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‘Living in a new world thinking in the past’

Time now for the 10th installment of We Learn Wednesdays, where I ride my bike to find all of the local historical markers in this county. Seeing things by bike is the ideal way to do it. You learn new roads, you see new things. Counting today’s discoveries I have listed 21 of the 115 markers found in the Historical Marker Database.

The two markers we’ll see today have to do with a very small part of the Revolutionary War. A minor battle took place in this spot in March of 1778. The British were occupying Philadelphia at the time.

It was a harsh winter. Both sides were scavenging the countryside for food. They’d been skirmishing and probing one another for a month. In February 19, General Mad Anthony Wayne led his Continentals through the region looking for supplies. General William Howe had sent a few forces out to harass him. One of them was Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood who had about 1,200 men under his command. He was in a town three miles away, learned about the local militia guarding this bridge (OK, not this modern bridge, but it’s 18th century ancestor) and, ultimately laid a trap.

As we ride here, we’re moving from the American side over to where the British troops were waiting. The British lured the militia across the bridge — and this creek, which had been a natural barrier between the two — and attacked. Other American soldiers arrived just in time to hold off the red coats and prevented a larger calamity. The next day the British crossed the river to the south, moved to the bridge just down from this one and bayoneted 20 to 30 people, including a local judge and British loyalist, but we’ll learn about him later.

Here’s one of the markers you’ll find at this little spot.

Col. Benjamin Holme commanded a militia of about 300 that March. He survived the war, and is buried just three miles away, having died in 1792. This man’s great-great grandson was a minister. He died in Michigan in 1989. The colonel’s great-great-great granddaughter died in Virginia, in 2001.

Holme’s house still stands.

It was built in 1729, looted and burned by the British, again under Mawhood’s command. After the war, Holme rebuilt the home and reclaimed his looted Wagstaff clock, which is now in the custody of the county’s historical society.

Col. Elijah Hand, the grandson of a whaler, has been called Cape May’s forgotten patriot. He would have been 49 during this battle. It was Hand who showed up in time to stop the British attack. And it was Hand who responded to Mawhood’s “or else” letter, which asked the militia to lay down their arms and go home, or else he would attack them all, burn all of their properties and reduce their families to beggars. Mawhood listed the names of 21 patriots, the ones who would be first.

Hand wrote back:

SIR,

I have been favoured with what you say humanity has induced you to propose. It would have given me much pleasure to have found that humanity had been the line of conduct to your troops since you came to Salem. Not only denying quarters, but butchering our men who surrendered themselves prisoners in the skirmish at Quintin’s Bridge last Thursday, and bayonetting yesterday morning at Hancock’s Bridge, in the most cruel manner in cold blood, men who were taken by surprize, in a situation in which they neither could nor did attempt to make any resistance, and some of whom were not fighting men; are instances too shocking for me to relate, and I hope for you to hear.

The brave are ever generous and humane. After expressing your sentiments of humanity, you proceed to make a request which I think you would despise us if we complied with. Your proposal, that we should lay down our arms, we absolutely reject. We have taken them up to maintain rights which are dearer to us than our lives, and will not lay them down, ’till either success has crowned our cause with victory, or like many ancient worthies contending for liberty, we meet with an honourable death. You mention that if we reject your proposal, you will put arms into the hands of the tories against us; we have no objection to the measure, for it would be a very good one to fill our arsenals with arms.

Your threats to wantonly burn and destroy our houses and other property, and reduce our wives and children to beggary and distress, is a sentiment which my humanity almost forbids me only to recite, and induces me to imagine I am reading the cruel order of a barbarous Atila, and not of a Gentleman, brave and polished with a genteel European education.

To wantonly destroy, will injure your cause more than ours—it will encrease your enemies and our army.

To destine to destruction the property of our most distinguished men, as you have done in your proposals, is, in my opinion, unworthy a generous foe; and more like a rancorous feud between two contending Barons, than a war carried on by one of the greatest powers on earth, against a people nobly struggling for Liberty—a line of honour would mark out that these men should share the fate of their country—If your arms should be crowned with victory, which God forbid, they and their property will be entirely at the disposal of your Sovereign. The loss of their property, while their persons are out your power, will only make them desperate; and, as I said before, encrease your foes and our army; and retaliation upon tories and their property is not out of our power. Be assured that these are the sentiments and determined resolution, not of myself only, but of all the officers and privates under me.

My prayer is, Sir, that this answer may reach you in health and great happiness. Given at Head-Quarters, at Quintin’s Bridge, the twenty-second day of March, 1778.

Elijah Hand, Colonel

Hand also survived the war, as did Capt. William Smith. He was the officer who led the pursuit across the creek and fell into the trap. He died in 1820 and is buried about three miles down the road, as are several of the men who died at Quinton’s Bridge. No one knows how many, though, or their identities. The only grave marker there is Smith’s. The marker above is actually on what was Smith’s farmland.

(Mawhood died in Gibraltar, during a siege there in 1780. Apparently it was a gallstone problem.)

And the second marker has to do with the little battle itself.

It was a small thing in the scheme of the war, but apparently the battle of Quinton’s Bridge was the last part of the conflict in this county.

There’s much more to learn. For next week’s installment of We Learn Wednesdays we’ll head upstream to see the next few markers. Miss some of the markers? You can see them all right here. Before that, though, we’ll of course have more Queen videos, a week’s worth of Catober and more!

adventures / cycling / Delaware / errands / Monday / photo / Rowan / site / video — Comments Off
2
Oct 23

The stuff that makes the hodgepodge of life

Welcome back to Catober, the only month that guarantees a daily post on the site, and constant pictures of the kitties. They’ll go up each day between 10 and noon, and we’ll take turns giving the spotlight to Phoebe and Poseidon, because they’re jealous furballs. Phoebe was up first today, Poseidon takes over tomorrow, and so on. If you miss a day (and how could you?!?!?) just follow the Catober category.

But that’s not the only thing we’ll see here this month, oh no. All of the usual stuff is on tap throughout October as well, of course. One of the key features will be an extensive denial of this being October — a recurring theme of the site until March or so, of course.

But I digress.

I spent the day elbow deep in making notes for class this evening. (Class went well, thanks for asking!) The students talked about Neil Postman, a Jonathan Haidt essay and Edward Bernays.

To balance that out, I left them with this uplifting little Ron Garan interview.

We also talked about some design composition rules and color theory, because this is a class that mixes the philosophical with production. It’s an unusual hybrid as these classes go, and the students, thankfully, are up for it.

Watching them get invested in understanding Postman and the Huxleyan warning was a great moment.

The Yankee went to campus with me, to take part in a regular feature called Pizza With The Pros, a program accurately named. They bring in a sports media pro, buy pizza for the students and learning and networking take place. My Monday night class take place during this program, so I might see a few minutes here or there this semester, but not much. Perhaps I’ll be able to see more of them in a future term.

Saturday I slept in. We went for a bike ride. It was a shakeout ride for my lovely bride, since she was doing a sprint tri on Sunday. I just tried to stay in front of her as we both complained about the breeze and our legs. After, we drove over to Delaware for first state chores.

We visited a Chick-fil-A in a mall, which is the slow-moving and entirely uninspired variant of an efficient fast food distribution model.

After that, we visited a museum’s gift shop, for gifts! Actually, we picked up our Bike the Brandywine shirts. This was a metric century to enjoy the sites of the greenest parts of Delaware and the Brandywine tributary. It was supposed to be last weekend, but it was canceled in light of the rain and huge winds. That was the right decision, honestly. No way in the world you want to be on soggy roads being blown into a bunch of other cyclists, if you can help it. But we have the map for the route, so we can go back. And, Saturday, we got our shirts. They’re a nice green.

We also visited Trader Joe’s, which wasn’t busy, but was crowded, and navigating those other customers was plenty of fun. We also visited another grocery store, a Food Lion, because they carry Milo’s Tea. We could get it closer, until about a month ago, when suddenly the local stores stopped carrying it.

Food Lion is an older sort of grocery store. Everything is manual. Everything is slow. And the lines are delightfully long. This allowed us the opportunity to strike up a conversation with the older gentleman behind us, who asked about my tea. Asked where it was from. And so I got to tell him it was from a factory on a hill not far from where I am from. He didn’t think I sounded like I was from Alabama, and he wasn’t sure, he said, if that was a compliment. He didn’t sound like he was from anywhere in particular. But he’d hitchhiked through Alabama when he was young, he said. Making him one of the few out-of-staters in his age group I’ve ever met who said they’d been to Alabama but didn’t say they were one of the Freedom Riders. (I wish I’d kept count on that over the years; I don’t think there were that many buses.) He said he’d been through Montgomery. Said his mother was from Tennessee. His wife was first generation from Germany or thereabouts, and his mother-in-law, he could understand some of her dialects, but not all of them.

I thought about turning the accent on, but there’s always a question about that. should I do the fake Virginia tidewater accent everyone wants to hear? The low country accent that I don’t have? Or should I just underwhelm with the low Appalachian hills-and-hollers sound that belongs to my people, but not me?

And by the time I’d figured out how to shade my vowels, it was, finally, my time to check out.

On Saturday it was cloudy in the morning and the sun came out just in time for that bike ride. Sunday was beautiful throughout. Not a cloud in the sky, 78 degrees and a light breeze. And so I took an afternoon bike ride. I noticed this mantis hanging out on the window as I got ready to leave.

My bike computer’s battery was dead, so I had no idea how the ride started, but it felt fast. I was moving well and not working hard. The wind was behind me on my out-and-back. I thought the road was pulling me forward, but it was the breeze pushing me on.

That was something I didn’t realize until I turned around and the wind was in my face. That explains why I wasn’t riding as efficiently on the way back. Also, I was being miserly with my fuel for reasons that made no sense. But here’s the thing. I found some really quiet roads. I headed southwest, which is generally a direction we haven’t explored here yet. I saw some beautiful countryside, and some Revolutionary War era sights. And this proud little municipal building.

Not bad for a township made up of just 2,580 people.

I went out that direction to find some more historical markers. It was a successful trip, and you’ll see some of those coming up on future Wednesdays. But these views made for a fine Sunday afternoon ride.

The only problem was that, for the whole of my route, there was nowhere to stop for a snack, and I started thinking about hamburgers and fries in such a way that I couldn’t shake it. There wasn’t even anyone grilling as I rode through, which would at least explain it. There’s only so long a PB&J can last, and that actually explains it.

But it was a lovely, lovely day to spend pedaling out to the saltwater marshes and the estuaries that dot the river coastline. The area was called Wootesessungsing by the indigenous people (the Lenape, I believe it was) before the Swedish, and then the English, came in the 17th century. I learned the name on one of the signs I saw; Wootesessunging has apparently never been published online, according to two different search engines. Just goes to show, you’ve got to get out there to see these incredible things. Not all of it can be found online.

Catober will be found, though, right here, all month long. So be sure you stay online for that.

cycling / Friday / video — Comments Off
29
Sep 23

Feeling foresaken by the fusion ball

Another gray day, gray all day. I’m tired of it. Oh, sure, when it started last weekend it was novel. There was rain in it for everyone. The rain stopped on Monday. We’ve enjoyed a heaping helping of blah since, notching just one sunny day in the last eight. I thought I’d left all of that behind, not found it in September.

These are the choices we make. I took some time today to make sure that was not my prevailing mood while grading things. I am appreciative of the ability to take a little while to do that. Feedback should be positive not sour, dour and dank. My grim feelings about featureless skies shouldn’t be reflect in feedback.

In the late afternoon, or early evening, my lovely bride returned from a series of campus meetings and told me to go ride my bike. Maybe the mood was on my face, or in my shoulders. So I did head out for a brief spin. Nowhere to go, nowhere to be, didn’t even have a route planned beyond “Turn left.” And so it was that I found myself riding around on a mixture of new and newly familiar roads. All of which just means it took me an extra few minutes to get lost.

I turned back because the conditions meant it would be dark 90 minutes before necessary. Indeed, I rode through a drizzle for a half mile. It looked worse from a distance, darkening the route before me, but it was merely annoying when I got into it. Also, every crazy, harried, hurried person with a car was on the road this evening. Fridays and full moons and all of that. Sometimes, you can just feel it, a stored up ball of everyone else’s angst. Every muffler sounds a little more ragged, all of the passes are just a little too close, the intersections feel a tiny bit sketchier. So I dropped off the busier road and soft-pedaled my way back to the house through a neighboring series of neighborhoods.

And I ran into this runner along the way.

And that’s it for the week. Let the weekend commence. I hope there’s been something mildly entertaining for you here this week. We’re at 4,800-plus words, 24 photos, nine videos, some decent music and a nod to colonial-era history in the last five days. Can’t say I’m not trying.

Have a great weekend, enjoy wrapping up September and break in October in the non-pumpkin spice way of your choice.

music / Re-Listening / Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off
28
Sep 23

Things that stick on you

I heard my alarm, both times this morning. And I pulled up the cover and closed my eyes tight and smiled and stayed halfway-conscious because I had to get up and get ready for the day. Then my lovely bride came back into the room and touched my shoulder. She said “You need to get up.”

I did need to get up. I needed to get up about 75 minutes prior to that, but that’s OK, because the day starts late so I’m not behind, except that mentally I am. When you set an alarm and overshoot it, that sensation can stick with you. For me, it is on my mind for the rest of the day. No matter how accomplished, how full or how complete the schedule, it’s just sitting there: You were late, and so you are late. It clings.

I had an apple and some peanut butter for breakfast*. I got ready to head to campus. And then the cat escaped through the laundry room and into the garage. He then goes under a car and just sits there, feeling like he’s achieved a great deal, I assume.

We’d even made it into the garage on time this morning — this is often my fault — but now the cat kept us from getting into the car on time because he is an ordeal.

But we made it to campus on time, fortunately. And it was only marginally my fault this time that we felt pressed for time.

I stood in the hallway and talked with two of my students while the class taking place in our room wrapped up. Eventually they all filed out, an entirely predictable and uneventful arrangement, and we walked in. Over the course of the next several minutes a dozen more students came in. Today we reviewed their first video assignments. The work concentrated on asking them to achieve certain camera shots and motions. You are put with a partner, who is your video subject, and you show the basics. Some people keep this simple. “My subject is just standing there, and this is a low angle. Here is a shot of my subject from a high angle,” and so on. This gets the job done. One group got very involved, overly so, and tried to create something of a narrative. Kudos for originality, though it doesn’t figure into this grade. One of my favorites video sequences came from two women who clearly enjoyed this way too much. There was a lot of acting, the best unselfconscious, purely hammy, scene chewing kind. They were delightful. I also had three slide decks to work through with them. I managed to work through two of those and the class still went long.

On Thursdays I teach two sections of the same class, back-to-back, in the same room. There’s only a 15-minute break between them, at about 3:15, and that’s lunch. But if I go long, that sneaks into my lunch time. So I had a handful of grapes* while the second class filtered into the room.

Fortunately, the two classes are in synch, so the second section feels like a second try, albeit with a group of an entirely different personality. We reviewed the shots from their first video assignment, as well. And one of the best parts are the shots when someone chooses an extreme closeup. I will play those clips over and over until I can get the class to talk about the emotions they’re seeing in the shots. Getting them going is the key to the whole puzzle, I think. I had three slide decks for the second class as well. I got through all three. We finished with 10 minutes to spare.

I’m not sure how that happened, but I have a few guesses.

After that, it was email, and staring at this pile of things to grade, and then we hopped in the car and drove back to the house. Thursdays are busy, then, and everything piles up. Email, the things to grade, the daily dose of news, whatever else you’re doing. And that 20 minute drive always feels a bit off when you’re aware of all of those things you’d like to get done tonight, or at least started.

Being behind is purely a mental construct, one that should have little to no power, but somehow it can hold a lot of sway over you, draped right over your shoulders, trying to hold you down. So you start ticking things off the list. What else could you do, anyway?

*I had a delicious and full dinner.

Let’s take a quick look at the Re-Listening project, where I am playing all of my old CDs in the car, in the order in which I acquired them. After this entry I’ll only be three discs behind!

Josh Joplin Group’s “Useful Music” was already an artifact by the time I picked it up at a used record shop. They’d originally released it in 1999 as Josh Joplin Band under the SMG Records label, and then again, with some new members, in 2001 by way of Artemis Records under their final name, Josh Joplin Group. (Big shakeups in nomenclature were an artistic signature around the turn of the century, you see.) This was Joplin’s sixth record, and so he was to become a nine-year overnight success.

It’s a radio friendly record, but didn’t get a lot of commercial support. Despite that, “Useful Music” hit number 22 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart. Three singles were rolled off, including the moderately successful, and altogether enjoyable, “Camera One.”

Odds are, if you ran across this Atlanta-based band, this was your first exposure. It quickly scooted to the top spot of the Triple A chart, which, at that time, was the most successful independent release ever. Soon after, that song was featured in an episode of Scrubs.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that video, though. He looks like an angry singer, which is a shame for what was ultimately an incredible AOR friendly record.

If you picked up this disc because you heard that song on the radio, this was the first track you heard when you loaded it in your player.

The second single got a lot of spins on what still passed for alt radio in the summer of 2001. And we were still referencing it this summer, which is pretty great good for a pop tune.

This is a perfectly little encapsulated post-grunge pop song, if you ask me. It is one of several songs on here I never really gave it’s due when I was listening to this a lot.

But then there’s this, which should have never been attempted. Nevertheless, it’s catchy in ways that defy convention. I was on a long straight country road on a sunny day when I heard this recently, and it stuck with me for days.

They released one more single, in December of 2001. And on the re-release, which is the disc I have, there’s an alternate version of the song featuring some new instrumentation and an orchestral accompaniment. And it changes the song, except for all of the places where it doesn’t. It was, and remains, intriguing. The thing is, I listen to this so rarely that I forget that this track closes the record, and so it’s a pleasant surprise almost every time.

The Wikipedia page tells me the Josh Joplin Group disbanded in 2002, which was before I picked this up (I’m contextually assuming I got this in the summer or fall of 2003) but that live performance above was from 2019. All told, Joplin has released 11 albums, most recently with the band Among the Oak & Ash, which also featured the great Garrison Starr. Here’s the newest thing he’s published on his YouTube channel, just four months ago.

It’s always nice to see people continuing to do what they love.

Like this grading I have to do now, for example.

adventures / Monday / music / photo / Rowan / video — Comments Off
25
Sep 23

Thanks, now leave, Ophelia

Three days in a row of rain and gray. It might have been more gray than rain. Hard to say. About even, maybe? Sometimes you couldn’t distinguish between the two. And another day of it tomorrow. Thank you, subtropical storm system for promising four days in a row.

We didn’t even get the big winds.

At least we didn’t get the big winds.

I did get this, however. When it rains more than enough, the place where our driveway and the road meets will puddle. And, on Saturday, I watched it puddle, and disappear. Puddle. Disappear. By the third time I was ready to find my raincoat and see if I could understand how this was happening. The disappearance wasn’t bad, but there was no way it rained enough after the disappearances to mean puddles that big once again. This was, then, a hydrological, geological, sedimentological mystery.

Where was the rain going? And where were the puddles coming back from? I sat in my office window for a while watching this, trying to figure it out. Trying to decide if it would look crazy to go outside in the remnants of a tropical almost storm and just stare at a puddle. Couldn’t I just stare it from the window? Where I was warm and dry? I was staring at it. That was strange enough, right? I’d already inspected the basement twice, surely this is a strain of thoroughness beyond what is necess —

And then the wind blew.

Turns out that when the wind blows from the west south west at just the right velocity, the puddle takes on the same appearance of the chip and seal road from 35 yards away.

To be fair to myself, I was staring through double-paned windows.

Since the weather was the weather, I didn’t go anywhere. (We had a big fund raising bike ride planned for Saturday, but the weather canceled that. The right choice, I’d say.) That just means more time with the cats, and your favorite weekly feature. (Another correct choice.)

Phoebe discovered, or rediscovered, my backup clothes basket. She likes it very much.

What? You don’t have a backup clothes basket? Get with the times.

Anyway, here’s Phoebe again, on her ledge. And she’s not judging you and your clothes basket choices, not at all.

Poseidon … he’s definitely judging you. He needs more things to jump in and he thinks this is your fault. (Yes, they are related.)

Fortunately for you, Poseidon is a forgiving creature, and this box will do.

Inside the box was a gift. It was not for him, but rather for me, but the cat also won.

We went to an event for my godsister-in-law (just go with it) on Friday night. It was a backyard thing. Cookout. Nice people. A two-person band played. They had an amazing light show.

My lovely bride and her godsisters have been making this pyramid photo their whole lives. When that sunset started to showoff they figured they would, too.

I’m the second photographer, and that was in between moments, and one of several I took trying to not get in the way of the official zapper. But I like the authentic smiles.

My godsister-in-law’s husband (so my godbrother-in-law-in-law?) is friends with the band. I think they all went to school together. The Jollies, the two guys playing and singing have known each other their whole lives, I’m told, and they have a nice tight little sound. They played a Pete Yorn cover. It was so random it took a moment to register. But it was really quite good.

I ran into the two of them during a set break and complimented them for the choice. “Not everyone plays Pete Yorn covers,” I said, “but they should.” The guy did not miss a beat, that sorta response you know he’s waiting for because he’s pulled this out before and it works. He says, We play that for people like you.

And then he told me about another Yorn cover they sometimes do. Like it was a test, or something. But I, too, have “Musicforthemorningafter.” It’ll show up on the site eventually.

The Jollies, though, great light show.

And then it rained Saturday. And it rained Sunday. It was gray today. I had two meetings this afternoon and class this evening. We talked about Marshall McLuhan and Ibram Kendi. We talked about them in class, I mean. In the meetings we discussed fire codes and e-sports and documentaries.

On the way home I decided to try the drive with no map. This was my ninth time on this campus, after all, and the sixth time I’d driven myself. You have to try sometime. Why not try on just the third time you’ve done it at night.

Between here and there, there are two tricky intersections. As in poorly designed intersections. One sneaks up on you the first time, but you don’t forget it. Though I had a bit of difficulty judging the lanes in the dark. So I rounded a building, but I knew where I was. The second is a country intersection where five roads improbably run into one another. You could take two spurs and get back to the comforts of home, and I’m pretty sure the map has told me to take them both on different trips. I took the longer one this evening. The road didn’t run out where I expected — which is a big question mark since we’re talking cornfields and nondescript side roads at night — but I did find I was on a road I knew from my bike rides, meaning I knew a route back. (It was just around the corner from me.) And that’s fine, except everything happens at a slightly different speed in the car, of course. You must remember that that longer bit is now shorter, and you probably just weaved around that pothole when you were on two wheels. But, before long, hey, there’s another right turn you know and you’re pointed exactly in the right direction.

The only problem with learning the roads by bike is that I almost always take the long way when I’m pedaling.