Bruce: Remembering the first time

Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits

At the last Chorale Midwest concert, conductor Bradley Barrett recalled the first time he heard "Close to You" by the Carpenters. That got me to wondering how many songs I could remember specific details of the hearing them for the first time. The answer is, not that many, although more than zero.

1. "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits. It was a cloudy Sunday morning in March 1979, and I was driving down Roosevelt Road, having delivered my sister Susan to her restaurant job. It was spitting rain, which is ambient as a Sunday morning can get for this song which is clearly set at night.

2. "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees. Someone requested this song during my show on WONC early in 1979. I was beginning to recover from the Bee Gees-fueled disco orgy of the previous year, and I really liked this song, so much so that I thanked the guy on the air for requesting it.

3. "We" by the Roches. This was another one I heard for the first time in WONC's rickety studio on the 4th floor of North Central College's Old Main. I was doing a rock show during the interim between fall 1980 and winter 1981. I really didn't know enough about rock music, so I just grabbed a bunch of records labeled "Rock" and played the first track off each one. This one grabbed me!

4. "Love Over and Over" by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. In my first year of graduate school, 1982-83, I lived in a basement apartment on Green Street in Champaign with Jeff Barnet and Jim Hauskey, who were fans of "The David Letterman Show." Kate and Anna McGarrigle performed this song on Letterman one night; I had been vaguely aware of them before, but this kicked me into full fan mode.

5. "Karla with a K" by the Hooters, an unjustly neglected third single off their 1987 One Way Home album. The only time I ever heard it played on the radio, I was driving on the Tri-State Tollway, back to my parents' home in Wheaton from Steve Sanford's house in Flossmoor. It was on 101.1 FM, I'm pretty sure, which I think was still WKQX at that point.

6 & 7. "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls and "Days" by Kirsty MacColl. I heard both of these in the summer of 1989 on the bus as I was chaperoning field trips for The American School in Switzerland's England campus.

8. "King of Calypso" by Ed's Redeeming Qualities. Jane and I were driving to the Inn Pasta on Memorial Drive and Mt. Vernon Road, which is now a vacant lot due to the widening of Mt. Vernon Road a few years later. This would have had to have been 1991 or at the latest early 1992. We had KUNI on in the car, and I had to stay in the parking lot until the song was over.

9. "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow. I heard this on whatever station was playing in Coe's Gage Memorial Union when I went to the ATM in 1993.

10. "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers. The first time I ever heard of the Proclaimers, one of my favorite groups, was when this song from their late 80s album Sunshine on Leith was featured in the movie "Benny and Joon." I saw that in Joplin, Missouri, while traveling with Coe students Steve Junion and Vaughn Vance to the Midwest Political Science Undergraduate Research Conference in late April 1993.

Interesting that the newest of these recollections is still more than 30 years ago!

The drought takes its toll on the Nesmith Farm

It's been a tough year to have a community garden.

On the one hand, we haven't had to deal with fungus diseases.  Or the river flooding (that has happened, and not just in 2008).

But the hot, dry weather hasn't been optimal.

The pumpkin plants and two of the gourd plants have died.  Eli did get a couple of gourds from them and made this cute gourd container out of one.

The watermelon plants survived, but only yielded softball-sized, seedy fruit!  It tastes fine, but looks unappetizing.

Luckily, some of the plants are doing OK.

The flowers look nice.  They're State Fair Zinnias, and I bring back blooms to decorate our table every time I'm out there.

The Brussels sprouts don't seem to be bothered by the drought.  I find them amusing to look at--they're like cabbages on stilts.  You can see the little sprouts forming on the stem.

Not sure what will happen with the Romanesco broccoli.  There are no heads on it--it's too hot.  I'm hoping it'll get heads this fall as the weather cools down.

Eli's snake gourd plants are happy, though not very productive.  One did get a gourd, and it's growing bigger and bigger.  It's about 15 inches long now, and still growing.

Eli wants a garden again next year.  I'm not sure!  If we do have one, I'll grow zinnias and Brussels sprouts for sure.

And maybe beets; my neighbor is growing them and sharing hers with us.

Update on the Farm

Stopped out at the farm today to water.  Things look good, though the flowers were a bit wilty.  Behind them are the Romanesco broccoli.  I hope it'll have heads once the weather cools down  . . . which won't be for a while!

The no-till approach seems to be working fine.  I'll probably mow it again this weekend.

Brussels sprouts don't seem to mind the heat.

I have watermelons!  There are 5 fruits altogether on my 3 hills.  Each hill has 2 plants--I couldn't bear to to thin them to 1 plant each, and they're doing fine.

 Eli's gourds are happy.  They like hot, dry weather.

Neighbors are doing well with beans, planted thickly.

This neighbor did well with pumpkins.  Next year, we'll just plant our pumpkins directly.  We started them in pots this year, and we think they did not survive because of the transplanting.

Lucky/Unlucky day at the Farm

Lucky:  got up at a reasonable time to get out to the farm (our community garden plot at a city park) before it got hot.

My plan was to mow the half of the plot that had pumpkins in it--they all died--so that we did not have to cultivate it.  Then I'd water the gourds, watermelon, Brussels sprouts, Romanesco broccoli, and zinnias.

I got the water, hedge trimmers, and mower into the van and off I went. Pulled up right near our plot.

Unlucky:  Really, I thought this button said "unlock"
but I have presbyopia.  So when I went around to the trunk, it was locked.  And, oops, so was the van door.  And my keys were inside on the seat.  I stood there outside the van thinking "ummmmm . . ." for a while.

Lucky:  I was there in the morning, so lots of other farmers were there.

Unlucky:  No one had a phone.

Lucky:  the third person I talked to said "I don't have a phone, but there's a guy from Darrah's towing over there.  He can probably get your door open."

I went over and found the guy, who was trying to start a car that had been stalled out at the garden.  He said he could get my door open for me, but had to get the car up onto his flat bed tower.  Not only was the car dead, but he was allergic to bee stings, and there was a swarm of insects flying around under a tree near the car.

I assured him that the insects were not bees, but cicada killers, but he was still worried.  So I shooed them away while he pushed the car out of a ditch and then got it up on the flat bed tow truck.

Then he came over and got my car door open!  Amazing how quickly he did it--with a device that looked like a blood pressure cuff and a long wire hook.  I couldn't use my AAA card, but he said I could just submit the bill to AAA and they would pay it.

I thanked him and told him that it must be my lucky day!

Unlucky:  The mower battery was dead. :-(

Lucky:  All the plants (except the dead pumpkins) looked fine despite the heat.

I clipped back weeds with my hedge clippers and watered everything.  I'm going to leave the weeds/crabgrass as a kind of lawn/mulch.  I don't think the grass will use much water, and besides, it'll be nicer to walk on than dirt.  Plus, I think it looks nicer than this!

All around, most of the gardens look good.  My neighbor's sunflowers are pretty.

Another neighbor has corn interplanted with beans.

There are some cabbages back in there, too.

I'm going to try the mower again tomorrow.

The crops

Eli and I went out to The Farm today--our 20x50' community garden plot.  It's been very dry here in Iowa, so we wanted to irrigate our crops.  Our irrigation system = a 5 gallon collapsible water container (identical to the one we took camping when I was growing up!), two 1-gallon milk jugs, and a plastic watering can.

 Here's Eli on our plot.  The community gardens are on a stretch of city park along the river.  It floods every so often, so the soil is more sandy than my back yard, but it's mostly that black Iowa soil that everyone in the world covets.  I feel so fortunate to be able to garden here in Iowa!

As you can see, our plot has a lot of crabgrass growing in it.  Most of our crops are space-hogs--pumpkins, gourds, and watermelon--so there's a lot of empty space around each plant.  We did some hoeing last time, and mulched with straw, but there's still plenty of space for weeds . . . maybe we'll just have to keep hoeing until weed season is past (they slow down around mid-July).

I love seeing the other plots here.  I would guess there are about 200 or so, each 20' x 50'.  Our neighbors have these beguiling pea frames made of branches.

Others have rows of crops of various sorts, many with gallon milk jugs still protecting the tomatoes from frost (and cutworms?).

Despite the dry weather, our crops are doing well.  The pumpkins are especially healthy-looking.

My Brussels Sprouts are doing fine, as well.

The Romanesco Broccoli and Zinnias are up and looking good, but are just tiny seedlings yet.

On the home front, I bought flowers for my big concrete pots that are on the patio.  I moved one pot close to the back door--the one most people use.

Looks handsome there, I think.  It'll be fun to see that when I come into the house.  And there's another pot almost exactly the same, near the chair where I like to sit and read or crochet on the patio.

Mother's Day Kindle

The boys bought me a Kindle Fire for Mother's day and I am enjoying it very much!

Look at how easy it is to use, even when there's a kitty on my lap.  

Mostly I'm using it as a web tablet.  In this photo I'm looking for online patterns and tutorials about how to make a case for it.  Already I've used it to search for recipes and browse on Ravelry, of course.  

Before this tablet, I just used my laptop for this kind of thing.  I can sit at my little desk in the kitchen, or take my laptop to the couch.  But sometimes when I sit on the couch, my lap is occupied (see photo)--no room for my laptop.  Plus, laptops--mine anyway--get HOT.  A small tablet will make it easier and more fun to look for stuff.

I've been shopping around for a tablet for a few months now.  Just kept putting off buying one.

Eli knew I was shopping and thinking about tablets (he loves shopping for electronic devices, too, and thought a Kindle would work well) so he spearheaded a campaign to get one for me for Mother's Day!  

So it's great for web browsing, but will I use it to read?  I did buy one of those long article/short books already from Amazon, Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse by Wendy McClure, who wrote The Wilder Life (awesome book, BTW).  But probably I'll stick to books if I can.  I like going to the library, and I have nothing against books.  

Still.  I'm guessing that eventually I'll shift to e-books.  The thing is, what I really like is reading, not books (unlike my brother, who likes both!).  I don't buy books because when I'm done reading them, I'm done with them.  Although it'll have a different feel--and paging around in them will take some getting used to--I'm thinking that reading is reading, and that I'll have no trouble using e-books.  

As long as I can sign e-books out from the library, because with my reading addiction, I'd go broke if I had to buy all the books I read.

Bird

From my Penzu:

When Bruce came home for lunch, I went out to join him in the kitchen and almost stepped on a bird.  It was lying, face down, wings outstretched, on the family room carpet.  How did it get in the house?  Bruce pointed out that I'd left the sliding door cracked open--to let the kitty out.  I wondered briefly if the kitty had brought the bird in, but knew that she wouldn't have.  She can barely catch butterflies, and she was outside basking in the sun.

Probably this bird got confused by the windows of the sliding door, maybe hit one and ended up flying inside through the partially opened door.

I picked the bird up, gently.  It moved a bit, but settled in my hands.  Its heart was beating briskly.  No blood.  Its eyes were closed, but it opened them and looked around, then closed them.  

I felt badly that it had gotten inside the house.  A few years ago, I bought some window decals after the red-bellied woodpecker I'd been watching all winter crashed into the window and died, its long woodpecker tongue flickering out one last time as I came out to see what had happened.  I was so sad about this that I'd cried as I buried the woodpecker.  

I didn't know what kind of bird this bird was.  It was tiny with stripy brown feathers.  There was a bit of yellow at the rump and along the wings.  I took a picture; I didn't want to put down the bird to page through my Peterson's guide.

I took it outside to see if it would try to fly away, but it didn't. It just sat in my hand and panted, heart pounding. I decided against just putting it on the ground--afraid the kitty might see it, though probably she wouldn't--when it comes to stalking, she only sees moving things.

So I sat there with the bird in my hands on the patio.  Her heart beat quickly against my palm, her beak was slightly open.  (I found out later it was a female Pine Siskin.)  I wondered if she was frightened--of me, or of dying.  I hoped she wasn't in any pain.

As I sat there holding her, I thought about the car accident I was in last week.  A driver ran a red light and ran into the passenger's side of my car.

I only barely saw it coming, out of the corner of my eye.  It was mostly a surprise, as my car was hit (I think I said "Oh!") and spun around, hitting a telephone pole.  I just kind of sat in stunned silence after it happened.  

I also thought about that Lewis Thomas Essay "On Natural Death" in which he writes about seeing his cat with her prey and wondering if the mouse felt pain "all over its body" as it was being carried in the cat's mouth.  A doctor and scientist, he decides that the mouse did not feel pain.  

"Pain is useful for avoidance, for getting away when there’s time to get away, but when it’s end game, and no way back, pain is likely to be turned off, and mechanisms for this are wonderfully precise and quick." *

Thomas had actually seen this mechanism in action, as he witnessed two soldiers trapped in the wreckage of a car.

"The worst accident I’ve ever seen was on Okinawa, in the early days of the invasion, when a jeep ran into a troop carrier and was crushed nearly flat. Inside were two young MPs, trapped in bent steel, both mortally hurt, with only their heads and shoulders visible. We had a conversation while people with the right tools were prying them free. Sorry about the accident, they said. No, they said, they felt fine. Is everyone else okay, one of them said. Well, the other one said, no hurry now. And then they died."*

I wonder if that's what the bird was feeling.  I hope she wasn't feeling pain, just feeling stunned.

I got a rag from the kitchen, because I wanted to set the bird down in the ivy under the hydrangea, but I didn't want her to be cold.  I put her on the rag, and, before I could set her in the ivy, she stretched out her wings once, twice, and then she tucked her beak into her breast and died.

The way life departs from a living being is remarkable.  One moment there is life, the next, there is a handful of feathers. 

Remembering the Thomas essay, I thought of his humane scientific explanation of endorphins and pain receptors:

"If I had to design an ecosystem in which creatures had to live off each other and in which dying was an indispensable part of living, I could not think of a better way to manage."

Dying is inevitable, so there's a mechanism to make it bearable.  But there's also the pain from watching another being die--as far as I know, there's no mechanism yet to turn that off.

*[From The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher, by Lewis Thomas]