James M. Redwine

JPeg Osage Ranch

Dune Buggy Art Nouveau

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Photo by Jim Redwine

Gentle Reader, I ask you, does this photograph look like any place you would ever expect to find a battery? I do not know about you, but after many experiences changing out dead batteries in cars, pickups, lawn equipment, flashlights, etc., I never expected any semi-comatose foreign manufacturer (what other kind do we have now?) to hide the battery to my dune buggy inside the cab under a passenger seat. It probably took several committee meetings of diabolical Russian or Chinese speaking, Cal-Tech educated, overpaid engineers for them to gleefully agree upon such an inane placement.

I realize it has been 60 years since I worked at a Phillips 66 service station on Main Street in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, but I would have thought if a teenager could open a hood and locate a battery said location might have, at least, not now become hidden from common sense. By the way, it was a service station where one could get their tires aired up, their tank filled with 27¢ per gallon gas by an attendant, their oil checked and their battery replaced all for less than the cost of 10 gallons of liquid gold. Alright, it is true you could not get a rotisserie chicken or a garish faux silk screen shirt emblazoned with some supposedly witty saying your mother would get out the soap for.

Now I ask you, are not batteries supposed to be right under the hood or, with the parochial pride of the Europeans in mind, right under the trunk lid? Would any self-respecting automobile mechanic deign to pull up seats in the passenger compartment in search of a battery? I should say, not!

And if one has to search for the Holy Grail of batteries where only a lost coin or a stale cookie would be expected, could the designers of the automotive Enigma Machine have at least put a label on the cleverly camouflaged cover with a small clue as to what it was hiding? Say the word “Battery”, maybe?

Photo by Peg Redwine

I read the “Operator’s Guide” cover to cover after lifting the hood and finding nary a battery. The “Guide” is 196 pages from stem to stern and I make my living reading lots of words, including as Edgar Allen Poe might say, many a volume of forgotten lore. I am used to reading dross trying to pass for depth. However, the drivel of this manual does not pass as information much less enlightenment. The photograph contains the “Guide’s” entire instruction on battery replacement (Pages 124 and 125). I defy you to detect how the process is to proceed.

But once the battery is located and the cover is removed, the fun has just begun. I bet those Cal-Tech foreign born geniuses are still chortling over their anticipation as to how a normal sized human would surrender in frustration trying to put a screw and a nut into the space of a gnat’s nest.

Well, I am nothing if not stubborn so I refused to file a lawsuit until every knuckle I had was skinned and Peg was suggesting I just give the dune buggy to somebody we do not like. I could not think of anybody I was that mad at. Anyway, after only 3 days I got the red attached to the positive pole then the black to the negative. Of course, I had to reconstruct how the cover must be replaced. And even though I had tested the buggy’s starting before putting the gaggle of parts back together, when I got it all rearranged and was filled with self-satisfaction in my refusal to let the foreigners win, it refused to start.

It’s all good now as I have decided to follow the example of several grangerized folk artists I have noticed who have made their old vehicles into yard ornaments. When you drive by JPeg Osage Ranch, Gentle Reader, you may find a dune buggy surrounded with cacti and sandstone sporting a R.I.P. sign.

Photo by Peg Redwine

 

Food For Thought

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Peg and I have been away from our U.S.A. home for almost 5 months now and we are each missing some of what makes our cabin on the Oklahoma prairie so special. Peg is nostalgic for kids, grandkids, great grandkids, siblings and friends, you know, Gentle Reader, the things most people get misty-eyed over. I feel her pain but, frankly, I find that what our current home in the old Soviet Union country of Georgia really needs to join the family of democratic nations is a good bowl of chili and some hand-rubbed and torturously slow smoked Oklahoma beef brisket accompanied by a few ears of southern Indiana sweet corn.

Photo by Peg Redwine

And while Georgia claims to be the 8,000-year-old birthplace of wine, a theory which Peg and I have certainly tested, I thirst for a cold Corona with salt and lime. One cannot truly swig a real draught of room temperature red wine as you can a long swallow of cold beer to follow the piquant spice of garlic and cayenne pepper. Tell me, is it any wonder these Georgians worry about some crazy Russian neighbor on their northern border wanting to once again invade them and take their most valuable natural resource, their wine? Russia has no chili, no brisket and nothing but vodka to drown their sorrows about pesky Ukraine; of course Russia is a concern.

I have written several columns about how America could better address Russian aggression than by throwing forty billion dollars worth of military assets into the same type of winter Napoleon and Hitler did. Russian generals January, February and March may not know much about military strategy, but they sure know plenty about the logistics of winter warfare.

       Photo by Peg Redwine
Photo by Peg Redwine

Why hasn’t Commander-in-Chief Biden read my columns and called to ask my advice? I would tell the President the same thing I would tell the Georgian McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken stores just two blocks from our Batumi, Georgia apartment that put out poor imitations of Georgian food disguised as quasi-American cuisine; they could make billions with a good bowl of real chili and a beef brisket sandwich. These Georgian people are smart and their traditional Georgian food is both tasty and interesting. This is probably due to thousands of years of mixed cultures from both Europe and Asia. But if we could just introduce them to what truly makes America so strong, Russia would not stand a chance.

I confess, it is not just the war effort that moves me. If we don’t get some fine southwestern chili and bar-b-q and succulent southern Indiana sweet corn soon, Peg and I are going to have to fly home and rely upon friends and family for sustenance.

Photo by Peg Redwine

The Good, The Bad, The Average

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Is it an end or a beginning? A New Year of hope or a past year of regret? A harbinger of exciting new adventures or a specter of hovering doom? I guess one way of discerning whether we are going to gaily anticipate, as the tune says, “Oh, the good times are coming,” or gloomily dwell on, “I took the blows and did it my way,”  is to make an accounting of 2022. After all, if past is prologue, perhaps we can peer into the future by studying the past. But, as the sorceress Cassandra who was blessed by the gods with the gift of prophecy but also cursed because no one would believe her forecasts of coming disasters, we might see the freight train coming but ignore it anyway. Nuclear war anyone? Ah, well, let’s count some blessings and justify some bad choices from 2022.

I would say my number one blessing during 2022 is that I am not related to Harry and Meghan. When one has family like that, other bad relationships fade into royal oblivion. It’s not that my family is perfect; my older brother and my three older sisters still assume I cannot tie my shoes without their help. But let’s move on.

Photo by Diane Selch

The 2022 college football season was pretty much a bust. The Indiana University Hoosiers, of course, never disappoint because we never expect anything. However, the Oklahoma Sooners had better be rebuilding or else the whole apparatus is falling apart. And the Oklahoma State Cowboys looked more average than average can bear. Come on, Pokes, do something! Peg, not I, cares about the Purdue Boilermakers who got clobbered in their mediocre bowl game. As an IU alum I didn’t mind, but Peg’s two brothers are Purdue grads so she was upset. If 2023 is a rebuilding year, I just hope the crumbling Roman Coliseum is not the model our teams are emulating.

Speaking of disasters and rebuilding, we had two, that’s right two, water leaks in our cabin at JPeg Osage Ranch in 2022. One came from a clamp that slipped off of a water heater hose and the most recent, December 23, 2022 (Merry Christmas), was caused by a connection to the ice maker on the refrigerator. Did you, Gentle Reader, ever worry about your refrigerator attacking your home? Me neither. I’ve worked construction and made countless home repairs to everything from fountains to garden hoses and never once had to deal with a refrigerator water leak. Happy 2022 all’ya’all.

Now did anything good occur in 2022? You bet. Peg successfully rehabilitated after her hip replacement surgeries and I managed to learn about three chords on the guitar, although Peg will not countenance me trying to sing along as I strum. She claims my key changes are bad. What’s a key?

Well, I have revisited about all the chagrin I can stand and the 2022 bright spots are fading fast, so on to 2023. My predictions are mainly connected to Peg’s and my work in the Republic of Georgia that sits right on the Black Sea directly across from Ukraine and has Russia on it’s northern border. What could go wrong?

Putin, the Grinch who is trying to steal Ukraine and who already occupies 20% of Georgia, looms large in my reading of bird entrails. The only bright spot I see is our son Jim’s observations about Russian military equipment he fought against in the Iraq War, the Gulf War and briefly in Afghanistan. Jim says it was junk then and it’s junk now. Of course, even nuclear junk might ruin our whole day in 2023.

But I boldly foresee a world where Putin comes to his senses and Zelensky re-thinks his thirst for revenge. Both leaders will most likely end up accepting less than half a loaf of what they want. At least that’s my hopeful, if naive, bet.

Regardless, “When the dealing’s done and there’s time enough for counting” in 2023, I predict “Sunshine and lollipops”. Why not dwell on the positive? After all, Harry and Meghan will surely shut up sometime. But, until then as both King Lear and King Charles found out, “More sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child,” especially ones who are mistreated by allowing them to live in palaces and spend their time with sycophants such as Oprah.

I Knew Santa Claus Was Real

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One of the advantages of working in the former Soviet Union country of Georgia is that Peg and I spend our time where a great deal of history was made. It is not that the United States does not have an interesting story to tell. But the good ’ole US of A cannot legitimately lay claim to be the birthplace of wine as Georgia does or the birthplace of the Holy Roman Empire as does Georgia’s neighbor, Turkey. And one exciting aspect of being in a part of the world where so much of our history was made is that new discoveries of old history are being uncovered everyday. For example, it was recently reported that archeologists unearthed an ancient mosaic beneath the floor of a church in Demre, Turkey that was the original burial place of Saint Nicholas.

I do not know about you, Gentle Reader, but with Christmas less than two months away I was stoked to have scientific evidence that Santa Claus might really be coming down the chimney at JPeg Osage Ranch in Oklahoma. I just have to find a way to re-route him to our apartment in Batumi, Georgia. And since we do not have a chimney here I guess we will have to leave the patio door unlocked. We will not get home until March so I hope Rudolph has his G.P.S. system updated as to the 9 hour time change and the 6,500 mile distance between Oklahoma and Georgia. Peg and I plan to leave the patio light on all Christmas Eve.

Saint Nicholas lived from 270-343 AD and was a contemporary in what would become the country of Turkey with Constantine who lived from 272-337 AD. Constantine made Christianity an acceptable religion and established the Holy Roman Empire once he became Emperor in 306-337 AD. Constantine named Constantinople, now Istanbul, for himself. He also convened the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD that produced the Nicene Creed that set forth some of the principles of early Christian faith, including much of the humanitarian beliefs attributed by history to Saint Nicholas.

St. Nicholas was born in Papara, Turkey and died in Myra, Turkey. He was alleged to have inherited wealth that he spent his life giving away to those in need. He was especially known for his generosity in giving gifts to children.

As for me, I never doubted such a person existed, but as the youngest of four children my Christmases were accosted by my older and more cynical siblings. Well, I hope they read this account that rings out with the joy of a great and generous spirit and I expect them to accept the scientific proof that I was right all along.

Cats and Dogs

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The American Veterinary Medicine Association estimated that as of 2021 Americans had 77 million dogs and 58 million cats as domestic pets. If you currently own or have owned a pet you know the downs and ups of pet ownership, such as having to walk them in blizzards, feed and water them, clean up after them and pay veterinary bills. Or, as Peg might say, “You know, sort of like a husband.”

On the other hand, you could eschew organic pets and buy a pet rock. Pet rocks were marketed first by Gary Dahl (1936-2015). He came up with the idea while sitting in a tavern in California in 1975. Is anyone surprised the Genesis of such an idea occurred in the land of fruits and nuts? But Dahl had the last laugh as he made enough money selling what anybody could pick up for free to buy a tavern in Los Gatos (The Cats), California. Dahl named his bar Carry Nations to mock the prohibitionist Carrie Nation (1846-1911).

Dahl’s friends were constantly complaining about vet bills, the cost of dog and cat food and having to clean up after their pets. Dahl advertised his pet rocks as needing no maintenance and they never die. Also, Gentle Reader, if you, as have I, ever owned a beloved pet you know the very real sense of loss a whole family and often friends too experience when a long-time pet dies from a lingering illness or even worse when a sudden and unexpected loss, say being hit by a car, occurs.

Peg and I just did not want to go through such a trauma again after we lost Haley, our schnauzer. So we no longer have a dog or a cat although we have had several of each. It also hurts when friends or family lose their pets. We know there is nothing we can do to assuage the heartache but, I hope, we listen attentively and neither discount the loss or, much worse, say, “Get on with things, it was just an animal.” I am aware there are many other pets that people are fond of besides cats and dogs. However, a very high majority of domestic pets are dogs and cats.

Just last week one of our nieces lost a long-time good friend, Richard Parker the Cat, and another good friend of ours lost a one-time stray cat that he named Marvin after he had allowed the waif into his home. Both our niece and our friend felt the heavy body blow and now know all any of us can do is commiserate and encourage the owners to concentrate on the joy Richard Parker and Marvin brought with them when they slowly worked into family status.

Another well-meaning but counter-productive bit of advice we often give family and friends who lose a beloved pet is, “I know it hurts now, but perhaps you should get another cat right-a-way.” While we probably do not believe animals are interchangeable, our niece and friend might take our sympathy for a lack of appreciation of the pet’s unique qualities. We could not even fathom such advice for a lost child but somehow we sometimes let loyal pets be thought of as we might widgets in an Econ class.

So, what do we say and do when a family member or a good friend loses a good pet? I suggest we can affirm their deep commitment to the pet by listening and help to fill the gap with shared activities or just a quiet cup of coffee. And of course, here at JPeg Osage Ranch, while we no longer have cats or dogs, we do have skunks, armadillos and various other not so cuddly uninvited guests!

 

The Briar Patch

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Joel Chandler Harris, AKA Joe Harris (1848-1908), was born in the state of Georgia before the Civil War and worked on a slave-holding plantation as a teenager. After the war he became an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Harris had lived and worked around the evils of slavery and he had absorbed the folk wisdom of slaves who were prohibited by law from formal education. Harris created his fictional writings using Uncle Remus as a wise and shrewd observer of human nature hidden within animal behavior.

Harris intended his writings as compliments to the ability of Uncle Remus to explain human foibles by giving animals human failings such as arrogance. In the story of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox contained in Harris’ Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the meanness of the Fox is used by the Rabbit to escape by getting the Fox to “punish” the Rabbit by throwing him into a briar patch. Of course, that is exactly what the Rabbit really wanted.

Unfortunately, due to our current misguided wokeness in many areas, the slave dialect used by Harris now interferes with the appreciation of the literature of The Song of the South and a great number of those pro-African American folk tales are no longer read. However, for those of us whose time of birth helped us escape the ravages of the current misguided ignorance in the area of children’s literature, Uncle Remus is still imparting wisdom, such as enjoying a proverbial briar patch. Or in my case, Peg’s banishment of me to the solitude of our bunkhouse when I got COVID and Peg did not.

At first, I was offended when Peg handed me my toothbrush and a set of clean underwear and locked our cabin door behind me after she forcefully shut it. It was not that I wanted Peg to share in my experience of a sore throat, lethargy and endless amounts of crud being expelled from my body. It was more the feeling that a one-person leper colony was a rather lonely possibility, plus I really missed my favorite recliner and ready access to the refrigerator. Oh, and Peg too, of course.

Be that as it may, Peg sentenced me to two weeks of quarantine with the same lack of ceremony she would have exhibited if a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman had appeared with a sample case. You remember encyclopedias don’t you, Gentle Reader? You know, those things with pages, tables of contents and indexes that went the way of the dodo bird after Google came along. Well, that may call for a different column.

Anyway, here I am alone with the piles of books I never read, the piano I used to play and old photographs of friends and relatives I barely recognize. I have been rummaging through boxes and drawers filled with the most interesting stuff not seen by me since high school. What a strange looking dude I was with dark colored hair and a discernible jaw line. Who was that and who are those undecipherable young people around him wearing weird clothes?

Say, Peg, what is this thing that says Maytag on it? Is this where my clean clothes came from? It must be a miracle machine. How does it operate? By the way, there is no stove out here and after several days of eating the leftovers you sent with me, I am ready for some real food.

By the way, I have done my Paxlovid and am pretty sure I am not Typhoid Mary anymore. On the other hand, the bunkhouse refrigerator is stocked with leftover beer from our Fourth of July Family Reunion and the TV is constantly tuned to Gunsmoke reruns. The bunkhouse is the answer to every boy’s escape from his mother and every husband’s escape from constant inspection by his wife.

Clothes are in a pile where I take them off. The bed never has to be made to drill sergeant standards and every door knob and chair back is a hanger. But the most serendipitous of all? Peg is afraid to step foot in my little slice of heaven. I may claim to be eternally toxic. Bring on that Briar Patch!

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