Deep Dale Vacation 2013, a set on Flickr.
For several years now our family has had a little reunion at my mom's house (which we call "Deep Dale") around the July 4th Holiday. This year the gathering was especially poignant because my mom is selling the house (which my Great-Grandfather built) and moving to Virginia. As you can see, between my two sisters and their families, Henry, and the cousins stopping by, there was lots of kid-energy going on!
'Twas the Flight Before Christmas
by Capt. R.C. Robson, December 1952
‘Twas the flight before Christmas and all through the sky,
Not a creature was stirring, ‘cept the Captain and I.
The throttles were set on the quadrant with care,
In hopes of beating St. Nicholas there.
The passengers were nestled all snug in their seats,
The purring of engines had lulled them to sleep.
And Captain at the wheel and I on his right,
Had just leveled off for a long winter’s flight.
When out of the sky there arose such a clatter,
We jumped in our seats to see what was the matter.
We checked each engine quick as a flash,
Glanced at the dials all over the dash.
The moonlight reflecting from the cloud bank below,
Showed nothing amiss in the cold white glow.
When what to our wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.
With a little old pilot, so lively and quick,
We knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than our ship his courses they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name.
"Now Pratt! now Whitney! Now Curtiss and Wright!
On Franklin! On Allison! On, on though the night!
"To the top of the clouds, to the top of them all,
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
And then in a twinkle on our wing we did here,
The prancing and pawing of each little dear.
Flying swift as the wind over a cloud,
They passed right by us, nodded and bowed.
He was dressed in goggles and helmet and boot,
And snow flakes were clinging to his flying suit.
A bundle of toys was strapped to his back,
He looked like a paratrooper in his jumping pack.
His goggles now frosted, his dimples now merry,
The wind burned his cheeks and his nose like a cherry.
He had on the earphones of his radio,
And he was flying the course straight as an arrow.
The smoke from his pipe his teeth held tight,
Streamed out behind him into the night.
He had tightened his seatbelt over his belly,
But it shook underneath like a bowl full of jelly.
He was sure a good flyer, that jolly old elf,
He flew better than the Captain – or even myself.
With a burst of speed from his tiny sled,
He was out in front and pulling ahead.
He was looking for a break in the dense overcast,
For he’d stockings to fill – al all night task.
When off to the south he saw a big hole,
And banked to his right and started to roll.
He pushed forward his stick, to his team gave a whistle,
And towards it they flew, like the down on a thistle.
But we heard him exclaim as he dove out of sight,
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good flight!
The first known Mariner air-sea rescue "Dumbo" mission in the Pacific was performed by a NATS Pan American PBM.
At 0530 on 12 November 1943 the troop transport SS Cape San Juan was on its second voyage from San Francisco to Townsville, Australia, with 1,429 passengers. It was hit by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine. The explosion killed many of the U.S. Army troops on board and released oil that spread onto the surrounding water. A false word to abandon ship quickly spread and all but about two hundred men went over the side into the sea. They were immediately coated with a layer of oil. Survivors swam for jettisoned life rafts or clung to floating debris and kapok jackets. Cape San Juan listed on its starboard side as damage control tried shoring up the gaping hole and pumping out the incoming sea. The stricken ship remained afloat for another twenty-four hours.
The liberty ship SS Edwin T. Merideth rescued 443 people, including those remaining aboard the Cape San Juan. McCalla DD-488), Dempsy (DE-26), and minesweeper YMS-241 picked up 840 additional survivors. The sea then became rough as a storm system passed through the area, bringing swells that were up to fifteen feet high. These conditions exacerbated the situation for the men in th ewater.
A Pan American Mariner, just arriving in Suva, Fuji, on a cargo run, volunteered to assist in the rescue mission. Captain Moss gives his account in Lee Roy Way's "First PBM Rescue" article:
"We arrived at Suva at 1030 hours and were informed of the Cape San Juan's dilemma and the plight of the many survivors in the water. Our cargo was unloaded and we were airborne about noon. Our entire crew plus Navy Pharmacist Mate A. L. Burress volunteered for the mission and after three hours flying the Cape San Juan was sighted listing in 15 foot swells. We circled the ship three times without seeing anyone in the water. We were just about ready to give up when a New Zealand land plane was spotted circling some distance from the ship. Dropping lower and closer we sighted clusters of men in the water spread out for about 3 miles. Some were in life rafts, one life raft was drifting and the others were in life jackets in the middle of the oil slick.
"A landing was made in a relatively smooth area of the oil slick with 15 foot swells all around us. Unable to taxi very close to the survivors, we trailed life rafts behind the Mariner and survivors clambered in as the rafts passed by. In all, 48 survivors were brought aboard."
All known survivors were rescued when the Pan American Dumbo began its take-off. Not only was this the first Mariner open-sea rescue in the Pacific, no other aircraft ocean rescue before or since is known to have picked up so many people. (source)
Pirsig’s example is describing the parts of a motorcycle, an exercise that has no natural stopping point. But, he insists, no matter how much data the exercise heaped up, true comprehension would still not have been achieved, for the motorcycle “so described is almost impossible to understand unless you know how it works.” Rather than building up from particulars to generals (the empiricist method), you must begin with generals — with an in-place, intuitive awareness of what motorcycles are for, of what can go wrong with them, of what can go right with them — and within that tacit knowledge you will know where to direct your analytic attention. You can’t just begin with analytic attention, with “mere” or “pure” observation, and expect to get anywhere; you must already, in a sense, be there.
The problem is that once the parts or facts are made to appear, they seem to possess an independence, and it is (literally) tempting to rest in them and to believe that they are the foundation of things. (In theology this mistake is called idolatry.) “The division of the world into parts,” says Pirsig, “is something everyone does,” but in doing it, “something is always killed” — and what is killed is an awareness of and contact with the world before analytic thought has done its (necessarily) reductive work. (source)
In time, this realization leads him to a position like Pirsig’s, but he holds it polemically and without anxiety: “To regard universal knowledge as the whole of knowledge is to take no account of embodiment and purposiveness.” We should not, he says, “separate knowing from doing,” and it makes sense that his model of the true “knowledge worker” is not his father the theoretician, but the mechanic or craftsman whose knowledge resides in his hands and in his hands-on experience.
It follows then that the modern tendency to move further and further from the site of physical labor (by, for example, designing automobiles on a computer or teaching people to fly in a simulated cockpit) is disastrously wrong. As computer diagnosis takes the place of fiddling around with the machinery, “we have too few occasions to do anything because of a certain predetermination of things from afar.” (source)
But we shouldn't loose sight of one of the other main points of these books: relationships between father and son mediated through metal. It's a trope so common as to almost slip into cliché. (Here is a picture of Prisig with his son, Chris, on the trip that became the basis for the book.) Yet I know a lot of men who bonded with their fathers in precisely this way. Indeed, the time spent with my father working on his old TR-3 are a very special memory to me. Other examples abound: a writer helps his son assemble a Shelby Cobra kit as a reward for good grades. A university professor learns to find joy in work again when he reconnects with his motorcycle mechanic father. 
People sometimes ask me where the name "Tay" comes from. Actually, it's a very old family name. I was named after William Tay, who came over to America in the 17th century. I assume he was Scottish given that "Tay" is both the name of a town, a loch, and the longest river in Scotland. A ship's register has his occupation listed as "distiller of strong spirits." We believe he was born in 1608. He married Grace Newell in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1644. She was 13 years younger than he (23 to his 36). Together they had eight children (Grace, John, Isaiah, Abiel, Peter, Nathaniel, Jeremiah, and Elizabeth). He lived to be 75. His wife managed an impressive 91 years!
Samuel fought on the Patriot side of the American Revolution, rising through the ranks. Quite a few other men with the surname of "Tay" are listed on the Patriots' Rolls as being from the town of Woburn, so I suspect they were all cousins and siblings. The Woburn Militia was one of the principal combatants at the Battle of Concord Bridge, which was the first Patriot victory of the Revolutionary War.
After the war Samuel and his wife had one son, another Samuel. Several more Samuels follow down the line until you get to Samuel Wright Tay, also known as "Tutu" (the Hawaiian word for "Elder." He moved to Hawai'i in 1910 with his wife. At that time Hawai'i was a U.S. Territory with lots of agricultural production. His skills an engineer were no doubt in demand! They had no sons, so "Tay" died out as a surname, however it continued as a given name. 
Kozlik’s Mustard was established in 1948. Jeremy has owned the business since 2000 and has expanded the product line. Did you know that 90% of the world’s mustard is grown in Canada? Or that mustard is the second most popular spice in the world next to black pepper? Their website has many interesting facts, useful information and recipes for mustards.
Kozlik’s Mustard presents many unique flavours of mustards, all made fresh in Canada, in their factory located at Lawrence and Avenue Road in Toronto. They use fresh, all-natural mustard powder, seeds and cracked seeds in the manufacturing process; no preservatives added. From these three bases they create an amazing variety of flavoured mustards. Some of their most popular mustard varieties are: maple, balsamic, fig & date, "Double C" Dijon, horseradish, cranberry and honey. They have over 35 flavours of mustards and are developing more.
On Saturdays they offer sample tasting of their mustard flavours with complimenting meat samples for customers to experience. (source)
Fish House Punch--from my memory---the very first time that I heard of it was when we tasted some at Tay and Chris' home in Ohio. They had made some for a party they had hosted. We started to make it the first sunday in Advent after we moved to Wichita and we had the lvingroom furniture rehopolstered and custom drapes made at the Ethan Allen store for the livingroom picture window. The reason I remember this is because I had gone to a presentation at the store about colonial christmas traditions and was given a handout with recipes. I had watched a film that day that showed an old New England village and in one of the homes, the family had made Fish House Punch and was serving it to people who stopped by to visit. One of the recipes on the handout was for Fish House Punch. We decided to try making it and when I checked in my Williamsburg Cookbook (which I think Lynne now has) the recipe matched the one from the handout from the store. It became a tradition quickly to make Fish House Punch the first sunday of Advent. We learned early on that it is very potent and people can get easily plastered!! Anyway, that is the story as I remember it.
