National Park Service Birthday

Guidon of the United States National Park Service

The National Park Service celebrates its 103rd birthday today, August 25. It's an important day in our household. My wife and I devoted over 55 years of combined employment toward achieving its noble mission so vividly stated in the enabling legislation of 1916:

....to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

Seeking a working balance between preservation and use was often a serious challenge but overall the work was extraordinarily satisfying. Even after several years of retirement our blood still runs green with the memories of working in eight sites and one regional office in eight states. Temporary assignments took us from coast to coast in the lower 48 states and to Alaska as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The journey from an single idea to a complex resource management agency charged with overseeing more than 400 sites has been challenging. Here is part of the chapter, "Early Growth and Administration," taken from a Department of the Interior publication, A Brief History of the National Park Service(1940). It describes the national park movement leading up to the formation of the NPS.

The United States had a system of national parks for many years before it had a National Park Service. Even before establishment of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 as "a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people," the Government had shown some interest in public ownership of lands valuable from a social use standpoint. An act of Congress in 1852 established the Hot Springs Reservation in Arkansas (which became a national park in 1921), although this area was set aside not for park purposes, but because of the medicinal qualities believed to be possessed by its waters. It was not until 1890 that action was taken to create more national parks. That year saw establishment of Yosemite, General Grant, and Sequoia National Parks in California, and nine years later Mount Rainier National Park was set aside in Washington.

Soon after the turn of the century the chain of national parks grew larger. Most important since the Yellowstone legislation was an act of Congress approved June 8, 1906, known as the Antiquities Act, which gave the President authority "to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments.

In these early days the growing system of national parks and monuments was administered under no particular organization. National parks were administered by the Secretary of the Interior, but patrolled by soldiers detailed by the Secretary of War much in the manner of forts and garrisons. This, of course, was quite necessary, in the early days, for the protection of areas situated in the "wild and woolly" West. it is a fact that in this era highwaymen held up coaches and robbed visitors to Yellowstone National Park, and poachers operated within the park boundaries. The national monuments were administered in various ways. Under the Act of 1906 monuments of military significance were turned over to the Secretary of War, those within or adjacent to national forests were placed under the Department of Agriculture, and the rest—and greater number—were under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park, established in 1890 as the first Federal area of its type, was administered by the War Department.

Under this disjointed method of operation, national parks and monuments continued to be added to the list until 1915 when its very deficiencies exposed the plan as unsatisfactory and inefficient. The various authorities in charge of the areas began to see the need for systematic administration which would provide for the adoption of definite policies and make possible proper and adequate planning, development, protection, and conservation in the public interest.

Within two years, Secretary of the Interior, Franklin Lane, had secured the help of the philanthropist, Stephen Tyng Mather, to develop a management system to propose to Congress. Mather did so promptly and by 1917 it had been established and officially organized.

For more information, NPS Historians, Barry Mackintosh and Janet McDonnell, have written an excellent brief history documenting the agency to 2005. Their work, The National Parks: Shaping the System, is available online here.

The former directors of the National Park Service have left us some candid, and in some cases historic, commentary on managing the preservation-use dichotomy referred to above. I highly recommend their books, along with a biography of Stephen Tyng Mather, if readers are so inclined:

Albright, Horace M. (as told to Robert Cahn). The Birth of the National Park Service. Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1985.

Albright, Horace M, and Marian Albright Schenck. Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.

Hartzog, George B. Jr; Battling for the National Parks; Moyer Bell Limited; Mt. Kisco, New York; 1988

Ridenour, James M. The National Parks Compromised: Pork Barrel Politics and America's Treasures. Merrillville, IN: ICS Books, 1994.

Wirth, Conrad L. Parks, Politics, and the People. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980.

Shankland, Robert; Steve Mather of the National Parks; Alfred A. Knopf, New York; 1970

National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.

                                                                                                     Wallace Stegner

Today the National Park Service administers 419 units from the Caribbean to Alaska to the South Pacific. Its varied sites recorded 318,000,000 recreation visits in 2018.  In all likelihood the future holds both more units and visits all in the face of declining funds, shrinking staffs, and a maintenance backlog of around $10 billion. The situation presents a bold challenge particularly for those staffing field operations who often see their work as a calling rather than a career. We can only hope their enthusiasm and dedication outlasts the obstacles that threaten their mission.   

Sources

Illustration and text:
National Park Service entry, Wikipedia.org

Happy National Rum Day!

We commemorate a host of foodways in the United States but we should be very happy about National Rum Day for at least two major reasons. First, rum as we know it is a New World drink. Its distillation first occurred in the Caribbean about 400 years ago. It became wildly popular in the American colonies by the 18th century because of its proximity to and abundance of the main ingredient, sugar. That brings us to our second reason: historically, rum production is a massive recycling project based on by-products of the sugar industry. After all that sugar boiled off the cane juice, refiners were left with a gooey, black, and useless mess we know as molasses. Enterprising slaves discovered that fermented molasses, when distilled, produced an alcoholic beverage. Soon a new industry emerged out of a vast overabundance of the waste product from sugar production, the relatively brief fermentation period required, and a close-by market eager for cheap spirits. But there's more.

In his fascinating book, And A Bottle Of Rum: A History Of The New World In Ten Cocktails, Wayne Curtis says this about rum:

Rum is the history of America in a glass. It was invented by New World colonists for New World colonists. In the early colonies, it was a vital part of the economic and cultural life of the cities and villages alike, and it soon became an actor in the political life.

Rum's genius has always been its keen ability to make something from nothing. Rum has persistently been among the cheapest of liquors and thus often associated with the gutter. But through the alchemy of cocktail culture, it has turned into gold in recent years. Rum is reinvented every generation or two by different clans, ranging from poor immigrants who flocked from England to the West Indies, to Victorians enamored of pirates, to prohibitionists and abolitionists, right down to our modern marketing gurus, who tailor it day by day to capture the fickle attentions of customers attracted to bright glimmerings of every passing fad.

 

My first serious encounter with rum didn't involve a bottle or a drink. It was the summer of 1966 and I was hiking across St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands with the intent of documenting the remains of its many sugar mills and writing a history of the industry there. The project never moved beyond the research stage but over the next forty years my career took me to the islands of St. Thomas and St. John and the cultural resources of Virgin Islands National Park many times where I became more familiar with the most famous byproduct of sugar production.

Though not really a staple in our household, we've come to enjoy rum occasionally. Today, we pour it in the summer to make classic mojitos when there's fresh mint in the garden. When it's time to entertain on the porch or patio, it's time to mix up a batch of Painkiller. Makes for a fine dessert all by itself and doesn't need to be powerful to be enjoyed.

St. Croix (Virgin Islands) Sugar Mill             Pre-20th century, artist unknown

What better way to celebrate National Rum Day than sinking into a comfortable lounger with drink in hand and a good book. With Atlanta's high temperatures pushing into the mid 90's in the coming days it's perfect weather for an icy Mojito or Painkiller on the porch. Time to check the liquor cabinet and fridge!

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain photo, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Croix_Virgin_Islands_History_18CG_Windmill_15.jpg


Text:
Wayne Curtis, And A Bottle Of Rum: A History Of The New World In Ten Cocktails, Broadway Books, 2007
David Wondrich, Imbibe!, revised edition, Penguin Group, 2015
wikipedia.com

Woodstock's 50th Anniversary

Woodstock was billed as an Aquarian exposition featuring three days of peace and music. Indeed it's remarkable that the event proved relatively peaceful in spite of a continuing deluge that turned the venue into a sea of mud and logistical chaos. And there was the music, now legendary. Although a vast mythology enveloped the event over the years, there was the music, and it will always stand alone.

And, no, I wasn't there but the music of a generation and more was there, and in many cases is still with us. So who graced the stage at the festival we have come to know as Woodstock? Here is the list according to the Woodstock Wikipedia page:

Richie Havens

Swami Satchidananda

Sweetwater

Bert Sommer

Tim Hardin

Ravi Shankar

Melanie

Arlo Guthrie

Joan Baez

Quill

Country Joe McDonald

Santana

John Sebastian

Keef Hartley Band

The Incredible String Band

Canned Heat

Mountain

Grateful Dead .

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Janis Joplin with The Kozmic Blues Band

Sly and the Family Stone

The Who

Jefferson Airplane and Nicky Hopkins

Joe Cocker and The Grease Band

Country Joe and the Fish

Ten Years After

The Band

Johnny Winter and his brother, Edgar Winter

Blood, Sweat & Tears

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young 

Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Sha Na Na

Jimi Hendrix

The festival opened on August 15 and attracted an audience estimated at 400,000 or twice what the promoters expected. In 1969, the rock critic Ellen Sander said this about the festival's significance:

No longer can the magical multicolored phenomenon of pop culture be overlooked or underrated. It’s happening everywhere, but now it has happened in one place at one time so hugely that it was indeed historic .... The audience was a much bigger story than the groups. It was major entertainment news that the line-up of talent was of such magnificence and magnitude (thirty-one acts, nineteen of which were colossal) .... These were, however, the least significant events of what happened over the Woodstock weekend. What happened was that the largest number of people ever assembled for any event other than a war lived together, intimately and meaningfully and with such natural good cheer that they turned on not only everyone surrounding them but the mass media, and, by extension, millions of others, young and old, particularly many elements hostile to the manifestations and ignorant of the substance of pop culture.

The Woodstock Preservation Alliance has this to say about the event's long-term significance to the American experience:

Woodstock was the culmination of a transformation in American popular music that had begun with [the] Monterey [Pop Festival]....Woodstock introduced the same wide diversity of talent, albeit on an expanded scale, to a truly mass audience....A subsequent documentary film...and several sound recordings helped establish what only two years before had been underground or avant-garde musical styles and ushered them into the mainstream.

Participating musicians, industry insiders, and rock critics and historians concur that Woodstock changed the way that popular music was programmed and marketed. Festival promoters noted the large numbers of fans who were willing to put up with often inadequate facilities....Promoters saw opportunities to improve their profit margin by more efficiently organizing festivals....They also understood that increased ticket prices would need to be offset...by moving the festivals from pastoral settings into sports arenas and convention centers and limiting the shows to a single-day or evening.... [Such changes] altered the festival-going experience... and thereby diminished the sense of community that many commentators considered the sine qua non of the Woodstock experience.

The development of "arena rock" marked the end of the rock "vaudeville circuit," and led to the demise of the smaller concert hall venues....The arenas also gave the upper hand to the style of music called heavy metal, represented by loudly amplified guitar based and blues-inflected bands composed almost entirely of white male musicians, whose aggressive style of playing was ideally suited for filling the audible space in arena settings.

After Woodstock, musicians apprehended the seemingly insatiable demand for their music and began commanding higher fees. It thus soon proved to be no longer economically feasible to book several major bands on the same bill....This in turn led to the segmentation of the fan base....In the years fol1owing Woodstock, however, fans were channeled into attending concerts that featured fewer acts, typically representing one or two musical styles.

Part of the Woodstock Festival's enduring legacy is the continuing efforts to counteract this trend by replicating the multi-performer/genre concert experience. Over the past three decades various parties have staged or attempted to stage successors to Woodstock, either by that name at different sites or else on or near the original site under a different name. [These efforts have had mixed success over the decades.]

Some impact I'd say.

Joni Mitchell didn't appear as scheduled but she penned a perfect description of the event, one that Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young would bring alive as a #1 hit that stills captures an audience.

Well I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road
And I asked him tell where are you going, this he told me:
Said, I'm going down to Yasgur's farm, going to join in a rock and roll band.
Got to get back to the land, set my soul free.
We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.


Well, then can I walk beside you? I have come to lose the smog.
And I feel like I'm a cog in something turning.
And maybe it's the time of year, yes, and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am but life is for learning.
We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.


By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong,
And everywhere was song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bombers jet planes riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies above our nation.


We are stardust, we are golden, we are caught in the devil's bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

If you want to remember this historic Aquarian exposition or imagine it for the first time you can choose among several original recordings. Better yet, watch the director's cut of the documentary, Woodstock.  The film, an outstanding example of documentary film making, is a perfect capture of the concert as well as the pivotal national experience that created it. 

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
wikipedia.com

Text:
All quotations: woodstockpreservation.org/SignificanceStatement.htm
azlyrics.com

David Crosby At 78

He may be a social and political bad boy in the eyes of many but David Crosby, who turns 78 today, remains an iconic figure in the performance and evolution of popular music beginning in the 1960s. His talents, notably his beautiful high harmony, helped propel The Byrds, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young to the top of the charts. Though the pace may be slowed, Crosby is still on the circuit adding his signature sound --and rather strong it remains--after all these years. Considering the toll from years of unhealthy life choices both emotional and physical, we're fortunate to have him around for another generation of admirers. For me, Crosby ranks among the best of the singer songwriters.

He's completed three albums in the past four years. From all accounts, he's loving it and so are his audiences. Here is a sample of the poet's work performed in its golden age, first with Graham Nash, and second, with Nash, Stephen Stills, and Neil Young:

Happy birthday, David. Sail on!

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
miaminewtimes.com, photo by Django Crosby

Text:
miaminewtimes.com
wikipedia.com
davidcrosby.com

Perseid Meteor Shower Maximum Tonight and Tomorrow Night

They're back. Time for the Perseids, the most reliable meteor shower of the year. The shower reaches its peak tomorrow night but tonight's watchers won't be disappointed as the moon will be a bit darker. New research has concluded that the Perseid event produces more fireballs - meteors brighter than the planets, Jupiter and Venus - than any other shower so you can still enjoy watching even in full moonlight later this week. And since fireballs are random meteors, you don't have to watch the skies after midnight to see them. One of the most spectacular fireballs I ever saw cut across at least 120 degrees of steel blue sky about half an hour after sunset. Anytime after sunset works but the moon's interference will be reduced greatly in the hours just before sunrise. 

Heads up for the Perseids!

Here's how to enjoy the Perseids. If the night is clear, find a dark location, take a lounge chair or blanket and bug spray outside between midnight and dawn and look into the northeast sky. In that sky, you'll see a lopsided "W" known as the constellation Cassiopeia, an easy marker for its neighbor, Perseus. The shower radiates from this point as it rotates across the sky, but it's important to note that meteors may occur anywhere in the sky dome. Furthermore, you will likely see some random meteors that will not fit the pattern.

Don't bother with a telescope, but you may enjoy binoculars for exploring deeper into space when the meteor watch gets a tad boring. Also, if your weather doesn't cooperate at the shower's maximum, keep in mind that it will be gradually declining through the evening of August 18 so you still have a good chance of seeing a piece of the show.

For the latest news about this year's shower visit spaceweather.com.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Perseus With the Head of Medusa, ca. 1800, Antonio Canova. Vatican City, Museo Pio-Clementino, Octagon Hall, Canova Cabinet

Text:
earthsky.org

A New Weapon Redefines Warfare

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the first use of an atomic bomb in warfare. It was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, by a B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, under the command of Col. Paul Tibbets. The crew may have had suspicions about their mission beforehand but Tibbets let them know only after the bomb had been armed a mere hour from its target.

Tibbets was alerted to the blast by radioactivity tingling in his teeth and the metallic taste from electrolysis on his tongue. Ten and a half miles away, many thousands had already vanished. A massive firestorm would grip the city within minutes and kills thousands more.

The decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima - and Nagasaki three days later - was a difficult and controversial one that assuredly brought a very quick end to the war with Japan and in the eyes of most historians and military experts saved the lives of millions of combatants and civilians. The controversy is still with us. For more on this historic event and its aftermath readers should visit this fascinating Harry S. Truman Museum and Library archive of primary sources relating to the story.

Tibbets waves from the cockpit prior to takeoff 

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Hiroshima aftermath, U.S. Navy Public Affairs Website, chinfo.navy.mil
Enola Gay photo, National Archives and Records Service

Text:
wikipedia.com

Conrad Aiken: Savannah's Transcendent Sojourner

Today marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of the poet, Conrad Aiken. He was born in Savannah and lived in a townhouse on Oglethorpe Avenue across the street from Colonial Cemetery. He often played in that ancient burial ground midst tabby crypts and tombstones where the mortal remains of many of Georgia's aristocracy found rest. From the time he was eight or nine he wanted to be a writer. Soon he found himself captured by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and happily sharing the terror with his brother and sisters.

With his parents immersed in Savannah society and surrounded by wealth, privilege, and pedigree, he seemed destined for happiness. His father was a successful physician; his mother, a leader in Savannah society circles. Unfortunately, there was little peace in the family. One day, when young Aiken was eleven, his father took a revolver and killed his wife, then killed himself. Aiken never fully recovered from the horror of that day. He would spend the rest of his life exploring the interplay and uncertainty of a good and evil world.

Aiken spent the remainder of his childhood with relatives in New England. Later, he would attend Harvard where he was deeply influenced by the writer-philosopher, George Santayana. He also began a life-long friendship with fellow student, T.S. Eliot.
Aiken would go on to write lyrical poetry weighted with symbolism and psychological exploration so deep that, in his own words, "Freud was in everything after 1912." Later in his career he moved predominantly to prose expressing "faith in consciousness" and an endless search for knowledge as the means to bring order and structure to the larger consciousness of the world. In all, he wrote or edited fifty books, including his poetry, short stories, five novels, and one autobiography.
Unfortunately, for all of his output Conrad Aiken never achieved the level of fame of his good friend, T. S. Eliot or other contemporaries. Shyness kept him away from readings that, for a poet, were lifelines to his audience. Also, he was a most candid critic, a posture that did not endear him to his fellow writers. Lastly, as a resident of both the United States and Europe he could never quite be associated with writers, benefactors, and salons on both sides of the Atlantic. By 1960, he had been resident in the U.S for some years and "rediscovered." Aiken eventually returned part-time to the elegance of Savannah. He spent the winters living next to his boyhood home, becoming the focus of social and academic circles and sought out by admirers until his death in 1973.

If you wander toward the eastern bluff in Savannah's magnificent Bonaventure Cemetery you arrive at Aiken Way. At it's end you find a memorial bench Aiken installed before his death. Next to it is a headstone bearing the identical death dates of his parents, an eerie reminder of the chaos we all face in our lives.

For those of us who have found our peace, there is a profound release there under the live oaks and Spanish moss. Others may not be so fortunate. Aiken is one them. In life, he was restless, a constant searcher forever sailing through an uncertain sea. He felt the same about death and wanted us to know. How fitting it was that he should find his epitaph quite by accident while perusing the Savannah newspapers. It appeared in the daily list of port activity and read simply: "Cosmos Mariner - Destination Unknown." Aiken indeed saw himself a cosmic mariner who on his death in 1973 cast off without a port of call, destination unknown. He left behind, engraved on the bench the wish, "Give my love to the world." It is a rather confident wish coming from a restless sailor. We can pray that every man should find safe harbor, all the while knowing that we are not the final judge of his navigation. We are left merely to explore the products of a shy and troubled man who could appreciate a bawdy pun and have his say in singing words and lilting prose.

Ruinous blisses, joyous pains,

Life the destroyer, life the breaker,

And death, the everlasting maker....

If readers want to learn more about Aiken and his world, I strongly recommend they read this interview published in The Paris Review in 1963.

Sources:

Conrad Aiken, The New Georgia Encyclopedia, entry by Ted R. Spivey
Conrad Aiken, Wikipedia
Conrad Aiken: Progidy Unitarian Poet, Richard A. Kelloway
The Paris Review, Issue 42, Winter-Spring, 1968, The Art of Poetry: Conrad Aiken, interviewed by Robert Hunter Wilbur
poem fragment, conclusion from Aiken's, "The Dance of Life" published in 1916.

copper alloy casting, Shiva as Lord of Dance, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Louis Armstrong: "Satchmo"

Louis Armstrong indeed helped make a wonderful world during his near six decades in jazz and popular music. He was a phenomenal jazz trumpeter, performer, writer, stage personality and all around good will ambassador who was born on this day in New Orleans in 1901. He was nicknamed, "Satchmo," short for "satchelmouth," as a child because of his prominent mouth. The moniker stayed with him as he blazed a trail of unforgettable music throughout his life. Although he passed away in 1971 his imprint remains large in popular music and jazz in particular.

Louis Armstrong                                      Adi Holzer,, 2002

Here is a link to the Armstrong page at NPR's Jazz Profiles where you can listen to the master himself and to others as they describe his broad cultural legacy. Readers can learn more at the Louis Armstrong House Museum site.

And here are two pieces of the master at his trade performing Now You Has Jazz at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, and his signature song, What A Wonderful World:

In 1956 Armstrong joined with Ella Fitzgerald and the Oscar Peterson Quartet to make an album that to this day consistently appears in lists of the top ten jazz albums of all time. Here is a sample from this masterpiece:

After just a few minutes of this talent on display, I'm sure readers will agree that Armstrong indeed helped make a wonderful world for his audience. May his smile, his sound, and his goodness stay with us for a long, long time.