Bare Brains

Cane syrup was an important part of the Southern diet in Hatcher’s youth, and even when I was growing up, many years later. My mother, Willie Lou, would make a big batch of buttermilk biscuits every morning, which, with butter and syrup, was breakfast for the family. She did occasionally add bacon, grits, and eggs to the menu, but biscuits were essential unless we were having pancakes, which was rare.

We bought our syrup ready-made, but in Hatcher’s day, making syrup was a community activity, and people brought the sugar cane they had grown to the neighborhood mill, where a mule turned the press to squeeze out juice for the kettle.

Once, when I was a kid, some enterprising folk set up a traveling cane mill in a lot downtown and drew quite a crowd. They weren’t making syrup as I recall, but I do remember that they were selling chunks of peeled cane, which were eaten like candy bars by those who liked it–I didn’t, particularly. You bit off a chunk and chewed till you had all the juice out, and then spit out the “pummy,” the fibrous residue that Hatcher mentioned. They were also selling cane juice fresh from the press, turned, as in Hatcher’s day, by a mule.

I was curious about the word “pummy,” which Hatcher also used in reference to the pulp that was left after they squeezed the juice out of citrus fruit at the canning plant. It seems it was used in parts of England as the name for the pulp that was left after squeezing the juice out of apples.

(In the titles, I showed his birth year as 1921, which is actually Willie Lou’s birth year. Hatcher was born in 1916.)

On my 65th birthday, someone asked how it felt to be 65, and I couldn’t think of anything like a concise answer. How could I summarize the current state of my existence? The more I thought about it, the more challenging it seemed, because it actually seemed to be asking, “How do you summarize 65 years of life?” Anything I might say would fall far short of covering all the experiences of those years, much less convey any sense of conclusion, of a rounded whole.

All our experiences are woven together in the brain to create a working model of the world and ourselves in it, but the limitations of conscious thought make it impossible to see the end result as a whole. Our current environment cues the brain to bring into consciousness those models which seem relevant in the present moment, and all the rest of our lives and memories disappear in quiescence. Conscious thought cannot encompass the entirety of our selves or our place in the world–that is not its evolved function–and so we are left with glimpses of patches of our limited reality.

It occurred to me that I might go through my memories, lay them all out, and see if they held together in any way; if there was some kind of all-encompassing coherence. This is the beginning of that exploration…

(Just click the full screen icon to see it… full screen!)

Norm’s Normal Life: The Potty Training Era from Norman Bearrentine on Vimeo.

Hatcher describes the log house they lived in back in the early 20’s, the crops they grew for profit and food, preservation techniques, and the joy of a freshly sunned cotton mattress.

When Hatcher was a young fellow, a “Protracted Meeting”–what today’s Christians might call a “Revival”–was one of the few social opportunities available. In any kind of gathering, humorous events were likely… (In the titles, I showed his birth year as 1921, which is actually Willie Lou’s birth year. Hatcher was born in 1916.)

Hatcher was a pretty interesting guy–regardless of being my father–an inventor, despite a 3rd grade education, who never profited from his inventiveness as much as he might have. He made a living as head of maintenance of citrus canning plants and packing houses, and saw invention as part of his job–making the machinery run better. 

I had a new video camera in November of 2000 when I visited my parents in Florida, where I grew up, and I asked if he’d like to tell about his life for posterity. He was quite willing, and at 84, his brain was still functioning well. He died in 2007, and by then his dementia from mini-strokes had progressed considerably.

It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago, while waiting for a 3D project to render–which has been going on for 600 hours now, with about 80 still to go–that Hatcher’s narrative could be broken up into YouTube sized chunks, and that he might find a niche audience on the web. He grew up in an era when telling stories was a major form of entertainment, and on one level, his have a sort of “tales of the last century” appeal.

If you have listened to any of my podcasts, or read any of my writing, you will know how much stock I put in the biological and cultural milieu within which we evolve. As I get more videos uploaded, I’m hoping you will notice in their progression how Hatcher’s history shaped his life. For me, there is also the interest of seeing how much he had to do with my being who I am. 

I have to warn you that he had a tendency to look at the past through rose-colored glasses. You may suspect as much in watching him describe his early family life. While Hatcher seems to remember his sibling relationships as idyllic, his older sister Beatrice–”Aunt Bea” to me–told a different tale. It seems their baby brother, Walter, was granny’s favorite, and she always believed his version of any disagreement, to Hatcher’s disadvantage. Beatrice said she felt so sorry for Hatcher’s being whipped on false charges that she often came to his defense. I have to wonder what kind of effect that would have had on him–being wrongly punished by the one who was supposed to be his refuge–and how that might have shaped my own legacy…

(In the titles, I showed his birth year as 1921, which is actually Willie Lou’s birth year. Hatcher was born in 1916.)

But enough of my writing about his talking. Let the man speak for himself:

My wife, Eve, listened to Episode Twelve, and suggested that there was a serious gap in my not talking about my hostility toward my mother and its effect on my not going to Hatcher’s funeral. In the interest of thoroughness, in this episode I talk about my relationship with my parents, possible roots of hostility, parent/child relationships in general, and human relations in general. If you have any interest in such things, perhaps you’ll find some alternative perspectives here for unraveling your own feelings in relationships.

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Episode Thirteen.mp3

My father died about a month ago, and I didn’t go to the funeral. I’m not depressed and I’m not grieving. My family is upset with me, and everyone in the area that knows my family thinks I’m a bad son. So I explain here why I didn’t go, which leads to some commentary on a book I read when I was 17 that changed my life, which leads to discussion of a source of many of the problems of humanity: identification with family, community, race, religion, and country. Sorry, kids–no sexual titillation this time–but, hey, we’re all going to die sooner or later–might as well get used to the idea.

You should not click on the link unless you are at least 18 years old.

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Episode Twelve.mp3

The Lost Tapes series continues with Part Four, which begins with the subject of variations between women in their experience of orgasm in intercourse, how that affects their receptivity, and how men can understand these variations and accommodate them, both physically and emotionally. Male attitudes toward vibrators, oral sex, and women’s sexual fantasies are discussed, along with the limitations of concentration and consciousness. Real life examples are provided.

You should not click on the link unless you are at least 18 years old.

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The Lost Tapes, Part 5.mp3

In Part Four of the Lost Tapes series, the first day of recording winds down with a discussion of bell curves in general, and in particular, the curve of human wierdness. It finally comes to an end with a list of the day’s drugs.

Part Four continues with the beginning of day two, which opens with the question of love and the art of cunnilingus, leading to the relationship between love, fear, jealousy, and envy, and strategies for dealing with these. The ultimate question is how to be happy given one’s assets and limitations, the unaccountability of taste, and the inevitability of behavioral conditioning in exclusive relationships.

You should not click on the link unless you are at least 18 years old.

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The Lost Tapes, Part 4.mp3

The Lost Tapes series continues with Part 3, in which the issue of beauty leads to a discussion of the joys of physical fitness, which leads to ideas about longevity and the accumulation of small increments of effort over time. Over time things change; flexibility is an asset, along with acceptance of the tenuous connection between our ideas and reality. Next up is the connection between the LSD experience and reality, with real-life examples, concluding with musings on the reality of fluctuating emotions.

You should not click on the link unless you are at least 18 years old.

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The Lost Tapes, Part 3.mp3