THROUGH THE GENERATIONS

 I'm not sure how much sense this entry is going to make. I had one of my sort of weird, not quite out of body, WTF experiences this morning. I'm working on rebuilding the family tree on my computer, I've been reading on Geology, especially the Northwest which may have left me open to this. 

Every atom in this universe was created during, just after the Big Bang or in the death throes of stars. The universe is the great recycler. Hydrogen and oxygen make water, the water molecules go through life forms, get incorporated in rocks. Those molecules get broken down, the hydrogen combines with carbon ends up in rocks, the the rocks weather, the atoms end up in an ancient fish, a leaf, a dinosaur, a grain of wheat, us. A vast network stretching back in time. 

Sections of my family tree stretch back into Europe, Central Europe, back to the nameless ones who stilled the soil, hunted the mammoth, ground the grain, looked up into the skies the first time to wonder what those tiny lights are, created the first calendars by watching the moon. Past being human to the distant ancestors, to the first moleules that mastered the chemistry of reproduction, discovered sex, hunted other life forms. For all any of us know the atoms in our bodies spent time in rocks, plants, jellyfish, trilobites, volcanoes. 

Perhaps that's the real reason organized religion never seemed like enough. That enveloping feeling of connection, almost warmth looking down the generations. The wish that I had known these ancestors, known their lives. Even if they did turn out to be perfect assholes that time those atoms were part of that human being.

Does this make any sense at all. I had to get this down before it faded. 

THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES

 

What is it about blogger. I write the entry in Word, with paragraphs. I paste into Blogger and the pragraphs are gone. Good thing I stick with Left Justify or I'd never find the darn things.

I'm a member of a science fiction page on FB. The other day one of the other members asked us to name what we were reading right then. No matter that the genre was. As is happens I was working on part of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Got the answer back, "it's a big book."

Well it is a big book. Which I pretty much swallowed whole when I was a fourteen. Right after Judgment at Nuremberg on the movie of the week. For a kid growing in up in a logging town in Oregon. I mean I was raised Methodist, in Oregon. The only Jews I had heard of  lived on the other side of the world. A long time ago. The film clips shown during the movie were a "what the heck was going on, the war was bad enough."

And what I knew about WWII was couple of stories my uncle Jack told about the navy in the Pacific. (that's a whole other story to be told later). So I went to the library. And took home a brick of a book. Which I pretty much swallowed whole. I'm not really sure how many hooks I had to hang the information on at the time. I mean what did I know about wars for heaven's sake.

However one chapter did stick. The New Order. This wasn't just about the Holocaust. It was the whole program laid out for the occupation of conquered Europe. The deportations. The victims hauled off the street to be executed in retaliation for attacks on German soldiers or authorities. The slave laborers who were basically worked to death. The companies that were more than happy to use those slave laborers. The companies that vied for contracts to build crematoriums and supply the Xyclon B. The medical experiments. And genocide. When I finished that chapter I never looked at the human race the same way again. Incidentally, once the war was over Hitler planned to spare just enough Slavs to serve as slave laborers. The rest could starve.

Shirer was a journalist. He never claimed to be a neutral, or semi neutral historian. He despised Hitler and just about everyone in power around him. In his opinion the history of Germany and its philosophy created a people who were obedient to authority. An opinion that has been challenged as the war years have faded.

William Shirer was a journalist in Germany in the thirties. He watched Hitler's rise to power. Watched as the rest of Europe basically stood by as Hitler's Germany swallowed one piece of real estate after another. He covered the trial in Nuremberg and had access to the literal tons of translated and declassified documents.

Anyway you don't have to read the whole book at once. It is divided into sections that include the rise of Hitler, the years leading up to the war, the "successful" war years, the beginning of the end, Germany's fall, and an overview of the trials.

Judgment at Nuremberg is a hard movie to find. It deals with one if not the last trial. In this case of the German judges. With pressure on the court to deal leniently. The Cold War was on the horizon and it looked like the west was going to need Germany. After all the war was over and all that.  

THE MIDGELET

 This is Midge AKA several other names like Henreietta Hairball, Miss Invisibility, Hard Find etc. She is about two in this picture. Light just catching one eye. I can't find offhand the shot I really wanted. At about ten months her beautiful, brand new red collar. It did really look great on her. I did the whole "you look really great," etc. And she was probably thinking "yeah right." Three days later it disappeared. Looked high and low, not that energetically I will admit.

About four days later she came trotting in, collar in mouth. And she had worked over thar collar six ways from Sunday. It was in no condition to be used again. She sat there. Very prim and proper. Looking like the cat that got into the cream. Never tried the collar bit again. She does look like those colonials with the lace ruffles. Very elegant.

THE NUMBERS WOULD BE GREAT

 if it wasn't for the "blue" states. So tweeted the current occupant.

So geology is kind of slippery. I'm not really sure where to start. Start with the Big Bang and try to work it that way? Start in the middle. Start with Oregon and work backwards. In the meantime. The current occupant twitted that if you took out the death tolls from the virus in the so called Blue states the numbers wouldn't look so bad. Jim Wright over at Stonekettle gave his opinion that the when the rest of the world thinks about American they usually don't think about Arkansas for example.

Honestly I believe Arkansas just popped out. Bit some of the folks in Arkansas took offense at the compariason. He just pointed out that when it comes to films, plays, books, food, trouble folks overseas don't usually think of Arkansas either. It's Las Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, New York City, Boston, maybe Miami or Houston.  The first four are from so called Blue states. Although they're only blue because just enough Democrats got a majority to count in the electoral college.

For starters the virus does not know or care what your politics are.It's just looking for a nice, warm host to hijack to make more viruses.

When Tony Bennett sang tht signature song of his it wasn't "I Left my Heart in Kansas City" and Frank Sinatra didn't sing "Cleveland, Cleveland." Same number of syllables but Cleveland kind of falls with a dull thud. And why is there Chiago: the Movie and not Tulsa? Damned if I know. And Albuquerque might by famous for some because Bugs Bunny used to say "I knew I should have taken a left turn in Albuqurque" instead of whereever he took the right turn at.

I didn't really mention Portland. Portland's problem is the same problem Oregon has. It's north of Frisco and south of Seattle. These cities have the big hub airports. These cities have the big ports. Face it. If the merchandise is coming from Asia the shortest distance is to the west coast ports. It's that, or go around Africa. I'm not sure if the big tankers or container ships can even get through the Panama Canal.

I almost forgot about New Orleans. jazz, food, Mardi Gras. Honestly I think New Orleans is in a class by itself. It's in the south but isn'texactly "southern."

And sir, the electoral votes may have gone "blue?" But there are plenty of "red"voters in those states that ae just as vulnerable, and need just as much help as the folks in the so called "red" states. Somebody really needs to take that phone away from you. Heck you couldn't even hancle a town hall without making a fool of yourself. What excuses will you come up with to avoid the debates.

STATE ON FIRE

And Denver is under a winter storm warning, Snow included. Too bad they can't send some our way.

It has been a hot, dry summer. Drier than usual. Most of the Northwest is under some degree of drought designation. There had been some fires in Oregon and Washington but from what I've heard nothing out of the ordinary. Then the jet shifted, eastern flow heated us up over the weekend and Monday the wind began to blow from the east. Here in Umatilla/Hermiston it probably didn't get gusts over thirty miles an hour. There was grass fire near town but it was contained. Smoke was bad for a few hours but gone by evening.

Not so on the other side of the mountains. High winds into Tuesday, gusts up to sixty miles per hour. Or more. Fires that were already burning blew up. Some folks up the Mckenzie didn't know there was a fire until they woke up in the middle of the night with flames at the back door. They made it out.

You go east up the McKenzie and EWEB (power company) has a small dam/power station at Leaburg. There's a small lake behind the dam. Was anyway. The lake has been drawn down probably to protect the dam. That meant that the Leaburg fish hatchery had to be emptied. The fish released. There was a video on youtube of the hatchery workers opening the pens to release the fish. Fire was at the top of hill as everyone left. One of the workers made the remark that his son's school was gone and his house was probably gone too  Unfortunately the video has been marked private by someone and pulled.

Updates today. Vida is mostly OK. Most of Blue River is gone. They managed to save the High School. It's a brick building. I haven't heard about Leaburg except for the lake and the hatchery. My grandparents had a little store up there when I was a little girl. Last I heard, or saw, it was a pizza parlor.

You won't know their names I can only describe the town I grew up in. Oakridge, Oreon. Logging town, once upon a time mill town about forty miles SE of Springfield. Highway 58 is a state road, it's the truck route to eastern Oregon hooks up with north/south bound 97. And there isn't much after you leave Oakridge until Willamette Pass. Ranger station and the staging area for snow plows and repair equipment.

It's a beautiful part of the state and part of me will always be there. But the road is two lane, fairly narrow with the odd slow taffic cut out. The mountains are steep and trees tend to run very close to the highway. And often the river is on the other side of road either has steep banks down to the water and more trees. And it's probably a good thing it didn't sink in when I was a kid. There is one road in and one road out. Especially southbound there's at least ten miles with trees right next to the road with nice steep mountains on one side and the middle fork of the Willamette on the other. To be honest the river isn't all that impressive until it hits the valley.

And then that devil wind hit Monday and everything went to hell in a handbasket.

PUTTING IT ON THE TABLE

While I'm trying to figure out how to describe the Big Bang here is (I hope) a blast from the past. And it fits perfectly with my opinion of media that doesn't show families shopping for their ingrediants or cooking them. And if they do it's with a mix or with pre prepped, pre measured stuff that comes in a box.

I’m not sure this ended up where I thought it would when I discovered this quote in one of Wendell Berry’s books. It might come from the Unsettling of America, I'm not sure. But, for better or worse, here goes.

“But just stop for a minute and think about what it means to live in a land where ninety five percent of the people can be freed from the drudgery of preparing their own food.”

James E Bostic Jr. former deputy assistant secretary of agriculture for rural development. I didn’t find much on the net about him. I believe he was in the agriculture dept. during the tenure of Earl "plant fence row to fence row" Butz. He got a degree from Clemson in chemistry. Did the government stint and has held various positions with outfits like Georgia Pacific. You know the “we never met a tree we didn’t want to cut” guys, among others.

Ugh. I wonder where this person would have placed on the psychopath/sociopath diagnostic scale. Apparently he lumps actually growing the food along with preparing the food for your family.

There is nothing more basic to being human than the growing, preparing, preserving and sharing of food within the family or with friends. One of the basics of the school garden movement beginning the mid nineties isn’t just the garden itself. The students learn to cook what they grow and share it with their classmates. Preferably around a table with all the trimmings.

Some of my craziest memories involve dinner time. When dad was disabled mom worked at the U of O as a cook. Which meant that you know who ended up doing a lot of cooking. Robbie did try to help. I came through the door after classes one evening to be greeted with “how do you make a cream sauce?”  She’d almost pulled it off on her own except for the fatal mistake. She turned her back on it for about twenty seconds and it was lump city. Then there were my experiments with pasta sauces. My youngest sister loves mushrooms. Now. Back then it was “are there mushrooms in this?” No sis that bowl has no mushrooms. Then there was dad and the chili. He’d slip in when he thought we weren’t looking and add a little more Tabasco to the mix. Didn’t take us long to just hold back on the final seasoning until just before we were going to serve it.

Then there was the three layer cake baked with baking powder that had lost its oomph. Good thing they liked frosting. And that chiffon cake. Nicely mixed, just turned into the pans with I spotted the measuring cup with the oil in it. That recipe was VERY forgiving. And the divinity that steadfastly refused to set. Pass the spoon. I guess the weather wasn't cold enough or dry enough that day. We had a bowl of basically gooey marshmallows. It was still good. Sticky, but good. 

Maybe it’s a guy thing, I don’t know. It was a challenge to step up and make sure that dinner hit the table on the days mom worked late and that it was something they’d eat. I have to admit dad and the girls were very patient with me. And some things got eaten then that have never graced our table again. Stuffed peppers spring to mind. Heven't eaten one since, at least not if I had a choice.

There’s a satisfaction to that and it’s a feeling he’ll never share.