Some Observations from the Hill
by H.H. "Hub" Brown

 Got a nice map of the world today. It came in an application to subscribe for the National Geographic Magazine. I took that for 61 straight years. It helped raise a lot of kids. When I first subscribed it cost $3.50 a year. It finally got so expensive I felt I couldn't afford it and besides people that used to read mine were now offering me magazines.

 Looking over this new map, I noticed the city of Sao Paulo in South America. Back in my days in the sole leather tanner, EJ used to buy dry hides from down in there. The cattle from there had been crossed with Brahmas which meant that they had a pronounced hump on top of their shoulders. These humps seemed to be a favorite spot for cattle grubs to appear. The flies that are parents to these grubs lay their eggs on the front legs of the cattle. In cleaning up their front legs, they swallow some of these eggs which hatch out and then work their way up through the cattle and finish growing to maturity right under the surface of the skin. 

 There were lots of wild parrots in that region and this was a great attraction for these birds because just before a grub reached maturity there would appear a tiny hole. This showed the parrots where to start enlarging the hole to enable them to get at that grub. Sometimes the whole top of the hump would be eaten away. That's why hides that came from Sao Paulo were always classed as Sorebacks in the tannery.

 On a recent trip to Florida I visited my sister Lucille, who was visiting our sister-in-law and her daughter, whom she lives with in St. Cloud. Diane is a trained nurse and works in a hospital. Our niece, Diane, has a brother, David, and he and his wife, Ellen, have a bookstore right down in the busy part of the city of Tampa. At one time, years ago, Dad had two sisters that worked and lived in Tampa. There were seven kids in our family, but Dad's second sister had our only cousin. His oldest and youngest sisters never had any children. Donald our only cousin was a hell raiser when he used to visit us on German Hill. He was wrestling or working out in a gym in Tampa, broke a blister on his heel and died of Septic Blood Poisoning. President Calvin Coolidge lost a son of the cause at the same time. That was before they had come up with the Sulfa Drug.

 Well, back to David's and Ellen's bookstore. They collect and sell some old and rare volumes. Diane told her brother that I had just gotten interested in herbs. He took off and came back with a big armful of books about herbs. I found out some plants I had known as weeds were herbs. David filled a shopping bag with herb books and said, "Take these back to Diane's and look them over and keep a couple and I'll pick up the rest sometime later." So I picked out a Park seed book because I had had some experience with that company.

 My only complaint about the whole trip was that some of the restaurants, even some of the higher priced ones, had the attitude "well, these are tourists they won't be here tomorrow." I know I sure missed the coffee down at Joe's Place, The Parkview.