Sent Thursday, June 4, 2009 – on my birthday. It sounds like I might be a lot like Dad when it comes to celebrating.
Dear Justin, GLAD BIRTHDAY TIDINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back in ‘77, after celebrating your birth with Uncle Charlie O, Uncle Charlie R, and Uncle Barry, I remarked that “I am not responsible for anything that I say or do”.
Charlie O. said, “that’s obvious to the most casual observer”.
Not sure why I remember that, or how I remember it, for that matter.
Much Love and Always, Dad.
Sent Saturday, Feb 28, 2009.
This is me.
Annie has several sisters, all of whom I love dearly. However, one of them has a most grievous fault. Huh? No, no, much worse than that. She likes her steak “well done”. Whenever we happen to be out to a restaurant with her, she will usually order a steak “well done”. Invariably when the steak arrives she will not be pleased with it. Too dried out. Doesn’t taste right, or something. She will then eat small chunks of it soaked in whatever on her plate might contain some moisture. The main portion remains uneaten. At the end of the meal, the waitress will ask if she would like it boxed to take home. She never does. Now I know what you are thinking. No, I don’t take it home for my dog, because I’m not sure she would want to eat it either.
Now I have always enjoyed cooking. I can remember as a wee little one, dragging a kitchen chair up to the stove so I could fry my own eggs. To this day I do most of the cooking in our house. I had even considered going into the culinary arts in my younger days, but a problem raised it’s ugly head. While I like to cook, it occurred to me that I like to cook what I like to cook when I like to cook it. I was afraid that this attitude might not work out so well in the restaurant business. Besides, I really can’t stand the heat.
I have decided one thing. If I had become a chef, and owned a restaurant, and someone ordered a steak “well done” I had the perfect plan in mind. Upon receiving the order, I would go to the cooler and select a steak. I would then go the table and enquire as to who had ordered a steak “well done”. On being informed, I would show the selected steak to the offender and ask if it was suitable. On receiving an affirmative reply, I would then slap the customer with the steak, hand the miscreant a ten dollar bill and directions to the nearest Burger King.
Not going into the restaurant business may have worked out for the best.
Sent Sunday, January 4, 2009. This was not written by Dad, but rather by Clint (my brother). But it’s about Dad so I thought it would be nice to post it here.
I wanted to share a little story with you all that happened to me this weekend.
I have recently installed a fireplace in my house, and seeing how I did not do this until a month or so ago, I am a little behind on getting my firewood. So, I was out in the woods by myself cutting firewood. Now keep in mind I have been doing this all my life. As soon as I said Dada for the first time, my dad put a hat, coat, and boots on me and made me drive the old Jeep on the hill to help him with firewood.
Now I am cutting a tree up and I am sweating and my back is barking and the chain saw is getting heavier, I decided to take a break and carry the wood that I have cut to the truck. I was stacking the wood as best I could so to fit as much as I could on the truck, when I started laughing out loud.
I know you are thinking, “What is so funny in the middle of the woods by yourself?”
Well, I got thinking back to when I was young and helping Mom and Dad with firewood and as I was carrying wood to the truck thinking that all Dad had to do was cut the wood and we had to carry all the wood to the Jeep. He kinda got off easy just cutting and we did all the heavy lifting. I also remember thinking that when I got old and had to do firewood for myself, I would not stack the firewood, I would just throw it in the truck and when it was full I would be done for the day.
Now here I was taking a break from “just cutting the wood” to carry the wood to the truck and I wasn’t just throwing the wood in, I was stacking it! Now on my 35th birthday I am doing things the way I watched my dad do it for all those years.
I guess he wasn’t getting off easy, and there really was a good reason we had to stack the wood in the Old yella Jeep.
Sent Friday, October 17, 2008 in response to a comment Dad made about “Green” people. One of the family members asked what a “Green” person is.
This is me. I am reminded of one of the Supreme Court Justices who when asked to define pornography said to the effect that it’s hard to explain, but I know it when I see it.
“Green” people take used aluminum foil, wash it with hot soapy water so it can be recycled. Well, they wash all their trash using energy and clean water. “Green” people stuff their little hy-bred mini-car with all manner of used bottles, cans, and the aforementioned aluminum foil and haul the whole mess to the recycle center. From there, all this trash is carted around from place to place within the facility. It is then crushed and baled, and the bales are then hauled around from place to place with in the facility. Eventually, a fuel guzzling tractor trailer shows up. The baled trash is then loaded into the trailer and hauled who knows how far and unloaded at a smelting facility. The bales are then hauled around from place to place within the facility until they are finally sent to the smelters. Giant furnaces which use unfathomable amounts of energy turn the bales into a solid block of what ever material it happens to be. The solid blocks of material are hauled around from place to place within the facility until they are finally loaded on a fuel guzzling tractor trailer and hauled to a seaport somewhere. The blocks of material are moved from place to place around the facility until they are finally loaded onto a fuel guzzling ocean going cargo vessel. The cargo vessel finally arrives in China. The blocks are unloaded and transported to a factory somewhere. The blocks are then moved around from place to place within the facility until they are finally tossed into a fuel guzzling furnace and melted down. The molted metal or glass or whatever is then fashioned into toys which are then painted with lead paint and returned to us. The “Green” person then takes the dangerous lead paint covered toys to the recycle center where the whole process starts over again.
You know “Green” people when you see them. I think that most of the time, the friendliest thing that you can do for good old Mother Earth is bury the trash in a good old land fill. But hey, that’s just me.
Sent Friday, July 11, 2008 in response to my aunt’s query about anybody having any thoughts on cow magnets. I think she was secretly just trying to spark a story out of Dad.
This is me. Cow magnets were great things to play with, especially if you had 2 or more of them. They made excellent “space battle fighters”, able to attract or repel enemy ships at will. I hardly ever get to do that anymore.
Other than that, they saved several of our cows from “hardware disease”. For the city types, hardware disease was when a cow would ingest a piece of metal, which would puncture one of her stomachs, usually the first one. The cow magnet was induced into the cows stomach by inserting a special tool down her throat. The business end of the device held the magnet. The device being about 30 inches long, with a plunger mechanism which when pushed, dislodged the magnet into the cows stomach. The tool being made of brass or aluminum, of course. The magnet was approximately 3 inches long, and about 5/8 inch in diameter. The theory being that the magnet would stick to the metal and pull it out of the stomach lining. What happened to it after that, I do not know, as I never attempted to locate one after the fact. If the “hardware” was ferrous metal, you had roughly a 50/50 chance of saving the cow. When a cow was sick from this, or any other ailment, they tended not to eat. Thats bad for a cow.
One way to get the ailing cow to eat was to get her to chew her cud. However, being that she hasn’t eaten, she has no cud to chew. Therein comes the “donor” cow. You would pick a cow, any contended cow, and wait for her to bring up a cud. Just as she did so, you reached into her mouth and grabbed the cud, hopefully before she started to chew. Those big molars can mess hell out of your manicure. The “donor cud” a stinking mass of fermented stuff , would then be placed into the sick cows mouth. More often than not, the sick cow would start to chew, and then having no new cud to bring up, would start to eat. Now the sick cow never seemed surprised that a cud suddenly appeared, but the poor “donor” cow would get the most perplexed look on her face as she attempted to chew a cud that just wasn’t there. Sometimes I would steal a cud just to confuse the cow.
You just got to love cows. They are great big friendly things, but they just don’t have a clue. God bless ‘em.
Sent Monday, June 9, 2008 to my cousins graduating from High School.
Congratulations!!!! Very soon, you will learn that the refrigerator has nothing in it unless you put it there.
Sent Saturday, April 12, 2008. I have been to some funerals/memorials which have had the Honor Guard present. It is a powerful thing to be a part of.
Today I took part in the Honor Guard for a deceased veteran. I have known him for the past 35 years or so, and have been friends with several of his children. He was a member of the ever thinning ranks of World War Two veterans.
Those of us who answered the call, and are members of organizations such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, provide the Honor Guard for our fallen comrades, whether or not we ever knew the deceased. We do this because they deserve it, and because we know that the time is approaching when we will be the one being honored.
Three Guns and Taps. A folded Flag.
It may not sound like much, but there is no higher honor for an ordinary veteran. At grave side, the family Pastor or Priest reads scripture, offers words of comfort, and a prayer. The service is then turned over to the commander of the Honor Guard. Words honoring the veterans service to his country are read, and another prayer is offered. The commander then calls, “Detail, ATTENTION “ “PRESENT ARMS “. Right hands snap from side to eyebrow. Rifles go from butt plate on the ground to a chest high two hand hold. Flags are hoisted to the air. All this is done in unison. Immediately following, the commander of the rifle squad calls, “Squad, ATTENTION “ “PRESENT ARMS “ “PREPARE TO FIRE. READY. AIM. FIRE. READY, AIM, FIRE. READY, AIM, FIRE.” With the first volley, a very predictable thing happens. Everyone in the funeral party jumps. And then the saddest of sounds. Through the noise of the following volleys can be heard the wailing cry of the widow or mother, and sometimes both. And then Taps is played on the bugle. The Honor Guard is then called to Order Arms. The flag is removed from the casket and folded into a triangle. If the deceased has been cremated, the flag would have been folded prior to the grave side service. The flag is then presented to the widow or mother of the deceased, “On behalf of the President and a grateful Nation.”
I have served on many an Honor Guard, and I still find it quite impossible to keep a dry eye in the face of what I have described. Usually, one or more of the family will approach and thank us for what we have done. But we have really not done so very much. We have but offered Tribute to one who has earned it.
Ordinary veteran? That is not a derogatory. The term in itself is an honor. If I may borrow a phrase. God must love the ordinary veteran, for He made so many of us.
Three Guns? The number of guns being fired is unimportant. We get as many veterans to turn out as possible, and the more in attendance, the more guns that are fired. It is the number of times the guns are fired. Three volleys for an ordinary veteran with good paper.
Good Paper? That simply means Honorably Discharged.
“Day is done, gone the sun, from the lake, from the hill, from the sky. All is well, safely rest. God is nigh.”
This is a snippet of an email I received from Dad in response to something I had sent him. It made me laugh so I decided to post it.
Dear Just, I am so confused. Well, no more than normal, what with your Mom and all. I’ll never forget the first time that I saw your Mother. It was back in March of 1970 at her Dad’s farm. I walked into the kitchen and saw her for the first time, and I thought, WOW. And then she started talking, and as she spoke a vague fog of confusion crept over me. I have never been able to shake that feeling to this very day.
This was sent a couple days after Columbus Day. Once again, it’s just a snippet of the entire email.
Christopher Columbus? Big deal. When he left, he didn’t know where he was going, and when he got there he didn’t know where he was, and when he got back he didn’t know where he had been. Annie says that it sounds like men in general.
I’m not sure when this one was originally sent. If I find out I’ll add in the date.
This is me. As some of you know, I take an almost daily mile and a half walk, round trip, from the house to the hill top and back. At the far end of my trail, I pass briefly under a high power electric line. We all know about these things now as being part of “the grid”. As I pass that way, I am sometimes carried back to my youth. No, no, it has nothing to do with a time warp caused by the one hundred thousand or so volts coursing through the wires. I meant that I am “carried back” in a reminiscing sort of way.
It was in the early sixties, probably ‘62 or ‘63, that the event occurred. When Dad bought this farm in 1960, “the grid” was already in evidence. It was undergoing an upgrade of larger wires for additional transmission capacity. This also entailed the replacement of the existing poles with ones of more substance, and the placement of additional poles to safely carry the increased weight of wire. And this is what lead to a most interesting and educational day for a lad of 12 or 13 years of age.
There was a crew of 5 or 6 men working on top of our hill that day. Their job was to drill the holes in the ground and then to set the giant wooden poles against the sky. The holes were drilled with a truck mounted auger of about 30 inches in diameter, to a depth of about12 feet, if I remember right.
I had wandered up the hill to the job site that day using the same old road that I walk to this day. I stood back some distance out of the way to watch the goings on. One of the linemen gave me a smile and a wave and said, “Ya can’t see nottin from dare, come on ofer.” I’m not sure where these guys were from, but I am sure that they weren’t from around here. These men were all in their mid to late twenties, and looked the part. Blue jeans with cuffs, cigarette packs rolled up in their tee shirt sleeves, and the good old duck tail hair cuts.
The one who called me over had one of those nick names that all boys wish that they had. Rocky, Duke, Bull, something like that. I’ll call him Rocky. Rocky took me under his wing that morning. He asked me questions such as, “Ya got cows and stuff?” “Ya ever git ta drive da tractors?” “No kiddin’, since ya was five?” “Ya godda girl friend?” “Hey, why ya blushin’?” He explained what was happening and how things worked. When lunch time rolled around, Rocky tore his sandwich in half and insisted that I would be doing him a great favor if I were to eat the thing for him. He filled his thermos cup with iced tea, or lemonade, or whatever he had, and handed it to me while he drank directly from the jug. When he opened his package of Tastykakes, he handed one of the cupcakes to me, and lied through this teeth by telling me that he hardly ever ate both of them anyway.
When lunch was over, it was time for the drilling of the second hole. The first hole, which had been drilled before lunch, went smoothly with the giant auger making quick work of the layered stone. The second hole proved to be a bit more obstinate. This hole was being drilled only 10 feet away from the first, but the rock would not give way. The guy in charge, who I shall refer to as G.I.C., said a few words and the auger truck was moved away. A pickup truck towing an air compressor was brought up in its stead. A large jack hammer was quickly produced along with the bits of about two and half inches in diameter. The G.I.C. dug a scrap of paper off the floor of the pickup and, with pencil in hand, using the hood of the truck as a desk, did some calculations, hand held calculators not being known at the time. He then said to one of the men something cryptic like, “five by one” and went and sat in the cab of another pickup truck.
I am supposing that dynamite, being of some interest to the government even back then, caused the occasion of filling out various form to account for the soon to be expenditure. The air compressor was fired up and they “drove that steel on down, Lord Lord, yeah they drove that steel on down”. In short order, 5 holes were drilled to a depth of 12 feet. And this is where my education began in earnest.
A storage compartment on the compressor towing truck was unlocked and a crate of dynamite was removed and dropped to the ground. My knowledge of dynamite up to that time had been gleaned by listening to those older and wiser than myself. That would be boys of at least 15 years of age. So I well knew that the stuff would blow up with very little cause whatsoever. The crate was opened and one of the guys took 3 sticks and engaged in a vain attempt at juggling. Then 2 or 3 of the others grabbed some sticks and began to throw them at one another. Someone yelled “boom”, and they “all fell dead”. Now the G.I.C. either did not notice the antics from the cab of his truck, or had seen such behavior often enough that he no longer paid attention to it. Rocky, probably seeing the fear in my eyes, yelled out, “NOGGIDDOFT”. With shrugs of the shoulders and sheepish grins, the sticks of dynamite were returned to the crate.
Now it was time to “fuse” the dynamite, and all horseplay ceased. I was somewhat disappointed that there would not be an actual fuse like we see in the westerns. Instead blasting caps were used. These are metal devices about 2 inches long and as big around as a good old #2 school pencil. From one end of the cap were 2 wires of about 15 feet in length, one white, the other blue. On the ends of the wires were red sleeves around an inch long. Rocky explained that the ends of the wires were bare so that the insulation would not have to be removed on site, and that the red sleeves covered the bare wires to prevent accidental discharge due to static electric or any such thing. A “tee” handle, with a sharp wooden dowel in the middle was used to make a hole in each stick of dynamite. A blasting cap was then pushed into the hole, and another “tee” handle with a blunt dowel was used to further push the cap inside the stick of dynamite, leaving only the wire hanging out.
About now the G.I.C. must have looked up from his paper work and noticed me standing there. He hollered out the window, “GED DA KID OTTA DARE”. Rocky and myself, as well as the others not actively engaged in “fusen da sticks”, moved back to where the trucks were parked, approximately 100 feet away. The sticks were soon “fused” and placed in the holes previously drilled. A roll of blue and white wire, with the strands in a slow spiral, had been attached to the lead wires of the blasting caps. This was then unrolled back to the area where the trucks were parked. I asked Rocky if we were far enough away. He assured me that with the depth of the holes, and the solid nature of the rock, we would hear a muffled roar, feel the ground tremble, and see the layer of soil around the blast site lift up and settle back down like “yer granmutter shakin’ out a blangket”. I had never seen Grandmom doing that, but I got a picture.
It was now time to cut the wire from the roll. This was more complicated than you might expect. One man separated the white and blue wires as much as the spiral would allow. The other man first cut the blue wire, unwound the spiral a couple of feet, and then bent the blue wire back away from the uncut white wire. He then cut the white wire and removed an inch of insulation. Another slight disappointment. I had expected to see one of those neat plunger things that the dynamite is set off with on television. What I got was a common lantern battery. He connected the white wire to the negative terminal of the battery. He then very carefully removed an inch of insulation from the blue wire, keeping it bent back away from the battery. He then called for a head count, with all being accounted for. He then stood up and looked all around. Kneeling back down, he took the blue wire in his hand, and as loud as he could, he yelled for the benefit of anyone who might happen to saunter through the woods, “FIRE INDA HOLLLLLE”. Waiting several seconds for a reply, and hearing none, he touched the blue wire to the positive terminal of the battery.
This set into action several laws of physics, none of which I fully understand. This much I know. For electric to be of any use whatsoever, it must return to where it began. That is, to ground. When the blue wire touched the positive terminal, the electricity stored in the battery flowed at the speed of light down the wire, through the blasting caps, and then returned to the battery through the white wire. Now the only thing which makes dynamite any more dangerous then a stick of wood, for example, is the rate in which it burns. Whilst a stick of wood of equal size may take many minutes to burn, the same amount of dynamite burns in a fraction of a second. In technical terms, this is what makes it go “KABOOM”.
The electrical charge caused the blasting cap to explode, which in turn set the dynamite on fire. The extremely rapid burn rate caused combustion gases to build up within the holes drilled into the rock well beyond the rocks capacity to stay in one place. When the man hollered “FIRE INDA HOLLLLLE”, he had no idea how right he was.
There was a tremendous roar, not at all muffled. The ground did shake, much more than I could have imagined. A split second later, the earth exploded with jagged chunks of rocks lifting skyward on a column of fire which reached at least 30 feet in height. The ever expanding inverted cone of rock traveled high into the sky. I’m guessing in excess of a hundred feet, if not much more. The “safe” distance of the trucks from the blast proved to be wholly inadequate, as the cone of rock extended well beyond where we stood. The large auger truck, and a large flatbed truck were parked about 50 feet apart. I was standing in the middle of the two, which put me about 25 feet from either one. As gravity took over, the larger of the rocks grew weary of the flight and began their return home.
It was then that I was introduced to many words that I had never heard before. While I was vaguely aware of men diving for cover underneath whatever vehicle they happened to be closest to, I stood transfixed watching the jagged rocks falling from the sky. I suddenly became aware of a sensation of flying. I then realized that someone had a hold of me by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants while running at full speed. And then I was flying, as I was tossed through the air like a bean bag. I was airborne for 15 feet or so, and then hit ground and rolled under the flat bed truck. I might have rolled right on through, except that someone reached out and grabbed hold of me.
Just as I came to a stop under the truck, there began a noise which I can in no way describe. All those jagged rocks began to hit the truck. Screeching sheet metal and busting glass make quite a racket, not to mention the rocks bouncing off the steel deck of the flatbed. The only unbroken glass was the door windows, and only because they were all rolled down. The rocks which happened to land on edge pierced the roofs and hoods of the vehicles leaving them looking like some prehistoric creators from a cheap movie.
Had I remained where I stood, I could not have escaped serious injury or even death, as there was not a square foot of ground not covered with sharp rocks. My benefactor was, of course, Rocky. He had been leaning against the auger truck, and could easily have dived for cover. He chose to traverse the 50 feet of unprotected ground to keep me from harm. He was the only one injured. A rock the size of a pie plate hit him flat on the right shoulder blade, leaving a bruise from neck to waist, and a large area of missing and torn up skin. Had the rock hit him on edge, his injury would have been severe.
It turned out that the “five by one” instruction had been misunderstood. Rather than 1 stick per hole, for a total of five, they put five sticks per hole for a total of 25 sticks of dynamite. The resulting hole in the ground measured some ten feet across. Their work being done for they day, they removed as many of the rocks from the sheet metal as they could, and the wounded convoy limped off the hill. The next day, a different crew was there to fill in the hole, and finish the job.
I sometimes wonder about Rocky. He would be near 65 years old by now. I think it likely that when the weather is cold and damp, his shoulder must ache something terrible from the “rumatize” that has set in. He probably rubs his shoulder as he tries to flex the pain away and wonders, “What ever happened to that blue-eyed, brown-haired kid from Pennsylvania?”
 | mary a. kaufman on My Birthday |
| mary a. kaufman on Cutting Wood |
| mary a. kaufman on Cow magnets |
| mary a. kaufman on Cow magnets |
 | Kid sister Bette on Cow magnets |
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