The Day Splicing The Main Brace Passed Into History

We all know water is essential to life. At the same time we have to keep in mind that it can also sustain deadly diseases including typhoid, cholera, giardia, dysentery, e. coli, hepatitis, and salmonella. It wasn't until the late 19th century that science really began to understand diseases, their vectors, and methods of control and prevention. It's no wonder that the fermentation of beer was an early cultural practice in human history around the world. Beer was reliably safer than water. It traveled better, lasted longer, and had some medicinal properties as well. The magic molecule was alcohol.

By the 15th century and the burgeoning age of distant empires it was already apparent that ships full of soldiers and sailors needed to carry water. Unfortunately it didn't last more than a few weeks in a barrel or ceramic container under a hot tropical sun. Beer wasn't much better, nor was wine, but rum was almost perfect as a cheap, plentiful, and long-lasting alternative. In 1650, the Royal Navy introduced the tot ration, a daily amount of rum for every sailor. It was a welcome offering for crews whose work was brutal, dangerous, and little more than enslavement for those pressed into service. The practice of the rum (or tot) ration and its benefits and liabilities became an essential part of Royal Navy life. Despite a growing temperance movement in the 1870s and the increasing complexity of tasks, the practice continued until the last piping of "Up Spirits" on July 31, 1970. That day is remembered as Black Tot Day. The practice ended in Canada in 1972 and in New Zealand in 1990. Here is the story of the rum ration and its iterations throughout its more than 300 year history.

Splicing the main brace with the Royal Navy

The end of the rum ration had an enormous impact on producers in the British Empire and its territories, particularly in the Carribean. Many distillers had an association with the ration for centuries. It was a tough decision to put aside such a long tradition but all was not lost. The rum stocks were auctioned and warehoused by the new owner in Gibralter. From there, he supplied select Royal Navy vessels, Royal Air Force and Army messes, and even a few choice bars with the treasured rum. In 1979 Charles Tobias secured the rights to the original Admiralty recipe and founded Pusser's Rum, named after the Ship's Purser who oversaw its daily distribution to sailors. Here's more on the Pusser story.

The American military experience with rum closely resembles that of the Royal Navy. History tells us that both the Contiental Army and Navy had a daily rum ration. The U.S. Navy ration lasted until 1862 when temperance sentiment prevailed in Congress and the practice was abolished. The law took effect on September 1. Here is an air sung in the ward room of an unknown U.S. vessel on August 31.

Farewell To Grog

Come, messmates, pass the bottle ‘round

Our time is short, remember,

For our grog must stop and our spirits drop

On the first day of September.

Jack’s happy days will soon be gone,

To return again oh! Never,

For they’ve raised his pay five cents a day

But stopped his grog forever.

Farewell, old rye, ‘tis a sad, sad word,

But alas! It must be spoken,

The ruby cup must be given up

And the demijohn be broken.

Yet memory oft will backward turn

And dwell with fondness partial,

On the days when gin was not a sin

Nor cocktails brought courts martial.

All hands to splice the main brace call,

But splice it now in sorrow,

For the spirit-room key will be laid away

Forever on to-morrow.

"Splice the main brace" was the common response to the sound of "Up Spirits" on the bosun's pipe.


It would be fitting tonight to pour an ounce or two of rum - obviously Pusser's if you have it - and add twice the amount of water to make a grog, then find your most comfortable chair, sit back, and enjoy your tot while thinking about a great British naval tradition and the day it came to a sad end.




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
thehistoryproject.co.uk

Text:
Wikipedia
Imbibe!, David Wonderich, Tarcher Perigee, 2015
Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library
Pusser's Rum

Tolkien Shapes The First Chapter Of The Rings

For fantasy fiction fans this day in 1954 has great significance. It is the day that J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring first appeared on store shelves in the United Kingdom. The book was the first of three volumes in the high fantasy novel we know today as The Lord of the Rings. A used copy of that first edition with its original dust jacket would fetch an owner at least $6500. An autographed copy would easily be in six figures as Tolkien was a bit of an introvert and disliked autographing his books. I doubt that sum would matter much to true fans. To them the words within are priceless.

Who was the man behind this beloved three volume narrative we know as The Lord of the Rings? The 1968 BBC video below contains some footage of an interview and explores Tolkien's real and imaginary worlds. The audio is not the best so viewers may want to use earbuds or headphones.

Below is a probing, fast-paced, and well-known Tolkien interview from BBC Radio in 1964. It was first broadcast in 1971. All of Tolkien's brilliance and eccentricity is on full display in this wide-ranging look at one of the most beloved writers of the last century. 

It would take a generation after his death (1973) before a cinematic version of his great work would, perhaps could, appear. The Lord of the Rings film series produced between 2001 and 2003 not only created a new generation of readers but also energized existing Tolkien fans to reexamine his work. All of this new energy and imagination has had a significant effect on the world of fiction and fiction writing. Tolkien's creative genius and the publication of Fellowship of the Ring - and The Hobbit - started the surge. We can't say with precision where that surge takes us but we can be certain that Tolkien's legacy will be enjoyed and expanded long into the years ahead.






Sources

Photo:
tolkienlibrary.com

Text:
wikipedia.com, J.R.R.Tolkien
tolkienestate.com
"Why Did Tolkien Write The Lord of the Rings," Michael Martinez, middle-earth.xenite.org

J. S. Bach: May His Music Go On Forever

Statue of composer J.S. Bach in Leipzig, Germany

This day in 1750 marks the passing of one of the great three "B's" in classical music, Johann Sebastian Bach, He gave us some of the most sublime music in western culture and it would be an oversight, especially as a Lutheran, not to honor this master of the Baroque and pillar of Lutheranism. Here is a taste of genius whose work was largely forgotten for a century following his death.


Magnificat in D Major, Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting. 

Goldberg Variations. The performance is by the dazzling and eccentric Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould, who was well-known for quietly "scatting" during his performances. He drove sound and recording engineers batty.

Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major,  Yo Yo Ma

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.  A familiar piece but it never gets old especially when played by the amazing young organist, Gert Van Hoef. He made this video a few weeks before his nineteenth birthday.

Bach's music has been a part of me for so long that I couldn't begin to tell you when I first heard it other than to say it had to be in church at a very early age. The preludes. fugues, harmonies, the shear wonder of his work, it's all in my blood, and I can't play a single note of it. Wouldn't have it any other way. I simply listen and let it flow.

I hope you can take time today to listen to the four pieces included in today's post. Normally I try to avoid posting music longer than ten minutes but today will be an exception. 

Music’s ultimate end or final goal…should be for the honor of God and the recreation of the soul. 

                                          J. S. Bach - Leipzig, 1738

Sources

Photo: stlpublicradio.org, flickr/seabamirum

Jean Shepherd: American Storyteller

Mention "Ralphie" and "Red Ryder BB gun" in the same breath and I'd say most people could make an immediate connection with the film, A Christmas Story. On the other hand, most people probably know very little about the remarkable personality behind that story. His name is Jean Shepherd.

He was born on this day in 1921 on Chicago's south side and raised in nearby Hammond, Indiana. After serving in World War II, Shepherd began a career in broadcasting that expanded into writing, film, and live performance. He was heard on late night radio for over twenty years - all unscripted - on New York's WOR where he entertained listeners with his humorous stories, interviews, and practical jokes. Shepherd hosted a television show for WOR as well, but he is best remembered in video narrating a number of productions based on his stories of growing up in the Midwest. Many of the scripts were so popular they later appeared in print. Here is the storyteller at his best on his traditional Christmas Eve broadcast on WOR in 1974. A Christmas Story would emerge from these broadcasts in 1983.

Psychology tells us that humorists often do not have the happiest of life stories. Shepherd was no exception. Although he surely had the talent to become a well-known national treasure, radio did not provide him coast-to-coast exposure available with the new medium of television. He was fiercely independent, a maverick, and one not to take life too seriously. I can imagine he was a threat to the ego of more than one radio executive. Furthermore, he was a "night owl" on radio, broadcasting to a dedicated but smaller audience, and in direct competition with televised local news and the likes of Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show. In fact this warm story by a fan notes that Shepherd likely was in line to take over The Tonight Show with Steve Allen's departure in 1957 but Jack Paar had the right of first refusal with the NBC network. Paar unexpectedly accepted thus denying Shepherd his big break on one of television's most popular shows. Finally, from my research, it seems Shepherd maligned his radio work when he moved into writing film for television in the '70s. Indeed, it apparently was a clean break - maybe the execs were happier without him - and he did go on to success with films, including The Phantom of the Open Hearth, The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters, and Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss. Still, I think the fates denied him the opportunity to become a big television star in the 1950's and much better well-known in his lifetime.

Without question, his best known contribution to American humor is A Christmas Story, a compilation of stories and characters drawn from his earlier work. It was originally produced as a feature film in 1983 and made the transition into a television classic thanks to the persistence of Ted Turner. Almost any man born before 1950 has lived some or all of Ralphie's/Shep's childhood. Each man's path to adulthood is his own, but the markers are identical. Jean Shepherd was a genius at capturing them. And his skills as a narrator made him a natural at weaving life's common threads into humorous and entertaining listening.

". . . the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window."

Shepherd died 24 years ago on Sanibel Island, Florida, remembered for one film produced in 1983 when he was 62. There's much more to him than that and I hope more people come to enjoy his work. The settings now and in the future will be different but the collected experiences from childhood and adolescence remain similar and often age into fine wine. Thanks to Shepherd we can laugh at past times and enjoy the harvest.

If you want to explore more of Shepherd's work, the made-for-television film, The Phantom of the Open Hearth, is the place to start. It premiered at Christmas 1976 on public television as a humorous glimpse of Ralphie's teen angst during his high school years in the Midwest. You'll see many of the characters and storylines - yes, the leg lamp is there - that appear in A Christmas Story. These days Phantom is a cult classic among Shepherd fans. If you want to join the cult you can watch the film for free on You Tube.

AirVenture Over Oshkosh 2023

The Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) annual week-long AirVenture gathering in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, kicks off today. It's better known as "Oshkosh" to aviation enthusiasts and you can be assured that every one of them has the event on their bucket list. There's good reason. Imagine a fly-in attracting around 7500 airplanes. Imagine 2500 aircraft exhibits, 800 commercial exhibitors, daily world-class airshows, and a total of over 600,000 guests.

AirVenture at Oshkosh is far from your average fly-in

Organizers call the event "the world's greatest aviation celebration" and this year marks its seventieth edition. The map below gives readers an idea of the scope and scale of Oshkosh and indicates why the event turns a rather sleepy Wittman Regional Airport into the busiest airport in the world for one week each year.

AirVenture grounds - for scale, that's an 8000 foot runway at the top 

I had the privilege of attending the event several times in the last decade of my career. Energizing, informative, and significant, the show was a great vehicle for delivering an organizational message to a large, captured, and enthusiastic audience. You may ask why the National Park Service (NPS) would send a dozen or so employees and volunteers to work an air show. First, the agency has almost fifty out of its more than 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 and fire management. Add to that interagency cooperation across departments as well as airspace regulation over the parks and the justification become clearer. In recent years the NPS's presence at the event has been reduced significantly and folded into a more cooperative effort with other federal agencies. In summation, it's a grand and demanding opportunity to reach out face-to- face with thousands of guests who enjoy and impact resources and services they provide.

Nothing like fly-in camping with thousands of your best - in this case closest - friends

If you can't attend AirVenture, the EAA maintains a comprehensive up-to-the-second website where you can spend hours reading, watching and listening to events. 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!

Some Advice On Prepping For The Coming Election Season

 

We are now fifteen months away from November 2024 and the presidential election. Regardless of the outcome it's promising to be a vicious campaign as the Socialist Democrats struggle to win the House and retain control of the Senate and the future of the Biden presidency. Another significant ingredient will be the collective anger among tens of millions of voters on the right and left who remain upset with an embattled candidate consumed by his 2020 loss and a sitting president tottering through a now rapid descent into late stage dementia. It's not a good choice either way and the chorus for change grows louder week by week. I believe the anger translates easily to motivation and in turn to more confrontational election tactics.

Around 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a guidebook advising those in power on how to keep it. Four and a half centuries later, Saul Alinsky wrote Rules For Radicals advising those out of power on how to take it from those in charge. It's all about keeping and holding power. We have a struggle for that power coming next year. You'll have to read Machiavelli for yourself. It can be a challenge. On the other hand, Alinsky's book is nicely structured, very readable as a playbook, and an aid to the critical thinking you'll need to navigate the campaign battlefield.

In preparation for the desperate and emotional battle that's coming, I thought it would be the perfect time to give readers a booster shot of the political tactics we're likely to encounter from our politicians and their organizations. They won't be new to readers here because they've become the subject of an OTR post in presidential election years. Many of the tactics have been a feature of American elections for well over a century. It took the mind and experience of Saul Alinsky, long recognized as the founding father of community organizing, to best articulated them in his 1971 book. He was after all a Chicago native trained at the University of Chicago and a veteran organizer and political activist in the city's neighborhoods. His experience taught him early that politics was a very dirty game. That's one reason he dedicated the book to Lucifer.

My copy purchased in 1971 during my revolutionary days

Democrats, especially those from the party's "progressive" wing, were well aware of the value of the tactics described herein and used them effectively during their convention in Chicago in 1968. They used them successfully against a naive Republican Party until late in the last century. By then American politics had become a vicious game of win or lose instead of compromise. Eventually GOP campaign strategists recognized political reality required them to fight fire with fire. That said here are the twelve rules or tactics we'll see at work every day until the election and beyond. My condensation of supporting information from the book is in brackets.


1. Power is not only what you have, it's what the enemy thinks you have. [Power is derived from two main sources - money and people.]

2. Never go outside the expertise of your people. [It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.]

3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. [Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.]

4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. [You can kill them with this because nobody can possibly obey all of their own rules.]

5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. [There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating.]

6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.

7. A tactic that drags on too long become a drag. [Don't become old news. Even radical activists get bored.]

8. Keep the pressure on. Never let up. [Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, recover, regroup or re-strategize.]

9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. [Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.]

10. If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. [Violence from the other side can become a positive because the public sympathizes with the underdog.]

11. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. [Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.]

12. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. [Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people, not institutions, people hurt faster than institutions.]


Look carefully at these words. Any way you look at them, there is rough play, play for keeps. We've read and heard them daily and watched their consequences unfold on our national stage especially since 2008. Time and experience have taught me well and today I see it as an unsettling and potentially dangerous book now that it has become mainstream. I trust readers will benefit from this information as we face what may well be the most significant national election in our time.

In closing, some readers may be curious how I came to own a first edition of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals [1971]. First, the political events of the 1960's were not good to me. After President Kennedy's murder in 1963 , Barry Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election of 1964, and the physical and mental slaughter in Vietnam and the US, I became an anarchist in the classical sense of the word. That's when I encountered Rules for Radicals. It's been read many, many times, it's a bit yellow here and there, and the dust jacket has a few small tears and scuffs; otherwise, it's in excellent condition. 

As a husband and father, and student of the American experience, I moved right of center in politics and economics over the years, but always maintained a fiercely liberal position on many social issues. In essence I'm now a Jeffersonian Democrat and that makes it difficult to place me in context in today's polarized political environment. On the other hand, most folks smile and laugh and many are happy to know I never once liked Richard Nixon. Not even when I was six years old.

Wiley Post Completes First Solo Flight Around The World in 1933

July is an important month in the history of flight. On July 14, 1914, the US Signal Corps organized an Aviation Section that would eventually grow into the US Air Force. And on July 19, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission first landed humans on the moon. So far in July 2022 NASA released the first images from its spectaculat Webb telescope and both NASA and SpaceX continued their ambitious rocket development and launch programs aimed at the moon and Mars. All of these endeavors were preceded by the work of a number of aviation pioneers whose own achievements often get lost in history. Today we remember another July event and the famous American aviator who achieved it. His name was Wiley Post. After a journey of eight days he returned to his starting point at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to complete the first solo flight around the world. Here is a map of the journey:

And here is what This Day In History (history.com) says about the flight:

Two years earlier, Post had won fame when he successfully flew around the northern part of the earth with aviator Harold Gatty. For his solo around-the-world flight in 1933, he flew a slightly greater distance–15,596 miles–in less time. For both flights, he used the Winnie Mae, a Lockheed Vega monoplane that was equipped with a Sperry automatic pilot and a direction radio for Post’s solo journey.

His aircraft, Winnie Mae, was as well known as its pilot. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's summary description of the plane say this:

 

Flying this specially modified Lockheed 5C Vega, famed aviator Wiley Post set many records and pioneered several aviation technologies. In 1931 Post and navigator Harold Gatty flew it around the world in eight days, and in 1933 Post became the first to fly around the world solo, taking only seven days. In 1935, while wearing the world's first pressure suit, which he helped design, Post flew the Vega into the stratosphere, reaching 547 kilometers (340 miles) per hour while cruising in the jet stream. The Winnie Mae was named for the daughter of F. C. Hall, the original owner and a close friend of Post.

Designed by John K. "Jack" Northrop, the Lockheed Vega first flew in 1927. It was the first aircraft with a NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] cowl that decreased drag and increased power plant cooling by streamlining airflow around and through the engine.

Winnie Mae at her place of honor in the Time and Navigation exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC

Over the next two years Post explored the development of a suit for high altitude flight. During his experimental flights he became the first man to encounter the high speed air currents we know as jet streams. On August 15, 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. Below is a photograph of the pair taken shortly before their fatal accident:

Will Rogers (on wing) and Wiley Post (by prop) as they prepare to depart Point Barrow, AK, August 15, 1935

In many ways Post's interest in science, experimentation and controlled, powered flight mirrors that of Wilbur and Orville Wright. The brothers enabled Post to make his contribution to aviation history as a pilot, inventor, and trailblazer. Today, his name and achievments continue to inspire and enable new air and space pioneers to go higher, faster, and farther than ever. 

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Map, fiddlersgreen.net
Winnie Mae, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Post and Rogers, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Text:

wikipedia.com
history.com
airandspace.si.edu
gendisasters.com
acepilots.com

Ernest Hemingway: Narrative Style In The Hands Of A Master

 

Ernest Hemingway, one of the 20th century's most significant American novelists and short story writers, was born on this day 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'd like to think - I have my doubts - it remains a rite of passage for graduation these days.

Hemingway, his wife, Pauline, and their sons in Bimini in 1953

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. 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 taken from the Hemingway entry at 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 cove except for The Old Man and the Sea. Essentially he is a victim of my limited interest in non-fiction; however, the legacy has prompted our family to visit the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida. He lived there from 1931 to 1939. There is something for everyone there including a furnished house, colorful gardens, a fine bookstore, and a clowder of polydactyl - extra-toed - cats 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. Enjoy the cats!

Hemingway at Sun Valley Lodge, Idaho, late 1939

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Bimini photo, John F. Kennedy Library
Sun Valley photo, public domain

Text:
Title quote, goodreads.com
Quote and content, New York Times, July, 3, 1961
Hemingway entry, wikipedia.com

A Leap Of Faith In One Small Step

Lunar Module Eagle in landing configuration, July 20, 1969

July 20, 1969, fifty-four years ago today, 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 92 earlier this year. With the creation of the Artemis program in 2017, the US and its partners hope to return to the lunar surface with a crewed polar landing scheduled for 2025. That's an ambitious target date , but no more so than the private sector timetable for similar missions to Mars. 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

Text:
Wikipedia.com

Aging Summer Brings The Hunter And His Big Dog

Orion the Hunter

Back in the '70's and '80's I had the good fortune to live on the beach of a small barrier island at the mouth of the Savannah River. My house was a raised Caribbean-style cottage built in the 1920s. The porch overlooking the Atlantic faced southeast and was ideal for capturing the summer trade winds. At this time of year when I looked toward the horizon I saw a beautiful event unfold many times in the hour before dawn. Those hours and the imaginary music of the spheres evoke memories so vivid they seem to have occurred only yesterday.

First, Bellatrix, a blue giant star rose out of the Atlantic haze to be followed soon by the red giant, Betelgeuse. Soon the blue giants, Mintaka, and Rigel followed. At this point viewers saw a signature belt of three stars and a faint sword. Experienced sky watchers knew that Orion the Hunter was ascending. In minutes the belt stars pointed to shimmering Sirius, a binary star also known as the Dog Star. It was by far the brightest star in the sky but soon it and all the others would dissolve in the blinding light and heat of another summer sunrise.

Sirius the Dog Star

In the Nile and other valleys of the ancient Middle East, all eyes turned to the summer dawn anticipating the appearance of Orion and Sirius. They signaled the coming of the floods, of water for life and eventually for civilization. We have come a long way in time since scribes first recorded Sirius rising from the damp mud along the banks of the Nile. But we still experience the Hunter and the Dog, now both lost in daylight, one awaiting his turn to rule the autumn sky, the other to remind us that his days, the sultry dog days, are still with us.

While some people dread them I look forward to the coming of the "dog days." The heat makes me thrive and my arthritis becomes a memory. Atlanta's climate data tells us that on average the warmest days of 2023 will be behind us in a few weeks. The sun is already casting ever longer shadows as it arcs lower across the southern sky. Leaves hang limp on trees catching more and more of that light giving the woods a golden hue even at midday. The aging summer has also brought this year's acorn crop closer to maturity. I can tell because the squirrel community in our woods is starting to work overtime on an early and ripening harvest.

Calm days and high temperatures also lead to popcorn thundershowers that meander across the region waiting to die out as fast as they arise. So far they've brought powerful lightning, the positive strikes that start fires, several inches of rainfall, high winds, and pea sized hail. With that said it's time to envision sitting comfortably on the screened porch where a big ceiling fan quietly generates a steady breeze and your sweating sweet iced tea feels good even to the touch. The forest surrounding me is a still landscape interrupted by an occasional bird or squirrel. If you stay there long you witness the yellowing light of day giving way to the twilights, the lightning bugs, the cicadas, then the katydids and a chorus of north Georgia tree frogs.

I love all of those twilight sounds but I love the katydids most. They remind me of long summer vacations and drifting to sleep in my bed next to a cottage window that opened wide to both their chatter and a comforting breeze moving down the West Virginia mountainsides of my childhood. It was there I first developed a passion for forests, for flowing water, for a clear sky I felt I could almost touch. Over sixty year later that passion leads me to waken before the sun to witness a pattern of stars rise out of an unseen ocean and bring me summer. Bring it on!

Racing Across Georgia On The Nancy Hanks

When I moved to Savannah in 1977 people were still talking about "The Nancy." It was the familiar name for the Nancy Hanks II, a daily Central of Georgia - later the Southern Railway - train that ran round trip from Savannah to Atlanta until 1971. Abraham Lincoln's mother seemed like an odd choice as a name for anything in the South until I quickly learned that, at the turn of the 20th century, "Nancy Hanks" was also a record breaking trotting mare from Lexington, Kentucky.

Nancy Hanks in 1892 shortly after her record breaking run

The Central of Georgia Railroad is best remembered for two trains named after fast and famous race horses, the other being the much better known Man o' War. That train made two 117 mile runs a day from Atlanta to Columbus. But it is the Nancy that gained fame among Georgians. The name was first used on a short-lived train in 1892-93. It was revived in 1947 and remained in use until 1971 when railroad across the nation ended virtually all of their passenger service. The train featured reserved-seat deluxe coaches, a grille and lounge car, a dome car in its later years, and maid service. The color scheme was a mix of blue and gray inside and out with a logo on each car.

The Nancy Hanks at Wadley, Georgia, in 1948

Central of Georgia Depot and Train Shed in Savannah (now a visitor center and museum)

At 7:00 a.m. every day the Nancy pulled out of the Central of Georgia Depot and Train Shed in Savannah for its 294 mile, five hour and forty minute run to Atlanta. For twenty years the train was popular with a wide variety of travelers ranging from businessmen to children on school field trips to families visiting relatives and friends to shoppers - the famous Rich's flagship store was across the street from the Atlanta Terminal. Day-trippers had about four hours of useful time before they had to return to the terminal for the 6:00 p.m. departure and return to Savannah.

An Atlanta advertisement for the Nancy Hanks II

Atlanta's Terminal Station in 1955. Demolished 1972.

By the late '60's improved highways, government regulations, labor issues, taxes, and subsidized competition spelled the end of privately-owned passenger rail service across the country, a service that had rarely made a profit for railroads for decades. So it was with the Nancy Hanks II. She made her last run on April 30, 1971 just one day before the creation of Amtrak, a publicly funded rail passenger service.

Twenty-four years earlier, on July 17, 1947, the Nancy Hanks II made her first run from the Georgia coast across the blistering midland to the state capital. Today, people still talk fondly about that trip. Some would be thrilled at the prospect of taking it again. Should a ride on the Nancy Hanks III become a reality I hope to be among the happy riders racing on the rails across Georgia.

By the way, the horse was indeed named for Lincoln's mother. The train  was definitely named for the horse.

Sources

Photos and illustrations:
Kentuckiana Digital Library
rebelrails.com
carrtracks.com
railga.com
georgiaencyclopedia.org


Text:
wikipedia
georgiaencyclopedia.org
chsgeorgia.org
railga.com
cofga.org
american-rails.com

Visions Of Industrial America Through The Modernism Of Charles Sheeler

American Landscape 1930

Born on this day in Philadelphia in 1883, Charles Sheeler became one of the founding members of the Modernist arts in the United States. Although trained as a draftsman as well as an artist he was equally successful as a self-trained commercial photographer. Along with photographer, Paul Strand, Sheeler is also credited with producing Manhatta, often called the first avant-garde film in the US. If we were to use one word to describe his work, it would be "Precisionism."

I favor a picture which arrives at its destination without the evidence of a trying journey rather than one which shows the marks of battle.

                                                                 Charles Sheeler

Here is a sample of Sheeler as painter and filmmaker:

Pertaining to Yachts and Yachting 1922

Yankee Clipper 1939

Golden Gate 1955

A class visit to the Phillips Gallery (now Phillips Collection) of the Smithsonian Institution in the early 1970s introduced me to Sheeler's work. My appreciation of his style grew throughout my career as responsibilities in visual media planning, design, and production increased. The career ended almost twenty years ago but I still recall his name when reminded of his subjects, especially cityscapes and industrial structures. 

Trinity Test: "Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds"

Trinity explosion at 0.016 second after detonation, July 16, 1945

Today marks the 78th anniversary of the Trinity Test, the explosion of the world's first plutonium bomb and the beginning of the Atomic Age. Expectation among the scientists that morning in the New Mexico desert ranged from a dud bomb to a . Luckily, the result was reasonable and the success allowed the United States to pursue a quick and definitive end to war with Japan. 

I am sure the debate on using nuclear weapons against civilian targets in Japan will be an endless one. Also, I am sure that President Harry Truman's decision to use those weapons saved Japan and the United States and its allies millions of additional casualties. Regardless of your position on this question and the Atomic Age, the greater reality is simply that our world has been transformed by this new power. As the leader of the free world the United States has a huge responsibility regarding the use of nuclear power for creation and destruction as well as its proliferation. The events of July 16, 1945 and in the month that followed showed us the awesome power of the atom. Seventy years of nuclear history has only focused us even more on being careful to choose wisely in such matters.

The Department of Energy has a fine mixed media post on the Trinity Test and its context within the Manhattan Project. The Wikipedia entry for Trinity provides additional information, including several illustrations, and many interesting external links. Access the Wikipedia Trinity entry here.

Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance

Our title for this post is a quote taken from the Bhagavad Gita spoken by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project's lead scientist, on the realization of what he and his fellow scientists accomplished in the Trinity Test. In the Gita, the speaker is Vishnu, a supreme god in the Hindu tradition. Perhaps Oppenheimer's pessimism and quote were justified. I like to recall that Vishnu, as supreme god, had many avatars or incarnations. One of them is Shiva, the Lord of the Cosmic Dance. As such, the dancer is the creator, sustainer, and destroyer of the world as he stands on the Dwarf of Ignorance. 

Only a few people were at Trinity that morning to see the flash and feel the heat and wind from the blast. I have no doubt it was quite a dance for all who witnessed this historic event given that some scientists believed nothing would happen while others hypothesized a nuclear chain reaction that would ignite a world-devouring atmospheric explosion. That small group of scientists would soon realize that somewhere between nothing and everything in that dome of boiling plasma, the Age of the Atom was upon us.

In just a few days you will be able to see a long-awaited film on this subject by the renowned blockbuster director, Christopher Nolan. The film is entitled Oppenheimer. It is an adaptation of the book, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Martin Sherman and Kai Bird.

Before Art Deco There Was The Ornamentation And Decoration Of Gustav Klimt

For over fifty years I have enjoyed a quiet obsession with something called the Wiener Werkstatte. It was a community of artists in Vienna that grew out of the Vienna Secession, itself a larger expression of the Arts and Crafts movement beginning in the late 19th century. My fascination with this theme began during a semester of cultural history in grad school focusing on organic form and function in urban planning and design. Little did I know that the interest would reemerge twenty years later with my involvement in the planning and design of parks, visitor centers, museum, exhibits, publications, and other facets of resource interpretation in the National Park Service. The organization itself has sustained elements of the Arts and Crafts theme in its branding, architecture, interior design, and graphic identity since its founding in 1916. It is appropriately called National Park Service rustic or, more informally, Parkitecture.

One of the most interesting members to emerge from the Arts and Crafts movement and the Vienna Secession was Gustav Klimt, born in Vienna on this day in 1862. He is described as a symbolist painter, one who focuses on mysticism and imagination. Like many artists his early work was described as academic. At 28 he found his muse in Emilie Louise Floge, a fashion designer and entrepreneur who greatly influenced his work during their life-long relationship. . Many art historians claim this 1907 painting, The Kiss, is the finest expression of their loving relationship:

This painting, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907), is also from what is called Klimt's "Gold Period" and is an equally familiar work:

It has an amazing history involving Nazi looting, museum purchase, decades of litigation, a $135,000,000 purchase price, art world disgust, one book, and five films, including the popular 2015 release, Woman in Gold.

As an artist active in the eras of Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, through Modernism's progression toward Art Deco, a style that emerged in the mid 1920s, there is much more to Klimt than the golden paintings. If you look at the body of his work you find he is a niche artist. At the same time you find the work compelling and complex to the point where it's easy to recognize his influence on material culture and imagination a century after his death.

Avenue in Schloss Kammer Park, 1912

Sources

Illustrations:
The Kiss, Osterreichische Galerie Bevedere, Vienna
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202
Avenue in Schloss Kammer Park, Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

Text:
Gustav Klimt, Wikipedia.com
klimt.com
"Klimt Painted Much More Than 'The Woman In Gold'", Colton Valentine, Huffington Post, July 14, 2015

Aux Armes Citoyens!: The Bastille, Paris, July 14, 1789

Today is the 234th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, a 14th century fort and political prison, by a crowd of 1000 Parisian laborers. The historic event marked the beginning of the French Revolution and the symbolic end of absolute monarchy in France. What followed was eight decades of political and social unrest as France and Europe as a whole struggled with the concept of nationalism. In France, the holiday is known as National Day. In the English-speaking world it is known as Bastille Day.

La Prise De La Bastille                      Pierre Houel (1735-1813)

For more information about the event, the revolution it spawned, and its significance in national and world politics, visit this site posted by The Ohio State University.

For an expression of the patriotism this day represents, there is but one song and image:

We are reminded of the depth of the French nationalist struggle in the painting below by Eugene Delacroix depicting the July Revolution of 1830 or Second Revolution. A third revolution in France would follow in 1848. This event fueled political upheaval throughout Europe and forced several monarchies to grant reforms favoring the middle and working classes. Another generation would pass before the consitutional laws of 1875 would embody the full intent of liberty, equality, and fraternity for the people of France. 

Liberty Leading the People               Eugene Delacroix, 1830

Sources

Text:

The Anatomy of Revolution, Crane Brinton, Vantage, Revised edition, 1965