Saturday Night with Rachel Shirley at Irish Fest '08

Time is an amazing thing. I may have mentioned time before. It is hard to believe that it was a week ago tomorrow when a three day pass was the way to fun and entertainment. Indy's Irish fest has come and gone again. It was a packed weekend, that wasn't a three day weekend. I worked on Friday, then Rich and I went to the Irish fest at Military park. We met up with compatriot and coworker Michael Wallace Wilson. This is nothing new, we've been doing this for four years straight. Friday night we acquainted ourselves with the layout and locations of the vendors and the all important beer trucks. Friday night was over almost before it began, and other than food and a glass or two of Guinness the only purchase I made was a Black Sheep tie. Being thoughtful citizens and wise beyond our years (even Wilson's) we reserved an Embassy Suite for our Saturday night party and partiers.

Me with Keith Roberts , Front man for the Young Dubliners,
photo: Rachel Shirley © 2008
Saturday: We didn't arrive at the festive site until around 5:30, since we stopped at the Suite on the 14th floor and dropped of all non-essential items and affects. Then a short walk got us to the gates of the park. Soon enough we found Mike Wilson diligently working away at Beer Truck #5 (I think). See, Mike volunteers to work the Irish Fest's every year, and Rich and I volunteer to attend. Mel Shoffner arrived not long before we completed our first pass around the grounds with Jenni, who (like Mel) was not in the Friday evening fest festivities. One of our favorite venders this year was artist/painter T. W. Williams of the 317 area code. We all liked several of his pieces (I think Rebecca even liked one or two but it is so hard to tell with the hard drinkers!) and in a surprise move rich bought one of his favorites before we left for the Embassy Suites and our hired room for the evening. Jenni, who's bursa bereaved knee which she had a cortisone shot in a few day earlier, left before the final acts of the fest crew were acted out. The remainders of our crew all wandered over to the Claddagh Stage and watched The Young Dubliners live while finishing off our food/beverages tickets. Rachel Shirley one of my Roberts camera customers who Rich, Mike and I hung with on Friday night returned form a Wedding shoot in St. Louis to finish the night with our group again. Rachel and I bought Young Dubs merch and got the autographs of the entire band after the encore song.

Then for most of us the last stop of the evening was Sneaky Pete's Irish Peat Bog cooking concession, I've blogged about Pete in the past. Another great Irish fest was in the bag and our core, short Jenni who had already left and Wilson who decided to head out instead, marched to the Suite of a different drunk. No, that was an illusionary phrase I was not to far into my cups on this evening.
Chuck Pace ©2008 
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Last week was the first week, because everything has to have a starting point. Last week was that week. When you are in a bowling league you have to start somewhere, I like to do that on the first week as a rule.

David Andrichik has assembled a cadre of Chatterbox regulars and neighbors and turned us into our own bowling league at the All*Star Bowl bowling alley on the city's east side. Last week, oh wait I've covered that already. Six teams were created, 24 regular bowlers were required, 21 were there plus one substitute, leaving two teams a kegler short. Team 1: (Chatterbox One) Rehder/Hamilton/Andrichik/Andrichik came up against Team 2: Krull/Yosha/Wilson/Beuke (I don't know if they have chosen a catchy moniker yet)who won two games (valued at two points each) and series (1 additional point) finished in first place taking 5 of the 7 available points in their contest. Team 3: Suenram/Hutton/Mark/Bowman, (with Bobbi Jo Marx absent and Kay Niedenthal subbing brilliantly) again I don't know if they chose a team cognomen, were pitted against Team 4: Hiatt/Martin/Berns/Culy, and won two games but lost series ending with a 4 point score. Team three is in 3rd place. Thusly team 4 were awarded (earned) 3 points 2 for 1 game and 1 for an overall score high enough to carry series points. Team 4 is in 4th place. The 5th team , (strangely) Team 5: Bailey/Brown/Hatch/West chose a name, "Press Help Key" they , not unlike team 4 were bowling the missing man formation with Mr. Brown suffering from a gravity related stairwell incident and unable to kegel with a peg-al (cane). Team 4's missing man Paul Berns was just a heart-beat away recovering from heart surgery while his heart throb rolled for scores. My team is the final team, Team 6 and we, Sherry/Shoffner/Gentry/Pace named our crew the 'Box Tops.'
After calculating the totals and handicaps this weekend I determined that our team with the same score as team 2, but lower pin count, is in 2nd place. That leaves team 1 and team 5 vying for last place, with just 2 points each. The honor goes to team 5 (vie? vie not?) with just a dozen less points with handicap than the flagship brand. In just under 19 hours from the completion of this post round two of the Chatterbox Bowling league will convene to see who comes out on top next tally!

Chuck Pace ©2008 
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So it looks like the blessed day is almost upon us. Well not us actually, Scot and Anni. There is a wedding this weekend and it will be joining Mr. Proctor and Ms. Hood. Then there is the week off honey moon and all that rot. As is the ritual there was a convening of friends at some popular watering hole or another to pass on best wishes and warnings. Last night's passage to the mouth of hell bliss was first the Chatterbox then later McNivens for dining and final warm and fuzzies (and warnings). Our wait person at McNivens was Ryan (if that really is her name) and I asked her to point the digital pixel compactor at our assemblage and capture the moment. Judging by the multi-farious faces on smile bloomage she did an excellent job.

All Hail the soon to be Conquered Hero!
(l to r) Rich C. Jeff B. CP(ME) Rachel A. Mike W and C.Scott P.
Later during and the food consuming portion of our dining experiment experience I compacted a few more pixels in the same fashion. The shot of Rachel Aspy and Mike Wilson aptly demonstrates the different opinions of having an image captured. The evening was a success and at around midnight it began a whole new day as most evenings are want to do. Rich and Mike (or was it C.Scott) also sampled the Monty Python's Holy Grale, but I can not attest to the taste I had my customary Robert The Bruce and I was home long before the new day deal, but I here that rabbit was dynamite.
This wasn't a dream, it was real and the shiny black spiders were pleasantly keeping to themselves.

Oh, Picture time meets Nobody said there were going to be Pictures!

Chuck Pace ©2008 
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So Bob at work has been having some weird dreams because of the acid reflux medicine he has been taking. Occasionally he shares one of his bizarre nocturnal admissions with his coworkers.
This is not the case with me, I dream (I'm sure) but I usually don't remember the episodes, add to that the waking and sleeping problems I perpetually have and it is rare that I have a dream of memory or substance. Saturday morning I woke up with the creepies at 4:09 AM. I wasn't overly horrified or some such, but I did wake up. I did remember.
My Father-in-law Bill and I were in South America (I would guess Venezuela) for a wedding, (I don't know who's though). We flew into a small airport, then rode in a dusty truck to a community building. I decided to take a shower to get ready for the ceremony, I don't know where Bill went while I was washing up, but when I came out with a towel around me my suitcase was gone, with all my clothes. The room was fairly large, and there were some boxes and crates against one wall. I saw a piece of fabric through an opening in one of the crates so I walked over and put my hand into the crate. Immediately hundreds of black shiny spiders about the size of dimes were covering my right hand. I tried to brush them off with my left and knocked several off, but they were secreting fluids onto my hand which was making my flesh liquify. As is hurriedly used my left hand to squeegee more arachnids away my fingers were fusing together with the melting skin, and spiders were getting inside my hand and were moving under the skin towards my wrist. I tightened the left hand and squeegeed some of the nasty devils back out through fingers that where like flaps of wet rubber over tendons and bones. I could hear and feel spiders being crushed under the skin and it seemed like I was barely getting ahead of the battle.
I woke up with my heart beating a little harder than usual and took a deep breath and thought about how intense that was. I held my hand up in front of my face and spread my fingers just to be sure, then I fluffed my pillow and sought to reenter sleep in a different dreamscape. After we got up to start our day off from work Saturday I told Jenni a synopsis of the dream, she being an arachnophobe was more shaken than I. I came into the World HQ and sketched the offensive creatures and took it in to show to Jenni. The drawings were later taken into photoshop and cleaned up but are basically the same as I saw them in my dream.

Now that you have seen them will you be able to ward them off in your sleep? I hope so.

Chuck Pace ©2008 
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The Rolling Stone Bridge 1915
Due to the recent Day of Labor federal holiday, my weekend gave me an additional day of slumber. Jenni and I are not accustomed to a lot of slumber, so we hit the highways and byways and even the graveled country ways of Putnam and Parke County in search of a few of the Worlds Greatest concentration of Covered Bridges. With well over 30 to choose from, but not nearly as many hours to seek them out, we hit eleven of those nearest to Indianapolis. The first four were actually in Putnam County. The first two near Bainbridge Indiana were the Rolling Stone (pictured above on the right) and Bakers Camp Bridges built in 1915 and 1901 respectively. Then two more further south on either side of Greencastle were the Dunbar and the Oakalla Bridges. We left home at 10:00 am and by the time we had knocked the first four off our list of musty must sees it was already quarter after one. All four were in use and in good shape and not at all musty that was just an illusionary tactic I took to further the dialog.
With the weather cooperating to its fullest and the sun bringing a cloudless 90° to terra firma we enjoyed a thirty minute drive to the next water crossing, the Big Rocky Fork Bridge (not pictured), built in 1900 by J.J. Daniels. Big Rocky Fork's condition was not as good and it was by passed by a new bridge and no longer open to anything but foot traffic.

The 173 ft long Dunbar Bridge built 1880 North of Greencastle.
Read the historical marker below at the end of today's post.
From there it was a trek to the Conleys Ford Bridge built in 1907. Heading North and East just a spit and whistle we came to the Mansfield area which looks like a place Stephen King might have envisioned. It was in full tourist trappings, and appeared to be deserted, except for a half dozen bikers who were overheard saying that in the second week of October you couldn't move because of the crowds. I believe I will avoid this "place" in October. The bridge itself is a wonder, extremely long and the second oldest (1867) on our labor day tour.
Our next mission was to get into Rockville for a dinner break. Even though the bridges them selves were free for the viewing the Sun was exacting a toll. By the bank sign in Rockville we learned that it was now 94° and we decided to cut short our tour and just hit three or four more bridges on the way back. The next three on the list are the Crooks, the McAllister (where I spotted a giant Sunflower field), and the Neet Bridge which has a neat little mall around it and is also closed to all but foot traffic. The Crooks Bridge (1856) has a bit of a lean to it and is cabled to a giant tree. I drove through as Jenni stood outside and captured it on video.


The Bridgeton Bridge, built 2006 Bridgeton Indiana.
The very last bridge was Bridgeton's Bridge. A new construction bridge in a town not unlike Mansfield (except that there is a population of corporeal cohabitants). The Bridgeton bridge was built in 2006 (150 years after Crooks') and is very nice. Then it was a quest for speed and we hit major highways and eventually an interstate to make it back to the World Headquarters by 6:45.
This is our first trek west to the Covered Bridge Capital of the World. Parke County is home to some 31 or so covered bridges, and at least 6 of the 11 bridges we encountered are east and south of Parke County, so we have our our road tripping future ahead of us for some time to come. We also have to head south again and check out the Moscow Bridge in Shelby County Bridge which was taken away by tornadoes on June 2nd of this year but is being rebuilt even as I write.
Chuck Pace ©2008 
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