Saturday, April 30, 2016

THE AURA AND PROMISE OF THE STACKS!


Poetry sleeps here
    Music rests here
Poetry is music--- Music 
    is poetry.

All Knowledge resides here
    only to become active
when spurred and caressed
    by the Hunan Mind!

Stories of all kinds.
     true and imaginative...
  stories to enchant children...
Stories of courageous men and
   women---stories of love and hate...
stories with lessons and morals...
     Stories to make people 
laugh...and weep.

Poetry---verse---about the miracle of life---
    the flowers, the sky, the wind, the
birds, the animals, a baby's toes, 
    puppy dogs...and baby ducks...
It underlies it all.

Ideas and Theories abound and lie 
              dormant here, 
     waiting to be...explored and
developed.

Languages, Philosophy, Science, Math,
     Medicine, Engineering...Theology---
It's all here, the knowledge of the ages.

Ah, its volumes likely contain all the
     Meanings and Metaphors
         of Life...

Love...and hate
War... and peace
Beauty...and ugliness
Victory...and defeat
Morality...and sin
Pride...and humility
Generosity...and selfishness
Originality...and monotony
Creativity...and sloth
Mercy...and unlove

Come and see-- in the  AURA and 
      LIGHT of the STACKS, 
            along with the
ever-present, unforgettable
    fragrant, yes, fragrant
smell of the paper leaves and
    aging bindings, some leather--

Come all  who thirst for knowledge
     and DRINK FROM THIS ...
                FOUNTAIN!
*************
BY MIL
4/28/16

Photo by Kindell Brinay Moore







WE FOUND MY TILLEY!

A HANGIN' ON THE HIKIN' STICK



A REAL OUTBACK TILLEY



I said to B.E. that day, "I need to get away for a man-type
trip, and since I've been writing about camels, I'll just
pop down to Australia,  head out to Alice Springs, buy me 
a lovable camel and re-trace that Aussie gal's route, 1700
miles acrost the OUTBACK," ---the girl in "TRACKS."

"I got the old two-quarter canteen out and am soaking it in some 
baking soda, and my Randall is sharp! Done picked out an
unusual name for my new camel. How do you like 
"Jehoshaphat?"

"Now then, I will take my COOBER PEDY along for any parades
or honors that I might accrue...but I need my OUTBACK TILLEY
as my WORK HAT--- have you seen it?"

B.E. said: "Well, it should be with your LBJ Stetson, your cowboy
Resistol (with the leather band), your fishin' hat with the Rio
Grande King and all those other fish-hook-flies a-stickin' in it."

"You know, where you keep your Willie Nelson beat-up straw,
your Russian Alaskan Fur Cap, your Braves caps and your army
fatigue caps...I bet it's there' you know, with your duck huntin'
Jones Cap...by Fillson..."

It wasn't. "How'm I going to head out to Australia without my
Outback Tilley?" I pleaded.

SHE FOUND IT...in the garage, hangin' on my four-foot--- 1 1/2"
diameter hiking pole, which she said I'd need anyway on the trip...
"TO BOP JEHOSHAPHAT!"

As I am wont  to do, on hearing any good news. I broke into
verse----

"Well, boil my billy
    We  found my Tilley...
My real Australian Outback
     Tilley...

Vented, for comfort in heat
   This hat is so clever...
And pundits say:
    "It will last forever!"

They are made "north-of-the-
     border..."
("O Canada... we lift our hearts
      to thee...")
But you can buy 'em anywhere....
     Don't have to order...

O gollie...O gillie
    We found my Tilley...
O mellie...O millie
    We found my Tilley...

O boil my billy
    We found my Tilley,
My Real Aussie Outback
         TILLEY!

SO LONG THERE MATES!

I'M HEADED OUT...
     ****************
  BY MIL
  4/26/16










Monday, April 25, 2016

"WHERE'S THAT GINGKO BILOBA? I THINK I LEFT IT...... AT WHOLE FOODS!"


There was a great spoof-song circulating about five years 
ago--- to the tune of "Memories".  It was sung by a talented
soprano and was all about her worries about her possible
MEMORY LOSS.
---------------------
WHERE IS MY HEARING AID?
****************************
I got my hearing aids January of 2010...partly to satisfy a
good many jealous friends who had already laid out their 
$3500 bucks and couldn't stand my reluctance to admit I
couldn't hear.

They worked fine, I guess, for about five years and then it
was visit, visit, visit, for service and new plastic tubes
installed.

I reckon there have been fifteen or more visits and it was
once an eighteen mile round trip and a long walk, all the 
way down on Carlisle.

Almost got to where we'd just throw in our sleeping bags
and Coleman stove and make a two-day journey out of it,
figuratively speaking.

Ah, but in January of this year we discovered a "sister"
branch office of "my" hearing aid company---a mere two
miles from our domicile...with a CHICO'S on the corner
and a WHOLE FOODS around the corner....also with a
coffee urn always full of cold coffee...and a neat popcorn
machine...that didn't work.

We changed to this branch and our first and second visits
just happened to be during blizzards...and we joked about 
it with the nice receptionist...who reads books.

(I never visited CHICO'S as it is a women's store and I've
never had any inclination to change over, as the popular
custom seems to be for a bored decadent society.) But BE
likes to walk down there while I am getting my hearing aids
serviced.

Anyway, last Monday night both of my aids just quit (very
unusual) right during a favorite show. Tuesday my specialist
worked me in at 12:50 p.m. and fixed 'em both.

Tuesday night, during another show, the right one died
again. I said: "I've had it. Not going back for awhile. I'll just
get by on the left one for awhile."

So we went along for several days and BE started whispering
again and she got frustrated, blaming it on my aids situation,
and so on Friday last, after a visit with a friend, she just dropped
by the Aid Co. and caught the tech between clients...and he 
put a new tube on that sucker. TA-DUM!!

I was sitting at home reading and when she came in, she said in the
CUTEST, most-musical voice: "I got your hearing aid FIXED! On
a Friday at 4 p.m.! Can you believe it!?  And I even had time 
to pick up some groceries at Whole Foods!" 

You won't believe this but I could already feel that comforting 
feeling in my ear again...for you see my aids were fitted with
molds that fitted perfectly into my ears.

BE then said "I'll get it. It's in my purse in the little plastic case."

So after a while (purse-searching can be slow), she said: "Well,
it's NOT HERE!  I MUST HAVE LEFT IT....AT WHOLE FOODS!"

She emptied her purse.  She searched the car twice but nada. She
called WHOLE FOODS, and they were nice...but no luck. She
drove over there and walked the front, talked to cashiers, but...
nothing.

I strangely felt "naus-naus," really---it was the old "EMPTY-EAR
SYNDROME" and the reality that I would likely never see my
beloved PESKY hearing aid ever again...and I would have to run
the TV at 22 rather than 14, forevermore.

Or part with $3500-$6500.

Those awful words kept ringing in my ear, like in the song: "I
THINK I LEFT IT...AT WHOLE FOODS."

Here was this wonderful, helpful woman, one-in-a-million and
she felt bad. I felt for her. I could buy several pair of new aids 
@ $3500 a pair...but  never find a wife like her.

Whole Foods Customer Service called not too long later: "Your
hearing aid has been turned in. We'll hold it here."

She  thinks it fell out of her purse into the shopping cart, when
"rummaging for her credit card."

So all's well here for awhile until they quit again.

A bit of advice: "DON'T BUY YOURS, UNTIL YOU REALLY
NEED 'EM...YA HEAR!?"

MIL
4/25/16


"Memory", sung by Pam Peterson
**************

Saturday, April 23, 2016

I NEVER MET A CAMEL I DIDN'T LIKE


(in fact, I never met a camel at all....except in print, and I liked them....
I think)

About two years ago I read Helen Thayer's absorbing,
captivating, and informative book "ACROSS THE GOBI,"
which was the story of her and her husband Bill's trek of
1600 miles across the dry, forbidding, dangerous GOBI
DESERT.

Some would say the odds were stacked against them,
for Helen was 63 and Bill was 74...and their trek was
in mid-summer.

One reviewer said: This nail-biting adventure reads like 
a harrowing travelogue."

Not all was sweetness and light in this risky journey---
they were arrested for straying across borders...and
then about the worst thing happened.

They had rented two recalcitrant camels from a native
Mongolian @ $1500 each, per journey. These critters
they named "Tom" and "Jerry."

These animals could carry a great deal of weight long
distances.  The worst thing was---Tom in a pique of some
kind (camels are temperamental) stumbled accidentally
(or intentionally) and dumped a number of water casks,
amounting to maybe 300 gallons, into the thirsty sand.

They survived this, on meeting some helpful Mongolians
who knew of a water hole, nearby.

There were other vicissitudes and episodes of camels'
spitting their green vomit cuds at our author or husband,
when things were iffy with the touchy animals.

After the GOBI Trek was successfully completed and the 
camels returned to their owners, Helen and hubby 
recuperated in the USA and four years afterwards went back 
to Mongolia for a nostalgic visit and a sort of wrap-up
to their finished expedition.

When they visited Tom and Jerry's camel pasture, and upon  
seeing the Thayers, the two animals recognized and 
remembered them and came running across the pasture 
to nuzzle them, with their green cuds and all.
-----------
After I published a review of the Thayer book, a number of 
readers had not-too-kind comments to make about camels 
they had met...at State Fairs, carnivals, livestock shows, 
zoos, and even a couple readers had ridden them in Egypt!

They cited the animals' stubbornness, uncooperative attitudes,
their tendency to spit green on you if they were displeased, 
and their overall haughty attitudes.

One friend who had always wanted to visit Egypt didn't get
to go but liked camels. I had a special picture of one drawn
for her. I hope it's on her wall today!
---------------
My camel story is not over, for my wife/editor spotted a book
which would be easy for me to read on my iPad and she
bought it. There it languished for several months.

It was "TRACKS---A WOMAN'S SOLO TREK ACROSS 1700
MILES OF AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK," by Robyn Davidson.

Robyn begins her interesting tale as she moves from 
Sidney to Alice Springs (at circa age 25) to get a job,
purchase some camels, learn how to manage them, and
walk and ride them all the way to the west coast of 
AUSTRALIA.

She, in fact accomplishes this goal after two years of hard
work (with camel owners) and many long hard hours of 
effort in taking care of other folks' animals.

She made the trip with camels she had purchased and trained---
Dookie, Zeidel, Jeb, and Zeidel's little nursing camel, Goliath---
plus her faithful dog Diggity, who cuddled with her, keeping
her warm and feeling secure during the many cold desert 
nights.

Three of the things she hated most on her trip were creatures
that tended to bunk with her under her "swag" (bedroll) for
warmth at night--- eight-inch centipedes, scorpions, and one
particular poisonous snake--I've forgotten its name.  I believe
eight of the ten most poisonous snakes in the world are found
in Australia.

I'll have to admit that I learned much about camels from this
author and came to appreciate them even more--from her stories.

It is  surprising to read of several incidents in which
some of her creatures "lost their heads" and went berserk
and she had to clobber them with heavy-duty cudgels...and
then to make up as if nothing had happened...when the
offending animal came hanging around,  "sheepishly" and 
repentantly.

Here are some random quotes from Robyn, which show her
love for her animals----

"I will now, once and for all destroy some myths about these 
animals. They are the most intelligent creatures I know,
except for dogs.  And I would rank them on IQ roughly 
equivalent to eight-year-old children."

"They are affectionate, cheeky, playful with you; yes, witty,
self-possessed, patient, hard-working...and endearing,
interesting, and chummy."

"They are extremely bright and perceptive but difficult to 
train if handled badly. They can be quite dangerous and 
definitely recalcitrant."

"They are like great curious puppies...nor do they smell
except when they regurgitate slimy, STINKY all over you
in a fit of pique or fear. They are hearty, ethnocentric,
and CLEARLY BELIEVE THEY ARE GOD'S CHOSEN 
RACE,"

"But they are also COWARDS and their aristocratic 
demeanor hides derelict hearts."

"I was hooked." (Robyn)

This marvelous tribute--likely no finer in literature--from
a woman who fed, doctored and nursed, trained, tracked-
when-lost, disciplined, babied, loved, and lived with camels
as their devoted friend for a good many years...

I have come to admire and appreciate these animals,
seemingly especially created for the dry desert climes of the 
world, and want to know more about them.

Judging from what I've read from Thayer and Davidson,
the attitude of camels might be--"What you see---is what 
you get. Take it or leave it"

You will no go wrong in reading these two books.
-------------------
RE: the above camel picture:  My wife "BE" (Beloved Editor), 
heard me say one day, after reading the Thayer book, "I reckon
I might get myself a little statue of a camel for my writing area
"animal shelf."

Five minutes later she appeared with one I'd forgotten
about...an unlikely gift from our little son. It had been stored
in a corner somewhere.
-----------
It is said that there were once 10,000 feral camels roaming
free in the Aussie Outback.
*************
BY MIL
4/23/16















Thursday, April 21, 2016

CORNBREAD MUFFINS BY MIL



We have been busy lately and ran out of cornbread. Frozen, you know---
in bags...I made and we stored...

BE would stop off to get soup at Savory Fair, and pick up a couple of
Saran-wrapped corn breads @ .66 cents each...and one bite and the
sweet, crumbly slice would crumble into a dozen pieces...

Again this happened at Sprouts with two soups, corn chowder and cream
of broccoli. And Furr's Cafeteria was the worse of all. Crumbly...crumbly!

By today, I had had it. "Help me get the stuff ready for a double whammy---
I'm'a gonna bite the bullet and make a double recipe...of corn bread muffins
that John Wayne would have been proud of in TRUE GRIT," said I to BE.

That's what I done, using one cup of powdered milk to make do. You expert
wimmin' cooks know what I mean...

There is a down-side to my making my FAMOUS MUFFINS here in the
neighborhood, The smell wafts out over the breeze...and reaches every home,
many with nice-looking wimmin', and the next thing you know, they're lined
up at the front door, with butter, plates, thermoses of coffee, and some with
that great French jelly from Smith's.

What else can I do but invite them in...and they are raucous and love my muffins!

They about clean me out and then say: "Mil, let's talk about cooking...tell us your
secrets about cornbread!"

Then I have to say: "Girls, not today, I have to clean and oil my 870...remember 
that bar in the neighborhood th'other night...well it was me that scairt him away;
didja hear that shot (over his head, of course?")

Sometimes, it's not so bad...I get a hug now and then...and maybe someone
leaves me a jar of marmalade...and we have three or four muffins left...
************
MIL
4/16/16



Wednesday, April 6, 2016

OUR BLUE JAYS


the same two

quarreling blue jays

who ev'ry year

take their fusses

to the very tops

of our tall pines

for the whole world

to hear...

are back
---------
they must not

be married....

or

maybe they are

*************
MIL

3/29/16

SPRINGTIME ON THE FRIO DRAW



         Margaret Ruth Dougherty

SPRINGTIME ON THE FRIO DRAW
At the KD Ranch
Wylie R. Dougherty, guest writer

Spring began on the Frio when Crocuses, Tulips and other determined like minded flowers poked their heads through the late snow, generally after Easter.  Our Mother had a magnificent garden, both with vegetables and flowers.  As soon as the Farmer’s Almanac said so, Mama would get Daddy to plow the big garden with Doc and Glen, the big black and white work horses.  It was a great sight to see Daddy with the reins around his neck directing these big animals with clucks and whistles, dragging the old “Mold-board” breaking plow and getting the soil ready for the vegetables that would feed the Dougherty Clan for another year.

After Daddy did the plowing, we, the kids, had to bust up the clods that blocked the rows of seeds that would soon follow: beans, peas, onions, radishes, turnips, tomatoes, corn, spinach, potatoes, asparagus, along with stuff we never heard of, but learned to like, like kale, rutabaga, etc.  Watermelon, cantaloupe and musk melon hills were also planted. 

One year Mama asked Daddy to remove a big elm tree which threw a huge shadow over a patch of the garden, Daddy dispatched Noel and Wylie to do the deed.  After cutting the trunk and branches, we dug around the tree to try and cut the tap-root and drag the tree out.  Good plan, but execution wasn’t so good.  Noel brought our old International W-30 tractor, named Bouncing Betty, into the garden, hooked a chain around the stump and pulled—rather jerked,  (it’s best to keep a steady pull on chain because a jerk can snap the weakest link of the chain. ) This chain snapped and shrapnel flew, one link flew past Noel’s ear and ruined his new straw hat.  After that we found a cable and finished the job, a few more square feet of garden with no shadows to block out the sun.

On the east side of the house Mama had her pride and joy, her flower garden. She had Morning Glory vines, Irises, Tulips, Roses, Amaryllis, Baby’s Breath, Coxcomb, Dahlia, Delphinium, Lily, Sunflower, etc.  

Mama didn’t just garden flowers, each Sunday she would fill several vases with flowers which would grace the front of the Church.  That gave the family a great sense of pride of the pride she had in beautifying the Sunday service.

During the springtime, the prairie bloomed, with displays of sunflowers, statice, Jack-in-the-pulpit, even weeds like jimson weed and cocklebur had pretty flowers, and stuff that I can’t begin to name. Soon after Spring began, the Yucca (or Bear Grass, as our family knew it) and Tree cactus (cholla) would begin their contribution to the beauty of spring.  Mama’s philosophy regarding native flowers was simple, “If it’s outside the fence—it’s a wildflower, if it’s inside the fence--it’s a weed”. 

She developed a reputation of being the foremost flower gardener and flower arranger artist in Curry County.  Even to the point of being named the Horticulturist of the year, by the State of New Mexico.  

The prairie east of GranDougherty’s house would bloom with spring flowers every year and the cows in the East pasture would mow them a little at a time.  (If we had a wet spring, the gramma grass and buffalo grass in the flat prairies were spectacular, sometimes belly-deep on small cows.)

After a spring flood, when the Frio ran bank to bank, we had flowers galore with all the weeds that came from the last year’s seeds.  Our milk cows’ milk would taste “weedy” during this time, one of the few gripes of the Frio’s bounty.

Mama also loved trees, so we fenced in a little patch North of the draw, dug holes and planted trees, Russian Olives, apple, some nut trees which had to be watered by hand.  My job was to take a pickup, load a couple of open-top barrels with water and water these trees with hand- carried buckets of water.  There were only maybe 20-30 trees, but it was not rewarding work, but it made Mama happy, even though we never got to harvest a crop from any of the little orchard.


Nothing made Mama happier than bringing some of her flowers in to grace the family table and make the old house a happy place; we miss that influence in our lives.



Margaret Dougherty

For MIL'S Place 4/6/16
by Wylie Dougherty, CHS, class of '53