When a friend deals with a friend, let the bargain be clear and well penn’d, that they may continue friends to the end.
Fall foliage, Pumpkin spice coffee or Cooler weather, all of that, but also because of the new year’s Almanacs! An almanac will never make the New York Times Best Seller list, but they are still one of my favorite reads. Weather it’s the Texas Almanac, or the Farmer’s Almanac, or the Cardui my Grandparents swore by Almanacs are still informative and entertaining.
Indelible childhood memories of the house where my father grew up include what was always behind them all. back door. A single shot 22 my grandfather used to dissuade Blue Jays from fleecing fruit from his prized trees, a flyswatter for insects invading the un-air-conditioned house (and unruly grandchildren), and the Cardui calendar for wisdom, advice, and entertainment.
Cardui calendars and almanacs were primarily to promote the elixir by the same name. I t was good. I know that because Dolly Parton and Porter Wagner hailed its virtues every Saturday afternoon on their Country Music television show. Between songs like “Holding on to Nothing” and “Just Someone I Used to Know.”
Dolly’s endorsement aside, some folks might say if you’ve seen one almanac, you’ve seen them all. But that’s just not true. They are all gems for weather forecast, planting tables, Zodiac secrets, recipes, Astronomical tables, tides, holidays, eclipses, articles, and remedies for all sorts of aches and ailments.
One thing that makes a good almanac interesting for “City Slickers and Country folk alike,” as Farmers Almanacs markets there is that scores of advertisers and writers compete for space each year. The result is a “duke’s mixture of diverse ideas offering new and old information, all of which defies usual descriptions. Let alone any sort of conventional best seller book review.
According to my old friend fellow columnist, writer, musician, and folk historian remembered by many in Center, Don Jacobs, the standby book has saved many a columnist from “mundane mumbo-jumbo writings”
Jacobs once said, “Faced with the prospect of having to turn out yet Mother Halloween column as October looms were writers dreading the dilemma of trying to describe orange-colored wax whisties to kids who know how to program computers. Then swooping in just as deadlines approach,” Jacobs added, “the Old Farmer’s Almanac manifested itself on countless shelves.”
The columnist even called the almanac tantamount to the Great Pumpkin himself,”…leaving a bag of goodies that could be reviewed from early Fall clear through to Christmas and still have ideas left over.” And he was right.
available, as are windmills,
For instance, who remembers the turn-of-the-century Mail Pouch Tobacco thermometers? Still need one for the barn, the house, the garage, or the man cave. Faithful reproductions are available, as are windmills, weathervanes and Rosebud Salve, all in the almanac.
Other vital information you’re likely to find can also include pitches for learning to be a locksmith, learning how to read small print easily, or instructions on sending off for a mail order government surplus directory.
If it’s your health that concerns you, the almanac has that covered too. Dealing with a hernia, hard of hearing, or huffing because you’re just plain run down and worn out? There are products guaranteed to “perk you up, hold you together, or cure what ails you.” Things like “Rooster Pills” that, according to the ad, promised to have you “feeling active, vigorous, and crowing again.”
And where else besides the almanac can you read about how one family of seven cut their water heating bill in half, the latest on comets, the history of the mule, and how to pick the perfect mate? All in one edition. There’s the internet now some say. But you know you can trust what you read in the almanac.
