Happy Birthday, Wolfgang!

There is a God. For all the tragedy and senseless waste cluttering history, every so often beauty and genius are aligned. Mozart didn't have an easy life, but his short time here left us with evidence of the sublime, which lives beyond our quotidian understanding. What a magnificent gift.

Apologetic make-up bird blog

Illustrations, Louis Aggasiz Fuertes

Mrs. Snowy Owl is diurnal which means she hunts during the daylight hours. She doesn’t say much from her winter perch which will be found close to the ground where the mice are. The snowy owl saves its talk for its breeding grounds in the Artic tundra. Every year a few dip down into the Great Lakes and Cape Cod.

They have the longest wing span of any North American owl and tip the scales at 3.5 pounds on average. Mouse must be fattening, because Charles the cat’s vet observed that he hadn’t missed many meals, and he has an outside gig featuring frequent mouse dinners.

The Michigan statewide bird report for the last three weeks has chronicled snowy owls all over the state. I haven’t heard of the Willet again, but there’s a varied thrush (the robin’s family) in Manistee County, which is in the northern half of the lower peninsula, and male and female Harlequin ducks near me, so I’d better get over there to see if I can’t spot them.

A little Victoriana

My father acquired this book at an auction about 40 years ago. He was a restaurateur and then ran the dietary department for the local hospital. In the Army he was a medic in a collecting company and doubled as the field chow chief. He knew just about everything about food, not haute cuisine exactly, but I never ate anything he made that wasn’t great.

He loved this book all to pieces. Its shrill admonitions and bald opinions kept us all laughing.  Example:

”But in most American families, the largest amount of waste, probably, takes place in the use of fuel. Heretofore, fuel of all kinds has been comparatively cheap, and very little supervision has been exercised over its use. At present rates however, it is an item of considerable importance, and it is quite time that servants were taught how to employ it to the best advantage.
…
The general principle of construction upon which American kitchen stoves and ranges is based, renders them either very economical, or very much otherwise, according to the way they are managed. After the fire is first built in an ordinary stove, or range, the dampers ought all to be closed up and not opened again during the day, except while broiling, or something of that sort. If the grate is kept clear, and the fire replenished with a small quantity of coal, before it begins to get low, both the oven and the top of the range will be kept sufficiently hot for any kind of cooking, and it will be done all the better for being done somewhat more slowly, than is customary with the well meaning, but terribly blundering and irresponsible race of wild Irish girls, who officiate as the high priestesses of our domestic altars.”

My father’s mother was Katie O’Connell, 100% Irish and not the least bit wild. I can still hear him laughing at the Victorian presumption of superiority of the Mrs. J. C. Crolys of the world. Anglo racism is nothing new. That’s why Catholic universities were/are considered inferior and the story of the Irish monks in the Dark Ages, keeping learning alive, was suppressed for so long. I keep hoping to find a tie to Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, as my grandmother’s father departed County Kerry, near Castle Island, and the Liberator was a Kerry man.

Here’s another suggestion from the quill of Jennie June:
“Good brooms and brushes will last a long time if care is taken of them. When first bought they should be allowed to stand in cold water for twelve hours, and then thoroughly dried before use. When not in use they should be hung up on a loop of twine or cord so that the weight may not rest on the edge of the splinters and break them. Four large brooms should be provided, one for the kitchen, one for the parlor, one for the sleeping rooms, and one for the family, or “living” room. A whisk will be required for every room in the house, besides one for the hall.

As soon as the kitchen broom is worn down so as to render it unfit to sweep the floor with ease and comfort, take it for the cellar, door steps and back yard; take the one from the sitting room for the kitchen, the one from the parlor to the sitting room, and get a new one for the parlor.”

Whew.

“Susan B. Anthony’s Apple Tapioca Pudding
Susan B. Anthony is an excellent cook and housekeeper, and it was a proverb at home that when Susan did the housekeeping, the meals were always punctual and well served. She believes in a plain simple diet and the following is her favorite pudding:

Peel and core eight apples, fill them with sugar in which a little nutmeg has been grated. Take a cupful of tapioca, which has been all night soaking in water, Add to it a little milk or water if needed, and pour it around the apples, which have been laid in a buttered dish. Bake slowly one hour, and serve with cream and powdered sugar. It is good hot or cold, the tapioca forming a jelly around the apples”

Jennie June’s Cookbook was published in 1878.

Miracle on the New Jersey Turnpike

There was another cat in the news this week. Another stowaway. Why do I feel like I am in an echo chamber? Hello? Hello? Hello?

This time the cat was in New Jersey where they have an Animal Welfare League. America, haven’t you had enough of the government stealing your money to give away to lazy fools? They toil not, neither do they spin. An Animal Welfare League? It strains my brain.

They named the sponge Miracle. There’s no miracle here, Folks. There’s been a robbery, though.

My new blog is open and ready for business. I have to share a computer, though. Supposedly management is working on something “serious”. Huh. Every time I look up she’s playing Free Cell or checking her eBay auctions. Don’t hold your breath.

A Poem for Epiphany

The Camel

Lord,
do not be displeased.
There is something to be said for pride
against thirst, mirages,
and sandstorms;
and I must say
that, to face and rise above
these arid desert dramas,
two humps
are not too many,
nor an arrogant lip.
Some people criticize
my four flat feet,
the base of my pile of joints,
but what should I do
with high heels
crossing so much country,
such shifting dreams,
while upholding my dignity?
My heart wrung
by the cries of jackals and hyenas,
by the burning silence,
the magnitude of Your cold stars,
I give You thanks, Lord,
for this my realm,
wide as my longings
and the passage of my steps.
Carrying my royalty
in the aristocratic curve of my neck
from oasis to oasis,
one day shall I find again
the caravan of the magi?
And the gates of Your paradise?
Amen.

~ Carmen Bernos de Gasztold ~
from The Creatures’ Choir

Creature Feature: a better kind of survival

AP photo (Canadian Press)
Everyone has seen this by now, I bet, but it makes me happy to think about it. This was taken on their one-year anniversary.
A year ago I made donations to Doctors without Borders and Oxfam. Both wrote and asked if the contributions, made for tsunami victims, might be directed to another of their programs, because the response for tsunami relief efforts was off the charts. The world's response was unprecedented. The billions in relief dollars, though, cannot blot out the anguish survivors will feel for the rest of their lives. How do humans deal with the loss of everyone they hold closest to their hearts? How do they "rebuild" their lives, their very identities?

This excerpt from an Outlook India.com article entitled "Tsunami relief: the darker side" shows once again how human nature constrains us, but unites us, as well: "Liquor shops and business establishments in Karaikal are witnessing a boom after the tsunami. Many people from Nagapattinam come here to shop for liquor, electronic goods, two wheelers and dress materials," says Kumaraswamy, a textile shop owner in Karaikal."In recent months, there has been a sharp increase of customers from Nagapattinam and Cuddalore, especially the fishermen, with many of them making purchases worth thousands of rupees," Kumaraswamy says. Karaikal is the preferred destination for such tsunami survivors because of two reasons - reduced prices at the Union Territory and anonymity from the prying eyes of local residents in Nagapattinam.

"We have been monitoring such cases and have advised such people to desist from these practices. Though the trend of spending money recklessly is prevalent among our community, we are convincing them to invest it in fixed deposit and in co-operative welfare schemes," says Mathiyazhakan, head of the fishermen's village panchayat in Akkarapettai - one of the worst-hit hamlets in this district."

Modern culture can pretty much be defined by the number and variety of diversions from reality it provides. Escapism. Denial. Are the fishermen of Akkarapettai finding a place at the flat earth table on account of their unspeakable losses? Would David Brooks or Thomas Friedman find a serendipitous angle to the story? Probably.

You note that the spokesman for the fishing village isn't talking interms of cowboy "freedom" and go-it-alone survival. He speaks of a co-operative venture. There is no other way they can hope to rise above the tragedy and try to find any peace at all within themselves. It can come only as a mutual effort and shared recovery.

Friday Bird Blog: Who-o Am I ?

Illustration by
Louis Agassiz Fuertes
My sister lives on a former prairie, farm and woods, all three sacrificed to development. Her site, though, overlooks a preserve where, so they tell her, no building will ever occur. The landscapers even do controlled burns and scatter seeds of native prairie plants each year to help nature along if the burns don’t sufficiently resuscitate the flora and fauna. She has the best view of any, and that’s as it should be, considering her love of the wild things that are looking to reestablish a home base.

On Christmas night, after our fête, she heard her owl, so she and her daughter Amanda and I went out to stand still and listen. Sure enough. Hoo-hoo-hoo. Hoo hoo.

“Not the Screech Owl,” said we. He is named for his call, a sound almost like a glass harmonica, or an eerie whistle. Our visitor’s voice was resonant and deep.

I didn’t have time to look up her owl-in-residence until just now. What we heard was the Great Horned Owl, a male announcing his GPS locus. According to the bird books, he isn’t friendly, but, hell, how would you act if crazy, destructive humans kept you on the run? He is among the most adaptable of the owls, however. His diet is small animals, unlike the Screech Owl, who prefers mice.

My sister’s cat, Charles, prefers mice, too. I was concerned that he might run into more competition that he’d bargained for, if the owl was looking for mice. As it turns out, the owl might be looking for Chuck. The picture here shows a deceased skunk in its talons. Charles has encountered skunks, as well, in his travels, and FYI, giving a cat a tomato juice bath (the home remedy for skunked puddy cat) is both dangerous and a waste of time and tomato juice. Just ask Chuck.

This link has a succinct description and audio links with its call. Woo hoo!

Boxing Day Greetings from Arthur

Today is Boxing Day in Jolly Olde England. Even though I am a Welsh American, I appreciate the Queen. She has such excellent taste in canine companions.

On Boxing Day masters are supposed to give their servants presents. Most of my dog friends celebrate Christmas, because they are part of the family. For example, I got cards from Winston and Truman, my Maltese cousins in Iowa; Butch Brand, my cousin in Elmhurst; Rock Parker, a really cool guy who lives in my old neighborhood; and an email from my friend Jim. He is not a dog. All were Christmas cards, so you can easily see I am not a servant.

I don’t understand why the servant dogs don’t just pull themselves up like I did after I was sold by the breeder for $350.00. That’s quite a body blow, to be sold for only $350.00. But I would not quit until I reached the top. I spell 'luck'
'w-o-r-k'.

Quite a few cats sent us cards, too, but they can get their own blog column.

Speaking of, here’s how the freeloading dopes celebrated Christmas. First, they got catnip from management, but I happen to know that it isn’t a new package. It’s the same old cat nip she gives them on Saturday nights. Then “Santa” provided a gift from Hartz Mountain, whatever that is. It is a Wacky Mouse 3-Pack. There are 3 calico catnip fake mice with a jingle bell on the rear end. Big Whup. Since the cats can’t count, I ate two of them, and now they are fighting over the last one. Management will think they lost the other two. Ho ho ho. This is so funny.

Catnip gives you the munchies, though. I wish management knew someone who would buy her a box of Godiva chocolates. She’s too cheap to buy them herself.

Peace on Earth

'Listening to some wonderful harp arrangements of Christmas music. I think I can go to bed in about an hour if I don't fool around at all. 'Traveling Christmas morning. A lovely day to all. be safe and happy. Merry Christmas!

Friday Bird Blog: A Wandering Willet

Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes
l. Western Willet, r. Eastern Willet

A Willet is lodging at the Whiting Power plant discharge canal in Monroe County, Michigan. It has been sighted there since November 25th and was counted in the official Christmas bird count recorded on December 17th by the local enumerators. As I think I mentioned before, a census of the bird population takes place every year at this time. The period this season during which bird watchers, generally organized by an Audubon chapter, will identify and take note of all birds who happen to present themselves within a specified area is December 14th to January 5th, 2006.

The Willet, either a Western or Eastern subspecies, is not supposed to be in Erie, Michigan in December. Normally, the ones I’ve seen along the Lake Michigan shoreline are packing their bags for the trip south already in late July. They are Specialty birds in these parts, as their breeding and winter ranges – eastern or western – are along both ocean coasts. Here is a summer distribution map provided by the us gov:

The map doesn’t distinguish between Catoptrophorus semipalmatus semipalmatus (the Eastern Willet) and Catoptrophorus semipalnatus inornatus (his Western cousin). In the late 19th Century Willet eggs were a prized delicacy and the birds were a sporting target, so the dangerous homo sapiens put a serious dent in the population. The subspecies are nearly impossible to tell apart unless they happen to be together at a family reunion or something. A single bird among other species would be very tough to identify.

The Monroe County specimen found a pleasant and welcoming niche at the Whiting power plant. Whiting is a coal fired facility, not a nuclear one, and it has won good citizen awards for environmental stewardship from the state of Michigan and nature and environmental groups. Where native human populations manage to stay put for a few generations it seems to me that they – or many of them – take note of their surroundings and resent it if the landscape and its inhabitants start to disappear. (This rule would not apply to real estate developers and their backers.)

The employees at the Whiting facility, a Consumer’s Energy (formerly Consumer’s Power) plant, maintain a wildflower meadow, and a local Lotus club tends a pond where a native species was found to thrive. They alone can harvest the seed and propagate it.

Through the years I noted that many birds find their way to the Whiting plant, and birders know to go there, of course. Whiting has been around since the early ‘50s, so it, too, is part of the local scene. Its web site lists how much tax it pays to the local authorities and how the employees, as well, support local commerce. All true. Too bad we can’t get a clue about energy use.

(By the way, I just learned that Consumer’s is putting its Palisades nuclear plant, located on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore, up for sale. There are 5 or 6 nuclear plants on the southern tip of Lake Michigan.)

NOTE: Blogger is a pain in the backside today. I'll try to upload other images later. GRRRR!

A nitwit cat from Neenah

As usual, America is succumbing to liberalism and low moral standards. This time it is over a stupid cat named Emily that walked into a crate and ended up in France. Friends, what about personal responsibility? What about consequences? The nanny welfare state is to blame. These leftists and liberals love a story like Emily the careless cat. I hope my tax dollars aren’t going to pay for this. Management is all glowing about a cat rescue. I can’t even get her to take me for a walk. ‘Think I’ll go pee in the dining room again. That’ll get her attention.


Photo AP/Darren Hauck

Friday Bird Blog

Western Hummingbirds
A plate from A Field Guide to Western Birds.
Illustrations by
Roger Tory Peterson

On Thursdays when I remember to do it I call the Michigan Statewide Bird Report hotline to see what unusual sightings people have called in during the past week. Yesterday’s report had the following:

In Livingston County, an immature Rufous Hummingbird has been hanging out at a home birdfeeder in the town of Brighton. At least he still was there on November 16. Birders are welcome to park sensibly and go around to the back yard where the feeder is. (Does this sound like A Prairie Home Companion?)

The Rufous Hummingbird is a native of the western United States, but there are occasional, but still rare, sightings in the Midwest. As a rule of thumb all hummingbird feeders should be taken down in late August or early September in places where the winter means business. Several years ago in Wisconsin, a Rufous Hummingbird was taken captive by the Milwaukee Mitchell Park Conservatory (a wonderful place), because he/she was still lapping up the sugar water in November.
Roufus Hummingbirds
Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes




Next, in Wayne County Cave Swallows were seen at the Lake Erie State Game Area Pointe Mouillee and they crossed over into Monroe County, too. Apparently the Monroe County trolls are hibernating already, as there is no report of fines for trespassing. Michigan is broke, so don’t think for a minute that I’m kidding. Michigan and Ohio went to war over the Toledo line, which was part of Monroe, in the 1830s. Ohio got Toledo. Michigan got the Upper Peninsula, pasties, bears and copper. Monroe is still pissed off. But they should be glad to have some big-hearted Texas swallows visiting. This might be an effect of the hurricanes.

There was a Ross’ Goose in Muskegon County from November 8-13.

And in Allegan County at the Todd Farm, an immature Golden Eagle was present on November 12. The Todd Farm in days gone by was a major oasis, a pit stop for migrating Canada Geese. But they don’t migrate any more, I guess. Every year we’d make the trek to Fennville, Michigan to gaze at probably 100,000 geese, stop at the cider mill, buy apples for the Thanksgiving apple pies – which my father baked – he was an excellent cook – and probably we’d have taken sandwiches along and a Thermos of coffee.

Finally a Great Gray Owl was present at the Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Newberry in the UP. The Tahquamenon Falls are spectacular by the way. I’ve not been there in the gloom of November, but I like rugged weather. Just not in May.

Immature Golden Eagle.

Friday Bird Blog

Whistling Swan
Cygnus columbianus

Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

From November 15, 1959

"DECATUR - Decatur residents living on the Lake of the Woods were delighted Sunday by the frolicking of five wild whistling swans. [The use of the word 'wild' would have made my mother wild, as whistling swans are ever "wild", never domestic. But at least the local paper had reported the sighting.]

Mrs. Darl Sink, who first spotted the swans said this is the third year she has known them to pause here on their migratory flight south. [Their winter headquarters is along both coasts as far south as Florida and southern California, but more generally around Chesapeake Bay and Currituck Sound (NC).]

She said they spent all day Sunday gamboling about and feeding in the lagoon at the east end of the lake.

Mrs. Sink identified them as whistling swans after consulting the Audubon bird book."

Sighting the whiltling swan in the interior would have been somewhat unusual, although the Great Lakes can throw even experienced birds off, I suppose.

Timely Hopkins Poetry

Spring and Fall

to a Young Child

MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins~

This is copied from bartleby.com, so I could get the stresses right with little effort on my part.

Our goldengroves still hold about half of their leaves. It is the latest by far I remember the trees holding their color. Usually Veteran's Day offers a bleak landscape.


When I was young I loved this poem. The worlds of wanwood leafmeal are upon us, don't you think?

Send your leftover candy to ...

Me!

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. Why? Not what you probably think.

It is pretty annoying when 60 or 70 little bipeds climb the steps to ring your doorbell begging for candy which you don’t even eat yourself, or in my case, aren’t allowed to eat. I wouldn’t mind so much if a few of those Snickers made their way into my treat box, but the vet is no darned fun, and management listens to him like he’s God or something. Chocolate is supposed to be bad for dogs. Did they ever ask even one dog about this foolish supposition? I didn’t think so.

The reason I like this day so much is that I get to show off all night. Every time someone bangs on the door or yells, “Trick or Treat!” I bark and carry on like it’s the Rapture. As a special bonus, sometimes I scare someone, and they run away.

One year I was so successful at this, a little person dropped his trick-or-treat bag, losing a Three Musketeers bar and a Saf-T-Pop in the rush to get away from the fearsome Corgi. Ha ha ha. The best part was that management didn’t realize there was plunder in the yard the next day until she saw me chewing on the sucker stick and then spied the candy bar wrapper remains. (I hardly had time to get the whole wrapper off, and in retrospect I suppose it would have been smarter just to eat the candy wrapper and all.)

I got yelled at, but so what?

Just now I had one of the cats knock over the trash can so I could smell the bag the Milky Ways and Hershey’s came in. If I could bring myself to be a little nicer to the feline crowd around here, I might convince one of them to filch a few goodies from the table by the door, and then I could hide them under the couch, or just eat them real fast, but I have my pride to consider.

Separated at Birth?

L. Jabba the Hut
R. Exxon Chairman and CEO, Lee Raymond
(Thanks to SPY magazine of old. )

Midweek makeup bird blog

Slate colored junco
illustration by Allan Brooks (no relation to Bobo)

Good thing this isn't a retail store. Thank you for your patience. Shall we print up a button or bumper sticker "I'd rather be blogging"? Cap'n Midnight over on Watertiger's blog a while back gave me permission to print his, "You can never be too rich or morally thin" after a David Brooks column on - what was it? - oh, some disdainful firecracker (a dud) about "liberals". Bobo had described an argument as "morally thin". David Brooks would love to be a liberal because it is so much more fun. It must be difficult to perform those reasoning contortions he does twice a week. Already I'm off topic in my own blog.

OK. Here goes. Makeup birdblogging. The juncos are back in numbers. Two nights ago the late evening sky was slate colored like the bird. Clouds were steely, and the air felt frosty. We haven't had a hard freeze yet, and that's a good thing, Martha, because I still have tomatoes and eggplants on the vine.

This morning I was coaxing Arthur the Welsh Corgi (who is working on setting up his own blog, if I may presume to blog whore for him) to go outside, and there was a commotion in the back yard. Down swooped a hawk, two white stripes on the tail. He was hoping to have junco for breakfast. The blue jays went nuts, and all the breakfast-sized birds flew into the denser trees and evergreen bushes.

Last night Jelly Bean (JB), a cat who agrees to eat and sleep here and let me pay his medical bills, brought me a mouse. Dead, of course. It was sitting on the back door mat. I thanked him with true sincerity, because it is a great compliment to receive such a prize. Mr. Hawk would be very interested in the local rodents, too.

Arthur decided to take a walk this morning, because it is garbage day, not unlike pay day for humans. He didn't have his collar on, so I had to follow along. I'm a bit surprised the police didn't show up to arrest an unleashed dog walking around the block. The neighbors are old and very particular. One cannot, for example, park one's car in a driveway overnight. It must be kept in a garage. The craziest neighbor saw us out walking and stood in the street and stared, glowering. There is no regulation against walking (yet). I walk to get places. They walk only to keep their ageing hearts pumping.

We noted many, many chickadees and heard robins peep-peep-peeping. That's what they do when they're bob-bob-bobin' along. They are starting to flock. Last week I heard one singing like spring. It was a beautiful day, and he had a right to be in a good mood.

Belated bird blog

Along southwest Lake Michigan today, the weather is perfect. The breeze is a tad cool, but it is a great day to be outside. Making my way back from the store this morning on foot, as I passed by a lovely ravine the people who own the property had the sense to preserve as is – except for a bridge across the stream that runs through it – about 2 dozen golden crowned kinglets flitted out of the tree tops to the roadside, just to be friendly, I imagine. The Catholic Church is down the road from the ravine, so while I stood there beaming friendly vibes back at the breakfast tableau, which included many native inhabitants, six or seven cars/mini vans rushed past me, but the kinglets didn’t seem to notice. The insects must have been too yummy to resist.

There probably were ruby crowned kinglets among the golden crowns, but I didn’t see them up close. Kinglets are pretty tiny, smaller than warblers, but possessed of the same habits, like refusing to sit still for more than 5 seconds. I wished them well and a safe journey. Not golden crowned kinglets travel to the southern most winter range which is the Gulf of Mexico. The ruby crowned kinglet has a slightly different, though overlapping range, but generally winter in the southern United States.


My very good friends the tufted titmice were on hand, and I urged them to stop by my feeders any time. They are such clowns, friendly like their cousin the chickadee, and they all appreciate thoughtful humans. Mr. red headed woodpecker made a conspicuous appearance, and I invited him over, as well.

Big Anniversary in Western History

a panel from the Bayeux Tapestry

On October 14, 1066 in a place now called Battle about 10 km north of Hastings on the English Channel the signal event in British history took place. It is among the dates we are likely to remember: 44 BC (Beware the Ides of March), 1066, 1215 (Runnymede and King John), 1492 (more significant for the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula by Ferdinand and grisly Isabella), 1622, 1776.
The Normans (Northmen, Norsemen, Vikings) under William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, routed the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, killing Harold Godwinson, the King, in the process, and William was crowned on Christmas Day in Westminster Abbey. William in his own right had a somewhat tenuous claim to the throne of England because of blood ties to an earlier Anglo-Saxon king and because, while shipwrecked on the Normandy coast and taken prisoner, Harold Godwinson had sworn to support William’s bid upon the death of Edward the Confessor. The promise to back William gained Harold his release, but once back home Harold went about business as usual. Apologists for William refer to the subsequent “peace” among warring factions as justification for his incursion, and, of course, the imposition of continental culture, far more refined and civilized than that of England in the Eleventh Century.

Like another decisive onslaught across the English Channel about 900 years later, the weather delayed the launch of William’s fleet. During this time Harold Godwinson fought off another invasion in the north. When William finally landed in Sussex, site of Harold’s estate, he got right down to business pillaging and plundering. Word reached Harold, of course, and perhaps out of personal spite, he marched his battle worn army 250 miles in 9 days to meet the challenger, rather than waiting to restock his army. Even so, there was approximate parity in the number of troops, and Harold had the high ground, a strategic advantage.

William had raised troops from not only the Norman aristocracy, but from the German lowlands and most significantly from the second and third born sons of aristocratic Norman families who, by the law of primogeniture, were denied a title or land. William promised them such if he prevailed. He secured the backing of the Pope, Alexander II, (for those of you keeping score), his explicit blessing and also a gift of a banner, as was customary for a religious crusade. Papal banner from the Battle of Hastings
from a 2004 reenactment
David Howarth wrote a little book published in the mid 1980s entitled 1066: The Year of the Conquest. I gave it out as holiday tokens to my clients one year. It is short and very well written. It reconstructs what life would have been like for the people of England in the year 1066 against the backdrop of Titanic struggles transpiring among the nobility. I had taken my copy out to review it and misplaced it among the boxes and piles of papers that comprise my life at the moment. Hmmm. When I find it – and if I don’t, I’ll buy another copy – I’ll review it again.

Thanks to the Normans we have centralized government and the Domesday Book, a census, the first ever taken in England, and it is an invaluable record for genealogists and historians. According to Henry Adams in his book Mont Saint Michael and Chartres, if you have English blood, you have Norman blood. (I may have Norman ancestry via my Tindall, Copper and Purdy antecedents, but absolute proof is impossible.) Henry was an unapologetic aristocrat back when it was OK to claim one’s inherited superiority loudly. The Normans, despite the distasteful displays of arrogance and snobbery by some of their descendants (and Henry Adams was indeed a remarkable person and a superior intellect), were resolute, strong, shrewd, smart and civilized. But William’s foray was the very last successful raid upon English soil. May the record stand another 1000 years.
Go read this, too: Battle of Hastings vs. Hasty Battles by Elaine Meinel Supkis

Chicago Day, October 9, 1893

"The memory of Chicago Day is the meed and palm that will forever be awarded to the men who built the Fair."

Chicago Day, The White City
October 9, 1893

Back before Olympic contests for the right to spend themselves into bankruptcy hosting the Olympics, cities worldwide staged expositions: Philadelphia in 1876; Paris in 1889; Chicago in 1893. Today marks the 112th anniversary of Chicago Day at the World’s Columbian Exposition where 761,942 happy fair goers passed through its gates, but the overwhelmed ticket takers may have admitted closer to 900,000. It still is the biggest single day “gate”, but I believe that a couple of soccer contests in the 20th Century may have come close.

Chicago Day was on the exact anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire 22 years before, Monday, October 9. This day, October 9, 2005, is the annual Chicago Marathon and a recital at Orchestra Hall that I am going to miss – Andras Schiff playing the Goldberg Variations of Bach. Grrr. But I’m happy to be writing about one of my favorite periods in American history.

The Columbian Exposition put Chicago on the map as a cultured place. City fathers, whose lengthy promotional speeches prompted haughty New York competitors to dub Chicago the Windy City, were eager to erase its rough frontier image. The industrialists, Philip Armour and George Pullman, retailers Marshall Field and William Hibbard and architect Daniel Burnham (“Make no little plans.”) among many others contributed substantial sums to bring the idea of a well-ordered, beautiful, utilitarian city to life.

Between 70 and 80% of Chicago’s population in the 1890 census was foreign born or first generation American, and they comprised the labor force for the stockyards, slaughter houses, meatpackers, railroads, smoke stacks, clothing and agricultural machinery manufacture. Because of Chicago’s significant position in the industrial sector, labor unrest had been a prominent and regular occurrence. In the fair’s design its planners wished among other things to establish a sense of control over the masses while not alienating them altogether. Their labor was, after all, a vital component to the Commercial Club membership’s continued prosperity. Fair construction itself required thousands of workers.


Largely businessmen the fair’s organizers were progressives, and their expansive outlook - for their own power and wealth accumulation possibilities primarily – imbued the fair with modernity. There was a women’s building and women’s planning board (wives of the planners mostly). Electric lighting was employed throughout. And ecumenicism and multiculturalism got a fair nod.

The old social order was already giving way to the new. The father of the creator of 20th Century America’s top cultural icon – a cartoon mouse – was a laborer at the Fair.