Do you have a unique talent?

Not one of mine, but when I was young, one of my friends could make a half brick bounce across water. I've never seen anyone else who could do this, but somehow he could spin it so fast that it would skim across a pond like a flat stone. He could also throw a ball further and faster than anyone else I knew, and could also whistle with his fingers in his mouth louder than anyone else.
 
Yes, I can play the spoons. I've never met anyone else who does, so it must be fairly rare. I don't consider this any great gift to the world though.
That's nostalgia for me. I spent my childhood on my grampa's dairy, me and my parents and siblings, and neighboring farmers and their families came over most Saturday evenings and some holidays to play music and dance and generally party out in the hay barn. Gramps played his accordion and there was a fiddler, and guitar and banjo players, and an old farmer named Dieter played his home-made 3-string bucket bass and his wife played the spoons.

Her name was Ilsa, but everyone called her Liz. Liz and Dieter had to have been well into their 70s, and most of her fingers were crooked and bumpy from arthritis and old fractures, but man, her hands were a blur while she played those things. And the sounds she could get from them was mind-boggling...to me, they were. Sounded like a tap dancer, a wooden shoe clogger, an iron-shod horse, and a flamenco dancer all got together to do a river-dance.

Such good times! Thanks for the recall 😊
 

Beautiful, MoBeans! And what is that impressive building in the background?
Thanks. That is a private house that has some history to it. It was the Baxendale estate back in the early part of last century. He invented the square toed shoe and after he made his fortune he spent a lot of it on starting a group associated with animal welfare. Friends of Animals or something like that. He would hold parties in his house with a lot of the intellectuals from Boston and New York where they would sit around and discuss sciences and philosophy. There is a mausoleum by the waters edge. In it is one of his favorite horses, or so the story goes. Over the door it says "Love is Eternal"

love is eternal.jpg
 

Last edited:

Back
Top