The Walks Continue

Thurs.-Tues., June 3-8, 2021

The tale of Sisyphus in Greek mythology keeps creeping into my mind every morning these days.

Sisyphus was the King of Corinth who was known for his dodgy shenanigans and the fact that he cheated death twice.

For these transgressions, the god Zeus castigated Sisyphus to Hades for all eternity with but one simple, laborious daily task.

Sisyphus had to roll a huge rock to the top of a large mountain every day. As soon as he got the boulder all the way to the mountaintop, it would roll all the way back down to the valley.

He then had to start the process all over again, day after day after day . . .

In my goal to walk 10,000+ steps every morning, I'm starting to feel a bit like Sisyphus.

That being said, here are some photos from some of my recent walks.

Community Garden for

locals to become mini-farmers

Some of our neighbors

definitely have green thumbs

What I that?

Decorative farm implements

Meanwhile in Las Vegas,

grandson Kevin has started

his Summer vacation by reading

by the pool

Is that a Sicilian arancini

from Catania?

Colorful wind driven wheels

A tile that reminded me that what is

now the city of Camarillo was once the

Rancho Calleguas Spanish land grant

On Saturday, we drove down to San Marino to visit my Mother and my sisters.

We stopped at Laurie's favorite

dining spot for lunch in Burbank

"Good afternoon, two 'Original' Big Boy Combos, please."

She still has a crush on the

Big Boy after all these years

Can't say that I blame her, we all know that ". . . every woman's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man."

On to the EuroBall front . . .

The Varese Skorpions did it again!

They defeated the Cernusco Daemons, the second place team in their league, the Girone B, for the second time this campaign.

The Skorpions play their last regular season game this coming Sunday on the road against the last place Legnano Frogs (0-5).

After a bye week for all clubs, the Division II playoffs will start the week of June 26-27. The top two teams in each of the four DII Girones will enter the three week race to the National Championship.

With one week to go, the Skorpions

are ranked Number 1 in Italy's DII

Back to the strolling . . .

Interesting look in mailboxes

On Tuesday I had lunch with

Montpellier, France's favorite son,

Dario Viallet

I first met Dario back in 2013 when I was coaching in Lyon, France and Dario was heading up the Montpellier Hurricanes team. He has since suspended his coaching career to run Ridge, his sports clothing company.

He arrived in SoCal Monday to continue the legwork on other worthwhile project, a documentary film.

As American football continues to grow in Europe, players are increasingly pondering the idea of coming to America to hone their skills at the high school or college levels.

The problem is that most of these starry eyed athletes do not fully grasp the intensity levels both in effort, dedication and time demanded from them every day if they make the move.

Remember, most EuroBall teams only practice two or three times a week and attendance is always an issue. Thus the five-six day a week routine mandatory practices, weight lifting sessions, meetings all year around is likely a shocking eye opening experience to the average EuroBall player.

Dario's video plan is to get involved with SoCal programs at a public high school, a private high school, a junior college, a DIII college and a DI college level. His plan for the video is to give EuroBall players solid insights into all facets both on and off the field that they will have to deal with if they do indeed cross the Atlantic chasing their dream.

I think that it is a GREAT idea.

After meeting Dario in Woodland Hills for a Mexican lunch at the local El Torito, I stopped off at Oak ark H.S. on the way home.

Our friend Jason Sabolic is the

Head Coach at El Camino Real H.S.

They were playing their first 7-on-7 game of the Summer at Oak Park today.

El Camino is in the gray, Oak Park in black on offense in the photo above.

Time to COMPETE!

BOMBS AWAY!

This was a nifty 40-yard TD pass completion for El Camino.

I love and sympathize with the traditional look of despair on the CB's face knowing that he has committed the Cardinal Sin of his position -- he got beat deep.

It was a good back-and-forth, competitive situation and I know that Jason was excited by his club's opening efforts of the first 7-on-7 Summer since 2019.

Reading Is FUNdamental!

An interesting read if you are a

Cuban-American which I am

Set in both 1958-59 and current day Havana, it follows the story of a grandmother who left the island for Miami as a 19 year old living in post-revolutionary Cuba and and her 30 year old Cuban-American granddaughter who returns now to scatter her now departed grandmother's ashes somewhere appropriately in the Cuban capital city.

As you might suspect, it was a bit more complex than this and gave some nice insights into the minds of the exiled community and those of the Cubans who never left their homeland.

More Scenic Trudging Through Ventura

Tues.-Wed., June 1-2, 2021

While Tuesday was largely dedicated to helping grandson Jacob with his rigorous Third Grade curriculum, Wednesday would be one of again exploring the artsy beach community of Ventura on another five mile morning walk.

An interesting cacti at the start

of today's walk

Today's trek would proceed without any hitches under the typical overcast SoCal weather phenomena known as "June Gloom."

For a confirmed carnivore like me,

this was even more gloomy

The Art Deco front of the Star Lounge

bar in downtown Ventura

An interesting ceramic tile mosaic

near the San Buenaventura Mission

It deserved a closer look . . .

Who is that baseball player?

Why it is none other than Fred Snodgrass who was born in Ventura in 1887.

An outfielder, he played Major League Baseball with the New York Giants (1908-15) and the Boston Braves (1916). During his career, he played in three World Series for the Giants in 1911, 1912 and 1913.

He was a member of the five person inaugural induction class of the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame in 1983.

There was a second old time

ball player in the mural

This one was one Charlie Hall, born in Ventura in 1885.

Hall was a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds (1906-07), Boston Red Sox (1909-13), St. Louis Cardinals (1916), and Detroit Tigers (1918).

Hall's Red Sox team played in the 1912 World Series against Snodgrass' New York Giants squad. The Boston club took the World Series that year in eight games by winning four games, losing three times. There was also an unusual tie game called because of darkness in this World Series.

Hall was inducted into the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame in 1986.

Lots of the City of Ventura's

luminaries adorn this colorful mosaic

That longhorn in the back

is a tad goofy looking

The controversial monk in the lower left corner bears a closer look.

Father Junípero Serra

Franciscan Missionary

Canonized by the Catholic Church in 2015

Serra was born in Spain in 1713 and gained fame for his building of the California Mission system between 1769 and 1782.

He was responsible for the building of the first nine of the 21 missions in the system. The first mission he built in 1769 is the one in San Diego, Mission San Diego de Alcalá.

His final mission, erected in 1782, is the one here in Ventura, Mission San Buenaventura.

The 21 missions were built approximately a one day's horseback ride from each other and offered travelers a nightly safe haven for trips anywhere between current day San Diego and San Francisco.

But at what price?

Native Americans make a strong case that indicates that Serra's treatment of California's Native people was much more cruel and infamous than what we were taught at St. Phillip the Apostle Elementary School in Pasadena in the late 1950s.

In 2015, in response to his canonization as a Catholic saint, many of the Padre Serra statues throughout the state were decapitated or otherwise mutilated.

For as long as I can remember there was such a statue in front of Ventura's old City Hall on a bluff overlooking the city. The city took the statue down in response to a strong community backlash over this now polarizing Franciscan monk and his work.

 

The mood got lighter when

I saw these colorful blooms

Eucalyptus Strip Show?

A city that prides itself on its art,

is one full of love don't you agree?

At the end of Main Street, I turned to walk towards the Pacific Ocean along the Ventura River.

The Ventura River Parkway

sounds friendly enough . . .

. . . but it actually fraught with

DANGER as this sign attests

A small lagoon forms just before

the river meets the ocean

The confluence of salt and fresh waters

The Ventura Pier in the distance

As stated earlier, Ventura

is an artsy beach community

More evidence of the same

Blue is my favorite color

It looks like a Phoenix rising

from the "ashes" of a dead tree

in Ventura's Plaza Park

It was worth a closer look

Across the street from Plaza Park is Ventura's old U.S. Post Office that is worth entering for, what else, the art.

In the Post Office's waiting area are the murals of artist Gordon K. Grant titled "Agriculture and Industries of Ventura" painted between 1936 and 1937 and was funded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Federal Arts Project, a part of FDR's New deal.

We still are a huge citrus

fruit producing county

I don't think that oil production

in the county is anywhere close to

what it was in the Depression Era

The same decline goes for the

dairy industry in the county

Several of the houses in Ventura

have that artsy feel to them too

Art or dormant vines?

You make the call.

Strong mural next to a

tire store

Are we on holy ground?

Even the entry gate to Ventura's

Lincoln Elementary School is

an artful interpretation of a

mythical, happy sea monster

Just another good pair of days enjoying life in sleepy yet exciting Ventura County.

Memorial Day 2021

Monday, May 31, 2021 

Monday was the day America honors its heroes who have fallen in defense our our country.

I started my Memorial Day with what is becoming a typically long, morning stroll.

Lots of bright red bougainvilleas

at the start of my walk in east Camarillo

 

This area of Camarillo has

extensive wilderness paths to trek

Another 6 miles today is

GREAT for this old body!

I started these walks in Hawaii on

May 5th, LOTS better than April's

sloth-like output!

The 2020 Covid-19 year was just as

bad as April 2021 was for my physical fitness

My goal continues to be 10,000+ steps per day and to raise my average daily steps/day for the year to over 10,000 by December 31st.

I've got a lot of making up to do for the first four months of 2021 when I was the quintessential coach potato.

We'll see . . .

Laurie and I thought that this

would be a good movie to see

on Memorial Day

Because of Covid-19, it felt like the first time we had been in a movie theater since we saw The Godfather in Santa Barbara in 1972.

This was a sober reminder of why America fought in WWII as the movie is a series of interconnected interviews with older German civilians, soldiers and Waffen-SS members discussing what they did and did not know about what was going on in the concentration camps.

Some of the Waffen-SS men, though in their late 80s to mid 90s, were still eerie and vile in their denials of what history know to be the truth.

Again, we should all honor those who gave all, as well as those who all gave some defending our American ideals.

In my opinion, what the Nazis did in Germany was way more severe than our government asking us to wear face masks during the pandemic.

But then again, I don't vote in Georgia.