Monday, September 19, 2016

Peek-A-Blue ...


 “The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”
               ~ J.M. Barrie
                     ~ 1860-1937
                 from “The Little White Bird”
                           ~ 1902
                 Barrie is the creator of Peter Pan, who first appeared in “The Little White Bird”

A beautiful tree swallow – known for its iridescent blue-green color upper parts – peeks out of its nesting box on a May evening at Lehigh Gap Nature Center.

While there are young or eggs in the nest, adult tree swallows frequently dive bomb intruders, including curious humans, and attempt to drive them from the area – I personally know this to be true, and so does my camera!

In the shadow of the Kittattiny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, the Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the Delaware and Lehigh Heritage Corridor Trail (D&L Trail). 

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.


Thursday, September 8, 2016

Saturday Night At The Roxy ...




“I adore the theater and I am a painter. I think the two are made for a marriage of love.
I will give all my soul to prove this once more.”
                      ~ Marc Chagall
                                ~ 1887-1985
     ~ on painting new ceiling for the Paris opera
                                ~ October 14, 1963

A crowd teems around The Roxy Theatre, Northampton, Pennsylvania to purchase their tickets to a Saturday night show on a warm May evening.

The Roxy originally opened in 1921 as the Lyric. This theatre was renovated in 1933 in the tremendously popular art deco style - and renamed The Roxy after the famous New York City theater and its namesake showman Samuel “Roxy” Rothapfel.

Today, as the city’s only commercial theatre, “the Roxy continues to be the greatest show in town,” presenting both Hollywood favorites and live entertainment. It features a seven rank Wurlitzer pipe organ.


Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Wild Red ...


"Never look back unless
you are planning to go that way."
                     ~ Henry David Thoreau
                                    ~ 1817-1862

The light of a late August sunset dances around
a wild and beautiful red fox as it peers ahead
in the high grass in the waning summer at
Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania. 
 

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Peering Atop The Apple Tree ...




“Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me, no, no, no!
Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me …”

            ~ “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree 
                  (With Anyone Else But Me)
    ~  Sam H. Stept, composer 
      ~ Lew Brown & Charles Tobias, writers
         ~ A popular song made famous by Glenn Miller & by The Andrews Sisters during World War II. Its lyrics are the words of two young lovers who pledge their fidelity while one of them is away serving in the war. It remained in “Your Hit Parade’s” first place from October 1942 through January 1943, the longest period for a war song to hold first place.


“Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me” ~ perhaps that’s what this Great White Egret – also known as a Great White Heron – is thinking as it almost seems to be waving while peering from atop an apple tree while on the hunt on an August evening at Cedar Creek Parkway,
Allentown, Pennsylvania.