Jim Putnam - Thinking Through My Fingers

Sunday Thoughts

To be completely honest, I have no thoughts this Sunday.  For me, it has been a lazy afternoon after a morning in the kitchen.  I slept until after 8:00, and then made breakfast:  home-made biscuits, sausage, and eggs.  After cleaning my cooking mess, I read the paper.  Then I chopped veggies for a pasta-tuna salad, put it all together, cleaned the kitchen again, and retired to my chair in the living room.  Once there, I alternated napping and flicky-channeling between the US Women's Open Golf Championship, the travel channel, and a program about the Netherlands on Science TV.  Altogether, not a very intellectually stimulating day.  The ladies golf was the best of the three.

I read another excellent article in Time by Michael Scherer.  He is beginning to build my confidence that I will receive good, and occasionally excellent writing.  Today's article, "The Five Pillars of Obama's Foreign Policy" is, I think, interesting not so much because it brings out new information or deep analysis, but because it places Obama's major speeches in a context I hadn't thought of.  That may be saying more about me than Scherer, but so what.  I think it is a good article.

Felix's Growlery blog post today, "A thing of twofold beauty",  was without a doubt, the most enjoyable reading I did this evening.  Felix truly has a firm grasp on what is important in this world.  Unreal Nature's "The Glass Eye" was disturbing intellectually, but because of that, important.  Coming after our recent discussions of the South, it reminded me that the South Ms Heyward and I love has strains of true brutality and ugliness.  Perhaps between the two blogs is a lesson; there could be ugly strains in all of us, and we need the warmth and humanity of Daniel and Felix as balance.

These are the thoughts for today.  I hope to be back tomorrow with more.

Today's Mini-Report

There's a blog I read that regularly posts an entry with bits that don't have enough substance to warrant a full post but are interesting single-paragraph entries.  I like the idea.  Consider this a first effort.

Unreal Nature wrote "While musing about Jim Putnam’s post that expands on my own about the US South, I keep noticing how necessary it seems to be defensive when writing about this place –  a place that I don’t think should need any defense, at least not to myself. A place — my home — that is beautiful, perfumed, intoxicating, lush — in the most full-blown sense of the word, both literal and metaphorical."  She is, of course, right.  I have been, and my post yesterday was, defensive about the South.  I suppose that has been true ever since our family moved to Ohio when I was eleven and immediately felt a need to defend my south.  I shall have to mull this over for a while and perhaps write more positively later.

I read a very interesting blog entry today by Arianna Huffington about vacationing with her ex-husband.  It was so reminiscent of our family that I printed it for Marrianna.  Marrianna and I are the god-parents of her ex-husband's son, who is now 21.  All four of us, six if the children are included, have had an excellent relationship almost since the divorce, and for the same reason Ms Huffington and her ex did - to give their daughter, and later his new wife and son, strong support without rancor.  Over years, we have several times visited with them for days, and they with us.  It's good to remain friends.

I worry whether I have written that last paragraph with pronouns clearly referring to proper antecedents.  But I can't think how to edit it to be more clear without changing most pronouns to proper nouns, so I'll go with it as is.

Our President is on his way home from Ghana.  I think this account is wonderful reporting of his stay and speeches there.  The full speech to Parliament is here.  He spoke twice, once to the gathered Ghanaian Parliament, and again at the Cape Coast Castle.  His remarks at the Castle are here.  It's so wonderful to have a President who is both articulate and intelligent.  I'm extremely proud to have him represent this nation and believe this speech in Accra is as important as any he has given, or possibly will give, while President.  It is certainly worth reading by all US citizens.  I wonder what the conservative crazies will be saying.

I have some reading to do.  Feel free to add to my selection of short blurbs either in comments or via email.

The South

This post is definitely not of the same quality as today's Unreal Nature post of the same title.  She extracts quotes from southern luminaries like Reynolds Price, while I am only able to dredge some of my own impressions of the south.  Nor am I the keen observer Price or Walker Percy are.

The south and I have changed in ways that neither would have thought possible in the early to mid 1950's.  I recently wrote a short piece in The Sun's Readers Write section, July issue, in which I witnessed an incident in 1958 that would be unthinkable today.  At least it is my firm belief that it would be.  I lived in an extremely segregated town in South Carolina in the 1940's, with separate drinking fountains in department stores for White and Colored, separate waiting rooms in train and bus stations, and separate, but certainly not equal, schools and housing.  Of course, when we moved to Ohio in 1951, the town we lived in didn't even allow blacks in town overnight. and Puerto Ricans withstood discrimination almost as deep as any southern black.  I don't know that the south's segregation was any worse than the north.  And decades later, 1967, when stationed in northern California, a bar and restaurant owner told me that should I ever bring any black friends from the base in with me none of us would be served.  So, I don't understand how the south was so much different in terms of race relations from other sections of the nation.

Race was not, and still is not, the issue that most separates the south.  I believe that until relatively recent times, it was the weather.  Before air conditioning life in the south was different.  People learned to cope with oppressive heat and humidity, and became more aware of the power of weather expressed through thunder storms, drought, and most especially, hurricanes.  Weather provided a cloak smothering everyone in its folds, and you either learned to cope, or be miserable.  Read Walker Percy's entry in Ms Heyward's post again.  Weather even influences literature.

With air conditioning, living became pleasant, or at least bearable.  People from other sections of the country discovered the pleasant conviviality of southern people, along with relatively low populated areas and moved into the south.  However, like Dave Smith says in the final excerpt, when you drive a few miles away from the populated areas, the old south seems almost to be alive.  Rural North Carolina isn't much different in terms of prosperity from the way it was in the first half of the last century.  There is AC, but there is equally as likely to be a single or double-wide manufactured home on blocks, barns deteriorating, and fields fallow.  Rural NC is still largely poor.  There are enclaves of magnificent homes in gated communities, but they are just that, separate and gated. 

Quoting again from Unreal Nature, "… It depends on whether we are talking about myth-reality or fact-reality."  Truthfully, it's impossible to talk about one or the other.  They are too tightly wound to be separated.  We, slipping into my southern nature, live in a culture that is myth and fact, equally experienced.  We know the facts of our past, but choose to focus on myths that relieve us of responsibility for them.  I'm a quilter and I have a book of historical quilts, some sewn by slave women, but the citations all say owned by so-and-so, the lady of the manors.  There were very poor farmers in the south that never owned a slave, and there remain poor farmers that barely exist from crop to crop today.

I remember a southern time in which we kids chased fireflies in the dusk as the grown-ups sat on the back porch and listened to the radio.  Whip-poor-wills and bob-whites called through the night, and all was right with the world.  That time exists only in my mind, because I know even at that very time my uncle and cousins were in Europe fighting a war.  When they returned, everything would be different and the old south would fade into obscurity.  I remember 1958 when a black man from New Jersey was wronged in Charleston and I could do nothing about it.  I remember having to learn not to use 'boy' when speaking of blacks I was stationed with.

We have changed, this south and me.  We haven't learned quite yet how to separate the myth-reality and fact-reality.  Perhaps it is time to simply move on, to build new facts, and wrap them in revised myths.  As the last line of the Dave Smith excerpt of Unreal Nature's post says, "Art says here’s the myth and here’s the reality. Now you feel of the thing and decide for yourself."

Books

Marrianna rearranged some of our book shelves this afternoon.  In the process she pulled eight books out for disposal at the next neighborhood charity book sale.  I don't know exactly, but suspect that is approximately .002 % of what are in the house.  Yes, unless I have my math wrong, there are close to 4000 books, possibly as many as 5 or 6 thousand, in sixteen bookshelves spread through six rooms of the house.  We are both book - what is the word I want - enthusiasts, lovers, nuts?  If I had the resources I would collect rare books.  Fortunately, I do not and even more fortunately, I know that I do not.

We avoid bookstores any more.  Well, avoid isn't correct.  We just don't visit them nearly as often as we used to.  Every time we are in a bookstore we leave having bought a few more books.  The problem with all these books, as Marrianna so easily showed today, is getting rid of them.  Eventually, we will move to a retirement community and have to down-size again.  Which means that we will need to be much more ruthless in selecting books to go with us and letting the others go.

The only thing more enjoyable than writing is reading.  Even through the most glorious weather days, I had rather be sitting in either of two favorite chairs reading than outside.  My mother used to say that the reason my eyes are so bad is that I would read under the covers until either the flashlight dimmed so completely I was forced to stop, she caught me, or I finished the book.  I read cookbooks almost as avidly as novels, and even a dictionary can provide long spells of enjoyment.

Remembering again, my first book, or at least the first that I remember, was a slender childrens book of Bambi.  My second grade teacher, Miss Standard, gave it to me on my birthday.  I remember years later being surprised that there was a full sized book of Bambi, without pictures.  Actually, there were two, a sequel, Bambi's Children.  I thought it was as good as the first.

There was a long period of my life when I thought that if it was in a book and wasn't labeled fiction, it had to be true.  I don't remember exactly when the realization dawned that this was not necessarily the case.  There's nearly as much fiction in so-called non-fiction as in any fictional novel.  Even cookbooks aren't necessarily accurate, though they are more likely to be than some other genres.

Incongruously, I almost never carry a book with me.  I know people who do, and whenever there's an opportunity or quiet time, they pull the book out.  I can't do that for some reason.  I had rather observe my surrounding, and can even do that happily for hours, than read.  Surely there is a reason for this, but I don't know it and don't intend to change now.

Books have left their mark on me.  They have amused, comforted, stimulated, taught, led, frightened, and once in a while disgusted me.  Because of and through books, I have explored ideas and places.  When I walk by the shelves in the hall downstairs, or look over at the shelves next to me here, I know that there are friends there, ideas and people who have become a part of me.  It's a very good feeling.

UPDATE:  After reading the blog this morning, Marrianna tells me I am a horrible estimator of numbers of books.  She said that my estimate of 4000 was probably twice as many as we actually have.  So, we walked through the house together making quick counts, and she is right.  There are only approximately 2000, maybe a few hundred more or less, but not nearly 4000.  I stand corrected.  It sure seems like more, and we still need to get rid of some before we down-size again.

Does 2000 books qualify us to be bibliophiles, as Felix says in his comment?

Continuing To Remember

Perhaps it's my age, but once begun I can't seem to stop remembering.  This evening, it's mostly people that return to mind.  As I've said several times before, it is people that make the best memories.  Strangely though, I don't keep up with people that have made a difference in my life.  Once in a while I regret that, but there's not much I can do about it now.

I remember some high school teachers very warmly.  The Chadwick sisters taught in Vermilion, OH, high school.  Miss Annie was the school librarian, and Miss Mary taught languages. These ladies pushed me to be better academically but more than that, they were positive influences.  Miss Mary taught me in two years of French, and I was a miserable student.  Even so, she urged me to take college prep courses that others were saying were overkill and I didn't need since I wasn't going to college.  But, no education is ever wasted said Miss Mary, and i struggled through French, Chemistry, Algebra and other such courses because she thought it would be better for me in the long run.  I know now that they were correct, and I'll never forget those two ladies.

They asked me once if I would help them weed the garden they had in their back yard.  I was glad for the job and worked at it pretty hard.  I didn't know much about vegetable growing, and in hoeing the row of asparagus I chopped about as many asparagus as weeds.  Embarrassed, I took the chopped asparagus to Miss Annie and apologized.  She was wonderful, and told me that the asparagus would grow back in just a few days.  To this day I don't know whether she was just being kind or accurate.

There are several Air Force friends that often come to mind.  Some who I had thought were good friends dropped me quickly when I was divorced from my first wife.  I've noticed that with other people undergoing a divorce; whenever there was a divorce, some friends seemed to think it could possibly be contagious and all communication becomes stilted and awkward and soon non-existent.

My Air Force friends really can be separated by the different jobs I had throughout my career.  The first six plus years, I was a Security Policeman.  Actually, when I first went into the field everyone were called Air Police, and there was no separation between the people who provided security for the base and classified areas and those who were the police force for the base.  Less than a year after I entered the field, they became two, separate career fields.  I became a Security Policeman.

Let me write a bit about a guy who I still think of often, Mike C.  I first met Mike in Clark AB, Philippine Islands.  I didn''t know him very well, but he stuck in my mind because of a bad mistake he made while guarding the alert aircraft.  Using a graphite pencil, he wrote his initials on the afterburner flaps of the jet engine of one aircraft.  Fortunately, the mechanic saw the marks.  Mike was the only guard with MMC initials, so they had him.  The primary problem was that when the graphite got hot, as it would in takeoff using the afterburners, it would have acted as a torch and burned through the flap, and the engine would have destructed.  Mike, as part of his punishment, had to come to every guard mount, be used as an example, and give a short speech in front of everyone.

Just over two years later, I was again at Charleston AFB, SC, and Mike was transferred to the base.  We began to work together, and had long talks about almost everything.  We were both two-stripers, and when he got promoted, I was disappointed that he had and I didn't.  I know my disappointment hurt him because he had thought I would be happy for him and celebrate his promotion.  And I should have been.  I was, as I remember it, rude.  Later I was promoted and transferred to Kunsan AB, Korea almost simultaneously.

Approximately four months after I arrived at Kunsan, I was walking to my barracks when the daily aircraft came in.  There was Mike.  He had followed me to our third base together.  We were assigned to the same shift and worked, drank, partied, and in general, had a very good relationship.  As I've written before, (Writing About Me X - Korea) Mike was the one person who validated that I was an adult and a good Security Policeman.  I can't think of anything that meant more to me than Mike telling me I had been right and he should have known I was.

I left the Security Police field when I returned from Korea, opting for an assignment as a Military Training Instructor.  As usual, I didn't keep track of people I had been assigned with, and I lost track of him.  He's one of a few that I regret.  I wanted to use his full name here but decided it wasn't such a good idea, given what I was disclosing here.  If anyone recognizes this Mike C, I would like to hear from him.  Comments would be a good place to reconnect us.

When I began, I thought I'd write about several people.  I've only done three, and two of them are the sisters Chadwick.  I suppose to have been consistent I should not have used their full names either, but I'm sure they have both passed away.  That's not a given though; their father lived to be 104.  They would both be older than that now.  Tell me readers, should I have left them the C sisters?  What are the blogging ethics here?

Remembering

We had a new refrigerator delivered today, and it has me thinking of change and remembering stuff from a long time ago.  It's interesting how a new refrigerator has brought scenes from a long-ago past to mind.  I'm only seventy, not yet completely OLD, but no longer young either.

The first refrigerator I can remember was in my Aunt Jennie's house.  It was a while, rounded box with a large round compressor on top.  I can't recall its brand, but I do know it was not a Frigidaire because I can remember being confused when I asked why they called their refrigerator a Frigidaire, the answer was that most of them were and they had just become accustomed to using the brand name for all such appliances.

We lived with my Aunt Jennie for most of the mid-1940's, so that had to have been along that time.  Aunt Jennie wasn't my aunt but my mother's.  My mother's mother had died when Mom was less than six months old, and Mom had been raised by Aunt Virginia.

For some strange reason, I also remember being allowed to help mold margarine.  I suppose butter was scarce during the war, and they would buy margarine.  It was white and came with small coloring packets.  They would mix the coloring into the margarine and press the mix into a round mold that was, I suspect, a butter mold.  I was used to press the mix into the mold.  When the mold was removed after refrigerating, it looked very pretty with a floral design on top.

Aunt Jennie lived less than two blocks from downtown Florence, SC.  Where her house was is now a large motel and there is nothing small town about Florence.  But it definitely was then.  Aunt Jennie had a large back yard where she kept chickens.  I vaguely remember helping collect the eggs.

I remember that even though they had a refrigerator the ice man still delivered ice to the house.  I always thought he had to be among the strongest men in the world because with a tong he could carry a large block of ice in each hand.  I also remember Jewel Tea delivery trucks delivering some things, and the milk was left on the front porch by a delivery person who I can not remember seeing.  I think he made his rounds before I got up in the mornings.

There was a crabapple tree in the side yard.  Aunt Jennie would pick the crabapples and make jelly.  I can't bite into a crabapple without scrunching my face up from its sourness, but her jelly was wonderful.  I've never met any one else who makes crabapple jelly, though I am sure there must be someone who still does.

Aunt Jennie had an old feather mattress that I loved to sleep on.  It seemed the most luxurious thing in the world when the mattress would conform itself to my little frame, as if there was nothing that could ever get to me.  If I went to visit someone today and they offered me a feather bed, I would hesitate because I know they aren't so comfortable, and I seem to be much more sensitive or allergic.  But it sure was nice then.

I've some good memories of that house.  Not much else in that time period brings such good ones.  I'm glad we have a new regrigerator today, and that some things have changed so much.  Though I have no good idea how its delivery started me on such a memory path, I am glad that it did.