The Mustang That Never Was... Almost!

Behold the 1964 1/2 Mustang 'Shorty,' a two-seater prototype with a Mustang’s 260 V-8 bored out to 302 cubic inches, equipped with a three carburetor setup and all the accoutrements of a muscle car before there were muscle cars. Did I mention it was all fiberglass, and fully 16 inches shorter than the original Mustang?
  Destined for the crusher, the designer actually stole the car and walled it up in a warehouse to preserve it. It gets complicated after that. The designer abandoned it, Ford reported it stolen and got the insurance money, Aetna (the insurance company) got the re-discovered car and sold it to a car enthusiast for pennies on the dollar.
  The car enthusiast restored the Shorty and put it up for auction at Amelia Island. With a full Ford pedigree, it sold for $551,000! 

'I Couldn't Put It Down'

For me, there are two kinds of 'I couldn't put it down' books; one with a tale so powerful I can't sleep until I find out how it ends, and the other so syntactically   creative I marvel at every sentence. Rarely do those two genres come together - the powerful story told with prosaic prestidigitation. Only a few authors come readily to mind,  Mary Renault, John Fowles, Arthur C. Clarke. There are others, but I vividly remember those three, hanging around my bedroom night table, guarding the night light.
A new guy has belatedly made it to table. Patrick O'Brien. It's my loss, because O'Brien has left me with 21 - count 'em - Captain Jack Aubrey sea stories, and judging from my first two, all of them are in the rarified air of well-told great tales.
What I really like about him and my other three faves is their way of occasionally scribbling out an absolutely perfect paragraph, something that makes me stop and admit to myself that I could never be a writer, at least not like that. Here's O'Brien, from HMS Surprise:

Patrick O'Brien, 1914-2000

In Whitehall a grey drizzle wept down upon the Admiralty, but in Sussex the air was dry - dry and perfectly still. The smoke rose from the chimney of the small drawing-room at Mapes Court in a tall, unwavering plume, a hundred feet before its head drifted away in a blue mist to lie in the hollows of the downs behind the house. The leaves were hanging yet, but only just, and from time to time the bright yellow rounds on the tree outside the window dropped of themselves, twirling in their slow fall to join the golden carpet at its foot, and in the silence the whispering impact of each leaf could be heard - a silence as peaceful as an easy death.

Wow. 

The Original Five

Clockwise from left, a family tree branch: Jen Krug Keiper, Jack Krug, 

Tracy Krug Cordon, Kathy Krug Rohr, Diana Taranto Krug

Field of Dreams Redux

First there was Ruppert Stadium, the home of the original Newark Bears, which was the New York Yankees' International League franchise until 1950.

Then there was the 'new' Bears Stadium, a really beautiful joint that housed the Newark Bears of the Independent League; they folded around 2014 after a fast start and almost a decade of decline.

Now the area has new life, and is a Field of Dreams once again. For those of us ex-pats who've always loved our city, this may just be the infrastructure kick in the ass that brings Newark back. President-elect Trump, are you reading this? 

Nick in the News

We, the editorial staff at the Junkyard, fully expect that 'Nick in the News' will be a regular feature here. Nicholas has hop-scotched all over the northern third of Mother Earth, from the fjords of Norway to the boroughs of Greenland,

to further our understanding of climate science. (He took this pic of bustling Tasiilaq, Greenland!)
Click on 'Nick in the News' and meet a certified climate scientist professor working at the College of William and Mary. Your first lesson: What lake bed sediment cores reveal.
(Some added color: During Professor Balascio's formative years, he was babysat by the three daughters of the Junkyard's editor!)

Welcome to Red Stick, LA

French explorer Sieur d'Iberville led an exploration party up the Mississippi River in 1699. The explorers saw a red pole marking the boundary between the Houma and Bayogoula tribal hunting grounds. The French name 'le bâton rouge'

("the red stick") is the translation of a native term. And so the city of Baton Rouge was born. The etymology of Red Stick is much more complicated than that, however. White history tries to gloss over what happened to the Creek Indians of the American Revolution era and beyond, but if one wants to pick through the aftermath, this is as good a place as any to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Rouge,_Louisiana

By the way, to perhaps whet your inquisitive whistle, the Creek Indian tribe was a well functioning matriarchy!

Pun and Games