England – Life In A Word

Lucky Strikes

Have you checked your basement lately? (uh, Dave, I don’t have a basement). How about the crawl space (nope, don’t have one of those either). Maybe a deep closet, the kind with empty space behind the hanging clothes? If I haven’t pegged you yet, just lift up your area rugs (assuming your floors have been around a while). Why? You might find something interesting down there! Loose change. Old love letters. Bowling balls.

Bowling balls?

A small part of Dave’s “bowl” collection

Talk about a lucky strike. Another Dave in my country (he of Norton Shores, MI) recently began a DIY house renovation when he unearthed a bowling ball from behind the crumbling concrete of his back porch. So he pawed the sand some more and found another ball. And another. Pretty soon he had fifteen. By the time our industrious friend cleaned out his subterranean bowling alley – er, crawl space, he’d amassed 150 balls – some black, most blue, and all designed to knock down pins. I’m sure Dave would agree with this Dave when I say, “What the HECK?“

Seriously, how would you react if you found hundreds of bowling balls under your house? Me, I’d wonder if they weren’t part of the structural foundation (Don’t laugh; a 1940’s house we used to live in had glued-together schoolroom yardsticks in the walls.) My next thought would go to an abandoned underground city, with my house right on top of the bowling alley. And my final thought? Aliens. Aliens put those hundreds of bowling balls down there.

Norton Shores Dave was more rational than my own thinking. After finding the first fifteen balls he stopped digging and picked up the phone to Brunswick Bowling. Some of the balls had date stamps back to the 1950s and Dave was concerned about toxicity. (Good thinking there, Dave.) But Brunswick glanced at a few of the photos he sent and said the balls were fine. So it’s official: bowling balls last forever.

Hidden rooms – and the hidden treasures they contain – have always captured my imagination. In the movie National Treasure, Nicolas Cage sorts through clue after clue on the hunt for a hidden fortune. The final scene where the underground room reveals itself in bursting firelight is jaw-dropping. Or how about any movie scene where a sliding bookcase protects a passage to the secret space beyond? Wouldn’t that be a great feature in your house?

I designed a house with a sliding bookcase once (true story), back in my days as an architect. The hidden room was accessed from the landing halfway up an open staircase, behind innocent-looking shelves of books. The hidden room was meant to be a home office, with a small balcony overlooking the backyard. I pictured the owner’s guests, standing on the lawn and looking up, saying, “Wait a sec’, how come I haven’t seen that room?

Admittedly, bowling balls aren’t a sexy find (even 150 of them). It’s not like you’d go, “Perfect… just what I’d been hoping for!” That’s not stopping Norton Shores Dave, however. He thinks there may be even more balls down there, but – letdown ending to the story – he’ll probably just turn them into decorative pavers in the yard.

Plant orange trees… find a church instead!

Other hidden-space stories yield more satisfying treasures. Last year a gardener in England – simply pulling weeds – unearthed sixty-three gold coins from the era of Henry VIII (now that’s what you call “paydirt”). Another gardener – this one in Turkey – found an entire 6th-century church under the ten acres of land where he was about to plant orange trees. Old rolled-up movie posters under the floorboards of a house were so pristine they brought $600,000 USD at auction. Finally, in 2009, an English doctor passed away and left his house to his relatives. What they overlooked for many months? The dusty, vintage 1937 Bugatti in the garage. Selling price: $4.2 million.

Maybe the best finds are up in the attic. In 2013 a family found a Van Gogh in the rafters of the house of deceased relatives. The painting had been gathering dust for over a century because the original owner thought it was a fake. Not so. It turned out to be a priceless example from Van Gogh’s most prolific years. Okay, not quite “priceless”, but how about $90.6 million?

It’s only fitting – as Halloween approaches – I ask you to crack the seal on your hidden spaces. You’ll probably need a flashlight. You’ll brush aside spiderwebs or put the boot on a creepy crawler or two. But c’mon, you know you’re curious. There could be something valuable right there underneath your feet. A stash of cash. A famous painting. Or 150 bowling balls!

Some content sourced from the CNN.com article, “Home renovation leads to the discovery of over 150 bowling balls under a family’s porch”, and the lovemoney.com article, “People who bought homes and found treasure”.

Saving (the) Daisy

“Daisy” the St. Bernard (photo courtesy of Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team)

Let’s visit the dog days of summer; specifically, a day in the middle of last week. In England, on the highest mountaintop in the land, a group of sixteen rescuers carried an ailing dog down to safety – a rescue operation of more than five hours. These heroes didn’t rescue just any dog; they rescued a full-grown St. Bernard. Put that image in your head for a moment. People coming to the rescue of a St. Bernard. That’s “Role Reversal” with capital R’s.

(photo courtesy of Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team)

“Daisy” – the St. Bernard in our story – was descending England’s Scafell Pike last week (owners in tow, presumably) when she experienced pain in her rear legs and refused to go any further. Rescuers consulted a veterinarian before administering meds, food, water, and treats (lots of treats). Then they loaded the 121-lb. doggie onto a stretcher and eased their way down the mountain, navigating several steep stretches, rocks, and a waterfall. Daisy was the model patient the whole way down and it turns out this was her second rescue. Her first was by her owners, from a relatively “hard life” into a better one just a few months ago.

Saving Daisy strikes a chord with me not just because she’s a feel-good story (and we need plenty of those these days), but also because my wife and I own a St. Bernard ourselves. “Remy” is six years old and lives with us on our ranch, alongside horses, cats, and occasional wildlife. Remy came from a breeder in Nebraska about six hours to the east. He joined our family when he was only eight weeks old. Look at him now!

When I read about Daisy’s rescue my first thought was, “how the heck did a St. Bernard get to the top of a mountain? To explain, St. Bernards have typical dog gears like sprint, walk, and idle. The difference: Daisy and Remy spend 95% of their time in “idle” lying down. Yes, they can “sprint”, but only for about thirty seconds (followed by “collapse”). They can also walk short distances – say, to the mailbox – but like Daisy, when they choose to “idle” you’re not gonna get ’em to move an inch. Daisy is a svelte 121 lbs. so maybe she has more gas in the tank than most. Remy is 160 lbs. Our first St. Bernard “Sebastian” was well over 200. They don’t call ’em “gentle giants” for nothing.

A St. Bernard and a mountaintop isn’t an unusual combination, of course. These big boys were originally bred to be Alpine rescue dogs by monks on the Great St. Bernard Pass between Switzerland and Italy (hence the name). It is said St. Bernards rescued 2,000 people over a span of 200 years from Alpine snowstorms. I’d say they’ve earned their reputation as rescuers (and working-class dogs).

Nope, they don’t carry a barrel of brandy

We named our dog “Remy” after Remy Martin, the cognac variety of brandy. Perhaps you’ve seen images of St. Bernards with barrels of brandy around their necks. As romantic as it sounds – a big furry rescue dog bringing stiff drinks to avalanche survivors for warmth – the whole idea is just folklore. Even the Great St. Bernard Pass monks say they’ve never put a barrel on a Bernard.

St. Bernards weigh fifty pounds at twelve weeks

If Daisy’s anything like Remy, her owners make accommodations atypical of most dog owners. A water bowl isn’t big enough for a Bernard; better go with a bucket. Add a large waterproof mat under the bucket because it seems one-third of every slurp ends up on fur or floor. For those (very short) walks, forget the leash and go with a heavy rope instead (we use a horse’s lead line). Also, you’ll need a doggie ramp for the car because Bernards aren’t so agile. While you’re at it, trade the car in for one with a high ceiling clearance. And be sure to crank the AC so all the panting doesn’t fog the windows.

St. Bernards are classified as “working dogs”; a tribute to their rescue skills. They compete in dog shows like other breeds, but less in agility and more in carting and weight-pulling. St. Bernards have starred on the silver screen, as the good (“Beethoven”), the bad (“Cujo”), and the animated (“Nana” in the Disney version of Peter Pan). I think Daisy’s story might be an even better “Incredible Journey” script, don’t you? After all, St. Bernards have been rescuing people for thousands of years. Now we finally get one asking for our help. It’s about time the shoe was on the other foot (er, paw). Glad you’re okay, Daisy!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Putting the Kettle On

Kacey Musgraves is a blossoming country music artist whose recent album “Golden Hour” will compete with heavy-hitters at this year’s Grammy Awards for Album of the Year. She’s released only four albums (through major labels), so the nomination is remarkable. And yet – despite the acclaim heaped on “Golden Hour” – my favorite Kacey song remains a track from her second album, “Pageant Material”. In her words, it’s “a little, tiny, music-box-of-a-song” called “Cup of Tea”.

The message in “Cup of Tea” (have a listen here) – is simple: no matter who you are or what you stand for, you’re never going to appeal to everybody. There will always be haters out there no matter how you present yourself. My favorite lyrics in “Cup of Tea” are the refrain itself:

You can’t be, everybody’s cup of tea
Some like it bitter, some like it sweet
Nobody’s everybody’s favorite
So you might as well just make it how you please

Kacey wouldn’t mind if I told her “Cup of Tea” gets me thinking just as much about tea as about how well I mesh with other people. Not that I’ll be steeping anytime soon, mind you. I can’t seem to acquire tea-taste, no matter how many times I put the kettle on. Go figure – half my DNA originates from England, so you’d think my instincts would have me setting out the fine china and doilies every afternoon. I’d nibble on the cakes or scones or whatever comes with, but no tea, please. I much prefer my morning coffee.

Ironically, tea brews with some of my earliest childhood memories. My parents used to take my brothers and I downtown in Los Angeles, to restaurants on the streets of Chinatown – probably as much for the cultural experience as for the food. I can still picture those dark, quiet dining rooms, with the strange music and gaudy decor. The meal always began with a pot of tea, including the little round cups that seemed to have misplaced their handles. Tea was a cool experience back then. Listen, when all you drank was milk or water (or the occasional soda), tea was pretty sweet no matter how it tasted. It was like having a “grown-up” drink before being grown up.

Forty-odd years later, I notched another tea-riffic memory. My wife and I took a cruise on the Baltic Sea a few summers ago (“six countries in eight days”), and chose Oceania, one of the nicer cruise lines. Good decision. As much as we enjoyed the excursions off the ship, we enjoyed the return even more, because every day we were treated to “afternoon tea”. Oceania’s tea was the perfect respite between the early morning touring and the evening dinners/dancing. “Tea” included tableside service from tuxedoed waitstaff, countless cakes and petit fours, and those little triangle sandwiches with the crusts removed. “Tea” even included a string quartet; their soft music adding to the ambiance. I suppose I could’ve asked for coffee instead, but that would’ve tainted the experience. Not to say I enjoyed the tea itself. Just “afternoon tea”.

The culture, history, and preparations of tea could generate a week’s worth of posts. (See the Wikipedia article here). What I find more interesting is how tea has become the daily routine of several global cultures. The Chinese and Japanese consume tea in the morning “to heighten calm alertness”. The Brits serve tea to guests upon arrival (or in the mid-afternoon), for “enjoyment in a refined setting”. The Russians consider a social gathering “incomplete” without tea. Not sure about all that, but I can at least agree with the moment of pause tea provides; the respite from the faster pace. It’s just… my “cup of tea” is coffee.