To the Ladies of Writing Plans, Proposals and Presentations.

 This will in all probability be my last blog post for quite some time. Though, as I said in my opening blog I do love to write, I find this venue too demanding  time wise. Hopefully I’ve entertained those few of you that actually read these posts.

I am nearing the end of this process and will finish my BA in December. It may be of some interest to you girls that I was the only guy in my very first class at Avila and here I am, near the end, I am once again the only guy in a class.  Just like that first class I am impressed by the classmates I have. You are all attractive, intelligent, driven ladies who have found the grit and determination to get your degree inspite of so many other commitments you have.  Traditional students have no idea how hard this is. I applaud you and wish each and every one of you the very best in your future endeavors. I wish I had been smart enough to get this done years ago but life seemed to always get in the way.

Writing is an art and like most art forms the more you practice the better you will get. I have long loved the way words can transport us to distant places and show us things that we might otherwise never see and experience. Words are the keystones to everything around us, without them societies don’t exist, great nations don’t rise and fall, nothing endures even a little while. So practice, write, any way and anywhere you can. By write I was once told it doesn’t matter what you write, just the act of assembling words to carry a meaning is enough. I spent ten painfully boring years as a technical writer it was challenging but soon became repetitive BUT it was writing and just concentrating on, is it complete is it concise does it make sense was enough to make my writing much better. So I say again just write, let your imagination go, create images from your mind or just write out business letters, the process will make you better

Many of you have finished your degree and most of the rest of you are close so, unlike that first class I was in, I don’t worry about life distracting you and preventing you from finishing. You can do it, whatever IT may turn out to be. I encourage each of you to think about your futures and write down your goals. Tuck those goals away someplace only you will know about them and then work your goals.  In this day and age you ladies have more doors open to you than ever before and I encourage you to kick open any you find still closed. You do have what it takes.

In November I will turn 60 years old and if you believe in statistics you all know that I am suppose to think and act in a certain way because I am an older white male living in the Midwest. I chuckle when I read some of these surveys because what I think and feel to be important is so far outside those parameters as to make me one of the “outliers” that statisticians tend to write off as being unimportant. To be honest with you I think there are more guys like me out there than the statistics show. What I am so awkwardly trying to say is gender should never ever be part of anyone’s decision making process. You all have the knowledge, that piece of paper that they say you must have, and the experience they can’t get from a traditional college graduate. I encourage all of you to use those tools to make your dreams come true.

I will be watching from somewhere near the back.

You can be anything you set your mind to be.

A Campfire Story

This week I thought I'd let you read another story I wrote many years ago. This one is quite different from the first one in that this story was written to be told at campfires for Boy Scouts and their parents. It is told in Indian style and usually I would be dressed in a costume that added to this illusion. The local Boy Scout lodge where I lived when this was written used a black fox as a totem. The places described in the story do exist. Stories were the native americans way of teaching life lessons to children and thus I have incorporated that into the narrative you are about to read.

Enjoy

THE BLACK FOX

The Birth of the Fox


This is a small part of the legend of The Black Fox, my brothers.  I will give it to you as it was given to me, whispered by the winds in the trees, murmured by unseen voices of the prairie.
It is a story from yesterday ... tomorrow ... today.  It is a story about life and death, joy and sorrow, winning and losing, for they are, each of them, a part of the same whole.

It begins with a vixen fox as she makes her way along the shore of the river the Indians called Amaquonsippi, the River of the Clams, near the place known as the Hollow of the Pigeons which is near to the Red Clay Hill and the buffalo ford of the River of the Clams.  It is the time of the Moon of the Cherry Blossoms and yet winter has not yet released its hold upon the land and the vixen is struggling desperately to reach her pre-chosen place to deliver her soon to be born young.  

The season has been a long and hard one as yet another blizzard unleashes itself upon the River of the Clams. 

The vixen realizes she cannot make it to her den through the ever deepening snows.  She takes refuge in the only shelter she can find, a small crevice in the shale cliffs along the banks of the frozen river.  She burrows herself as far back into the soft, loose stone as she can to keep herself warm as she waits out the storm and the birth of her young.

Her wait is not a long one.  As darkness falls, she delivers three small, wet, furry little bundles into this troubling, wonderful, difficult world.  They scarcely resemble foxes at all.  Each is quite different from the others, one being almost flame red in color, the second being such a fuzzy yellow as to resemble a baby duckling, and the third, the smallest, a bright glossy black.

Now none of this is really unusual, for foxes have been born in threes and in these various colors, yet something seems very special about this birth, in this place, at this time.

Because of the great stress of labor and the extremely long and hard winter, it is almost four weeks before the vixen is able to leave the den again.  Only extreme hunger overrides her instincts to stay near her young.  However she must find food and soon or neither she nor her kits will survive.  So she goes out in search of food.  Spring is certainly not far off as bright patches of new growth can be seen in sheltered spots of sunshine.  An eerie, icy fog rises thickly off the still frozen river marking the passage of winter to spring.

The vixen has been gone only a short time when one of the most feared predators of the prairies and rivers comes down the trail following the course of the River of the Clams.  The young kit's eyes have only been open a few days, but they cannot mistake the movements of the wolverine as he moves steadily toward their hiding place in the cliffs of shale at the river's edge.  Hunger too drives a creature such as the wolverine, one of nature's most dangerous and powerful predators.  His path takes him directly to the entrance of the cave, and he cannot mistake the scent left by the vixen's recent departure.  Though the kits themselves do not reveal their presence in any way, it is only a matter of moments before the wolverine discovers them.  As he peers into the darkness of the crevice, the two yellowish red kits are unmistakable at the back of the shallow cave.  As he shoulders into the opening for what appears to be a easy meal, he moves right past the
young black kit who is pressed into a narrow crack at the mouth of the cave.

It is times such a these, that occur in all of our lives, where we each make choices based on those inborn characteristics that make us who and what we are.  Though the black fox is only a month old, weighs just a few ounces, and has no real knowledge of the world outside of his small cave, he seems to realize that unless he acts, his brother and sister will perish.  So he does the only thing that he can do and leaps onto the back of the wolverine. With all his tiny might he bites him. 
The wolverine is taken by surprise more than hurt, but those tiny milk teeth are sharp and the attack is so unexpected that the wolverine backs quickly out of the cave to turn on his unseen attacker, snarling and screaming and spinning wildly to find the source of the pain to his backside.

The snarling screams of the wolverine attracts the attention of the vixen who is not far away.  She returns, carrying a small hare to her young, bounding and scrambling over the snow and ice to the trail at the edge of the River of Clams, up the Hollow of the Pigeons to protect her family.  As she moves along the narrow trail and comes around the rocks that mark the edge of the cliff where she has her den, she comes face to face with the wolverine who is still screaming, snarling and whirling about madly trying to get at his unseen attacker.  The vixen's reactions are instinctive and immediate as she attacks headlong into the wolverine.  Her momentum and the ferocity of her attack knocks her black kit clear as the vixen and the wolverine plunge off the cliff, down the steep embankment and into the icy water below.

The cold icy water, the darkly swirling current, two hereditary combatants locked in a struggle as old as the river itself: this is a fight that no one can win.

The black kit sits at the edge of the shale cliff watching intently the darkly swirling waters of the Amaquonsippi.  His eyes gleam brightly, with a quiet intelligence which seems only to accent his age and size rather than diminish it.  He emits a soft plaintive whine then turns to the carcass of the rabbit, dropped near the den by his mother when she attacked the Wolverine, grabs it by one of its oversized hind legs and tries to pull it closer to the entrance of the den.

Quickly exhausted by his efforts, he tears off a bit of flesh from the rabbit with a vigorous shaking of his whole being and retreats into the back of the small cleft in the shale ledge and lays down with his brother and sister.  Soon sleep overtakes him as his two siblings growl and tear at the remaining pieces of flesh.  

Tomorrow the real challenge will begin, to survive in a large hostile world.

What is a repurposed Antique?

Good question.

A repurposed antique is an old piece, usually furniture, that has been reworked to serve a purpose other than the one it was originally designed for.

A good example might be a reed organ or chord organ depending on where you grew up.

The one pictured above would be a common example. Organs like this one were being sold all across America from right after the civil war until about 1920. Many of them were actually sold by traveling salesmen from the back of a wagon. Everyone knew that to be cultured you had to have music in your home and the easiest way was the cord organ which was powered by pedals attached to a bellows system housed in the lower portion of the organ.  They were reliable, inexpensive, and could be made as elaborate as the customer desired.

Once electricity came to the country these leviathans lost favor and eventually their place in the parlors of American homes. Very few were thrown out, we’ve always been a save it just in case country. But many did end up in circumstance less than ideal in barns, or chicken coops of the more well to do farmers of the last century.

I was at a farm auction a number of years ago and they drug this carcase of an organ out of a horse stall. It was dirty, covered in bird poop, dust and dirty of decades hiding in the back of this barn. No one would bid on it and when they finally added several three tine hay forks to the lot I bid a dollar just to get things moving along.

The thing fell apart when I was trying to load it into my truck and I almost left the pile crap covered boards set but for some reason I shoved the remnants in and hauled them home to my shop.

They must have lain on the floor under my storage bench for several years before I hauled them out to sue a work surface while assembling a upper cabinet for a kitchen piece I was working on.  When I was wiping back the stripper crud I realized my “work surface” was solid walnut. So I dug around until I found the other side and both carved handles and set them up wondering what I could do with them as they were too nice eto just throw away.

Well an answer presented itself when after a particularly bad rain storm my parents fully finished basement got flooded with sewer water. Among the things damaged beyond repair were there small flat chests holding sterling silver flatware, one each from my mother and each grandmother. The silverware was easily cleaned but where to store three complete sets of silverware each with a very different pattern?

The answer. A new tall chest with drawers designed to hold them along with extra storage for other pieces my parents had collected over the years.

Take two sides from an antique organ, provide new structure to hold them together, build drawers for the silverware, refinish and
 viola, a repurposed antique.

Me and My Big Mouth

Each year my wife and I sit down and pick one or two things that we want to fix and or change around our home. Some years it can be something major like the year I built my shop building. Other years it might be a small as new paint and fixtures in a bathroom.

Well, this year it was new carpet for our living room/hall. It had been getting rather ratty looking for some time and really needed to go. So back in February we were looking at various carpet samples in Lowe's near our house when I had this bright idea, which I was foolish enough to actually speak out loud.

You know our living room is a vaulted beamed ceiling with a  large brick fireplace at one end so real hardwood floor would look really good on the floor.

Yes, I said it out loud and of course she heard it. One of the problems with being married 38 years and having a reputation as being above average handy with wood is that she assumes if it's wood I can do it. Plus, they even had the one we both liked on sale.

So,  verfied the measurements and one weekend nearly killed myself dragging out the old NASTY carpet. And i thought it looked bad right side up, never ever look at it after its been yanked out.

Underneath the subfloor was in pretty good shape, just one area to level near the entry and a search and destroy mission to deal with any possible squeaks and I'm ready to start putting down 3/4" thick solid oak flooring

I knew the hallway would be the hard part so I started there and worked the flooring back toward the front door which is off the right side of this picture. with everything lining up down the hallway the rest of the room should be easy.

Now I am about half way across the main room. The black stuff on the floor is heavy weight roofing paper to help prevent squeaks.

Getting close to the finish line. It gets tricky when you come up against a stone or brick surface so I'm going to chisel out the bottom row of mortar and tuck the last row under the brick. I hope!

Years ago I had put this natural slate pad by the back door to help with wet feet coming in from the hot tub so I wanted it to stay but given that this would be a high moisture area I needed to do something to help the oak stay flat under these conditions. The answer was to picture frame it and lock it in place with its own tongue and grooves. Plus I think it looks more finished this was.

The last detail was to cover up half the beautiful wood floor with furniture and an area  rug. Our dog Quinn seems to approve though.

One last detail. I have discovered that it easier to get around on crutches on hardwood than carpet So that's a plus in one sense.

Technological Advancements

Living in the computer age as we do we've all become somewhat used to technological leaps however the massive changes in health care have been brought front and center for me over the last few days.

Back in 1971 I injured my right knee, tearing the cartilage rather severely.  At that point in time cartilage repair surgery was a major deal  involving cutting the knee open and using forceps to physically pull out the damaged pieces.  Given the severity of the knee damage and my aversion to surgeons I elected to not have the surgery and just try and live with the pain.

Over the next decade I became a reliable weather forecaster as the loose cartilage in my knee would begin to ache anytime a weather front was coming through. I would know it was about to rain or snow a couple of hours before it actually began.

In 1984 I injured my knee again. This time I physically tore the Anterior Cruciate Ligament loose from its attachment point at the top end.  I had few options this time and the knee surgery put me in a cast for 9 weeks and the scar that runs diagonally across my knee is over a foot long.

The good thing is I have learned to manage pain mentally so I don;t require a lot of drugs and I've learned how to rehab myself to get back in shape as rapidly as possible without pushing my limits too quickly.

Over the last several months I have been having some bilateral pain in both my knees which had my orthopedic  surgeon looking at my lower back. That was until early afternoon last saturday when, for no apparent reason, my right knee decided to give out. The resultant pain and swelling had me spending a portion of my Saturday afternoon in the emergency room. Once they checked me out and referred me back to my Dr. I came home and took some pain pills to try and get some sleep.

Ice, elevate the knee, and just take it easy. I do ok until the last part since I am very sued to be pretty active being completely down and mobile only with crutches really is a drag for me.

Since I already had an appointment to see the orthopedist I just kept that instead of making this an emergency and a good deal more costly for everyone.  I just left his office and I am scheduled for arthroscopic knee surgery tomorrow afternoon.

How is this different? Well, back in 1971 it would have been under total anesthesia and in the hospital for at least two days with an expected recovery time of four to six weeks.  Today, it will be an out-patient procedure with three tiny holes in my knee and I'll be home by late afternoon adn probably back on my feet before the weekend is up.

So, I might make it to class but if i don't you girls have fun.

Something Just for Fun

As I said in my initial blog post, I do love to write. In my life I've written campfire stories, technical pieces and thousands of pages of catalog copy. The story I've posted below came about many years ago when I was taking some classes a the local community college

The  company I worked for at the time would pay for classes as long as you were working at a satisfactory pace, which meant you had to take at least two classes per semester. Since I was taking accounting as my main class and I hate math I wan ted to take a class where I felt I wouldn't need to concentrate too much. So, there was a series of classes about writing fiction that lined up with the accounting set.  The first night of class the professor outlined how the class would proceed and a  brief presentation of the elements of a good short story.  He cautioned us that students tended to try and write stories from the perspective of animals, or to anthropomorphize them, and some tried their hand at erotica. Both of which he said, are extremely hard to do well.

Our focus for writing week two was to play with stereo-types. Part of the week one lecture was demonstrating how good stories would use stereotypes to emphasize characters within the story.

Since I've always been one to challenge convention I decided to write the following story.



 THE CAT’S MEOW

by Thomas Rea


Anne was definitely in one of her better moods.  Montovani was oozing from the stereo as she sat at her dressing table blow drying her hair.  Now, normally I stay pretty close by whenever Anne is home.  You never know when she might be in the mood to snuggle, or at least scratch me under my chin.  Plus, I like to watch her when she changes her clothes.  My Anne’s got a great pair of legs. You know the kind, long, incredibly long, and smoothly tapered starting from trim, delicate ankles and ending in a pair of the tightest, roundest, most delectable little buns you ever saw.   I really love to watch her wriggle into a pair of panty hose.  Plus, since she started going to that “Health Club” she has developed one of those “come to the islands” kind of tans to go with her incredible figure.  Even her “little grapefruit” boobs, which I find to be one of her more interesting features, are a delicious golden bronze.
As soon as she put down the hair dryer I got down off my perch on the bedside table and strolled over to rub against her legs to see just how good a mood she was in.
“Ming, you startled me.  How is the most precious Siamese in the world today?  I’ll feed you in a minute, I have to finish getting dressed first.  I have a date tonight.”
Right, I never would have guessed you were getting ready for a date.  I assumed you were wearing that snug little number with the slit up the side just to impress me.
“If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll bring him around to meet you after dinner.”

Sure, you’ll bring him around all right, but it sure as hell won’t be to meet me.  She never listens to what I tell her about some of the clowns she brings home.  I remember this one creep she was seeing.  The jerk kept trying to backhand me off the sofa when he was trying to make out with Anne.  I fixed him good though.  I pissed on his pants when he left them on the dressing table chair.  The bozo went berserk when he found out the next morning.  Practically tore the place apart looking for me until Anne threatened to call the cops if he didn‘t leave since “he was such an animal hater,” bless my Anne.  Naturally I was too smart for that clown, he never would have found me behind the waterbed headboard anyway.
“Goodbye Ming, behave yourself, I’ll probably be rather late since Jerry is taking me to the opera.”
Opera, Oh my God.  I hope this one doesn’t turn out to be another one of those nerds like that accountant who turned out to be allergic to cat hair.  Can you imagine anybody blaming me because he can’t “get it up” because of all the sneezing.  Talk about a limp excuse... Man I crack myself up.
“Oh, Ming, I’ll leave the TV on so you won’t get bored.  See you later, precious.”
Let’s see, great, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous is about to come on, one of my favorites.  Just enough time to check out the water dish.  Yup, everything’s OK here, plenty of dry food, better grab a bite, I won’t want to miss any action later because of a sudden hunger attack.  Now, let’s check the balcony, shit, she latched the screen, you’d think after all this time Anne would show a little trust.  After all it wasn’t my fault the little Persian downstairs got knocked up.  I mean after all the little hussy told me she was safe, how was I supposed to know, and anyway, how come everybody’s blamin’ me?  It could’ve been that yellow Tomcat from across the street, he’s always out catting around.  Well, I might as well relax in front of the tube, I got some time before the festivities begin.
There’s the signal.  The elevator door just opened.  Yep, there’s no mistaking the click-click-click of my Anne’s heels.  I hope the nerd didn’t chicken out and not come up for a nightcap.
Did you ever wonder about the term “nightcap”?  It fits perfectly of course, since 68% of them actually end up in bed.  I saw that once on a PBS documentary.  Honestly, these human mating rituals are rather ridiculous.  If a cat wants to get laid, we just slip out the door, drop down stairs, nail the sweet little babe and saunter home.  No big production, no phony sweet talk, no big guilt trip later.
Whoa, this one is big, at least as big as Tom Selleck.  Better play it pretty careful, if this guy swats me off the sofa like some of the creeps she’s brought home I could land in the next block.
“There you are!  Jerry, this is Ming, Ming say hello to Jerry.”

Hi ya, Jerry, take it from me, she’s hot for it, so don’t waste a lot of time, let’s get down to what you’re here for...Whoa...I don’t like to be picked up...Easy...Relax Ming ol’ buddy, if this guy decides to close his hand too tight you’re going to lose your lunch all over his nice sport coat.
“Hello, Ming, you’re one of the most impressive Siamese I’ve ever seen.”
You’re pretty impressive yourself, big guy.  Just don’t drop me, I do hold grudges...How would you like to end this evening with a new inseam in those custom tailored slacks?
Jerry walked over and sat down on the sofa holding me cradled like a baby in one arm, belly up, my head nestled firmly but gently in his mammoth hand.  I was at least intelligent enough to just relax and wait for a more appropriate moment to escape.
Anne called out from the kitchenette, “Be careful, Jerry, Ming doesn’t take to strangers quickly and he doesn’t like to be held.”
“That’s OK,” he replied, “I thing Ming and I will get along fine once we get acquainted.”
I had noticed, in the way he’d whisked me off the floor and in his smooth easy stride across to the sofa, a familiar, relaxing, confident grace...of course, the perfect description would be “cat like”.  This guy might turn out to be at least tolerable.
Wait a second...what was that sound?  It sounded like another cat right here in the apartment.  There it is again.  No mistaking it, funny accent though, definitely not from around this neighborhood.  Well, I’ll be a horned pole cat, it’s Jerry.  This character actually speaks cat, strange dialect, can’t really make out the phrasing, but definitely friendly.  Must be fairly fluent judging from the ease with which he switched right into it.  He’s even got the paw..er, ah, hand motions down pretty good.  Man, he sure knows all the right places to scratch, this guy is scoring points right and left as far as I’m concerned.  Now if Anne just doesn’t blow it and scare him off.
Here comes  Anne with the drinks.  I‘d get off Jerry’s lap and watch from a safer distance but it feels so...good right here.

I  just relaxed and purred in Jerry’s lap as he and Anne proceeded smoothly through the preliminaries.  A few kisses followed by some firm but gentle petting, always my favorite part.  Then some more kissing.  I must have dozed off in there somewhere because the next thing I was aware of was Anne giggling from the bedroom.  So I slipped down off the sofa and trotted over to the bedroom door.  They had left the bedside lamp on , not that it mattered to me, as a member of the family “felis domesticus”, night vision was no problem.
I stopped just inside the door.  WOW, Jerry must be a leg man too.  He’s kissing up the inside of her calves, first one, then the other.  Little wet sucking kisses, each one bringing a moan or giggle from Anne.  I know how much she loves having her legs caressed, so this must be driving her up the wall.  Way to go, Jer’.
Uh oh, he spotted me.  What?  Looks like he’s inviting me up on the bed.  What the hell, he can only knock me through the wall once.
I gently pounced onto the bed, legs slightly tensed in case I had to make a quick retreat.  He lifted me gently, never pausing in kissing his way up the inside of Anne’s thigh.  He carefully set me on Anne’s tummy.  She jumped as she felt me but he quickly soothed her and soon she was moaning even more.  He began using the tip of my tail to tease her and she was obviously loving it as she began to toss about her mane of lustrous black tresses.  He was slowly nibbling his way up her body, sliding me higher as he went.  When he had me comfortably trapped between her luscious boobs he kissed his way around me, first one side then the other.  Anne was purring even louder than I was and my motor was running pretty good.
I was impressed, this guy was good, almost too good.  If he didn’t hurry Anne was going to finish before he really got started.  Actually I don’t believe he was too worried about it, I think he could have aroused a corpse with this routine.
I had to admit he was almost as good as I was, and I was certainly not as gracious about sharing my partners as he was.  But who am I to complain.  I was warm and snugly and I was being rubbed and massaged in more places at one time than I had ever fantasized about.  Talk about dying and going to heaven.  I love being rocked to sleep on a waterbed.

They went at it off and on all night, mostly on.  I’d seen once on National Geographic where tigers go at it for up to two hours at a time, this guy put that to shame.  They made love slow, fast, upside down, right side up, sideways, frantically, gently, voraciously.  Once they did it so slowly that I thought they had fallen asleep a couple of times.  This guy definitely had more style than I’d ever expected to see from a mere man.
I woke to the sound of the shower.  I was snuggled in next Anne, my head pillowed by one of her warm, soft breasts.  I was tempted to give it a loving lick but thought better of it.  Sometimes Anne doesn’t wake up real gently.  I slipped quietly off the bed and padded in to see what was up in the bathroom.  Jerry was just toweling off as I came through the door.  I was struck again by the sheer size of the guy.  Not just the things that my Anne was most interested in, but an all over sense of imposing masculinity.  He was not a behemoth in the football player, wrestler, jock kind of way, but just solid man, and very well muscled, very well indeed.  Tall, as I’ve already told you and broad shouldered, with thick curly black hair and heavy brows over the only eyes I’ve seen that were bluer than mine.  He obviously worked out, nobody gave the kind of performance he gave last night and still gets up at the crack of dawn without some kind of serious exercise program.
That’s it!  He’s a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type, he’s going to cut and run before she wakes up.  He got what he came for and he’s going to slip out of our lives forever.  Anne will be crushed, she might even commit suicide.  I’ll be left to fend for myself.  I’ve got to do something!
Jerry moved quietly and gracefully back into the bedroom.  I followed.  I was still struck by the similarities between Jerry and us felines.  He pulled on a terry robe.  Cute man, it barely covers your ass, much less anything else.  Oh well, home sweet home after all.  In that outfit, I realized he wasn’t leaving just yet.
That must be it, he’s a jewel thief.  He’s going to ransack the apartment for Anne’s valuables.  No, that can’t be it, I’m the only really valuable thing she’s got and he knows where I’m at.  I better keep an eye on him just in case.
What you doing in the ‘fridge, Jerr’?  You won’t find anything in there unless you’re into cold pizza or yogurt for breakfast.
“Good morning, Ming, what do you think Anne would like for breakfast?”

What, all that last night and you can cook too?  Man, you are too good to be true.
“Let’s see what Anne’s got around here and rustle up a decent breakfast, shall we?”
He chopped up the remainder of a ham steak and an onion, whipped up a couple of eggs and some milk while I watched from the top of the microwave.  The omelette looked delicious.
“What do you think, Ming?...Oh, I’m sorry.  You must be hungry too.”
You said it, Jerr’. I’m starving.
He pawed around in the fridge and found a can of Purina.  He wrinkled up his nose and said, “I know how you feel, my little Siamese buddy.  Cold breakfast is a bummer.  Let’s see if I can’t find something besides this can of “Chicken Delight’.”
How did he know?  I had tried and tried to tell Anne how much I hated refrigerated meals.  No matter how good the stuff was, it just wasn’t the same after a night in the ‘fridge.
He pawed around in the pantry.  “Ming, I think I’ve found just the ticket.”  With that he produced a can of Starkist Tuna.  My stomach was instantly in my throat.  He effortlessly emptied the entire contents into a saucer. I scrambled to the floor before he could change his mind.  Right there and then I didn’t care if this guy was a serial killer, an alien from another planet, a transvestite, or anything else, as long as he kept on seeing Anne.

TWR

Orchds Can be Fun

Since some of you have requested more information about orchids I thought I would dedicate at least one post to those beautiful, mysterious, and wonderful plants.

When my wife and I moved to Kansas City in the fall of 2002 we had never grown an orchid though we were both dedicated plant nuts.  A weekend visit to Powell Gardens just east of KC in January of 2003 gave us our first up-close introduction to Orchids. Not only did they have this amazing display showing off the endless variety there are they even had some for sale.  I know image that. Well there was this one plant that was a mass of golden yellow flowers on multiple sprays that was delicate and amazing so we bought it and brought it home.

Six weeks later that plant was still in full glorious bloom and we were hooked. We started looking for a Kansas City Orchid Club and I can tell you if there is a flower Kansas City has a club for it.

It was fall of 2003 before we could make it to a meeting of the Greater Kansas City Orchid Society. For those of you wanting to check it out after this see the web site here.

http://www.osgkc.org/

 What we have learned over the years is that growing Orchids is not all that difficult once you understand that they are not like other house plants.

The first thing many people notice, after the amazing flowers, is the roots of most Orchids. Orchids are epiphytic, that is, their roots are aerial. They don’t grow on the forest floor the grow up in the tree canopy clinging to any branch or bark of a host tree. So if you repot an Orchid as if it were a garden geranium you will kill it.  Ours get planted in a mixture of coca bark, charcoal and perlite. Or just tied to a branch with some nylon string and a small piece if moss.

In the winter they are inside of course and we’ve enclosed a porch area on the south side of our house just for them. With extra insulation and wall of windows and a tile floor we can keep the light levels high enough and the humidity up in the 70% range.

In the summer months they reside under a pergola on our back deck with an automated sprinkler system so that they get rained on twice a day.

Unlike most other plant species Orchids do come in almost any color you can imaging. For example roses and most summer flowers are red, yellow or white and combinations of those colors but never will you find one in a true blue.  On the other end of the scale irises come in a multitude of blue, white and yellow colors but not red.

Orchids do have a scent depending upon the species.  Some can be intoxicating they are so strong smelling and those scent can be almost anything from rose scent, to lilac scent. To chocolate scent (what could be more perfect huh) to a scent specifically designed to attract flies…yes it smells rather bad.

One of the more interesting things about Orchids and Kansas City is that right here we have one of the most amazing Orchid growers in the world and one that people have traveled hundreds of miles just to see. Bird Botanical specializes in Orchids and their greenhouse is inside a cave at 23^rd St. and I-435. Inside the cave he can control everything from how long the daylight hours are to exact temperature and humidity.  If you ever get the chance you really should stop in and see them. One word of caution though, Orchids can be addicting.

http://www.birdsbotanicals.com/

Memorial Day

Since this is the Memorial Day Weekend I thought I might present a blog post that takes everyone sort of inside a part of what this weekend is suppose to be like.

Normally I don't share pieces I've written until I am completely satisfied with the finished product, however just for you guys here is a portion of this idea I got last Thursday put to paper. Or in this case computer.  I look forward to your feedback because my instincts tell me there is a lot more to this than I have managed to get out of my head to this point.

 

 

 

The Sentinel



The lights of the capitol glitter like jewels in the distance.

Five – Six – Seven – Eight

The chill air is crystal clear so much so that I can just make out the top of the Monument in the midst of all those twinkling lights.

Nine – Ten – Eleven – Twelve

Closer by, the river winds around, a dark yet silvery ribbon.

Thirteen – Fourteen – Fifteen – Sixteen

Below me along the well-kept slopes the Garden of Stone lies shimmering in the moonlight.

Seventeen – Eighteen – Nineteen – Twenty

The stark white markers standing in seemingly never ending rows.

Twenty-One, Right Face and face the Tomb and Pause

The Tomb. Seven total pieces, seventy-nine tons of the whitest marble to be found.

One – Two –Three – Four

In the light from the full moon the marble seems to glow as if lit from within.

Five – Six – Seven – Eight

Victory gazes back at me from the carved center pane on the front of the Tomb.

Nine – Ten – Eleven – Twelve

To her right stands Valor, his countenance stern and unflinching.

Thirteen – Fourteen – Fifteen – Sixteen

To the left is Peace, her palm branch held out to reward the devotion and sacrifice that went with courage to make the cause of righteousness triumphant.

Seventeen – Eighteen – Nineteen – Twenty

 

On the back of the tomb is the oft’ quoted line, “HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD”.

Twenty-One, shoulder arms rifle away from tomb, Right Face and pause again



Before me the black rubber lies stark against the grey granite marking my path clearly.

One – Two – Three – Four

Behind me I can hear the faint sounds of the city. Before me even the night seems to hold her reverence for this place.

Five – Six – Seven – Eight

I am a member of the Old Guard, My job is to protect these hallowed few. I shall never desert my sacred post.

Nine _ Ten _ Eleven - Twelve

The silence here this time of night is deep and steadfast companion. I find the silence comforting though others might not.

Thirteen – Fourteen – Fifteen - Sixteen

No one to intrude upon the majestic solitude of this place.

Seventeen – Eighteen – Nineteen - Twenty

The utter sense of solemnity that this place deserves.

Twenty-One, step off again

My footfalls are barely audible on the mat as I walk my post besides the great marble Tomb.

One – Two – Three – Four

Below me lie the graves of Admirals, Generals, even Presidents but up here are only those sacred bones of common soldiers.

Five – Six _ Seven _ Eight

My every movement is measured and careful following a tradition begun more than Seventy-five years ago.

Nine - Ten – Eleven – Twelve

My proudest achievement is that wreath I am honored to wear that identifies me as one of the 525 men who have walked their post on these hallowed grounds.

Thirteen – Fourteen – Fifteen – Sixteen

Twenty-Four Hours a day, 365 days a year we walk this post.

Seventeen – Eighteen – Nineteen – Twenty

Unwavering through all circumstances. Unflinching in any situation. A continuous, uninterrupted vigil.

Twenty-One, Left Face and face the Tomb

When is an old piece of furniture past Saving?

The I found this piece in the basement of a home in Kansas City. The firm I was working for at the time had been called by a lady to pick up a dining room set and when I arrived I found the family trying to clean out the home of their mother who had passed away.

Her husband asked us to help him carry this old “bench” out of the basement. Once we got all the old cans of motor oil and paint out of the drawers and the chest out into the sunlight I realized There was  something special here under all the decades of abuse.

Closer Inspection can give you hints to what lies hidden.

A closer look revealed some interesting facts:

1.     Under the nailed on plywood top the original top only covered the front half of the case.

2.     In the bottom drawer we found a set of three small drawers (Hankie Drawers) that exactly fit in the missing area of the top. Interesting?

3.     Also in the bottom drawer were four short feet with round pegs that matched the holes in the bottom corners of the chest. Most dressers don;t have feet and when they do they are attached in a permanet fashion. These were clearly meant to be removed, but why?

4.     The drawers are hand dovetailed and though every drawer was missing a part all of the drawer fronts were still there.That's a good thing reproducing the sides, back and bottom of a drawer is relatively simple. Making a new front to match the old ones could have been the end of this project.

5.     There was some veneer missing in several places and it was thicker than modern veneers so replacing those bits was going to be a challenge.Over time the art of slicing veneer has been refined a great deal so the older the veneer the thicker and this stufff was almost 1/8" thick so VERY OLD STUFF.

6.     Then, underneath all those decades of abuse we discover that the veneer is real Mahogany. When I refer to it as REAL Mahogany it is because original Mahogany is very rare. Most of those original logs came from Africa or South America and it has been illegal to import those endangered logs into the United States for decades.

So, what we have here is soemthing special even though it has had a tough life recently. Given what I knew about the piece I did some research.  Chests made in this fashion and with the characteristics I was seeing date the piece as being made before 1860. But those removable feet I discover mean it was made as a "Wagon Chest", meaning it was designed to sit inside a covered wagon  and when you reached your new home you took it out, put the feet back on and it was once again the corret height for a dresser. This one wasn't just a  Wagon Chest though, becuase with those hankie drawers and Mahogany Veneer this one was a Cadillac.

We begin by making as many of the repairs as possible.

  The bottom frame of the chest is completely replaced with solid Phillipine Mahoganyy which is close to the original because finding matching veneer that would match was impossible.

 Each drawer is rebuilt using material as close to original as possible. This includes planning some lumber down to match the thickness of the originals. When this chest was made wood was planned to thickness by hand, consequenetly it is thicker than todays modern lumber which is surfaced by huge machines.

  The Hankie Drawers are refitted in their original positions and repairs made to them. Thankfully they are in good condition.

Everything is stripped to remove over 100 years of oil, grease, odd dollops of paint, grime, and any finish that might still be on the piece. This piece had been her father's "workbench" for as long as anyone could remember

The whole piece is then reassembled and any new repairs revealed by the stripping process are completed. Once all the "gunk" is off an old piece it is not unusualy to discover that soem of the interior framing is not as solid as it once was.

 Then everything is stained, blending any new wood with the old and three coats of a clear satin lacquer are applied. This sounds so simple when in reality this part of teh job takes longer than all the rest of it combined.

Now, If you recall, This piece was being carried out to the curb for disposal. I had suggested it deserved a closer look to the lady's husband and he had agreed that it might be worth saving. The piece was completed and he stopped into the shop to see it and pay the bill. I delieverd the completed chest of drawers with a photo set of the process on December 20th. The lady who had watched her father fix stuff on that "bench" for decades couldn't believe it was the same piece.

Sometimes it's not about the money. Sometimes it's about the history.
Well made furniture will always be fixable if someone can see the potential and can afford the time it takes to make it happen.