If you understand Shiloh at work and Shiloh at food you have an eighty percent lock on the goinz on.
I’d like to offer two fairly unique idioms that may shed some light on each.
For the first please allow me a riddle. Two Shiloh brothers are walking down the street. One has two spoons in his pocket the other a sixteen inch butcher knife stuck through his belt like a kid with a wooden sword. What are they going to do?
A. Join a jug band in a violent part of town.
B. Rob a convenience store of it’s yogurt
C. “Do the damage”
D. None of the above.
The correct answer is C. “Do the Damage.” These guys however appear to be pikers and so probably won’t be doin the damage in the classical sense. They will head to the corner grocery, buy a half gallon of melorine, cut it in half with the butcher knife and eat it out of the carton. To, properly do the damage a hot tub or better yet hot springs must be sat in while consuming the dairy. Is melorine considered dairy? At any rate, Bryers ice cream is the preferred choice of discerning brethren.
To fully understand the second idiom we must travel high in the cascades to a tree planting site or unit. This several hundred acres of freshly logged mountainside has a dozen ragged Shiloh-ites each with a largish hoe type tool called a hoedad in one hand and a bag of 75 or so Douglas Fir seedlings strapped around his waist.
These Shiloh-ites are rummaging through the brush like demoniacs jumping, grunting, exhorting, the occasional rebel yell is herd. Most are fully clothed.
Since it’s a sunny day, some aren’t fully clothed. Some aren’t clothed at all, by the way, except for boots and gloves of course. This latter style was referred to by the Weyerhaeuser inspectors in their amazement, as “bare root planting.”
Behind these wild men is a more civilized individual with a shovel. He has expensive corked boots. Corked boots are the lace up boots that have small metal spikes like studded stow tires, imbedded in the soles to help them grip fallen trees. He wares a vest with pockets containing tree tape, colorful vinyl ribbon used for marking trees and boundaries and such. He is wearing a yellow hardhat with the green Weyerhaeuser tree logo emblazoned on the front. He is the Weyerhaeuser inspector for those tree planters on that particular day.
After a few hours he marks off an area about one-eighth acre with tape and florescent orange spray paint. He then counts the trees planted in that area, makes some notes in a journal or clipboard. He is very quiet, methodical and focused while he carefully digs up several trees to inspect the roots, their depth, and the quality of soil they are planted in and if the root system was planted straight down, balled up or in a J fashion.
What he has just done is called, “Taking a Plot.”
If the inspector likes what he sees, the Shiloh-ite tree planters continue on planting. If he doesn’t like what he sees he tells the Shiloh foreman hovering nearby or planting with the rest of the Shiloh-ites and the foreman shouts, “Replant!”
The planters must then dig up each tree they have planted, plant it again making sure it is planted correctly and in the proper quality of soil till the inspector is satisfied.
The important idea here is the contrast between the Shiloh-ite tree planters crashing through the brush with complete abandon and the quiet focus of the inspector as he “Takes a plot.”
Now back to our two friends heading out to “Do the damage.” Before they stealthily go to the silverware bin in the kitchen, or quietly push open the swinging door to find a suitable knife, one says to the other, “Wanna do the damage?” The second responds, “I might wanna, ‘take a plot on it,” Grinning ear to ear. There is no ambivalence here. The wheels are set in motion. They are off toward their blissful if somewhat gluttonous rendezvous.
Finally there is what I call the Farrel inflection to this idiom.
I met Farrel in Denver during an over night stop on my first trip from Savannah to the Study Center in Dexter Oregon. I was approached by a fellow with a beard down his chest. Since John Higgins the leader of Shiloh sported a Luden Brothers style full beard, the “elders,” the oldest of which may have been in his late twenties, followed suite. I felt sure this must be an elder and prepared myself for a meaningful moment of encouragement or rebuke. Instead the bearded fellow gave me a hand drawn picture of Jesus which appeared to have been made by an elementary school child and said, “I might think to say that Jesus loves you.” Then he abruptly walked away.
After I sat down another brother came over and explained that that was Farrel and he apparently liked me as not everyone received one of his hand drawn pictures.
Shiloh truly was a haven for the emotionally damaged and feeble. After the demise of “The ministry” I heard that this brother got an apartment and brought Farrel with him continuing to take care of him for some years to come.
So to the question “Wanna do the damage?” The reply with the Farrel inflection would be, “I might wanna think to take a plot in it.” A very definite yes.
