SPRING TRAINING T-MINUS 14 DAYS AND COUNTING!

(That's two weeks!)

And as a sign of the times, I'm getting email spam from the Braves!

 

 

THE GREAT CAT SOAP OPERA

If you really want to know how I feel, just watch Billy Murray in Caddyshack.  That’s me and this blasted cat.  The vet has given up trying to figure out how to catch him.  I talked to my friend Alicia, whose husband is a professional hunter.  He laughed at me.  Miss Piggy is well named.  I still don’t know if Hoss is eating on his own.  GeorgieW is still in the bat cave but she is poking her head out once in awhile, now.  Doc Holiday worked me over this afternoon while I was writing.  I have track marks all over my hands and arms. 

 

It is 10:PM and I’ve done absolutely nothing on the blog.  I’ve been doing some front page housekeeping, which will show up immediately the moment you open hit the front page.

 

I spent much of the day working on lesson plans for a lecture I’m doing for 6th graders in my friend Alicia’s classes on Monday.  They each get a copy of my novel, Dust Devil.  I’m letting them choose the names and personalities of my next novel as well as the direction of the novel. We shall see how it goes. A portion of the lecture is below.  I’ve spent so much time working on it, I’m not doing much else on the blog this evening.

 

Jack Chirac, the man who can’t make up his mind if Islamic terrorists are good or bad has finally arrived at his Wyatt Earp OK Corral moment.  He said the US simply must sign the Kyoto protocol OR ELSE!  Ohhh I’m quaking in my bedroom slippers.

 

I am having a terrible time pulling up the article about Soros, so I am linking to the Captain.  What's the use of saying anything about Soros.  He is an evil troll rejected from a James Bond movie.

 

There is an interesting piece on Giuliani in The City Journal.   The Captain on Rudy and Judges.

 

 Barry Cassleman has an excellent RCP piece about the real dangers in the Western World.

 

Blogging Chicks is having a Carnival tomorrow.  And there is a Carnival of Cats.  That's all I need.

 

The following is a portion of the talk I am giving on Monday.

Life in 1884 New Mexico

 (for 6th graders)

Copyright 2007 by SJ Reidhead

 

In 1884 there is no television, movie, radio, computer, car, bus, plane, or motorcycles.  It is the Wild West.  The story is basically a western which will also detail how people lived during the “Victorian” age.  They had typewriters, telephones, and some places had electric lights. People read books for entertainment.  Everyone had a Bible and usually a copy of all the works of Shakespeare. They had science, telescopes,  microscopes, eye glasses, sunglasses, and Thomas Edison was experimenting with sound machines.

 

Books available: (ittle Women     Little Men      Eight Cousins   Tom Sawyer    The Prince and the Pauper  Moby Dick     The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – other Mark Twain short stories Tales of the Argonauts (mythology)     Life on the Mississippi     Huckleberry Finn     The Scarlett Letter Uncle Tom’s Cabin  The Raven and other Poe horror stories  The Lion of the West (about Davy Crockett)  Frankenstein   The Three Musketeers   The Count of Monte Cristo  Shakespeare   Pride & Prejudice Emma Sense & Sensibility  Ben Hur   Jane Eyre   Wuthering Heights  Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner   Oliver Twist   Gulliver’s Travels  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight   Canterbury Tales   A Christmas Carol   The Hunchback of Notre Dame  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland  Tales Told for Children (including Snow White and The Little Mermaid)    The Vampyre     The Mummy  Journey to the Center of the Earth    The Old Curiosity Shop   The Murders in the Rue Morgue  The most popular reading for school kids of that time would be the “dime novels” of Ned Buntline, Buffalo Bill, and other western writers.  Heroes of the age were Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill

 

During this time frame people did not use many of the popular names we have today.  Most common were ‘Bible’ names.  Also in New England people used virtue names like Patience, Hope, Charity, Chastity, Prudence, Virtue, Kindness.  The most common man’s name was John.  In the US if someone was named “George” it was after George Washington.  In England, it was after the kings.  Victoria was a common girl’s name.  Edwin was not used from about 1865-1885 or so because of Edwin Booth who killed Abraham Lincoln. 
There were many nick-names. Men from Texas were often called “Tex”. 

 

In 1884 women often died in childbirth.  Families had many children but one third of all babies born died before their first year and in a family of five children, at least one would die before the age of five.  There were no anti-biotics.  People died from pneumonia and the common cold.  Influenza could be deadly.  They could vaccinate for small-pox.  If someone contracted rabies it was a horrible death sentence, one of the worst ways to die.  In the Wild West, there were many good doctors, probably some of the best in the world.  There were no x-rays.  They had anesthesia and excellent medications for pain.  Kids were lucky if they ever met their grandparents.

 

If a person could afford it, food wasn’t much different than it is today. They ate sausages on a bun with mustard, ground beef patties on a bun with ketchup, mustard and a slice of onion. (There are some historians who think the hamburger was created here in New Mexico).  They had tacos, enchiladas, salsa, chips, potato chips, French fries, root beer, steaks, stew, venison, tortillas, mashed potatoes, onion rings, spaghetti, cakes, pies, cookies, home-made soda, ice cream, bananas, limes, lemons, apples, oranges and many kinds of berries.  Most small towns had Chinese restaurants and usually a French one.  Large towns had German, Mexican, Indian and Italian food.  They had mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, vinegar, Tabasco sauce, Heinz 57 sauce. There were many sauces because the meat was so bad. But – there were very few green vegetables available.  There was no broccoli, spinach, zucchini, or Brussel sprouts.  They had lettuce, cabbage, carrots, many kinds of squash and always tomatoes, peas, corn, onions and sometimes cucumbers.  A salad consisted of a leaf of lettuce, slice of tomato, a little onion, slice of cucumber and maybe a bit of mayo.  They had coffee, tea, iced tea, local soda, beer, wine, alcohol, lemonade, limeade, and sometimes punch.  Most towns had ice houses with ice available all year.  If you sat down to a meal in 1884 you would recognize everything on the table, including the way the table was set.

 

People had excellent manners.  Everyone wore a hat when they went outside.  Women always wore gloves and carried a tiny purse. Only the most daring women and girls wore jeans or slacks and then they were either working on a ranch or were so rich they could get away with it.  Jeans were only worn for work.  The kids in this story would all either have horses or buggies.  All the boys would own a shot-gun and probably a hunting rifle.  Girls would also know how to shoot and could probably shoot as well as could the boys. Hunting and fishing were a favorite past-time.  There was baseball, but no football or basketball.  Bicycles were very expensive and called velocipedes. These kids could afford to have them.

 

Parents occupations could be:  mayor, sheriff, minister, doctor, lawyer, dentist, banker, railroad manager, telegrapher, Wells, Fargo agent, saloon keeper, store owner, newspaper.  They had dress shops, men’s shops, gun shops, grocery stores, book stores, news-stands, ice cream parlors, stables, pharmacies, hardware stores, banks, libraries, churches, theaters, clubs, barber shops, gyms, women’s clubs, saloons, billiard parlors, toy stores, bakeries, and coffee houses (like Starbucks)!  Most men would be expected to be part of a volunteer fire department. Women rarely had jobs.  They were teachers, dress makers or made hats.  Women who were widows raising children,  might open a store or shops. Women were reporters, clerks, nurses, sometimes doctors, and librarians.  Divorce did occur, but was rare.  A woman would divorce her husband for having a girl-friend.  Child abuse was very rare.  If it happened, men in the town would “take care of” the abuser.  Spouse abuse occurred.  When it did, people turned a blind eye.

 

Anyone who could afford it had servants.  In this part of the US, because of the large concentration of Chinese immigrants, there were usually several laundries in town.  Women rarely did their own laundry (if they could afford it).  Servants were paid very little and did not have good lives if the people they worked for were not kind to them.  These kids would live in very large, multi-story wooden Victorian houses, painted bright gingerbread colors.  There would be many porches and some would hove towers looking like castles.  They would each have their own bedroom (a luxury).  The houses would also have bathrooms with tubs, showers, sinks, hot water, and a version of flush toilets. They would have several maids and a cook.  (think Pollyanna)

 

The average girl and woman living in the Wild West at this time would have an old calico dress for working, a black one for Sunday, and another for school. If they were lucky they had a navy or brown dress for travel and a party dress. They always wore a hat.  But these girls would have many beautiful dresses.  They were very spoiled.  When someone in a family died, which was often, they would dye all their clothes black, which they would wear for a year.