Harvest Moon?

Dear Blog Reader:

I hope this finds you doing well. I am fine. I am at the end of a very intense and eventful week. I officially started the wood cutting season Friday. I am three weeks late. However, with taking a day off, and piecing together a three day weekend next week as my employer sees fit to celebrate the capital of Ohio on October 8, (look it up) I hope to get two loads a weekend and get myself back on schedule.  I know that it seems incongruous worried about wood cutting on beautiful 70 degree late September days, but I need twelve loads of wood before the snow flies or next January and February will be tense as I wait for a winter thaw to sneak out and get some wood to tide me over before the next big blizzard.

I do not use the verb "sneak" lightly. Everyone knows that the assassin deer become even more terrible and fearsome during the winter months. In order to be successful, I would have to sneak out to the woods, cut down trees using very loud and not very sneaky chainsaws, split the wood and get back to the safety of the house all before I was discovered by those crafty and cranky deer. They're cold for goodness sakes. They are jealous of our building skills and secretly hate our long winter naps in our warm quilt covered beds with our non-ice covered indoor plumbing. I imagine that is what they hate most. There is nothing worse than urinating on frozen ground and having said urine splash up on your tiny cloven hooves; nothing worse except not being able to wash the urine from your little cloven hooves because the stream is frozen over.

It has been an eventful week on the assassin deer front, as you can guess since the first two paragraphs have been dominated by their sad lots in life. On Monday evening, I was ambushed by two assassins. It had been rainy. The clouds were blocking what little light we receive during the dusk moments of late September. I was on the last leg of my evening ride. As I came upon the elementary school, I heard a series of crashes coming from the corn field on my left. I turned my head quickly left and saw two assassin deer 20 feet away emerging from the cornfield with menace in their eyes. I did not hesitate and swerved my bike towards them and started up a banshee type yell. The yell and the newly purchased helmet light, which is very bright, startled them just enough that their courage waivered. They turned their white little tails and like the French ran away. I chased them 50 yards down the side of the field

With their flight, I was fortunate, because last weekend the assassin deer struck with deadly efficiency. In an article tucked in the middle of the state section in the Indianapolis Star were a few paragraphs that reported an ATV enthusiast was killed in an ATV accident near Peru, Indiana. He had been pinned between his ATV and a tree. The authorities were unsure of the sequence of events that lead to this tragic accident but the accident had occurred the evening before when the victim had told friends that he wanted to go out for one more ride. I say accident smaccident. How does a man alone get accidently pinned to a vertical surface by a vehicle that you have to be on to operate? He doesn’t, not even if alcohol was involved.

Sure you can pop a wheelie and have the vehicle come over and pin you to the ground; a horizontal surface. Sure, you can ride on too steep a grade and have the ATV tip left or right trapping the rider on the ground. Once again, that is a horizontal surface. This man was trapped between this ATV and a vertical tree. I find it incongruous that he stood against the tree, held on to the throttle, put the vehicle in gear, let out on the clutch and had enough speed to pin and subsequently kill himself against a tree. Depending on his girth and arm length the distance traveled may well have been less than 4 inches. Let’s be generous and say that he was fit and had grotesquely long arms, the machine may have traveled 10 inches. How many ATVs can go from zero to twenty in 10 inches? Zero, I tell you.

No the authorities think that we can’t read between the lines. They think that we live in the world of make believe where the rules of physics don’t apply. Well, I for one live in the real world. There are other forces at work here. I think that the byline provides the most important clue of all – Peru, Indiana. Peru, Indiana has long been known as circus city. What do circuses have? They have trained animals; smarter than your average bear types. They look all trained and docile, laying there, chewing their cud, with that thousand yard stare in their eyes.

Look Timmy, I wonder what that trained deer is thinking. I’ll tell you what he is thinking mom. He is thinking if I only had opposable cloven feet I could drive an ATV through the woods and pin unsuspecting humans to vertical surfaces. Then one day one of the smarter ones after walking through a clay pit noticed that the clay sticking to its dewclaw adhering tightly enough that with the proper manipulation and practice it could be used to operate the throttle on an ATV with an automatic transmission. Sure, it would not be able to assassinate a real man; a man that had an ATV with a manual transmission and a clutch. But a sissy, automatic transmission, ATV driving, man would work, and you had to start some where.

But the deer knew nothing but frustration. It had perfected it’s dewclaw mud packing extensions to a science, but it could not be manipulated with the dexterity needed for its awful purposes. It lacked the range of motion and fine motor skills need for its nefarious plot. Then one day as with most evolutionary jumps, outside forces came together to let the assassin deer move beyond antler goring and bicycle ambushes. One day, little Timmy grew up and had his thinking contaminated by Disney. Watching Bambi during his formative years, he was heart broken when Bambi cried over her fallen mother at the hands of the murderous hunter. This injustice must be rectified, Timmy thought.

So Timmy became an animal orthopedic surgeon. He practiced his craft, setting dog and cat legs. Always paying special attention to those cases that involved the lower legs of the cloven foot animals. He would do pro-bono work on goats, sheep, and cows, always perfecting his craft, studying how to give Bambi the tools needed for revenge.

Well, I hope that you are happy Timmy. Your dreams and Bambi’s dreams for murderous terror in the wood have been realized.

So those of you who spent one or two evenings this weekend around a fire enjoying the spectacular Harvest Moon, remember that those campfires were being watched, and in 28 days something else will enjoy the Hunter’s Moon.

Take care,

Roger

interesting transitions?

Dear blog reader;

I hope this finds you doing well. I am fine. "Dear blog reader" is my 4th favorite weekly salutation. Number 1 through 3? Well, number one is "hey Bevo" - pronounced Beavo. This salutation is used daily during a lunch time phone call where Bev and I catch up and support each other through whatever challenges have presented themselves during the forenoon.

Number 2 and number 3 are a tie. They are;

Dearest Ben;
Dearest Grace;
I hope this letter finds you doing well. Actually for Grace in Ghana, I shortened it to "I hope this letter finds you." These are weekly handwritten misives that I send to Ben and Grace. A practice that I started when Ben went to college; a practice that, because of its self-therapeutic benefits, appears to be established any time they aren't in my house for the foreseeable future.

The therapy is all mine. I believe that my imagination gets me much closer to their personhood than calling or texting. In my mind, the technical intermediaries, while instant, only testify to the distance that separates us. No matter how fast or clear, we are disconnected. The technology passes the disembodied self. Once delivered, it disappears, left to memories that fade. In my mind at least, part of me is transported in the paper. The paper that I scrawled over is the paper they pull out, un-crease, turn toward the light and read. In this regard, I am a Luddite.

So you are number four. Not bad. While out of the medal ceremony, my desire to communicate with you wins in hundreds and hundreds of competitions held daily for my time. Brush my teeth vs the blog? You win. The blog vs clean the toilet? You win.  The laundry vs the blog? For two weeks you win then crisis sets in and I either have to buy another package of underwear or postpone the blog for a week. You get the picture. The problem is that we have entered a time of transition; that awkward time between summer and fall. September is that time every year when there is the lawn to cut and, at our house, firewood season is starting. It’s that time of year when our hemisphere is getting serious about tilting away from the sun. Consequently, those 8:00 p.m. bike rides in July with plenty of daylight are now started at dusk and finished in the dark.

Yes, we are transitioning and I am finding it difficult to have my cake and eat it too. So writing you is number four in the salutation parade, the only real problem with that is I am experiencing several 3 1/2 salutations-per-week weeks recently.

Transitions are difficult. New things tempt you. Yet, you can't abandon the old things. Both are important. However, I have found that I am an old hand at these transitions. The wood will get cut. I will be driven inside by the cold and dark. The grass will stop growing. I will be able to spend those 6 hours crafting weekly salutations. It is all good.

I suppose that age has made it easier to handle the transitions. The advantage of age was brought home to me recently. One of our nieces has been living with us for the past month as she starts her work career. She has just moved to the area and the apartment she found is unavailable for another week. Bev and I really have enjoyed her time here.

I personally have a standing rule that no child is interesting to me until they reach their 18th birthday. Until then, they have no real opinions of their own. Their parents make all of their decisions for them. Even the rebellious children let their parents make all of their decisions. They are so hooked into being rebellious that they do the opposite no matter the advice given.

Once they are 18 they become intensely interesting to me. So our niece is living with us during her time of interestingness. She was up early for her first day of work. I was getting my breakfast and I asked her if she was looking forward to the first work day of the next fifty years of work. I think that everyone should be faced with that question when they start work. All of those pictures taken on the first day of kindergarten; wasted. Elementary graduation wasted. That valedictory address useless. No, we need to support the youth as they become interesting and start their work lives.

We, specifically the baby boomers, have skin in the game on this one. As a representative at the very tail-end of this failed generation, I need my niece to work all fifty of those years if I want to get my social security for the first 35 years of my 75 years of retirement. (See launching pad from June.) If that math is correct, I need to encourage her to have about a dozen children along with that 50 year work career. No wonder her eyes got very wide as she thought about 50 years of work. I suppose the twelve kids would make it easier for her. With six weeks of maternity leave each time she will only have a 48 1/2 year career; bargain.

Fifty is a daunting number when looking at it from the starting line. The thought of doing that so someone else (even your favorite uncle) won't have to work is even more unappealing. Work and the desire not to work is a complicated issue. Hopefully, she won't try to un-complicate things with a pillow in the middle of the night. That would be interesting.

Take care.

Roger.

man made climatology?

Dearest Blog Friend;

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am particularly fine. I start this blog after just riding 32 miles. Whew! That will get your heart rate up and open your pores. My weekend worked out a little better this week. I managed to fit in a long bike ride, a nap, and finish a blog. This one won't be posted tonight but with a good start I am hopeful that I will finish this before Isaac gets here. He is one very slow child. He is just dawdling along his curve-ball path up to the great state of Indiana. We should not be critical. He has come great distances. His consistent lack of meeting other people's expectations has worn his resolve to the point that he may not be able to meet the hopes and aspirations that I had for him.

Oh, I had aspirations for him. I am very fond of Isaac. I am fond of Isaac because I begat him. So like any failed father, I had "ass"pirations that Isaac would leave his mark on the world when I couldn't. I know what you are thinking. Roger, you have taken this blog far enough. We might put up with assassin deer. Assassin deer with their raccoon cohorts can be a little whimsical if they aren't taken too far. But begetting a hurricane is too much to accept, too much to listen to. You may be skeptical. I know that you are thinking that my delusions have over taken me. I have lost touch with reality. However, I do not make these claims of parentage lightly. I have science on my side.

It all started over a year ago. Grace was going to Ghana. In an effort, to empathize with someone who was leaving a perfectly adequate first world country for a third world country, the lovely Beverly purchased a travel guide. Said travel guide claims that over 10,000 species of butterflies thrive in Ghana and western Africa.

Suddenly, things became clear. The waters off the coast of West Africa are well known to be the cradle of hurricanes. Thank you Weather Channel. Also, my vast encyclopedic mind recalled chaos theory and its sub-heading the butterfly effect. Since I gain all knowledge in a very shallow and haphazard fashion, I will not try to teach you. After all, the purpose of this blog is entertainment not information. Suffice it to say, I have based my suppositions on the sound scientific thought of others. In this case, some nerd thought about chaos theory for a while and then wrote the following paper: "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas." In it, he predicts that a single butterfly flapping it's wings one time at just the right moment will set up a series of   untraceable and unpredictable atmospheric events that will lead to a tornado in Texas.

The generic butterfly thing got me thinking. We need to send our top entomologists out. They need to capture these butterflies and put little baffles on their wings so that they only create soft summer breezes not tornados. However, when I heard that there were 10,000 different species in a tiny country like Ghana, I realized that we don't have enough unemployed entomologists. This realization caused me distress. We have a hurricane problem people. The problem has been identified. Why don't we do something about it? It seems to me that we may at least want to send a few thousand cans of Raid over. Think if the lives that would be saved. Alas, it appears that it may not be environmentally friendly. To which I want to respond "well mother nature isn't winning any Miss Congenially awards throwing hurricanes our way for three months each year."

I did not let the bitterness of having a great life changing idea thrown on the ash heap of ideas stop me though. I kept pondering about hurricanes and butterflies. Suddenly, it hit me. Why do butterflies get to have all of the fun? What could produce a puff of wind that would set off a cascade unpredictable yet causal events that would send a hurricane to the coast of America? In one of those serendipitous moments, (I had eaten beans for lunch) it struck me. A fart would do it. If the flap of a butterfly's wings could have sent us Hugo or Katrina, just think of the destructive force of a well placed and well timed fart.

So, I sent Grace a frantic email last September instructing her to drop everything, run down to the beach and, like Monty Python, fart in our general direction. Initial results were promising. We got a named storm. Gert was her name. She wasn't very powerful, but I figured that Grace didn't put her heart into it. When you're trying to trigger a hurricane, you can't let propriety hold you back. As Tedd Marchebroda used to tell Jim Harbaugh, you have to "let'er rip."

The success of Gert was actually a set back though. Grace became scared. I thought that Pinky and the Brain had inculcated her to the use of diabolical power. "What we doin today Brain?" "The same thing we do everyday Pinky; try to take over the world." With a weapon of mass destruction at her control, she demurred. She stepped back from the brink. This posed a problem. I knew that I had at least the potential for a category 3 or 4 in me. However, I had no intention of going to Ghana. What to do? What to do? My farts were here and the cradle of hurricanes was on the other side of the world.

Fate smiled fondly upon me. Grace came home for Christmas. Getting up in the middle of the night, I got into Grace's luggage and removed a "gallon" of clothing. Then, I got a gallon Baggie and filled it with "hurricane starter." This posed it's own challenges. Any ballon will lose air over time. Once again serendipity struck. I used our vacuum sealer to enclose the gallon bag of compressed "hurricane starter" with two thermal seams.

Mission accomplished, my "hurricane starter" was on the same continent as the cradle of hurricanes. While you can only take 3 ounces of shampoo in a baggy on a plane, I am glad to report that you can transport at least a gallon of "hurricane starter." I feel safer already. Thanks TSA. Grace was a bit miffed about the missing clothes, but I told her that she would have to get over it. Diabolical planners often force others to make sacrifices for their cause. I told her that the hurricane starter was already in contact with the cradle of hurricanes. She couldn't release it slowly. Once opened, that "cat" would be out of the bag.  If she chickened out and tried to bring it back, I would inform the powers that be and she would be returned to Ghana.

So Grace, stuck in an untenable situation. hoped that a stale fart would not be effective. Consequently, she did not keep the baggie refrigerated as instructed. Finally, I convinced her to enlist the help of a co-conspirator, who would release the starter at the appropriate time. So on August 21st, my progeny was released into the wilds of Ghana. He lingered for a few days, and through a series of untraceable and unpredictable atmospheric events, he came home.

Bev asked me how I knew that Isaac was mine. I went out on the front porch, took in a deep breath and proclaimed; "the smeller's the feller."

Take care.

Roger