Bobbie Majestic

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When all is said and done...

Bobbie Majestic

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by Erin Halfelven

 
Saturday morning at the Delbental Feed and Seed was when the old men gathered to tell tall tales, chew “terbacky,” and carve white pine billets into mounds of paper-pale and nearly paper-thin “whittlin's.” Some of the men sat on caneback chairs, some found comfort on the hard wooden edges of the porch that ran around three sides of the feedstore, and some sat on nothing but their own heels, rocking occasionally as they reached for another billet or bent over to send a brown arc of “chaw” into the dirt.

A few of them actually carved their pale ammunition into some object decorative or useful, but many produced nothing but a growing bunker of tinder surrounding them; a material useful, to be sure, for starting wood fires that would, in turn, start coal fires but not involving such a skill as some of the septuagenarians boasted.

Bertram “Lank” Hoppe produced small tools, crochet hooks, letter openers, knitting needles and the like, each of which had a ball end cut into knobby protrusions for a good grip while the other end tended to business. Lank’s preferred wood was actually cedar instead of pine, and he perforce arrived with a box of his own billets cut by his son-in-law from the woods around his home. Every woman within twelve miles owned at least one full set of Lank’s little tools—ruddy, pretty, durable and sweet-smelling.

Ansel “Dutch” Albert had a more artistic, less utilitarian, bent to his talent. From the ever-present blank pieces of pine, he produced little animals and machines. Tiny doggies, squirrels, cows, mules, bunnies and kitties appeared with frequency. He also made toy cars, tractors, sewing machines and airplanes; he once even carved out a milking machine still attached to a cow. More rarely, he did human figures, usually choosing a more interesting wood for them.

Charlie Vanderminden admired what Dutch was doing this morning, carving out the figure of a young woman simultaneously stepping out of her blue jeans and pulling her shirt off over her head. Charlie was one of the whittlers who simply produced piles of whittlings, but he admired artistry when he saw it. “She ain’t got no undies?” he asked, chuckling.

Dutch shook his head, holding his carving up for all to see; a nearly-nude female figure in the process of getting nakeder, face concealed in the folds of the shirt. He grinned at the snorts and murmured comments of “Oh, my,” and “Ain’t that sumpin?” and “Dutch is a humdinger for sure.”

But a hiss came from the other end of the porch, “There’s a girl!” and Dutch quickly concealed his carving in his lap.

A young woman in a gingham dress took the steps at the far end onto the wooden porch. She was tall and strong-looking with chestnut hair falling around her face. Her long legs flashed shapely calves between the hem of her skirt and her rather battered-looking sneakers. She carried a pocketbook in one hand and a withy basket over the other arm.

Smiling but seeming a bit shy, she walked between the old men to the wide doors leading inside. Several of them murmured greetings and she returned a “Good morning,” politely several times, seeming quite aware that every eye of the gathered grandfathers was on her.

“That’s Bobbie Modjestyk,” said Charlie, “wearing a dress!”

“Ye-ah,” drawled Lank. “Reckon it was. Fine figure she makes in it, don’t she?”

Charlie snorted. “Last I knew, Arnie Modjestyk din’t have no daughters.”

Dutch grinned but didn’t say anything, looking down at the carving he still held between his knees.

“You ain’t keeping up with the news, Charlie,” said Lank. “Bobby grad-jee-ated high school and decided she warn’t going to be no boy anymore.”

“Like on one of them reality tee-vee shows,” supplied Abner Singletree from further up the porch. “She’s tooken some of them horrer-moans and is turning into a girl.”

“Kinda pretty, looks like her maw,” said Heber “Davy” Delbental. Lonnie, who owned the Feed and Seed was his uncle, though Davy was pushing seventy himself.

“Taller, though, near six-foot,” someone else said.

“Shoulders,” said Dutch. He put the carving he had been doing into his canvas satchel at his feet and took out another billet of wood. He preferred poplar for his carvings, sturdier than pine with more interest in the grain. He discerned shapes more than most people and had noticed the tall girl’s outline right away.

Most of the men nodded at Dutch’s comment. “She’s got some shoulders on her,” agreed Davy.

“Her paw grows timothy; she spent last summer bucking hay bales.”

All the men paused to spit, either into cans kept for that purpose or off the porch into the dirt. Really, they’d all just wanted a moment to think.

“That ain’t right,” said Lank.

Several of them nodded.

“Ain’t no job for a girl,” agreed Davy.

More nods and several murmured yeps and nopes. “Ain’t,” said Dutch with a final note in his voice.

“Someone should tell her paw,” said Charlie.

“I ‘spect he’s noticed,” said Lank with a straight face.

“No, I mean, about haybalin’—you know what I meant.”

A chuckle traveled over the porch like a summer wind in a field of tall timothy, the old men ducking their heads in amusement.

The new girl came out from the cool, dim interior, her basket now full of small items: a bottle of rose food, a bag of doggy treats, a roller for removing lint from clothes, several packets of vegetable seeds, a pair of weed-pulling yellow gloves.

The oldsters smiled at her and Lank spoke, “Looking forward to a summer off from school, Bobbie?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, polite as most younger folk in the Delbental Valley were. “I am.” She had a gentle voice, deeper than most girls but softer than any boy’s was likely to be.

“Haymowin’s starting soon. You ain’t going to be buckin’ no hunnert pound bales with your brothers and your paw this year, are you?” asked Davy.

“No, sir,” Bobbie said, smiling. “I’ll be helping my Maw cook for the men. And we’ve got gardening, and sewing, and caring for the stock, and housework to do.”

“Canning,” said Charlie. “Your maw puts up some powerful pickles. Jams and preserves, too.”

“She does, we will,” agreed Bobbie.

“Make sure she teaches you to bake them sour cherry pies, she learnt off her ol’ granny,” said Abner.

A wider smile made dimples in Bobbie’s cheeks. “She has. You come out to the house, Mr. Singletree, and you can have a slice I baked my own self.”

“I’ll do that,” said Abner. “If’n your paw won’t make me throw no haybales.”

Bobbie laughed, and the old men chuckled their phlegmy chuckles. Every one of them needed to spit, but they couldn’t do that while a girl was on the porch.

They watched her leave, heading down the street towards the dry goods store where her mother was probably picking through patterns, choosing clothes to make for, and with, her new daughter.

“Got some shoulders on that girl,” Davy commented again.

“Strong arms to hold you tight so you can’t get away,” said Lank, not cracking the slightest bit of a smile.

The other old men laughed and spat and went back to their whittling. Dutch had started a new piece while the talk went on, this one would be a tall girl with wide shoulders wearing a summer dress. Dutch could already see the finished carving in his mind’s eye and Bobbie Modjestyk showing her dimples.

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Comments

VVVerry good

Sure very good as every Erin's story.

There's just minor my problem that some words I couldn't find so I somehow managed to understand the situation instinctively.

Words

erin's picture

Most of the odd words are just for flavor; terbacky is tobacco, billets are chunks of wood, whittling is carving with a certain motion away from the body, caneback chairs are made of split cane, chaw is the tobacco being chewed or the liquid it forms, withy means made of willow wands woven together, timothy is clover grown for making hay, and bucking is to throw something using one's body to add to and direct the force.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

A great short...

Having lived in the South and the rural portions more than not, had no problems with the dialect. Then again, anyone who'd read Lit'le Abner would have been familiar.

Simple pleasures and making no judgments on people.

Li'l Abner

erin's picture

LOL. Al Capp had seldom been anywhere near the American South but some of his constructions live on, Just the other day someone told me that they thought that the Kickapoo Indian tribe were invented for the strip. No, the Kikipu are a very real group of people. :)

Glad you enjoyed, thanks,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Divided by a common language...

Page of Wands's picture

It was a fun change in gears, going from Cyclist's "A Longer War" to this one!

Lol

erin's picture

I kept a light hand on the dialect lever here. :)

Glad you enjoyed it.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Acceptance

erin's picture

This story came to me in a dream last night and that was sort of the point of the dream, the acceptance of ordinary people that is there and available. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Nice little interlude from

Nice little interlude from real life. My guess is the old men at the store, did not feel or believe what others did was not worth being worried about unless it affected them personally. That is the way it should be always. More important things in your own life to worry about than being worried about others' lives. Used to watch my Grandfather and Great Uncle whittling away and some of their figurines were fantastic indeed. An art form my Great Uncle learned in Germany before he came to the US in the late 1880's. He passed it down to my Grandfather.
Thanks Erin, the story definitely brought a few memories.

Mind your own business

erin's picture

MYOB is sort of the motto of the hillfolk. :) My father used to say if it didn't cost him money or make enough noise to keep him awake it wasn't any of his business. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Mindin' other people's bizness seems to be high tone...

laika's picture

I got more than I can do just to mind my own
Why don'tcha mind yer own bizness
(Mind your own business)
If you mind your own business you'll stay busy all the time...
~the real Hank Williams

That and "You Run Your Mouth and I'll Run My Business, Brother"
by Louis Jordan are two of my favorite songs.

I LOVE these old guys!
It's like nobody told them Bobbie couldn't
take them horror-moans and turn into a girl, so they just accept it.
An island of sanity and equanimity where a lot of people would least expect it.
~hugs, Veronica
.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSeuDDzjIB8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1HR_GKLK8Y

.
The closest approximation to what it's like in my brain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u08E7c-FRbU&t=4s

The original

erin's picture

I was three when Hank Williams died. Every one was at Ma Dale's house for a New Years Day picnic. I thought he must have been a relative from the way everyone carried on. He would have fit right into the family.

I've told that story somewhere else but the song has got it right. Plenty of rural folk have a depth of acceptance that can't be fathomed.

"Okay, you're a little weird. Have you had supper yet?"

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Old gentlemen

Very nice, gentle and smooth, as usual Erin. I just wish it was longer I liked it so much.

Hugs, Karen

Thanks hon

erin's picture

It's the same length as all my stories, it goes from beginning to end. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

'Never get out of this world alive'

I just realized, we're about the same age. Thinking of that, The reporter asks the old gentleman if he has lived in town all his life, the reply, "Not yet".
Poor hank, always stopping for a drink and free songs, instead of showing up at the Opery.

Karen

Same story

erin's picture

Hank, Elvis, Michael and Prince all died from drugs prescribed to them by people who were supposed to be doctors. It wasn't the music that killed them.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Bobbie Majestic

Erin:

Thanks you for this, I liked the story a lot. it made me wonder about your inspiration. Did you stumble across that wood carving and find inspiration? It feels like that was a trigger and that the story grew organically from that. --JAS

Actually

erin's picture

I dreamed this story while a bit less than half-awake. I had to get up at 3 a.m. this morning to start writing it. When I got up, I started looking for a carving something like the one in the dream and found this one. As you say, it just seemed to organically fit the story. But the story came first. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

GASP!

The carving is beyond belief!
And I like the old fashioned mores concerning the Division of Labour.
And the old dears did NOT spit while a lady was present :)

The carving

erin's picture

That is a nice carving and it is available from Amazon, replicated in China via a wood stereo-pantograph. I don't know who did the original.

I knew those old men, not by any of the names in the story, but my father, uncles and grandfathers sat on such a porch and said such things. I've tried to be faithful to their voices and their attitudes.

Thanks for commenting,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Erin

I'm pretty sure that timothy (besides being my brother's name) is a grass like miniature wheat or rye with very much smaller seeds. Kim buys timothy hay for her 2 horses. Clover, like alfalfa, is a legume like peas. Maybe there is a timothy breed of clover, but I've only heard of timothy grass.

Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee

You're right

erin's picture

Timothy is a grass, similar to the cat's tails found in ponds. Now for the life of me, I'm not sure what the legume I was thinking of was called. Alfalfa, clovers and cow peas are used for hay, maybe one of them has a common name I misremembered as timothy.

Thanks for commenting,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Lucerne

Alfalfa is also known as lucerne. According to Wikipedia "The name lucerne is the more commonly used name in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand."

You might be right

erin's picture

The original draft named alfalfa as the type of hay but I thought timothy made a funnier line. Besides, alfalfa makes me sneeze. Even so, I subconsciously knew that timothy makes a head which is where the line about the old men bending theirs comes from. Legumes don't really do that and the head of timothy is pretty distinct.

Speaking of rural towns, Lucerne Valley, California lies about thirty miles away, as a mighty tired crow might fly it; it's on the other side of a 7000 foot mountain. It's also somewhere this story could have happened, complete with German Swiss old-time settlers. :)

Hugs and thanks,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Not much there, though

I went through that area (Lucerne Valley) back in the 80's, on my way back from Parker, Arizona. We went through Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Monument (since elevated to a National Park), and wanted to avoid Los Angeles on our way back to Northern California, so we drove via Victorville across to Palmdale. That part of southeastern California is pretty sparsely populated. Nothing like a driving trip to experience the diversity of our country.

Yup

erin's picture

I grew up in Imperial Valley in the southeast corner of the state, Lots of farming there, less in the dryer parts of the Mojave you were driving through. Haven't been to Lucerne Valley since about the same time you were there. It is almost literally the backside of nowhere. :)

Except for the part within about 50-90 miles of the coast, most of SoCal is pretty empty.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Legume?

Haylee V's picture

Are you sure you're not thinking about sea oats or bitter root? Used to feed that stuff to our cows... And timothy grows wild down South, as does kudzu and poke weed. Could be any of those...

"American by birth. Southern by the grace of God..."

Wish I were back home in Cacalacky...

*Kisses Always*
Haylee V

Not familiar

erin's picture

Not familiar with sea oats or bitter root but the stuff called poke weed in AR and CA is poisonous, at least to mammals. You can eat it but it has to be boiled at least three times with the liquor thrown away. And then it tastes like over cooked spinach with a hit of asparagus. It's poisonous to cows, dogs and horses, too. It grows as a weed along ditches all over the South and in parts of California as well.

Timothy really was the plant I meant, I just got confused about whether it as in the pea or grass family.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

A very good story

Samantha Heart's picture

The talk reminds me of out in the hills of Tenessee, West Virginia.

Love Samantha Renée Heart.

I'm from Arkansas

erin's picture

My parents grew up in the Ozarks in an area inhabited by the descendants of lots of German, Dutch and East European settlers. I based the way people talk in this story on the voices of relatives. :)

Thanks for commenting,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Nailed It

Could have easily occurred outside Ferdinand Puhr's Mercantile in Fingal, North Dakota. It was the kind of store where you could buy work shoes in one aisle and cold meat in the next. To get things from the upper shelves you used a "grabber." Of course, for me the only thing worth buying in that store were baseball cards.

The old folks that gathered there cared that you respected each other.

Bucking hay had a different meaning in my youth. You would "buck" hay into a pile with a wooden toothed "bucker" on the front of an F-20 Farmall. Once you had a decent-sized bundle you would lift it to the top of a forming haystack, where young rascals would walk on it to compress it.

Your story made me smile . . . all the way through.

Jill

Angela Rasch (Jill M I)

Mercantiles

erin's picture

The store is actually a meld of two stores I remember from being a kid in Missouri. One really was a Feed and Seed but had an aisle where you might just find anything at all. Including comic books and the coldest soda in town. The other was a mercantile with a Piggly Wiggly inside which had the beautiful wrap-around porch.

In both places, old men who had no more work to do lounged around, jawin' and chawin' as they said. They were always polite and often a little sly with each other, knowing all of everyone's private jokes.

In California in the desert, bucking hay involved a tool like an ice hook. You guided the traveling, rectangular hay bale with the hay hook and bounced it off your hip, shoulder or chest in a sort of assembly line from the bed of the truck to wherever the hay had to go on the haystack. The bales where I grew up weighed anywhere from 100lbs to about 175lbs. If you were putting the hay inside a building, you were steeving it in a buck-and-steeve operation. (Didn't they used to have an act on Hee Haw?)

You didn't have to be massive to do this, though it could help, you just had to be skillful and fearless. More than once I heard of someone getting a hayhook through their skull or chest or being crushed when a stack collapsed on them. Or badly burned in a haystack fire.

In Missouri, most hayricks were like what you describe or made of huge round bales that weighed as much as half a ton.

I'm glad I made you smile. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Thank you ,

'for such a heartwarming story . I always loved Lil Abner and remember seeing the musical made of the story.
Down here in Oz we have country people who are similar and the songs of the musical are relative to our
present so called Government . I remember well "The Country is in the Very Best of Hands " and the classic
"Jubilation T Cornpone ". I think Al Capp must have visited "downunder " at some time . Lovely story.

<em></em>

Capp was a notorious womanizer

erin's picture

Just count to see how many women are rubbing their backsides to see if he passed your way.

Now I've got that song running through my head, "...'Ol tattered and torn pone...!" :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Sweet!

Wonderful as always Erin. And your comment about its length was to the point; beginning to end indeed. While it would have been very enjoyable to have visited the burg for longer, the brief visit and the well chosen words of the inhabitants was excellent. Thank you for letting us visit this place.

And, I wish more people in the hustle and bustle I'm surrounded by were as skilled at minding their own business.

>>> Kay

Let's mind our own business :)

erin's picture

I prefer to let Bobbie Majestic make her own way in life. Though I could see revisiting her or the old men someday. :)

Thanks for commenting,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Liking the story...

...In some small communities Bobbie is accepted as here in this story. It helps if she comes from a family that people respect and that they won't want to offend. Abner even got himself invited for cheery pie.
The story moves well. You can tell the transition is going well as she already takes after her Mom. Most didn't recognize until someone identifies her. I'm looking forward to reading where this goes.

Tip of the hat to you Erin, Jessie C

Jessica E. Connors

Jessica Connors

Turn, turn, turn

erin's picture

It's a compliment to be asked to continue a story and I appreciate that. But Bobbie is going to have to do without us looking in on her. I really have no intention of continuing this, it feels complete to me.

Bobbie has support from her family and community and the only way I could make a real story would be to manufacture some new conflict. Like anyone in life, Bobbie is certain to face conflict. She's only 17 or 18, what if she wants to go away to college? What if she has a boyfriend or a girlfriend? What if not everyone is so sanguine about allowing her to live her life?

All of those and more could be good stories, and honestly, I might come back to Bobbie or the Delbental Valley in a future story if something occurs to me that would work best with those characters or that setting. But I don't think it likely to happen soon.

But again thanks for the compliment and the comment,
Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

A gentle story

Erin

What A gently story of folks accepting changes - well in your story - Bobbie released she was female in a boys body with support and acceptance from her own family.

In my minds eye as I was reading I felt I was inside ~Bobbie as you took us from start to finish.

One of the comments you made, among many others I have read was the one regarding the length of the story was the same as all your other stories having a start and ending, although it had a journey somewhere in between that start and ending

Very enjoyable story

Love

SamanthaAnn

I'm glad

erin's picture

I'm glad the story touched you as I intended it do.

Thanks for commenting,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

If only

the old-timers I knew were so nice :)

Melanie E.

It can happen

erin's picture

But often it doesn't.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Hmm ...

Has anyone ever mentioned how strange you are?

Guess that's how come your stories are are so strange - I mean good.

T

Lol!

erin's picture

I think being strange is a requirement for what I do. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

One of the skills in writing is knowing how many words

to use between the beginning and the end. Another is knowing how and when to end. Another is developing an atmosphere -- in this case of complete acceptance (what a change from so many TS stories).
As so often, you have achieved this again. This is the reason I keep on reading postings with your bye-line!
Thanks
Dave

Thanks, hon

erin's picture

I keep trying to do it right. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

You nailed this one

BarbieLee's picture

God Erin, you took me back so many years. The colloquialisms were spot on. Damn, I almost cried for those simpler times. Houses were never locked, keys were left in the ignition, windows rolled down, rifles in the gun rack in the back window of the pickups.
"You're slipping." When someone's slip was showing below the hem of the skirt or dress. Meant a run to the bathroom to pull it back up where it belonged
"You're gaping." Someone's blouse was "open" between buttons or a button had become undone and bra or slip could be seen through the gap.
Feed sacks were cotton and dyed in many colors and designs, even the same brand of feed. Sacks were carefully picked by the women, not for the feed but for the skirt, blouse, or towel it would eventually become when the feed was gone out of it.
And yes, every tractor dealership, every feed store, every JC Penny, CR Anthony, Montgomery Ward, Drug Store was where men and women stopped every Saturday they got to town, maybe once a month, and exchange news about family, and socials. Saturday was for getting necessities but more for catching up on socials and it usually lasted ALL DAY.

Thanks for the memories, Erin. I think I've lived too long. I don't like what our society and world has become.

Life is meant to be lived, not worn until it's worn out
always,
Barb

Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl

I lived for a time in a

erin's picture

I lived for a time in a little town called Senath, Muhzurrah, population 1500 or so. Except on Saturday when everyone came to town from the surrounding farms and hamlets and the population soared to 20,000 or more. Down at one end of town there was an athletic field where there might be a game of donkey baseball going on. At the other end of town was the movie theater where they were showing "200 Million Light Years From Earth." Halfway in between was the Piggily Wiggily next to Rexall Drugs and across from Fritz-Booker Feed and Seed. There's a Coke machine on the porch, put your nickel in and push the lever sideways. Six and three-quarter ounces, exactly 1/4 of a wine bottle's worth of soda.

All anyone needed, really.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

very cool

and i so liked it, I loved Bobbie though as she was the coolest. Thank you Erin for such a sweet though short story

Thanks, hon

erin's picture

Glad you enjoyed it. There's a lot of satisfaction in getting out a good solid short story.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Old Geezers

Daphne Xu's picture

"When all is said and done..." more is said than done.

I feel sorry for the old men. It seems as if they're just whittling their lives away, probably bored as hell. On the other hand, they're with BFFs of many decades, probably reminiscing about the past half century's events. Is that really so different from all the texting done these days?

Maybe if someone could get them to write their stories...

Nice story, just a little sad.

-- Daphne Xu

-- Try saying freefloating three times rapidly.

Wisdom

erin's picture

Those old men were doing what old people have done since the days of tribes with stone spears and reed baskets. They are a Council of Wisdom. In their case, male wisdom. They sit there in their place of stoic judgement, on the porch (stoa) of an establishment that almost everyone in the area eventually comes to. And they pass judgement. They are the sachems, lords, senators of their community.

Across town, in the Women's Interfaith Quilting and Canning Bee sit their counterparts, the wisewomen, crones and norns who dispense female wisdom. Bobbie is due there next week to show them her sour cherry pie and her snowball counterpane. :)

Thanks for commenting.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

So, a sequel, then?

Page of Wands's picture

"Bobbie is due there next week to show them her sour cherry pie and her snowball counterpane."

Please tell us you're actually going to write this!

Thinking about it

erin's picture

:)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I hadn't spotted this one before

Angharad's picture

A nice complete story. I'm familar with Timothy grass, I have a bit in my garden along with goodness knows how many other types, but as I'm trying to rewild my garden and turn what was a lawn into a wild flower meadow to act as a refuelling stop for bumble bees and other pollinators.

Angharad

Wildflower honey

erin's picture

Well, you won't get much honey from wild bees. :)

In spring, here in SoCal, you can be out for a nice drive in the desert and come across a platform with a rude shade and thirty or forty beehives, collecting the wild honey. Kind of the opposite of wilding the garden.

Glad you liked the story. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Orange Honey

laika's picture

Different flowers make for different tasting honey. I miss the amazing orange blossom honey SoCal used to have in such abundance that you could get it cheap, but at least there's still sage honey as a tasty alternative to the ubiquitous clover stuff. Not seeing any point to having a lawn in the desert my sister + I got rid of 90% of ours when we inherited this house a decade ago (leaving a small unruly patch under the sycamore tree) and now have 12 fruit trees (too bad oranges don't grow here at 4400 feet) that are just starting to consistently bear fruit, which has brought us lots of bees and wasps. I'm slowly getting over my severe lifelong beephobia (which I discovered when I stepped on one last year was completely disproportionate to how bad getting stung hurts me, since I'm not super-allergic). Ali put up some little bee houses (like birdhouses but with chambered interiors designed for bees) but so far the bees haven't figured out they're for them. Maybe next year I can put on my NASA surplus Covid-19-protective spacesuit + harvest me some...
~Ain't Nature Grand? Veronica

.
The closest approximation to what it's like in my brain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u08E7c-FRbU&t=4s

Spent

erin's picture

Spent part of my childhood in Westmorland, California, bee central for SoCal. The honey plant and miles of bee hives and trucks hauling them around. All kinds of honey. We used to buy five gallon buckets of the raw stuff, still with bits of honeycomb and bees embalmed in honey in it. The best stuff ever. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

The problem with honey bees

Angharad's picture

is that so many people are keeping them in cities that there wren't enough wild flowers to go round for the wild pollinators, they also tend to carry more diseases than wild bees and I don't particularly like honey, so wild bees are far more important to me. They also pollinate much more in the way of crops than hive bees, which only pollinate about 25% of insect pollinated crops. Bumble bees are much more valuable than hive bees, they are also better tempered and much cuter. Solitary bees are also important but much harder to identify and wasps pollinate more plants than hive bees, which are far lazier than bumble bees, who are real workhorses of pollination. Tomatoes need to be pollinated by bumble bees or the crop is smaller and less tasty, they actually buzz when they pollinate them which makes a difference and is why they are now breeding bumble bees for pollinating glass houses but sadly it was done without proper safeguards and many of the colonies sold have diseases or parasites. Short cuts for money once again, which one day may lead to our extinction as a species.

Angharad

Bees

erin's picture

Arizona probably has more species of wild bees than any other comparable-sized area on Earth. There's some spillover of these bees into SoCal, so we have lots of kinds of bees. Some are quite specialized as to what plants they pollinate or where they live. It's fascinating. Bees, like humans, are very social animals and are vulnerable to such things as pandemics. They have lessons to teach we need to learn.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I liked this story. It has

I liked this story. It has character and is well written, something to be read more than once.

I am a grain of sand on a near beach; a nova in the sky, distant and long.
In my footprints wash the sea; from my hands flow our universe.
Fact and fiction sing a legendary song.
Trickster/Creator are its divine verse.

--Old Man CoyotePuma

Thanks, hon :)

erin's picture

Read it as often as you like. :)

Hug,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I saw this story ...

... in the random solos box this morning. When I saw Erin was the author, I decided to give it a read. I'm so glad I did! Real gentlemen seem to be getting a bit rare these days, but there definitely were a porchful of 'em in this story. It's nice seein' folk treat a girl with dignity and respect, even if she mighta started off bein' raised as a boy. Thanks for sharin' this wonderful gem, Erin! :)

Thanks!

erin's picture

Always a smile when an old story finds a new reader. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.