New Year

Every year, when the old year ran towards its end and the new year reared its head above the cradle frame, Mims, mine and Lulu's mother, would set to work that nothing old would be carried across the threshold on New Year's night. She would make sure that every room was spick and span , nothing laying about waiting to be put away, all laundry done, pressed and folded, no dirty dishes and the pantry full to look the new year squarely and unblinkingly in the face. She made sure that all pending correspondence was taken care of and that all bills were paid, even anticipated ones, like the milk man, who would leave his weekly ticket with his delivery on Friday early morning, even if Friday was New Year's Day. In the evening befor the very formal dinner, she would strip us, her children, and give us a serious scrubbing in the tub; before that she would have made sure that our fingernails had been clipped according to rules and while we were soaking in the hot water she'd wash our last set of clothes and laid out fresh ones to wear that evening. Even the towels we used after the bath were washed. That was before the days of automatic washing machines and dryers so, although clean, these last pieces of clothing were allowed to be left hanging on the line to dry in fresh air.

Such traditions carry over. Lulu had it in her blood and I would approve of and support any move in that same direction in my family. Being a male chauvinist, sometimes my contributions to the end result were not very effective. 

Now I am living alone and have little traffic in my far off location and as it is, with age one becomes not lazy as much as increasingly unable to keep up with everything. It must be unsiversal that one in such a situation begins to make short cuts and avoids extra motion and effort. Is from this that th expression 'dirty old man' originated? Thus, it came to pass that this present year was running towards its end and I began to contemplate defection. What's so big about doing more for December 31st and January 1st that I do not do for the other 363 days? Have I ever been punished for leaving the dishes of my dinner table in the sink - other than having to touch them again for cleaning the next morning? The plan continued to grow, or the will to subject myself to old practices began to crumble until at last there was the unspoken but firm intention to completely ignore the and of the old and the birth of the new year.

That's when my Mims' soul reached out and took control. Four or five days ago, just after the Christmas celebrations with Kaarin and Karl and Steve and also Riina and  Kristjan I was struck by a mild bug. It was mild, I say, because when you are living dependent only upon yourself, you may not get sick. Vital things come to a standstill if you do. So I continued with my ordinary routines and assumed now that I was feeling poorly I had the perfect alibi to not do what Mims had taught me to do was right and moral and pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. I took my vitamin C and my zinc and drank my teas and took my reconstituting naps and then - 

This morning I woke up,at four and was swimming in sweat. My fever had broken and I felt like reborn but was not comfortable because of the soaked pajamas and the wet sheets and because the thermostat at this hour has not yet told the furnace to go to work and heat the place to comfort level.

There was another unbroken tradition wherever I went in my life: night sweat results in a shower or a bath, fresh bedding and fresh clothes. I could have coped with all of this but suddenly I realized that this was Mims' gentle way of admonishing her children when they got off the proper path and the realization set me straight.

Before breakfast, the bedding was in the washing machine, and I stood in the shower. Then the kitchen sink was cleared out and a breakfast served. After breakfast the first load was finished and loaded in the dryer, the washing machine was working on the second load with my laundry and the shower towels, I put my boots on and dropped my check at the electric company (that bill had arrived just yeaterday and was not due till idle of the next month) I went to town and got more laundry soap and at the grocery store. Stopped for some eggs and sausages for the festive breakfast tomorrow and I needed not more because my larder is stuffed in anticipation of a real snow storm which might tie me down for days. 

I came home and the failures began to heap up on me: that snow and ice storm we had a few days ago formed the foundation for a permanent ice cap on Town Hill. Snow had dropped off the roof over the garage doors and began to pile up to prevent coming out and going in with the car and made it extremely uncomfortable to climb over even to just go to the mail box. But the stuff took no picking. After I had moved four shovels of packed ice I was finished.

Upstairs, I found the Blue Jays raiding the feeder and I refilled it. When I hung I back up, one of the lines broke and the bird food dropped to the ground and in the snow. I fixed that and tried to shovel some of the snow off the deck but my stamina gave up and I dropped on the couch to rest.

Partial salvation came through Jason who arrived with his front loader and 'dug me out' at the garage and the front door, even though his machine had to take just one or two bites do that. Blessed be Mr. Diesel whose invention powered that Ford tractor and all the Hydraulics.

Now I am ready to meet the New Year face to face without a blink.

And blessed be Mims who made it all come to pass.

Happy New Year, all!

Bible Friends, or A Discourse on Faith

This came from a letter, addressed from Opa to Laurie and Evie, from whom automatically generated "friend requests" to join a circle of "friends" on the YouVersion Bible app had somehow found their way to Opa. This was his response.

Hi, you two!

I was notified by the 'You Version' Bible app that you sent me what they call a "friend request." Because it is you who started it, I feel immensely flattered. Thank you. I normally do not reply to such invitations, but—again—because of you, I make an exception.

Reading the holy book—and thinking about its contents, and our God, and his Son, and the Holy Spirit—and on the basis of private thinking, making even feeble efforts to live by it is one thing. Talking vociferously about it is another. In the reformed Christian world there are many approaches to being faithful. I was brought up in an environment where going to Church and dealing with matters of the faith was a somber affair, and one was taught to turn inward to work on one's friendship with God. In a family, going to church as a group, hardly a word is spoken. Very seldom a discussion on the subject was entertained. Little more often was a bible reference used to settle a question of behavior. This is, of corse, typical introversion. It is also indicative of a life style: you are responsible for your own ways, and I will take responsibility for mine, and differences shall not interfere with the relationship we have one with the other. 

It goes way beyond religion. I find much of that attitude in the northern states, and the opposite—extraversion in many if not most of the southern states. But with such background as mine, one does not learn to express one's thoughts and feelings in a fluent way. Loudly, and even more 'longly' discoursing about one's faith is not given to us. We do hope, though, that our way of conducting our lives expresses in some little measure, the depth and the strength of our faith.

I am saying this much because it is you who posed the question, and I do wish that you do not feel personally rejected by my refusal to join the circle of your friends in that App. It has nothing to do with enmity, nor must it ever negatively reflect on my faith.

May the peace of the Lord be with you, always.
Opa

Rose hip

There is a bush growing at the entrance to Brenda and Chip's driveway. It is full of blossoms in season and loaded with bright red fruit in fall. Long, long ago, rose hip jam was one of my favorites. Asking Chip, he said "we never do anything with it. Not even the birds want it, is it edible?" And it was easy to get permission to harvest.

Not ever having had to do anything with rose hips until the time came to spoon the jam out the jar, I did a quick research on the web and learned that the fruit is best if left on the bush till after the first frost. This information makes it easy to understand that I concentrated more on the Vermonter than on the berries. But as there is today, near mid-October, still no sign of cold nights, I did more research and found that the thing can be pushed by putting the harvested fruit in the freezer over night. And today was the day I went picking. The picture would tell more than words about what I found: Not a single berry was useable any more. Paraphrasing an old German folk song: go pick the rose hip when it is ripe. Don't sit and linger until it is cold.

Searching for the way

Searching for the way

The children’s story today, presented by Doug, was about ‘finding our way'. The ancients used the stars, later came the compass, much later the map, now the GPS. I thought I would add the chronometer and the sextant, but that would go into almost forgotten technology, plus these instruments were used to determine one’s location, rather than finding the way. They are also important, because, even when traveling by a very good map, it is necessary from time to time to stop and determine if one is on the right track. But Doug skipped that part and made an elegant connection to the thought that the Christian’s road map is the bible. Aye!

I had time for these and most of the following thoughts because today I came to church unaided by my usual paraphernalia to hear and in consequence I could only catch a word from Doug here and there. Had he not held up a star, cut out of a sheet of paper, or had he not spread a road map in front of us, or waved a GPS in the air, I would hardly have known what he was talking about. But so it was written that, today, I would get prompts only, and time to let my own thoughts make the connection between the way-markers to Doug’s sermon projected on the screen.

To quote the leading thought: 

7:13 Enter ye in at the straight gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.

7:14 Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

While Doug continued to develop his thoughts, I linked back to the analogy of road-map versus Bible, of the GPS vs the Word. We are quite used to the maps we have in the car no longer being up-to-date with the road-net as it is now. My GPS gets a revised version of its map twice each year. Right now, this instrument is waiting for me to download the fall 2015 version. That’s good, because so many new roads are built to facilitate the flow of traffic between the cities and, at least sometimes, one would get lost while trying to follow an older version.

Likewise the Bible? Since its inception way back in the beginning and later after the addition of the New Testament to the Old, this roadmap of Christianity has gone through untold revisions and re-interpretations. I have often wished to be able to read the original Word. Snooping in history, I was told that the foundation of our current bible was laid by the Council of Nicaea back in the year 325. Then, Constantine was faced with the problem of unifying an untold number of versions, of creeds and confessions of faith and great was this attempt to bring some unity into the haggling masses of those who held power in the many churches sprung from the one that Christ had built on one rock.So, the way this layman sees it, back then we got our road map and it represented the still relatively young memories of Christ’s presence and work on earth. It was the best to be had! One of the problems that must have occurred even then is that the records detailing the original evidence built into this first bible came in many different languages. Translation is a difficult thing. Some words in some languages contain meaning for which another language has no word. Sentences that express the our present thoughts change meaning over time. The exclamation “That’s not what I meant.” underlines the problem of translating thought into the written, or even the spoken word, and even the fleeting validity of content. And then, over time, not only was the one bible subjected to periodic and unified re-interpretation, or, rather re-wording, the unified thought was scattered into a multitude of bibles, all professing to represent The Word. likewise, the one church was shattered into the many by the dissent between thinking men. The other problem was that the ancient records were so many that it was unrealistic to include them all in one book. Who made the choice of what is relevant, and what is not? And on what basis, under what motivation were the choices made?

Road map revisions are due when new roads are opened to traffic. These may be old roads improved - made wider and straighter and easier to travel. There also may be new roads where there were none. Generally, they would lead into an area previously inaccessible. They may continue through a new development to connect on the other side again with other roads already in existence so that you need not to turn back to return to the place where you came from. They may also lead around features in the landscape that present an obstacle to easy traffic flow. Even one of the hymns of today’s selection refers to that: I follow Jesus - no turning back. So, road are built to make travel easier, faster and less dangerous.

Is that the same principle of bible revisions - easier travel, new ways to look at the country, some roads leading off and away from the rough and narrow? In the news these days is the clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue the marriage license to a same sex couple. My Kudos to that clerk. By using her right to free speech, she is now in jail because she does not follow the order of the almighty civil court, who is at odds with many of us on the Christian law regarding homosexuality - and on other social issues as well. A quick research on the web points to Romans 1:26-27 (EMTV) as the  “most important biblical reference for the homosexuality debate”. It would go way beyond my current intentions to follow the thread. Most of us agree that Sodomy is a sin. In the current social trend, the criminal is right and the one a crime has been directed at is wrong. The perpetrator must be protected, the victim is without help. Soon, the crime committed is no longer a crime. So say the worldly courts. But also the church, or I should say some of the churches side with the world view and declare what was sin is no longer sin today. It is expedient to overlook what originally was the forbidden.

Are bible reinterpretations - at least in part - the road map to destruction?

If we allow such reinterpretation, we make ourselves accessories to the sin. Should we take our sons out of Boy Scouts because of the recently introduced admission of homosexuals into the roles of leadership? who would, as a German metaphor wants it, make the buck the gardener? If we refuse to follow the leadership of the church in one instance or more, where does that take the ‘unity' of the church?

While following this line of thoughts, the image on the projection screen changed and proclaimed Romans 12:2:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Is this my license to rebel? Does Paul not say loud and clear that I should not follow the leadership that leads me against my convictions? If the world changes, may I not stick to what is my belief since my earliest days of awareness?

Again a new way marker on the screen: Galatians 1:4:

Wo gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from the present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: 1:5): To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Who am I to say more, after I recited “Amen”?

Another change on the screen: 2 Corinthians 4:4:

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Another condemnation of those who turn their back on The Word as it was originally handed to us. But what was it, originally? if I interpret what is presented to us as “the bible”, which I believe has suffered many falsifications, do I not risk to fall into error myself? But one passage of the bible has not yet been changed: the Ten Commandments. Measure your actions by these Commandments, I was told a long time ago and not only once, and you do not need the miles of shelves filled with today’s interpretation in the the lawyers’ libraries. But Lord, it is ever so difficult to remember all of this when under fire!

Just in time, Doug projected a new road marker unto the screen: Psalms: 119:105:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

What do I need man’s interpretation of your word for, o God? is what the bible says not clear? But I cannot do all this alone - send me someone who can guide me, for thy lamp throws shadows unto the path in front of me and I surely will stumble.

And a new guidepost appears: Matthew 16:24:

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Gulp! This takes us back a few hundred years to the orders of followers of Christ who gave up all their worldly good and lived off the goodwill of humanity, proclaiming all their food, and clothing and shelter were gifts of God. But this is so contrary to what I believe in: do honest work for your living; if you produce surplus, share with those who are not blessed with your independence. I am sure I can find support of this belief in your word? So what is my cross? If all mankind were to interpret god’s word the way those monks did, who would there be to work up the sustenance of all our lives?

And Doug forges on: Matthew 7:14:

Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

You made my way so broad and so smooth, I do not know what to say to this. I really don’t! I love what you have done for me, even with those few and far between rough white water stretches in the river of my life. If your example of suffering to reach the gates of heaven is what we must follow, what, and i repeat, what is my cross?

And as time draws on, Doug draws in Luke, 13:24:

Strive to enter at the straight gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

The picture that occurs to me is a gate to an old, old fortified town, of which there are many scattered around Europe and Asia. They have thick high stone walls with guard towers and gates, narrow gates, just wide enough to let a farmer’s cart through on market day. But many roads lead to that one gate, some broad and well maintained, others merely wheel tracks through the fields. But all these gates, in the old days, were guarded and access as well as egress to and from the town could be restricted at the will of the leaders of that community.

The Baptist Church in Wilmington, where Doug also is pastor, there is a member of the congregation who records (sometimes or always?) the sermon. There is a chance that this will be done today. If so, Providence has loaded my plate with all the benefits: the stimulus from Doug’s, sermon in Jacksonville, the time to react to this stimulus, since I was busy looking only, but not hearing, and the recording of the actual sermon which would allow me to listen, after all. I won’t be surprised if there are few if any touching points.

The posting

Very recently there was a posting on FB, presenting a neat demonstration of a piece of garment designed to protect women against violation. The design of this garment is such that it would have little if any bearing on the choice of outer garments, if such were desired by the wearer.

Viewing this posting an incident reported in the papers returned to my mind: a woman in Palm Beach filed suit against a man she claimed had raped her. The judge, being prompted to do so as a result of preliminary hearings, ordered her to come to the trial dressed as she had been at the time in question. Her appearance settled the case in the favor of the rapist.

On a spur of the moment I posted this as a comment to the original post. One of the readers replied:

"That judge was ignorant. You don't blame women and shame them for their clothing. You teach young men to respect women. God calls us to not be stumbling blocks to others even in the way we dress. But NEVER does God say it's okay to rape someone/sexually harass someone because their outfit was "asking for it". That judge you talk about made a horrendous judgement and I pray to God he does not judge like that normally."

The fashionably incessant invocation of God to protect us against the consequences of our mistaken choices and to do good for us is what gets me every time. He, indeed, is the highest authority, and not only does He call us on subjects as this reply contains but he is even more outspoken on morals, and on the mode of behavior necessary to let people live side by side in peace. The teaching of men, requested by this you writer, is up to you, as parents, and up to us, as the society in which we all live, and it is not to be limited to young men but naturally must include young women as well.

To point the way to modern and effective self help, a friend of the one who wrote this reply advised to get a gun and a concealed carry permit.

Yessss, way to go, Tommy. You're da man!

At first, I was tempted to respond and continue this thread, but then decided that FB was not the forum to use for sharing views on life. In the privacy of my Blog, I will step on but a few toes.

Some fifty five years ago a very popular song about an 'Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini' made the scene *. The title was also part of the chorus and there was an injunction in the rhymes: 'don't go near the water so your bikini won't get wet'. Coming up from the islands, I suppose, bikinis had just a little before that time appeared on the northern beaches and created endless controversies and some pleasant visions. When we went to the beaches, the far distant horizon over the sea was seldom in the focus of our eyes. There were always groups of girls strolling up along the shore, without aim, after a while turning around and strolling back, again without aim.

The philosophical meaning of the text should be clear to every thinking man and woman. 

And the trend towards undress continues from beach wear to formal wear and all wear in between. Please get a picture of female celebrities attending gala affairs. To scramble an old metaphor: only the last shreds of modesty remain.

Even men are not unaffected. Just look at the tuxedoes worn with open collar and shirts unbuttened to the navel, perhaps a toupee on the chest. 

Some women are indeed 'asking for it'. They can be seen lingering at street corners or are slowly strolling along side walks close to the curb and they are dressed exactly like our chaste, innocent, young girls who dash about as if they were going somewhere. That's how you can tell one from the other, sometime. Boys don leather chaps, hang toy guns from wide low slung belts and wear broad rimed felt hats drawn deep over their eyes in order to achieve - what? The very image of John Wayne and Jimmy Cassidy? I'm an old timer OK. Today it's spider suits and supermanT's and death masks and light sabers instead of old-fashioned guns. But it is the same, the young want to appear to be what they are not, but, perhaps, secretly or openly admire. Occasionally a boy gets shot in the street because he playfully drew his toy revolvers at the wrong time in front of a man with a real gun. The girls - ?

As for teaching men to respect women - the days of chivalry have vaned under the bright lights of women's lib, which prompts many women to abandon respect to men. Respect is a earned and deserved feeling extended from one person to another, not a constitutional right granted to part of the population only. The God we address so feel speaks of modesty. where is it?

I will not dwell on the presumptuous claim that the judge was ignorant. If ignorance enters the picture at all, it must be sought elsewhere.

* "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" is a novelty song telling the story of a shy girl wearing a revealing polka-dot bikini at the beach. It was written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss and first released in June 1960 by Brian Hyland with orchestra conducted by John Dixon.)

The Rainbow Touches the Ground

The rainbow touches the ground between the woods and the dam of the pond. At the foot of the rainbow, a pot of gold is buried. Never in my whole life have I seen this so close!

I will hope to post you a picture of this wonder soon.

More on education

This is an excerpt from the conversation between Socrates and his friend Glaucon in 'The Republic" somewhere around 450 BC:
“Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming only, it does not concern us?
Yes, that is what we assert.
Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians.
How so?
They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like—they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science.
Certainly, he said.”

Regardless of what the context of this quote is within the aim of  "The Republic", it confirms to me that some of us were cheated during the years of our education in public school: the focus of the plan of teaching was 'in view of practice only', meaning that only the rules and theorems of geometry were taught and practiced, while the real implication onto life was not touched. Only those of the students who were blessed with what I would call "special vision" could evolve beyond the words of the teacher and develop a creative vision from this acquired knowledge. Specialization works counter such ability. Fractional knowledge of a subject channels the thinking rather than allowing free flight. And this is the trend of our education. As a result, a 'master of designing counter-clock threads' appears in the line of job seekers among the 'engineers'. I do realize that the amount of knowledge required today in a field at one time as basic as 'engineering' is incredible. But lacking that knowledge makes our young people only marginally productive or even effective in the practice. So, what do we do to counter the trend? We are indeed on the wrong path to retain supremacy among the people on this earth.

Yes, but . . .

When your mind is set free, it might make amazing turns in its flight. Coming from apparently nowhere, the word 'clausulated' popped up. I know the term from its use in the German language and I wanted to know if in English the meaning was the same. So I looked it up on the web. A seemingly endless list of authors was presented with quotes of sentences in which they used the word. The list ranges from Cicero to a modern day treatise on "the philosophy of macro economics". But there was no definition of the term to be found, such as perhaps the Wikipedia should, or could provide. But in the context, I found that the meaning in both languages is the same: yes, that appears to be so, but under a changed set of conditions, it might not be so.
There were many quotes drawn from Philosophical works. Is then the thinking of philosophers so beset by conditions (clauses) that most conclusions must be described as being 'clausulated'?
Once in a senior high class on chemistry, I answered the teacher's question with "if a certain amount of this salt is added to this liquid . . . And the teacher responded with "you say a 'certain' amount is added. If indeed it is certain, state the amount. Else do not declare it to be 'certain'". His certainly was a different way of thinking. In our common way of speaking, the word 'certain' very often means anything but 'certain'.

Peace! or Nothing?

It is so peaceful up here on the mountain it is hard to accnowledge that there is a different world out there, somewhere. The only sound you hear is made by your own blood rushing past your audio nerves. Other than that, there might be the buzz of a bee, the song of a bird, the crunch of grass made by a cow grazing nearby. The only movement that atracts the eye is a bird flying by or the bee you hear changing her seat from one flower to another. The picture in front of you never changes. Could you stand it? You who are from that other world? Your mind must be free of the burden you carry with you from over there. Here you can let it go, if even for a moment.

Doing Things of No Great Import

This is Laurie. Today it is December 8, 2022, and I just found the following email, sent from Opa to Elanore back in 2015. He was living in the house in Whitingham, VT, and regularly capturing deep thoughts here on this blog. This is a rare glimpse into some other types of thoughts, and a small snapshot both of a sweet relationship and a particular fleeting season of life…

From: Richard Sitterding <schwizerbueb@gmail.com>

Date: July 24, 2015 at 5:20:02 PM EDT
To: Elanore Sitterding <schnooey@gmail.com>

Dear Elanore,

It just started to rain and the great time outdoors is at and end for today. It was a phantastic day again: clear, blue sky, temperature in the mid seventies and humidity down in the sixties, just the way it was during several days past. Then the clouds started to move in, dark gray and black, and blotted out the sun little by little and now - why, they are leaking :-). The bad thing is that this forces me to close the sliding door to the deck because rare is the day when rain starts and the wind does not blow the water through the door. Because that happened so often during the past many years, you can see the weathering of the hardwood floors very easily.
So, here I am again. This morning, when I sent my message off to you, I was boiling hot and angry about my iPad having let me down and destroyed my labor on my reply to you in return of the lovely card you sent me some two weeks ago. Lovely does not adequately describe the impression your message made. Receiving a handwritten note from someone you love is an event these days! Usually, letters, even personal ones are typed and even so impersonal as electronic, just as this one. I hope you forgive me, because when it comes to handwriting I always envision the hasty scrawl I produce these days. To me, the picture is not pretty. Maybe I'm a snob. I think the same way about food. Part of the enjoyment of eating comes through the eyes, another part through the nose, the rest through the mouth in form of texture and taste. The only difference in my reaction is that I might forgive a plate its unappetizing looks. It would not drive me to go to fast food in preference of a good morsel that does not look good. But when it comes to writing, the feelings are based on a different footing: food I receive, and I am willing to forgive the preparer for failing to make it look attractive; writing I send to someone and I am not sure if I would be forgiven for a scraggly hand or even bad orthography.
Returning to your note: receiving it was just part of the joy it brought. Seeing that you had produced it yourself increased my pride in my youngest granddaughter. Reading it made my heart swell and it has not yet, after two weeks since receiving this note, returned to its normal size ;-) Thank you! It is so rare these days to receive personal communication. I am about ready to opt out of Facebook, because there, not much is ever of a personal note, and why should I spend time and harbor hope that something better might come just around the corner, if all I receive is a confirmation that my friends read the same newspapers that I read?
It is procrastination that kept me from answering earlier and now the time left before you start on the 'big trip north' is so short that I fear a letter from here will not reach you until you return home again. I could not stand facing you and hearing you say "Opa, did you ever get my card I sent you early in July? You never answered!"
This morning I resolved to write you an answer, but as I said in my earlier message my iPad erased it before I had a chance to proofread it. Thinking this over, I decided it was my own fault. I rested my hand on the upper left hand corner, just as one might hold down the pages of a book one reads, and the distortion of the screen caused by my heavy paw triggered the "erase all" feature, which, without a question, exists somewhere in the innards of an iPad. So, here I am again, all my fingers and palms doing only what is necessary to write or to read on this finicky gismo.
Responding to your questions: the weather up here with the exception for two or three days in June was lovely. Temperature every day below 80 with a humidity somewhere around 60 by midday, and nights low down in the fifties. Sleeping weather for the Angels! I, mortal, gladly partake of what is meant to please those without fault. I just hope that we will not deplete the whole supply of such weather before you completed your visit up here. The thought that you might be confronted by the same conditions as you find down south is inconceivable to me, after these past weeks of pure bliss. Only, I keep thinking that maybe your parents might wish to camp again and then the frequent short rains will definitely not be very welcome.
I had not heard of the book you are reading until you told me about it. Asking around on the Web I find that it is a book not without repute! It's title is based on Ephesians 6:12 so I would expect to find considerable thought in its text. The subject, such as I found synopsis on the Web, is much along the line my own reading happened to run into: prompted by Philip's choice of studies for this coming year, I reached for philosophers, so I will not be totally unfamiliar with the new thoughts, and new way of thinking that our Philip will come back with at the end of this school year. Since my line of education was strictly in the exact sciences, philosophy was left far far away from our road and, I must confess, somewhat snickered at. Today, I feel that we were the ones who deserve the snickering, but I found that philosophers, the true kind that is, are far above such mundane reactions to the facts of life. So, I read first modern philosophers and was disappointed. What fell into my hands was Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy" and it almost turned me off from pursuing this line of study. There was nothing but weirdness of subjects and thought, and even contemporaries drawn in by the author did not promise anything better in the genre. Then I reached for an author some hundreds of years earlier: Erasmus of Rotterdam was 'familiar' to me from my high school days when we studied the Humanists. Erasmus spent many years in Basel which made him almost a countryman to us. So, I read "In Praise of Folly" and was a bit better satisfied by the display of relevant thought, relevant to the essence of life, that is. From there, I went backwards again for several hundred years and landed on Plato. I read "Phaedo" and am now into "The Republic". Among other subjects, the discussion between Socrates and his friends centers on the attempt to envision the perfect State. The notion one gets from the problems that must be solved in order to for a perfect society with fault free leadership are the same we have, still unsolved, today and that are said to form the subject of the book you read. Welcome to reality! Clothing it in fiction does not make the real picture brighter.
Other than that? I spend my days doing things of no great import. I do minimal housework and of course there is no escape from the kitchen, unless I want to satisfy my need for food with packets of prepared menus. I don't like them, so I don't have them, except in an emergency now and then. There is a frozen lasagna languishing in my freezer since May. That tells you about the frequency I indulge in such meals. Last week I cooked a goat stew. My favorite supermarket had frozen 'goat chunks' and I cooked a 'Caribbean goat chunk stew'. The meat, with bones, came from Australia. The product was very good and tasty, but there was nothing that had any goaty character, whatever that might be. I think you get that only from the hindquarters of an old buck. The rest of goat meat has no reason to be off taste in any way from beef, or game grown in the fields of our civilization. The game we had so much of in Lynch Station apparently all fed on the corn fields in the neighborhood and sweeter meat you cannot imagine. Anyway, this was last week and this week I dared to cook a batch of 'pan seared octopus' I just finished the last morsel. It is very exciting in taste, but again, there is nothing in the taste that makes you say "this is octopus". Like Kaarin says: it must be like calamari - it's the spices that give the meal its character, the fish itself has no outstanding or exclusive taste. But I'll do that again, sometime. Octopi have become so common on the shelves of supermarkets and I hear that in Los Angeles they are quite the wave. For me, pan seared octopus takes me all the way back to a trip my parents and I made through the Aegean Sea in 1957. We stopped in a small harbor where the great cruise ships cannot go because the water is just a few feet deep, enough for the native fishermen's boats. Ours was a converted mine sweeper from WWII and we were traveling in a small group of about twenty members, all interested in the Greek Antiquity and the geography. On that little island where we landed that day there was nothing for tourists. It was just a convenient stop on our way to another more famed spot. There was not even a restaurant visible in the small cluster of houses around the harbor, nor did we hear anyone talking about there being one. My dad and I went for a walk that evening before dinner on our ship and saw a table in front of an open door and two chairs. We sat down and soon a woman came out of the house and we made her understand we would like to have an aperitif. She spoke nothing but Greek and understand nothing of our German, English, French or Italian. She brought us two glasses and a bottle of Ouzo and shortly after she came with an iron pan with some black crunchy pieces of a delicious taste. It turned out to be octopus and the house was private, and she did not even want money, but we could see that she and her husband were living on what he could get from the sea and she out of the little garden plot behind the house. We put some money under the bottle of Ouzo when we left and the memory of this hospitality to strangers is indelible.
Looking very, very much forward to see all of you up here soon,
Your Opa

The Power, or the Confusion, of Language

The power, or the confusion, of language: With my dinner, I had a glass of beer. After dinner, sitting on the deck, I enjoyed another glass. 

I feel safe with the admission of having had two glasses of beer, much more than having had 'two bottles' of beer which over here to the followers of Sam Adams is the same. A glass is thought to hold eight, twelve ounces at most, while an honest bottle, to the beer lover raised in Europe, holds a liter - approximately a quart to those who dwell on this side of the pond. "Back there" even two bottles would not have raised an eye brow.

A Flock of Turkeys Down on the Pasture

I am watching a flock of turkeys down on the pasture. I wish for a camera to furnish a picture. They are great, big, fat toms, all of them. I imagine them to be half-brothers from this past season. They were ousted by their progenitor who wants to keep control over his flock, which, on last sighting, counted twenty-one members. I could easily pick one of them out from where I am sitting. But then what? What trouble! And I being saddled with some 15 pounds of fresh turkey growing old in the freezer. 

They are there on the edge of the grass area. Look up from the bird box on the tight, just a tad to the left.😂 

I can't wait for the next season. Those boys are going to be no push-overs for the old man.

The Flies

A small fly fell out of the pine seedling I have standing, potted, on the deck table next to my chair. 

It fell together with a large fly which held it in its clutches. When hitting the table, the large fly was compelled to release its victim. The small fly landed on its back, but valiantly struggling with wings and legs it righted itself and began grooming its wings with its hind legs. The large fly, for whatever reasons flies might have to pursue each other, made motions to recapture its pray. 

However, when the small fly sensed the approach of the large one, it abandoned its toilette and hopped a few inches away. 

At that moment, the large fly must have caught the scent of the hunting grounds: the foot of my empty beer glass. Instead of continuing the pursuit of the small fly, it flew up and over the rim of the glass and began to eagerly taste the remnants that had escaped me. 

It must have sensed the approach of the camera - it was there, in the glass, just a moment ago. If I chased it away - the small fly has the benefit of the deserted field.

Up to Date with the Turbulent Past

Today I got sidetracked by a lengthy list of unread e-mails. Working my way through that is a time-consuming chore! About half of them were marketing messages, catalogue pages, urges to buy now or forever regret having missed this once in a lifetime opportunity and such stuff. So I started at the bottom and tried to unsubscribe to all and everyone of them. Some were easy, some not so, some required actual thought and work and three responded immediately either acknowledging that I had unsubscribed or asking for any good reason why I want to do such an atrocious thing: “you will never again hear from us!” or “please change your mind on this. We can’t imagine that you wanted to push this button!” But the deed is done now, and I hope that more peace in my mailbox will help make my days more enjoyable. I like to hear from friends, but strangers who think I should buy a half a dozen new swim trunks just because they are cheap . . .

Yesterday I had invited Brenda and Chip for dinner, and then ran into our new neighbor across the street, an ‘economic history’ professor from Charlottesville, UVA. It turned out that he is temporarily alone, his wife visiting friends in the NE and he himself being chained to his key board to complete a task he is expected to finish before the new term starts. So I invited him for dinner on Saturday and also to yesterday’s affair. Saturday, we started talking about this and that and everything else and did not finish till close to midnight, which caused me to oversleep on Sunday morning and I got into a terrible panic that my cooking was not going to be finished by the time my guests arrive. But is turned out quite well, after all. I BBQ-smoked a four pound slab of spare ribs. It was simmering in the oven for its finishing touches and my guests arrived punctually and we all enjoyed the feast.

So, that brings you up to date with the turbulent past and looking in the future, I just received an invitation to dinner at the DePalo’s house for Thursday, then of course comes the fourth of July with a parade in Whitingham that is held once every ten years. The participants line up on the Townhill road and I get to see the whole thing sitting on the deck. From here, the parade will go all the way to the schoolhouse about a mile away and there the ‘paraders’ will enjoy a garden fest on the ball field of the school, and that is about the purpose, since in our small town you can’t have a parade and spectators too. Lulu and her Red-Hatter friends participated ten years ago, riding golf carts, so there were not even watchers here on or deck. But what assembles for this affair reaches from the Morse’s maple syrup rig with two black horses to the compulsory group of Schreiners on miniature motor bikes and includes the ladder from the fire department and the emergency vehicle from the rescue squad.
Then, after the long weekend, I am expecting a representative of a company that received a mandate from Washington to install newfangled phones for people who have listening problems. The phone has a large screen, where one can read the entire conversation in large print captions. I asked about foreign languages and weird dialects, like the one that’s spoken in some towns around Goldsboro, and they assured me that they had no capacity for the language part but that they could handle dialects. I’m looking forward to that experience when I get back to NC! They also promised me that I will be able to take that phone with me when I travel. Plus, there is an app about to be sprung which allows to use the iPad as a phone! I love useful technology.

By the time this new phone installation is behind me, the grass must be mowed and the weed whacking must be done and we all hope for a little dryer weather so we do not sink down into the wet ground. and then it is just a short time and you all will come here and after that I will have to direct my thoughts towards ‘packing’ and preparing for the trip down south ;-) But I am sure some other things will happen in between.

So you see we are having quite a busy time up here on the Hill. Once I tried to get back on my bike between T-storms and failed completely with all the ups one gets around here. I drove the bike with the car to the Dam Road which follows the lake shore and was rudely reminded that it too goes up and down, even in sight of the level lake surface. I made it up the first hill, but just barely, and when I came to the top I saw that the road went down again and figured that, if I were to continue, I would have to make my way back up again on the return and that thought was enough to make me quit and go home. The record performance? 0.61 miles at an average pace of 12 minutes per mile and some seconds. Things sure aren’t the same anymore as they were sixty five years ago.

We Celebrated Then

For Father's Day, Brenda and Chip invited me for a BBQ dinner on Saturday and we celebrated then. Their daughter came with husband and two teens, and also Brenda's father and Mother, both older than I. He, Pete Adams, suffered a stroke some one and a half years ago, is continuing therapy and just got a warning from the Government that his benefits were about to be ended! He can get around on a walker but his left hand is practically useless. 

Anyway, we had a good time and on Sunday celebrations continued at church. The Women's Aid had baked a bunch of cookies and each father present got a little bag. Like an obedient son I had mine after dinner with a glass of milk.

Chip came over on Friday and brought me a humongous trout he had caught down by the power station. It weighed over three pounds. I butterflied it yesterday and quick-broiled it and served it with a lemon-dill-browned butter sauce, Asian stir fried veggies and, of course gave it some Chardonnay to swim in. I'm still 'full of it'. After the head and bones were out, it did not weigh three pounds anymore.

Oh, by the way: I revived the kefir grains which I had put into hibernation in ice sometime last week, I think, and they came back OK. It took them 36 hours for their doing the job they used to do in 24, but they did it! Now on to making cheese.

A Lot of Estate but Not Much Real

My daughter-in-law is often sending me pictures and advertisements for real estate opportunities near them that she thinks I might like. 

She is putting me in front of torturous choices! How can I decide? 

The Parkside - how wonderful to have just a short walk through the park to dinner in lovely company!

The Lynnhaven Drive - how convenient; just a short stroll through shaded neighborhood streets to Chick's Oyster House! The water? I checked that out, just as the side channel opens into the main channel, there is a shallow area! My 40-footer will never make it through there. Also, just look at the boats in the neighborhood: all little, noisy stinkers. 

No, at six hundred grand, I expect my own private beach, nice surf dashing at my own breakwater, and my boat safe in my private harbor in at least ten feet of water at low tide. There should also be ample detached accommodation on the property for my household crew and my captain with his hands comfortably housed. I do not wish to run into a situation where I want to use my boat and the crew must first be assembled from around the world . . .

Sorry about that. As you can see, my views of real estate have a lot of estate but not much real! 

Jason cut the rest of the pasture this morning and while I was mowing the grass around the house - it takes about two and a half to three hours to do the whole thing without weed whacking along the borders - the sun dried the grass enough so I saw Jason come back with the rake and I had time for a nice long shower and getting dressed before he came back with the machine that chops the semi dry grass for silage. By now, he already hauled three wagon loads of feed to the barn and is about to finish the fourth. I want to be here when the lights go out! 

How could I exchange this for the thrills of big city life? I've been thinking of staying here this coming winter.

Pipe dreams, I know. But still...

Without Engineers, Science Is Just Philosophy

I could not resist this one when I saw it. Getting a philosopher into our midst, we'll be a complete team!

I've been reading philosophers these past weeks. When Philip comes home from his second year, he will be thinking differently from all of us, and he'll be just at his start. I want to be able to follow him at least a little ways. This is the place to prepare for this. I can understand Socrates 'and his barrel'. The famous quote: 'you are standing in my sun light'.

Some of the Laws Still on the Books

I'm browsing car insurance and laws in VT and come across this. Lol!

Vermont is a state with a long lineage, and some of the laws still on its books reflect the old lineage more than the new. An example would be the state ordinance that requires a husband’s permission for a woman to get false teeth. 

Listen up: Tying a giraffe to a telephone pole anywhere in Vermont is illegal.

(I suppose I'm alright tying it up to the flag pole.)

A state law forbids anyone from painting a horse or whistling underwater, and all residents must bathe every Saturday night!

I wonder if a shower will suffice? Or do I break a state law with my preference?

Who has that technology under control?

Having had problems with my communication service up on Townhill since I arrived here beginning May, today exactly  two weeks ago, I have had several conversations or mild encounters with FairPoint and AT&T to try to resolve the issues.

First, of course, there was the required change of phone number. Lulu's old number could not be kept for legal and or administrative reasons. I never really pursued finding conclusive answers to this. But when I came into the house, there was a dial tone and upstairs the lights on the modem were blinking and I started to move in expecting that main communication lines to the world were all up and running.

Next day I set up the AT&T Microcell in order to get the cellphone signal up here and that's where the problems started. The Microcell did not boot up and I called AT&T and was advised - after their trouble shooting - that FairPoint had to 'open up ports 4500 and 500' before AT&T could do anything. The reply from FairPoint, when contacted, was that AT&T had to do something (send a signal to the Microcell) before FairPoint could do anything. And that's where this issue was left. The Microcell is disconnected and my cell phone reports either 'No Service' or shows five empty circles for anextremely weak signal, or one bullet, which is enough to report missed calls and voice mail messages, but not strong enough to listen to those messages nor to make calls.

In the meantime, the internet connection broke down and when I called FairPoint Tech Service they directed me through several tests and then guided me in reconfiguring the modem from my computer. I was glad to have my Mac here, because the machine had to be hard-wired into the modem to do this reconfiguring. This done, everything worked beautifully through the weekend, but on Monday morning I realized that the landline maintained by FairPoint was not working: no dilatone on my house phone. I drove to town where I can reach AT&T signal and made my calls and on the way I saw the FP line crew working on a pole and figured that there was my problem and they were about solve it. But night came and no dial tone and Tuesday started to dawn and there was still no dial tone. I called FP customer service and was redirected to Repair Service and they listened to my woes and promised to trace the problem and I would have service back not later than by 6:00PM. Just about 1-1/2 hours later, FP called me on my home phone and reported they had found the problem: a device in their central office had broken down and they had replaced it and I 'should be OK'. And I am, thank you. However, connected with this or not I do not know, Monday my internet service started to act up. It will simply shut down and while I first waited for it to reset itself as it has often done before, this time it stayed down until I reset it manually and then it stays up for a while and goes down again. Yesterday (Tuesday) I reset the thing three or four or five times. Last night it was on and this morning at about six it was down and I reset it, did my stuff on the web, went to other things, came back to the web and it was down. I reset it again and started a 'live chat' with Cynthia of the Internet Service at FP and after explaining all details of my many observations to her she recommended to call another number at FP to have this resolved. I got to talk to yet another expert and repeated basically everything I had explained to Cynthia and at last he wanted to know what the LEDs on the modem were doing and, that having been reported to him, he said 'so it is working right now? you need to call me back when it is not working. I cannot trace the problem while it is up and OK'.
Having this helpful injunction, I am sure this system will never go down again.

Unfortunately, this composition area of the Blogger offers no access to the emoticons we get lost everywhere else to save us words. If I could get to them now, I'd know of several faces that would aptly express my mood right now.

The story continues along that line until Friday the FairPoint truck came into my driveway and John O'Brian descended from the cab and offered to take care of the problem. He did! He explained after the job was done that  the phone and internet signals had been coming in on the same line and he split them. How he did this I do not know. There are the same number of lines (one) coming into the house and the modem is linked to the same phone box as before. But what matters, all lights on the modem were doing their thing and there was a phone dial tone. He gave me his private cell phone number and told me to call him directly if anything happened. And the system staid up and was stabile all through yesterday, Tuesday.

Yesterday, Julie called. Julie is the customer service representative who had take 'my case' in hand ever since I got a hold of customer service way in the beginning of this story. She told me she had seen my bill and noticed that there was a charge for connecting a new service and she had caused to have that taken off and that now there were only the subscription charge and a few customary surcharges on that bill and "Is everything going alright with the systems?" I gushed my appreciation that John had taken care of it at last and that everything was up and staple and "thank you so much".

That was four o'clock yesterday afternoon. At five o'clock the internet was down. I tried resetting the modem and it did not work. I called customer service and got an Anthony or somebody who did not want to listen to my problems but had a long-distance service for me that I absolutely must have and when I declined he wanted to sell me a faster internet connection and I growled into the phone "why would I want to have a faster service if even the slow one does not work?" He eventually referred me to tech service and gave me a number different than the one I had and and the line was answered by a girl who sounded totally puzzled when I explained my problem to her: the number I had called belonged to a credit union . . .

I called the Tech Service number I had from my previous encounters and was told by a recording that all agents were busy and . . . you know the spiel. They play background music while they have you on wait. The only disk they have is from Moulin Rouge, the scene where the Can-Can girls moon the visitors with their bloomers still properly up. By the time this tale ends I have heard this tune probably a hundred times and I do not wish to hear it again! I was on the phone for half an hour and at last hung up and went down stairs for a midnight snack and then down for the night.

This morning, before starting to yell my frustration into the phone, I reset the modem. It worked! The system is up and running. I have my fingers crossed . . .

Some short time, it felt like minutes later, the network was down again and then up, and down, sometimes after a manual reset and sometimes all by itself and this frustrating routine continued until just now, some five weeks later than the start of this tale.

There were many calls to Tech Service and to Customer Support. Over these weeks, I must have talked to about every expert on the FairPoint payroll. Sometimes we exercised some voo-doo ceremonies on the keyboard and once my computer was linked to the desk of a technician who then performed his own exercises and released my computer with words of hope that all would be alright now. It never was and my ways of expressing myself took on a different tone as time went on.

Two days ago someone must have heard the tension in my voice and promised action. Two or three technicians were put to work today, Saturday 6/6/15 and, playing their own hunch, they tested my phone line foot by foot. They broke the connection down by route 100 and tested towards to house and down to the station in Jacksonville and in all found three places where the insulation around 'my wires' had deteriorated and allowed signals to be lost either by contact with the ground or into the lines of other subscribers. I sure do hope that the coding of my computer signals functioned so that my bank statements - to mention just one sensitive subject - did not flash legibly on unintended screens.

That work was completed around 1:00 PM today. The lead technician called to tell me his tale and expressed his hope that they had at last taken care of the problem. Some of the areas with poor or no insulation must have been in the wires hanging from the phone. The wind getting them to swing may have caused the intermittent loss of service and temporary reconnection of the line. Since the line men finished their work, there is calm in my network. I hope it stays that way.

The only problem pending is the cell phone signal. About that one - later.

Not a playful question

“Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? This question, which at first sight might not seem difficult, is really one of the most difficult that can be asked. When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy—for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas.”

Excerpt From: Bertrand Russell. “The Problems of Philosophy.” iBooks. 

We are taught as fact that the earth's crust is composed of a series of islands floating on the hot liquid and gaseous core of our globe.
We are further instructed that these islands move in relation to each other and 'collide', causing one to slide on top of the other which invariably results in more or less destructive earthquakes. Take the case of the recent disastrous quake in the Himalayas.
If this quake was caused by the movement of such plates as I called 'islands' before, then it would reasonably follow that the distribution of mass around the outer rim of the globe caused a corresponding shift of the center of gravity of our world.
A simple experiment would show that the mode of rotation of a rotating body changes as the center of gravity is shifted. This can be visible in a shift in the axis of rotation or in the appearance of a wobble or the two combined.
Since our climate and weather both depend to a large degree on our earth's orbit around the sun, a change in this orbit would inevitably result in a climate change.
Since this shifting of the tectonic plates (my 'islands', above) has been going on since uncounted years' the above observations would help to explain the fact that our earth has gone through a number of ice ages in some areas, corresponding to the shifting of tropical conditions to others. Drilling in the Antarctic have indeed brought to light evidence that the area we now call 'South Pole' once was covered by tropical vegetation.

Presumably also by the shifting of the tectonic plates, the central volume of the globe would change, giving more space to, or taking space away from the molten and gaseous center of the earth. This would result inevitably in some of the crust breaking off and filling the void in the former case, or cause for an increase of pressure on the core, which in return would result in volcanic eruptions - of which we certainly have seen more recently than in previous periods. Conversely, a breaking off of a piece of a tectonic plate might preferably occur in its thinnest area, i.e. in the 'ditches of the oceans". This was demonstrated by some pictures and videos published by National Geographic which makes it appear that underwater volcanoes have more the character of cracks than of the typical cone we observe on top of the earth. Also, I speculate here that such breaking of the plates may be the cause of some of the tsunami we have recently heard more of.

The earth's atmosphere is thought to be a mantle of air which moves in unison with the rotation of the earth. Since air is mass, and as such is subject to the laws of kinetics, a wobble in the rotation of the earth would certainly have a direct effect on the harmony of this air cover's moving with the earth: there would be shifts in prevailing winds, sudden acceleration/deceleration of winds, and probably the occurrence of turbulence, some of which might become destructive. A physicist - and of course I forgot his name - declared once that" if the rotation of the earth were to suddenly stop, the air mantle would continue to rotate around the motionless ball and within moments level all unevenness - mountains, hills, trees, buildings, mankind, all raised matter would be blown into the recesses of the earth and fill sea and lake basins with a body of water covering the entire smoothly rounded globe". A stormy picture, indeed.

To my satisfaction I know that, if there is anything in this, either science or more final effects will provide the answers.

It is far more relaxing to watch the cows graze peacefully in the pasture below the deck. Jason is in the process of "drying out" his herd and giving the animals a few weeks of rest. He has purchased two bulls which he plans to put to work after this resting period and then, in another few weeks, we will hear the bellowing of the mothers and shortly afterwards the weaker voices of the newborn calves.

I asked Jason why he had changed from artificial insemination to the natural way of impregnating the cows. He grinned and laconically said: "It's because the bulls know much better than I or anybody which cow is receptive." That covers an observation we made on Old Pocket road in Virginia: we had two cows with calves and when the calves reached the desired weight we sold them. I then called the local veterinarian to come and take care of the cow in heat. He requested me to capture both and tie them up securely. I asked "why both?". He explained that even though cows jump each other when they are in heat, it is never clear whether it is the 'jumpor' or the 'jumpee' that is ready to conceive. That is why both need to be inseminated. That's the vet talking, mind you! At least back then, there is about a 50% success rate in artificial insemination and the resulting overall effectiveness and cost of the proposed procedure made me give up on breeding my own cattle without a bull. It seems that such things have not changed much over the years.

Our Stew Pot

On first sight, this vignette reminded me of our stew pot and the fun hours we had around it since it entered our family sometime late in the1970s. Memories come from anywhere and without warning.

Pasta - Basta

There are two kinds of stores that attract and keep my attention at every visit: the hardware store and the not so routine food store. You all being homeowners I know you are very well acquainted with the geography of every hardware store in your neighborhood, so I won't dwell on this subject today. It may come up later, here, when reminiscences take over again.
So the subject starts with, but does not center on not so routine food stores. These are stores that either specialize in something, like the one and only Tienda Lili, about halfway between Goldsboro and Belleville on Rt. 111 in the Neuse River basin. Or Aldi. Not many other names occur to me in this context. Protest! I can take it.
Some weeks ago I browsed Aldi in Kinston, NC. Every time I enter one of these stores I set one half of my taste buts on repeat and the other half on zero (meaning 'freely receptive', because Aldi may or may not have what I found likable before and want again, or it might have something new, something that reminds me of 'the old days' or something I've never before experienced. The repeats might be every-day things and the 'reminders' might be seasonal, like the German Stollen they sell around Christmas time.
But if there is something new, I'm usually a found victim! About 1-1/2 years ago  I found some oh so great balsamic vinegar de Modena and bought one little bottle, took it to Kaarin's house and dropped it on the kitchen counter with the remark "Let's try this, it's the only one I got and if you like it you keep it and I get me one of my own on the way back'. You see, I had tasted many Balsamic Vinegars before. I had tasted them as a boy in Switzerland and as a growing man in Italy and even in Modena and also in Virginia Beach, where Laurie introduced me to a store that specializes in olive oils and vinegars. I had developed a set of taste buds that would vibrate excitedly when the real thing was coming their way. Searching, and trying, I had learned that most of the ones from grocery stores, even the ones labeled 'de Modena', where just that: vinegar. The label "Modena" has a definitive meaning and if you search the web you will find more information than I have the ability to pass on here. Not all Balsamic Vinegar de Modena is created equal! The kind of vinegar that I was hankering for always cost in the vicinity of $124 per table spoon and since I have resolved to keep my income on an honest and survivable basis I was not even able to try with a drop or even a sniff at the cork if that was the Balsamic Vinegar that matched my wants.
Side-note: You do recognize poetic freedom when you come across it, don't you? Now that freedom I am taking here does not extend to the concept of honesty, which is absolute. End of side-note.
So, here we had what Aldi had imported and we tried it and it passed. The cost was within my Soc. Sec. budget. On a ladder of 1 - 100 it might have reached step 75, or thereabouts, but if you envision (purists, please skip to the next paragraph) this as an approximation to Jacobs' ladder,  the 75th rung would still be below cloud level. Still, you already can hear the heavenly host singing above the clouds.
But when I came back to that store, the shelf was empty and I had to contend with more grocery store vinegar in my kitchen. In a way I am glad they sold out so quickly. It means I'm not living in an entirely strange land but have neighbors with tastes similar to mine.
Driving into Vermont two weeks ago I stopped at Aldi's in Bennington to stock up for my hermitage on Townhill, and, wouldn't you believe it, they had balsamic de Modena. Different label, but I trust them! It's great! I keep it for special occasions which is a once a day plate with green leaves, and after I finished my salad I sometimes drink the liquor in the bottom of the bowl.
Also, and that brings us closer to one half of the subject suggested by the title of this blog, I saw a shelf with bags of something named "Capunti". The content in the bag looked like a miscarriage of Spätzle, but they were so uniform and so unblemished that I decided they must be by design what they look like. The label on the bag introduced them as an Italian pasta. With my lifelong love affair with the Italian kitchen I have never come across Capunti. At least I do not remember that I have. On research I find that it is, of course, an Italian pasta and I will have to do some more research to find out more, but since I have tied up so much of your time already, let's make this short: I bought a bag, which came with a bag of spices attached and today I cooked it. I followed instructions and cut four grilled, boneless chicken breasts into the bowl and started lunch. Late lunch, that is. I also had a glass or two of Paisano which is still, after so many decades, one of my most favored wines. The others I would not be able to name without looking them up. They come and leave again but Paisano stays. It fits most perfectly with pasta dishes with, or without tomato based sauces. Only if a mess of seafood is mixed in with the pasta would I consider a different wine.
You ought to try this! They say on the bag that the contents will produce six to eight servings. At the rate I am enjoying this, four will be the maximum stretch. Capunti, if you go on the web, will give you the most basic assurance that this is pasta and then go right along into the preparation of the prefabricated product and the ways you can serve it. There even is a site where a guy said he came across Capunti and how would you serve it? To his excuse, his post is eight years old. Enlightenment has flooded the web since.
Now, I think, I am ready for another plate of Capunti with chicken and Paisano. As the Italians say: Basta! that is an exclamation like the stomp of your mother's foot when she told you, years ago, for the fifth time to go clean your room; or to go to bed. It means, in words: 'that's it', but with absolute emphasis and totally intolerant finality. I like it just like Italian food: you know what you're up against - or with.