Christmas Greens

The days are too short, the nights too long, and the coldest part of winter lies ahead. It's a good time of year to make soup and sit by the fire. The garden hibernates awaiting Spring. Now's the time to look through those seed catalogs and plan for warmer weather. We don't have a southern facing window in our home so Sharon acquired two Aerogardens to use for starting seeds. This winter, we've decided to grow lettuce in the Aerogardens. That's what they're really designed for ... to grow plants indoors year round. The plants are big enough now to start selective harvesting.

I don't know if two Aerogardens can meet our lettuce needs over the winter, but at least we're trying. I wish we had started this project at the beginning of October instead of December, but I can't find the keys to our time machine. Sharon's Christmas Cactus is blooming too. It's nice to have some greenery during the Holidays.

Charlie Brown (in desperation): Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?
King James Version Luke 2:
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

To those few who take time to read Scarred Bark, I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas!

Recurring Dreams - Part 2

Here are a few links for those who want to know more about Helen and Scott Nearing and Living the Good Life:

Here's a link to Wikipedia's article on Scott Nearing
and here's the one for Helen Nearing

I saw a book on Amazon called The Good Life which contains Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life in a single volume. I'm not sure if it was new or used, but it seems readily available at present.

An article I found from 2009 says the Nearing homestead in Vermont is privately owned, and the owners have an open house once a year. I don't know if that's still the case. However the homestead in Maine is operated by the Good Life Center, and is open to the public each year beginning in May.

Zuzu's Petals

I'm not old enough to remember the invention of television. TV was always there, although in my early years only in black and white. There were four channels to watch: 4, 5, 7, and 9. There was a TV Guide published once a week in the newspaper so you knew what programs and movies would be on the air. And around 11:00 or 12:00pm, the TV stations would shut down for the night. There was also channel 11 from Baltimore, but reception in our area was so bad that it was usually unwatchable. There was no UHF, no VHS (or Betamax), no DVD players, no cable, no satellite dishes, no Blockbuster, no Redbox, no Netflix, no Youtube, and no Roku.

Watching TV together was a highlight of family life back in the day. Epic movies were broadcast once a year - and if you didn't pay attention to the TV Guide, you missed out. Every year we would sit together and watch Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, and The Wizard of OZ. One of my favorites was It's A Wonderful Life starring James (Jimmy) Stewart and Donna Reed.

Last night, we ate Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with my parents, then watched It's A Wonderful Life on TV. It was a VHS tape in black and white, and it brought back fond memories of a simpler and better time in America. It's funny, I've seen this movie dozens of times, but each time I watch it I see something new. This year I noticed something about Jimmy Stewart's "falling down" moment - when he's smashing up things in his house. It looks like he's kicking over a model of a suspension bridge he'd built, symbolically shattering the last remnants of his dreams. The other thing was a comment from the maid. When she was donating money to save the Bailey Brothers' Building and Loan, she said she'd been saving the money to get a divorce in case she ever found a man and got married.

Some people say the movie is too corny, but I'd encourage you to suspend your disbelief and watch it in the context of the time it was filmed. There are some valuable lessons to glean from the characters, and some cool trivia too. It really is a wonderful life!

Recurring Dreams

As long as mankind lives in cities, there will be those who dream of giving up and moving to the country. I was a Mother Earth News reader in the late 70's and earlier 80's; and though I dreamed the dream, in the end I stayed with the city. The suburbs to be precise, but still a life tied to our capitalist system for the needs of survival. There was Thoreau, and there was Tolstoy; but for me it was Nearing. Perhaps you've heard the name as a sponsor on PBS: This show made possible by a grant from The Helen and Scott Nearing Foundation.

The Nearings moved to an abandoned farm in Vermont during the Depression, and wrote "Living the Good Life" about their homestead adventure. Later, they moved to an abandoned farm in Maine and wrote "Continuing the Good Life" - the story of their homestead along the coast. Both are must reads for anyone who dreams of abandoning the city. I've read them both many times.

I've also read a biography of Scott Nearing's life. Mostly, it covers the period before his adventures in the country. I won't go into details, but the social issues he fought to change in the early 1900's are the same social issues we face today. It's been nearly 100 years since the US entered "the war to end all wars", and we're still struggling with wage slavery, inequitable distribution of goods, racism, equal rights for women, international wars, and imperialist exploitation of developing countries. One area of progress on the nagging problems of his activist days was legislation ending the abusive child labor practices of that time ... at least in the USA. Unfortunately, plenty of new social problems can be added to the list. Perhaps population growth, environmental degradation, and energy? I'm sure you have your own suggestions.

Nearing decided to live a quiet life in the country absent from a system he felt exploited his fellow citizens. He produced what he needed with his own hands, and bartered or sold maple syrup to get the things he couldn't produce himself. It was a simple life. He claimed to work 4 hours a day on bread labor, 4 hours a day on self improvement, and used the balance of his time for social activities. He said he never felt better in his life, and he became a "back to the land icon" in his day. It still sounds good to me.

Lest We Forget ...

The United States Navy commissioned the Battleship USS Arizona on October 17th, 1916, and decommissioned her on December 29th, 1941. On December 7th, 1941, 75 years ago today, she sank at her berth in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. She was irrepairably damaged when a bomb from a Japanese plane detonated in her forward magazine. She still lies submerged on the bottom - the final resting place for many of her crew. I found this image on Wikipedia listed as public domain.

Wrong versus Bad

I hate to see people make wrong decisions. We all make them. You have to make decisions based on the information you have available at the time. Sometimes you don't have enough information, and sometimes information you do have proves to be inaccurate. But we all have to make decisions based on incomplete and inaccurate information ... and choosing to do nothing is still making a decision. Some people get a vision of the future firmly in place, make a decision, and then live or die by the results; other people allow for the inevitability of wrong decisions, and remain flexible about the future. If you lock yourself into an image of the future that just has to come true, I guarantee sooner or later you will be seriously disappointed. The future does not care if it breaks your heart into little pieces.

I don't really care how many times a person makes the right or wrong decision. We all make them, so what's the point of keeping score? The problem is that wrong decisions have all kinds of unpredictable, and often negative, consequences - and not just for ourselves. At least we should all try to make the best decisions we can with the information we have available at the time. Right? If only that were true.

How many times a day do you see people make bad decisions even when they know the inevitable consequences? Money problems, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, marital problems, poor diet, bad sleeping habits ... When you try to intervene - when you try to help - people become defensive and irritable. They tell you to butt out. I once overheard a friend say, "Watch out, he's always trying to get people to do the right thing", as if it were some kind of warning.

New Year's is coming and now is a good time to think about resolutions. Might I offer a suggestion? "For 2017, be it resolved, I shall refrain from making decisions a reasonable person would believe are not in my best interest. If, after that time, my life is not substantially better, I will return to my previous decision making process." Common sense? Yes. Obvious? Yes. Easy? No. Worth the effort? Let me know.

Come on people, seriously, it's only a year. What have you got to lose? You might even find your life actually improves. Having trouble deciding what a reasonable person would do? Just ask one. Really. Go ask a reasonable disinterested third party what he or she thinks. "Do you think such-and-such is a good or bad idea?" 99% of the time you'll know the answer just by forming the question, but it's helpful to have an outside opinion if you have any doubts.

Positively Mistaken

Mark Twain once said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

I've been reminded of that quote many times in my life ... most recently in the aftermath of our recent elections. People complain that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and she should be President. They say we are a Democracy, and we need to do away with the Electoral College so that the people's votes will count. It's a powerful argument, but flawed at its very core. These United States are a Republic, not a Democracy. We've always been a Republic, and always will be a Republic. I'm amazed at the number of people who don't know - or carelessly forget - this basic fact about These United States.

As a reminder, I offer the following:

1) I pledge alliegence to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands ...

2) At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?"
And he replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

If we ever become a Democracy, it means the end of the Nation as we know it; but until then, can we at least agree the Government we currently have is a Republic - not a Democracy?

Tool in the Box

"That's not good. My wife just left me a voice mail. It must be something she didn't want to say to me in person."

"Does that happen often?"

"No. Usually it's a reminder about something I was supposed to do."

"Forgetful husband syndrome?"

"Yeah."

"Well don't wear it out. We need that to keep our marriages intact."

Pedantry - Part 2

Hey, can you break me off a piece of that? I'm so glad it's not labeled for individual sale.

On Greatness

"And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent."

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

The Omen

First one, then another, and then in twos and threes they came and landed in the trees. Then dozens more until the trees turned black from their numbers. Then scores came and filled the trees 'til the branches bent low under their weight. Then hundreds more arrived, not with precision like starlings but drifting effortlessly like gulls, until it seemed the heavens could hold no more. A great churning sky of birds, each one circling alone as if afraid to know its brothers. And then ... in a moment ... all were gone.

Trump 1 ... Clinton, Johnson, and Stein nothing.

Every workday morning I get up, get dressed, and walk to the bus stop where one of two things happens: I get on the bus and then the train to reach my job in the city, or someone driving to the city picks me up at the bus stop and we use the HOV lane to go in. In common parlance, I'm a slug. Usually, slugging saves me about twenty minutes; but today there was an accident on the highway and traffic was jammed up for miles. Once you're in someone's car, you can't really say, "Hey, can you drop me at the Metro station? Traffic is so bad you're going to be really late." In for a penny, in for a pound.

Anyway, we had to take an alternate route to work today. Waze wound us through the byways of suburbia, and we reached our destination about 30 minutes later than usual. To occupy my time, I decided to run an unscientific poll about the upcoming election. I counted all of the bumper stickers on the backs of peoples cars as a sort of proxy for the voters. The results: 1 bumper sticker on the back of a tradesman's work truck for Trump, no bumper stickers for Clinton, Johnson, or Stein at all! That's really strange. I live in the most liberal county in Maryland which borders on the Nation's Capital; and I looked at hundreds of vehicles on the drive in. How is it possible that I only saw ONE political bumper sticker during that entire hour and thirty minute commute?

I know my survey is meaningless for predicting the outcome of November 8th; but it does say something. I think it says something we all know, but no one wants to talk about: All of our candidates are so hopelessly flawed that, as a whole, we are embarassed to support them in public. We'll all hold our noses and do what we have to do on election day; but none of us are happy about it, none of us want to talk about it, and none of us want to be asked about it either. We all just want it to be over so we can deal with the aftermath as best we can. In all my years - and I've been around quite a few - I've never seen anything like it.

Irony ...

Finding a copy of "the life-changing magic of tidying up" by Marie Kondo in a pile of stuff on your living room floor.

Celtic Classic 2016

The MacMillan-Birtles Memorial Pipe Band placed first overall in the 2016 Celtic Classic contest for Grade 4 Pipe Bands held September 25th, 2016 in Bethlehem, PA. We also received the Best Drum Corps award that day. I've included links to videos of the contest posted by Dawn Meade on her Youtube Channel.

MacMillan-Birtles Pipe Band - MSR - Celtic Classic 2016

MacMillan-Birtles Pipe Band - Medley - Celtic Classic 2016

Go Smash On It!

There was a time when a V-type engine with DOHC aluminum heads and multi-port fuel injection was the stuff of dreams. Now these engines routinely appear in the modern day Griswold Family Cruiser (a.k.a. The Wagon Queen Family Truckster ). The technology of a modern automobile has progressed so fast that the average Do-It-Yourselfer is struggling to keep up. Fortunately, decent tools have gotten a lot cheaper; and specialty tools - that no weekend warrior could justify back in the day - are now available at affordable prices. An engine scanner that used to cost ten thousand, than one thousand, then three hundred bucks, can now be purchased as a Bluetooth device that works with a smart phone or laptop and costs less than a hundred.

I think the biggest advance of all is Youtube. Home mechanics and professionals are posting diagnostics and repair videos showing tips and tricks of the trade - successes and failures for all of us to learn from. I spent some time watching videos while I sorted out drivability issues in a car with a 3.0L Duratech V-6. I don't think I would have succeeded without help from the Youtube world.

When you need help with a DIY car project, I suggest you take a look at videos posted by:

Eric The Car Guy
Ratchets and Wrenches
Real Fixes Real Fast
Scanner Danner
Scotty Kilmer

Sure there are plenty of others worth watching, but these guys are a great place to start. And when you think you'll never be able to finish a project - when you get that feeling you've bitten off more than you can chew? Go watch a couple of videos from Oldskool Funk ... "Be strong, never give up - and in Jesus' name - Go Smash On It!"

Wisdom Maryland Style

I received the following notice from Maryland's Motor Vehicle Administration:

"Effective October 1, 2016, a Maryland registered historic vehicle may no longer be used for transportation to and from employment, school, or for commercial purposes."

So let's see ... it's OK to drive my car as long as I don't work, don't learn, and don't run a business.

Car breaks down so I drive my hotrod to work while my regular car is in the shop?
Scofflaw!
Drive my grandson to school in my Model A?
Violator!
Put the name of my business on the side of my '50 Ford Pick-up and drive it anywhere?
Criminal!

Does anyone remember when Maryland was called The Free State?

The Internet

... and though they guarded their secrets and clung to their degrees, in the end all was laid bare by the servant who became their master.