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Didn't last long, didn't amount to much, but when I put out the trash barrels for pickup at about 0600, it was real, honest-to-god snowing, and there was white on the ground. There were some flakes floating around a week or so ago, but not even enough to constitute a single flurry, never mind flurries, so I'm saying "Snow" started today this year. It hasn't been terribly cold (though cold enough for many in my immediate circle, who are doing the "old fart" puffing & blowing about not being able to stand the cold the way they used to. Some of them, I assure you, could never stand it they way they think they used to. A pal says he's disliking the cold more & more with each passing winter, and is pretty sure his wife would never move away, to someplace warmer like the Carolinas or Florida. I wouldn't either, at least not from this vantage point. Who knows if I make it to 90 I might feel differently. But I spent a bit of time in the South, and in Texas (which, though south, is not South) and it is not with jocularity that I point out that the South may be warm, but you have to rub elbows with Gomer & Goober, and put up with fairly primitive social structures. Mrs. Lewis, my landlady in Colonial Heights Virginia (across the river from Petersburg, just up the road from Fort Lee) was a nice enough old bird, but she baked spoon bread that made a stink like to gag a maggot, and on Sunday mornings thought she was doing the Lord's Work by putting on hour after hour of "come-to-JEEzusss" on her TV and cranking the volume up to 11. No thanks, if I learned anything in the years I spent elsewhere (Virginia, Florida, Syracuse NY, Korea) I learned that I am a New Englander, bred in the bone. Had a conversation the other day about MAssachusetts vs. New Hampshire, and feeling "At home" and I guess, after 25 years, I do feel at home in New Hampshire, but no less so in Massachusetts, and only slightly less so in Maine and Vermont. Upstate New York is not bad in terms of hominess, so I"m thinking it has to do with "northeastern" as much as "New England" - but when I'm away from New Hampshire/Massachusetts very long, I truly do get homesick, and when I get up country in the boonies, up in the hills, it is as if there's a compatibility of the landscape with my makeup that sorta comforts me (though I was not aware of being uncomfortable - does that make sense?)
Ya can take the boy outta New Hampstah, but...
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I think what you say is SO true. While I enjoyed my AF tours of duty in differing geographical places, there was always that something that was missing and I don't think it was because I was actually missing "home and relatives" per se. It had more to do with what you wake up to, what you fall asleep to and the whole ambience that you unconsciously perceive as you float around through your day, the colors, the weather, the attitudes, good and bad, that you came in contact with, the mixture of accents that your ears picked up and the ideas that were zooming around your head.
ReplyDeleteYet, even here in the Northeast (though I am in the southern NE), there seem to be distinct layers between different kinds of life, background, exposure or whatever you might call it. There are some shared areas of commonality with other parts of the NE because of where we grew up and they are distinctly different from other parts of the country. You can sense them as soon as you live in those other places. But, there are also parts of the NE which are more different to me than the difference between where I grew up and those other further places. For me, then, there are "pockets" or "clusters" around the country, at least, which share sometimes to a greater degree more of a cultural likeness. Of course, much of this has to do with how you got where you're at, and who brought you there and what your particular circumstances are.
Interesting, I was just reading about the possibility of discovering some of Amelia's bones on this remote island in the Pacific (or wherever) and one of the clues to her being there is that someone ate freshly-caught fish in a different way (a Western way, out of the water) than the natives (a local way, in the water) who lived on that island at that time.
I think you'll both like Bill Bryson's latest book 'At Home'. It wanders into many nooks and crannies you'll like. As B.B. says: Houses are where history ends up.
ReplyDeleteHunker down with it? A little more snow is coming.
I'm about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through At Home. I am enjoying it, but ya know, when someone throws around astounding figures about "things you never knew or hadn't thought about" I'm the kind of guy who say "Whoa, is that really true?" And then goes to check. Sadly, sometimes Bryson's amazing data doesn't hold up. Not enough to throw the book into the corner, but enough to cast a pall on his reliability.
ReplyDeleteTell me, tell me. What did you find? I cannot remember the first question I had (there is one ? near the beginning) but I do remember his referring to Da Gama as "Gama"??
ReplyDeleteDo what I'm doing before chucking it, I took the cover off, read it, and am giving it as an Xmas present. I liked it enough to finish it; he did explain why Victorian children's books often have illustrations of people vomiting. Come to think of it, he dwells alot on sluices and such, doesn't he?
What do you call it? Standing on the shoulder's of giant's giant's giants? When the bibliography of a book exceeds 500 sources, and those sources come from other sources which come from etc. etc. - you get my drift? (14 foot drift?)
ReplyDeleteWe used to call it a "SNOW JOB"! One can be an expert at this, especially when one masters the process of "extreme tangentilization" (getting so far out that it's too much work for the interpreter to get back, thus a net ultimate conclusion of settling for credibility as incredulous as that might appear ... my own created word and definition for situations where one can get by with it ...)
ReplyDeleteGood word - I should point out that I don't think Bryson is intending to deceive or mislead. I'm sure he really thinks 32 quarts = 35 litres.
ReplyDeleteDitto, Yes, yes. Extreme tangentilization - perfect description of delicate channeling.
ReplyDelete'Beyond here lies nothin', nothin' we can call our own.' Bob Dylan