Welcome Back

 More snow dropped in on Southern Maryland overnight.  While the 6 inches or so was a pretty sight and work was cancelled, it still left the driveway to be cleaned.  Since I decided to sleep in, by the time I got to the driveway the snow was packed down and becoming a soggy mess.  Once done, I decided to get out and do a few errands.  After all that, I thought a quick run over the bridge to Solomon's would be a nice place to see a few birds.  I'm so glad that I did! 


Behind Our Lady of the Sea Catholic Church sits a B&B called The Back Creek Inn. They have lots of bushes and trees on and next to the property. In other words, it's the perfect place for song birds.  Today I was blessed with a new sighting for me, and one that is probably incredibly common for many people.  I saw Cedar Waxwings for the first time.  There was one on a huge Holly Tree picking off the red berries, and others that would dart down for a few minutes and take a sip of water on the metal cover over the sewer line.




I thought it was fitting that the blue bird perched on the Welcome sign for the Back Creek Inn.  It almost seemed like he was ready to check in.  Who would blame him with all this snow around.

Cedar Waxwings

Blue Bird

Do you only see the Blue Bird, or the Waxwing as well?

I spent some time in the comfort of my warm truck to sit and watch the birds there for a while.  I also saw some Cardinals and Robins.  There were some Buffleheads in the creek, which is actually Mill Creek.





Then I drove down to the end of the island and only found some Ring Billed Gulls.





I snapped a shot without looking while driving over the Thomas Johnson Bridge and captured this.



All in all, a really nice quick trip and only 15 minutes from home.

Hand writing

A friend of mine asked for her friends to write actual letters to her.  Letter writing has a special appeal to her, as well as others.  It is of course, a dying art form though.  This is the snail mail that the younger generations probably just cannot even comprehend.  How many of our high school crowds are writing by hand for any of their English or humanities classes?  NONE.  That wasn't my experience.  If an assignment was given, it was to be neatly written in blue or black ink.

I had an English Teacher, Mr. Bernardo in 9th grade that demanded perfect penmanship with "i" dotted and "t" crossed.  I am not exaggerating.  He took off points if you did not comply to his standard, which again was perfection.  The class gave all the proper responses to this dogma; this is not going to matter 'in the real world'; I can't read my Doctor's writing and "that's just the way I write my signature."

All were quickly dismissed.  You have not earned the right to have a signature.  You can and will comply. Period. Exclamation point!

I was incredulous.  I complained to my parents.  They took the 'wait and see' approach.  So the first paper was due, and submitted.  I had mostly tried, but perhaps not with all my focus and diligence.  It came back with red ink.  Red circles and red underscores of areas that were improper.  T's that had loops, L's that didn't along with the grammar and spelling, indicative of a future engineer.  But come on, penmanship! That's not right!

Mr. Bernardo made a trip to our home to 'visit' with my mom one afternoon.  So, while I practiced my wheelies up and down the street on my bike, he and mom chatted.  I did not get the complete low down on every detail of their conversation, but learned that my teacher thought well of me, that I was a good student and completely capable of getting to the point of having no points taken off for handwriting.  Mom apparently bought it.  Sadness.

If you know my mom,  and have gotten a card in the mail from her, you will know this: She has PERFECT handwriting.  It has a beautiful gracefulness to it, with a left-leaning slant showing the proper form for a left- handed author.  This surely did not help my case.

Here's the thing,  I did not like getting points off.  I did not like it at all.  So, I tried harder.  Do you know what happened?  I slowed down the speed just a little, focused just a little harder and the result was no more points taken off.  Perfect penmanship to match the alphabet posted across the top of the black board.

It's been more years than I care to admit since then.  I also have to admit that my handwriting is obscenely far from perfect.  I think this is due to part lack of care and the need for speed.  I went to my first 'closing' on the purchase of my townhouse and there are a ton of signatures required.  I tried to take my time but everyone at the table was saying, "hurry it up, it doesn't need to be perfect."  

This all came up as a result of the request for a letter.  My writing was nearly embarrassing.  I have taken a little time over the past few weeks to try to brush up on it.  In the process I've noticed some things.

There are numerous ways you can accent the basic form of letters.  This is probably completely obvious to you.  You can tell one person's handwriting from another.  If you look at cards at a store for birthdays, holidays or any special occasion you can see a tremendous sample of different lettering styles.  You might notice "Old English" on a diploma.  Besides the overall style you can see the fineness or boldness of each part of the letter.  When you put all this together there is a feeling that each style brings.  It can feel formal, or comical, whimsical or serious.  Here's my rough take at showing some of these differences:

I have been thinking about all this since the request of a letter.  I think that the written script can show so much more than a quick email.  The words come faster at times as you write something that is moving quickly in your brain, or is more emotional and it shows in your script with letters that may be a little more hastily drawn, or the spacing and size differ ever so slightly- but it's noticeable.  The width of the letters change with the pressure you apply to the page, again with the mood of your pen.  You have the freedom to intentionally change the style for the salutation and closing.  I know you can show some of these things in the typed page or email, but when all is said and done - only you can write as you do.  It feels more personal to put pen to paper.  It shows more of who you are, even when (hopefully) your handwriting improves.

What I saw and learned today

So I finally took the camera out today.  I took a few shots while on the board walk at Solomon's Island.  It was a beautiful day, sun shining, a nice breeze was blowing.  The temperature up near 65F which brought out the variety of clothing: shorts and flip flogs, to fairly heavy jackets.  That's always fun to see - variety.  There were dogs and kids, parents and grandparents, couples and singles all taking in the view and the scenery.

There were a few things that caught my attention today.  The birds as usual of course.  The gulls were gliding along the edge of the boardwalk and quite close.  Then there was a waterbird that grabbed my attention.  I thought at first it may have been a loon.  After zooming in on my photos, I'm still not sure what it is.  I'm hoping my post to FaceBook and request for help identifying it will turn up a positive result.

Ring Billed Gull in flight

Where I parked is at least a couple feet lower than the boardwalk. As I was getting out of the car, I could see the Thomas Johnson bridge  in the distance, but to see it, I had to look past the railings of the guardrail.

It made me think of being in a jail.  That if your perspective is just right, or maybe just wrong, you might think the bridge is out of reach.  I might believe that you can't get there, that's it impossible.  Yet if you step back, and take in the bigger view, you'll find that the bars are as I first described, just railings to prevent you from falling to the rocks below.  You (we) couldn't tell that the barrier was there to protect us until seeing the bigger picture.  The first take is that the world is a little less colorful and the distance (the future) is not quite in focus, only the bars are really in our sight.  The larger scene is more colorful and there's a sense that the next step (near ground) is sharp, the bridge while still a distance off and large and perhaps imposing can in fact be reached.  I needed to learn this today.

I also found the beams of a gazebo to be a nice study of line and color.  As you can see in the second shot, I am not the only person to have been there.  Clearly, Gerry wanted us all to know that he was there too.

And lastly, I wanted to capture a little more of the feeling and promise of spring, especially since the forecast is calling for a bunch of snow tomorrow night!

Have a blessed day,

Peace,
Brian