Makin’ of a Man

The Makin’ of a Man.

I’ve been readin’ of a book that’s called “The Makin’ of a Man.”
A-spellin’ through its pages an’ a-gettin’ at its plan;
An’ I think the man what writ it is a preacher — name o’ Lee
That endurin’ the collection says, “Salvation’s full and free.”

Now, the makin’ of a man might be jes’ what he makes it out,
But still, ‘t’aint that away to me with folks that’s hereabout;
An’ I’m in’ fer diagreein’ an’ objectin’ to his plan,
An’ I’m goin’ to tell you feller what’s the makin’ of a man!

Fust off, the best part of him, an’ the main spring of his life,
Is that sweet bunch o’ calico an’ roses, called “a wife,”
An’ then, the next best thing to me — I’ll make my meaning clear:
Is what them city fellers call the hotel “bill o’ fare!”

Fust,, thar’s your hog and hominy — you can’t lose isght o’ that —
Your bacon in the smokehouse, with a streak o’ lean an’ fat!
Your taters an’ your punkins, on the good old country plan —
Them’s what I think, my brotherin, is the makin’ of a man!

That’s what! I guess the preacher I’m agiving of a rub,
Had dinner ‘fore he writ his book an’ kinder skipped the grub!
But you jes’ hear me talkin’, and you’ll kinder think my plan,
Which takes in hog an’ hom’ny, is the makin’ of a man!

F.L.S.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Apr 26, 1893

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

Image from Kasey’s Korner

FAMILIARITY

Familiarity breeds contempt,
I watched a bee and heard him hum
Above a large chrysanthemum.
I gently stroked him with my thumb,
and he stroked me with pointed tongue.
Now I am sore and very glum,
Wondering why I was so dumb.

— A.W. Bivins,
La Grange, Ill.

Image from Growing Greener

ANSWER. CAUTION

In future when you stroke a bee
Remember that familiarity
Oft times recoils upon the donor.
It very seldom brings much honor
Next time you pet a lively bee,
Please come and borrow gloves from me.
We are related, distantly.

— M.W. Beebe.
Black Wolf Point, Oshkosh, Wis.

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 1, 1938

IHOP Provides Hope (and FREE Pancakes) on National Pancake Day

Valley News (Van Nuys, California) Nov 25, 1960

Today is National Pancake Day and IHOP is celebrating:

Flip for Free Pancakes!
February 28, 2012

Since beginning its National Pancake Day celebration in 2006, IHOP has raised nearly $8 million to support charities in the communities in which it operates. On February 28, 2012, guests from around the country are invited to celebrate National Pancake Day at IHOP and enjoy a free short stack of Buttermilk pancakes.* In return for the free pancakes, guests are asked to consider leaving a donation for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals © ** and other designated local charities.

Here are some IHOP flashbacks:

“Home of the never empty coffee pot“

Valley News (Van Nuys, California) Oct 20, 1960

SYRUP FOR CINDY — Pert Cindy Robbins, popular television actress who stars on “Tom Ewell” show, has ball at International House of Pancakes. Fast growing chain has nine restaurants open, four of which are located in Valley — Toluca Lake, Panorama City, Woodland Hills and Northridge.

Van Nuys News (Van Nuys, California) Dec 9, 1960

HERE’S NESS! — Blithely unaware of two “rogues” in other picture, star of “The Untouchables” Robert Stack enjoys dining with wife and children at International House of Pancakes.

Van Nuys News (Van Nuys, California) Feb 3, 1961

Attack on a stack of “wheats” lights eye of young Johnny Crawford of TV show The Rifleman.

*****

PANCAKE BOOM.

Man’s oldest known form of bread food is fast becoming the newest dining-out craze as restaurants specializing in pancakes spread throughout the nation. One of the leading pancake chain operations, the International House of Pancakes, has jumped in three years from a single operation to a string of 25 units with an annual gross of $10 million. Under a licensing agreement with the Waldorf Systems, International  is opening new restaurants every few weeks in New England, Ohio, the West Coast, upstate New York. The restaurants draw most customers for Sunday morning breakfasts.

Independent Star News (Pasadena, California) May 21, 1961

Claiborne Addison Young – Alone

A reader commented on a previous post, Speaking of Collard Greens, wanting more information about the author, whose book somehow ended up in Jamaica! Here is what I was able to find:

ALONE

I saw an eagle cleave the air;
He flew alone.
I tracked a lion to his lair;
He crouched alone.
II.
A river started to the sea;
It wound alone.
A mountain rose up haughtily;
It towered alone.
III.
I looked into eternity, —
Lo ! God was alone.
And then I sang on cheerily,
But not alone.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
By THE EDITOR

One can better appreciate Mr. Young’s verse with some insight into his antecedents, his life and his personality. Claiborne Addison Young was born May 29, 1843, in Boone County, Indiana, near Thorntown. He came of a race of pioneers. He was the son of the Rev. Claiborne Young, who was born at Stony Creek, East Tennessee, and educated for the Presbyterian ministry at Maryville College. His mother was Mary Russell Young, born at Maryville, Tenn. Her brother, Addison Russell, was for many years a prominent judge at Fort Madison, Iowa. In 1831 Mr. Young’s father came to Montgomery County, Indiana, to organize the three churches of Shannondale, Thorntown and Lebanon. It was a time when life in Indiana was primitive and coon skins were a legal tender for taxes and marriage fees. The father was one of the most conscientious of men and this characteristic, with others, the son seems to have inherited.

The poet’ was brave, patriotic, impulsive, sometimes almost erratic, always genuine and spontaneous. Captain Young served through the Civil War, enlisting at the first call with General Lew Wallace in the Eleventh Indiana. He afterward received a commission in the Eighty-fifth United States Colored Infantry, which he assisted in organizing, and served in that command until the close of the war, with credit and distinction.

Image from Factasy — Below, Civil War records are from Ancestry.com

Name: Claiborn A Young
Residence:     Montgomery County, Indiana
Enlistment Date: 31 Aug 1861
Rank at enlistment: Private
State Served: Indiana
Survived the War: Yes
Service Record: Enlisted in Company G, Indiana 11th Infantry Regiment on 31 Aug 1861.
Mustered out on 02 Jan 1864.
Commissioned an officer in on 02 Jan 1864.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana

American Civil War Soldiers
Name: Claiborn Young
Residence:     Montgomery County, Indiana
Enlistment Date: 31 Aug 1861
Side Served: Union
State Served: Indiana
Service Record: Enlisted as a Private on 31 August 1861.
Enlisted in Company G, 11th Infantry Regiment Indiana on 31 Aug 1861.
Commission in Regiment U.S. Colored Troops on 2 Jan 1864.
Discharged for promotion Company G, 11th Infantry Regiment Indiana on 2 Jan 1864.
Sources: 76

When the war was over he returned to Wabash College and received his A. B. in 1869. After graduation he matriculated at Union Theological Seminary, intending to become a minister in accord with the tenets of that great school. But a change came upon his theologic vision and he entered the Harvard Divinity School, which he calls “The Minister Mill.” Before the “Mill” had turned out the finished product he went to the forests of Maine to engage in missionary work among the lumbermen. Later he entered the Unitarian ministry, filling pulpits in Boston and other places in the East and the Middle West. The great griefs of his life were the loss of his wife and son.

He died November 3, 1912, in the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home at Lafayette, so nobly provided by the state of Indiana for her veterans. Like Thoreau and Joaquin Miller, he loved Nature as God made her, uncombed, unbridled by art and unharnessed by commerce. He wandered wide, from the Maine woods to the plains of Texas, from the Cumberland Mountains and the Carolinas to the land of the Modocs. His view of Nature is that of Wordsworth—the Omnipotent Divine Spirit ever revealing His presence in all forms of life. When one of his old professors reminded him of what did not happen to the “rolling stone,” he replied that he was “not in the moss business.”

Mr. Young’s sympathies were always with the “under dog” and his heart and labors went out warmly to the freedmen and the red men. He loved solitude and the lonely places and now and then he reminds one in his life and his song of that other lonely poet, Richard Realf. Many songs, doubtless, sung themselves to his heart in those solitary wanderings, that never found expression.

His first volume of verse was published in 1897 under the title “Way Songs and Wanderings,” and a few of these “Way Songs” are included in this volume. His letter in verse to his brother, “The Frogs of Boone,” he recited to Emerson, who much enjoyed it, and the elder poet and philosopher greatly encouraged the younger singer. His love of freedom and lack of sympathy with conventions led him at times over hard and stony paths but he ever kept a brave heart and never lost faith in God, or man, or life.

This soldier, wanderer, preacher and poet is no mere echo. His song is unconventional and spontaneous. As he traveled Life’s furrowed roads, and went up the many hills of difficulty, he kept on good terms with truth and loyalty and held the faith that the word “all is good” had never been taken back. He has, even in forms of construction that are faulty, the genuine lyric spirit. His motto seems to have been Walt Whitman’s “Allons ! Let us be going after the great companions.”

J. E. C.

The above poem, biography an image are all from the following book:

In the Red Man’s Land and Other Poems
by Claiborne Addison Young.
Publisher: The Hollenbeck Press in Indianapolis 1915
Read online at Open Library

*****

A Claiborne Addison Young poem, The Chickadee, was included in the following:

THE CHICKADEE (Volume 1: Verse)
A Public Domain Project
Published by Gull City Press 2008
Page 24  (scroll down to page 24)

Peace by a Rippling Stream

Image from It’s Always Tea Time

Peace. — By a Rippling Stream

I’ve read in stories all about
The cool inviting streams;
Where one leaves all her cares and woes,
And revels in sweet dreams.

I’ve reached one, after braving thorns
And briers in paths of dust,
The perspiration drips the while
I register disgust.

I’m battling huge mosquitoes, as
They bit my legs and arms.
Who said that one could find delight,
And peace, in nature’s charm?

I think the greatest joy that’s found,
Near clear enticing brooks,
Comes when we follow those which run
Through lovely story books.

— Lyla Myers, Little Rock, Ark.

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Jan 11, 1936

Building — An Education

Image from Days Gone By

BUILDING

There’s joy in building anything,
Though it may be very small.
A baby whiles away long hours
With building blocks, which fall.

The older boys build sleds and kites,
Of wood and wire and strings;
And tiny girls build home for dolls,
With furniture and things.

Smart engineers build bridges, which
Extend across large streams;
And architects, in buildings, find
The answers to their dreams.

But here’s construction’s greatest boon,
(Though it keeps wise heads swimmin’)
It’s teaching little boys and girls,
Yes, building men and women!

Lyla Myers, Little Rock, Ark.

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 10, 1936

Image of Cicero from Wikipedia

Author of the quote not cited in the newspaper, but it is attributed to Joseph Addison.

EDUCATION is like a companion which no misfortune can repress, no enemy destroy, no despotism enslave. At home, a friend; abroad an introduction — in solitude, a solace — in society, an ornament. It chastens vice, it guards virtue; and gives at once, grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave — a reasoning savage!

American Freeman (Prairieville, Wisconsin) Apr 5, 1848

Each Man to his Trade

Image from Shorpy

EACH MAN TO HIS TRADE.

Each man to his trade, ev’ry tool to the hand,
For which it was made — for so heaven has planned.
Each man has the bent and each woman the art
For which they were meant, as a player his part.

Yea, driving a team, or contriving a song,
Or bridging a stream, or just plowing along,
Each life has its course — but how often we drift? —
Even riding a horse is a natural gift.

So if it be high, or by chance it be low,
The matter that I and that you need to know,
Is what is our task, and the way to excel —-
Our duty to ask, and then do it as well.

And if it be low, or by chance it be high,
What maketh it so isn’t popular cry.
But whether our best to our labor we bring,
For that is the test of the man and the thing.

Each man to his trade. I am certain, my son,
That a gear that is made as it ought to be done
Is of worthier sort than a law that is wrong,
Or a measure too short or a sermon too long.

(Copyright, 1921, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Apr 25, 1921

Pish, George!

George Washington, whose birth we mark by closing up all day,
Was quite a well-known citizen, or so the schoolbooks say.
In all his sixty-seven years he never told a lie,
But George, you know, had never tried to take a hill on high

For Georgie dated back so far
He’d never owned a motor car.

George Washington could not be led into prevarication,
And so, of course, they chose him for the Father of His Nation.
Although he chopped the cherry tree he soon confessed his crime,
For lying was considered wrong, way back in Georgie’s time.

But in that gasless, quaint, old-style age
They never bragged about their mileage.

George Washington bu seldom swore; he rarely used an oath;
He might say “Tut” or even “Pish,” but never, never both.
That brief vocabulary now would hardly take him far,
But Washington was never asked to start a frozen car.

He cried “Git up!” when he would go;
To stop, he merely muttered “Whoa!”

George Washington was fearless, too, on dry land or afloat;
His famous picture proves it, for he stood up in the boat.
He crossed the Delaware that night! Was that just for the ride?
Ah, no, my children, George desired to reach the other side.

No foe could make our hero stop;
He’d never met a traffic cop.

Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Feb 18, 1923

Eat Your Peas

Eat Your Peas

Abilene Morning News (Abilene, Texas) Jun 11, 1935

HELPFUL HINTS

Eat your peas with honey,
I have done it all my life;
They do taste kind of funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.

Daily News (Huntingdon, Pennsylvania) Aug 19, 1948

Eat Your Peas

Daily Review (Hayward, California) Aug 30, 1955

Eat Your Peas

Oneota Star (Oneota, New York) Sep 20, 1963

Eat Your Peas

Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Jul 18, 1967

*****

Eat Your Peas

Danville Register (Danville, Virginia) Feb 20, 1969

*****

Eat Your Peas

Anderson Herald (Anderson, Indiana) Dec 20, 1969

*****

 

The Hayakawa column
Law, economics and sin
By S.I. Hayakawa

Aldous Huxley once wrote: “The consistency of human behavior … is due to the fact that men have formulated their desires, and subsequently rationalized them, in terms of words … If it were not for the descriptive and justificatory words with which we bind our days together, we should live like the animals in a series of discreet and separate spurts of impulse.”

Thus, indeed, do we bind our days together. Whether you describe yourself as “machinist,” “policeman,” or “teacher,” you don’t always feel like being a machinist or policeman or teacher. There are days when you would far rather be doing something else. But we continue with our jobs, held there by the words which define our role in life.

Law is the mighty collective effort made by human beings to organize that degree of orderly and uniform behavior that makes society possible.

Law and science are very different from each other. What science predicts (“ice will melt at temperatures above 32 degrees Fahrenheit”) comes true independent of our wishes. What law predicts (“Persons convicted of murder will be hanged.”) comes true only if we are determined to do what we said we would do. At the basis of law is our determination to observe conjunction.

Language of the law is of necessity, therefore, in part a kind of sermonizing. In addition to prescribing certain forms of behavior, it must create in us the will and the desire to follow the prescription. This fact makes the judge, to a large degree, a preacher. The trial is a kind of morality play.

The art of preaching has its own pitfalls. Sermons are almost always faded at a higher level of generalization and with a greater dogmatism than the immediate situation calls for. The reasons for this are largely rhetorical: to get attention and to impress the sermon firmly in the hearer’s mind.

To reduce this matter to a simple example, let us suppose that the purpose of a given directive is to get Junior to eat his peas. If the simple demand, “Junior, eat your peas,” does not work, one proceeds immediately to a sermon on the subject: “Vegetables are good for you,” and “All growing boys should eat plenty of vegetables.”

In other words, the demand that Junior eat his peas is asserted to be not merely a passing whim, but the particularization of a general nutritive principle.

If Junior still leaves his peas untouched, one appeals to history: “You grandfather was a vegetarian and he lived to the age of 99,” and, “Sailors in the old sailing ships used to die of scurvy because they didn’t get enough fresh vegetables.” From here on it is but a short jump to say that God intended that peas be eaten and father be obeyed.

But the great principles we enunciate on one day prove to be extremely inconvenient on another day, as inevitably they must, since they state it so much more than was necessary to begin with.

So, as Father himself leaves untouched his carrots — and raisin salad a few days later, he can say, if challenged: “what I was arguing for all along is not vegetables as such, but a balanced diet — as it is possible to achieve balance without this particular salad. A man can’t keep going on rabbit food. Do you know that millions in Asia are suffering from protein deficiency because they get nothing but vegetables to eat?”

Thus do fathers keep all bases covered and maintain fiction with infallible wisdom. And if the layman regards the law with a mixture of exaggerated respect and exaggerated distrust, is it not because lawyers and judges perform on a large scale as the rest of us do daily?

I write these words as President Ford’s economic summit conference draws to a close. One gets the impression, hearing the summaries of the proceedings, that economics, like law, is not so much a science as it is a branch of homiletic, or the art of preaching.

One speech after another tells us how to save ourselves from inflation, which has come upon us as punishment for our economic sins.

Salvation lies, we are told, in rigid controls over prices and wages — or no controls at all; in relaxing the federal regulation of business; in giving the consumer greater protection; in lower taxes for the poor; in high taxes for everybody; in a balanced budget; in a more abundant flow of money; in eliminating (or increasing) depletion allowances and subsidies.

There are as many economic doctrines as there are Protestant sects, which goes to show that  while economics as a science is not doing well, economics as a religion is doing just fine.

Idaho Free Press (Nampa, Idaho) Oct 5, 1974

Having kids means having to say all the things you swore you’d never say
[excerpt]

I also know why parents don’t make great conversationalists. They only know a few familiar words and phrases: Don’t slam the door. Turn off the lights. Don’t interrupt. Quit running around the house. Close the refrigerator door. Pick up your room. Did you flush the toilet? Eat your peas. Think of the starving people in …

The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California) Apr 20, 1987

Eat Your Peas

The Gettysburg Times (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) May 31, 1989

Offer Choices.
[excerpt]

Children need lots of experience in making their own decisions, and living with the consequences. “Would you like to eat your peas now?” does not encourage a “yes.” A much better technique is, “Would you rather have peas first or carrots first?” Early on, before babies can talk, find ways to offer good choices. As children grow, increase the number and complexity of their options. when toddlers (or grown-ups) feel they have some control over what happens to them, they are much more likely to be kind and friendly.

The Gettysburg Times (Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania) Sep 5, 1996

Image from ARRA News Service

Let’s Move!

Now,  Eat Your Peas!

Avalanche!

Three persons were known to have been killed in an avalanche that buried 20 automobiles beneath tons of snow on Snoqualmie pass, 65 miles southeast of Seattle in the Cascade mountains. A rescue worker is shown searching a partially excavated machine for additional victims.

(Associated Press Photo)

Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Feb 25, 1936

Image from  Mining Artifacts & History – Colorado Mines [A wealth of great pictures and information]

Rescuers Free Miners Trapped By Snow Slide

Three Killed In Avalanche

OURAY, COLO. —  Twenty miners trapped in a tunnel of the famous Bird Camp gold mine by a snow avalanche were reached by a rescue party early todya. All were taken out safely.

The men had been imprisoned twelve hours while rescue workers form Ouray and the surrounding country dug through ten foot snow drifts. Three men were killed and one was injured critically when the avalanche roared down Devil’s Slide of Chicago Hill, smashing a bunk-house and closing the mouth of the tunnel.

All those killed were in the bunkhouse, crumpled beneath tons of snow. One body was recovered. The others probably will not be recovered until the spring thaws melt the snow.

The rescue workers found the twenty men in good condition, though suffering from cold, exposure, and hunger. Their rescuers had had to fight drifts blocking highways to reach the mine, before attacking the snow mountain blocking the tunnel.

While they dug, they heard the trapped men through the snow. Communication through the glazed, white walls had established that all were alive.

The dead were Mrs. Rose Israel, fifty, of Ridgway, Colo., the mine cook; Chappie Woods, mine foreman, and Ralph Clinger, blacksmith. Mrs. Israel’s crushed body was recovered.

James Dunn, mine superintendent, was injured critically. He lay for three hours under the debris of the bunk house before rescuers heard his calls for help and dug through the snow to free him. He was near a window of the wrecked and buried house. Otherwise, the rescuers might not have been able to reach him.

W.G. Funk, electrical engineer was standing beside Dunn just inside the door of the bunkhouse when the avalanche struck. He was buried in snow for more than an hour before he was rescued. He suffered no harm.

The Bird Camp Mine is one of the most famous diggings in the west. From it came the fortune of Tom Walsh, pioneer Colorado miner. Father of Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, famous Washington publisher, and a United States Senator. At one time it yielded $5,000 a day in gold ore.

The mine had been worked for silver and copper before Walsh acquired it in 1896. He recognized its potential wealth in gold where other miners, accustomed to silver-lead carbonates of the Ouray country, would never have regarded the Camp Bird one as gold bearing. Walsh recognized gold in tellurium form in the dump piles of refuse from previous workings.

Times Herald (Olean, New York) Feb 25, 1936

 

Three Killed in Avalanche in New York

(Assoiciated Press)

West Point, N.Y., April 8. — Roaring down the face of Storm King mountain an avalanche of loosened rocks smashed three automobiles tonight, killing three persons and injuring three more.

A huge boulder struck the car driven by Otto Seilhelmer of East Patterson, N.Y., killing his wife and son, Otto, Jr., 8. Seilhelmer and his daughter, Geraldine, 18 months, suffered minor injuries.

From the wreckage of another car were dragged Mr. and Mrs. Lambert Sharknys of Brooklyn. Sharknly died of a fractured skull. His wife was less seriously hurt. Another boulder crashed into the rear seat of a third car, narrowly missing Dr. F.E. Lehman and Miss Agnes Wolz, both of Long Island.

Greeley Daily Tribune (Greeley, Colorado) Apr 9, 1934