BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Some years back I was speaking at an event and I mentioned the work I do around the house – lawn, garden, remodeling, fixing things, you know, the usual stuff. Several attendees were simply flabbergasted. They couldn’t imagine why I was doing all of these things… I mean, after all, I write books for a living. I must have money to burn, a private island, a yacht, two mansions, and three airplanes. Apparently, to some folks, all authors are automatically viewed as a cross between Rick Castle and Warren Buffett. Of course, I found this amusing and proceeded to explain in five part harmony, with full orchestration, how some of them probably make more money than I do. Hell, when I worked in IT I definitely made more money that I do now.

But, this is not about the low income of mid-list authors. This is about history and hard times…

Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, I heard my parents talk about their lives growing up during WWII. I heard my grandparents talk about growing up and living through the Great Depression.  I spent the better portion of my childhood on the family farm during the summer, as well as parts of spring and fall. I remember watching my grandparents – on both sides – canning food from the garden, or making jelly and preserves from a basket of fruit they picked from a tree in the yard. My parents did the same thing. It didn’t matter if all they had on hand was enough for one or two jars. If they weren’t planning to eat it before it could go bad, they would can it, or process it and freeze it. When the family would slaughter a hog, they packaged the meat, cured the hams and bacon, used the brains, made souse meat (head cheese), rendered the fat and made soap, and much more… The salient point here being – they wasted nothing. They had seen austerity “up close and personal,” so they learned how to get around it any way they could.

Watching all of this, I learned from it, too.

However, I have to admit, I spent a good part of my teens and young adult life during the “golden age.” Rising stock markets, rampant consumerism driving a ballooning economy… Sure, we had our moments of recession. I can even remember  a long winter when the union where my father worked voted to strike. He wasn’t in favor of the strike, but majority ruled. He spent several weeks with only “strike pay” and what he could pull in working part-time loading trucks at a local short range hauler – and he was fortunate to get that job through some connections. I can remember peanut butter on Wonder bread being breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Still, for the most part, I had it easy. That “golden age” again… And, much to my chagrin, during that golden age I bought into the hype. I consumed, and wasted, and consumed and wasted some more, just like most everyone around me.

And that brings us to the “the times…” As the title says, These Are They… Perhaps it is my age – no longer young and indestructible. Perhaps it is the crash and not-so-great depression we’ve been weathering (that was NOT a recession, no matter what anyone says). More likely it is a combination of both. The thing is, this has brought me back around to what I learned in my youth. Waste nothing…

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you know that I pulled out the pressure cooker and did some canning this year. Honestly, I had forgotten how much I missed doing that. In addition, we are lucky enough to own an upright freezer, so some of the harvest from our garden was processed and frozen. For the past few years, I have been saving vegetable scraps and freezing them. Whenever I have enough, I roast them, then add water and cook them down to vegetable stock, which I then part out into containers and freeze for use int soups and the like. The leftover mush goes into our composter, along with other organics from the kitchen, thereby creating fertilizer for our garden.

So… Am I no longer a consumer? Well, I certainly cannot say that, and anyone who followed EKay’s and my landscaping adventures this past summer knows that I’d be lying if I said otherwise. However, I can say this – I’ve seen my moments of austerity, up close and personal. They weren’t the worst ever, and there are plenty of people worldwide who are worse off, or have been worse off. The thing is, I’ve come back around… And, like we all do, I have become my parents, and in turn, my grandparents.

Am I suggesting you become an urban-hippie-composting-farmer? Not so much. I’m just reminiscing and looking forward at the same time, which, oddly enough, offers more clarity than you might imagine.

In case you are wondering what sparked this little missive, it was the four gallons of turkey stock (pictured above, right) that I just squeezed out of the Thanksgiving turkey carcass and a handful of vegetable scraps I saved from the preparation of the dinner itself.

Waste nothing…

MRS

Mark your calendars. Two posts in two days, all while being in the “random post whenever” state of mind.

In any case, nothing truly special from me this time. What you are about to read was penned by someone else. Yes, a blog comment spammer. I am posting it as a blog entry only because it is so convoluted and weird that I thought everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy it as much as me – or be disturbed by it as much as me – and simply approving the comment on a better than year old post wouldn’t have allowed it to bubble to the surface.

You can thank me later.

And so, here you have it. Some pretty bizarre spam on a stick. I give it an A+ for originality…

(IP, etc redacted to avoid spammer linkage)

Author : google search (IP: XX.XX.XX.XX , XX.XX.XX.XX.xxxx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxx.xx)
E-mail : Undercoffler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.yyy
URL    : http://yyy.yyyyyy.yyy
Whois  : http://whois.arin.net/rest/ip/XX.XXX.XX.XX

Comment:

My son, 24, had sexual contact with three girls when in high school. He went on to college at St cloud state Mn for special ed teacher. He broke off the relationship with the girl friend when he was in college as the distance wouldn’t allow for a “real” relationship to survive. In his second yr. he was able to student teach and chose to live at home and teach at his old high school where his ex-girlfriend wasa senior. She talked how she had sex with that teacher and of course, social services got invovled. He was represented by John Shiro in Fond du Lac co. court and pled no contest or else guilty and was sentenced to 9 months jail and five years probation. Certainly a fair sentence in my opinion. He recognizes that he has no more career inteaching but has been put in a virtual hold on life by his probation officer. He has been unable to hold a job or accept jobs because there might be minors around, unable to attend church, unable to go to his grandmothers for a X-mas meal with family,and was not allowed to go to AA meetings in an attempt to stay sober. In his first year on probation he went to Mn. fora fishing trip and drank beer, a violation. He was offered an ATR for alchohol and it worked, but he feels he needs the support group of AA. This is being denied by his PO. He was ordered not to see his fiance in Dec, she is 21 or 22 , but he ignored that rule feeling that it was a violation of his civil rights. I don’t know the role or guidelines a PO can put on an individual, but we feel that he has been unfairly treated over the past two years by her. He wrote a greivance letter to her supervisor in Nov. and has not gotten a response. His Po has a nephew who at the age of 18 molested a 13 yr old girl, got probation, and reoffended a year later with a 14 yr old. He was convicted and sent to prison. We ( my family ) feel that this has affected her emotionally and sees that all deserve the same treatment. This is long, and I apologize, but the bottomline is that my son seems to have gien up all hope on a future of any sort, and is wondering if he should consider a motion hearing or sentence modification. He has faced no new charges but now faces six to ten parole violations. One is seeing his girlfriend, another is that he had a grocery receipt for a bottle of wine in his car. This was a last minuteX-mas gift from his girlfrind to us. We still have it in fact. I am sure he will face revocation with just one year left of his five yr probation term so my son feels like he needs to do something proactive. A friend of mine is Washington CO. DA, Todd Martens. He said in the beginning to contact you like five years ago but unfortunately you were out of town and I was too nervous or frantic and contacted Shiro. Don’t know what to do to help out my son but don’t see that the punishment fits the crime and not real sure of what a PO’s job really is.Any suggestions and if you are interested, any estimate. This PO also had issues with Dr prescribed meds. My list seems endless and we thought we could hold out to the end of probation, but nowit doesn’t appear so. One last thing, I deer hunt with Todd and have not shared these issues with him. But if you see him, I am known as minnow mike. Thank you for your time.

Damn me for being out of town… And “Minnow Mike”? If  “D.A. Todd” didn’t know before, I guess he does now, what with us knowing each other and all, I have to assume he reads my blog…

Until the next time, stay frosty and don’t let any of “teh stupid” get on ya…

M