Made a vindaloo Tuesday night, and it got its aroma into every corner of the ground floor. The dog must be in awe of my ability to conjure such epic smells; it must be like living with a Zeus who periodically creates life or changes the channel on the TV with thunderbolts. A smaller Zeus, granted. He’s been quite frisky after supper, demanding walks – when the temps were 20 below, he’d go out, feel his nose freeze, drill a hole in the ice then pad carefully through his ruts to the back steps. Now that we have tropical temps tickling the roof of the 20s, he wants to go out and pee and smell and examine his world after dinner, and woe be those who do not jump and fetch the lease. A year ago he had trouble getting up the stairs at the end of the day; now he lopes up after dinner and stands in the bedroom yelling at us while we change from work clothes to slumpy home clothes: TAKE ME OUT. So one of us does.
Reminds me of my grandfather, in a way; he liked to go out and see the crops. On a summer Sunday when we went to the Farm, he’d drive out to see how the crops were doing, a trip that inevitably included the School Land and the Flax and the Barley. The last two are self-explanatory, of course. But the School Land? From what I’ve learned, they set aside land for schools when they laid out North Dakota, and whether or not a school was actually built on the plot, it was known as the School Land. The only school in the area was to the east of the Farm, across the river, by Harwood proper. My father went there until he had completed 7th grade, and then it was time to go to work, and then to war. I still wonder if today’s 7th grade dropouts know enough math to run a business and fill the back of a placemat at Perkins with tables of figures calculating what’s owed and what’s coming in.
Grandpa would invite me, and my cousins, to tour the crops. I had no standard of reference – couldn’t tell if they were stunted or average or high as an elephant’s eye, but I remember sitting in the back of the car, broiling on the plastic seats, bumping along the county road, Grandpa in the front seat with a fedora on his head and a grasshopper on his shoulder. The hopper only made one appearance, but I never forgot it and have since added it to all memories of Grandpa in rural driving mode. A big green hopper on his shoulder, motionless, along for the ride.
A plain, straightforward man, I think. Always had time to amuse the grandkids. Loved Jack Benny. Smoked Old Golds; had a favorite lighter and a favorite floor-stand ashtray. Stood at the window on Sunday nights and waved goodbye, just as my dad – his son-in-law – stands in the driveway now and waves goodbye when I leave. I suppose there’s a time when you turn away before the taillights disappear, and a day when you decide to wait until they’re completely out of sight. I don’t remember the last time I saw him, but I know where I was when I heard he’d fallen, and died. Had to drive home from college and get a funeral suit. The man who measured me had fitted all the men in the family.
Grandpa was the only man I ever knew who wore a hat.
The dog doesn’t, so that’s where the analogy falls apart.
Meanwhile, Ace the Hamster has learned how to get into his exercise wheel. Found his way up the ramp, then ran around for a few miles. Interesting creatures: every so often he’d stop to see if his exit route was still open. It was. I know the programming for these critters is rather basic, but he’s still smarter than my computer when it comes to threat detection or escape-route maintenance. I walk up to my computer with a rock and shout random gutteral utterances, it does nothing; if it’s been 15 minutes, it goes to sleep. A hamster knows to head for the corner of the cave and act like it’s dead and rotten and not tasty at all no sir.
Otherwise, elsewhere? Good day, although the idea of getting up when it’s dark and talking to cameras a few hours later still seems like I woke up in someone else’s life. After work I fixed my wife’s garage door, took my daughter to choir, went to the grocery store, and did not call 911 to report an elderly lady had fallen backwards. That happened last time. While at the self-checkout I heard some people make a sound that says “something’s wrong, and we are uttering phonemes instinctually.” I saw an old lady on the ground. She’d gone down and hit her head; blue around the mouth. There was an instant assumption of duties – another shopper bent down to see if she was okay, I hit 911 because I already had my phone in my hand, the manager got a roll of paper towels to cradle her neck, and a stockboy headed outside to flag the EMT. It rolled before I finished beeping and bagging my stuff and the paramedics were trotting in before I left. She was talking and smiling and – of course – apologizing for the fuss, dear. I hope she’s okay. Still amazed at the speed of the response; the sirens were drawing near as the light returned to her eyes and the color flowed back to her face.
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Otherwise, the following. First of all: I sent out all the BleatPlus emails Tuesday night. As far as I know, that is. If you contributed and didn’t get one, please email me, and use the subject line HEY DILLWEED so I can search for the term and fix the sitcheration.
Second: don’t be expecting too much right away from this BleatPlus thing; it’s not a super-hyper-premium extravaganza with streaming video or invitations to a buffet dinner; it’s just, well, stuff – some of the boundless ephemera destined for a place on the site some day, posted in advance. As I said: at least 35 updates per year, with the content remaining behind the paywall until 2011.
Spent the free time tonight writing a piece for pay, so this naturally suffers. But Wednesday will have a rich assortment of fun – Out of Context Ad Challenge around 10:30, after I’m done with the newscast, and B & W world in the afternoon.
Pass it along, if you wish
39 Responses to Wednesday, Jan. 20
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BleatPlus is just future free stuff that you already have in the pipeline? I guess I’ll wait and see it for free, kind of like I do with cable pay-per-view movies.
I was impressed by BleatPlus! Actually, I liked yesterday’s entry so much I felt a bit worried. I thought us folks chipped in to help with all the extra work you’ve been doing … we don’t want to create more work! But thanks all the same.
Seems to me that anybody that liked Jack Benny would smoke Lucky’s.
Sorry to change the subject:
Good morning, America.
It IS a good morning, Michael, and rightbackatcha!
We drove through wheat and barley with my grandfather…your memories make me so homesick, James!
BTW…both my grandfathers wore hats, and so did my dad. Cowboy hat or sometimes a gimme-cap later in his life, but he had his share of other headwear, as any man in the 50′s & 60′s would.
I started wearing hats about five years ago, when the stuff atop became so thin it didn’t keep me wrm in the winter and cool in the summer. Furthermore, I’ve noticed men’s hats stores springing up in Manhattan — two in my neighborhood — and the youn’uns wearing them.
Bob
The school section was usually section 16 of the township. The original idea was for the schools to be centrally located in each township (36 square miles), but often that was ignored or was impractical. The taxes from the school section provided income for the school, wherever it was actually located.
Got my Bleatplus super decoder ring!
snoopy happy dance
Mom’s dad wore a fedora, dad’s dad didn’t, but he did wear those western string ties. Never understood the point of those (or of ties in general.)
I usually wear a baseball cap, because I like the brim keeping the sun out of my eyes.
My grandfather had an 8th grade education, and similarly kept a poultry farm afloat in SE Ohio. Considering his youth in rural ND and WI (born in 1903), they taught him well. Still had “indian stories” (his dad was Edy cty ND Sheriff).
Not to be a leafy spurge, but N.D. school lands weren’t necessarily meant to be a site for school buildings, but rather to be leased out to produce revenues to fund the schools. As we learn from this April 1988 issue of “Rangelands.”
Have you ever seen those 8th grade graduation exams from the turn of the century? Absolutely brutal. Snopes has a copy, and I can see how kids in those days were taught some things they would find practical.
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp
My paternal grandfather (b. 1905) went to regular school until 6th grade, then went to sheet metal school until 15 y.o. when he became a working stiff. Worked for the Chicago & Northwestern RR. I know he completed 7th and 8th grades by going to night school, probably in his early 20s. Because he wanted to, not because he had to. He did not like hats, but wore one anyway, at least until they went out of fasion. Smoked unfiltered Pall-Malls.
My maternal grandfather (b. 1897) was an Iowa farmer his entire life. Don’t know his education level, but he sent 2 of his 3 daughters to college in the 40s. He was a happy hat wearer and smoked cigars. I totally identify with James’ description of drives in the country to look at crops. He did the same thing in his Chevy Impala.
Jan Murray and I thank you for the BleatPlus! It was fun and appreciated, thanks! Go get ‘em, Jasper!
Great Bleating this week, both “free” and “plus.” Special belated thanks for the 30s playlist.
Both my Grandfathers wore hats. Both of them died before I was born, so I never witnessed hat-ti-ness first hand, but I’ve got the old sepia toned photos to prove it.
Hotdish maybe?
What about a pot luck?
Right up until about the mid-sixties my dad always wore a fedora, and smoked L&Ms. In 1970 he had a cancer scare, and dumped the smokes cold turkey (he’d stopped wearing hats a couple years before).
Now he’s eighty-five with failing health, just another WWII infantry rifleman with a now-and-then twinkle in his eye and war stories he still won’t share.
I’ll miss him when he’s gone; I’ll miss all the Greatest Generation.
Agreed – a good morning. Could be even better, save the fact that we are missing Dean Barnett, who would have made it all the better. Sweet heartache.
How much would we have to donate to get an invite to a buffet dinner?
BleatPlus is great, and something to look forward to! I would be glad to give a donation anyway, because we can’t expect James to give away so much time for free, and I’m pleased to cook at home instead of going out to one nice meal to make up the difference… it’s almost like treating James out to dinner! Have another basket of chips and salsa, James, and welcome to San Diego….
My uncle drove us kids around his property in the back of a pickup, decades before anyone thought to make bed-riding illegal. His only rule: “Don’t put your fingers between the bed and the cab,” because he’d sometimes hit bumps hard enough to squeeze the two together.
My daughter’s had her hamster for over year and it still hasn’t figured out the wheel. It sees it as some sort of strangely shaped chair to sit on. We tried going from the plastic wheel to a metal one, but it still has no idea what to do with it.
BTW, I didn’t contribute so you could have an excuse to work harder and write more. I appreciate being a bleat supporter, but more to the point, thanks and keep up the good work.
ric
Farmer Jacks might still be around. They were here in Toledo when I arrived in 2003(?) but bailed a couple years later. Dunno if they wound up going belly up or have just retreated to their inner compound.
school land. when states were platted prior to statehood, every 16th section was reserved for local school funding. absolutely you could buy that section. and the money went to the initial stake for building and equipping the local school.
the larger Skunk Corners or Henryville was, the more school sections there were, and the larger schools needed were started that way.
if there were replats, the information might be lost from official descriptions of the land. but otherwise, from the original states westward, starting something like the 1800s, you might have a legal plot description reading something like, “the west 96 rods of school section 1, Herkimer Township, Snarl County.”
“School Land” sounds like one of those stores going out of business in those old depressing Saturday Night Live mall sketches.
So what then are replats, swschrad? I used to look at the old plat books from my county before I left for college (pretty boring for a kid, huh?). Does that just mean a routine re-issuance every 10 years or so to reflect any property changing hands?
Ah, yes. The drive through the wheat and barley. The Red Barn Place, the La Vanway place, and of course, the home piece (not ‘place’ for some reason, but ‘piece’). My dad and grandfather in the front seat discussing everything from equipment (whether the old Gleaner would hold out for another year if we replaced the header), alkaline content in the summer fallow, grain futures, and the ultimate enemy of the farmer, hail.
Warm memories on a dreary January day. Thanks, James.
This Bleat was far from “suffering’! Great story about your grandfather.
My Grandfather died last year at age 92 – a third-grade education and the wisest man I ever met. Worked as a plumber and kept my first car running with rubber bands and nylons (or at least it seemed to me). The man could fix anything and everything.
Oh, and get Jasper a hat! : D
Grandfathers in hats checking the crops are part of the collective memories of most of us midwestern farm kids, or those one generation removed from the farm.
I think the school lands were established throughout the Louisiana Purchase. 1 section (sq. mile) per township (36 sq. miles).
There were “school lands” in the Northwest Ordinance of 1797, IIRC.
Jughead runs from “Big” Ethel. I noticed at some point in his career Archie became an ersatz Scooby-Doo mag, having “mysterys” to solve. As a kid, my sister read Archie comicx, and I could NEVER understand the cross-hatching on that kids head, what was up wit dat? I always thought the screen door had shut on him.
Hmpf. Not only did I not get a password my heart-rending e-mail to Our Genial Host at his supposed address bounced. I believe I shall now be vexed.
Patrushka mentioned how farms were known by their names. My mom’s dad’s ranches were called the Poppan Place, the Taylor Place and the Montague, after the original settlers. I remember driving with him over the narrow, two-tire-tracked dirt trails checking cattle. We were ten miles from the nearest town and even that consisted of just a crossroads with a gas station and an old school gym. On those ranches, you could still see the razed foundations and root cellars from turn of the century farmhouses of the original settlers. Those old pioneers were definitely much hardier stock than us.
I don’t remember my paternal grandfather. He died of complications of diabetes when I was very small.
My maternal grandfather had this great green Ford truck that I swear still had a gasoline ration sticker on it from the Second World War. He would take us fishing in it. My fishing pole was a bamboo rod with a length of nylon and a hook on the end. Grandpa had a real pole, of course, with a fancy reel and all that, and he caught the river trout while we were pulling perch and catfish out of the muddy water near the banks of the river.
He also took us for root beer floats at the local drug store on Sunday afternoon. Generally a religious man, he made this exception on the grounds that “the ox is in the mire,” whatever that was supposed to mean. The drug store manager, who had known Grandpa forever, served us personally, pulling chilled glasses out of an icebox and scooping in the vanilla ice cream and pouring on the draft root beer. Mmmmmmmmm. Grandpa generally also bought us some candy on the way out; he and sugar got along much better than my other grandpa ever did.
Grandpa was 73 years older than I, so I remember him as a very old but still sprightly man, until he got throat cancer. It was his second bout; the first was before I could remember and left him with a raspy whisper of a voice. He also had false teeth that he liked to pop out to amuse us youngsters. I’m not 100% sure what was amusing about it, but it was Grandpa.
Both Grandfathers wore hats. One smoked cigs and lived until he was 90; the other a pipe (Prince Albert in a can! even) and died of lung cancer when he was 68. He was on his death bed through early 1964 in a small town in East Texas. We lived in Dallas and my father would drive us to see him and my Grandmother every other weekend. The Beatles came to America and did shows on three consecutive February Sundays. Our rotation was such that I only got to see the 2nd show. When I told this to my Beatles fan son, who retains all he has read on and seen on wiki and Youtube, asked, “You mean the Miami Beach show where they performed ‘She Loves You’?” I suppose. Need to tell him about the hats.
Well, now, whenever James mentions his maternal grandfather in future Bleats, I will immediately picture him driving his grandkids around the farm, with that grasshopper sitting on his shoulder– with a pack of Old Golds in his pocket and a hat on his head.
Can’t remember either of my grandfathers wearing hats all that often. My maternal grandfather (a Pall Mall smoker) had a jaunty tan golf cap he used to wear (appropriately enough) when he played golf, and when he was cutting the lawn with the riding mower. My dad owned a hat, but it seemed to spend more time on the back seat of the car than on Dad’s head. After nearly half a century, I can still remember the logo and brand name imprinted on the inside crown of that hat– a stylized volcano with the name AEtna. What a peculiar-looking word that seemed to me as a kid, and a funny thing to stick in my befuddled mind for all this time.
I never knew my maternal grandfather, but my paternal grandfather wore hats. He was a hatmaker and a union organizer.
He was expert in sitting and looking dignified, but quie a ladies’ man. While sitting shiva for his second wife, one of the ladies who came to pay a condolence call told me he was “The Beau Brummel of Brighton Beach” which is a phrase that I will never forget.
Bob
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