We started Our Learning Institute classes and one class that I am taking is on French artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. This week we looked at Jean Baptiste Greuze who was painting at the time that France was becoming emotional and interested in everyday life. His paintings usually depicted several subjects in a way that told the viewer immediately the story of the painting. For example Broken Eggs has this little demon boy holding an egg shell, while the family is scolding the maid for the mishap of eggs on the floor. Anther one, Return of the Prodigal Son, the family surrounds the father's death bed, the mother is pointing accusingly at the son, the people surrounding the bed are wringing their hands, holding their heads and hearts, all melodramatically. The instructor even said that silent films copied these familiar stagings. Then he said something that clicked with me. He likened these paintings to Norman Rockwell, who likewise, used ordinary looking people, in a scene that was instantly recognized by the viewer. Christmas Homecoming has the mother hugging the son, while every one, old and young are smiling around them. Norman Rockwell brings me right back to when I was 12 in the 6th grade with Mrs. Fritz as my teacher.

Mrs. Fritz was a tiny woman, with curly gray hair, that ran a tight ship, mostly keeping us in line with her "credit system". Everytime you did something right, or got a 100, you got a line, 5 lines made a star, or a credit. Likewise, when you did something wrong, or failed, you lost a line, or if really terrible a whole credit. One of her weekly assignments would be a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Magazine cover. She would set it up on the chalkboard and have us write our own story to go with the picture. I loved this assignment, it was right up my alley and my pencil would fly. Norman Rockwell's picture practically wrote the story themselves.

There was only one problem with Mrs. Fritz's class. My seat was next to Paul Cooper's, a red headed freckled handsome boy that could have modeled for Rockwell. He had a good sense of humor and could make me laugh easier than anyone had ever done. Soon after entering Mrs. Fritz's class Paul and I noticed something strange about her and the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead of putting her hand over her heart, she cupped her left breast, most gently, almost as if she were checking to see if it was still there. I didn't think too much of it, until one day when Paul made a noise and when I looked in his direction he was mimicking her method, had his hand cupped over an imaginary breast. I giggled and looked away, but the damage was done. He knew he had me and every day after that he would do the Pledge the same way as Mrs. Fritz. Now, she never noticed, her eyes intent on the flag, her full attention on her patriotic duty as a citizen and teacher of the young. But, as my giggles got louder, she began to look in our direction. One day it was really bad, and I laughed out loud. Mrs. Fritz stopped the Pledge, stared at me, and said "Linda, I think you better go out into the hall until you can control yourself". Red faced, I did so. After that Paul stopped doing the gesture, I think he knew how embarrassed I was. I don't remember how many credits I lost, but I bet it set me back a bit.

Norman Rockwell could have done a painting of our class, with Paul making me laugh (the evil kid with the broken egg shell) and Mrs. Fritz staring angrily and disappointed at me (the innocent kitchen maid) while I am shaking with laughter. I would like to see that one.

I can remember as a kid my father would look around the living room at the mass of newspapers, books, reading material that my mother had collected and accuse her of becoming like the Collyer brothers. There's a book about them now, two brothers that were compulsive hoarders, and when one died, after setting off one of his booby traps, the other brother, blind and paralyzed, died of hunger. Pretty grim story, huh? So their claim to fame was their fear to throw anything out. My mother would say, "as soon as you throw something out, you have a need for it" and that has proven true to me many times. A couple of years ago I threw out a pile of maps I had in the desk. You can always look up directions on Map Quest, I reasoned. Since then, I don't know how many times Timmy and I have gone looking for a map to see the general area of cities our guests are from. Map quest can get you there with accurate mileage, twists and turns but it doesn't visually show you the city's location in the state. Plus, to look it up on the computer, you have to go upstairs, turn on the computer, etc, etc. Opening a map was so easy.

There's another reason why people save things - it's just too costly to throw them out. Today, garbage collection is not cheap - so what is there to do but hang on things. When I was a kid, I was always afraid of the garbage men. They were a rough bunch, two or more of them, dirty, with ragged looking clothes, you wouldn't even want to make eye contact them. They rode on the back of the garbage truck, jumping off to pick up a garbage can and throw it into the truck. It seemed like every time they were in front of our house, they had to reposition the garbage, and a big plate of metal would nosily push the garbage to the front of the truck. My fear of garbage men probably goes back to when there was a "junk man". He collected rags and broken appliances and had a row of bells across the back of his truck that jingled when he drove by. A common threat parents used in those days was "be good, or we'll give you to the junk man". Tell that to Child Protective Services.

My mother once thought she killed the garbage man. My family bought wine in big gallon bottles, probably Gallo. (I was surprised when I found out you CAN buy smaller bottles of wine.) Anyway, Bucky had run out just before the garbage truck came, and put an empty big bottle of wine on the top of the pile. When the garbage man raised the can to throw it into the truck, the bottle came crashing down on his head. After falling to his knees, and screaming obscenities, he managed to get back on the truck and ride off. Maybe that's what happened to the Collyer brothers, they had been frightened by the garbage men and gave up putting it on the curb. Well, I have to get back to the Sunday New York Times. My living room is looking like the Collyer brothers are here.

Early this morning, just as it was starting to get light, an owl serenaded me from the pine tree across the street. It is the first full day of fall, and the owl's song was a sad and almost silly one:"Hoot de hoot hoot hoot" over and over. Made me smile but also reminded me of my mother's saying, "If you hear an owl hoot three nights in a row, someone will die." That was Bucky - she wasn't scaring us, she was just giving us her facts of life.

This summer was kind of like that, good and bad. Good in that no one I know, not Timmy, not me, not even the cat had one tick on them. The bad was there were herds of slugs, bad guys coming into town, eating everything, all the beans, all my marigolds, everywhere you looked gooey, disgusting slugs. The rain was good in that we never had to water the garden once. Bad in that all the rain killed most of the garden. Good in that even though there was a recession, business at the Bird's Nest has been busier than in past years. Bad, so busy my knees are killing me, no time to have fun and sheets to be hung up on the line everyday and bed making a back breaking chore. The woman who runs a B&B in Wellfleet said it best: "we are victims of our own success." Our guests this summer also have been the Good, the Bad and the Ugly with more cancellations and "no shows" than in all of the other years. The ones who make the biggest messes write the best things about us in the guest book. Good and Bad everywhere you look. Today we had a cancellation for this Saturday. Bad, because that is a loss of anywhere from $60 to over $100. Good in that now I can do a Street Painting this weekend because we have no guests coming. I guess it all equals out.

The other morning was a chilly fall-like one so I put on long pants and pulled a pair of my monkey socks out to wear. You can't wear monkey sock with short pants. Monkey socks, one pair of many that I have - black ones, blue ones, even Valentine monkey socks - all from Ria. And started by the Street Painting. Now that's a strange connection. But when I was running the Tivoli Street Painting I called upon Ria to do demos, to show people what street painting really is. She did street paintings at Red Hook School, Rhinebeck School, Bard College, Dutchess County Fair, Rhinebeck Farmer's Market, etc, etc. even one in Wellfleet for the Oyster Festival of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf, with the variation that Little Red was holding oysters, not goodies in her basket. Anyway, about the third year of the Street Painting, Poughkeepsie Journal called me for an interview of how it started and what we were doing this year for entertainment. Then the reporter asked if she could talk with one of the street painters and I gave her Maria's phone number. That evening I called Ria and asked did the reporter get a hold of you? "Yes, she did, Ma. She asked me why I do street paintings." "What did you tell her?" I asked and she straight faced (for the phone) said, "I do street paintings because my mother asks me to. If she asked me to pull a monkey out of my ass, I would do that too." I gasped, then realized she was kidding me, but that became the monkey gift beginning. I kept thinking of her saying that, and I found a picture of Ria holding a zuccinni up in front of her. It was one of those gone wild in the garden ones, the size of a baseball bat, and she held it up suggestively, but with a big innocent grin on her face. I found a monkey picture in one of the kid's books, cut it out and glued it over the zuccinni. Then I glued the picture onto card paper and wrote "Hey, Ma, looked what I pulled out of my ass." Ria got a big kick out of it and from then on every holiday there was a pair of monkey socks for me. I returned the idea with monkey underwear for her. You would be surprised how many things have monkeys on them once you start looking. Anyway, it's almost street painting time and I will put on my monkey socks in memory of Maria and the girl who would do almost anything for her Mother.

The other day on TV a woman was interviewed that wrote a one act, one woman play about her hair. Now she did have an interesting hairdo, kind of an afro, but it made me wonder what could I write about my hair. I have very thin hair, the old lady type hair that you can see the scalp through. Not very interesting, and certainly not worth paying to hear anyone talk about. When I was a kid, I had thick hair that my mother would braid into two even braids that were quite long. In some of the pictures there would even be a ribbon braided into the strands, or the braids would be pinned to the top of my head. But that was when I was little, grade school age. When I was older I would go to the same hair dresser as my sister Barbara. Her name was Tillie and she always cut our hair with a razor...the whole thing. No scissors, just a razor. And short, both Barbara and I had it very short. I hoped I looked like Audrey Hepburn with that short hair and her beautiful profile, but I think I just looked like a kid with short hair. So then I had short hair for years, mostly cutting it myself. When I went to work at IBM I stopped cutting my own hair. One night my friend Kathy met me in the mall, after I had had my hair chopped in one of those walk-in places. She took a look at me, I think she even sobbed a bit, then vowed to introduce me to Joe, her hairdresser. Joe was a great addition to my life. He had a salon all to himself (not like the mall) had coffee and a little refrigerator filled with drinks. Soft music was playing and all his magazines were interesting and up-to-date. I loved Joe. I would tell him all about my family, just like he was my therapist. He would tell me about his life, his partner, his dog and we would laugh and laugh. Being cheap, I would let my hair grow quite long in between appointments, but Joe never forgot our last chat and would ask to get up to date on all the family news. He also cut my hair short, but with scissors, just a touch of razor on the back neck at the end. One time I went to work after getting my hair cut, and one of my managers looked at me interestingly and said, "Not many women would dare to cut their hair that short." I never knew if that was a compliment or a put down. About three years ago I decided not to get my hair cut anymore. It grew, little by little, until today when I can make these two braids, that are no thicker than a rat's tail. (Sabra just got a rat, so I know what I am comparing them too.) I guess I get my thin hair from my mother Bucky, who got it from her father Poppy. Poppy went bald at an early age, probably even in his 20's. My mother told a story once of how Grandma found a remedy for bald heads, smearing them nightly with the marrow from a cooked marrow bone. Now marrow, lightly salted and spread on a toasted piece of buttered rye bread is one of my all time favorite things to eat - but it is very greasy, nothing you would want to put on your head. But I guess they tried it and Bucky said even a little fuzz began to show up, when Poppy couldn't take it anymore, resigned himself to baldness and bought a hat. So that's my story about hair, my hair and my family's hair. Nothing worthy of a purchase of a theater ticket and it wouldn't surprise me if not too far off, I have to go hat shopping.

Well, it has been a while...4th of July in fact. Bucky always said "After the Fourth of July the summer is over" and she was right. Here we are past the middle of August. First there was vacation...staying in the cottage Ria and I shared two years ago. The weather could have been better, but all in all, it was good. Then we got back and had to get ready for the Wacky Raft Race, which we did last Sunday. Sunday was hot, and we got there about 8:00 - the earliest time they suggested. There were some concerns with one of the volunteers (not a good start) but then things came together as strangers volunteered to help us. One man who was waiting for a friend helped Tony get the raft out of the truck and helped him assemble it. Then another man who had a trailer helped us get it in the water - a distance of several yards that would have been a hard carry. Then we got in the water and the tide was going the wrong way...north, not south. Almost immediately, we were being carried to Albany. That's when another stranger offered to tow us to the starting line...almost a mile away. Good thing, because the tide didn't turn even after the race started. People were walking faster than four of us could paddle. After 3 hours we arrived at the finish line, coming in 10th. 2 more finished after us, and 6 dropped out and had to be towed. So, I'd say we did pretty good. No permanent injuries from rowing. I was complaining the next day that my left arm hurt "from holding the umbrella all that time" - pretty selfish, huh? Anyway, there were a lot of mistakes in the running of the affair, mostly the timing because once the tide changed, things were 100%, no 200% better. Apparently, Laura was not happy with the way things went. The next day she called the Green County Tourism and gave them her opinion and what it was like -"worse than labor." Sabra called up the Tourism people to get our time, and the woman said to her, "What team were you with?" and when Sabra said TeamRia, the woman declared that she would not talk to anyone from TeamRia that she just had got off the phone with Laura after 45 minutes. Well, this made me laugh and laugh and laugh some more. TeamRia will probably not be allowed on the west side of the River for some time. But that was that. Now I have to finish my embroidery of an apron for the Dutchess County Fair that has to be handed in on Saturday. Dear God, please let this summer end.

The Fourth of July, and many other fourths flood my memory, Maria as a small child burning her fingers on a sparkler, all of us driving with my brother in law to Carmel to see fireworks. In more recent years when Maria lived in Germantown, she would have a barbeque, invite the whole family and afterwards we would go to the nearby cemetery to view the local fireworks. One time Timmy was a little snuckered and was pointing out in the darkness of the cemetery to the children the planets, Your Anus was one, Penis was another. The kids all laughed and the Kelly's still talk about that night. Four years ago on the Fourth of July we were in Wellfleet and all went to see the parade. There we met Yellowbeard, Caleb, a young pirate marching with mermaids and other pirates. We did not know then that he would have an effect on all of us. Then the last summer of Maria's life, on the fourth of July 2007, a few days before we ventured to Wellfleet for our summer vacation, Caleb was hurt, badly hurt after appearing in the Wellfleet Fourth of July parade. When we entered Wellfleet, a large banner on the overpass, advised "Pray for Caleb" and twice daily the town gathered in the center to have a circle of hope and prayer for him. Maria, I and the whole family were touched. I remember Laura saying she eagerly emptied her whole purse in a jar for Caleb at the local grocery. Pirate flags flew everywhere, he was a shell fisherman and his company flew the pirate flag. The next month for my birthday Maria organized a pirate party - and instead of gifts, donations could be made to Caleb's fund..the party was the best. I have the picture of all us all on my living room wall, Maria and I making the arrrgggg pirate faces. Then in October for the Oysterfest, Maria made 100 pirate cookies for Caleb's friends to sell - wonderful cookies of a pirate with a patch on his eye and a big smile. "Cookies for Caleb" his friend yelled when she delivered them to their booth. When Maria died his mother wrote a wonder piece on Maria in her blog. To this day, I am grateful for the kind words from a stranger, who is not really a stranger, we are connected in our grief and hope and joy. This Fourth of July Caleb's Mom, who keeps a blog, wrote that he again would be in the parade. I smiled at the thought of him once again parading down the streets of Wellfleet and I pictured Maria watching him again, waving and yelling "Go Caleb, Go Yellowbeard".