Switches

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For a while, Ma Bell called me an assistant traffic engineer. I learned that all traffic behaves the same, be it telephone calls or cars on the road.

A phone call travels from the hand set to a gathering place called an office where an operator, now replaced by an automatic switch, decides where the call should go to get to its final address, the phone number. From the first switching point, the call travels to another and then is switched again to its final hand set. The line from hand set to office is like a surface street. The line from office to office is like a freeway. The on and off ramps are switching points.

That’s the same process as getting stuff from store to car to house to back door and eventually out again to solid waste disposal. It’s also the same process as getting people from house to school or work and back again.

There are unbelievable amounts of freight and passengers to move from one place to another in the course of daily life. At my grandmother’s retirement home, I learned how safe, dignified, and convenient it is to have a chair or table at each switching point, such as between sidewalk and entry or hall and stairs. It doesn’t take much to simplify the transfer of materials. Even a small, wall-mounted shelf at a strategic location allows one to stage a move, accumulate a batch of things, think about disposal, keep one’s balance, and protect situational awareness.

Traditional architecture and courtesies recognize the importance of switching points, since they are places where people are preoccupied and physically vulnerable. A doorman watches one’s back on entering and leaving a building, and security lighting eliminates concealment for predators. More after the jump.

A New Kind of Garden

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The inspiration for this year’s truck patch was Tam Mossman’s Gardens That Care for Themselves. Last spring I pulled the 2008 vegetable seeds out of the refrigerator and decided to broadcast them in a spot where I’d been mulching debris with the lawnmower for twenty years. I reasoned that there might not be much risk of disease if I simply strewed mixed seeds around and let them regenerate themselves as weather and circumstances permitted.

I also reasoned that seeds past their pull date that sprouted under conditions of no care at all might be interesting plants.

Two edibles made it as far as September: a lettuce, that is busy putting itself to seed, and a baby collard that sprang up hours after the summer drought broke. The lettuce gave us half a dozen salads before I decided to let it have its remaining energies for itself and its offspring.

I wouldn’t try this approach in a part of the garden I wanted to look carefully tended, but since I’m letting the ornamentals go to native plants, the pioneer veggies look pretty much like native weeds. There’s a careful balancing act involved here, so the property does not look neglected. Like an aging beauty, it must be carefully, but not overly, groomed.

Summer was very dry, and we had record heat early in August. The first rain arrived two weeks ago, and the response of the garden has been astonishing. I water only fruit trees and vegetable containers, so most of the landscape had faded to crisp gold. Just a few days after the rain, the plants burst into life. One tea rose growing on its own roots put up a couple of three-foot stems. That’s faster than bamboo in the spring. Herbs are increasing geometrically.

I garden to save trips to the store. Between eight patented plastic rectangular vegetable planters, the herbs in the sward, and the chickweed and corn salad that grow themselves here and there, I can usually come up with something green to supplement the main course at dinner and do so with no effort or attention to speak of.

More after the jump.

"Bargains Are Expensive"

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Albert Sack. Fine Points of Furniture. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, New York. 1950. Forward by Israel Sack.

In 1950, this book was in its eighteenth edition. I first learned of the Sack family’s importance to American culture when I caught an interview with Albert Sack on Martha Stewart’s show. He led a tour of his warehouse in New York and pointed out the difference between the knees of American furniture and of English: American knees do not bow.

Albert’s father, Israel Sack, trained as a cabinet maker in Lithuania and worked in an antique store in Boston at the turn of the twentieth century. He repaired furniture for dealers, collectors, and families of privilege.

"As I worked on the fine American pieces which came into the shop for repair, I became very attached to them. I did not care who made them or how old they were, but … they appealed to me as having stately lines and a quality for which I soon developed a deep and sincere attachment...

Time meant nothing to me in those days. I was only twenty-one; and besides starting to work at six every morning, I spent my evenings and Sundays visiting the antique scouts...

Up to [October, 1907, the Metropolitan] Museum had exhibited mostly foreign furniture...because it was very difficult in those days to purchase anything American inasmuch as very few of our wealthier people cared anything about Americana. Few people realized what wonderful furniture had been made in this country by the early settlers…

The idea of buying antiques for actual use in homes was a new one which people of ordinary means knew nothing of...The simple New England pieces...were not made for palaces…

There were marvelous cabinetmakers...great masters who worked into their furniture a combination of fine craftsmanship and durability, and a wonderful sensitiveness to woods which, after one hundred years, have blended together giving these pieces a charm which no new piece can have...because of the difference in our standard of living which demands that everything be done in a hurry…

It had taken a long time for the descendant of the early settler to realize that things could be done as well in this country as abroad...every good cabinetmaker was trained so that he could create his pieces practically from the log to the finished product…

Bargains are expensive…

Some dealers are not satisfied with any transaction unless they can put something over, even though they could make money legitimately…

Innumerable choice pieces were absolutely ruined by poor restoration. There is nothing which hurts an early oak piece so much as planing, scraping, and finishing….they...kill all [the] charm…

If an article of fine quality likewise has an interesting and absolutely authentic history, I should consider it priceless for anyone who could afford to own it…"


John Meredith Graham II:

"The satisfying appeal of good American furniture is based on honesty of line and distinction of design that has withstood, and gained added recognition by, the critical test of time...the best quality of furniture was made for prosperous men of affairs who demanded simplicity and dignity in their furnishings and eschewed the foppery of contemporary Europe. The tendency to cover up weak structural forms with superfluous ornamentation was minimized as a result…"


Albert Sack:

"My father has never tolerated mediocrity…

the beauty, originality, vigor, and spirit of independence...is reflected in its finest furniture. It can only be fully understood by those who appreciate the American spirit…

During colonial days there were few ways to make use of wealth except in the home and its furnishings...every item was ordered individually, with exacting specifications as to selection of well-seasoned lumber, careful construction and fine detail. The craftsman was an honored member of his community…"


Suggested additional reading: Larry McMurtry. Cadillac Jack, a novel about an antique scout. I just love this book.







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"Even the Best Castles Are Fundamentally Disposable"

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The Italian designer Ettore Sotsass said that, and that says it better than anyone. Show a healthy pessimism, and organize your inventory around an emergency evacuation kit.

In the Seventies, a wise elder told me that many Jewish families were lost to the Holocaust because they wouldn’t leave their Bechstein pianos. I forget what she said next, but it was humane, and her priorities were sensible.

In the last ten years, I’ve been through a 7.4 earthquake, 9/11, and civil disorder that caught world attention. Years ago I rode out a hurricane that was stronger than the one portrayed in A Perfect Storm. And I’m not even trying to go in harm’s way. It’s encouraging to know that I can bug out when the bugging’s good. The supplies that make up an E kit cushion the demands of unexpected house guests, cushion the budget, expand the borders of conventional hospitality, and keep one ready for a few days in the woods.

When the world feared New Orleans was drowning, and things were so bad that there were no pictures, a native met me at a venerable local dive bar to drink breakfast and wring our hands. The waiter found out why we were there and showed up at the table with tequila shooters on him. My pal-we had a hazy notion that the levees were failing-said that the people of New Orleans have no tradition of the outdoors and no place to practice, anyway. This is a person who jokes about local women each having her own chain saw. Her sister-in-law, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, refers to the local style as “woods muffin,” but I digress.

Here’s a collection of the ten essentials for survival that the outdoor community recommends. The official lists are more specific, but I have tried to define terms that get to the heart of the issues. Noted are featherweight things I carry when I will be more than a few blocks from the house. They’re useful in all kinds of situations.

1. A tool (sharp penknife with tweezers and scissors) 2. Fire (half-empty butane lighter wrapped with a few inches of repair tape) 3. Water (and purification tablets) 4. Food (nutrition bar or even just a packet of crackers or sugar) 5. Extra clothing (two-bit disposable poncho or a big garbage bag with holes cut for arms and head-if you need it, you won’t care how you look-plus a couple of plastic produce bags to put between socks and shoes) 6. Shelter (a mylar survival blanket) 7. Medical (hand sanitizer and self-sticking bandage) 8. Navigation (not much of an issue on familiar ground, but it’s useful to know the rule: rendezvous at the last place you were all together) 9. Communication (black wax lumber crayon and a loud whistle) 10. Transportation (your shoes and bag are your life).

To this collection, I add pepper spray, keeping in mind the Navy Seals’ adage that you never need it until you really, really need it.











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