Kendall - update (June 2009)

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 10:29 PM

We're just treadin' water here until the next update, Boberdz.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 07:43 PM

Lemme see???

I ain't read everthing but poor ol' Kendall, if I have it right, has shit a blind mesquito... That right???

What I want to know is how does Kendall know that the bug is blind??? I mean, did it have sun glasses and a white cane???

But nevermind blind mesquitos...

What's with the update part of all this???

(There ain't no update, Boberdz... This is a blind mesquito that Kendall, ahhhhh, passed or gave birth to or both...)

HmmmmmMMM??? I must not have been in school that day... I thought them critters came from eggs 'er larva... Butt no... The sumabiches come from human, ahhhhhh, poop... Unbelievable... Man, I musta missed quite a few days of school...

Nevermind...

B~

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 06:24 PM

Rap can knock the nuts off a skeeter at longer distace with a 22. Sometimes, on a good day, just the left one. Depends on the wind and how fast they're flyin.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 06:14 PM

"...He survived mostly on skeeter and catfish. " Rap

I like that phrase. Kind of like what I read about the gold prospectors in Juneau, ALaska. That first winter in 1881, the ones who stayed over until spring later reported that they had lived "mostly on snowballs and pepper."

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 04:15 PM

Rap, a 12 guage with triple O shot is sufficient for all skeeters except the Northern Swampdinger. Those will only attack bull moose and grizzly bears and consider humans too small to bother with. They can be killed at long range with a .270 or 30-06 if you are a crack shot.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 03:15 PM

I knew a guy back home in Illinois who lived in the bottomland of the Mississippi. Come summer he'd kill skeeters, general using a 20 gauge but some were to big he had to use a .45-70. He'd eat 'em as he shot 'em, and those he didn't eat he'd smoke or brine or otherwise put up for the winter. He survived mostly on skeeter and catfish.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 02:36 PM

In Maritime Canada and likey in Maine and their neighbouring coastal states, we have two kinds a skeeters that are "bad". One is woods skeeter and the other is the salt water marsh skeeter.

The woods skeeters have a habitat perfectly suited for them in New Brunswick. From the Appalacians to the coast and coastal salt water marshes and deltas is a large area of mixed boreal forest and bog country with a whack of slow moving drainage. Add a huge number of beaver dams and... damn!

In The Merrytimes, the Acadian settlers reclaimed thousands of square miles of salt water marshes along tidal rivers and estuaries with dyke systems. You do the math.

Now, yer woods skeeter is a fair size, tenacious, sneaky, and flies pretty fast. Yer salt water marsh skeeter come in small, medium and large and fly as fast as all three AND the woods skeeter combined.

Round these here parts, "fly dope" is what we call anyone who goes into these areas without a hooded fly jacket.

And... on my old camp (see the members photos) I had a screened in porch. Used to sleep in it in a LazyBoy chair in hot weather. Ya wake up with an awful feeling when the whine of the engines of thousands of skeeters on the screen get THAT loud.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 12:45 PM

semi-submersible, your Thai skeeters sound like those in Oregon. Not that Oregon has that many but they are definitely sneaky.

Kendall, stay up at the door a few nights with a bat in your hand. Take care of a few of those big ones and they'll spread the word.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 07:40 AM

When the little ones break down the door and let the big ones in, you've got trouble.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Annie
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 06:37 AM

Can clearly hear your voice with every word you write! Wishing you a speedy recovery. Jacqui, stay away from mosquitoes with needles for noses. Those are love bites. They hate me and I get maybe half doz a year. Annie

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: semi-submersible
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 05:56 AM

Good stories!

I agree with Ebbie: many of these northwestern mosquitos boldly hover or land where they can be swatted with relative ease. I guess that's good strategy around deer and other large animals lacking hands.

Thailand boasts sneaky mosquitos which know how to get away with biting alert primates. Compared to my sociable neighbourhood mosquito, they:

- are small
- usually fly without singing
- prefer to stay below waist height, well below our eye level
- choose bottom surfaces to perch on (landing upside-down underneath tables, beneath leaves, on the back of your thigh when you're sitting in a chair)
- take to the air (silently) at the slightest movement, and don't hover about. They'll rapidly fly off to shelter if it isn't safe to land again immediately on you.
- wait a few minutes after being disturbed, before attacking again, and
- stay alert for your reaction for a while after landing, before committing themselves to probing for blood.

When attacked by one or a few of our bumbling local mosquitoes, I can often see them coming, hear them around me, and catch them in the air, or as they land and immediately begin to probe. If my first swat is a clean miss, usually the mosquito presses the attack again within a minute, while I am still alert. None of this is true of the highly-evolved Asian "stealth mosquito"!

Wish I had a camper to lend you. May joy and healing come swiftly.
Maureen in BC

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:33 PM

I was up in the Minnesota woods once, playing war games with the National Guard, when I saw two skeeters fly off with an M-48A1 tank. The guys inside managed to shoot the lead skeeter with .50 caliber machine gun but the bullets just bounced off. Poor tank crew was never seen again. The tank was found the next day, crumpled up into something about the size of a basketball.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 10:25 PM

Flies work in shifts. Horseflies, deerflies, and blackflies cover the dayshift. Mosquitos cover from sunset 'till midnight and then the no-seeums take over 'till dawn. Then it starts all over again!

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 06:33 PM

Mosquitos in Alaska are formidable in appearance - there are people who carry baseball bats in readiness - but in my experience, they don't mind being killed. Far from being subtle in their attacks they fly straight at you and they are so slow that you can easily bat them out of existence.

no-seeums, on the other hand, are nasty. You can't see them unless they are traveling in packs. Unfortunately they do travel in packs.

{{{{Kendall/Jacqui}}}}

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: MBSLynne
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 05:16 PM

Oh Jacqui I'm sorry to hear this. Please give him my love (and you of course)

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: georgeward
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 05:14 PM

As I recall, one of the early studies on alcoholism in insects was done in central New York. As Don has said, a primary food source for mosquitos in the Great Montezuma Swamp - during much of the nineteenth century - was Irish canal workers. Alcoholism in the bugs was a predictable result. Unfortunately, that means that anyone who consumes alcohol to dull the discomfort of mosquito bites is simply making her/himself a more attractive target. And that, of course, is most people in central New York.

So what we now have is a mutually-reinforcing, closed-loop cycle of human-insect alcohol dependency. Someone once told me that, that was the inspiration for Utica Club beer, the location of the F.X.Matt brewery and a number of other once-thriving breweries. The hops blight of the early 20th century up here closed many of those breweries.However, it did nothing to stop the dependency, leaving us vulnerable to Coors, Miller Light and other unspeakables.

Our unforeseen weakness has led to our being shamelessly exploited.

Don't pity us. Send decent beer.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 05:07 PM

I've had TWO skeeter bites in the last six years, and I got both of them Back East. I'm sure they're around here (we have West Nile problems) but I haven't been bothered.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 04:59 PM

Don, I will miss visiting you and the Mrs.plus there are others that I will miss, Jeri, the Patons, Rita and Bill, George, Karen, the Shaws and Jack.

If We had a camper we might reconsider, but the mosquito problem is a big one. Jacqui is severely allergic to their bites.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 01:54 PM

You can drip dry with a cool breeze in the Boysen Peak Outhouse (WY), Kendall. (Be sure to look at the second picture to get the "perspective." It really does sit over the edge of a cliff!)

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 01:37 PM

Hey Kendall.

I have some new designs that none of this crowd has seen yet. Sorry to be missing you and Jacqui this year I missed all the fun last year so I was hoping to see everyone.

I am suprised at all this yammering about Mosquitoes. Don't they have them in some places besides New York State? Of course few are as big as variety we have in central New York. They come out of the wet lands created by the old Erie Canal bed. Anopholese Gigantus Syphona is the only incident of cross species breeding that we know of. The mosquitoes that caused the Yellow Fever that killed so many Irish laborers in Montezuma Swamp during the digging of the canal has since crossed with the Great Blue Herron. The resulting animal is quite large. They fly in packs in the early spring and are often confused with Canada Geese when seen at a distance. There is an unconfirmed report from one of two men who were injured and a third killed while digging a canal feeder stream. The skeeter stabbed through the non critcal parts of the first two men at once only to suck the life and blood dry of the third man in the row. The other two were immediately cured of alcoholism. They claim it is because of the bite itself that the cure was affected. Some say it proves the possibility of accupunture.

Well Jeri. I expect I'll see you any way. You can always stop by the Skipper's, wave your wrist about and gloat.

Don

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 12:59 PM

My uncle was in the Navy (that of the US) in WW2 and was serving aboard a very old vessel along the East Coast as part of his training. The head, as traditional, were forward and open to the sea below.

The weather got heavy and he got heavey. Rather than mess up his duty station he made a dash for the head and was kneeling in supplication to Neptune when the bow went through a particularly large wave....

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: JedMarum
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:46 AM

"... oh don't bother with that. By the time you get back with that paper, that gull will be miles away!"

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: mouldy
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:39 AM

I had the urge to light an Inspiritus scented candle today. Now i know why...

Get well soon, lad!

Andrea

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:29 AM

Always take the first option Kendall... just don't emulate Viola above...

We Yooks have missed out on a whole bunch of stories by not having outhouses like yours in the States... although there is the tale of how one day my mother was about to 'get comfortable' when the damn thing fell in two.. she was left hovering betwixt and between and in a state of some dishabile and unable to reach the bolt in her predicament.

Oh how we laughed!! That is, until we were told it would be 3 days before a new one could be installed! My but the roses were good that year!

LTS

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:26 AM

If you don't go blind, it's no big deal. If you don't shit, you explode, then somebody has to clean it up and make a bunch of phone calls.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Deckman
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:21 AM

Kendal ... ALWAYS CHOOSE TO SHIT ... going blind is no fun! bob

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:19 AM

I wish they would make up their minds so I could know whether to shit or go blind!

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Fortunato
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 09:07 AM

Kendall, I'm glad to hear the prognosis is 'Good'.
cheers,
chance

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 07:38 AM

get well soon kendall.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: gnu
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 07:29 AM

Rapaire at a loss for words???? WHA?

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 09:17 PM

Refresh.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Tinker
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 10:02 PM

Kendall, I'm glad to see you in here posting today.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Padre
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 09:41 PM

Prayers for your recovery, Kendall

Tom McHenry+

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 08:36 PM

I hope to see you here.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 07:58 PM

He might just mean it's not gonna kill you, but this guy knows how important your voice is to you, doesn't he?

I've been having a stupid day. Felt like I've been trying to run through molasses, and now that thing about the niceness filter seems kind of ignorant.    I'm going to give up in case it's possible for me to say something even stupider, because I'll surely come up with it.

I may catch up to Jacqui on Don Meixner silver bracelets though. Take care of yourself. I'll probably make the John Roberts house concert.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 07:38 PM

Well, funny you should mention that. I just got an e mail from my Doctor, and he said my prognosis is good but he can't be more specific until the pathology report comes back to him.

Of course, I don't know what "Good" means to him. To me it means I will get some sort of voice in time. To him it might just mean it's not going to kill me.

I think I know who that mudcatter was that made the decision at Old Songs. I've talked to him and it's ok.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 02:33 PM

Listen, I apologize. I forgot a fundamental thing I learned when I worked in hospitals: people who are sick (or recovering from recent surgery) don't generally have an operational niceness filter. I however, have no excuse.

Decisions were made that wound up making Kendall feel bad. One of the people who made the decision is a Mudcatter and a friend. Kendall may choose to hold onto his resentment or may eventually let it go--I can't do anything about it. The people he holds responsible are my friends and Kendall is my friend, so I choose to not discuss it any more.

Kendall, get better quick dammit!

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 12:50 PM

Jeri, you do make a lot of sense as usual, but there is more to the story. Utah and I were close friends,I was not just another fan trying to get in on the act, and I was grieving his loss. The whole thing was poorly done, it was half an hour late getting started and then it was moved to another location. They had plenty of time to include Caroline, Priscilla and me. I've been a loyal Old Songs supporter for years and it just all piled up at once.

I may change my mind at some point but I doubt it.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: gnu
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 12:27 PM

Yeah, I hate them damn flies too. Never used to bother me but after the slice-and-dices under the ears, I HAD to use fly dope and that stuff bugs me.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 10:45 AM

We discussed this at length last year.

There were many people who wanted to perform and not all of them could. Not everybody got to perform in fundraisers and other concerts elsewhere, and Utah was well known to folks in the Albany area who maybe didn't get any other chances to memorialize him. In retrospect, the necessarily hastily organized memorial could have been handled better, but nothing can be done about it now except bitch.

And I'm sorry that not getting priority over others counts for more than Utah's memory or your friends that will be there or the music. I would have liked to have heard Kendall and everybody who wanted to perform, but being pissed over what happened a year ago just makes you and the people who care about you miserable.

I can understand about the mosquitoes though. That's why I'm staying in a hotel this year. First time ever, since 1981.

All of that said, if Kendall's grudgifying and complaining, I figure he's getting back to 'normal' pretty quickly. Do what the doctor says and don't talk!

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 10:15 AM

Jacqui ... thanks for explaining that. I figured that something mighty bad musta' happened. What IDIOT made that stoopid decision? bob

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Fortunato
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 10:10 AM

Hey, Kendall, I'm looking foward to coming up to Maine, and hope to take the scenic routes you mapped out for me.

Although I'll not have a lot of use for hypnotizing lobster down in Asheville NC (to where we're fixin' to retire next year, I hasten to add)I figure if it works on lobsters it ought to work on hillbillies, too.

I'm still rereading your book down there on the mountain house. It makes great outhouse entertainment (no offense) the stories are just the right length. How did you gauge them so perfectly?

Speaking of outhouses, did I ever tell you how my cousin Viola burnt down the outhouse up on the hill above grandPa's house in Honeyville? She was sneaking a lucky strike one Sunday afternoon when grandPa walked up on her whistling Leather Britches, she jumped up threw her cigarette down the hole and the Montgomery Ward (Sears was too expensive) fell down off her lap into the hole. Pa went in as she went out and sat down. After 5 minutes or so the catalog down in the hole caught on fire. Pa escaped with only scorched galluses on his overalls, but the outhouse burned down to reveal 30 years of accumulated, well, nevermind...

Cheer up, or I'll tell another story, you hear?
chance

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 09:03 AM

Pissed on and so pissed off. Yeah, I been there. Just get well and outlive the pissers-on: do something folkie about it, like dance at their funerals.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: jacqui.c
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 08:55 AM

Kendall was royally pissed off last year at Old Songs. There was a Utah Phillips memorial in which Kendall, Caroline Paton and, I believe, Priscilla Herdman were told they could not take part.

If that wasn't enough I was very badly bitten by mosquitoes - got about 50 bites and I react badly to them - it was a week before I was able to get any real sleep so, in spite of the fact that I love the festival, I just can't face those damned little pests again.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 05:36 AM

"Unless someone pissed me off" ?? thats an understatement.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 11:01 PM

Jacqui

Don't skimp on the "Lobster Helper". Nothing is too fancy for you and tha Captain.

Art

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Janie
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 09:53 PM

Never say never, Captain. (unless some one running Old Songs really pissed you off.)

Love you.

Janie

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: kendall
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 09:27 PM

You will never see me at Old Songs again.

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: MaineDog
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 08:19 PM

Well, Kendall,
I think you need to attend to your diet, which seems to be very like mine: too much Chinese and Thai food, and too little Single Malt,, and I can't sing either, that must be the problem.
Will I see you at Old Songs?
Jim

Subject: RE: Kendall - update (June 2009)
From: Joybell
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 06:42 PM

I've been watching and waiting too. All our good thoughts from me and True-love.
Joy