something about the banjo

 I have been meaning to write something about the banjo. In October of 2020 I faced a long winter and a Covid lockdown. So I wondered, what am I going to have to show for all this time of lockdown? What will I have accomplished, or have to show from all of this?

I decided I would learn to play either the guitar or banjo. I sought the advice of various articles online, as to which was easier to learn. It was a toss-up. Pick one. So I went to Amazon and search for a good beginner banjo. I bought a cheapo for around $200. 

It was a bad banjo, but I didn't know that for a while. It did get me through those first months of deciding whether I wanted to stick with it. Last summer I spent about 6X as much as originally and bought a good one. Deering Blackgrass Special. I like it. I wouldn't say I love it, as it is a demon that has taken over most of my mornings. But I'd rather be with it, than without it, I suppose. 

I am 65 years old. Learning a new skill is difficult but in retirement I need difficult things to do. Things that challenge me both physically and mentally. This is one of the most challenging things I have attempted. It is right up there with passing all three levels of the CFA exams in succession. 

I practice around 2 hours each day, every day that I am in town. That is most days. The only day I take a break is on days when I have a lesson. On those days I just do the one hour lesson. My teacher is a master, and a hard driver. But I need to be driven, so I don't complain, much. 

From the first time I picked up this devil, I have been mesmerized with it. How is it that one can do one thing with the right hand and something completely different with the left? How is this happening? Day to day there is no noticeable progress. But I keep records. Watch that metronome. Write things down. I am playing a few tunes at half the speed a professional would, but a few months ago I played them at a quarter speed. Slow progress, but progress. 

Chords, licks, rolls. Chords, licks, rolls. Memorization. Manipulating my old fingers just right so that I don't buzz the string or deaden an adjacent one. Don't look at the right hand. Going too fast and going too slow. Playing for my favorite audiences of one, my wife, or one of my grandkids. The oldest grandkids, age 5 and 7, think I'm pretty good. If I can keep up with them, where ten years from now they still think I'm good, even if they don't like the music, will be an accomplishment. That's my goal. 

Travels in Covid Year 2 - 2021

For purposes of this list I traveled to a city if I spent the night there. 

Victoria, MN, Brentwood, MO, Minneapolis, MN, Charlotte, NC, Boone, NC, Mount Pleasant, SC, Baltimore, MD, Gettysburg, PA, Scranton, PA, DuBois, PA, Ocean City, MD, Webster Groves, MO, Steubenville, OH, Charlotte, NC, Roan Mountain, TN, Houston, TX, Silvis, IL, Webster Groves, MO, Bolivar, MO, Paris, TX, Eastland, TX, Abilene, TX, Oklahoma City, OK, Olathe, KS

A Winter of Content

 It is a basic human fault to complain about the weather. Most of the time it is too hot, too cold, etc. etc. blah blah blah. 

In Minnesota our Lord bestow a special blessing that I am increasingly thankful for. Very cold days. This morning it was -13 as I ran an errand to a neighboring town. 

On these days human activity slows down. When I had a job, the buses ran a little slower on these days. Fewer people came into the office. The phone rang less. Thus, work I needed to do got done. 

Today, I do not have a job. I use this time to get things done that are both important and unimportant. Get lost in a book. Tighten that screw, splice that wire, dust that difficult spot, file that receipt. Read the Bible. Sit in a Church and adore the Presence. Write a letter to my aunt.  

Solace. Quiet. 

In six months it will be one hundred degrees warmer. There will be more people moving around. There will be requests that I join them in consuming food. Humans will gather in celebration of certain plants, such as the " (insert county name here) (insert vegetable name here) Festival".  Farmers will have their markets. New young drivers will experiment with speed. 

The level of solace and quiet in my life will decrease as the days grow longer. Not for better or worse, just different. 

These days of cold are days I treasure, when I can do simple things like write down these thoughts of gratitude. 

Books read in 2021

 Covid continues to boost the amount of reading I do, or perhaps it's aging and and being more sedentary year by year. By and large this was an excellent list, and most I would read again, with the exception of those listed at the bottom of this post.  

In My Time - Cheney
The Saint Monica Club - Second Reading - Green
Decision Points - Bush
Into the Deep - An Unlikely Catholic Conversion - Favale
Boots on the Ground - Marciano
A Prayer for Owen Meany - Irving
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God: An Essay on the Problem of Hell - Manis
John James Audubon: The Making of an American - Rhodes
The Saint Monica Club - Green
The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion - Wright
Atonement - Stump
Where Nobody Knows your Name - Life in the Minor Leagues of Baseball - Feinstein
By What Authority - An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition - Shea
11-22-63 - King
Shoe Dog - Knight
The Count of Monte Christo - Dumas
Holy Bible - RSV - with Apocrypha
How to be a Grandfather - Hugo
Of Plymouth Plantation - William Bradford
The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus - Whiston translation
The Dreaded Thirteenth Tennessee Union Cavalry - Storie
Les Miserables - Hugo
Moby Dick - Melville
Untitled Draft of a Novel - Jones

Worst of the bunch - would not read again

Moby Dick - Herman Melville, My expectations were too high. I was expecting it to be a book about hunting for a great white whale, which was about 10% of the book. See my previous post. Quite boring. 

How to be a Grandfather - Hugo. The author wrote one of my favorite books, Les Miserables. This book of "poems", has nothing to do with being a Grandfather and little to do with his grandchildren. A collection of bad poems written by a grumpy old man who hated the Catholic Church and thought people reading this book would want to know that. I will pray for your soul, Victor

Eucharistic Adoration

Before the blessed sacrament. 

The mystery. The blessing. How do we stay away? Why is it that I allow so much time to pass before attending. How much time will pass before I am here again. 

Things you forget about snow in Summer

 We just had the first major snow of the season. Schools were let out early, or cancelled altogether. When we first moved here in 2003, schools rarely closed for snow. Now they do so with a regularity similar to the schools of St. Louis, where we moved from. We are becoming a less snow-tough people, but that is a topic for another time.

As I shoveled the porch and front steps I thought of the things I had not called to mind since last winter. 

How different the weight of snow can be from one storm to the next. You can tell without picking up a shovel, just by stepping on it. At times it is like shoveling feathers, other times like shoveling lasagna. 

What wind does. Five inches of snow usually means 18 inches in the vortex by the shed and an inch in parts of the front yard. 

What sun does. The fact a sunny day can melt snow and ice when the air temp is in the teens, is one of those pleasant little surprises of nature. 

The beauty of hoarfrost, diamond dust and snowdogs. 

The camaraderie of neighbors as we dig out. We wake up on a Saturday morning all facing the same problem, getting this stuff off the driveway, navigating the snowbanks left by the city plows.  

That squirrels may attempt to seek shelter somewhere in my house. A nook, a crease, a forgotten opening. The scratching sound in a wall is never good news, and was heard around 11pm last night for the first time in a few years. 

The beauty of this land when it is only two colors, White and shades of brown. 

 

Lost and Found in winter jackets

 Each October or November I don my collection of winter jackets for the first time in six months or so. In the packets are reminders of winters past, projects, and days. 

A pack of matches from a long defunct Savings and Loan. It has followed me since the mid 80's. 

A pokemon card that was a bookmark last year. 

A pair of work gloves. 

A pen from the Ford dealer in the next town. 

A lighter. 

They smell like the closet they came from, except for one that bears traces of an outdoor fire. 

I like the pockets of old jackets. Sort of an old man's Christmas stocking. 

The boat is in storage, the dock and lift are in the yard

 I know the best fishing is usually in the fall but I just cannot keep the boat setup much past Labour Day. Once we get to mid-September I am ready to pack it all in for the season. I have moved on, summer is over and it is time to get started on the whole long list of chores that must be done before the first snow flakes fall. 

I'm missing something, I know. There is a special time here in Minnesota to be out of doors and I am ditching it. Yes I am. Autumn is a trickster. It deceives. It looks like it will linger, yet rarely does. I don't think it actually exists. 

I have heard people who are natives say that they love the four seasons of this country. They cannot count. Knoxville has four seasons. St. Louis has four seasons. Baltimore has four seasons. Minnesota has two. Summer and Winter. There are three phases to winter. Cool Winter, followed by Deep Winter, followed by Soggy Winter. Summer has three phases as well. Soggy summer, Big Summer and Harvest Summer. Harvest Summer and Cool Winter overlap by about a week. Same for Soggy Winter and Soggy Summer, which only the lengthening of days allows one to distinguish between them. 

My boat is in storage in Scott County. Here is my boat lift and dock. Until May (Soggy Summer).

Thank you Lord, for this drought

 I don't know how these things come about but our land finds itself in an extended period of very low rainfall. A few years ago when we were getting much rain, I wished for a period like this. But weather extremes always cause difficulty for someone. While I am enjoying this, others are not. 

The drought reminds me of just how little of my life is under my own control. I depend on the Lord for each drop of rain and each ray of sunshine. Not that I am unaware or need to be reminded, but I do need to be more thankful. I live in an area of abundant wetlands and lakes, land that survives an extended dry period much better than other areas. 

There are numerous little blessings. 

I get a very good look at the lawn. I have different types of grasses. They respond differently to drought. Some keep much of their green and just slow down their growth, while others quickly go to brown. 

I understand my weed crop better. Like grass, weeds respond differently. Many keep their color while slowing their growth. They stand out during droughts and are more easily removed.  

Grasses are restored along lakeshore. Things long dormant come to life. Wetlands dry up just enough that they are easier to walk through and pull out trash and junk that boaters and fisherman have tossed into my cattail fields. 

Nature acts differently in general. Some of this is just random and some is related to the drought. It doesn't really matter to me if this is drought caused, or just coincidental. Such as: Turtle population up, Japanese beetles down, currants sweeter, tomatoes tastier, chipmunks up, crappie fishing off.

Fall colors come sooner. This week I have friends visiting from SC. Red maple leaves are showing up here and there earlier than usual. 

On balance, good stuff. 

Random thoughts on Covid

 I have nothing to add to the debate about whether folks should get vaccinated. This post is mainly for posterity, maybe my great-great-grandkids will read about it and use this post in a school assignment on early 21st century American history. 

I have relatives in the current hotspots of Arkansas and Missouri. I lived about ten years in both states and have an understanding of the mindset that makes people detest being told what to do, for whatever reason. I understand the mistrust of government. It is an easy path for elected officials to make this an issue of personal responsibility and choice. 

But those who oppose vaccines don't mistrust the government in all things. They trust the USDA that the meat they eat is safe. They trust the FDA that aspirin is safe for a headache. They trust the NTSB when they investigate a plane crash. When the National Weather Service says a tornado is likely in their area, they trust that information, even if it later proves incorrect. If they have a legal dispute most take it to the court system, believing there is a good chance that if they are right they will prevail. In all of these situations we are trusting government scientists and government legal experts in matters we know little about. 

But there is something about the nature of this particular vaccine that they feel so strongly that some are willing to take a chance and skip it. That is their choice, that is how we have set this thing up. They repeat that cry of rebellion that we all shouted in our childhood, "I don't want to do it and you can't make me!" Some times that rebellion is right, but in this case it just seems foolish. What is gained?

We all know that government does make us do things. That is what governments do. In the most extreme example, in wartime the government makes men fight and sometimes die to preserve the government. It is not matter of choice, they have to. And they do it. 

The government makes me stop at red lights. It is not a matter of choice. It makes me pay for goods before removing them from a store. It makes me wear clothing in public. It makes me pay taxes even if the money is used for things I don't approve of, a law that bugs all of us at some point. It makes me feed and clothe my children. Why? Because the public good takes priority in these matters over my personal preferences. It doesn't matter what I want to do, the government says I have to. By and large these are good common sense rules that enable us to live together somewhat peaceably. They are also rules that we have agreed to by majority rule, an idea that we don't talk about much any more. 

The government is content to do whatever it can to persuade. Bit by bit that seems to be helping the stragglers, but it won't get all. There won't be a mandate, but as my Dad used to say, "Son, I can't make you do that, but I can sure make you wish you had". 

Life is going to get much harder for those who refuse to vaccinate. It is going to become more and more inconvenient. Airlines, stores, restaurants, and other places where people gather in tight spaces will act. There will be mandates. They will be specific, not general. 

And they will wish they had. 

Turn to Shepard Smith for the really important stuff

This really got me laughing this morning. I'm watching CNBC around 730am CT and on comes Shepard Smith touting his big news show later in the day, one that of course, you should not miss. 

CNBC claims that "The News with Shepard Smith is CNBC’s nightly newscast providing deep, non-partisan coverage and perspective on the day’s most important stories." 

Hmmm. So what are today's most important stories, according to SS? 1) The cause of Tiger Woods' February 23rd car accident 2) The nationwide shortage of ketchup packets. 

Not so sure I'm agreeing with your perspective on April 7th 2021, Mr. Shepard. 

Ice Out and Ice In on our Minnesota lake

This week was ice out time. If you don't live this far north it is something that wouldn't enter your thinking about the seasons. It's a big deal. There is a good feeling that comes from seeing open water after four or so months of cold. It doesn't mean the end of snow, or the frost on the windshield. It just means the end of ice on the lake. 

It came a little earlier than average, which is around April 9th. That is typical, it jumps around a lot from one year to the next. One day the lake is mainly covered in ice, the next day the ice is gone. The reverse happens in that fall. Our lake is not huge, around 250 acres or so. If you live on a really big one, the process is a little less straightforward. More fits and starts, one bay is open, another is not, depending on sunlight, wind and the like. 

March 25th was the ice-out for this year. In the last ten years the earliest was March 15, the latest was May 1. Dec 1 was the ice-in date last fall, ranging between November 12 and December 19 since 2012. 

The state government keeps track of this information. I am one of the hundreds of citizen volunteers who watch the ice and submit the numbers. I've been watching the ice for the past week, binoculars in hand from the warmth of my den. Whew. My work is done. Until November.