To be honest, I don't have much to say right now.  But I feel like I have much to share.  And that is something indeed.  I am so...I want to say content, but it is far, far beyond contentment.  I am burdened with an abundance of joy so pure that to fully express it would either end with me in an asylum or at the very least in jail over night.  So I choose to express it by listening to music that brings me much ease and to savor it, knowing that no one I pass on the street tonight on my way to the library is feeling what I feel.  I am confident in this because they do not have the friends and family I have.  Furthermore they do not posses the perspective on life that I am privy to.  

I look around and everything I see is a miracle.  An awesome opportunity to live and breath and see.  The crumbiest brick on the dirtiest building holds magic in my life; magic for what is was, for what it has seen, and what it is.  My life is filled with miracles and it overwhelms me.  How fortunate am I to see the sunrise, to experience the waft of fresh air through my house, to smell a pot of coffee brewing just for me in the kitchen, to get to walk through a town along a path oh so familiar now that was once entirely foreign, to sit in a classroom where learning is not fun but merely life and breath and sustenance.  I count myself fortunate because I would challenge you to say that in the last week you have felt as blessed as me, as showered with miracles.

I have also realized, thanks to Dandelion Wine, that my life is too full of nothingness.  Meaningless tasks, made meaningless by my meaningless outlook on life and the eradication of the meaningful tasks in favor of convenience and leisure.  To break the spell of this meaninglessness I decided to begin focusing on old tasks in a new way and to adopt new tasks.  In this vein I have begun doing laundry on every tuesday night, regardless of anything else.  This may not be new to anyone else, but it was certainly new to me.  Also, I began to do my dishes every night.  No matter what.  Once again, perhaps nothing new, but completely foreign to me (remember I don't have a dish washer).  Furthermore I have begun to do my ironing on Saturday afternoons come rain or shine.  All my ironing from the laundry I did the week before.  Finally, I have been making my bed every morning.

 

These small tasks that we have managed to shrink, dilute, and even dispose of, were at first annoyingly painful.  After about three weeks of managing them now though I find joy in doing them.  Not only joy, but fulfillment and meaning.  My closet looks neat from the ironing.  My clothes are put away and neatly stacked in my chested drawers.  My kitchen is clean every morning.  and every evening when I go to bed.  My bed room is no longer flooded with two weeks of dirty laundry.  I wear what I want when I want with out panic of, "oh no!  It's dirty!"  I crawl into a nice neat bed every night.

It may not seem like much, but it has really changed my life.  I look for new things to do everyday as well.  Just to fill up the empty space where I normally insert t.v.  I think I'll also start to sweep every night.  Just one more small thing that allows me to think without thinking of only myself.  It is very liberating.  I strongly encourage everyone to do it.  

Anyway.  I suppose I'm done.  Just some sensations I needed to pass on tonight.  Take it easy!

I am currently reading a book by Ray Bradbury called Dandelion Wine.  It is one of the most poetic books I have ever read.  Absolutely beautiful, it brings wonder back into the world.  The best thing for me to do for everyone would be to just copy the entire book on here to you could read it, but seeing as that is ridiculous you should just read the short post I am including here and check it out at the library and read it for yourself.  This is definitely a summer book though, so hurry up and get started!

"That's the trouble with your generation," said Grandpa.  "Bill, I'm ashamed of you, you a newspaperman.  All the things in life that were put here to savor, you eliminate.  Save time, save work, you say."  He nudged the grass trays disrespectfully.  "Bill, when you're my age, you'll find out it's the little savors and the little things that count more than big ones.  A walk on a spring morning is better than an eighty-mile ride in a hopped-up car, you know why?  Because it's full of flavors, full of a lot of things growing.  You've time to seek and find.  I know--you're after the broad effect now, and I suppose that's fit and proper.  But for a young man working on a newspaper, you got to look for grapes as well as watermelons.  You greatly admire skeletons and I like fingerprints; well and good.  Right now such things are bothersome to you, and I wonder if it isn't because you've never learned to use them.  If you had your way you'd pass a law to abolish all the little jobs, the little things.  But then you'd leave yourselves nothing to do between the bit jobs and you'd have a devil of a time thinking up things to do so you wouldn't go crazy.  Instead of that, why not let nature show you a few things  Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life, son."

Bill Forrester was smiling quietly at him.

"I know," said Grandpa, "I talk too much."

"There's no one I'd rather hear."

"Lecture continued, then.  Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids.  And dandelions and devil grass are better!  Why?  Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again.  And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone.  Gardening is the handiest excuse for  being a philosopher.  Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock.  A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder.  As Samuel Spaulding, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.'  Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth.  End of lecture.  Besides, a mess of dandelion greens is good eating once in a while.

Heritage

Last week Friday, my Mom, Dad, sister Michelle, and I drove to Hardin, Il. where my great great great grandfather on my mother's side owned an apple orchard at the turn of the century.  Alexis Mottaz (pronounced Motaw) was a very successful apple farmer being the first to introduce the Jonathan Apple to Illinois and winning a silver medal for his apples at the 1904 worlds fair in St. Louis.  We set out with very little information.  All we knew was that the orchard was in a little town on the Illinois River called Hardin and that behind the house there was a hill called Sugarloaf (so named because of its conical shape).  This is the picture of the original orchard we had to go on.

 

This picture has hung in my grandmother's 

home for as long as I can remember.  Sugarloaf is the hill in the background.  At one time is was completely covered in apple trees.  It quickly became the stuff of legends.  You see, the orchard was enormously successful and the Mottazs were very wealthy.  However, my great great grandmother Elizabeth Mottaz married Charles Sagez (pronounced Sa G) and was virtually disowned by the family, Nevada married a steamboat captain and never had children, Sophie had a child out of wedlock, refused the marry the poor father despite his begging (cause she didn't want her children to be raised like Lizzie's kids) and died of tuberculosis just a few years later, George had a daughter but because he stole the premiums he collected in his insurance job the police came to arrest him.  He asked if he could put on a clean shirt, went upstairs in his house and shot himself.  Emma was engaged to be married, but one of her sisters told her he was cheating on her, so she broke it off and died an old maid.  Alexis took to drink, and a combination of spoiling his sons George and Frances, and getting drunk, loaning out money, and forgetting who he loaned it to caused his immense fortune to disappear.  Really rather tragic.  The orchard passed from the hands of the Mottaz's into whose we did not know.

After a little sleuthing in Hardin we discovered where the farm would have been.  Was the house still there?  Did they bulldoze Sugarloaf to make room for a subdivision?  Were there still apples there?  Was it still a working orchard?  Questions ran wildly through our heads.  The driveway was extremely long and narrow.  We passed several houses along the way each one inspiring more questions about what had become of the orchard.  Suddenly we came upon a large red barn, infront of which was this stone: 

Sugarloaf Farm!  Why, that's the name of the hill behind the house!  Is it still there?  Est. in 1940 though? The Orchard was there long before 1940.  What has changed?  What's the same?  Anything.  We drove slowly up the hill, not knowing who or what to expect.  As we came around a curve there was a sign that said, "Trespassers will be shot.  Survivors will be shot again."  Hm, how serious are they about that sign?  As we passed the sign, something else came into view, something amazing and, honestly, rather unexpected.  None of us could hardly believe our eyes.

There it was.  The old house almost exactly as it looked in the old picture grandma had.  Still very stately.  With a few modern convieniences of course and some update to the structure, but my gosh still there.  Standing, clean, well cared for.  It was in this house that my great great grandmother was born and raised.  My grandmother came here as a child to go on a picnic on Sugarloaf.  A fortune was made and lost inside these walls.  The very shape, the course of my upbringing was formulated here.  Many people say I seem like I'm from a generation behind.  This is not surprising as my grandmother was raised by my great great grandmother, Elizabeth Mottaz Sagez.  Elizabeth was raised very Victorian, and therefore so was my grandmother.  A generation behind.  Thus my mother was raised a generation behind, as was I.  I say this simply to note the importance placed on this house.  It is very much where my family sees it's birth.  Next to the house we saw the barn, decrepit, leaning, and ugly, but still there!

We looked at the barn, knocked on the door of the house and waited.  Where was Sugarloaf?  The trees are much bigger now than they were in the picture, obscuring our view.  Where are the apple trees?  Will the new owners let us look around?  Will they let us taste an apple?  Will they let us take home some apple seeds to grow our own trees?  They have taken good care of the home, the barn is still standing at least.  No answer at the door.  We must get in touch with these people, we can't go roaming around without permission.  A chocolate lab runs up to greet us.  He has a tag with a name, Woefel, and a number.  We have no reception out here in the middle of nowhere, so we head back into town to ask at the sheriff's office about the Woefels. 

 Upon stepping into the office, and kind old officer asks us to sit down and let him help us.  We tell him our names, what we are doing there, and who we are trying to contact.  "Do you know the Woefels?"  "Who?  Bernnie!  Well yes!  He's my cousin!"  He quickly puts in a few phone calls, and within minutes we are standing face to face with Bernnie Woefel, the man who now owns our beloved orchard.  We tell him who we are, and what we are doing there.  The first question he asks is, "Do you know why it's called Sugarloaf?"

After a wonderful meal in Hardin we drive back to the Woefel's farm.  Mr. Woefel is extremely kind and offers to drive us to the top of Sugarloaf.  It is still there.  We are all a little torn.  We had hoped to walk to the top of Sugarloaf, but we did not want to offend the kind gentleman, so we graciously accept the ride.  As we come around the old barn Sugarloaf looms into view.

How Brilliant!  A cluster of trees sitting right on top hiding it's wonderful summit that come to a sharp point.  If only we could have traversed it on foot.  However, as the truck climbs the hill, we soon realize that this is far more than just a rise in the land.  This is a huge hill, a regular mountain.  Thank goodness we drove!  No wonder the Mottazs felt it deserved a special name.  Aside from providing the perfect place to grow apple trees it was a unique hill and commanded a fantastic view of the entire countryside.  Standing on top I felt like a king, a nobleman surveying his lands.  This is the pride that the Mottazs felt in their ownership of this land.

The view of this land.  Right here the apple trees would have grown.  The last that were remaining.  No longer.  Washington State stealing the apple business along with the death of the river trade killed the orchard business in Hardin.  Apple trees were no longer a blessing, but a curse for those farmers who were trying to etch out a living raising cattle.  Therefore the last of the trees had been bulldozed under just three years ago.  If only we had made this trip a little sooner.  But that is life, and we settle and we accept the things we cannot change.  How grateful we are for the opportunity just to stand where our ancestors once stood proud.

I will end my little tale of our adventure here.  There is not much more to tell, and certainly no more room to tell it.  If you find the story interesting, just wait a little bit.  My mother is attempting to organize a biographical book about the Mottazs and the Sagezs.  If she indeed completes it, what a story it will tell.  Rock on!

Common Sense Economics

Ok, so as soon as I can get blogger to let me download pictures on here, I have some fun posts to do.  Otherwise you're all stuck with posts like this.  Just some more of my thoughts.  Rock on!

Economically speaking, things get pretty complicated.  So complicated, in fact, that I think we have completely lost the thread of things.  The fact of supply and demand is simple enough.  However, beyond this concept many people are lost or choose not to think about it.  I think that this lack of interest and desire for ignorance has become a major detriment to our society.  Consider for a moment the distribution of wealth.  It stands to reason that we all must have money.  It is a necessity to live.  That being said it is indisputable that there is not enough money to go around, thus the unemployment, homeless, and starving right here in our nation, in our states, in our cities, and in our towns.  What is the problem?  One reason, and I just assert that this is one reason, may be that much of the wealth is being held by the few.  

With the industrial revolution many things became possible.  Mass production, increased supply for the increased demand.  Also unemployment.  Machines were now able to do the jobs that men and women once had to do.  A simple solution was just to change professions, but as time went on more and more jobs were cut and given over to machines and computers.  It therefore became the owners of these machines that benefitted monetarily from these machines and not the masses, even though we were told that it was better because now a shirt only costs ten dollars instead of fifteen.  For five dollars we sold our ability to make a decent living because we thought we were better off.  Now we face a thing which has never happened before.  The goods Americans buy are now less expensive than ever and yet we find we cannot afford them without putting it on the credit card. 

This increased use of credit, this need to buy the things we want, and the unequal distribution of wealth has caused a terrible thing to happen.  Americans are now making less than any previous generation due to inflation.  What has gone wrong?  Inflation is supposed to match the increasing value of the dollar, and yet, now, it has far outstripped it.  I certainly am not calling for a leveling, or a socialistic rebelion.  That would be complete madness.  Rather, I am just saying that perhaps it is time we pay a little more so that, in the long run, we can afford a little more.  We have to give a little to get a little.  

The presidents of these corporations have every right to the wealth they have earned.  But nothing above that.  There was one situation I was familiar with where the plant manager of a printing company, the spine of a small towns industry, received a $200,000 Christmas bonus while the workers only received a five cent raise that year.  The problem here is not just the bonus, but rather the fact that if that was the bonus, how much more was that man making just for himself?  And how much more were the actual owners of the company making?  Perhaps this is a bad example.  A hundred years ago, my family owned an apple orchard in Illinois.  This orchard earned them a very good living and the family was very well off.  However, the family also provided jobs for many of the people in the community.  The bare hands of human beings was needed to pick these apples.  The apple pickers were paid a fair wage for a fair days work and my great great grandfather helped feed several families with his need for willing workers.  These men were far better off having this job than losing it to a machine that did it for them.  Yes, perhaps this raised the price of apples.  But there were at least one group of men who could afford to buy them, the same group that had picked them.

When Henry Ford first began to mass produce the Model T he needed a large number of workers.  He was mass producing a car before robots were around to do the work of men.  He further paid his employees enough and set the price of the Model T at a point which his workers were able to purchase a Model T.  Rather than lose money Henry Ford made a fortune, he made affordable cars, and paid his employees a wage anyone would have been proud of.  Just a few years later Ford was able to drop the price of the Model T several hundred dollars without lowering (but rather raising) the wage of the worker.  Once again, Ford never lost a dollar in this, but rather gained because he provided jobs for many and paid them the wage they needed to purchase the product. 

This is what I am saying.  We need to be willing to pay a little more for our products so that more people can be employed and fewer machines and robots.  Level out this distribution of wealth and a drastic difference in the economy will be noticed and it will not be ignored.  Stands to reason.  Pump a little into the economy, and there will be a return.  No denying that.  Just think about it.