Looking Toward Portugal . . . .

35,000 Hits as of Today

2012-01-01T21:59:00.002-05:00

Greetings from Halifax, Nova Scotia. What a great way to start the New Year. Thanks to all of you who have visited my blogspot.

Happy 2012!!

2011-12-30T11:37:00.002-05:00

Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year!!

I will be welcoming 2012 in Maine followed by a wintertime exploration of the Edge of America (and Canada). I hope the new year brings you good health, a bucket of happiness, and some well deserved prosperity.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:26:00.004-05:00

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke 2:10-14

Wishing Everyone a Festive Holiday Season

2011-12-23T13:50:00.007-05:00

I hope you have a safe and pleasant holiday surrounded by friends and family.

It has been an unusually warm December here in Maryland and there will be no white Christmas for us. I recall fondly those past holidays in the upper Midwest. If you have snow, enjoy it!

Third Anniversary of Looking Toward Portugal

2011-11-26T14:26:00.002-05:00

Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the Looking Toward Portugal blogspot. Once again I want to thank my readers, the regulars and those who check in from time to time, for making this experiment such a wonderful success. I look forward to another year of posting my random notes from the edge of America. Join me when you can.

Raise the Song of Harvest Home

2011-11-24T12:16:00.003-05:00

I am reminded of the 18th century hymn “Come Ye, Thankful People, Come” and its refrain, “raise the song of harvest home.” Let me take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday as you gather with family and friends to enjoy a bountiful feast. Despite the trying times we find ourselves in, there is still much to be thankful for . . . today and every day.

Giant Cicada Threatened Famous Blogger!

2011-11-19T08:25:00.008-05:00

Worry not dear readers. I am still here and still hard at work sharing my random notes from the edge of America. But it was a close call this past summer when I was on a photo safari to Nova Scotia, on the far edge of Atlantic Canada. It was early morning when I arrived in Peggys Cove, a small, idyllic fishing village with a population hovering around 40 hardy souls on the Chebucto Peninsula southwest of Halifax. I wanted to be there to photograph the village's well-known lighthouse at the entrance of St. Margarets Bay before the tour busses from Halifax arrived to disgorge the thousands of tourists that visit during the summer months. Unfortunately, it was a very foggy morning and it was difficult to see much of anything and I thought I might have to leave without getting the shot I came to get. Luckily, the fog lifted just as the busses were beginning to arrive and I was able to capture a beautiful photograph of the lighthouse. I was just finishing up when this monstrous cicada emerged from the fog and the water. Needless to say, I beat a quick retreat to Halifax for a doner kebab and a big plate of poutine. Thanks to Michael G. Stewart who caught it all on film. I wonder what happened to the tourists I left behind?

A New Poem About Nabokov and Butterflies

2011-11-13T14:39:00.003-05:00

"A Collector of Blues" - Please check it out at my poetry blospot Epiphanies in the rue Sansregret:
http://ruesansregret.blogspot.com/2011/11/collector-of-blues.html

Celebrating Our Nation's Veterans

2011-11-11T07:22:00.000-05:00

To our fathers and mothers and friends, and to all the men and women who have served in uniform . . . our sincere and deepest gratitude for your sacrifices. Our country celebrates our soldiers and veterans. I only wish it took better care of them.

A New Adventure . . . .

2011-11-04T00:30:00.003-04:00

Follow me as I set off on a new adventure - A Flâneur in Washington, DC
http://flaneurinwashington.blogspot.com/

Check Out My Latest Poem . . . .

2011-11-03T13:57:00.005-04:00

It is posted on the Epiphanies in the rue Sansregret blogspot -
http://ruesansregret.blogspot.com/2011/11/pumpkin-tattoo.html

It was written in the waning days of our summer sojourn in Maine and inspired by visits to the Wyeth landscapes along the state's rocky coastline.

And I am happy to announce that the hit count passed 30,000 this morning. I appreciate your continued interest in Looking Toward Portugal.

Octsnowber

2011-10-29T17:00:00.007-04:00

This weekend certainly did not turn out as I had planned. Yesterday afternoon I crossed the Chesapeake Bay to Maryland’s Eastern Shore fully intending to get up early the following morning and set off from Tilghman Island for a day in search of some trophy rockfish. Unfortunately, the forecast was not in my favor with the prediction of a strong nor’easter arriving overnight and bringing an early winter storm extending from the Mid-Atlantic states through New England. Snow in October! Who’d a thunk it?

The earliest measurable snowfall in both Baltimore and Washington, DC was 0.3 inches on October 10, 1979, during the World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Pittsburg Pirates. Trace amounts also fell in Baltimore on October 9, 1895, and again in 1903. A trace was also noted in Washington on October 5, 1892. The earliest recorded major snowfall in our area of Maryland was almost 6 inches recorded in Baltimore on November 6-7, 1953. Snow before Halloween is a rare occurrence. If the forecasters were correct, the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area could expect a modest accumulation from this storm. Another one for the record books perhaps?

By the time I arrived on Tilghman Island last night, the forecast had turned positively grim. A light rain had already begun to fall and the winds were picking up. A captain will normally wait until the morning of an outing before pulling the plug on a day on the Bay, but it was hard to ignore the fact that we were in for quite a blow and the good captain had to accept the fact it made no sense to challenge the stormy bay unnecessarily. The trip was cancelled. Yet all was not lost. I spent a wonderful evening with friends on the island - a great meal with some fine wines and an evening topped off with some exquisite bourbons as we watched the St. Louis Cardinals win what was probably the best World Series in recent history. And a good night’s sleep as the storm began to brew outside.

This morning we wandered down to the local island store to pick up the papers and to check out the waterfront. A cold, raw rainfall fell and bands of gusting winds raked across the island. All the boats were still at their moorings; none of the captains had chosen to wander out onto the Bay today. We also drove down to Black Walnut Point, at the southern end of Tilghman Island, and found the Bay to be remarkably calm despite the winds. Still, the heavy wind-blown rain virtually obscured Sharps Island Light three miles to our southwest at the mouth of the Choptank River. Clearly this was not a day to be fishing on Chesapeake Bay. We returned to the warmth of home and hearth for a nice breakfast and a relaxing morning reading the paper.

This afternoon I departed Tilghman Island for the drive back to Washington. The storm continued to lash the Eastern Shore where local communities were cancelling Halloween parades and other outdoor activities. Listening to the car radio, the reports kept coming in of significant snows accumulating most of the day north and west of Washington and Baltimore. To make matters worse, the snow was slowly moving into the two cities and their suburbs. Strong wind warnings were posted on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge as I crossed over and fallen power lines closed the main Eastern Shore highway not far behind me. Winter has come early to Maryland this year! As I crossed over the bridge I looked down at the Bay which was now churned to a froth . Blowing rain became blowing snow and it seemed I was driving into the worst of it.

Certainly the Chesapeake Bay has seen worse storms than this. One would expect hurricanes this time of year, not a winter nor’easter. Traveling across the Bay Bridge is always a challenge when the winds are gusting regardless of the season. As the first snow of the approaching winter ticks against my windshield, I am reminded of other memorable trips across this bridge. One of the first was during the so-called "Bicentennial Winter" of 1976-1977, my first in Maryland and the coldest on record on the East Coast since the winter of 1779-1780. Back then ice on the Bay was so thick that carriages could cross from Annapolis to Kent Island, the same spot where the Bay Bridge is now situated. It is rare indeed for ice to stretch from shore to shore, yet in 1976-1977 the tidal Potomac, from the Chesapeake Bay to Washington, froze solid as did much of the upper Bay, and strong pack ice was responsible for tilting the Sharps Island Light fifteen degrees off perpendicular. As we crossed the bridge in that late December the ice reached up and down the Bay as far as the eye could see. It has never done that since then, but those of us who remember that winter take nothing for granted when contemplating what that season might offer up. Today’s storm reminds us of that.

This morning, as I stood on Black Walnut Point, I could barely make out Sharps Island Light on the horizon, its now familiar cant peaking through the misty tempest. I wonder what this winter will bring us. It is getting off to a rather early start.

Man of the Hour - Reprise

2011-10-22T07:43:00.002-04:00

My dad passed away two years ago today. Permit me to share with you once again the short tribute I wrote and posted then.
__________

Father he enjoyed collisions; others walked away
A snowflake falls in May.
And the doors are open now as the bells are ringing out
Cause the man of the hour is taking his final bow
Goodbye for now.

This is not what I planned to write this week. I was not sure what I would write, but then I listened to Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam singing "Man of the Hour" and I knew what I had to say. There are times when life throws you a curve and this week was one of those times. My dad passed away in Florida after a lengthy illness. It was not entirely unexpected. He lived a long and interesting life spanning 85 years. Still, one is never really prepared for a life’s final chapter . . . especially when it’s your dad. So permit me this very brief reflection on a life now ended.

Ralph C. Rogers was born in Decatur, Michigan on June 24, 1924 and lived there for the first 18 years of his life. He played varsity basketball at Decatur High School and eventually attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Drafted into military service during World War II, he served in the 104th Infantry Regiment, 26th Infantry Division in General George Patton’s Third Army during the northern European campaign in 1944-1945, including the Battle of the Bulge. His unit was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government for its participation in the liberation of that country. After the war, he returned home, married my mom, and attended the Georgia Institute of Technology where he earned Bachelor and Master degrees in Industrial Engineering. Then it was off to Chicago in 1950 to work in the engineering department at Montgomery Ward, the job he held when I was born the following year. He later worked for the Chicago-based consulting firm Stevenson, Jordan & Harrison for several years, a job which took him and his family around the country. In 1958 he took an engineering position with Champion Paper Company, in North Carolina, for almost six years. During that time he served in various professional organizations and taught at Western Carolina University. He ended his professional career with J.C. Penney where he moved in 1968 and where he was engineering manager for the catalog division until his retirement in 1984.

After retirement, Dad and Mom moved down to Florida’s Gulf Coast where they lived until 1994 when they moved to Ohio to be closer to family and friends. It was a family history that followed the trajectory of so many others of their generation. But it would not last. Things began to come apart and my parents divorced shortly before their 50th anniversary. Dad moved back to Florida where he eventually remarried. I did not see him much after that, certainly not as often as I had hoped. His life, for whatever reason, took a new direction. I was happy, that he was happy, or seemed to be, but I missed the time we should have spent together in these final years. We talked on the telephone occasionally; it just wasn’t enough. I never doubted his love for me, or mine for him. We just had a difficult time showing it.

I did spend more time with him during his final illness, but these were visits to the hospital and the nursing home where he lived the past couple of years. It was tough to watch him wither away. And now he is gone.

And the road
The old man paved
The broken seams along the way
The rusted signs, left just for me
He was guiding me, love, his own way
Now the man of the hour is taking his final bow
As the curtain comes down
I feel that this is just goodbye for now.

29,000 Hits As Of Today!!

2011-10-20T13:57:00.002-04:00

Thanks to all who have visited my blogspot! I appreciate it!

Thank You For Your Patience

2011-10-17T00:27:00.002-04:00

Although my random thoughts from the edge of America have continued to bubble to the surface since we departed for Maine in mid-June, I have been slow in posting them here as we had very limited access to the Internet while we were away. We are home now, or at least some place where I can get online on a regular basis, so please check out the new postings dating back to mid-June. You will get a good idea how I spent my summer and what I am up to now. And stay tuned for new postings in the coming weeks. Nameste!

Swinging Beef

2011-10-16T21:16:00.007-04:00

Some say castrating a calf is a matter of taste.
Some do is slowly and others in haste.
Some gently saw, while others pull
While making a steer out of a bull.

The cowboy poet Lloyd Gerber, who recently died in Washington, DC at age 87, was once invited to read a poem on “The Tonight Show” when it was still hosted by Johnny Carson. He chose to read “It’s a Matter of Taste” - about cowboys castrating young lambs by biting off their testicles. Needless to say, Gerber got the attention of Johnny and his audience that evening. Although I have never personally bitten the testicles off a lamb or any other animal living or dead, I have seen it done. Furthermore, I must confess that I very much enjoy a properly prepared dish of ‘lamb fries” or “Rocky Mountain Oysters” a.k.a. bull calf testicles (frequently called “prairie oyster” up in Canada).

I am presently in Gainesville, Florida, in the heart of some of the best cattle country east of the Mississippi River. And although mountain or prairie oysters, as well as lamb fries, are not as popular as they are out west, seeing the beef cattle roaming the local ranches reminded me of Mr. Gerber’s poem and my own enjoyment of a well-prepared plate of assorted nuts.

Being from the Midwest, known more for its dairy herds than beef cattle, I never had an opportunity to savor these delicacies. This does not mean that farmers did not castrate their bulls and sheep. My grandfather did, but for some reason the thought of “peeling” the now detached testicles (removing the outer membrane), flattening them with a heavy spatula, and then dredging them in flour (why some call them “dusted nuts”) and deep frying them to a golden brown perfection, was not high on his list of priorities. Given me a good steak any day!

My father-in-law worked on Florida cattle ranches for years and was personally involved in the castrating of young bulls. The wife of one of his men would prepare a bucket of balls and he would eat and enjoy them, according to my mother-in-law who could never quite get her head around the idea of what they are and where they come from. My wife was young and does not recall ever trying them. But I know from personal experience that you will not find them on the menus of Florida restaurants, at least none that I have ever been to and I have been to a few. And what would you call them? Sewannee River Dumplings? Panhandle Pancakes? Florida is famous for its Apalachicola oysters, but these are real oysters. So you get the idea.

Attending graduate school at the University of Arizona, one of my colleagues lived on the large Robles Ranch, in the foothills of the Baboquivari Mountains southwest of the city. We enjoyed leaving our studies behind and heading into the desert to party and more than once I attended a large barbeque at the ranch featuring local beef. It was at once such party that I was introduced to, and consumed for the first time, a rather large plate of rocky mountain oysters served with homemade hot sauce. Funny what tequila will do to such a young and impressionable mind. All kidding aside, I actually liked them; I liked them very much. Now don’t turn your nose up until you have tried them. They taste a lot like chicken. No they don’t. They taste exactly like what they are. After we left Tucson for Maryland, my tastes turned toward Chesapeake oysters (again, real oysters) and crabs, and I had little opportunity to remain a gonad gourmand.

More recently my wife and I took an extensive road trip through the Great Plains from Nebraska to Montana and back. I was not surprised to frequently find RMOs on the menu. Finally, on a snowy afternoon in Deadwood, South Dakota, sitting in the same saloon where Wild Bill Hitchcock was shot in the back and killed, my wife and I sat at the bar and I order a large plate. Sally Ann had never tried them, had never even seen them cooked. When the bartender brought them out and placed them before me along with a mug of cold beer, Sally Ann commented that they looked a lot like popcorn shrimp (they do a little) and asked why they weren’t round. “So they won’t roll off the plate,” the bartender and I answered in unison. They were as good as I remembered while dipping them in a tasty ranch dressing. Lloyd Gerber was correct. “It is a matter of taste.” I think they taste just fine.

Better Late Than Never

2011-10-14T11:34:00.003-04:00

On October 6th it was announced that Tomas Tranströmer is the 2011 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. What follows is an essay I wrote this time last year when it was expected that he would when the Nobel Prize. I am running it here . . . better late than never!

Earlier this month British bookmakers offered Tomas Tranströmer, perhaps Sweden’s most noted poet, as a 5/1 favorite to win this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, placing him ahead of three other poets ranked at 8/1 - Adam Zagajewski of Poland, South Korea’s Ko Un and Syria’s Adonis - as well as the Paraguayan playwright Nestor Amarilla. Tranströmer, born in Stockholm in 1931 has, in addition to his career as a noted poet, critic and translator, worked as a psychologist providing vocational guidance to Sweden’s incarcerated juvenile offenders. This year is not the first time that he has been on the bookies’ shortlist for this prestigious honor. I welcomed this news but suspected that Tranströmer would not win since last year’s laureate was a European - the Romanian-born German novelist, poet and essayist, Herta Müller. One hopes that geopolitics would not influence the judges, but it does. A Hispanic writer had not won since 1998, when José Saramago, the Portuguese novelist and playwright who passed away in June, took home the Nobel laurels. But when you think about it, no Swede - no Scandinavian - has won the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1974 when Harry Martinson and Eyvind Johnson, both members of the Swedish Academy, shared the prize. So I was not surprised when the Academy anointed Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa as this year’s winner. He was not the bookmakers choice - his chances were listed as 45/1 - but there can be little argument that Llosa is deserving of the honor.

I will admit that I was pulling for Tranströmer. I have been reading his poetry since I was first introduced to it in English translation almost 40 years ago. Robert Bly, his longtime friend and translator, writing in the introduction to his 1980 translation of Tranströmer’s Sanningsbarriären [Truth Barriers (1978)], has perhaps captured the essence of Tranströmer’s importance and appeal to readers. His “poems are a luminous example of the ability of poetry that inhabits one culture to travel to another culture and arrive.” I felt an immediate connection to his poems when I first heard him read in the spring of 1974 when I was attending graduate school at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.

I was working on a Master’s degree in German Literature at the time and had been involved with the University’s Ruth Stephan’s Poetry Center since my arrival in Tucson. I was especially drawn to its venerable reading series and the small poetry library located in a house donated by Ms. Stephan (a second donated residence, a small cottage, housed the noted poets visiting the Center). Tranströmer came to Tucson in late February 1974 to give a campus reading. He was also interviewed for the new student literary magazine, Window Rock, which also reprinted a couple of his more recent poems. I was there that evening sitting in the front row. Admittedly, I knew very little about the poet and his work when he took to the stage. He came before us as a relatively new presence and voice. Although he rose to prominence as a promising new voice in his native Sweden in 1954 with the publication of 17 dikter [17 Poems], at the age of 23, it was not until the early 1970s, with the publication of Robert Bly’s translation of 20 Poems (1970), and May Swenson’s translations in Windows and Stones: Selected Poems of Tomas Tranströmer (1972), that English-speaking readers were first introduced to the work of this fine Swedish poet. I read some of these translations prior to that evening, especially after hearing Swenson read in Tucson the previous month when she offered effusive praise for Tranströmer’s poetry. I cannot say that I fully understood them, but I was nevertheless intrigued as I felt he was a new and important poetic voice. There was an inborn authority underlying ever word, every phrase.

Now the evening star burns through cloud.
Trees, fences and houses grow, grow larger
with the dark’s soundless, steepening fall.
And under the star is outlined clear and clearer
the other, secret landscape that lives
the life of contour on night’s X-ray plate.
A shadow draws its sled between the houses,
They wait.
[“Epilogue,” from 17 dikter, translated by May Swenson]

What I recall from the poems read that evening, and what I have taken from all of his poetry I have read since, is Tranströmer’s very strong sense of place, even when it tends toward the surrealistic at times - Sweden, of course (he has continued to reside in Västerås near Stockholm), but more particularly the islands of Södermalm and Runmarö and the east-central coastal archipelago of his ancestors where Tranströmer spent the summers during his youth. The audience was enwrapped from start to finish and I left that evening a convert.

Tranströmer’s long poem Östersjöar was published in the autumn of 1974, and Samuel Charters acclaimed English translation Baltics was brought out by the Berkeley publisher Oyez in 1975. I read it as soon as I could lay my hands on a copy (which, I recall, was not very easy). It provided entree into an entirely new understanding of Tranströmer’s poetics and use of metaphor, and I agree with the poet Bill Coyle who later wrote that this collection “ is in some ways the best place for a new reader of Tranströmer to start; it develops more slowly than his shorter pieces, and his metaphors, though as striking here as elsewhere, reveal themselves more gradually.” Again, the strong sense of place - the Stockholm archipelago, and the Baltic Sea.

In the middle of the forest the Baltic also sighs, deep in the
forest you’re out on the open sea.
[Baltics, II]

“The Baltic is Tranströmer’s archetypal environment,” Coyle writes, “with its mixture of sea and islands, of sweet and salt water and, at least during the Cold War, of democracies and dictatorships.” The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had been under Soviet domination since the end of World War II, and this long poem reflects the geopolitical realities of the Baltic region and their impact on the poet and his work.

Now, a hundred years later. The waves come in from no man’s
water
and break against the stone.
[Baltics, III]

Transtömer returned to Tucson in November 1975 for a reading at which he presented Baltics in its entirety. I had an opportunity to speak with the poet at some length afterwards and he graciously inscribed my copy of the Charters translation of Baltics as well as my copy (one of 600) of the inaugural 1974 number of Window Rock with it’s interview of the poet and the reprints of two of his poems. I went home that evening with a deeper admiration for the poet and his work, but also a better understanding of the plight of these small nations so close to the poet’s native Baltic archipelago yet suffering under the oppressive Soviet thumb.

And now: the stretch of open water, without doors, the open
boundaries
that grow broader and broader
the farther you stretch out.
[. . . ]
But it’s a long way to Liepaja.
[Baltics, IV]

Baltics came up a few years later, in the autumn of 1979, when I had an opportunity to discuss Tranströmer’s poetry and the plight of the Baltic states with the noted Estonian poet Ivar Ivask (1927-1992) and the Lithuanian historian Vitas S. Vardys (1924-1993) . We shared dinner at the faculty club at the University of Oklahoma, in Norman, Oklahoma, and my long conversation with Ivask, who was then the editor-in-chief of World Literature Today and the founder of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature which Tranströmer would win in 1990, opened my eyes to other approaches to the poem, including those by Baltic writers in exile.

Tranströmer’s English speaking audience has continued to grow as has his influence on other poets. His work in translation appeared in Robert Bly’s Friends, You Drank Some Darkness: Three Swedish Poets: - Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelöf, Tomas Tranströmer (1975). Bly’s translation of Sanningsbarriären [Truth Barriers, 1978] appeared in 1980, and an entire issue of Michael Cuddihy’s fine journal, Ironwood 13, was devoted to Tranströmer in 1979 (published in Tucson, by the way). Tranströmer’s Selected Poems, containing the work of several of his noted translators and edited by Robert Haas, was published in 1987, and New Collected Poems, translated by Robert Fulton, appeared in 1997. This volume was greatly expanded in 2006 under the title The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems which represents the first time all of Tranströmer’s poems to date have been available in one volume in English.

I have been lucky to hear Tranströmer read two other times. First, at an evening reading in Stockholm, in the spring of 1985. I had a free evening in the city and it was a treat to hear selections of Östersjöar and other poems read in the original Swedish. Tranströmer was treated like a rock star yet he remained the same humble man I first encountered a decade earlier in Tucson. The last time was here in Washington, DC, when Tranströmer read at the Folger Library, in April 1986. The poet and his poetry had reached a new and recognizable maturity, yet his inner voice, and the voice by which he shared his poems in Stockholm and Washington, were still recognizable from that first time I heard him read in Tucson in 1974. Both, etched by new experiences, remained, spare, clear, and quiet - the benchmarks of his poetry through the years.

Thankfully, Tranströmer at age 79 remains a major poetic voice in the world. Sadly, however, his own voice has been largely silenced by a stroke he suffered in 1990, an event foretold years earlier toward the end of Baltics.

Something wants to be said, but the words don’t agree.
Something that can’t be said,
aphasia
there aren’t any words but maybe a style . . .
[. . .]
Then comes the stroke: right side paralysis and aphasia, can only
grasp short phrases, says wrong words
Can, as a result of this, not be touched by advancement or blame.
But the music’s still there, he still composes in his own style,
he becomes a medical sensation for the time he has left to live.
[Baltics, V]

Despite the cruel silence imposed upon him, Tomas Tranströmer continues to practice his craft and sharing it with the world. We are certainly thankful for his insights and his ability to help us recognize and transcend the boundaries that encompass us all.

A Cemetery of Leaves

2011-09-27T17:42:00.007-04:00

We enjoyed a pleasant Labor Day weekend marking the end of the summer season here at the lake and the approaching arrival of autumn. We were here when school let out and people were putting their piers and boats into the water, and we are still here as schools resume classes and people are pulling their piers and boats out of the water. Some, in fact, pulled them out in anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene and just decided to leave them out. I marvel at how short the summer season is here in Maine - pretty much the months of July and August and that’s it. Our neighbors here on True’s Point celebrated the beginning of summer on July 4th and now we signal its demise while enjoying a season ending Labor Day picnic.

When we came to Maine I said I wanted to stay here until the autumn colors peaked, which is normally during the latter half of September. And now that it is late September we are beginning to see more and more leaves turning with each passing day. It has been slow going; heavy rainfalls throughout New England back in the spring have caused some trees to drop their brownish leaves early. Other leaves were dispatched prematurely when Hurricane Irene passed this way with heavy rains and high winds in late August. Still other trees stressed by the unseasonably warm temperatures in July have already dropped their leaves before they had a chance to go dormant. Add to this a general warming of the climate (or so the scientists keep telling us and, frankly, I have no reason not to believe them) which is causing the leaves of other trees to turn later than they did even a decade ago. Still, the signs of autumn are with us. There are a few yellow patches appearing along the lake’s shoreline and the swamp maples are turning a rich crimson while the sugar maples are beginning to flare orange. Other trees are showing hints of the colors yet to come. I imagine we will be at peak autumn color by the time we head home to Maryland in early October. It was Henry David Thoreau who once wrote: “October is the month for painted leaves.” I plan to hold him to his word.

In fact, I have just finished re-reading Thoreau’s essay “Autumnal Tint” which first appeared in print in 1862. In it he catalogs the phenology of the autumn foliage near his home at Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts, while also describing his own love affair with autumn as he provides the reader with a rich description of the variety of hues exhibited by each tree and the surrounding grasses as summer passes into autumn and the year slowly draws to a close.

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves. Here are no lying or vain epitaphs. Your lot is surely cast somewhere in this vast cemetery which has been consecrated from of old. You need attend no auction to secure a place. There is room enough here.

Fall is really my favorite season and so we plan to enjoy it here in Maine, and then again at home in Maryland where it should arrive in full color in the waning days of October. There are other harbingers of autumn upon us. The local apple orchards in Maine are now heavy with fruit, and with each passing day we are seeing more and more flights of geese over the lake and many are overnighting on the far shoreline. The squirrels and chipmunks are scurrying about as they gather nuts and pine cones. They know winter is coming as the earth will go into a muted hibernation only to awaken again in the spring. Like Thoreau, I think I shall go a celebrate these days of autumn. “Let us walk in the cemetery of leaves.”

I'm Really Looking Toward Portugal!

2011-08-09T15:43:00.024-04:00

Back in late 2009, when I first launched this blogspot, I provided an explanation of its title. I was not referring to the actual sighting of the Portuguese coastline; it is simply an allusion to one standing on the coast of Maine and staring out to sea. At that latitude, if one could see beyond the curvature of the earth and across the vast distances of the Atlantic Ocean, one would be looking toward Portugal. I noted, too, that one actually would be looking toward the southern peninsula of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. But I was hoping to look farther afield than that and “looking toward Nova Scotia” just did not have the ring to it.

Last week, my good friend Michael Stewart, with whom I have taken a number of road trips through the Mid-Atlantic states in recent months, stopped by the lake here in Maine to rest up on his drive from Maryland to Nova Scotia. New Gloucester is right on the way and a convenient half-way rest stop. Michael spent a day here, but I am not so sure how restful it was for we were up early the morning after his arrival and motoring down to Biddeford, about an hour south of here, to have breakfast at the newly restored Palace Diner (one of the better breakfasts I have had in recent memory) before driving up the coast through Saco, Old Orchard Beach, and Scarsborough photographing other old diners and pieces of roadside Americana from a bygone era before ending up in downtown Portland where we enjoyed lunch at Marcy’s Diner. Later that day we had dinner at Cole Farms, in Gray, and so the entire day was a meat and potatoes extravaganza!

Michael planned to leave the lake very early the next morning for the ten-hour drive to Halifax where his son Spencer studies architecture at Dalhousie University. Since Sally Ann was off on her own adventure in Scandinavia leaving me to fend for myself for a couple weeks, I decided to hitch a ride. Not long after dawn we were on our way through the rolling hills of the Androscoggin and Kennebec river valleys and the lacing of fog slowly began to burn off with the sun’s rise on a beautiful Maine morning. We arrived in Gardiner, on the banks of the Kennebec just south of the state capital of Augusta in time to be the first customers for breakfast at the A-1 Diner. Eggs, bacon, home fries, and plenty of strong black coffee and we were fueled for our journey up to Bangor and farther into Downeast Maine (up here, the father up north you drive, the farther down east you get).

Crossing the Penobscot River at Bangor, I was reminded of John Steinbeck passing this way with his dog Charley 51 years earlier and his attempts to navigate Bangor’s morning “rush hour.” In my book, it is not a rush hour if you can drive at the speed limit (or faster). We were soon through Bangor and Brewer, its sister city on the other side of the river, and pushing eastward on Route 9 - the Airline Highway. What seemed to be endless forests and marshlands stretch to the horizon at every compass point; where townships no longer have names and are known only by a series of initials and numbers. This is the real Great North Wood of Maine. I love this landscape, but for many, the only reason to drive the Airline is to get to the other end, at Calais (pronounced like that rough patch of skin on working hands), on the banks of the St. Croix river which also happens to be the international boundary separating the USA and Maine from Canada and the province of New Brunswick.

When I was growing up I was taught that the US-Canadian border, which stretches across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is the longest undefended border in the world. Americans and Canadians share (for the most part) a common colonial and cultural heritage and speak (for the most part) the same language. I have been to Canada countless times, and back in the old days crossing the border was almost as easy as crossing the street (and in some places it means just that). I recall one instance when I was driving through northern Vermont and upon arriving in the next town I noticed that all the signs were in French. I had crossed the border and had not even realized it. I reported to the local Canadian customs office and was told that it happened all the time and then I was asked most politely to try not to do it again. Those days are gone forever, my friend!

Until fairly recently, the border crossing Calais was a short two-lane bridge spanning the St. Croix and separating the small downtowns of Calais and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and the equally small US and Canadian customs stations. The bridge and the customs stations are still there, but both countries have opened new state-of-the-art border facilities on either side of a multi-lane bridge farther up river. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the more recent return of obligatory passport controls, nobody gets waived through the border checkpoints any more. At least not when one is entering the United States. That said, there was no wait to pass through Canadian customs and after a very few questions we were on our way. No so easy for the folks going the other way. Several long lines of vehicles were lined up waiting to clear US customs. The same was true when we later drove down St. Stephen’s main street. There seemed to be no traffic to speak of at the Canadian port of entry, yet cars waiting to enter the United States were backed up across the international bridge and all the way through downtown St. Stephen. Gone are the days, I guess, when Americans use to cross into Canada to get a better view of the July 4th fireworks over the river.

With Canadian money (now almost at parity with US currency) in our pockets, we set off on our trip across New Brunswick, skirting the Bay of Fundy and its amazing twenty to thirty foot tides, between the border and the provincial capital at St. Johns. From there it is trees and rolling farmland, and more trees. We pass Moncton and then more trees and rolling farmland, and more trees. The landscape changes very little as we continue into Nova Scotia. Correct. More trees and rolling farmland. We do pass through Oxford, Nova Scotia which is the province’s blueberry capital. Before long we climb into the clouds as we cross the Cobequid Pass and then descent into the coastal plain and eventually arrive in Halifax as the sun is setting.

Early the following morning Michael and I were joined by Spencer and his girlfriend Anna as we drove the forty kilometers to Peggy’s Cove in the hope that we might see one of the most photographed lighthouses in North America before the tour coaches began to arrive. The fog was thick upon our arrival, but we managed to have the place pretty much to ourselves. Despite the fog I stood on the rocks and looked eastward toward Portugal. Nothing in between us here. I recall Henry Beston: “the dark and desolate North Atlantic and a thousand miles of whitecaps and slavering foam.” Well, it’s a bit further than a thousand miles before one arrives in Lisbon. But I was really looking toward Portugal! It was worth the ride.
Despite the beauty of the coastline and the quaint fishing village at Peggy’s Cove, a visit to this spot recalls one of the worst airline tragedies in Canadian history. On September 2, 1999, just a few miles off shore and not that far from the Halifax airport, Swiss Air Flight 111 crashed into the dark Atlantic killing all 229 passengers and crew on board. The brave citizens of Peggy’s Cove and nearby Whaleback assisted in the futile search for survivors. A few kilometers down the road from the lighthouse is a stark memorial to the victims of the tragedy.

We returned to a mostly sunny day in Halifax and wandered the city and its waterfront. One of the highlights was a visit to Alexandra’s Pizza, near the Dalhousie campus, which has been voted as having Halifax’s best poutine for several years in a row. Needless to say, I had to sample the fare and it rates pretty high in my book as does their Donair kebab. That’s good eating, folks!

The next day, Michael, Spencer and I set off for the long return trip across the Canadian Maritimes, taking note at Stewiacke, Nova Scotia that we crossed the 45th parallel marking the half way point between the North Pole and the Equator. It was a rainy day until we approached the US border and the sun popped out. We sat in long, very slow moving lines as we finally cleared US customs and followed US Route One to Perry, Maine were we recrossed the 45th parallel. We stopped in Eastport, which is the eastern most city in the United States. From there we could look at the foggy reaches of Campobello Island (in Canada) and Lubec, Maine, which is the easternmost “town” in the USA. Near there is West Quoddy Head, which is the easternmost point of land in the United States. And yes, West Quoddy Head is the farthest east you can go. That is because East Quoddy Head is on Campobello Island, in Canada. You would think that this area would be the first place in the US to greet the morning sun. Not so. That honor is reserved for the summit of Mount Katahdin which is located in northern Maine some 150 miles to the northwest. At an elevation of 5,267 feet, it catches the sun’s first rays of the morning. But you get the idea.

Our return trip took us through the barrens surrounding Machais, Maine’s blueberry capital, and then we headed back north to the Airline Highway and on into Bangor. After a long day’s drive we were back at Sabbathday Lake by the time the sun set. So Steve, what did you do this weekend? Looking toward Portugal. Really!

Must Find Moose (and Squirrel?)

2011-08-02T15:08:00.003-04:00

I have been coming to far northern New Hampshire for years. I stumbled upon this area quite by accident. I don’t know what I expected to find, but what I discovered was a country of beautiful landscapes and friendly people. It is a nearly pristine wilderness with far more trees, streams and lakes than people, and I have come to think of it as my “panic hole,” as Jim Harrison might call it - a place where I can go to escape the stress and anxieties associated with my everyday existence. It is a place of solitude, of peace and quiet. The locals call it “God’s Country” and after spending a great deal of time there I have come to agree with them.

I have just completed a road trip which took me through central New Hampshire and the White Mountains and finally brought me once again to my panic hole for a few days of wandering the back roads I have come to know and love so well. There was still enough light in the sky when I reached Tall Timber Lodge, on the northern shore of Back Lake, that I was able to continue north on US Route 3 - “Moose Alley” - the only major highway in this part of the state, as it winds its way through virgin forests to the Canadian border just over 20 miles away. Approaching dusk is a favorite time to spot a moose or two.

My decision to make best use of what daylight I had left paid off. I spotted two moose cows and a single juvenile feeding among the puckerbrush near the shore of Third Connecticut Lake just a mile or so shy of the Canadian border. They had emerged out of the woods to feed and to seek respite from the biting insects. I pulled off the road and watched them for over a half hour, until they reentered the woods around the same time it got too dark to see them well.

I spent the next couple of days exploring the many places where I have seen moose in the past, driving numerous miles along the network of logging tote road while checking out other haunts in the marshy wetlands of the Indian Stream valley and the headwaters of the Connecticut River that moose often favor. Although I did not spot any moose, I did spy several whitetail deer and a pair of red foxes not to mention a potpourri of bird species. Squirrels and chipmunk scurried across the road as I slowly passed by. I also wandered along the East Inlet of the Connecticut River above Second Connecticut Lake in the far northern reaches of New Hampshire where it abuts Maine and the Province of Québec. I never encountered another living soul along these narrowing roads full of potholes and washouts. You can’t get more on the edge of America than this. I was rewarded for my effort; several adult moose were feeding along a stream bed and they paid me no heed as I watched them in the growing dusk. God’s Country? Yes indeed!

The evening before my departure I was sitting in the lobby of Tall Timber Lodge waiting for my table in the lodge’s Rainbow Grille, chatting with the gal behind the desk and telling her about my explorations and sightings. She asked if I would be interested in accompanying a film crew from the Travel Channel who was planning to go out the next day and travel some of the same areas I had in search of moose. They hoped to get enough film footage for a planned episode for the Travel Channel’s new series “America’s Wildest Roads.” This was an invitation too good to pass up.

Very early the following morning I rendezvoused with the Boston-based film crew - a producer, cameraman and sound engineer who were staying at a nearby lodge - and a young local guide who hoped to put us on some moose. Although it was too early to grab breakfast at Tall Timber Lodge, where I was staying, the good folks there made sure I had a thermos of coffee and a bag of bagels. I was good to go.

Once the gear was stowed away our small bus was heading up US Route 3 - Moose Alley. Hardly a “wild road” by any stretch of the imagination, although it does run through mostly unsettled terrain between the crossroads village of Pittsburg and Canada, Route 3 is a well-maintained federal highway. But you often see moose and hence the name. Our guide assured us we had ideal conditions to spot moose - temperatures in the 60s and overcast skies. I shared the locations where I had spotted moose over the previous days yet we never quite made it to any of them, always turning around just a couple miles shy of my coordinates. The driver seemed concerned that we should not get too close to the Canadian border since no one had their passport with them (I did; I always carry my passport when I travel up here). I am not sure what he thought might happen, and I assured him passports were not necessary unless we actually crossed the border. Nevertheless, he gave our northern neighbors a wide berth and unfortunately we missed some prime moose habitat. We also passed on the East Inlet road although the driver told us it passed through some beautiful moose habitat. I could attest to that fact, but it was left unexplored that day.

We did get off on a tote road that took us up into some higher terrain on the slopes of Magalloway Mountain. This is also some very “moosey” habitat and we saw signs of recent moose activity everywhere we went. There were plenty of moose tracks in the muddy wallows along the road and extensive evidence of recent feeding on the lower branches of the abundant spruce trees and the roadside alder thickets. Lots of signs, but not a single moose in the five plus hours we trekked through the wilderness of far northern New Hampshire. We did see two whitetail deer and lots of chipmunks and squirrels, but this was not the stuff of an exciting episode of “America’s Wildest Roads.” I sensed the film crew’s disappointment when we eventually arrived back at their lodge. I signed a release form in case they use any footage in which I appear, but I seriously doubt that will happen. Hollywood will have to wait.

Was I disappointed? Of course, I always like to spot a moose. But for me, simply traveling through God’s Country is enough for me. It is still some of the most beautiful landscapes you will find anywhere. It is the reason I keep coming back.

Camp Life

2011-07-06T17:40:00.010-04:00

I very much enjoyed George Smith’s “Up to Camp” in this month’s issue of Down East magazine. “Every Mainer has a camp. It may be a place we own. It may be a place our friends own. It may be a place we rent every summer. It may be a campground and a simple tent. But it’s ours, even if only for a week or two each year.” Smith has captured what it means to retreat to a special place where one can pass a few idle weeks of a New England summer. “We all need a place where ‘there is nothing to do. ”

I will add that a Maine camp is not just for Mainers; there are many of us “from away” who anxiously anticipate our return to the Pine Tree State to enjoy our own summer camp experience. And now, after spending the past 25 summers here on Sabbathday Lake, I am finally getting use to calling our place a “camp.” In the Midwest, where I grew up, a place like ours is usually referred to as a “cottage.” A camp is where you camp in a tent and cook on an outdoor fire or stove. Smith has set me straight. “Camps may be rustic with a two-holer [that is what we called them at home, too]. It may have plumbing and hot showers. It may have a kitchen or just a Coleman stove on the picnic table . . . But it is always the most comfortable place on earth.” I could not agree more and this is why we return here year after year. We come to seek solitude and peace of mind.

Our particular camp is simple and rustic - unfinished knotty pine thumb and groove planks . The sitting room has a couch with lots of throw pillows, cushioned chairs, and cabinet office with its cubbyholes and fold-down desk in one corner which it shares with the hot water heater. Sally Ann uses it as her temporary studio and the paintings she has completed here are tacked to the walls. This room is lined with windows facing the lake, its shoreline with the lower deck and pier just a few feet away and shaded by the generous boughs of a white pine. The joint kitchen and dining area has plenty of space to move about and I use the table as my work space when we are not eating on it. There is a wood stove and wood box and windows over the sink and facing out on the front deck. Rounding out the lower level is a small bedroom and bathroom which appear to have been added to the camp at some point. Finally, there is a narrow stairway over the kitchen sink and counter which leads to a loft over the kitchen and dining area. It has two double beds for company and additional storage space. Two small windows provide welcome cross ventilation. Simple and rustic. It has everything we need.

Smith and I obviously appreciate the same things when we are at our respective camps: There is nothing like a hot cup of joe while standing on the pier and letting the fresh and tactile morning breeze take the sleep from your eyes while listening to the loons cry in the distance; fried eggs and bacon for breakfast; freshly picked strawberries in June and July; local corn, tomatoes and cucumber in August, and radiant sunsets over the lake. But, most important, here is where we come to find “a time of quiet reflection” with none of the distractions we face at home. It is a place with no television, no phone (well, cell phones for “emergencies” and occasional contact with family and the outside world), no computers, e-mail, Facebook, etc. I will confess that I brought a laptop with me but only because I use the peace and quiet afforded by our camp to get some writing done. In fact, I am writing this from the kitchen table in our camp as the old chrome percolator clunks the day’s first cup of coffee into existence. I find writing relaxing and rewarding. It may be considered “work” by some, but I don’t look at it that way. Writing, for me, is one of the things in life that makes getting up each morning worthwhile. So writing each day has become an integral part of camp life. “Writing is like a twitch,” Stephen King tells us. “You do it because you have to do it. And it’s fun.” I agree. So why should it not be an integral part of camp life?

We have been here for a few weeks now and will stay until early October. We have watched summer arrive at the lake, and we will watch it depart at the other end of our stay, as the trees begin to show their autumn foliage and its time to think about heading home. It will be hard to leave, but there is always next year.

Stranger

2011-07-02T11:07:00.015-04:00

I have passed through Gray, Maine several times each year since 1988 and yet I have never stop to visit the village cemetery and the Civil War monument. The latter was erected at Gray Corner in May 1911 and dedicated on June 20th of that year. This summer the town is celebrating its centennial. The monument has been moved several times over the years as the traffic patterns changed, and it now stands across the street from the cemetery where 178 Union soldiers, and one lone unknown Confederate soldier, lie buried. This monument is significant because Gray sent proportionately more men to the Grand Army of the Republic than any other town in Maine, and the state of Maine sent more proportionately than any other New England state. Many of the units mustered throughout the state distinguished themselves in battle; perhaps none more than the 20th Maine Regiment commanded by Joshua Chamberlain who turned the tide of the Battle of Gettysburg in the Union’s favor. Chamberlain was awarded the Medal of Honor and returned home to Maine to become the president of Bowdoin College, and later Governor of Maine.

Near the center of the cemetery is the burial plot of the Colley family. Amos and Sarah operated a small farm on Colley Hill, not far from Gray Corner and its cemetery. In 1861 young men throughout the Union and the newly established Confederate States of America joined their separate ranks to go to war in a conflict that often pitted brother against brother. Amos and Sarah’s 28 year old son Charles left the farm and traveled down to Portland in October and mustered into the 10th Maine Volunteer Regiment for two years of military service. Following basic training Charles and his comrades-in-arms shipped down to Washington, DC and the battlefields that awaited them.

The Army of the Potomac was deployed into northern Virginia and the Department of the Shenendoah and the 10th Maine Volunteers tasted battle for the first time near Winchester, Virginia in the spring of 1862. Later that summer, Lieutenant Colley and his regiment were part of a Union advance into central Virginia under the command of Major General Nathaniel Beale. This Union force numbering approximately eight thousand troops encountered twenty thousand battle-tested Confederates commanded by Major General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson near Culpepper Courthouse on August 9, 1862 in what would later be known as the Battle of Cedar Mountain. When the smoke eventually lifted over the battlefield nearly 3500 brave men, casualties almost equally divided by the two foes, lay dead or wounded. The 10th Maine Volunteers lost nearly half its men at Cedar Mountain, and among the wounded was Lieutenant Charles Colley of Gray Corner, Maine.

Colley was evacuated to a field hospital in Alexandria, Virginia where he lingered for over a month before he died on September 20, 1862, just three days after the remnants of the 10th Maine Volunteers fought at the Battle of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The War Department contacted Amos and Sarah to inform them of their son’s death and to inquire whether they wanted his body shipped home to Maine for burial. If so, they would be required to reimburse the government for embalming and freight costs. They agreed to pay and went about preparing for the funeral and burial of their son in the family plot. When the coffin arrived, the local undertaker opened it to confirm the identity and to allow the grieving parents one last look at their son. When he lifted the lid what he found was not Charles Colley but an unidentified body wearing a Confederate uniform. The error was brought to the attention of the War Department but there was no way to identify the body or to determine where it should have been shipped. Nor was there any explanation how it came to be shipped to Maine. Was the dead stranger also named Colley? No one will ever know.

Wondering what had become of their son, Amos and Sarah recognized that there were other parents mourning the death of their son who deserved a proper Christian burial. The unknown Confederate was laid to rest in the village cemetery and the Ladies of Gray, a group of mothers who had lost sons in the war, eventually arranged for a simple headstone to be placed on the grave with the inscription “Stranger: A Soldier of the Late War. Died 1862. Erected by the Ladies of Gray.” There was a rumor that a Union solider named Colley is buried in Gray, Georgia. If so, it is not Charles Colley. Shortly after the Confederate soldier was buried in the village cemetery, the body of Amos and Sarah’s son finally arrived home and he was buried in the family plot only a few paces from the Stranger.

Today the Stranger rests next to Johnson N. Smith who fought in the 27th Company of the Maine Volunteers in the Union Army. The graves of each Civil War veteran buried in the village cemetery is marked with a metallic star of Post 78 of the Grand Army of the Republic, and on Memorial Day a fresh American flag decorates each grave. The people of Gray likewise honored the memory of the Stranger; he was a brave lad who fought and died for his country. In 1956, someone in Alexandria, Virginia learned of the Stranger’s grave in Maine and sent a Confederate flag to be placed on his grave. Since then the Daughters of the Confederacy have sent a Confederate ensign to the town of Gray to fly over the Stranger’s grave and there is now a metallic shield to recognize him as a Confederate Army veteran. .

The names of each local boy from Gray who served in the Union army is etched into three side of the nearby Civil War monument, while the fourth side bears the simple inscription “To Perpetuate the Heroism and the Sacrifice of the Struggle 1861-1865.” The monument also pays homage to the lone unknown Confederate solider buried far from his southern home. The good people of Gray, Maine past and present have made him one of their own. The Stranger is a stranger only in the fact that we do not know who he is or where he came from. Just another American boy who died far too young.

Living in Maine Like a Bird of the Air

2011-06-28T16:45:00.007-04:00

A few years ago I attended a meeting of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society at Bowdoin College which Hawthorne attended for four years, graduating with the Class of 1825. I spoke on the subject of Hawthorne and his college chums - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America’s most revered poets, and Franklin Pierce, one of its most reviled presidents. A third would serve in the state legislature and was eventually elected to the House of Representatives from the new State of Maine. He would die at the hands of a Congressional colleague in one of the last legal duels held in the United States, an event which Hawthorne would roundly condemn. Last summer I had an opportunity to deliver another talk on Hawthorne at a scholarly conclave in Concord, Massachusetts, where he resided late in life and where he is buried. This time I discussed his travels throughout northern New England. One of these, his last as it would turn out, was in the company of his old Bowdoin classmate, Franklin Pierce.

This summer I was invited to the Hawthorne House in Raymond, which is just a short distance from our summer cottage here in Maine. The subject of this talk was Hawthorne’s connections with the State of Maine. For many years the maternal side of his family was associated with a broad wilderness tract along the eastern shores of Lake Sebago, in Cumberland County. Hawthorne considered these youthful years in Raymond some of his happiest, and he cherished the time he spent wandering the woods and fishing the lake and nearby streams. “I lived in Maine like a bird of the air, so perfect was the freedom I enjoyed.,” Hawthorne would later admit.. “But it was there I first got my cursed habits of solitude.” Ebe, Nathaniel’s sister, saw a great change in her brother as a result of his time in Maine. “His imagination was stimulated, too, by the scenery and by the strangeness of the people; and by the absolute freedom he enjoyed.” This early association with this area was responsible for his choosing to attend Bowdoin College.

I understand Hawthorne’s sentiment. I feel the same way each and every time I am able to return to Maine and this is why I am spending the entire summer here. I will be posting several accounts of my weeks here before we return home in early October, and don’t be surprised if I include an occasional reference to Mr. Hawthorne along the way. I am looking forward with great anticipation to the enjoyment of the solitude and peace of mind this place affords me.

Close Encounters of the Moose Kind

2011-06-22T13:45:00.019-04:00

A recent issue of The Economist reported how moose were brought to Newfoundland almost a century ago to encourage tourists and hunters and to boost the economy of Britain’s last colony in North America. Moose, often considered a Canadian icon, were not indigenous to insular Newfoundland, but then it did not join Canada until 1949 and now they have more moose than they know what to do with. With no natural predators on the island, not even the hunters (5000 additional hunting licenses granted this year alone) have been able to hold them at bay and the current population is estimated to be around 150,000. The only effective means to reduce the moose population is to hit them with your car, which the Newfoundlanders have been doing in increasing numbers. Around 700 moose are hit annually on provincial roads.

OK, I have learned from my own experience that moose are not the smartest critters to come off Noah’s ark at the end of the big flood. Their eyesight and sense of hearing are both limited and, if one is careful, one can often get quite close to a moose before it realizes you are there. As shy and passive as they seem to be at first blush, they more often than not seem perplexed when they encounter humans, especially if they are caught in the headlights of a car cruising down the highway. Despite the small number of roads compared to the hundreds of square miles of uninterrupted and uninhabited forest and tundra found in the primary moose habitats, they (especially juveniles and their doting mamas) tend to congregate near or on roadways. Perhaps they are escaping the pesky biting insects found in the woods and swamps, but more likely they are attracted to the salt that has accumulated on or near the roadbeds during winter snow removal. Recognizing this fact, the province of Québec is now using less salt on its roads and other jurisdictions are following suit. This said, you still need to remain vigilant when driving through the northern woods, especially in the summer months. Several years ago I almost hit an imposing bullwinkle standing in the middle of the highway at night as I crossed Grafton Notch near the Maine-New Hampshire border. This before I learned to take “Moose Crossing” signs seriously. You would too if you considered the consequences of a half ton or more of moose flesh coming through the windshield at 55 mph!

Not every encounter with a moose has been quite so dramatic The first confrontation occurred when my family and I were hiking a wilderness trail in northen Maine’s Baxter State Park. We chanced upon a relatively large cow (yes, that is what they call a female moose; a male is a “bull”) blocking our path. Being city folk, we were not quite sure what we were suppose to do. Would it ignore us? Would it charge us and kill us on the spot? At the moment it did not seem to pay us any mind as it quietly fed on twigs and grasses along the trail. We approached a little closer so that we could get a good photograph. It still ignored us. So we moved a little closer. As we approached, the cow turned her head in our direction. Did she hear? Did she smell us? She continued to look our way but we were not sure if she saw us as she resumed her feeding. So we moved a little closer. This time she suddenly raised her head and once again turned in our direction. She shook her head and her ears went back. We knew she had spotted us and we stopped dead in out tracks. There was no way for us to go except the way we came in and as fast as our legs would carry us. But we did not run. We waited and in a few moments the cow walked gently and quietly into the surrounding puckerbrush and soon disappeared from sight. We were amazed how such a large animal could move so discreetly. We continued our hike, and upon our return to that spot we stopped and looked around hoping we might spot her again. But she was gone . . . or was she?

On another outing in Baxter, we were in a canoe on Kidney Pond when we spotted a moose feeding in water. Most of the time it was completely submerged except when it raised its large head out of the water to chew the vegetation it had pulled from the bottom of the pond. Once, when its head was submerged, we boldly navigated closer to have a better look. And we paid for our daring, for as soon as we approached the spot where we had last seen the moose a huge swarm of until then invisible flies that had been drifting over the moose quickly shifted to engulf our canoe and we could not paddle fast enough to escape them. Perhaps the crack about the moose being dumb was a little premature.

Since those early encounters I have seen numerous moose in the wild; while hiking through the woods, but more often along the highways, particularly a stretch of US Highway 3, in New Hampshire just below the Canadian border known affectionately as “Moose Alley.” During the evening in the summer one can find people cruising the highway at dusk trying to spot moose who have come out of the woods once the traffic has died down. Now traffic is a relative term up there. Several minutes or longer can pass before one sees another car, usually a border patrol vehicle, or the occasional truck hauling pulpwood down from Québec. Otherwise it is pretty quiet up there on the roof of New Hampshire.

So it was this past weekend. We had not seen any moose in northern Maine as we drove up along the Carrabassett and Dead rivers to Coburn Gore and the Canadian frontier. Nor did we spot any as we cruised the back roads of Québec’s Eastern Townships despite the signs announcing their presence. But upon crossing back into the USA and New Hampshire in the early evening we spotted a moose standing in the middle of the road less than a mile from the border where we saw the familiar signs warning us to watch out for moose on the highway. Later than evening, as we were returning to the cottage in Maine, we spotted a large bull along the highway in Grafton Notch, not far from that earlier encounter.

How can one not be impressed by the sight of a large moose in the wild? I guess it’s possible. The story goes that Warren G. Harding, during the first ever visit by a American president to Alaska, yawned and barely masked his boredom during his first encounter with a moose. But then again, the only time he got excited in the natural world was when someone was cutting down trees and blowing things up. I am sure for him the only good moose was a dead one. For the rest of us though, a moose sighting is pretty exciting. I know it is for me. I prefer to encounter them in the woods, but a spotting along the roadside is good too. If you know where and when to go, there are enough moose up here to satisfy your desire to find them. Just remember that they don’t share our understanding of the rules of the road and the concept of yielding the right-of-way. Drive carefully and leave the moose for others to enjoy.

Heeding the Call of the Loons

2011-06-15T14:24:00.015-04:00

This past week, as we were organizing and packing for what has become our annual migration to the lake cottage in Maine, we took an evening off and watched the 1981 Oscar-winning film “On Golden Pond,” starring Henry Fonda in his memorable final film, Katherine Hepburn (amazingly their first film together), and Henry’s daughter Jane.

The loons have returned to Golden Pond and with them a crotchety old retired professor (Fonda) and his doting wife (Hepburn) who open their cottage just as they had done every summer since they were first married. They remove the dust covers from the furniture, gather wood for the fireplace, and settle into a routine of walking in the woods, canoeing around the “pond” - actually a fairly good size lake - following the resident loon family, and fishing for local trout, including mythic and equally gigantic rainbow trout known as “Walter.” At night they play Parcheesi and scan the newspaper for classified ads and the baseball scores. All and all a pretty bucolic existence, only this time they are dealing with a whole new set of challenges as they try to come to terms with the fact that their lives together are coming to an end. Hepburn is a feisty yet gentle woman who does what she can to staunch the inevitable.”Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor,” she chortles in his ear as she wraps her arms around her husband. “Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!" Fonda, who realizes only too well what is happening to him, humors his wife. "I don't like horses,” he confesses as he kisses her cheek. “You are a pretty old dame aren't you? What are you doing with a dotty old son of a bitch like me?" Her response is perhaps the bellwether of her boundless devotion. "Well, I haven't the vaguest idea."

Watching the film my wife and I relished the fact that we would soon be back on our own golden pond, a lake cottage in Maine where we have spent the past 24 summers together. Most of those years were measured as two or three weeks in August when we managed to escape jobs and other commitments back home in Maryland. Last summer, the first since my retirement that spring, we headed north in mid-June and stayed until the end of August. We would have stayed longer, but our one and only child was getting married in early November and we had to get home to deal with that benchmark moment. As we packed up at the end of the summer we pledged that this year we would stay through September so that we could fully enjoy the splendor of the autumn foliage which was just beginning to flourish as we headed home. This year we plan to stay until early October.

I visited the lake briefly back in late January; a quick stop to check on the cottage to see how it was handling the winter. There was plenty of snow, enough that I was only able to view the cottage from the top of the hill as the rest of the access road had not been plowed. The lake was frozen solid, snow-covered and crisscrossed with snowmobile trails while smoke was rising from the ice-fishermen’s brightly colored bobhouses. It seemed hard to believe that just a few months earlier we were swimming in the lake, and in a very few months we would be back and swimming again!

And now we are here and we have unpacked and settled into our routine. The wood box is full, which is a good thing. The ice and snow may be gone yet the weather has been quite cool and wet since our arrival and it has been necessary to build fires in the morning and evening to fend off the cold and damp. But this has been a welcome respite from the 100+ temperatures we had endured at home the week before our departure).

We do not have to wait long to learn that our resident family of loons has also returned to the lake this year. Almost immediately we hear their plaintive yodeling, described by Sibley as a “tremolo of five to ten notes on an even pitch,” from the far end of the lake where they nest. I am reminded of Dan Masterson’s poem “Loon.”
We lie awake in dark
so black we swear
we’ve gone blind waiting
for your screech,
but no sound comes
until sleep takes us
long enough to be thrown
awake by the split-level
scream of the mad old lady
in your throat, lowered
there at birth, kept
for the nightly ritual
you tend to,
proclaiming this pond
as your own.
And this really is their home, after all. We both come to share this lake for a few months before we return home to a house in Maryland and they migrate to the open waters of the Atlantic where they will spend the winter months adrift. I am sure they are just as happy to be back as we are.

We have taken care of other routine tasks. We have been to the market to stock up the larder. We opened up our mailbox at the local post office. Unlike Fonda and Hepburn whose mail was delivered to their dock by a postal boat navigated by a local man who in his day had a definite hankering for their daughter, we must make our way by car to the post office in the Upper Village. We have also renewed our acquaintances with the gals who run the library in the Lower Village where we must go to connect with the internet and the outside world.

After typical summer days at home we are treated to a return to late spring weather. Those plants that bloomed weeks ago are still in full flower here and Sally Ann has planted some more.

We are enduring another round of tree pollen and the car and most of the deck furniture is covered with that yellow green menace. Summer activities begin at home around Memorial Day, but they don’t get into full swing here until Fourth of July with the exception being the ubiquitous strawberry festivals and socials celebrating this year’s harvest. We are definitely looking forward to these! The lake is still a bit chilly and not everyone has put in their piers yet. Ours is out and the boat and canoe are moored and awaiting our first outing.

So, all in all, life is pretty good and I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be. There will be plenty of time to do the things we want to do this summer and I will be reporting from time to time on what we are up to. In the meantime, we sit and listen to our loon friends who remind us why we keep coming back every year. If you were here right now, you would understand. I know Fonda and Hepburn would. I am quite sure of that.

War Stories

2011-06-06T13:39:00.029-04:00

I had originally planned to post this on Memorial Day, but decided to save it until today, the 67th anniversary of th D-Day invasion of Fortress Europa.

*****

“Dad? What did you do during the war?” I imagine I was like many young boys my age when they first learned that their fathers had served in the military during World War II. My father would occasionally share some of his stories although I was perhaps too young to understand just what he was telling me or how painful these memories might have been for him. All sons look up to their fathers as heros. I did. It was not that many years earlier that he and his buddies, following the massive D-Day invasion, were slogging their way across northern France in late 1944, slowly pushing the Germans back to their own border. Dad never really went into many details about the war, or exactly what he did, but there were a few stories and I still remember them as clearly as the day he told them to me. Perhaps the most vivid of these, the one that still stands out in my own recollections of my childhood, was Dad’s participation in the Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, the greatest land battle ever fought by the military forces of the United States between December 16, 1944 and January 25, 1945. This great battle halted the final Nazi juggernaut to defeat the Allies and turned the tide of war against the Germans who would surrender just six months later.

I wrote briefly about Dad’s wartime service shortly after his death, in October 2009. He had served in the104th Infantry Regiment, 26th Infantry (Yankee) Division in General George Patton’s Third Army during the northern European campaign, in 1944-1945. During my recent spring sojourn in Florida I visited Dad’s grave for the first time since his memorial service at the Florida National Cemetery the previous spring. It was my first opportunity to see the inscription on the marble tablet marking the niche containing his ashes. It was then and there that I learned for the first time, and much to my complete surprise, that Dad had received the Bronze Star, the fourth highest decoration awarded for distinguished, heroic or meritorious achievement or service in combat. He really was a hero even if not that many people knew it.

A few days later my wife and I visited with one of just a handful of surviving members of Dad’s unit. I first learned about Harry a few years ago when I was doing some online research on the Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and Luxembourg. I came across a photo essay on the area by a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge who had returned to visit the places he knew from the war. Many of the places and events he described seemed very similar to the ones my Dad had told me about when I was a kid. I called Dad up and asked him whether he knew the guy who had posted the photos. “Why sure,” he said.” Harry was one of my closest buddies during the war.” They had not seen each other since the early days of 1945, in the immediate wake of the battle, and, as it turned out, they lived only a few miles apart in Florida. Dad gave Harry a call and over the next few months they renewed their old friendship. Harry and I also exchanged occasional notes and we planned to meet one day when my travels took me to Florida. I regret that I was not able to meet with Harry when Dad was still alive, but over our recent lunch I told Harry what I knew of Dad’s wartime exploits and Harry was able to fill me in on many more details. He answered a lot of questions I had about that chapter of my Dad’s life.

*****

Dad was drafted into the US Army on April 3, 1943, just a couple months shy of his 19th birthday. He left his native Michigan and did his basic training at Fort Jackson, in Columbia, South Carolina, where he was eventually assigned to the 104th Infantry Regiment of the 26th Infantry (Yankee) Division. He underwent training there , at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and participated in the Second Army’s maneuvers in Tennessee the winter of 1943/1944. Shortly thereafter Dad and Harry were both assigned to the regimental band at Fort Jackson. As Harry told me, the band was formed in early April 1944. It was originally established as a drum and bugle corps and the men were issued plastic bugles. Later they all sent home for their own instruments and became a band. Dad played the bass drum and Harry played the trumpet. The army’s table of organization had no provision for a regimental band (they were only authorized at the divisional level), but the regimental commander wanted a band “and by God he got one.” Tearing up a little, Harry told me that most of them, including himself and Dad, would not have survived the war had they not been plucked from their rifle companies and transferred to the band. Maybe so, but they saw combat once they arrived in Europe. There was plenty of death and destruction, but the band played on.

They finally left Fort Jackson, in August 1944, upon completion of basic combat training, and from there Dad and his unit were sent to the huge Camp Shanks - Last Stop USA” - in New York’s Hudson Valley. It was time to go to war. Dad would serve until his discharge in early January 1946 and he and Harry and their buddies would grow up fast in those years of hardship not knowing if they would survive. A lot of the brave men who went to war never came home. Dad and Harry were lucky.

The Yankee Division was originally formed out of Massachusetts National Guard units for service in World War I as part of the Allied Expeditionary Force. It has had a long and distinguished history. In World War I, its 104th Infantry Regiment became the first US Army regiment to receive the fourragère of the French Croix de Guerre after showing “fortitude et courage” in repelling a German attack at Aprémont on April 10-13, 1918. These words have been the regiment’s motto ever since.

After Camp Shanks the division embarked from Fort Miles Standish, at Boston, in late August 1944. It crossed the Atlantic on the SS Argentina, an old Moore-McCormack passenger liner built in 1924 to accommodate 750 passengers. As a troop ship plying the North Atlantic between 1942 and 1945, it carried almost 5000 fully armed troops on board as it transported the division directly to Cherbourg, France where it landed on September 7, 1944, some three months after D-Day. The division was attached to III Corps, Ninth Army at the Valognes staging area where it underwent extensive combat training and was assigned to local security duties along the Cherbourg peninsula and the Normandy beachheads used on D-Day.

Following this training the 26th Infantry Division was assigned in October 1944 to XII Corps in General George Patton’s Third Army which had been deployed to France after D-Day to support the Allied offensive. Third Army moved so quickly across northern France that it soon out distanced its supply line and had to slow down its advance. The division departed Normandy for the Third Army operational in the Lorraine region in northeastern France, the same area where it had served with distinction in World War I. There it took up a defensive position on Third Army’s right flank, relieving the 4th Armored Division near Salonnes. The 104th Infantry Regiment had its baptism of fire in an action against the German 11th Panzer Division in the Moncourt Woods, northwest of Bezange-la- Petite, in late October. This si where their training paid off as these green soldiers went up against a seasoned German division.

During the first week of November, Third Army prepared to launch a large-scale offensive along the front near the German border. The first major offensive action by the 26th Infantry Division was against German positions in and around Moyenvic and Vic-sur-Seille on November 8. The 104th Regiment advanced on the left flank toward Hampont and the Houbange Woods, and it captured Bennestroft two days later. The regiment proved it was up to the task assigned to it and it added a second regimental Croix de Guerre to its colors for service at Vic-sur-Seille.

The division continued to advance on Saar-Union in late November and into early December with the 104th Regiment crossing the Canal du Rhin au Marne on December 1. Just a few days later the regiment reached the Maginot Line, a system of concrete fortifications constructed by the French near the border with Germany after World War I. Thereafter the regiment regrouped and conducted mopping up actions in le Grand Bois before launching an attack against heavy German resistance at the Maginot Line near Kalhausen as part of Third Army’s assault on the Saar River basin and Germany. The 26th Infantry Division was relieved by the 87th Infantry Division in XII Corps sector on December 10, the day the rest of Third Army crossed into Germany. It was reassigned to III Corps and transported to a rear area near Metz for some much needed R&R.

But there was no rest for the weary. During the early morning hours of December 16, the Germans launched a surprise major counteroffensive through the Ardennes of Luxembourg and eastern Belgium in a last ditch effort to divide American and British forces advancing toward Germany. The Germans quickly advanced westward creating a large “bulge” in the Allied lines while never actually breaking out. Third Army was forced to suspend its offensive in the Saar Basin and reposition its forces in order to address the new German offensive. All units of Third Army would be thrown against the southern shoulder of the bulge. III Corps, including the 26th Infantry Division, was transported from Metz to the vicinity of Arlon, in southeastern Belgium, on December 19. The division found itself at Eischen, Luxembourg on December 21.

III Corps launched an assault northward through western Luxembourg the following day to help relieve American forces under siege at Bastogne, Belgium. Not knowing for certain where it would encounter the German salient, the 26th Infantry Division, with the 104th on its right flank, first encountered German resistance near Rambrouch some 16 miles north Arlon and Eischen. By December 23 the 104th was advancing through the hills and gorges of the Ardennes toward the Sûre (Saar) River north of Grobus where the Germans had counterattacked. III Corps met heavy Germany resistance throughout December 24 and Christmas day as it continued to advance northward. There was intense combat on Christmas morning in Eschdorf which fell to the 104th on December 26. Still on the division’s right flank, the 104th then moved up to Esch-sur-Sûre to establish important bridgeheads over the Sûre on the 27th. While the 104th secured the bridgehead, the remainder of the division continued its northward advance on the Wiltz River, in northern Luxembourg, in the closing days of 1944 in an effort to break the German siege of Bastogne. Dad and his unit remained in Esc-sur-Sûre for several day securing the regimental headquarters in the Hotel Ardennes. It was here that he won his Bronze Star.

By early January 1945 III Corps and the 26th Infantry Division had reached a virtual standstill just south of the Wiltz River. Heavy snow and German resistance stalled the drive to reinforce American forces that had finally broken the siege of Bastogne. The 104th was positioned north of Nothum and on the high ground above the river in the vicinity of Mon Schumann. The division would remained in this general vicinity until January 20 when the German offensive had all but collapsed. The division finally crossed the river on January 21 and secured the town of Wiltz. By January 25 the German offensive in the bulge was over and Third Army resumed its eastward advance from northern Luxembourg.

The 26th Infantry Division was transferred from III Corps to XX Corp in western France. The 104th, which had been held in reserve, departed Niederwiltz on January 27 and was sent to Boulay, in northeastern France. It was the first element of the division to arrive back in the same area of the Saar Basin where it fought back in November and early December. Never able to enjoy their relief from front line action, the division was sent to relieve the 95th Infantry Division and was on the right flank of Third Army near Saarlautern as it again entered Germany for the second time. The 26th Infantry Division had finally made it to Germany and it would not leave until the job was done.

The division’s regiments took turns securing the bridgeheads over the Saar until early March 1945 when it resumed the offensive in the vicinity of Saarburg. Third Army was already well on its way to the Rhine River and the heartland of Germany. The division continued eastward in mid-March as it met scattered yet heavy resistance as it moved ever closer to the Rhine. By March 21 Third Army was preparing to cross the river.

The 26th Infantry Division passed to XII Corps and on March 23 the 104th was the first of the division’s regiments to cross the Rhine at Oppenheim, south of Mainz, where it was supporting the 4th Armored Division, the same division it relieved when it first entered combat in Lorraine the previous October. German resistance diminished and the division advanced quickly south of Frankfurt to the bridgeheads over the Main River east of that city, reaching Fulda some 60 miles to the northeast by April 1. From there the division moved southeast with the 104th in reserve conducting mopping up operations near Meiningen and Suhl. On April 15 the entire division was approximately 10 miles from the Czechoslovakian border where it advance was intentionally halted.

XII Corps, including the 26th Infantry Division, was tasked with the pacification of eastern Bavaria, and it quickly advanced southward toward the Danube River and the Austro-German border near Passau. The division moved into Austria in early May and elements of the division took Linz on May 4. On the following day divisional units overran the Gusen concentration camp, part of the Mauthausen camp complex, east of Linz, and on May 6 it continued north into Czechoslovakia. Third Army had moved farther east than any other American unit in the European theater.

Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 7 and hostilities officially ended on May 9. The following day elements of the 104th Infantry Division made contact withe advanced elements of the Soviet Red Army in the vicinity of Ceske-Budejovice, Czechoslovakia. Since the autumn of 1944 the 26th Infantry Division had been in combat for 210 days; the 104th for 177 days. But the war was not over; the 26th with the 104th returned to the area around Linz to train for eventual deployment in the Pacific. Luckily the war ended there before they had to go and finish the work it began in the forest and hills of north eastern France almost a year earlier.

*****

When I was attending university in Germany in 1971-1972 I had an opportunity to visit some of the areas where the Yankee Division and the 104th Infantry regiment had served. During the war Dad had plotted the movements of his unit on various maps he had found along the way. He had also kept a small journal in his boot and I had all of these with me during my time in Europe. I spent quite a bit of time in the area of northeastern France, visited the Moncourt Woods where Dad first saw combat, and then traveled throughout the Ardennes looking for the various places Dad had told me about. Recalling some of the more vivid stories Dad had told me about his time in Esch-sur-Sûre, I visited the town several times. On one visit I managed to identify the house in the rue de l’eglise where Dad and his buddies bunked. I knocked on the door to discover that the family to whom the house belonged during the war, still lived there and they gave me a tour and invited me to stay for coffee and cake. Later that evening I had dinner at the Hotel Ardennes. When I told the waiter why I was there, he brought me a bottle of wine and my entire dinner was on the house. The American liberators were still looked upon as heros. And so were their sons. I can’t think of a time I was prouder to be an American.

It was a real treat to finally meet Harry. While Dad never really involved himself in veteran affairs and unit reunions after the war, Harry jumped in with both feet and even today he works hard to make sure younger generations never forget what he and Dad and so many like them did to preserve our way of life in this country. We remember and salute them all.

Today (June 4, 2011) Marks 15,000 Hits!!!!

2011-06-04T10:38:00.000-04:00

The Past Is Not Just A Good-Bye

2011-06-01T11:43:00.003-04:00

I was recently walking past the National Archives building in downtown Washington, DC when I stopped to reconsider the inscriptions found below the imposing statues designed by Robert I. Aitken and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers Company. I am especially drawn to the two that have flanked the entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue since 1935. One calls on us to “Study the Past” while the other announces “What is Past is Prologue,” a line inspired by William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Both of these inscriptions have stuck with me over the decades I conducted research here. There are two similar statues on the Constitution Avenue side of the building, and one of these offers another appropriate inscription. "The Heritage of the Past is the Seed that Brings Forth the Harvest of the Future."

Indeed, we all have a history which colors how we view and interpret our present circumstances while anticipating what the future might bring. It has been noted by others that much of the instability and recklessness in the present is due, at least in part, to the fact that we have not come to terms with what we have experienced yet failed to learn from in the past. We do not have a whole sense of who we are and why. We do not seem to learn from our mistakes. Many are too impatient to strike out into the future not knowing what it holds. Why are we in such a hurry? Maybe we should stick around and smell the roses for awhile.

One of the reason I post these blogs is to come to terms with various aspects of my own past. I really do want to know who I am and why. How did I get here? Why do I have the values I have? I am curious about the future, but I am just as happy to revel in the past and enjoy each day for what it has to offer. The future will get here soon enough.

Leaving the National Archives I walked across the street and went down into a Metro station serving Washington, DC’s subway system. I took a seat facing the rear of the car. I was not so interested in staring at the backs of heads of others who are plunging faceless into the future. I would rather look into the faces of those who look to the future yet are still in my immediate past. I am not turning my back on the future, but the past speaks to us in profound ways and should not be ignored nor neglected.

I'm Still Here!

2011-05-25T13:40:00.012-04:00

This past weekend did not turn out the way we had planned. On Thursday we left home in the early morning hours with the idea of reaching Savannah, Georgia in time for dinner along that city’s river front. All was going according to plan until we reached downtown Richmond where our engine blew unexpectedly. After arranging for emergency road service and costly repairs that would take a week to complete, we abandoned our trip to Savannah and rented a car for the return trip to Maryland.

We were disappointed, of course, as we were looking forward to the change of venue and routine and all this had to offer. I am quite certain there will be other opportunities to visit Savannah yet our disappointment must pale in comparison to those who on Friday evening, May 20, anxiously awaited the end of days when God would call them home to heaven. Perhaps our car breaking down in Richmond was a not so subtle hint that we were wrong to plan a trip to Savannah when we should have been taking care of more important matters at home in preparation for the approaching Armageddon. The appointed day and hour came and went and nothing happened. Well, at least not as far as anyone could tell. I never made it to Savannah, but I’m still here. In fact, I know quite a few people whom I consider good Christians, and they are still here, too.

The predicted end of the world on Friday was the handiwork of Harold Camping, a former civil engineer and self-ordained preacher who is also proprietor of Family Radio International, an Oakland, California based national Christian network. He prophesied that the earth’s demise and concomitant rapture - the return of approximately 200 million Christians to heaven - would occur on May 20, a fact which he broadcast from his radio studio and plastered across thousands of billboards nationwide. We here in America are familiar with these foretellers of doom and gloom and a wide variety of conspiracies. In a recent review essay for a new book on conspiracists in this country, The Economist described America as “a country of 310 million people for whom free speech is a founding principle. So it should be no surprise that it is inhabited by a large number of individuals with some pretty strange views.” It goes on to argue that local and national radio networks and the internet make it possible to disseminate these views to others “rather than just muttering away to themselves” (yours truly, I hope, not being one of these).

So here it is a few days after that appointed time and we are all still here. Now Mr. Camping is claiming that his math was incorrect (as was the case when he previously predicted the end of the world in 1994). He now claims that Armageddon and the earth’s total destruction will actually occur on October 21. OK, so he was only five months off. Camping also assures us that what occurred on Friday was an invisible event. It was the day when God completed his reckoning of who shall be saved. Now it is just a waiting game for those judged to be good and true believers. For the rest, it is a time to put affairs in order because their prospects don’t look good. For them the earth will end in a cataclysmic earthquake. Believers will be taken into heaven while the wicked and the unfaithful will be left to face Armageddon and the fires of eternal perdition.

It is odd that someone like Mr. Camping, who usually advances a more literal interpretation of the Bible, is so heaven-bent on predicting the precise hour, day and year of the world’s end. Scripture tells us what will happen but not precisely when; “but about that day and hour, no one knows” Matthew 24:36. In Revelations 16:15, Christ warns us. “Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed." So, I don’t expect the end of the world any time soon and I am happy that this all remains a great mystery. I’m still here and I kind of like it that way. I hope Mr. Camping doesn’t lose too much sleep between now and October 21. I don’t plan to. But if you can’t locate me after that date, you will know where I am.

Is this a great country or what?

2011-05-01T16:02:00.003-04:00

Running the Grunion

2011-04-24T14:13:00.019-04:00

When I tell people about my early years living on the West Coast near Los Angeles, I always include my youthful recollections of running the grunion with my folks and their friends along Redondo Beach. I am not sure those hearing my stories always believed me; I was a young buck then, the scourge of Miss Dawn’s nursery school, and surely I was making up the whole thing . After all, I used to stand in front of the picture window in our living room watching the nighttime glow of wildfires burning in Malibu and Topanga Canyon across the bay and thinking that China was on fire. What did I know? But as I grew older and wiser I discovered that others have told similar tales. F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the running of the grunion in The Last Tycoon (the unfinished version published in 1941) as does Charles Bukowski in his poems “The Hunt” and “Grab the Grunion.” So it is not an urban myth as some of you might think. We are not talking snipe hunts here There really are grunion and people continue to run them to this very day.

The grunion is actually a small silver-sided fish measuring 5-7 inches which can be found along the Southern California coast below Point Conception, and as far south as the Mexican beaches of Baja California. They resemble smelt although they are not related. And they are not netted like smelt (in fact, netting is explicitly verboten) nor are they taken on bait like other fish. They are caught by hand and only by hand and collected in buckets for a fish fry the following day. There is no creel limit; you keep what you are able to eat and that’s all. There is a brief closed season during the height of the spring spawning season; but otherwise the bountiful grunion are fair game.

The iridescent “silversides” arrive on a nighttime high tide two to six days after a full moon and continue to come ashore for a few hours until the tide begins to ebb. The females come ashore, wiggle down into the sand to deposit their eggs, and then the males will gather around them to secrete their milt. It collects around the female’s body and fertilizes the buried eggs. The lucky ones do the deed and return to the ocean as subsequent waves wash over them. The less fortunate find themselves sloshing around in buckets of seawater and kelp and destined for the dinner table.

Fitzgerald called the grunion a “very punctual fish” and captured a grunion “run” on the beach at Santa Monica in The Last Tycoon. It was a fine blue night. The tide was at the turn and the little silver fish rocked off shore waiting for 10:16. A few seconds after that time they came swarming in with the tide and Stahr and Kathleen stepped over them barefoot as they flicked slip-slop in the sand . . . They came in twos and threes and platoons and companies, relentless and exalted and scornful around great bare feet of the intruder, as they had come before Sir Francis Drake had nailed his plaque to the boulder on the shore.

I still have very vivid memories of running the grunion on Redondo Beach back in the mid 1950s; the moonlit night, the flashlight beams sweeping across the sand and small bonfires on the beach. For a little kid it was great fun and adventure to be allowed to stay up after one’s normal bedtime to wander the beach and catch fish by hand. Everyone kept their flashlights trained on each succeeding wave as it stretched its waters over the sand. Soon we spotted a few fish dancing along the edges of the receding water. We were told these were scouts and they must be allowed to return to give their compatriots a thumbs up that the coast is clear. Soon, with each retreating wave, the sand was alive with thousands of tiny fish. We rushed forward and gathered the grunion into our buckets. Each wave would bring more ashore and soon our buckets were filled to the brim.

The next day my dad snipped off the heads and quickly dressed the tiny fish before drenching them with flour and deep frying then. I remember eating the grunion like I would french fries, dipping them in some tangy cocktail sauce. Not only did I get to catch these fish by hand, but I was allowed to eat them by hand, as well. What little kid wouldn’t like that?

Grunion, unlike smelt, are not available in stores or restaurants. If you want to eat them, you have to hit the beaches when they do. Running the grunion may not be as exciting as hooking and landing a fat, three-foot rockfish out in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, but I can’t think of a more memorable fishing

Farewell to the Mullet Latitudes: Dispatches from the Sunshine State X

2011-04-14T10:57:00.006-04:00

Tomorrow I say good-bye to Florida and take the long drive back up Interstate 95 to Maryland. At home I cross a state line several times each week yet for the past five weeks we have never left the confines of the Sunshine State. It is going to be hard to leave, but before I do, here is my last brief dispatch as I say farewell to what the late Al Burt, columnist for the Miami Herald, referred to lovingly as the “Mullet Latitudes.” This Florida sojourn has taken me around the state, to places both familiar and new on the main highways and the blue highways.

I have been coming to Florida regularly for over four decades. My family came here for winter vacations when I was in high school, and then I spent my undergraduate college years here in the late 60s and early 70s. My wife is a native Floridian and lived here her entire life until I married her and whisked her away to Arizona and eventually to Maryland. My parents moved here in retirement in the mid-1980s and my mom is still here as is my mother-in-law. Both of our dad’s are buried here. We may live in and travel to different places, but we always seem to “come home” to Florida. When I do, I am always amazed that I find something new to discover and explore.

This time around I have explored Aripeka, an old haunt along the Gulf Coast. It is a place I first explored over forty years ago and I ask myself why it has taken me so long to come back. I’m glad I did. It is still a backwater but on the fringes of civilization and strip malls are moving ever closer. I have pondered the billboard blight along Florida’s highways which is also creeping ever closer to Aripeka and other small out-of-the way communities. I wonder how much longer they can hold out. Al Burt also wondered about this and I can better understand his concern for the Florida of yesteryear. It is quickly disappearing. I have explored the scrub lands of central Florida where settlers and soldiers fought the Seminole in three wars in the 19th century to establish primacy over this new American territory. I have searched across the state for genuine Cuban sandwiches. Some were better than others but all of them were good. I have considered the plight of the bison herd on Paynes Prairie and explored the cracker haunts about which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote so eloquently and where I reacquainted myself with the fine cracker cuisine of north central Florida.

Most of all, we return to Florida to visit family and friends living and dead. This is the main reason we keep coming back. Yet, as we look around, we cannot ignore what we see around us. Perhaps Al Burt said it best in an April 27, 2003 editorial in the Tallahassee Democrat. “We common folk see Florida as a place struggling to stay true to itself--struggling to maintain an honest identity. We are people who find significance not only in headlines, and beauty not only in colorful horizons, but also in the small things of Florida--the sights and smells of home that were blooded and boned into our beings as we grew up. These represent heritage and affirming identity. For us they are the true things of Florida.“ Tomorrow we head north and home. We will be back. Of course we will! We can’t help but come back. Florida is in our blood and marrow.

Along the Fort King Military Road: Dispatches from the Sunshine State IX

2011-04-12T07:15:00.011-04:00

I recently took a road trip from Gainesville down through the scrub cattle country of central Florida. This is a part of Florida that most tourists (indeed most Floridians) only see from their car windows as they drive down Interstate 75 at 70 mph (if not faster). That is a shame, because there is so much to see, along with a great deal of hidden history, if you know where to look. My route took me south from Gainesville to Williston where I joined US Highway 41, a main north-south route paralleling I-75. This highway runs from the Georgia border, near Valdosta, south through central Florida to Tampa and the Gulf coast before turning east near Naples to cross the Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades as the Tamiami Trail. It ends on the shores of Biscayne Bay south of Miami.

The area I explored was the heart of the territory held since the early 1700s by the Seminoles, a southern branch of the Creek tribal confederation originally found in what is now Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. A dominion of Spain since 1513, this region of Florida hosted a number of Spanish missions and cattle ranches as well as native Timucuan Indians. There was also the Alacuha Seminoles led by Chief Cowkeeper who also raised cattle in this area.

Florida was transferred to British sovereignty by treaty in 1763 after the Seven Years War (known as the French and Indian War in this side of the pond). The British naturalist William Bartram traveled throughout this area in 1774, describing the Seminole cattle herds on the great Alachua savannah now known as Paynes Prairie (a tribute to the great Alachua Seminole chief King Payne) located just south of Gainesville. Florida did not remain British long, however, and was returned to Spanish rule in the 1780s following the British defeat during the American Revolution.

The infant United States flexed its military muscle and in 1814 American soldiers commanded by General Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek in their original tribal lands in the former southeastern colonies. They later pursued them into Spanish Florida in 1816 in what became known as the First Seminole War which ended in 1818. This was America’s first “foreign war” as Spain did not cede Florida to the United States until 1821.

With the influx of settlers into the new American territory, the Seminoles (this became a collective term for all Native Americans in Florida) were forced to move farther south. This resulted in clashes and loss of life which the new territorial government found unacceptable. The Seminoles provided sanctuary for fugitive slaves in the territory and this led to a further deterioration of relations. The white settlers also challenged the Seminoles for cattle grazing rights. Something had to give. The Treaty of Moultrie Creek, in 1823, established a number of Seminole reservations in the central Florida scrub country as a means of segregating the native population so that it could not interfere with further settlement of the territory.

Even with the creation of reservations, Seminoles and white settlers continued to clash and a number of forts and military fortifications were established throughout the Florida territory to keep an eye on the reservations and their inhabitants. Two of the most important of these were Fort Brooke, established at the confluence of the Hillsborough River and Tampa Bay, at present-day Tampa, in 1824, and Fort King, today Ocala, just over 100 miles to the northeast, in 1827. The Fort King Military Road, a wide path cut through scrub country (roughly following the route of State Route 41 today) connected these two fortifications.

The government in Washington quickly realized that the Seminoles were an impediment to the settling of the Florida territory. Following the passage of the Indian Removal Act in May 1830 during the administration of President Andrew Jackson, who was no friend to Native Americans, the government convinced a number of native chiefs that their people would be better off in unsettled territory west of the Mississippi acquired from the French in the Louisiana Purchase. This led to the Treaty of Payne’s Landing, in 1832, and plans for the westward resettlement of Florida’s Seminoles. Both Fort Brooke and Fort King would play a major role in protecting settlers from encroachment by the Seminoles while assisting in their resettlement to “Indian Territory” in what is now Oklahoma.

The treaty was ratified in 1834 giving the Seminoles three years to accomplish the move. A core group of Seminole under chiefs Osceola and Micanopy opposed this plan and chose to defend their homeland against further American expansion. Fort King, which had closed in the meantime, was reopened to enforce the treaty and to facilitate the westward migration. Seminole continued to clash with white settlers and Osceola and Micanopy conducted hit and run raids throughout the territory. Washington responded by sending more troops to Florida to reinforce the existing garrisons. By 1835 there were approximately 550 regular troops and more volunteers stationed throughout the Florida territory. The situation remained tense and Fort King, with a garrison consisting of a single company of 50 men, feared it might be overrun.

A decision was made to transfer two additional companies from Fort Brooke to Fort King. Two days before Christmas, 108 American troops under the command of Major Francis L. Dade, departed Fort Brooke for the march up the military road to reinforce the garrison at Fort King. A band of Seminole shadowed their route almost from the outset, and on December 28, the Seminole war party ambushed the column along the military road just a short distance from the present day town of Bushnell. The troops dug in to fend off the attackers but were eventually overwhelmed. During the skirmish all but three of the American soldiers were killed. Two made their way back to Fort Brooke and one of these died a few days later; only one lived to tell what happened on that fateful day.

The Dade massacre, as it came to be called, precipitated the Second Seminole War which eventually forced the Seminoles southward out of central Florida and into the swampy Everglades. The United States eventually committed over 30,000 troops to the struggle and suffered nearly 1500 battle deaths. With the expenditure of millions of dollars, the Second Seminole War was the longest and costliest of all the Indian wars fought throughout the 19th century. Osceola was captured in 1837 and imprisoned at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston, South Carolina, where he died the following year. His Seminole warriors continued to fight until 1842 by which time they were all but eradicated. Most of those who did survive were moved west to Oklahoma while a few small bands remained on reservations scattered across the Everglades. The peace treaty ending the Second Seminole War was not formally signed until 1934.

This war did not, however, bring a final and lasting peace to Florida. The few remaining Seminole in Florida retaliated again when the American authorities continued to press for their final removal from Florida. Their hit and run raiding parties against settler communities resulted in a third and final war between 1855 and 1858 which left only a hand full of Seminole in Florida.

I was thinking about this mostly forgotten chapter of American and Floridian history as I wandered through the scrub land near Bushnell where Major Dade and his band of soldiers met a quick and unmerciful end. This is still cattle country, and herds of cracker cattle and Black Angus wander the Florida prairie here in central Florida. It is quiet and peaceful now and it is difficult to imagine what happened here on a quiet December morning in 1835. Or is it?

Cracker Chidlings: Dispatches from the Sunshine State VIII

2011-04-10T14:25:00.014-04:00

My first blog posting back on December 1, 2008 described a visit to Marjorie Kinnan Rawling’s homestead at Cross Creek, Florida. I take every opportunity I can to return to that magical place and I can certainly understand how Rawlings fell in love with the area when she first visited in 1928. So it is not surprising that I headed down to the Creek, as Marjorie called it, a few days ago to wander through the pine hammocks with their saw grass, palms and palmettos; the stands of live oak draped in Spanish moss and kudzu; and the cypress swamps of the Big Scrub of north central Florida. This is where the northern temperate zone meets the semi tropics, part of this place the late Al Burt once described as the “Mullet Latitudes.” I understand why Rawlings, upon discovering the Creek, came here to stay.

Born in Washington, DC, in August 1896, Rawlings spent her early years in that city’s Brookland neighborhood, just over the line from where I presently reside in the Maryland suburbs. Her family also owned a small farm in Maryland where they spent weekends and summer vacations. She attended Washington’s public schools and graduated from Western High School in 1913. Her mother moved her and a young brother to Madison, Wisconsin where she began her studies as and English major, in 1914. Following graduation in 1918, she worked as a writer an editor in upstate New York and in Louisville, Kentucky. She visited Florida for the first time during the summer of 1928 and she was so impressed with the scrub land, the cattle ranches and the citrus groves of north central Florida that she purchased a small farm and grove in the hamlet of Cross Creek. She moved there in November of that year and for the rest of her life, until her untimely death in January 1953, she would call this area of north Florida her home. She is buried in a small, isolated cemetery in Island Grove, just a few miles from her farm at the Creek.

During her years in Florida she would write and publish her impressions of the landscape that surrounded her and the people she would come to call neighbors and friends. She often described her Florida as a new Eden. “This is the Florida, wild and natural . . . the invisible Florida,” she told an audience at Florida Southern College, my alma mater, in 1935. “Its beauty must be seen with the spiritual eye as well as the physical eye.” The first of these stories appeared as “Cracker Chidlings” in Scribner’s Magazine in February 1932. She continued to write about life at the Creek, and a decade after her arrival she would publish her classic novel The Yearling (1938).

On this recent trip I revisited Rawlings’ farm and wandered around the house and the various out buildings. There are still a few orange trees in the yard although most of the groves have gone back to the wild. There is her typewriter on the screened-in front porch where she did most of her writing. I can almost see her sitting there while Max Perkins, her editor at Scriber’s, sat nearby in his white suit and fedora sipping a martini. “The region is beautiful, but not pretty,” she wrote to Perkins shortly after he took her under his wing in 1931. “It is like a beautiful woman capable of deep evil and a great treachery. Back of the lushness is something stark and sinister.”

Just up the road from the farm is Cross Creek, which runs the short distance between Orange Lake and Lake Lochloosa. At present it is mostly dried up as the drought in central Florida continues. Cashing in on the popularity of Rawlings and her books, The Yearling restaurant first opened on the bank of the Creek in 1952 and continued to offer north central specialties until it closed its doors in 1991. It was here that I was first introduced to the local cuisine, my favorite being a generous serving of cooter (fresh water turtle found in the local creeks and ponds). We use to eat here frequently on our regular visits to nearby Gainesville and we were greatly saddened when it closed and fell into disrepair. On each return visit to the Creek I would drive by hoping to find it open. There were a couple ill-fated attempts to revive the place, but they never seemed to catch on. Thankfully it finally reopened for good a few years ago, serving lunch and dinner on Friday and during the weekend.

It was open when I passed by a few days ago and so I stopped in to check it out. I found it much as I remembered it. The menu is not extensive, but they serve what I came for. I feasted on a sampler of cracker offerings - frog legs, gator tail, fried green tomatoes, mushrooms and hushpuppies. All of this washed down with very cold beer. Despite the logo on the servers’ shirts urging one to “Eat Mo Cooter,” The Yearling only rarely serves this delicious swamp delicacy. My server claims it is still available but all of it is shipped to Japan where it brings top dollar. “We send them our fine cooter,” she told me under her breath. “All we get is that cheap plastic crap.” I was sorry I was not able to enjoy a fine piece of cooter pie.

After lunch I drove to Antioch Cemetery, a few miles east of the Creek near Island Grove. Here Marjorie is buried beside Norton Baskin, her beloved husband who survived her by 43 years (“A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.”), and near to still others, friends and neighbors whom she had described to one degree or another in her stories and novels. Baskin came up with a simple yet appropriate epitaph for his wife. “Through her writings she endeared herself to the people of the world.” It seems entirely appropriate that she rests in the sandy scrub land and near the people she loved so dearly.

This trip to the Creek will have to last me for awhile. We will soon be returning home to Maryland after several weeks enjoying our annual springtime hiatus here in the Sunshine State. The memories of this time will have to tide me over once I return to the city. “We cannot live without the earth or apart from it,” Marjorie wrote in The Yearling. “And something is shriveled in man’s heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men.” Marjorie will keep me whole and full.

Rattling the Stick: Dispatches from the Sunshine State VII

2011-04-08T07:58:00.016-04:00

“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket,” according to George Orwell. I am reminded of this as I drive along US Highway 19 through Pinellas and Pasco counties on the Florida Gulf Coast. I also recall the Baltimore bard Ogden Nash’s witty stanza from Songs on the Road (1941):

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I’ll never see a tree at all.

This stretch of highway, as it passes through St. Petersburg, Pinellas Park, Clearwater, Tarpon Springs, New Port Richey and a host of smaller communities, has got to be one of the ugliest clutter of strip malls, car dealerships, restaurants and fast food joints, liquor stores, trailer parks, pawn emporiums and t-shirt shops I have found anywhere in the United States. It has no soul whatsoever; nothing beckoning one to come here and stay. It is a road to be avoided at all costs yet a stream of traffic travels up and down it every day. Is there anything man can do to make this jumbled and muddled abysm of commerce even less inviting? Yes!

As one drives this route (and so many others throughout the state) one is confronted by a continuous phalanx of outdoor billboard signs. Here along US 19 they sing the praises of doctors who offer to lift your face, correct your sight, remove your ugly fat, and my personal favorite, provide you with a vasectomy without the use of knives or needles. Is this a great country or what? More often than not these offers are accompanied by the doctor’s smiling portrait and an 800 number and/or internet website. It is difficult to enjoy life as it is when there are all these constant reminders of how much better it can be. No thanks!

Add to this the numerous billboards advertising the friendly yet “aggressive” services of Florida’s ubiquitous personal injury attorneys who hope to cash in (“we only get paid if you get paid”) on what must be a growing problem here in the Sunshine State. One is left with the distinct impression that Floridians must be one of the most litigious populations in this country. Why else would one need so many attorneys? These guys must make a pretty good living. How else can they pay for all these billboards with their smiling faces (I thought they were aggressive?) and promises to fight for the rights of the little people?

Even in the unlikely event that all of these billboards somehow disappear, the chances of seeing any trees are negligible. This area of Florida has been pretty much paved over and the vegetation that has managed to survive is limited to a few scrubby bushes here and there and an occasional palmetto or palm tree reminding travelers that they are in Florida. Thankfully, as one leaves this urban blight behind, the billboards become fewer and farther between, and there are a few more trees, but one can never completely escape their clutches and promises of a better life.

Driving the highways and byways of rural Florida there are fewer billboards shilling for doctors and lawyers (they are still there, however), but now they tend to focus on retirement communities in Florida and beyond; antique stores purchasing and selling gold and silver; military surplus and guns; truck stops and “cheap” fuel, BBQ joints, and countless tourist traps selling citrus, t-shirts, fireworks, wind chimes, gator heads, jewelry, saltwater taffy, and souvenir bric-a-brac. There are billboards displaying American flags and “patriotic” encomiums while others offer Biblical passages and the promise of eternal salvation. There are even billboards advertising strip joints and “We Bare All.” You name it and you can probably find it on a Florida billboard.

Some rather strong storms swept across central Florida over the past week and one can see the evidence of their passing by the many downed trees and branches. Small planes were tossed about at local airports and roofs were torn from homes and other buildings. Trees and branches scattered about but nearby the billboards continue to stand unmolested. Not even Mother Nature can deliver us from this man-made scourge on the landscape. Frankly, I prefer trees.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Preserves Are For Preserving: Dispatches from the Sunshine State VI

2011-04-07T08:01:00.012-04:00

I don’t usually return to a topic quite so quickly, but the great bison debate is still a hot issue here in central Florida. A few days ago I reported on this debate in general terms and noted that one of the main reasons given for removing or reducing the size of the small bison herd at the Paynes Prairie State Preserve near Gainesville was the issue of safety and liability should any of the bison get loose or endanger visitors to the preserve. This week The Gainesville Sun recalled two specific instances last year when male bison wandered off the preserve.

In the first incident last May, a male bison was reported wandering in an area very near the preserve’s northern boundary. Local law enforcement was alerted as were the State Fish and Wildlife authorities and the Florida Park Service. All responded with the intention of herding the vagabond bison back to the preserve, and if this failed, to tranquilize it to facilitate its return. Observing the bison moving in his general direction, the preserve’s manager fired his shotgun striking the bison squarely between the eyes. This was followed by two more shots to the side of the head. A state park police officer also fired several shotgun rounds at the beast before the manager finished it off with a shot to the head and one to the heart. So much for tranquilizing the poor critter who was probably more scared than any of its human pursuers. Reports indicate that the bison was unarmed.

A few days later a second male bison was spotted near a popular trail, part of which runs across preserve property. Authorities judged this bison to be “aggressive” although they provided no specific details as to who was threatened and why. The bison was cornered and shot several times with a shotgun and a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. A Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson later stated that “deadly force” is only used when an animal poses imminent danger to humans whether they are on the preserve or not. Of course, this makes sense. I am not certain, however, that either of these animals were a viable threat to anyone, and I don’t believe “He is coming your way” constitutes “imminent danger,” especially if you are armed with a shotgun or a semi-automatic rifle. I have encountered bison at very close range in Yellowstone National Park and never felt like I was threatened by the simple fact that they were nearby or moving in the same direction I was.

In both of these instances there appears to be no evidence of any attempt to tranquilize or otherwise subdue the two bison in question. Why not? The Paynes Prairie State Preserve was established to preserve and protect the natural environment and the animal and birds that call it home. Yet there are those who do not see it that way. No one can argue for the need to protect human life, and if an animal poses a theat and cannot be captured or subdued, it may be necessary to destroy the animal. But I do not sense that this was the case in the two incidents reported by The Gainesville Sun and described here. I think it is quite clear that there is no genuine concern for these animals among those who are duty-bound to protect them. Once again it proved too much trouble to handle this situation the right away. The State wants to reduce the herd and it has found a easy way to do it. If a bison wanders where it should not be (or where the State doesn’t want it to be), it becomes an imminent danger and is quickly dispatched.

Preserves are for preserving. This bison herd only numbers 60-70 animals and one would think the State could come up with a practical solution to the problem of bison wandering off the reservation. After all, Paynes Prairie is 22 thousand acres and there must be a area where the bison can roam and not pose a threat to anyone. I hope the State of Florida will make a more concerted effort to find a better solution to the problem. Killing animals does not seem like a good way to protect them.

Where The Buffalo Roam(ed)?: Dispatches from the Sunshine State V

2011-04-03T15:44:00.015-04:00

Regular readers of this blog are already familiar with my interest in and love for the bison. There is a debate ongoing here in central Florida for almost three years that is beginning to heat up again. What shall be the fate of the roughly 60 American bison that currently graze on the 22,000 acre Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park south of Gainesville? The fate of the cracker horse population as well as that of the small shrub cattle are also in question. The concerns and question are basically the same for all involved, but permit me to focus on the fate of the bison herd.

The State of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection is struggling with a new livestock management program for he preserve which calls for the removal of the male bison population, reducing the size of the herd to approximately a dozen females and guarantee that it would not grow any larger. There is also the question of inbreeding and the general health of the herd which was first introduced to the area in the mid 1970s. On top of this, there is concern that the current size of the herd is taxing the grazing land on the preserve and creating an ecological dilemma. Some state officials are worried that more time and money will be spent on livestock management rather than on the protection of the endangered natural resources. Moreover, there is the issue of liability and safety should a member of the herd escape from the preserve and create damage or injure someone (injury is also a concern on the preserve although there seems to be very limited human access to the herd). The remaining bison would be limited to a fenced paddock of approximately 150 acres near the visitors center.

Reduction of the herd was a concern for many who feared that the males would be sold and slaughtered for food although the State is not authorized to sell bison through the traditional channels. It has also stated that the male bison would be moved to another protected area in Florida with limited public access where they would be treated “humanely” (whatever that means). This guarantee does not mean that all will be permitted to live. Sterilization of the male bison (and male cracker horses) is also being considered as an option to removal although this would not reduce the size of the herd or address ecological concerns or the liability and safety issues. It seems to me that this is moving the problem in one area to another area without seeking a realistic and practical solution.

Some local members of the state legislature in Tallahassee have recently jumped on the bandwagon to oppose the reduction of the herd through removal from the preserve. They have offered legislation that will address the safety and liability concerns which appear to be the main sticking points in the debate. In my humble opinion, the American bison wandering the scrub land of Paynes Prairie are a natural resource that deserve protection.

Despite efforts to keep the herd intact, the State has ultimately decided that the male bison must be removed; although there is no practical plan in place as far as their fate is concerned. Removing them seems to me a simplistic solution to a complex problem. Let’s hope the herd will be permitted to thrive for many years to come through a well thought out and balanced livestock management. Attention should be paid to the herd’s best interest and I am still hopeful saner minds will prevail. I am afraid, however, that these bison may have lost their home and their freedom to roam.

Searching For El Cubano: Dispatches from the Sunshine State IV

2011-03-30T08:08:00.030-04:00

I have often listened to my wife tell stories of growing up in rural Florida. One of things she recalls fondly are visits to the local Publix supermarket for a Cuban sandwich. I grew up mostly in the Midwest and I had never heard of such a thing. When she described it to me I told her we called them “heros” and “submarine sandwiches,” or subs. In New England they are referred to as “grinders;” “hoagies” in Philadelphia; “po’boys” in St. Louis; and “muffulette” in New Orleans. Today some throughout the USA refer to them simply as “paninis.” So I just assumed the “Cuban sandwich” was the local Florida variant. I was wrong. It is unlike any of the aforementioned.

I had my first Cuban sandwich - sandwiché Cubano, or simple el Cubano - at Phil-Nick’s, a hole-in-the-wall joint on Main Street, in downtown Gainesville, Florida. It was nothing like any sub, or whatever you want to call it, that I had ever eaten. My wife assured me it was genuine - sliced ham, pork marinated in a citrus and garlic concoction know as mojo, Swiss cheese, mustard and sliced dill pickles served on a soft Cuban bread - pan de aqua - which resembles French or Italian bread yet it is prepared with lard and is lighter and flakier. There are other variations of el Cubano, but the best and truest stick to the traditional ingredients. Finally, the sandwich is heated and pressed in a device know as a plancha (or a bacon press or a large spatula, if there is no plancha handy). The flaky bread turns crunchy and the finished sandwich is often served with a bowl of black bean soup - frijoles negro - over yellow rice (another favorite Cuban dish). This is exactly how I enjoyed my first Cubano. Spanish, or garbanzo, bean soup is also a satisfactory substitute and I highly recommend it.

There is some debate surrounding the origins of the Cuban sandwich. It appears to date back to the turn of the previous century when it was popular lunchtime fare for workers at Havana’s cigar factories and sugar mills. Others will claim that it was cooked up by Cuban immigrants making cigars in Ybor City, the Cuban quarter just east of downtown Tampa. Today it remains popular with the large Cuban exile and immigrant community in south Florida, and the farther south you go in the Sunshine State the more apt you are to find a genuine Cubano on authentic Cuban bread. To borrow a phrase from the character Oddball, played by Donald Sutherland in the 1970 film Kelly’s Heroes, “To a New Yorker like you, hero is some type of weird sandwich.” Once you have a real Cubano, anything else - hero, sub, grinder, etc. - just does not measure up.

Phil-Nick’s is still on Main Street although the brothers who founded the place are no longer there and gone with them are the authentic Cubanos. You can still get a pretty decent Cubano at any Publix market across the state - our arrival in Gainesville is frequently an appropriate occasion for one and we have had one since our arrival. I have found a few Publix stores that cut corners and play around with the traditional ingredients and serve them on French or Italian bread. No thanks But the local Publix in Gainesville fixes them right. Authentic Cubanos are de rigueur in Ybor City and have been for over a century. There are good ones to be at the Columbia Restaurant (and also at the Columbia in St. Augustine). So, too, in Miami-Dade. Where there are Cubans, you are sure to find an authentic Cubano. I have found tasty Cubanos in the Everglades, including a particularly good one at a truckstop in Immokalee (about the only reason I would ever go back to that desolate and godforsaken place). I recall another purchased at a stonecrab emporium along the Barron River, in Everglades City. There were no stonecrabs to be had one evening and so I settled for a Cubano with a bowl of black beans over rice. A satisfactory substitute for a plate of cracked claws and that is saying something right there. More recently we had a real Jones for a Cubano for lunch and found some in Bevilles Corner, a rural cross-roads in the central Florida scrub country. There are not too many Cubans here but we were able to find freshly made Cubanos at a quick market where we had stopped to top off our gas tank. They were not too bad, and although they were missing the requisite pickle slices, they were served on Cuban bread. And there in Bevilles Corner I learned something new about Cuban bread. The process of making authentic pan de aqua begins with palmetto leaves soaked in water which are then placed over the rolled dough. This creates the unique and rather irregular topography on the upper portion of the loaf. As the dough rises it can encircle the palmetto and it is not uncommon to find remnant fibers baked into the bread as an avatar of authenticity. So, whereas the fixings were not bona fide in the strictest sense, the bread was and it tasted pretty good regardless. Our jones was satisfied.

I think there are a few Cuban sandwiches in our immediate future before it is time to head back up north. We have even carried them home on planes and in a car cooler and I am guessing we will do so again. But eating Cubanos is much like eating crabs in Maryland, or lobster along the coast of Maine. It’s best to eat the local cuisine locally. Our search across Florida continues.

Today (March 30, 2011) Marks 10,000 Hits!!!!

2011-03-30T08:05:00.004-04:00

Rediscovering a Forgotten Piece of Florida: Dispatches from the Sunshine State III

2011-03-25T18:53:00.018-04:00

Very few people have heard of Aripeka and fewer still have ever been there. I recall first visiting this tiny fishing hamlet on Florida’s Gulf Coast back in the mid-1960s when my family began to frequent the beaches near St. Petersburg and Clearwater. I didn’t recall very much about that first visit, and although I have driven by the sign on US Route 19 pointing out its location down State Route 595, I had not returned there until just a couple of days ago. From the looks of it, nothing much has changed since my first visit.

Aripeka, originally known as Gulf Key when it was first settled in the early 1870s, straddles both the Pasco-Hernando county line as well as the two branches of Hammock Creek as they meander from the Gulf of Mexico through marshland and sand flats bordered by saw grass and clumps of red mangrove. Ironically, it changed its name to Aripeka around 1886 to commemorate a Mikasuki Seminole chieftain who had fought against the encroachment of white settlers during the Seminole wars and who died of old age near here twenty years earlier.

For most of its quiet history, this unincorporated town has consisted of a few simple homes scattered along the branches of Hammock Creek and what little dry ground there is between them. A post office was first established in Gulf Key in 1883 when population was 24 souls, and it has, with a couple of interruptions, continued to operate to the present day. There was once a school and a store, and the Osowow Hotel was situated on the south branch of Hammock Creek throughout the first half of the 20th century until it burned in 1960. It was home to the Aripeka Saw Mills Corporation and there were sugar cane fields nearby as well as turpentine stills in the pine hammocks to the east. The Gulf and the coastal waters are rich in marine life, including snook and striped mullet, and the locals have always been involved in subsistence fishing and guiding sportsmen. There has never been a commercial fishing operation in these waters. This area, along with the Homosassa and Crystal rivers just north of here in Citrus County, has long been a wintertime mecca for the West Indian manatee who enjoy their warm waters.

In 1910 the entire town, save the post office, school and the Baptist church which had been established two years earlier, passed to the ownership of Eugene D. Willingham (1839-1922), a prominent Atlanta lumber tycoon, who chose Aripeka as his winter home and bought up the foreclosed mortgage on the land. It was Willingham who had helped lay the groundwork for the Baptist church and who was largely responsible for the construction of a new highway from Brooksville, the seat of Hernando County, to Aripeka and then further south to Tarpon Springs and eventually to Tampa. Until then the town could only be reached by boat and was a regular stop on the coastal steamer route between the railhead at Cedar Key and Tampa Bay. Despite these improvements, Aripeka remained a backwater until the middle of the 20th century. The Rural Electrification Agency extended the power grid to the area in 1941-1947, and the first telephone appeared in 1950. Aripeka has one claim to fame although the stories vary, depending whom you talk to. The basic facts are there. During the 1920s Babe Ruth, often in the company of some of his teammates, used to travel north from St. Petersburg, where the New York Yankees were based during spring training, to fish and hunt in the area. Local lore has him staying at any number of places around town, but it would appear that he actually stayed at the Osowow Hotel on Hammock Creek. He is reputed to have thrown lavish parties at the hotel and during one of these he lost his World Series ring down the hotel’s privy. There are other stories - that Jack Dempsey use to train here and that the Wright Brothers once stayed in town - but these legends tend to be slightly more opaque.

We found Aripeka to still be a sleepy fishing hamlet although in more recent years it has turned into a budding artist colony. There are some newer homes fronting the creek and along the main channel leading out to the Gulf, but otherwise it hasn’t really changed much in years. The local Norfleet family, who started a fishing camp adjacent to the bridge over the north branch of Hammock Creek back in the 1940s, still operates a small grocery and general store on the site. The store once had a single gas pump which has since disappeared. A sign over the entrance announces we are “5.9 miles from Heaven.” I am not sure exactly in which direction one needed to go to reach that point, and neither did the fellow working behind the counter, but we took this claim to be true. It sure is a beautiful spot on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico.

There were a number of men fishing from the bridge - some fishing for striped mullet with snagging hooks (they are delicious smoked and their roe is a tasty delicacy) while others cast nets for baitfish. They told us we had just missed a manatee cruising along the mangrove roots, but there was a mature and juvenile bottlenose dolphin splashing in the creek lagoon and we watched as they passed under the bridge on their way to the Gulf, pausing to harass a school of mullet. I am not sure one needed to travel almost six miles to find heaven. I think we may have found a little piece of it right here.

Tekkin It Eezzee, Mon!: Dispatches from the Sunshine State II

2011-03-23T20:58:00.008-04:00

I turned 60 years old a couple of days ago and I guess this means that I am officially in the autumn of my life. Well, put it this way - my past is now longer than my future. I guess one doesn’t want to think of it in those terms, but it is true. No sense ignoring it. The aches and pains are more prevalent than they use to be and they seem to last longer. On top of that, I am getting old man hands and feet and dry skin seems to be more of a concern. That said, I am convinced that I still have a lot of life left in me. I don’t feel 60, and I certainly don’t act 60. I hope I don’t look 60, but that might be stretching it just a bit. Yet, entering my seventh decade, I am reminded of something Proust once wrote. “We are all dead people, waiting to take up our posts.” Hmmmm. I am in no big hurry.

Now that I am retired (it has been just over a year) I am around the house a lot more than I use to be and I sometimes wonder if I am not slowly driving my wife (36 years and counting) close to the precipice. I don’t mean to do this, but she has had the house to herself for so long and now all that has changed. Virginia Ironsides, a British columnist writing about her husband as she entered her own sixties, captured the state of affairs with this appropriate bon mot. “I married him for life, not for lunch.” I wonder if Sally Ann feels this way. I am almost afraid to ask. I try to stay busy. I enjoying crafting these blog postings and I recently signed a contract for a new book on the American novelist Thomas Wolfe. I have a number of other research projects and freelance consultant jobs to keep me off the streets and it is not like I am sitting at home dreaming up ways to drive my wife crazy; although that has a certain degree of charm to it.

I spent my birthday (and the days leading up to it) here in Florida as part of our annual spring hiatus and escape from DC’s late winter doldrums. The weather here has been sunny and in the low 80s since our arrival; spring has definitely arrived here in central Florida. The azaleas have pretty much come and gone and the tree pollen forces those of us with allergies indoors even if the weather is otherwise pleasant. Nevertheless, I have tried to get out and about as much as possible, scratchy eyes and throat be damned.

We drove over to the Gulf of Mexico at Tarpon Springs so we could spend a little time on the beach. We forgot that it was spring break and the entire beach was covered by tanned bodies of every shape, size and dimension. Sally Ann did her best to look for shells but there was little room to maneuver. I chose to sit in a palm tree’s evasive shade while trying to enjoy a view of the Gulf’s aquamarine waters. Unfortunately, the undulating movement of bikinied bodies was a constant distraction. Soon, but not too soon, we retreated to the Sponge Docks along the Anclote River and enjoyed a light lunch at our favorite little Greek taverna - saganoki (more on this in an upcoming dispatch) and souvlaki and a couple of Greek beers. That evening we returned to my favorite local shrimp house for a horiatiki salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, pepperocini, Greek olives, and feta cheese doused in extra virgin olive oil), a large platter of boiled shrimp slathered in olive oil, and a couple more Greek beers. Opa!

So it was a nice way to celebrate the beginning of my geezerdom. I have much I still want to do before that final sleep. Proust might ultimately be right, but don’t be surprised if I come up AWOL. Life is too good to let it pass me by. I’m just tekkin it eezzee, mon! Cheers!

Slinging Hash: Dispatches from the Sunshine State I

2011-03-19T08:18:00.006-04:00

When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be a short-order cook. I still enjoy sitting at the counter of any diner or greasy spoon and watching the cooks juggling the orders. Perhaps I can find work slinging hash during my retirement? I haven’t so far, but I am still young (kind of). It is an idea worth serious consideration.

On our way down to Florida we were eating lunch at one of the ubiquitous Waffle Houses found throughout the southern United States. We sat at the counter and I watched the cook preparing my wife’s “checkerboard” (a large waffle) and my “heart attack on a rack” (toasted Texas biscuits with sausage gravy), a large rasher of bacon “in the alley” (on the side), while our waitress, who called both of us “darlin’,” poured me a large cup of joe “flowing like the Mississippi” (black coffee) . . . . no “blonde with sand” (cream and sugar) for me. And there is something appealing about the attire of a good grill man. It can fluctuate depending on mood, or whatever happens to be clean or thrown over the bedroom chair (or on the floor) that morning. One should be comfortable in their own skin and clothes when they cook for others. I like that.

As the aroma of our meal gathered around us I read how Joe Rogers, Sr. (no relation), learned how to make a perfect omelet from one of the legendary grill men who worked for him at a Toddle House restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee. Rogers would later join forces with a local Georgia businessman named Tom Fokner to found Waffle House near Atlanta in 1955. Although the Waffle House remains a culinary institution throughout the South (including near almost any interstate interchange), it has expanded to 25 states with over 1500 franchises as far west as California and north to Illinois and Delaware. But I digress.

There is something poetic and mesmerizing about watching a good grill man (for some reason they usually seem to be men) slinging hash at a greasy spoon diner. He is his own boss and there is no one standing over his shoulder telling him the best or proper way to whip up eggs for an omelet or scrambled eggs. He alone determines the ingredients and portions that go into the makings of pancake and waffle batter. He regulates the crispiness (or greasiness) of the bacon, sausage, scrapple or other breakfast meats sizzling on the grill. And that is just for breakfast!

Of course, timing is probably the most important skill, and perhaps the most difficult to master. Regardless of whether one is making eggs, cooking pancakes and waffles, or grilling burgers and other dishes, attention must be paid to cooking times so that everything is prepared and served in an orderly fashion. Sometimes there are warming stations to keep plated meals hot until they are served, but more often than not it is up to the cook to prepare the main and side dishes so that they can be served hot to the customer. This also means juggling several different orders so that they arrive at the counter or table together. Occasionally there will be a few moments when there is nothing on the grill and the cook will dispatch cooking scraps and other oddments with the edge of the omnipresent spatula or grill press.

I could sit there all day watching a good short order cook slinging hash. But the road was calling and we had many more miles to go before we reached Gainesville and the end of the day’s journey. But tomorrow is always a new day and there will be other roads and other diners beckoning us to stop and eat. And there will always be the next short-order cook to watch and marvel at his magic as he slings his hash onto my plate.

A Spring Hiatus in Florida

2011-03-15T22:34:00.008-04:00

My wife and and I have returned to Florida for a month of rest and relaxation in warmer climes. The drive down from Maryland (804 miles in 12 hours) was very relaxing . . . a beautiful day, very little traffic to speak of, a warm (and then a cool) car, and a good book to listen to as I watched the landscapes change with the gradual arrival of spring the farther south I drove. Stay tuned for "Dispatches from the Sunshine State" in the coming weeks.

Quilts For Kids: Empowerment and Education in Kathmandu

2011-03-10T12:33:00.016-05:00

James Hopkins is one of the sincerest and most humble individuals I have ever had the pleasure to meet. We have known each other for almost twenty years, since our years studying with the late Alaskan poet laureate John Haines. James is an interesting individual. After graduating from Duke University with a degree in French literature, he worked for 23 years as an investment broker in New York and Washington, DC. He retired in his early forties and six years ago relocated to Kathmandu where he studies Buddhism. Add to this the fact that he is an exquisite poet. But enough about James. I want to tell you about the good and righteous work he is doing.

Living in Asia he was troubled by the quality of life and limited possibilities of the people living around him. He discussed this with a local lama and asked how he might help and benefit his new neighbors. The lama gave him a simple answer. Go out and whoever appears in front of you help that person with whatever skills you have.

Wandering the street of Kathmandu James discovered an Indian street beggar camp located in the city’s Boudhanath neighborhood. Its inhabitants come from Punjab and Rajasthan, on India’s western border with Pakistan, and from Bihar state, situated along Nepal’s southeastern border. Living in what we would call poverty and squalor, James found the camp’s Hindu women working together to produce amazingly beautiful quilts and he realized that, with the right guidance and support, these women had a commodity they might sell to benefit their families and their community. Created and operated by James since 2006, “Quilts for Kids” is a successful micro-finance project which empowers impoverished women while at the same time providing a safe and secure education for their children: http://www.quiltsnepal.org/home.

The quilts are hand-stitched from scrap materials either found or purchased at local shops. Each quilt is unique in design, size and shape yet, as James tells us, “every stitch is done by hand and every flaw is made with love.” It normally takes three or four women an average of ten days to complete a quilt. While they work the women talk and share stories and information that are important for the viability of the local community.

James pays the women approximately US$40 for each quilt made. This money comes from his own pocket, and from sponsors, mostly in the United States. These transactions teach the women how they can market their traditionally crafted quilts and give them a stronger sense of self worth in a city and culture where they are more often than not marginalized. James then sells the quilts for US$140. The money donated by sponsors, and the payment provided by James, funds the salaries for the women, and 100% of the profits from the sale of each quilt goes to provide a quality education for one of their children. It pays tuition for one year at the local Kumari School and provides for a school uniform and shoes, books, a book bag and other supplies. This keeps the children off Kathmandu’s mean streets and gives them a promising alternative to begging. Recently donations have made it possible to construct a “study house” in the community where the children can come in the evening and find a safe and quiet place where they can do their homework lessons.

These are kids who want to go to school and want to succeed. It is heartwarming to watch these women work on their quilts, smiles on their faces as they carry on with their traditional craft amid conditions of extremity, knowing that each stitch on a quilt makes it possible for their children to have an opportunity for a better life. James has a vision and he is making it real. It is as easy as that.

In A Hungry Winter Season

2011-03-03T08:01:00.014-05:00

My dear friend John Haines passed away in Fairbanks yesterday evening. John was 86 and in failing health in recent months and it has been painful to follow his slow descent from so many miles away. I wish I could have been there to talk to him and tell him all the things I still had left to tell. Thankfully he was surrounded by good friends who read his poems to him in his final hours. As perhaps it should be, one of his early popular poems, “Winter News” was read as last rites.

They say the wells
are freezing
at Northway where
the cold begins.

Oil tins bang
as evening comes on,
and clouds of
steaming breath drift
in the street.

Men go out to feed
the stiffening dogs,

the voice of the snowman
calls the white-
haired children home.

For most of his life John cherished his solitude in the quietness of the natural world, yet he also celebrated his many friendships around the world. As one of his friends said upon learning of John’s passing. “Thankfully he did not lose himself in age.” He has been called home.

Born into a naval family in Norfolk, Virginia on June 29, 1924, John and his family moved around the United States before arriving in Washington, DC in 1938. He resided at the Old Washington Navy Yard, attended school in the city, and he always enjoyed his occasional return visits. He served in the United States Navy during World War II, first on a subchaser in the Atlantic before seeing service in the Pacific theater on board the destroyer USS Knapp. After the war he attended the National Art School in Washington before pulling up stakes in 1947 and moving to Alaska where he established a homestead at Mile 68 on the Richardson Highway, southeast of Fairbanks. There he constructed a simple cabin on a wooded hillside above the Tanana River. Although he would travel and teach in the Lower 48 throughout his life, he would always return to the Alaskan interior, his spiritual home for the rest of his life. Perhaps Dana Gioia said it best in his introduction to John’s New Poems: 1980-1988. “Many young men, hoping to become writers, embark on romantic lives in the wilderness. But exhausted by responsibilities, unsupported by colleagues, and hungry for human society, few have the discipline to achieve their literary ambitions. Through patience, strength, and uncommon intelligence, Haines did. He is virtually unique among the significant poets of his generation in having emerged outside of either the university or an urban bohemia.”

Just a month ago I joined Dana and others at the annual meeting of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs here in our nation's capital where we shared our recollections and stories in a touching tribute to the man and the poet. John was with us in spirit if not in body, and the warmth and good feelings in that room were palpable. In my closing remarks at the tribute I read John’s “Last Words on the Poet.”

He owed his enemies a debt of gratitude.
Enemy or friend, those who could not see,
excused from failure by their nature;
those who saw a little way, by laziness
or habit unable to see farther;
and those who followed nearby to the end,
then in some latent disposition
turned aside before their eyes knew light.

Acquaintance or relation, loved or not,
in ignorance and fear they set up walls
before him, switched the roadway signs
and sought to mine the very ground
beneath his feet. Some beckoned
from a pleasant meadow, bidding him
stay awhile; and others merely laughed
to see him climb the barriers,
stumbling at the crossways, and hesitate
before the smile and languor of reclining
ladies. But he could not condemn them,
their fortunes and solace were not his,
and likely enough their hearts
would have rejoiced if they had understood.

They had all served; their walls and
misdirections, snickerings and enticements,
only served to set his foot the firmer
and slowly teach his eyes to fasten
on the troubled slope ahead,
as tooth and claw develop keenness
in a hungry winter season.

Though blind before it all, his enemies
were spurs, through that perhaps
his friends; and those who turned away
disclosed the road he was to travel.

I told the audience of John’s condition and why he could not be with us that day. “John is now living in his own hungry winter season. He is afraid when his time runs out, he will be forgotten.” Little did I know at the time that perhaps John had written his own epitaph. Now I am haunted by these words.

I am the writer I am today due in large part to John and the decades of friendship he offered to me unconditionally. A man as hard and uncompromising as the Alaskan tundra yet in possession of a soft and tender heart, he was a rare presence and one that will be greatly missed. It was a good life lived the way he wanted to live it. I know he is in a better place, but I will miss his words and the images and feeling they have always aroused deep within me. John was a poet, of this there can be no doubt.

I rose and left that room,
the house of my grief
and my bondage, my book
never again to be opened.

To see as I once saw,
steadied by the darkness
in which I walked
and would make my way.

I am certain John is listening now. Rest in Peace, my friend.

The Cincinnati Kid

2011-02-25T23:44:00.013-05:00

I grew up a city kid. My folks moved around a lot when I was young and my early years were often spent in large apartment complexes like the kind that sprung up in and around America’s cities in the years of growth and prosperity that followed World War II. We first lived in older, more established apartment houses on the south and north sides of Chicago, my hometown, but we moved into newer quarters when we eventually settled in Kansas City, Detroit, Los Angeles, and finally in Cincinnati. I was young and so I do not have vivid recollections of some of these earlier places, but I do have very strong and resilient memories of our time in Cincinnati in the late 1950s.

Home was Swifton Village, a 1200 unit red brick apartment complex constructed around 1950 along Langdon Farm Road, on the city’s northeast side and not far from the old Cincinnati Gardens. It was hard to believe that this area was ever farmland. The apartments themselves were nothing fancy; a two-story square box with a small living room, dining room and kitchenette on the first floor and two small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. There was a small step-up front porch and a concrete stoop out back off the kitchen which faced onto a fenced-in asphalt playground surrounded by other apartment units and a long building housing individual garages. This was my home turf, where I hung out with my friends after school and on the weekends. I was a baby boom kid and so there was always a lot of kids my age to play with.

This was a different time and out parents allowed us to run far afield and our travels often took us to other playgrounds in the complex. We also managed to climb onto the roofs of the garage buildings and roamed the various basement laundry rooms looking for adventure (and occasionally trouble). I recall a bunch of us once picking dandelions growing on a grass commons located between two buildings and then wandering through the complex trying to sell our pretty little bouquets for quarters. Some people were not too pleased with our “vandalism” and complained to our parents. That was the end of that experiment in free enterprise. But there was always plenty of other things to do.

Our wanderings also took us to the new open-air Swifton Village Shopping Center, built a couple years before we arrived and situated along the western edge of the complex. There were all sorts of stores there and it was a fun place for kids to hang out. My barbershop was there and I remember sitting in the barber’s chair one day when I heard the news that Superman was dead. I ran home to tell my folks and they explained that George Reeves, who played Superman on television, had shot himself in Hollywood. There was also a new swimming pool between the complex and the shopping center and we spent many a summer day there.

When we first moved to the area in 1958, I attended Carthage Elementary School a few miles west of the complex. Each school day I would catch a city bus in front of our building for what seemed like a long trip up Seymour Avenue. And every afternoon the long trip home. The next year a new school, Swifton Primary, opened up just a few blocks away on Rhode Island Avenue and it was just a short walk from home. Most of the kids in the school were from the complex. So were some of the teachers.

Our next door neighbors just happened to be my teacher at Swifton Primary and her family. Can you imagine living next door to your teacher? My folks got a constant and running commentary of what old Stevie was up to in the classroom. That was a treat for me, I can tell you. Two episodes come immediately to mind. One day in class we were asked to write a short essay about what our parents did for a living. I knew my dad was some kind of an engineer (not the kind that drives trains I found out), so that was pretty easy. But mom stayed home during the day and I was not quite sure what she did. But I assumed that among other things she fixed stoves; she always seemed to be spending a lot of time around ours. It seemed logical to me at the time. Well, you guessed it. My teacher/neighbor knocked on the door one day and asked my mother if she would take a look at her stove. Mom did and told her it looked pretty much like ours. When asked if she could fix it, my mother grew perplexed until she found out why my teacher had come over in the first place. Now fast forward to my class art show. I had created a rather nice desert scene out of tempera paint, complete with cacti and a large butte (maybe it was a mesa). My teacher/neighbor praised my work to my parents during an evening PTA meeting and they told me they would hang it up when I brought it home. That day came and my teacher rolled up my painting and placed it a long cardboard tube. You know the kind . . . the one that acts and sounds like a giant kazoo as you march around the classroom blowing through it? Well, I went home that afternoon and my painting remained behind, stuffed in the classroom trash can. I can’t remember now whether I told my parents what happened, but I am quite sure the news reached our doorstep. Regardless, I think that was pretty much the end of my career as an artist. Don’t let that smiling face fool you. This is the Cincinnati Kid we are talking about.

I was really into baseball back then as were most of my buddies. After our dads got home from work we would frequently walk up to the nearby Gardens (where we also went to see the circus and the Ice Capades) to catch a bus down to Crosley Field to watch the Reds play. These were some of my earliest sports heroes - Roy McMillan, Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Smoky Burgess, Orlando Pena and so many others. In fact, some of the Reds lived in Swifton Village and we would occasionally see one or the other during our playday forays throughout the complex.

When we left Cincinnati for Asheville, North Carolina, in the spring of 1960, we moved into the first house of our own. There was a front and back lawn and lots of trees. The Cincinnati Kid had moved on to greener pastures. Swifton Village fell on hard times in the 1960s and early 1970s with white flight to the suburbs. Crime became rampant and eventually most of the complex was empty and in disrepair. A few years ago it was completely torn down and replaced with new single family homes with lawns and trees. Both Carthage and Swifton schools are closed and up for sale. I have never been back and it looks like Thomas Wolfe was right in this case. I could not go home again even if I wanted to. But the memories are strong and pleasant.

A Little Taste of Turkey

2011-02-16T16:25:00.010-05:00

A couple of days ago my good friend Michael Stewart and I took a photographic safari through the Potomac valley above Washington, DC. These spur-of-the-moment road trips frequently take us to various diners and greasy spoons where we like to sample the simple but tasty fare offered in equally simple surroundings. This trip was no different and we enjoyed a late breakfast at a small, rather nondescript eatery in Cumberland, Maryland before wandering the quiet streets and nearby train yard. It was a breakfast to die for, and, considering the calories, one that could be equally lethal. Afterwards we continued to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia and through the farms and vineyards of northern Loudoun County in Virginia. Later in the afternoon we found ourselves in Leesburg, Virginia and looking for another place to rest and enjoy a small repast and a cold beer. Michael, who is well-versed in the location and offerings of these local joints, suggested a stop at the Döner Bistro on the edge of downtown Leesburg. It sounded good to me.

The place was opened in 2008 as the successor to the popular Mighty Midget Kitchen, a small burger and barbeque joint opened at a nearby intersection back in 1946. Fashioned out of scrap metal taken from a surplus World War II B-17 bomber, the original “kitchen” was only large enough to accommodate one or two people taking and preparing take-out orders while the actual cooking was done on a smoker grill out back. The Mighty Midget moved to its present location in 1987 but eventually closed a few years later. It was reopened in 1996 and continued to operate until 2007 when it closed again. In the meantime, a couple of local entrepreneurs originally from Germany mourned the fact that there was no place to find Turkish-style doner kebab in Leesburg and environs. They launched Hamburg Döner (the adding of an umlaut was a nice Germanic touch) in 2006, selling them out of a converted van in a city parking lot.. The next year they took over the defunct Mighty Midget Kitchen and began preparing meals in the original scrap metal structure and serving them in the adjacent outdoor beer garden or inside at the bar and small dining room. In 2009 the establishment was renamed Döner Bistro.

In addition to its wide selection of traditional German fast food dishes such as Bratwurst, Schnitzel and Currywurst, Döner Bistro’s unique offering is the Döner Kebab, or simply a Döner. Although originally a popular Turkish street food consisting of marinated meat (usually lamb or chicken) grilled on a vertical spit and then sliced and served over rice, the German version (with umlaut), which was created by a Turkish immigrant in Berlin in the early 1970s and which is served at the Döner Bistro, is quite different when you break it down. The meat is tangy with Turkish spices and is served with salad and a German-style herb and garlic sauce and wrapped in a piece of warm flatbread. It resembles the Greek gyro, or souvlakia, which are both served with pita bread, but the Döner is an altogether different eating experience.

Snow was piled up around the entrance when we arrived and it was still a bit chilly to eat outside in the beer garden so we chose to sit in the tiny bar where we ordered our meal and enjoyed one of the many German beers available on draft and in bottles while listening to German techno-pop and watching the news about the revolution in Cairo. I chose one of my favorite beers, a Warsteiner Pilsner, and we chatted with a young fellow from Hamburg who was working the bar and who took our order. I told him I had never had a Döner before. I guess I had encountered and eaten them when I was traveling in Turkey and just assumed they were gyros (I was not into food back then like I am now). He told me that it is the number one fast food in Germany. Now I lived and studied in Germany in the early 1970s and I have traveled there several times since, but I had to confess that I had never heard of it. I thought I was familiar with the standard fare found in the ubiquitous Schnellimbiss [fast food joint or snack bar] throughout Germany, but I guess the Döner had not yet reached my stomping grounds in southern Germany before I left to return to the USA. Since my visit to the Döner Bistro I have spoken with friends in Germany and they have confirmed the overwhelming popularity of the Döner. Now I know. Better late than never they always say.

Wienermobiles and Whistles

2011-01-21T09:21:00.014-05:00

A few days ago I posted my paean to bacon and so I have been thinking a lot about meat lately. And how can you think about meat and not reflect fondly on the hot dog? It is perhaps the most American of foods, a staple of summer picnics and cookouts. Humphrey Bogart once stated that “a hot dog at the ball park is better than steak at the Ritz." I can’t imagine going to a ball game and not finishing off a dog or two washed down by an ice cold beer. And growing up in the Midwest, I cannot think about hotdogs, or bacon for that matter, without evoking the name of Oscar Mayer, who, come to think of it, is also the King of Bologna as the 1973 advertising jingle reminds us - “My bologna (pronounced “baloney”) has a first name, it’s O-s-c-a-r, my bologna has a second name, it’s M-a-y-e-r . . . .” Can you see where I am going with this?

And who can forget the well-known 1963 “wiener song”?
Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener,
that is what I'd truly like to be,
'cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener,
everyone would be in love with me.
I have very fond memories of Oscar Mayer hotdogs in my youth. Hot dogs and Oscar Mayer went together. Our refrigerator was always stocked with its hot dogs, bacon (oooooooo . . . bacon), and other sliced sandwich meats in packages displaying the familiar red and mustard yellow Oscar Mayer logo.

These meat products trace their origins to the German-styled charcuterie produced by the Mayer brothers who brought their recipes from Germany to America shortly after the Civil War and who worked in the meat-packing business, first in Detroit and later around the stockyards on Chicago’s South Side. They later established a meat market on that city’s North Side and sold their meat products under the “Edelweiss” trademark, beginning in 1904. This changed to “Oscar Mayer Approved Meat Products,” in 1918, and the following year the brothers purchased a meat packing plant on the east side of Madison, Wisconsin. A few years later they opened a similar operation in Milwaukee. The rest is history.

In 1912, the company began to use a Model T Ford to deliver meats in and around Chicago, and in 1936 it came up with a new marketing strategy . . . using an automobile chassis onto which an oversized body in the shape of a hot dog was affixed. Dubbed the “Wienermobile,” this 27-foot motorized hot dog originally traveled around Chicago promoting the company’s “German-style wieners” and the wholesome goodness of its meats.

I got up close and personal with the Oscar Mayer Company (which is now a division of Kraft Foods and probably owned by the Chinese if you look deep enough), in the summer of 1965, when my family moved to Maple Bluff, an insular suburb of Madison on the shores of Lake Mendota. Prevailing winds out of the east would bring with them a redolent reminder of the company’s packing plant - the scent of countless cookouts and breakfasts gone by. The kids of the corporate chairman, a great grandson of the original Oscar Mayer, and the then company president were my classmates at Sherman Junior High School (later Sherman Middle School and now the Malcolm Shabazz City High School) which stands almost in the shadows of the packing plant, as does the old ice arena on Commercial Avenue where I use to play hockey after school.

I had heard of and seen pictures of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile when I was a youngster, but it was during my time in Madison that I saw one up close for the first time at a fall festival held at Tenney Park. I had always thought that there was one Wienermobile driven by the one and only Little Oscar. That is how it all started out, anyway. As it turned out, by the time I had my first encounter of the Wienermobile kind, it was one of a growing fleet of Weinermobiles piloted by a phalanx of Little Oscars. And on that day in Tenney Park I discovered that the father of one of my other classmates was a member of the Little Oscar fraternity and in command of the Wienermobile on site. At the end of the day, I had the honor of riding with my friend and his dad on the trip back up Sherman Avenue to return the Wienermobile to its garage near the packing plant. As a parting gift, Little Oscar (at least the one I got to meet and talk to) gave me my very own Wiener Whistle cast in the image of the iconic Wienermobile.

Now the Wienermobile fleet is crewed by “Hotdoggers” trained at Hot Dog High, in Madison. What I would have given to have a diploma from HDHS to go along with my Wiener Whistle. A few years later, when I attended high school in Richmond, Indiana, we regularly played Frankfort High School, the “Home of the Hot Dogs.” I guess that might have been the next best thing.

The Wienermobile has been updated and modernized several times over the years. Al Unser took one of them on a test lap at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1988 and clocked speeds in excess of 90 mph. Now, that is a fast wiener in anybody’s book. In these hard economic times a wise shopper tends to select store brands over the big name products. I seldom buy Oscar Mayer products anymore, but every time I see the familiar logo I think back to the old days and the backyard cookouts and the Wienermobile with Little Oscar at the wheel. Maybe in my next life I will come back as an Oscar Mayer hotdog. Everyone would be in love with me.

Salty, Smoky, and Greasy As Sin

2011-01-18T08:42:00.010-05:00

Not long ago a friend noted on Facebook that people often demur when asked if they want bacon, yet if you cook it and serve it unannounced, “it will magically find a home. Bacon is persuasive.” I never really thought about it in those terms, but there is not a small measure of truth in it.

Let’s me be honest up front. I love bacon. As I said when I responded to my friend’s Facebook posting, I will take bacon anytime, anywhere, under any circumstance, regardless of the time of day, the day of the week, the season of the year, offered or withheld. I will beg, maybe even steal, for a rasher of bacon. It can be thin or thick sliced, hickory or maple smoked, sugar cured or not. I really don’t care. Well, I guess this is not entirely true. I will draw the line on Canadian-styled bacon. Don’t get me wrong. I will eat it and I enjoy it, but it is sliced ham in my book. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not bacon and don’t let anyone (especially Canadians) tell you otherwise. The same goes for “turkey bacon.” It looks and kind of tastes like bacon; it even smells and sizzles like bacon when it is frying in the pan. But don’t be fooled by this. It is not bacon! It does not have the fat, the salt, even the nitrates of real pork bacon. Some might say for these very reasons it is better for you. I am quite certain this is true, but we are not talking nutrition here folks! We are talking about bacon, the true essence of bacon. the greasy, salty, why the hell am I eating this stuff that’s bad for me bacon. When it is all said and done, I find I must agree with Homer Simpson - “Porkchops and bacon, my two favorite animals.” Well, bacon anyway. A final word from Homer on the eating and enjoying of real bacon. “You know that feeling you get when a thousand knives of fire are stabbing you in the heart? I’m having that right now . . . Ooh, bacon, unexplained bacon!” I love bacon!!

There are those who can quote chapter and verse why you should not eat
bacon. One of the people who commented on my friend’s Facebook entry noted that she had read somewhere that when vegetarians fall off their self imposed refusal to eat meat, more often than not bacon (real bacon) is the culprit. The popular Wisconsin (where they eat a lot of bacon) columnist Doug Larson once wrote that "life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." The late James Beard, the noted chef and food critic who, along with Julia Child, brought gourmet French cooking to the United States after World War II, had long confessed that “if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs. There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon . . . Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing." As my friend
commented on Facebook - “bacon is persuasive.”

It is also becoming pervasive. It is not just strips of pork bacon frying in a pan anymore. It has also long been used to wrap other foods. Think of filet mignon Then there is bacon-wrapped shrimp, scallops and oysters; bacon-wrapped pork roast, bacon-wrapped chestnuts and dates; bacon-wrapped asparagus; and one of my all-time favorites - bacon-wrapped hot dogs. And I just discovered what could very well be a new favorite . . . the bacon-wrapped corndog, a version of which one connoisseur has christened the “porndog” because the batter contains hot peppers and other “sinful” ingredients. And don’t forget bacon-flavored seasoning for those dishes that just seem to be missing that finishing touch, or bacon bits for your salad or sprinkled over other culinary offerings. There is also the obvious combination . . . bacon-wrapped bacon (and bacon-wrapped bacon-wrapped bacon, and on and on). Let us not overlook foods not normally associated with its crispy goodness: bacon-wrapped Twinkies, bacon-flavored donuts and other pastries, bacon-flavored ice cream and Jelly Bellies. I understand there is a vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco that serves coffee brewed with bacon. James Beard would have loved that before heading to the gibbet. And what do you do when you find the need, after feasting on bacon, to dislodge those crunchy little bacon bits that wedge between your teeth? Bacon-flavored dental floss. Yes, there is bacon-flavored dental floss. Oh, the humanity!

I am reminded of the late cowboy poet and former poet laureate of South Dakota, Charles “Badger” Clark, Jr., whose poem “Bacon” can be found in his Sun and Saddle Leather (1915).

You’re salty and greasy and smoky as sin
But of all grub we love you the best.
You stuck to us closer than the nighest of kin
And helped us win out in the West.
. . .
You’ve sizzled by mountain and mesa and plain
Over campfires of sagebrush and oak;
The breezes that blow from the Platte to the main
Have carried your savory smoke.

How much more persuasive can one food be?

But we love you and swear by you yet.
Here’s to you, old bacon, fat, lean streak and rin.’
All the westerners join in the toast,
From mesquite and yucca to sagebrush and pine,
From Canada down to the Mexican Line,
From Omaha out to the coast!

Yes, bacon is one of my favorite animals. To quote Homer. “Ohhhhh . . . . .. Bacon.”

It's Googleable

2011-01-16T05:16:00.003-05:00

What a wonderful new word . . . something capable of being found during a Google search, probably the most comprehensive and used Internet search engine. I can think of only very rare occurrences when I have typed in search terms and not come up with a “ghit,” or Google hit, on something even remotely connected to my intended search. The transitive verb “to google” has been used almost since the inception of this search engine and it has become a part of our everyday speech. The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, called it the “most useful word” in North American English in 2002. In fact it has become synonymous with web searches regardless of which search engine is being used. “Google” has also been incorporated in other phrases having to do with the use of the search engine, such as the frequently used “Google Bomb,” “Googlewashing,” or “Google bowling,” all of which have to do with the intentional high ranking of websites turned up during a Google search. I find this all quite fascinating.

But I must confess that I have not heard the adjective “googleable” used before this weekend, although I guess it makes sense. If you can have a verb, why not an adjective? So I looked into it and sure enough there are folks out there that use this term regularly. There is also the derivative noun “googleability” which is the ease with which information about a person or thing can be found on an Internet search engine (not just through Google).

How did I find this information? By running a Google search of course. Doing so I found literally dozens of googleable words using “google” as a base. Here are a few of my favorites: “Googleheimer’s” - signing on to Google and then forgetting what you were going to google; “googlescrewed” - to look up directions on Google Maps and get lost when you follow them; “googlebator” - someone who googles their own name; and “googlechondria” - looking up your physical symptoms on Google. There are also some Google-based afflictions: “Googlerrhea” - looking up the definition of “Google,”and “Googler’s Remorse” - when you look up something and the search terms gives you results that you neither requested nor want. I will leave that one to your own imagination.

So I really opened up a Pandora’s box, and afraid of coming down with my own version of Googler’s Remorse, I decided to stop while I was ahead. I wonder what search terms folks will have to use for this blog posting to come up? What is its inherent googleability? Do I even want it to be googleable? It’s up to you. Whenever the “googletunity” strikes you.

From Cyberspace Came the Six Thousand

2011-01-10T17:50:00.003-05:00

Today the number of viewer hits for Looking Toward Portugal surpassed the 6000 mark. I appreciate everyone who has tuned in over the past two years and I hope you will continue to do so. I have received a number of interesting and rewarding comments from some of you and I am gratified that these random thoughts have resonated with so many. Thank you!

Pardon Me?

2011-01-06T18:41:00.011-05:00

“Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.” August words from the Russian novelist and playwright Maxim Gorky. We are taught from an early age to turn the other cheek and we should all strive to do this. But perhaps this gesture should be reserved for those who might receive at least a modicum of relief from such charity. You would think that, in this day and age, our politicians would have more important things to do than consider the pardoning of individuals who have been taking the big dirt nap for decades. I do not object to the act of pardoning a transgressor, but let’s take a look at the facts, or what we believe them to be.

Charles Crist, the Republican turned independent governor of Florida who left office earlier this week, was seeking perhaps one last grand gesture before relinquishing the reigns of power in Tallahassee. Governor Crist, who since 2007 had considered the pardoning of Jim Morrison, the former lead singer and factotum of the legendary band The Doors, finally asked the state’s Board of Executive Clemency to consider such a pardon. Unfortunately, Morrison died in Paris in July 1971 and remains dead nearly forty years later. Or does Governor Crist know something the rest of us don’t?

Two years before his death, during a concert in a Miami auditorium in March 1969, Morrison dropped his black leather pants and allegedly presented himself in flagrante delicto. The public outcry was immediate and intense and the local district attorney charged Morrison with a felony count of lewd and lascivious behavior along with more minor misdemeanor counts. Morrison eventually surrendered to the FBI (was this a federal offense?) and was subsequently tried in 1970, convicted only on the misdemeanor counts of profanity and indecent exposure, and sentenced to a monetary fine and six months in jail. He appealed his sentence and was released on bail. Not long after that he moved to Paris where he died before his appeal was heard. The conviction has stood for four decades.

In early December the Clemency Board acceded to the request by Governor Crist who, like many, including other members of the band, never believed Morrison had actually exposed himself. The Board voted unanimously to issue a pardon to the long dead Door a day after what would have been his 67th birthday. The pardon does not really address whether a “crime” was actually committed in the first place and this oversight has left a bad aftertaste for those who still believe Morrison was falsely charged. We can hope that Morrison may find a more peaceful rest as a result of Governor Crist’s largesse.

Not to be outdone, the former Democratic governor of New Mexico , Bill Richardson, who stepped down on New Year’s Day, considered as one of his last official acts a pardon for William Bonney (aka Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, but best known as Billy the Kid) who died almost 130 years ago. One had to admit that Governor Richardson’s decision was fraught with more serious implications since Billy’s transgressions were slightly more serious than genitalia gone wild. Depending on your source of preference, Billy is alleged to have killed between 9 and 21 men, including three law enforcement officers, during his short life (he was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in July 1881 at the tender age of 21). The pardon under consideration was not for all of Billy’s alleged crimes. In fact, it was not so much a pardon as a belated amnesty from prosecution for the murder of the Lincoln County sheriff supposedly pledged by New Mexico territorial governor Lew Wallace in 1880 if Billy agreed to testify about other murders he had witnessed. Billy cooperated, yet the amnesty was never granted and Billy was eventually convicted of the sheriff’s murder and sentenced to be hanged. He escaped before the execution could be carried out, killing two deputies in the process. The entire question of the amnesty became moot when Garret shot and killed Billy a few months later.

Governor Richarson, unlike his Florida colleague, did not rely on the serious deliberations or good judgement of a state clemency board. Rather, he established a special website where any individual could go and register an opinion on whether a pardon/amnesty should be granted. Just over 800 individuals voted with a slight majority favoring the pardon. Richardson, in the final hours of his term in office, and citing inconclusive proof that Wallace had actually offered Billy amnesty, chose to ignore the supporters of amnesty and many historians by denying the amnesty/pardon. Old Billy, I am sure, does not care much one way or the other. But some good came out of this exercise. “It’s good for tourism,” Governor Richardson claimed. “It’s gotten great publicity for the state.” If he says so.

Governors Crist and Richardson remained true to that sage advice offered
by John Dryden in “The Conquest of Granada.” “Forgiveness to the injured does belong; But they ne’er pardon who have done wrong.” I know I sleep better knowing that justice has prevailed.

A New Day, A New Year, A New Decade . . . A New Start?

2011-01-01T08:46:00.005-05:00

It seems like only yesterday everyone was talking about the advent of a new century and worried about Y2K and the end of life as we know it. Well, it has been a tumultuous decade for sure. Little did we know just how much our lives were going to change so quickly. Ten years can make a big difference.

Now just about everything we do and think is governed by a new reality ushered in by the events of September 11, 2001 and this country’s war on international terrorism. We now find ourselves at war in Iraq (don’t let anyone tell you it is over, not as long as Americans continue to die there) and in Afghanistan (nine years and counting). We can no longer travel freely and without fear in our own country. We can no longer say or write what we believe without fearing that we will be labeled “unpatriotic” by those who feel they represent and speak for all Americans, those who want to take America back to its core values by voicing platitudes without backing them up with action. Talk is cheap, and if you look around, it seems to me they want to take more away than give back to us our American birth right. Fear seems to govern everything we do and by giving in to it, we are capitulating to the merchants of fear at home and abroad, those who will take because we are too afraid to defend what is rightfully ours.

I am reminded of another time when America stood on a similar brink. The country had been devastated by the Great Depression and the specter of totalitarianism was beginning to spread its long fingers across Europe with the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in early 1933 and during his inaugural speech he addressed the American people “with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels.” His words that day still ring true:
This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

It is time for our current leaders to speak with equal candor and decision. We should all do what we feel is right to make our country great again. Not red states or blue states, but united states. We must do what is necessary so that we can once again live without fear. So now, as we begin a new year, a new decade of the 21st century, we wonder what lies ahead of us. More of the same? I certainly hope not. There’s the word . . . “Hope.” Time for a new start. Let us not abandon our hope for a better time to come. We must all work together again, just as FDR urged the American people to give up petty differences for the common good.
It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in and parts of the United States of America - a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that recovery will endure.
Let us all work together to make 2011 a watershed year, a benchmark in our history, when “they” and “us” once again become “we.”

Wishing You a Festive Holiday Season

2010-12-24T16:10:00.002-05:00

Wishing all of my gentle readers a very festive holiday season. May you seek peace and tranquility among your family and friends.
नमस्ते / Namaste
Steve

Celebration of the Second Anniversary of Looking Toward Portugal

2010-11-25T01:59:00.004-05:00

Today marks the second anniversary of Looking Toward Portugal, a collection of occasional postings begun on a whim on a quiet evening in Gainesville, Florida where we were spending the Thanksgiving holiday. A few days letter I posted a few reminiscences of a trip to Marjorie Kinnan Rawling’s nearby farm and citrus grove in Cross Creek. Since then these postings have run the gamut from descriptions of other road trips past and present, reflections on foods both domestic and exotic, remembrances of distant childhood years and friends and family now gone, and musings on favorite writers and poets and the places they lived and wrote about. I have enjoyed writing and sharing them with all of you, and I have been gratified by the reception they have found from a wide and sometime unexpected audience. I look forward to sharing more of these random thoughts in the future. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you will continue to do so.

A Fading Memory of Camelot

2010-11-22T12:51:00.006-05:00

This morning I came across an interesting column by Walter Shapiro, and his lead sentence grabbed me. “The answer - even though I have not been asked the question in perhaps 15 years - is high school chemistry class.” He is referring to the question so many of my generation and older have been asked over the years. Where were you when you heard the news that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas that fateful day 47 years ago?

I can no longer remember when I was last asked this question, but my answer was immediate and always the same. I was sitting in Mr. Ballard’s math class at David Millard Junior High School, in Asheville, North Carolina. The rumors and guessing began almost immediately. Was the story true? Had the President been wounded? Was he dead? We could not believe that the reports we were hearing were true. Soon enough we learned that they were. I was sitting in art class when the teacher left the room for a minute or two only to return with tears in her eyes. She did not have to tell us anything more. All of this was difficult for a 12 year old boy to fathom. What happens now? We were told to go home and be with our families.

Being in school when the news broke, I did not see Walter Cronkite sitting before the television camera that afternoon, taking his glasses on and off as he reported the events in Dallas that culminated in his choked up announcement that the young President was dead. It was a long, quiet walk to the downtown bus terminal on Pack Square. The streets and sidewalks were eerily vacant as the autumn leaves rustled in the breeze. When I arrived home I found my mother sitting before the televison set as Cronkite continued to describe what had happened. Dad eventually came home from work and for the next three days we watched as the United States and the world came to terms with the gravity of what had occurred in Dallas. Shapiro is correct when he says that the “memories of that terrible weekend are an inescapable part of who I am today.” They are impossible memories to erase.

The following spring I traveled with my class to the New York World’s Fair and on the way home to North Carolina we stopped for a two-day visit to Washington, DC. We visited all the monuments, but it was the trip across the Potomac River to Arlington Cemetery that remains clearest in my memory. There we filed pass Kennedy’s grave on a quiet hillside below the Custis-Lee Mansion. From there we had a panoramic view of city. The grave was not the massive marble plaza it is today. Then it was a simple mound of evergreen branches surrounding the Eternal Flame ignited the day he was buried and a lone bugler chirped a broken note during the playing of Taps. Just a few days ago I drove across Memorial Bridge, the one the funeral cortege used that day. The flame still flickers over the city at night.

It was Chaucer who suggested that time heals all wounds. It did not seem like one would ever recover from the events of November 22, 1963. But we have. The shining days of Camelot have been dimmed by the scrutiny of history and a succession of other tragedies that have awakened us to the dangerous and unpredictable times in which we live. Two generations have grown into adulthood and middle age since those black and white images greeted us on that late autumn weekend 47 years ago. Now we ask each other - “Where were you on September 11, 2001?”

Yet, for those of us who can remember where we were when we heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot and killed, we recognize to this very day that it was then we perhaps lost our innocence. Nothing would ever be the same again. This is something to reflect upon despite the passage of time and the dimming of memories.

Live Free or Fry

2010-11-13T12:43:00.006-05:00

When I first started this “blog” almost two years ago, I pledged to myself that I would steer clear of politics and other questionable activities. And I have remained true to this promise. Well, until now. And what I am writing here is not really politics, per se, although politics will surely play a significant roll in this before it’s all over.

Anyone who has followed these postings over the past two years will know how strongly I feel about the Great North Woods of northern New Hampshire (as well as adjacent areas of northern Vermont and western Maine). These areas are still covered with endless miles of forested hills interrupted occasionally with river valleys dotted with small villages and farms that have been in families for generations. I visit this region as often as my schedule permits and I have come to think of it as a spiritual home. Truly God’s Country! One can stand on any hilltop and look in any direction and see nothing but hills, forests and lakes. It is hard to fathom the possibility that this might all change if the power companies have their way.

In early October it came as a shock to those who call the North Country home when they learned that Hydro-Québec, the provincial-owned Canadian energy giant, and Northeast Utilities and its subsidiary Public Services of New Hampshire [PSNH], in the United States, had entered into a partnership known as “Northern Pass.” It would establish high-tension power routing 1,200 megawatts of electricity from a hydro project near Sherbrooke, Québec, across the international border at Pittsburg, New Hampshire, and then down the length of the state, through the Connecticut River valley and the White Mountains to a converter station in Franklin, and finally to Deerfield. From there the electricity would be distributed into the New England regional power grid. None of this electricity would benefit the people of North Country yet they would have to watch their magnificent landscapes and view sheds be ruined by a 150-foot clear-cut swath through their hills, forests and valleys and 130-foot tall towers carrying the new high-tension power lines.

Although PSNH had established its proposed route across New Hampshire, something the people of New Hampshire knew nothing about until now, the last few miles of the route, from just north of Colebrook to Canadian border in Pittsburg, have not been announced, nor has Hydro-Québec, which is studying the route through Canada, informed the good folks on that side of the border where it intends to run the lines nor has it established the border crossing. This said, all concerned parties in the US have only until December 16 to registers comments and/or opposition to the Northern Pass project before hearings are scheduled in the coming months. How is it possible to comment on a project for which concrete route information is not yet available?

But this has not stopped the people of the North Country, as well as a growing number of Canadians, from voicing their opposition to Northern Pass. Over the past weeks they have been showing up in growing numbers at meetings of the boards of selectmen in communities that will be impacted by this project to put their questions and concerns to PSNH representatives. Besides their worries about esthetics, they also want to know about the possible drop in property values in an area already struggling in these hard economic times. What about easements and the possibility that eminent domain will be applied to those who don’t want these lines going through their properties?

They are also organizing and networking as they prepare for the battles to come over this project. Concerned Citizens Against the Powerlines have scheduled an organizational meeting in Colebrook this coming week. There is also a Facebook page - “Stop The Northern Pass - No High Tension Power Lines in Coos County” - which is serving as a sounding board for those opposed to this project. A similar project was defeated almost thirty years ago when a less-organized opposition forced the power companies to go through Vermont before crossing into southern New Hampshire. Why can’t these new lines use existing right-of-ways? Why can’t they be buried? What about the potentially dangerous effects on the health of those who live near these lines? The verdict is still out on this. There are lot of questions that need to be answered, and the good people of the North Country will not sit still until they get the answers they expect and deserve. Let us not forget that this area established an independent Indian Stream Republic back in the 1830s when neither the newly- established United States nor British Canada represented their best interests. These folks are still fiercely independent. I wish them well. They deserve better than they are getting.

So now I will step down off my soapbox. I have said what needed to be said. But don’t be surprised if I step up again in the coming months. This ain’t over by a long shot!

Where Are You Going My Little One?

2010-11-06T23:16:00.006-04:00

As I sit here at the hotel in Dumfries, Virginia this evening, I am flooded with memories of two of the most memorable days of my life, both of which occurred here in northern Virginia. We have lived in Maryland for the past 34 years yet this near yet foreign land holds sway over us. Tonight I am reminded of the song “Turn Around,” written by Harry Belafonte, and which became popular several decades ago as a commercial ditty. Our son Ian (our one and only) was married this afternoon in a beautiful ceremony held just down the road, in Quantico, Virginia. The wedding comes just four days before his 29th birthday. Where have all those years gone? It seems like only yesterday I watched Ian come into the world on a cold, gray November morning.

Learning that Sally Ann was pregnant in the spring of 1981, we prepared for an eventual delivery at the Columbia Hospital for Women, one of the oldest hospitals in Washington, DC established shortly after the Civil War. We had even toured the maternity ward in preparation for that blessed day. Not long before Ian was born, our OB-GYN moved her practice to Northern Virginia and we went with her. Ironically, this hospital, where over a quarter of a million babies were delivered during its long and distinguished history, closed its doors permanently in May 2002 and the building has been transformed into an upscale condominium complex.

So, when the contractions came in the wee hours of November 10, 1981, we began what seemed to be a timeless journey from our suburban Maryland apartment to Arlington Hospital (now the Virginia Hospital Center). We had just been to that hospital the previous morning for a sonogram, and all too soon we found ourselves in the very same birthing room where Ian entered the world at 11:57am on that overcast morning. Now fast forward almost three decades. Ian was raised at our home in Mount Rainier, Maryland and attended the local public schools from which he graduated in 1999. He followed in his dad’s footsteps and attended the University of Maryland and graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology (I received my doctorate at Maryland in 1984). Ian got a job and has continued to live and work in Maryland . . . about a half hour away over in Montgomery County. It was there he met Katie, a Virginia girl, who, as it turns out, has become the love of his life. Just a year ago, shortly before Thanksgiving, he popped the question, and today we have returned to Virginia to watch Ian and Katie begin their life together and to celebrate with family and friends who came great distances to share in our happiness.

It was a beautiful day for a wedding. Autumn came late this year and so the fall foliage is still at its peak color. Sitting in the church during the ceremony I looked at Ian standing up there and remembered when he was born not too many miles away. That day suddenly came back to me in every small detail. I looked down at him in his crib and wondered what his life would be like, what would he become. And now I know. He has grown into the man I always hoped and knew he would be. This evening at the reception I watched him dance with his mother and I can’t think of a moment I was prouder of him. Sally Ann and I wish him and Katie every happiness in the world.
__________
Photograph by Michael G. Stewart

A Sherwin-Williams Day

2010-11-02T22:12:00.027-04:00

Late October and it was time to once again look toward Chesapeake Bay and the autumn rockfish (striped bass) migration through the Bay. My son Ian and I had fished together during the spring trophy season, but he is getting married in just a few days and so he was not able to join me on this latest outing. But there is always next spring and we will certainly fish together again soon.

Some of the usual suspects, and a couple new faces, arrived at the marina on Tilghman Island around 6:30am to load our gear on board the “Nancy Ellen.” Moored nearby were two workboats preparing to take a large party out to hunt sea ducks. We stood along the stern sipping coffee in the early morning darkness watching these hunters arrive, one of them decked out in full Scottish regalia, and commenting on who - anglers or hunters - would have the better day on the water.

We threw off our ropes and slipped our mooring into Knapp’s Narrow for the short trip down to Harris Creek and into the broad mouth of the Choptank River. The sun was just beginning to rise above the eastern horizon as we motored past the sleeping village of Tilghman to starboard. Soon we were rounding the southern end of Tilghman Island at Fairbanks and Black Walnut Point and passing into the open Bay. As we did, Captain Bill Fish was keeping a watchful eye, staring through his binoculars toward Cook’s Point and the southern shoreline of the Choptank River and observing the movement of birds across the water. They are the tell-tale signs of where the fish might be.

The previous day’s strong winds had churned the Chesapeake into a froth of whites caps and sea spray as I crossed the Bay Bridge from Annapolis to Kent Island and I was afraid the trip might be canceled. Earlier in the month we had come to Tilghman to catch a boat out to Poplar Island but the rough seas forced it to remain at its slip in the Narrows. Fortunately, the winds calmed somewhat overnight and both the river and the Bay had a pretty good chop with a steady breeze blowing out of the southwest. When not gazing through his binoculars, Captain Fish was in constant contact by radio and cellphone with other captains. “Looked good here the other day,” he commented to the others. “We are not fishing the other day” came a reply from one of the boats.

After an hour or so on the water we arrived off the mouth of the Little Choptank River where we joined a growing fleet of boats, most of them from the Western Shore. We all jockeyed for position as we watched for the arrival of the fish. Baitfish were passing beneath us in growing numbers and birds worked the surface in search of an easy meal. It was not long before we began to spot rockfish moving into False Channel. At 8:30am Captain Fish gave us the signal to “drop the junk in the water” and we were soon trolling a slough known to the local crabbers and fishermen as the James Island stone piles with white Shassy Shad and a chartreuse bug recently concocted by the good captain.

The first fish hit after trolling for 15 minutes - 17 inches, a nice fish but too short by an inch. Back over the side it went. A few more tossers hit before I landed the day’s first keeper squeaking by at just over 18 inches. How cruel are the fates that a fraction of an inch can make the difference between freedom and the cooler. It looked like we had found a promising but precarious spot for fish as we maneuvered among sets of crab pots scattered among the rock piles and shallow ledges northwest of James Island. We had fished this general area back in May during the trophy season, but then in deeper water, closer to the shipping channel. Now we were watching for rocks as well as fish and we lost lengths of expensive fishing line and a few rigs that snagged on bottom structure or a derelict crab pot while landing several more fish . . . a few for the cooler and more returned to the water to be caught another day. Those are the breaks.

Slack tide arrived mid morning and the birds disappeared and with them the fish. We kept trolling the shoals but the only thing to come aboard were a couple of blue crab. With only three fish in the cooler after two hours of fishing, the captain broke out an umbrella rig as we reset our lines at different lengths and depths. This became a time of mostly quiet reflection as we watched and listened to what the other boats were doing (not much) and Captain Fish tried to figure where we might go to get back on the fish. Some dozed or nibbled on the provision we had brought with us. I sat in the wheelhouse with the captain and made a few notes.

This was my fourth trip with Captain Fish. He sees me coming like a chef sees a restaurant critic sitting at one of his tables. I pull out my pocket notebook and the captain closes his eyes and gently shakes his head. “Oh no, what is he going to write about this time?” No worries. The captain always puts us on the fish and he wants his sports to come home with fish in the cooler. But whether they are large or small, keepers or tossers, in my book they are all fun to catch. And even if there is not a single fish in the cooler when we arrive back at the dock, it was a great day to be out on the water. Good friends, great scenery and a captain who knows his stuff. He has nothing to fear from my pen.

With a flooding tide the baitfish and the rockfish returned and we moved south of James Island and into deeper water. For every fish that went into the cooler we returned three or four to the water. The action was quick as we continued to move our rigs around. By 1:45pm we had eight fish in the cooler as the wind and the chop returned. We needed two more to make our limit and we finally had these by 3pm when it was time to make our way back to Tilghman Island. As we pulled our “junk” aboard and stowed our gear, someone commented that it was a perfect “Sherwin-Williams” day. We had “covered the world” looking for fish and we were going home tired but with smiles on our faces. The tossers were fun to catch and I did not mind setting them free. I look forward to making their acquaintance again when they have grown up a little bit. Maybe in the spring.

That evening we had rockfish for dinner before I headed back across the Bay and home. Captain Fish had filleted our catch upon our return to the dock and these were broiled and served with roasted red potatoes. The meal you eat today was asleep last night in Chesapeake Bay. May can’t here soon enough.

Autumn Leaves

2010-10-27T14:08:00.006-04:00

"Then summer fades and passes, and October comes. [We'll] smell smoke then, and feel an unsuspected sharpness, a thrill of nervous, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure." This is one of my favorite quotes from Thomas Wolfe whose 110th birthday was celebrated earlier this month. I can appreciate Wolfe’s observations on the advent of autumn. It truly is my favorite season of the year. Perhaps Albert Camus said it best. "Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower." What a great image - awakening juxtaposed with a retreat into sleep. But this year autumn has added meaning.

Autumn has finally arrived in Maryland, and not soon enough after one of the hottest summers on record here along the Atlantic Seaboard. We even had a few rather uncomfortably hot days during our summer sojourn at the lake in Maine. The first days of autumn here in Maryland, just over a month ago, were memorable as temperatures once again climbed into the high 90s, hopefully for the last time this year. Yet soon the weather and temperatures turned more seasonable and the telltale signs of the fall season, which came unusually late this year, arrived finally and all seems right in the world. And why should it be so? Our son Ian, our one and only, is getting ready to marry the love of his life in just a few days and I am pleased, and take a certain degree of comfort, in the fact that we will have autumn foliage to enjoy on that very special day.

In the meantime, Sally Ann and I were able to take our annual road trip to look for pumpkins, apple cider, and the other accouterment of autumn. These trips tend to be northward, into the northern precincts of Maryland and over the border into southern Pennsylvania, and this year was no different. The farther north we traveled, the leaves turned more hues of autumn color. As we travel these rural byways I am reminded of those memorable Midwestern autumns when I was a kid, when we raked leaves from the yard and piled them curbside in front of our house. Dad would set fire to the pile while we continued to feed more leaves to the flames. Decades later the smoke and the aroma of burning leaves still tingle my nose. We stop by familiar nurseries where flowering plants and trees have given way to piles of pumpkins and gourds of every size, color and description. Shelves are stocked with canned goods from summer fields and orchards. We also stop by our favorite bison ranch in Linesboro, Maryland where we fill our cooler with various cuts for our freezer.

At the end of the day we make our way southward, to Baltimore, where we have a quiet dinner at our friend’s restaurant in the East Harbor neighborhood. When we arrive home, we put away our culinary treasures and scatter the pumpkins we have purchased on the front porch and various rooms around the house. It was a welcome respite to drive through the autumnal landscapes we have come to love over the years.

Now we must turn our attention to Ian’s wedding and we hope the autumn leaves will stay around for that blessed event. I sit here in my kitchen and look out to the leaves falling all around, and I am reminded of something John Muir once wrote. "I wonder if leaves feel lonely, when they see their neighbors falling?”

Paris Postcards

2010-09-22T08:01:00.015-04:00

I recently learned from an acquaintance that she and her husband were leaving for France where they plan to enjoy the onset of autumn with a month-long walk through the countryside. How much I envy them. This past summer Sally Ann and I were in rural Québec a couple of times and a good friend reminded me how nice it is to be in New England one moment, and with a quick step across an arbitrarily drawn line on a map, one is suddenly transported to France. Well, not exactly, but it is the next best thing. Still, I am reminded of my own trips to la belle France, especially to Paris.

My first visit to the French capital came in June 1968, at a time when the city, perhaps the entire world, was in turmoil. Martin Luther King had been murdered in Memphis that spring followed by widespread rioting in several American cities, including here in Washington, DC, in nearby Baltimore and Salisbury, Maryland, and in Wilmington, Delaware. Bobby Kennedy’s assassination came only two weeks before I left for Europe. This country’s military actions in Southeast Asia had reach a crescendo in the spring with the battle at Khe Sanh. Eastern Europe was in turmoil with Alexander Dubcek’s attempt to moderate his predecessor’s hardline Stalinist policies in Czechoslovakia which would lead to the Soviet invasion of that country in August. Nigerian genocide in secessionist Biafra went largely ignored by the rest of the world. Civilization as we knew it appeared to be teetering on the brink.

The month before I arrived in Paris the city and the rest of France had suffered through a crippling general strike which brought about the near collapse of Charles de Gaulle’s 10-year Fifth Republic (he eventually dissolved parliament and briefly went into exile In Germany). Workers closed factories and students occupied their universities, threw up barricades and fought the police who used heavy-handed tactics to restore order. Much of the Left Bank - the Latin Quarter and the areas around the Sorbonne - were sealed off by the police.

Upon my arrival the country was gearing up for new national elections which would, ironically, give de Gaulle an even stronger mandate than before. Much of the Left Bank, including the areas around the Sorbonne, had returned to some semblance of order as students abandoned their barricades. But the tension was still palpable. I had no real agenda upon my arrival. I simply wanted to be a flâneur, what Charles Baudelaire described as an individual who walks through a city in order to truly experience what it has to offer. And that is what I did. I wandered the streets of Paris just to see what there was to see. And what I saw was the aftermath of the recent unrest. Many of the ancient cobblestone streets had been torn up, the cobbles thrown at the police by the student protesters. There were still a few burned out automobiles about, and the remnants of barricades near the Sorbonne. This was all new to a young fellow from America’s heartland. But changes were coming there, too.

I would return to the United States later that summer to similar protests in the streets of my hometown when Mayor Daley ordered the Chicago police to put down protests surrounding the Democratic National Convention. There I had my first and only exposure to tear gas on my way to visit the Shedd Aquarium, on the lakefront.

During the summer of 1971, I spent a quiet few months at home in Wisconsin preparing for the upcoming academic year in Germany where university students, much like their American counterparts, were questioning their own government.. I would also return to Paris, my first trip back in three years, where I planned to spend several days of “decompression” in preparation for the cultural and linguistic “bends” I expected upon my arrival in Germany. I was excited to be going back and I remembered those heady days of June 1968 during my first visit to the city. Yet I was looking forward to a more tranquil visit.

Upon my arrival in Paris in late August 1971, I had occasion to visit the old
American Center for Artists and Students, a rather shabby and dilapidated building at 261, Boulevard Raispal, in the Montparnasse. Founded in 1931, it had become a destination and hang-out for many notable Americans living in or visiting Paris. By the 1960s, it was one of the few places where one could see American experimental theater, attend readings by American writers and poets, and enjoy the best of American culture. It was also a gathering place for American students, those who were attending university, as well as those like myself, who were just passing through and were happy to find a place to read an American newspaper while enjoying a real American hamburger. I had been there in 1968, when it was still dealing with the after shocks of the unrest that summer.

Not so in 1971. There were many young Americans in Paris on their own individual pilgrimages of discovery. It was here that I fell in with a group who were off on a Métro ride to the Père Lachaise cemetery in search of the grave of Jim Morrison, the charismatic frontman of The Doors who had died in Paris in early July, just a month prior to my arrival. The grave was still unmarked and we had several conflicting reports as to where it might be located. We never found it, but it gave me another chance to be a flâneur as I wandered through the cemetery looking for the final resting places of others - Balzac, Chopin, Moliere, and two of my favorite painters - Eugene Delecroix and Armedeo Modigliani. I also visited the Pantheon, not far from my hotel in the rue Monge (Gaspard Monge, a French mathematician and draftsman designed the building), which is the final resting place of Voltaire, Zola, Hugo and others.

During another visit to the Center, I met a group of American students attending the Sorbonne and we spent a good part of one afternoon and early evening in various bistros and brasseries along the Boulevard-Saint-Germain. As the evening wore on, one of our group told us about a party later that evening at the home of James Jones, the American expatriate writer best known for his novel From Here to Eternity (1952) which I first read the year before, around the same time I read his The Merry Month of May (1970), in which he describes the unrest in Paris in 1968. We eventually made our way across Pont de l’Archevêché and the Pont Saint-Louis, to the Île-St.-Louis, ending up outside a rather elegant 17th Century building facing the river on the Quai d’Orleans. I was introduced to Mr. Jones, who graciously welcomed us to his home, and the rest of that evening remains a pleasant blur of images fueled by some wonderful French wine. There was a constant coming and going of people with knots of conversation and debate in every room and niche of that grand residence. Several of us eventually ended up walking quai-side below the Pont de la Tournelle before taking it back to the Left Bank as I made my way to my hotel.

I would not return to Paris until the late summer of 1981 . . . a brief stopover on my way to Vienna on business. I was stuck at a hotel near the airport and only had an opportunity to go into the city for one afternoon and evening, I returned to the Pere Lachaise cemetery where I finally found Jim Morrison’s grave. And I ended up at a Vietnamese restaurant in the rue Monge that I first discovered a decade earlier. The place looked much as I remembered it. Eating Vietnamese cuisine in Paris in 1971 seemed just a tad revolutionary what with the posters of Bác Hô (“Uncle Hô” Chi Minh) and Viet Cong banners on the walls. The banners were now gone although a small framed picture of Hô remained. But the food was just as good as I remembered. Unfortunately, the old American Center was gone and I wondered where American students and expatriates congregate now?

It has been almost 30 years since I have been to Paris. Maybe it is time to go back again. I enjoy my occasional trips to Montréal and to rural Québec, but perhaps it is time to be a true flâneur again (in Montréal this term is rather pejorative, referring to one who is loitering). I would love to return to the back streets of the Left Bank where I wandered here and there with no set agenda or schedule. There is still much to see and experience.

Back Home in Maryland and All Caught Up

2010-09-17T20:36:00.007-04:00

We have returned home to Maryland after a wonderful and relaxing three month sojourn in Maine. I did quite a bit of writing, including several items to be posted here, but I had only limited access to the Internet while I was away and therefore I was unable to post the items in a timely fashion. The following items are now posted and I am all caught up:

May 31: "Five More Minutes"

June 29: "Ayuh . . . Goin' to Maine"

July 9: "Still Looking Toward Portugal"

July 13: "J'aime le Quebec"

July 27: "Island Poetry"

August 3: "Frying the Cheese"

August 13: "Living in the Past: Rediscovering 'Retro Beers' "

August 17: "When Baseball Was Fun: Remembering Smokey Maxwell"

And stay tuned for a new posting in the next few days. It's good to be back!
__________
Photograph courtesy of Michael Stewart

When Baseball Was Fun: Remembering Smokey Maxwell

2010-08-17T14:38:00.019-04:00

My mother recently spent a week with us here at the lake cottage in Maine, and while she was here she and I spent a good deal of time talking about our family history in and around Paw Paw, Michigan and rural Van Buren County. After she returned home to Florida I went to the local library in New Gloucester to do some additional research and came across an interesting newspaper article in the Kalamazoo Gazette. It took me back to my younger days when I was spending quite a bit of time on my grandparent’s farm outside of Paw Paw.

This past Sunday, Paw Paw honored one of its local legends, a two-day celebration commemorating the life of and career of Charlie “Smokey” Maxwell, one of baseball’s greats from a much-missed bygone era when players truly played “for the love of the game;” a time when young kids looked up to these guys as role models. Maxwell is a native son in the truest sense, and it is only fitting that he be honored by his hometown. He was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, in 1997, but hometown honors trump that in my book.

Charles Richard Maxwell was born in Lawton, just a few miles south of Paw Paw, on April 8, 1927. He grew up in the area and played college baseball at Western Michigan University, in nearby Kalamazoo until he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1945. Following his stint in the military, he played a few years of minor league ball in Roanoke, Birmingham and Louisville before he went to the show in 1950 as a southpaw utility left-fielder for the Boston Red Sox through the 1954 season. He played very briefly (four at bats) with the Baltimore Orioles, during the 1955 season, before going to left field for the Detroit Tigers in May where he was in the starting line-up for the first time. He would play the next eight seasons, through 1962, with the Tigers and it was during this tenure that he picked up his additional nicknames of “Ole Paw Paw,” “Sunday Punch,” “Sunday Charlie,” and “The Sunday Smasher.”

Living with my grandparents and attending the one-room Acorn School in 1955-1956, I became a Detroit fan almost by osmosis. Just about everyone in Michigan supported the Tigers back in those days. And besides, I had lived briefly off of Six Mile Road in Detroit when I was a wee tyke. It was a venerable charter American League franchise, one of eight major league teams, in 1901. Tiger Stadium, its home turf, was opened in 1912 and would host the team until its final season there, in 1999 (at that time tied with Fenway Park, which opened the same day, as the oldest major league ballpark). The Tigers would be the first team I ever rooted for and regardless of the intervening years and occasional shifting alliances as I moved around the country, the Tigers would always reside in a soft spot in my heart.

Smokey Maxwell and Al Kaline, known affectionately as “Mr. Tiger” after 21 seasons with the team when he retired in 1974, were my favorite players back then. They played left and right field respectively and were two of the most popular players on the team. Kaline was the star, leading the American League in batting average in 1955 while coming in second after Mickey Mantle in all the other batting statistics. But I was a little kid and statistics did not mean anything to me. Maxwell was my favorite because he came from Paw Paw and most of my relatives knew and grew up with him. That said, Maxwell had his best year in the majors in 1956. A power hitter, he came in third with a batting average of .326 (just behind Mantle and Ted Williams) and 28 home runs. He also made it to the All Star Team for the first time (a feat he would repeat in 1957). Unfortunately, the Tigers would end the season in fifth place both years.

We were living in Wisconsin in 1957 when the Milwaukee Braves won the National League pennant and went on to beat the Yankees in seven games in the World Series. I guess I am a fickle fan; I started to cheer for the Braves. But I never truly gave up on my first love - the Tigers. And Smokey Maxwell remained one of my favorite players. He went on to lead the American League in fielding percentages in 1957 and again in 1960 when he made only one error in each of those seasons.

I saw my first major league game in 1958 when my dad and I drove from Toledo, Ohio, where we were living at the time, up to Detroit Stadium (another iconic stadium lost to the wrecking ball just a year ago) to watch the Tigers play the New York Yankees. You know, I can’t remember who won that game, but I do remember Mantle and Whitey Ford hitting homers over Maxwell’s head and the distant left field fence. I only wish I could have been at the May 3, 1959 double-header between the Tigers and the Yankees (yes, it was a Sunday) when “Sunday Charlie” hit four consecutive home runs (one in the opener and three in the second game). That would have been sweet! He would go on to hit 31 dingers that year.

Maxwell was eventually traded to the rival Chicago White Sox in 1962 and played there for two seasons until his retirement in April 1964 at the age of 38. He played 14 seasons (1,133 games) in the majors with a career batting average of .264 with 148 home runs. Of these, 40 were hit on a Sunday hence his several nicknames. More importantly, 23 of his homers were against the Yankees!! He also chalked up a career 532 RBIs, 856 hits, and only 25 errors. Unfortunately, Maxwell never made it to the World Series although the Tigers came close a couple of times when he was playing for the team.

How are the Tigers faring this season? They are playing .500 ball and they are in the middle of the pack in the American League Central Division, behind the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox. Save a miracle they are out of contention again this year.

Even though Charlie “Smokey” Maxwell played with different teams during
his career, he settled in Paw Paw in 1952 and continued to call it home throughout his career. It was there that he returned after he retired, becoming a local businessman selling automotive parts. He still lives there today, at age 83, although he does spend his winters in Florida. Smokey Maxwell and his fellow players were not just the “boys of summer” playing ball on multi-million dollar contracts. He worked in a manufacturing job in Jackson, Michigan during the off season just to make ends meet. During the recent celebration in his hometown, Maxwell was asked why he played baseball. His answer was quite simple - “Because it was fun.” What more is there to say?

Living in the Past: Rediscovering "Retro Beers"

2010-08-13T14:22:00.020-04:00

“Happy and I’m smiling, / walk a mile to drink your water. / You know I’d love no other, / and above you there’s no other.” These are the opening lyrics to “Living in the Past,” by Ian Anderson, which first appeared on Jethro Tull’s 1969 album “Stand Up" (it was also the title track for the 1972 double compilation album with the same title). This has been one of my favorite Tull tunes since I first became a fan of this seminal British blues/rock band back in 1969. Ian Anderson, lead singer, flautist and band factotum, turned 63 three days ago, and I have been humming this tune quite a bit lately as I sit by the lake.

Each summer I drive hundreds of miles between Maryland and Maine, a trip that brings with it the opportunity to drink the pure local water. This includes the proffering of Poland Spring, which is located just a few miles north of our cottage. There is also the growing variety of micro-brew beers produced throughout the state using this very same water as one of it their key ingredients. A few of these beers have found markets throughout New England, but they are few and far between once you get south of Boston. So, if I am spending my summers in Maine, and since scientists are now telling us that beer hydrates better than water (I am not making this up), I have taken these opportunities to drink the local stuff.

I figured this would be the case when we returned to Maine again this summer. I stopped by the local roadhouse on my first beer run and ended up passing over the micro-brews for a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon 16 ounce tall boys. It has now become my official “Beer of the Summer.” I like PBR, the “American Style Premium Lager” that I cut my beer drinking teeth on. I was living just outside of Milwaukee the year I reached legal drinking age, and the rest is history. A couple of years later I was back in Milwaukee for the summer and I worked a night shift. The group I worked with would often get off work at the end of the week and have breakfast at a local IHOP and then go downtown to the Pabst brewery for a tour and “brunch” in the tasting room. PBR was also our beer of choice when we went to see the Brewers play in the Old County Stadium. PBR and I go way back!

I am not setting any precedent here by choosing one of the old brand name beers. The first summer we spent in Maine back in 1988 I was drinking Narragansett out of the can. I had heard of this legendary New England beer yet I had never had the opportunity to drink it before. It was not bad and it got me through that first summer before I began to discover and sample the offerings of the local Maine breweries.

What goes around comes around. After years of drinking the micro-brews, perhaps it is time to return to the gold standard . . . even if the old names are a little tarnished these days. They are coming back slowly but surely. Over the past year I have begun to see PBR available in most stores, and more recently I am seeing it on tap in bars and even available in cans in some top shelf eating established around the country. And why not. PBR has a long and distinguished history. Founded in Milwaukee in 1844 (before Wisconsin gained statehood), it took the name of Pabst in 1889 at a time when other breweries were established in the city. During the Depression the company turned to other pursuits, including cheese production. It eventually fell on hard times, as did many other local breweries, and operations were moved to San Antonio. The venerable Milwaukee brewery we came to love was abandoned and fell into disrepair, and it was finally demolished in 2007. The company that brews PBR today owns the rights to the name and trademark, and regardless of what anybody says, I think it still tastes pretty damn good regardless of where it is brewed. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks so; PBR is très chic these days!

And not just PBR. Narragansett is also rising from the ashes (in southern New England, at least). Originally brewed in Cranston, Rhode Island beginning in 1890, a century later it moved its operations to Fort Wayne, Indiana until the company closed in 1981. The Cranston brewery was demolished in 1991. With new investors in Rhode Island, production resumed in 2005 and just last month it was named the official “Beer of the Clam.” I have found it in a few stores here in Maine and perhaps next summer it will be more widespread. One can only hope.

Beer drinkers know a good thing when they see (and taste) it. I have no complaints with micro-brews; there are a lot of good ones out there. But there is something special about popping a can of PBR on a warm summer day sitting here by the lake. I agree with Ian Anderson. “Oh we won’t give in, / let’s go living in the past.”

Frying the Cheese

2010-08-03T14:03:00.009-04:00

If you have been reading these random notes for any time at all, you will know that I am a confirmed cheesehead. I have been one all of my life. Growing up in the upper Midwest, I guess I have come by this honestly. I will eat any cheese placed in front of me regardless of its appearance, fragrance/odor, or words of praise or caution. Suffice it to say, I have eaten a lot of cheese in my time, but until a few days ago I had never tasted Halloumi. In fact, I never even heard of it before SallyAnn and I came across it at the weekly farmers market here in New Gloucester, Maine.

One of the regular vendors, Townhouse Farm in Whitefield, Maine, offers a selection of locally-produced yogurts - “ewegurt” - made from sheep’s milk. But it was the smallish half rounds of Halloumi that caught my attention. How can it be that there is a cheese out there that I have never heard of or read about before, much less tasted? Of course, I had to buy some. A cheesehead worth his weight can not pass up the opportunity to sample a “new” cheese (actually it has been around for centuries). In response to our inquiry about it, we were told that we could fry or grill it. “Won’t it melt?” I asked picturing a mess of gooey cheese dripping through the grate of our grill. I was assured this would not happen. What a concept!

Being a historian I immediately looked into this new discovery. It turns out that Halloumi really has been around for centuries. A national delicacy of Cyprus (Greek = Χαλούμί Turkish = Hellim), it is traditionally made from unpasteurized sheep’s or goat’s milk (and sometime cow’s milk although it changes its consistency and grilling qualities). Traditional Halloumi is produced without the introduction of bacteria and it is a good source of protein and contains almost twice the amount of calcium of other cheeses while only 25% fat weight. It is normally stored in its brine or the whey extracted during processing (although the locally made Halloumi we purchased was not). It has very little water content and does not require aging, although it will produce a stronger and saltier taste. This all contributes to a much higher melting temperature than other cheeses making it ideal for grilling and frying. It turns to a nice golden brown on the outside with grill markings while the inside has the consistency of fresh curds and squeaks when you chew it. It can be chopped into croutons for salads or served with pita bread. It is also quite good with roasted peppers and olives (especially Greek olives). We fried it and served it over freshly sliced Heirloom tomatoes with a sprig of basil and drizzled with a light dressing.

Halloumi is not particularly cheap - it goes for around $15/pound - but it is a treat, keeps well in the refrigerator, and it is worth the extra you pay for a cheese made from sheep’s or goat’s milk. If it is good (and it looked oh so good), it is worth the gamble. A similar type of cheese is manufactured commercially in this country using cow’s milk and sold as “frying cheese,” yet it has a tendency to melt rather than soften. I would recommend the real thing!

Island Poetry

2010-07-27T16:10:00.008-04:00

I recently spent a week on Monhegan Island. Measuring almost two miles in length and only 3/4 mile across at its widest (not quite six square miles), it is situated 12 miles off Midcoast Maine. It has a permanent population of approximately 75 hale and hearty souls while the summer population grows to around a thousand with the arrival of the rusticators, many of them artists of varying stripe, and day trippers. SallyAnn and I have been going out to the island for the past six or seven years, and it is something we look forward to each summer.

This year was no different. We took the boat from New Harbor, just above Pemaquid Point, and returned to our regular room on the third floor of the Monhegan House with its wonderful views of the lighthouse on the hill and the harbor with Muscongus Bay beyond. It was nice to see friendly and familiar faces from summers past, and the island had not changed noticeably since our last visit; that is one of the things we appreciate and count on.

The island has been a mecca for artists for over a century. An important art colony was established there circa 1890 and prominent artists of the day - Robert Henri, George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and others - began to visit the island regularly during the summer months. The English artist Samuel P.R. Triscott came in 1892, settled there permanently in 1902, and remained until his death in 1925 (he is buried in the small island cemetery below the lighthouse). Rockwell Kent arrived in 1905 and remained several years. The Wyeths also came to the island to paint and James Wyeth still maintains a home there. Subsequent generations of painters have continued to flock to the island - James Fitzgerald came in 1924 and resided there after 1942. The Russian painter A. J Bogdanov, Andrew Winter, Henry and Herbie Kallem, Reuben Tam, and others also came to the island to live and paint.

Today there is a thriving community of artists that maintain homes and studios across the island. The Monhegan Artist’s Residency program sustains others who wish to come to the island to work. The Lupine Gallery, near the island wharf, exhibits and markets the work of island artists and every summer the Monhegan Museum hangs work by noted artists past and present. Several artists also open their studios to the public.

Each time we visit Monhegan we have enjoyed wandering the island trails and the villages paths were we are constantly encountering artists hard at work at their easels and sketch books. Oils, watercolors, pastels, charcoal, pencil . . . just about ever media is represented. And then there are the photographers. This year SallyAnn came armed with her paints, pastels and her sketchbook, and while she was roaming the island in search of something to paint, I was contented to sit in the shade on the porch of the Monhegan House where I read and wrote.

I have never understood why Monhegan has long been a destination for artists yet it has never nurtured an organized community of writers. I would think that novelists, essayists and poets could appreciate and thrive in the same environment that has sustained a relatively large community of artists over the years. This is not to say that there are no writers there. Last year Matthew Keill, who has been a regular summer visitor to the island, published a novel entitled Monhegan Windows and it was for sale at various venues across the island. This year I also found copies in several bookstores throughout Maine. There are a very few poets who frequent the island, some of whom even count themselves among its permanent residents.

Jan Bailey, who is originally from the foothills of South Carolina, first came to Monhegan as a season visitor and now resides there year round and has for many years. She is the author of Paper Clothes (1995), Heart of the Other: Island Poems (1998), and her most recent collection, Midnight in the Guest Room (2004). Besides her writings, she has operated a store on the island and is presently the librarian.

Kate Cheney Chappell, a painter, printmaker and a seasonal island poet, envisioned and curated “Island Visions / Island Voices,” a joint artists-poets show at the Lupine Gallery in 2000-2001, and it then moved to the mainland and the Round Top Center for the Arts, in Damariscotta, Maine. Island Visions / Island Voices, a collection of poems, including those by Ms. Bailey and Ms. Chappell, was subsequently published by Stone Island Press (University of Maine at Machias) in 2001in conjunction with this exhibition. Ms. Chappell was also associated with the 2007 exhibition “On Island: Poetry on Monhegan,” sponsored by the University of New England, in Portland. It demonstrated that the island has had a strong, if not well-known, writing tradition which has included individuals like Rockwell Kent and Reuben Tam who are known for both their visual art as well as their poetry.

Whereas there are studios and galleries serving as an outlet for artists, the island’s literary events are few and far between. The island has it’s own public library housed in a small clapboard cottage located between the wharf and the island school, and it is here that the handful of literary events and workshops take place each summer. Besides that, this small and intimate library has a wonderful collection of books considering its size and constituency. There have also been readings by those published on “Monhegan Commons, an island website, and in 2003 Marjorie Mir edited and published Poet’s Cove: An Anthology, featuring poets who have appeared on the Common’s webpage.

Upon our arrival on the island this summer, I was hoping that there might be a similar literary event and so we stopped by the library on our walk from the wharf to the Monhegan House. A sign posted on the lawn outside the library announced an evening of poetry and I stopped to inquire about it. We were greeted by Jan Bailey who told us it was the first of two such programs planned as an opportunity to come and read a favorite poem, whether it be one of your own or one by a favorite poet. This year I came armed with some of my own work and so I looked forward to participating in this gathering.

That evening arrived, and after a long day exploring the island followed by a rustic seafood dinner en plein air along the island harbor, I walked over to the library. I could see and hear a storm approaching as I walked through the village. Ten of us showed up and we sat in a circle in the small reading room and took turns reading our own work and that of others. When it was my turn to read, I shared Donald Hall’s “To A Waterfowl” as well as some of my own poems. There was quite a selection of verse and I was able to meet and talk poetry with some very interesting people, both residents and visitors like myself. It was a very pleasant evening and the approaching storm lent some wonderful atmospherics to it all. Afterwards, I walked back through the village with one of the other participants, a young school teacher from Brooklyn who has been summering on the island with her family for as long as she can remember. The wind was blowing and the lightning and thunder were all about us. I like storms, especially out on the island, and this one will be particularly memorable! Luckily, the worst of it held off until I was back to the Monhegan House.

I hope that one day writers and poets will discover Monhegan and that it will be home to a thriving community contributing to the literature of the island. Its rocky shores and coves, its woods, it mighty headlands are the marrow of stories yet to be told, and poems not yet written.

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Thanks to my wife SallyAnn for allowing me to post two of her beautiful watercolors.

J’aime le Québec!

2010-07-13T10:57:00.015-04:00

We are quite fortunate to be spending our summer months in the foothills of western Maine. Not only is the rocky coast of Maine just a short scenic drive to the east, but the mountains of western Maine and northern New Hampshire are a short hop up Route 26. And beyond that last height of land in the northern reaches of the Appalachian Range is the international boundary with Canada and la belle Province of Québec.

Crossing the border here, Montréal, Canada’s second largest metropolitan area, is only a two-hour drive through the rolling hills and farmlands of the Eastern Townships. The US-Canadian border is an arbitrary line drawn in 1842 and formalized by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Here it follows the highlands separating the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Ocean watersheds. For several miles before the international boundary you find yourself driving through near pristine forests where one seldom encounters another vehicle. There are no houses, telephone lines, or a living soul. Then, as one crests that final ridge line two lonely customs stations - one American, one Canadian - come into view. Completing the border formalities, one continues down into the St. Lawrence Valley with its patchwork of dairy farms and green fields and pastures interspersed with a collection of small villages.

There is no doubt one is in a foreign country. Speed limits and distances are measured in kilometers. In fact, everything in Canada is metric, a system the country converted to in the 1970s. At first one might think this was northern New England, but the architecture is different in subtle ways; the houses and barns have their own design distinct from their counterparts in the United States. Above all, everything is in French. The signs are French, the people speak French. Québec is French, pure and simple. Unlike the rest of Canada, which has been officially bilingual since 1969, the only official language in the province since 1974 is French. It was designed to protect its French language and culture within the framework of the Canadian nation. Québec is also very Catholic; crosses and shrines are everywhere and every village, many named after one or another saint, has a church in a prominent location.

I first came to Québec in the summer of 1967. Canada was celebrating its centennial and we spent a few days in Toronto before continuing to Montréal to partake in the festivities at Expo 67. We stayed in a small motel in St-Jean, on the banks of the Richelieu River, south of the city. It was there I had a severe allergic reaction on a Sunday morning and I was forced to seek help at the local hospital. Nobody spoke English and I had to sit on a wooden bench in the emergency room while the hospital staff, all speaking French, ran around treating several local youths who ended up sliced and diced during a bar fight the previous evening. I sat there until a doctor who spoke English drove down from Montréal to examine me and to prescribe medication that took care of my problem in short order. This first visit to Québec was my earliest introduction to a truly foreign culture and foreign language environment. It was intriguing, to say the least.

So I have been coming back to Québec every chance I get. There is something about this place that continues to draw me to it, particularly the Eastern Townships that stretch east of Montréal along the international border with Vermont, New Hampshire, and northwestern Maine. I love to wander here and there and soak it all in. The markets and the grocery stores (even the small chain outlets in rural towns) are a treat to visit and explore. The charcuterie, the cheeses (I have already written about poutine, Québec’s “national” dish), varieties of terrines, the local vegetables are de rigeur here. At home such a variety would only be found in specialty or gourmet shops. I am reminded of the markets I use to frequent when I was a university student in Germany. It is fun to walk down the aisles and look at well-known brand name items in their French-language packaging. I used to read the boxes in Germany in order to increase my vocabulary. I improve my French in a similar manner.

Québec is a place where things are quite different from what I grew up with. Different values, different language, a different culture. And each time I come, I remember back to that first visit over four decades ago. Things have changed, but in many ways they have changed very little. Québec will always be a different kind of place. That is what I love about it. Je me souviens.

Still Looking Toward Portugal

2010-07-09T14:02:00.009-04:00

I am sitting here at the cottage on Sabbathday Lake, in Maine. It is very early in the morning and the fog is gradually lifting off the mirror smooth surface. The coffee percolator pulses and clatters as it comes to life, filling the entire cottage with the pungent aroma of dark roasted beans. A daily morning tattoo with its inviting cadences.

We have been at the lake for just over two weeks now and I am starting to fall into the routine. We have been spending quite a bit of time here at the lake and I have been writing while Sally Ann is busy with her sketch work and exploring new possibilities with her watercolors and pastels. Frankly, I can’t think of a better place to write and paint. The solitude and quiet offered to us has taken hold of us. At the moment we can’t think of a place we would rather be.

This is not to say that we have not done a little exploring, and our wanderings have taken us up into the Great North Woods of northern New Hampshire and then into the Eastern Townships of Québec (more on that later). We have also been over to the coast in search of cheap lobsters and clams and to sit in the shade of the lighthouse at Pemaquid Point, to stare out at the ocean, to Monhegan Island shimmering on the horizon, and toward Portugal which lies somewhere beyond the earth’s curvature.

I am reminded of what I posted back on December 8, 2008 when this blog was just a couple of weeks old:

So what lies beyond? When I first discovered Maine and its coast in the late 1980s, I often stood on a rugged finger extending into the surf below the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse (the one depicted on the Maine state quarter). I also favored Ocean Point, a few miles to the southwest of Pemaquid on the southern extremity of the Boothbay Peninsula. Later I ventured farther Down East to Quoddy Head, and the most eastern point of land in the continental United States (and like Kerouac I am also drawn to the America’s Pacific shore, visiting Quoddy Head’s western counterpoint at Cape Flattery on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula). About five or six years ago I discovered the eastern headlands of Monhegan, a small island located 15 miles off the Maine coast which has long been immortalized in the paintings of the Wyeths (James Wyeth still has a home on Lobster Cove on the island’s southern exposure), Rockwell Kent (who originally built the Wyeth cottage), George Bellows, and so many others. Even today one cannot visit Monhegan’s headlands, coves, and shores without encountering artists discovering and interpreting the island’s landscapes and seascapes for themselves.

Soon we will be back on Monhegan Island where we can once again go to those coves and headlands and extend our search a bit farther beyond that horizon. Life does not end at our coastline. There is something more out there and we yearn to know what it is. So we keep going back, we keep looking.

The percolator has ceased its morning rhythms and the coffee is ready. My attention is refocusing on the day that lies ahead. We will enjoy the lake as we write and paint. Yet I can’t help but ponder the possibilities that lie ahead as we once again wander out to sea. Norman Maclean was right. “I am haunted by waters.”

Ayuh . . . Goin' to Maine

2010-06-29T11:02:00.007-04:00

We have been back from our long spring sojourn in Florida for a month now, and so it is time to turn attention to preparations for our mid-June departure for Maine where we will be living until the end of August. We have been going to Maine every summer in August for the past 22 years (and a few times in between during the other three seasons), but this year we plan on spending the entire summer there. One of the great perks of retirement, I guess. I think I am going to like this new life style! But I am getting ahead of myself.

This will be something new for us. In past years, our time in Maine was a vacation, an annual three-week respite from the rat race of life, routine, and a regular job in Washington, DC. This year, for eleven weeks the lake cottage will be our summer home. We will do many of things we do the rest of the year at home in suburban Maryland, yet this time around it will be done at a quaint little cottage on the shores of Sabbathday Lake, in the foothills of western Maine.

We will not have to cram everything into three short weeks (and weeks are always too short when they are your annual summer vacation). In the past, we would try to spend as much time as we could at the lake, enjoying the opportunities to swim and boat around the lake, and to do a little fishing in the mornings and evenings. But we would also be eager to get out and explore the rest of the state for we found that Maine is not all lobsters and Whoopie Pies. There is the rugged and rocky coastline with its fishing villages and their lobster pounds and a rich abundance of the freshest seafood. And there are the rolling hills covered with unimaginable stands of hardwoods and pine forests, and beyond them an almost unspoiled mountain wilderness stretching to the highland along the Canadian border. Here there are countless streams, ponds and lakes populated by native trout and salmon. There are the great rivers flowing from these mountains to the sea - Androscoggin, Sheepscot, Kennebec, Penobscot - whose watersheds drain the entire state. These rivers, whose sources are hidden deep in the northern Maine wilderness, eventually pass through farms and fields as they descend toward the Gulf of Maine. Here are grazing herds of Holstein cattle, fields of corn, potatoes and soybeans. There are truck farms with their summer offerings of sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, bean, peas, strawberries and blueberries. Here, too, fields of timothy, clover and alfalfa cut each year in early June and again in August. The aroma of fresh cut hay is as unmistakable as the salty sea breezes along the coast. Yes, Maine has much to offer, and as a result, our limited time was usually split between the lake and the road. Often a very hard choice to make.

This year should be different, however. After 22 summers of wandering here and there, we have had a chance to explore and sample Maine’s diverse geography and landscapes; there is not a section of the state whose roads we have not been down. So this summer we do not feel the need to explore so much. We are going to Maine to live, to get a feeling for what it is like to be a part of a new community. We hope to get to know our neighbors better and to attend community events. We now have a post office box to receive mail. My letters have a new letterhead with our local address. We plan to visit the local library and gym. Instead of eating out almost every day, we plan to visit the local farmer stands and markets and eat “at home” on the deck overlooking the lake. We will take trips and we will explore, but not to the extent we have done so in past years. This year we will be happy to live, to write and paint, in a place we plan to return to for many summers to come. We are going to Maine, and when our time there is eventually over, I know it will be difficult to return to Maryland. It is like this every summer. But this year is different. This year will be special.

Five More Minutes

2010-05-31T21:45:00.022-04:00

My hiatus has lasted longer than I had first planned I am gradually adapting to this new lifestyle following my retirement in early March, falling into a routine that will hopefully allow me more time to get some of these random thoughts down “on paper.” And, hopefully, more time for fishing.
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It is springtime in Chesapeake Bay country, and after a long and unusually cold and snowy winter, it is time to look forward to the various rites of spring afforded us. There was the blooming of the Japanese cherry trees down at the Tidal Basin along the Potomac River which we missed this year due to an extended sojourn in Florida in March and April. So, upon our return to Maryland, it was time to prepare for an early morning drive across the Chesapeake Bay to Maryland’s Eastern Shore . . . more specifically the sleepy (and sleeping) village of Tilghman (on the island of the same name), hard and fast on the shoreline of Knapp Narrows. The trophy rockfish season is in full swing.

Warming waters bring striped bass, also known locally as rockfish, into northern waters in February, including the Chesapeake Bay, to spawn in its freshwater tributaries. Once the deed is done, they begin to move back down the Bay, chasing schools of baitfish as they go. They move according to the wind, tide, and the time of day.

My son Ian and I once again boarded the Nancy Ellen, our favorite boat moored at the Narrows, and set off on our second annual outing during the spring trophy season (see my May 3, 2009 posting). By 6:30am we had departed the marina and were churning southwest through a mild chop toward the fishing grounds along the shipping channel cutting the length of the Bay. It felt good to be back among our fishing buddies and with Captain Bill Fish at the helm of his immaculately outfitted Nancy Ellen.

Captain Fish had already informed us that the weekend had seen a number of boats on the water, and even though the season had been a good one so far, the fishing over the past few days had slowed down considerably with a high pressure ridge keeping the fish deep and unresponsive. Water temperatures were in the high 50s and good populations of both rockfish and white perch were moving through the Bay. But you had to hunt them down; they were not going to come to you and jump into the boat. His parties over the previous few days had landed some nice fish, the best results of any of the boats operating out of Tilghman Island, but these were hard-fought efforts. We crossed our fingers and spit over the transom in the hope that we might fare better. We were prepared to take as long as it took to find the fish and bring them home. Ian had been a little disappointed last year when we had caught our limit by early afternoon and headed back in. He wanted to spend more time on the water. But rocks were the only fish biting and all of us had a keeper in the cooler, so it made no sense to burn fuel unnecessarily. We all sensed that this year’s outing would put us to the test.

We continued down the Bay as Captain Fish closely monitored the depth and fish finders and plotted Loran coordinates in a spiral notebook. Soundings were running 40-50 feet as we skirted both sides of the shipping channel. Soon we passed the fishing grounds around Sharp Island Light which gave up the fish we caught last year. There were large schools of baitfish (mostly pinfish and menhaden, which we call bunker in this neck of the woods), and the fish finder was picking up reports of some larger fish, perhaps pods of rockfish, mixed in. But what we saw was not terribly promising, or so I surmised from my read of Captain Fish’s face. Sportfishing is a terribly come-what-may enterprise, at best. Last year’s fish came fast and furious; this year slow and aggravating even though we had fifteen lines arrayed at depths of 25-40 feet and at varying distances behind us, all outfitted with white and chartreuse Sassy Shad ™. We were not scouting for particular drops, or stationary locations where the fish are found. Instead, we were trolling a wide swath of normally promising water.

Captain Fish already knew that the waters around Sharp Island Light, including the Stone Rock grounds to the north, would be unproductive, and he pushed southward to an area known locally as the “Summer Gooses” situated astride the shipping channel between Plum Point and the mouth of the Little Choptank River and near buoys 78 and 78A.

By 12:30pm we had already been on the water for over six hours with nothing to show for our efforts other than a growing pile of empty beer and soda cans and chicken bones. Not so much as a drag-click from any of the rods arrayed across our stern. By this time last year we had a cooler full of big rockfish and we were preparing to head back into Knapp Narrows. Ian had his wish; we were going to be on the water awhile this time around. We never lost our faith in our captain or his ability to put us on the fish. There was no way we were going to be skunked on such a beautiful spring day. “Five more minutes!” I yelled from wherever I happened to be as we anxiously awaited that first strike of the day.

We moved farther south and we eventually arrived among a small community of boats near the “CP” buoy as they moved back and forth across a patch of water situated northeast of the gas docks below Calvert Cliffs. Knots of bait fish were passing below, but still no big fish. “Five more minutes!” I shouted as I leaned back against the transom. When we were not monitoring the depth and fish finders, we found ourselves sequestered in various comfortable nooks and niches to get out of the sun, rehydrating with a beer or two, and watching the day unfold around us. A freshening breeze arrived out of the west/southwest at around 20 mph nudging several sailboats out from the Western Shore.

Fishing along the shipping channel allowed us an up close and personal look at the maritime traffic heading north to Baltimore and south to the Virginia Tidewater and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The Maritime Gisela, a tanker registered in Hong Kong, and two car carriers, the Tranquil Ace registered in the Cayman Islands, and the Marina Ace, flying the flag of Panama, passed close by as we inspected our planing boards and adjusted the depth of our bait. “Five more minutes,” I called out from the wheelhouse where I was chatting with Captain Fish.

We were sitting some 20 miles from Tilghman Island, southwest of James Island and east of Calvert Cliffs. “Man, I haven’t fished this far south all year,” Captain Fish confided as he tousled his hair, still staring at the fish finder. Early in the afternoon a neighboring boat radioed him to report the catching of a couple of undersize rocks (keepers have to be a minimum of 32 inches). Big fish, but not big enough. We started to wonder if the fishing gods might not be with us this time around. We, and Captain Fish most of all, did not like the idea of returning to Tilghman with an empty cooler. But I never lost my faith. “Five more minutes,” I yelled as I hit the head in preparation for more rehydration.

Shortly before 2pm, we were trolling in almost 70 feet of water southwest of Oyster Cove and the mouth of the Little Choptank River. “Five more minutes.” were my words of encouragement to my mates as I returned to the deck with a cold can of beer in my hand. No sooner had these words drifted off on the breeze lifting a brace of laughing gulls above us when one of the rods on the stern began to tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . .giving way to a slow whiz of line rolling off the spool. “Didn’t I say ‘five more minutes’ five minutes ago?” I said to Ian as he lifted the rod and began the slow retrieve of the day’s first fish. A few minutes later a nice 36 inch rockfish was pulled over the transom. “It was like pulling up a cinder block from the bottom,” Ian allowed.

No sooner was Ian’s fish deposited in the cooler when another rod began its telltale clicking. Five minutes later a 34-incher was netted and placed in the cooler. Captain Fish was breathing a little easier and there was a big smile across his face. We would not go home empty-handed as the rocks had grown hungry. Better late than never. Five minutes later I was fighting my own fish. I would retrieve line only to watch it pulled back into the water. “We need a bigger boat,” I suggested as I slowly pumped the rod urging the fish to give it up. “Five more minutes?” Ian jibed as I battled to bring number three to net . . . a nice 39 inch rockfish. I popped a beer when it was safely aboard. “Let’s not stop now. Five more minutes!”

An hour of “five more minutes” passed and it became clear to all of us that our brief run of luck had run out. And so had our time. It was 3:15pm and we had to begin our long trek back up the Bay to Tilghman Island. Ian got his wish, a full day on the Bay and a very nice fish in the cooler as a reward for his patience. The return trip took a different route as several other boats followed close in our wake. We turned east into the mouth of the Choptank River, rounded Black Walnut Point and proceeded up Harris Creek to the eastern end of Knapp Narrows. Captain Fish claimed he wanted to check some of his “honey holes,’ promising me that some day he would show me where they are. Somehow I felt he had made similar promises to others. We passed the Rebecca T. Ruark, one of the very few skipjacks under sail still found on the Bay (I will be writing more about her in a future posting).

Soon we were back in the Narrows and passing under the busiest drawbridge in the United States (over eleven thousand raisings in 2009) and tying up the Nancy Ellen at her berth. Everyone was tired and we gathered our gear and packed our catch for the trip back across the Bay Bridge. We stared down the Bay and were thankful for a day on the water. There was nothing I would have changed. Well, it would have been nice to have a few more minutes, if not hours, with Ian while we were fighting the good fight. There is always next year!

I'm Back

2010-05-23T12:49:00.004-04:00

Things are finally settling down and I have posted the three backlogged entries written while I was on the road (see new postings from March 14, 17, and 21 below). New postings will be going up very soon and there is updated information on the left-hand sidebar. I'm glad to be back in the saddle again!

NEXT: Five More Minutes

I've Been on the Road a Long Time

2010-05-04T09:31:00.004-04:00

Thanks go out to all of my faithful readers and others who have been wondering where I have been in recent weeks. We have recently returned from a very lengthy stay in Florida. I have been writing, but I had no way to post anything while I was on the road. Please stay tuned. Some new pieces will be going up in the next couple of weeks and then I should be caught up. I hope everyone is having a pleasant and enjoyable spring!

Dispatches from the Sunshine State 2 - Sending In the Clowns

2010-03-21T21:30:00.007-04:00

After our long drive down the Eastern Seaboard from Washington, DC, we had a couple of days to decompress in Gainesville before setting off on a ten-day excursion through central Florida and along the southwestern Gulf Coast to the Ten Thousand Islands and the Everglades (by far the edgiest edge of America I have encountered to date). The first leg of this new journey took us south from Gainesville, across the western edges of the Ocala Scrub, and then down along the central ridge of peninsular Florida to Lakeland. This is, perhaps, my favorite area of Florida. Certainly it is the area I know best. I have been traveling these highways and byways over the past four decades. There have been changes, of course, but for the most part the landscape is as I remember it.

Located approximately half way between Tampa and Orlando in what was once the heart of Florida’s citrus belt, Lakeland is the home of Florida Southern College which my wife and I attended as undergraduates. The first order of business on this road trip was attending the homecoming celebration marking the college’s 125th anniversary. Founded in Orlando as the South Florida Seminary, in 1885, it morphed into Southern College when it moved to Sutherland (now Palm Harbor), and then briefly to Clearwater, both on the Gulf Coast. It finally moved to Lakeland in 1922 and was renamed Florida Southern College in 1925. Frank Lloyd Wright was invited to the campus in 1936 and returned to Taliesin to design his “Child of the Sun,” a complex of eighteen campus buildings, twelve of which were completed before the architect died in 1959. The West Campus of Florida Southern College now constitutes the largest concentration of Wright-designed structures in the world and his only college campus (see my posting of March 28, 2009).

Our visit in Lakeland afforded us an opportunity to spend time with old college chums, some of whom I had not seen since I left Lakeland upon graduation in December 1973. It seems strange to walk around campus now and look at the young students and recall when we wandered these walkways years ago looking at the old folks coming back to visit. I am reminded of Nathaniel Hawthorne returning to Bowdoin College, his alma mater, for a commencement ceremony in 1852. “All my contemporaries have grown into the funniest old men in the world,” he told his wife Sophia. “Am I a funny old man?” I wonder if these kids look at us this way.

Many of us were members of The Vagabonds, the college theater troupe, and this homecoming was particularly bittersweet. We celebrated being together again after all of these years, but we also returned to mark the passing of Mel Wooten, our director and mentor during the beginning of our budding thespian careers. Some of us have continued in the theater and others have chosen different career paths, but we all owe Mel no small measure of thanks for turning out the way we did. There was a brief and touching ceremony dedicating the theater lobby in Mel’s honor after which we all went inside to share recollections of our time on that stage and our fond remembrances of our departed friend. Some of the current Vagabonds were there and treated us to a sampling of their impressive talents as we looked at each other and wondered if we were that good way back when. There was laughter and music and I can’t help but think that Mel was looking down on all of us with a big smile on his face.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the evening - certainly for me - was when Robert MacDonald, a brilliant and gifted concert pianist who has been artist-in-residence at the college since 1963, stepped down to the stage to play Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” from A Little Night Music. I have known Bob and his wife Ingrid, who are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, since the time I first set foot on campus back in the autumn of 1969. I developed a close and lasting friendship with them and their daughter Sona during the time we spent together in Freiburg, Germany in the early 1970s. Sona is now a wonderfully talented and successful actress in Vienna where her folks first met as students in the late 1950s. I have listened to Bob play this particular song since he and Sondheim first worked together many years ago, and I think of him every time I hear it. It is a song of anger and regret, but not when I hear Bob play it. So, when he sat down to the small upright piano on stage - a far cry from the Bosendorfer grand piano he is accustomed to playing - and his long, graceful fingers tinkled out the first notes, I knew I was going to hear him play it again. I have to admit that my eyes turned a little misty as a flood of memories came rushing back. When I first met Bob he was in his late 30s, a young and vibrant presence . . . a veritable force of nature. Now, having turned 80 just ten days ago (Sondheim turns 80 tomorrow so the song was quite appropriate on that score as well), he seemed much frailer than I remembered from the last time we saw each other six years ago; a reminder that none of us are as young as we used to be. That all changed, however, when he sat down before the keyboard and all the power and muscle of his immense talent overshadowed the passing of so many years.

Today I turn another year older . . . on the cusp of sixty. . .not quite there yet but getting closer every day. It was nice to be able to spend my birthday here in Lakeland among so many fond memories and in the company of friends who figure prominently in them. Thinking of that song as Bob played it last night, I have no regrets about growing older. So what if some look at me as the funniest of old men?

There ought be clowns.
Well, maybe next year.