I’m Just Curious: Customer service

by Debbie Walker

Customer service is just one of my interests. I’ve even attended a few seminars over the years. I love that stuff.
Many times I have been on either side of that counter. I’ve had all kinds of experiences, some good, some not so good.

One thing I do know is the basics of customer service are quite uncomplicated. Most everyone wants to be acknowledged. It’s really very easy. You simply have eye contact with the customer and either tell them you will be right with them or you signal them with your index finger held up, most people understand that as “Just a minute.” I can’t tell you how much grief that can save in customer service by just giving that little attention.

Twice in the past week I have stood at a service counter for several minutes each. Clerks were on the phone and assisting other people. One was “chatting” with a co-worker. “Chatting” when a customer is being ignored is a big no-no. The clerks all ignored the fact that I was standing there. That little bit of eye contact and a smile acknowledging that I was there would have made a big difference in how I was feeling.

Oh yeah, and customer service is anyone who is being paid for their services rather by the hour, by commission or maybe by the treatment. It includes clerks in a store or even doctors. It’s all customer service. It’s because of these people waiting that you even have a position.

It’s really too bad that all offices and stores don’t do some training on customer service. What little bit it would cost them; they wouldn’t even notice, however, their customers/clients would notice.

One evening in a grocery store a little old lady in line just ahead of me asked the clerk to read her something on a label. That extremely rude clerk started ranting off to that woman about how she wasn’t hired to baby-sit people or read to them. I read it to her myself. As she left the cashier started running her mouth about “these old people.” With every word out of her mouth I was seeing a darker shade of red. I know she wanted my agreement, however, what she got was “I hope if you make it to her age all you find for assistance is someone like yourself.” After I finished checking out I had a chat with the store manager.

Having worked on front line registers and a variety of other customer service positions I know there are people who will try your patience. Stores and offices would be wise to do some of this training. If the company doesn’t offer it, train yourself, there are books. It will help you live longer.

We’re all in a hurry these days. Sometimes we forget we are not the only ones in this hurry-up life. It would be nice if we could all slow down a bit and be more compassionate towards others.

Sometimes folks start out on schedule but wind up waiting until noon for their appointment scheduled at 10 a.m.

That’s just rude. If you have that type of situation talk with whomever does the scheduling and ask them what time you could schedule your next appointment to avoid a two-hour wait. If we don’t speak up these types of things will continue to happen. Don’t be nasty, just communicate. If everyone did this maybe we would see a change.

Okay, so I’m sure you get the idea. There are good and not so good on both sides of the counter. It really only takes common sense and courtesy to make everyone calmer. It has to start somewhere, let it start with each of us.

I’m just curious how far a little common sense and courtesy can take us into a Merry Christmas. It is getting closer!!!

Please contact me at dwdaffy@yahoo.com sub: Customer service.

Secrets for garlic growing success: Make your garden into a royal palace for this queen of herbs

Emily CatesGARDEN WORKS
by  Emily Cates

Attention garlic lovers, now until the freeze is the time when you should be planting. If you have as much affection for this beloved stinking rose as I do, then you’ll want to read on for some helpful advice including cultivar selection, obtaining planting stock, site preparation, planting, and post-planting care.

page12pict1First, though, let’s find out which cultivars we like. Garlic is usually divided into groups having stiff stalks (hardnecks) or soft, pliable stalks (softnecks). Within these groups are several subgroups of many named cultivars.

Generally, hardnecks- especially those in the Rocambole group (Spanish Roja, Phillips, Stewart’s)- are valued for their exquisite flavors. Softnecks, on the other hand, (Kettle River Giant, Red Toch) tend to excel in storage and make beautiful braids. In a search to obtain suitable cultivars for our gardens and tastes, look for those with desirable qualities such as cold hardiness, storage abilities, and culinary attributes. In my opinion, the most tried-and-true, beginner-friendly hardnecks that are easiest to grow and obtain planting stock for are the ones called German Extra Hardy, and Music. I would also recommend a softneck, known as Inchelium Red.

Where can we find planting stock? FEDCO and Johnny’s are local companies that carry the aforementioned cultivars. Once you get a garlic patch established, save your own bulbs and keep your own strain going year after year. It’s always a good idea to make sure our planting stock is from the best of the best if possible, and free of disease and mechanical injury. Garlic that was harvested too late will have split bulb wrappers, but should be just fine for planting stock (and possibly more affordable).

Where should we plant our garlic? It’s optimal to give garlic the highest place of honor in the garden: a plot with the very best soil and full sun. Give them the royal treatment! At the end of every September, dig and grub out the weeds in the beds, paying extra attention to extracting as many roots and rhizomes as possible. (I’ve found this to be most effective when done by hand – just think of it as a free gym membership…and good business for your chiropractor…) Then go through with a spading fork and turn the soil, adding compost and/or manure, and amendments such as azomite and clean wood ashes. Now it’s ready to plant!

Next, separate the individual cloves from the bulb and plant each clove about 9 inches apart, pointy-side up with the point an inch or two under soil level. They can be in single rows or staggered in beds. Labels and a map are crucial if more than one named garlic is planted. After planting, cover the planting with a nice, thick mulch of straw. Farm animal bedding works really well, too, especially if it’s from goats. Speaking of animals – if there’s no fence around the garden, it might be a good idea to lay down some welded-wire fencing on top of the mulch. The garlic will grow through this while being protected from scratching, digging, and chomping critters who like garlic as much as we do.

In the meantime, we’re done for now until Springtime. Whew, it was invigorating work – and worth it, too!

IF WALLS COULD TALK, Week of November 3, 2016

Katie Ouilette Wallsby Katie Ouilette

WALLS, were you surprised to have snow ‘spitting’ in Madison yesterday? Well, it is going to be Winter, if we are ready or not, you know! In fact, faithful readers, Lew and I and Cousin ‘Skeet’ visited with Cousin Ernald and Mal on the weekend and, you guessed it, there was snow on all the mountains as we headed to Maine from Grantham, New Hampshire, on Sunday! So our Maine Weatherman, no matter what TV station is telling it, says ‘snow’ is on the way, but let’s hope for rain first, as this drought is needed for our very dry land. Yes, I wonder if the predicted rain will really be beautiful white snow in ‘Solon and Beyond’?

WALLS, please tell folks about learning a lot about apples yesterday, when Heather Davis, co-ownerr of Cayford’s Orchards near Skowhegan was guest on Keeping Pace on Beeline Channel 11. Fascinating, for sure! Y’know, WALLS, you sure did do listeners a huge favor by bringing all that information to folks.

Speaking of bringing information to your faithful readers, WALLS, surely you have noticed the big new barn behind East Madison’s Historical Association’s Museum. They are next to the East Madison Fire Station and what a great job the volunteers have done. Yes, whenever folks drive to East Madison, they will see that the Farm and Farmland Museum now has a roof. Those men who have worked so diligently say the building will be completed by Christmas.

WALLS, you seem to be letting faithful readers know the latest news with this column. There was a meeting at the Lakewood Golf Course Clubhouse about the new movement that concerns making faithful readers aware of the effort to make folks in the communities along U..S. Route 201 realize the possibilities that await those who are very talented in the arts and other cultures in the entire Area. Y’know, faithful readers, Maine does have so much talent in so many ways, whether painting on canvas, making beautiful pieces of ceramics, or, yes, playing or singing wonderful music. WALLS, this will be the perfect time to tell faithful readers that Amber Lambke, is the person who brought new life to our old Somerset County Jail by introducing our Grist Mill to folks again. Yes, for sure there are those who remember the train’s pulling up to Watson’s Grist Mill, in Skowhegan, and delivering ‘Skowhegan grown wheat’ to Massachusetts and beyond. Yes, Amber was a feature in DownEast Magazine recently.

WALLS, you have so much to tell our faithful readers this week. Surely, you will make them proud of be able to say, ‘I’m from Maine and glad of it.”

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Singer: Dottie West; Composer: Sir William Walton; Author: Charles Dickens

Peter Cates

by  Peter Cates

 

Dottie West
A Legend in My Time; RCA Camden CAS-2454; 12-inch stereo vinyl LP; released 1971 and consisting of nine selections from 2 previous LPs from 1965 and 1967.

Dottie West

Dottie West

Dottie West (1932-1991) recorded upwards of 28 albums for RCA alone between 1965 and 1975, many with the Jordannaires and the arrangements of Chet Atkins. She had a particular gift for cutting to the agony and ecstasy of a given song, especially when it was the high caliber writing of Don Gibson, Dallas Frazier, Willie Nelson, Mickey Newbury, etc., examples of which are featured here. As stated above, a sampler album but a very enjoyable one.

Copies available from the Amazon site starting at five dollars for the lp and eight for a cd reissue containing both this and her 1965 Sound of Country Music.

Walton
Belshazzar’s Feast; Coronation Te Deum; Sir Georg Solti conducting the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra; Benjamin Luxon, baritone; Ralph Downes, organ; London OS26525, 12-inch vinyl stereo LP, recorded March, 1977.

Sir William Walton (1902-1983) was one of England’s foremost 20th century composers and first achieved fame with Belshaz zar’s Feast at the very young age of 29 in 1931. This oratorio, a term describing a work for choir and orchestra with a Bib­lical subject as its theme, is probably the most scorching, high-spirited and, in its quieter moments, atmospheric, if not creepy example of the genre, light years different from Handel’s Messiah.

Sir Walter Walton

Sir Walter Walton

The subject draws on the years in Babylonian captivity of the Jews, the evil of Belshazzar the king and the depraved feast that he holds for his court, climaxing in God’s destruction of everyone – there is a passage depicting the hand from out of nowhere scrawling the miraculous writing on the wall – “Mene mene tekel upharsin, thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting !” – just before God’s wrath against these folks is totally vented.

A later, shorter work included on the record is the 1953 Coronation Te Deum, specially composed for the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II. Walton paid numerous visits to Westminster Abbey to check out every possible corner for the best projection of the music. Although not a masterwork, it has a listenable festive majesty .

Solti conducted performances of both works with power, zest and beauty, clarifying and negotiating Belshazzar’s tricky rhythms with suave effect.

CD editions of this recording start at $7.50 on the Amazon site while the LPs begin at $4.89.

Charles Dickens
Barnaby Rudge

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Barnaby Rudge, along with Tale of Two Cities, are the only Dickens novels I have read from cover to cover. Having made this statement, I intend no sort of contempt for his formidable storytelling gifts but merely to convey that too many other activities obstruct my intentions to enjoy the several unread volumes on my shelves.

Written in 1841 when Dickens was only 29, its several hundred pages are a depiction of an assembly of good and bad characters in London during the Gordon anti-Catholic riots of 1780. It has engaging sub-plots of compelling interest and a sinister Dennis the Hangman who loves to editorialize on both the meaningful and humorous implications of his work, praising the gallows as a very practical and most civilized tool of true justice.

SOLON & BEYOND, Week of November 3, 2016

Solon and Beyondby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

The annual Holly Shop Craft Fair at the North Anson Congregational Church will be held on November 12 from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m.

And now for the adventure that happened to us in Rangeley on our vacation there a week ago. Lief loves shrimp, and especially shrimp on a stick, which is served at an establishment in Rangeley. We decided to go to this place on the Friday before we returned home for supper. When we got near the place, a parking spot was hard to find. As we finally were parking we noticed a cop coming out of the building, and my thought was whether I really wanted to go in there, but we did.

We were met right at the door the minute we walked in by one of the loud party goers, and his first words to Lief were, “You have a lovely young lady with you tonight.” He was obviously either high on drugs or alcohol or both, I didn’t pay attention to anything else he was saying to Lief, but was looking over the noisy gathering in front of us. All of a sudden I saw Lief start to go through this raucous bunch and couldn’t believe my eyes when he drew off and punched a guy on the shoulder, that was standing across the room. My immediate thought was, this could get nasty…and so I sent a quick prayer heavenward and marched into the fray! I grabbed the back of Lief’s jacket and dragged him back toward the door. Was shaking pretty bad by that time, and there was an empty table, so we sat down. The first thing I said to Lief was, “Why did you do that?” And his reply was “The guy told me to do it!”

One of the things I love about Lief is his great sense of humor, but he took it to a new level that night! And no, we didn’t sit there very long, but left and found another calmer place to have a meal. Will we go back again for Lief’s shrimp on a stick, definitely, but not on a Friday night! (I let Lief edit this and he said it was OK to send it but you can ask him for his version when you see him!)

I will laugh even harder the next time someone says to me, “What can you possibly find to do in Rangeley for a week?” (So many have asked that question!) But we do other odd things as well, like we did this time, it was much calmer and we laughed a lot! We sat for two hours beside a moose waller (mud hole where moose have been) on the road between Stratton and Rangeley hoping to have a moose come out so we could get a picture of it. Finally, when it was getting along toward dark, with no success, we traveled back to Rangeley.

After reading the above, you all must know how desperate I am for your news, please do contact me (soon) with your goings on.

And hope you will enjoy Percy’s memoir, he has used this one before, but I feel it is worth repeating! “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” (words by Albert Einstein.) Hope all of you reading this believe in miracles!

Noisy, plentiful acorns; obscure beech nuts

by Roland D. Hallee

While preparing breakfast last Saturday, I glanced out the kitchen window towards my recently cleaned up garden plot. While looking around I noticed some movement, and commented to my wife: “I think I have a title for a new country song, ‘There’s a squirrel in the compost pile.’”

I’m not sure how that translates to pickup trucks, bass boats and lost loves, but I’m sure it has a place in there somewhere.

Anyway, that prompted me to ask myself what could be in the compost that would interest a squirrel. After all, it has nothing more than plant stems, vines from squashes and various roots and stalks.

There were a few tiny, fledgling fruits from these items that didn’t have a chance to mature, but that would be it.

Then my mind rewound to the recently closed down camp, and the food sources out there. Nearby there is a large oak tree and a mature, but fairly young beech tree. Most of you have probably heard acorns when they fall from the trees, and land on something substantive. They sound like gunfire, exploding bombs or branches falling. They make quite a loud noise. The presence of Beech nuts, on the other hand, are hardly even noticeable.

Wildlife that consume acorns as an important part of their diets includes birds, such as jays, pigeons, some ducks and several species of woodpeckers. Small mammals include mice, squirrels and several other rodents – ahh, squirrels. Large mammals include pigs, bears, and deer. Acorns are in high demand.

Acorns are attractive to animals because they are large and efficiently consumed or cached. They are rich in nutrients and contain large amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fats, as well as calcium, phosphorus and potassium, and the vitamin niacin.

Acorns are too heavy for wind dispersal, so the spreading of the seed is dependent on animals like the squirrels who cache the nuts for future use. Squirrels scatter-hoard the acorns in a variety of locations in which it is possible for them to germinate and thrive. On occasion, the odd acorn may be lost, or the squirrel may die before consuming all the acorns it has stored. A small number of acorns may germinate and survive, producing the next generation of oak trees.

As far as us humans go, acorns have frequently been used as a coffee substitute. The Confederates in the American Civil War and the Germans during World War II, which were cut off from coffee supplies by Union and Allied blockades respectively, are particularly notable past instances of this use of acorns.

Either Martha or Stewart on my porch railing, after rummaging through my compost pile, waiting for its annual allotment of chestnuts which I have not yet put out. Photo by Roland Hallee

Either Martha or Stewart on my porch railing, after rummaging through my compost pile, waiting for its annual allotment of chestnuts which I have not yet put out.
Photo by Roland Hallee

As far as the beech nuts go, again going back to camp and the beech tree near our site, there doesn’t seem to be much activity by squirrels in the area of the tree. Of course, the beech nut seems to defy gravity. It is a small nut with soft-spined husks. Although it is high in tannin content, they are bitter. The nut can be extracted by peeling back the husk, but your fingers may hurt dealing with the spines.

Maybe that is why they are not that attractive to squirrels.

Nowhere in all my research did I find any reference to wildlife that feast on the beech nut.

Beech trees are better known for other things than producing a source of food. The Beech bark is extremely thin and scars easily. Carvings, such as lovers’ initials, remain because the beech tree is unable to heal itself.

On a different note, slats of Beech wood are washed in a caustic soda to leach out any flavor and is used in the bottom of fermentation tanks for Budweiser beer. This allows a surface for the yeast to settle, so that it doesn’t pile up too deep. Beech is also used to smoke Westphalian ham, various sausages and some cheeses.

The American beech tree occurs only in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. It is believed that it was found coast to coast prior to the Ice Age. Now they can only be found east of the Great Plains. You will rarely find the beech tree in developed areas unless it is a left over of a forest that was cut for land development.

The beech tree is also temperamental. Some trees never produce nuts while others only spawn edible nuts in certain years.

So what was that squirrel – I could not discern whether it was Martha or Stewart, my two resident rodents – looking for that day? Probably just window shopping.

I’m Just Curious: Organized?

by Debbie Walker

Have you ever noticed how much of a mess gets made when trying to re-organize your home? Oh, re-organize, maybe in some cases, such as mine, this is a bit of a stretch.

I am in the process now of trying to straighten out my mess. I don’t think this place has ever truly been organized. We started out with this house being a 6/6 home with six months here and six months in Florida. Instead of traveling everything up here I bought dish sets, pots and pans, even bought a crock pot for Maine.

Ken decided to get rid of the Florida home. We had a whopping big yard sale in Florida and still managed to have way too much stuff to move up here. One of the aggravating things is to love your wall art and family pics, but we had more wall space in bigger house, not enough wall space here. So I have had to find storage space. Frustrating!

OK, so it has been quite a process to find places for things we brought here. This house is smaller than the Florida home. In a fit of frustration one day I told Ken to put the pickup truck close to the door and I started throwing. Ken said something really disgusting. He said “you’re throwing out some good stuff, why don’t you have a yard sale?” The man is lucky he lived through that one! “Yard Sale, no way!”

The yard sale in Florida was an experience I don’t care to repeat. People actually stole stuff, stealing stuff at a yard sale! Oh for crying out loud!!

I really thought I was on the home stretch for getting things organized. I was actually getting close.
Ken had a porch added to the front of the house this summer. Hurray, more room. Well that didn’t last long! You know how I had the duplicate stuff here and Florida, I pretty much had the same set up for the motor home. And Ken sold it! Everything came out of the motor home and, of course, wound up on the porch. Nuts! All that did was give me another room – totally un-organized. The worst thing is yet to happen! I am going to be forced to have a porch/yard sale!

I was thinking about taking some of my craft stuff to a craft fair or two this fall but…… now I NEED to have a yard sale so I will just start dragging more stuff out to the porch. You know I have quite a few interests and if you were to ask Ken he would tell you I am a hoarder. Not true, but to a neat freak like him, my stash of supplies probably looks like just “clutter.”

Well, if you are organized in your home I am so happy for you. I appreciate your skill in keeping it organized. So if you happen upon my yard/porch sale back up your vehicle to the porch door. I’ll bet I can even un-organize your vehicle!!!

I’m just curious if I’ll ever get even semi-organized! Contact me with comments or questions at dwdaffy@yahoo.com . Sub line: organized?

REVIEW POTPOURRI: John Stewart, Pergolesi & The Time of Your Life

Peter Catesby  Peter Cates

John Stewart
Blondes

Allegiance Records AV 431, 12-inch stereo vinyl LP, recorded 1982.

John Stewart (1939-2008) was arguably one of the dozen or so finest singer/songwriters to emerge during the folk/rock era of the ‘60s. When he was picked by the Kingston Trio to replace original member Dave Guard in 1961, his singing, composing, instrumentals and comic spokesman skills added much to the live concerts and recordings for the Trio’s remaining six years before disbanding in 1968.

The launch of his solo career with 1968’s Signals through the Glass would turn out to be, because of its over-produced arrangements (although I still treasure it), a mere taste of the brilliance manifested later in California Bloodlines, Willard, Sunstorm and others over the next 40 years. His songs were stories of the American experience wrought with a uniquely original musical voice- folk, country, Aaron Copland, blues, pop and disco, all blended into the most engaging, individualistic goulash to be heard anywhere. Whether a Mississippi back road, the spectacular dark prairie skies of Nebraska or wistful memories of the woman who got away, Stewart internalized these experiences and transformed them into something very special.

1982’s Blondes is an assortment of 10 songs of exceptional quality, a standard that Stewart, for all his gifts, didn’t always sustain. The general theme is the stark, glittering reality of the early ‘80s California urban landscape, saturated with the refuse of pipe dreams, lonely hearts thousands of miles from home and other on-going forms of emotional brokenness. A few titles reveal a lot – Girl Down the River, Angeles (The City of the Angels), Queen of Hollywood High, Golden Gate; my favorite, by a tiny margin, is You Won’t Be Going Home, a piercingly eloquent four minutes of music that ranks with anything I have heard from any genre.

As so often the case, Stewart has the finest vocal/instrumental talent money can buy. Here, Lindsay Buckingham and Linda Ronstadt do a couple of backups.

Through Amazon and its vendors, Blondes is available for $9 as an mp3, 15 dollars as an LP, and 19 bucks as a CD .

Pergolesi

Stabat Mater; Teresa Stitch-Randall, soprano; Elizabeth Hoengen, alto; Anton Heiller, organ; Mario Rossi conducting the Vienna Akademiekammerchor and Vienna State Opera Orchestra; Vanguard SRV-195SD, 12-inch stereo vinyl LP, recorded mid-’50s.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 1710-1736, earned a precarious living composing for the Italian nobility before dying at 26 from tuberculosis. Being one of his two best known works along with the opera La Serva Padrona, these would not be heard until after the composer’s death. Stabat was commissioned by a few nobles for performance before a private gathering and had no liturgical purpose. But it has a lovely intimate, devotional quality and is sung very well by the two fine soloists and women’s choir under Rossi’s authoritative leadership.

Copies of the LP and CD start at just over $2.

The Time of Your Life

starring James Cagney, William Bendix, Ward Bond, Broderick Crawford, Tom Powers, Wayne Morris, Jeanne Cagney, James Barton, etc.; directed by H.C. Potter; produced by William Cagney; released by United Artists; 1948; 109 minutes; based on a play by William Saroyan.

This all time favorite of mine, and very underrated, deals with folks who frequent a San Francisco waterfront bar, just “being themselves!” It features some of Hollywood’s finest alpha male actors – Cagney, Morris, Bond, Crawford, etc. Special fun – just don’t bring any preconceptions !

Talk always turns to the weather

We experienced an unusually warm and dry summer and it seems to be continuing with a warm stretch of weather this fall.

Isn’t it amazing how when you begin a conversation with someone, inevitably, it always leads to the weather. What would we do if we didn’t have the weather to talk about. Maybe some of us would never speak – probably not a bad idea for some. Whether you’re at the supermarket, church, or just bumping into a friend on the street, the conversation always goes something like, “What a nice day,?” or “boy it sure is hot enough.” Get the idea?

Well, the other day, a colleague and I started talking about the lack of an old-fashioned “Indian Summer” this year (Sorry, no political correctness here). Which prompted me to think, “what really is an Indian summer and what determines whether we have one or not?”

An Indian summer is unseasonably warm, dry and calm weather, usually following a period of colder weather or frost in the late autumn, in September, October or early November. The Old Farmers Almanac describes it as: “During true Indian summer, the atmosphere looks hazy or smokey, and the weather is calm and dry.”

Modern ideas on what an Indian summer constitutes vary, but the most widely accepted value for determining whether an Indian summer is occurring is that the weather must be above 70 degrees for seven days following the autumnal equinox.

In Canada and the northeastern United States, a ground frost must have been present before the wave of warm weather, if the period is to be considered an Indian summer. We experienced a frost last week.

The term Indian summer has been used for more than two centuries. The origin of other “Indian” phrases are well-known as referring to North American Indians, who prefer to be called Native Americans, or, in Canada, First Nations. The term Indian summer reached England in the 19th century, during the heyday of the British Raj in India. This led to the mistaken belief that the term referred to the Indian subcontinent. In fact, the Indians in question were the Native Americans, and the term began use there in the late 18th century.

Indian summer is first recorded in Letters From an American Farmer, a 1778 work by the French-American soldier-turned-farmer J. H. St. John de Crevecoeur: “Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer.”

There are many references to the term in American literature in the following hundred years or so. In the 1830s Indian summer began to be used figuratively, to refer to any late flowering following a period of decline. It was well enough established as a phrase by 1834 for John Greenleaf Whittier to use the term that way, when in his poem Memories,” he wrote of “The Indian Summer of the heart!.”

Or, Thomas DeQuincey, in a republishing of Bentley’s Works of Thomas DeQuincey, 1855, wrote: “An Indian summer crept stealthily over his closing days.”

Also, in his story The Guardian Angel, Oliver Wendell Holmes mentions “an Indian summer of serene widowhood.”

As a climatic event it is known throughout the world and is most frequently associated with the eastern and central states of the U.S., which have a suitable climate to generate the weather pattern. For example, a wide variation of temperature and wind strength from summer to winter.

Why Indian? Well, no one knows but, as is commonplace when no one knows, many people have guessed.

Some say it was from the prairie fires deliberately set by Indian tribes; from raids on European settlements by Indian war parties, which usually ended in autumn; or, in parallel with other Indian terms, it implied a belief in Indian falsity and untrustworthiness, and that an Indian summer was a substitute copy of the real thing.page12pict3

But my grandfather, who could spin a yarn with the best of them, had the best I’ve ever heard.

It seems an Indian chief was concerned about a hunting party that was delayed in returning from a late summer gathering of meat for the winter. The year had been an extremely difficult one and the tribe needed the buffalo, deer and turkey for their winter consumption and the skins for clothing.

Fearing the crops in the fields would succumb to a frost, and go to waste before the braves returned, the chief sat at his campfire, and began to feverishly smoke a pipe, until the air was filled with smokey, hot air. Once the hunting party made its return, the air was still warm enough to gather the crops that the chief feared would be destroyed by the impending cold weather.

Makes sense to me. If my grandfather says so, it must be true.

I’m Just Curious: Fragile delivery (???)

by Debbie Walker

This past week the mail lady brought a box to our door. It was marked as “fragile.” Ken was a little curious about what I had bought now. As I have said before I have a lot of interests and I honestly did not know what I had ordered that was fragile (?). I couldn’t think of a thing.

You, of course, realize by now that I am always looking for “odd” information. If I can find it already put together in one place, like a book, Yehaw, I am a happy camper!

One book is titled The Natural Superiority of THE LEFT HANDER. What fun to find out how talented I should be. It was dedicated to the citizens of Left Hand, West Virginia, population 450 and every one a Left-Hander! I did find out it is believed one person in ten is left handed. Did you know there is a belief that some plants are left handed? Honeysuckle is one of the few climbing plants that twine to the left (?). Lobsters have some left handers (?). That book was a quick read and was pretty funny.

Then I pulled out What Did We Use Before TOILET PAPER? 195 curious Questions & Intriguing Answers. Such as “Why do people have tonsils?” I was surprised that they are part of the lymphatic system and acts as part of the immune system. Well, who would have thunk that one!! And I have 194 yet to read! You know I’ll be passing on some tidbits.

Another book, Why Do We Say It? The stories behind the words, expressions and clichés we use”. And you know that I have found some of this type of info on the internet. This book comes equipped with quizzes! Can’t wait to get into this one!

You’re going to get a kick out of this next one! Can Holding In A Fart Kill You? And over 150 Curious Questions & Intriguing Answers. I have read enough to know that, Nope, holding it in won’t kill you!

(Just in case you are curious!)

And the final book is, I’m Dead. Now What? That’s just a boring book organizing our messy lives for those we leave behind. Actually that could be a comical read depending on your life and activities. If I ever get it filled out my daughter may find it helpful. Time will tell (wonder where that saying came in.)

The only thing I can think of that was “fragile” about the box of books is possibly the shippers felt as though the person receiving them may be mentally fragile! The jury is still out on that one!

OK, as for what we used before toilet paper, oh my goodness. People from different places in the world used different materials. People used everything from balled up hay or grass, to rocks (?) to even sea shells (?) to lace! And I guess about everyone knows about the old Sears catalog that came with a hole through it to hang it by in the outhouse!

Contact me at dwdaffy@yahoo.com as always I’m Just Curious!