Hidden in a small, dark corner of this vast internet is the top-secret Roth Family Forum. There, we descendants of Noah and Lola Roth chat about every little thing. We keep the space private — Google will never find it — and that's a Good Thing. Still, I'm sad that others don't get to read the little gems that are posted there. Today I'm going to share my favorite bits from the past few weeks.

Cast of Characters: Virginia is my aunt (my father's sister). She's a photographer who lives in western Idaho with her husband, Stan. (They live near their youngest daughter, Valerie.) You already know Tammy, another of Virginia's daughters. Gwen is yet another daughter (Virginia has nine children and fifty grandchildren). Gwen and her family live in rural New York. Anthony is her twenty-two year old son (thus my first cousin once removed). Elizabeth is married to my cousin Mart. Ron is another cousin (Nick's brother). (Confusing, yes? If you hover over a highlighted name, a text box will appear naming the person's relationship to Tammy and me.)

This is long, but well worth reading:

Anthony:
Daddy and Mama are out on a date this evening. They leave William responsible for serving supper. When he says it is time to eat, I come to the table. Once two of the boys are finished seeing which of them can extend the call "Supper tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime" the longest without taking a breath, we thank the Lord for the food and begin to partake.

"Wow, this is good squash," I say, still thinking Mama prepared the food before she left. Then I notice William looking kind of sheepish.

"There was a lot more water in this squash than usual," he says. "That really increased the volume, so I had to put in a little more butter and maple sugar than Mama said it would take."

All the little boys think it tastes like candy.

Then the saurkraut comes around. Mama's real careful with meat; she usually puts just a little sausage in the saurkraut. I'm pretty sure William's version is over half sausage. We all eat a lot of squash and sausage. Grace is sitting beside me. I hear her saying something amid the din of her big brothers and I lean over to listen.

"Wen I det done with my gwaht I will doh you a deeket," she says. I was just going to leave the table, but I'll wait to hear her deeket. Finally she finishes her squash and smiles. I put my ear close to her mouth and in the quietest whisper, she says, "I yike Wuhwee."

Gwen:
Henry and I were on a sort of business date. When we get home some shadowy forms of children are playing in the yard in the dark. One very little being is flashing conspicuously among the others. The big brothers explain that Rafi is no more afraid of wandering off into the dark than he is in the day, so they clipped a strobe light to the seat of his pants, so they wouldn't lose track of him.

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Gwen:
Tammy said I should post sometime about our life. Here's a little slice, for whatever its worth.

We picked up groceries this evening. Some friends get deliveries for their business, from a distribution center in PA and let us add family orders at no extra charge. We order about every other month.

Tonight's pick up?

• 50 # brown rice
• 300# wheat berries
• 25# pearl barley
• 25# millet
• 60# organic raisins
• 200# rolled oats
• 24# cheese
• 7# Lebanon beef bologna

(I don't like to buy the last two items, but our cow died after giving birth to the last calf, and our next steer is not ready to butcher, and alas, all our nitrate-free, applewood-smoked bologna is used up, and we haven't made cheese for months.)

I expect the dry items to last us about four months.

Then we went to the grocery store and picked up an order. I get cases of produce there throughout the winter. There we added a case of 24 heads of Romaine lettuce ($22.00) and a 40# case of bananas ($10.00)

The squash the children had for supper [last night] is still from last fall. We are also eating apples, potatoes, cabbage, and onions that have been stored in the cellar all winter. Now that really feels good. No canning, drying, freezing. Just good food.

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Gwen:
Anthony is in the parlor practicing a piece of Handel's Messiah for his voice lessons this afternoon. Oh, I wish you all could have been with us on Saturday. Having Maryanne sing with us was like a little bit of heaven. We have no female soprano, anyway, and that lady has a voice like a bright rainbow in the sunsplashed spray of a waterfall. We have a collection of songs that our family loves to sing. Most visitors don't know most of them. No problem for Maryanne. "I've never heard this one before," she says eagerly, and proceeds to envelop the lyrics in golden music. I told Henry that I fear it will make me feel dissatisfied with how we usually sound together.

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Virginia:
While we were at Valerie's the other day, Stan was talking about how fast time goes. He made the comment...."Yes, we're all growing older everyday".

Veronica (age 3) looked up at him and said..."You're already old"

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Gwen:
A sample lesson in Language Arts from our house:

7. Fill in the blanks. A good how-to paragraph gives _____(details), explains very _____(carefully), and uses _____(transition) words.

8. Think of something you know how to do well. Then write a how-to paragraph, explaining how to do it.

answer: "How to Eat an Eraser" (done by Hans, 11 yrs old)
"First you get a good new pencil, then you open up your mouth. After that you bite the eraser off and swallow it."

What does that say about my educational program?

J.D.:
I'm more worried about what that says about your nutritional program.

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Tammy:
Going out to pull weeds Yahooo! (Yuck)

Anthony:
Hey that's nuthin. I spent part of my afternoon shoveling a massive, neglected slop pile. It was supposed to be composting (you know, the Organic Method and all that) but our family has never within my memory operated a thriving compost pile. When a pile is begun, in an Obscure Spot, a Vicious Cycle begins. The first several buckets of table scraps begin to rot. It smells. Then nobody feels like going near it, so the only ones who do are the little boys who empty the slop bucket. They don't like the smell either, so they dump the slop on the near edge of the pile. The next time, it gets dumped on the near edge of that pile, and in this manner the heap lengthens and migrates until it reaches a Non-obscure Spot, and Somebody Notices. "Somebody" was me this time, and being a Man of Action (a WHAT?), I grabbed a shovel, scraped together the eggshells and rotten potatoes, and made a Proper Heap, with alternating layers of rotten food and Organic Hay. You must understand that our family is a Cooperative Effort, and some of the members require supervision, or quality control Breaks Down. That must be why, as I shoveled, I found five stainless steel spoons, a stainless steel fork, a stainless steel paring knife, a plastic tablespoon measure, several Lego building blocks, and lots of plastic food wrappers.

This is why a Family Community has Senior Members.

(Oh, and for you City dwellers, A smelly heap in an Obscure Spot behind a Dilapidated Shed on a Sprawling Farm is not as bad as you think.)

---

Elizabeth:
Today was a day that I enjoy very much and it does not happen as often as I like. Mart has been taking Tuesday off to cut wood for his customers that buy in the fall and winter months. Today since I did not have much homework we both were able to work out in the yard together.

There was some trees that we had taken down some time ago so he was cleaning up limbs and mowing the rougher ground that we have been clearing for the last couple of years. He bought a tiny chainsaw last fall at a garage sale so he was teaching me how to run that. I use it to cut down the bigger blackberry bushes and tiny saplings. Today I also kept the brush pile burning by hauling the new brush to it and keeping it piled together so Mart could do things that I could not do. It is so much fun to be able to get out side and work together as a couple.

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Tammy:
I'm afraid I'm coming down with the flu! I feel like I'm going to puke. The neighbors have had it and it's going around. I'm afraid it may have hit our house. Uck! I don't feel good!

Gwen:
At this point, you must begin to drink. You won't feel like it but you really ought to try it. Get a pitcher of hot tap water and drink a glass every fifteen minutes. If you're too pukey feeling already, it may not work, but if you get it in the early stages, it almost never fails. Do it for a couple of hours, until you realize that you really are not feeling sick anymore.

Elizabeth:
Thanks Gwen for that little home remedy I will keep it for any time I may need it in the future.

Ron:
That depends upon whether or not it is a viral infection. If it's viral, take 2-3 oz of whiskey and go to bed for 10 hours. The British journal of medicine 'The Lancet' published results of a study of the flu medications available over-the-counter or as prescription and the old-fashioned remedy still works better than all the new-fangled inventions. It works well for me and other people that have tried it but if you wait to long it doesn't work. The key is taking it as soon as the symptoms develop.

Anthony:
We've never kept whiskey around (no scruples against whiskey as medicine by the way), but William recently produced a brew whose curative powers the world may have yet to discover. He started out following a recipe for old fashioned ginger beer. As with most such recipes, it didn't do quite what the directions said it would, but with some adjustment, we got it to ferment. Maybe it fermented better than it was supposed to; when we considered it finished, and racked it, it seemed "harder" than it should be. Since we didn't like the flavor too well, William just set the jar in the cool at the top of the cellar stairs, with a loose cover on it, and we waited for someone to get sick and need it. Lo and behold, several weeks later someone brought the jug to light and we saw that it had grown a thick, pure white biofilm on the surface. I had never heard of such a thing growing anywhere except in Kombucha Tea. Anyway, the end result is an explosive, culture-enhanced, ginger vinegar. Dr. Hertzler's Sinus Flamethrower!

I don't talk much about family relationships. I don't think much about them. But the truth is, I feel a great affection for my extended family. I'm pleased that we've recently begun reconnecting. I would love to see more of Virginia's brood, and hope to do so in the future. I want to hear more of their stories, to see how they live, to know what they believe.

I used to not pay much attention to the Roth Family Forum. Since Gwen and Anthony have begun posting, I can't get enough. I love reading their stories. Anthony, especially, seems to have a gift for writing. (He made his first entrance at foledspace.org near the end of the Whose Rules? thread.)

Some of you wonder at my Luddite tendencies, at my desire to live a simpler life. It's in my blood, I tell you! It's familial!

If I thought it practical, I would cast aside everything and go live in a little cabin in the woods...

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Caffeine Dreams   I got myself hopped up on some pretty strong drugs yesterday evening, and it made for a night of strange dreams.

2003 — True Enough   It's impossible to please everyone; sometimes it's impossible to even please myself.

2001 — Linux and Pain   I'm enjoying Linux on my laptop. Also, my shoulder hurts.