Sweet Betsy from Pike

Our family traveled many miles during the Summer singing songs such as Sweet Betsy from Pike. Not all of our cars had great radio. Most of the stations that we would encounter along the roads were not very good. I started to learn the guitar in 1963. We always traveled with a guitar. Here are the lyrics to Sweet Betsy From Pile. Mom and Dad were big fans of Burl Ives. Burl Ives did a modified version of this song. I came across a modern interpretation of the song in Suzy Bogguss's American Folk Songbook. I think my next mix will be folk.


Sweet Betsy From Pike

Did you ever hear tell of Sweet Betsy from Pike,

Who crossed the wide mountains with her lover Ike,

Two yoke of cattle, a large yeller dog,

A tall Shanghai rooster, and a one-spotted hog.

Singing too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay.

They swam the wide rivers and crossed the tall peaks,

And camped on the prairie for weeks upon weeks.

Starvation and cholera, hard work and slaughter--

They reached California 'spite of hell and high water.

One evening quite early they camped on the Platte,

Twas near by the road on a green shady flat.

Betsy, sore-footed, lay down to repose--

With wonder Ike gazed on that Pike County rose.

The Injuns came down in a thundering horde,

And Betsy was scared they would scalp her adored.

So under the wagon-bed Betsy did crawl

And she fought off the Injuns with musket and ball.

The wagon broke down with a terrible crash,

And out on the prairie rolled all sorts of trash.

A few little baby-clothes, done up with care,

Looked rather suspicious, but all on the square.

They stopped at Salt Lake to inquire of the way,

When Brigham declared that Sweet Betsy should stay.

Betsy got frightened and ran like a deer,

While Brigham stood pawing the ground like a steer.

The alkali desert was burning and bare,

And Isaac's soul shrank from the death that lurked there.

"Dear old Pike County, I'll go back to you"--

Says Betsy, "You'll go by yourself if you do!"

They soon reached the desert, where Betsy gave out,

And down in the sand she lay rolling about.

Ike in great wonder looked on in surprise,

Saying, "Betsy, get up, you'll get sand in your eyes."

Sweet Betsy got up in a great deal of pain.

She declared she'd go back to Pike County again.

Ike gave a sigh, and they fondly embraced,

And they traveled along with his arm round her waist.

The Shanghai ran off, and the cattle all died,

That morning the last piece of bacon was fried.

Ike got discouraged, Betsy got mad,

The dog drooped his tail and looked wonderfully sad.

They suddenly stopped on a very high hill,

With wonder looked down upon old Placerville.

Ike said to Betsy, as he cast his eyes down,

"Sweet Betsy, my darling, we've got to Hangtown."

Long Ike and Sweet Betsy attended a dance.

Ike wore a pair of his Pike County pants.

Betsy was covered with ribbons and rings.

Says Ike, "You're an angel, but where is your wings?"

A miner said, "Betsy, will you dance with me?"

"I will that, old hoss, if you don't make too free.

Don't dance me hard, do you want to know why?

Doggone you, I'm chock-full of strong alkali."

This Pike County couple got married, of course,

But Ike became jealous, and obtained a divorce.

Betsy, well-satisfied, said with a shout,

"Goodby, you big lummox, I'm glad you backed out!"

Chaffee Zoo

Yesterday, Sue and I went to the Chaffee Zoo in Fresno.

It was a great time to try out the new Nikon 5100 and its super telephoto lens. It was a great time to go as the temperatures were in the 80s all day. Sometimes Fresno in the Summer roles up to some pretty high temperatures that make zoo exploration problematic.

What was really great was to see the young kids enjoying the field trip day. It was easy to see that many, even though they were from schools nearby had never been to the zoo. Some kids took off in a run and had to be admonished by their supervisors that it was not a place to run as supported by the orientation talk. They were all wearing "character counts" shirts. Character counts is a program that is partially funded state money that was earmarked in the early years for police presence on campuses. In elementary schools it becomes an integrated part of the curriculum and garners state grant money. It seemed obvious that this may be a source for these schools to get money for field trips to the zoo in years where money is being parsimoniously spent.

There were also students there in a small group with highly identifiable shirts that said, "I am home schooled."A small band of these students were headed to the gift shop just as we were headed out. Gift shops are difficult for all field trip participants. Some kids have saved their allowances for months for a special thing to buy on a school field trip while others have very little to spend and have to watch the others pull souvenirs off the shelf to buy.

A third population was there with their moms and dads. They were toddlers that were in awe of the little things in a zoo that might be missed by their older siblings. One girl and boy were having a great time climbing all over the Nosey the elephant sculpture. Mom and Dad for one toddler were happy to get their daughter to hold up a branch of green leaves so that the giraffe could swoop down with his blue tongue and scoop up this special treat. Zoo handlers were their to supervise, talk about the giraffes and collect the two dollars required. This also made for a great photo for me to add to the collection of point and shoot digital photography series I am doing in watercolor canvas. The photographer in this case had bright red fingernail polish. This ought to be fun.

This third group also included toddler member that were in total awe of seeing giraffes for the first time. The Chaffee Zoo was very proud of their newest member of the giraffe exhibit. A new giraffe was born in the zoo two months ago. This baby was not yet clued in to appeal to the crowd. The crowd was loving the chance to see it.

Seeing the kids in action in the zoo was really a treat. One of my best pictures came near the end of our trip. I happened to see a bright red dragoon fly land on the guard wire of the anteater enclosure. I took its photo and took another when it took off and landed back at its same spot. It might be the best photo of the trip... go figure..

: ) Pat
 

What is not important need not be defined

One art in photography and watercolor can both be impressionistic. Photography by its capture realistic until it hits a computer or a darkroom. Watercolor seems to be more dependent on the impressions of the artist rather than the detail since it starts with a blank page.  Great impressionistic photography transcends this detail limitation and becomes impressionistic through the vision of the photographic artist. Not all of a scene needs to be in sharp detail. Many photographic artists prefer to work in black and white for the purpose of making the work more impressionistic. The viewer must translate a black and white image away from its color heritage of our eyes.

Watercolor philosophy in the form that I am attempting may be approached up by stating that what is not important my be suggested not defined. A line, a wash, a suggested object my include a released blurry spot is acceptable and supported in watercolor. Its called an eye release.

As a beginner I wanted to capture the house, the tree, the rocks. An impressionistic artist looks at shape cohesion, value contrasts and rhythm. The subject that focuses the attention can be defined as recognizable detail, but that which is not to be focused upon, is less defined and requires less precision. This is what makes this media so interesting,

I am currently working on a new kind of media. The paper is hand made in India. It is thick and it has a wonderful rough texture. There is a sense of absorbancy that makes this media fun. Its almost impossible to "lift" or take pull pigment out of the paper. It will also soften any wet lines. It makes my work softer around the edges. It also takes to pen lines. In retrospect it is the reciprocal to the water media plastic paper called Yupo.

Yupo has little absorbancy. Paint sits right on top of it. While artists can layer with it, care must be taken as too much pressure releases the paint on top and gets you right down to the white in a hurry. Some artists my use tissue paper to pull layers of color off and to provide textures and contrasting stains over its extremely transparent base. Its certainly not your mother's Arches paper. Yupo is a difficult media to extract individual detail, as is my Indian media challenge.

Art is an adventure.

: ) Pat

Joe Republican

I copied and pasted this out of a response on Yahoo that a writer wrote. The response was to a op ed challenging in principal the value of Romney's record at Bain Capital.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN.

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joes employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

A super sports Saturday

There was plenty to watch on cinco de mayo day on TV if you were a sports fan.

Today was the running of the most prestigious two minutes in sports. The Kentucky Derby for this year hit the airwaves with the running of the 3 year old horses. I'll Take Another, a strange name for a horse, won the derby after winning the prestigious Santa Anita Derby by a nose to get in. I totally unexpected victory that will certainly shake up the monied teams in the sport. It was quite a finish as this horse really knew how to get to the finish line from the middle of the pack. He won going away by 5 furlongs. Its always nice to hear the crowd sing "My old Kentucky Home" and to suffer through 2 hours of space shuttle talk.... hummm background stories on the horses before the 2 minute race actually occurs.

The hometown bums er Giants were playing on TV this Saturday on the national broadcast. They had there Gigiantes jerserys on to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. They defeated the Milwaukee Brewers. There seems to be so much more color in the set when the game is played for the national audience. It also helped that San Francisco had one of its storybook weather days. 

Not to be outdone for color on the screen, the Wells Fargo PGA tournament tune up was broadcasted from Charlotte, North Carolina. Quail Hallow is some kind of photogenic course.. even if Tiger Woods didn't make that cut at even par on Friday. The next week golf heads to one of its majors.. the Players championship. Golf is an interesting sport to watch on TV. Most active golfers want nothing to do with the televised tournaments. They don't want to admit that they have any connection with the feeling of success when the pros play. I think that this is in fact due to the dumming down of the professional course. A PGA course is in fact a pretty difficult place to play. In recent years the technology of golf has zoomed ahead of the course design. I think that it is obscene that the pros need a 14 under par score to come close to winning a tournament. A PGA course should have its holes reflective of the challenge. Par should be a respectable score on any hole that is properly measured. The difficulty now is that many of the classic courses are too short for the modern equipment. Except for the USOpen. The penalty for missing a fairway should be catastrophic in a major tournament. It has been in the past. It will be for this years US Open on the Olympic golf course in San Francisco in June. That is unless the course superintendent provides a short mowed down mid rough area to bolster the scores. It will be a difficult course like it always is because it is played on a very steep hill. Traditionally the putting greens are very fast and difficult. Tiger better have his swing in shape by the time this June tournament arrives. It is totally unforgiving with narrow platform fairways and miniscule greens. The US Open Tournament in 1998 was a total target shoot with irons with no drivers in sight. There is no water on this course. Three is a par three down at the foot of the hill beside the lake that has an extremely narrow fairway with steep nine foot sand bunkers lining it. There were a couple of hole in ones on this hole in the last US Open held there.

One should not forget that there was a serious NASCAR nationwide series being run at the fastest course of NASCAR, Teledega. Of all the NASCAR races this one is the one to watch if you are into drafting. The cars are hauling around the track thee wide and and about eight rows deep. The speed occurs when these cars form "trains" of twos and threes right up next to each other at incredible speeds, full well knowing that they cannot maintain this close proximity too long as the radiators over heat and the performance drops. This is really tight race and most cars remain of the lead lap. The course is just 2 miles long and the spectators have a wild view of the entire race. Danica Patrick was in this race and was often up in the second and third spots without support to shoot her through to the front. There were two massive accidents in this years race. The one at the end resulted in a race stoppage and a helicopter employed to airlift the injured driver to safety. Many times this race gets down to who can save the fuel and the tires to the end.

With NASCAR Teledaga, The Wells Fargo PGA golf tournament, The Kentucky Derby, The Giants playing the Brewers and rumors of a pay for view boxing extravaganza from Las Vegas, its no wonder not much was getting done in the yards of America..... : ) Pat

Monday Morning, Merced Target

 Optometry

Its Monday and I got a call back to the vision doctor to run the peripheral test and a close up exam with the computer mapping tool that examines the various layers of the inside of your eye. This is a new piece of equipment that my OD has. He also had a go at me with the dilation exam. Overall it looked pretty good. I have some low level macro degeneration as often occurs with 61 year old eyes but nothing he saw that requires a phrama solution. Its important to find a good OD that will take the time and be complete in his exam.

A couple of Hours in Target / Shopping Trip from the Retirement Home

As I left the office I didn't get the reversal drops. As a result, I ended up squinting and driving just a few blocks for a respite at the nearby Target store. This is one of my daughters favorites. She loves it for the mini pizza hut that most of these stores contain. Our Merced Target is no exception. A tall diet pepsi was the order of the day as my eyes had to have a chance to settle down. As I got my drink, three ladies from the nearby adult care facility arrived. All three were white haired/grey and two were in walkers and the third was in a power chair. They each arrived with a bag full of merchandise that they had bought and were examining. One had a bag full of almond joy bars tightly clutched to her hands. The other had a little bigger bag. She was happy to share the catalog of her bounty. She brought out of the bag a couple of sock lumps gathered in groups of three. They were white. Her friend wanted to know whether they were cotton. She gathered them up and closely examined the piles.She said of course, I would buy black ones if it was going to be winter. She was aghast that they cost 9 dollars. That seemed pretty high. She seem resigned when she added, everything is high now days. 

She said that I also bought a new t shirt. She dragged out a turquoise shell. The other lady looked it over and gave it a feel. She said, thats a bit thick for you isn't it? The owner said, well maybe, but I just love the color.

The lady from the place arrived with her purchases. She sported a name badge and four plastic bags full of jello and pudding cups. She also had a couple of fruit cups. The ladies were interested in what she bought. She also bought an exotic jug of drink. The rest of the ladies had no experience with this juice and neither did the purchaser. She told them that she would try it at home. The ladies were getting a little impatient. The lady from the place said that everyone had one hour to shop. They were waiting for a couple of more to get through the line. No one joined this group. She also told them that they were going to Sizzler for lunch after. One lady said that she had no intentions of going to sizzler. The lady from the place said that they would drop her back to the care facility before they continued on. Another wanted to know the price of the lunch. The lady said, I think that it is 7.95. The one that was being dropped off said that when she went to another salad bar it was only five dollars. Her friend reminded her that it was just green lettuce at that one.

The lady from the place called up the driver and it was agreed that they would be picked up withing 10 minutes. Five minutes later, she told the group that she was walking out to the bus and that they were to meet her in five minutes by the door. She told the lady in the power chair to give the walker ladies a head start. The bus arrived and and they all got on.

It was really nice that this retirement home was going the extra mile to allow these ladies to shop. Many such places use their buses only for doctor visits. The ladies in this group have shopped all of their lives. To suddenly not do this is too much for many. They each had an incredible time even if they were sort of critical of each other at times and their patience was running thin. There was no response that was directed to themselves or their health condition. Language was pretty germane to event that they were participating in. I think that as long as they can do this it is important for them to get out and live their lives as much as they can away from the institutional setting. They will have plenty to talk about when they get home.

Love All : ) Pat

How do you know its Spring in Merced

Spring's arrival  in Merced is a tricky date to guess. Sometimes the central valley in California has Spring significantly before Easter. The first year we moved out from Colorado we left a spot that had ice on the trees and snow on the road. This was the week after ash Wednesday. We arrived in the Central Valley where every day was a barbeque day outside and the evening temperatures continued to mirror the daytime highs in the 70s-90's. What a contrast.

I think the way that you know its Spring here is that you can open the window in the house and not have to remember to close them after noon. Yet, there is little need for an air conditioner during this time of the year. It one of our three free months from PGnE, our utility provider.  The grass needs to be watered one time a week. The trees need to be watered deeply once every other week. The crafty gardener can have a blast outside for most of the day without worrying about the weather.. except wearing a hat... please and some liquid sun protection, internally and externally.

In my case, its time to lose the T shirts under until fall comes.

The heavy air around my house is full of smell of citrus blossoms and sweet alyssum flowers.  Last weekend before the orange blossoms took center stage, a whiff of iris was swirling through the air. Heather, my eldest daughter had never smelled iris before. I told her that she had but that she did recognize it. Its often the base to very subtle aromas in perfumes. She picked it up. Her sister Linzi, who was also home, confirmed that this would be the last visit that we would have of Heather as she prefers not to be in the valley when it gets hot.

The front porch garden is in fantastic shape. The flats I planted on March 5th are in their peak form. They might get one more month before they need to be uprooted and replaced with the summer hot hot hot mix. We have climate that gave wilting petunias their reputation. I will take some shots of them and share them all on facebook.

Where ever you are enjoy the Spring!  : ) Pat