Tuesday

24 October 2017

— a sky of pure pewter

Good Morning All,

As usual after doing the history list above, I dicked around for a good hour looking up some of the items. I mean, how could I resist "1901: Annie Edson Taylor first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.”?

Nor was I disappointed. Annie turns out to be a real pip! She was born in Auburn, NY, one of eight. Briefly married with one son, the son dying in infancy, the husband shortly thereafter. I was delighted to learn she became  a school teacher, an occupation not all that unlike going over Niagara in a barrel. In Bay City, Michigan, she opened a dance studio. She and a friend took off for Mexico in search of work, found none, and returned to Bay City. 

Here’s what Wikipedia says about her moment of glory:  

"Desiring to secure her later years financially, and avoid the poorhouse, she decided she would be the first person to ride over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Taylor used a custom-made barrel for her trip, constructed of oak and iron and padded with a mattress. Several delays occurred in the launching of the barrel, particularly because no one wanted to be part of a potential suicide. Two days before Taylor's own attempt, a domestic cat was sent over the Horseshoe Falls in her barrel to test its strength to see if the barrel would break or not. Contrary to rumors at the time, the cat survived the plunge and 17 minutes later, after she was found with a bleeding head, posed with Taylor in photographs.

On October 24, 1901, her 63rd birthday, the barrel was put over the side of a rowboat, and Taylor climbed in, along with her lucky heart-shaped pillow. After screwing down the lid, friends used a bicycle tire pump to compress the air in the barrel. The hole used for this was plugged with a cork, and Taylor was set adrift near the American shore, south of Goat Island.

The Niagara River currents carried the barrel over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls.  Rescuers reached her barrel shortly after the plunge. Taylor was discovered to be alive and relatively uninjured, except for a small gash on her head. The trip itself took less than twenty minutes, but it was some time before the barrel was actually opened. 

After the journey, Annie Taylor told the press: 'If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat…. I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Falls.’”

The irony is, her retirement plan was not a financial success, partly because her manager ran off with her barrel. She hired private detectives, who located it in Chicago, but it disappeared again. She was once on a stage coach held up by Jesse James; at the time she had $1,000.00 hidden in her dress and didn’t lose it. She talked about taking a second plunge, attempted to write a novel, worked as a clairvoyant, and provided magnetic therapeutic treatments to people. At the age of 83, she ran out of hours and is buried in the “Stunters Section” of Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, New York.

Sometimes when I get down on present-day America, I read about someone like Annie and feel reassured America will survive this difficult period. And for sure, if I could realize one of my favorite fantasies of inviting 100 people from the past 100 years to a dinner party, Annie would be one of them.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two snaps of Annie:

 

 

Monday 
23 October 2017

— absolutely pitch dark out there at 6:38 a.m.
 
Good Morning All,

It’s been a while since I have subjected you to one of my poems (or whatever it is these word clusters are that arrive every couple of weeks.)

I wish I could tell you the penultimate stanza actually happened to me, but I can at least tell you it happened to a friend of mine.

Your Mother’s Junk and Mine
(On the Occasion of Moving House)
C. R. Magwaza

Here’s a cigar box full of Red Sox ticket stubs
Going back to Teddy Ballgame’s time,
Each neatly stapled to a 3 X 5 index card
Of a cryptic game summary in my dad’s hand.

Here’s a ruby and diamond butterfly pin
I got my mom one Christmas, which she wore
For years on her best baking apron, which is
Why only one diamond and two rubies are left.

Here’s the wind-up, dime-store alarm clock
That used to sit on the night table between
Your uncle’s and my bed in the attic;
I don’t know where the hour hand got to.

Here’s the Valentine the first girl I ever kissed
Sent me before I’d kissed her, Roses are red,
Violets are blue, if you don’t stop bugging
The heck out of me, I don’t know what I shall do.

Here’s my Ella in Hollywood album from 1961,
Ella gets stuck half way through Take the A Train,
Because that’s the exact moment I kicked the needle,
Same girl, your mom, while losing our virginities.

Of your mother’s hundreds of elephants, wooden,
Ceramic, glass, here’s my favorite, carved in ebony,
Two little ones between her legs, which we got
In Durban the same afternoon she bought this green hat.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps:

 

 

Sunday

22 October 2017

— freshly weeded patio bricks

Good Morning All,

Down the basement visiting our books yesterday afternoon, I came across a soft-cover copy of The Best Mystery Stories of 1997. How it came to join us I do not know. It is not one of the inscribed books. The price on the back is $13.00, so—since $10.00 is my upper limit--I probably didn’t purchase it. Maybe, like hundreds of other books down there, it simply arrived on the doorstep one day and offered to mow the lawn or something if we provided it shelf space.

The introduction is by Robert B. Parker, who wrote dozens of crimmies featuring Spencer, a Boston private eye. Spencer is sort of the WalMart version of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. He is flippant, romantic, incorruptible, etc., but so cute you never quite believe in him. The books are readable popcorn, except when Spencer is agonizing about his relationship with his principal other, Susan, a shrink, at which times they are flat-out awful.

Towards the end of his life, Parker wrote a few crimmies featuring Jesse Stone, the alcoholic Chief of Police in Paradise, Massachusetts. They are pretty good!

Anyway, Parker's intro is interesting. First he speaks of the English Mystery Story, invented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “The unstated, perhaps even unthought assumptions about life that underlies the Holmes stories are that a rational God created a reasonable world. His will is manifest in his creation. Crime is an unreasonable deviation from the norm, a man of superior reason can restore the norm by solving the crime.”

Parker goes on to say that view of the world was harder to maintain after the trenches of World War I, that "the past 100 years have brought to our attention a universe that seems, frankly, not to give a damn.”

From there, he shifts to the American Mystery Story of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. “The U.S. was founded by the movement from east to west, from Europe to America, from Boston to St. Louis, from a condition of settled society to one outside of the settlements. We remain to this day the descendants of people who left the settlements and the rule of law to find something else … [This East to West migration] was influenced by the Protestant Reformation, which urged that right conduct was an individual responsibility (every man his own priest), not a hierarchal [Roman Catholic] one. Thus most of us [U.S. citizens]… derive from people for whom civilization was perceived to be limiting and life outside of it understood to be freeing."

From there he shifts to the Myth of the West: “But the West being lawless and therefore dangerous, the custodians of the myth …  were men with guns (every man his own cop.) And the man with a gun became a staple of of American fiction. He was alone, outside of society, compelled by his own rules. Neither against the law or of it, keeping his moral integrity hard and intact … The man with a gun filled the pages of dime novels until the frontier closed and the West was gone. Then the dime novels became pulp fiction and the cowboys dismounted, but kept their guns and became detectives.”

It’s probably a stretch to blame Martin Luther for Donald Trump, but Luther and his 95 theses on the church door must have been perceived in his day to be about as politically incorrect as it was possible to be. Would it be that much of a stretch to suggest his Catholic Church got to be “inside the beltway” or “the swamp”?

The Pilgrims coming to America were doing so because they felt trapped in European society; they wanted freedom. The same could be said for thousands of others leaving the stuffy confides of Boston and New York seeking more freedom farther west. 

As for the Western man with the gun, how we have  glorified him, either on the side of justice, Wyatt Earp and his brothers, Matt Dillion, et. al., or—and perhaps especially—those outside the law: Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, and dozens and dozens of others. Glorified because they—unlike we—escaped the fetters of society. They were free. They were their own law. And the gun was (and still is)  the glorified symbol of that freedom. 

If any of this natter holds water, it’s not so hard to see the undercurrents that make gun-control such an upstream battle. And in retrospect, it’s easier to see how Trump got himself elected. Inadvertently or not, he tapped into the very core of America’s best-loved myth about itself.

(With trepidation do I now await what my history-major and American-studies-major friends have to say about any of this! Other than, probably: “Pierce, old sock, you have already convinced us several times of how little you know about American politics, and now you want to prove you are also an ignoramus about American history?)

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. One Holly snap and one Johs snap: 

Saturday

21 October 2017

— mist enshrouded, such that the backyard seems an under-exposed photo of itself.

Good Morning All,

I usually get the gardening lusts twice a week, three times if the garden and I are lucky. Unfortunately, these moments come without regard for the weather. Thus it was yesterday afternoon, I found myself donning my gardening corduroys, ratty old green jacket, red felt fedora, and a pair of cotton work gloves to head out into a fine mist that occasionally worked itself up into a leisurely drizzle, but for the most part just made water droplets appear along the rim of my hat.

First up was yanking out the six sunflower stalks along the driveway. I’d already beheaded them a couple of weeks ago, the swirled seed-pods hanging in the garage to be ready for the birds when—and if—we ever get a frost, or—if not—starting on my dad’s birthday on November 10th.

Next came the espalier fruit trees along the wooden fence that separates my driveway from the neighbor’s back yard. They bore no fruit this year, but Esther thinks they may be plum trees or possibly peach, or maybe one of each. First I trimmed the branches shooting out toward the driveway, putting the clipped branches into the wheelbarrow, and then secured three hooks into the fence for each tree to hold the more obedient branches in place.

Esther very sternly warned me not to prune the climbing rose bush against the west wall, so I only snipped off a few of the longer stems that hung out over the path. Each stem had about fifty thorns, and each of those stems managed to take vengeance somewhere on my person. I apologized, laid them on the fruit tree branches in the wheelbarrow, and headed for my compost pile.

In the distance, cars hummed by, their sounds somewhat muted by the moist air. My shoes and gloves were soaked by then, but—having such a good time—I pulled up most of the Jerusalem artichokes near the biggest of my blueberry bushes. Some of them were taller than I, with white tubers the size of golf balls. The leaves of the blueberry bushes were as red as any autumnal New England leaves, including those of the maples. 

Skype and Flowerpot had been out with me the whole time. At their former home, they must have been used to spending lots of time with the two little girls out in their yard, because I no sooner go out the front or patio door then they are right behind me and/or between my legs. And after that, they hare after each other up tree trunks, along fences, and over the house and garage roofs.

I warned them I was getting a little too soggy to stay out much longer, then gathered up the Jerusalem artichoke hearts and took them into the kitchen where I washed them and put them into a plastic container for Esther, who likes them uncooked and just as they are.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two snaps, one by Helen of Johs wearing a Holly scarf creation; one by Johs of the hollow at the bottom of the cottage hill.

 

 

Friday
20 October 2017

— my oak tree having swapped her saffron gown for a blood-orange party frock.

Good Morning All, 

It is now mid-October, and I am congratulating myself for going over nine months without once using this space to abuse you with recently heard puns and one-liners, regardless of how hilarious most of them were.

On the other hand, I did keep notes. So, humor me, especially since I will bet your three farthings and two pesos you cannot get through the side-splitters below without at least cracking a smile:

Q: What did the Buddhist monk ask the hot dog vendor?
A: Make me one with everything.

Q: Why aren’t koalas actually bears?
A: The don’t meet the koalafications.

Q: Why don’t blind people skydive?
A: It scares the crap out of their dogs.

Q: What do you get when you cross a dyslexic, an insomniac, and an agnostic?
A: Someone who lies awake at night wondering if there is a dog.

Q: A bartender asks a pirate if he realizes he has a steering wheel attached to his belt buckle.
A: The pirate says, “Arrr, I know. It’s driving me nuts.”

Q: Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl taking a leak?
A: Its P is silent.

Q: What did the green grape say to the purple grape!
A: Oh My God, breathe, buddy, breathe!

Q: My grandfather died peacefully in his sleep …
A: Unlike grandma and the two hitchhikers in the backseat.

Q: About a month before he died my uncle had his back covered with lard.
A: After that, he went down hill fast.

Q: What’s the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
A: Beer nuts cost $1.75, but deer nuts are under a buck.

Q: What did the termite say after he walked into a pub and looked around?
A: Where is the bar tender?”

Q: To a vegan what is more gross than a butcher?
A: A guy who sells fruit.

Q: You are a terrible railway engineer! How many trains did you derail last month?
A: Golly, I don’t know, it’s so hard to keep track.

Q: What do you say to a hitch-hiker with only one leg?
A: Hop in.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. What? You want one more? Okay, if you insist:

In the great desert lived a tribe of nomads. Their leader, Benny, had risen to his rank, due to his magnificent beard. His people believed a man's strength and courage came from his beard, and thus the man with the biggest beard was their chief.
After leading the band for many years, Benny began to feel uncomfortable wearing the beard in this hot and dusty land. He wanted to shave it off, so he called his council together to get their advice.
When he said he wanted to shave, the councilmen were shocked. One said, "Do you now remember the ancient legend, dire? The leader who removes his beard is cursed and made into a piece of earthenware."
Benny had heard this legend, but being a modern man, he scoffed at the tale.
Being headstrong, he went ahead and cut and scraped away his once magnificent beard. As the final whisker was cut off, a huge dust storm came up. It lasted only a few seconds, and when it cleared, there was a man-sized clay vessel where only moments before had stood their leader.
The council then knew the legend must be true. Their conclusion? "A Benny shaved is a Benny urned.”

P.P.S. Two Holly snaps: