Easter blizzard of 1873

In the spring of 1871 we sold our spare horses and other belongings; and loaded a Car for

Lincoln Nebraska ----

Page 10

{In the summer our Son Christian was born but died a few month later} here at Lincoln I worked my two teams, excavating cellars and hauling freight, from  [   ] City and other places:,,  In the fall of 1872., I drove my Mule team, to The Republican Valley; where I homesteaded my farm in Section 35 – town 3 –Rang[r] 20 west 6^th Principal Meridian -- -- -- during the colder weather, I drove back to Lincoln, and in The spring, took my wife and Baby’s along and arrived on our homestead, on the 12^th day April 1873. -- -- On the 13^th day of April, just after unloading our belongings, a most fearfull rain and snowstorm set in; which lasted over Three days; and we had neither food nor shelter for our poor teams – and fed them the husk out of our strawticks;,,  We ourselves found a little protection, in an open Log [shant] without any roof on the same:” -- -- What your dear Mother, and Myself suffered, to keep our little Baby’s warm and dry, you can not imagine – and my pen is too poor, to describe the same!! -- -- -- -- -- Our horses and mules, broke loose from cold and hunger, the second night – and it was on the, 3^rd day after the storm, that I Tracked

Page 11

Them to the mouth of the Sappa:”-- -- Soon after this, I found a couple of homesteaders, hired them to help, put up our first Log Cabin in which our daughter Elizabeth was born July 25^th 1873. -- -- Now we went to work with a good free will; digging a well, putting up a shed for the teams, breaking a little of the Prairie sod, and put in a few acre of Corn, and the rest of the time, I used the Armstrong machine; and put up as much Prairie hay as possible. – Of course our harvest didn’t amount to much; for we planted so little – but the pesky Grasshoppers, came along, anyhow; -- and looked over the location; so as to be able to find it the following Year:” -- -- --

The next year, we broke out about 15 Acres and would have had a nice bit of Corn; but The hoppers Came, and saved me the trouble of husking it:,, -- -- -- -- Then came the Year 1875. and with it our Son Adolph, on April 21^st. -- -- -- Now we had on hand five hungry little ones ==  a   part   of   our   happy   lives!! But they had to be fed, and Clothed; and the measly hoppers took ever thing,

That we Expected to harvest:,,

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So There were many heartaches, of what to do in The future!!:”  We kept on a planting and sowing; but even The Uear 1876; our entire crops were distroyed[sic], when we almost had a big Corn Crop in our reach == at times we were much discouraged; but Yet we held on and struggled for our little Band:,, -- -- --

The Year 1877. was a blessed one for all of us, besides an abundant Corn and Wheat Crop;; we harvested a bouncing Baby girl, for on May 2^nd our Cathariene was born, -- to help us, to chase the hoppers = but she came to late; for the Bugs must have got scared and They never bothered us afterwards! -- -- --

From now on, Time passed somewhat easier for The Children grew up like Sunflowers; and were soon able to help a little here and there; {In the Year 1879, our daughter Maggie was born but died a few mont later;,,} 

{The Year 1881 brought us our Son Henry who also died when but a few month old:}

     So time passed with Sorrow – Grief --; and happiness; for all of us:,, -- -- -- Excepting The Year 1880, we raised fair to good Crops, and with The Childrens help; we got along pretty well:,, but yet we needed

Page 13

Help, for if one on the top of the list got married; it was nessessary [sic], that another took her place == == == == == So on The 11^th day of October 1882. our Son Nicolai was born; and promised to take The burden off The old mans shoulders = but that still left your Mother, to carry her big and heavy load: -- -- -- -- -- Therefore kind providence was with us; and on The 15^th day of August 1884 our daughter Dorothy was born;,, --

This made it an even dozen; That the good Lord had given to us;,, and as we now look back over the past; we must say:,, Father in Heaven we Thank Thee:, Amen!!

In the Year 1885, we sold off, our stock on hand; for I was too sickly; to do the farm work any longer – we rented a house in Orleans, where we lived until The fall 1889, when we moved to our farm 12 ½ miles west of Orleans; and which I had prepared while living in The City. -- -- -- During our residence in Orleans of four years;,, I worked in a store – and one winter I taught German, to a Class of Eleven;, all grown Men & women. ==

Page 14

While here I was thrown down, on my sick bed, for a couple of month, suffering from Neuralgia of The heart, and at the same time of Erysipelas over the whole head:’- What I suffered, when near death door; nobody Knows but me – and  The  almighty  father  in  Heaven

From The fall of 1889 untill the spring of 1910, we lived on our farm, west of town; then we moved into one of our houses; which we had built in 1909. and where we now live happy and contended[sic]== spending our old age, in peacefull retirement, and will not go forth, to any other home, until The good Lord says;,, Come!! -- --

Now in conclusion, of This short;; and Yet long life == of your old parents == let me say to you, our dear Children; That at all times, we never looked for trouble in The future!!  We always took the bright side, of happenings, as They came to us; and were always trying to face The Sun:  So That we could’nt[sic] see any shadow!= And to you each and every one we would say:

Always  try  and  face  the  Sun!!

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Don’t hunt for trouble!

But look for success –-

You will find what you look for –-

Don’t look for distress -- --

If you see but your shadow

Remember I pray

That The sun is still shining –

But you are in the way. –

Don’t grumble, don’t bluster

Don’t dream and don’t shirk –

Don’t Think of your worries;,,

But Think of your work;” –

The worries, wil vanish –

The work will be done -- -- --

For no one, sees his shadow –

Who faces the Sun !!!—

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Yours with Eternal Love;,, your

Mother and Father

Dorothy and August Sasse

October 15, 1911.

Orleans Harlan County

Nebr

 © 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Yowling and howling

Day two of our Inclement Weather School Closing, so I knew I could sleep as late as I wanted.  Instead I woke before seven to a horrible howling.  Not the wind like yesterday.  Wolves?  Unlikely, as this isn't a Laura Ingalls Wilder book.  Not even Jack the brindle bulldog alerting me my elderly neighbor had fallen and could not get up. 

What was that horrible sound?  Tires unable to get traction on ice.  Somewhere a driver was seriously stuck.  By the time my way-back prairie memory kicked in, I was wide awake and needed coffee.  That's when the power went out.  Please don't make me twist cornstalks together for fuel like in The Long Winter.  Two days is a long enough winter for me, and my hands are already chapped.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

What is a bonnet?

Go placidly just a bit east of the noise and haste of Custer Road, and a little north of Spring Creek Parkway. Sit your bizoozy right down amidst the bluebonnets, unless, of course, it has been raining.

It is spring, time for commencement addresses, and other urban legends. I've been feeling my Bohemian prairie girl ancestry lately while listening to Willa Cather's My Antonia on cd. Cather celebrates the grasses, the flatness, and the horizon I love so well.

The preschoolers are learning about Texas plants and animals. The wild bluebonnets hold a magical power in this Lone Star state far surpassing the Nebraskan's appreciation of the Western meadowlark. I will never consider myself a Texan, but I definitely claim the bluebonnet as my inner state flower.

The preschoolers are vague on the concept of bonnets. Bonnets are hats for sun protection, I tell them. Each floret of a bluebonnet stalk resembles a teeny tiny pioneer girl's sunbonnet.

Cather's Antonia is as full of life as Laura in Little House on the Prairie. Antonia and Laura both resist wearing the bonnets that would protect their skin from the sun. Which brings me to that fabulous, fictitious commencement address* never delivered by Kurt Vonnegut at MIT in 1997:

Wear sunscreen.
Pick a bluebonnet. Just don't overdue it. One or two, max. Otherwise Mother Nature will be pissed even if it isn't illegal. That's another urban legend.

The commencement speaker at Texas Tech in 2007 told me to play chess. A month from now I'll be listening to the University of New Mexico commencement address. Willa Cather will be there. I may need to reread Death Comes for the Archbishop.

*Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, 6/1/97

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Pushing the vatrine

The Dallas Opera's current production of Donizetti's "Roberto Devereux" makes use of large, lighted glass display cases on wheels to showcase the psychological suffering of Queen Elizabeth I due to beheadings before and during her reign. At least that is the best pop-psych explanation I've come up with to explain the circle-the-wagons feature. (I flunked Tudor self-help.)

In Act I three glass display cases pop out on stage ending a fairly clever quicky recap of the Elizabethan era. William Shakespeare climbs out of a wicker chest to direct Elizabeth in a scene from "Midsummer Night's Dream" on the stage of the Globe Theatre. A lovely map unfurls for a backdrop. A cardboard cutout Spanish Armada is blasted by a cardboard English Navy.

Alas, the glass cases must signal that it is time to get capital S serious or italicized m mystified. Are they museum displays? Store windows from Neiman Marcus? Lenin's tomb? One case contains a hefty Henry VIII; another must hold Elizabeth's mother, Ann Boleyn. The center case holds a young redheaded princess doing the mime-in-a-box act while looking distraught. Yes, we get it. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" : Henry IV, Part 2; act 3, scene 1.1.31. Shadowy figures propel the lighted cases around the stage and off.

At the end of the opera, the three boxes go rolling around the stage again. One seems to contain a clearly deceased Roberto Devereux. One must hold Mary Stuart. Who is in the third?

One of my friends is a shadowy figure. He's hardworking. He claims the glass box he pushes is called a "vatrine".

My American Heritage Dictionary has no entry for "vatrine". "Vitrine" doesn't appear, either. I have better luck online with Merriam Webster:

vi·trine \və-ˈtrēn\ noun French, from vitre pane of glass, from Old French, from Latin vitrum:
1880 : a glass showcase or cabinet especially for displaying fine wares or specimens

So, depending how it's embellished, a vitrine could hold collections of porcelain chickens, owls, or mushrooms. A vitrine might display curios, knickknacks, aged sirloin, Braniff stewardess hot pants at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, or the A. B. Normal brain from "Young Frankenstein".

So many questions. So little time. It's quiz time:

1. In what Laura Ingalls Wilder book did Pa build a corner display case for Ma's porcelain shepherdess? By the Shores of Silver Lake

2. What was the display case called? A whatnot

3. Who was Lurleen Wallace? Not a Tudor. The first wife of George Wallace, and first female governor of Alabama, although a stand-in for her spouse. She just popped into mind between vitrine and the six wives. I was remembering a family in NE Nebraska who had named all their daughters Erlene, Sherlene, Darlene, Karlene, Murine...

4. What happens to the brains of NFL players who suffer head hits and concussions? Heard on NPR about a new study.

5. What was Emily Kaitz's hilarious wedding song about housing a hideous porcelain poodle collection in expensive glass cabinets? I Will Stay with You

6. Name each wife of Henry VIII and her chronological fate, and imagine how the Village People could dance to divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived:

7. Where can I get a cool name like Mary, Queen of Scots? I want a comma. I'll pass on the glass box, though. Collagemama, Queen of Blogs...


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

$295/yard

The air is just faintly crisp. Fall has officially arrived. My creative energy is coming back, but sadly, the hummingbirds have left the patio.

Back to the design problem of the Kansas car window storm quilt blocks. I have decided to use two or three of the blocks as stand-alone wall-hangings to work out design and technical questions. I received some great input on fabric and color options, including using headliner car fabric or trying a batik pattern.

Although I've worked near Kay's Fabric Center in Richardson, Texas for a long time, I'd never visited the store. I don't sew clothes for myself any more, and no longer make childrens' theater or Halloween costumes. Still, I felt like I'd entered Aladdin's cave when I found the incredible designer fabrics in this thirty-eight year-old, family-owned store at 518 W. Arapaho Rd,. Suite 113, Richardson, TX 75080.

Maybe a more timely analogy would be Howard Carter telling Lord Carnarvon that he could see "wonderful things" as he peered into Tut's tomb in 1922. These were fabrics fit for pharoahs, fairy godmothers, overpaid professional athletes, and Mozart's Queen of the Night. King Tut's treasures will be on display at the Dallas Museum of Art beginning this month.

When I reached visual stimulus overload, the store's staff led me on a tactile tour of luxurious wools. Like a tasting of fine wines, this experience took me far beyond my station in life! These fabrics were finer than those sewn for the Emperor's New Clothes. Even my inexperienced fingers could tell the difference between $150/yd. wool and $295/yd. wool. Three and a half yards would make a suit for a normal-sized captain of finance. It could take six or more yards to create a suit for a Dallas Cowboy or Dallas Maverick.

Sadly, I had to admit I was looking for a flat-fold remnant priced near $1.99/yd. to test color and construction techniques for my Kansas blocks. My price range is closer to Laura Ingalls Wilder's dugout on the banks of Plum Creek than Aladdin's jewels or Michael Irvin's closet. It was on up the trail to the sewing/craft chain store for me.


This gray quilting cotton could pass fairly well as the interior of a slightly rusty '96 Buick. It wouldn't detract from the intense colors of a July thunderstorm over lush green Kansas fields.


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Grasshoppers, locusts, and cicadas

It's been a blast talking with the students about grasshoppers this week, in part because I remember so clearly my feelings about grasshoppers when I was their age.

In my yellow-tinged black and white snapshot memory of childhood, I'm standing in our parched backyard with grasshoppers the size of cigars jumping up against my bare legs and "spitting tobacco". I'm wearing a pleated scooter skirt with gray, yellow, and orange weiner dogs on the fabric. The grasshopper irrational childhood terror threat level was orange, just one step below the red level for moths.

A grasshopper can jump twenty times the length of its body. For a human, that's the equivalent of running the kickoff out past the forty yard line. Spitting tobacco suggests more of a pro baseball bent.

In '98 or '99 I made a giant grasshopper combining papier mache, wire sculpture, and weaving of dyed fabrics. The finished product has hung over my mantlepiece since 2000. It was good to take the grasshopper down off the hook to be a visual aid at school, because it sure needed a good dusting!



Last week we studied honeybees, dragonflies, and mosquitos. We learned that the legs and wings are attached to the thorax, and that the part we think of as a tail is actually the abdomen of an insect. Earlier this summer we studied the life cycle of the butterfly.

I admitted to the elementary students that I didn't know about cicadas as a kid. We called the droning background sound of summer, "locusts buzzing." Locusts are actually short-horned swarming grasshoppers that devour entire crops causing millions of dollars of damage every year. Cicadas are related to aphids, not to grasshoppers:

Are cicadas "locusts"? Periodical cicadas are often incorrectly called locusts. Locusts are grasshoppers, while cicadas are most closely related to aphids. The term "locust" began to be used to describe cicadas around 1715 in the English colonies, when settlers tried to make sense of the cicada emergences by equating them with the biblical plagues. Because the cicadas appeared in great numbers and were eaten by the Native Americans, just as biblical locusts appeared in great numbers and were eaten by John the Baptist, "locust" seemed a logical name for them.

The biggest mass of insects ever recorded was the 1870 swarm of locusts in Nebraska estimated to be over 10 trillion strong. I can't imagine the noise of all those grinding mandibles!

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about a grasshopper plague in one of my all-time favorite books, On the Banks of Plum Creek. My own great-great grandfather described other Nebraska infestations in a handwritten short biography. I'll try to transcribe some of it this weekend.


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Mother of the Library Books

When I was volunteering in the school library when my boys were little, the bilingual students called me, "La madre de los libros librarios", the Mother of the Library Books. I've always like being the Mother of the Library Books, and the mom of the library boys.

I started reading chapter books to my kids when J.T. was five and M.J. was two and a half. I admit that I started this suppertime ritual for selfish reasons. Their dad was doing a lot of traveling for work, and also for his karate hobby. He headed off for a month in Korea when S.C. was barely two months old. If I read picture books during meals, the boys were too distracted by the illustrations to eat. Chapter books kept them listening while munching on all their finger foods. Yes, they were slow, and sometimes picky eaters. Reading kept me from feeling frustrated.

My boys liked the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I heard them say, "Let's play Laura and Mary" as often as "Let's play firemen". It didn't occur to them that Laura and Mary were girls. They put a stuffed animal under the bed to be Jack, the brindle bulldog, and used the headboard of the bed for the driver's seat of their covered wagon. The same headboard made a good hook and ladder firetruck.

After Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, and On the Banks of Plum Creek, we read Farmer Boy. That became their favorite.

Our suppertime chapters continued when we moved to Oklahoma. It kept things calm on evenings when my spouse was away teaching tae kwon do. Stories made the transition from supper to baths and bedtime somewhat less chaotic. Other read-aloud favorites were A Cricket in Times Square, The Enormous Egg, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and Winnie-the-Pooh.

This mother is still learning, and still reading aloud. I started reading Little House in the Big Woods to my culturally-diverse students during their snack time. What I remembered about the book was the self-sufficiency, how the family worked together, the strong character of the Ingalls parents. I remembered how Laura and Mary played with their corncob dolls amidst the pumpkins and squash in the attic without any Disney princesses or registered-trademark movie tie-ins.

Oops! The whole first chapter is about hanging deer carcasses in the trees so the wolves don't get them, shooting a bear, smoking and salting meat and fish, and slaughtering the family pig complete with extensive details about making sausage and headcheese. The little vegetarian kids were staring at me like deer in the headlights! Speaking of which, I don't think I'll be reading Bambi anytime soon.

Looper Doopers

The last two weeks have brought me powerful clues that it is time for some in-depth reexamination of my childhood in the mid-1960's. As psychoanalysis isn't in the budget, blogging will have to do for now.

Planning my trip to Fort Worth to see the world premiere of Bruce Wood's ballet, "Dust, Texas," I realized I could squeeze in a visit to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. The museum has a very open definition of "cowgirl" as a spirit of courage, self-reliance, trail-blazing, connection to the land of the American West, and of what my co-worker calls the attitude of "Git 'er done!" Cowgirls include Dale Evans, Patsy Cline, Georgia O'Keeffe, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sandra Day O'Connor, Annie Oakley, horsewomen, trick riders, stunt riders, singers, photographers, and real branding iron ranchwomen.

I've logged countless hours in the dusty saddle myself--approximately eight, but it seemed like many more, what with the horse flies. I've worn saddle shoes with anklets if that counts. Moreover, I have a deep and abiding love of scruffy plains and canyons, an interest in the history of the American Frontier, and enormous respect for the influence Laura Ingalls Wilder has had on generations of American children, male and female. I've got a little bit of the self-reliant "Git 'er done" attitude when it comes to shower tile repairs and uncooperative Buick headlights. I also had a fringed leather shoulder purse in about 1970. Therefore, I am proclaiming myself a cowgirl.

Of course, the Cowgirl museum has a gift shop. Of course I had to scope it out. One never knows where the idea for an art class project is hiding. That's when I was blind-sided by the deluxe metal hand weaving loom and hook set! Holy moly, it's a potholder loom!

Weaving potholders got me through some rough patches in the Sixties. I bought my metal loom at Fisher's House of Toys in McCook, Nebraska for under a dollar on a hot dry weekend. Bruce Wood may have his "Dust, Texas," and James McMurtry, Jr. has "Levelland," but McCook, Nebraska is the dustiest place on my personal Earth.

Looper doopers were the weaving loops for making potholders, or "hot pads" as we called them. Cotton loopers were bulky and dull in color, like tops cut off of socks. Nylon looper doopers were available at the Ben Franklin on Cotner Boulevard in Lincoln, with smoother weaving action and brighter colors for the mod Sixties sensibilities. My maternal grandmother gave me a crochet hook, and taught me how to bind off the loop ends to finish the hot pads I wove. That was the finest moment of our relationship. The crochet hook is broken, but it is still in my embroidery basket.



I produced many hot pads in my most productive golden looper dooper years. To the best of my recollection, I never sold my wares, but gave them as gifts to everyone I knew for Christmas and birthdays. Two other women in the museum gift shop recounted their experiences as potholder artisans/door-to-door salespersons on dusty roads in Texas and Oklahoma. Peddling hot pads for two bits were their entries into the world of entrepreneurship. One recalled telling her mother that she couldn't do her homework because she "had so many orders to fill!" A third woman told sad tales of loom frustration and potholder envy in her Kansas childhood. We were all laughing and experiencing hot pad catharsis at the hot flash phase of our lives.


Levelland - James McMurtry, Jr. - 1995

Flatter than a tabletop
Makes you wonder why they stopped here
Wagon must have lost a wheel or they lacked ambition one
On the great migration west
Separated from the rest
Though they might have tried their best
They never caught the sun
So they sunk some roots down in the dirt
To keep from blowin' off the earth
Built a town around here
And when the dust had all but cleared
They called it Levelland, the pride of man
In Levelland

Granddad grew the dryland wheat
Stood on his own two feet
His mind got incomplete and they put in the home
Daddy's cotton grows so high
Sucks the water table dry
Rolling sprinklers circle round
Bleedin' it to the bone
And I won't be here when it comes a day
It all dries up and blows away
I'd hang around just to see
But they never had much use for me in Levelland
They don't understand me out in Levelland

And I watch those jet trails carving up that big blue sky
Coast to coasters watch 'em go
And I never would blame 'em one damn bit
If they never looked down on this
Not much here they'd wanna know
Just Levelland
Far as you can point your hand
Nothin' but Levelland

Mama used to roll her hair
Back before the central air
We'd sit outside and watch the stars at night
She'd tell me to make a wish
I'd wish we both could fly
Don't think she's seen the sky
Since we got the satellite dish and
I can hear the marching band
Doin' the best they can
They're playing "Smoke on the Water", "Joy to the World"
I've paid off all my debts
Got some change left over yet and I'm
Gettin' on a whisper jet
I'm gonna fly as far as I can get from
Levelland, doin' the best I can
Out in Levelland - imagine that

Easily amused

In the cold northern climate where I grew up, kids learned to quietly amuse themselves in the winter months. It was a matter of survival not unlike eating whale blubber to stay warm. You take a family of five, place them in a small suburban ranch-style house with three bedrooms and one bath, add one blizzard after another, the inability to even get the car out of the driveway, and you better know how to not annoy the bezoozies out of each other.

Cabin fever is not a joke. According to the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary the expression is first recorded in 1918, and it may have referred to being cooped up in the cabin of a ship. I bet it is older than that. What would it have been like to be a large pioneer family living in a one-room sodhouse on the Nebraska prairie in the famous blizzard of 1888?

I have some inkling because I possess a photocopy of the beautifully handwritten memoirs of my great-great-grandfather, August Sasse. He and his wife homesteaded in 1873, and he writes of their efforts to keep their children alive in a freak April blizzard before they had a chance to build their cabin. This was real life, not a computer game!

Remember Laura and Mary from the wonderful books of Laura Ingalls Wilder? What fantastic children! They weren't perfect angels. In fact, they were high-spirited, curious kids. I wish I could have them as art students. I wish all my art students could have the books read aloud to them by their parents. Pa and Ma Ingalls taught me many lessons in parenting when I read the books to my small boys.

A sod house can be built so they are real nice and comfortable. Build nice walls and then plaster and lay a floor above and below and then they are nice. Uriah is going to build one after that style this fall. The one we are in at present is 14 X 16 and a dirt floor. Uriah intends takeing [sic] it for a stable this fall. --letter of Mattie Oblinger to her family, June 16, 1873 Women of the West Museum

The average square footage of new construction homes continues to rise as the size of the household decreases. It is over 2300 square feet for a family of 2.59 persons, with McMansions in the Dallas area frequently over 4000 square feet. We rarely get snowed in here. Why do family members need so much space to spread out? Why do families need to heat that large a house? Is it because people don't learn how to get along in a small space? Is it because they don't learn to avoid annoying the bezoozies out of each other?

The Donner Party has been in the news this week. Scientists are still puzzling out whether the smaller camp of pioneers survived the winter of 1846-47 by practicing cannibalism. This always brings to mind my seventh grade English class at Millard Lefler Junior High School ("Sons of the Pink and Black"), taught by Miss Helen Madsen (who threw unabridged Websters Dictionaries when we annoyed the bezoozies out of her). I learned a lot in that class because I was mightily afeared not to! In the winter of 1967-68, we studied American short stories about freezing to death, being stoned to death, and being snowbound in a cabin with outlaws. It was pretty stark and scarring material, but we did evaluate whether being a sassy, aggravating early adolescent was a smart survival strategy:

Bret Harte's "Outcasts of Poker Flat"
Jack London's "To Build a Fire"
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

One of the things I learned was to entertain myself reading a dictionary. And so, today, I wonder whether Miss Madsen's class was "inflicting" or "inflecting". Was I tortured, or was I flexed and bent?

inflect
c.1425, "to bend inward," from L. inflectere (pp. inflexus) "to bend in, change," from in- "in" + flectere "to bend." Grammatical sense is attested 1668; pronunciation sense (in inflection) is c.1600. To turn from a course or alignment; to bend..to alter in tone or pitch .. to modulate...

inflict
1566, from L. inflictus, pp. of infligere "to strike or dash against," from in- "on, against" + fligere (pp. flictus) "to dash, strike" (see conflict). You inflict a plague on someone; you afflict someone with a plague. To impose.. "malignant Nature, who reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests" (Thornton Wilder).


Much thanks, as always, to the Online Etymology Dictionary, and to my trusty, not so very aerodynamic American Heritage Dictionary!

Don't make me put on Midge's mittens!

We had a bit of wintery precipitation on Wednesday. It got a bit cold, although where I grew up it would have been considered a heat wave.

The local t.v. stations switched to non-stop weather coverage. Reporters haven't had enough chances to stand on street corners and exit ramps and yell into microphones since Katrina and Rita. There's a risk they could lose their skills. This time they informed me that I should "drive more slowly than normal", and "not follow too closely". Most profound, I should "stock up on toilet paper". For a one day ice storm?

Weather Doll Midge will need a change of attire for the winter. I may still have her red and gold ice-skating dress.


I spy with my little eye something that is icy. How on earth did the homesteaders survive without tv weather and Doppler radar? Those poor people had to walk outside to see what was happening! They had to use common sense and caution when deciding about travel. They had to take a shovel, a blanket, and sand along.



Lots of memories this week of time spent reading Berenstain Bears books to my sons. We all need a refresher course about Too Much TV. Maybe curl up and read how Laura and Mary twisted hay to burn during the Long Winter when they ran out of coal. Sure hope they stocked up on toilet paper!

Alternative building materials and construction methods

Growing up my favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder book by far was On the Banks of Plum Creek. Laura and her family lived in a sod dugout by the creek while Pa built their house. I may need to read it again. Yesterday I was searching for the missing candlestick holder from Grandma's buffet set (something I do unsuccessfully once or twice every year), and there in the WAAAAAAAAYYYYY back of the cupboard was an unopened package of Kraft marshmallows hardened into a perfect block.

Should I call FEMA? Kraft's website reports that more than ninety million pounds of JetPuffed marshmallows are purchased in America every year. What if President Bush asked every American to look deeply into their kitchen cupboards and make this personal sacrifice? What if only a small percentage of negligent homemakers found petrified marshmallow blocks? Just a teensy weensy percentage of what gets forgotten in cupboards would be enough petrified marshmallow blocks to construct new homes for thousands of disaster survivors at a fraction of the cost of those cruise ships. I am ready to lead this national drive!

In Nebraska, every school child learns about sod house construction, and about the can-do spirit of the homesteaders in history class. They learn early how the Plains Indians used the entire bison, and how beavers build dams.

Recently I encountered the word "crannog", and thought it was a misprint for cranberry bog. Instead it was a fascinating, ancient and modern building form. Google it yourself and see! That led me to wattle and daub*, cob construction, straw bale construction, and rammed earth.

*Wattle and daub, noun: (According to the American Heritage Dictionary of English Language: 4th Edition, 2000) a building material consisting of interwoven rods and laths or twigs plastered with mud or clay, used especially in the construction of simple dwellings or as an infill between members of a timber-frame wall.

I've always had a fascination with yurts and other forms of nomadic housing. I knew about Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes before I started kindergarten. Later, like many people my age, I had an "organic cousin" who wanted to build a house by hand. That's when I overheard his discussion with his engineer uncle about tilt-up concrete construction, and sprayed concrete dome construction.

It might have been in Ken Kesey's Sailor Song environmental apocalypse novel that I read of an outcast community built in and of a rubber tire landfill. Tires may not be the healthiest building material, or even smell very nice, but in a pinch they would do. The same could be said for marshmallows.

In Off the Map, eleven year-old Bo Groden keeps her "organic" family supplied with Moon Pies and other junk food by writing letters to manufacturers complaining about bugs found in their products. She receives cases of the products to keep her a satisfied consumer. I received a case of beer once by writing a letter including the seaweed-like item I nearly swallowed. Therefore, I could be considered a paid professional writer! Look in your cupboards for petrified Moon Pies, too.

Let's think for a moment about all those millions of plastic water bottles littering the sidelines of every youth sporting event across this wasteful country of ours. Fill those bottles with sand, or better, minced and diced packing peanuts. Recap them. Begin laying them side by side, lid by lid, on the ground, then layering them like a clay coil pot. See a structure emerge worthy of Andy Goldsworthy and Robert Smithson. On the interior, cover the surface with a pulp made from wet Dallas Morning News advertising circulars and Fashion/D! sections mixed with Elmer's. On the outside, perhaps something more permanent, more able to withstand natural disasters....not concrete....melted marshmallows!



As my organic cousin's engineer uncle might tell me, "You're daffy, but you're doing one heckuva job!" Maybe the President is roasting marshmallows at Camp David this weekend in the spirit of national sacrifice. Best of all, JetPuffed marshmallows are a fat free food!

The Emergency Preparedness Diet

If Rita doesn't arrive in the DFW metroplex soon and knock out all the power with Category One winds, I'm going to be stuck with the six cans of tuna fish, the large bag of charcoal briquettes, the Tang, and that big jar of creamy peanut butter ("Choosy mothers choose Jif"). Now that I consider the menu options, it sounds just like the miracle three-day diet my friend is trying, except without the cottage cheese.



I figured I would use the charcoal to broil the frozen chix boobs, petite sirloin, fish, and hamburger that would go bad in the freezer during a prolonged power failure. When that was gone, I would start in on the canned tuna fish. Spoonfuls of PB would be my high-pro breakfasts, washed down with Tang. Maybe I would lose ten pounds the first week!

While none of us want to be a storm evacuee, and we would not wish the loss of home and community on any person, some folks are experiencing disaster envy. What people in North Texas could really use is three to five days snowed-in by a major blizzard! Inability to leave home by the forces of Mother Nature could be such a gift! What opportunities to finish projects, relax with family, or listen to real weather itself, not weather radio. In the spirit of Laura Ingalls Wilder, I could burn all the magazines I don't have time to read in the fireplace to keep from freezing! Of course, I would worry about the hummingbirds and butterflies that were flying around my patio just now...

Grab that case of shoestring potatoes!

First thing this morning I turned on the t.v. to check on Hurricane Katrina and the evacuees inside the Superdome like many folks all over the country. New Orleans is one place I've actually been in person, not just through the eyes of some fictional caterer/amateur detective. New Orleans is a foreign, wondrous, decadent, humid city of fascinating history and insects the size and weight of a bowling bag. It is also the site of national Whiz Quiz tournaments which, despite their popularity and importance, have never been held in the Superdome.

The Superdome is even bigger than the insects. Sure, it was many years ago when my then-spouse insisted we go for a run around the Superdome SEVERAL times, but I bet it hasn't shrunk. That sucker is monstrous, and jogging in New Orleans is like doing water aerobics in a kettle of boiling crawdads. I hold New Orleans in my fond memory. I'm mostly over wanting to put my ex in a kettle of boiling crawdads.

Sunday night I watched footage of the evacuees waiting in lines to get into the Superdome carrying their trashbags of food and clothing. Then this morning they had dim light but NO A/C! Those poor people, I thought, remembering my eldest's high school graduation held inside sweltering Texas Stadium. If I felt trapped sitting through the ceremony for the largest high school class to ever graduate in Texas, with concession stands selling H2O for $3/bottle, imagine how they must feel sitting out the storm. I had the luxury of knowing that the parade of students across the platform would eventually reach the Z's, although I did have on pantyhose, which counted double for suffering. Please don't let any folks in the hot, muggy Superdome have on pantyhose!

I had just worn nylons for the first time at my sixth grade promotion in late May of 1967. The nylons were "Suntan", and my dress for the occasion was a lovely Monet blue and lavender voile. My mantra was, "Don't lock your knees. Don't lock your knees. You won't faint and fall off the risers if you don't lock your knees."


1967 was Nebraska's statehood centennial. My pal and I were going to attend the Nebraska Camp Fire Girls Centennial Camporee in Lincoln's lovely, shady Pioneers Park. It was going to be "real" tent camping for hundreds of girls, with educational bus trips to the major sites of the Capitol City.

There's a definite lack on web information on this event, despite my best search efforts. Using the rainfall statistics for Lancaster County at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's High Plains Climate Center, along with the perpetual calendar in my loyal World Almanac, I suspect that the Camporee began on Sunday, June fourth. On the first full day of the week-long event, all the campers rode school buses into town to visit the Historical Society Museum, the State Capitol building with its Unicameral Chamber, the Governor's Mansion, the Folsom Children's Zoo, and the Sunken Gardens. After about the second educational tourist attraction this adventure had become a torture of searing bus seats and delays for hungry, thirsty, bored, irritable girls in navy shorts and white blouses.



Finally we boarded the buses to ride back out to the campsite. Recognition had dawned that we would continue to be hot, sweaty, bored, irritable, and itchy inside the canvas tents while counselors stirred big pots of hamburger stew made with Lipton dried soup packets, mixed the Tang, and got out loaves of Wonder Bread. The darkening sky matched our moods.

The storm came in suddenly, whipping the tent flaps and pouring down rain. The rain felt pretty good, but then the tents started falling down on us. The counselors couldn't make supper. They had to herd all the girls into the concrete park restrooms at the back of the concession stand. We could hear the tornado sirens. A couple adults held transistor radios to their ears. We kept packing closer together, standing inside the restrooms, scared, still itchy, thirsty, and hungry, and horrified about being in the MENS. Sirens, lightning, thunder, loose pieces of clothes and paper flying around. Then a lull. A brave young woman ran out through the rain, wind, and mud to what was left of the mess tent. She was bringing us provisions! She was bringing us a case of canned shoestring potatoes! It was just like a chapter from Little House on the Prairie or On the Banks of Plum Creek! We were going to huddle together budgeting our precious, limited supply of salty, greasy, potato sticks as the rain poured down even harder. We would gradually rotate so that each member of the group would get a turn to sip a bit of water from their cupped hand at the dirty sink of the MENS restroom.

In those primitive days there were no cell phones. Somehow, someone sort of in charge managed to get word to the city that the camp was a wreck. The Lincoln National Guard sent buses to load all the campers and the rest of the shoestring potatoes to ride to the armory. We each got a cot, and a PB sandwich. We didn't sleep well, still being soggy, and not knowing where we were.

After a few days at the armory, and a volunteer work detail back out to the campsite to load all the wet belongings into National Guard buses, I found a way to contact my parents so they could pick me up. All organization for the Camporee had broken down. No FEMA, no Plan B. And not enough shoestring potatoes!

Sending visualizations of shoestring potatoes to everyone in the Superdome tonight...

Rob From the Rich

I forget, Robin. Are we good guys or bad guys?"



My kids loved the 1973 Disney animated "Robin Hood" with animal characters, and Phil Harris doing the voice of Little John. By Disney standards, it was light stuff. No orphans or forest fires. No nightmares about being swallowed by a whale or turned into a donkey. (No farting warthogs, thank you very much.) I actually purchased a VHS tape of the movie, (or maybe it was Beta!), and let them watch it once every month or so. Then my Merry Men mini-guys would go merrily off to wander in Sherwood Forest down the hall to outsmart the sheriff of Nottingham . Wearing sawed-off pillowcases over their PJs, green felt hats, paper towel tube quivers slung over their shoulders for the suction-cup arrows, a sockful of pebbles tucked into a $3.99 black plastic gun belt now missing its holsters and pistols, and maybe the "Special Bunny" or a sippy cup, they were ready for action. With only the slightest of adjustments and additions to this gear, the guys could also play Peter Pan, Camelot, the Oklahoma Land Rush, Plains Indians, California Gold Rush prospectors, and Ice Age cave men. For instance, my youngest might need a juice box and a cup of dry Cherrios instead of the Special Bunny and sippy cup. The sofa cushions might become a fort long enough for me to change the sheets on the bed with the stagecoachesque headboard, or scrub the bathtub moat.

The bed with the weird stagecoach headboard also made a very fine hook and ladder firetruck, or a covered wagon for Laura and Mary Ingalls, with Jack, the brindle bulldog, leaving the Big Woods of Wisconsin to travel to the Prairie or the Banks of Plum Creek. Didn't matter that Laura and Mary were girls. My sons knew good, brave characters to play when they heard about them.

Faint heart never won fair lady,
Little John advises Robin. Can't quite pin it down, but this seems to be a very old proverb. Faulty bridges don't seem to woo fair maidens, either. A young gentleman of my acquaintance is having trouble with his eight year-old dental Maryland Bridge falling out of his mouth at inconvenient moments. This causes him to hiss like the Terry Thomas narrated snake/henchman in the movie. It puts a dent in his self-confidence, and a crimp in his whirlwind romance when the fake tooth gets stuck in a sandwich.

Unfortunately, remedies are expensive. Might be time to trade in the quiver and sippy cup for a dusty felt hat and a Sara Lee Butter Streusel coffee cake aluminum pan for some serious prospecting.

Hovering Parents

The L.A. Times and many other newspapers printed a story this week about Hovering parents. Why do parents my age want to keep micromanaging and superhero rescuing their college kids? Are we creating into a new generation without self-sufficient adults? Didn't anybody read Laura Ingalls Wilder books like Farmer Boy and By the Banks of Plum Creek to their kids? Didn't the kids wish heartily to be the protagonist of My Side of the Mountain, living in a hollow tree and teaching his falcon to hunt?

I love my kids. I am enormously proud of the way they are planning and conducting their lives and even doing their own laundry. They are grown up. I don't get a rush from wiping their noses or paying their library fines.

My oldest will have to deal with Hovering and Swooping parents in his chosen field of higher ed. admin. My younger guys will NOT have to deal with a swooping mom of their own. I don't do it. They are big guys. I let them go hungry when they forgot their lunch boxes in fifth grade. I let them answer to teachers when they failed to study for middle school math tests. I let them be cold when they didn't take a coat to school in January. I worry now about my son who has moved to a northern Yankee state. I hope he will throw a coat in the backseat when he comes home for the holidays. I hope he will put a container of sand in his trunk, and an ice scraper in the glove box. Surprises and blizzards crop up in life, especially when you aren't expecting them. Still, I'm going to let him check Weather.com all by himself.

Went for a walk Friday through my neighborhood and back home down the busy street past the Firestone, 7-11, Sonic Drive-In, and Calloway's Nursery. Slowly became aware of a blur of blue and orange each time I passed a power pole. A small bird with running mascara and a groovy retro outfit was moving from pole to pole along my route. I love it that we have the smallest North American falcon just down the street. I love it that the book says the Sparrow Hawk aka American Kestrel weighs the same as a McD quarter-pounder with cheese.


AMERICAN KESTREL (Falco Sparverius)

COMMON NAMES: Sparrow Hawk

RANGE: Most of North America, excluding the far north

HABITAT: Open savanna-like areas with a few trees, forest edges near open areas, farmsteads, suburbs, city parks, desert areas with cactus

SIZE:
LENGTH: 8-11 inches
WINGSPAN: 20-24 inches
WEIGHT: 3.4-5.3 ounces (equivalent to a quarter-pounder with cheese)

LIFE EXPECTANCY:
WILD: 3-5 years
CAPTIVITY: Up to 14 years


DIET:
WILD: Snakes, lizards, bats, smaller birds, mice, voles, and insects (beetles, grasshoppers, cicadas). Kestrels will feed mainly on mammals and birds during the early parts of the breeding season and lizards and invertebrates later in the breeding season. They concentrate on hunting invertebrates when readily available.
CAPTIVITY: Chicks, mice, and crickets

BEHAVIOR: Kestrels like exposed perches such as telephone poles, wires, fence posts, and dead branches on trees. They are swift, erratic fliers, and in a flat flight they may travel at up to 39 mph, and they can dive at speeds up to 60 mph. They pump their tails and bob their heads while perched, especially when agitated. Kestrels are capable of hovering when hunting, and this behavior is seen frequently over highway medians. They will dive feet first when hunting insects and usually capture them by pinning them to the ground rather than capturing them with their beak. They will dive for other prey items head first to gain additional speed and force.

REPRODUCTION: Kestrels prefer to nest in natural cavities found in trees, cactus, or cliffs, but they will use man-made nest boxes and building cavities. They are dominant over most cavity nesting birds (woodpeckers and flickers), chipmunks and squirrels. Kestrels compete intensely with screech owls for nest sites, and eggs of both species have been found in the same nest. They prefer to nest in sites that are protected from the weather, and in areas where storms come from the south and southwest they nest on east facing slopes with the entrance holes almost always facing east. Their average clutch size is of 5 eggs laid at 2 day intervals. The female is responsible for most of the incubating, but the male does 3-4 hours daily. The incubation period is of 29-31 days, and the fledging of the young occurs at 29-31 days. Because of efficient parental defense, there is a high survival rate for fledglings.

POINTS OF INTEREST: Kestrels are the daytime counterparts of screech owls, and the two species will compete heavily for resources like prey and nesting sites.

Kestrels are the only North American raptor with circular nostrils.



Falcon Characteristics: Kestrels are the smallest and most common falcon in North America and are often incorrectly called “sparrow hawks.” They have the long, swept back wings that are typical of falcons. This design is very special and allows the Kestrel to be very maneuverable in the air in pursuit of prey. The US Air Force designed fighters using the falcons' wing design to gain that same ability to maneuver quickly in the air. The upper mandible of the Kestrel also possesses a notch like other falcons. Called a “killing tooth,” it fits perfectly over the spine of vertebrate prey and allows the tiny falcon to quickly dispatch its catch.


Plumage: Kestrels are one of the few sexually dimorphic (males and females are different) raptors in North America. They are similarly marked, but males have slate blue wings while the females’ are brown and black barred. The dark hood on the Kestrel’s head is characteristic of a falcon, and it is believed to work in conjunction with the malar stripes beneath their eyes to reduce sun glare, much like the shoe polish that football players put under their eyes. The black spots on the nape of their neck are called "false eyes," and they are thought to be protective coloration. The "eyes" deter predators by making it appear that the Kestrel is watching them at all times.

Eyesight: If a Kestrel could read, it could read a newspaper lying on the ground from the top of the Empire State Building. To aid them in keeping their keen eyes on their prey, Kestrels are able to keep their head in practically the same position even while perching on a moving object, like a branch or power line.


Caching: Kestrels will cache food year round, unlike other falcons that only cache during breeding season. When incubating eggs, the cache of excess food ensures that the chicks can be fed even if the male does not return with food. After the breeding season, Kestrels may maintain several sites in places ranging from hollow trees to utility-pole switch boxes. Generally the food will be retrieved within a few hours or days. One female was seen killing and stashing twenty mice provided by scientists.


Pair Bonding and Courtship: Pair formation begins soon after the male has established a territory. Often, the same female will return to a male’s territory to mate, or she will otherwise “visit” males’ territories and eventually begin to associate with one worthy male. Courtship includes dive displays, curtseying, bowing, and courtship feeding. A male will climb 10 to 20 meters into the sky before diving down to swoop just above the female in a dive display. He will also often gather and offer food to the female while chittering during courtship feeding. Once a female associates exclusively with one male, the pairing is complete, and often is permanent. The pair will begin to search for a nest site; the male always leads the female, sometimes enticing her with calls or with food. Females will not seek out nest sites on their own.


STATUS: In general, the Kestrel is the most common North American raptor. There are an estimated 1.2 million pairs, not including the Neotropical component. However, the southeastern race paulus has been listed as "threatened" in Florida. Those populations have declined more than 80 percent since the early 1940's due to habitat loss.