New Year's Eve Herring Supper: A Family Tradition

 

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Herring Supper, which has its origins in Europe, is the time when family and friends gather to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. The tradition centers around the idea of eating foods which are said to ensure prosperity, good luck, and wealth in the coming year. Herring, the fishy star of the show, was known as "silver of the sea." This event wasn't always celebrated in my family, but traditions have to start somewhere, and as I recall the story, this yearly shindig became part of my family lore circa 1947.

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The Schellberg family lived on a farm adjacent to the one my grandparents called home at that time, and being close friends and neighbors, Grandpa and old man Schellberg would often ride together the few miles into town whenever the need arose. Presumably, the need was to take care of legitimate business like visiting the feed store, getting a haircut, or picking up some particular item for Grandma or Mrs. Schellberg, but I have a hunch that maybe the two fellas just enjoyed getting away and putting down a few cold ones, as they were wont to do from time to time.

It was December 31, and the two farmers were on a mission to the grocery store to procure a fancy item for Mrs. S. and then the local beer distributor to exchange their empty bottles for a few cases of fresh long necks. Perhaps on the way home, they'd also purchase some Roman candles to help welcome in the New Year. 

"Dammit, Albert!" scolded Grandpa, "Do you have to strike your matches on my dashboard?" The old man loved his cigars, and judging by the many match-streaks on the metal dash of Grandpa's pickup truck, this irksome practice had been repeated countless times before on their joint trips to town. Schellberg just smiled and chuckled in his trademark, lively way as they puttered down the gravel road, with cigar smoke slowly filling the cab.

"Herring?" mocked Grandpa. "Jawohl, Conrad! Du muss für Glück im neuen Jahr! You come over tonight and bring the family," boomed Schellberg. And so, having obtained the goods for the evening's festivities, the duo, no doubt already having enjoyed a couple of long necks, returned home carrying a little wooden keg of pickled herring for Mrs. S., whose herring salat was legendary. By all accounts, the party that night was a great success, and a good time was had by all. And just like that, my family was introduced to something new by that jolly old German, and we adopted the Herring Supper tradition.

There are varying stories surrounding the different foods served at a New Year Eve's Herring Supper, and each one is supposed to represent a form of wealth and increase in the coming year... herring (silver scales) for silver; golden cornbread for gold; black-eyed peas for pennies (coins); greens (cabbage and sauerkraut) for dollars and a long life; and pork (sausage and ham) for fat, or plenty of food to eat. [read more about it here: The True Story of Traditional New Year's Lucky Foods]

Fast-forward about 20 years from 1947 to when I was a youngster. By that time, Herring Supper had become a fixture, and represented, for me at least, the culmination of the Christmas holiday season. Herring no longer came whole, brined in a keg, but in the form of ready to eat chunks, in wine sauce or sour cream, right out of a jar. Owing to the nature of Texas weather, some years were bitterly cold, so the festivities were confined to the indoors, and other years we might have shirt-sleeve temperatures, which allowed the party to expand outdoors. Like most German family gatherings, Herring Supper involved eating a large potluck meal with plenty of desserts, drinking, music, visiting with cousins, telling stories, playing board games or dominoes, and sometimes dancing, if there was room enough for it. The families rotated hosting duties from year to year. Grownups ate at the big tables, and the kids jockeyed for position around folding tables.

Finally at midnight, after everyone had scarfed down a chunk or two, or three of herring for good luck, us kids would let loose with the fireworks. While mothers and aunts wrung their hands and looked on in fear, quietly praying for the preservation of little fingers, fathers and uncles, men who had survived World War II, laughed at the spectacle, lent us their Zippo lighters, and egged us on. Everyone always survived the yearly flash-bang frenzy, unscathed. Well, with the exception of a badly bruised hand one time. (Mark, wherever you are now, we warned you that the fuse on that firecracker was too short!)

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It's been about 15 years since our last family Herring Supper. People are scattered now, or just plain not around anymore. The ones who are seem to have lost their desire to have a good time and are no longer interested in carrying on the tradition. Truly sad, but such is the state of today's shrinking world.

As we say farewell to 2022 and look forward to 2023, I'd like to raise my glass to old man Schellberg and all the dear ones who have gone before, and thank them for the many joyful remembrances of Herring Suppers past. And to all the great people at MEOW, whether you eat your herring or not, pbird and I wish you and your families a blessed, healthy, and prosperous New Year! 

Peace and Love,

LoneStar Neanderthal

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General Management Inc., for Broadbased Research

There is No Such Agency of course 

There were seven colors of jelly suits.  The jelly suit was a totally un-intuitive type of space wear contrived some time in 2034 by some free thinkers in Israel.  It was way more complicated than it looked.  Appearance-wise, it appears to be an inch thick layer of some kind of tough colored gel covering the astronauts whole body with adjustments over the face and bottom.  Hidden in the gel were a kind of nanobots based on Gibson's disassemblers.  There was also a lot of spooky flexible electronics and a moving display ability.  If a guy wanted to show off he could make the suit display moving patterns of any kind...such as a sea creature might show.  You've seen them..octopii with drifting colored designs on their rubbery skin.  Like that.  Or he could display print..or family photos, whatever.

The professor was never sure how they got his number.  Someone had suggested him, of course.  He was not the most lithe of men.  What he didn't know was this...it had been discovered that astronauts with a waist measurement of more than 43 inches just endured the rigors of space travel much much better than thinner men.  It was frustrating, no one could figure out why.  It was just a fact. The famous Van Allen Belt held no danger for the slightly rotund!

Professor F, as his students, all merry wags, used to call him, for his rigorous grading practices, sat waiting for his jelly suit at Skinner's along with a couple of other agreeable looking guys.  They all had to wear their jelly suits on earth for a couple of weeks to work out the kinks and get used to moving in the thick layer of complicated gel.  His color was purple, he would be doing IT on the ship, though he wasn't sure what that would consist of.  Commanders wore sky blue, Responders wore brilliant orange.  Food managers wore green.  Maintenance wore tan.  Communications wore white.  Security/Defense wore red.  Everybody used to kid them about this something awful.

The suits came in a general too big size.  It was a big floppy thing that adjusted itself to the size of the man it adorned.  A man fully suited up and walking around town came to be called a Gummi Bear, remember, GMInc,for BR.

The special thing about the Prof was his uncanny ability to communicate with Avians of types.  In fact, his jelly suit had to be customized to maintain a small bird that would travel with him.  There was a small transparent environment built into the chest area of the jelly.  Once readied for space travel a pack of about the size of a domestic toaster sat on the man's upper back and it had a very specialized purpose.  The nanos in the suit handled the man's biological processes so that he never excreted!  The molecules were saved and either re-used or in some cases encapsulated for later disposal in this pack.  This was not necessary on land of course.

There were good reasons for the shape of the ship.  It appeared to be an egg, smooth and featureless.   Resting in its "nest", it reached a couple hundred feet in length and a hundred in diameter.  The technology for operating it was partially based on alien salvage and the teachings of one surviving crash victim who had learned to speak English.  To initialize flight the Commander's and the Responder's suits had to achieve a "handshake".  This was accomplished by a literal handshake.  They did not have to stay in contact, thankfully.  A brief hand hold was all it took.  There were jokes about female Responders. Men will make jokes.

Flight was managed by a manner of thought.  It had to be taught to Commanders.  Not everyone could do it.  It took a mind that was able to picture the shape of space with great clarity.  (He was just passing through time and he knew it.) Hands clasped behind his back, in his sky blue jelly suit, he had to picture their route through the reaches of heaven.  

A dome the size of a small village had been discovered on the back of the moon.  On previous moon trips, observations were made of course.  It was inhabited by living creatures, not manlike creatures.  They seemed to have built a lot of structures inside their dome that looked like huge old fashioned jungle gyms.  On closer inspection, the inhabitants of the city seemed to spend part of every day just perching on these structures and occasionally hopping about and fluttering here and there.  The truth of the matter was that the people seemed to be the product of another kind of creation.  They were birdlike.

Once contact was established and a way to communicate was discovered, they came to be called RSTRS.  Roosting Sentient Twittering Research Subjects.  Not kidding!

A type of patois or trade language was established with the RSTRS, called Twittering.  Their main head bird came to be called Pretty Bird by Earth, and the head of the security dept. as such, was called Little Man.

Pretty Bird had a tale of woe to tell the inhabitants of Earth.  Their electronics were old fashioned and had broken down partially making it impossible for them to twitter to their home roosts.  None of them were adept at IT it seems.  They had the idea that some human might be able to help, as we still used mostly physical equipment, like their old systems on the moon, in the dome.

In return for any assistance garnered, they offered some really spiffy medical skills.  It turned out that the RSTRS had largely beaten old age.  They had no heart disease, no cancer, no diabetes and no liver disease.  Didn't seem like they had anything else either, except some arthritis when a bird got very very elderly and had to walk around on the ground.

It also turned out that men and birds were not that dissimilar under the feathers or skin.  What healed a bird also healed a man.

Enter our hero, Professor F, a man who speaks to birds in their hearts, and has a bit of trouble in his cardiac plumbing, and is a past wiz at coaxing the best  out of old wires and whatnot.  We think maybe GMIncfor BR twigged onto him when he got that write up in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.  

The flight to the moon was everything he had hoped for.  It was beautiful and serene.  The egg lifted off silently and slowly.  No crushing G forces at all.  The Prof didn't have much to do on shipboard, so he mostly contemplated the stars and what he could see of Earth and the moon.  There was a way to do this that did not involve portholes.  This type of spaceflight was relatively slow and gentle.  It took longer than rockets do.  It was relaxed.  They had meals, snacks and drinks.  The Responder played his nickleharp to general acclaim.   Mr. Gigi did a bit of singing from his little cubicle.

They arrived at the port next to the Bird's dome at about night time for the Birds.  (They had artificial lights for daytime.)  

It was not every IT man's nightmare. Nothing was unplugged.  Not quite.  But it was easy.  Ebullient Birds called home at last.  Much relief all around.

There was an episode in an odd building. A period of sleep and recovery.  Avian nurses injected this and that right through the purple jelly of his suit.  Prof woke feeling well and strong.  His heart beat sturdily and regularly, no flutters.

After a delightful slow trip home in the egg, with the crew, Professor F went back to his work teaching the wags and putting up with juvenile jokes.  He took off his purple jelly suit and was no more a Gummi Bear.  It kind of shriveled, for it missed him, as they always do when removed.

Please forgive your correspondent.  She has never written a space opera before, and perhaps she has not now either!

The People Of The Word, Chabad House, and Me, G*D Help Me!

Yesterday, in the mail, I received my copy of The People of the Word.  There is a video, if you are interested.

https://www.chabad.org/5588573

"In PEOPLE of the WORD we gain insight into fifty key Hebrew words that have been mistranslated and misunderstood for centuries. Each chapter takes the reader on an etymological journey into the big ideas that continue to shape Jewish thought, values, and culture to this day."

As it happens, the book is a product of Chabad.org.  Chabad is a large busy Jewish organization that has branches everywhere.  There is a branch in Seattle's University District as it also happens.

Now, some of you already know I had a younger sister, the youngest in the family who had mental and spiritual troubles.  In fact as the 1990s went on she appeared to be quite mad.  She was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Of course doctors think the whole demon angle is nothing but more of the disease.  But, she had both.

She was in an unhappy marriage and had one young daughter.  Sometime during that time, she became convinced that she had a special relationship with G*d Himself.  I had daily interactions with her, trying to keep her on earth mentally.  She called me day and night, with wild stories.  The only times that I was safe from these terrifying phone calls were when I was in my car.  No mobile phones yet. She was frightening us by neglecting her daughter somewhat.  She was very giddy and happy at first. She was elated.  She took notions....

One night she decided that she wanted to go to Chabad House and witness to the Jews.  The spirits that were talking to her claimed to be Chaldeans and told her to go do this.  Her husband pretty much had washed his hands of the whole thing and I was afraid that she would try to get there on her own somehow, so I agreed to take her.  I would not do that now'days.  This is probably the most embarrassing experience of my lifetime.

She couldn't find a head covering.  The spooks told her she had to cover her head, so she pinned a pillow case on her head like a veil and away we went.  Her child was at home with her husband.  She jabbered away all the way to the U. District about God and Jesus and Jews and Chaldeans...etc etc.  I was not happy.

She appeared to be totally unaware of the fact that she darn well was of Jewish descent.  Whatever.  Turns out that the people in the Chabad House had seen mad people before, who felt called upon to visit them.  They were utterly gracious and kind.  The rabbi, one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen, understood the position I was in, and tried to keep it all quiet and un-noticed.  I must take a line or two to describe him, since I am so darn visual.  He was a composition in black and white, completely.  His hat was black of course, skin dead white, beard black, shirt blindingly white, suit black.  He was the most black and white man ever.  Lotty did her thing, on the women's side of the room, raising her hands and wearing her pillow case.  I don't even remember the sense of the "prayers".

At last I was able to convince her that we needed to go home.  When we got out to the sidewalk, she keeled over on the ground and would not get up.  She demanded that I go to a certain house and get her some water.  OK, wth.  Now, Lotty was a big girl and she looked pretty silly on the ground wearing her pillow case.  So to shorten the scene I went up to the house she had indicated, knocked on the door and asked for a cup of water.  Why should we stop being insane now?

The person who opened the door must have been thinking the same way, so she got me a paper cup of water and I took it to Lotty.  She drank it and got up and we went home.

This is how I ended up working in that deliverance ministry.  I took her to a man I knew through friends who did this work, and we tried to help her get rid of her oppression.  The first session was so shocking to me, who had never seen such stuff that when I got home I went to bed exhausted. We worked with her for many months.  I ended up helping out with others because I have a sensitivity to this junk and I was willing.  People who do such prayer require a witness, at least, for their own protection against accusations, like any minister.  Besides that function, it was up to me to grok areas of need, a sort of diagnosis.

She never got free. I don't know why.  Until she took her own life, she continued to hear voices telling her horrible horrible things, night and day.  I swear I understand why she did it.

Here she is on a happier day. I guess the connecting thought is that when I see the word Chabad I am sad, embarrassed, but thankful that they were so kind to my mad little sister.

Port Sturm und Drang, A Rainy Pie Rat Story

In one sense, it was a quiet day in Port Sturm und Drang. 

 ( Sturm und Drang comes from German, where it literally means "storm and stress." Although it’s now a generic synonym of "turmoil," the term was originally used in English to identify a late 18th-century German literary movement whose works were filled with rousing action and high emotionalism, and often dealt with an individual rebelling against the injustices of society. The movement took its name from the 1776 play Sturm und Drang, a work by one of its proponents, dramatist and novelist Friedrich von Klinger. Although the literary movement was well known in Germany in the late 1700s, the term "Sturm und Drang" didn’t appear in English prose until the mid-1800s.)

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It had always been known as Port Stormalong until a contingent of pie-making Germans moved into town. At first all was serene, pies being always a welcome addition to any town. The business was a great success.  All the city crowded in to buy pies, which were fairly priced and quite succulent.

The winter was a rainy one.  The snow that had fallen earlier in the year, like three weeks before, was all melting and rolling down hill, filling the rivers and flooding the banks.  The fields were awash.  Only the residue of crops shown visibly above the water.  It was grey.  Grey and dim.

The ah, sturm sewers, in town had not been cleaned since the spring before and they were full of stuff.  They all filled up with rain and then overflowed.  The alleys were full of deep puddles.  Alien streams ran down the streets.

The rats came up out of the sewers.  Rats are always hungry and their natural diet of random garbage was in jeopardy.

Frank A. Kafka was a German pie baker.  His specialities were Pecan, Pumpkin, Apple and Goose Berry.  The rats began to observe his activities through the welcoming glass doorway with gimlet eyes and muttered remarks among themselves.

The Kafka Bäckerei was in an old building that dated to just after the Great Port Stormalong fire of 1893, so it was brick built, but nothing special. There were flaws. Old buildings are not always rat-proof.

Inside, it was pretty nice.  The old structure had been removed and tables had been set up. Very welcoming. There were real flowers in vases on the tables and cheery napkins and such.

Down in the kitchen, in the back of the building presided Frank A. K. among great bats of fancy lard, great fifty pound sacks of soft white wheat flour, also sugar, spices and the many materials  of his work, nuts, fruits and so on.  He was there every weekday and Saturday morning at 3 AM ratcheting up the pie works.  Now, not all of the pies were sold each day.  There were always a few left out on a big oaken table which was about 4x8 feet in size.  In this case there were two Pecan, four Pumpkin, and a Goose Berry.  Oh, there were two Apple pies in addition.

There was a basement.  Oh dear.  A very old basement.  No one really went down there.  Bits and pieces of old Port Stormalong rested there alone. There were old advertising signs and mysterious forgotten boxes. There also happened to be a slight opening right above the floor of about three inches in diameter.

Outside, in the distance.... the wind began to howl.  A grey mob was gathering in the alleyway.  Furtive, thrumming bodies shifted position constantly.  The scent of pie was on the air.  Since it was still winter, it was already getting dark and Frank had gone home to his Gerta and Willi and Beula.

Feltaway, bravest of rats, was chosen to go in.  He squeezed his soft warm self through the little hole.  Ah, there were stairs!  He followed his nose up to the kitchen.  I am not sure how he got in through the door, maybe it was a jar. haha.  He scurried across the floor and beheld the table!  No problem.  Working together, the rats could shove something to climb up against the oaken table and the pies!  A chair would work fine.

Down he went, out the little hole and told the tale.  In came something like 47 rats, young and old, Mr. and Mrs. and many young things.  Like a grey wave, up the stairs they went, through the basement door and into the very kitchen of Frank A. Kafka. It was terrible.  I hesitate to even describe the carnage.

Well, it was a blood bath, so to speak.  Pecans were savagely devoured.  Pastry went everywhere.  Apples and pumpkin custard were snapped out of their shelly containers. Goose Berries rolled about and were swallowed whole.  Stickiness covered rats and table.  Rats dropped plumply off the table and ran for the basement stairs after all the pies had been eaten.  A trail of sweet juice led downstairs.

Outside the wind blew cold rain up against the old brick building.  Rats scattered, determining to come again, deep in their ratty hearts.  The river planes continued to flood.  The year turned creakily on its axle and spring was many weeks away.

Frank and his one helper, Aloise, had a hell of a mess to clean up in the morning.  But the rats had left a great big clue as to where the ingress had been and he plugged it up with a bit of concrete mix.  He never told anyone.  Would you?  All was cleansed anew and they set out making pies again.

Rats are slippery, but they fool NO ONE.  They never got one other bite of Frank's pies and no one was the wiser in Port Sturn und Drang to this very day. This is a true report, and no one can gainsay it!

Ugh; Cookies, Fruitcake, Cupcakes And I Didn't Make Pie Yet

     I Swear I've Had It Up To Here With Goodies Forever! 

Now is the day of de-tox!  

I told my grand daughter last night that from this day forward I would be a raw foodist vegan.

Haha.

I know I'm there when the little oranges look better than the fruitcake.  Celery sounds much more attractive than cheese and Italian salamis.

Therefore: Whatever shall I do?  Here are some of my de-tox ideas.

• Chopped salads.  The more veg. the better.
• Fruit for breakfast, without going nuts.
• Coffee......no cream?  I dunno....
• Vegetable soup.  Always good and cleansing.
• Plain beef fits ok.  Meat once per day I think.
• Sigh.  No flour products.  No sugar.
• More water.  Drinkable air or something?
• Possibly stop making so much smoke. Ahem.

Eggs are good, but hard to eat without toast.  You see how this is going?  I guess they are ok soft boiled.

Lol.  So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

What's your story?  You can tell me!

I will be this way for a while, then I am going to make that darn pie!

Winter Now

 White faced winter came, and left again.

winter (n.)
Old English winter (plural wintru), "the fourth and coldest season of the year, winter," from Proto-Germanic *wintruz "winter" (source also of Old Frisian, Dutch winter, Old Saxon, Old High German wintar, German winter, Danish and Swedish vinter, Gothic wintrus, Old Norse vetr "winter"), probably literally "the wet season," from PIE *wend-, nasalized form of root *wed- (1) "water; wet"). On another old guess, cognate with Gaulish vindo-, Old Irish find "white." The usual PIE word is *gheim-.

As an adjective in Old English. The Anglo-Saxons counted years in "winters," as in Old English ænetre "one-year-old;" and wintercearig, which might mean either "winter-sad" or "sad with years." Old Norse Vetrardag, first day of winter, was the Saturday that fell between Oct. 10 and 16.

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Christmas Day is over.  The young things came and went.  Now the year fades down to a few days.  All is green and grey again.

The weather people are warning of floods and landslides.  Please no more landslides!  Oso was pretty bad.  They never even found the bodies of those buried.

I am asking the Almighty to have his way with us and the country.  

I am counting the ways that he has already performed acts of creation and mercy among us.  I am reminded that all things work together to manifest his will.

I will count it all joy, this green winter.

Photo by my youngest daughter, one green wet winter.

Probably the same photographer.

Who Knows?  Maybe we will have some more snow!

The Gift Of The Magi, A Christmas Story

 

William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. His works include "The Gift of the Magi", "The Duplicity of Hargraves", and "The Ransom of Red Chief", as well as the novel Cabbages and Kings. Porter's stories are known for their naturalist observations, witty narration and surprise endings.

Porter's legacy includes the O. Henry Award, an annual prize awarded to outstanding short stories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Henry

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Today, in honor of foolish loving hearts and in the spirit of sacrificial gift-giving, I thought it would be nice to bring to you this old well-loved short story.

(maybe a bit like this)

As usual, please forgive the inexpert reading and video making.  Some day I will be better at this.  But going on the theory that showing up is the way to improve, here it is.  I do enjoy it.

I imagine everyone will be busy or not around much today, but I wish to express my prayer that you all have the loveliest of Christmases, however you spend the day.  I expect to see a few of the family dropping in here.  No big deal this year.  

So!   Merry Christmas!   my friends.

The Wag Of A Christmas Tail

 A reading of The Christmas Puppy

Happy Days and Merriest of Christmases!

May God Bless the coming year!

What I Think I Know This Festive Season

To me, it's like a living Venn Diagram. 

Many shifting patterns of thought drift through my consciousness.

I try to shoot an arrow through them in just the right spot to make sense,  to nail down truth.

So, I am positing the existence of other beings made by our Creator, 

somewhere out there..

It involves enlarging my picture of reality.

What was I thinking all my life before?

The universe is beyond my thought.

But, it's definitely there.  Unanswerable.

I trust that my redeemer lives.

He holds the answers to all questions.

At this end of life, much that is ephemeral has fallen by the wayside.

In spite of it all,

much that is intangible remains.

I don't feel like I understand exactly what Jesus/Yeshuah is.

But, however he is, I want that.

He said "I am".  I will go with that.

To Me It Looks Like A Dream Of A Childhood

 I'm not likely to say anything that we all don't already know.  

I watched this little video tonight and it reminded me of a lot.  It made me lonely for the nearness to the earth expressed by these children going about their natural business.  They were so accomplished in the simple acts of making a living in a remote, almost primitive environment. It was somewhat like that when I was a child.  My sibs and I were also grubby forest creatures.

I was so impressed with the cooperation displayed by the children, helping each other through gates and so forth.  They helped each other prepare food, though I did see a mom or two in there giving help and direction.  One of the kids seemed to even be running the boat motor.  In others of the Ulengovs' videos I have seen quite young boys doing quite significant manly work!  If all is good, they love to help and do real work.

I hope it's not as bad as it looks out there in America.  I hope there are farm kids and small town kids who know they have a real role in the business of life.  Of course the same could be said about urban children. Boys and girls with something to do that matters to themselves, and to their adults don't seem to grow up hopeless and at loose ends.  I hope America's children are not all protected to death!  Life has built-in lessons.  It's supposed to hurt a bit when you mess up.  A child who is protected from these lessons is hobbled.

Some voices that I hear have given up on the children, but I haven't.  I believe that they can rise to the situation life presents them, given a chance.  I know very well that they can shift gears, read cursive, read an analog clock and figure out the phone book, if the need arises.  

It looks like the day could be coming when there are not even very many children surviving birth and childhood.  God forbid, but some bad stuff is happening just recently.  They are not extra baggage.  They are not a drag.  We should love them like their Father in Heaven loves them.

A Couple Of Things Happened in 2022

 It's that time of year, isn't it.

I have been reviewing the photographic evidence.  Naturally. About this time last year I was busily painting a burning bush. I couldn't get a decent image of it to save my life.  The Hebrew means "Here I am".

There were road trips.  Spent a lot of time doing this:

The best for me was the trip to see some rock art left for us by the past residents of the Buckhorn Wash.

I discovered that they had built a whole small airport near here:

I painted some Koi fishes.  I tried to paint a Seraph.  Forget that.

I took care of a bunch of my mama's stuff, now that she has left us.

It was a good year.  Every one of us could write a detailed report!  But we won't.  We are too busy living it to report back on it. It's nice to look back and appreciate it all. I had an art prof. who used to say "isn't life fun!"  It's not unmixed, but yeah Keith, it is!

We learned a lot of Bigfoot lore too!

However, he remains elusive. The paparazzi haven't caught him yet.

Sheer existence continues to occupy my mind as a concept.  Wow!  It's unanswerable. I defy anyone to argue their way back behind it!

There was a supporting staff of Gummi Bears!

For me, it was:

Care to share?  What do you think of this year, as it comes to its close?  

It's Snowing Now, The Task Bar Says

It is the night of the second candle,

In the home of green Christmases.

In this neighborhood of strangers,

One on either side died this year, of the cursed disease.

No one told me.  We do not speak here.

In the land of isolation.

Those I love are my descendants nearby, a sister, a brother and an aunt.

I have others I love.  Most, I would not know 

on the street if we met somehow.

It's for sure a working class neighborhood.

Tonight I stepped outside just to look.

No wonder mankind has winter holidays.

It would be ghastly indeed, if this were all.

I hope this does not sound down,

It's really not.

I'm just looking up.

Die Drei Liddle Oinksters

Once there was a time, neither here nor there, when three wee swine lived at home in a split-level conundrum with Ma Schwein and Pa Schwein.  As was for usual, Pa went to his tiny field to tend the rutabagas and work on his expositions. (the dog matters not a whit!)

As it happens, Pa forgot to take lunch along, as he could never keep his mind on the thing at hand, at all. He was, by all accounts, a hog of great pigheaded distractibility.

Now, being as they were pigs, they were neither quite Christians nor quite Jews.  They were somewhere else in the scheme of story tellings.  But, don't let me get ahead of myself.

Ma Florence, for that was her name, said to wee Nathan, "get ye gone, find your progenitor and bring him this bag of cornbread and schnitzel, for he has gone out without sustenance once more!  You will find him in the rutabagas working on his expositions".

Wee Nathan disappeared over the nearest hummock as fast as his little trotters could take him, calling "oh Pa, where be ya?"  But he didna' come back in a timely manner to report the completion of the deed.

Next, Florence called Michael, a dark and lively little fellow, in a green velvet jacket, who smoked little black cigars.  She said "now Michael, both of them are loosed upon the world.  Go you, find em, secure the lunch Nathan is probably nipping into, get the grub and take it to your Pa."  

Michael changed out of the velvet, putting on a sort of brown hacking jacket, tucked his cigars in the left hand pocket and started out around the nearest hillock, somewhat reluctantly, for he had better things to do than hunt lost familial pigs.  But, just like Nathan, Michael was not to return from his errand betimes.

At her porcine wit's end, Florence called the last one of her progeny, wise Johan.  He had been out behind the conundrum, sighting on a distant mountain top with a wonderful contrivance of his own invention, and was just getting things all lined up right.  She said, "Johan, now it's either you or me, and in this case, it's you. Go.  Just find all of them, get the lunch, what's left of it, take it to your Pa and bring those two home. It's time for their lessons."

(never you mind the text, it's an illustration for display purposes only)

Johan, set off thoughtfully and observantly, following little split hoof prints and larger ones.  As he was trotting along, snout to the earth, a great smarmy wolf appeared.  He was fond of pigs, in the worst way possible.  Johan, seeing which way the wind was blowing, set off running for the rutabaga field to hide in the rows.  Wolf loped along easily behind him, snickering. A great ridge of rough grey fur ran along his spine in an upsetting way.

Johan came upon Michael sitting under a gorseberry bush, smoking again.  "Follow along, Michael" says Johan, getting rather puffed as it were. "There is a great grey wolf on my tail and gaining!" His tail, bye the way, had three curls in it.

Michael leapt up, threw away his cigar and followed Johan, as fast as all their wee leggies could take them heading out for the rutabaga field to hide amongst the leaves.

As it happens, the wolf seeing an easy meal in his future had stopped to piss on a Box hedge, and prematurely count his blessings.

Johan and Michael found Nathan reclining outside the gate of Pa's little field having a bit of cornbread for his troubles and looking very relaxed.

(Nathan was just out of camera range)

"Come along" said Johan, as Michael stood there tapping one trotter on the path impatiently, "there is a great horking wolf on our trail!  Get up and follow!"  Just then Mr. Wolf loped into view, out behind the Wisteria arbor and coming on strong!

The porcine bros set out, making good time like all little pigs can.  And they were making a hell of a squealing racket, truth be told. But they didn't have a clear idea of where to go for safety.  The patter of their little hooves was intense! In the meantime the sun had set, because it does that sometimes.

In their rush, they ran clear out of their own neighborhood and entered an area just outside the local tiny hamlet.  Get that, hamlet? lol.  Where oh where to go for a hidyhole of shelter from that lupine brute? Things were looking discomforting, and they were getting tired anyhow, when all of a sudden in the darkness they saw the front window of a small cottage, with the curtains not drawn shut as they should be at night.  There was a sort of strange candleholder in the window holding nine candles, of which only two were burning. Odd, but ok!

Clustering at the little green door, banging and fussing and sweating, they were greeted at the door by an old fellow with a long white beard and a funny little hat on his head, who ushered them inside to the one house in the hamlet where any pig was absolutely safe from being eaten!  Also, this house was made of stones and no overblown self-important wolf could push it over, let alone blow it over.  So, Mr. Wolf just went home and had oatmeal for dinner and complained to his frau about the missed porkies.

As it happens, Pa Schwein had gone home early, missing his lunch and wanting dinner, so he was fine, if hungry,  and the rutabagas were fine, and the juvenile pigs were fine.  They snuck home later while the wolf was eating oatmeal.  Florence put them to bed early.  But she was secretly very thankful.  And that is the very truth, begorra!

So then, Chag Sameach, my dear friends!

My Mother Told Me (without knowing she did)

 Osmosis

Almost invisible lessons.

1946

 Every time I whack a wet brush on the edge of the sink to get the water out of it, I think of her.  Then I wonder what else I picked up from the girl who was my mother, in the way of how to do things.  Do I fold towels just like her?  Then there is the huge subject of how she cooked.  I begin to suspiciously watch myself in action, to see if I have seen these actions before.  Humorously enough, at one time, I thought I was nothing like  her.

Isn't this how we get our first acculturation?  We are watching her.  Our first life lessons happen while we are underfoot in the kitchen and around the house and yard.  Before school begins and before father teaches driving or gardening or whatever, there was a woman's legs that you were following around.  And a few years later, when you could see onto the counter and table, you saw all that she did there.

All she was doing is what her mother did.  My mother had a cluttered kitchen.  So do I.  There was no conscious decision.  There will be too many things and no place to put them.  It's like a benign infection.

I believe it is good to become aware of the things learned on this level, the unspoken knowledge of  how things are done.  It's good to judge them for their usefulness and value.  Really important are attitudes and approaches to problems.  Was she patient?  Am I patient?  Did she blame others for her troubles.  Could she stick to a task?  Was she forgiving, among her children?  Was I forgiving among my children?  Did she show respect? Do I?

I am sure I have  mindsets that are ancestral, which I have not examined because they are too close and I cannot see them.  Maybe the Almighty will open my eyes enough for me to see my mind, slightly from the outside.  My desire is to have a cleaner interface with him.