More on the pursuit of the elusive Wollemi Pine (True story, really)

So anyway, it's getting to be real hurricane season in Houston and we want our trees to be somewhat prepared.  What with all the drought that's been beating us to death, a little extra effort is needed.  We check a number of sources and finally select a company with whom we feel comfortable with the pruning of our trees. 

The owner of the company arrives and we go through all the technicalities with him of being a tree in desperate straits with delicate roots and I'm about to burst.  After all this guy is an arborist for God's sake and who better to ask the question?  Finally, i can take it no longer, so i ask.  "Excuse me, being an arborist and all, do you ever have the occasion to need a tree?"  

He looks at me suspiciously and asks, "You mean like buy one?"

"Well, yeah." I respond, not even venturing into whatever insinuations he might be imaging.  Needless to say, he's still giving me (to use a phrase I recently learned from one of my daughters) the stink eye.

"Can you get me a Wollemi Pine?" I blurted.

"What the Hell is a Wollemi Pine?" He responded.  My confidence plummeted to a new low, although I explain to him in great detail the origin of the Wollemia nobilis.

"Cool!!" he retorted.  "i am a member of the ISA."

This in itself did not reinstate my previous confidence in the guy.

He went on to say that membership in this organization helps him along the road to maintaining his arborist registration in the State of Texas, and one of the point gainers is attending the conventions.  

"The ISA is holding its convention in Australia this year." he pointed out and that he and his wife plan to attend.  He went on to say that he will contact his sources in the meantime in an effort to acquire said tree, and ultimately, when he gets to Austrailia he will check the possibilities of exporting these things.

More later.

The Demon from Tasmania

What does a major vacumm cleaner company have to do with the noble Wollemi Pine availability in the United States portion of North America?  Well, there appears to be an Animal out there that is sucking the very life out of those alternative businesses that are trying to make this thing obtainable.  It must be an animal with a cyclone on its butt, sort of like the Looney Tunes character from Tasmania, which coincidentally, just happens to be a little south of Eastern Australia. Coincidence?  Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.

That thought occurred to me after getting off the phone following a conversation with an Oregon wholesaler who previously carried that particular plant.  I intended to place an order but he was all out, has been for some time and anticipates no stock in the foreseeable future.  My small corporation just expanded a mite after the board saw this niche where all of those people clamoring for this popular plant could be made happy.  No dice, there is apparantly no stock to be had, wholesale or otherwise.

A couple years ago a major supplier in Florida who, after stating that he just could not give these things away, dumped the lot somewhere and headed north.  Then there was the nurseyman in the very same State who planned to generate some starter plants from the new growth on their stock plants when the heat wave rolled in and not only wiped out the newbies but made serious cuts into their older stock.

Having mulled this over for some time, I’ve decided that it must be the demon from Tasmania.

A letter to my Uncle

My uncle was a top turret gunner gunner in various B-17's during the second great war.  He flew out of an airfield on the outskirts of Polebrook north of London.  This is a story, part of which was previously in the form of a letter that I wrote him a few years before he died, about my trips to that airfield while on a business trip to England.

The Lock

Part I                  

The British trains are new and much quieter than the the ones that you traveled on from King’s Cross to Peterborough decades ago.  But the countryside is much the same and it passes by, the power poles zipping past at a blurring retina detaching pace, the same as they did then.  I am seeing years past in your eyes as you described this so long ago.  The wooden seats are no more and the noisy rattle of the ancient passenger cars are gone.  The loneliness of that trip is no less; the boisterous chatter and raucous laughter of comrades-in-arms are not there anymore but it is just as lonely nonetheless.  

The Alton to Waterloo train

Peterborough has grown since the war although, as you mentioned before, nothing really changes very much in England.  The trains stop  just as they did during the war, but now they haul goods and cargo; they haul tourists and travelers.  Not so long ago the noisy cattle cars with wooden seats delivered boys to man the air fields commanded by Americans and Englishmen across the English countryside from Weymouth to just past Norwich.

I had intended to travel to Polebrook from Peterborough, but you can’t get there from Peterborough, not by train anyway.

My trip began this morning in Alton; destination Polebrook.  The ticket agent behind the thick glass window with the little hole for speaking searched the computer database for Polebrook but came up dry.  “Peterborough is the closest you can get by train.” She assured me in her thick Irish-English matter-of-fact tone. 

When I walked from the Grange Hotel to the Alton train station that morning I was certain that I would begin by taking the train from Alton.

Train station at Alton

I purchased my ticket, which would have taken me from Alton to Waterloo Station, stopping at Bentley, Farnham, Aldershot, Ashvale, Brookwood, Woking, West Byfleet, Weybridge and Surbiton, by-passing Wimbledon. Spell check in my American version of Microsoft Word does not accept these places but I passed through them anyway.

My first hint that things can go awry is the ticket agent’s further assurance that my first leg of the trip, from Alton to Aldershot will be by bus.

Although I had taken the train to Waterloo Station just three weeks before, today it was not to be.  Today crews are making repairs to the section of the track somewhere between Alton and Aldershot so there will be no trains from Alton to Aldershot today.

My first hint that the average Englishman is shorter that the average American tourist comes when my scalp scrapes across the ceiling of the bus.  I take my seat where my knees come in rude contact with the back of the seat in front of me.  It is then that I spy the stairwell to the upper level of the bus.  My scalp scrapes to the first step.

The average American tourist I guess, is expected to sit in the upper level, where the ceiling and seats are more accommodating.  But this is England, where remnants of courtesy and tradition still exist.  The driver did not demand that I “get in the top of the bus.”

Arriving at the Aldershot station I disembark from the bus and board the train.   At Waterloo Station I exit the train and make my way to the entrance to the underground.  There a sign and red plastic ribbon inform me that this particular entrance is closed for repairs.

I ask several fellow travelers and persons with official-looking clip-on badges and identification and I get several different opinions as to how one might enter the underground from Waterloo Station.  One of these opinions involves exiting the station by way of a bridge that crosses a very busy street.  Halfway across the bridge I miss a micro-sign that would have directed me down stairs that would take me to the sidewalk.  Finding nothing promising at the end of the bridge I double back and spot the sign.  At the street level I find an entry to the underground behind the stairs.  It is obvious that British officials took an American tactic and hid the damned thing for security reasons.

Once I am in the underground I figure out from the maps on the wall that by taking the North Line to Oxford Circus, where I board the Victoria Line I can reach King’s Cross.  A short walk from the Kings Cross underground exit takes me to the King’s Cross train station, where the next train to Peterborough is boarding.

Railway station at King's Cross

When I first started writing this, my only familiarity with King’s Cross was the fact that it was it was where my subway trip ended and the second train leg began.  Since that time King’s Cross has become a household word because of the scores of people who were either killed or maimed by a terrorist bomb there.

During the war there were 126 US Army Air Force airfields and 11 command headquarters scattered across England.  There was one that interested me, the one at Polebrook.

Outside the Peterborough train station I discover that there is no bus to Polebrook.

There were plenty of buses during the war.  Olive drab buses positioned themselves at the curb to disperse members of the 351^st Airborne to those bases that can be reached most efficiently from Peterborough.  But these buses are doing other things now.  They have been dispersed and cannibalized to be the steel that are now ships, cars, antique metal toys and long buried staples and razor blades.

Today I will go to Polebrook in a hire car driven by a young Englishman of Pakistani decent.  He tells me that he can take me there for about 20 pounds.  The taxi, classically British, even though new, looks, well, British.  I find myself wondering as I admire it if any of the steel from those buses that carried members of the 351^st Airborne is part of this taxi.  It is in this vehicle  that I leave the busy world that is strung along the line from Alton, Waterloo Station, King’s Cross and Peterborough.

“Polebrook?”  the driver asked in that undulating British-Pakistani accent.

“That’s the one.” I responded

My first ride to Polebrook

He shifted the black marvel into gear and rolled away.  I measured the distance, not so much by the kilometers as by the pence that ticked away.  He negotiated several roundabouts, each turn favoring London until I thought I was going to end up back near King’s Cross before the driver nosed into a turn from the roundabout for the long haul.  My fears subsided as I began to see more and more signs with my intended destination imprinted upon them.

Polebrook is nothing less than a community with character and tradition. Before I could appreciate it, it was behind us and we were again on a quiet lonely road somewhere in the English countryside.  I did not count the twists and turns on this narrow little road in the woods, but on the last one we came upon an intersection and a signpost with several wings, one of which announced a memorial to the 351^st Airborne of the 8^th Air Force 1 kilometer to the right.

Road Sign leading to the Memorial

The hush that hung over this sign was as thick as a morning mist and the taxi coasted to a slow halt in the secluded parking lot.  The driver waited while I got out of the car and walked to the lonely granite monument that sat next to the tree line at the end of a field of freshly mown hay.  As I stood there seeing that polished granite stone with a profiled B-17 bomber at its base, I was certain that I stood with ghosts.  I’ve no doubt that they were the ghosts of those who had died on one of the 311 missions that were flown over Germany from 1943 to 1945 when that silent hayfield launched those 311 missions but received only those who returned.  Some lived to fly again, some survived the long trip back only to die in an unsuccessful landing attempt.

I took pictures of the hayfield, imagining the pockmarks of failed landings amid the hay bale stacks.

Part of the memorial

I took some more pictures of the memorial and the cab driver offered to take one with me at the main stone.  I probably should have some proof that I was there I decided so I assumed a kneeling position beside the testimonial to those thousands who lived or died during that four year long ordeal and he took the picture.

Something in me wanted to walk that abandoned field and stand where my uncle had stood back in 1943, but the meter was running and the driver looked as though it was time to go.  Maybe it was appropriate that I leave, for maybe it was right that only hay farmers and those who had experienced that place in time be allowed to walk that ground.

(That was my thinking the first time I went.  The next time was a month and a half later, and this time I drove the car, but that is a story for later.)

A montage of the memorial at the end of the former runway.
The aerodrome is the blip on the horizon at the far right.

I got back in the cab and told the driver to drop me off in Polebrook where I planned to explore and photograph.

When we arrived in Polebrook he stopped beside a building and asked me if I was returning to Peterborough.  I told him I was and he asked me how I would be getting back.  I said that I would get a cab later that day and he told me that I would not be getting a cab there because there were none.  Looking around at the place I surmised that he was most likely correct in his comment.  He asked how long I planned to stay. Realizing where this conversation was going I said that I probably would be no more than 30 minutes.  He replied, “look, I’ll turn off the meter for now.  When you are finished, I’ll drive you back.”  

I offered to buy him a beer and he countered with the offer to buy me one instead.  I suggested that he was the one with the idle meter so I would buy it.  He asked a passerby where he might find a pub and we were directed to the Kings Arms just around the corner.

Sign marking the King's Arms

In the Kings Arms the driver asked for a glass of orange juice and I chose a pint of Liberation ale which I toasted to my two uncles, both of whom served here in the 351^st Airborne.  I asked the barkeep what he knew about the old airfield and he said that he only knew of it.  He pointed to the end of the bar where an elderly couple sat nursing their ales and suggested that I speak to them instead.

I went over and introduced myself and told them why I was there.  He said he remembered all right.  He said that he could remember the B-17’s taking off and flying around the field till they formed up their group and then they flew off in the direction of Germany.  He said they did that until they were all gone.  He told me that later they came back and that sometimes he would hear a boom and see smoke from when one crashed.  He said that after the war the land was reclaimed and turned into farm land. He said the Perimeter road still had right angle turns where it had gone around the edge of the old air field.  He added that since the monument had been installed that it had become a kind of Mecca until recently.  He said that caravans of  men, some with arms and legs chopped off brought their families to the monument to show them where it all happened.  He also told me that there is a memorial at the church in Polebrook and that it honors the Englishmen who died during that war.  He commented that it was not much of a monument, not very big at all.  He sat quietly for a moment before adding that it is just a cross.

After thanking him for his time and his story I got that overwhelming feeling one gets when he suspects that he has been someplace too long.  I told the cab driver that I wanted to take a few pictures and that after that we needed to get his meter started again so that he could make some money.  I went outside and took a series of pictures that I could tack together to make a panoramic montage.  Then I met the driver at the cab and we drove back to Peterborough.

Montage of The King's Arms Tavern in the village of Polebrook.

If I had a sensation of  being connected in some way to that time during the war, the reality of modern day Peterborough certainly brought me back.  Looking at the young people walking about in that city it occurred to me that the experience that I had just had over the past two hours would be completely alien to them.  It also occurred to me that their attitudes toward WWII was probably the same as mine toward WWI. 

The easiest way to get to the older part of Peterborough was to go through the new mall that separated it from the train station.  Circumventing the department stores I found myself next to a cathedral that dated back to the 1400’s.  I took a few pictures and walked a few blocks before coming upon another cathedral.  I suspect that these two structures were probably the only things that had not changed since my uncle had been there. 

After about an hour of this I went back to the train station and caught the next train back to King’s Cross in London.

My return to Alton was uneventful with the minor exception of a side trip at Oxford Circus.  For a couple pounds I was able to escape the underground and walk around for a few minutes.  I found the Palladium where Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has been playing for over 10 years.  Nothing else really caught my eye so I went back to the underground entrance to Oxford Circus Station and made my way back to Waterloo Station where I caught the next train to Aldershot. There I would catch the bus back to Alton.


PART II

For whatever reason, my first visit to Polebrook and what is left of the airfield that contributed to the demolition of the Third Reich wasn't totally satisfying.  I was obsessed with the place.  I could not get enough of it.  Even the excellent food in the many pubs that are scattered about could  not take the edge off of this overwhelming need to return there.

Sign at the Golden Pot tavern

The (haunted)Crown Hotel and Tavern

The Queen's Head tavern

White Hart tavern

I made that return trip to Polebrook the end of July.

People I dealt with at the office seemed to expect me to drive myself to work and about.  The tell-tale sign I guess was when they issued me the car.  For nearly two weeks after that I had driven dutifully between the hotel and the office six miles away, and occasionally to one of the local pubs scattered about the countryside. 

My old standby, however was the warm and friendly pub at the Grange Hotel.

The bar at the Grange Inn

Last Friday night the bartender at the hotel pulled out a UK road atlas to show me the way to one of the local pubs that serves pretty good evening meals.  I borrowed the atlas and studied the highway system around London and I decided that driving should not be too difficult outside of Alton.  The second thing that I decided was that I should probably pick up my own UK road atlas. 

The next day was Saturday, so after breakfast I walked downtown to the book store and purchased an atlas.  About an hour later I made the decision to drive up to Polebrook using a route that I had studied pretty seriously the night before, using the one that the barkeep lent me.

Coincidentally, One of my cohorts at the place I am working introduced me to a couple at the hotel the night before and the gentleman had been involved somehow with the old WWII airfields. During our conversation he mentioned Connington field.  He was involved in the re-commissioning of that field.  He told a story of  an American WWII pilot who came to him one day to ask about an old air field from which he had flown. He had known the field by a previous name, his description drew them both to the conclusion that it was indeed the place now known as Connington Field.  He told a story in which he had landed a B-17 whose wheels were lost during a bombing run.  He had to land the plane and the remainder of the landing gear had cut two serious grooves in the concrete.  He assured the former war pilot  that yes, he had seen those grooves and that he had spent a day and a half attempting to fill them with asphalt in order for the field to be useable.

I mentioned the field at Polebrook and I asked him if the aerodrome there was actually there when the 351^st Airborne operated that field.  He said that it was and that it is essentially in its original structural condition.  This intrigued me and is probably the catalyst that triggered my later decision to return.

Driving in England highways is not quite as simple as the UK Road Atlas might suggest.  I suppose the blight of the British highway system is the round-about. The round-about is the British version of an intersection.  It consists of a circle with several roads connected to it.  Once a driver is in the circle he has the right of way.  There are several complications to this, however.  One of these complications is the not-necessarily-anticipated lane change requirement.  In some cases the innermost or right lane may remain in the circle or exit, other times only the left lane is allowed to exit.  This requires one to check the exit sign, check his position and at the same time look for passing traffic.  If this is not complicated enough, there is the aggressive driver entering the circle who may or may not try to beat you out.  There is also the driver behind you, particularly when you are entering the round-about, who is not looking at you, but the approaching car.  If he believes he can beat the oncoming car in the circle  he unconsciously assumes that you are of the same mindset and unintentionally rear-ends you, inadvertently ramming you into the circle and the oncoming car, causing you to test his original theory.  Although I have been warned of this by the more experienced, it has not happened.

Yet.

It is hard to explain this intrigue with Polebrook.  It is a place about which I have heard in general terms since my early childhood.   Part of it involves my total saturation in English culture and history since I arrived here back in the middle of May.  I learned about The Anglicans, the Saxons and England’s inclusion in the Roman Empire in grade schhool as I had Shelley, Byron, Austin, Shakespeare, Winston Churchill and others, but the war in England and my uncle’s being stationed there was a piece of English history to which I could relate.  When I heard talk of England, the latter is the part that always came to mind first.  So I have enjoyed my visits to the WWII airfield at Polebrook.  It brought to life stories of heroism and valor that I heard so long ago.

The aerodrome is huge.  It stands as awesome as it must have then.

The Aerodrome and other service buildings of  the 351st Airborne near PoleBrook

When I spoke with gentleman at the Grange tavern the evening before he commented that those structures, which once housed B-17’s are now used to store potatoes.  It’s the modern version of the old adage of beating the proverbial sword into a plowshare.  Huge air conditioning ducts and condensers now adorn the sides of the structure, maintaining an optimum temperature for produce.

The tribute to those valiant fighters of the 351^st, that bold granite triangle that juts above the asphalt, actually sits on what used to be the end of the runway.  The first time I was there, that chilly rainy day in May, a man arrived and stood silently with hands folded as he gazed upon the memorial.  There is commonality among those who visit that place; conversations seemed to begin spontaneously.  He initiated it by commenting on the strength exuded by the monument.  He was younger than I and I asked him where his home is.  He was from Poland.  His forebearers had experienced a different side of the war and a different outcome than we, but he was there, reverently paying his respects to that piece of time.

The second time I was there a fellow my age with a younger wife arrived in a taxi.  He owned the taxi and the hire car agency that was painted on the side.  He and his wife spent a significant part of their free time visiting the many airfields on the English countryside that were once the launch pads for American B-17’s.  He spoke gratefully about that great effort that cost some many American men their lives, their limbs or a piece of their emotional well being. When I left, he and his wife were sitting on the bench that is part of the memorial, reading the many inserts of gratitude made by English men and women.

I bade them, Polebrook and the airfield of the American 351st goodbye returned to alton.



Now if  I had not absorbed enough of the war time aura by now, the Watercress Line was holding their annual observance of VE and VJ Day with their “War on The Line” theme.  I decided that this might be an interesting thing to do so I made a note to go down to the train station the next day.

“The Mid Hants Railway Watercress Line ‘War on the Line’ VE & VJ Day celebrations, to be held 11 & 12 June 2005/1945” was the billing on the program that I received, with the footnote “Long live the cause of freedom.  God save the King.”

Welcome table Watercress Line "War on the Line"

I walked down to the station at 9:00am and purchased my ticket for the extravaganza.  The lady, looking quite at home in her WWII vintage sailor suit  asked me, “Err ye goin’ to joyn us een ur journey tedaiy?” I said that I thought I might and she smiled and went about her task of attending to her welcoming duties.

Station Master

Men of varying age milled about in black station manager and ticket agent uniforms.  A porter in yet another black uniform pushed a handcart of ancient luggage to it’s designated display point.

My ticket was a rectangular piece of  cardboard about an eighth of an inch thick, not the thin piece of card with the magnetic tape that is normally swiped through a reader.  It was a design that predated even the enigma machine of wartime Germany that so cleverly coded and decoded military messages.  This ticket was designed to be read by human eyes and to be punched with the hand operated punch, a method that had been favored even in the days of the horse and coach.

Commanders' meeting

I loitered about the station platform awaiting a train of unknown origin and vintage while others arrived one at a time and in groups.  Before long two officers, seafarers I guessed by the insignia on their dated uniforms and their fancy combed beards and carefully waxed mustaches.  Strapped to their sides were canvas and leather pouches containing unidentified materials, items that I suspect would be revealed only on a need to know basis.

The train finally arrived and I boarded a 1942 vintage passenger car and sat down in a four-passenger  cubicle.  I shared the compartment with a displaced European couple, who declared themselves to be the victims of the occupation.  Across from us sat a father trying to console his son who was bitching because his new Nikes were hurting his feet.  The first stop after Alton was Meadstead.   I was in time to witness an historic gathering of European commanders who met with none other than Sir Winston Churchill himself.

Sir Winston

The Watercress Line, a working railway, consists of restored vintage steam engines and rail cars of the pre-WWII and WWII era.  Odd organization you say? Not really;  think about it.  Deep down in the hearts of almost everyone's child psyche is the desire to have his/her very own model train.  Here is the ultimate, not just a model but life-sized vintage steam engines and passenger cars.  What for?  Just for the pure pleasure of their existence. Just imagine real, coal-fired, noisy steamy engines that puff and chug, slowly at first, and the rattling bang of the cars bumping together and then again as the couplings go taut. Then the chugging gets faster and faster until it becomes that purring sewing machine sound of a cruising steam engine.  then again perhaps most are too young to remember.

Do you remember those miniature figures, some of which performed simple movements as the model train thundered past?  What greater fun than to have real life size trains and, instead of a few mechanical figures, throw in a few genuine warm-blooded action figures, like crusty barking generals,

Reviewing the troops

Troops

 and maybe an American army patrol.

Steamers

Standing room only

I spent the rest of the afternoon, or at least the better part of it riding the ancient trains, disembarking from time to time to live re-inactments of times passed.  I shared the standing-only cars with displaced war time refugees and others who I believe thoroughly enjoyed their participation in this annual reenactment of this particular piece of the countries history.

During my participation in this adventure I fulfilled my intension of riding in every car pulled by every engine that The mid-Hants Railway rolled out for this event.

My final ride for the day was the passenger car in which I started that morning.  I seated myself in one of the compartments, almost certain that it could well have been the very same passenger car in which Harry Potter shared chocolate frogs with his schoolmates on the Hogwarth Express.  Well I rode that final train for a long time.  I jotted down notes, I looked out the window, I took in the smells of burned coal smoke and spent steam, and I dozed.  I don't know how long I dozed but I was awakened by the growling noise one makes when one clears his throat in a particular manner.

I took a moment or two to emerge from the stupor of sleep.  I looked up and there stood a figure with high khaki riding pants tucked smartly into knee-length  leather riding boots, and a leather jacket. Sitting atop his head was a green steel field pot with five stars mounted on it. His side piece was a pearl-handled revolver.  I stared speechless at him for I was convinced that I was at this moment staring into the face of the ghost of General George Patton

The General

Well, I’ll have to admit my blood ran a little cold at the sight of that powerful figure staring down at me.  It seemed like an eternity that he stood there; staring, but finally he opened his mouth to speak…..

And he said……

High might.

 

Sigh…………..

Keen yee tile my, thease tryin’….

Ease eat gang oop een thease dyreekshewn oar ease eat gang book thot wye?

I don’t even know if I responded coherently, if at all, but I do know that I heard my neck crack ever so slightly as I was snatched back in space and time when this particular General Patton boarded that train, to the present at Ropley Station.  Just before my arrival I heard George C. Scott whisper from the grave in that whiskey barrel voice, charred by Raleigh, North Carolina’s finest cut, “Hey, what was that?!  That weren’t no Patton I ever heard or did!  Somebody dig me up so I can slap that son-of-a-bitch!”

Together we figured out that we were headed in the direction of Alton station, where I eventually left the Watercress Line and My WWII adventure behind.

Well Uncle James,  this has been sort of a pilgrimage for me.  I wish you could have done this with me.  I heard the stories from your mother and from my mother, the pride in your having gone to war in England and flown the missions over Germany, the bitterness over your having to go in the first place.  When I was a kid I used to go open the cedar chest when my grandmother wasn’t in the house.  I remember looking at your flight jacket and touching it, counting the insignia for each mission you flew.  I read the newspaper clippings and I opened the boxes and looked at your medals.  You know, whenever I smell cedar I think about that.

So I’m sharing with you what I can.  I picked up the map and booklet in Peterborough along with the cathedral souvenirs.  There weren’t any souvenir shops in Polebrook, at least none that I found, in fact  I doubt that Polebrook has grown much at all since you were there, and that is a comforting thought. 

I’m including some soil from the runway that used to be, and if I find it before I mail this package, a small chip of concrete.  I chipped it from a pile of rubble that I suspect used to be the runway. I put it in a safe place, too safe apparently.  I’m also including pictures of pages from the guest book that is kept at the monument site on the end of what was the runway.  I just looked at the prints.  I can’t read them from the printed photograph, but the pictures are on the enclosed CD. Don't worry about what pests the soil sample might contain;  I nuked it in the microwave at the office.

I took several pictures of the aerodrome and other buildings that still remain from the airfield and spliced them together.  They didn’t plot as well as I wanted them to but they’ll work.

I’ll never forget the experience of being there……..

Jim

The Featherweight

Today started out normally enough for a Saturday.  Following an early breakfast the next thing on the agenda was cutting the grass, a task that we assumed following our son’s return to school.  I was getting worked up to that, wanting to get it done before the sun rose too high when my wife commented that the people across the street are having a garage sale. 

Now God only knows where this guy comes up with some of his stuff because he manages to have a garage sale about once every two months as he has for the two years that we have been living here.  Granted, there are some things that he has been trying to sell for the past two years, like the shotgun shell loading equipment, the washer and dryer and various crafts that seem to have been hacked out of wood using a dull axe with a short handle.  Either he does not craft, and I use that term very loosely, these items of wood; he crafts them and is extremely non-accident prone; or he gets them from someone else for he neither lacks any of his fingers nor does he walk with a limp.  I make this assumption as I picture craftsmen of quaint picturesque countries where native artisans create intricate native crafts with crude weapons while using their bare feet as a vice.

Despite these Familiar return items I discovered from my first visit that they have some very interesting items for which I have absolutely no use but have an intrigue that I cannot resist.  Now this is not a malady with which I was recently afflicted, as proven by an incident a few years ago when we were obliged to move out of the country.  Selling the house and moving required the holding of three garage sales grossing well over two thousand dollars in order to empty the garage and the attic.

Three thousand plus dollars worth of junk is a lot of junk by any standard of measure, metric or otherwise.

My first visit across the street shortly after moving to our present address was, like the first trip to Disneyland, the best.  All of the collection was a new experience, including the Baja buggy, which I did not buy, nor did I buy the washer, dryer, handicrafts or shotgun shell loaders.  What caught my eye and my wallet were the pieces of vintage aluminum luggage manufactured around 1950 by Halliburton before they became Zero Halliburton.  I purchased the two for fifteen dollars.  That was two years ago and I haven’t used them for anything but I stand ready to restore them both to near mint condition at a moment’s notice.  I don’t remember what if anything I bought the second time I visited the garage sale across the street but I do remember his feeble attempt to punch my “regret” hot button by pointing out that during the previous garage sale that I missed, he had sold an aluminum attaché case that matched the two pieces of luggage.  I responded dryly that he would most likely come across another one.  He must have taken offense because as far as I can tell he has gone well out of his way not to come across another one like it.

“The people across the street are having another garage sale this morning.” She said, and my mind wandered directly to the possibilities.  My eyes rolled back into my skull and a hint of drool appeared at the corners of my mouth as I moved mechanically out the front door and across the street to inspect the wares.  The wife of the family was minding the store when I got to their drive.  “It’s the same old stuff.” She quipped as I approached.  I bid a courtesy hello to the old mismatched laundry couple and gently patted the splintery old cedar dog that sat upon the door and sawhorses table.  Neither the door nor the sawhorses as far as I could tell were for sale, although the saw and random doorknobs were.  I suspected that the quaint table beneath them might be also at the right price.

The driveway keeper and I chatted amiably while I looked around.  We were in fact chatting about the bumper crop of non-edible mushrooms that were sprouting up on everyone’s lawn following the torrential downpours over the past few weeks while I looked around at the merchandise.  We had moved from the mushroom topic to that of the mosquito population when it caught my eye.  At  the edge of the drive, toward the back sat a small black case covered with leather grained black paper which was so common during the forties and early fifties of the previous century.  Perhaps you think that it has rightly occurred to you that I seem to have some kind of luggage or case fetish.  Maybe I do, but out of decency we will leave my fetishes alone for the moment.

Actually this is a common thing, the desire to open the closed case, just to see what treasure might lie within its confines, always considering in the back of one’s mind the chance that it may be the ever possible Pandora’s box.  It was coated in a thin layer of dust on the sides with a liberal layering of old sawdust on the top.  Dimly aware of the mosquito dialogue between us, I puffed away the layer of sawdust and pressed the two buttons that released the two chrome latches.

Now despite observations by Einstein, Fehnman and Hawking regarding it’s universal relativity, in our world time has a way of moving progressively forward one second by second, ushering us steadily ahead, year by year, with absolute rigidity.  When I opened that insignificant black case though, I got the feeling that the clock which governed its interior began ticking again only when I lifted the lid.  The only thing that suggested the passing of time within was the faint mustiness that issued from it. 

“How much are you asking for this?” I queried.  Inside was a small black sewing machine that sported a golden Singer logo.  The interior of the case was lined with a dark gray delicately subtle fleur de leis textured paper.  The black paint that covered the sewing machine had a luster of newness as did the small Sherwood Forest green instruction booklet with the gold lettering on the front.

I don’t know that much about sewing machines.  My grandmother had a plain Singer treadle sewing machine when I was a child. It sits in the foyer where my wife and I now live.  We also have a “portable” singer sewing machine of 1930’s vintage.  It is in an oak veneer case.

I don’t know much about sewing machines.  I just come from a long line of packrats.

“Oh, twenty dollars I guess.” She responded as though it was an item of endearment that she was not certain she was ready to release.  She went on to tell me that a friend had given it to her with the possibility that her mother might like to use it.  It had belonged to his wife, she informed me and she had died about fifteen years before.  Her mother declined with “Thank you dear, I think I’ll continue using my old one.”  As a result it had sat unattended somewhere in her house for an undetermined amount of time.

I nodded slowly at this new knowledge.  I moved just as slowly toward the street, commenting that I would mention the thing to my wife in case she might be interested.  When I got home I told my wife that there was an interesting looking sewing machine in a case that she might want to look at.  I moved toward the bedroom to get my wallet.

Normally my wife takes a faintly begrudging tolerance of my acquisition of random objects, anticipating the possibility of an unsuspected major move sometime in the future that might necessitate the shedding of unneeded belongings (junk).  This time there was no hesitant questioning of judgment, just a simple “OK.”

I have developed a phobia in the past two or three years which involves venturing very far from home base without a cellular telephone.  Unexplainable.  Anyway I was delayed slightly by my second trip to the bedroom to retrieve that electronic wonder.  When I arrived at our neighbor’s drive my wife was already there, chatting amiably with our neighbor, whose name I do not know.  When I arrived we moved toward the little black case.  I opened it and showed the contents to my wife.  She made a non-commital comment or two and the conversation moved to the bumper crop of mushrooms on the neighborhood lawns and the insatiable appetites of the mosquitoes.

I have never been the master of idle chat, and in fact I cannot remember very many times during my residency on the Earth in which I have participated in it for very long.  My wife, sensing that I was beginning to fidget, asked “How much did you want for this?”, pointing at the small black case.

“Twenty dollars.” Our neighbor replied.

“Well, let me go home and see if I have twenty in cash.” My wife responded as I pulled a ten, a five, four ones from my wallet, four quarters from my pocket and handed the lump sum to the garage keeper.

I bade courtesies to her, watching the sun rise above the trees to beat down on the un-mowed lawn.  “Don’t forget your sewing machine.” I said as I moved toward the street once again.  My wife said good-by, picking up the newly acquired case.  Overwhelmed by chivalry, I took the case from her.

Neither my wife nor I participated in the slightest of idle chat until we were almost back in our own yard.  She was the first to speak.  “We got a deal, babe.”  This is a featherweight.

You might ask why the question loomed in my mind.  It did, it came from nowhere and it was unexpected.  “What the Hell is a featherweight?”

She must have anticipated my query before I queried it.  “The ladies in the quilting newsgroup would kill for one of these.  In this condition these things sell for between three hundred and five hundred dollars.”

This did not answer specifically the question “What the Hell is a featherweight?” but it satisfied my curiosity well enough.

It’s good I guess that they would be willing to kill for one of these things, because it made my theft-by-taking-for-a-relatively-ridiculously-small-amount-of-money seem small indeed.

I got out the lawnmower and cut the grass.  Following that I showered and then participated in the-rest-of-the-morning-long internet session in an effort to pen down the exact year of manufacture of our newly gotten goods.  It turned out to be around 1953 and according to the scale of condition this featherweight addition to the household is a nine on a one to ten scale, ten being mint condition.

The grass is cut.  I wonder what we will do on Sunday.  If I were Catholic I’d probably go to confession.  However, as a non-participating protestant turned Unitarian turning stale I’ll have to just live with my guilt of theft-by-taking-for-a-relatively-ridiculously-small-amount-of-money.

One good thing came of this though.  We’re not coveting my neighbor.

For more interesting stories about sewing machine adventures and related stuff, you should go to http://www.featherweightFanatics.com/.  It used to be http://quilt.com/fwfanatics/truestories.html.   In case you have not guessed, the “fw” in “fwfanatics” stands for “featherweight,” and the “fanatics?”  Yeah, well.

The Cookie Recipes

My wife’s grandfather and his father before him were bakers.  My wife’s mother, before she died, shared fond memories of her childhood, one of which involved her father’s bakery and grocery store.  My wife has a picture or two of her great grandfather, standing in front of his grocery with friends, whose jobs were to run other businesses that were required to sustain the population of the small town of Sidney, Ohio about the end of the nineteenth century.

My wife’s mother, Mary, shared many stories and oftentimes she would fetch out of storage in some bureau drawer, trunk or shoebox, some piece of associated memorabilia that enriched the story of the moment, making it that much more personal.  My impression was that she had memories of an especially happy childhood in that quaint little town of so long ago in Ohio; pleasant memories that must have taken the ragged edges from other less pleasant memories that all too often are nested in childhoods passed.

Mary shared memories of playing in the bakery, sampling the cookies and teacakes and running barefoot between the trays in the cooling room in the back of the store. It was during one of these trips back in time that she paused and, excusing herself, disappeared into the back of the apartment.  When she returned she had in her hand a small hinged wooden box.  She took her seat once again and opened the box to reveal a small tattered notepad with pages bound at the end with a piece of coarse twine.  The thick pad had been gently folded to fit the box.  She carefully removed the object from its container and slowly opened it so as not to damage it any more than time already had.  From a distance the slightly yellowed pages appeared to bear characters written in the penmanship typical of times past.  The script was practically illegible.  The pale, faded sepia ink with which it was written had also been the unwitting victim of the ravages of time.  “This was his book of recipes.” She said, thus affixing the memory that she was revisiting to its rightful place in the continuum of space and time.  “I have so many memories” she said, “and I am running out of places to keep them.”  She held the box with both hands, as if by doing so she might protect it from further ravages of time.  “I don’t have the time or space to keep up with these kinds of things either.” She said, extending the box to my wife.  “Perhaps you would like to have this.” She suggested.  We spent the rest of the day chatting about various things before it was time for us call it an evening.  We had reached the end of our vacation visit and we would be starting out the next morning on the long return drive from California to Texas.

Some time after we returned home, I was called upon to sit a well somewhere in West Texas.  As a geologist, it was my job at the wellsite to identify the rock formation that the drillbit was penetrating by looking at the rock cuttings that were being washed up the annulus by the drilling mud.  My job also included detecting the presence of oil in the formation by the stains that are present in the rock particles.  One of the tools that makes this job easier is the binocular microscope that is always in the mudlogger’s trailer.  The other is the light box.  The latter is aptly named, for inside it is a small light bulb and an ultraviolet light tube.  There is a window on the top nested in a foam rubber attachment designed to fit around the eyes so that one’s vision is shaded from external light.  There are holes on either side of the box so that small trays of rock cuttings can be placed inside the box for viewing, and for manipulating the small rock fragments with a stylus or tweezers.  The small light bulb is for viewing the samples in “normal” light.  When the normal light is extinguished, the ultraviolet or “black” light will cause certain minerals to fluoresce in characteristic colors.  It is also very helpful in detecting the presence of oil.  High gravity, or light oil will fluoresce in various shades of light blue and heavier oils will appear to be yellow or orange.  Paper and shirtsleeves fluoresce in iridescent white as do the costumes of scantily clad go-go dancers of another time passed.  The smudges and stains that might be associated with each of these professions will appear as conspicuously dull flat blotches against the strikingly iridescent material to which they are affixed.  The UV light is also popular among crime scene investigators because it reveals the faint remnants of washed away blood and other things.  The next time you are the guest at a five-star hotel you might take along one of these portable devices in case you are interested in how clean your sink and bed sheets are.

I was noting the presence of roughly forty gravity oil in a sample from 10,000 feet in the Wolfcamp Formation when the idea struck me that whatever comprised the faded ink in that cookbook of times passed might be very readable under a portable UV light.  When I returned home my wife and I set about reviving theses formulas for the resurrection of long dead cookies.

The fuzzy purplish light just on the edge of human vision cast a surreal image on the first page of that little book.  I could almost smell the fragrances of that ancient bakery.  Faint smudges of what was probably once butter or cookie dough, the partial pinky print, etched in the remnants of some ingredient were all that remained of that long dead creator of things good to eat.  I carefully turned the page and the story began.

The first page dealt with jelly rolls, sugar cakes, currant cakes and all the good things that make one awake on Saturday morning to hasten to the bakery on the square to purchase goodies to be eaten with milk or coffee.  Sadly, the first item on the list was tacked to the page with the Roman numeral VII.  Lost somewhere in unrecorded history were recipes I through VI.  I wondered what they were.  They probably had tasted good once. 

Page two told of lemon cakes, tea cakes and ginger cakes.  I read the ingredients aloud as my wife typed them into the desktop, my mouth watering as I savored what they portrayed.  First we recorded for posterity the makings of the jelly roll, two pounds of sugar, three pounds of flour, the list went on. 

Next came the sugar cookies, large quantities of sugar, volumes of butter, a quart of eggs, milk, flour, ammonia…..

WHOA!…..   Hold the damned horses, Clyde!  Sumthin’ ain’t right!

AMMONIA!!??

What was this guy doing?  Was he making cookies or washing the sink?  Maybe he tasted too much of the cooking sherry, perhaps he ate a little too much nutmeg, or maybe he’d been sucking on the hemp that he tied the book together with, if you catch my drift.

On the other hand, maybe he was thinking about washing the windows and included the word by mistake.  It happens occasionally.  My first thought was to discard that particular ingredient, or perhaps that recipe entirely.  I realized though, that if we were going to record this historically we must do it dutifully.  I read on…..3 oz ammonia, 12 lb flour.

Roman numeral IX was for sugar cakes NO. 2.  It was a variation of the first.  It required only one-third of the eggs that were called for in sugar cakes NO. 1, and it needed a little over half the milk that went into the first recipe; besides it called for only 1 oz ammonia.

Hmmm…….

There it is again.    Ammonia……..

Whom was this guy really cooking for?  I stared at the sugar cake page in the eerie iridescence of the purple light as I imagined the real reason for the “cooling room” that fronted in the back of his shop for a landing pad that served his patrons who made the long trek from Jupiter. 

“Nanu Nanu!”  they greeted my grandfather-in-law as they stepped off their little space ships.  “Do you have our order ready for sugar cakes NO. 2 with the extra ammonia?” they must have asked. 

I considered suggesting to my wife that perhaps we were meddling in something that is best left alone.  But before I was able to speak, the thought occurred to me.  “I wonder what your average Jupiterian pays for sugar cakes NO. 2 with extra ammonia?”  I also wondered about the media of exchange. 

The UV light switch timed out and my mind returned to the more normally illuminated world.  I turned to my wife, who was already looking at me.  We both spoke.

“AMMONIA?!”  we chimed.

“What would he possibly be putting ammonia in these things for?”  We both wondered aloud.  “Was ‘ammonia’ the code word for some secret ingredient that might otherwise be unacceptable to the city fathers of a small time-past Ohio town?”  I thought about my mother-in-law Mary, and her stoic beliefs regarding morality and my previously long hair.  Nah.  I was barking up the wrong tree.  There must be some other explanation.

Although we had a computer, we did not yet have access to the internet.  This was going to take some shoe leather.  We made numerous telephone calls and visited several grocery store bakeries before we uncovered the real solution to this mystery.  As it turns out, my grandfather-in-law’s “ammonia” referred to bakers ammonia.

"Baker’s ammonia" is the common name for ammonium carbonate.  It is also known by the curious name of “hartshorn,” a name which dates back to the time almost before God, if you subscribe to the time chart favored by some Christians.  We discovered during our search that the same people who reportedly visited America before Columbus did, and taught the native tribes lacrosse discovered this particular leavening in their Scandinavian homeland.  Hardy tribespeople of that frigid clime discovered, probably by trial and error that ground up reindeer antler contained an ingredient which took the breath away in an unpleasant manner and which, by the way, made their cookies light and crisp.

There are several “gourmet groceries” in Houston, Texas which offer delicacies that range from common and exotic to downright macabre.  Without getting too funky here, I have often wondered how some of our ancestors discovered some of the strange things that are available for human consumption.  How many dead fungus tasters were required to separate the mushrooms from the toadstools?  Who found out that humans could acquire tastes for fish eggs, pig brains, chicken feet, sow’s ears, cow stomach, pig intestines, snails, grasshoppers, ants and the decanted juice from festering grapes?  These fall into the common to exotic category.  I would include a “macabre” category list but the Twinkie, in my opinion, has already been too heavily criticized over the years.  Some sources of our daily cuisine are not so unknown.  It is no mystery, for example, who determined that hair, roach pieces, mouse parts and rat shit are gastronomically acceptable.  It is most likely the same government agency, which determined that catsup is a veggie, despite the fact that they have led us to believe that its primary ingredient is supposedly the tomato, a fruit.  I have suspected all along that catsup is made from no, not cats, but recycled pizza droppings.

Besides, the guy who discovered that ground up reindeer antlers make a good substitute for cookie leavening must have been snowed in.

We talked about trying out some of my wife’s grandfather’s recipes for quite a long time before we actually followed through.  This postponement in pushing ahead and searching out the elusive hartshorn was actually caused by our unpleasant experience with our first try with one of the recipes which, by the way, did not require hartshorn.  We realized when we first examined the cookbook that we were dealing in bulk quantity.  Obviously, anything that requires six pounds of sugar and fifteen pounds of flour is going to be big.  We ruled out a short term lease on a bakery and even the rental of a commercial size mixer.  My mind ran wild for possible substitutes.  We already had a ten gallon pot that would hold most of the ingredients, but I could not picture myself mixing that stuff with a stick, and we did not have a large enough mixer.  Our K-Mart blue-light-special mixer called the mixer’s local and went on strike whenever we tried to beat more than five eggs at one time.  I did have a drill press in the garage though and I had seen a paint mixing paddle for five gallon paint cans at the local hardware store.  These could all be solutions to our dilemma.  The whole experience was pretty ugly and I don’t want to dwell on it.  I will share the low points, though.  First, getting the drill press cleaned up and into the kitchen was more than I care to experience again.  We washed the pot and we scrubbed the brand new steel paint paddle.  After getting the ingredients into the pot in the required amounts we turned on the drill press and lowered the spinning steel paddle into the aluminum pot.  The paddle got traction on the bottom of the pot during the mixing process and nearly dumped the whole mess onto the kitchen floor.  It would have, too, had it not been for my quick thinking and my reaction to raise the paddle.  We proceeded more carefully.  After the batter was mixed we put the first two trays in the oven.  A first bite told us that we must have left out a key taste enhancing ingredient.  A second bite revealed that the cookies contained an extra ingredient that we had not intended.  When the steel paddle nearly turned over the aluminum pot it had succeeded in gouging quantities of aluminum shavings from the pot and distributing them throughout the batter.

It was decision time once again.  I was faced with straining the entire five gallon batch of batter through a tea strainer to get out the shavings or to discard the whole batch.  Begrudgingly, we opted for the latter.

The following year I gave my wife a heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer with a three gallon mixing pot.  I am told that giving kitchen utensils as special occasion gifts is a guy thing that ranks slightly above gift wrapping a gross of condoms. Besides, I told myself, it will be a KitchenAid experience.  Everyone should have a KitchenAid experience, but that's a story for another time.

Three years or so later we started talking once again about the cookie recipes, and once again the question arose, “where do you get kitchen grade ammonium carbonate?”  Christmas was nearly a month passed and we were fresh out of reindeers.  By this point we had been accessing the internet for some time.  We were informed by several websites that ammonium carbonate is available in most pharmacies.  When the first pharmacist told me that she did not have ammonium carbonate, I jovially replied that several websites indicated that ammonium carbonate is available at better pharmacies, she became visibly flustered but did not demand that I leave the premises.  I felt badly for my little joke.  Little jokes shouldn’t be mistreated.  I disproved the “available in most pharmacies” idea though, after visiting most pharmacies.  Later, my wife heard about a pharmacy near us that was famous for doing things to medicines that made them taste good.  They were also known to be well stocked in the odd things category.  I left work early so that I would get there before they closed.  This time the pharmacist who told me they didn’t have it was a guy, so I decided to try my little joke again.  The pharmacist didn’t miss a beat.  He must have heard it before.  With both hands flat on the table he looked me square in the eye.  “We’re not a better pharmacy sir, we’re the best.  You need to go to a better pharmacy.”   No leavening there, so I took my leave.  Once outside, the thought came to me, “Available in most pharmacies where?    Jupiter!?”  My body chilled as I thought about that long ago “cooling room” behind my grandfather-in-law’s bakery and the little purple guys who came for the sugar cakes NO. 2 with extra ammonia.

My wife and I kicked around the idea of making cookies for a while longer before we finally took the wholesale route and called bakery suppliers.  The one that had baker’s ammonia in stock was thirty miles away.  When I was a kid I got thirty miles from home less than once every two years.  “How much is this stuff?” I asked.  The conversation was engulfed in a large quantity of dead air, after which the person on the other end of the connection told me that a one gallon container costs sixteen dollars.  I broke the gulf by asking, “What is the smallest quantity you have?”  The voice replied “One gallon.”

My wife and I decided that if we were going to do this we should go ahead and get it. 

Last Friday we went down to the bakery wholesaler to get some baker’s ammonia.  By the time we got there the price was twenty dollars.  When we asked about the sixteen-dollar price, she looked at us as if we were from, you guessed it, Jupiter.  When that person behind the counter finally got around to asking for the name of my business and my tax number, I presented her with my geological consulting corporation business card.  She took it, eyeing me coldly.  “We’re expanding.” I offered.  She followed the fish eye with the information that the minimum order is normally seventy-five dollars.  Since this was a first time offense, she would let us off on probation.  Next time we would have to have a better story and we would have to open an account.  We agreed that the next time we would on both counts if she would sell us the baker’s ammonia this time.  To express our good faith we also bought fifty pounds of lard, which presently serves as a doorstop.

Last Saturday we made cookies.  The main thing I learned once again is that five gallons of cookie dough is a lot of cookies.  I grinned at my wife and commented that if I had gotten this many cookies when I was younger, I might be a different person.  She wasn’t amused.  It’s a guy thing, I guess.

We mixed all the dry ingredients first.  It was at that moment that I learned all there is to know about baker’s ammonia.  The plastic container is sealed with a clever little gizmo that is reusable and assures a good seal every time.  There’s a reason for that.  When I opened the container I discovered that the baker’s ammonia powder is inside a resealable plastic bag inside the plastic canister.  There’s a reason for that, too.  A couple seconds after getting the bag open I stumbled back and breathed once again with an audible gasp.  My wife, across the room, asked “What’s the ammonia smell?”

I remembered the website of a few days ago, which indicated that baker’s ammonia evaporates during cooking, the gas causing the cookie to be crisp and airy.  “Not to worry,” it encouraged, “for in small items like cookies the ammonium carbonate evaporates completely, although the kitchen will smell slightly of ammonia during baking.”  After the first two batches of cookies, our kitchen smelled like the stairwell in the parking garage at the First Annual Wino and Street Person convention in San Diego, California.  Twelve batches latter I couldn’t smell anything.  I couldn’t taste or hear anything either.