Stories

Six Words: Piano, Examination, Produce, Gene, Relevance, Experience

I do not have any experience playing a musical instrument. I am what you might call tone-deaf and I have no sense of rhythm. At the Drum Circle, I watch other people to stay with the beat. That doesn’t stop me from tapping my hands or feet, or nodding my head to the sound of music, so people are deceived into thinking I can dance. Then, if I forget myself and try to dance, they’re disappointed. Somebody once actually told me “I thought you were going to be a good dancer.” I just don’t have the genes for it.

But that doesn’t stop me from being interested in how pianos and almost any other instrument produce their sounds. It has no relevance to anything else that I do, but I like to examine instruments to see how they are put together and I can appreciate fine craftsmanship.

Early in my career I got to work with a company that made organs and another that sold pianos. I learned that when someone bought a piano, the company wanted to deliver it as fast as possible, before the buyers could change their mind. But people that bought an organ had to wait until the manufacturer had a full truck before leaving the factory. I guess people that buy organs really need them. As I type this, it occurs to me that “really needing them” applies equally to the musical instrument kind of organ and the bodily part kind of organ. Maybe someday we’ll be able to produce both kinds of organs as quickly as they are needed.

Six Words: Fleet, Remind, Reservoir, Industry, Replace, Fault

We each have a reservoir of memories. They remind us of school days and work days when, perhaps, we were not as industrious as we could have been. Time is fleeting, and some of those memories become faulty or are replaced by memories that are not quite accurate. Did I really run a marathon? Did I really swim the English channel? Did I really have rare prime rib for dinner last night?

Six Words: Institution, Belief, Inflate, Serve, Part, Reservoir

I cheated. To see what would happen. I asked ChatGPT to:

“write a story using the words institution, belief, inflate, serve, part, reservoir. You are allowed to change tense or make other modifications to those words.”

Here is the story that it produced, instantly:

“In the small town of Westfield, the institution of the church held a prominent place in the community. The townspeople’s belief in God was strong, and they looked to the church to serve as a moral compass in their daily lives.

One Sunday morning, as the congregation gathered for their weekly service, they noticed something strange. The large inflatable cross that usually hung above the altar was missing. No one knew where it had gone, and the pastor was visibly distressed by its absence.

As the church members began to investigate, they discovered that a group of teenagers had taken the inflatable cross as part of a prank. The town’s reservoir was a popular spot for local teens to hang out, and the cross had been inflated and placed in the middle of the water as a joke.

The church elders were outraged by this act of disrespect and immediately called for the cross to be returned. The teens, realizing their mistake, quickly deflated the cross and returned it to the church.

But the incident had a lasting impact on the town. The church’s belief in forgiveness and compassion allowed them to move past the incident, and they used it as an opportunity to teach the importance of respecting institutions and symbols of faith. The town’s reservoir, once seen as a place for mischief and tomfoolery, was now viewed with greater respect and appreciation.

In the end, the inflatable cross served as a reminder of the values that the church and the town held dear. And while it may have been a small part of their community, it represented something much larger: the power of belief and the importance of upholding the institutions that shape our lives.”

Six Words: Adopt, Proclaim, End, Sale, Appeal, Transport

“Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” That is a phrase that we’ve all heard. It is engraved on the State House Bell in Pennsylvania. The bell dates back to 1751 when it was cast in London for transport to Philadelphia. It was used to appeal to lawmakers to gather for meetings and for townspeople to hear the news. That’s how it was used for about 90 years, until it cracked from hard use. There was no warranty and the crack is still there. Crack bell doesn’t have the same ring though, as crack pot.

The inscription on the bell went pretty much unnoticed. Unnoticed especially by slave holders. Unnoticed until 1835 that is, when the engraving was adopted by abolitionists who wanted to really proclaim liberty throughout the land. People who wanted to end the sale of people.

The phrase, as some of you know, comes from Leviticus Chapter 25, verse 10. As often happens, verses from the bible are cherry-picked to make a point, ignoring the context and the surrounding verses. Leviticus 25 establishes the jubilee year, a year every 50 years, when everyone returns home, and property is returned to its original owner and slaves are set free. What if that had really been done, say, in 1801, 50 years after the bell had been cast? Or 50 years after that, in 1851? By that time the bell had been renamed to the name that we know, The Liberty Bell.

One final thought. I don’t know when the next Jubilee year is, but do you think Brookdale needs to give this building back to the Gaines family then? If you sold a house when you moved here, should you get it back? Would you want it back? Really?

Six Words: Quality, Elapse, Effect, Agriculture, Power, Cover

Agriculture is not something that most of us city dwellers ever think about. Sure droughts or freezes affect the quality and quantity – and the price – of produce that is available, but a lot of time elapses between coverage of the impact of weather on farmers and when it effects us. Before the war in Ukraine, I had no idea that Ukraine and Russia were such major grain and fertilizer exporters that they affect the availability of food across the world and that people in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of starving because of the war in eastern Europe. Press coverage of the attacks on electrical power in Ukraine continue, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen anything about grain and fertilizer exports.

In another month it will be Passover. When the Hebrews wandered through the desert after leaving Egypt, they found manna that kept them from starving. I had a friend who was expert on some aspects of life in ancient Israel. She had camped in the desert and eaten manna. It is type of honeydew that is secreted by aphids and other scale insects that forms on the underside of leaves during the night. It has to be gathered first thing in the morning before the warmth of the day causes it to melt or putrefy. It’s something like honey. Perhaps the hungry people in Africa have found manna again and don’t need grain from the Ukraine anymore? Perhaps the people are no more? Or maybe the truce, the truce that is supposed to give ships carrying grain safe passage, is actually working and so it isn’t in the news anymore?

Six Words: Discuss, Profile, Award, Spontaneous, Tick, Nun

There once was a nun from Nantucket,
Who collected some ticks in a bucket,
Lets never discuss
Nor be spontaneous
Her profiled award,
Just be glad she ain’t one of us.

Six Words: Field, Inject, Original, Hunter, Suntan, Bomb

On our first trip to South Africa we used Ntaba Tours. Our tour director was a handsome, suntanned man named Robin Mountain. Robin chose the name Ntaba for his company because it is Xhosa for Mountain. Xhosa is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa. Robin speaks several of them. Xhosa is spelled X-h-o-s-a where the X is a click and the h is silent, so it should sound like click-osa. Try it. I’ve been practicing since I started this story Friday night.

Although Robin and his wife, Stella, live in Frankfort, Kentucky, they are originally from the Cape Town area in South Africa. He’d been in the army and I think he’d been a hunter, although when we knew him, he hunted, like me, with a camera in fields and forests.

Over dinner one day, as we got to know Robin, he dropped the bomb about what he did previously and what brought him to America. He was an expert in the artificial insemination of bees! Undoubtedly, you are wondering the same things we did. How do you get the material to inject, what kind of a needle do you use, how do you do it? He came to the U.S. to be a professor at a university in California, and eventually at a university in Kentucky. But he loved South Africa and the safari experience, and leading tours let him go back often to visit his mother. The business thrived and is still going. I still get email a couple of times a year from Robin and Stella.

If you want to hear the click sound used by a fluent speaker, do a search for Pata Pata. You’ll find a Youtube link to Miriam Makeba singing it on the Ed Sullivan show, and she does it seamlessly.

Six Words: Sell, Compartment, Straw, Certain, Penetrate, Garage

During the night that I spent in the Richardson city jail, I was very surprised to see someone come in with a balaclava covering his face. I didn’t know why the jailers would let someone in wearing that disguise, or why they would allow him to keep it on. I didn’t even have to ask. The jailers told me.

He was an undercover officer and the balaclava was so that neither prisoners nor their families or friends would be able to recognize or to identify him if he penetrated a criminal group. Whether he was penetrating an auto chop shop operating in a garage, or a drug or counterfeiting operation, it was important that the bad guys not know that he was a cop. It’s a dangerous job and everyone wants to be certain that he is as safe as he can be.

He might be acting as a strawman, buying something that the bad guys are selling. I don’t know what other roles he might play.

Sometime later a man that I hadn’t seen before walked past the jailers desk toward the compartment that leads to the exit and the jailer who monitors the cameras and doors let him out. The jailers asked if I recognized him. Nope, I replied. They told me he is the man who came in wearing the balaclava. I’m guessing that he had probably changed clothes too, although I really don’t remember.

I do hope you are surprised that I spent a night in jail. I’ve debated whether to just end the true story there, or to explain. I haven’t decided.

Six Words: Minimum, Slave, Wrestle, Girlfriend, Lamp, Foreign

There are subjects that are difficult to talk about, but that are sometimes necessary to talk about. There are lessons to be learned by shining a lamp on history, history that is sometimes an example of greatness and sometimes an example of things that we wish were foreign to our history. Things that you wouldn’t have a casual conversation with a girlfriend about, but ideas that, at a minimum, should be discussed and wrestled with. One of those things is slavery and not just in the ways we all have heard about.

Most of us, I think, aren’t aware of how much slavery influenced our Constitution. For example, the Preamble to the Constitution says “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, . . .” Part of that “domestic tranquility” was making sure that there could not be a slave rebellion, even in places where black slaves greatly outnumbered white people. The “Blessings of Liberty” did not apply, obviously, to slaves.

But talking about it, or worse, teaching students about it, challenges the image that many of our fellow Americans would like to believe. Which history have we taught? Which history should we teach?

I yield the soapbox.

Six Words: Jet, Triangle, Theft, Initial, Wear, Find

The Bermuda Triangle is an area of the Atlantic Ocean between Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. Dozens of ships and airplanes, both jets and non-jets, have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. There is a reason it is also called The Devils Triangle.

It’s impossible to know when the initial disappearances occurred. When Christopher Columbus sailed through the area on his first voyage to the New World, he reported that a great flame of fire crashed into the sea one night. William Shakespeare’s The Tempest may have been based on a shipwreck in the Devil’s Triangle.

Efforts are always made to find the ships and planes that go missing, but there are many, many cases, some famous, some not so famous, where nothing is found. It is as if aliens spirit them away in bizarre thefts.

As I wrote this little essay, I had an idea that I should probably share with the Coast Guard at the very least. I’m going to recommend that every person, whether passenger or crew, that sails or flies through the Triangle wear a Gaines Ranch emergency call button. When someone is lost or in trouble, or as they’re being stolen, they can push their button and Wanda, Howard, Elise or another Concierge will immediately know their location and help will be on the way.