The Men Who United the States

The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible   is a fresh, lively, and entertaining look at the way in which the United States bonded together into one nation.  There are a few clinkers in the book but then this is history and misinterpretation does happen.  Basically, Winchester’s book follows the explorers, the visionaries, and the inventors who opened the paths and built the infrastructure and the communication links that made unity possible.  Some of these people, like Lewis and Clark, Thomas Edison are well known to history buffs. Others are not.

Winchester peculiarly largely skips over the Civil War and uses the phrase “War between the States,” the euphemism favored by post-war Confederate apologists to deny that the south fought to defend slavery.  Unity based on human bondage was as Lincoln said “a house divided that could not stand.”

 "The Men Who United the States" held my attention with lots of new (to me) people and information encased in a good story. The authors theme of national good will and unity is a good one. Looking at todays headlines and hearing the rantings of today’s talk radio wingnuts I’m beginning to wonder if that theme is still true…..:(

 

Notables

My parents

Our beloved daughter in law Deanne

 

Our sons Ted and Tony checking their traps

Our friends John, Joann, Steve and Jewell

Our friends Rosie and Gary

Our friends Dick and Sharon

 

 

Our neighbors eldest daughter Shelby an all around talent in our local high school.

 

Winter Life in Southeastern Minnesota's Bluff Country

This post is a retrospective from January 2009.   Actually, there isn't much life here lately.... at least outside. Upon retirement, I had vowed to myself NEVER to "age gracefully." That meant living to the max by keeping up all the outdoor activities that I loved. Well... this proved to be, shall we say, a little idealistic

Let me explain. A few misguided souls (including yours truly) have been noting, maybe even complaining, that "we haven't had a real Minnesota winter in more than a decade." Such a winter means ice storms and lakes that  freeze over in mid-October. Then howling blizzards come in from Alberta or Siberia or someplace. Roads are blocked for days. The temperature doesn't get above zero for a month. Be careful what you wish for!

We had a rain a few days ago, followed by rapidly dropping temperatures. The consequence has been that I have been chicken to go outside for some time. "Aging gracefully" has meant to protect my artificial knee and other bodily parts I only venture out rarely. I read mostly and stare out the window watching for some excitement at my bird feeders. Good grief! It was Baron who finally brought me out of my funk.

Actually he has been driving me crazy. You can't coop up a 2 year old German Shepherd for weeks without any serious exercise and expect him to remain totally passive. It was time to take him for a good hike. Due to the ice storm the local streets were basically better suited for ice skating than anything else. So I opted to check out the snowmobile trails at nearby Forestville State Park.

I expected the park to be deserted and it was. "No leash needed today boy," I said.  We drove up to the fisherman's parking lot. Mrs. T opened her door and probed the lot with her walking stick. "Forget it," I heard her say. It was pure ice….

With that I turned the truck around and headed back towards the campground. Not many campers there that day! Fortunately the icy road circling the campground was covered with a crunchy layer of snow frost. This made it walkable. We did our thing. Baron romped through the woods looking for rabbits.

 

Later we drove down to the old bridge and the store which has been preserved as it was in the late 19thcentury. There were no reenactors or crowds of people there this day. We had the park all to ourselves.

 So what about life on the tundra in Minnesota? It can be a challenge, especially for the "older generation." You just have to work at it a little and be willing to adjust!  Now five years after I wrote this post we’re still adjusting. I just bought a laptop to keep up with my blogging friends as we’ve decided to try becoming snowbirds flying to Florida for a bit in 2014….. J

The Book Thief

Mrs. T and I attend movies only rarely and then only when the mood strikes us and the topic seems worthwhile.   The Book Thief is a melodrama about life under Nazism as told through the eyes of an illiterate young girl adopted by a German couple. The story does celebrate literacy, family and friendship during one of the darkest times in history.

Despite the awful setting of a totalitarian nightmare  society, the film offers an uplifting story of perseverance and hope. Perhaps too much so.  It’s often sentimental and sometimes schmaltzy, but the understated performances are very well done. We not talking about the Diary of Anne Frank here and certainly not Schindler’s List. As you can probably tell I was somewhat conflicted about what I saw. I found it interesting but it made me uneasy. At first I wasn't sure why. Perhaps I knew too much of the history.

Yes, when the truth is subverted and information controlled then evil runs rampant. The scene showing books being burned says it all.   The young girls new parents Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson) are older and far less attractive than her biological and possibly communist mother. Rosa, at first,   seems quite  cold and conservative, ensuring the little girl with the blond curls and sweet smile immediately plucks a little heartstring to set the Dickensian tone of the whole yarn.

The book, upon which this movie is apparently  based,  is of the genre now known as  Young Adult or Teen Fiction, which is something new to me.  Apparently,  that explains a lot about the movie's appeal and deficiencies.  Perhaps that’s what made me uneasy. A lot of it was more like a fairy tale with the bad stuff cut out or somewhat glossed over.  Spunky heroines are nice but really…..pluck can only carry you so far especially in the shadow of Nazism.  As to character development, except for Rosa,  who shows a caring side, there isn’t much. Each person remains unchanged, in spite of the occasional bombings,  death and destruction or picking on Jews. This all is as hokey as the lack of reality in "reality" TV. In the end,  I didn’t find anything truly redeeming in most of this.  Even though Mrs. T and I could be considered first class sentimental grandparents, when leaving the theater and asking the inevitable question, "so what did you think,"  we both shrugged and displayed our most puzzled expressions.

 

River Boat Captain

Fifty Five and Alive teaches one should be at least one car length behind the car in front of you for each ten miles per hour your going.   This is safety planning ahead for an unexpected stops or evasive maneuvers.  It’s the same way on the Mississippi when your piloting one of those long river barges.  Or as I explained to granddaughter Miss. T.  who was operating a giant screen simulator at the River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa, “it takes a mile to stop this puppy so you need to plan ahead.  Let’s not hit any bridges.”

She was a natural,  with her Dad and older brother watching in the pilot house, we breezed all the way downriver to St. Louis quite safely.....

 

Moving On

Today was moving day for Troutbirder II.  It will be an addition to this blog. Nothing else will change. For more details click on the moving van cartoon above...

One of the genres of books I have always enjoyed might best be labeled adventure/survival stories. This can be non fiction or fiction at its best. Be it at sea, on a mountain top, in the desert or wherever the odds of making it out alive are slim at best, that's what I want to read about. I was reminded of this, strangely enough, sorting through some pictures I took on a recent "leaf tour" of New England. I had a number of pictures of some of the famous "whaling towns" of Massachusetts. Thus, I was reminded of a book I had read shortly before our trip.

It was In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whale ship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. It tells the story of the Whale ship Essex from the point of view of Thomas Nickerson, who was a fourteen-year-old cabin boy on the Essex. The book is based on a notebook written by Nickerson when in his seventies which was lost until 1980. This true story was the basis of Melville's classic tale of the men and the sea - Moby Dick.

As I took Mrs. T's picture standing in from of the famous statue to those lost at sea, I couldn't help but think of those 20 men, whose ship had been smashed by an angry sperm whale. In three small lifeboats, running out of food and water, they were 3 months rowing distance away from the coast of Chile to the east.

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.”

Psalms, 107:23-30,

If you like true life adventures Heart of the Sea is far more reality than the pseudo kind found today on TV’s “reality shows.”