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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Daniel H says:
July 19, 2010 at 8:12 pm
…and this is interesting because?
If I have to tell you, it spoils the fun. What’s almost as interesting is your feigned obtuseness.
New England Yankees are actually a Native American Tribe, (No Yankeeland in Europe, after all,) but the Yankee are dying out because they are unprotected by a reservation. The winter weather, however, is sheltering as few enclaves in remote spots.
Many Hippies moved north from Boston Colleges around 1969 to start communes and “get back to nature.” I’d say around 90% were heading south to Mom’s, in Boston’s suburbs, by the next February. The 10% who stayed tended to be Yankees to begin with.
Winter can start with snow in October (like last year,) and it is not unusual to have snow in May. Count it up on your fingers. That’s eight months of winter (and “four months of rough sledding.”) (Actually I think that joke’s from Minnesota.)
That also gives you a growing season of four months, 120 days, if you are lucky.
If the past thirty years was a “Warm cycle,” then the next thirty are going to be even rougher in New England.
The best way to be accepted in a New England town is to be yourself. Never attempt to “be local.” The only way to become local is to “live in town five generations.” (My father was not “local,” though he grew up across a river, in the next town.)
Never, never attempt to figure Yankee out, like an anthropologist would. (I also noticed this among the Navajo. Navajo had great fun telling anthropologists about “traditions,” which they were in fact making up on the spot, keeping a very straight, serious and stoic face as they did so. Some of these “traditions” are now in print in the University of Albuquerque archives, as genuine Navajo traditions.)
Yankee also tell tall tales, keeping a straight face, along the lines of, “Last wintah the snow was so deep we had to dig down twelve feet jus’ t’ hahvast the wintah apples.”
Navajo called outsiders (who approached their culture with a strange mix of awed idealism and condescending superiority) the name “Wannabeah’s.” In New England hills they are called “Flatlanders.”
A man from California once told me he found Yankees very cold, at first, but later realized once you made a friend the friendship was strong. In California, he said, it was easy to make a friend, but a year later the friend might not remember your name.
People are attracted to rich old cultures like the Yankee’s, but such cultures are dying out because few want to go through all the work involved. A rich culture is like a rich marriage; you have to stay in it even on the days the other folk drive you half mad. It’s not all that attractive, compared to what the young imagine lies off in the big cities.
Tom_R says:
“In all my long life I’ve never experienced being cooled by the shadow of a contrail.”
I have many times. I’ve also seen contrails become clouds and persist for hours. Just because it doesn’t happen where you live, doesn’t disprove it. Actually, there are stories going around about how those contrails are an evil Air Force experiment…….
The version I first heard involved a farmer living on the border of Montana and North Dakota. You can choose which ever state you want the farmer to become. Or… we can resurrect another old chestnut.
An old South Dakota farmer dies and is sent to Hades. When he gets there the Devil asks him if it’s warm enough for him. He replies: “Nah, it’s about like the temp in August just before the wheat harvest.” The Devil walks over to the wall and turns the thermostat up a couple of notches. The Devil comes back a couple of weeks later and asks the old boy if it’s hot enough yet. The farmer is now in a short sleeve shirt and is sweating slightly and replies: Aw this nutthin’. It’s about like South Dakota at the start of harvest. The Devil cranks the thermostat up a couple of more notches. Two weeks later the Devil comes back and asks the farmer if it’s hot enough for him. The farmer has taken of his shirt and has his bandanna in his back pocket and replies: “Naw. It’s about like it is atthe middle of harvest season.” The Devil goes into a rage and cranks the temperature all the way up and stomps out. Two weeks later he asks the farmer if it’s hot enough. The farmer, now in shorts and no shirt and sweating buckets, allows as how it is getting a might warm , nut it’s not any worse than the temperature at the end of harvest time. This infuriates the Prince of Darkness so much that he cranks the thermostat ALL THE WAY DOWN! He comes back a week later. The farmer now has frost on his eyebrows and eyelashes. Icicles are dripping off the end of his nose and he’s a lovely shade of blue. The whole place is coated with ice and snow. The Devil says: “What do you think of the temperature now Mr South Dakota farmer?”
The farmer looks at the Devil and says: “Well…… I think Dr. Michael Mann just admitted that his “hockey-stick” graph was total horse manure.”
An old Maine radio ad:
A gentleman had moved to Maine 40 years ago and raised a family. When he told an old Mainuh that his kids were Mainers, the old codger replied, “Well, . . . if my cat had kittens in the oven, I wouldn’t call them biscuits.”
Amy Salsbury of the TriCounty Gahden Club “openin’ tha gahden gate” and 15 With Fred (diaries of an old forestry warden) were always my favorite radio shows back in the late 60s.
Gilbert K. Arnold says:
July 20, 2010 at 10:53 am
May I suggest the XXX novels’ writer a.k.a. IPCC Patchi as the Devil character in your tale?:-)
As global warming didn’t work, he will try to “crank the thermostat ALL THE WAY DOWN”, though such a phenomenon we call it a Maunder like minimum.
it’s the devils’ make 🙂
Dry witicisms are a practiced art. Maine has sponsored more than most other states.
When I lived out in Massachusetts for 10 months, about 15 years ago, the Massachusetts folks referred to the Maine residents as ‘Main-i-acs’. With typical Maine wit, they referred in kind to Massachusetts folks as ‘Mass-holes’.
A practiced art, indeed!
Thanks for this. I dug out my old Bert and I album. I hadn’t listened to it in several years at least.
“Bert and I Solve The Energy Crisis” tells a hilarious tale of their conversion of the “Bluebird Three” to steam power, cutting two feet off the bottom of the boat and adding them to the sides so it slid along the top of the water, getting lost in fog due to the lighthouse only giving a signal every two hours to conserve energy, and also the fact that they had installed a 50-watt bulb would have made it difficult to see anyway. In the end, unknown to them, they wind up traveling over land, on top of nothing but a heavy dew. They then attach a sprinkler to the bow to provide enough moisture to travel on, wind up on Route 1 doing greater than the 50mph speed limit, and get pulled over by a policeman, who, when they explain what happened, and show their lobsterman’s license instead of a driver’s license climbs into a tree. The closing line is; “They say he’s up there still – tryin’ to conserve energy, I guess”.
They would have had a ball with the whole Global Wahmin’ thing.
mkelly says:
July 20, 2010 at 7:45 am
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.”
___________________________________________________________
I can assure you from first hand experience in giving directions to people from away that it wouldn’t likely make any difference to them either.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As for that Global Wahmin’ thing Bruce Cobb,
I’ve survived 60 winters here in Maine and all of the Global Wahmin never really seems to make a bit of permanent difference.
I’m somewhat set for this winter as the oil tank is topped off, there are several tons of pellets in the bunker, and the filling of canning jars has started.
I do have to get some gasoline for the snow blower, I didn’t have to use much last winter but the two before that and from the looks of things this winter were a royal PITA.
@ur momisuglyIan Cooper:
Careful before telling a Maine Man that he doesn’t have a sense of humor (pronounced HU-mah). The old story is true about Maine Hu-mah: it’s not that it ain’t funny; it’s just that you don’t get it.
Daniel H
Sense of humour atrophied in the heat, has it, Daniel?
savethesharks says:
July 19, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Live free or die. [Great post]
OT, but live in ORF. (not OT, love Maine Lobster).
John Whitman says:
July 20, 2010 at 6:41 am
> What, no Maine limericks? I can imagine some colorful stuff starting with “There once was a man from Bangor” : )
Guess not.
After moving to Eastern Massachusetts in 1974 I thought of writing a limerick that rhymed Boston with Lost in, but it took years before I could rhyme those. It would help if I could write limericks well. Cambridge MA (next door) was the first place I drove in a circle without realizing it.
There once was a lady from Austin
who moved to the fair town of Boston.
Her maps she did spurn,
she took a wrong turn
and joined all the folks who were lost in.
Another Mainer chimes in:
The Texas farmer (where everything is BIG) bragged a bit to the Maine farmer “I get up at dawn and get in my truck and it takes me all day just drive from one end of my farm to the other.” The Maine farmer (where everything is small) said “I know what you mean. I had a truck like that once myself!”
While we make jokes, our two fine senators are voting us down the river. For those who don’t know, Maine is a welfare state, without help from Washington.
I doubt Tink would be happy with getting back his state income tax from Maine since 1969, as soon as he does, the state of NH, and his new town and county governments will come at him for back property taxes… If he was “shmaht”, he’d sue for estoppel since the state failed for near 200 years to enforce its property tax regs on him. If his lawyer was sharp enough, he may get out of it with a permanent property tax exemption, since he’s now over 50.
Though, New Hampshire potatoes don’t taste as good as Maine spuds, the girls are prettier. They wear slightly less flannel.
Back to New Hampshire climate, we just broke one of the longest streaks of daily temps over 90 in this area with a couple days of severe thunderstorms, microbursts, and a few funnel clouds. Just glad black fly season is over.
We don’t have seasons called “spring” here. After wintah there is “mud season” (this is just after you finish off boiling your last maple sap). Then its black fly season. Black flies are small. Aka no-see-ums and other, less polite terms. They swarm, especially over water. They make early trout fishing rather nasty. Mosquitos, aka the New Hampshire state bird, are rather tame by comparison. After the black flies die out in July some time, things can get rather nice once you learn to repel or ignore the mosquitos, horse flies, deer flies, etc. This is called “summah”. This is when the flatlanders show up. Now, if the flatlanders are paying you for a cabin, or to show them around, or whatever, you don’t use that term, you say they “are from away” since they “ain’t from around heah”. It’s the polite term. They are only flatlanders if you have no economic relationship, and they have in some way expressed their flatlander ignorance, from a dumb comment, or leaving the outhouse door open, leaving bird feeders out at night (they become bear food at that point), or stopping their car on the side of the road to get close up pictures of a grazing moose, as if that creature isn’t as dangerous as a rhino at Park Safari.
The “Mass-hole” term is only used for individuals who have gone beyond ignorant into rudeness or stubborn refusal to abide by the greater wisdom of their yankee hosts, sometimes drifting into complete idiocy. I am reminded of one fellow from a minority neighborhood of Boston who was intercepted at the Maine border, returning from a hunting trip to that great state, with a dead cow strapped in the back of his El Camino, with a bullet hole in its head. The fellow, upon questioning, informed the police that it was a moose that he had shot while participating in that state’s moose hunt. He proudly displayed his Maine Moose Permit and attempted to push his way back into his car.
It turns out that this cow was the some time paramour of an actual bull moose who was a mite confused in his romantic attentions. This happens occasionally when a bull has chewed so much swamp cud that he becomes addled by brain worm (also known in the political arena as “cultural diversity”). So the fellow was naturally assuming that the cow was in fact the female of the moose species, but had not attended the mandatory moose hunting classes where he would have been clearly instructed by wildlife officials what a female moose looks like. Needless to say, he became a guest in our local institutions of correction, where he most certainly is NOT referred to as “from away”.