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

We Learn Wednesdays

Incomplete stories on two wheels

It was 80° on Nov. 5th, we have had three-tenths of an inch of rain since the end of August (and all of that in September).

The farmers are merely moving dust around in their fields. Nothing weird at all, here.

That was early in my ride today, and it looks over processed, but it’s an over-processed sort of day, isn’t it? Later in that same ride, when the colors were softer, and the breeze just a tiny bit cooler, and my legs a bit more tired and the sun challenging me to a race …

I’d gone down a road I usually come up, where I was passed by a giant ambulance and, soon after, almost watched a minivan almost drive itself into a head-on collision. I turned right instead of going all the way down that road, cutting across to another road that I went up this afternoon, rather than going down, as I usually do. I crossed a busy intersection and then had one long straight shot with a little breeze at my back. And then I took the longest, most sensible route home.

We won’t have too many more seasonably warm days this fall, best to eek every second out of it if you can. Anyway, that was today’s ride. Let’s talk about what I found on a different ride.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, where the historical markers search continues, because from time-to-time I ride my bicycle around looking for them. This is the 53rd installment, and the 85th marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series. And we’re at the Friends Burial Ground.

We’ll talk about the tree in the next installment. The burial ground dates back almost to the beginning of the white settlement. (A few Dutch had set up nearby, but they got outnumbered pretty quickly.) The English Quakers showed up in 1675, even before William Penn arrived. This was Fenwick’s Colony. A cavalry in Cromwell’s army in England, a Quaker convert and a lawyer, Fenwick advertised this place, “if there be any terrestrial “Canaan” ’tis surely here, where the land floweth with Milk and Honey.”

We learned about Fenwick earlier this year (here and here) and when people back in England learned about his vision, they started pouring in.

It’d take another decade or so for the settlers to build their first meeting house, but the people were firmly rooted. Some of the old names on these markers still have descendants around here. And a lot of the local names are repeated here in the stonework. There are more than 1,000 markers here now sitting behind this low brick walk alongside one of the busy modern downtown streets.

There have been three dozen interments here this century, the most recent in 2020. She was from right nearby, and had worked at Penn State for a quarter of a century. She started as a secretary and eventually became an assistant dean.

Not all of the notable stories are deep in the past.

The next time we return to the marker series, though, we’ll go back to the 17th century one more time, and we’ll learn about that Salem Oak. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

markers / photo / Rowan / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
30
Oct 24

We all feel that poem

Spent the day on campus, where I had a delightful meeting with a student. Also I met with a colleague. And then I graded stuff. After that I sat in the back of a classroom and listened to a presentation on digital marketing. And then we went to the big kids’ pool and I swam 2,000 yards, which was ragged and slow and will surely leave me sore tomorrow for reasons I won’t understand.

Now, I’m back to grading things.

Or I was.

Because now there’s this.

I’ve decided to release an album. The inspiration came on suddenly. Monday, tonight. Now I just have to write the music.

The good news is the art is already done. This may look like someone using a camera to try to look behind a heavy piece of furniture, but it’s really the cover.

And this, to the untrained eye, may look like a pocket photograph, but it is, in fact, the liner notes concept.

The art looks like a hasty independent release, meaning I need to come up with some sufficiently song titles. If only I knew anything about music, I could be on to something. But, alas and alack, I have no musical talent.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, where the historical markers search continues. This is the 52nd installment, and the 84th marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

And today we’re learning about Hetty Saunders.

The last four years have been rough on that marker, done in a style which doesn’t hold up very well to the weather. It reads …

Esther “Hetty” Saunders was a remarkable woman of color who began her life in the early 1790s as a slave in Delaware. In 1800, her father saw an opportunity to escape to freedom with his children, crossing the Delaware River into Elsinboro, Salem County. Hetty was left in the care of Joseph and Ann Brick Hall, who were members of the Religious Society of Friends.

Saunders lived virtually her entire life in Elsinboro and Mannington, and would have remained anonymous if not for a collection of her poetry that survived after her death in 1862. Through this collection of poems, Saunders contributed to American literature and provided insights into 19th century African-American life in southern New Jersey. Hers is a voice rarely heard – that of a free woman of color in pre-Civil War America – and her poems provide glimpses of what her life was like and how she perceived and addressed inequities that surrounded her. Her works reveal an independent spirit, largely shielded by the outside, yet quietly prevailing over forces otherwise overwhelming.

The collection of poems written by Esther “Hetty” Saunders and related items are housed within the Salem County Historical Society archives. These materials and the publication I Love to Live Alone: The Poems of Esther “Hetty” Saunders (Donald L. Pierce, editor) are available to researchers at the Society’s library located at 83 Market Street in Salem. Esther “Hetty” Saunders was buried here in the Friends Burial Ground beside her friend Judy Wrying, who she wrote about in her best-known poem, “The Hill of Age.”

Come tell me ancient traveler
Whence thou did engage
How long its been since thou began
To climb the “hill of Age.”

Thou more than fourscore years hast seen
Yet thou art traveling still
I looked up when a little child,
And saw thee on the hill.

I gazed upon thee carelessly
For little then thought I
That I should ever be as old
Or have to climb as high.

Hetty Saunders’ gravesite at Salem Friends Burial Ground is on the New Jersey Women’s Heritage Trail because of the lasting contributions of poet Esther “Hetty” Saunders to the arts and culture in New Jersey.

Her dad brought Hetty and her brothers across the river and to freedom when she was just 7 years old. The modern telling has it that the Hall family convinced Saunders’ father to let her stay with them when he returned, and so she spent the rest of her 70 years with them or near them. She saved enough money to buy a bit of property from the Halls and she built herself a home.

Even as a free woman, it seems she had something of a life of isolation as a black woman in a community largely filled with white Quakers. So she turned to poetry. None were published in her lifetime, but the Hall family preserved the works. And, in 2001, a handful were published by the local historical society. She died in 1862, having apparently never married or having children. Her poetry, the web tells me, is now praised as a rare and remarkable literary legacy.

The next time we return to the marker series we’ll learn a bit about the cemetery where she was buried. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

adventures / history / markers / photo / Rowan / swimming / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
23
Oct 24

Have I found a character for you today

You’re going to want to stick with this. I made an error, caught the error, corrected the error, and the story below got immensely better because of it.

Spent the morning grading at home — because it is another week with plenty of things to grade, and that’s what I did yesterday, what I’m doing today and what I’ll do tomorrow. This week we’re reading a critical analysis from a Dutch scholar.

But we spent the afternoon on campus. Sandwich lunch in the office. I read student assignments in the office. There was a marketing meeting. From the office of The More Things Change, someone explained SEO and we discussed WordPress. We had a nice time.

So after a lovely afternoon with colleagues, my lovely bride and I went over to the big kids’ pool. It was my first swim in four weeks.

And it felt surprisingly decent. Good, even, in places. And before I knew it, I was in that weird vacant groove and the lengths and laps just started disappearing. And then, suddenly (OK, slowly) I had an easy 2,000-yard workout under my belt.

Did not see the comet on the drive home. Mostly, we were busy chatting about class strategies and research. And now, after dinner, I’ll have to get back to grading.

But first!

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays. The point is, riding my bike around the county, tracking down historical markers, sharing them here and trying to add a bit more context that what the signs offer us. This is the 51st installment, and the 83rd marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

And this time we’re going to Thomas Sinnickson’s house.

Thomas Sinnickson was born in 1797, and he blends right in with a large family, one that uses the same names over and over. Lots of Thomas Sinnicksons. Lots of Andrew Sinnicksons. Some of his elders had been in the state militia and in the Continental Army. There are two of his ancestors who served in both the state and U.S. legislature. A later Sinnickson went to Congress as well.

But those people aren’t the Thomas who built this house.

Our guy is maybe the third most famous Thomas in his family, which is to say, he’s not. His was a family that dates back to the original Swedish settlers. I spent a fair amount of time trying to trace my way through the Sinnicksons, deleting about five paragraphs of summary when I found I’d made a big generational error. But now we have it right. And it’s even more entertaining.

Thomas died at just 45, in 1842. Searches don’t tell me much about him, in part, perhaps, because of the other Thomas Sinnicksons that preceded. But we do know this. He and Clarissa had five daughters and three sons. The youngest died at just 21, in an asylum. One of the sons was a poet. One daughter moved across the country, to Oregon. (By way of sail, around Cape Horn, a six-month journey.) And in that woman there is a tale.

There’s a bit more about her, here, in the far right column. I would watch the movie about that woman’s life.

The rest of the family stayed much closer to home. Two of Thomas and Clarissa’s children made it into their 80s. All told, four of them lived into the 20th century. And this is where they grew up, surely steeped in their family’s history, and definitely in the midst of their community’s history, as we’ll see in the coming weeks.

The building was sold last year. From what I can tell, it’s been used as converted office space for quite some time.

Speaking of poets, the next time we return to the marker series we’ll learn a bit about a former slave turned poet. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

history / markers / photo / Rowan / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
2
Oct 24

Productive, but not nearly enough

The grading continues. And it will continue later tonight. It will also continue tomorrow.

If it goes any longer than that I will begin to evaluate my grading. My self-assessment might not be a positive one in that eventuality.

But I should give myself some grace. I started this round of grading with some 70-plus items to grade. About 34 of them require real feedback. The assignment includes an element where they have to ask a question of something they’re reading, and some of the questions are pretty easy to answer based terms or something else the class has addressed. Some I’m fielding are of that pleasantly squishy almost-formed social science question that an undergrad can ask, the sort that actually opens the door to something quite important. I try not to revert to the grad school ways of getting to an almost-answer. Some of the questions are purely philosophical and then I think, this should be asked in a proper classroom, on a day when the halls are quiet and the sky is gloomy and you can make the snap decision that, no, this question is much more interesting than what I’d planned to talk about today, so we’re doing 40 minutes on the politics of art in a society of mass culture.

While not padding my feedback, I am averaging … a lot of words per response. Probably too much, but you know how it is when you get on a role explaining early 20th century media philosophy, or seminal sociologists or artificial intelligence. The words just flow, and soon you’re wondering, Will this particular student appreciate a newspaper column’s worth of thoughts on their assignment? Then you have to trim it. Getting back down to that 200- or 300-word range is the time intensive part.

The students were reading a paper that crossed Erving Goffman and Walter Benjamin, and by the end of it all, I find myself hoping I don’t come off a bit like the random guy in Good Will Hunting.

I’ve now read, and re-read this piece that I might actually understand it. And then not. And then truly grasp it.

So I went to campus. One part of my job is teaching. Another part is grading. Still a third part of my job is to receive training in this or that. I’ve had three rounds of ethics training in a calendar year. I’ve watched webinars of the privacy of this and the security of that. I have two more in the queue, because someone decided there wasn’t enough to be done. And today I had an in-person session, QPR training.

That’s Question, Persuade and Refer to you. And it was 90 minutes of talking about interacting with someone in a mental health crisis. There was also role playing. We had three minutes of role playing, which is not enough time to work your way through the scenario that was presented. I turned to the guy sitting next to me and invited him to pair up. He was in psychology.

Great, I said, a ringer!

“Experimental psychology,” he said. “If I never saw anyone at work I’d be happy.”

Or something like that, I was too busy trying to figure out how I would navigate through very specific hypothetical to take notes. In the end, we felt we’d done our part to help the troubled young man in the imagined scenario. And then we talked some more as a group, because this was 90 minutes.

It wasn’t that bad, but you could see where it might be a charged or otherwise difficult sort of conversation. At the end, the woman running the thing did something fun. She made everyone in the room say something they were looking forward to doing in the next 24 hours. A palate cleanser.

The thing of it was that everyone there had these interesting plans. Except for the guy who had to teach that night and all day tomorrow, so he was looking forward to sleeping tonight. When it came to me, I lamented that everyone else had these interesting plans. I was going to grade. Maybe ride my bike. Definitely pet the cats.

The woman who went after me was looking forward to hanging out with her chicken.

I went back to the office and did some grading, did some reading, and worked on the desk. It was a productive afternoon.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature which finds me riding my bike around the county, hunting for historical markers. This is the 50th installment, and the 82nd marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

Sadly, I’m not sure why this merited inclusion. No one really spells out the history for us. And what even is the historic part of a local courthouse, anyway? The signs give nothing away.

Just 702 feet away is the truly historic Old Salem County Courthouse (1735), ” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>which we saw previously. That is the nation’s second-oldest courthouse in continuous use.

And a block away is this building. A court which is still in its first century of existence, sitting in a dour building which looks like it is hoping will be its last century.

Municipal Court, what are you gonna do?

Next time, we’ll see a sturdy 19th century brick home. It, like all the previous installments, will be better than this one. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

cycling / history / markers / Rowan / swimming / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
25
Sep 24

Just needs more

I’ve neglected to mention this here, I think, but I have the good fortune to work with a group taking an active role in cycling safety. It’s exciting watching these signs, and their message, pop up around town. It’s just one element of a long, long term project, but awareness and education are critically important.

The people doing this work are motivated for their own safety and their mindfulness of other cyclists. They’ve got the ear of the community, and the local state lawmakers.It’s impressive, and I hope the group can keep their momentum going.

Here, the state law requires motorists to move over a lane, or to allow for at least four feet to safely pass cyclists (and other non-motorists). Four whole feet!

Do you know the laws about safely passing cyclists in your state? You can look them up right here, and I’ll thank you for saving lives every time you drive.

We went to campus today and it’s a miracle we made it at all because I kept slowing us down, somehow. It got to that not-quite-comedy-of-errors level, culminating in finding zero parking in several consecutive walks. But we made it. And then we went for a swim.

It was my first indoor swim in a long time. There were lane ropes and lifeguards and chlorine and everything. Also, there was the mystery of when I would slip into the rhythm of swimming back and forth, back and forth. It finally happened, I’m not sure where I was in the swim. But I know where I was when I got pulled from the pool. The lap swim was over, some other people were wandering in and doing some organized looking stretching and warming up.

I said, “Do I have enough time to do 50 more?” But I was told I did not. And so I finished with a slow version of my 1,700 yards.

But, man, you never really know how useful that extra 50 could have been. It could have really made the difference!

After that we meant to a meeting in our department. There was food, and there was work. A handful of the faculty members were working on some important department-type language. On the third or fourth run through someone tossed a joke my way, being the newbie and all. I said, “Hey, you want to get all caught up in details, you’ve invited the right guy.”

Ultimately, the work got done. Everyone seemed pleased by it. I got a phrase or two into the finished product, phrases I may forget, so I’ll just point to all of them. I was just happy to be there.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature which finds me riding my bike around the county, hunting for historical markers. This is the 49th installment, and the 81st marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series. (Assuming I have faithfully and accurately kept count.) And this time, we have to try to figure out why a post office has a historic marker.

This installment features the fabled form letter of plaques.

I love the National Registry markers, but I appreciate, even more, the local ones with some information on them. And it will never not disappoint me that the Registry doesn’t contain an extant explanation of all of the places they acknowledge. In this case, however, you can’t even find this post office on the list! Anyway, here’s the building.

The first post office opened there, or around there, in November of 1903. But the first post office in these parts, I read elsewhere, was created by legislation in 1792. Either way, 18th or early 20th century, they served very rural routes, I would imagine. Also, the first airmail flew out of the county in 1938, it was a gimmick marking the 20th anniversary of airmail. It possessed all of the 1930s pomp and circumstance a small town could muster. There were special envelopes and handlers. The mail bag was taken to the airfield by a fire truck, where other special handlers took part. The Boy Scouts turned out to witness the occasion, and so on. The mail flew to a town about 30 miles away.

And not related to this, but interestingly, I also read an anecdote of an airmail pilot who crashed his plane in 1918 one county away. He was trying to land, but some livestock got in the way. He made another pass, had engine trouble and wound up crash landing. Broke his machine up, but he lived. The mail got delivered. It was the second day of airmail in the U.S. On the same day as the first local airmail, commemorating 20 years of airmail, that pilot had a nationwide conversation on this thing called radio …

Also, historically speaking, a lot of mail has been delivered over the many years. Too much of it bills.

Next week, I’ll probably have similarly limited success on our next marker, but we’re here to try. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.