Still going after all these years.
I’m using my long-neglected status as contributing editor at JHN to jump in and wish my brother an unmitigatedly happy birthday. All the best, Tim; you deserve it. In the words of Ogden Nash:
Year swallows year and licks its lips,
Then down the gullet of next year slips.
I’ve been a little quiet here lately—but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. I had a backlog of email from people with questions about my genealogical research: lots of interest in the Brenneman family, for whatever reason, plus an assortment of Freeman and Jarrett questions.
I should probably instrument the genealogy pages to see how many people find my site through them. I’m afraid I’d find that they draw many more readers than my blog does, though. 🙂
Today is my beautiful wife’s birthday; please spare a minute to wish her a happy day. Our big celebration will actually be a few weeks from now, coinciding with our anniversary, when we return to Boston for a little visit and mini-vacation.
Esta found a minute to update her blog amid the hectic joy of starting classes at seminary (finally having Internet connectivity at her apartment might have something to do with it). She reports that she’s making friends, even if they do tend to be considerably younger than she is; that Julia Child’s recipe for baked cucumbers is as good as Julie Powell reports; and that updates on classes are forthcoming, including Hebrew I (I always wanted to be able to read Biblical Hebrew; now she’ll be living the dream! Sniff.). Hope she can keep posting.
And hey, Esta, if you haven’t discovered them yet, you might want to download NetNewsWire Lite and Manila Envelope. The former will make it MUCH easier to keep up with your weblog reading; the latter just might make it easier to post.
Another genealogist found my weblog and wrote me to tell me that the autobiography of Rachel Jarrett’s brother-in-law, James Patton, is on line courtesy UNC at Documenting the American South. I look forward to reading the material and learning about this distant connection to my family.
Esta writes about her last day in the office before starting her course of study at Union Theological Seminary. I want to offer my heartfelt congratulations to her for finding the courage to make a really, really big move, and doing it it with clear vision and optimism in spite of the uncertainty. Esta, you may be my little sister, but it’s a big step—probably bigger than mine—and I wish you all the best luck in the world, and God’s guidance.
Since I have just come into our house and have all but collapsed prostrate on the bed, I’m tempted to declare the ability to nap at 3 pm on a Monday afternoon the best part of the vacation. Of course, I’d be lying. It’s somewhere in between a fresh ear of corn just picked out of a field and steamed/roasted over a fire, laughing with my grandfather, and having my young first cousin (once removed) grab my index finger with a chubby fist… and then attempt to maneuver said finger to his mouth where he could eat it. I swear, the child almost had his feet in his mouth at one point.
More detailed notes, including Rough and Tumble, soon. For now a quick link to photos of the picnic and the Brackbill farm—and the newest cousin, my cousin Catherine’s son Johnathan. And probably the best picture I’ve ever taken of my grandfather, right.
I’ll get to post this entry, started in Baltimore where I had WiFi, when I get home. Right now I’m waiting in Chicago, which is obstinately WiFiFree, and so have a chance to look over some of the photos I took this weekend with my phonecam. The major thing that strikes me (and has probably already struck any more photography-savvy readers of this blog) is the color balance problem. The Nokia 3650 appears to do some image processing, including at least color and level correction—what I see in the viewfinder before I snap the photo isn’t exactly what I see afterwards. And the results can be uneven. I already noticed this with the Tradiscantia photos I took in my garden last weekend, and am noticing it more with the series I took of the farmhouse. Though I took the photos from more or less the same vantage point, the color of the grass is dramatically different in the photos I took from the tree shade than the ones I took closer to the house. Not ideal. And there doesn’t seem to be a way to turn it off either.
A small regret: the picture I took of the dedication stone in the center of the farmhouse’s wall didn’t come out clearly enough to show the engraving. I could only see a little from the ground, but it was something along the lines of “Hershey, 1857” with a good deal of text before and after. I never noticed it before, and when I asked my mom about it she confessed she hadn’t either. Something to check out another time.
Today is my mother’s birthday! I owe this woman a big debt of thanks, not only for my existence, but for my love of reading, cooking, and (in large part) music, as well as my sense that the world ought to be better than it is.
I can’t hug her in person today, but I’ll get to do that next weekend when I fly to the family reunion. In the meantime, happy birthday, Mom, and many happy returns.
Last night we visited a new wine bar in town, the Purple Café, and then put ourselves to bed early. Coming back to bed from brushing my teeth, lights out, I could still see a yellow and blue corona around the trees through our north window, the remnants of the sunset on Lake Washington. Summer is passing and our days are growing shorter.
Moxie’s post about summer with her folks and picking gooseberries made me think about my own summers, often spent with one grandmother or the other. With my Grandmother Brackbill, picking peas, stringing beans, and shucking corn. Or with my Grandmother Jarrett learning to appreciate the mountains and slowly coming to understand my family connections in that strange to me place. I remember more summers in Pennsylvania, as we generally saved trips to North Carolina for less-hot times of the year.
Many happy returns of the day to Dad on his birthday.
Now compare that to Esta’s birthday wishes and you can tell which of us writes the better birthday card…
Adam Curry writes: “Tuesday my new Xserves arrive. This is good news for users of schoolblogs, my jamby and diaries.com.”
Since the latter is Esta’s weblog host, that’s good news for her too.
Esta: The Blue Box. Speaking from personal experience, Esta, it’s a slippery slope. Pretty soon you’ll be waiting for the Tiffany catalog with bated breath and picking through the newspaper ads, muttering, “If I don’t eat this month…”
… What? It’s for my wife. Get over yourself.
So, what’s the story with South Carolina, Greg asked me last night. Well, I’m not sure how best to describe the setup, but here goes:
What’s a pig-pickin’, my Northern readers are now asking. It’s something like a barbecue, if by barbecue you mean “cooking and eating a ridiculous amount of pork cooked on a fire.” But that doesn’t do it justice; neither does this (though it gives a little of the flavor and some of the recipe). All I can say is, after you’ve been cooking a whole pig on an enormous grill for a day, you’ll be hungry enough to eat anything. The fact that even without the anticipation the meat (dressed in a vinegar sauce only, please, no “smoky barbecue” tomato sauce here) is ambrosial is icing on the cake. And of course there are all the side dishes, and beverages, and occasionally (if it’s a pig-pickin’ that my uncle organized) live country music.
Why is it called a pig-pickin’? Well, because after being cooked over a slow fire all day the pork is soft and moist enough to be pulled off the pig and eaten with one’s bare hands, if one is feeling barbaric. And after a taste of the stuff, one could certainly feel that way. It does seem to awaken a deep hunger. In fact, I’m hungry now…
So this has been a dry week for posting, partly because I’ve been crazy busy at the office, but partly in anticipation of the stories to come.