Breakfast with Socrates

Breakfast with Socrates

Scene: The old man is alone on his back porch sipping his coffee. The sun comes up. He holds the cup in his two hands as if he is cradling a fledgling bird. He gazes out over the cup at nothing in particular. It is June and the sky is blue the trees green. There is the sound of birds singing. It is a beautiful new day.

The Old Man: [Talking to himself] Okay, we have all heard it a million times, ‘Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insanity.’ 

Well, if that is the definition of insanity, I am all for it. Take Old Tom Edison for example, how many times did he tinker with the light bulb before getting it to light up. And all the while his wife was whispering in his ear, ‘Just give up. This is crazy. Tom, I need my sleep, blow out the candle and go to bed.’

This is the way I see it: there are all kinds of crazy including crazy in love, but that one, unlike the others, passes.

Crazy, how about paying five bucks for a bottle of water? Ask Tom Edison and his wife about that one. And this year this planet is going to buy over 30 billion bottles of it. That’s crazy, but who’s to argue.

Crazy, after all, is just a matter of opinion. You are crazy to wear an orange shirt with blue shoes. Well, Vincent Van Gogh liked orange and blue, and what did that get him? Hey, did you know that Van Gogh’s painting of a bunch of sunflowers raked in a cool 39 million dollars? And his arrangement of irises that he painted while in the nut house at St, Remy got 53 million. Turns out, back then, that everyone but Van Gogh was crazy.

Socrates says insanity is something like a divine release of the soul from custom and convention. No, actually he didn’t say that. I heard it in a play on Broadway. But he should have said that. No, he stuck to the party line that madness is something the gods give you for pissing them off. And what did Socrates get for his opinions, a complaining wife and a cup of hemlock.

Memorial Day Flag

Memorial Day Flag

Memorial Day will soon be here.

It is a federal holiday where men and women who died serving in the Armed Forces are remembered. The holiday is celebrated on the final Monday of May.

In America's first 100 years of existence, over 683,000 Americans lost their lives. The Civil War with 623,026 of that total represents over 90 percent of the total. In the next 100 years, another 626,000 Americans died through two World Wars and multiple regional conflicts, including Iraq and the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.

source. militaryfactory.com 


And why do we fight?  Ask Thomas Jefferson.

 If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

The old man's father fought in World War II and his grandfather fought in World War I. Others have fought going back to the Revolutionary War. It is the price we pay for freedom.

No time for Facebook

Pole Cat Creek Bridge, Butler County, Kansas, built 1910

No time for Facebook

Friends,

I have no time

For Facebook

So,

If you don’t mind

Look me up

In a telephone book

If they still exist.

Better yet,

Come on by the house

I am sitting on the porch

Sharing a thought with Horace

From a book I bought

Long ago

He says,

Carpe Diem

Be wise,

Sip the wine

Its mighty fine

Enjoy!

Since life is brief,

Of the past,

It’s gone

Good riddance

Of the future,

Ask not - we cannot know

What the gods are thinking

As we’re drinking

Prune back those far-reaching hopes

For even as we speak,

Time has passed

Nothing lasts

So pluck the day,

It’s all you’ve got

Forget about tomorrow!

Horace, Odes 1.11

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday

All the sainted are in church but I 

I have gone again 
to a holier place
where 
they speak not,
or laugh,
or cry

Let me enter these hallowed grounds

this Easter Sunday

the wind stirs the solemn stillness

and only birds are heard 
to chirp and sing

while grass and trees 
now grow about the headstone

for days on end no one has come

to gaze upon the cracked and fallen stones

and say a prayer for the dead

and read a name or two of those

whose brief lives now come and gone

too quickly, once loved, now forgotten

by all but me

And thee,

if thee, should reads these lines

and feeling curiosity

should seek a Sunday morn

to find a cemetery

down a dusty country road

where a buried child lies

long gone are this child’s kindred souls

will thee, like me wonder

did the mother cry?

and father too?

to lose one so young

in the innocence of youth

Proud parents once brought to tears

parents who were farmers

and sowed their seed in the earth

knowing that bird and drought

would take some,

but not these

not their own

before they were grown

Yet, their faith forbade

a somber thought

‘tis Easter Sunday

the Lord commanded

that one day

their child would rise

to once again laugh and cry

It's Spring again

Spring has returned to Kansas and Bradford Pears are in full bloom. This tree, indigenous to China and Vietnam, is now common in Kansas as an ornamental tree. Because of its hardiness, it grows well in the extremes of Kansas weather.

The old man came across this Bradford Pear in Pawnee Prairie Park in Wichita. The bees are already out, doing their thing. The weather is warm and the old man has forgotten the cold and bitter winter.

But beware, after the bloom, the flower smells like rotting fish.

bee in Bradford Pear

Bradford Pear before the leaves

Bradford Pear open blossum

Bradford Pear, old stem, new flower

Blossums, Bradford Pear

Eat dandelions

Godey’s Lady’s Book was a magazine published in Philadelphia from the 1830's until 1898. It covered a wide range of topics, including recipes of foods. This one, about the humble dandelion, appeared early in the Civil War; it serves as a reminder to soldiers in the field to eat vegetables. The leaves are best (least bitter) before the flower appears.Avoid the milky sap which is extremely bitter and may produce an allergic reaction.

Dandelion flower

Uses of the Dandelion from Godey's Lady's Book, 1862

It's uses are endless: the young leaves blanched make an agreeable and wholesome early salad; and they may be boiled, like cabbages, with salt meat.

Dandelion, Wichita, Kansas, March 2014

The French ... slice the roots ..., as well as the leaves with bread and butter, and tradition says that he inhabitants of Minorca once subsisted for weeks on this plant, when their harvest had been entirely destroyed by insects. The leaves are ever a favorite and useful article of food in the Vale of Kashmir, where, in spite of the preconceived prejudices we all have ..., dandelions, and other humbler examples of our northern "weds," do venture to associate themselves with the rose or the jasmine of it's eastern soil. On the banks of the Rhine the plant is cultivated as a substitute for coffee, and Dr. Harrison contends that it possesses the fine flavor and substance of the best Mocha coffee, without it's injurious principle; and that it promotes sleep when taken at night, instead of banishing it, as coffee does.

Mrs. Modie gives us her experiences with dandelion roots, which seem of a most satisfactory nature. She first cuts the roots into small pieces, and dries them in the oven until ... brown and crisp as coffee, ....

In some parts of Canada they make an excellent beer of the leaves, in which the saccharine matter they afford forms a substitute for malt, and the bitter flavor serves instead of hops.

In medicine, too, it is invaluable.

Note.

1. Dandelion is high in sodium, potassium, iron, B vitamins, and protein. A little bit goes a long way. In a highly seasoned stew add root slices. Caution, the white milky sap is most bitter and may cause allergic reactions.

2. Project Gutenberg has reproduced an 1851 edition of the book online.

3. The medicinal properties include increase urinary flow and anti-inflammatory agents.

Osage Oranges and Hedge Apples

Osage Orange

When ripe, the fruit is green, but by spring the surviving fruit has turned a blood red to light crimson. The seeds are a golden yellow. The fruit, produced by the Osage orange (Maclura pomifera), are commonly call "hedge apples." Other common names include bodark, bois d'arc, and bow-wood. Bois d'arc is a place name in Butler County, Kansas and a ghost town.

The tree is medium in size, normally growing to 40 feet and occasionally as tall as 60 feet. The trunk is short with a rounded or irregular crown. The limbs are pendulous and often form a tunnel when maintained well. The leaves are a shiny to dark green, turning yellow in the fall. The twigs are buff to orange-brown and armed with 1/2 inch spines. When cut, the stems exude a milky sap.

The Osage orange is dioecious, meaning male parts and female flowers are on separate trees. The small, green flowers show in May, and the female trees produce 3 to 5 inch fruit which ripen in September and falls to the ground, where it provides fodder for deer. Squirrels love them. Try putting one or two in your back yard and watch the squirrels go to work.

The "hedge apple" is an aggregate fruit, like the pomegranate, made up of one-seeded druplets. The Osage orange is a member of the Mulberry family. Look at the fruit. It is really a mulberry on steroids.

The wood is tough, and durable. The Osage Indians used the wood for bows, hence the name bois d'arc and bow-wood.

Hedge Row

The original habitat was northern Arkansas and Texas. In the 1930's the trees were planted as living fences -  hedges - along the boundaries of farms to prevent erosion and contain cattle. They can be seen along many country roads and have spread widely from these limited beginnings.

Pick up the fruit and smell deeply, notice the pleasant, orange smell that gives the fruit its name.