Learning from Young Dogs and Old Dogs

© Josh Young 2006

If sheer exuberance were enough to keep a body alive, the young dog had more than enough to go around, and the old dog could have gone on living indefinitely.

Our old Dalmatian, Kitty, was getting increasingly weak and frail, however, and no amount of cute antics or "come run with me" feints the young dog performed would turn back time.

Each morning Molly, the Jack Russell terrier pup, woke to the endless potential of a new day. She ran, she ate, she ran, she jumped, she ate, and she smelled everywhere to see what had crossed her territory overnight. Then it was back to her bowl for a little more food, maybe a quick drink, and another mad dash around the yard. By then, perhaps five minutes had elapsed.

Sometimes as I was doing my chores, I would see Molly run ahead of me to investigate a rabbit run or a dark dusty corner of the barn where a mouse might live. Then, when I turned around, I would see another little Jack Russell terrier, sitting impatiently, cocking her ears like the RCA dog and wagging her tail so fast she could cut grass with it. Only it was the same dog. How Molly could get from twenty feet in front of me, to suddenly be sitting just two feet behind me, is a mystery I'll never solve.

Either out of respect, or because Kitty just didn't register on Molly's radar until she moved, Molly paid little or no attention to Kitty until the old dog got up from her bed on the porch. But as soon as the Dalmatian rose stiffly on her shaky legs, Molly raced over to say hello.

Like an old woman who hobbled out to do her grocery shopping and found herself in the middle of a skateboard park, Kitty was always alarmed at Molly's frenetic approach. Molly is still no bigger than a good-sized house cat, so back then Kitty outweighed her by four or five times. But Molly jumped up, kissed, and pushed the old dog this way and that until Kitty barked, snarled, and enforced a little decorum. Then Molly, chastised but unbowed, led the way to Kitty's dish, racing back and forth like a child leading Grandma downstairs on Christmas morning.

I had to distract Molly for the five minutes it took Kitty to eat her morning food and medicine, or else the young dog would shove under the Dalmatian's legs and hog it all. When Kitty finished, she would have a careful roll on the grass, after which she got up slowly and went off to nap and bake her old bones in the strong morning sun. No amount of coaxing would induce Kitty to go even to the end of the driveway when Molly and I had our morning hunt and run.

It was not always that way.

When Kitty came to the farm as a young dog herself, she was beautiful, strong, and eager to please. Lacking the intelligence of some other breeds, Kitty would never go off on her own or think up games to keep herself occupied when nobody was around, the way a Jack Russell like Molly will. But whenever anybody took more than one step out of the path between the house and the car, Kitty would sense adventure, and she would leap to her feet and caper about and run to be the first in a race with the wind.

One such afternoon long ago Kitty went with me to the lake. We happened upon a sand bar that extended for about thirty yards with water uniformly up to her chest. Although she was never very fond of swimming, Kitty seemed exhilarated by the sensation of running against the resistance of the water, and she galloped in big circles on that submerged sandbar for almost half an hour, until I made the exhausted dog get out of the water and follow me home.

Many times, when I found my energy flagging at the end of long hikes through the woods, I would slip a rope through Kitty's collar and she would proudly tug me up the last big hill home. Then, when I would flop down in a chair to rest, Kitty would look disappointed, as if to say, "We're not going to quit so soon, are we?"

But eventually Kitty showed no disappointment at not going on walks anymore. Late each afternoon when the sun sank low over the west hill, Kitty seemed to feel her best and she rose and walked to the goldfish pond. Most days she just took a drink and had another roll in the lush grass nearby, but several times I saw her actually jump gingerly in and soak for a few minutes before slowly pulling herself out to then shake and roll.

Animal experts would tell me I am foolish, but I would like to think Kitty had dim memories of that day at the lake with me when she galloped with such abandon and caused the water to spray like cascading diamonds in the late afternoon sun.

When Kitty died we buried her high in the north pasture where we like to say you can see to forever. Molly and I sometimes hike there still, and I take a moment to remember walks with Kitty.

Old dog, sweet friend, your race is run.

--

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Summertime can't be easily measured

© Josh Young 2006

A small stream called Beaver River began in the oak woods just above the farm where I grew up. It flowed down over rocky boulders and then along our best blueberry pasture before finally ducking under an old stone bridge and disappearing back into the pine woods at the other end of our property.

We would cross Beaver River sometimes in our car, headed south, several miles from the farm, but that Beaver River seemed public and impersonal, with houses along its banks, and an official sign to name it, where it passed under the highway bridge.

I loved Beaver River where it was shallow enough to wade across with my pant legs pushed up, or where my brother had built a narrow foot bridge out of logs, which would make you slip and toss you in, if you were careless.

There was another, wide, wooden bridge on our property where the truck could cross, and where we could let our fishing lines float down to where the big trout hid. Sometimes, if the fish weren't biting, we could lie on our bellies and just peek through the cracks between the boards of that bridge to study all manner of aquatic life in the cold, clear stream.

July in New England is the season of blueberries, and as much as I loved fishing, it was impossible to ignore the bumper crops which grew wild all around us. In fact, if fields in that part of the country are not regularly brush hogged, they soon become choked with blueberry bushes and nearly useless to farmers. Such hardships are hard to imagine, but try.

First, in sunny, sandy places, came the tiny blue sugar berries, growing on plants scarcely six inches tall. Next there was a brief season of the mid-sized, knee high blueberry bushes which preferred shady places in the woods. Finally the tall, high bush blueberries ripened everywhere, some of them bending to touch the ground, they were so heavy with fruit.

July was also the month my father took off on vacation from his busy medical practice. For that entire month my father had the luxury of long hours working happily in his garden, uninterrupted evenings shared with family and friends, plus hot afternoons taking us on blueberry picking expeditions and little fishing trips in our old, 1940 Ford truck.

But first there was a brief fireworks display we all had to get through.

I'm not talking about the usual, Independence Day patriotic sparkle and boom fireworks displays. (We did those, too, but real fireworks we enjoyed.) What we dreaded was the loud noises when our cook, Fannie, would make her annual statement which always set my father off like a thunder rocket.

Even though my father had a marvelous disposition most of the time, like most people in high stress jobs, he would get a little cross leading up to his long awaited vacation. We would all walk around on egg shells for the first few days of July, trying not to be the one to cause his pressure valve to blow.

Fannie was an old New England Yankee who had raised nine children of her own before taking on helping with us five. She was built close to the ground on bowed legs which had weathered many storms. She was also full of her own peculiar wisdom, and she wasn't afraid of my dad.

Sometime on the 4th of July, when my father would least expect it, Fannie would waddle into our midst from the kitchen. She was usually lightly dusted with flour, smelling wonderfully of what she insisted on calling "huckleberry" pies, or perhaps freshly baked bread. She would briefly survey the scene, place her wrinkled hands on her hips, and announce, "Well, here it is, the 4th of July. Summer's almost over."

No matter how many times my father had heard Fannie say that before, it would always send him into a tirade.

"Fanny! I've only been on vacation four days! There are THIRTY-ONE DAYS in July! Then comes August AND three weeks of September! Summer is most definitely NOT over! Quit saying that!"

The rest of us would hunker down until the verbal storm was over, but Fannie would stand her ground, and barely sway.

"Well, I guy, you just wait until you're my age, and see what you think then," she'd say, disappearing back into the kitchen.

I'm now only fifty-six, about the age my father was when I remember him on our farm best. But time is a fleeting thing, and on the 4th of July this year I will remember and understand Fannie's conviction that summer is almost over.

But even in winter I can think back on those bright blue, fragrant early summer days, with tall white thunderheads billowing high on the horizon. I can see the rippling waters of Beaver River washing over my bare toes, and taste the sweetness of a handful of blueberries, still hot from the sun.

Summers are endless. Don't count the days, just enjoy them.

--

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Learning to speak the President's English

© Josh Young 2006

Even politicians who have strong philosophical disagreements with President Bush say he is a likable fellow. Lately he has been attempting to use his considerable charm to coax an immigration bill out of Congress.

One of the vexing questions which seems to get people from all points of view boiling mad is whether immigrants should be required to learn English. And one can't necessarily predict what a person's opinion will be, based on their ethnicity or attitudes toward immigration.

Press Secretary Tony ("what the President meant to say") Snow, summed up the Administration's position rather succinctly when he said, "assimilation includes understanding the laws and cultural pathways of the United States, gaining a mastery of the English language."

Later that same day the President told a group of Hispanic children, "You got to learn English." Then he graciously continued his remarks to them in Spanish.

That's the kind of likable fellow President Bush is. Maybe it comes from his roots in west Texas. He certainly didn't learn his aw shucks ways from his wealthy ancestors or Yale chums. "W" as they famously nicknamed him, often speaks of his fondness for his childhood friends.

"I like my buddies from west Texas," he said recently. "I liked them when I was young. I liked them then I was middle-age, I liked them before I was president, and I like them during president, and I like them after president."

I think I understand what he meant. I also think I understood him when he said, on a different subject, "I think it's really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to (pause) the beauty of playing baseball."

Cut the guy some slack. The president gets tired. Like when he was in Mississippi after the hurricanes and he said, "We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you."

Other times his little slips can be attributed to the stressful nature of the problems a president faces. Discussing prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Mr. Bush was doubtless preoccupied when he said, "It seemed to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth."

It must also be stressful when a former C student is asked about education. When asked about federal education requirements, Mr. Bush made clear, "We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives -- like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write."

Simple enough.

But not all problems are as simple as they seem. Last year the President declared, "We have enough coal to last for 250 years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge." As he said another time, on another subject, "Part of the facts is understanding we have a problem, and part of the facts is what you're going to do about it."

We who dabble in grammatical correctness must take comfort in knowing our president does not always say what he means, or else we would be more troubled by his words, "And so I'm for medical liability at the federal level."

I also gave him the benefit of the doubt when he stated, "It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way."

Sometimes master of the unintended understatement, Mr. Bush, when asked about Vice President Chaney's pre-war assertion the United States would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators, said, "I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome."

But our president does not let misstatements silence him. "I aim to be a competitive nation," he declared.

And even facing a hostile press he assured them, "We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make -- it would hope -- put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see."

"See, in my line of work," the President has explained, "you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

"You never know what your history is going to be until long after you're gone," he said with an inscrutable air.

And speaking of inscrutable, I saw where 100 Chinese officials in Beijing were tested on their English comprehension. The oral exam was conducted using one of the President's speeches.

That ought to strike fear into their hearts. And it will make some immigrants think twice about crossing the border, if they can't be affluent in English, too.

--

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Worse than losing your glasses in a haystack

© Josh Young 2006

The friend I'm about to write about here had never previously been a "dumpster diver," as she so prosaically puts it, so while she did give me permission to record her tale of woe, she did request I change her name to protect her ignorance, er, I mean innocence.

I considered (for about a nanosecond) cutting her some slack, and not even telling this story, but what fun would that be? Besides, my accounts of what happens when bad things happen to hapless good people (myself foremost among them) are among the most popular with my readers (perverse lot that you are).

So in coming up with a suitable pseudonym for my friend, I first considered "Lucy," for the patron saint of eyes, but I settled on "Toni," a feminized version of Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things and missing persons. The reasons, I believe, will soon become abundantly clear.

For while Toni is neither Catholic, nor a perfect saint, she is a faithful good friend, and the feat she pulled off in finding what she lost is nothing short of miraculous.

I first became aware I might have good material for a story when Toni, who is extremely time conscious and prompt, called me to say she would be late for our meeting.

"I'll tell you about it when I eventually get there," she half panted, half gasped. "Let's just say this has not been one of my better days," declared the mistress of understatement in distress.

When she did finally show up for our appointed rendezvous, I didn't want to ask if she had been in a food fight. I just distracted her with chitchat about the weather while casually looking for an opportunity to flick the blueberry muffin crumbs out of her hair. Her outfit, which I have no doubt looked like crisp tennis whites when she left home, was smudged like she had taken twenty toddlers on a tour of the chocolate factory. I wasn't going to embarrass her by telling her then, but let me state here publicly for the record, there was something sticky on the bottom of one shoe, so she was tracking several scraps of paper across the floor.

As luck would have it, I had a little moist towelette with me. Toni took it gratefully from me and ripped it out of the packet, diving into the tiny scrap of limp, lemon scented cloth like it was a hot shower and she was three days dirty.

Gradually I got the full story out of her.

"Do you remember the new glasses I got recently, after so many trips back and forth to the doctor?" she asked by way of introduction.

"You mean the $500 pair, with the fancy frames?" I wanted her to know that some men really do pay attention.

"Yes, and well, they are too expensive to risk breaking when I'm just working around the house, so when I'm home I usually wear my other old pair, with the funky frames. The good glasses stay on my bedside table, right above my bedroom wastebasket."

I could already see where this was heading, but I had no idea how far down that road Toni would go.

"Sometime during the night I must have accidentally knocked the glasses into the wastebasket, and then, without my glasses on, I didn't see them when I was racing around, gathering up trash to send off, before I went to work yesterday.

"I didn't find my new glasses before I left home, but I was in a hurry, so after tearing up half the house looking for them, I just grabbed my other pair of old glasses and headed out the door. Then yesterday, when I got home from work, I really scoured the house looking for them, but still without any luck.

"In the middle of the night I realized what must have happened. The trash man had come by then, but I knew he often picks up my stuff on his way home, at the end of his run, and he doesn't take everything to the landfill until the next day. I called him early this morning, and happily he hadn't dumped his truck yet."

I looked at Toni's disheveled appearance, and wondered what else would make her happy. Maybe cleaning out my chicken house would add to her sense of bliss.

"Arnie agreed to let me follow him out to the landfill, and he would dump everything out where I could go through it, looking for the bag with my glasses," Toni rolled her eyes at the memory of what she had just done.

"I told him I thought I could recognize my trash, because it was in black bags, and I had tied them with knots, not those twist tie thingies. Turns out almost nobody uses those twist tie thingies, and just about everybody's trash bags are black," Toni sighed a tired sigh.

"You should have seen me rooting through those bags, pitching them to the side, and digging through the next," she painted a vivid enough word picture to suit me. "Arnie even said he'd hire me, if I wanted a job," she couldn't help but laugh.

But Toni's pretty pair of bright gold glasses were perched on her nose as she said this, demonstrating her ultimate success as eloquently as the dirt and smudges testified to her ordeal.

Now we know why those bridge ladies wear their glasses on little chains around their necks.



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Think before you spell

© Josh Young 2006

I've always been fascinated by annual reports of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Much like many a NASCAR racing fan, I have a macabre obsession with not only the outcome, but with the carnage left along the way.

Understand, I never could have been a contender. I would have been one of the earliest casualties, spinning out from a panic attack, poor preparation, or just inferior equipment between my ears, where the rubber hits the road.

So it was with a mixture of excitement and horror I greeted the news the spelling bee finals would be broadcast on network television last week. In the end I could only watch little bits of the show, like a child glimpsing something scary through his fingers. When a competitor missed a word, I felt their pain, and I needed to look away, to spare them more embarrassment.

Those kids who reached the finals are true champions, and even the first one to go down was bright and disciplined beyond belief. But in the same way so called reality shows on television create heroes, victims and villains, the broadcast made it impossible to view the competition in a dispassionate way.

I was amused by the way parents were tagged with the same numbers their competing children wore. When a boy or girl missed a word, most wandered off looking a little stunned, like baby penguins seeking their parents amid a sea of giant adults. In that moment of confusion, I wondered if the numbers might not have helped some of those kids recognize their own mom or dad.

The words have become exponentially more difficult over the last ten or twenty years. Whereas once a winner ascended the throne by correctly spelling the word "therapy," this year's winner had to spell "ursprache," which I learned (and promptly forgot) means "a parent language, reconstructed from the evidence of later languages."

That caused me to review some of the other words spelled and misspelled in the final rounds.

There was "koine," from a dialect of ancient greek, which also has come to mean a lingua franca. You might think that is some kind of money, or an entree in a fancy restaurant, but it turns out it is a language everybody uses.

Yeah, right.

"Tmesis" is the separation of the parts of a compound word by one or more intervening words. That is some awesome thing, but not something I'm likely to use down at the Dairy Queen next Saturday night.

A "kanone" is an expert skier, but how many ski bunnies are aware of that fact?

"Tutoyer" is to address someone using the familiar pronoun, of which we have none in English, so how useful is that to you?

And I could go on.

The only word I recognized during the segments of the National Spelling Bee I watched was "Towhee," which I only knew because my mother is an avid bird watcher. I might have missed that word, too, because the guy who read off the words insisted on trying to make it sound like a bird call, instead of the more familiar "toehee" every ornithologist I've ever known says it. The kid who got it right only did so when he heard the definition was "imitative," as in "onomatopoetic," (which was, incidentally, a word which used to make frequent appearances in spelling bees when I was a kid).

But all this got me to thinking, as hard as these little geniuses work on learning how to spell words, how much better would it be if the words they concentrated on had more meaning in our lives? It might take a lot longer to disqualify contestants, without words like "poiesis" and "maieutic," but I'd like any excuse to get young people to study up on simple words with elegant or complex concepts, like "constitution" and "immigrant."

One of the words I most appreciated learning as a result of the National Spelling Bee this is "weltschmerz." That mouthful means "sadness over the evils of the world."

My chance to compete in a spelling bee has thankfully passed, but I'm going to work at being a better speller anyway. I'm going to start with some easy words, like "liberty," "peace," "justice," "tolerance," and the ever popular "freedom."

I'll work my way up to more difficult words from there.

--

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You should see the other guy

© Josh Young 2006

An attractive, vivacious woman strode up to me last weekend, while I was working my booth an an herb festival.

"I've just got to tell you," she pointed her finger at me with a wink for emphasis, "you look GREAT!"

I've always been told one mark of a true gentleman is the ability to gracefully receive a compliment. I took a clumsy step, however, as I rose to hear more of the nice things she might want to say about me, so as I recovered my balance, all I could muster was a stuttering, "Well, oops, duh, think, tank, tanks . . . Thank you!" I finally managed, attempting to give her my most winning smile.

She looked puzzled, then distressed, after which she corrected herself, saying, "Wait, no. You're not the one. You're not Jim, are you?"

Yet again, I'd been mistaken for Jim Long, my good friend and partner at Long Creek Herb Farm. Jim, who recently had a kidney transplant. So basically I'd been told that, for someone who had been through major surgery and weeks of hospitals, I.V. tubes, and bed pans clanging in the night, I looked GREAT.

The lady and I savored the remainder of our awkward moment together, staring down at our shoes.

"So, how do I look for someone who's NOT had an organ transplant recently," I prodded for any little residual praise she might muster.

"Uh, fine. You look good. Really."

So I took away the comfort that I look good. Not GREAT, mind you, but good. Good for someone who has not been recovering from a life threatening illness.

Actually, this was but the most recent of many amusing little moments which helped Jim, his family, and friends get through an ordeal. He laughed appreciatively when I told him the story.

Just a few months ago, Jim wrote in his column for The Herb Companion magazine how he, a lifelong gardener, might have to trade his love of learning to garden for learning how not to garden. Gracefully giving up the things we might no longer be able to do, was his theme.

An unlucky inheritance of polycistic kidney disease, a surprisingly common malady, was the cause. Without the donation of a compatible kidney, Jim knew he might have to endure years of dialysis while waiting for his name to come up on a waiting list. Some successful recipients had told Jim they waited up to six years for their kidneys.

Jim has no close relatives who could be candidates, so several of us who are his friends volunteered to be tested. (I joked that I hoped to be compatible, because if I could supply him with a kidney, I could dodge every check in restaurants and choose every movie, when we went out on the town together.)

But as it turned out, another good friend named Tger Stone was the right match of genetics and courage to get the job done. Jim went from expecting dialysis to begin about the first of the year, to having surgery in January, and now again being able to work hard in his beloved garden and beautiful yard. He recently published his 25th book.

Tger, I'm glad to report, is doing wonderfully well, too.

Along the way, I could do little to help, other than take on a few extra chores, log many miles of necessary driving, and come up with lame jokes to lighten the mood.

When Tger was trying to keep a stiff upper lip to cover his pain and discomfort after surgery, I suggested he was using the wrong approach.

"You have done an amazingly selfless thing," I reminded Tger. "Now you can milk it for all it is worth. "Don't say, 'Please pass the salt.' Say, 'I just donated a kidney, would you mind passing the salt?' and 'I sure hate waiting in these long lines at the Post Office since I donated my kidney.'"

Tger, who is too good to do either of those things, just laughed and frowned at me like I was trying to teach him to be naughty.

So the one really good thing I did was to drag out my driver's license and sign on the back where it says I want to be an organ donor. It's harder now Missouri uses a tough laminating process, so when I go back this month to renew my license I'll remember to sign for organ donation before they seal it up.

To reinforce this simple choice, sometimes I wear a button which reads, "Don't take your organs to heaven. Heaven knows they're needed here!"

I may not always look it, but I feel GREAT.

--

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My Ozarks Population Control

© Josh Young 2006

I'm not like Davy Crockett, or Daniel Boone, or whichever pioneer it was who moved whenever he caught sight of the smoke from a neighbor's chimney. But I do enjoy the relative solitude of living way out in the country, with some space between my neighbors and me.

There used to be about a mile between neighbors around here. Now, with new folks moving in, we are still all about a half mile apart. This usually bothers new people more than it bothers me. When I went over to get acquainted with some recent transplants, the wife was obsessing a little, like I did when I first moved here.

"Who owns that piece of land between your place and mine?" she fretted after we had gotten the obligatory pleasantries out of the way. (Only a mountain goat would feel at home on such a slope, and the current owners have no intention of selling, I assured her.)

We comforted each other with the news not much in the neighborhood seems to be for sale, and currently we have a nice bunch of neighbors. She went back to her cleaning, painting, and fixing up flower beds. I drove home feeling lucky I've got another set of nice neighbors who will take good care of their place.

I decided to wait until I know these new neighbors a little better before I teach them the methods I use when I don't want a property near me to sell. I worry if they didn't get to know me better first, they might think I'm a misanthrope. (And, to tell the truth, I couldn't remember if I had used any of these tactics on them when they were looking for land to buy.)

But not long after I got home, I saw a realtor's car pull up in my driveway. A woman in a stiff business suit got out. She was shepherding a bickering couple and their three hyperactive little wolf children. One of the brats grabbed my cat and tried to make her dunk for goldfish in the lily pond. Another tried to run down my dog with a remote control race car.

I could tell from the direction the realtor drove in from that they had been looking at the only other property for sale near me, and I decided instantly I do not want these people for neighbors.

I don't chew tobacco products, but I stuffed a wad of Kleenex into my lower lip and took a swig of cold coffee as I untucked my shirt and messed up my hair. Before I went to the door, I kicked off my shoes and socks. Then I felt ready to meet these people.

I had never seen the realtor before, although I did recognize the company car as one from the big outfit which has been trying to sell an acreage out by me for an inflated price. I doubt it will sell anytime soon, but I wasn't taking any chances.

The female realtor with her helmet of big hair greeted me warmly like we were old friends as I approached her idling SUV. I responded by spitting my cold coffee at one of her tires and howdied her back. It was hard to talk with the Kleenex in my mouth, but I pretended that was normal. She announced her clients were looking for land, and they had a few questions to ask. Just then her cellular phone went off, and she stepped away with the phone glued to her ear to take the call.

"You've got a right fine realtor lady, there," I complimented the obnoxious couple, who were already standing in one of my flower beds. "I never believed those charges against her, and I'm glad she's out on bail now."

Before the couple could ask me any questions about that comment, their realtor returned and mentioned how good the local schools are.

"Heckfire, yes!" I agreed heartily. "I shore don't know of none better." Noticing a swarm of seed ticks on the woman client's dress I pointed them out to her and watched as she danced around squealing.

"You'll like that place you're buying, 'cuz the ticks aren't so thick there, and they're big enough to see when you get to picking them. I'd bring Lester out to tell you how much he likes his school, but we have to keep him locked up in the attic when other young'uns stop by, or he tires himself out thumping on them. When Lester has been a' whuppin' other kids, he can't concentrate on his book learning."

At this, the couple grabbed their children away from my poor tortured pets and stuffed them back in the car. For good measure, I picked a bouquet of sneezeweed, and thrust it through the open car window as they demanded to be driven away.

"I shore look forward to havin' you'ns as neighbors!" I shouted at the people as they drove off. Then I went and sat on my porch with the dog and the cat to watch a quiet sunset.

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The Red Hats are coming!

© Josh Young 2006

A local chapter of the Red Hat Society has reservations to kick off this year's garden tour season at Long Creek Herb Farm. Red hats, for me, have become a harbinger of Spring here on the farm, just like returning swallows, seed ticks, and my first mess of peas.

The first time I encountered a whooping reconnaissance party from another chapter of the Red Hat Society, they were about as rowdy as a construction gang getting off work on a Friday. I could only stand there, held captive by their antics and banter. I felt lucky to escape alive.

I had heard of this strange female tribe, who describe their members as having achieved "a certain age," but prior to then I had never met any of them wearing full regalia. Purple dresses, trimmed with lace, wrapped in feather boas; the official uniform of the Red Hat Society would not be complete without a flamboyant, mismatched, scarlet chapeau.

One provisional member (I describe her thus because neither "immature" nor "juvenile" sufficiently sets her apart from full-fledged members of the group), had not yet reached the requisite age of fifty, so her costume was restricted to lavender duds topped off by a pink hat.

If you don't know what in the Sam Hill I am talking about, lookout Scout, because this mad hatters' party spreads faster than poison ivy. Since its founding, just before the New Millennium, and its first bit of national publicity, in the July 2000 issue of the magazine Romantic Homes, the Red Hat Society has grown to number thousands of chapters throughout North America. Most religions don't spread that fast. Christianity, of course, was hampered in the early years, by lions devouring the devoted.

Neither a religion (although its members are certainly zealous), nor an organization (some members, in fact, refer to it as a "disorganization"), the Red Hat Society grew out of a poem titled, "Warning," by Jenny Joseph. In it, the narrator threatens to "make up for the sobriety of my youth," by misbehaviors such as picking flowers out of other people's gardens and her threat to "run my stick along public railings." I believe there is something in there, too, about spitting through her teeth.

The celebrated miscreant promises to fritter her pension away on "brandy, summer gloves and satin sandals," instead of practical necessities like butter. (Do you get the idea this broad might be British?) Well, whatever the poet's nationality, she promises not to accept the little old lady's de rigueur purple uniform without topping it off with a mismatched red hat.

The Red Hat Society's founder, a California woman named Sue Ellen Cooper, so loved the silly sentiments, that on impulse one day she gave a friend the inspiring gift of an old red hat and a framed copy of the poem. The presents were so well received that she gave a similar gift to another friend, and then to still others.

At some point the friends decided to don their hats and dress their parts, and go out to tea in public. Hilarity ensued. The group soon swelled beyond the number which can comfortably sit around a tea table, hence the need for chapters. Now there is a website, online shopping (for guess what, and more), plus a huge annual convention (but don't try to book now, if you haven't already done so).

The society has no rules, no bylaws, and no officers. (Although I did find references online to titles such as Exalted Queen Mother, Princess Daughter, and Seargeant in Gloves.) The groups I have met seem exhilarated largely by the fact they can attend a gathering of women without any of them being elected to an office, appointed to head a committee, or designated to take minutes.

Women who, as everyone knows, have been the largely hidden forces running our schools, our churches, most of our charities, and our most effective civic organizations, (not to mention many thriving businesses), seem hugely liberated by the notion that once they turn fifty, they might simply hang out, goof off, and have fun.

I pondered for a minute if there was any potential in founding a similar society for men. But I dismissed the idea immediately. There already exists throughout North America a network of "Chat and Chew" chaps of that certain age, gathering for coffee every morning. They long ago mastered the art of wearing mismatched clothing, topped off by funny looking hats. They joke constantly. Most of them buy beer, if not brandy, on their way home, completely forgetting they are out of butter, and they refuse to be elected to anything. They may not snitch flowers or drag their canes along railings, but they cause an equal amount of amusing discord when together in public. Spitting they mastered long ago.

It is a good thing that these men have largely dispersed by noon, when the members of the Red Hat Society are convening. If the two groups ever got together, our society would descend into chaos.

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Communications with my mother

© Josh Young 2006

I just got an e-mail from my mother, who recently turned 90. She was checking dates for my upcoming visit, because she has a lot on her social calendar, and she didn't want to have to bump me.

Ten years ago my nephew went to get a cell phone for her because the family was a little worried about her living along and taking long walks where she might not be seen. The 20-something salesman asked how old she was, and when my nephew answered 80, the salestwerp said, "Oh, she's much too old for a cell phone, she'll never understand the technology."

My nephew laughed and said, "Well, she gets around on the Internet okay, so I guess if she can handle the computer, she can manage a cell phone!"

Smiling at these ultramodern communications I can exchange daily with my mother, I thought back a little wistfully to another mode of communication we shared years ago.

I could not have been more than five, because I was not reading for myself yet, and it seems to me I must have been actually just three or four, when Mother introduced me to a chipmunk pen pal. One day, right after lunch, my mother took me out behind her garden and showed me where she had buried a soup can under a small, flat rock along the garden wall.

"A little chipmunk spoke to me in the garden while I was weeding this morning," she explained. "He told me he has been watching you play. His name is Chippy, and he wants to know if you would like to be his pen pal."

As Mother explained to me what a pen pal is, I am sure my eyes must have been wide in wonderment and pride that I had been singled out by this special and talented little creature.

She told me to go take my nap, (as if I could sleep!), and suggested that I check the can later during the afternoon.

The moment the pendulum clock struck, announcing nap time was over, I ran out to my little subterranean mailbox and discovered a note. To the note was taped a shiny dime. My mother was again working in her garden, but obligingly stopped to read the letter to me.

Hello Joshua! the note began in that funny scrawl I instantly loved. I could see the note even had a few simple drawings, illustrating particular moments of Chippy's tale. He went on to tell me about how he had been lonely and looking for friends. One big boy had run down our road, turning occasional cartwheels, when Chippy noticed a shiny piece of metal fall out of his pocket. Chippy said he had picked up the strange thing in his teeth and run after the boy, but the boys legs were too long, and he was running too fast for the little chipmunk to catch up.

According to Chippy, I was the next obvious candidate to accept the lost and found dime, a gesture of friendship I was glad to offer my new chipmunk pen pal.

That season I remember we exchanged our adventures in notes, helped by my mother's willingness to read Chippy's letters to me, and to write down my dictations to Chippy. As I learned to write the alphabet, how to write my name and how to spell a few simple words myself, I favored Chippy with samples of my progress and original artwork masterpieces, as well.

I was frightened a couple of times when I saw the family cat, which I also loved, walking around with a dead chipmunk in its mouth. My mother would tell me Chippy was a clever little chipmunk, and much too smart to be eaten by the cat. Sure enough, soon thereafter a comforting note from Chippy would arrive, assuring me he was all right, and usually explaining how the hapless victim was the casualty of not listening to ones parents or not observing important safety rules. Chippy thus explained to me a little about death and the balance of nature, plus a big word called Destiny, which he said we might never fully understand. Those letters I exchanged with a chipmunk, fifty years ago, explored and sought to explain a world I am still discovering.

I'm glad my mother finds delight and magic in the computer age, no less than I found delight and magic in letters from a chipmunk hidden under a rock. Happy Mother's Day!

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My mom should have been a child psychologist

© Josh Young 2005

A house guest visiting our farm for the weekend found me crying uncontrollably.

Did I mention this happened fifty years ago? I was only about five at the time, which I think excuses my lack of self-control. Nowadays I might breakdown and blubber if I had a breakdown in Branson traffic, or if something I sold for two dollars at a yard sale turned up later as the big ticket item on Antiques Roadshow, but anymore it takes a lot to make this grown man cry.

But back then I was little and I was bawling my eyes out.

"What's wrong, Joshua?" Uncle Ralph asked desperately. Like most old bachelors, Ralph wasn't used to hearing kids cry, and the sound grated on him like when second gear won't happen. He was a rich old man, and probably would have been good for a twenty if I could have stopped crying on command, but I was inconsolable.

Gulping for air, my face sticky with tears, I unburdened my soul.

"Mother s-s-s-says I've been b-b-b-bad, and she wo-wo-wo-won't let me vacuum!" I couldn't elaborate further, because another wave of tears sloshed out of me, and I could only wail.

Ralph wandered off, in search of my mother. He found her on the porch, shelling peas. She was humming the little tune she sang to herself to drown us out when any of her children were merely crying to get attention. I've always hated hearing her whistle "I've Got the Bad Momma Blues."

"You are amazing, Barbara!" Ralph shook his head appreciatively. "Josh just told me he's being punished by NOT being allowed to vacuum. That means in a few minutes, when you tell him his punishment is over, he'll go back to vacuuming the living room for you and consider himself lucky."

"Shhhhh, keep your voice down," my mother cautioned Ralph. "The girls are in the other room playing "Laundry Maid" and Richard is on the roof cleaning the gutters. They might hear you."

"You mean you have all five of your children trained this way?" Ralph asked incredulously. "Haven't any of them caught on yet?"

"I think Elaine is beginning to suspect washing dishes doesn't really make her nails grow longer and more lovely, so I'm careful to always have her dry, anymore. But for the most part, yes, my children are fooled, er, raised to believe work is fun. There's a lot to be done around this place, and I can't do it all myself."

"What does George think of this?" Ralph asked, referring to my father.

"He leaves punishments to me, and he's delighted to have things running smoothly," my mother answered. "I don't have to remind him how much we are saving on household help!"

Shortly thereafter I was forgiven and the sound of the Hoover made further conversation difficult. Ralph watch me in awe as I scooted around with the vacuum, not doing a perfect job, but considerably reducing the amount of time my mother would have to spend completing the chore.

Later, with the laundry done, the gutters cleared and the breakfast dishes out of the way, our whole family went on a picnic. Ralph told that story to his friends back home for years.

Well, that's the way Ralph probably told it anyway. He did find me crying because I "couldn't" vacuum, and my mother did explain to him her philosophy of raising children by making chores fun and not letting us work to the point of drudgery or exhaustion when we were just learning any given task.

But we weren't so naive as to fall for that forever, and growing up I had a normal child's loathing of mowing the lawn, cleaning my room and weeding the garden. I think of my mother fondly, however, when I catch myself making a game out of running the vacuum like it is my invading army, capturing enemy troops which are dug into the carpet or hiding behind the couch. I'll sometimes pause when I'm washing dishes to see how large a soap bubble I can blow. And it really is fun to clean the sliding glass door until it resembles the invisible shield of Colgate Dental Cream with Gardol.

Thanks, Mom. You're kind of sneaky and underhanded sometimes, but I love you anyway.

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