I was born in Maryland and spent my first thirty years living there, first in the Appalachian Mountains, then on the Eastern Shore, and later in suburban Washington. After a year in South Carolina, I moved to Georgia in 1977. I soon met another park ranger who worked in Florida. She was a wonderful woman who became my best friend. then my wife, and soon the mother of our three children. I spent over eleven years working in the historic city of Savannah, Georgia, and on the moss-draped sea islands nearby before moving to Atlanta.. In 2007, I retired from the National Park Service and a career dedicated to preserving and interpreting resources and themes in the cultural and natural history of the United States. It was a most rewarding experience. Today, I enjoy living in the rolling hills and woods of the Appalachian Piedmont east of Atlanta.
For fantasy fiction fans this day in 1954 has great significance. It is the day that J.R.R. Tolkien'sThe Fellowship of the Ring first appeared on store shelves in the United Kingdom. Today, a used copy of that first edition with its original dust jacket would fetch an owner at least $6500. I doubt that sum would matter much to true fans. To them the words within are priceless.
In lieu of a typical biography below is a short video about the author's life and his creation of Middle Earth. The film comes from the "Behind the Scenes" series issued in the special edition video package of director Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Tolkien died in 1973. It would take another generation before a cinematic version of his great work would or perhaps could appear. In the interim his imagination gave new energy to a full range of fiction writers. His is a rich legacy and one that will be enjoyed and expanded in the years head.
It's better known as "Oshkosh" to aviation enthusiasts and every one of them has the event on the bucket list for very good reasons. Imagine a fly-in attracting 7500 airplanes, 2500 aircraft exhibits, 800 commercial exhibitors, daily world-class airshows, and 500,000 attendee who are "plane" crazy. What organizers call "the world's greatest aviation celebration" kicked off it's sixty-sixth version on Monday. The event reached its midpoint today and will conclude on Sunday afternoon. This map gives readers an idea of the scope of Oshkosh and indicates why the event turns a rather sleepy Wittman Field into the busiest airport in the world for one week each year. For scale the runway at the top of the image measures 8000 feet.
I had the privilege of working in the Federal Pavilion at five AirVentures beginning in 1999. Some may interpret that as overkill, but each one left me thrilled at the thought of returning for another event. And you may ask why the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service would send a dozen or so employees and volunteers to work an airplane show. First, the agency has around forty out of 400 units with a significant link to an aviation theme. In addition, the Service maintains a fleet of fixed and rotary wing aircraft contributing over 20,000 hours of flight time annually in support of park operations, maintenance, and resource management. Add to that the interagency cooperation - including the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service - as well as airspace regulation over the parks and I think you can see the point. Regardless, it's a grand and demanding opportunity to distribute information and talk face-to-face with thousands of guests.
Nothing can replace being at Oshkosh mixing with almost 20,000 folks who fly into the convention, thousands of exhibitor/participants, and all the visitors. Fortunately, if you can't attend, the EAA maintains a comprehensive up to the second website where you can spend hours reading, watching and listening to the day's/week's events. Facebook friends should be on the lookout for live broadcasts as well.
I've been looking up at the sound of an aircraft engine ever since I could lift my head. If you are blessed with the same response make your plans to attend an Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture. You will not be disappointed. Until then "wheels up" every chance you get!
On this day in 1933, the famed American aviator, Wylie Post, returned to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn almost eight days after he began his solo round-the-world attempt. Two years earlier he flew a slightly shorter route accompanied by his friend and fellow pilot, Harold Gatty. On both trips he flew his Lockheed C5 Vega, Winnie Mae, an aircraft that had become as well known as its famous pilot. In August 1935, he and the American cowboy humorist, Will Rogers, died in the crash of Post's hybrid Lockheed home-built aircraft while exploring the possibilities of an air mail route across Alaska.
Winnie Mae at her place of honor in the Time and Navigation Exhibit at the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington
Although Post is best remembered for his adventures as a pilot he made significant contributions to atmospheric research and high-altitude flight technology. His accomplishments include the discovery of the jet stream and the design and development of pressure suits. Read a brief and entertaining biographical sketch here and more information including several links here at wikipedia.org.
Post posing in the third version of his pressure suit
Given the success and extent of our space programs today, it's hard to believe Post's solo occurred just thirteen years before my birth. We've come a long way in aviation and when you think about all the aircraft in flight around the world at this very minute the Post flight seems insignificant. As readers of this blog know, I'm somewhat fond of aviation so I'm perfectly happy to give Post the credit he deserve as an aviation pioneer in a time when even our heroic history seems little more than an afterthought to most Americans.
I offer this piece by Eric Whitacre to honor the dreams, accomplishments, and memory of Wiley Post.
Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
Music: Eric Whitacre Lyrics: Charles Anthony Silvestri
I. Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine… Tormented by visions of flight and falling, More wondrous and terrible each than the last, Master Leonardo imagines an engine To carry a man up into the sun…
And as he’s dreaming the heavens call him, softly whispering their siren-song: “Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”. (“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”.)
L’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale, facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria. (A man with wings large enough and duly connected might learn to overcome the resistance of the air.)
II. Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine… As the candles burn low he paces and writes, Releasing purchased pigeons one by one Into the golden Tuscan sunrise… And as he dreams, again the calling, The very air itself gives voice: “Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”. (“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”.)
Vicina all’elemento del fuoco… (Close to the sphere of elemental fire…) Scratching quill on crumpled paper, Rete, canna, filo, carta. (Net, cane, thread, paper.) Images of wing and frame and fabric fastened tightly. …sulla suprema sottile aria. (…in the highest and rarest atmosphere.)
III. Master Leonardo Da Vinci Dreams of his Flying Machine… As the midnight watchtower tolls, Over rooftop, street and dome, The triumph of a human being ascending In the dreaming of a mortal man.
Leonardo steels himself, takes one last breath, and leaps… “Leonardo, Vieni á Volare! Leonardo, Sognare!” (“Leonardo, come fly! Leonardo, Dream!”)
Sources
Photos and Illustrations: Winnie Mae, Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum Wiley Post, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Today marks the birth of the American writer, Ernest Hemingway, in 1899. Most of us likely met Hemingway through his Nobel Prize winning 1952 novel, The Old Man and the Sea. It was required reading for me in high school and I trust that it remains a rite of passage for graduation these days. Over a fourteen year period he published four blockbuster novels: The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), To Have and Have Not (1937), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). His body of work includes additional novels, non-fiction, letters, collections of short stories and poems, and one anthology.
Hemingway, his wife, Pauline, and their three sons posing with marlins, Bimini, 1935
A private person by nature, his lifestyle and literary themes coupled with fame made him a larger than life and very public personality. In a 2010 paper, Professor Timo Muller (University of Augsburg), writing in the Journal of Modern Literature, noted that Hemingway "has the highest recognition value of all writers world-wide." That value is reflected equally in this quotation from the Hemingway entry on Wikipedia:
The extent of Hemingway's influence is seen in the tributes and echoes of his fiction in popular culture. A minor planet, discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh, was named for him (3656 Hemingway); Ray Bradbury wrote The Kilimanjaro Device, with Hemingway transported to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro; the 1993 motion picture Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, about the friendship of two retired men, Irish and Cuban, in a seaside town in Florida, starred Robert Duvall, Richard Harris, Shirley MacLaine, Sandra Bullock, and Piper Laurie. The influence is evident with the many restaurants named "Hemingway"; and the proliferation of bars called "Harry's" (a nod to the bar in Across the River and Into the Trees). A line of Hemingway furniture, promoted by Hemingway's son Jack (Bumby), has pieces such as the "Kilimanjaro" bedside table, and a "Catherine" slip-covered sofa. Montblanc offers a Hemingway fountain pen, and a line of Hemingway safari clothes has been created. The International Imitation Hemingway Competition was created in 1977 to publicly acknowledge his influence and the comically misplaced efforts of lesser authors to imitate his style. Entrants are encouraged to submit one "really good page of really bad Hemingway" and winners are flown to Italy to Harry's Bar.
I've read bits and pieces of Hemingway over the years but nothing cover to cover except for The Old Man and the Sea. Essentially he is a victim of my interest in non-fiction; however, the legacy has prompted our family to visit the Earnest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida. He and his family lived there from 1931 to 1939. There is something for everyone there including a furnished house, colorful gardens, and a fine bookstore. Our children enjoyed the polydactyl (extra-toed) cats that are descended from a white cat Hemingway received as a gift from a local ship captain. It's a good opportunity to glimpse a private life from another time and a literary legacy that will be with us for a very long time.
Sources
Photos and Illustrations: John F. Kennedy Library
Text: Quote and content, New York Times, July, 3, 1961 Wikipedia
Lunar Module Eagle in landing configuration, July 20, 1969
Forty-nine years ago the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle landed on the moon. Millions watched at 10:56 PM, EDT, as Neil Armstrong, the commander of the Apollo 11 mission, descended the Eagle's ladder and made what he called a "giant leap for mankind" with his final step onto the powdery lunar surface. Learn more about the Apollo 11 mission here on Wikipedia where you can find scores of links to more National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reports and multimedia.
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the module pilot, spent almost 22 hours on the moon including their 150 minute walk where they erected an American flag, collected soil and rock samples, and deployed experiments. On their return to Earth much of the material they collected was eventually archived and displayed at the Smithsonian Institution. Some rocks entered our culture in some fascinating ways, including this one at the Washington National Cathedral, where one was embedded at the center of a red planet in what has become known as the Space Window.
Time is catching up with those first attempts at exploring our nearest celestial neighbor. Neil Armstrong passed away in 2012 at the age of 82. Buzz Aldrin turned 88 earlier this year. Although we hear rumbling of new manned missions to the moon there's nothing firm coming from our government aside from a proposed Space Force. The private sector in fact may have an edge on new lunar missions. Regardless of what the future holds, those early years including the mission we commemorate today were an exciting and almost magical time for science, exploration, and discovery of the frontier "out there."
Sources
Photos and Illustrations: atlasobscura.com, Space Window detail nasa.gov, Space Window, full photo
Today is National Day in France - we call it Bastille Day - a holiday marking the 1789 storming of the Bastille by the people of Paris and the symbolic end of absolute monarchy in France. The event ushered in eight decades of political and social unrest as France and Europe as a whole struggled with the concept of nationalism.
In the world of birthdays today we note that of the American painter, Andrew Wyeth. He was born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania in 1917 and died there in 2009 after a lifetime of painting individuals and landscapes near his home and at his summer residence in Maine. He represented the second of three generations of famous painters in the Wyeth family. His father, N. C. Wyeth, was a renowned illustrator and painter. His son, Jamie, who turned 72 last week, continues painting literally in his father's footsteps in Pennsylvania and Maine.
I can best characterize his work as compelling, thought-provoking dreams on canvas, not quite real, not quite abstract. In this post are three painting by Wyeth offering a comfortable contrast to the season of his birth. They are a very thin segment of the artist's world in and around his home and studio at Chadds Ford. Readers can see the full range of his subjects at his authorized website.
Branch In The Snow 1980
Shredded Wheat 1982
My aim is to escape from the medium with which I work; to leave no residue of technical mannerisms to stand between my expression and the observer. To seek freedom through significant form and design rather than through the diversion of so-called free and accidental brush handling.
My aim is not to exhibit craft, but rather to submerge it, and make it rightfully the handmaiden of beauty, power and emotional content.
What you have to do is break all the rules.
For more information, references, and sources about Andrew Wyeth visit his Wikipedia page here. Sources Quotes, art-quotes.com
Bob Dylan was only 21 on July 9, 1962 when he walked into the Columbia Recording Studios in New York to record a song to be included on his second album. The song, Blowin' in the Wind, brought him fame and recognition as one of the nation's leading folk poets of the twentieth century. The lyrics and Dylan's comments on the song were published in June 1962 in the folk journal, Sing Out. He said this:
Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer is but oh I won’t believe that. I still say it’s in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper it’s got to come down some ...But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know . . . and then it flies away.
Dylan and Joan Baez, March on Washington, August 8, 1963
The music critic, Andy Gill, said this about the song in his book, Classic Bob Dylan, 1962-1969: My Back Pages:
Blowin' in the Wind marked a huge jump in Dylan's songwriting. Prior to this, efforts like The Ballad of Donald White and The Death of Emmett Till had been fairly simplistic bouts of reportage songwriting. Blowin' in the Wind was different: for the first time, Dylan discovered the effectiveness of moving from the particular to the general. Whereas The Ballad of Donald White would become completely redundant as soon as the eponymous criminal was executed, a song as vague as Blowin' in the Wind could be applied to just about any freedom issue. It remains the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude.
That is a poem for our time, perhaps all time.
Sources
Photos and Illustrations:
U.S. Archives and Records Service, Rowland Scherman Collection
On July 5, 1965, singer-songwriter, Marty Balin, watched a frustrated hootenanny try-out walk off the stage of The Drinking Gourd in disgust over his performance. Balin liked what little he heard and was impressed by the man's ambition. He went backstage and asked him, Paul Kantner, if he would join a band he was forming for his new Haight-Ashbury club called The Matrix. Kantner agreed. He didn't know it at the time, but he and Balin had just formed a band that would become Jefferson Airplane.
In a matter of days, another Drinking Gourd singer, Signe Toly Anderson, would join. Kantner recruited his downstairs neighbor, Jorma Kaukonen, as another guitarist. A local drummer and bass guitarist filled out the group. Kaukonen would convince Jack Casady to become their new bass later in the year.
Six weeks after Balin and Kantner had their backstage chat, Jefferson Airplane debuted as the house band at The Matrix on August 13, 1965. The band was an instant success and went on to release their first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, a year later. Signe Toly Anderson (vocals) and Skip Spence (drummer) soon left and were replaced by Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden. The group's next album, Surrealistic Pillow, launched them to international success.
Sources
wikipedia.com, Jefferson Airplane classicbands.com, Rock and Roll History youtube.com, Signe Toly Anderson interview, KGON Portland, 2011 youtube.com. Mart Balin: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, Joe Vertino, producer, martybalin.net, 2009
Today marks the conclusion of the Battle of Gettysburg, fought July 1-3, 1863, and the beginning of the end for the Confederate States of America. A year later, in August 1864, the Union unconditionally controlled the Mississippi River and relentlessly pressed Confederate forces in Virginia. In the Deep South, General Sherman's army devastated Atlanta. Six months later, he would be in Savannah and poised to destroy the remains of the Confederacy as he moved north through the Carolinas.
The American Civil War is a perennial topic in our history. Indeed, it did preserve the Union as President Abraham Lincoln intended and left us with any number of consequences in our national experience, both good and bad. Regarding those consequences, we should not expect otherwise as that is the way events unfold in the great wheel of history. And so it is with our great wheels of personal experience. Now in my seventh decade immersed in all of this I'm a bit surprised and certainly privileged to experience Gettysburg at 100 and 150 years after the pivotal battle. The place is a personal holy ground because three people cared.
The Old Ranger and his dad at Gettysburg in 1954
First of all. my parents always loved being in nature and its historical overlay. Living in the Potomac River watershed afforded our family many opportunities to enjoy any number of places of national significance. As is often the case, first impressions become lasting ones. I was seven years old when we spent a long weekend exploring almost every foot of Gettysburg National Military Park. It was a fascinating experience and I still have the souvenirs to prove it. About six years later I met George Landis, the third person in this story. Landis taught middle school history and social studies on the eve of the Civil War Centennial. A Pennsylvanian with a love of history and basketball, he devoted an entire school year to the study of the Civil War. He was a superb teacher, highly animated and far ahead of his time. He focused on learning that took his students beyond lectures into the world of role-playing, performance, critical thinking and more. I recall fondly seeing every chalkboard in his classroom filled with detailed maps of battles, each carefully drawn and labelled with colored chalk. A little more than a decade after my year with Landis, I began a long and rewarding career immersed in experiential learning in the sacred places and histories in our national parks.
The Old Ranger and his mom at Gettysburg in 1954
There will be tens of thousands of people visiting Gettysburg this holiday week as well as many thousands of volunteers recreating and commemorating the events that took place there. Lasting impressions will be made this week about the sacrifice, the consequences, and the wheels of history both national and personal. And somewhere in that crowd will be a seven year-old with a new enthusiasm for a defining moment in our national experience. The commemorative landscape at Gettysburg will wait with pride and serenity like an old veteran to welcome him on his return visit in 2063.
As we approach Independence Day 2018 I can think of no better way to reflect on the meaning of that day than to read and reflect on the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776:
In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The Avenue In The Rain Childe Hassam, 1917
And to think this document will be followed eleven years later by the U.S. Constitution and its concept of government by "We, the people." In the spirit of the freedom of the American Experiment established on July 4, 1776, our cultural experience continues to reinvent itself every day. We can thank the Founding Fathers for that freedom, but with that comes the awesome responsibility to preserve the system that created and sustains it. In the coming days, I hope you take some time between the burgers, the parades, the fireworks and whatever to think about that responsibility and resolve to keep our democratic republic strong for ourselves and our future generations.
Sources
Photos and Illustrations: public domain photo, "The Avenue in the Rain," oil on canvas, by the American painter Childe Hassam. 42 in. x 22.25 in. Courtesy of The White House Collection, The White House, Washington, D. C. Image courtesy of The Athenaeum.
Text: National Archives and Records Administration