Some late night ramblings

Sandy Cash's cover of Peter Jones's "Kilkelly"

I remember the first time I heard the song. It is such a hauntingly beautiful song. It tears at my heart every time I hear it. Sandy Cash is such a talented singer. But this song is just such a beautiful story. So wonderfully written that I can picture the 40 years that it covers.

I was listening to it tonight and then I got distracted to other similar songs. Before I knew it I was here for an hour. But I find that this music lifts my spirit. I started listening to some other favorites. But I came back to "kilkelly". It reminds me of the importance of family. And it reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago about my family and our reunions. I will add that here:

"From a little ball of twine.
Every five years or so my family has a reunion. A lot of families do that. My dad had 5 brothers and 5 sisters. I have 18 aunts and uncles. Through the course of lives and deaths, I also have 38 cousins and 7 step cousins. And, of course, I am related to all their kids. I will not bore you with any more numbers. When we get together, there are a lot of us. At the last reunion we had over 130 attendees. And this is only part of the family.

We have a lot of fun at our reunions. But the most fun we have is the traditional rope making contest. My dad and his siblings grew up during the depression and on the farm they couldn't always afford new rope each season. During the winter it would not get used much and would dry out. So every year they had a need for new rope. My dad told me that they would lay the rope out in front of the barn in kind of a basket. On that basket they would stack hay and then using a pulley system to hoist that hay into the barn. They always needed rope of various lengths.

Over the course of the years the family has actually found several depression era rope machines. These machines are hand held machines and take several people to operate. One person is the cranker. He sits at one end and turns the handle. There is also a person at the other end who holds the end of the rope around a holder shaped like a 'Y'. Depending on the length of the rope, anywhere from 5 to 10 people would stand along the length of the rope to make sure that the errant strands of twine do not get tangled.

Unfortunately, I don't have one of those machines. I have been looking. I will try to describe it. On the fixed end, attached to the crank are the gears and essentially four claws. On the other end is the handle. The twine from which the rope is made, is wrapped around the handle and then stretched to the other end and wrapped around a claw on the fixed end. This is repeated until the desired thickness of the rope is achieved. When the twine is attached it is tied off and then the cranking begins.

It is really quite a process. The cranker starts turning the handle and the strands of twine start twist and to tighten up. The ten, or so, people along the line keep the errant strands from tangling up with each other. Once the strands of twine are tightly wound the actual twisting of the rope takes place and the guy at the end slowly starts to walk to the crank, twisting the strands of twine into a rope as he goes.

Our reunions are very structured and we usually reserve two afternoons for the making of rope. We can make about 15 ropes in an afternoon. We make sure that anyone who wants a rope gets one. The last reunion that we went to my daughter got a jump rope and I got this one. It is the one event that I really look forward to at our reunions."

Good night for now.
D.