Obituary of Common Sense

Once in a while in my travels through cyberspace, I will stumble upon something that makes me think, "Well, ain't that the truth."  The following is one of those.  I have no idea where I found it.  If it is yours, let me know and I will give credit where credit is due.

Obituary of Common Sense

Today, we mourn the passing of an old friend by the name of Common Sense.

Common Sense lived a long life, but died from heart failure at the brink of the Millennium. No one really knows how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He selflessly devoted his life to service in schools; hospitals, homes, factories and offices, helping folks get jobs done without fanfare and foolishness.

For decades, petty rules, silly laws and frivolous lawsuits held no power over Common Sense. He was credited with cultivating such valued lessons as to know when to come in from rain, the early bird gets the worm and life isn't always fair.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies (the adults are in charge, not the kids), and it's okay to come in second.

A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and the Technological Revolution, Common Sense survived cultural and educational trends including feminism, body piercing, whole language and new math.

But his health declined when he became infected with the "if-it-only-helps-one-person-it's-worth-it" virus. In recent decades, his waning strength proved no match for the ravages of overbearing federal legislation.

He watched in pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking lawyers and enlightened auditors. His health rapidly deteriorated when schools endlessly implemented zero tolerance policies; when reports were heard of six year old boys charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; when a teen was suspended for taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch; when a teacher was fired for reprimanding an unruly student. It declined even further when schools had to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but couldn't inform the parent when a female student is pregnant or wants an abortion.

Finally, Common Sense lost his will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses, criminals received better treatment than victims, and federal judges stuck their noses in everything from Boy Scouts to professional sports.

As the end neared, Common Sense drifted in and out of logic but was kept informed of developments, regarding questionable regulations for asbestos, low-flow toilets, smart guns, the nurturing of Prohibition Laws and mandatory air bags.

Finally, when told that the homeowners association restricted exterior furniture only to that which enhanced property values, he breathed his last.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son Reason. His three stepbrothers survive him: Rights, Tolerance and Whiner.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.


Author Unknown

A Bushel of Tomatoes

Son went to the Farmer's Market again.  This time he scored tomatoes.  The vendor was selling them in half bushel boxes for $10 per box.  We haven't found tomatoes that cheap the last two seasons.  And they are absolutely beautiful.  Son brought home two boxes.

I dunked the tomatoes into boiling water for a minute and slipped off the skins.  After they were cut into smaller pieces I packed them into jars.  The bushel of tomatoes gave me 19 quarts, plus the four large tomatoes I set aside for eating fresh.  They were processed in the hot water bath canner for 25 minutes.

Son says he will go back and get a couple more boxes next week.  I'd like to have some canned in pint jars and the rest made into tomato juice.  Son also remarked how good some of those tomatoes would taste this winter when made into chili.   I'm thinking he will be the one to cook up the chili.  He says mine is way too wimpy.  :)

Ham In A Jar

I like to have a variety of home canned meat on my shelves.  The one that I ran out of a while back was ham.  I have used the boneless hams for canning in years past, but have not been completely satisfied with it.  I'm not sure why.  It tastes just fine.  Maybe it is because when cubed and canned, the cubes remain very firm.  Silly reason, I suppose, but there it is.

So I asked Son to bring home six hams from the grocery for canning.  Last evening I cut the meat from the bones.  I purposely left some meat on the bones and froze them for future use in making ham and bean soup.  This morning I cut the larger pieces to fit into wide mouth pint jars.  The rest I cut into about one-inch pieces and packed them into the small mouth pints.  I don't add liquid to the jars as the canning process creates enough liquid in the jars.  They are processed for 75 minutes at 10 lbs. pressure.  I wound up with 42 pints of ham.

The larger pieces will be heated and used for meals, the same as if I were baking a ham.  The smaller bits are good for ham salad sandwiches, mixed into scrambled eggs or in scalloped potato dishes.  I think the uses for this ham is limited only by a person's imagination.

And now I think I am done canning meat for this year.  It has taken some time, but I finally have enough canned to last at least a year, which was my goal.

Chicken Vegetable Soup

So Friday afternoon Number 1 Son did a grocery run and came home with about 40 lbs. of chicken thighs.  They don't go on sale all that often so I thought we had better take advantage of the 99 cents a lb. price.
I filled my big stock pot and two smaller pots with the chicken thighs, added water to cover and let them cook until they were falling off the bone done.  When they were cool enough to handle I pulled the meat from the bones and cut it into about 1-inch pieces.  I had thawed 6 lbs. of frozen mixed vegetables, so I layered a generous cup of meat and a cup of vegetables into quart jars.  I used the broth that the chicken cooked in to fill the jars to within 1-inch from the top.  I had 17 quarts of chicken vegetable soup when I ran out of vegetables.

I still had quite a bit of chicken left, so I put 2 generous cups of meat in quart jars and added the broth.  I wound up with 12 quarts of chicken in broth.  I figure I can use that as a soup or stew base, or thicken the broth for chicken and gravy over mashed potatoes or rice or baking powder biscuits.  It probably will work in chicken casserole dishes as well or for chicken and dumplings.

Some people add salt when they can meat or vegetables, but I usually do not.  Often I will add a bit of chicken bouillon for extra flavor when I heat it up and that generally is enough salt.

I was kind of surprised at how much mileage I got out of the chicken.  Haven't a clue where I'm going to store it all, but I sure am glad to have it.  I think of all the different meats I can, I use chicken the most.  Chicken soup is kind of a comfort food and the Farmer's Almanac is predicting a really cold winter here this year.  Probably going to need to be comforted long about February.  :)

Does Anyone Write Letters Any More?

When my granddaughter came to see me before leaving for Army Basic Training, her one request was that I write to her.  She isn't allowed to keep her cell phone, so no calls or text messages.  No email either.  But she is allowed to receive mail.  I warned her that letters from me might be pretty boring.  I lead a  quiet life.  Not much drama here.  She said, "I don't care if your letters are boring.  Just please write to me."  So I have had to dust off my letter writing skills and get busy.

Her request for letters got me to thinking about how things have changed over the years.  As a kid, I wrote a lot of letters, mostly to my grandmas and cousins.  Back then, long distance phone calls were expensive so they were reserved for emergency situations.  But we could always come up with a few pennies for a postage stamp.  So we wrote.

I have in my files a few letters written by my aunts to my parents.  They almost always included letters in the cards they sent at Christmas time.  It is fun to re-read those letters from time to time.  Most of them are over 50 years old and some trigger memories of what was going on within our family back then.  Something of the personalities of each writer shows in the style of writing.  One aunt with a great sense of humor would write about the funny side of her life.  Another aunt who had sort of a sour disposition would write letters full of complaints.  Most times I could tell who had written the letter before ever getting as far as the signature.

One of my cousins shared the transcripts of about 60 letters written by my great-grandparents and by their adult children.  They date from 1893 to 1918.  They provide a picture of what life was like for that family around the turn of the century, mostly when they were homesteading in Minnesota, having moved here from New York.  I had all their information - birth dates, death dates, names of their spouses and children - already entered in my genealogy program.  But the letters showed me who they were - their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their love for one another.  Fascinating.

My all time favorites aren't the letters themselves, but the envelopes.  The following were scanned from my Mother's scrapbook.

The first is a clipping from a Twin Cities Sunday newspaper.  Mother's sister, Margaret had left home in northern Minnesota to work in St. Paul.  She sent a letter in an envelope with her drawings for the address.  My grandfather lived in Blackduck, Minnesota at the time.  Her likeness of him was so accurate that the letter reached him without any problem.

The second is an envelope from a letter written by the same person - Mother's sister.  The likeness of my mother is so good that the letter reached her without delay.

And now I am off to write to Nicki.  After all, I promised.

Make Plans...

and the gods hold their sides, laughing.

I had big plans for chicken thighs that are on sale this week.  They come in a family pack and I had ordered six of them.  The plan was to make chicken vegetable soup to can.  But the gods said, "I don't think so."  There was a power outage at the store where the grocery delivery service shops.   The delivery guy told me that there was no meat at all available when my shopping was done.  It crossed my mind that if it all goes to hell like it seems to be doing, this kind of food shortage could be the norm rather than the exception.  No point in getting upset.  Couldn't be helped.  Luckily it was just one store that had the problem and Son will pick up the chicken I need for the soup at another store.  Take that, you snickering gods!

I did get twelve 1-lb. bags of baby carrots that are on sale for $1 each.  I like to put a roast or chicken in the oven, surround it with potatoes, carrots and onions and slow bake it, or do the same in the crock pot.  So I packed the carrots in pint jars, added water to cover them and pressure canned them for 25 minutes.  Wound up with 27 pints of carrots.

While I was working on the carrots, I had pretty much decided just to forget about canning the chicken soup.  But then I got to remembering the reason I do all of this.  We could go on for years, doing a slow slide into third world status, or we could drop to the bottom with a bang.  Either way, the whole idea is to be prepared for whatever happens.  I have been told that I am foolish to have this much food on my shelves.  "What are you going to do with it all," they ask.   "Nothing is going to happen," they say.  I hope they are right.  I hope that life continues as it has for generations.  But if it doesn't, seems to me there is a real possibility that the last jar of chicken soup may be the very thing that saves someone in my family from starving.   So I will continue to can the soup, continue to add to the household and medical items that will be useful and in some cases, necessary should they become scarce in the future.

It is called "common sense."

Dad and Sister

This photo was taken in the spring of 1912.

Dad is the baby and his sister, Clarice, is holding him.  They are seated in front of the first house that my grandfather, Clifford Alton Matheny, built on the land he homesteaded near Blackduck, Minnesota in 1904.  Some years later, he built a new, more modern house that was stucco on the outside and had a second story for the children's bedrooms.  Dad told me they built the new house around the old one.  They tore down the old house as the new one went up.  The new house had electricity, but no running water or indoor plumbing.  I remember that water was pumped using a hand pump just off the back door of the house, and the outhouse was a short distance in the same direction.  Water had to be carried into the house, and I remember that the drinking water was in a white enamel bucket sitting on a stool by the kitchen door.  There was a metal dipper in the bucket, and when someone wanted a drink of water, they filled the dipper and drank from it.  It was the best tasting water I have ever had, and I don't think anyone ever got sick from drinking from the dipper.  Folks were a lot tougher then.

This photo is also of Dad and Clarice, and Dad said it was taken in the fall of 1912.

Clarice's job was to watch over her baby brother, and she continued to do so for over 90 years.  They probably had one of the closest sibling relationships that I know of, and even when both were in the nursing home in Blackduck, they enjoyed each other's company.  Dad is wearing a dress in this photo, and he said that was common practice back then for a boy to wear dresses until about the age of three years, when he was old enough to manipulate the buttons on the fly of a pair of pants.

I have always treasured these two photos for the fact that they are now over 100 years old, and they are the only photos I have of Dad as a baby.

I think this may be my favorite picture of Dad and Clarice in their later years.

I have always thought that Dad looks like he either has been up to some mischief, or that he is about to.  Which wouldn't surprise me one little bit.