We Learn Wednesdays « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

We Learn Wednesdays

There’s a lot of forting here

Today has been fine, just fine. The mercury settled at 69 degrees this afternoon, which is just slightly above average. The low tonight will be in the 50s, which is an improvement over last night. The sky was full of clouds for most of the day, but cleared up late in the afternoon.

We went for a 90-minute bike ride this evening, because we had the chance and that was lovely. Except I got dropped early in the ride, not too long after I said, “I think you’re about to drop me.” Sometimes you know.

And there was no catching back on. Sometimes you know that, too.

Usually there’s a fable attached to a ride, a simple tale about the time in the saddle, a vital lesson from the vibrations in the cockpit, maybe a pun that comes from pedaling, but not today. It was just a ride, not an especially bad one, but my lovely bride was just faster than me today. Sometimes you know that, and sometimes right away.

Things are growing well in the greenhouse. Here are some of the tomatoes at one of today’s custom water spritzings.

If we can keep them going we could have a great many sandwiches and salads and sides this summer, and thus the chore of the many spritzings is a happy one. I am currently using a spray bottle on the many tomato, squash, cucumber, pepper, eggplant, onion and pea seedlings. There’s a sophisticated three stage process to the watering. Can to cup to sprayer.

I’m reminded of the elaborate irrigation system my high school’s greenhouse had. It was an overhead pipe arrangement with sprinklers spread out to cover the whole of the thing. It was terrific. I wonder if I could make one that would work in our 6 x 9 space.

I imagine the problem would be weight, and attachment points. Probably impractical. But it’s fun to consider while spritz spritz spritzing.

We now return to We Learn Wednesdays, where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. This is the 33rd installment, and the longest. We’ll see seven markers below, making the count in the We Learn Wednesdays series hit 60 markers. There’s so many because there’s some repetition here. Believe me, I’ve tried to figure out a way to break these up and yet keep some continuity to it. There’s not really a way, so we’re doing these in bulk. It’ll make sense as we go along.

Anyway, welcome to Fort Mott.

The sign says:

Fort Mott is an Endicott-era fortification (ca. 1896) that was begun prior to the Spanish-American War. Construction of an earlier fortification, known as the Battery at Finns Point, was begun in 1872 but never completed. Components of the earlier fortification were incorporated in the 1896 construction plan and are visible today at the west end of the main batteries. The fort was officially named in 1897 in honor of Major General Gershom Mott of Burlington, New Jersey, who served with distinction in the Mexican and Civil Wars. Fort Mott has five batteries which originally mounted twelve guns: Battery Arnold (three 12-inch disappearing guns), Battery Harker (three 10-inch disappearing guns), Battery Gregg (two 5-inch rapid fire guns), Battery Krayenbuhl (two 5-inch rapid fire guns), and Battery Edwards (two 3-inch case mates rapid fire guns).

This place is part of a three-fort system. Mott, Fort Delaware on an island in the river and Fort DuPont on the shore, opposite, defended the Delaware River, and the route to Philadelphia, during Reconstruction and the Endicott program. Endicott was Secretary of War William Crowninshield Endicott, who ran things during a time when the government found the coastal defenses to be woefully inadequate. Some $127 million was spent on a series of new forts at 29 locations. Many of them featured breech-loading cannons, mortars, floating batteries, and submarine mines. The project ran from 1885 to 1910 or so, hence Endicott era.

We’ll spend the next few installments of We Learn Wednesdays on Fort Mott, but today, we’ll focus on the gun batteries.

But first, let’s meet Gershom Mott. Born in New Jersey in 1822, he became a general in the Union Army, and was a commander in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. The family history has it that Mott’s grandfather, a man named Captain John Mott, guided General George Washington’s army down the Delaware River to the Battle of Trenton. This may or may not be true.

Mott was a 2nd Lieutenant in the 10th U.S. Infantry during the Mexican–American War. He married, had one child, and worked as a civilian until the Civil War, during which he was appointed the lieutenant colonel, led men in the Peninsula Campaign and took command, as colonel, of the 6th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry. He fought at the Battle of Seven Pines and the Second Battle of Bull Run, where his arm was mangled. Promoted to brigadier general, he missed Antietam as he recovered, but led a brigade in the III Corps at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Wounded again, he missed the Gettysburg Campaign.

Later service found him at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign. He made major General at the Battle of the Crater and was wounded once more three days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. The next year he resigned his commission, worked on the railroad and as a banker, and in government. He was the state treasurer, warden of the state prison, a major general and commander of the National Guard.

And all of that’s enough to get a fort named after you — and a school and a street, but let’s stick with the fort. He died in 1884, aged 62.

So today we’ll concentrate on where the guns were placed. Just over this hill and these structures, you’d see the river. Between us, and on into the background for several hundred yards, are the gun batteries of Fort Mott. First, there’s Battery Gregg.

Battery Gregg is named in honor of Captain John C. Gregg, who served as Captain in the 4th Infantry and was killed in action near Mariquana, Philippine Islands, on March 31, 1899. Completed in December 1900, Battery Gregg was the fourth of Fort Mott’s five batteries to be constructed. This battery contained emplacements for two 5-inch rapid fire guns (model 1900) mounted on pedestal mounts with shields. Both guns were not mounted at the battery until 1906. In 1913, they were removed and later shipped to Benica Arsenal, California. Several years after the guns were removed a Battery Commander’s Station was built on emplacement No. 1 for the 10-inch guns of Battery Harker.

Lt. John Caldwell Gregg, was from Pennsylvania, and an 1887 graduate of West Point, he was promoted to Captain in 1899. It seems he was a quartermaster, and aide de camp to General R.H. Hall. He was killed 125 years ago, almost to the day, in the Philippines. You can see a photo of him here.

When they tested the guns in the Gregg battery in 1907, they shattered windows on the fort, and at neighboring farms.

And then the Edwards battery.

Named in honor of Captain Robert Edwards, who was killed in action near Frenchtown, Michigan in 1813. Battery Edwards has two casemates for 3-inch rapid fire guns, and was partially constructed using two magazines from the 1872 fortification. The magazines were converted into casemates by removing the fronts and replacing them with embrasures arranged to allow the guns to sweep the mine field in the river. The earth cover over the old batteries was cut down to render them less conspicuous and to make the slope in front of the parapet as uniform as possible.

Edwards was killed at the Battle of Frenchtown or, if you like, the Raisin River Massacre. It was a small conflict in the War of 1812. The Americans versus the British and their indigenous allies. Wikipedia:

On January 18, 1813, the Americans forced the retreat of the British and their Native American allies from Frenchtown, which they had earlier occupied, in a relatively minor skirmish. The movement was part of a larger United States plan to advance north and retake Fort Detroit, following its loss in the Siege of Detroit the previous summer. Despite this initial success, the British and Native Americans rallied and launched a surprise counterattack four days later on January 22. Ill-prepared, the Americans lost 397 soldiers in this second battle, while 547 were taken prisoner. Dozens of wounded prisoners were murdered the next day in a massacre by the Native Americans. More prisoners were killed if they could not keep up on the forced march to Fort Malden. This was the deadliest conflict recorded on Michigan soil, and the casualties included the highest number of Americans killed in a single battle during the War of 1812.

Down at the other end of the fortifications you’ll find Battery Krayenbuhl. And, boy, do these markers need refreshing.

Named in honor of Captain Maurice Krayenbuhl, who was killed in action near Meycausyan, Philippine Islands in March 1899. Battery Krayenbuhl’s two 5-inch rapid fire guns on the right flank of the heavy caliber battery, in conjunction with the rapid fire guns at Battery Gregg on the left flank, were an important component to the defensive scheme at Fort Mott. These guns were positioned to protect a minefield in the river from small fast moving vessels that could potentially evade the large weapons. In addition to sweeping the minefield, the guns were designed to protect the channel below and above the fort. An interior magazine was built below the gun platforms and an electric chain hoist was used to deliver ammunition.

I wonder if Krayenbuhl knew Gregg well.

Krayenbuhl was from Minnesota, went to West Point, and became a 2nd Lieutenant in 1890. He was an artilleryman, and he was killed on March 26, 1899, just before Gregg, again, 125 years ago, almost to the day. He’s buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

(As an aside, Krayenbuhl had a son Col Craigie Krayenbuhl, who served in both World War I and World War 2. He was also an artilleryman, was a candidate of OCS, and spent time in the Pacific. He died in 1978. The man this battery was named after, his father, died 1899, and there are still people with us who knew his son. His grandson also served, as a captain in the Air Force. I wonder if anyone else visiting Battery Krayenbuhl knows that.)

In between the batteries Gregg and Edwards and, on the far end, battery Krayenbuhl, there’s the sign telling us about two batteries in one.

Battery Harker and Battery Arnold share the continuous 750 foot long parapet wall. Battery Harker (right) contains three 10-inch gun emplacements and Battery Arnold (left) has three 12-inch gun emplacements.

So let’s take a quick look at Harker and Arnold.

Harker had three 10-inch gun emplacements, each with their own individual powder and shell magazines. Electric hoists lifted ammunition and charges in place. At first, they used speaking tubes to talk between the guns and the magazines below. Later, they put in telephones.

Down this way is Battery Arnold.

Arnold housed a 12-inch gun, which was 36 feet long and weighted 58 tons. It could put a 1,000 pound shell down range out to 9.8 miles. Remember, that’s just the one gun, at just this one fort. Remember, there are three forts protecting the river entry.

Lewis Golding Arnold was a Union general, graduating from West Point in 1837, in a class that had four other Civil War generals among his classmates. As a young man he fought in the Seminole War in Florida and manned posts along the Canadian border. He also fought, and was badly wounded in the Mexican War. After that, in the 1850s, he fought the Seminole in Florida again, before manning Fort Pickens, off Pensacola, Florida. (I’ve been there!) He refused to surrender the outpost during three different Confederate artillery bombardments and in 1862 he was promoted to brigadier general, before eventually taking command of New Orleans. In November of 1862 he suffered a stroke, and left the army in 1864. He died, at 54, in 1871 in Boston.

And here’s the sign for Battery Arnold. I show you this so we can zoom in on two of the photos that show the gun itself.

If the gun weighed a bit more than 58 tons, I wonder how much of that was the barrel. No small task of engineering was this.

Here it is, archaic 19th century weapons technology. Looks quite nifty, doesn’t it?

And here’s another view of a gun emplacement today.

From behind the weapons embankment. The river is over that little hill, the guns would be pointing away from us.

Today it is a nature trail. Enjoy getting bitten by every insect in the western hemisphere.

Which brings us back around to Battery Harker, named after Brigadier General Charles G. Harker. He’s from nearby, and his fate was sealed as a kid. He worked in a store owned by a congressman, who helped him get admitted to West Point.

He graduated in 1858 and was garrisoned in New York and later served in Oregon and Washington. When the war came, he was sent to Ohio to train new troops. He went from 1st lieutenant to captain to colonel from May to November of 1861. He was at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, the Siege of Corinth, Mississippi, the Battle of Perryville in Kentucky and the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee.

In 1863, after Chickamauga, he was promoted to brigadier general. Then he led men at Chattanooga and the Siege of Knoxville. He was killed at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, on June 27, 1864. He was 26.

Not just this weapon installation, there’s an elementary school in his hometown named after him. They’re nicknamed the Comets.

Here’s a slightly closer look at where the guns would have waited.

From that same spot, you can see how much of the river this installation could command. Sail left to head to sea, sail to the left to go up toward Philadelphia. It’s a panorama, so feel free to click to make it larger.

All told, there were three 12-inch guns, three 10-inch guns on disappearing carriages, four 5-inch and two 3-inch mine defense guns here. They were never fired in anger.

And to the far right of the panorama, there’s this little command and observation hut. Here, we’re standing directly behind it.

But we’ll learn more about how the soldiers protected the river with their observation technologies next week, and that’s going to be fascinating.

Fort Mott was rendered obsolete when another nearby fort, Fort Saulsbury was ready for business after World War I. Soldiers served there from 1897 to 1922. It became a state park in 1951.

If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

That’s enough for now. Tomorrow … who knows what we’ll have here, but it’ll be delightful. See you then!

history / markers / photo / running / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
17
Apr 24

This gives me an idea, two of them, and one of them may be fun

I went for a neighborhood run. Of my own accord. Let me regale you with the details for 700 words.

No. It wasn’t that long of a run. Here is a 350 word passage.

I need to run more, but it is possible I like running less than I have in a long time. I blame time. Time is going to get a lot of blame in the near future. So, I put on the running apparel and the running shoes, and I went outside. Normally, for whatever reason, I turn right out of the driveway and run around the neighborhood in a clockwise fashion. But today, I turned left. This put me on an immediate uphill, which is probably the reason I normally turn right. When I got near the top of that very tiny hill I turned right again, so that I might turn right one more time and run down a cul-de-sac I’d never seen. Just adding a few extra hundred yards on a nice road, and then back to my main route, continuing the loop around the neighborhood. This was a mile-and-a-quarter, a good distance for a sprinting horse, or a jogging me. Let all of them see my athleticism! I go back and forth, when I run, thinking I should do this more so I can get marginally faster at it, just in case something marginally slower than me ever chases me in the most comical sequence nature has ever devised. But then I think, things sometimes hurt too much for that, anyway. Again, I blame time. Also, I have a bike. And a car. And locks on the house. And what’s going to chase me? But, maybe, if I ran a bit more, I wouldn’t notice an ankle ache because of a knee pain. That could be an upgrade? Also, sometimes we go for runs, and wouldn’t it be nice for that to be a pleasant experience, or something approaching almost, you know, acceptable, rather than something you gut out? And that’s my goal now, right now, to run enough to make it not something you have to grit your teeth through. And, also, to recover all of the speed, such as it was, that I enjoyed in my teens. Who do I see about making those arrangements?

Just wait until you see my next run.

I know you’re as invested in the fig tree’s progress as I am. Behold, today’s view of the fig tree!

We’ll be googling Fig Newton recipes in no time.

The hydrangea really work well here. These things will just show off for months.

I had to bring the aloe plant back inside. Being a succulent, it does not tolerate chilly temperatures and, being stupid, we’ve had temperatures in the 40s and 50s the last several nights, the plant was turning a tiny bit yellow. Fortunately I noticed it early. It should be fine.

Considering we are now well in the middle of April, it should be warm enough for everything to be outside by now, but what can you do? I mean, aside from lighting up the atmosphere and hoping for no abnormal frosts as May draws near?

Let us turn, once more, to We Learn Wednesdays, where we learn all about this county via it’s historical markers and bike rides. You see a lot more at the speed of two pedals, and today’s marker is the perfect example. This is the 32nd installment and the 53rd marker in the effort. I learned, a month or two ago, that this one was out there somewhere. But in my mind it was elsewhere on this same road. So imagine my surprise when I saw it yesterday.

I’ve passed it several times in my automobile — OK, usually at night — and had no idea. I’ve also passed it several times on my bicycle. Some things you just have to be looking for, even if you aren’t aware of it at the time. And I was only aware of this because of a nearby town crier. (We have a town crier nearby, how great is that?)

Jim Cook Jr, the crier, tells us that Christian Piercy was trying to flee the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. He got out of Philadelphia, hoping to find some refuge for his family, but he started showing symptoms on the stagecoach. So they kicked him off. He turned to the strangers around him for help, but everyone was terrified of the illness. One man took him in. He put him in a barn — or a humble log cabin, depending on the version you hear, and Piercy died soon after.

Piercy had risen to the rank of major in the Philadelphia militia. The militia in that state was an organizational mess:

Pennsylvania had two major shifts in government during the war, and also major changes in the types of militia forces that defended the home front.[1] The shifts in government were actually instigated by the militia, and so they also dramatically impacted the militia system, besides profoundly upsetting the population.

And, what’s more, not everyone wanted to serve, and we don’t just mean the Quakers, Mennonites and other pacifists. That same article tells us that substitutes made up about 42 percent of the total militia force between 1777 and 1780. But Piercy answered the call in the summer of 1777, just after the Pennsylvania’s first-ever Militia Law required mandatory enrollment of all white men between the ages of 18 and 53. Two of his brothers also mustered.

He was apparently wounded, says a modern descendant in an ancestry forum, in a rearguard action about 20 miles outside of the capitol, in a September 1777 rout of the American forces. Our man served and suffered at Valley Forge that next winter, and stayed in the militia after the war, until 1789. It is difficult to tell, from here, what else he did during his time in uniform. Some of the Pennsylvania militia were serving as home guard, others were ordered to battle.

In 2020 Piercy got a brief mention in The Atlantic, which notes that he died alone in that cabin, almost immediately after he arrived. He showed up that same year in a Washington Post story. (Ahh, 2020, when everyone was drawing parallels.)

Piercy was of German descent, and he and his family were part of a proud and longstanding Philadelphia tradition of cutting edge pottery. He lived right on the river, and his shop was nearby, as well. Just a few years ago, local businesses were still discovering some of his works hidden in their collections.

In July 1788, he helped led a group of potters in the Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia.

Three hours long and a mile-and-a-half in length, the Grand Federal Procession was an ambitious act of political street theater, scripted by federalist supporters of the newly ratified U.S. Constitution and performed in the streets of Philadelphia on the Fourth of July 1788. From its commencement at Third and South Streets to its conclusion on Bush Hill north of the city center, the procession involved an estimated 22,000 Philadelphians: 5,000 men in the parade, with a vastly more diverse crowd of 17,000 men, women, and children watching from streets and windows, fences and roofs. Organized by rank and occupation, the marchers were roughly divided between federalist gentlemen (bankers, merchants, members of the Marine and Manufacturing Associations) and thousands of artisan-mechanics who, as the city’s producing class, were central to the ideology of federalism.

That’s a big parade.

There was a brilliant description of the entire order of march in the 1930s.

A flag, on which was neatly painted a kiln burning, and several men at work in the different branches of the business — Motto — “The Potter hath Power over his Clay.”

A four wheel’d carriage drawn by two horses, on which was a Potter’s wheel and men at work, a number of cups,- bowls, mugs, & c. were made during the procession; the carriage was followed by twenty potters, headed by Mess. Christian Piercy and Michael Gilbert, wearing linen aprons of American manufacture.

In the line just in front of Piercy and the potters were the Whip and Cane Manufacturers, “Let us encourage our own manufactures,” the Black-smiths, White-smiths and Nailers, “By Hammer in hand, all Arts do stand,” and the coach-makers, “The Clouds dispell’d, we shine forth.” All of these people were working on the floats as they came by for spectators to see. Behind the men making their pottery on the move came the Wheel-wrights, with five men working on a plow and wheel ahead of 22 of their colleagues, a dozen tin-plate workers, and then the skinners, breeches makers and glovers, 61 strong, under a flag that said “May our Manufacture be equal in its Consumption to its usefulness.” Then came the tallow chandlers, with the mottos “Let your light so shine,”
“The Stars of America a light to the World,” and “United in One.” Twenty of them came through, each with an olive branch in hand.

Street theater is a good name for it.

That was 1788. He died in 1793. Hopefully it was a life of peace and clay in between.

They buried him right away, presumably as a contagion or logistical concern. His wife survived him, and she had the marker put in place. It’s on private farmland, and I didn’t feel it was proper to walk up there, but if you just look in the distance, on the left side of this photo, there’s a flag fluttering in the breeze. That’s where Piercy was buried.

He was just 49 years old.

We’ll see another great marker next week, I’m sure. I just have to go hunt them out between now and then. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

That’s enough for now. Tomorrow, we’ll check back in on the happenings in the greenhouse, see another cool video and maybe more! See you then!

California / history / markers / New Jersey / photo / video / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
3
Apr 24

Mediated transference

There is a time in preparing every good presentation when you have the thing well in hand. You’ve practiced it and studied the timing. You’ve considered every angle worth considering, and discard a few that were, honestly, not worth the neurological effort. And so you put it aside.

That’s where I was earlier today, and then some other ideas came to mind.

And those other ideas? When they come in, they are the worst, especially if they’re the best. This is surely why some people throw slide decks together. Better to mumble and stumble through these things, reading text as you go, than be burdened by ideas late in the cycle.

But the presentation I am presenting tomorrow must be presented with some clarity and efficiency and interest. So there is practice and re-practice and new ideas. Always the new ideas. And somewhere in the third or fourth round of practice you get the best version of the presentation.

No one but the cat and my office walls heard that version.

If there was a hall of fame for rhetorical flourish and pithy points uttered to an empty room, I would be a shoo-in candidate.

But enough about my day.

We quickly turn again to We Learn Wednesdays, and this, the 31st installment and the 52nd marker in the effort. You remember this one. I ride my bike around the county seeking out historical markers. I shot this last December in a stockpiling effort to keep the feature active during the indoor season — and I think I’m now out of that stockpile.

This is … well, you can read the signs.

Near the end of the 18th century three men, Col. Robert G. Johnson and Dr. James Van Meter and Dr. Robert Hunter Van Meter, brothers, decided the area needed a Presbyterian church. Johnson was raised Episcopal in a nearby town, but found the style of the church to be too ritualistic and ornate for his tastes. In that same town were the Van Meters, men held in high regard.

In the early years, the Episcopals had no clergy, so they invited Presbyterian ministers to preach for them. That was the arrangement between 1809 until 1820, but they were predestined to go separate ways. The 17th Article of the Church of England, the one about predestination, was at the root of it. The Presbies wanted their own church building. So, on a Tuesday morning, March 6th, 1821, the morning after James Monroe was inaugurated for his second administration down in Washington, they laid the cornerstone to their first building.

Johnson donated the land and he and the brothers Van Meter covered much of the cost of the building. The congregation expanded in 1835, and then started work on this building in July of 1854, just a few days after George Eastman, the inventor of the Kodak camera, was born in New York.

After about three years of work, including moving the bell from the old church to the new, the building was opened.

(Eventually, the bell went to the fire department.)

The church has a Hook and Hasting two manual, fifteen rank pipe organ. It was built in 1878 and installed in 1879 by the Boston firm. Air for the organ was supplied by hand pumping until 1902, when a water-driven motor was installed. They upgraded the organ again, to electricity, in 1912.

As for the men, we’ve met Robert Johnson before. He was the slave owner, historian, horticulturalist, judge and soldier, the guy with the apocryphal story about tomatoes. He died four years before this building went up. Neither of the Van Meters saw it, either.

Scottish immigrant John McArthur Jr. was the architect, a prominent figure from Philadelphia. He would later design the landmark Philadelphia City Hall, then the tallest occupied building in the world. While many of his works have been demolished, at least a dozen or so still exist.

McArthur learned his craft from a man named Thomas Ustick Walter, the fourth architect of the U.S. Capitol, who redesigned the dome and created the office wings. He would have been there the day Monroe was inaugurated, when the first cornerstone of this congregation’s first church was laid. And while his student was overseeing the construction design of this church, he was also working on his own church in Philadelphia.

Architects must keep busy. Shame so many of them don’t see the fruits of their labors. McArthur could have seen this church, but he did not live to see his masterpiece, the Philadelphia City Hall completed. He died, at 66, in 1890. The city hall was finally finished in 1910.

Now the only thing I have to do to tie this up is to find a photo from Eastman of any of these buildings. Or a letter from the Van Meter family to the Kodak people.

Wouldn’t that be a neat solution?

Failing that, how about this. Robert Van Meter and Robert Johnson, two of the founders of this church are each buried not far away, but I only just discovered that. I’ve seen the church where James Van Meter is buried. I showed it to you last September.

You can learn so much on a bike ride.

We’ll see another great marker next week. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

Today’s dose of relaxation is right here. Enjoy the zen of the California coastline. This place is so remarkable, and so ubiquitious, that there weren’t even signs offering a name. There are road signs on the Pacific Coast Highway that offer you a spot to pull over and soak in the beauty. The signs say Vista Views. And so that’s the name of this place. But, man, it needs a real name. This was majestic.

Elsewhere, a little slow motion of the water coming right up to your toes. If you feel the water in your socks it is likely because I felt the water in my socks and that’s called mediated transference, which, is not a thing, not in this way, not until just now, because I made it up.

Makes sense, I am a media professional steeped in the study of media effects. But look at all of that water sliding on in!

How long do you figure those rocks have sat there, waiting out time and wind and the water for their fate?

I have, I think, two more slow motion videos from this trip. But there are plenty of other Relax Enjoy Repeat videos still to come, not to worry.

We’re getting pretty good at dragging things out around here, aren’t we?

California / history / markers / video / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
27
Mar 24

Midway through another one

It will take some doing, but the next week and a half will be busy and productive. There’s a lot of grading and class prep and things of that sort to get to. It started yesterday, with the grading of midterm exams. That was a full afternoon. But it does not end there, no.

This is the week where I found two mistakes in my planning of the semester. Every class has something due this week, meaning I have to grade … everything. It’s a real first world problem, yes, I know. It is also the second time I’ve had this problem this term.

The issue becomes one of pacing. The goal is to get all of this week’s assignments completed this week. The challenge is to give myself time to do all of that, but also to let each little piece breathe. Read and critique and evaluate a handful of stories, take a break to clear the mind, and then come at it a new.

If I pace it right, I’ll get through everything Friday night. Maybe Saturday.

And next time I plan out a semester calendar, this will definitely be top of mind.

Let’s go back to California! Here’s a nice meditative video from the Pacific Coast. Enjoy a minute on me.

Relax. Enjoy. Repeat.

Here’s another slow motion video from Spooner’s Cove, as well.

Maybe I’m the only one amused by the slow motion waves, but there’s only nine more of them to go.

Time for this week’s installment of We Learn Wednesdays. This is our 30th installment and the 51st marker in the effort. The effort is riding my bike around the county to find the historical markers. I shot this last December in a stockpiling effort in the hopes of being able to stretch them out until I could ride outside again in the spring — which will surely happen just any day now …

(It’s been 48-52 and damp and gray for days and that meteorological condition is no longer novel.)

Over in Salem, they mark the old Star Hall Corner.

Site of Star Hall, demolished in 1898 for the building of City National Bank. Legend has it—if you step on the star, you will always come back to Salem. Rededicated Aug. 24, 1996

Founded in 1888, City National Bank was swallowed up in a merger in 1984. It’s just one bank, but I wonder how that paralleled the fortunes of the town. Today that bank looks empty, and there’s no sign giving hints of what may have been recently happening inside. You can still see an ATM in a side foyer, though.

It’s an important intersection in the town. In earlier, lively days, this was a choice corner, Jones Corner. There was a clothing store there and around it there were stores, warehouses, tailor shops, shoe shops and more. A man named Ashton ran the clothes shop, he had a big star as part of his outdoor signage. The star became iconic, and, overtime, Jones Corner became Star Corner. You can see it here.

A floor or two above the street was the social club, Star Hall. Dances and parties abounded. See and be seen. But social connections gave way to bigger financial opportunities, of course. Apparently, the City Council and the bank developer agreed to take the star from that sign and marked the spot.

The commemoration has been there longer than the club existed, I suppose. The rededicated marker, too. Anyway, here’s the star.

Just before I saw Star Corner a panhandler wandered over to ask for five bucks. I told her I did not have the money. Didn’t even have my wallet, as I was dressed in cycling clothes that day. She went on about her way and I thought, Five bucks? Street-level inflation!

It’s a struggling area. Across the street are a pair of century-old buildings that were rehabbed a decade ago as apartments. The hope was that they would help re-energize the historic district. It’s close. You can tell. Part of being close is that it’s also close to falling back on harder times again.

I wonder if anyone has considered adding a social club.

Next week’s marker will take us to a beautiful church building. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

California / journalism / markers / photo / video / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
20
Mar 24

The most wide-ranging Wednesday post in a while

This evening I watched a man in a custom suit and sneakers talk about his life’s work, listened as he painted a picture that he thinks everyone is out to get him, that money is everything and that having a life is secondary to having work. It would have been disconcerting if it didn’t come off as sadly insecure.

It’s one thing to be driven. To have gotten, undeniably, indisputably, to where you want to be and still come off that way, it seemed difficult, in the day-to-day. I could be wrong. The guy had on a great suit. It fit him, and the rest of the vibe.

Where as I was wearing shoes that look good, but don’t exactly treat my feet well. I like them, but there better not be a lot of walking around in them. And I’m secure enough about my feet to be able to say that.

It is not a phrase I use. It’s not one I think of often. If I were trying to sum up a person, or a presentation, or an attitude, it’s just not a descriptor I reach for. But at one point during the talk it slipped out of my mouth, under my breath, to no one in particular. At the end of the talk, as everyone stood to leave, the strangers in front of me stood and looked back and we all made eye contact, as you do. One gentleman said, “He seems very insecure.”

Also, I’ve become a huge proponent of having a life and an identity away from the office. One day I’ll even make one!

Right now I’m too busy watching things bloom, and waiting for it to get just a little bit warmer. But instead of a steady, constant, climb of mercury, we are stuck in this middle ground of 48 degrees. We are stuck in that time of relative temperatures. Six, seven weeks ago, you’d take 48 degrees, and you’d be pleased with it. But now, somehow, the body knows better. It isn’t supposed to be 48 degrees anymore. The rational mind has known this for some time, but now the body has gotten wise.

That’s when the impatience really kicks in.

But the budding and flowering things don’t seem to mind. The magnolia liliiflora is getting ready to put on a show.

It’s a small tree, basically, because the Overambitious Shrub Lobby got to the policy makers. It’s from China, though it’s often called Japanese. And, as you can tell, it will offer many, many blooms before the leaf buds open.

It is a slow growing thing, about six inches a year or so.

Makes you wonder if we cut it back too far last fall.

I guess we’ll find out in two or four years.

Here’s another video from last week’s visit to California. Here, the waves are rolling in on William Randolph Hearst Memorial Beach. Just across the highway and well up the hill is the Hearst Castle. They’re rather fond of the old media magnate. Gave him a nice, quite, beach too.

The Hearst family owned it all, until they gave it to the state in the 1950s.

We were only there for a short while, of course, but it looks like there’s a lot to enjoy there.

Once again it’s time for We Learn Wednesdays. Today’s is our 29th installment, and I don’t know why I’m still counting that. Anyway, I ride my bike around the county to find the historical markers via bike. Good way to see things, and it’s amusing to take pictures of sometimes important old places in funny clothes. This is the 50th marker in that effort, and I shot this one last December in a stockpiling effort.

The stockpile should last until it gets warm, and I can put some road miles in my legs. But I digress.

I digress because I have nothing.

Here’s the building.

And here’s the marker.

It’s gone on sale again just this week. It’s seemed to have been off and on the market a lot in the last several years. It’s been a mixed use rental for the last decade or so. And the building, according to property records, was built in 1888.

The web will not tell me what makes this place deserving of being on the historic register. You’d think the historic register people would put that on a site themselves. The historic register people do not.

Next week, we’ll learn a tiny bit of a long-gone social club. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

Sometimes you run across a good obituary. Obituaries are a celebration of the living, we were taught in J-school, and sometimes the obit writers remember that. It takes a great skill to write a quality obituary, though some of them do come easier than other, prepackaged with magic or memoirs or flacks as they are. A remarkable person, a life well-lived. All of it is found in this one:

As a teenager, Mr. Greenfield was Maximilian Grünfeld, a skinny Jewish prisoner whose job was to wash the clothes of Nazi guards at the concentration camp. In the laundry room one day, he accidentally ripped the collar of a guard’s shirt. The man whipped Max in response, then hurled the garment back at the boy.

After a fellow prisoner taught Max how to sew, he mended the collar, but then decided to keep the shirt, sliding it under the striped shirt of his prison uniform.

The garment transformed his life. Other prisoners thought it signified that Max enjoyed special privileges. Guards allowed him to roam around the grounds of Auschwitz, and when he worked at a hospital kitchen, they assumed that he was authorized to take extra food.

Max ripped another guard’s uniform. This time, it was deliberate. He was creating a clandestine wardrobe that would help him survive the Holocaust.

“The day I first wore that shirt,” Mr. Greenfield wrote seven decades later, “was the day I learned clothes possess power.”

At every turn the obituary gets better and better, and you don’t say that about a lot of newspaper copy. It’s one of the best obits I’ve ever read. And is, without a doubt, the most memorable piece I’ve ever read in a fashion section. Give it a try.