Schadenfreude

Jack wasn't always uninvolved in my leisure time. Sometimes he was very involved.

He'd choose my hobbies for me.

One of the hobbies he chose for me was beekeeping. I didn't like honey back then. I'm not much of a fan of the stuff still. Give me jam for my biscuits any day. So this wasn't the most satisfying hobby for me.

But beekeeping was an interesting activity. It let me see what is the rather miraculous process of little insects gathering nectar and pollen and turning it into more little insects and wax and honey.

We got hives from Sears that we had to put together and paint. We filled the frames with sheets of foundation for the little bees to build their combs on.  Jack got me "The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture." We had the jumpsuits, gloves, and hoods that would let us work with the bees without getting stung.  Much.

We ordered the bees from Sears (is there nothing you can't get from Sears?). They came in the mail in wooden boxes with screen sides. Each box held three pounds of worker bees and a few drones and a little box with a queen and a few attendants. There was a can of sugar water that kept them fed for the days they were in the mail.  The queen's box had a plug made out of sugar that the bees would eat through to release the queen. The time it took to release her gave them time to accept her as their leader.

We'd don our protective clothes, open a box of bees, shake them into their prepared hive, hang the queen's box between two frames, put the lid on and wait.

A week later we opened the hives to remove the emptied queen's box. The bees had started building combs! This was fascinating.

My career as an apiarist had begun.

Each year we'd harvest the honey. We didn't have the equipment to spin the honey out of the combs so we'd just hack the combs into squares and put them in plastic boxes. These would get sold at work much like Girl Scout cookies. But better...people got their money's worth. I don't think I was involved in the marketing of the honey. Whew!

Those bees terrorized me for years. The hives were set up in the back yard near the gate that took us to the parking spots behind the house. The bees' flight path took them across the walk up to the gate at low altitude. Now and then one would get caught in someone's hair. Ouch.

When you're a good beekeeper you don't need the protective clothes. You know how to handle the bees without getting them riled up. We never got good at it.

My happiest day at beekeeping was when Jack was doing something with the bees by himself. He got into his jumpsuit, zipped on the veil and went to work. He didn't get the veil completely closed.

The bees found the weak spot in his protection. He got a face full of stings. He was quite the dancer while this was going on.

Finally, a bit of a comeuppance for all the terror he had brought upon me.

Schadenfreude, it's human nature.

Shall I Compare Thee to Something Ugly and Gray?; or, Happy Mother's Day!

I just didn't get it.

Here is the "M is For Mother" poem that I wrote when I was almost 10. I should have been old enough to understand the concept of this genre of poetry.

Except for the first line none have anything to do with Mother (I hope the second line isn't related to Mother!). They don't relate to each other. But they rhyme!

Mom, I hope I didn't make you cry thinking I was comparing you to an ogre. I wasn't. I just needed an "O" word whose attribute rhymes with "gay."

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Have a happy and gay day!

(Rats!)

MLM: NOT (thank God!) Another Priest in the Family!

Peggy tells me when I was very young that I was introduced to one of our relatives on the religious side of the family. She exclaimed "Another priest in the family!" I have no idea who that was but she must have been disappointed. Religion and I never got together.

I went through the motions for a while because I didn't have much of a choice. When you are born to a Catholic parent you are raised a Catholic.

The best thing about growing up Catholic (until Vatican II changed the rules) was that I couldn't eat meat on Fridays. I got to eat more peanut butter! Yay, Friday! (Oh, my! I just checked and apparently it's a myth that Vatican II let us eat meat on Friday! Oh, well.) I went to Neil Gardner's birthday party one year that happened to be on a Friday. Mrs. Gardner served hot dogs. Later that day I realized that I had committed a mortal sin. I was terrified. I wonder if I confessed that. Was Mrs. Gardner trying to send this Catholic to hell?

One of the worst things about growing up Catholic was having to go to catechism class every week after school. Didn't they know that kids would rather play after school?

In our early years we got to memorize the answers to many questions so that we could prove to the priest that we deserved to take our First Communion. Later, we got to memorize answers to many questions to prove that we deserved to get our Confirmation. One of the things that we do when we get confirmed is take the name of a saint who is special to us. I didn't know one saint from another. (Did they teach us about saints? Did I miss that lesson?) Beth had been appalled that none of the boys in her group had taken the Archbishop's name so I took the Archbishop's name. What was the Archbishop's name?

I think that this is one of the tests I took that prepared me for confirmation. I aced it!

The catechism teacher gave me a good assessment (but she couldn't spell my name).





When she sent us off to summer vacation, she gave us a little card with reminders of what to do after we were released from her care.
There is no record of my going to mass on First Fridays or any other times. And my parent or guardian didn't attest to my fulfilling these duties. I'm off to hell.


Sometime during my catechism career, I was taken from class to be a model in a photo shoot. I have no idea what the pictures were going to be used for but I got a copy of one of them! I'm fiddling with a little model of an altar or something. How inspiring!
I'm the one on the left. I don't know who the others are. I don't know what I did to deserve this honor.

Another honor I had was to have my birthday fall on the Feast of the Ascension, a Holy Day of Obligation, a couple of times. Geez! I had to go to church on my birthday and it wasn't even a Sunday! NOT FAIR!

Around the seventh or eighth grade I somehow got to make the decision that I wasn't going to go to church anymore. How did I get to decide that? Children can't decide things like that for themselves.

Except for weddings and funerals, the last time I can remember going to church was when we visited Tucumcari and I went along to let our grandmother see that she had good grandkids following the right path.

Yma Sumac

Along with Judy and Babs, we had Yma Sumac to be enthralled with. Or so a friend who lived through her heyday told me. On his recommendation, I got her first album, "Voice of the Xtabay," and was completely bewildered by what could be the attraction. All I heard was a bunch of wailing.

Was it camp? Or was she like Florence Foster Jenkins and was loved for the sincerity of her performances? Or was she great and I just didn't get it?

Yma Sumac died yesterday. There is now a room in heaven where her fans will be eternally enthralled with her. (And there is a room in hell that will get a broadcast of the performance in HD with surround sound where people with my appreciation of her Art will be in agony.)

So, until we get to have our seat in one of those rooms we'll just have to dream about Yma.

For samples of her singing you might try some that you can find on YouTube.

And here is another version of Yma Dream:


Her obituary from The New York Times.

I Love You!*

One day back in High School I opened my locker to find an envelope that held a handmade Valentine from a formerly secret admirer. It was signed "Love*, Jane" (not her real name) and at the bottom of the card was "*It's true!" This took me by surprise as I had no idea that Jane had any feelings like that for me and I didn't have them for her (and as far as I could tell I never even remotely sent signals that I did). Acting in a mature, high schooler's way, I passed it around my little circle of friends and we all had a good laugh.

I kind of feel bad now but I had no idea how I should have handled it. But I think things probably worked OK. From what I understand, Jane and I have maintained some of the world's parity in that department.

I didn't keep Jane's card. But its memory lived on.

In the box of treasures from my past I found a letter from Karen S. that she sent to me after a Spring Break trip home from college. She apparently had brought along two of her friends and there were some enclosures from them. I seem to have spent time with them but I have no recollection of what might have happened during that Spring Break. It sounds like we must have had a lot of fun together.

Karen's letter started out saying "You're in a heap o' trouble, boy!" It seemed that both Jan and Joyce (the friends) had fallen madly in love with me and wanted to marry me and adopt Donald.

Jan allegedly said "I love him more than the expanse of the sea!" and Joyce said "Well, I loved him from afar before we ever met." They then spent all their time fighting over me and even drew straws to see who was going to get me (Jan lost).

Here are their testimonials to their love.

Jan's Valentine	(back)
Joyce's Valentine	(back)

Later I got another letter containing:

Jan's desperate attempt to win my heart.

Karen's letter had this to say about their trip back to Luther College in Iowa:

We had bunches of fun wearing our eyeballs at the people in Nebraska. (Especially in Omaha.) We made a sign that said "Hubba Hubba", too. Old ladies did not like it. You definitely had a nasty influence on these people. (Thank goodness—Jan used to be very boring. Now she is only semi-boring.)

I guess "Hubba, hubba!" was something exotic for Jan and Joyce. I have no idea what eyeballs they wore.

The letter finished off with:

P.S. Please try not to break their hearts too miserably.

P.P.S. Jan said you could move to India and marry both of them. (How romantic.)

Well, Jan and Joyce, I hope your broken hearts have mended by now. It would never have worked out. You see, how can I say this?, I'm (oh, just be blunt!) not Lutheran.

Classified Information

After the comics section, my favorite part of the newspaper is the classifieds. That's because that's where they put the puzzles. No day is complete without the New York Times crossword puzzle, the Jumble and the Sudoko.

In addition to the puzzles, there are some features I read that kind of baffle me.

One is the bridge column. I haven't played bridge since high school. They use terms like "splinter" and "transfer" bids that didn't exist when I was playing the game. The bidding conventions they use these days are strange (to me). The explanations of the processes used to learn the positions of the opponents' cards are fascinating. But I'll never put any of it to use. But it's interesting.

The feature that is amongst the puzzles that I don't want to read but find I have to is "The Family Circus." That Billy. That Dolly. That P.J. They are so precious. They make me barf. That Barfy. I can't help reading it when it is sitting right next to the puzzle I'm doing. It's got one panel and usually one sentence. It's so simple that a brief glance gets it all. But sometimes it is on a page I don't have to look at but find myself searching for just to see what sickeningly precious thing Billy has to say today. On Sunday, it's sitting between two strips I read but can simply blip over it. What is it about the daily panel that makes me look?

Barf.

I Was a Teenage John Bircher

Today we heard that William F. Buckley, Jr. died. In high school I would watch "Firing Line" religiously. But my poor little brain seems to have forgotten whether I watched to see Mr. Buckley beat up on the liberal guests or whether I was rooting for his victims. I loved listening to (and watching) Mr. Buckley's delivery of his big words (most of which flew past me ununderstood) and ideas.

One thing that Mr. Buckley gave me was the love of Baroque music. I do believe that his use of the part of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #2 as his program's theme music made me look into the rest of the piece then the rest of the Brandenburgs then maybe the rest of Bach. Go, Bach!

But maybe I watched because I thought I believed in the Conservative ideals. You see, there was a conservative (to put it mildly) radio program I listened to I am very ashamed to admit.

When KRSN was signing off for the day, they would play H. L. Hunt's "Freedom Talks." I would listen. Regularly. Fortunately, I have no recollection of what any of the little talks were about. (Sometimes I think it is good that I have blocked so much of my youth out!)

I'm sure Jack wasn't proud of this interest since he was surely asleep and had no knowledge of what I was listening to. I wonder if I gave any of the rest of the family nightmares. (My big sisters were probably off at college by that time. Did Mom worry about me?)

Whew! That's off my chest! I'm off to say my three dozen Hail Marys.

Hello. I'm Charles E. and I'm an alcoholic

Well, maybe not an alcoholic but I do drink a beer every three or four months (that makes me a borderline alcoholic, doesn't it?). Tonight was one of those times!

A few years ago, we went to a kitchen store in search of an Aerobie® AeroPress™ Coffee & Espresso Maker (I'll have to tell of my experiences with that sometime). We found the AeroPress and also found another turtle for our collection. They had a Lagerhead Black & Tan Turtle. I didn't read the card it was attached to so I didn't know what it was supposed to be. It was an unusual turtle and that's enough for me so I got it.
The owner of the store asked if I like black and tans. I had no idea what he was asking but figured it had to do with the turtle. I told him we collect turtles.

When we got it home I finally read the instructions on the card and was intrigued. Imagine, two beers of different densities could be put in one glass and not mix! I had to try it out.

Background information: After our little ceremony for Dad at the cemetery we had dinner where Mom had a Guinness Stout in memory of Dad. She let me try it. Yum! (Why do I start with strong flavors? Espresso before regular coffee. Guinness before Bud (well, I still don't drink Bud). Wagner before Mozart.)

I was ready to put the turtle to use and make the Black and Tans.

Tonight we had pizza and beer.

The pizza was good. The beer was good.

Black and Tan
1 Bottle Henninger beer
1 Can Murphy's Draught Style Stout

Pour one-half bottle of the Henninger into a pint glass. Let it chug to make a head. Place the Lagerhead Turtle on the rim of the glass. Gently pour half of the Murphy's stout over the turtle's shell. Repeat with other glass.

Amazingly, the two beers don't mix. The stout is less dense and floats on top. Such a gimmick!

We used these beers because we were got them at Trader Joe's. TJ's didn't have Guinness. I hope the Guinness company isn't too mad at me for putting Murphy's in their glasses.