Dad's Engine

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting my father out it Hawai'i. My dad likes to restore old engines--by which I mean old farm/industrial engines of the type used to pump water or run mills, etc. Here is footage and explanation as he starts up a 1931 Fairbanks-Morse engine which he has restored at attached to a generator. He can run his whole house and the guest house on this engine quite efficiently. The start-up procedure at the minute mark is pretty neat. Basically you just give in a shove and it starts running. There no electricity in this engine whatsoever. It was built to be tough as nails, too, this thing spent many decades rusting the tropical weather before my dad got a hold of it and restored it.



And people wonder where I get my technical bent!

-t

The 1848 Jenks Carbine

When I was a kid living in Kansas my dad had three antique rifles hanging over the couch in the living room. One was a colonial flintlock musket made in the 18th century. The second was a muzzle loading civil war era musket of a type that saw a lot of action in that war. It's still in great condition--in fact my dad and I would load it up with black powder and shoot it the back yard sometimes!

1848 Jenks Carbine
The third rifle was much more unusual--an 1848 Jenks navy carbine. It's a short, light-weight rifle designed for use on a ship. We nicknamed it "Tiny." I imagine it was possibly used in ship-to-ship battles or possibly on patrols sent ashore. Who knows how far around this world this rifle may have gone. When I was a kid I was allowed to play with this rifle when I had permission (keep in mind, this in an antique and perfectly safe).

Anyway, my dad decided to donate the rifle to the NRA firearms museum. The NRA blog says this was the first donation they've received from Hawai'i and that they expect to put it on display. Kind of neat to know that something I played with as a kid is now in a museum.

My dad notes the following:

The curator of the museum has determined by serial number that it was issued to the Navy's Pacific Squadron in the late 1840's and early 1850's. That squadron was largely in the far east, and saw action in China in the mid 1850's.

-t

More Publicity for the "Naked Truth" Calendar

The Calendar my Dad's wife and their friends made to promote the cause of 100% pure Kona Coffee has gotten more press. The Star Bulletin's article makes more of the feminist angle and makes it clear that the calendar "suggests everything but reveals nothing," as Mary Lou Moss is quoted saying.

Apparently they sold out of the first printing and are going to print another run. Good for them!

-t

"The Naked Truth" Calendar

Regulars to my blog know that my dad and his wife grow and sell Kona Coffee in Hawai'i. Most of the "Kona" Coffee that you find around is actually a blend of real Kona Coffee and cheaper stuff, and loose labeling laws allow the big mills to be deceptive in their advertising. Needless to say, farmers like my dad are big into protecting the reputation of 100% real Kona Coffee. One of their efforts along these lines has produced a semi-nude calendar entitled, "The Naked Truth about 100% Kona Coffee."

A local paper has the scoop:

"A bold step was needed, and we took it," said Mary Lou Moss, a Kona coffee farmer who operates Holualoa-based Cuppa Kona and came up with the idea for the calendar.

The calendar, which sells for $12 on the trade association's www.konacoffeefarmers.org Web site, aims to "tastefully" depict farming activity that takes place each month of the year on Kona coffee farms.

Eleven farmers agreed to be featured in the calendar, including "Miss May" Cecelia Smith of Smithfarms, who said participating wasn't easy but was helped by champagne consumption. (source)

I'm so proud. You can buy one of their calendars from this link...

-t

Fish House Punch

Here's the Recipe for a Moss Favorite: Fish House Punch. My parents used to make it every year, and now my sisters are making it. I made it back in New Haven at least once. This stuff is delicious but deadly: perfect for out of town guests who are staying over. It reaches peak taste after about a week of sitting in the fridge. This is my Dad's recipe, which I got a copy of from my sister Lynne.

Fish House Punch
12 lemons
1 lb brown sugar
1/2 gallon hot water
1/2 gallon dark rum
1 quart brandy
12 oz peach brandy

Squeeze lemons and put juice and rinds in crock. Boil water and dissolve sugar into water. Add to the lemons and let cool for several hours. Strain. Add rum, brandy, and peach brandy. Dad says to put only part of the peach brandy in and then add more later.

Tis the season!

-t

Kona Coffee Parade Video

Here's a video of a parade in Kona, Hawai'i, where my dad lives. He grows Kona Coffee and is very involved with some of the local farmers to promote the interests of the best coffee on earth. That's him driving a jeep he restored around the 2:45 mark in this video. The float he is pulling won first prize ($500) in their division.



I have some pretty deep family roots out there. My Great-Grandfather settled there back in the day and raised a family. Hawai'i is a very special and unique place that I'm privileged to be able to visit sometimes. I highly recommend it. If you are looking for a place to stay, consider my dad's guest cottage. Yes, he and his wife have a hard life out there. Sigh.

-t

Ode to the TR-3

A few years before my parents got divorced, my father bought this 1962 Triumph TR-3B convertible. It was drivable when he bought it, but there was plenty to do to get and keep this beautiful beast in tip-top shape. I have many fond memories of working on this car with my father in the garage. He did nearly everything himself, opting for professional help only when the equipment or expertise were beyond him (such as when the body needed to be repainted or part of the frame re-welded). It was a dark period in my family's history--the divorce and then my mother and I moving back East to live with her parents in New Jersey. I was out of place and isolated in the rural Kansas school where I went and had few friends. I had a slightly better school experience in High School in New Jersey, but it wasn't until College that I really hit my social stride.

In the mean time there was always the Triumph. When my dad moved from Kansas to Seattle he decided to drive the TR the whole distance of the move. I was living in NJ already, but flew out to meet up with him in Denver. It was a real road-trip in a real roadster. I got sunburned on my already receding-hairline (at 16!). I even remember that I was reading an analysis of the leadership style of six famous generals as we drove. The Triumph was always one of the characters in the relationship between my father and myself.

It was also a link between my grandfather, my father, and myself. The first Moss TR-3 was purchased by my grandfather straight off the assembly line in England. He picked it up while on Vacation with his wife (Betsy) and then took it across the channel to France. He told me once that he got the sports car up to about 100 MPH on the Autobahn while Betsy was asleep next to him. He was a pilot and had a pilot's affection for going fast, but in control, in well engineered steel. He eventually gave or sold the car to my father, who gave it up only after a few years of marriage. The second Moss TR-3 had to wait until us kids were in school and out from under foot.

When my dad moved from Seattle to his parent's coffee farm in Hawai'i, he flirted with the idea of giving me the TR3, but discovered that it wasn't as expensive to ship it 2670 miles (4296 km) as he thought. The TR-3 was well suited to life at the Aina na Hoku Kai Farm: going down the mountain for quick shopping excursions and around the windy mountain roads for the monthly meetings of the Kona Coffee Council and the Kona Coffee Farmers Association. But when I last visited the farm about a year ago I noticed that the car was showing more wear and tear than he usually allowed, and I realized that he was probably not far from giving it up. I told him to let me buy it before anyone else. I got to take it out a few times on that trip with my Betsy. The other Betsy Moss would have been pleased.

On a Sunday trip to the local Episcopal Church (Christ Church, Kona) a local woman recognized it as a favorite car of her young adulthood. She was a stewardess for Pan Am (she even flew with "Captain Moss" a few times) and used to leave her TR3 in the airport parking lot for weeks at a time. She said it would always start up reliably. "I loved that car. I was so upset with my brother wrecked it." Small world.

So it was disappointing to learn from my dad last night that he had sold the TR-3 to a local friend after 20 years of proud ownership. He said that the opportunity arose to sell it to someone who would take care of it rather than some kid he was likely to get through a classified ad. He knew I would want it, but thought it was too much of a hassle to transport it across half the pacific and then most of the continent. I never had the chance to convince him otherwise, so another chapter closes in my personal history--a link to my forefathers and to the better parts of a troubled childhood.

Let's not get too sad about it. The troubles of my childhood are essential to the best parts of me now. If I hadn't gone through those years of pain I would probably be a computer programmer somewhere with a geeky hobby rather than a ninja priest chasing the Holy Ghost down the rabbit holes of ordained ministry (still with a geeky hobby, though). Or maybe I would have--who knows. Anyway, loss is loss.

Loss is also initiation into the world of adulthood. "When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways," says Paul. Everybody has their pot of grief to stir. Carl Jung, among many others, believed that these kinds of experiences of loss were a necessary resource for mature life. I agree completely. Something about loss integrates us spiritually in a way that joy cannot. Very often, people who have experienced loss can have major strong ju-ju for healing others--not necessarily because they can empathize, but because their loss connects them to something beyond themselves. What's really cool is when you start talking about trans-personal grief--shared or inherited loss. Tie into those trunk lines to find serious emotional and spiritual wattage.

David Whyte, one of my favorite poets, uses the image of a "well of grief" whose murky depths must be explored in order to find the treasure concealed in the muddy earth below...

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface of the well of grief
turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe
will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown away by those who wished for something else.
--David Whyte "The Well of Grief" in Close to Home

That's the good stuff. That's what we lock away in the tabernacle behind the altar every week, the memory of our collective Christian grief at the death of Christ. The promise of communion.

Last night, I heard John Stewart challenge a Harvard professor of psychology who teaches people how to be happy about whether happiness is truly good for us. The professor didn't give an interesting answer, in my opinion. Because the truth is that grief does do some good things for us, yet how many have the courage to go that place unless they have no other choice?

So... good bye TR-3. You were a good friend. And we'll miss you.

-t