Yokes and phones
08/02/19 04:17
It has been said that there are two seasons for canoe builders: paddling season and building season. Right now, however, is neither season for me. My unheated garage isn’t warm enough for much building. I have a space heater, but it is inadequate for below zero temperatures. So I have three seasons: paddling season, building season, and dreaming season. In this dreaming season, I’m not thinking of a new boat at present. The nearly-completed kayak in my garage should see the water early in the summer. What has been occupying a bit of my consciousness is an unwritten list of repairs that need to be made. I have a kayak that needs a new cockpit coaming. It also could use a sanding and a few coats of varnish. My favorite canoe, a 16’ Chestnut Prospector woodstrip, needs a new center thwart. It could use some varnish as well. The thwart was hand carved out of a pice of mahogany that I had in my shop. I had never previously carved a portaging yoke and I got it a bit thin. It served well for a long time, however. Then, last summer, we encountered some severe winds when driving home from Washington. When I unloaded the canoe, I noticed a fine crack in the yoke. It was still strong enough to carry the boat to its storage cradle, but I want it fixed before doing any serious paddling. I have a nice piece of Black Hills spruce that is air dried and ready for carving and this time I could get the shape just right.
That got me to thinking about the names we give things. The center thwart of a canoe is called the yoke because when portaging, we pick up our canoes and put them over our shoulders. The ones that are easiest to carry have curved indentations in the center of the thwart to make them fit on our shoulders with room for our neck. This thwart is called a yoke. I’m pretty sure that the name yoke comes from the wooden yoke used to secure a pair of oxen together enabling them to pull a load when working as a pair. Yokes have been used in agriculture for thousands and thousands of years. There is evidence of agricultural yokes as ancient as 4,000 BCE. With that long of a history, it makes sense that the term has been used in a variety of different ways. We say things like under the yoke or the yoke around someone’s neck to refer to a wide variety of burdens.
Historically, a yoke was used to measure a specific amount of energy. An oxen can pull its own weight, which runs between 1,500 and 3,000 pounds. In pairs, however, oxen can pull much more. A well-trained team can pull 12,000 pounds, a significant amount. My diesel pickup produces 800 foot pounds of torque. The amount of plowing that can be done by a pair of oxen has been used to measure land. The original definition of an acre is the area a pair of oxen yoked to a single-beam walking plow could till on the longest day of the year. This measurement was used in land transactions and finally was refined to the present definition of an acre, which is 43,560 square feet.
A team of oxen plowing all day long on the longest day of the year is an entirely different matter than me picking up a 70-pound canoe and carrying it on the trail between two lakes. My yoke doesn’t need to be so strong as to take the strain of oxen exerting 12,000 pounds of pull. The same word has significantly different meanings.
As a pilot I also know the term yoke from an airplane. In planes with a control wheel instead of a stick to operate the elevators and ailerons, the wheel is called a yoke. It bears little resemblance to the yoke that fits across the shoulders of an animal or person and using it properly doesn’t demand heavy lifting. I’m not sure how we got to using that name for it.
Then I could go into all of those elementary school jokes that amuse my grandson. What do you call a mischievous egg? A practical yolker. I know it isn’t spelled the same way, but it sounds like the same word.
Things that seem the same aren’t always so. My wife Susan and I have the same brand of phone, with several of the same applications. Last summer while traveling in Japan we got into checking how far we had walked each day. My daily average is usually between 2 and 4 miles, but in Japan I was walking more, usually more than 6 miles each day. But when we compared, her phone was giving her more distance. One day we spent the entire day together, going the same places and doing the same activities. At the end of the day, my phone recorded 6.8 miles. Hers said she had gone over 8 miles. I teased her of swinging her purse to add false mileage, but that wasn’t the case. Her phone was riding in a backpack part of the time. The difference between our phones became a joke between us. I accused mine of false reporting to make me feel bad. It isn’t a big deal to either of us and we haven’t sought a more accurate way of measuring distance. It is just a kind of joke that we enjoy.
Then, last night, we got into the car after being out in the evening and she checked her phone. It said that it was nine degrees below zero. I was positive that it couldn’t be that cold. I’m sure it wasn’t really below zero at all. So I checked my phone. It reported sixteen below. No it wasn’t 7 degrees colder on my side of the car. My only explanation is that my phone is picking on me again. It makes me feel colder than I am and less well exercised than I think I should be. It is almost enough to get me to suggest trading phones with Susan.
I’m keeping my phone, however. If it remains cooler than hers, it will be an advantage in the summer when the days are really hot. Like all canoeists, I’m always looking forward to the change of seasons.
That got me to thinking about the names we give things. The center thwart of a canoe is called the yoke because when portaging, we pick up our canoes and put them over our shoulders. The ones that are easiest to carry have curved indentations in the center of the thwart to make them fit on our shoulders with room for our neck. This thwart is called a yoke. I’m pretty sure that the name yoke comes from the wooden yoke used to secure a pair of oxen together enabling them to pull a load when working as a pair. Yokes have been used in agriculture for thousands and thousands of years. There is evidence of agricultural yokes as ancient as 4,000 BCE. With that long of a history, it makes sense that the term has been used in a variety of different ways. We say things like under the yoke or the yoke around someone’s neck to refer to a wide variety of burdens.
Historically, a yoke was used to measure a specific amount of energy. An oxen can pull its own weight, which runs between 1,500 and 3,000 pounds. In pairs, however, oxen can pull much more. A well-trained team can pull 12,000 pounds, a significant amount. My diesel pickup produces 800 foot pounds of torque. The amount of plowing that can be done by a pair of oxen has been used to measure land. The original definition of an acre is the area a pair of oxen yoked to a single-beam walking plow could till on the longest day of the year. This measurement was used in land transactions and finally was refined to the present definition of an acre, which is 43,560 square feet.
A team of oxen plowing all day long on the longest day of the year is an entirely different matter than me picking up a 70-pound canoe and carrying it on the trail between two lakes. My yoke doesn’t need to be so strong as to take the strain of oxen exerting 12,000 pounds of pull. The same word has significantly different meanings.
As a pilot I also know the term yoke from an airplane. In planes with a control wheel instead of a stick to operate the elevators and ailerons, the wheel is called a yoke. It bears little resemblance to the yoke that fits across the shoulders of an animal or person and using it properly doesn’t demand heavy lifting. I’m not sure how we got to using that name for it.
Then I could go into all of those elementary school jokes that amuse my grandson. What do you call a mischievous egg? A practical yolker. I know it isn’t spelled the same way, but it sounds like the same word.
Things that seem the same aren’t always so. My wife Susan and I have the same brand of phone, with several of the same applications. Last summer while traveling in Japan we got into checking how far we had walked each day. My daily average is usually between 2 and 4 miles, but in Japan I was walking more, usually more than 6 miles each day. But when we compared, her phone was giving her more distance. One day we spent the entire day together, going the same places and doing the same activities. At the end of the day, my phone recorded 6.8 miles. Hers said she had gone over 8 miles. I teased her of swinging her purse to add false mileage, but that wasn’t the case. Her phone was riding in a backpack part of the time. The difference between our phones became a joke between us. I accused mine of false reporting to make me feel bad. It isn’t a big deal to either of us and we haven’t sought a more accurate way of measuring distance. It is just a kind of joke that we enjoy.
Then, last night, we got into the car after being out in the evening and she checked her phone. It said that it was nine degrees below zero. I was positive that it couldn’t be that cold. I’m sure it wasn’t really below zero at all. So I checked my phone. It reported sixteen below. No it wasn’t 7 degrees colder on my side of the car. My only explanation is that my phone is picking on me again. It makes me feel colder than I am and less well exercised than I think I should be. It is almost enough to get me to suggest trading phones with Susan.
I’m keeping my phone, however. If it remains cooler than hers, it will be an advantage in the summer when the days are really hot. Like all canoeists, I’m always looking forward to the change of seasons.