Take two books and call me in the morning

Buenos tardes.

I have received 10 books so far for Christmas. Considering that I already have more than that in my vacation knapsack, this could get interesting.

First, Miriam Coffin or The Whaling - Fisherman: A Nantucket Novel by Joseph F. Hart

"But, as Nathaniel Philbrick explains in a new introduction, Miriam Coffin is not only a good read, it's also a treasure trove of important historical information." Based on the real life exploits of a notorious Tory whaling merchant Kezia Coffin (ycmtsu).

American Sniper by Navy Seal Chris Kyle. One shot, one kill. 150 confirmed.  "Jaw dropping " ... Chicago Sun Times

Fort Reno Or, Picturesque "Cheyenne and Arrapahoe Army life before the opening of Oklahoma." I knew this would turn you on.

The Men Who United The States: America's Explorers, Inventors, and Mavericks

Noel & Cole: Cole Porter and Noel Coward

Company of Heroes - Harry Carey Jr.'s stories of working for the John Ford/John Wayne movie company. Think: Monument Valley Stagecoach, The Searchers,  and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.

Birds of Mexico and Central America. Costa Rica and Belize had hundreds. Isla Mujeres has pelicanos,  ravens who land on empty tables and eat the sugar packs and never the fake stuff. Frigates flocking. No parrots that Jimmy Buffet said he saw. Not a whole lot of birds, eight miles out in the blue water.

Cuba  - We were going from Isla Mujeres but had a change of heart. A $2,000 fine will change your mind, plus the thought of flying on a Cuban plane was scary. They  still have our 1950 cars, so what are their planes like?

The Company that They Kept  - Famous writers on unforgettable famous writer friendships.

The Queen Bee of Tuscany - Janet Ross facts. Born to an influential family in Victorian England among luminaries such as Dickens and Thackeray. Married at 18 and went to live in Egypt where for 6 years she wrote for the London Times, hobnobbed with builders of the Suez Canal, and humiliated pashas in horse races. In 1868 she moved to Florence where she spent the remaining 60 years of her life.  Sounds OK

And finally, maybe, Five People Who Died During Sex by Karl Shaw. I will keep you posted on this one and hope that you are not a chapter in it.

In other newzz .......

TODAY Sandy and I drove out to Saquish and the Gurnet by way of Duxbury Beach and bridge. We saw three SNOWY OWLS. Neither of us had ever seen even one before.

Barb and John Cerri saw this beauty up at Plum Island last week.

Thanks for listening,
Don Tocino                  

Oh !!   and I have three on my Kindle.          

mil de gracias  ( a thousand thanks )

A Sunday in December

Dear Carlos,

It is 60 degrees today -- December 22, 2013.  We have the windows and doors open to air the houses and garages out. It was ALSO a great time to clean out the wood stove.

I guess my timing on the Bob's World Christmas release was bad. I have only heard from you and from Carol my barber.  One "Four Star," one "Quit While You're Ahead." Flaco stopped by yesterday and he said he has been listening on his long commute to work. He always responds to everything, but at his pace. He did make a remark about enjoying Paulo Conte.

Flaco's daughter Emily and her husband Eric are up from South Carolina. Eric & Flaco came down the driveway yesterday afternoon. They had 3-year-old Alec and 6-year-old Neil with them. I told them I recognized their faces but had forgotten their names. So we played "Guess What My Name Is." I wasn't even close, so the boys helped me by telling me the first letter of their names. It was their idea. I looked at Neil and asked, "You are Nelson Mandela?" I never was good at games.

Sandy and the girls have started a new annual family tradition. It is called Pierogi Day, the Saturday before Christmas. It will honor Sandy's paternal Babci, Aniela Pater Zabek. Sunday will be called Clean Up After Pierogi Making Day.

I got Roger, the trapper, a book on snipers. It made the NYC best list. I ALSO got one for myself. I left his book in his refrigerator. There should be a D in the word refrigerator.

One of my goals this winter was to fill the photo albums. I was up to Abel's birthday (May 17). I have filled 6 albums this past week. This morning I will put in the photos from our South Massachusetts Coast wine trip which included New Bedford and all the whaling stuff.

This morning in the Boston Sunday Globe -- it is one of Boston's daily newspapers -- there is a blurb that starts out with "25." That's the number of hours it takes to read Melville's legendary novel MOBY DICK aloud, as a rotating roster of volunteers will demonstrate starting at noon on January 4 at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Lectures and chats with Melville scholars on Friday and Sunday bracket the read-a-thon. You should do a Christmas vacation in New England and then we can take this in next year.    (p.s. Charles is a little crazy for Moby Dick.)

Back to the albums. Brant Lake alone took two and a half albums. Sandy took some really awesome photos at the lake this summer. Especially of the skies. Rainbows and double rainbows, rain and early morning fog. Loons. Lots of loons. Two more albums and I will be forced to stop for now. That should bring me up to Thanksgiving. I have, so far, 129 photo albums that the kids will certainly throw out a month after we are gone. Once again the boat house at Brant Lake New York is booked solid for 2014.

- Don Tocino,  . . . keeper of the family photos, activity and former party planner, can collector -- over 22,000 this year alone, squirrel control expert (I bought my first controller when I was 13), street litter expert, and very personal news sender to the lonely. I ALSO am a pretty good two stepper. Although vacation planning is my specialty. 82 days planned away for 2014. Four states, four countries so far . . . Thank you Pfizer stocks. Like Frank Sinatra sang, "It was a VERY good year."

Roger Says . . .

fisher cat

 Roger is my friend who traps.

Roger says he doubts whether the buck deer kill in North Marshfield was a cat. Meaning cougar or bobcat. Although the woman whose yard it happened in swears she heard purring at the end of the ruckus. A fisher cat screams like a cat or young child and doesn't purr.

He says the male fisher cat is larger than the female at 20 pounds. They jump up and catch the deer under the neck and then just hang on. He saved one in a trap for me once because I had never seen one. They have wicked long sharp teeth and are fast on their feet which are as big as a bears. The deer tries to throw the cat off its neck further injuring itself. Roger has seen the bloody scene twice in the snow so it does happen.

But in our neighborhood it was a band of coyote that got that deer on the bog a day or two ago.

band of coyotes

coyote on the run

He also says that it is OK to let your dog roam free and that the fishers won't bother them. Tying a pork chop around the dog's neck will ALSO discourage an attack.

Christmas Blog 2013

December 10th  2013

It is freezing cold outside, and the yelping coyotes out on the cranberry bog just woke me up, so I thought I would get out of bed and write something. Something warm.

Upon arrival to Playa Norte (North Beach) -- think white sand, eighty degrees in Febrero, palm trees and Windex-color water -- and after the Welcome Back To The Island hugs, we asked Davido, our beach chair rental amigo, how was his familia. He replied that his wife Minerva was very ill, and that the tests alone cost 1500 pesos. His English is not so good. Our Spanish is worse, but somehow we communicate. At the end of that winter vacation, Tom & Eileen &Sandy and I decided, as a propina, to pay for Minerva's medical tests. It only cost us $75 per couple to solve his grande financial problem. One that would have taken him 25 days or 300 hours to pay back.

Minerva recovered, and we never did figure out what she recovered from. The following year Sandy got sick on Isla Mujeres. Really sick. It was the first time in 46 years of traveling to Mexico that she took ill. Our amiga at the Hotel Cabanas, Clara, was alarmed at seeing Sandy finally seated outside on the piazza, especially with intravenous attached to her arm. She sat down next to her and told her every thing would be OK. And it was. Enrique from the restaurant at Zazil-Ha made her his special chicken soup. Mexican people there are so sweet.

Yesterday we received the  health insurance reimbursement check from Blue Cross. It took nearly a year, with special help from Clara, but we got it. In the explanation of reimbursement it mentioned that our nurse, Eric, who came to our hotel room 16 times in three days, was paid the equivalent of $7.40 per visit. Doesn't sound like much, does it? On Isla it is muy bien. The average Mexican for 12 hours of work makes $6.00 per day. That is not a misprint. $6.00 per day, and that has not changed in the 26 years that we have been vacationing on the island of women.

So I guess we should all count our blessings, shouldn't we?

Feliz Navidad.

I am glad to be your friend,
Roberto Francisco Tocino

I Should Have Said . . .

 Sir , Yes  Sir.

50 years ago I boarded the train in my Navy Blues, just after the President was shot, from Pittsfield Massachusetts, headed to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center outside of Chicago. It is in Illinois, and I think it is close to Alaska.

It was an interesting 80 days.

At the end of my walk the other chilly day, I smelled food wafting by me. Memories flooded back. At Great Lakes we would line up outside the chow halls in rank, and in the cold and snow, by company. We were Company 540. (P.S. I didn't have to look to come up with that. My combo lock, which I still own, was 24-28-32. Yes it still works.) Our Company Commander was Boatswains Mate First Class  M. K. Metzker. It was freezing cold in rank, so we left no room between us for any warmth we could get.

50 years ago and that pleasant food smell brought me right back.

Everyone my age who served feels that every young man or woman should experience Boot Camp.

I had a lot to learn.  
Thanks, Uncle Sam!

November 2013

Pure Doggies

--> Okay! I will admit it right up front, I thought that Barb Cerri and mi esposa Sandy's all-in-one-day adventure trip out and back to Adams to make pierogi was not their best idea ever. Turns out it was.

Cioci Florence Romaniak mentioned to Sandy, her niece, that Saint Stan's was making fresh pierogi on Saturday morning in the huge kitchen under the same church that we were married in, 46 years ago. 

 How much fun could that be? How many senior citizens will show up for that? Even Sandy thought that it would be all babcis  (grandmothers). Six or seven people would be there, I thought.

Well actually there were around 75 people, and not all were seniors. The volunteer ages started at five. Among the mostly-Polish folks were an Asian-looking person and an Indian woman from Oklahoma who had married an Adams Massachusetts native Polish American. I enjoy putting in a whopper of a story, or a cowboy tall tale, in with the facts -- but I do not need to in this one.

 

 Why make hundreds of pierogis? Well! To support the Polish Parochial School that is still operating. Although there are only, for example, nine children currently in second grade there.

All day long Cioci Flo would bring people by to see Sandy and they would play the Guess Who I Am game. Yes! Millie Czerwinski was there. She is 96 now. She was a close friend of Cioci Genevieve who lived in the yellow house on Valley Street. They had two sons and three daughters. Two became nuns. One married a Gwosz fella. They lived right next door to the Strezpeks. You remember? After 50 years we don't even remember the names of the streets, never mind the people, but Sandy did well with it. 

Two of the original nuns were there, dressed in their habits. Sandy and her brother Brian and her 342 Polish cousins all attended the Polish School. Most of them still have their welts from being hit with wooden pointers. All of them still have the abnormal, but real, fear of being locked in the closet.

Some of the older Polish women asked Barb if she was Polish. She said no. Their faces fell. But then Barb said she had Czech blood, and the old folks cheered and said, "Close enough," and Barb was given her own babushka and accepted. Sandy told her own whopper, that Barb came from Chicago to be there. Well she did, but not directly – that was thirty years ago.

The pierogis that they made Saturday were filled with kapusta. Someone drives to Northampton and buys 100 heads of cabbage directly from a Polish farm for this delicious filling. (???!!!???)

Henry Ford gave the volunteers ideas on how to go about making hundreds of pierogis. If you heard how to say “pierogis” for as many times as I have written “pierigis” you no longer would call them Pure Doggies. I can't even write it out phonetically for you. My Mom, Nora Lemanski, taught me how to say it. They definitely had a production line going at the church. Sandy said everyone worked hard and there were no slackers.

 

All the food -- I just couldn't write pierogis again -- will go on sale at the Saint Stanislaus Kostka Bazaar on Saturday November 23rd. They always sell out quickly.

Next Saturday they will be making cheese pierogis, my favorite. See you there.

Your friend,  

Bobby Lemanski Bacon   

--

Christmas card from Adams

Sandy,

Thank you so much for the wonderful photo album and especially for sharing in our pierogi workbee at  Saint Stanislaus Kostka Hall.

It was a pleasure to have both  you and Barb there to share in the fun and success.

In total we made:
cabbage  4,356
cheese & potato 5,036
782 dozen

And nearly sold out. At days end we had about 70 dozen left to sell after Mass.

Thanks for helping to keep the tradition alive.

We hope you can join us next year.

With wishes for health & happiness in 2014.

                                                                                    Suzanne

You never know where the Seabees will strike next . . .

 

November 11, 2013

My cousin Craig Garofano, and my friends Bill Thibideau, Chet Urbati, Larry Anderson and John Waltner, all were in Vietnam as Seabees. A childhood friend, Marine Russ Roulier, stayed there forever. 

Sometimes on a Cajun dance floor, sometimes just walking down a street, a sticker on the back of (usually) a pick up truck, "Seabee" written across a ball cap, sometimes from a commuter's "Bus Stories" high in old New Mexico, you will hear of the Navy's Construction Battalions: The Seabees. Construction Battalions. Get It?  C.B's  

We build. We fight. We build airfields and barracks and roads and harbors. A leading general during World War ll said, "The only problem with the Seabees is that we don't have enough of them." There were 256,000 of us.

After the Ninigret Music Festival this past year, Sandy and I visited Davisville, Rhode Island, at Quonset Point. It once was the largest Seabee base in these United States. Dad shipped out from there in '44 headed to a beautiful tropical island in the Pacific called Okinawa. He was there on the day I was born.

Bacon R.F. 693-10-63   

Construction Electrician CEW2

10 being the month, 63 being the year that I enlisted in the United States Navy Seabees

Son of Erie Canal

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This spring Sandy thought that I should extend the canoe launch dock behind the casita. I waited until November first, which turned out to be a seventy-degree day, partly sunny and no mosquitos

 We have had very little rain. October was the sixth driest ever on the South Shore. Normally the water goes up to the original dock but never over it. The water source comes from some ponds miles away off Temple Street in Duxbury. The streams west of us flow into the South River.

Although from our casa it looks like a one-mile long pond, in actuality it is the Green Harbor River. Years ago the Garretsons on Route 3A, Moraine Street, dammed it up to fill their cranberry bogs. It is called Green Harbor River because after winding through the Green Harbor Golf Course under Webster Street it ends up in the Atlantico in Green Harbor. Green's Harbour being named for the very first resident of Marshfield. William Green was the first mate off a ship named the Mayflower who built a cod salting business here on the point in 1621.

When the rain and snow comes, our canal will fill and be around four or five feet deep. That will be enough to get our canoes to the pond or when it freezes, a nice walkway to go out and ice skate. Yah! You can fish also.

© Chris Bernstein/CDB Photos

This is Chris's aerial photo, taken before construction of the canal. The gunite swimming pool was completed in 1978. To the left you can see all of the Elricks’ house. They were already here 41 years ago when we built our original house. You almost can't see Garage Mahal, built in 2004. You cannot see the Tea House (1972) or Cabana (1978), the screened-in hammica room (2013) or even the Casita (2001). The Egans built the house to the right in 1980. They are long gone, to Pennsylvania, but are coming up for Thanksgiving. Dead center towards the bottom of the photo is a large green pine tree. To the right of it is the original dock. I can see it but you probably can't.

I sit out here at the end of my day to watch the sunset. You can only see one other house. There is no traffic noise. We are thirty miles from the Cape Cod Canal and the same from Fenway Park. On a windless night you can hear the Fenway Faithful when Big Papi launches one to right field. 

Come over and listen if you don't believe me. You get the feeling that you are in Vermont or New Hampshire. You hear only ducks and birds and coyotes and frogs and peepers. Early one morning this summer I heard a deer bellowing.

Our Grandson Abel is going to love the new construction.

Not On Playboy Cover

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Sam Elliot made Cowboy & Indian magazine’s front cover Nov/Dec for the third time. This one is not too flattering. Gee's we are all getting old. The first two were awesome. 

 

Did you receive your copy yet?

Who the hell is Sam Pack Elliot? The first time I ever saw him was in a movie called Lifeguard 1976. 

 

 In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he had a very small part. You can find him sitting with the card players at the beginning of the movie. Someone says "When I said you were cheating, I didn't know that you were the Sundance Kid." Sam is at that table.

"Little too much dynamite there Butch?"

"Hell, the fall will probably kill us."   

"Who are those guys?" 

Sam married Etta Place, I mean Katherine Ross, who played Robert Redford's school teacher girlfriend. She was a niece of Katherine Hepburn. 

They actually did not meet on the set. The Cowboy & Indian article says that they live in Oregon and Malibu.

In the movie Tombstone, he played Virgil Earp to Kurt Russell's Wyatt. 

The movie won zero awards but Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc Holiday is still talked about today. Doc died at the Rapid City Prairie Edge store while on a shopping spree.

The article doesn't mention it, but he is also the voice on the Coors beer commercials. Coors being the most refreshing beer IN THE WORLD.

He also was in Prancer and Road House and one of my favorites, Gettysburg.

He plays John Buford who with his Union calvary was the first unit to arrive at Gettysburg. He was greatly outnumbered by the Rebel infantry but was smart enough to hold the high ground in the first of three days of fierce fighting. One of the reasons he was chosen for the part was because he looked like Buford. Martin Sheen certainly looked like Bobby Lee. Longstreet was Tom Berenger. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a ringer with Jeff Daniels. Pickett was played by Prince Fielder. Joseph Fuqua played Jeb Stuart. Ted Turner was LT. Colonel Waller Tazeweil Patton. World War II's George Patton's grandfather. Four of the Lt. Colonels’ brothers fought with the South. Waller died from his wounds several weeks after Pickett's Charge. One of the brothers was killed at the wall of Pickett’s Charge. Turner bankrolled the three-hour epic based on the 1974 book The Killer Angels. "If they are angels they surely must be killer angels." Ken Burns, from the great Civil War television series, had the part of General Hancock's aide. Tom Egan and I did not get a part.

In earlier lives Tom Egan and I believe that we fought at Gettysburg.

Could you lend me one of your FICTION books?

Elizabeth Bacon Custer

Carlos & Cactus Cathy,

Muchas Gracias for the fine photo of Libbie Custer. I had not seen this one before.

I always knew that George Armstrong Custer married a Bacon, and probably for that reason I became very interested in Custer.

But that all changed when I found out that our Bacon name was originally Bachan. My not so great grandfather changed it when he entered the United States from Saint Hyacinthe, Canada, around 1877. Bacon in French sounds like Bachan. Did he change it on purpose? Did he change it in honor of him coming to America? Or was he hiding out?  I don't know.

I eventually traced the family back to Saint Cloud, just outside of Paris, to the year 1644. Nicholas Bachan served in the French army and sailed down the Saint Lawrence to Canada. He married in Canada at age twenty nine. His wife was fourteen. Nicholas had to wait six months until his wife turned fourteen. They had children. Now there are around three thousand of us.

Libbie Custer lived to be ninety one years old. She supported herself with speaking engagements and she wrote three popular books. Boots & Saddles, Following the Gideon and Tenting on the Plains. She also had an inheritance and her husband's pension. She never heard of Edward Curtis's collection of Indian stories from Little Big Horn. Teddy Roosevelt didn't want them published either. They are available now. When Nathaniel Philbrick wrote The Last Stand he agreed with most of what Curtis had found out directly from the Sioux who fought that day.

By the age of thirteen Libbie had already lost three siblings and her mother. Judge Bacon probably spoiled Libbie from there on out. They came from money. The Custers did not. Judge Bacon did not want them to marry. Just before Gettysburg Custer was promoted to Brigadier General. He shined during a calvary charge at Gettysburg. The judge gave in.

She never visited Little Big Horn Valley in the Montana Territory. She did, interestingly enough, see Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at Madison Square Garden, which had a Little Big Horn reenactment in it with actual Indians who had fought at Greasy Grass. She remarked how handsome Gaul was. ycmts  up  Why read fiction?

She lived the next fifty nine years alone in Florida and New York City. She passed away in New York City in 1933. She is buried next to George at West Point, New York. We saw the graves and almost everything I said here is true.

Robert Francois Bachan

Brief Thoughts on Two Heroes

Response from a woman in Cambridge to the Boston Sunday Globe article about Bobby Orr ....

After the roar of the rink, a life of quiet good works

I was quite moved by Bob Hohler's article about Bobby Orr ("No. 4 to history, No. 1 to many in need," Page A1 , September 29 , 2013).

I am of a generation that remembers how great he was as our Number 4 on the Boston Bruins. Orr could have done many things with his life after his playing days were over. To read how he had taken his fame down this altruistic path of helping others, in such a quiet and humble manner, really touched me.

As a social worker, I know how much need is out there. I'm not religious, but I would say Orr is a saint.

SCORE !!  #4 Bobby Orr . . .
Where were you when all the Orr stuff was happening? We were in our apartment in Rockland, Massachusetts 1967 - 1972.  Every Tuesday and Thursday we would watch channel 38 at 7:30pm. The following morning at Reliable Fence Company we would talk hockey. Girls and guys included. Everyone loved the Bruins.

---

The latest book on Edward Sherriff Curtis was wonderful, "Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher,"  winner of the National Book Award.

When the Indians who fought at Greasy Grass were interviewed by Curtis, they said Custer watched Reno get creamed and did nothing about it. No one had asked the Indians about what they saw that day until Curtis did in 1904. Gaul, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were all there.

At the end of each chapter, after the story behind each famous photograph, there is THE PHOTO. Acoma, Geronimo, Custer's Crow scouts at Little Big Horn, Canyon DeChelly, the Alaska Indians, Chief Joseph, the Mojave girl, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Hopi maidens, to name only a few.

Wow!

Six pages to go in the casita tonight. I am sorry to see it end. Curtis only died in 1952 at age eighty four. I started collecting Indian post cards years ago, not realizing that most of the images were his. Kathleen Gregory from Albuquerque was the first person to ever bring his name up. I wasn't really paying attention until then. Just more reasons to love and visit the southwest.

You too will become a fan after reading this book.

Carlos Benito Gregory: great book gift! Muchas Gracias!

Hasta  pronto  (see you soon),

Tocino