Hollyhocks

Pink Hollyhocks

 The pink hollyhock was the last to bloom this summer. I liked it because I could see all of the tiny veins. And it has a wrinkled appearance instead of each petal being smooth like silk.

Yellow Hollyhocks

There were a lot of hollyhocks this summer and that was the only kind of flower that came up from its seed. These were all pink.

You can participate in the September 1, 2013 theme something pink  link your post on September 1 to the CDP theme day page.

Learning to carve stone

One of the things I used to do a lot of that I don't do anymore is stone carving. This is one example of that stuck into the bricks at the entrance to my office. It is easier to carve straight lines in granite and marble than it is to carve curved lines in black slate or soft stone like sandstone (At least I thought it was). Anyway, in 1981 while the bricklayer was laying up the bricks I showed this carving to him and he suggested he fix an opening for it and that's how it got there in the brick wall. I also carved names on some of my dog's tombstones. Anyway, that's an example. If you die while taking a walk, and are interested in being taken home—wear dog tags.

Spittoons

Spittoons
© By Abe Lincoln
 
The tiny building set along the Dayton, Greenville and Union City railroad line. It was built as a ticket and baggage office shortly after the railroad came to town. The small office was no longer used by the railroad and was sold to George Myers. It was his Gordon Coal Office. My mom didn't like the place because my dad went there, and she said it was "A place where old men loafed and told dirty stories."

When I was a little boy, I used to go there and listen to the men tell stories about some “loose” ladies in town—they didn't seem dirty to me. I didn’t know what the stories meant, but I laughed like I knew.

Old wooden chairs lined up against the office wall and beside each was a tobacco spittoon. Some spittoons were once brass, that shined, but now most were a brownish black where the tobacco juices and spittle had dried. My dad chewed and spit Mail Pouch tobacco juice.

I was careful not to bump those spittoons because they were almost always full and I didn't want to clean the stuff up if it slopped over the edge onto the oiled floor.
Almost everyone chewed tobacco in those days and very few used regular store-bought cigarettes.

He smoked Bull Duram tobacco that came in a little bag with a drawstring. His wife, Esta, used a cigarette rolling machine to make cigarettes for him. It was her job before she fixed his breakfast. She put a clean piece of tobacco rolling paper on the little machine and poured a little tobacco from the sack onto the paper, and pushed the handle over and it rolled one cigarette that looked like one bought at a store.
 
Esta Flory, my neighbor lady, rolled cigarettes for her husband, Ira, a retired tinner—he made tin roofs and installed them. One day he fell off of a roof and never worked a day after that. He was the first man I ever saw who smoked cigarettes.
 
The end of Ira's nose was yellowish-brown from smoke and his fingers were stained yellowish-brown too. Mom said the long hairs growing on top of his nose came from him smoking so much. They were long hairs and when I was little, I couldn't keep from looking at them. 

Most spittoons in public places, like movie theaters, were made out of brass and they were kept shinned-up like gold. Spittoons were everywhere—not just where men loafed—they were in the grocery stores, the post office, banks and in the butcher shop. 

My dad never owned a regular spittoon. He used old coffee cans until they got to looking so bad that my mother who throw them out. Then he would have to go to the door to spit—that didn't last long.

He would use one of mother's glass Mason canning jars to spit in—that made mom mad. That looked worse because you could see, and evaluate the tone of the juices in the jar. So mom would get him a new can—anything you couldn't see through for him to use and she would grunt and cuss, under her breath while trying to clean out the canning jar.

When I first went to work at NCR, in Dayton, Ohio, they provided brass spittoons for any employee who chewed tobacco. NCR had crews who pushed carts filled with clean spittoons. They picked up spittoons that were filled with slop and left a clean one that shined like gold.
 
After my parents were divorced, before I started to school in the first grade, my mother became interested in someone; she said he was like Jesus.
 
She told me that you could always tell a carpenter from anybody else because they always had some fingers sawed off. He was missing two or three fingers on his right hand. He didn't loaf much. So he was like Jesus.
 
He was married to a fat lady who smoked Kool cigarettes and chewed tobacco—the slobbers ran out the corner of her mouth. She wasn't like anybody else I knew.

I told mom about her bad habits and she told me to mind my own business.
 

© 2005 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.

Welcome Park

Welcome Park— The sign you see when you come into Brookville, Ohio off of Interstate 70 and/or Arlington Road.

The Vintage Brookville Lawn

The Vintage Brookville Lawn—
Lawns, power mowers, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides are big business. Large corporations have a vested interest in maintaining the ideas that created new industries and made stockholders wealthy. Snow blowers, garden tractors and tillers produce income in seasons when grass is not being cut.

A few years ago we bagged grass clippings because we were told, by the "Lawn Experts" that it was the proper thing to do. Some old timers knew better but went along with the experts. Then the experts changed their advice when confronted with dumps filled with grass clippings.

When the city and county land fills got full of vegetation, they said, "No more grass." City officials were warned that the cost of dumping city trash would increase dramatically if any bags of grass were in the dumpsters. That threat eliminated the practice of bagging grass clippings for the trash men to haul off to the dumps.


Almost overnight, power mowers were introduced that chomped and ground and re-cut the grass until it was just about invisible. They were called "Mulching Mowers."After that cost of living in Brookville theme simmered down, the city got the idea of selling very large paper bags the citizens could buy to put their yard/lawn wastes in and set it out or take it to the city garage and put it in one of their large trailers yourself. As far as I know that is still the policy.

We bought a new mulching mower that had no chute for the grass to exit. The mower blade was bent and twisted in such a way that it was supposed to keep the grass cuttings in the air to be repeatedly cut by the ugly looking blade until there wasn't anything left to cut.

But after several years, the virtues of buying paper bags and setting them out only to see them go into the same dumpsters at the city garage dulled the virtues of cleaning up our dumps and buying paper bags to do it. The yard debris and small trashy limbs and stuff have been bagged in black plastic and set out on trash day to be picked up.

These were sold and still are sold to anybody buying a new mower. And suddenly, the experts who once told us that grass clippings were bad for lawns now said it was OK to leave them on the ground. They also said that they did not produce thatch buildup which was something we all knew but trusted them to know better.

The pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers have destroyed most ground bacteria. And that has made finding a night crawler next to impossible except at bait stores.

Interesting reading and photographs from the period—
Restoring American Gardens An encyclopedia of heirloom ornamental plants 1640 - 1940

Eating Pig's Feet

Pig's Feet
We never had a whole hog to eat but we did eat all of what we got. We ate their skin that was cut into small squares and put into a press and cooked and became a cake of cracklins. The grease that came from the skin was the lard everyone used to cook with. Nowadays the lard cannot be sold and is thrown away but the cracklins are worth about $4.00 a pound. Mom loved pig's feet and got them when she could. She also liked pickled pig's feet. Of course we ate the pig's intestines because they were packed with sausage. The jowl meat was and is delicious as is the side meat when sliced like bacon.

Chicken's Feet
We ate their feet, necks and the back. Mother said we ate "the part that was last over the fence." We also ate their gizzards, hearts and livers. Mother even sucked what meat there was off their heads and those feet with toenails. I never could eat the heads and feet but learned to eat everything else.

Grease Sandwiches
Oh boy. Mother fried fresh bacon in an iron skillet on the old cook stove. She always saved the grease to use in preparing other dishes. After the grease was poured out of the skillet the residue left over became the main ingredient in a "grease sandwich." She took a couple of slices of bread and used it to wipe out the skillet. The stuff in the skillet came off on the bread and that, plus fresh green onions, was the best sandwich I can ever remember eating.

Cold grease sandwiches were much like eating pure lard that looked to be riddled with dirt or scraps of something. The scraps of something were bits and pieces of burned bacon. Gosh it was good eating.

Warnke Covered Bridge

The Warnke covered bridge is located closer to us than any of the others. We drive out of our way to cross it. It is in good condition and is still used by traffic on a daily basis. I have been taking pictures of it for many years and some of the kids grew up having their picture taken in front of this bridge.

Christman Covered Bridge

The Christman covered bridge is similar to the Warnke covered bridge that is considerably closer to us than the Christman. We still have about a dozen covered bridges in our area of the state of Ohio.

Dreams

When I went to bed last night, Memphis, Tennessee was the farthest thing from my mind. After pulling the covers up around my neck and beginning the first coughing fit, the down-filled comforter was not comforting but rather hot–as in heat hot.

I got up, used the big green monster we thought was such a neat color in 1962, and fumbled around in the dark looking for a cough drop. The selection was awesome–Halls more like candy; or, something stuck to a wrapper I had to bite through, to get open. It took both to stop the cough and one or the other made me realize this was the NCAA playoff–Memphis against Kansas.

So I sat in the recliner and dozed through the first half of this important basketball game and went back to bed when Memphis was behind.


I had a dream last night. Maybe it was the cough drops. I dreamed the most beautiful dream. I was a fabulous person and a professional photographer and people swooned at the sight of me with my camera.

Everywhere I went dogs and kids followed me around and when I stopped they posed. I could turn, point my beautiful camera and shoot and the photos were instantly snapped- up by Time Magazine, People Magazine and the UK’s very own Daily Mail and Daily Mirror.

Rich ladies, whose garages were filled with Bentleys and Lamborghinis, had agents steal me off the street, with my camera, and set me up in mansions to make pictures of their daughters.

I walked into kitchens and saw young ladies, with toast in one hand and a glass of milk in the other and I pointed my beautiful camera and pressed the shutter and out came glamour magazine shots of models wearing jaunty hats with wide yellow ribbons; and pouting lips with Mona Lisa smile. In one hand a $10,000.00 bill and in the other a contract edged in gold.

Memphis lost.

Eating Pig's Feet

Grease Sandwiches
Oh boy. Mother fried fresh bacon in an iron skillet on the old cook stove. She always saved the grease to use in preparing other dishes. After the grease was poured out of the skillet the residue left over became the main ingredient in a "grease sandwich." She took a couple of slices of bread and used it to wipe out the skillet. The stuff in the skillet came off on the bread and that, plus fresh green onions, was the best sandwich I can ever remember eating.

Cold grease sandwiches were much like eating pure lard that looked to be riddled with dirt or scraps of something. The scraps of something were bits and pieces of burned bacon. Gosh it was good eating.

Chicken's Feet
We ate their feet, necks and the back. Mother said we ate "the part that was last over the fence." We also ate their gizzards, hearts and livers. Mother even sucked what meat there was off their heads and those feet with toenails. I never could eat the heads and feet but learned to eat everything else.


Pig's Feet
We never had a whole hog to eat but we did eat all of what we got. We ate their skin that was cut into small squares and put into a press and cooked and became a cake of cracklins. The grease that came from the skin was the lard everyone used to cook with. Nowadays the lard cannot be sold and is thrown away but the cracklins are worth about $4.00 a pound. Mom loved pig's feet and got them when she could. She also liked pickled pig's feet. Of course we ate the pig's intestines because they were packed with sausage. The jowl meat was and is delicious as is the side meat when sliced like bacon.

Snow Screwers

Maybe I'll get to use my Toro Snow Blower—which, by the way—doesn't "BLOW" snow. You can't even "BLOW" snow with a leaf BLOWER (I tried). The flakes just laid there and looked at me as if to say, 'WTF you trying to do, idiot—do I really look like a leaf?'

The words, "SNOW-BLOWER" on a "SNOW-THROWER" is an advertising mystery. I am flabergasted that the company has not been sued for a million dollars? Actually, to be "HONEST-ABE" about it, my snow blower isn't really a snow blower or even a SNOW-THROWER, as implied above.


My machine is really a "SNOW-FLIPPER." There are a series of blades that turn-round and "flip" the snow up a chute so hard that the snow flies 30 to 40 feet in a large arc before landing on the neighbor's driveway. My machine is really a "SNOW FLIPPER," but you'll never find those two words anywhere on my machine. Think about it. "Snow flipper"

If "SNOW-BLOWER" isn't bad enough, my neighbor has a "SNOW-SCREWER." He really does. He can 'SCREW' the snow off his driveway but I can't BLOW it off mine. His machine doesn't have any fancy label on it saying it is a "SNOW SCREWER" but it could and it would be more accurate than "snow blower."

To be an perfectly honest about this: There are three known snow removal machines on my block.

#1) Some are SNOW-FLIPPERS
#2) Some are SNOW-SCREWERS
#3) Some are SNOW-THROWERS*

*A SNOW-THROWER is a FLIPPER in drag.

Time Forgotten

Around the bend and far away, the sound of tapping made my day. I knew what it meant and where it was but I had no idea time was what it was. There was a sound. Men wrenched as if in pain. They had seen people who screamed before, and while it was not a pretty sight, it was, the way of forgotten time. Stone pierce flesh and stick in bones and shreiks of misery wafts over the forest still. Sounds, like morning smoke glides over the canopy. Animals shift ears this way and that.


A horrific yell as someone runs away, bloody hairless, and dying. A yip another yip then silence. Long red hair waved from a dirty fist. Slobbers run off a lip. Teeth, yellowed, sprout bits of meat from a rabbit's back — breakfast. A big grin. Forgotten this time was not. A hunter found a body, scalped and all, whose hair had been red and put up with a bow. Now askew and splattered with rain and blood and a face gnawed on by wolves, no doubt.

Packs of wolves patrol the night and smell the air to taste any food. Alive or dead it doesn't matter, wolves eat anything. Fire they fear but it is not well known that a wolf will kill from spring to home and drag the body a mile away to feast. One pine torch would do and that is easy to fix but most neglect safety so close to home. Once, in forgotten time, an animal trail, much used, ran from Lexington to Ithaca and beyond to Fort Jefferson. From there to Fort Greenville, home to wild animals and Indians. Ithaca, before it was platted in 1832, was a trading post on the trail used by travelers between Lexington and Forts north. Here, at the trading post, was the last stop for one young settler for as he left, he was followed – south.

Days later, he was found, along the trail. near Fort Lanier. His rifle was badly bent – probably used as a club. His knife and tomahawk were gone. The goods he had traded for at the post in Ithaca were gone. Blow flies scoured his naked skull where his long curly hair hung days before.

Noah's Ark

You think you got problems? Just imagine the problems somebody like Noah would have in trying to locate his billfold that he left in the Ark. You must remember that he was so glad to get his feet on dry land that he left the Ark and his billfold behind. He lived a long and happy life and then he died. He was sent off to Heaven. When he got there, St Peter questioned him and Noah was upset that St Peter didn't know him. St Peter told him that he had to prove he was Noah. Noah reached into his deepest inside pocket and his fingers searched the musty interior for his rawhide pocketbook. His hand jumped all around, frantic-like, searching.


"Well? Come on, I ain't got all day. There's a line waiting. Where's your driver's license?" St Peter asked, rather impatiently. A group of Angels began to gather around to see who was trying to get into Heaven. Noah said, "I got one. God gave it to me. I must have left it back on the Ark. Can you wait a minute while I go back and fetch it?" Noah asked St Peter. St Peter smiled and nodded, OK.

Now, Noah is back trying to figure out if he has landed at the right place. He thinks St Peter has got it in for him and has played a trick on him and has put him in this foreign place he has never been to before. Nothing looks the same. His ears are tortured by sounds and his eyes cause his head to hurt more than the first time he got drunk. He stepped into a building and spoke but people looked up at him, in his would-be heavenly costume, and they all laughed. He is still wandering around the Middle East trying to remember where he left the Ark. Noah parked the Ark somewhere and all the animals got off and disappeared to different places around the world. But for poor Noah, there was no parking attendant in Heaven to give him a parking ticket so he didn't really know where it was. He has just pulled in and left the Ark, but where?

He just came back to get his driving license to prove his identity. If anybody sees him wandering around please tell him to ask President Bush—he knows everything.

I Feel Good

By Abraham Lincoln

I went to McDonalds and got a large coffee to go. I am drinking some of it as I write this. Somewhere between home and there and back home I thought about the terms we all use to describe how we are feeling.

What does “feel good” feel like? I tried to think what part I could touch that would feel good, or was “feel good” something in my head that stops my pains and leaves me, “feeling good?”

If feeling good was the feeling I got from touching something then I have to think long and hard about the last thing I touched that actually made me forget my rheumatoid arthritis.

Not that long ago one day when I touched my thumb it hurt bad enough that I asked my wife to call 911. She yelled at me, “What for?”


After I said my thumb really hurts she refused to call saying trying to explain that to the crew would land us in the psycho ward at Brookville’s asylum. I argued that my thumb didn’t “feel good” at all. She told me to get over it!

I know at least one human being who gets a kind of high from the sight of a woman’s foot (and the nails do not have to be painted). And, he doesn’t have to touch the foot to get the feelings he gets. That is how he gets to feeling good.

It makes me wonder what happens to the mind and body when we look at a chocolate upside down cake. Does it make us feel good because we try to imagine how good it will be or does the sight of it have the same effect as that guy gets from seeing a woman’s foot?

When I look at my breakfast I really get to feeling good. Sometimes the sight of fried bacon on the same plate with a soft egg makes me feel better than good.

I am not able to touch something on my body that explains why I feel this way, and, I am not able to tell you were to look to find the spot that makes bacon and eggs look good to me. But I do have that feeling good feeling. Feeling good, to me, is like Heaven is to a religious zealot.

I don’t think love has anything to do with feeling good or lousy. I know some people say the mere sight of their “X” spouse makes them feel bad. While others say the mere sight of the “X’s” X-spouse makes their knees get weak. It is odd how the same X-spouse can have totally opposite effects on two different people?

I feel good when I find a $20.00 bill in the parking lot and nobody is around. I understand that this $20.00 bill belonged to somebody who probably needed it to pay for gasoline at the cheap place but his/her loss is my feeling good gain.

If you know what feeling good is then I would like to know. Don’t tell me it is the lack of pain because black and blue and bleeding is happiness to some and feeling bad is when they are pain free.

Helping Wildlife

I really can't imagine going through life without doing my best to offer some help to wildlife.

My mother and I lived alone during WWII. Our total income was $2.00 a week for a bushel basket of washing and ironing my mother did for a bachelor. With that $2.00 and our vegetable garden we had enough to eat most of the time. Mom bought chicken "peeps" from Sears and Roebuck and we raised them for the eggs they produced. We traded eggs for things we had to have at the little grocery store. We lived.

Mother would not kill a chicken to eat unless it was an old hen that had stopped laying eggs. Sometimes we had no meat and mom would be hungry for some meat. So I would pick up my sling shot and some rocks along the railroad track and go hunting for something to eat. Sometimes I would actually kill a rabbit (and not always in season) but often I killed doves and several of them would be enough meat for a meal. I would also go out to the local farmers and ask if I could get some pigeons out of their barns and they always said I could.

I would take a burlap grain sack and climb high up above the haymow close to the window where the pigeons came in and went out. Then I waited until I could see one coming back into the barn and I would throw the sack at them which always knocked them down to the hay below. I would jump down and kill the pigeon and when I had several I took them home to clean and eat.

When I was older I used a bow and arrow to hunt rabbits and other game, including squirrels. I was always able to find something to kill for meat for myself and my mother to eat.

I would also fish in local creeks and take home everything I caught for meat to eat.

That is my debt. I have to pay back for what I took.

Wildlife supplied our meat needs all through the second war and I am not sure we could have made it without the animals I killed.

I have devoted nearly all of my adult life to paying off that debt. I have always given food and shelter to anything that needed it or looked around my property for it. I have also tried to provide shelter and water for wildlife

I love to go fishing and even took the barbs off of hooks to prevent as much damage as I could when I caught a fish. Then I thought I don't need to fish for food so it is the fun part I was still enjoying and I flat out quit fishing.

I used to find birds along streams and lakes that were caught up in fishing line and would spend hours until I was able to unwind it and free them. (People still leave fishing line all over the place and it is a real hazard). I picked up a duck that had itself tied up in fishing line and the line was cutting into the joint where its wing attached to the body. It could no longer raise its head up to eat without the line cutting deeper. I took this duck to my vet and had the line removed. The duck got back to health in my garage. It had water, feed and shelter there until it was well. This story made local newspaper headlines.

I also found a duck that I called "Quackers" that had a twisted bill. It was a cute little fellow but had a terrible time eating. In those days I carried 50 pound bags of shelled corn to the park and dumped it on the ground every other day for anything to eat that was hungry. Quackers had a time trying to eat so I would get him off to the side and keep the geese and ducks away until he had gotten some corn to eat. I watched him grow up and then when the time came for ducks to leave the park, he left and I often wonder if he made it on his own. I have a picture of him that I drew.

I used to carry water to the park and pour it out in pans beside geese and ducks who were sheltering their eggs from instense heat. The ducks and geese would not leave their nests exposed to the blistering heat because it would kill the babies inside. So I poured water in little pans beside each nest and feel like that alone saved many animals. I did that during the nesting period and did it every day.

I have had to kill chipmunks that walked across lawns still wet with pesticides. The chemicals attack the nervous system of these little guys and they go into a miserable state of withering agony. The only solution is to kill them as quickly as you can. And I have had to kill more than one until I was able to convince my neighbor to abandon his lawn treatment program. He is dead now and so is his wife. I wonder what St Peter will say to him about the times he poisoned chipmunks -- not to even mention or think about how he ruined the lives of countless insects and soil bacteria of all kinds.

I am now 69 years old.* I have lived in this spot for 43 years and have had to kill several chipmunks, one raccoon and one squirrel. I hated to do it. It bothers me for days after I do it. I never can look at that squirrel box again without thinking of this pitiful squirrel that lived there with a terrible disease. I catch myself looking at the 4 inch diameter hole and wonder when the animal will poke its head out. Until I for that I won't forget what I did to the animal.

I felt so bad about our government policy about the slaughter of some 80 million buffalo that I wrote a book about it. Those animals were the PX for the Ameican Indians and it was a disgraceful slaughtering process that many of my ancestors took part in.

My debt to wildlife is not paid yet.

My kids are paying on it in Florida and Colorado and here in Ohio.

Maybe it will get paid off before I die but I hope not. I don't mind this kind of debt at all.

*I am now 78 and will be 79 in October of 2013. So, I wrote this piece 10 years ago.

Brookville Weather

Brookville weather borders on the bizarre. Most people say this whole year has been screwy. Nobody seems to know why our summer has been pleasantly mild while Europe is smothering is melting heat. A few weeks ago I stood at the window and watched it pour down 3 inches of rain in a short time but did not see water shooting out of the sewers like it did in the past. So in spite of the heavy rains, nothing has come close to the rains we had one summer in Brookville.

We stood and watched the manhole covers bounce and water shoot-up about 2 feet. Our street looked like a mighty river and it was being fed by neighbor's yards that were flooded and spilling over sidewalks. My backyard looked like a running river. Water got up and flooded the library parking lot. It was an angry Wolf Creek that summer.

In 2002 we had a wet spring followed by a hot dry summer that melted into a cold and wet winter and lots of neighbors were shoveling and blowing snow. So in 2003 we started with a cool and wet spring and had a nice summer with more than enough rain to keep the grass a bright green into the middle of August. That may change now but my bet is that it is going to be a really nice winter and I might not get to use my new Toro snow blower.

Sometimes it is hot and humid and the air is loaded with pollutants plus ragweed. At other times it is cool and breezy and you look around thinking it is fall when it is just beginning summertime. Now and then some of us get to see a tornado. Do you remember when it was reported that a tornado took some of the roof off of Boose Chevrolet? Another time people got to see a tornado skipping along the ground and cross Arlington Road just north of where Interstate 70 is today.

People often talk about the blizzards that snowed us in. I do remember the big one that found most people stranded along Wolf Creek Pike. Larry Gray's wife got stuck and spent a couple of days with others in a farmer's house on Wolf Creek Pike. I left work early that day and got as far as Heckathorn Road and got stuck. I had a new 1967 Ford. Eventually I was able to back up so I could turn down Heckathorn and followed it to Wellbaum Road. I took that all the way into Clayton and from there got on to I-70 and headed west at a crawl.

It was snowing big time and hard to see more than a few feet in front. But I got in behind a semi and followed it to the exit at Arlington Road and got off and drove on into home. The kids and my wife were watching at the window and were glad to see that I made it home. The traffic all stopped on I-70 and many were stranded there under Arlington Road overpass. It had taken me 4 hours to drive from work at NCR to Brookville.

That might be the year the trailer park east of town was snowed in. Someone died but the funeral home couldn't get there to pick up the body. They eventually got the dead man on a snowmobile and strapped him on the seat behind the driver. Do you remember that winter?

Snowmobiles were big sellers for a few years and dealerships sprouted like new wheat. Then our winters began to come and go without much snow and kids and sleds and snowmobiles disappeared. My diary shows one winter we had one snow that just barely covered the grass and that was all. In contrast I have photographs of snow under my patio (which was covered then) to a depth of 3 feet. One winter the snow was so deep along the streets that you could only see little orange flags go past but you couldn't see what the flag was mounted on—a car, maybe a snowmobile.

I wonder what the year 2013 will be like?

NB: August 26, 2013 We had a wet spring and early summer that was followed by a stretch of cool weather through most of July and August but it is turning hot again and promises to get up in the 90s with little hope of rain. Thankfully, we got a lot of rain this spring.

Wolf Creek Rail Trail

TRAIL LENGTH AND ELEVATIONThe surface is asphalt with crushed limestone sides and rest benches dot the length of the trail. Covered rest areas are located at Air Hill Road and in Wengerlawn. Elevation is 400' uphill from Trotwood to Brookville. Elevation is level from Brookville to Verona. It is 6 miles from Brookville to Verona. It is 7 miles from Trotwood to Brookville. It is 13 miles, with mile markers, from Trotwood to Verona.

RESTROOMS
There are restrooms at the Train Depot in Trotwood and at Brookville at Golden Gate Park and at the Village Park in Verona.
HANDICAPPED PARKING
General parking and handicapped parking are at the Trotwood Depot and at Golden Gate Park at Brookville.
POLICE
Dial 911 for emergencies. Brookville 833-2001. Trotwood 837-7777

DISTANCES
Distances were measured on bicycle, beginning in Trotwood riding towards Verona.Trotwood
7 miles from Trotwood to Brookville
13 miles from Trotwood to Verona
3.2 miles from Trotwood to Air Hill Road
2.7 miles from Air Hill Road to Brookville
1.2 miles from Seybold Rd to Diamond Mill Rd
.8 mile from Diamond Mill Rd to Heckathorn Rd
.65 mile from Heckathorn Rd to Westbrook Rd
1.2 miles from Heckathorn Rd to Albert Rd
Brookville
.8 miles from Main St to Arlington Rd
2.3 miles from Heckathorn Rd to Arlington Rd
6 miles from Brookville to Verona
4 miles from Brookville to Wengerlawn
3 miles from Brookville to Route 40
2 miles from Wengerlawn to Verona
Verona

The Electric Railway

The Electric Railway
Fondly called: The Traction 

J. B. Lowes and J. B. Feight, Petitioners, petitioned Darke County for a franchise to construct and maintain a right of way for the electric railway which was known as the “D & N” electric railway. At that time there were a number of conditions imposed on the new railway company when the petition was granted. One was that the train would not be permitted to travel faster than 40 miles per hour or the company would risk losing the franchise.



My father switched from riding the Dayton and Union (D&U) passenger train to his place of work for Dayton Power and Light Company's substation near Taylorsville, (near the Salem Mall -- the actual building was still there when the mall was in operation) to riding the faster and cheaper “traction cars.” My father often told me that the traction used to “fly” down the tracks at speeds near 100 miles per hour.

The speedy electric traction was the cheapest way to travel in the area for many years, but the thing that really doomed the electric trains was the automobile and the competition for freight from the struggling D&U railroad.

Gerald Van Pelt, son of Dr. and Mrs. Van Pelt, said the traction line rails were removed in 1926. The company enlarged the turn on East and North Streets and used a switch engine and flat car to remove the rails. The railroad ties were not removed at the same time.

Gerald recalls that his father, had to place some stitches to close a wound of an injured worker named “Sensenbaugh” (The Sensenbaughs lived just west of town on a farm). Helen [Flory] Gentner suggested to me that it was probably Archie Sensenbaugh who was wounded and stitched up.

Train Whistles

Train whistles in the night—probably drifting up to Gordon from the trains south of Verona. It was a creepy sound that caused me to think about the cargo of people; mostly soldiers; or freight—tanks, trucks, and jeeps on their way to war.

I knew a lot of young people who were away from home and off fighting a war somewhere. I also knew some whose sons had been killed in the war and they had taken the same train out of Dayton, Ohio and went off to war.

Those whistle sounds was almost as weird as seeing the searchlight beam from Arlington, Ohio flash on my bedroom wall in Gordon. Train whistles, searchlight beams and barking dogs dominated my nights in those days. I remember when we had to pull our dark green window blinds at night to prevent the enemy from seeing our house. Those were the days of mandatory blackouts. Not a hint of light was allowed to show from any house at night. It was feared that enemy bombers would drop bombs on us if they saw lights below.


Actually, it wasn’t a search light but a beam of line among a whole series of lights that flashed around just like a search light but these were along old US Route 40 from Indianapolis, Indiana to Dayton, Ohio. They were used by airplane pilots to fly the route at night—a kind of direction beacon.

When we got to a major town, like Arcanum or Greenville, and had to cross the railroad tracks, it was a major event when the cars would fly past, almost like flipping the pages of a book. One train car after another passed filled with jeeps, tanks, trucks, and “things” under canvas. Most people shut the motor off to save their gasoline because it was rationed.

Now and then, but not daily, our beloved D&U (Dayton and Union City) train came up from Dayton and as it passed through Gordon, about 30 feet from our house, one or two cars would be loaded with a tank or maybe two trucks or jeeps (something like that) and I stood there glued to the spot watching the train go by.

Whistling Past

Brookville's Trains

A tragedy on Labor Day of 1945 happened when The Spirit of St. Louis and an automobile collided at the Albert Road crossing. Look magazine did a story about the accident and had a photograph of a baby setting on the street crying. I never knew who that baby was and realize it is now around 58 or 59 years of age. Makes me think the photographer was a man because a woman wouldn't let the baby set there on the street crying but would have scooped it up and tried to calm it down. Instead the man must have walked around and looked at the baby from different angles before taking the photo that appeared on the cover of Look.

The trains that came through Brookville traveled fast. You could stand there and watch the passengers eating in the dining cars. Their faces were mere blurs and passed before you could even react.

Some trains wrecked along Cusick Avenue and it was not uncommon to hear one go off the tracks and make a thunderous noise as the steel wheels bounced across the cross ties. I remember one train was backing up pushing an empty car that ran off the tracks and nearly hit the grain elevator. It made a terrible noise.



The fast train that crossed Route 40 used to mow people down like wheat on the Preble County Line Road crossing south of Verona, Ohio. Somebody was always getting killed there.

My son, Chris, told his younger sister that trains could jump off the tracks and travel across the grass right into our house. Our daughter told us that she was always afraid when she heard the whistles and was relieved when the trains stopped running.

Brookville isnít quite the same since the trains stopped. The rails have been replaced with a beautiful bike path that runs from Trotwood through Brookville to Verona. That was the best thing that happened to the old rail line. My homecounty, Darke, ignored pleas to convert the old D&U roadbed into a bike path.

Electric trains also passed through Brookville and were housed here. I donít know much about them but my dad used to ride an electric train from Gordon to Dayton and from Clayton to work at the DP&L substation on old Route 49 near what is now the Salem Mall. He said they were supposed to observe speed limits but most of the passengers wanted them to go faster and they did.

The last passenger train to Greenville was in 1931 according to the Brookville Historical Society but I remember waving to passengers who were riding on a passenger train that passed through Gordon, Ohio in 1935 or 1936. My mother called me to come and see the old Dayton and Union passenger train steaming into town. I remember the train was covered with flags and bunting and passengers waved and threw candy at us.

During the Second World War we used to set and watch freight trains pass by our house and each car carried tanks or trucks or a couple of Jeeps. It was an amazing sight to see and I wondered how long it would take for those things to get overseas to the war.

There is a story about a fast train that jumped the tracks northwest of Greenville and landed in a swamp and disappeared from sight. I first heard the story when I was about ten years old. People said the steam engine and tender sunk and were never recovered.

I rode a train from Dayton, Ohio to San Francisco, California when I was in the Army and it passed right through Brookville, Ohio. In Chicago I transferred from whatever train I was on to the San Francisco Chief. As I recall it took 4 days and 3 nights to make the trip and I slept in my seat. The clickety-clack of the steel wheels running over the gaps in the rails put me to sleep and the gentle rolling, back and forth, kept me asleep. I was also fortunate enough to be able to ride trains in Japan long before they were equipped with modern bathrooms. The slits in the bathroom floors was my introduction to life without toilet paper in the Far East.

God, in all his wisdom — Made mistakes

God Messed Up — Satire

Atheists no longer struggle with God, Church and Religion. They gave up on them at some point and moved on with what remains of their lives. Still, it is tantalizing to be an "Atheist" or even flirt with "Agnosticism."

A lot of people struggle with their mind in order to believe what they don't believe.

The Holocaust found many, Jews, completely stunned that God did not step in and stop this unimaginable slaughter of millions of people.

What would it take for him to step in and take over? Nobody seems to be able to put their finger on it.


He didn't step in  — it was like he was off, somewhere else, and couldn't be bothered while the Holocaust was going on. More than one of those who survived — became atheists.



If there is a problem with religion, it is that God, in all his infinite wisdom, went ahead and created Evil. God, knowing full well that Evil meant eons of misery and death — did it anyway.

The Holocaust is a perfect example of this Evil creation at work. That has always been baffling to me because it was preventable.

I adopted a belief, without walls, and refuse to be hamstrung by "organized" religion or by church. Native American spirituality is unique. My belief is close to that.

This Continent flourished under their stewardship. Once the "People of God" arrived, the landscape changed; and today, "global warming" became an adjective — we have super storms, and fear of pandemics and melting Polar ice caps.

Corporate America is wringing their hands — they can't wait to explore for natural resources that has been hidden for thousands of years. If Bush can cut himself a slice, then Corporate America will get the revealed natural resource cake for themselves.

Look around yourself. There is evidence of religion everywhere. You must believe in God because He created you/us and the Universe — and look at it now.

I would love to be an atheist and not believe in God or religion. It would be easier to believe in the theory of Evolution because that isn't Divine.

Yes, God messed up. He created Evil and He didn't have to.

© 2006 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.

Reincarnation

Reincarnation—

When a blind man was brought before Jesus it was pointed out to him that the man was born blind. The disciples wondered why he had been born blind and had been thus persecuted and they asked him, "Who did sin, this man, or his parents?" (John 1-3)

The disciples must have had reincarnation in mind, for obviously if the man had been born blind his sin could not have been committed in this life. If, on the other hand, the doctrine of reincarnation is wrong and pernicious, Jesus had a real opportunity to deny the entire theses. He didn't. He did say the man's blindness was for other reasons.

Jesus may have taken reincarnation for granted in Mark 10: 28-31. Peter began to tell Jesus what all they had left to follow him. Jesus listed the enumerated rewards that could possibly not have been fulfilled in one life or reincarnation.


Reincarnationists translate the last verse: But many that are first in this incarnation shall be last or in a lowly position in the next rebirth; while the last or least esteemed in this incarnation may be first in their future life.

Paul speaks of the previous existence of Jacob and Esau, saying that the Lord loved the one and hated the other before they were born (Romans 9: 10-13).

Encyclopedia Britannica 1959 edition, under Pre-Existence, it is stated that in the Christian era supporters of the doctrine of pre-existence or pre-existents, are found as early as the 2nd Century and among them was Justin Martyr and Origen.

St. Clement of Alexandria (AD 150 - 220). "Before the foundation of the world were we, because destined to be in him, pre-existed in the eyes of God before – we the rational creatures of the Word of God, ...The Savior, who existed before, has in recent days appeared.... He did not now for the first time pity us for our error; but he pitied us from the first, from the beginning."

In the opinion of the ancient Jews, Moses was Abel, the son of Adam and their Messiah was to be the reincarnation of Adam himself The Kabbalist's remark that Adam, contains the initial letter of Adam David and Messiah. (Kabbalah, which is the spelling usually preferred by scholars, specifically refers to oral mystical teaching not normally revealed to the general population, but passed on from the adepts to the initiates).

The last words of the Hebrew Scriptures: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Malachi 4: 5.

Elijah has already lived among the Jewish people. What's more, the Greek Scriptures in the first book refers to this on 3 occasions and the remaining books refers to it 7 more times. The Greek name for Elijah is Elias. Read Matthew 16: 13-14. Matthew 17: 9-13. Matthew 11: 11, 14-15. The verse from Matthew 16 is repeated in Mark 8: 27-28, Luke 0: 18-19. Read John 1: 19-23 and Luke 9: 7-9.

© 2006 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.

The Origins of the Holy Bible

The Bible Origins—

You would think if God inspired 40 authors to write His Bible, that he would have insisted they get it right. Or, better still, he could have easily done it himself — in an instant.

Instead, those forty authors labored over it for 1,610 years. When it was done, none of the religions in the world could agree on which books to use and which to throw out. The Bible is not the same for all religions — that would make the Word of God different for some people.

The oldest dated manuscript in any tongue — the Syriac Peshitta (464 C.E.) is minus Leviticus. In 508 C.E., Philoxenus, who was the Bishop of Hierapolis ordered Polycarp, the Christian prelate, to make a revision of the Peshitta Christian Scriptures and Polycarp included Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude and Revelation.


Jerome's version was received with hostility. In 1592 the Roman Catholic Church accepted the Vulgate (which means that which is popular) as a standard edition for its church.

The Thebaic or Sahidic Versions of Upper Egypt (n the south) and the Bohairic Versions of Lower Egypt (in the north) contained essentially that of the Gothic Versions. This version omitted Samuel and Kings because Bishop Ulfilas, the translator, thought i too dangerous to include because they speak against warfare and idolatry.

In 1546, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church included the eleven additional books — those called the Apocryphia.

Arguments for their inclusion date from the early copies of the Greek Septuagint Version of the Hebrew Scriptures which was translated beginning about 280 B.C.E. In 90 C.E. the Jewish council specifically excluded all such writings from the Hebrew canon.

If you are a Christian you would have to argue that the Jewish canon is not complete because it does not contain the New Testament. If you were a Catholic you would argue the Protestant bibles are not complete because they omit the Apocryphia and so on. And if you were a Jew you would argue that the Catholics and Protestants are both wrong because their bibles contain too many books excluded from their canon.

There is no evidence to support the thesis that the holy works are to be included between two covers. It did require 1,610 years to write with 40 authors contributing to it. Chapters and verses were unknown until Robert Estienne's edition of the Latin Vulgate was published in 1555. It had been separate scrolls, scattered and handed down; and never united in book form.

If you are a Jehovah's Witness, you don't use any of these books. You are instructed to use the books published by your society and no others.

What we end up with is a different book for each group — part Jewish, Greek, Latin and English and not one Bible is like the other — either in total content or dialogue. And none were inspired by any god that we know about.

© 2006 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.

Newspaper Stories

Who reads it? © By Abraham Lincoln

Five hundred words each week doesn’t sound like a lot of work but it is something to think about if anybody is reading them. Each word was chosen for some reason that seemed good enough at the time it was stuck in a sentence; and then you read it and all the other words and know as much as I do about the story as I do.

I was disappointed with the heat and drought last summer. Brookville was not the best place to be on many days when there seemed no relief outside. My wife and I talked about Vectren’s board meetings and how they must sit around a big walnut conference table and rub their hands together, in glee, at us turning the air conditioners down to cool off.


About the time we had it made and summer heat and humidity under control the weather in Brookville changed and our air conditioner was turned off and the furnace was turned on. Somebody likes to see spikes in utility bills—not the homeowner but surely the utility company is happy about changes in weather. It happens so fast that we didn’t have time to call anybody in to check out our heating system to make sure it was up to par for the oncoming heating season.

I bought an Old Farmer’s Almanac for 2013. I really don’t have much faith in predicting the weather a year or two in advance and have even less faith in the evening television news when the weatherman or weather-woman stands there telling us what we can expect.

Today it is cold and the air is dry. That means very cool nights here and some plants, like ragweed, might think it is time to increase their pollen count and send you off into migraine land at the doctor’s office—can I get something for this headache? My old neighbor lady used to plant her garden seeds and onion plants and tomato plants when the time was right. I never seemed to be able to get it right as she would catch me planting some seeds in my garden and she’d tell me it was either too early or too late and remind me to do as she does if I expected to grow enough to eat and have some left over to can for winter.

But she never had any luck growing rhubarb and I had a patch of it on my side of the rusty old fence. Her head ached because she couldn’t will my rhubarb patch to move itself onto her side of the fence. She’d sneak over when she thought we were gone and cut off several big rhubarb stems. I’d offer her all she wanted if she asked first but she seemed to prefer sneaking over to get it.

I managed to get my stiff fingers thawed out enough to type this story for the Brookville Star newspaper. It looks like we will continue to have some cool days and nights for the rest of the week. Does this cool weather remind me of fall? Brookville is not on any of those lists on Facebook that shows the 10 best places to live in American but I wonder if anybody should tell them about our town?

Who Reads It?

Who reads it? © By Abraham Lincoln

Five hundred words each week doesn’t sound like a lot of work but it is something to think about if anybody is reading them. Each word was chosen for some reason that seemed good enough at the time it was stuck in a sentence; and then you read it and all the other words and know as much as I do about the story as I do.

I was disappointed with the heat and drought last summer. Brookville was not the best place to be on many days when there seemed no relief outside. My wife and I talked about Vectren’s board meetings and how they must sit around a big walnut conference table and rub their hands together, in glee, at us turning the air conditioners down to cool off.

About the time we had it made and summer heat and humidity under control the weather in Brookville changed and our air conditioner was turned off and the furnace was turned on. Somebody likes to see spikes in utility bills—not the homeowner but surely the utility company is happy about changes in weather. It happens so fast that we didn’t have time to call anybody in to check out our heating system to make sure it was up to par for the oncoming heating season.


I bought an Old Farmer’s Almanac for 2013. I really don’t have much faith in predicting the weather a year or two in advance and have even less faith in the evening television news when the weatherman or weather-woman stands there telling us what we can expect.

Today it is cold and the air is dry. That means very cool nights here and some plants, like ragweed, might think it is time to increase their pollen count and send you off into migraine land at the doctor’s office—can I get something for this headache? My old neighbor lady used to plant her garden seeds and onion plants and tomato plants when the time was right. I never seemed to be able to get it right as she would catch me planting some seeds in my garden and she’d tell me it was either too early or too late and remind me to do as she does if I expected to grow enough to eat and have some left over to can for winter.

But she never had any luck growing rhubarb and I had a patch of it on my side of the rusty old fence. Her head ached because she couldn’t will my rhubarb patch to move itself onto her side of the fence. She’d sneak over when she thought we were gone and cut off several big rhubarb stems. I’d offer her all she wanted if she asked first but she seemed to prefer sneaking over to get it.

I managed to get my stiff fingers thawed out enough to type this story for the Brookville Star newspaper. It looks like we will continue to have some cool days and nights for the rest of the week. Does this cool weather remind me of fall? Brookville is not on any of those lists on Facebook that shows the 10 best places to live in American but I wonder if anybody should tell them about our town?

Great Buddha

I do remember being there and having my picture taken in front of the giant, bronze Buddha. Some people suggested that they did not know which one was the Buddha. I also did not know at that time, in 1954, that you could go around behind the statue and go inside to see how it was held together. Sheets of pounded-out bronze held in place by iron straps. While the two metals do not like being together like that, they have been using iron straps for many years.

Outside Water Bowl

This is the water bowl that we use in the winter when everything is frozen and it is impossible for birds and squirrels to find a drink of water. There is a coil of wire around the cord to discourage animals from chewing or gnawing on them. This one was purchased through Amazon.com for about $20.00 US Dollars.

Planted White Dutch Clover

This Monday morning, August 12, 2013, is a cooler and less humid than Sunday morning was. I also got my order of one pound of White Dutch Clover seed in the mail and with some help from Patty, we were able to scratch the ground and scatter some of the clover seed in the scratched-up places. I hope it takes off and grows this summer so that the bare spots fill-in and become food for the rabbits and the nectar from the blossoms satisfies the thirst for nectar of the honeybees. See white Dutch clover.

Medieval Scribe

I used to make a lot of characters like this one. I still find them saved among photos. It was a way to stay creative using different tools. In the end I found that I was using a small, red sable, pointed brush for most of my drawings because I could get infinite line widths.You might be surprised to know that the medieval scribes stood when they wrote the magnificent manuscripts and their writing surfaces were inclined 60º (sixty degrees) leaving nothing to lean on. There would be a room or "cell"filled with scribal monks who listened to a reader and then wrote the sentence he just spoke. This procedure went on until the bible or a manuscript was finished and was then turned over to artists whose job it was to make line endings that filled the space left blank when the sentence didn't go to the end or to the right margin. If you needed ten bibles then you had ten scribes with equal skills at making ink, cutting quill pens and shaping them and preparing either vellum or parchment (animal skins) to be used as pages like paper. [Read see more]

White Dutch Clover

Grows to a height of four to eight inches in a thick mat that tolerates low mowing. The clover spreads to fill in empty spaces and it stays green through dry periods of summer. The clover provides nitrogen (up to 2 pounds of n/1000 square feet) for the other grasses in the lawn, eliminating the need to fertilize.

You need to at least consider planting some "White Dutch Clover" in your lawn. It is important as a source of food for honeybees and rabbits. All rabbits will make a feast on the clover and insects come to feed on the nectar and pollen. When I was growing up people didn't plant grass seed in their lawns but kept whatever was growing and mowed it as if it was grass. And all yards came with White Dutch Clover as it would fill in bare spots and there was the possibility that you might be very lucky and find at least one "four leaf clover."

The New Montgomery County Fairgrounds

The Fairgrounds
© By Abraham Lincoln

After John Hanson sold his farm and the buildings were removed the fields were planted with corn or soybeans or some other crop. There was an apple orchard right where the big service station with the submarine sandwich shop on the end is now located. When we came down Arlington Road in thos days, sometimes we could see deer helping themselves to apples that had fallen to the ground.

In 1962, when we moved to Brookville, there were large dairy herds on the outskirts of town and there was the Bowman Turkey Farm  and on the other side of town the Garber farm sold strawberries and you picked as many quarts as you wanted to pay for. Those farms still exist but their owners and the land is used for other things.

The old Dull Homestead on SR 40 is better known these days as the Alternative Energy Center with 5 wind turbines that produces the electrical power the homestead uses. They began using the no-till practice to reduce soil erosion and allow nutrients to remain in the soil and that makes a rich and fertile land ideal for farming.

The old theater became a meat store that smoked their meat and became locally famous for their delicious bacon and baloney. Those smells wafted through town and were an enticement to buy some bacon before you left town.

Brookville sets astride what’s left of Montgomery County farming. They are not making any new farmland and what is here is all that is left. I was surprised to see there is a possibility that the Montgomery County Fairgrounds might end up there on the land where the John Hanson farm was. It would be, it seems to me, an ideal location; just off I-70 and Arlington Road.

I like it there much better than farther north at the intersection of SR 49 and SR 40. I like the idea of the fairgrounds somewhere around here. I am not a big fan of crowds of people but I can stand them for a week or two and the city can find a use for whatever income they derive from the fairgrounds being next door.