Recycled Reindeer

A generation ago, when our boys were little, our neighbors gave us a bit of outdoor holiday decor.  I am pretty sure they were just tired of dealing with it.  A plywood Santa with sleigh and two reindeer.  It was certainly another generation old already.  It had the look of something you'd buy at the department store.

For about a decade I'd dutifully open second story windows and imperil myself by putting the big guy and his critters out on the porch roof.  Of course to keep me out in the cold even longer I had to put some lights out as well.  

The boys grew up.  I developed some common sense, and the little holiday ensemble were put out at a thrift sale.

I had not thought about this in years, but on a recent post holiday walk I spotted what must be the same set up - busted antlers and all - a few blocks away.

Kitchy decor, now on its third or fourth generation.  The current owners have enough sense to keep all the hooves and runners on nice solid ground.

Maltsters, Roadsters and Slaysters

The evolution of language has always interested me.  It is essentially History, with most of the the specific dates and individuals edited out.  How we describe the world around us says a lot about that world.  And about us.  The world keeps changing.  People change too, but on a variable and , uneven time scale.

Consider the word ending "-ster".  It is related to the common descriptor "-er",  often used to associate individuals - and in time entire families - with an occupation.  Carter, Archer, Farmer, Miller.  You knew what those men did.

Yes, men.  In the fashion of most languages certain words got feminine, neuter or masculine connotations.  English does not do this much in modern times, but as it derives from various Germanic sources it was heavily gender specific in its earlier evolution.

And there were occupations and activities that were traditionally female.  Women used to brew the beer,  hence Brewster.  And do the baking, Baxter with an odd X thrown in somehow.  Women did most of the spinning of thread.  Spinster reflects this tradition but now we start to see a degree of negativity creeping into things.

There are some fascinating near extinct examples....can words actually become extinct so long as someone remembers them?   Chaucer used the word "chidester" for an angry woman.  A few centuries later a similar meaning was attached to "scoldster".  "Slayster" is a particularly harsh word describing a murderess.

In modern times the suffix has become even more derisive, albeit in a semi-humorous fashion.  "Scamster, fraudster, huckster" all have about them the connotation of dishonesty with some element of joking around.  "Jokesters" after a fashion.

Of course words are poorly behaved and can't be neat and tidy.  Hampster has an unrelated Slovokian origin.  Monster is gender neutral and comes pretty much straight up from Latin.  Dumpster is a modern word but with deep roots.  Northern England, where much etymological goofiness originates, had Deemers, or judges.  Dempster was the feminine form of the word and eventually a company named Dempster Brothers in Knoxville, Tennessee patented the word and design, taking advantage of the acoustic similarity of their name to dump.  

Pondering various other candidates I did consider Roadster.  In an automotive sense it is obviously new, circa 1908.  But in the days before cars it was a light carriage drawn by horses.  This gets you to the late 1800's, but at that point it was a call back to a still earlier word that involved ships at anchor.  How?  It seems counter intuitive that a vehicle moving on land and one stationary on water could be the same thing.  Until you recall that in the past "Roads" was a term used for a near shore anchoring place.  Hampton Roads preserves this unusual - in our era - use of the word.

It's Beginning to smell a lot like........

We had our Christmas a bit early this year.  That's fine, since Covid had messed up Thanksgiving we felt as if we had a little holiday togetherness coming to us.  And a gathering on the 23rd just worked out better all around.  Our three young men.  Their three young ladies.  Also three each of grandchildren and dogs.

I can sincerely say that this is a sufficient degree of Presents for me.  But I did get a few odds and ends.  Including some industrial strength scent blocker.

This is a product concocted for deer hunting, it makes it harder for the critters to detect you.  And to be fair, all the non successful hunters in the tribe got some.  But.....is there some other message here as well???

Somebody seems to think so, and anything they can smell over their own horrid dog breath must be impressive.

Merry Christmas all.

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Edson, Wisconsin

I try to combine several minor errands to the same area into one trip, so it had been a while since I drove past the cemetery in Edson Wisconsin and thought it might be worth a look.  Partly because the cemetery, by virtue of age and general feel, looked as if it might be a place to find "Tree Shaped Tombstones".  And partly because Edson was a curious little place.

When does a community become a ghost town?  I'd say not when it is totally abandoned and the structures are all gone.  But perhaps when the ratio of living citizens to departed ones reaches a certain lopsided ratio.

Union Cemetery, Edson.

Stark, early winter conditions make for interesting cemetery photos.

A young person.  Grief etched into stone can be felt for a very long time.

On the way out of the cemetery I noticed a plaque that gave a bit of local history.  It turns out that a gent by the name of Edson Chubb homesteaded here in 1857, founding a community that at one point had homes, a hotel, a school, church, stores and a sawmill.  All for naught, as the rail road routed a few miles to the north.  The cemetery was established by Mr. and Mrs. Chubb as a resting place for their son Joseph who passed away in 1887.

Here's a map of the little crossroads settlement a few years after that....

It shows a wagon shop, cheese factory, and.....what the heck?  A second cemetery over by the German Catholic church!  Sometimes using Google Earth to scout things backfires as this one does not appear.  Given the greater tendency for Germans to go in for fancy tombstones a second trip was called for....

And, yep.  Another one over in the German Catholic burial ground.  Attentive students will note the little cross on top, this seems exclusive to Catholic monuments.

Having gone to the effort of a second visit I spent a bit more time in Edson.  The hotel building has recently been razed.  It still shows on Google Maps.

The white building next door was a store/post office.  It's still there.  As is a substantial farm house on the spot where Edson Chubb homesteaded, but it is clearly much newer than the 1850's.  Of the various manufacturing enterprises no trace remains.  The ghosts outnumber the living by a margin that is hard to know exactly, but probably 30 to 1.  Counting ghosts is hard.  The ones that used to live in the hotel have probably wandered off elsewhere by now.

Darius Bent - Soldier and Settler

Continuing my survey of Western Wisconsin patent medicine men I must give brief recognition to a man who has almost entirely vanished from history despite an extravagant name and significant Pioneer cred.  Darius E. Bent.

He was living in Eau Claire in 1876 when he copyrighted a medicine called "Dr. Mathew's Great Idaho Indian Compound".  The reference to Idaho made me think it was a reference to Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, but that conflict did not start until 1877.  Indian themed medicines were pretty common in this era.  Idaho, well Darius might have just picked a place at random.

Mr. Bent seems to have been very well thought of in the community.  A lengthy biography written shortly before his death tells his story.  

Born in 1820 he came to Eau Claire in 1855 "....when there was scarcely a house in the place and only one between here and Menomonie...".  He tried his hand at farming - didn't go well - then joined the Union army in February of 1862.  He was at the Battle of Shiloh.  Assigned to attending the wounded he injured his back in the process of lifting them.  The injury was permanent.

He made his way laboriously home by steam boat.  Six months in bed.  A year to relearn how to walk.  He worked in a shoe store for a while.  Then a grocery.  His longest employment was with G. Tabor Thompson, an Eau Claire druggist.  Probably his venture into patent medicines was at about this time.  Thompson was in business starting in 1871, having also been discharged from Civil War service due to illness.  Incidentally, we've run across him BEFORE.

Darius Bent had married pre-war.  He had three children, and although he seems to have suffered greatly in life it is said that: "Mr. Bent's sickness and trouble cost him several thousand dollars, and time has helped to whiten his locks, but he is yet cheerful and contented and always ready to do a kind act to help any one unfortunate like himself."

Bent, literally, but unbowed.  Admirable.

A Strange New World

Youth hockey.

I've traveled to far away places; seen cultures much different than my own.  This world is stranger.

Present for the Pit Crew

Here's a fun image from last year's robotics competitions.  The Team 5826 pit crew being so ridiculously prepared and confident that they had a running card game going most of the time.

I thought it would be fun to get them an "official" custom deck of cards.  If you look closely you can see they are playing Uno.  Weirdly it seems to be possible to get custom Uno decks but not possible to have them sent to the US.  Copyright issues I figure.  But for a conventional deck of cards, no such problems exist.

Oh, I'll figure out how to get them an Uno set as well.  Hey, UK friends.....can I have your help on getting a bootleg set across the Atlantic by tournament time?

Pickle Beer

Grand Unified Theories of Existence often occur to me at the bottom of a pint glass.  Or on occasion, somewhere nearer to the top....

In general I see wine drinkers as being cat lovers and beer drinkers being dog people.  Your mileage may vary.  I'm clearly in the hops n' hounds category; and am of the opinion that there are really no Bad Dogs or Bad Beers.  That being said you do on occasion encounter a dodgy looking mutt, one that looks at you with rheumy, slightly crossed eyes and dares you to pet it.  Or....you see Pickle Beer on the drinks menu.

We were out for a celebratory dinner with one of our sons and his lady.  Birthday that ends in a zero, that sort of thing.  Spotting this on the drinks menu raised a few questions.  The waitress was also curious, and she said she'd never served one.*

A sample was forthcoming and as it turns out my misgivings were.....justified.  It tastes like the brine from a jar of home made pickles.  Now to be fair one of our party liked it, and in small doses it might be really swell.  As a chaser for a Bloody Mary for instance.  But having over the years made regrettable, often language hindered drink selections in out of the way places I can say that slogging through a full pint of Weird Beer is usually not much fun.

But, to each their own.  There is a tradition of fruit based Sour Beers.  It's mostly Belgian I think.  At least that's where I've run into it.  And there are other brewers who have taken on this interesting style variant.

Enjoy, or not, as you see fit.

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 * I want to go on record as saying that the Oliphant Brewing Company over in Somerset, Wisconsin, is a delightful and inventive outfit.  I've met their owners, sampled some of their other offerings and enjoyed both experiences. 

Tales of the Old Lieutenant

Now and then I do a bit of housekeeping, cleaning out drawers and such.  Recently I came across a big stack of cards.  It was a mixed batch.  Sympathy cards after my dad's death.  Thank you cards from families of robotics students.  Well wishes on my retirement from family practice 16 years ago.  When you switch over to the less personal ER work you don't get quite as much in the way of personal thank yous.

One note was about 20 years old.  It was from the family of a long time patient and thanked me for a story I had told at his visitation.  This was something I had entirely forgotten about, but I sure remember both the patient and the story.

The Old Lieutenant was a classic example of The Greatest Generation.  Small town boy.  Joined the Army.  Became a combat officer in Italy.  Came home, started a career, married his sweetheart and had a bunch of great kids.

Unfortunately he also was of the "smoke 'em if you got 'em" generation, and carried his pack a day habit with him when he took off the olive drab and put on civvies.  He had emphysema, and bad.

I took care of him for many years.  After a while he and I both had things pretty well figured out.  What combination of breathing treatments, steroids, antibiotics and oxygen would pull him through a flare up.  Usually we were on the same page.  But the man could be stubborn.

Once I had him in the office and could see that he was heading for trouble.  His color was not good. He was breathing a little faster than he should.  The long ago sweetheart and I both wanted him admitted but he refused.  Well I was always of the opinion that I work for him not the other way around, so we opted to try him with home treatment.

I was expecting to get a late night call that he was on his way in by ambulance but instead he turned up a few days later in the office doing better.

He did admit that it was touch and go for a while.  Between lack of sleep, low oxygen levels and the side effects of big doses of steroids he was both short of breath and feeling confused.  He found that at least the breathing aspect of this was better if he sat in his lawn chair in his garage with the door open.  A gentle breeze, a little cool air.....it was a minor bit of relief but a welcome one.

And then he looked up and saw a large, hostile raccoon staring at him.

Now, when you have been hallucinating there are limited options for deciding whether a sinister apparition like this is real or not.  He yelled at it.  Nothing.  He waited for it to go away.  It did not.  Finally he decided that either the raccoon was imaginary or it was a seriously ill and deranged critter.  The raccoon perhaps had a similar notion.

But what the raccoon did not have was a shovel.

Mustering his considerable determination he stood up, grabbed the nearest garden tool and beat the potentially rabid raccoon to death.

That's how he knew he'd make it through this flare up, and in fact I had the privilege of caring for him for several years after that.

Tubbs and the Bilious Man's Friend

Continuing my survey of 19th century patent medicine companies from Western Wisconsin.  Why? I suppose the answer could either be Why Not?  Or, who else is gonna do it?

Today we visit the Tubbs Medicine Company of River Falls, Wisconsin.

Yes, their logo was a wooden tub and their flagship product Bilious Man's Friend.  Notice that it is touted for Bad Colds, Bad Stomachs and Bad Tempers.  With that combination a man might not have many actual friends.

Thomas Emerson Tubbs was born in Vermont in 1836.  As a young man he "Went West", driving a team out to the frontier town of Prescott Wisconsin in 1854.  He liked what he saw and staked out a claim in an area called Glass Valley.  His first business was a small wagon and sled manufacturing business which he moved to River Falls in 1866.  

Tubbs was a very enterprising young man.  In addition to the wagon and sled trade he ran eleven different insurance companies and also peddled, "Babcock Fire Extinguishers",  fire and burglar proof safes and a complete line of school, church and farm bells.

Some time in the early 1870s he added patent medicines to his portfolio.  Supposedly he brought with him from Vermont certain formulas including an "Elixir of Life".

In 1876 the Tubbs Block, from which he ran his many enterprises burned to the ground.   Reappraising his situation Tubbs decided to focus on the medicine business, although he still ran his various insurance agencies.  The product line was the usual array of nostrums for Man and Beast.

Tubbs proved to be a good businessman.  He made distribution arrangements with a major Minnesota wholesaler and also recruited a local traveling sales force for closer to home.  He made a wide array of medicines....and a fair bit of money.  

T.E. Tubbs died in 1894, handing the business off to his son Willard.  The good times kept rolling on.  Bottles of syrups and elixirs, advertising almanacs in many languages, pills and plasters, went out the door in their thousands.  Many have survived as you'll see below.

Eventually the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 started to put a crimp in things.  No longer could you keep the ingredients secret.  Or make outlandish claims for curing human ills.  Veterinary products remained fairly unregulated.  

Willard passed on in turn in 1931.  Around that time the company was sold to outside interests and does not seem to have survived for long thereafter.

The commonest Tubbs items you run across are these little guys.  TUBBS is embossed on each side.  They have many different labels.

No fewer than 35 items are listed on the back.  Not all are medicinal.

The side panels tout their flagship brands, one of which was Bilious Man's Friend.

I actually have a bottle of the stuff.  Unlike the 1900 era bottle above, this goes back to the 1880s at least in terms of bottle style.  The label is fading and there might not be many more examples in existence, so I'll show as much as I can.

No post 1906 hedging here.  IT CURES a wide array of problems.  Costiveness, Heart-Burn, Nervous Disorders, Nightmares, Scrofula.  Like most such patent medicines it had a good wallop of alcohol in it.  Probably not good for the Heart-Burn but it would at least make you worry less about all the other stuff.

Back panel.  

About those almanacs.  This one has a blank space at the bottom.  Usually the druggist or merchant who sold the medicines would stamp their name there.  The military scene depicting the Victory of General Health is generic.  Vaguely Civil War in its imagery but more contemporary with the Spanish American conflict.

Chock full of pictures of suffering people.

As such things are figured, the TUBBS company was small potatoes by the standards of the great patent medicine millionaires like Dr. Kilmer.  But it was an enduring enterprise that did a profitable trade for roughly six decades.  Not a bad track record.

The Inventive Mind(s) of Menzo Gates

Perhaps unwisely I have agreed to do a presentation in a few months on the topic of "Patent Medicine Men of Western Wisconsin".  It is an obscure subject, and while it affords plenty of opportunity to tell stories I'm not sure how general the interest will be.

But I agreed to do it, so it was off to my files.  I have notes on the subject going back decades.  And in some cases the random loose ends can now be better addressed with the wonders of this here Internet.

Consider the curious case of Menzo Gates.

I knew him from a passing reference on a roll of microfilm giving assorted copyright data.  Evidently he was marketing something called "Gate's Remedy for Diptheria" back in 1885.  At that time he was living in Cadott, Wisconsin.  This is a sleepy little village about ten miles east of where I live.  

Usually a small town patent medicine will be put up by the local druggist.  But applying for a copyright was quite unusual.  In general they just mixed things up, stuck a label on a generic bottle and called it good.

Imaging my surprise when a search for the highly distinctive name Menzo Gates came up with this 1899 US Patent.  Why, our pal Menzo looks to have upped his game over the intervening 14 years!

This seems like a terrible concept.  You teach your kid how to swim by setting up a guy wire across a body of water, then have the tyke go back and forth with some sort of ring around them.  The tyke on the left looks he has the harness around his neck!  

News articles with illustrations of this gizmo actually appeared quite widely in 1900....

Alas for my narrative there amazingly were two men named Menzo Gates.  The man who manufactured the obscure patent medicine died in Cadott Wisconsin in 1890.  He had one child, but it was a daughter, so there is no evident link to the inventor living over in Copemish, Michigan.

I am having difficulty tracking the further details of story down, and in fact there may have been yet another Menzo Gates living in New York at about the same time.

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Hammond, Wisconsin

Sometimes I just know where I'll find a batch of "Tree Shaped Tombstones".  Hammond Wisconsin for instance.  It's a tidy little village, old as such things are reckoned in this part of the world.  It was prosperous back in the day, now it is sort of "quiet and genteel".  Some time back I was looking at an old map and noted a cemetery that was in an obscure corner of town.  With a bit of extra time recently I swung through and had a look.  

The light was not in my favor on this day.  It sure would be easier to plan photographic missions if the ancient Christian policy of having graves face east had been continued...

Yes, the light is sure nice on the unmarked back of this one...

And not too bad on the front.  This is a classic "two trunks" type that you see with married couples.  The little subsidiary logs are probably plot corner markers.  I think one is missing.  This style tends to be pretty stable in the ground.  Note the suggestion of a large base under the surface.

There will always be lesser examples, but sometimes they have their own little mysteries.  This one is marked as someone's wife.  So...where is he?  Remarried?  Moved away?  Was this a later monument that replaced an earlier one and reflected a new situation?

Of course I have to show you some Good Ones.  This large family monument is almost comic in appearance with the branches/arms seeming to be held up in an "Oh No!" configuration.

The Bixby patriarch strikes me as a bit pompous in death.  Might have been an ok guy when still among us.   

Note the plot markers back behind.  One of them is very nicely done.  I've not see a "sickle and sheaf" example for a while.

Usually the branches of these big family monuments are reserved for the next generation(s).  It was getting a bit crowded out there with the assorted Bixbys and Boinks...

And finally one of the "New Form" trees.  Again a husband and wife.  The gentleman has been gone a few years.  The wife is still waiting to be reunited with him.  I bet she comes and stands in front of this on warm spring evenings....

Note the stones on the plinth.  I've seen this often in Jewish cemeteries but the name Anderson would make this less likely.   

Robotics Update - One Month to go....

The chaos of build and competition season is only a month and change away.  The preseason has had a lot going on.  Here's a few highlights.

Team members present to the School Board.  Their attention was in part held by the spectacle of the middle school robot with its pneumatic catapult being aimed directly at one of the Board members.  To be fair, he is an old friend...

The team did a stellar job.  Many questions followed including a surprising and unprecedented number that involved goats (our team mascot btw).

Build has been working on multiple projects.  One intriguing example is this:

This is a swerve drive base similar in some respects to last year's competition machine.  But there are two differences.  The wheels are entirely 3D printed.  And the electronics are mounted upside down on the bottom of the main deck.  They are - hopefully - protected by that black under shield.  This would allow for a cleaner base on which to mount, well, whatever the actual non drive mechanisms turn out to be.  It has not been operational yet.

Ah, and software.  Its always so hard to document what they do with their ones and zeros.  Here's one of our smarter kids hard at work.  What he has worked out is a program that allows the robot's vision tracking system to basically identify any combination of shape and color, isolate that image.....and put a targeting mark in the center of it.  Sure, what could possibly go wrong with this technology.

Then I remembered that last season he, for no discernable reason, started wearing dark sunglasses all the time.  And....did I detect a slight Austrian accent.........?