Guest post by WUWT moderator Mike Lorrey
Up here in northern New England, we like our tall tales. Stories of the humor, wisdom, and idiosyncratic thought of the yankee farmer stretch across the ages. This one you may have heard before, but it fits in with the current predeliction of our government climatologists habits of relabeling and redefining things in order to fabricate a public perception that things are getting warmer than they actually are….
Tink Fitzhew was a tough old codger. As knotty and wiry as those gnarled stumpy trees you see dotting the peaks of the White Mountains, much like his father, grandfather, and other ancestors going back to colonial days, when the family farm had been granted by the Governor of Massachusetts (yes, Maine was originally part of Massachusetts until the Great Compromise of 1820 in which Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state, with Maine being created as a free state to balance things out again in the US Senate) to his highlander forebears. Tink knew how to wring a living out of the thin stony soils of his farm. The rock walls around the edges of each of his fields was testament to the back breaking crowbar work that generations of Fitzhews had wrought to remove most of the rocks from their land. Every spring, however, a new crop heaved up through the frost laden soils. It was said that granite was really the only crop that grew well on that farm, other than maple trees and grazing grass.
In the winter, one fought to survive. The jet stream blew frigid arctic winds and snow down onto his farm with abandon. The barn needed to be boarded inside and out, and the farmhouse had a “bundle room” without windows, next to the central chimney, in which the family and farm hands eeked through the coldest part of winter. People got cozy like that. It was said that more marriages began or ended in the bundle room than anyplace else.
By the time Tink was near on retirement age, his kids were grown and moved away, the wife was dead, but he still managed to eek out a living with a small herd of Holsteins, though he’d always considered them to be closer members of his family anyways. Each had a name, and once you got to know them, their own personalities, though they, like Tink, weren’t very long on conversation unless you whet their whistle first with a good amount of mapleshine or applewine.
It was about that time that the US Geophysical Survey was surveying that area of the country, and while that area of New England had been surveyed as far back as the early 18th century, it wasn’t always by the most sober of individuals, nor did they have the benefit of satellites or aircraft back in the day.
Tink knew his farm was near the state border. How close it was, though, he didn’t know exactly. The whole town had long been in dispute as to which state it was supposed to be in in the first place, and his farm was on the edge of town. Many towns along the New Hampshire border had been chartered by the colonial Governors of both NH and Massachusetts, just as many in Vermont were chartered by NH and New York in conflict. Just which state one lived in was an issue of debate for many. There are even records in Britain of Revolutionary War POW lists that listed American prisoners as originating from Kittery, New Hampshire, Berwick, NH, etc. (some are online today) However Tink had always followed convention and voted in Maine since that was what the grant deed said.
So it was with some sense of excitement that Tink held when he saw the USGS surveyors coming up his drive one day, stopping at his porch.
“Mister Fitzhew?” one surveyor queried.
“Ayup, thets me,” Tink replied.
“Well sir, we’ve completed the survey in this area, and we have some rather startling news for you.”
“Oh, really?” Tink asked.
“Yes, it appears that your farm isn’t actually *in Maine*. You sir, are a resident of New Hampshire. Isn’t that great?”
“Well I’ll be, isn’t that sumthin?” Tink said in hopeful resignation, “I nevah could stand them Maine wintahs.”
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WOW !!
That was quite a setup for the punch line !!!
very funny !!!!
Good one!
Anthony, thanks for posting Mike Lorrey’s tale, and sparking others in the Comments. After the depressing stories about the warm-mongers propagandizing children in Chicago and scheming to hoodwink the hoi-poloi in Virginia, we needed a laugh or two.
Maybe in addition to the Quote of the Week you could invite a Tall Tale of the Week.
/Mr Lynn
Ok … so one more
Tourist is watching a New England farmer clear rocks from his field.
“Where did all the rocks come from?” the tourist asks.
Farmer tells him “Glacier brought em”.
Tourist looks around, then asks “Where is the glacier now?”
Farmer replies “Went back for more rocks”.
A Soviet era Russian joke:
A census taker in the old USSR is interviewing an elderly gentleman.
“Where were you born?”
“St. Petersburg.”
“And where did you grow up?”
“In Petrograd.”
“Where do you live now?”
“In Leningrad?”
“And where do you hope to be buried?”
“In St. Petersburg.”
These are not tall tales. They reflect the way folks in Maine think. For example, my wife received the following directions when travelling to Oxford Hills – “You take the left before the end of the road.” Moreover, anyone who has travelled around Maine knows that the famous “Bert and I” line, “Come to tink about it, you can’t git thar from heer” is an accurate description for many locations for many tourists. Once you are off the Pike, you are on your own.
Daniel H is clearly related to Tink!!
Must be a new sign. No holes. Wait a minute, thats OK. Its an ‘outer’ in the ‘S’.
Come on, Daniel made a joke, right? Daniel reads the WHOLE story twice and misses the punch line. The very last sentance. Get it?
Spector says:
July 19, 2010 at 9:56 pm
The family is not much into history, so my son-in-law was a bit surprised I spotted the statue of Col Chamberlain while driving into Brunswick. I knew who it was without realizing where I was. My daughter’s family goes there all the time for hot dogs and groceries and had never noticed. I rattled off a brief overview of Little Round Top and its importance to the unfolding of events at Gettysburg.
The whole story of the 20th Maine is fascinating. It was made up of men from all over the state and basically was what was left over after the other regiments were formed. Family and college did everything they could to keep the Colonel from going to war. He most definitely was not warrior material, or so it seemed.
There seemed to be some controversy at the time regarding who exactly gave the order for bayonets at the critical moment. Seems there is controversy regarding every important turning point. The men challenging Chamberlain had marched longer than any other unit at Gettysburg. They were also out of water, the men sent out to fill their canteens being captured by another Union unit. It seemed inevitable they would give out assaulting Little Round Top.
There was another critical fight on the other end of the fish hook of Gettysburg, fought on Culp’s Hill by a Colonel Ireland leading the 137th of New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ireland_(colonel)
You would probably enjoy reading some books by McPherson, the apparent leading author on Gettysburg.
http://www.amazon.com/James-M.-McPherson/e/B000AQ3NV2/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
kind of a “sideways” “The men who went up a hill and came down from a mountain” eh?
DCC says:
July 20, 2010 at 3:54 am
Minor quibble. US Geophysical Survey should be US Geological Survey. Geologists (like me) think there is a difference.
Whatever rocks yah DCC!!
–Off topic: Actually, Fitzhew isn’t a Scottish name but a Norman one meaning the illegitimate son of Hew or more possible Hugh….sorry!!!
No way that’s a sign on the Maine State Line.
No bullet holes…
Very good news! Maine owes him a refund on all the income tax he paid since 1969. There is no personal income tax in NH.
>> Layne Blanchard says:
July 19, 2010 at 10:13 pm
… USGS … also notes that jet contrails might contribute to cooling thru cloud formation. <<
In all my long life I've never experienced being cooled by the shadow of a contrail.
Mike, thanks for the humor. Grew up just south of Maine and NH in Mass. We had a long line of conversational interactions between tourists and natives. Offhand, the two I remember went:
T: “Nice day isn’t it.”
N: “So fah”
T: “Lived here all your life?”
N: “Not yet.”
What, no Maine limericks? I can imagine some colorful stuff starting with “There once was a man from Bangor” : )
John
OMG, I will reveal my roots on this one. This story is a classic of its kind. My father (born 1908) loved these stories, told them, and made them up on the fly. The joke is two-fold. First, Tink’s response is a way of saying “You think you just told me something, don’t you?” Second, it is a way of saying “The importance of state lines to me is entirely fictional.” If you want to attach some obvious historical significance to this story, just transport Tink to Appalachia in 1861, somewhere along the present border between Virginia and West Virginia, and imagine the different factions coming to Tink and asking for his support in the coming war.
Great! I was really anxious for the Ol’Guy. Thought they were going to tell him that the farm was in Canada and that he wouldn’t be able to get there from here any more.
Mike Fox writes:
“A Maine small plot potato farmer regularly used a pig randomly rooting around the field to turn the soil so that the next crop could be planted. One day, an eager young man from the School of Agriculture dropped by to discuss with the farmer how he could enhance his farming techniques. He explained to the farmer how much time he could save tilling the field using a tractor and a plow instead of letting the pig do its thing. The farmer was unimpressed, replying, “Waal, time don’t mean nuthin’ to a pig.””
Yep, all these old “frontier farmer” stories express an underlying Daoism (Taoism). No time to explain here. This particular one is actually found in Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu.
If cap’n tax passes we all will have to have a bundle room.
Got a lot of Scots Irish in my family-my Granpa was much like that…
He was a West Virginian-Via Iowa. There are folks like this all over the world…
Tourist comes to a folk in the road with a signpost that says “Portland” right or left.
He asked the Maine farmer standing nearby “Does it matter which fork I take to Portland.”
Farmer, “Don’t matta’ to me.”
So…what’s the moral of this beautiful tale: Some day will the USGS guys will be back and say:
“Well sir, we’ve completed the survey in this area, and we have some rather startling news for you.”
“Yes, it appears that your farm isn’t actually *in USA. You sir, are now a servant of New World Order, so from now on you will be a happy inhabitant of this Brave New World, under the UN government. Isn’t that great?”
And this is not a tale: Just google about all the binding agreements signed, from the WHO, ILO, to ISO instead of ASTM, etc.
Happy?
I would like to add the following: I do not live in the USA, but this morning I wanted to access my office computer (it usually does not have any password), and I couldn’t do it. When I asked why, I received the following answer: ” We are obliged to have every computer with a password to conform with ISO 9000″ .
What the heck have to do the Brussels EU government with my computer?!…an almost economically broken association of countries telling what to do or not to do with a computer at the other side of the earth?, come on!
I truckie pulled his sixteen wheeler livestock truck into the park behind a back-country pub. He was enjoying a cold soft drink when a motorcycle gang rode up, parked behind his truck then noisily invaded the bar. They spotted the lone truckie enjoying his soft drink. The gang leader offered him a whisky, attempting to intimidate him. When the truckie pleasantly refused, the gang gathered around him and began teasing him for his unmanly choice of drink. The truckie finished his drink, told the barman he would be by next week, then departed.
After a half hour of noisy chat and rapid drinking, the gang leader said to the barman
“That truckie ain’t much of a drinker.”
“Ain’t much of a driver, either. He backed over all of your motorcycles on his way out!”