native area

some parts of the grove park inn golf course are marked with this sign: native area.

as opposed to what?

settler's area?

are they talking about going native like my brother and i did at lion country safari in 1984?

Behind the Radio Tragedy!

sweet, exciting, insightful recent video here. new album coming out next week.

http://tealeafgreen.com

nicest beach i've ever seen

i was back in the so-called redneck riviera this week.

i was there last year exactly when the deepwater oil spill started. there were no visible effects whatsoever.

in fact, i said it's the most beautiful beach i've ever been to. i've been to many beaches in

rhode island
long island
palm beach
puerto rico
outer banks
wrighstville
down to
kiawah
key west
los cabos
sea island
nice
marbella
kaikura
bondi
ventura
san diego
santa barbara
santa cruz
kauai
cadaqués

and the powder sugar sand and clear coke bottle glass green water and uncrowdedness of the beach at watersound on the gulf of mexico in the florida panhandle makes it my favorite.

we caught some relatively big fish variously referred to as whiting and ladyfish. saw a shark and some rays. dolphins playing because all dolphins do is play. somebody saw a killer whale but he was only 4 so...

it's a fantastic place to have a fantastic vacation.

i flew back to asheville direct on vision airlines. my ticket cost $59, but if you book early enough fares are $39 one way. the plane had relatively big leather seats, and two rows of three. it left on time and they gave us big bags of pretzels. full size bags like at supermarket cash registers. i was impressed and would fly with them again in a second.

father daughter dance (1984)

i went to cedar hill elementary school for kindergarten through second grade. every year they had a 'father daughter dance' and i went both years. i think i wore this same blue velvet vest get-up both years. this picture is the second year and the get-up barely fits. i have a muffin top. or as my dad would say 'it's not fat, it's extended stomach...really...it's hard." i love my giant corsage and the rope bracelet i wore for YEARS until it was so nasty it had to be cut off.

i remember the dance being FUN. dancing in the school cafeteria. at night. to the go-go's and 'the boy from new york city.' and doing the thing where you hold your dad's hands and he flings you under his legs and then you go flying up in the air.

those wicker thrones are called peacock chairs. i found & scanned this photo to add to the listing of a peacock chair wall-hanging i'm selling on etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/65561177/vintage-80s-peacock-chair-wicker-throne

fluffy & barney

growing up, i wanted a dog.

my mom never had a dog and didn't want a dog. (this has changed!)

my brother was terrified of dogs after a golden retriever chased him on a soccer field and bit the winter pom pom hat off his head when he was 5.

no dog for me.

when i was 9, instead of a dog, i got a rabbit. he was a white albino with pink eyes and i named him fluffy.

he was cute at first, but as he got older he humped everybody's arms and he would jump in the air and pee, spraying everything. he pooped all over the place. you could hold him, but he would scratch with his claws and pee and poop on you, so he had to be wrapped in a towel.

he was a terrible pet.

as my love for fluffy waned, i stopped cleaning his hutch regularly. eventually my parents drew the line and i wrapped him in a towel and my dad drove me to selmer's pet land and took him inside and 'returned' him. that was the last i heard of fluffy.

i still wanted a dog, and i still was not getting a dog.

instead a little while later after promising i would clean the cage, i went back to selmer's pet land and got a light brown bunny with a white nose and tail.

it was a girl, i named her barney. she was much sweeter than fluffy. she didn't hump and scratch.

in 8th grade my friend erin and i did a science project on peta and testing on rabbits and we brought our rabbits (she had smokey a crazy gray dwarf) into school and they ran around the english classroom. that was the highlight of barney's life.

after a couple years, i started liking boys and stopped cleaning barney's cage. my aunt jojo and uncle tom arranged for barney to go to a farm in massachusetts where i believe she spent her golden years hopping in a pasture.

i still wanted a dog. as soon as i could get one, i got holden. i never stopped cleaning up after holden.

dogs are SO MUCH BETTER pets than rabbits!

316 crestwood road in the snow

got a foot of snow in asheville starting on christmas day. it turned into a blizzard and headed northeast. i hope everybody is safe and warm and has power, heat, and water. 

here's where i lived 30 years ago when it was covered in snow. santa used to go there. there was a bunch of kids my age in the neighborhood. it was sweet. good old warwick rhode island.

the forest glen inn

the forest glen inn was my house.

i was 9 years old and had been living in new york - huntington, long island, for about 2 years and we had many many visitors friends and family from rhode island stay in the guest room during that time.

it was mainly my grandparents - flops & drez - and the revens. 

i painted a wooden sign and put it in the driveway when guests were coming. i made that flyer on print shop and colored it in. i made comment sheets and did turndown service. this was the first comment sheet that i typed on my dad's old real typewriter.

drezza easter weekend 1986:

after this, i typed one and my dad brought it to work and made copies for me.

revens 1987:

at this point i seem to have charged my grandma for some lavender crap someone gave me: 

i never worked in a real hotel

see, it's not my fault

Later born siblings were found to be more extroverted (sociable, outgoing), sentimental, forgiving and open to new experiences than their older siblings. First-borns were found to be more perfectionistic than their younger siblings.

from today's msnbc.com article "Sorry, kid, first-borns really are smarter."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38683279/

my hippo

speaking of hippos, check out lindsay's little hippo ethan! he's only 6 months old. nothing cuter than a chubby baby. (other than a chubby puppy).

kibble shoots

the highlight of nacho's day is when eli gets fed and nacho gets a dozen of eli's kibbles thrown into his face.

the highlight of my day during the first 8 years of my life was when i would go to bed and then get 'shoots' which involved one of my parents bringing in a dixie cup of water for me to drink and then they threw the leftover drops in my face.

Dear Solid Gold,

Dear Solid Gold,
We want to have a rock group we already made up 3 songs, The name of our group is Heather + Carin and the rock + roll fevers. We have eight people. Carin and I are 7 three of them are nine 1 is 8 and one is eleven. We desided to start early and our teacher said our songs were EXCELLENT! Our costumes are jeans and sweaters but if you can please send us something more fancy our sizes our three sevens three 10's and one eleven. If some are to big or to small can we send them back?
Are addresses for the costumes are- 316 Crestwood Rd. and 132 Windermere Way Warwick, R.I.
Yours truly,
Heather McTammany & Carin STEGER & the rocketts

P.S. Were sending some extra for Marilen McCoo

[Koala bear sticker that says Heather + Carin]

[band aid stuck to the other side]

i can't believe i never mailed this, i feel sure they would have sent us some costumes that were more fancy.

solid gold california envelope

please let me down

he must have been very hungry little wise guy.

"Dear Mom,
It smells great from here. can I come down. I know I am a wise gue but please let me down.

Love,
Chris"

happy father's day

i hope all the dads are having a great day. thank you for sharing all your time and your potato chips!

Palm Beach resident (AKA Grandpa Wallace) to see Memorial Day through his brother's eyes

I don't know if my Grandpa Wallace got a new PR agent or what, but he's been in the Palm Beach news three times in the past year. The most recent was on Memorial Day, with the following article about his brother Robert McTammany who died during World War II:


Palm Beach Resident to see Memorial Day through his Brother's Eyes
(via Palm Beach Daily News)

By John Nelander

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Robert McTammany was one of 12,000 American soldiers forced by the Japanese during World War II to march under brutal conditions to a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines. Miraculously, he survived 61 miles of starvation, beatings and random executions only to die of malaria after he reached his destination.

His four brothers — including Wallace McTammany of Palm Beach — didn’t learn of Robert’s death until years later in 1945. But the family, originally from Providence, R.I., never forgot, and Wallace doggedly pursued official recognition of his brother’s heroic deeds.

His efforts were rewarded earlier this year when an array of medals honoring Robert were delivered to Wallace’s home. They include a Purple Heart, a World War II Victory Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, a bronze Prisoner of War Medal and an Honorable Service Lapel Button.

It will make this Memorial Day — almost exactly 70 years since Robert enlisted in the Army — a little more special.

Robert joined the Army in September 1940, and left for the Philippines as a sergeant on Oct. 6, 1941, two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He became embroiled in the historic Battle of the Philippines after the Japanese invaded the island chain just before Christmas.

Fighting raged in January through April 1942, with the American troops under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur defending the strategic island of Corregidor and the Bataan Peninsula.

It ended with the surrender of American and Filipino troops on April 9. Ten thousand Allied troops died and 20,000 were wounded — and 75,000 (including 12,000 Americans) were taken prisoner. They were forced to walk the 61 miles to a prisoner of war camp, a journey that became known as the Bataan Death March.

It was marked by beatings, casual shootings, starvation and even beheadings. Still, Robert somehow made it to Camp O’Donnell, a temporary holding facility for American soldiers before they were sent on to other Japanese-held camps.

Wallace keeps a copy of a newspaper clipping from 1945 that announced Robert’s death at the age of 30 — he was counted as missing for three years. He also keeps an unnamed and unmarked copy of a book describing the camp in which his brother spent his final month.

“The sanitation was so appallingly bad, the stench so overwhelming, that the few Japanese who ventured inside the camp almost invariably wore surgical masks,” the author says.

There was one place in camp to house the critically ill, which the soldiers came to call St. Peter’s Ward because they believed there was no chance of survival. Patients died of malaria, dysentery, acute dehydration and starvation.

Wallace says simply: “It was a horror show.”

Robert was buried in Manila, in a cemetery for American soldiers. The McTammany family chose not to have his remains moved back to the United States.

Fast forward to 2009. Wallace had been taking morning walks with another World War II veteran, Martin Davidson, a retired Marine major who fought in Iwo Jima. They began chatting about McTammany’s brother Robert.

“I’d been reading in a military magazine that the government had opened up new opportunities for getting Purple Hearts,” Davidson recalls. “So I told him about it. It’s a good thing, no matter when and how it was received. It puts the government in a good light, which doesn’t happen very often.”

Of the Bataan Death March, Davidson adds: “It’s hard to imagine what these guys went through.”

Four of five McTammany brothers, including Wallace, entered the military. They served in various capacities and locations — Wallace in the Bahamas, the Caribbean and West Palm Beach. “I just lucked out,” he says.

Wallace went on to a career doing architectural renderings. Robert never had the chance to pursue his career as a classical musician. Before enlisting, he had played string bass in the Providence and Boston symphony orchestras.

“All five of us boys were industrious,” Wallace says. “Bob had a lot of different jobs, but he loved music. He was different from the rest of us.

“He would sit in a corner in a rocking chair when he was home, and listen to this huge Stromberg-Carlson radio. He’d just be carried away.”

And now his memory lives on in the hearts and minds of his family, the collection of medals and honors Wallace proudly displays in his home office, and within the flag he flies each Memorial Day on the balcony of his condo on South Ocean Boulevard.

the story of holden: a slideshow

here are some of the highlights of holden's 12 years with me.

he was born a poor black child at a fancy kennel in raleigh, nc. there were two left from his litter, and another litter of 7 week old pups available, so he was massively discounted, considered 'old' at 3 months.

i named him skippy. his first dad named him holden, and since he paid for him, i let it go. it wasn't after holden caulfield, or holden oversoul, it was for the redneck place on the nc coast - holden beach.

holden's first dad lived in a fraternity house, so holden lived with me from day 1, and i always knew he was my dog.

when he was a year old his first dad broke into my email and read that i thought a guy at school was cute so he threw my computer in the road and ran it over with his car and moved out of the house we were living in and stole holden. i was in law school, a couple weeks away from my first exams. after some wrangling, and a couple days, i got holden back, and then he was all mine for good.

he ate an indigo girls cd and a 50 yd spool of mint dental floss, and those made it through on their own.

he had his first intestinal surgery at age 2 when he ate a pair of my roomate jill's tights and an underwire bra, and they got tangled up and made him very sick.

he ate 30 lbs. from a 40 lb. bin of kibbles and had to be physically pulled away trying to scarf the rest. he assploded for a week.

he loved doing taste tests when jill would put a cheese ball on one side of the room, and a munch em on the other.

i made him a vest from an old navy doggy raincoat, stenciled on it 'guiding eyes for the blind - dog in training' and he wore that to go to UNC baseball games with me and sat in the grass.

jill and i put him in the vest and went to harris teeter one night wearing sunglasses and holding the white stick from horizontal blinds and let holden off the leash hoping he would go run through the aisles to the meat counter, but he just sat down at the automatic doors and looked at us like we were crazy.

on vacation in charleston, he ate an entire cheese cake off the counter.

he had lots of dog friends, he never humped any of them.

when i was studying for the bar exam i listened to the lectures on a walkman walking around chapel hill for 3 hours at a time, it was so hot in the summer i often went late at night and always felt safe walking with him.

at night, he slept right next to me using me as a bolster.

he moved cross country in a 42-hour non-stop drive, the car was so packed he had to sit the whole time on the passenger's lap.

he was an excellent vintage t-shirt model, especially liked wearing track jackets.

he couldn't believe it when we got nacho. what had he done to deserve such an indignity?

he and nacho crossed garnet st. in pacific beach san diego - a very busy 4 lane highway at rush hour and made it to the safety of a shell station.

they pulled a pyrex dish off the counter, and it shattered and they ate the casserole-crusted shards. the vet suggested feeding them a loaf of white bread soaked in milk to help pass the glass. it worked great. he loved it.

he jumped off a terrace in the backyard and impaled his chest on a metal stake and needed dozens of stitches.

he an nacho got into a case of pop rocks candy and couldn't stop eating them even though the explosions on their whiskers scared them.

he ate socks, socks, and more socks - the little ones made it through, a couple of the bigger ones required surgery, some of the lucky ones required a shot of amorphine to make him throw them up before they got to his intestines.

he ate an entire cow rib bone and needed surgery to get that out.

he ate a giant bowl of trail mix and needed an amorphine shot to throw that up.

he had a few lipoma fat balls removed, one the size of an orange.

he had one myxosarcoma that they didn't remove all the way and was going to grow back.

he loved to go swimming, but wouldn't go in a pool because he was scared he couldn't get out.

he didn't like going up or down wooden stairs because his paws would slip.

he loved running around the yard looking for dead things to eat.

he loved riding in the car with his head out the window.

he loved sitting next people on a couch, curled up in a ball.



here are pictures from his first day on the ride home from the kennel, to 4 days before he died on a hike near the blue ridge parkway.


warning: after kevin watched this he said he wanted to hang himself.

i think it's dashing

There's a fantastic article in yesterday's Palm Beach Daily News about my Grandpa Wallace. (photo by Joyce McTammany, Warwick, RI, 1984)

Architectural delineator Wallace McTammany has made a career out of being very deliberate

By JOHN NELANDER
Special to the Daily News Monday, December 14, 2009

Daily News Photo by Jeffrey Langlois

Wallace McTammany shows some of his architectural renderings. 'I was always interested in drawing. I had a lifetime of it.'

Perhaps the most prominent landmark on the West Palm Beach skyline is the Northbridge Centre on Olive Avenue. The building, which rises tall, sleek and black into the warm, azure sky, is better known by its local nickname: "The Darth Vader Building."

Here's an interesting factoid about it: The first person ever to see it — to admire its jutting, quirky coolness towering over the South Florida coast — was Wallace McTammany. It came out of his head.

He worked slowly and methodically to create a picture of it from an architect's plans. When he was finished, McTammany looked at the building and said: "This is it. This is what it will look like."

And he was right. The Northbridge Centre is one of the 3,512 projects he has brought to life as an architectural delineator over his career, which has spanned seven decades.

"I don't think anybody has made as many perspective drawings as I did," he says. Of the Northbridge Centre he adds: "It's a landmark. For a modern building, I think it's dashing."

McTammany and his wife, Margaret, have lived in the Patrician condominium in Palm Beach since shortly after it was built in 1969. Until this year, they spent summers at a home in the North Carolina mountains.

McTammany's home office is decked out top to bottom with memorabilia from his long and colorful career, highlighted by some of his most striking renderings. He has a framed 1960 letter on the wall from the governor of Rhode Island, congratulating him on his rendering of the Providence post office, which was made into a commemorative stamp.

On another wall there are photographs of his 1951 Jaguar, a classic car he drove to parties in Newport when he lived nearby. That was a sprawling home he designed on 10 acres — the structure was based on a 1698 house in Massachusetts.

"I tell you," he says, nodding in the direction of the framed Jaguar photographs. "That was really a flashy car."

He's put together a booklet featuring some of his favorite renderings. An accompanying list of project sites goes on and on, from St. Augustine to Immokalee to Key West. In the United States, from Maine to Kentucky to Colorado. Worldwide, from Acapulco to Paris to the United Arab Emirates.

Architect Eugene Lawrence, founder of the Lawrence Group, has been working with McTammany since the mid-1960s. He says the business now uses a lot more computer-generated images, but they still can't match the detail and quality offered by McTammany's brand of hand work.

"To this day, some of the better delineations are done by hand," Lawrence says. "They have to give people a 3-D look at what something is going to look like, whether it's for a homeowner or a potential investor. That's why it's so important for them to be accurate.

"Wallace has always been very deliberate. When you got a Wallace McTammany delineation, you knew what your building was going to look like."

Drawing and painting

McTammany has been doing renderings in Palm Beach for more than half a century, from private homes to hotels to fire stations. He began in 1944 when the Allies were still fighting their way through France. He was in the Army stationed in West Palm Beach with an office on Clematis Street.

His personal story, though, begins in 1921 when he was born in Providence, one of a family of five boys. His father was an architect but left the family when McTammany was 4. His mother managed to keep things together while nurturing her children's varied talents.

"I was always interested in drawing," McTammany says. "I had a lifetime of it. At our home in Providence we had a blackboard in the kitchen. Half the blackboard was my mother's notes — what to buy at the store. The other half was my drawings, in chalk."

McTammany always preferred to work in charcoal and pencil. "It's softer, I think." But one day his mother brought him a set of oil paints, and he recalls: "I wouldn't go to bed. I stayed up all night doing all sorts of things, just fooling around. I painted a guy in a Mexican sombrero, someone else skiing."

His favorite oil painting hangs on the wall of his dining room — a picture he made of Margaret. "He did it when I was 60," Margaret says. "But when he did it, he made me look younger."


War and paradise

McTammany wanted to be a pilot in the war, but couldn't because of an eye problem. So, he decided to be an airplane mechanic. He arrived at Morrison Field, the military forerunner of Palm Beach International Airport, in 1942.

"I immediately got out of my heavy clothing and into a light khaki uniform. Then they said, 'We're going to send you overseas,'" he says. But overseas turned out to be Nassau, and he spent a year living in the classic British Colonial Hotel.

McTammany got married — to his first wife — and lived in an apartment on Worth Avenue toward the end of the war. He eventually designed and built a home in the south end of West Palm Beach.

As the war ended, South Florida remained and undeveloped paradise, its potential untapped. "I used to take my children out to Military Trail so they could listen to the frogs at night. The only other way for them to keep cool was for them to lie on the terrazzo floor."

Love of the classics

Through it all, McTammany has always worked at home. He says he'd still be working now if it weren't for the economy — projects have been canceled or put on hold.

One such project is a hotel in North Carolina, for which he recently finished a strikingly detailed charcoal and pencil rendering. Color would have come next, had the project not been shelved.

Of course, the truth is that McTammany never really liked working in watercolor anyway. Clients began demanding it, so he complied. But even the color work is completed with astonishing detail. He has spent his life, he says, working under a magnifying glass.

"I love the classics," McTammany says, paging through his booklet. "I love the refinement and scale, the artistic stuff. Like this house in Beaver Creek, Colorado," he adds, pointing to a mountainside mansion on the front cover. It's a single-family residence with 10 bedrooms.

"I thought it was just so neat," he says. "If you look very closely, in the doorway you can see a tiny 6-foot man."

Wallace McTammany

Occupation: Architectural delineator.

Favorite quote: 'See what you're looking at.' — A principle developed by McTammany.

Most admired person: New York architect Seth Harrison Gurnee, who was involved in the design of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Favorite movie: 'Summer Lease,' a 1989 UK film about an English family who rents a villa in Tuscany for the summer.

Photo courtesy of Wallace McTammany

Wallace McTammany with his 1951 Jaguar Mark V drophead coupe.

happy birthday quissy

florida2, originally uploaded by skippy haha.

i HOPE AND EXPECT some big things from you this year! have a great day! may no pelicans poop on your head!

fish dance

fish dance, originally uploaded by skippy haha.

happy belated birthday MOM!

hope you had a great day with HENRY!

christ did a cow shit in here?

here's the opening line to an email i got this week:

Hi Heather!

It's Emily R##s..you know the one that said "Christ did a cow shit in here?" in a nice little play and yes I believe you peed your pants on your parents dining room chair...that was me.

her family of 3 girls around the ages of my brother and me, i was oldest by a couple years, Emily was youngest by a few years, would come visit for a couple weeks in the summer and we would go to their house at bonnet shores in rhode island for a couple weeks in the summer too and we would do plays. the one she's talking about she was maybe 4 or 5 years old and i was about 8th grade and she knocked on the front door in a skit from 'kentucky fried movie' for a fake air freshener commercial, she had white hair like an angel and knocked on the door and said 'christ did a cow shit in here' and it was so funny i peed on the chair.

it was either this year or the following summer.



emily is on the left, the sign says 'politics in review,' my brother has blue eyebrows.