Tree Shaped Tombstones-Birds and more Birds

You find a fair number of doves hanging around tree shaped tombstones.  It is a traditional Christian symbol, and it seems like a natural pairing...birds do tend to sit on tree branches.  The doves you encounter fall into two main categories.

Dead doves.  (or to introduce an inappropriate Pythonism, resting doves).

It almost looks like this dove has an olive branch in its mouth, but it is just a bit of well placed clover.

This one is a bit more stylized.  Or perhaps the stone carver was less talented.

Interesting how these depictions of dead doves always have a wing up in the air.  Real dead birds not so much.  Artistically I rather like this one.  Nice amounts of that yellowish lichen that so often coats tree shaped tombstones.  And notice how the sculptor has added a little extension between the wing and the upright part of the tree.  Probably a good idea....after you have seen a few of these you start to see damaged examples, a reminder that even permanent markers are not really eternal.

Head broken off.  Original live/dead status unknown.

Less commonly found are Live Doves.  They are rather more fun.

If you were out for a casual stroll, this bird might fool you.  A tribute to a skilled stone worker.  Interestingly, the live doves I have encountered usually sit on the left hand branch as you view the tombstone from the inscribed side.  Dead ones are at the base of the tree or on the right hand branch.  I am not sure why, and there are exceptions, such as:

This very lively looking bird is flying straight down, and really does have an olive branch in its mouth.  Does it recall the dove returning to Noah with signs of renewed life?  Or does it represent the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove at the Baptism of Jesus?

A weathered "rustic cross" with two live birds.

And here is a rare bird indeed.  A non dove!

Peeking out of the top of a "tree stump" style marker we find an owl.  Now, owls appear in mythology and symbolism in many forms.  But the most common is as an exemplar of wisdom.  They in fact are closely linked with Athena the goddess of wisdom.  But think about it.  Death is the great leveler.  It comes for the wise and the foolish, each in their own time.  Well, maybe a little sooner for the foolish.  But looking at the inscrutable owl do you pause and wonder....what good did your wisdom do you, friend?

Tree Shaped Tombstones-Odd Variants

There is so much innate variation in tree shaped tombstones....obviously the stone carvers were working with some standard materials, then extemporizing according to their whims and the wishes of the purchaser.  But as I go here and there, camera in hand through shade dappled bone yards, I encounter the occasional weird mutant forms....

Western Wisconsin.  I am taking this picture from the more visually engaging side opposite the names and dates.  There was a bare patch on the front half of each side of this "divided stump".  One half has a name and dates.  The other half is blank.  What's going on here?  A husband and wife where one passed early and the other remarried and decided to take up permanent abode elsewhere?  One with more vivid imagination could spin some tale of love unrequited, with the divided branches representing a path never explored....

Southern Wisconsin.  An atypical "Rustic Cross" type.  The base is made up of rough boulders.  And it almost looks like some kind of encrusted barnacles on the top.  It reminded me a little of a rather forbidding print that hung in the spare room out at my grandparents farm...

Now here's an odd one.  It fits no category at all, and in fact seems to be a planter of some sort.  But the stylistic link to tree tombstones is clear.

The above example had no inscription at all, so I was pretty sure it was just ornamental.  Now I am not so sure.  Observe:

And to sneak in a little closer......

J. Smith apparently chose to be remembered by this sort of "flower box on a stump".  It was probably quite lovely when relatives were around to tend it.

And now a sad one.  I almost missed this in a tiny cemetery in Northern Wisconsin.  It only stands about four inches above the mowed grass...

Usually these smaller markers-and this is the smallest I have yet encountered-were subsidiary markers around a larger "family tree".  But this humble marker is all alone.  The small size suggests an infant burial.  The isolated location....perhaps an abandoned baby?  The other explanation that occurred to me was that several markers in this cemetery looked a decade older than the church/community.  They may have been moved from smaller "pioneer" cemeteries in this logging boom town area.  Maybe the rest of the family got left behind?

As I have mentioned, there does not seem to be a direct connection between tree shaped tombstones and the Woodmen.  But they do overlap a bit.  This is a marker from the "Modern Woodmen of America".  This was the original organization from which the "Woodmen of the World" split off.  M.W. of A. never seems to have had a tombstone benefit, so any connection would seem to be happenstance.  But a nice "single log" example here.

A nice "stump" variant with the commonly recurring theme of a dying dove.  Here is the front:

Note the date of death....it is in 1871 making this the oldest tree themed marker I have found (thus far).  The artistically rendered dove also gives me my next topic.  Come on back for...

Birds and more birds.

Tree Shaped Tombstones-Classification and Theories

Note:  It is October, and with Halloween coming up it seems a good time to toss out a few posts on one of my hobbies, Tree Shaped tombstones...

-----------------------

When I mentioned to someone that I was starting to classify the tree shaped tombstones he said it sounded like another book coming on.

Gosh I hope not.  But near as I can figure it is a topic not found in compact form anywhere on the internet, so I suppose I am now an Authority of some sort.

Here are the basic "Trees".  Entirely arbitrary by the way.  Don't argue with the Authority

This is the "Rustic Cross".  They vary from a 90 degree angle crucifix with bark to more subtle versions in which chopped off tree limbs project at various angles.  Like other tombstones in the "tree family" a version of this was being sold by Sears Roebuck by 1902.  It went for $35.33 plus of course shipping and handling.  Oh, extra for the lettering too.

This is what I refer to as a "stump", which I define as any tree shaped tombstone less than adult height.  They rest on various sorts of bases, and sometimes have secondary decorations as in this case with a GAR medal and flag.  Sears also sold something very much like this, although in marble rather than the limestone I more commonly see in these parts.

I am calling anything taller than I am a tree.  They come in various sizes, this beauty is the tallest I have yet encountered...looks to be 13 or 14 feet.

Here are a couple of less common types.  I call this the "single log" style

And the last "type", the Stack of Logs:

OK, so much for the five basic types of "trees".  Another day I will show some odd variations.  Now on to the apparent rules as I see them after about a year of study, mostly in Wisconsin but with a few forays into adjacent regions.

1. There is no particular connection with the Woodmen's Organizations.  Sure, sometimes you see a Woodman's logo on a tree tombstone-as in the Single Log example above-but most Trees are not connected to Woodman membership.  And so far as I can tell, the Woodmen just gave you money to spend on tombstones as you pleased, no real directions.

2. Trees often occur in groups.  Many of the taller Tree styles will have subsidiary stones, either little stumps or little stacks of sticks.  And in any given cemetery, when you find one example you should keep looking, there are usually more.  Perhaps it had to do with local availability...not all monument makers would have this line in stock.

3. Although there are exceptions, most Trees date from about 1890 to 1920.

4. You see fewer of these in "old line" Protestant cemeteries.  Lutheran for instance.  Catholic cemeteries are actually better hunting.  A high percentage of GAR or Fraternal Lodge makers also increases the odds.

5. There may be a slight trend towards German cemeteries being over stocked with these.  The oak tree occupies a hallowed spot in German mythology.  And at least southern Germans tend to be a bit more whimsical than say, Scandinavians.

6. The "Stack of Logs" variant appears specific to northern areas, regions where logging was a big business.  As I have speculated earlier, it seems to recall the photos posed with a sled full of timber being hauled out of the woods.

7. Limestone seems to the the commonest material.  But the Sears versions at least were of a sort of cheap looking white stone that they claim was marble.  The "trees" and "rustic crosses" were almost all limestone.  It  seems to be more adaptable to intricate carving.  But as it weathers faster I suspect some cemeteries did not allow it.  For instance, in St. Paul and in Minneapolis there are what I consider "society" cemeteries....places where prominent names go to rub coffin handles with their peers for eternity.  St. Paul has lots of tree types.  Minneapolis not a one.  And in fact, nothing in limestone that I could see anywhere.*
--------
* Brief personal update October of 2016.  My dad passed away earlier this year and implausibly ended up buried in one of those "society" cemeteries.  Never socially all that adept in life I imagine the playing field is now as level as it gets.  But to my surprise when standing grave side I saw over the next rise a nice tree shaped tombstone that I had missed on a previous swing through this huge cemetery.  Go figure.

Student Robotics, here we go again.

If  memory serves me correctly I am now in my 13th year of having middle school kids build small, pugnacious combat robots.  I vaguely even recall a couple of years when I did the class twice.  With an average class size of 24 that makes a lot of shambling contraptions cobbled together with glue and plywood and styrofoam and unrealistic expectations.

I probably won't do updates as often this year as last.  Maybe in a couple of weeks I will feature a few of the more outre creations.

I guess my enthusiasm level is a bit lower this time around.

For one thing the class sessions are both Tuesday and Thursday after school hours.  This pushes more of my ER work onto the weekends.  That makes for more wear and tear on me.

And maybe I am just getting a little tired of the simple machines.  The advanced class is more fun, and I am not convinced that the basic class is a necessary foundation builder.

Also, it seems a little strange to look out across a bunch of eager 6th, 7th and 8th grade faces and realize that I have been doing this class longer than they have been doing anything.

In a way the robotics class is an anachronism, a hold over from an earlier era.  In part I got into teaching it because my Number 2 son was so mechanically gifted.  Maybe I was trying to find and nurture a few peers...  If so I have done a poor job I suppose, out of some 250 to 300 students over the years (many take the class more than once) I doubt I have found more than a couple who came close to his level of gearhead nerdism. (Perhaps only one really.  It was an intense young man who insisted against all logic that his design for an electromagnetic rail gun would launch a projectile at effective velocity.  I let him build it despite my conviction that the circuitry looked more like a faulty and inefficient toaster.  It did not work, but its bulky coils were heavy enough and intimidating enough that I recall he took second place by pushing other robots into hazards.  And of course honorable mention to the two students over the years who have asked, and been denied, permission to use plutonium in their designs.)

Once in a while my son comes over to help with the class when we get to crunch time.  The students are allowed to call me Mr. or Dr. as they see fit.  I tell them to call my son "Oh Great and Powerful TechnoGod, at whose Feet we are Unworthy to Grovel".  It is only a mild exaggeration.

So I was ready to make this year's class a grand finale.  But I don't think I can do it.  Of all the class offerings robotics always fills first.  I am told that when the office opened at 7:30 am on the day of registration that there was a line waiting.  The class filled in five minutes.  All others who wanted to take it were turned away.

At least for the 6th and 7th graders I should be able to say "next year".

True Tales of the V.A. Hospital

A couple of years ago when working the ER I had a depressed, suicidal veteran come in.  He was sincere and really needed inpatient help.  I got on the phone, and in about half an hour got him accepted into a V.A. hospital 150 miles away.  Within two hours I had him on his way, and with all his paperwork in perfect order.

I do not expect anyone to be impressed.

If you have never dealt with the generally glacial, hidebound bureaucracy of the Veterans Administration....you know not your blessings.

And if you have, you have already decided that my tale is impossible.  Can't happen.  Ever.

To which I say:  Can.  Did.

Because sometimes-sadly not every day or predictably-The Force is strong in me, and all obstacles crumble.  The indifferent, perhaps malevolent Universe bows its head, tugs the forelock and stands aside.

Of course like all Jedi new in the ways of The Force there was a time when I had not yet learned to fully control my Powers.

I recall a day back in 1984.  I was in Residency, doing a Medicine elective at the local V.A. Hospital.  You were pretty much on your own there, the support staff did not do to much to be, you know, supportive.  Thus discharge arrangements that would often be handled by Social Services in another clinical milieu were handled by the residents.

In that long ago time there existed something called the Federal Wide Area Telecommunications System.  It was a free phone system that linked government systems together.  As it was, well, free we were expected to use it for long distance calls.

While trying to contact a nursing home in another part of the state I had this conversation:

Me: "Hello."

Grim voice: "White House."

Me: "Um...is this a bar or something?"

Grim voice: "No."

Oktoberfest-Ya Feeling Lucky, Punk?

Most of what goes on at Oktoberfest is the same one year to the next.  And this is good.  But now and again a new event is held.  This was the first ever Oktoberfest Giant Pumpkin Competition.  I suppose to be accurate you should say it was the first competition held at the Oktoberfest, but hardly the first one at this location.  It is a county fair grounds and big whopping veggies have been a standard attraction at such places from way back.

But still, having beer close to hand and the sounds from two nearby polka bands warming up added some extra charm.

And we are talking some big, big pumpkins.

There are a lot of fork lifts involved in this kind of competition!

Notice how this fellow has modified his car to resemble a pumpkin.  His entry was one of the few that had a name.....Envy.

Large pumpkins.  Small person.

This event was fairly relaxed, but Giant Pumpkins are a serious business.  People travel from coast to coast to enter competitions, and the prize money can be serious.  Even also rans have inherent value, often sold to stores or Halloween venues.  Not surprisingly there are lots of little tricks from serious competitors.  Here a water filled jug supplies that last little bit of water, or perhaps just prevents a few ounces of water loss.  Kind of like a pumpkin on life support.

Did I mention serious competitors?  Looks a little like Pumpkin gang colors, but theirs is a good natured fanaticism.   More on The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth.  There is also a World Pumpkin Confederation.  I do not know if the two groups co-exist peacefully.

It is never a good day unless you learn something.  When I got up on this chilly Saturday morning to come and work at Oktoberfest I did not even suspect the existence of "long gourds", much less that they were grown competitively.  Looks to be about 8 feet.

Punks get measured in all dimensions before the weigh in.  This allows an estimated weight.  At the moment of truth they are then declared to be some percentage "light" or "heavy".  Naturally all have been inspected, it would not do at all to have the unscrupulous of the world claiming a new record (as of this moment 1,818 pounds) by injecting lead or some such.  These paler looking pumpkins are all Dill's Atlantic Giants, a strain of plant whose genome has been so ruthlessly hijacked towards relentless obesity that all other traits are eclipsed.

Giant Pumpkineers tend to wear orange.  Here is a happy bunch.  Note the scale reading in the upper left.  944 pounds is pretty darned good, although there were several over the half ton mark.

The pumpkin cultists were recruiting, plugging their seminars and offering a free package of Atlantic Giant seeds.  But my prior attempts at growing these freaks of nature was not all that successful, and I find it implausible that I would be able to mange the roughly 600 gallons of water per week that the vegetable brutes demand.

Oh, the winner.....

A three-quarter ton vegetable.

Oktoberfest-Marching to the Beer

Our local Oktoberfest is informal fun.  It opens at noon on Friday when folks congregate at the brewery.

A brass band plays a few oomp-pahs, the Fest Meister and Meisterin for the year are introduced.  Then everyone marches off to the Fairgrounds up the hill.

You don't have to be part of an organized group to march in the parade.  You in fact do not need to be organized at all.

There was a guy right under the yellow bicycle route sign trying to collect beer glasses from people before they walked out onto a public street.  I am pretty sure he missed most of them.

As to the actual Fest, well it has all the usual attractions.  Polka music, beer, and naturally the official food of Wisconsin:

I am working on the Grounds Committee this year, so much of my time on site was lifting stuff and driving around in a golf cart.  But I did enjoy a few beers, and took in this rather unusual show.

The human Glockenspiel.  Four guys, with musical accompaniment from an accordion, going through various quirky mechanically inspired actions.  Chopping wood, sawing, drinking beer.  Of course done with considerable comedic license.

Chubby Caucasians dancing, clapping and slapping (mostly themselves).

They have a reputation of being hard drinking guys, who spend their time between shows slugging down beers.  But I think that is a sham.  It looks like they are just chugging water in the show, and they have some pretty good moves.  Better than a bunch of drunken chubby Caucasians could likely manage.

Addendum.  There was something appealing and oddly familiar about the Glockenspiel act.  Let's see.  Non speaking performers in identical outfits.  Performing to musical cues.  Acting in concert except for one fellow who is always just a little bit off, providing the comedic foil.  Ah yes.  I figured it out while sweeping up their confetti Sunday morning.

This is Pink Man Group.