January Memory

DUTCH

It’s coming up on 10 years now since I walked in pristine snow along a tumbleweed fence line, eyes intent, fighting the cold, following the quartering, mottled shorthair pointer.

Dutch's stub tail was an erect, visible signal. Like the sweep of greenish light on ancient radar, it twitched side to side as his nose tested frigid January for scent. Once that nose caught a few molecules of pheasant, the tail went flat, parallel to his lean spine and hip. Quivering, he would roll into a slow motion point.

Nothing else mattered. Dog and shotgun, man and bird, distilled into winter strong whiskey. Chronos stood frozen until Dutch, with one molasses slow placement of his massive front paw, directed the play into furious action, a cacophony of sight and sound.

The explosion of wings, a rusty gate cackle, and those amazing colors, impossibly autumn bright against midwinter white as the cock pheasant broke from cover. Arching into the unbearable, brilliant blue sky. I pushed the old Browning ‘til barrel tip covered the raucous red wattle and yellow eye.

Trigger pulled, recoil and ear ringing as the screaming number six shot column and bird met. An errant feather or two floated in the thin cold as the bird tumbled, carcass and blood on the snow.

Dutch was dancing. Jim, his master hollered congratulations. And my heart thundered. Images like that create history. Nothing can take them, not even death.

Jim died the next November, a massive stroke. Dutch returned to Indiana with Jim's wife. I miss them all, dog and master and his wife.

There is nothing akin to walking through wind blown, January fields with a dog who loves to hunt.

Out of the Clear Blue of the Western Sky Comes...

~ SKY KING ~

Brigid (http://mausersandmuffins.blogspot.com/) posted a bit about pilots and wanna be pilots.
The first thoughts in my head were of two heroes of my youth. Both of them were true pilots. One was Kirby Grant, the star of the '50's adventure western series: Sky King.

Kirby, born in Butte, Montana, used his own plane early on in the series. Short biographic sketch can be found here: (http://skyking.com/kirby_grant.html).


The second man was my stepfather: Aaron Boggs (Bob) Anthony. Never knew him as anything but "Dad."

Dad flew a Consolidated B-24 in the Pacific Theater, 13th Air Force, 5th Heavy Bomber Squadron. Not a pretty beast, just one helluva workhorse. I talked with his wing commander Wally Martin, after Dad died. He said that Dad flew between 48 and 52 missions in and around the Philippines, twice the number required. Guess it wasn't unusual, from what Wally told me.

Dad told me they were ungainly birds on take off and landing. He and his co-pilot ahd to crane their heads out of the cockpit to see the tarmac, given the geometry of the bird. Once in the air, they were dead on stable...Like a frikken White Freightliner.

After his first stroke, I took Dad to the Pima Air Museum, next to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. It was early spring, warm enough to walk about with just sweaters. Outside, in the boneyard, we found a B-24J, much like what Dad flew. We walked around it and he talked. It was the first time he had really opened up. Halting speech, from the stroke, but clear and strong. How the big radial engines purred....how tough it was to board, but great to fly. One of the docents came by, saw us pointing, talking and laughing....

He asked Dad about his history...and invited him, with help, to enter the old bird.

One of the only times I had ever seen Dad get tears........He said sumpin like "No, I've done that way too many times already....just let it be."

Dad died little more than a year later....another stroke.

Bread and Snow

Stock Show Weather

As I write this post, the temperature outside is 3 degrees F. Its typical Stock Show weather. From childhood on, when the National Western Stock Show opened its doors, we could count on a blast of cold and snow to be blown out of Canada.

This year is no different.

Great weather for staying indoors and baking bread. That is exactly what I did yesterday.

I follow a basic recipe found in the Tassajara Bread Book. It was first published in 1970, written by a Buddhist monk and baker at the Tassajara Zen Monastery near Carmel, California. To the basic recipe, I tossed in some left over, cooked and soured barley, milled oats and buttermilk.

The dough is allowed to rise a total of four times, being punched down and kneaded between each rising. This takes advantage of the long string gluten in the wheat flour. It makes for chewy bread! The buttermilk and soured barley and oats give the loaves some added zip, texture and crunch.

Four loaves, three for us and one to give to a friend.

On New Year's eve, I whipped up some Sourdough starter. It has run its course, is now complete and ready to be used for pancakes and bread. THAT, beloved, will happen in a couple of days.

Bread for the body and poetry for the soul, 'tis a delightful combination.

Tucson

Borderland Wars

Given the events of the day, I am thinking a lil' road trip on the blue highways out into the cold broad sky and sleeping land might give me some perspective. I need to walk this ugly madness out of my being and seek clarity.

Heroes are rarely known, recognized. Madmen are... Fame and flame in madness. Its a crazy culture.

One shot kills a judge. Another has completely altered the life of a true civil servant. One more cuts short the life of a 9 year old child.

That it has happened here in the U.S. makes it "NEWS". That it happens every frikken day in the Middle East, in the Sudan, in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan is no longer "news". That literally thousands of police, public servants and innocents have been brutally murdered in the drug cartel wars a mere few hundred miles south has no meaning?!?!?

Decapitations and brutal mutilations, assassinations and wholesale murder are a daily occurrence in Mexico, the horn of Africa and the Muslim controlled Middle East, while our own citizens, young men and women, choose to stand in harms way to protect us.

It is all insane.

Putting it into perspective, cold as it may seem.........We have become what we fought for damn near 300 years to NOT be.

Might be time to get on our knees and ask the good Lord how we can change.

Twelfth Night - Feast of the Epiphany.

Who Say's You Can't Go Home?

I spent some futile time today, attempting to scan and post pictures from holidays past in the old farmhous we siblings call, "The Homestead." It didn't happen...

The scan and post.

Perhaps that is best. The Norman Rockwell, Andrew Wyeth images that well up in a cold fountain from those years are as clear and comforting. And yes, some of the aftertaste is as distant, ugly and downright painful as yesterday's back cracker work.

In my body, I know Kronos, that old Saturnalian butcher pounds away at me. I know him as well as I know my own artisan and writer's hands and crippled back. They are both the scars brought on by years of toil and making do. My own stubborn Irish/Swedish streak, and the fear that what I created was not quite good enough in God's eyes has haunted my footsteps.

I have no pictures.....YET! I have words.


Allow me to tell the tale from Spring to Summer, Summer to Autumn to Winter's chill.

This is the recollection of living in the old farmhouse with the remnant of the apple orchard off to the east. This is the old house on the crest of the northern rise, where our bedroom window opened on to the sunrise, where brother John and I would wake in the silky May mornings to seriously sexy, explosive mounds of apple blossoms. That fragrance has yet to be matched.

This is what I remember:

- I recall sweating and raking the first drop from the apples. Might have been not enough water or no germination. Still, we mowed and raked. At the same time, we planted the Summer garden. Tomato plants, squash, peppers and herbs snuggled into the soil. Cherries from the lone tree ripened. Wild raspberry ripened on the briars. Then there were heirloom roses blooming. Long canes, heavy with butter yellow, five petaled blossoms, redolent with a gentle citrus fragrance.

If the year was wet, we would gather young asparagus in the ditch... enough for a meal or two.

- The second cull, large enough to fit as missiles in our young and hungry hands, ready for war. We began the siege of tree to tree, building forts of childhood sight. Grab a rake as a facemask! Run grab a shovel as a shield! Arthur and his knights will rise up behind us as the sour and sugar nectar of exploding young apples splattered our faces. Up in the towering elm next to the well house, we built a platform. It grew high and hither over the years. We watched summer sunrise and sunset there, and talked of bikes and Mickey Mouse and later, girls, their budding breasts and smiles.

- Come full summer where the fall of crabapple and second cull fell and fermented. While corn ripened and tomatoes blushed, robins and squirrels ate the fragrant and potent sour mash. Stumbling red breast birds, like the Wright brothers, attempted to fly. Rodents with attitude and numb butts, chased their newest lover up and down in an erratic Archemidian twist, stopping to scold and chatter.

- Apples full and apples sweet, apples come to harvest while the full corn rises. It was then that we siblings and cousins gathered all ripe on trees and the fresh fall on the ground. Applesauce and applebutter, cider and pie followed the garden harvest into mason jars, settled in the cool, damp cellars. Summer saved to rise again come the depth of Winter's chill. We, no longer children, no longer young, lanky legged and clear eyed, turned away from the old times, turned from the wonder of family.

We walked alone.

- Came Epiphany - When or where God's Spirit reminds the rebellious and bellicose, lost and lonely, empty and forlorn beings that we became... that our parents just might have been OK. They might have been and done the best they could; teaching and guiding as God called them. Winter and the cold knowledge that we can no longer pick up a phone and call, and say "I love you Mum, thanks for being here." The same for fathers, and their strong, long hours at work, or their weekends guiding us in building, digging, gardening. Or just plopped down watching football or baseball, a cold PBR in hand while stinky cheese and tins of smoked herring and oysters wait to be nibbled on rye crackers in a den redolent with the subtle fragrance of cigars and pipes, Old Spice and man's sweat, clean and honest.

Epiphany -- God is shown forth and made manifest. He did it then, He does it now, and He will continue to do it until I, or you, are released from these earthly shells and return to Him.

Yes, let us realize in this Epiphany season....We can go home again.