Mary's Boy

 As a holiday present, I offer a set of lyrics for a Christmas carol I'm working on.  This is the first verse and chorus - other verses may follow.  The tentative title is 'Mary's Boy'.  The tune is the old French carol 'Il est Ne, le Divin Enfant':      

Underneath him a bed of hay,

All around him the angels lullaby;

High above him a single star

Points the way in the midnight sky.

Who is he that is born today,

In a stable for humble animals?

He is Jesus, Mary's boy,

Man and God, our Emmanuel.

From our family to all of yours, may you have a happy and blessed Christmas, and much joy in the New Year!

November

So is there anything more depressing than a gray November horizon?

Sure, there is.  It's a gray November horizon full of colossal wind turbines.

(About 30 degrees north from the first shot)

A New Adventure

I haven't blogged for a while, because I've been organizing a new adventure.  As most of you know, the writing job search has yielded some good interviews, but no job offers, and I've been getting frustrated about it.  Going back to school seemed like it might be a good idea, so I've been researching training for a new career.  Now I'm officially a college student again - I'm attending Elgin Community College, taking full-time classes to get a paralegal certificate.

The paralegal certificate will (hopefully) help me get a job in a law office, or with some other firm that does a lot of legal filing. I've already started my classes in Legal Technology and Writing, and tonight I go to my Real Property Class.  Should be exciting.  Tomorrow I have Legal Tech again, in the morning, and Litigation at night.  I'm in class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of every week.

So far I think I'm really going to like it.  I'm excited about the opportunity to make a change.  I have to take 12 credit hours this semester, and at least 12 next semester, and then I get my certificate.  If things go well the first semester I may even take 15 hours in the spring.  We'll see.  My brain isn't as young as it was, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Wish me luck! 

Random Thoughts

Some things that have been occurring to me lately:

- I would probably fail most history and sociology classes these days, because I wouldn't agree with the instructor that everything my grandparents believed was stupid.

- If anybody else in my 'village' had ever tried to raise one of my children, I probably would have wanted to punch his lights out.

- Look for the word 'detroit' to come into the language as a passive verb denoting civic chaos and impotence, such as 'Hey Bob, you still waiting for the cops to come out on that break-in?  Looks like you've been detroited.'

- How much fun could a movie that's part mystery be, if everybody in the audience knows that the first wealthy male character to come on screen will eventually turn out the villain?  I've had this experience literally dozens of times the last few years, most recently with 'The Lone Ranger'.  Honestly, I don't think I need to say 'SPOILER ALERT', when every person in the theater knew Tom Wilkinson was the bad guy in the first five minutes.  Hollywood is killing itself by constantly writing to formula.

- Hate to see summer pass and autumn looming.  Maybe if I lived someplace other than the upper Midwest... 

It Happens Every Summer

It's been two weeks since our annual Ribfest reunion in Pecatonica, and I've finally had a chance to pull together some memories and impressions from a whole week of family time:

- Our family trip to Brookfield Zoo was a blast.  There were seven adults and two toddlers, and we covered the whole place in one beautiful, sunny day.  I'll never forget little Elijah, with a very determined look on his face, pushing the boys' wagon from behind up and down the asphalt walkways.  Priceless.

- Brian, bounding down the stairs one morning, proclaimed to his Nonna 'There you are!', as if his night's sleep was just part of a grand game of hide-and-seek.

- Anne's friend Chris is from New Jersey, and he seemed puzzled that there are truly no street lights where we live.

- First experiences for the boys: running through the sprinkler, playing with the puppy, swinging plastic golf clubs, walking down to the stream to watch the fish.  I think the fish got a little shell-shocked, because the highlight of that last was actually bombarding them with gravel from the bridge.  It was a good thing Brian was wearing bib overalls for his visit to the country, so that we could grab him from behind as he leaned out over the water.

- Watching the storms roll up out of the west.  It's a lot more open where we live now, and we can really see the weather as it arrives. The cooking crew had the same experience on Ribfest Saturday in Pec, as a big storm full of wind and rain hit us about 11:00AM.  Gotta love that shelter house!

- Getting a chance to reconnect with people from both sides of our family.  There were about one hundred and fifty of us there, and the party went on very late.  How much fun is that?

G'Day, Bruce!

I'm reading Alison Weir's biography of Henry VIII of England, and I'm struck again, as I have been before, by one strange concurrence.  See if you can spot it in the following list of the most eminent men who served  the second Tudor:

Wolsey, Cardinal Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor
More, also Lord Chancellor
Cromwell, also Lord Chancellor
Audley, also Lord Chancellor
Howard, the 2nd Duke of Norfolk
Howard, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk

Cranmer, first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury
Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Anne Boleyn's father
Knyvet, Henry's Master of the Horse
Seymour, younger of the two brothers to Queen Jane Seymour
Wyatt, courtier and early lyric poet
Linacre, the King's physician
Elyot, courtier and historian
Carwarden, first permanent Master of the Revels
Heneage, Privy Councillor
Abell, Chaplain to Queen Katherine of Aragon
Cheney, Privy Councillor



See it yet?  I'll give you a hint:  when you see a movie and play about this time, and there are many because it was an era of high drama, all of these guys call each other by either their titles or their surnames.  They have to, because it would be too confusing for the viewers otherwise.  Each and every one was given the name 'Thomas' at birth.  

I don't know whether it was a fashion that got out of hand or what, but it's true.  Makes me think of the old Monty Python sketch about the philosophy department of an Australian university - G,day Bruce!'  'How are ya, Bruce?'  'What's up, Bruce?'   I can just imagine some middle-class matron saying to her husband, 'It doesn't matter what your dad's name was!  We want the King to notice and promote him, so we're going to name him Thomas!'  

Faint and Far Away

I've got the windows open today, and I can hear the train whistle.  It sounds faint and far away, and that's a blessing.

Nonna and I just finished moving from the village of Shabbona to a rental house on a farmette a few miles north.  We got an offer on our house in town, and had to move pretty fast, so this seemed like a good fit. To people living in a city or suburb, moving from a small town in the country to an actual farm might not seem like much of a change, but it certainly is to us. We've always lived within the boundaries of a municipality of some kind, but not anymore. 

(I should make it clear here that although we're living on a farm, we're not responsible for working the land - the acreage is rented to someone else.  I'm so clumsy and bad with machinery that if I actually tried to farm, the next piece of writing you'd see with my name in it would probably be an accident report.)

The first thing that's different is infrastructure.  We've never used a well and septic system before, and had to ask the landlords if there is anything special to monitor.  Apparently the heat lamp in the well pit is VERY important in winter - who knew?  There's no garbage pickup, so that will have to be arranged.  We had to go from cable TV/internet to separate services for dish television and internet. And the basement is a genuine old creepy limestone vault with six-foot clearance and posts everywhere.  If you know Uncle Marty, you know what Nonna called it right away.

The thing we're most scared of is what will happen in winter.  They usually get the streets in Shabbona plowed pretty quickly after a snowstorm, but how long will it take to get our little gravel road cleared?  Nonna needs to get out and going pretty early in the morning, so that's a concern.  We'll have to see how things go. 

There are positives to the change, too.  The thing that I'm most impressed with right away is the privacy.  Hardly any cars come down our road in a day, and the nearest neighbor is a quarter-mile away, so it's a big change from having our back yard being center stage for two stories of assisted-living residents. If it ever warms up, I could walk around in a bathing suit all day and not make a single soul want to swear off bacon.  It will probably get dusty and noisy around harvest time, but I suppose we can handle that.  Mail delivery is kind of nice, too - we've been going to the post office to pick up our mail for over two decades.  And as I said, that far-off train whistle is a HUGE step in the right direction.  We've lived within a a couple of blocks of a busy freight line for just as long.

So, I'm looking at this as a real adventure.  Expect to hear more about our 'Green Acres Project' in coming posts.  And I really want to thank our kids for all their help - Elizabeth and Eric, Margaret and Nathan really worked their tails off.  And Uncles Matt and Jeff came down with a pickup to help on Saturday - what a great family we have!

Be Happy!

My nephew Matt and his fiancee Shannon are getting married tomorrow, and I want to wish them every happiness.  'Happiness' is one of those words like 'wealth' or 'fun', that means different things to different people, so all I can do is tell you what I think it is.  I have always tried to keep in mind the idea that happiness comes from making other people happy.  When you stop worrying about your own feelings and the things you want, and concentrate on filling other people's needs, you often wake up and realize that you're truly happy yourself.  I'm not saying that I'm always successful at this, but I do try.

Without trying to give a sermon, I think this is a great resolution on which to start a marriage.  This is the thing that the ministers are trying to say when they urge you to 'both give 100%, instead of 50%'.  If you dedicate yourself to your partner's happiness from the beginning, and they do the same for you, you'll find your love increases all the time.  Be happy!

Happy Birthday, Margaret Mary!

Today is Margaret Mary Rice's 29th birthday.  Happy Birthday, my dear!  I can't imagine any daughters better than the three we have.  You're a blessing to us every day!

Margaret and Elijah and Grandpa Go to the Zoo

I had the chance to go with Elijah and his mama to Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday.  The weather was gorgeous, and there were a lot of school groups and families out just enjoying it.  We found out that the little guy really likes giraffes and bears and rhinos.  He wasn't as interested in the big cats, because they were just laying around soaking up the sun. Camels are OK, but the penguin exhibit was crowded and noisy.  He also liked the underwater viewing area for the dolphins, because they were zooming around like missiles.  Movement seems to be the key.

When he really is interested in something, he will point to it with one imperious hand, and everybody has to stop what THEY'RE doing and agree with his choice.  It's really cute and funny.  When he sees a truck or tractor or train moving along, he makes a 'broooommm' sound with his lips.  Lots of trams moving at the zoo on Tuesday, so we heard that a lot, too. 

Margaret was so excited to take Elijah to the zoo, because that's one of her very favorite places.  This picture was taken at the very end of the trip.  He was good as gold all day, and really enjoyed himself.  Much more so than on Wednesday, when he got his 15-month inoculations!

An Apology...and a Remembrance

It seems like a long time since I've blogged anything, and I'd like to apologize for that.  I've started several posts since the last one, but each time, I've reviewed the work in draft form and decided that it had too hard an edge, and I don't want to inflict that on anyone else.  There are way too many folks who use social media and blogs to vent without thinking, and it always makes them look bad in the end.  We have to remember that taking to cyberspace with our feelings opens up a little porthole window into our personalities, good and bad. 

Enough said about that.  My brother Mike and I spent a evening together recently, and one of the things that came up was how our dad had a lot of favorite verbal expressions he'd use in certain situations.  His nickname from childhood was 'Hoot', and I've always thought of them as 'Hootisms'.  For instance:

- When anything was outrageously expensive (in his judgement, anyway), he would say it cost 'four barrels of money.'  How much money was actually in a barrel, we've never been able to figure out.

- When he got sick of hearing us whine about fairness or refusing to participate in something, he would say 'Grab your glove and get in the game!'  I guess that was his way of saying you don't get anywhere without trying.

- Perseverance was important to Dad, and his favorite way of telling you to hang in there was 'Grab a root and growl!'  Doesn't that just conjure up the image of a cornered badger, baring its teeth?

- He wasn't impressed with titles or old names.  He would say 'That and a quarter will get you a beer in any bar in town.'

I know there are a whole lot more that I haven't remembered.  If you have a favorite Hootism, let me know and I'll post them in the future.  Thanks!

Patent Office

I noticed a weird little coincidence recently, that probably doesn't mean anything to anyone but me.  We were watching the episode of 'The Big Bang Theory' in which Sheldon has gotten horribly stuck trying to solve a tricky equation, and realizes he has to turn his mind off in order for the answer to appear.  He reminds everybody who'll listen that Einstein was working in the patent office in Switzerland when he did some of his most groundbreaking work, and decides that he needs to do that kind of 'menial' work in order to engage his cerebral cortex on the problem.  Leaving aside whether that's a valid technique for theoretical research, and whether government clerkship is 'menial' work in the first place, it struck me:  I seemed to remember someone else who had to go to work in the patent office before his big success.

After a little research I confirmed it: one of my favorite writers, the English poet A. E. Housman, blew a big written exam at Oxford in 1892, and had to take a job in the patent office in London because he hadn't gotten his degree.  While working for the government, he pursued his classical studies and published a very well-received volume of poetry titled A Shropshire Lad, and after ten years he was rescued by the University of London, which gave him a professorship in the classics.

Now, Einstein went to work for the government because he couldn't get a job anyplace else, even with his degree, not because he failed a test and wasn't able to get a degree. And obviously there's a big difference between theoretical physics and the writing of poetry, and lots of people, especially these days, would argue that only one of those activities involves real genius. But in his day, which was a few decades before Einstein, Housman became a very big deal, and we shouldn't sneer at what he accomplished just because it isn't science.  Millions of us remember the lines 'When I was one-and-twenty', or 'Loveliest of trees, the cherry  now', or 'With rue my heart is laden'. And my personal favorite of Housman's poems:

          Into my heart an air that kills
          From yon far country blows:
          What are those blue remembered hills,
          What spires, what farms are those?

          That is the land of lost content,
          I see it shining plain,
          The happy highways where I went,
          And cannot come again.

So isn't it weird that both of these guys took a detour into the patent office, before they were ready to prove themselves to the world?  Is working as a clerk really so mindlessly bureaucratic that you can turn your brain off, and let it work on something else even while you're doing your job?

Start of Spring?

So today is supposed to be the start of spring.  We've had sunshine, that's for sure.  But the temperature took a nosedive the last couple of days, and the wind started screaming out of the west, and it feels like spring is really a long way off.  It puts me in mind of one of my favorite jokes about Midwestern weather.  The late comedian Richard Jeni once said 'I think that's how Chicago got started.  A bunch of people in New York said 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough.  Let's go west'.

Sounds about right. 

Habemus Papam - Francis I

Our new Holy Father is Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina.  He has chosen the name Francis, which delights me to no end.  Our world needs the virtues of St Francis now more than ever.  Let's hope our new pope can show us how to live those virtues, and 'rebuild My Church.'

Update 6:17PM - My son Nate reminds me that since Cardinal Bergoglio is a Jesuit, he was probably intending to honor St Francis Xavier instead of St Francis of Assisi.  He's undoubtedly right, but since St Francis Xavier was honoring the saint of Assisi when he took HIS name, I think it still counts as a tip of the hat to the Poverello.  Still really happy that we have a Pope Francis!

Dr Syn

It looked like a good day to take a trip down memory lane today, so I went to the internet to find out a little about something I remembered from my childhood.  I distinctly remember a Disney movie about a guy in a scarecrow mask, sort of like Ray Bolger in 'The Wizard of Oz', who rode around on a horse and helped out people.  He was a smuggler, but all the money he made from dodging the tax man was given to the poor, sort of like Robin Hood. The only name or title that I could remember was 'Dr Syn', but that was enough.  A listing of all Disney theatrical features was no help, but when I entered the name 'Dr Syn' into Google, presto!

Turns out the Disney feature, originally titled 'The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh', and with a very young-looking Patrick McGoohan as the title character, was only in theaters for a short time, as part of a double-bill with 'The Sword in the Stone'.  It had a bigger presence on TV, as a 2-or-3 part feature on 'The Wonderful World of Color'. It was renamed and recut several times; check under 'In Other Media' in the Wikipedia article on Dr. Syn. 

Now for the best part - Youtube has a 12-minute clip of the beginning of the film.  The Scarecrow's men unload a shipment of smuggled booze, and then he and his two buddies have to ride like the wind to escape the King's excise forces.  I'm watching this piece of film, and I see the Scarecrow on top of the most beautiful dapple gray horse I've ever seen, and it hits me - that's why I always want to bet on a gray horse!  That's why I'm always looking for the gray horse in any post parade!  It's because of this movie I saw on TV when I was just a little kid.  That's stuck with me all my life.

Say what you want, I think the web is almost as good as a shrink.

Snippet For a Monday

I passed a hearse parked in front of a church today.  The name in the window said 'Anderson'.  Of course, since this is northern Illinois, that could be the name of both the funeral home AND the deceased.  It got me thinking, though, about that particular surname. 

Anderson, of course, means 'son of Anders', just like 'Larson' and 'Nelson' refer to sons of Lars and Nels.  And Anders is a perfectly ordinary male Christian name in Scandinavian societies. But if my memory of high-school German is correct, 'ander' means 'other' in modern German.  Since an older, proto-German is the ancestor of both modern German and all the Scandinavian languages, does that mean that the name originally meant 'other'?

How does 'other' get to be a first name?  I envision a couple of Viking chiefs meeting, and one of them saying 'So Rolf, I guess introductions are in order.  This is my first-born, my pride and joy, my son Gunnar...and, oh yes, this is my other son.'

Funny where your mind can wander when you're supposed to be thinking about something else.

What Do We Need?

The surprise announcement that our Holy Father, Benedict XVI, is abdicating his position because of poor health, has set off a frenzy of speculation about the next pope, and what we 'need' him to be like.  The secular media, in predictable fashion, has vilified Benedict because he wouldn't validate their vision of modernity.  They felt the same way about Blessed John Paul II during his pontificate, and veered around 180 degrees after his death, proclaiming his obvious greatness.  I suppose that's one way to insure that his successor can be called a failure, for not living up to John Paul's standard.  Those of us who don't depend on CBS News or CNN for our information, don't believe Benedict was a failure at all. 

What do we need in a pope in the 21st century?  First of all, we need a man of strong faith.  The western world seems to be rejecting Christianity at the same time that non-Christian religions are becoming trendy and gaining in militancy.  Our beliefs are under attack from both without and within, and it's becoming easier for people to lose heart.  Let's pray that our next pope, through his simple faith in the Gospel and the traditions of our Holy Mother Church, can energize the flock and clearly demonstrate to the world how we need Catholicism now more than ever.

 Simplicity is key to another thing I think we really need in the next pope.  I've read a fair amount of 'handicapping' commentary which tries to push one or the other candidate for the papacy, often on the basis of perceived intelligence. Like political talking heads, they seem to think we need to get the 'smartest man in the room.'  I say - nuts to that.  I don't think a whole alphabet of initials behind someone's name means they obviously have the ability to lead a great nation or a church.  It just means they can complete course work and satisfy academic requirements. Let our next pope be a man with more compassion and common sense than 'book learning'. 

It would be good for our next Holy Father, as recent popes have been, to be thoughtful and willing to listen. Those who talk all the time and don't bother to listen can never really be good leaders, in either the secular or religious world. He should both proclaim the eternal truths of the gospel, and prayerfully consider new interpretations.  That doesn't mean I'm hoping he will be a 'transformational' figure who rejects all the teachings that set so many progressive molars grinding.  The Catholic Church is not a democracy, and we don't get a vote on what it proclaims as truth, much as some of us might like to.  I, for one, earnestly pray that the day will come when women can become priests - but I'm not about to insist that the next pope has to make me happy in that regard.  Let him both preach and listen, and he will be a worthy successor to St Peter.

Finally, let's pray that the next pope is a man of joy.  The 21st-century world is a truly depressing place, and we need to combat that gloom with all the weapons we have.  Our faith is one of those weapons, and not the smallest one.  Despite (or because of) the central image of Christ Crucified, the final message of Catholicism is in fact a joyful one.  Our Lord was incarnate on earth, suffered for our sakes, and earned for us a lasting peace in the house of His Father.  What could be happier than that?     

White Rose Rising

When I was a young man in college, many decades ago, I got interested in a lot of things about which I'd never heard before.  Like a lot of college kids, before they get out into the real world, I was passionate about justice and fairness.  And one of the causes I took up was rehabilitating the reputation of an English king who'd been cut down a half-millenium before. 

Kind of a strange thing for a small-town Illinois boy to care about, right?  I don't disagree.  All I can say is that from the first time I encountered real historical data about Richard III, and saw how radically it differed from the popular stories about his profound deformity and wickedness, I wanted to tell everybody I came across how rotten a deal I believed he'd been given by both Shakespeare and 'history'.  When I was on my semester study tour in England, I made a special point to take the tube to Chelsea, and see a medieval town-house that had been moved there from the city some years before, just because it had once been leased by Richard as his city residence.  I started (and never finished, of course) a short play about him for one of my writing classes.  And I read everything I could find on the fifteenth century, including a small masterpiece of a detective story called 'The Daughter of Time'.

All this comes back to my mind because the announcement came today - the bones dug up from under the parking lot at the Leicester city council have been proven to be the actual final remains of King Richard III. Not only are they the right period, with the right injuries, but DNA comparison to an actual descendant of  Richard's sister shows a match.  It almost takes my breath away - for centuries, we've believed that the bones were lost.  The friary under which they'd been interred was certainly destroyed by Henry VIII, like so many Catholic foundations, and there was even a story that at the time of the dissolution the king's remains were dug up and pitched into the river.  But now, because of historical detective work, archaeology, and scientific analysis, the University of Leicester team has given the whole world a new picture of the last of the Plantagenets. 

Was he a hunchback?  No, the bones show scoliosis, but no severe deformity.  The radio-carbon dating gives the right dates, both for the age of the bones and the age of the individual when he BECAME bones.  And the violence that was done to those bones bears out the most flattering details that even the Tudors admitted about his final hours:  that Richard III died fighting bravely, within inches of victory, driving toward the enemy command post at the center of the Tudor army, while Henry VII hid behind his captains.  There's even a knife-scrape along one buttock, which suggests a 'humiliation' injury post-mortem, when the corpse had been stripped and flung across a horse. 

It's a sad way to go, and the Tudors, who had a weak claim to the throne and needed all the bolstering they could get, proceeded to make it worse.  They paid every fifteenth and sixteenth-century flack they could to write the most scurrilous stories about Richard III: that he came into the world with teeth already in his mouth, that he drowned his own brother in a butt of wine, that he was the one who dispatched Henry VI in the Tower of London, that he wanted his wife to die so he could marry his niece, and on and on.  And of course, the big one, that he sent his servants to murder his nephews, the little 'Princes in the Tower'.  Richard III became the original cartoon wicked uncle.

The discovery and identification of a set of bones doesn't mean that their owner and operator wasn't really a villain, of course.  The skeleton can't sit up on the table and shout 'I didn't do it!'  But maybe, if people start taking more of an interest, someone who's smart and hardworking and lucky will be the one to uncover some real hard evidence that can shine through the Tudor stories.  Glamor and propaganda, like that employed by some American political families, shouldn't be allowed to obscure the truth forever.  And one final word about the gentleman from the colonies that provided the DNA for comparison - wouldn't it be fun if the English kicked the Windsors to the curb and gave the crown to a Canadian carpenter? 

Grow Old Along With Me!

I've been thinking about what it means to be a grandparent lately.  I suppose that's because our little Elijah turns one year old tomorrow, and Brian will be two in less than two months.  My wife and I have had a lot of fun with them since they were born, and we are grateful for every minute we get to spend with our boys.

In my earliest memories, my grandparents were already pretty old.  My Grandpa Stanley, in fact, passed away when I was very young, and my Grandpa Ben before I was out of high school.  I remember him a little better, not only because I was older, but because he was a very vivid kind of personality.  He loved his family a lot, and enjoyed running into his grandkids uptown when he was on his daily rounds.  We used to time our own visits to the barbershop so that we'd catch him there, because he liked emptying all the change in his pockets into our hands.  Made walking home easier, I guess.  Both my grandmothers were a little more reserved, but there was never any question they loved all their grandkids.

We've tried to pass that same love down to our own grandchildren.  Brian was born March 15th, 2011, in Stafford County, Virginia, and we were there to welcome him pretty soon after Alicia and Nate brought him home from the hospital.  We've been to Virginia several other times, and now to Pittsburgh as well, and we always have a lot fun when we can get there.  Skype has turned out to be our best friend, because it lets Brian get his 'Nonna' fix every couple of days.

And then Elijah came along.  In January of 2012, our daughter Margaret and her husband Nathan got a call telling them that a birth mother in a neighboring state had chosen them to adopt her little one (please ask God's blessing for her in your prayers - we do every day).  Then, they got the call that they needed to be there pretty quick if they wanted to see the baby being born. They climbed in their car and raced a few hundred miles, welcomed him into the world on the 26th, and then we were able to bring him home on February 3rd.  We're due to celebrate his first birthday tomorrow, and we can't wait.

So what is the experience of being a grandparent like?  It's a kick, actually.  It's like the sweet dessert at the end of a meal.  You can enjoy the kids, but you're not totally responsible for them.  That probably makes your whole relationship with them easier, and they pick up on that.  It's a whole different level of satisfaction.  And if you're young enough, and well enough, to get down on the floor and play with them before they can walk, how much fun is that?  It makes me think of some of my favorite lines from Browning, in 'Rabbi Ben Ezra':

     Grow old along with me!
     The best is yet to be!
     The last of life, for which the first was made...

It All Began With Two Big Flowerpots

(One of my brothers has suggested that I blog about our annual family picnic, and I've been kicking it around in my head for a while.  This is my first shot at 'blogging on demand', so please bear with me.)

In 2003, my brother Mike decided to try a little experiment.  He's always been a big fan of smoked meats, like the rest of us, and he thought it would be fun to make his own smoker.  With the help of my brother Jim, he took a wooden folding table, cut 2 holes in the top, and inserted a pair of big clay flowerpots, with holes also cut in them for heating elements. The elements sat near the bottom, and you could put wood chips on top of them to burn for smoke.  Add a rack near the top and a cover and ...Voila!  Homemade smoker!  At least that's the way I remember it - I'm sure I'll be offered no end of detail corrections.

Anyway, what do you do when you create a tour de force like this?  You share it, of course.  So Ribfest was born.  The first couple of years we had it at my brother Jim's house on Pecatonica Road south of Route 20.  It was mostly family to begin with, and mostly the Tarbert family to boot, my mom's side.  It's pretty much taken the place of a Tarbert family reunion ever since.  Of course, it's evolved a lot as well.  We started inviting friends, mixing margaritas, and adding different kinds of food, like baked beans and salmon and pork shoulders and game birds and lamb....ummm, lamb! 

Where was I?  Oh, yes, we've also added music, and moved the venue to a forest preserve south of town, on Best Road.  We have also, sadly, put the original flowerpot smokers out to pasture, and bought (mostly my brother Joe bought) a big shiny meat smoker from Peoria Custom Cookers.  It's called the 'Meat Monster', and it's our pride and joy.  Go to www.peoriacookers.com/testamonials, and you'll see a bunch of stocky meat-lovers that may look familiar.

We always have our get-together on the Saturday in June that's closest to the summer solstice.  My brother Matt claims it's because we're pagans, but I assure you that I (at least) am thinking about taking advantage of the longest days of the year, not honoring our pre-Christian ancestors.  We have meetings throughout the spring about how many people will come, how much food we should cook, what kind of game birds my cousin Owen has in his freezer, whose turn it is to buy a round, and all kinds of other details. The Friday before the big event, we spend some time at Joe and Nancy's place stripping the back of the rib slabs, and possibly drinking a little beer, I don't really remember.  Then, on Saturday, we're up bright and early to get to the forest preserve at 6:30 or 7:00AM, right as it opens.  We set up the meat monster and the smaller auxiliary smoker for the game and the lamb, get things going, put the meat on the racks, eat a big greasy breakfast, and then....take a nap.

No, really, we're working all the time getting the beans ready, spraying for flies, and all the other stuff we have to do.  Last year, the 10th annual Ribfest served 160 people, so there are a lot of small touches that need attention.  We always plan to eat around 4:00PM and always seem to run a little later than that, but the well-oiled crowd doesn't seem to mind, as long as a few ribs show up early as hors d'oeuvres (I could have said 'appetizers', but where's the fun in that?).  The party goes on long into the evening, like all good parties should.   

Here's a small cast of characters that you might find useful:

Head Porkmeister:                                               Joe Eaton
Historian and Rub Wizard:                                   Mike Eaton
Chief Shepherd of Lambs:                                   Matt Eaton
Game Warden:                                                    Owen Eaton
Breakfast Chef, also known as the 'Baconator':  Jeff Eaton
Porkmeister-in-Training:                                       Eric Boehm
Maintenance and Repair:                                    Jim Eaton
Gopher:                                                               Shawn Eaton

I could go on for a long time, but I'm sure you get the idea.  I look forward to Ribfest every year, because it gives us a chance to see all our family at once, including the newest members.  If you're ever in western Winnebago County on a certain Saturday in June, and you hear music jamming from the forest preserve on top of the hill, stop in for a rib or two. 

How Much More?

It's been a tough fall and early winter to be an Illinois sports fan.  To start off with, the White Sox, after leading their division for a good chunk of the season, did their now-traditional September Swan Dive, and we had to watch the Tigers take the division and then the pennant, and then get blitzed (again) in the World Series.  And then the Chicago Bears, after starting 7-1 in the first half of the season, took it down to the last game of the season and lost a playoff bid to the Vikings, who (surprise, surprise) beat a Packers team that had already nailed down the division title.  Couldn't get any more disappointing than that, could it?

Oh, but it could.  On New Year's Day, the NIU Huskies got their first appearance on the big stage of the BCS, and lost the Orange Bowl in Miami to Florida State by three touchdowns.  I know it was a genuine testament to the way the program has improved in the last few years that they even got to play in a BCS game, but still - wouldn't it have been nice if they could have pulled it off?  We're all proud of them, and looking forward to next season, but it's hard not to think about 'what if'. 

That's three big slaps in the last four months of 2012.  I know that the Orange Bowl was technically the first day of 2013, but honestly, 2012 was such a bummer that I prefer to think the NIU loss was just the last gasp of that miserable year instead of the first loss of the new one.  More hopeful that way, somehow.  So what do we do now?  Well, there's no NHL at all, for all you major-league hockey fans, and I'm just not into basketball.  So, I guess we have to wait till pitchers and catchers report to MLB training camp the middle of February.  That's only six weeks, right?  Can we last that long?