Armchair Travel

Futile Care

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:37:00 +0000

When my mom was in the hospital in Springfield, we asked them to provide what is called "comfort care only." That means they don't do a lot of invasive tests and IVs and catheters.

A doctor came over to us and told us we were doing the right thing for Sally and he wished more families would do what we did.

A huge percentage of American health care costs are incurred in the last year of life, and much of it is what can be called "futile care" that might make life a little bit longer, but not better.

Here's what an experienced nurse has to say: "As a retired hospice nurse, I can validate the beauty and effectiveness of palliative care. Both the patient and the family get the kind of individualized support and care that makes the end of life a time of peaceful letting go in the serenity of a calm, well-supported family. As an ex-ICU nurse, I can tell you that we not only waste incredible amounts of money on futile care, we torture our dying patients."

President Obama has taken a lot of flack for even discussing the idea of palliative care. He's been accused of organizing "death squads" to decide which elderly people shall be deprived of care and left to die.

But anyone with any actual knowledge of end-of-life situations understands that prolonging life at all costs doesn't help anyone, except the people who get rich from it, and it often amounts to torturing people who just want to die in peace.

Spartacus and the Essene

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:51:00 +0000

He stuck up for the lowly and the oppressed. He preached a new kingdom of peace and justice. He was crucified but he lives on. You know who I mean... Spartacus!

I'm reading The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler and I'm getting caught up in his rendition of this famous story. He has Spartacus, early on, meet up with an Essene prophet who ended up in Rome. That was the group that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls and plagiarized the words of Jesus before He was even born. Shocking!

The Essene traces a long line of people who have spoken up for truth and justice for the little guy, starting with King Agis of Sparta, who was hanged, and a bunch of others through the ages who met a variety of grim fates. I wonder why that is? Cui bono -- who benefits?

The Essene prophesies as follows: "Neither their silver nor their gold shall save them in the day of the wrath of Y...., but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy.Woe unto them that join house to house and field to field till there is no room, till they possess alone the lands of the earth.

"Woe unto them that decree false laws and take the right from the poor of the people so that these poor may be their prey. Woe for your heads [magistrates] judge for reward, your priests teach for hire, and your seers prophesy for money.

"For he is come, sent by Y...., He who is anointed by the Lord to mend broken hearts, to bring light to the eyes of the blind, to free the oppressed."

"I never heard of a God that curses like that Y.... of yours," says Spartacus.

"Prophecies do not count," says the Essene. "He who receives them counts."

"He who receives them will see evil days," says Spartacus.

"Aye," says the Essene. "He'll have a pretty rotten time."

Made me think of Lincoln and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Benigno Acquino.

This is turning into a heck of a book.

The Will of God Almighty

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:35:00 +0000

I have written before about my friend Daoud Nassar, the founder of the Tent of Nations near Bethlehem, a center for international peace and understanding.

The Israelis have been trying to seize Daoud's land, despite the fact that his grandfather paid taxes to the Ottoman Turks and has the receipts to prove it. Still he has to pay thousands of dollars to go to court in Israel to prove that his family owns the land.

Saturday 25 soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces broke through the gates on Daoud's farm and rousted out his family and 45 international visitors at gunpoint. (Daoud was not there at the time.)

Kay Plitt of the Friends of Tent of Nations, North America writes, "The family members who were present were made to leave the house and stand outside in the cold and dark. There were 45 volunteers and international visitors sleeping in the tents, including a group of young German women ages 18-21 and their group leader.

"The group leader was lead outside and held at gunpoint as the soldiers went through the house and the compound searching for who knows what! This took a couple of hours, and was, of course, a terrifying experience - which it was intended to be."

One particular focus of the soldiers' frustration was a large rock inscibed with the words "We refuse to be enemies." They tried to efface the inscription, but were unsuccessful, so they rolled the rock into a crevasse.

I read in the Bible that the Israeli army is doing the will of Almighty God, but it does make one curious why Almighty God would be annoyed by a rock with some writing on it.

The Most Beautiful Road in the World

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:35:00 +0000

I just took a drive down what for me is the most beautiful road in the world, New Hampshire Route 153. For some it's the road to Freedom (about four miles south of Eaton) but for me it's the road to South Conway, where I have traveled for more than 50 years.

We had a wonderful memorial service for my mom in Tamworth on Saturday for all her friends in the Mt. Washington Valley. On Sunday we went to the family home in South Conway to look over and start thinking about what we're going to do with Sally's books and papers and other family stuff.

I took a kind of preliminary inventory of Sally's books and papers, found some priceless mementoes and set off down Route 153. It was a beautiful fall day with not a cloud in the sky.

I stopped to say hi to her pal Phil at the Eaton Store -- he's a big Boston College guy and she taught there -- and then drove on past the beautiful little Eaton Church, past the place that used to have the sign we always noticed that said "Rideing."

Past Round Pond where my dad and I caught a huge trout on a fish eye, and Long Pond, where I foolishly went fishing on an island barefoot and cut my foot open on a broken bottle and was rescued by a former Navy medic who dressed my foot and took me to the hospital.

Past the chain of ponds that make up Purity Springs Resort in East Madison, where many families have been going for more than forty years, a place where time has stood still.

Past a little stand in Effingham where I remember buying my daughter Sarah an ice cream cone when she was a little girl.

Then I turned onto Route 25 in Ossippee where Sarah and I collided with and killed a mother bear -- five feet tall, 350 pounds of solid muscle. Some guy stopped and helped straighten out my bumper so I could drive on, so I gave him the bear. What would I have done with it after all?

Then down Route 16 to the Ocean Job Lot discount store Sarah and I always stop at which we call Oceans Eleven, then onto Route 28 past Small World Miniatures, where they have everything for your doll house, including tiny dart boards and tiny money and even -- get this -- tiny toilets.

On down Route 28 past Chiang Kai Shek's old sumer place and the the WWII museum with the tank busting through the brick wall, past the giant pet cemetery in Alton Bay to the Epsom Circle where the clever Indian guy patched our tire, to Concord, where I worked in the State House...

You build up a lot of memories over 50 years and I was taking them in for maybe the last time. I didn't feel like taking pictures. I believe I can remember them well enough.

Ministrations of Mercy

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:57:00 +0000

I've been reading Letters of a Civil War Nurse by Cornelia Hancock, and it's really absorbing to walk with her around the battlefield at Gettysburg after the Union Army had moved on, a scene of unimaginable carnage where 300 surgeons worked for five days performing amputations, filling wagon after wagon with severed limbs.

It was the kind of situation where people show what they are made of and Cornelia, a strong-willed Quaker lass from Pennsylvania, certainly does that.

In one letter she admits guiltily that the soldiers in her tent hospital chipped in and bought her a silver medal worth twenty dollars. These men had nothing; they hadn't been paid in months.

"Miss Cornelia Hancock," read the inscription, "presented by the wounded soldiers of the 3d Division, 2d Army Corps. Testimonial of regard for ministrations of mercy to the wounded soldiers at Gettysburg, Pa. -- July 1863."

To her mother she writes, "I know what thee will say, that the money could have better laid out. It was very complimentary, though." When you think about it, she couldn't possibly have refused it.

One of her patients later wrote to her at the tent hospital, "You will never be forgotten by us for we often think of your kind acts and remember them with pleasure. Please excuse a soldier for taking the liberty to write to you, for although we are Soldiers we know how to appreciate a kind act."

"It seems to me as if all my past life was a myth," she wrote to her mother, "and as if I had been away from home seventeen years."

But, she reports, "I am black as an Indian, dirty as a pig and as well as I've ever been in my life... There is all in getting to do what you want to do, and I am doing that."

This reminded me of a passage by Ernie Pyle, in his book This Is Your War, about a hospital from North Carolina that was transported lock stock and barrel to North Africa during the American invasion in WWII, where the doctors and nurses described the same kind of exhilaration at living in primitive conditions and giving help to those in dire need.

So I picked up that book again and got completely absorbed -- again. I'll post some excerpts in my next entry.

Biting Your Nails in Aquitaine

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:14:00 +0000

Funny the stuff that sticks in your head. At Groton School I played the third priest in a production of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, directed by Carl Tucker, who also played the part of Thomas Becket.

Philip Kunhardt the third also turned in a stellar performance as the Inquisitor and Peter Williamson, ditto, as one of the killer knights -- the loquacious one.

The third priest has a heck of an invocation at the end, speaking of Becket's killers, including King Henry:

"Go, weak sad men, lost erring souls, homeless in earth or heaven.
Go where the sunset reddens the last grey rock
Of Brittany, or the Gates of Hercules.
Go venture shipwreck on the sullen coasts
Where blackamoors make captive Christian men;
Go to the northern seas confined with ice
Where the dead breath makes numb the hand, makes dull the brain;

Find an oasis in the desert sun,
Go seek alliance with the heathen Saracen,
To share his filthy rites, and try to snatch
Forgetfulness in his libidinous courts,
Oblivion in the fountain by the date tree;

Or sit and bite your nails in Aquitaine.
In the small circle of pain within the skill
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
Of thought, to justify your actions to yourselves,
Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,
Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
And we must think no further of you."

Looking back on it today, I guess I'd have to go with the part about snatching forgetfulness in the libinous courts of the heathen saracen. I'd like to take a shot at that one.

A Paragraph by Barbara Tuchman

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:32:00 +0000

I bought a box of about forty volumes of American Heritage -- bone dry, no mold -- for eight dollars. So I've been reading about Commodore Vanderbuilt's two sons, and General Knox's estate in Thomaston, Maine, as well as an article by Barara Tuchman, written in 1970.

She was by that time established as a preminent historian after John F. Kennedy was seen with a copy of The Guns of August.

Anyway, here is one paragraph from her story about the Japanese invasion of China:

"Determined to make an example of the capital that would bring the war to an end, the Japanese achieved a climax to the carnage already wrought in in the delta below. Fifty thousand soldiers hacked, burned, raped, and murdered until they had killed, by hand and in person, according to the evidence witnesses and collected by missionaries and other foreigners of the International Relief Committee, a total of forty-two thousand civilians in Nanking. Groups of men and women were lined up and machinegunned or use alive for bayonet practice or tied up, doused with kerosene, and set afire while officers looked on. Reports by missionary doctors and others, dazed with horror and helplessness, filled church publications in America. Much of the photographic evidence that later reached newspapers abroad came from snapshots taken by the Japanese themselves which they gave for developing to ordinary camera shops in Shanghai, where copies made their way to the correspondents."

Not only is this paragraph an extraordinary example of the skill of my favorite historian, it is equaled by the brilliance of the paragraphs around it.

How did the USA react to this news? Were people outraged? Not exactly. Congress immediately took up the Ludlow Resolution, which would have reguired a national referendum before the country could declare war. Think about that. It almost passed.

FDR understood what was happening in China, and wanted to impose an embargo on the Japanese. Not a chance.

"It's a terrible thing," he told a friend, "to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead and find no one there."

An Epic Sea Battle

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:52:00 +0000

The following is a story by Steve Hoyland, Sr. in Sea Breeze in Bayside, Texas, sent to me by my friend Sevie Ashley, editor of 008 Magazine in Lafayette, Louisiana:

Two weeks ago a group of four men, Steve Hoyland Jr. with friends Bruce, Ken and Erik, set off on an overnight offshore fishing trip. They left at noon on a Tuesday and went about 120 miles out into the Gulf (of Mexico).

They were having a great night of fishing, catching big snapper, grouper, ling and kings. About 3 am, two of them went down below to catch some sleep. The two remaining on deck were catching fish and drinking beer, enjoying the warm tropical night air.

All at once, Bruce got a big run on his line. This thing went all around the boat and took more than twenty minutes to bring up to the surface. When they got it up to the surface, they could not tell what it was. It looked prehistoric.

Steve Jr. put a gaff in it and the two men dragged it aboard the 33-foot boat. As soon as the creature hit the deck, it went crazy, attacking them. It was an eel over 6 feet long weighing close to 100 pounds. It had a mouth full of sharp teeth and was extremely pissed off.

The eel was later estimated to be sixty years old. Bruce said it came at him and Steve Jr. like an anaconda, rearing its head up and striking at them like a rattlesnake. It was highly agitated and quite energetic.

In the midst of thrashing around, the creature fell down below onto the floor between the two sleeping men, Erik and Ken. When they heard the thud and turned on the light, the eel raised its head right above Ken's face.

Erik rolled over and grabbed his 9 mm pistol. Steve Jr. started yelling, "Don't shoot the gun in the boat! We're 120 miles from land!" Next thing you know, all four fishermen were on the deck and the gigantic eel had sole possession of the bottom of the boat.

The four needed to work up a plan of action, so they drank beer while considering a strategy. It was determined that Steve Jr. would distract the eel because he had drank the most alcohol and believed he was bulletproof.

He opened up the sliding door down below to see what the "monster" was doing. As the door opened, the eel came up the two steps biting at anything along the way. The four brave men then ran to the wheelhouse like women and slammed the door shut. They never did identify which one of them scrreamed like a girl.

Inside the wheelhouse, they started calming down and decided they would drink a couple more beers. Then they hatched a new battle plan. Steve Jr. went out on the deck to get the beast's attention. The eel attacked and Steve Jr. climbed up on top of the captain's chair.

Ken threw a blanket on top of the giant eel while Erik and Bruce beat the hell out of it with a steel gaff and a large ice chest lid. After the creature was finally subdued, they put it into a large ice chest and closed the lid on it.

The four brave sailors all got themselves a beer and were laughing at the situation when the lid of the ice chest was suddenly knocked off and the eel sprang out onto the deck and resumed his attack. Bruce stated that the eel was clearly out for vengeance. The four men each picked up something and the fight was on.

After beating the creature with gaffs, ice chest lids and fire extinguishers again, they once more subdued the massive carnivore and put it back into the ice chest. This time, they tied the lid down and put another ice chest on top of that one.

Eighteen hours later they returned to the dock and started unloading the boat. None of them was anxious to open the lid to the ice chest, in fact, they did "rock, paper, scissors" to determine who would pop the lid!

Above is a picture of Bruce Gordy with the eel that he caught and bravely fought in that epic and desperate battle for control of the high seas.

Literary Comfort Food

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:42:00 +0000

I want to continue blogging about some books I've started: Letters of a Civil War Nurse by Cornelia Hancock, The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard, Maine Memories by Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Arundel by Kenneth Roberts.

But after my trip to Chicago and my mom's memorial service, I've been working at getting back to boring old normal, so I've reverted to literary comfort food, and for me that means books I read before that I enjoyed.

Right now I'm rereading my Sue Grafton books, because Kinsey Milhonne and her "little kingdom" in Santa Theresa suit me right down to the ground.

We're kindred spirits, Kinsey and I. We both like peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. We both have elderly landllords that we're very close to. And we both treasure our solitude, Kinsey and I.

As I have said before, Sue Grafton, in the Kinsey Mihonne series, has provided a valuable counterpoint to the American deification of the family as the be-all and end-all of virtue, love, and happiness, a stereotype that is contrary to all the evidence we see before us every day.

If someone is murdered, it's better than even money the killer is someone they were married to or 'in a relationship with.'

Almost every book in the Kinsey Milhonne series revolves around destructive family dynamics that have led to murder and lifelong misery for most of the characters, all seen through the eyes of Kinsey Milhonne, a woman with no family to speak of, whose parents were killed in a car crash when she was five and who was raised by her Aunt Gin, who has passed away.

Kinsey has found a family in Santa Theresa: her landlord Henry, a retired baker, and Rosie, who runs the Hungarian restaurant, but like any family, they have... dynamics, and what keeps them together is love. And sometimes they hide it or withhold it; that happens in the best of families, but when push comes to shove they make each other's lives happier.

I think that's the true measure of a family.

More Joy Than Sorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:36:00 +0000

We held a wonderful memorial service for my mom this weekend where those who loved her shared their remembrances of a remarkable woman who spent her life making the world a nicer place.

I think everybody there, myself included, learned a lot that they didn't know about Sally Hartshorne, and every presentation helped round out the picture of the person we were celebrating.

We really lost Sally, the Sally all these people knew, two years ago, but for many of them the loss was more recent. We had a chance to share with them our experiences with the Child Sally we have known for the last year of her life.

We didn't really have time to mourn the loss of our mom because she was still with us and we could still make her happy and she was still a wonderful person who made us happy, too.

I remember her last days in the nursing home. Beside her bed were her glasses and her watch. And all of a sudden I realized that she wasn't going to need either of them ever again.

It dawned on me that my mom was dying, but what I felt was, 'My mom is dying bravely.' I was more proud and happy than sorrowful.

The memorial service gave us a chance to embrace so many people who loved Sally, too, and it brought us a feeling of finality.

Over the next few months, I guess it will sink in that she's really gone. But you know what? No one is really gone.

Bringing Bloggers Together

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:21:00 +0000

I just came back from a really fun and interesting trip to Chicago for the Orbitz First Annual Blogger Day -- I'm calling it that because I hope it becomes an annual event.

Bringing bloggers together for real-time conversations is a good cause, and one of the things we learned this week was that Orbitz likes to support good causes.

I was really glad that GoNOMAD was being honored in this way. Bloggers labor in obscurity, hoping somebody somewhere will grok what they are saying, and to be recognized by an internationally known company like Orbitz is a big deal for us.

I met a lot of incredibly knowledgeable writers from all over the blogosphere, and even though I couldn't understand half of what they were talking about, I expanded my little world in a big way.

I was surprised that I was invited, since this blog is primarily about used books, but I realized that Orbitz was really recognizing GoNOMAD.com, a website started in 2000 by Lauryn Axelrod that my cousin Max purchased in 2002 which he and I have been working on since 2005 with the invaluable assistance of our webmaster Joe Obeng.

Buoyed by the creativity of hundreds of writers all over the world, we have put together a site that will give you a bunch of different perspectives on any country in the world.

We have had the privilege of publishing lots of talented writers for the first time. And when they go on to write for the Atlantic Montly or the New York Times or Time Magazine, that's a great feeling that validates what we do.

Max and I both worked as writers for longer than we've been editors, so we know what it's like, and it gives us a real boost to help fellow writers on their way.

We also publish lots of great material by experienced travel writers. I'd give examples, but they're all great and I couldn't begin to mention them all in this space.

We have learned that Arthur Frommer likes our site, which we consider a singular honor, and we've had favorable mentions in the NY Times, National Geographic and the BBC. People from the weird-food-guy show, Andrew Zimmern, called to find out what they eat in Ethiopia. Anthony Bourdain's people follow Max on Twitter.

So we gradually soak up the idea that we're doing the right thing, and that makes it even more fun to come to work.

Orbitz Blogger Day

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:37:00 +0000

Had a great time at the Orbitz first annual Blogger Day at the company's headquarters in Chicago. It's great to see a corporation with a conscience.

Met the president and CEO Barney Harford and learned about the company's commitment to equal rights for all Americans, and their support for lifting the embargo on Cuba.

And they're leading a drive to collect signatures to take to Congress to get the Cuban embargo lifted. You can sign up at a website they've set up, opencuba.org. They've already got 95,000 signatures and they're just getting started.

This is very important since so many other groups that might be expected to speak up have hesitated to get out front on this issue.

They also have genuine corporate initiatives for sustainable travel, green hotels and carbon offsets.

We also had a boat tour on the Chicago River where docent Charles T. Sanford told us all about the architecture of the city, and about Chicago's first settlers, Haitian-born Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable and his wife, a member of the Potawatomi Indian tribe.

I've been staying at the Amalfi Hotel, which has a real commitment to customer service. Friendly helpful employees, free internet, even free computers in their business center. Just printed out my boarding pass, and I'm all set to get home to the Happy Valley.

Cornelia Hancock, Angel of Mercy

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:35:00 +0000

Here is another excerpt from Letters of a Civil War Nurse, by Cornelia Hancock, who arrived in Gettysburg three days after the battle. She is seeking the hospital of the 12th New Jersey regiment in which her brother is serving:

"As we made our way to a little woods in which we were told was the Field Hospital we were seeking, the first sight that met our eyes was a collection of semi-conscious but still living human forms, all of whom had been shot through the head, and were considered hopeless.

"They were laid there to die and I hoped that they were indeed too near to death to have some consciousness. Yet many a groan came from them, and their limbs tossed and twitched.

"The few surgeons who were left in charge of the battlefield after the Union Army had started in pursuit of Lee had begun their paralyzing task by sorting the dead from the dying, and the dying from from those whose lives might be saved; hence the groups of prostrate, bleeding men laid together according to their wounds.

"There was hardly a tent to be seen. Earth was the only available bed during those first hours after the battle."

Historians seem to take off with the Union Army in pursuit of Lee, a worthy endeavor, to be sure. You don't hear much in the history books about the mountains of carnage left behind. But it's lucky for humanity that there are heros like Cornelia Hancock to come in and deal with them.

"Our party separated quickly, each intent on carrying out her own scheme of usefulness. No one paid the slightest attention to us, unusual as was the presence of half a dozen women on such fields; nor did anyone have time to give us orders or answer questions.

"Wagons of bread and provisions were arriving and I helped myself to their stores. I sat down with a loaf in one hand and a jar of jelly in another; it was not hospital diet, but it was food, and a dozen poor fellows lying near me turned their eyes in piteous entreaty, anxiously watching my efforts to prepare a meal.

"There was not a spoon, knife, fork, or plate to be had that day, and it seemed as if there was no more serious problem under Heaven than the task of dividing that too well-baked loaf into portions that could be swallowed by weak and dying men.

"I succeeded, however, in breaking it into small pieces and spreading jelly over each with a stick. A shingle board made an excellent tray, and it was handed from one to another. I had the joy of seeing every morsel swallowed by greedily by those whom I had prayed day and night I might be permitted to serve."

And that's just the beginning. Here's where she becomes a true angel of mercy:

"An hour or so later, in another wagon, I found boxes of condensed milk and bottles of whiskey and brandy. It was an easy task to mix milk punches and to serve them from bottles and tin cans..."

Letters of a Civil War Nurse

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:26:00 +0000

I went up to Montague last Saturday for some flea markets and an auction. There was a bookstore there with books three for a dollar. I had the feeling that if they didn't go for that price they might be... disposed of. So I went through them carefully.

I picked Ordeal by Slander by Owen Lattimore, The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler and Letters of a Civil War Nurse by Cornelia Hancock, edited by Henrietta Stratton Jaquette.

These are all great finds, but the latter is one of those books that shows why all that rummaging is worthwhile.

Cornelia Hancock is a courageous Quaker woman from New Jersey who, by hook or by crook, finds her way to the battlefield at Gettysburg three days after the battle.

"Every barn, church and building of any size in Gettysburg had been converted into a temporary hospital. We went the same evening to one of the churches where I saw for the first time what war meant.

"Hundreds of desperately wounded men were laid out on boards stretched across the high-backed pews... Thus elevated , these poor sufferers faces, white and drawn, were almost on a level with my own. I seemed to stand breast high in a sea of anguish.

"The townspeople of Gettysburg were in devoted attendance, and there were many from other villages and towns. The wounds of all had been dressed at least once....

"Too inexperienced to nurse, I went from one pallet to another, with paper, pencil, and stamps in hand, and spent the rest of that night writing letters from the soldiers to their families and friends. To many mothers, sisters, and wives I penned the last message of those who were to become the 'beloved dead.'"

But the wounded in the town were a tiny fraction of the men wounded in the battle. The rest were spread out over many acres in so-called hospitals that didn't even have tents.

Cornelia asked to be taken to the hospital of the Twelfth Regiment of New Jersey, in which her brother was serving.

"As we drew near our destination... a sickening , overpowering, awful stench announced the presence of the unburied dead, on which the July sun was mercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler, until it seemed to possess a palpable horrible density that could be seen and felt and cut with a knife."

Maybe it's hard to see why I relish this kind of thing. I guess it's because I get a perspective you're not likely to find in most history books. I'll have a bunch more selections from this courageous woman, who was also an excellent writer.

The Sun Wheel at UMass Amherst

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:24:00 +0000

I've always enjoyed looking at the standing stones behind the UMass football stadium, but I never knew who put them there or what their purpose was.

Tuesday I met astonomer Judith Young, the driving force behind the sun wheel, as it is called, who explained why the stones were placed where they were and how the early peoples who built stone wheels used them as calendars.

A group of about 30 people learned all about solstices and equinoxes, sunrises and moonrises, even the 26,000 year cycle of the North Star. Seems even the pole star moves, but not enough so you'd notice it in a fleeting human lifetime.

Solstices are the longest and the shortest days of the year and equinoxes are when day and night are equal.

I've always heard that after the winter solstice, the days get longer by about one minute per day on average, and I've always wondered if they get longer by one minute every day or do they grow longer faster at some times and slower at others.

Professor Young explained that the days grow longer very slowly around the solstices in December and July and much faster around the equinoxes, which you would think would come exactly halfway between solstices, but you'd be wrong because the earth's orbit around the sun in not perfectly round, but slightly elliptical, and on top of that the earth's axis is tilted.

But the answer to my question is that the days get longer faster in the middle of the winter.

You can find out more about the Sun Circle at Young's website.

A Great Year for Good Reads

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:02:00 +0000

I've found a lot of great reading this summer, more than enough for several winters. For one thing, I found a box of American Heritage -- about forty volumes -- for eight bucks, and, you collectors out there will appreciate this: it's bone dry.

You find boxes like this all the time, but the slightest bit of moisture and they're moldy stinky trash.

I opened the first one and there's an article by Barbara Tuckman about Vinegar Joe Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek. Bingo. And one about the legal battle over Cornelius Vanderbuilt's last will and testament.

I've mentioned a few book titles like The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Maine Memories, and The Lobster Coast.

This weekend I was in Montague at a dealer where the books were three for a buck. I selected The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler, a very interesting guy, it turns out, tho I didn't know it at the time. I'm just interested in historical fiction about Rome to stimulate my imagination for my opera about Rome.

Number Two was Ordeal by Slander by Owen Lattimore. I thought he had done a translation of Homer's Iliad, but that's Richard Lattimore. Owen Lattimore was FDR's liaison to Chiang Kai-shek during the war and was accused by Joe McCarthy of being the number one Soviet agent in the US.

And the third great read for 33.3 cents was Letters of a Civil War Nurse, one of those accounts historians cherish, a firsthand account of some historic event, what's known as a primary source.

Cornelia Hancock was a young woman from New Jersey who bluffed and blustered her way to the battlefield at Gettysburg three days after the battle, determined to help the wounded. Her letters to her family and friends provide an eyewitness account of the carnage there.

Every building in town had been converted into a hospital and the wounded had been spread out into acres and acres of 'hospitals' that didn't even have tents.

"As we drew near our destination," Miss Hancock writes, "a sickening, overpowering stench announced the presence of the unburied dead, on which the July sun was unmercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler until it seemed to possess a palpable horrible density that could be seen and felt and cut with a knife."

There's a whiff of this amazing narrative, which continues when Cornelia Hancock begins work at the "contraband" hospitals for the slaves freed by the Union Army, where conditions were deplorable.

"When you see the men in charge here," she writes, "you could not help thinking where are all those good abolitionists that do so much talking and so little acting."

I'll have some more selections from Cornelia Hancock coming up. What a find!

Maine Memories and Spider Migrations

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Maine Memories (1971) by Elizabeth Coatsworth is a real treasure. Besides the great stories I mentioned before, there are personal recollections of her life in Nobleboro with her husband Henry Beston.

One afternoon while they were out canoeing on Damariscotta Pond, they saw what they thought, in glaring sunlight, was a turtle. It turned out to be a squirrel swimming across the pond, which is actually more like a large lake.

"He looks tired, like an exhausted man," Beston said.

"Certainly he eyed us eneasily," Coatsworth writes, "but as we paddled beside him, he refused to deflect his course. He swam steadily on, only his anguished eye admitting our presence. At a boulder, he emerged nimbly enough, but leaping to the shore, he miscalculated the weight of his wet body and fell into the shallows again, scrambling out in a jiffy."

Then when they enter their little cove, they encounter "stranger and more ethereal travelers." The southeast wind was so soft that it "never stirred the water or brushed a leaf," but it was just right for a certain class of travelers: spiders.

"The sunny air was crossed by glints and slivers of light, some floating parallel to the water, four or five feet in the air, a few in fine half circles, and more at spearlike angles advancing with one end high in the air, and the other nearly or quite touching the still surface."

"The almost imperceptible breeze carried the threads at a surprising rate."

They paddle up close and notice that thanks to surface tension, some spiders are actually paragliding, leaving a V-shaped wake as their windborn strands carry them along.

What's going on here is a spider migration, previously observed by the seventeenth-century preacher Jonathan Edwards, famous for being kicked out of Northampton, later president of Princeton, who got innoculated against smallpox to show everyone it was safe and promptly died. You remember him -- Aaron Burr's grandfather.

Anyway, Edwards actually observed the spiders spinning webs to get themselves in position, then letting out a long strand of filament into the breeze. Then, at just the right moment, each spider has to cut the strands of his earthbound web and fly off on the windborn strand, not an easy call to make, when you think about it.

Edwards declared it was a good metaphor for the human soul in its quest for salvation, and although I don't go in for that sort of thing much, I have to admit he has a point.

Sally Hartshorne

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:43:00 +0000

Sarah Jane Dickson Hartshorne - Sally, as she was known - died peacefully September 6 at the Center for Extended Care in Amherst, Massachusetts.

She was born October 27, 1928, in Montclair, New Jersey, to Charles Keith Dickson and Anne Brown Dickson. She grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, and attended Rosemary Hall in Wallingford. She graduated from Vassar College in 1948.

In 1949 she married Robert Doremus Hartshorne, Jr. and they lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later moved to Dedham, where they raised four sons.

Sally was a member of St. Paul's Church, the Dedham Choral Society, the League of Women Voters and the town's Fair Housing Committee.

In 1978 she earned a Master's Degree from Boston College, where she taught for many years. She also taught at Brown University, where she was awarded a PhD in Literature in 1990. She published a number of scholarly papers about American women writers including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Willa Cather, and Marilynn Robinson.

She loved to share her love of learning with others and acted as a mentor and supporter to many students, colleagues, and friends.

In 1990 Bob and Sally moved to Waterbrooks, the home in South Conway, New Hampshire, where they had spent vacations for many years. Sally was an active member of the South Conway Club and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Conway Public Library, where she helped to oversee a major expansion.

She was a member of the Democratic Party and an early and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama.

Her interests included tending her beautiful gardens, climbing in the White Mountains, sailing on the coast of Maine, traveling the world, cross-country skiing, tennis, bicycling, and above all, reading. She was also a lover of animals and kept numerous dogs, cats, rabbits, and even a pet quail.

She was known to friends and family for her kindness, her lively wit, and her support and understanding in times of need.

During the last year of her life she lost her memory and most of her faculties, but hung on with determination to her love of life, her sense of humor, and her love and consideration for others. She was always ready to make a new friend and have a good laugh. When at last she could no longer speak, she could still smile.

She is survived by her husband Robert, her sons Robert, Stephen, Paul, and Charles, her daughers-in-law Laurie Ellis and Allison Foster, and her granddaughters Sarah and Joanna.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, October 3, at 2 p.m. at the South Deerfield Congregational Church. A second memorial service will be held October 31 at 2 p.m. at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Tamworth, New Hampshire.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Conway Public Library.

Sally's granddaughter and namesake has a wonderful entry on her blog, Erratic in Heels.

For Real Comfort, There's Northing Like a Shroud

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:48:00 +0000

I saw a book I couldn't pass up at the South Hadley flea market last week, Maine Memories by Elizabeth Coatsworth. It's a series of stories about life on Damariscotta Pond, where she lived with her husband, naturalist Henry Beston.

This is a fantastic book. Coatsworth includes a lot of stories that she heard from the older members of the farm families in and around Nobleboro, and they're great reading. There's something about a story that's been seasoned by telling and retelling and becomes part of the fabric of the community. Here's one:

"There lived many years ago in a neighboring town a solitary woman who, they say, 'wrote.' No one has the least idea what she wrote, but the memory of desk, ink, and pen clings to her story. As she got on in years she made herself a shroud, to have on hand for her burial if she should sometime be taken suddenly ill."

There came a spell of very hot weather and the lady decided the shroud would be loose and easy to wear during the hot spell "and could be put to some use before it took on its grimmer duties."

Then she started wearing it in the garden, and then when she rode her horse around town.

"She discovered there was nothing like a shroud for real comfort, and in summer she was rarely to be seen in anything else. She wore out shroud after shroud, and when she finally died, the neighbors had to make one for her, as there wasn't a shroud in the house fit to be worn."

A Coat, A Hat and a Gun

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:44:00 +0000

"I got up on my feet and went over to the bowl in the corner and threw cold water on my face. After a little while I felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country.

"What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I got them on and went out of the room."

Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely

The Lobster Coast

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:34:00 +0000

The most seasoned traveler I know spends at least a week and usually a good deal more on the Coast of Maine, and if you've been there, you know why. If you haven't, I can only say you should go and see the Gulf of Maine.

However you might feel about the influence of 'intelligent design' upon geography, geology and climatology, it does seem a place uniquely suited to human habitation, where industrious people might subsist happily, as they did for centuries, on the bounty of the seas and the forests.

It's a place of remarkable beauty, too, where the most famous painters in America have always come for inspiration.

New Englanders have this sense that nothing of any importance happens outside New England. And Mainers are the high priests, the Levites of New Englandism.

I picked up a really good book about Maine for a buck at a tag sale in Deerfield, The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard. This is a really good read, thorough, scholarly, and, well, readable. It tells the whole story of the early settlements and the relations between the Abenaki and the Europeans of different stripes.

There's a lot of interesting detail about the original proprietors of New England, mostly royalists from the West of England and how they allowed a settlement in Massachusetts of roundheads, mostly from the East.

I am always left sick with disgust when I come to King Philip's War. That's when the 'Puritans' of Massachusetts demonstate what vile people they were.

The colony at Plymouth was saved, in its first year, by a shipment of fish from Maine, and in its second year by the generosity of Massassoit, who is shown in the traditional depictions of the Thanksgiving Dinner.

As for Massassoit, the pilgrims poisoned one of his sons and displayed the head of the other on a pike for twenty years. The Mainers who helped them in their first year were subjugated by force and forced to take part in King Philips War, which wiped out every settlement north of York.

These vile people wanted Philip's land to set up a distillery in Narragansetts Bay to take part in the molasses to rum to slaves triangle trade, so they deliberately provoked a war in which the people who suffered most were Europeans on good terms with the Indians and Indians on good terms with Europeans.

Providence was burned twice. The so-called 'praying Indians' were sequestered on an island in Boston Harbor where most of them starved to death,

The so-called 'puritans' were the Cheneys and Bushs and Rumsfelds of their day, who unleashed the dogs of war for their own personal gain. It was very like Bosnia, too, where the cosmopolitan areas that welcomed everyone suffered most.

If there's anyone who buys that John Winthrop 'City of a Hill' crap that Ronald Reagan was peddling, my fond hope is they will wake up and smell the rotting corpses of innocent men, women and children.

But I always see red when I read about King Philip's War, and there's a lot more to The Lobster Coast.

It's like Woodward, not actually a Mainer by birth, but who may become one by adoption, as many have before him, gives the reader an entree into this one-of-a-kind world.

He speaks of Monhegan Island as a world where "scions of great moneyed families are socially and politically outranked by persons who earn their living stuffing rotten herring in nylon bags in an effort to ensnare large bottom-feeding bugs."

"Where democracy is practiced directly by the citizens and aristocratic privilege is unrecognized or unknown."

"A simpler, perhaps nobler world that might have been, but can never be again."

Anyone who knew Martha's Vineyard back in the day knows what he is talking about.

Brave Sweet Sally Soldiers On

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:58:00 +0000

My mom has actually regained consciousness, sort of, which is a big surprise to my brothers and me, because we thought that Alzheimer's had shut down her brain and we were accustomed to the inexorable, non-reversible nature of the disease.

She has had a very fast-acting version which took away not only the ability to form memory, which most patients lose first, but also all memories whatsoever, early or late, which most patients retain.

She and I met Barack and Michelle Obama in Conway, NH, in the summer of 2007, and we both agreed they were the real deal. She still had all her marbles. Two years later she didn't know who William Shakespeare was and didn't know I was her son.

But now she's opening her eyes completely and sometimes tries to form words. I do believe she's coming back, at least a little way, and that's a small miracle, which we'll take. Miracles are miracles.

Sitting by her bedside is no agony at all, but really more joyful. I know that sounds daffy, but Sally is so peaceful and strong.

She reaches for the oxygen tube on her nose and tries to pull it off, but I told her "No, honey. Leave that there. They put it on to help you breath." Then she took the part of the tube on her chest and held it between her fingers the way she always used to hold her necklaces when she was interested in something someone was saying.

And she's so brave. It just seems to radiate out from her in waves. Here she is, in complete mental confusion, robbed of her education, her dignity, and every vestige of selfhood, facing death itself, and she's still brave and sweet and thinking of others.

I get such an overwhelming sense of what a great mom I have. On her death bed she's still inspiring me.

It's always hard to leave, but tonight I had a plan: I sang to her, show tunes, hymns, Bach cantatas. So I think she was quite happy to see me go.

When I left I instinctively put my had on her forehead the way she used to do when we were sick or pretending to be sick to see if we had a fever. Then I kissed her on the cheek and she smiled.

Brave Sweet Sally

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:25:00 +0000

It looks like my mom, who made me bookish, is not going to regain consciousness. She was living in an assisted living facility for alzheimers patients with a yellow cockatoo that dances when you whistle, and we thought she'd be there for years.

She had lost all recollection, but she was still fun to be with. Every time I saw her we laughed and laughed.

It looks like we'll be writing an obituary soon -- I dearly hope I'm wrong but facts are facts -- so I've been recollecting memories of what a wonderful person she was -- the neighborhood circus she organized when we were little, abd the family Prize Day ceremonies we had every year.

These were meant to emphasize the importance of academic achievement and inspire us to new heights. The culmination was when she herself donned her special robes was about to step onto the stage to received her PhD at Brown University.

I'll never forgesther inspiring words to me on that occasion: "Big waste of time and effort."

I'm also recalling the songs and skits she invented for Skit Night in South Conway, New Hampshire, where we went in the summer when we were kids and where she and my dad later retired..

"It's raining, it's pouring, but I can keep on snoring.
I left my kids at Granny Thornes' and I won't pick them up 'til the morning,"

You would have to know Granny Thorne to get the joke, but take my word for it, it was funny and all the South Conway parents and kids in the audience got a good laugh.

Our family also remembers the canoe/float she designed for Venetian Night at the South Conway Club, with my cousin Chris as Cleopatra.

Whenever we visited her in New Hampshire, she always worked in a play at the Barnstormers in Tamworth or the North Conway Players. After all the outdoor recreation, she made sure we had something intellectual to chew on too.

She was a very, very good listener and very empathetic. Naturally I would say that since I'm her son, but there are a lot of people who can back me on this.

When she was getting her master's degree at Boston College, one of the teaching assistants didn't show up, so they asked her to become a fellow, and her fellow fellows were people from my generation for whom she was both a colleague and a mentor.

It was kind of automatic for her to think of others. She loved to shop, but it was for presents that other people might like.

That was my indomitable mom, who made me bookish. In the last year of her life I met Brave Sweet Sally who kept her love of humanity and her sense of humor while, as she put it, "The world went crazy."

She knew she was losing her mind but she focused on love and laughter.

I know lots of people who are on reasonable terms with death, ready to accept it as the natural end of life. But the loss of our faculties at the end is a scary idea for all of us.

Brave Sweet Sally lost 'em all and walked right through the fire like Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego. She was still brave and sweet and she still loved a good laugh.

I don't know if she heard me, but I told Sally I hope she comes back to us, in whatever shape she might be, but I really don't think it's going to happen.

Visions of a Better World

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:03:00 +0000

You don't have to be a Trekkie to like Star Trek Memories by William Shatner with Chris Kreski. I know, I know, books that have a 'with' are usually stupid junk, but I think here Shatner was just acknowledging his collaborator who clearly did a lot of leg work collecting material and organizing the story.

It's not Shatner's personal story at all. He sees himself as a comparatively minor player, even though he played the captain. The central character is Gene Roddenberry and his vision and the amazingly intricate battles he fought to put it on the screen. He was driven.

And once he got the show on national television, he was driven to use it as a bully platform to create a vision of a cooperative egalitarian world, aligned with other cooperative egalitarian worlds. Besides the Vulcan in the control room, and Roddenberry had to fight tooth and nail to keep him there, there's a Russian.

It's hard to describe how shocking that was at the time. The Masters of War had somehow convinced us that the Russians wished to destroy us, and would like nothing better than to blow us all to smithereens. Preposterous as it may sound, nevertheless it was true. I was there.

Can anyone else back me up on this? It sounds like I'm making it up.

Roddenberry's vision of a better world also included equality for everyone, regardless of race or gender. The original pilot had a female character called Number One who outranked even Captain Kirk who had the icy commitment to locic later assumed by Mister Spock.

In the focus groups, men hated her and women hated her even more!

The network told Roddenberry he had to get rid of Number One AND Spock. They wanted Captain Kirk to go around the galaxy blsting thinds. Roddenberry saw that he could save only one, and in a Sophie's Choice kind of situation, he picked Spock. He alone understood how important those ears were, to exemplify the cooperative nature of the Federation.

It turns our there was one other American who understood the importance of the Enterprise and its five-year mission, and since Gene Roddenberry was being bold, strong unseen forces worked in his favor.

When Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) got completely fed up with having her lines cut every week to where she had nothing to do except keep the hailing frequencies, and then a visiting actress was brought in to explore a planet while Uhura stayed at her post doing nothing for an hour, she told Roddenberry she was quitting the show.

"Don't do this," he said.

"I have to," she replied.

That night she went to a benefit for the NAACP, and she was told a big fan of hers really wanted to meet her. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. He told her how much he enjoyed the series. She told him she was quitting.

"Don't do this, Nichelle," he said, "You can't do this. Your character has gone into space on a five-year mission. She's intelligent, strong, capable and a wonderful role model, not just for black people but for all people. What you're doing is very, very important."

So of course she stayed, and they wound up expanding her part right up to the historic interracial smooch.

Martin Luther King understood the importance of Star Trek because he wrote the book on creative visualization. He visualized a nation where his four little children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

In fact the best way to illustrate the power of visualization is just to say, "I have a dream."

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed."

The Ideal Whereunto Mankind Slowly Draws Near

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Hartshorne) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:27:00 +0000

I take back everything I ever said about transcendentalism being boring. I'm not taking back anything I ever said about Bronson Alcott or Ralph Waldo Emerson -- those guys are boring, boring, boring. It doesn't necessarily mean they had the wrong idea.

Far less boring, I find, is the transcendentalist, abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker who delivered sermons in Boston that were written down and published and made their way to a lawyer in Illinois named William Herndon who passed them on to his partner Abraham Lincoln.

Ulike many other reverends, he didn't split from his church, despite its racism, because he saw it as it could be:

"By Christianity, I mean that form of religion which consists of piety -- the love of God and morality -- the keeping of His laws. That is not the Christianity of the Christian church, nor of any sect. It is the ideal religion which the human race has been groping for."

When William Lloyd Garrison burned the US Constitution because it's a racist document, and it is, on its face, Theodore Parker endorsed our form of government, imperfect tho it was, because it was leading inexorably toward pure democracy:

"This is not the democracy of the parties, but it is that ideal government, the reign of righteousness, the kingdom of justice, which all noble hearts long for, and labor to produce, the ideal whereunto mankind slowly draws near."

With respect to ending slavery in America, Parker believed in the philosophy of "Blossoms in March, buds in May, apples in September." And his teachings helped bring it about. He was Lincoln's favorite author.

In 1949, in Los Angeles, California, a motorcyle patrolman walked into a bar called the Cock and Bull and asked, "Which one of you is Lefty Lazar? This is for you. I suggest you read it." He left an envelope on bar which foreshadowed Americans and Russians in space together, as well as the famous interracial kiss on national television.

The highway patrolman was Gene Roddenberry, the producer of Star Trek, whose vision, I believe, really helped shape the world once Lefty Lazar helped him get it on TV.

If you want to see Russians and Americans in space, just look skyward. And if you want to see interracial kisses, just look around you. They are the hope of the world. We can all become one race, and it's easier than you might think.

For me the message is that if you have a vision that you believe in, it might take a course that you don't expect, but you should stick to it. There are so many rivers and streams that all flow into the same great ocean.

Theofore Parker saw the "bossoms in March" and the "buds in May," but died in 1860 so he didn't see the apples in September. But I'm confident he knew they were coming and I have no doubt he will rest in peace, with the thanks of a grateful nation.