Happy New Year

             New Year’s Day has always been my least favorite holiday.  It’s at the worst time of year, right in the dead of winter.  More importantly, it always marks the end of the long-awaited Christmas break.

     It must be the least-memorable holiday, too, as I can only vividly remember two New Year’s Days.  The earliest I can remember was in the mid-fifties when I was still in grade school.  I spent New Year’s Eve with my good buddy Jake. 

      We went to a card party with his parents at the Union school.  It was a fairly modern version of the one-room schools that dotted the landscape in the early 20^th Century.  The adults played either Pitch or Pinochle.  I think Jake and I were joined by one or two other kids.  I think we played Rook, but we might have played Pitch or Pinochle, too. 

     I was mildly disappointed because the parents of the girl I had a crush on were there, but not the girl.  We stayed until midnight when everybody greeted the New Year and headed home.  It must have been a bunch of Methodists because there was absolutely no alcohol at this New Year’s Eve party.

       On New Year’s Day, we visited Jake’s sister, brother-in-law, and family up north near the Washington County line.  It was shirtsleeve weather, probably in the sixties or seventies during the short afternoon with the sun always in a low early-evening position even at noon.  (That time of year always requires use of a sun visor in the car unless you are travelling due north.)

     They had a huge, high stack of bales that invited us to climb and run across the top, but alas, we were forbidden to crawl up that stack.  The reason given for the prohibition was for our own safety.  Kids have a way of knowing when they aren’t getting the truth.  I think the real reason was because Johnny didn’t want us knocking bales down and destroying his neat stack.  I don’t blame him.

      I remember a few New Year’s Eves at the farm, staying up till midnight to look out an upstairs window to the southwest to see small little glows on the horizon.  No, not Aurora Borealis, the Add-a-Man club shooting fireworks off Pikes Peak.

     Another memorable New Year’s really happened before the actual New Yer's Day.  I must have been a freshman in college.  Brother John had had a mishap with his old green Cadillac in Greeley.  We spent the day, maybe December 30, taking our lives in our hands by replacing the A-frame on the right front of the heavy old car.  It meant collapsing the ornery coil spring enough to get the damaged frame off and a used frame we got from somewhere back on.

      We were racing the sun on the short day, trying to get the machine on the road before dark because there would be no time to replace the damaged fender.  There would be only one headlight if we had to travel after dark.  With the help of a floor jack we borrowed from a neighbor, we managed to lower the body onto the a-frame assembly, using bars to line up the bolt holes.

       We got the job done, but not before dark.  We had the Cadillac follow closely the yellow ’57 Chev pickup.  Maybe the cops would miss the missing headlight.  It may be a figment of my imagination, but I seem to remember we did get stopped on Highway 34 east of Greeley.  If we did, the cop let us go on.  We got home safely.

      December 31 of that year, we spent in B Leach’s junkyard removing the right front fender of a Cadillac nearly the same style and color as John’s.  It didn’t even have to be painted to match his car.

     That evening, I took in the New Year’s celebration at the VFW in Hugo.  I over-imbibed.  We had hoped to finish the Cadillac repair in time to return to Greeley for winter quarter.  Between the ill effects of the celebration and the departure of Uncle Ricky and family, we didn’t get much done on New Year’s day. 

     It was left to Dad to finish the fender job during the first week of January.  We did at least get the car into the old school farm shop where Dad could work in some comfort with the wood-burning boiler blazing away.

      Since 1970, New Year’s has come to mean Japanese food.  The Goodwife would make a trip to Pacific Mercantile in downtown Denver to lay in supplies needed to prepare the feast.  New Year’s being a bigger holiday than Christmas in the Oriental culture, the store was always crowded to the gills.  I spent all my time trying to keep out of the way as the Goodwife shopped.

     The traditional New Year’s Day meal included rolled sushi, rice with three other ingredients, not two or four, exactly three, rolled up in a 8” X 11” sheet of sea weed (nori), then sliced into cute little rolls about an inch-and-a-half wide. 

      Our sushi rarely included raw fish, what most folks think sushi is.  It is hard to get fish fresh enough to eat raw in the great heartland of our continent.  Canned crab meat or canned shrimp can be substituted, but many of the sushi rolls are vegetarian, including cucumbers, pickled radish, ginger slices, burdock roots slice into strings, or my own very favorite, California-maki which includes slivers of avocado and mayonnaise in the rice.  (My mouth is watering at the thought.)

    Other menu items include sweet black beans, sliced cucumber and shrimp in rice vinegar, special potatoes boiled in soy sauce, maybe a grilled salmon, maybe teriyakied chicken or beef.  I must quit.  I’m getting hungry.

     In later years, when the girls grew up and left, we didn’t always have the feast on New Year’s Day.  We had to schedule when everybody could be there.  Some years, we have to pretend we are celebrating Chinese New Year’s, coming some weeks later than our Western New Year.

      We won’t be feasting this New Year’s Day.  We haven’t had time to get to Pacific Mercantile.  We won’t be going today.  It’s fifteen degrees, snow on the ground, crazy drivers on the road, and a trip down I-25 is not much fun in the best of weather.

   

Books I Have Read II

      The short days of the year have arrived.  Thanks to electric lights, a person can sit and read a book after it gets dark before 5 p.m.

      The most modern book I have read is Hidden figures.  I haven’t seen the movie, but I understand that the book and the film are pretty close.  Not only does the story give the black women their just desserts for their part in the World War II effort and the space race, it is a pleasant reminder for those of us for whom the story was current events and not history, of the good old days when things were simple (not). 

      You get a good look at the development of computers, tube machines that took up entire floors of a building, with coolers necessary to keep the thing from overheating, that began to replace the human computers, as they were called.  The ladies used adding machines at first, and were themselves the computers.

     The book reminds you of the shock Sputnik created in the USA, of the ramp up to try to catch up and surpass the Soviet Union in the space race.  You get a good review of all the astronauts culminating in the moonwalks.

   Of course, segregation plays a major role in the women’s stories.  What reader will not feel a sense of shame as the story of what the black women contributed to their country and how they were treated unfolds?

     The oldest book I have read recently is Chris Berg’s biography of Charles Lindbergh.  He must have been born under an influential star.  He remained  an icon in the public’s eye throughout his lifetime, though not always in a favorable light. 

      After his historic flight from New York to Paris, he went on to become an ambassador for aviation to the world.  His marriage and the kidnapping and murder of his oldest son drove him to try to avoid the limelight.    

      He fell into disfavor during World War II because he sang the praises of Nazi Germany as they advanced the cause of aviation beyond other nations during their buildup to the War.  He was not loved by the Roosevelt administration.

     He was shunned as an advisor to the Army Airforce, but he continued to function as a test pilot, actually flying into combat in the war in the Pacific, where he downed a Japanese pilot, an event that troubled him for the rest of his life.

      His career spanned the birth of aviation to the space age.  He was a farmer, an inventor, a scientist, and a traveler.  In his later years, he worried about the effects of modernity on the natural world.  He spent a lot of time in Africa and got involved in the attempt to protect threatened animals.  He was an interesting character.

     My favorite book in the past year was The Meadow by James Galvin.  The meadow referred to in the title is in the front range of mountains near the Colorado-Wyoming border. The “story” involves the folks who owned and resided in the meadow, a place nearly inaccessible during the winters.

     Galvin is a poet.  His first-person narrative chronicles the lives of basically three people who would probably be considered somewhat unremarkable except for Galvin’s tale.  One character grew up in the area and was one of the occupants of the meadow.  His father fell in love with the place during an overnight stay under unfortunate circumstances with his rather cruel father.  App purchased the meadow but lost it when his two wives fell ill and the medical expenses bankrupted him.

     He and his three boys had to leave.  They “homesteaded” a no-man’s land which neither Wyoming nor Colorado claimed.  One son returned to the area after a career as a plasterer in Denver and Laramie.  He worked for a water company that provided him a house and equipment necessary to keep an eye on the ditches and reservoir, even in winter. 

       An alcoholic, Ray froze to death while relieving himself during an attempt to find a refuge when caught out in a storm.

     The main character, Lyle, began his life near Flagler, Colorado where his parents homesteaded.  After his father abandoned the family, his mother moved them all to Boulder.  A thrifty woman, the family unit stuck together and saved enough money from their various occupations to buy the meadow at the beginning of the depression.  Due to their thrifty ways, they made it through the depression.

     Lyle never left the meadow, surviving his two older brothers who died in plane crashes, one in World War II, the other crop dusting in Texas, and his sister (suicide), and his mother.  Lyle was a genius who built his own forge.  He then made his own tools and could manufacture nearly anything he needed.

      He expanded the original log cabin, including running water with indoor plumbing.  He built his own barn with logs cut and fitted without power tools.  He built many structures for his neighbors.  He kept the meadow hayed and irrigated with ancient equipment.

      Lyle lasted longer than any other owner.  His lifelong habit of rolling his own cigarettes, and smoking them finally did him in.  Emphysema rendered him barely able to keep the fire burning and feed himself during his final winter in the meadow.  Lyle finally gave up and let his neighbors take him to the hospital in Laramie where he died.

     Lyle was the idealized westerner, an independent man who survived on his own without relying on anyone and on very few modern conveniences.

    It must be a great read.  I’ve read it three times, now.  Maybe it is the local color.

     Currently, I am reading The Girls of Atomic City.   I hope to be done in time to attend a discussion at the Verboten Brewery.  Sounds like my kind of book club.    

     

      

Train Wreck on a Silent Night

    We always rehearse at the church on Mondays, so once or twice a year we try to pay our rent by bestowing upon the congregation our tremendous talent.  (Ego knows no bounds.)

     It’s the third Sunday of Advent.  We have a crack arrangement of “Oh come Emanuel.” It begins with unison voices singing in Latin.  At the “rejoice” refrain, it splits into two-part open Chinese-type harmony, like you hear in a monastery.  The second and third verses are in English with minor and major harmonies.

     We kicked off the service (the Introit, maybe).  We did a fair job on the opener.  Then we sat through the service.  We sang again at the end of the service.  We were supposed to be the tail end of the communion accompaniment.  But communion was over when we got up to sing. 

     We launched into “Silent Night”, another neat arrangement with three verses, the first the standard harmony, the second with the lead soloing while the other three parts “ooh”, creating some non-traditional harmonies, followed by the third verse where the tenor and the lead play tag with the melody in an upper register.    

     To begin the second verse, the lead goes up one full step to begin his solo.   But “summat went amiss,” to quote a James Herriot character.  The lead didn’t step up.  We “oohers” couldn’t find anything that fit.  Ted stopped singing and said, “This isn’t working.” 

     We were marooned on an island of silence surrounded by a sea of embarrassment.  Ted apologized, first to the congregation.  He is a member of the church, known by many, the embarrassment that much worse.  Then he apologized to us, his quartet mates.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry guys.”

     He tried starting the second verse a couple of times, with no success.  “I’ve lost the key,” he said.  Dick pulled out his pitch pipe, said, “Here’s the starting key”, and blew a note.  Ted picked it up and launched into the second verse.  Gradually, all three of us latched onto the right slots for our “oohs” and on we went.

      Then came the third verse.  We were a full step below where we should have been because Dick started us on the stating key and we did not transition up a full step.  The result wasn’t as disastrous as it could have been.

     Actually, it worked out quite well for the tenor.  I was in easy range, no straining on the high notes.  Ted got the low notes.  It wasn’t quite as nice for the bass who had to reach a step lower than normal, but oh well.  I did rather quite well, too, if I say so myself (see the parenthetical in paragraph one).

      All’s well that ends well, they say.  When we were done, church was done.  The relief brought about by the end of the service greatly outweighed the embarrassment third parties always experience when performers struggle. 

     The three of us laughed it off.  Hey, things happen during live performances.  You pick yourself up and go on.  Ted insisted on apologizing to us privately afterwards.  He said what happened was that he skipped the second verse and went to the third verse.

      The experience surfaced in my consciousness now and again throughout the day.  In my usual slow way, toward evening, I came to a realization:  it wasn’t entirely Ted’s fault, though we were content to let him shoulder the burden.

     Somehow, it dawned on me that at the end of the first verse, one (or more) of us sang the ending that goes after the second verse, rather than the one that goes after the first verse.  Provided with that stimulus, Ted naturally began singing the third verse while the rest of us tried for the second verse.  The train derailed. 

     Who engineered the derailment?  Was it me?  It doesn’t matter, I guess.  After all, when the train crashes, it matters little who was driving.  Everyone on board crashes.

      This train wrecked on a silent night.  With God and everybody watching.  There were no casualties.  Long live live music.      

      

Home Improvement

     The financial news folks say GE is in trouble.  I can see why.  The wind machines that dominate the landscape around the farm are GE.  Two wind machines in the farm’s back yard have had major repairs.  One had to have a complete new wheel and a top tower section replaced when a blade broke off and whacked the tower a denting blow.

      Another had to have a blade replaced in the first month or two of operation.  The neighbor always said the GE machines were built in China.  They definitely have a quality problem.

     About four years ago, I put in a GE dishwasher at the farm.  If you wanted the dishes to come out of the dishwasher clean, then you must put them in the dishwasher clean.  They came out pretty much the same as they were put in.  When it was newly installed, it went through the main wash cycle without any water in the tub.

     Even after the no-water problem was solved, it still didn’t clean the dishes.  When I replaced the kitchen floor, I had to remove the dishwasher.  The GE need not apply for reinstallation.  It went to market.  I finally gave it away to an appliance repairman who said he could use it for parts.  He wasn’t interested in trying to make it work.  I have been washing dishes by hand since the floor project began.

      The floor job completed, I checked into the local Craigslist to find a used dishwasher.  I found a KitchenAid reasonably priced.  The seller helped me load it onto the pickup.  My job, to get it unloaded and installed.

     A couple of sixteen-foot planks came in handy.

     Getting the dishwasher from the pickup to the house was fairly easy, especially with the furniture gliders under it.  The time-consuming problem was rerouting the 220V outlet that supplies power to the stove.  The outlet found a home tucked in the back left corner of the dishwasher housing, beneath the stovetop.

     It took three tries to get the dishwasher into its slot.  Hoses and wires kept getting caught under the motor, the wheels, or some such thing.  The only thing left to do to finish the installation is fastening the kick plate in place.  It didn’t come with the screws, and I have no idea what size screws are required.

      The dishwasher worked fairly well.  Dishpan hands may once again fade into the past.

     On a related note, I took on a concrete problem.

      The big chunk of concrete that serves as the approach to the front door step has sagged about two inches.  The downspout was discharging its contents into the area just off the cement.  It didn’t flow away from the house.  A puddle always formed in the area beside the sidewalk, next to the house and the air-conditioner pad.  The previous owner must have wanted to save some of the runoff from the roof.  The water ran into that area.  I directed the downspout into a pipe that must lead to the storm sewer system.  Since then, we haven’t had the puddling problem.

     I still wanted to raise the slab back up to its rightful place.  It would help with a “trip hazard”.  The slab has teeter-tottered, raising the opposite edge above its neighboring sidewalk sections.

      Like most jobs, getting things ready took more time than the actual job.  The rocks and the plastic plant barrier had to be removed so I could dig a hole deep enough to get the jack under the slab.

       I jacked it up into place, then started tamping dirt under the slab to try to get it to stay in place.  It went up and down several times before it finally stabilized.  I jacked it up, packed dirt under it, and let it down.  The first few times, it did sink.  Eventually, it did stay in place.

  I let it stand for a couple of days and elevated it one more time, again packing dirt under it.  It has stayed in place for a week or two now. 

     Next on the agenda is raising a couple of sidewalk segments to try to ameliorate further the trip hazard.   It’s also hard on the snow shoveler to be gliding along and hit the raised cement with the shovel.  Everyone should have such perplexing problems.   

October 2017

      Having been back from the Japan trip for a few days, I decided that jet lag was no longer an excuse for inactivity.  Time to rearrange the tractor stable, the red barn.

      Unlike barns of old, this cleanup didn’t require a scoop shovel.  It required a “tugboat”.

 

      The 2N Ford tractor answered the call.  Two of the old fellers left the barn under their own power.  Two needed help.

 

       The lineup:  R, 820, 830 (all diesels), and G (gas, and left outside due to being saddled with the Farmhand).  The left front tire of the R would not hold air, so the 820 was forced to lend a hand, or a foot, or whatever, to get the R mobile.

      The Ford had no trouble emptying the shed.  A chain running through a pipe served to pull the R and the D from their stalls.  Pulling worked well.  When it came time to push, however, it got a little more complicated.   A piece of angle iron got pressed into service, and the D went gently into its new stall.

    The R was a bit more difficult.  It was “never broke to lead”.  A longer chain came into play in order to keep the Ford out of the way when the R decided to coast during the maneuver to get it turned around and headed back into the barn.

       Once in the barn, I could shorten up the chain.  I had to switch from pulling to pushing for the last move.  The Ford wasn’t up to the task.  The wheels would spin in the loose dirt of the barn floor, the Ford rear end would shift left or right, the angle iron would pivot and fold back parallel to the R front axle, and the R would not move. 

     After a few attempts, the sun sank slowly in the west, and my energy ebbed with the sunset.  Several trips from Ford to R to turn the steering wheel this way or that way took their toll.  Maybe jet lag?  The project had to be put off until the next day.

      Ultimately, the 830 was pressed into service.  The 820 would have been easier to use, easier to see and to get off and on rather than up and into with the 830’s cab.  But the 820 was missing its left front wheel. 

      The three feet of angle iron didn’t allow much for safely stopping if something went amiss with the pushing operation.  On the other hand, the front end of the 830 wasn’t nearly as easily brushed aside, as had been the Ford’s rear-end.  Once lined up with the R, the 830 easily shoved it back into place.  It took two or three hitches, realigning a couple of times, but it happened without incident.

      Some work remained to do.  Put the combine header back in, putting the wheel back on the 820 and getting it back in the barn, finally putting the 830 in and draining the water out of it.  It all got done.

      When we left for Japan, the MET tower (http://50farm.blogspot.com/2017/09/things-going-down-lots-of-thingswent.html) in the middle of the field was gone, but not the concrete base.  I didn’t want to press the issue until the millet was picked up.  I had made one unanswered call and left a voice may message, but I never got a reply.  I put it off.

     I was all set to engage the wind energy company in that battle.  I went out to case the place and see what it would take to get rid of the concrete, or at least get it down below the surface far enough to be able to farm over it. 

     

    

      It wasn’t there!  Some good shoemaker’s elves had been there and done the work for me while I slept.                                                                                                                                                          

     A week or two later, I got a notice from Verizon that I had a new voice message.  When I accessed my voice mail, I had nine new messages, two of which were from the wind energy boys.                                                                                  

     The phone was shut off during the time we were in Japan.  When I reactivated it, it forgot to mention that I had a bunch of missed calls and several voice messages.  Thanks to good ol’ Verizon for updating me with a new and improved mailbox.  (Every voice message takes an additional thirty seconds to listen to now, as the mechanical voice tells me the number or name of the person the message came from, the day, the hour, and the message duration.)

      One of the messages informed me that the wind energy company had hired another contractor to come in with a backhoe or some other such tracked earthmover to get the concrete out of there.  I called the guy in charge. 

    He wasn’t happy with the first two guys who felled the tower.  They were supposed to do the entire job, he said.  He said they did a lousy job.  I said they really did a good job, destroying very little of the crop in removing the tower and its appurtenances.  He insisted they were hired to do the whole job.  I pointed out that they really weren’t equipped to handle the bigger chunk of concrete.  I didn’t change his mind.  I thanked him for getting the job done.

     The contractor did manage to do it when it was muddy, but I didn’t complain.  As long as I don’t snag on a big chunk of concrete with a chisel or disk, I will be happy.  No more guy wires to dodge.  No loose cables to avoid.  The bat-chirping trailer also disappeared.  From six objects to avoid, I’m down to one, the wind tower itself. 

           

Veterans’ Day

 Photo by Jimmy

      “The Denver guys [barbershop chorus] used to meet at our church on Colorado Boulevard in south Denver.”

     “A Methodist Church?  On Colorado Boulevard?”

     “Yes.  My husband was pastor there.  We were there twelve years.”

     “I got married in that church.”

      “Really?”  Did my husband marry you?”

      “Maybe.  What was his name?”

     “McConnell.”

      “That sounds right.  We got married in 1970.”

      “Oh, then it wasn’t my husband.  We were there from 1973 to 1985.  But the man who preceded us was also named McConnell, Calvin McConnell.”

     “Yeah, that was him.  I remember now.”

     “There were consecutive preachers named McConnell at that church.”

     We were visiting in a great room in the Worthington, a retirement home in Ft. Collins.  We had just finished the first of four Veterans’ Day shows.  We agreed it was a small world, and I moved on to visit with another resident, as is our wont when we sing at retirement centers.

     The second lady looked very Japanese, but I can never trust my instincts on such things, so I refrained from trying konichi wah on her.  Instead, I asked where she was from.  At first, she said she was from California.  Hearing her speak English, I was pretty sure she was Japanese.

      I proceeded cautiously.  “Were you always in California?”

      “No, originally, I was from Hiroshima, Japan.”  Aha!  I thought so.

     “Do you speak Japanese?”

     “One hundred percent!” she said.  “Do you speak Japanese?” she asked me.  I held my thumb and forefinger about an eighth of an inch apart in reply.

     “Just like my son,” she said.  I got her name and phone number to give to the Goodwife who is always looking for someone to talk Japanese to.  We had a request to sing “Lida Rose” to another lady who said she could sing the descant to that song, so I moved on.  The story stops there for now, but I expect further developments.

       “Hiroshima?” asked the Goodwife. Yes, Hiroshima.  “How old was she?” 

     “Old enough to be living in a retirement center.”

     “She had to be there during or shortly after the bomb.”  The Goodwife hasn’t “dialed” that phone number yet, so we will have to wait to find out “the rest of the story”, Paul Harvey.

      It’s always interesting to visit with the old folks and get a snippet of their story.  In another retirement place, “Hillcrest” in Loveland, we visited with folks before we sang because the activities director changed our performance time from two to 2:30 p.m. without informing us of the change.  Ted played the piano and I visited with the old ladies, one of whom told us her husband was an air force vet but who wasn’t feeling up to coming down to listen to us sing.  I said we could probably go to her room and sing the air force song just for him if he would be up for that.  Oh, yes, that would be great.

     After our program, we were again visiting with the folk, this time with quite a few vets.  I lost track of the lady.  We inquired of some of the caretakers who were helping get residents back to their rooms.  We had succeeded in describing the lady well enough that an aide gave us the name and the room number.  Then the aide exclaimed,“There she is right now.”

     She had gone up to her room on the third floor, probably tidied things up a bit, knowing the female propensity for such things, and come back down.  She held a newspaper article about her husband’s WWII experience. 

     He was part of a crew that flew gasoline and food to a bunch of boys stranded on the German side of the battlefront.  He spent Christmas day helping load the airplane, then completed the mission of dropping supplies to the stranded guys while catching all kinds of flak, literally, from German forces. 

     She proudly displayed the article.  Rex asked for a copy of the article to give to an acquaintance who interviews WWII vets on their experience.  He records and edits the interview and makes copies for family or whoever is interested.  He archives the interviews for posterity.

     We capped off that day by riding the elevator to the third floor, accompanied by the lady, and singing the air force song to her husband.  We still had a Saturday performance in Berthoud, this time an hour-long program with the Valentine City Chorus and three other quartets.

    Along the way, we visited three restaurants where we sang for any veteran we could see.  On Friday, a man wearing a Korean Vet hat sat still for us while we sang the Navy anthem.  As we went to return to our table, another guy said, “Hey, I was in the army,” so we sang the army anthem to him. 

     A third man at another table said he too had served in the army, so we sang to him.  He allowed as how our version wasn’t correct.  A few minutes later, he approached our table with a napkin in hand.  His daughter had used her smart phone to look up the original first verse, “Over hill, over dale. . . .”  He had penciled it down on the napkin.  He wanted us to have the correct verse.

     On Saturday, we gathered early in the afternoon before going to Berthoud to call on a couple of other restaurants, the first, our favorite Tuesday-night watering hole, Applebee’s in Loveland.  Vets eat free on Veterans’ Day.  The help always seems glad to see us coming.  They shut off the loud music.  We sing.

      This time, we sang our Armed Forces Medley, which has the anthems for Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, Army, and Air Force.  Some of the Vets doffed their caps or waved when we sang the anthem for their branch.  The place was crowded.  It was probably as quiet as a sports bar ever gets during business hours. 

      We closed our impromptu concert with God Bless America, inviting all to sing the chorus with us, like the seventh-inning stretch at the baseball game.  A lot of the customers sang with us.  There were quite a few tears during that song.  We are hoping it was because the folks were touched by the patriotic moment, not because of the poor quality of our singing.

     We called on the Village Inn to sing to vets there before we headed to Berthoud.  One of our chorus members owns Village Inns in Cheyenne, Ft. Collins, and Loveland.  He provided the programs for the Berthoud concert, as well as 20%-off coupons to include with the programs.  He also gave the church’s soundman a $30 gift certificate for his time spent not only during the program, but the three-hour dress rehearsal on Tuesday night.  Brian is a generous man.

     The highlight of our Berthoud show was the standing ovation the chorus got when we sang our Armed Forces Medley.  We asked all the veterans to stand when their anthem was being sung.  Members of the chorus who are vets donned their hats and fired off salutes as we went into their anthem.  Our director drew a navy cap from his cummerbund, popped it on, turned to face the audience and snapped off a crisp salute before turning to direct us to the end of the medley.

     We closed that program with “God Bless America”, but we weren’t done.  The church ladies served refreshments in the basement and we had an afterglow where all the quartets plus a woman’s quartet from the church sang.  We still weren’t done.

     Back to Appleby’s we went.  It was still crowded with veterans and their families getting their free meals.  We repeated our earlier performance of Armed Forces Medley and “God Bless America”, this time our numbers enforced by other chorus members in attendance, including the Village Inn owner.

      We imposed on the customers and sang a few more songs.  Nobody seemed to object. Then we really were done.  We were all sung out.  Time to go home.  It will be a while before we forget this Veterans’ Day. 

      One of the church ladies said this was a much better way to treat the veterans than how we treated the Vietnam Veterans in the 1970’s.  Agreed.

        It was great fun for us, too.

    

     

    

Japan Trip, Installment the Last: The Quest

     Every good travel story involves a quest, the search for the Holy Grail.  Leaving Nikko, we had three days left in the Tokyo area.  We had two quests.  The first was to find the family shrine or graveyard.

     Off to Shibuya, about a ten or fifteen minute train ride from our hotel.  We must negotiate the You-Tube famous Shibuya Crossing.

     Five or six streets meet like spokes of a wheel leading to a hub, in a popular area.  It doesn’t work to let automobile traffic and foot traffic move in the same direction.  We stood and waited for the walk light.  With the walk signal, pedestrians move from all points of the compass to all points on the compass.  It was raining.

      Like horseless knights, we forded the stream of umbrellas.  The Goodwife had not been there in nearly 50 years.  Things have changed.  We had to find a landmark to get our bearings.

     The faithful dog statue provided an anchor.  Like Odysseus’ loyal dog Argos, this dog waited faithfully for his master.  Unlike Argos, however, this dog’s master died.  The faithful dog took up the watch over the burial site.  His statue was still there, watching.

      How to find this proverbial needle, a shrine in a nation of shrines, in this haystack of streets, buildings, cars, busses, masses of people?  First, we must shed the male disinclination to ask for directions.  After all, we were in a nation of people, in Rick Steve’s words, willing to help you.  Besides, I was only the squire.  The Goodwife was the knight managing the quest.  We had already asked countless people for help finding our way on this trip.

     We started with two policemen, one in the train station, the other in the nearby bus station.  The next landmark we sought was a “skyscraper” of five or six stories that housed a movie theatre.  Yes, they both remembered the building.  Both remembered it being demolished.  They both pointed us in the general  direction.

       We followed that famous philosopher Yogi Berra’s advice:  we found a fork in the road so we took it.  Two girls, standing by a pedestrian bridge over one of the five or six wheels spokes that channeled auto traffic to the Shibuya hub, were handing out Jehovah’s Witness literature.

     The Goodwife approached the nearest and asked if she knew of any shrines in the adjacent area.  She put aside her pamphlets and consulted her smart phone.  There were six in the immediate area.  Not  much help.

     We crossed over the channel.  A man idling on the corner of another street wasn’t much help.  We decided that it would be best to approach an older person, one who maybe spent their life here.  The first one we came to was running a men’s clothing store, a small storefront place with no customers when we went in. 

     He knew of the old movie theatre, and the shrine that stood nearby.  He said we must cross the busy street we had paralleled.  He drew us a map.  He said we would find a Seven-Eleven where we should turn right.     

     We walked a quarter of a mile to a pedestrian bridge that would take us across the busy highway.  Back down the same street, we went, this time on the other side.  We went down the street the haberdasher had directed us to take, but no Seven-Eleven.

     We did find a “Con-Vee”, Japanese for convenience store.  That must be it.  We turned and found a construction site guarded by an old gi-chan.  He knew immediately the shrine we sought.  He directed us to a temple and instructed us to ask one of the priests who took care of the cemetery. 

      We found the temple in a short city block.  An older priest was putting out old rice for the birds when we approached him.  He knew right where the shrine was, but he wasn’t familiar with the family name.  He went into the temple and soon returned with a much younger priest in tow.  This young priest was in charge of the “headstones”.     

     He led us about two more blocks and Voila! There was the cemetery.  He strode without missing a beat to the family shrine.  He even knew the Goodwife’s cousin in charge of the family shrine.

     The priest explained that the cemetery wasn’t as big as the Goodwife recollected because the state had exercised its right of eminent domain, not once but twice, to reroute streets and to make way for real skyscrapers.

    He said they had to move the shrines containing cremains twice, but there probably wouldn’t be a third move because now they were too small to matter.  I felt a need to document the moment.  Without defacing anything, I could think of only one way to make our mark.

      Though the priest knew the male side of the Goodwife’s family, he knew nothing of her cousins from the female side of the family.  The priest had to hurry to get to an appointment in Yokohama, so we parted and started on our second quest.

     The story was that one of the Goodwife’s cousins from one of her aunts was in charge of the family business in a small store in Shibuya.  We had to try to find that store, and maybe a cousin in the deal.

    Back to the Shibuya crossing.  The Goodwife thought her grandfather had set up one of her uncles in some kind of business near this location.  We eliminated about three of the wheel spokes, as they went the wrong way from the train station.  Her instinct told us to choose this one spoke of the wheel. 

     This time, it only took three interviews with men on the street.  We first asked an older policeman, again, acting as a guard for a construction site.  He said he really didn’t live there, was working there temporarily and couldn’t be much help.

     We kept going up the street where we saw delivery trucks making their daily rounds.  I said we should ask one of the drivers because he would likely know the businesses around there.  So the Goodwife approached and interrupted his delivery operations.  He said he had only been in this territory for three years and didn’t know much of the history, but he sent us to a vegetable market where he said the owner-manager had been operating for over thirty years.

    That had to be our man.  I didn’t witness the actual conversation between the Goodwife and the vegetable man because the vegetable market was swarming with people.  I elected to stand outside under an awning in the rain and watch the people go by rather than get in the way of serious shoppers.

     All we knew was that the old one-story small storefront had been torn down by the Goodwife’s cousin and replaced by a four or five story business building on the same spot.  From the description, the vegetable man sent us back down toward the Shibuya wheel hub a block or two. 

    We found it.  It was called “Mon”, meaning gate. The sign outside said it was established in 1949.  It had to be the place.

     The building had not one bar and a coffee house as we had heard, but three bars.  They didn’t open till 5:30, 6:00 or 6:30.  We didn’t understand the various opening times until we finally figured out that it was three separate bars.

  So we got back on the train and visited another town the Good wife frequented in her youth.  “This isn’t the place I knew” was a frequent phrase I heard. 

     At the time we were there, it got dark around 5:30.  We were tired.  We returned to Mon about four.  As we stood across the street looking and taking a picture or two, a young lass showed up and unlocked the grate spread across the front.  The Goodwife hustled across the street and accosted the young lady.                

     She said she was a fairly new employee and didn’t really know the owner all that well.  She didn’t have his phone number.  She whipped out her cell phone and called her parents, whom she said had the number.  Before she could get the number from them, another employee came along.

     They held a conference and he did have the phone number.  Various attempts to call in the next fifteen minutes were fruitless.  The employees agreed that the cousin usually didn’t show up until very late—or very early, sometimes about 4 a.m.

      We weren’t up to that.  It was Friday and we had to leave Japan at 5 p.m. Saturday.  The best we could do was leave our contact information, which consisted mostly of the hotel name and room, since our antique cell phones didn’t work there.  We also included email addresses, but we never heard anything from Cousin. 

     So, our final quest was partially successful, and partially unsuccessful.  We returned to our hotel and searched out a place for supper.  We tried to find a bar where I enjoyed some of the best meals during our trip.  Instead, we went to a chain, a seafood place. 

     The next day as we whiled away the time before we left for the airport and after we had to check out of our hotel, we found a whole row of bars and small eating-places beneath the train station.  Darn!

     All in all, we had a great time in Japan.  We met a great lot of people, some which I have mentioned, many which I have not.  One gentleman that comes to mind was the night man at a parking “lot” in Takayama.  We walked past him twice as we went to and fro searching out our supper one night.  He didn’t seem to be too friendly until we said “Goodnight” to him as we headed back to our lodging.

     He smiled and we asked him about the parking “lot”.  It was really a fourteen-story storage room.  The car drove in to his lair.  The occupants evacuated.  He closed a cage, all by remote control.  Wheel blocks arose.  Then the car arose.  Fourteen floors would hold three or four cars each.  The cars were elevated, lowered, moved to one side or the other all by conveyors controlled from his booth.

     He demonstrated.  He brought a car down from the fourth floor to show us how it worked.  He told us he was retired, but he did this job to occupy his time and to get a little extra income.  While we were talking, a car drove into his cage, and he demonstrated his art again while we watched.  He said most of the customers were tourists, that very few locals were willing to pay the price to have their cars stored in his garage.

     We had many such experiences, too many to recount all of them.  I will close the book  on Japan with a note or two.  Some of the things we didn’t see:  

       Homeless people.  We only saw one who might qualify in all our journey.

       Towels or hand dryers in the restrooms.  Most people carry a handkerchief for that purpose.

      Some things we did see:

     Moist hand towels brought to us whenever we sat down in a restaurant or eatery.

     Trains that run on time.  Fast trains, over one hundred miles an hour.

     Salad for breakfast.  It grows on you.

Japan Trip Installment IV

     Leaving Takayama, we went on to Nikko.  Here we had the only thing that could be called a bad experience.  It took four legs on the train to get from Takayama to Nikko.  It turned out to be a long day.  It was nearing 6 o’clock and dark when we got there. 

     We tried two or three different ways to get from the train station to our lodging by using the bus system.  We couldn’t seem to find the right place to get onto the bus that would go our way.  We were tired and hungry.  We resorted to taking a taxi.  It cost more than three times as much as the bus ride would have, but when the cab driver delivered us to the front door of the hotel, we figured we might never have found the place by ourselves.

      When we checked in, we discovered there wasn’t an eating place within walking distance.  Our dispositions didn’t get any sweeter with that bit of information.  The hotel keeper suggested we walk about three blocks to a super market just past the bus stop.  They had a sort of delicatessen where we could get something to eat.

     That sounded better than a bus ride back toward the center of town.  We set off afoot, our burden somewhat lighter, having left our luggage in our room.  We found the supermarket easily enough.  It was while walking across the parking lot that things went amiss.

     The store lights shone brightly through the windows, so brightly I really couldn’t see my feet.  I failed to see a parking block.  I stumbled when my left foot hit it.  I threw out my hands to catch myself.  My right hand hit a car parked in the adjacent space.  Whump, it went.  I managed to stay on my feet, but my sunglasses, hooked in the top button of my shirt, went sliding in front of me a few feet. 

      As I stooped to pick them up, the car door flew open and a rather angry young man jumped out of one side, a young woman from the other side.  A conversation ensued between the angry man and the Goodwife.  Though I could not understand what they were saying, I knew from the tone that it wasn’t a pleasant discourse.  I was in somewhat of a state of shock, from my long day, my hunger, the unexpected trip, and the surprise at finding someone sitting in the car in the parking lot.

     The man thought I had purposely struck his car with my hand.  The Goodwife tried to explain, with quite some irritation in her voice, that I had tripped over the parking block.  I could do nothing but watch ping pong fashion the back and forth.

     Things settled down fairly quickly.  The Goodwife decided the conversation was over and turned toward the supermarket.  I stepped in front of the offended car-owner, bowed slightly, and said “so sorry” (I don’t think I said “Prease”).   Then I headed toward the supermarket before anything could reignite the fire.  We did our shopping.  A sixteen-ounce can of beer went a long way toward reviving my spirits.

      Our initial poor first impression was erased the next day when the hotel man offered us the use of his washer and dryer to do our laundry.  We loaded the washer and took off on a hike to see some statues in the woods.  We never found the statues, but we had a peaceful walk through a forest.  When we got back an hour later to throw our clothes in the dryer, the washer had malfunctioned and still had thirty minutes to run.  The manager sent us on our way, saying he would transfer clothes to the dryer, for us to go enjoy our day.

     Our day was a visit to a shrine where the original three monkeys, the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkey dwell.  I always thought those monkeys were a statue somewhere, but I was quite wrong.  They are a relief sculpture on what the Japanese call a transom, a window-like structure above the door sill.  In this case, the transom was more like a cornice running the full length of two sides of the building, elevated over the archways leading into what we might call a small chapel.

     The monkeys are about eighteen inches high.  Not exactly the statue I had always pictured.  Furthermore, they are only one set of about twelve groupings of monkeys that represent the stages of life, starting with youth and ending with maturity.  The “no-evil” monkeys represent what we should learn in our youth.  (No comment on how successful  we have been)  In the last grouping, the female monkey is pregnant, starting the life cycle over again.

 

      Nikko is also the site of a seven-story pagoda.

 

       It didn’t look like seven stories  to me, either.  The pagoda is in about a ten-year restoration project.  What you see in the picture is the super structure built all the way around, and above, the pagoda.  The workmen actually work indoors year around.  No need for ladders and safety harnesses and such.  Need to work on the roof?  Go up a story or two in the super structure and step directly onto the pagoda roof, one of seven.           

                                                                              

      When the project is complete, the outside building will be removed.  The seven-story pagoda will stand proud and new once again.  Picture-taking wasn’t allowed in the pagoda.  I probably could have snapped a few of the crew working, but I neglected to do that.  Here’s what it looked like from the top of the construction shell.

 

     That night, we dined at our hotel.  We returned to the hotel, collected our clean laundry, rested briefly, then partook of a seven-course meal.  Our hotel keeper turned out to be quite a chef as well as an innkeeper.

     The hotel had a European decoration theme.  The chairs and tables were French provincial  or German, and the like.  One of the serving tables was an old pool table covered with something like a sheet of plywood.  Reminded me of the farm pool table converted to ping pong in the same fashion.

      There was also a Yamaha piano at one end of the eatery.  I played a few tunes before we went up to our room to retire for the night.  We hadn’t been in our room for fifteen minutes when we heard the piano strike again.  Our chef-innkeeper said nobody had played the piano in a long time.  We had to investigate.

     A man in his forties was playing some classical tunes.  We applauded and he came over to thank us.  He said he had been forced to study piano as a child.  He quit as soon as he could.  As he reached middle age, he regretted his decision.  He is currently taking piano lessons again.  We both played another tune or two and called it a day.  He and his family were headed out early to climb a mountain somewhere in the vicinity.  We had to catch a bus to the train station and return to Tokyo via a two-leg train journey.

Japan Trip Installment III

  “What?  We have to have the exact change?”

     Our trip to Kyoto was off to a not-so-good start.  It began with our hotel accommodations.  We thought we had two nights arranged for, but not the first night. 

     After three visits to the information room at the railroad station and after losing 100 yen to the phone company who took her money without providing any service, the Goodwife managed to raise the hotel on the phone.  No, they had no vacancies for that night.

     A fourth visit got us registered in a very nice hotel across the street from the bus and train station.  We had time enough to do a little rubber necking.  There was a full moon ceremony going on at one of the many shrines.  We could ride the bus.  It wouldn’t pay to buy a bus pass so late in the day, the young lady at the desk explained.  Just pay the bus fare for this trip.

      So we got on the bus.  Then we heard in Japanese and English that the driver had no change.  We must have the correct fare, 230 yen apiece.  We had about 300 yen and some 10,000-yen notes.  Not get change for that?  What to do?

    The Goodwife turned to some girls in the seats behind us.  Did they have change for 10,000 yen.  They both looked, but they didn’t have near enough.  Ask the bus driver, they both said.  So the Good wife worked her way to the front of the bus.

     The driver told her to get change when she got off the bus and put in double on the return trip.  (You pay when you get off.)  We began to discuss where we could find a place to get a bill changed.

     This man came up from behind us with a hand full of bills.  He had change he said.  The Good wife dug in her purse and pulled out the 10,000.  He waved her off.  Wait until he counted.  So he counted out nine 1000-yen notes and a hand full of change.  That done, he took her bill.

     We still didn’t have the correct change.  She did have a 500-yen coin.  That would be 40 more yen than necessary, but that didn’t amount to much, not compared to 10,000.  She put the 500 coin in the slot and we got off, but the driver yelled at us, called us back, insisted we take the 40 yen.  He had that much change, anyway.

      People went out of their way to help us wherever we went.  We teamed up with a couple from France and a girl from Korea when we got off the bus.  With English and Japanese, we were able to communicate and find our way from bus stop to temple.

     It was a beautiful night.  The full moon took its time coming up over a mountain and some trees.  The ceremony was all Greek to me, not understanding the language of the ceremony and the songs.  After a couple hours of ancient string and flute music, we grew weary and had to leave before the dancing, what the Goodwife wanted to see, began.

     The next day, we loaded up on the bus and found our way to our hotel.  When we checked in, we found out we had been scheduled to be there the night before.  Why didn’t they tell us that when we called from the train station?  Oh well.

             Kyoto gave us rain, so we bought umbrellas and a five-hour bus tour that took us to three shrines or temples.  Looking for a place to eat that night produced a highlight of our trip.  We got to know the neighborhood as we wandered around looking for the laundromat the hotel manager sent us to.  We passed a place advertising itself as a pub, with pub food.

       After a long day of touring, I was ready for a beer and something to eat.  How disappointed I was to discover that the pub served only pizza and steak.  We had eaten at a sushi place the night before.  Next to the sushi place was a place called the Colorado Café.  We wandered wearily back to that area.

     All these places were small, seating maybe a dozen customers.  The Colorado Café was closed.  There was another bar next door.  We decided to try it. 

     The menu listed such delicacies as Cod entrails.  We opted for rice balls while we perused the menu further.  One tempting dish was Kim Chee chicken breast.  If it has Kim Chee (fermented cabbage or other vegetables such as radish or cucumbers) in it, it can’t be all that bad.

    It was delicious.  We got the recipe.  Grilled chicken breast with a sauce of Kim Chee, mayonnaise, soy sauce, and grated cheese.  Maybe you had to be there.  Maybe I was really hungry.  We’re going to try the recipe ourselves .       

     From Kyoto we went to Takayama where we were supposed to see a traditional festival with a big parade of shrines on wheels or “floats”.  It’s a bit like the rose parade, folks spending a lot of time getting floats ready for the parade. 

     Unfortunately, the tour director got the dates wrong.  We left on the day the festival began.  We missed the parade.

     We did get to see some of the “floats”.  A museum housed four old ones.  We teamed up with a Japanese couple who provide commodities to school lunchrooms.  They had a day off and came to see the festival.

     Together we found the museum, watched a movie with subtitles about the festival and the wheeled shrines.  A sideshow at the museum featured the puppets and puppeteers who appear on the floats.

     The puppets dance and do acrobatics.  A behind-the-scenes look at puppet and puppeteer was really interesting.  They rolled out a portable stage with the puppet on top of it.  They rolled back the curtain and we could see the puppeteer at work.  The puppet was an artist that started with a blank slate of poster board-like material.

 

      A Frenchman sitting beside us in the front row was awarded the puppet’s work of art.  (I got to drink a cup of tea served by a windup robot doll on wheels.)   Impressive that the gal could do what she did using rods to run the puppet.

 

     Our partners insisted we eat lunch with them.  Tooru wanted beef.  We ate where we grilled thinly-sliced beef and vegetables at our table.  After our lunch together, we went on a wild goose chase.  Tooru had bought an antique chest of some kind.  He couldn’t remember where he bought it.

     We trailed in his wake as he searched for the antique shop.  We finally found it.  There we said our goodbyes, but we were still looking at the antique shop wares when Tooru reappeared and insisted we come have a sort of dessert with them.  It was a rice cake, mochi, toasted in a waffle iron to make it a bit crunchy. 

      It was good, but we were scheduled for a Japanese dinner at our hotel at 6 p.m.  We weren’t terribly hungry at 6 p.m.

     Our supper was served in our room at the low table.  We sat on the floor.  Aching joints took some of the pleasure out of our meal. 

     Outside our window at the traditional ancient hotel was a lean-to roof about a foot below the window.  A cat appeared.  The hotel workers said it was a homeless cat that had adopted the hotel.  The cat was fat.

    Not being terribly hungry, the sashimi, raw fish, didn’t appeal to me.  I didn’t want to insult the chef.  The cat sat patiently on the roof.  He knew what was coming.  He had obviously done this before.  Imagine, a gourmet homeless cat.