harveyc

Tog, you're a joy to have in these forums, never complaining, etc. and adding humor mixed in with serious stuff. I've got to come over and meet you one of these days, maybe at the bkk flower markets, etc. Your comment about not smoking that much reminds me of when I met a guy who is both my 3rd and 5th cousin a couple of years ago. He came from Madeira, Portugal and I met him because of the research of another distant relative who told me that he lived close to me. I brought my dad and family along and he originally proposed that we meet at a bar. I explained to him that my dad doesn't drink at all and that I don't drink much (I get headaches too easily) and he said he didn't drink much either. When I met him at his home he offered us some homemade wine which we enjoyed and it was apparent his definition of "much" falls along the line of yours. He explained that he would have a glass of brandy when he got up in the morning to get his blood circulating and then he took a break until getting home from work. Then he'd have a couple of beers when he got home and then a few glasses of homemade wine later in the evening. He was physically fit and a busy guy and his diet seemed right for him. Then we talked about the old country (Madeira), where I sometimes dream of moving to because of the simply life and tightly knit communities. He explained how neighbors would help one another dig their potato crop. There would be several men and they'd place a large bottle of wine in the row ahead of them aways and they'd all have a drink when they reached that point and then move it down the row a little further. He said they'd go through at least a couple of bottles of wine. His childhood was rough, so it was easy to see why he moved to Africa, then Venezuela, and then here in California. In Madeira he and his brother would go through the countryside, always carrying a scythe over their shoulder. He said guys from Canhas, Madeira were know to do his and considered to be guys folks didn't mess with. They would bundle up grass and bring it home to their cows. The family also had some pasture land up in the mountains. Instead of taking the cows to the pasture the boys would walk there (they never had shoes, btw) and it sounded like it was over five miles away. They would work there for several days cutting hay and sleeping in a cave. Then they would carry bundles of hay on their backs back home. Sounds like they had a rough life but peaceful.

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Tog Tan

Harv, such kind words!
Complain? I have done my share in the younger days. Look at it seriously, Life's a Big Joke. We are born to start dying from the very first minute. Scary, lousy, ridiculous... I call it a warranty. If you hate people, politics, work and what not, it's a real burden to carry even in your sleep. Smile, tell jokes, live!
Having my share of all the bad things and what not, it's best to just go on as positively as possible. This as positively as possible means I am still human and I still freak once in awhile so legally I am not being mr. perfect here and preaching.

What I said earlier about eating 'naners seriously did wonders for me. It took the depression off me and the physical and mental stress. But...you gotta to take it seriously and do it daily. I don't put on weight 'cos of the so-called carbohydrates in the fruit. In fact just recently a big craze on eating 'naners in Japan made all the fruits in the stores sold out before lunch. Know why? One of the TV personality went on a 'naner infused diet and she lost alot of weight but looking very fit and radiant. I didn't do it to follow this Jap lady, I was doing it before the news came out. For a 53 yr old, I still have a flat tummy and I can out track any youngster half my age in the jungle.

One of the good-er thing from eating 'naners gave me extra joy - I put the peels into my flower pots and in between my orchids' roots as fert and... mama mia.. they bloom like crazy after a while! It does not happen quickly but like me consuming it over a period and they do so well due to the potassium.

Finally, me and my cgrs. Cgrs is a life style, like people who drink wine but not other alcohol. To me it's dry herbs I am lighting up and letting my taste buds enjoy and making the best of it.....

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

harveyc

Sorry, but I have to ask: Don't all those bananas "slow" things down? Ya now, as in constipate you? That's been discussed before in some other thread.

Now you've got me scared to come visit. I think I'll die in the jungle from a heart attack from trying to keep up with you despite being over a year younger!

I told my son about your friend who hikes 20-40 miles through the jungle and he didn't believe it. That's what happens when you live on flat land and use tractors, etc. to do much of your work for you.

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chong

Tog,
Is your middle name Confucius? I find some of your "teachings" very profound!

Thanks.

Tog Tan

I don't get constipated cos I drink alot of water all the time. Maybe cos of the life style with many people drinking alcohol related stuff, probably there is mild dehydration setting in.
That guy goes one way 10 miles empty handed and comes out the other 10 full of stuff. I once asked him why he didn't go in during the rains to get me stuff, he says, "Orang Asli not Superman you know, I can fall and get totally stuck in the mud especially carrying all the plants!" I just laughed.
One of my very close friend who works with the aborigines had an accident and broke his ankle cos his leg slipped in a hole in the jungle. They were quite deep in and the Orang Asli made a stretcher to carry him out. He told me despite the pain, he was looking up all the time and didn't realise how different the jungle look from that angle...and all the time he heard the Orang Asli complained to each other that it was like carrying a big heavy dead wild pig on a stretcher!
I will take you for warm ups first before going to the hard core jungle, howzat?

Thanks Sifu Chong. TALK Tan? Oh, you mean Tog. The name says it all...rite?

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

chong

Salamat Po, Gúrung Tog!* Since you called me a name (italicized) in your native tongue, I thought I'd reciprocate. Though you probably recognize the name in Tagalog because it's the same name in Indo-Malayan.

That Chinese name reminds me of a Richard Pryor joke about the only white man who lived on the south side of Chicago. The people who lived there gave him a Chinese name. Whenever they see him they called out to him, "SAYFU!!"

(*Thank you Sir, Teacher Tog)

Tog Tan

Chong, in proper Chinese, Sifu means a level much higher than teacher of which most people tend to forget. So, it is actually Master Chong.

Yea, the Filipino is very Indo-Malayan, however, Gurung is Indon, in Malay it is Guru. The highest level is Mahaguru, like Grand Master.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

chong

I understood Sifu to mean Master. But in context, I took it to be akin to Rabbi, not in the sense of priest but that of a teacher. The term "Po" is not just Sir. It is an expression of high esteem and respect to the person it is addressed.

In Tagalog, the noun word is actually "Gurû". But used as an adjective, the "ng" is added to the noun, and the accent can shift, as with this word.

The word "master" has different translations in Tagalog. It is a word for a person who is in a position of command or ruler. As already discussed, "Gurû" is one, and it is a person who has a command of knowledge. Another translation is "Panginoon", which translate to "Lord", esp. in religious applications, of which the ultimate is for "God". A third translation is "Ámo", loosely translated, equivalent to "Boss", "Supervisor", "Manager".

So there, Gúrung Tog, Po. I hold you in high esteem and respect as person of extreme intelligence. And I am not laughing, either. (No, my fingers aren't crossed.)

Thanks for making me remember my roots.

Tog Tan

Before I go further, I am very curious about something...
Chong, Harv, you guys have been around the board for quite a while; Chong from Nov '06, and Harv from May '07. You guys didn't post much, plus even many of the other senior members. How come? Hey guys, I need to know cos I think it will unlock why people came and go.

Chong, coming back to the way the Chinese use the term Sifu;
As you can see from all the kung fu movies, the Chinese are actually pretty violent in their ways and historically it is the fist which did all the talking. In order to learn kung fu, people will give up everything to do it. The only way is to have the blessing of a well known and proven Sifu who is willing to impart the knowledge. Thus, a Sifu's respect goes beyond that of a Master of the martial arts, he is a person of great wisdom, tolerance and physical prowess. Even today, when someone is respected as a Sifu, it goes beyond all recognition.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

chong

Hi Tog,
Thanks for your feedback. It would appear that we are on the same boat on the words. They are really hard to translate exactly into English. Speaking of Kung Fu, I was one of the first "foreigner" who ordered the book written by Grand Master Leong (or Leung) from Malaysia in the late 50s/early 60s. He was a well traveled Martial Arts expert who fits the description of Master that you just gave, in every way. He was an undefeated wrestling champion here in the US then. He even took on a well known police Jujitsu instructor from New York City. Until that time, the book was supposed to be top secret and were only shared with faithful practitioners. I still have it, although it is buried somewhere in the house. I wonder if you even heard of him?

The reason for the low number of postings, at least for my part, is mostly because of timing and time. And a lesser part, lack of relevance to issues that are of interest to me.

Timing in the sense that sometimes when I log on and click new posts, obviously, the post that are 4 or 5 hours old or older, will not show up, and there might be a thread of interest, that had I seen it, would have posted a response. Couple that with the fact that I do not read every thread because I do not have anything to contribute, or have no particular inclination for. Even those that I read, I oftentimes feel uncomfortable responding to, either by disagreement or lack of experience or knowledge thereof. In the case of the latter, I save any information that pertains to my objectives.

As for time, I would love to be doing this all day long, but dang it!, work keeps getting in the way . . . . .

harveyc

Tong, I had lurked this board for some time before even joining, just reading about different varieties people were having success with, winter strategies, etc. At one time Joe Real thought he had introduced me to the forum but I had been lurking here before meeting him on the citrus forum. I started growing some small tissue culture plants in 2005 and they attained pretty good size in 2006, just 3 varieties (at least 1 was mis-labeled), but I did not have much experience to write about at that time. Then, in January 2007, my 4 mats (2 were of the same variety) got clobbered by an Arctic blast of temperatures in the low 20s for one week. I had 1 variety die completely (supposedly Ice Cream) and the rest died back to the corm, so I started from scratch that spring with new pups that emerged from those corms. As the growth of those progressed in the summer of 2007 and my interest in bananas increased, I started acquiring a greater fascination with bananas and collecting many more varieties. I started to have more to write about at that time, especially when Joe Real gave me a Cal Gold that was fully gron (psuedostem was 9'1", as I recall) and it flowered a couple of weeks after I transplanted it and gave me something like 12 fingers! LOL That was my first official bunch, but I obviously could not take credit for that. Still, I gradually wrote more as I gained experience in potting up pups, transplanting them into the ground, etc. At the end of 2008 I had perhaps 25 varieties but many of those did not survive due to crowded conditions in my heated shop, inadequate watering, over-watering, or whatever. Although I thought it was ridiculous that anybody would ever pay more than $50 for a banana, I ended up doing that several times to buy several Ae Ae pups (2 of 4 died) and a few other variegated bananas. I think that was a sign that this "infectious" disease of banana collecting made the symptoms very obvious and I was addicted. So I spent more time here, acquired more friends here, and shared more of my own experiences with others who were newer to the hobby or who didn't have experience with some varieties. In 2008 I had 3 varieties flower/fruit for me so I finally felt I had enough experience to share with others. Plus, I've killed at least 20 bananas through various causes, and those are also valuable experiences to share. I believe there may have been around 400 members when I joined, but I may be mistaken about that. The forum has grown tremendously so now there are many more posts to respond to than before.

My own posting is somewhat seasonable also. I will probably be cutting back on my activity here for a bit as I am getting new irrigation systems going in my new blocks of chestnuts (186 trees in one area and about 50 in another) and will be starting irrigation of my 130 acres of alfalfa in a couple of days (baling started today). Once I have all the lines in place I may very well post some at various times as I am often up around the clock every few hours.

As far as people who are not active here, I believe many people joined to just post a question or two, got their answers, and left. Maybe they were trying to grow bananas in a very challenging climate and just didn't have the motivation to work that hard to continue growing bananas. For others, they may have a general interest in gardening and thought bananas were interesting, but have moved on to try other things. Yet others are probably actively growing a few types of bananas and are not interested in anything more. If a city dweller has picked out a small area of their landscaping to dedicate to bananas, it might be just enough room for a few varieties so there is not really much more they're interested in chatting about once they have things figured out.

No, some have got put off by bickering, etc. and just leave and forget about the forum. I think that's natural with any forum and I think the membership in this group is about as stable as one can expect.

One very large forum I belong to sends out an e-mail to forum members about twice a month to list "hot topics". This is something that might work here, bringing up subjects to folks that don't drop by to visit otherwise. Maybe I'll post that in the section for such recommendations.

Tog, you're a great asset to this forum and if you quit posting some day I'll have to send my Louisiana mafia friend Pete over to come shake you up a little. Got that??!!! LOL

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Lagniappe

Yeah, Tog! Me, Guideaux, and all my other Pisaneaux n'em may show up and smoke all the cigars, cook up all the reptiles, and drink up whatever's around. Pretty much harmless, but we can be an annoying crowd once we decide to crank the fe dodo at your place!
Then again, you may love it and invite us back!

Tog Tan

Hey guys, I can't wait for y'all to come over. I hope one day we can organise a trip to Thailand together. I will take y'all around to do all the plant shopping, make y'all eat all the weird food. Well, maybe not for all on the weird food but definitely great Thai food. Then you can buy all the crap you want and I will get it shipped back home for you all. I will entertain any sleazy requests especially from mafia Petey! Howzat?

Lastly, Harv, whyyy is my name being hybridized with Chong's again? What's your excuse this time? Black Beans or you wanna blame Black Chestnuts?

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

harveyc

Oops, just lack of sleep and poor skills at multi-tasking. Pete and I were yacking back and forth on feijoa and various other things while I was writing up that message. Or, maybe Tong just sounds good to a ding dong like me??? Sorry, I'll try to do better! Peace, brother, no offense intended!

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Tog Tan

None taken! Gotta to be the black chestnuts.....

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

saltydad

I love the fact that a widely disparate group of folks (geographically, ethnically, politically, etc.) can all coalesce around a common interest, and thereby begin to find the other's values and strengths. I am as politically left as you can get and still be a Democrat, yet I find it enjoyable chatting with Patty and Harvey, just to name 2 who have let slip a political affiliation different (LOL) from mine. I begin to see people as people, rather than as political or religious or national labels. Don't get me wrong; I believe in my politics as strongly as anyone, but a major factor in my forum participation is the extending of my contacts to other folk different than me. So forgive this old hippie who's also an old army veteran for rambling on, but peace and love to all!

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Men In Nursing- "A Few Good Men"

"Gardening is the purest of human pleasures." - Francis Bacon





"If by a liberal, they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind; someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions; someone who cares about the welfare of the people, their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties; someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicion that grips us; that is what they meant by a liberal, I am proud to be a liberal."
John F. Kennedy, September, 1960


http://flickr.com/photos/saltydad/ and
http://community.webshots.com/user/saltydad
http://s751.photobucket.com/albums/xx151/saltydad/

momoese

Well said Howard! I feel the same way, except for that Harvey guy, what's his problem anyway?

chong

His mind's too old ! ! ! ! And also past perfection.

Patty in Wisc

Leave my hippy brother alone!

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Got a lite?
Patty




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Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

harveyc

No problem here, Mitchel, I'm full of peace, love, and happiness. God loves you too!

Harvey
Raking in the hay (literally), before the rain comes!

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