Margaret's Lime

Henrietta, Texas circa 1970: Darrel Blain went to school with my brother, David Strickland, and sometimes rode his bike out to the farm near Hurnville to visit. Like any kid growing up in Henrietta, his mother bought his clothes at John's Drygoods, and the Library Rummage Sale was a big deal.

But he was enterprising, and he got a job at the 'Lo Boy, cooking burgers and making cokes.

Then one day, there was this lime.

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Accumulation

Nocona Texas, 1969: Bob Standley is my brother-in-law, because he married my sister Mary. But some time before they got married, when he was in high school, he had a Chevy Malibu.

He had a little job, I think it was at the boot factory, and he had to be very careful with his money. Each week on Saturday, he took $2, and he'd fill up the gas tank -- it was a long time ago -- and there was money left over to go to the drive-inn movie, and to buy a nasty little cigar called a Swisher Sweet.

Every week he followed this $2 routine, and so as to conserve his money, he drove his car only when he had to, so that the gas would last through the week.

But then one Saturday, something strange happened.

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Grass Blade Whistle

Weed, California June 18, 2008: Walking the dogs in the huge vacant lot toward the end of day, I plucked a thick blade from an uprising of wild grasses, and made a loud whistle. This both excited and alarmed the dogs. So we had a little game all the way back to the house. Loud whistle. Leap and gyrate. Loud whistle. Leap and gyrate. Loud whistle. Leap and gyrate. Damn, we had fun!

And this reminded me that, back in September of 2007, Darrel Blane, another Henrietta Texas boy, took the time to capture this wondrous technology on his weblog of photos, drawings, and musings, called Daily Art Mas O Menos (Daily Art more or less). He drew the illustrations with ink, graphite, and a Derwent wash pencil.

With his permission, I here reprint "How to Make a Grass Blade Whistle." Something every boy ought to know.

HOW TO MAKE A GRASS BLADE WHISTLE

Let's suppose you need to make a loud noise to frighten off a large wild animal (assuming you've encountered a large wild animal that can actually be frightened), or suppose you become lost or injured while hiking and need to signal your whereabouts, or let's suppose you are eight years old hanging out with your cousins in a small town in Texas with not much to do, trying to make as much noise as possible.

In that case you can make a really loud whistle from a grass blade. Strictly speaking it's not a whistle but a single reed instrument. A whistle has a fixed surface; a reed instrument has a moving surface vibrating against a fixed surface.

Whatever, it still is ear-splittingly loud.

Here's how to do it.

Find yourself a grass blade, or leaf, or something similar, longer than your thumb. Not a wimpy grass blade from a suburban lawn, but a native grass or weed that's tough, with about a finger's width to it.

Hold it between thumb and forefinger so the grass more or less drapes along the length of your thumb.



After holding it between thumb and forefinger with one hand, so the grass more or less drapes along the length of your thumb, catch the bottom end of the blade with your middle finger.

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Fearless? Or Fear Less?

Weed, California, June 18, 2008: The other day I woke up thinking about the word 'fearless.'

Have you ever known anybody who was actually fearless?

I haven't. Pretty much any human, any mammal, has fear. And that makes sense, because if a creature didn't have any fear at all, sooner or later that creature would come a cropper. Adios muchacho.

And critters coming a cropper leave no progeny.

We are, therefore, the progeny of the timorous humans. Or at least of the humans with a healthy dose of fear. Oh we could call it 'prudence,' or something that sounds better.

But it's fear.

However, the other thought is that, over the years, things change.

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Word for Today: Synchronicity

Wikipedia, 6/14/2008: Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally un-related. In order to be 'synchronistic', the events must be related to one another temporally, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.

The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined by the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships which have nothing to do with causal relationships in which a cause precedes an effect.

Instead, causal relationships are understood as simultaneous — that is, the cause and effect occur at the same time. [You're thinking of calling Suzie. You reach for the phone, but it rings. It's Suzie.]

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Where does dirt ... go?

Weed, California, Sunday June 8, 2008: About a week ago, Glenn the Magnificent and two of his beer-guzzling crew (Big Bob and Jesse the Bulldog) came and ran the water line into the shop.

They dug around in the yard until they found the water line, and then while I wasn't looking they somehow tapped into it, then dug a narrow trench across the yard and past the old rock walkway, and then connected it up with a line they'd put into the foundation last year.

But that's not my point. The point is this ...

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