Happy Holidays

After a too-short absence, the long underwear season has again crept up on those of us left in northern Michigan. We hardy souls who haven’t escaped the north woods for warmer climes, are now relegated to spending our time in front of our wood stoves except for those brief moments when it is necessary to leave our warm perches to fetch more firewood. Sitting in front of the fire is a good time for me to reflect on my accomplishments of the past year. Unlike the other loafers that I drink coffee with most mornings, I try to use winter’s downtime to accomplish something. Some of my coffee-drinking buddies would argue that they too spend their time wisely, especially if you count solving 500 piece puzzles as a worthwhile accomplishment.

I never liked puzzles. During numerous coffee hours, I have sat silently gritting my teeth while my friends wrestled with the little pieces searching for a fit to complete a picture. It wasn’t until recently that I attempted to complete a puzzle on my own in the privacy of my home office. Almost miraculously, I finished a puzzle on my first try! Not only did I finish, I completed an entire puzzle in a single day of hard work. This, despite the fact that the box said 2 to 3 years.

The puzzle was not my only victory of the year. This year Marjorie and I also learned how to play pickleball. In case you aren’t familiar with this relatively new game, pickleball is a racquet sport played on a court that is smaller than a tennis court – about the size of a badminton court, I’m told. Pickleball is a game like tennis, only easier and with smaller racquets and less running. I call it tennis for old folks. The game was named after a dog – an animal named Pickles. Not only did I learn the game, I also learned about sore hamstrings, tired abdominals, and sore shoulders while Marjorie is learning about sore knees. We have played pickleball often enough this year to understand that flexibility, stamina and strength are fond recollections from a misspent youth.

We had an enjoyable year of travel this past year with a 10-day wintertime venture to Florida and frequent camping trips during the warm weather months. Our last camping trip was around Lake Superior in late September. The scenery was outstanding and we were buoyed by the wonderful support of all the Canadians we met who universally offered their assurances that they would not build a wall to keep us out of their country no matter how foolish our politicians become. It seemed a kind sentiment

Marjorie and I want to wish you a happy holiday season; hoping that you will secure pleasure not only from the joys of Christmas, but also from the excitement of the changing season. We think winter is a time of beauty: snow blankets everything in the north woods and icicles grow to impossible lengths while nature takes a needed break to rejuvenate for springtime. We hope to follow suit by relaxing during the holidays and striving for inner peace that is both a prerequisite and result of a happy holiday.

Here’s to you and yours during this happy time. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

Thinking Younger

 

I just had a birthday, last week to be exact, and this year my birthday coincided with election day. I was unhappily forced to share my day in the sun with the presidential candidates and a whole raft of other politicians who wanted to shoulder their way to the public trough. As my birthday waned, the election returns filtered in over the long night and I found myself thinking about my mental age versus my actual physical age. That line of thought provoked an inevitable comparison of my age and psyche with that of our new president-elect Donald Trump. My mental age, I concluded, is somewhat older than our new president-elect even though our physical ages are comparable with me being just a tad older. It seemed to me that during the campaign Trump acted like a thirteen-year old whereas I assessed my maturity somewhat higher -perhaps about the age where young men just begin to think about consequences of irrational behavior. What I mean is, sometimes I act like a kid, but not all the time. And I like it.

The election seemed to show that childish behavior isn’t all bad. Since outrageousness paid off so richly for Donald Trump, I decided that from now on, I am going to cultivate being young again. I decided to begin by counting down instead of up on each of my birthdays. And not just by a year or two, I am thinking to reduce my age by five or ten years at a clip. Soon, I’ll be wearing short pants again.

I have already started practicing on getting younger. This week I got a brand-new bike – a real humdinger that will allow me to roam the neighborhood with abandon. As if to add an exclamation point to my enthusiasm for youth, yesterday, I installed a fancy new toolkit on the bike’s saddle that looks really rad. And today, I attached a carry-all bag over the rear tire where I can keep a cold one, new sunglasses and whatever else I need to look cool while I pedal to the soda shop…er, make that the bakery since we don’t have a soda shop. I may put my new high-top tennis shoes in the bag also just in case I need them to complete my young man attire. If you think that is too much, you should know that I do have certain standards; OMG no comb-overs nor orange face paint since I earned my wrinkles and hair loss honestly.

Do you think streamers on the handlebar grips of new bike is too much? LOL.

 

Signed:

Your Ever-Young Friend Who Thinks Silliness is a Virtue

New Eyes

 

 

Early this year my optometrist told me that he could no longer improve my vision by new spectacles since I had cataracts. He said my cataracts were bad enough that I qualified for cataract surgery and that I should think about having it done if I wanted to see better. It was an easy call; I wanted to see better. With an abundance of caution, I decided to discuss the surgery option with friends before blindly jumping into it.

“Nothing to it,” and “No big deal,” seemed to be the most common response from those I talked with who had experienced cataract surgery, some 70% of us at my age. I got the sense that having cataract surgery was a simple matter, something I could have done in an afternoon perhaps, maybe with a recovery period of an hour or so before enjoying new eyes with sparkling new vision. My brother said it was like a night and day experience when the surgery was completed. I confidently made an appointment for my surgery. I chose a leading eye care firm in Traverse City that featured two surgeons and a large staff that occupied offices full of high technology equipment.

It turns out my friends were wrong – the surgery for replacing my old cloudy lens WAS a big deal requiring deliberation and patience. At my first appointment, I had to make a decision; did I want the surgery performed by the white-haired physician who did everything by hand, or did I want the hot-shot young sawbones who seemed to have just gotten out of medical school, the one who used the latest laser assisted surgical tool “for improved comfort and precision,” the advertising pamphlet said. Of course, his surgery came with a premium cost whereas the old codger apparently plugged along with his scalpels and scraped by with whatever stipends Medicare saw fit to provide him. I was leaning toward favoring the old scalpel-wielding medic since he was nearer my age. The decision was finally sealed for me when I learned the old codger didn’t use the latest lens that would correct both my close-up and longer distant vison.

“Of course, that is the premium cost package requiring the use of high technology that only Doctor Youngblood can provide,” the head nurse told me. I got out my checkbook. I would be at the mercy of a clinician who had just learned to shave but was apparently authorized to point a high-powered laser at my eyeball and then turn it on. The nurse went on to tell me the schedule for my surgery. The first surgery could be scheduled as soon as my check cleared their bank account and my physician gave me a thorough physical exam offering his view of my chances for survival of the eye surgery. Then I would take eye drops for two days before the first surgery could occur. The following day I would return for a check-up, and then another a week later, and then another after two more weeks. Assuming each of these check-ups showed that my eye health was positive, she said she would schedule the 2^nd surgery for my other eye, after my second personal check cleared their bank, of course. So much for the one afternoon theory of cataract surgery.

My first appointment was four hours long, about the same amount of time Donald Trump used to plan his year-long campaign. Both my eyes were examined in sufficient detail to plan the surgery. The nurses dosed my eyes with eye drops and then made me look through a variety of eyepieces to see glowing lights, radiating circles, little roads with dots at the end of them and other images that somehow were translated into measurements of my eyeballs. According to one of the nurses, these measurements would be used to manufacture tiny lens custom-built for my eyes. At the end of my first appointment, the nurse gave me a schedule that I was to follow before and after my eye surgery. The schedule was for using eye drops: one an antibiotic and the other a steroid. I tried to tell the lady I am not good with eye drops. They shock of putting cold medicine directly on my eyeball has always been my idea of not having a real good time, especially since the schedule required dosing each eye some 360 times over the course of the 4 week schedule. The head nurse ignored my comment about eye drops and gave the eye drop prescription and schedule to wife Marjorie, she who has little sympathy for my squimishness.

A week later the first lens was ready for Doctor Skillful to install in my left eye, the one with the best vision. The surgery was uneventful, although I must report that I had some misgivings when the Doctor’s anesthetist strapped down my arms before rolling me into the surgical room. She told me not to worry; she would be right beside me during surgery, ready with more drugs if I needed them. If she intended to reassure me she had the opposite affect – all I could imagine was this woman lying beside me during surgery, giggling at my distress courtesy of the drugs she was sharing.

After the surgical team finished strapping me in place, Doctor Happyface began his business of slicing my eyeball with the powerful laser and then forcing a new lens into my mutilated eyeball. He began by installing a device like a spider web over my surgical eye to keep it from writhing about in its socket and prevent my eyelid from closing. It could not have been a pleasant sensation but the anesthetist and I didn’t mind. After that, everything went dark when doctor draped a covering over my other eye and began humming a tune that I vaguely recalled as ‘happy days are here again.’

 

Everything was blurry when the surgical team insisted I leave their surgical room for the next victim. I left with an eye patch over my left eye, and a blurry 20/40 view from my right eye without my glasses. After my surgery, I arranged to have the left lens from my spectacles removed to allow its use with the eye patch. I put on my now mutilated spectacles – my left eye with an eye patch that made everything blurry and my right eye peering thru spectacles with only a single lens.  Strangely, the right lens seemed no longer effective in helping correct the vision in my right eye; everything was blurry. It seemed as though my left eye with its new lens was now interfering with the vision in my right eye. Who knew your eyes could talk to each other?

The surgical center told me I could resume my normal schedule. They didn’t tell me my eye would be sore, that I would have diminished depth perception, that sleeping with a hard plastic eye patch taped over a sore eye was a pain in the … you know.

Over the next several days the surgical eye got better, but not perfect. I was allowed to remove the eye patch and I tried using my spectacles again but they didn’t return my vision to its former clarity. Oddly enough, my right eye became better at seeing things close up than before surgery but my left eye was too sore to notice so that things like reading or seeing a pickle ball was still difficult.

It has been three weeks and 300 eye drops since the surgery on my left eye. I can hardly wait for the surgery on my right eye that will restore my balance and depth perception, prevent the night time glare and allow me to read my computer. The final surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. I look forward to enjoying the full benefit of improved vision with the realization that having cataract surgery IS a big deal whose benefits will surely be worth the travails of surgery.

PS -I just learned that my surgery for tomorrow has been cancelled. The nurse said their  laser is on the Fritz and can I please come next week for my surgery.

I’ll talk to you later.

Bill

 

Columbus Day 2016

Columbus Day

 

Today, October 12, 2016 is Columbus Day – a national holiday that began in New York City in 1792 as a means to honor the Italian population of our young nation in the city of New York. No doubt the decision to honor Columbus via a national holiday was aided by the poem that we all learned in grade school: ‘In 14 hundred 92 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.’

The rest of the poem goes like this,

               In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,

               He had three ships and sailed from Spain,

               He sailed through sunshine wind and rain.

               He sailed by night, he sailed by day;

               He used the stars to find his way …”

 

The poem generally lauds Columbus and his sailors for their courage, nautical skills, and newfound knowledge that the earth was round, not flat. Surely, the poem seems to say, the great sailor Columbus is deserving of a hero’s acclamation. None of us who were born before 1950 had any reason to doubt the veracity of the poem and/or the wisdom of a national holiday honoring the great sailor that began in 1937. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Congress ordered the holiday, bowing to lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, who wanted a Catholic hero to be honored.

 

Now, there is a movement afoot to change Columbus Day. Some radicals wish to abandon this national holiday and replace it with a day honoring native Americans. What? Shall we lose another of our sacred heroes and send him to the scrap heap? Is this another instance of a cultural change which provokes professional football players to sit during the national anthem? It must surely be a liberal plot to … (you supply the reason).

 

Before we get upset about the loss of another beloved national symbol, a review of the facts is in order. First of all, historians tell us that Columbus never set foot in North America. His four voyages to the New World in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502 landed him in the Bahamas, Central and South America, not North America. Nevertheless, Columbus was first in what began as a whirlwind of European visits to the New World. (Indians would call them invasions, not visits.) Certainly Columbus’ trips were historic -indeed, his trips provoked in a change human history, ushering in what is known as the Columbian Exchange — the historic exchange of plants, animals, disease, culture, technology and people between the Old and New Worlds. The Old World, for example, got gold, chocolate, tobacco, corn and other plants while the New World got wheat, bubonic plague, chickenpox, cholera, malaria, measles, smallpox, typhoid, and other diseases, all of which decimated the populations of native Americans.

 

For his part, Columbus profited mightily from his voyages. He returned with gold for the King of Spain that he stole from the indigenous people in the New World. He obtained the gold by force, killing and maiming natives and forcing them to bring the gold to his fleet. After they complied, he put them in chains and threw them in the holds of his ships to sell them as slaves upon his return to Spain. This turned out to be only partially successful – many of the natives died during the long voyage since Columbus was stingy with food and water. He threw those who died overboard plus any other living Indians that didn’t meet with his approval. Each of his four voyages was marked by increasingly savage treatment of natives that he incorrectly labeled as Indians since he thought he had sailed to India, not the New World.

               Even by the standards of the time, Columbus’ behavior was abhorrent, and by today’s measures both criminal and cruel in extreme. His notoriety for being the first to the New World is now known to be wrong – he was preceded by at least 500 years by Vikings who visited North America first. Sadly, Columbus voyage marked the beginning of a series of European invasions by armed warriors who laid waste to indigenous peoples wherever they met them. It is time that we end the charade of honoring a sadistic leader who brought so much misery to so many.

              

Gardening 'R Me

Gardening ‘R  Me

 

 

You may know that I fancy myself a gardener, i.e., one of those hobbyists who digs holes in his lawn and puts money in them. Or at least it seems that way, especially if you count the holes around my house that should have something beneficial growing in them, but don’t. Since August is here and most of the growing season is behind us, it is the time of year when we gardeners brag about the number and size of our tomatoes, or other growing successes, so here is my report. Before I get into the details, I need to give some explanatory information about gardening in the North Woods, in other words, I’ll now give excuses for my little tomatoes that are few in number.

First of all, you should know that there are three types of soils: good soil for growing things, bad soil for growing things, and horrible soil for just about anything. My soil is in the third category. It is most like beach sand – terrible for growing anything, but the only soil I have. I have better soil at the Memorial Garden I manage at our Methodist church. It is gravel, the kind that contractors have left over from building projects, but it is what I have to deal with at the church. It is better than beach sand, but not by much. The good thing about the church garden is that the grassy area surrounding my garden includes a sprinkler system that waters most of my garden, the Lord be praised.

The new thing I added to the church garden last fall is an extension to the original garden for burying cremains. This portion of the garden is at the farthest end of the garden, accessible by an extension of the paved walk with the circular sunrise pattern in the center. The burial area is separated from the other area of the garden by the generous supply of black mulch. The mulch surrounds two crabapple trees, two hydrangeas, and an assortment of large rocks that I artfully placed in the mulched area. The sidewalk is graced by four urns. I plan to keep track of who is buried where by putting the ashes in the gravel under the rocks. As long as no one steals the rocks, I’ll know where everyone is interred.

The church garden seems to be doing OK this year. I have lots of flowers that are putting on a nice show, including two tomato plants that I stuck in two of the urns that feature wave petunias. So far, I haven’t buried anyone, their cremains, that is. I am hoping that soon someone will pass on and bequeath a generous donation for the church garden allowing me to dig a hole and push the deceased into eternity.

My gardens at home are another matter. We have suffered a prolonged drought this summer and it shows. I have spent lots of time in watering the plants, but each time I leave for a few days the gardens suffer. Another significant problem this year is the lack of a bobcat or fox who will help control my rabbit, chipmunk, and squirrel population. These critters have been especially hungry this year, both with my vegetables and now my flowers. I would also like to announce that marigolds don’t discourage critters from entering gardens – I know this since many of them have themselves been eaten. Until this year, I also didn’t know that squirrels liked acai berries until I watched them eat mine.

So those are the high points of my gardening report for this year. But just as hope springs eternal, I planted several new native plants this year in the expectation that they will be easier to grow if I can get them through this year’s drought. I’ll let you know next year.

Ready, Go! (Never Mush)

Who says us septuagenarians are too old to learn? It is amazing what we grandparents can take in as result of grandkids. Today, I took my two granddaughters (ages 11 and 9) to the library for a presentation by an honest-to-God musher and learned enough to be dangerous. If your reading habits allow a walk on the slippery path of odd facts, read on to learn another set of reasons that those folks who live in the colder climes are sometimes considered to have flickering pilot lights.

First of all, for you low-landers, a musher is one who drives a dogsled through the wilderness along snow and ice covered trails; just for fun, nowadays, but an essential mode of transportation before roads and airplanes became the passing fancy that they now are. The speaker at out library today is indeed a musher. She and her husband live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where the snow is deep. They have  Alaskan Huskies for pulling sleds – 150 of the four legged critters to be exact, that they use for their dogsledding business and their yearly entry in the Iditarod race.

 

Here is Roo, an 11-year-old Alaskan Husky who happens to be one of her favorites who led her team of Huskies during her last Iditarod race. She explained that the 45-pound female Roo is a little smaller than her typical male Huskies at 60 pounds who pull in a team of 16 dogs during the Iditarod, a race over 1,000 miles and several days long where the dogs and the musher spend each night on the trail, regardless of the weather. She explained how the musher feeds and cares for the dogs during the race with one of the important tasks being to inspect their paws and replace their booties that last no more than 100 miles, requiring her to carry dozens of replacement booties during the race.

 

The lead dogs are the most important; they set the pace, listen for direction from the musher, and keep the other dogs in motion. The musher’s motto and main job is NEVER LET GO of the sled. The dog team likes to run and absent an immediate command to the lead dog, the team will run away, perhaps become lost, and the musher will have a long and perhaps dangerous walk as she looks for her runaway team. Racing through the mountains is particularly hazardous especially if the trail has ruts or a protruding rocks or trees that can upset the sled. Our speaker showed one picture of herself being dragged down a mountain trail as she held on with one hand to an overturned sled and a runaway team.

The lead dogs must distinguish the musher’s voice amid the cacophony of barking dogs. The beginning of a race is somewhat dangerous for the musher since the dogs are excited for the start and anxious to run. The musher must have a firm grip on the sled when she shouts, “Readeeey, Go!”, because the sled is going to jump forward with the force of 16 dogs pulling with all their might. After that, only four other commands are needed during a race: Gee, Haw, Eeeasy, and Whoa!

The dogs are the athletes of a dog world. They develop stamina through practice and their double layer of fur helps keep them warm and allows sleep even when covered with snow and only a thin layer of straw for a bed. The musher told us that if she had brought straw to the library, Roo would have made his bed and went to sleep since he has heard her presentation several times.

The lady musher explained that her kennel of dogs varies in number between 120 to 180 dogs as new pups are constantly in the offing. She said that the hard-working dogs push their bodies to extremes like female human athletes and, like humans, have consequent low birth rates. She sells excess dogs and retires older ones, making Roo one of the few older animals still working even though she spends less time on the trail and now only for shorter runs. The musher explained that her business includes offering trail rides to tourists on a year-round basis and she has four handlers who see that each of her dogs is examined and exercised daily. The musher personally clips dog nails, sometimes a thousand in a single day. And I thought doing my toenails was hard.

It turns out that mushers do a lot of stuff with big dogs that us ordinary folks would think unusual. My granddaughters now know all about that, probably more than me and that’s why they can answer more Jeopardy questions. I plan to spend more time in the library.

Want more about mushers? Here is address of the Michigan musher who spoke at our library: www.natureskennel.com 

A Fish Tale

 

Where I live, fishing has been an important part of our legacy. From Michigan’s earliest days, catching fish has been important for both tourists and locals. One fish in particular was important to northern Michigan: As early as the 1870’s, well-to-do anglers who could afford the time and money for travel came to northern Michigan searching for a trophy fish, a gray-blue beauty with a large dorsal fin like a sail. This trout captured the attention of moneyed fishermen from New York in part because of its scarcity – only a few remote streams in the uninhabited north woods of Michigan furnished the right combination of clear, cold water and gravel stream beds which allowed the rare fish to thrive. Two of the streams were the Au Sable and the Manistee Rivers, those that bisected northern Michigan just north of Roscommon County. It took a special breed of fisherman to travel to this trackless wilderness, hire a guide and outfitter for a strenuous upriver trip to reach the approximate center of the state where large populations of the sought-after trout thrived.

The effort needed to reach the fishing grounds eased somewhat after 1872 when an infant railroad line was laid out that came within spitting distance of the two rivers where the fish lived. A tiny village developed at the railroad station located between the two rivers and the settlers there recognized the potential to earn a living from wealthy fishermen who came to the outpost area. At the time, no one in the village knew the name of the fish. The leading men of the tiny settlement known as Forest met to discuss the matter. They decided the popular fish needed a name and a dead fish was promptly produced then sent to Washington, D. C. for identification by an expert at the Smithsonian Institute. The answer came back; the fish was an Artic Grayling, unknown anywhere in the lower 48 states except for the northern Michigan rivers and later, a few rivers in Montana. The settlers in Forest decided to take quick action; they changed the name of their town from Forest to Grayling and began to advertise their skills in guiding and outfitting fishermen, the wealthier the better, you understand.

The happy convergence of wealth and need visited the village for several years. Everyone was pleased, except for the fish, of course. As the reputation of the village and the rivers grew, aided by stories published in national outdoor magazines published in New York, pressure on the fish populations increased year by year. Local fisherman didn’t help. In the manner of the greedy, locals over-fished the waters; some reports tell of those who filled their wagons with 300 pounds of fish, many breeding females full of eggs. The overharvesting wasn’t the worst part; another insidious pressure was slowly building from both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron coasts where the rivers emptied their clean, cold water that was shaded by the millions of pine and cedar trees that studded the banks of both rivers.

The growing threat from either coast was the slow progress of lumbermen who were systematically denuding the forests along the rivers by their harvest of the mighty white pine and any other trees that happened to be in the way. The rivers provided the means of transport. The fisherman, even if they had understood the impact of lumbering on the fish populations, had little influence on the juggernaut of the lumbering business given its overwhelming economic clout. The log drives scoured the river bottoms and wreaked havoc on the fish habitat. The fisherman found fewer and fewer Grayling trout for their creels. Even the mecca of Grayling, Michigan offered little chance for the fisherman to catch the storied Grayling trout near the end of the lumbering era. The fishing bonanza came to an end when fishermen began reporting of having seen not a single fish, although more than one bragged that he had caught the last Graying in Michigan.

By the 1930’s, Michigan had a fledgling State Fish and Game Department that was concerned about the loss of the Grayling. In an attempt to rescue the species, officials from the Department went to great lengths to live-capture a few of the last fish and nurture them to success. They may have killed the last of the native fish; their resuscitation of the species was unsuccessful and no Grayling were ever found again in the native streams.

Since that failure, various efforts in re-introducing the Grayling to Michigan waters have been undertaken. The last serious effort by Michigan’s DNR was undertaken 30 years ago and although it also failed, they reported having learned more about the fish and its need for clean water. Investigations in Montana also provided clues about the Grayling and its habitat. Last week, the Grayling Avalanche reported that Michigan’s Dept. of Natural Resources announced their plan for a new attempt of introducing a brood of Grayling trout to the Manistee River.

 This latest attempt of re-introduction of the Grayling may work; the effort will be a joint project by the DNR in partnership with an Indian band, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. I suspect the Indians will supply not only money for the project, but also a reverence for the fish and their streams and a dedication to the project. After all, these Indians were those who fished Michigan for a thousand years without damaging the streams or using up the supply of the Grayling fish. Maybe we can learn something from them.

     

 

 

 

 

Prologue - Bill's New Book

Discovering Michigan: the first hundred years

 

 

Prologue – 1628

Samuel de Champlain at his habitant in Quebec

 

 

Samuel leaned his head back against the cushioned chair that he had brought to the New World all the way from his home in Paris. The chair was a foiled attempt to convince his young wife that the home he created in Quebec could be made as comfortable as their home in Paris. Since she was now living in Paris, it obviously didn’t work, he reminded himself.

Samuel was tired. He had spent the day arguing with, first, a delegation of Indians who wanted gifts of food to ‘make their squaws more comfortable,’ and second, the two traders who had come to him demanding a license to trade with the Iroquois. He had been sympathetic to the Indians, but not the traders. He probably should have given the traders the license they sought – the Iroquois would have killed them and stolen their goods before the season was over, thus ending that problem. The situation with the Indians was more complicated; the tiny settlement of Quebec had no excess food to give the Indians, but he couldn’t expose the weakened condition of his colony for fear of an Indian attack. It was an impossible situation.

He grimaced as his head fell back on the cushion; he had nearly fallen asleep. “Merde,” he whispered to himself, being careful in case someone was listening. He decided to take a short walk to rouse his tired body. He liked walking around the promenade that nearly circled the second story of the building that served as his home, office and central government building for New France. Many of the boards had come from France, but there weren’t enough; some boards had to be sawn from logs by Quebec settlers doing the terribly hard job of standing in a pit pulling the saw down while another pulled upwards from above. It was the kind of work that was a sample of the hard life a Quebec settler faced.

Samuel ambled around the walk carefully studying the rosebushes in the garden below. He had planted the bushes himself when the home was first built. Buoyed by the walk and the sight of his flowers, Samuel decided to return to his rooms to work on the plan that he had begun. It was an important task; he was planning his next trip home to Paris and he needed to meet with the King and the investors in the fur trade business. Meeting with the King was the most difficult since Samuel was not a member of French nobility and the King rarely saw anyone beyond his closest advisors who were all members of the French aristocracy. Yet it was important that Samuel report to the King to assure his continued support of New France. He had given the King previous reports concerning exploration of New France, especially the upstream lands to the west. Those reports seemed to interest the King, probably because he dreamed of a vast new territory for France. Samuel had reported to the King privately first and then published similar reports. The publications provided a source of income for Samuel that was important to his well-being since the King never found a reason to elevate Samuel to the ranks of the nobility and its corresponding financial rewards.

Samuel searched the pile of papers on his worktable. “Where is Brule’s last report?” he called aloud to his French servant, now listed as his housekeeper, but in fact served as his personal assistant. Not hearing any response, Samuel attacked the pile once again. There, he found it. It was notes taken from his last meeting with Brule, the young French lad he had commissioned to explore the western reaches of the St. Lawrence River. He studied the notes for several minutes, then threw the paper back to the table.

“There is nothing here I can use, nothing I haven’t already reported,” Samuel said aloud to the empty room. He stood up and paced the floor, searching for an idea. He paced a long time that night and then went to bed. Samuel slept fitfully, going over the results from previous treks to the west, his own and those of his emissaries.

He remembered his first emissary: he had sent the young lad Etienne Brule to live with a nearby group of Indians. After Brule began providing valuable reports, he did the same with another young Frenchman, Jean Nicolet. Furthermore, at the direction of the King himself, Champlain sent another young Frenchman, Nicolas Marsolet, to live with and learn the language and customs of the Montagnais Indians near the port village of Tadoussac. Champlain remembered Marsolet with distaste. He could never get along with him, perhaps because Marsolet was somehow able to communicate with the King himself, as Champlain had learned.

Samuel smiled as he thought about Etienne Brule -- the impetuous, passionate outdoorsman who had become more Indian than French: He who could command Indians to do his bidding, he who was as fond of Indian women as he was of any Frenchwoman.

Brule’s sexual liaisons with Indian maidens was something that Champlain understood and accepted even though it was anathema to him. Samuel had been faithful to his wife and had remained so even during their lengthy absences and despite the Indian custom of offering young women to Frenchmen. Samuel finally slipped off to sleep remembering Brule as an 18 year-old at Quebec, a naïve young man, illiterate, completely devoid of any knowledge pertaining to the natives, yet volunteering to live among ‘les sauvages.’ He had always liked the young man, and his reports had been especially helpful.

The following day brought no relief from the burdens of his office for Samuel. Managing the fur trade was the most important of Samuel’s duties. He was reminded of that at each trip to France when he had to face the investors who profited handsomely by the fur he sent to various ports in France. The problems Samuel faced daily were twofold: serving the needs of French colonists, those settlers who had immigrated to New France at the urging of the King, and preventing the coureurs de bois, those illegal fur traders, from wresting all the profits of the trade away from Samuel’s investors. It was a burdensome undertaking. Only Samuel’s love for the country, the wild rivers and dark forests of New France, kept him at his post.

Unknown to Samuel, his job was about to become worse, much worse. Samuel had the first hint of his new problem from an Indian. The man was paddling up the St. Lawrence River furiously, he beached his canoe and hurried to the home to report seeing strange ships on the river. He was unable to report anything further; only that the ships were strange, unlike anything he had seen which would have been only French merchant vessels. The mystery was solved two days later when a small boat appeared at Quebec and a message was sent from the Captain of the boat to, “Monsieur de Champlain, Commandant a’ Quebec.” The message was a suggestion that the French outpost ought to surrender, that the English General Kirke had 18 armed ships, had blockaded the St. Lawrence so that Quebec was completely cut off, and a second time, that Quebec had better surrender. The note was signed, “Your affectionate servant, David Kirke.”

Champlain decided to try bluffing. He replied to the surrender document that his outpost was in no need of succor, that he had plenty of gunpowder, that it was his duty to God and country to fight to the death. The ruse worked. The ship pushed off his dock and turned downriver to Tadoussac. Most of the things Samuel said in his reply were untrue. In fact, the settlement was nearly out of food and there was only a piddling amount of gunpowder.  The biggest surprise to Champlain was learning that France and England had declared war on each other.

A long, harsh winter followed. Samuel used all his talents to manage the supply of food and distribute it equitably. Hunters were sent out daily to kill game, but the hunters were so hungry they often consumed most of their kill on the spot before returning to the settlement. The precarious position of the settlement was further endangered in July when another English vessel appeared at the harbor in front of the home demanding surrender. Champlain and his advisers, the clerics stationed at Quebec, all agreed they had no choice but to capitulate to the English Captain who had posted a white flag atop his vessel. Champlain also flew a white flag, replacing the fleur-de-lis. Samuel walked to the promenade and watched the English ship carefully as men left the ship and climbed on his dock. He nearly fell to his knees as he saw something he had never expected to see in his lifetime. There, on the dock in front of him, among several men who left the English ship was one who was pointing out the home and the adjoining buildings to the English ship’s Captain. That man was Etienne Brule.

The IRS and me

I hope you noticed that we just passed tax day (April 18) and you are OK with that. I’m not accusing you of forgetting to pay your taxes, but hey, sh&! happens. I am OK too, although I must tell you that this year my tax activities were more interesting than most.

It began with the new tax software I used. It was called tax free something or other, and it claimed to provide all the forms, instructions, assistance, and ever thing a fellar like me would need to do my 2015 taxes. And the best part was, it was all free. Or so said the ad. In fact, it was free, until I came to the very end when the software said they needed $15.95 to send my return to the State of Michigan. So I did. I didn’t mind the fee too much, but I didn’t like being taken for a fool about the “its all free” business.

Anyway, the software worked pretty well, and I was glad to get the whole business finished. Since the program said I owed the IRS $248, I decided to make my payment the easy way by letting the IRS take the money right from my bank account. It was a simple matter of doing what the program said to do with my bank account number, a routing number, and an authorization. Slick. Within a day or two after I finished and clicked ‘send’, I got an e-mail from the software company saying that the IRS had accepted my tax return.

“What an effective process for paying my tax,” I thought.

How naïve I was to think that anything with the government would be that simple. The first hint of trouble came three weeks later. It was a letter from the IRS, a form letter with boxes in it that some IRS agent had marked with blue ink. The marked boxes indicated there was trouble - the IRS said, in their form of gobbledegook, that they had some problem with my bank and they couldn’t get the money they were owed. I had better fix it right away, the next marked box said, “to avoid further interest charges or penalties.”

Further charges? Did they mean they had already assessed a penalty? I began to sweat as I read the letter. It went on to indicate that I could send them a personal check to meet my obligations. I decided to send a check post haste. Which I did. It didn’t work either.

Two weeks after mailing my personal check to the IRS for the $248, I got another letter from the IRS. It was another form letter with more boxes checked and additional obscure information. The gist of it seemed to be that they had cashed the check, but had later given a credit to the bank. It seemed like they didn’t want my money. So I went to the bank.

“Yes,” they said, the check had cleared, no the IRS didn’t send any money back. The teller smiled as she reported all this. I wondered if she had dealt with the IRS before.

Something smelled fishy to me. The only solution was to speak with an IRS person to get to the bottom of this problem of them not accepting my money. The second letter from the IRS had a telephone number for questions. I dialed.

“Thank you for calling the IRS. We are experiencing a high call volume so there will be a waiting period, but your call is important to us... yada, yada, yada.”

I listened carefully. The recorded voice went on to ask questions that I was to answer via the telephone keyboard. I pushed a couple of number buttons and the voice seemed to like my choice. It stopped asking questions and announced what seemed to be a verdict.

“We estimate your waiting time before an analyst is available is 30 minutes,” the voice announced without any hint of regret.

I waited and then waited some more. They were surprisingly accurate--almost to the minute the recorded music stopped and I heard a new sound. I was connected!

But only for a moment. Then the line went dead. It was as if someone picked up the phone and then ended the connection. After my 1/2 hour wait, my breath escaped like a balloon losing air. I may have said sh&!, I don’t know. I decided to redial. I went through the yada business and the questions that I now could answer more quickly and began the second wait period of another 30 minutes. This time I drank beer while I waited - just to settle my nerves, you understand. Finally, a pleasant voice answered and asked about my problem. I explained about the IRS letters and threat of penalties and she began to say that wasn’t her area of expertise and that I must have not answered the questions properly.

I admit I interrupted her. I explained that I wanted to pay, but I needed the IRS to accept my money and could she help? It must have been the urgency in my voice, she said she could transfer me to another agent who handled these types of questions.

I waited while the telephone began making noises indicating that something was happening. What happened next was the worst thing I could have imagined. It was another recorded voice.

“Thank you for calling the IRS. We are experiencing a high call volume so there will be a waiting period, but your call is important to us... yada, yada, yada.”

It was another 30 minute wait. I may have said sh&! again. As I could have predicted, the third time took just as long as the first two. After the third 30 minutes, a kindly woman’s voice answered. I patiently explained my problem to her. She sounded sympathetic.

“Let me see what the system says.” After a pause she continued. “Ah, here you are. It says you are paid in full.”

My voice must have been weak from the last 2 hours of waiting on the phone. “Paid in full?” I said.

“Yup, paid in full.”

“No penalties?” I said.

“Nope, paid in full.”

 

I didn’t know whether to be happy or angry. After I thanked the IRS lady and hung up the phone, I decided to be happy. After all, my taxes were finished for the year and the experience was just one more brick on the wall.

 

  

Microsoft, HP and Me

You probably don’t know me as a computer geek. That’s because I’m not. Oh sure, I can write a blog or two and I have a few books to my credit, all prepared by me on my laptop. And I do the usual e-mails, surf the web, prepare my taxes, play bridge, (by the way, the machine happens to be female) and keep files on her where I can find them. Make that, occasionally find them.

The secret to my success is that I ‘ve been doing these things on the same laptop for several years. I had something of a love -hate relationship with her since we spent so much time together. It was a surprise when she recently fell out of love with me. The reason for our split-up was that her battery gave out. It began slowly enough when she stopped providing service for more than a few minutes, before she sent me a note asking for power. I ignored her message for several weeks, make that a few months, before she finally became adamant and sent Hewlett Packard after me. It was a wake-up call when HP sent a message saying I should contact them because the battery was worn out.

I thought it was no big deal. I’d go down to the hardware store, lay out a couple bucks for a battery and bingo, we’d be back in love. Little did I know. I soon learned that HP cleverly used a battery in my computer that is not available from anyone else, and the price for a new one from them, is roughly equivalent to the price for a used car. Now I know why I never liked that Fiorina lady during the Republican debates.

I should also tell you that for the past year or more, my trusty computer had been sending me messages about Windows 10. The messages were from Microsoft and they said the world would probably end if I didn’t soon change from my old Windows 7 to Windows 10. Besides, they said, it was FREE.

Armed with these facts, I decided to go shopping at my favorite discount store where I purchased a new laptop that I hoped would be similar to my old one. I can’t tell you much about it except to say it is a humdinger, loaded with good stuff, according to HP. AND IT HAS WINDOWS 10, the sticker almost shouted at me. And, I almost forgot, a touch screen.

I have had the machine for a few weeks and now I understand why Microsoft has been pushing Windows 10 so vigorously. It’s because they think they can sell you MORE STUFF. Windows 10 was developed by 13 year-olds who don’t like older people. They put all this neat, new stuff on it that is for sale. Each thing looks enticing, each thing requires a monthly subscription to join, or buy. The free stuff that I used routinely on my old machine is now hidden, often somewhere behind all the for sale stuff. I tried to find things by using the touch screen and that was a mistake-- the computer acted like I had touched her inappropriately, changing the entire desktop. I swear I haven’t touched her screen since she slapped me.

Nothing on the new machine seems to work the same as the old machine. Each task requires a leaning session followed by a period of trial and error. To add further insult, I quickly learned that the new machine was loaded with a temporary Windows Office package and wouldn’t I like to subscribe to the new Windows Office before my free trial version expires in 30 days? I can’t even write a blog with the new machine? Oh, how I pined for my old girl, she with the failing battery. Even now, I can see her sitting unattended in my basement office, probably waiting for me to turn her on and caress her keys with the faded letters.

But, here I am, writing my first blog on the machine with Windows 10 idling in the background, probably lying in wait to foul things up because I haven’t purchased anything since the new Windows Office that I sprung for at three times the cost of the old one. I have little expectation that you will ever see this because I probably will be unable to save it, find it, post it, and share it. I hope you have a nice day. I’ll be here wrestling with my new laptop.

Icy Road

Whizzzzz. Bzzzzzzzz.

Those are the sounds of spinning car tires on the road in front of our house. I don’t hear it too often because there are few people foolish enough to travel down our ice-covered road, and those half dozen who do, generally amble along at the extraordinary speed of five or six miles per hour. Here is a picture of the road this morning. It was more slippery than usual because of the thin layer of water on top of the ice, courtesy of the warming temperatures.

 

I saw the condition of the road first-hand during my morning walk. I thought my daily hike would be safe since the County Road Commission had sent a truck down the road the evening before, spraying a path of sand on the road surface. Apparently, we have a shortage of sand despite our nickname of “Land of Sand.” The Road Commission truck driver had distributed a thin layer of sand down the center of the road only in quantities too small to be effective. It was treacherous footing even with the added precaution I had taken of installing the wires on my boots before setting out. I was unaware of the ‘ol water-on-ice’ trick that Mother Nature had played on me overnight. I tried walking along the side of the road but the snow was too deep, leaving only the ice as my pathway to the free coffee. When I finally arrived, the coffee tasted that much better.

On my way home, I couldn’t quit thinking about my perfectly serviceable Yak Trax™ that I should have installed on my boots – those fail safe boot add-ons with the carbide spikes that bite into the ice preventing any slips. They were hanging in the same place where I keep my winter boots. I guess it is further reason that no one has accused me of remembering everything. Better make that most things.

Not that icy-roads are a surprise. We are blessed with them each spring as the weather warms and the snowpack on the roads turns to ice. Last year was something of a record; we had nearly six inches of ice in front of our house that lasted weeks as the winter slowly faded, seemingly unwilling to give up its icy grip. Since our weather is warming early this year, perhaps the ice won’t last long and we can get back to zooming down the road in our vehicles with abandon and I can resume shaking my fist at those who zoom while I am walking. It’s a little game I play to amuse myself.

Here is some more evidence of the gradual but early snow melt around our lawn.

Note that one of our neighborhood bunnies used one of my flowers as winter fodder. The bunnies routinely hop around our lawn using my plowed sidewalks and driveway instead of hopping in the snow like they are supposed to do. I keep expecting them to knock on my door and complain if I fail to shovel the snow.

And finally, here is my new fur hat that I wore for my morning walk.

 It is a single coyote pelt, fashioned so that its rear keeps my neck warm and his face is looking out for me in front. In case you don’t understand, I should tell you it’s a North Woods thing that the coffee drinkers all admired. Wearing it made the walk on the ice a little easier. Stay warm, Bill. 

A Winter Glove Day

For those of us in the North Woods, winter gloves are an important accoutrement to our normal winter garb. And since winter usually lasts much of the year, such things as ‘favorite gloves’ are not to be taken lightly. As you will see from the following, today was an important day for us who are devoted to our winter gloves.

Although today was like any other day, it was auspicious in that I was first to arrive at the morning coffee klatch, so I chose the prime location to deposit my coat, hat, and winter gloves – right in front of the stove. The host, Jer,(as in Jerry, not jerk), always has his winter gloves laid out on the wooden bench in front of his stove. I managed to snuggle my hat with my gloves tucked inside, on the tiny place remaining on the bench, so that I would have warm gloves for my walk home. As the other men came in one-by-one to guzzle their free java and work on Jer’s puzzle, they each followed the routine of randomly tossing their winter duds on Jer’s sofa and armchair several feet distant from the stove. I sort of chuckled quietly as I savored the thought of my warm gloves.

The last to arrive this morning was Jimbo. My chair was facing the door so I watched as Jimbo entered and made straight for the sofa ignoring the bench full of gloves. He bent over the pile of assorted clothing and seemed to be sorting through the hats and gloves as if he were searching for something. I turned to my coffee but nearly choked on my steaming brew when Jimbo suddenly shouted.

“AHH-HA, there it is!” With that and a sort of, I got ya, grin, Jimbo came to the coffee table holding a black leather glove. “So who thinks they own this glove?” he asked the table of freeloaders as we each savored our free coffee.

The Professor spoke up first. “That’s my glove” This was followed by a lengthy pause “at least I think it is,” he concluded.

“You stole my glove.” Jimbo said with finality.

Never one to back down, the Professor said, “If that is your glove, we must have the same color, style and fit because that glove is just like the other one I own.” The Professor sat back, enjoying the moment of his superior logic.

Now Jimbo is nothing if not a precise inspector of used clothes given his regular visits to St Vincent De Paul’s emporium. He pointed to one of the fingers of the suspect glove. “Just a minute, I have proof. See, there is the repair I made on my glove where it was wearing through.”

Jimbo looked around the table for a challenge to his retort. It was quiet for only a moment until the Professor began a rapid series of maneuvers about how gloves are so similar and why yes, he did find that glove on Jer’s floor some days ago, but since the mate to his glove was missing, he assumed it belonged to him. The matter came to a fairly certain conclusion when the Professor finally allowed as how he had found another similar glove in his driveway some several days earlier. The clear consensus of Jer, Sherm, Big Bob, and me was that Jimbo had won. He triumphantly shoved the glove in his pocket and sat down after showing the winner’s obligatory grace, “it is amazing how these gloves look alike.”

We all went back to guzzling our coffee when I suddenly realized that the glove in question looked exactly like the winter glove I had worn this morning! I hoped mine was still safely tucked inside my hat. Sure enough, when I left some time later my black leather glove was snugly in place. I looked it over carefully just to be sure. And there, to my surprise was a worn spot and a loose seam on the thumb. My favorite glove, ruined. I debated the notion of asking Jimbo to do a repair job. Nahhh.

Later that day my bride said one of her gloves was missing. We found it on the street on our way home, wet, dirty and impressed with tire tracks where more than one car had passed over it. This second example of a missing glove and my finding that my favorite glove was blemished wasn’t a surprise to me. This seemed to be a day all about winter gloves. Oh my.