A Father's Day Tribute

My Dad (Weston Andrew Hare) would have enjoyed blogging. He liked to write down his musings and observations and share them with his family.

When he was 60, he and Mom (Elizabeth) retired to the old family house in Massachusetts, surrounded by stone wall fences, white birch trees, TALL pine and maple trees, and a pristine lake at the foot of the hills.

The following notes are selections from his "Gnome Gnotebook". He claimed to be 25% Irish, and Elves and Gnomes were often part of his stories.

UNCUT DIAMONDS
The first year I came here (1969) there were very many four-leaf clovers all around the place, it seemed to me.
Also I found in the lower garden a very nice Indian arrow head right on top of the garden. I still find some four leaf clovers, as I always have, but not that many, and I have found no more arrow heads, nor gold nuggets, nor uncut diamonds; tho' I look for them.

LEAF BOUNCERS
If you see a bunch of leaves bouncing like they had cricket legs, look carefully and you'll see a fox sparrow in the middle "kicking it up" as fox sparrows do.

RATS VERSUS SQUIRRELS
The rat has a very bad public image.
But squirrels are quite nice - cute - interesting and also good looking. They have, as far as I am concerned, a very good public image.
Yet squirrels and rats are both rodents - cousins you might say. Why the difference?

A rat is an 'orc' in the domain of the dark lord and has the characteristic of such.

A squirrel is like a 'hobbit' and in the domain of light. Why don't squirrels inhabit city slums, dumps, etc. and become wicked?

It's just not in their nature to do so, that's all.

AND BIRDS
People like birds. Of course people like birds. They are the residuum of the once great and benevolent race of Elves whose greatness has departed. But the echo of their benevolence remains in the songs, the bright color and general amiability of birds.

A tree full of blackbirds sounds a lot like water dropping into a hundred buckets. A bush full of sparrows also sounds pleasant - a 'bush of twitters'.

It would be interesting to make a record by superimposing many different bird calls repeated at random intervals so that a great medley of sound resulted.
(the tuning-up of the birds)

NATURE EMPATHY
To enjoy the course leading to a degree of Doctor of Nature one needs a 'degree' of Nature Empathy.
I seem to be accepted by the other inhabitants of the place to a certain extent. In the spring, twice a chickadee landed on my hand to get a sunflower seed. Moreover, the house sparrows (English Sparrows) out back scold me if I fail to throw them some seeds.

Then yesterday I was dumping some pulled weeds on the compost pile when I felt a thump on my back. It was a chipmunk using my back as a halfway point between the tree and the ground. He was a little embarrassed by his audacity and looked back at me with a SQUEEK as he dashed into a hole in the pile of leaves.

PRETTY THINGS
There are numerous pretty things in the world.

* The monarch chrysalis is certainly one.
* So are Japanese beetles. They may be bad, but here they feed mostly on the sterile grape vines along the wall. So I honor them for their beauty - black and iridescent.
* Bluegills are also very pretty to look at.

There are man-made things also that should be mentioned.
(1) The 'last drop' on the Maxwell House coffee label used to be a real gem of art. I bet it has been redesigned and lost. But the drop used to be colored brown with a little highlight of white with a slightly displaced miniscule red dot. It should have won a prize.
(2) The 5-pack of 'Maestro' cigars of Garcia y Vega has another example of a detail of real art. The name 'Maestro' is in green with a gold edge to the green which is best seen by changing the viewing angle when the green and gold make a most pleasing color combination, so I award the 2nd prize to the Garcia y Vega cigar box.

(Smoking cigars was Dad's only vice so he had a collection of cigar boxes in which he stored interesting things; such as bird feathers, shells, colored stones, stamps, pictures of grandchildren, etc.)

MONARCH BUTTERFLIES
There are a lot of Monarch butterflies this year. Maybe that is why I found a beautiful little chrysalis out in the garden which turned out to be the magic transformation case of a Monarch butterfly. It was a long time since I had considered these items.

This chrysalis was a blue-green waxy case that looked like plastic. It was decorated with a delicately made design of gold dots. Very elegantly made.
I put it away in a jar with grass and in a couple of days (our daughter-in-law) Anita noticed the butterfly coming out. I took pictures of the same and put it out on the Zinnia stalks to dry. The next day we saw it fly away.

No wonder they call these butterflies 'Monarch' since they are transformed in a royal gold-decorated case. I understand all these Monarch butterflies migrate south in the winter.
"So long, your majesties!"

DORMICE
I have heard of dormice through the years (e.g. Alice in Wonderland) but actually only encountered them after retiring to Oxford.

Dormouse means 'sleeping mouse' and refers also to the sleeping quarters they build to sleep in during the cold winter.

I found the first one in the lower garden as I was cleaning up the garden. There was a round ball of woven grass 3" or so in diameter, maybe 1/2" thick, with a sleeping mouse curled up tight inside. There was no hole in the ball. I left him sleeping in the ball. It was about time to awaken, I supposed.

In the fall of the year I found another one, not yet in use but well made with a hole left on the ball maybe 1/2" in diameter. Clearly the mouse if he later went in wove up the hole from the inside.

PIGEONS AND JAYS
I was watching the birds eating seeds out back when a blue jay and a mourning dove flew down to the same seed and bumped into one another.
I heard the blue jay say "Stupid pigeon! Why don't you look where you are going?"
The dove said "Peace! Brother" and waddled away, and the blue jay flew back up onto a branch.

THE FROG VISITOR
Tonight it is raining. I opened the porch door and a frog, sitting on the top step hopped right into the porch and then into the kitchen. I picked him up and told Elizabeth if she would kiss him, he might turn into a Prince. But she would not. So we let him out.

HOW TO LICK A PROBLEM
If you have a new problem, one in which you are in some degree familiar (i.e. not, for instance, like calling up the dead or moving a mountain into the sea), The First Rule must be: Don't Show Fear.

A problem knows when you're afraid of it, and fights twice as hard.
Not only that. All the little demons which are sitting around, and which are not, of themselves antagonists-to-the-solution of the problem, will reuse the fear and will start making trouble for you in their own domains.
All sorts of things can happen. You may stumble over your shadow, leave your keys in a locked house, stall your car and flood it, sit on the McDonald apple tart you have in your pocket, etc., etc.

Normally you would not do any of these things, but your fear has roused many psychic opponents! SO BE CALM, COOL, COLLECTED!

BITS OF WISDOM
The reason wise sayings are so concise: "Better late than never" etc., is because wise men are unable to gain the attention of people for more lengthy discourses.

Beware of those who say the plural of 'person' is 'people'. It is better to say 'persons' and preserve our integrity as individuals. Those who think of trees as timber plan to cut them down.

Beware of molehills. They may be mountains in disguise.

Remember, O Man, what you tolerate, you teach.

The government is a gigantic institution which hires James and John to rob Peter to pay Paul.

A bigot is one whose well-considered principles differ from your own.

I saw in the paper, "A mandate does not depend upon the size of the vote, but on the man himself." In other words, a mandate is when a man (thinks he)has a date with destiny.

It may follow the spirit of the law, but there is not a ghost of a chance that it follows the letter of the law.

LOSS OF AUTHORITY
(Written after I returned from the hospital after my long combat with hyperthyroidism.) I see I've lost a lot of authority since I got sick. Some of my previously obedient servants have deserted me. Specifically, I used to command 210# of gravity. When I jumped on a bale of wire to flatten it, all 210# were there.
But now 50 or so of my servants have left and only 160# still serve me.
My shadow also is diminished, which worries me some, considering the importance of a substantial shadow.

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Dad lived to be 89. The last 8 years were struggles with Alzheimers disease.
Your shadow, Dad, remains substantial with those who loved and knew you.