And then near the end of the workday ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger texted me with awful news. I was braced for a catastrophe with some beloved amusement park or ride and it was, in fact, worse.
ERR, one of the Lansing Pinball League members who became an old and indispensable hand roughly twelve seconds after learning there even was a league, died. From what information we have it appears to have been a heart attack brought on by shoveling snow, which is shocking on every count, not least that our experience is he had an abundant heart that was reaching out for the whole world, snow included.
It's especially hard to believe that we knew him barely over two years; his first pinball event was the 2022 Silver Balls in the City. He quickly found the league to be a friendly place and very well-set for his outgoing, inviting energy. More than once he roped people who were just hanging out in the bar into playing in a pinball tournament, and I don't remember offhand any of them taking up pinball as a new hobby, but a lot of people had experiences that are mostly fun if longer than they had realized would be. Still, it is good to have someone who'll welcome you into trying something you didn't know you might do.
bunnyhugger intends to hold a charity tournament in his honor when we can find the time and know who his family believes he would want to benefit. It's all very weird to imagine, though. This is the first time we've lost a friend from the pinball world. There've been a few acquaintances who died (like KOZ) and people we knew as celebrities who did (like Lyman F Sheats or Python Anghelo), but it's never before been personal.
Not the day I was hoping for.
Also: between when I wrote this and when it posted the Deep Tracks channel played Ray Davies's Kinks Choral Collection cover of ``Days'', which is unfair.
Well. I'd had Dollywood pictures ready anyway, so, how about seeing them.
Dollywood has shops, of course, and one of them is a candle shop. We were fascinated with the boot candles but, of course, have not the slightest use for one. Pictures are plenty.
It looks to us like they still make candles on-site there, the way Cedar Point did until their candle expert died a couple years ago.
They also (as Cedar Point still does) have 'blank' candles you can dip into any coating you like.
Here's a couple (Easter?) bunny ... uh ... I think they must be soaps, as there aren't any wicks to make them candles.
And nearby that is the glass-ornaments shop. Here's some nice glass bird orbs.
And some smaller figures, much like bunnyhugger has enjoyed collecting. Those are lemurs in the upper right corner but I understand your excitement too.
Trivia: France's King Louis XIV awarded to Jean Marius, inventor of the folding pocket umbrella, a royal privilege, giving Marius a five-year monopoly on making umbrellas. The fine for a knockoff was 1,000 livres, something like US$50,000. Source: The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour, Joan DeJean.
Currently Reading: Barcode: How a Team Created One of the World's Most Ubiquitous Technologies, Paul V McEnroe.
