Nov 28 2008

pageside #1 (of 4)                                                                                                                          12-02-08

             Though I've often voiced complaint about my not having had MY father's presence, and therefore, been denied that link that seems like such a vital one in conditioning one's boyhood toward that ideal called well-adjusted, I did, however, absorb some 'manly' imageries from grandfather who'd helped grandmother keep her vegetable garden manageable—she kept her flowers and herbs garden areas under her strict supervision and no nonsense allowed in there--Gramps kept the machinery in working order and their four or five acres organized: barn, garage for repairs, drying sheds for apricots and grounds kept in a good appearance; tools in the tool shed, and sharpened for when again needed; a 'shop' in the basement where he had a vise, workbenches, tool & and hardware storage, etc. Family history has it that he (he grew up near where Sybil) had originally been in the lumber business—certainly was an expert cabinet-maker. I know this from a bedside four-legged table with a drawer in it of fine wood, expertly finished that he had made for Sybil while they were still young and courting, so, in the fifties when I had it, it was fifty years old! The move to Santa Clara county (San Jose area) in the early nineteen-hundreds ended up with him participating in the orchard business that just about occupied every piece of the rural lands down in that large flat valley surrounding the (then) small towns; hundreds of thousands of acres of fruit tree orchards—like you see with grapes now in Northern California. And although I can only just barely remember him—L.J. Hanchett—I  know that a very large part of who I am, how  the male part of me thinks and approach concepts, plus my inborn affinity for fathoming processes of mechanical engineering and ability to conceive the (almost/mostly) right sequences-of-actions and whatever tools it takes in building construction, repair or demolition, rigging, and automotive trouble-shoot and repair is from Grandfather; that part of him whose inheritance still operates within my essences. Both he and grandmother's formative years occurred pre-motorcar. In the culture of those times, boys grew up with horses and not automobiles. Being able to manage and maintain a horse (or more!) was everything for growing toward becoming a 'well-adjusted' adult male up until 1900. I can only just barely imagine the harsh physicality and associated mental and emotional mindsets that horse management entailed. I know that it scared their women, but they had to trust in him not misdirecting this seeming--to them: the women—oft-times too brutal and harsh portion of the male persona of that day, who had to kick and push and otherwise hasten their beasts-of-burden to the daily need toward providing succor to his and hers and theirs all the livelong year in and year out. There were no horses in my childhood, except when I was nine at a Sierra children's summer camp; the last three weeks of which, it was my morning 'job' to go and find and fetch the five or six horses back to their stables from their night time wanderings over some dozen of (fenced) acres, adjacent to some many square miles surrounding that were also part of the ranch property—to feed and brush them down to have them ready for to ride by those whose day's (posted) activities included horseback rides. On the 4^th of July that year—1949--I rode a brown horse the seven miles into (I think it was Grass Valley CA) town to be in the Independence Day parade; then, riding those increasingly-soreass and sorer-inner thighs' seven mile ride back to the ranch. I couldn't quite walk stright for a couple days after for how achy my inner thighs were. No more horses since then, until becoming an old horse (Nova) and donkey(Pomy's) grandfatherhusband about the year 2000. Through my avid search for and consumption of writings by authors who grew up before the electric and automobile age, I feel that I have recaptured much of the sanity and good sense ethic of those lost ways-of-life, and yet barely feel that I know and understand enough, yet; nor will I probably ever. But I just KNOW in my bones and dna that I would have grown to a far more satisfying manhood had I just been born a few generations earlier. How does one compare, weigh, measure, gauge, judge, or otherwise determine which has better qualities: 10,000 years' worth of evolution and heritage VERSUS 100 of automobile-driven culture? What IS important?