Category: Sidetracks

Food Bank Gourmet

Yesterday evening, I was at Pennridge FISH, our local food bank. We wait in our cars with face masks on these days due to the coronavirus. I had just arrived. A man pulled up beside me in a truck. He asked me if I wanted some fish. I said, sure! We went to the back of his truck and he took out a plastic bag with two freshly caught, nice sized, rainbow trout. One had been gutted and head removed. The other was still flopping. Last week, in the bottom of one of the boxes from the food bank, we found this refrigerated bag of “lime curried glaze”. It had no instructions on it and it came with nothing appropriate to use it on.

This afternoon, I scaled both fish, cleaned the second one, then filleted them both, following the instructions from WikiHow. After I did this, I wondered why I had bothered to gut and behead the fish, since I was filleting it. I used to fillet sunfish by the dozens and just skipped those steps. I fired up the charcoal Weber Kettle grill, and put some green beans and some broccoli in pans. Then I put the fish on the grill and turned the stove on under the veggies. I squeezed some of the glaze on the trout. After 5 minutes, I flipped it, glazed the other side and cooked it another five minutes. It was very tasty! We microwaved leftover pierogies (that had come from FISH another week) for Bethann & Tony.

We truly appreciate all that Pennridge FISH does and provides. The people who serve there do so joyfully, without condescension.

Thank you, kind stranger, for sharing your catch of the day!

When life gives you lemons …

It was just about a week before we got slammed with the coronavirus pandemic that Bethann finally got all of her remnants and bits of fabric neatly sorted on the two 7 foot tall bookshelves we had purchased at Goodwill for $7 each. I had spent hours cutting up boxes from the state store into ~9″x11″ pieces, so that fabric could be wrapped on it, pinned and filed on a shelf by color. Bethann has sold a number of pinwheel swirl dresses, patchwork dresses, various quilted things, etc., as well as making many gifts for our grandchildren and others.

COVID-19 hits. At first, Goodwill stays open. Bethann works there part time sorting donations. On Monday, March 16, they meet with the employees and say that they plan to continue to stay open. That evening, she got an email saying that Goodwill is closing everything at midnight, due to COVID-19. On Wednesday, the owner of the cottage industry where she works sewing six hours a week tells her that she is ill and it would be better if she did not come in. By the end of the week, the governor shut all non-essential business down.

face masks by Bethann Coulter
40 Face masks for Souderton Mennonite Home /Cranford’s Minion mask / Bethann’s butterfly mask

We have all this fabric! We have loads of elastic! We have sewing machines! We don’t want to be in the same room all of the time! We would like to be productive! Do we make lemonade? Of course not! That would be silly. She makes beautiful face masks. Last week, we delivered about 75 to Grand View Hospital (some adult size, some children size). Today, Souderton Mennonite Home picked up 40 and a family picked up four. She is busy making more.

And yes, she made masks for household members, as well. We wear them whenever we leave the house. Someone told me that a cloth face mask will not help. This is NOT true! A double layer, cotton face mask is 60% to 80% effective to stop the spread of virus. An N95 face mask is %90 effective. It is true that it does not so much protect the one wearing it, as it protects those around them. The best way to stop the spread of this thing is to assume everyone has it. This means we all should be staying home. And when we really need to go out for something, we should wear a mask.

Drop-in Customer

A couple of weeks ago, John came to the door of our apartment. He said he lived here for four years and just wanted to see what we had done with the place. He saw some of my paintings. He asked me if I took orders. I said that I could. I rarely received any. He proceeded to take his Deadhead badge off his jacket pocket. I told him he could probably buy a nice print for cheaper than I could do a painting. He wanted a painting. We arrived at an agreeable size and price. He asked me to paint a couple of roses with it, on a 14″ square canvas.

I had a hard time getting to it. My heart was not in it. Don’t tell the Grateful Dead I copied their trademark. Of course, I will gladly pay their artist the customary 7% royalty on profits for sale of copies of their work. I wonder if they collect on all of the tattoos and car stickers. Anyway, I finally got to it yesterday and finished it today.

I have never painted using primary red, white, and blue, before. I think I understand why they are used for so many national flags: France, Britain, Russia, Norway, US, Australia, Norway, the Confederacy, etc. Red and blue are from opposite ends of the spectrum. They clash with each other. When they are set next to each other, the line where they meet can look like it is moving, because the frequencies of the light reflecting are so different. Intersperse some white for contrast and the red and blue look even brighter than they would otherwise. It is an exciting combination.

So, I didn’t charge as much as I should have for how long it took. I probably shouldn’t have done it at all. I’m not particularly proud of it. I think John will be happy with it. All in all, it has been a good experience.

Tricky Chicky strikes again!

Last summer, as I was painting the Birds of Perkasie mural, many people stopped by to say Thank You. A few even left gifts and cards on my chair or among my paints for me, including cash. One lady left a birdseed bell with a note. She signed it “Tricky Chicky”. When I was around town or at the pool, people recognized me and said Thank You. Perkasie is a friendly community.

Yesterday, we received an envelope decorated with stars and and stickers. It was addressed “For the beautiful bird painter”, to our former address (the site of the mural). The mailman knew who it was for and got it to our new address, on Ridge Ave. It contained a card, decorated with bird stickers, that read:

Hello, Mr. Bird Painter!
I got you this gifty for the holidays but never got it in the mail so I’m sending it for Valentine’s Day instead. That’s probably more appropriate anyway because I love your beautiful bird wall! Yay! You lit up your little corner of the world & I appreciate it so much!
Thank you!
tricky chicky

Enclosed with this card was a $30 gift certificate to The Perk. My wife and I went there for lunch, today. It was a real treat! Since we moved and I have had so many health issues, we haven’t been able to pay all of our bills, much less go out. We each ordered about $9 meals, so we could leave a proper tip with the remainder. The food was excellent and generous portions.

Thank you, Tricky Chicky!

My Mac desk chair

Just after we moved into our current, slightly larger, small house in the middle of last month, we purchased a wooden table and three chairs for $50 through an online yard sale. The chairs are simple, sturdy, solid wood kitchen chairs. They were built for durability, not for comfort. We are using one for at the desk in the living room, one for a guest in the sewing room, and one for at my Mac computer which I use for editing photos.

I painted the living room chair Brazilian Tan. I painted my Mac chair Sunny Yellow, Cerulean Blue and Orange. It is part of my Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 home decor project.

2019 Fun-A-Day, days 10 & 11

On the 10th, I painted two more Discus Fish and mounted them on the bathroom wall. I actually finished painting them today, after I realized I had forgotten to paint their side fins. No big thing. It was just a few strokes with a fine brush using three colors of paint.  Then I hung my 6″ x 6″ painting from Day 13 of last year’s Fun-A-Day on the wall next to the toilet. It is of a yellow Butterfly Fish. The title of the painting is Hope #13 Biodiversity.

I also arranged more of my paintings in the back entry room, over the freezer and on the outside of the furnace room. I hung most of them using Velcro Command Strips, since this is how I hang them at art and craft shows.

2019 Fun-A-Day, days 8 & 9

During my nearly 20 years in the Antiochian Orthodox Church I became an iconologist and helped a few iconographers install icons in several churches. I also edited photos of icons, printed them and installed them in an iconostasis for a mission church. I learned how to apply to and remove painted canvasses from walls. I, in turn, instructed several other iconographers how to do this. By now, you are wondering what this has to do with Fun-A-Day.

On the first two days, I installed painted canvasses that I had originally painted for and installed on doors in our former, rental house. Yesterday and today, I painted and mounted a Discus Fish on our bathroom wall. I intend to paint several of these in various colors to mount on the walls of the bathroom. The first one took a good bit of time, with the research, sketching and painting. The rest should go more quickly.

All of the paintings on canvas were pasted to the wall with clay based paste. They will lay flat and tight to the wall until I want to remove them using warm water, a sponge and some rags. They will leave the paint unharmed.

Fun-A-Day 2019 project

I started participating in Fun-A-Day two years ago in the Lansdale Fun-A-Day and started the Perkasie Fun-A-Day last year. For each of those, I painted a separate piece each day. They were rather ambitious undertakings. This year, I started with the idea that I was going to work on a single painting every day during the month of January. I decided I didn’t like the painting that I started and changed my project. If it isn’t fun, what’s the point? The project I landed on is actually something I had been doing every day during the month. I just needed to document it. So, here goes.

I am sprucing up the rented house we moved into on December 15, 2018. This may involve painting original artwork.It has already included painting two doors.

1/1/19 and 1/2/19: I mounted my Three Stooges portrayal on canvas of our grandsons on the bathroom door on the 1st. I mounted the life-sized canvas I painted two years ago of our granddaughters on the wall between the bathroom and sewing room doors on the 2nd.

1/3/19:
I arranged the icons for the prayer corner in our bedroom and hung photos and mirror/shelf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also hung paintings on the bedroom door using Velcro Command strips.

1/4/19: On Friday, I painted the dough box “Brazilian Tan” to match the kitchen backsplash. I also painted both sides of the front door. It had never been painted. It was still Slumlord Gray.

 

 

 

 

 

1/5/19: On Saturday, I painted the remaining, tired, yellow wall in the bedroom white and hung family pictures there. I also hung a shelf I made and painted the day before, in the sewing room, hung pictures around it, and elsewhere in the room.

I hung my self-portraits and other creations in the hallway and back entry room.

 

 

 

 

 

Then I arranged more family photos and my art in the living room. Bethann sewed Velcro ‘hooks’ on the quilted valance that our daughter, Rosalie, made for our bedroom on 5th St. I mounted it on our headboard with adhesive Velcro fuzz.

1/6/19: On Sunday, I spent time unpacking the back entry, while the paint on the desk chair was drying. I also put the first coat on the soffit above the cupboards.

 

1/7/19: Today, I cleaned the first, original painting we ever owned, a horse race, and repainted the frame, and hung it in the back entry.

 

 

 

 

This project is fun and creative, and even beautiful.

New Year Letter 2019

Dear Friends,
We moved on December 15, so didn’t get any Christmas cards out. We only put a couple of Christmas decorations up. The Christmas over the door swag has lain on various places on the front deck, since we could find no place to hang it. We had to move out of our tiny house on 5th and Spruce, Perkasie, in a hurry. In late October, black mold bloomed all over the house. It was making us sick. The roof leaked and it was damp. The landlord had never told us there was a dehumidifier in the utility room under the house. It had turned off, due to a clogged drain hose. We had never seen the utility room. At any rate, we moved to a slightly larger place seven blocks north, still in Perkasie. It was the only place we looked at. It was the only place in our price range. A bunch of friends and family helped us move, including two strong, very polite young men, whom we had never met before. They even used their pickup truck to help. We are not completely unpacked, but Cranford spent the last few days of 2018 painting the living room, kitchen, hallway and bathroom. We have spent the first few days of 2019 hanging photos, paintings, needlework and icons. We miss having our granddaughters and Lydia and Vincent living across the street. They had already moved to Souderton in October.
Last summer was a joy! On just about every sunny day, the girls walked across the street to ask us to go to the pool with them, and to the new zip line in the park, or to the library. These were all within two blocks south. On most Saturday mornings, we would walk with Lydia, Isabella and Brigitta to the Perkasie Farmers’ Market, two blocks north. Cranford spent most of the summer (June 1 – August 24) painting a 100’ long mural on the retaining wall between our yard and Dave & Tammy Opalkas’ yard. There are photos, etc., at www.perkbirds.com.
Bethann has been learning patchwork quilting from Rosalie. Bethann took early “retirement” from Social Security, so she doesn’t need to work full-time. She took a half-time teller position with QNB bank, that comes with benefits. She continues to sew beautiful clothing for our granddaughters and fun pajamas for our grandsons.
Last January, Cranford painted every day for Perkasie Fun-A-Day, which he started. He is in the throes of it again, this January. Last year he tried to paint a “hope” everyday. Two of those pieces, plus another have since been shipped to a patron on the west coast of Ireland. This January, he is working every day on a single painting of a winter sunrise through the windows of our new digs. You can view his progress on the Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 event page on Facebook.
Healthwise, we are doing OK for people of our age and condition. We had no major health crises last year.
We hope that you and yours have a healthy and happy 2019. Thank you for your friendship. Feel free to stop by our new digs. We now actually have room for a few more people at the table.

Peace & love,

Cranford & Bethann Coulter
400 Ridge Ave.
Perkasie, PA 18944-1143

Bethann’s cell: 267-497-0267
Cranford’s cell: 267-497-0268

Preparing to Confront Fascism

Stay ready or get ready, think things through, act accordingly. This piece by Yale historian and Holocaust expert Timothy Snyder is making the rounds on Facebook. I would amend or supplement his reading list but his points are well-taken:

“Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.”

Snyder is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (which includes former Secretaries of State), and consults on political situations around the globe. He says, “Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

1. DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. DEFEND AN INSTITUTION. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

3. RECALL PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.

4. WHEN LISTENING TO POLITICIANS, DISTINGUISH CERTAIN WORDS. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

5. BE CALM WHEN THE UNTHINKABLE ARRIVES. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.

6. BE KIND TO OUR LANGUAGE. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.

7. STAND OUT. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. BELIEVE IN TRUTH. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

9. INVESTIGATE. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

10. PRACTICE CORPOREAL POLITICS. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. MAKE EYE CONTACT AND SMALL TALK. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FACE OF THE WORLD. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. HINDER THE ONE-PARTY STATE. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

14. GIVE REGULARLY TO GOOD CAUSES, IF YOU CAN. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.

15. ESTABLISH A PRIVATE LIFE. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

16. LEARN FROM OTHERS IN OTHER COUNTRIES. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. WATCH OUT FOR THE PARAMILITARIES. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

18. BE REFLECTIVE IF YOU MUST BE ARMED. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)

19. BE AS COURAGEOUS AS YOU CAN. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.

20. BE A PATRIOT. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.