Thursday, October 29, 2009

Books Smell Good

Do people still press leaves between the pages of a book? Before electronics took over our lives, a nice autumn afternoon could be spent collecting leaves of various colors, sizes and shapes. The leaves were then taken back home and placed between the pages of a book. There they would stay, perhaps forgotten until next year. We haven’t had many nice autumn afternoons this year and books are being threatened by electronic devices.

The other day I was paying for some books at Barnes & Noble when the clerk handed me an advertisement for their new electronic device. Nook is the newest gadget designed to complicate our lives.

Like its competitors, Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble’s Nook makes it possible to read the text of a book, magazine or newspaper on a portable electronic screen. The images can be ordered, downloaded and stored on the device where they are displayed on the screen. An electronic image of text on a computer screen is not a book – but the devices are being referred to as electronic books. I don’t like the reference – but I can’t change it. A book is paper, ink, glue, and binding. It has a physical heft, a friendly scent and pages to touch.

I studied the clerk as I took the ad from him. Did he know that he was unwittingly aiding in the demise of civilization? I looked around the store and saw people talking on their phones while they looked at magazines. I watched friends who at first glance appeared to be enjoying each other’s company over a cup of coffee, but instead were busy sending text messages. I wondered if they were communicating with an unseen person and ignoring their coffee partner, or maybe they had lost the art of snappy conversation and were corresponding with one another across the table.

I am a bit conflicted with this battle of old versus new. I actually like and use technology. I write (type?) these words using a computer; I then email (electronic mail) it to my editor. I refer to my Blackberry often and I no longer own a typewriter. It has been many years since I have sat down and wrote a letter using pen and paper, but there are only a handful of people who can read my handwriting anyway.

I suppose electronic books have a purpose and a place. Perhaps like the iPod which has made it easier to listen to your favorite music, electronic books will allow portable access to the written word – but I can’t help thinking that we are losing something along the way when we so readily grab the latest gadgets and place our past on the shelf.

It was either Twain or Einstein (I can’t find the reference, but it was some guy with white hair) that had developed a trick to wake himself from a nap. While reading a book in his chair he would start to nod off. Not wanting to sleep his life away he would hold the book with one hand over the edge of the chair and close his eyes. Just before he would slip into a deep sleep his hand would relax its grip on the book allowing it to crash to the floor. The sound would wake him and he could start reading again.

Using the same method with an electronic book would probably only work once or twice before you had to replace it.

I suppose someday I will surrender and buy such a device. But I should buy two for napping and pressing leaves.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Halloween

Next weekend is Halloween, the time of year where it becomes permissible to borrow someone else’s identity and panhandle, kind of like panning for gold and rocks, but this time candy is the sought after treasure. This is the season for trick-or-treating, watching “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” and playing dress-up.

My costume-donning experience goes back to the glory days of Halloween when a kid could get a year’s supply of teeth decaying treasure with only a few hours of effort.

My earliest memory of the hedonistic holiday is through the eye-holes of a suffocating plastic clown mask (the kind with the elastic string which becomes eternally entwined with your hair and rips it from its roots upon removal). I carried a brown grocery bag that confirmed the collection of the candy with a papery popping sound.

Using the station wagon as a base, my brothers and sisters and I would steal from patio to porch while Dad would carefully traverse the crowded streets so as to not send little ghosts and goblins to their graves.

Back home I sorted the candy on top of my blankets and buried the remaining booty underneath my bed. If carefully rationed over the long winter the supply could last until Easter when a fresh shipment was scheduled to be delivered.

When I went to college I gave up trick-or-treating because as everyone knows you are not supposed to take candy from strangers – and college is full of strange people. But then there were the costume parties. One year a few friends and I each bought matching long coats at Ragstock, some berets, a few squirt guns, and went as the French Resistance. I still smile when I think about it.

So as a public service, I am going to share some costume ideas. I make no promises regarding the ease of putting these together, but you should have plenty of time to get ready before the social event of the season: the neighborhood costume party.

For women - you can go as Sarah Palin; men you can dress up as Tim Pawlenty. Both of these characters, having become bored with being a governor, appear to be in the early stages of a presidential campaign. But what makes them prime candidates for parody is that they won’t admit to any future plans. So if you dress up as one of them you can spend the entire evening dodging questions, being evasive and talking in circles.

Couples could go as Kanye West and Taylor Swift and walk around interrupting one another and stealing each other’s microphones. Or, they could duct tape a camcorder conspicuously on their shoulder. Pretending to be a pimp and a prostitute, the couple could ask others for advice.

Carry around a small sheet of plastic. If you pretend it’s a teleprompter you would always have a prepared speech on display in front of you. This way you would never be at a loss for words.

Dress up as a census taker. By doing this you could ask anyone inappropriate questions, and when you are challenged merely reply: “I am from the government and I am here to help you.”

Go as the president and write stimulus checks to people, and then later on in the night you could hand out more money to bail them out.

Three or more individuals could go as an award’s committee and give out prizes for some future accomplishment that they hope will be achieved. For prizes give pebbles so the winners can say in their best Charlie Brown voice “I got a rock.”

Thursday, October 15, 2009

An Extra Bag of Cookies

Occasionally for lunch I will have home-baked cookies garnished with a sandwich and a side of mandatory fruit and vegetables. This is when I bring my lunch to work. I don’t pack it – my wife does. It’s not that I require her do it – I just won’t do it. So, if she doesn’t pack me a lunch I will eat out.

When I was 16 I had a summer job driving the delivery truck at a lumber yard in Le Center. When I wasn’t out making deliveries, I would sit in the park and eat the lunch my sister Joanne had packed. After a couple days of this it dawned on me that my grandfather lived near by.

I didn’t bother to call; I walked there uninvited and unannounced. As I got close I saw him working in his garden.

The green work pants hung just above his black sensible shoes. His grey long sleeve shirt, buttoned at the cuffs and collar, would have hid his long underwear if not for the contrast of his dark skin against the white cotton. A drop of sweat clinging to the tip of his nose hinted of the July temperature. The only time he wore a hat was to church.

“Hi Grandpa, remember me?”

He studied me through his glasses as he held his hoe.

“No, no. I can’t say that I do.”

I understood. I was no longer the little boy who “was seen and not heard.” I was now 16 – almost a man, or so I thought.

“I’m Tom’s son, Jerry.”

“Sure” he said, pronouncing the word as if it had two syllables.

I told him that I was working at the lumberyard, and that if he liked I could stop for lunch sometimes. I don’t know if he had planned on eating lunch that day but he invited me in.

I sat at the table for two in the kitchen while he cooked his potatoes and fatty meat. I politely waited to open my lunch box until he sat down with his lunch. He poured each of us a glass of milk (whole I’m sure) – because as he liked to say “milk is not only a drink, it is also a food.”

Joanne always included a bag of cookies in my lunch so I offered to share them with Grandpa on that first day.

“That’s your lunch, what will you eat then?”

The next day Joanne packed a bag of cookies for Grandpa. When I handed the cookies to him I explained that Joanne had baked them for him.

“That’s very nice”, he whispered as he pushed his glasses up from underneath to rub the tears from his eyes.

We shared many hours together that summer, eating in that small kitchen. Sometimes I would stop with the truck and he would tell me to “be careful with that big thing.”

“I have seen many changes,” he said as he told me of the days when a horse was the only transportation available, then when money allowed a nice buggy was purchased.

Then tractors and cars replaced horses. Soon people flew in airplanes and man went to the moon. Grandpa said that with every change he thought that this was as far as we could go.

He looked at me and asked “What will it be like you are my age?”

I didn’t have an answer then and I won’t for another 40 years. But when I am 90 I hope I am healthy enough to entertain a grandchild in my home. I just hope they bring some cookies to share.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Wood Heat

Dad once told me “when you heat with wood it warms you twice,” meaning that you are heated by the physical exertion of cutting the tree down and then again when you burn it. I must be doing something wrong because I know I get sweaty at least five or six times, and that’s if everything goes right.

Or maybe I am just really out of shape. The cutting, hauling, splitting, stacking, and carrying all drive the chill from me – and that’s before I ever strike a match. I know that no one is making me do this – but I haven’t purchased firewood in over twenty years. I just burn the wood I cut down on my own place, and it’s not because I am looking for something to do.

Last year we decided to add on a garage to our old farm house so I cut down several trees to make room. I should have cut down one more though. I was backing out of the new driveway while having a discussion with my wife. We were on opposite sides of an issue and I was pointing out why her perspective was incorrect when I hit a tree. My truck emits a warning sound when you get too close to an object – but apparently it becomes useless at ramming speed. The next day I broke a sweat cutting that tree down.

When I am using a chain saw I get a little nervous as I consider what can go wrong and remember that which has gone wrong. I have an old pair of coveralls that have an ugly laceration right along the belt line. I also parted with some jeans that almost became one leg cut-offs.

One could argue that because I am so easily distracted I may not be the best guy to use a chainsaw. My father did not have the same freedom to daydream when he was clearing trees on his father’s farm.

Dad learned to fell trees at the other end of a lumberman’s saw (a long saw with a handle at each end). Just by looking at one you can almost hear the rhythmical sawing sound of two men working in concert.

He had spent many winter days in the woods with his father harvesting next year’s cooking and heating fuel. A team of horses would drag the logs back to the farm. Once they were cut again to the proper length Dad would us an axe to split the logs.

Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease sometime around his retirement. Before the disease had its way with him he helped me split wood in the barn. I had purchased a gas-powered hydraulic wood splitter and I was anxious to use it with him. I enjoyed that afternoon with Dad - the easy conversation, the laughter, and the creaking and cracking sound the wood made as it was reluctantly ripped in two.

The best way to learn from Dad was to spend time in the classroom with him. He taught me that stringy, sinewy elm would split cleanly when it was frozen, the easiest way to split a log was with the direction of the growth of the tree, and don’t be in such a hurry.

That was the last time I used the splitter. Within a few months it became impossible for Dad to stand without assistance. I sold the splitter, so now when I split wood I do it the old fashioned way - I use an axe, splitting wedge and a maul. I am warmed and I think of Dad.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Stoves and Strangers

As autumn hit the calendar last week I wanted to start a fire. Because as the saying kind of goes “In the autumn a rural man’s fancy rightly turns to thoughts of burning wood.” Tennyson said it much better, but I am talking about autumn and wood, not spring and love.

Several years I neglected to clean the chimney before I started the wood-fired cook stove for the first time. Usually that wouldn’t be so bad, except on that evening our house was part of some “Christmas Gala Holiday Tour of Homes.” It’s a crazy concept: Strangers (who supposedly had purchased a ticket) roam about your house as if they owned the place, and on top of it you are expected to be okay with the arrangement.

On the afternoon of the invasion I helped by starting a fire. I fired up the cook stove to make sure it was ready. Immediately the smoke began to back up into the house – normally not a big deal. I have this routine that I go through when this happens: I open the door and windows in the kitchen, grab a large floor fan, strap on the oxygen tank and try again. Except this time the smoke continued to pour out the stove. So now the house is really smoky and my wife, Rhonda, is getting nervous; strangers are coming over in a few hours and she wants to make a good impression. I tell her the chimney just needs to be cleaned.

I climb up on the roof and shove a metal brush down the stove pipe a few times. Back in the house I take the stove apart to remove the creosote from the bottom of the pipe. I do this in the kitchen. Inside the chimney I find quite a bit of the black powder, so I go to the barn and grab a metal pail. While standing on a chair I begin to fill the pail which is balanced on the stove. Then things got a little worse.

Just as the pail was almost full it slipped and crashed to the floor. For a brief moment the room was shrouded behind a black curtain. Then the sticky, smelly powder settled and blanketed every surface – including the seasonally adorned kitchen table which was set for the trespassers. It was then Rhonda began to cry.

I did my best to assure her that in spite of how things looked they were under control. I grabbed the wet/dry vacuum and began to clean up. But something went wrong and the vacuum began to spew the contents out its backside. I tried to clean the vacuum filter in the house before Rhonda strongly suggested that I do that outside. Well, since I couldn’t get that vacuum to work I grabbed the house vacuum and proceeded to wreck that as well.

By now our son, Nathan, had stepped in to try and save the day. He knows how to fix things. He also knows that I am capable of screwing things up. But as I tell him, “I do these things so you don’t have to.” He miraculously fixed the house vacuum, even though I had offered to run out and buy a new one (or two).

With the windows still wide open the temperature in the kitchen had dropped to about 38 degrees Fahrenheit – a little too cool for entertaining complete strangers. I put the stove back together and restarted the fire with time to spare.

Before I could “help” anymore, Rhonda suggested that I welcome our guests by starting a bonfire outside.