I am now officially married...again.
On October 12, 2012 I again became a husband and now a stepfather. In the process of gaining a wife, I also gained two lovely young ladies as daughters and another family of very cool people as in-laws. I look forward to a bright future with them.
The wedding was a classic movie theme with black and white clothing for most and a lovely silver dress for the bride. The bouquet and boutaineers were red roses. The cake, a very tasty lemon pound, was in the shape of a film reel with film unreeling from it. A very classy and ironically thin couple danced atop the fondant masterpiece. The DJ did a bang-up job and fun was had by all.
The wedding was small. Immediate family and some very close friends were invited to enjoy the evening with us. We felt very honored to have everyone there. The wedding was well documented by Kirsten Wray and officiated by a very cool pastor one of our friends recommended.
Now comes the part where we move in together and try to avoid losing our shit because our beloved folds towels the wrong way. My wife's new mantra is "I did not get full disclosure!" Apparently I am not exactly the roommate she expected.
That said, I am extremely excited to embark on this next stage in my life. My wife is amazing while still being full of unexplainable rules for living. I personally am very laid back and will do my best to learn the rules so that I can decide which ones to follow and which to ignore. Some part of my brain is screaming "Follow them all you fool!" while the realistic part of my mind knows I am too lazy to do that.
We are feeling our way toward marital bliss while occasionally tripping over big boxes of strife which we then open, examine heatedly and either reorganize, or pack away to examine another day. Since my wife is a passionate, intelligent woman and I am a calm, intelligent man with a very long fuse, it's going pretty well.
The kids are adjusting fine. We look forward to picking out a home with more room and individual bedrooms. I look forward to having a workshop again. Right now I have a corner of the garage for beer making equipment and a few hand tools. I'm making due, secure in my dreams for the future and enjoying the present I am faced with.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Avoiding Cell Phones
My wife has insisted I must keep my phone with me at all times to be ready in case of emergency. I dislike having to carry it around all the time. I have decided to become a nudist. Then I can legitimately avoid carrying it.
My ass muscles aren't strong enough to keep it in place and carrying it in my armpit would only work until I needed to reach for something. That isn't even factoring in the gross-out factor of using the phone after carrying it in either of those two places.
I think this will work but am postponing the experiment until warm weather again presents the sun to warm my future nudity. I have high hopes. Wish me luck and look away. It won't be pretty.
My ass muscles aren't strong enough to keep it in place and carrying it in my armpit would only work until I needed to reach for something. That isn't even factoring in the gross-out factor of using the phone after carrying it in either of those two places.
I think this will work but am postponing the experiment until warm weather again presents the sun to warm my future nudity. I have high hopes. Wish me luck and look away. It won't be pretty.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Unlucky Garage
I promised, in an earlier post, to relate to you the easy way of driving a car through the back of a garage. I had forgotten this pledge until my lovely mother reminded me of it and how angry the incident had made her. So, as promised, the easy way to drive through a garage wall.
As I may have mentioned, when I eventually got my driver's license my Mom was kind enough to supply me with a Chevrolet Chevette to drive. For those too young to remember, a Chevette was a hatchback vehicle, mine was a four door stick shift. It had seen better days but still ran just fine and was more car than a lot of kids had.
The Chevette gave me mobility and also helped out my Mom. My Dad had passed away shortly before I got my license. As a matter of fact, my uncle took me to take my license test the day of my Dad's funeral. I guess they thought it would take my mind off Dad's death. It didn't but was a nice gesture. I have four siblings and they needed ferrying about. Having a second driver in the family was helpful.
A license and car gave me kind of a big head. I had the power and wasn't afraid to use it. In my defense, having four arguing kids wrestling in the back seat was disconcerting in a car that weighed hardly more than those four children. A firm hand was necessary. I also understood, then, why my Dad used to get so hot when we argued behind him.
When one of these arguments was going on, we were on our way home from town and the car was rocking back and forth on the road from all the silliness going on in the back. I had already warned the yahoos several times and the wrestling kept up. Finally, much like my Dad, I lost my temper and pulled over about a mile from home. I ordered everyone out. They were stunned into submission. Everyone climbed out and I took off. They made it home about twenty minutes later and never failed to calm down when asked nicely afterwords.
My sister, Barb, was closest to me in age. Only eighteen months younger, she was determined that I not have things my own way very often. As the oldest girl, she was a strong supporter of rank based on seniority. One day coming home from somewhere with Barb in the passenger seat, I was pulling into our "garage."
The garage was an open faced shed structure built to the side of another shed on the property. It was essentially a three sided pole barn. The barn columns were telephone poles and horizontally installed two by fours provided a means to attach corrugated steel for siding. It was a nice way to keep the rain and snow off the car parked inside.
As I pulled up to the garage, I noticed a bicycle laying on the concrete slab inside. In the interest of convenience, mine, I told Barb to go move the bicycle. She promptly told me where to stick it. We argued for a minute and then, disgusted but unwilling to leave the car and lose face, I opened my door and leaned out. I leaned out as far as I could but couldn't reach so I stuck one foot our the door, intending, I suppose, to kick the bicycle out of the way. Slowly, I released the clutch and the car rolled forward. I kicked the bike and depressed the clutch.
The thing about a clutch is that it removes the motive power of the engine from the wheels. It is not however, a brake. The car kept rolling toward the back of the shed. If nothing else had happened, I probably would have bumped the back wall and that would be the end of it. Nothing else did not happen.
As the back wall eased toward us, I had the bright idea to use the brake. To do this, I had to release the clutch. Remember the leg hanging outside? If you have never driven a stick shift, it is important to know that two legs are required to make the system work.
The other thing about a clutch is that when released, the engine re-engages with the tires and the car moves forward. Brakes don't work well when fighting against an engine. It didn't really matter whether the brakes worked or not though. I had missed the brake pedal in my panic and stomped on the gas pedal.
The end result was that the car fairly leaped at the back wall and through it before I got my leg back in the car and applied both brake and clutch appropriately. The front of the car and the tires promptly dropped off the back of the concrete slab and stopped.
That is the easy way to drive through a garage wall.
Luckily, the tires did grab the edge of the slab and the car moved back onto the slab. The two by four holding the siding wasn't destroyed, only pulled loose. The car had a minor scratch on the fender. The siding was kinked but not totally ruined. I patched it all up in less than an hour.
Mom was pretty hot, as I mentioned already but calmed down when she realized little permanent damage was done. There were some new ground rules concerning the driver and passenger responsibilities after that too.
Another positive note is that I got another little story out of the experience. Lucky me. Unlucky garage.
As I may have mentioned, when I eventually got my driver's license my Mom was kind enough to supply me with a Chevrolet Chevette to drive. For those too young to remember, a Chevette was a hatchback vehicle, mine was a four door stick shift. It had seen better days but still ran just fine and was more car than a lot of kids had.
The Chevette gave me mobility and also helped out my Mom. My Dad had passed away shortly before I got my license. As a matter of fact, my uncle took me to take my license test the day of my Dad's funeral. I guess they thought it would take my mind off Dad's death. It didn't but was a nice gesture. I have four siblings and they needed ferrying about. Having a second driver in the family was helpful.
A license and car gave me kind of a big head. I had the power and wasn't afraid to use it. In my defense, having four arguing kids wrestling in the back seat was disconcerting in a car that weighed hardly more than those four children. A firm hand was necessary. I also understood, then, why my Dad used to get so hot when we argued behind him.
When one of these arguments was going on, we were on our way home from town and the car was rocking back and forth on the road from all the silliness going on in the back. I had already warned the yahoos several times and the wrestling kept up. Finally, much like my Dad, I lost my temper and pulled over about a mile from home. I ordered everyone out. They were stunned into submission. Everyone climbed out and I took off. They made it home about twenty minutes later and never failed to calm down when asked nicely afterwords.
My sister, Barb, was closest to me in age. Only eighteen months younger, she was determined that I not have things my own way very often. As the oldest girl, she was a strong supporter of rank based on seniority. One day coming home from somewhere with Barb in the passenger seat, I was pulling into our "garage."
The garage was an open faced shed structure built to the side of another shed on the property. It was essentially a three sided pole barn. The barn columns were telephone poles and horizontally installed two by fours provided a means to attach corrugated steel for siding. It was a nice way to keep the rain and snow off the car parked inside.
As I pulled up to the garage, I noticed a bicycle laying on the concrete slab inside. In the interest of convenience, mine, I told Barb to go move the bicycle. She promptly told me where to stick it. We argued for a minute and then, disgusted but unwilling to leave the car and lose face, I opened my door and leaned out. I leaned out as far as I could but couldn't reach so I stuck one foot our the door, intending, I suppose, to kick the bicycle out of the way. Slowly, I released the clutch and the car rolled forward. I kicked the bike and depressed the clutch.
The thing about a clutch is that it removes the motive power of the engine from the wheels. It is not however, a brake. The car kept rolling toward the back of the shed. If nothing else had happened, I probably would have bumped the back wall and that would be the end of it. Nothing else did not happen.
As the back wall eased toward us, I had the bright idea to use the brake. To do this, I had to release the clutch. Remember the leg hanging outside? If you have never driven a stick shift, it is important to know that two legs are required to make the system work.
The other thing about a clutch is that when released, the engine re-engages with the tires and the car moves forward. Brakes don't work well when fighting against an engine. It didn't really matter whether the brakes worked or not though. I had missed the brake pedal in my panic and stomped on the gas pedal.
The end result was that the car fairly leaped at the back wall and through it before I got my leg back in the car and applied both brake and clutch appropriately. The front of the car and the tires promptly dropped off the back of the concrete slab and stopped.
That is the easy way to drive through a garage wall.
Luckily, the tires did grab the edge of the slab and the car moved back onto the slab. The two by four holding the siding wasn't destroyed, only pulled loose. The car had a minor scratch on the fender. The siding was kinked but not totally ruined. I patched it all up in less than an hour.
Mom was pretty hot, as I mentioned already but calmed down when she realized little permanent damage was done. There were some new ground rules concerning the driver and passenger responsibilities after that too.
Another positive note is that I got another little story out of the experience. Lucky me. Unlucky garage.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Don't pay more than the worth of a word.
Literature can move the heart and inflame the mind. Sentences have driven men to reach for a new life or destroy a government. Writers the world over have searched for the phrase to perfectly express a thought. Each word in the perfect sentence is a jewel linked to the next, a shining gem-like expression in the necklace of an idea. The perfect sentence is beyond value.
Isn't it amazing that in the search for the perfect sentence it is possible to pay more than the worth of the sentiment, and by doing so, devalue it? As authors cast about for "the" way to express themselves, they often muddy the water with their own brilliance. To use a saying, or colloquialism to make the point, "Why use a five dollar word when a fifty cent word will do?"
Yvonne Perry, in an article using the same saying suggests that a speech tailored to the audience will be enjoyed more completely than one using expressions containing "fifty dollar words". Could it be that while aiming for the highest moral peak, the best way to get there is with words that touch the greatest number of moral men? Take Mahatma Ghandi's expression for example: "Be the change you wish to see in the world". It would be a challenge to find some part of that anyone does not understand. It is, however, a world changing sentiment, thought, idea, meme, concept, and belief.
Their are at least 600,000 words in the English language according to the Oxford English Dictionary. According to Michael Quinion, of World Wide Words, the average college graduate has a vocabulary of between 20,000-25,000 words. Although this is a highly variable and problematic statement, according to Mr. Quinion, if he is even close, there are many thousands of words left out.
Reading lately, the ideas of fellow wordsmiths put to paper or blog, wading comes to mind. The need for mental boots to wade through lovely, fifty dollar, words in the hopes of finding a fifty dollar idea is sometimes exhausting. Most ideas are expressed best that are expressed simplest. That's not mine but it's true. There is always the phrase that cannot tell the story completely without the.... one.... perfect... word, possibly a fifty or hundred dollar one.
Save your money for that time, that phrase, that world changing, mind blowing idea. The rest of the time, do the world, and yourself, a favor. Remember, a gem I don't recognize is only a rock. The perfect sentence is accessible to all the men you wish to reach.
Isn't it amazing that in the search for the perfect sentence it is possible to pay more than the worth of the sentiment, and by doing so, devalue it? As authors cast about for "the" way to express themselves, they often muddy the water with their own brilliance. To use a saying, or colloquialism to make the point, "Why use a five dollar word when a fifty cent word will do?"
Yvonne Perry, in an article using the same saying suggests that a speech tailored to the audience will be enjoyed more completely than one using expressions containing "fifty dollar words". Could it be that while aiming for the highest moral peak, the best way to get there is with words that touch the greatest number of moral men? Take Mahatma Ghandi's expression for example: "Be the change you wish to see in the world". It would be a challenge to find some part of that anyone does not understand. It is, however, a world changing sentiment, thought, idea, meme, concept, and belief.
Their are at least 600,000 words in the English language according to the Oxford English Dictionary. According to Michael Quinion, of World Wide Words, the average college graduate has a vocabulary of between 20,000-25,000 words. Although this is a highly variable and problematic statement, according to Mr. Quinion, if he is even close, there are many thousands of words left out.
Reading lately, the ideas of fellow wordsmiths put to paper or blog, wading comes to mind. The need for mental boots to wade through lovely, fifty dollar, words in the hopes of finding a fifty dollar idea is sometimes exhausting. Most ideas are expressed best that are expressed simplest. That's not mine but it's true. There is always the phrase that cannot tell the story completely without the.... one.... perfect... word, possibly a fifty or hundred dollar one.
Save your money for that time, that phrase, that world changing, mind blowing idea. The rest of the time, do the world, and yourself, a favor. Remember, a gem I don't recognize is only a rock. The perfect sentence is accessible to all the men you wish to reach.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Friends Getting Divorced
Today, I was approached by a colleague who wanted to speak to me privately. This person is one I respect and admire in many ways and I was glad to offer him my opinion on anything he wanted to know. I was surprised though when he started the conversation, "My wife left me three months ago."
It is always a shock when someone I feel is intelligent, sane, good and genuinely a nice person, tells me they are getting a divorce or in the process of being separated. My psyche is still stuck thigh deep in the mud of that imaginary world where only dysfunctional people get divorces
It's also a surprise that they feel I have something to add to the big picture of this situation. I don't see myself as an expert on divorce. I would never want to be. I should be flattered I suppose. My divorce has been largely amicable. We both dislike some of the things the other person does or does not do but we make the day to day situations flow from one to the other with relative ease. I don't know if that is obvious or maybe just being the divorced guy in the room makes me a resource.
My advice isn't advice though. I can share my experience. I never give an opinion about money, or visitation, or how to interact with the soon to be ex-spouse. Those are intensely individual situations and the state has set up more guidelines than I ever will. Like I did today, I try to reassure and commiserate. I offer my support. I relate whenever experiences overlap. Truly, I don't know if I do any good at all.
I have been approached several times in this way. No one has ever come back for more. I don't know if that is because I didn't offer what they needed or if, in an hour of uncertainty, they reached out in a way they normally would not. Maybe these friends are looking for a type of guidance. I'm just not sure.
Here are a few things I know to be true for me. Some may relate to others too.
It is always a shock when someone I feel is intelligent, sane, good and genuinely a nice person, tells me they are getting a divorce or in the process of being separated. My psyche is still stuck thigh deep in the mud of that imaginary world where only dysfunctional people get divorces
It's also a surprise that they feel I have something to add to the big picture of this situation. I don't see myself as an expert on divorce. I would never want to be. I should be flattered I suppose. My divorce has been largely amicable. We both dislike some of the things the other person does or does not do but we make the day to day situations flow from one to the other with relative ease. I don't know if that is obvious or maybe just being the divorced guy in the room makes me a resource.
My advice isn't advice though. I can share my experience. I never give an opinion about money, or visitation, or how to interact with the soon to be ex-spouse. Those are intensely individual situations and the state has set up more guidelines than I ever will. Like I did today, I try to reassure and commiserate. I offer my support. I relate whenever experiences overlap. Truly, I don't know if I do any good at all.
I have been approached several times in this way. No one has ever come back for more. I don't know if that is because I didn't offer what they needed or if, in an hour of uncertainty, they reached out in a way they normally would not. Maybe these friends are looking for a type of guidance. I'm just not sure.
Here are a few things I know to be true for me. Some may relate to others too.
- Divorce sucks - Glue two sheets of paper together. The next day pull them apart. Little bits of each sheet rip and tear and refuse to stay a part of the original sheet. Nothing will ever be able to put either sheet back the way it was. Divorce is like that. You tear. You rip. Nothing is ever quite the same.
- The feelings don't fade quickly. - I am still angry at my ex, not as much, not as often but still pissed off. I'm not proud of that. I'm just saying it's hard to let go of a pain that deep.
- Couples with children will likely have a much worse experience than those without. - Unless a partner abandons the family entirely, there is a reason to argue with the person you never want to see again, regularly, for another twenty years. Every game, play, sleepover is now a debate or you have to be in the stands with persona non grata.
- Children's expenses are irritating and hard to manage. When one person is making decisions across town without asking for input arguments are going to happen.
- It is very easy to feel like a total failure. - I believe in the institution of marriage. I made a promise to God, man, and my spouse. We f***ked it up. I spent a long time feeling like a loser over that. Some days, I still do.
- We both may be better off. - My spouse wasn't happy with me. We didn't communicate enough. We didn't care enough apparently. So, maybe the opportunity to find the partner we can communicate with and care enough for is a blessing. I have to hope so.
- I have come to know myself more completely. - I know it's hard being single. It's tough being the only parent in the house. I understand, now, how to cope. Life didn't destroy me or end when my marriage ended. Sometimes I had a shitty day, or week, or month. I'm still here. Life is pretty good for the most part. I know my strengths and weaknesses so much better now. I know what I want in a life partner. Those are hard won things that some people never figure out.
- I still believe God has a plan for me. - When I felt like a failure, I was certain the world had given up on me. I was afraid God would too. I'm now pretty sure the world as a whole doesn't give a rats ass and never did. We have to count on the friend and family ties we build to stand in for the world. God won't ever give up on me. He is also pretty close mouthed about what he wants for my life but I get hints every now and then. Like anyone, I need prayer, introspection and communion with something bigger than myself. I have faith the plan will unfold as it should.
- There is a future for me. Hand in hand with God's plan is the existence of a partner who is right for me and me for her. I still believe in marriage. I still hate divorce. I am positive and optimistic that I have found that partner and, this time, we'll get it right.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Cider Can Be Hard!
I'm really enjoying this home brewing thing. I'm on my fourth batch of beer and ready to rack it to secondary. Batch one was a PDG(Pretty Darn Good) Pale Ale from a Great Fermentations kit. It tasted good. It was bitterer than the beer I was used to. There was a nice aroma from the hops. After I let some if it actually carbonate, it even had a nice feel on the tongue. My success encouraged me to stay the course.
I bought a second kit from Great Fermentations called Easy Wheat. The second batch was a mild wheat beer. I was going to add cherry for something similar to Sam Adams cherry wheat. Apparently, I didn't sanitize as well as I thought. Some bit of bacteria slipped into the fermenter and I got serious funk in my beer. All but a half gallon of that batch went to the septic. I have a faint hope the batch will mellow over time like a Brett beer, tart but tasty. It's a very faint hope.
I decided to try again. This time I bought a kit from Tuxedo Park Brewers Supply. They're pretty cool over there. This batch turned out good. The beer was bland but after I added the cherry concentrate, it turned out very tasty. I got some great feedback on the beer and actual requests for more.
About the time I started the second batch of beer, I also decided to dive headfirst into hard cider. It was October and the apple orchard out by Mom's house had fresh apple cider without preservatives. I did some reading, listened to some podcasts and I was ready to go.
I bought a gallon jug of the cider and a packet of bread yeast. I was going low tech. I drilled a hole in the cap of the bottle and fitted it with an airlock to keep that nasty bacteria laden air outside and release the carbon dioxide created during fermentation. I heated the cider to pasteurize and added the yeast, then some corn sugar for extra oomph and yeast food. For weeks, I checked the bottle. It bubbled steadily for a month.
Finally, I couldn't stand it any more. I decided to bottle the cider. I was much more excited than a gallon of hard cider deserved. With a happy heart, I went to the basement and set the cider on the washer. Then I ran back upstairs to heat up some sugar water for carbonating the bottles.
When the carbonating mixture was ready, I skipped merrily down the stairway to the garage eager to add it to the mix and rack the cider into bottles. When I reached the washer, I was devastated to see my gallon of cider on the floor and the clothes washer on the spin cycle with an unbalanced load. Half my cider had leaked out of the cap. Not only was I going to have to clean up the cider, the smell was going to permeate the garage and my dirty clothes for weeks.
I set the cider up on the washer since the spin cycle was finished. With the dirty towels, I started to mop up the cider. Man, I was mad at myself. That was a dumb move. I saved some of the cider but I lost a lot. In my own little world, I kept cleaning.
Suddenly, a bottle of cider fell on my head. Apparently, my clothes washer has two spin cycles. I quickly righted the bottle after losing a little more of the precious elixir. I turned off the washer and set the bottle on top. Then, I inserted a racking siphon into the neck of the bottle. A racking siphon is a rigid plastic tube used inside a container to move liquid from one container to another. I had attached a plastic tube and bottle wand to the end to make filling my bottles easier.
Apparently, a racking cane with a tube on the end is exactly heavy enough to tip a half bottle of apple cider. Yes dear reader, after filling one half bottle, six ounces, the bottle once again fell on top of my head. It was at this point that I went insane.
After waiting impatiently for over a month with joy and excitement in my heart, I had been forced, through my own stupidity to kneel in a pungent apple mixture and then been attacked not once but twice by the very cider I was trying to save. I ranted. I raved. I dented my washer. Not only that but I still have no idea where the bottle from the cider landed when I heaved it out the door and into the woods.
Several weeks later, I saw some cider for sale in the grocery store. FYI even when its not on the label, commercial cider contains an additive to prevent fermentation. At least this time, I don't smell like apples.
Cider can be hard. However, I can't seem to prove it.
I bought a second kit from Great Fermentations called Easy Wheat. The second batch was a mild wheat beer. I was going to add cherry for something similar to Sam Adams cherry wheat. Apparently, I didn't sanitize as well as I thought. Some bit of bacteria slipped into the fermenter and I got serious funk in my beer. All but a half gallon of that batch went to the septic. I have a faint hope the batch will mellow over time like a Brett beer, tart but tasty. It's a very faint hope.
I decided to try again. This time I bought a kit from Tuxedo Park Brewers Supply. They're pretty cool over there. This batch turned out good. The beer was bland but after I added the cherry concentrate, it turned out very tasty. I got some great feedback on the beer and actual requests for more.
About the time I started the second batch of beer, I also decided to dive headfirst into hard cider. It was October and the apple orchard out by Mom's house had fresh apple cider without preservatives. I did some reading, listened to some podcasts and I was ready to go.
I bought a gallon jug of the cider and a packet of bread yeast. I was going low tech. I drilled a hole in the cap of the bottle and fitted it with an airlock to keep that nasty bacteria laden air outside and release the carbon dioxide created during fermentation. I heated the cider to pasteurize and added the yeast, then some corn sugar for extra oomph and yeast food. For weeks, I checked the bottle. It bubbled steadily for a month.
Finally, I couldn't stand it any more. I decided to bottle the cider. I was much more excited than a gallon of hard cider deserved. With a happy heart, I went to the basement and set the cider on the washer. Then I ran back upstairs to heat up some sugar water for carbonating the bottles.
When the carbonating mixture was ready, I skipped merrily down the stairway to the garage eager to add it to the mix and rack the cider into bottles. When I reached the washer, I was devastated to see my gallon of cider on the floor and the clothes washer on the spin cycle with an unbalanced load. Half my cider had leaked out of the cap. Not only was I going to have to clean up the cider, the smell was going to permeate the garage and my dirty clothes for weeks.
I set the cider up on the washer since the spin cycle was finished. With the dirty towels, I started to mop up the cider. Man, I was mad at myself. That was a dumb move. I saved some of the cider but I lost a lot. In my own little world, I kept cleaning.
Suddenly, a bottle of cider fell on my head. Apparently, my clothes washer has two spin cycles. I quickly righted the bottle after losing a little more of the precious elixir. I turned off the washer and set the bottle on top. Then, I inserted a racking siphon into the neck of the bottle. A racking siphon is a rigid plastic tube used inside a container to move liquid from one container to another. I had attached a plastic tube and bottle wand to the end to make filling my bottles easier.
Apparently, a racking cane with a tube on the end is exactly heavy enough to tip a half bottle of apple cider. Yes dear reader, after filling one half bottle, six ounces, the bottle once again fell on top of my head. It was at this point that I went insane.
After waiting impatiently for over a month with joy and excitement in my heart, I had been forced, through my own stupidity to kneel in a pungent apple mixture and then been attacked not once but twice by the very cider I was trying to save. I ranted. I raved. I dented my washer. Not only that but I still have no idea where the bottle from the cider landed when I heaved it out the door and into the woods.
Several weeks later, I saw some cider for sale in the grocery store. FYI even when its not on the label, commercial cider contains an additive to prevent fermentation. At least this time, I don't smell like apples.
Cider can be hard. However, I can't seem to prove it.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Memories, Manifesto, and Apology
The Memories
It was crisp today. The Fall weather is sneaking in around the edges of my awareness. A snap in the air evokes memories of wooded rambles, hunting on the family land, visits to Brown County State Park, and my Grandparents' farm near the hills and gullies of Batesville. Sweat shirted walks on gravel roads and lumberjack paths flit across my inner view screen, transient home movies in 3D with smell and touchovision included.
It has been too long since my last ramble. How did I end up as an indoor pet? I was raised on the edge of the woods. The peace and quiet life of a green and brown world surrounded our home when I was growing up. Now I spend my days surrounded by cars and concrete staring at a man made virtual world. I am filled with wistful melancholy memories of a time spent in the blissful ignorance of teenagers everywhere. I miss it very much.
The Manifesto
I need to go camping this weekend. Maybe it will charge up my reality battery. I'm in danger of accepting this artificiality as typical and wholly acceptable. Someone at work today asked if I plan to build a bomb shelter and wait for the end of the world because I told him I am reading about beer making and raising chickens. It made me laugh. The end of the world I'm reading about is happening a little every day. When we forget the self reliance of our father's, father it dies a little more.
Don't get me wrong, I don't reject technology. I rejoice in the ingenuity of my fellow man. I had better. It allows me to be lazy and useless if I choose to. I don't so choose I reject the easy acceptance of cheap, low quality, objects and services in return for a docile slide into ignorance and torpidity. There is no need to regard a population lost in the bliss of narcissistic self reflection and apathy. The members of that population make no contribution except to the status-quo, raise no objections except to the loss of privilege. I can't take that lifestyle seriously when there is no growth or contribution by the members of it's club.
The funny thing about this type of rant is that I'm doing it on a blog. I am keenly aware of the irony. I suddenly have the mental picture of a man drowning in mud. Moral and mental quicksand are his environment and even though he fights upward to gasp again, he is pulled inexorably to drown in the warm comfortable surrounds he fights against. Sad really.
Tell me there is no validity in skill and self reliance. Make me aware that all I need is at my fingertips with little or no effort. Goods and services are available to be used and immediately discarded with little lasting value. Entertainment is endless, cheap, and alluring. Disregard the fact that over half of it is pointless, mundane, repetitive, and increasingly crass. I will disagree.
The Apology
Got to stop. I apologize. The world is not going to Hell. There are thousands of people who value knowledge, self reliance, personal growth, learning, and activity over ignorance, apathy and laziness. Smart, active, people with the wonder of God's creation abound among my associates. Some days you just want to be clear about what is important and if it sounds like a condemnation, then we probably disagree on a deep philosophical level. As I have said, and I don't know where I got it or if I made it up, "You are entitled to your opinion despite the fact that you are totally wrong." I am looking forward to changing your mind.
It was crisp today. The Fall weather is sneaking in around the edges of my awareness. A snap in the air evokes memories of wooded rambles, hunting on the family land, visits to Brown County State Park, and my Grandparents' farm near the hills and gullies of Batesville. Sweat shirted walks on gravel roads and lumberjack paths flit across my inner view screen, transient home movies in 3D with smell and touchovision included.
It has been too long since my last ramble. How did I end up as an indoor pet? I was raised on the edge of the woods. The peace and quiet life of a green and brown world surrounded our home when I was growing up. Now I spend my days surrounded by cars and concrete staring at a man made virtual world. I am filled with wistful melancholy memories of a time spent in the blissful ignorance of teenagers everywhere. I miss it very much.
The Manifesto
I need to go camping this weekend. Maybe it will charge up my reality battery. I'm in danger of accepting this artificiality as typical and wholly acceptable. Someone at work today asked if I plan to build a bomb shelter and wait for the end of the world because I told him I am reading about beer making and raising chickens. It made me laugh. The end of the world I'm reading about is happening a little every day. When we forget the self reliance of our father's, father it dies a little more.
Don't get me wrong, I don't reject technology. I rejoice in the ingenuity of my fellow man. I had better. It allows me to be lazy and useless if I choose to. I don't so choose I reject the easy acceptance of cheap, low quality, objects and services in return for a docile slide into ignorance and torpidity. There is no need to regard a population lost in the bliss of narcissistic self reflection and apathy. The members of that population make no contribution except to the status-quo, raise no objections except to the loss of privilege. I can't take that lifestyle seriously when there is no growth or contribution by the members of it's club.
The funny thing about this type of rant is that I'm doing it on a blog. I am keenly aware of the irony. I suddenly have the mental picture of a man drowning in mud. Moral and mental quicksand are his environment and even though he fights upward to gasp again, he is pulled inexorably to drown in the warm comfortable surrounds he fights against. Sad really.
Tell me there is no validity in skill and self reliance. Make me aware that all I need is at my fingertips with little or no effort. Goods and services are available to be used and immediately discarded with little lasting value. Entertainment is endless, cheap, and alluring. Disregard the fact that over half of it is pointless, mundane, repetitive, and increasingly crass. I will disagree.
The Apology
Got to stop. I apologize. The world is not going to Hell. There are thousands of people who value knowledge, self reliance, personal growth, learning, and activity over ignorance, apathy and laziness. Smart, active, people with the wonder of God's creation abound among my associates. Some days you just want to be clear about what is important and if it sounds like a condemnation, then we probably disagree on a deep philosophical level. As I have said, and I don't know where I got it or if I made it up, "You are entitled to your opinion despite the fact that you are totally wrong." I am looking forward to changing your mind.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
The Vines
A walking we went, me and she, came upon a walnut tree.
Covered round with vines all over, some green, some brown,
some tight, some down.
Vines in all the ways they are with leaves acover overhead.
She grabbed a vine and showed me it. " Do you think that it will live?"
Gently then I took it from her, layed it back where it belonged.
Twining gently among its fellows supporting, held and holding on.
"It will live, with gentle nurture. It will thrive held strong and light.
The walnut tree its home for living twined about with arms aplenty.
Some they die. They spent their lives, in the heart of all their loved ones.
They live long with certain knowledge. All they are is what they should be.
Uncertainty was on her features. Disbelief was in her eyes.
"What if they forget their purpose? Letting go, will they fall down?"
Smiling then, teeth, eyes and heart, I reminded her again of loving
"There cannot be fall of any if the family holds them tight.
Letting go, they're held so gently till they wake and grab what's right."
Then I thought she might believe me as a smile lurked on the edges.
"I might forget without reminding, won't you tell me now and then?"
"Every day I'll hold you gently, keep you tight against my breast.
Even when I don't speak plenty, quietly I'll tend the vines."
Covered round with vines all over, some green, some brown,
some tight, some down.
Vines in all the ways they are with leaves acover overhead.
She grabbed a vine and showed me it. " Do you think that it will live?"
Gently then I took it from her, layed it back where it belonged.
Twining gently among its fellows supporting, held and holding on.
"It will live, with gentle nurture. It will thrive held strong and light.
The walnut tree its home for living twined about with arms aplenty.
Some they die. They spent their lives, in the heart of all their loved ones.
They live long with certain knowledge. All they are is what they should be.
Uncertainty was on her features. Disbelief was in her eyes.
"What if they forget their purpose? Letting go, will they fall down?"
Smiling then, teeth, eyes and heart, I reminded her again of loving
"There cannot be fall of any if the family holds them tight.
Letting go, they're held so gently till they wake and grab what's right."
Then I thought she might believe me as a smile lurked on the edges.
"I might forget without reminding, won't you tell me now and then?"
"Every day I'll hold you gently, keep you tight against my breast.
Even when I don't speak plenty, quietly I'll tend the vines."
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Voice Recognition
The following took an hour. No I was not on drugs. Yes, I was speaking in complete, gramatically correct sentences. I stopped trying to fix mistakes after the first couple sentences and typed the last three words:
I am dictating with the word recognition software I downloaded off the Internet. So far this has been a very frustrating experience. I am told the program will learn as I talk to it. I think for a while I will not make any changes our best let you see what it is I’m saying there are the very often the end. Fighting in any area right and fair then has been an attempt to make a period. Program fat balls program softball if this program is a feast of sheer so far I’m not impressed. I can see why dragon naturally speaking as someone spends credibly frustrated and I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand for much longer but their chance that I could possibly tell a story barmaid on and not worry too much about fighting in the state that I’m a while and type almost working. One of these all of my computer programs will just take my verbal command. The odds are and be a while though allow I know that I’m speaking in clear voice I obviously have in accent hard to say you what will be the correct way to speak machine would understand me.
I have my doubts whether this will work by frustration level is so high I want to track the people down who make this program and hurt them. The roughly this program spare of user friendly. Salami I feel like a moron because the program will not do at all what I want. The fact the program is learning as I speak I hope it learns faster. As yet to be proven so my hopes are not high.
When im old and gray I assume we will no longer have a computer interface. Currently is no faster and much more aggravating. I’m going to bed. I will dream of dying programmers. I will smile as a am a daily diary they suffer. I think defense are not to spell cuss words. I can’t even get it to spell cuss. And not a single curse I spoke was correctly recorded. I OFFICIELY close enough, a TE backspace backspace backspace are Lak HATE THIS PROGRAM!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
My Little Red Sh*tvette.
When I got my license, I was lucky enough to have a car to drive. I wasn't lucky enough to have a Corvette. Instead I had a Chevrolet Chevette, a sh*tvette in the parlance of the day. It was a tan four door, four cylinder, manual transmission vehicle. It had no pick up and a heater that took half an hour to catch up to the car. It was my ride though and I was happy enough to have something to get me around town.
My car was a symbol of adulthood and I felt like a big man in my little car. I was excited to be able to park in the lot with all the other cool kids with cars. When I looked around, most of the cars were as beat up as mine but we were all just as happy to be able to drive to lunch and make use of some of that freedom that comes with being a grown up. The option to eat off campus was a huge deal. It made the whole side of the city our lunchroom.
Like most teenagers I was usually in a hurry. I would play the game of trying to make up a little time by zigging and zagging around the traffic. It took me years to understand how self-defeating this practice was. I always felt like it helped but all it really did was stress me out.
One time my game got me in a bit of trouble. It was winter and I was heading home from school. We lived about twenty five minutes outside of town and I was always trying to shave a minute or two off the trip. It was part of the game. I came up behind someone who was driving incredibly slow. I sat behind them for a minute but then whipped into the next lane to pass.
As an inexperienced driver, I was unprepared for what happened next. My rear wheels kept moving to the left as the front wheels straightened out. I corrected. The rear went the other direction, a little farther. Each time I turned the wheel to correct, the rear swung out farther the other way. Eventually I was swinging at a right angle to the road each direction. I swung to the left and the slow poke passed me on the right. I looked ahead and the oncoming car was definitely a concern since I was in his lane. I swung to the right and the oncoming car passed me on the left. At this point, my car or possibly God had enough. I did a complete three sixty in the middle of the road and slid backward off the shoulder.
After checking my pants and saying a quick thank you, I pulled back out onto the road and held up traffic for the rest of the drive home. I learned to pay attention a bit that day. Sometimes I wonder that I lived past my teenage years though.
One time I lost the brakes in the car and went through a stop light honking and flashing. That woke me up and my sister too. Another time, I was having a little fun ramming snow drifts and suddenly the car stopped dead. The car wouldn't start and I got out after I popped the hood. I lifted the top, I was astounded to see that snow was packed to the top of the engine compartment. Every nook and cranny was filled tightly with the aforementioned snow drifts.
Steve, my best friend, and I walked the half mile back to his house to get his truck and towed my car back to the workshop to thaw. I got the opportunity to replace a timing belt on the car. It turned into a learning experience after all.
The first time I ever got pulled over was fun too. My middle sister was a real social butterfly. She was a freshman and got invited to the movies with her boyfriend and some other class mates. I was assigned to pick her up. When I arrived, Patti was surrounded by her buddies and wanted me to take them all to her boyfriend's house to hang out. I had reservations. As I mentioned earlier, the Chevette is a compact four door. However, in addition to being a social butterfly, Patti is persuasive. Shortly, there were two people stacked in the front seat, four in the back seat, and two in the hatchback trunk.
We pulled out of the theater parking lot and were on our way. Everything was fine until I tried to stop. Apparently the weight of nine people is more than is recommended for braking in a Chevette. When I tried to stop, I almost had to stand on the brake pedal to avoid tapping the car in front of me. The front of the car dived toward the road and the bumper may or may not have touched the pavement.
Unfortunately, there was a policeman sitting in his squad car next to the intersection. When he pulled us over, I could tell he was amused but he took issue with our lack of sufficient seat belts and my inability to see out the back of the car. Luckily Pattie's boyfriend lived close by and he just followed us to his house. After that I kept the passenger quantity to five or less.
Another time I'll tell you a sure fire way to put a car through the back of the garage. Type at you later.
My car was a symbol of adulthood and I felt like a big man in my little car. I was excited to be able to park in the lot with all the other cool kids with cars. When I looked around, most of the cars were as beat up as mine but we were all just as happy to be able to drive to lunch and make use of some of that freedom that comes with being a grown up. The option to eat off campus was a huge deal. It made the whole side of the city our lunchroom.
Like most teenagers I was usually in a hurry. I would play the game of trying to make up a little time by zigging and zagging around the traffic. It took me years to understand how self-defeating this practice was. I always felt like it helped but all it really did was stress me out.
One time my game got me in a bit of trouble. It was winter and I was heading home from school. We lived about twenty five minutes outside of town and I was always trying to shave a minute or two off the trip. It was part of the game. I came up behind someone who was driving incredibly slow. I sat behind them for a minute but then whipped into the next lane to pass.
As an inexperienced driver, I was unprepared for what happened next. My rear wheels kept moving to the left as the front wheels straightened out. I corrected. The rear went the other direction, a little farther. Each time I turned the wheel to correct, the rear swung out farther the other way. Eventually I was swinging at a right angle to the road each direction. I swung to the left and the slow poke passed me on the right. I looked ahead and the oncoming car was definitely a concern since I was in his lane. I swung to the right and the oncoming car passed me on the left. At this point, my car or possibly God had enough. I did a complete three sixty in the middle of the road and slid backward off the shoulder.
After checking my pants and saying a quick thank you, I pulled back out onto the road and held up traffic for the rest of the drive home. I learned to pay attention a bit that day. Sometimes I wonder that I lived past my teenage years though.
One time I lost the brakes in the car and went through a stop light honking and flashing. That woke me up and my sister too. Another time, I was having a little fun ramming snow drifts and suddenly the car stopped dead. The car wouldn't start and I got out after I popped the hood. I lifted the top, I was astounded to see that snow was packed to the top of the engine compartment. Every nook and cranny was filled tightly with the aforementioned snow drifts.
Steve, my best friend, and I walked the half mile back to his house to get his truck and towed my car back to the workshop to thaw. I got the opportunity to replace a timing belt on the car. It turned into a learning experience after all.
The first time I ever got pulled over was fun too. My middle sister was a real social butterfly. She was a freshman and got invited to the movies with her boyfriend and some other class mates. I was assigned to pick her up. When I arrived, Patti was surrounded by her buddies and wanted me to take them all to her boyfriend's house to hang out. I had reservations. As I mentioned earlier, the Chevette is a compact four door. However, in addition to being a social butterfly, Patti is persuasive. Shortly, there were two people stacked in the front seat, four in the back seat, and two in the hatchback trunk.
We pulled out of the theater parking lot and were on our way. Everything was fine until I tried to stop. Apparently the weight of nine people is more than is recommended for braking in a Chevette. When I tried to stop, I almost had to stand on the brake pedal to avoid tapping the car in front of me. The front of the car dived toward the road and the bumper may or may not have touched the pavement.
Unfortunately, there was a policeman sitting in his squad car next to the intersection. When he pulled us over, I could tell he was amused but he took issue with our lack of sufficient seat belts and my inability to see out the back of the car. Luckily Pattie's boyfriend lived close by and he just followed us to his house. After that I kept the passenger quantity to five or less.
Another time I'll tell you a sure fire way to put a car through the back of the garage. Type at you later.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Time with Dad
When I was fourteen years old, approximately, I found out my Dad had a disease called Lou Gehrig's. It's also called ALS, or arterial lateral sclerosis. I don't write this to dwell on the disease or incite pity, or even to encourage research, although I support it. It's just a fact that had a profound effect on my family's lifestyle.
For those who don't know, Lou Gehrig's Disease attacks the nerves. Those afflicted with the condition are currently certain to die earlier than they would have otherwise. The nerves and muscles waste away starting, most obviously in my Dad's case, with the muscles controlling speech.
Dad began to talk less distinctly, then unintelligibly. He progressed from shorter sentences to a pad and pencil. Dad's handwriting wasn't great to begin with and was eventually as hard to understand as his speech had been. I could see it was frustrating for him.
I was a pretty clueless teen, as I believe most teens are and Dad had so much he needed to say before he was gone that he could hardly stand it some days. He knew more than I did that I would have to wake up and take responsibility for a much larger portion of my life very shortly. One day, when I had been particularly obtuse, he asked me why I acted like I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground. He had a way of saying some things that stick with me.
One thing that I'm sure Dad was a little worried about was teaching me to drive. He was never a super patient guy. My nervousness with the process of driving and learning to operate a stick shift 69' Chevy truck didn't help. To be fair, he didn't yell at me unless I made the same mistake lots of times.
One day he let me drive into town. He didn't have a lot of choice honestly. His arms weren't that strong by then and the truck didn't have power steering. He couldn't talk much at all either. He could still get his point across. He had a very expressive face and a way with body language. I got us into town and back but I killed the truck in one intersection three times before I got us across two lanes of traffic for a left turn. It wasn't good. When we got home from Columbus, Mom asked how the drive had been. Dad couldn't say anything so he grabbed his hair, pulled it up and went Aaaaahhh!
He was an awesome guy. I wish I had known him better. Everything was a learning experience. Most activities had opportunities to make a point or build a skill. Dad had a great philosophy of learning by doing. He would help but we weren't allowed to back out of a situation because of simple fear. If the truck needed to be moved off the hill, I should get in and move it. Anyone who has driven a stick realizes that as soon as the clutch is depressed, the truck starts rolling backward until it's given gas and the clutch is released. Nerve wracking isn't a strong enough phrase. It was a big hill and a heavy truck. I have a good imagination and I clearly saw that truck and my lifeless young body in its mangled remains at the bottom. That's not what happened though and I'm glad he made me do it now.
I wish I had known him better. I said it before and I think it to myself often. It's amazing how little we pay attention to the people around us. I had this really cool guy at home every day and didn't realize so much about him. Dad was an exceptional person. When we had his wake, so many people came that they had to line up around the building. The funeral director said he had never had so many people come to pay their respects. Wow! He was young and our family is large but still, to have that many people wish to show their last respects is humbling to me. I was sad and angry and blind at the time but I knew a really good man and had the opportunity to learn a little from him. I was blessed. I know that now.
Dad was the one who took us camping. He taught us to poop in the woods, how to set up a tent, what to cook over the fire, and how to love the outdoors and what was in it. Dad taught me to play baseball. I was an unwilling student, lazy would be accurate. I was smart enough that I didn't like trying activities I didn't grasp instantly. He made it fun though.
Dad devised a game we called nine ball. He realized that my sisters and I all loved to bat but didn't want to catch. We weren't stupid. Throw a rock at our heads and we would rather swat at it than try to catch it. In nine ball, all the players are in the outfield except for the person at bat. That person gets to bat until someone accrues nine points, at which time the bat and glove change hands and everyone goes back to zero.
You never saw kids work so hard to catch a ball. It was a cross between the MLB and the NFL. We ran over each other, tackled, hip bumped, and hopefully got the ball. Heaven forbid someone steal a fly ball. With three points on the line, we called our play and defended our turf. It was a blast, and I got pretty good at fielding too.
When I ran out of cub scout levels in the local troop, and didn't have a leader for the Webelo level, Dad became troop leader to me and my best friend Steve Bennett. Our troop of two didn't last a super long time but we made mini catapults in Dad's shop. Then we built really cool ice fishing sledges with a place for a heating gas lamp, all our gear, and a place to sit as we waited to catch half frozen blue gill. Dad taught me a little about cars, hunting, woodworking, farming, responsibility and teaching. Even though I still don't know what kind of animal a Webelo is, he made sure I was ready to learn and to help others learn.
Dad forever had a project for us that would teach us responsibility. We had regular chores. We fed the dogs, washed dishes, brought wood in for the stove. If a chore wasn't done, Dad would wake us up in the middle of the night to do it. I hated that, but it was always a while before I forgot again.
Dad bought rabbits and rabbit hutches. For a year or two we learned how to raise rabbits, how to breed them, how to clean them and not to name them. Unfortunately, we were given a German Shepard with a taste for rabbit and the operation went under.
Shortly after the rabbits were gone, we became strawberry farmers. Our house was on fifteen acres of land and part of it was tillable. One year a huge box of strawberry plants came in the mail and we had the job of putting them out. Then there was the picking. To this day, I rarely eat a strawberry. I like the taste OK, but I just don't want much to do with them. I must have picked a thousand quarts of strawberries before we stopped messing with them. It was good pay for a kid with no other job but it was tough hot work too. You won't catch me laughing at a migrant farmer. I've had a taste of the life and it's not easy.
I learned so much from Dad about the joy of living and helping and doing. He died when I was sixteen years old. I had to be a stronger, more confident, more responsible human being because of it. I learned to see the rest of my family and pay attention to the people they are. I stopped being that obtuse, self absorbed little snot that I had spent so many years being. I spent years angry that he was gone and then more years thankful to God for the blessings I was allowed.
It would have been nice to reach that age where we could talk as equals, two guys who had a house and kids in common, two men with jobs and wives and projects to do together. I wish he had met my kids and they had met him. They would have had so much fun together. I miss my Dad. Thank you God for letting me have him, even for a little while.
For those who don't know, Lou Gehrig's Disease attacks the nerves. Those afflicted with the condition are currently certain to die earlier than they would have otherwise. The nerves and muscles waste away starting, most obviously in my Dad's case, with the muscles controlling speech.
Dad began to talk less distinctly, then unintelligibly. He progressed from shorter sentences to a pad and pencil. Dad's handwriting wasn't great to begin with and was eventually as hard to understand as his speech had been. I could see it was frustrating for him.
I was a pretty clueless teen, as I believe most teens are and Dad had so much he needed to say before he was gone that he could hardly stand it some days. He knew more than I did that I would have to wake up and take responsibility for a much larger portion of my life very shortly. One day, when I had been particularly obtuse, he asked me why I acted like I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground. He had a way of saying some things that stick with me.
One thing that I'm sure Dad was a little worried about was teaching me to drive. He was never a super patient guy. My nervousness with the process of driving and learning to operate a stick shift 69' Chevy truck didn't help. To be fair, he didn't yell at me unless I made the same mistake lots of times.
One day he let me drive into town. He didn't have a lot of choice honestly. His arms weren't that strong by then and the truck didn't have power steering. He couldn't talk much at all either. He could still get his point across. He had a very expressive face and a way with body language. I got us into town and back but I killed the truck in one intersection three times before I got us across two lanes of traffic for a left turn. It wasn't good. When we got home from Columbus, Mom asked how the drive had been. Dad couldn't say anything so he grabbed his hair, pulled it up and went Aaaaahhh!
He was an awesome guy. I wish I had known him better. Everything was a learning experience. Most activities had opportunities to make a point or build a skill. Dad had a great philosophy of learning by doing. He would help but we weren't allowed to back out of a situation because of simple fear. If the truck needed to be moved off the hill, I should get in and move it. Anyone who has driven a stick realizes that as soon as the clutch is depressed, the truck starts rolling backward until it's given gas and the clutch is released. Nerve wracking isn't a strong enough phrase. It was a big hill and a heavy truck. I have a good imagination and I clearly saw that truck and my lifeless young body in its mangled remains at the bottom. That's not what happened though and I'm glad he made me do it now.
I wish I had known him better. I said it before and I think it to myself often. It's amazing how little we pay attention to the people around us. I had this really cool guy at home every day and didn't realize so much about him. Dad was an exceptional person. When we had his wake, so many people came that they had to line up around the building. The funeral director said he had never had so many people come to pay their respects. Wow! He was young and our family is large but still, to have that many people wish to show their last respects is humbling to me. I was sad and angry and blind at the time but I knew a really good man and had the opportunity to learn a little from him. I was blessed. I know that now.
Dad was the one who took us camping. He taught us to poop in the woods, how to set up a tent, what to cook over the fire, and how to love the outdoors and what was in it. Dad taught me to play baseball. I was an unwilling student, lazy would be accurate. I was smart enough that I didn't like trying activities I didn't grasp instantly. He made it fun though.
Dad devised a game we called nine ball. He realized that my sisters and I all loved to bat but didn't want to catch. We weren't stupid. Throw a rock at our heads and we would rather swat at it than try to catch it. In nine ball, all the players are in the outfield except for the person at bat. That person gets to bat until someone accrues nine points, at which time the bat and glove change hands and everyone goes back to zero.
You never saw kids work so hard to catch a ball. It was a cross between the MLB and the NFL. We ran over each other, tackled, hip bumped, and hopefully got the ball. Heaven forbid someone steal a fly ball. With three points on the line, we called our play and defended our turf. It was a blast, and I got pretty good at fielding too.
When I ran out of cub scout levels in the local troop, and didn't have a leader for the Webelo level, Dad became troop leader to me and my best friend Steve Bennett. Our troop of two didn't last a super long time but we made mini catapults in Dad's shop. Then we built really cool ice fishing sledges with a place for a heating gas lamp, all our gear, and a place to sit as we waited to catch half frozen blue gill. Dad taught me a little about cars, hunting, woodworking, farming, responsibility and teaching. Even though I still don't know what kind of animal a Webelo is, he made sure I was ready to learn and to help others learn.
Dad forever had a project for us that would teach us responsibility. We had regular chores. We fed the dogs, washed dishes, brought wood in for the stove. If a chore wasn't done, Dad would wake us up in the middle of the night to do it. I hated that, but it was always a while before I forgot again.
Dad bought rabbits and rabbit hutches. For a year or two we learned how to raise rabbits, how to breed them, how to clean them and not to name them. Unfortunately, we were given a German Shepard with a taste for rabbit and the operation went under.
Shortly after the rabbits were gone, we became strawberry farmers. Our house was on fifteen acres of land and part of it was tillable. One year a huge box of strawberry plants came in the mail and we had the job of putting them out. Then there was the picking. To this day, I rarely eat a strawberry. I like the taste OK, but I just don't want much to do with them. I must have picked a thousand quarts of strawberries before we stopped messing with them. It was good pay for a kid with no other job but it was tough hot work too. You won't catch me laughing at a migrant farmer. I've had a taste of the life and it's not easy.
I learned so much from Dad about the joy of living and helping and doing. He died when I was sixteen years old. I had to be a stronger, more confident, more responsible human being because of it. I learned to see the rest of my family and pay attention to the people they are. I stopped being that obtuse, self absorbed little snot that I had spent so many years being. I spent years angry that he was gone and then more years thankful to God for the blessings I was allowed.
It would have been nice to reach that age where we could talk as equals, two guys who had a house and kids in common, two men with jobs and wives and projects to do together. I wish he had met my kids and they had met him. They would have had so much fun together. I miss my Dad. Thank you God for letting me have him, even for a little while.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Previously Owned
I was randomly drifting through the blogs, attempting to find deep thoughts and insightful comments when I stumbled on a blog called Previously Owned. I can't support or decry this blog because I went no farther than the name.
Honestly, my mind makes some strange connections and I wondered haven't we all been previously owned? I'm not talking about being a belonging. I'm talking about those pitiful pictures you see on the internet of terrible, hilarious problems befalling the average citizen. Sometimes labeled Pwned! or just Owned! I'm not hip to the difference.
I've been Owned! many times, luckily never on film. For instance, when we were kids, my Dad showed us the wonder of grape vine swings. For you city kids, this involves finding a tree infested with wild grape vines. These aren't the kind of vine you see in a winery. They climb to the top of a tree and can be a couple inches thick at the base. Here is a likely candidate.
Grape vine image
These vines can be and are used by redneck kids as rope swings. If the tree is strong enough, and the vine is thick enough, and you have an axe, and hopefully a hill, this activity is a blast. It is worth the chance of Pwnership!
Step one: find the perfect vine in the perfect place. If the tree isn't on a hill, the swing is pretty tame. The perfect vine will take the abuse of a couple kids jumping as high as they can and yanking on it. The less than perfect vine will fall on your head.
Step two: run back to the house and find an axe or a hatchet. A vine must be detached from its roots to be used as a swing. They kill the trees, so it isn't a terrible loss to get rid of a few. Cut through the base high enough that the kids can drag the vine up the hill a ways without the bottom dragging but not so high no one can reach it.
Step three: drag the vine up the hill a ways. I kind of gave that one away.
Step four: Grab on tight and run down the hill. Screaming is optional.
The result of all this feverish activity is that as the vine swings away from the hill, the ground drops rapidly away from the feet of the human monkey hanging on to it, and the kids have fun. The ride is exhilarating and much cheaper than Kings Island.
As you may have surmised, there are drawbacks, caveats, and fine print involved in this activity. Most of the time, no problem is encountered. Everyone swings a few times. A couple kids let go right away and slide down the hill, no big deal. Sometimes things don't go as smoothly.
Every now and then the perfect swing can be found on the perfect hill. The vine can be dragged way up the hill. The hill drops off steeply and the ride is super exciting. We found this swing. I swung it. Repeatedly.
Then there was a problem.
I mentioned that part of this activity relies on the strength of tree and vine. One way to reach the stress limit of either is to put a hundred pounds of weight on the end of the vine and swing it back and forth thirty or forty times. I was a crash test dummy waiting to happen.
My sisters and possibly a cousin or two were swinging on the best vine ever. We were swinging twenty or thirty feet out and about that much above the bottom of the ravine before returning to the hillside. The ground would disappear below and the feeling of flight would be upon the lucky child.
It was my turn and, as usual, I dragged the vine as far up the hill as I could. I ran down the hill, grabbed tight and flew out into space...
A supporting vine tendril snapped.
My heart jumped into my throat as my short life flashed pitifully before my eyes.
I didn't fall. Amazingly, the rest of the vine held and I continued to swing. It was a long drop and I was pretty lucky.
As I began to relax though, I realized that my return trajectory had changed. I was no longer swinging back toward the soft hillside but toward an apparently pissed off Hickory tree which was supporting the majority of this vine.
It's amazing how intimidating a tree can look when you approach it fast enough. Ask a drunk. Unfortunately, I was totally sober at twelve years old, I didn't have the benefit of blurred vision until after the tree smacked me in the face and chest.
Here's the odd thing. I didn't bounce off and fall. Somehow, I let go of that vine and I grabbed the tree trunk. The vine went away and I was left hanging twenty or thirty feet off the ground against a tree I didn't know how to climb.
Imagine this twenty feet higher
I was stunned for a moment, spitting bark and blinking rapidly to dislodge pieces in my eyes. When I realized I was still alive, I put the highlights reel back inside my head and looked around. I'm not terrified of heights but I have a healthy respect for sudden stops on hard surfaces. The ground looks much harder while hanging in a tree.
I was officially Pwned! Anyone with a camera could have had me on a web site in minutes and I hate to think of the video. Luckily, the internet wasn't yet in existence. Cell phones were the size of bricks and sans camera. After a few minutes of panic, I realized it was not necessary to understand tree climbing to go down. I loosened my arms enough that I had a fairly graceful if sandpaper-esque trip to the bottom of the trunk.
As with most things when we were kids, this only phased us for about as long as it took to tell each other how scary it was and how cool I was for having it happen to me. Then we went looking for another perfect vine, on another perfect hill.
Honestly, my mind makes some strange connections and I wondered haven't we all been previously owned? I'm not talking about being a belonging. I'm talking about those pitiful pictures you see on the internet of terrible, hilarious problems befalling the average citizen. Sometimes labeled Pwned! or just Owned! I'm not hip to the difference.
I've been Owned! many times, luckily never on film. For instance, when we were kids, my Dad showed us the wonder of grape vine swings. For you city kids, this involves finding a tree infested with wild grape vines. These aren't the kind of vine you see in a winery. They climb to the top of a tree and can be a couple inches thick at the base. Here is a likely candidate.
Grape vine image
These vines can be and are used by redneck kids as rope swings. If the tree is strong enough, and the vine is thick enough, and you have an axe, and hopefully a hill, this activity is a blast. It is worth the chance of Pwnership!
Step one: find the perfect vine in the perfect place. If the tree isn't on a hill, the swing is pretty tame. The perfect vine will take the abuse of a couple kids jumping as high as they can and yanking on it. The less than perfect vine will fall on your head.
Step two: run back to the house and find an axe or a hatchet. A vine must be detached from its roots to be used as a swing. They kill the trees, so it isn't a terrible loss to get rid of a few. Cut through the base high enough that the kids can drag the vine up the hill a ways without the bottom dragging but not so high no one can reach it.
Step three: drag the vine up the hill a ways. I kind of gave that one away.
Step four: Grab on tight and run down the hill. Screaming is optional.
The result of all this feverish activity is that as the vine swings away from the hill, the ground drops rapidly away from the feet of the human monkey hanging on to it, and the kids have fun. The ride is exhilarating and much cheaper than Kings Island.
As you may have surmised, there are drawbacks, caveats, and fine print involved in this activity. Most of the time, no problem is encountered. Everyone swings a few times. A couple kids let go right away and slide down the hill, no big deal. Sometimes things don't go as smoothly.
Every now and then the perfect swing can be found on the perfect hill. The vine can be dragged way up the hill. The hill drops off steeply and the ride is super exciting. We found this swing. I swung it. Repeatedly.
Then there was a problem.
I mentioned that part of this activity relies on the strength of tree and vine. One way to reach the stress limit of either is to put a hundred pounds of weight on the end of the vine and swing it back and forth thirty or forty times. I was a crash test dummy waiting to happen.
My sisters and possibly a cousin or two were swinging on the best vine ever. We were swinging twenty or thirty feet out and about that much above the bottom of the ravine before returning to the hillside. The ground would disappear below and the feeling of flight would be upon the lucky child.
It was my turn and, as usual, I dragged the vine as far up the hill as I could. I ran down the hill, grabbed tight and flew out into space...
A supporting vine tendril snapped.
My heart jumped into my throat as my short life flashed pitifully before my eyes.
I didn't fall. Amazingly, the rest of the vine held and I continued to swing. It was a long drop and I was pretty lucky.
As I began to relax though, I realized that my return trajectory had changed. I was no longer swinging back toward the soft hillside but toward an apparently pissed off Hickory tree which was supporting the majority of this vine.
It's amazing how intimidating a tree can look when you approach it fast enough. Ask a drunk. Unfortunately, I was totally sober at twelve years old, I didn't have the benefit of blurred vision until after the tree smacked me in the face and chest.
Here's the odd thing. I didn't bounce off and fall. Somehow, I let go of that vine and I grabbed the tree trunk. The vine went away and I was left hanging twenty or thirty feet off the ground against a tree I didn't know how to climb.
Imagine this twenty feet higher
I was stunned for a moment, spitting bark and blinking rapidly to dislodge pieces in my eyes. When I realized I was still alive, I put the highlights reel back inside my head and looked around. I'm not terrified of heights but I have a healthy respect for sudden stops on hard surfaces. The ground looks much harder while hanging in a tree.
I was officially Pwned! Anyone with a camera could have had me on a web site in minutes and I hate to think of the video. Luckily, the internet wasn't yet in existence. Cell phones were the size of bricks and sans camera. After a few minutes of panic, I realized it was not necessary to understand tree climbing to go down. I loosened my arms enough that I had a fairly graceful if sandpaper-esque trip to the bottom of the trunk.
As with most things when we were kids, this only phased us for about as long as it took to tell each other how scary it was and how cool I was for having it happen to me. Then we went looking for another perfect vine, on another perfect hill.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Me as a kid - Part 3
Originally posted in Facebook by Greg Stier on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 11:22am
I was talking to someone about the earliest memories a person can recall. We were comparing experiences. I was amazed at what I could dredge up from the depths. Most of my memories are vignettes, just little pieces of time from several years of my life. They are vivid memories though, bright clear pictures in my mind, attached to a feeling and an action.
I have lived in eight places throughout my life. I was born in Greensburg, Indiana and first lived in a house near Millhousen, Indiana. My parents rented a two story brick house where we stayed till I entered second grade. I don't remember much from this house, only a playset in the back, the milk box out front, and waving to a man on a tractor who was bush hogging the pasture next to us. Mom told me it must have been a farmer named Mente Ruhl who owned the property. The house is still there. One of my uncles bought the land next door and built a home there.
When I was two or three, we moved to a big white house near Westport, IN. There is a lot more available in the memory banks from that house. The house was a two story wood frame with white aluminum siding. It was surrounded by cornfields as far as a person, three feet tall, could see. We had one visible neighbor, across the road and up the hill. There were apple trees in the back yard and maples in the front. The yard was huge. Near the road was a concrete block detached garage with huge swinging doors and a dirt floor. To the right of the house was a barn with a haymow that Dad built stairs to reach. We used to play up there. I had an awesome toy horse with springs at four corners. It was ride'm cowboy whenever I was in the haymow.
Westport was where I learned to ride a bicycle, first down the easy slope in the back yard, then on the gravel road in front. It's hard to believe in this day and age of not letting a child out of your sight, but I used to ride as much as a mile or a mile and a half away from the house with my best buddy Wade Wiley, who's sister, Stephanie, I had a heavy crush on.
At one point, Mom and Dad added on to the back of the house. I don't remember much about the construction but I remember what it looked like when it was done. There was a Berber carpet upstairs, olive green and brown I believe. The kitchen counter was orange, bright orange. There was also a cool spiral stair to the basement. I remember the huge pile of dirt from excavating the basement too. Before it was graded, it was our mountain and our jungle. We would climb it like Everest and play hide and seek in the weeds that grew on it. The original house stairs had a landing halfway and we used to stand on the landing, reach down as far as possible and swing/launch ourselves to the floor below.
There was a blue metal fan that I figured out how to use making sheet igloos. By weighting the edges of a bed sheet with some of Mom's two million Readers Digest condensed books, and blowing air underneath with the box fan, there was an instant club house. We would crawl under the sheet and talk through the fan as it cut our voices into robot sounds.
We would sometimes sing along as Dad played the guitar. Our favorite song was Country Roads. It was our first request every time he pulled out the instrument. Mom and Dad loved to sing together and we were lucky to have that music.
I had the upper bunk bed and remember liking the taste of the wood railing. I scraped the finish off several inches running my teeth up and down it. I was a sleep walker as a kid. Apparently Mom heard a noise from my room one night and found me standing on my upper bunk, still asleep but believing I was in the restroom. I, apparently, got pretty good distance.
I first drove a riding lawn mower in Westport, not often or for long, but I did it. Today, I can't even let my ten year old on the lawn mower because he isn't heavy enough to keep the safety gadget, under the seat, from turning off the engine.
One time Barb and I raced around the house and as we reached the porch, I slammed into the wall. Barb hit half wall and half door. Her hand went right through the glass and cut her wrist pretty badly. I can still see the blood pumping out of her arm. That was intense for a five year old. I think it would be intense today.
I remember getting in trouble because a neighbor gave us a jar of dandelion jelly and when she visited again, I told her we still had it. I just didn't understand that not having eaten it would be a bad thing. We felt like we were in trouble when a big rain would make the basement wet. Dad would have us down there with huge sponges and buckets, sopping up the mess. It is my least favorite memory from that old house.
When I was six or seven, we moved to Bartholomew Co. near a town called Hartsville. We stayed at this house until I was halfway through college and the majority of my childhood memories are there but I still treasure the glimpses of life I remember from Millhousen and Westport.
I have lived in eight places throughout my life. I was born in Greensburg, Indiana and first lived in a house near Millhousen, Indiana. My parents rented a two story brick house where we stayed till I entered second grade. I don't remember much from this house, only a playset in the back, the milk box out front, and waving to a man on a tractor who was bush hogging the pasture next to us. Mom told me it must have been a farmer named Mente Ruhl who owned the property. The house is still there. One of my uncles bought the land next door and built a home there.
When I was two or three, we moved to a big white house near Westport, IN. There is a lot more available in the memory banks from that house. The house was a two story wood frame with white aluminum siding. It was surrounded by cornfields as far as a person, three feet tall, could see. We had one visible neighbor, across the road and up the hill. There were apple trees in the back yard and maples in the front. The yard was huge. Near the road was a concrete block detached garage with huge swinging doors and a dirt floor. To the right of the house was a barn with a haymow that Dad built stairs to reach. We used to play up there. I had an awesome toy horse with springs at four corners. It was ride'm cowboy whenever I was in the haymow.
Westport was where I learned to ride a bicycle, first down the easy slope in the back yard, then on the gravel road in front. It's hard to believe in this day and age of not letting a child out of your sight, but I used to ride as much as a mile or a mile and a half away from the house with my best buddy Wade Wiley, who's sister, Stephanie, I had a heavy crush on.
At one point, Mom and Dad added on to the back of the house. I don't remember much about the construction but I remember what it looked like when it was done. There was a Berber carpet upstairs, olive green and brown I believe. The kitchen counter was orange, bright orange. There was also a cool spiral stair to the basement. I remember the huge pile of dirt from excavating the basement too. Before it was graded, it was our mountain and our jungle. We would climb it like Everest and play hide and seek in the weeds that grew on it. The original house stairs had a landing halfway and we used to stand on the landing, reach down as far as possible and swing/launch ourselves to the floor below.
There was a blue metal fan that I figured out how to use making sheet igloos. By weighting the edges of a bed sheet with some of Mom's two million Readers Digest condensed books, and blowing air underneath with the box fan, there was an instant club house. We would crawl under the sheet and talk through the fan as it cut our voices into robot sounds.
We would sometimes sing along as Dad played the guitar. Our favorite song was Country Roads. It was our first request every time he pulled out the instrument. Mom and Dad loved to sing together and we were lucky to have that music.
I had the upper bunk bed and remember liking the taste of the wood railing. I scraped the finish off several inches running my teeth up and down it. I was a sleep walker as a kid. Apparently Mom heard a noise from my room one night and found me standing on my upper bunk, still asleep but believing I was in the restroom. I, apparently, got pretty good distance.
I first drove a riding lawn mower in Westport, not often or for long, but I did it. Today, I can't even let my ten year old on the lawn mower because he isn't heavy enough to keep the safety gadget, under the seat, from turning off the engine.
One time Barb and I raced around the house and as we reached the porch, I slammed into the wall. Barb hit half wall and half door. Her hand went right through the glass and cut her wrist pretty badly. I can still see the blood pumping out of her arm. That was intense for a five year old. I think it would be intense today.
I remember getting in trouble because a neighbor gave us a jar of dandelion jelly and when she visited again, I told her we still had it. I just didn't understand that not having eaten it would be a bad thing. We felt like we were in trouble when a big rain would make the basement wet. Dad would have us down there with huge sponges and buckets, sopping up the mess. It is my least favorite memory from that old house.
When I was six or seven, we moved to Bartholomew Co. near a town called Hartsville. We stayed at this house until I was halfway through college and the majority of my childhood memories are there but I still treasure the glimpses of life I remember from Millhousen and Westport.
Me as a kid - Part 2
Original post in Facebook by Greg Stier on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:34am
Oh what a family too. Eleven uncles and aunts, fifty first cousins (give or take), and only God and Grandma know how many second cousins now that everyone is having kids. Anyway, with a family like that there was little need to turn to strangers for entertainment. It seemed like every other weekend we were rotating to one grandma's house or the other. There was nearly always someone around to play with or raise hell with, depending on who you ask.
Official family functions at the Grandma Stier's house were sure to have volleyball as part of the fun. The Stier family used to take volleyball pretty seriously. They are a competitive bunch, and mostly in pretty good shape. The games could get pretty tough. I wanted to be part of that group out there when I was little. They were having so much fun, I wanted to jump right in. Luckily there was always room for a little one on the court and it was usually a while before they realized that most of the shots were going around them. I got my share of serves and eventually grew into the game. It was as fun as I thought it would be and I'm still looking for a league to join on a regular basis.
Grandma and Grandpa Moeller's house had different allures. First of all, Grandma kept chickens. When grand kids were around, those chickens probably didn't sit on an egg more than five minutes before a grubby hand was shoved under their butt to steal it. The only defense the chickens had was the meanest rooster in Indiana. That nasty so and so used to strut around the yard waiting for an excuse to kill a child. It chased adults too. Grandma didn't like it one bit and used to give us permission to kick it if we were attacked.
If the corn was in, we would climb the huge pile of on- the-cob corn in the corn bin and slide down like it was a ride at some country theme park. There were machines of mysterious nature all over the farm to be examined and speculated upon. It was even more exciting when Grandpa would show us what they really did and how they worked.
Inside the enormous wood barn, with its hand hewn beams and columns there was the mother of all rope swings. The rope was an inch and a half thick and reached thirty or forty feet up to a beam over the main aisle of the barn. It was a rush to really get going in that thing. We would all wait impatiently for our turn to blast off.
Also in the barn was the haymow. Grandpa stored bales of hay for feeding his cows above the stalls. The bales, for the uninitiated, were about 2'x2'x4' of tightly packed hay held together with two pieces of twine. We used them as gigantic Lego blocks. We built forts and tunnels all over that barn. We chased each other and had wars with the old mud wasp nests hanging from the ceiling. They exploded with a very satisfying dust cloud but hurt if they actually hit you. Luckily we had terrible aim or fast reflexes. Martha, Grandma's spinster sister, used to scold us for making a mess of Grandpa's barn and coming in the house covered in hay but Grandpa never seemed to mind much. Martha lived with Grandpa and Grandma. She was tall and a little scary when I was little because she wasn't too patient with the little ones but as I got older, she mellowed a lot and I found out she was a wonderful lady.
Another perennial activity at our house was cutting wood. We burned wood for heat and had to travel to the farm on a pretty regular basis to get a truck load for the next winter. Dad used to bring a bag lunch and we would stick glass bottles of Coke in the creek to cool, safely held by an old mesh potato sack. Woodcutting wasn't my favorite job as a kid. When I was little the wood was huge and the only job available for someone of limited muscle was dragging brush. I must have piled half a forest before I got big enough to be trusted with the more dangerous jobs of cutting little limbs with an axe and, eventually, a chainsaw. On the way home we would stop at the Letts gas station and buy some candy as a reward for all the hard work. Dad believed in rewards for a good attitude during slave labor.
What a rush that chainsaw was, and is, moving through hard wood like a knife through butter. The moment before a dead tree fell, when the direction of travel was, so to speak, up in the air, left you wired to run any direction at a moment's notice.Then at the end of the day, there was the satisfaction of visible progress. A fence row was clear. Cut wood was piled in the back of a truck for a useful purpose. There are few activities I find so immediately satisfying. There is the almost total focus of splitting piece after piece of wood off a large round. Swing! Crack! Turn. Repeat. It is honest, uncomplicated labor with few political overtones, no one to offend and a good work out to boot.
One of Dad's enthusiastic hobbies was hunting squirrel in the woods and when I got a little older, he started taking me occasionally. I didn't enjoy it at first, mostly because we had to climb out of bed at 5:00am to get to the farm before the squirrels started moving. Think about it. I had to beat a squirrel out of bed. What does that say about me? Who has more sense? Anyway, I eventually got into the spirit of being in the woods so early that the world was just waking up.
I never cared much if I got a squirrel. I don't like the smell of boiling squirrel anyway. Baked and barbecued is a bit better. So, as I got older I developed the philosophy of going for a walk with a gun. When I found a nice place to rest, I would take a little nap. Any squirrel that woke me up probably deserved to die. One time while practicing that philosophy, I opened my eyes to see a red fox staring at the idiot sleeping against the tree. I didn't move. I was totally captivated, having never seen one so close in the woods. It was an experience I really enjoyed.
We also camped at the farm a couple times a summer, usually in conjunction with cutting wood. We weren't the hard core rough-it bunch of campers. There was always a cooler of goodies even though most of the food was cooked over a camp fire. Mom would usually stick in a pan of baked beans, which Dad loved, to go with our hot dogs and some Little Debbie snacks for dessert. We slept in tents, on air mattresses intended to float in a swimming pool. These took approximately three days to blow up and caused dizziness and nausea as all the useful air in our lungs was forced into them, but were much more comfortable than the ground.
Mom was usually conspicuously absent at these events. She preferred a bed to a sleeping bag. I'm sure it was a much needed break for her. Raising five kids as a stay at home mother, she probably had a little party while we were gone. Dad enjoyed teaching us a little something every trip. One time it was tree names and leaves, another, animal tracks, cooking over a fire, setting up a tripod, and most importantly, what NOT to wipe with when hovering behind a tree. We would wade in the creek and wander in the woods exploring this little kingdom away from home.
Hope you enjoyed. More later..
Me as a kid - Part 1
Some of you may have seen the first few posts before. They were previously posted on Facebook in the notes section but this is more fun and I hate an empty page. I figured this would be a good way to start.
by Greg Stier on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:08pm
When I was little there was very little to worry about. We wandered in the woods. We threw rocks, shot bottles, rode bicycles, and swam in the creek. If I added up all the hills and valleys I climbed as a kid, Everest would seem short. It was a wonderful childhood.
I had company in sisters. There were three people around at any given time to fight, tease, scare, or disgust. I also had a little brother but he got poked and teased by the sisters, so I didn't have that responsibility.
I was an awkward kid, like most kids. I didn't really know where I fit in but I had a few friends and we had fun. My best friend Stephen and I spent a lot of time wearing a rut between each others houses. He was a real farm kid, with real farm animals.
I liked to go to his house and help. I saw calves and piglets birthed, pigs castrated, fed motherless calves, and rode horses. It was a blast.
We weren't real farm kids. We just lived in the country. We did have rabbits, but not the kind you could name and get friendly with. People came by to pick up dinner on a regular basis.
To be fair we had a pony for a short while. It came with the house. Sugar was his name and he seemed very big in my memories until I saw a picture of my father astride him. Dad was six feet tall and the picture shows his feet hanging about six inches off the ground. It's amazing what perspective can change. Sugar disappeared like several of our animals seemed to. I don't remember when. I must have blinked. It makes me wonder how much I missed as I drifted around in my little kid world.
Some things you never forget though. I remember putting on our oldest tennis shoes, cut off jean shorts and old t-shirts to swim at Anderson falls. There was a huge chunk of rock in the stream and we would climb it and jump, climb it and jump, climb it and jump... There were crawdads to catch, the falls to walk behind if it had rained recently, sand on the shore to dig and pile. Sometimes we would bring huge inner tubes from tractor tires and take a lazy ride down the creek to the bridge near the house. Frequent stops were mandatory. The minnows must be chased and, if you caught a crawdad, so must the sisters. If the crawdad caught you, it wasn't quite as fun, but the sisters liked it better.
The bridge near the house was a big metal truss affair which eventually received a wooden floor when the metal one rotted out too bad. If the creek was deep enough, we would hang from the under-structure and drop the ten or fifteen feet into the water. The carp that swam in the shade of the bridge would scatter downstream for a while until we left their lazy resting place.
When I wasn't in the creek, I was in the woods. Dad and Mom owned fifteen acres, half of it hills. I wandered every inch of it at one point or another. All the neighbors had the same kind of properties so we would take off on hikes across the country, no destination in mind and get there in plenty of time.
When I was thirteen, Dad got a Honda dirt bike from a guy at work and I spent the next three years pretty much riding that wonderful death trap. Stephen had one too and we tore up the woods making tracks. We would climb the steep hills to see if we could make it to the top or if the motorcycle would end on top of us. We went mudding in the swamp, crossed creeks, raced, and drove on the road when we shouldn't have.
At one point, I built a ramp, and boy, was it a ramp! I could get thirty or forty feet of air time on that thing. Stephen was pretty impressed but forgot to pull up his front tire. He got thirty or forty feet of road rash. Luckily the road was field dirt and not asphalt but he still limped for a bit and he was done with the ramp.
The motorcycle was my baby till I turned sixteen and got the Vette, Chevette that is, or in the parlance of the day a sh*tvette.
To be continued...
by Greg Stier on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:08pm
When I was little there was very little to worry about. We wandered in the woods. We threw rocks, shot bottles, rode bicycles, and swam in the creek. If I added up all the hills and valleys I climbed as a kid, Everest would seem short. It was a wonderful childhood.
I had company in sisters. There were three people around at any given time to fight, tease, scare, or disgust. I also had a little brother but he got poked and teased by the sisters, so I didn't have that responsibility.
I was an awkward kid, like most kids. I didn't really know where I fit in but I had a few friends and we had fun. My best friend Stephen and I spent a lot of time wearing a rut between each others houses. He was a real farm kid, with real farm animals.
I liked to go to his house and help. I saw calves and piglets birthed, pigs castrated, fed motherless calves, and rode horses. It was a blast.
We weren't real farm kids. We just lived in the country. We did have rabbits, but not the kind you could name and get friendly with. People came by to pick up dinner on a regular basis.
To be fair we had a pony for a short while. It came with the house. Sugar was his name and he seemed very big in my memories until I saw a picture of my father astride him. Dad was six feet tall and the picture shows his feet hanging about six inches off the ground. It's amazing what perspective can change. Sugar disappeared like several of our animals seemed to. I don't remember when. I must have blinked. It makes me wonder how much I missed as I drifted around in my little kid world.
Some things you never forget though. I remember putting on our oldest tennis shoes, cut off jean shorts and old t-shirts to swim at Anderson falls. There was a huge chunk of rock in the stream and we would climb it and jump, climb it and jump, climb it and jump... There were crawdads to catch, the falls to walk behind if it had rained recently, sand on the shore to dig and pile. Sometimes we would bring huge inner tubes from tractor tires and take a lazy ride down the creek to the bridge near the house. Frequent stops were mandatory. The minnows must be chased and, if you caught a crawdad, so must the sisters. If the crawdad caught you, it wasn't quite as fun, but the sisters liked it better.
The bridge near the house was a big metal truss affair which eventually received a wooden floor when the metal one rotted out too bad. If the creek was deep enough, we would hang from the under-structure and drop the ten or fifteen feet into the water. The carp that swam in the shade of the bridge would scatter downstream for a while until we left their lazy resting place.
When I wasn't in the creek, I was in the woods. Dad and Mom owned fifteen acres, half of it hills. I wandered every inch of it at one point or another. All the neighbors had the same kind of properties so we would take off on hikes across the country, no destination in mind and get there in plenty of time.
When I was thirteen, Dad got a Honda dirt bike from a guy at work and I spent the next three years pretty much riding that wonderful death trap. Stephen had one too and we tore up the woods making tracks. We would climb the steep hills to see if we could make it to the top or if the motorcycle would end on top of us. We went mudding in the swamp, crossed creeks, raced, and drove on the road when we shouldn't have.
At one point, I built a ramp, and boy, was it a ramp! I could get thirty or forty feet of air time on that thing. Stephen was pretty impressed but forgot to pull up his front tire. He got thirty or forty feet of road rash. Luckily the road was field dirt and not asphalt but he still limped for a bit and he was done with the ramp.
The motorcycle was my baby till I turned sixteen and got the Vette, Chevette that is, or in the parlance of the day a sh*tvette.
To be continued...
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