Almost overnight odd things have begun happening to me.

A friend inquired solicitously if there was an event to explain my sudden change in behavior.  I could not think of anything right off, but then I remembered that our daughter Rachael and son-in-law Daniel Gillies recently told us that our first grandchild was on the way.

1.   The hair in my ears suddenly grew so thick I could not hear the cashier at the market.  I suggested she looked like she should be in middle school.  She let me know that she is 27, has three kids, an ex-husband in Georgia, no child support, and a peptic ulcer.  I told her I never used to call the store a market.

2.    I have taken to carrying a small change purse for coins and wrapping my bills and credit cards tightly in a rubber band.  This increases my checkout time so I regale those behind me in line with stories about how much each item used to cost.

3.     My pants (briefly referred to as slacks) are now called trousers.  They seem to fit better when they are hugging my ribcage and held up by both suspenders and a belt.  In shirts, flannel is the new black.

4.   My next automobile will probably be an Oldsmobile 88.  I want to get a little more car around me the way these young people whizz by talking on their hounds tooth telephones.  The mileage will not be as good as my Prius, but I never go over 35 mph anyway.

5.    Reading obituaries the other day I remarked that the afterlife must be mirthful because  families all mention that the deceased had a great sense of humor.  I have not met that many truly funny people.  The obit always suggests a donation in lieu of flowers, so how come there are so many flowers at funerals?  I shared these unique observations four days in a row with Mother.

6.  I called JoAnne “Mother” the other day.

7.   Dinner before 5:00 PM is called supper.  Early bird specials are great!  The food is fresher, you save money, and you get home before dark when all the hipsters and riff raff come out.

8.   I keep a rake by my side door so I can spring into action if skate boarders or stray dogs trespass onto my property.

9.   Rather than say, “I am going to crash,” I told Mother that I was a might tuckered and was not going to sleep, but just going to rest my eyes for a spell.

10.   People on television need to speak up!  I have noticed that almost all of them mumble and it is hard to make out what they are saying.   That Howard Cosell, you didn’t always agree with him, but you at least you could hear him!

Tom H. Cook a displaced local writer has transitioned from fogey to codger in preparation for becoming a grandparent this fall.  (Google Rachael Leigh Cook to see a photo of the happy couple.)  Shameless plug: Rachael, the Barton Open School graduate, returns as F.B.I. agent Kate Moretti in Season Two of Perception on TNT June 25th.     

 

    http://hollywoodlife.com/2013/05/08/rachael-leigh-cook-pregnant-daniel-gillies-baby/

Noodge verb, noun (Yiddish) To nag or pester

I now believe we live by miracles, not improvements.

                                              ---Garrison Keillor

A classic Mary Tyler Moore episode features an exasperated Lou Grant pushed to his breaking point by news anchor Ted Baxter’s latest gaffe.  Barely able restrain himself when confronting the blithe cluelessness of his on air “talent,” Mr. Grant, with mayhem in his heart and a firm grip on Ted’s lapels, glowers at his prey.  Initially Lou is too angry to speak.  Finally through clenched teeth he snarls, “Ted, you know the way you are?”  Ted, still oblivious but fearful of being pounded into the ground like a tent stake, vigorously nods his head.  Grant, only slightly appeased but realizing the futility of his rage, entreats, “Don’t be that way!”

Writer Sydney J. Harris suggests that our personality is more than a set of independent traits that can be freely “shopped out” or exchanged.  The way we organize and integrate our collection of traits into a complex structure makes up our personality.  Changing one trait requires a reorganization of the whole personality.  Viewed dynamically, certain defects are the cost we pay for our virtues.  An ulcer or migraine may be the price of perfectionism.  Our positive traits are often intertwined with the unflattering.  A fearless gridiron pass rusher may not be good at waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant.   A dedicated research chemist may lack a scintillating wit in social settings.   

This is a somewhat fancy rationalization for a behavior I possess that can drive others crazy.  I am a noodge. I show JoAnne the Harris article that suggests that being a pest is a core personality trait and that I would not be the “Self” I am without it, and that my identity was fragile.  The no-nonsense person that she is suggests that my remaining friends like me despite this trait rather than because of it, and that I better knock it off!   I have been known to hector, goad, needle, infer, harass, badger, browbeat, suggest, cajole, bribe, con, plead, hound, annoy, bait, browbeat, pester, tease, torment, plague, flatter, induce, bother, inveigle, urge, coax, and wheedle to get my way.  In my defense, I am rarely out to benefit myself directly.  I limit my practice to family and close friends.  All of them are immune to my charms.

I will not claim to be particularly gifted at managing my own life, but I am savant-like in my understanding of the needs of those around me.  Call it a gift, but if you seek to buy a house, select a pet, have a child, plan a vacation, tangle with a family member, choose a college, or make a retirement decision, I am a huge help.  Sadly I am not one to accept, “You have given me a lot to think about...thank you!”  For me that is not closure, it is merely blood in the water.  Polite indecision is an opening.  I flash to the salesman’s edict in Glengarry Glen Ross: A.B.C. Always Be Closing.

Pop psychologists would suggest that I must have deep-seated issues of my own that I am avoiding.  I have examined my inner life and found it neither troubled, complex, or even interesting.  That my closest friends from our Minnesota days are planning a move to California and will soon be house hunting...now that’s entertainment!  In the spirit of helpfulness I may have dropped by a few open houses (27), collected some realtor business cards (55), chatted with a neighbor or twelve, and forwarded a couple of listings (114).  Mixed in may have been a phone chat or two.

JoAnne is a disciple of the non-intrusive school of quiet support, ready to listen and offer her opinion if solicited.  She is more directive with me!  “Our friends are able to blah blah blah let them blah blah blah own decision blah blah know better than blah blah blah lived successfully all these years without you blah, blah blah if your advice blah blah blah it’s not your business blah blah blah how would you like it blah blah blah let them blah blah blah!!!”

Talk about clueless!

Tom H. Cook is a now far away writer who misses everything Minnesota except the newly added May snowfall.  It is probably no coincidence that his two dogs are noodgey border collies.              

On Edward Francis Worst

 

This would have been a great column twenty years ago.  Much like my breathless exhortation on the world of podcasting (HLP May 2011), I am late to the dance with this revelation (to me only) of the puzzle-solving power of Internet communities.  Other than bemusement at Lindsay Lohan’s multiple escapes from justice, I do not follow any topic closely enough to grasp the full force of the axiom that everyone is smarter than any one.  That changed when JoAnne was stumped by a weaving problem. 

I have watched her chase the two sirens Curiosity and Creativity for four decades.  As a serious artist and president-elect of the Southern California Hand Weavers Guild, and even with decades of experience, she continually seeks challenges.   Being temporarily over her head attempting to refine the weave structure on a project is a normal state of affairs.  The goal is creation not extension.  Following a pattern is merely replication.  The art and anxiety comes from bringing together your own vision with the wisdom of other artists.  Being a “fiddler on the roof” at times is the price of originality.

When she is off in her own world, a bobbing, riffing, weaving John Coltrane, I usually grab a good book and the nearest dog and retreat.  But, her latest caper intrigued me.  She had a copy of the not totally obscure 1926 text How To Weave Linens by Edward F. Worst.  Using Worst’s instructions, charts, and black and white photos, JoAnne used her weaving software to digitally represent one of the cloth designs. Her computer program revealed the same weave structure except it came out sideways.  Analyzing 17 other weave drafts in that chapter, she discovered all were inexplicably a quarter turn off. 

Rather than just rotate the patterns 90 degrees, JoAnne wanted to know what had gone wrong.  She needed to understand Edward Francis Worst (1869-1949), unfortunate name and all.  Worst was a manual arts teacher, a leader in the Arts and Crafts movement, and the author of four books on weaving.  By 1926 Edward Worst was America’s foremost authority on hand weaving. Surely the man knew what he was doing. JoAnne, after blaming her own reading of the instructions, the software, and briefly me for hovering, turned to WeaveTech, an international 2,000 member Yahoo group, for answers.

A WeaveTech member from Sweden solved the mystery.  The photos in Worst’s chapter were lifted directly from Nina Engestrom’s book Prastik Vavbok, published in Sweden in 1896.  Nina or a careless typesetter had turned the fabric photos 90 degrees in her book, and Worst had included them (unattributed and still sideways) along with instructions in How To Weave Linens. 

I was ready to write an expose on “Fast Eddie’s” grab for the gold when I began to read other posts and articles.  Worst, a Chicago, Illinois native, looked like Daniel Day Lewis looking like Lincoln.  Rather than a quick-buck plagiarist, he was more of a saint, committed to reversing the divorce between the hand and the brain.  He was a school principal and early advocate for nascent programs in occupational and physical therapy.  He taught weaving and other arts that emphasized the therapeutic value of handcraft to staff at state mental institutions.  He pioneered handweaving as a resource for low income people suffering the effects of The Great Depression. 

Worst was so taken by the early efforts to establish a weaving cooperative in North Carolina that a feel-good made for television movie could be made from what happened next. 

Worst, the Yankee school principal, traveled to the Blue Ridge Mountains town of Penland, North Carolina to teach weaving in the summer of 1928.  His classes were so popular the community committed to building a studio.  A visionary local woman, Lucy Morgan, “borrowed all the money they would let me have” and led grass roots efforts to finance and construct the log “mansion in the sky.”  In May 1935 the locals came together like an Amish barn raising (but with liquor).  They cut logs and used their mules to drag them into place.  The women cooked the noon meals, which became a community event.  In August of 1935 the last nail went into the roof of the four-story 50 X 80 foot Edward F. Worst Craft House the day before Worst’s arrival. 

If this is a movie, the locals will be lining the streets of Penland as a deeply moved Edward Worst (Tommy Lee Jones if Mr. Lewis is unavailable), accompanied by his wife Evangeline (Holly Hunter?), as they slowly motor into town.  Prominent in the crowd would be Lucy Morgan (Meryl Streep?), the driving force behind the school.  The closing credits reveal The Penland School of Craft has become internationally recognized, and the Edward F. Worst Craft House and particularly the Chicago Room is a cornerstone of the campus.  The next to last visual would state “Edward Worst began teaching summers in North Carolina in 1927, and returned every year until his death in 1949.”  Then the last screen: “During his more than twenty years of teaching at Penland, he never accepted compensation.”  There will not be a dry eye in the house, and I am misting up as I write this.  It is amazing what you can learn on the Internet.

Tom H. Cook is an adept blogger and the host of four sites dedicated to Philadelphia Athletics left fielder Gus Zernial.   

JoAnne adds: You can read more about  Penland, Lucy Morgan and Edward Worst at http://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/CraftRevival/people/edwardworst.html    

By the way, my handwoven linens came out beautifully.  Still sideways, but lovely.