My wife and I are both good swimmers.  She was a lifeguard at the pool at the army
base where I was stationed when I met her.
Later, she took the Red Cross life guard course with me,
just to keep me company while I became certified.  She then went on to become a water safety
instructor . . . someone that taught wannabe’s like me how to become
lifeguards.  She still leaves me behind
when it comes to swimming.
Tonight I grilled steaks and after the meal she decided the
steak had too many calories so she stripped her clothes off and jumped in the
pool to swim naked laps and burn off the calories.
I poured myself a drink and sat by the pool and watched her
swim and plotted how I might put even more calories into tomorrow nights meal.
So you think I love to cook just for the hell of it?  

The Ten Commandments:

Letters pro and con about the display of the Ten Commandments in public
places have been published in our paper lately.  I haven't sent
one in yet.  I wanted to give it some serious thought before I
did.  Here's what I came up with and my current stance.  It
boils down to one of my basic philosophies of life:  Give people
what they ask for and more . . . they often find they don't really want
it.

Dear Editor,

I’ve been giving a lot of consideration to the issue of the
Ten Commandments being placed in and around courthouses and I’ve come to the
decision that I really don’t care.  I
don’t care if so many statues and monuments get placed on the court house lawn
that it looks like the display lot of a yard ornament company; including lawn
jockeys.  You see, I’m not a lawyer or a
judge and I don’t break laws so I don’t go to court.  And if it gets visibly tacky from the road I
can always avert my eyes.   So I don’t
care. I can’t see what either side hopes to accomplish by this struggle.  But it does seem to me that the energies on
both sides of the argument could be better spent on things that really do
matter.

If evangelical Christians and other proponents think having
a monument of the Ten Commandments on a courthouse or statehouse lawn will
convert one person running into the building to pay a traffic ticket or cause one
crooked politician to mend his ways, they are sadly mistaken.  Not one soul will be saved or the suffering
of one human being eased by this.

People should be careful what they wish for because they
often get it.  If monuments of the Ten
Commandments are allowed in these areas then similar things from other
religions will certainly be allowed.  For
while allowing a Christian symbol in these instances (in my opinion) does not
establish a national religion, allowing Christian symbols but disallowing those
of other faiths is certainly evidence of establishing a national religion.   There will undoubtedly be a fat Buddha and
monuments with words from Hindu Holy texts on each side of the Ten Commandments.  It seems to me this would dilute the hoped
for impact of the display of the Ten Commandments, but that’s just me.  And remember, I don’t care.

In a way, I think allowing the display of the Ten
Commandments would be a good thing because then we’ll see if the proponents of
this are really just pursuing their right of free speech or if they’re really
trying to establish on official religion. 
If they accept the presence of a monument with quotations from the
Supreme Personality of the Godhead  Shri Gauranga
(the Hare Krishna faith) to sit beside their monument on the courthouse lawn,
and compete for attention, then the country will see that their motivations are
true.  If not, the country will see
otherwise.

For the above reasons I don’t understand why this fight is
worth so much effort for those opposed to the display of the Ten Commandments,
Buddha statues, the Star of David, etc in these locations.  No one will be harmed, but many will be
enlightened.

Last Tree Post . . . I Swear:

There’s a lot of shade at Bobville that used to not be.  This is a photograph of an area that was
poorly drained and hard to mow during all but the driest of the summer weeks:

A drain tile and some strategically placed river birches
later and now its fine . . . we call this area the park.  The Angel Wing seat is kind of a memorial for
Deb’s dad.  The grass in this area is
fine and easy on bare feet.  But I never
planted it.

It’s the same with a group of walnut trees that I planted in
a low area.  The grass there is as fine
as any you’d find on a golf course.  But
I never planted it.  I mow it, but other
than that I never did a damn thing to promote this soft grass that invites you
to walk on it or lay down in the shade or the sun (it only depends on where you
choose to flop).

I guess my point is that if not harmed too badly or even
given just a little support, nature does things that we don’t have the time,
energy or imagination to do.

Speaking of lack of imagination, if you look
closely you'll see that the trees generally line up in straight lines,
the result of the tired arms of a non-imaginative man just trying to
get the trees in the ground.  Nature tends to pretty that up as well.

The Impotent Indiana
Sky:

We’re in a drought here in Indiana. 
For the past week the sky has been dark, ominous and threatening.  But it hasn’t done shit.

While working on photographs tonight I had to take a leak
and decided to do it outside rather than in the bathroom just feet away.  Once again the impotent dark clouds over the
farm barked and thundered and I shook my dick at them and cursed and urged them
to fucking do something . . . drop some rain . . . hit me with a thunderbolt .
. . whatever.

The skies didn’t do shit. 
I think that’s what I accomplished too while working on my art tonight
in the basement.

The Last Tree Post:
There aren't many old growth trees in Indiana . . . most of the state
has been cleared for farming or logged at one time or another. 
Most of the older trees on our farm are around 100 years or so. 
But we do have an Eastern White Oak that's likely 200 years old or
so.  I love touching that tree and I love to sit propped against
its trunk and look at the woods and think and dream.   And I
wonder how many other "owners" of this land and tree sat or walked
beneath its branches.  I find remnants of other itinerants when I
walk the farm, anything from rusted automobile and tractor parts to
pieces of antique glass, an old  ivory button . . . an
arrowhead.  These artifacts and this old oak tree put me in
perspective and keep me humble.  I've never considered myself the
owner of this farm, only the caretaker for a very brief period of
time.  Yes, I've used the trees:  I walk on ash and cherry
floors and I write at a walnut desk made from wood taken from trees of
our woods.  And I've planted and nurtured trees.  To
paraphrase and borrow from Bob Segar, "I used them and they used me and
neither one cared."  But both parties really do care.  I
watch closely and try to take care of them, each one, whether it's
nurturing a sapling or chain sawing vines that are choking an older tree
. . . and they watch out for me, providing shade to nap under and nuts
and fruit and beauty and sometimes floors to walk on or to frame a room
in the basement.  I took several trees this past winter for more
flooring and they were kind enough not to fall on me.  And in
return I've sweat in the summer sun nurturing new trees.  It's a love
affair . . . but don't tell my wife.
My latest mistress is this American Chestnut sapling:

The American Chestnut used to be the dominant tree in the US forests
but the chestnut blight and our short-sighted harvesting of it removed
it from the landscape.  A few survive, and the parent of this
sapling was taken from Deb's grandparents home.  Last year this
tree strained and produced several chestnuts.  I planted
three.  Two didn't make it and the parent tree died.  But I'm
nurturing this baby and I've got more chestnuts in the fridge that I'll
plant this fall.  The trees and I both have important stuff to do
over the next few years.  And if I'm lucky . . . no one will own
them in the future . . . they'll just be the new caretakers.

Thatliberalmedia left a link on the prior post.  It's a link to a
post that raises caution about allowing equal marriage rights for
gays.  I think anyone that supports gay marriage should read
it.  Its lengthy.  But if you believe in gay marriage rights
you really need to know the arguments against it and this is one of the
slicker arguments I've read.  It's not too slick really, but it
will pass in many circles.
Here's my response:
Thanks for the link with a differing opinion about gay marriage. The
post was well written. This person is a master at taking completely
unrelated issues and making them sound like they support their
position. Really, how does congress failing to put a 10% limit on
income tax have anything to do with gay marriage? I learned to pick up
on these kind of arguments in logic 101 in college . . . but based on
the responses to the post, many haven't learned this lesson, or want to
ignore it to support their predjudice. Rather than address each of the
authors points I will just say this: We don't have to rely on
speculation. We're not breaking new ground here. Gay marriage has been
legal in Denmark for nearly 16 years. There has been no disintigration
of traditional marriage. Gay marriages mirror their straight
counterparts in every way but one . . . they have a lower divorce rate.
I
believe that a generation from now, two at the most, the citizens of
this country will look back on this issue just like we look at blacks
being unable to drink from the same water fountain as whites: "How
could they have been so blind? How could they have thought that was
right?"

I grew up, was baptized, confirmed and served on the church
council in a United Church of Christ denomination church.  My wife and both of my daughters were
baptized in that same church.  It was a
comfortable church.  It was a
congregation that tried to figure out what God wanted us to do to the best of
our ability and never tried to strong-arm those that believed differently.  We openly and frankly discussed and debated
what certain passages in the Bible truly meant and acknowledged perceived
contradictions during Bible study.

When we left Evansville
I never found another church that I was really comfortable in.

On Monday, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ
passed a resolution in support of same sex marriage.  Until I did some reading on this event I
never realized that the UCC is a leader in this type of thing.  They were the first church to ordain an
openly gay minister.  They were also the
first to ordain an African-American and the first to ordain a woman.

Former UN Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young who is
also a UCC minister had this to say:

"It
would be consistent with our historic spirit of fairness and justice,"
Young said. "But it would also be consistent with the spirit of grace and
mercy as the path to peace and that you judge not that you not be judged."

Amen Brother!  I
thought maybe St. Mathew’s was just an anomaly in their tolerance and non-judgment
of others.  It looks like it starts from
the top down though.

I’m proud of my old denomination.  God bless them.  In this time of ever decreasing tolerance of
those that are different from us I think this took courage.  It will certainly carry weight in arguments
about constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.  Despite verbiage to the contrary, those
always boil down to “The Bible says it’s a sin.”  Here’s a large denomination saying otherwise.

I now wonder if I got my tendency toward rocking the boat in
church!  You go UCC!

Trees continued:
When you plant a few hundred trees in a spring and have a goal to plant
at least 50 during a day of work on the project, you're not
landscaping, you're just getting the bare root trees into the ground
and the result isn't pretty, like this cluster of swamp white oak and
bald cypress in a low area of our farm. But eventually it turns into a woods and is pretty.

Sometimes you spend more time in hope that the result will be pretty sooner.

The tree on the left is a weeping willow.  Granted, it's not a
slow growing long lived tree . . . but sometimes you've just got to
make concessions to beauty.  The tree on the right is a bald
cyprus, one of my favorite species.  These grow huge in the swamps
of the south, where I fell in love with them and I was tickled to death
to learn that they grow well in my part of Indiana.  The pond
hadn't filled when I planted the tree and I wanted it to be at the
waterline so it would develop knees, part of roots which protude above
the soil or waterline.  It worked:

'nother knee

The final picture is of Buddha getting a drink of water from the pond
beneath the willow tree.  He's always nervous when drinking from
the pond because sometimes frogs jump or minnows dart and scare
him.  Hey, he's not a sissy dog, we've got some mean looking
flourescent green-headed frogs in the pond.  I'm lying: He's a
sissy.

WARNING: Potentially sleep inducing entry.

The Princness Diaries commented that she'd like to see some photographs of the trees I've planted which I'd mentioned on a recent blog. 
It just so happened that I had a new camera lens that I needed to test
so I decided to use the lens and see if I could take some interesting
photos of trees.  I had to throw in some pictures of flowers and
mini-outhouses etc. to try and make the series interesting . . .
marginally.  Anyway, I'm going to post the photos over the next
several entries and try to find some way to be witty about it all.

We started calling this place Bobville before we moved here.  Deb
got me this sign for father's day right before we moved.  Speaking
of "Population 4", today Deb is in Evansville tag-teaming  with my
Mom to get her label quilt
finished in time to enter the 4H fair, my oldest is in Montana (but
coming home in two days) and my youngest is at a friends birthday
party.  I didn't get married and have two children to dine alone
at home, but that's what I did tonight.  Sigh . . . a preview of
things to come?  I didn't like it.
Those are Eastern White Oaks in the background that line our
driveway.  Like most of the trees I've planted here, they were
just 12 inch or so bare-root stems when I put them in the ground. 
Now I can climb a couple of them.  Either these notoriously slow
growing trees are growing fast or I'm getting older.  Man, those
trees are growing fast!

The orchard is in the background to the left of the barn.
Deb and I have looked at building on this empty soybean field like we
were painting a picture on an empty canvas.  It's been a labor of
love.  But sometimes you see your painting through a window as you
eat alone.  Trees and kids get bigger.

O.K. The pictures and the narrative get better . . . I swear.

My Best Baseball Game Ever:

In my day I was a pretty good baseball player . . . a
catcher.  I used to think that perhaps
the day I took a throw from center field and tagged a runner out at home, or
maybe the day I learned that if a pitcher threw from a windup instead of a
stretch after I’d made it to third base, that I could steal home (I did that a
few more times after I learned that), were my best days as a baseball player.  Not even close.

As the sun waned today my 16 year old daughter and I
played wiffle ball in the front yard.  I’m
pretty sure I won . . . she’s the one that had to climb onto the roof to get
one of my hits.  As I watched this
beautiful child pitch to me while we laughed in the setting Indiana sun . . . I realized I’d already won
and played my best game ever.  A game I’ll
remember long after those memories of stealing home from third base have faded.