Cuba Libre

      More Letters From Paradise
             Cuba Libre
It's in all the U.S. History books. The so-called "Cold War," between the U.S. and Russia. The very scary time when we almost had a nuclear war. In short, the Russians had placed missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy forced the Russians to remove them, and then imposed an embargo on Cuba. That embargo placed so long ago is about to be lifted by President Obama. Everyone seems to agree that it is about time.

Cuba has had a role in the life of my family on my mother's side. I used to go up into my grandparent's attic on the third floor and find baskets and other stuff relating to Cuba. I learned that my grandfather Roy Beal, had once managed the largest fruit plantation on the island of Cuba. This was before World War I. It seems that a few investors who called themselves the "Cuban Development Co." asked my grandfather to go down to Cuba and manage the plantation for four months. He stayed four years, and only returning with his wife and children to America when the Lusitania was torpedoed. My uncle Tom was born there, which caused him much trouble later. My mother was fluent in Spanish when she came back to the U.S. at age seven.

There are old photos of the plantation house, grandpa and grandma in a horse drawn buggy, and some others too. Grandpa had a lot of stories to tell me. One story was about the time when he had to blindfold the eyes of the horse and lead him into the river to swim across, with my grandmother in the buggy. It was night time too. And then the story of how the Cubans burned their cane fields using a turtle. I wrote about this somewhere earlier on my blog. Another story was about some college boys who had been sent down to Cuba by the owners of the company. There had been the death of a Cuban man, and the boys climbed into the empty coffin as a prank. They died sometime later back in the U.S.  Curse? who knows?

Grandpa had large hands and as they filled boxes of oranges to be shipped to New York, he would hold three in each hand when counting and filling boxes.

I have another connection with Cuba. When I was a small boy, I was befriended by a Spanish-American war veteran called Jake Lightfoot, who had fought in Cuba. I wrote about this too, earlier on my blog.

Another brush I had with Cuba was when I was in the Navy. I remember how we cheered Fidel Castro in his victory over the dictator  Batista. Then Castro declared himself to be a Communist. This led to the Russian missile crisis and the embargo. I have come full circle. I would like to visit there again someday.

     Aloha
     Grant
 

Write On

      More Letters From Paradise
              Write On
I learned recently that cursive handwriting is no longer being taught in the elementary  grades of school. How very sad. Good penmanship was required. Examples showing students the proper way to form letters was always placed above the blackboard. Students would first use pencils, and later steel pointed pens dipped in ink wells.The story was always told that some boys would dip the braids of girls in ink wells, seated in  front of them in the long rows. I doubt this. Imagine a girl returning home with an ink braid. Justice would have been quickly served upon the boy who had done it.

Thinking about writing with pens brings to mind a fact that most right-handed people would not know. You all may have seen a left-handed person writing with his hand bent like a claw. He is not a cripple. He is simply avoiding getting ink on the bottom of his hand. If you write with your right hand, the ink flows behind your pen when you write. A person writing with his left hand simply plows into what he is writing. Hence the bent wrist and the awkward position. My father began writing with his left hand until he was beaten with rulers until he was made to change to using his right hand, just like everybody else. He said that it would not happen to me, and it didn't. And come to think of it,I never had a single teacher in any of the many grade schools I attended, who was left-handed.

Not much progress had been made with writing materials beyond the steel tipped pens. But it was an improvement over the knife-sharpened goose quill pens that were in use before. And it made many geese much happier.  

Then came the fountain pen, a pen with a bladder inside holding ink. The pen would be dipped into a bottle of ink, and a lever on the side of the pen would crow the ink from the bottle up into the pen. Ink came in many different colors. My grandpa Joe wrote his letters with green ink. I never knew anybody else who did so. All was well until people began riding on airplanes with fountain pens. The air pressure inside the plane's cabin caused the bladder of fountain pens to deposit ink in your purse or in your shirt pocket. These pens were followed with pens that used a plastic ink-filled cartridges.    The final, and so far the best       development is a pen which uses a roller ball to deposit ink on paper. The use of fountain pens faded away as people embraced ball-point pens. Though expensive, fountain pens  are still to be found. Here in Hawaii some craftsmen make ball-point pens out of our Koa wood, and they are beautiful.

I feel I have to mention here that during the race to  space with the Russians, the U.S. spent a great deal of money to come up with a pen that would write in space. The Russians used a pencil.

      Aloha
      Grant
 

The Old House on Portage Lake Road

     More Letters From Paradise
 The Old House on Portage Lake Road

The events I relate here cannot be confirmed by any camera, as they only exist in my memory.

Portage Lake Road slowly uncoils and  lazily makes its way to end at Portage Point Inn. The narrow two-lane road passes three very large summer homes facing the lake. The first one is red painted and a man is trying to mow down the tall grass. The neighboring house is painted white, while the third house is painted gray.These are the homes of "summer people," my grandmother said. Making a clear distinction between them and the loyal local residents.

The road continues twisting and turning until on the left are clusters of cabins and a sign reading "Little Eden," a Brethern Church camp. Next to the road is a water fountain surrounded by large stones set in cement. The fountain is an  artesian well and as such, never ceases to flow. Cars often stop so their passengers can take a drink.

Directly across the road is the old house.
The driveway is simply two sandy tracks  between tall grass. And when the ignition of the car is turned off, I hear the deep throated sound of gushing water. It is coming from a rusty right-angled pipe with its green algae tongue moving in the water. On a broken branch hangs a glass. Water has been coming from this pipe for years and is probably from the same aquifer as the fountain across the road. And the scene is framed by an over hanging branch from the nearby crab apple tree.

I see grandpa and grandma coming down the hill to greet us. Grandma is  wearing a print dress covered with an apron. She is small,with a hump back, and  her dark hair is in a net, and is wearing wire-rimed glasses. Grandpa Joe is her third husband. Grandpa Joe is from Canada,and a millwright by trade. He used to cook on a lumber schooner, hauling lumber to Chicago.  He is a short, stout man wearing bib overalls and a battered gray felt hat. He too wears wire-rimmed glasses. He has a glass eye, having lost a eye in an accident. His face is covered with white whiskers.
Looking up the hill in the distance is a small building called an apple house. And behind the main house is a long low red building where the outhouse is located. The main house is sided with imitation  yellow brick siding. Climbing the hill to the house I come to the single door and find a section cut from an inner tube nailed to the door,   which covers a pad of paper and a string with a pencil attached.

Inside is a room with a cement floor and bare 2x4's outlying a bathroom when finished. Passing into the kitchen I see a round table under the kitchen windows surrounded by tall flat-backed dining room chairs which grandma had painted bright blue. Another unusual feature was a large mangle against one wall. This is a rotary ironing machine used to iron bed sheets and other cloth. Grandma was a good cook and once cooked at the Portage Point Inn. One thing she did which I always liked was that she would  spread  white frosting on the top crust of pies she had baked.

The large living room contained an oil stove, and in one corner a strange-looking  chair as the focal point of the room. Dark, lathed-turned arms and legs. Uncomfortable to sit in. And directly above a couch, a large 1920's era picture of Cleopatra on a barge.

Off the living room and behind the oil stove is the bed room. Twin beds with two mattresses on grandma's bed with a feather bed on top.  

Leaving the house I see on my right thick patches of sumach and poison ivy. A path between the tall grass leads to the garage and grandpa's wood shop. Next to the path on the right are old neglected apple trees. Three  of the antique varieties are "Grimes Golden,""Wolf River," and "Northern Spy."

Before sliding the door open to the shop, I want first to go over to the apple house.The building has a concrete basement and a room above that is filled with furniture,stacks of fine china dishes, and oil paintings in frames. All these things were received by Grandpa in lieu of cash payment when he was building a cottage for some wealthy clients from Chicago, and the stock market crashed.  Grandpa had built several cottages along the shore of Lake Michigan.

Inside grandpa's shop there were saws and other equipment, and a large number of wood planes. On his lathe grandpa turned bowls and lamps.

Outside again, an abandoned green house attached to the garage wall. And across the driveway a small log shed which once was the home for Patsy, a milk cow. Not far from the log shed is a small log dam spanning a stream. It was here that I caught my first native trout. The flesh of this trout is pink, not white as is seen in planted trout.

Next,I turn and enter a small stand of Poplar and White Birch trees. There is absolutely no sound to be heard. Total silence. The rich small of the poplar trees. I am reminded of the poem "Cool Tombs," by Carl Sandburg. One line of verse reads:" Pocohantas, lovely as a poplar..." Looking across a small field of red raspberries and black berries I see a large log cabin sitting on a rise of ground.
Crossing the field of berries I reach to log cabin, with its empty eyes staring across the tops of the trees to the lake beyond. The large logs are smooth and gray from years of weather. There is no cement between the logs either. I enter the single door and see the start of a stone fireplace, with only three courses cemented in place. The owners of the log house are absent, but their signatures are written in the sand floor. A raccoon and a fox surely, but never a bear.

Sometimes when sleep  fails me I retreat to the small house with its imitation siding, and the many out buildings. The large abandoned log house in particular. Recalling this time in my life, always brings me peace.

        Aloha
        Grant

Ex Libris, an essay about books

      More Letters From Paradise
   Ex Libris, an essay about books

I like books. Books have played a large role in my life. I have bought, collected, and sold books. It used to be that when you visited a person's home, the books on view told you a lot about its owner. If you were to pull a book from the shelf you would sometimes find a slip of paper pasted inside the cover with the words "Ex Libris" and the name of the owner. ( From the library of..)  There was often a complete set of " World Book" encyclopedia somewhere on the shelves. Alas, this is seldom the case anymore. Giant televisions have taken over the former space which once housed books.

Books have been around for a very long time.The earliest books were written on clay tablets by the Sumerians, an ancient people who lived in the Near East. A wedge-shaped stylus was pressed into the soft clay, and then baked until hard. The vast number of these clay tablets are business records, but there are stories too. One example tells of a time when a great flood covered the earth. Sound familiar? It should, it tells the same story found in the book of Genesis in the Bible.

As history continues, we find the Ancient Egyptians writing on papyrus, a reed found growing in the Nile. These reeds were split and pressed together to form a sheet to write upon. The Greeks and Romans wrote upon the dried hides of animals scraped clean of hair. So also did the Hebrews. The the Dead Sea Scrolls is an excellent example. These documents are for us to read and enjoy today.

The fall of the Roman empire led us into the Middle Ages where monks labored long hours copying books by hand. Books were so valuable, that they were often chained to desks in order to prevent theft.

The event that changed  books forever was the invention of moveable type by J. Gutenberg, not the printing press which is so often mentioned. Now, with letters which could be arranged in words and sentences, and covered with ink and paper and  placed under pressure of a press, books could be mass produced. The first book to be printed by Gutenberg was the Bible. The Bible continues today as the number one best-seller.

Although books could be printed, they continued to be costly and valuable. Remember reading how Lincoln trudged through the snow to barrow a book to read by firelight? Pioneer Americans had at least a copy of the Bible. And often a copy of John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." It was Ben Franklin who is credited for creating the first lending library. And during the 19th century the "Robber Baron" Andrew Carnage, endowed libraries all across America. Your town probably has one. Mine Does. Teddy Roosevelt took a trunk full of books on his trip to Africa. I would bet that you once read a book by flashlight under a blanket when told to go to bed.

But not everyone has cared for books. Books often contain ideas that are opposed to a present political climate. A well-known theme concerning the ban of books is the  Sci-Fi "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. The story set in the future is where firemen are called upon to burn books. But you cannot kill an idea by simply burning books.The people in the book memorized books until such time when they could again be put into print. The title of the book is taken from the temperature at which paper burns.

But that was fiction. The real threat was during WWII under the Nazi regime. The first great burning of books took place in Berlin in 1933. President FDR said "Books cannot be killed by fire." But even so, the Nazi's tried. On My 10,1933,in Berlin thousands of students heaped books into a burning pyre. Then all across Germany ninety-three additional book burnings were held. "Time" magazine," New York Times," and countless others condemned these violent and  senseless acts. Education was now to bring glory to Germany alone.

Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and America entering the war, a new chapter was written concerning books. First, there was a nation-wide book drive to provide books for our servicemen. Named the  Victory Book Campaign, Americans now donated books in addition to scrap metal,rubber, and bacon fat. By the end of April 1942, nearly nine million books had been donated.When F.D.R. was asked what types of books should be donated he replied : "Anything but algebra." But there was one big problem. Many of the books were too large and heavy for a soldier's backpack. This led to a revolution in book printing and publication. The Armed Services Editions was born. Paperback books small size, light- weight pages, which could easily fit into a pocket. The sizes ranged from the large six and a half by flour inches. The smaller size five and a half by three and three-eighths inches. The largest  was only three-quarters of an inch thick. The smallest was less than an eighth of an inch thick. The books were an instant hit, and were sent world-wide. War weary and bored servicemen eagerly awaited each shipment. Over one hundred million ASE books were printed.

After the war Americans had become used to   paperback books, and publishers never looked back. Wire racks of pocket books became a common sight.

And now there yet another revolution concerning books,and that is electronic books. hand-held devices containing books which turn pages with the touch of a finger. Portable,light weight, easy to carry. Excellent for long trips, as long as the battery is charged. But as for me, I still prefer a book held in my hand. Like I said before, I like books.

P.S. Much of what I have written about ASE paperbacks, I stole from the new excellent book "When Books Went to War," by Molly Nuptial Manning.

     Aloha
     Grant  

Under the Old Oak Tree

Under the Old Oak Tree

     More Letters From Paradise      

      Under the Old Oak Tree

This one is for Jennifer and Jessica

Yesterday I found myself thinking about the huge oak tree in our yard in Petersburg. I never knew how old it was at the time we lived there, but now I know. 

Arborists have developed a way to calculate the age of North American trees without having to cut them down and count the growth rings. Our tree was either a black or red oak. I once measured the circumference and found that it was 13 feet. If you convert this into inches, and then multiply that number by a factor of either three, four or five. This gives you the age of the tree.    I didn’t know if it was red or black so I chose the smaller number. The result was astonishing! Our tree was at least 268 years old. That means that the Huron Indians in our area were living in the shade of the tree at the time of the birth of our nation. I had long suspected that the Huron Indians of the area camped on our land. I had found flint arrow heads in the back field after a rain. Further proof was the discovery of a stone axe when I was digging a foundation for a step  to  the kitchen door.

Our small plot of land had a rich history. I had heard of an old man by the name of Ephram Rauch, who had lived there and that he had a fat old horse and wagon that he drove to town to sell melons. One of my pigs dug up a copper powder flask next to the wall of the small barn. It must have been hung from a nail,and either a rat chewed the leather string holding it, or maybe it was claimed by age and became buried. 

The last person to live in our little house was an old woman named Mrs. Miller. The house consisted of only four rooms. One room was the living room, then next to it was a bedroom. The other two rooms were the kitchen and bath. This bathroom was once a bedroom as there was an old outhouse. The kitchen ceiling sloped to the rear and there was an old door with a thumb latch. You had to duck under to enter or leave the kitchen.

Outside the house had been sided with green asbestos siding covering the original wood siding. The house had a slope making the front of the house taller than the rear. The roof was sheeted with metal barn roofing, and covered a layer of wood shingles. 

In addition to a front door, there was a covered door which led to a stone- walled cellar with a sand floor. It was there that I came to store stone crocks of pickles and sauerkraut.

There was a small barn under the oak tree. It had been used to house a wagon and a stall for a horse and its feed. It was open on one side, so I built a pair of wide doors which made a home for my tractor, Jennifer’s pony and some milk goats. One of them chewed up my tractor’s seat pad. I built an addition on the barn of scrap metal roofing for my pigs. A stout wire fence was held up by railroad ties at each corner. Next to the fence I had six bee hives. 

I burned down the old outhouse and I built some rabbit cages. One building I bought and dragged to our farm was a chicken house. It was about 8x10 and shaped like a quonset hut. My friend Ellis and I jacked the building up off the ground and slid two logs under and drilled two long heavy screws into the logs. A long chain was hitched to the logs and we dragged it some three miles home. That became our chicken house. 

Our neighbor John Ott borrowed my 100 ft. tape and planned his apple orchard alongside and behind our property. He also used his small old Ford tractor with a bucket scoop and dug a good-size pond. I had found a small duck boat somewhere, painted it red and we often rowed around the pond. It was also used for fishing, and skating in winter. 

Jennifer slept at the foot of our bed until she was five years old. We needed more room. My plan was to build an addition slightly in front of the old house, keeping the same angle of the roof. Buck Ulmer,a carpenter, made me a pattern and I cut the rafters. I offered to pay him twenty bucks for the pattern. He refused saying “You changed a tire on my wife’s car sometime ago.” 

I built that addition, with a trapdoor in the hallway leading to the basement. I marvel that I didn’t get hurt. I put metal on the roof and standing on a step ladder, trimmed the edges with a skill-saw. I am left-handed.  All skill-saws are right-handed. I sided the addition with white boards and put green shutters around the windows. 

I was growing produce for market and had a galvanized stock tank to wash vegetables. It served as a pool for the girls. I traded a pick-up truck for a nine- passenger Chevy station wagon. I met a guy who wanted my vehicle, and would trade me for his swimming pool. The deal was closed when he said he and his family would set it up for us. Now the girls had a big swimming pool. I built steps and a deck on one side of the pool. The girls lived in their bathing suits all summer. Jessica had to wear a life jacket until she could swim across the pool without one. She soon did. I cut and framed a small window in the kitchen wall,so their mother could send out food and drink without them   tracking up the kitchen.      

As I write this it seems as if I was always building something. Next came a garage. I set the forms,put some old fence on the ground and had concrete delivered. When the concrete had set, I built the walls on the deck and everybody helped to raise them up and put them in place. The only outside help at that point came from my friend George and his son. We had to raise the roof trusses and nail them in place. Then came the roofing and white siding. My friend Ellis came to help me with the garage door. The garage was 24x24 and the door was heavy.   

My plan was to use only one side of the garage for a truck or car, the other side would become my leather shop. I had worked in Ann Arbor at a leather shop called the “Mule Skinner.” Having learned the trade, I wanted my own shop. I had insulated the garage for just this. I found a “Silver Oak” brand pot-belly wood stove,a couple of show cases, and a tank of harness oil. My sign out by the road read, “ The Stitching Horse,” and showed a horse threading a needle. A stitching horse is a seated wood vice used to hold leather while it is being sewn.  I made many custom leather items. Horse gear, hats, belts, custom holsters for handguns etc. The most unusual request was for a elkskin bikini. Business was good, and added to our income. The days  before Christmas was a very busy time for special orders. It was wonderful to step inside the shop and smell the leather and wood smoke. The girls pounded away on scrap leather, making name bracelets for their friends. 

When I came at last  to bring this memoir to an end, I realized that I failed to mention what we did out there on our little acre of land. That is besides selling honey, fresh eggs, goat milk, and some produce. 

Although we owned only a small patch of land, I rented several acres. These were sometimes close to home, other fields were three miles away. It was there that I grew sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbage, green beans, etc. I sold my produce on the Eastern Market in Detroit, and Ann Arbor market. I was helped by Terri, the young daughter of my friend Ellis. She would help customers, and sometimes Jennifer came along to help, and sleep under the sales counter. 

So this is at last the end of the story of our living and working during the sixties and seventies on our acre, under the old oak tree.

I should also mention that I built two geodesic domes. You can read about that in my blog: morelettersfromparadise.blogspot.com “Dome Sweet Dome.

      Aloha 

      Grant  (Dad)

Jerry

      More Letters From Paradise
              Jerry
Jerry's mother died when he was only five, and he went to live with his grandparents. And they were so poor. Grandpa and grandma had managed to carve out eighty acres from the stubborn South Dakota prairie. They owned a team of horses, a couple of pigs, and a small flock of chickens. Jerry never mentioned if they had a cow. Grandma cooked and baked on a large cast iron stove with a reservoir for heating hot water.  There was also an oil stove used to heat the small farmhouse.  Jerry said that they didn't have electricity until he was in the fourth grade.  And indoor plumbing didn't arrive until he was a junior in high school.

There were always chores to do. Jerry helped grandpa when he could. He carried two five gallon pails of water, candled eggs, fed the livestock, and pulled weeds in grandma's garden. Jerry received some whacks too, from grandpa when it was felt that he deserved them.

Jerry wore bib overalls and dark, ankle-high shoes all year long, with five-buckle Arctic overshoes in winter.  He was called the "orphan," by the people of the town. "They were very kind."Jerry said, giving him odd jobs to make a little money.  Often on his way home from school he would be asked by the grocer to sweep the store floor, or at the single gas station to wash a car.

The little prairie town of Chapman had a population of only two hundred souls, but it did have three churches, Lutheran, Baptist, and Catholic were all represented.

When Jerry grew older he had a job grinding welded plow shares for the local blacksmith. And much later, Jerry drove a gasoline truck to supply area service stations.

But it wasn't always work. Jerry recalled the time when three bachelor farmers took him see Minsky's Burlesque in Minneapolis.  He became quite the pool hustler, also.

Later, Jerry attended college on a basketball scholarship, at the urging of the three bachelor farmers, spent some time in the army, married, had a family, taught school, and  became a school principal.  He was an expert antique dealer and built some apartment houses.  He never forgot his roots, and worked with a school in the Navajo Nation. Jerry has come a long way from being the orphan boy raised by his grandparents, to being one of the nicest and most generous of men around.

       Aloha
       Grant
   

High Roller

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          High Roller
For all you fans of Las Vegas, you may be interested to learn that there is a big new attraction. It's called the "High Roller."
It consists of a 550 ft. wheel, much like the spokes of a bicycle. Steel cables stretch out from the center of the wheel to the outside rim. Attached  to the rim are glass- sided cars which can hold as many as forty people. The wheel moves slowly, taking about 46 minutes to travel the full circle.The wheel never stops, passengers enter and exit while it continues to move. The view is excellent. Be sure to sit on the left side of the car to view all the many casinos. This ride has only been open since last fall. The cost of construction was a whopping five hundred million dollars!! It is owned by Caesar's Palace.

     Aloha
     Grant