118 ~ My favorite things, Part 1
One essence of a good friend is reliability. It's the reason that technology (at least in its current iterations) isn't one of my friends. A fickle, sometimes powerful, yet inherently unreliable servant, yes, but not a friend. The wonders wrought by the complexity of digital technology come part n' parcel with a cost, which is that you can't trust the damn things to show up, at least not sober; they get drunk on electrons. Tens and sometimes probably hundreds of times per day my phone or laptop or some other chip-charged, ether-bending, artificially non-intelligent tool will do something I didn't expect or ask for, and seldom is the surprise a welcome one.
Granted, the glitches are mostly minor: I have to tap or click an icon three times, inexplicably, before it responds; a screen freezes; Siri misinterprets me; reception drops for no apparent reason; or my phone's navigation first tries to take me to Burkina Faso. But it's constantly something - what worked before, doesn't now. While small things individually, I wonder about the cumulative effect on our well-being of this persistent stream of frustration micro-doses. We can't yet know, because no other humans in history have been subjected to the like.
Let me introduce you instead to some of my friends, some of my favorite things in the material world. All of them do well what's asked of them, every time without fail - no surprises and no error messages. Dependable friends, and the world feels good and right when I take them up (that "spark of joy" Marie Kondo writes about). The examples I'll share are all functional objects (tools if you will). Of course, like all of us I have books, artworks, furniture and items of clothing I love. I have favorite birds (red-tailed hawk; brown thrasher). But here I'm talking about functional friends that help unerringly with a specific task, without asinine pop-up ads and never needing a reboot or an update. They have a reliability far beyond the reach of technology's ersatz wonders.
Most of my favorite friends have three things in common: First, of course, all are simple - they have few (if any) moving parts, no microchips, screens, or batteries (and only one of them needs an electric outlet). Second, I like to look at and feel them. Granted, they don’t have swirling graphics or a thousand shiny screen colors. Instead, they are things of quiet, solid beauty. They have a dignity that the handwaving, look-at-me online and digital worlds lack.
Lastly, most are involved in the production of food. This is simply a reflection of who I am, and that food is one of the main pathways I use to nourish my soul and my human friends and family. Some of us do the same through, say, music, and their favorite things might be a special guitar or mandolin. One of my daughter's favorite things is probably her loom. For others it may be a bicycle or a pair of skis, because of the way they dependably carry their owners into the wider world of fresh air and real-life nature.
The first three friends it's my pleasure to introduce all represent steps in making blue cornmeal pancakes:
First is my Decker corn sheller, made in Keokuk, Iowa. It's a short, stout tube of cast aluminum, slightly constricted at one end. It feels like a large, smooth seashell. The inside is ringed with six projecting ribs, and when slipped over a dried ear of corn and rotated, it quickly strips off the kernels. Held over a basket or pot, the kernels drop with a rhythmic, soothing, patter - each kernel a story of the growing season, released by the Decker sheller.
Using the corn sheller is like wrapping your hand around an Emily Dickinson poem: concise, euphonious, perfect - and both add nourishment to the world.
It's probably my favorite tool, in large part because it is structurally the simplest - one piece (not even paint or any other finish), and so no moving parts, nothing to wear out or break, no maintenance or even cleaning needed, and thus absolutely dependable. Of the possessions I leave behind after my own material world ends, this is the one that archeologists furthest in the future will be able to find.
WonderMill grain grinder
After shelling and just a touch of toasting in a cast iron skillet (another good, reliable friend), the corn kernels move to my WonderMill hand-cranked grain mill, the "Junior" model to be exact. Solid steel in solid red, Junior does a big boy job of grinding corn into meal, and he is another friend who will probably outlive me.
I like that he is red. Good, reliable things are often red - fire hydrants, fire engines, Santa Claus, apples. And, like the shelling, grinding is done in rotation, turning the grinder handle to turn the grinding plates. The moon, our good Earth, and migratory horse nomads of Mongolia also move in circles. If any movement can be considered 'spiritual', it's rotation.
One key to making tasty cornmeal is to support the grinding with some good music (from a turntable, natch - simple, and rotating). I play music as I turn the handle, and the songs go into the meal. “Sky Dog” (a.k.a., Duane Allman) and Junior working together.
Next up in a coming post, the oldest friend I have, and the final step in cornmeal pancakes... To be continued.
In the meantime leave a comment (tell us about one of your favorite things if you like), or share the post, and have my gratitude.
“There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.” - Tolstoy