The Baboon Congress

Of Fishes and Families

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Today’s post comes from Jim Tjepkema

I tell people that if they go fishing with me they will not catch any fish.

The main reason for my lack of success – fishing is low on my list of preferred activities. I had great time fishing with my Grandfather as a boy. The same was true for my father. He took part in outings organized by my Grandfather and had fun doing that, but he almost never when on any other fishing trips.

Dad spent a lot of time sitting in boats with his father, and he did not appreciate it when his father stayed out on the water for extended periods of time in bad weather trying catch a few more fish. Apparently these unpleasant hours caused him to develop a dislike for the activity.

But while Dad and I didn’t inherit Grandfather’s passion, my Granddaughter enjoyed fishing at summer camp and asked us to give her a chance to do more. We found a place where we could fish with her from a dock, and she managed to catch 3 or 4 “keepers”.

We ate them for dinner.

Actually my wife and I were the only ones who ate the fish, because Granddaughter is a vegetarian. She tried a small sample and didn’t like it. She will not be carrying on the family fishing tradition in the same way my Grandfather did because he loved eating fish as well as catching them.

Never the less, she does seem to have his love of catching fish.

How does your family feel about fish?

The Baboon Congress, Words

R. I. P. Pat Conroy

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Today’s post is by Barbara in Robbinsdale

Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, et al., died last week on March 4, 2016. He wrote prolifically about a harrowing childhood in which his father played a huge role – his military style of parenting; the verbal and emotional abuse he visited on Conroy and his siblings; and the “military brat” lifestyle of moving around the South – 24 places by the time Conroy was 15. Conroy’s writing both “saved” him, and was the cause of more conflict – in the form of rifts with family members throughout his adult life.

Four of Pat Conroy’s books became movies:

  • The Water is Wide, 1972 (movie 1974, Conrack)   (also a Hallmark TV presentation, 2006)
  • The Great Santini, 1976 (movie 1979)
  • The Lords of Discipline, 1980 (movie 1983)
  • The Prince of Tides, 1986 (movie 1991)

In his final memoir, The Death of Santini (2013), he may have finally achieved a degree of closure and peace about his father. But as I listened last week to a “Talking Volumes” interview with MPR’s Kerry Miller, it was the stories he told about his mother that enchanted me, and shaped the rest of his life – how “she made reading the most important thing a person could do.” She took all the kids (ultimately seven) to the library every week, and they each checked out as many books as they were allowed (5 books in most libraries). They would then “read ‘em and trade ‘em,” so the kids might read as many as 25 books a week!

Literature became as real as anything else in the world, “and my mother made it that way.” She would read to him at bedtime each night, one of the first in his memory (at about age 5) being her favorite: Gone with the Wind.” He remembered it this way in the interview:

“Now Pa-at… when you hear me read about Scarlett O’hara, it is quite naturally for you to mistake Miss Scarlett for your own pretty mama. And when you read about that dastardly Rhett Butler, you can think about your fighter pilot father in Korea.” And she said, “When you think about Melanie Wilkes you can think about your tacky Aunt Helen… that girl don’t have a lick of sense and no personality whatsoever.”

When she read that way, with “every character in that book she could associate somebody we knew – it was the first time I knew there was a relationship between life and art.”

The more I read about Pat Conroy, i.e. from his website,   http://www.patconroy.com/about.php

the more of his books I want to read, especially The Death of Santini, and The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of my Life.

 

Is there a book in your “repertoire” in which you can insert people you know for some memorable character(s)?

Baboon Blog Redux, Poems

Revelers Beware!

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Today’s high temperature in the Twin Cities is expected to hit the mid-60’s.

A seasonal giddiness warning has been issued, effective all day and doubly so during happy hour.  We are on a 24 hour recklessness watch.

Gloomy realists will note that when Spring arrives, the dividing line is usually not drawn so sharply.  For every mid-March warm spell, there’s a St. Patrick’s Day blizzard on the way.

Sometimes it’s good to look in the record books for proof – thus today’s Baboon blog redux.

During what  passed for the Spring in the year 2013, America’s Singsong Poet Laureate, Schuyler Tyler Wyler, climbed into his drafty garret to produce a May Day Ditty that, this year, is more appropriate for March.

Embrace the May, but be a cynic.
Mother Nature’s schizophrenic.

She brings us air so sweet and mild,
and then a freezing zephyr wild.

She’ll green some grass, hey nonny nonny,
then kick your ass a little, honey.

Drape floral garlands ’round your feet,
then fill your face with freezing sleet.

Get out and do your May Pole dance,
but put some hot sauce in your pants.

Though May bringst bees and buds to flower
Conditions changeth by the hour.

What will you do to enthusiastically but realistically accept the gift of an early-season warm day?

Uncategorized

Beechly Gives His Trump Speech

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th district – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings constituents!

As the district thaws out for spring 2016, I’m encouraged to see many of our residents still honoring the tradition of having a contest around when the ice will ultimately leave their local lake.

Once my dad and his friends dragged a broken-down 1940 Studebaker Champion out about a quarter mile from shore to see how long it would take for the thing to drop.

But that was back in the day when nobody would complain if you tossed a car in the water and left it there.

We don’t do that kind of oil-slicked, gravity-based, gambling anymore, but I’ve been running into a lot of people lately who want to know the same thing about Donald Trump – as in: “He’s big, he’s an eyesore, he’s been sitting way out there for a long, long time – when is he finally going to disappear beneath the waves?”

I’ve been around elections far too long to feel OK predicting the political demise of anyone.  Oh, demise comes to all politicians, but just like comedy, timing is the key!

Recently, the Republican Party establishment has been outspoken about trying to hasten the end of the Trump candidacy, with no real effect.

I think people are beginning to realize that Trump is a NEW kind of political animal – one that feeds on our scorn!   It used to be that pure, focused criticism destroyed careers.   The most successful kind of politician tried to be loved by virtually everybody and negative comments ate away at their support.   Donald Trump has turned that equation on its head.  You can’t defeat Trump by disapproving of him because that just makes him stronger.  Attention is the fuel he runs on, so the only way to weaken him is to pretend that he is boring!

That’s why, whenever I see Trump on one of my many screens, I force myself to yawn.

At first it felt odd, but it became easier and now it’s almost automatic.  I’m actually starting to think he IS boring.

I’m not saying it will change things overnight, but in the same way children work to save Tinker Bell by clapping, I think we can send Trump back into the  murky depths of Lake  Biggity with a coordinated,  open-mouthed, closed-eyed campaign.

Like internet cat videos, yawning is contagious and potentially viral.  And even if it doesn’t change the election,  it might help distressed Americans get the rest they so desperately need!

What popular fascination do you find boring?  

 

The Baboon Congress

Agony in the Garden

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Header image: detail from Andrea Mantegna “Agony in the Garden” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

I really have very little to complain about. I have a job, a home, a wonderful husband, good friends, reasonable children, my health, etc. There are some times, however, when stupid, annoying things happen to take all the fun out of life, and leave me disgusted and crabby and preoccupied. I am a natural worrier, and these annoying occurrences just fuel that worry and I have a hard time managing it.

February was one of those months. Early in the month we got a new credit card with the security chip, preparatory to our trip to Europe this spring. We had it a week when we heard from the company that it had been breached and there had been all sorts of suspicious charges and the card was deactivated. This was just before daughter was going to Washington, DC for spring break and was going to use the card on her travels. We only have one credit card, so when it is out of action, we are all out of luck. There wasn’t enough time to get a replacement card before she left for DC, but she managed with her debit card. Still, it left me fuming and fussing since we never had this happen before.

Our next issue happened the day before we were to leave for Sioux Falls for the weekend. I noticed that the freezer in our fridge was dripping water inside and the ceiling in the freezer was hot. We emptied the freezer and phoned the repair person. He told us it was not a problem and that it was defrosting itself and we had it too full, so we just took half the things out and it was fine. I worried about it the whole time we were in South Dakota. It is still working fine, but I think the compressor sounds louder than before, so now I worry it is going to break down some time soon.

Lastly, last week, the actuarial experts at State Farm miscalculated  and decided that my husband was a great risk and cancelled his car insurance. It was a total error on their part, but it will take a week or two to get all the correct information into their calculators so husband still has insurance at the end of the month. Honestly, if you can’t trust a statistician, who can you trust.

This looks like real trouble.
This looks like real trouble.

I read my words and I think, “Renee, you have nothing to complain about and many people have more serious and deadly things to worry about, so get over yourself”.  I wonder if  too many of us in this country don’t have enough gratitude for what we have, and that perhaps we need to stop expecting life to be trouble free.

Maybe that attitude accounts for the rise of demagogues like The Donald who speaks to that inside ourselves that puts us first and others second, and makes is believe that we are owed something just because we are who we are.

I read once that a martyrdom of pinpricks is still a martyrdom. Well, I have a working credit card, the freezer that is loud, but works, and an insurance company that admitted it is wrong. I need to realize that pinpricks will happen and they are nothing to let ruin my day.

What pinpricks ruin your day? 

 

 

The Baboon Congress, Travel

The People on the Train

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

As you may have guessed if you follow this blog regularly, I barely got started talking about the 1998 Rail Pass trip in the post of 2/20/16. As I was reading through my journal while writing it, I came upon many of my encounters with the other people on the train, some of whom I can still recall without prompting.

Day 1 on the train, in coach seat:  This is my first taste of freedom and anonymity – I remember this feeling from when I began living in San Francisco – my first time in a large city.  I’m resisting the temptation to pipe up and join in ongoing conversations that I can overhear.  I want to stay single, independent, anonymous.

Day 2:  There are people from all over – speaking German, Polish (?), an Oriental language. It’s very beautiful to hear… And it’s fun to watch the various couples, being not part of a couple, for a change. The similarities (playing cribbage) and differences… The sweet things they sometimes do for each other, the bossiness, the assumed closeness, the laughter, and the frowning. It’s quite a phenomenon.

Day 5:  It really is different being a single traveler. Ate in the dining car at same table with three Japanese young adults who cared not a whit about me, made no effort to engage a conversation. (Only one spoke much English.) I finally asked them at meal’s end where they’re from, etc. – a minute or two – then left it alone.

Other non-USA riders (a Londoner in Canada, a couple from Luxemburg) have been equally un-curious.  Is it that I look uninteresting? Or is it just an American trait to be curious and nosey? I guess I was hoping to tell a lot of people about this adventure I’m on.

Day 18: There’s a little girl sitting somewhere behind me – probably 3 years old or so – who sings delightfully … would  love to have her voice on tape!

Day 19: Have had some delightful conversations with various women in the last few days; just breakfasted with three generations from Beaumont, Mississippi – artist types – and asked them about how to learn perspective (in drawing).

In Observation Car: Two little girls have met here on the train, found each other (no doubt to their parents’ delight).

Day 20: Had a lot of fun drawing with a little boy named Kris. He has a cat at his grandma’s place called Shockamo-doo-da-day.   I gave some drawing paper to the family with an almost-two-year-old, across and behind me – little boy who gave his momma such a sweet hug.

One southern woman knows how to have fun with that 3-year-old grandson. He’s in her custody, she tells me… and she’s also going to adopt a baby – she’s 52 and rides a motorcycle!

Day 23: Worked a crossword puzzle with a very nice kid (11-ish) en route to church camp.

Day 28: Ate in the dining car with another vital grandma traveling with her daughter and grandson – a widow full of life and actively seeking a good time – on a trip to Canada to study genealogy with her cousin.

What’s your modus operandi when traveling? Anonymous, or “out there”?

 

 

 

News, Poems

Why Astronauts Shouldn’t Drink

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Astronaut Scott Kelly spent almost one year in space. 

Now that he’s back on Earth, there’s some stuff to get used to, and he will be adjusting for a while, because spending so much time in micro gravity changes the body.  And perhaps the mind!

So I asked Trail Baboon Sing-Song Poet Laureate Tyler Schuyler Wyler to create one of his famous lighter-than-air word confections to honor Kelly.  TSW grabbed the necessary supplies and locked himself away in a backyard tool shed, staying there for 340 consecutive hours before emerging with this work of art scribbled on the inside surface of an empty box of Nut Goodies.

It’s final call at Bottom’s End.
A round of suds was bought
as misery engulfed my friend –
a grounded astronaut.

A man who spends much time in space
will change while flying high.
He gets a somewhat puffy face
and lighter in the thigh.

He’d been aloft for many days
but now was unemployed.
He came back full of cosmic rays
and longing for the void.

“I’d wake up as the sun went down
Sometimes, the other way.
It flickered as we went  around.
sixteen full times each day.”

“In orbit, friends, I stood so tall.
Down here I sag and bloat.
I walked on ceilings and the wall.”
Even my tears would float.”

“But now I’m held in place without
a chance of pulling free.
I miss the flying all about.
I miss the space debris.”

“My bones are calcium-bereft.
My muscles all got limp.
I’d gladly go back where I left
to be an astro-wimp.”

“Don’t be so eager to depart,”
I told him with a wink.
“Down here when men drink beer and fart,
the capsule doesn’t stink.”

He smiled the smile of one who’s known
an idiot or two.
“I’d go back even though I’ve flown
with guys more crude than you.”

And then he looked away as if
there was no more to say.
An astronaut who’s seen the sun
rise sixteen times a day

Where are you longing to return?

 

 

The Baboon Congress

The Man In The Window

83 Comments

Today’s post comes from tim

mitch

i feel bad

real bad

a couple of weeks ago we had a police car pull up in front of the house and i told my son he was in trouble for parking his car on the streets of prestigious west bloomington and as he cursed the uppity neighbors who would call on a wonderful guy like him it became obvious that the cops were there for a different reason.

i had to go to a meeting but i got a call half an hour later from my family that a body bag came out of the house and the intrigue was too much to handle.

i have a hot tub between my house and the neighbors and i was doing my late night dip 4 nights in a row when at 1030 or so the alarm would go off on the truck in the driveway next door and not just for a couple of beeps of the horn either, it was a good couple of minutes of horn honk honk honking followed by mitch the next door neighbor coming out and shutting off the alarm but starting the truck then sitting in the truck with it running in the driveway for 10 minutes before leaving. i would finish my hot tub and go in wondering for a minute or two what that was about but getting on with my life. even the 4th or 5th night i found it odd but not odd enough to have me try to put together the puzzle.

i remembered the scene in rear window where the wendell corey as the cop tells jimmy stewart that he should allow other people the privacy they deserve. a lot of things appear odd when observed for the outside.

i started working the theory in my mind. the mom who i had met. kind of an aunt bea sort of woman had the son mitch who i met the day debbie first came to the house to unpack boxes in the kitchen. he came in the garage and gave one of those helllloooooo call out from his entry through the open garage door. i went to say hello and his intro was to say “ hi… my name is mitch. i live next door, do you want me to plow your driveway this winter?”

i laughed and said “no, we can cover this ourselves” (we had just laughed about how the driveway was barely big enough to park the cars on and how it would take 15 minutes to shovel after a foot of snow) mitch shrugged and waved goodbye as he retreated back through the garage full of unpacked boxes. mitch is a cross between a cave man and a troll who danced when he stepped and looked like a refugee from a russian circus troop. that was the last i saw of him other than as he drove off regularly in his truck.

my theories were based totally on my thought of the moment.

maybe he was a wild man who was needing to get away from his mom who was beating him and so he pushed the alarm button on his key ring until she let him go shut it off. he sat in the car until he couldn’t stand it any more then drove off to return after she had fallen asleep.

maybe she was the one getting beat up and she pushed the button so he would have to stop and go out to shut it off. he would sit and cool down until he drove off to return later and try it again when cooler heads prevailed.

then one day the cooler heads did not prevail and he killed her and was on the run, the truck had not been in the driveway for a week and so they hadn’t caught him.

the story needed a little adjustment when the junk inc truck showed up and took away 1 large piece of furniture like a love seat or an oversized chair . the windows on the house were opened to let the odors out both upstairs and down so the body must have been there long enough to start to stink.

people started showing up in the driveway and going in to clean and pack stuff up.

the comings and goings were the riddle and then the pickup truck mitch drove showed up.

so he wasn’t on the run… but wait it had duct tape over the rear window covering a hole about the size of a bullet hole made by a pistol or a rifle.

how did that fit into the equation?

my next theory was that mitch got shot and took a cab home or got a ride home and died in the basement. his mom must have been in florida on vacation and when he didn’t answer the phone she called the police who checked it out and discovered the body… but this was all conjecture.

we don’t know any neighbors and don’t know of a way to find out what happened. the other night my son devin looked up police reports for the house next door and found out mitch was a troubled guy who had been sited for carrying a gun while on parole as a felon and was in trouble for that.   a bit more research discovered his obit saying he had died unexpectedly on february 8th. that didn’t shed any light for me but my son said “died unexpectedly” is code for suicide in the lingo of police and obits.

so i feel guilty for dreaming up all the fantastic stories about the beatings and who did what to who. i feel bad for not being aware that the troubled guy next door was needing something and i was oblivious.

it makes you realize that there are people out there that you stand next to everyday that are in need of something, maybe a smile or a kind word or a job other than plowing driveways on a mild minnesota winter in order to make the demons move back a little

my family is glad we don’t have a felon who danes like a troll and carries guns living next door. i hadn’t thought of that. i just feel bad that a soul in need was next door and i didn’t even realize it.

i guess the reality is that i still don’t know anything for sure but it gives me a funny feeling every time i look in the window 50 feet away from the hot tub and realize he was so unhappy.

miss true heart, miss torso and raymond burr all lived outside jimmy stewart’s window in alfred hitchcock’s story. mitch lived outside mine.

different stuff touches us and makes an imprint. some good some bad some potent some just a little angle kiss.
what’s your favorite movie?

The Baboon Congress

Animal Tales Part I: Four Little Pigs

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Today’s post comes from Cynthia in Mahtowa

Once upon a time I had four pigs. They were wee things when they arrived, several hundred pounds when they left. I think I called all four of them “Peter Porkchop” to remind me why I was feeding them, Danish style, barley and milk. But while they lived on the farm, they were a delight and constant source of entertainment.

They shared the pasture with the several goats. The pasture, fenced with woven wire, did a good job of keeping them contained. But sometimes the gate between the horses and goats was left open and they were free to range into the (non)electric fenced area. So they took themselves for walks around the neighborhood. My neighbor, sitting on the ground, painting her garage doors, was startled to find the four at that time very large pigs staring at her.

The first time I took the new piglets for a walk in the woods with the goats, I learned that they would not stay with me and the goats, but instead wandered off on their own. And they did not return with us. A friend stopped by to see them that afternoon. When I told her I didn’t know where they were, she was astounded and wondered why I wasn’t out looking for them. I allowed as how there was 40 acres of woods and where would I start? “I figure they’ll come home at feeding time.” And so they did. Around 4:30 that afternoon here they came romping across the horse pasture. So I learned they always would return home.

But my favorite story about the four little now big pigs is this: They loved being in the goat barn, but as they got bigger there wasn’t room for them and the goats, so I would lock them out at night to sleep in their own shelter. When I opened the goat door in the morning, the pigs would rush in, grab mouthfuls of hay and race over to their shelter. Then I noticed they would run down to the woods and bring back sticks in their mouths. It made me think of the folk tale “The Three Little Pigs” and the houses they built. So…straw, twigs…my pigs were “building” two out of the three houses. Then one day I noticed one of them running around with a salt block in his mouth….ah, the house of bricks was now being built!

And I was the big bad wolf who had them for dinner….

And painted a portrait…which I sold to a woman in New York City where I hope Peter Porkchop lives on.

What folk tale have you seen play out in your life?

Music

Tally Me Banana

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Today is singer and activist  Harry Belafonte’s birthday.  He’s 89 years old.

Belafonte has done many worthy things as an outspoken champion of human rights.  I don’t know how he feels about it, but it seems unfortunate that he is best known for  singing a Jamaican work song that prominently features the world’s most politically loaded and inherently humorous fruit – the banana.

Working all night on a drink of rum is no small trick.  But you would want to be sure the tally man was counting your bundles fairly when it was time to go home.

And please, let’s not think about spiders.

What motivates you to do your work?