My Life Unravelled

Now this is a real experience! I’ve two crashing needs–to make bread and to move to my jazz. They’re both easy and hugely satisfyin’–but I crave the best day and today is it. It has to be a day when the world doesn’t move–at least towards me. No great demands–lay the fire in the woodburning stove, feed the dogs and cats, take out the rubbish for collection by the vernacular council binmen. It must be a day when the house is empty and (I can listen to my favourite dixieland jazz ar 19000 decibel [or something close] or at least loud enough to rattle the windows. It must be a cold, grey day when the heating is on ad the storage heaters are releasing their quiet, gentle warmth. If the sun shines, it’s a bad day for bread because I must go outside and ‘farm” on our 45 acre [18.7 hrctare] farm–a large garden really with the usual–grass, trees, sheep or cows and rain!. By the way, it’s not true that it rains all of the time in Wales. I cannot understand people who laugh on the phone when I say: ‘Hello. This is Allen Jacobs in Wales where the sun shines all of the time.’ Seems unkind– this world where people laugh at my almost true proclamation.

This is fun but a bit silly when I’ve just said that a handmakin’breadday must be conduced by the weather. Oh well, lets get onto the unfolding of bread before, through and after becoming bread.

I was born at an early age–well, most people are, aren’t they? I was so early that I was immediately cacooned into an incubator. Mind you , it was 82 years ago and I suppose it was a metal box plugged into the wall. Anyway, I survived and grew. Then people began to ask me at about 7 8 or 9–How BIG were you when you were born? I stood tall and showed them the smallest digit on my right had (about 2 inches). Everyone smiled; but I believed it until a few years later when my mother told me the fact of my life.

In fact, I was conceived (so I was told) on a honeymoon cruise as the ship passed through the Panama Canal (at night I suppose). How great is that! I suppose other people could brag about their starts in unusual places ,but I’ll bet they weren’t as world famous as The Panama Canal!

Well, my beginning set up the pattern of my life–lots of little digitlike [Bytes] of experience. Of course, my right digit elongated and my life experiencees did too. As I said I came into this world with a small body and a shouting, commanding voice. Nevertheless, I was bedded in the bottom drawer of my parent’s bureau. The best place for Little Jere; I was called Jere which was the name of a Princeton student my mother fancied. Jere it was until I migrated to the U.K. and then my passport read: S. Allen Jacobs. I imagine that a lot of people are misnamed like Tristom Shandy. For myself the S. was for a previous member of my family and is used only as an initial in the US and Allen should be a LAST name not a second name and finally I should have been ‘the Third’ not Jr. Oh well–what’s a tag anyway. I’ve still survived.

My parents were really gentle, loving parents. Dad was in the magnet wire manufacturing business and mum was from a habadashers family that had an exclusive women’s department store in Fort Wayne. My grandfather was very tall to my eyes of 10 and had large hands. As a sort of hobby he had three small farms in Indiana. One for American Guernseys, one for hampshire pigs and the third to grow food for the cows and pigs. Perhaps my experience on his farm secretly led to my becoming a farmer when I was 45. Grandfather’s dairy farmer was called, Floyd, and I used to do jobs around the farm. One day he said: Jere, there’s a wagon full of oats standing outside of that grain bin. While I wash out the barn [just after milking] go over and unload the oats. I’ll come to see you when I’m done. O.K. So off I went. By now I was a big lad–something like 5 foot 9 in. I started and scooped for hours it seemed. Floyd finally came out and ask how I was getting on. ‘I’m not getting any where.’ I said. ‘Every time I remove a scoop the hole fills in again.’ ‘Jere,’ he said, ‘don’t you forget THAT EVERY SCOOP YOU TAKE OUT OF THERE IS ONE LESS THAT I HAVE TO TAKE OUT.’ I can’t begin to guess how many times I’ve passed that advice on. It has also become one of the Bytes that define my lifee today.