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‘Neath the one maple

Some days start later than others. And they are starting later and later these days. That’s just my own biorhythm, I suppose. That’s something fixable, at least. When I finally made my way after the reading portion of the day, and past the eating lunch phase, and the extra reading phase, I decided to go outside.

It was quite warm indeed, this afternoon.

Like I said, some days start late.

I decided to go for a swim. And this is the story of that swim.

It was a day for a 3,000 yard swim, because I am a lousy swimmer. See, I swim and figure, This takes forever, and so at the end of the effort, I don’t want to just repeat it. It’s that interminable build to the finish of these “longer” distances. I don’t want to spend all of that time — because I’m slow — getting up to the goal, and then achieving the same goal, and all of that time — because I’m slow — doing it again.

So, I figure, I will swim this distance and then, the next time, swim a greater distance, and so on.

This is not counterintuitive, but probably counterproductive. So since I swam 3,000 yards last time, but it had been two weeks since my last swim, I figured I should probably just swim the 3,000 today.

But my body, pretty much my entire body, had a different idea.

It takes me a while to warm up. And that time came and passed me by on this swim. You can tell, because it just feels like the same continual “meh” for 700 yards and then some more of that. At varying times it felt like I was breaking through that, for lack of a better phrase, and then swimming well.

That would last for a few yards at a time.

Then I started making little concessions to the effort. I’ll stop at 1,500. But I kept going. It kept feeling not great. I’ll get out of the pool at 2,000. Somewhere around there, and there’s not a way this really makes sense — because I’m slow — the lengths click off more quickly. It’s a mind thing, I’m sure. A mental thing. Maybe the repetition becomes meditative.

And so when I got to 2,000 yards I said, I’ll stop at 2,500, because the swim still wasn’t a good one. The whole of it required attention. I was willing my arms forward, down and through. It wasn’t an automatic thing, which maybe it should be. When you think of it, if you run, you don’t think “Left-right-left-right; pump the arms, pump the arms.” You just think “Run.” And, if you’re like me, you think, “Stop running!” In this swim I found I had to be conscious of every little thing or it wouldn’t happen.

Which is how you just wind up floating and going nowhere, I guess.

I got to 2,500 and then I thought, 3,000 is just down there, may as well.

So, I did that. At which point I returned to my original point, and the reason I’m not a good swimmer — aside from being slow — is that I don’t want to just repeat what I’ve already done. To my way of thinking, it should all be progressive.

A real swimmer, or a craftsman of any sort, would say something about the process. The perfection, even the improvement, comes from that effort. But, man, all of that up to that point is also a part of the process. And I’m still slow. I always will be slow. But, today, I swam 3,200 yards.

Trees in the backyard. It’s one of those where the photo doesn’t meet the moment.

Nice as this might be, it was more impressive in person.

When I went out to check the mail this evening, I looked up once again. A plane just flew behind this tree, headed to places unknown.

The plane was going to Vermont. I looked it up on an app.

When I looked in another direction, another tree looked like this. I’m not sure where that light comes from, or why it shows up this brightly in the photograph, but the camera sees more than the naked eye.

And underneath those trees I checked the mail. And, because it was finally a temperature that allowed me to linger outside for a few moments, I looked down.

Which is how I came to be pulling up weeds just before midnight.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. This is the 42nd installment, and the 74th marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

I think this is one of the county’s last war memorial installments. And this one is humbly placed, sitting by the fire station on the edge of town. And it’s a little place.

It all sits in one little fenced off square, which is always well maintained, though I’m not sure how they get the lawnmower through that tiny little gate.

It was a warm summer day when they dedicated this in 1996. The high was 94 degrees, and then a light rain in the afternoon knocked down the temperature. On the day when the people of this town learned of the surrender of Japan, in August 1945, it was cloudy and 80 degrees.

There are 167 names on that marker. In 1940, 1,722 lived in this township.

The war called nine percent of the town.

Private E. Stanley Bakley enlisted with the Marines when he was 17. He shipped out to join the 4th Marine Division. He was killed on Iwo Jima before his 19th birthday.

John P. Cole, if I have the correct one, served in the famed 15th Infantry Regiment. He was 22 years and two weeks old when he died in 1944. The regiment:

On February 15, 1942, the 15th Infantry Regiment was assigned the duty of defending the Washington coastline from Seattle to Canada. In May 1942 orders arrived for the regiment to move to Fort Ord. The soldiers received additional training to become combat ready. In September the regiment was sent to Camp Pickett, Virginia, to await overseas shipment. On October 24, 1942, the 15th departed from Norfolk, Virginia, as part of the 3rd Infantry Division, bound for French Morocco. The regimental combat actions were Fedala, North Africa, with an assault on November 8, 1942; Licata, Sicily, on July 10, 1943; Salerno, Italy, September 18, 1943; Anzio, Italy, landing January 22, 1944; Southern France operations August 15, 1944; entering Germany on March 13, 1945, and arriving in Austria on May 5, 1945. The regiment spent 31 months in combat.

Corporal Jay C. Doblow Jr. was also 22 years old. He has a marker in a cemetery about 15 miles from here and another at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He served in the 9th Combat Cargo Squadron, which was active in India and Burma.

Howard E. Hewitt was commissioned in California as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Force. He was a bombardier in the 365th Bomber Squadron. He was killed in October of 1944 when his B-17 was shot down over Germany, trying to bomb an airfield in a town near the modern Czech border. Only two of the 10 crew members survived. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the air medal with three oak leaf clusters, he is at rest in Belgium. The plane had been in the 365th for just two months.

Paul L. Hutchinson was a seaman second class in the naval reserve. He was 21 years old when he died. He’s buried in Panama.

Joseph Kachrosky joined the Army in 1941. He served in anti-aircraft artillery roles, and somehow with the British Army. By 1944 he was a sergeant in the United States Fifth Army. He had fought in Africa, Tunisia, Sicily and Salerno, he went in early at Casablanca. The men in the Fifth had some of the toughest fighting of the war, clawing their way north through Italy. Lieutenant General Mark Clark, who commanded that army, said in March of ’44 that it was “Terrain, weather, carefully prepared defensive positions in the mountains, determined and well-trained enemy troops, grossly inadequate means at our disposal while on the offensive, with approximately equal forces to the defender.” Kahrosky and all of his fellow soldiers felt those things most keenly, most directly. He was killed that same March, in Anzio, one of the 5,000 allied servicemen killed in that six-month campaign.

PFC Carl B. Lloyd was a private in Company C of the 609th Tank Destroyer Battalion. He was 28 or 29 when he was killed. His battalion had seen action in northern France, Ardennes-Alsace, and the Rhineland. He died in February of 1945 while his comrades were fighting their way across the Saar River, a well fortified waterway that was 150 feet wide and 15 feet deep, in Germany. He’s buried, nearby, in Luxembourg.

Finally, Lawrence Tighe was a PFC in the 102nd Medical Battalion of the 27th Infantry Division. They served across the Pacific. His war ended in November of 1943, just 26 years old. He was buried at the National Memorial of the Pacific.

What things did they see and do and endure, what did they miss most of home? What has changed about this place since they were here? What did they think about when they looked up at those same stars on some long ago summer night?

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

baseball / Philadelphia / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
30
Jul 24

Backyard to table

Slow day, as it should be. The only problem is I need to figure out how to do more with the slow days. Even the days I don’t want to do a lot, or perhaps especially on those days. The only other problem is I need to find a way to make something productive come of the slow days. (Hashtag, summer problems.)

We’ve been enjoying the first products from our backyard garden. Two cucumbers came out yesterday. They went into a fresh salad that we had with lunch yesterday and dinner this evening.

I wonder what we’ll bring in next? Probably the peaches. They’re getting close, and the first ones will come off the tree later this week, I’d bet.

We’ve still got a lot of peaches from last year’s harvest in the freezer. I had a giant peach smoothie for dinner Sunday night. You see, I forgot that we bagged some for smoothies, and bagged larger quart bags for general purposes. I grabbed a quart bag. I had a giant smoothie. Then I had another. And then a bit more.

Peaches, honey, a touch of milk, and that’s it. Somehow I didn’t think that’d make up dinner, but you can put … about a quart’s worth of peaches in a quart bag. And that’s a lot of peaches!

I sat outside and listened to the crickets and some music and enjoyed a lot of fresh frozen fruit. It was peaceful. And also peachful.

So it’s slow, but look what’s going on outside.

Quite lovely, innit? That’s why I sat outside Sunday night. Why I’ve got to remember to do that more and more.

Last night we loaded up the car — my uncle-in-law came to join us, and we all picked up my god-nieces-in-law (just go with it) — and went over to see the local guys play the visiting Yankees. We had some nice seats.

(Click to embiggen.)

But it was not a good game for the home team. Aaron Judge hit two home runs. The Yankees collected four more dingers, which have become quite boring, I’d say. Also, we saw a position player, the Phillies’ backup catcher, pitch the final inning in a game everyone just wanted to end.

We ran into one of The Yankee’s students leaving the park, so that happens now.

We got the girls home and caught up on the night’s Olympics. It was a full fun night of sportsing. And we had more sportsing today, which was probably the most productive bit of my Tuesday, truth be told. (Hashtag, summer problems.)

cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
29
Jul 24

Silently whirring on roads

I am trying, trying, to get back in the swing of things. A few inches at a time, one step at a time, whatever it is. The word lethargy comes to mind. So does the word apathy. I wanted to say it’s a combination, an intersection of the two, except they are the same.

I turned down a party invite and a day trip because it just didn’t feel like I would be the best company this weekend. Pretending takes energy, and there’s lethargy. It seemed a rare moment of self awareness, a moment that make no sense.

I took an easy little bike ride on Saturday evening. It seems like I’m always taking these breaks from the bike and there’s always a reset. Maybe it isn’t really necessary. Maybe the point is just being on a road somewhere.

This requires no pretending. This I have energy for. The mental sort, anyway. Still takes fuel and rest to pedal yourself around, even if only a little bit. Even if you can coast by a winery and try to line up a sunset.

Sometime later, though it doesn’t like it should be, I decided to show off my new glasses. In the evening you don’t need shades, but it’s good to protect the eyes.

I’m wearing actual safety glasses. Hardware store specials. The cheapest thing possible. And they’re also incredibly lightweight. So lightweight that the arms are basically all a very flimsy rubber. This is fine, except for when you need to take the glasses off and then put them back on.

Also, I thought that maybe I could catch the sun behind me. Took a few tries, but good east-west roads are worthy of the effort.

One last sun photo …

And then immediately opposite, my favorite, nicely lit, hay shed.

I’ve been waiting a while to take that shot.

I have no recollection of the next five or six miles. I was deep into imagining a speech I’ll never give. (It happens, but usually in the car.) I got back to the house and wasn’t even sure if I’d taken the route I wanted. (I did.) It was a good speech, though.

Last night I took a a 30-mile ride. New roads!

I love new roads. There’s something romantic about being lost on a bike. Lost is a relative term here, I’d mapped this route on an app beforehand, but a good portion of my plan was all new.

And then, of course, I missed a turn on my route. For a time, I was actually lost, which is also great. I wasn’t that far from home, just two towns away, and there was still plenty of light, and before you long I ran across a road I knew. That took me to another road, which allowed me to double back, because there was light, and get back on my original course. Along the way I ran across a farm I remember from a ride last November.

And then I breezed by what is, I think, a new-to-me barn.

It can be awfully pretty out here. And, at that time in the evening, when everyone is already where they needed to be, it can be wonderfully peaceful, too.

Here are some more sunset photos, this one through the cornfields on the way back to our neighborhood.

And after those cornfields, you go through a few more cornfields.

There is a great deal of corn just now.

And close to home, and just in time for a nice glimpse of the sun retiring into the distance.

After that I made myself a giant peach smoothie dinner. But that’s an uninteresting topic I’ll share with you later this week — when I have time to make it more interesting. Now, we have to head out for another pastime.

Auburn / Friday / Glomerata / history / photo — Comments Off
26
Jul 24

The 1944 Glomerata, part four

Fridays mean we return to the past, we go home and we pore over old books. Right now, we’re falling back 80 years on the Plains, there were classes, college life, and the war. Here’s the next batch of photos that I found interesting in the 1944 Glomerata. Let’s learn a little about the time, and maybe something interesting about what became of some of them.

This installment takes us into a new section of the yearbook. It’s called …

… and really it’s just a section of almost 20 pages of glamour shots. Up first is Miss Auburn. A tradition since 1934, Miss Auburn, is the official hostess of the university, a goodwill ambassador and so on. And in 1944, Miss Auburn was Margaret Rew.

Rew was a sophomore, an education major, and also a cheerleader. She met an Army officer stationed at Fort Benning (now named Fort Moore). Lewis Sponsler was from Missouri. He was at West Point, but enlisted for the war. The Sponslers ran a pharmacy in neighboring Opelika for 34 years and were together for six decades until she died in 2006. They had three daughters, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren when she passed away.

Marian Boyle was a freshman from Georgia, studying commercial art. Or maybe it’s Marion. Both names are used in different places.

She’s one of those people that drifts into the digital mists. I will assume she did so deliberately after she realized her faux fur faux pas.

Claire Marshall, was a sophomore education major from a small town in southwest Georgia. There were about 365 people living there when she was growing up.

Claire Marshall married a Dr. Clarence Sapp. Her obituary says she was a basketball player in high school, which would have been something to see in small town 1940s. She was a homemaker. When she passed away in 2009 she had one daughter, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

I like this one. It looks like picture day just happened to be taking place as she walked by.

And she is Jeanne Townsend, a local girl, a sophomore, studying pre-law. She and her family had moved up from Florida a few years before, but she became popular quite quickly. In the fall of 1944, her junior year, she married Lt. Lawson Robertson who had also been an Auburn student before he joined the Army. He became a B-17 co-pilot in the 350th Bombardment Squadron in Europe. He died in 1972 and is buried at Arlington. It seems they got divorced in the 1960s. (But I wouldn’t swear out an affidavit on it.) She died in 1979 at 55, and is buried in Florida, with her parents.

Sarah Burrows was a sophomore from Jacksonville, Florida. She studied science and literature, and she was an actress in campus productions.

After that, she becomes a mystery to us.

This is Sarah Evans Glenn, a junior education major from neighboring Opelika. She taught in Texas and met a man who had served in the Pacific during the war. She came back home for a time and was teaching at the university when they announced their engagement.

She had a son in 1948, but she’d already lost her husband, a lieutenant in the Navy. They’d only gotten married in January of 1947. The son, named after his father, is still with us. I’m not sure, from a handful of web searches, what became of his mother.

Marie Strong was a freshman from Anniston. She was studying secretarial training. And lipstick application. She was a socialite of east Alabama, a beauty queen in high school, an honors student in college and would become a class leader the next year.

She shows up in the society pages a lot as a young adult, vacationing here, visiting there, hosting teas for this and that. Then, 1947 was her year, the parties and the buffets were for her. She got married and they moved to Michigan, but quickly returned to Anniston. They had a daughter, in 1952. Marie died in 1953. Her mother died the next year. Her husband was also from Anniston. He went to Georgia Tech and served in the Navy. He got married again in 1957.

Her name is Ann Black, or Anne Black. This yearbook isn’t always consistent. She was a freshman from Auburn, studying science and literature. (Some catchall program, to be sure.)

Anne — it’s Anne — married a man named Leonard Pace, who attended Auburn a few years after she did. He earned a degree in agriculture after serving as a corporal in the Army. Her great-grandfather moved into the area from Georgia just before the Civil War. Leonard’s family had lived in the area for several generations, and they stayed close by, as well. Anne died in 1982, age 57. Leonard passed away at 76, in 2000.

Betty Ware was a freshman from Auburn, studying home economics. A few years later, she was studying education. Her father was a professor of horticulture and forestry. (It’s weird to me to see them grouped together as a discipline.) She got married in October of 1946 to a veterinarian, Edwin Goode. He died at 55, in 1979. They were living in Auburn, but he’s buried in Birmingham, which was his hometown. They had three children.

Sometime after she married another Auburn man, Murphy Armor, who served in the ETO during the war and studied agriculture education after. He taught for a while in nearby Smiths Station and then ran an oil company for three decades. It’s possible I met them in passing. He died in 2010, a man I know officiated his funeral. Betty survived her second husband as well.

This is Rebecca Fincher, a freshman from the tiny town of Wedowee, Alabama, population 505 or so back then.

She was named Miss Homecoming the following fall. She was getting married in December of 1946 to a man with a terribly common name, and then they both elude me.

This smiling face belongs to Lilibel Carlovitz, who is our first proof that the hairstyles of the 1980s really came from the 40s, they just had more hair spray the second time around. She was a sophomore studying secretarial training. She was in the dance club and on the yearbook staff. She was from Auburn.

In the fall of her junior year, which is to say the fall of 1944, she got married to Morris Spearman, of Birmingham. He graduated from Auburn in 1943 with an aeronautical engineering degree. She worked as a stenographer for a few years after school, in Virginia. He worked at NASA. In an amazing six-decade career there he became an authority in aerodynamics, stability and control, aircraft, spacecraft, and missile performance, publishing over 300 technical papers and presentations in the field of aeronautics. She sang in the church choir all her life and helped found a bunch of different community organizations.

She died in 2011, 86; he passed away in 2015 at 93. They had three children, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Julia LeSueur was a freshman from Roanoke, Alabama, studying aeronautical engineering.

Roanoke is a border town in east Alabama. At the time, just over 4,000 people lived there. I’ve no idea if she went home, or went elsewhere. Rather fits that mischievous expression on her face, though, doesn’t it?

We’ve already met Margaret Rew. I’m not sure why she’s included here, but I assume it has something to do with the lipstick, or the excellent fill light in this photograph.

Maxine Tatum was a sophomore from Opelika. She became a high school history teacher and librarian in Union Springs, about 40 miles to the south, where she also coached students in speech contests.

She got married in 1946 to a man from south Alabama who attended The Citadel before being commissioned as a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. The union didn’t last. She got remarried in 1953 to Joe Gholston, a man who flew with the 8th Air Force, before spending a year in a POW camp in Poland. They had 14 years together. She died in 1967, just 41 years old.

And, finally, meet Betty Peeples, a sophomore interior decoration major all the way from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. She really looks like she’s going places, doesn’t she?

I’ve just no idea where that was. The web, for once, is silent. Which is probably a big hint to me.

So that’s enough for now. Next week we’ll take a glance at the campus life section of the 1944 Glomerata. All of these photos from 1944 photos live in the Glomerata section, of course. You can see others, here. Or, to just see the beautiful book covers, go here. The university stores their complete collection here.