O.C.F. Caretaker's Journal O.C.F. Caretaker's JournalWe live in the age of "Everything Has Rights." Now, I'm not denying that the concept of rights is valid, but I wonder whatever happened to obligations? One rarely hears the term anymore. Indeed, have you ever heard of a "human obligations movement?" . . . The very ideal that holds a democracy together--the willingness to make personal sacrifice for the common good--is going quickly by the wayside.--John K. Rosemond
Thursday 30 March EFN mail server was down all day and eventually even their website (and mine) went out. Evidently they were having big problems today but it appears that I will be able to post an entry after all. On this day in 1746 Francisco Goya was born in Zaragoza, Spain. He is considered to be the father of modern art because he was the first individualist who painted expressively about the human condition based on his own emotions. His Disasters of War lithograph series done while he was an embittered old man, remains an extremely powerful artistic statement and the first "political cartoons." Then on this date in 1853 Vincent Van Gogh was born. A tortured genius who had an unparalleled ten year output before going mad. He sold only one painting in his life and then became arguably the most famous artist in history after his death. In 1867 the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. This was a great deal to say the least. Finally on this day in 1987 the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Company of Tokyo paid 39.9 million dollars for a Van Gogh Sunflowers. This was four times the previous record paid for a work of art and may not have been such a good deal as it has been called a fake. In any event Irises sold for almost 60 million a year latert and then in 1990 A Portrait of Dr. Gatchet sold for almost 82.5 million to Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito,who declared that he was so happy that he felt like he had died and gone to heaven, which he then did in short order---leaving the painting in the hands of the bank that loaned him the money. They definitely didn't think that was such a good deal. It is needless to say that poor old Vincent probably could have bought Holland several times over with that kind of money, but right now, out here at our lovely Fair Site, we have a great special deal on wildflowers. They are beautiful as works of Art, 100% real, and absolutely free to admire.
Tuesday 28 March I was back in the bathroom crawling around on my hands and knees. Not what you might think--- actually I was installing the new floor at the office. I had to pull the toilet and so at the moment the facilities rather resembles the days of yore. This little room has more names than any other place in the house. We prim Americans refer to it as the restroom, while the British properly call it the lavatory or the more slangy W.C.---for water closet. The Army goes to the latrine, while the Navy uses the head or roundhouse. In Israel it is known as the house of honor while in neighboring Egypt it is the house of the morning. The ancient but rather practical Romans thought of it as the necessarium and prudish old Tudors had their house of privacy, later shortened to just the plain old privy. The French are known for their directness of course, and they just call it La Chambre Sent---the smelly room. John, can, little girl's room, powder room, the list goes on and on. Outhouses too have always enjoyed a proud tradition and out here at the Oregon Country Fair we have our own special multiple user design which we call sixpacks. (We call them other things too but those are unfit to print!) If you're reading this norma, I'll be there soooooon to restore your modern convenience! This evening Steve and I attended a Long Tom Watershed Council meeting which was held at the Veneta Community Center.
Monday 27 March In 1885 travel writer and photographer Eliza Scidmore took a trip to Japan, and upon her return she became inspired with the idea of planting cherry trees in Washington D.C. She pitched her plan to several government officials, but the proposal was ignored. Then in 1909 Eliza finally decided to raise money herself and then donate the trees to the city. As it happened, she sent a note to the new First Lady outlining her plans. President Taft had once worked and lived in Japan, and his wife Helen, having seen the great beauty of cherry blossoms there, enthusiastically embraced the project. The Japanese consul then heard of the plans through her and arranged to have the trees brought over as a gift to the people of the United States from the City of Tokyo. Unfortunatly when the two thousand Japanese cherry trees arrived, they were discovered to have become diseased during the long trip from Japan. The people of Tokyo responded to the bad news with typical resolve. A wealthy Japanese citizen donated the cost of more trees, and 3,020 specimens were taken from the famous collection on the bank of the Arakawa River. 27 March 1912, the day after the new trees had arrived in Washington, the first two were ceremoniously planted by Eliza Scidmore and Helen Taft along the bank of the Potomac. In 1934 there was a three-day celebration during the late March blossoming of the trees, and in later years this grew into the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Cuttings from Washington's cherry trees were sent to help restore Tokyo after the collection there had been severely damaged by Allied bombing runs during WWII.
Sunday 26 March Cold last night but after the fog burned off it turned into a beautiful day. We got some production on the compost screening and potting of plants and then about noon Path Planning met. That took up the rest of the day but it was certainly enjoyable with the sun shining and the wildflowers beginning to bloom. After some of us movie hounds watched the Academy Awards at Hilary's. AMERICAN BEAUTY swept most of the top awards and I would agree that it was the logical winner. But I would also say that while the there was a good crop of excellent movies in 1999, there were no truly great ones. The show itself was also below average I would say, no controversies or exuberant displays, and they eliminated most of the live entertainment and substituted with lots of film clip montages. The Kingdome was imploded today, and although I was inside a for a total of once during a Led Zepplin concert in 1978 it, along with the Space Needle, symbolized Seattle in my mind. Now it is gone, possibly the largest building to both come and go in our lifetimes. Check out this picture series of its demise.
Saturday 25 March Yesterday Howard and I worked on the mowers. We put a new hitch on the old sulky. We hoisted up the 54 inch John Deere with the tractor so we could check out a knocking noise it was making. We discovered that the pivot of the rocker arm on the idler pulley was worn and so we pulled it off and Steve ordered the new parts for it. Howard got Chela Mela mowed. The Guideline Group came out and after Our Daily Bread we all had a punch party,---that is we punched holes in the corners of 400 of the new Guidelines and tied string to them in hopes that they will be posted in crew and booth common areas during the Fair. Today David Hoffman and Steve worked at potting up plants while I worked on the compost sifter. I tried for a long time to work out a way to install something inside the drum that would break up the clods, but eventually the ceaseless rotation would cause everything to get wrapped back around itself---so back to the old drawing board. Other visitors to site as well and energy is now in the beginnings of beginning to build. Arrow, Mike, David and Steve all came over to the Yurt for a taco diner and afterwards we all headed down to Traffic Camp to observe the Foxfire; bioluminescent fungi which glows briefly when disturbed and look like green constellations on the dark ground. Next we were all up in the Dragon Security Tower observing real constellations in the cloudless moonless night. In particular we were admiring the piercing icy blueness of Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens; and through binoculars, the Orion Nebula, another of the crown jewels of the night sky.
Friday 24 March The Passenger Pigeon was once the most populous bird species on Earth. Their forest nesting sites extended for hundreds of square miles, with each tree holding with so many birds that the branches sometimes broke from the sheer weight. The decline of the population began with the European colonization of North America. Forests of Eastern Chestnut and Oak trees, the main source of food for the Passenger Pigeon, were cut down and converted to farmland, and habitat quickly began to disappear. The birds were perceived as both a menace to crops and an inexhaustible supply of food for both people and their pigs, and were killed whenever possible. Passenger Pigeons bred in the northeastern part of the United states and wintered in the southern part. They migrated across this range in flocks so vast that they blocked out the Sun. Estimates for individual flocks ran into the billions. John J. Audubon described a migrating flock of the pigeons as "a column, eight or ten miles in length resembling the windings of a vast and majestic river." Commercial hunting began about 1840 with the advent of the railroads. Passenger Pigeons were netted, shot and smoked out of trees with sulfur torches. Special firearms, including a forerunner of the machine gun, were used to harvest the birds in mass quantities. Billions of them were killed, packed in barrels with ice, and shipped to markets. By 1860 hunts of grand proportions were commonplace, and often just for the sport of killing. By 1870, birds were reproducing only in the Great Lakes region. Hunters used the newly invented telegraph to zero in on the location of the last large wild flock, an estimated 250,000 birds, in 1896. As the hunters had converged upon them, the hapless birds flocked together by instinct, making them all the easier to kill--- and fewer than10,000 birds survived the slaughter. At that time people regarded the collapse of the population as a temporary phenomenon, unable to believe that such an apparently inexhaustible resource could disappear. Finally though, the scattered distribution of the remaining population interfered with breeding ability, which may have required a community of numerous individuals to stimulate the necessary cycles or behaviors. The last known wild Passenger Pigeon was shot in Ohio on 24 March 1900, exactly one hundred years ago. A few individual birds still survived in captivity. By 1909 the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens had the last three. By 1910 only one female was left. Named Martha, after the wife of George Washington, she died 1 September 1914 at the approximate age of 29, possibly the only instance in history where we know the exact moment of a species' extinction.
Thursday 23 March Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! Patrick Henry ended his most famous speech with these immortal words during the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775 in Richmond. Known as the Orator of Liberty, his eloquent and compelling words became the clarion call that led the colonies into Revolution. He went on to become the first governor of Virginia, serving five terms in all. His leadership also helped secure the passage of the Bill of Rights. My day was not quite as profound--- I built a bird feeder. Yesterday I finished the rebuild of the sound stage at the WOW Hall and took advantage of the afterglow to slide in to see Tempest this evening. Great fun. It was the lead singer Lief Sorbye's birthday and they had had a cake for him. After the show I purchased a CD and while he signed it I mentioned that it was my birthday as well. Fine and good but how old? Forty-three---the same. What time? Both around one in the morning. But had to be different different time zones, right? Well he was born in Norway and I in Germany which are the same time zone. That we met there and then was one of those wonderfully weird and wacky coincidences that the universe occasionally throws at you.
Tuesday 21 March Today I was volunteering some time at the WOW Hall helping Jason rebuild the sound stage. It is good to keep my hand in and the place is still home to me even after being gone from my job there for about three years. Spring has arrived right on schedule, and Eugene is ablaze with cherry blossoms. People driving around with their windows rolled down, the sunglasses were out, there was girls in shorts, birds chirping away, the whole bloomin' thing. All of this is completely obvious to just about anybody of course---and so why do I need to be talking about Spring in Eugene then anyway? Because it's there! Sumer is icumen in. / Lhude sing cuccu! / Groweth sed and bloweth med / And springth the wude nu.---13th Century Anonymous Poet with Spring Fever. Out here on Site the Trilliums are just beginning to unfold. A couple more days like this and I will be able to say that wildflower season out here at the Oregon Country Fair has officially begun. Inspired by one I saw at a nursery last week, this evening I started building a smaller version of a bird feeding station that I will mount outside my windows on a post. Later I went down in front of Main Camp especially to admire the blanket of a zillion stars overhead, along with the ever tightening conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. It is quite easy to spot these three luminous lovelies slashing towards the western horizon after sunset.
Monday 20 March Final mediation of the Navy's grievance against the VegManECs took place this evening at the office of, and moderated by, Zak Schwartz. In attendance were myself, Steve Wisnovsky, Steve Cole, Anne Morris, Philip Guyette, and Lil DeSoto. While I have not actually been part of this whole grievance process, certainly I played out my role in the original controversy, and was therefore asked to be at this final meeting. We all agreed that there were problems with process---they weren't followed to start with, and there really weren't any to follow up with after the fact. For my part I am sorry about the perceived attack while publishing our views of the incident on the Web. In retrospect I can see that although I felt was working in defense of Nature, this was the wrong way for me to go about resolving things. The bright side to all this is that there has been a lot of awareness raised about these issues and it was also showed the validity of the mediation process. We have reached a conclusion to the whole affair and certainly all parties are feeling much better now that it has. You can read the Resolution we signed and which is published on the VegManEC website. The moral to the story is this: Treat all living things with respect.
Sunday 19 March The Spring Equinox occurs at 11:35 pm PST tonight, just about . . . now. The word equinox is derived from the Latin words for equal and night. Day and night are equal length the entire world over with two noteworthy exceptions: At both the North and South Poles the Sun appears to skim around the entire horizon in Earth's longest and what has to be the most unusual sunrise and sunset. Here in the Northern Hemisphere we can herald the symbolic beginning of Nature's awakening. Spring is here again! Of course it is already tomorrow in the Mountain, Central, and Eastern time zones, as well as in Greenwich Mean Time (which is known to astronomers as Universal Time) so the official beginning of Spring is March 20th. In many old traditions, this was the start of the new year, and the astrological year still begins on the Vernal Equinox as the Sun moves into Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac. The Greek god Ares is equivalent to the Roman god Mars for whom the month of March is named, and the Roman year began on the Ides of March. Somewhat coincidentally, the crest of tonight's full moon comes at 4:44 am Greenwich Mean Time---which is 8:44 pm this evening here. So while my calendar (and many others I am sure) denote both the equinox and the full moon as occurring tomorrow, we actually enjoy the arrival of both these celestial events a day early here on the Left Coast.
Saturday 18 March It was a cold rainy day. I went into to talk with Jan at CAT about the Gatorbike we will be building. Basically we brainstormed some ideas and figured out the parameters of what we wanted to do. A CAD program will be the next step and then the new frame building class will see if they want to do it for a project, which I am sure that they will. I stuck around and watched a few bike videos and looked over some of the books in what has to be the best bike library in town. The Coordinator's Potluck was held this time at Chela and Phillip's grand old house. While there they came out with a cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to me---and even though my birthday is not until next Thursday, and even though the cake was not vegan, I was still touched by it. On the way home I stopped by in and saw CIDER HOUSE RULES****. I don't know why it took me so long to go see it, but I am glad it stuck around. It was an excellent movie that had a beginning, middle, and end which were interwoven beautifully. Tobey Maguire, who plays James Leer in WONDER BOYS***, stars as Homer Wells in this film. Despite being around for a while, he is obviously a rising new star on the scene. Besides dealing with the sensitive issues of abortion and adoption, the movie also explores the duality of good and evil that resides in every major character, and the notion that rules are often necessarily bent through the course of ordinary life.
Saint Patrick's Day My folks have been here for a couple days, left this morning, good visit. Not too much to report from Site then, although Steve and I drove down to a nursery today and picked up a bunch of trees. Most are small and will be put in pots for a couple years before we plant them, but we also have some bigger Red Alder and Dogwood that we will be planting out in the Crafts Lot soon. As Steve likes to say, the second best time to plant a tree is now---the best time is twenty years ago. As far as the holiday goes there is not much I have to do with it anymore as my beer drinking days are far behind me. I still go in for the wearing o' the green but then it is my favorite color anyway. I am not certain why Saint Patrick's day has turned into such a drunkfest (second only to New Year's Eve), but I suppose it has everything to do with the fact that we Americans feel the need to bastardize every single holiday we come across. Perhaps it is a wee bit surprising to us then, but the way it is celebrated in Ireland is nothing like the rowdy and boisterous version that we enjoy here in the United States. There it is a religious and bank holiday, and it is primarily observed by relaxing at home with family and friends after Mass. There are parades, and there is beer to be sure, but it certainly isn't green. More than likely, it's that famous dark stout served at every pub in Ireland. Much of the social life of Irish communities is centered around these local pubs. Quite obviously, nobody there needs to prove how Irish they are by drinking themselves stupid.
Wednesday 15 March Rome, 44 BC. A storm ravages the city the night before the Ides. Wind whistles under doors through cold marble halls. Lights . . . noises . . . disturbances in the night. . . . Calpurnia dreams that her husband is murdered. Caesar confesses this fear to Marc Antony. The normally calm and rational Calpurnia begs her husband to stay away from the Senate. Priests pluck the entrails of a sacrificed animal and find no heart, indicating that there is possibly some very bad juju going on. Caesar declares he will stay home, but is later convinced to go. On the way over, the soothsayer Artemidorus suddenly appears out of the fog to warn Caesar of his impending death with the words "Cavete Idus Martiae",---but to no avail. Although he has declared "Non sum rex sed Caesar!", Caesar in fact holds absolute power over the political, religious, and military arenas of Rome. Concerned Republicans have decided to take matters back into their own hands. At the Senate, Trebonius leads Antony away from Caesar, while conspirators make short work of stabbing Caesar to death. He collapes into a pool of blood gurgling out that memorable Shakespearean phrase, "Et tu Brute?". To some, especially amongst the army and the people, Caesar was one extremely popular guy, and as a sign of their great respect they drag his naked bloody corpse to the Forum and burn it on a gigantic funeral pyre. Antony forms a triumvirate with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, and they kill off about a hundred senators. Brutus, Cassius, Titinius, and Messala raise an army to defy them. Brutus' wife kills herself by swallowing hot coals. Brutus and Cassius confront Antony's army at Phillipi. In the ensuing battle, Titinius is captured by Octavius and then Cassius commits suicide. Titinius, in grief over Cassius' death, kills himself with Cassius' sword. The tide of the battle turns against Brutus' army. Brutus successively asks Clitus, Dardanius, and Volumnius to help him commit suicide, yet all refuse. Brutus finally convinces Strato to hold the sword while he runs onto it. The whole plot to free Rome has seriously backfired to say the least. It's like an epic Greek tragedy, only Roman. Octavius, who is Julius' nephew, becomes Augustus Caesar and consolidates power like never before.
Tuesday 14 March This morning Dennis Ross knocked on the door. His Looking Glass crew had finished early and he wanted to know if it would be okay if he took the boys for a walk around the property. I said why sure and by the way check out the bikes. Well the next thing you know there were about eight of them careening around for a good half hour before we could get them off again. It was fun to see all the bikes in action at once and especially cool to see how the kids took to them. Today I spent the day getting the place cleaned up as my folks are coming for a visit tomorrow, a major endeviour as always. Yesterday I met with Craig Huber about the Labyrinth and this evening I took a ride out to the Pyrate's Cove to look over the potential site. Because of the awkwardness of the area for parking, Traffic does not use this area during the Fair and therefore it will make a perfect location for this large installation. A labyrinth, unlike a maze, is unicursal, that is it has just one way in and back out, and is intended to be a meditative device. Two good websites on this subject can be found here and here. Between the Gatorbike and this project it appears as though I have two big projects again this year, something I am happy about, but I am also hoping to have both completed well in advance of the Fair---both so they can be used pre-Fair and so I will be able to assume my Caretakerly duties in full during the madness.
Monday 13 March On this night in 1781, William Herschel, a organist and choir director in Bath, peered through his hand-built telescope and discovered a new world. He was born in Hanover in 1738 and after serving a stint in the army as a member of a military band during the Seven Years War he moved to England to avoid further obligation. He was joined there by his sister Caroline (who was twelve years his junior), six years later. While she relieved some acclaim as a vocalist she was soon consumed by William's astronomical interests, becoming his assistant, grinding lenses, observing with him, and making sure he ate. She lamented that every room in the house had become a workshop. The two were making a survey of the sky when William noticed a disk llike shape in the constellation Gemini. At first it was thought to be a comet but after six months it could be determined that the orbit was circular---making it a planet. The orbit was calculated to be twice as far from the Sun as Saturn, doubling the size of the then known Solar System. Herschel's discovery caused a sensation and he was made a member of the Royal Society and awarded the prestigious Copley Medal. He was also given an annual subsidy of two hundred pounds by King George III. Caroline was recognized for her part with a annual subsidy of fifty pounds. This allowed him to quit his music teaching job and for them devote themselves full time to the celestial sphere. William was so pleased that he wanted to name the new planet after King George and it was not until 1850, after John Couch Adams first calculated the orbit of Neptune, was the name Uranus officially accepted. Like Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, Uranus is a gas giant---with a diameter four times the size of earth. It spins on its side with its equator nearly perpendicular to the orbital plane. This unusual orientation gives each pole a 42 year day followed by a 42 year night. It has fifteen known moons and a narrow ring system. The siblings continued to work together until William's death in 1822, after which Caroline moved back to Prussia and continued the work. Highly respected as an astronomer in her own right, she wrote A Catalogue of the Nebulae, discovered seventeen nebulae and many star clusters. She was the first woman to discover a comet and eventually found eight. She died at the ripe old age of 97. A crater on the Moon bears her name.
Sunday 12 March No entry yesterday because after I worked for probably an hour on it, the program crashed, taking my story with it. Disgusted, I went to bed---undoubtably a sign that nobody really wanted to read the drivel I had written anyway. Today was perfectly gorgeous, the kind of day that makes one glad to be alive. There were quite a few people out on Site enjoying it too, I'd say about twenty in all. The Fair is now less that four months away and although I can't claim that things are exactly heating up around here yet, there is certainly quite a bit more energy than there was a few weeks ago. Tonight was actually warm for March and I even heard the crickets chirping in the woods for a while. That is a sound I don't often pay much attention to, but it sure is sweet music after being absent for half a year or more.
Friday 10 March A couple of days have slipped by me so let me get caught up. Tuesday was a mechanicing kind of day as I tried starting the trucks, although Little Hank had a dead battery and Lobstra just wouldn't. Buck Morris was by to work on the tractor and I helped him disassemble the four wheel drive shaft in the Zenn Acres Barn where it now sits. Wednesday was a beautiful day, nobody around, and I did some maintenance and got Main Stage Meadow mowed. Thursday I went in to town to look for linoleum for the office, checked in there and did some minor chores, helped proofread the Guidelines, and went down to Center for Appropriate Transport to set up a time to design the new Gatorbike. Bucket had hitchhiked to the Site and was here when I arrived back. I instructed him in the Black Art of bicycle mutilation and we have another proud addition to the fleet. Today I basically goofed off with Bucket finishing the bike, then drove him into town. I stopped in and caught the very first day of MISSION TO MARS*** which was a little melodramatic at times but never the less very cool special effects and was a sort of feel good version of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.
Tuesday 7 March It is both Fat and Super Tuesday today although around here it was mostly just Cold Tuesday. Mardi Gras, also known as Shrove Tuesday, is the annual festival marking the final day before Lent, a 40-day period of self-denial. Mardi Gras then is the final chance for revelry and indulgence. The date of Mardi Gras is tied to Easter and therefore varies from year to year, but always falls between February 3rd and March 9th. The term Mardi Gras often refers a longer period of celebrations leading up to Mardi Gras Day. Carnivals are celebrated predominantly in Roman Catholic communities including the most famous ones in Nice, Cologne, Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. Residents of New Orleans have been celebrating Mardi Gras since the 18th century, which in the United States has become nearly synonymous with the celebrations held there. The city is decorated the city with streamers and flags of green, gold, and purple and the season begins on January 6 when king cakes are served during the feast of Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day. Traditionally, a king cake containing a small baby Jesus figurine served to the unmarried women attending a Mardi Gras banquet and whoever found the figurine was crowned queen of the festival. Today king cakes are popular with office workers and whoever finds the hidden treasure is obliged to buy the next day's cake. Parades through the streets of New Orleans begin twelve days before Mardi Gras. Floats are sponsored by secret organizations known as krewes, who combine imagery from classical Greek and Roman mythology with satirical references to contemporary events. During the parades costumed krewe members ride the floats and toss plastic beads and dubloons to the thronging crowds of spectators below. The traditional cry is "Throw me something, Mister" and looking as pathetic as possible---but there are also some other time honored methods that can get even better results. Some people also perch atop specially designed ladders in hopes of getting a better chance at the goods. The general atmosphere in the French Quarter is one of drunken abandon with costumed revelers roaming the streets 24 hours a day. Krewes hold elaborate balls following the parades, some private, some accepting paying guests. Mardi Gras attract 3 million tourists to New Orleans from around the world and generates approximately a billion dollars for the local economy.
Momday 6 March The sun was shining and with it several carloads of visitors to the Site. I generally putzed around today finishing to stretch bike but now that it is done I think I am going to stretch it out even more. On my way in to the Board Meeting I picked up a unicycle to add to the ever growing collection. The meeting was about the usual stuff, my proposal for a Site Stewardship Agreement passed so we will see how that works out. The Capital Projects budget passed with a rather lengthy discussion concerning Archeology. My request for a human powered vehicle was approved so I can begin working on that with the Center for Appropriate Transport. During the Fair it will take the place of one noisy Gator!
Sunday 5 March A cold day with Spring taking her time in arriving apparently, but the Sun is supposed to put in an appearance this week. The only thing blooming out so far are some dandelions, although there are a few daffodils that are thinking about it. The VegeManECs were out and we headed over to the ex Old Security Tower and removed the final piece of the puzzle, the honking big solar water heater, loaded it on the a trailer, and picked up the rest of the rotting dimensional lumber with a peach cart. We hauled the stuff over to Main Camp and I later shuffled it up here with the tractor. I plan on resurrecting the solar heater by replacing a glass panel and fabricating a steel base for it. I am going to build a palletized portable shower stall out of the surround that I removed from the Fair Office. Hook both units together during the Fair, run a hose to them and voilá---hot showers for some of the teeming unwashed hoards.
Saturday 4 March Things were pretty quiet for a Saturday, with all the rain last night even David Hoffman didn't make it out. Steve Simmons was the only visitor and he brought out a bunch of junk bikes from Paul's and BRING. We went to work on a "stretch limo" design after realizing that we didn't have everything needed for a triple tall trike that Steve wants to build. We worked all day and after Steve left I continued to putter around until well after nine, when with my hands were bloody and black with grease, and shivering from the cold, I realized it might be time to give it up for the night.
Friday 3 March On this day in 1871 Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act, which provided that "...hereafter, no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty..." This, in effect, put an end to the principle that Tribes were sovereign nations---although treaties made before 1871 supposedly remained in force until superseded by Congress. Tribes retained internal rights (such as self government, disiplinary actions, marragies, etc.), these rights trumping State laws but not Federal ones---but lost all rights to act externally (to negotiate with another country for example). General Philip Henry Sheridan was quick to issue orders forbidding western Indians to leave their reservations without the permission of civilian agents. Kansas City hide dealer J.N. Dubois flooded the plains with offers to buy any and all buffalo hides. The invention in Germany of a new tanning process which makes the tough hide of buffalo commercially usable had touched off "The Big Kill," in which approximently 3,700,000 buffalo were destroyed. All and all 1871 was yet another banner bad year for Native Americans, who were now forced by law to accept that they were no longer a free and independent people. Read a United States Commission on Civil Rights Memorandum on the Constitutional Status of American Indians for more information on this subject.
Thursday 2 March Once again I was in town, this time working with norma on a last minute proposal for a Guidelines change for the board packet. The idea is to ask for an agreement in writing (on a form which we will provide) that hay and straw be removed by July 31st---before allowing it in. I also did a minor amount of work on the bathroom which is a least functioning again and I can take a break from that for a few days so I can pay some attention to the Site. Hilary and I went and saw WONDER BOYS*** at the McDonald Theater and we found it quite funny at times. We also took in the newest Woody Allen movie on Monday at the Bijou, SWEET AND LOWDOWN**** which was a rich and bittersweet movie. I have always apprieciated Woody Allen's offbeat style but lately I feel that he has greatly matured as a director and become less of an egotist, by which I mean dominating the movie with his hapless, bumbling character.
Wednesday 1 March Another month and time to turn a virtual page in the old Journal. This one has some Spring in it---Yippie! The days are growing longer at a pace that continues to accelerate until the Equinox on the 20th, and the days are actually quite noticably longer than they were a month ago. Today I was back in the town office putting in a new wall mounted sink (I removed the vanity style sink yesterday). All was going well until I accidently punctured a water pipe with a screw while installing the mounting bracket. It was in a tight spot and fortunately Dennis Todd was there to help me get back on track. When I got back to the Fair Site this evening I heard the owls hooting for the first time this year, so they're back from where ever they were, and it will be really nice to have them around here now for company. I'm not missing my TV one tiny bit either, and I have been listening to the radio, reading, painting, going to the gym, even cooking some good food amazingly enough. So my very best advice to you is to kill your television too---you'll be so glad that you did.