Things Just Happen Sometimes

I was out and about on my aging Kawasaki ATV yesterday moving along in its lowest forward speed through some tall grass and weeds.  As luck would have it, I chanced upon an ant hill I didn’t know existed, much less at that spot.  By the time I discovered its presence I was sitting high and dry on top of it with wheels spinning.  The foot operated transmission shifting lever pushes downward to change directions from forward to reverse.  When I attempted this maneuver the lever would not move due to the ant hill underneath the frame.  So, there I sat.  It would not go forward, and I could not put it in reverse.

As I pondered the situation a similar event came to mind from when I was about ten or twelve years old.  Several members of our family were working in the woods cutting, blocking, and splitting firewood for home heating.  I was driving an Allis Chalmers C model farm tractor with an attached trailer loaded with wood headed to the house for unloading.  That model tractor had what was known as a narrow front end, with its two front wheels in very close proximity as opposed to a wide front end where the wheels are spaced several feet apart.  As I traversed the woods trail with my outfit I started past a tree on the left side of the roadway.  At that point the tractor slid sideways down a small incline to the left.  The tractor’s left side came up against the tree at the front of the rear axle.  I attempted to push the clutch to put the transmission in neutral, but the foot clutch lever was tight against the tree.  One rear wheel continued to slowly turn on the somewhat icy surface.  In a few seconds I shut off the engine to stop the wheels turning.

I walked back to where the others were yet working, to tell them of my misfortune.  Another tractor was brought to the scene, and after much laughter at my expense, it pulled my rig backwards until it was free to move on its own again.

This brings me back to the present.  Yesterday, I recalled an old snowmobiling trick.  By standing up on the machine it could be rocked back and forth sideways.  This allowed first one side, and then the other to gain a moment of traction.  In a few seconds it had freed itself and I was on my way again.

Amish Youth

I spent a part of the afternoon with my brother-in-law, Ron.  He is in the midst of making maple syrup.  It is only for his family’s personal consumption, and done in a very primitive way.  He has about twenty taps installed in maybe a dozen trees.  They will produce possibly 2 or 3 gallons of syrup in a month long season.  We used his Polaris Ranger to go into the woods to gather the available sap from buckets attached to the spouts.  After returning to his home we poured the sap into a stainless steel flat pan about 16” X 24” placed on top of a small wood stove set up in his back yard.  It wasn’t long after we had a good fire burning in the stove that the sap began a slow boil.  The rising steam gave evidence the sap was beginning to thicken into the future remaining syrup.  Between 30 and 40 gallons of sap will boil down into a gallon of syrup.  We needed to tend the fire under the syrup pan every 15 to 20 minutes to insure a proper boil, but in between we played several games of pool on the table he has set up in an old converted garage.  All in all it was a fine afternoon.

Later, on my way home I came to a fork in the road.  The road I live on split off the road I was driving on, in a wye.   Very near the intersection I spotted an Amish wagon with an attached team of horses.  They didn’t appear to be moving.  I started onto my road and traveled several hundred feet, all the time watching the Amish wagon in my rear view mirror.  The wagon never moved although I could see an Amish man near the horses’ heads trying to encourage them on.  I stopped and backed up to where they were.  Then it dawned on me that these were more children than men.  The oldest was about 14, while with him were two boys of maybe 10 and 8 years old.  I asked if they had troubles.  The older boy told me the team just couldn’t pull the wagon loaded with logs onto the road.  He had come out of a wooded area and attempted to enter the roadway at an angle.  Two wheels on one side were on the asphalt, but the other two wheels had sunk in the roadside wet sand.

I asked if the somewhat small team of horses would allow me to attach my pickup ahead of them without panicking.  The elder Amish boy was unsure, but offered to unhook them if I thought my truck would pull the load.  He asked if my truck was a four-wheel-drive, which surprised me as I didn’t realize he would know anything at all about trucks.  I assured him it was, so he pulled a pin, allowing the horses to be driven away from the load.  I then backed my truck up to near the end of the wagon tongue.  The Amish lad produced a chain, hooked it to the tongue, and I attached it to a trailer ball on the back of my truck.  With the transfer case in four-wheel-low, and the transmission in 1^st gear I slowly tightened the chain, and kept right on moving until all four wagon wheels were on the asphalt.  We unhooked the chain and he hooked the light team of horses to the wagon again.  He offered to pay me, but I assured him I wanted nothing for my help.  He was a fellow human needing a little assistance, and I was lucky enough to be able to help when it was needed.  We waved to each other as I drove away.

A CJ 2A Jeep

During WW II the military was searching for a small vehicle that had no specific purpose, but could and would be used for anything and everything short of flying.  After design work and testing a ¼ ton four-wheel-drive vehicle was selected for manufacture by the Willys Company.  As it was an improved model from the original concept it was labeled MB for Military B model.  Well over half a million of these were produced and used during the war.

After WW II came to a close Willys decided to build a model for the general public.  They thought of it as a general use farm vehicle, and it thus was outfitted with various extras, such as a power take off shaft, for that purpose.  As opposed to the MB military version this one was labeled CJ for Civilian Jeep, starting with model CJ 1, and progressing from there.

In 1968 searching for a vehicle, in my price range, suitable for rabbit hunting, I located a 1949 model CJ 2A that was more or less all together.  It started and ran fine but the front differential had stripped gears and an axle was broken.  In two wheel drive it was fine.  Not being a real perfectionist, yet wanting to get full usage from my Jeep, I located a 1950 Jeep with an intact differential, but with no axles in it.  Not to worry, the gentleman I purchased it from threw in a 1951 front end with a no-good differential, but the axles were just like new.

So, like Johnny Cash and his “one piece at a time Cadillac,” I built me a 1949, 1950, 1951 Jeep.  Well, as I recall forty plus years later, the differential gears fit right in fine, but when it came to the axles that was a different matter.  Now I’m sort of mechanically inclined, but in a crude way.  No matter how I tried I couldn’t seem to fit that right front axle in where it belonged.  Ultimately I got it about 99 % in place, and then drove it in the final bit with a 12 pound sledge hammer.  Then it fit, sort of.  When I threw the proper levers it went into four-wheel-drive okay, and with another lever movement it would shift from low to high range, but was it ever a bear to steer that thing.  Obviously it didn’t have power steering, but it could have used it.  It must have been something to do with that axle installation method because it was fine prior to that, but never again did it steer normally thereafter.

I drove that thing for two more years that way though, and then sold it to a fellow rabbit hunter who was aware of its peculiar characteristics as we had hunted together on many occasions.  I moved several states away from Mississippi so never heard of it again, but maybe it’s still in use.

Time

Leo Lawton

When we are born, our clock starts. When we die, it shatters to be used by no other. The only thing given to us at birth is a certain amount of time on this earth. It is a reducing debit account with an unknown balance.

When we are very young we have little say in how our time is spent. Our parents nurture us in every way, acceding to our needs, yet our time account diminishes. With good parents, this varying amount of time is well spent in the formation of our bodies and our minds.

As we age, with a depleting time balance, less of our time is spent in the dictations of our parents, teachers, and other mentors, and more in the pursuit of our own desires.

The constitution of the United States guarantees us the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No person, no group, or no government can guarantee you those things. Your only guarantee is your remaining amount of time.  It’s all you ever had.

Since the beginning of the human race we have tried to divide time into recognizable segments so that we might structure our lives in an orderly fashion. It is time to eat. It is time to sleep. It is time to whatever. This is a misnomer. What we are really thinking is, beginning at this time I will use a portion of my allotted time on earth to eat, sleep, or whatever.

As most of us think of time, we associate it with our planetary system. It takes one year for our planet to go around the sun. Our planet rotates once each day. Our day is split into twenty-four one-hour segments, and our hour is divided into sixty minutes for no apparent reason. Why they are called this I do not know, but they have nothing to do with the passing of time. They only designate our perceived idea of it. Time continues to pass, no matter what we call it, or how we divide it. Time has nothing to do with our planetary system. It is merely a method that humans have devised to identify blocks of it. Time is forever. It never began. It will never end. It goes on incessantly. Only things change. Time is infinity.

When we have used up our allotted segment of time, our account is empty, our balance is zero, and our requests for more go unanswered.

Value

Because we have a finite amount of time most people place a value on it.  Value in this sense means how much of our time should we, or must we, allocate for an equivalent amount of something else?  It thus becomes imperative for us to trade our time wisely for those products more easily obtained from someone else than manufactured by ourselves.

A Hopping Adventure

During the early 1970s as I recall four of us went hunting on a fine, bright, sunny, yet crisp, frosty, Sunday morning.  There was my wife’s sister’s husband Ronnie, my wife’s brother Wendell, my brother Bob, and myself.  There may have been others, but I don’t recall them.

We opened the gate to my beagle pen, and let them run around the yard for a minute or two as they tuned their voices for what they knew was to come.  Soon we climbed into my old Jeep and headed for the cedar swamp back of the hay field.  The beagles trailed along behind, with a few side trips to investigate odors that took their fancy.

Soon the hounds were in the swamp locating that first varying hare, or as we called ‘em, snowshoes.  It was but a matter of minutes before my Sue opened with a yelp to let us know she had one moving.

As the chase moved away we heard the other beagles chime in, one at a time, bugles ringing in the clear frosty winter air.  The sound always made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.  It is why I hunted.  I didn’t need rabbit stew more than a couple of times a year, but I needed to hear them beagles in full pursuit of their elusive long eared prey.

Soon from a distance we could hear the beagles make a swing and start the return circle back in the general direction whence they started.  As they got nearer we took up our favorite stands, hoping the snowshoe would go by us rather than dip a bit to run in front of one of the others.  Shotguns were loaded and at the ready, as we awaited the hard running rabbit.  We knew it was well ahead of the baying hounds so it must have been near.

Suddenly, bang, bang,…bang, bang,…bang, over in Wendy’s direction.  “Damn, Wendy, how many of ‘em did you get?”

“Uh, none, he was really running!”

“For Christ’s sake, how could you miss five times in that little bit of a time?”

“I was practicing my speed!  I’m going to work on my accuracy later!”

I miss you Wendell Compo.  1944-1985  RIP

A Fowl Deed

It is my studied opinion that if you go back far enough to find the connection, all people on earth are related.  Such is the case with the good folks in this little tale.  I would need to go back many generations to find my relationship to this family, but cousins they are.

Ray Lawton was born in 1884, son of James Lawton and his wife, the former Sarah Saubert, all in the great state of Wisconsin.  Ray’s mother, Sarah, had a brother Mike Saubert living in close proximity to the Lawton family.  Mike had a couple of sons named Bill and Al Saubert, who, of course, were first cousins to Ray.

It seems on a few isolated occasions around the turn of the twentieth century the cousins, as well as a couple of friends named Carl Smith and Bill Burgduff, had pilfered a few chickens from their neighbors and cousins the Taylor family.  Enjoying a good joke, they had a chicken roast with the results of their ill-gotten gains.  The Taylors, missing four or five chickens every once in a while, placed a lock on their chicken house to preclude fowl theft.  That presented the boys with a double joke opportunity.

James Lawton told the boys to take some of his chickens any time they wanted a chicken roast, but that was no fun at all if he didn’t mind, so they hatched a new plan to lift Taylor’s chickens.  One dark moonless night they crept up to the back of the chicken house carrying a long sturdy pole.  They inserted the pole under a back corner of the chicken coop and pried the entire building up high enough for the smallest boy to crawl under.  With no chicken getting a chance to make a sound, swiftly a supply was passed to the boys on the outside before Al crawled out underneath again.  The coop was then allowed back down onto its wall, as the boys hurried away in the darkness to a fine chicken roast.

The Taylors missed their chickens, but never learned how they had disappeared.  The culprits told the story, and enjoyed a good laugh in the telling, for many years thereafter.

A Little History

At the end of the Revolutionary War there were several factions yet at odds.  Obviously Great Britain and the several Colonies were not at ease with each other.  Another faction to be considered was numerous separate American Native tribes.  The newly separated colonists were not too fond of those Natives that sided with the British.  Also those same newly freed American Revolutionists were a bit antagonistic to the Colonists that had remained loyal to the British King and were known as Loyalists.

Isaac Lawton, born in 1730, was the great great grandson of Thomas Lawton the original immigrant along with his brother George, to Portsmouth, Rhode Island.  During those troubling times Isaac remained loyal to King George III.  After the fighting was over he found it necessary to leave his Rhode Island background, and settled briefly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania along with other Loyalists.

However King George III decided it was prudent to remove his followers from their current abodes for an environment that was somewhat safer for them.  In 1783 several ship loads were offered a new arrangement whereby they were transported to the sparsely occupied area known as St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, which was yet under British control.  There Isaac lived out his days and died June 4, 1810.

Alone In The World

While enlisted in the U S Navy during the late 1950s I knew a man that was unusually quiet and reserved in demeanor.  After having served four years in the Navy, my acquaintance (For ease of interpretation I’m going to call this man Joe.) had made the trying decision to reenlist for another four years.  However there was a slight problem.  He insisted that he wanted to take 90 days leave (vacation) at the time of his re-signing for the following four years.  At the time Navy regulations stated no one could ever take more than thirty days leave at one time.

A senior officer, with the authority to do so, offered to give him three consecutive 30 day leave periods, but this would have required that he report in twice during the 90 day period.  Joe insisted he wanted to take a 90 day unobstructed leave period.  If he could not do it then he was not going to reenlist.  Messages flew back and forth between our aviation squadron and the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington, D C, and after due process the 90 day leave was authorized by someone who had good sense.

There came a time when Joe was scheduled to sign his name, swear his allegiance, take his leave period, and return to the remainder of his four year reenlistment period.  I happened to be in the position of holding on to the special set of leave authorization papers.  Soon all of the reenlistment papers were signed, the proper swearing in ceremony was over, the smiling handshakes had been given and received, the photographers packed up their gear and left, and all that remained was for Joe to pick up his leave papers and go on his wonderful 90 day leave to whatever exotic location he had in mind.

I remained with his papers for a couple of hours, but Joe never came to get them.  I wondered what happened, so with heavy heart I phoned the barracks where Joe lived.  When he came on the line I asked if he didn’t know I held his papers that he could pick up any time he wanted to.  He told me he would be along shortly if I would only hold on to them.

Within a few minutes Joe appeared at my work space.  I handed over his special leave papers, and he tore them up in small pieces.  My lower jaw must have dropped a foot.  I said to Joe, “What are you doing?  That was your leave papers.”

Joe said, “Oh, I never wanted to take leave.  I only wanted to see if the Navy would honor my request for something special.  If they wouldn’t then I didn’t think I belonged here, but now I feel I do belong.  This is My Navy now.”

I said, “But Joe, won’t someone wonder why you’re not coming to visit?”

He said, “There is no one to wonder.  I have no family of any kind.  I never knew who my father was.  My mother is dead, and I have no siblings.  I have no cousins or other known kin of any sort.  I have no place to go.  I’ve never taken any leave since I joined the Navy four years ago, and I don’t want any now.”

I shook his hand and said, “Joe, I consider you my friend if you’re ever alone and need someone to talk to.”

Joe said, “The entire Navy is my family so I’m never alone, but thank you for caring.”

A Rose is a Rose

Leo Lawton

July 12, 2015

From the rose’s POV

            I was told that I developed from a bush that grew somewhere in a land far away, but I do not actually remember this part of my life.  I seem to vaguely recall being inside of a bulb of some sort called a rose hip, but that may be my imagination.  I sort of think my bulb was sliced open by a human who removed me and all of my siblings from our snug home.

            The first thing I’m really sure of was someone trying to drown me.  Someone laid all of us on an old board, and said they were washing away pulp, whatever that is, but as far as I’m concerned there was a lot of water involved, and I was unable to breathe well while under its influence.  I believe it was called waterboarding.  Next I was treated to a warm bath in hydrogen peroxide to help me ward off molds which they said might destroy me.  I suppose this was necessary, and a good thing.  At least I wasn’t freezing like I was in that water torture treatment.

            After we all were removed from the hydrogen peroxide we had a bleached look.  That was different, but next they put us on a damp paper towel and placed us in a refrigerator for several weeks saying it had something to do with simulating winter conditions, whatever that means.

            After this rather chilly experience we were finally brought out into the sunshine again.  I much preferred this, no matter what was going to happen next.  Hanging out in a dark refrigerator is no fun at all.  I began to feel sort of different one day, and looking down I saw I had a tail beginning to grow.  When my human noticed this I was stuck in some dirt with my tail pointing downward.  My tail kept getting longer and spreading out into a root system.  Twice I was moved from my original dirt to ever larger pots.

            Then my forever home human bought me from the nursery where I was brought up.  He was so gentle as he took me for a ride to our new home.  On a beautiful sunny day, the kind I really love, Carl planted me in mother earth at our new home.  The soil was rich, black, and full of good stuff for my future growth.  I grew well all summer, and as fall approached I presented Carl’s mother with two beautiful small roses.  She was awestruck with our beauty.

            Shortly thereafter the air began to cool nights to where it really wasn’t all that comfortable, but I heard my humans talking about something called winter, and remarking how it was supposed to get even colder.  Sure enough, those humans were right.  As the temperature got down to where the dirt was turning solid I decided to go into hibernation.  I fell into a deep sleep.  I hardly felt it when a large animal came along and ate my top off.

            While I slept the days began to lengthen and the temperatures began to moderate slowly day by day, with a few backslides.  I began to awaken from my deep slumber to note that my entire top was missing.  It hurt something awful as the rest of me began to die.  “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

            Hold on!  I feel a stirring in my roots again.  I’m returning to life.  I feel the sun on my tender shoot that it rising.  My leaves are beginning to sprout again.  Oh my, I’m getting taller again.  I wonder if I’ll return to life as before.  I was so happy in my new home before the winter came.  They have named me Phoenix for some reason known only to them.

Look, look, I’m so happy I’m going to grow another prize for my humans.

Oh my, a young feathered beast decided I looked like a fine place to land, but I was not strong enough yet to hold its weight.  My spine snapped half in two.  Oh, this hurts, but one of my humans is trying to make it better.  He has placed an extra piece of branch along side of my splintered member and is taping it secure.  That removes some of the pressure from my wound.

A Theory Of Life

Leo Lawton

January 6, 2016

If one were to build a machine that would do nothing more than replicate itself, it would be useless.  For most of my life I determined human life had the express purpose of continuing propagation of the species, but if the only purpose of human life is to perpetuate itself, then it has no purpose.  Humans are born, live, die, and it is meaningless.

If there were a reason for humanity it would be to make the world a better place, using superior knowledge to help all creatures. Yet what do humans do with their brains? They use them to design better weapons of death for any and all creatures, including themselves. As efficient as they are at this endeavor, the human population continues to grow at an alarming rate, overwhelming the ability of our planet to support itself.