Clyde Liner Mohawk

Painted on a driftwood plank. Look it up, dumbass. I suggest Google!

It's Fossil Friday #4

I know it's hard to tell from this image, but this is a chunk of fossilized wood (i.e. "petrified"). It was found near my home in Townsend, DE while a friend was digging a pond, And you thought petrified wood was an artifact of the desert....

Voodoo Jar #1

I'm fascinated by vodou culture and art. To this end, I've been making "voodoo jars" - they aren't not so much authentic to that tradition, but they borrow heavily from vodou concepts. This one if filled with spiky belemnites (Delaware's state fossil), with various spiky embelishments and a medallion with the French word for spine ('epine') painted on it...

I got a boner...

That is to say, a bone handled knife and sheath from Timor. I like the faces on this piece, but I'm wondering what kind of bone this is...

Hopefully, not someone we know!

Halfway mark and my grandpa

Well, this is by my reckoning the half way point of the "blog a day for a year" thing (365 / 2 = 182.5), so yea me!

In honor of this event, the man in the picture above was my grandpa, now deceased for about 3 1/2 years. This picture was taken of him about 20 years ago on a beach near Fenwick Island, DE. He and I had some great times together - he taught me to fix things, shoot guns and bows, how to sharpen a knife, all about WW2, how to deal with life's problems, how to honor one's commitments...the list goes on and on.

Some of my favorite memories were of beachcombing with him, summer or winter, in all kinds of weather. Sometimes we'd use a metal detector, but mostly we'd just find cool shit on the beach (some of which appears in this very blog). In many ways, this blog is dedicated to him - he found (or would have found) all of this stuff interesting and valuable in some way.

He died due to the degenerative effects of Alzheimers - an awful disease that slowly strips away at human dignity and pride until there not much left but, almost literally, a skeleton. In a whole lot of ways that I won't go into, he deserved so much better. I'm glad I got to see him one last time before he died (the day before), and I miss him everyday. The picture above is probably how he'd want to be remembered - a man of the sea, a lover of nature, and an all-around good person on any random beach anywhere in the world.

Lovely Rita

Meter Reader.


Here's an old bronze water meter cover from somewhere or other. Stick a 302 area code in front of the 7 digit number that's stamped on there and you'll have a Dover, DE number. Dial it on your phone. I dare you...

Oh, and ask for 'Rita' if you do.





Actually, don't.

Happy Anniversary

Today is the missus' and my 6th wedding anniversary (I hope - I'm bad at math!). This is what we have to show for it...

It's a 1/2 scale, fully functional Smith miniature replica of a 1941 Boeing Stearman PT-17 Biplane at the Massey Air Museum near our home (it's not ours, but a fella can dream, right?)

By the way...we've never seen the kid in the foreground before ;-)

Happy Anniversary, Babe.