[an error occurred while processing this directive] The Philosopher of
St. Mary's
County

 

The Philosopher Of St. Mary's County

The Pickle Barrel


The Defender of the Faith In St. Mary's
(2/13/2001)
The Commies Stole My Hole Card

Any of you folks who are of my generation might remember Joe BTZFLK. Joe was a creation of Al Capp, who wrote and drew the Lil’ Abner comic strip.

Al Capp created numerous characters in his strip. There was the "Schmoo", a loveable character which infected the whole U.S. There was a schmoo café or schmoo diner in just about every town.

In Joe BTZFLK, Capp created the born loser, the most unlucky, depressed little character you ever saw. In fact, he was always portrayed with his own personal storm cloud which followed him wherever he went. The scene in the comic strip could be bright and sunny but when Joe BTZFLK appeared, he would bring his personal cloud with him, soaking him, and only him with a dreary, cold drizzle.

I am sure Al Capp patterned his characters after real life persons. I know in my writing, whenever I create some outlandish character, it is always based somewhat on a real person I have met somewhere along the way.

Al Capp was known to travel a lot. I don’t know whether he ever came to St. Mary’s County, but somehow he must have met me at some time. I am Joe BTZFLK; born to lose.

As the old black folk used to say, "If it was rainin’ soup, you’d show up with a fork."

The old adage says "Lucky at cards, unlucky at love" or vice versa.

Not true. I have been left penniless at the card table with a busted flush and watched my favorite babe slinking out the door with a new man she had found while I was fighting those bad cards to provide her with the better things in life.

Life ain’t fair, adages ain’t true.

Despite the slings and arrows that have assailed since the moment of my birth, I have never allowed myself to become a quitter. I will work harder, try harder, I will survive. I will never be a victim.

Every venture I entered into wound up a failure, not a failure of my making, just some calamitous failure, sort of a titanic-iceberg syndrome.

I have watched hail flatten my tobacco the day before harvest, and sleet shredded my peach orchard the spring before my first harvest. The year I tried hogs, the market crashed. I sunk thousands in the purchase of an Edsel dealership.

Just a born loser, no other term for it.

My siblings who went forth into the world and immediately began to pile up huge savings accounts and retirement plans cast worried glances at my futile attempts to attain financial security.

"Stephen, you have to plan more carefully. You are going to wind up in your old age flat broke. Quit your whoring, drinking and gambling and invest in something secure."

I had to laugh at their worries. They hadn’t peeped at my hole cards. I held two aces down.

My first ace was my natural born talent as a writer and my second ace was the farm that I had bought at an early age and watched double in value year by year.

I could always sit down and write out a short story and sell it, or if I got tired of writing, I could always sell off an acre or two. I had absolutely no reason to worry.

I never heard of Hemmingway missing any meals. Faulkner died in a mansion, Shakespeare had no problem selling his product.

Hell, I could make big money writing T.V. scripts. I know all the lewd, scatological four-letter words, I am familiar with every sexual position; I could write T.V. scripts with one hand tied behind my back.

But a fellow might get tired of writing, as easy as it is. My big hole card, the black ace was my real estate.

Let me take you to the most prominent hill on my ranch, look out in four directions. What appears as far as your eyes can see? You see land. Land bought and bid for by Stephen G. Uhler in the wisdom of his youth; all tillable and perkable.

The present value?…you ask.

It’s value on today’s market, with all the yahoos crowding into our fair county? Let me think a while.

Kaching! Kaching!

Let’s just say I don’t need to worry.

Unlike Joe BTSFLK who could never elude his cloud, I had out-paced mine. There was bright sunshine for the rest of my days.

I didn’t realize that our Board of County Commissioners had found my errant cloud and sent it hurrying to find me.

You know how we as kids used to see figures in the clouds, "There’s a rabbit", look there’s a man smoking a pipe".

Well, when my gloom cloud caught up with me, it was in the shape of a 20-acre parcel of land.

The county commissioners had with the stroke of a pen changed me from a prosperous country squire, well prepared for his old age to a penniless old dependent, a broken down, food stamp licking old bum.

I know that when we went outside for our commissioners that we were asking for trouble, but I didn’t think it would affect me so directly.

I thought it hilarious that our commissioners would be led by a henna-headed "Bama gal" with cotton lint under her fingernails and peanut grease on her chin.

Ably assisted by a washed-out Vista volunteer ex-patriot from Connecticut who studied his politics under V. I.Lenin.

I didn’t worry too much about the cute little woman from "Joisy". She passed herself off as a "Reagan Republican; she had been smart enough to catch a practitioner of the Medical Arts for a husband. She wouldn’t do much harm.

I should have paid more attention. This zoning crap should have been killed in the womb, but too many landowners were too busy to see what was coming.

So now I am stuck with this albatross; this worthless piece of land that I am too arthritic to farm, too blind to look across and enjoy and prevented from selling by a yahoo bunch of commissioners.

I thought at this point in my life that I would ride off into sunset, with coins jingling on my spurs, singing "Happy Trails to you". Instead, I’ll be plodding along, penniless, with this ever-present black cloud drizzling on my head singing "Born to Lose".

Hit it on the dobro, Joe.


Cabin Fever:
Real Men Don't Show It When They Are Hurt
(1/30/2001

I always assumed that Cabin Fever only afflicted trappers, prospectors and such types for months at a time, somewhere high up in the arctic mountains.

Winter time never used to bother me. It was a busy time, tobacco to strip, cattle to feed, wood to split and bring in. I always enjoyed the crispness of the winter air, free of stinging bugs and other crawly things; I even learned to enjoy the sting of sleet on my face, rather invigorating.

The experts who study such things seem to think that the depression of cabin fever is caused by the shortness of daylight rather than the cold temperature, which makes sense. The millionaires skiing on the slopes of Vail and Aspen in below zero temperature don’t exhibit any symptom of depression.

Anyway, that will be my excuse for not writing in the last issue. Cabin Fever, sure enough. But I shouldn’t complain; I brought in on myself.

I was brought up back in the good old days when crying was for girls and old ladies. Boys didn’t admit to injury. They jumped up from the injury and, "played hurt", as the athletes say.

Grown-ups impressed manhood upon their boys at an early age.

"Quit sniveling, you little bastard, you ain’t hurt."

And by example:

Back in the good old days before weedeaters and leaf blowers, those chores had to be done with scythes and rakes to cut the weeds and brush back. The scythes had to be razor sharp.

One day my father was honing his scythe, making long bold strokes with the file along the long curved blade. Now, it was my job as his able 8-year old assistant, to hold the S shaped snathe just in the right position so that my father could make those bold, sweeping strokes with the file.

I was holding firmly to the snathe, knowing that if I let it slip he would whip my athe.

Well, as luck would have it, my mind wandered, the snathe wiggled. The sweaty file slipped in Pop's ’and and the keen edge of the scythe took the last joint of my father’s finger as clean as a whistle.

He retrieved his bloody file and resumed filing more vigorously than before.

"Daddy, you done cut your finger off."

"Shut up boy, if you talk about it, it will start hurting."

So that was the macho attitude I assumed. You could follow me around the farm by the gobs of blood and chips of bone and teeth I left behind.

"Are you hurt man?"

"Just a scratch."

So it was only a natural reaction a few weeks ago, when I fell off my bulldozer, and hung there tangled in the shift levers until the nice lady came and cut me loose.

My response was, "I ain’t hurt."

"Are you sure?"

"Naw, I ain’t hurt."

But as I limped away, I began to feel little bolts of pain running up and down my back. The next morning my hip socket was frozen.

I knew my hip was busted, but I didn’t want to tell anybody. President Reagan had broken his hip on the same day and his injury was in all the headlines, and I knew if I told anybody about my injury, that people would say I was just trying to act Presidential.

So I dragged my crippled body around the farm from barn to barn, the stock must be fed. I put out word to all of my "friends" that I needed help with the feeding.

I waited and waited. I found out how many friends I had.

There I was, my animals starving, and I was freezing. My woodpile is only 50 ft. from my house but I couldn’t manage an armful of wood and the crutches too.

I knew I couldn’t manage to feed several lots of animals so I turned my ewes and new lambs in with the horses and somehow dragged bales of hay where they could get it.

The horses were pretty careful around the lambs but I knew that in the competition for hay that there was a good chance that a lamb would be stepped on.

Oh the unbearable depression…cold ashes in the hearth, hungry animals bleating and whinnying from the barn.

All I could do was lay there day after day watching the senate confirmation hearing. When Senator Kennedy would puff himself up and start his bloviating, I didn’t even have the strength to throw my boot through the tube.

I could see the cabinet across the room, full of shotguns and shells. Maybe I should just take myself out of the competition.

But no, I am a survivor. My Mama didn’t raise no cowards. I’ll; hang on ‘til spring.

Finally I got to where I could hobble around the pasture on my crutches and sure enough there were two of my fattest lambs, horse stomped.

There was nothing I could do about it. I had done my best.

I was back on my feet, I was able to get fire going and had been presented with the ingredients for stomped mutton stew.

Recipe for stomped mutton stew:

l. Skin out the lamb and cut away any bruised carcass. Cut into pieces and bring to a boil.

2. Add salt and black pepper (use more pepper if the lamb has been dead or a while)

3. Add vegetables in the order of cooking time:

Carrots

Celery

Pearled barley

Onions

Potatoes

Allow your fire to die down and maintain just enough coals to maintain a slow simmer.

 

 



St. Mary’s County Treasurer:

Congratulations baby, you got yourself a nice little farm.

For years as you dug deeper and deeper into my assets, I resisted all thoughts of defeat. I considered you just another parasite to overcome. The other parasites, the horn worm, the Japanese beetle, all make their annual appearance to extract their levy on the product of my weary labors, so when your annual bill arrives, I just shrug my sweat stained shoulders and accept the consequences.

I have always likened my condition to that of the little steam engine of childhood memory. "Puff Puff, I think I Can, I Think I Can, and sure enough as each obstacle appeared on the horizon, I would puff and puff until I had surmounted it and then rest as I coasted downgrade.

I still have that youthful optimism in my mind, but alas, my work worn old body refuses to cooperate. I arise each morning repeating the mantra of the little engine "I Think I Can, I Think I Can", but as sundown nears I have to face reality, "I ain’t gonna make it."

I must admit I like the format of this latest county tax bill. Most companies are sending out unreadable pages of computer printout that leave the poor bill payer totally confused as to date due, amount due and event to whom to send the money.

Your bill is so clear. It even has columns for the state share, the county share and the fire departments share. You have spelled out the method for annual payment, semi-annual payment. You have made it so easy. Except for one fact, it is never easy to get blood out of a turnip.

When I plod into Leonardtown in my threadbare, sweat stained coveralls, wringing my callused hands, repeating over and over to myself that same old lie, "I Think I Can, I Think I Can", I cannot help noticing the hundreds of shiny new county vehicles parked around Leonard Hall.

And yet, when I call any county office on business, the person I need to speak with is "not available". Not that I really care. I expect to plod along until I join that big labor pool in the sky, but I worry that such a privileged class living high on the fruits of the laboring few could cause serious, systemic class envy.

We all know the history of the French revolution. The downtrodden set up a few guillotines to remove some of the privileged office holders, but when they found out how satisfying and efficient the zip off guillotines was to them, they didn’t stop until half of Paris was headless.

I knew I couldn’t keep this existence forever. I just didn’t think I would ever give it up to the tax collector. I always figured I’d lose the deed to this place in a card game or that some high stepping floozy would do a Samson and Delilah trick on me. I just never thought I would lose it by default to the tax collector.

But we all know what Robert Burns said about the best laid Plans of Men. Unfortunately, for me I made my plans at a time in my life when I could work like a demon for 24 hours non-stop, take a few sips of spring water and be ready for another 24-hour stint.

Now alas, every little routine on this farm is a major chore. And money? There is no money.

Or what little money there is, is spent in the "golden triangle." I go to the first corner of the golden triangle-the doctor’s office and then to St. John’s Pharmacy, the second leg of the triangle and then to the First National Bank for the last stop on the triangle. One look at what the drug bill has done to my bank balance and I am ill again and have to rerun the triangle. Round and round I go like Alice down the rabbit hole, faster and faster-doctor, drugstore, bank, doctor, drugstore, bank. I maintain equilibrium. The money is going out exactly at the rate it is coming in. Until "wham", I’m hit with my tax bill.

The game is over.

So Jan, I want to bring you up to speed on what you will have to do on your new farm.

First, the dam on the pond which burst during hurricane Floyd, and which I have been trying to fix, will need to be repaired before M.D.E. finds out about the environmental damage to Hickory Landing Creek. If the State gets into the matter of the busted dam you’ll never be able to pay the bill.

Also, the sheep flock needs to be sheared (40 head x $8 = $320).

All of the horses need to see the blacksmith (12 x $20 = $240).

There are 3 raw colts that I have half broke but will need to be saddle broke as soon as my trainer gets out of Rappahanock jail in September. There is a lot of bush hogging that needs to be done before Fall, which won’t take long, but first you will have to spend a couple hundred dollars for a new gear box for the bush hog.

The two farm tractors are old but pretty reliable. The John Deere 820 needs a little clutch work and the Ford 3000 probably needs a new alternator, but by-and-large, you got two nice tractors.

The John Deere dozer is in top shape except that it only steers on one side.

You can get a lot of work out of the dozer but you must plan ahead and realize that all turns must be made to the right.

I have been postponing application of lime and fertilizer until time got better, which looks like they ain’t. Allow about $2,000 to Russ Cullins for lime and fertilizer.

I just had the barn roofs painted and they look real nice, but there are some 6" x 6" sills that need to be replaced. The new sills I had sawn out 10 years ago are lying in the barn in good shape; you will need to hire the carpenter.

The Place is yours Ms. Tax Collector, lock, stock and barrel; except for one 10’ x 10’ tarpaulin which I will need to set up my residence on the court house lawn.

You may render me homeless, but by God I will have my tent.



Exciting News.

Scientists have decoded the human D.N.A. When I was studying biology many, many years ago, there were some pretty good theories about genes and chromosomes. Our teachers could mathematically predict who would have a brown eyed child and how many cattle in a herd would have white faces. We learned about dominant and recessive genes and why mules can’t produce offspring. Genetic outcomes could be generally predicted, but there was much that could be done about it.

Now with gene splicing, we will be able to construct the perfect human specimen.

Have you always hated your buck teeth and cross eyes? Do you want to spare your children all of those hours at the orthodontist? Simple. You just cut those bad genes out of your DNA and splice in someone else’s.

If you are about to choose your mate, don’t waste a lot of money on candy and flowers until she has produced a printout of her DNA. If it looks like she is going to require a lot of expensive gene splicing to produce the quality of offspring that you desire, pass her up. There are better fish in the sea.

The eugenics proposed by Adolf Hitler and Dr. Mengele were rather hap-hazard. Even by their selective breeding, there was a lot left to chance.

I have been a breeder just about all of my life. I am not referring to my reputation as a "skirt chaser", I mean plants and animals.

Long before I heard of Gregor Mendel and his wrinkled peas, my elder farmers were passing on to me the importance of selective breeding.

Grandpa would walk his tobacco rows for hours until he found the perfect plant that would be selected to produce the seed for the next season’s crop. You had to get to your plant before the flowers opened and the hummingbirds came. Hummingbirds love tobacco nectar and they move so fast. There were about 7,000 tobacco plants per acre. I have watched those little ruby-throated lechers buzz up and down the rows hitting every blossom with their beaks covered with pollen from God knows where. If you wanted perfect tobacco to market every year, you had to protect the breed and save the seed.

Some of the varieties of tobacco had been bred and refined for so many years. The seed was sold under the family name. You had such varieties as "Moore", "Robinson", "Catterton", and my favorite, "Shakespeare Bowling."

After the University of Maryland got into the plant breeding business, the breed were identified by number, "Md 57" "609".

The numbered breeds from the University scientists were actually better specimens than "Shakespeare Bowling" but I don’t think that those serial numbers had the romance of those old family names.

Saving seed corn was by the same process. By the time I knew my grandfather, his old bones were stiff and arthritic, just as mine are today. I would run ahead of him and select plants that, to my young eyes, were perfect, but his wise old eyes would find something wrong with them - "roots too weak", "years don’t hang right", "stalks not strong enough".

Grandpa didn’t allow himself many "cuss words", especially in the presence of children or women. His favorite epithet was "scalawag" which was a hold-over from the days when the hated blue coats rode through Southern Maryland burning the barns and running off the farm help.

" Hup! Thunderation, you scalaway". I knew Grandpa was getting tired of my gallivanting and so I would quiet down for a while to let him forget my present transgressions, and then start up again.

Now-a-days you can just walk into the seed store and select the seed variety that you think will suit your needs, seeds that have been bred and crossbred by such international conglomerates such as Archer-Daniels-Midland or some such outfit. The seed stock from such outfit is so specialized that today’s farmer has to fertilize, irrigate and spray with insecticide and herbicide with mathematical precision.

Do the least thing wrong and you’ve got no crop at all. Those old seeds the old timers saved had to thrive on poor land, against wire grass, bindweed, borers, blights and droughts. Those old plants had to take a licking and keep on ticking. We didn’t set production records back in the good old days, but a man with a few acres and a healthy mule could feed his family.

Breeding livestock was more direct. If the bull or stallion met with your approval and the moon and star were properly aligned, you would usually get what you bred for.

Back in the "good old days", before milk came in plastic jugs and butter came in plastic tubs labeled, "spread" , every family kept a cow or two for milk and butter.

The cows needed to be bred every year to "freshen" them and to yield a calf for sale or to keep as the occasion required.

My father was usually gone from the farm from dawn to dark working and we boys tended to the farm (in our fashion). One morning he left instructions for us to put a rope on old "Bossy" and lead her to the nearest farm and have her bred.

Dr. Johnson’s farm was right adjacent to ours and he had a fine Jersey Bull, but that sucker was mean. Jersey Bulls, as a breed, are meaner than most, but Dr. Johnson’s bull was a mean, evil, sum bitch. He would hurt you if he could. We boys decided that rather than lead our cow one mile to Dr. Johnson’s farm and face almost certain mayhem, that we would walk her the three miles to Mr. Zack Fowler and use his young, gentle Guernsey Bull.

The Fowlers kept the store in Chaptico. Mrs. Fowler was postmistress while Mr. Zack kept the store, and I mean they kept a store; not like that "Chaptico Market" that Jackie Tennyson attempts to operate, but a real store with shoes and bolts, horse collars and soda crackers. Not quite as big as Mrs. Agnes Guy’s store in Clements, but a real general store none-the-less.

We boys had it figured. We would get permission from Mr. Zack and then turn our cow in with his bull and enjoy our big Rock Creek while watching the bull’s handiwork from the board fence.

We boys were 10-11 years old at the time and considered ourselves accomplished stockmen by that age. We led the old cow right up to the store porch and Mrs. Fowler came out. "Where are you boys going with that cow?"

"She’s in heat Mrs. Fowler and we figured it would be o.k. to use your bull."

Mrs. Fowler had been a school teacher for years and had that certain stentorian voice that old school marms practiced back in the "good old days".

"Zack! Zack! Come here Zack right away." The poor lady went into a swoon. She was of the old school where people didn’t discuss animal breeding in the presence of ladies, especially innocent young children of 10-11 years.

We didn’t know what all of the fuss was about. We were experienced young farm hands of 10-11 years, we were good neighbors to the Fowlers, our cow was in heat and the Fowlers owned a willing bull. What else was there to talk about?

Mrs. Fowler came out of her swoon and went immediately into a Crimson blush, and then we thought she would swoon again.

Why didn’t we just take the cow to Doctor Johnson’s.

We wouldn’t have had the big, ice cold orange soda to drink, but we could have watched the bull as long as we wanted. Dr. Johnson would have been busy in his office and certainly wouldn’t have been running around hollering and turning white, then red, and white again.

Mrs. Fowler finally composed herself and read the law to Mr. Zack. "Zack, I want you to tell those boys to take that animal home, and you need to talk to their father."

"To hell with that Prissy old school Marm, let’s go to Dr. Johnson’s."

We then had to walk 4 miles back to Dr. Johnson’s where we should have gone in the first place.

But, we could cut a mile off our walk by cutting through Long woods. Long woods was a scary walk through the woods with all kinds of ponds with big water snakes. It was a haven for bootleggers. Suppose old Bossy got a whiff of fermenting mash. You can’t keep a cow out of a mash barrel once she gets a whiff of it. It wouldn’t be no fun trying to drag a drunk cow two or three miles through the woods.

We lucked out and got past the water snakes, and didn’t run up on nay "kittles".were making good time when we passed Mr. John Young’s farm. Mr. John had a big job up in Washington, driving a cab or something, and only came down on Sundays. His fence was only about three rails high and behind that fence was a nondescript mixture of cattle including a juvenile half-Angus bull.

Our feet were getting tired and sheep flies were eating the hell out of us.

The thought struck us all at once. "Let’s give him a shot."

After all of that walking "Old Bossy was in full estrus, she needed no coaxing. She cleared those three rails in one leap and in less than a minute we had a calf on the way.

That night our father came in. "You boys get that cow bred?"

"Yes suh."

Nothing more was said until the following spring. When my father saw that lop eared, black, muley calf born to his fine Guernsey cow, he went off.

"Whose bull did you boys use?"

"Mr. John Young’s."

"Damn worthless calf. You’d might as well knock it in the head."

Papa must not have been feeling well, we didn’t even get an ass whipping.

"He just cussed under his breath about the "damn worthless calf".

But, for some reason we kept that "damn worthless calf". We kept her for years. She turned out to be the best milker; gallons and gallons of rich, creamy milk every day, and she was gentle, anybody could milk that cow.

She might have been born on the "wrong side of the blanket" but she earned her keep for years.

 


I Warned You!

"You don’t write about taxes anymore. Taxes are worse than ever in this county and you waste all your column space on a bunch of senile old blathering."

Let me tell you dear citizen, for thirty years I have warned you people of the treacherous tentacles of the tax collector to no avail.

Like the biblical prophets, I have preached and preached and "ye heard me not."

So, Suffer!

I remember a piece I wrote at least 25 years ago. I told you how taxes were going up in real dollars.

When I first bought this farm, I could gather up in my arms and carry enough stripped tobacco to pay my annual taxes. A few years later, it would take a good sized pickup truck loaded with the same bright leaf. Now I would have to back a tractor trailer up to my barn to haul away enough tobacco to pay my taxes, and hope like hell that I didnÆt have to come back for a second trip.

It is a natural human tendency to enjoy spending other peopleÆs money. Have you ever been treated to a trip that was ôAll expenses paidö? Fun ain’t it.

Well politicians have the same weaknesses as we mortal humans, only more so. They reach into the barrel of other people’s money and peel off a handful of 50’s and 100’s. Whee! Let ‘er rip!

Running the hand into the barrel is addictive. Each move becomes easier and faster until they are spending with both hands and both feet.

All of the convicted embezzlers I have read of over the years have told the same pitiful tale, ôI was only going to borrow a few dollars, and put it right back."

But it doesn’t work that way.

The dipping only increases and the squandering becomes more compulsive until the bank is just a hollow shell of brick and mortar.

When I looked over the present board of commissioners before the election, I told my people to be careful. A high stepping, "Bama gal" and a washed out Vista volunteer from Connecticut. What vested interest did such people have in our dear county? They are only opportunists who are passing through. You expect to receive a postcard from people like that reading "Nice to visit with you, but your county is broke. The grass is much greener in my new place of residence, more opportunity here."

My grandfather was county commissioner in this dear county in the years prior to WWI. His most boastful memory of his years in politics was that he oversaw the yearly budget for the countyÆs schools, $50,000. "That’s right boy, I said fifty thousand dollars.ö It sounds comical to say that now, $50,000 û wouldnÆt pay the light bill at Chopticon.

Bob Miedzinski patrolled our dear county for years as Sheriff. He must have done a pretty good job. I don’t remember any crime back in the good old days!

"Rabbit" Herbert used to get smothering drunk and dance in the middle of the intersection of Rts. 234 & 242 at Clements until Sheriff Bob was called to haul him to Leonardtown, but we didn’t consider that crime. In fact, most people found it rather amusing until a local woman came through the intersection distracted by other thoughts and flattened old ôRabbitö.

The commissioners room back in the good old days was hardly big enough to fit a good sized card table. Parking? You parked on the street. Now they have paved half of Tudor Hall and just about all of Leonard Hall just to park the thousands of clerks necessary to handle the paperwork generated by the increasing glut of tax money.

Tax - spend - Tax - spend! It is the long sought perpetual motion machine.

Faster, faster, faster on down the rathole.

People approach me on the street every day. The story is always the same. "Stephen, you are well educated, you write well, you speak well, you’re handsome, charming, polite and modest, with loads of sex appeal."

I wait for what I know is coming.

"Why don’t you lead a tax revolt?"

Because dear citizens, "I preached for thirty years, and ye heard me not."

You snatched up the boiled goobers, thrown to you by that high stepping gal from Alabama. You swooned at the very thought of that hippie tree-hugger from Connecticut.

So, suffer, you miserables.

Pay and suffer.

You remind me of a neighbor I had years ago. I noticed a wisp of smoke coming out of his attic and called him to tell him.

"What’s it to you?"

About 20 minutes later, I called him again. Smoke was pouring out of his upstairs windows.

"You again?"

When the guy came beating on my door screaming, "Help Me! Help Me! My house is on fire." I pointed to the 10-quart bucket on my porch and , and told him to help himself.

I sat back down and finished my breakfast.

The ant and the grasshopper again.

While you dear citizens have been listening to the siren’s song, I have been reading up on edible roots and berries.

When the tax collector takes my last dollar, I will retreat into the forest and live just fine. I will survive in my Eden.

Now, if I can just find an Eve who likes roots and berries.


Don't Listen To Your Family

A few of my cousins flew into town last week for the most delightful reunion. We are all about the same age and share many of the same memories of summers on grandpa’s farm in Oakville and visits to the rivershore at nearby Sandgates.

Quite a remarkable group, my cousins, all well educated with successful careers in a variety of fields, so naturally they appreciate fine literature (this column for example).

After wining, dining, and reminiscing through the evening, they began to bring up some of my old columns that they had enjoyed.

We laughed at some of the humorous columns and argued over the political ones, until one of my cousins made a remark, which cut me to the core.

"Stevie, your column sometimes state facts, which are not necessarily true."

My dearest cousin, how she hurt me! I would rather that she plunge her steak knife into my heart than to say that I had written an untruth.

Then our conversation turned to truth. What is the truth, should the truth always be told?

All of us at the table had benefited from the best ethical training at the hands of the best Jesuit Theologians. I reminded them about a question posed in class one day. "If your dear grandmother asks, "Does my new dress make me look too fat? What do you answer? Do you tell the truth, that she looks like a toothless old elephant? Of course you don’t tell the truth. Some people tell the truth all the time, just to look good.

When George Washington’s father, quite angrily asked "who cut down his favorite cherry tree"? Little George piped right up, "I did father, I cut it down with my hatchet."

Why did George risk an ass whipping by telling the truth right away? Because he knew he wanted to be President someday. Just think how it would appear in his campaign ads, "George Washington cannot tell a lie!"That sure sounds better than "Al Gore, who cannot tell a truth".

I was hurt and offended by the subject of lies and liars. I cannot tell a lie and refuse to associate with those who do.

That being said, let me qualify it by explaining that I always tell the truth, as I perceive the truth.

I am sure all of you have seen the experiment on eyewitnesses. A group of people are shown a short film and then asked what they have seen. In the film, a brown Buick with a White top, driven by a middle-aged man with a mustache runs through a stop sign and hits a blue Studebaker, driven by a young woman.

When the answer sheets are checked, the make and model of the automobiles are reversed, the colors change, the middle-aged man with the mustache becomes a young boy with a crew cut and the young woman in the Studebaker becomes a male oriental pulling a Rickshaw, and yet all of those subjects were trying to tell the truth. There was a young man who used to hang around the county taverns in the years following the end of WWII, _______ up drinks with stories of his bravery. His only problem was his complete ignorance of geography. He placed himself in the middle of battles that took place on opposite ends of the Globe.

"Bastogne?" Yes sir, that was a hellhole. I seen all of it. Wounded twice at Bastogne" "Okinawa". Man, I fit my way clear across Okinawa, medics didn’t think they would be able to get me out."

And, so it went, like CBS; he was there until one of the real veterans decided to have some fun.

"Your outfit sure saw a lot of action, Leroy - How did you move around? By ship? By airplane?

"Shit no! They marched us every step of the way."

Mark Twain’s pet peeve was statistics. Twain said, there were three kinds of lies. "Lies, damnable lies, and statistics."

Writing a column, such as this one, where truth is paramount, requires hours and hours of thorough research. There can be no mistake, no untruth. Sometimes memories are clouded by time. Sometimes you find two or more reference works. Giving opposing answers to the same question.

One can only winnow a re-winnow, keep sifting and sifting until the pure unadulterated truth comes to the surface.

I realize that we are now into the 21st century, where truth has no importance anymore, but the truth is still important to me, and you can be sure to find the true gospel under my heading.

To my cousins who insist that Mr. Dilmore couldn’t have used his dead wife as crab-bait, or that Leroy didn’t take a tractor-trailer load of lumber down Bryantown Hill, drunk with no brakes, I can only say "You weren’t there."

One form of lying that I will never be accused of is plagiarism. Of course, as every schoolboy knows, plagiarism is the copying of another writer’s work and publishing it as your own.

Shakespeare? He’s dead. Twain? Dead. Hemmingway? Ditto.

There is really no author alive  that I could plagiarize to improve my work.


Self Service Blues

Whatever became of the countermen we had back in the good old days? You know, the polite, knowledgeable persons who would listen to your vague description of some product you needed and return from the warehouse with exactly the piece you needed.

This self-service crap might work in grocery stores, but there is no substitute for good service in auto parts, hardware stores, or such.

Go into one of these "modern" hardware stores and ask for help with a certain item. Some snot-face dropout, drawing the minimum wage and overpaid at that, will walk you up and down all the aisles in the emporium, "I seen it somewhere", he will whine as he exits each aisle.

Sure enough, hardware clerks like we had in the good old days would not only fetch up the part you needed but could tell you exactly how to install the item, but also how many and what size screws you'd need.

Rodney Thompson, who clerked at the old Dean Lumber before they moved out on the highway and became "Home Center" comes to mind.

Rodney could explain in precise detail how to use any of the thousands of products in the store, and yet I know Rodney never held a tool in his own hands. He must have picked up his knowledge by eavesdropping on the real mechanics who hung around the store talking shop.

Auto Parts places are a riot. They don't stock a damn thing except a computer screen.

"Rodney Thompson comes to mind...Rodney could explain in precise detail how to use any of thousands of products in the store and yet I know Rodney never had a tool in his own hands."

"I don't have it, but there's one in Billings, Montana. I could probably get it here before next Saturday."

That is just what you want to hear when your car is halfway between Oraville and Morganza with the hood up!

When I think of auto parts, I think of Ernest Wheeler. Ernest knew every auto part that had ever been machined, stamped or cast, it's part no. and location in the bins behind him.

You could find some worn, rusted, bent up piece of metal laying in your driveway. "What's this offa, Ernest?"

"Relax Stephen, it's not off of your old Ford. That's a wheel cylinder spring retainer off a Chevrolet. Part number 5698-A. If it was off the left side it would be 5698-B, fits all models '47 to '59 except the sport coupe."

Try buying an auto part today.

Some bosomy blonde with eye shadow and lipblush who couldn't tell an alternator from a mud flap will point you to her ultra modern, self-help computer screen, a torture device that the Torquemado would have considered too inhumane.

Make of vehicle, the machine asks.

Punch in F-O-R-D.

Car or truck?

Punch in T-R-U-C-K.

Model Year?

Punch in 1-9-8-9.

Size of engine?

Run out to the parking lot, raise the hood, wipe off the data plate with your bare hand, burning the hell out of yourself in the process, run back in and punch in 7.5 L-I-T-R-E-S.

Amperage of alternator.

Damn! Back outside, raise the hood, back inside.

Too late! Some cretin has erased your data and is punching in something about an oil filter for a '84 Toyota.

Now, I know what you are thinking. "What is Stephen Uhler doing toting his own auto parts? Surely, a man of his station in life, with his wealth, his handsome good looks, his sparkling personality, surely he doesn't have to crawl under his own vehicles with handful of wrenches?

Why doesn't he send them out for repair?"

The last time I had my pickup in the shop was when I had a loose cover on my right front brake, nothing serious, just a rattling cover, but I decided to go ahead and do a full brake job on the front with new rotors and discs. So I left it at the shop and the mechanic wrote up the ticket for a complete front brake overhaul.

And, by the way, I told the mechanic, check and repack the front bearings while you have them off.

The bill was over $600 for the brake job, and get this, the bill for packing bearings on two wheels was $189.00.

Stiff bill, I thought, but at least I have all new brakes on the front.

After trying a few stops, I was not satisfied with my new brakes, and had to pull the wheels off myself.

I discovered that the rotors were not new, in fact they had not even been turned. I had been taken for a sucker.

The bitter irony of being suckered was exacerbated by the fact that the mechanic had presented me with a card when I left his shop which read, "Jesus Saves".

I didn't pay much attention to the card when he presented it, but after thinking about it, anyone who has his car fixed in that shop is going to require all the attention Jesus can give them.


The Land of the Flask, The Fiddle and the Dark Roasted Possum

7/27/99     I was out walking the other day when I came upon a dewberry vine hidden in the weeds. I thought they were extinct; not having seen one in years.

For you city slickers who don't know what a dewberry is, it is a species of blackberry that runs along the ground. It is very similar to the bush blackberry in appearance and flavor, maybe just a tad sweeter.

Seeing that one dewberry vine filled with ripe berries was a joy to my heart, like meeting a long lost friend.

Modern farming with big disc harrows and the application of herbicides must have made it difficult for the ground-hugging dewberry.

Back in the good old days, we would work a field in corn one summer and put in wheat that fall which would grow through the winter to be harvested the next summer. During the late winter, we would seed lespedeza among the growing wheat. The lespedeza would lay there quietly growing under the wheat until the wheat straw was cut off and then make a nice cutting of hay in the fall.

The third year, the field would be allowed to rest as a fallow field. That's when the dewberries would flourish (and blackberries too). The dewberries would come a week or two before the blackberries and you could pick them without bleeding to death on the thorns which guarded the blackberries.

We kids always carried a one gallon King Po-T-Rik molasses pail with us to fill and bring home after we had stuffed ourselves.

Kids nowadays don't seem to have any knowledge or any curiosity about the wild fruits that are available. I guess it is easier for them to run down to the nearest corner and buy an artificially flavored slurpee or whatever, but for us kids of the great depression who grew up during the years of WWII, wild berries were usually the only confection we would experience.

The berries that survived our appetites and made it back to the house were canned, preserved and jellied. They made the finest pies, tarts and cobblers.

My favorite was the boiled cobbler; a sheet of dough was rolled out and a layer of dewberries spread on. The dough was then rolled up, wrapped in cheesecloth and boiled in a kettle of water. The boiling dewberries would infuse the dough with flavor and the concoction would be downright exotic. I can't describe it, you had to be there.

Use it or lose it, is an expression you often hear. The wild berries that fed us back in the good old days seem to be just about gone. They were there when we needed them and now they are taken away. Who needs them?

We kids knew the location of every fruit tree and vine on our 200 acres (and most of the neighboring farms as well).

The county road crews would cut the road edges back with bush axes, which left just the sort of stubble where wild strawberries thrived. (These big baseball sized strawberries you see in the supermarkets are as about as close to wild strawberries as chicken salad is to chicken manure). In the forest were several different varieties of huckleberry and blueberry, cherry trees in just about every hedge row. The hedge rows were bulldozed out in the 50's to make room for the big 4 and 5 row tractors and the cherry trees with them.

Hazel nuts could only be found in a few spots down in the big swamp. We knew where and when to find them.

Wild grapes? What kind do you want? The big fox grapes? The pungent muscadines? The little buckshot sized bird grapes? We could find them.

Bird grapes were rather sour, but we kids would grimace and pucker up and keep on eating.

Bird grape vines climbed to the tops of the tallest trees to bear their fruit. They must have been the inspiration for Aesops story of the Fox and the Grapes. Unlike the fox, we would get them down, sour or not sour, we had to have them.

We would climb the vine and hang on until the vine let go and fell down.

If we didn't have enough heavy kids in our grapeing party to bring the vine down, we would return the next day with recruits from the neighborhood and just worry the vine until it gave up.

Fruit trees today have been dwarfed down so that a man can stand flat-footed on the ground and pick every fruit on the tree. Not so back in the good old days. We had apple and pear trees that had to be climbed and shaken.

The kid doing the shaking would usually get bonked pretty hard by the fruit above him. Some of the pears on the highest limbs just would not come down and stayed there to be our, "Possum hunting pears". They would hang on until way in the Fall and the frost would break them loose.

Every 'Possum for miles around would come to feed on the sweet mellow pears.

We kids would go to school and brag on our, "thoroughbred 'Possum" dog and how many 'Possum he treed. In reality, our "'Possum dog", old Duke, was a half collie-half pointer who followed our lantern down to the pear tree. The 'Possums feeding on the ground would scurry up the pear tree and look down at us, all we had to do was shoot them down.

"Good work Duke, Good hunting boy!"

Old Duke didn't know what we were talking about. He just knew he liked to follow us down to the pear tree.

Mama would core these big pears and fill them with sugar and cinnamon and slide them in the oven alongside the roaster full of opossums.

It won't ever be that good again.

'Possum Roast in its own gravy, with baked cinnamon pears for dessert. It don't get no better than that!


Adieu, Run, Run
Steve's new racehorse ready to hit the track. His name: "Adieu, Run, Run"

Bootlegging & Ass Whippings

( June 15 ) It is a natural tendency for a person to become depressed and dejected when, despite the best efforts and intentions, he sees his goal become further and further away. The prospect of failure after repeated efforts becomes unbearable.

Boy, the true optimist will always rise to try again.

My favorite response to certain defeat was expressed by Gen. McAuliffe with one word.

When several of the Whermacht finest divisions had his army surrounded at Bastogne, his men lay exhausted in the snow, without food, medicine or ammunition. The German general sent Gen.  McAuliffe a message offering him the an opportunity to surrender.

Not a man to waste words, Gen. McAulliffe sent back one word, "Nuts!"

When one is confronted by certain failure, it is good to think back of McAuliffe at Bastogne, of Washington at Valley Forge, of Columbus on the high seas and sail on, sail on!

When I had this task of county philosopher thrust upon me by the sudden death of our previous philosopher, the eminent Jack Rue, I accepted the responsibility with a fair amount of trepidation.

Would I have the patience and fortitude to impart to the coming generation my vast store of knowledge?

I knew it would not be easy.

Would I be able to pass on the wisdom of the ages to a generation of semi-literate, ring-nosed punks or would I be casting pearls before swine?

My mentor, the late Jack Rue, did not let such thoughts bother him. When his philosophy was questioned, he would reply, "I never apologize and never explain."

When I straightened up from my hoe, where I have been grubbing my meager subsistence from this poor, parched farm, and offered words of wisdom, words that I have retrieved from the deepest recesses in my memory, words that I have pondered over and struggled with for years, and offer that wisdom to Generation X, it hurts me when they respond with, "What does he know?"

Hear me children.

I was not always an old arthritic farmer clad in these ragged denims.

I have soared with the eagles, I have consorted with fine ladies, I have sat at the knee of wise philosophers you have probably never heard of and remembered their every word.

Have you ever heard a lecture by "Skimmer" Bowles? The wisdom of "Shug" Thomas?" I thought not.

Our coming generation has not had any "raising."

"Raising" is a long process that involves example, lectures, yelling at and an occasional slap upside the head.

Our present generation of youth went from day care to preschool, to elementary and high school without the benefit of parents, extended family and neighbors - the only people qualified to give "raising."

You see the lost generation loitering around the mall with "Nothing to do, Man."

Back in the good old days there was always something to do.

After a kid had fetched the firewood and water, fed the hogs, milked the cows, hoed the garden, brought in the fodder and other chores, he was free to accept whatever employment opportunities that came along.

We boys - my brothers and I - could always make a dollar. When the oyster truck came through, we would run the mile to the icehouse and shovel oysters on the big truck. The driver would gladly give us a dollar a piece so he could spend the time in the bar getting "likkered up." For the long drive to Baltimore, sometimes when he was really "likkered up," he would give us $2.

There was tobacco to plant and harvest, always some job to do.

Sometimes we would do painting, which I always hated - the damn stuff always dripping and smearing.

We did paint the old three-story roof on the Yates house and were well paid to carry cases and cases of new canning jars to the same spot, again using a different path and stopping from time to time and putting out the lantern.

I guess he was trying to save "coal oil."

Then the next morning, we carried the filled cases back to the Buick. Mr. Copsey was in a good mood, he kept falling down and laughing.

Everytime we came to a stump hole in Longwoods Road, the bumper would drag and we would have to unload the trunk and carry the cases ahead to a level spot in the road and reload the Buick.

We got almost out to the hard road, and Mr. Copsey just sat there with the lights out, listening.

But when he did move out he was rolling.

When my father came in, my mother whispered to him for a long time, her face white as snow.

My father's face got redder and redder, and then he slipped off his leather belt.

No use trying to run. We had an ass whipping coming, no doubt about that.

We never went back to bootlegging, though I will have to tell you the hours were good , the pay was good, and it was outdoors in the clean, fresh air.

Everything about bootlegging was fun, except the ass whipping.


Diplomatic immunity is the benchmark of civilization.

In the old days of Tyrant and Tribal chiefs, ambassadors from one kingdom to another would often be imprisoned, beheaded, or in the case of cannibalistic tribes roasted and eaten.

Then as we became more civilized the need to protect emissaries was realized. Even the stupidest Kings realized that if they mistreated ambassadors from some other Kingdom, the result would be retaliation and there could be no trade or travel about the continent.

Only the stupidest of Kings refused to grant immunity to diplomats.

On my grand tour of Europe (yes, your country philosopher is a world traveler), I visited the Chateau D’Amboise on the Loire River in France. The Guide led us up the winding stone steps to a high room that overlooked a high wall tothe rocks on the river’s edge, hundreds of feet below.

The Guide told an interesting tale of how the King of the Castle, upset by the warfare during the reformation decided to take some action.

He called a conference of all the Catholics, Huguenots, Lutherans, Orthodox, Pagans, born-again Christians, all of them. They assembled in that high room to have some meaningful dialogue, to spend some quality time together.

The slick old King had other ideas. When all of the ambassadors had assembled, he had his guards bolt the doors and hurl every one of those trusting bastards to the rocks below.

His action temporarily settled matters, but set diplomacy back several hundred years.

But, generally the system of diplomacy evolved over the years, flags of truce were recognized by civilized armies, fleeing political prisoners could take sanctuary in churches and would not be harmed as long as they stayed on holy ground. Even during the bitterest wars, ambassadors knew that they would be safe as long as they stayed in their embassies and kept their mouths shut.

Even after Japan so sneakily attacked Pearl Harbor, this country allowed the Japanese diplomats to pack up and go home.

Now our President and his cabinet of "war protestors", those same pacifists who found war to be so loathsome, who hid out during the Vietnam War, have self righteously bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

I was so ashamed to be an American.

My country has not always been perfect, but for thefirst time in 65 years as an American citizen, I feltthe most complete, abject shame.

"I didn’t know" our president protests, with his lower lip quivering with the pain he felt for those poor Chinese diplomats fried to a crisp as they sat at their desks.

Why didn’t he know?

Any cab driver in Belgrade would have told him how to get to the Chinese Embassy.

He could have known easily enough if he wasn’t so furiously wagging the dog.

He realizes that he has been a nothing President, getting a free ride on the economic wave set in motion by Reagan and Bush, with absolutely nothing to his credit, except a few turn bras and stained dresses.

Now in the waning months of his presidency, he wants to make the history books as aGreat War President, another Washington, Lincoln,F.D.R. or Truman.

Ah yes, our great President faithfully at his post with the responsibility of thisgreat war resting heavy on his strong shoulders.

Baloney! Our war Presidents had backbone of steel; this would-be Napoleon has warm peanut butter for a backbone.

Our military people have done an admirable job, our scientists have provided us with the most remarkable weapons; they can feel justly proud of their professional skill, but alas, the politicians giving the orders are surely, "the gang that couldn’t shoot straight."

Our president by his ineptitude and self-righteousness has set civilization back hundreds of years.

What right does he have to invade the sovereign borders of a country that has not made war on us?

What happens the next time we have riots in Detroit or L.A.? Would not Yugoslavia, China or some other country have the right to fling a few missiles at us?

And what happens if something happens around the globe where we really do have a vital interest?

We have shot off all of our cruise missiles and smartbombs and are back to using B-52 and WWII style bombs.

The legacy of this Vainglorious Hick from Hot Springs might be that his Presidency led to the downfall of this noble experiment in self-government.

 
Time Tells It All

It seems that back in the good old days people had a lot more patience than they have today.

We would order merchandise from Sears and Roebuck and wait with patient anticipation, keeping in mind the warning on the order blank "Please allow at least 6 weeks for delivery."

Our contact with distant loved ones was all in slow motion.

"Wow! I received a card from Uncle Jack and I only wrote him 10 days ago!"

The mail was slow by today's standard. Steamships would get you to Europe in a week or so, the train would get you to the west coast in 3 or 4 days.

And yet, extended families stayed in touch. Aunts and uncles and cousins many times removed were all family and all concerned with the health, wealth and welfare of each other.

It amazes me how today's youngsters have no sense of "family".

Often I will ask one of today's lost generation, "Isn't Mr. So and So your grandfather?"

"I dunno."

"But you are first cousin to Leroy Dinwiddie, aren't you?

"Maybe, I don't know."

Back in the good old days, we sent birthday cards and graduation announcements to relatives spanning several generations and extending to cousins three or four times removed.

And they call this the communication age.

Everyone walks around with a cell phone pressed to his ear and three or four pagers clipped to his belt and communications have gone to hell.

Take my trade, heavy construction, for example.

Back in the good old days, we would schedule our personnel and material weeks in advance. You knew before you went to bed at night what men and material would be at what place. All construction jobs kept a fast driving "gofer" to run for parts in case of unexpected breakdowns. There was no need to be in contact with the "office", except to pick up the payroll once a week. Now, every construction foreman has a belt full of pagers.

You can't have a conversation with anyone today. "Beep". "Excuse me, I gotta call the office." He takes a phone out of his pocket and talks for about 1/2 hour, stopping every few seconds to silence another one of his beepers.

Nothing gets done, Bell telephone makes millions. Everyone talks and talks about what needs to be done, but it is never done because everyone is too busy talking.

A company I was working for a few years ago was stunned to learn that I did not have even one pager on my belt and immediately presented me with one.

"So we will always be in touch with you."

I stomped that sumbitch into plastic dust on the parking lot pavement as soon as I left the office.

"We paged you 100 times today; you didn't answer."

"Something happened to my pager."

Don't worry about it, we will get you another.

and another.

and another.

Finally, somebody noticed the big pile of plastic dust and computer chips accumulating in the lot where I parked my truck and I didn't get anymore free pagers.

I know what I am going to do before I have my 5:00 a.m.coffee. I have a backup plan for any unexpected situation. I do not talk to the "office" every 5 minutes.

The only time I have felt a compelling urge to call the office was when I was working for a company that had a bosomy red-headed receptionist. That company had to jerk the radio out of my truck and ruined a blossoming romance.

Seriously, beepers and cell phones have ruined the construction industry.

Tradesmen no longer check their trucks to see if they are stocked with the tools and material needed that day. They know that they can always call back to the office and another truck will be dispatched to arrive two hours later with the wrong tools. The two crews will then complain about not having the right stuff until the third crew arrives, about quitting time.

Work accomplished that day - $0.00; phone bill that day - $950.00.

Beepers for school kids? Smash them with the first hammer you can find.

Part of the process of education is learning to function in the world.

If the child needs to talk to his Mommy 15 times a day, he will never learn to function as an adult.

Kid forgets his lunch? Good lesson for him.

Kid misses his bus home? A long walk does wonders for a youngster's appreciation of the importance of keeping appointments.

Let the school kids read of Daniel Boone, Lewis & Clarke, Jebediah Smith and the other trail blazers who mapped out this great continent.

Their calls were not measured by seconds or minutes, but by months or sometimes years, when their canoe upset or their pack mule ran off, they couldn't call the office on a cell phone. They toughed it out and kept going.

They didn't worry. After all, they would be back at the St. Louis office by late fall, and if not then, by the next summer at least.

A Teacher of Men

Hope Swann has died. What a loss to Chaptico, the County, and the world.

I knew Hope Swann as a neighbor, teacher, fellow farmer, and friend. Years before she became my teacher, I admired her for her athletic prowess. My father bought five nice black angus breeding calves from her father, Johnson Swann. Mr. Swann s farm was about 3 miles from our farm by road, but only about 1 mile as the cows walked.

The young calves were very homesick, and conveniently, when we kids returned from school in the evening, he would find that our calves had flown the coop.

Our father was working along shifts building Patuxent NAS and wasn't home much to help with fence repair, and those roguish angus calves would find a new hole everyday.

So every evening we would track our calves through the big swamp back to Mr. Swann's.

Mr. Swann's naturally taciturn man would point to his herd of about 50 calves.

"Yep, there they are."

We would have to cut our 5 calves out of 50. Every one jet black from toenails to top knots.

It was always easier when Hope was on the farm, she could head off a calf faster than a Quarter horse.

We would always get 5 calves headed up and headed home, I don't think we always had the same calves, but they were all the same size and all black.

I didn't have a science project ready, but like Hook Fin, I possessed scrandipitous good luck all black.

We would usually arrive home with our charge of obstinate beasts and dark, our good school gabardines shredded by bull briars and shoes sagy with swamp herd back, at only for twenty-four hours.

Hope Swann taught my older brother first. He was a model student. Ms. Swann was dully impressed. Next she taught my older sister, also a model student.

When Ms. Swann greeted me on my first day in her class, she beamed, "another one of those bright Uhler children." Little did she realize that she was meeting Huck Finn re-incarnate.

I was a bright enough student and could devour books by the pound when disposed to do so, but found daily attendance at school rather monotonous. In most classes, I just gazed out of the windows and dreamed at all the wonderful things going on in the fields and forest. Ms. Swann had a way of Ammending my attention, which caused me to put my boyish dreams on the back burner, at least until her class was over.

As I stated earlier, I had a lot of Huck Finn in me and so I missed out a lot of days.

Sometime I missed school because of pressing farm chores that had to be done, I had to hunt wild strawberries or cherries. Some days were just too damned nice to be in school.

Once, as I was resuming my education after about a month long hiatus, my classmates warned me. "You'd better have your science project! Ms. Swann said we gotta have our science project in by Monday, no more credit ."

I didn't t have a science project ready, but like Huck Finn, I possessed scrandipitous good luck.

While walking to school past Mr. Edward s pond, I spied a pair of nostrils barely showing on the mud at the pond bottom. (I really had acute vision back in the good old days). A snapping turtle, the beast eating there is. ( A snapping turtle has seven different meats on his carcass, with seven distinct flavors each more delicious than the last).

I could take the turtle home to mama, but that would mean missing another day from school when I was determined to resume my education that very day.

I could stop by John Hebb's and sell him for a dollar, but John probably wouldn't have the dollar and would just owe me the dollar.

So, I found a fertilizer bag and me and the turtle continued on to school.

"Welcome back stranger, what s in the sock?" "My science project." I dumped the 40 lb turtle on the floor.

Mr. Swann didn't bat an eye, she just looked at me with her distinctive smile, only it wasn t a smile, you couldn't tell if it was approval or disapproval, her lips turned up on the end, but her eyes focused right into mine.

"Where's your paperwork?"

"Paperwork?"

Yes, to substitute the scientific research you have done in regard to your science project.

Damn! I had caught a 40 lb turtle at the risk of losing my fingers and toted him 2 miles in a sack only to find out Ms. Swann wanted documents.

"Well Stephen," since you have been out 'sick' for a long time, I will give you a few more days to finish your report," and she handed me a half dozen large tomes on "reptiles for reference."

I did turn in a right fair study or snapping turtles and by the years end, I had surpassed my more industrious classmates to win the award for science in my class.

Hope Swann was that good teacher, she could get good schoolwork out of, even me.

It is reflex action with me. When someone asks, who's the "best teacher you have known ?"

"Hope Swann." I don't have to ponder the question.

Hope loved her farm and enjoyed doing her own farm work. Whenever we meet, we would usually wind up talking crops and livestock.

I wish I had spent more of our conversations telling her how much I appreciated the inspiration and monitoring. I received from her at a very critical juncture in my life.

"Go Now In The Name of God, Please Go"

(3/23/99)

"The strangers came and tried to teach us their way. They scorned us just for being what we are, but they'd might as well go chasing after moonbeams or light a penny candle from a star."

Those words from the old Irish ballad always leave me a little sad.

The cries of an oppressed culture powerless against a stronger invader and yet denying this vulnerability in song.

Sort of like whistling in the dark to build up courage against unknown forces against which there is no control.

We in St. Mary's County are being overrun by a stronger force from outside. True, they have not battered down our walls and put us to the sword as invaders have been known to do, but just as surely our culture is being eradicated.

Economic opportunists are coming in sporting weekly paychecks that exceed the annual income of our farmers, watermen and tradespeople.

They expect us to bow to their demands, they scorn us just for being what we are but, they don't have to leave chasing rainbows or lighting penny candles. They have economic clout and have seized control of our print and electronic media while we have been whistling in the dark.

Xenophobic old bastard!

Not so!

I will admit that over the years that many outsiders have discovered this fair county and found it to their liking. They have been of all races, religions, and economic class and mainly they want to be a part of this rare culture. Not to control it, but to belong to assimilate.

They took the time to learn to understand the local dialect, develop a taste for stuffed ham and fried oysters, and after a while, some of them even learned to begin each sentence with a "By Gawd" and end it with "thurly".

They became "county".

This last wave of economic opportunists find nothing likeable about its people, it's politics, it's architecture (or lack thereof).

They carp about our roads, our schools, the lack of recreational amenities (which they claim they are used to in their previous life).

They want the buggies and combines to stay out of their glutted traffic, they want more cops, more street lights, more crossing guards.

On and on they carp about this detestable place they have been forced to migrate to in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

All of this whining and pouting by the yahoos doesn't really bother the true sons of St. Mary's. We are a stoic breed. Generations bent over the tobacco hoe and oyster tongs have made us tough. We are slow to complain, but the last demand is unbearable.

Burn down our unsightly old homes and barns, lest their genteel senses be offended?

Spare them the dilapidation of our poverty when they gaze out from palatial new homes and sleek (though illegal) yachts.

If this fair county with it's callous encrusted farmers and their old housing offends them so, by all means, let them go.

Planning an exit route from this fair county is not all that difficult. There are only two roads. Route 5 and Route 234.

Can't decide?

Flip a frigging coin!

It is past time for the natives to revolt.

We can't have a fox chase without winding up in some townhouse complex.

Try soft crabbing along the shore and some yahoo will swamp you with a skeedoo.

Our women have lost all housekeeping skills. With a fast food joint at every intersection, none of the younger women have learned to scrape hogheads and pick kale.

Where would you find a young woman willing to sit over a hot tub of hog guts to clean a mess of chitlins?

I've had the thought to perhaps once more try marriage while I still have my own teeth and a fair amount of Virility, but I despair of that ever happening.

I know at my age I would not have enough time left to teach the poor thing to cook.

Yes,Yahoos, you have rendered this fair county unbearable by your presence.

I exhort you with the words of an old English statesman when confronted by a parliament that would not act and would not adjourn, "you have stayed far too long for any good that you have done, please go, I say to you in the name of God, please go!"

Work Never Hurt Nobody

(3/9/99)   ---   I see by the papers that there is legislation proposed that will exempt Amish children from child labor laws.

Good!

Now, if we will just extend that exemption to cover the 99% other American children. When you compare empty headed, unskilled, undisciplined majority of American kids with those you will deal with in Amish shops and farms, the contrast, is alarming.

The parents of Amish children are wise enough to snatch their children out of our worthless, feel-good public school system before they can become corrupted.

I have had many occasions over a long lifetime in this county to deal with the Amish and Mennonites. I buy feed from their mills, lumber from their saw mills, seeds and plants at their garden centers, and have all sorts of repairs made at their many craft shops.

I have always been impressed by the behavior of the children when the adult Amish are busy with customers, or perhaps, they are away from the shops for awhile.

I have often had a young Amish lad with bare feet and broad brimmed straw hat step up and take my order. So knowledgeable about the feeds, seeds, or lumber that I ask for, and so willing to advise me of kinds and sizes of merchandise that might serve my needs better. And then with a stub of a pencil, they tally your bill to the penny and count out your exact change.

Such a contrast with our high school graduates in the fast food joints whose big decision is, "Is that for here or to go" and "do you want fries with that"?

And, God help them when it is time to count out your change. If the change amount fails to register on their computer screen, they are lost without a clue.

Now, for you folks who have never had occasion to buy a load of lumber in random sizes at a sawmill, let me tell you that it is difficult for even an educated, experienced person to tally the bill.

There are so many variables in length and thickness that it is easy to make a mistake.

I marvel at the Amish boys who can toss a load of lumber on to my truck and immediately announce "you have 532 1/2 board feet on your load."

Of course, I am a big tease, and will invariable tell the young Amish boys that I think their count is wrong.

After much punching on my pocket calculator, and my head scratching, I always find the boys are right.

Our public school systems are all so concerned with bi-lingual education. They are so afraid that immigrant children who come here will never be able to adjust to the English language.

What about the Amish children who are nurtured in the German language and then as teenagers are able to switch to the English language with no problem?

I admit some Amish carry a thick German accent on their English, but that doesn't stop them from intelligent conversation in English. I have always believed that the work ethic should be imbibed with the mother's milk. It is foolish to think that you can allow your child to lay about for 18 or 20 years and then announce that it is time to learn about work and the ethic of work.

I have operated in various levels of supervision for most of my adult life. I have interviewed for employment hundred, perhaps thousands, of young men.

I have found that those who enter employment with basic skills and the knowledge of what responsibility is, will have little difficulty expanding those skills and learning new and un-related skills.

Those who enter into adult employment with no skills learned in childhood will always be clueless.

Don't think that you can take an incompetent high school graduate and send him to community college or trade school for remedial training to make up for 18 years of wasted life. The 2 or 3 years that the young person is delayed by remedial education will only prolong his incompetence.

Mothers, when your baby is weaned and potty trained, put his little butt to work. He will thank you and cherish your memory to his dying day. That is not to say that children should be denied time to romp and frolic. The child is developed by the right mix of work and play.

But, be assured, that children will play without any prompting, the work must be taught by adult example.

Some of the most noisy and gleeful play I have ever seen is on the Amish playgrounds. When the cows are milked, the garden is hoed and fences mended, Amish children play to the max.

I am somewhat jealous of today's child workers. Everything is lifted and conveyed by engines and hydraulics. Back in the good old days, manure was shoveled and spread by the human back.

Firewood was sawed by human arms that often felt they would fall off with exhaustion. Water was brought to the kitchen by endless winding and toting.

All of that endless labor produced what Tom Brokaw, in his book called, "The Greatest Generation."

I can remember helping my grandfather get in his corn. He would cut off the ripe corn in late summer and fall and shock it in rows. In winter, after the fall chores were done, my grandfather would tear the shock apart and husk out the bright yellow ears.

When my grandfather had the wheel barrel filled with ears of corn in it, it was time to wheel it to the cornhouse.

"Let me push it," "No, it's my turn".

Finally, after much shouting and arguing, my grandfather would designate the one who had earned the privilege of pushing the wheelbarrow.

After pushing a few steps, the pusher-designee would discover that pushing across the uneven stubble field was not as easy as it seemed, and would call for an assistant pusher.

After a few steps with a boy on each handle and sometimes another one pulling from the front of the wheel barrel it would topple over spilling the corn.

My grandfather was not much of a "cusser", "Thunderation" and "Scalawag" about let him out.

"Thunderation!" he would grumble, "you scalawags have upset the wheelbarrow."

My grandfather, as all adults of that time, realized that having a field full of schoolboys was no help to him, probably a hindrance, but he also realized that if we were to develop our work skills, he would have to pretend to need our help.

Old timers in those days had a saying "If you have one boy helping you, you have 1/2 a man. If you have 2 or more boys, you ain't got no help at all.