-Eugene Baldwin's – The Genehouse Chronicles

November 10, 2013 

Astronomers believe there are at least 8.8 billion stars in the Milky Way with Earth-size planets orbiting them. That’s about 1 of every 5 stars. They call these planets the Goldilocks Zone, not too hot or too cold for life to sustain itself. I don’t relate to this zone, for I have lived too hot or too cold all my life. I can imagine my long-time friends nodding their heads.

The cosmic dice rolled, a 1-in-8.8 billion chance lottery, and we evolved. Which brings up the nature/nurture debate, nativists versus empiricists. I believe we are products of both: Plato and Descartes’ views that we are born with inherited characteristics, fully formed and reacting to nature; and Locke’s Tabula Rosa theory, that we start out life as blank slates and accumulate and act upon knowledge. Continue reading →

Thursday, October 23, 2013

I am sitting in my office, south and west-facing windows. It is mid-morning and the sun is raising my spirits, even though a north wind reminds me of Chicago, temperature in the 40’s.

Something moves in the south yard. I look up and see two mature does, their luxuriant deep-tan fur gleaming in the light, head butting at my thistle feeder. They bump it, sniff it, try to gnaw it. “If only the dang, dangling tube would stay still,” one doe said.* They touch noses. One doe rises up on her hind hooves, leaning against the clothes pole and staring intently at the feeder. I reach for my binoculars and get a close-up view of the ladies. They must see a reflection, for they turn towards me and stare, then run like hell across the down-sloped meadow and into the woods. Continue reading →

October 20, 2013 

Sheila S. and I drove out to Farmer and Mrs. B’s last night, for his family’s annual bonfire. We arrived at sunset, the sky cloudless, a fiery, settling sun looking like molten steel, and stars popping out in the trailing arc of darkness. The tractor and wagon were set up, bales of hay placed in a rectangle on the wagon floor, for a series of hayrides.

In fifteen minutes, the sky was black and Venus and Mars hung bright in the west. There were adults of all ages and gangs of kids running across the fields (do not play hide-and-seek near the beehives) and playing on Farmer B’s newly-built swing set/slide. A bonfire was heating up the chill in the west field.

Young Marly, a granddaughter, was calling, “I want mores, I want mores!” She meant s’mores, but she knew what she wanted. And other grandchildren and their friends waved hotdog sticks like swords, calling for parental help, eager to dip skewed wieners into the fire. A son-in-law, Brian, had brought Peeps he had gotten last Easter. He was determined to roast the Peeps on the bonfire. The garage was set up as a food station, with tables laden with chili and breads and vegetables from the garden and sweets. Continue reading →

October 14, 2013

On my last Great River Road trail walk before surgery, I greeted some bicyclists who were heading east, toward Alton. They had saddlebags filled to the bursting, hanging over their crossbars. This area is trail dense, with hundreds of miles of connecting trails and paths. Meeting those folks reminded me of the queen of journeys, my dear friend Marmie.

Margery Frye Walther died at the age of ninety-eight. I was her guardian at the end. She had cancer and dementia, and it was hard to watch her fade. But fade she did, and I and some friends sat with her body for a couple of hours. She looked radiant in death; all the pain was out of her face. And then a funeral home director took her body, which was to be donated to science. Imagine my surprise when the funeral guy called me two weeks ago and said there were remains—ashes. Would I like to have them?

And so Marmie began her last journey, from Greyslake, Illinois to Genehouse—so I thought. She arrived last week, and I realized there will be “miles to go” before she finally rests. There will be more journeys, as I will spread her ashes in places she loved. Continue reading →

September 29, 2013 

A young woman jogger, clad in a pink top and black spandex shorts, passed me on the River Road trail this morning. I glanced at her bottom—to make sure her muscles were working properly, and they were, I am happy to report. She had fine and sharp shoulder blades, and her blonde hair was braided into pigtails which swished back and forth like a pendulum across her back.

 ***

A Saturday afternoon, 1964. My family attends a Methodist church. It has a youth leader, Chad. He and his wife own a country house with a lake. There’s a large wooden diving raft out in the middle of the murky water. The boys and girls swim and dive, and I don’t know if the girls look, but the boys do, the girls wearing two piece bathing suits more modest than what women college volleyball players wear today.

Chad has strict rules. He blows a whistle every thirty minutes, and you had better get out of the water fast, or swimming is over for you. We all have buddies and hold up our hands when called. My buddy is a kid named Armstrong. We call him “Underarm-stink- strong.” Continue reading →

September 28, 2013 

This morning I saw the first fuzzy black and orange striped caterpillar of autumn, crossing eastbound on Stroke Hill, Stanka Lane. Soon there will be thousands of them, rippling to Wherever Land. Half of them will be run over, and fatty slicks of their flattened bodies will cause skidding and car crashes. I have been fascinated by those beauties since I was a kid. I remember a kid friend swallowing one on a triple dog dare. I remember watching as my dad drove: which of the caterpillars would get squashed under the wheels of our maroon Chevy? (My morose father always bought maroon cars and suits.) I remember plastering my hair with them and laughing at the tickle.

In the Shawnee National Forest, at the southernmost tip of Illinois, there is a road that timber rattlesnakes cross, heading for their winter dens. When I was a kid, rattlers were demonized, so my jackass, testosterone-fueled uncles would join tens of other men in ritual slaughter of the snakes, holding the dead serpents in their hands, shaking the lifeless tube-shaped bodies, slicing off the rattles with Barlow knives (Tom Sawyer and Gene Baldwin had a Barlow) and whooping it up. Was it a test of manhood? It certainly wasn’t hunting.

Times have changed. Now families gather at that same road and marvel at the beauty of this pilgrimage, this rattlesnake ripple. Herpetologists give talks and explain that snakes are important creatures, and the crowd ooh’s and ahh’s.

Which came first: caterpillars and snakes, or roads? Why do they cross the road? Why does a road cross a road? Because it is there. To get to the other side.

Theoretical physics proffers us String Theory. Humans may be forever crossing unseen dimensional roads of the past and future. Jesus could meet Jesus could meet Jesus. I have always liked the image of the lion and the lamb. In dimensional space they and the caterpillar and reptile, the hawk and the mouse, the cat and the spider, the human and the human (ah, irony) . . . commune together.

“How many roads must a man cross . . .”

Bless the commune-ists.

September 24, 2013 

An enemy has invaded the tranquility of Genehouse.

I have an enclosed sunporch, attached to the house proper. There is a crawl space under the porch. When I arrived home from California, I saw a hole the size of two bowling balls drilled under the back of the porch. A day later, a second exit hole had been dug.

Scout the Cat has her litter box on the sunporch floor, and she is going crazy, stalking the floor, sniffing and lashing at the carpet with her claws, waking me up to keep me informed of the enemy’s sorties. Scout would rip the enemy’s eyeballs—it she could get to it. Continue reading →

September 5, 2013

Spring water seeps down the bluffs and leaks onto the walking trail, forming shallow mud puddles. Then the mud dries, and pools of dirt remain. Yesterday, I saw one of those pools move, like electrons inside an atom, random and swirling. When I got to the pool,fifty or so male purple hairstreak butterflies the size of nail heads, their wing tops hued like concord grapes, were doing a dust dance in a spotlight of sun.They swarmed my shoe and sucked at my ankle. Did they send separate winds out to the greater world? silent, frenzied, sapid, miraculous.

August 31, 2013

I climbed a side trail this morning

and saw an old bur oak towering

above the bluff and ringed by egg-blue sky

and saw an old bur oak from memory

where, in the summer of ’67,

a steamy August afternoon

PereMarquettePark on the Illinois River

Betsy and me lying on a blanket

in a secluded tangled thicket of trees and bushes

my car the only one in the high parking lot

this was the day

Betsy saying ‘yes’ over and over,

me responding ‘are you sure?’

‘yes’ over and over

and we kneel and undress Continue reading →

August 30, 2013 

Bill McClellan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and he has a Thursday night talk and call-in show on Public Television. He mentioned last night that the state of Missouri is divided into those who say Missouree and those who say Missouruh. He implied that the Missouruhians were the unwashed, the Tea Party and the nut jobs. He was speaking tongue-in-cheek—that’s his style.

But it made me think. In Chicago, a carbonated, sugared beverage is a pop. In Upsouth Illinois, a pop is a soda. In deep Southern Illinois a soda is a sodee, as in, “Hayee, hun, whant ye a sodee a’fer y’all go-nuh fission?”

Presenting my cast of characters and how they say Missouri. Farmers B. and Orville, plus Hummingbird Man, Dexter and the ‘Beat the Heat’ Lady: Missouruh. Orville’s wife Quilt Queen, Bob the Navaho artifact collector, Wide-hipped Woman, the Gut Doctor, and my coterie of tweens and teens: Missouree. As for Hawk-faced Man, who has yet to speak to me, I cannot say. Certainly he is in misery. If he crossed the bridge he’d be in misery in Missouri.

How Farmer Orville can talk Upsouth and his love Quilt Queen speaks the king’s English and they get along is beyond me.  I imagine their breakfast patter: “Orville, would you like some more coffee?” “Reckon Ahm coffeed ou-yet.” “What are you going to do this morning?” “Hoh, pick tuhmaters.” “Don’t get too hot, dear.” “Whon’t.” “Wear your cowboy hat.” “Whill.” “I’m driving across the bridge to Missouree for cheap gas.” “Tell Missouruh hay fer me.”

The trick to the Missouruh crowd is to make one syllable words into two. “Won’t” is “wo-unt.” “Dare” is “dayer.” “Yes” is “yayess”.

“Lets-i call-uh th’ who-leh thang aw-fuh.”