Like Father Like Daughter

This is where my parents often run their dogs.

I'd like to learn how Dad shot the above photo. The colors and the curve!

This is where I run *my* pups.

This was taken in the autumn~see why I like the fall best?

reason number four

he sends the african ocean to me
in blue airmail tissue

somehow without the water
he knows somehow when

i am alone, i sleep with maps
of the ocean floors

I smell cabbage cooking in the kitchen

It's windy here, which means I'd rather be somewhere else than here.

How about a time and place that happened before television?

Have you ever had anyone wait for you like this?

Ok, so maybe not all Olden Days were Golden.

Looking at this photo makes my left hand ache for a baseball glove.

Before the days of Multi-Tasking and Ipods.

 Forearms + The ability to draw maps of ocean floors = Oh La La

My favorite, even over the forearms photo.

There are more photos— if you are like me and enjoy getting lost backwards in time and other countries. Check out this  link to the 1930s and 1940s.

both sides of the road

I'd like to say that I figured this out a long time ago, but it has baffled me until recently. Likely you are a creative person, and likely you are so tuned into me that you already know what I am writing about (?)

Creative people are complex in that they straddle seemingly contradictory sides of the road simultaneously. Contradictory extremes. I feel more confident using this term after reading this article.

What did I learn?

** We (notice how I include myself) are smart and naive at the same time. Creative people use two opposite ways of thinking in novel ways: convergent and divergent thinking. I especially related to this: divergent thinking doesn't lead to agreed-upon solutions but rather allows for fluidity and flexibility.

** We (I'll go along with this as well) are both physically energetic and yet require large chunks of down time. It's enough to drive a roommate mad, right? Strong doses of eros and yet spartan celibacy play into this as well. (. . . enough to drive a partner crazy. . .)

** Creative people are on both ends of this spectrum: playfulness and responsibility/discipline. (Dropping the "we" here, but I am so pleased to see playfulness in the same sentence with discipline.)

** Creative people are both introverted and extroverted simultaneously. (This can befuddle others. . .)

** Rebellious and conservative at the same time. (Trying to remove the "we" here, but in doing so I realize I have only made it more obvious that this applies to me rather well.)

** Scaredycat and risk taker all in one.


So read the article and you'll feel better understood. I do. In case you miss the part about innovation for its own sake, here a quote from Eva Zeisel:

"This idea to create something is not my aim. To be different is a negative motive, and no creative thought or created thing grows out of a negative impulse. A negative impulse is always frustrating. And to be different means 'not like this' and 'not like that.' And the 'not like'—that's why postmodernism, with the prefix of 'post,' couldn't work. No negative impulse can work, can produce any happy creation. Only a positive one."


And for my poet friends, here is a final quote just in time for April:

"Perhaps the most important quality, the one that is most consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake. Without this trait, poets would give up striving for perfection and would write commercial jingles . . ."
~From Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

on the way to trading back-up pony for a book

In a little bit, I need to do some more explaining about the tug boat thing showing up in this blog. It involves trading my back-up pony for funds to help me acquire a dream-come-true book about tug boats in NYC. (But why tug boats and why NYC? Well, consider this a post-trailer . . .)

This is not Annie. This is Buck.

In the course of trading back-up pony, I was offered these photos from last year's lambing season at my sister's farm. They were taken by a good friend of Mary's whom I will refer to as *Ray Ray* for now.The thing is, she is a misplaced Montanan living in temporary exile on the east coast. You'll see that life back in Montana would suit her so well (read on . . .)

Mary knows where all her lambs are but for one . . .

Let's thank *Ray Ray* for these photos

And then it's time to say *so long* to back-up pony

who's in trouble now?

Two pups + time on their hands = trouble

Hard to believe? I know.

I took the pups outside and questioned them-

Spoke to them about how we want the Tugboat Book

and how this household better get into ship-shape condition

because I had to trade my back-up pony

to get the funds for the Tugboat Book.

That's Charlie "Not Me" the Dutch Shepherd on the left

and Cali "I Know Nothing About No Book" Aussie on the right.

****** ******

Let me know who you think did the crime.

If you are right, you win the dog.

If you are good at sanding and painting,

wanna come over this summer and refinish my deck?

Tug Boat Pilot Seeking Hudson Navigator

RookieTug Boat Pilot License

Sherry LG 'Olive Oyl' O'Keefe

This affadavitizes to said reader that said

Pilot is duly authorized and deputized

to operate any and all tug boats

on any waterways herein originated within

the said boundaries of said Territory of Montana;

further said document documents that said Sherry

is a journeyman in 19th century handsmything signals

and a master craftsman at knots and B S anchoring

post 1829, but remains a rookie at reading

channel markers due to the limited number

of channels in the landlocked Territories.

Any tugboating originating outside these boundaries

requires a notarious master journeyman navigator

with his or her own set of scrolled charts

at her starboard side. Usual and substandard

tequila sunset hours of operation apply.

the skinny on sexing baby chicks and fruit flies

Last night I raced to the back of the local ranch store to pick up dog food for the pups. My plan to be in and out of the store in under five backfired because of these little guys..  .  . .  .  .

Actually, because of little guys like this:

It's baby chick and duck season here.

Some folks want chickens for laying eggs

and some want chickens for the autumn hatchet.

 *Gulp*

Joe and Wally gave me a crash course in how to sex a baby chick.

Guaranteed to be about 80% accurate.

Take the chick by the scruff of its downy neck.

Suspend the chick in mid-air and watch what happens with its legs.

If the chick draws his legs up, he's considered a rooster.

If the chick's legs stay extended, she's considered capable of laying eggs.

I watched a little cowtoddler handle the chicks while his older sister looked on.

Too bad they don't give the girls bows, she said to her little brother.

*****     *****     *****

Before this life, I was a biology lab assistant in high school.

Three of us were assigned the trusted task of sexing the fruit flies.

It's almost true, by the way, that fruit flies are extremely sexy—

they multiply faster than you can separate the boys from the girls.

My lab partners and I were good at prepping slide specimens, dissecting baby pigs,

growing carrots in sea water speckled with limedust from the stars.

Do you know what happens if someone leaves the trap door open

on the boy fruit fly cage and the girl fruit fly cage

 right before school closes for spring break?

i missed mine, did you miss yours?

hang your clothes on a hickory limb

When I was this size, my father taught his kids and nieces how to pose for the camera.
In this photo he asked for mean poses.
As you can see, I was the cousin with older brothers.
I won the contest for looking mean.

(Mike said-  you have to squint your eyes.)
(Pat said-  you have to make your mouth feel mad.)
(Mary said- oh look, there is food on the table behind us . . .)
(Mom said- Sherry! Did you cut your bangs again?!)

But contrary to this photo, I was actually a scaredycat.

(The photo still embarrasses me . . .)

***** ***** *****

Then our family moved to a power camp

next to one of the greatest waterfalls of the Missouri River.

If you are a Lewis and Clark fan, you'll know that even they could not go in this water.
They spent weeks portaging around the falls.

Danger!

Our parents forbade us to ever go near the water.

Our father often sang us this song:

Mother may I go out to swim,

Yes my darling daughter,

Hang your clothes on a hickory limb,

But don't go near the water.

Danger: The waters behind this sign are closed

to boating, sailing, floating and swimming.

(Seriously? No sailing or boating?)

Mike and I would dangle Pat over the upriver side of the dam

so Pat could retreive half-frozen ducks for us to take home. 

(Look Mom! This duck followed us home!)

***** ***** *****

Here, you find us somewhere between home and on our way to The Top of the World.

Comes the day when I find myself singing the same song to my two children.

Look close. First you see my son. Behind him a bit to the left is his sister.

She asked -  could she go take photos of flowers?

Sure my darling daughter . . .

hang your clothes by the hickory limb

but don't go near the water.

The tiny white speck at the top of the canyon,

on the right side of the raging water

is my daughter.

Likely, she was hanging those clothes on the hickory limb . . .

Why she couldn't take the path that her mother recommended?

See how safe her mother is?

Why must we want the flower

that grows on the edge of cliffs?

 

The Census of 1850, 1860 and 1870

After a great conversation with a friend that started out about suspenders and led to mining corruption and the number of Chinese helping to build the railroads (and I am pretty sure we took a sidetrip to consider how much stardust is accumulating on the moon), I recalled once seeing the census of Virginia City, Montana in 1870. How the conversation leads to census, well . . .

Click here to scroll through the census list. The data is sorted by last name. When you get to "Chinaman", does that give you great pause? It did me.

Something else to give a person great pause— a list of questions asked in the 1850 Census. Compare them to the ones we are being asked today.

The Census of 1850

Schedule 1. Free Inhabitants in _________, in the County of ________, State of _________, enumerated by me, on the _____ day of ___________, 1850. ___________________, Ass’t. Marshal.


1. Dwelling houses and number in order of visitation.
2. Families numbered in the order of visitation.
3. The name of every person whose usual place of abode on the 1st day of June, 1850, was in this family.
Description:
4. Age.
5. Sex.
6. Color – White, black, or mulatto.
7. Profession, occupation, or trade of each male person over 15 years of age.
8. Value of real estate owned.
9. Place of birth, naming the state, territory, or country.
10. Married within the year.
11. Attended school within the year.
12. Persons over 20 years of age who can not read and write.
13. Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict.


Schedule 2. Slave Inhabitants in _________, in the County of ________, State of _________, enumerated by me, on the _____ day of ___________, 1850. ___________________, Ass’t. Marshal.

1. Names of slave owners.
2. Number of slaves.
Description:
3. Age.
4. Sex.
5. Color.
6. Fugitives.
7. Number manumitted.
8. Deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic.

And finally: here is a link to pages and pages of 1860 Census Conclusions such as this: In 1860 for every one Irish emigrant living in the USA, there were only five remaining in Ireland. For every one German emigrant, there were thirty-three. No wonder most of my conversations detour to talk of stardust on the moon. The truth of our past often hurts. Today's truth? How much of today will still be with us 1.5 centuries later?

The Billycock, the Derby and the Bowler

“Mad as a hatter”

Mercury was once used in the felting process which led to mercury poisoning.

"If you want to get ahead, get a hat"

~Denton circa 1825

Anyone showing up for a job interview without a hat was quickly shown the door.

~Denton, England circa 1840

"The hat that won the West"

~Lucius Beebe

Let's pause for a moment

so we can watch the movie clip (below).

I watched this movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when I was young and impressionable. In a tiny town in the middle of the Lincoln National Forest, my family and I were camping for an extended time alongside Aspen Creek.

The drive to the show involved a ride in the back of an old Chevy pickup, wrapped in blankets. The movie was shown in a small gym, with the rickety movie projector playing tic tic tic behind our heads. We sat on folding chairs and on the wooden floor. The ladies of the local library sold bags of home-popped popcorn for ten cents a bag.

Anytime someone stood up to walk to the bathroom or buy more popcorn, their silhouette played against the screen. Our small audience would hiss and holler. The projectionist would pause the film and wait for the interference to subside before allowing the movie to continue. What wonderful conditions to fall in love . . . with the Derby Hat.

Then came 1850 and the Billycock Hat (aka the Derby and the Bowler)

Every one was wearing a bowler. For the first time, both the union man and the banker wore the same hat. Something important was happening.  The bowler hat marked a change, and the “modern man” by wearing one, wanted the world to know that he was part of it.

~Fred Belinsky www.VillageHatShop.com

The Ache in Grace

On Being 79 and Listening to Townes Van Zandt

Turn your sound up and listen/watch this YouTube link.

Talk to me afterwards.

When B Goes Bad

Three weeks before Phone A went bad, the earphones went bad.

I bought new earphones. (I have a Blackberry Storm. I cannot hear well without earphones and am not yet willing to do the earplug thing with the Bluetooth).

Within a few weeks, I discovered the earphones weren't the problem. Phone A was the problem.

A trip to the phone store resulted in a warranty replacement: Phone B. Yahoo.

Twelve hours later, B went bad. It dumped all my contacts. (Sidenote: If I've not called you, this could be why. Who remembers anyone's phone numbers anymore?)

Five days later, the phone company (I'm trying to not name names here) shipped me Phone C. Yahoo. After the many hours at the phone store (first for the earphones and later for B), I  hadn't wanted to spend anymore time in that store. (Dozens and dozens of hours. . .)

(Sometimes I embellish.)

Shipping seemed way easier.

C was shipped. Today, I activated C. 

Yahoo, I had sound. Yahoo, I had the ability again to store contacts.  All I had to do was presto-magico-flashito set up my email accounts and I'd be up and running.

C had no email abilities. I called the phone people back. Two hours later the people verified that I really did not have email abilities with this Storm.

Another hour of work, though, they were able to fix the email situation. Before I could  *yahoo*  though, I suddenly could not hear the phone people on C.

What the?

C had lost it's sound abilities. (. . . and I was trying to hang on to my sound abilities . . .) No speaker phone, no earphone sound. So I held the handset to my ear like in the Olden Days.

The phone people shouted, "We can't hear you."

On Tuesday, Fed Ex will deliver D. I have been reassured that D will have sound, contacts and email abilities. Not to worry. Not to fuss. I can't tell you how much that excites me.

Dreaming of Gus

My sister called me the other morning.  (Not this morning, but you know. . . the other morning.) She had dreamt about getting a horse named Gus. She didn't know a horse named Gus, but still it didn't mean the dream was wrong.  Mary believes in dreams.

She was the little girl in so many nursery rhymes.

Mary had a little lamb.

Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?

This Mary, my sister,  might have replied,,"with all the pretty horses lined up in a row." 

She was the little girl who wanted to be a horse. It shouldn't have been impossible, afterall--we grew up in the country. Hills and a wild river. Plenty of room to run and chomp on prairie grass. 

As kids, we didn't understand that just because we lived here we could not have horses. We didn't own the land. But, my little sister reasoned, she could pretend to be a horse.

The path towards a horse is typical. Our paths are not short.  Albeit woven through periodic green pastures, the path is unbeaten and at times desolate.

It's possible to feel as though all is not to be.

But then one day, a rancher came into her life.

And then another day came, seemingly all of a sudden although we know these things don't happen quickly.

This is not Gus. This is Buck, Mary's first horse. He taught her about dreaming.

The day after she dreamed of a horse named Gus, she received a phone call from the man who shoes horses. He had a gentle horse in need of a home. He had a white stripe in his red coat. He was only five years old and loved people. "What is his name?" my sister asked.

Gus.

Of course.

(Landscape photos courtesy of our father. Photo of Buck and Mary grudgingly permitted by camera-shy sister. Photo of Gus? In a few weeks. Mary is riding him right now. Plenty of time for photos later.)

Between Apple Jack's and Alexander's Grave

On my way to see the lions at the library last spring, I got lost somewhere between Apple Jack's and Alexander's grave. A map from the past might have helped.  ( I never did get to the library.)

Somewhere in Manhattan

He lets time happen when he writes

the tree line of an aspen grove.

I study him, this man in derby clothes

who walks Manhattan

to kneel at Alexander’s grave
beside a prairie girl with no lantern.

She finds stories packed in sawdust

and wood chips saved in a whiskey keg

layered with apple jacks and chocolate pound cake.

He breathes what passes. Words

settle into years.

*   *  *

The poem is mine, but the map is an Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 / by I. N. Phelps Stokes.  If you can zoom in, do! You might get as caught up in the steep-roofed houses as I did. If you can't zoom in, go to the library I went to and find maps to help you find your own way to whenever or wherever.

The New York Public Library:  http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm.

By the way, the library sells the prints from their gallery —in case you want to buy a scroll, hide it in your backpack and go exploring backwards into time. Let me know if you do! We could meet up somewhere and get lost together.

FOUND: An Elephant Without A Story

I thought to wait to write this post about the elephant's missing story because the elephant's current owner (if one can own an elephant) is on Winter Travel. I've not asked him if I can write about the elephant he found in the creekbed that corners his North Forty. What I want to know is how long the elephant soaked in the high mountain creek, waiting to be discovered. What the traveler wanted to know when he sent me the photo: who was the last person to see this elephant? Do elephants have long memories?

From Oranges to a Baby's Opera

Today's post was to have something to do with a man in blue, peeling an orange while waiting for a bus. There is a poem about this in the hopper so I don't want to say too much more about the man and his orange right now, but I woke up this morning, thinking I'd write a post about peeling oranges and such. I  started to search for a photo of an orange being peeled.

One photo led to another. On the 24th Google page, I found this:

Lost in nostalgia as I often am, my search for a curled peel from an orange stopped. I got caught up in http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/4/1/25418/25418-h/25418-h.htm.

Do you know Project Gutenberg? It brings us such things as this:

I might be gone the rest of the day. You can find me at Project Gutenberg, listening to the Baby's Opera:

Got Irish?

This is where my Irish comes from. The man on the left—the grandfather I never met. Remy O'Keefe.

Whose Uncle Pat?

My father has a brother named Pat. I have a brother named Pat. We have cousins named Pat. We have something like 29 cousins and something like every fifth relative is named Dan. So between those two names, we end up with conversations that stall out with "Whose Uncle Pat? Yours or mine?" or "Whose Dan? Terry's Dan or Dad's Dan?"

Last week my folks called to let me know that they were sending Brother Pat's latest book for me to read. Understand, we are a family that likes to read. One brother has a grocery list in his wallet. Except instead of groceries on the list, he writes titles of books on the list for his next visit to the library. In any of our homes, there will be a box or a bag of books waiting to be shuttled to the next relative. Books Mom has already read, but Mary hasn't. Books that your Uncle Pat doesn't want anymore and thought you'd like to have. Books no one liked, but maybe you'd like to read them anyways.

Brother Pat is not my brother Pat. This is what my dad calls his brother, Pat. From a family of six boys and two girls, Dad and Uncle Pat are the only men left now. Mailing books back and forth between Southern California and Central Montana is one way to stay connected. Not too long ago, Uncle Pat mailed my dad a book that was over 1600 pages. The note inside said, "Read this fast. It's not mine. It's from the library down here and it's due in two weeks."

Most of the books that get swapped start with Uncle Pat. After his girlfriend reads it, it gets mailed to my father whose best reading times are first thing in the morning. Morning starts at three a. m. at his house. When he and Mom are are done with the book, it gets mailed to one of their five kids. Last week, the latest book on Ireland was in my mailbox. (Are you surprised that most of the books we swap have to do with God's Favorite Country?)

I'm instructed to read it quickly because Cousin Kelly in Oregon is waiting for it. I thought to cheat and say I read it and mail it on. Sitting next to my bed are five or seven books I am reading right now. Who'd notice if I ever read Frank Delaney's IRELAND? But knowing my family, there will be a quiz. A gathering months from now where I won't be able to pretend I read the book. So I started it last night and now, I can't put it down. There are ROCKS in this story! Second only to books, this family of mine is known to share rocks with each other as well. And now, after reading the first two chapters in Delaney's book, I understand why. Stones are as old as the world. So are some of the stories being told in this book.

Marie Ponsot

Think you have no time left in your life to share a spot or two of solid wisdom?  Consider a poet whose poetry I am just now beginning to explore. Oh my. We are never Too Old. There is always time to become wise and giving. Check out this video of Marie Ponsot reading one of her poems.
  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/12/weekly-poem-tv-evening-news.html

Making Good Use of August

When Nadine and I were six years old, we were best of friends, each living at a power camp along the Missouri River, miles and miles from town. We spent four years exploring the countryside together, climbing apple trees, examining road kill, tracking deer, following trickles of water to hot springs miles away. Her father relocated his family when we were in fourth grade, so we became penpals. I'd write stories and send them to her and she would send me illustrations and more suggestions for more stories. Nadine is the artist whose watercolor graces the cover of my first chapbook, Making Good Use of August.

Contact me if you'd like a copy of the book. It's worth the price, just to have her artwork. No kidding!

Goodbye Bales, Goodbye November Snow

I remember back in the Winter of '08, my brother-in-law rescued my dogs by showing up one artic evening with a Jeep filled with bales of straw. My dogs had eaten their dog house. (Yes. Everything in this blog is contrived of the most honest understanding of fact. As I recognize it.) That evening, an artic front had blown in and it was about 20 below outside. Inside my house, it was about 93.2 degrees because I was fuming, having come home to see that the pups had once again destroyed their dog house. How was I to keep them protected while I was at work? Well, a phone call to my sister resulted in Rex To The Rescue. He built a straw igloo, complete with an upstairs apartment (or so Charlie, the dutch shepherd thought). We got through the Winter of '08 thanks to Rex. Spring came before I recognized it. By the time I recognized it, the straw igloo was no more. It had become straw litter. What took Rex one Jeep load to deliver, took my daughter and I three truck loads to haul away to the dump.

 (This is Cali before any Winter had ever set in.)


Come the winter of '09, I was better prepared. More knowledgeable. I knew not to invest in dog houses, not even the igloo kind with the upstairs apartment, with the widow's walk on top. My garage was rearranged and the pups were instructed on how not to chew up the Toyota parked inside. And to leave the deep freeze alone. And the spare pickup tires stacked in the corner. I no sooner congratulated myself about having entered a winter proactively when my daughter called to ask if Uncle Rex might loan her grade school students some bales of straw. A Christmas play was in the works and the baby needed a manger.

Once again, Rex showed up with a Jeep load of bales. He saved the baby in the manger at Friendship House right before the winter of '09 set in with record breaking snow. The road from here to his farm was precarious with drifts and whatnot. We were instructed to go ahead and keep all nine bales of straw at my house until the weather cleared. Last year I might have thought to store the bales in my backyard, but this winter I was wiser. The bales would line my driveway for a week or so. Just until the weather and roads cleared and it was safe to drive back to the farm with the bales.

I asked a good friend of mine if he thought  I'd be arrested having that much straw in the city. He told me about a friend of his who throws chicken bones up on her rooftop to feed the birds. Another friend reminded me of how it had taken me a full year to be rid of the Christmas tinsel in my front lawn (one winter I had forgotten to de-tinsel the tree before hauling it out to the curb.) This is what you call a sidenote to the story. Flavor sprinkled onto Fact.

Eighty nine days later. Today the bales are going back home. In a few weeks it will be lambing season out on the farm. They'll need their bedding. Of the borrowed nine bales, eight of them are returning. Of the eight bales, seven of them made it into a poem of mine. When you do the math, you realize none of it adds up right. I know! If you knew my dogs as well as I am getting to know them....you'd be doing what I am doing - casting a suspicious eye in their direction.