Squeezing two holidays into one post

Spirea - mid-February - PL

                  Valentine’s and President’s Day. Thanks to Arkansas Living and Parade Magazine, this column was a snap to compose, er transcribe.

                *Women purchase 85 % of Valentine’s Day cards, says the Greeting Card Association.

                *Valentine’s Day is the second most popular holiday for sending cards. About one billion cards are exchanged each February 14.

                *Esther A. Howland—the “Mother of the Valentine,” popularized mass produced valentines in America in the 1840s.

                Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don’t Know Much about the American Presidents offered this trivia feature, “Take the Oath of Office Quiz” in Parade. Answers at the end of the column.

                1. In which city did the first inauguration take place? a. Richmond, VA; b. New York City; c. Philadelphia

                2. Which president gave the longest Inaugural Address? a. B. Clinton; b. G. Washington; c. Wm. Henry Harrison

                3. Who was the only president to take the oath of office from a woman? a. L. Johnson; b. R. Reagan; c. Geo. H. W. Bush

                4. African-American soldiers first marched in whose inauguration parade? a. A. Lincoln’s; b. U. S. Grant’s; c. T. Roosevelt’s

                5. Which chief justice administered the most presidential oaths? a. John Jay; b. John Marshall; c. Earl Warren

                6. Inauguration Day was officially changed from March 4 to January 20 thanks to the passage of the 20^th Amendment in 1933. Why? a. It often rained on March 4; b. Congress did not want the inauguration to fall during Lent; c. The transition period between the election and the inauguration of the president-elect was deemed too long.

                7. Which president tossed the Super Bowl coin the same day as his swearing-in? a. R. Nixon; b. G. Ford; c. R. Reagan

                8. Which president administered the oath of office to two of his successors? a. G. Washington; b. J. Q. Adams; c. Wm. H. Taft

                9. Who was sworn in on a Bible written in a modern foreign language? a. T. Jefferson; b. F. D. Roosevelt; c. J. F. Kennedy

10. Which president was given the oath of office by his own father? a. J. Q. Adams; b. C. Coolidge; c. Geo. W. Bush

Have you picked your answers? There may not be room for all the discussion Mr. Davis supplied. You can find the rest online.

1. b. NYC was the temporary capital of the US when Washington took the oath on April 30, 1789.

2. c. Harrison’s speech in 1841 was more than 8,000 words long & took nearly 2 hours to deliver.

                3. a. After JFK’s assassination, Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One by Sarah T. Hughes, a US district judge.

                4. a. At Lincoln’s 2^nd inauguration (1865), four companies of African-American troops, plus lodges of Masons and Odd Fellows joined the procession to the Capitol.

                5. b. Marshall administered the oath 9 times, from Jefferson’s first inauguration (1801) to Andrew Jackson’s second (1833).

                6. c. The old March 4 inaugural date had been selected when travel and communications were much slower and when the “lame duck” period for the outgoing president rarely caused problems.

                7. c. On Jan. 20, 1985, Reagan took the oath privately in the Entrance Hall at the White House, and later went to the Map Room to flip the coin on live television via satellite. (The 49ers won the toss, and the game.)

                8. c. Taft was appointed chief justice in 1921—eight years after his presidency--and administered the oath of office to both Coolidge (1925) and Hoover (1929).

                9. b. Roosevelt used an old family Bible written in Dutch at all four of his inaugurations.

                10. b. Coolidge was sworn in by his father, a justice of the peace, at the family homestead in rural Vermont on Aug. 3, 1923.

                Happy February Holidays.

The Stick Maker, Lynn Hoggard - part 2

  [Continuing the account of how Lynn Hoggard of Benton makes walking sticks out of wood he finds while walking.]

                The woods Hoggard uses are dogwood—it’s straighter and prettier, he says, and some of it has a pink tinge when finished—cherry, hickory and sassafras. “And I have one willow stick. Willow is hard to work; it’s brittle so it has to be straight to begin with.”

                One stick was made of a thick grapevine, another from ironwood and one from a bush called devil’s walking stick. “Oaks don’t work,” he continued. “You’d think they would, as hard as they are, but they don’t.”

                Hoggard gathered an assortment of tools and adapted them for his use. “I designed one knife from a wood chisel,” he said. “I needed a knife sturdy enough to take lots of pressure, to take off lots of wood, so I ground the chisel into a one-sided knife to remove the bark easier.”

                He reground two good steel-bladed pocketknives. “They keep a good edge, and the fine points I can use for tedious detail work.”

                Other implements were a wood rasp, which looks like a giant nail file, a rattail file and a smaller file for tiny lines. A roto-tool, or small electric drill, completes his collection.

                Also displayed were several smaller pieces of roots and joints, which will be used as finials for staffs or that will be plugged into sticks for handles. Three such pieces—an intricately carved bird, an Indian head and a roaring lion—are elegant in their craftsmanship.

                Hoggard remembers hearing that the ancient sculptors tried to cut away everything not necessary for their subjects to take shape. Picking up a long yellow staff with knots on it, he explained, “The horse’s head was here, but it was not brought out, so I began to cut away everything that didn’t help the figure emerge, and I think that’s what sculptors do.”

                After an article about Hoggard and his hobby appeared in the local paper several years ago, people would see him out walking and stop. “You’re the walking stick man, aren’t you? Have you found anything today?” they would ask. One man even called on the phone. He also made sticks and had a problem with one of them warping.

                The late Penn Tucker, revered former Benton band director, received a complimentary stick from Hoggard. Since Tucker raised beagles, the woodcarver worked a dog into the stick that he ultimately fitted with a beagle’s head.

                Patty Mask, disabled from an accident, also received one of Hoggard’s sticks. Since she liked dogs, too, he personalized the stick for her.

                I am also a recipient of my brother-in-law’s handiwork. When a ditch was dug across my yard to bury electric lines, a tulip poplar root was unearthed. He fashioned it into a hiking stick, which I take to Eureka Springs every time I go.

                As a former band teacher, Hoggard took untrained students and helped them become ensembles of musical beauty. As a woodcarver and craftsman, he turns natural materials into practical and beautiful works of art.

An Acrostic About Arkansas

A Paean to Arkansas

Beautiful’s an abstract word, though
Every writer uses it
At one time or another. What is beautiful in
Union County—pulsing rigs for oil and fertile fields––
The folks in Ozark’s hills, with their
Inviting fishing streams and forests might
Find flatlands ugly.
Undulating uplands call to many;
Land with only grass and cattle—beautiful to some.

Around our state—The Natural State
Replete with postcard scenes of mountains, lakes––are
Kensett, Jasper, Indian Bay, Hot Springs and
Appleton, Siloam, Eureka,
Natural Dam, Old Washington, Potato Hill,
Star City, Fayetteville, plus Welcome Home,
Adona, Marshall, Mena, Warren—all and more––
Soft spots in native hearts in Arkansas, the Beautiful.

c 2017 PL

Looks like I’ve been reading the wrong books

                All the angst a writer and reader doesn’t need this first month of the new year: Comes Huffington Post with a list of books written in the last five years that “you should add to the pile on your bedside table.” Though I read, albeit belatedly, the New York Times Book Reviews, thanks to my son Gordon, I’d heard about only one—Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Two folks I know have read it.

                No, my reading (I was a music major, remember) is not quite up to all modern—except for my own three books and those of my friends. I’m way behind on reading the classics.

                A year ago, during January, I read four of Virginia Wolff’s: Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and Jacob’s Room. In February, two more of hers: The Waves and Three Guineas. In April, I gave all those books to the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.

                In April, I read Ann Patchett’s Run, plus, Talya Boerner’s Gracie Lee book.

                May brought three Kindle book pleasures: Sharon Laborde’s A Year in the Heartland, Dan Krotz’s Semi Faithful: More Coffee with John Heartbreak, and Jane Hirshfield on Basho. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Renascence and Other Poems I read in one sitting. On the last day of the month, I began a book that grandson Billy had touted for years. I’d found a battered paperback somewhere of Watership Down and bought it. As my son says of some of the books he’s read, “This goes on my 10 Best Books Ever list.” This one goes on my list.

                In June, I read Margo Kaufman’s This Damn House, a gift from a sister. NOTE TO MYSELF: Read the other books she gave you.

                July brought a biggie birthday followed by a week-long sisters’ trip to mid-Tennessee. On the way home, I began––and finished––Carol Shield’s book of short stories, Dressing Up for the Carnival.

August’s reading included Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, May Sarton’s Coming into Eighty, b-f-f Dot Hatfield’s Did Anyone Read My Story?, Madelyn Young’s Views from an Empty Nest, Virginia Ironside’s No! I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club, Charlene Baumbich’s Dearest Dorothy, If Not Now, When? and Donald Hall’s Essays After Eighty.

Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Priya Parmar’s Vanessa and Her Sister (who was Virginia Woolf), Chelsea Handler’s Hello Vodka, It’s Me, Chelsea (ugh), and Jaquelyn Mitchard’s Christmas, Present were September’s readings.

A dual biography, Hemingway Vs. Fitzgerald by Scott Donaldson, and a memoir, Tarzan Wore Chaps by Woody Barlow, constituted October’s literary accomplishments.

Of the two pre-Christmas gifts of books, Georgianne Ensign’s Great Endings has been read, but B. L. Mulkey’s Hope Springs Eternal is only begun. I had to finish re-reading George Orwell’s 1984 first. Now that’s done, so I’ll pick up Barbara’s book.

Forget what others say you should read! Read what you want to. Or need to. I’m thinking of going back to all of Jane Austen’s titles. Then perhaps Joan Hess’ Maggody and Claire Malloy mystery series.

Happy reading this new year!

                 

Snow stories

Last week’s snowfalls, so massive or unusual that roads, schools and even governments were shut down, recalled several years ago when two others wrote their remembrances. Here is one from Pat who now lives in Durham. 

             “We have pictures of the snow of 1979 in Illinois. It was quite an experience.  I was teaching when the message came over the intercom that school would be closed, the buses were ready to run. 

           “Everyone left except a few teachers who felt like it was a holiday.  They took their lunches to the lounge, made fresh coffee, and enjoyed a leisurely lunch.  By the time they decided to leave, it was too late.  They were stuck there until the next morning.

            “Cook County had adequate snow removal for most occasions, but this was just too much--and it caused quite a scandal.  I was lucky. I got home in about two hours. I was driving a VW Beetle, which I loved, and while I could hardly see the road, I made it. 

            “Fred was driving a Ford sedan and got to Steger (about 7 miles from his school), but got stuck before he got home and had to walk to the house--he was as strong as a mule. I don't think very many men could have done that.

           “The next morning the wind had driven the snow almost to the top of door.  We lived across a city park, and there wasn't any shield to slow the snow.  I have pictures of that - makes us so happy that we're in the south!” (They lived in Bismarck AR when she told me this story.)

                Dot from Beebe had this memory: “In 1967 (I'd have to research to be sure but Steve was about 3rd grade) we lived in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City. One day in March the weathermen predicted ‘overnight snow flurries’.

           “No Doppler radar back then. About 1:30 in the afternoon it began to snow so hard the schools decided to send the children home. Mine all got home safely, we lived only a block from Steve's school and the girls rode the bus. I think I may have left work early but my trip home, one-mile-straight-shot, was uneventful. 

           “However, people got stuck downtown, on the freeway, wherever they were. The school buses got all the kids home safely, some of them hours before their parents made it.  I had a friend who taught 2nd grade. Her fourth grader in another school went home on the bus, down their unpaved country road.

          “By the time she got all her little ones at school taken care of, she could not get home, nor her husband, who worked at the air force base on the other side of the city.  So her little boy spent the night alone in the house. She told it in a calm matter-of-fact way, but I wonder how she was when it was happening.

           “I would have been a crazy person, probably dying in a snow bank somewhere trying to get home.

            It was a big event for us and spawned many jokes about 'snow flurries'.  I wondered if it made your almanac.” No, it didn’t, but perhaps it will in future editions.  

Thanks to Dot and Pat for these shivery stories.

Thoughts and sayings about January

                                                          Ice in front flowerbed last year

Now that the Christmas things are put away and the snow has come and gone, I’m ready for warmer weather—at least 50 degrees warmer, please, Mother Nature. Then I can get the front door painted, the back screen door re-screened, the frozen mums cut and composted and other cosmetic stuff around here, both inside and out.

Alas, I know it’s not to be, except for an occasional warm-up, and that the coldest part of winter is still ahead. In Edward F. Dolan’s The Old Farmer’s Almanac: Book of Weather Lore (purchased at the Higdon Ferry flea market some time back) I found these older sayings about months and their weather: predictions, both optimistic and pessimistic.

“January warm,
The Lord have mercy.”

“January wet,
No wine you get.” (grapes won’t produce?)

“If you see grass in January,
Lock your grain in your granary.”

If the following proverb/belief ever works out as true, credit goes to coincidence, Dolan says: “The date of the month on which the first snow falls gives the number of storms that the winter will bring.” Oh-my-goodness! If that be so, we’re looking at six more winter storms! Let’s hope . . . . [insert your own hope in this space.]

Contradictions in much weather lore makes for a fun read, but four other factors played a part in these adages about January weather: local weather, times of the month, religious hopes for what the weather on a feast day portended, and local interpretations of what was intended by certain wordings.

“March in Janiveer (January), 

Janiveer in March, I fear.”

“Remember on St. Vincent’s Day, (January 22)

If the sun his beams display, 

Be sure to mark the transient beam, 

Which through the casement sheds a gleam; 

For ‘tis a token bright and clear

Of prosperous weather all the year.”

“If St. Paul (St. Paul’s Day January 25) be fair and clear, 

It promises then a happy year; 

But if it chance to snow or rain,

There will be dear all sorts of grain; 

Or if the winds do blow aloft, 

Great stirs will vex the world full oft; 

And if dark clouds do muff the sky, 

The fowl and cattle oft will die.” 

According to the Trivia feature in one year’s Arkansas Living, celebrating the arrival of a new year dates back 4,000 years to ancient Babylon.

The first New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square took place in 1904 and included fireworks. In 1907, because of a ban on fireworks, a 700-pound iron and wood ball that was illuminated with 199 25-watt lightbulbs was lowered in the square at midnight, marking the beginning of a celebration that continues today, albeit with a different ball.

Other years’ trivia appropriate for the new year are, “There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter. One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogs.” –Hal Borland, and “What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.”—Vern McLellan. Another one makes me smile in sympathy: “I need my sleep. I need ‘bout eight hours a day, and about 10 at night.” –Comedian Bill Hicks. I’ll add, ‘especially during the winter.’

Finally, a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of Earth.”

Goodbye to 2016 and hello to 2017

Table laid for the new year: blue & silver. journal, newspaper and Orwell's 1984

  An early poem of mine is appropriate this week: Titled “Farewell,” it is a double-form piece, an Acrostic and a Farewell pattern. 

Galloping swiftly, as on fire;
Over minutes, hours and days, 
Obeying nature’s agenda,
Dashing through time down the
Backstretch of December, 
You daze us with speed – an
Entire year gone.

            Winter has definitely arrived, and for a few days, at least in central Arkansas--both in late December and early January, it was bitterly cold. At least for us in mid-country. I wore two layers of clothes (and socks) as well as a jacket. And that was inside! But during the Christmas weekend, it was more like spring or early summer.

            The week before Christmas, I put on my baking persona if not an apron. Mincemeat and pumpkin pies, and a recipe for Holly’s Cranberry Chocolate Cookie Bars I’d clipped earlier from an issue of The (Amity) Standard. Here it is, with my observations in parentheses.

COOKIE CRUST: 2 & ¼ c flour (before measuring, I aerated it with a big spoon rather than sifting it), ½ tsp cream of tartar, ½ tsp baking soda [regarding the use of cream of tartar, online sources said cream of tartar along with the soda provided the acid needed for leavening. One could substitute the same amount of baking powder as the two others combined.], 1/2 cup powdered sugar, ½ cup (white) sugar, 10 whole graham crackers (I used 9—an entire sleeve of cinnamon grahams), ½ tsp vanilla, ½ cup vegetable oil, 1 stick butter (I used margarine), 1 large egg.

             DIRECTIONS FOR CRUST: (It doesn’t say so, but I put the crackers in a gallon zip-lock bag, searched until I found a rolling pin, then crushed them.) Mix all dry ingredients well, add wet ingredients and mix very well. Press into greased (I used olive oil spray) 13 x 9- inch pan.

           TOPPINGS: 1 can cranberry sauce (I would suggest 2 cans of berried sauce, but I wouldn’t bother with “running them through a food processor until smooth.”), 1 cup chocolate chips, 1 Tbsp. shortening. Pour sauce over cookie crust and level out over all. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20 minutes (it took longer for my oven) until crust is done and cranberry sauce is a little bubbly. (Mine never bubbled.)

            While it’s baking, add chocolate chips, and shortening to(gether in a small bowl and microwave in short bursts until melted.) a heavy pot and melt over low-medium heat stirring constantly so as not to burn. Pour chocolate over cranberry sauce and cookie crust, cover and let set 4 hours or overnight. (I refrigerated mine, then later, cut into small bars; very good, but better with more cranberry sauce.)

            Since it’s too late for a New Year’s gathering, perhaps a Valentine’s party would be a good time to bake a batch of these.

 The two Couch-Paulus-Laster Christmases at Couchwood were fabulous, as usual.

Ready or not, it’s now 2017. May it bring you and yours more than just worry and wonder about our country and its direction.   

Daughter Annamarie's recycled pumpkins