Family Gathering

This holiday season my wife and I visited three close kin relatives — all on the same day, for a brief bit of socializing, and a quick session of partaking of the abundance of food that my close relatives were sharing at a dinner table that Thanksgiving Day.

Our first stop was over at my big fat overweight brothers family gathering for an hour long visit, where we intermingled, laughed, ate various select foods ranging from hot sliced turkey, mashed potatoes, maple syrup lathered sweet potatoes, home-made gravy, apple and pumpkin pie, a wide selection of cookies, chocolate fudge bars, and more.

We limited our food intake at our first stop, so that our next visitation stop over at my younger brothers family residence where another large enclave of blood kin relatives had gathered, we could still eat a bit of something. That second journey to the next close kin proved to be another great inter-social affair for we only tend to see our close kin about once per year — at this time of year during the holiday season.

The second visit, at my younger brothers, we encountered another major supply of amazing home cooked hot turkey with a wide selection of much favored items, and again, we were very selective about consuming too much, for we still had one more stop visit to make that same day.

On our third and final stop visitation to my younger sisters family residence where his descendants were all gathered — another large steaming hot turkey awaited, with all the trimmings, ranging from mashed potatoes to pies and more.

Yet by the time we arrived here...my normally bottomless man-sized stomach (being an athletic well-honed fit and trim mountain climber) that could tackle immense quantities of food finally reached its culminating state — plump stuffed fullness — barely finishing it with a slice of whip topping covered spice flavored pumpkin pie. Soon, that comfy feeling of sleepy floppy plumpness had set in.

And what would a family gathering be without some of that famous home-made pumpkin pie? For I had heard one of my kin relatives explain an event leading up to this day....

As our sister was pulling that hot pumpkin pie out from the hot oven and putting it into the tray to cool, the four-legged metal wire-framed cooling tray tilted slightly and in a rush the fresh out of the oven hot pumpkin pie aimed for the kitchen floor where it promptly ended up -- upside down, crust staring up at a set of discomfited eyes that were staring forlornly back down at that now lost pumpkin pie.

"Well" ...thought one family member, "It's still viable for pumpkin goulash, yes?"

"Sadly. No," replied my little Sis, "Not when it's mixed with dog hairs."

Yet that was not even the end of the pie saga this holiday season. The first floor bound pie occurred on Wednesday. On Thursday, the morning of our planned visitation, when one of the families children were helping to set the table in preparation of the coming meal, the second pumpkin pie slipped out of their grasp while the person was walking en route to the 12-person large dining room table, and it ALSO ended up on the kitchen floor!

For one brief moment a worried thought tore through their minds...what would this holiday season family gathering be without pumpkin pie!

Yet thankfully, somewhere one of the family members did solve that momentary limiting factor that afternoon at our third close kin family gathering — and they did have pumpkin pie — straight from the grocery store and loaded with quality flavorful spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and clove).

But as we all know...it's not really about the pumpkin pie, is it?

No it's not! For our family gatherings at this time of holiday season, done only once late each year, in the cold winter months -- is really all about socializing once again with our immediate close blood kin family, for it's all about connections and communication with those person whom we love best, and our firm hope for a better future ahead of us.

Pepperoni Pizza

In our early twenties and full of energetic zeal, my climbing partner and I often planned (or revised) last second goals for the weekend adventure outing, be it mountaineering, or local rock climbing, depending on the weather condition updates.

Late Friday night we committed to a day at Beacon Rock west of Stevenson, Washington for a day of rock climbing.

In those days our low budget life style living habits tended to keep our refrigerator in a near barren state. On this journey I had a hand full of granola bars that I stuffed into my lunch bag. My climbing friend had even fewer options...and when he opened the fridge, he spotted the day old 1/4 large slice of pepperoni pizza that was left over from yesterdays dinner, so he grabbed it, wrapped it in cellophane, and stuffed the pizza into his lunch bag.

Later that day, after several long busy hot hours of rock climbing various lengthy quality routes on the South Face of Beacon Rock, we stopped for a respite high up on Grassy Ledge, quite near the vertical cliff edge, at the Borderline route belay station. Grassy Ledges is, of course, several hundred feet above ground level, and the south face of the cliff is a steeply vertical cliff scarp with a near constant supply of easterly or westerly breeze. The views are superb from atop those midway ledges, and it provides a unique zone to sit and relax upon after a busy session of rock climbing.

I always prefer carrying some kind of small day pack (stuffed with quick items like water and snacks), so, as a rule, whoever was following the pitch got the wear the small daypack.

There at Grassy Ledges, lazily encamped at the very edge of the vertical cliff precipice, and quite fatigued from doing a solid half-day of classy rock climbing leads, both of us eagerly pulled our lunch bags out of the daypack. I got to nibble on a collection of 5-6 granola bars, while my partner snatched ahold of his pizza.

But...he doesn't like the slices of pepperoni (and never has), so he casually gripped each slice between a finger and thumb, and flicked each pepperoni slice outward away from the vertical cliff's edge, into an updraft of light breeze. One by one each thin slice of pepperoni was flicked away and each slice drifted away with the gentle breeze, en route somewhere down the vertical cliff scarp. Some hunger forest critter sure will be happy about the free meal, we thought to ourselves.

An hour later, after lunch and water were all consumed, we opted to descend by rappelling down the common rappel route near the SE Face route, and soon we arrived at the base of the South Face near where we had stashed our larger backpacks near the short hole-in-the-rock tunnel #1.

Another climbing team was actively doing a few routes at the base of the South Face near the SE Face route that afternoon as well, and we quickly struck up a brief conversation with them.

Then one of those two climbers asked....

"Gee, did either of you happen to have pepperoni pizza for lunch?"

The ears of my climbing partner perked up instantly.

"Well...no, not exactly — I had tossed the pepperoni slices away 'cause I don't like pepperoni...but yeah we ate PIZZA for lunch."

The other guy in that other team replied.

"Your slice of pepperoni landed on my shoulder!"

Model T

Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, Thomas A. Edison and John Burroughs, the famed naturalist, were intimate friends, who found much pleasure in each other's company. On one of the many trips they enjoyed together, they had tire trouble. Fortunately for them, it happened near an auto repair garage. The sign read, "Firestone tires sold here" and they pulled the vehicle into the garage facility for repair.

While a new tire was being mounted, Ford said to the attendant, "It might interest you to know that the gentleman standing behind you is Mr. Firestone, the man who makes this tire."

"Really?" The attendant seem little impressed.

"And...I'm Henry Ford."

"Oh, yeah?" Responded the attendant.

"And this gentleman over here," continued Mr. Ford, pointing to another of his close friends, "...is Thomas Edison."

The attendant rose from his half-finished job. Slowly and exploringly he scrutinized each member of the party in turn. When his eyes found the long-gray-bearded John Burroughs, the garage attendants eye bugged out and his mouth dropped agape. Slowly, he turned back to Mr. Ford, and said....

"If you're gonna tell me that that long-bearded gent over there is Santa Claus, you can mount your own bloody tire."

Quote from the book "Me and the Model T, by Roscoe Sheller.

Canyon Creek

In search of an upstairs 2-holer

"I had went to Burke Idaho in search of a two-story outhouse, led more often by rumors that frequently turned out to be wild imagination run amuck. It was late in the afternoon and the only place open was the local saloon, yet this time, while at the local bar, after being quickly educated by the locals in "local ways and local terminology" they pointed me in the right direction."

"Here in this tiny community I was pleasantly surprised, for many outhouses emptied directly into the creek from both sides for a mile upstream. There were overhangers, trestle jobs, creek straddlers, and on a smaller side creek there was even an impressively unusual bridge plus outhouse combination."

"That unique bridge/outhouse straddler combination piqued my interest, so I opted to return later in the early evening hours when the lighting was better to attain decent photographs of it."

"The outhouse proved quite uniquely designed, for the bridge was built of wood, a single span of about twenty feet, wide enough for one car and two outhouses, that joined in the center to become one long structure accessed by two doors to the privy throne. There was a private residential homestead on each side of the creek (immediately next to the bridge/outhouse combination) so I presumed that both neighbors had access to their portion of the outhouse."

"The resident of one of the homes watched me from his window. He saw me snap photos, then write in my notebook. Soon he came to the conclusion that I was a government man gathering evidence, probably a member of the hated Environmental Protection Agency."

" "He rushed out of the front door of his house, ran to the bridge and hollered, "We don't use it anymore. Ya hear? We ain't used it for mor'n a year!" "

Quote from "The Two-Story Outhouse" by Norm Weis

Peak Bagging in August

My mountain climbing partner and I had picked a weekend in August, yet on this occasion we logically assumed that there would be other peak bagger mountaineers doing the same ascent and that they would arrive on Friday or Saturday, and depart by Sunday. So on our journey we opted to arrive on Saturday about mid-day, make our ascent on Sunday, and depart on Monday.

We spent the first day, Saturday, driving north there from Portland, arriving at the parking lot at mid-day, thus giving us a reasonable half-day to make the initial approach hike up to high camp.

Indeed, up there at high camp were a number of other summiteers camped at the bivouac site at several of the flat landing spots along the moraine near the lower terminus of the glacier.

Early Sunday morning we departed upward summit bound; that same morning everyone else departed downward trailhead bound.

We marched slowly but steadily across the two-and-a-half mile wide glacier, meandering around numerous crevasses, en-route to the final steep snow ravine near the summit plateau.

Above that final snow ravine it was a basic long march across the flat summit plateau to the lone subtly higher real summit perched roughly some 400' higher than the nearby surrounding snowy terrain. It took all day for the adventure but we returned safe to our high bivouac campsite near the moraine late in the day.

At that moment a unique situation clearly struck our innermost senses, for not only were we the ONLY party up there at high camp in the early evening hours surrounded by an entire alpine zone all to ourselves, but we had also managed to pick the perfect weekend of banner blue skies with nary a hint of clouds anywhere in sight. As we relaxed at our bivouac site in cotton T-shirts and cotton pants, there was not a hint of any chill temperature, nor a strong breeze in the air.

And for miles around us at the alpine level, between the deep green forested slopes below us, and the rock and snow peak world above us, lay an immense treeless alpine world of infinite colorful bloom with every imaginable flower available on full bold display.

I had brought my Canon DSLR 40D camera with me, and while my climbing friends proceeded to prepare our evening dinner, I took a long wide slow walking tour amongst all of the very colorful meadow floral beauty that surrounded our campsite, taking many dozens of photographs of one of the most impressively amazing floral displays I had ever seen on the west side of the northern Washington Cascade Mountain range.

Collie Dog

"Among the rattlesnake's worth enemies is the collie dog. On one very hot morning, while Hale and I were talking at the back gate, our collie, Cim, came running down the road toward us. Suddenly he stopped. A coiled rattler was lying in the bright sun on the roadway. Cautiously Cim drew near the rattler. Then he began a dance in the sunshine that would have won applause for a ballerina. On tiptoe, the dog swiftly started circling the snake and every so often dashed in, as the snake, open-mouthed, fangs exposed, struck back. Between strikes, as the snake's head followed the dog's movements, his slender, darting tongue had a hypnotic effect on us. But the collie was too quick for him. He was also having great fun, for he knew when and how to come in for the kill."

"As we watched, fascinated, the dog waited for the precise moment when he could close in and grab the rattler at the back of the head. Suddenly he tossed the snake high into the air. He then trotted smugly over to us, knowing he had put on a great show. Back of him lay the still-twitching body of the dying rattlesnake."

Quote from "Ranch Under The Rimrock" by Dorothy Lawson McCall

Hardy House Plant

My daughter knows that every time I've gotten a house plant, somehow I've managed to 'kill' the poor house plant — either by neglect, or lack of water, or who knows what. I just don't have that key green-thumb nature touch personality, I guess.

About the only thing I haven't 'killed' that has grown up in my home are my six children, all of whom are adults now, married and living a family life of their own.

So...one fine summer season, one of my daughters purchased a new house plant for me, and casually said to me, "Now Mom, don't worry, you can't kill this one. The florist at the store guaranteed it by claiming that this one is a very hardy house plant."

"Well OK, I'll try it," I said, knowing full well where this house plant was going to end up at — a month or so from now, neglected from green-thumb care to keep it alive.

Several weeks later the hardy house plant — a twisty vine odd thing — was still green and growing slowly, with a host of tiny blooms still in full color on the house plant.

A month later I glanced at the house plant again, and yep, it was still green and growing slowly, with a host of tiny colorful blooms still on it.

"Hmm...I thought to myself." That's odd, the blooms sure are lasting a long time.

I have poor vision eyesight, and don't always wear my eyeglasses, but this time I leaned in much closer for an inspection of the hardy house plant and its colorful blooms — stuffing my nose up quite close to the plant.

To my surprise, and with a light chuckle, knowing the quirky sense of humor my daughter partakes in regularly, I realized that the blooms weren't real...they were made of SILK...the blooms were forever blooms.

My daughter was right about this hardy house plant...it's still alive and doing well, silk blooms and all.

Beloved Jest

One evening a beloved husband and wife were having a jest filled moment with each other.

And Leslie said to her husband, "I went to school in a large city, and there were 225 classmates in our grade, and at our high school graduation ceremony I graduated within 'Top-Ten' out of all my other classmates."

She said this with a smile of certainty, quite proudly pleased with the dedicated sign of achievement, and her husband smiled approvingly at his wife's impressive achievement too.

Yet he replied with less dramatic certainty.

"Well...the town where I grew up was very small (it was barely big enough to have a small mom and pop quick-mart grocery store and a few other minor store front buildings) and we didn't have very many classmates in my grade, but at the high school ceremony, I graduated within the 'Top-Eight' out of eight total classmates."

Firkin of Gherkin

"Useful Hints To Grocers" is a chapter within a book called "Everybody's Guide: Of Things Worth Knowing" by R. Moore, originally printed in 1884 in New York. 

In that chapter is a recipe for Gherkins:

"Take small cucumbers (not young) steep for a week in very strong brine; it is then poured off, heated to the boiling point and again pour on the fruit. The next day the gherkins are strained on a sieve, wiped dry, put into bottles or jars, with some spice, ginger, pepper, or cayenne, and at once covered with strong pickling vinegar."

In that book... "We are also told how to make butter and place it in a tub or firkin. It occurred to me that if one stores his pickles in a butter tub, he would have a firkin of gherkins!"

Quote from "The Two-Story Outhouse" by Norm Weis

War Veterans

I was the crew member of a helicopter team during the Vietnam War, and on one risky mission we flew in to get another ground force team who were in a dangerous situation and in need of quick assistance. When the helicopter landed I muscled speedily to assist in getting eleven out of twelve team members into our helicopter and we flew all of them to safety at the nearest Army base. To this day these eleven Veteran's help each other whenever one friend is in need.

I had recently crashed my six-cylinder small Ford pickup truck into an oak tree (yep the oak  tree is still solidly standing tall unscathed, while my pickup truck was totaled). Within a week the other 11 persons of that rescue situation in the Vietnam War had pooled enough funds to acquire another pickup truck for me, and had it delivered 7 days later all the way across the USA to my apartment parking spot.

That's what a team of life long friends is for....commitment. Families and friends are life long commitments well worth the journey.

My Neighbor's Cat

 I do luv cats.

Some years ago the last of my extensive cat family had departed for cat heaven (I had seven cats), all having lived long adventurous cat-happy lives here on our homestead acreage. Lately I had considered acquiring another new cat for personal company, as well as to help keep the residence rodent population at bay.

As luck would have it my neighbor's cat showed up at my back door on very wet rainy Fall season day searching for something. It's health was a bit dire, for its eyes were weeping from an eye infection and in need of some luv and care, so I let the cat into my house, gave it some medicine (that I still had saved in a side cupboard from my previous cat family), then placed it in my smaller bathroom, hoping to provide it a comfortable place to sleep in a warm environment. It seemed to accept the small bathroom idea quite well, so I carefully closed the door to keep it in there so that I could easily locate the cat again later that day. 

Shortly later I called my neighbor and mentioned to him that his cat had roamed over to my residence and was now in my bathroom resting.

Later that day he drove his pickup over to my residence, whereupon I escorted him to the bathroom and opened the door slowly. We both peered inside, but did not see the cat. It had seemingly disappeared. We both looked around inside the small bathroom but could not find the cat. Earlier I had left the window ajar slightly to let fresh air in, and we thought that perhaps the cat had gone back outside for the evening by exiting out the open window. So my neighbor departed homeward bound...cat-less.

Shortly later I returned to the bathroom for another closer inspection, and with a bit of diligent effort I discovered the missing cat. Mrs. Cat had slipped into the deep wooden clothes hamper basket (that was partially filled with dirty clothes) and it was comfortably sleeping there still, quite peaceably, amongst a pile of dirty clothing.

Next day I again called my next door neighbor, but by this time he had given up on the cat, and decided it was best to just leave the cat at its new found residence...at my homestead, and I've had this pretty cat ever since.

Doggone It Chevy

At one of our favorite local county parks there is a long lakeside paved walkway where the everyone enjoys taking a long shoreside stroll along the lake. Many families come to that lakeshore park and gather around a picnic table, while the kids go play in the refreshing lake waters. 

Of course the county park does have its usual set of rules: don't swim around the boat dock; no sunbathing on the boat dock; all dogs must be on a leash, no fireworks, etc., all of which a fair portion of the tourists who visit the county park tend to ignore those "strange rules".

While relaxing there by the lakeshore with my family on repeated occasion, we have quickly learned the name of at least one dog in particular. There is one local citizen who often walks his two dogs (one is the alert adventurer and the other dog is the obedient one) from one end of the shoreline walkway to the far other end of the shoreline walkway.

The docile obedient dog's name is Cammy (aka CamCam), while the adventurous dog's name is Chevy. Yep, you guessed it right...this guy obviously has a preference for certain kinds of automotive vehicles.

During that long weekly park walk he calls commands primarily to one dog -- the adventurous one -- Chevy the adventurer.

The commands spoken to his adventurous one dog asking it to heel are quite repetitious as he tells that dog for the 'ump-teenth thousandth time to heel, or to stay close to master, or to not wander very far. BUT...like a large portion of the dog walkers at the county park the man never puts a leash on either dog during the entire time he takes both dogs out there for a long walk along the shoreline park trail. 

And surprisingly, both dogs are virtually quite obedient. The dogs stop when he stops walking and says to both, "Stop". The dogs eagerly watch the masters' moving hand for an eventual tiny gibber snacky handout. Thus, during those weekly walks in the park the dogs rarely get truly out of line for the master is always there to remind the two dogs via an ever present verbal command.

So, for the thousandth time it's....

"Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy. Chevy."

And...believe me, everyone who has ever visited that county park certainly knows the more adventurous dog's name by now! 

Ya know come to think of it...that might be a viable fitting name for our next pup....

Delivered Dressed Hogs

 "At hog-butchering time one winter Norman sold a couple of dressed hogs to the silver mine located up in the foothills, and he hired me to deliver them on sleighs with a team of horses. When I arrived at the small mining community I drove up to a window at the meat house where the boardinghouse flunky told me just to shove them through the window headfirst. The hogs weighted five hundred pounds apiece, and were frozen stiff. When the first one landed it went right on through the floor, and there it lay with its hind legs sticking straight up in the air. When the other hog slid through the window the man inside, being much more attentive now, carefully eased it down to the floor. I quickly sat down on the wagon buckboard seat, grabbed the reigns of my horse team and coaxed the horses into motion heading back down the trail toward town, for I didn't wait to see how the man got the first hog out of the hole in the floor of the boardinghouse."

Quote from Pan Bread 'n Jerky by Walter L. Scott