POSTING #48

Clothes Lines; Cheese Skippers; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Clothes Lines

"There is nothing as sad as a wash hung out by a man."

That was a common saying among the women of Arthur when I was growing up.

I figure that there were two possible explanations for the saying.

Perhaps the saying meant that the fact that a man was hanging out the wash meant that there was trouble in the family, the wife was sick or had died.

Something sad had happened.

More likely the expression referred to the belief that men always made a hash of hanging up clothes. Shirts were pinned to the line by the sleeves, instead of by the tail. Men's pants were pinned by the waist instead of by the legs (with the seams aligned carefully together). And women's undies were hung in the open for all to see instead of inside pillow cases.

These thoughts were triggered by the recent arrival in our neighbourhood of several rotating outdoor drying racks placed on porches and in the garages of new homes.

The clothes seem to be neatly and correctly pinned to the lines on the racks, so one can assume they were done by a woman.

Perhaps the dryers haven't yet arrived, or perhaps the newcomers are intent on leading all of us into a greener world.

We'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I've been trying to think of the equivalent today of , "There is nothing as sad as a wash hung out by a man."

The closest I've been able to come is, "There is nothing as sad as a dishwasher loaded by a man."

Now, I've known one or two men who were pretty skilled at dish loading.

But most of us bung in the plates, bowls etc. wherever there is a place that fits. Our better halves thank us for our thoughtfulness but as soon as our backs are turned they rearrange everything.

In an attempt to improve my dish loading skills, I once watched a video that came with the dishwasher. A slender woman who looked as though she was on her way to a cocktail party, (a revealing dress and all) provided me---my wife left after the first few seconds---with hints on where and how to place the dishes.

When I suggested we consider adopting some of her suggestions, I was met with this, "You can't believe a word that tramp says!"

What's a man to do?


Cheese Skippers

I have had a story in my memory for years that part of me says, 'Hey, this really happened', while another part is saying, 'Are you sure your brain isn't making this whole thing up?'

I'm going to share the story with you but first I should warn people with weak stomachs that they may find the subject matter a tad upsetting.

Now the story.

My mother told me when I was young that her father---my grandfather---used to eat cheese skippers. Sometimes, while he would be sitting at dinner having a piece of cheese he would come across one of the skippers burrowing its way out of the cheese. He would mash the insect on his plate, put it on his fork with a little cheese and pop the whole thing in his mouth.

As he did this he would say, "They eat the cheese and I eat them".

Mother and her three sisters would squeal and say whatever the 1910 equivalent was of , 'Oh that's so gross!',

Mom couldn't tell me much about cheese skippers but the impression (erroneous) I got was that cheese makers put some cheese skipper eggs in the centre of fifty pound wheels of new cheese. The cheese wheels would be put in a warm storage room to age. The eggs would hatch and when the skippers appeared at the surface of the cheese, it was ready to eat.

That's the story I remember.

Did I make the whole thing up?

I could have but the one feature of the story that always stopped me from labeling it a false memory was the term, 'cheese skipper'. How could I have come up with that name?

I felt that if cheese skippers did in fact exist, then the memory would have to be given some weight. If, on the other hand, no one in biology had ever heard of a cheese skipper, that would shoot down the memory.

A few weeks ago, I decided that the time had come to try to get some answers.

I told Google to search for 'cheese skippers', and in just 0.23 seconds it proudly claimed that it had found 561,000 'hits'. We all know, of course, that Google tends to exaggerate a bit, that when it runs out of true hits for the two words it pads things out with hits for 'cheese' or 'skippers'.

But there were a couple of pages of references to 'cheese skippers'

One of them led me to a Wikipedia article on 'Cheese fly' , which you can read here, if you have a really strong stomach.

It turns out that cheese skippers are the larvae (a.k.a maggots) that hatch out of eggs laid by the cheese fly.

The old time cheese makers didn't intentionally put eggs in their fresh cheese, they just weren't too concerned about hygiene. So, cheese flies buzzing around the cheese vats laid their eggs and some months later cheese skippers started to appear.

The larvae are about 1/3 of an inch long and they can leap about 6 inches into the air, thus the name 'skippers'. Apparently, they do this by bringing their two ends together in a coil and then suddenly springing apart.

Some authorities claim that skippers, if eaten, can pass through the stomach--- unscathed by stomach acids---enter the intestines and then create lesions as they try to burrow out through the walls of the intestine. This can lead to stomach pain, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea.

I think I did warn you that this article could be upsetting.

Wait, there is more nasty stuff.

The skippers are an important factor used by CSI scientists in estimating the time of death. They don't turn up in a corpse for three to six months after death, while the larvae of other flies start arriving in just a few days.

Apparently the good folks of Sardinia make a cheese which depends for its strong flavour on the introduction of thousands of skippers. The cheese, which is called casu marzu (literally 'rotten cheese'), has been banned by the European Union--- which I think is only fair since the EU stopped the British from wrapping fish and chips in the News of the World (a racy tabloid newspaper).

OK, so cheese skippers do exist. There is at least some support for a view that the memory may be real.

But would my grandfather have eaten them?

Now, grandfather was no ignorant clod. He was a successful farmer, a popular local politician and the justice of the peace for Clarkson, Ontario (his friends called him 'the judge').

He also had, from all reports, a lively sense of fun. It is entirely possible that he was capable of putting on a show for his four horrified daughters.

So, after all this weighty research I think I can say that this particular memory is probably valid.

I am sure you are relieved to hear that!


Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

One of my cousins, Ruth, tells a story about visiting our grandfather (and grandmother, whom he always referred to as 'Missus') at their home in Clarkson.

She and her sister were sitting at the kitchen table with grandfather, who was reading a newspaper.

Bored, the little girls unscrewed the tops of the salt and pepper shakers, poured out some salt and pepper and started mixing the two together with their fingers---I suppose today we would call it finger art.

When grandfather looked up from his paper and saw what the girls were doing he called out to his wife with delight, "Missus, missus, come see what the girls are doing!"

I suspect that the 'missus' was not quite as delighted as he was with this display of
granddaughterly creativity.



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See you next Sunday for Posting #49 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.