from the murderous ghost. 

  But in the dream I was separate and had no idea this had occurred. I was still excited and preparing for their arrival, to show them around. Donald thought I looked smart in my fun new clothes. I still had some running around to do and was driving The Betsy, the '71 Monte Carlo I grew up with. I was in downtown Pittsburgh. It was a dark and dreadful day. A howling winter storm had set in. When I came back from my shopping Betsy was gone, and I wondered if I had parked her in a fire lane. She was parked against the curb in a sort of round-about of wild Pittsburgh traffic. My rational mind told me there was no time for this, and I lucidly blinked her back like Jeannie and continued with my errands. The second time I came back I found her parked on the other side of the road. I drove back to the Job Corps that wasn't. It looked more like an airport, someplace hopping. 

  I changed my clothes and put my new clothes into a tall iron receptacle, something like a mailbox or trashcan in the main office. Another girl was with me and did the same. It was a kind of storage unit which seemed impossible as the clothing was packed into a crumpled heap. I had changed into my red chiffon gown. Donald thought I looked very nice. When I came back for my new clothes, however, they were gone from the receptacle along with the other girl's. Donald and a dark haired woman in a blue suit with a white shirt and red tie, (they were dressed the same, like Obama's Scooby Doo blue suit), who I presumed was his wife, were seated behind a plate of glass like air traffic controllers. I told them about my missing clothes, and the woman was very short and wrote me off quickly with such disregard that I just walked away feeling helpless. I knew better than to try to argue with her. I was just going to have to meet them in my gown. I didn't want to but had no choice. I waited. Then, Donald said that they weren't coming, something terrible had happened. 

Dreams 7/3

 Dreamed I was at the gas station. After filling up my tank I pulled my car over to the right-hand-side of the building and washed it. There was an extension cord on the ground and a wand with a soft pad on the end for washing. I went over the windows with the brush last. 

I fell asleep watching The Great Courses The Black Death. I'm up to episode seventeen of twenty-four. I'm glad I went back to it. Goes to show: don't let CONVID stop you. Vishnu wishes you a Happy Fourth of July! 🎆 Down with The Kid Smellin' Demonrats and The New World Order! Let The Quaker Oats Guy go! 

Primus - DMV (Official Music Video)

American Museum of Treasures 5

Dreams 4/18

 

Had a nightmare all day I couldn't shake. It took place in Slippery Rock, but as usual with dreams it was more like Fredricksburg. Mummy had sent me to get my car fixed and also to pay a man out in the country some money we owed him. I parked my car in a lot alongside a tavern, it looked like an old stable. For some reason when I got out of my car I took off my little brown leather flats and left them with some other shoes in the lot then proceeded into the tavern in my stocking feet. I knew a girl who worked there, and she gave me a bunch of strange homeopathic remedies. She was telling me what they were for. The place was dim and dusty, and when I went back out to my car dusk was gathering fast, and I could not find it or my shoes. I was looking all around, tavern to tavern. The place was full of alleys that were a bit like a brick labyrinth, or so it seemed to me, lost and confused. One proprietor, a fellow with dark hair, seemed to think I was a little crazy. I might've been because I would get fed-up looking, wake myself, then fall back into the same dream. At one point I thought I found my shoes only they were huge, not mine. I was thinking I was going to be late paying the blonde man who lived out in the boonies and was going to have to walk home in my socks. I entered yet another old bar, a woman with short dark hair was trying to talk me into drinking with her, but I refused. I never did find my shoes or my car. 

Dreams 2/24

 Dreamt that Ron left my brother and I downtown in a big glass office building. When I came out I had somehow spirited Glenn back home or something and was looking for my car, Little Pearl, who had been parallel parked. All of the cars that had been left on the road were smashed and compacted into cubes, very sad and distressing. I walked back to the building. There was a pay phone in the lobby, but I hadn't any change. I went back out to walk the streets and look for Ron. I had to wake myself. It seemed very real. 

Dreams 3/27

This odd dream began in a big old school. I think it was for boys. I was in the cafeteria, and there were all sorts of seed packets for sale on a metal rack in the line. Some of the packets were regular sized, but others were smaller. There were lovely little paintings on them: red birds, landscapes, and churches instead of the normal flower photographs. I had a tiny packet with cardinals in my hand, but put them back. I was light on money. Then, I found myself on a stairway, on the way to the restrooms. I hurried out when I realized I was in the boys room. Then, I went to work. I had my old blue car, Mr. Rourke, but he was different. I parked him in a parking garage. When I came out from working in a grocery store, all of our cars were gone. My boss said they were stacked on a car carrier, and I had to pay fifteen dollars to unload him. I said I only had some change, and he told me to scrape for it. When I finally got Mr. Rourke, he was very different. He had a big black phantom horse with him who would not cooperate. I was trying to coax him, and he wasn't happy.