#brucewconstantine — Public Fediverse posts

Chop wood, carry water

There is a well-known trumpet player named Rick Braun. Although a few years younger, he was born in the same city and went to the same high school as my dad. And if my memory serves, they were in high school at the same time and at least knew of each other. My dad played the trumpet in high school, even performing in a band. Many year ago, my dad saw Braun somewhere—a concert I think—and had a chance to speak with him. The story goes that my dad said something complimentary about Braun’s ability and talent. (Yes, this is all hearsay.) Braun’s reply? “What a lot of people mistake for talent is simply a lot of hard work.”

At Time in the nineteen-fifties, the entry-level job for writers was a column called Miscellany. Filled with one-sentence oddities culled from newspapers and the wire services, Miscellany ran down its third of a page like a ladder, each wee story with its own title—traditionally, and almost invariably, a pun. Writers did not long endure there, and were not meant to, but just after I showed up a hiring freeze shut the door behind me, and I wrote Miscellany for a year and a half. That came to roughly a thousand one-sentence stories, a thousand puns.

~ John McPhee from, Omission

slip:4unema1.

John McPhee is a stellar writer. He’s written a lot and, okay, sure, I get that. There are greatest-of-all-time musicians I’ve heard of who still do scales daily 30 years on. And McPhee wrote a thousand puns(!), a thousand titles, and a thousand one-sentence stories cut-down from larger stories. (And go read McPhee’s article right now, about omission.) And now here’s Braun’s comment. Frankly, I’ve heard this sentiment countless times in countless variations: The path to mastery? Chop wood, carry water.

The thing I’m not certain of though, from my dad’s story, is whether the takeaway for him was, “Oh cool, Braun’s just a regular guy who worked really hard!” or “Fudge, I shoulda’ stuck with the trumpet!”

ɕ

#7ForSunday #Apogee #BruceWConstantine #JohnMcPhee #Mastery #RickBraun

Hobie poetry

Soul Sailer

Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat, where are you bound?
Silently streaking over the sound.
Your sails standing high,
Proudly contrast the sky,
It’s not just a boat;
I know it can fly!

When she gets up to speed,
She’ll sing you a song.
But if you’re weak in the knees,
You’d best not go along.
For there’s always a thrill,
And sometimes a spill!
Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat – go where you will!

–

The world that we know
dwindles down to size
on the shoreline behind us.
We sail along on the song that
is the wind.

~ Bruce W. Constantine

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only piece of poetry my father wrote. Whatever possessed him to pick up a pencil and write this, I’ll never know. However, I would bet that it was the result of long hours chatting with one of his sailing buddies until they had it down pat; Followed by him writing it out. I see no errors or erasures, and I know his handwriting well enough to suspect that he simply wrote it out straight through. The last verse – oddly indented – looks like it was written separately, or at least later than the first two verses. I think it’s the better of the three, and I fear it might be a song lyric… but I’m not searching the ‘Net because I like the idea that he wrote it.

ɕ

#BruceWConstantine #HobieCat #Poetry

Mischief began early in my career

ɕ

#BruceWConstantine #CraigConstantine #Mischief #TerryConstantine

North Atlantic and Mediterranean

Apropos of Veterans Day, here’s a dozen 35mm slides my father took in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean in 1965.

Aboard USS Furse (DD882) somewhere in the North Atlantic. Bruce striking a pose in front of the gun director he operated. Too cool for school! His patented, I’m-not-laughing-chuckle Passing the Rock of Gibraltar. “Hey girl…” Spain, maybe? Overlooking Genoa Italy. Also, overlooking Genoa Italy. Ever the clown, posing on a taxi on Malta.

ɕ

#35mmSlides #BruceWConstantine #OpticalPhenomenon #USNavy

Cat Island to Miami

Way back in 1980, my dad arranged to help a friend (a navy buddy if I recall correctly) named Drew move his yacht from Cat Island (in the Bahamas) to Miami.

It was as much a vacation for us, as it was us helping Drew and his wife move their boat. We took a commercial flight to Nassau and spent a day or two there. From Nassau, we took this little charter plane to Cat Island… which is just a spit of sand with nothing on it other than a tiny “runway”. From there we sailed the 200+ miles to Miami.

To make the “crossing”, my dad and Drew had to stay up in shifts sailing through the night. Although it does take some attention to detail to navigate, the real concern is that the area is thick with commercial shipping and the “rule of gross tonnage” suggests it is unwise to assert right-of-way (any sailing vessel has the legal right-of-way over any powered vessel.) So we prudently dodged enormous ships who couldn’t see us (visually) and probably didn’t care even if they did notice us on radar (via Drew’s radar reflector.) Anyway.

Do I remember anything in particular? Absolutely. I remember staying up all night, on the open sea, in the pitch black. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face… nothing but star-light. And the stars… The constellations looked to fall out of the sky onto your head.

Nassau from waaaaay up. Cat Island. Our ride is the anchored yacht; Start walking. A classic shot from ‘Dr. No’ ! Drew (left) and my dad schlepping provisions aboard. Yes, they really left the 9-year-old at the helm. Safe bet: Just moments before I got into trouble. One of my all-time favorite shots because it’s probably the first photo I ever took of my parents. There’s nothing like standing on the bow of sailboat underway. (srsly)

ɕ

#35mmSlides #Adventure #BruceWConstantine #Nostalgia

Bruce and Terry

“Who are these people? …and what are they doing in our photographs?!”

This one is from a “Highlights of the Caribbean” carousel tray of a 100 slides. I’m guessing the 70s from the outfits.

ɕ

#35mmSlides #BruceWConstantine #Nostalgia

Hobie 16 Mast Photography

In 1977, Bruce Constantine and Rick Hollister took these photographs using a mast-mounted camera on a Hobie 16.

For the photos, the camera is mounted ON the mast. So you’re looking down, along the mast. Interestingly, here they’re stepping the mast on Rick’s Hobie. This is a shot from another day, but it gives you a better idea of how a Hobie Cat works. Do you understand? Looking straight down. That guy is standing, horizontally, on the side of the Hobie, to hold the boat flat. So it DOESN’T FLIP OVER. Ok. Two guys standing on the side. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Smile any wider and the tops of their heads would fall off. Bruce W Constantine “‘s cool. Ain’t nothin’.” Rick Hollister “Haha! You will never be THIS cool.”

These guys were fast friends from high school, and Rick was a wizard at machining, model making, and miniature domithinguses. Rick built a camera mount for the Hobie Cat mast complete with remote controls.

The Cat in the photo is my dad’s, hull number 7557. Rick had hull number 718, and I’m guessing they used my dad’s Cat because it had tricolor sails; Rick’s 718 was a snappy, all-white. (At the time, these tricolors were the MOST colorful you could get. So my dad named her “Spectrum.”)

Bruce passed away in 2011, and Rick passed away in 2012. And particularly poignant, Hobart Alter just passed away on March 29, 2014.

Bragging rights

First in the world! These guys did this in 1977. Nearly 40 years ago. Bring it Internet; Who did this before ’77?

These Cats — these specific two Cats — were tuned. Noone, and I mean NOONE ever beat them on boat speed. Yes, these guys raced them for realsies. (Hat tip to Jim and “Budda”!) If memory serves, Rick was a better yachtsman, and used to beat my dad on average.

Tuned? We’re talking about: file-shaped rudder trailing edges, tuned battens (i.e. sanded specifically to control how and where they flexed to control the sail shape), altered rigging mast-attachment-height, extended tracks for jib/main sheets, adjustable mast rake. FAST. I was told they once pulled a water skier. From a standstill.

In later years, my dad and I used to go sailing for fun, and other Hobie 16s — Hobies with SIX-digit sail numbers would slide over to say hello. We regularly met Hobie sailors who’d think we had lost numbers from our sail. Anyway. These newbs would slide up on us as we’re farting around. My dad would snicker quietly, and then yell, “Go!” So they’re already up to speed, moving faster than us. We’d flatten out on the trampoline, tweak this, adjust that, and SPECTRUM would smoke. their. NEWBY. ASS*S!

Bonus round: My dad used to say he had a drink with Hobie Alter at a bar. (But now I’m just showing off.)

I need to start writing my memoirs. I think I just might…

ɕ

#35mmSlides #BruceWConstantine #HobieCat

Giddyup!

I’ve not the least recollection of this horsey ride; But clearly, it was a thing.

Also: Not all babies are actually cute. This one is clearly “questionable.” (Yes, this is me.)

Note the Lehigh sweatshirt: Foreshadowing!!

ɕ

#35mmSlides #BruceWConstantine #Nostalgia

My dad’s 1957 Austin Healey

This was my dad’s 1957 Austin Healey.

(These slides are from 1968.)

Yes, this is my mom in 1968.

ɕ

#35mmSlides #BruceWConstantine #Cool #Nostalgia #Pretty

Slide scanning

…2,600, (give or take a few hundred) mounted slides scanned!

Recently, I’ve been talking about my slide scanning project. I’ve been pouring hours and hours into feeding the slide scanner… it was like Little Shop of Horrors, “feed me Scan-more!!” for days on end. Except for a short stack of problem slides, I’ve completed the heavy lifting.

I’ve found hundreds of slides that I want to share. Stay tuned!

Aside: Where am I putting the digital files? My little Mac file server has a two drive RAID. On that Mac I run Arq, (which I highly recommend.) Arq backs-up all my stuff into Amazon’s Glacier. Glacier is dirt cheap storage; I mean dirt. cheap. They charge you a reasonable fee if you ever retrieve data from the storage service. (Get it? “glacier”. Frozen in ice, never to be used again. Unless you have a disaster, then you won’t care about a few hundred to defrost your data.)

The scanner of slides Individually labeled while unloading from their trays and carousels. Neatly packed away so any slide can be located. Boxes and boxes and boxes. Some 50-year-old problem slides which have unmounted themselves. Leaning tower of carousel boxes.

ɕ

#35mmSlides #BruceWConstantine #FixedIt

Model Trains Display Case

Part One

Many people have asked about “the trains”; If you knew my father, then you know that most of the 20×30 upper room in the garage was a model railroad. This is but a tiny glimpse of what he created.

I saved only a few pieces of rolling stock from the train layout before we sold the house. These now have a permanent home in this little display case in my office.

“Model railroad” as in: It was a model. Of a railroad. Not “toy trains” by any stretch of the imagination. He took the rolling stock apart, rebuilt them, detailed them (rust, markings, dull coat so they aren’t shiny plastic, etc), added little people, scratch built buildings, setup little scenes all over the railroad, little guys in rowboats fishing, people on benches, everything lit and remote controlled. You could run multiple trains at the same time, assemble trains in the yard, stage them out of sight… so a train rolls by and then you don’t see it again, and then a different train appears a few minutes later.

Some of the details in the photo: There are “live load” logs on the flat cars — if I get ambitious I could add the tie down cables to the logs. The ore cars (the short brown ones) have properly colored and scale-sized loads… he sifted “speedy dry” (like cat litter, but for cleaning up oil) into different tiny grain sizes, then spread it out and spray painted it, in batches of different colors, then mixed it back together… So it looks like the iron ore that goes in the cars in real life. Then he individually relabeled the 30, (40? I didn’t count) ore cars so they all have unique numbers and markings. Every piece of rolling stock was converted to Kadee couplers — which look and act like real train couplers and can be remotely decoupled with magnets hidden in the track. He would replace the tires (the part that rides on the rails) with metal ones if the kits had inferior plastic ones. He’d add weight to cars to make them move more realistically on the layout. And on and on.

30 years of work.

ɕ

#BruceWConstantine #ModelRailroad

In Memoriam

Bruce W. Constantine
April 28, 1946 – January 12, 2011

I can say many things about my father…

He was not a big fan of funerals.

He did not like to wear a suit or tie.

He could not fix plumbing.

He did not ask for directions.

He was not a good cook.

…and he definitely did not like to be called at 3am to fix an elevator.

He was always prepared.

He preferred to work smarter, not harder.

He taught many people to swim, and he swam like a fish.
– After nearly 50 years, Morrow, Fischel, Long & Constantine still hold their pool record in the 200m medley relay.

He could be headstrong, but always did the right thing.

He was gentle, knowing that violence is the last resort of the incompetent.

He was loving, even if not outwardly emotional.
– He liked to make a show of shaking his Father’s Day cards looking for money.

He was reliable.
– When his mom called, he showed up promptly. If something needed to be done, he did it. And if it needed to be fixed, he fixed it.

He was adventurous.
– I can tell you without exaggeration that he travelled from Hawaii to Europe, and from Canada to the Caribbean. He literally dove to the depths of the ocean and walked to the tops of mountains. He flew an airplane, built and flew model planes, sailed small boats, won races on his catamaran, deftly handled large yachts, and navigated Southern Comfort into every by-way from Deleware to Florida.
– In his younger days he careened around the Lehigh valley with his motorcycle and Austin Healy, and he rode thousands of miles on his bicycle.
– And yet, he was never boastful.

He was wise and invariably honest.

He always provided for his family.

He was loyal, and he was dedicated.
– He was happily married for over 42 years, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.

He was a loving son, husband and father.

…and of course, he made us laugh.

His ability to relate stories and anecdotes did not define who he was. In reality, he was all of the things I’ve mentioned and more. But his ability to make others laugh was exceptional, and for that he will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

ɕ

#Bicycles #BruceWConstantine