Remembering Herb Caen

“Sacramenna Kid,” Herb Caen (April 3, 1916 – February 1, 1997), San Francisco’s epic satire columnist had a lifelong love affair with The City. He immortalized San Francisco with nearly 60 years’ worth of pithy columns chock full of local happenings, insider gossip, and puns. He was credited with coining the phrase, “Baghdad by the Bay,” and bestowed the term, “Beatnik” upon poet Bob Kaufman.

Caen introduced and popularized the term “hippie” (never hippy—unless you were a hippo), Summer of Love and Frisbeetarianism, and Berserkeley. But San Francisco, his real mistress, was always The City. Caen’s daily columns were paeans, "A continuous love letter to San Francisco" and a special Pulitzer Prize called him the "voice and conscience" of San Francisco.

Herb Caen loved what he dubbed "Namephreaks"‍—‌people whose names (aptronyms) were appropriate or inappropriate to their vocations including substitute teacher Mr. Fillin, piano teacher Patience Scales, orthopedic specialist Dr. Kneebone, and the Vatican's spokesman on the evils of rock 'n roll, Cardinal Rapsong.

I had a seriously uptight ramrod of a science teacher in seventh grade called Mr. Sliney. And the other science teacher who replaced him (after he broke a ruler over a student’s hands) was called Mr. Plant.

The quasily-fictional character, “Strange de Jim” was Caen’s chief informer, alter ego, and purveyor of naughty puns. Caen called him "gu-ru di tutti guruskies.” (Strange showed up to Caen’s memorial to deliver a eulogy while wearing two Sesame Street pillowcases over his head.) But soon everyone got into the informer act—he had an “army of reliable tipsters.”

If you made it into one of Herb columns either as an informer, or by (un)honorable mention, you had either arrived, or you had to live down the tale. It was an honor to be lampooned in Herb’s column. Even my father who lost his wallet to a combative squirrel in a park never quite lived down, or up to his new moniker, “Squirrely Hurley.”

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Many of Herb Caen’s stellar columns were published in collection of essays, “Baghdad-by-the-Bay,” in 1949, and in “Don't Call It Frisco‍”—‌after a judge's rebuke to an out-of-town petitioner ("No one refers to San Francisco by that title except people from Los Angeles")‍ in 1953. In total he wrote 11 books, including children’s stories.

One reader remembered: When Herb Caen left Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner to join the San Francisco Chronicle, he took 10k subscribers with him. Our man about town was so popular he was nominated for president at the 1984 San Francisco Democratic Convention. Word has it some of those buttons are still floating around in bottomless martini glasses.

Caen received a special Pulitzer Prize (which he called his Pullet Surprise) in 1996 for "extraordinary and continuing contribution as a voice and conscience of his city."Caen was an astute collector of The City’s urban folklore.

After writing upwards of 16,000 columns, at a thousand words a day on his loyal Royal, he thought it was a joke. "Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist," he wrote. "Well, it does have a certain ring to it. And it will definitely add a touch of class to the obituary.” Then he shut his door and wrote his column.

June 14, 1996, was officially celebrated in San Francisco as Herb Caen Day replete with a parade to the Ferry Building. TV news legend Walter Cronkite even showed up and the Damnbarcadero was rechristened "Herb Caen Way…

Caen, the king of what he dubbed "three-dot journalism" was famous for his signature three-dot ellipses separating his short news snippets. And the characteristic three asterisks designating a sea change, separating the acts from the grind.

“In 1993, he told an interviewer that he declined to retire because "my name wouldn't be in the paper and I wouldn't know if I was dead or alive," adding that his obituary would be his last column: "It will trail off at the end, where I fall face down on the old Royal with my nose on the 'I' key.” —Wiki

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In his eulogy, Robin Williams said, “A very special Herb communion will consist of dry martinis and sourdough bread. And if you don't see God then, you never will.” And “I think that I know that you wouldn't mind me making jokes up here today because that's part of what you did. You made it kind of possible for us all to gather here and appreciate this very bizarre place.” Williams owed his early career success to Caen’s promotions.

My college schoolmate Robin said, I'd like you to turn to your hymnals. This is (Caen's book) "Baghdad by the Bay." and he read from it: 

"The crowded garages and the empty old buildings above them, the half-filled nightclubs and the overfilled apartment houses, the saloons and the skies and the families huddled in the basements, the Third Street panhandlers begging for handouts in front of pawn shops filled with treasured trinkets, the great bridges and the rattle-trap street cars, the traffic that keeps moving although it has no place to go, thousands of newcomers glorying in the sights and sounds of a city they suddenly decided to love instead of leave." —Herb Caen, Baghdad by the Bay

“I'm sorry you had to leave, man, but you're still here. See ya.”

*. *. *

“If I do go to heaven, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven. He looks around and says, "It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco." —Herb Caen

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The day Herb Caen died, it was standing room only at Grace Cathedral, and at all his local watering holes, people stood a dozen deep, the Stoli and gin ran like water and the bartenders ran out of martini glasses, so they improvised with wine and water glasses. All for six-bits as Herb would say. A few parched souls opted for this infamous Vitamin V shot - Stoli over ice in a wineglass with a twist.

People noshed on his favorite meal, meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Next day, the entire city awoke with a massive, pulsating hangover. Pass the aspirin and Alka-seltzer.

Yesterday I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes in honor of Herb Caen, but I passed on the six-bit martinis. I had adult gu…I mean wine, instead. Here’s to you, Herb, wherever you are.

About those wild mustards

With thanks to Ellin Barret who first piqued my curiosity for this post.

Because a friend posted this meme, I was off and running. So I decided to let my fingers do the walking through Wikipedia to resolve for once, and for all, the differences between the escaped feral “wild” mustards that ravage the California landscape in spring. And yes, we do have several rather diminutive native mustard species.

What I discovered is that there was not one species, but over 30 separate species of “wild” mustard plants or brassica. And very few “wild”mustards are actually wild, they are almost all feral. Our most favored mustard species, Eurasian Brassica oleracea, that the ancient Celts and Romans were so fond of, gives us those yummy cultivars (all from the same species, like a breed), including kale, cabbage, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, etc.

Although some species of mustard plants were established crops in Hellenistic and Roman times, there are few archeological records. Wild forms of mustard and its relatives, the radish and turnip, found over Eurasia, suggests domestication took place in that region. However, Zohary and Hopf conclude: "Suggestions as to the origins of these plants are necessarily based on linguistic considerations." The Encyclopædia Britannica states that mustard was grown by the Indus Civilization of 2500–1700 BC. —Wiki

An Asian mustard species from the Hindu Kush, Brassica rapa, one of the first invasive field mustards to bloom in California, gives us bok choy, Napa cabbage (really Beijing cabbage!), rapini, turnips, canola oil, etc. More on native and invasive mustards here.

Highly invasive black mustard or Brassica nigra is the most common species found in California. The seeds were theoretically brought here by the Franciscan friars scattering mustard seeds as they walked from mission to mission—bits and seeds of B. nigra were found in adobe brick made in the 1700s. 

Also, according to the scriptures, tiny mustard seeds were held in high regard because though the seeds may be small, their potential for growth is enormous; to enter the kingdom of heaven begins with faith. Jesus was reputed to have said:

"For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20-21)

Nearly all Brassica seem to have one thing in common, a four-petaled flower shaped like a cross, hence the name cruciferous vegetables. Even the diminutive jewelflower species of California, Nevada and the Southwest have four petals, but they are so tiny, they are nearly invisible. 

No matter how you feel about invasive species, I must admit that it is pretty stunning when entire hillsides are solid yellow with mustard in spring. It’s a great cover crop, conditions the soil (and kills pests.) But it is so invasive that it also smothers all native species—including our diminutive milk maids, and vigorous California poppies.

And yes, we do have many diminutive native California brassica species according to iNaturalist. My personal favorites are a magenta wallflower, or rockcress, milk maids, desert candles, and the crazy stripped-down endemic jewelflowers—some species so rarified they only grow in one small patch in the world. It seems that each mountain range has its own species of jeweleeed—and most are endangered species.

And closely related to black mustard, and B. rapa, the Brassica napus or brown mustard species, aka rapeseed, also gives us canola oil, Siberian kale, and rutabagas. Originally from India, it spread to Asia and farmers diversified it by developing cultivars. It's a really popular cover crop in Ukraine along with those heliotropic North American sunflowers. 

Yes, North American: Helianthus annuus—though they were first domesticated and cultivated by Native Americans 4500 years ago, they were commercialized in Russia and Ukraine. Sunflowers and mustard are important sources of vegetable oil. All that oil to fuel the world. We won’t discuss the atrocities suffered by mustard gas unleashed by the Germans at Ypres during World War I.

The ancient Romans not only invented fish sauce (of the Worcestershire persuasion), they also might have invented mustard as a condiment (the Egyptians also used mustard) by mixing ground mustard seeds with grape juice (called “must"), thus giving us the word mustard!

The word "rape" came from Latin for turnip, rāpa or rāpum, Greek word ῥάφη, rhaphe. The Romans were quite crazy for their cabbages. 

Radish means root in Latin. Apparently Egyptians were noshing on radishes before the Pyramids were built. Perhaps the workers were fueled on by radishes and salt. After all, the Romans paid their workers with salt, which means salted cruciferous greens, hence the word salary.

Meanwhile, the French are still buttering and salting their radishes. Forget about that sinus cleaner, Japanese wasabi. Medieval Germans were so crazy for radishes that they grew them bigger and better. Imagine massive 100-pound radishes ravishing the countryside. Radishes, not mustard, were the first cruciferous crops introduced to the Caribbean in the 1500s.

Brassica oleracea probably came from Crete. Or it was a stowaway on Jason’s Golden Fleece. The Greeks too were so mad for radishes (which probably came from China by way of Egypt), that they made little gold radish talismans to offer up to Apollo. Why the sun god needed radishes is anyone’s guess. You’d think horses or chariots or wine would’ve been a more practical gift. Ok, I’ll stop rooting around now on Wiki.

Note bene: I never know where writing ideas will come from. It always catches me by surprise! When I was a child, I was always making equivalencies, that is relationships between things—especially plants and animals. I guess some things never change. When I finally adulted (some could clain that I am still attempting to achieve adulthood), I discovered most of my correlations were spot on. 

At one point, I thought all that wild mustard was native, and it was only one species. When I joined a California naturalist group, I learned that there were more than one invasive mustard species, and that’s probably the thing that spurred me on because I cannot tell the difference between field mustard and black mustard, it’s all mustard to me.

Hoppity-hop picking in Sonoma County

Historic Walters Ranch Hop Kiln, Westside Road, Healdsburg, built by Angelo Soldini in 1905. California Historical Landmark No. 627 ©️ Maureen Hurley ca. 1981.

Before Prohibition, Sonoma County led the nation in the production of hops. Hops, a beer preservative, was first planted near the Laguna de Santa Rosa in 1858, and by 1899, more than 2000 acres were in full production. A story from 1900 in the San Francisco Chronicle estimated that 7,500 acres of hops were planted in Sonoma. From the early 1900s to about 1940, hops, not grapes, was king.

“Sonoma County produces the finest quality of hops grown on the Pacific Coast….there is more lupulin and a stronger aroma…which brings from one cent to two cents per pound more money in the market.”—Sunset Magazine Homeseekers’ Bureau, 1915

Apparently the top dollar paid for the superior California-grown hops was London, England. 

“From 1915 until 1922 California was the leading hop-producing state in the Union." (Tinged with Gold: Hop Culture in the United States, Michael A. Tomlan).

Hops (Humulus lupulus) related to cannabis, originated in Egypt and China; there is also a wild species native to the US. With hops, it's all about the lupulin. The unfertilized female blossom, or cone, laden with yellow lupulin powder and resin, is used to preserve and flavor beer. The hops varietals grown in Sonoma County were far superior to hops grown in other regions. During the 1930s, Sonoma County produced over 30 million pounds of dried hops.

Hop production survived Prohibition and the Volstead Act of 1919, but languished, shall we say, even tanked? during the post-war economy—despite the fact that Sonoma County was a bootleg capital of California. 

The use of nitrate fertilizers also introduced a mildew blight which ultimately killed the hops industry. By the 1960s, hops was no longer commercially viable, though escaped volunteers grew along the Russian River along with the native wild grape vines.

My first boyfriend's mother Leeta (a Petaluman who went to school with Lloyd Bridges) used to earn her pocket money harvesting hops (and fruit) every summer. During hop-picking-time, she waxed on poetically how families camped out under the stars all summer long picking fruit. 

However, she said that picking hops was brutal on the hands. Not to mention feet—they used stilts to reach the trellised hop buds. Hopping for hops. She preferred picking pears and prunes to hops. Hop picking season was short, at the end of summer. In 1940, when his hop pickers went on strike, Florian Dauenhauer of Santa Rosa invented a mechanical hop harvester that is used to this day.

During the 1990s, I was at Kat & Boz WIlliams' home on Peaks Pike Road in Graton and they served me steamed hop shoots and buds for dinner—they tasted like asparagus—and I was even given a furry feisty hop vine to take home, but it just wouldn’t grow under an oak tree in Forestville. It needed more sunlight. Or I was a lousy hop grower.

Hop-picking at Healdsburg, Cal. photo: MD Silverstein —Healdsburg Shed

Leave-takings

I was born with wanderlust. When I was a child, I would traipse off into the woods and hike up the ridges of Mt. Barnabe to see Elephant Mountain and Tomales Bay cleaving the land like a saber shining in the distance. Since then, I've traversed many landscapes the world over and for that I am grateful. 

One summer, when I was working in a small village deep in the Swiss Alps, I involuntarily threw my arms open wide as if to encompass the sublime majesty that left me breathless. Whenever I am overwhelmed by raw beauty, I open up my arms as if to embrace the landscape.

To anchor the self in place and time—if only just for a moment—that is my one true religion. I’ve done something similar with my own childhood landscapes, my ritual involves greeting the landscape as well as saying goodbye. Perhaps it is also a form of gratitude.

I once taught an old lover how to embrace the land. It was so exhilarating and liberating to acknowledge the intangible like that. As we hiked the long ridges that traversed the coastline, we opened our arms wide with impromptu hugs, kissing the vast landscape, saying I love you. I love you. A ritual that he continued to cherish long after we had broken up. 

When a Soviet friend had to return to the USSR when his visa expired, I was surprised to find there was also a Ukrainian custom of leave-takings—or saying goodbye to places you’ve been—which included bidding adeiu to my little cabin. 

It was somehow a fitting reminder to acknowledge the importance of departures. When you say goodbye to a house as if it were an old friend, you acknowledge its hospitality and shelter. It doesn’t need to be your house, it could be a place you've stayed, a place where the walls have protected you from the vagaries of the world.

And the house offered us refuge from our ourselves. Yes, I know, a house is an inanimate object, but it both shelters and cradles us in its arms like a mother. In that moment, it becomes not a house, but the idea of home. Something I learned while living in the USSR—and it seemed a fitting ritual. 

I can’t say there were many places in the Ukraine I wanted to embrace. The vast breadbasket was flat as a pancake all the way to the horizon and beyond—except for the desecrated kurgans, tumulus mounds punctuating an ancient landscape carpeted with sunflowers and wheat. 

At the steep ravine of the Bibi Yar, Stalin’s secret burial chasm, I wanted to weep even before I knew the backstory of the atrocities that had happened there, what was inhumanly possible. I said a goodbye racked with sobs for the eroding debris—bones of the unnamed dead hidden from the world in a mass grave.

Ditto that in Iona in the Hebrides as well—for entirely different reasons—the holiness of St. Columba's abby was graced with filtered light. I was letting go of something so profound, it was nearly nameless. It was as if I were shedding a lifetime of grief. The death of my grandmother, my mother. The absent father. 

Maybe it's a form of hiraeth or saudade. An overwhelming homesickness, more than nostalgia, it’s a longing for a place you cannot return to—the soul harboring equal parts of grief and love. As sobs racked my body, I was grateful that the holy community of Iona tactfully looked away, they understood the personal conversion of psyche.

The idea of leave-taking dates back to the 12th c., to receive permission from a liege lord to formally depart, as in fare thee well—I’m off to the holylands. As I made ready to leave, I was reminded of a saying I coined as a form of closure while on the steep slopes of Huayna Picchu, where I had left talismans: a lock of hair, and milky quartz from our hill in Northern California. For my grandmother, I said, as if bearing witness.

I instructed my friend, Always remember to say goodbye to the places you've been. Cherish them, say goodbye, for you will never pass this way again. 

And with that, I kissed the landscape goodbye.

5/18/23 Mill Valley Library non-fiction workshop with Sarah Broderick

Weak bladder, strong mind

I had a rather sodden thought while sorting laundry: Nothing worse than your bladder thinking of giving it all up for Jesus by baptizing the floor. 

It literally was a line that came to me unbidden. I grabbed it before it escaped into the void. I dictated it to my iPad, knowing full well that I wouldn’t remember it by the time I got the laundry in the machine and back upstairs again. Besides when the Gods of Poetry hand you a line, albeit dubious, you don’t ask questions.

To be clear, I didn’t actually pee on the floor. It’s just I had to go while I was trying to gather up the laundry and there was a maddening sound of running water, which imbued an incredible sense of urgency on my bladder. A line of poetry that came quickly and unbidden, and I just snagged it before I forgot it. Now forgetting things is a whole ‘nother conversation. All those ideas you think you’re gonna remember? Yeah, no. 

When I was young, my grandmother and my aunts used to turn the tap water on, to make me go to the bathroom, I guess I dawdled too much, the aunts were always complaining that I wouldn’t go in public bathrooms. Still true to this day, the sound of running water is tricky. And aging out doesn’t help.

Part of it is the party panic syndrome, my grandmother could not make it out the front door without having to run back into the bathroom, even though she had just gone. Something about crossing the lintel and going out into the world wreaked havoc with her bladder. The poor thing had a children and botched episiotomy, so it’s understandable. And she always said, it’s better to have a weak bladder than a weak mind.

Coláiste na nGael, Leuven (photo)

In 1992, I was hot on the trail of an obscure folksong I was obsessed with, by Jacques Brel written in 1961, popularized by Theo Bikel. The euphonious Marieke was said to have died in Leuven, Belgium, a circular moated town. While visiting the moat where Marieke was supposed to have drowned, we stumbled upon an old iron gate, black and gold, with ornate lettering.

In those days, there was no internet, only this thread of faux memory to go by. So this is a cribbed-together hybrid memory fragment enhanced by Google. This memory fragment is a marriage of sorts: something old, something new. Borrowed. Certainly blue. A story that spans decades. Call it memoir. We also visited an homage statue of Marieke in Brugge as Brel sang that she was loved between Brugge and Ghent. I suspect Brel was also singing of a much older love story. And his Marieke was her namesake. 

Jacques Brel was popular well before my time. But I loved his songs, resurrected by folksingers, his songs were adapted and given a new lease on life via the 1968 Off-Broadway musical revue, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. 

Of course, I had no knowledge of any of this, but I was familiar with the haunting title as it was something my mother once said to me. It became a bit of a koan. And then sometime in the mid 1970s, I saw The Committee perform some of Brel’s songs in a street theater piece in Sausalito. Thats whers I met Mimi Fariña and Scott Beach of It’s white flower day at Macy’s commercial fame.

I first met Theo Bikel in 1981 or 82 at a Bread & Roses concert—I was working for Mimi Fariña. I asked him if he would sing Marieke. I think he was surprised by the request. I have photos of him from 1982 performing on stage. Larger than life, he stood at 6’1”, and could sing in 21 languages, whereas I could barely survive in one language. Theo made famous the songs of Fiddler on the Roof. But the mysterious Marieke took my breath away. I was haunted by it.

In 1992, my Dutch friend Vins took me to Leuven, where he had studied philosophy at the extraordinary beautiful marbled edifices of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, (est. 1425). Below the medieval moat, there was an iron gate. He couldn’t make out the lettering. Without thinking, I translated the Old Hibernian-Irish script which read, Coláiste na nGael (est. 1607). 

He said, Do you realize it’s in Irish? I did a double-take. My grandmother’s old Gaelic League copybook lessons paid off. That, and a mental crib note from an old tee shirt stamped with an antique Guinness label of St. James’ Gate. Fitting, as Leuven, the place where linen was made, was also the home of Stella Artois. Wherever there were Irish monks, there was always beer to be had—whether by morning or evening star.

This exchange sparked my interest on the role of medieval Irish monks founding scriptoria and universities on the continent—something my grandmother nattered on about, but I didn’t have the historical context by which to understand what she was saying. And here it was, proof positive. A portal to the past. An Irish gate in a medieval town in Brabant, reknown for linen manufacture, of all places. 

Marieke’s tiny moat was turbid. So small. How she must’ve suffered as the water dragged her down. Love gone wrong. I never did find the words to the song, and all I could remember was the refrain, Marieke, sea of bitterness, star of the sea, rebellious one, my namesake.

Ay, Marieke, Marieke
Your love alone, your love alone

The day is gone, the day is gone, the day is gone.

Theo Bikel, Bread & Roses, Greek Theater, UC Berkeley 1982

Jacques Brel singing Marieke, 1961. And the lyrics, thanks to Google.

Greengrocer

Mr. Bagley returned home with a truckload of unsold vegetables. He drove a dusty-blue pickup the color of a humid sky, kitted up with produce bins and green doors that propped up to make a canopy. He must’ve had a greengrocer route similar to the Lucas Valley milk route in central Marin, over the hill, because we never saw him set up anywhere in the San Geronimo Valley. He was fairly new to the area, his large family took up two pews in the Lagunitas church. I didn’t know anything about them or where they came from. It was an unlikely convergence of events that became a moment etched in time. I was playing with Rosemary and Danny Magnussen. Taciturn Mr. Bagley didn’t say much as he counted out the day’s profits, a mere bowl of change. But his wife took it all in stride and cooked up a massive pot of rice and leftover vegetables. I remember sitting at a makeshift table on a large bulldozed flat, two old wooden doors on sawhorses turned into a table. It never occurred to the Bagleys to send us home. We were all invited to the meager feast, grubby neighborhood kids, no one was excluded. After a hard afternoon of playing kick-the-can, and hide-and-seek, yelling out olly-olly-oxen-free, come out, come out wherever you are, we were scabby wains as ravenous as vultures. I remember a mob of kids sitting around that makeshift table, seated on long planks or on tree stumps, scarfing down mountains of rice and butter, with zucchini and ketchup, like it was the last supper. I never tasted anything so good before. There was something holy and profound in that moment. It could’ve been a Dorothea Lang photograph straight out of a migrant worker camp. Mr. Bagley, sunburned and worn out from a long day selling his vegetables, gazed at us with watery eyes, then cracked open a beer, took a long drought from the amber bottle, then leaned back to take it all in as he smoked his cigarette down to the nub. In retrospect, they were probably on welfare, like many of us, the 50-pound sack of rice, from a food bank. Sometime those who had the least were the most generous. They didn’t stay long in the valley, they moved on to other pastures. Hopefully they were greener ones. What I remember is the indigo sky and the watery stars. And then, the long walk back home in the dark.

This evolved from a Facebook comment.

Little Christmas, a.k.a. Nollaig BheagLittle Christmas, a.k.a.

A card my cousin in Kerry sent me.

Today is Little Christmas, aka the Feast of the Epiphany, Orthodox Christmas, and Nollaig Bheag. AKA Women's Christmas (Nollaig na mBan), where Irish men traditionally take on all the household duties for the day. Women are instructed to stay abed late, hang out with friends and generally be pampered and waited on hand & foot by their menfolk in appreciation. A spa day might be in order. As my grandmother said, it is the last day of Christmas to get those cards and gifts delivered. Tomorrow you can take down the tree. Or not.

Persimmons (photos)

Ripe persimmons hanging from a bare tree like small fiery suns, are a poignant sign of winter. These Japanese Diospyros kaki or Hachiya persimmons, were picked on Arroyo Road in Forest Knolls. How many times did I pass that tree and never noticed it when I was walking home from school? Unripe hachiyas are astringent and inedible until they are soft as an over-ripe tomato. My grandmother always said, you’re not supposed to pick them until after the first frost. But this year, the frosts have been so light, I got tired of waiting for winter to come. 

Like quinces and medlars, they are completely inedible until they are bletted which is a polite way of saying approaching the rotten stage. Persimmon trees really don’t want you eating a persimmon until it’s beyond ripe. Patience is required. If you bite into an unbletted hachiya, it will take the skin off your teeth, give them fur jackets, not to mention, strip the roof of your mouth, and leave your uvula wizened to the size of a peppercorn, and you will be speechless, I guarantee it. Who had to look up uvula? Not what you thought, right? 

I hated persimmons as a kid, probably because I tried to eat an unripe one. It’s an acquired taste I’m still trying to cultivate, because of their health benefits, I must admit I’m leery, but I am willing to revisit them. Just not raw. When they’re ripe, you can freeze and eat them like custard. Be sure to use a good silver plate or sterling spoon, the acid reacts with metal. Kind of like a battery. I remember watching my granny scoop out the vermillion frozen pulp and eat them on late winter afternoons, with sheer delight. But I never acquired a taste for them.

Or you can make persimmon bread, or pudding, my favorite—an excellent boozy Christmas pudding, but it requires finesse with baking powder, baking soda, soda and buttermilk (or yogurt) to neutralize the oxalates and proanthocyanidins and antioxidant phytochemical enzymes (insoluble tannins and gallic acid). Aka better living through chemistry. (Diospyros means divine fruit of Zeus in Greek). And it also requires a lot of emotional support booze before, during, and after. And then, after baking it, you have to booze-bathe the little puddy weekly. And of course, have a tot yourself to keep it company. It’s a long-term commitment relationship. After all, it is a kind of fruitcake—they don’t like to drink alone. Not to mention the hardsauce. 

I’ve long since lost my granny’s persimmon bread recipe, along with her fruitcake recipe, but here’s one by James Beard, whom she admired. It calls for a lot of bourbon. Here’s a simple version that uses both kinds of persimmons. She probably got her boiled pudding recipe from Bon Appétit! Or if boiled or steamed pudding isn’t your cuppa, you can try their baked persimmon bread recipe, which sounds like pumpkin bread dressed in persimmon pajamas. Or try persimmon bread pudding. No recipe given. You’re on your own here, wildcatting it, as it were. Both persimmon bread and pudding freeze well.

The short, squatty Japanese variety, or cultivar, Fuyus, or Fujus, look like little sumo apples with dimpled bottoms, and  are eaten crisp. No waiting, or bletting necessary. Freezing them will help ripen them too. 

Our native American persimmons, Diospyros virginiana, aka sugarplums, or possum-apples, grow on the eastern seaboard—especially in the greater Mississippi Valley. There is also a southern black species, D. texana, chapote, or tzapotl, from the Nahuatl. There are both male and female persimmon trees (and some are switch-hitters, alternating sexes), like persea, aka avocados, and like avocados, they evolved oddly to entice certain ice age megafauna, such as mammoths, mastodons and giant sloths to nosh away, so they could, erm, well, propagate. The persimmons, not the megafauna. I was told they are all good dried—the persimmons, not the megafauna. Let’s just say they had a unique seed dungheap distribution system. (The persimmons.) As for ripening tips, I’ve never seen any. But they do need to be bletted as well.

There are over 400 species of persimmon, Ebenaceae family, most are native to Eurasia. Apparently the slow growing persimmon heartwood, a species of ebony—think black piano keys—takes a hundred years to form. Patience is required. Persimmonwood also makes the finest golf clubs in the world. Ebony, a rather lousy raft material, is also so dense, it sinks in water. You knew that, right? Fore! Birdy? Or is it a mulligan? Where’s my snorkel? I think I’ve  lost the score. Or was it the plot? Think I’ll have a ‘nother neggnog. Cheers!

See also

• 
  
• True Quinces

• In defense of California Bay Laurel
• Defiant Fruitcakes
• Wild Apples

Justa’s story (Florida Journals) (folklore)

Mi abuela Amalia, was born in Havana, and died when I was 7 or 8. I was born in Puerto de Golpe. My Abuelo, Elucerio died at 70. Mi mama, Mima, was one of 7 daughters. they didn’t have tv, or radio, nada, so they had many daughters. (Laughs). I study three years at University of Havana for dental surgery. When the University of Havana was closed by Castro, I couldn’t finish my diploma. In 1922 Fidel closed all the Universities—todo. Everything. Everything. 

Mis tias were Marusa Caridad, Silvia, Oralia, Emelina, JoAnNuñes. My name, Justa, belonged to my grandmother. I had muchos primos Mi favorito was Rolando Ross who died two years ago. He was so friendly with me, we talked about many things about life.

Mi padre, Francisco Jose Nunez Blanco, nacie en San Cristobal, so kind a person. I loved him. He married my mother when she was 16. He was the Chief of Puerto De Golpe train station. He was very smart. She was a telegraph operator. Francisco had six brothers two sisters. I had muchos primos from my father’s side too. One uncle had 12 children.

Mi primo Rolando was a singer, and he loved Mexican music. I have two cousins who were lawyers. Nephews who are doctors, they live in Coral Gables. 

I met Gustavo when I was 17, Gustavo was 19, in 1927. We met en Puerto de Golpe. Y en el university. I see him many times. When the univeristy closed, he wrote me a letter. Many letters he wrote me. He wrote to me and Maynita sent it to me. It was a secret. One time I put the letter on the table and I forgot it. And my mother found it and she said it was impossible, you’re too young. 

You told your family you wanted to marry Gustavo. But he was mi enamorado. They knew nothing about him. One day Gustavo wanted to visit me and they said Get out. She’s too young. Everyone was angry with me. Gustavo said I won’t wait anymore. On Dec. 20 , 1920, I married with him. He is the man of my life.

We got married twice, once in Havana. Then I went to Santa Clara to marry in the church, where he was born. El pais de General Carillo. We lived in Havana, close to the school where Gustavo taught, at the Collegio Belem, a religious college. When the university closed, he had to leave. He studied architecture. But nowhere to practice.

I left Cuba on July 9, 1975. My brother Miguel left first, he died last year. We went to Spain for three years. Refugees. I didn’t go back to school. I didn’t want to be a medico. Gustavo worked at mano alsada? architecture. I taught at the Sagrada Familia school en Barcelona. We had two daughters Mari and AnaLina who went to school there. When we got ready to leave to the United States, they didn’t want to leave. 

After three years in Spain, we had to leave, or return to Cuba. We came direct to Miami because Gustavos‘s brother lived here. En 1979 we went to Maimi but I don’t like it. Gustavo said Bueno, everybody has to stay here because this is the last place. The family was scattered over here. Money is so important. It was impossible no junto.

I worked 26 years as a surgical nurse in the Emergency room at Coral Gables hospital. I liked to work in hospital, I made electrocardiograms, I helped people with heart problems. I loved my job. All those hearts. All those heart operations, sometimes I was covered in blood. Sangre. Es la verdad. 

When Gustavo died I lost my heart. It was 17 June 2016.  For me it was a love forever and ever. I say to God, I’m sorry, the time that I had with him was good. I will visit him again.

Weave and Mend, folksong from Daughters of Copper Woman

The Poets & Writers Townhall meeting led me on a very merry goose chase tracking down an earworm of a song I had once heard long ago that haunted me—as we were discussing how to teach during the time of Covid. As with all earworms, the song interrupted my thoughts and became a message. I finally succumbed and looked it up, and was glad I did too. I learned a lot. I love being a folksong armchair historian.

My first go-to was Mudcat, of course, I found a Mudcat thread on the song. At first I couldn’t find anything on the song because I didn’t have the right title. The Browne Sisters—the version I’m familiar with—called it Old Woman, which yielded a wild goose chase, and no lyrics. 

Now I  love the Browne Sisters, and know them well from various Highland Games, but sometimes it’s hard to glean the lyrics from their amazing harmonies. Many thanks to Shay Black who saw my query on Facebook and sent me the full lyrics. He also gave me another lead, songwriter Mary Trup. But I also discovered that Anne Cameron wrote the poem.

No one on the Mudcat thread connected the song up with the writer, Anne Cameron, or where she grew up, Nanaimo, or that she was tapping into Nootka creation stories in Daughters of Copper Woman, so this is theoretically where this song came from. 

More research is ahead for me. Note that the name is spelled Mary Troupe here. I kind of like it. Created ca. 1981. Still searching, still sleuthing. Meanwhile, I found simple acapella version here. No ads. Great graphics in this vsrsion and Janet Russell’s harp accompaniment suits this song. No ads.

Below is songwriter Mary Trup’s version as sung by Shay’s sister, Irish Senator Frances Black. Now I am officially obsessed by this song. Words by Anne Cameron, slightly rearranged but that is the way of folksongs—even newly minted ones. I can’t seem to find anything on the songwriter Mary Trup, where she’s from, or if the tune is borrowed, or based on Celtic music, but it does have a Celtic echo and lilt. It’s certainly a song and melody that grabbed me by the heart strings.

Weave and Mend

Old woman is watching, watching over you
In the darkness of the storm, she is watching
She is weaving, mending, gathering the colors
She is watching over you. 

Chorus:
So, weave and mend
Weave and mend
Gather the fragments safe
And win the sacred circle,
Sisters, weave and mend,
Weave and mend,
Oh women, weave and mend

Old woman is weaving, gathering the threads
Her bones become the loom she is weaving,
She is watching, weaving, gathering the colors
She is watching over you.

Chorus:

For years I’ve been watching, waiting for old woman
Feeling lost and so alone, I’ve been watching.
Now I find her weaving, gathe ring the colors
Now I find her in myself.

And another version on the Black Brothers Band webpage. 

(It took me a while (a year and a half) but I finally got around to recording the song for Carol Hoorn, replete with a cat who was concerned about me. Link.)

My persistence paid off, with the clues I had uncovered, eventually I found a great book review. The Wordpress blog is called Historian’s Notebook, by Faith L. Justice. Ironically I was in Naniamo during that summer of 1981. I could have met her, if only I had known. But I had to wait a half lifetime to put this story together.

CAPITAL, JACK

 

CAPITAL, JACK 

So, who was your Uncle Jack? 

Was he gracious or was he a supplanter?

Was he a player, or was he a caltrops?

A game of jacks, a jack-tar, a sea dog, 

or a small pirate flag flown from a ship’s mast?

Was he a five pound note hidden in a deep pocket?
High Five, Jack's alive. Give Jack back his jacket. 

Give the man his dues. Did he jack you up?

Was he Jack Daniels, or a jack of all trades? 

Was he a knave? Did he make you cry uncle 

as he rode slipshod across your nightmares? 

Was he a diamond in the rough?

Jack of diamonds come with big news.

All jack of hearts on a Saturday night.

A spade of all trades, a dangerous club.

Was he foolproof, 40 proof, or jackshit?

Did he jack the car, taking it for a joyride?

Jacked up on a Saturday night?

Perhaps an audio jack come to steal your music.

If you can’t question the answer, 

or the outcome, then you don’t know jack. 

Hit the road, Jack! Don’t bother closing 

the barn door, the horse is long gone.

3/15/21

A note on native foodways in the British Isles vs. foods introduced by Romans

I read an interesting post in a Facebook group, British Medieval History, on foodways where someone said, “Introduced by the Romans to Britain: Apples, asparagus, turnips, peas, garlic, cabbages, onions, leeks, cucumbers, artichokes, figs, chestnuts, cherries, celery, wine, plums, etc...”

The list struck me as wrong. I was off and running when I saw that the thread commentor, Paul Davis had credited the Romans with bringing apples to the British Isles. I told him, I suspect if you dig deeper you’ll find that apples were not introduced by the Romans. 

Specific species of apples, cabbage and onions, probably were probably introduced, but apples, kales, and wild onions too were part of the northern European Neolithic landscape. And there were plenty of native brassicas as well. Don’t forget the color woad comes from a brassica. 

Cabbage was domesticated in Western Europe ca. 1000 BC, probably by the Celts. Brassica is from from bresic, a Celtic word for cabbage. Whether native or feral, brassica species favored the white limestone cliffs of Dover, and the Isle of Wight. Brassica oleracea has successfully crossed with native brassica species so it’s impossible to tell them apart. And then there’s another continental shared species, arbutus, or strawberry tree, native to Ireland, but curiously not to Britain. 

I am no botanist or scientist, but I did extensive research on apples, because the information struck me as wrong that apples were introduced to the British Isles via Rome, via Kazakhstan. Also, apples, specifically crabapples, played a significant central role in Irish and Welsh mythology. Then there’s Avalon, the isle of apples. The reason being that certain plant species were circumpolar, such as the corylus, rosids, vaccinium, malus, prunus, brassicaceae and allium—sort of like reindeer/caribou, foxes, etc., so no one region can claim species origin. 

Per aspera ad astra

Per aspera ad astra (or ad astra per aspera) is a Latin phrase meaning "through hardships to the stars". I prefer to translate it as:  through aspiration—to the stars. A gold pin we found in the back of a lovely old bureau abandoned by the roadside. Or rather, a hidden dime-sized enamel pin that stuck me and drew blood...I guess it wanted my attention. 

I have no idea what the rest of the pin means. A red star, a beehive on a piece of wood? Busy bees? Work? A mercator sky to map the stars? A red star, a Communist symbol, if ever there was one, a reference to socialism? Or what LOTM means. At first I thought it was LOTR! Hobbitses! One ring (or pin) to rule them all. And we do have that double planet conjunction coming up on the 21st. 

Katherine Hastings suggested, Ladies of the Maccabees is a possibility. Which proved to be harder to trace, than not. References were clear as mud. Something to do with a rebellion. But I got a lead, some Knights, and a whiff of masonry. A secret society. 

Are handshakes or fez hats involved? Oddfellows? Let’s try the Knights. See where that leads. KOTM doesn’t have that same ring to it. Oh great, a graveyard reference, but their motto is catchy: Astra Castra Numen Lumen. Just don’t say it while drunk. Any low-flying vultures involved? Do I need to duck? Kyle Alden Thayer says Life of the mind. I can work with that.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862)

My favorite astronaut, Colonel Chris Hadfield said the phrase was the motto of the Royal Canadian Air Force.  Per aspera ad astra .Through adversity to the stars. But their logo is a maple leaf, so I’m suspecting it really is much older than the Air Force. 

Then it dawned on me that Lowell Hendrickson, who once lived on our road, was a pilot. Weekends he would take his biplane out for a spin and do barrel rolls and loop-de-loops overhead with all of us kids out in the field screaming our heads off cheering him on. Either way, it’s a cool pin, and a cool motto.

Note bene: stuffing that little bureau into the back of my Guppy car (a Scion) was almost a comedy of errors, an engineering feat requiring precision to clear the wheel well, but we did it. My cousin, who fancied it, said it couldn’t be done. Passers-by shook their heads in disbelief. But I am allergic to the concept of No, I prefer to work with Yes! I knew it would fit if only we got the right configuration.

And so, we managed to wedge the bureau into the back of the itty-bitty hatchback, and bring it home like lions triumphantly dragging home their prey. Getting it back out of the car again required another round of finesse. Lift and twist. The little pin was easier to carry, despite its stellar weight. Maybe someday its cryptic message will be revealed.

Krampusnocht

Until I joined Facebook, I had never heard of the custom or Krampusnocht, or the Krampus. The bogeyman, yes. The Christmas Krampus is a thoroughly Germanic pagan invention which could be related to the winter solstice. The dark side. 

Krampusnocht, Dec. 5, is really big in Austria—just remember Freud was from Austria. Lots of drumming involved. Apparently car gas tanks make the best drums to scare off evil spirits. The Krampus comes at dusk, on December 5th and leaves the morning of December 6th: he brings a birch stick to whip the kids. And if a child is really bad, they suffer an even worse fate. At any rate, they scare the bejazus out of the night.

Think I’ll stick with the Dutch Sinterklaas. Better speculaas cookies.

More Krampus images here in the comments section. The comments are worthy of a read. Lots on St. Nicholas info as well.

Thanksgiving in the New World

We tend to think of Thanksgiving as a uniquely North American holiday, but its roots are embedded in the mists of time. The November harvest festival that British-American pilgrims celebrated, prior to emigration, was called the Feast of St. Martin, or Martinmas. 

The first New England settlers were zealously pious British separatists and Puritans who left Britain during the Protestant Reformation. The dour Puritans believed the Church of England’s reforms did not go far enough in breaking away from Catholic tradition, and so they left Britain for the Netherlands.

The Pilgrims even found the Protestant Dutch of Leiden who gave them safe harbor from Britain, too lenient, hence the 1620 voyage on the Mayflower to establish a strict, if not a downright grim, religious utopia in the New World. After a reading, we went to the Pilgrim’s Pub in Delftshaven, raised a few pints at the place where the pilgrims shoved off for America.

The Wampanoag Nation, the “People of the First Light,” saved the Pilgrims from starvation during that harsh winter of 1620–21. But they too had an agenda shaped by years of tense interaction with European explorers and fur trappers, plague and disease—not to mention displacement. And you know what that led to.

When I brought home the usual Thanksgiving tropes from second grade, the hand-traced turkey, cut-out pilgrim hats, collars and buckles, instead of admiring my handiwork, my Irish grandmother grumbled that American Thanksgiving was a Protestant holiday. 

I was shocked, and fearful of losing my favorite holiday, I didn't know what she was referring to at the time. I didn't have my history down. However, I am thankful that the holiday has become re-secularized over time as it's my favorite holiday (and sometimes my birthday too)—despite its interim origin and political implications. 

Thanksgiving is merely a Protestant-American spin-off on an ancient harvest celebration—updated to expunge longstanding Catholic (and pagan) traditions centered around the feast of Martinmas, or Old Halloween, cognate with the Irish festival of Samhain/Calan Gaeaf— replete with gift giving. Samhain was not only the New Year, but also a time when the gates to the Otherworld were open. In Wales too, the entrance to the Otherworld (Annwn) was thin. Magic (and the dead) was afoot. 

Martinmas marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter and the "winter revelling season". Traditions include feasting on 'Martinmas goose' or 'Martinmas beef', drinking the first wine of the season, and mumming.

So this year, we celebrated an unThanksgiving of sorts, small bubble gatherings. In our case, it was just me, my cousin and a friend. A far cry from the the days of thundering herds of relatives, friends, and orphans, where dinner was served on doors propped up on sawhorse planks in the yard because there weren’t tables long enough to go the distance. 

Who remembers staging boxing matches with pitted black olive puppets on all of our fingers? And eating the losers? Playing conkers or marbles with loose cranberries, or sword-fighting with the crudités? Pasting deviled eggs on your nose? Stealing food before dinner? Strange gelatin salads and odd casseroles. Smoking dope in the closet with the cousins and fooling no one? That momentous graduation from the kids’s table to the big table.

Harvest festivals were traditionally linked with the September harvest moon or the October(ish) hunter's moon (first full moon in October or November): my Canadian cousin reminded me that Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, which predates our Thanksgiving by 22 years, in October. (But there were multiple Thanksgivings, by nationality—truly a movable feast.) Germany’s Erntedankfest, is celebrated at the end of September or early October, aka Octave of Allhallowtide. Goose was the turkey of choice, as turkeys were introduced from North America.

The Old English name for November was Blōtmōnaþ ('sacrifice month'). One could easily add the Celtic New Year, Samhain into this litany of feasts list (after all, Samhain was the Celtic New Year’s Eve). Christmas and New Year were winter holidays moved to coincide with calendrical reform. 

St. Martin distributed food to the poor on horseback, and gave presents to the children who made turnip, or paper lanterns to guide his way. During the English Reformation, festivities were expunged, the bonfires reignited as Guy Fawkes Night.

(The Julian calendar was recalibrated by Pope Gregory XIII, in October, 1582, The Brits were a couple of centuries behind in implementing the Gregorian Calendar. Britain and its colonies resisted, because it was a Catholic edict, but succumbed to the Gregorian calendar on September 1, 1752. By that point the calendar was off by 11 days—the reboot caused riots.)

The feast of St. Martin, Christianized from the old pagan harvest festivities, was as big as Christmas, besides bonfires, mumming and mayhem, there was so much exorbitant feasting and drinking, that in the 6th c., the Catholic church established a post St. Martin-fast until the Epiphany. 

After gorging ourselves silly on Thanksgiving, we still make those collective vows to our expanding waistlines, to eat less leading up to the Christmas season. And then we begin those vows anew after the New Year. 

Rev. 11/23, (ref. The Atlantic, Wiki and Medievalists.)

Protest Songs, a nod to Behan’s Patriot Game vs Dylan’s With God on Our Side

KQED’s editor, Gabe Meline, a former poetry student of mine, not that he would admit it, asked where are all the new protest songs, he was bemoaning the fact that modern musicians are not writing protest songs in the manner of Dylan.

Last week, after escalating attacks on Iran and the president declaring the United States has "God on our side," I couldn't help but think of the lines by Bob Dylan:

One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side

That song, "With God on Our Side," was written over 50 years ago. So where are the new protest songs? It's a question that's surfaced repeatedly in the past four years. And I keep hearing, especially from our younger readers, that it's the wrong question to be asking — that the aesthetics and process of art are political, too, and more effective than earnest sloganeering.

I had to laugh, as the very word slogan, is from the Irish, a war cry. Irish sluagh-ghairm (sluagh "army host" + gairm "cry"). The word slogan from the Old Irish, slúag, and garim, is hardly new, as it appeared in early medieval Irish texts, where Irish folk hero Cuchulain talked about being on the war road.

Whether or not the term slogan entered the English lexicon in the 16th century via Scottish Gaelic, or Irish, is open for conjecture, as most Irish words in the Oxford English dictionary were subsumed and attributed to Scottish Gaelic as the English made a blood sport of negating or discrediting Irish cultural contributions whenever possible.

The great rip off game, as my grandmother might have called it. In the early 1960s my grandmother waited for her beloved radio program where she’d wrap her arms around the radio to give it better reception. I remember her muttering how Bob Dylan stole the Irish song and didn’t give credit where credit was due.

It’s interesting to read the Washington Post article that laments how our current lame protest music is stuck in the past, because the past is exactly where that Dylan song came from. But on some level all art is political. And as to the aesthetics and artifice of art, there is always a moral debt to the past, whether overt, or implied, as to who or what came before us. Art cannot exist in a vacuum. It is always in direct response to modern politics and pop culture. But maybe the newest generation of protest writers are operating out of a vacuum. So looking back to the past is also the way forward. What came before.

Speaking of moral debt, Dylan’s song With God on Our Side was cribbed and adapted from an Irish protest song, The Patriot Game, on the the Irish nationalist struggle after the death of 16-year-old Fergan O'Hanlon during an IRA attack in 1957. The words were written by Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan Behan, and set to a traditional tune "The Merry Month of May" with nary a nod to Behan or the Irish, for that matter.

Behan, who was unequivocal in the defence of his copyright, publicly accused Bob Dylan of plagiarizing "The Patriot Game" in writing his own "With God on Our Side". —Wiki 

To answer Gabe's question why aren’t the young musicians writing decent protest songs about what’s going on right now in Iran, I’d suggest that they take Dylan‘s song and update the words to fit the present tense. After all, it is all part of the oral tradition to borrow and adapt what came before. Dylan would understand. He’d totally get it, right? Payback would be such a sweet bitch.

Folklore: Pinky Butler, when a load of hay passes you, make a wish, sympathetic magic

Folklore: When you pass a load of moving hay, make a wish.
Genre: superstition, sympathetic magic; plant husbandry: Appalachia, possibly British origins.
Bonus folklore: family history, a moniker, and a diamond ring
Informant: Donna Champion, female, 64
English/Spanish-speaking Guamanian-Chamorro, Guatemalan, Spanish, French/Norman Irish-American
ESL instructor, Sonoma County, CA
Dec. 9, 2018
Collected in Cotati, CA (in a car on Hwy 116)

I collected a new bit of folklore that arrived by way of Guam, of all places. It probably arrived by way of Texas, possibly originally from Kentucky, or even the British Isles, ca. 1910. The saying was a favorite of Donna Champion's grandfather, Chester Carl, aka "CC," or “Pinky” Butler, who passed it onto his Guamanian daughter, Clara Mae Butler.

Donna and I were driving down Highway 116, when an overladen hay truck was approaching us, coming the other way. She said, Quick! Make a wish. So I did. Then she told me the superstition that her mother, Pinky’s daughter, Clara Mae Butler Champion, who was born on Guam, taught her. Donna said, "Whenever we passed a hay truck, my mother would say: when you pass a load of moving hay, make a wish. It didn't have to be a truck." She also said, "You need to keep the wish to yourself."

I got a few bits of folklore for the price of one, from how the Coca-Cola franchise arrived on Guam, to how Pinky got his Guamanian moniker. Chester Carl, aka C.C. (b. In Sunset, TX, ca., 1884), was a redhead of Norman-Irish descent (by way of Illinois, and W. Virginia); his father, James Berry Butler, a newspaper editor from Illinois, took to drink after Chester’s mother, Melissa Belle Payne, a Baptist who hailed from Rockwell Texas, died in childbirth when he was eight years old).

Living with his three brothers at the relatives didn't pan out, and after Chester finished eighth grade, he ran away from his mother’s extended family. When he was 14, he went to seek his fortune out west. He arrived San Francisco, where he was employed to sell fruits vegetables in a pushcart on Nob Hill. His employer took him in and gave him room and board. When Chester was 18 (ca. 1902), he joined the Navy, and served aboard the USS Pensacola. That's how he wound up on Guam.

Chester "Pinky" Butler of the USS Pensacola, showing off his tats

A fair-freckled, blue-eyed redhead, Chester's fair complexion didn’t fare too well on Guam, he was always sunburned—hence the moniker "Pinky." With the help of his greengrocer savings, which he had converted into a diamond ring he kept hidden in his pillow, he used the ring as collateral, and with that, made a family fortune. Pinky was industrious, he brought a Coke franchise, and seltzer water machines to Guam, and sold American made goods to the Pacific islands. That enterprise became a thriving chain of businesses, Butler's Inc. 

That grubstake ring became an engagement ring for the 17-year-old Ignacia Bordallo, who was from the large Kotla Chamorro clan. They were married on the 8th of January, 1915, in Agat, Guam. They had six children. He was taken a prisoner of war Dec. 8, 1941, and held in Kobe, Japan for the duration of the war. His health was broken. He died on Valentine's Day, 1952, in Oakland, CA. Donna's eldest sister, Connie still has that diamond ring.

The first time my friend Donna remembered hearing the saying, When you pass a load of moving hay, make a wish, was in the early 1960s, was when she was a child. Donna learned it from her mother, Clara Mae (Pinky’s daughter), in Sebastopol, CA. 

What makes this bit of folklore interesting to me is that there were no hay trucks or haywains on Guam, and yet the saying survived three generations. Donna's brother Greg, born in 1952, didn't recall the hay saying, but he did add that his maternal great-great-grandfather, from Spain, raised cattle on Guam.

Apparently the second part of the hay-wish formula was that you couldn’t look back at the passing vehicle either, a condition which my friend said she never learned. I found another account online where you had to lick your thumbs, and snap your fingers/slap your thigh, too. (see my notes below.)

Bliss Buys remembers (oral history) Sonoma County Stump

Simone Wilson, Bliss Buys & Joe Leary, 1980. Maureen Hurley photo

I ran into former Sonoma County Stump founder and editor, Bliss Buys after a poetry reading, the Petaluma Poetry Walk. Bliss, Simone Wilson and I had lunch at Dempsey’s and reminisced. I am sorry to say that I did not take any notes, it was a whirlwind visit. A blast from the past. Simone and I booth cut our journalism teeth at the Sonoma County Stump. There was so much more catching up to do, as I hadn’t seen Bliss since the Stump folded in 1981, when I was new to writing. I worked at the Stump from 1979-1980 until it folded.

I had a camera, I happened to live near the Sonoma County Stump office, I wandered in once day to see what I could see, and next thing I knew, I was given the centerfold to create a double-truck spread on Sonoma County poetry, and a deadline—and the rest is history. —The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump

Bliss and I met up in Petaluma the next day as she needed to meet up with her clients, to renew ads for a antiques periodical she had founded in 1989. It was so enthralling to trail after her as she visited a plethora of Petaluma antiques stores. The antiques guide went from a small Sonoma County monthly throwaway tabloid newspaper to an annual West Coast guidebook. Bliss was touching base with her clients.

Bliss wrote this synopsis in a Facebook group, Russian River History and Memories, “Our first office was on River Blvd. in Monte Rio where we got flooded. The last one was over the Mexican restaurant in downtown Forestville. At one point, we were located behind the Rio Theater in Monte Rio. We had an office on Hwy. 116 north of Sebastopol (where the late, beloved Joe Leary came onboard), one in Guernewood Park (where we got flooded again). There were two periods when we couldn't afford an office and worked out of my home, once in Pocket Canyon (where my partner was Patrick Lanzing), once on Trenton Rd. in Forestville. I wish I remember the last name of the designer of the masthead...John something. The theme was borrowed from a painting by Joan Miró depicting a tree stump that has one of its roots firmly gripping the axe that did the job. Probably the most complete collection of The Stump that exists, went to the museum at Sonoma State University. It may even include some of the very first editions, when Jack "The Carpenter" Husband started it and I was the typist. Deadlines were typically all-nighters. We typed the text, cut out the columns and pasted them with melted wax on big galley sheets. Those copies might still be there, in some dusty corner of the SSU storeroom. We had a good run—more than ten years. 

What follows is an ad hoc oral folk history interview with Bliss at her son Jay’s house on Pepper Road, Petaluma, reminiscing about the past. As is with most verbatim conversations, it’s sometimes disjointed, but one of the things I’ve learned about collecting oral folklore from my UC Berkeley professor, Dr. Alan Dundes, is to not try and fix syntax, grammar, or timeline. Nor interrupt.... Akkk!

Divesting myself of things

Someone asks me, do you know where you’re going? No. I’m into the wind, as they say. I will be housesitting in Sebastopol for a month. I’ve still got a lot of stuff to process. It takes a lot of time to properly decommission a small cabinet, or bookshelf, let alone, a room in a house where I’ve lived for more than 20 years. Baby steps. I take it in small chunks, and then fill my car, and then farm it out. When I get it all processed, and sorted out, then I’ll find a storage space and reunite it. Kitchen, hall closet, and living room are nearly done. So many memories. so much anguish and pain. Baby steps. I never want to see Neil again. Remember to breathe, let it pass through. Do not let it stick to you, I tell myself.

I have a Berkeley couch where I can stay,  midweek when I’m teaching..., I’d love to find another...

Children’s librarian was over the moon to get my signed book, Ring A Ring O’ Roses by legendary storyteller, Rockridge librarian, Gay Ducey, I trained with her a long time ago.