Oct 12 2023 - Is it Friday the 13th tomorrow

 

It is like sleeps before Christmas.  The Friday the 13th Port Dover website is counting down and it is only 17 hours to go.   Given the first Friday the 13th was in January, this will be a celebrated day - and the weather looks good, too.  Friday the 13th can only occur three times in a single calendar year.  A leap year that starts on a Sunday has a  Friday the 13th in July.  That was way back in 2012 and not until 2040.   When I think of it,  only June, July,  August  and September would be reliable Friday the 13ths for the Port Dover celebration.  Next year's event is June, and in 2025, it is September - so looking positive for the celebration. Can you imagine such a variable schedule for events?  Maybe it is part of the allure.   All the Friday the 13th jokes have a place at this event.  Here are a few:  What might a restaurant serve to the bikers tomorrow? A good Friday the 13th pasta - Fettuccine Afraid-O. Don't worry if there is a tear in the leather jacket as seamstresses or tailor on Friday the 13th - know a lot about superstitchins. And what about dreams at the Friday the 13th party?  - It would be a horse in armour chasing a biker - It would be a Knightmare. What sort of parties does the Town of Port Dover organise on Friday the 13th?  Search parties.   I stopped by Charles Daley Park earlier in the week, and the colour of the locusts didn't compare to this picture.  October is very windy at the lake, and often the leaves blow off so there's not much of a show. And then one can always create the Autumn display in Photoshop.

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May 13 2022 - PD13 Day

 

The litmus tests are beginning.  How much has COVID changed us?  Which ones of us have changed?  There's a food festival in downtown Hamilton this weekend. And of course, Norfolk County is preparing for large crowds in Port Dover for Friday the 13th.  That's today. Between 35,000 and 45,000 motorcycle enthusiasts attended the unsanctioned event in 2021, much lower than the 100,000 visitors before the COVID-19 pandemic.  So what would be the guess for this year?  I think more than last year, and fewer than 2019 events.  Will it keep its unofficial title of the largest single day gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts in the world? A population of 6,161 has an influx of up to 200,000, depending on the month. And here we are:  an unsanctioned event - remember the motorcycle convoy "Rolling Thunder" was unsanctioned.  Unsanctioned means the event or parade doesn't have a permit.  It seems like a gap in municipal authority that towns and cities don't have actual control of their roads.  Or a gap in municipal leadership where permits are refused.  The headlines are mostly about a Wasaga Beach annual car rally that is unsanctioned.  I found  one analytic paper looking at policy response of local governments to unsanctioned events.  It references Port Dover as PD13. But I guess Port Dover has a sense of which roads to close and how to manage emergency routes. They've done this for a long time for PD13s. The air space will be formally closed but you can imagine the drones that will be up there.  And there is a lot of live streaming so we can watch from home. A live webcam will be on the top of the Pier Lighthouse.  I guess there will be webcams in many places.  Here's one.  Right now the street is empty of motorcycles.  But it is 6:40am. This is Epimedium in the garden.  A tiny spring flower. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

April 29 2022 - Ottawa Tulip Festival vs Port Dover Day

 

There aren't any tulips blooming in my garden yet.  And Ottawa is a much colder growing zone, so tulips bloom later.  How much later?  Not till May. Do you know the Canadian Tulip Festival begins Friday, May 13th?  This is Port Dover's Big Event Day.  Could there be motorcycles in both locations?   The Canadian Tulip Festival boasts 300,000 tulips planted each year, and over 650,000 visitors to see them.  The festival came about with a gift in 1945 from the Dutch royal family.  One hundred thousand tulip bulbs were sent to Ottawa in gratitude for sheltering Queen Juliana and her family - which increased when her daughter Margriet was born in Ottawa.  The maternity ward was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial - so Princess Margriet's Dutch citizenship was preserved.  Another 20,500 bulbs came the next year, and 10,000 more bulbs each year.   Malak Karsh organized the first Canadian Tulip Festival in 1953.  As a symbol of international friendship, it is a perfect celebration flower to create a garden in any capital city.  Each year celebrates a new variation on this global friendship theme The Netherlands continues to send 20,000 bulbs to Canada each year (10,000 from the Royal Family and 10,000 from the Dutch Bulb Growers Association). By 1963 the festival featured more than 2 million, and today sees nearly 3 million tulips purchased from Dutch and Canadian distributors.   I wonder how they manage this?  My own garden has invading stealing the tulips each year. Back to Ottawa, the main site of the display is Commissioners Park.  It isn't particularly close to Parliament Hill.  But then, who would travel to a Tulip Festival if there's a major protest clogging up the streets? Isn't this Volunteers Week?  Here's a tulip-themed Thank You to volunteers everywhere.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

April 28 2022 - Not enough Friday the 13ths - Port Dover Day moves to the Capital

 

Are there not enough Friday the 13ths in 2022? There aren't - only one coming up in May.  Why do I ask this question?   CBC tells me that more than 800 RCMP offers may be brought into Ottawa this weekend as they prepare for a second convoy involving hundreds of motorcycles instead of trucks.  This is the test of whether they learned something from the truck convoy.   And doesn't it make you wonder where you live?  It turns out that we have alternate news just like in the US:  "The Shed" offered the 24=hour live feed of activities during the truck Freedom Convoy.  It is highly involved in this planned convoy. The CBC article HERE describes more about it. "Protests planned for Ottawa this weekend are being organized by several people who took part in the weeks-long occupation of the city during the Freedom Convoy earlier this year.  "Rolling Thunder Ottawa" and adjacent events are planned to begin Friday with events running through Sunday. There are different motives for each of the groups officially involved in organizing the event, but organizers were all involved in the Freedom Convoy in some capacity. " Poor Port Dover!  Will they lose out to Ottawa as the most number of motorcycles congregating?  We'll have to see what happens in only a few weeks on May 13th 2022.   Alas, I don't have Dog-Tooth Violets in my garden.  This is one of our ephemeral Spring flowers in Ontario, like our beautiful white and red Trilliums. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

August 14 2021 - Port Dover Under the Weather

 

It was a non-event yesterday in Port Dover for the Friday the 13th motorcycle "rally".  The Norfolk County Mayor had declared it to be a "non-event."  I could see that they prepared for the crowds with portable sanitation booths, and lots of OPP directing traffic.  But there were to be no vendors and other services.  How many people ignored the declaration?  Up to 35,000 bikers came to town.   The town's businesses stayed open, too.   Pre-pandemic participation numbers in the summer top 100,000 people (and bikes).  From the pictures, it looked like there was lots of entertainment on the streets, so a lively time despite the circumstances. The articles don't have much to say in words - the point of the event is captured in pictures of bikes and bikers.   Here's an example: Gary Baker is a regular at Friday the 13th bike rallies in Port Dover. Baker, 72, of Corunna said he comes every year to the get-togethers. Now driving a Harley with a sidecar, Baker said he’s been to 48 Daytona Bike Weeks and 16 motorcycle festivals in Sturgis, South Dakota.  “I’ve been across the country (on my bike),” Baker said. Photograph taken on Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. (Mike Hensen/The London Free Press).   And this one: Michael Buchkovsky of Toronto cannot believe his eyes as he asks in delight, “What is it?” as Giuseppe Agrippa of Vaughan rolls up in his custom-built three-cylinder diesel chopper and enthralled the crowd at Port Dover on Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. (Mike Hensen/The London Free Press).   Here are combinations of the  abstract Aga Khan sculpture images with Flexifly manipulations.  It seems to me to look like views of the earth from space.

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