Now it's possible for those of us who secretly envy Uncle Einar to have a little something on our backs.

Several personal and professional ironies brought the following reflections of Mr. Bradbury's into my hands Wednesday at 11:15am. Each realm this gift touched were intimate to our family, as well as to my years of teaching ~ in manners I will refrain from detailing.

The card carrying its message was shared by a dear friend of a sweet lady who recently passed away after a long battle with difficult health matters. She had been very involved with numerous affairs related to our small town and its neighboring communities.

This reflection was offered as Her Message to all who had assembled:

Secret? There is no secret.
Anyone with eyes can see the way to live.

By watching life and observing nature and cooperating with it, making common cause with the process of existence.

By living life for itself, don't you see?
Deriving pleasure from the gift of pure being.

Life is its own answer, accept it and enjoy it day by day.

Live as well as possible. Expect no more.

Destroy nothing, humble nothing, look for fault in nothing.

Leave unsullied and untouched all that is beautiful.

Hold that which lives in all reverence, for life is given by the Sovereign of the Universe, given to be savored, to be luxuriated in, to be respected.

But that is no secret. You're intelligent - you know as well as I what has to be done.
- Ray Bradbury


At the conclusion was embossed:
http://www.factzoo.com/sites/a...-black-butterfly.jpg


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A "Happy and Peaceful Easter" to Friends and Visitors alike!

Thanks for the video links. I appreciate the mention of a coarse thread. Driving with my 90 year old father, by Ray and my dad's Carnegie Library, I think of how life is interconnected from a grandfather to a father to a son or in my case, daughter.

Winter snows are gone.
Now Spring sprouts everywhere.
Those first yellow bursts!


http://www.dandeliondelight.co...low-dandelion-flower
4/23/16 Time to re-read a favorite book. Thanks, Mr. B!

Mr. Jonas, though said to be a "junkman" in Dandelion Wine, truly carried Treasures!
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The recent debris showing up on this RB site does not even qualify as having a value worthy of recycling.
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"In my mind's eye, 'Tis trash. "O! Mere garbage, not fit for yon literary pages...
-Wm. Shakespeare
(from his unpublished article about website invasions)

>Delete!

Two within a few hours of one another:
I was doing some finish work on a wood project in my garage this afternoon when I randomly grabbed an unmarked cassette from a box of numerous long-ago recorded collections of various genre (blues, jazz, classic, r&r, etc.). I set the tape into the stereo and refocused on the items in front of me.

As the tape continued to play, songs of The Sons of the Pioneers filled the garage with timeless tunes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0B-cUxk4Do

Years ago, I mailed Mr. Badbury copies of two cd's we had purchased for our (then) very young sons. Mr. B returned a fine card thanking us and telling of his watching the Sons of the Pioneers live in the studios of Hollywood as the group performed for radio and early tv show broadcasts.

My initial reason for the songs being sent to Mr. B related to this poetic passage from Dandelion Wine:
"The facts about John Huff aged twelve, are simple and soon stated. He could pathfind more trails than any Choctaw or Cherokee since time began, could leap from the sky like a chimpanzee from a vine, could live underwater two minutes and slide fifty yards downstream from where you last saw him. The baseballs you pitched him he hit in the apple trees, knocking down harvests. He could jump six-foot orchard walls, swing up
branches faster and come down, fat with peaches, quicker than anyone elsein the gang. He ran laughing. He sat easy. He was not a bully. He was kind. His hair was dark and curly and his teeth were white as cream. HE REMEMBERED THE WORDS TO ALL THE COWBOYS SONGS AND WOULD TEACH YOU IF YOU ASKED. He knew the names of all the wild flowers and when the moon would rise and set and when the tides came in or out. He was, in fact, the only god living in the whole of Green Town, Illinois, during the twentieth century that Douglas Spaulding knew of."

Then, later in the quite hot August afternoon, "Cicadas!" . . . also sharing their music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IUPd3yDHGo

Well! August 22 is approaching!

"True" October Country! Finger Lake Region of NYS ~ It was everywhere to be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted! Several hours west of home...

Great folks here. Indeed: https://www.yelp.com/biz_photo...-WXxVtAIl35xpJme34wg

quote:

Originally posted by fjp451:
"True" October Country! Finger Lake Region of NYS ~ It was everywhere to be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted! Several hours west of home...

Great folks here. Indeed: https://www.yelp.com/biz_photo...-WXxVtAIl35xpJme34wg

Thanks, we lived there for awhile and I was just going through family pictures!

If I don't have at least five Bradbury moments a day I am not doing well, but one on Saturday is worth mentioning.

We were celebrating my mom's 90th birthday, and I brought a video camera to film whatever might be worth capturing. I left for a few minutes to step into the bathroom and when I came out, my cousin was just launching into a song on the piano. Now the photographer in me wanted to yell, "Start over," as I had to grab the camera, turn it on, and start filming, losing the beginning of the song! But people were starting to sing along, and remembering Ray's story about singing around the piano, I didn't want to spoil the spontaneity of the moment so just captured what I could. The song was, appropriately enough, "Let It Be."

Creatures fill the street and come knocking at our door. Orange glows everywhere.

~ Just received this note from a former student, now a librarian, wishing to share a message from an R L Stein online exchange:

RE: Who did you read growing up?
* I read mostly comics--Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, MAD. When I was nine, I discovered Ray Bradbury. He changed my life!

Sounds wonderfully familiar. Happy "All Hallows" Mr. B and Friends here, near, and there!

Had a nice Halloween moment in a local convenience store. One of the clerks, a young man from India, kept running excitedly to a window or door to check out all the costumed kids going by. He thought it was adorable but was rather mystified by it all. "In my country we have many festivals, but we know why they all are." The other clerk and I explained some of the origins and customs of Halloween and reasons for them. He hadn't heard of Ray Bradbury or Chuck Jones, but I told him the story of the young trick-or-treater standing on his head in Chuck Jones's yard and he found it charming!

Morning sun taking the chill off from this autumn morn.
Leaves tumbling down our quiet village street......

I await and will treasure the next ~ and the next ~ RB Moments!

Thank you, Mr. B!

Today TCM ran the series of four Five Little Peppers movies. In the first, the youngest child, Phronsie, received a kitten she named Ginger. In the second, Ginger is seen ready for bed, wearing a tiny pair of pajamas! Just when I thought things couldn't get any cuter!

"Rocket Man" playing on the PA system in the middle of a classic car show!

Ray Bradbury Moments!?

Exchanges with the likes of the finest of Mr. B's friends and notable historians will do it: Mr. Nichols and Mr. Nolan, 4800 miles apart, me betwixt, all in the same week.

Then today, a friendly "Hello" from brilliant, timeless, and spirited Bradburian symbols: intense autumn colors painting our neighborhood trees, pumpkins being displayed, and then a single dandelion flower - somehow still flourishing brightly upon the lawn this late in the year.

Fine 100th Year RB Celebrations!
Thank You, Mr. Bradbury!