Povey Prattle

When I travel down to Englewood FL (to officiate as a supply priest at S. David’s Episcopal Church in that town) I take FL Route 776 in south Venice. There I pass side streets which are named for various colleges or universities . It’s a long list. Here are the street names. Bowdoin, Columbia, Rutgers, Dartmouth, Clemson, Oberlin, Tulane. Cornell, Stanford, Loyola, Temple, Hobart, Syracuse, Duquesne, Drew, Colgate, Yale, Fordham, Duke, Urbana, Brown, Villanova, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Perdue. American readers will recognise these as “prestigious” institutions. Yet it is a very eclectic list with no rhyme or reason to connect these places, or to exclude others Maybe the developer of these streets was fond of higher education (terrific), but named the streets from memory rather than from a consistent theme. Whatever!

If you read my Blog/Facebook entry yesterday you will have noted that my cousin Janet, her partner Steve and I had lunch on Tuesday at a Pinellas Park (FL) restaurant named “Bascom’s Chop House”. I mentioned to Steve and Janet that I had parishioners in Pittsfield, MA named Bob and Mary Ann Bascom. The name of the restaurant caused me to think about Bob and Mary Ann, for the first time in so many years. I took a photo’ of the restaurant sign, with the intention of sending a copy to them. That was at about 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Later on Tuesday Bob attended a meeting at St. Stephen’s, Pittsfield, and then went home to watch a bit of T.V. He went to bed and (sometime during the night) he died of a heart attack. I find this “coincidence” to be a wee bit “spooky”. Bob Bascom was a fabulous St. Stephen’s parishioner.  He was conservative (with a lower case “c”), and all the better for it. He was a terrific trainer of acolytes for 50+ years.  Thanks to him the St...

My first cousin Janet from Bristol U.K. and her good partner Steve are again in this neck of the woods. They visit their time shares at Treasure Island, FL and Longboat Key FL each year.  So we always get together a couple of times when they are here.  This means that I have enjoyed Janet and Steve's company for at least fourteen  times since I retired to S.W. FL  -  more  times than I had been with them in "so many" years prior to 2006. That's good. We hooked up today at the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Airport for a joy ride in a four seater Cessna which is owned by a young Norwegian named Patrick who runs a business called http://www.flightexcursions.com/ (My brother Martyn, his son Sam, and Sam's pal Toby took a flight with Patrick when they were here in September.) Our joy ride today took us north west from the airport to Clearwater.  Then we flew south over the Gulf of Mexico,  with Indian Rocks Beach, the Redingto...

Whoop dee doo 1. Saw my dermatologist today. She discovered that the lump on my pate was not another squamous cell carcinoma. Rather, it was a cyst, created by one little stitch which the Dermatological surgeon failed to remove after my previous surgery. My dermatologist removed this little stitch. 2. Off to St. Petersburg/Clearwater FL tomorrow to hook up with my cousins Janet from Bristol, and her partner Steve. There we will take a flight: a joyride in a four passenger Cessna with Patrick our pilot, (who took Martyn, Sam, and Toby on a joyride back in September).  We will fly south from St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport, across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and then across Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key, then back to the airport.

It used to be called “The Great War”.  My parents called it "The First War" Some folks called it the 1914/ 1918 war. Now we call it WW1 It was dubbed “the war to end all wars”.  It stumbled to an end on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.  There were no victors. There was simply the armistice agreed upon by exhausted countries. It was an utterly unnecessary war, fueled only by the testosterone enriched energies of Kings, Emperors, Generals and Admirals. It signaled the end of the Austrian/Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire and the German hopes for Empire.  It triggered the eventual demise of the Ottoman Empire, the French Empire and the British Empire. A weakened Russia was ripe for revolution, and the Bolsheviks won. A humiliated Germany was fertile ground for the seizure of power by the National Socialist party. “A war to end all wars”: what a joke.  Within twenty years Europe was at war aga...