The Other Shoe Looms

One of my reverential uncles on my mother's side called yesterday to extend an invitation to The Old Goat, Tinker, and me to attend an inpromptu dinner party. The ostensible reason was that the other reverentiall uncle was in town for his high school class reunion. With the Simpson extravaganza last weekend and now this gathering of the Perrys, I am awash in family. I can't swing a cat without hitting somebody related to me. Not that I am complaining... too much. It is a natural consequence of moving home; family comes as part of the deal. Everybody is being exceedingly kind to me. They figure that I need a little adjustment time. That tells me that soon, the other shoe will drop. I will be sucked into family machinations and feuds. I will be expected to pick sides and circulate the latest intelligence on activities and attitudes. I dread that part. And, it is the primary reason that I am not taking the wheels off my Airstream or getting rid of the hitch on the truck. Never know when I might need to make a run for the coast or the mountains to escape a pot-luck or a fish-fry. For now, I am having a fine time and enjoying some terrific food. The wife of the younger of the reverential uncles prepared herb-roasted vegetables, layered salad, potato salad, grilled chicken. It was all delicious. I think she may have taught Paula Deen how to cook. I am willing to risk the slings and arrows of internecine familial warfare if I can continue to feast on such taste treats.

Special Offer

Here is a special offer to Welch Super Service readers. As you know, I am knee-deep in the IOW Project in which I am putting the Federalist Papers into everyday English. I have completed a number of them and would love to share them with you. But, only if you are interested. If you are, simply send me an email (Alabaaama@gmail.com) stating your interest and the email address to which you want the translated Papers to be directed. As I complete them, I will send them along to you for your reading pleasure. If you have comments, of course, I want to hear them.

Biophilians, Unite!

The famous biologist (and fellow Alabamian) Edward O. Wilson (here's a picture of him, friendly looking guy, huh?) has suggested that everyone is born with biophilia, a love a nature. Hank Thoreau and Johnny Muir, both heroes of mine, would expand that to every living thing and not limit
themselves strictly to humans. Hank would go one better by including rocks and such. He wonders if rocks have souls. I do not think that the genome project will uncover a nature gene in human DNA. I doubt if probes, physical or magnetic, will discover the “nature center” in human brains. More likely, biophilia is a reality because most of us want it to exist. I think, therefore, it is. Who among us does not think he/she has a special relationship with Nature? Further, every one of us has a place – a mountaintop, a stream side, a lake, a grove of trees – that reassures us of that fidelity.

What got me thinking about nature today was a story about the Gulf oil spill. Scientists are perplexed because they can’t find the oil. What? Can’t find millions of gallons of crude oil? I thought it was washing up on the beaches and ruining Louisiana, again. According to one story I listened to today on NPR, it could be that that the disaster about which all of us were assured had happened may not be as bad as we were lead to believe. It seems that maybe microbes are munching away on the oil and it is being broken down far faster than our dire predictions anticipated. I wonder if FEMA is funding the microbes?

Then, I was on my land, chopping down privet as fast as I can position the saw. I asked myself, is this the right thing to do, chop down these perfectly healthy trees? Think of the cleansing effect these trees have on the air. Think of global warming and how these trees help mitigate it. I actually stopped what I was doing to consider the point. What drives me to rid the land of privet is how the privet has acted so much like humans. Think of privet as the school-house bully. They refused to play nice with any of the other trees and bushes. Instead, privet wanted it all. To my way of thinking, what I am doing is dealing out some good old rural justice. If you can’t behave yourself, then you have to go.

But all of that is far-afield from biophilia. I am not sure I agree with Dr. Wilson. I think people think they love Nature when, in fact, they fear it. I am firmly in Thomas Hobbes’ camp when it comes identifying the driving force of human behavior. It sure isn’t love or charity or kindness. It is fear. Pure and simple. Imagine the terror of being dumped in the wilderness with your survival dependent upon your skills and luck. Most of us would wither at the thought. Or, on a less dramatic level, think about snakes. I used to walk cautiously on my land for fear that I might step on one of the nasty serpents. I don’t think about it much anymore but I still fear the things. I keep telling myself that the black-hearted devils serve some kind of purpose.

What I have discovered is that the more you live with Nature, the more it grows on you. I mean, you lose your fears and hesitations the more you are a part of it. Rather than there being an instinctual connection to Nature, I tend to think it is more acquired and learned. To appreciate Nature, you have to make your peace with her.

The Evolving Schedule

Slowly, imperceptive in the course of weeks and months, my life is evolving a discipline. It is unintentional but emits from a desire to matter. I suspect that deep down inside of me, and perhaps in every individual, there is a hope for limits and a desire for direction. Discipline is the key to both and stewardship of time is fundamental to discipline. None of us want the day to end without having accomplished something. An old friend of mine, Walt the Banker, advised me to ask myself if I had "earned my hundred dollars" on a daily basis. It was his way of keeping check on his level of effort.

Getting up early is a part of life in rural Alabama. As with Thomas Jefferson, I rise before the sun. The Old Goat and I have breakfast. I, then, head to my land to do battle with the privet. A few hours of genuine work and plenty of perspiration make a real difference on the property's livability.

When the body is exercised and the energy is depleted, I clean up and gather my notes, a few books, and computer and drive to Starbuck's in LaGrange. The coffee shop is my make-shift office. Settled with a medium cup of house coffee, black, I work on the translation of the Federalist Papers. It is still a hobby but yearns to be considered a mission. I tried not to set milestones but I expect myself to put one paper per day into regular English. Some days, it takes a couple of hours to work through a single article; on other days, it takes four or five hours. It all depends on the Paper's author. John Jay wrote in a stand-up style that is fairly easy to put into other words. Alexander Hamilton wrote beautifully and is a touch more challenging to rephrase. James Madison is down-right difficult. His ideas are ornately complex and convincingly elegant.

A paper translated, I head back to Welch. On the way home, I pick up items that might be necessary for dinner. Arriving home, there is usually time for a short nap before preparing supper that is now served at 6 pm.

The time after supper is devoted to reading. That usually lasts for a couple of hours until I begin dozing on the book.

The day is spent. Well, did you earn your hundred buck today? Yes, I did.

Lady Friend

The Old Goat has a lady friend. Imagine, an 85-year-old-man acting like a teenager. He visits her every afternoon. He used to visit her after dinner which is why he insisted that we dine at 4 pm. Well, Tinker and I double-teamed him to force a later hour for dinner. We now gather at 6 pm. So, from 3 pm until 5:30, he goes visiting. The lady is also in ther eighties.

I have no way of knowing how lonely The Old Goat's life must be. The Blessed Saint Rebecca was his world. When she died, unexpectedly, it is devastating. He floundered badly. But, as she used to say all the time, a man who can't take care of himself is worthless. So, Dad took care of himself. He still does. I know he must be lonely. And, I know that he must feel as if he is cheating on the Blessed Saint by seeing somebody else. He is, after all, a pretty devote guy.

Tinker and I are of different minds on this issue. I generally support him seeing this woman. Tinker thinks she is sissifying him. Making him act older and more feeble. I suspect that he is not acting feeble but is, in fact, feeble. My God, he is in his eighties. Nevertheless, we both accommodate his romance knowing that not much will come of it. If it gives The Old Goat and his lady friend pleasure, good for them. A little happiness is damn hard enough to come by in the world.

Big Weekend

The Simpson Reunion is now over. No arrests, no fights, no knifings. Yeah, I am just as surprised as you. I kept hoping for a cat-fight to break out but everybody was on their best behavior today. The Old Goat presided over the festivities with admirable sanguinity. His two sisters attended -- The Old Goat, Lola Bea, and Mattie Ruth are the only children left from John and Ola Mae, the founts of this brand of Simpsons. I did not know the overwhelming majority of the people but it did not seem to matter. Simpson women hug. So, I hugged a load of them, some more than once. (These women need to patent their hugs. It is far more than merely throwing their arms around you. No, they wrap you into themselves. Only an angel embracing you with its wings could replicate the experience. And, they smell fabulous and I have always been a sucker for a good smelling woman. In fact, the combination of incredible hugs, perfrumed skin, and a Southern accent is proven to be fatal. I had to remind myself several times that these were cousins.)

This has been, in fact, a big weekend for me. On Friday, I drove up to Atlanta to spend the night with some dear friends. We enjoyed a terrific dinner at a nice restaurant -- I had a wonderful tuna steak with a good wine -- then attended a Melissa Ethridge concert. Sad to say, I have never given Melissa Ethridge much thought. That is my loss because she put on a heck of a show. As interesting as the music was the audience. It was a lesbian happening. And they were in the mood for some hard-driving, mad lesbian music. We all got an earful. I walked away with a new-found regard for Ethridge. And, I made a mental note never to get into a fist fight with a lesbian unless I was looking to have my ass handed to me.

The weather continues to be hot and humid. No serious sign of ran for the next couple of days. We are certainly in the Dog Days. I will have to put a little water on the garden tomorrow. The tomatoes are in production overdrive. That means that tinker and I will be stewing and stocking them im the freezer this week. I am going to try my hand at pepper relish. We have more peppers than the Mexican Army could eat in a weekend. (I had better be careful; the US Justice Department could interpret that comment as ethic profiling.)

Reunion Fever

We are in serious countdown to that most dreaded event -- the Simpson family reunion. The one-day carnival is Sunday. It will feature one sideshow after another. The faces and names will whirl, the alibis and excuses will pile up hip-deep, and the lies and prevarications will fly like crows into a corn field. It is hard to imagine that we hold this extravagana without benefit of alcohol.

The Old Goat will be in his glory on Sunday. He has lived long enough to become the undisputed patriarch of the family. He is treated with considerable deference. I think he deserves it. He is, after all, the Simpson who "made" it. He got off the farm, out from under the share-cropping grind, by virtue of being drafted into the military during WWII. When he returned, he landed a steady job in the cotton mill. He married well, bought a solid house, raised two boys -- both of whom stayed out of jail -- and is now retired. He made it.

As prince of the Simpsons, The Old Goat is expected to provide a fair amount of the food for the cloud of locusts. Tinker and I discussed the preparations. We are doing a ham, some side dishes, and a dessert or two, all on Dad's behalf. I think he appreciates our meager efforts.

Naturally, the Simpsons would pick the hottest, most humid Sunday in the heart of the summer and in the Deep South on which to hold an outdoor spectacle. The mosquitoes are sharpening their beaks, the ticks are practicing close order drills, and the flies are forming up for a massive air strike. This is the jackpot. What bug could resist scantily-clad Simpson skanks, hordes of red-headed children running about in wild abandon, and mountains of fried food?

Considering that I have been absent for the last forty of these reunions, and since the family is large, it is a given that I will know practically nobody at the soiree. I have fifty-three first cousins, most of whom I would not know if they walked up and hit me with a stick. We Simpsons are a lusty and prolific lot. So eager are we to "go and multiply" that we have 15-year old mothers, 30-year-old grandmothers and 50-year-old great-grandfathers within the tribe. There are so many of us around here that it is highly likely that the Wal-Mart clerk, the fast-food server, and the guy who picked up your trash are all relatives.

I recently went to one of my uncle's for a cook-out. Got talking to a very nice looking women who appeared to be about my age. Come to find out, she is one of my first cousins. I suppose it is as Tinker one time commented, "Time to go to the reunion and pick up a date."

With all those Simpsons gathered in one place, if I were the police, I might show up with a list of unsolved crimes. Sunday could be their lucky day.