icicle drip

It may be too soon to watch ice melt. Indeed, this gnarly little 'cicle soon became part of a big pendulous 3-footer before snapping off.

But in case of summer heat, I'll post this now. And hibernate till then.

The background music is an old instrumental of mine, Low Field, from circa 1996. I'll upload it to audiokayness in a few days.

[UPDATE: It's there now.]

emerging squirrel

Digging for breakfast, no doubt, through the roughly 14 inches of snow that has fallen in the past 4 days (plus the glaze of frozen rain).

tripping the Xmas lights fantastic

Another year, another time-lapse bit of Christmas light vertigo . . .



As good as last year? I dunno.



Happy Holidays to you all . . .

cassette arcana

In Music Thing, there was mention of all these music related crafty items including cassette themed stuff at Etsy. So I thought I'd post this odd bit of cassette arcana.



Tho' I'm a big fan of the cassette, this groovy bit of merchandising predates even my prodigious usage . . .

Detail from just below the cassette's blister pack:



Aside from the splashy design & copywriting, what I love is this is a 15 minute cassette. So words and images connoting boundless vistas of self-expression are put forth to sell a tape that offers 7 1/2 minutes of recording time per side.

Luckily, longer cassettes were also available (gotta love the multiple overlaying images of Beethoven in the Classic series packaging--click the image below for a closer look).

childhood arcana

Yep, the Banana Splits Club official membership card . . .

For the sake of those of you who had one of these cards but lost track of it, I digitally scrubbed off what I could of my writing so you might imagine your own there instead.



Same goes for this Dick Dastardly's Vulture Squadron membership card.

currently known as Stuckey's

My brother is a semi-regular at the Midway Cafe on US 460. And he's been saying the owners of the Midway were putting up a Stuckey's next door.

Now anytime he mentioned this new Stuckey's I'd think (but politely not say): "Oh, come on--a new Stuckey's? No way . . ."

Well: way.

Check this out at Anita's Sickmalls blog.

Cool, huh?

formerly known as Stuckey's, pt. 2

As you can tell from the pictures, both the business and the building are now long gone.

But some years back there was a Stuckey's in Thornburg just off I-95.


My wife & I would often stop by either heading to or from southeastern Virginia.


The Shell sign doesn't quite cover the white paint that mostly covers the Stuckey's logo beneath it all.


Can't say if this fireworks sign came along after the Stuckey's was no more. I do recall some elaborate fireworks packages, one with a rebel theme.


But my wife liked to get a box of pralines for her dad.


I liked the milk shakes. And browsing the novelty baseball caps that bore expressions like: Beauty is just a light switch away.

It was a bit like stepping into a 90s Country Pop song. A song that played a million times but you never hear on the radio anymore.


Nearby is what seems to be a former Texaco station that I don't rightly recall. An older song maybe.


Previous links:
Formerly known as Stuckey's, pt. 1 (Toano VA, 2007).

Pictures of Stuckey's (Toano VA, 1999).

formerly known as Stuckey's, pt. 1

This former Stuckey's was the one I went by about 8 years ago.

After driving around Jamestown, I went in search of this Stuckey's and found it near I-64 in Toano VA (thanks to a fellow working at Musicland).


While the store had indeed seen better days, it was good at least to find the building still standing (more about that in pt. 2).


There's maybe one actual Stuckey's in Virginia now, on the Eastern Shore in Mappsville. Otherwise, it's just a few mini-marts that happen to stock Stuckey's items.


And thankfully, the unofficial fansite Stuck On Stuckey's is still online now archived , though it seems to be in transition.

[UPDATE Nov. 2008: SOS (and many other AOL-based sites) have gone offline. The dead link has been replaced with a link to a recent version archived at the Wayback Machine.]

on & off the five mile loop

After riding north on the Jamestown Ferry, I drove the five mile loop on Jamestown Island.











Though hardly a naturalist, I'd never seen this plant before.



One common name for it is American Beautyberry. I'd later see it growing near the river at Chippokes Plantation.





An osprey's nest, I guess . . .





I'm a sucker for wooden causeways.



And the places they cross.



After the five mile loop, I rode along the Colonial Parkway and stopped off by the James River. (Click here for sounds of the James that day.)





A distant view of Hog Island: