It is said one cannot choose their family. While this is true I do not feel particularly cheated. True a birth into a family like the Kennedy clan or the Vanderbilt fortune would have provided easier roads, I received the blessing of being born into two families of strong willed, open minded, dirt under the nails characters. I grew up on stories of the families. I found the blood history every bit as interesting as Treasure Island, cowboys and Indians and viewed my lineage as one filled with heroes. I shared just one story with some friends a few months ago about one of my grandfathers. One of the friends told me that if this was just one of a hundred or so stories I needed to start a book. So I decided at least to share that story here as well.
My grandfather Seth Conway Blevins was an agri-businessman, tobacco grower and the lead fiddle and banjo player for a bluegrass group called the Kentucky String Warmers. Apparently they played quite often and all over the region. On Sunday’s around lunch the band had an hour long radio program on a rural radio station wedged squarely between two hours of fire and brimstone gospel.
Although my grandfather died when I was 2 I have vague recollections of him, and have lived on stories of him for years. He apparently was a very quiet intense person. On stage they said he was kind of shy and just played and stared straight ahead. The band called him "Giggles" because of the stone face he wore.
When he and my grandmother were visiting family in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, the family asked him to play after dinner. He sat against the wall where the wood burning stove was and started playing. My grandmother said the family all sang and danced all around the room while Seth sawed out one song after another stomping his foot on the floor to keep time.
The back story is nothing in my grandfather's mind was more important than getting the song right and he would not stop playing once he started a song. The beat he was keeping and the dancing of the family had shook the floor boards enough that the old iron stove hopped a little and the flue came loose from the wall. My family saw what was happening and started to yell at my grandfather who just stared ahead, stomped and played. The flue pipe hit the floor beside him and sparks and flame shot all around the room which was filling with smoke. The curtains nearby caught on fire and by the time the family got some water in from the well the paper on the wall all around my grandfather was beginning to smolder, but he sat there stomping and playing anyway. While they killed the fire all around him, he only played faster. When he was done he was mad water had got on the fiddle. Which eventually swelled from the moisture and came apart, but he had gotten through the song.
This could be the source of my hard minded charge forward while everything is going wrong, a trait which is both a blessing and a curse.
My mom still has that particular fiddle, which is in pieces in its original case. If you open the case you can still smell a hint of the coal smoke.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Don't Look Back in Anger...I heard you say.
I am a happy person I promise! My personal existence is dotted with laughter and optimism. I am aware of many blessings. I have many ideas, interest, and pursuits. I collect friends and acquaintances from all walks of life and I am genuinely interested in who they are and getting quality time with them. My favorite bloggers let me peek into their lives and usually do so to the positive side. A visit to the Jerasphere can improve one’s day in a heart beat or going to Life Is How You describe It, can bring about laughs and introspection, the Sweden dot Kcomposite blog can tackle some big issues and with pure comedy. So why do I seem so angry?
I haven’t posted for two weeks trying to answer that very question. I still have no answer. The world and America I is in a pretty suck place right now and I feel compelled to speak of things from time to time. I also suffer from attention debilitating problem of seeing the common thread in all things and from all sides offered. I figured I would post a list of my beliefs whether that turns you on or off and let full disclosure spill out.
Gay Marriage – I do not think we heterosexuals have been such a glowing example of the sacrament that we could ever tell another orientation they should be disallowed. The oft quoted portion of the bible comes from a set of laws for the tribes of Israel geared towards increasing the spread of their people, religion and economic value in the Middle Eastern basin. The same set of laws allowed for disobedient children to be stoned to death, marriage to more than one woman, and denouncing the abomination of mixed fabric garments. I don’t know how you feel, but I would bet there is more than a fair share of polyester blends at anti gay protest.
Abortion - Is not something I personally support in many moral aspects, but I do believe it should remain legal in the aspect that I feel you cannot legislate a clear definition that addresses every set of circumstances and the greater good to society is served by allowing women to deal with their circumstances as they see fit.
Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – People call it an antiquated policy, but truth is we are quite young in world history. Antiquated would mean it served a purpose at one time or another. If you look into antiquity in a military mindset you will come across the Spartans and Alexander the Great. Alexander’s bi-sexuality is well documented and he is considered one of the most successful military figures in human history. The Spartan warriors engaged in same sex affairs as a part of their military doctrine. It is an ignorant policy and not worthy of debate. Repeal and move forward.
The Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act – Both took rights away from us. Any good propagandist would tell you naming something fuzzy when it is full of thorns leads to less opposition, since my opposition to a dullard equates to I am against patriotism and security at home. I have many new problems with the Democrats as they have made no move to repeal either one.
Government Regulation – Industry has to be regulated. Each and every time since our founding fathers government has loosened the grips on industry human rights and economies take a nose dive. Start at laissez faire, hit the industrial revolution, and check the depression, new deal, S & L collapses up to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is not anti-capitalist it is anti-fascist. (See Hitler, Mussollini)
The Media – Each side gives a slanted view and the truth is only peppered in to make the whole dish digestible. We have to go outside of our borders to find the truth.
Reagan – One of our most popular presidents, who went against every campaign promise in his bid for president and broke every mantra he put to the world in his political career. He was a hypocrite that changed the direction of his party to a historical apologist group who cannot admit there is very little conservative or fiscally responsible about their track record since 1980. He was not a hero.
Music Snobbery – Guilty as charged. I see musician’s as artist. I see people who play other’s work as people with the talent to be a musician, but choose not to be. Mariah Carey is not an artist. Unfortunately Lady Gaga is. I know many vocal talents worthy a listen, my wife included who would take offense at my viewing their talent at less than artistry, but I desire to hear them beautifully singing their own inspirations and beliefs not some unknown from a song writing stable trying to get back at the one that got away. Here are some wonderful artist P.J. Harvey, Patty Smith, Bjork, Crissy Hynde that would make a great Divas special. Don’t get me wrong there are some entertaining vocalists out there. Try Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, The Andrews Sisters, and David Lee Roth all beautiful ladies with golden pipes.
American Cars – Suck compared to most Asian and European cars. I will not be guilted into buying American if we are producing substandard quality with unimaginative design.
Buy Locally – Yes it is more expensive, but supply and demand dictates that. Starbucks sucks. WalMart sucks. Vegetables at Kroger suck. If more bought locally quality goes up. Local economy goes up. Prices go down without uncompromised quality and you are supporting someone you can talk to face to face.
High Fructose Corn Syrup – It is unhealthy. It does change the flavor. And cocaine comes from all natural products as well so stop expounding its healthful benefit. Outlaw the shit so I can get sugar cane colas without driving to a specialty market.
Troops- You can question the war and Gitmo without trivializing the military’s importance. You can support the troops while questioning the government’s use of them.
Military Funeral Protest – Groups who choose to protest homosexuality by showing up at a military funeral with signs proclaiming the damnation of everyone who has learned to breathe with their mouth closed are the greatest argument for justifiable homicide I have ever seen.
There are a few of the things that have been clogging my brain bucket of late. It feels good to pour out some of the crud at times. Maybe I’ll just have to bleed out the poison from time to time. Now I am going to let my thoughts relax and return to the fire-bad tree-pretty world that MonkeyMom goes to.
I haven’t posted for two weeks trying to answer that very question. I still have no answer. The world and America I is in a pretty suck place right now and I feel compelled to speak of things from time to time. I also suffer from attention debilitating problem of seeing the common thread in all things and from all sides offered. I figured I would post a list of my beliefs whether that turns you on or off and let full disclosure spill out.
Gay Marriage – I do not think we heterosexuals have been such a glowing example of the sacrament that we could ever tell another orientation they should be disallowed. The oft quoted portion of the bible comes from a set of laws for the tribes of Israel geared towards increasing the spread of their people, religion and economic value in the Middle Eastern basin. The same set of laws allowed for disobedient children to be stoned to death, marriage to more than one woman, and denouncing the abomination of mixed fabric garments. I don’t know how you feel, but I would bet there is more than a fair share of polyester blends at anti gay protest.
Abortion - Is not something I personally support in many moral aspects, but I do believe it should remain legal in the aspect that I feel you cannot legislate a clear definition that addresses every set of circumstances and the greater good to society is served by allowing women to deal with their circumstances as they see fit.
Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – People call it an antiquated policy, but truth is we are quite young in world history. Antiquated would mean it served a purpose at one time or another. If you look into antiquity in a military mindset you will come across the Spartans and Alexander the Great. Alexander’s bi-sexuality is well documented and he is considered one of the most successful military figures in human history. The Spartan warriors engaged in same sex affairs as a part of their military doctrine. It is an ignorant policy and not worthy of debate. Repeal and move forward.
The Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act – Both took rights away from us. Any good propagandist would tell you naming something fuzzy when it is full of thorns leads to less opposition, since my opposition to a dullard equates to I am against patriotism and security at home. I have many new problems with the Democrats as they have made no move to repeal either one.
Government Regulation – Industry has to be regulated. Each and every time since our founding fathers government has loosened the grips on industry human rights and economies take a nose dive. Start at laissez faire, hit the industrial revolution, and check the depression, new deal, S & L collapses up to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is not anti-capitalist it is anti-fascist. (See Hitler, Mussollini)
The Media – Each side gives a slanted view and the truth is only peppered in to make the whole dish digestible. We have to go outside of our borders to find the truth.
Reagan – One of our most popular presidents, who went against every campaign promise in his bid for president and broke every mantra he put to the world in his political career. He was a hypocrite that changed the direction of his party to a historical apologist group who cannot admit there is very little conservative or fiscally responsible about their track record since 1980. He was not a hero.
Music Snobbery – Guilty as charged. I see musician’s as artist. I see people who play other’s work as people with the talent to be a musician, but choose not to be. Mariah Carey is not an artist. Unfortunately Lady Gaga is. I know many vocal talents worthy a listen, my wife included who would take offense at my viewing their talent at less than artistry, but I desire to hear them beautifully singing their own inspirations and beliefs not some unknown from a song writing stable trying to get back at the one that got away. Here are some wonderful artist P.J. Harvey, Patty Smith, Bjork, Crissy Hynde that would make a great Divas special. Don’t get me wrong there are some entertaining vocalists out there. Try Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, The Andrews Sisters, and David Lee Roth all beautiful ladies with golden pipes.
American Cars – Suck compared to most Asian and European cars. I will not be guilted into buying American if we are producing substandard quality with unimaginative design.
Buy Locally – Yes it is more expensive, but supply and demand dictates that. Starbucks sucks. WalMart sucks. Vegetables at Kroger suck. If more bought locally quality goes up. Local economy goes up. Prices go down without uncompromised quality and you are supporting someone you can talk to face to face.
High Fructose Corn Syrup – It is unhealthy. It does change the flavor. And cocaine comes from all natural products as well so stop expounding its healthful benefit. Outlaw the shit so I can get sugar cane colas without driving to a specialty market.
Troops- You can question the war and Gitmo without trivializing the military’s importance. You can support the troops while questioning the government’s use of them.
Military Funeral Protest – Groups who choose to protest homosexuality by showing up at a military funeral with signs proclaiming the damnation of everyone who has learned to breathe with their mouth closed are the greatest argument for justifiable homicide I have ever seen.
There are a few of the things that have been clogging my brain bucket of late. It feels good to pour out some of the crud at times. Maybe I’ll just have to bleed out the poison from time to time. Now I am going to let my thoughts relax and return to the fire-bad tree-pretty world that MonkeyMom goes to.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Just a Small Town Girl
I came to Facebook late. It just did not appeal to me communicating through such an impersonal medium. I actually only joined to check out the pics of an ex-girlfriend’s kids whom I was quite crazy about and I wanted to see them all grown up. Easy enough....A few days later my email was flooded with friend invites. Since the invites actually outnumbered the junk enlargement offers I decided to accept them and catch up with some folks.
Then came a surprising and welcomed invite from a young lady we will call Bubbles. Surprising in the sense I was complimented that she remembered me and welcomed because Bubbles was by all my memories a super nice person.
We had a history without the details that make history interesting. We lived on the same street in a very small town in Kentucky. We rode the same bus. Occasionally we found ourselves at the same church functions. That is the makeup of our prior history.
It was the 80’s and I thought I was a punk rocker damned to live in the cultural void of a rural town. Try no stop lights! Bubbles, was a smart somewhat conservatively dressed good girl. I was writing bad slogans on my jeans and a little to sulky. Bubbles went to church every week and did her homework. I wrote bad poetry about the color black and walked to the next town to climb in girl’s windows. Bubbles got good grades and made friends easily. I shot for the also ran GPA and got asked if I was a Satan worshiper… a lot. I thought of Bubbles as a really nice person who would see me as a loser. Bubbles now assures me her perception was I was too cool to approach. Apparently our history could have been more colorful had we recognized the John Hughes film that lay right at our feet.
Accepting her request has led to nearly two years of great conversation that contained very little of the horse shit people wade through to get to really know someone. I found that we nearly went to the same college. That our small town butts have both travelled abroad. Our politics and spirituality seem to be parallel and usually stay unspoken. We both know the trials of dating as a parent after a failed marriage and having children requiring a diagnosis of some type. We share a love for silly and improper subjects and genre-less music. Bubbles can swill beer like a man and can tell a good dirty joke. I can somewhat handle my end when the talk switches to quantum physics.
I could say she came down to my level, or claim a half full glass and say I rose to hers. The truth is we left our small town and refused to avoid each other’s path this time. While facebook can be a mind numbing waste of time is does have its pay offs. Bubbles you doth rock. You are not so bookish I am not so mysterious and our history goes on.
Then came a surprising and welcomed invite from a young lady we will call Bubbles. Surprising in the sense I was complimented that she remembered me and welcomed because Bubbles was by all my memories a super nice person.
We had a history without the details that make history interesting. We lived on the same street in a very small town in Kentucky. We rode the same bus. Occasionally we found ourselves at the same church functions. That is the makeup of our prior history.
It was the 80’s and I thought I was a punk rocker damned to live in the cultural void of a rural town. Try no stop lights! Bubbles, was a smart somewhat conservatively dressed good girl. I was writing bad slogans on my jeans and a little to sulky. Bubbles went to church every week and did her homework. I wrote bad poetry about the color black and walked to the next town to climb in girl’s windows. Bubbles got good grades and made friends easily. I shot for the also ran GPA and got asked if I was a Satan worshiper… a lot. I thought of Bubbles as a really nice person who would see me as a loser. Bubbles now assures me her perception was I was too cool to approach. Apparently our history could have been more colorful had we recognized the John Hughes film that lay right at our feet.
Accepting her request has led to nearly two years of great conversation that contained very little of the horse shit people wade through to get to really know someone. I found that we nearly went to the same college. That our small town butts have both travelled abroad. Our politics and spirituality seem to be parallel and usually stay unspoken. We both know the trials of dating as a parent after a failed marriage and having children requiring a diagnosis of some type. We share a love for silly and improper subjects and genre-less music. Bubbles can swill beer like a man and can tell a good dirty joke. I can somewhat handle my end when the talk switches to quantum physics.
I could say she came down to my level, or claim a half full glass and say I rose to hers. The truth is we left our small town and refused to avoid each other’s path this time. While facebook can be a mind numbing waste of time is does have its pay offs. Bubbles you doth rock. You are not so bookish I am not so mysterious and our history goes on.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Meaning in a Throwaway World or The Swollen Thumb of Progess
I want to be less dependent on the world. I want to leave the HAP (Hire a Pro) world and fix and maintain the things around me. I want my possessions to be an extension of me. What better way to create a legacy or at least voice to everyone who you truly are than to define, create or modify the things in life to reflect your personality and meet your needs and desires?
The DIY bug has floated in my brain for years. I have constantly thought about my upbringing and what we used to do when I was kid. My grandparents were agricultural people and their world consisted on self reliance, recycling before it was a movement, and self taught skill. We used to feed ourselves off the bounty of our gardens, from the output of our chickens and trades of goods and produce or services with other farmers. Our fences stayed mended with limited trips to a hardware store or lawn tools contained a wide array of manual implements and the power tools had a hacked or rigged aftermarket addition to get the performance levels we needed.
Somewhere in the decade that I received Pong which morphed into the Atari 2600 and then Intellivision things took a slow change. My duties as my father’s remote control for the television ended. We survived the Beta vs. VCR debate and like so many of you opted for the woefully lesser VCR. Dinners were no longer an hour ordeal of preparation because the microwave appeared and HBO was starting to creep into all of our lives. The change slowly made the nights of shucking corn with three generations of my family involved… disappear. The kitchen that was filled with the whistles and humidity of canning vegetables vanished. I never again crossed the railroad tracks and climbed two fences with a load of my grandmothers strawberry jam and peach preserves to rouse Old Mrs. Davis to barter for a couple of jars of her honey. It is this decade that I failed to teach myself the things my grandparents knew and my parents were on the road of forgetting.
Can I go back in time? Yes. Can I learn these skills that just a couple of decades ago thrived but have slowly disappeared? Yes. Can I use diversion tools like the internet to do this? Yes. Will it happen quickly? No, and I am increasingly happy for that truth.
Mark Frauenfelder is a self taught writer and illustrator who created the popular Boing Boing blog. He has written for numerous magazines and is the current editor in chief of Make magazine. Just a few weeks ago I heard him on NPR discussing the DIY ethic and its current growth in America. He was on to pitch his book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. I was hooked to his interview because unlike a lot of the gurus of the DIY world he wasn’t there with a green agenda or to damn anyone for over consuming and being headed down the path of hoarding. He was talking about his own transformation from dreamer to doer and the path he took is readily available to any of us. There was no stepped program and his agenda seemed only to get us dreamers over the hurdle of the fear of failing. He quite easily points out the importance of failure as a way to learning.
In the book he tells us how to bring on the courage to try things, how he moved his family to a remote paradise in the South Pacific, how he returned to the grind and started creating his paradise, grow his own food, hack his creature comforts, raise chickens, beekeeping, made his own string instruments and even visit some easy fermenting processes. He is not a fanatic though. At no point does he preach against anyone’s way of life. He does however demonstrate the reward of all the above while keeping his feet firmly planted in a world of the majority. The book is self help without pretending to be. It is social commentary without hoping to be, it is as close to a must read as anything I have encountered. Mark delivers an almost diary like view into whims and necessity addressed and met in a rewarding manner by just trying. Most appealing not every project in the book is a total success, yet they become successful through the learning process. Some of the projects are ongoing and final outcome has yet to present a measure, but overall it tells us the rugged individualism of the past can make a comeback. Buy the book even if you are not interested in DIY it cracks open some of the mysteries of why life can remain empty with so many diversions available to us all.
Me? I was on the track before the book. I know nothing about kitchen remodels other than they are expensive and I needed one. I am 85% through it and pleased and instead of cussing a swollen thumb obtained in the process I see it as a badge of honor. My bathroom gets tackled next. My food garden is being planned and my list of wants has changed to my list of modifications. Mark’s book served as the manifesto I needed and fear and doubt I now reserve for the government.
The DIY bug has floated in my brain for years. I have constantly thought about my upbringing and what we used to do when I was kid. My grandparents were agricultural people and their world consisted on self reliance, recycling before it was a movement, and self taught skill. We used to feed ourselves off the bounty of our gardens, from the output of our chickens and trades of goods and produce or services with other farmers. Our fences stayed mended with limited trips to a hardware store or lawn tools contained a wide array of manual implements and the power tools had a hacked or rigged aftermarket addition to get the performance levels we needed.
Somewhere in the decade that I received Pong which morphed into the Atari 2600 and then Intellivision things took a slow change. My duties as my father’s remote control for the television ended. We survived the Beta vs. VCR debate and like so many of you opted for the woefully lesser VCR. Dinners were no longer an hour ordeal of preparation because the microwave appeared and HBO was starting to creep into all of our lives. The change slowly made the nights of shucking corn with three generations of my family involved… disappear. The kitchen that was filled with the whistles and humidity of canning vegetables vanished. I never again crossed the railroad tracks and climbed two fences with a load of my grandmothers strawberry jam and peach preserves to rouse Old Mrs. Davis to barter for a couple of jars of her honey. It is this decade that I failed to teach myself the things my grandparents knew and my parents were on the road of forgetting.
Can I go back in time? Yes. Can I learn these skills that just a couple of decades ago thrived but have slowly disappeared? Yes. Can I use diversion tools like the internet to do this? Yes. Will it happen quickly? No, and I am increasingly happy for that truth.
Mark Frauenfelder is a self taught writer and illustrator who created the popular Boing Boing blog. He has written for numerous magazines and is the current editor in chief of Make magazine. Just a few weeks ago I heard him on NPR discussing the DIY ethic and its current growth in America. He was on to pitch his book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. I was hooked to his interview because unlike a lot of the gurus of the DIY world he wasn’t there with a green agenda or to damn anyone for over consuming and being headed down the path of hoarding. He was talking about his own transformation from dreamer to doer and the path he took is readily available to any of us. There was no stepped program and his agenda seemed only to get us dreamers over the hurdle of the fear of failing. He quite easily points out the importance of failure as a way to learning.
In the book he tells us how to bring on the courage to try things, how he moved his family to a remote paradise in the South Pacific, how he returned to the grind and started creating his paradise, grow his own food, hack his creature comforts, raise chickens, beekeeping, made his own string instruments and even visit some easy fermenting processes. He is not a fanatic though. At no point does he preach against anyone’s way of life. He does however demonstrate the reward of all the above while keeping his feet firmly planted in a world of the majority. The book is self help without pretending to be. It is social commentary without hoping to be, it is as close to a must read as anything I have encountered. Mark delivers an almost diary like view into whims and necessity addressed and met in a rewarding manner by just trying. Most appealing not every project in the book is a total success, yet they become successful through the learning process. Some of the projects are ongoing and final outcome has yet to present a measure, but overall it tells us the rugged individualism of the past can make a comeback. Buy the book even if you are not interested in DIY it cracks open some of the mysteries of why life can remain empty with so many diversions available to us all.
Me? I was on the track before the book. I know nothing about kitchen remodels other than they are expensive and I needed one. I am 85% through it and pleased and instead of cussing a swollen thumb obtained in the process I see it as a badge of honor. My bathroom gets tackled next. My food garden is being planned and my list of wants has changed to my list of modifications. Mark’s book served as the manifesto I needed and fear and doubt I now reserve for the government.
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