Rescuing the damn Donkeys

In the Great Clean Up there are moments of whimsey and of despair.  Sometimes they coincide.  Digging through strata of long irrelevant junk paper I came across this:

By this point my routine of shuffle, glance, identify, sort had become quite efficient.  But what the heck was this???

Well you have to know that sadly for the last decade or so that my mom lived at home she was bombarded by scammers.  The phone rang every hour (and it still does occasionally), the mailbox was full of appeals.  When one loosely uses the term "a ton" its usually hyperbole.  But I'm sure she got five pounds of mail every day, virtually all of it useless and a large percentage of it scamsters.  That's a ton every 18 months or so.  What she was getting on the internet before she lost the ability to use it, I don't want to know.

Finds of this nature are becoming less common in "the stacks".  Its one area we've been able to take stuff out wholesale.  But they keep coming.  Whoever occupies this house next will get them for another decade at least.

My brother and I have a bit of dark humor regards this stuff.  She got appeals from every end and each fringe of the political spectrum.  "At least they've found something to agree on".  There were certain themes.  Animal rescue.  Famine relief.  Political prisoners in faraway lands.  After a bit they started mixing and matching.  We expected to see appeals to "Free the starving Ethiopian donkeys".

This is in that vein.

It's a deck of playing cards from a place that is a Donkey Rescue ranch.  Why cards?  Well, lots of these outfits will send you some small trinket.  Mailing labels.  Stickers.  Sometimes a nickel or a dime glued to their appeal.  Playing cards were a new one to me.  Maybe they figure their core mark demographic sits around playing solitaire.

Anyway, sans future comment, here's a few pics.  I was mildly curious about the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue folks.  They seem to own a very large tract of land out west.  Where they get the donkeys in need of rescue was not clear.  If you also get curious and look 'em up, don't send them any money.  

Robot School 6.0

Ah, Robot School.  I claim credit here, as it was pretty much my invention.  I'd been working with middle school students for years doing basic DIY robot stuff.  When the high school FIRST Robotics team started up we had no "farm system".  Alumni of the earlier after school programs turned up, but as the complexity increased we needed more students, and students who knew more.

In the summer of 2019 I just invited a batch of kids to come do a bit of summer work with the high school team.  They'd just finished 6th, 7th, or 8th grade.  My fellow coaches thought I was crazy.  Hey, fair point, I think that myself at times.

The name?  Well, my first grandson was pretty young at the time and thought that what we were doing with robots was pretty cool.  He coined the phrase Robot School and somehow it stuck.

In general about half the middle school kids we work with go on to the high school team.  Of that initial group we had a future team captain, a couple of valedictorians, a national merit scholar and a girl who won Dean's List, the highest award in FIRST Robotics.

That was Robot School 1.0.  Covid of course imploded the entire edifice of public education, so it was not until summer of 2021 that we ran RS-2.  This was an official summer school offering.  Another outstanding group, the core of a team that came inches from going to Worlds two years later.

2022 was an off year.  We moved our build space to the more accommodating environs of the middle school tech ed area.  That allowed us to run after school versions of Robot School in fall of 2023 and 2024.  Smaller groups, and perhaps reflecting the post Covid learning crater, fewer kids stepping up with the ability and industry to do technology way beyond high school levels.

For 2025 we decided, what the heck.  I've reported on our successful summer build (Robot School 5.0) and now we are back with the biggest group to date.  15 students.  And 9 instructors ranging from ancient geezers, me, to members of the high school team.  The middle school kids learn a lot more from them.  And from each other.

A few photos from the swirling chaos of adolescents with power tools....

OK, that last one was of me just prior to delivering the eulogy for Ketchup, the robot they were about to dismantle for parts.  When hats were doffed I spoke the traditional words for such occasions:

"Bolts to bolts.  Widgets to widgets.  From parts it came and to parts it shall return.  Amen."

Indian Guides

A major house clean up/clean out has different categories of difficulty.  The hideous decades old pickles....very carefully dispose of them.  But other things take thought, moments of reflection.  Old clothes for instance.  They are part of our memories of the people who wore them, the places they wore them.......

Two views of an unusual garment, adult size.

This goes back to the 1960's.  Both my older brother and I remember being involved in a Father-Son thing called "Indian Guides".  It was run by the YMCA.  Dads and sons, later daughters were also brought in, got together in small groups and did stuff.  I have vague memories of craft projects.  There was a patina of Native American culture, talk about The Great Spirit and so forth.  I have a distinct impression that it was something our dad did to try and connect with us a bit.  I can sympathize, being a father of boys myself.  And it must have been harder with four sons, one with special needs, and a work ethic that went way beyond reasonable.  I've mentioned before that it was not until I went away to college that I found out that not everyone eats dinner at 8pm!  Heck, nowadays that's not far from bed time!  But what really was Indian Guides?

It was as I said, a group associated with the YMCA.  It was established back in 1926 by two friends, one of whom actually was Native.  It's heyday was in the 1960's, which corresponds with our involvement.  From various photos I've seen the "attire" varied.  Lots of head bands and feathers.  Some vests, and it looks like they were more common for the dads than the sons.

If you think this sounds a bit out of step with modern sensibilities, you'd be correct.  A more detailed history of the organization and the cultural appropriation aspects of it can be found HERE.

I think our involvement with Indian Guides was fairly short.  Pretty soon my brother and I were in Cub Scouts.  My dad didn't get involved in that.  My mom was a Den Mother, but oddly my brother and I were in different "Dens" and I was not in hers.

One to One Thousand Ratio Confirmed

You'll have to tolerate a series of observations spinning off of the great clean up/clean out of my parent's house.   There's so much that could be said.  But sometimes the old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words.......

Our possessions are almost entirely just "stuff".  If you don't maintain control of them they will in time be in control of you.

Jump Scare

Well, a couple of days of hard work on the house clean up project.  It's what my Scottish friends would refer to as "a fair bit o' graft".  

After a while you become cautious.  You haul things out into the light before exploring too closely.  Hmmm, this seems OK.

Wait a minute.  What's that little pile of stuff????

Sawdust and mouse droppings.  So lets open that drawer very carefully............

We're in the clear this time, but there were some unexpected scares earlier, when indignant mice jumped out of things we were trying to move.  Exciting.  Especially as we'd had a couple of beers and watched an episode of "Alien Earth" the night before.  Really puts you on edge regards things jumping unexpectedly.

Army Medicine on the Eve of D-Day

In the Great House Clean Up the ratio of Trash to Treasure runs strongly to the former.  By about 1000:1.  But a few family treasures are being wrested from the attentions of the Mice.  And some things that just deserve a few minutes of thought.

My dad did an accelerated college-Med School program during WWII.  He graduated from the latter just after the war ended.  So this item would have been part of his reading material about half way through Medical School.

This is the June 1944 edition of THE BULLETIN of the U.S. Army Medical Department.  So, what was actually on their collective minds as the troops were heading onto Omaha Beach?

Well, its 119 pages long.

The first page covers this new fangled stuff called Penicillin, and various articles on this first of the real antibiotics total 14 pages including a delightful account by Dr. Fleming on its semi-accidental discovery.

But that takes a back seat to the various things that could go wrong with any army's most important bit of equipment, the feet of their soldiers!  Combing the totals for Trench Foot, fungal infections, injuries from obstacle courses and such, these add up to 30 pages, about a quarter of the publication.

Actual combat related material does appear, as US troops had been in action in the Pacific and North Africa.  But I got the sense that academic discussion of how to best debride and clean up wounds was a bit perfunctory.  Seems like one of those things you just have to do in real life to learn.

There are lots of little oddities to be found.  Three pages, with lots of illustrations, on how to construct a latrine system in an area where you can't dig pits.  A page on sting ray injuries.  And, given that this publication was created by merging Army medical, dental and veterinary publications, two pages devoted to "CORONARY OCCLUSION IN A RACE HORSE".

And how about ten pages on how to fumigate barracks with highly toxic cyanide gases?!

All pretty interesting stuff, but sometimes it just raises more questions.  For instance:

This was obviously another high priority subject for military medicine, but I always thought the concern was mostly that our boys in uniform - or actually out of same - would consort with  bimbos and perhaps the occasional Mata Hari type.  Indeed, one of my dad's few anecdotes on his military career involved doing what was called "short arm inspections" on the troop ship coming back from Europe!

That the Women's Army Corps were in need of similar moral education came as a surprise.  Were the Army docs worried about the gals consorting with himbos and Mata Harrys???

Things not to do in a Scary House/Sci Fi Movie

We've got a bit of a project going on these days.  It's going to take a fair chunk of my time, energy and sense of humor. 

My dad passed away some years back, and about six months ago my mom went into memory care.  My parent's house had gotten into a pretty bad state.  In the usual fashion of people struggling to hang in there, and with some extra challenges that need not be delved into for our story.  

Suffice to say there's a mess, and our family has to deal with it.

Now, the first rule of every movie featuring a Scary House is:  DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR!

Jars of pickles, long forgotten.  How long?  I think we helped move my folks into this home 25 years ago.  These jars of pickles made that trip.  How old were they at that time?  Well, there's probably some dates on the jar tops but this is as close as I got.  You'll notice that some of the jars are mostly empty.  To switch genres, in every sci fi movie where cryonic preservation chambers are used as a plot device...a few of them fail. 

Here too, some of those jars contain the desiccated, hideous mummies of pickles from the last century.  

Things were actually worse in other parts of the house.  A quarter inch of dust was everywhere.  As areas started to be cleared we of course wanted to vacuum a bit.  One of my brothers was sent to the basement where a vacuum cleaner had been sighted some time ago.  When he dragged it up the stairs I looked behind him.....and saw the corpses of several long dead mice that had fallen out when he moved it!

The vacuum sat in a room for a bit.  I even found the instruction manual.  It boasted that this was "The Machine of Tomorrow, Today". But before we got around to powering it up it became clear from the smell that there were more, probably many more, dead mice inside.

Out the door it got chucked.  Next session we bring in a shop vac and throw the rodent charnel house into the trash...

By the by, this is a "Rainbow" brand vacuum cleaner.  Although in recent years they've apparently been a staple of the sort of door to door salespersons that preferentially prey upon the elderly it is said to be a decent brand.

Out of curiosity I tried to figure out just what model it was, and just how old.

Unclear....might also be 25 years or so.

Ah, The Machine of Tomorrow.  It does look futuristic, and I'm thinking the mice mistook it for a cryonics pod.  Guess they should have watched a few more sci fi movies....

The Long Portage Moves. A Little.

A while back I had a look at an unusual and neglected monument.  It marked one end of a long portage that was part of the connection between Lake Superior and the Mississippi River system.  I put a geocache there, and it got a fair number of visitors.  Likely more than this obscure marker had seen in a while.

Well, a few weeks back a geocacher said the entire monument had been demolished.  Nothing left but a pile of stones.  As this would be an unusual degree of industry for most vandals I expressed the hope that the plaque had just been relocated.  

As indeed came to pass.  It's now a couple hundred yards to the East, right on County Road M outside the American Legion Post.  Hence the flags.  The ghostly image of Hank the Dog is just happenstance.

Alas, no good place for a geocache here.

Mystery in the Woods

Deer hunting approaches.  And while the main focus this year will be on our land a ways to the south, the area around our cabin is still public hunting, and I have a tag for it.  So I wander here and there looking for signs of deer, interesting trees, and...what the heck?

It's a well.

And some kind of cellar hole?

And a long stone wall with a flat area on one side.

Something is going on here.  Now it helps to know the local history.  This area was lightly inhabited by Ojibway folks for centuries, but they never built anything like this.  Lumbering came in circa 1870's, but initially it was confined to stands of prime timber near rivers.  This area did not get much attention until around 1890, when railroads were not too far distant.

Once the timber companies clear cut the land it was nearly worthless.  Just stumps with plenty of erosion happening.  Nearly worthless is not the same as totally worthless, so the land was sold off cheaply to anyone who wanted to try farming it. * 

Very few succeeded.  I've run across other remnants in my travels, but nothing quite this elaborate.  So, anything else knowable???

Here is Google Earth of the area.  The blue circle is roughly the location of the structures.  The X is what I suspect is the oldest habitation on the lake, at least my take on the circa 1905 whiskey and soda bottles that turn up there when the water levels are low is any guide.  "Supposedly" there was a log structure there from way back, that later became a lodge for a small mom and pop resort.  Few traces remain.

Period maps of this area are scarce, so the best I can do is this roughly 1906 image.

The odd thing here is that the east west road in the upper image - "Pioneer Road" - no less, does not appear to be present.  Look at where the road right at the number 34 lines up on the west side of the lake.  I assume there was some sort of track that went to the H.H. Fleming place.  I also assume that H.H. liked his whiskey.  Pioneer Road must have been created later.

So it looks as if my dog and I were wandering about - on public land it should be noted - where Peter Larson once tried to farm the miserable cut over land.  The long stone wall I'm seeing might well be a frontage onto the east west road that was then just south of his presumed dwelling.  It's too big for any barn he'd be likely to need.

So what happened?  That's going to be hard to know.  Larson is a common name.  And the story of little hardscrabble farms failing in the Great Depression is even more common.

________

* An old timer told me once that "back in the day" you just had to go to the county extension office and you could sign for as much World War One surplus free dynamite as you wanted!  And you'd want a lot to clear the stumps out that kind of land.

Illogical Measures

There are times when the world seems particularly illogical.  Among the many reasons people give for this, our system of measuring things gets the occasional mention.  Why, if only we used logical metric stuff everywhere!

In large measure the system you use on a daily basis is what you are used to.  When in England I get acclimated, so to speak, and know that a 30 degree day there is sweltering hot, while the same 30 degree day back home (in my usual excavation time of April/May) is dreary and has a nasty chill.  

If used regularly any system works.  Perhaps not for scientific endeavors but just fine for staples of conversation like the weather.  Some of the old measures actually have a basis in our daily lives, or at least the daily lives of our predecessors.

One foot used to be the length of, well, one human foot.  Logical, although people have always had feet of variable sizes.....

Consider the "Big Foot" Roman shoes unearthed at the Magna site recently...

In fairness this specimen is being held close to the camera, in the manner of proud fishermen everywhere, but its pretty darned big.  There's a whole video on these guys....

An inch derives from a foot.  In Roman times an "uncia" was one twelfth of a foot.  Uncia gives us the word inch.  Efforts in later times to standardize it as say, the width of a thumb, encountered obvious difficulties.

If you are having a hard time fathoming these off hand measuring units, well, a fathom is simply the distance of the outstretched arms of a good sized mariner.  That's about six feet.

Early folks were big on measurements that related to their daily lives.  Most of them were farmers.  So an acre - although initially just a term for forest land - evolved into the amount of land a team of oxen could plow in one day.  Distantly the word might have a joint origin with agri as in agriculture.  

And of course we have miles.  As I have documented previously, one Roman mile was one thousand strides of a soldier, or mille pacem.  As measurements go its pretty useful.  As are yards, the rough distance of one such stride.  I'm still using the latter getting ready for deer hunting season where distances to sight in rifles and crossbows are not given in meters.

The meter of course is a French construct.  But lets not let them off the hook entirely.  If you go back to define an acre it once was considered one furlong (660 feet) by four rods (66 feet).  Rods are an almost entirely extinct form of measurement but weirdly portages in the Boundary Waters Canoe area are still given in rods.  Why? Well its a bit obscure, but I blame the French.  That part of the world was explored and mapped by Voyageurs, who were using canoes about one rod (16.5 feet) long.  So a canoe length as a standard of measurement made as much sense as anything else.  Considering that most of these guys were traveling light and not bringing along the marking chains to survey a furlong!