This week we had a party to celebrate Barb’s 90th birthday. But first a clarification:

Last week I said that my friend’s band, Eastbound Train, was “Pretty Good”. Apparently this was more of an ambiguous term than I realized. Some went so far as to call it insult. Damning with faint praise at least. So, I think I need to clarify what I meant.

You see, I’m a guy. A Norwegian guy. A Norwegian guy who’s dad was from South Dakota and who spent over twenty years in Minnesota. With that history comes a certain vernacular, and longtime readers will remember that I like vernacular. I also like mezzanine, but that’s another story. Anyway, there is a particular way of speaking among my cohorts, characterized by restraint and understatement. The reason is simple; above all else you have to avoid rubbing the people the wrong way. The guy you’re talking to today, might be the one who you ask to jump your car or pull you out of a snowbank tomorrow. Best not to annoy him by going overboard about anything, good or bad. So us Norwegian Guys from the Prairies tend to talk about things, from bands to band-aids to the Grand Canyon to galaxies, in understated terms. We don’t get carried away. We apply praise or condemnation in small doses. So here is the Prairie Vernacular Scale:

10: Good
9: Pretty Good
8: Not Bad At All
7: Not Bad
6: Not Too Bad
5: Decent
4: Fairly Decent
3: Fair
2: OK
1: Lousy 
For reference the negative side of the scale would be thus, with examples for scale:
0: Really Lousy - Your house just burned down
-1: Not Good - A bus load of orphans and nuns just ran off of a cliff
-2: Oh, That’s Not Good - Yellowstone just erupted and wiped out the western half of the US
-3: Ow, that’ll leave a mark - Nuclear War

So you see, Pretty Good is the second highest you can get. It’s almost perfect. Note that the Prairie Vernacular Scale has a lot of subtly. Pretty Damn Good would be a 9.375 and while Not Bad is a 7, Not…Bad would be a 6.5. Be advised though, statements such as “I think it is wonderful”, or “I love it”, or “You were absolutely fantastic” would be implied but never actually said. They would suggest a bit more emotion than is normally allowed when Norwegian Prairie guys are talking and it’s forty degrees below zero. 

Now that that’s sorted out, Let’s get on to Barb’s party.

Everyone arrived over the weekend. It was good seeing people and comparing notes. On Monday we were sitting around chatting in our place when my cousin Mike suggested we go out and see how the cherry tree was doing. It was full of an impressive crop of cherries that were almost ripe. While we were admiring it we noticed that a bird was caught in the tree. 

Let me back up here. For the last three summers the cherry tree has had lots of cherries but by the time they were ripe, the birds had eaten them all. This year we decided that it would be nice if we got some of them so we covered the tree with a fine nylon netting. All was fine until Monday when a bird managed to get inside the netting. We tried opening some of it but no matter how much of the netting we removed, the blasted bird would stay caught in what was left. I speculated that it wasn’t a bird at all, rather based on its behaviour I suspected a very large fly. Anyway, when the tree was almost completely unwrapped the bird finally escaped and flew off to rejoin his friends. Of course the tree was now unprotected and I swear I heard birds from all over cheering “Yay for Barney” as they came in to feast. It may all of been just a clever plan on their part.

Anyway now that the tree was unwrapped, and the cherries were nearly ripe anyway, we picked a huge bowl. We got at least 10 pounds worth, of fresh cherries. That was just what we could get from the ground. There’s at least twice that much still on the tree. As we don’t want to try to use a ladder on the uneven ground, I guess we’ll let the birds have the rest. We have all that we can use.

Anyway Barney deserves it.

So, Barb had been inviting people to her party for weeks. There were people she’d known for decades here. There were people from the Post Office and the Credit Union. There were family who’d flown in from all over North America. There were friends and friends of friends. Easily over fifty people were at Costen Hall in Lantzville. Barb had also gotten greetings from people as far away as Australia who couldn’t make the party but wanted to send their best wishes. There was wonderful food and drink. Ursula had taken a bunch of pictures of Barbara through the years, starting when she was two, scanned them and made a computer slide show that played continuously through the evening. 

Of course there was music. Mike family and friends played. Shaun played a couple of tunes on the bagpipes. And then some other people played some songs on banjo and accordion. And then Mike, and his kids Mario, and Jess sang a few songs together. Music, as you’d expect was a keystone of the evening, culminating in everyone singing happy birthday when they brought out a cake with eighteen candles on it, one for every five years. 

It was a great evening. We didn’t get out of there till half past ten and Barbara was almost the last one to leave. Everyone had a good time and we agreed to do it again in ten years. No matter if Barb’s there to celebrate with us, we’re going to have another bash like this one. Barb thought it was a great idea too.

Doug & Marsha
PIX: Remember those pictures from the 1800s of a train or a big tree, or something with people standing all over it? Or those pictures from the early parts of the 20th century of “The Faculty at Harvard University” with EVERYONE in the shot? You know how each person was a tiny little spot you could barely make out? That’s what most of my shots of the party ended up being. I have nearly a hundred pictures of wide swaths of tables with unrecognizable figures filling the chairs. So here’s the one good shot I did get. Mario, Jess, and Mike playing music. I did get a nice video of Mike playing Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain but I don’t think most of you would appreciate a 100MB e-mail.

Happy First Day Of Summer and Father’s Day to  the fathers near, far and no longer with us.