REMEMBERING HALLOWEEN

Marash Girl's best friend was born on Halloween, so lets fete the birthday girl with this somewhat ghoulish story (probably from the Depression) that her dad Peter used to tell.  

"I used to work for Pambook Jack who had a shoe repair shop.  Every day, a woman walked by the shop, and every day she walked by, she was hitting her son over the head with a loaf of bread.  But there was one day that the woman walked by, and she was hitting her son over the head with a loaf of cake.  I couldn't understand why, when every day she would walk by hitting her son over the head with a loaf of bread, she would now be hitting him over the head with a loaf of cake.  So I walked outside the shop and said to the lady, 'Lady.  Every day I see you walking by this shop, hitting your son over the head with a loaf of bread, but today, you're hitting him over the head with a loaf of cake.  Why is that?'  The lady chirped back, 'Today is his birthday.'"

Old Fashioned Apples: Licking Creek Bend Farm, Needmore, PA

In the parking lot behind  TPSS, Marash Girl found Farmer Mike of Licking Creek Bend Farm, Needmore, Pennsylvania, delivering his freshly picked apples to the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Co-op in Takoma Park.That's Bridget in the foreground, helping the farmer unload.  She works for the TPSS Food Co-op. (Nelson escaped the camera!)

Do you know the names of the apple varieties pictured here?  These crates of apples remind Marash Girl of Peter and Paul, who harvested apples every fall from the orchard in their back yard in Newtonville, Massachusetts, and of Uncle George and the cabin on Wilbraham Mountain, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, where the June 1st tornado eliminated the apple orchard that had been there for half a century!

The farmer's favorite, Russets are a historic apple, one of the first apples grown in the USA,

This young lady has grown up on Farmer Mike's fruits and vegetables!  If you want to be healthy and happy, you can't be kinder to yourself than to eat Farmer Mike's fresh produce.  Especially his apples. Yummy!

You'll love the apples grown at Licking Creek Bend Farm, available at our local food TPSS co-op!

Peace, Paz, Pax in Takoma Park, Maryland

"Do you know Latin?"

Never know who you’re going to meet standing in front of the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Coop in Takoma Park, Maryland. While waiting for the school bus, Marash Girl noticed the license plate pictured on the right. When she stopped to photograph the plate, the owner  (who it turned out, is 82) stopped to ask her if she was photographing his license plate because she knew Latin -- No, she said, I don’t know Latin, but I know what your license plate says.  The gentleman explained that his initials spell peace as does the Latin word pax -- and so his message to the world: Peace and Peace, everywhere he goes. He continued.  I fought in the Korean War.  but because I could type, I’m embarrassed to say that I was relegated to a desk in Germany.  The army was so thrilled to have a man who could type; in those days, you know, only women took typing.  Wondering how it was that he knew how to type, Marash Girl asked, Are you a writer?  Yes, he answered.  My book, a human survival manual, is for sale at www.hpn.org/beyond.  There are many survival manuals out there, but mine is the only HUMAN survival manual.   So Marash Girl, curious, went to the website (the only place she could locate the book on the web) and found

 

                                                                      by Peter A. Zuckerman

A Message From the Past!

You never know what you're going to find slipped inside of an old book!

Out of a little red book entitled And This Is Boston! (And Seashore and Country too) by Eleanor Early (published in 1938) fell this invaluable little piece of paper (probably written in 1938) recording an old and easy recipe which Marash Girl can't wait to try.

NUT COOKIES

1 egg white (beaten stiff)
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 or 3/4 cup walnut meats (shelled and cut up)
Pinch salt
1/2 tsp. real vanilla

Drop on cookie sheet and bake.

Although the note does not mention that we should be dropping the coated walnuts by spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet (not dump the whole bowl of coated walnuts in one big mound) nor does it mention the temperature at which to bake these nutty gems, Marash Girl's guess is 350 degrees,  for about 15 minutes in a preheated oven.  Be sure to oil the cookie sheet before dropping the spoonfuls of walnuts onto the tray.

The lesson for Marash Girl?  Before she discards any book (which is close to impossible for her to do),  she checks for messages from the past, whether inscriptions, or those hidden slips of paper written so many years ago, the hidden gems inside of the book, the message(s) hidden inside of the message from the past.

JUMPING INTO THE UNKNOWN

Do you remember playing on the stairs?  Marash Girl used to jump down from one step up, then from two steps up, then from three steps up, and only the best of us could jump from four steps up.  Here's a story Marash Girl's father used to tell about a father and son and steps, or is it really about a father and son and steps . . .

Placing his little son on the first step, the father says to his son, Jump, my son.

But what if I fall? asks his little boy.  Don't worry, says the father.  I'll catch you.

So the little son, gathering all his courage, jumps from the first step and his father catches him.

Placing his little son on the second step, the father says to his son, Jump, my son.

But what if I fall? asks his little boy.  Don't worry, says the father.  I'll catch you.

So the little son, gathering all his courage, jumps from the second step and his father catches him.

Placing his little son on the third step, the father says to his son, Jump, my son.

But what if I fall? asks the little boy.  Don't worry, says the father.  I'll catch you.

So the little son, gathering all his courage, jumps from the third step and his father does not catch him.

The little boy falls and starts crying.  But why didn't you catch me, Father? the little boy sobs.

The father replies, That will teach you never to trust anybody, not even your father.

BOSTON HARBOR WALK ON A SUNNY MONDAY AFTERNOON IN OCTOBER

Newton ladies better known as the Walking Group gather at the JFK library to experience the wonders of the Boston Harbor Walk.

There they find the story of the Fisherman and his Wife, partially retold,

and the fisherman without his wife,

the upstarts better known as the (original) Boston Tea Party,

  & bayberry bushes, bearing the waxy berries, blue in color, with which the colonists made candles.

Beyond the pleasures of the flora

and fauna

lay the half-submerged yellow submarine of Beatles fame (sans the Beatles, they hope), and with it

 the reminder that time and tide wait for no man (or woman, for that matter).  Hearing the siren call of Boston,

    they return to the realities of their world.
[Photo Credit, this photo only: Freefoto.com]

OCTOBER 22, 2011: EARTHQUAKE IN VAN, EASTERN TURKEY, KILLS HUNDREDS

Yesterday's internet news reported that "Sunday's earthquake and its aftershocks affected much of eastern Turkey, demolishing hundreds of buildings and burying numerous victims under the rubble. Erciş, (a town near Van) was hardest hit by the violent shaking; at least 55 destroyed buildings, 45 fatalities, and 156 injuries occurred in the town alone. . . The death toll stood at 264 people twenty-two hours after the main shock but as many as a thousand are feared dead. Multiple news reports suggest that up to 1300 are injured as a result of the earthquake with many still stuck under rubble."  Hundreds more fatalities have been reported since this report.

["The 1941 Van-Erciş earthquake occurred at 23:53 local time on 10 September. It had an estimated magnitude of 5.9 and a maximum intensity of VIII (Destructive) on the Mercalli intensity scale, causing 192 casualties.  . . . "Wikipedia]

Marash Girl cried when she heard the news of the lost lives and destruction that occurred on Sunday because of the earthquake in the  city of Van, once the center of a large flourishing Armenian community.

Marash Girl fears the fickleness of natural disasters -- how an earthquake or a tornado can take one building and leave the next intact, can kill one person, and leave the next. . .

But her greater fear is the fear of those disasters caused by mankind, disasters that take the lives of hundreds of thousands, of millions, disasters such as that which occurred in Van and Eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923.

FORGET THE SALT? FORGET THE POPOVERS!

In this age of cutting down on salt, it's very easy to forget adding the salt, especially since we think salt is only a flavor enhancer, added as a taste treat.  Little did Marash Girl know that salt was used for anything else, until her popovers didn't pop.  Here's what happened.  Visiting Staten Island Baby for the weekend, Marash Girl brought along her vintage popover pan (difficult to find them made of steel or cast iron, without the required by industry standard non-stick) and promised her cousin to make popovers for Sunday Breakfast.  And popovers she made.  In abundance.  She preheated the oven to 450 and began.

Batch #1. 1 cup whole milk, 1 cup unbleached white (wheat) flour, 2 eggs.  Ah . . . let's see . . . . . whoops!  It barely popped.  Why?  The eggs were fresh from the hen, and jumbo in size, eggs that Staten Island Baby had bought from the Farmer's Market the day before.  

Let's just make another batch, suggested Staten Island Baby.

Batch #2.  1 cup whole milk, 1 cup unbleached white (wheat) flour, 2 large eggs.  The popover pan was still hot from the previous batch.  Stir it up, divide the batter into 6 popover cups, and pop the pan into the 450 degree oven (which we reduced to 400 after 15 minutes, turning the pan around so that both sides got browned evenly).  Pop they did, a bit more, but still disappointing.  

Whatever could be the problem?  Could it be the altitude?  We were in Pittsfield, after all.  Oh, oh!  Marash Girl forgot to add the salt.  Could that have made the difference?  Oh,  yes, exclaimed Staten Island Baby.  Salt is a leavening agent!  Marash Girl had never heard that, and thought that salt was only for savor, but her cousin was definite about the matter.  Salt is a leavening agent.  Let's try it again with the salt, and with an already hot popover pan!!!

Popover experiment #3, this time with a dash of salt and a hot pan.  The result? Perfect popovers popped two times higher than the popover pan.  It always helps to have a scientist in the family!

By the way, if any of you have a cast iron popover pan for sale, or know of one, please let Marash Girl know.  She needs another one.  In keeping with the green movement, Marash Girl will save electricity and bake 12 popovers at a time rather than only 6, and everyone will be twice as happy!

GENERAL MILLS FAILS TO ANSWER CONSUMER QUESTIONS

An hour early for Hendrickson's presentation on Ernest Hemingway at the JFK Library (see Marash Girl's blog post on Hemingway's Boat), Marash Girl was hoping that the man across the way would offer her a page or two from his newspaper, and he did (with an apology that it was the paper from the day before).  Among the many articles in his Wall Street Journal of October 11, 2011, was an article by Julie Jargon on General Mills' efforts to reduce the sugar content in cereals. The article noted that not only do kids' cereals "need to taste sweet enough to keep kids clamoring, they have to float in milk for at least three minutes."  Julie goes on to note that John Mendesh, vice president of R&D for the General Mills' Big G cereal division, stated, "If we just took the sugar out, you wouldn't want to eat the product left behind."  Further, removing too much sugar would cause the cereal to be unable to float.  Marash Girl wondered why.

She asked Marash Boy (more scientist than she) who suggested she go to the source to find the answer, and so Marash Girl dutifully called General Mills (as you can at 1-800-446-1898 ). A customer representative answered the phone, a representative who knew nothing about the article in the Wall Street Journal.  "General Mills has 100,000 employees.  Do you think they're going to tell every customer service representative that there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about them?" commented the representative to Marash Girl.  Well, Marash Girl would certainly hope so!  Especially with the convenience of email, every customer service representative at General Mills not only should have known about the article in the Wall Street Journal, but should have been able to respond to the customer calling to inquire, in this case, Marash Girl.  The representative continued.  "I know nothing about the article or the issue."  "Well," asked Marash Girl, "could you please have someone who does know about it return my call?"  The General Mills customer representative assured Marash Girl that it was unlikely anybody would return her call, much less be willing to answer her question.  He was right.  It has now been 12 days since Marash Girl called General Mills and there has been no response from General Mills by phone or by email.  So Marash Girl has resorted, once again, to those nearest and dearest, her scientist friends.  Though most of them explained in scientific terms why reducing the sugar would eventually prevent the cereal from floating, only one, Marash Girl's cousin, Staten Island Baby, could explain the phenomenon in lay language.  Here's what she said.

"It has to do with weight and volume and density. Which is heavier - the cereal or the milk?  Think of it as a person trying to float on water. If you are upright and trying to float, you have to move to stay afloat.  If you are in a prone position, you body weight is distributed over a greater area of water and you float.  The cereal cannot tread water so the weight of each flake or piece needs to be lower than the area of milk it covers.  Sugar weighs less than wheat or corn so the greater the volume of sugar, the easier to float.  Puffed cereal floats easily because of the density - less dense than non-puffed cereal."  Staten Island Baby added that it had been years since she studied biochemistry, and therefore her explanation may not be quite up to snuff.

A shame that the General Mills folks couldn't take time from their busy day to answer the concern of a consumer (now a non-consumer) of General Mills products.

And why do cereals need to float anyway?  Marash Girl will not take the time to call General Mills with that question!  She already knows that  General Mills will not return the call!

So now that we have a partial answer, Marash Girl would like to ask General Mills and her readership, Why is it so important that cereals float?  Will anyone answer her?

Claflin School, David Seeley and Hydrophillic Cereal

All this talk about hydrophillic and hydrophobic reminds Marash Girl of David Seeley, (yes, he rears his head again in this blog!) Marash Girl's classmate for 7 years at Claflin School in Newtonville, Massachusetts.  In 6th grade, their teacher, Miss Tobin, assigned them each the task of writing an advertisement.  Although Marash Girl does not remember what she wrote, she still remembers David Seeley's advertisement.  It went like this:

"Try Soggie Woggies.  The new breakfast cereal.  It doesn't snap, crackle, and pop.  It just sits there and soaks up the milk."  As always, David Seeley had the class howling with laughter, and Miss Tobin ready to throw David out of the classroom into the hall!

Now knowing what we know about hydrophobic and hydrophillic foods, (see yesterday's blog on Grapenuts), we know that Soggie Woggies must have had very little sugar, if any, (whoops, that's getting ahead to the next blog) -- we know that Soggie Woggies, the new breakfast cereal, was hydrophillic, as most carbohydrates are!  Marash Girl wonders if David Seeley knew that.  Or if Miss Tobin knew, for that matter!

Are your Grapenuts still crunchy? Wanna know why? Read on!

The other day, Marash Boy decided he wanted to have old-fashioned Grapenuts for breakfast, a change from the even more old-fashioned toast, eggs and cheese he had been eating for the past week.  After pouring Grapenuts into his bowl, Marash Boy reached into the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of milk, and poured the milk over his cereal.  He did the same for Marash Girl.  Marash Girl added sliced bananas and strawberries.  As they began to eat, they both paused, looked at each other, and asked, "Has Post changed the recipe?"  The bowl of Grapenuts had very quickly turned from crunchy nutty to squishy soft.  "Now why would that be?" they asked each other, and Marash Boy, scientist that he is, decided that it could be the milk, for after checking the carton, he noticed that the milk they had used had only 1% fat content.  "Let's try it with 'whole' milk tomorrow, like we used to, and see what happens," and that very day, Marash Boy went to the market and bought 'whole' milk.

Next morning, after pouring the Grapenuts into his bowl, Marash Boy reached into the refrigerator, grabbed the carton of 'whole milk', and poured the milk over his cereal.  He did the same for Marash Girl.  Marash Girl added sliced bananas and strawberries.  As they began to eat, they both paused, looked at each other, and asked, "How can that be?" because these Grapenuts were not soggy; rather, the Grapenuts were crunchy, just as Marash Boy and Marash Girl remembered them from years earlier.  Marash Boy surmised, "It must have to do with the higher fat content in the 'whole milk'."  When their scientist daughter came to visit that afternoon, she learned of her parents' experiment.  "Oh, you know," she said, "that almost all compounds are either 'hydrophilic' ('water-loving') or 'hydrophobic' ('water-fearing'); because fat is hydrophobic and carbohydrates (in this case, the Grapenuts) are hydrophillic, the milk with the higher fat content could not penetrate the surface of the Grapenuts as quickly as the milk with only 1% fat. . . That's just a guess."  A pretty good one, I'd say.

Who knew?

IMAGES & IMPRESSIONS OF OCCUPY BOSTON

Visiting Blogger Barley Jim contributes the following

Images and impressions of OCCUPY BOSTON

Big, open to all, politeness everywhere with the occasional "call and repetition" communication, very counter cultural but very white, the youth predominate with more than a few of us gray beards though much fewer were those of middle years:

a women in a long hand made denim dress blowing bubbles
a young man in a handsome wool Ukrainian Army greatcoat picking up trash
a young mother, toddler in hand, slinged baby suckling under her red sweater
a suburban mother with her teenage daughter in for living history
a few requests for cigarettes
bored police  sentries and even a fire marshal
more than a few of our "brethren of the streets" sojourning one more stop in the transitional housing process

I brought a donation of medical supplies; however, the authorities would not permit the presence of my box of insulin syringes

Politically diffuse with simple signs all about, a medical tent, small groups in quiet discussion, the more technologically inclined attempting to communicate with all the world

Spiritually diverse, energetic dancers under a large sukkat, quiet Methodists holding signs requesting social justice, a nicely decorated meditation tent

A kitchen area awash in aging apples and aged out butternut squash, an Asian woman looking for any of the "good cranberry nut rolls" (Iggy's?) to take home

I sat alone on the make do stage area, the embankment of a tunnel ventilation building, and looked to my right viewing an old five story brick building squeezed between much larger structures.  Though built generations before my youth in the 50's, a time when this type and scale would still predominate and when beneath my feet the original Dewey Square tunnel, a seven million dollar tunnel at that time one of the widest in the world, was being built to carry Packards at a 35 mph speed limit and now is incorporated in the Big Dig to service far speedier Subarus.

How long will the human and financial energy that birthed and is maintaining this neo Hooverville be able to tolerate the non contributing energy of both voyeurs (LIKE ME) and the homeless?  Is this concreted utopian patch too generous, too open, too accepting, too trusting and too loving to continue????

Written West of Occupied Boston

Invasive Zebra Mussel Threatens Massachusetts Aquatic Wildlife

This sign gave Marash Girl pause on Saturday when she stopped at the McDonald's on the Massachusetts Turnpike going west, just before the Lee Exit.  Curious, rather than calling the number on the sign (her cell phone doesn't get reception in the mountains), she asked her cousin, Staten Island Baby, exactly what the threat was.  It seems that the tiny Zebra Mussel (so called for its striped shell) is taking over Massachusetts fresh water rivers and lakes and using up the food supply that would otherwise be sustaining native species.  Staten Island Baby reports that "Zebra Mussels attach themselves to hard surfaces including boats and water intake pipes and also to crayfish, turtles, and native mollusks.  They are an invasive species and threaten native wildlife and upset ecosystems. Communities have spent millions of dollars trying to stop the invasion."  According to NationalAtlas.gov, the Zebra Mussel is native to Poland, the Balkans and Russia, and "first appeared in North America in 1988 in Lake St. Clair, a small water body connecting Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Biologists believe the zebra mussels were picked up in a freshwater European port in the ballast water of a ship and were later discharged into the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair."  Why does the small mollusk pose a threat to our native wildlife and ecosystems? It appears that a "female zebra mussel begins to reproduce at 2 years of age, and produces between 30,000 and 1 million eggs per year" which translates into the fact that a colony of Zebra Mussels "may be filtering all the water in a lake or stream in a day,"  thus depriving native species of the nutrients they need for sustenance.  So if you're a boat owner, call the number given on the sign above, or simply wash the bottom of your boat before you move from one body of water to the next, and if you're not a boat owner, spread the word, because, after all, who knew?

Leaf Peeping in the Berkshires & the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

Driving west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, autumn was barely visible, but our weekend hosts promised us that we would see color once we arrived in the Berkshires, and to ensure leaf peeping success, they drove us north to Williamstown!

The fields were ablaze with color, especially the fields belonging to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (better known as the Clark) in Williamstown, Massachusetts!  Had we known that the Museum not only housed magnificent paintings and sculptures, but owned over 100 acres of fields and forests riddled with trails, we would have planned to view the color that nature provided rather than the frames of color hanging on the walls of the museum.

Entering the museum, to our joy, we learned that from October 11 through May 31, admission is free, and, to our sorrow, we discovered that we had just missed the Pissarro Exhibit (see below).

Nonetheless, the museum held many surprises, among them the two paintings you see below by Winslow Homer.

Undertow

Saco Bay

Even Degas' Ballet Dancer was not enough to hold the interest of their consorts as the women 
browsed through the room of antique silver.

The Funnies (Funny Papers), Comic Strips, and Learning to Read

Known as today as the comics, Marash Girl's dad knew them as the funnies.  He would come home from work, exhausted, and after supper (he called it supper, even though it was a weekday), still at the table, before reading the tough stuff, he would turn to the page of  black and white funnies (usually 4 frames per episode) in Boston's daily, the Boston Traveler, Evening Edition. Terry and the Pirates (remember the Dragon Lady and the chicken that always ate the buttons that popped off of whose shirt was it?), Blondie (and Dagwood -- the Mashed Potato Sandwiches and the one day Dagwood, sick of Mashed Potato Sandwiches, threw away what turned out to be a Roast Beef Sandwich), Little Orphan Annie (and Daddy Warbucks and her dog Sandy - "Arf!") . . . those were Marash Girl's favorites, and, possibly her dad's.  That was way before Peanuts came to the fore.  

As a little girl, Marash Girl always wanted her dad to read the funnies to her, but looking at the strip of images he would say, "This man says Hello, and that one says Goodbye, Hello Goodbye!"  Well, Marash Girl knew from the images that more than Hello Goodbye was going on, and would beg her dad to unlock the secrets that the pictures and print suggested, but her dad held firm, and said, "Well, you'll have to learn to read, to read them!"  Although he expressed the opposite of today's methods of how to encourage a child to read, his method worked (thanks be to God!), and though not the funnies, Marash Girl is still reading (and writing) to this day.

Fireflies, Brooklyn, New York, 1950's

Photo Credit:  Weber Street Photography

Fireflies on E. 15th Street, Brooklyn, New York.

When Marash Girl lived in Manhattan, she would often visit her Great Uncle Manoog and her Brooklyn cousins by taking the BMT (Brooklyn Manhattan Transit) to E.16th Street and Avenue U, where, getting off the train,  she descended the steep stairway and walked two blocks to her cousins' two floor brick home on E.15th Street (behind which the BMT roared both day and night). It was good times at Uncle Manoog's house who made his own red wine and always shared the brew with his guests. Uncle Manoog was first cousin to Marash Girl's grandfather Movses, (and delighted in reminding the family that unlike his cousin, he had never removed the 'j' from the ....jian of his last name!)  Uncle Manoog and Aunty Lucia lived with Uncle Tony, Aunty Mary and Marash Girl's cousins, young Mary and Jeannie, in the heart of Brooklyn, New York.  It was there that, as a young girl, Marash Girl first became intimately acquainted with fireflies.  This is what happened.  One day, cousin Richie Koumruian (whose mother Auntie Gohar, born in Marash, was the daughter of  Great Uncle Manoog and Great Auntie Lucia) visited from the Bronx.  (Richie and his mom lived at 1645 Paulding Avenue in the Bronx -- yes, Marash Girl still remembers!)  As night descended, and darkness began to take over the Brooklyn streets, Cousin Richie began catching fireflies in a Mason jar, fascinating his young cousin.  (He offered to let young Marash Girl try to catch a firefly.  A bit shy, try she did, surprising herself by actually adding to Cousin Richie's collection.) When he had filled the bottle with fireflies, he invited Marash Girl to join him as he walked around the now dark neighborhood, carrying the jar of fireflies to light his way.   

It was only later in life that Marash Girl learned that fireflies light up to attract their mates.  Perhaps we humans light up as well, but thankfully there are no giants out there collecting us into a bottle to light up their nights

Cingirdakli Hoca : "I know hypocrisy when I see it."

Marash Girl's Hayastantsi friend was telling her about his classmate who searched for years for the perfect wife; his classmate wanted a woman who was devout, who was holy.  He finally found her and married her.

"And then what happened?" Marash Girl asked.

Nonplussed by the question, her guest answered, "My friends had two children and lived happily ever after."

Marash girl was relieved, because she had grown up with the story of Cingirdakli Hoca (Jungur Dakla Hodja),  a story from the depths of her childhood.  Late at night, from the darkness of her bedroom, she would hear the old folks talking in their multiple languages, laughing at the jokes from the old country, and crying at the loss they had experienced in that country.

A story that was a favorite, repeated often enough so that to this day, Marash Girl remembers, was the fable of Jungur Dakla Hodja.  It goes like this.

A faithful young Muslim man, wanting to marry, looked for years for a devout woman to be his wife.  He finally found her.  She was so holy that she would veil herself whenever she was anywhere that a man might see her face, even in her own home.  She was so holy that when she went out on the back balcony, she would veil herself so that male birds would not chance to see her face.  The young man was joyous; he had found the perfect wife.

One day he had to travel to a distant land for business.  He was so in love with his wife that he wanted to return to her as soon as possible, and so he shortened his trip by a day.  Arriving home late at night, filled with happiness to be reunited with his wife, he entered his boudoir only to find his wife in bed with another man.  He could not bear it.  He quietly left the house, saddled his horse, and kept traveling until he reached Istanbul, two days distant.

As he rode into the city, he noticed a holy man, a Hodja, who was walking barefoot with bells on his ankles and toes.  Curious, he asked a passerby why the Hodja was wearing bells on his ankles and toes.  Oh, said the local, that is our holiest of holies, Cingirdakli Hoca (Jungur Dakla Hodja).  He is so holy that he wears bells on his ankles and toes to alert the little bugs and ants to his foot fall so that they will have time to scurry out of his path before he might step on them and hurt or kill them.  He is so holy that he doesn't even want to harm an ant.  Registering this information, the sad young man traveled on, and soon was surrounded by the gendarmes of the town.  "You are under arrest," they announced, grabbing him from his horse.  "But why?" he asked.  "A wealthy home in this town has been robbed of its gold and jewels and you are the only person who could have done it; no one else in this town would steal from their neighbor," replied the gendarmes.  They dragged him to the jailhouse in preparation to imprison him, and began questioning him as to where he had hidden the jewels. 

When the young man replied, "The jewels are in the home of Cingirdakli Hoca (Jungur Dakla Hodja)," the angered gendarmes cried out, "But that could not be," the gendarmes. "He is the Holiest of Holies.  The Sultan will hang you for hsuch blasphemy!"

The gendarmes hastened the young man to the Sultan. 

"You will be put to death for your blasphemy, young man," commanded the Sultan.

"Wait," the young man insisted.   "Just go to the Hoca's (Hodja's) home and you will find the jewels."

The Sultan agreed, and ordered the gendarmes to return the young man to prison while the gendarmes searched the home of Jungur Dakla Hodja.  Indeed, as the reader may have guessed by now, the gendarmes found the gold and jewels hidden in the home of Cingirdakli Hoca (Jungur Dakla Hodja).  Amazed and horrified, the gendarmes returned the prisoner to the Sultan who asked the young man,  "But how did you know?"

The young man answered with sorrow, "Hah Avratum, Hah Cingirdakli Hoca (Jungur Dakla Hodja)."

(Roughly translated: My wife, Jungur Dakla Hodja, it's the same thing.)

Noah's Ark, the beginning of Armenian history

For kids, Noah's Ark means fun, a boat full of animals, a rainbow, new hope.

The Noah's Ark Thrift Shop, Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Photo Credit: Marash Girl

For Cape Codders, Noah's Ark means a resale shop full of wonderful buys, (toy animals included), but for Armenians, Noah's Ark is the beginning of Armenian History.  You know the verse from the Bible, at the beginning of Genesis, Chapter 8: "But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had abated; and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat." (Genesis 8:1-4 RSV)

Armenia:  Mt. Ararat with Massis in the background. Detail from 18th Century French Copperplate Print
Photo Credit: Marash Girl

Hemingway's Boat: Ernest Hemingway, Paul Hendrickson & WBUR's Scott Simon at the JFK Library

Paul Hendrickson, Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 Knopf Doubleday, 2011

Last night, at Boston's JFK Presidential Library and Museum, talking on stage with WBUR's Scott Simon,  Paul Hendrickson discussed his new book, Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961.  In this biography, Ernest Hemingway’s long relationship with his beloved boat, Pilar, becomes the vehicle through which Hendrickson tells the story of Hemingway's life. But Scott Simon, after asking Hendrickson about his boat Pilar (Hemingway's fifth 'wife'), asked about Hemingway's relationship with his sons.  From there on in, the discussion focused on Hemingway's youngest son, Gigi.

Last night we learned a lot, but as Hendrickson said about his reading of Hemingway's fishing logs, we felt more than we learned, and what Marash Girl felt was that the presenter was unable to face the facts that he presented.  (Can't believe that Marash Girl is challenging such a distinguished authority!)  Hendrickson was obsessed with not only the tragedy of Ernest Hemingway's life (as evidenced in the title of this recently published biography), but the tragedy of Hemingway's youngest son Gregory (nicknamed by Papa Hemingway Gigi with a hard 'g'), the tragedy of Gigi's life.  Spending more than half of his lecture on the minute details of Gigi's struggle with  sexual identity and eventual sex reassignment surgery,  Hendrickson suggested that Gigi was acting out what Gigi's father (Ernest Hemingway) really wanted to be.  The facts that Hendrickson presented told another story.

"It's so obvious that Gigi wanted to be loved by his father, and chose to be what his father loved.  And what did his father love?  Women," Marash Girl commented to her neighbor.

"Go up to the mike and tell the author that," encouraged her neighbor, but Marash Girl, not having the courage to go up to the microphone and challenge the esteemed author before an audience of hundreds, chose to challenge the author on this blog.

Walking to the parking lot, Marash Girl overheard one gentleman commenting, "I do wish Hendrickson had told us something about Hemingway's other two sons."  I guess that gentleman will have to read the book!

Paul Hendrickson (left) and Scott Simon discuss Hendrickson's book, HEMINGWAY'S BOAT at the JFK Library, October 14, 2011  Photo Credit:  Marash Girl

                

N.B.  The Ernest Hemingway Collection of papers, including Hemingway's fishing logs, are housed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

OCCUPY BOSTON: Boston Police Protect Grass, Not Free Speech

Having coffee yesterday morning with her Hayastantsi friend, Marash Girl was interrupted by a telephone call from New York City.  It was Marash Girl's son, calling her attention to the alarming treatment of the Occupy Boston protestors by the Boston Police.  [Occupy Boston has been camped out at Dewey Square, the beginning of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, opposite South Station for several weeks in support of Occupy Wall Street.]  Marash Girl's son read the newspaper report aloud and begged Marash Girl to go in to Boston to report on the situation, but Marash Girl was working yesterday and could not go into Boston.  She could, however, read the newspapers and listen to WBUR.

And this is what she learned. 100 Occupy Boston protestors, both young and old, were roughed up by the Boston police as they were being arrested yesterday.  Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino's response?  Menino "agrees" with the protestors on the issues but says they can’t be allowed to “tie up the city.”  Marash Girl's son asks, "How is camping in Dewey Square or on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in any way tying up or disrupting the city? If the protesters were blocking the entrance to South Station or the subway entrance or lying in the middle of Atlantic Avenue, I can understand the need to stop such behavior.  But sitting in Dewey Square and the Rose Kennedy Greenway in no way ties up the city of Boston.  Really, Mr. Mayor . . ."

"The city is protecting grass, not free speech," commented one Occupy Boston protestor.

Marash Girl wonders what Rose Kennedy would have said had she known of the arrests of Occupy Boston protestors as they were exercising their right of free speech, protesting injustice on her Greenway, their tents, clothing, and cameras, thrown into dumpsters.

Coyotes Beautify Newton

Are coyotes making a comeback?  This was the question Marash Girl asked herself as she read the article in the Newton Patch concerning residents' fear of coyotes.  Marash Girl has a fondness for coyotes.  They dare to brave the tar and cement of the world that continues to destroy their habitat.  Coyotes never bothered Marash Girl in Wilbraham.  In fact, after sunset,  they often sang to her family.  Marash Girl (this sounds strange, right?) had conversations with them, calling back in their own language at first, and then telling them (in English) that she did not want them visiting that evening.  And they understood, because after five minutes of conversation, they quieted and settled in for the night, never approaching. Their lair, somewhere in the mountains and rocks beyond the cabin on top of Wilbraham Mountain, had indeed allowed them to survive by receding  to the edge of civilization, as it were, to what was left of the wilderness in Wilbraham, Massachusetts.  The suburbs had reached the perimeter of Marash Boy's family land and was forced to stop there by 100 acres of 'Marash' land, and more of Wilbraham Conservation Land.  Hopefully, the June 1 tornado left the coyotes and their lair intact.

N.B. It is interesting to note that coyotes figure large in traditional Navajo life.   "It will avail nothing to be angry with Coyote, wrath words and loud commands will not influence him." http://www.twinrocks.com/legends/44-coyote-of-navajo-mythology.html

Preparing Dinner for 10? Hungry? Yapan Yemez!

Marash Girl's mother-in-law, an Armenian woman who survived the genocide, taught Marash Girl much, as mother-in-laws are wont to do, and often with the simple expressions that she had carried with her from Marash.  One of her oft-repeated aphorisms was, (upon sitting down at the dinner table), "Yapan yemez," which means in English,  "The person who makes it doesn't eat it."  Now why is that? Marash Girl often wondered, until one day she found herself sitting down for dinner with no appetite and saying those very words:  "Yapan yemez!"  As with all such expressions, the phrase has multiple meanings, and is often meant to be humorous or ironic.

Why does the person who makes it not eat it?

1)  The cook has been 'tasting' the meal while preparing it, to correct the seasonings, or simply to fend off hunger! (Marash Girl's situation last night!)

2)  The cook knows what went into the dish and it turns her/his stomach to even think of eating it!

3)  The cook hates eggplant, but the rest of the family loves it.

4)  There was not enough to go around, so the cook made do with bread or leftovers while preparing the meal for the family and guests.

5)  There was very little food, and the cook (if the cook is a member of the family), wants everybody to eat their fill before s/he eats the leftovers while s/he cleans up in the kitchen.

Please contribute your thoughts as to the possible meaning of the expression 'yapan yemez' in your comment below!

Finding Zabel Yessayan [Esayean, Yesayan]

Yesterday, Marash Girl attended the showing of FINDING ZABEL YESAYAN, a 45 minute 'film' which was presented at the Arlington Film Festival.  To call it a film was a stretch, as it appeared to be a roughly put together series of interviews of individuals who knew the author personally, who knew of the author, who were related to the author, or who would read from her letters or her works. The only clear and technically acceptable part of the film was the interview with Prof. Mark Nishanian.  Most of the production was in Armenian with (tiny) English subtitles.  But the presentation did its job.  It raised our consciousness.  We all left wanting to know more about this early 20th Century woman writer, Zabel Yessayan.

Zabel Yessayan-Photo Credit: AIWA

Who is Zabel Yessayan?  Very few of Marash Girl's friends knew of this woman writer, but Marash Girl had copies of her book, Gardens of Silihdar, for sale and so she knew, at the very least, that Zabel was a late 19th, early 20th century writer.  What she did not know was that Zabel had narrowly escaped being arrested [she was the only woman on the list of Armenian intellectuals condemned to be hanged for their writing by the Ottoman officials in 1915], that she had fled Istanbul, escaped into Bulgaria thus saving her life.  By 1916 and 1917, she had moved to Tiflis and Baku where she painstakingly recorded the near-death experiences of Armenian Genocide survivors.  Caught up with the Soviet Communist ideology of advocating for the downtrodden of society,  she moved to Hayasdan (Soviet Armenia).  At first able to continue her intellectual and writing pursuits, (actually a member of the Soviet Writers Union), she was to be arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately murdered (in 1942) by the Stalin regime . . . a heartbreaking ending to a life of which few people (and few American Armenians) know.  One of the few of Yessayan's books that was translated into English, the Gardens of Silihdar is difficult to find, (1) because it is out of print in English and there are very few copies available, and (2) the author's name is spelled and transliterated in many different ways.  Even NAASR no longer has the book. Nobody had the book, but OldCornerBooks.com has nine copies of the Zabel Yessayan's Gardens of Silihdar for sale, so if you are interested, give a shout or simply click the link! 

Yessayan, Zabel, translated from the Armenian by Ara Baliozian,

Gardens of Silihdar - Extracts from Phony Geniuses, Shirt of Fire, Prometheus Unchained. Ashod Press, 1982. First printing in English. 104 pp includes index. Paperback. BRAND NEW. Trade Quality Paperback. Here for the first time the English reader is given an opportunity to apprecaite the art of Zabel Yessayan, little known outside of the Armenian community, though an outspoken writer of her time; she wrote in Armenian in the early 20th Century. Available from OldCornerBooks.com.

WBUR, Wicked Good Words and Auntie Nouritza

Wicked Good Words: From Johnnycakes to Jug Handles, a Roundup of America's ...By Mim Harrison

Sometime in September, WBUR interviewed (by phone) the author of the recently published book, WICKED GOOD WORDS, a book recording the regional use of words and expressions in the United States.  (Yes, we thought that with television, regionalisms would have gone "out the window", to use a regional expression!)  Marash Girl was pleased to recognize those expressions that were unique to New England.  (Rather, I should say that Marash Girl would have been ashamed not to recognize those expressions, as Marash Girl has lived in New England almost all of her life!)  She was so intrigued with the interview that she purchased the book and immediately began to read it.  Unfortunately Marash Girl left her copy of WICKED GOOD WORDS on an end table in Chatham without having finished reading the book.  Now all she has to rely on while writing this blog is her memory, so here goes.  

For Marash Girl, the two most intriguing expressions from New England were "package store" and "mooncusser".  Do you know what either of these expressions mean, or the history behind them?

Package Store:  No, in New England, this is NOT a UPS store.  Read on . . . After prohibition, because there was still a social stigma attached to drinking alcohol, folks were reluctant to have it known that they were purchasing even wine.  Thus men would head out the door, calling behind them, "I'm going to the package store!" and the obliging New England liquor stores would package up the alcohol -- be it wine, whiskey, or beer -- in plain paper wrapping, making honest men of the drinking New Englanders!

Mooncusser:  During the 18th and 19th Century, on dark nights along the rocky coast of New England, land pirates would head out to the beach (the rocky beach, that is) with lanterns to lure ships onto the rocks into certain destruction, and then, once the ships crashed onto the wrocks, he pirates would pillage the goods that the shipwrecks were carrying.  If the moon was out that night, the pirates could not commit their dark deed and therefore  they would cuss, or swear at,  the moon; hence the New England land pirate came to be known as a mooncusser.

Going beyond New England to Texas and Louisiana, Marash Girl found the expression "dirty rice".

"Dirty rice. A Cajun rice dish that involves chicken gizzards, and therefore gives the rice a brownish tinge.  That's your so-called dirt." (from Wicked Good Words)

The definition immediately brought to mind Auntie Nouritza, Marash Girl's mother-in-law's sister!  Marash Girl prided herself on making pilaf like her own mother (who was an Aintabtsi -- see earlier blogs on Aintab), but Auntie Nouritza prided herself on making pilaf that was pure white.  What was the difference?  Marash Girl made pilaf using turkey or chicken broth rather than water for the required liquid.  Then a young bride, Marash Girl proudly carried her freshly prepared pilaf to the table, perfect it was in flavor and color, only to have her new mother-in-law's eldest sister dismiss the pilaf with the words, Kirli Pilaf (Dirty Rice)!  Tough words for a new bride to hear!

If you want the Marash Girl's recipe for "Kirli" pilaf, please comment below, and Marash Girl may deign to share it with you!

ARMENIANS GRIEVE STEVE JOBS' PASSING

According to the Arab language website Khabararmani.com, Steve Jobs was raised by an Armenian mother and American father, and spoke Armenian & Arabic fluently.  Jobs, who was born in San Francisco, was adopted by Paul Jobs and Clara Hagopian Jobs.  Today's Zaman.com states that Jobs' adoptive mother was born of an Armenian family who immigrated to the United States from Malatya, Ottoman Empire. 

The soon to be published book on Steve Jobs' life, STEVE JOBS: A BIOGRAPHY by Walter Isaacson, reportedly says that Clara Hagopian Jobs' father, Louis Hagopian, was born in Malatya in 1894 and her mother Victoria Artinian was born in İzmir in 1894.  The biography, which according to TodaysZaman.com, is the result of 40 interviews with Steve Jobs & Jobs' family members over a period of two years, indicates that Steve Jobs' adoptive maternal family were survivors of the early 20th Century Armenian Genocide.

OCCUPY WALL STREET JOINED BY LABOR UNIONS

The following account is from an eye witness who lives and works in the Financial District, New York City:

On 10/5, I had heard about an Occupy Wall Street protest march that was going to take place starting at 4:30pm.  I understood that it was to start at City Hall and head south along Broadway to Wall Street, a length of approximately ½ mile.  I figured it was going to be several hundred people marching.  Well, I was in for quite a surprise when I went to my monthly Community Board meeting at 6pm.  The Occupy Wall Street crowds, numbering in the thousands, massed in Foley Square (just north of city hall) and began marching from Foley Square to Wall Street, chanting as they made their way south of Foley Square.  According to the New York Times, the increase in participants in this Occupy Wall Street march was largely due to Labor Union support and turnout, including the Transport Workers Union, the Service Employees International Union, the United Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers.  I heard cries of “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” and “We are the 99%!"  For those Americans out there who were wondering when their fellow citizens were going to stand up against economic and political injustice, Occupy Wall Street might be the beginning. 

With the help of a police officer who got me past the barricade, I made my way through the line of marchers (five or six deep) and into the Community Board building.  A local press official, there to cover the meeting, remarked in the elevator ride up, that the march felt like mob rule.  I almost responded, “We have a long way to go before it gets to that."  Since when is orderly protest mob rule?

The police reported that 23 arrests were made during and after this Occupy Wall Street march.  Much less than the 700 arrests the previous Saturday (http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street.html#!/2011/10/occupy-wall-street.html and  http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-entrapment.html#!/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-entrapment.html).   Yet, what did the local television stations report on the 10/6 Morning News?  A headline of “Violent Protests” with clips of protesters being carried away by police officers.  From what I saw at the courthouse and areas immediately south, this was about as non-violent a protest as you can have with several thousand participants.  And certainly 23 arrests (as compared to the number on this past Saturday, see http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-entrapment.html#!/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-entrapment.html ) does not reflect violence in the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

AND FROM ANOTHER EYEWITNESS:

Last Night – some 20,000 people (Occupy Wall St., Teachers Unions, WTC Carpenters & Steelworkers Unions) gathered last night around Federal Court House in NYC, around Wall St. and the Park by One Liberty Plaza. There is a disconnect with what the media is reporting in regards to the violence and what I have witnessed personally, everything that I have seen so far has been very peaceful, reports Meghan D., who lives in Manhattan and works in the financial district.  Photo credit: http://media.talkingpointsmemo.com/slideshow/unions-join-occupy-wall-street?ref=fpblg