Ancestor Worship


Anne, her sisters and cousins have been chatting up the airwaves of late about applying for Canadian citizenship. The impetus for this interest in dual citizenship is two-fold, a certain orange ass and Canada’s recent change in its citizenship laws. Anne and her relatives all share common grandparents who were born in Canada. Apparently, that is all that is required. My question to them is, if they all flee north across the border, then do Bill and I get the cabins? 😉

I am not eligible for a second passport; all of my ancestors for generations have been born and raised in the States. Coincident with my in-law’s search for a new homeland, I have received a blog inquiry about one of my ancestors, my great uncle Lukey. In the received comment someone claimed to be Lukey’s cousin. My mom’s uncle, her father’s brother, Luke has been our family’s one and only sports hero. At Boston College he played football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey. He played well enough that he was named captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. After college, he caught for the MLB Boston Braves and played professional football in Buffalo before the NFL was formed. He eventually settled down to coach high school basketball, in Fall River at Durfee High School. He coached the Hilltoppers (Named for the school’s hilltop location.) for twenty years, winning two New England championships. My mom also went to school there and later acquired the pictured basketball jersey. 

Widow’s Bay

Fantasmino, Tony Oursler, 2017

Summer vacation season is just around the corner and Anne, but her sisters have been planning their annual pilgrimage to the cabin for some while now. Situated on the shores of Lake Superior, it is our go-to summer destination. Which brings me to my latest guilty pleasure, Apple TV+ new horror-comedy series Widow’s Bay, starring Matthew Rhys. Rhys plays the mayor of this cursed fictional New England town. His hope for his island burg is to transform it into the next Nantucket, the next tourist Mecca. Only the first two episodes have dropped, but this is what I know. 

The first episode revolves around the visit of a New York Times travel writer. Seeing any favorable publicity as crucial to the life of his town, Rhys is desperate to leave this reporter with a good impression. However, the malevolent forces who really govern things have other ideas. The supporting cast of townsfolks are no help, except for comic relief. In what looks like a recurring theme, this episode is modeled after another horror classic, John Carpenter’s The Fog. Not being a big horror aficionado myself, I must take this comparison on faith. Frankly, I am afraid of the dark, but if Reddit says so, then it must be. As I said, I am a scarcity cat, but so far, the horror has been sufficiently leavened by the comedy to be quite tolerable, but there are no guaranties going forward.  

Killer AI Trump Clown

The second episode sees our mayor locked into the captain’s suite at Widow’s Bay one and only haunted hotel. Even the manager refuses to stay the night there, but on a dare Rhys acquiesces. Queue this episode’s theme Stephen King’s It. As is the way of these things, the killer clown first appears as an innocuous traveling businessman. Abet an unannounced one. Rhys had been exploring his room and came upon a shelf of old parlor games. Titles include:  

  • Daddy’s Home: A creepy board game about an abusive father.
  • Teeth: A cursed party game containing nothing but a pair of pliers.
  • Run: A card game that mostly read “not yet” before finally saying “run”.

After a mild fright the two sit down over drinks to play Daddy’s Home. That’s enough of that, why spoil the story. Next week’s episode features the annual beach opening. I’m thinking Jaws here. Dun-dun… dundun… dun-dun-dundun.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen


“Crappy bikes make Baby Jesus cry”

Mad Dogs & Englishmen is a Monterey area bicycle store chain. The pictured location is in Carmel. As bike shops go, it is one of the best that I have seen. We have rented bikes from them many times in the past. Once, they rented us really nice ones, instead of their usual crappy rental fare, in the hope that we would then buy them, but it was not to be. We had used their Monterey location for this. Taking off from downtown Monterey, we would ride along the coast, around the peninsula, through Pacific Grove, to Pebble Beach and back. Pictured are two bicycles. The pink one has a sidecar, which are usually employed to cart small dogs. The other bike sports a surfboard rack. I later saw a bike with this kind of rack being employed down the hill, by Carmel beach.