Buddy's Blog

For the next three weeks I’ll be posting a history of Sid and his pursuit of companionship.

Good for all you mothers! God bless you for all you do and have done.

Here’s the MD card I drew for Frau G…

And here’s my favorite mother…

Robert R made a comment about Baby Shorty yesterday. “Maybe Shorty should have been a Gerber baby”. You saw all those ugly Bayonne babies a few days ago. As for me, I was a beautiful baby, and it’s obvious that I was a future lady killer:

What soul piercing eyes! What a penetrating countenance! What an intelligent visage! Nice hair, too. See my tongue hanging out. When she was taking my picture, which she did quite often, I can remember my mother saying “Put your tongue back in your mouth, Buddy”. I wore a bib into my fifth year.

On our way back home, Frau G didn’t care much for this particular rest stop…

Oops. I changed that one for the American papers.

I spent 17 years in Tallahassee before I went to the DC area in 1979. I have some very dear friends there. We spent many hours at the Pastime Tavern drinking cheap beer and playing Botticelli. If you’re interested I can tell you how it’s played. But there are just a few of us left, and in addition to them, my major Professor, James G. Skofronick and his amazing wife, Dot. He wasn’t a beer drinker. I won’t tell you how old Dot is, but she can still run a marathon. Amazing. Dr. Skofronick is 90 years old now. He is probably the finest example of a human being whom I’ve ever known. In all the years I’ve known him, I never heard him utter a negative word about anyone, even people who would have deserved it. I never heard him say one four letter word, not even “Damn”. Even when we had been pulling an all nighter working on one of our experiments, and the damn beams froze up. That happened much too often. We were examining atomic and molecular collisions at near absolute zero. He was very smart, and a wonderful mentor. If you’re into science, got to your science library and look for articles authored by J. G. Skofronick and R. S. Grace. But that was 50 years ago. I’m deeply indebted to him. I dedicated my What’s New in Science book to him.

Another one of my dear friends is just about the smartest guy I ever knew, Dr. Fred Roberson, mathematics. And he’s a philosopher as well. Here’s some words of wisdom which I’ve heard him preach for the past 50 years…

I also have to mention our other two close friends Jane and Nelson. Poor Nelson, he put us up while we were there. Thanks, Nelly.

Check out Bob A’s cartoon in in the Your Cartoons link.

Yes, there are hot springs in Hot Springs, North Carolina. They’re pretty nice. Here is the check-in building.

There are 17 or 18 little gazebo like things behind the building among the trees which house private hot tubs, so you can go in buck naked if it floats your boat. I’m too shy. I did my skinny dipping when I was a kid.

The water comes into the hot tubs at about 100º F. The nice thing is that it’s constantly replenished while you are in the tub, so the temperature is constant. And the water is clear and pure, right out of the ground.  After your soak, the tub is emptied and refilled with fresh water.

Hot Springs sits next to the French Broad River. The hot springs empty into it. Right across the bridge from the town is Lovers’ Leap.They stole the legend from Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans. Did I ever tell you that I had a good friend who was a full blooded Mohican? Her name was Ruth Seneca. She was a wonderful woman. And if you haven’t seen my  book, here’s my Last of Mohicans cartoon…

This is the river. The flashes in the first scene are cave swallows. They aren’t supposed to be there according to the Peterson guide. They nest under the bridge.  In the second scene you can see the bridge in the distance.

I asked some girls if the hike up to the top of Lovers’ Leap was strenuous. They said “Heck no”. Right. When you look at Lovers’ Leap from the river it looks to be about 50 feet high. No big deal. But there’s Lovers’ Leap 2 above that and a mountain above that. This part of the trail, although it doesn’t look it, was about a 30º grade. In places it was even steeper with lots of switchbacks. On the way up a group of girls left us in their dust as they whizzed past.

Here’s the upper Lovers’ Leap.

 That’s Hot Springs in the distance.

Facing upstream notice the solar panels. This gives you an idea about how high we climbed.

This was when we got down to the bottom by a different trail. We saw far too much of this in those hills.

One shack we passed – I was driving twisty roads and couldn’t stop for a shot – had a pile of garbage out front that was bigger than his house. And somebody lived there, we saw him on his front steps.

Max Patch is a bald mountain near the Tennessee border, elevation a little over 4600 feet. It has nice views of the surrounding mountains. It was a 45 minute drive on twisty roads to get there. The last 8 miles or so were gravel. A nice foot trail lead up to the peak. 

Speaking of the Tennessee Border…

That’s Homer and Jethro. I’ve had that lp for about 50 years. I have two of theirs. Jethro Burns was perhaps the finest mandolin players of his time. BTW I also have two Tiny Tim lps.

And slides of my vacation (such as it was). Here’s the little town of Hot Springs North Carolina. Our rented apartment was just behind the street scene in the video. It wasn’t real nice.

There were basically kinds of people there: Local mountain folk, bikers, and hikers. The Appalachian Trail goes through the middle of town. The second scene is the Big Pillow Brewery and bar, the beer was pretty good. The third scene was the inside of a local shop. Looks like my lens was cloudy. I liked the music.

You may be wondering about what’s been going on for the last week. Turns out Frau G and U-No-Hoo took a little road trip. The good news is I’m back. the bad news is you get watch slides of my vacation. First stop, the Koji Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar  in Locust Grove Georgia, just south of Atlanta. Great food, and our terrific hibachi chef Tom made it even better.