Stories: Tale Spinners #2011-28

These "Tale Spinner" episodes are brought to you courtesy of one of our Canadian friends, Jean Sansum. You can thank her by eMail at

Vol. XVII No. 28
July 9, 2011

IN THIS ISSUE

Dixie Augusteijn concludes her account of her early life on a farm
Hugh Doherty sends a haiku that his wife wrote before her death
Jean Sterling comments on items in last week´s issue
Anaise Bourbon writes about her visit to Egypt
Catherine Nesbitt sends an example of a senior moment
Pat Moore forwards some kitchen thoughts
Zvonko Springer´s story is about memory loss
Sites are suggested by Bruce Galway, Carol Hansen, Pat Moore, Tom Telfer, and Tom Williamson

Here is the conclusion of Dixie Augusteijn´s article comparing the "olden days" on the farm with modern living:

FARMHOUSE LIFE - WAS IT BETTER?

Tomatoes were the big canning operation, but we also had our own strawberries and raspberries, and black and red currants, which were preserved. For years we got cherries from a cousin who had a fruit farm where the town of Burlington now stands; these also were put into jars. We had our own grapevine, pear tree and sugar plums, and lived quite near the peach orchards. As if this was not enough, frequently we would go out picking wild berries, thimble berries, elderberries, and raspberries. These were sort of picnic expeditions, as we would take a lunch, and with the horse and buggy set out for a likely patch.

In this first house there was no basement, but in the pantry there was a lift-up door in the floor which let us down to the dirt floor, part of which had been covered with boards, and it was there that all the jars of tomatoes, fruits, pickles and jams were kept. As the foundation of the house was banked up for winter, things there were kept at quite an even cool temperature.

We had little variation in vegetables in the winter. We always had a large stone crock of home-made sauerkraut. In the root cellar at the barn there were turnips. In the garden each fall my dad dug a pit, lined with straw, and there were kept cabbages, carrots and apples. Covered over with more straw, a few boards and then manure, they kept well. Mother was afraid of canning peas or corn in case of botulism, so those were the only canned vegetables that ever came into the house.

Each fall my dad would make a trip with the wagon to an apple butter factory some miles to the north, and there our apples were transformed into several gallons of apple butter. If you have never had apple butter, with thick cream poured over it, you don´t know what you are missing. Then we would have pails of honey, and quite often a couple of large rounds of cheese to see us through the winter.

In the late fall my dad would always butcher a pig, and for days we feasted on fresh pork, while my mother got busy preparing the hams. She had her special mixture for rubbing into the meat, and they were kept on racks in a cool place. I don´t remember just how often this mixture was rubbed in, but after a certain time, the hams were considered ready for smoking.

Outside my dad had a large hollow tree trunk. An iron bar was stretched across the top, and the hams on cords hung down from this. Then a fire was lit below, and kept smouldering with either corn cobs or apple wood. The top was well covered to keep in the smoke. The hams were kept there for quite some time until considered sufficiently smoked, and when done were put into cloth bags, and again hung up until ready for use. The taste of those hams was unforgettable. I well remember a cousin from the city saying if anyone could incorporate that flavour into a chocolate bar he would make a fortune! (A strange combination of flavours!)

Meat was never a problem. Starting in the spring in our community there was what was called a beef ring consisting of several members. Each one, or couple, was supposed to give a young, healthy beef one week in the season. This was butchered, cut up into the same number of servings as members, and then people took turns collecting and delivering the meat. It was arranged in such a manner that you would have a different part of the animal each week. Weight was carefully kept. At the end of the season, if you had received more meat than the dressed weight of the animal contributed, you paid the difference, and if you received less, then you were paid the difference. Before refrigeration was common, it worked very well, and we were assured of excellent beef. In addition, of course, we had our own chickens and turkeys for special occasions.

Friday and Saturday were the big baking days for the week. A dozen loaves of bread, a chocolate layer cake - mother had tried other recipes on occasion, but always the boys wanted chocolate - cookies, muffins, scones and pies would complete the baking for the family and any people who might unexpectedly drop in, and of course were always asked to stay for a meal, or perhaps overnight. Does such hospitality still exist?

Sunday was really a day of rest. Cows had to be milked and animals fed, but my dad never did any field work. Saturday had been bath night and clean clothes had been laid out for the week, the bed linen had been changed, and the house given a good weekly cleaning, including scrubbing of kitchen and privy floors. Everything that could be done ahead of time was done, so that Sunday we could really relax. Church and Sunday school was as much of a social occasion as spiritual. We got to wear our Sunday clothes, had a chance to meet up with the neighbours, and perhaps invited any newcomers back for Sunday supper, although we often had our mother´s sister and family over for the afternoon and supper. My aunt would probably bring along some extra food to help out, so there was always plenty. In summer we often ate out on the lawn, and often made home-made ice cream as a special treat, especially if the strawberries were ripe.

Yes, those were other days. I suppose it is expected for older people to think times were better then. In fact, someone said that "Anyone who talks of the ´good old days´ has a faulty memory." But do we really, with all our modern conveniences, have it so much better? Everyone is in such a rush. The majority of people are not able to take Sunday off as a real day of relaxation and catching up with friendships. If they have a summer cottage, they spend Friday driving up through heavy traffic. When they get there they must tidy up the place. Come Sunday, they drive back again through heavy traffic. Is this our idea of relaxation?

People don´t drop in for a quick visit any more; they must be invited. An old friend used to say that her friends would drop in, acquaintances she must invite. So although we may have a large circle of acquaintances, are we losing friends in our everyday rush to get things done? I guess it boils down to what are our values in life. No, I wouldn´t want to have to scrub the floor on my hands and knees - although there was a satisfaction in seeing how clean it looked after - but I would like to have that community feeling back, with people free to drop in, to have time to sit out in the darkness of a summer evening, and hear nothing but the crickets, and perhaps the tiny triple hoot of a barn owl disturbing a stillness we seem to have lost.

Hugh Doherty, a long-time subscriber to The Tale Spinner, sends this

IN MEMORIAM

I´m sorry to report my wife, Jean Whitman, died Thursday morning after three months of treatment for lung and brain cancer. Afterwards, I found among her belongings a diary she had been keeping while in hospital. She loved composing haikus, and this one was in the diary:

See me as I was
Not as I am, dying.
We were all young once.

- Jean Whitman April 11/11

ED. NOTE: I know all my readers join me in expressing deep sympathy to Hugh in his sad loss.

CORRESPONDENCE

Jean Sterling comments on items in last week´s issue:

On Dixie Augusteijn´s 100th birthday: WOW! Good for her! She is an inspiring lady!

On things that will disappear in our lifetime:

The Post Office: The Post Office has certainly fallen on hard times.

The Newspaper: The younger generation simply doesn´t read the newspaper. They certainly don´t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. I read the newspaper from habit. Most of the time I have already read the national and world news on the internet. I do enjoy the crossword and suduku puzzles - doing a crossword puzzle on the internet just isn´t the same. Two of my three sons don´t subscribe to a newspaper.

The Land Line Telephone: I guess I worry about what I would do if a hurricane blew down the cell phone tower. I´m not a big fan of cell phones. I have one of those prepaid phones for when I drive up to Gainesville, which is in the middle of the state [Florida]. The biggest city I pass on the way to Gainesville is Palatka. Never heard of Palatka? That gives you some idea of its size. Most of the hundred miles is through pine forest and palmetto scrub, and pay phones have disappeared. Also a cell phone is great for picking up people at the airport.

Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator: Truer words were never spoken! Or, in this case, written.

Anaise Bourbon shares her impressions of an ancient country:

EGYPT

The first sight of Cairo from the air made me rub my eyes in disbelief. From out of the omni-dark, I saw it - an unknown galaxy vast beyond comprehension. Imagine seeing the city portrayed in "Blade Runner" from the air! There is no end to the lights, no matter which side you look out upon it: a glorious coruscation of light on the dark side of the moon.

I had been amply supplied with dire warnings of Egypt in the summer, of heat and illness, poverty, and how "unhygienic" it all was. I spent seven hours at Heathrow, where the air conditioning was broken, the garbage bins were overflowing, and the WIFI non-existent. I wondered how I was going to survive in the epic heat of Africa, when just moving my bags around a London airport sapped me so.

When I landed, I was full of trepidation: the horror stories of customs, the militaryesque dark glances at "Westerners," and the endless problems getting a visa.

I walked in and was directed to the visa desk. I paid $8, and a piece of paper was pasted into my passport; I picked up my luggage and that ... was that. Oh, except for the smile of welcome and the man who gave me my visa wishing me a happy Canada Day. No guns, no lines, and it must have taken all of five minutes.

There was still the outside heat to brace myself for. My two friends were waiting for me, and at first when I walked out of the airport I had thought perhaps I was still cool from the air-conditioning inside and the heat hadn´t hit yet. My friends had arranged a taxi (a Mad Max vehicle in which there was only half a seat belt and the driver tied my luggage to the top of the car, which made me nervous). But my friends told me not to worry - this driver had never lost anything yet.

So off we drove the 20 or so odd miles across Cairo up into the surrounding hills. "Drive" seems too inadequate a term. We seemed to constantly accelerate and jostle with a myriad of other desert racers and swerving motorbikes, all honking their horns sporadically, if only to say hello to people they knew, and weaving back and forth across the huge highway.

And it was beautiful and awesome (in the old sense of the word) even in the dark. The buildings were a falling-down conglomeration of what I call "Oriental-Colonial" (partly in mockery of the Victorians styles still added to the buildings like an ancient dead relative´s wallpaper showing through the new paint). I would be looking at the royal palms´ dark silhouettes along the road and suddenly the most ornate intricately decorated and blinding white mosque with a tall tower beside its dome would appear, lit from all sides, and forcing me to silence in admiration and amaze.

And then we crossed the Nile. Glittering in the dark, alive with dhows, the legendary Nile: mother of all rivers, the place of habitation and the birthplace of so much civilization and religions for thousands of years.

We arrived safe and sound at the apartment, which was a beautiful gold sandstone colour of most of the buildings here, except those faced with a turquoise-blue with gold trim, or blinding white. The apartment was bare, to be sure. There were cracks and water marks on the ceilings, but all things needed were there - water, electricity, WIFI, and wooden shutters open to admit the breeze blowing off the fields, which were now rising mist in the morning sun.

Of course we talked for a long time, as friends do. I was tired but they said, "Wait." Soon the sun rose, a perfect burnt-umber ball I could look straight at because of the protective mist. And then it started: the mellifluous sounds of thousands of minarets calling the faithful to prayer. Each one had a different voice singing, and because of the distance between them, there was a time lapse so it seemed they called to each other as well as to the the faithful. Not long after, a special bird started to sing. This bird has a special Arabic name as it always starts its song after the minarets finish theirs. I stood on the balcony with the warm breeze blowing, looking at the morning sun and all the trees, many covered with blooms of red, pink or yellow.

My bed is a mattress covered with exquisite cotton sheets. The morning breeze cooled me to sleep.

To be continued.

Catherine Nesbitt forwards this story about

A SENIOR MOMENT AT CHURCH

A preacher was explaining that he must move on to a larger congregation that could pay him more.

There was a hush within the congregation. No-one wanted him to leave.

Joe Smith, who owned several car dealerships in the city, stood up and proclaimed, "If the preacher stays, I will provide him with a new Cadillac every year, and his wife with a Honda mini-van to transport their children!" The congregation sighed in relief, and applauded.

Sam Brown, a successful entrepreneur and investor, stood and said, "If the preacher will stay on here, I´ll personally double his salary, and also establish a foundation to guarantee the college education of all his children!" More sighs and loud applause.

Joe Tavares stood up and said, "If the preacher stays I will provide him with all the wine he wants."

Sadie Jones, age 88, stood and announced with a smile, "If the preacher stays, I will give him all the sex he wants!"

There was total silence.

The preacher, blushing, asked her, "Mrs. Jones, whatever possessed you to say that?"

Sadie´s 90-year-old husband Jake was now trying to hide, holding his forehead with the palm of his hand and shaking his head from side to side, while his wife replied, "Well, I just asked my husband how we could help, and he said, ´Screw him!´"

These observations from Pat Moore express my opinions exactly:

KITCHEN THOUGHTS

A messy kitchen is a happy kitchen and my kitchen is delirious.

No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes.

A husband is someone who takes out the trash and gives the impression he just cleaned the whole house.

If we are what we eat, then I´m fast, cheap and easy.

A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator.

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.

A clean house is a sign of a misspent life.

Help keep the kitchen clean - eat out.

Housework done properly can kill you.

Countless number of people have eaten in this kitchen and gone on to lead normal lives.

My next house will have no kitchen - just vending machines.

The only reason I have a kitchen is because it came with the house when I bought it.

There are only three kinds of food - frozen, canned, and take-out!

Zvonko Springer sends this example of

SHORT-TERM MEMORY LOSS

An elderly man goes into a brothel and tells the madam he would like a young girl for the night. Surprised, she looks at the ancient man and asks how old he is.

"I´m 90 years old," he says.

"Ninety!" replies the woman. "Don´t you realize you´ve had it?"

"Oh, sorry," says the old man. "How much do I owe you?"