Conversations in Retirement

I have been talking with Kazue Campbell. She is a Scholar of Japanese, now retired from BU. She is busy translating a book from Japanese. The Book is an account of William Wheeler, of Concord Massachusetts and his efforts to improve the Agriculture in the North part of Japan beginning in 1876. Kazue was complaining about loosing steam on the work of translation. I said, “Please keep going. I want to read the book.”

I told her about my Grandfather’s visits to Japan about this time with the U S Navy and sent her pictures of his ship, at the time, the USS Kearsarge. She replied;

“Do you have any idea why did this ship went to Japan in 1874? It was 2 years before William Wheeler went to Japan together with William Clark and David Penhallow to start the first agricultural college in Japan, perhaps in Asia. ( Japan and the U.S.A. had the first commercial treaty in 1858, opening a number of ports. ) I look forward to talking with you on the subject.”

The Kearsarge was a US Navy war ship. If you look closely at the pictures you can imagine being underway at sea, the sails spread, a minimum of smoke from the stack. They would keep the boilers going to enable them to quickly "fire up" and increase speed with the steam driven engine, which was a new innovation in a war ship, increasing maneuverability in a battle encounter. My Grandfather was an "Engineer" in charge of the steam boiler. They probably burned coal which would have dirtied the sails and drifted over the deck. Quarters must have been tight below deck where you shared space with the steam engine, coal, canon balls and black powder, guns, sailors, galley, infirmary. The Officers would have tiny private quarters. My grandfather had a "sea" chest made out of Camphorwood in China. I still have it. It would be loaded on board when he reported to a ship for duty. The mementos he brought back, mostly from China, were small things, buttons, the wood cut print from Hiogo Harbor small pictures, a fan, a couple of daggers, things that wouldn't take up much space in his chest.

Looking at the pictures of the Kearsarge I am filled with awe and nostalgia. The beauty of the ship's lines, the craftsmanship the idea of a self contained community crossing the Pacific to Japan, under sail. It was all wood, with brass and iron fittings, built in Maine. It was the top of technology in its day.

I look forward to reading William Wheeler’s account of his multiple trips to Japan to establish a College of Agriculture. I must say I am more in sympathy with the purpose of his trips though my Grandfather’s mission may have helped William to accomplish his.

Loss of Power

Virginia and I returned to my house in the midst of a “blackout”. There was no electricity from 12 pm till 8 pm. It was a shock after the air-conditioned coolness of the Museum of Fine Arts and then the secluded, quiet, cool car interior on the way home.

We kept the house closed and it stayed fairly cool inside. There is a lot of insulation. It really makes me understand how dependent I am on our electricity supply. We had no lights, cooking, cooling, refrigerator; telephone, computer, TV, radio, hot water. The house was "dead".

It was such a relief when the power returned at 8pm and the electric clock started flashing. The fan in the kitchen ceiling started turning, the furnace came on to heat up the water. It is all well and good to say we must save oil and gas but how are we to generate the power we have all become dependent on? The scary thing is, that we will be even more dependent on electricity as the earth warms and the summers become hotter. It is a vicious circle.

What happened to the swing in the shade of the front porch? Where is the hand held fan? How long since I’ve seen a pitcher of lemon aid with its sweating glass and floating ice cubes?

Going Green

I have recently become truly alarmed about Global Warming. The trigger has been my taking a course at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Tufts University. The title of the course is “Rescuing an Ailing Planet” taught by a Graduate Student in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. The textbook is Plan B 3.0 : Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown.

I didn’t consider myself a latecomer to the environmental movement. I had just been passive, contributing to the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, Earth Justice, Conservation Law Foundation, Wildlife Federation, Wilderness Society, Ocean Conservancy, writing the checks and figuring I was doing my part; contribute the money and let someone else do the legwork.

I’ve had a rude awakening. I need to do more. I need to reduce my carbon footprint. So far I’ve reduced my driving. I’m walking and taking the bus and red line more. I have stopped using my dryer. I hang my cloths on lines in the basement near the furnace. I installed a programmable thermostat, replaced my windows and back door with new insulated double paned units. I had more insulation (cellulose) blown into my exterior walls. I’ve replaced all the light bulbs with fluorescents. My next car will be a hybrid.

On the food and eating front I’ve cut out beef and reduced my chicken, fish and turkey to three times a week. I’m eating lower on the food pyramid, more fruit, vegetables, legumes and grains. I’ve learned some cool facts. Beef takes seven bushels of corn(water, fertilizer, oil for tractors and harvesters) to produce one pound of meat. Beef also consumes enormous amounts of fresh water and expels lots of carbon dioxide. To stop eating beef is the equivalent of giving up an SUV and driving a Prius in energy use and CO2 production.

Another cool fact is all this fresh produce we import, like grapes from Chile, bring with them fresh water (often scarce) from the producing country. Grapes are 95% water. We fly that water up here! It makes you think about eating locally or at least domestically.

Our economy and life style are petroleum based. Oil production is like a bell curve and we are already past the peak and on the downward part of the curve. All of the “easy” oil has been discovered. Oil from tar sands, for instance takes two barrels of energy from oil to produce one barrel for other uses. It requires a lot of sand being moved around and a lot of water as well.

Conservation is the way to go and after that we have to make significant life style changes. We should travel less, build smaller energy efficient houses, retrofit the old buildings and housing stock we have, live closer to where we work.

I’m thinking about how communities can get a handle on rental housing, enforcing, encouraging landlords to upgrade energy efficiency. There is a storm brewing for low to middle income tenants who cannot pay high rents and high utility bills too. Gas and Electric bills are in arrears and service will be cut off in May. The bills will have to be paid before service is restored for the next winter. This is the next housing crisis.

Journal of a Secesh Lady

I have just finished reading Catherine Edmondston’s journal of her life during the Civil War.

I am so grateful to “Kate” for making the effort to record each day, 1860 to 1866 as she experienced it. She recorded the reports, rumors, and her vitriolic response to the hated Yankee depredations. She also found time to record the ebb and flow of the plantation work her personal joys and sorrows. I feel she shared her life with me, a woman of different circumstance in 2008.

It is a hefty book, weighty in both substance and size. Many a night in bed I struggled to hold it upright at an angle harmonious with my bifocals. Reading it from beginning to end is a task of persistence and devotion. I feel rewarded by the effort.

The story offers the opportunity to travel back in time, to be immersed in the thinking and social fabric of the secessionist south.

At times I became impatient with her favorite themes, the gentlemanliness of the Confederate Officers contrasted with the “ill bread” Yankees, her acerbic abuse of Lincoln. Still what would you expect? Do you want social realism or some sanitized romantic novel?

The last entries, after Lee’s surrender, made the whole reading worth while. Catherine and her husband Patrick had three properties and about eighty-six slaves. She continues her entries for another year as they struggle, former master and former slave to work out a new social contract.

Catherine excoriates the “Freeman’s Bureau”, their meddling, rules and general mischief. It is frustration and miscommunication on all sides. The dysfunctional family that was the Plantation hierarchy falls apart before the reader’s eyes. There is a redistribution of power, misread on both sides as the model shifts from Master and Slave to Labor and Management. Kate has a wonderful ear for dialect and dialogue. You can hear the speech and see the participants confronting each other both uncomfortable and on unsure ground. It is the beginning of the transition period in race relations that may devolve into the Presidency of Barack Obama

Loosing Friends As You Get Old

I am seventy-five now. The end of life losses are beginning to hit home. First was my husband. I thought I wouldn’t survive that one. He was literally my other half. His absence felt like standing next to an abyss. Connections that had been central to our lives together dropped away. My identity as his wife, the wife of a Professor, disappeared. I was floundering. Who was I and where was my place in the larger social context.

Now, seven years later I’ve managed to establish some sort of equilibrium. I’ve created a single life that is comfortable. I am at ease with myself. I think I would find it distasteful to have to accommodate to another persons wishes and decisions.

It has been a process. It was very unnerving to make my own decisions, with out consultation, and know I would have to live alone with the consequences.

The losses have continued. Old friends have died. One disappeared into dementia. And now a new ogre has appeared on the horizon, disengagement through personality change.

Yesterday at lunch I was discussing it with my friend Eugenia. “Some people get angry about getting old. My oldest friend isn’t speaking to me because I support Barack Obama. She thinks he is anti-Semitic and doesn’t support Israel.” I had been discussing it in the context of the loss of one of my old friends who has decided I am “rude” and “parsimonious”. I had been at a loss to explain her anger with me, which had grown and become more intense over a five-year period. When I finally confronted her I got a letter with a long list of my sins of omission and commission going back years. “That is crazy and obsessive.” Said Eugenia.

I had been trying to argue her out of her anger with me. This is the second episode so I think I will give up and let her go. It is a new variety of loss.

I'm Not There; The Bob Dylan Phenomena

I’ve always thought of Bob Dylan as a cipher who channels culture. It must be a strange driven life to lead. Probably he doesn’t understand it himself. I think that would explain his impatience and frustration with the questioning public.

This movie captures the irrealis of his career. He keeps reinventing himself. A different actor plays each incarnation. There is conflict in the interaction between his public and the metamorphasizing Dylan. The scene where his car is surrounded by needy, rapacious groupies is truly freighting. The faces in the windows look cannibalistic. “You know who we ARE, what we are feeling. Tell us!”

The needs of his audiences are exacerbated by the emptiness of our materialism. He doesn’t have any more answers than anybody else. He is just telling the story.

This is a unique movie. It is certainly worth seeing. It is an impressionist movie form. You may have to see it more than once.

Black and White Film

I have a picture of myself as a screen saver. I am 18? a full head of brown hair blowing in the wind. I sit astride “Apache” smiling, easy and comfortable in the western saddle. The T Rail Ranch at Patagonia Arizona spreads out around me in black and white film. The detail in the picture is blurred. Not enough pixels for even this small screen. Give me a minute and my memory can provide the details. The tan sandy ground, a rock here and there, a cow plop dried and hard in the sun. The ground is packed hard because this is the area used by cars and trucks to go between the house and the corrals.

The mesquite trees are bare, bent, built by nature for the 13 to 16 inches of rain in a good year. The ground drops off behind me covered with dry bushy growth on into the empty wash that can run fast and muddy when the clouds burst over the mountains. One year during a heavy flash flood ten cows drowned, having gotten caught up in a loose fence of barbed wire strung across the wash, and their bodies were deposited along the banks for a mile or more. One poor unfortunate was beached within easy reach of the ranch house. I was staying there at the time and sleeping in a small bed on the front porch. The ranch puppy shared my bed. He would climb up the stones of the porch, hooking his head around the leg of the bed. One night he managed this maneuver and arrived on my pillow reeking of putrid beef. He had gotten big enough to accompany the other dogs on their nightly scavenge. I quickly lifted him out and deposited him on the floor only to have him return. I solved my problem by getting up and pulling the bed away from the porch wall. He sat on the floor and whimpered plaintively. I complained the next day.
“That puppy keeps climbing into my bed at night and he stinks from the dead cow.” Frank went down and burned up the old carcass. That solved the puppy’s and my problem.

On the other side of the wash the ground begins to rise up a small hill, the last crown of a local range. This hill has a name. It is “Frank Seibold, Jr.”. It’s name sake tells me that Apaches, wandering off the “reservation” repeating their old migration route into Mexico, fired a few shots at the Ranch house from this hill in passing. “You could hear the bullets coming. They were packed poorly into the rifle chamber and came end over end making a flipping sound. It gave you time to take cover.” I can see the Indians on their little mustang ponies, their worn cotton clothing, a spot of red here and there, riding along in single file with stringy bundles of spare supplies hanging from their saddles. A mixture of boredom and resentment trigger the shots.

I have come down from Tucson for the day and my mother has taken this picture. I’m smiling. I’ve been riding with Frank. I remember saddling the horse, happy to have been able to catch Apache who I know is well broken, willing to respond to the reins and a light kick of your heals. I’ve put on a double saddle blanket and Doris’ saddle that is familiar and comfortable. I’ve tightened the cinch and buckled the latigo. Apache wears the simplest bridle, one split ear and no chinstrap. I’m dressed in blue denim frontier pants from “Porter’s”, a red and black flannel shirt over a white blouse. I would happily wear those same cloths now and they would look just as fashionable. They seem timeless.

I arrive at the Ranch with anxiety and hopeful expectation. Will Frank be there? Will he have chores to do that involve riding? Frank doesn’t ride for pleasure, only for work. The pace is always slow and considered.
“You have to save your horse for when you need him”, explains the leisurely pace.
If I hit the jackpot, Frank is there and planning a trip to the “range” and I get invited to go along. The task to be accomplished is not revealed. It becomes apparent, opening its details as the work is done. I don’t dare ask what we are going to do. That seems like taking liberties with my good fortune. I’m not sure how Frank will respond to too many questions. I just saddle up and ride into the unknown.

Today there is a young heifer expecting her first calf. She is small, a two year old, and the bull is big. Frank is concerned about her having difficulty with the birth. She has been hanging out at the furthest windmill up the dry riverbed. We head north east the horses hoofs sinking into the soft sand, dry now, and filled with old foot prints from cattle and horses. Mesquite trees on either side of the wash slip by. It seems a long ride to me and I think about the possibility of knee pain. It is a problem I have as my legs bend around the horse’s ribcage. Roundup is a special problem, spending all day from early morning to sunset in the saddle. One roundup I was riding with one leg hooked around the pommel.
“If you keep doing that you’ll give your horse saddle sores.” Said Frank.
That day I could hardly walk when I finally dismounted.

We plod along at a leisurely pace. The sun is hot and unforgiving but the breeze is cool. I do most of the talking. I’m a chatty young woman. I cover the subjects of rain, the chances of a good rainy season, the supply of dried grass still in place on the range, my classes at the University of Arizona, and what is Frank going to do with the rest of his life?
“I’ll probably spend it pulling reins.” He says

We finally arrive at the windmill. There is the heifer. She is in trouble. The calf’s two front legs and its tongue extend from her vagina. There is a large blister under the tongue. It looks like a hopeless situation to me. Here we are at least 4 miles from the ranch house with its phone. We have nothing but our selves and our horses.

Frank takes the lariat from his saddle and ropes the cow around her neck behind her ears and ties the other end of the rope to a nearby mesquite tree. He removes one rein from his horses bridle, leaving the other rein dropping to the ground, “ground tying” the horse who doesn’t move. He wraps the leather rein securely around the protruding crossed legs of the calf. The heifer sways at the end of the rope her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and exhaustion.
“Now I want you to get back here and catch this calf when it comes out. Don’t let that blister touch the ground and get covered with sand.”
I position my self, arms bent and extended. I’m holding my breath and I’m on my knees. Frank leans back using all his weight and strength. The calf emerges suddenly. I don’t expect the slippery heavy limp body. I fall forward under the unexpected weight. The calf’s head lands in the sandy wash. I feel like I’ve failed. If this was a cowgirl test, I just flunked. Frank is forgiving and accepting.
“That’s OK.”
I block out the rest of the operation. It is a big male calf with a large head. Is the calf going to live? Will the blister subside? Will it be able to nurse? We ride back to the ranch. Frank says he will come back tomorrow and check on the new Mom and baby. I think, “this man can handle anything.” This is what it means to come from a “pioneering ranch family.”

Viewing the picture I’m sure I am is still there in that time somewhere. The people who share that time and place must just be off camera. Surely they are there too. I can see them moving, reserved, unsmiling.

The family consists of the widowed Mom Sy, and the unmarried siblings in their late thirties and early forties, Doris, Helen, and Frank, Jr. Doris is a teacher and keeps her distance from the physical labor of the ranch. Helen is already suffering from “arthuritus” exacerbated by the hard strenuous physical labor of the ranch. Helen and Frank have tanned and creased skin on their faces and hands.

Helen’s travel to school was more difficult than mine. I ride in the car with Doris each morning to the 8th grade in the schoolhouse overlooking the town. Helen had to ride horseback to school every day. Her horse regularly threw her at the same place in the road. She complains to her father, hoping for a different horse.
“Who is going to be the boss? You or the horse?” He asks.

Helen does the evening milking. I am her assistant. After school I go out to the pasture behind the house and collect the milk cows. I drive them toward the corrals and the waiting calves. As time lengthens from the birth of their calves, the cows are farther and farther from the corrals. I drive the cows into the milking stalls where Helen milks them, not trusting me to “strip them.” When she finishes she turns the calves in with the cows to get their nightly ration of milk. Helen returns to the ranch house for dinner and after dinner it is my job to separate the cows and their calves for the night. The dishes are done and Helen says, “ Did you turn out the cows and calves?”
I’ve forgotten and now it is dark.
“ If you leave them together over night we won’t get any milk tomorrow.”
I grab a broom and flashlight and head for the corrals. Jersey, one of the cows has a bad temperament and likes to charge and butt you. I get the calves into their enclosure and turn to see Jersey charging me. The broom swings after the flashlight and hits it. The flashlight goes off.
“Shit”! I say loudly. I hear Frank’s voice coming from the top of the corral fence,
“Now what kind of language is that for a young lady.”
“Jersey is trying to butt me!”

The days blend into each other interspersed with memorable events, the sighting of a mountain lion, the deer hunter found dead on the mountain side, after being gored by the buck deer he thought he had killed. Helen cooks. Doris as the eldest sibling, hands down judgments. Frank takes care of the ranch with Helen’s assistance. He is the “Hand”. I wash and dry dishes. There are three Foremen, Doris, Helen, and Mom Sy. Frank is definitely low man in the pecking order cast there by his youngest sibling status or perhaps ganged up on by the women. Doris says she saved him one winter, aged 4, from drowning when he fell in the horse trough and his heavy clothing held him down.
“Biggest mistake of my life.” She says.
He is the one family member who doesn’t live in the ranch house. He has a small green tar papered cabin on the other side of the wash. I never go over there. It is a male domain. I want them to like me and approve of me more than anything else in my life.

One day I ask Mom Sy how she got to Patagonia. She was one of eight orphaned siblings born in Scotland.
“I came here from Paisley Scotland where I was working in the Mills.” It was about 1890.
“ My brother and one sister were already here. He was a jockey riding in the races in Patagonia and my sister was working in a boarding house for the Miners.”
“ My brother wrote and told me to come, that there was a lot of work in the boarding houses.”
“I started working with my sister.”
“ I met a Miner, Frank Seibold.” “”He was from Minnesota.”
“I married him and we homesteaded this ranch.” In 1895.

The homestead is a quarter section allotted by the Homestead Act. Later it is realized that in this dry desert landscape a quarter section is not sufficient to support a family. They are allowed to add another quarter section. At some point Frank wants to move on to California. Catherine refuses to give up what they have, the first thing she has ever owned.

The firstborn child was Catherine, named after her mother. She died at aged 2. The Seibolds blame visitors who brought a sick child with them. The child later came down with diphtheria. Catherine was infected and died. I’ve visited her grave in the family plot in the cemetery south of town. Her grave has a small white marble lamb with “Catherine” inscribed. It is surrounded by a black iron fence. The other members of the family have spare notation, just names and dates. Doris, the last survivor, has an unmarked grave. Her heir, a distant cousin, did not want the expense of a marker.

I hear the flat slow drawl of their voices. I remember their issues, the internal family struggles. The horses become their surrogate children. Doris breeds a prize winning filly, “Pretty Girl”. The filly is the hero of the family. She starts a quarter horse blood line that gives Doris state wide recognition. Pretty Girl is spoiled like no Seibold has ever been spoiled. She regularly comes into the fenced area around the ranch house and causes mischief. I hear the pans for the milking process being scattered from their shelves near the back door. Helen complains.

Mom Sy starts receiving Social Security. She is also loosing her short term memory. “Doris you don’t have to take my Social Security. You have your own money.”

Now in 2006 they are all gone. Frank’s wife Irene is the last survivor. What they feared most has happened. The Ranch is no longer a functioning operation. The cattle have been sold off along with the horses. The lease on the forest land has been relinquished. The deeded land, the old homestead, is broken up and sold off in ten to forty acre plots. The ranch house went to a buyer this last year. Doris’ cousin and heir, Cookie made promises she didn’t keep. She and her husband bought some “western wear” and stuck around for about 6 months. Then they returned to Florida. They asked Frank’s widow, Irene to run the ranch for them. With the help of a cowboy from Mexico, Irene ran the cattle operation for 3 years. Cookie complained that the cattle sales were not bringing in enough money. Irene was instructed to sell off the remaining cattle and horses. Cookie and her husband presided over the dismantling of the Ranch. In the process they stepped on just about every person they dealt with. I assisted Irene in retrieving a picture from the ranch house that had been left to her by Helen. Cookie swore out a warrant for Irene’s arrest that would be withdrawn only when the picture was returned.

I have been blessed to know this family, their ranch and to share a small period in their lives. My memories of the time with them are precious. They took me in, a confused adolescent girl who didn’t know yet what life was about. Through quiet discipline, work and structure built on economic survival they taught me about life and myself. I am so grateful that they had the patience and energy to accept me. Thank you, Mom Sy, Doris, Helen, Frank. Rest in Peace.