06 Nov 2005
A Remembrance

It was seven years ago today, November 6th, that tragedy struck my wife's family as her mother was killed in an automobile accident. It was an honor for me to be asked to write and deliver the eulogy at the funeral services. By way of remembering my mother-in-law, I present it here today:

I met Phyllis Uhler on Easter Sunday, 1992. My future bride had decided that she had cleaned me up enough for a formal introduction to her family, and that Easter dinner was the time to do it. Now, I'm an only child - my Mom and I have always been close. I have an Aunt that I see every few years and a half-dozen cousins, I think. This did NOT prepare me for Easter dinner at the Uhlers! It was organized chaos-it was a feast- it was kids and grandkids and aunts and brothers and sisters and grandfathers, it was ham and green beans and scalloped corn. And presiding over it all was Phyllis - controlling the chaos, giggling with the kids, cooking and bustling, organizing the egg hunt. She welcomed me as though she'd known me all her life - in fact she even enlisted me to help clear the table and hide some eggs! But the most amazing thing about that day came after dinner. I was walking back to the dining room to go outside or something when I saw Phyllis stretched out on the floor on her back! I later discovered that this was simply her habit to help her stomach settle after a meal, but at the time it was not exactly an everyday occurrence for me to see a grown woman of Phyllis' age just lay on the floor under a table. I must've stared or at least looked puzzled. She glanced up, she saw my expression, and she laughed. And laughed. And laughed. This wasn't an ordinary laugh, this was a Phyllis laugh - and those of us who were privileged in our lifetimes to have heard it will know exactly what I'm talking about. It was the most sincere expression of joy I have ever heard - it was completely infectious, so much so that even if you didn't know why she was tickled, once she started, you had to join in.

As I came to know my mother-in-law better and better, it became clear that this was a wholly remarkable woman - in a way, and I hope I can say this right, Phyllis didn't have a family, Phyllis was family. It was rare that we would stop by her house and not find another family member there - my wife's brother or sister or sister-in-law, a grandchild (or two, or three), a sister or brother ... and if anyone in this amazing family needed anything - well, Phyllis was there. She was the family chauffeur - and her taxi logged many a mile for football games, church functions, and all of the innumerable activities that kids get involved in. She never complained about any of it - she enjoyed it!

Wherever Phyllis went she always seemed to have a smile on her face and a kind word to say. No matter how mundane the contact, people noticed this and they responded to it. The amazing floral display here today stands as a testimony to her character. These are from family, from friends and acquaintances, but most importantly they are from other people whose lives Phyllis touched, from neighbors and beauticians, tenants and clerks, others too numerous to mention.

Heroes are defined by Webster as those great men and women whom others find worthy of emulation. It occurs to me that there are two types of heroes in this life. There are those of mythic proportions - leading armies, driving political parties, fighting battles and winning games. And there are those that I like to call person-to-person heroes, perhaps unsung in the great sweep of human events, but making a small difference with every life touched. Phyllis was this latter kind of hero - and the many small differences she made in all of our lives have added to a truly staggering sum.

All of us will miss that special touch in our lives. But perhaps none of us will miss her quite like her grandchildren. On the wall of Phil's kitchen hangs a plaque - it's been hanging there for many years. I have no idea who wrote this, but I know that it was written about Phyllis.

"A Grandma is someone God made special for kids. She always has something sweet like cookies. Grandma tells real good stories even past bedtime. We go for walks to look at leaves and caterpillars. Grandma never says, "Hurry up". Also, she answers questions like, "Why isn't God married?" Everyone should try to have a Grandma because they are the only grownups who have time …."

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A Day I Could've Done Without

This normally active blog was pretty quiet yesterday ... and there's a reason for that.

It was "Chicken Day" - Friday evening we loaded 41 of our older laying hens (who were no longer laying) into the livestock trailer, and made the rounds of the neighborhood, picking up 26 at Kevyn's and another 40 at Pam's. We were supposed to be back home by 7pm, but we didn't even get started until about 8 - a sign of things to come, I'm afraid, but we didn't see it at the time.

Since our regular processor was not able to get us in (they process too many turkey's in November to have any time for chickens), we had scheduled an appointment at another Amish-run facility, this on east of us in Cambridge City, Indiana. We were supposed to arrive by 8am - Kris was driving our big pickup (a 1999 Dodge Ram 155) towing the livestock trailer, and I was following in the reefer truck. She was going to drop the chickens off and scoot back home to get started on cleaning up the barns, and I was going to wait for the processing to be done and bring the birds home all nice and chilled in the reefer truck.

We were actually running pretty much on time yesterday morning, until about 7:30am. When the engine in the big Dodge blew out. Completely. Looked like the Exxon Valdiz had cruised down I-70. Luckily, Kris managed to get the whole rig off the road before the final freeze up, but we were stuck on the interstate with a hundred chickens and a dead truck. We pulled the dipstick to check the oil and there were metal flakes visible on it - not good, not good at all. We've had some sensor problems all along in that vehicle, and they became the automotive equivalent of the little boy who cried wolf - when they showed wildly fluctuating oil pressure just before the incident, we ignored them. Except this time, there really was a wolf, and as a consequence our truck, with a Blue Book value of about $4000 yesterday morning, is now a block of rusting metal in a tow year, that'll probably cost me $25 to get to a scrap dealer.

But meanwhile, we had a big problem: how to get the chickens to their destiny? Kris called the AAA tow truck, and I went on ahead to the processor. I found another customer there, waiting on her turkeys, who agreed to come and fetch our trailer load of birds - so back we went, got the trailer, delivered the chickens to their fate, and began to try to figure out how to cope with the loss of our main vehicle.

We still haven't got everything in order: the chickens are in our freezers, but the trailer is still parked beside an Amish barn in Wayne County - we have no other vehicle that can pull it, so we'll have to borrow a truck this week and go fetch.

And while we still have two vehicles, because the seat won't adjust correctly in the reefer truck Kris is unable to reach the pedals, and so can only drive the S10 to work. Which kinda cuts me out from using the little truck for running around here - and it's tough to pick up feed and straw, for example, in a reefer box, muck less haul muck to the compost pile. But at least I can still make my delivery runs, so the business hasn't been killed. And that's a HUGE thing.

Step one is obviously to fix the seat in the reefer: that'll take care of things for a bit. But we can't be dependent on others for something as basic as a truck - we're going to have to try and find the cash somewhere to get another, bigger pickup that can town the trailers.

It's going to be interesting, that's for sure.

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USPTO Issues Provisional Storyline Patent

This Slashdot story is WRONG: the USPTO is going to publish the application, not issue the actual patent. But still, the publication gives the "inventor" the right to file provisional infringement claims, and the the mere fact that such a thing is even being seriously considered is nothing short of ludicrous: if we're patenting stories now, what is the purpose of copyright? The whole "intellectual property" regime in the US is seriously screwed up ... maybe I should seek a patent on "knight in shining armor slays dragon and rescues damsel in distress" or "calvary rides over the hill and saves town".

The USPTO will issue the first storyline patent in history today, with two others following in the next few months. Right to Create points out that this was anticipated several months ago in a story by Richard Stallman published in the The Guardian, UK. With the publication of this not-yet-granted patent, its author can begin requiring licensing fees for anyone whose activities might fall within its claims, including book authors, movie studies, television studios and broadcasters, etc. The claims appear to cover the literary elements of a story involving an ambitious high school student who applies for entrance to MIT and prays to remain sleeping until the acceptance letter comes, which doesn't happen for another 30 years.

(link) [Slashdot]

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China culls 6 million birds in avian flu-hit region

In case you wondered why poultry producers are especially terrified of avian flu ...

Reuters - China has culled 6 million birds in a northeastern region of China hit by the country's fourth outbreak of avian flu in a month, state media said on Monday.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

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Could the Web Not be Invented Today?

They're probably right: lawyers and politicians would be all over any new "disruptive" technology, trying to control it or banning it outright.Just witness the reaction to the peer to peer applications that have emerged in the last few years.

What these folks don't seem to realize is that "disruption" is just a synonym for "change", and change is the only constant the Universe provides ...

Corante's Copyfight has a piece up about this new column in the Financial Times by James Boyle celebrating (a few days on the early side) the 15th anniversary of Berners-Lee's first draft of a web page . The hook is this question: What would happen if the Web were invented today? From the article: 'What would a web designed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation or the Disney Corporation have looked like? It would have looked more like pay-television, or Minitel, the French computer network. Beforehand, the logic of control always makes sense. Allow anyone to connect to the network? Anyone to decide what content to put up? That is a recipe for piracy and pornography. And of course it is. But it is also much, much more...The lawyers have learnt their lesson now...When the next disruptive communications technology - the next worldwide web - is thought up, the lawyers and the logic of control will be much more evident. That is not a happy thought.'

(link) [Slashdot]

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