The Last Message

October 1, 2021 8:11pm

I sit in the dream chair on a cloudless evening and finish Sartor Resartus. Originally, I had it as an inter-library loan but soon realized I had to own it. I’ve read it more slowly than any other book I actually finished reading….had to make it last!

The trees are just beginning to transition toward yellow and it is a cool evening but the mosquitoes are still about. Dusk shifts to a slightly darker shade.

As I come to Carlyle’s last words, I wonder what we would have to say as a civilization if it were to come to a vote? Let’s suppose that tomorrow a giant meteorite strikes Earth and everything is destroyed….the only remaining evidence that we ever existed is old TV signals still radiating out into space – things like old episodes of the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, the Andy Griffith Show, and The Bachelorette. If we could all agree that these are not exactly what we would like the universe to remember of our brief existence….what WOULD we like to say about humankind?

As I ponder my own question, I walk the tree-line in the back field and note the drops of pine sap on the white pine needles. I’m waving a long stick before me to eliminate the spider webs that reach from the trees to the ground at this time of year. Against a turquoise sky, four ducks wing silently overhead. Winter is coming.

Allegory of the Cave

October 4, 2021 10:34am

I awaken in dim gray light. It is not yet sun-up. I am perplexed and working out the reasons when I note the square of faint light on the wall. Presently, it begins to slowly dim – then suddenly brightens. I realize my wife is surfing the web in the kitchen and in the darkness the laptop is throwing light on the wall. As it changes again, I think about Plato and the Allegory of the Cave. Television is a perfect example of the allegory in our lives. We watch the dancing images and the effect on our minds is subtle but constant – an insidious force that we barely recognize. The majority of the motive is profit and/or propaganda and most are incapable of discernment. I warned my children long ago that every offer is made to benefit the one who makes it. (11/14/21 – I recently ran across Edward Bernays and read of his work in public relations and propaganda. We have no idea how the masses are manipulated for the purposes of politics and profit!!! Open your eyes.)

Perhaps every image is a projection of the collective soul of man.

Story of a Chimney

October 5, 2021 7:35pm

I’m reading Nic Pizzolatto’s “Between Here and the Yellow Sea”, a collection of short stories by the guy that wrote “True Detective.” I’m obsessed with True Detective. The music sets the stage for the best-written drama I’ve ever seen. I watch episode 3 over and over. HBO just dropped episode 1 so I ordered the entire series against the day when none of it is available.

Anyway, I’m sitting out on the barn porch reading when I notice the chimney on the house…..it looks like any other chimney but this chimney and I, we have a history that only a few know. This is much like our lives – which are a mystery to others; only we know the complete history of successes and failures, loves and losses, happiness and disappointments.

This chimney leaked when the house was built. Some paint was ruined, some drywall bubbled. I called the bricklayer – a personal friend. He investigated and finally said they would take it down to the roof and rebuild it. This is not a small chore – that chimney contains three flues – but they do it anyway. So now the chimney has been put up, torn down, and put up again!

Next time it rains, the leak is back so I pull out all the stops and measure everything inside and out. Then I get up in the attic and I’m able to determine that the crew, realizing they didn’t have room to get the full chimney up between the rafters, split brick to make it all fit during the original construction. Then, above the roof, they used whole brick again but they were sitting on only 1/2 inch of the split bricks below. So it was this 1/2 joint that was letting the water in! The leaks were bad enough but the precarious nature of this engineering added a whole new dimension to the problem!

When I get the brick guy back out and convince him of what I found, he appears to be tearing up….this has been a frustrating and ongoing disaster, but it is a cold day so maybe it was just the wind. Anyway, he comes out later and takes the whole thing (this is like 2′ x 6′ x 7′ of brick, flues and mortar!) down below the roof to full brick. I cut the rafter and space out the scab to get the room we need to use FULL brick and he lays the whole thing back up by himself. I later learn that he fired two of his guys who made the original decision to take the “easy” way out and then covered it up when they came out the second time. Note that these brainiacs knew it was leaking yet put it back up the same way! So, anyway, my chimney got put up three times total and it didn’t leak after that.

After ruminating on this chimney history, I hear geese approaching. We have a fair number of lakes near, a couple of smaller waterways, and are not too far from the Ohio so we see a lot of waterfowl this time of year….mostly Canadians.

They are flying in a V formation with four on one side and seven on the other. This reminds me of a question I once posed to a friend. We were outside years ago when another V of geese flew over. Why – I asked this retired math teacher, do you suppose the legs of the V are always unequal….there are always more on one side than the other. He launched into a plausible hypothesis, going into a fair amount of detail. When he finished, I nodded thoughtfully and allowed that perhaps it’s just because geese can’t count.

“Hah, hah, hah, very funny,” says he. And now years later I laugh out loud as the geese fly over low enough that I hear the whistle of their wings.

Reminiscing About a Memory

October 8, 2021 11:02pm

It is late afternoon. We just finished a bad barbeque dinner and I’m getting out of the car to walk into a store when a smell…..or something about the soft air and the time of day transports me back to my college campus. It is such a strong sensation that for a few moments, I feel I am there again with all of life before me and no regrets behind….and then – I think that no matter what path I chose, I would still be where I am….in a state of confusion!

And then I have this intense desire for one of those little cakes….can’t remember the name….uh, you know what I’m talking about. Ah….a madeleine!

If you haven’t read Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way”, here’s the story of the madeleine.

Frame of Reference

October 9, 2021 6:17pm

Today we hit some yard sales but bought nothing. I was supposed to be at the history center at 10am to do my flax demonstration. Upon arrival, I see many old friends I’ve met through re-enacting. It is like a family reunion! I meet a couple new to the area who are history buffs and very knowledgeable. They have small children and I encourage them to consider living history because it is an activity that the whole family can enjoy. I get back home and work on the gate until dinner.

All day, I have been aware of the frame of reference from which we live our lives. There’s the frame which is very time and location specific. This is the frame necessarily used by children and many adults – they know nothing else. There’s another frame in which inhabitants are aware that our lives are only a brief turn on a carousel of time and space. In the final frame, people truly grasp the meaning of eternity and infinity and I think few live in this frame and if you do, you may not last long!

Moon Metamorphosis

October 15, 2021 6:12pm

Last night, I sat outside reading more of Nic Pizzolatto and watching a half-moon rise in the southern sky. There were some contrails but few clouds in an indigo sky. I had the sense that this was a moon unfamiliar to me.

I read a fair amount of science fiction as a youth and that moon began to evoke familiar off-world sensations created by the old books. The more I starred at the moon, the more it morphed into a surrealist vision complete with liquid clocks draped over the pines below. And, then, as often happens, the spell was broken and again I saw our old familiar satellite hanging out there in space. Held in place by unimaginable and unseen forces.

This moon peacefully surveyed the field behind the house where stand the sorghum canes I stack in shocks every fall when I “take down” the garden. These shocks appear to be corn to the casual observer but they are much bigger and they are more hardy than corn shocks – they will still look fine in the spring. Right now, they add to the harvest theme around our place.

A cold front is finally on the way after weeks of summer temperatures and our Wildcats are playing the #1 team in college football tomorrow. So all is ready for a nice fall day. I smoked a couple of pork butts in anticipation of this game so win or lose, we will eat well.

GO CATS!

Interstices of Non-Existence

October 17, 2021 11:27pm

I awaken in dawn’s dim light or find myself in night’s nihilistic nocturne sniffing ’round the horizon of human experience and finding the limits of what we can know.

What are the biggest questions? Is there any meaning beyond our animal behavior? Is the physical universe the extent of what is possible and knowable: What lies beyond that? We really strive for so little, we understand so little yet we ascribe false significance to the behaviors driven by the hormones that evolved with us to secure our survival for this brief instant in this iteration of our cyclic universe that has blossomed and died ten times ten thousand times. Other past worlds and lives forgotten in the maelstrom of destruction and lost in the interstices of non-existence before it all starts anew.

Daniel Boone Vigil

October 23, 2021 12:14am

A fine mist falls on a cloudy autumn day….the silvery veil muting the distant hills of central Kentucky as I drive to Frankfort to honor Daniel Boone. I am dressed in the attire of a Revolutionary War militiaman to stand sentry at a grave-side vigil for Boone.

There are speeches at the entrance to the Frankfort Cemetery and we learn that Boone and Rebecca, his wife, were the very first occupants when they were moved from Missouri back to Kentucky in 1845. Their graves, marked by a monument and enclosure, overlook the city of Frankfort, the Kentucky River, and the state capitol….it is an impressive sight from high on the hillside.

We marched down from the road to the graves and posted two sentries at 11am, then changed the guard every 15 minutes. A few people came to take pictures but soon left and the sentries were alone in the cool wind with their own thoughts….silent, unmoving.

Wet Canvas

October 31, 2021 11:14pm

Cold rain falling on canvas lulls me to sleep in front of the house where George Rogers Clark died. In my tent, I have two quilts and a wool blanket and I manage to stay very warm and comfortable by laying on half of each quilt and folding the other half over me from opposite directions- this eliminates any cold drafts at the sides. Then, I pull the wool blanket up from the bottom to cover the quilts. This proves so efficient, I wonder why I have not thought of it before!

Saturday is cold and damp. We march through the mud and puddles and more rain. Not everyone would consider this fun but those who suffer are more able to appreciate comfort. I lay in bed some winter nights and think of the time I slept in the falling snow with only a blanket, or the rainy night spent under a bush with only the period clothing I was wearing. After 20 years of camping in the same re-enactor outfit, It’s no wonder many people say I look realistic – it’s just all the accumulated wear, stains, and repairs on the clothing!