Thursday, August 31, 2000

road trip!!

we leave today for winona, mn to drop off the dogs with the sitter and to visit some friends. friday we'll be heading to alpine valley for the further fest and then off to my parent's huse in southern indiana. monday we'll be heading up to pine knob for another dose of the boys and a night of camping......then home...to work....and my final 2 weeks!

life is good!
posted by April Fraze 8/31/2000 08:26:47 AM| link

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

this was my high school.

this is where i went to grade school......personally i'm a little miffed that they built this new building destroying the building i went to and my mother before me.
posted by April Fraze 8/29/2000 03:29:39 PM| link

oh yeah.....this is right by my house....every fall the orchard does a beautiful display.

and stephenson's is the main focus of my very small town. as a kid, this was the place to buy everlasting gobstoppers.
posted by April Fraze 8/29/2000 03:19:21 PM| link

i am from kentuckiana....that's the southern part of indiana and the northern part of kentucky for those who might need it spelled out.

technically my home state is indiana, but if you've ever driven the length of 65 down through the state you will see a visible difference in landscape. northen indiana is flat....me, i grew up in the hills. southern indiana is a beautiful place, and although there isn't a lot of industry we have some gorgeous wilderness and an abundance of wildlife.

in my county, crawford, you might wish to visit:

marengo cave
wyandotte cave and wyandotte woods
patoka lake
cave country canoes on blue river

here's a map of our county with attractions highlighted.
i lived to the left of 64 and above 62. our town, leavenworth, sits on the ohio river.

the overlook is very close to my parents home.

the harrison-crawford state forest is very cool...if you visit, check with me for folk-lore....and be sure to visit the shoe tree.

i'm on my way home thursday, so i thought i'd do a little tourism push for our lovely part of indiana.

here's a link i am adding for my own genealogical benefit: Kentuckiana Geneaology
posted by April Fraze 8/29/2000 03:08:15 PM| link

"some men see things as they are and say 'why?'
i dream things that never where and say 'why not?'"

--bobby kennedy

i typed this up and hung it on the bulletin board in my office. now i have to start remembering it in my daily dealings.
posted by April Fraze 8/29/2000 02:44:28 PM| link

Sunday, August 27, 2000

state fair intake, 2 people:

1 sausage and pepperoni calzone with extra sauce
1 serving of bbq alligator ribs and seasoned alligator shaped fries
1 walleye on a stick
1 basket of deep-fried pickles with strange white sauce resembling tartar
1 pickle on a stick
1 bag (16 pieces) mini-donuts
1 bag pink and blue cotton candy

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......................
posted by April Fraze 8/27/2000 08:54:06 PM| link

upon the head candidate getting a rag-tag headquarters...the dropout culture's mood changes"

"there was something weird in the room, some kind of electric madness that i'd never noticed before. i stood against a wall with a beer in my hand and watched the machinery working. and after a while i realized what the difference was. for the first time in the campaign, these people really believed we were going to win - or at least that we had a good chance. and now, with less than an hour to go, they were working like a gang of coal-miners sent down to rescue the survivors of a cave-in. at that point - with my own role ended - i was probably the most pessimistic person in the room; the others seemed entirely convinced that joe edwards would be the next mayor of aspen...that our wild-eyed experiment with freak power was about to carry the day and establish a nationwide precedent."

--the great shark hunt, hunter s. thompson

in case you've ever wondered why every presidential candidate insists they will be in the white house next term........i think the scenario sounds dreamy....freak power rocking the establishment....can i get an "amen"?
posted by April Fraze 8/27/2000 09:58:54 AM| link

"so most of the freaks felt that voting wasn't worth the kind of bullshit that went with it, and the mayor's illegal threats only reinforced their notion that politics in america was something to be avoided. getting busted for grass was one thing, because the "crime" was worth the risk...but they saw no sense in going to court for a "political technicality," even if they weren't guilty.

(this sense of "reality" is a hallmark of the drug culture, which values the instant reward - a pleasant four-hour high - over anything involving a time lag between the effort and the end. on this scale of values, politics is too difficult, too "complex" and too "abstract" to justify any risk or initial action. it is the flip side of the "good german" syndrome.)"

--the great shark hunt, hunter s. thompson

i can't help but find this mention of instant gratification interesting...and perhaps this notion will be re-visited. anyone with ideas about the line seperating individuals desiring instant gratification and those able to hold on until the final pay off, please give me your thoughts.
posted by April Fraze 8/27/2000 09:47:07 AM| link

""aspen is full of freaks, heads, fun-hogs and weird night people of every description...but most of them would prefer jail or the bastinado to the horror of actually registering to vote. unlike the main bulk of burghers and businessmen, the dropout has to make an effort to use his long-dormant vote. there is not much to it, no risk and no more than ten minutes of small talk and time - but to the average dropout the idea of registering to vote is a very heavy thing. the psychic implications, "copping back into the system," etc., are fierce...and we learned, in aspen, that there is no point even trying to convince people to take that step unless you can give them a very good reason. like a very unusual candidate...or a fireball pitch of some kind.

the central problem that we grappled with last fall is the gap that seperates the head culture from activist politics. somewhere in the nightmare of failure that gripped america between 1965 and 1970, and the old berkeley-born notion of beating the system by fighting it gave way to a sort of numb conviction that it made more sense in the long run to flee, or even to simply hide, than to fight the bastards on anything even vaguely resembling their own terms.

our ten-day registration campaign had focused almost entirely on head/dropout culture; they wanted no part of activist politics and it had been a hellish effort to convnce them to register at all. many had lived in aspen for five or six years, and they weren't at all concerned with being convicted of vote-fraud - they simply didn't want to be hassled. most of us are living here because we like the idea of being able to walk out our front doors and smile at what we see. on my own front porch i have a palm tree growing in a blue toilet bowl...and on occasion i like to wander outside, start naked, and fire my .44 magnum at various gongs i've mounted on the nearby hillside. i like to load up on mescaline and turn my amplifier up to 110 decibels for a taste of "white rabbit" while the sun comes up on the snow-peaks along the continenetal divide.

which is not entirely the point. the world is full of places where a man can run wild on drugs and loud music and firepower - but not for long. i lived a block above haight street for two years but by the end of '66 the whole neighborhood had become a cop-magnet and a bad sideshow. between the narcs and the psychedelic hustlers, there was not much room to live.

what happened in the haight echoed earlier scenes in north beach and the village...and it proved, once again, the basic futility of seizing turf you can't control. the pattern never varies; a low-rent area suddenly blooms new and loose and human - and then fashionable, which attracts the press and the cops at about the same time. cop problems attract more publicity, which then attracts fad-salesman and hustlers - which means money, and that attracts junkies and jack-rollers. their bad action causes publicity and - for some perverse reason - an influx of bored, upward mobile types who dig the menace of "white ghetto" life and whose expense-account tastes drive local rents and street prices out of reach of the original settlers...who are forced, once again, to move on."

--the great shark hunt, hunter s. thompson
posted by April Fraze 8/27/2000 09:37:42 AM| link