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friends / history / memories / photo / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on The 75th anniversary of D-Day
6
Jun 19

The 75th anniversary of D-Day

A good friend of ours is a US Army officer, a paratrooper. Five years ago, he had the opportunity to jump into France as a part of the 70th anniversary ceremonies commemorating D-Day.

He jumped with this flag, which hangs in my office.

Here’s a video of his jump. He went out the door of a German plane on a beautiful day over Normandy.

That view makes it difficult to imagine jumping into the dark, knowing the enemy you’ve been training for is waiting below.

Ernie Pyle came ashore soon after and helped people back home understand what the men and boys in Europe were up against:

And then, of course, Ronald Reagan talked about some of those famous exploits at the 40th anniversary:

history / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on On water on the ground and in the river
22
May 19

On water on the ground and in the river

Mid-late May is far, faaaaar too early for the first fallen Maple leaf of the year. It hasn’t even been warm yet!

It’s been damp a lot, though. You can tell because the creek is threatening the banks. Of course it could do that if there’s an abundance of humidity.

The maple leaf was in our driveway this morning. The little stream is on campus, winding through the beech and maple. They call it the River Jordan, named after a 19th century university president. He said, when he left IU for Stanford, that he didn’t want a building named after him, but he liked that waterway. It was a hugely prominent geographical feature, especially before the continued campus development. And so it was, but the River Jordan returned to the old name, Spanker’s Branch, when it left campus. (No, really, Spanker’s Branch. There’s a plaque and everything.)

Jordan got a building named after him later, anyway, and the whole waterway now bears his name, as well. That’s our loss. Spanker’s Branch is a great name, but I haven’t yet found the historical origins of the ancient name. My best guess, though, is that it was a name, rather than a verb. But! I have found a 1922 book of local stories that includes an anecdote by an octogenarian about her father playing at Spanker’s Branch as a child. If she was 80, that name would have good way back.

So the search will continue.

history / Instagram / IU / Monday / photo / Twitter — Comments Off on Happy Presidents Day
18
Feb 19

Happy Presidents Day

I had a whole post here, and the computer, or WordPress or the ‘net ate it somehow. I had a Presidents Day joke and everything. So this will be brief and, probably, better. We have a Presidents Hall in our building at work. It is for university presidents, and when you run this place one day, you, too, can have a painting on the wall.

Today it is a giant banquet hall, more square footage than our house. It was once the grand reading room when our building was the university’s library, until 1969 or so. After that our building served in an administrative capacity and the grand reading room it became a testament to modern 1970s office innovation: cubicles.

Saturday, I was at work, this is our “living room.”

I didn’t go into Presidents Hall at all, Saturday or today. I’ll show it to you sometime. Saturday, though, was Direct Admit Day. Some of the fall term’s incoming freshmen sat in our giant “living room.” I put this on Twitter and …

Someone forgot I work here? To be fair, you never know who is running a group account. Maybe they didn’t read my Twitter bio. Or maybe someone thought all of the pre-frosh followed my account. At least there was a retweet. That’s about the extent of it.

Also this chilly weekend:

Today:




More on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and more podcasts on Podbean as well.

adventures / history / memories / photo / site / Tuesday — Comments Off on We’re back and it is cold and frozen
22
Jan 19

We’re back and it is cold and frozen

So since everything, included the roads, are frozen here, still*, let’s talk about some place warmer. Here are a few pictures I took yesterday just before we left Savannah. (Truly, we toted our luggage inside.)

This is the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It’s a lovely building, and it marks the local Catholic diocese.

The diocese was installed by Pope Pius IX in 1850. At the time, it covered all of Georgia and part of Florida, totaling about 5,500 Catholics. Another Pope Pius, the XII, split the territory in 1956. So now this covers south Georgia. Much of what was the original church at this location was destroyed in an 1898 fire. The outside walls and two spires were saved.

There was a big renovation project in the middle of the 20th century and a massive repair project in the 1980s put the high altar in the background. Then there was another round of renovation in the late Nineties. So the pews aren’t that old.

Indeed, much of everything here is new compared to some of the beautiful church buildings we have seen over the years, but this one is still lovely, and as impressive to me as the first time I saw it 14 years ago.

The stained glass windows went in around 1904:

Many, if not all of them, were removed, cleaned and re-leaded during the last restoration project.

I didn’t realize you had to do that to windows.

Now, about that organ …

The first recorded organ at the cathedral was installed in 1837. (They held a fundraiser in 1836.) That original organ is now on display, but not in use, at the First African Baptist Church a few blocks away. Organs came and went, one was rebuilt after a hurricane, but lost in the fire. At the turn of the century an organ builder in Delaware installed a new one. That one was removed after 1938, and some of the pipes wound up in local classrooms. During the reconstruction in the 1980s a Massachusetts firm, Noack Company, was selected to build the new organ. A protestant, a Lutheran even, helped bring the organ project to life. The cathedral’s website says that was a first. And that man’s church choir, from the local St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, was the first Protestant concert in the cathedral in 1991.

*The snow was Saturday. You could barely drive around downtown today for the ice in the roads. They have some kind of plan, I’m sure. You’d like to see it activated. You’d like to see warmer temperatures, too. They’ve got about 13 degrees on us today.

Friday / history / IU / memories / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Welcome to the weekend
14
Sep 18

Welcome to the weekend

My online friend Susan Crowell is editor at Farm and Dairy. Today she shared a photo, and a story, of the unveiling of a new historic marker in Fredericktown, Ohio. That’s the home of the original FFA corduroy jacket. That famous blue item goes back to 1933, and it still means a lot to many of us.

There’s a mention that the jackets were uninsulated, which should bring forward a memorable shiver from anyone who has ever worn one someplace like Kansas City in November, or somewhere perhaps even colder.

This is the best part …

The two gentlemen that helped with the unveiling are now 99 years young. They wore some of the original corduroy jackets.

This picture isn’t of those guys, but some of my friends, in some of our last FFA jackets.

Last night‘s show from IUSTV:

Now in full on weekend mode, which is starting like this:

So you’ve seen the Twitter feed in this post. Be sure to check out Instagram as well. Tomorrow, a bike ride!

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