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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1961-12-21, Page 6/Hui scHEDuLert Al' his Saturday a'terneuns up. �1� ✓ there with this man," We looked at eachotht r This wasn't gettiiag the potato( s in, nor repairing the deck -chair And as for the fuchsias , The gray pian took a turn ox two up and down the Ts race, still talking hard and authorita- tively, But for the cold look u his eye one would have said he was warming to his theme, "Then there`sthe expeove," he exploded. "Ah," I murmured, "dear bees." "People think they can just buy a hive and put bees in it and sell the honey. Why they'd pay much less to buy the stuff .m -pots from a shop. No stings — no trouble, And the gear you have to buy nowadays with 'em Why a hundred pounds wouldn't pay for It all when 'you're starting, My son, he's got a shed as long as—" the gray man turned swift- ly round but could find nothing of our belongings nears; long -. enough for comparison, He seemed to lose the thread for a moment, but then mann- ed, "I see the Forestry people have made a new pond down by my son's hives," "A reservoir," I said, "to providewater for putting out forest fires." "Bees drink a lot, you know" said the gray man, "It's fifteen feet jeep," 1 ob- served, "And they can turn nasty," he went on, taking no notice, "ah, that they can. There's several chaps round our way thought they'd start a hive or two Then they'd get into trouble with 'em and come round to my son, And he'd ge over everything with em. But it never did no good. They'd started too old you see," "Well," I said, grasping the pump handle firmly and setting to work with it. "I don't think we'll start bee -keeping after what you've said. Besides we've almost more to do here, already than we can manage. The potatoes, for -instance, those fuchsias . , , "That's right," said the gray man firmly, "You leave bees alone and they'll leave you alone. And that's my advice to you. And now I 'xpect my son'll have finished cleaning 'em up by this time, so I'll be getting along," • RIastoffl At burn -out, booster and escape ' rocket fall away. Astronaut fires s la jets turn capMe lt nt'ond &rtt. it Mercury coasts to 10p altitude; zero•gravity for lave minutes. 0 Retrorockets slow capsule; it plunges tr seed earth. ()Drogue parachute stabilizes fall; radar chaff is released. M 10,000 feet, main 'chute opens; capsule splashes into sea. Wild Flowers With Fancy Names Sometimes a little knowledge is much better, for erudition can elevate simple things beyond real need. So it was a surprise to learn, the other day, that "Bird -on -the -Wing" is not in our flower books, "Of course it's in the flower book," I said, But it isn't. Bird -on -the -Wing is one of our gayest spring flowers. It leaps up in the woodlands along with the trilliums and anemones, and has a perky, poised attitude which gives it a name. And it has long been a custom of local school teachers to conduct a little contest every spring, and by it to inculcate a love and knowl- edge of flowers, Some little prize is arranged for the pupil who brings in the largest number of wild blossoms between snow and school -out, and the vernal class- room is thus bedecked with many little tumblers containing the trophies. Up to a point most children bring in about what the others do, and the Dandelion and Quaker Ladies occasion no great cheering. The first Jack -in -the - Pulpit is famous only because it is first, for in a day or two ev- erybody has a Jack -in -the -Pulpit, The ill -scented Wake Robin is a fair example of what I mean. tinder this name it rests in the index of the books, and you will not find it under "Stinking Ben- jamin." Experienced teachers watch for it like a hawk, and it is out of bounds in a room where an old pro is presiding. But a new teacher, fresh from college and riding high with enthusi- asms, can sometimes be brought to heel by a calculating class that remembers from last year. If every child in the third grade brings a handful of S. Benj's to school, and they are left over- night in the little tumblers on the desks, the next morning is a memorable occasion, The book discreetly says the flower has a "disagreeable, musty, fetid odor." In an area where some analyti- cal precision is desired, this is botanical understatement su- preme. The air in that classroom, when teacher arrives to open up, is something she will recall with horror all her life, and no mat- ter how long she teaches and en- tourages the collection of speci- mens, she will never again be caught by the euphemism of ill - . scented Wake Robin, but will call it a Stinking Benjamin the same as the rest of us, The Bird-on•the-Wing, as far as I know, has never been ,called anything around here except Bird -on -the -Wing,, The blossom has a fragile delicacy that sug- gets an orchid, a rose -purple loveliness that spreads into a pair 01 wings so it takes no imagina- tion whatever to presume a bird in flight. The first Bird -on -the - Wing to come to school always gets special attention, and the shape so teases the delight that no name is ever asked beyond the traditional, usual, Bird -on - the -Wing. It was not a child, but a grown woman who went to her flower book the other day to look it up. Her book has the usual double listing—common names, and La- tin names, There was no Bird - on -the -Wing. The sapience of our lady didn't extend into the classical, so she didn't learn (as I did later) that "polygala" is "Latin," A flower book which doesn't include Bird -on -the -Wing naturally causes wonder, and the thing started. I don't know how it is in your area, but we have a fact-finding system up here which over the years has proved useful. None of us needs to know much, be- cause somebody around`' about already knows it. I have been able to give up research entirely for this reason. If I get stuck on the Labors of Hercules, I just give Ernestine a ring, and she knows all that stuff by heart. One of the most satisfying mo- ments in this intraneighborhood • exchange came one night when Lois Greene telephoned Mavis Hapgood and found out how to play cat's -cradle, a child's pas- time involving a length of twine which is intricately passed back and fcrth between two sets of fingers, I think it is unlikely a thing of this sort could be ex- plained over the telephone any- where except in our special set of authorities on everything. So. with flowers, it is Evelyn Fowler, I gave her a ring. "You mean Nanny?" asked a child's voice, and Nanny came on, • "What," said, "is Bird -on -the - Wing called in a flOwer'book or a bird book?" "Polygala paucifolia," she said. I said, "How did you know that?" "I just looked it up, Charlie is putting a sticky star on the page as fast as he finds new flow- • ers, and Ile couldn't Lind Bird - on -the -Wing," "How did you happen to find it"„ "I kind of thought it might be a milkwort, So I read all the milkworts, and there'sa pile of them. I found the polygala pau- cifolia is also called Gay Wings, That makes sense. Anyway, we put the star for Bird-on•Lhe-Wing under polygala paucifolia, and until somebody tells me differ- ent, that's where it is, After we hung up I tried to find Caligula Potophobia in the Latin list, and had to call Eve- lyn again before I could dwell on this lesser topic so fully, Meantime, I think it would be nice if the flower book just called it Bird - on - the - Wing, which is what everbody calls it around here, and high-minded botanists notwithstanding, al- ways, will.—By John Gouldin the Christian Science Monitor. Bee -Keeping Only For Youngsters He was a slight gray man, with the casual swing in walking of one who has turned seventy and doesn't care. And he came sud- denly and silently round the blind side of our Suffolk cottage and took us (as soldiers say) in the flank. We were both very very busy, my wife and I. There was the rew canvas to be put no the. deckchair, the water tank to be pumped full, the last of the potatoes just had to be planted or be too late, something must i e done about the fuck ;las — well, you know how it is. I was on my knees on what we are pleased to call The Ter- race — a stretch of rather more than usually crazy paving con- trived out of chunks of discard- ed sidewalk from a local sea- side resort and an inverted kit- chen sink, The gray stranger seemed to take all this in at one cold glance, decide on a price, decide again that the place wasn't really worth buying anyway, at' d then change his attitude to one•, of slightly pitying benevolence, Not many people pass our cot- tage because there is nu proper road to it. Those who do get as far are usually village folk, on Sunday afternoons, or else bird - watchers intent upon observing the Lesser Spotted Henpecker (or whatever it through bino- cular. They are usually content with passing the tune of day or u MEETING AT THE PALACE -- President Kennedy and President de Gaulle meet at the llysee Palace in Paris, Later It was announced that the two leaders "came to a general agreement en how to handle the Berlin situation." asking if this path leads to the sea. But the gray man was dif- ferent, He had materialized so silently; so suddenly; :He made me think of Flying Saucers Have Landed, "Don't see many people 'long here I • 'xpeet," he said, and there was no query in his voice. He was just making a plain statement of fact. ' "Thought I'd just take a stroll down the lane, My son keeps the bees down there. He brought up a fresh lot today and, of course, there weren't no room for me in the van with 'em so I come up on my own." A quarter of a mile or so down the woodland track which leads from us toward the village there is, to be sure, a kind of bee vil- lage. It appeared quite sudden- ly one day last year — several rows of neat white. hives among the heather just where the woods thin out and become open moor. "Yes," asserted the gray man, 'those are my son's bees.' We had, of course, no notion of arguing about this and had scarcely got over our astonish- ment at his sudden appearance. So I just said, "Ah," and thea added, more for politeness than anything else, that we hac often thought it might be a good idea tc keep a bee or two ourselves. "No," he said sternly, holding up a finger in front of his beaky nose. "Bees is not for our time of life. Bees is only for young- sters. My boy started on 'em when he were about six. Got interested. see? Got friendly, Bees got in- terested. now . . Thoughts of what to do if one felt a number of bees were get- ting really interested were mingled in my mind with the urgent memory that a1] sorts of things needed doing and that there was very little time left before we must return to London. But the gray man just went sternly on, writes Alan Ivemey in the ttihristian Science Monitor, "Lots of people . nowadays round here goes in for bees, Lots But they never do no good. That's because they start too late. You got to live with bees fox years. You got to study them. Why, my boy, he've got books and books about 'em. He were always read- ing 'bout them when he were a boy. But then he knew a real bee man. A bee piaster, Used to spend Miracle Of The Honey -Bee's Wangs The Air! Man has visions cd flights . . . But this bee, as she darted swiftly away from the wood and down towards the - river that curled in the distance like the blade of a silver scythe, rested on air and Was part of its living lightness. Though her speed was over twenty miles an hour, she could stop .suddenly, hover, fly backwards, climb at 0 e tremenclotts pace, or -proceed seven miles ` in an unresting flight. Seldom did her flights" exceed a mile, but that was because\of her eagerness to carry back food to the city to which she belonged, Two pairs of diaphanous wings gave her the key to Heaven. A Large ,pair cf wings in front, a smaller pair behind them, both so little and fragile That a care- less breath would blow them away if they were detached from the body, yet these wings pos- sessed powers that man after millions of years of eVolut-on, has not been able to equal. One large pair of wings would give more flying strength than two smaller pairs; but one large: pair would not fold down suffici- ently to allow the bee to enter certain flowers, or. to creep In- side a honey cell. So the bee has two 'pairs of wings, which fold primly over each other when not in use, Each lower wing is 'fitted with a : row of twenty microscopic hooks. When in flight these hook the [WO wings on each side together, so that they give the powerful, pulsating beat of one large wing. Air sacs in the bee's thorax fill; when, in flight, and make her buoyant. After she has been at rest some time, the sacs emp- ty, and when that has happened she has to take a short run and. vibrate her wings so as to fill the air sacs before taking oft. Thus, when in the air, this bee was as light as a feather. but possessed of a swift intelligence and quivering eagerness; hav- ing 'alighted, ,the weight of her body and the tremendous grip. of her feet enable her to make her way safely about on a flower swinging through enormous 'arcs at the top of a slender. tree. Straight as a bullet she flew down across the hillside towards the stream, her joyous hum add- ing a rhyme to the unending poem of sound that pervades the spinning world always, by 'day and by night. — From "Ctty of the Bees," by Frank S. Stuart. HEADED FOR TROUBLE — Daniel Morgan, charged with illegal- ly practicing law in Washington, D.C., pulls a no -head act be- fore cameramen, Three of his former clients sit in death row. ' THERE'S NO PLAGE LIKE EARTH — Soviet spaceman Maj. Yuri Gagarin finds' himself sur• rounded by Soviet models during a visit to a Russian exhibition in London, A driving raise failed to dampen ceremonies 'in Manchester for Gagarin, a former foundry worker, who was welcomed like a native son in the heart of industrial England.