Friday, January 28, 2011

Community Labor

  The way my Amish cousins live together and build community has made a strong impact on my way of thinking. If an action or attitude is not good for my neighbor I must consider if it is good for myself. If there is a need in the community and I can help, I will try. Specifically if my neighbor needs to raise a barn, I will grab my tools and head to the job site. There is little better than working beside nearly every person you know to transform a small hill of boards and joining pegs into a shelter for your livestock and telephone.

  Barn raising is an awesome display of many hands making light work. It has only happened a few times in my life, but for many it is a common occurrence. If you are not familiar with the process here are the high points. A newly established family needs to establish a new barn. They find the plot of land and make some plans. Then they buy some lumber and fashion the other pieces needed. Contact the community with the time (by now everyone knows the place). Request that people bring side dishes for the lunch break. Get out the bar-b-q and some chickens, and then the construction begins.

  The construction is the wildest part. First you frame the walls, all four of them on the ground at the same time. Each wall has its own small crew of workers. The completed frame is raised into place and joined with its neighbors. Then add some trusses and beans, a roof and some sides, maybe a door and windows, and soon you have a barn. My description does not do the whole process justice, but it does illustrate how long the process takes. In the amount of time it took you to read these words you could have built a barn.

  I do not get to many barn raisings these days, living in a row home has slowed that down for me. But I do get to participate in heavy labor with my community. This week about 15 inches of snow was dumped on my fair city, but specifically on my sidewalk and back alley. I know some of you reading only received 4 inches, that’s nice for you. To gain some perspective of what 15 inches of snow is like I suggest you stand up beside your chair. Imagine that the spot where your leg hits the chair is cold wet snow and you will have a fair picture of the height of our snow. Now imagine a shovel in your hand for the next 2 hours while you move the snow from where it is to where you’d like it to be.

  The picture I’ve created is true but somewhat harsh. To complete the picture you will also need to image all of your neighbors outside working. Not just working but also talking and catching up. It was a great time to learn that guy’s name, the one who just moved in on the end. Or reestablish a relationship with the older gentleman up the street that works nights. Did you know that the young family down the street is pregnant?

  I worked alongside my neighbors all morning. Cookies were passed around freely, we took water and coffee breaks. We even yelled up to the second floor of a neighbor who was apparently taking advantage of the time to sleep. We all agreed he had slept too long.

  We made light work of that wet heavy snow. We cleared the cars, the sidewalks and steps, the back alley, and even the side alley that no one owns but everyone needs to use. It was a great time for community building. Next time the snow dumps (the coming week from what they say) I suggest you make a pot of coffee or hot chocolate and take the opportunity for friendship that it presents. Bring a shovel too.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Remembering the Good Old Days

  This is not a story so much as a plea. A chance for me to share my hope for a brighter day. More specifically this is a time to say, “remember the brighter days, and do it out loud.” Tomorrow more snow might come, but today there is no snow. All I am asking is that you mention the good times while they happen.

  Yes it is cold. Pretty cold really, but nothing a hat and some gloves cannot handle. It’s going to rain or snow tomorrow, but it is sunny today. And let us remember, rain and snow are helpful to we Earth dwellers, the water literally keeps us alive. The little plants in the backyard need it, I’d bet the big farms are glad for it too. Precipitation is a good thing.

  All day long all I’ve heard from my coworkers is that the snow is coming, followed by speculation of how long this current scourge will stay with us. It’s more than annoying, I’m disappointed.

  Yesterday and the day before were sunny brisk days with cotton ball clouds. The kind of day that makes me long to be a park ranger and roam the woodland tracking some large game. (Certainly, I would need a good jacket, hat, scarf, gloves, boots, and maybe a flannel shirt). I only get that feeling a few times a year and mostly I am grateful for climate controlled buildings. But yesterday was a day to run free and feel the burn in your lungs. I would have settled for reading a book on a park bench but I have responsibilities that keep me inside listening to my coworkers gripe.

  And did any of them mention the great weather while it was nice? Phrases like, “you couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.” Or “dial up more like this for the whole week.” Sadly, no such phrases were spoken. They already felt threatened by the possible cold front moving in, bringing with it life giving water from the sky.

  All I’m saying is this. If you’re going to complain about the weather you don’t like you can atleast give a little air time to the days you do like. Let me know what you enjoy so I can dial up a good one for you tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Hunt and Gather

  Maybe you have seen a group of hunters come back into the village carrying fresh game between them. Likely it was the end of the winter season. After the frost has broken and the Northern pass has been cleared from this season’s avalanches. You can see for what seems like miles through the brisk morning air. And you know for certain that the little dots you see speckling the horizon signify your weeks of waiting for a dinner filled with protein will soon come to an end. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.

  Finally a dinner made up of more than soaked cabbage and boiled potatoes. One that does not require you to decide you are full instead of truly being full. A dinner that requires chewing, not merely mashing. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.

  You have woken every morning with little more than a grumble in your stomach, looking out the window of the hay loft where you sleep with your siblings. Hoping that today might be the day when the reprieve will come. Arriving with the food will be your father and uncles. They are tired from the trip, but excited by the welcome the community will provide. Mother and your older sisters will be busy all afternoon in preparation and maybe even you will join in the work. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.

  Your memory does not include the negative attributes of such a day. How your older brother pushed the youngest to the side to get in line. Or how your uncle took all the credit for what was clearly a group effort. That the choice meat when off to your neighbor because your family still does not own the land or the house. Or even that your mother after all her hard work got no affirmation but instead went to begin cleaning up the mess. You simply went back to the loft and found yourself dreaming of the distant lands of your father’s hunt.

  Soon it will be Girl Scout Cookie time. No doubt you have your favorites and memories from past years. Maybe you have never witnessed the mayhem and ugliness that accompanies this time. You look past the coworker, well into her 60’s, that demands she get two of her choice even though she made no previous order. Or the one that is shouting across the office instead of walking his old bones to where the calories lay in wait. Or the most pathetic, the person who loses a year of maturity with every step she takes toward your desk. The one that sinks from a well respected and capable peer to the conduct of a 2 year old. All of this because she saw her favorite cookies walk past and was told there will be no more. She is nearly in tears as she explains how much it would mean if you could please find another box. That you must find another box. She is unable to understand that you are not a retail store, and put bluntly you simply do not care if gets her thin mints. If she’s looking for thin she’s better off where she is with no box of cookies.

  All you see are the pictures of smiling teens playing sports, learning about nature, and accomplishing their goals. You glory in every one of those young lives growing and maturing into the woman they can be. These wonderful feelings accompany the taste and smell of the cookies you were fortunate enough to receive. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Summers with the Family

  Since we are among the longest days of the year I find myself thinking of summer.  I especially look to the summers of my childhood.

  When I was young my parents would send me to stay with my extended family for most of the summer. The time was meant for me to learn about their different cultures and history, and give my parents some time without a rambunctious and overly imaginative child. It was fun, I learned a lot. But very little is applicable to my present life. Certainly it formed character as my parents had planned. But what can you do with a long boat and the ability to navigate with only your beard to guide you? Some skills don’t transfer to large American cities.

  Just to clear things up, Vikings do not use maps in navigation. We use what God gave us, the stars, wind and waves, and an innate ability to understand due North by the way our beard curls at the edge. That’s why Vikings are always smoothing out their beards, they are actually triangulating their current position with respect to the sun and the southernmost tip of Norway. I cannot go into detail for reasons related to intellectual property. But it comes down to how you comb your beard and the metal in your helmet. The Vikings are surprisingly knowledgeable about magnets and hair follicles. Using this knowledge in tandem is very useful for navigation, it takes some practice.

  I learned in the same summer that oddly enough the Amish have a comparable trick for plowing their fields in perfectly straight lines. Although for the Amish there are no magnets involved. It is a simple matter of keeping the mules in line with your shoulders and your beard equally aligned between your suspenders. This also requires a few summers of repetition.

  During those summers I developed some intense calices. They would first start out in the open water with ore in hand. Thankfully I had plenty of sea water in which to dunk my screaming hands. Then I would move onto the farm to plow and bail for the remainder of the summer. Soon my hands looked like the leather pouch where my Uncles kept their tobacco. I felt good about myself until I returned to school to find I could not hold a pencil due to the quarter inch of tough skin between my knuckles. But I managed.

  All of this reminds me that someone should shovel the snow off my sidewalk. I would do it but I gave up calices after I graduated from high school.