TubaOrNotTuba

There it is again. The unmistakable hiss of a radio. I know exactly which radio. A small receiver that sits on the shelf in the other room. And the hiss begins every day at exactly the same time. Just loud enough to be noticed but not much of a nuisance. I have learned over the years that you can program devices to do things at the same time each day. Think of it as an alarm if you will. But I cannot find how to turn it off. I mean I can turn the radio off but that is not the problem. Each time that I push the power off I am simply resetting my problem for another 24 hours. The building display tells me nothing other than the power is on. The manual that comes with the radio tells me nothing of use. So I am left with a mystery. If I remove the battery it might reset the function. Or not. It might just change things to another moment in the day when I am not paying attention. So I’m going to let things go and treat this as a lesson in life. We can respond to the things that alarm us but we do not always find an obvious solution. I consider myself fortunate because it is a radio and it could be tuned to some awful background music. A simple white noise is nothing more then something that could help me sleep under other circumstances. And for those who need to know this is happening every afternoon. Which means that I will find an answer. At a moment when I least expect it. Not going to get too upset with a small hissing sound. I will save that for snakes and deflating tires.

The best kind of day is one where you learn something new. Not necessary for the information to be important but new. And so a few minutes ago I learned that there are different kinds of golf balls. Not just colours. Actual differences in the way they roll and the way they respond to being hit. I had heard of those fancy chalk ones they explode when you hit them but that wasn’t what this was about. Some of the golf ball manufacturers have full test facilities. Laboratories. I do not golf. Take that as a starting point but now I want to know if the same strategy of having differences in the balls. Applies to other sports Are there hockey pucks they’re just a little bit different? What about tennis balls? How about badminton birdies? Actually I know that one a little bit. Some of the shuttles have feathers and some of them have fancy plastic. But that wasn’t the point of this all. You can say that you practice a given sport but if the basic equipment changes from person to person is it even possible to make judgments about either your own or collective skill level. I will have to put some research into this question. Call me challenged. And for the record I have no long term expectations about learning to play any of these sports. That part of my life is an earlier chapter. Right now I just want to make sure that when I get hit by a golf ball it is one of the soft ones that leaves no lasting mark on me. Is that too much to ask?

I think I am a poor in the powder kind of guy. For the last while we have been using pods but we have run out. And apparently there is some kind of magical sheet that I’m supposed to take and cut off a section or tear off a section or just chuck it in that replaces everything I have known up till now. I am referring of course to laundry detergent. At one point we had heavy jugs of a creamy liquid that I had learned about and a very young age as a perfect medium for finger painting. All part of my past. I will have to master the most recent manifestation of soap. Either that or convince someone else to take over my laundry. Not ready to go there. We all take laundry for granted. After all my clothes have needed to be washed for a lifetime. When I lived at home we had different machines depending on the decade. And then I went off to college and laundry was something that you did all the way across campus with a bag of silver. Machines. And now for decades we have had our own machines in the house that allow us to keep our close under control. All except for the soap thing. I will work it out. I am a quick learner and I have a lifetime of different experiences to guide me in the right direction. No need to visualize going down to the edge of the stream and finding a rock. Especially because our streams locally have no rocks in them. I wonder what people did a century ago? When I watch movies where someone takes all their clothing to a place where someone else washes and dries and folds their clothes all for a fee. I think that must have been a magical time of life. Of course I have no experience with it. I can only go with what I saw in the movies. Movies do not always reflect reality. And if you go back into the songs of old people have always complained about getting their clothes clean. And I guess even when you had two raise your own sheep and share them and turn the fleece into wool and then knit a sweater there was always a level of complaint. Apparently a good wool sweater can be destroyed if you forget the rules of the laundry.

Before you become great at something you have to learn things. In the world of musicians we have tools that are known as fake books. Written transactions. Someone passing on the knowledge you need to get over that bump of learning a melody. And as it turns out in the world of visual arts there is something similar. I had almost forgotten about the challenge of painting a picture. Something I was never very good at. But you could go to the store and by a kit that was labeled as paint by numbers. It worked well. No need to figure out the colours because they came already pre packaged with numbers. And on the small painting that came in the kit all of the lines were already in place. Along with numbers to identify what colour belonged in each segment. A lifesaver for those who want to paint but have no clue how to handle the mechanics. As long as you could stay between the lines you could turn out a work that you could show your friends. At least friends that were willing to go along with the game. I mean, it looked like a painting. And that’s what really counts. As well each kit came with the appropriate brushes and an explanation and how to clean up after yourself. As long as you were neat and tidy you could also be a productive… I hate to use the word artist. But you could produce something that resembled art. In the same way that a fake book allowed a budding musician to seem like they knew what they were doing. I now wonder if there is a similar outlet for those who want to carve wood without cutting off their fingers. Oh, right. There were wood burning kits the combined the skill set of paint by numbers an actual manipulation of a hot tool in return for the satisfaction of smelling wood smoke without using a campfire.

During childhood we learn to love the food we have. A better option than going hungry. Today I heard mention of something that my wife remembered from her childhood. Velveeta cheese with a small slicing tool. Unknown to me. We handled cheese differently. At the local store you could buy a piece carefully cut from a large block of cheddar. My father preferred old cheddar. The kind that would bite you if you did not pay attention. We had no access to fancier cheeses imported from another world. In fact I was fully an adult before I ever discovered cream cheese or cottage cheese or cheeses that were melted onto your food. We had old cheddar. Served on small dry crackers. Hardly novel to the rest of you but for us this was important. We did not mix our cheeses. Each piece brought from the store would be in the fridge until we stopped being able to serve a small piece with a knife. I am not sure what I would have done if someone handed me a dish of cottage cheese. I probably would have stared and asked very pointed questions. As for cream cheese that also came much later in my life. Around the same time that I discovered the wonder of the bagel. You have to eat what you have to eat. Too much variety leaves a small child confused. Even now I still have my clear preferences. I have tried other types of cheese but when it comes down to picking out something at the local store good old cheddar from the local cheese factory serves me well.

We’re back from a short camping trip. I just took the time to roll up my leather belt and put it away. Like so many other things there is a story attached. I used to contribute my efforts as a technician at an annual conference. Held in a large hotel we were provided with portable radios in order to keep in touch. And when I arrived early on the first day I realized that although I had the radio I had no way to attach it to my waist. And so I headed down into the complex below the hotel to find a haberdashery. About the only place you can find a belt for sale in such a place. I found what I wanted and put this significant cost on my credit card and then headed upstairs. One of the other technicians was very surprised. Obviously he already had a belt and he had never imagined that someone would go and purchase something like that just to be a volunteer at a conference. The belt served me well and it continues to do so more than 20 years later. I think that I had made a wise purchase in retrospect. So much of what we find for sale at the mall is destined to be thrown away. This belt will last me for the rest of my life. Not that I often carry a radio but just in case. After all we never know what need lays ahead. Now I use the belt to carry my Leatherman tool. Too heavy to put into a pocket, too substantial to carry around in my hand all day. Put on a good quality belt the job is done.

We have returned from a walk on the beach. I have no idea whether or not we walked a long distance or for a long time. My sense of scale is very inefficient. I could tell that I was on the beach but as for how far away things might be or how long I was walking in my own personal fog to others. Is it a relaxing thing to do? I have been told that it is. That many people walk just to relax. Here is the catch once you lose that sense of scale you have no idea how far you are from your destination or from your point of origin. In fact that has become my greatest dissatisfaction with the whole act of going for a walk. Even on the beach I am unable to determine when I should turn. If you hear that someone was found walking all the way around the island you will know who to blame. I do not want to become a local legend. It is true that on the beach you will not find many hills or valleys. You could get very wet just stick to the left step to the right. We are back now had some cold juice a new water bottle. It turns out that I left my trusted flask at home yesterday. I guess that I am ill equipped to set off to see the world. One of the videos that we often watch comes with a small song. One more step around the world I go. Not where my head is at right now. Instead I will go back to watching videos of Finnish folk music. A treat in a troubled world. The news tells me that we are on the brink of another major war and frankly I do not want to know about it. I will wait until the bombs begin to fall around me and then I will find a foxhole. Nothing to do with the foxes and their holes at home.

Trying to find our place in history is tricky. Similar to finding the right size of coat in a pile in the store. Even when we choose to look at history that is recent we may not get the fit we want. Today I watched the detailed documentary that outlined the details behind the collapse of the cod fishery in eastern Canada. My own memories are anecdotal but still reflect what the documentary told me. There was a time when I used to go deep sea fishing. An excuse to spend an afternoon on board a small boat with other people. And the catch in the beginning included the occasional codfish. Take him with a hand line just like in the good old days. But along the way the boat captains stopped providing that opportunity. We did not realize that the fish had gone away. Similarly during this season I spent fishing for lobster we became accustomed to finding small cod fish in our traps. Not every day but enough that we were aware of the problem. I do not think those fish are coming up in the traps anymore. During my visits to Newfoundland I became aware that the close of the fishery is a very sore point. Not a way to open a conversation with a stranger. For those that made their living catching cod the disappearance of what had been a bounty for centuries points to mismanagement. Nothing else. The people are obviously very sensitive to the question. I have to wonder if there are other impending disasters caused by the actions of the government. This is why we study history. An attempt to prepare us for what can go wrong. Unfortunately knowing who to blame does not mitigate the problem.

If you watch old movies you will be left with an impression that’s all we had in the former times were steam engines. Let me put that idea to rest. In reality steam locomotives were done before I was ever born. In fact I have only seen one running steamer in my lifetime. It came through town over half a century ago and yes I went to watch. It looked like what I’d seen in the movies and it was loud and proud. Now I have seen leftovers from that. I remember going to gather wild berries with my grandmother and in the ground there were large tanks covered with metal plates. When I asked about them she explained that that was where trains used to come to get water on the way to the boat. I wish I had asked more questions. Like; was this every day and were there many steam trains? A quick search will show me that before we had diesels everything ran on coal. Again from before my time. The system must have worked or it would have never stayed in place for all those decades. I realized that the coal came from across the water. Brought in on large ships. Used to heat our homes and run our trains. And to leave a mess behind. Believe me if you played with lumps of coal you had to go home and wash your hands. Those two ideas were inseparable. And although I realized that all things change I wish I had been around to see at least a little bit of it. There was a coal shed at the back of our local train station but I believe that was only to fuel the big pot bellied stove in the waiting room. And to make a mess. Call stoves had an interesting odor. Not something we smell anymore. The idea that you could run a train all day and all night simply by using lumps of black rock leaves me with more questions than answers.

We cannot learn everything. Remember that. Today while looking for something completely unrelated I came across the story of the great logjam. Or the Great Raft if you will. The first time I have ever come across the story which deals with the way a colonial government decided to clear the river. Little matter that the logjam had been created over a period of a millennium. Little matter that a whole society depended upon the ecosystem for their life. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to make a river available for steamboats. And so with enough dynamite and enough heavy equipment a pathway was cleared. The waters could flow which was the whole point of the exercise. Steamboats would now be able to come up the river and bring new residents. For those that had been there before that did not matter. They were offered a small amount of money and told to find another place to live. I realize that this is an ongoing cyclical story. I realized that the great raft is nothing more than an incident in a long history. But it was to me remarkable. Proof that the old proverb where if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail is true. If you have the equipment to clear a path through a large logjam you can get to it. You can make it all the way you think it should be. No need to consult with anyone else because you know what you were doing. I invite you to look up the history of this incident which took place in Louisiana. I had never heard of it until today and now I will be unable to forget it going forward. That is the way that history works. And keep in mind that history is only written by those who win.