Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
“First learn the meaning of what you say, then speak.”
-Epictetus
I’ve been writing these essays about the farm life for almost ten years now. Before that I posted a lot of work anonymously in numerous forums, and before that I wrote under my own name; short stories, articles for third tier publications, jokes and two aborted attempts at The Great American Novel that occupy the better part of an old cardboard banana box and the hard drive of a Compaq laptop that hasn’t been turned on in over a decade. Looking back at the body of work I’ve produced has been a revelation of sorts. All that time and effort to turn thoughts into words, and for what exactly? The old cliche about insanity- doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result- comes to mind, but I think that all the hours has had a much different effect.
When I was 10 years old I recall vividly coming home from school one day in the middle of Winter and writing a dirty limerick on a bedside notebook I’d gotten as gift for Christmas. I don’t remember where I heard it and I know that I didn’t fully understand what it meant at the time, but something propelled me to put the words down in pen and ink on paper. The opening lines are as memorable to me now as they likely were then, “In days of old when knights were bold…” and even as I wrote it I felt a weight lifted off my young shoulders. My mother discovered the childish scrawl the following morning and confronted me to my shock and embarrassment and then forgave me for that act of…what exactly? I certainly didn’t understand then the power of those words in my unformed mind, or the release of getting them out of it, if only symbolically in crooked letters, but it has stayed with me all these years.
The other day as I was finishing up the last of the maple syrup orders- more on that in a moment- The Colonel drove up and parked by the garage barn. He got out and as I wiped up my hands and headed over to see what was up I noticed a look on his face that was dark and severe. I suspected trouble but called out to him in a normal tone. When he approached I could see how upset he was an I knew instantly it was because of something I had done. We’ve been friends long enough for me to sense the anxiety in his visit I stopped in my tracks and waited for him to address what I could have avoided. Over the past few years as he has gotten older I have taken on a few of the tasks around his place that are just too much for him to handle any longer; mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, plowing his driveway when it snows.
Spring has gotten the best of me this year and I had spent the better part of every day deep in the weeds, between fulfilling orders that were in some cases three months old to rebuilding a fence line I’d left unfinished back in December when the ground had frozen solid. There was no excuse for not fulfilling the promise I had made to him and even though we never exchange money it was an assurance I’d made and until the past few weeks kept. He expressed his disappointment in me and said that it was something he hadn’t expected, me not keeping my word, and as he went on I stood silent and took his rebuke, hands at my sides and eyes on the ground.
Before he turned to leave he said one thing that stung me- “I don’t wan to hear your excuse” and so I remained mute, even as he turned and walked away, got in his car and drove off without a goodbye. I found it hard to continue my work after that and my evening was filled with disquiet. I’d let him down by not mowing the lawn, that was true, but what had bothered him to the point of coming up to chew me out was that I had given my word and now he knew how much that had meant. That night was one of troubled sleep and the next morning after chores I loaded the mower and weed whip into the trailer and took my sons with me to The Colonel’s lace up on the mountain.
I was half expecting him to tell me to get the hell off of his yard when I got there but I knew from experience that I had to at least make the effort, to make good on what I’d committed to and I wanted my sons to see not only my contrition, but how to correct a mistake rather than to let it slide. The Colonel came out of his house and stood in the driveway as I walked up. The lawn was overgrown and there were branches down on the edge of the property and I knew just how he must have felt to see that every morning. As I approached he straightened up and stood at attention and rendered me a salute, crisp as if he were still in uniform. I returned it and in that moment I could see that his chin was quivering and that there was a deep sadness in his eyes.
I know that my family and I are not his only friends, but we matter a great deal to him he’s taught my children how to play tennis and brings them magazines and books that fit their current interests almost every time he visits. There is not only the commonality of our service- we both served in the 82nd Airborne at roughly the same time and often share stories and anecdotes about our experience- but something deeper, a fellow feeling that some people have that tell them they are part of the same tribe. I could see on his face that he’d had a rough night too and after a sincere apology on my part we shook hands and he allowed me the opportunity to make right what I’d done wrong, to keep my word.
This year was one of the best we’ve had with the maple syrup. I had twice as many orders as I had the year before and it was about as good as any we’d ever made I feel like we’re tarting to get a grasp on the complexity of the process and we’ve learned a lot of trick to make it every bit as fun as it was the first time every bit as magical and rewarding with fewer mistakes and hiccups than in the past. Bottling and boxing are the choke points and this year it was far more daunting, especially when we offered the cured meats as an almost offhand extra.
I can’t say I’ll try and repeat the effort without some serious thoughts of outsourcing the product fulfillment, hopefully to my children. I still have six boxes packed and sitting on a shelf in the sugarhouse, contents noted on the outside and no mailing label to go with them. If you are one of those readers who requested an order and found that it has yet to come and can still manage to grant me forgiveness for my oversight I will ship the box out promptly. If you are one of those who already received yours we thank-you sincerely. Each morning when we make the trip to the Post Office I find myself opening the handwritten envelopes with something approximating childish glee, not because there are checks or FRN’s enclosed, but because of the notes within.
I read the words that people took the time to write to me with a smile on my face and the ladies that work there always comment on how happy they are when they place the letters in our box knowing what we’re getting back. This year I received so many unusual and thoughtful gifts, homemade preserves and chili sauce, fresh roasted coffee beans and a beautiful hand turned bird’s eye maple conductor’s baton. A subscription to what is now my favorite magazine, several books written by the same people who enjoy what I write and which now line my shelves. I received an especially beautiful monograph landscape by an artist who somehow captured the light of our fields in his studio two thousand miles away, and it hangs on the wall right across from where I write each morning.
Of all these gifts and offerings the thing I can’t help but notice just how meaningful the words written on the craft paper and note cards are, how they have the power to bring up my spirits every time and send me back to whatever it is that is on my plate with a smile on my face and feeling that some kind of connection has been made with people I will never meet. I keep them all in bundles tied with baling string in an old trunk and if I ever feel like the day is more than I can stand up to, I open that box and sit for a bit and re-read them again to remind myself that there are far more good people out there than any other kind even if it seems that all the focus is on what’s gone wrong.
I rose up early this morning to catch the sunrise from the terrace. The sky began to lighten at 3:30, the color of lead against the fading blue-black of space. I made my coffee and went out and stood with the dogs watching the steam rise up from the trout pond and saw the gold come up in the east, ragged tatters of clouds sliding to meet the Sun. The ducks walked up the driveway in file murmuring to themselves and the new bull criss-crossed the paddock over and over while we stood there. To the left of the house in the distance Mount Kearsarge stood against the backdrop of dawn, and for just a moment the Sun held beneath the edge of the far treeline and then appeared.
Summer. I turned back towards the west and watched as the sweep of color rose against the trees and the fields and the bull stood motionless regarding the sunrise just as we had, that ephemeral moment in time that marked not only the zenith, but the procession back towards the darkness. And so I came back in and sat down to write this, one word after another, as close to what I wanted to say as I am likely to get.
Words have an effect and once they are let loose there is no taking them back. When you are younger you are far more apt to say things without first considering the long term effects, but over time you slowly figure out that some things are best left unsaid. And so I keep a great deal in, the things I ruminate on, and before I let them loose I try and craft them into something that will approximate the truth as I understand it. I do not wish to do much more than record the passing of the years as we experience them on this piece of land in a place removed from epic struggles of our time, but what I try to do is to represent as closely as I am able the way that these moments unfurl.
Sometimes the things I have said have missed their mark, or failed to keep my actions to their account. Promises made have been broken, but with the right frame and a commitment, they have been cobbled back together into something that will do and sometimes that is all you have. What I have learned is that just as it is with sailing, we have to constantly change our tack if we wish to reach our destination, judging the direction of our travel by reckoning, zig-zagging back and forth to reach whatever it is that we think we are heading towards, one word at a time.
Beautiful.
But, the Colonel was wrong; reason should be obvious.
Much more patience and forgiveness than I.
Nice to see your use of an Epictetus quote, HSF…here is my favorite:
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
You’d have made a really good Baptist preacher. You have the ability to get the reader to stop and think about his own life by reading about yours. I guess maybe that’s part of the purpose of writing too, other than your own personal growth.
I know I’ve had a week filled with selfishness, self-pity, and lessons. Sometimes other people’s tragedy spins off and becomes your own and the real mark of character is in how we deal with it. Who do we put first? Them or us?
I appreciate that you write about both the good and the bad within. And redemption. Reminds me I’m not alone and that, as you noted, we can always correct course. A good way to start my day. Thanks.
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d –
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
What a wonderful and insightful piece of writing. I had a neighbor that had a debilitating disease that left him paralyzed on one side. I started mowing his lawn shortly afterward, I did not ask I just did it. His wife had been extremely kind to my family helping out with our young children several years before when my wife’s mother was in the hospital for an extended period of time before passing away. I never thought of it as a payback more as karma. I had been given the opportunity to give something back. I mowed their lawn for about six years before they moved and I truly believe that I got more out of it than they did. When his wife passed recently we went over to visit, he and his children sang praise at what good neighbors we had been. I found it ironic because I know I was the lucky one.
Bob
Thoughts, upon reading…
1-Yes, your writing is always, for me, a high priority because it’s done so well. Even your random comments on other’s posts. You stretch my word and lessons learned, and usually offer valuable insights that are unique to your style, appreciated by many. Even the silent admirers.
2-At first, I thought the Colonel may have been an ungrateful neighbor, impatient with an unfulfilled promise from a very busy man, with a lot on his plate, and too little time to do it all to perfection. But then, after hearing the history of the bond you share, I can understand your guilt feelings…as if you gave your word to a very dear friend, and just let one of your promised deeds fall through the cracks. Knowing he deserved better, your act of redemption healed the wounds for both parties.
3-Your workload description hinted that your offers of product is fast dwindling, and I find myself regretting that I haven’t wrote a note, and place an order.
So, the question is…is it too late? Or can orders still be placed?
Fare thee well, friend.
“…impatient with an unfulfilled promise from a very busy man, with a lot on his plate, and too little time to do it all to perfection…”
I cannot fault a man for his unhappiness at my failing to keep my promise. Now if a person expects a promise from me and I don’t make a promise, that’s different. But my own promise, is my own promise.
Civilization — society — is nothing more than a group of people who are willing to make promises, and keep them.
..just as it is with sailing, we have to constantly change our tack if we wish to reach our destination…
I really liked that
Might use it sometime if that is okay
Haven’t been around here much
Maybe it is as you so wisely say
Don’t fight the Zig Zag
Better to make change in tact
Rather than be angry
Why not just tip my hat
See it is funny how life goes
when one stops for a laugh
This year like all the others before is quickly sliding away
You write so well Scrabble
I wish I could to images the words that you say
Then again who knows maybe I will someday
See to my surprise for the first time in a long while
The Black Dogs have stayed away.
So it is that I have so little time for jest
Besides what is really the point
when a Farmer writes the best
Yours in Odin,
RiNS
p.s.
I might send another token in the mail.
Please accept my apologies
for turning this screed
into a shitty limerick.
It wasn’t my plan.
And yeah it ain’t great
but then again in my defence
I only spent ten minutes writing it…
Cheers.
Hard,while I understand very well the value of keeping ones word have to say feel perhaps you are being,well….,to hard on yourself(pun intended).We all do the best we can and make plans ect. and well,at times,life just happens.You tow are ture friends this will be a small bump in the road of your relationship that happens with all friendships,and friendships that do not survive the bumps,well,were they actually true friendships?I am sure all the folks who still have syrup coming their way understand this/life happens and will be happy when their jar of natural sweetness arrives.
You suffered from what my aunt would call a “senior moment”,she made the mistake of telling me this and being the obnoxious brat of a nephew I was would never let her forget that saying when she forgot something down the road,would mention “senior moment ‘and she would laugh and mention I would never let her live that phrase down!
I tomorrow will travel a couple hundred miles to Greensboro,Vt. for the final service at family cemetery for my Aunt Sue,thus,thanks for the article for as I read it reminded me of the whole”senior moment “thing,went outside with a rolled smoke and coffee and had a few laughs needed at this time in my life,enjoy your day.
I don’t disagree at all with the idea that life just happens, sometimes, and we fail at things. But our word is pretty much all we have in this world — if a man cannot follow through on a promise, then he just shouldn’t make that promise. I know that for myself, I let my yes mean yes and my no mean no and I don’t swear to things I cannot promise I can do. But if I do make a promise — if I make a contract with another human being, and that’s what a promise is, my word/contract with another human being — then if I fail to keep my promise, I own that. Why would I trust somebody who doesn’t know if they can deliver on their promises or not? I will certainly accept that they are, like me, imperfect human beings, but as such, I don’t expect them to make promises they can’t keep. If they can’t keep a promise but keep making promises … their promise no longer means anything. See what I’m getting at?
Seems to me was a one stop error/moment of forgetfulness,not some daily/ongoing thing.One cannot accept that folks occasionally screw up then better off dealing with only ones self as you are the only perfect person out there,the rest of us will at some point not intentionally disappoint you.
Today is my birthday and I found a wonderful present on TBP. Thank you.
Happy B-day!
Thanks.
Happy Birthday Jeannie. May you have many more.
Thank you. On the down hill slide but plan to enjoy those that are left.
“Words have an effect and once they are let loose there is no taking them back. ”
I know this. Sometimes in a weak moment, my verbal flood wall breaks and I let go. It’s never a torrent, just a sentence or so. But that one or two sentences does just as much damage as a torrent. I always regret it and it takes so much more time and anxiety to fix the flood damage then it would have taken me to step back, take a deep breath or maybe 100 deep breaths, and repair the crack in the flood wall, or perhaps figure out a way to express my thoughts in a more constructive way.
“Summer. I turned back towards the west and watched as the sweep of color rose against the trees and the fields and the bull stood motionless regarding the sunrise just as we had, that ephemeral moment in time that marked not only the zenith, but the procession back towards the darkness.”
Sigh…it’s never long enough for me. I have been sitting outside in the mornings and evenings enjoying much the same here.
“before I let them loose I try and craft them into something that will approximate the truth as I understand it.” HSF
In light of the above, consider this: the ancient Greeks understood the “word” in close proximity to “truth”. Logos or the “word”meant letting something be seen; making manifest; gathering or collecting those things within a context. And Aletheia or “truth” meant to uncover or unconceal. So the two together have the objective of letting something be seen as unconcealed. So as long as your words seek to show something as it is, you are a participant in the truth; in the light. That is not insane. I think that is one of the main things we were put here to do, and you do it pretty darn well.
St. John had something to say about this too: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God. 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 1:5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Maybe they are not connected but I hope they are.
Off the subject but about 15 years ago I bought a tiny Canadian Sugar Maple tree out of a Northern plant catalogue to see if it might survive near Tallahassee. It clearly had trouble with the summer sun and heat, grew very slow compared to other trees, and in hot dry weather, I had to let a hose run slowly at it’s base or it would have died; but it is now about 16 feet tall, with several trunks, and on it’s own. One day we will have some genuine Canadian Maple Syrup with a Rebel Tang; ya’ll come ya’hear and bring your mom’an’em.
Story for you robert h siddell jr, but first
Thank you HSF for giving of yourself in the form of this wonderful essay.
Robert, you may not get much syrup:
When the English first arrived on this continent, they were amazed at the sugar produced by the natives. Sugar was a very valuable commodity, and to make sugar from trees was unheard of in Europe at the time.
So, being the enterprising people that Europeans are, the English carted off huge amounts of small maple trees and transplanted those trees in England.
The trees grew quite well, but produced nary a drop of syrup nor a pound of sugar. Maple trees only give sap naturally when the conditions are correct, the ideal conditions here in Wisconsin is mid 20’s at night warming up to 40’s in the day. Then the sap is easily collected, and, of course those temperature swings do not happen in temperate England, and likely not in Tallahassee either.
Superb work sir, as usual!
I had a flash thought on all our human travails earlier, “how to find sanity in an Insane world”, and your thoughts are always a most welcome assist in the effort.
Limits are real, deal with it, it only gets more difficult.
Build a living business plan. Sounds like you need one.
Stress is a killer. Are you saying your prayers?
You are living the dream, do not let it become a nightmare.
Explain to the Colonel that you are struggling financially and have to pay the bills to afford charity.
Explanation accepted. But now I know your word is not to be taken seriously.
“I’d let him down by not mowing the lawn, that was true, but what had bothered him to the point of coming up to chew me out was that I had given my word and now he knew how much that had meant. That night was one of troubled sleep and the next morning after chores I loaded the mower and weed whip into the trailer and took my sons with me to The Colonel’s lace up on the mountain.”
You, sir, are a Mensch – a man of integrity and honor.
I’d rather be “stung” than bereft of a moral compass. Nice piece.
I don’t know squat about this Colonel or the details of the long history between you two. I’m also not going to weigh my words, or ponder before I write. I’m going to give you my honest gut instinct reaction. I know you’d expect nothing less.
I think this Colonel is an ungrateful, mean-spirited, sunuvabitch. He is one who looks a gift-horse in the mouth … and then shits all over the previous owner because his free horse isn’t a thoroughbred.
As for me, I can’t EVER imagine that I would treat a neighbor with such disrespect and contempt … especially after that neighbor has done favors for me for YEARS … simply because he forgot to fulfill ONE favor …. the key word here being FAVOR.
I’d tell that s.o.b. to stick his long grass up his fat ass and be done with him. Which proves just one point … you’re a far better man than I.
Your one to talk, Stucky. I recall the time you and LLPOH duked it out and made up the next morning with slobbering kisses and tears.
It wasn’t the uncut grass that bothered the old man so much as the insult to his person, his rank, as if HF had no respect for him as an officer or a human being. That is why the old man saluted him the next morning, to acknowledge his faithful attention to duty and to remind him of the basis of their relationship. I’ve read that people revert to their former rank in high school reunions regardless of different social rank 20 years after high school.
HF is keenly aware of the respect he owes an old man, he reflects on his own waning days and considers that one day he will be outsourcing his work to others. This is a good time to teach them by example to stand behind their word.
HF uses the story of the Col, comparing the gifts in kind that he receives from the old man and the gifts he receives from correspondents as if to say, the money helps but my promise to you is my motivation and obligation. Whoever hasn’t paid up should emulate the Col and pay their respects with a sharp prompt ‘salute’ to recognize his hard work.
EC
Did I tell you, I was at Costco one day shopping with my bro-in-law. He cut off an old couple at the check out. The old man couldn’t bear the insult to his wife and with a hard look told me, “You’re despicable.” The words stung, coming from an older person and I had no excuse to offer even if I could explain that my self-centered bro was the one who cut in front of them.
Then David said to Abishai and all his servants, “Behold, my own son, my own flesh and blood, seeks my life. How much more, then, this Benjamite! Leave him alone and let him curse me, for the LORD has told him so. Perhaps the LORD will see my affliction and repay me with good for the cursing I receive today .”
Is your bro-in-law French? The frogs can be quite rude. I should know, I’m half French, so I’m only half rude.
I can’t even blame it on LA, those dudes are rude on the road. They cannot bear for anybody to beat them by a second to the light. But, he had the same ‘me first’ mindset regardless if it was out of meanness. I don’t think it was out of meanness, he really didn’t pay attention to others; when your first in your life (lone child), no one else deserves attention.
“It wasn’t the uncut grass that bothered the old man so much as the insult to his person, his rank, as if HF had no respect for him as an officer or a human being.”
Oh. His “rank”, eh? So, the old coot is hyper-sensitive as well as under some type of delusion that what he did in the military actually pertains to civilian life. Military Lifers … a group that’s hard to stomach.
Col. Coot must also have dementia. He feels disrespected because of ONE perceived slight … while ignoring the years of favors he received??
You make him sound like a wonderful guy. /sarc
I’m beginning to get cranky in my old age. Like pain in the joints that occurs some days until the bad days outnumber the good days, I suspect my cranky days will one day overtake my happy go lucky days.
I don’t know the old Col. but I don’t like to disrespect old dudes. That’s one reason I am nice to some folks but not others here.
“All that time and effort to turn thoughts into words, and for what exactly? ”
Your own thoughts about this matter, as do the thoughts of your family and close friends.
But, what about the opinions of others, like your internet buddies? Do those matter? If so, just look at the responses you’ve gotten here, and in all your other articles. Your writings bring joy to many, and in more than a few cases you have helped change lives. I know this for a fact. Such knowledge ought to bring you great satisfaction, I hope.
HSF,
The best philosophy, morals, morality, and life lessons come wrapped in stories and reminiscences, and yours are the best. Although I don’t always comment, I read everything you post. You’re among the best of what TBP offers. And your syrup is fantastic, simply the best. I’m putting some of my own words in the mail to you this afternoon. Live long and prosper, according to your unique notion of prosperity.
Bob
HSF,
A mans word is his payment and few understand that. Even if you are providing free labor if you said you would do it he has the right to be upset. Many would disagree just like paying for something and not delivering. So glad to see so many agree with you in that your word, as payment, was rendered. You are a good man! Can you post your website so we can order that delicious maple syrup!?
It’s at the top right – advertising the best maple syrup.
EC
The tongue, maker of words, is a reliable meter of character. Mine has betrayed and dismayed me many times, likewise creating disappointment in myself. Sometimes it says things that exactly mimic my mother, which I find rather eerie.
On the other hand, the trite phrase “actions speak louder than words” implies another truth. Correcting your lapse by promptly doing what your words promised is the final arbiter of the situation. What a great lesson for your kids.
Thank you as usual.
It’s even weirder to look in the mirror and see your mom.
Yes there’s that, too.
A wonderful way of presenting the fact that “words matter”, as I myself have commented more than once here. I’d also like to add that it’s not just the written or spoken word that matters, It’s also the words we say to ourselves in our own minds. It’s called introspective, and having a well developed one can proved a person with all the tools needed to make your way through this thing called “life”.
My hats off to you HSF, your writing never fails to impress me.
HSF, I too look forward to your essays and comments here. I have seen my father end friendships and associations because people didn’t keep their word with him. I have adopted his quirk as most people see it. Words not kept differ based on geographic locations of the country. I have found people in less population dense areas tend to value keeping their word more than heavily populated areas. My SIL never keeps her word and I wrote it off to her location and who she associates with.
In days of old when knights were bold and outhouses weren’t invented, they dropped their loads besides the roads and went along contented. There finished the thought.
I’m with Stucky on this one. The old colonel took HSF’s generosity for granted and, because he knows HSF’s character, leveraged an advantage by way of taking offense. I took from this story that the old man is, like too many old people, self-absorbed, ungrateful, without compassion and shameless in his taking of another’s time. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were to be all too happy to take other people’s money also. I am soon to be old and hope my children and grandchildren reprove me when I lapse into these traits that seem to come with old age.
This would have been a better selection:
EC
The Colonel is an honorable man and I am grateful that he allowed me the opportunity to do the right thing and live up to my word.
The musical header I’ve been using for the past several years always presents a challenge. You want it to serve as a score to set the tone but not distract from the story.
The Neil Young piece is- to me- a perfect fit. The tune is haunting, the message koan-like and ethereal, and right there in the middle of the jam is the hook, the pause where the lyrics are re-tooled on the spot show just how things are written. I’ve listened to that song for over 40 years and it never gets old. I’m glad I finally found a way to pair it with something I wrote.
And these are some of the best comments I’ve ever gotten, many thanks for the kind words.
HSF – would have thought he could have simply called you and asked if you could get around to the lawn. Shit happens. To question your integrity seems to have been a bit much. But I do not know him.
Thanks for the article.
Stephen King wastes a whole page to say what Robin Gibb conveys so beautifully.
It’s only words, and words are all I have
To take your heart away
Words are nothing. Except when they are less than nothing. Which is often. It’s all telephone game, all the time. & not somewhere down the Wichita line, man, but from the get-go. MetaFORE! Golf balls to the head. Where’s Zed? Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead. The walking dead. Zedies. Homo rapiens. Words are the trees that occlude the forest (& syrup is mistaken for stirrup). Trees are pulped to make paper to contain words. Circle jerk. Desertification. Branded! Scorned as the one who ran on sentences. What do you do when you’re branded, & you know they’re a sham? Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain with the rain in Shambala, maybe. It’s much better stuff than the reign that falls mainly on the plain. 3 dogs in the fight, ain’t none of ‘em mine. Grok is in the rain, a script had some Israeli actress say…but ya’ need stirrups, not syrups, to actually hear. ☻
Giving your word – no matter how many scribbles, or soundwaves, are in the contract – is not words. It’s action. & that includes inaction. But even carved stone is impermanent. Shit happens. And if happens equals losing your shit, well, that’s one of those forest-trees things. Even Gump knew that. Run on sentence, Forest, run on sentence. Cuz if you run on long enough, your trees are gone, your forestlawn, & you might not even be able to wipe your own ass – no matter how retentive it still wants to be.
???
Did forget just insult Scrabble…
Who fucking knows. I doubt if he even knows.
No. He is simply linking random thoughts with more substance than a YoBo meme. My good ear went to shit, forgetful. It ain’t the stirrups, it’s the hair follicles laying down. I’m hoping is a case of sudden deafness, that has the chance of fixing itself. I fit the description; I had the worst tinnitus, a loud roaring before a loud pop and then silence. Weird.
The next day, the ear wasn’t working so good. Ah, I also have spots in my eyes, floaters. Sometimes my legs don’t want to move. I do not need a complicated music piece to listen to. I’m happy to listen, while I still can hear, to songs I heard back in grade school when I didn’t know that How Can You Mend a Broken Heart was about a broken heart.
I think the old man was afraid he’d been forgotten. That’s the worst thing that can happen to somebody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uDWfTpIp3Y
its a surprise to me
and yes who could guess
a thing said from forget
turn out to be the one
thing to start a shitfest
EC, there’s an adrenal hormone, aldosterone, that’s connected to the ear bone. Sometimes. Worth a look, listen. “aldosterone + hearing.”
So when bridges build themselves, those linkages are random?
I think forgetting – blowing bridges – can win wars. PTSD’ers might agree. Post traumatic growth. Dabrowski mighta been closer to something than Maslow.
But I’ve long thought Maslow blows…a bridge in Brooklyn’s for sale kinda’ guy.
Keep workin’ it forget.. you’re awesome!
Thank you, forgetful. I could have phrased it better; random topics connected by logical bridges. Doc Pangloss said some folks could achieve self-actualization several times in their life. I suspect Maslow’s hierarchy is like the food pyramid, an illustration and not a plan. Some folks claim the food pyramid led to overindulgence in unhealthy quantities. What is self-actualization? If you achieve it only after satisfying the lower strata, hmm. some folks starve and yet create marvelous masterpieces. I agree, the hierarchy is flawed.
I’m glad you did your duty , Hard Farmer . You gave him your word which was probably not a good idea if you got other things happening in your life but I’ve never considered you to be a dumbie so I’m sure you are aware of your error.
Now get off you lazy butt and mail the rest of that syrup. I don’t won’t to hear excuses!
I always look forward to reading your words, the messages contained within and the pictures they paint. Thanks again for sharing your gift.
HSF your writing has never failed to make me ponder. Good man? Yep!
Keep writing. I do enjoy it.
Thank you for the stories in your story. I love them, and am glad I
tuned in today. The Mr. is retired now, and my time is no longer mine
alone. I am busy so I don’t get to TBP as often. Have a great summer
and I hope you get all your promises met.
I think when we give our word to someone, there is a “binding” that takes place transcending even that person. It is a promise to uphold what we, ourselves, hold most dear.
If words were a check, then actions are money in the bank and excuses would be returned, marked as insufficient funds.
Sometimes I wonder if words aren’t all there is; or rather the meanings.
The older I get, the more I realize the importance of forgiveness (i.e. “grace” or “kindness”). It is a two way transaction and my daily challenge is upholding my part of the bargain; even if only out of pure gratitude.
Today, on the first day of summer and the longest day of 2018, I was fatigued and felt a little lost. It’s just that old feeling again reminding me of what I’d like to forget.
Then I read this and it helped bring me back a little. Another step on the way back to good. Thanks for that.
I don’t think that I can add anything to the praise already heaped upon your worthy shoulders so I will simply say…nice.
65 comments without help from Maggoo. That’s got to be a personal best for HF. Usually Maggoo is good for like one super long comment and 30 more deflecting criticism about her chickens or posting her suggestive boudoir pics.
Shit balls uh mercy Hardscrambled, when is yer ass goner figure out how ter keep uh gawd dammed customer list that yer check off one by one when yer ship each sweet ass bottle uh maple syrup. Yer don’t need QB online er advanced accounting skillz fer that. Just uh pen and paper. And yes, one uh them is mine so ship that shit post haste.
In regards ter the kernal, yer do this little literary device often and I’m callin yer ass on it cuz it’s way more annoying than yer not doin free lawncare. It’s like. ‘Someone misunderstood mah intentions, and what I was doin was extremely noble but anyways I doubled down on bein super noble but for me that’s normal so let’s not make uh big deal outer it’. Then everbody says ‘yer so gawd dammed noble Hardscrambled’ and yer dopamine goes berserk. Heres what i think. Yer ass needs ter focus on gettin maple syrup out the door, not writin self back slappin hoohah fer jimmy q’s porn site, and i need mine like yesterday. Yo I’m out.
AWESOME!
Great post HSF. All the best… Chip
First and foremost, you do it not only because you love it, but it is part of who you are. I need not tell you to keep it up (though I certainly hope you do, for my own sake) because I think there is nothing anyone could say that would make you stop. And that is a fine thing, a good thing and if feathers are occasionally ruffled or butts are occasionally hurt through words on the page, it is a mere pittance to be paid for so wondrous a thing.
I too, have a couple of (dreadful) novels and a hand full of (slightly less dreadful) short stories in the trunk, but I am no writer. I can occasionally sling prose that can be humorous or poignant and I can be a good communicator (at times), but I can not translate the strange depths of my thoughts and feeling to paper as you can. Even more, I do not feel the NEED–the HAVE TO–to write.
An inescapable part of any true writing is having your stuff read and received for good or ill. For allowing me to take this part, I thank you.
What first popped into my mind upon reading just your one word title:
“Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.” -Albus Dumbledore
And this longer excerpt from Stephen King, also equating words to magic:
What Writing Is
Telepathy, of course. It’s amusing when you stop to think about it—for years people have argued about whether or not such a thing exists, folks like J. B. Rhine have busted their brains trying to create a valid testing process to isolate it, and all the time its been right there, lying out in the open like Mr. Poe’s Purloined Letter. All the arts depend upon telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing offers the purest distillation. Perhaps I’m prejudiced, but even if I am we may as well stick with writing, since it’s what we came here to think and talk about.
My name is Stephen King. I’m writing the first draft of this part at my desk (the one under the eave) on a snowy morning in December of 1997. There are things on my mind. Some are worries (bad eyes, Christmas shopping not even starred, wife under the weather with a virus), some are good things (our younger son made a surprise visit home from college, I got to play Vince Taylor’s “Brand New Cadillac” with The Wallflowers at a concert), but right now all that stuff is up top. I’m in another place, a basement place where there are lots of bright lights and clear images. This is a place I’ve built for myself over the years. It’s a far-seeing place. I know it’s a little strange, a little bit of a contradiction, that a far-seeing place should also be a basement place, but that’s how it is with me. If you construct your own far-seeing place, you might put it in a treetop or on the roof of the World Trade Center or on the edge of the Grand Canyon. That’s your little red wagon, as Robert McCammon says in one of his novels.
This book is scheduled to be published in the late summer or early fall of 2000.If that’s how things work out, then you are somewhere downstream on the timeline from me … but you’re quite likely in your own far-seeing place, the one where you go to receive telepathic messages. Not that you have to be there; books are a uniquely portable magic. I usually listen to one in the car (always unabridged; I think abridged audio-books are the pits), and carry another wherever I go. You just never know when you’ll want an escape hatch: mile-long lines at tollbooth plazas, the fifteen minutes you have to spend in the hall of some boring college building waiting for your advisor (who’s got some yank-off in there threatening to commit suicide because he/she is flunking Custom Kurmfurling 101 ) to come out so you can get his signature on a drop-card, airport boarding lounges, laundromats on rainy afternoons, and the absolute worst, which is the doctor’s office when the guy is running late and you have to wait half an hour in order to have something sensitive mauled. At such times I find a book vital. If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I’ll be all right as long as there’s a lending library (if there is it’s probably stocked with nothing but novels by Danielle Steel and Chicken Soup books, ha-ha, joke’s on you, Steve).
So I read where I can, but I have a favorite place and probably you do, too — a place where the light is good and the vibe is unusually strong. For me it’s the blue chair in my study. For you it might he the couch on the sunporch, the rocket in the kitchen, or maybe it’s propped up in your bed — reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren’t prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets.
So let’s assume that you’re in your favorite receiving place just as I am in the place where I do my best transmitting. We’ll have to perform our mentalist routine not just over distance but over time as well, yet that presents no real problem; if we can still read Dickens, Shakespeare, and (with the help of a footnote or two) Herodotus, I think we can manage the gap between 1997 and 2000.And here we go — actual telepathy in action. You’ll notice I have nothing up my sleeves and that my lips never move. Neither, most likely, do yours.
Look — here’s a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.
Do we see the same thing? We’d have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course: some receivers will see a cloth which is turkey red, some will see one that’s scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To colorblind receivers, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and welcome — my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out.
Likewise, the matter of the cage leaves quite a lot of room for individual interpretation. For one thing, it is described in terms of rough comparison, which is useful only if you and I see the world and measure the things in it with similar eyes. It’s easy to become careless when making rough comparisons, but the alternative is a prissy attention to detail that takes all the fun out of writing. What am I going to say, “on the table is a cage three feet, six inches in length, two feet in width, and fourteen inches high”? That’s not prose, that’s an instruction manual. The paragraph also doesn’t tell us what sort of material the cage is made of—wire mesh? steel rods? glass?—but does it really matter? We all understand the cage is a see-through medium; beyond that, we don’t care. The most interesting thing here isn’t even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-five. It’s an eight. This is what were looking at, and we all see it. I didn’t tell you. You didn’t ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We’re not even in the same year together, let alone the same room . . . except we are together. We’re close.
We’re having a meeting of the minds.
I sent you a table with a red cloth on it, a cage, a rabbit, and the number eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We’ve engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy. I’m not going to belabor the point, but before we go any further you have to understand that I’m not trying to be cute; there is a point to be made.
You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair — the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly .Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.
I’m not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I’m not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn’t a popularity contest, it’s not the moral Olympics, and it’s not church. But it’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close the book and do something else.
Wash the car, maybe.
From Stephen King’s On Writing (2000)
One other thing that struck me as I was reading, and forgive me for I know exactly what you were saying, but it struck me nonetheless was this:
“Over the past few years as he has gotten older ”
Oh, so only he has gotten older over the past few years?
DRUD,
I hope neither you or HSF give up on your dreams/efforts of writing the Great American Novel. There are a million different books out there that purport to instruct on how to write a successful novel, but my mom worked in publishing for three decades and she said the best of the best of the best of all of them was titled The Complete Guide To Writing Fiction And Non-Fiction And Getting It Published, by Pat Kubis and Bob Howland. I’m on a Kindle, so my apologies that I don’t know how to give a live-link, but it is a “Wow, I could have had a V-8!” kind of enlightenment book.
Bought a book by Hugh Prather many years ago, Notes to myself. HSF this is the kind of book you should publish. Always find inspiration in your stories.