A Series of Awful Events

...and a Silver Lining

On the 13 of January, 2010, A. Brood & Sons, a fabric purveyor on Fabric Row in Philadelphia, closed after 57 years of service.

One year after America swore-in a President with the charge to bring change following over a decade of Republican Congressional rule and eight years of Republican Executive rule, the people of Massachusetts elected a Republican Senator to replace the deceased Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, presumably because they think it only takes a year to fix everything wrong in the world and to not do so in one year is failure.

Another HIV Vaccine clinical trial failed this week, in the wake of a realization that America will most likely continue to be the only “advanced” country without national health care guaranteed to its citizens.

One of the world’s 90+ year olds (one that I was lucky enough to know) passed on this week.

After using my debit card to buy gas, my identity was stolen. I can’t say enough about the way VISA handled the situation.

A guy, who is one of those guys that you just like knowing is around, who I am lucky enough to work with off the Suburban Farm, announced to me that he has advanced ALS on Wednesday.

But in this same stretch, a woman I have known for quite awhile and is certain to be a wonderful mother, had her first child - a boy.

One thing I’ve learned about breaking things over the years is that it doesn’t matter as long as you’re happy. So keep smiling, dear readers. This is the only life we have.

I Write in Haste

The old Harley scooter is still in pieces as I have yet to acquire a sandblaster and as the chickens have made my Greenhouse Shop into their winter home, where I am less than welcome. Yet, the homestead has something missing. It needs a working scooter. As luck would have it, I am about to inherit one. Of course, it is in the City of Philadelphia. So I am about to drive a scooter something like 30 miles from the Urban to the Suburban Farm.

This might be my last transmission. All the best.

End of the Year

Vacation is almost over, so I'll get back to writing.

Happy New Year, everyone. All the best in the next...

m-65

So what does go on that big work surface?

Ah distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak September… Freshman year of high school, to be a little more descriptive. The high school of Paw Paw, Michigan, at the time, was a 1960s construction, which meant that it had a big "industrial science" wing. One of those classrooms – unheard of in normal public schools today – was an engine shop. Maybe three or four classes a year would cycle through and learn how to rebuild a lawnmower engine. With one piston and less than four horse power (remember when lawnmowers used to simply be functional?), most anyone could spend one hour a day tearing an engine down and putting it back together and get it done in twelve weeks. I was hooked.
The summer after that, I rebuilt another one on my own. I did another one the following summer. Around that time, I met a girl and – more important to this story – I met a girl's father. He went by Roadie. He had a dog named Sandy and a 1967 Chevy Truck with a Pontiac engine in it. That summer, the three of us (Roadie, the girl and me…the guy…) spent a lot of time together and I freely admit that he had a large impact on my life. Those things that I've screwed since wouldn't have happened if I remembered, "whenever you decide to do anything, imagine that everyone in the world knows why you made that decision and see how you feel about it." Sure, it's the golden rule reworded, but it makes a good point. But sometimes it's so hard to remember with some passion on the line! Nobody's perfect, and I digress…
One discussion I remember, on a dry summer day on the front stairs of the house…a mean and probably demonically possessed rooster stalking us, but that's another digression waiting to happen…was about was an old motorcycle he had way back when. That's the way he started learning about engine work. I said to him, "I took a small engines class once and really liked it." He said, "well hell, a Harley engine is just one step over a push lawnmower."
That was a little over twelve years ago. Sunday, I bought a 1967 Harley Davidson two-stroke m-65 motorbike (not a full size motorcycle, but something fun to work on). It came in two boxes of parts that broke the will of the previous owner. So it begins…

A Big Work Area

One of the more inconvenient things in my life of renting apartments was the lack of workspace. I don’t mean for this to be an excuse for my lack of creation over all of those years, as I am sure that millions of the world’s best inventions were born out of broom closets or studio apartments. But I’m not in the “have one of the world’s best ideas” line – I need workspace.
As you may recall, I recently finished my greenhouse. Today, I built an 8’ x 3’ workbench in it, with a ¾” plywood top. It’s magnificent. Hell, it’s a bed!
I have left over lumber and that one-foot wide strip of plywood, so after I pick up a bit more hardware, I’ll build a shelf up above it, too. But for now, I’ll let the deck stain cure and then I’ll add coat after coat of polyurethane until it looks just right.
Note what I, your gracious storyteller, am doing here: I’m practicing a lesson that I have learned from my time in This Damn House. Sure plywood isn’t the most attractive stuff in the world, but why should I throw a few coats of paint on it right away? Let the wood show through and collect those dings and scratches that it should have. One can always add paint later on, but a surface can never go back to the way it was before that first drop of paint fell. Well, not without an infuriating amount of mind-numbing and finger-losing work. And – Sweet Jesus…that stucco wall haunts my dreams!!! – I don’t feel like doing that ever again.Now, what do I do on that big work area?

The Art of Stifling an Idea

The very first line of defense against ideas is you. Take this very story, for example. I had the idea for it many years ago, but fought my best to make sure nothing ever came of it. I would get the urge to write it down, but then would have a beer and forget all about it. Or clean the kitchen. Or decide that I really needed to watch a buddy comedy. But I'm out of beer, the store is closed, I just cleaned the kitchen and my cable is out. I am, now, defenseless. But no one man can stop ideas alone, try as we might. Ideas will always make it out of our brains sooner or later. So I'll leave it up to everyone else from here on out. I'll do my best to give you the tools necessary to stifle this idea.
To fortify our defenses, as a society, we must understand this terrible misnomer called a "good idea." Because it is perceived as good, it lulls us all into a positive mood. Like we can actually make things better if we nurture this idea and bring it to fruition. We'll start our journey here.
Let's get concrete. Reinvesting in America's ailing infrastructure is thought to be a good idea. How did this rotten notion make it out of someone's brain in the first place? How did it convince so many Americans to nurture it? And not just normal Americans, but business people and politicians – the very group that is designed especially to stifle ideas too! If we can understand this example, foolishness masquerading as "progress" – green energy, economic transparency, electric cars, metropolitan train systems, and universal health care – will definitely be able to be stopped before it can do any more damage.
A few years back, a 100 year old drain pipe, which was around four feet in diameter and carried millions of gallons of water away from the Philadelphia area every time it rained, burst. Roads buckled, of course, and houses collapsed due to the water washing away tons of dirt that had held up the surface of the city. Local citizens – panicked, I'm sure – yelled for reinvestment in the aging infrastructure. And there we see that emotions like panic, fear, or even love or some sense of entitlement, can break our normal strong internal defenses and let an idea escape.
I'm not here to pick on these poor bastards. I too have been afraid sometimes and had ideas escape me. Nobody is perfect.
How should have we responded as a society to ensure that this idea stopped right where it started? The answer is clear to us all, I'm sure, as we're sober and thinking in our right mind. The man whose house collapsed screamed "we need a new sewer" should have been reminded that he is but one man and who the hell does he think he is that he expects that his wishes and ideas can actually change anything? "I mean Jesus! Who do you think you are? There's a lot of other things going on in this world and you think you can make a difference? Think you can just lay a pipe like that [snap fingers]!" The man would have slunk away.
But this didn't happen. The local political system had an idea of its own.
This requires some examination. Notice that one idea getting out leads to other ideas finding their ways through the cracks. We'll deal with this aftermath next time…

A Need to Catch Up

The weather was beautiful on my recent trip to Ireland. I was standing outside of a pub called The Tara Arms in Tullow, talking as idly as possible to a lady who said "this is our Indian summer." Nice to know we've exported our racism along with our Hillbilly's Chicken. Is this really what people know of us overseas?

At the cost of a couple gallons gas, a pack of hot dogs, and a case of beer, I spent a wonderful evening last weekend around a campfire near a spring-fed pond. Good life can be so cheap. How is it that everyone is broke?

I've pulled all the plants from the garden and tilled everything into a picturesque scratching land, from the perspective of a chicken.

When did progress become a sign of weakness? The move to the suburbs was a movement of progress. Making those little pieces of paradise outside of the city carbon-neutral is socialism? Big inventions like the light bulb were progress. So using energy-saving light bulbs is left-wing nuttery? Oil is boring. Making wagers on the health of people is boring. War is boring. Where there hell are the flying cars that run on solar power? Where is the technology that lets me commute from Michigan to Paris in a few hours daily for pennies? Why do we kill off things that are new?

Come hell or high water, I'm finishing my greenhouse this weekend.

I spent a weekend in Washington D.C. with my parents. My father was meeting up with the survivors of Delta Company, Americal Division, 40 years after they went into Vietnam. The guy who, when he was 19, was the company commander for this bunch of one-time kids in the jungle, said "let's go to dinner." This statement made every man at the table jump up and move to the door without thought. Strong habit.

Congratulations, Mr. President, on your Nobel Peace Prize.