The Penny and the Spider

Old curmudgeon vanilla

sat on a sofa pilla

Much to his surprise

a spider of great size

crawled up and sat down beside him.

The creature meant no harm

so without any alarm

vanilla placed the beautiful beast

for a photo at least

in the bowl of the kitchen sink.

For comparison, a penny

was carefully put in a

position nearby; the shutter: "click," 

he took the pic

he's sharing.  Isn't that nice?

TR and Vanilla

A beautiful fall evening, 1915.  Former President Theodore Roosevelt was to speak at our local community center.  Naturally I could not miss an opportunity to hear this outstanding man whose service to the country will be long remembered.

The young lady who introduced Mr. Roosevelt gave some brief background to the times.  She reminded us that Henry Ford had just sold his one millionth Model T automobile, and that we could own one ourselves for $300.  We could buy our gasoline at the local drugstore.  Remember, though that the speed limit in town is ten miles per hour, and be careful.

Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that there are now bathtubs in 16% of all American homes, and nearly 12% have telephones!

Mr. Roosevelt took the podium and regaled us with tales of his first buffalo hunt in Dakota.  His wife was pregnant with their first child, but of course she realized that Theodore was doing this for her, for "What wife would not be delighted to hold her new child in the parlor with the mounted head of such a great beast looking down on them?"

This trip, which included nine straight days in the rain before a buffalo was bagged, was the impetus which inspired the man to focus as he did on conservation, the preservation of the great land in which we live.  Mr. Roosevelt told how he saved the pelicans on Pelican Island in Florida, in spite of critics who questioned the constitutionality of his actions.  The American Antiquities Act of 1906 allowed him to designate the Grand Canyon a National Monument, and thus protect it from predation.

Next, The President opened the sessions to questions.  One young man asked concerning Mr. Roosevelt's role as Father of the National Park System.  We were advised that while he did indeed establish five national parks during his administration, there were already five parks designated prior to that.  I followed his response with a question.  "Mr. President, with all due respect, would you mind revisiting 1912?"

"Not at all!  At the Republican Convention in Chicago that year, the nomination was stolen from me."  He explained how that happened in detail, then went on to relate his decision to run as a third-party candidate for the Progressive Party. Yes, he said he knew that that gave the election to the Democrats.  "Mr. Wilson was an intelligent man, a progressive, but he had a spine like a chocolate eclair."*

The final question was from a high school girl who wanted Mr. Roosevelt to talk about his children.  Again, the man was "delighted," for it was a subject dear to his heart.  His eldest, Alice, was fifteen when they entered the White House, and the press immediately became enamored of her, referred to her as a "princess."  The problem, TR said, was that when a teenage girl is told often enough that she is a princess, she begins to believe it.  He talked at some length about Alice, including her recent marriage to Longworth.  He talked briefly about each of the boys, then finally came to Quentin, the youngest.  He related a tale in which Quentin entered the Oval Office with a snake which had been given him.  He assured the boy that the reptile would become a part of their menagerie, but that Dad was really quite busy right now.  "There are two Senators in the anteroom.  Why don't you go introduce the snake to them?  They speak its language."

Following the applause, Gib Young stepped out of his role and entertained some questions about himself.  He made a statement which I thought significant, and which validates a notion I have long held about professional actors.  He averred that life within his role was much more exciting than anything he might experience as his boring self.  He gave examples.  I believe that herein lies a motivation to live the actor's life.  A person who lacks confidence in his own ability to live fully and happily as himself is the person most likely to become a thespian.

It was a great evening, time well-spent.

You may read Mr. Young's curriculum vitae here.

Delighted!

*Historians generally believe that the simile was first applied to McKinley, not Wilson, and that it was not TR who said it; though it is certain that Roosevelt heard it, for he did use similar expressions on occasion.

Repost and Update

A few years ago I posted these fall pictures in black and white taken back in the day when i burned a lot of Tri-X.  Following these old pictures, I am adding the pictures taken through the rainy atmosphere this day provided.

A long time ago, another time, but in this place, I shot a lot of black and white film. I processed the pictures myself. I never got really good at photography, but occasionally I got lucky and came up with a decent picture. This one has long been a favorite of mine. It serves here as a header to "Indiana Fall in Black and White."

This was the vechicle which I drove back and forth to work. It is already twenty-six years old at the time this picture was taken.

Hangers-on. The leaves don't all fall at once.

Hmmm. If we rake now, we'll have to rake again. Decisions, decisions.

Falling leaves. Serendipity, for one cannot simply "order" the leaves to fall in front of the lens.

My daughter's car in the driveway. If you can identify it you are a true "car geek."

Two gables. Jerkinhead gable; straight gable.

And now the October 2014 update.

Standing in the sunroom, I opened a panel and the screen. It was raining, is still raining.  The orange/russet/red is a purple ash.  The yellow in front is provided by neighbor's tree, also an ash, but a different variety.  The green in the back left is one of the austrees in our windbreak.  Stubborn things are refusing to succumb to fall.  Yet.

 Of course there is some raking and some vine removal in the near future.  If it quits raining, that is.

Snow White and her coterie of weird little friends is scheduled to be housed in their winter quarters.  As soon as it quits raining.

One more from the secret garden behind the barn.  Won't be long now.

The More Things Change

In Elbridge Paige’s book of Short Patent Sermons published in 1841 we find

    [There are those] who would rather ride to hell in a hand-cart than walk to heaven supported by the staff of industry.

 Things haven’t changed much, have they?


Sharkey points out in the comments that language changes.  I, personally, am old enough to remember when "industry" did mean application of oneself to productive behavior.  Thus it did not occur to me to think in terms of current usage when I read the above line.  Old guy.

Still Waiting

The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2-0, clinching the World Series. It was 1908.  It was their second consecutive World Championship as they had won the series in 1907 against the Tigers.  The Cubs have subsequently played in seven Series, the most recent in 1945.  Yet no win in 106 years.  

Wait 'til next year!


I usually come awake to the baseball season around the first of October.  This year, though, I have no idea who will be playing in the World Series.

Climbing Fool's Hill; and Coming Back Down #T

Springtime had arrived on the Front Range.  I think it was a high school freshman class picnic.  Surely it must have been my freshman year, for no one older than fourteen would have behaved in a manner silly enough to generate this tale.

The class was not a large class, for the school itself was a small school.  Close enough:  there were more than ten of us, fewer than twenty, as we set out in four cars driven by the class sponsors and a couple of courageous upper-school youngsters.

A few miles above the Garden of the Gods on the Rampart Range Road, there was a very nice spot for a picnic.  Large meadow allowing for games, plenty of places to explore.  While others were engaged in games of a social nature, three of us wandered up the hill to the site of an old abandoned mine.  We climbed the hill of rubble, moving two steps forward and a step back as the material gave beneath our feet. (Disclaimer:  the hill was not nearly so massive as the one depicted above, but it was adequate.)  Having gained the summit, it seemed imperative to enter the adit and explore the interior of the mine.  However, inside the mouth a few steps, broken timbers and fallen rock were sufficient to convey the message that entry was not warranted.

As I stepped out onto the unstable pile of small rocks, my weight and the forward motion combined to create a skiing action.  Wow!  That was fun.  Climb back up the hill, repeat.  Climb back up, wait.  If I make a short run (there was space for no more than a short run) I can fly!  The landing will be safe, for the itty bitty rocks will cushion me, and I may skid a  l o n g way down the hill!

This all worked exactly as I had pictured it in my mind, up to and including the feet-first landing.  But my feet had no more than made contact than so did my behind.  And I skied a way down the hill.  On my backside.  The rest hardly needs telling, but I know you want my version of the outcome.  Outcome.  What an appropriate term, for when I managed to stand, my hands rather reflexively reached toward the most offended part of my anatomy.  They discovered that there no longer existed a material seat in my breeches.  And that my behind was quite bloody.

Needless, I am sure, to say that the "picnic" was over for me.  But not for my classmates, who went on having fun, while I sat alone, to the side, on an old blanket a sponsor had in the trunk of his car.  Hurt, too.  My pride I mean.  What did you think I meant?

The illustration was borrowed from among dozens I found online and tampered with considerably to reflect sort of what I saw on that sunny May afternoon.

The Whole Person

 

BBBH made this snapshot with her smartphone.  The setting is the tabletop in the sunroom.  Quite ordinary, is it not?

At first blush, so it would seem.  Yet it is representative of much of life as we live it. I asked her to send a copy to me so that I could use it here.  Thanks, Baby.

The focal point would be the tomatoes, the end of the crop.  The display represents the work involved in turning the soil, setting the plants, nurturing and watering them throughout the long days of summer.  The yellow, red, and green, show stages in development, and variety in cultivars.  The yellow and the red are reminders of the juicy enjoyment from July to October, and the green suggests that the plants were willing to continue production, but time ran out.  As it shall for us all.

The items in the foreground, the newspaper, the tv control, are reminders that we are not in this alone.  There is a big world surrounding us, and while we may be the center of our own little world, we are by no means the focus of the universe.  Will we leave a mark when we are gone?

The gameboard in the background reminds us that leisure time does not have to be wasted time.  Keeping the old minds sharp!  Yes, there is a score sheet, though just out of the picture, top right.  This a reminder that even in our world of cooperation and amity there is still a competitive nature within us.  A reminder, too, that as much as I wish it otherwise my score is not always the higher.

Nourishment for the body and for the mind.

The last of the Uncle Jeptha Tales

appeared here on September 25.    

Should you wish to read or reread 

any of them, They can be accessed 

via the “Short Stories” and “More 

Stories” tabs at the top of the   

page.                    

Poetry and Red Onions #T

My father was a minister of the gospel, which I have mentioned numerous times on this blog.  Thus, when I was a lad, I got acquainted with many preachers.  Some of them made a lasting impression, most of those for all the right reasons.

A memorable individual in my life was Rev. Mr. Howard K. Busby of Lamont, Kansas.  Mr. Busby was a dear friend of my father.  He was six years older than Dad and in addition to their profession, they had much in common.  Though both men were pastors, and each served the church in administrative capacities at various times in their lives, they both conducted revival meetings on occasion.  One year when I was in my late teens, a camp meeting in New York State scheduled both men as the evangelists for the ten-day meeting.  Dad took his family with him for that meeting. This did not happen often.  Usually, Mom stayed home with the kids, the kids went to school, life lived much as usual.

The trip across country, New York State, and meeting new people were all interesting.  The camp meeting itself was run in the more-or-less typical pattern of such camps in that day. There were "preaching" services morning, afternoon, and evening with the preachers alternating pulpit duties.  So it was that if Dad preached an evening service, Busby would be on the next morning, and that evening, with Dad speaking in the afternoon.

Brother Busby (all the church people were known to one another as "Brother" or "Sister") had a routine whereby he eschewed the evening meal on those nights he was scheduled to preach.  But after the meeting we would meet with him in our cottage, or in his, and it was in this setting that he introduced me to one of his favorite after-service snacks.  Oh, salivating now, just remembering!  Mr. Busby would make himself a sandwich, and one for me, since no one else in the set cared to partake.  He would slice one of those big, sweet red onions, slather a generous portion of butter on the bread, and enclose the onion slice between two pieces of said bread.  What deliciousness!  What wonderful memories of munching and talking late in the evening!

Mr. Busby committed to memory vast amounts of scripture and many, many poems as well.  He sprinkled these gems liberally throughout his sermons, a technique which my father also used.  All these memories came back in a flood when I espied a book on my shelves entitled "The Busby Scrapbook of Poems that Touch the Heart."  It is a compilation of poetry he collected and loved, and finally had published.  I can still hear him quoting "The Touch of the Master's Hand" or "The World is Mine."

Mr. Busby died at age 93, just two years before my father passed away.

Sadly, I can no longer eat raw onions in the evening, nor any other time, for that matter.

Here is a short poem from Busby's collection:

                    TIME

When as a child I laughed and wept                      

    time crept.

When as a youth I dreamed and talked

    time walked.

When I became a full-grown man

    time ran.

Soon I shall find in traveling on

    time gone.