Some years back I was speaking at an event and I mentioned the work I do around the house – lawn, garden, remodeling, fixing things, you know, the usual stuff. Several attendees were simply flabbergasted. They couldn’t imagine why I was doing all of these things… I mean, after all, I write books for a living. I must have money to burn, a private island, a yacht, two mansions, and three airplanes. Apparently, to some folks, all authors are automatically viewed as a cross between Rick Castle and Warren Buffett. Of course, I found this amusing and proceeded to explain in five part harmony, with full orchestration, how some of them probably make more money than I do. Hell, when I worked in IT I definitely made more money that I do now.

But, this is not about the low income of mid-list authors. This is about history and hard times…

Growing up in the 60′s and 70′s, I heard my parents talk about their lives growing up during WWII. I heard my grandparents talk about growing up and living through the Great Depression.  I spent the better portion of my childhood on the family farm during the summer, as well as parts of spring and fall. I remember watching my grandparents – on both sides – canning food from the garden, or making jelly and preserves from a basket of fruit they picked from a tree in the yard. My parents did the same thing. It didn’t matter if all they had on hand was enough for one or two jars. If they weren’t planning to eat it before it could go bad, they would can it, or process it and freeze it. When the family would slaughter a hog, they packaged the meat, cured the hams and bacon, used the brains, made souse meat (head cheese), rendered the fat and made soap, and much more… The salient point here being - they wasted nothing. They had seen austerity “up close and personal,” so they learned how to get around it any way they could.

Watching all of this, I learned from it, too.

However, I have to admit, I spent a good part of my teens and young adult life during the “golden age.” Rising stock markets, rampant consumerism driving a ballooning economy… Sure, we had our moments of recession. I can even remember  a long winter when the union where my father worked voted to strike. He wasn’t in favor of the strike, but majority ruled. He spent several weeks with only “strike pay” and what he could pull in working part-time loading trucks at a local short range hauler – and he was fortunate to get that job through some connections. I can remember peanut butter on Wonder bread being breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Still, for the most part, I had it easy. That “golden age” again… And, much to my chagrin, during that golden age I bought into the hype. I consumed, and wasted, and consumed and wasted some more, just like most everyone around me.

And that brings us to the “the times…” As the title says, These Are They… Perhaps it is my age – no longer young and indestructible. Perhaps it is the crash and not-so-great depression we’ve been weathering (that was NOT a recession, no matter what anyone says). More likely it is a combination of both. The thing is, this has brought me back around to what I learned in my youth. Waste nothing…

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you know that I pulled out the pressure cooker and did some canning this year. Honestly, I had forgotten how much I missed doing that. In addition, we are lucky enough to own an upright freezer, so some of the harvest from our garden was processed and frozen. For the past few years, I have been saving vegetable scraps and freezing them. Whenever I have enough, I roast them, then add water and cook them down to vegetable stock, which I then part out into containers and freeze for use int soups and the like. The leftover mush goes into our composter, along with other organics from the kitchen, thereby creating fertilizer for our garden.

So… Am I no longer a consumer? Well, I certainly cannot say that, and anyone who followed EKay’s and my landscaping adventures this past summer knows that I’d be lying if I said otherwise. However, I can say this – I’ve seen my moments of austerity, up close and personal. They weren’t the worst ever, and there are plenty of people worldwide who are worse off, or have been worse off. The thing is, I’ve come back around… And, like we all do, I have become my parents, and in turn, my grandparents.

Am I suggesting you become an urban-hippie-composting-farmer? Not so much. I’m just reminiscing and looking forward at the same time, which, oddly enough, offers more clarity than you might imagine.

In case you are wondering what sparked this little missive, it was the four gallons of turkey stock (pictured above, right) that I just squeezed out of the Thanksgiving turkey carcass and a handful of vegetable scraps I saved from the preparation of the dinner itself.

Waste nothing…

MRS

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Back in the 70′s, C. W. McCall (Bill Fries) along with Chip Davis (Yeah, THAT Chip Davis) wrote a song called Green River. If you’d like to listen to the original, here’s a link:

I suppose you are  probably wondering why I am even bringing up an almost 40 year old song. Well, you see, it’s like this: Evil Kat.

Come on… You knew The Supreme Redhead had to be involved in this somehow…

Back in the days when it was just E K and her leashed pets – that being two canines and one husband (I can’t complain, she bought me a really nice collar with an engraved tag that said Property of Evil Kat on it) we used to go on float trips CONSTANTLY. For non-Missourians – as I have found that the term “float-trip” is not universal – a float trip is where you rent a canoe, get dropped off with it and your coolers, and paddle/float yourself down a river to the “take-out point,” which can either be where you parked originally, or a different place where they pick you up and bring you back to your car.

This is intended to be fun. As a rule, it usually is. Like I said, back in the day, E K would leash us up, put us in the car, and off we’d go. There was one year I recall that we went on float trips almost every weekend for the entire summer. AND, truth be told, a float trip was EKay’s and my first official date – and she still married me anyway. But that’s a different blog that I’ll tell sometime in the future.

At any rate, back to the here and now. For several years after the O-spring came along, we stopped “floating” – primarily due to time constraints. However, now that she is older and can come along with us, and can swim, and all that good stuff, E K has made it her mission in life to see to it that we go on at least one float per summer, if not more. With that, she has started scheduling an end of summer float with friends for the past two years. One more year and it becomes a tradition…

Last year’s float, while it had a couple of mildly harrowing incidents, was almost completely unremarkable as compared to this year’s canoeing odyssey – which occurred just yesterday,  Saturday August 27…

I knew it would become a blog when we were less than a mile into the float. Why? Because Steve, Mary, and Tammy flipped. Not as in “flipped someone off,” or “flipped out”… Although, they DID flip out of the canoe, so I guess in a way they DID flip out. Basically, Mary’s sunglasses “flipped” off her head, Steve tried to grab them, they all shifted in the canoe, and… Well… Moments later we were standing on a gravel bar emptying water from their craft and then reloading it with their coolers.

But what REALLY told me this would be a blog was that while we were reloading their “boat,” some other canoers came around the bend, merrily singing “Row, Row, Row your boat.” To this, a waterlogged Mary muttered under her breath, “I’ll show you row, row your f*cking boat… Quit your damn singing.”

After that, it was all over for us. The river proceeded to exact revenge upon each and every member of our group. E K, O-Spring, and I flipped – something that literally has NOT happened since the second time E K and I went floating (We are actually pretty damn good “canoe drivers”). Mary was taken down by a slippery rock and banged the crap out of her knee. Same thing then happened to the O-spring. We were caught in a snag and I had to bail out of the canoe and fight the current to get us free. Later, during a similar operation I was sucked under the canoe while E K and the O-spring were still aboard and became a speed bump after I loosed it – then the current popped me back up above the surface, but still had hold of me and I tumbled over rocks for several feet until I could get a handhold. Of course, E K and the O-spring were now 300 yards down the river and I had to walk the rocks to get to them. There was plenty more, actually, but this blog is already over 1000 words, so I need to give it a bit of a rest… Instead, what I will try to do is recount our adventure through rewriting C. W.’s tune…

Meramec River

It was daylight on the river but we weren’t having any fun
And we couldn’t find our cooler cups no more
But we felt the boilin’ current and the spring was runnin’ cold
As we headed down the river two plus four
And the rocks were kickin’ our asses
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

[Chorus]
And we died a thousand times in that nine miles of hell
The longest day of life we’d ever seen
But we lived to tell the story and we know the story well
Then we ate some dinner at a truck stop

We were four plus two in number when we gathered on the shore
And we loaded up our coolers full of beer
But we summoned up our courage an’ we said we wouldn’t scream
And we ran that rocky river without fear
Yeah, the logs were kickin’ our asses
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

Echoing Shouts:
Steve – Paddle RIGHT!
E K – HANG LEFT!
Mary – WHAT THE FUUUU–
Tammy – GODDAMIT!
Murv – Here, hold my beer…
O-spring – Squeeeeeee!

And we saw a thousand floaters hung up on the snags and logs
As we fought to keep ourselves from their fate
And we saw the bobbing beer cans and we heard the ghostly cries
Of the drunks who ran the river long ago
And the rocks were kickin’ our asses
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

Echoing Shouts:
Steve – Paddle LEFT!
E K – SERPENTINE! SERPENTINE!
Mary – STOP SINGING!!
Tammy – GODDAMIT!
Murv – Here, hold my beer…
O-spring – Squeeeeeee!
Steve – Whatever…
Mary – Dammit, Steve!
E K – Those assholes just threw trash in the river!
Tammy – GODDAMMIT!
Murv – (clunk clunk) … I’m okay… I think…Gimme a beer…
O-Spring – Squeeeeee!

Now the memories are swirlin’ down the campground shower drains
But the waters of the Meramec flow like tears
And the rocks and snags and crashes will be a long remembered tale
To be told around the campfires through the years
Yeah, the rocks were tryin’ to kill us
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

[Chorus]
And we died a thousand times in that nine miles of hell
The longest day of life we’d ever seen
But we lived to tell the story and we know the story well
Then we ate some dinner at a truck stop

Echoing Shouts:
Steve – Paddle RIGHT… NO, LEFT!
E K – O-spring, give me the paddle!
Mary – I can’t bend my knee…
Tammy – GODDAMIT!
Murv – We should have brought Scotch…
O-spring – Squeeeeeee!
Steve – Lookit that fish…
Mary – How does our canoe look?
E K – Look, Mary, a snake…
Mary – (SCREAM)
Tammy – GODDAMMIT!
Murv – There’s a blog in this…
O-Spring – Here, hold my Gatorade…

Fade out

And there you have it. We made it home alive… Late. We’re bruised and battered and sore and blood was shed (I’m not kidding)…

Funny thing is, I have a physical tomorrow. Before you ask, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just a “coming up on 50,000 mile” service check sort of thing. I suspect the doc won’t even mention the bruises and scrapes. He’s used to seeing me after E K has been “in a mood”…

More to come…

Murv