James M. Redwine

Gentle Reader

Blame Lucy

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Louis and Mary Leakey discovered some early human ancestors in Tanzania, Africa’s Olduvai Gorge in 1959. Donald Johanson discovered who may be our original grandmother in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley in 1974. He named her Lucy because he was a Beatles fan and listened to the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” right after his discovery. It may be uncharitable to Johanson and paleontology to point out many believe the song was a paean to LSD. On the other hand, those who question Lucy’s bona fides may find solace in this theory.

At the opposite end of those Doubting Thomas’ is the atheistic biologist Richard Dawkins from the University of Oxford who pushed human origins back to as much as five million years ago and posited his meme theory. Dawkins suggests that it is our replicating genes that determine who and what we are and why we behave as we do. One of his famous analogies to explain the evolution of human biology and behavior is to suggest we envision a long line of mothers holding hands all the way back to Lucy. And, as for me, my experiences with my mother and my wife, Peg, convince me there is some credence to the science of the Leakeys, Johanson and Dawkins.

Let’s envision Lucy, our grandmother, in her African cave while our mythical grandfather, call him Adam, goes out to hunt a mastodon for dinner. Adam is struggling with how to trick the massive beast to stampede over a cliff, but Lucy is back home planning for Adam’s return. After Lucy rearranges the lodge pole front door for the tenth time, she surveys the cave’s interior. She is dissatisfied with the position of the bearskin rug she had Adam move just yesterday. She makes a mental note to have Adam shake out the bearskin and figure out a way to attach it to the granite wall of the cave.

Next, Lucy inventories the two stone cooking utensils that Adam carved out for her last week and decides she must have another small one for their new baby’s meals. Lucy switches the positions of the two vessels for the third time. They look better to her now. Lucy gives the baby a bath in the stream running in front of their cave and realizes with only a few days of work with his stone hoe Adam could divert water right to their cave. Lucy resolves to mention her idea to Adam over a handful of fermenting blackberries when he returns.

Meanwhile Adam is full of a sense of accomplishment because he has skinned the mastodon and is hauling the hide, one ivory tusk and a huge chunk of meat back for Lucy to admire. Adam assumes his work is done for a week or two because Lucy will need to tan the hide, process the meat and make sewing needles from the tusk as she cooks dinner and nurses the baby.

Gentle Reader, you may wonder, or you may not care, why we are discussing the lives of Lucy, Adam and baby from thousands of years ago. Well, I will tell you. About three years ago Peg and I moved into our cabin on the prairie. By unspoken agreement Peg took over all space but my barn. This worked out fine until over the two years of COVID Peg had time to organize every inch of her Girl Cave, the Bunkhouse, the Cabin and even the neutral territory of our garage. Last week spring truly arrived and Peg turned her gaze on my barn. It has not been pretty.

As long as she did not have to look at my laissez-faire system of “if it ain’t in my way, why worry about it”, well, she didn’t worry herself with it. But once she opened the overhead doors and found the mother lode of “my stuff”, she focused her female/Lucy type DNA upon my space. It reminded me of when my sainted mother would venture into my room on a Saturday morning and turn it upside down. Peg and Mom and Lucy and all wives and mothers in between have spent about two million years of two X chromosomal fixation with organization of sons’ and husbands’ behavior. I guess my three-year barn reprieve is over.

Happy Birthday, Peg!

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Happy Birthday, Peg! Photo by Jim Redwine

We are almost one full month into spring, the season of renewal for some wives and ennui for their husbands. There is something about damp earth that calls out to such wives as Peg much as the Sirens called out to the crew of Ulysses. Though it would not be politically correct, the Devil is pushing me to try to lash Peg to the steering wheel of her Mini Cooper so she cannot frequent every garden center within twenty-five miles of our cabin.

Peg must have beaucoup amounts of potting soil, countless plants and varieties of seeds, containers of metal, clay and plastic and every conceivable fertilizer and pesticide that is touted by Peg’s countless Facebook friends as the newest miracle agents to produce award winning vegetables and flowers. Of course, beds must be prepared and organized by color, variety, time of planting and varmint prevention. Do you need to ask, Gentle Reader, whom Peg has in mind for these tasks?

I am not a Nancy Reagan type of astrology buff but I do wonder if Peg’s birthday that falls during the first half of April may have influenced her pathological need to commune with the earth. I offer the following horoscope (taken from the internet) as evidence to support my position: under the sign of Aries the first half of April, “Is an amazing time to chase your most precious goals.” I should also include the astrological caution that April will be, “a month of ups and downs”; that will certainly be true for me as I follow Peg’s orders.

I am aware that one must not fall into the Cassandra dilemma of ignoring the claimed wisdom of the stars. You may recall that Cassandra had been both blessed and cursed by the gods. She had the gift of prophecy but no one would believe her so disaster still occurred, including the fall of Troy in Homer’s The Illiad. Therefore, I will keep in mind the prediction in Peg’s horoscope that April will be a great time for her to reach her spring goals of recreating the Gardens of Babylon on the rocky, arid soil of JPeg Osage Ranch. However, I see nothing in any bird entrails or other devices of divination that calls for me to be involved.

The problem is, just as Cassandra, I may be correct but Peg refuses to recognize it. Her position is that my lot is cast as her garden Sherpa and I had better get off the couch. The only saving grace that I see is that both football and basketball seasons are over, the World Series is months from now and the Cardinals probably won’t be involved anyway. And, by the time you read this article, the 2022 Masters Golf Tournament will be history. Perhaps the better part of valor is for me to just accept my fate and conceal my amusement when the deer eat the tops off of everything Peg has planted but the marigolds.

Happy Birthday, Peg!

One Ringy-Dingy

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iPhone picture by Peg Redwine

Lily Tomlin’s character, telephone operator Ernestine on the TV show Laugh-In, set the standard for bad telephone service. Laugh-In was on NBC from 1969-1973. In 2022 life has overcome art. At least Ernestine was human. Today, robots and recorded messages insulate businesses from the needs of customers. Good luck on getting through a telephone “menu” to speak with someone who will admit a company’s responsibility for poor service.

Things were bad enough before COVID-19 and our current no-one-ever-goes-in-to-work society. But after more than two years of encouraging everyone to avoid contact with anyone many people apparently see any request for service as a borderline criminal assault.

It has been a while since I looked at a college course catalogue, but I suspect some schools must be offering a major, on-line of course, in how to prevent anyone from accessing a service. Perhaps one can pursue a Ph.D. in telephone menu construction. A favorite ploy is to have a recorded answering service that starts off with, “Please listen carefully because our options have recently changed.”

We all know that’s not only demeaning but is also almost certainly untrue. The only changes any company ever makes to its phone options is to obfuscate them further until we despair of ever getting to speak to a human being. The days of simply punching “0” to hear a non-mechanical voice are long gone. Now the R2-D2 robot used to add layers of dross instead of answers to our questions, directs us to some website once we exhaust the non-access menu options. Of course, should we fall into the Inferno of a company’s website we had better not be susceptible to thoughts of self-harm and should avoid having any sharp objects within reach.

It is a telling fact that Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) who patented the first practical telephone would not have a phone in his study because it interrupted his work. Bell set the standard toward which all contemporary companies strive; the elimination of any telephone conversations at all. I suppose I should not mention this possibility.

Is it not strange that in a world where even grade schoolers have iPhones and teenagers text the person right beside them that we cannot get anyone to answer the darn phone! Of course, some of the worst, that is, most obnoxious offenders of the “never answer a customer’s query” policy are the government agencies we pay with our tax money to ignore us. Do such “services” as the IRS and VA come to mind?

On a related topic, can we talk about telephone etiquette in general? I suggest if a politician or a political party wishes to up their poll numbers, they pay attention to basic phone courtesy and re-teach the phone manners our parents demanded. You remember, Gentle Reader. Do not call someone and start with, “Is this James?” Begin by identifying who you are and why you are calling. Call only at a decent hour and never during a football game. If you get an answering machine, leave a clear message and a return number by speaking slowly and distinctly. In other words, treat phone contacts as you would in-person contacts and that includes companies and agencies we need to access for services. And by the way, “Thank you and goodbye”.

A Cuppa For Peace

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Post Card from Moscow Coffee Bean. Photo by Peg Redwine

Starbucks Coffee Company has suspended operations in all 130 of its Russia based coffee shops as a protest to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The first shop opened in September 2007 in Moscow. Peg and I were in Moscow in 2003. We are Americans. We drink coffee. We were in anguished caffeine withdrawal almost the whole week we were in Russia. I applaud Starbuck’s gesture but worry about those people who are forced back to the pre-2007 coffee-less culture in Russia. Of course, the blame lies with Putin but the headaches are visited on the Russian proletariat as war is visited by Putin on the Ukrainians.

In 2003 Peg and I, after long and frenzied searching, located one coffee shop, The Coffee Bean, in Moscow. As this was our first trip to Russia we had been unaware of Russian culture which at that time considered one cup of instant coffee in tepid water good enough for such foreigners as we. The cold turkey shock treatment made us acutely aware of a society where vodka and cognac were more available at breakfast than coffee.

I do not expect Putin to come to his senses on his own so his war on Ukraine will most likely play out as such debacles always have. There is the initial shock and awe, then the search for weapons of mass destruction, the trading of lies and misinformation, then death, injury and misery followed by years of confusion and remaking of history by the survivors.

I do wonder what Putin’s thought process was that led him into this tar pit. He keeps making public statements and allegations about NATO and Ukraine’s belligerence. His statements and actions appear to arise from paranoia, what most of the world sees as an unreasonable fear that Ukraine and the other pre-1991 Soviet Union countries along Russia’s western border will be used as bases for the United States and our allies to attack Russia.

Putin may have reasoned that as Ukraine was steadily building up its ties to democracies such as America, if he did not strike now, he would have no viable defense to a stronger Ukraine that might become a member of NATO later. Such an analysis seems ludicrous to us but it is not our thought process that is in question. If Putin believes it, even if it is false, then his actions may make sense to him.

He also may have been misled by the relative ease with which Russia took over Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. In today’s attack his objective may have mainly been to take over that part of Ukraine, such as Odessa, that borders the Black Sea. But then he made a common tyrant’s mistake. He got too greedy and decided to grab what was left of the remainder of Ukraine beyond Crimea.

By this time, Gentle Reader, if you are still with me, you are asking, “What does any of this have to do with coffee?” Okay, as Fareed Zakaria might say, “Here’s my take”. I hope the Russian people will have become so hooked on coffee after 2007 that this forced Starbuck’s withdrawal will cause them to see Putin for the despot he is. Then perhaps the aroused common citizens will rise up and replace the warmongering Putin and his incompetent military leaders. If the Russians feel anything similar to the way Peg and I did in 2003, revolution is not so farfetched.

JPeg Osage Ranch Coffee Bar. Photo by Peg Redwine

Crackers of Gold

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Golden Crackers!
Picture by Peg Redwine

Over the years I have managed to enter the market on the backend of several financial bonanzas. I passed on pet rocks in 1975 and have regretted it for fifty years. But I think I am in on the ground floor of the next gold rush, saltine crackers! Those of you who read this column for advice on how to retire early may wish to listen up. That group does not include Peg, who as many spouses, does not recognize my genius when it arises.

I happened to notice about a couple of months ago that America had a dearth of saltine crackers. Saltines are important to me, and maybe you too. My fallback diet is crunchy peanut butter on crackers. It is quick, easy, tasty and there is no clean up required. Unfortunately, for the last couple of months I have encountered empty shelves at Dollar General and even Walmart when I searched for saltines. And even though I have researched the topic vigilantly, via Google, I cannot find a rational answer to my plea, “Where are the crackers?”

So, when I found a box at Hometown Foods, see the photo for proof, I grabbed it. I felt like I had discovered that first nugget of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848. My excitement was dampened by Peg’s response to my plan to try to corner the market, at least within twenty miles of our cabin, on saltines. When I called our son, Jim, who is our financial advisor, he once again sided with Peg. I explained to him I wanted to convert my IRA to cash and buy all the saltines I could find. He mumbled something about a guardianship and hung up.

As you know, Gentle Reader, no prophet is known in his own country, but I can clearly see our barn filled with boxes of saltines, if I can find them, that will jump in value each day, especially with that maniac Putin destroying our stock market as he tries to destroy Ukraine. Now is the time to reach for that brass ring I have just missed out on so many times before.

So, darn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. And if you wish to invest with me in my plan to corner the market on saltine crackers, you better hurry because I can feel the rest of America about to jump on the roller coaster. Please do not mention any of this to Jim or Peg.

Hope Springs Eternal

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According to Google Search (sounds like gospel to me), the Fountain of Youth is located in Osage County, Oklahoma at latitude 36.6461942° north, longitude -96.097216° west, at an elevation 938 feet above sea level. To be more precise, Ponce de Leon Spring is at that location on the grounds of the Woolaroc Museum & Wildlife Preserve. Therefore, Gentle Reader, you can actually visit Osage County’s version of what people have vigilantly searched for since at least the days of Greek historian Herodotus (484 BC – 425 BC), that is, the hope for eternal youth.

Woolaroc is a marvelous creation by oil man Frank Phillips whose namesake Route 66 is America’s “Mother Road”. Phillips’ gift to the rest of us is an amazing eclectic collection of animals, art and artifacts. It is also only seven miles from our home, JPeg Osage Ranch, so we get to enjoy it every time we drive along Oklahoma State Highway 123 between Bartlesville and Barnsdall, Oklahoma. You can do the same thing almost every day; but during the summer the museum is closed on Mondays and then in the winter it is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.  Woolaroc (woods, lakes and rocks) is one of Osage County’s greatest treasures. It is inexpensive, easy to access and a rare concentration of great western art, such as original paintings by Charles Russell and Frederic Remington and original bronzes by Osage County’s own Jim Hamilton and John Free. However, for now let’s you and I return to the Fountain of Youth.

Ponce de Leon (1474 – 1521) was born in Spain and spent his adult life pillaging the Caribbean for gold while using the indigenous Taino Indians for forced labor. There was some small measure of justice administered when in 1521 Ponce de Leon was shot in the thigh with an Indian arrow in Florida and languished in pain until his eventual death in Cuba. Ponce de Leon claimed to be searching for what most people think was a mythical fountain of youth reportedly because he was nearly 50 years old when he married a teenage girl. In reality, it was not youth he was seeking but the location and plunder of Indian gold. I cannot advise on the efficacy of the Ponce de Leon Spring waters as Peg and I have as yet not come across the proper procedure for gaining permission to access the spring. We hope to hear from the museum’s curator or maybe order some bottles online. Surely someone at Amazon is looking for a way to market such a valuable commodity. My guess is there may be a fairly substantial fee involved for what Mark Twain suggested would be the proper way aging should occur, that is, starting at 80 years of age (we are getting there) and working backwards to 18 (there’s no harm in dreaming as even Merlin youthened instead of aging).

Apparently, the Spanish conquistadors were more interested in gold than youth as such marauders as Leon and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado (1541) spent what was left of their youth searching for Cibola, the fabled seven cities of gold, that were rumored to exist in southwestern America.

Unlike the French explorers, such as René La Salle (1682), Jean Baptiste de La Harpe (1718) and Claude Charles du Tiene (1719) who sought trade with the native Americans in what became Oklahoma, the Spanish had less concern with Indian sensibilities. Fortunately, Spain sold its claims to raid the area to France’s Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800. Then in 1803 Napoleon sold the entire Louisiana Purchase to the newly established United States of America for fifteen million dollars. This purchase included what is now named Ponce de Leon Spring almost next to our home. So, if you will excuse me, I am going to see about getting permission for a quick soak to wash away a few years.