Monday Meanderings - 7.31.2017

The clock is back. I posted previously about the Seth Thomas clock that has been in the family for more than 80 years. You know, the one that chimes every quarter-hour and strikes the hours. Loudly. You may recall that it had issues and while it could keep good time, it would just come to an abrupt halt every couple of days, even though it was supposed to be an "8-day clock".

I finally took it to a reputable repair service here in town and described the symptoms, and got three repair scenarios:
1. A thorough cleaning for a modest cost (their definition, not mine)
2. Some disassembly and refurbishing of the clock mechanism for a not-so-modest cost
3. A total disassembly with replacement bushings, springs, etc. for an outrageous cost

The deal was that they would do scenario 1 and then evaluate whether 2 was needed; if that didn't work, on to outrageous 3. When I checked with them after a couple of months, they said that after performing option 1, the clock was still stopping, but they wanted to "work with it" some more before moving on to 2. In a few weeks they called that the clock was ready, needing only 1 "minor" spring replaced.

Previously, I had the clock located back in my office. Surprisingly, when I brought it home, Barb suggested that we put it on a shelf in the living room - that she had sort of grown used to the chiming. So. the clock is now very much a part of our day, and reminds us every 15 minutes how quickly time flies.

There is one issue that remains: the clock faithfully strikes the the correct number of hours, every hour - except for 1 o'clock. Eleven distinct chimes at 11 o'clock; 12 strikes at 12 o'clock - but you never know how many you'll get at 1 o'clock. Sometimes 2, sometimes 4, but never the correct single chime. But hey! That just seems to fit right in with our family. You just never know how many chimes you are going to get, sometimes.

And you know how, when you are dangling your feet in the lake, or wading in shallow water at the beach, and something nibbles on your feet?

Stay cool, my friends. It's hawt out there.

Monday Meanderings - 7.24.2017

All 2 of my blog followers noticed that there was no Monday Meanderings last week. Just slipped my mind, which is not hard at my age. I read recently that memory loss has some contributing factors — such as inadequate education, obesity, hearing loss and smoking. I should point out that I don't smoke, so it's not all bad news.

From time to time Barb gets emails that are addressed to her, but are obviously meant for someone else. For example, she'll get a notice that her order has shipped - but it's on its way to someone else, and obviously something she didn't order.

At first we were concerned that it was somehow wrapped up in identity theft, but that proved to not be the case. After the 2nd or 3rd incident It became fairly obvious that some other person - whose first name is also Barbara - simply enters an incorrect email address from time-to-time.

Google swears that it is impossible for two people to have the same Gmail account, and that if one is getting mail intended for someone else it is because someone has written an account down wrong. At least that's their story.

And we were okay with that until we got an email notice from the County Clerk in Fort Walton Beach Florida that Barbara was scheduled to show up at the Courthouse for jury duty - and she better show up and not be late!

I'm told that Fort Walton Beach is a pretty place, and Barb does like the beach. I wonder if she'll have a view of the ocean from her jail cell?

Almost every parent, and teacher of small children, has encountered "rocks in the ear." If not rocks, some other small object, such as a bean, inevitably gets lodged in the ears of small children and necessitates a trip to the ER to get it extracted. It's a rite of passage for the very young. And their parents.

So, I was a bit taken aback when another member of this household - who shall remain nameless - came in late the other evening and said, "Would you look in my ear and see if the little rubber dome from my hearing aid is lodged there?" The fact that it was a part from a hearing aid should tell you that we were dealing with someone, uh, well, mature. No adolescent behavior involved.

Did you know that the reason a trip to the ER is necessary is because it is extremely difficult to see very far into another's ear canal without that special little light gizmo with the pointy cap that the doctor sticks in you ear when you have a checkup? And even if you can shine a light in said ear, it's really, really difficult to do that and probe with some non-sharp (and therefore pretty useless) instrument?

Since the unnamed other member of this household was not in distress and great discomfort (it is a very soft and very small little object, after all) we decided we could postpone a visit to an urgent care facility until the morning, and said unnamed household member went off to prepare for bed.

I was shaking my head in disbelief at the circumstance, wondering how that little part came off in the first place, since it is normally a real chore to get them off for cleaning, when the unnamed household member gave a great shout of joy and returned with the missing dome in hand! It had come off, but did not lodge in the ear; rather it rolled into the farthest out-of-reach, out-of-sight corner imaginable.

And great was the rejoicing when the lost dome was found.

Monday Meanderings - 7.10.2017

You may recall that I have - for more than 50 years - provided sound and audio services for weddings. My daughter keeps telling me that I should write a book about my experiences. And I might. If I do, my most recent wedding will have a chapter all its own. My first (and perhaps my last) Rwandan wedding.

Some background. The congregation that Barb and I attend ministers to a large contingent of African refugees. Some are from the Congo, some from Ghana, some from Zaire, and a good-sized group from Rwanda. When you walk through the church foyer you will hear groups speaking French, Swahili and a variety of other dialects.

So a couple of our Rwandan members decided to get married and the ceremony was to be a mixture of traditional USA and traditional Rwandan. However, I soon found out that the USA traditions were minimal and this wedding was going to mostly reflect an entirely different culture.

Two dominant aspects of traditional Rwandan culture seem to be a lack of urgency, coupled with a concept called "African Time." The lack of urgency can best be exemplified by my two-week struggle to get my hands on the music to be played in the wedding.

The second tradition was explained as "The wedding is at 3:30. We told most people it was at 3:00. Some people we told it was 2:00. African time, don't you know?" By the way, the wedding actually started at 4:15 (and people kept coming throughout the entire ceremony).

There was to be no rehearsal, so I met with RJ, the groom-to-be, on Friday afternoon to discuss the 4 songs that he (finally) sent me, and the order in which they would be played.

RJ: "The first two songs are for when we come in."

Me: "Uh, there's 12 minutes of music here. It won't take you that long for everybody to get down there"

RJ: "You can start them over."

Me: "Both of them?"

RJ:"Yeah. And that last song there, that's for when we come back."

Me: "Ahh, the recessional. Got it. What about the third one?"

RJ:"Play that when nothing is happening in the wedding. You choose."

Me: "Uhhhhh."

RJ:"Did I tell you my brother is going to play the guitar?"

Me: "No. When?"

RJ:  "I don't know. When he gets up you will know it's time for him."

Me: "Right. Okay, I think we're done here."

Silly me. It did take most of 12 minutes to get everybody down the aisle.  Especially the guys. I'm not sure but what they were taking mini-naps after each step. It was a long, slow process. The ladies sailed right on down. Maybe it represented the male culture of fear of commitment and the female anxiety to get married. I don't know.

The next cultural difference was a series of questions the minister asked the families (in Swahili, no less - I was proud of our minister; the audience was rolling in the aisles). Basically, the questions asked if the groom and bride had fulfilled their obligations to each family. Evidently they had. Everybody sat down.

Another notable difference was that at a certain point during the wedding, those attending were expected to bring a gift to the bride and groom. We reached that point, and I played the song for "when nothing is happening in the wedding." But nothing happened. Not one person brought a gift. Awkward.

Then a guy in the audience hustled back to one of our ministers and said, "Do you have a basket?" We did, and the guy carried it down to the groom, and immediately people began bringing gifts. Evidently one does not just hand the gift over directly.

And one last cultural difference. Here's a clip of some of the attendants during the recessional.

Monday Meanderings - 7.3.2017

Happy 4th of July eve. Fireworks started early in our neighborhood. Lock up your dogs and small furry animals.

The venerable institution known as the Texas Boy's State held their annual gathering here recently. I have posted before about my own experiences while attending Boy's State, but if you missed those, Boy's State is a week-long gathering of junior-year high school students  who live in "cities" and nominate, campaign and elect officials and delegates to a legislative body that passes meaningless laws and resolutions. You know, sort of like real life.

It should not surprise you - given the current political climate - that this years delegates passed "legislation" for Texas to secede from the Union. The sponsoring body - the American Legion - was not pleased.

The growing season is in full swing at our house. Time to make some salsa.

And speaking of hot sauce... A local woman has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after attacking another woman with a hot sauce bottle following a karaoke performance, according to a report by CBS Austin.

Austin police responded to a call concerning an altercation between two women who sing karaoke at a local bar every week. According to the report, 52-year-old Elsa Martin Garcia began to yell at a second woman, who had just finished singing, about the woman’s performance.

Then the situation, which the station reports was caught on a cell phone video, escalated to the point that Garcia hit the woman in the head a “glass bottle of hot sauce.” According to the station, police found a broken hot sauce bottle on a table and said the victim had lacerations on her face.

Talk about your music critic!

 And in a somewhat related story, an Austin man is accused of stealing beers and throwing them at the store clerk who tried to stop him.

A man who police identified as 47-year-old Douglas Wright Jr. was heading out the door of the Wells Grocery bodega with a stolen 12-pack of Dos Equis when the store clerk jumped over the counter and tried to stop him from leaving, an arrest affidavit said.

A shoving match broke out between the two before Wright punched the clerk in the face several times, the affidavit said. The clerk retreated toward the back of the store, he told police, but Wright then hurled several cans of the stolen beer at him.

Wright told police officers he stole the beer because he was “out of money,” had repeatedly stolen beer from the store in the past and admitted to punching and throwing beers at the store owner.

Take your pick. Can of beer or bottle of salsa. It's a tough town.

The Larkin Bramblett who IS related - Stories from the Tree

The last two "Stories from the Tree" told the sad tale of Larkin Bramlet, who, in an alcohol-induced snit, shot and killed his friend and fellow mill operator. Justice prevailed, however, and Larkin was publicly hanged for his crime in Cherokee County, Alabama in 1854. I pointed out that this particular Larkin Bramlet was not directly related to the immediate family, and was rather merely kin to someone who was kin to someone who was kin to a distant relative.

However, there is another Larkin Bramblett in the family, and he is directly related. Thomas Larkin Bramblett, my second great grandfather, was born in Laurens District, South Carolina about 1803, and departed this life in the same county precisely at sundown on 7 June 1838. We know the exact date and time, because he was allegedly murdered by his neighbor, Hiram Holcombe, and there is a record of the Coroner's Inquisition concerning the circumstances of his death.

The actual document is lengthy and shot through (um, poor choice of words) with legal mumbo jumbo, so here's a somewhat abridged and spell-checked version:

"Laurens District - An inquisition taken at the House of Newton Bramblett [Larkin's father] the 8th day of June in the year 1838 upon view of the body of Larkin Bramblett, late of the said District then and there lying dead.

"Good and lawful men of the said District, who being charged and sworn to inquire for the state when, where, how and after what manner the said Larkin Bramblett came to his death, do say upon their oaths that Hiram Holcombe of the state and District aforesaid on yesterday evening the 7th Inst. between sundown & dark did feloniously, voluntarily and of his own malice aforethought with a certain shot gun shoot and wound the said Larkin Bramblett in the breast, neck and head of which said mortal wounds the aforesaid Larkin Bramblett then and there instantly died and so the said Hiram Holcombe then and there feloniously killed and murdered the said Larkin Bramblett against the peace of this state.

"Spilsby C. Brown was sworn and on his oath says that yesterday evening, the 7th June 1838, Larkin Bramblett, the deceased, came to this deponent and requested him to go and help him get some hogs out of his field; that he went and found a number of hogs in the field and that they run or drove out some ten or twelve head. They caught one, the last they saw, near Hiram Holcombe's fence, which is a dividing fence between the said Holcombe and Bramblett, and that they dragged the hog to the fence near the corner of the field in the low grounds of the creek where the bushes and briars are very thick outside of the field.

"They laid down a few rails for the purpose of putting the hog into Hiram Holcombe's corn field; just as they raised up with the hog, Larkin Bramblett having hold of the head and this deponent of the hinder part of the hog, a gun was fired near to them and in front of where Bramblett stood, who fell back with a groan and never spoke. This deponent spoke and said, "In the name of God who had done this?" and cast his eyes in the direction of where the report of the gun came from and saw the smoke rising but saw no person, the bushes being quite thick in that direction.

He stepped a few steps around the corner of the field and saw Hiram Holcombe standing near a tree in the act of loading his gun in great haste. He says it was between sundown and dusk but entirely light enough for him to see distinctly that it was Hiram Holcombe, whom he has lived near all of his life and is well acquainted with, and that he could not be mistaken in the man.

This deponent, believing that Holcombe was loading his gun to shoot him also, ran off as fast as he could and never spoke to Holcombe nor Holcombe to him. He says it was about fifteen steps from where he and the deceased were standing to where he saw the smoke rise but that Holcombe, when he saw him, was some ten or twelve steps further off. He also says that it was Hiram Holcombe's hogs that were in Larkin Bramblett's field and which they were putting out. The deponent has no hesitation in saying that it was Hiram Holcombe of Laurens District in the State of South Carolina who shot the gun which killed Larkin Bramblett."

Unlike non-relative Larkin Bramlet's story, there was no big city newspaper to record what happened next, or at least I have been unable to find any further proceedings. The best I can come up with is a FindAGrave memorial that states a Hiram Holcombe was born in Laurens District about 1794,  died on April 24, 1842 and was buried in the Holcombe Family Cemetery in Laurens. That's 5 years after Larkin's death and I doubt that the wheels of justice turned that slowly.

So for now, at least, there is no rest of the story. I can only conclude that perhaps it is bad luck to be named Larkin if you are a Bramblett, and that if your neighbor's hogs get in your corn, you might check first to see if he wants them back.