Monday 1 June 2015

SUMMERTIME.. SO SING A PRETTY TUNE FOR IT'S THE FIRST OF JUNE!

"Summertime and the living is easy.. fish are jumping and the cotton is high".. are words from a glorious song. We've woken up to the very palest of pale blue skies with fresh air and very clean trees.

Rain poured out of the sky yesterday, our reservoirs will be full, thank goodness, as they are now forecasting a hot spell. Thank God we get this water, the photos of parts of California are almost beyond belief and she wonders what Lake Powell looks like these days.

She was lucky, oh so lucky, to have been there in 1999 and seen that wondrous place ~ which has more shore-line than the American Pacific Coast ~ when the water level was high. The colours were marvellous and she's happy that she took a camera with her, for words alone do not do that place justice.

Marble Mountain, White River, Glenwood Springs are places in Colorado, places she visited whilst working in Aspen. One of the fabulous perks of working for an international company was the amount of overseas travelling to wonderful places that she got to do all those years ago.

The places she went, the people she met. Probably never to be seen or met again.. but memories can be recalled, can't they? The marble mill on the edge of White River, until America joined WW2, was the largest marble processing plant in the world, then the men left to go to war and the mill went to sleep.

And nature reclaimed the land. Chipmunks live in the towers, Aspen trees grew through the concrete floor, pushing through three feet of solid base as if it were just a single sheet of paper. It is an awesome place, in the midst of untamed country, high up off the main Aspen to Carbondale road.

The river was in full spate when she was there on a bright sunny day in 2003, the name of the river comes from the stone which forms its' bed.. white marble and water.. the water flashes over the stone and it certainly could never be called 'blue' river!

The mill has started again, she met the owner when she was tresspassing on his land the first day after he had bought it! The marble is pure white, as white as fresh snow, she has chunks of it at home which he gave her and there is an extremely important monument in Washington DC which is carved out of the same stone.

The stone is, of course, still there.. for the mountain is full of this stone, plus the vein goes a longlong way underground. The Italians are now sneakily buying it and passing it off as Carrera Marble.. for the sad truth is that their ancient white marble vein is almost depleted.

Our sky is now of the palest pale grey.. she was supposed to be just getting a mug of LapySang and coming back to bed, but today's going to be a busy day, so we wish you a wonderful summer and we say "thank the Lord" for DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin & Ira Gershwin.. but why?

Well, it if weren't for them we wouldn't have had 'Porgy & Bess', would we?

And we wouldn't have had 'Summertime'. And if you don't know the words, I suggest you listen to this song being sung by Ella Fitzgerald with Louis Armstrong.. or Janis Joplin or, IF you can find it, a recording by Abbe Mitchell who was the original Clara in the 1935 opera. The book 'Porgy' upon which George Gershwin wrote Porgy & Bess, was written by DuBose Heyward.

Back to bed for a snuggle and a slurp of tea.. teehee!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 1st, 2015.

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