Saturday, June 20, 2009

Buck Earle

On the occasion of Father's Day of the centenary year of my father's birth I offer this tribute. I was 10 when he died suddenly at age 43 so I didn't know him well, but E. D. Broadhurst, who had a column for the local paper wrote about my father after his funeral in 1952. Much of what I know about my father's personality was in that article. It says some very nice things about Buck.

My father, who was also Elias Preston Earle and named for his father (and grandfather), was called "Buster" growing up, but as an adult this morphed to "Buck", the name by which everyone knew him. Though I barely remember him, he left me with a number of life lessons, some important, others less so.

He taught me to respect books, not just for their content but as books. Even today I find it almost impossible to throw away a hard-bound book.

He taught me to love baseball. I learned to read to read baseball articles in the summer of 1949. He had told me that he was in service with Ted Williams in WW II so I was always a Red Sox fan. Only later in life did I realize "in service with" meant Buck was on a destroyer in the Atlantic while Ted was a Marine aviator in the Pacific. If that was good enough for my dad, it was good enough for me.

He taught me the value of photography as a hobby. After a half-century of saving memories in pictures I realize how valuable this lesson was.

He taught me to keep my knife out of the jelly jar. We didn't have many rules around my house growing up, but if one of us (my two sisters or me) tried to use a knife (rather that a spoon) to reach into a jelly jar, we were sure to be rebuked. Even today I can't use a knife in a mayo jar without thinking of him.

I never heard my parents have a fight or heard my mother, Margaret, say a harsh thing about my father. On one occasion, about 15 years ago, she did mention one night what a spend-thrift he was--that he'd get paid on Friday and if she wasn't careful he'd have spent it all by Monday. She was very careful with money, and that was the lesson I learned. I often think I'd have been happier if I'd learned Buck's lesson rather than Margaret's.

Here is the Broadhurst column, As We See Them, from November 1952. I suspect we all wish we could be as well remembered when we're gone. Click to make it readable.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Start Small

If the Obama administration wants to manage the US auto industry, perhaps they should start with something smaller and simpler, like the pencil industry. Todd Zywicki cited this essay "I, Pencil" in a post on the Frolic-with-Volokh Conspiracy today.

On second thought, after reading the essay, maybe they should just leave both alone.

"My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!"

And this is just one small part. Read the whole thing.

Restaurant RIP


Ed Cone mentions the closing of the Madison Park Restaurant and Ged comments and links to some of his thoughts about restaurants dead and dying.

On a different note, one of my favorite writers, James Lileks, has a regular Monday feature on his blog The Bleat from his extensive collection of matchbook covers.

I've also collected matchbooks over the years and have somehow kept most of the last 30 years' specimens. Some time ago I took the time to scan and organize them and I'm surprised to see there are almost 400 of them. Included are almost 40 from Greensboro restaurants that are no longer with us. Some are greatly lamented, others less so. How many do you remember? As usual, click to see a larger version.

I'm really sorry that one of the unintended negative consequences of the war on tobacco is that we no longer have these wonderful reminders of things past.