Home About us Daily Reflections Special Issues Publications Ecospirituality Through The Seasons Donate Environmental Resource Assessment Service   The Latch String Is Out by Al Fritsch, S.J.

 10.  (1942)    Raisin' Tobacco

   Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.
                                        (Luke 23:34)
   
   Tobacco, that most American of weeds, was at the heart of my world
when I was growing up near the world's second largest burley tobacco
market in Maysville, Kentucky and an hour's drive from the largest
market in Lexington.  Tobacco was our principal crop and source of
income.  Our lives revolved around it, from burning plant beds in
February to stripping and selling that crop the following autumn or
early winter (November to January).

    The Work.  During the growing year we would perhaps touch the plant
a dozen times from seeding to weeding of plant beds, to pulling and
setting plants, and then to hoeing and topping.  Next, the really
intensive work started in suckering (cutting out each of the mini tops
that would sprout from above each leaf after plants were topped); then
"housing" the plant which involved cutting the stalk, putting it on
sticks, hauling it to a tobacco barn, and hanging it high in the
building to air dry.  Later in humid times when tobacco came in "case"
(limber enough not to crumble into dust) it was lowered from the drying
rails and taken to a stripping room to be sorted into grades and
pressed.  The loads of "hands" (a handful of about 50 leaves each tied
with another leaf) of tobacco were hauled to warehouses, placed in
baskets and auctioned at appointed market times.

    Setting Tobacco.  At a very early age (maybe seven) I became a
tobacco setter, and could place in the soil plants either left or right-
handed from a mechanical tobacco setter, which was powered first by
horses and later by tractors.  Each member of a team of two setters
would set every other plant in the soft cultivated earth by following a
carved groove, and then covered by setter "shoes" after a squirt of
water from a barrel directly in front of us.  One hired hand, Raymond
Springer, prided himself as an ace tobacco setter, and in my 14th year
I bet him a nickel a plant that I would not miss as many plants as he.
We broke even with a half dozen misses out of about 40,000 plants.
However, in an effort to cause the other to miss we would say "go
faster, faster" and Charlie, the tractor driver, would speed up a
little.  In fact, we went so fast that the water would not have time to
give a good squirt at the desired amount and my dad testified that it
was the fastest set but the poorest "stand" (crop growing condition) of
tobacco he ever had.  So much for speed and contests.
 
    Cutting Tobacco.  The second area of excelling was in cutting
tobacco.  I hated so much to perform the housing operation because of
the heights and the need to straddle barn rails at thirty feet with your
feet alone and hands free to hoist up or place tobacco sticks on the top
rails.  Instead, I preferred the more down-to-earth job of cutting
tobacco in the field.  Anyway, that was regarded as the prime job,
provided you cut a thousand sticks (six stalks each) a day.  The art of
cutting involved pivoting on the left foot and cutting six stalks
without moving that foot.  The stalk was cut with a tomahawk shaped
steel "tobacco knife" and speared onto a stick with a portable steel
conical-shaped spear.  Yes, it was dangerous for I bear the scar of
slipping on the wet suckers (discarded sprouts which formed after
cutting the top and bloom out of the plant) the last work day before
going to college;  I sliced my knee.  It was wrapped but still bled and
I had to go to the doctor for some clamps at the end of the work day.
It was also the day after my youngest brother Frank was born and I was
all packed for college.

    Defending Tobacco.  How could anyone defend tobacco today in this
emerging anti-smoking climate?  Let me make a hesitant effort:

    *  Tobacco was an honest livelihood with a most fair Cooperative
system which gave all farmers (both large and small) a chance to grow
according to the traditional production of that farm.  This allotment
was carefully measured by a government agent, and the product could only
be sold with a marketing card.  Actually, there was little cheating and
the little guy had a chance.  This accounts for the large number of
tobacco growers until the end of the 20th century.

   *  Tobacco was run by the tobacco farmers and with little government
subsidy, for the purchased pool or unsold tobacco temporarily purchased
by the government was later resold, and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's "tobacco pool" never lost money.

   *   Tobacco was a pleasant work environment, at least in the field
and stripping room -- not the hot dusty barn rails as previously
described.  Also the worms on untreated plants would attract the praying
mantises and wasps.  After the advent of all the organic chemical sprays
tobacco was no longer a pleasant working environment, and the local
workers refused to labor in the chemically sprayed fields.  Then came
Mexican migrant workers, who were willing to work in this polluted
environment because they needed the money.

   * Tobacco brought a good price and this was relatively stable over
the past half century.  The amount of money made per acre could be two
dollars a pound (in the last part of the 20th century) and a ton per
acre of the stuff.  Few intensive crops could equal it, for so many
growers, over such a length of time, and with such a lucrative return
for time and resources expended.

  * Finally, tobacco is a beautiful member of the nightshade family and
is selected as an ornamental plant in many urban gardens.  The bloom is
rose to white with a fragrant scent and attracts many hummingbirds,
which draw nectar from the tubular flower.  When one was unaware of the
health hazards associated with the finished product, it was truly a
pleasure to work in the tobacco field or the stripping room.

   On Smoking Tobacco.  My siblings and I were never encouraged to
smoke, mainly because of fear that the barn might burn down. It had
nothing to do with tobacco-related health problems.  Older male
relatives always chewed tobacco, whereas the younger generation where
daring enough to smoke.  The Native American habit of passing a peace
pipe in the open air circle for a few puffs is symbolic, and pipe
smoking keeps away the gnats from the eyes.  But tobacco smoke should
never be tolerated in enclosed rooms where others must endure the
secondary smoke (not mentioning what happens to the smoker's lungs).  I
thought that the reason the Church never regarded it as sinful was
perhaps because moralists smoked.

   Memories.  Some say you can't forget certain sensory activities. The
sticky tobacco gum which would cover your hands when working in tobacco
is one of these unforgettable moments.  Another is the pungent odor that
struck our olfactory organs and permeated the atmosphere around the
major tobacco marketing and manufacturing areas such as Lexington,
Kentucky and Winston Salem, North Carolina.  Today, in a local farming
audience I can say the words "flines, trash, lugs, bright, red, green
and tips"  and quite a number of older folks look up and smile, for
tobacco growers remember the older grades that each "tobacco stripper"
would use to sort the tobacco leaves.

   War and Tobacco.  World War II broke the Great Depression
stranglehold on farmers.  Tobacco sales grew stronger and during the
period 1942-45 far more cleared farmland acres (many which were too
erodible and should not have been planted) were pressed into cultivation
for both grain and tobacco.  The tobacco companies gave free cigarettes
by the millions to servicemen throughout the world and the Lucky Strike
and Camel people touted their patriotism on popular radio shows
sponsored by the tobacco companies.  Lucky Strike goes to war meant the
dark green brand package was traded for a non-dyed plain substitute.
Great!  The price was a nickel a pack and their "generosity" enticed a
whole entire generation of service people to become smokers.  For
tobacco companies it was a good investment.

   Reflection on Harm Inadvertently Done to Other.  I have only
gradually come to know more about the dangers of tobacco use.   All the
corporate hype and my childhood associations do not equal the hundreds
of thousands of addicts who coughed their way into their graves with
their gaunt wrinkled faces and wretched appearance.   I am haunted now
by their physical appearance.  I have recently calculated that 120
people died because of the tobacco I helped grow in my youth to early
manhood and perhaps four times that number had their lives shortened or
harmed.   This is calculated at a rate of one death per ton of tobacco
grown and marketed from our family farms.  True, tobacco money put me
and my family members through college, but tobacco put others into their
graves far sooner.  For me now it is impossible to grow the leaf that
turns into coffin nails.  I transfer the haunting feeling to prayers for
tobacco addicts and their families.  What we know now can be turned from
regret into spiritual reparation for victims whom we have hurt in our
earlier imperfect deeds.  I view my current promoting of virtually wild
ginseng is just such positive action, for this can be a source of
livelihood for those who used to grow tobacco -- and it is a very
healthy medicinal herb besides.

   Prayer by an Ex-Tobacco Grower.  Oh God, I was proud of Tobacco
Masses of younger years when the churches were decorated with the blooms
and the greenery of the full-grown weed.  We prayed for bountiful
harvests and good prices and did not reflect on the use or harm from the
tobacco.  But maybe this is what our whole life is: we see such limited
goods and pray for them, deceiving ourselves into thinking that hard
work and earnest spirit are sufficient.  However, in our wiser years
teach us to see beyond our narrow cultural confines.  I regret my
participation in tobacco growing and ultimately the lives shortened.  I
say this for my family and my neighbors.  Forgive us for we simply
didn't know what we were doing.  


11  (1943)    Observing German POWs

   ...to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of
death, and to guide our feet on the way to peace.  (Luke 1:79)
   
   The only time I ever had a formal birthday party was when I turned
ten in late September, 1943.  My mother proved to be one of the first
soccer moms.  She took a car load of my classmates, after ice cream,
down to the Limestone Park on the creek flats behind Maysville to sit on
the bluff and watch the German prisoners of war.  The camp was quite
confined and held about a hundred men.  They played a modified type of
soccer or "football" where they used their heads and feet, but no hands.
They were quite animated and enjoyed being far from the front and having
an afternoon off.  This soccer playing was fascinating for the
respectable crowd with little else to do on Sunday afternoons in pre-tv
days.  In the morning prisoners had services led by a German-speaking
Presbyterian minister from Maysville and a similarly talented Catholic
priest from Mayslick.

    War years.  It was during the war years that homes with stars in
the windows would go from blue to silver or gold or another color when
someone would be wounded or missing or died in the family.  The whole
community was hurting as we read headline after headline on defeats and
victories (generally in that order).  I learned to read the newspaper in
the third grade by going home after school to find out whether
Corregidor (May, 1942) or Tobruk had fallen. A huge world map was on the
wall telling us of battle zones in Oceania, Africa and Europe.  I
listened to Lowell Thomas on the radio and scanned the casualty figures
to find acquaintances.  We got ration stamps for gasoline, sugar,
rubber, shoes and meat, although farm folks were quite immune from
needing the stamps for meat.  We gathered milkweed pods which some had
hoped to turn into silk substitutes for parachutes, but the pods were
never gathered or processed.  Our neighbors grew hemp for rope because
the Philippine source was cut off.

    War Comes Home.  Daddy had registered for the draft in his late
thirties, but he had been too young for World War I when his older
brother Joe had to go into service.  By 1939, he was in the upper age
limit.  He was also considered an essential farmer and lone breadwinner
by the government's calculations, and so was never called up.  We bade
my maternal Uncle Ed goodbye for the Marines.  We fretted as to how to
write letters to him and what his censored letters (with sections cut
out) meant.  We also debated how to tell him Grandpa had died in the
summer of 1943, and we prayed when we heard he was wounded in the South
Pacific.  We hurried over that evening to our neighbor, Mrs Beard, when
she got news that her son, Derwood, was declared "missing in action" in
western Europe.  He later came back from a prison camp and thanked us
for prayers during those dark war years.

    School Battles.  To think parochial schools were islands of peace
in the sea of war is erroneous.  Recesses were taken up with Army, Navy
and Marines battling it out in wrestling and other fighting matches.  I
always lost and was not a glory to my Uncle's service.  Then, when the
German prisoners came to town to help the depleted ranks of our local
farmers, we turned from hand-to-hand combat to snowball fights with the
older "Americans" marching us younger "German prisoners" through the
streets.  Snowballs were far less hurtful than the individual struggles
on the playground, so I welcomed this form of winter combat.

    Propaganda.  We were war-conditioned by the limited media which
generally consisted of weekly updates in the newsreels shown before each
movie.  Since we rarely had funds and time to go to movies, we did not
get as indoctrinated as some of the town kids.  However, when I did go,
I swallowed the propaganda.  Rosy the Riveter and the blazing cannon
chained tire-to-tire on the Russian Front all had a profound effect on
our psyches.  We went to one movie, Bataan, (concerning the final stand
of the American forces in the Philippines in spring, 1942) and told
about it in school.  The nun was keenly aware and had the courage to say
that such a diet of movies was not good for us to watch -- the only
caution I ever heard on the propaganda front.  Another movie of slightly
greater merit was The Five Sullivans, who were killed when the ship
carrying the five brothers sank.  The story left a deeper mark than the
budding or notable actors and ended with their sister being inducted
into the WAVES.  The real life tragedy resulted in legislation that
blood brothers were not to fight in the same units.
 
   Social Engagements.  Few of a later generation appreciate total
warfare on the homefront -- and yet we had it very mild compared to
folks in Europe and the Orient.  We knew nothing of concentration camps
horrors, but saw the weekly photo magazines  Life and Look and Saturday
Evening Post presented pictures of bombed out Polish cities or
Philippine war camps.  We used disparaging names like Japs and Nips and
Krauts.  I had to bear the Germanic name-calling by the more Irish
contingent, even though I protested vehemently that the name was
Alsatian.  Ancestors on both sides of my family fought in the French
Army and had their homelands taken over by Prussians.  In fact, John
Fister was so incensed by the historical repeat of the Franco-Prussian
War in 1914 that he would not read the papers for months.  When the
Germans were stopped before Paris in the middle of that war, Grandma
(John's daughter) played for him the Marseillaise, the French national
anthem. With such a family history, we still had to grin and bear anti-
German name-calling during the war years.

    War Fatigue.  We all got quite tired of that war as much as eighty
years before, folks got tired of the Civil War.  By late 1944 the War
looked like it would be quickly won after Patton's and Montgomery's
armies had raced across France to the German Reich's impregnable
Westwall.  Then, just before Christmas, the incredulity and frustration
hit us upon hearing about the Battle of the Bulge, when unexpected
German forces counterattacked and came very near breaking out across the
Lowlands to the River Meuse.  That last winter had no war glamour.
Everyone prayed it would soon end.  We did respect the German prisoners
who actually have returned for visits as tourists in the years since the
war.  We went out as a class and waved goodbye at curb side when the
army truck loads left in the spring of 1945.

    Final Victories.  We celebrated the victories of V E Day and V J
Day in 1945 -- which was a traumatic year.  The victory in Europe came
none to soon in early May, right after President Roosevelt had died.
Later that summer, we heard in horror of the devastation of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.  War was horror, not glamour.  I don't believe any news
broadcast ever shocked me so much as that of the dropping of the atomic
bomb on Japanese citizens.  Whole cities were destroyed so as to reduce
the length of the fighting.  At least that was the official line of a
truly immoral act.  However, a few days after these two atomic bombs
were dropped the Japanese sued for peace and accepted the terms for
unconditional surrender.  World War II was finally over.  On that August
day, we were topping tobacco when Ed Thompson let the horses run off
with the mower, and the team raced across the field with all feet off
the ground at once, with the mower bouncing behind them.  Ed followed
far behind cussing and trying to save face.  Then across the countryside
we could hear the whistles starting to blow at the Carnation Milk Plant
announcing the war's end.  True dramatic closure!  
 
   War Consciousness and Weapons.  One scar of that war on us young
people at home was our insensitivity to the suffering of people and
other creatures, and our increased aggressiveness toward each other.  We
had not been subjected to the regular run of commercial combat toys for
lack of money.  We made what we couldn't buy, turning bushel basket tops
into shields and tobacco sticks into swords (though the family really
discouraged pointed weapons for fear of our eyes being damaged).  Also
we received real guns to shoot for target practice and use for hunting.
The only parental requirements were that we carried them unloaded except
at place of use, handle the weapons carefully when crossing fences and
that we never, never pointed them at anyone.  Civil War weaponry caught
our fascination.  We found a Confederate sword which was still in its
scabbard.  We surmised that it was lost by one of Colonel Morgan's
raiders during their local Civil War raid in 1863.  We donated that fine
relic to the Albert Sidney Johnston Museum at nearby Washington.    

    Reflection on the Slow Process of Becoming Peacemakers.  Wars were
never close for me -- until the September 11, 2001 Attack on America.
The fascination of war was strong enough to capture my imagination to a
degree, but not with the suffering of being a soldier or a victim of
war.  Those who were in the military or went through air raids know how
to hate war, and I have learned ever so slowly a little more while
serving as an auxiliary navy chaplain during the Vietnam War.  A growing
hatred of war does not necessarily make me an instant pacifist, but it
helps a little to nudge me in that direction.  We American chauvinists
thought we could do all things right and win every war, but that is not
always true.  The tender sprouts of pacifism were sown by atomic bombs
and World Trade Center attacks.  All people and all creatures could
profit by letting the words of Pope Paul VI sink in -- "War no more.
War never again."

    A Prayer that Peace Be with us.  Oh God of true Peace, teach us to
be less warlike, to grow into more tranquil souls, and to love our
neighbor.  Wean us away from loving combat and strife, especially where
people will get hurt or die.  Help us to see the limits of patriotism
and the so-called love of battle glory.  Make us love peace as You do.


12  (1944)    Pickin' Fruit & Berries
   
   Gathering in summer is the mark of the prudent. (Proverbs 10:5)

   It is a joy to pick ripe fruit and other produce.  It makes the soul
sing out to the glory of the Creator more than virtually any other
gathering/harvesting action.  When one plants there is a sense of hope
and patient endurance until harvest.  But when one picks fruit it is as
though the job of growing and waiting has ended and the rewards are
within one's hands.  I always regard picking fruit as an individual
exercise, because being up in the tree does not allow for socializing.
On the other hand, gathering nuts was always a social event, for we went
on autumn Sundays as a family and got hickory nuts for Mama's Christmas
cakes.  We siblings went out into our back fields to gather black
walnuts on early autumn evenings.

   Income.  One of the ways we had to make some small income as kids
during the war years was to pick blackberries and sell them for a
quarter a gallon or even a dollar for a three-gallon bucket.  These fees
made our heads swim with monetary possibilities and plans to develop a
larger berry farm or something grandiose.  My maternal grandmother's
folks were Bluegrass gardeners and it ran in our blood to plant and
harvest fruit and vegetables.  The very essence of summertime for us
was, and still is today, orchard or garden produce.  Then to preserve
the flavors in jellies and jams was second only to eating or selling
fresh fruits and berries.  That was hard during the war because sugar
was rationed.  But that really didn't affect us so much because ration
stamps were traded, and we had all the meat we needed from the
butchering of hogs, chickens and even rabbits.  So we traded meat for
sugar and had enough for the home canning of fruits and berries.

    Orchard.  We had a wide variety of trees that bore a number of
delicious fruits.  First to come were the sour cherries that were ready
about Memorial Day weekend.  Cherries, like strawberries, always
competed with tobacco setting and then the disagreements arose as to
what comes first at the end of the school year.  Until the very last of
the home grown produce (1998) the sour cherry was picked and turned into
prized pies.  Summer apples came next in June and these were always good
as fried apples, cobblers and apple sauce.  Next were the red plums at
the end of June.  These red plums were turned into marmalade for Mama's
special rendition of widely acclaimed Mason County transparent puddings.
The old-time and improved purple Damson plums, which ripened at wheat
threshing time in mid-July, were great for preserves that captured the
flavor of these types of fruit.  I always got a stomach ache by eating
too many Damson plums.  These plum delicacies were followed by the
peaches in August.  In our area the peaches were more susceptible to
late spring frosts.  After that came the Concord grapes that were used
for all sorts of goodies -- jelly, cobblers, grape juice and even in
later years some wine.  Then there were the fall apples of various types
though we would buy more from the Browning Orchard in the next county.
We never sprayed the apple trees that I could recall, so the apples were
imperfect but good tasting.  The bad parts were cut out and the rest
used for pressing into cider by a small hand-cranked press.  Finally,
there were the pears in October and November which were the last of the
orchard fruits, and these were canned or allowed to remain in the cool
cellar for a few months to be eaten fresh.  We also gathered wild
persimmons in autumn which could be cooked into a marmalade or eaten on
the spot, since they would not keep very long.
   
     Picking Berries.  We didn't pick blackberries barefoot because of
the thorns and the snakes that inhabited the patch.  The ticks were an
added problem.   But there was a youthful joy of picking something when
I was young which seemed to leave as I got older and older.  I now
wonder how I ever liked it so much.  Of course the luscious tastes drove
me on to more and more harvesting, though I never ate much when I
picked.  In later years, when picking berries became less enjoyable, a
mere taste of the fruit was enough.  And that applies also to the
elderberries, raspberries and blueberries.  Strawberries are in a
special category.  They were good to eat on the spot, or at least until
my back gave out, for it rivaled transplanting tobacco as truly
"backbreaking work."  No wonder migrant berry pickers in California
demand higher wages.

   Eating and Becoming.  Eating off the land allows one to know the
place, identify with it, and "become it" through assimilation of food
from that place.  If we eat only imported foods, we soon become
California or Mexico or Florida.  We become the place where we get our
food.  I'm not against these noble distant places, only they are not
local -- and it is a basic ecological principle to obtain basic
materials from the local surroundings, if possible.  Furthermore, we
should try to assimilate local food even when we visit a place.  When
performing environmental resource assessments I have always strived to
sample the local produce and thus taste the land.  It may be mulberries,
persimmons, wild cherries or plums, wild ramps or wild garlic or a host
of other things.  Often people who live near native or cultivated fruits
and berries never taste these delicacies -- and they need to be gently
reminded of it.

   Nature's Trees of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  We had a budding
naturalist volunteer at our Appalachia -- Science in the Public Interest
(ASPI) center in 1994;  Scott Middlekoff tasted every thing that grew in
our woods.  One day he came back and had broken out with a mass of red
rashes all over his chest.  We asked what he was chomping on.  He said
he had tried a dozen or more different plant leaves or parts, and was
not sure which one caused the reaction.  It pays to know what can be
eaten off of the land.  I taste far too many samples, but try to use
some common sense.  When in the southern desert of the Holy Land the
guide came up and said he saw me eating wild fennel and other such
delicacies in central Israel,  but I had better not try sampling in the
southern desert because everything green here was poisonous.  Yes, we
learn to avoid some plants such as poison ivy and oak, a wide variety of
white berries and certain mushrooms.  Being grounded in the natural
world means learning what is good to eat and what must be avoided.  With
experience we grow in confidence and no longer fear natural foods.

    Nature's Plenty.  Crab apples, persimmons, papaws and mulberries
are native fruits that I have picked, but the one I like best is the
wild plum -- which has an exquisite taste.  I like to pick black
walnuts, hickory nuts of various types, hazelnuts and pecans.  Also a
variety of berries are inviting -- blackberries, raspberries,
dewberries, elderberries, buffalo berries, wild strawberries,
gooseberries and others.  I have eaten local lichens, but have not yet
learned the distinctions and uses of moss and ferns.  Greens are better
known with time -- dandelion which we ate as a spring delight when I was
a kid were mixed with boiled eggs, boiled potatoes and bacon grease and
vinegar.  Late winter brings a half dozen "messes" (portion for a single
dish at a meal) a year.  Early spring yields poke shoots (as good as
asparagus), lambs quarters, wild sorrel and young plantain.

    The ethical principle is "have a mess but do not make a mess."
Hawk Littlejohn, the well-known North Carolina Cherokee herbalist, said
to me that "most people do not understand how to treat natural wild
plants."  Since then I have come to appreciate that statement, and I've
tried to distinguish between some types of non-timber forest products
(NTFP) and others.  Some products including walnuts and blackberries may
be gathered and consumed.  A pleasant view and scenic site which is
necessary for our budding tourist industry is an unappreciated NTFP;
invasive species such as kudzu or garlic mustard are NTFP which should
be consumed as much as possible so that some control will ultimately
result;  native plants, which could be easily threatened by over-
harvesting, should be tasted, but left to wildlife.
 
   Note on Love of Trees.  I always liked trees from the earliest time,
when climbing them and camping under them.  Daddy was an expert woodsman
and loved to make every stroke count.  He could cut a tree off level
with the ground and leave no stump, because he wanted the log -- and
didn't like stumps.  He would place me on the other end of a two-man
crosscut saw, and then we'd pull precisely in sequence at the end of the
other's pull stroke.  With a sharp cross-cut saw, and no noisy chainsaw
in sight or sound, we could fly through a one-foot diameter black locust
in no time flat.  Two-foot thick oaks took longer.  My only regret was
felling trees in the first place, and as an outspoken teenager I
complained about our treeless fields.  In later years, Daddy added a
grove of pines to what was formerly the orchard and a stand of black
locusts near the large farm pond.  It was a special shock when I later
discovered that official state conservation maps showed that much of our
farmland should have been designated as woodland.

   Reflection on Limits to Consumption.  Partaking, but not overly
indulging, in the fruits of the Earth is a practice that comes to me and
others with time.  To respect God's creation and to be satisfied without
becoming greedy is a simple but significant step on our spiritual
journey.  Moderation in all things requires special attention on my part
and that of every American consumer.  However, that principle is more
difficult for those of us who regard natural products as part of the
commons and available for the taking.  Treating the commons with respect
is a challenging mission and message by budding ecologically-minded
citizens in an age of overconsumption of goods.  How am I to become a
"contrasumer," a name I coined a few decades back?
 
   Prayer to the God of Earth's Produce.  God of glory, you give us all
good things such as ripening fruit and produce from our land, both
cultivated and native.  We remember Israel's joy seeing the size of the
grapes and the fruit-filled Holy Land.  We enjoy the exquisite taste of
freshly picked fruit and cherish the opportunities to pick and eat as
acts of praise to you for good things.  Help us to prize simple things
in life.


 13  (1945)    Respecting the Sacred Through Service

   What we do is very little, but it is like the little boy with a few
loaves and fishes.  Christ took that little and increased it.  He will
do the rest.  What we do is so little we may seem to be constantly
failing.  But so did he fail.  He met with the apparent failure on the
Cross.  But unless the seeds fall into the earth and die, there is no
harvest.  And why must we see results?  Our work is to sow.  Another
generation will be reaping the harvest.
                            Dorothy Day (1897 to 1980)
                            Founder of the Catholic Worker Movement

    We were initiated into the service of the altar as seventh graders.
At that period there were no women servers; they were in the choir.  The
mysterious and solemn tones of the Latin Mass and Gregorian melodies
made us think this ritual was unchangeable.  I would think through the
formalized Mass, "Why couldn't it be really more like a supper?" and
"Why not in English?"  The priest would scrape the small altar cloth or
"corporal" and generally gather mostly lint along with a few fragments
from the broken hosts.  The Latin would be said by servers with little
comprehension.  The gestures had been lost for some of the richly
symbolic liturgical functions.  Holy Saturday was a long service, but
not fully appreciated by the people who attended.
 
   Serving and Latin.  The great hurdle to becoming an altar server was
learning Latin responses.  We would take noon recreation periods and go
over to the high school typing room and listen to the disc of Latin on
the old Victrola, which was a hand-cranked record player, and had the
RCA listening dog on the cover.  Gradually the Latin phrases came to us,
but I never learned to pronounce them distinctly.  For decades,I mumbled
my Latin and hoped the celebrant was too hard of hearing to notice.  As
for the words, we knew what they meant through translation, but did not
reflect on the meaning while reciting the prayers.  A challenge almost
equal to the Latin was to light candles which protruded high up on tall
candle sticks at the right and left of the tabernacle -- two for Low
Mass and six for High Mass.  It took a steady hand to light the tapers
with just enough flame to torch the wicks and not enough to burn the
place down.  More nervous energy was used in lighting candles than any
other exercise in my altar career -- as a whole congregation watched in
anticipation and hopes that the wick would take hold before the taper
burned the servers vestments or the altar cloth.  The third challenge
was getting incense lit for funerals or benediction, and to do so
expeditiously so that the ceremony would proceed on time, with no
burning charcoal falling on the rug or other places.

   Additional Challenges.  My brother Charlie and I were teamed to
serve Bishop Mulloy, the bishop of Covington, on one of his rare visits
to our parish.  One of us did forgot a signal to come forward and then
the other poured water on Bishop Mulloy's crimson slippers, and he
asked, "Are you two brothers?" -- whether that was precipitated by our
looks or our actions we'll never know.  We generally rang bells at the
right time and with gusto so that it would wake the soundest sleeper in
the congregation.  We had a type of chimes which required a certain
amount of finesse, a bell ringer's timing and proper handling of the
chimes hammer.  Each server tried to give all in sound and rhythm, but
some were more musical than others.  We had to genuflect at given times
and bring his biretta (a cloth covered cardboard hat worn by those
celebrating Mass at that time) to and from the priest at given points in
the Mass.  I'll never forget changing the large Missal (the ritual book
for the Mass), which blocked one's vision somewhat, and stepping on and
crushing his wonderful head piece.  So much for birettas which were
originally worn by scholars, not priests and now no longer used.

   Fasting.  The laws of fasting from midnight to after receiving
Communion made midnight Mass at Christmas quite popular as one would
expect.  It also made taking Communion at the second of the Sunday
morning Masses at ten o'clock, only possible for a very few of the most
heroic. Holy Communion was taken at a rail with a starched white cloth
that would be raised before Communion and lowered afterwards.  Perhaps
it meant we were not to let the host, which could accidentally be
dropped, touch our hands.  It did give a nice sense of table manners and
partaking of sacred food which is missing today.  We had the four
Sundays parsed out to a Sunday for the Holy Name Society, one for the
school children, one for the Lady's Sodality and one for the choir.  
Only after the one-hour fasting requirement did the popularity of later
Communions take hold, and it became a general practice for a major
portion of the congregation to receive Communion on Sundays.
 
  Helping to Destroy Initiation.  It would be the world's greatest
understatement to say we were an unruly lot who served at God's high
altar.  Returning years later, I was amazed at how placid the servers at
St. Patrick's were in comparison to those in our day.  We underwent
initiation into the Altar Boy Service and that could be tough.  In fact,
in my own ordeal, I tripped after being pushed from a back church
window, spraining an ankle.  Again, I was left on top of the eight-foot
safe in back and was then afraid to jump and had to await for a kinder
person with a step ladder to rescue me.  You would think with all these
mishaps we would have learned our lessons, but sure enough the next year
we put the new batch of servers through new ordeals.  We had them go out
at recess and kiss some girls and that brought all initiations to a
head.  The culprits including the instigator (me) had to write a hefty
paragraph fifty times and get each signed by a parent.  This did not go
over well at home.  With that, all initiations ceased at the school
forever.
 
  Airplane Down    The hardest serving assignment for those of us who
seldom served during the weekdays was that of Benediction on Sunday
afternoon at 2:30.  The chance to serve only came once a season.  But it
just happened that my brother Charlie and I had to assist with the
service on the very Sunday afternoon that an airplane from North
Carolina ran out of gas and landed in our cow pasture.  We were eating
Sunday dinner, and someone came to the door breathless, and said there
was a pilot running around in circles to keep our herd of cows from
ramming and butting his small Piper Cub.  As incredible as it sounded it
was true, and we went in a wink to drive the cows away -- for they are
the most curious of all animals with the possible exception of deer.
The task of getting them out of that field was our family's, and the
pilot got away with no damage to his downed craft.  A neighbor
volunteered to take him to the nearest airport in Aberdeen, Ohio for
several five-gallon cans of fuel.  We then took our tractor and towed
the plane over to a long field which had the length needed for a
makeshift runway, even though it meant taking down two fences.  At that
point, time expired and Charlie and I made a hasty exit to go to church
with Mama who was a speeding terror at the wheel during ordinary times.
We got there in time and served the half-hour Benediction with some
distractions.  Upon our quick return home we arrived as the plane revved
up, rolled in a bumpy fashion down the hoofed surfaced pasture strip,
and gained just enough speed to swing out over and clear utility lines
with feet to spare.
 
     Reflection on Becoming Responsible through Service.  Amid the
rough edges and challenges of learning to serve the People of God, each
of us gains some sense of responsibility.  It is an answer even when we
were young that it is not all a give me, give me expectation.  I too
must give.  My journey to service has seemed rocky at times, but it is
really part of a constant on-going divine call to respond and be
responsible.  Only with time have I come to view the ritual as important
for focusing my attention to the sacred reality that lies beyond our
everyday world.  I began to realize that service at the altar is doing
something that gives special emphasis to the profound act of the advent
of Christ in my life.  Yes, vestments, altar, candles, bells, incense
and flowers enhances the sacred nature of our liturgical service.  In
the journey to a spiritual life my service becomes part of my quest for
God, and becomes part of the sacrament of everyday life.

      Prayer for Attention in our Prayer Life.  Oh God, we start out
with rough spots and expect You in your patience and mercy to provide
the time and inspiration to make the crooked ways straight.  Our
service, whether when young or old, is never perfect, and yet we do give
it with a certain amount of generosity.  Fill in the ruts of our lives
with the blacktop lubricated with your grace.  Allow us to help make
rough ways smooth.  Allow us to discover the need for an outward
reverence that augments an inward attention and openness to your grace.
Train us to give the willingness and energy to kneel, or sit, or stand,
and to pray in the most conducive mood possible.  Show us the times
which are better ones to pray.  Assist us in discovering our real needs,
to beg for them, and to be totally open to discovering your answer.
Finally, give us the courage to assist others in this age of informality
to do the same.


14  (1946)    Replacing Horses with a Tractor

   Now I am making the whole of creation new.  (Revelation 21:5)
   
   Too Good to be True.  When World War II ended and tank factories
converted back to making farm tractors, we wondered whether we could
join the ranks of tractor owners.  The more affluent portion of pre-war
farmers like my maternal Uncle Bud had his powerful green and yellow
John Deere which we kids were allowed to steer on occasion.  Daddy
settled in 1946 on a squat gray Ford/Ferguson; this proved highly
versatile and had a facile hitch-system for allowing implements to be
attached and detached without too much elbow grease and skinned
knuckles.  The idea that we could run the device with lights at night,
and without fetching horses in early morning, or watering them or
feeding them, seemed too good to be true.  It harkened back to the
stories of the replacement of horses by cars at the turn of the
twentieth century in Manhattan.  No more horse droppings on the street
and speed in getting across town (in fact, traffic jams make
car travel slower in New York City and chemical air pollutants replaced
horse manure).  What was too good to be true came at a price that was
overlooked.

   The Waning of the Horse Age.  We lived at the end of an age that had
gone on for thousands of years.  We would watch as teams of horses
carried loads of tobacco to the warehouse during World War II, when
trucks were more scarce and gasoline was rationed.  Horses were almost
never used for transporting people, like they were in the 1910s and
1920s.  However, we did see the very last of horses hauling materials
from place to place.  In  some way swishing tails and the smell of horse
sweat harked back to millennia of a relationship of humans and horses.
While we saw the very last of that age, we never regretted it one bit.
 
   No Horseman.  I was more a cow person than a horse person.  Wendell
Berry, a Kentucky farmer, author and friend, once asked me to go to
northern Ohio with him to see some draft horses at an Amish friend's
farm, and I said I simply had too much of horses in my youth.  I now
regret responding too hastily.  While not wanting to handle horses
myself, I do admire good horsemanship in all its forms.  Maybe I took
them for granted, but I find myself today going up to pet horses and
giving them apples.  I did not give our horses special attention in my
youth because I was not a good rider nor teamster (driving horses which
were pulling wagons or farm implements).  It's like a green thumb in
growing things;  you have to like them, and all plants and animals know
that.

   We Prided Ourselves in Being Work Horse People.   We were never
riding horse people and ours were used only for utilitarian purposes.
Outsiders seldom appreciate the vast cleavage which divides the race
horse Kentucky folks from the work horse ones.  The more aristocratic
Davis Family, across the road from my home place, made a point in riding
horses on occasion.  Years later I still felt honored being work horse
people.  In Okeechobee, Florida, I was asked by the pastor to preach to
a large congregation (four Masses of a thousand people each);  I was to
exhort them to join in stopping the largest landfill planned in the
state.  During that weekend, I was an evening guest at the home of
wealthy sugar growers and parishioners.  They had influence in
Washington administration circles, and their plantation was adjacent to
the Lake Okeechobee site.  Upon hearing I was from Kentucky, the hostess
asked whether my family had horses -- obviously meaning whether I was
related to the horse-riding folks from the Bluegrass region.  It was the
moment for the one liners I love.  Yes, Daddy had four -- work horses.
I stood squarely on the coonskin side of the Kentucky flag which shows
an aristocrat shaking hands with a rough pioneer.
   
   Ole Babe.  She was really the only major relic from his mother's
farming days, and Daddy had an affection for our horse, Ole Babe.  She
had been retired and allowed during her final days to perform light farm
work.  She simply got older and older with time.  I think she was an
astounding 32 at her death and would have continued forever in
retirement, had it not been that she would get down and could not get
back up.  In her retirement years we rode her; we fed her horseweeds; we
curry combed her;  we petted her; and gave her needed love.  She was
also expected almost every year to do at least two annual duties:  carry
the fork loads of hay by way of pulley and rope to the higher lofts; and
do the single row plowing of the vegetable garden.  One sad day she had
to be put away.  Daddy was truly sad and so were the rest of the family.
I felt like I had lost a kinfolk, one who was always taken for granted,
but was still part of the place called "home."  Her stall remained empty
and only used for storage;  and was never filled by another horse.  It
was something like retiring a popular athlete's number.  We all sorrowed
without daring to express it out loud in words.

    Horses Ways.  It is not wise to paint the horse age as accident-
free, for it wasn't.  We had accidents around our place including the
time Daddy dislocated his shoulder when the horses got spooked and
started to run off.  He went to the emergency room at the local hospital
over that episode and we had to go around the field and pick up the
spilled corn.  Horses are powerful and somewhat dumb.  They don't stop
on a dime in most cases.  A good horse person always respected his
horses, knowing their limits and giving them the care they needed.  I
took horses for granted and realized later that they could be part of a
family, requiring attention, shoeing, watering and a host of other
services.  Horses had good memories.  Babe was taken on the Hill City
Pike where she had been part of a team carrying goods from the old home
place.  Though not being on the road for a decade, she stopped for a
rest in the exact spot she used for resting years before.  Bringing in
loads of corn or tobacco would require stopping at traditional resting
places.  The horses were unruly when the horseflies buzzed them and
these pests had to be killed right away.  Those bits of attention to
horse details required a slower pace than with an insensitive tractor,
which still needs maintenance.

   Tractors are Different.  The changeover from horse to tractor was
not abrupt, since we used and worked both at the same time.  But the
tractor ushered us into a new economy and that was a definitive event
that changed the culture of the farm and eventually challenged small
family farm life.  Why?  A colt could be born on the farm and the horse
could run on home-produced hay and corn.  On the other hand, it took
major capital to buy tractors from manufacturers and fuel from oil
companies.  Horses required rest and yet tractors could run day and
night. That means the hours of field work could include the night and
expand beyond the already sixty-hour daylight week.  Tractors had their
own rhythm and it was brutal.

   I Liked the Tractor.  I said good-bye to the horses and became a
tractor lover.   I was like all early teens and craved the power behind
the wheel.  When we got the tractor I was thirteen and thought it true
liberation to speed around the grounds on wheels.  When jobs could be
done by youth, Daddy gave us the clear leeway to move forward.  Even
though we had a truck, we often used the tractor and wagon to haul
materials from town on occasion.  I will never forget hot-rodding our
tractor and loaded wagon of sand down a narrow road through a blind one-
lane railroad underpass yelling "toot-toot," and then finding a car with
sense enough to have paused on the other side.  Yes, another narrow miss
for my overworked guardian angels.

   The Hazards of Farm Tools.  Everyone has heard near miss stories or
hazards that didn't, but nearly happened in the most dangerous
occupation -- farming.  I operated the tractor for corn cultivation.  It
was a cultivator which would be raised and lowered.  Once on my Uncle
Pete's corn field I was on a rather steep hillside and so in turning I
paused at the end of the row.  The cultivator had two guide chains that
allowed it to only shift a few inches in a single direction when raised.
This particular time it shifted right into the bordering woven wire
fence.  To go forward or reverse would tear out wire -- and Uncle Pete
would not like a damaged fence.  My immature genius went to work even
though a mile from any other human being.  I reached back with one foot
and put most of the body weight on the taut chain, thus pulling the
cultivator out of the fence, and the other outstretched foot worked the
clutch pedal.  It was a crazy acrobatic exercise that wore down my
guardian angel -- but the fence was saved.

   Tractors and Farm Work.  What was apparent in the tractor age was
that an observant eleven or thirteen-year-old could do the job just
about as well as an adult.  That allowed us to learn to do one job well,
so that each of us could use the tractor on different occasions.  It
kept the machine busy and permitted us to specialize in various tasks.
My brother Charlie, though younger, was the mechanical brain of the farm
and attached himself to tractor work when possible.  He definitely was
the more talented mowing specialist.  I liked to cultivate row crops and
thus used less mechanical implements, and liked general gardening and
tobacco work along with the dairy portion better.  Farming was becoming
mechanized and that required even more skill than handling horses.
Beasts of burden were replaced by a new order, and that order was not
meant for everyone.

   Reflection on Welcoming Technological Progress.  In the 1940s, we
welcomed the new technological innovations such as television, outdoor
movies, cars with tail fins, tractors and fast food places.  We were
ready believers in the technological progress that accompanied the end
of the World War II.  Superhighways, faster cars and passenger planes
would usher in an era of infinite change and ever faster travel, and I
was among the boosters of this new world order.  However, in our
optimism we did not listen to the few critics of this "progress" and had
to await the years of further reflection.  The old would pass away and
welcome the new.  But this one profound change that we farm people
witnessed in going from horse to tractor was a personal experience.  It
became a stored experience awaiting further reflection an a later age of
wisdom.

 Prayer to be More Critical of Our Age.  Oh God, make us critical of
where we are and what we are doing.  Give us a sense of the grander view
with spiritual, rather than material, values.  Help us to question
progress and its champions, to see that all change comes at a cost, and
that some folks are left behind and are hurt.  Help us to be critical of
our throwaway culture, while also perceptive enough to welcome the good
in the new, as well as retain the good in the old.


15  (1947)    Internalizing a Conservation Ethic

   You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord.
   All you birds of the air, bless the Lord.
   All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord.
            (Canticle of Daniel 3:79-81)

   I grew up with guns and would have felt defenseless without the
rifles, shotguns, shells and bullets in the house.  Bill of Rights,
security, national defense, macho attitudes, sports, Sunday pop bottle
shooting, economic security and wildlife were all mixed together.  Rural
kids were armed, dangerous and bored, just like urban kids are today --
until we passed gun control legislation.  

    Conservation First.  A number of us "middle school age" students
were recruited into the Kentucky Game Conservation Club.  It was part of
a major post-war statewide, conservation movement to teach youth to hunt
and fish, to respect wildlife and to handle weapons properly.  Looking
back, these embattled public servants were trying to change attitudes
about wildlife and create a conservation ethic.  A friendly, balding
middle-aged warden came, on occasion, to the school and gave talks,
passed out literature and helped us start our school's chapter of the
game conservation club.  I was somehow attracted to join the club and
was elected as an officer.  

    Dale Hollow Lake.  In the summer of 1947, we went to Dale Hollow
Lake.  This was a new manmade addition to the Tennessee Valley Authority
chain of lakes on the Cumberland River.  I rarely complain about food,
but Dale Hollow food was unappetizing and in modest supply.  We were
bused from Maysville for an all-day trip down US-27 and on through
Burnside and arrived that afternoon at the largest lake I had ever seen.
The sparkling lake had just been filled and still had freshly cut brush
on the hillsides near the water line.  I possessed no formal luggage and
got the bright idea of using one of our family's feed sacks with our
name in red letters.  It proved somewhat threadbare, and I deliberately
hid it under other luggage for the boat ride to and from the island
where we camped.  The camp straddled the Kentucky and Tennessee border.
We slept in large tents and traded stories (half fibs) with fellows from
all over the Commonwealth throughout much of the night.  One fellow's
hometown's claim to fame was more drive-in theaters than any other in
the state.  I easily beat that one, but later confessed to stretching
the truth.  We learned to shoot skeet and went fishing, but didn't catch
much in the freshly stocked lake.
 
    Wildlife Abundance.  In the early history of the Commonwealth,
Kentucky was the happy hunting ground to the Shawnee and Cherokee who
inhabited neighboring territories.  Kentucky was and is blessed with an
abundance of wildlife.  Pioneers and the trail blazers, such as Daniel
Boone and Simon Kenton, testified to the numbers of elk, bear, deer,
bison and other wildlife populating the region.  In fact, when young, we
lacked the hunted out larger wildlife, though now we have in Kentucky
more deer and possibly turkeys than when the white folks arrived.
Mountain lions, bison, bear and elk were hunted to local extinction, but
some of these species are now being reintroduced.  On top of this we
have coyotes.  The variety of wildlife, especially small mammals,
remains significant -- possums, bobcats, mink, squirrels, rabbits,
foxes, raccoons and skunks.  

    Wildlife Attitudes.  Wildlife has been seen in many different ways
during the course of my own life.  As youngsters, we did not think
anything about killing insects and snakes as well as mice and rats.
Wildlife was not really regarded in a single category, but consisted of
attackers, food producers and pests.  I personally never accepted the
sporting part of killing wildlife, though when they were considered
pests or menaced our food source, the varmints became fair game.  Even
while abiding by the general conservation club philosophy, I paid little
attention to the sport part and regarded it only in a social sense at
best.  In fact, I only went rabbit-hunting a few times and found it
extremely boring.  Why kill dumb harmless bunnies with their graceful
hop?  We were gun-carrying promoters of the constitutional right to bear
arms -- not withstanding the interpretation that this applied
principally to arming state militia.  Occasionally, the state's hard-
pressed game wardens would announce that for a defined period nothing
was "in season," and thus no guns permitted.  Our response:  "game
wardens are always in season," and dared anyone to contest our crow
hunting, the need to kill rabid dogs, and to shoot at thieves.  We were
people of great ambivalence and didn't recognize it.  We were at times
gentle with people or animals and at times violent with wildlife and
even with their defenders.

    Wildlife as food.  Burgoo, Kentucky's state dish is a highly
seasoned stew made from an assorted variety of varmints on hand (rabbit,
squirrel, deer, coon, turkey and/or whatever was in the game bag) cooked
with mixed vegetables over night in a large iron kettle.  It is a nearly
forgotten pioneer social dish and was invented to sustain people in
early stockaded forts during the Revolutionary War.  The long cooking of
the stew, took the sting and toughness out of wildlife meat.  However,
with soaking in vinegar, herbs and a number of other tricks some of my
relatives could dress (prepare) the wild rabbits and squirrels after my
kinfolks' hunting expeditions.  No one would bring in hunted game
without preparing and consuming it at meals.
 
    Guns and Temptations.   In 1990, my faithful watchdog was killed
one night when she ran out barking and a car screeched to a halt.  As I
came to the door there was a shotgun blast and Lady,* my faithful
shepherd, let out a whimpering noise and ran back and fell dead at my
feet.  It was quite frightening and I was uncertain of the message. I
was tempted to acquire a gun again -- something I had left behind
decades before.  Dora Mae Wagers, a mountain woman and noted Renfro
Valley "ole timey" musician, offered me a World War II vintage machine
gun to mount on our hillside and "spray" any intruders.  I didn't
succumb to that rather far-fetched temptation.  In a call to Paul
Gallimore, a fellow Appalachian appropriate technologist,  he persuaded
me that it wasn't right to bear arms.  The week of the dog shooting, I
was invited to talk on Mother Angelica's weekly call-in talk show on the
EWTV Network.  Knowing she was Franciscan, but having never watched the
show, I never expected what would happen.  I spoke of a growing need to
relate to other creatures especially wildlife.  I told of resisting the
gun temptation and she scoffed -- "a priest with a gun!"  I said, "I was
only tempted."  Whereupon a heated discussion ensued and continued long
after air time had ended.  Two anti-environmental viewers called in and
the potential loss of donations was too much for the good Mother.  She
seemed unfamiliar with St. Francis' love of plants, animals and other
parts of nature.  
 
  * In writing this I had to find her official name used by the
veterinarian because I never call animals by names, but rather
communicated through whistling.

   Wildlife as Pests.  Over the years a number of animals fit into the
pest categories, of which I have later regretted putting into such
categories.  They have included:  the bothersome crows; mice and rats,
pole cats, some foxes, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets and poisonous
snakes.  My regrets have included an initial and culturally induced
dislike for snakes.  However, in recent years I have let the copperheads
live.  My brothers and first cousin -- a crack shot and a gun trainer in
the military -- wiped out all my uncle's turtles in his pond in one
afternoon and regarded them as pests and food for target practice.  We
have great regrets over such practices.  The lowly turtle would no
longer be a pest in anyone's book.  When youngsters, we had many little
hopping frogs in our part of Kentucky, but these are rarely seen today.
I recently encountered a five inch long scorpion  -- and these sting and
are regarded as pests;  I didn't photograph it, bottle it or kill it,
but let it be.  This takes more self-control than I had when younger.

    A Word on Fishing.  For many, hunting, and especially fishing, is
a solitary sport.  However, I never did either alone, while I do hike
and camp alone.  Social fishing means it was not serious sport.  Daddy
would take us for bonding, or just to get away, and we would go to Bill
Kubel's pond.  We would stop off and seine (by use of a net) the creek
for minnow bait near the Kubel house.  This would bring out Bill and his
brother Sam to accompany us to the pond, and the menfolks would talk in
an animated fashion while we young folks cast out our lines, sinkers,
floats and baited hooks from bamboo poles for catfish or other types of
fish.  The discussion would become all the more lively when the fish
would bite.  These dark slithery creatures had to be unhooked, taken
home and "dressed" -- the hard job.  Catfish are bony, but when rolled
into cornmeal and deep fried they are a refreshing addition to any diet.
In later years, we would go Sunday seining with our neighbor friend,
Archie Church, in the nearby North Fork of the Licking River.  Since the
activity of netting fish in this fashion was illegal, we would hide the
truck.  Once, we almost turned it over on a steep riverbank and we all
had to pile on the upper side running board to keep it from tilting
over.  Archie was full of daring exploits, both while we ran around
together and long after we parted to different colleges.  He returned to
Mason County and later sped his car down the newly completed local
airport runway at eighty miles per hour, and the car turned cartwheels
at the end of the runway.  He died instantly, but his son and a
passenger were thrown clear and recovered.
 
    Reflection on Developing a Conservation Ethic.  I have regarded the
natural progression from wildlife as neutral to wildlife as resource,
and then to wildlife as needing protection, care and love, and finally
to wildlife as friend and companion on my own spiritual journey.  That
change in awareness has taken time.  Prior to seminary training I
considered the use of guns and wildlife as associated in some manner.
Now I see carrying a gun as a detriment to a concern about this Earth
and its creatures.  The dissociation of gun and wildlife is part of our
spiritual and ecological journey.   In fact, the more I learn to find
the beauty and value of wildlife for its own sake, the less inclined I
am to support sport hunting as a valid practice.  Pest control, yes.
Food needs, yes.  General wildlife conservation, yes.  Sports hunting,
no. Guns for me and my protection, no.
   
    Prayer of Thanksgiving.  Oh God of patience,  You give us time to
come to deeper understanding of your animal kingdom.  Thanks for the
opportunity, the understanding and the creatures which bless You and all
of us by their presence.  They are both good in themselves and they make
us better by being among us.  Thanks for animal lovers, naturalists and
conservationists who enter our lives, bear our suspicions and teach us
to appreciate all of wildlife.  Thanks for the long process of coming
from callousness to a sensitivity and sense of responsibility for our
animal brothers and sisters.    


16   (1948)    Arguing "Bread-and-Butter" Politics

   Stand up and let the case begin in the hearing of the mountains, and
let the hills hear what you say.    (Micah 6:1)
 
    Education has a way of narrowing our attention span to include only
those we regard as experts -- and this can be harmful in our quest for
wisdom. The veterans returned from World War II with vast experience,
some of which they kept secret.  We often presumed that they had left
America behind when overseas and needed reeducation upon coming back and
adjusting to civilian life.  However, they had a wisdom we did not
respect.  We thought we knew quite well the political situation of our
country as we listened to radio commentators.  Thus when ole "Frodge"
(we never used his first name, Elmer), a disabled war vet, spoke on
political subjects we did not listen because he was a commoner,
uneducated and away overseas in the army for several years.  

    Frodge was a Truman man. He liked that World War I veteran and
occupant of the White House, who had sponsored the GI Education Training
Program.  Frodge would go to town, take special agriculture classes on
the GI Program, socialize and drink.  In trying to forget the horror of
war, he would go on "benders" that cut into work time.  Daddy offered to
take Frodge to take the pledge to stop drinking from the county Judge.
Frodge, who was not a church-going man, said he preferred to go to
Father Casey.  When Daddy asked why, Frodge said because "Fr. Casey will
give me his blessing.  Frodge proceeded to honor the one-year pledge to
the day.  Then it was bender time again until the next pledge.
Eventually, he was persuaded to take longer ones because his honor and
religiosity kept him sober more than anything else.

    Wisdom of a Sort.  Well, Frodge knew the political situation better
than I did.  I had faithfully listened nightly to the news broadcasts of
H.V. Kaltenborn about how New York Governor Tom Dewey, the Republican
candidate,  would be a shoo-in and beat Truman in the 1948 Presidential
Elections.  Frodge said Truman had the support of veterans and their
spouses, and that was sufficient to negate any of the experts, pollsters
and pundits.  I argued with him in the good tradition of Kentuckians,
and that was to no avail, so we placed a bet of $2.00 (the most in my
life and the equivalent of a day's wage for me).  It was a shock
learning the day after the November election, for the newscasters on
election night  kept calling Tom Dewey the next president.  But, Harry
Truman and Frodge got good night sleeps, and then victory the next day.
Never again would experts override the bread-and-butter people.  It was
a repeat of what had happened in 1864, when Civil War soldiers and
veterans reelected Abe Lincoln.  

    Reflection on the Value of Local Wisdom.   How open are we to the
knowledge of those who are local experts in their own right?  Or do we
harbor hidden biases which we are reluctant to acknowledge?   On
numerous occasions in recent years I have observed volunteers who are
coming fresh from college;  they are hesitant to seek information from
the permanent residents who are so very different from academic
authorities of the college years.  These volunteers will not acknowledge
that they have a rather rigid concept of who knows what.  This extends
into such practical matters as where to build a house, what firewood to
gather, how to find a source of good drinking water, or what local
garden produce grows best in a certain microclimate in which the
newcomer is residing.  This lack of openness to local wisdom is an
opportunity lost to grow spiritually by being humble in the face of lack
of experience.  Do we prefer to turn instinctively to those "experts"
who fit our stereotypes of the learned?  It takes a certain openness of
mind and heart to afford local wisdom its proper and, often, important
place.
 
   Prayer for Wisdom.  Divine source of wisdom, give us the grace to
listen to others, even those we regard as less learned than others or
who do not have the credentials to make them experts.  Help us to
respect all knowledge, to weigh differences, to discern when differences
arise, and to encourage others to do the same.  Keep us aware that
wisdom comes in many shades and colors.


17  (1949)    Acquiring a Sense of the Seasons

   This is the Day the Lord has made;  let us rejoice and be glad.    
                                 (Psalm 118:24)  
   
    Those who are not raised on a farm have a harder time appreciating
how much summer is preparation for winter.  The season of harvesting on
a mixed crop farm goes through phases depending on the rhythm of
planting and tending.  We were not beans (soybeans)-and-corn people like
major Midwestern farmers, but rather tobacco-corn-small grains-hay-
vegetables-fruit people, or small-time mixed farmers with special
emphasis on tobacco.  Let's consider the non-tobacco crops.  

    Hay-Making.  Haying is one of my most disliked jobs, for the hay
was essentially dusty and the pollen would stick to the sweaty skin
during the operation and cause me to sneeze.  We put loose hay in the
lofts of our large barn in pre-tractor years, but later graduated to a
stationary baler, which made heavy bales that had to be lugged and
stacked on a hay wagon.  Mama would come out at crucial times and give
us pitchers of iced lemonade; we would also take salt tablets to keep
from getting weak in the hot and humid environment.   The work was hard
and left us completely exhausted at the end of the day and we looked
forward to a bath or shower.    
   
   Silage Harvesting.  The silo was filled each August with a mixture
of green corn with the soft ear still having juice in the grain.  The
corn was mixed with sorghum cane, which had a high level of sugar in its
sap.  The corn and sorghum were grown and cut together, bound in bundles
and brought to the silo in wagons or trucks.  The season was initiated
with several of us going in the field and cutting the first two rows of
silage by hand so that the team of horses, later a tractor, and binder
could go through to cut the third and subsequent rows.  

   Instinctive Action.  Once, when cutting through the first rows our
young neighbor, Lowell Haggard, crawled through the field and jumped out
to scare me.  I was wielding a machete-type corn knife and he
frightened me so much that my first impulse without thinking was
defense.  I swung the machete and it barely missed his throat.  When
seeing him many years later, he recalled a number of practical jokes he
had pulled, but not that one.  However, for years the scene haunted me.
 
    Filling the silo.  We youngsters had the rather pleasant assignment
of entering the silo, gradually sealing off the doors as it filled and
tramping the silage as it poured in through a shoot.  We danced like
warriors and shouted, but our voices were drowned out by the deafening
noise of the chopping machine outside.  We kept the entering silage
leveled and unhooked and lowered extension sections outside as the silo
filled to the full twenty-eight foot height of the silo.  After filling
the silo we would put a load of soil on the top in order to keep the
silage sealed until feeding time in winter.

     Sweet Cow Feed.  The silage was slightly fermented in the trusty
silo and the cows devoured it.  In fact, when the silo was being filled,
the hogs would come up to the base of it and drink the fermented juice
oozing from the silo.  We would laugh as hogs would stagger around for,
like many animals, they had a low tolerance for alcohol.  The only feed
dairy cows liked more than silage was a mixture of black strap molasses
which we bought by the fifty-gallon barrel.  We mixed the molasses with
crushed wheat and fed them in the milking parlor in winter.  The cows
would strain at their stalls to get to it before the others.  Their
eagerness would make us hungry just before supper time and we would dip
our fingers into the barrel for a sample, but it was strong, and looked
and smelled better than it tasted.
 
    Wheat Harvesting.  Our wheat was of high quality and a portion was
cleaned and sold as seed at Everett's Feed Store in Maysville.  The
remainder was crushed by our own hammer mill and used for feeding the
hogs and cattle.  It was a winter wheat that was planted in the autumn
in the field that had corn and tobacco the season before.  The ripe
wheat was cut in late June by means of a grain binder which ejected
bundles of wheat stalks tied with twine.  These bundles were dropped in
bunches and shocked (by us youngsters) in squat upright groupings or
"shocks."  These shocks were topped by one bundle bent to form a right
angle to make a "cap" over the shock.  This was to ensure that any
possible rain water falling before threshing time would run off as from
a thatched room.  The exercise of cutting and shocking was the harder
part of the threshing process.  

    Wheat Threshing.  On the day the thresher was scheduled, we would
assemble two dozen neighbors and hired hands, and the excited group
would load wagons and bring them to the thresher.  Dinner at noon was a
major occasion, with all the working crew eating from Mama's many dishes
-- chicken, green beans, ham, tomatoes, gravy, mashed potatoes, fresh
apple sauce, beets, slaw including two types of cobblers for dessert.
Then, stuffed to the gills, the group would return to the afternoon
work.  Mr. Church, who owned the common thresher, dropped his pipe ash
on the stubble (in his own field) and in a wink the field was ablaze.
The harried teamsters barely got their horses and wagons out before a
complete conflagration.  Other than this fire most threshing was a major
social event.

   Straw Baling.  After threshing, the stack of straw was a small
mountain that beckoned every youngster to climb up, slide down and carve
caves within the sides.  This could and would happen if the straw stayed
around awhile.  More often, we would bring in the stationary baler and
chew into the straw stack, transforming it into blocks of bales, which
were then carried to the barn to be used for bedding of cattle in winter
time.

    Corn Growing.  After the corn was planted, we hoped it would
survive the crows, whereupon it needed cultivation -- a rather
monotonous job.  One operation, a type of busy work, involved taking a
corn "jobber" seeding device and going through a ten or more acre field
and replanting the areas where the planter had missed.  During some of
these isolated farm operations, I could indulge in speaking in tongues,
not because the activity was suspect, but because speaking to myself was
looked down upon if others were around.  Often the languages sounded so
distinct and involved, I suspect they had a hidden meaning. I was always
poor at languages so I wondered at the fluent manner that the
meaningless words poured out in the isolated countryside.  Speaking of
sounds in the corn field, the one non-farmers find amusing is listening
to the corn grow -- a sound that includes unfolding of the leaves, and
is often detected on a warm summer evening.  For Americans, corn is the
crop of crops.

    Corn Pickin' Time.  In early days of the horse economy we had to do
all the corn work by hand and horse-drawn implements such as planters,
cultivators and corn binders.  The corn was cut by hand, a most
uncomfortable exercise.  Since the dried leaves or "blades" would cut
and irritate, the human cutter had to have arms, neck and essentially
all but the face covered.  These were gathered like the wheat bundles,
but as loose stalks into a picturesque corn shock (stacked together and
tied around the middle with twine).  When the autumn weather was still
hot and humid, the amount of clothes required for protection was most
uncomfortable.  A far more likeable task was shucking the corn later in
the autumn when the weather was more brisk and the corn was dry (a job
that Harry Truman openly admitted to have hated).  We would tear down
each corn shock and remove the dry corn ears, which were piled and then
picked up by a wagon and taken to the corn crib.  Riding a loaded corn
wagon was a good time to sing -- for it was harvesting at its fullest.

    Hemp.  One additional crop that was added to our part of the
country during World War II was hemp.  A century before it had been the
leading crop in Kentucky, but had been banned in the 1930s in part
because the synthetic fiber producers didn't want to compete with this
superior natural hemp fiber.  They focused on the very small amount of
the active ingredient of its cousin marijuana, but it is too little to
make anyone high.  The Archibald Churches, our next farm neighbors,
raised hemp during the war years.  In those unmechanized days it was
extremely hard work because the stalks were cut by hand (at the lowest
level to maximize stalk fiber).  These stalks were then gathered into
large shocks to dry, with hemp the sweaty toil being known as "slave
labor."  The dried fibrous material was taken to a processing plant
where the seed heads were separated and turned into a commercially
desirable oil, and the fibers were used for making rope and other hemp
products.  An earnest lobbying effort is currently being undertaken to
legalize hemp in midwestern farm states.  

   Reflections on Knowing the Seasons.  We perform a certain act of
faith in sowing and preparing the field -- for we trust that produce
will follow.  When the harvesting time comes, the opportunity affords
itself to express gratitude for the plenty obtained and a reaffirming
faith in the upcoming year of crops.  Besides acts of faith and
thanksgiving, there is the planning and timing necessary to get the crop
in storage before it is hurt by the unpredictable weather.  Just as we
who are ecologically aware must know our place, so we need to know the
time and season of the work being undertaken.  There is a time to act,
and we must not hesitate.  In undertaking our seasonal tasks we become
aware of how transitory life is, and how we are to make the best of the
time we have here and now -- with an urgency that increases with age and
aging.

   Prayer:  Oh God of all seasons, allow us to become ever more
thankful of the precious time that You have given us to do things and to
do them well.  Help us to be ever more aware of the lengthening and
shortening of the days, the rise and fall of the temperatures, the signs
of wind and rain and our physical response to these changes.  You have
blessed us in this day of life, precious in your sight.  Give us the
strength to fill our limited days with blessings as well, and make each
one unique among all the days of our life.    


 18  (1950)    Learning from the Great Snow Storm

 It is good to wait in silence for Yahweh to save.(Lamentation 3:26)

   I never expect to endure a snowstorm like the one of 1950.  It was
not only the weather but the utter devastation of my plans during the
Thanksgiving holiday and my senior year in high school -- a hyperactive
teenager in a busy world ground to a halt.  Suddenly all my plans
collapsed  as the wind began to blow and snow fell on that Thanksgiving
Day just after a grand meal at mid-day.  We never suspected just how bad
the storm would be.  Things shut down awaiting the storm and we had
little to do but get a good night's sleep.  Upon awakening in the
unheated bedroom the next morning it felt warmer than usual due to
snow's insulating effect.  We looked out of the second-story bedroom
window and beheld a snow drift up to the window and beyond -- a fifteen-
foot drift, the likes of which I have never since experienced.  We were
greatly excited, all but my sister Dorothy who was home from college.
She was like a caged tigress and suffering from acute cabin fever in a
very few hours.

   Reality.  The novelty of the Thanksgiving holiday snow drifts soon
wore off when we realized we had to carry water to milk cows stranded in
our barn.  Cattle in the field were caught in the drifts, and needed
pathways and proper herding to shelter.  I don't know what ranchers do
in such storms on the Great Plains, but we had our fill of snow drifts
very quickly.  We couldn't even make efficient tunnels (my initial plan)
in the powdery stuff, for it didn't stick together and had to be
shoveled off and not burrowed through -- and shoveling wasn't fun.  In
between farm work we had to grin and bear it.  We had unplanned time on
our hands and it was tough to be stranded, even within our own home.
Eventually, by the following Monday the bulldozers got some of the roads
cleared and Daddy took Dorothy on the farm tractor down to the Maysville
C & O Railroad Station so she could get back to school in Cincinnati.
We were deeply relieved and life slowly returned to normal as the roads
became passable.
 
   Brakes on Being Busy.  For an impatient and busy person like me snow
drifts and other forms of bad weather become major stress-filled
hurdles.  That school year of 1950-1951 was when my activities at home
and neighborhood peaked.  I didn't like the unexpected then because I
was already in a habit of planning ahead and getting things done on
time.  I set down calendar schedules for the first time in 1950 and
suddenly found them become unraveled.  I suffered then and still do now
from stress during such unexpected events, though I found out that none
of the other classmates in school took the great snowstorm the way I
did.  Perhaps, I was and now am an over-scheduled human being.   Farm
work was filled with morning and evening milking of cows and high school
life was certainly busier than usual.  As a high school senior I had a
role, though a minor one, in the class play, but this required practice
time.  I had a United Nations Association trip to Cincinnati. I had to
prepare for college with touring the facilities and applying for
scholarships. I was a delegate to the Kentucky Boys State Assembly at
Fort Knox.  Later we traveled on our senior class trip to Washington, DC
in April; we had the Grand Prom, and other activities as well as our
studies which I generally neglected because they were not too
challenging.  Being in a small school, I was expected to be involved in
far more activities than kids in larger schools.  Yes, I had a senior
schedule and was conscientious enough to plan my activities, but stress
increased when unscheduled events got in the way -- such as the big
snowstorm.

  Present Storms.  Ironically, I still feel much the same way about
severe storms and other such unscheduled events.  In January, 2000, I
was boxed in by a heavy sleet and a five-inch snow storm on Interstate-
81 in eastern Tennessee.  I couldn't beat the storm after giving a talk
on spring gardening at a state park in Kingsport.  There I sat in a
Super-8 Motel after viewing ten accidents over a fifty-five mile stretch
of highway.  My relative comfort was matched by the simultaneous
discomfort in failing to get home and prepare for various assignments
and appointments.  But I now know there are ways to conduct myself
better in times of unexpected schedule changes.  I have learned to pack
extra socks and take along extra reading material including manuscripts
to be productive during unplanned delays.  And now when they come, life
is less stressful.    

   Broken Plans.  I now see that each major unexpected storm event
creates a wave of anxiety over not achieving what has been planned.
Some ask how will it feel, if at death we know plans are not being
fulfilled.  Good point!  Actually the first storm in 1950 was the only
one that had an immense wonder and glamour to it.  And even in the midst
of that storm I experienced a seasonal change in my life.  Those other
storms afterwards were inconveniences that had to be endured and
overcome.  They became stressful barriers to what had been my personal
hopes and dreams, confrontation in a world of busyness and a need for
patience.  In fact, the immature character of Americans' impatience due
to disrupted plans is akin to what St. Peter experienced when he, an
impulsive activist, was no longer master of his fate and was led to his
death by another.  In these snow storms, floods and other unexpected
events, the scrapping of plans conveys a message -- we are not final
master of our time.  These are premonitions of our final winter call,
the ultimate passivity of life.

   Storms on a Trip.  Traveling is the type of predicament that makes
storms memorable and causes one to pray harder.  Four of us were heading
to the National Invitational Basketball Tournament in 1956 and we tried
to outrun a storm coming up behind us from the west.  We traveled all
night  from Cincinnati in my trusty green Olds, but were caught going up
the long hill on U.S. Route 22 at Weirton, WV.  We couldn't push the
bald-tired beast up, so we turned around hoping to take the river road
(Route 7) until we got to East Liverpool, Ohio -- and were stuck in snow
falling all the faster.  The Lord was with us, for an empty wrecker
agreed to hitch us free-of-charge and drag us twenty miles into
Youngstown, Ohio.  There we bought chains for the car and headed across
the Pennsylvania Turnpike to New York.  Needless to say, we did get out
of the Big Apple after the games in spite of headlines in the local
newspapers saying "no vehicles left New York City due to seventeen
inches of snow."  

 Storms without Travel.  Sometimes one has a nice dream of being held
up in a warm cabin with enough food, drink and fuel, and letting the
snow pile up outside without a worry in the world.  As long as travel is
not involved, let the storms come.  While a student in the theologate in
North Aurora, Illinois in 1965 we had such a storm out of the Great
Plains that piled drifts eight feet high, but the place had food,
utilities, cooks, heat and the regular academic class schedule.  That
welcomed storm allowed students to get some extra work and reading done.
Since almost every recent Christmas has involved considerable travel, it
appears there is competition between children praying for a white
holiday and the rest of us praying for the opposite.  More often the
kids win and snow travel at Christmas has involved trips with skidding
cars and careful braking.  

   Storms with Hidden Purposes.  Storms have held me up in churches,
retreat centers and motels on numerous wintry occasions.  One of my most
vivid memories was in January, 1994 when I tried to beat a storm one
Sunday after giving money-begging "Mission" talks in western Michigan,
and got as far as Indianapolis.  Starting east on I-74 the swirling snow
at nightfall was too much for me, and I skidded into a motel parking lot
that night.  The next day with already over ten inches of snow and heavy
winds, I reentered the Interstate for about two dozen miles to Oldenburg
and stayed for the week with the Franciscans at their retreat house --
and had some time to do a retreat before striking off to Kentucky when
the closed Interstates were reopened.  Even then, the abandoned cars and
the ruts in which autos had to travel with trucks ahead and trucks
pressing from behind, made driving a hell.
   
   Another storm that fellow Jesuit, Carl Moehl, and I tried to beat
was during the first days of 1999, when we attempted to outrun a howling
blizzard out of the southwest that we thought we could escape as it came
up the Ohio Valley.  We started our journey after Carl's last Sunday
Mass and made it an hour past Indianapolis.  The Lincoln Motel manager
said twelve or more inches of snow was predicted, but didn't know
whether the storm would hit to the south or north.  We hoped it would be
south and that we had skipped past, until we found out the next morning
that the storm had come north.  It was really between us and Chicago.
The Interstate was closed and we waited a few days as food ran out, and
more and more stranded motorists staggered in and packed the corridors
and lobby of the motel.  Finally, the weather began to break and we
limped back to Kentucky never having attended the Province Congregation
that we had been elected to serve.   It was a disappointment but far
less stressful than some of the earlier schedule spoilers.

   Reflection on Learning about Overcoming Barriers.  Storms and other
unexpected events teach us much about our spiritual journey.  We have
great dreams and plans, but sometimes detours occur, and we have to
learn to live with them.  We compulsive planners find the unexpected
very disconcerting.  The storm may change our best made plans.  Does God
allow these events to show us that we are not masters of our own lives,
but persons called to serve?  Further, the storms of disappointment
become the primary vocational call, for they cause us to pause.  For me,
storms have cost me my peace of mind.  But am I the one who makes the
grand plan, or only a minor player in the scheme of life?  It is good
that I plan extensively, because otherwise I could not achieve what I
must accomplish.  But rigid planning can get in the way of finding and
following God's will -- a grander mysterious plan which I can only see
glimpses of in my life.  I can write about severe storms with relative
ease after the fact, but enduring each storm is difficult.  However,
allowing for the unplanned makes things a little more tolerable than in
those first storms in immature youth .  With time I've learned to carry
along alternative work and books to read just in case;  it is far less
frustrating and opens a vista to exploring God's will as it applies to
my life.
 
   Prayer for Patience and Equanimity.  Master of storms and wind,  we
often get in the way and then try to assess blame.  Allow us to expect
the unexpected, await the Promised One, and respect the unknown for what
it is.  The forces of the Earth are stronger than us, so help us with
patience to accept inevitable delays.  Inspire us to arrange
alternatives, and to be willing to spend waiting time by contemplating
your Mysteries in a less disturbed fashion.  In the lateness of life we
still fail to see You as author of unfinished work.

The Latch String is Out -- Copyright © 2002 by Al Fritsch