I don’t always hurry through the ‘hood when I walk. Sometimes I take my good old sweet time. Today was such a day.
Yesterday’s weather was abysmal – there is no other word for it. From early morning until nightfall, waves of torrential rain and thunderstorms made for one very soggy Saturday. I began my day by hunkering down in front of the computer screen, along with about 1,255,236 people who were similarly tuned into YouTube to take in the Royal Wedding 2018. The wedding ceremony was moving and I loved the pomp and pageantry afterward. This was my third Royal wedding I have viewed, beginning with the 1981 marriage of Charles and Diana, which I watched on the little B&W television in my bedroom before heading off to work. Then it was William and Kate in 2011 and now Harry and Meghan. I even misted up hearing “God Save the Queen” … I guess, once a Canadian, always a Canadian.
Luckily their day was picture perfect and they were not stuck with our weather. At one point, perhaps around 8:00 p.m., the sun finally dared to show up and I thought it should have been ashamed of itself for making such a late arrival. However, had I peered out the door, instead of merely harrumphing at that bright orb, I might have noticed this beautiful rainbow that my friend Ann Marie saw behind her apartment building and promptly e-mailed to me.
Indeed, that pretty rainbow was the reward for all of us enduring such a dreary, drizzly day.
Unbelievably, the skies were still spitting out rain in the early morn, so I decided to retool any Park plans I had today and walk in the neighborhood, then go to the City’s Memorial Day parade instead.
The sun was pale and it was chilly when I finally ventured outside.
On my walk, I noticed a robin’s nest brimming with babies. I smiled at the red-breasted brood watching the world go by from their nest up in the eaves trough. There was a momentary sadness as I recalled “our” robins who might have looked just like these and maybe even fledged this weekend. These chicks were in a nest high up near the gutters and seemingly safe from any predators.
I zoomed in on them and they were all looking in the same direction – most likely at Mama who was perched in a nearby tree.
I didn’t see Mama with any grubs or worms in her mouth, so I knew I wasn’t interrupting feeding time, therefore I took a few pictures, zooming in on this cute family of robin chicks. They all looked a little disgruntled, each resembling my grumpy face until I’ve downed that first cup of coffee.
I saw a funny video on my friend Carol’s Facebook page the other day and I wish I could share it here, but I couldn’t find a link to use. It was a man who found a baby robin and the chick could not fly very well. Evidently, it was an orphan, so he took it upon himself to care for this wee soul. So, this guy goes out to the garden with a pitchfork every morning and turns up the soil to expose worms and grubs for his feathered friend. Oh, did I mention that the robin likes to ride along on the pitchfork as he makes his way to the garden? What worms are missed by the baby robin, the man picks them up and hand feeds him, dropping them one by one into that upturned mouth.
People don’t have any flowers planted yet, just a few porch pots here and there. I sure don’t blame them as it’s been so cold and those torrential rains yesterday would have beaten them up pretty badly.
But this tree had two things going for it … or, perhaps I should say, growing on it.
Somehow dandelions were growing in a little spot of dirt above the base of the tree.
And, as that expression goes about a “fungus among us” … a healthy-looking appendage, a/k/a bracket fungi, was growing on the tree trunk. Ewww, but I still took a photo of it.
Finally, it was close to the parade start time, so I wandered over to Memorial Park to get a primo spot. While I used to attend the parade for years, I eventually stopped going until 2014, when I went over to watch the parade only, just for old time’s sake and to get some photos to accompany the narrative for that day’s blog post.
Today there was much police presence, and even the Downriver SWAT vehicle was featured behind the fire truck as the parade rolled by.
The Shriners were a big part of the festivities, riding their miniature cars, or motorcycles, and there was even a paddy wagon with Keystone Cops. The Shriners swerved and dipped their vehicles to the delight of the crowd and not a single fez fell from their respective heads.
There were Shriner clowns as well and they stepped close to the crowd for those who wanted a quick selfie.
Honest Abe and his bride made their way down the one-mile parade route, stopping to give a quick thumbs up, or smile at the many cameras and phones that were clicking away as they passed. The couple is a fixture at most of the City of Lincoln Park’s festivities.
I was disappointed the Lincoln Park Exchange Club did not have the field of flags display this year. The display consists of full-sized flags each on its own pole, each flag representing the 129 Lincoln Park residents who have died serving their country, beginning with World War I. Each flag has a tag that bears the deceased’s personal information, including date of birth/death, rank and where they died. The display usually goes up the week before the parade and I have visited that before. However, there were flags encircling the historic cannon and near the Fallen Heroes memorial and pavilion area.
Once the parade festivities were over, everyone gathered under and around the pavilion before the huge granite memorial, where bronze plaques list the war dead from World Wars I and II as well as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The sky was gloomy and gray and seemed like it would start to pour raining at any minute … that would be fitting for this solemn service, wouldn’t it?
The memorial service was touching and very respectful. ROTC members and veterans gathered and saluted one another before speaking and after placing a wreath at the memorial. The service lasted about an hour, and there were speakers, including one that sang “The Star Spangled Banner”. There were prayers said, the Pledge of Allegiance recited, a salute by the Canadian Navy Honor Guard and the mournful sound of “Taps” as well during the service.
With the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” playing on the loud speaker in the background, I must say I was very moved, so much so, that for the second day in a row, I felt tears begin to flood my eyes … I guess, having lived in the States for nearly 52 years, I feel like I am an American as well.
I watched a few older veterans staring transfixed at the memorial stones, no doubt recalling their own memories, and likely their fallen comrades from many years ago.
I’ll leave you with this quote:
“Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.” ~ President Harry S. Truman
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
Wow that is so cool you saw the nest! I have two nests in my classroom for my students to look at right now- a bird nest and a wasp nest. They find them interesting and it helps the “everyone is unique” argument that they don’t look anything alike.
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I thought so too AJ and I zoomed in to get a close-up of their faces. I am going to walk by there every day now to watch them. Mama was close by in case I got too big for my britches.
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It will be neat to see them grow!
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I got some more photos of them this morning – they were bigger than I originally thought – I was surprised, so the nest must have been quite deep.
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It would be neat to take a photo each day to see their growth
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I hope I can do that AJ – I hope they are in a safe place. I felt so bad what happened to Evelyn’s robin chicks. Hopefully we don’t have a repeat of that horrible story. She had a good view of them as they in a nest that was just waist high. A photographer that I follow on Facebook and sometimes use her photos for my blog, used a selfie-stick to take a picture of eggs in a nest where she could not see into. She put the home up there beside the nest and captured her face as she saw the pictures – it was a great shot!
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That is the best use of a selfie stick I’ve ever heard of!!
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Yes, and Jill happened to be wearing a jacket that was the same robin’s egg blue color as the eggs. It was a great shot.
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What sweet little baby birds! Thank goodness the nest is protected from all the rain!
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Aren’t they sweet – I’ll have to take a peek at them daily now. Hopefully they don’t fall prey to unscrupulous critters … we don’t have snakes around here and I don’t think they could slither up the rough wall or slippery drain spouts (hopefully) anyway,
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Another lovely post!
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Thanks Anne – glad you liked it.
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Wow! You have the luck to find birds nest! It was ages ago I saw bird nest so close, with chicks in it.😊 The rainbow is fantastic, I have only got it on picture maybe 3-4 times in all years. Parades is both cool and fun, here in Sweden we don´t have so many as you have in the US. About the Royal
wedding, I don´t care even about our Royal house with theirs members. For a couple of years ago, with my of that time, girlfriend, we visit hers friend and of course It was a wedding with the Swedish Crown Princess! What should I do? Well I have to look at it!😁😁😁
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I did feel lucky finding that nest John, and this morning, while walking to the Park, you know I just had to check and see what they were doing. So cute because only two were in the nest this morning and they were standing up looking out, and the other two were gone, so guessing those two had “flying lessons” this morning with Mama. 🙂 I took some pictures and then when I was walking home from the Park an hour later, they were in the same exact position and took some more pictures as I had a little more sunlight by then. I will use those photos tomorrow as I’ve not uploaded them yet and have some more photos to use today if I can get the post done later today – we have more stormy weather again late this afternoon/evening. This morning I saw one of the geese families – the goslings were sunning themselves on a cement landing. They are huge. The goslings are ready to fly at ten weeks. I don’t know when they were born though – they were a good size when I saw them the first time about three weeks ago.
My friend Ann Marie said the rain stopped and she took out the garbage and saw the rainbow and had to take a photo of it. I will bet I’ve only seen about 5 rainbows in my entire lifetime and have no pictures of any of them.
Those horse-drawn carriages, the town crier, the sentries – all very interesting to watch, plus the crowds. You were a good sport about watching all that pomp and circumstance with your girlfriend.
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Looks like you had a pretty good day to take pics of the parade, Linda. Lincoln looks for real in Lincoln Park! And shouldn’t I know, since I live in a town called Lincoln? Lincoln Park is also a band, I think. I wonder where they’re from.
Rainbows are fairly common around here. I see at least one every year. I’m surprised you don’t see more of them up there. You get way more rain.
The clown pics turned out great. With their little cars — they are such fun guys. Speaking of which…that other fungi looks familiar. Hmmm…I’ll have to check the mirror. 😉 Now, flowers between my toes, yes. Aren’t they dandy?!!!
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Uncle Tree – Perhaps your town should borrow our Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln sometime! He does look real, doesn’t he? I think he is just plain tall, plus when he puts on that stovepipe hat, he looks about seven feet tall. There is also a Lincoln Park, Chicago and the band is from California.
I don’t see many rainbows at all. My friend Ann Marie said it had finally stopped raining, so she ran out out to take some garbage to the apartment dumpster and saw the rainbow and sent it to me … it extended all the way over their building. We are having a heavy rainstorm right now and it will last, through tomorrow mid-morning. Another walk may be lost tomorrow unless the forecast changes. We have rain Friday and intermittently through the long holiday weekend.
I took a ton of photos and had to pick and choose favorites. Some Shriners had large cream-colored motorcycles and some very tiny ones. They had to tell the crowd to step back because the riders of the large motorcycles, probably the size of a full-sized Harley, did these stunts where they leaned over so far they almost touched the pavement.
Better get some fungal meds for that funky-looking fungi pronto, and, you’re like a flower child only the flowers are in between your toes, instead of in your hair. 🙂
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LoL!!! 🙂 Good comeback!
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I aim to please … luckily the rainy weather has not created fungi in my brain yet.
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Miss linda……………….that picture that I sent to you of the rainbow came out pretty good……………….and I love the parade pictures………………………I’ve been so busy with helping Beverly with her mother’s funeral that I forgot to go look at our Robins’s nest next to our patio window…………steven said that he heard little chirping coming from the nest
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It sure did come out very clear Ann Marie. One of the photographers who regularly comments on my blog really liked it. I’ve wanted to ask you if they were waiting for Leona’s funeral until Beverly was fully recovered from her surgery so she could attend. That’s nice you are helping out. Maybe you’ll see some little ones looking over the nest at you, like these little robins were. Supposed to rain tomorrow morning, so you might have to wait to peek at them til the afternoon.
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