Road Trip Trees

A couple of Tree Shaped Tombstones from a June road trip.  Odd balls today.

I don't usually bother with this style of monument.  There is something unimpressive about a stack of logs.  But this one caught my eye.  The base is of the usual limestone that I have become so fond of.  The top log is red granite.  It seemed quite odd to see them mixed this way.  I wondered if this was a repair job.

Still not sure, the two stone types did overlap in popularity and the fit is pretty good.   

I ran across this new (1970s) tombstone in a tiny hamlet.  On the one hand it pleases me that people are, or at least recently were, still creating these in something like the old style.  On the other hand, those bears gotta go.  It got me thinking about what my own "Spirit Animal" would be. For now I am going with Capuchin monkey or Possum.

This one got me thinking, because it had the look of something created more by machine than by hand carving.  I theorized that CNC technology has advanced a great deal since this was made, and that perhaps my long standing (and hopefully long delayed) wish for my own elaborate Tree Shaped Tombstone might be practical.  Courtesy of You Tube here is what stone cutting CNC can do in the 21st century...

The Holstein Cross

This is on the side of the L & M Chuck Wagon cafe in Melrose, Wisconsin.

It was odd enough that I had to drive back and get a picture.  Oh, if you are one of my acquaintences from overseas this won't make much sense.  A bit of back story.

Wisconsin is "The Dairy State".  We love our cows.  Especially Holsteins. 

In fact their mottled black and white pattern is a sort of unofficial Wisconsin logo.  You can find all sorts of Holstein "stuff" out there:

 


I'm not quite sure what to make of "the Holstein cross".  Is it art?  It is a coming together of things that the artist felt were important.  Cows.  Jesus.  Her hometown which has been marked as the capitol of the state.  It is a rather black and white view of the world; and while we can certainly get along without Illinois it is peculiar to think of Wisconsin as floating freely in an archipeligo where one of the closest adjacent islands is shaped like a heart.

But as art I have seen far worse.

Gas Station Time Warp in Orfordville

When I am on a road trip I consider it appropriate to be lost a certain percentage of the time.  Maybe 5% if my wife is along.  But when I am by myself - and with a looser definition of lost - more than that is fine.  Of course when meandering down obscure back roads you must keep an eye on the gas gauge and on a recent southern Wisconsin jaunt I was watching the needle drop as I traveled over some very rustic territory.

So I pulled into a little town I might othewise have skipped, Orfordville Wisconsin.

On Main street there was a dingy looking 1970's gas station that appeared to be closed.  But across the street?  This:

Whoa.  My first thought was that the place on their sign where it said "Established 1964" was totally wrong.  This was a vintage gas station and a much earlier business.  So I pulled in to check it out.

Out of habit I started pumping gas before....a guy came out to do it!  Guy also gave the windows a good squeegie and was happy to chat about the weather, the gas station, etc. 

As it happens it is a vintage building, dating to 1926.  It was a livery stable before it became a garage.  Most of their business is repair work.  The owners of Sather's are buying the dingy 1970's station across the street so that they will have pumps that can be self serve after hours.  The pumps you see here are pre-credit card.  The weather looks OK but "might rain later".

It's not a total time warp.  Sather's has its own website and Facebook page in which more is explained.....

Weirdly Orfordville had another vintage gas station just a few blocks away.  It seems to be inactive now, its most recent incarnation being some sort of ice cream shop.

The gas pump out front does look original.  I remember seeing a few of these still in operation when I was a very young lad.  The little glass "eye" filled up with gasoline when you ran the pump.  It swirled around when the gas was pumping.  I found them vaguely frightening.

Odd how gas stations and their fixtures age with such grace.

Leaving Orfordville I passed a nice new gas station/convenience store complex on the edge of town.  They seemed to be doing well.  I suspect it is the successor to the down town 70's gas station.  I hope they get along with Sather's and that both the old and new enterprises succeed.

Macro Economic Theory as seen by Goats

I was at a petting zoo with my grand son a while back.  He loves animals.  He of course recognizes some of them as natural born rascals; the goats in particular.

There are little vending machines where you can buy a handfull of feed for a quarter.  It seems a simple economic equation.  Animals show interest.  Human buys food.  Animals get food.  Everyone wins.

Goats see things differently.

If you go anywhere near this machine the smart (?) goat on the right will jam his snout up in front of it.  He's not about to let a single pellet go to waste, or to the other goats.  See how the paint is worn off right where his horns are?  He has been at this a while....

The problem is that he makes it nigh impossible to buy pellets.  He's just in the way.  

So in the long run he probably gets a high percentage of the goat chow, but the overall amount of chow dispensed is much reduced by his obnoxious behaviour.

You may insert whatever human world economic parallels you wish at this point.

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Belgian versions, late and tragic.

The Western Front was a fairly narrow band of territory.  If you were a few miles either side of the largely static lines life went on albeit with some disruption.  But within the range of the guns the damage was significant and in the area of Flanders where I was excavating Hill 80, the destruction was near complete.  In many villages nothing survived, they became dust and rubble.

Even the cemeteries, so when I wandered through a few post war grave yards I was surprised to see that "Tree shaped Tombstones" are common.  In fact, I think they are still being made and placed.

Kemmel Belgium.  Note the death date in the mid 1970s.  The church behind it, along with everything else above ground, was destroyed by artillery fire during the war.

Another example from Wychaete, just a short stroll from the Hill 80 excavation.  

As I went about in Flanders I actually saw quite a few of these, all in the "Rustic Cross" configuration seen above.  It seems to back up my theory that these are more of a Catholic thing, as Belgium is almost entirely of that faith.  They all have at least a stylized version of the stone base which I assume represents Mount Calvary where Christ was crucified.

Belgium in Review

A wrap up of my Belgian adventures.....how well did my pre-trip preparations work out?  And what kind of place is it anyway?

In general my preparations worked well.  Lots of walks and garden work in the weeks prior made the physical labor manageable.  I take curious pride in being an efficient mover of dirt.  The first week home I actually had more aches and pains than during my two weeks of digging.

Belgian beer?  As it turns out this was not much of a pub crowd.  And the two local establishments were not always open anyway.  But there were several evening get togethers for curry, barbecue or whatever.  The Uni students brought some watery low cost beer.  Those of us with foresight and funds brought better stuff.  As usual the company and the beer act in concert and the evenings were delightful.  Odd...what with John Denver sing alongs by our guitar playing Austrian explosives expert....but delightful.

The default language on site was as I suspected English.  Belgium can't agree on much of anything and with Dutch, French and German all being official English has become the default.  In second place was Dutch, or rather the Flemish variant of it.  I was able to pick up a bit while digging.  The security guy at Brussels airport was impressed.  He had also heard of the dig on the news and we had a nice chat.

I must with reluctance dispense some negative points to Brussels airport.  The train going to and from the place has a regular team of annoying beggars.  They come around and listlessly hand out grubby pieces of paper saying that they are poor, work with children and would like some money.  They come back later to collect the scraps and put out a hand.  They seem used to being ignored and just move on to their next location, leaving the lingering smell of a three pack a day smoker in their wake.  The airport also has some very suspicious "helpful" individuals who will for instance be right there if the ATM is being difficult, offering to direct you to one that they know works........

But in general the inhabitants of the rural area I stayed in were much the same as country folks the world over.  Polite if primarily absorbed in their own lives.  One of the Belgian archaeologists I worked with told me that Belgians are Europe's most passionate home bodies.  They are said to be "born with a brick in their stomachs".  The contrast of immaculate homes and gardens and very sleepy public spaces would seem to back this up.

Having spent a decade excavating a bit earlier in May and a ways further north - up at Hadrian's Wall - I packed more warm clothes and fewer T shirts than needed.  We had blazing hot weather and I usually slugged down an entire 2 liter bottle of water.  

After the first week I did have my logistics worked out.  There were nice showers on site so I got cleaned up prior to returning to the diggers hovel.  There was also a comical little washing machine so the bag of laundry detergent I carried along was a good call.  The convenience store down the block was pricey but they were open early and made a good lunch time sandwich.  I never found coffee beyond the highly potent stuff available in small quantities on site, but it was just sufficient to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

I was able to manage Belgian trains and buses, and timed things such that I left the excavation having consumed the last of my provisions and wearing my last items of clean clothes.  About half the garments I brought with went into the trash or into a clothing for charity collection bin that I found.

I had numerous conversations with the eclectic bunch of excavators on site, often on the subject of where they should go to visit the "real" America.  So many Europeans confine themselves to New York, LA, Florida and even, God help 'em, Vegas.  I suggested they rent a car and hit the small roads in summer time.

So some of my critique of Belgium is unfair by my own standards.  Brussels for instance is an unlovely place as seen by the train, and no city is fairly judged by its airport.  That being said among my last images of Belgium were this series of ads, all of them showing emaciated, unhappy young people.  

Not the real Belgium, just as LA, NYC and Vegas are not the real America.

Bull Durham - Mechanical Bulls

(Wrapping up my tribute to Bull Durham on its 30th anniversary)

In the movie Bull Durham there is a sign in the outfield.  It is in the shape of a large bull and says "Hit Bull Win Steak".  

It features prominently in this clip from the movie....where "Nuke" learns a valuable lesson:

Of course something similar has to appear in the new Bulls ball park.  Several similar things in fact.  This is out by the left field foul pole.  And indeed, players who hit the bull do get a steak from an adjacent eatery.  It is unclear if the salad offer is valid.  Like the movie prop it has eyes that light up red and steam the shoots out of the nostrils.  

But where is the original movie prop?  I understand that it was a decoration somewhere along the first base line for years but has been taken down.  The closest I could find was this guy up on the concourse overlooking the entry gate.  It is a bull on wheels so probably is taken to events and such.  Lets take a robot builder's look at this one.

The eyes light up with standard truck tail lights.  I could not work out the mechanism for steam production in detail, some elements were enclosed, but it is probably some kind of fog machine, a reservoir tank, and a fan.  That's how I would build it anyway.

Here's what makes the tail go up and down.  It features a mechanism called an "eccentric rod" that allows the toothed gear to create smooth up and down motion of the tail which is mounted to the left gear and bearing.  Think of how old time locomotives work.

I couldn't quite get a look at the drive motor but suspect it is a 24 volt DC industrial motor.  The whole shebang is supposed to be portable, and battery power would be handier than a generator or a need to plug things in.

Below is another Bull.  More art than mechanics here but some very nice welding of an enormous number of fender washers....