Saturday in the Park

Slow motion riders
fly the colors of the day
A bronze man
still can
tell stories his own way
Listen children
all is not lost
all is not lost
ohh no no. . .

Funny days in the park
Every day's the Fourth of July
Funny days in the park
Every day's the Fourth of July
People reaching
people touching
a real celebration
waiting for us all. . .
If we want it
really want it
Can you dig it?
Yes I can
and I've been waiting such a long time
for the day. . . .

- R. Lamm


Hello once again! Yes, I'm still alive - I know that some of you were concerned. Well, maybe one or two of you. Maybe. :) Ya ya, I missed you all too.

There have been a few changes in my life once again. I now live in a new town - "Oak Lair", Wisconsin. I'm still unemployed, but now I'm attending the local university and studying for a geology major.

This winter, in both Black River Falls and here in Oak Lair, it snowed like a sunofabitch this year, prolly at least, oh, lessee, umm, 'bout 35-40 feet of the white shit, total. It's like it snowed every damn day! That made life a real pain in the butt for me and the others around here. However, it's now April, and all of that winter nonsense is now DONE WITH! Today was the first 60 F day of the year, and a Saturday, so I was one happy camper. :) :) :) :)

I anticipate doing a significant amount of fishing this year, so today I planned on getting a Wisconsin fishing license. The Wisconsin DNR is just down the road from the campus, so I figured I would walk over there and get one. This would also allow me to take photos of my relatively new hometown along the way. I guess that I wasn't the only citizen with cabin fever - it seemed like the whole city was out and about today. It was worth it.

I'm finding out that Oak Lair is a very nice place, and I'm enjoying myself here very much. So far, in college, I'm taking one chemistry course and two geology courses. I'm doing good in all three; but, as usual, I know that I can do better - so that's what I try to do.

The people here are really nice - both at and away from the university. In just a few months I've made a lot of friends. I also have a local tavern that I frequent (the burgers there are excellent) where I have even more friends. It helps that I cheered for the Packers when they made a pretty good showing in the playoffs and also pulled for the Badgers in the recent NCAA basketball tournament.

The only bad thing of late has been the absolutely atrocious weather this winter. There was more snow this year than any I'd seen since I was a wee teenager back in central Minnesota; circa ummm errrr, never mind. :) A while back, anyway. The point of this blog-entry is that that season has now passed on to something far more pleasant. People, it was a gorgeous day out there today and IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

To provide a little historical background, Oak Lair (not it's real name :)) was founded as a logging town on the confluence of two rivers, the Chippewa and the Oak Lair. The Chippewa is a pretty good-sized river, and it's a pretty easy run down to the Mississippi. Business was good, and the city prospered and diversified. It was one of the first cities in Wisconsin with a university. The city is also pretty close to the Minnesota border, so some of that good stuff rubbed off on Oak Lair. :) :) :) Anyways, it was recognized that this was a nice place way back when, and it still is today.

Well, that's enough verbosity. Like I wrote, it was a nice day, this is a nice place, here are some nice pictures. :) Enjoy!

A creek runs through the university campus and flows into the Chippewa, here. As you can see, there is still some snow and ice around. Hopefully not for long. :)

This is a photo of the Oak Lair River, looking upstream from a bridge downtown. The recent snow melt has really raised the level and flow of both rivers in town.

This photo is a close-up of the right-hand bank of the above photo. Notice how far the water is being pushed up the downed tree (about a foot, by my estimate). Quite the flow!

This is a picture of the Chippewa River from the UWEC campus. The confluence with the campus creek is just off the photo to the left. Notice the people in the boat fishing.

This is a shot from the footbridge over the Chippewa at the campus. The students like to make sculptures along the bank with the rocks, and you can see that some of that is covered up by the swollen river.

This is one of the residence halls on campus. In the foreground is a basketball court chock-full of students enjoying today's pleasantness.

Towards the end of my walk I encountered a nice lady who was busy making art with sidewalk chalk. We started talking and were soon joined by a few other people.

The next thing I knew there were about a half-dozen people busy making art while I spectated. :) Nice people, nice time!

Well, I sure did enjoy myself today. I do hope that I conveyed some of that enjoyment to you people out there in cyberspace! I am sorry that it's been awhile since my last post. Oh - and I almost forgot to tell you - that DNR place where I was going in the first place? It's closed on Saturday. Did that bother me? Not today. . . .