Gettysburg re-enactment, Bath Ohio

Four Fifers of  Camp Chase Fifes & Drums

It is one hundred and fifty years since the Battle of Gettysburg. It is being commemorated several places in the country. This weekend, ending to-day, it was re-enacted at Bath Ohio's Hale Farm and Village. The contrast between the cheerfulness of these actors, and the reality of the event is great. In the simulated battle, it took a long time for anyone to fall as a casualty. These people enjoy playing the role, and if you die, you play no more.

And i really enjoyed the musicians. One very funny line was said by a performer concerning the uniform of the drum major, "no weaponry is as useless as a musician's sword". This event was very heavy in picture taking, the winnowing took some time, and several fotos i can use later.

 marching Confederate infantry

Rare it must have been for rebel soldiers in a four square bayonet defensive stance to pet a Union cavalryman's mount.

 Cavalry Sabre Charge. Some of the riders are women.

 young folk chat

 Union Camp

 Confederate Camp

 children play soldier

Paul Goebbel plays an invented, exuberant, talkative reporter for the New York Herald. The actor, on the right, portrays the era's famous entertainer and clown, Dan Rice.

bugler calls orders

Many of the spectators were seated on a long line of benches, to watch Day one of the battle compressed into less than an hour. The battle moved from west to east, as the Confederates took the town of Gettysburg. The spectators were encouraged to follow the soldiers into town (Hale village).

 cannon smoke ring

The First of July 1863 nearly 50,000 men were engaged in battle. There were 15,000 casualties. It has to be realised that war brings death. At the end, Taps was played. This was a performance, a show, as was the actor portraying Lincoln reciting the famous address (which was done before the show battle began). Here there was no blood, no stench, and everyone was free to come home.

go eat a bug

Bug City, Garfield Heights Metropark

In films for children's audiences in Roosevelt's America, a dismissive insult from one child to another was "go eat a bug". At this Nature Center free festival, at the Culinary Bugstitute people were heartily encouraged to do so. They had jell-o shots with bug, swedish meatball with bug, salted and roasted bugs, bug brownies, cricket chocolate chip cookie, bug-baklava, and bug salsa.

I had so many good photographs, that i find it hard to winnow them. The bug eating, entomophagy, being perhaps the primo event of many, was not the best photo. As rousing fun, and good spirited a demonstration as it was, even some that volunteered to eat a bug did not go through it. Most were tasteless, but still some who partook felt unsavory. In the sweet baked goods, only the visibility proved their presence. 

This has been an annual event since 1991. So many things are hyped and puffed beyond their reality. This was a wonderful event. It is designed for parents to bring their children, but it holds an adult's attention. Truly excellent educational lessons and demonstrations are made. This is not blah, it is really fun. Some eighty or so volunteers, nine employees, and guest presenters made this a pleasant and successful event. People also were free to bring dogs, good natured hounds add to a friendly environment.

After parking, there were tractors pulling wagons, and a bus to shuttle people to and fro. Alexa was one of the conductors, she was extra-ordinarily exuberant, and excited about the adventure that is Bug City.

Remember when Dorothy and Toto landed in Oz, they were greeted by the flamboyant Munchkin Mayor; so too here with Mayor Mantis. He is accompanied with local V.I.B. Lucille Bugg.

Test your Bug IQ

After using available study sheets, contestants answered a question provided from categories of a spinning wheel. There were several lessons to be learned. This was not fluff, but good school biology material dressed up. The 'Ant Trail' had one smell from two scents to follow a path, and with the study text answer questions about ants.

In Predator Alley, besides posted pickets of insect eaters (and other predators), there was 'Bumper Bugs'. A faux forensic police scene was set up with identified splats of insect victims, and a bumper with ones to be identified.

 Bug Hunt

Children were given nets to catch bugs in Bug Safari Land. Someone else thought this worthy to record the images. A second area was for pre-school bug hunters.

 Wurlitzer

The Wurlitzer organ, and bubble blowing machine alone was worth the trip. A very merry device. This unit was made in 1922 and has 97 wooden pipes, and 44 keys, and has perforated piano rolls playing programmed music.

 Jim Smolka was one of several exhibitors. Here he is holding a Mexican Red Rump Tarantula.

 an opportunity for silly fotos

 Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly

And if one were to travel further into the park, one could find other insects and creatures.

Destructive Bishops

reprinted from: 25 July 2013 entry  http://www.stcasimir.com/blog.html

I am writing to express a grave problem in the American church.

Boston's, and now Cleveland's Richard Lennon is one of many bishops that have caused people to leave the Catholic Church, and often Christianity. There are many actions they have committed to bring this ever growing departure. On top of that, they lack the candor and integrity to confess. How at Mass, can one say repeatedly 'through my fault' and beat one's chest, and not make an admission?

One hugely grievous programme of error is the eradication of parishes. And the pattern attacks the ethnic parishes first and foremost. So many of the Eastern Churches are defined by their national origin, that is the one factor of their distinctiveness and that which holds them together. Membership in these communities is usually by birth or marriage. In the United States there are many denominations. As meaningful, important, beautiful, and Christian as the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and so many others may be they exist because of their culture and tradition. Now, when some Roman Catholic bishop unilaterally suppresses and causes ethnic parishes (and others) to become extinct can he not see the destruction of that Christian community causes the loss of Christianity in members, and causes a loss to the universal church?

Each parish (community in Christ) has its own personality and charism. Every parish in the United States (and everywhere) has a personality. Now, we are a nation of immigrants, so our parishes bring a culture and a flavor from the old country; but also that of what we have made here. In an hundred years from now those parishes will have more experiences, and more traditions. People psychologically need and want tradition. This layer of symbolism allows possession. To remove and destroy this is to destroy a community. When the English defeated the Scots at Culloden, the aftermath was to destroy all semblance of the Scots as a nation. The tartan, and the bagpipes were forbidden, and this prohibition enforced by executing the traditionalists and patriots. Similar measures have been implemented by others wanting a 'cleansing' of ethnicity. These things held emotional value, and were symbols of their existence as a people. Similarly the loss of ethnic components in church life is to eradicate those members of the church that love those items. These 'things' are not things, but symbols. For supposed religious people not to understand the value of symbolism is absurd.

Precisely this line of argument infuriates these destroyers of parishes, because they are on target. Of the several letters that i have written to the chancery, only the first received a response from Richard Lennon. In it, he quotes one of my sentences (“These nationality parishes, often disregarded by the hierarchy, have greater integrity than the parishes of the suburban sprawl.”) and proceeds to scold me. “...personally I am offended...I know not what standard of measurement you so boldly employ in this statement. ...” Here is a great episcopal error: the parish is the primary Christian unit, not the diocese. In the parish people, over a course of years, experience their sacramental life in an organic folk community. The diocese was a Roman governmental administrative unit of subprovinces. The parish is a community of believers in God. The true founder of every parish is Jesus. We all know this...Jesus told us, “For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”.  And what God has put together, man should not destroy. And we know this too, or at least some of us do. At one time, every peasant in the villages knew that; but in current America not so much; and the most invincibly ignorant is often the bishop.

Thibodeaux

(my) first foto of Thibodeaux (a.k.a. the Cleveland Pelican)

Time has given me opportunity to play with a camera. I went from stained glass, and now i am after birds. I think, i went out looking for this brown pelican, seven times.  He has been summering on Cleveland's lakefront. This is the first time one has been seen here for such a stay (twice before a one day sighting had been recorded).

Big wind storms have been known to carry birds far from home. Brown Pelicans are usual to the Gulf coast, but can be along the Atlantic to Canada. Many are in south Louisiana (Cajun country). Those people were from L'Acadie, and expelled by the British. Acadia was renamed "Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Magdalen Islands, Maine...". Perhaps this fellow is also such a migrant, and what more Cajun (or at least French, as Louisiana had be sounding surname is there than 'Thibodeaux' (pronounced,  'tib-o-do').

My nephew saw him first. Instead of going to Wendy Park, as we did before, we drove behind Westerly Sewage. I made sure, i got one foto (at least). Snapped it quick, and then tried for better ones. He was there a few minutes, made a couple short flights and then flew over the lake until he was invisible.

.....more text and images to follow....time for lunch...

We were there looking at, and photographing Thibodeaux and others for just over ten minutes, and he left. We snapped some more fotos of other birds, and other things, and continued on. I asked the fisherman, at the bottom right of the foto supra, "Did you see the pelican to-day?". He said, "No, not to-day".

  Pelicans taking off, and landing, caught in a split second are not too graceful.

 Au revoir!, mes amis.

As we were about to re-enter the auto a woman pulls up, and parks, and calls out "Did you see him?". She had just come from Wendy Park. I told her, at some length, that he just flew off.

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postscriptum 21 August 2013: i have gone back along the lake shore a few times in search of Thibodeaux, including to-day. I have just read, the wrong shore. He flew northwest to Ontario's shore, just east of Leamington. Well, it was 87°F here to-day. 

morning at the beach

Yesterday, i went to Edgewater Beach early, dawn had broke before i left house. Some people were already there. Three people were swimming, as opposed to wading and splashing.  The fellow, supra, was gathering a water sample. It has become very recent practice to have outdoor workers wear these bright shirts, so drivers can see them. Where i had parked, people were setting up a film shot with many people and one dog.

Erie was still. About ten minutes before 7a.m. a rainbow in the west appeared. The foto, supra, shows a faint reflection. The foto, infra, shows the risen sun.

A tractor operator was pulling a sand sifter. It scooped and combed the sand. Below, are birdie footprints. The birds on the beach were all herring gulls, and a few Canadienne geese.

Soon thereafter, another combing of the sands was done by a metal detector. Would not the conveyer and sifting screen of the machine hold from dropping items larger than sand and crushed zebra mussel shells back onto the beach?

a day at the zoo, Cleveland

 auditioning for my front porch

human children color coded and labelled

first amendment zone

while looking for a brown pelican

juvenile mallards (i was e-mailed with answer, possibly mixed with domestic duck)

There has been sightings of a male juvenile brown pelican in Cleveland from 24 June to 29 July on Ohio Bird News.  A fellow shared these three fotos (click), and another (click). I first became aware of his existence from this page (click).  I had been at that spot on 3 July and oblivious. Since then, i have returned about five times, and did not see. He is a rarity. If i remember, what i have read, one day last year, and one day in 1990, such a bird was recorded being seen here. This fellow's visitation is the third recorded, and the only one of an extended duration. One outfit is selling t-shirts (not cheap).

On one day, i met a bird watcher couple. We chatted. They came to see him too, and a glaucous gull. They found the gull, through a scope, and i glanced and saw that rare visitor. Of course, i did not recognise him from the other gulls. He was more than the usual white.

I would like to know more. There at little Wendy Park, there are numerous bird species to encounter. They have only a few scrub trees on the beach that are filled with birds, mostly blackbirds, robins, barn swallows, and others i do not recognise. While there Saturday, my nephew thought he saw an avocet above him in his field glasses, and quickly lost sight when he flew over a tree. We had earlier looked for him at Edgewater Beach, and did not see him amongst the Canadian geese, and herring gulls. I also saw giant blue heron, mallard and wood ducks, mockingbirds, starlings, but am mystified over some of the others. Feel free to make corrections.

 juvenile starling (ditto on e-mail)

common tern (there are related species)

juvenile spotted sandpiper

scruffy tree swallows?, sometimes it is a bird you know, but at a distance?

Song Sparrow, there are many sparrows

Cormorants (double crested, how can one tell?)

 the fellow on the left, Caspian Tern?

Eastern Kingbird

church festivals

members of three age groups of St. Sava parish dancers before performance

Summer is the time of concentrated church (and other) festivals. They come about for several and diverse reasons. People like to celebrate, money is needed, public presentation of church and faith, showcase of cultural display, and so on... The composition varies. Ethnic parishes especially celebrate culture. You can always get bad pizza elsewhere.                                                      

Parma Ohio, besides Roman Catholics and German Lutherans has several eastern churches. On the eastern town limits, starting on Broadview and Ridgewood going south and up a hill, three consecutive churches have festivals on three consecutive weekends. How do you feel about stuffed cabbage rolls?

Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox

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 (supra) classic traditional folkloric mascot logo

 (infra) professional dancer in puppet costume dancing to Очи чёрные, Ochi chjernje

 (infra) freshly prepared onion domes

 Saint Sergius Russian Orthodox
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ethnic souvenirs: tables of lacquered, wooden dolls, toys, eggs, icons; also pysanky (painted eggs)

a panel on the iconostasis, Moses receives the Commandments while the Hebrews party before the golden calf

Friday night it rained, the outside booths were still open

Pokrova Ukrainian Greco-Catholic