I SAY for 26 March 2010

The prune tree orchard that surrounds our little spread in Antelope has cautiously sprung into blossom. Spring is here, but the trees are wary and thinking a late hail storm may just around the corner are not in full blossom as of this writing. 17 years ago we had a wedding down in the grove…not the missus and yours truly. No, we were hitched back when getting married was called getting hitched. Think of a horse…free to roam until hitched to a buggy, and then told where to go and what to do while in harness.

The marriage of what I speak was that of the youngest daughter. It was her wish to marry in the grove south of our house. It had rained the week prior to the day of the nuptials. However, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and the orchard sprang into bloom. It was an omen. Though many of us have lost our bloom since then, we are still experiencing fair weather, and life is good. That we have to experience body repair from time to time is just part of the enjoyment of living long. When paired with the right spouse, it is a most enjoyable process. No amount of rings, vows and bowing and scraping in a church will insure the success of a marriage. Only a devotion to the concept of matrimonial bliss will carry the day into years. If yours has endured for decades, then bully for you. If you and yours have chosen a different path, then you are more to be pitied than censored…and none of us like to be censored.

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County elections and electioneering is upon us. I would urge voters to consider certain candidates, but have found, as previously reported, my endorsement is often a kiss of death to my favorites. Let us just say that favoring the incumbent can be prudent providing the fellow or lady has not been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and such is not the case locally for years.  At the federal level, however, most incumbents face a storm of rebuke and disgust for their actions…or lack of action. And, if not guilty of outright thievery, they may go down in flames for partisanship and failure to compromise to get the country back on track providing jobs and leadership.

Once again I say that changing your party to independent or non-partisan may be the only way to get the attention of office holders in Washington. Just because your folks were democrats or republicans back then, is no reason to blindly follow party foolishness now.

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We have cats. We have them at the old barn and we have them at the new barn. We have a plethora of cats. Those who do not, but wish for multiple catship, give me a call. They are free to a good home, but read the fine print: my catching them is not part of the deal. I will merely point them out at feeding time…and the lucky cat recipient will devise his own fiendish plot to capture and domesticate them. They are, you see, wild in the sense they may have been domesticated years ago, but have been left to forage for themselves…and the girls are shameless when it comes to going all the way on their first dates.  Hence unless decimated by plague or marauding predators, they multiply like construction fees at City Hall. They come in all colors and sizes. Act now, get a free dicer…and bring a net plus some welding gloves.

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Last week’s quiz was designed for a cartographer…or a map maker’s assistant. L. Brown once again surfaced with pertinent data: On the earth’s surface, a line of latitude is parallel to the equator, circling the globe at a fixed distance from the equator, and they are imaginary as it would take, as he points out, too much paint to make them real. The equator is defined as the zero latitude, the origin of measurement. Poles are 90 degrees north and 90 degrees south latitude. The colatitude is the complimentary angle of latitude…and we are all sorry we asked the question in the first place!

This week’s quiz: Describe a Buffalo nickel, what did Steve McQueen drive in “Bullitt”,and What was Wyatt Earp’s favorite side arm?

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You saw that ad in the DN the other day, didn’t you? The one about the Bureau of Land Management having a wild horse and burro sale in Redding on the 10^th of April? This could be your big chance to get your own wild burro. If you are vacillating on this, throw caution to the wind and get one while they last. All you have to have is a pasture with a 4 foot fence and shelter. You will be a better person with your own private burro.

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Some object to the wording of the pledge of allegiance. The original version without reference to God or religion was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. During the cold war in 1954, Congress amended the original “one Nation indivisible to read “one nation, under God, indivisible” and there you have it. God apparently had nothing to do with the alteration…just some reactionary anti communist.

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When Julie Andrews sang “…these are a few of my favorite things, she was thinking of favorite jokes.

A woman is having a check up, and when she leaves the exam room, the doctor sees her pale and listless husband in the waiting room and whispers, “I don’t like the looks of your husband.”

The woman replies, “I know…but he is good with the children.”

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“I remember, back on the farm…”That’s the line we use around the house. It’s a takeoff of the Pat Boone-Vicki Carr corny commercial about milk. “…back on the farm, in the old days, I used to watch Grandpa milk the ducks” and so forth. However, milk contributes greatly to our lives. Some psychologist say the type of containers your first milk came in is very important to your development. Breast fed babies are supposed to become the best adjusted adults. It has something to do with security…hence the success of that titillating tabloid, Playboy magazine.

I remember back on the Sale farm. I would be a guest at Dave’s house where they served milk straight from the cow with little chunks of butterfat or something floating around in it. I could hardly get the stuff down, but had to be polite with twelve of the family members staring at me.

The best milk deal, of course, was in kindergarten…milk and graham crackers and rugs to lie on for a mid-morning nap. I think our office staff could benefit from that system even today.

Milk! The milk of human kindness. Land of milk and honey. Milk bones for dogs. The milkman jokes. Milkwood. Milkweed. Our goat, Banana, gives milk and, as far as we know, has never been kissed or nuthin’. But there is no use crying over spilt milk. Chocolate milkshakes at Frosty Corner. Jack Hendricks and his Drive-in Milk Market. Tiger milk for health food nuts. Cleopatra and her milk bath. The old Southern Pacific “milk train “to San Francisco. And let’s not forget the haunting refrain, “Down by the old milk stream…”

I think I have milked this subject dry.

Robert Minch

Sometimes we write of those who have not passed…but have passed the test of time. Reverend Robert H. Schuller is one of those.  He is, of course, a famous man of the cloth. I wrote about him in a column 31 years ago, and note that he is still preaching in his Crystal Cathedral down Garden Grove way, in Southern California. He is a super salesman who has cultivated the wealthy and the not so wealthy in supporting his Christian ministry and the building of his glass house. “Transparency” is a word used today to  agendas or causes that are out in the open and available for scrutiny. Whereas it has not worked in Washington, it has worked for him. No scandals, a successful television program every Sunday (when else?) and this white maned preacher has come a long way from his early day preaching in drive-in-theaters. However, he was involved in a bit of a controversy in 2008 when the 82 year old founder unseated his 54 year old son, Robert Jr. who had been designated heir apparent to the church.  The son’s removal was done rather abruptly, and we may never know the real reason for Robert Sr. taking back the reins. But according to the father, his son was” taking the church in the wrong direction.”

The I SAY column of April, 1979 dealt more with the personality of my missus, than the minister. I wrote, “My wife is nuts about Reverend Schuler. While I am busy preparing sourdough pancakes for the family, she is comfortably ensconced in front of the telly eagerly awaiting his familiar opening line, ‘God loves you…and so do I’

One morning I decided to join her on the couch and observe his delivery. I was impressed. He comes across as sincere, and more in pursuit of your soul than your pocketbook. This is refreshing coming from a televangelist. This fellow has charisma! As his benevolent countenance filled the screen, I nudged the missus and said, ‘Oh boy…I have goosebumps!’ She told me to sit still and keep my mouth shut. In retrospect, her brief sermon was more compelling than his.”

Anyhow, that’s how my column went over 30 years ago. The reverend is still preaching, but faced today with myriad problems. His church is facing a financial crisis even though he is still delivering a message that people once paid good money to hear. He and his church may date their decline from the day two years ago when he delivered his familiar message “God loves you…and so do I” …but failed to include his son in his invocation.

THE POETRY CORNER for 26 March 2010

Though grandfather died 73 years ago, he still makes this section every so often. Here is a little poem he dedicated to the class of 1891 back in Shiloh, New Jersey.

‘We may not know what paths our feet shall tread,

Nor when the storm clouds will darken overhead;

When quiet streams will journey by our side,

Nor when we’ll cross the torrent’s swelling tide;

When we shall walk through the vales of solitude,

Or tread the shadowy mazes of the wood;

What troublous mountains shall before us rise

With peaks that seem to pierce the lower skies,

When the bright sun shall heat the dusty way,

And make thrice dear the fountain’s crystal spray;

Hangs over all the future’s misty veil,

He who attempts to lift it can but fail,

But one sure goal shall greet our fading sight;

The Valley of Despair or the Mountains of Delight.

Benjamin Franklin Minch (1869  -1936)

THE POETRY CORNER for 26 March 2010

Though grandfather died 73 years ago, he still makes this section every so often. Here is a little poem he dedicated to the class of 1891 back in Shiloh, New Jersey.

‘We may not know what paths our feet shall tread,

Nor when the storm clouds will darken overhead;

When quiet streams will journey by our side,

Nor when we’ll cross the torrent’s swelling tide;

When we shall walk through the vales of solitude,

Or tread the shadowy mazes of the wood;

What troublous mountains shall before us rise

With peaks that seem to pierce the lower skies,

When the bright sun shall heat the dusty way,

And make thrice dear the fountain’s crystal spray;

Hangs over all the future’s misty veil,

He who attempts to lift it can but fail,

But one sure goal shall greet our fading sight;

The Valley of Despair or the Mountains of Delight.

Benjamin Franklin Minch (1869  -1936)

The 89^th running of the Red Bluff Roundup, April 16, 17 & 18, 2010, will soon be upon us. It is our premier event! Our Bull and Gelding Sale comes earlier in the year…and is a big deal of course, but nothing has the staying power and fascination for Tehama County folks other than our annual rodeo. The words, by the way, are mostly interchangeable. Whereas “roundup” refers to a gathering of livestock, the word “rodeo” means a collection of related events designed to show off cowboy skills.

I mention this because, once again, I have been asked to jot down 1000 words describing what goes on in the arena at show time. This go-around, the Official Souvenir Program will again devote a page to my effort…and rather than a personal account of the goings-on, two “experts” on the subject have been solicited: Mike Growney, Arena Director, and George Froome, author of “A 75 Years of Red Bluff History of the Red Bluff Roundup”. Both are also on the Roundup Board of Directors, so if you like the show, let them know about it. If you don’t like it, let them know about that also. They are geared for it.

In this year’s article you will not only learn the inner workings of the event, but the experts take on President Obama. How can that be, you ask? You will have to buy the Souvenir Program to find out.

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Were you aware that most states allow openly carried firearms? That you can walk into a Starbucks, for example …and be legally packing a pistol? Assuming this is not your thing, what would be your reaction if a guy sitting at the next table had a holstered 9 mm Mauser on his hip? Would you perhaps move away and out of a possible line of fire? If you were a lady friend of the chap with the piece…would you be inclined to take him home to meet your mother? In California, the law says you can pack as long as you have no ammunition in the gun. What is the thought behind this brilliant piece of legislation? I am mystified. Would an empty gun owner, challenged by a bad guy,  feel a bit more macho if he drew on the obnoxious tough and pulled the trigger as it went  ”click, click”? Or would he get a punch in the mouth for his effort? Might as well strike him with a hanky.

What is the world coming to with people taking the law into their own hands? On the next national holiday, will the flag in front of our office be old glory…or one of local militia design? Lots of rhetorical questions and few answers. Tsk, tsk.

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The warmer weather has produced our first rose bud. The missus found it on a bush in a protected area of the south patio, and presented it to me as a sign of her affection. It was not father’s day, nor was it my birthday. So, despite evidence to the contrary, I am not the last rose of summer…but the first rose of spring.

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The very deserving George Robson, Tehama County Planning Director, has been named  Person of the Year by the Tehama Economic Development Corporation. George has been in harness for many a year, and has appeared before a plethora of County Supervisors advising on  zoning disputes, land uses and changes to the General Plan.  One of the few thorns in George’s side  was mercifully not present at the award ceremony, and it went off without disruption. But as she has recently resurfaced in the Daily News Letters to The Editor section, after many years of exile, it speaks more to the Editor’s not having a clue, than to her vendetta and persistence.

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L. Brown answered last week’s quiz: Daisy Mae’s maiden name was Scraggs, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reported from the moon in 1969 that “The eagle has landed”. However it was not Apollo 11 that landed…it was the lunar modular. Very astute, Mr. Brown.

This week’s quiz: 1) Where can Lines of Latitude be found? 2) Are they real or imaginary? 3) What number of degrees would you assign the equator…and what for the North and South Poles? 4) What is a colatitude?

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It is with great dismay, but a sign of the times, that Fidelity National Title is closing its doors at 710 Main in Red Bluff. They have occupied, as you are aware, the magnificent building on the corner of Main and Pine for a number of years; said building constructed for Bank of America…and later leased by the Daily News, Humbolt Savings and others. Although, with little on-site parking, and the tall but inefficient ceilings for heating and cooling the building is perhaps economically obsolete…but it has served well its many tenants over the years.  Damn! I hate to see it go dark.

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Let us conclude with a limerick rather than a joke: “There was an old fellow named Hyde, who fell down a well and died. He had a young brother, who fell down another, and now they’re interred side by side.”

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St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone, which is hokay with me.  Mother died on that day years ago in a manner none wish to recall.   I am therefore not enamored with all things Irish. The McGlynns, Duckhams and Gallaghers, to name a few, are the salt of the earth, of course, but otherwise Erin Go Braugh and all that jazz leaves me indifferent at best. However, there are Irish poems and Irish songs that are worth a second look.

Father was not as musical as his wife, but she did teach him the words and tune to “My Wild Irish Rose”. He would sing it, on warm summer evenings as he walked around the corner to Main Street to buy a Life or Look magazine at Reed’s Newsstand. …all the while dressed in jeans sans shirt and shoes…but I digress.

“My Wild Irish Rose, the sweetest flower that grows,

You may search everywhere, but none can compare with My Sweet Irish Rose.

My Wild Irish Rose, the dearest flower that grows,

And some day, for my sake, she may let me take

The bloom from my Wild Irish Rose.”

The words and music are by Chauncey Olcott,  copywrite 1898. Chauncey is one of my favorite names. The song has a surprising chord change in the opening stanzas going from C to F minor, back to C and so on. I’ll wager there are many readers not familiar with this song. Few rock bands have it in their repertoire. Drop by the office at 760 Main someday and I will sing it for you. If you are Irish, it may bring tears to your eyes…or you may laugh your arse off. I shall not be offended. If the song was good enough for father, it is good enough for me.

Let us conclude with an excerpt from a poem by Robert Burns:

“O my luve’s like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June:

O my luve’s like the melodie that’s sweetly played in tune!

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am I:

And I will luve thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry. “

Unusual advertizing still pays off, even in war times. One rancher had two old horses to sell and took them to a nearby auction yard. When the first horse was about to be sold, he got the bright idea of putting a saddle on the horse and getting an attractive girl to ride the horse into the ring. The bidding was spirited and the final price was $35.00 which did not include the saddle or the pretty girl. The horse without the adornments brought $11.00.

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Life magazine tells about the number of lawyers in the Office of Price Administration. When I went to their office in San Francisco, there were 144 people employed, many of whom were lawyers. They were very pleasant and did their best to explain the regulations under which we were supposed to operate our slaughter plant. The main trouble was that the regulations were written by lawyers instead of someone who knew the problems and conditions in the meat business.  Most of the regulations were written in such ambiguous language that they could mean nearly anything. The idea back of OPA rationing may be right, but why not have men in charge who are acquainted with the products being rationed instead of someone whose only qualification is having passed an examination in law school?

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One of our employees, Herb Flournoy, now in the Merchant Marines and at dock in Africa, received a booklet with instructions such as to be sure to skin dates before eating them. Another instruction tells our men not to flirt with Muslim women nor try to lift their veils, nor speak to them nor try to date them.  I think the officers who try to enforce these edicts may have their hands full.

Dave Minch (1900-1964)

Roger Miller wrote a hit song titled “King of The Road”…and long haul drivers are indeed that.

At our old meat plant, the men who drove our 40 foot truck and trailers to all over the west coast, were considered the best in the business. They weren’t just hauling logs, finished lumber or canned goods; they were handling perishables and had to get, if not to the church, then to their destination in far off cities…on time!

We loaded out our refrigerated trailers in the evenings and on Sunday afternoon. These hours allowed people like Bill Davison, Dick Ranberg and others to hold day jobs and yet pick up some walking around money on the side.

Our long haul drivers, such as big Larry Burke, Pete Knaeble, Gerald   Nelson, Norman Banworth and Monte Shultz, to name a few, took off late in the evening and drove all night to be first in line at jobbing houses in San Francisco the next morning. Those who drove to Los Angeles or Portland, Oregon had to depart earlier in the day, of course. If the drivers got sleepy, they had their bunks in the cabs for a little shut eye…but most stayed awake by making pit stops along the way. One part time driver, during WW II, was Sam Ehorn, an all around utility man at the plant. Father sent him off with other drivers in their rigs to make sure he reached his destination. An often told tale in those days involved Sam and a large breasted waitress at one of the truck stops. As Larry Burke told it, he, Sam and another driver were sitting at the counter having coffee, and Sam ordered a milk shake. The ample bosomed waitress leaned over the counter and handed Sam the metal container and a glass. As Sam gazed admiringly at the lady, he proceeded to pour the glass full and all over the counter. None of those present are alive today…but that’s the way I heard it.

Our long haul drivers had many adventures during their truck driving days. In Los Angeles,  drivers had to keep a sharp vigil if they parked over night awaiting the unload the next day, because brazen thieves would cut the locks on the back door and try to steal anything they could lay their hands on.  Jerry Nelson had just crossed the Carquinez Bridge and was headed up the old smokestack hill highway, when a car forced him over on to the shoulder and he careened down the slope about 75 feet before coming to rest on a ledge overlooking the bay. We had quite a time off- loading the meat and trudging up the hill to waiting vans. Those who were unloading (I was one of them), would hear creaks and groans from the trailer lying on its side…and were fearful we would all topple into the bay.

Such was the exciting and lucrative life of the long haul drivers.

Budget cuts are leading to a great reduction of teachers across the country, and Tehama County is no exception. Perhaps I should say “educators”…but then we are all being educated long after we leave schools of higher learning. Every news story is meant to educate, and every column is meant to entertain and educate. Take a recent edition of the Religion & Worship section in our local Daily News…please. Therein, Larry Jensen asks rhetorically, “What is God really like?”…a question that has baffled many since the beginnings of organized religion.

Mister Jensen… I do not know his title except that, according to his bio,  he and his wife Chaunda, have lived in Red Bluff for 17 years, are founders of Jensen Ministries, and are Domestic Evangelists traveling to churches all over Northern California and Nevada. I guess it is safe to address him as “Pastor” as opposed to “Doctor”, “Father” or “Your grace.”…but, I digress.

The condensed message from Pastor Jensen is, “People often form opinions about others based on what we call hearsay, and that person gets what we call a bad rap. This happens to God all the time…he gets a bad rap for things he isn’t even a part of.” The Pastor does not approve of the expression “Act of God” when tied to catastrophes and disasters. “My God does not act like that”, he avows. “He gets a bad rap by people saying he brings tragedy into people’s lives. The way folks talk you would think that God was against them and not for them.” Pastor Jensen concludes, “Don’t give God a bad rap for something he had or has no part in.” This does little to explain what God is really like…but it does suggest that Pastor Jensen is not on the creationist band wagon.

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I saw Frank Moore in the Post Office the other day, and asked him how he was. He replied, “I’m getting old…and I saw you getting out of your pickup this morning, and so are you!” I told him he was mistaken and must have mistaken some shuffling old person for me. Id did not hear his reply but I’m certain he revised his sighting as I skipped out the door.

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An opera buff came across the name of a soprano which he thought of interest: “Schmeckenbecker”. He translated the name as follows: “Schmecken” means to taste, and “becker” is a mug. Therefore one could say she is a “tasty mug or cup”. Her name would be more to the point if it were “Schmeckenteller” meaning a tasty dish. If she were homely, then never mind.

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With the success of the new Movie “Avatar”, in which people, plants and locations are all digitally contrived, is it now likely that, in a short time in the future, we will have old time movie stars introduced in new films and undistinguishable from their original sounds and shapes? When we see, at the Oscar ceremonies, a retrospect of the actors who have gone on to that great sound stage in the sky…and bemoan their passing, it is heartening to know they may once again light up the screen.

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Quotes by Will Rogers continue to be fresh and timely: “Never slap a man who’s chewing tobacco. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day. Never miss a good chance to shut up. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading, the few who learn by observation, and the rest have to pee on an electric fence and find out for themselves.”

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Last week’s quiz was answered most comprehensively by L. Brown.  He states that “Mafia” is an acronym for “Morte alla Francia, Italia anela” or Italian for “Death to France, Italy cries!” However, this version is discarded by most serious historians nowadays.  He also offers “Jeep “is coined from the initials of the General Purpose vehicle…but there other theories afoot, that “Tip” means “To Insure Promptness”…and yet even that is subject to controversy…and “Abracadabra” is from a 2^nd Century poem by Serenus Sammonicus, Physician to Roman emperor Caracalla, who maintained that a sufferer could benefit by wearing an amulet with these words.

This week’s quiz: What was Daisy Mae’s last name in the Li’l Abner strip, who landed in the Sea of Tranquility, when… and what did the skipper report?

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An 11 year old boy was practicing his violin at home, and the torturous noise was making his dog howl. The boy’s father was trying to do his taxes, but the din was distracting. Finally he called out to his son, “Jacob! Can’t you play something the dog doesn’t know?”

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“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed…and gazed…but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.”                      William Wordsworth (1770-1850)