Rockets, Fanny Hill, Computer Programming

By Bobby Neal Winters

Rules can be frustrating, but they can free us.

One of my favorite science communicators, Scott Manley, did a YouTube video recently about the engineering reasons for the shape of Blue Origin’s rocket. If you don’t know what I am talking about, I suggest you google this very carefully and you will be enlightened. In order to prevent being too--direct--in describing “the shape,” Manley makes use of quotations from “Fanny Hill: The memoirs of a woman of pleasure” by John Cleland.  

My understanding--I’ve never read it--is that “Fanny Hill” (written in the 1700s) is a work of pornography.  Because of the times, Cleland had to be very careful about avoiding direct language. Because of this, he was forced into the world of colorful euphemism.  For similar reasons, Manley makes use of the reservoir of creative description from “Fanny Hill” in his video on the unfortunate shape of Blue Origin’s rocket.

I found it to be hilarious. Perhaps that is a sign of my fallen nature.

But there is a point to be made here: Constraints foster creativity.  Having rules in place to avoid direct description of vulgar objects, forced Cleland to be creative in his euphemisms. 

While goodness knows we don’t have the same sort of constraints in place now that they did in the 1700s, there is quite a tradition of being roundabout in language for the sake of preserving the innocence of children, a noble cause. This tradition has produced quite a bit of very good art.

I faced this myself recently while carving some chess pieces for  my grandsons. (Please, please, if you run into them, don’t let on.) Each of the main pieces was carved from a piece of bass wood that was one-inch square and 4 inches tall.

As you may recall from a previous column, this is a non-traditional chess set.  Instead of a king and queen, there are farm couples.  Instead of knights, one side has dogs and the other has cats. Instead of bishops, one side has priests and the other has preachers. 

There were lots and lots of different ways the carving could have gone, but the size constraint made of a lot of my decisions for me.  There were things that I simply could not have done--with my small skillset--in that space.

Art is not the only place where this phenomena occurs. I’ve run into it in computer programming.  (Indeed, I owe the notion to the computer programming guru Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin.) For the past several months, I’ve been learning assembly language programming.  Those of you who have been loyal sufferers of this space, may recall that I went through a period of learning Python programming.  

What is the difference between these two? By analogy, Python is London where you have subways,taxis, Ubers, and trains.  Assembly language is the Amazon where if you want to get anywhere, you need to first make a dugout canoe, but before you do that you need to make an ax, but before you do that, you need to learn to smelt iron, etc.

This comparison goes further.  Python, like London, has a lot of laws; by way of contrast, there may be laws in the Amazon, but who is there to enforce them?

Assembly language is wide open; there are very few constraints. Which means it can be hard to do, but there is a trick to make it easier: you put the constraints on yourself.  Arrange your code like you arrange your workshop.  Force some structure on yourself.

This will require some creativity on your part, but it will make what you write easier to read.  The time you save may be your own.

None of this is new. Members of religions have been putting constraints on themselves for thousands of years. (Or God, has.)  THOU SHALT NOT! 

Monastic orders impose rules upon themselves. Times of prayer throughout the day, throughout the year.  Times for restricting the intake of food; times for feasting! Rules to be followed.

We do have to be careful.  Too many rules will try us down like the Lilliputians tied down Gulliver. But--as a friend told me once--if a kite doesn’t have a string on it, it can’t fly.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

The Quintessence of a Dog

 The Quintessence of a Dog

By Bobby Neal Winters

I’ve been back in my workshop, back working with wood.  I aim to be an artisan, not an artist.  Indeed, to be recognized as an artisan would be a great step forward for me as a hobbyist. 

But I have made a discovery: If you aspire to be an artisan, you must open yourself to be at least a little bit of an artist. 

To be either, I need to put in a lot more practice.  In order to do this, I’ve set up some projects.

Don’t tell my grandsons, but I am carving them a set of chessmen for Christmas. Before you set the wrong image in your head, let me explain that this isn’t the usual King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn setup.  

It’s a country chess set.  I am carving it out of one inch by one inch by four inch balsa wood.

Instead of the King and Queen, I’ve got a farm couple, or farm couples, I should say, because I am making them different from each other.  One man is wearing a cowboy hat and his wife is wearing a bonnet.  The other man is wearing a baseball cap and his wife’s hair is uncovered.

Instead of Knights, I am giving one side dogs and the other side cats. Instead of bishops, I am giving them preachers. If I can figure out how to carve collars, I will make one side Catholic and the other Protestant. 

Rooks, at this point, are undecided.

Outhouses have been suggested, and I am fond of that suggestion.  I think they will be easy to carve in a recognizable way--and that is important as I will explain later--and that they will be cute.  For the other side, I am thinking of milk tanks because--in my mind--the man with the cap and the woman with the flowing hair are dairy farmers. That is why they have cats.  However, they are not easily recognized.

Let me now explain why that is important.

I am in an interesting phase of my craft. When I carve, say, a dog, I will show it to a nice person to ask what they think. They look at it, study it carefully, and say, “What a cute...dog?”

I will then heave a sigh of relief, and say, “Yes, yes, a dog.”

Let me just say, it takes a lot of work to carve even something that looks barely like a dog, and to do it on a small piece of wood.

I am mentioning dogs rather than cats because they have been harder for me.  It’s the noses, the snouts.  

All cats' noses look alike--at least at the point of view of someone with my tiny skill set--but dogs have a huge variety of snouts. They have all sorts of lengths and all sorts of angles.  If you are just a tiny bit off with a short nose, you go from dog to pig. And that’s no good.

I’ve had to do some thinking about what makes a dog look like a dog, what makes a cat look like a cat, what makes a farmer look like a farmer etc.

To make a dog look like a dog, I’ve had to stop worrying about making it a realistic dog. For me, the snout can’t be realist, or, as has been mentioned, we slide the slippery slope down into pig-hood. 

The snout must be--at least a little--cartoonish.

At my low level of carving skill, the photo-reality of a dog is in tension with the dog’s quintessence. And the quintessence has got to win if someone untutored beforehand looks at it and says, “What a cute dog!” with the exclamation point there instead of a question mark.

What makes a dog--in my opinion at least--is its snout AND its ears.  For the cat, it’s the ears and the tail.  Whiskers add a bit as well, but it is hard to tell in a small medium.

At the end of this, I will have increased my skill set a bit. I know this because I’ve gotten better already.  And my grandsons will have something to remember grandpa by.  

And I hope they will have evidence that they themselves will always be able to learn something new. And that I love them. And that those are dogs.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

 

 

 Corruption and Incorruption

By Bobby Neal Winters

We are on a journey:  Each of us as individuals; our cities; our countries.  The journey is through space and time. We walk our own path, but do we walk alone?

I’ve been optimizing my paths as I walk here in Asuncion.  I take a walk every morning, and to give it a point, I walk to a place to have coffee.  I’ve got one particular place up on Avenido Eulogio Estigarribia that is my favorite, and I’ve been trying to find the best way to get there

I walk from where I am staying about 30 yards south to De Las Palmeras.  I then go east. I cross to the plumbing-contractor supply place and continue two blocks.  At the first block, I hop over some exposed plastic pipe that is laying on top of the ground.  I would say this was a temporary fix, but that’s what I said a year-and-a-half ago when I saw it when I was visiting them. When something goes wrong, you need to fix it as soon as you can afford to. If you put it off, other expenses will arise.  With possible exceptions, nothing gets cheaper; nothing gets easier. 

After a year-and-a-half, this above ground plastic pipe is a feature.  

A block past that is where I turn north.  This is a good street, but there is a large abandoned house on the corner. It was impressive in its day, but it’s been empty for a while now.  It has caught my attention now in particular because of a smell that is coming forth from the overgrown courtyard behind the impressive wall on the corner.

It is the smell of something rotten and it’s not fruit.

Something, some animal, is dead behind that impressive wall. It could be--and probably is--that someone’s pampered pet made its way back to go to its last sleep within the impressive foliage that has overtaken the once rich courtyard.  Very probably.

My problem is that I am a Law and Order fan. If this were an episode of Law and Order, the person walking along the street would climb the wall and find a dead body.  He would then report it to the police, who would detain him from going home until he was cleared of being a suspect.

I see a policeman who’s pulled a motorist over to the side.  Given what I’ve seen happen in traffic here, it boggles the mind what the motorist must’ve done to be pulled over.  I could tell him about the smell.

But...

This isn’t New York, and I’m not a character in Law and Order.  I am not hanging around until I’m cleared as a suspect.  I am getting on a plane at 2am on Saturday morning and going home.

I turn the corner and head north.  Soon the smell is behind me.

I’ve chosen this as the best way because the sidewalks are so nice. In Asuncion, as in many places, you are responsible for your own sidewalk. Some folks build a nice one when they build their house.  But there are two parts of anything, the building of it and the upkeep.  Just because you had the money and desire to build it doesn’t mean you will be able to keep it up.

What I’ve noticed is there is a correlation among the conditions of sidewalks in front of one house and the next.  If your neighbor has a nice sidewalk, you are more likely to have one. It’s called keeping up with the Joneses. But you come to an abandoned house or a house that is owned by people who’ve fallen on rough economic times, and its side walk has deteriorated.  There is then not the pressure on the neighbors to keep up appearances, so they let theirs slide. 

On this street, San Roque González de Santacruz, the correct socio-economic factors are in place that will allow me to walk on the sidewalks without playing hopscotch.

Here I see courtyards with well-kept gardens; walls decorated with art and statuary; sidewalks being hosed-down by groundskeepers, and swept by house maids; locked gates and armed gatekeepers.

No trash, no overgrown foliage, no mysterious, malevolent smells coming over the nicely painted, well scrubbed wall.

So different from the house at the other end of the street.

Who we are requires so many things: work; spirit; luck; the times we are in; the neighbors we have; and the people we know.  The road we are on has two ends to it.

Where will we end up?

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

 

 

 God’s Imagination

By Bobby Neal Winters

God has a much better imagination than we do. He sees opportunities where we do not.  His grace encompasses everything.

I’ve been doing a scientific sampling of the coffee shops that are within walking distance of where I am staying here in Asuncion.  There are many fine places: Juan Valdez Café; El Café de Acá; El Café de Porfirio. None of them quite as good as Signet or Root, but all much, much better than...well you know. The big chain.

In my explorations, I was directed to one that was located “behind Centro Medico Bautista,”  the Baptist Medical Center.’t 

It’s a hospital. A hospital established by the Baptists.  I would guess Baptist missionaries.  I walked by and read the signs.  In addition to the hospital, they’ve got Sunday School on Sundays; two services, morning and evening; they’ve got Wednesday evening services; and something on Saturday for the youth.

And a biggish hospital. I say “biggish” because I don’t know their numbers.  It ain’t KU-Med, but it is a teaching hospital.

I was born, raised, and baptized as a Southern Baptist.  The week of your birthday, you were supposed to go to the front of the church, put in a penny in a little house for every year old you were, and have the congregation sing happy birthday to you.  That money went to missions.

I stood for a long moment looking at what I believe to be some of the fruit of that collective effort.

As I continued to walk, I looked at the neighborhood.  There were lots of nice service businesses here. Well, of course, they are next to a hospital. There were restaurants--coffee shops!--pharmacies.  There was a “Beef Club”. (I’ve no idea what the hell that is!) All of this was drawn by the hospital.

Then I thought about all the doctors who would have houses and in this culture housekeepers, groundskeepers, etc.  Many incomes are being generated beyond those just in the hospital.

The ripples go throughout the city.

And, in my mind at least, this is connected with all those pennies Baptists are putting in the little red-roofed houses for their birthdays.

I want to hold on to that.

Sometimes when I am scrolling through my Facebook Feed (doom-scrolling they call it), I come upon statements like: “Not a dime of foreign aid while there is a single homeless veteran.”

And I have to agree with the sentiment of helping our veterans.  All gave some, some gave all.  

We owe them.

We owe them, but this is not an either-or thing.

The quote “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can” is often attributed to John Wesley.  This is probably a misattribution, but we don’t know that he didn’t say it, and it makes Methodists happy to think he did.

Doing good has a way of spreading in unexpected ways.  God’s imagination is better than our imagination.  Helping in foreign lands might unwittingly help ours.  Some of the businesses moving in around Centro Medico Bautista were North American-owned chains.  The little pennies put in the red-topped houses are coming back as dollars to North American corporations.

There’s nothing wrong with that.  The sick are still being healed, but the big McDonald’s across the street is making some money.

I can hear the traffic out my window.  Asuncion is beginning to wake up on this Saturday morning.  I think I will make a circle to get a cup of coffee from that little place behind Centro Medico Bautista.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

Baptized into the Church of Asuncion

Baptized into the Church of Asuncion

By Bobby Neal Winters

Yesterday, I went to the movies .  I saw the Joker, Part 2 with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. It was playing in the Paseo La Galeria mall in Asuncion. This is the ritzy-est mall I’ve ever been in, for what that worth.

I went totally unprepared. I’d not read anything about it, though I had seen the movie that it follows. Joaquin Phoenix is one of the best American actors of his time so I thought it would be worth it.  

For me it was. I, however, sometimes have a rather strange taste in movies.  I’d not expected Joker II to be a musical.  But it is: a good one.  I’ve not followed the work of Lady Gaga, nor do I plan to, but she has a good voice which can shape emotion.

I’d not expected it to have a compelling love story.  But it does: a strange, twisted one. 

I’d not expected so much Jungian imagery.  But I got it: from the very first.

It is the story of broken people in a corrupt society. The corrupt society breaks people.  The corrupt society distorts any means by which those people can be healed.  The refuse of that society believes they have found someone who embodies their brokenness and who can extract vengeance for them.  When that fails, well, you won’t be surprised.  Or maybe you will: I was.

It is one of those I don’t want to take responsibility for advising you to see, but it did give me a lot to think about. 

Today, I went to church. Saint Andrew’s Chapel, an Anglican Church, on the north side of Avenida Espana just to the west of where it crosses Avenida Maximo Santos.  I’d made a failed attempt last week. This week I regrouped.  I knew exactly where it was; I got on google maps to mark my path out.

Then I woke up to the sound of thunder this morning.

They have been needing rain here.  There have been fires in the Chaco, and the smoke from them has been coming into the city.  While there have been cool days with clouds, there’s been no rain.

It had begun to rain what I called an “8-inch” rain in that the drops were hitting on the sidewalk 8 inches apart.  I thought about walking, then I thought about going into a church sopping wet, so I decided to take an Uber.

The rain remained more speculative than real as we drove along.  I could have walked it.  I vowed that I would walk back.

I was the first one there.  I minister--Donald--was setting up the altar.  He saw me and came back to greet me. We chatted.

The congregants began to trickle in.  There were so few even trickle is too generous a word. More than 20, fewer than 25.  All sizes; all shapes; all economic conditions.  Three Americans; three South Africans.

Broken people from a corrupt society. Just like anywhere.

Music consisted of one man with a guitar who led us in hymns. A sincere voice that kept the focus where it should be. There was a sermon that the Apostle Paul could’ve given, in the sense there was nothing novel in it: Repent and God will forgive you because He loves you.

The usual prayers; communion; going forth; then lemonade and cookies. 

My heart felt light and was strangely warmed.  I began my walk home.

There were drops of rain here and there.

I stopped at a grocery store and bought some oranges so I could have a little plastic bag to put my phone in.  Just in case.  The store didn’t sell umbrellas just to let you know.

While I was in the store the rumor of rain had become the real thing.  

I pressed on.

While storm sewers are not unknown in Asuncion, their system is not, shall we say, fully developed.  As a consequence of this, the streets were beginning to run like rivers. Little rivers, but rivers nonetheless.

I pressed on.

I came to an intersection with a very busy street.  Direct across from me, I saw a graffito scrawled on a wall: “Sonria, Cristo te ama.” Smile, Christ loves you.  Above this heartfelt scrawl was a video billboard that was 30 feet wide and 40 feet tall. In flashy, dynamic fashion it was offering all of the joys of a commercial society.  All of this can be yours if you bow down to worship me.

I was standing there, waiting for the light to change with this running through my head when a city bus came by and hit one of the rivers flowing down the street dead-on, and I was baptized in the church of the city of Asuncion.

They believe in full-immersion.

The rain never got any lighter.  I made it home and changed into dry clothes.

It’s been a good day.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

 Family, neighbors, friends, and Watermelon

By Bobby Neal Winters

On many days during my stay in Paraguay, I walk to the Superseis that is on Avenida Argentina, just south of the intersection with De Las Palmeras.  At the intersection, there is a fruit stand.  They will bring fruit to drivers in their cars as they wait for the light to change.

I see that they have watermelons.

They call a watermelon by the name sandia in Paraguay.  I pay attention because I love watermelon.  I love watermelon on many levels.  It is sweet, it is filling, and it has few calories per unit volume.

I also love them because of memory.  They open a door back to a world that is almost forgotten to me.   They remind me of my Grampa Sam.

Summer days were long in the cross-timbers of Oklahoma, not just in the measure of hours of daylight, but in the measure of perceived time.  A summer day would sometimes last an entire year in the mind of a 5-year-old.

The sun was bright: it bleached my hair; it tanned my skin.  My bare feet were made hard by walking through grass and gravel.

On some days, when the season for watermelons came, my Grandpa Sam would mysteriously obtain one or our neighbor Buck Crabtree would bring one by.  Neither mentioned ever buying one.  Sam and Buck were men who had friends, and often the friends would give them things.  Those were the way things were in that time and place; at least that is the way I remember them.

There was a ritual. One would obtain a watermelon, but more needed to be done.  Watermelon is a dish best served cold, as they say.  The watermelon would be immersed in cold water or--even better--water that had a big block of ice floating in it. It would be chilled in this manner for as much of the day as possible.

Then, after a few months of the day had passed, as the sun sank low in the west, we would gather around with family and neighbors and eat the watermelon.  And it was always the whole family and neighbors, because all of the watermelon had to be consumed at one sitting.  The idea of cutting up a melon and putting it into the refrigerator for later consumption had not yet entered our culture.

No, we gathered around this offering and shared with our neighbors.  We shared melon; we shared news; we shared triumph and tragedy.  

We shared ourselves.

But now individuality has crept so into our society it even affects our consumption of watermelon. I can buy a watermelon now; cut it up; put it in the fridge; and breakfast on it for a week.  That is, I can get a week’s worth of breakfast out if others who come through my household--they know who they are--don’t steal it from me.

That last sentence is a measure of how deeply the disease of individuality has taken root.  I seek to gather to myself what was once an occasion of sharing.  Indeed, I resent sharing.  But in my defense, I might not resent sharing my melon as much if I got to share lives at the same time.

I talk to my students in Paraguay.  What are their plans for the weekend?

For many the answer is that they go to their grandparents--their abuelos--for asado--barbecue. Large families, sharing food, sharing lives.  One would imagine them gathering after having shared the eucharist.

I bought half a watermelon from the fruit stand on the weekend.  They are aggressive; they wanted to sell me a whole one.  I protested that I would have to carry it very far.  The young lady rubbed my shoulder with her hand and told me that I was strong.

Oh, please.  Give me a break.

But I did buy half a melon and only worried later about the perils of buying melon cut by people who were so ruthless in their sales technique.

I am alone; I am in journalist mode, whether I’ve a right to that state or not.  I am an atomic human observing a sea of molecular humanity.  I’ve not seen the likes of this since I was a boy.

A boy in Oklahoma on an infinite summer day having watermelon with my family, my neighbors, and my friends.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

 Sunday Morning Coming Down

By Bobby Neal Winters

Word has come to me here in Asuncion that Kris Kristofferson has passed away.  I was thinking of him just yesterday morning.

I am in Paraguay for 3 weeks.  I’ve made a point to try to find an English language church service here. Sometimes we pray for help; I googled. I did a search for “English language church service.”  I got the website for St. Andrew’s Anglican church.  Services were at 10am.  There was a location.  

The site had last been updated in 2016.  Churches are notorious for not keeping their webpages up to date, but it was all I had.

Google maps assured me that it was a 34-minute walk, but I gave myself an hour, starting at 9.

It was a beautiful morning.  Traffic was light, mostly people who were clearing going to church.  I walked past two or three churches where services were being held in Spanish.

The sounds of liturgy came out from the sanctuaries, which were open to the outside.  Outside men stood in white shirts.  I don’t know if they were waiting for the next service, waiting as their wives worshiped without them, or just having a smoke.

I walked past kindergartens and grocery stores; past restaurants and bars; past car dealerships and ice cream parlors. 

Google maps took me up a street called Avenida Senador Huey P. Long.  Yes, that Huey P. Long.  It was a very nice neighborhood with inviting restaurants, bars, and pubs.  Senator Long would have approved.

I crossed Avenida Espana.  Google told me I was getting close.

“Destination on your left,” it said.

No. Not there. Neither a church nor anything that could plausibly serve as a church. Ever.

I still had half an hour, so I searched again.  This time from my phone instead of my computer.  I don’t know, maybe it would make a difference.

There it popped up: Saint Andrew’s Chapel.  This time there was a picture.  There was a sign in the picture in front of the church that confirmed that services started at 10AM.  Google maps confirmed that the chapel was on Avenida Espana...50 minutes by foot from where I stood.

Maybe I am stubborn. (Surely not.) Maybe I just didn’t have anything better to do. (Probably.) I began the trek.  Google told me I would get there by 10:24 am.  

So I would be a little late.

I began.

I set a good pace.  I was enjoying the morning, practicing my Spanish by reading signs.  Being philosophical about how they used English in some of their advertisements compared how we use Spanish. 

Then it got surreal.

I was walking under a palm tree and a bird dive-bombed my head.  It was kind of scary, but no harm done.

I walked two blocks further and it happened again.

I began to think about Joseph in pharaoh's prison and the baker who had had the dream about the loaves of bread being picked at by birds.

Nevertheless, I pressed on.  See the remark concerning stubbornness above.

Google assured me my destination was ahead on the right. I looked and saw the chapel.  I also noted there weren’t many vehicles there.  Not many as in not any.

The gate to the driveway was closed. 

Hmmm.

I talked to the gate to the sidewalk and checked the handle. It opened; I entered.

In the twinkling of an eye, there was a guard there.

Okay, the guard was somewhere between 16 and 20 years old; he wasn’t wearing a uniform; he didn’t have a gun; but I am still going to call him a guard.

I’ve reached a level in my Spanish where I can make myself understood a lot of the time, and I can kind of guess what they are saying to me.

This was the Sunday the priest went to preach to the Guarani, the local  indigenous people. There would be church at this location next Sunday.  

I walked back to a supermarket I’d passed and got a bottle of pop. Paraguay’s version of Fresca.  I drank my pop and thought it over.  Then I got a taxi to head back to the room.

Today I learned that Kris Kristofferson passed away yesterday. I think he would’ve kind of liked my story.

There’s nothing short of dying/ half as lonely as the sound/ of a sleeping city sidewalk/ Sunday Morning coming down.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.