Savoring the Warmer Cold Days

With a bright sun and temperatures in the mid fifties there would be no keeping the scooter in dry dock today.  Hunting for Christmas decorations was the reason I gave myself for going out, not for justification which I never need for scootering, but to motivate myself to get up and get moving.  It’s all too easy to stay in a comy and cozy recliner since there’s no more getting up at 5:50 AM and heading out into the cold and dark to begin a work day so scootering is a wonderful way to force myself not to squander a day away in doing in nothing and loving it far more than I should.

 A month or so ago I got a picture of this same house decked out just as ostentatiously for Halloween as it is now for Christmas.  Call it tacky, but I kind of like it when somebody is this much into celebrating anything, but especially Christmas!  

Sugar Notch is ready for the season with its giant snowflakes.  So many great pictures get ruined here in 19^th century coal town Pennsylvania because it’s almost impossible to take outdoor pictures without getting electric, phone, and cable wires in them.  Although they make for interesting geometry with their, perpendicular, parallel, and oblique patterns, they’re a certain throw back to when function during times of progress took center stage to any consideration of form or appearance.

With the camera held high atop a hill in Warrior Run one might think I’m paying a visit to the Grinch in his perch on Mt. Crumpet...

 

However, angling the camera just a little changes the view dramatically.  Once again the wires that connect everybody with everybody else are impossible to ignore although in this particular shot they appear to be part of the small town charm itself.

Just around the corner there’s the old Grinch himself popping up out of the chimney as his trusty reindeer, Max, waits for him to complete his task of robbing the Whos of their Christmas joy.  Little does he know that the joy really comes from within, though the props and fancies of Christmas do make it all more celebratory.

Although the Minions are quite adorable as they are in themselves, adding a Santa hat to one just makes him all the more whimsically delightful.  I was thinking that I wish we’d had such lovable characters when I was a kid in the early 60s, but upon reflection we did.  Rudolph came to life through Rankin and Bass in 1964 when I was a mere lad of six and the whole bunch of them are still dear to my old heart.  Other cartoons which are now classics that I look forward to seeing each season also came out during my childhood.

I came upon this unlikely juxtaposition of old metal things on the way to the foot of Alden Mountain.

Just across the street on part of the same property, a line up of boys’ toys from childhood to ripe middle age.

 

How I wish that the folks who put out inflatables for Christmas would spare the loose change to keep the poor things blown up by day to delight those of us who aren’t vampires traveling about exclusively in the dark.  It disgusts me every time I see one of these melted puddles of Christmas lying on a lawn until it gets dark and they can spring to life once more.  They just look so darned sad lying there in heaps.

 

As I turned from the deflated and defeated Christmas blow ups to pull back into traffic I released the throttle and grabbed the brakes again in spying this beautiful Autumn scene just across the street.  There’s always something to delight the eyes when one’s taking in the sights on a scooter.  The view from the saddle is unique and totally different than the same view as seen from the inside of a car.  I’d be hard pressed to say why that is, but I know it’s true from my own experiences.  My own simple but wonderful experiences!