I've got dibs on Flag Day

June 14th is Flag Day and has now come and gone.     One of our lesser known "holidays".  Probably lesser known because no one gets a long weekend, but it's one that has always been special for me.  Originally it was a "holiday" in our family because it was my Grandpa Robinson's birthday.  Clarence G. Robinson was born June 14, 1895 and as I was growing up it was often the day of a big family gathering and cook-out.   My father had 5 siblings so those were usually pretty big affairs by the time you added all the spouses and the twenty-five grandchildren....then we started getting spouses of grandchildren attending....and before Clarence died in 1981 there were several great grandchildren in the mix.   Sometimes some of grandpa's sisters attended too.  Big shaded lawns out in the country, lots of food, home made ice cream, and of course, fresh picked strawberries would be just coming into season. Remember when our fruits and vegetables were always "seasonal"?   Dad's birthday was June 6th and he always wanted fresh strawberries on his birthday too.  That was before the hard tasteless things that pass for strawberries we get today in the produce section. That brings up another question I've had for a long time...how have they managed to get strawberries to turn so bright red on the outside, while remaining white and hard on the inside?

These birthday parties were always carry-in affairs and each of my aunts usually brought what was their "specialty".  Mother's usual was a fruit salad, I think it was called Heavenly Hash.  It had several kinds of fruit, mini marshmallows, whipped cream, and she always put it in the same covered dish...an insulated aluminum dish with penguins embossed all around the side.  I think one of my daughters has that dish now.

My oldest granddaughter reminded me today that June 14th is also the birthday of the US Army and that brings me to yet another family connection I have with Flag Day and something that I think gives our family some minor "bragging rights".

On Saturday night, September 10, 1814 the British fleet sailed about 30 ships up the Patapsco river toward Baltimore.  Consisting of ships of the line, heavy frigates, and bomb vessels.  Fort McHenry stood between the fleet and the city.  Lt. Col George Armistead was the commander of the fort and a small handful of defenders.   Several units of local militia joined Armistead's men at the fort including 100 men belonging to the first Regiment of Maryland Artillery commanded by Captain John Berry.   My third great grandfather, then a resident of Baltimore, John K. Sumwalt, was a member of of that unit.

Armistead placed Berry's artillery unit along with others along the lower works facing the water and in front of them infantry units were placed to meet the enemy upon their landing.  However, the British ships remained several miles off shore.   All in all around 1000 men defended the fort. On Monday the British attempted to land troops about 10 miles south of the fort and during that day and into the following night the British commander had moved about 16 ships, including 5 bomb boats to within about 2 miles of the fort.  About sunrise on Tuesday the British commenced their bombardment of the fort. Finding the distance where their shells reached the fort they anchored and kept the Americans under an incessant and well directed bombardment.  The Americans opened their batteries and fired back but their shells all fell far short of the enemy.  The British continued to throw shells at the fort with only slight intermissions till one o'clock Wednesday morning.  At that time the British attempted a landing to the right of Fort McHenry but that was repulsed....the British discontinued the bombardment at about 7 o'clock Wednesday morning, turned their fleet around and left.  Baltimore was saved from a fate similar to the burning of Washington DC.

The British bombardment had lasted 25 hours and from 1500 to 1800 shells were thrown at the fort.  About 400 of those shells fell within the fort and a large number had exploded above the fort, raining shell fragments down on the defenders.  Four defenders were killed and 24 were wounded.

If this story sounds familiar (and it should) it is due to a Washington lawyer to had met with the British commander aboard the British ship in order to negotiate the release of a prisoner of war.  The young lawyer watched the entire event unfold and wrote a song to commemorate what he had witnessed. The young witness was, of course, Francis Scott Key and his little "poem" or song became our national anthem. Against what appeared to be overpowering odds the defenders of Baltimore refused to yield and I think in a very real way that sums up the American Spirit.

John K Sumwalt, along with his parents and all but one of his siblings left Maryland for the promise of cheap new land on the Indiana frontier about 5 years after he had helped to defend Baltimore.

I don't fly my flag all the time, but on special occasions such as Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day and Veterans day I always try to get it raised.   I actually prefer not to keep it raised every day because it seems more special by reserving it for those few days.  On Flag Day when I raise my flag I think of John K Sumwalt and others in my family who have defended that flag through our history and of course I remember by own Grandpa.    

   

Family

FAMILY

I just finished a book this week which reminded me why, I think, learning about our family history is important or at least what drives those of us who do it.  Written by Ian Frazier it is called FAMILY and I recommend it if you are interested in family history, or even about history in general.  It is what I'd describe as an unconventional Family History Book.  It certainly wasn't what I expected.  Unlike those more conventional works that consist of tree charts and family charts and dry facts about ancestors laid out in some sort of strange numerical order.   This book was really just a series of stories covering several individuals and generations of Frazier's family.   The thing about this style of writing a family history is that I found the stories interesting, even though none of the people were related to me and even the locations were different from those where my own ancestors had lived.   Frazier brought the "history" right up to the current time. He talked about his own parents and siblings, the death of his brother at a young age, and his own life.  He's just about 2 years younger than I am so I found much of his  story vaguely familiar.  

Near the end of the book he talked about the deaths of his parents and made what I thought was a profound statement about life.  It put into words something I had felt but couldn't really describe well and I think it has a lot to do with the reasons recording my own family history has been important for me. 

Describing his feelings after his mother died and what he thought his future held he said; "And unknown things would happen, and sooner or later I would die, too - I understood that now, clearly, the way you suddenly become aware of the sky and the diving board after the person in front of you has jumped - and my kids perhaps would see me off as I had seen my parents off, or perhaps not.  And soon all the people who had accompanied me through life would be gone, too, and then even the people who had known us, and no one would remain on earth who had ever seen us, and those who descended from us perhaps would know stories about us, perhaps once in a while they would pass by a building where we had lived and they would mention that we had lived there.  And then the stories would fade, and our graves would go untended, and the graves of those who had tended ours would go untended, and no one would guess what it had been like to wake before dawn in our breath warmed bedrooms as the radiators clanked and our wives, husbands and children slept.  And we would move from the nearer regions of the dead who are remembered into the farther regions of the forgotten, and on past those, into a space as white and big as the sky.... and all that would remain would be the love bravely expressed and the moment when you danced and your heart danced with you."  

 His description of the moment when the brevity of life finally comes into sharp focus struck me as quite profound.   Of course we know, from an early age, that we will all die.  I think what we do is that in much of our early life that thought is something we keep very far back in the dark corners of our minds, it's much easier to rationalize "well it will be a long tme from now",  but eventually it dawns on all of us just what that means.   The big picture eventually comes into focus for all of us with the realization that we are  a small part of a much bigger picture.  

We tell ourselves that our efforts to document our family history and to tell those stories is something we do for our children and grandchildren and their grandchildren, but maybe it's also for a more selfish reason...we want to be remembered.  Most of us who live an average life span will, during that life span, probably have intimate contact with at least 5 different generations.... our grandparents, parents, siblings, children and grandchildren. Some of us might even stretch that out a a generation or two more than that.  I had two great grandmothers that I remember and last fall I got to meet my first great grandchild.  

The Revolutionary War seems distant today...but when thought of in terms of family it can seem much closer.  My great grandfather Robinson sat on the knee of his grandmother Robinson and her cradle was rocked by her father, Isaac Davisson, a veteran of that war.  Within the scope of family generations an event that seems so very long ago is just ever so slightly beyond the people I've personally  known and that's an amazing thought. There were still a few Civil War Veterans living when my own father went off to fight in World War II.     Odds are that some of my grandchildren will live to see the next new century and certainly their children will.  I want to give them some perspective on life and history and I want them to understand from whence they came and something about those that came before them, and of course that includes me.

What I think I've learned.

On Being Retired: 

 I have not studied the subject of retirement and don't have a real clue to how psychologists and sociologist would describe this phase of life. Nevertheless I think I'm beginning to understand that as persons enter this phase of life and as we progress through it there are several distinct "phases" that we pass through.   I've experienced at least four of them since I retired in January 2008.    

First there is great fear.  How will I survive without a steady income that arrives in precise amounts and in regular intervals?  Have I saved enough?  Have I planned well enough?  Will I miss working, will my wife be able to stand having me around all the time?  Who will take over my job, will they do better at it than I did?  Will I be missed?  What will I do with all that extra time? Those questions and fears will sound familiar to those of you who have already retired.  For those of you who have not yet reached this milestone I can guarantee you too will have doubts and fears about leaving the workforce.  

After the first few months have passed without our having suffered the eminent  financial ruin we had feared a new phase will set in.  That is a feeling of almost complete freedom, it grows on us slowly.    No more deadlines, no more disagreeable co-workers, the clock slowly ceases to rule our lives.   Get up late, go to bed late....it really doesn't matter because the time is now ours to do with as we wish.   A strange thing begins to happen.   That worry about how we would spend all that extra time seems to have been a misplaced worry.  There is plenty to do, in fact there is perhaps not enough time to do everything we'd like to do.   Because time had always been at a premium before retirement we find ourselves making extravagant use of our new found time.  A vacation doesn't have to be a week or two...it can be a month.  It could even be all winter.  Feel sleepy after lunch....nap....because you can.  

The third phase takes some time before it comes to a head, but it will, it always does.   Even as we relish our freedom from the clock we fall into a sort of self made routine.  Before we know it we find ourselves just sort of drifting along.  The excitement we felt as we discovered our freedom from living by someone else's clock begins to fade.  It's easy to become rudderless, purposeless.  What I realized was that I was missing structure and purpose and that moved me into the next phase.   

Finding purpose is perhaps easier than finding structure, at least it was for me. Both  came with my career, they came with that hated alarm clock, a calendar, goals, expectations, duty, and providing service to others.   So how do I get those things back, especially how to I give myself some structure.  For a while I had been drifting along, not that drifting is always bad...it's mostly stress free, but as I've always read, even stress isn't all bad.  It motivates if nothing else.  So, what's next?   What I discovered was that a simple volunteer job could provide the structure I had been missing.  

It would have to be something I enjoyed, something that I liked well enough that I'd happily do it without any pay.    When I was a boy one of my favorite things to do was to listen to my grandma talk about "the old days".   From her I learned to appreciate my family history and to understand how it all fit together and how "history" is really nothing more than a bunch of little stories from a lot of people all mashed together.  I've been the family historian in my family for more than 40 years now.  Collecting dead people and their stories.   The biggest family heirloom I ever collected was the house built by my great great great grandparents.  It's where we raised our children through elementary school into high school.  My interest in history and family history has not wavered so any volunteer work that involved history would be right up my alley. 

I have been making fairly frequent (several times a year) trips to our local genealogical library housed at the Archives of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association.   They kept asking if I wouldn't come in and help them with some projects.    I finally took them up on their offer last December and have been volunteering three afternoons a week since then (vacations excluded).  It's been a great fit.  I'm involved with a project that might not be finished in my lifetime but it's one that is important, and it's one that has had the side benefit of uncovering some interesting "facts" involving my own family along the way.   

In the mid 1980's Tippecanoe County was running out of office space in the courthouse.  To make more office space they decided to turn the attic into offices.   That required them to dispose of many of the oldest county records that had been moved into the attic over the years.  Covered with coal dust and over a hundred years worth of grime many of the documents had been simply dumped into piles or boxed randomly.   Much of the material was given to the Tippecanoe County Historical Association for preservation.   Something over 200 file boxes had been filled and brought to TCHA along with dozens of ledger books and other items.  

Initially some of the boxes containing what appeared to be the oldest records were sorted out by topic but that process lagged as TCHA ran short of money to pay staff.   Things had been more or less rough sorted and shelved in the basement but none of it was of any real use to researchers.  First step is to clean the material  which had not already been cleaned in 1985.  The next step is for me counter intuitive, but the standards of Archival preservation call for the material to be first arranged in the order and manner in which it was created and originally filed .  Tippecanoe County officials had originally filed paperwork into numbered boxes.  If the county purchased ink and paper the bills were presented and then paid...and that paperwork was filed in a box.  The box numbers were written on every item that was filed.   Because all the material that was brought from the Courthouse attic had been badly shuffled our file boxes might contain items from several "original" boxes...things from 1830 were mixed with items from 1880.    

What I have been working on is sorting the diverse items from the file boxes in which they arrived into their original county box number order.  It sounds boring...but I've also found some really interesting items because I'm looking at each item which allows me to determine if it is something special or something very routine.   The project will eventually result in an index system that should allow family or historical researchers a way to access items by subject and or by name but at the very least by date.   There are around a half dozen volunteers working on this long term project.  We all hope that in the end we will have created a useful collection of material.  Ah...I've got some purpose and direction again and that feels good.

   

   

I stopped writing for a while, actually I stopped doing a lot of stuff I enjoyed. "In a rut" as they say, nothing to do now but pull myself out. There's not a better time to come out of a dark hole than during Spring, and what a Spring we've had. But that's another story. One thing I know for certain...I've really enjoyed the view out my porch window the last few days.

I love photography but I think concentrating on Photography as a way to make money made it less enjoyable in ways that I had not expected. In the beginning photography was about exploring the world around me, looking at things in a different way, seeing the magic all around us.

When it became about money I suddenly had to worry about deadlines, profit, loss, taxes, advertising....a host of responsibilities I neither enjoyed nor had the self discipline to deal with.

I suppose the final straw was the letter I got from the County Auditor's Office, letting me know that I had failed to file Business Property Taxes. Not that I had purposely evaded paying the tax, I simply had no idea such a thing even existed. I knew the county had done away with Business inventory taxes years before...I didn't have "inventory", I pay real estate property taxes, I pay income taxes, and self employment taxes on the profit I made doing photography but I never suspected my cameras and lenses and even my computer would be subject to a separate property tax, simply because I sold some of the pictures I took with them. I'm not an anti tax, anti government person, quite the contrary, but gee whiz, this just seemed a bit more weight than I wanted to carry.

During the cold, gray days of winter I had pulled out some of my very old family photos which inspired me to begin working again on my family history. A project I've worked at for more than 30 years. (No, dear reader, it won't ever be "done", whatever done means.) In November I was provided with an opportunity to take a free DNA test by Ancestry.com as part of a beta test group for a new DNA product they are introducing. I jumped at the chance and am anxiously awaiting results which are expected any day now. In the mean time I've been reading up on a subject I knew little about....and still know little about.

The New Etiquette

Email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, My Space, Blogs, Hot Spots, WiFi. I'm not telling any of you something you don't know already. There are lots of ways to communicate.  Not only are we communicating with new technology, we are also communicating in a more or less casual way with, I believe, more people, in some cases with people we hardly know. Yes, lots has changed. Recently though I encountered something that presents a question that I would have never had if I were still communicating by postal letters or by phone.

As a Facebook member I have gathered a list of friends with whom I periodically share information. Some of my facebook friends are family, some are co workers, associates, neighbors or fellow artists. As a "Facebooker" I have developed various levels of contact with my various "friends". Some I have frequent Facebook contact with, and some I only occasionally read and pay attention to what is happening in their daily lives.

One of my earliest "friends" at Facebook was someone who was not very active, but he was a person who in "real" life was someone I respected and admired. As a business associate he was someone with whom I had always felt like I could be honest with and I always felt like he was being honest with me. In short we had a warm, but not close business relationship. I genuinely liked the guy. Last week, while he was on "Spring Break" with his family he was drowned at a Florida beach while trying to assist others who had been caught by a dangerous rip-tide. A true tragedy.

This brings me to the etiquette question. Every day when I sign on to Facebook, there is his picture on my friends list, I can click on his picture and go to his wall and see the posts that were there. No one has removed his profile and maybe no one ever will. So what is the proper action? perhaps doing nothing is the proper action. Would it be right to post something on his wall? I mean the guy died a heroic death, trying to save others...it would seem proper to acknowledge that on his wall? Continuing to see his picture on my list of friends is, I guess, a good reminder that I could do worse than emulating his qualities.

Seeking the Grand View

There are little gems all around us, but in order to see them we have to stop looking for the Grand Scenic Prize Winner. The truth of the matter is that the Grand Scenic Prize winner has already been found and photographed by more people than you can count....but most of them missed the little gems. I suppose this is a lot like life. We spend our lives looking for the "big payoff" while all along the way we step over and ignore the little gems.

I was reminded of this a while back as I walked along a sandy arroyo in the desert behind my son's house. In the distance the Santa Rita Mountains rise up from the desert floor, shades of dark green, blue and purple except that single out of place white spot, where trailings from a mining operation have stained the mountain side. Behind me the hills rise up to meet the Rincon range which blocks the growth of Tucson toward the east. Between clumps of palo verde and mesquite I can frame portions of the view but the light is harsh and flat. Discouraged I give up on the idea of finding a scene that will be suitable for a photograph. I look down at the gravel bed to see if I can spot any interesting stones to return to my daughter-in-law for her rock garden.

Actually looking down is not a bad idea in a place where rattlesnakes often sunbathe, but again....that sort of "looking" and worrying can also cause you to miss the little gems.

There it was, right at my feet. A tiny lupine was blooming. A little sky blue gem that is here today but will probably be gone tomorrow. It is then that I notice the stones and gravel....green, blue, black, white, gray, brown, and red...more shapes than I can count. Most of the stones are smooth but there are many different kinds of stone represented. I am no geologist but I imagine that a geologist could tell me much about the history of our planet just by looking at the gravel bed of that arroyo. I began looking for a photo of less grand scale, while remembering that the subjects themselves. would be no less grand nor less important to the make up of this place we call the Sonoran Desert.

What this Country Needs....

Fellow Hoosier and Vice President, Thomas R. Marshall once said "What this country needs is a good five cent cigar!" Today I'll add to the list of what this country needs. One of the things this country needs today is for everyone to just slow down.

It could fairly be said that we should be spending lots of money improving and even expanding The Interstate Highway System proposed and begun during the Eisenhower administration. It's a great system, probably one of the most complete national highway systems in the world but as travelers what we should be doing is getting off the interstate and taking a real look at our country. At the end of March I had the pleasure of driving a portion of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Following the original route of one of the oldest roads in our heartland "the trace" gives the traveler everything that the Interstate lacks. It not only allows the traveler to slow down....but it invites an unhurried close up look at a small slice of Americana.

One of the worst things many states have done with their Interstate Highway system is to plant rows and rows of pine trees for miles and miles on both sides of the interstate. Those trees are now full grown and one has the feeling of careening along a pine-green tube as you drive. Mile 1 looks exactly like mile 100....the view is exactly the same....green on both sides, reaching 30 or more feet up, 4 lanes reaching into the distance and sky above. One would think that vast stretches of Mississippi are vacant empty pine wildernesses, except that once in a while there is a tiny gap between trees and you can see that there really is life beyond those rows of pines. Is Mississippi protecting residents from highway noise and exhaust or hiding something from those traveling the Interstate? Hard to tell, my view was blocked.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is another story. We were treated to beautiful Spring views around each gentle bend in the road. The road is a well maintained, wide two lane road. The only shortcoming I noticed was that there was, in most places, a lack of a wide side berm or pull outs, however it appeared most people just slow down and drive out into the grass if they want to explore a view or take a picture. There are dozens of "attractions" along the parkway. Historic markers, special views, historic structures, or natural features that each invite the traveler to slow down.

One feature the parkway has in common with its' big brother interstate is that it is a "limited access" road and a traveler on the parkway can make surprisingly good time simply because there is no competition with "local" traffic. No stop signs or signals (at least on the section we traveled). A traveler on the parkway would never know that the road goes through or near any towns, but with map in hand it is easy to exit the parkway and explore small town America right next door. Think of your typical "exit ramp" on an interstate, The Natchez Trace Parkway could not be more different nor more refreshing. There are no giant and brightly lighted signs advertising Micky-Dees or Motel 6 at these exits and entrances to the parkway. The parkway travels either over or under major, high traffic highways...smaller rural lanes simply cross the parkway here and there.

We took only a fairly small segment of the parkway, From Jackson, Mississippi north 105 miles where we exited on Highway 82 at Mathison. We thought, Better to take a smaller section of the parkway in an unhurried, relaxing way than to try to do more by simply driving faster and stopping less.

The highlight of the drive was the unexpected near meeting the the 'gator at the Big Cypress Swamp. Now THAT is a real live Southern swamp.