ROLLER SKATES AND LOST HAIR

       When I was six or seven years old, something awful almost happened to me. It was a warm summer afternoon and Mom sent me out to roller skate so Dad could sleep. He worked at night, so we kids were supposed to be quiet in the morning, his bedtime.

     I put my metal skates on my sensible, brown shoes, put my skate key around my neck and took off on Buffalo sidewalks. I skated past three houses on Hertel, through the church parking lot, past the rectory and around the corner to the gas station on Delaware. That's where I fell.

     When I tried to get up, I couldn't. Something was holding my hair. I tried to pull away, but it grabbed me and held tight. I couldn't move.

     I smelled hot tar and rubber, and it frightened me. Reaching around my head, I could feel a car's tire. A tire was on my hair! A car had almost smashed my head! 

     The terrifying idea whipped energy into my fear, so I pulled my head away harder. It took more than one tug but, finally, my hair pulled free. Some hair stayed under the tire but the rest of it took off with me like a shot, head aching but still round.

    I looked back after getting up some speed and the car was there still. Hadn't moved. The driver was a woman with a small hat, a veil and her white gloved hands around her throat. She was probably trying to breathe again. 

     On I raced around the corner and up the sidewalk, not stopping to cry until reaching the porch and seeing blood on my knees.  

BONNIE'S CHICKEN

    Bonnie Rollins Hardman grew up on a farm and had, of all things, a pet chicken. The chicken helped her learn responsibility, mortification and loss.  

     Bonnie's chicken liked attention. Maybe all chickens do but Bonnie's chicken demanded to be noticed. If lonely or hungry, it would pop up the back porch steps and peck at the kitchen door looking for Bonnie. 

     At this time in her life, Bonnie had several much-resented jobs to do around the house. While Bonnie admitted that she didn't have to sleep in the cinders, she felt that her stepmother assigned more chores to her than were necessary, so those duties were done without cheer.  

     One Saturday, while Bonnie had to sweep and clean, her chicken, watching her through the kitchen window, was particularly vexed with being ignored.  The chicken peck-peck-pecked at the kitchen door and Bonnie, annoyed, chased it off. The pecking came again and again so several times Bonnie stopped her work to scoot the chicken off the porch.

     Finally, totally annoyed with the chores and the chicken, she raised the broom as a weapon and ran to the door while screaming, "If you don't stop that and get the heck off the porch, I'll beat you with this broom!"

     Eyes full of fire, she opened the back door to teach that chicken a lesson... and ...stood face to face with the minister. Enveloped by embarrassment that was never forgotten, she ran off to hide in a closet, escaping the chicken, the minister and her stepmother.

     Later that summer, when she was able to face people again, Bonnie had occasion to help make turtle soup. Someone, her cousin I think, had gone fishing and caught an impressive snapping turtle.  

     The turtle was perched on the chopping block for preparation after which its seemingly harmless head lay in the dirt. The chicken, knowing no fear of chopping blocks or turtles, came to investigate. It focused on a bit of pink at the turtle's mouth and, interpreting this as a snack, the chicken pecked at the dead turtle's tongue.

     In the same way that a chicken's body can retain enough life force to run after being beheaded, a snapping turtle's mouth can still snap. The chicken thought it would gain a treat but instead it lost its beak to the dead turtle.

The Wolf returns to Denmark

     In about 1812, wolves disappeared from Denmark. It wasn't a magical disappearance but a dedicated hunt brought about by farmers with chickens and shepherds guarding flocks. In medieval times, the body of a dead wolf was hung in the town gallows for all to celebrate but, later, a private shot in the head would do. Them, in 2012, the wolf was returned to Denmark.  This show focused on the wolf in the Round Tower in Copenhagen. explored the history and the current story. 

 

      In fairy tales, there is a wolf who tracks Little Red Riding Hood. Some version of the story has been found in French in the 10th century. The one familiar to Americans is likely the German version by the Brothers Grimm. An Italian version is called The False Grandmother and there is an ancient Chinese story called Lon Po Po. Ed Young translated that in 1989. 

     The wolf might chase a little girl or go after house building pigs in stories but the threat to livestock is a real world story, one seldom mitigated by the ecological benefit of wolves. That story is in the documentary about bringing the wolf back to Yellowstone. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQGKuPbi1EY)

    Both sides of the story were presented. As is often the case, I got caught in the story and forgot to take many pictures. The exhibit of dogs from tiny to huge was striking and also a little upsetting. I did look for a sign indicating that no dogs were harmed in the creation of this exhibit. It may have been there in Danish which would have been only mysterious notations to me.

     

Copenhagen City Hall

 Any building with a door this beautiful has to be worth a trip inside. The first thing we saw in the City Hall was the perpetual clock designed by Jen Olsen. That was worth the visit in itself.

    

There is a separate blog on this clock built to run for thousands of years.

This door, with the striking brass plates, is inside the building and through the glass, you can see a stained glass window in the stairwell.

These are images from the courtyard. Europeans know how to create beautiful doors and doorways.

I'm going to put several images below to give an idea of the lovely details in this building. Of note are the graceful trash cans and the beautifully painted walls in the stair wells. 

With a mural of early days in Copenhagen there is an image of a person hanging in a gallows. There is no great deal in this portion of the mural but it is clearly a person. This was how thieves were dealt with in earlier centuries. One thing that we later learned is that if a farmer killed a wolf, the wolf would also be hung in the gallows. Apparently farmers, particularly sheep farmers, were adept at getting wolves because Denmark had none for quite a long time. They were recently reintroduced and the populace, particularly the shepherds, seem unsure that they are willing to share space with wolves.

   

Jens Olsen's Fantastic World Clock

     Clock is a small, innocent word. Most people reading it might think of a small little alarm clock or an old digital clock radio. I imagine the clock Clement Hurd drew in Good Night Moon.

      Of course, one might think of something spectacular like Big Ben but rarely would anyone think of a masterpiece like the Jens Olesen  (1872-1945) clock. In 1897, when he was 25 and saw the astronomical clock at Notre Dame, he decided to build a perpetual clock. Decades later, his youngest grandchild started this clock in motion.

                        

      I'd never heard of Olsen's clock before seeing it. We went to the Copenhagen City Hall because the building is gorgeous (and free) but from that day, I most remember this clock. 

     I was immediately taken by the lovely, golden brass works visible all around through the clear case. Like a sculpture, it draws one around and around. Olsen planned for the works to be covered and only have the faces visible. Whatever was he thinking? 

     After staring at it, I started reading the signs. What staggered me more than the beauty was the fact that it takes 25,753 years for one of the small gears to make a complete revolution while the fastest gear turns once every 10 seconds. 

      Since the clock was started on December 15, 1955, the accuracy of this is still untested but think of the precision of the works where one part revolves a complete turn in 25,753 years. Agog? Right?

     Jens Olsen was a locksmith in 1897 when he became inspired to design and build an astronomical clock. He learned clockmaking and built and repaired grandfather clocks, pocket watches, and binoculars while, in his spare time, he designed the world clock. Here are some details:

My favorite face - the planets

     Olsen made plans for the clock working alone until 1928 when  astronomer Elis Stromgren joined the project. Drawings for the clock were made between 1934 and 1936 but the production was delayed by fundraising and WWWII. Finally, the clock was built between 1943 and 1955- a portion of which included the Nazi occupation of Denmark.

      The clock has 12 movements.

     There are 15,448 parts.

     In spite of it starting the same year as the atomic clock was invented, it is mechanical and needs to be wound each week.

     Displays include lunar and solar eclipses as well as the positions of the planets and their moons. It shows “true solar time,” the Julian period, the date in the Gregorian calendar, and time zones as they were introduced in 1884.

     

      The city of Copenhagen helped to finance the construction of the clock. It became a symbol of Danish craftsmanship.

     The case was designed by Gunnar Billmann Petersen. He chose to create a transparent case and feature the workings as well as the faces. Good choice.

     While we live in a world where technology becomes obsolete before things are delivered and packages opened, this clock is meant to tell the time and date for thousands of years. The sign at City Hall states, “The World Clock…will still be able to show the starry sky above City Hall, the date when Easter Falls and the time in Singapore.”