Category Archives: Family

Mexico Part 6: Conclusion

Family, Travel,

The sixth in a series; see also parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

It’s been about two weeks now since we got back home. Every few days, our boys still talk about Mexico. Jacob talks about what he will want to do “when we go back” and how he’d like to see Jonathan over there again. Jacob, Oliver, and I look at photos from our trip a few times a week. This is all a sure sign that our boys loved the trip. And I keep trying to find Mexican food that tastes as good as the real thing (and, so far, failing). Another sign of a good trip!

I think it is possible to have fun, relax, and enjoy new experiences all at the same time. We did that in Mexico. We had a lazy afternoon or two with the boys taking naps or playing with other children at the house we stayed at. And we stayed in a beautiful hotel without air conditioning, explored old downtown areas and ancient ruins, and bought things from crowded markets and people selling things from a table along a road.

To anyone thinking about visiting: Go. Enjoy it, bring back memories, and live a little more serendipitously than usual. That’s what I hope to do when we visit Greece before too long.

Finally, here’s a photo of the painting I bought from a roadside vendor for $17. Make sure to view it full screen. I think it says more about Mexico than 6 blog posts do.

A 4-year-old, Linux command line, and microphone

Children & Computing, Family, Linux

There are certain times when I’m really glad that we have Linux on the house for our boys to play with. I’ve already written how our 4-year-old Jacob has fun with bash and can chain together commands to draw ASCII animated steam locomotives. Today I thought it might be fun to install cw, a program that can take text on standard input and play it on the console speaker or sound card as Morse code. Just the sort of thing that I could see Jacob eventually getting a kick out of.

But his PC was mute. We opened it up and discovered it didn’t have a console speaker. So we traipsed downstairs, dug out an external speaker, and I figured out how to enable the on-board audio chipset in the BIOS. So now the cw command worked, but also there were a lot of other possibilities. We also brought up a microphone.

While Jacob was busy with other things, I set to work getting things hooked up, volume levels adjusted, and wrote some shell scripts for him. I also printed out this reference sheet for Jacob:

He is good at reading but not so good at spelling. I intentionally didn’t write down what the commands do, hoping that this would provide some avenue for exploration for him. He already is generally familiar with the ones under the quiet category.

I wrote a shell script called “record”. It simply records from the microphone and drops a timestamped WAV file in a holding directory. He can then type “play” to simply play back whatever he recorded most recently. Easy enough.

But what he really wanted was sound for his ASCII steam locomotive. So with the help of a Google search for “steam train mp3”, I wrote a script “ssl” (sound steam locomotive) that starts playing the sound in the background if it isn’t already going, and then runs sl to show the animation. This was a big hit.

I also set it up so he can type “play train” to hear that audio, or “play song” to play our favorite train song (Always a Train in My Dreams by Steve Gillette). Jacob typed that in and sat still for the entire 3 minutes listening to it.

I had to hook up an Ethernet cable to his machine to do all this, and he was very interested that I was hooking his computer up to mine in some way. He thought all the stuff about cables in the walls was quite exciting.

The last thing I did was install flite, a speech synthesis program. I wrote a small shell script called “talk” which reads a line at a time from stdin and invokes flite for each one (to give more instant feedback rather than not starting playback until after having read a large block from stdin). He had some fun hearing it say his name and other favorite words, but predictably the most fun was when he typed gibberish at it, and heard it try to pronounce or spell nonsense words.

In all, he was so excited about this new world of computer sound opened up to him. I’m sure there will be lots of happy experimentation and discovery going on.

Update Feb 10, 2012: I have posted the shell scripts behind this.

Jacob and the Amazing Technicolor Adding Machine

Family

Jacob has been eagerly awaiting this day for at least, well, 2 days now. This morning he started asking questions. All day long he has been wondering how long until the big event. And that event is the arrival of the UPS truck carrying a special $8 package for him.

And in that $8 package is not a DVD, or a book, or a toy, but rather 12 rolls of adding machine tape (totaling 1/3 of a mile). Oh yes, our four-year-old can hardly contain his excitement over office supplies. Let me back up a bit to explain.

I am always on the lookout for a certain kind of toy. The sort of thing that you don’t find in the toy section of a store. The sort of thing that is interesting and engages the curiosity of our boys, that most people would consider would toss, and that usually costs less than $5. Along those lines, Jacob has an old manual typewriter he can use, he and I built a switchbox full of switches and light bulbs that the boys love to play with, we built him a command-line-only PC out of spare parts, the boys have some radios they can use, and one day I salvaged a decades-old adding machine that was going to be thrown out.

Jacob liked it — he enjoys number and letter games — and had some fun, but didn’t zealously engage with it until just a few days ago.

He sat down at his table and started making “cards”. He will print out a bunch of numbers, making a strip a couple of feet long, and then say, “Dad, I made another card for you!” We will then happily accept the card and he will continue making more. Here he is, holding up one of his cards:

Jacob had a ton of fun making them, and Oliver wanted in on the action too. Oliver was somewhat interested in the adding machine, but not as much as Jacob, and Jacob didn’t want to share. So somehow they decided that Oliver would run and get cards from Jacob and then take them to whatever parent Jacob said. Today Jacob said, “Dad, the Oliver delivery service will bring you a card!”

Saturday morning we had some time to hang around and play, so we played some adding machine tape games. I tucked some long “cards” under my waistband, and the boys happily chased me all over the house trying to get them back. We also decorated:

And here is what the room looked like — after some cleanup:

That orange bucket on the desk is my “card bucket” where I can put all the cards he gives me. He even helpfully empties it out into the recycle bin when there are too many “old cards” in it!

But then tragedy struck — it was out of paper! I ordered a 12-roll pack off Amazon, and boy was it a long couple of days until it arrived. Today before the UPS truck got here, I showed him how we could feed old paper through and print on the back side — an incredible innovation, it seemed!

Terah had a conversation with him earlier that went like this:

Terah: “Jacob, we need to clean up the house.”

Jacob: “Why?”

Terah: “Because some people are coming over.”

Jacob: “Who is… OH YES! The UPS delivery man! Yes, let’s clean!”

Terah: “Ah, well yes he will be here too, but your great uncle and aunt are coming.”

Jacob: “Oh yay! And the UPS man!”

It is hard to describe Jacob’s excitement when the package arrived. I quickly opened it up, and at his great uncle’s prompting, he counted to see if he really did get 12 rolls of paper. “IT IS TWELVE ROLLS! YAY!” And then we quickly installed it in the machine and off he went. At his great uncle’s prompting, he started writing a J on each “card”. This meant “Jacob”, or maybe he’d put two J’s, meaning “To John From Jacob”, or perhaps the two J’s meant “To Terah From Jacob” – he’d always have to clue us in.

Anyhow, for an $8 investment in paper this has brought hours of joy to our boys. Even though Jacob isn’t yet really using it to perform arithmetic, it is setting him up to enjoy that sort of thing — and encouraging his curiosity. Both good things.

Pooh, Books, and Dads

Family,

If I think back to fond memories of being with my dad during my childhood, there’s one thing that always comes back first. It’s those late summer evenings outside. Dad often had outdoor projects going on of some sort. I’d go out there hanging around, maybe chatting, maybe playing with cats, or maybe doing something of my own.

Dad often had an old AM radio sitting around and would be listening to a baseball game while working. As it got darker, lights would come on, and the bugs would start flying near them. Sometimes dad would be working just inside the barn, and the bugs would start flying in there, while some light poured out the big front door. There’s something about that scratchy AM signal, the evening slowly getting darker, the slow pace of the baseball game, and just being around dad and a peripheral part of whatever he was doing that stirs a wonderfully fond recollection in me.

I don’t remember the specifics of any one of those times, nor do I really remember how often it happened, but it does stick with me.

We’ve had a routine in our house, starting early enough that neither of our boys know anything different, where right before bed, I read a book and sing a song to each of them individually.

Last November, I was looking for some books to challenge Jacob a little more than what we had been reading. I found The Complete Winnie the Pooh used for $4 on Amazon. This contains the original A. A. Milne stories, not the Disney series. It had a few line drawings, but there were many pages without any. It’s 352 pages and written in a rather dated form of British English. So for all these reasons, I wasn’t sure if Jacob would like it. But it was $4 so I bought it.

And Jacob was hooked. Each evening, we start bedtime with looking at the “map” of the 100-acre forest, just inside the cover. He gets to pick out 4 things for me to describe, and then we turn to our story. We usually read somewhere between 2 and 5 pages at bedtime, depending on how well he got ready without wasting time. And then we sing.

A. A. Milne has his Pooh character make up songs throughout the book. They are printed with words only, no tune, so I make up a tune for them as we go. Jacob has taken to requesting these songs for his bedtime song as well.

Jacob always gets to choose his bedtime story, and sometimes he chooses a different one — but about 75% of the time, it’s been Pooh.

A few weeks ago, he started noticing that we were almost to the end. He got very concerned, asking what we’d do next. I suggested a different book, which he didn’t like. Then I pointed out that we could restart the Pooh stories from the beginning, which was exciting for him.

Last night, we finished the book. The very last story was an interesting one, suggesting Christopher Robin growing up and no longer having imaginary adventures with the animals, but making Pooh promise to always be there for him. I don’t think Jacob caught onto that meaning, though. When we finished it, we had this conversation:

Jacob: “Dad, is that the end?”

Me: “Yes.”

Jacob, getting a big smile: “Yay! So can we start back at the beginning tomorrow?”

Me: “Sure!”

Jacob then gave a clap, shouted “Yay!” again, and was a very happy boy.

Sometimes I wonder what our boys will remember in 25 years of their fun times with me. I don’t know if Jacob will remember all the days reading about the animals in the 100-acre wood when he was 4, or maybe he’ll remember watching train and combine videos, or playing radio hide-and-seek, or maybe something entirely different.

But I have no doubt that I will remember sitting on the couch in his room, holding him on my lap, and reading a 350-page book to a loving 4-year-old. As Pooh aptly put it, “Sometimes, the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”

The Mennonite Mecca

Family, General

I’d like to paint you a picture of the sorts of things that have been going on around here the past few months, and with growing fervor the past few days.

I’ll start with church basements. Possibly a little chilly, but with a bunch of women getting together to make some quilts — along with some conversation, maybe some snacks.

Or perhaps about hundreds of kitchens throughout Kansas, warm with baking pies, cookies, breads, and all sorts of items. Then there are a bunch of wood shops, turning up sawdust, building things from toys to furniture. Or even a body shop donating its time and materials to put some finishing touches on a classic car.

I’ve also seen around 300 men getting together to practice for a men’s chorus concert. I know there was large crowd of people gathering to make verenike. People always wind up running 5km on a particular Saturday morning, rain or shine. Or ride 35 miles on a bicycle on a different Saturday. Or even help build a house using as much volunteer labor and donated materials as possible.

And then, of course, comes this week, where Mennonites from all over Kansas start to converge on Hutchinson, KS. I can imagine you might see some odd sights rolling down the road: a vehicle called the “borscht buggy” for preparing large quantities of the delicious soup. Several old tractors being hauled down the road on trailers. Semi loads of food. Vanloads of pie and cookies. Plants, trees, rugs, quilts, even a lawn mower. And then, yesterday and today, excited people ready to buy all of these things. Families with children excited to get a ride on the largest slide they’ve ever seen. And, of course, so many people wanting to eat the famous food that, despite the many parallel serving areas, lines still can extend for blocks.

It’s all because people are hungry.

Not these Kansans with pie-laden kitchens, though — it’s to help those in need.

It’s all part of the annual Kansas MCC Relief Sale. The idea is that people make, bake, build, sing, or give things to the sale. The items are then sold, and the proceeds go to Mennonite Central Committee, one of the world’s most efficient charities. MCC not only helps with directly bringing people out of hunger, but also supports sustainable projects, such as building hand-operated wells to give those in need a safe source of drinking water. Virtually all of the money you spend on those pies winds up helping someone in poverty.

Each year, the relief sale and related events raise around half a million dollars for charity.

It’s not unusual to see a quilt sell for thousands of dollars. Most of the things sell at more normal prices, but last year someone decided to add a loaf of bread to an auction — and it sold for $100.

And so it was this that we took the boys to today. We started with the “Feeding the Multitude” — a wonderful meal with some traditional Kansas Mennonite food. Here’s a photo:

That bread is zwieback, then there is cherry moos, bohne berrogi, verenike, and of course, sausage.

Here are Jacob and Oliver enjoying their food:

IMG_5548.JPG

After that, we went over to the giant slide. I’m not sure how many stories tall it is, but it’s big enough that they have a strip of carpet there at the bottom to slow people down at the end. Here’s a photo of Jacob on my lap after going down the slide. If you zoom in, you can see the giant smile on his face.

IMG_5562.JPG

After that, we hopped on the “mass transit” at the sale: a wagon being pulled by a tractor. We checked out the general auction, with Jacob wanting to be sure to peer under the hood of each car present. Then after a stop to buy some kettle corn for Jacob, we checked out the plants, quilt auction, and then on to buy cheese curds.

After another stop at the slide, it was time to head home.

And then tomorrow is a concert of the Kansas Mennonite Men’s Chorus (motto: We Sing That Others May Live). You get around 300 men on a stage signing together and wow — no recording can do it justice. It’s amazing to hear the power of the choir at the loud parts, but still more amazing to listen to 300 men signing as softly as they possibly can. I’ve been singing with that choir for 3 years, and we’ve been practicing for a few months now.

If you ever hear some Mennonites boasting about something, it’s probably going to be about how much money they’ve raised for charity. And on that note, I’ll nudge those Indiana folks reading this and point out that you have some catching up to do with the Kansas sale…

A Proud Dad

Children & Computing, Debian, Family, Linux

I saw this on my computer screen the other day, and I’ve got to say it really warmed my heart. I’ll explain below if it doesn’t provoke that reaction for you.

Evidence a 4-year-old has been using my computer

So here’s why that made me happy. Well for one, it was the first time Jacob had left stuff on my computer that I found later. And of course he left his name there.

But moreover, he’s learning a bit about the Unix shell. sl is a command that displays an animated steam locomotive. I taught him how to use the semicolon to combine commands. So he has realized that he can combine calls to sl with the semicolon to get a series of a LOT of steam trains all at once. And was very excited about this discovery.

Also he likes how error messages start with the word “bash”.

24 hours with Jacob

Family, Uncategorized, , ,

Friday, I wrote about the train trip Jacob and I were planning to take. Here’s the story about it.

Friday night, Jacob was super excited. He was running around the house, talking about trains. I had him pack his own backpack with toys this time, which were — you guessed it — trains. Plus train track. His usual bedtime is around 7. He was still awake in his room at about 11, too excited to sleep.

The train was an hour late into Newton, so got up, got ready, and then went into Jacob’s room at 3:15AM. I put my arm around him and said his name softly. No response. I said, just a little louder, “Jacob, it’s time to wake up to go to the train station.” There was about a 2-second pause and then he sat bolt upright rubbing his eyes. A couple seconds later, in a very tired but clear voice, “OK dad, let’s go!” That is, I believe, a record for waking up speed for Jacob.

We went downstairs, got coats, mittens, hats, etc. on, made sure we had the stuffed butterfly he always sleeps with, and went out the door.

As usual, Jacob chattered happily during the entire 15-minute drive to the Amtrak station. One of these days I need to remember to record it because it’s unique. He described things to me ranging from the difference between freight and passenger trains, to what the dining car is all about, to tractors and how to ride them safely. Newton has some “winter lights”, and a few places still had Christmas lights, which were of course big hits.

We had to wait a few minutes at the Amtrak station, and Jacob hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down yet. He wanted to look at every Amtrak poster, picture, logo, or sign in the building. This generally meant me holding him up high while he leaned over to touch it and make out a few words. Then, of course, he would pick out minute details about the trains, such as how many coach cars he thought they had, and we’d visit about that for awhile.

We got on at about 4:20. We found our seats, and Jacob showed no signs of calming down, despite having had only 4 hours of sleep (instead of his usual 11) so far. We checked out the buttons for lights. And, of course, he excitedly yelled out, “Dad, the train is moving!”

He spent the next while mostly watching out his window, but also still exploring his space. Finally at about 5, I said, “Jacob, I am really tired. I am going to sleep now. Will you sleep too?” His response: “Oh sure dad, I will sleep with my eyes open!” As a result, no sleep was had for Jacob, and only a little for me.

The dining car opens for breakfast at 6:30, which is normally a rather foreign time for breakfast on the train for us. But we were both awake so I figured might as well go. So Jacob and I went to the dining car. We sat with a woman going from New Mexico to Lawrence for her grandpa’s funeral, though it was expected and she was having a good time on the train. Jacob turned completely shy, and refused to say a word, except maybe a few whispered into my ear.

He got his favorite railroad French toast, and had me “drizzle” some syrup on it. I used the word “drizzle” for syrup the first time he had French toast on the train, and if I fail to use that word in the dining car, I will hear about it in no uncertain terms from Jacob.

He loved his dining car breakfast, but we spent about an hour and a half there. He was really slow at eating because his face was pressed up against the window so much. But that was just fine; we had nowhere else to be, the person eating breakfast with us enjoyed visiting (and, apparently, scaring the dining car staff with tales of bears in the New Mexico mountains). This was what the train trip was all about, after all.

We played in the lounge car for awhile. The almost floor-to-ceiling wrap-around windows provided a great view for him, and more opportunities to press his face against a window. We talked about freight trains that he saw, noticed the snow on some of them. Then we found the back of the train and he got to look out the back window.

Back at our seat, he played with his toys for about 10 minutes, which was all he used them on the entire trip. There was just too much else to enjoy.

When we used the restroom on the train, he’d comment on how much he liked the Amtrak soap. “It smells SO very very good!” He wanted to wash his hands on the train. By late morning, he had decided: “Dad, I LOVE this Amtrak soap. It smells like peaches! Shall your hands smell like peaches too?” And, when we’d get back up to our seats, he’d put his hands in my face, saying, “Dad, smell that! My hands smell like peaches! It was from the AMTRAK SOAP!”

At some point, he discovered the airline-style safety brochures in the seat back pockets. These were filled with diagrams of the train car, a few photos, and lots of icons with descriptions. I don’t know how many times I read the thing to him, or really how many times he then recited it to me from memory. It was a lot. He spent hours with those brochures.

Jacob had already told me that he wanted pizza for lunch, so I got him the kid-sized pizza. It wasn’t all that big, and he could have devoured at least half of it when hungry. But he was getting really tired and ate only a few bites of pizza and a few chips. Pretty soon he was leaning up against me, the window, and eventually had his head on the table in some tomato sauce. But he didn’t quite fall asleep by the time we went back to our seats, and of course was wide awake by that point.

Jacob loves spotting the word “Amtrak” on things. It was very exciting when he noticed his orange juice at breakfast, and milk at lunch, were “Amtrak juice” and “Amtrak milk” due to the logo on the cups. At dinner he noticed we had Amtrak plates, and when I pointed out that his metal fork had the Amtrak logo on it, he got very excited and had to check every piece of silverware within reach. “Dad, I have an Amtrak fork too!…. And dad, YOU also have an Amtrak fork! We ALL have Amtrak forks! *cackling laughter*”

I finally insisted that Jacob lay down for some quiet time. I closed the curtains, and he finally did fall asleep… less than an hour before our arrival into Galesburg. So by 2:15 he was up to 4.75 hours of sleep, I guess.

We stopped in the train station briefly, then started our walk to the Discovery Depot Children’s Museum, which was right nearby. Although I made no comment about it, Jacob said, “Dad, there is a train museum RIGHT HERE!” “Yes, you’re right Jacob. I can see a steam engine and some cars here.” “Let’s go in!” “I don’t think it’s open today.” “It IS open — shall we go check?” It wasn’t, and that was mighty sad — though when he spotted another old caboose sitting outside the children’s museum, the day suddenly seemed brighter. He complained of how cold he was, although my suggestion that he stop walking through the big piles of snowdrifts was met with a whiny, “But dad, I WANT to do that!”

We went inside the museum (having to walk right buy the locked caboose — thankfully the people at the desk promised to unlock it for us when we were ready) and Jacob started to explore. There was some wooden play trains big enough for children to climb in which he enjoyed, but in general he went from one thing to the next every minute or two as he does when he’s really tired or overstimulated. Until, that is, he discovered the giant toy train table. It had a multi-level wooden track setup, and many toy trains with magnetic hitches. It was like what we have at home, only much bigger and fancier. He spent a LONG time with that. We then briefly explored the rest of the museum and went out into the caboose. It wasn’t the hit it might have been, possibly because there are several at the Great Plains Transportation Museum that he gets to go in on a somewhat regular basis.

After that, he was ready to go back into the museum, but I was feeling rather over-stimulated. On a day when the highs were still well below freezing, it seemed just about every family in Galesburg was crowded into the children’s museum, making it loud and crowded — which I don’t enjoy at all. So I suggested maybe it was snack time instead. A moment’s thought, then he started to pull me out of the caboose before I could get my gloves back on — “Yes dad, I think it IS snack time. Let’s go. Let’s go NOW!”

We walked over to Uncle Billy’s Bakery (Google link or minimal website). Jacob spotted some sugar cookies shaped like mittens. Despite my reluctance to get him more sugar, he was so excited — plus I had barely prevented a meltdown at lunch by promising him that he would get dessert later in the day — so he picked two red mitten cookies. I got myself a wonderful peach muffin and a croissant and we sat down at one of the tables by the window. I taught Jacob how to hang his coat on his chair and he lit into those cookies.

I spotted a guy at the next table over wearing a BNSF jacket, and asked him if he worked for the railroad. He had retired as an engineer a couple of years ago, and had worked various jobs before that. He grew up in Manhattan, KS and so was interested in our trip — and very friendly. While we visited, Jacob devoured his cookies and increasing portions of my snack as well. He told us about a new shop — The Stray Cat — just two stores down that was having a grand opening event today. They make decorations and art out of basically discarded items, and had some really nifty things that I may have bought had I not been wanting for space in our backpack.

Then I spotted Sweets Old-Fashioned Ice Cream, Candy, and Soda Shop across the road. I figured he’d love it and I was already in for the sugar so might as well. He picked out some “birthday cake” flavor ice cream for himself. I got huckleberry ice cream, which he insisted on calling “purpleberry” and managed to get some tastes of as well.

After that, we went to the train station. It was about an hour until our train would be there. I wasn’t sure if we’d find enough to do, but I shouldn’t have worried. Earlier, we had made the happy discovery that the station’s restroom featured the Amtrak soap, so there was that. Then there was the model Amtrak train in the ticket window, which Jacob kept wanting to look at while I’d hold him. And also, the California Zephyr came in. We watched it arrive from the station window, saw people get off and on, and saw it leave — maybe the first time Jacob has witnessed all that in person. And, of course, we looked at the pictures in that train station. The ticketmaster gave Jacob a paper conductor’s hat with puzzles and mazes on the back side.

And then it was time to get onto our train back home. We ate dinner — Jacob again ate little and almost fell asleep — and got back to our seats. I let Jacob stay awake until about 8, when he was starting to get a bit fragile. It took him awhile to fall asleep, but he finally did at about 8:30.

Today he’s still been all excited. He will randomly tell us about bits of the trip, that the man at supper called his grilled cheese sandwich piece “little” when it was really big, what we did at the ice cream store, etc. And I do think that he is now a train safety expert.

All in all, I think that is probably the most excitement he’s ever had in 24 hours and it was a lot of fun to be with him for it!

Jacob & Dad & Trains

Family, ,

Back in July, our family took a train trip from Kansas to New York for Debconf10. And then in September, we went to Indiana.

The only train service from here leaves at about 3AM in both directions. So starting about November, Jacob started asking me, “Dad, will you wake me up in the middle of the night to go to the train station TODAY?” He didn’t seem to get it through his head that we didn’t have another trip planned, although we surely would at some point. It just couldn’t possibly be, right?

So around Christmas, I booked a round trip from here to Galesburg, IL for just Jacob and me. We’ll get on the train at 3AM Saturday morning, get to Galesburg about noon, and then head back home at 5PM, getting home again at, well, 3:30AM.

Jacob is super excited about this. When the tickets arrived, he didn’t yet know about the trip. I thought he’d be excited then, but the ticket sleeve had a picture of a toy train that he didn’t own, so he was somewhat sad. But starting the next day he was very excited. We wrote “Amtrak” on the Jan. 15 spot on his pharmacy calendar (a local pharmacy gives them away free each year). He carefully checked off each day as it went past. And he’s been getting increasingly excited all week.

Tonight he couldn’t really think, couldn’t really play, couldn’t really calm down. He jabbered about how he would sit by the window, how precisely I would wake him up, and his eyes would open up “right away” and we’ll go straight there. He talked about how he will look out the window at the dark night, and was extra excited when I told him he’d see snow out the window like one of the Amtrak videos he likes to watch on Youtube. He already placed his order for breakfast in the dining car: “French toast with syrup on top.”

He ran past the computer while I was looking at things to do in Galesburg, and saw I had a map up, and immediately noticed the train tracks. Then he pointed to the station, and said, “Dad, that says ‘Galesburg Amtrak’.” A rather stunned dad replied, “Yes indeed it does, Jacob.” I guess it was some combination of pre-reading and detective skills, but that surprised me.

Anyhow, this is the first trip with just Jacob and me. We’re going to have a blast, I’m sure. I may, however, wind up going 24 hours without sleep if his adrenaline level is any guide…

Christmas Gatherings, a Piano, and a Pickup

Family

Perhaps I am not very imaginative. Or perhaps insufficiently adventurous. But when I woke up today, a day that would actually get a little bit above freezing, I didn’t have a thought of riding without a coat in the bed of a pickup. Nor did I expect to be involved with moving a piano. I didn’t have any thought of listening to piano music outdoors. And I certainly didn’t anticipate the fun to be had doing all of these things simultaneously.

Now, let me back up and set the scene. This was our annual Goerzen Christmas today. We already ate and exchanged gifts.

Here’s the thing about moving pianos, especially the old heavy ones with the cast iron frame inside: it’s not something where a group of people just get together, count to 3, and that’s that. No, you’ve got to start the project out right. You have to break the news that people will be moving a piano gently. And then, of course, you get a room full of people — usually mostly men — and at this point, before any lifting happens, you’ve got to plan. Tape measures must be produced, measurements taken, plans made for how to lift and who should lift where. Differing points of view have to be considered carefully. Then, of course, you have too many people for each one to actually help lift so each person not lifting has to find a job. And then when things actually start going, you realize that not one of the plans fully accounted for the unprecedented weight and maddening stubbornness of the piano, and you have to stop every few feet to plan anew. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piano move happen in any other fashion.

So, today, my uncle, whose house our gathering was at this year, said, “Ahh good, lots of young backs. Just what I need.” Mildly concerned glances pass between my brothers, my cousins, and I. One brother looks like he’s pretending not to have heard. “We have a few things to move.” Anticipation. “A small couch” — probably not too bad, right? “An upholstered chair” — maybe a bit unruly but still not too bad. “And an old piano is going to a neighbor.” Full alert now — more glances, a pause for a second, and then acceptance: “Oh! Uhm… great!”

My uncle’s friend Ken teaches music at the local college, and on the side, Ken also teaches children how to play piano. One of Ken’s students didn’t have a piano at home, and my uncle and aunt had an old one they weren’t using, which they would give to the family of the student just a couple of blocks away. All that remained was moving it.

There was the inevitable measuring, planning, re-planning, until we got it out of the house and onto the back of my uncle’s pickup. We have about 8 men involved, plus my aunt. Most of us rode in the back of the pickup with the piano.

And of course, there came the inevitable request: “Ken, play for us!” So Ken sat on the edge of the pickup, at the piano, playing as we — and the piano — went through town in the open air. He started with Joplin’s Entertainer, then broke out into some Christmas music — We Wish You a Merry Christmas, followed by Nun Ist Sie Erschienen and a few others. It must be said that small towns in Kansas are probably not accustomed to their Christmas carolers having a piano with them, much less being played from the bed of a pickup. But there we were, mostly laughing too hard or enjoying the ride too much to sing.

To add excitement, or perhaps embarrassment, my uncle was sounding the horn. Some thought that his intent was to have it in time with the piano music from the back, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he meant to sound the horn in that rather random fashion.

Eventually we got to the neighbor’s house, and my dad and another uncle who hadn’t been on the pickup came running up. We hopped down and asked them where they wanted the piano. “Upstairs!” That got repeated among everyone there, producing laughter each time. More tape measures were produced, as it was a narrow staircase. The conclusion was that the piano could make it with about an inch (2.54cm) to spare.

So we got it out of the pickup and onto the porch, then into the house. Now, how to get it upstairs? This called for an extra helping of planning and calculating. Ken, the unofficial piano moving boss, kept reminding us in jest that “I grew up on a farm”. He said he could be alone at the top of the piano while we pushed. This quickly turned out to not be practical; due to the incline, the weight at the bottom was just too much to get it up over the stairs. Ken then went and picked up a wooden contraption they use to move pianos at the college. We tried that, but its supports underneath got stuck on the steps as well. Various ideas were tossed around at this point, until I pointed out that four of us on the bottom couldn’t get it up over a step, so when we get it into the stairway — only wide enough for 2 — we won’t be able to get it up anyhow.

That being considered a good point, various other ideas were tossed around. They all seemed to be wanting either for practicality or, perhaps, safety. Though the idea of having a dozen Goerzens stand at the top of the staircase pulling it up by a rope did have some excellent humor value.

In the end, perhaps wanting our group of free, highly ambitious, but somewhat less effective piano movers out of their house, the neighbors found a place for it on the ground floor. We all piled back into the pickup for the ride back, which was rather more quiet due to lack of horn and piano music.

So there you have it. The most fun I have ever had moving a piano. (Really, the only fun I have ever had moving a piano.)

Baby Yoda

Family, Humor

Shifting gears from serious tractor injury stuff to the more humorous…

We’re all used to seeing Yoda 900 years old. I’ve noticed over the past couple of months that Oliver, while eating supper, seems to resemble a 1-year-old Yoda. So I got out my camera one evening, with the results below:

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Or this “what’s so hard about lifting an X-wing” pose?

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And of course:

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