Regimental Steins Part Two - Reservist Christman

Photographing a one liter beer stein is not easy!  I've rather shortchanged the cool top on this.

Of the two regimental steins my father brought back from Germany circa 1951, this is the one with all the "stuff".  There's a lot to look at, but as we'll see it is a bit more pedestrian than the next one we'll visit.

Presumably that's Reservist Christman depicted in the central image.  It is almost certainly not "him" in an artistic sense, just a generic young artillery man.  These were created with a combination of stencils and paint.  One way to sort it out is by touch.  The base image of the soldier is smooth, so probably stencil.  But the buttons on his uniform and the gilded stuff on his hat is raised, so added by hand!

There is never a first name on these things but the markings indicate he did his active service time as a recruit/conscript between 1898 and 1900.  The spidery, hand applied script indicates he was in the 3rd Company of "foot artillery"* of an artillery regiment based in Mainz.  Unhelpfully I can't be sure of the regiment, but it is probably the 117th, aka The 3rd Grand Ducal Hessian, aka the Grand Duchess regiment.  I am at least sure of Mainz, which narrows it down to three options, and there is a 3 among all the scribbles and abbreviations.

On one side we have this serious image and saying.  It translates to, more or less:

"It is the Artilleryman's job to make a powerful argument"

Around the top is another serious saying:

"Canonen donner ist unser Grufs"**

Cannon thunder is our Greeting.

But this stein is not all cannon thunder and bluster.  It does not photograph well but when you hold the empty stein up to a bright enough light you can see that there is the image of a man and a woman sitting in a tavern stamped into the base in what is known as a Lithophane.  One of the many ways to tell a real from a repro regimental stein is the content of the lithophane.  This one is typical.  Nudes are all fakes.

On the other side is something along the lines of: "Today the last shot was fired because I must go home".  Certainly the kind of sentiment that one would expect at the end of military service.  Being launched homeward by the cannon and waved off by your kamerades seems to fit.

So, what ever happened to Reservist Christman?  Absent a first name we shall never know.  But if he did his main military service on the dates listed here 1898-1900 he would have gone out of the most active reserve status by 1905.  He would have then spent 10 or 11 years in a second line sort of organization called the Landwehr.  So by 1914 he'd have been getting a bit old for soldiering.  Maybe mid 30s.  He'd still be a member of the lowest level of reserve, called the Landsturm, but by the time they got down to calling up those fellows he'd be pushing 40.  Let's hope he was not marched off to the last years of The Great War at that age.  Of course specialized skills were always in higher demand, and he was after all, an artilleryman....

* Foot artillery would be attached to an infantry division.  The guns would in general still be moved by horses.  Horse artillery was much less common, but cavalry divisions did have a few light field pieces they'd haul around with them.

** Among the oddities here is that the "f" depicted is a double s.  So, Gruss, or Greeting.

Regimental Steins - Part One

My dad picked up some antique beer steins when he served in Germany right after the war.  They even appear in the detailed inventory of things he shipped back home.  I find them fascinating.  There's really not an equivalent in our culture.

In Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, almost all men did a period of required military service, then went into the Reserves.  After that they still got together for drills on a regular basis.  It would be other guys from your community, and there were definite social aspects to the experience.  Evidently, near every major training base, there were special military shops where you could order a custom beer stein to commemorate all this.  Specific to branch of service, regiment, even the names of the guys in your company.  They vary a bit in level of seriousness.  As we'll see, they will have the dates of the man's active service as a roughly 18 year old Recruit.  So these were a sort of keep sake of your "Army Days" and something you'd get out when the other guys from your company got together for drinks.  Presumably Old Stories were told over these.

I have two examples.  Each is worth close study and will get its own post.  Here's a couple of teaser pics.....

Although fascinating artifacts these things do not have particularly high value on the antiques market.  They made a lot of these.  And there are many more repros attempting to fool buyers.  For these two the provenance is rock solid, some staff sergeant did a complete inventory of all Lt. Wolter's stuff that was being shipped home in 1948.  These are listed.

Robot School Wraps it Up.

Open house for the fall 2025 version of Robot School.  

Ten minutes before guests arrive, the robot broke.  Robots hate mankind.

Of course the combined efforts of students and instructors got it all happy again, just in time.

Nice turn out of family and other guests.  Big robots driven.  Mini robot obstacle course navigated.  A table full of swell robot parts given away.  All the students had to do was tell one of the adults manning this station what they'd done in Robot School!  Of course I was way too busy to get pictures of any of that stuff.  But the project robot - Mayo - came through in the end....

I wish I had video of the high school robot extending its elevator to block a shot!

I get to rest now.  Robot School is a lot of work.  But all 14 of the students are expected on the high school team in the future.  Some soon, others in a bit.

An Indifferent Student

I seem to recall myself as being a rather clever student.  I learned to read early and was a voracious consumer of, well, anything.  Big stacks of books from the branch library at Jordan Junior High.  But....was I as smart as I remember myself being?  A case study, based on artifacts dredged from the basement of my parent's house.

Looks promising.  It contains among other things my report card from 3rd grade.

Now, back in that era you got either an S for satisfactory or an N for needs work.  That's it.  No Excellent or anything like that.  Opening it up I find that I got Needs Work for:

First half of the year, Works Well with other Children, Follows Directions, Works Well Independently, Begins and Finishes Work on Time, Uses Time Wisely, Listens Attentively, and Reads Independently for information and Pleasure.  OUCH.

The only thing I got an "N" for both halves of the year was for Writes Legibly.  Hey, I was destined to write prescriptions, gimme a break!

A bit of a come down.  I did get recommended to move up to Grade 4, and to my credit only was absent 1/2 a day, while turning up to be a mediocre student a full 176.5 days.

The Report Card was signed by my teacher, Mrs. Schwaub, and by both my parents.  My M.D. father's signature was very poor penmanship indeed.  The card was also marked with a stamp from Arthur T. Nelson, the Principal.  I remember him being chased down the hallway by a kid with a knife, who actually lived on our block.  Ah, the idylic 1960's.

I'm not sure what to make of this one.  In faint red ink up at the top it says "Please use your pencil".  Was this an instruction from the get go that I impudently ignored?  

I gotta say, in black Crayola crayon my penmanship, or shall we say penchildship, was pretty darn good.  You can see through the paper to some black crayon math that young "Timmy" as I then styled myself, absolutely crushed.

More stuff from "Timmy" age 6 1/2.  Now that I have a grand daughter about that age I can say, hey, that's outfit's a bit much, don't ya think?

 

Geeze, I hope this was from high school.  Geometry was the only math I every actually liked.  I got 18/20 on this page.  The preceding page was more word problems.  For example: Consider two simple closed curves which intersect at points A and B.  Consider a point C which is in the interior of one of the curves.  Various options were given, to each of which I had to respond True or False.  

21/30.  Guess I never really got to the Truth of Mathematics.  And for what it's worth I got out my pen and paper and tried to puzzle this thing out.  I think the teacher marked me off a couple of points incorrectly.

Subsequent finds of report cards from other years of grade school and Junior High did not, alas, show any sudden flourishing of academic genius.  And high school?  Lets not talk about high school.

Deer Hunting 2025 - Symphony of the Seventies....

Perhaps you thought my last hunting related post was a bit hard on the "gals".  Does are really quite excellent creatures.  Highly devoted to their children and generally sensible.  It's just during that one week of hormonal insanity that they are, well, floozies.  But what about the bucks? Am I letting them off too easy?

Nah.  They are plenty foolish in their own ways.

In general you want to sit and wait in total silence for deer to mosey past.  But for bucks, you can try to fool 'em.  You can for instance clack together some antlers.  This suggests to them that other bucks are duking it out somewhere in the area they plan to claim for their own little harem.  They sometimes come over to take issue with this.  Allow me to demonstrate:

Alas, this is a bit hit and miss.  Early in the mating season they are very territorial.  My son lured his large, albeit distracted, buck in this way.  Shortly after my virtuoso performance seen above a buck did appear in front of me.  For about ten seconds, running fast, and at the upper limits of my accurate range with a crossbow.  I clacked and clacked but he never reappeared.

You can also make sounds allegedly similar to bucks grunting.  Same general theory.  My grandkids gave me this device.  I think its legit.  But the little stinkers may have simply handed me the equivalent of a Whoopie Cushion to make flatulent noises.  I'd not put it past 'em, and if so, well played.....

I don't think this device - for the grandkids I dubbed it the "Buck Tooter" did anything.  Oh, and there's also a little noisemaker said to mimic a doe saying something like "Hey there, sailor!"

As I've mentioned before, bow hunting this year has been frustrating, but also a learning experience.  I've put in lots of time.  I've seen deer.  I'm learning quite a lot about the acreage that we bought specifically to develop as hunting land.  But despite those exciting moments when a deer is oh, so close to stepping into the right spot, there's a lot of time just sitting.  My brain goes to odd places when idle.  I started wondering if the three musical instruments above could be used to compose, well not a song, but a little melody.  Something inspired by the rather racy stuff that was on the radio back in the 1970's.  Thinking Marvin Gaye and "Let's Get it On", although that particular song lacks any clacky parts.....

Here's my final word on "Bucky" the insolent 6 pointer who keeps turning up near my cabin base.  You may notice a bit of white stuff in some of the above images.  Yes, snow.  So when Hank and I were out for walkies he was very excited and distracted.  So much so that he did not notice Bucky standing in the driveway of our next door neighbor's cabin.  Sigh.  Apart from the inconvenience of three or four laws I could have just stayed in bed until 9, rolled over, pointed a rifle out the bedroom window and bagged him - a la Groucho Marx - in my pajamas.

Hank remained oblivious.  This was perhaps my last outing with medieval weaponry.  I've been in rifle range of about a dozen deer over the last few months, so eventually they shall Pay for their Insolence.  I think.....

 

Party Week for the Deer

Deer live mostly boring lives.  They munch on stuff.  They drop little piles.  For the ones who are not dumb enough to jump in front of cars there are few major predators left.  They really only have complicated lives for two weeks out of 52.  Rifle hunting season, of course, and approximately the first week of November.

Bucks and Does don't interact much the rest of the year.  Our trail cams over the spring and summer show sweet little families of moms and fawns.  And loosely organized gangs of bucks.  The latter just seem to hang out together.  Critter Bros.

But one week out of the year the deer go hormonally insane.  They run around, chasing each other, heedless of danger or consequences.  For instance:

Yesterday coming up to hunt I saw a six point buck loitering around the four way stop near our cabin.  Broad daylight.  Today I saw him again, same spot, 10 am.  Hah, I figured, I'll just set up there.  Sitting around for a fair bit of time...nuthin.  Gave up, walked out and started putting stuff in my car.  And saw a doe run across the road with Bucky in hot pursuit.  Heading right where I had been.  Here's what he was seein'

This by the way is the first AI generated image I've ever used.  The parameters are: show me a cartoon deer with lots of cheap makeup.  I specifically said not to use anything under copyright by a gigantic media and theme park corporation.  I don't wanna cross the Doom Mouse and his lawyers.  Even if the mother of a certain beloved character was a round hoofed floozy.

Well its been a bit frustrating but I remind myself that this is just the second year I've bow hunted, and my success last year may have been a fluke.  The learning goes on.
 

Hank Shall Not Pass

Hank the Dog is rather single minded in his efforts to protect us from The Squirrel Evil.  His passion is commendable, but he's torn up some shrubbery rather badly.

So I was tasked with creating a fence.  Criteria:  Zero budget, can't look too bad, has to keep him from charging right through it.

Take One:

Plastic mesh fence.  Decorative metal posts.  A stern lawn gnome.  He seemed to be deterred.

But I was then advised that the gnomes need to be put in the shed for the winter.  Well, I am trying to get rid of junk I've hauled back from my parent's house.  How 'bout a ceramic bank I made in high school art class?

That's got him thinking.  Accomplishing that is no easy task!