One-page typewritten letter on 3-hole-punched lined paper. The background is that a couple of notes ago, Peter referred to himself as \u201cThe Scuffler\u201d in passing, and apparently George and Helen asked him what he meant by that.<\/p>\r\n
\r\nHandwritten note at the top of the page:<\/span> Signing myself \u201cThe Scuffler\u201d was actually a joke, but since you asked ...<\/p>\r\n
Dec, 8, 1976<\/p>\r\n
Dear Parents --<\/p>\r\n
Well I just sat down to write this letter, when I realized, looking at the date above, that it is your beautiful son's, my brother John's birthday today, so I got up and called him at 9:45 p.m., almost too late. Now I'm back, sitting beside the altar in our living room, eating lentil soup and try ing to figure out what does the word \" scuffler\" mean?<\/p>\r\n
Herewith are some selections from the OED -- asymptotic to my meaning.<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Scuff (also skuff):A rowdy crowd, rabble; also, one of such a crowd.<\/p>\r\n
To scrape with the feet; to wear off by treading.<\/p>\r\n
To shuffle with the feet.<\/p>\r\n
Scuffed: Worn, shabby.<\/p>\r\n
Scruff: Applied to what is worthless or contemptible; refuse, litter.<\/p>\r\n
Scruffy: Covered with scurf, scaly.<\/p>\r\n
Scuffle: A scrambling fight; an encounter with much hustling and random exchange of blows; a tussle.<\/p>\r\n
Scuffle: A gardener's thrust-hoe.<\/p>\r\n
Scuffle: To struggle confusedly together or with another or others; to fight at close quarters in a disorderly manner, with pulling, pushing, and random delivery of blows; to tussle.<\/p>\r\n
To contend vigorously or resolutely.<\/p>\r\n
To struggle along.<\/p>\r\n
To go in hurried confusion; to move with much effort and fuss.<\/p>\r\n
Scuffle: to scarify or stir up the surface (of land) with a thrust hoe.<\/p>\r\n
Scuffler: one who scuffles.<\/p>\r\n
1642 \"Tom Nash his Ghost\" (title page) \"To the three scurvy Fellowes of the upstart family of the Snufflers, Rufflers, and Shufflers; the thrice Treble-troublesome Scufflers ... .\"<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Well then, to me, a scuffler is someone who is struggling, however successfully, with the problems life sets them; in short, a struggler, (in Greek, an agonist<\/u>). In particular, my connotations include images of scruffiness (scuffedness), of being somewhat worn around the edges; tattered or shabby; but yet still vigorous and resolute; also, the image of a digger, stirring up the surface to see what may be found, like a chicken scratching out a living by shuffling its feet; a scavenger making forays over the turf; a random gleaner snaffling (scrogging) whatever seems useful and shuffling on past the rest. Also, perhaps, snuffling, because of having scuffed up so much dust with the thrust-hoe (horse-hoe). The chicken lowest on the pecking-order list definitely has to do some scuffling (in Japanese, the word is
xxx<\/strike> \"geza-no-gyo,\" literally work or discipline of the lowest seat...) in order to survive. But \"the last shall be first\"-- the scrawny snot-nosed street-kid is smarter, tougher, stronger, wiser, than the loll-a-bed fat-cat suburban \"vidiot\"... . Also the idea of wrestling with an angel for a blessing -- \"health is the overcoming of disease\" ... . (No struggle, no health -- like those dogs brought up in germ-free atmosphere -- they can't survive in the outside air ... .)<\/p>\r\nBut of course struggling without being principled (having principles) leads to downfall too -- witness R. Milhaus Nixon, the struggler (there's a fascinating in-depth study of him called \"Nixon Agonistes\", by Garry Wills). For him, the sturggle (I meant struggle, but for him, maybe it was a sturggle...) was an end in itself, not a means. Wills depicts him as a locomotive, working up a head of steam, and chuffing on down the track--never mind<\/u> where the track leads, the head of steam is the important thing to him... .<\/p>\r\n
I've run out of space, time, and energy. (square centimeters, seconds, and ergs). Have a beautiful vacation. Please say Aloha to Hawaii for us homebody howlies (haolis?).<\/p>\r\n
Much love & Light from<\/p>\r\n
Peter, Marcy, Jed & Joaquin<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Notes<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n
- OED<\/dt>\r\n
- We had one of those compact OED editions, the kind that comes with a magnifying glass.<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter explains more or less what he meant when he referred to himself as a \u201cScuffler\u201d in a previous note. \u201cmy connotations include images of scruffiness (scuffedness), of being somewhat worn around the edges; tattered or shabby; but yet still vigorous and resolute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-peter","category-cotati"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2020"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2046,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions\/2046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}