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Friday, December 27, 2019

Some really old (still true?) news from 100 years ago

The final verse of "Deck the Halls", omitting all the "Fa-la-las", goes "Fast away the old year passes.  Hail the new, ye lads and lasses, Sing we joyous all together, heedless of the wind and weather!"

The coming week is already the new year.  I enjoy the mysteries by Lee Strauss about Ginger Gold set in the 1920s.  In her blog, Strauss comments:
Can you believe that the 1920s are now officially 100 years ago? My grandfather was born in “the twenties” but now I guess we can no longer generalize like that. A brand new generation of people are soon to be born in “the twenties”. Boy do I feel old!
Speaking of the 1920s…

Ginger Gold Mystery #12!


Ginger Gold allows me to live vicariously in the 1920s through her, and I'm so happy about that. The 12th book is coming in January 2020. 
I've been looking back at the 1920s with my newest program, "High Times in the Dry Times" about Prohibition here in Michigan.  It looks primarily at how our two year head-start and location led to our providing 75% of the smuggled alcohol.  (While preparing it I thought that amount sounded high, but, if anything, it may be a bit low.)  A frequent reaction is how much the 1920s sound like today.  My reporter persona looks back from the mid-30s, so I have to let the audience draw their own conclusions.

Take a look at January 3, 1920.  Unfortunately it isn't easily scanned as even the full page size is not the clearest at Historical Newspapers, but the front page of the Detroit Free Press is packed with deportation, murder, banned substances (in 1920 it was alcohol), racial problems, multi-million dollar robbery, a D.U.I. caused car crash, factory explosion, world news, and more, including, yes, the wind and weather.




I hope you have fun with living vicariously in the 1920s, but suspect you may have celebrated the arrival 2020 with something that was illegal back then. 

I'm sure 2020 will have a lot of similar problems, but let's hope it also gives us reason to "Hail the new, ye lads and lasses, Sing we joyous all together" since there's not a lot we can do about the wind and weather.


Saturday, December 21, 2019

Aunt Hede - How the Fir Tree Became the Christmas Tree - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

 
Everybody keeps saying that Thanksgiving came at the latest possible time this year, making the time before Christmas extra short!  In keeping with that, here's a short easy to tell Christmas legend.  I told it at the Milford Garden Club as part of my Victorian Christmas program.  As the Hired Girl I told as if it was 1902.  (Read on for why that date should change to 1903.)  I tell how old Queen Victoria just barely made it into the new century, dying January 22, 1901.  Today's story was requested by an audience member.  I had originally found it in an anthology of public domain stories, but it only said the author was "Aunt Hede."  I found nothing about the mysterious "Aunt Hede", but searching everywhere I learned it was originally posted in Kindergarten Magazine, 1903!  If I had seen that I might have omitted it, but it clearly is for all ages.  I found it included in a great many Christmas anthologies convincing me there is no age limit for appreciating it.

My book starts with barely a paragraph on one page and the rest on the second page.  I could scan my book, but the sizing wouldn't be as well done as in this newsletter's front page from "The Chronicles of the Ontario County Historical Society Museum and Research Center" December 2016.


How the Fir Tree Became the Christmas Tree by Aunt Hede, in "“Kindergarten Magazine”, December 1903  

This is the story of how the fir tree became the Christmas tree. At the time when the Christ Child was born all the people, the animals, and the trees, and plants were very happy. The Child was born to bring peace and happiness to the whole world. People came daily to see the little One, and they always brought gifts with them. There were three trees standing near the crypt which saw the people, and they wished that they, too, might give presents to the Christ Child. The Palm said: "I will choose my most beautiful leaf, and place it as a fan over the Child." "And I," said the Olive, "will sprinkle sweet-smelling oil upon His head." "What can I give to the Child?" asked the Fir, who stood near. "You!" cried the others. "You have nothing to offer Him. Your needles would prick Him, and your tears are sticky." So the poor little Fir tree was very unhappy, and it said: "Yes, you are right. I have nothing to offer the Christ Child." Now, quite near the trees stood the Christmas Angel, who had heard all that the trees had said. The Angel was sorry for the Fir tree who was so lowly and without envy of the other trees. So, when it was dark, and the stars came out, he begged a few of the little stars to come down and rest upon the branches of the Fir tree. They did as the Christmas Angel asked, and the Fir tree shone suddenly with a beautiful light. And, at that very moment, the Christ Child opened His eyes—for He had been asleep—and as the lovely light fell upon Him. He smiled. Every year people keep the dear Christ Child's birthday by giving gifts to each other, and every year, in remembrance of His first birthday, the Christmas Angel places in every house a fir tree, also. Covered with starry candles it shines for the children as the stars shone for the Christ Child. The Fir tree was rewarded for its meekness, for to no other tree is it given to shine upon so many happy faces. 
 
May your own Christmas shine upon happy faces!
 *******************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  



At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-
  • There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
  • You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

    Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"
The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            
         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.
       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.
     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!
    Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.
You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Hale - The Peterkins' Christmas Tree - Keeping the Public in Public Domain


A lot of people have their Christmas tree up, but I'll bet that, no matter how much trouble it may have caused, it was nothing like today's story of "The Peterkins' Christmas Tree."

The illustration to the left comes from a website called Garden Therapy; Better Living Through Plants and the article there on "How to Make a Nine-Foot Grinch Tree" .  Of course that refers back to the Doctor Seuss story about How the Grinch Stole Christmas!  including that long tree which the Grinch's poor dog, Max, pulled up the mountain.  (The book's Wikipedia link gives some interesting inside views about it.)  If you go to the article on making one, you will see not only how to do it, but various versions of it.

My reason for muddying the storytelling waters here with a decidedly not Public Domain tale (even though it's become a major Christmas tradition in many formats) is the way it clearly touches the ceiling, a ceiling complete with the mitered corners put in place by a carpenter.

The Peterkins did precisely that, calling a carpenter to literally raise the roof -- or at least the ceiling -- to accommodate their tree.  Back on November 23rd I gave the first glimpse of the Peterkins with their story of "Why the Peterkins Had a Late Dinner."  I've never told that story, although maybe in the future I will.  Today's story, however, will once again be part of my Victorian Christmas program when I tell as the Hired Girl.  This year I've particularly had the program spotlight the botanical aspects of Christmas in my stories because I'm telling to a Garden Club, but this story is from 1880 and would have definitely been popular around the turn of the century when my Hired Girl persona would  look back on the way the holiday changed due to the influence of old Queen Victoria who barely made it into the 20th century by dying on January 22, 1901. 

I gave a hint of the Peterkins with their own Wikipedia article which said:
The Peterkins were a large family who were extremely intelligent, but didn't have a lick of common sense among them. Whenever they were confronted with a problem that had a simple solution and a complex one, they unerringly went for the complex one--the simple one never occurred to them. They were usually rescued by their neighbor, the Lady from Philadelphia, known for her wisdom; which usually amounted to the plain, commonsense solution that had been staring them in the face and which any normal person would have seized on immediately.
I also gave various links about the author and her famous relatives and ancestor, but if you have the least bit of curiosity look up the New England Historical Society article about Lucretia Hale's inspiration!  It's somewhat like Doctor Seuss (Theodore Geisel) confessing about his creation of the Grinch.  I find it's always fun to know how an author or any kind of artist lets something lead to a creative work.
I believe strongly in keeping these stories in the Public Domain, but also recognize they need people remembering them.  In the 1960s the book was republished and a whole new audience discovered them.  I've not seen Elizabeth Spurr's The Peterkins' Christmas, as a picture book illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin, but the book information says Spurr adapted it.  I've also just discovered the 11/23 posting of "Why the Peterkins Had a Late Dinner" has been similarly adapted by Spurr and Halperin as a "companion book", The Peterkins' Thanksgiving.   
********************** 
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  



At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-
  • There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
  • You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

    Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"
The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            
         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.
       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.
     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!
    Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.
You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Look Out! The Yule Lads Are Coming!

Sheep-cote Clod from Icelandic Store's Yule Lads figurines
If you're a triskaidekaphobe (fearing or hating the number 13 and, especially, Friday the 13th), this year's December, Friday the 13th, gives you a double reason to Look Out!  for the Yule Lads Are Coming!  They always start one at a time on the 12th, each joining his brothers, and continuing through Christmas, finally leaving one at a time through the 12 Days of Christmas.

Who are they?

They began as a 17th century tradition meant to keep children being good for Christmas.  It changed over time to 13 Santa-ish characters leaving small gifts and playing pranks. 

A storyteller I remember from back in the days of Flint Area Story Tellers, Stephanie Brewer, every year at this time would bring out little rustic troll figures and share the Icelandic tradition of the Yule Lads.  She's been gone, telling in the Great Beyond for several years now, but I've looked to find some of those troll figures for several years to share their story.  Hers were not the figurines sold for a set at $249 USD.  (Definitely beyond my budget.)  Thanks to the internet I now know much more, including a more affordable way to present them.  I searched  Wikipedia; the Icelandic promotional site called The Big Picture from Inspired by Iceland; an Icelandic online news magazine - ; an unusual blog called  Cryptoville.com; an archived webpage on poet Jóhannes úr Kötlum; his publisher Griffla's Facebook page; and Griffla's own webpage for Christmas Is Coming.

The Wikipedia article gives you a chart with each lad's characteristic and date of arrival and departure.  It also mentions something not in the poem, "Christmas Is Coming", the ancient tradition of the family having a huge, vicious Yule Cat who eats people not having new clothes for Christmas!  This is explained as a farmers' incentive "for their workers to finish processing the autumn wool before Christmas. The ones who took part in the work would be rewarded with new clothes, but those who did not would get nothing and thus would be preyed upon by the monstrous cat."  A milder form of activity is "merely eating away the food of ones without new clothes."   For more on the Yule Cat, including that illustration, go to Cryptoville.com's article on "Iceland's Killer Christmas Cat" including a poem all his own again by Jóhannes úr Kötlum.

I've finally found a way to tell about the Yule Lads using these illustrations from The Big Picture, which can be made larger and taken one at a time.
I've no idea who this modern artist was.  I did send off an email requesting permission to use their webpage.  I received an email from Inspired by Iceland that began
Takk fyrir skráninguna.

Við höfum móttekið beiðni þína.

Bestu kveðjur,
Inspired by Iceland
Fortunately that was followed by its English translation 
Thank you for being in touch with us.  Your inquiry has been 
received.  Best regards, Inspired by Iceland

Please note: this email was sent from a notification-only address 
that can't accept incoming emails. Please do not reply to this 
message. 

Copyright © 2019 Íslandsstofa, All rights reserved.

Íslandsstofa   

Sundagarðar 2  104 Reykjavik
Well!  I may need to take down the composite illustration here depending on what they require.  I hope not, but my telling about the Yule Lads now has an illustration for each individually. 

To be perfectly honest a story needs a plot and the poem doesn't have a lot.  In the 17th century it began as "Poem of Gryla" and was about their "hideous...mother of the gigantic Yule Lads who are a menace to children."  As often happens in really old folklore, bad children were eaten.  The King of Denmark objected to that.  Over time their characteristics changed, finally in 1932 the Icelandic poet, Jóhannes úr Kötlum, made a poem that has been a best selling book, Christmas Is Coming, for his publisher, Griffla, when it was translated into English by Hallberg Hallmundsson and illustrated by Tryggvi Magnússon.  Publishers aren't always willing to grant reprint rights, so for more information on Kötlum, Hallmundsson, and Magnússon go to Griffla's own webpage for Christmas Is Coming where you may order it or you can buy an e-book of the poem on Amazon.

The closest to a plot you receive in the poem we now have is that Gryla, their mother gives them "ogre milk", but Inspired by Iceland isn't afraid of the part that the Danish king rejected, saying
 She is a dreadful character, described as part troll and part animal and the mother of 13 precocious boys (the Yule Lads). Grýla lives in the mountains with her third husband, her thirteen children and a black cat. Every Christmas, Grýla and her sons come down from the mountains: Grýla in search of naughty children to boil in her cauldron and the boys in search of mischief. She can only capture children who misbehave but those who repent must be released.
and the father with the very Icelandic name of Leppaludi, described in the poem as a "loathsome ilk" (rhymes with that ogre milk) and described by Inspired by Iceland as not evil but lazy.  He also seems to have no other part in the story, so he seems to be an optional character.

As you can see, the story has changed over time.  The Reykjavík Grapevine summarizes it
Iceland’s leading authority on Christmas, Árni Björnsson, explains that folktales naturally change. “When the Yuletide lads are first mentioned in the 17th century, they are child-eating trolls,” he says. “Then two hundred years later, in the 19th century, they aren’t really trolls anymore, but they are still ugly. They don’t eat children, but they still steal food.” Then finally, in the 20th century, they are still mischievous, but they begin leaving small gifts for kids who put their shoe in the window.
There's more to the story behind the change, which the Grapevine does a great job of showing how it included a clash with the Christmas cultures of Denmark and Germany.

To catch the introductory section from Kötlum's poem before the Yule Lads appear, go to Archive.org and in the search box enter http://notendur.centrum.is/sjbokband/joh.html/yulelads00.html, then choose the year 2007, finally clicking on December 22.   You can also see and hear the original Jóhannes úr Kötlum poem on YouTube, complete with the book's original illustrations (even though it took a graphic from what I posted above).  Another way is on Griffla's Facebook page, if you scroll down to December 11, 2017, it gives you a Yule lad per day, just as they traditionally appear.


The librarian in me also loves the Icelandic tradition of the Christmas Book Flood ensuring a book for everyone to enjoy.  You may be sure I followed that tradition even though I didn't know it was also Icelandic!  My family should expect it by now.

Something else I hope you will join me in gifting is a small donation to Wikipedia and to Archive.org as they are a great resource we'd hate to lose.

This next week I'll be telling as the Hired Girl for a Victorian Christmas program, also my Michigan Prohibition program, High Times in the Dry Times, so enjoy celebrating the holidays in whatever way works for you.

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Some Fowl Talk and a True Story


Be warned today's story is definitely adult.

from https://www.countryfarm-lifestyles.com/raising-turkeys.html

No less an important an American than Benjamin Franklin said the turkey would be a better national bird than the eagle.  I'm not going to take sides in that debate although the National Wild Turkey Federation would probably agree with it as their motto is "Conserve, Hunt, Share."  I'm not a hunter, but wild turkeys have certainly made a comeback in my semi-rural Springfield Township home in Oakland County, Michigan.  I mentioned this to my yoga teacher who talked about the 14 birds having taken over her farm.  She pointed out that, since the turkeys were so successfully reintroduced to our area, the pheasants have disappeared.  Hmmm. 


Wikipedia notes the problem may be worse than that:

Human conflicts with wild turkeys

Turkeys have been known to be aggressive toward humans and pets in residential areas.[12] Wild turkeys have a social structure and pecking order and habituated turkeys may respond to humans and animals as they do to another turkey. Habituated turkeys may attempt to dominate or attack people that the birds view as subordinates.[13]
The town of Brookline, Massachusetts, recommends that citizens be aggressive toward the turkeys, take a step towards them, and not back down. Brookline officials have also recommended "making noise (clanging pots or other objects together); popping open an umbrella; shouting and waving your arms; squirting them with a hose; allowing your leashed dog to bark at them; and forcefully fending them off with a broom."[14]
Going on with that, while searching for an appropriate image to open today's story, I found the Country Farm Lifestyles article given in that caption link stated:
Raising turkeys is no different to keeping chickens, in fact, and in some ways turkeys are easier to raise. The one problem with turkeys is that they are big, ungainly birds with the larger breeds being so big that they cannot breed naturally. The males are so heavy that they find it difficult to mount the females successfully and the females often get scratched and injured after the many attempts.
There's a reason I include that information related to today's story.  Before I get to it, I ought to also include the Country Farm Lifestyles comment, "The good news is that there are smaller breeds of turkeys too, that have no trouble breeding, and If you want to keep turkeys on the farm as pets they live a long life. Many turkey breeds can live between 10 – 15 years."

I receive many newsletters from authors, including one from Ellen Byerrum.
I emailed Ellen back saying I made copies of the story she shared in it for each of the adults at our Thanksgiving table in case any discussions erupted in fights.  She emailed me that my idea made her night, considering it the highest compliment imaginable, and further saying "It was a most unusual story and I'm glad that people are enjoying it now"

(My own copy began with the heading "Turkeys: An Ergonomics Challenge", but the explanation I would have given orally is in the two paragraphs preceding the actual story.)
Thanksgiving, Turkeys & Reasons to Be Thankful
Some years ago, when I was reporting for a D.C. trade journal, I interviewed an ergonomist (a specialist in ergonomics) who described to me the worst job I can imagine. On a turkey farm. This job is just one small step, possibly the first, on the long road to getting that tasty roast turkey on your table for Thanksgiving dinner. On my job safety beat, I covered OSHA, workplace injuries and job-related stress and violence, and I regularly learned about horrible jobs. This is certainly in the top ten terrible jobs of all time. And I guarantee you, whether you're employed or not, and whatever it is you do for a living, you will be thankful you do not have this job.

My news article was never published. Anything that smacked of a smirk was frowned upon at this publication, and my editor said that although my story was fascinating, there was no way he would ever print it. Nevertheless, I always wanted it to see the light of day, beyond entertaining friends during cocktail hour. This story is rated PG 13, and it's about turkeys and how they ultimately get turned into dinner, so stop now, if you’re easily offended. Or a vegan. I will try to use euphemisms where I can.

Turkeys: An Ergonomics Challenge
Ergonomics is basically the science of fitting the workplace environment and equipment to the worker to maximize their comfort and safety. It’s not just about office chairs and keyboards, it can apply to any workplace, and ergonomic solutions can be very creative, as this informant of mine demonstrated. To preserve his privacy, I'll just call the ergonomist in this story "Ian."

On one of his first jobs after graduating with his shiny new degree, Ian was called in to address injuries suffered by women working at a turkey farm in Canada. The female workers reported chronic shoulder and wrist injuries. The stressful part of their job was holding the tom turkeys firmly with one arm, while with the other hand manually "encouraging" them to “donate” their sperm in order for the turkey hens to be artificially inseminated. It required a willing male turkey, a supple wrist and a little glass tube. The women's job title was probably something like "sperm collection technician." But what did these workers call themselves? TURKEY JERKERS. Well, duh, as they say.

So why do we need turkey jerkers? Why not just let the turkeys do what comes naturally, you may well ask? I asked that question too. According to Ian, apparently the toms are very aggressive in their mating, and they tend to scar the poor hens with their talons. Better to lend nature a helping hand. Ian also noted that the workers’ problems were exacerbated because---well, the tom turkeys really enjoyed this part of the process. So much so that after making their donations, they would line jump to take another turn with the turkey jerkers. But the second time, that tom would take much longer to deliver the desired results, if at all. Bad for productivity--and the wrists. (The turkeys didn't seem to mind.) There was no system to determine which turkeys had already had their fun for that day. And to make it worse, Ian said, the tom turkeys were huge, up to fifty pounds apiece, and very excitable, while most of the workers were petite Asian women. With sore shoulders and aching wrists.

Obviously, it was in the best interest of the employer and the workers (and the turkeys) to find a better way to do this job and keep these women from sustaining musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). After all, how many people, even in these recessionary times, are willing to do that job for a turkey? (“Not I,” said the little red hen.) And for the Washington, D.C., attorneys who argue that up is down and night is day, and there are no such things as work-related MSDs, just save it for the turkeys, guys. Okay?

Now, if I had ever thought about it, which I hadn’t, I would have assumed there was some high-tech machine that handled turkey sperm donation. For all I know, at present there may be some kind of space-age SpermGizmo that does the job. And I hesitate to consider what happens in the rest of the animal kingdom. We’ll leave that up to the Nature Channel. But these women at the turkey farm were doing it all by hand.

Ergonomic and Creative Solutions
Ian set out to find a solution. A couple of fixes to address the shoulder injuries seemed relatively easy. He had stands constructed so the big wiggly birds could rest on them, instead of the tiny women struggling to hold them up. He devised a labeling system--birds now wore colored rings around their necks to determine whether they had donated that day, so they could be separated from the rest of the turkeys waiting their turn.

But how to alleviate the wrist injuries? Ian put his mind to it and the light bulb clicked on. Remember, ergonomics is finding an effective solution to the problem, whatever it takes. He went to an adult “specialty” store, named something like the "Pink Pussycat," where everyone wore tight black leather outfits and showed a lot of bare flesh. Except Ian. He was wearing his best suit. He wasn’t there for posters of pretty hens to entice the toms. He asked for two dozen--let’s call them “personal massagers.” Needless to say, the sales clerk was impressed.

“Two dozen? What on earth are you going to use two dozen for?” the clerk wanted to know.

“Don’t ask,” Ian said.

“Oh! I see,” the clerk responded, as if he had a clue. “I’ve got to go in back.”

Ian heard some commotion in the back and the manager came out to meet this amazing customer. “Wow. We’ve never sold a case of these before,” he said. "You're gonna need batteries too. Use the Duracells, they last longer."

Ian returned to the farm with the massagers and distributed them to the workers. VoilaThe massagers “worked like a charm,” Ian said. The turkeys were happy. The turkey jerkers were happy. Mission accomplished. Until...

The turkey farm called him back one day. Their batteries were all dead. No problem, Ian said, just buy more batteries, keep them in stock. But the farm had a company policy, he was told. Batteries were considered part of an an employee theft problem. They wouldn't stock anything people might easily steal. When the farm's purchasing manager asked what they were used for, Ian explained.

“Oh my god! That will never do,” the manager said, and refused to okay the battery purchase. “I can’t expense these!"

Our intrepid ergonomist went back to work on the problem. And he headed back to the Pink Pussycat. The clerk remembered him well. He was a local legend. “You’re the dude who bought twenty-four [massagers]!” Ian explained they were working just fine, but they were running out of batteries. The clerk, in awe, asked him how long the massagers were being used at a time.

“About sixteen hours a day,” Ian said. "Don't ask."

The clerk was stunned. The manager was stunned. Ian asked if they had a comparable plug-in model with a long cord. They did. He bought two dozen of those.
They begged him to reveal what he was using all those massagers for. You gotta tell us, dude! Our resourceful ergonomist, however, kept his professional secret--and the turkeys' mystery. Finally the ergonomic challenges of turkey jerking had been solved. Human ingenuity saved the day (and the turkey jerkers' shoulders and wrists--and jobs).

In the course of my interview, Ian went on to tell me other stories, for example about ergonomics for strippers and poker players. But those are tales for another day.

* * * *
As it turned out, I never had the need to present the story.  The closest we came to a disagreement was one person, who shall not be named, but it wasn't my husband, saying this Saturday he'd prefer Ohio State beat the University of Michigan.  HMMPH!  My master's degree in library science came from U. of M., but at least I am willing to let Michigan State University do well if the "Maize and Blue" has a bad season.  Only once a year my husband and I root for different Michigan football teams.

Ms. Byerrum writes, among other things, cozy mysteries and I freely admit I'm not a fan of the trend where cozy mysteries feature food and even include recipes.  When I read I prefer not to have the story encourage me to eat.  That said, it's good that our Thanksgiving didn't require her book, Recipes for Disaster.
May the coming month of holidays avoid all Recipes for Disaster in your life with the possible exception of stories.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Thanksgiving NOT Turkey Day + Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Next week is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. and I trust, no matter how bad things may have been, you can find something or someone giving you a reason to be thankful.  Even the process for "counting your blessings" is good for us, so that's why I've developed a pet peeve at the current trend of calling it "Turkey Day"!!!

A quick check at Wikipedia on Thanksgiving shows eleven other countries set aside a similar day.  For that reason I went looking to find an image saying "Thanksgiving NOT Turkey Day."  There were lots about calories and not having turkey, but the only place with my "Thanksgiving NOT Turkey Day" feelings were at a site whose humor is often found shared on Facebook, https://www.someecards.com.  They had not one, but two I want to share:

and
















That last one really has my back up.  People working in retail deserve the day to be with their families if they wish.  Sure police, fire departments, hospitals, and the military may be needed, rotating work schedules, but surely sales can wait or be handled without making people go to work for a dubious sale of expensive items.

In all fairness I waited a bit late (being in a show tends to do that to me) to ask permission from the folks at Someecards.  They've never gone after people sharing their humor on Facebook, so I hope their understanding includes my posting those two illustrations.  Their "About" page says:
Someecards launched in 2006 as a uniquely voiced ecard site, and has grown into one of the most widely shared and trusted humor brands on the Web. Every day our team of writers creates new ecards, articles, and original content, resulting in over 500MM monthly views on our site and in social media. We also make some of the Web's most engaging and successful branded advertising programs, which you can learn more about here. Thanks for reading this entire paragraph!
Also on their website they have products to sell their cards, wine, coasters, calendars (to see their satire regularly), and Mad Libs.  That last part especially appeals to me as I sometimes use that style of audience participation and especially appreciated this.  Yes, I can understand the need to explain the parts of speech when working with children, but with adults?!?

Well this is turning into a bit of an ad for Someecards and it's time to get to a bit of storytelling.

In December my "Hired Girl" persona lets me bring Victorian Christmas traditions and stories.  One of my favorites is Lucretia Peabody Hale's series of Noodlehead types of stories about a family, the Peterkins, and their Christmas tree.  I'll say more about Ms. Hale and the Peterkins when I give that story.  (Next week?  We'll see -- the often used parental reply.)  I will point out that she was the daughter of Nathan Hale, Senior, who was a journalist and a nephew of the Revolutionary War hero hung as a spy and given in a story here back in 2017.  Before giving a Peterkin story that fits the coming holiday, yet isn't their Christmas tree tale, I went looking to learn more about the origin of the U.S. making Thanksgiving a national holiday.  Along the way I bumped into yet another Hale, Sara Josepha Hale, best known as the author of the nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" -- please note it was not a turkey.  She married into the Hale name and I've no doubt there's a distant link with a Nathan Hale somewhere in the family of David Hale, her husband.  However it happened, she wrote to five presidents trying to make it a national holiday.  Finally President Lincoln agreed, seeing it as a unifying time after the stress of the American Civil War.  May we all find a way to reestablish any family unity on Thanksgiving.

Today's story certainly includes a unified family, however silly they may be.  While reviewing that Peterkins tale I mentioned, I found today's story.  It isn't specifically about Thanksgiving, although when their stories were published in the late 1860s and through the mid-1880s the national holiday did exist.

The Peterkins are well described in that Wikipedia article as:
 The Peterkins were a large family who were extremely intelligent, but didn't have a lick of common sense among them. Whenever they were confronted with a problem that had a simple solution and a complex one, they unerringly went for the complex one--the simple one never occurred to them. They were usually rescued by their neighbor, the Lady from Philadelphia, known for her wisdom; which usually amounted to the plain, commonsense solution that had been staring them in the face and which any normal person would have seized on immediately.
With that in mind only one further comment may be needed.  Only if you live in a large old home or work somewhere with a "dumb-waiter" will you probably understand the term for the term for a small freight elevator meant to carry objects between floors and, in a home, usually going to the kitchen or dining room.  (For more than you probably want to know, but with photos, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbwaiter.)
May your own patience be rewarded with many stories and may you have a happy Thanksgiving.
**********************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  



At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-
  • There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
  • You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

    Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"
The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            
         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.
       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.
     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!
    Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.
You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!