Green Hell : Winter Grumbling

Another oldie. Another look at "where my head was at" a few short years ago.

(Long, rambling and pointless.)

Well, winter is approaching. This, of course affords me ample reason to bitch, gripe, grumble, complain, and offer my unsolicited 2¢ worth on any number of meaningless and irrelevant topics. My knee will soon be hurting, as will a few bones, and I'll have to Christmas shop, cook many meals and coordinate a few social (mal?)functions. I had time to reflect upon this as I was splitting logs for firewood on Friday.

After taking care of that, I had homemade cream of broccoli and cauliflower soup (with cheese) for dinner. I then made a batch of harissa. Hotter than the hinges of hell, and very tasty. Amazing what one can do with chiles, vinegar, cumin, coriander and salt. I'll also add that the blender and spice grinder have done wonders insofar as balancing out my innate Luddite tendencies is concerned. I'll have to give a jar to my buddy Sertaç. I've really outdone myself this time.

Having eaten and made a tasty condiment for future meals, I set about carving a Jack o' lantern. It was inspired by Munch's The Scream and seems to have kept the trick-or-treaters away. Either that, or my neighbors have seen one too many of my cookouts and the riff-raff they attract. I also had a very nice snack of roasted pumpkin seeds that evening.

Actually, it was nice to see the kids and their parents trick-or-treating. One gent about my age had his two costumed tots in a little red wagon and was pulling them behind him. It could have been 1971
all over again... Almost. It was a far cry from the mobs of kids who thronged the streets for hours back in the '70s, but it was still nice to see. I can still remember my Dad pulling me in my wagon, while I was dressed in my Blackbeard costume. Ooops! Now you know the root of my lifelong fascination with pirates.

Seeing that guy with his kids might have been the worst thing that could have happened, as it led a spell of the "what ifs." I was thinking that perhaps it would be nice to have that kind of life, but then - luckily -
reality kicked sentimentality right out the window. For me to father children would be tantamount to passing a death-sentence upon creatures who could just as easily be spared the burden of existing in the first place.

I'm thirty-six, I don't particularly like the world the way it is and never have. My kids would be misfits, freaks and weirdos like I was. Then there's my "character" or lack thereof. I'd also be the world's worst father. Too indulgent in many ways and too strict in others. Talking to many of the semiliterate lumps of ambulatory shit who masquerade as "teachers" these days, I suppose that the public school system would undoubtedly be more of an unrelieved hell for them than it was for me. Best not to think of these things.

Speaking of things "Halloweeny," the canned pumpkin you buy in the supermarket is not pumpkin at all. If you examine it closely, and check its flavor, texture, and color, you will be drawn to the inescapable conclusion that it is in fact cushaw, and not pumpkin proper. I have grown both, and know whereof I speak. Cushaws have smaller seed-cavities, and yield more meat for their size than do pumpkins, so packaging cushaw and calling it "pumpkin" does make good economic sense, even if it is morally reprehensible and should be punished by a gruesome, lingering death.

And in case some pinhead is thinking it: Yeesssss... I'm well aware of the cross pollination that can occur between C. moschata, pepo and maxima. Done it on purpose before, but I never referred to the results as PUMPKIN! Aaagghhh!

You can use nearly any winter squash as a substitute for pumpkin, actually. Granted, the "acorn" and "dumpling" cultivars have paler flesh, but kabocha and butternut serve just as well, and -in my opinion - have a richer flavor, but commercial canners should be more HONEST about what they
sell. Sons of bitches.

And in the meantime, I get older, and winter approaches.

Winter is typically a "mixed bag" for me. I expect this one to be no exception to the rule. Luckily, I quit my job a couple weeks ago. Just got pissed off and walked out the door at 04:00. The last few days have been wonderful. Exhilarating. Since my work record is impeccable (never gotten less than an "outstanding" on a review) the low-level "powers that be" were trying to hide the fact that I quit by putting me on leave and begging me to come back. Ain't gonna happen.

I had a civilized chat with the district manager a few days ago, and we managed an amiable separation. Probably for the best. No bridges were burned, and no feelings hurt. Dad, of course, is engaging in the
neck-breaking aerobatics of a chained Dobermann. He's sure we can sue them, willing to do the work, and highly motivated toward that end. I'd rather just leave it all behind me. Gotta love that man, though, God bless his pointy, incomprehensible little head.

Not sure what I'm gonna do in the near future, but grocery is not in the cards. After fifteen years on and off, I'm "burnt." The entire industry has changed for the worse, and I want out. All I really need are sufficient funds to pay off a few small, very low-interest debts and finance my nefarious, ultra right-wing activities. There are easier ways of doing that than shackling myself to a dead-end, high-stress job in which the levels of responsibility/risk and remuneration are inversely proportionate.

In turning the final page of that chapter of my life, at least I can say that I was good at what I did. I was so good that they wanted me to come back. I can't say that I was excellent at anything - in my own estimation, although I might have been -, but I can say that I was consistently competent at everything. In short, my absence was far more noticeable than my presence.

The freedom has been a "high" of sorts. The sad thing is, it's not a "high" at all. I'm just feeling normal for the first time in ages. That's one of those nasty little things that really is "relative."

I was able to have my car serviced, get a new pair of glasses, inventory and stock up on many of my emergency goodies, catch up on my correspondence, hang out with some friends (In the flesh! Not online or on the phone!) for the first time since 12 September, split some firewood and do some cleaning
and tidying. It's in the 40s at night here, but the days are still in the '70s, so I'm also sweating like a whore in church and cursing every swing of the maul or stroke of the hoe, but damn, is it fun!

I think I'm getting hooked on sunshine, fresh air, and being able to see the sun rise and set in the same day! LOL!

I've been sleeping at night and getting up in the morning, for the love of God! It's great! To bed by 22:00 or 23:00, and up at 05:00 or 06:00. I've cut my smoking in half, and I no longer suffer from insomnia, heartburn, nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite or constant fatigue and depression.

Went to Home Depot and got myself a new 8lb. maul with a synthetic handle. It looks funny as hell, but it's wonderful. Even when hitting the hardest of knotholes, there is none of that jarring shock to the hands and arms that makes splitting logs such a pain in the ass. Man, the wonders of technology. Unfortunately, the buttholes haven'tgotten any kersose in yet. They're expecting it any day, but I'm down to two gallons. It probably ain't gonna be cheap (considering the price of petroleum products) but I like to have a reserve around.

Kale, collards, turnips and mustard are doing nicely. Need to get my ass out there and sink the four raised beds I built over the summer, now that it's finally stopped pissing down rain and I'm not tired all the time. Gonna try growing some herbs in pots on the sunporch. I have sorrel, shiso (perilla), mint, basil, oregano and cilantro. They can keep the pineapple company. I still can't believe that worked...

Maybe I did inherit Dad's green thumb. I guess it's only fair since I also inherited his lousy eyesight and short temper...

I do have to rebuild my food stash. Since I've been too depressed to eat more than one or two small meals a day, a lot of my stuff needs to be rotated (read: "consumed") and replaced, ASAP. Luckily, my appetite has returned with a vengeance, so that shouldn't be a problem. I've actually regained five of the ten pounds I lost since taking that fucking job!

I've been able to catch up on my reading, too. Fiction-wise, I've knocked out Dune: The Butlerian Jihad and started on Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill. I really shouldn't read Chesterton, as doing so serves only to drive home rather forcefully the realization that modern literature has become increasingly disposable. At one time, I would have (and did, admittedly) considered Paul Sammon's Splatterpunks anthologies "cutting edge." Now I simply find them revolting. Have I mentioned that I seem to be getting old?

Been working on Rush Limbaugh's See, I Told You So. Frankly, I agree with three quarters of what he writes, but he's so insufferably pompous that he's hard to read at times. His writing simply oozes "cat that ate the canary" smugness, and that really rankles me. And yes, that probably is to be expected from a book enitled See, I Told You So.

(Note: My, how things have changed! Three years down the road, the very sight of that fat, pillhead hypocrite of a slob makes me want to puke! I'd trade ten million of the likes of him for one Pat Buchanan or Paul Craig Roberts any day!)

On the history front, I've knocked out Gone Are the Days: An Illustrated History of the Old South by Harnett T. Kane. Kane is a Southerner, and even though he writes from an apologist's point of view, it's not a bad history and certainly not on par with the more recent hatchet-jobs done on the region. The only place in which he seems to be less than honest is in his quick glossing over of the realities of indentured servitude. That really pissed me off.

Not merely a political history, though, the book looks at many aspects of the antebellum way of life in the South. One entire chapter is devoted to riverboat traffic along the Mississippi, and makes for edifying, amusing and horrifying reading all at once.

Also in this vein, I've read The Confederate Reader: How the South Saw the War edited by Richard B. Harwell. The title of that one is self-explanatory.

The last two books on the list are biographies: The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop by Edmund S. Morgan, and Oglethorpe in America by Phinizy Spalding. Spalding was actually my history professor at UGA. It's a shame that he couldn't lecture as well as he wrote, as I slept through many of his classes. His bio of Oglethorpe is excellent reading, in all fairness.

Though separated by a century of time, and several hundred miles of land, both Winthrop and Oglethorpe were monumental figures in founding the country. It's interesting to contrast Winthrop's, sober, dutiful, conscientious nature with that of Oglethorpe, an idealistic, energetic firebrand and
adventurer. In my opinion, these two seemingly antithetical archetypes still influence what is left of America's national character.

One will also note that each set out to create an "improved" society - Winthrop along Puritan lines, and Oglethorpe among more "humanitarian" lines - his obesessions with prison reform, sailors's rights and "uplifting" the poorer elements of British society were driving forces in his desire to colonize Georgia- and that in the short-term, both may be said to have failed, although judging by the direction of the "flow" of immigrants across the Atlantic during the 18th and 19th centuries, it can also be said that
they both succeeded -albeit posthumously - beyond their wildest dreams.

The Oglethorpe bio was interesting from a historical standpoint, but contained little truly "new" information for me. Not so the bio of Winthrop. Having read the book, I'll be removing "Puritan" from my list of epithets and maledicta. I've been far too harsh on those people, and the fault is my own; a combination of regional prejudice and blind acceptance of what I'd always been told. In the author's own words:

"Seventeenth-century Massachusetts has thus become in retrospect a preposterous land of witches and witch hunters, of kill-joys in tall-crowned hats, whose main occupation was to prevent each other from having any fun and whose sole virtue lay in their furniture. It is not likely that this vision will ever be wholly dispelled. We have to caricature the Puritans in order to feel comfortable in their presence.
They found answers to some human problems that we would rather forget. Their very existence is therefore an affront, a challenge to our moral complacency; and the easiest way to meet the challenge is to distort it into absurdity, turn the challengers into fanatics."

I doubt that I'd enjoy "hanging out" with them, as I'm the type of Southerner against whom Connecticut evangelist Lorenzo Dow routinely railed in the early 1800s ;-D, but I've come away from this book with a far greater degree of respect for the Puritans than I once held, and am willing to concede that they've been unncecessarily maligned in popular history.

And that's what I've been doing with my free time.