Defrosting
December 28th, 2008Magical Town Where no One Gives You the Finger
I had an utterly fantastic weekend, and I am here to blog about it.
Before I even start, let me say that I have learned that being a curmudgeon is overrated. These days, I get up in the morning and literally get down on the floor and acknowledge God, and every night before I go to bed, I get down there again and thank him for a wonderful day, and I always mean it. And it doesn’t seem to matter what happened that day; in retrospect, it always seems wonderful. I hope I have that same feeling at the end of my life.
Being happy is something I highly recommend. While there is a certain amount of pleasure to be had from griping and criticizing, it’s not nearly as good as talking about how great things are going.
Where was I this weekend? Frostproof, of course. Home of my great Aunt Gladys, who is about to turn 93.
Unfortunately, due to FTP issues and laziness, I have many old blog entries which are not on my server, and one of them details my first visit to Frostproof. I’ll go over the basics again. Around Christmas of 2006, my dad started bugging me to go visit his 90-year-old aunt in Central Florida. I thought he was insane. I believe in showing respect to older relatives and so on, but he was trying to get me to go stay in her house. I pictured a frail old lady, having heart palpitations because of the stress of caring for two grown men. And I had never met her–didn’t even know who she was–and I didn’t understand why we should go spend time with a total stranger.
I agreed to go, because I was trying to be a better Christian and honor my father and so on. And as is so often the case when you do a thing like that, I ended up doing myself a bigger favor than I intended to do him. I met one of the most remarkable people I have ever known.
Gladys could pass for 75. Her hair is thick and silvery, not white and sparse. She sees well. She hears well. Her memory is phenomenal. When you converse with her, she reacts as quickly as a young person. And she’s physically active. She can’t sit still.
Gladys does, or has done, just about everything. She knows how to kill, scald, dress, can, render, and cook a hog. She can shoot. She can fish. She is a highly skilled woodworker, and her house is full of furniture she made. Her house is as clean as a hospital. She gardens. She knows how to build a house.
She and my great uncle Isaac moved to Frostproof–up in the citrus country–after they retired, and after he passed away, she was joined there by her son Steve and his wife. They live in a separate building behind her house, with a complete wood shop.
My grandfather died when my dad was 11, so I never knew him, but he was one of her favorite people, so she takes a great interest in me and my father. She was excited to meet me, and I guess she had been waiting to meet me for over four decades, and I didn’t even know who she was.
So anyway, she invited us up there for another visit this year, and we just went.
I can’t tell you what a strange experience it is to talk to these people. She has three kids. One is a writer. Another is a mechanical engineer. Another sings in the chorus of a major orchestra; her husband was in the horn section before he retired. The writer does metalworking and restores cars. The ME is a woodworker, and he cooks. The singer has–no joke–a 28-year-old African grey, plus three other parrots.
If you know me at all, you understand how odd this is. I am like no one in my mother’s family. Not in my interests, at least. I am a writer. I studied physics in college and graduate school. I am fascinated by music and tools. I wrote a cookbook. And of course, I have an African grey and a cockatoo. It’s crazy, how much I have in common with these cousins.
We got up there yesterday at around 1:30, I think, and she kept us up until nearly midnight. I almost had to beg to be allowed to drive to the motel to sleep. We returned at maybe 9:30 a.m., and she was still going full-throttle when we left at 4:30.
It’s amazing, watching her talk. All around her, younger people are sitting still. While she talks, she gestures constantly with the cane her kids make her carry. She grabs things absent-mindedly and handles them while she talks. She takes people by the arm or wrist and squeezes forcefully while she makes points. This afternoon, she dropped her cane, and she bent down and got it off the floor before I could.
Steve showed me his wood shop. It broke my heart. He built his own cyclone dust collector. He has a magnificent PVC system running all over the ceiling. It goes to a shiny new Grizzly bandsaw, a Ridgid planer, a Craftsman radial arm saw, a Craftsman contractor table saw with homemade router insert, an ancient drill press, and a spinning table housing a lathe, a grinder, and a miter saw. When you turn a crank, the miter saw disappears and the lathe pops up. And he has a 225-amp stick welder in the corner. Someone gave him a bunch of rough live oak boards, and they’re piled near the door.
The walls are covered with clamps and gouges and chisels. All hanging within easy reach.
His grandsons were visiting, and they were working on projects with him. What a great thing to share with your kids and grandkids.
Gladys showed me photos of their house in Indiana (like a lot of educated people from Eastern Kentucky, they had to leave in order to succeed). They bought a seedy-looking frame house, added a third to its width, put a columned porch on the front, and put a three-acre lake behind it. When they got done with it, it was as if they had rebuilt it from the ground up.
All day long, I kept thinking, “This is what you can achieve when your family isn’t dysfunctional.” When a man and his wife are a team, and they treat each other with love and respect, and they share interests, nothing is impossible. Your careers go well, your kids turn out well, and your home will be something you are proud to show off. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live like that. It was inspiring.
I got some pointers from Steve. He thinks my next tool buy should be a planer. He thinks it’s more important than a jointer. And I love that homemade cyclone. He says the explosion risk is nil, because the velocity is too low. He showed me a neat trick for cleaning the air, apart from the cyclone. He put an air conditioner filter on a box fan. As the air in the shop goes through it, the dust stays in the filter.
Some people do the things they dream about, and others sit on their butts and watch. I would really like to give woodworking a try before I die. I’m sure I could make some small doodads that would bring me great satisfaction.
Sorry I didn’t announce that I was going. I think it’s stupid to put a message on the Internet, telling the world your house is empty.
In other news, I am planning to change my domain and URL. I am tired of “Hog on Ice.” A hog on ice is a person who is unteachable and determined to continue repeating his mistakes. That’s what the expression means. That’s not me any more. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get the new URL working.
I’m going to Google real estate in Central Florida. I can’t stand it. Miami is crowded, hot, and full of rude people. I am sick of it. I really don’t understand what people see in this place.
There is a reason for all this. I am telling you, there is a reason. My life is just not the same these days.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:03 PM
Great post, Steve.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:07 PM
Wow! That’s a great story. I wish I had “Salt o’ the Earth” relatives like that.
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Don’t think you need to change your URL. I don’t believe people really think deeply about a URL name before they click it… But if it bothers you, just give us faithful readers a heads up.
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As to the PVC/explosion thing, from everything I’ve read, the risk is relatively small. But it does exist. If you do use PVC, wrap copper wire around it and make sure it’s grounded.
Heck, you bought a compressor that would serve a 5 bay mechanic’s shop. What’s a small bit of safety precaution gonna cost in the long run??
Happy New Year to you and yours.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:26 PM
It’s so good to see you happy, Steve. Here’s a bit of news I hope will add to it.
For Christmas this year, I got something I’ve been wanting most of my adult life: a Kitchenaid stand mixer. Now I know you use a food processor, and that’s great, but I grew up with this stand mixer in my parent’s house, and that is how we always mixed our dough, shredded potatoes for our hashbrowns, etc.
Heck, I even bought a meat grinder attachment for the thing after I got it set up.
Back on topic, I’ve been using it to mix dough for pizza crust, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s great. It may not be as fast as a food processor, and you can’t just mix enough for one crust, as the hook doesn’t reach that far down in the bowl, but that’s alright, as I have to make two pizzas at a time anyway or risk domestic discord.
Which is another way of saying “We Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse just called to say that we won’t be stopping over for cocktails, as we just heard you made pizza without making any for your wife, and frankly, we’re terrified. Oops, Death just wet himself. Gotta go clean up the mess, bye.”
I’ll never order another pizza, or for that matter, calzone, again. And soon I’ll be making my own sausage, and I’ll never buy any of that again, either.
I’ll keep you posted on which sausage recipes work best with your pizza recipes.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:27 PM
OK, first I was jealous of the saw. I can buy a saw.
How much for Gladys?
December 28th, 2008 at 10:33 PM
Hey Steve:
We’ll take you back here in Texas. I thought of one of your long ago posts about Texas when i was standing in line during the holidays to check out at the register when the three of us that walked up at the same time kept trying to get the others to go ahead of us. (The lady with the small kids finally relented and went first). We have great weather, a church on every corner, great food and a great attitude (as long as you stay out of Dallas). I know Texas runs a distant second to a place with family and friends, but, just know you are welcome in the homeland.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:37 PM
Good on you man!
My great grand mother lived to be 103. She was a tiny little lady, that could do anything. I have always admired her. Zola Kilmer was her name.
Glad you had a good time, and I hope you find yourself a nice piece of land, with a place to call home.
Steve
December 28th, 2008 at 10:38 PM
You could look at a place in Portland, Oregon
December 28th, 2008 at 11:12 PM
I checked several times yesterday and figured that you were playing with the new Bible program. Did your sister go with you?
It’s always amazing to find family and have so much in common with them.
December 28th, 2008 at 11:31 PM
I started to respond with some information on pvc related to static electricity, humidity and grounding but discovered that first of all I didn’t remember it well enough to just spout it off and secondly, when I looked for the info where it should have been filed away, discovered that it wasn’t. So….
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Resolving this type of problem like everyone else does I googled up the following which was interesting and seems to be even more pertinent then what I had originally in mind.
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http://home.comcast.net/~rodec/woodworking/articles/DC_myths.html
December 29th, 2008 at 1:37 AM
I’m so happy for you. Maybe you do need a new URL.
December 29th, 2008 at 1:49 AM
Agreed, you have changed a lot. I remember finding your cookbook and scouring your old posts to read more, and having to reconstruct antiquated links from littlewhitelies to see what some of your posts were all about (mostly I learned that my suspicions about girls and dancing were largely true).
That said, don’t change your URL for us. If you want, change it for you (not that you’d do anything differently)… Heck, I never knew what was meant by “hog on ice” until you explained it just now.
Just give us a heads up please.
Also, in response to what Leo linked to, the proposed fuel for the explosion sounds more similar to flour mill explosions than anything else. Which, if I remember correctly, pretty much needs an active flame to ignite.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:57 AM
Leo? – Thanks so much for the link: that was great and timely info.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:28 AM
“I am tired of “Hog on Ice.””
How about “littletinytruths”?
December 29th, 2008 at 11:38 AM
A new name (for the blog)?
There is some tradition of that with people crossing the faith watershed, no? Perhaps it is indeed appropriate.
December 29th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
Go, Steve, go! Leave Miami — when I did my life vastly improved, though it’s not perfect by any means. Still, if I was still in Miami I’d probably be living on the street pushing a shopping cart around — if I was still living.
The rest of Florida isn’t bad outside of its major urban areas. Orlando is getting crappy in places, though it’s a more “family” town. Tampa is way too much like Miami for my liking. Lakeland used to be dead, but I’ve been through there recently and it looks like it’s improving a bit. I’ve only driven through Jacksonville and got the impression that it’s large with crappy roads, like every other city in Florida. Anyway, the countryside north of Lake Okeechobee is beautiful — forests of real trees, some areas are hilly, green everywhere.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:23 PM
Hey, Steve. I am so happy that you had a Merry Christmas. Stop complaining about Miami and, in your words, get off your butt. Go check out some land in the old big citrus areas toward the middle of the state. I would suggest shooting for somewhere north of Lake Okeechobee. I understand Sebring is nice. I completely get why you have not yet left Miami . . . stay as you believe it is necessary; however, that does not stop you from picking up a piece of land. I think that would buy you some more peace of mind and give you a home to plan for . . . like filling it up with some wood furniture built by your own hands. Just a thought. Ah, screaming 3 yr old beckons . . . .
December 29th, 2008 at 6:13 PM
Unless you intend to buy stock that is surfaced and jointed, a planer on it’s own is useless other than for making thicker boards thin. I know-it’s quite an investment all at once, but the tablesaw, jointer, and planer form the basic work triangle in a woodshop, and the effect is synergistic. The three together make for a very capable shop, but any one alone is of limited use. As I and others have stated here, a twisty board, run through a planer still comes out twisty, just thinner.
A good lunchbox planer is affordable, and they are a joy to use. A good jointer comes at a price. I’d look for used. You have as much capability in that saw as you are ever likely to need, and should have a jointer to go with it. Caveat: A jointer can be a fickle creature. Properly aligned, they work well and (barring an inordinate amount of wear) should hold the settings for years. Misadjusted, they can be a real pain in the backside to bring back into alignment, and warped tables can cause misery that defies description.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:16 PM
I am going to have to go Google and find out who or what “tondelayo” is.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:06 PM
Don’t know what style of furniture you like, but I’m partial to old stickly myself. The Morris chair is both comfortable and doesn’t require a lot of tools to make- most of the pieces are square. It is enough of a challenge that you will be forced to learn a handful of new disciplines to finish the project.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/woodworking/morris.html
December 29th, 2008 at 10:21 PM
Tondelayo was the name of Hedy Lamar’s character in “White Cargo” – I understand it is a female name from the south pacific region. It was also a racehorse’s name.