Change For The Sake of Change: A Rant of Frustration

There is a comedy routine, a group of engineers are helping a young business woman improve her assembly line and enhance sales of her product.  She manufactures up-scale hair barrettes.  The engineers insist that they need to add blue tooth wireless technology to the barrettes because everything is better with blue tooth. 

The routine is a ridiculous example of technology geeks advocating change for the sake of change.  Yet, this pattern of changing technology simply because we can change technology is reaching these ridiculous extremes. 

I will admit that I have been called a Luddite.  And, I may be.  But do we really need so much change, so quickly?  I used to own a flip phone.  I now have a smart phone, only because people around me were embarrassed whenever I would answer the telephone with my antiquated contraption.  The only advantage to my smart phone is the numbers are larger than my flip phone.  It is now easier for me to see the numbers when I dial.

I am trying to muster as much sarcasm as possible as I write: I can’t wait for the next installment of windows or Microsoft office.  I am so excited with the new procedures for writing documents that require me to change the type font to Times Roman because some mental giant has decided that Calibri is more appropriate as a default font and 11 point type is better than the larger and more legible 12 point.  And, I so enjoy changing the spacing from “normal” to “no spacing” every time I create a document.  Thank you to all of the Microsoft and windows engineers and programmers for allowing me to determine the page layout every time I create a new document and forcing me to utilize too much of my time to reset pages that should be default standards.

While I am at it, thank you to every telephone manufacturer in the world for determining my telephone needs to be something more than just a telephone.  I don’t remember how I managed to live without a camera in my telephone, along with text messaging and wireless technology.  Special thanks goes out to the singular “genius” that determined my telephone needed to be so much more than just a telephone.

Today is one of those days when the standard of change for the sake of change is overwhelming.  This morning I had to work with a new index for genealogy research.  Some “genius” decided to combine several indices to make research more of a muddled mess.  It appears to be change for the sake of change.  Honestly, I don’t need any more new and improved “whatevers” in my life.  Is it too much to expect the technology in life to simply function in the manner that it is expected? 

A second cliché keeps running through my brain: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  To all of those techno-geeks, engineers and computer programmers out there, stop fixing it, it ain’t broke.

Memories of the Summer Canning season

I recently realized harvesting fruits and vegetables and preserving food generate strong memories about growing up in Salt Lake City.  Each summer certain activities took place that, to this day, give me a sense of home and security. 

Visiting the farmers of Salt Lake and the “pick your own” farm lots to buy cherries and peaches, tomatoes and cucumbers remind me of the innocence of a distant era.  All of these fruits and vegetables purchased would be taken home and prepared for the canning jars.  There is a certain satisfaction to the plop and squeak sound of the cherry pit machine as you removed the seed from each cherry.  Put a cherry under the trigger, pull the spring loaded trigger.  The seed would fall down into a jar of seeds, and then throw the seeded cherry into the bowl for canning.  Each cherry pitted required payment of a cherry to eat.  As many fruit passed my lips as did through the cherry pitter.  The peaches witnessed a similar preparation process: blanch the peaches, peel the peaches, cut them in half and remove the pit.  Peaches are larger, so fewer are eaten.  Yet, the sticky juice running down your arms as you sliced the peaches made the process memorable.

            Preparing tomatoes for canning required a bit more care.  The boiling water, and processing the tomatoes usually disqualified me from working the tomato canning process.  The cucumber were perhaps the most memorable and time consuming.  Cucumbers soaked in brine for two weeks, preparing them for the pickle jars.  Packing the jars and the smell of hot vinegar and dill told everyone that in a few weeks the dill pickles would be ready for eating.  And later, the sweet and sour pickles and the relish would also find their way onto the dinner table.

            Today the tomato plants are in the ground in my own backyard.  We have added lettuce and onions to the garden.  In a few months the harvest will begin.  In my kitchen, I will cook up salsa and the satisfaction of preparing my own food will generate memories of a great childhood, helping Mom and Dad can food.  And, the memories will continue.

Henry Hislop's Teeth

I thought I had posted this, but no.  So, here we go … 

A story Mom liked to tell about her Dad, Henry Hislop, concerned his health.

Just after Mom was born, in the mid-1930s, Grandpa Hislop got sick.  He seemed very lethargic, absolutely no energy at all.  Being in a small town in the middle of the Depression, there wasn’t a whole lot of money for doctor bills.  So, Henry talked around with friends and neighbors to self-diagnose.  Well somehow, with the help of his neighbors, he concluded that there must be something wrong in his mouth.  Someone convinced him he needed to remove all of his teeth.  Well Grandpa went to the dentist and had all of his teeth pulled out.  I hope he got dentures, but Mom never mentions this detail in the story.

Well, the trip to the dentist didn’t cure what ailed him.  He was still lethargic, always tired and no desire to really do anything.  Keep in mind, this condition was very odd for Henry Hislop.  In all of the stories I have read and heard, this was a man that enjoyed hard work.  This was a man that when he was nearing 60 years old helped build the local church.  He got down in the trench to dig.  He worked in the cold to lay brick and mortar into place.  He enjoyed manual labor.  For him to feel lethargic was a sign of something serious.

Unfortunately the diagnosis of pulling his teeth didn’t work.  He seemed forever tired.  Finally, the family persuaded him to travel the fifteen miles down the canyon from the small town of Huntsville, to a doctor in the larger town of Ogden, Utah.  A simple visit to the doctor and he diagnosed with anemia.  He was given pills to add to his diet and his energy quickly returned.  He was back to enjoying his work in a very short time.

After this episode with his teeth, Henry Hislop lived another 20 more years.  Forever working hard and seemingly enjoying it all.

Dad Liked His Beer

The stories about Dad and his beer usually start by mentioning that after his service in the Navy he spent a lot of time in the Idaho bars.  A favorite hangout was a place called The Schooner.  Although he didn’t have much of a belly at the time, a joke he used often: he would walk up to the bar, stick out his stomach as far as he could and tell the bartender “fill it up!”

My favorite Dad and beer story happened many years later.  When Dad was sick, he had trouble sleeping.  When I came for a visit, I bought a six pack of LaBatts beer to drink.  Dad had stopped drinking beer, at least twenty years earlier.  He claimed he no longer liked the taste of it.  Well Dad was at the table in his wheelchair, and I was standing next to him, slowly nursing a beer.  It seems like the entire family was standing around joking when my sister across the table noticed Dad drinking my beer.  Before she could say anything, he chugged the entire bottle!  It is good thing he didn’t like the taste of it!

That night, for the first time in a number of months, Mom said he slept like a baby.  After that night we kept a supply of beer in the refrigerator to help Dad sleep.  I don’t think he ever drank one of them.  But, for a brief time, he was back in The Schooner, “filling it up.”

Free Association Thoughts about Dad, Dogs, and Cartoons

Something recently came to mind, I was folding some towels when I came across a towel with Snoopy, the character from Peanuts comics.  I remembered how much Dad enjoyed cartoons.  He loved to just contemplate about Snoopy and all of the challenges faced by this one beagle.  Every year we were watching The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas.  Every year Dad would laugh at the very idea of Snoopy climbing into his sopwith camel and flying off to face the Red Baron and finally landing in Linus’ pumpkin patch. 

We once got a small dog, she was supposed to be hunting dog but that never really completely developed.  Dad, I think, wanted to desperately name the dog Snoopy.  He kept suggesting, “Let’s name her Snoopy.”  Us kids kept insisting, no there has to be a better name than that.  Being young teenagers we were oblivious to his wants.  We wound up naming the dog Penny.  

Another cartoon Dad loved was the roadrunner series.  He would really laugh, I mean out load, belly laugh type of laughter, at the road runner and the coyote.  Mom used to tell the story, when her and Dad went to a movie, a road runner cartoon was showing before the feature.  Dad was laughing and waving his arms.  Mom had to move over one seat so the Dad would stop bumping her every time he laughed.

Just some more random thoughts about Dad: he loved his dogs and his cartoons

Trula, My Sister

I haven’t mentioned my brother and sisters because I have adopted a special standard of personal privacy.  I don’t write about anyone that is alive.  That way, no one gets in trouble. 

But, it has been nearly 30 years since my sister Trula has died.  It seems about time to write about her.  But, this is not a simple biography, no dates to hang your hat on.  This is a brief remembrance of a sweet woman.

I have never been able to figure out she got her name.  Mom and Dad could never remember how they came up with Trula, but they did.

Trula was five years older than me.  She was in high school before I was really cognizant of the life around me.  In high school I remember her art work.  She liked to work in clay, throwing pots and other pieces.  A piece that she was particularly proud of was large vase.  It had a glaze that was several shades of yellow.  Inside she had dried flowers and a peacock tail feather.  I remember this pot because I once tripped and my head fell into the dried flowers.  Some bizarre little ball of burrs landed in my eye and I was forced to visit the doctor.  For a week I was soaking my eyeball in warm water and Epsom salts.  At the same time the doctor was picking little slivers out of my eye.  I remember that vase very well!

Physically, Trula was short.  Around her, I felt tall!  But, beyond height, I couldn’t measure up to Trula.  She was hard working and persistent.  After high school, she put herself through college, first obtaining an Associate’s Degree in accounting, they later transferring to a four year college, the University of Utah.   There she acquired her BS in mine engineering. 

The one story I wonder about, but Mom swore that it was true: Dad always wanted an engineer in the family.  Neither John nor I had the interest.  Me, I didn’t have the aptitude.  Well Trula knew Dad wanted an engineer, so she majored in engineering. 

Dad was also proud of Trula and her intelligence.  In her senior year at the University of Utah, she won an award from the Mine engineering Department.  Dad was very proud of Trula, that night.

While she was at the University of Utah, she worked at a credit union.  She helped me negotiate a loan for my first car.  I was able to buy a brand new, metallic blue Chevette with her help.

After graduation she worked in coal mines in eastern Utah and Western Colorado.

Trula was generous to everyone.  During one of the several times that I was unemployed, Trula offered me a place to stay if I wanted to come down and work in Carbon County.  I stayed in Salt Lake, but her house was always open.  

Trula died too young.   She had two young boys. Unfortunately, I have not kept up with these two, but they have grown up into fine young men.   I am certain she is very proud of her two sons and her two grandchildren as well.

Trula was a unique lady.  She was kind, generous, and incredibly intelligent.  To this day, I miss her.

Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone

Land records make for some interesting and confusing details about family history.  In the case of the Brubaker/Tiernan clan, I have found that Ellen Tiernan Brubaker and John Brubaker filed for at least three different land parcels under the Homestead Act of 1862.

In 1893, Ellen Tiernan filed for the final title of land on Section 15, Township 24, Range 51.  Family lore said that all of the Tiernan children filed for land then sold to her father John or her brother Charles Tiernan after title came through on the Homestead Act.  This may have been true.  The plat maps for the area round Snake Creek Township shows that John and Charles Tiernan owned a lot of land in that part of Box Butte County.

Just ten years later, Ellen T. Brubaker was filing for more land located on Sections 32 and 33 of Township 23, Range 44.  I believe this is an area south of Lakeside, Nebraska.  Ellen Brubaker claimed the land was filed under her husband, but he had deserted her.  Her petition stated he had left in July of 1904.  She stayed on the land until October.  She felt she could not care for her five children and work the land.  She left the claim and “went to her own people in Box Butte County.”  But she did not want to lose the land.  She petitioned the land title be assigned to her name.  She could not produce the original receipt of entry because John Brubaker had taken it with him.

Her petition must have been denied.  She remained married to John Brubaker.  A decade later, John H. Brubaker obtained 480 acres in Section 12, of Township 21, Range 50.

This all reminds me of the song: “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone."  I think it was fairly typical to move from one parcel of land to another to try to improve your economic condition.  In the defense of John Brubaker, he worked for the railroad and was constantly moving for work.  This may have been the situation, or something less favorable may have occurred.

I don’t know the circumstances.  But John Brubaker and Ellen Tiernan remained married and are buried together in Alliance, Nebraska.  The land records simply add to the confusion of their relationship, yet it is really very interesting.