Another trip to Springer

I'm off to reform school again.

I don't know what prompted this one or when it happened.

Jack is clearly making a joke here. But Jack, the kid you were kidding never knew you to make a joke and was too young and naive to figure it out. The kid knew that you (probably) couldn't just ship people off to reform school. But things like this made it very clear that you didn't want him around.

But if I had been locked up in Springer, who would have passed the tools to you when you were under a car changing the oil or replacing the U-joints?

Curb your enthusiasm

"I have an analytical mind" the scientist father would say while sagely tapping his temple with his index finger. He'd say this with a tone that conveyed the rest of his thought: "you idiot child!" This would be in response to such things as his son's putting the wrong sized nut on a bolt and asking for help undoing it or accidentally knocking a "precision instrument" off the table.

One thing that bewilders me about this analytical mind is that it never lifted a sage finger to try to pass on the love of discovering the unknown. He never was involved in my education where I loved science. He never tried to encourage that interest.

In the second grade we had an assignment to do an experiment for our science fair. The best experiments of each class were entered in the school's fair. We had a book of experiments to give us ideas. I chose one that demonstrates that salt water is more buoyant than fresh water. My exhibit showed that a pencil weighted with a thumb tack in its eraser (to keep it from simply floating on its side) floats higher in a glass of salty water than in unsalted water. My entry didn't make it out of the classroom.

That was my only entry in a science fair. I've never been good at finding problems to solve. (I am very good at solving problems that thinkers come up with.) I wonder how things might be different if my father had been involved by challenging me analyze things better. Or to come up with questions that need to be answered then trying to answer them.

I guess he felt that teaching kids the the arts and sciences was the work of school teachers. At home kids are to learn such useful skills as how to fetch a 5/8"—11/16" box-end wrench from a horribly unorganized toolbox in less than two seconds.

Even when I misunderstood something in his area of expertise, chemistry, he wouldn't take time to teach anything about the subject. One morning while eating my Malt-O-Meal, I mentioned that when I add the sugar to it, it seems to get a little more watery than it was before. In school we had recently learned that when carbohydrates burn they turn into water and carbon dioxide. I speculated that maybe there was a chemical reaction going on where the sugar, a carbohydrate, is turning into CO₂ and H₂O and the newly formed water was staying in the cereal. He replied, in his analytical mind tone, if that were so that I could achieve the same result by just tossing in a lump of coal.

First, Mr. Scientist, my speculated reaction doesn't work with elemental carbon. It needs the hydrogen. And, besides, why not take the opportunity to do something useful like explain osmosis? Scientist, indeed! Analytical mind, bah!

OK, maybe he did occasionally encourage scientific investigation. He gave me the Edmund Scientific catalog. But he didn't often help me choose stuff or help me learn things from the stuff I got.

Music, it turns out, became a very important part of my life.

In the fourth grade I took up the violin. In the fifth grade I was going to try out the deeper, richer sounding cello. Here, my father was much more supportive than with the sciences. He encouraged my musical education with the little contract added to the bottom of this form:

Springer is where the New Mexico Boys’ School, a detention center for male juveniles, was at the time. I was threatened with being sent to Springer for things as minor as looking at him with crossed eyes. Since my father never exhibited a sense of humor, these threats must have been real.

By the time I got enrolled in the music program they had run out of cellos. I took a stab at the violin for another year. I'm sure I didn't practice daily but my contract became null and void when they ran out of cellos. No reform school because of a technicality!

Of course my father's taste in music didn't include what comes out of a cello or violin. His taste was that served up by K-Circle-B in Albuquerque. That was middle-of-the-road popular and country music. So he never really encouraged my musical education. (He probably discouraged it...the screechiness probably hurt his ears tremendously.)

I wonder how my life would have been different if I had gotten some encouragement in my attempts at learning music.

But if things had been different, I wouldn't be who I am now. I'm pretty happy with how I turned out.

Still, a little enthusiastic encouragement can go a long way. (I might have even had some happier memories to share.)

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A sculpture by Craig Lehmann.

(Oh, my! It's value certainly has increased!)

Eggs suck!

Yesterday, I made butter. I used Straus Family Creamery cream. They put their cream in an old-fashioned bottles. They want their bottles back so I had to pay a $1.25 deposit on each one.

(By the way, I said that Trader Joe's cream has carageenan in it. That's their cream in the plastic bottle. Their cream in the cardboard cartons is just cream. I've found a convenient source for future butter making!)

As long as I had a milk bottle that is a lot like the ones we all grew up with, just smaller, I thought I ought to use it to do an updated experiment from my childhood. You remember the project, putting a hard-boiled egg in a milk bottle.

I could have done it the way I did it back then but I'll save my pyromania stories for another day.

No, today I did it with the help of one of my modern kitchen appliances, my Tilia FoodSaver Vacuum Sealing System.

I made my second YouTube video in two days! (I've already gotten a comment on my butter-making video from one of my subscribers. He said essentially "meh." I'm crushed!)

Here is how you get a hard-boiled egg into a milk bottle. You just have to find a milk bottle.

If you want a better explanation of what's going on, you can watch this video.

Making Butter

I recently expressed regret at not trying the butter my first grade class churned. I was such a picky eater. In a comment, Poss suggested that a KitchenAid mixer might be used to make butter.

Well, duh!

I did a simple Google search and found many web sites that explain how to use a mixer to make butter. You essentially make whipped cream and don't stop when you reach the proper stiffness for whipped cream.

Jerry and I went to Trader Joe's for some cream. Their whipping cream wasn't just cream. It has carrageenan to do something like stabilize the finished whipped cream or something. We didn't want stable whipped cream, we wanted butter.

So we headed over to Jimbo's. They had whipping cream that is simply cream. We got a couple of pints and came home and put them on the counter. Apparently you want your cream at room temperature. Ideally, you want it to have gone sour for more flavor but we were in a hurry. Maybe the sour version will happen some day.

I made my first batch of butter today.

I whipped the cream beyond stiff peaks. Moments after the cream reaches the stiff peaks stage, the foam suddenly disappears. You've got a bowl full of butter and buttermilk.

This will come a no surprise to most of you: I made a YouTube video of the process. My subscribers are hungry for new content from me. Here it is:

I forgot to add salt. I like salted butter on my toast. But our first slice of toast was tasty.

We got almost a pound of butter out of that quart of cream. Yum!

Confusion in the First Grade

I started the first grade badly.

Either nobody told me which classroom was mine or I simply forgot. When the bell rang I went into the wrong room. The teacher called roll and I said "here" when my name was called. It turned out that some kid who was supposed to be in that class had moved away over the summer and apparently nobody told the school. The kid's name was "Charles" or something that sounded like to to me.

Since everybody was accounted for, the teacher started into our first lesson. (I think that this was the legendary Mrs. Bernard (or was she a second grade teacher?).) After some time somebody stuck her head into the classroom to see if I happened to have been misplaced. I had. I was taken next door to Miss Welty's classroom.

I guess I was so traumatized by that first day that I don't really remember much about that year of school. Except for the butter.

One day we got to churn butter. With our own little hands. We all took turns turning the crank on the churn. After a while we had a lump of butter. Real butter. Miss Welty had also made a loaf of bread. I seem to remember that it was somehow baked right there in the classroom. We each got a slice of fresh bread and handmade butter!

I wouldn't touch it.

I was under the impression that Mom didn't like butter. If Mom didn't like butter then Charley didn't like butter! Charley doesn't eat what Charley doesn't like. He won't even give it a taste!

Miss Welty tried and tried to get me to give it a try. I'd have none of it. She persevered. I finally acquiesced. I touched the tip of my tongue to the butter and said "There! I've tried it!" And that was the last time I ate real butter for a long time.

Years later I learned that Mom didn't like store bought butter. That it was nothing like glorious, home churned butter. (I still don't understand how margarine was supposed to be a better substitute for hand churned butter than store bought butter.)

That was my first and last encounter with hand churned butter. I blew it.

Actually, Mrs. Mundinger probably was my teacher then.

First, kindergarten started with Mrs. Thomas and ended with Mrs. O'Flaherty. Then first grade started with Miss Welty and ended with Mrs. Mundinger. Does this happen each year? Life is so confusing!

But this time pregnancy wasn't involved (I guess). Miss Welty got married early in the school year and became Mrs. Mundinger.

I apparently was in love with Mrs. Mundinger. My souvenirs box has more memories of her than of any other teacher.

I have her school picture:

Mrs. Mundinger

The newspaper account of her wedding:

Her Valentine to me:

I need to get some cream and churn me some butter!

Orchids

My friend, Ray, from the beginning of my career at NCR/AT&T/NCR/Teradata, gave me some orchids that divide like crazy. Jerry potted them up and put them on a table on the north side of the house. They seem to like it there. They're blooming like crazy! The view out of the family room window has improved.

Here's the view from the family room window:

(As you can tell, it's not really a presentation table.)

And just the blossoms (prettier):

And a close-up (prettier still):

They're tiny flowers.

Thanks, Ray!