Escapism

Last night I watched the first of the Harry Potter movies once more. No one ever accused these books of being great classic literature but nothing succeeds like success and the sales figures speak for themselves. I wonder if in centuries to come doctoral theses will be written as to whether it is possible that a welfare mother wrote books that were read by millions around the globe. The storylines are formulaic, the characters have derivative names but despite myself I find myself drawn in.
Harry Potter appeals to the outcast misfit that resides inside the child in all of us. Who wouldn't love to be able to turn the tables on a childhood bully as Harry does in the scene in the zoo with the python or laugh at the pigs tail Hagrid gives Dudley. Wouldn't we love to believe that magic were possible.

The Joys of a Local

When you're a bachelor and just don't feel like cooking that day it's comforting having a local restaurant you can drop into and be treated like family. It doesn't have to be haute cuisine and it shouldn't be expensive, just decent food in good quantities. For me at least that role is filled by East Side Marios at Oakville Place. It's when you drop in often enough that the staff recognize you that it's important to be known for your pleasant, undemanding personality and for leaving decent tips. That's when they go that extra mile for you in finding a well-lit booth in a quiet corner to sit and read even when they're busy. When the waitress knows your regular tipple is a pint of Guinness and you prefer a garden salad. When they accommodate your preference for angel hair pasta even though the menu now includes roast potatoes with your favourite dinner. When you're welcomed with a smile, offered seconds where appropriate and left alone to enjoy your food and not given the bum's rush if you want to linger over coffee and finish the chapter you were reading. It's the feeling of being treated like family.

Mourning a Bygone Age

What do the son of the town drunk, an orphan, the son of an oil baron, and a rancher have in common--nothing and everything? At 18, on the eve of graduation--an event marked by the annual catfish fry--the world is their oyster. But when you live 100 miles from nowhere in a town of 81 that world seems mighty constricted. The gas station at the edge of town where Keller works, the school, the one church, the general store and the diner. In a town this small and isolated there are no strangers; everyone is a neighbour and knows everyone else's business, right down to what bedroom they sleep in! These four have known one another their entire lives and they know no one else in their age group. They are friends because they have no other choice if they are to have any friends.

It's the kind of place where the general store stocks your favourite brands and the waitress at the diner has your order waiting for you before you even get to the counter. Wanting to escape this kind of intimacy when you are young and adventuresome is cliché; arriving at the point where getting away is actually possible is quite another matter. There is comfort in living in a town where no one locks their door, even if they have a lock on it; where the town widows keep the town widower stocked with home-cooked meals; where everyone knows your warts but accepts you anyway.

This movie has such resonance for me because I grew up in a village not unlike that portrayed here. Not as isolated perhaps but equally parochial. My own emotions are a mixture of nostalgia tinged with sadness that modern communications and transportation have created a society that is so mobile and in touch with the world at large that this kind of small-town atmosphere seems barely possible.

Hank Williams First Nation

In a lot of ways this movie resembles life on the Rez, which is a strange mix of native tradition and modern convenience. As the driving device of the movie, we learn about Martin Fox's obsession with Hank Williams by hear say, not from the man himself. In fact he speaks very few lines in the course of the entire movie. What exactly Adelard Fox does for a living is never made entirely clear as he tools around town in his monster truck talking on his cell phone or works from his dining room table with his fax machine whirring in the background while his wife kneads bannock. Whatever his work he seems to dole out $50 bills from a seemingly inexhaustible roll. While young people zip around on their snow mobiles the dogs huddle together in dispirited groups for warmth. Despite all those modern conveniences it would seem indoor plumbing is still waiting to arrive. As Adelard's speech to the social worker illustrates the arrival of Indian Agents and white man's ways has been a mixed blessing. Just like the school bus with its broken windshield this movie progresses on Indian Time. This can make an antsy southerner feel restless at times. The humour here is understated and can easily go over one's head unless one pays close attention as in the scene in which Adelard makes a political donation to Chief Chicken-wings after telling his wife by phone that it's a good night to have chicken wings. As with aboriginal radio, much that we see here has been given its own special twist. I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge this movie, I would, though, like to know how it plays in aboriginal communities and in particular the one in which it was shot.

Just finished what I'll admit is an esoteric joy. Carl Maria Widor's Fifth Organ Symphony. I may rail at the idea of teenagers and twenty-somethings with cars blaring rock with 1000 watt woofers in the trunk making themselves deaf by 30; but a 40-ft bombarde open reed pipe is supposed to be able to clean the wax out of one's ears and a 70-ft open diapason pedal stop should growl. And they do on a 5-channel sound system with powered 150-watt sub-woofer. Yes, I'd love to be able to go to Rouen and listen to the Cavaille-Coll organ live, but since that isn't likely to happen listening to it on CD is the next best thing. Most people have, at some time or another heard the Toccata from the Fifth Symphony with its soaring high notes and rumbling base but the entire work comprises 5 movements and is 40 minutes long. It has a majestic opening movement, some quiet contemplative moments, times when one wonders how the organist gets all those notes in, and that finale. Widor wrote 10 of these symphonies for organ. Playing them requires above average technique and the resources of a very large pipe organ built in the French Romantic Style. It goes without saying that such an organ must be housed in an extremely large cathedral, a 70-foot pipe creates a standing wave that is over 200 ft long.

A Time to Kill

Watched A Time to Kill again last night and discovered again how one can keep making new discoveries upon re-watching a good movie. Forget if I'd noticed before that Sutherland, father and son, were both in this production--remarkably on opposite sides of the race divide. As Canadians I'd be surprised if either had strong feelings either way on this particular issue.

However I'd never before considered how important to Jake's summation at the trial were his wife's words to him when she visited him the night before and acknowledged that she understood that his motivation for taking this case was the fact that he'd have done the same as his defendant had it been his own daughter so treated. The final direction, of course came from his client when he was told that he'd been hired over the civil rights professionals because he thought like a white cracker.

It's always interesting discovering continuity problems in movies and TV Shows. This evening a bike ride that begins on a day with heavy overcast skies and water-covered roads continues a few frames and curves later to dry roads and a cerulean blue sky, then reverts to clouds and rain seconds later. In the closing frames of A Time to Kill Jake's wife shows up at the victory party with a home-baked peach cobbler; given that we saw her home burned to the ground, where did she bake it?

Oral Tradition vs Written Text

I've started reading Homer's The Iliad and the lengthy introduction has set me to thinking about the tensions between oral tradition and written text. I have written previously on this topic in my blog on My Space, referenced in the sidebar. Modern culture is based on written text--a history that is recorded on paper. Even that is being supplanted today by a Digital record recorded on celluloid and DVD in the form of movies and the like but that's another doctoral thesis I fear. What would become texts such as the Koran, The Holy Bible, and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were passed down to us by oral tradition. Shaman, wisemen, storytellers, and sages passed these traditions from generation to generation.

There is no archeological proof that a blind poet named Homer ever lived; we have it by traditional wisdom. In an age where TV hosts read their lines from a teleprompter screen it seems incredible that someone could possibly have kept the text of 2 poems that total nearly 1100 pages in memory. However, a few years ago an acquaintance spent 10 days videotaping a recitation of the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy at Oswegan--that law, in great part adopted by the framers of the American Constitution. And just how well can we count on the accuracy of remembered sagas? Well, it wasn't until researchers finally paid attention to Innuit storytellers that they got firm leads on the fate of the Franklin Expedition.

What we tend to forget in this society of ours based on written documents is that history is written by the winners and that no text, however true to the events the writer attempts to be is totally free from bias. Once the Holy Bible was recorded on parchment in the time of King David the text became static. Therefore later teachers were unable to adapt it to new realities and discoveries; take for example the belief that the world was flat, that the sun circled the earth, that slavery was justified, that woman were part of a man's goods and chattels. We take for granted another form of adaptation; the translation of ancient texts from archaic languages to Modern ones. How many Bible-thumping Evangelical Christians do you know who seem to believe that Bible was written by hands inspired by God to record it in King James English? The New Testament was written in the predominant language of its day, Greek; the Old Testament in Aramaic and later translated into the Latin of the Vulgate edition. None of these languages are in modern use. Therefore the texts we read are scholar's best interpretation of the intent of those ancient orators given the context in which they spoke.

So what am I saying here? That a text composed about the same time as the prophets in the Old Testament may well have been composed by a poet named Homer. That the scholarship of the last 2500 years reflects the prevailing schools of thought at the time it was conducted. That whoever may have composed these texts, the incites he makes about human nature are as valid today as when they were written.

Sickly on Iroquois Shore Ridge

Woke this morning with the spring cold that is making the rounds fully blown. Sore throat, runny nose, rheumy eyes, feverishness--you know the symptoms. I've taken all the usual nostrums but realize that whatever I do I'm still going to be unwelcome host to an unwanted guest for at least a week. I've know for a couple days that it was knocking at the door but this morning I have no choice but acknowledge that it's gotten in. Guess it's tough to work at close quarters with two people who are rotten with it and not succumb.

A cold front came through in the last 36 hours complete with atmospheric fireworks--very noisy pyrotechnics at that. This morning the air is cool and clear. Pity I won't be out and about to enjoy it. I will make the rounds to pick up my mail and tomorrow must get a few groceries and gas up the car--it's gone from 96.9 ¢ a litre to 103.6 ¢. However if I'm active enough to accomplish the later I'll be doing it before the sun is very far above the horizon. I prefer to do my shopping before the hordes arrive with their squalling brats and aisle-blocking ample behinds. I'll spare you that tirade this morning. No, I'm not in any mood to be even a little diplomatic this morning so before I give opportunity for severe offense I'll sign off.

Assailing the Classics

I have commenced reading Homer's The Iliad, the story of the Trojan Wars. Since the introduction to Fagles' Version alone is 61 pages and the text 600 the reading may take some time.

Milk and Eggs

If your idea of fetching milk and eggs is getting the cartons out of the fridge then you have no idea of the commitment entailed in running a Nineteenth Century Farm. A cow must be milked every 12 hours. Neglect this and she'll go dry or get ill. Cows in the barn in winter must be fed and watered twice a day, first hay, then feed, then water and in season pulped mangles or turnip. Now just in case you've missed the significance of what I've just written think on this; the farmer can never go more than six hours journey away from his farm. A farmer's work place is his home and vacations are just not in the cards. Even if you could find someone to help out a cow must be a willing participant in the milking process so that helper must get to know your cows. Once a year, to freshen a milk cow she is allowed to go dry, introduced to mister bull and allowed to calf. Lest her teat and udder be damaged her calf does not get to suckle. It will be fed her first milk as it is unfit for human consumption and taught soon after to drink out of a pail. Gestation and birthing a calf is actually a rest for the cow from milk production.

Now to those eggs. Those that you get from the store could be incubated for months but nothing will ever happen. Lest your eggs develop unsightly blood spots a rooster is never allowed near even free range chickens these days. Most eggs are produced in a factory-like setting where the hen is presented with food and water automatically, her eggs drop onto a conveyer and her other products are similarly moved away. Her quarters are so cramped she can barely turn around. Nineteenth Century chickens were free to wonder the barnyard by day and spent the night in the chicken coop on a roost. The hen house was provided with nest-like cubicles for the hens to lay their eggs. The farmer's wife collected those eggs daily and selling those produced in excess of family needs provided "egg money", often her sole source of independent income.

A hen that developed maternal instincts and began setting eggs was called clookie and generally confined in a dark space until the feeling passed. In extreme cases she might be placed in a feed bag with her legs tied and hung from the washline. Most hen houses contained one rooster. His presence was required if you actually wanted to hatch new chicks but only one cock of the walk could be tolerated. In any case just as milk cows are bred to produce milk and put no meat on their bodies laying hens similarly do not make good eating hence a rooster's sole purpose was to keep his girls happy and in line. We've all heard of his uses as an alarm clock. Once he got too old he usually lost his head and became a boiling fowl. And yes, they can run around the yard until they've bled themselves dry. At modern incubators egg-producing chicks are sexed upon hatching and the necks of males rung on the spot. As new-born chicks can go 48 hours without eating and have nothing in their systems to produce dirt; most chicks that have to travel any distance are shipped by air.

Keeping a bull on a small farm was an investment in procreation, the animal had no other uses and their aggressive nature held certain liabilities. Most young bulls had rings placed in their noses and they were led by a crooked staff. Either neighbouring cows were brought for "service" or a docile bull might be led to his prospective "bride". Upon successful pregnancy an agreed fee would be paid. All other male calves were neutered by having the nerves and vessels leading to their gonads crimped so that the organs atrophied. They are then termed steers. Ranchers on the prairies surgically remove those organs and hence the term Prairie Oysters. Lacking male hormones steers are much more tractable and their meat far less gamy. Mind you a stubborn steer cannot be made to do anything it doesn't wish to. We had one young steer born outside in summer pasture stand in the barnyard for a week bawling for its mother who was confined to her stanchion in the barn. He stubbornly refused to enter the barn even as snow and rain collected on his back. Today most farmers possess a battery-operated electric prod to deal with such occurrences.

Although some of this may sound inhumane, most farmers cared for their animals and cows on a small farm generally had names. You've heard of pecking order. In a hen house the top hen pecks the top of every other hen's beak. The poor critter at the bottom of the pecking order got pecked by everyone. Even cows know their place and when the cows came home from the pasture to be milked they always walked in the same order and a shoving match ensued if the wrong cow attempted to enter the barn out of turn. Before cows were bred not to have horns such rivalries could result in injury. A beast weighing a third to half a ton demands respect. Farm life creates the irony of creatures that are treated like family; but whose object in life is to put food on the table.

Community Policing

Last night I attended a Community Policing Meeting. Given the delegations we listened to one has to conclude that not all young people are into sports, music lessons, ballet, theatre, and similar structured environments. If we do not provide them with positive outlets for their energy the ones they do find may not be socially acceptable and may be destructive both to themselves and those around them. Destruction of public and private property, bush parties, drugs, hooliganism, street racing, vandalism, graffiti, intimidation, self-mutilation, pyromania--all these and more can follow. Should public funds support skate-board half-pipes, organized drag strips, drop-in centres, meeting places? Are the costs of not providing them not even greater?

Many maintain a small-town village mentality forgetting that city or not we live in a community with a population that exceeds 100,000. The proper handling of safety and security issues changes when one moves from a rural community where everyone knows or is related to everyone else to an anonymous pluralistic society.

1. We pay professionals to keep the peace. Don’t endanger yourself by trying to do their job for them.
2. Our police service cannot do something about a situation you have not reported. Call them.
3. If you let a situation fester for years until you feel intimated inside your own home, no amount of enforcement will make you feel safe.
4. Neither citizen input committees nor the police can solve your problem if you are unwilling to participate in finding the solution. Paying your taxes does not entitle you to 24/7 police surveillance of your neighbourhood.
5. Speeding is usually a home-grown issue. Talking it up among your neighbours may be more effective than you would believe. Talk to your kids about it and their friends. Your neighbour’s kids may be more effective at traffic enforcement than the police service particularly in light of an individual caught twice within the hour on the same street by two separate officers.

We seem to live in a society where entitlement and self-interest are the guiding principles. Where parents would drop their kids off at their classroom doors with their SUV's if it were possible. Where people complain about speeding and traffic noise in their neighbourhood and are then surprised when they themselves get pulled over for speeding in that very neighbourhood. Where young people are going to the dogs, but a parent expresses shock and denial when a police car brings "Johnny" home as a result of some offense. Where people expect police protection but refuse to take responsibility for their own acts and the parenting of their own children. No, I don't have any magic solutions. "It takes a village to raise a child." Citizen input committees cannot provide magic answers to every problem, but they can raise awareness and motivate people to work together toward those solutions.

Home-Grown Terror

Watching Mario Puzo's Last Don raises the question as to whether future generations will be making Moslem Terror movies. The mafia and al-Qaeda have a lot in common. Both are led by and or sponsored by fabulously rich individuals, clandestine operations, deal in intimidation and violence or the threat of it, launder money through legitimate operations, and depend on a staff of disaffected young people to attain their goals. If we think we don't have similar operations, or the seed bed for them here we delude ourselves. To the people of Caledonia, gripped by road blocks for the last few months the threat is very real. With our native population here in Canada we have in our native reserves a breeding ground not unlike the refuge camps of the Middle East. If we don't fairly settle Native Land Claims soon the cost of not acting may be even greater.

Back to Work Blues

What do you get when you cross a python with a porcupine?
--Ten feet of barbed wire. (from Reader's Digest)

By all means buy organically grown food, but if it isn't grown locally buy fresh vegetables from a local grower, transporting organic food over a distance does more damage to the environment due to burning of fossil fuels and the addition of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

Having done laundry, yesterday, I have a pet theory to debunk the idea of sock-eating washing machines. For a sock to come out of a washer, it has to have gone into it in the first place.

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My first day back at work. They even saved two weeks worth of bank deposits for me. Nice to know they trust me with a couple thousand dollars. So now that I'm stuck in the office the sun came out.

The day wasn't helped by the fact that I had trouble getting to sleep last night. At least I got around to making up the bed and watching a movie. I've been known to curl up in a sleeping bag for a couple days after I wash bedding.

I was watching Jason Gedrick in The Last Don. I've always liked the lad, pity he hasn't been in more movies:

Rainy Day Blues

The tyranny of a daily Blog, what to write today? Sorry, navel gazing is not generally interesting for others.

We, here in Southern Ontario are enjoying yet another day of showers in our continuing rainy season and it's predicted to continue tomorrow. If, as that great poet anon. declared, "April showers bring May Flowers.", I'd like to know what May showers are responsible for, not to mention those of June.

I've been taking advantage of this period of forced confinement indoors to dig through papers and work on my "to read" pile. Mind you that's more like archeology at this point than anything else. Progress is slow. Just established that the increased cost, per year, of insuring a new car is $400. At least it has no-depreciation coverage. And they would like to bribe me into paying $60/year for the privilege of guaranteeing that my premiums will not skyrocket if I have a single at-fault collision. I'm still trying to fathom why, on the third and fourth floor of a six-story building I'm paying for sewer-backup coverage.

This weather reminds me of one of my favourite quips at the expense of my customers, the Pentecostal Church; that I felt safe as long as they didn't commence a boat-building project in their East Parking Lot. They're the same people who weren't amused when my response, when asked what I thought of their Passion Play, was that after one and a half hours I didn't feel a 20 minute explanation was necessary. I fear they despaired for my soul but with Lutheran roots going back 400 years I had no desire to be "born again". Lutheran's believe, they don't get excited about it.

My Ancestors' History

Another by Jane Kenyon:

In the Nursing Home

She is like a horse grazing
a hill pasture that someone makes
smaller by coming every night
to pull the fences in and in.

She has stopped running wide loops,
stopped even the tight circles.
She drops her head to feed; grass
is dust, and the creekbed's dry.

Master, come with your light
halter. Come and bring her in.

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Today I will continue my discussion of the History of my ancestors in Nova Scotia.

To understand how a bunch of Germans ended up in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia one must know a bit of the history of inter-marriage bordering on incest that is the state of the royal houses of Europe. In 1714 George, elector of Hanover--Germany as we know it today did not exist as a unified country for another century--became King of Great Britain on the strength of his mother having been granddaughter of King James the First of England. In 1727 his son became George the Second but he also retained his interests in Hanover where he was born. Now cross the pond and we find the East Coast of what would eventually become Canada. The indigenous population of the Maritimes were the Mi’kmaqs and they and the French settlers who resided there had become allies. Acadia, as the French called the area was fast becoming a threat to the English colonies on the Eastern seaboard of what would eventually be the USA.

It was the building of the great Fortress of Louisbourg at the tip of Cape Breton to guard the approaches to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and ultimately Quebec City that finally forced the English to act. It was decided that to solidify their claim on the area and act as a counter-force to Louisburg a settlement would be established at Chebucto, as it was called by the Mi'kmaq and they named it Halifax. On the hill overlooking the harbour a fortress was built to guard its approaches and although after over 250 years it has yet to fire a shot in anger, it is still called the Citadel. It retains at least one working cannon which fires the traditional Noon Day Gun. There is some irony in the choice of colonists to settle this port. A British Colonel named Edward Cornwallis was charged with establishing this military base by the Earl of Halifax who cooked up the scheme and it was decided that there could be no more loyal subjects of an English King who spoke little English than his peasant-farmer German subjects. Having settled Halifax in 1749 it was decided to establish a further colony down the coast at the former Mi'kmaq and French fishing port that became Lunenburg--named for Brunswick-Lunenburg, George's family name. Thus it was that in 1753 a group of peasant German farmers who had migrated to Hanover from their war-torn homeland in the Palatinate of Germany became my ancestors in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.

In an act of chauvinistic paternalism Cornwallis and his officials decided that, in the official records, their names should be Anglicized and hence Mülhmen became Mailman
Schneider, Snyder
Whynache, Whynot
Schwartz, Black
and so on. As I have quipped in the past, I'm just thankful I'm not an Outhouse from Yarmouth County. Someone with a twisted sense of humour also added a few French Protestant, Huguenots,and hence my Paternal Grandmother was a Vienotte, though it too became Vienot or Veno. I'll let you be the judge of whether the English did these people, who had left an area that traded back and forth between France and Germany and were in the direct path of both armies, any favours by plunking them down in the middle of an area claimed by the French as Acadia and molested by local Indians loyal to their French Allies. However suspect the motives, the settlers managed to flourish and as their numbers grew spread out across the County to make Lunenburg County the most heavily settled county in Nova Scotia. History records that with the help of the New England Colonies the English laid seige to Louisburg twice, the French having won it back through diplomacy and treaty, and the second time in 1758 it was razed to the ground. In 1755, not satisfied that they had done enough to secure their interests in Acadia, in what history records as the Expulsion of the Acadians, British troops deported 7000 French Colonists along the Bay of Fundy and Minus Basin coastlines to the British colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia and many migrated to the former French territories in Louisiana to become the Cajuns of New Orleans.

Reminiscing

The perils of aging:

Those nocturnal visits to the lavatory.
Having to sit down to put on one's pants.
Having to come back downstairs to remember what one went up for in the first place.

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Reminiscence

In the rural Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia of the Mid Twentieth Century my Great Uncle Otto was not poor, he just didn't hold with new-fangled ideas; like baled hay, tractors, automobiles, running water, electricity, telephones. A life-long bachelor—we are related—he lived with his brother Alexander, his sister Alexandria Silver whose husband died(in a woods accident I believe), a life-size hand-painted tin plate of her son who died as a young child that had pride of place on its own stand in the parlour, his mentally-challenged cousin Zipporah Connelly, and my Grandmother Sadie, his sister-in-law—who went to keep house for them. He lived to be nearly 100, so I can expect to become a very old curmudgeon.

His home was a two-story mansion of a place with entryways front and back, a two-story bay window at the front, cellar-way and full basement, and two sets of stairs to the upper level one being a service stair to the unfinished attic over the kitchen. On the mantelpiece in the kitchen above the chaise-lounge sat an Ansonian Mantle Clock which probably made its way from Boston in Captain Mailman’s boat—it still keeps time well into its second century in my living room. The front door was reserved for when the parson called, when someone was taken out feet first, or for house cleaning. Everyone came in by the back door—there was also a service door beside the sink in the kitchen. On their way in they would have passed the ice cooler in the entryway. The ice for it was stored in the ice house whose supply was hand sawn above the grist mill dam on the river. Off the kitchen tucked under the service stairs was the pantry. With town 7 miles away by horse and wagon keeping one’s supplies organized was essential—there were two general stores but they served more as social gathering spots than shopping centres. The pantry contained bins with a hundredweight of flour and sugar each,(the bags had floral patterns used to make dresses and pillow cases); a 50 pound barrel of salt plus coarse salt; a gallon of molasses; lard pail; baking essentials—fresh yeast, baking soda, cream of tartar, vanilla—bought from the Raleigh Man, a cousin from Broad Cove, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, summer savoury; and dried goods including raisins and dried yellow-eyed beans—home-grown of course. It was my Grandmother’s policy to add to her grocery list a replacement for anything she freshly opened.

The kitchen contained the sofa under the clock, a rocking chair, the oil-cloth-covered kitchen table, the sink with hand-pump and the kitchen stove with warming oven above and hot water reservoir attached. A container of Gillet’s Lye would have kept the drain running free. Even by day one would have lit the lamp to go down the stairs under the main stairway to the cellar where the main provisions were kept. In one corner was an essential feature of all farmhouses before refrigerators, the small well in which the creamer was hung to keep the milk fresh. One large bin contained potatoes and others onions, carrots, turnips, and cabbage. There was a wine-barrel of sauerkraut, and many barrels of apples from the apple orchard outside. A cabinet and shelves held the mason jars of preserves put down the previous fall. There were also smaller barrels and crocks of pickled beans and herring, ham, bacon, salt pork and cod, smoked fish—kayaks in particular which were stored on sticks in the rafters and, in my Grandmother’s case, bottles of homemade dandelion wine. One had to be prepared, borrowing from a neighbour would be an embarrassing admission of one’s bad judgement and the next shopping trip could be a week away, even a month away when the roads were impassable in winter.

Most homes were built on hills so that one could see one’s neighbour’s lamplight, a symbol of wellbeing and companionability in those days before telephones. The yard outside was enclosed by the barn and various outbuildings. To the left was the wash house with its stove for heating copper kettles for washing. A toe-path led to the hen house and down by the brook a small coop for the ducks. Next was the blacksmith shop and driving shed and beside it a shoeing station for the oxen. Behind them was the smokehouse. Across the yard was the 100-foot barn with thrashing floor, horse stable, cow stable, sheep pen and dung shed where the pigs also resided. The hay mow boasted a hay fork worked by ropes and pulleys and a track that ran the length of the barn. Completing the square was the woodhouse and between it and the barn the outhouse. The ice house was under a large maple down the driveway past the apple orchard and elsewhere, along the river was a shingle mill—essential for keeping all those roofs healthy. When a trip to the outhouse wasn’t practical one got the thundermug out from under the bed or the chamber pot out of the commode. Cleaning them is one task the modern housewife certainly doesn’t miss.

If enough people express an interest I’ll post more. I wrote bits of this as musings to a friend. This is probably a chapter from a book I expect I’ll write once I retire.

Poets & Supermen

This poem by Jane Kenyon about the death of a soldier at Gettysburg resonated with me. Which side he was on, what war he fought in, what country he fought for and even which century it was are irrelevant. What matters is that his unborn children die with him, his girlfriend will never again know his sexual attentions and his 'enemy' will hold him no malice save for a passing thought of "save but for the grace of God there go I."

Gettysburg: July 1, 1863


The young man, hardly more
than a boy, who fired the shot
had looked at him with an air
not of anger but of concentration,
as if he were surveying a road,
or feeding a length of wood into a saw:
It had to be done just so.

The bullet passed through
his upper chest, below the collarbone.
The pain was not what he might
have feared. Strangely exhilarated
he staggered out of the pasture
and into a grove of trees.

He pressed and pressed
the wound, trying to stanch
the blood, but he could only press
what he could reach, and he could
not reach his back, where the bullet
had exited.
He lay on the earth
smelling the leaves and mosses,
musty and damp and cool
after the blaze of the open afternoon.

How good the earth smelled,
as it had when he was a boy
hiding from his father,
who was intent on strapping him
for doing his chores
late one time too many.

A cowbird razzed from a rail fence.
It isn't mockery, he thought,
no malice in it...just a noise.
Stray bullets nicked the oaks
overhead. Leaves and splinters fell.

Someone near him groaned.
But it was his own voice he heard.
His fingers and feet tingled,
the roof of his mouth,
and the bridge of his nose....

He became dry, dry, and thought
of Christ, who said, I thirst.
His man-smell, the smell of his hair
and skin, his sweat, the salt smell
of his cock and the little ferny hairs
that two women had known

left him, and a sharp, almost sweet
smell began to rise from his open mouth
in the warm shade of the oaks.
A streak of sun climbed the rough
trunk of the tree, but he did not
see it with his open eye.


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Someone has gone to a lot of work with a photo-editor to turn a Feldman photograph into Superboy. Eat your heart out Tom Welling: