All posts by djones

comfort memories

Comfort Memories

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From time to time we all need a dose of “comfort memories” to get us through the day and replenish our mental facilities. “Comfort memories” are memories that are deeply etched in our minds and give us a sense of joy and emotional fullness and calmness when we recall them. They replenish our emotional state and leave us happier for having remembered them. One of my favorite comfort memories comes from the summers I spent on the farm with grandpa and grandma P.

The day is hot and stifling. It has been getting hotter minute by minute all afternoon. There is hardly a bit of breeze and I can see the heat devils rising from the fallow strips in the dryland field down the road. The yard around the house is grassy and shaded by trees and sits on a bit of a rise, giving me a view into the distance where I can see grandpa and my uncle on their tractors working in the fields. More accurately, I can see the rooster tails of dust rising up from behind the tractors as they move round the fields.  I am still young enough that I don’t work the fields, but old enough to be left alone at the house as grandma has gone elsewhere. I can see to the horizon more than 20 miles away. I can close my eyes and dream my big dreams and plan my future and wonder what we will have for supper and …

I see the clouds billowing up in the distance, being fed from the heat rising off the ground, growing higher and higher and turning darker and darker. As they slowly approach, they are changing from the cotton puffs of earlier in the day to the menacing thunderheads that blanket the the entire horizon. The breeze starts to pick up and the heat devils are joined by dust devils as they merrily play a game of tag and spin round crazily. The arrival of the breeze is the signal for me to go inside. The storm is getting close.

Once inside the house, the storm continues to journey closer. The day that was so bright only moments ago is now darkening as the sun falls behind the towering thunderheads. The wind begins to gust with that here and there, uncertain motion that presages the possible coming of rain. The wind in its vigor and uncertainty makes the screens on the open windows whistle and zing bewitchingly. Grandma’s sheer curtains fly up to the ceiling and down again and again, like ghosts hoping to play. It’s almost as if the storm is trying to sing to me through the screens and the curtains are dancing to the melody. The temperature begins to drop, falling from the upper nineties to the seventies in moments. It feels good to have the cooling breeze running through the house and over my skin after the lazy heat of the day. The thunder and lightning continues in the distance, coming ever closer, getting ever louder.

Suddenly the crescendo of thunder and lightning and wind peaks and then just as suddenly begins to begins to fade. The sun once more emerges from behind the clouds as they continue their march into the distance, carrying the thunder and lightning and wind with them. Shortly the only way to know that it really happened is the cooler temperature and the fact that the yard outside is covered in newly fallen leaves and twigs. I can go back outside and continue my contemplations as I watch the dark clouds recede into the distance. The world is once more a place a dreams.

To this day, all I have to do is hear that characteristic zing of the screens in the breeze and I am transported back to those times, times of feeling all is right with the world and that all is working as it should. Times of infinite possibility when the future was mine to craft. When I want to think deeply or just calm myself, I imagine the zing of the wind in the screens and then I am back there, in my wonderful memory.

What are some of your “comfort memories?”

Time to go for a walk and get ready for the council meeting tonight. It could be a long one, so I figured I’d get this out early.

Completely off topic, but I can’t help myself.  I was reading National Geographic the other day and came upon the factoid that that at birth a blue whale is about 25 feet long and weighs 3 tons. I then compare that to the blogs where mothers to be are hoping that the forthcoming little one is not going to be a ten pounder. What does a momma blue whale wish for? Not only that, but the baby blue whale, eating nothing but mother’s milk, gains 9 pounds an hour. So how does a momma blue whale feel at the end of a long day of nursing? Just asking.

album, curmugeon, moccasin, twitter

Monday Curmudgeon

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My inner curmudgeon is our and raving today. Enjoy (or not) at your own risk.

Topic 1 – The Oscars:
Contrary to at least 40% of the blogs I read today, I didn’t watch the Oscar show. To my mind, being subjected to the pablum of a self congratulatory award show is right up there with taking nude sun baths at 20 below in a Siberian winter. Just in case you are a little slow on the uptake, that means I think it is a waste of time. To use one of my favorite phrases: “that proves you don’t have the brains of a kumquat.”

Topic 2 – Twitter:
I actually saw the first intelligent comment ever about Twitter today. Cosmic Variance is one of the best science blogs around and I’m not just saying that because some of the authors are colleagues of my thesis mentor. Anyhow, today Sean expounded on a thought that has been circulating in my head for a month or more:

In the progression from magazines to blogs to Twitter feeds, the tea leaves are clear. I think we need a new social network, on which updates will take the form of nothing more than a single “0″ or “1″.

We can call it “Bitter.”

To which my answer is a heartfelt:

01001000 01000101 01001100 01001100 00100000 10000000 01011001 01000101 01010011 00100001 00100001 00100001

Topic 3 – My First Album:
Tracey over at Sweetney challenged us all to make our first album cover.

(rules courtesy of Best Week Ever):
  1. Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.
  2. Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
  3. Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
  4. Use Photoshop or some other image editor to add text & spiffify.
  5. Post a link to your band’s album cover here! SHOW AND TELL TIMEZ NAO.

So I followed the rules and came up with the platimum selling “few people can handle it” from my newly formed group, Eden Log. The production staff came up with this artwork and I must say I like it.

(For the Wikipedia challenged, random is on the left side about three or four down.)

Topic 4 – My Moccasins:
My moccasins have long been past the end of their life. But I keep using a little baling wire and duct tape to keep them up and running for use around the house because the replacement pair hurt my toes. I have a couple of impinged nerves in my big toes that can drop me to my knees in pain without warning. When the nerves are firing up, any pressure in the right place on my toe and I am in agony. My current moccasins have worn to the point where the problem has been solved. (As you can see in the picture.)

Unfortunately, I think that this summer may be the end of these moccasins. That means that I an going to have to start working on getting the replacement pair broken in. I am a firm believer in the “once something is worn enough to be comfortable, it should last forever” school of thought. Look for me to be cranky from time to time.

For the ascii and numerically challenged among you, the hearty response above is “HELL YES!!!” in binary.

mid-west, rural, wildlife

You know you’re a …

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Most of you know that I am the mayor of a small town in rural Colorado. (After all, you can read the sidebar as well as anyone.) The town and its 1.5 mile radius of influence contains more than 75% of the population in the whole county. Nothing too surprising, until you consider that the county encompasses close to 2000 square miles and that the entire county is home to around 20,000 people. Now you can see why I refer to this as rural area. Some of our neighboring counties are even more sparsely populated. Of course, as the local cattlemen’s association is fond of telling me, “there may be 20,000 people, but there are more than 5 million cattle in a good year.” Add to this the fact that the area is a semi-desert climatically, and you have some interesting peculiarities. So in honor of the sparsity of people and moisture and the large numbers of cows, pigs, ducks, geese, dogs, and other critters, I give you some of the ways you know you are in the rural mid-west:

  • Restaurants:

Senior discount hours start before 4pm and are over by 6pm.

Close before 9pm.

Close Monday since they were open on Saturday.

Open only for lunch and maybe early supper on Sunday.

  • Your tractor cost more than your house *and* has a better paint job.
  • Your farm is known as the “old previous owner’s place” until you die or sell it. Then it’s known as your old place.
  • Your neighbor lives 3 miles away and is “too darn close.”
  • The mood in the area follows the rainfall totals.
  • No one cares much about the stock market, but commodity prices are posted everywhere.
  • Wildlife doesn’t mean an alternative lifestyle.
  • Animal control has to trap skunks as they invade the city and its parks during grub season.
  • Police have been known to chase the deer and antelope back out of town and off the roads before rush hour.
  • Mom did get run over by a deer herd on the way home from Christmas Eve. In town. While I was mayor. (Fortunately, the newspaper didn’t get hold of it. I can just see the headlines: Mayor’s Mother Attacked by Rampaging Herd of Deer on 10th Ave. on Christmas Eve.)
  • That’s a reason to be sure you have a local insurance agent. Imagine trying to tell your agent that a herd of deer ran into the side of your car and jumped on the hood on Christmas Eve – and that no you had nothing to drink.
  • People complain mightily about the 5 minute rush hour.
  • A new stoplight will get more complaints and phone calls to the mayor than any number of potholes on Main Street.
  • It’s a disgrace if it takes you five minutes to get to work in the morning. “The city should do something about that” calls abound. Even if it is due to a broken water main closing a thoroughfare.
  • The county is appealing to the Colorado Supreme Court to prohibit driving your sprinkler system across the county roads. And sprinkler systems have the right of way.
  • You see cellular service being touted on the TV by the tornado chase teams. “Reliable enough for us to use as we chase in real time. All our computers and data acquisition systems depend on the reliable cellular internet service from Viaero.” Of course, the ads always end with “You shouldn’t chase tornadoes.”
  • You actually know which tornado chase team it is.
  • Everyone you meet will smile and say “Hi.”
  • Everyone will try to help you and will find someone who can if they can’t.

Time for Molly and I to resume our regularly scheduled Sunday mope; L has returned to the mountains. Molly hasn’t moved from her dejected perch by the garage door since L left hours ago. I figure about noon tomorrow for the recovery to begin.

brother, minnow, story

Fish Eating Brother

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Since so many of you were curious about my brother and the minnow incident, here is


The Story of the Fish Eating Brother
We lived for several years in a wide spot in the road originally built to handle the oil field workers during the oil boom years in eastern Colorado. The entire community could have easily been seated at a small restaurant with seats leftover. The tone of the area gave new meaning to the phrase “white trash without trailer houses.” In front of our house was a dirt road and a large dryland farm field. Behind our house was waste ground and an oil field equipment storage dump. But the crucial piece of ground was right next door. That was the abode of the McD clan.
The McD clan pretty much ran free range, much like free range chickens. There were enough of them that they were never all accounted for except at meal times. They ranged in age from teenagers to tiny tots. The front yard was full of junk and the equipment and furniture that wouldn’t fit in the house. Things like an old wringer washing machine on the front porch that Mrs McD used to wash the clothes. Quite a sight when it was below zero and snowy. You know, all the things you see a lot of today.
A couple of the McD kids straddled my brother and I in age and since there was no one else near by, we were honorary McD clan members as far as play went. Picture the kinds of trouble we could get into in the middle of nowhere with all that equipment and open space around. The McD clan had an old outhouse on the back corner of their property, which we kids often used rather than going into the house as we were playing. I was about 5 years old and my brother around 4 at the time of this incident.
Now Dad went fishing from time to time and that meant there was often a minnow bucket with a hose running in it to keep some live bait to hand. Nothing was more attractive to us kids than the continuously renewing mud puddle around the minnow bucket. Of course, the minnows were also attractive, but we just knew that playing with them would get us into trouble.
One day, the typical game of one-up escalated to the dare of taking a {*gasp*} minnow. One of the McD clan filched the minnow and, as we all stood around admiring his bravery and skill, Eddie, the oldest McD in the group, proposed that he would pay a glorious 25 cents to whomever would eat the minnow. All heads turned to my little brother. He already had a reputation as the kid that would eat anything. He had gained fame earlier in our group by eating a few bees (while they were still buzzing I might add). He thought about it for a moment and said that he would, but that he wanted the minnow cooked first (so he had at least learned a little from the bee stings).
Cooking the minnow was problematic. None of us was allowed to play with fire. But Eddie had the solution. Since Mr. McD smoked, he would abscond with his matches overnight and the minnow would be re-captured and cooked and eaten in the morning. The captured minnow was returned to the bucket to await the feast and we proceeded on our normal trouble making for the rest of the day.
Mid-morning the next day, the delegation converged on the outhouse. Eddie brought the matches, another McD member brought the minnow, and I brought my brother (or he brought me). So with the 5 or 6 of us congregated at the outhouse, Eddie and my brother stepped inside to do the transaction, leaving the door open so we could all glory in the moment. The minnow was duly transferred to my brother, who held it by its tail while Eddie lit match after match and held them beneath the poor fish. At some point my brother called it done. He then glibly flipped the fish into his mouth, chewed for a bit, swallowed, and held out his hand for his quarter. (A quarter was a lot of money to us then!) Eddie duly paid up and we were left to find some new mischief to get into. That bit of legerdemain had sealed my brothers status as the bravest of the brave. Who else could eat live bees and minnows heated over forbidden matches. He was well on his way to McD clan super stardom.
Unfortunately for my brother’s new found status, we moved to Nebraska shortly thereafter to the town of the My First Bicycle. The only lasting effect was that he was very susceptible to being teased about eating raw fish. (Not like his kindly older brother would ever do anything like that. {*grin*}) He remains a bit touchy about the incident even today.
So there you have it – The Story of the Fish Eating Brother.
feed, rebuild

New feed is up and running

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I lied. I went ahead and got the feeds changed out early. The old mangled feeds have been deleted and a single “correct” feed is now running.

If you were subscribed in a reader, unsubscribe and then click the subscribe in a reader button on the right. If you were a follower, unsubscribe (stop following) and they resubscribe (follow).
Let me know if you hit any oddities. (And thanks for your patience!)
As the old Outer Limits TV show used to say: “We now return control of your set to …”
Dan