Aunt Ludie and Prince

I was reading the news on the Web and I ran across a story about a married couple who had been married for 61 years, and they died 12 hours apart. It reminded me of a married couple in my family. They lived on a farm in rural Sussex County, Virginia.

I was a kid when I knew them, and to me they looked old as grit. I remember them being really nice, cheerful people. The man was called Prince. I figured Prince was a nickname but never knew for sure. The woman was called Aunt Ludie. At least, that’s how it sounded to me. Maybe people were saying “Lutie.” I researched my family tree and didn’t find either name, but I found a Luana, and that might be her. They both looked a hundred years old, but part of that was due to many years of hard work under the summer sun. Their house lacked indoor plumbing. Yes, they had an outhouse. They also had a well. In the kitchen, instead of a sink and faucets there was a countertop with a cast-iron hand pump and a large bowl into which water was pumped for washing.

When we visited, my dad always took his .22 rifle and we would shoot cans and such off a fence post. Prince would join us but he just watched. Meanwhile, Aunt Ludie would prepare dinner on a wood-burning cook stove in her kitchen. Cast iron wood-burning cook stoves were not too unusual for farmhouses at that time. Until I was 6 years old I lived with my grandparents in the city, and my grandmother also cooked on a wood-burning stove. This was before air conditioning was common, and firing up a wood stove in your kitchen on a hot August day was quite an experience. It makes me wonder how people had been cooking food up to that point, if an ugly black iron stove that you had to build a fire in was considered a must-have high tech appliance. I hear one of those old-timers now: “Yeppers, I’m savin’ my money to buy one o’ them new-fangled wood-burnin’ stoves for my wife to cook on. She’ll be happier than a pig in mud!”

One weekend day, Prince drove into town on some errand. A man in the family – a son or nephew – was at the farm but he was working in one of the fields. He looked up and saw fire in the house. Aunt Ludie had been cooking and the stove had somehow ignited her dress. By the time the man reached her, she was badly burned. She died soon after.

Meanwhile in the nearby town, Prince suffered a massive heart attack and died. They both died the same weekend, maybe the same day. Neither knew the other was dying. Was it only coincidence? Was it something more? I don’t know. One thing I feel sure about is that neither of them would have known how to keep living without the other.

Movie Reviews

Trying to decide what flick to watch this week? Why go to a movie review website and read critical reviews and ratings, when you can simply take my word for what’s good?

To Blog Or Not To Blog

We had snow three times last week. Some days, the high temperature never reached freezing. Some days, the wind chill never got out of the teens. But not today; today the temperature is 77°F. Tomorrow is supposed to be the same. But a cold front is forecast to come through tomorrow evening and by the end of the week we might have snow flurries. This roller-coaster temperature is called “January in central Virginia”. January used to be a very cold month; it was February that was roller-coaster. But global warming has moved everything up a month. I have to start mowing my lawn a month earlier than I did ten years ago. So it’s understandable that February arrives in January.

Ellie Goulding

In 2010, English singer-songwriter and musician Elena Jane "Ellie" Goulding became only the second artist (after Adele in 2008) to both top the BBC's annual Sound of... poll and win the Critics' Choice Award at the Brit Awards in the same year.

Her debut studio album, Lights, was released in 2010. The album’s title track, “Lights”, was released in the U.S. in March 2011, and reached number one on the Billboard Pop Songs chart, number one on the Billboard On-Demand chart, and number two on the Billboard Hot 100. It remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for over a year and was eventually certified triple platinum.

The Day After

I watched the inauguration and now, the day after, I'm watching the TV news about the inauguration. Some ex-Presidents were at the ceremony. Bill and Hillary Clinton were there. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were there. George H.W. Bush just got out of the hospital so he didn't attend. His son, George W. Bush, also didn't attend. When contacted by phone, Bush reportedly said, “I’m tired of these stupid inaugurations. They're a big hassle. It’s always too cold. And besides, I don’t even like Obama.”

Just kidding, people. What Bush actually said was, “Because of my dad’s health I don’t want to leave him for an extended period. If only some form of transportation existed that could whisk me from Texas to the capital in two or three hours and then, after the ceremony, whisk me back to Texas.”

Don’t be silly, George. You’re talking science fiction. A machine like that would have to travel hundreds of miles per hour. Your body would be crushed.

There were a lot of people on the west front of the U.S. Capitol where the inauguration ceremony took place. Kelly Clarkson was there. Beyoncé Knowles was there. Katy Perry and John Mayer were there. Ke$ha was there, too. I have no idea how they got tickets to sit with the President and the VP and all the other nabobs. I guess you have to be a bigwig, or know a bigwig, or know someone who knows a bigwig. I called my Congressman well before the inauguration and talked with someone in his office. I asked for a ticket to the ceremony. I said I wanted to sit in the VIP section. The person I talked with wanted to know why I thought I was qualified to sit in the VIP section. I told him I have a cousin who lives near D.C. Well, apparently that’s not good enough if you want to rub elbows with the big cheeses. I didn't quite get everything he said, which was something about limited seating and riff-raff, but the end result was I could watch it on TV or I could stand in the cold with 800,000 other people and ponder how long the wait for the porta-potty was becoming.

I didn’t go. Their loss.

One Cold Flower

The temperature was 28°F when I got up this morning. As I type this blog, the National Weather Service says the temperature is 32°F and the wind chill is 22°F. Despite the sub-freezing early morning temperature, the rose beside my house still blooms. I just took this photo. It’s petals must be frozen but it’s determined to hang on. I hate to tell it this bad news, but it’s supposed to be 12°F tonight. And that’s actual temperature, not wind chill. There’s a chance we’ll have more snow Wednesday night, Friday, and Friday night. I just fired up the kerosene heater. With the heater in the room with me, I’m kept toasty. Toasty, I said, not toasted.

A Few Random Shootings

The National Rifle Association appears to have adopted a “Guns Save Lives” slogan. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that sometimes having a gun can save your life or protect your family. It happens. But the number of times a gun saves a life is very small compared to the number of times a gun takes a life. I was trying to locate a local news story in which a 4 year old shot his grandfather, so I went to Google and typed in something like “4 year old shoots grandfather”. Here are a few of the stories I found.

A 79 year old grandfather shoots and kills a 19 year old man who was beating his granddaughter. Score one for the good guys. (Story)

A 15 year old New Mexico teenager shoots 5 people to death, including his father, 3 young siblings, and a local pastor. (Story)

A Rochester man searching for an intruder shoots his 16 year old granddaughter. (Story)

A 7 year old Philadelphia boy gets his grandfather’s gun from a safe and his 8 year old sister shoots herself while playing with it. (Story)

A 15 year old Kentucky teen shoots his 14 year old friend while handling his grandfather’s gun. (Story)

A 2 year old Tennessee toddler shoots himself while playing with his grandfather’s gun. (Story)

A Texas man shoots his 3 year old granddaughter while shooting at a stray cat. (Story)

A 12 year old Missouri boy shoots and kills his 12 year old friend while playing with his grandfather’s gun. (Story)

A 4 year old Houston toddler shoots himself in the head. (Story)

A 13 year old Pennsylvania boy kills his grandparents for insulting his mother. (Story)

These stories represent a tiny sample of the gun carnage that happens all across America every day. In Chicago, 7 year old Heaven Sutton was killed by a stray bullet as she sold candy and cold drinks in her front yard. Heaven joined more than 270 school children that were killed in Chicago in three years and more than 4,000 people age 21 and younger who have been shot in Chicago in the last four years.

On a March evening last year, two Philadelphia teenagers were machine-gunned to death while riding a stolen ATV. Their bodies were riddled with more than 30 rounds from an AK-47 plus several shots from a Glock. A few hours earlier a 43 year old man was shot twice in the neck, once in the face, and once in the head. He died at the scene. That day wasn’t unusual; it was just another day in the “City of Brotherly Love.”

I never found the local story I was looking for, but I’m sure it’s on Google somewhere. Google says there are 4,340,000 more news articles like these.

Someone created a blog dedicated to child shootings. It can be found at “kidshootings.blogspot.com”. At the top of the page is this sentence: Every year, nearly 3000 children and teens die from gunfire, and nearly 14,000 are injured.

If it’s true that “guns save lives” then why isn’t America the safest country on Earth? After all, the civilian population has 300 million guns and we’re making more every day. We have more guns per capita than any other first world country. But the hard reality is that among developed countries, no country has as many gun deaths per capita as America. And no matter how many times people say “guns save lives” or stick the slogan on their car’s bumper or print it in huge letters on the side of their SUVs, I can tell you with certainty that repeating a slogan over and over won’t make it true.

I have my own slogan: “America’s children will be safe when people love their children more than they love their guns.”

The chart below shows gun murders per 100,000 people among countries in the developed world. The red bar represents the United States. Gun death rates in Japan, South Korea, and Iceland are so low that they are effectively zero.

Inauguration 2013

I watched today’s Presidential Inaugural ceremony which was held on the west front of the US Capitol. So I started thinking about the Capitol. Did you know the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid by George Washington in 1793? It was.

Here is what the Architect of the Capitol website says about the Capitol:

“The United States Capitol is located in Washington, D.C., at the eastern end of the National Mall on a plateau 88 feet above the level of the Potomac River, commanding a westward view across the Capitol Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument 1.4 miles away and the Lincoln Memorial 2.2 miles away.”

Did you know that the Capitol dome is made of cast iron? It is. The dome was built during the Civil War. There is a photo slideshow of the Capitol on Flicker. You can view it here and it is worth a look. There are many beautiful images in the slideshow; some taken in daytime, some taken at night, in summer and winter, and some that were taken while the Civil War was raging.

Atop the Capitol dome is a bronze statue of a woman. It is called the Statue of Freedom. It is the one object not shown clearly in the Flicker slideshow. So I’m posting a photo of it. Here it is:

Mid-January Day

It’s a mid-January day in central Virginia. I wish some climate-change deniers would come to my house and mow my grass. When I moved into this house nine years ago, grass mowing season began in early May. After a few years it had moved to April. Last year I began mowing the lawn in late March. Now it’s just January and while I have no intention of mowing my lawn in mid-winter, I can’t deny that it needs mowing. The grass hasn’t grown too much but the weeds are out of control.

Rose bushes bloom beside my house. The bushes are confused. They think it’s spring. I can’t blame them. The outside temperature was 61° F today and the sunshine made it feel warmer. But winter isn’t gone. It’s just hibernating for a spell. It will return. After all, it was only two days ago that we got snow.

The weather was too nice, the day was too pretty, to stay inside. I decided to walk around the ‘hood. On my walk I encountered Harley, a toy poodle. He was towing Mike, his human companion, at the end of a long leash. Mike and Harley walk past my house every day and usually twice a day.

I encountered a young man shooting basketball shots from the center of the street to a net set up at the curb. I walked past but then turned and asked, “Mind if I take a shot?” “Sure,” he said and bounced the ball into my hands. I took two shots and missed both. I hadn’t touched a basketball in five decades, plus it was a windy day. I decided the wind was the problem.

Later on my walk I encountered a black dog named Pepper. Pepper was accompanied by a youngish human female, name unknown. She (Pepper) was skittish but allowed me to pet her a little bit. I assumed she was named Pepper because she has black fur, and pepper, the spice, is also black. At least, black pepper is black. White pepper, on the other hand, is white. Black peppercorns and white peppercorns come from the same plant. Black peppercorns are picked green and dried in the sun until they turn black. White peppercorns ripen on the vine before they’re picked. White Pepper is also the name of an album by an experimental rock band named Ween. That’s a completely free nugget of information. You’re welcome.

I passed by two churches on my walk around the ‘hood. One is Baptist and the other is Presbyterian. The latter church had a sign which assured me that the next step was mine. It didn’t indicate what that next step might be. If I had extended my neighborhood walk by one more block, I would have passed by a third church. The church I didn’t pass was a Methodist church. I live within a veritable potpourri of Protestantism. Sola scriptura, sola fide.

I was almost back home when I encountered Paulette and Sippy Jane. I have earlier blogged about Paulette and her Shih Tzu, so no need to go there again.

All in all, a pretty nice day. A little cool, windy, lots of sunshine, people out walking their dogs. Back home, I watched the NFC title game. San Francisco beat the Falcons 28 to 24. That means San Francisco is going to the Superbowl. Last weekend, as I’m sure you’ll recall, the Falcons blew a 20 point lead to fall behind, only to make a comeback in the last half minute of the game to win. Today the Falcons blew a 17 point lead but this time there was no miracle comeback.

What am I doing now? I’m watching the AFC title game, of course: Ravens vs. Patriots. (It’s halftime.) The winner will play the 49ers in the Superbowl. I’ll let you know how it ends – just in case nobody on any of the TV news channels mentions it.

[Update] The AFC title game is over. Who won? Hint: Ray Lewis’ retirement just got postponed by two weeks.

Four Wheeling

Once I owned a Honda Civic. It was a good little front wheel drive car. It could turn on a dime and was thrifty with gas. It had what Honda called a “Honda-matic” transmission, which was a two speed transmission that the driver shifted, but there was no clutch pedal. Here’s how it worked: To start moving the driver would set the transmission to Low and give the car gas. When the car reached 10 or 15 miles an hour the driver set the transmission to Drive and kept going up in speed. One time I was driving along at a speed of 60 or 70 mph and I reached for something on the front seat. My elbow hit the shift lever and knocked it into Low. One would think there would be a lockout to prevent the transmission from entering low gear at that speed, but there wasn’t. The Civic decelerated hard and the engine whined with RPM well past the redline limit. If I hadn’t been wearing a seat belt my head would have hit the windshield. I quickly shifted the transmission back into Drive and the Civic settled down. Apparently, no harm was done. What a great car! But one day I knew I had to replace it.

I was driving to a friend’s house. It was a snowy day, but the Civic had never had a problem in snow – until this day. My friend lived in the country on the side of a mountain and his driveway was long and flat, then curved and went straight up a long incline that was so steep it was not easy to climb even in dry weather. The Civic got half way up the steep part of the driveway when the front wheels began losing traction. The Civic went slower and slower until it came to a stop. I slammed on the brakes, hoping to hold the car in that spot, but it was not to be. The Civic began sliding backward down the hill. As it picked up speed it began to spin until it was no longer sliding backward. Now it was sliding forward. The car reached the bottom of the hill where the driveway curved, but I knew it wasn’t possible, at the speed I was going, to steer the car around the curve. The Civic plowed straight ahead into deep snow which quickly brought the car to a stop. The Civic suffered no damage.

I got out of the car and began walking up the driveway. Partway up the driveway I slipped on the ice and wrenched my back. I made it up the hill and enjoyed my visit, but when I left the house I was unable to bend over to tie my shoe. I knew I needed 4 wheel drive.

I sold the Civic and bought a 4WD Subaru. I never again had a problem getting anywhere, rain or snow or ice. The only problem was that brakes don’t work well on ice, so I had to allow for a longer stopping distance when the ground was slippery, but as long as the snow wasn’t above the Subaru’s bumper, the car would take me anywhere.

One time I was driving on an unfamiliar road late on a rainy night. I came upon a curve and as soon as I entered the curve I knew I was going too fast. The Subaru went off the road and straight into a ditch and hit an embankment on the other side of the ditch. When it hit the embankment the engine cut off. I pushed in the clutch pedal and turned the ignition key; the Subaru started right up. I shifted the part-time 4WD gearbox into 4 wheel drive, put the transmission into reverse, let out the clutch, and backed out of the ditch and up and onto the road. Amazingly, there was no damage; not a scratch or dent to show for that little escapade.

When I sold the Subaru I bought a 4WD Jeep. Unlike the Subaru, the Jeep is full time 4 wheel drive. The gearbox has a Low range and a High range, but no 2 wheel drive mode. When it’s raining and I’m trying to make a left turn on a busy highway, and finally that small break in the oncoming traffic comes, I can step hard on the gas and the Jeep jumps across the highway. There’s no spinning of wheels or hesitation or drama. The Jeep just goes.

When I lived in the mountains I considered four wheel drive a personal necessity. I didn’t like being trapped by snow. I wanted the freedom to go wherever I wanted to go, whenever I wanted to go there. Now that I live in the flatlands, four wheel drive is no longer a necessity, but it’s still a nice-to-have. I’ve always said that I’d rather have four wheel drive and not need it than to need four wheel drive and not have it.