Afternoon napping

From left:  Nelson and Kit Charlemagne

Back yard, late afternoon, the day after a foot of snow

Kit Charlemagne in the late afternoon sun

Waiting with faint hope

To begin with, I was pretty, pretty, pretty close to 40°33'56.9"N 75°35'07.2"W in the map screen shot immediately below.  

The next image gives you an idea of what I saw looking west from nearby Grange Road, April 21, 2024.  One white flower was visible in the middle of an open field, and I walked over for a closer look.   

Soon the flowers were gone and the field was planted in soybeans.  But next spring, April 29, 2025 to be exact, the same kind of white flowers reappeared, shown in the third image.  They're called ornithogalum nutans, or drooping star-of-Bethlehem, and evidently their bulbs are pretty hardy, if not always welcome.

Finally, a view of the same field looking south, January 6, 2026.  The area shown in the prior pictures hasn't yet been dug up or graded, but in my experience, there's not much reason to be optimistic.

Until the early part of the decade, the roadside was seldom tended, and wildflowers grew all along it, including chicory, hawkweed, red clover, and Queen Anne's lace.  A short distance away, purple asters thrived near the bypass.  All that has changed, and I'm glad I took pictures while I had the chance.

Shrug

And then things started happening, and writing in here went to the bottom of the priority list.  Let's see how I feel in a few days before going any further.

It just so happens

To create that post a couple of days ago, I went into my cache of 20th-Century photos taken in NYC.  There was one image that showed huge marquees for On The Waterfront, Brigadoon, and one I’d never heard of, entitled Susan Slept Here.  Guess what I’m recording right now from TCM?  

Beyond this point is more detail which I want to remember, but that I recognize will be of interest only to me.  You’ve been warned.

I don’t usually go into Bluesky, but this morning I did, and almost immediately saw a post from the New Yorker from one of their film critics.  It said that he’d been discussing Susan Slept Here with someone, and how it was a sharp portrait of mid-1950’s capitalist America, and… it was going to be on TCM in about 15 minutes.  I powered up the TV and the TiVo just after the opening credits began.  

Photographic memory

I remember hearing about the documentary "The Automat" a few years ago, and when it was on the TCM schedule, I recorded it, or so I thought.  When I tried to play it back, there had been a problem with the cable that left the picture scrambled and the audio garbled.  But recently, I got a second chance, and this time it recorded properly.  

Above, a still from the film reminded me of a photo I'd seen online and saved.  Not exactly the same, but likely taken moments apart from the same spot on the same rainy day in 1943.  

Wonder what the "E" billboard next to the Automat sign was promoting?  Was there an "E" war bond?