THE ROAD TO SECCESSION – PART II THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

Returning to historic events along the road to secession in America’s first century, it can quickly be seen why the U.S. Congress of 1850 could easily be called an “equal opportunity” legislature. Before the session was over, there was something for both sides to hate when it came to the question of slavery, and what to do about it. In their effort to walk a balance between the forces of abolition and defenders of slavery, they came up with what was fondly proclaimed to be a “great compromise”, allowing California to join the Union as a “free” state (placating northern sentiments), while passing a tough “Fugitive Slave Act” which infuriated those same citizens by promising jail and stiff fines to anyone assisting people of color escaping slavery in the south in an effort to court southern sympathy. In the end, it accomplished neither.
For years, Congress had sought to mollify both sides of the controversy, first by allowing new states to make their own choice by “mutual consent” (resulting in the “Kansas Wars”), and then by parceling out “free soil” and “slave state” status in alternate doses. Now, with the Fugitive Slave act the law of the land, northern abolitionists found themselves actually required to support and enforce the very doctrine they hated.
The state of Vermont had outlawed slavery when it became a sovereign republic in 1777, and it was quick now to act to nullify the new act written in Washington. Wisconsin followed suit, setting off a nullification scare which shook Congress and the courts, beginning a slide toward some kind of a dissolution of the paper-thin union in the eyes of a growing proportion of the citizenry.
For years, northerners of several persuasions had been openly aiding escaping black slaves, either harboring them or transporting them to friendlier locations. Rather than to discourage this activity, Congress unwittingly gave it a new impetus, ushering in a phenomenon known as “the underground railway”, an unorganized but well-oiled network of co-conspirators who secretly acted as a lifeline for fleeing slaves from the southern states. From New York and New England in the east to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan in the west, a map of escape routes, beginning in border states like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, would have looked much like a railroad system map, even though railroads seldom played a role in the movement of this covert traffic flow.
It is popular among some present-day writers to downplay the effectiveness – and even the significance - of this piece of history, just as it is in vogue to echo the claims of the 19th century “lost cause” writers on the subject of slavery itself. In part because I grew up in Vermont where diarists and family historians had kept faithful records, and where I knew of old homes in many towns and villages which still contained the “hidey holes” in which escaping slaves had taken refuge (even within the memories of some octogenarians of my time), I hold a very different view. I believe the records which claim that more than 100,000 fugitive slaves made their way through this clandestine network, in which the state of my youth played a key role because of its border with Canada, and because of the high level of motivation of its populace. NOTE: On October 19th, 1864, the border town of St. Albans , Vermont was attacked by a troop of Confederate soldiers who had made their way to Montreal in order to wreak punishment on the people of Vermont in this northern-most action of the Civil War.
Many of the facilitators – including Harriet Tubman, who made at least 19 dangerous journeys into the heart of the south to guide escapees ¬– were free blacks who placed themselves at great risk. Members of the Quaker religion were also committed to the covert effort, and perhaps chief among those was an ancestor of mine named Levi Coffin, descended from the same settler of Nantucket who was my eighth great grandfather. Levi is credited with personally saving more than 3000 individual runaways. William Still, a prominent Pennsylvanian often sheltered as many as 30 “contrabands” a night in his Philadelphia home, acting as one of many “conductors” along the route of the “Underground Railway”.
Sympathy for the abolition movement was not exclusive to the people of the North. Only one out of ten southerners owned or traded black slaves in 1860, and it is likely that the “escape routes” began with secret help along the so-called border states. As we shall see in a forthcoming article, sentiment in favor of secession was anything but unanimous in the general population of such soon-to-be Confederate states as Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia. In fact, the present state of West Virginia was “born” when the citizens west of the mountains voted their way OUT.


An April 24, 1851 poster warns colored people in Boston to protect themselves from “slave catchers”. Because a sizable reward was paid for the return of escaped slaves, it was not unusual for free men of color who had never been slaves to find themselves in chains and heading south.


The Levi Coffin house in Newport, Indiana is today a National Historic Landmark. This photo shows the secret indoor well which was required to sustain temporary “guests” riding the “Underground Railroad” heading north to freedom.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE GEESE

Their wings folded to catch the last breath of the day’s air currents, a pair of Canada Geese hold themselves aloft over waters whose exact location on the surface map of North America is written in their very DNA.
Photo by Bill Houghton


Back in 1950, Frankie Lane introduced and made popular a new romantic ballad which opened with the words “My heart knows what the wild goose knows, and I must go where the wild goose goes”. At the time, those lyrics had a special appeal for me; in fact to this day, I associate my life-long love for wild things and wild places with the message enshrined in that refrain.
By the time I reached my early teens, Canadian geese were only beginning to make a return from near-extinction across North America. The sound of wild geese somewhere overhead was enough to bring me and my brothers running from wherever we happened to be, to shade our eyes and look upward in anticipation of the heightened heartbeat which would come as we found the wavering Vee’s. “Look! Wild geese” we would shout, running to tell others what we were seeing and hearing. So unusual was such an event then, that I can still picture the exact moment and circumstances surrounding it. (One fall morning, our herd of Jersey’s was left half-milked so that we could run from the barn to look skyward in response to the cries which came to our wondering ears.)
Today, many among us have forgotten the story of human intervention which brought about the redemption of a threatened species, hearing instead of how those same geese have become such a problem in populated areas, that their unbridled rate of reproduction has actually made them a local nuisance, and a menace to commercial aviation. (Fifty Canadian geese can produce and leave behind more than two tons of excrement a year!)
My wife and I are fortunate enough to live where we overlook 80 acres of pond water which becomes a sanctuary to hundreds of waterfowl, including migrants heading either north or south by season, and others who make it their year-round home. From our vantage point, we have learned much about the culture of wild geese, especially from being able to observe a combined flock of approximately 50 Canada’s who spend much of their year here, along the banks of the Virgin river, where nearby farm lands help to provide them with the four pounds of food each adult consumes in a typical day. We also enjoy watching the Bald and Golden eagles, Red tail hawks, falcons, and other birds of prey who share a relationship with the waterfowl, and perform an important role in preserving a natural balance in the economy of species.
For one thing, we have learned something about familial loyalty, leadership, devotion, persistence and integrity. It is usual for adult geese to mate for life – a life which can last up to 24 years – and to share the demanding responsibility of parenthood, year after year. “Our” geese build their nests and hatch their eggs in the relative safety of rugged cliffs high above the water, and we have learned to watch for the change in feeding and travel habits as breeding season transitions into the “home-making” routine. The female does not begin the incubating process until all her eggs are laid. From then on, and for the next 28 days, the male does the hunting and provides security, displaying a tireless work ethic and devotion. As he departs or arrives at the nest, a great deal of conversation takes place between the two parents, but then again, wild geese are highly vocal. (The entire flock will verbally signal their mutual agreement to depart the pond each day, and similarly celebrate their approach for landing later in the day with a decidedly different chorus of honking.)
When you hear the barking of migrating geese high overhead, they are actually voicing a message of constant encouragement to each other, just as they are thoughtful about alternating the leader’s position at the point of the vee, while assuming a flight formation which protects those who follow from the vortex created from the wings of those in front. If one of their number falters from illness or exhaustion, at least one other member of the flight will remain behind with the straggler until both are able to rejoin the group. (I witnessed this phenomenon once while camping in the lake country north and west of Lake Superior.)
In years past, we enjoyed the year-round presence of two White Holland domestic geese on the pond, obviously unable to fly or mate. What entertained and educated us was the unique but obviously welcome relationship which existed between these two “strange ones” and their wild relatives from Canada. After the wild babies were old enough to join the flock on the pond, the white geese would act as surrogate parents while the real parents were free to fly away and forage together during the day. We would marvel through our binoculars as we watched the caring activities of this volunteer “aunt and uncle”, day after day and year after year. We mourned when first one, and then the other fell prey to coyotes.
Recalling all this and what I have learned from it, I am drawn to the parting line of Frankie Lane’s old ballad:
“Tonight I heard the wild goose cry / Hangin’ north in the lonely sky/Tried to sleep, but it warn’t no use/’cause I am brother to the old wild goose.”


Wild geese (Branta Canadensis) wing their way over the vast wilderness of Ontario’s Lake Superior country in an original sketch by the author. Their annual migration route might very well involve 2200 miles of celestial navigation, in some of the world’s worst weather.
Al Cooper Sketch

REMEMBERING AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR THE LONG ROAD TO SECESSION

In the year 2011, our nation marks the Sesquicentennial of the beginning of “The War Between the States”; “The American Civil War”, or what is still looked upon by many Southern historians as “The War of Northern Aggression”. Because this chapter of our national story continues to invite dissection from a myriad of perspectives, each of these nominations has a claim on legitimacy. Despite a fascination which has spawned more than 500,000 books dealing with the subject, it is disappointing to think that a generation or two of our citizens have grown up in comparative ignorance of this seminal event in our national history, and the extent to which, one-hundred and fifty years later, it continues to leave its fingerprints on our very sense of who we are as Americans.
At the outset of a year in which HOME COUNTRY will feature a number of reflections on this segment of our history, I must confess to readers and editors a personal passion for American history in general, and Civil War history in particular. I have walked the battlefields of that conflict from the “Sunken Road” at Antietam and the “Bloody Pond” of Shilo, to the “Peach Orchard” at Gettysburg, and the “Field of Shoes” in the Shenandoah Valley. I have wept at the cemetery on “Marye’s Heights”, repeatedly at the fence-line where “Pickett’s Charge” ended , from the overlook of the “Devil’s Den” at “Little Round Top”, and again in the wilderness of Chancellorsville. From Spotsylvania and Manasses Junction to Yellow Tavern and New Market, I have been touched by the aura left to forever haunt these hallowed grounds by the events which transpired there, and felt profoundly the presence of the legions who clashed there. I feel as connected by the bonds of brotherhood with the troopers – blue and gray – who fought then as with the G.I.s with whom I shared the scorched and seared hills of Korea just over a century later.
No less a public figure and man-of-history as Winston Churchill would write of America’s Civil War, that among all of the world’s conflicts, it was the one “which was most inevitable and necessary”; this from one who had just witnessed and been a major participant in World War II.
To begin to appreciate what he meant, it is important that the true student of history does not begin the process from the standpoint of knowing how things turned out in the end, but rather from a perspective that goes back to the beginning – or as close to the beginning as possible. Those who starred in this drama, after all, had no way of knowing how it would play out.
As the framers of our Constitution labored through that hot Philadelphia summer of 1787, it became increasingly clear that at least two major obstacles were insurmountable, given the political and social landscape of the loosely-knit Confederation, and despite the fact that anything less than agreement would spell a virtual end of any long-term “nationhood”. One of those questions involved slavery which lay at the core of the southern economic system, and without which the largely agricultural nature of their society would not survive. The second question – very much connected with the first – was “states’ rights”, and the balance of powers, not only between state and federal governments, but between the then thirteen separate and independent (and very different) states.
In the end, the problem was overcome (postponed) with the Connecticut Compromise establishing two houses of Congress balanced in such a way as to protect the voting powers of small and less-populated states, and by leaving the question of slavery untouched. To give those great men their due, it was widely believed at that time, that slavery was already on its way out and would die a natural death within twenty years, (several southern states had already written laws toward that end). At that moment, no one could foresee the massive impact of immigration, which would benefit the economies of northern states while undermining the ability of the south to trade competitively with European markets without an even greater reliance on slave labor. At the same time, the western movement, enhanced by the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of new lands after the war with Mexico, all tended to favor the voting majorities of the North. The growing disparity – political, economic and societal – between the North and the South became the dominant factor in national and regional politics, breeding as well a thorough and deep-lying personal enmity between the citizens themselves on many levels. The two great political parties began to coalesce around the issue of abolition, leading to an ideological re-alignment giving birth to the new Republican Party which attracted abolitionists from both sides, including a Senator from Massachusetts, whose assault in the halls of Congress would shock the country.
In the next chapter on “The Long Road to Secession”, we will meet an activist Supreme Court judge named Roger Taney, revisit the “Dred Scott Decision”, and weigh the impact of a best-selling book with the title “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.


On May 22nd, 1856, Preston Brooks, a Congressman from South Carolina, assaulted Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in a famous caning incident on the floor of the U.S. Senate, so severely injuring the abolitionist leader (then a fellow Democrat), that he would be unable to serve for three years. The incident infuriated the North, cementing the new political anti-slavery coalition, and shocking the nation into a realization that the two sides had reached an irreconcilable abyss.

A John Magee lithograph

FROM WHITE DWARFS TO RED GIANTS Traveling the Night Skies of Winter

With my feet planted solidly here on a speck of canyon country in Southern Utah, in the intense dark of a mid-winter night, I can see “forever”. From horizon to horizon the marvels stretch across the heavens in a visual display which has been played out since a “beginning” we can only imagine; from stars that are so old in celestial time they are in their last star-moments of life, to others so “new” they would not yet have been visible to earth’s dinosaurs.
If there is one dominating figure among the constellations of winter, it would be Orion, the great “hunter” of Greek mythology. My eyes automatically turn to this overpowering figure as I step outdoors on any clear night. It is like an old, dependable friend reminding me of the few certainties of earth life and of the age old connection between humankind and the night skies. The grand scale of this mythical figure erases any need for telescope or binoculars, unless one is focusing on the great Nebula which seems to hang from Orion’s belt, like a glowing sword; one of the most magnificent of such astronomical sights. At the upper left “shoulder” of the hourglass constellation as viewed from earth is the red supergiant star known as Betelgeuse , which is the size of 800 of our Suns and probably approaching the end of its long life. It lies about 520 light years away and glows with the brilliance of 1500 “suns”.
The right foot of Orion as viewed from earth is a blue giant named Rigel (“foot” in Arabic), which is twice as far from earth as Betelgeuse, but whose brightness shines with a luminosity of 55,000 suns! Rigel is actually a “double star”; twins bound together by gravity and birth. (Probably 80 % of all stars in our galaxy are actually “doubles”, our own sun being an exception.)
The three bright stars which make up Orion’s belt, point directly to Sirius, the “Dog Star” in Canis Major, the brightest star in the heavens. A close neighbor of ours at a distance of only 8.7 light years and a key to human navigation since ancient times, Sirius also has a white dwarf companion star with which it rotates once every fifty years. Such an impact has this conjunction had upon life on earth that it is now believed that the great pyramids of Giza were laid out in the exact similitude of Orion’s belt, with the Milky Way representing the river Nile.
Another “old friend” in the winter sky is a cluster of stars we call “The Pleiades”, (Seven Sisters in Greek). This open cluster figures importantly in the history and mythology of many cultures: To America’s Cherokees it is known as Ani’tsutsa or “The Boys”, and among many tribes it ushers in cleansing ceremonies, and the time for naming newborn children. In Japan, the name for Pleiades is “Subaru”, and the symbol for the famous car-maker contains those famous stars.
While that shiny “thumb print” high overhead in midwinter is easily seen with the naked eye, binoculars will reveal the seven brightest members of this cluster, and suggest that there are really many more hiding in the luminescence – actually several hundreds. 440 light years from earth, what you are actually seeing in the Pleiades is a star “nursery” in action; a young star system unfolding from what fairly recently (in celestial time) was a dust cloud left over from a supernova. The group of bright stars are physically related, and are moving in the same direction, although future generations of earth people will notice a wider separation between them.
Not to be forgotten in all of this is our own captive satellite – the Moon – upon which rests the earth’s tidal system and earth life itself as we know it. As it travels across our night sky along a circular path known as the great ecliptic, it presents us with an ever-evolving image, and keeps company with other planets of our solar system whose perceived journeys take them within a few degrees of the moon’s route. In January in fact, the Moon and gigantic Jupiter will appear almost in alignment for a few hours. The full moon of January has been called “The Hard Times Moon” by Maine’s Penobscot people, “The Melting Snow Moon” of the Navajo, and “The Whirling Wind Moon” of the Narragansett. To early settlers, it was known simply as “The Wolf Moon”.


Often mistaken for “The Little Dipper” because of the relationship of the brightest of its primary stars, the Pleiades has been known as “the Cradle”, the “Seven Sisters”, and “The Boys”. They lie in a very young corner of our galaxy and keep us company through the long cold nights of winter.
NASA Photo


A full moon rises out of the Atlantic ocean along Maine’s mid-coast, providing us with one of Nature’s most powerful illusions, seeming to be larger than it is because of its closeness to our horizon.
Al Cooper Photo

PREPAREDNESS TIP

Among my neighbors are several hundred who recently were forced to evacuate their homes on very short notice by a set of circumstances few would have anticipated. Others chose to shelter in place and take defensive action, while others found themselves isolated wherever they happened to be by road closures which remained in place for many hours. Those same closures left some who had been away, cut off from family members and vital resources, and unable to return; all of this in an area where cell phone coverage is spotty at the best of times, and where a major power outage had occurred just hours before.
This series of “cascading contingencies” should remind us all of the importance of having a comprehensive family emergency plan, making our homes resource centers, keeping our evacuation kits up to date, and furnishing our vehicles with such necessities as will provide a level of security and comfort when we can’t get home.

THE ANATOMY OF A BLIZZARD

My great, great Uncle, Rueben Coyte, was a figure of iconic proportions in our family, and for me, born into a world without a surviving grandfather, he was a transformational presence. Uncle Reuben – or “Icky” as he was lovingly known to us – had been a young lad when the battle of Gettysburg was fought, and I spent my earliest years curled up on his ample lap learning history as seen through the eyes of a devoted observer and master story-teller. A direct descendant of our New Jersey town’s founding pioneer family,“Icky” had witnessed eight decades of America’s emergence from colonial youth to global prominence. Some of his most fascinating stories revolved around “The Great Blizzard of 1888”, an obvious historic milestone for people of his generation and an event against which all future natural weather phenomena would be measured for years to come.
It all began with an unseasonal warm spell in early March, followed by a period of heavy rains. Shortly after midnight Eastern time on March 11th, it turned to snow, and for the next three days, it snowed without letup up and down the Mid-Atlantic coast line. In what some called “The Great White Hurricane”, the storm dropped up to 58 inches of new snow, as gale force winds gusted up to 80 miles per hour and temperatures dropped into single digits. Drifts up to thirty and forty feet in depth covered even three-story houses in many places, and reduced visibility halted virtually all human movement. Electricity was the first piece of infrastructure to go, followed by telephone and telegraph communications, gas transmission lines and water and sewer systems. Rail lines between northeastern cities were so mangled that it would take eight days after the storm passed to restore operations. (It was this disaster which led directly to the first underground rail systems or “subways” in America).
Because fire stations were immobilized by the storm, fires in New York City alone accounted for more than $25 million in damage and loss during the blizzard’s grip. Storm-caused deaths totaled more than 400, with half of those in New York City. From Chesapeake Bay on the south to Portland, Maine in the north, more than 200 ships were either sunk or grounded, with 100 seamen losing their lives.
If the known costs of the Great Blizzard were calculated in present-day dollars, they would probably come close to $2 billion!
The winter of 1888 had already made its mark on weather history two months earlier, in a storm which swept down out of the Canadian north bringing Arctic cold to collide with warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico over the high plains of Wisconsin, Nebraska and the Dakota Territory. Because the savage cold, high winds and driven snow struck unexpectedly and in the middle of the day, it came to be known as “The Schoolhouse Blizzard”. All across the northern tier of states, children became “trapped” in the one-room schoolhouses which predominated in prairie regions, in many cases entombed by cold and blowing, drifting snow, and blinding visibility. Out of that stormy turmoil came a national heroine whose name, Minnie Freeman, became a household word. When the storm blew out first the windows, and then the roof of the tiny sod school house in which she and her children were marooned, she decided to lead her charges to safety. Lashing them together with whatever ropes and pieces of clothing were at hand, she started out into the teeth of the gale, heading for a house she new sat about one mile away.
Her exploit was heralded widely by a fascinated press, and she eventually found herself deluged with adoring letters, including 80 marriage proposals. A song, “Thirteen Were Saved” or “Nebraska’s Fearless Maid” became the semi-official “Song of The Great Blizzard of 1888”.
Weather statistics suggest that if you live long enough, and happen to be in the right place at the right time, you stand a good chance of experiencing a blizzard of your own. With that recognition in mind, it is only prudent to equip the home in which you live, and the vehicle in which you and those you love travel, with a “worst case scenario in mind.


Blizzard conditions can develop very quickly, and with little warning. High winds, blowing and drifting snow, and falling temperatures can turn a “fair” day into a “white knuckle” experience for the unprepared. The most deadly blizzard in recent times occurred in Iran in 1972 with a death toll of 4000.

SAVORING TIMELESS GIFTS FROM A WINTER GARDEN

While there is something to be said for the biblical admonition to enjoy each good food “in the season thereof”, I find something especially satisfying in indulging in the pleasure of feasting on greens and tubers that reach their penultimate goodness long after usual harvest times. A decade ago, when still living in an alpine environment at 7000 feet in the Wasatch Mountains, I took an almost perverse pleasure in pushing the early snows of winter away from backyard grow-beds to munch on leafy vines and buried carrots and beets, in open defiance of a calendar which spoke in discouraging terms of seasonal change. Nowadays, here in southern Utah I have the pleasure of escaping to a greenhouse, where even on a wet, cold and breezy day, I can bask in the lush presence of green and growing things.
Whether home-grown or store-bought, I never cease to rejoice at the beautiful crinkly exterior of a head of Savoy cabbage as winter winds blow, and I look forward to preparing this wonder of history and horticulture. Cabbages – in one variety or another – have been a part of human agriculture for at least 4,000 years, with a climate hardiness which makes them a year-round and vitamin-rich food source for many cultures. My absolute drop-dead favorite though is the Savoy, with its green-blue crumpled outer leaves and creamy-white and tender interior. Much milder and sweeter than its more common cousins, it lacks the sulfur after taste, and proves its versatility in dozens of culinary possibilities. I like steaming the large outer leaves until they are sufficiently soft to wrap around a prepared filling of sautéed onions, hamburger, garlic, cooked rice, chopped cabbage and tomato sauce, then to be covered with more leaves and slow-baked for a meal of stuffed Savoy.
Just this week, we enjoyed a favorite recipe for winter soup made from shredded Savoy cabbage with white cannellini beans and chicken stock, prepared with a mirepoix of minced onions, garlic, celery and carrots. Named for the corner of Europe where France, Italy and Switzerland meet, Savoy has earned its reputation as the “queen” of cabbages. (Here, I have to give a plug for FARMERS’ MARKET in LaVerkin, Utah whose produce managers seem always to find a way to keep this often hard-to-find vegetable on hand.)
Another cold-weather vegetable worth getting to know is the leek, a member of the alium family along with onions, scallions and garlic. Unlike the onion, the leek doesn’t develop a bulb at the root end, but a long thick mostly-white stem with a green wide-leafed top. It is milder, sweeter, and more flavorful than an onion, and a natural ingredient of great soups. It too has been a favorite in Europe and Egypt where its use dates back at least to the first century BC. So tied to Welsh history is the ancient leek that legendary kings required their soldiers to wear leek leaves in their head gear in battle. Even today, embossed leeks appear in some English royal heraldry.
The leek’s commercial popularity in the U.S. has been quite recent (except for those of us who love to cook, and therefore had to grow our own for years). Since it is the white portion that is most suitable for culinary use, growers commonly blanche the growing stalk by hilling earth and sand around it. After removing the root and trimming away the green leaves therefore, it is important to cut slits down the length of the leek to rinse away any remaining grit when preparing for use.
For “Leek & Potato Soup”, I use the white parts of three leeks, sliced in rings then chopped; three large potatoes, skinned and cut into ½ inch cubes; 3 stalks of celery, diced; 3 cups chicken broth; three dry bay leaves and ½ pint half-and-half. I sauté the leeks and celery in 2 tbs. butter until transparent before adding the potatoes, bay leaves and broth. Cook for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender, but not mushy. Add in the half-and-half without bringing to a boil, adjusting with some milk if the consistency is too thick. At this point, I remove the bay leaves (important) and blend into a puree about half of the soup, returning it to the mix so that there is a good combination of “chunky” and “creamy”. Salt and pepper carefully, garnish with chopped parsley and serve with hard rolls.


Savoy cabbage, leeks and potatoes represent a fine example of vegetables which are at their best in winter, and which, in numerous combinations, lend themselves to cold weather soup-making.


Given some protection from the harshest weather, over-wintering garden beds can be a source of leaf lettuce, kale, spinach, leeks, and such “in-earth” treats as parsnips, baby beets, and sweet-and-crunchy carrots. This garden bed of the author’s survived the first of winter’s storms at 7000 feet.

TAKING TIME TO SAY “WOW” (A Book Review)

Because I am a serious reader of books on an eclectic range of subjects, it would ordinarily be difficult to select a single “Best Of” for an entire year; I would have to hedge the question by naming a group of candidates by subject matter or some other qualification. For the year just now passing from view, no such purview is required. The book which stands out among all others is LIFE IS A VERB and the author is Patti Digh.
Ms. Digh (pronounced DYE) is well known in the business world as a behavioral consultant, lecturing and advising international corporations and institutions on personnel practices, but this book arises from an altogether private and personal set of motivations. In 2003, her stepfather was diagnosed with terminal and untreatable cancer. Patti, together with her mother, decided to stay at his side during the difficult period between diagnosis and death, a span of time which turned out to be 37 days.
The experience of “helping a loved one die” left the author with the question: If I had only 37 days to live, how would I spend each one of those days? The resulting book, LIFE IS A VERB carries the subtitle 37 days to wake up, be mindful, and live intentionally. A subject which might have become trite and saccharine in the hands of a less skilled and insightful story-teller became for me a profound journey in introspection, and an invitation to revisit – and even revise – some of my own strategies for living meaningfully.
The format of the beautifully crafted and creatively illustrated book divides the 37 “lessons” into nine sections or chapters, all devised to undergird a set of principles worth turning into practices. Like all good story-tellers, the author makes use of a simple but highly personal experience to introduce each of the concepts she encapsulates, with each chapter ending with some “homework” for the reader; a challenge for implementing a real-life application. Virtually every page contains highlighted quotes to artfully illuminate and give weight to the concepts being discussed. For instance, in her chapter on the importance of placing value on small things (titled “Don’t Sell Your Red Books”), Digh quotes Albert Einstein who said “not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything which counts can be counted”.
One of my favorite Digh chapters summarizes the importance of taking the time to appreciate the gifts life gives us, at the end of which she leaves us with one of her challenges based in a food metaphor:
“Eat your bread pudding slowly, savor it, swim awhile in that pomegranate sauce, reach out for a raisin island, and rest. Eat well, eat slowly, appreciate the artistry of your food, make your life’s meal last a long time; give up Pop-Tarts and be sure to thank the real chefs.”
This is a book you will wish to “own”, not borrow from a handy library or well-intentioned friend. I say this for two reasons: First, if you follow the author’s advice, you will find yourself writing notes to yourself in the margins, and doing a lot of underlining with felt markers for future reference, and because of the ringing of internal “bells” the paragraphs will set off in your mind. Secondly, it is a book you will read more than once.
I started my adventure with LIFE IS A VERB seated on the front porch of a friend’s cottage in coastal Oregon. It was raining lightly, and the breeze set off the tinkling of a set of small discreetly-tuned wind chimes nearby. I was all alone, with the misty grayness of the day, and my heart and mind were in one of those rare moments of perfect harmony. Beginning then, and for the rest of the 37 days after returning home, I “lived my way” through its enchanting chapters for the first time. Since then, I have allowed the book to flip open to a random page now and then, discovering that there is often a new and hidden meaning the second or third time around.
And then there are the 120 hand-drawn and highly-creative illustrations, each contributed by a reader of the author’s blog site; each bringing humor, insight and even a bit of whimsy to the mix, and all of it tied together by editors and publishers who shared Ms. Digh’s passion for perfection of presentation.
A final and personal reflection: More and more I find myself observing the little things that make each day special, while taking the time to say WOW!



Whether overhead or at our feet, we inhabit a world full of beauty, wonder and excitement. The color and symmetry of a Golden Garden Spider leaves me with little more to say on the subject other than WOW!

FRENCH-CANADIAN CHRISTMAS MEAT PIE

(Here is a Christmas treat worth indulging. I first heard of it living
in Vermont and working in Quebec, and then Donna Cooper made one for us
years ago.

I made my first one last week with Shirley's incomparable crust. It
lasted us for three days.

The veal is expensive if you can even find it. Next time I may try
substituting ground turkey white meat.)


FRENCH-CANADIAN CHRISTMAS
MEAT PIE


INGREDIENTS

1 lb. ground veal (or extra lean beef) 1 cup bread crumbs
½ lb. ground pork 1 can beef broth
½ lb. ground pork sausage ¼ cup chopped parsley
1 med. Onion, finely minced 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced 1 tsp. salt
1 cup stewed tomatoes, chopped ¼ tsp ground cloves
½ cup finely minced celery ¼ tsp ground mace
¼ tsp. ground pepper 2 bay whole bay leaves
Touch of cayenne powder (optional)
1 cup bread crumbs
1 can beef broth
¼ cup chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground mace
2 bay whole bay leaves

Pastry crust for double crust, nine-inch pie


Saute the onion and garlic in a Tbs. oil in bottom of Dutch oven to soften. Add the ground meat and cook until the pinkness is gone, adding the tomatoes, celery, bay leaves, parsley and carrots and some of the broth. Allow to simmer together for about twenty minutes, adding more of the unused broth as needed. Mix in the seasonings and remove from heat to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, set the oven on 375 degrees, while rolling out crust for a two-crust nine inch pie.
Mix enough bread crumbs into the cooked filling to make it workable; line the pie dish with bottom crust, fill with the mixture, apply top crust, pinch edges closed and slit top for ventilation. Bake for 50-55 minutes, covering edges with strips of foil for last 15 minutes if necessary.


Serve with a sweet relish or chutney on the side.

PREPAREDNESS TIP

The tradition of gift-giving runs long and deep in our history and reaches across almost every social and economic border. As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, the Holiday Season – despite its commercialism – reminds us of the generous giving and gracious receiving which is so much a part of family and community life. It’s a good time to include in that shopping list a few items which will help those we love and care for to be even more secure and self-reliant. An emergency radio receiver, a vacuum food saver, a bread mixer, a pressure canner, or even a few cartons of canning jars and other home preserving accessories, all become doubly-meaningful gifts this year. Thoughtful “stocking-stuffers” like flashlights, batteries, a Ball home preserving guide, or even a clutch of favorite recipes, will go a long way to encourage the provident life style which will last far beyond the giving season.

WANDERING THROUGH THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WORDS

In far northern Alaska there is a small village on the Bering Sea with the ancient name of Shaktoolik. At one time that word meant simply “sandbar”, or “stretched-out place”. Over time, and for reasons which a look at geography will explain, it took on an altogether different meaning. To today’s native people of the far north it describes . . . “the feeling you have when you have been going toward a place for so long that it seems that you will never get there”. The richness and subtlety of the Eskimo language struck me with a familiar ring as I came across that piece of linguistic trivia while researching a totally unrelated subject years ago. It reminded me of a gentle stream near a Connecticut farm where, as a ten-year-old, I spent many happy summer hours grappling for slippery trout with bare hands in the heat of the day. The brook was known to locals as “Noromeoknowhosunkatankshunk” (in American phonetics anyway), an old Abenaki Indian word which meant “water from the faraway hills which shines brightly in the sun as it travels over many rocks”.
I don’t know just when it was that I began to harbor a deep love for language – in particular the language of my ancestry and the land of my inheritance; what some scholars would refer to as “my native tongue”. In some strange way it was while studying high school French that I began to appreciate the intricacies of English, and to relish the unending nuances of meanings possible with a language which invited and welcomed new, invented and borrowed words without hesitation and with no holds barred.
While the roots of English go back to “Indo-European” origins, the influence of a diverse mix of “visitors” to that island realm, as well as an intrinsic Celtic connection, played a role in shaping the dialects and speech of its inhabitants. During nearly 400 years of Roman occupation and rule, Latin left a significant impact with here and there a reverence for ancient Greece evident in root words. The most important contribution to an evolving national tongue came with the Norman conquest of England beginning in 1066 AD, and a major shift in the pronunciation of vowel sounds over the following century or two.
Thanks to that Norman influence, 30% of the words we routinely use today have French roots. Add to that the ongoing invasions by Vikings, Goths and other Germanic peoples including the Angles and Saxons, who saw the British Isles as a steppingstone to the expansion of trade and the growth of empire, and you begin to glimpse a woven fabric with a warp of disparate linguistic strands.
The Normans brought with them a profound respect for the practice of law, and so we got terms like accuse, assault, jury, judge, embezzle, felony, adultery, fraud, liberty, curfew and parliament. William the Lion Hearted and his merry band of conquerors also contributed an interest in animals and the hunt, and they shared words such as bacon, beef, veal, pork, mutton, salmon, butcher and venison. In fact that word – venison - did not refer only to the meat of deer, but any wild game. Venerey meant to hunt.
In medieval England, it became essential among the upper class to follow a rigorous orthodoxy in speaking of animals in the plural. To do otherwise called attention to one’s lack of social graces when dining in company. For instance, one did not refer to a “flight” of crows, (no, no, no), but to a murder of crows. Similarly, you must say a kindle of kittens, a cast of hawks, a rafter of turkeys, a leap of leopards, a skulk of foxes, a peep of chickens, a business of ferrets, a husk of hares a charm of finches and a pitying of turtle doves. Just this morning, I witnessed a dissimulation of blackbirds going by, and listened to a paddling of ducks on the pond, (if they had been in flight it would have been a sord of mallards). My very favorite, for its musical sonority is an exaltation of larks. These and dozens of other animal terms once codified in Old English Primers of Speech, are made immortal by Dame Juliana’s “The Book of St, Albans”, and enumerated with great good humor by James Lipton, in his beautifully-illustrated “The Exaltation of Larks, or The Venereal Game”.
At the risk of being labeled as sesquipedalian, I delight in the exquisite suitability of borrowed words such as sangfroid when describing a friend whose imperturbability leaves me in awe, or doppelganger when observing a stranger in Wal-Mart whose likeness reminds me of an acquaintance who I know lives 3000 miles away. When author Jeffrey Archer characterized a barmaid of generous proportions in a short story as being steatopygous, I had a picture in my mind which no combination of many words could have painted so accurately, or with such lexicological kindness. To have done otherwise would surely have been to indulge in an exercise in Schadenfreude.
What a gift that our native tongue overflows with an eclectic euphony and a delectable diversity which reflect 600 years of open borders in a world of wonderful words!
To quote from Proverbs 25:11 “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”



The American Bison was quickly assigned the term “Buffalo” by settlers, who might not have known they were borrowing a Portuguese/Spanish word for large animals – including antelope. Other words of the same ancestry included alligator, bronco, barbecue, tornado and mosquito to name just a few. (This rampant bull was photographed while enjoying a few minutes of fugacious freedom in the author’s back yard.) Photo by Al

RATING GREAT APPLES – FROM A to Z

It is with a certain amount of conceit that we assert that something is “as American as apple pie”, and any patriotic Englishman cannot be blamed for challenging that particular bit of “colonial arrogance”. In actual fact, from the landing of the Mayflower onward, the old English tradition of pie-making – and especially apple pie-making - has connected us as surely as any pedigree chart to our English roots. That being said ( in the interest of historic niceties), I will hasten to add that here in “the New World” apples, their propagation and appreciation – and yes, even their elevation to the pinnacle of pie-heaven – have written a more glowing chapter in pomological history than anywhere else. And where else could a common fellow such as John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) cut such a botanical swath across the land and its history.
In truth, apples filled a primary niche in the colonial food chain because of the everyday need for the “cider” which could be pressed from this juice-laden fruit. European settlers brought with them a widespread and well-founded distrust of drinking water; water being believed to be the source of almost all sickness and disease. (In fact the reason the “Pilgrims” came ashore at Cape Cod arose from the end of their shipboard supply of beer – a “safe” beverage made from fermenting grain).
In the 1700s a typical Pennsylvania family put up fifteen to forty barrels of cider each year, and in order to claim a “homestead” in colonial Virginia, a settler was required first to plant an orchard. Everyone drank cider as a basic beverage, first from fresh pressings, and long term because of the natural fermentation process which gave it a long shelf life, reaching across a long, often-bitter winter to a new spring.
The qualities looked for in a cider apple included juiciness, a balance of sweetness and tartness, and a high tannin level. Very few apple varieties possess enough of these qualities to be a great stand-alone cider apple, unless you count Tremblett’s Bitter, Kingston Black or New Foxwhelp, still grown in England. In fact, the U.K. lays claim to “The Long Ashton Research Station” in Bristol, England, where the continued pursuit of the perfect cider is still ongoing.
In the U.S. today’s serious cider-makers usually go for a combination such as a Red or Gold Delicious for sweetness, Jonathan or Winesap for tartness, and a crab apple such as Hysop for a touch of tannin and color. One of New England’s best makers uses a blend of up to 13 varieties with McIntosh playing the lead role. Among the heirlooms still around, the Golden Russet would probably be regarded as the finest single American cider apple of all time.
When it comes to apple pie, some of the same qualities apply, but with great weight being given to cooking characteristics. The most desired pie apples are those which retain their shape in cooking, refusing to turn mushy. My first choice is Newtown Pippin, with Red Astrachan and Northern Spy close behind. Among supermarket varieties available today, we would combine Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, and either Gala or Jonagold. Our basic rule always calls for a mix of three varieties. And given our Vermont roots, a piece of apple pie is always accompanied by a wedge of well-aged white cheddar cheese warmed to room temperature.
For drying, I prefer Wealthy, Gravenstein, Wolf River, or – in a pinch – Golden Delicious. It takes a high flavor level to survive the drying process, and many of the “old timers” favored in the past are no longer available.
For eating out of hand, the decision is highly personal. Of the newer choices available today, I give high marks to HoneyCrisp, Jonagold, Fuji and Mutsu. Among the heirlooms, I vote for Spitzenburg, Bramley’s Seedling, Ashmead’s Kernel, Cox Orange Pippin and Golden Russet, to name just a small handful. So high on our list that we just today ordeerd a box of them from an Indiana orchard is the venerable Northern Spy, at one time the number three apple across America, and one of the few that is good in cider, supreme in pie, and a Prince among long-keepers. Why does such a gem fall from favor you might ask ? As so often is the case, the tree is not always an annual bearer, takes several years to enter production and does not take kindly to machine-picking and handling.
As I savored the seductive sweetness of a Pitmaston Pineapple, (a small, unhandsome but wondrously-blessed apple of English origin), recently, I thought of the challenge to language faced by anyone attempting to find words to describe taste. Thus apple tasters employ such terms as: vinous; aromatic;sprightly;complex;pear-like;tangy;spicey;brisk;acidulous;winey;flowery as well as such standards as sweet, tart and acidic. The mouth-feel of an apple might be described as firm, crisp, snapping, breaking, crunchy or tender. And so, a lexicon as tantalizing as the alphabet itself, from an apple called Akane to another known as Zabergau Reinette tests both pallet and tongue.


A tiny apple with a long history shows up as an adornment on Christmas wreaths and decorations each year in December. America’s “Christmas Apple” is known as “Lady”, but in the France of King Louis XIII, it was “pomme d’Api”, and may even have been celebrated in ancient Rome itself.


An amalgam of 3 kinds of apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and tender, flakey crust, a hand-crafted apple pie has distinguished the American dessert table since colonial times.
Al Cooper Photos

CELEBRATING A LOVE AFFAIR WITH APPLES

Sometime around 1792, Mary Anne Brailsford transplanted a seedling she had started from a pit to a sunny spot in the backyard of her cottage in Notinghampshire, little knowing that fruit from that chance tree and its subsequent offspring would one day become one of England’s most celebrated contributions to the world of appledom. I said a silent “thank you” to Miss Brailsford this past week, as I once again became reacquainted with the heady tartness and juicy interior of the apple the world knows as Bramley’s Seedling, (named for the butcher who later occupied that humble cottage on Church Street in Southwell, U.K.).
The designation “chance” in my introductory sentence is important. In the natural order of things, the seed of an apple tree will not reproduce its parent’s kind; only by cutting a branch – or sion – from the original tree can genetic continuity be assured. Planting a seed, or pip from an apple is a sheer biologic gamble, almost always ending five or six years later in disappointment. But. . . every now and then, nature smiles on the adventurous propagator, and something important emerges. In colonial America, almost every neighborhood and dirt road saw such “accidents” taking root, and the young nation savored, shared and celebrated worthwhile apple adaptations numbering in the thousands. My own humble young orchard is itself the residence to a dozen of the most favored “heirlooms”, and each autumn, I send away for “samplings” from other antique growers around the country. This year, a juicy Bramley’s Seedling kept company with a Roxbury Russet, an Ashmead’s Kernel (another British classic), and nine other noteworthy, but little-known examples of pomological diversity. Each one with a story of its own.

A HISTORY LESSON

History is written in more than just books,
It’s more than mere dates on some page.
It’s found in the slates of a crumbling stone wall,
On a gravestone all lichened with age.
It perfumes the springtime where old lilacs grow,
And hides in the dark of gray barns.
It rings from the tower of a white-steepled church;
Colors afghans crocheted from old yarns.

But the history which speaks to me over the years,
Hangs from branches where sweet zephyrs blow;
Where the orchards of yesterday cling to a hill;
Where the RUSSETS and PEARMAINS still grow.
The taste of a MAIDEN’S BLUSH turns back the clock
To a time when fine apples were treasured,
When COX ORANGE PIPPINS and seedlings called BRAMLEYS
Were tested, and savored and measured.

Like an archival “Atlas” three centuries long,
Their names ring in spell-binding prose:
ROXBURY RUSSET, and RED ASTRACHAN,
RHODE ISLAND GREENING, SHEEPNOSE,
HUBBARDSTON NONE-SUCH, an apple called SNOW,
The cider-man’s friend, SOPS OF WINE;
Jefferson’s SPITZENBURG, crimson and gold,
The SMOKEHOUSE; the striped GRAVENSTEIN!

Not all of our national treasures,
Are found on Smithsonian shelves.
Not all of our past is recorded in words,
Into which future scholars will delve.
For the history which speaks to me over the years
Hangs from branches where sweet zephyrs blow;
Where the orchards of yesterday cling to a hill;
Where the RUSSETS and PEARMAINS still grow.

By Al Cooper


Considered one of the world’s most beautiful apples, with a shiny, porcelain-like exterior, the “Kandil Sinap” is also one of the most unusual. In a world of orbicular shapes, this “heirloom” from Turkey is tall and conical.


An 1875 Wisconsin seedling, the huge “Wolf River” is a sentimental favorite. It dominated a hillside pasture on our family farm in Vermont, and was much loved by my father. My mother once made an apple pie from just one of these two-pound giants, and happily, I own one of its offspring today.
Photos by Al Cooper

CLINTON’S FOLLY The "Big Dig" That Changed America

A color postcard from the 1930s depicts one of several river boats that plied the Hudson in an earlier day. The author’s interest in river history dates back to a day trip on the DeWitt Clinton in 1939.

While the idea began with George Washington, and was always in the back of the mind of each succeeding President, it was not until a New Yorker named DeWitt Clinton came along that anyone dared to do something about it. The idea was to build a canal - a manmade waterway - which would connect New York and the East to the Great Lakes and what was known as the Northwest Territory. There were many reasons to support those who said it either couldn’t be done or the cost would be too high for the young nation to bear. What’s more, it was argued, it couldn’t earn enough to pay for itself in the long run. In 1817, there were no civil engineers in the United States and no School of Engineering from which to draw an alumni with the kind of skills such a monumental task would require. In fact the surveying of the proposed route was carried out by two amateurs, one a Judge, the other a young school teacher who had never touched a surveying tool before the day they started to measure.
The proposed route would begin from the headwaters of the Hudson River near Troy and Albany in upstate New York, and traverse 363 miles of virtual wilderness, including the imposing granite Niagara escarpment, terminating at the pioneer town of Buffalo, and connecting with Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. A seemingly insurmountable engineering challenge arose from the fact that the landmass over which the construction would take place involved a rise of 600 feet. Since the technology of the day could lift water no more than twelve feet, at least 50 locks would have to be engineered, constructed and operated; a daunting feat of masonry enterprise. President Thomas Jefferson had called the whole idea “a little short of madness”.
DeWitt Clinton is an American Original too much overlooked in our history books; a politician who hated party politics, believed firmly in the uniqueness of our constitutional ethic, despised and fought against corruption of any kind, and managed to serve as Mayor of New York City, member of State legislatures, U.S. Senator, candidate for the Presidency, and twice Governor of New York. It was Clinton who convinced the New York Assembly to appropriate 7 million dollars to begin work on the Erie Canal, and who saw work begin at Rome, New York on July 4th, 1817.
Before the project was completed – to everyone’s surprise - nine years later, it would be called “Clinton’s Folly” or simply “Clinton’s Ditch”, and its mentor would be widely derided and vilified, and briefly driven out of office. Everything about the project was remarkable at one level or another, from its grand scale, engineering audacity, and the inventiveness which broke new ground in defeating obstacle after obstacle. Existing natural waterways were used wherever possible, and viaducts were constructed to bridge canyons, creeks and entire towns when necessary.(Some of those viaducts still carry transiting vessels high over busy highways, train tracks and town centers today.) German immigrant stone cutters came in large numbers to construct intricate locks and bridges, and completed sections of the canal were often connected to nearby waterways to support logistics.
Communities which had previously been no more than carriage stops on dusty roads suddenly blossomed into busy centers of enterprise. Even before the canal was completed, its very construction brought about a shift in commerce which was destined to change the face of America. And here, there is a Utah connection. In 1817, Joseph Smith Sr., the father of the Mormon prophet-to-be, left behind a foundering store in New England to seek a better future in the promising land of upper New York, where a tiny town named Palmyra had exploded into prominence thanks to the construction of a key lock in the canal system, and a new access to the inviting farmland nearby. (Lock No. 29 still operates at Palmyra today, providing a 16-foot lift in the New York Canal System.)
On October 26, 1825, The Erie Canal was officially opened. Gov. DeWitt Clinton carried a bucket of Lake Erie water on a barge, emptying it into the Hudson River at Rome. On a return voyage, he carried out the same ceremony in reverse.
The Erie Canal was America’s first “super-highway”, opening up migration to the West, turning mid-America into the “bread-basket” of the world, and establishing a previously-unimposing city called New York as the nation’s and the world’s most important seaport. The canal turned a profit its first year of use, and proved to be a boom to the entire U.S. economy and to usher in a major change in the way Americans saw themselves.
Even though the coming of the railroad and the internal combustion engine would inevitably change the way people and commerce move, a giant step forward in America’s history started out as “Clinton’s Folly”.

Today, the Erie Canal is part of “The New York State Canal System” and is designated a “National Historic Waterway”. Many abandoned locks and sections dot the New York landscape, and have served as a magnet for wanderers like Al Cooper. Lock No. 32 at Pittsford, N.Y. is used mostly by recreational boaters today.

WRITING DOWN HISTORY

Among a number of personal resolutions I made for myself many years ago was a determination to do a better job of writing down the important things that come along from day to day. There is something magical about the act of committing thoughts, ideas and observations to written words. The Scottish poet John Barry once told us that “God gave us the gift of memories that we might have June roses in the ‘November’ of our lives”. The things that are happening to us and around us today are likely to be those memories that bring us moments of pleasure and happiness in our ‘tomorrows’; I have found this to be one of life’s great truths.
My first ancestor to settle in America was named Tristram Coffin. Tristram was one of the original settlers of Nantucket Island – one of six Englishmen who purchased the island from its native inhabitants, and set about making it a self-reliant homeland. Beginning in the year 1659 he and his successors began keeping a record of the important things that happened in their new home. I am lucky enough to own a reproduction of that diary and every now and then I sit down with that thin volume, both because of the education involved in that study and because the very exercise serves to remind me that real history is most often written with a humble pen.
I notice, for instance, that in 1666 the first grist mill went into operation on the island, operated by Peter Folger who – exactly one year later – would father a daughter he would name Abiah, who would become the mother of Benjamin Franklin.
In 1695 – it is recorded – a French privateer anchored off shore and sent a large contingent of men to raid settlers’ houses for food.
1786 was a banner year for Nantucket’s whaling fleet, with 80 vessels leaving for northern waters, usually for cruises lasting for one year or more.
The patriotism of those early New Englanders is reflected in the grim statistics compiled during the course of the Revolutionary War: Between 1776 and 1781, it is recorded that more than 1,600 Nantucketers lost their lives in that conflict. We sometimes lose sight of the cost in lives brought about by that long-ago fight for independence.
The 1810 census revealed that the island’s 6,807 human inhabitants shared space with “332 horses, 15 oxen, 505 cows, 355 swine and about 10,000 sheep”.
The year 1820 saw Daniel Webster coming to Nantucket to try a case in court while far out in the distant Pacific, the hometown ship “Essex” was sunk by a whale, the survivors resorting to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
I find my curiosity aroused by entries which leave untold the “rest of a story”. Take for example this one from the year 1860: “Phoebe Fuller was attacked by Patience Cooper on November 22nd and died on December 12 from her injuries.” Or this 1822 notation: “ The ship ‘Globe’, Cap’t Thomas Worth sailed. During 1823 the crew mutinied, killing Cap’t Worth and three officers. The ship returned to Nantucket Nov. 14th, 1824.”
One of the most curious entries comes in the year 1780: “On May 19, with the wind southwest, rain fell intermittently until 10 o’clock, followed by semi-darkness. About noon the darkness was succeeded by a heavy yellow condition, which continued until mid-afternoon. This became known as the ‘yellow day’”. (The most extensive ever known, covering the entire eastern section of the United States and Canada.)
Flipping through the pages of this “local” diary, I find myself looking at 307 years of history, as seen and recorded through the eyes of succeeding generations of Nantucketers who felt it important to write down the highlights of island life as they saw it, from who was born and who died, to events which are sad, poignant, humorous and always . . . human. And here and there, I run into the name of my 8th great grandfather and his peers and descendants.
And what about that long-ago personal resolution ? I find myself “writing down history” as a way of life.


Tall ships with acres of billowing sails once made northeastern sea ports among the busiest in the world.



Those who settled the towns and villages of New England left behind thousands of country cemeteries in which they “wrote down history” on tablets of quarried stone such as these lichen-covered examples over-looking the nearby Atlantic.

PREPAREDNESS TIP

It is a good time to give some thought to preserving the harvest – whether home-grown or off the store shelf. Potatoes keep best if unwashed and kept in burlap sacks in an environment which is cool, dark and moist. An open container of water nearby will help. Winter squash are another good “keeper”, but keep them cool but dry and not touching each other. Make sure they have a stem attached and are free from wounds or soft spots. Hubbard types are best, but buttercup will keep for a month or two. Acorn and butternut are superb eating but have a limited shelf life. Another option is to cook the squash and freeze it in meal-size quantities. If you are lucky enough to have carrots and parsnips in the ground, leave them there – tops removed and covered with hardware wire and a layer of leaf or hay insulation. They will bring great pleasure all winter long.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP ! Remembering A Legendary WWII Ace

As one who writes often about military history, I try to steer clear of such superlatives as “legendary” for fear of marginalizing the word’s real meaning through over-use or well-intentioned hyperbole. In the case of a now-deceased RAF veteran of the Battle of Britain by the name of Douglas Bader however, I have no such hesitation.
By any measure, Squadron Leader Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader (1910-1982) stands out even among the relatively small group of warriors denominated by Winston Churchill as “The Few”. Born in a suburb of London to a military father who was wounded in WW I and whose postings took his wife Jessie and their family briefly to India, Doug would end up living in South Yorkshire after his father’s death and Jessie’s remarriage. If there was one trait which defined his growing-up years, it was a distaste for authority and a commensurate disdain for doing what others told him to do. Fortunately he seemed always to be able to benefit from the intervention of teachers and friends who recognized his stubborn “can do” attitude and a gift for leadership. His school and college years were marked by an athleticism which led him to excel in Rugby and other physically-demanding sports. He loved fast cars, and eventually discovered aviation.
Graduating from flying cadet training in 1930, Bader was posted to No. 23 Squadron RAF where he quickly attained a reputation as a “daredevil” in the training biplanes of the day, frequently carrying out aerobatic maneuvers at low altitude. On 14, December,1931, while training for the famous Hendon Air Show, he caught a wingtip while attempting a slow roll too close to the ground – probably on a dare. The accident changed his life dramatically, with the amputation of one leg above the knee and the other just below the knee in addition to other serious injuries.. He awakened from a morphine-induced coma to overhear two nurses just outside the door of his hospital room being reminded to speak quietly because “don’t you know there’s a young boy dying in there !” Those words somehow lodged in his mind and sparked a determination inside the consciousness of the 21-year old to beat the odds against survival.
In an RAF hospital at Uxbridge, Bader waged a long and painful battle, eventually being fitted with two prostheses with which he planned to make a full come-back. He discovered that he could descend a stairway faster by draping the artificial devices over his head and carrying out a rapid descent hopping on his now-powerful arms and shoulders. One day at a local Pub, while carrying out such a maneuver, he met a pretty English girl on her way up. It was love at first sight, and Thelma Edwards would become his devoted wife and side-kick in October, 1933. She would be at his side as he taught himself to play golf, falling down after each stroke at first, but never giving up. He in fact became proficient enough to play competitively in later years.
Back in civilian life, Bader never stopped planning his way back into a cockpit and as war clouds carried England and her European allies closer to conflict with Nazi Germany, he began “pulling strings”. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill finally told the Air Chief Marshall to get this “pest” off his back; “at least give him a flight test”, which no one thought he could pass. To the embarrassment of his bosses Bader performed admirably, and on November 27, 1939, eight years after his horrific crash, Douglas Bader, in RAF “blues” was back in the cockpit, where he promptly flew the circuit upside down at 600 feet.
Flying first the Hawker Hurricane, and then his beloved Spitfire Mk V-A, Bader became one of the first “Aces” of the Battle of Britain, with 20 kills, and another 20 either “probables”, shared kills or “damaged”. Leading first a squadron, then an entire wing, he introduced new combat tactics which would become fighter doctrine in England’s air war. He had his initials “DB” painted large on the fuselage of his “Spit” and became known by his radio call-sign “Dogsbody”. Like his German counterpart, Eric Hartmann, (the subject for a future article), Bader believed in getting in real close to the enemy plane before firing his guns. The danger of collision with debris from the victim is thus very high. On at least one occasion, he intentionally severed the rudder of a Messerschmitt with his propeller when he ran out of ammunition for his guns.
On August 9, 1941 while leading his wing on a fighter sweep over occupied France, Bader lost the entire tail section of his Spitfire. When attempting to drop out of the cockpit to escape the falling fighter, his right prosthesis became trapped beneath the rudder pedal. When his chute deployed, he was pulled the rest of the way out, leaving his artificial leg behind. To state that the German soldiers who captured him were speechless is only the beginning of the real-life “Bader Legend”.
In captivity, Bader convinced his captors to permit his friends to parachute a replacement leg to him, at the same time applauding the bomb load they left on the same trip. His escape attempts were constant and an embarrassment to the Germans. While imprisoned at Stalag Luft III, he was befriended by General Adolph Galland, the commander of the entire German Luftwaffe Fighter Command, with whom he remained friends for the rest of his life. (I had a chance to interview Galland along with Battle-of-Britain Ace Robert Stanford-Tuck in 1973 and to gain a rare look into the life and character of Doug Bader.)
Eventually, Bader ended up in a cell in Colditz Castle (Oflag-IC), where the Germans sent the most incorrigible of POWs. Even there, his escape attempts and refusal to follow orders from his guards continued. He was an inspiration to other prisoners, including a friend of mine who was sent there later in the war, having been captured during the Battle of The Bulge. He told of how Bader – who was permitted to make short walks in the nearby countryside – would hide potatoes gleaned from the fields, in his artificial legs to bring back to the under-fed POWs.
In 1976, Douglas Bader, DSO, DSC, COB was knighted and became Sir Douglas Bader, not for his wartime service, but for a lifetime devoted to helping others overcome disabilities. He died of a heart attack on September 5, 1982 at the age of 72. His old enemy and good friend General Adolph Galland was among the mourners at the funeral.
Nearly every RAF base in England, and many towns and villages in that island nation honor his name in some way.

The most often-seen photo of Douglas Bader is this one, standing on the wing of his Hurricane fighter in 1939. He spent much of his life motivating disabled people of all ages to strive mightily, and to NEVER GIVE UP !

CROSSING BORDERS - COMING HOME FROM WAR

The island of Shemya is a tiny piece of volcanic rock at the westernmost tip of the Aleutian Island chain so close to the international dateline that from its rugged shore one can look into tomorrow. The last I heard, fewer than three dozen people are stationed there, but back in 1953 this four-mile- long piece of rock with its two-mile-long runway figured importantly in my life.
Most returning G.I.s from the Korean War could look forward to a long ocean voyage, but the seventeen-hour flight across the vast Pacific’s north polar route in a four-engine DC-6 transport plane was a “gift” from a generous commanding officer. Shemya – the midpoint in that long flight – was little more than a refueling stop, its 10,000-foot long runway originally built in 1943 to facilitate the bombing of Japan. There was little to do for those few hours, the duty station consisting of no more than a half dozen metal Quonset huts, built mostly below ground level because of the foul weather and constant winds. And so I filled the time by walking the rocky fringes of the airfield. I watched the seabirds – gooneys, gannets and gulls working the sea-washed lava shorelines, listened to the sounds the wind made across a tundra-carpeted landscape where nothing taller than a clump of sea oats survived, all the while admiring the almost iridescent blue of the surrounding ocean.
At the time, I thought nothing of this brief interlude; a mere interruption in the 10,000 mile journey home. Only with the passage of time and the coming of an emotional maturity would the real significance of Shemya dawn like a rising sun within me. Life is full of “borders”, but there is no dividing line so profoundly significant as the one separating the life-and-death reality of warfare and that other reality we call HOME.
The returning veteran might think that the PAST can be left behind. It can’t. And that from now on everything will be bright and wonderful. It won’t, entirely. The transition is far more challenging than the hugs and flags of the “home-coming” may seem to portend, no matter how well prepared the welcomee and welcomers may think they are.
Left behind is not only the bad stuff – the sights, sounds, smells and sadness of a grim chapter of life – but the close comradeship anchored in shared experiences which no other associations of a lifetime can quite duplicate; friendships which are as ineffable as they are sad and sweet. I have sometimes tried to explain to school children the conviction that I learned more about love in a few hours spent in a MASH hospital than in any other experience. So intense was the devotion between warriors I saw there that I walked out of the theatre in disgust when the Hollywood movie M*A*S*H first played in all its shallowness.
Different people react in different ways to the surge of adrenaline (epinephrine) released in the human body when in the fight-or-flight mode, but especially in a long deployment where one is subject to trauma repetitively and regularly, the taxing consequences can be long-lasting, even though masked by protective behavior. It has been said that there is no such thing as an “unwounded” combat veteran and I believe this to be true.
I have written before about a friend who survived 35 missions in a WW II B-17 who awoke in the middle of every night screaming, and had to be held by his wife – for nine years afterward. I have several other friends who have lived with an overpowering sense of guilt because they managed to come home while good buddies didn’t. I will never forget the look that came over my wounded father’s face when – 35 years after the particular event took place – he suddenly recalled vividly, and for the first time, the death of a comrade he had witnessed.
Within the past two days I have heard from two east coast veterans, one of whom I never met in person, but shared the Korean experience with, the other an old business friend I haven’t seen in 40 years. In both cases, the connection was immediate, profound and mutual. And unspoken.
As we confront another Veterans’ Day, and at a time when many American men and women in uniform are coming home – sometimes after several combat deployments – I hope all of us who await their return will say “Thank You”, and help where we can to ease their way across that difficult “border”. I know those few hours on a distant piece of rock known as Shemya was an important part of that border crossing for me all those years ago.


A “band of brothers”, tent mates, friends and members of a “special weapons” team, near Chi hyang ri, Korea – 1953. If still living, these old buddies will now be in their late seventies. (Photo by Al Cooper)


Among the unsung heroes of the Korean War, a forward air controller (FAC) flies low and slow while directing artillery fire in the Chorwan Valley campaign. (Al Cooper photo)

THE FORGOTTEN ART OF LETTER-WRITING

“Another letter from your friend!” the smiling postmistress shouts at me while holding aloft an oversize mailing envelope, every square inch of whose outer surface is covered with bold hand writing. This same scenario will repeat itself every three or four weeks, to the smiles and hard-to-hide delight of other patrons of our small-town post office. What they don’t know is that when, at home, I open the colorful envelope, I will find even more bold black felt-pen-scrawled messages inside, both in the form of note papers, and along the margins of random enclosures. Every line and comment will reflect the ebullient love-for-life and well wishes of a senior lady who listens faithfully to my radio program from the family home to which she is largely confined. Not only are her colorful missives a pleasure to receive, but a reminder of a passing generation for whom letter-writing was an everyday way of life.
I most often picture memories of my own mother sitting happily in her favorite corner chair, her reading glasses perched on her nose, and her fountain pen poised over a pad of her best writing paper. Beside her on an end table would be stacks of correspondence from a lifetime of friends just waiting to be re-read, considered again and then thoughtfully responded to. Over an era pockmarked by three wars, the people I loved never allowed time or distance to get in the way of “staying in touch”. What’s more, no letter was “fired off” hurriedly or without seriously answering questions posed in past correspondence. Letter-writing was not a chore to be attended to, but a social responsibility which deserved respect and had its own set of ethical guidelines; every elementary school student was taught and practiced those basic skills.
During World War II, no one had to remind me to make the daily run to the post office, and my heart always skipped a beat when I would catch a glimpse of those red-white-and-blue air mail envelopes waiting behind the glass window. A brother in the South Pacific, another in the Central Pacific, cousins and uncles in Europe and England and in places they weren’t allowed to tell us about; and I would hurry home on flying feet.
Then in my own faraway battleground, I would stand in that circle of anxious buddies waiting for my name to be called from the tailgate of a military 6X6 in that magic moment known as “mail call”, sometimes wondering just which guy would receive a “Dear John” today, or better yet, who might get a box of chocolate chip cookies to share.
One of my favorite writers – Arthur Gordon – tells of an important discovery he made at the time he had to clean out the old Georgia home in which his family had lived for 150 years. He had long marveled at how his ancestors had been able to survive with such grace the bad times which had befallen them following the South’s defeat in the Civil War, when they had lost almost everything and everyone dear to them. In an old chest, he found the letters they had written to each other during those dark days: “have I told you how much you mean to me” he read, or “the way you live has always been an inspiration to others” he quoted. Over and over he would see the words of encouragement and appreciation with which they gifted each other in their letters: “you are an important part of my life, and we all appreciate you so much”. Constantly and sincerely those letters underlined a common theme: “have I mentioned to you how much I love you!”
High on a closet shelf sits a box of business correspondence addressed to my maternal great grandfather in the 1880s and 1890s, the formal pen strokes reflecting an elegant style and a practiced hand. While their content deals with the mundane issues of land transfers, monies owed and paid, and the details of trust agreements, I find something reassuringly honest and comforting in holding them in my hands and revisiting the stories they tell about people I never met, and who lived more than a century ago.
Sitting here in the company of computers, printers, FAX machine, and wondrous technology which is already obsolete, I take refuge in a file cabinet full of hand-written notes and letters whose very touch still have the power to connect me with a world “face book”, “twitter” and “text-messaging” can never quite replace. And I wonder if we have lost something at the heart of human communication.


A faded 1918 letter from the trenches of France, family correspondence date-marked 1880, and an envelope which crossed the country on the first transcontinental airmail flight all join a collection of remembrances written by human hands, and safe from the hazards of “delete” buttons and “e-viruses”.

NORMAN ROCKWELL’S AMERICA

With the assistance of his son Thomas, Rockwell published an autobiography in 1960, for which he painted his famous “Triple Self-Portrait”.

It is something of a “home-coming” each year, as I turn west out of Arlington on old River Road, and wend my way along the world’s most famous stretch of fly-fishing waters to a place where a red covered bridge crosses the Battenkill. There, from a grassy knoll I can enjoy the murmur of the river, the quiet of the southern Vermont countryside, and a view of the nearby white-painted farmhouse which was once home and studio to the artist who – more than any other figure – painted an image of America which continues to remind his countrymen of who we are and how we got this way. It was here where for fourteen of his most inspired and productive years Norman Percevel Rockwell (1894-1978) lived and worked. He was drawn to this pastoral community not just because of its quiet beauty, but because of its unassuming, everyday people. In the ensuing years, more than 200 of those humble country folks – old and young – would find themselves perched on a stool in his studio, and then featured in a magazine or calendar cover to be circulated far and wide. A narrowing handful of those childhood models - now in their golden years - still live here, and I have visited with probably 20 or 30 of them over an extended period of time. In each case, they have told me how their lives were forever touched by this connection. And I know something of how they feel.
Around 1959, the Vermont-based corporation by which I was employed asked Mr. Rockwell to create a painting to serve as the centerpiece of a national advertising campaign. Then living in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the famous artist/illustrator required some persuasion to take on the project, and somehow, I was tapped to play a liaison role in the effort. Part of the challenge was to find the exact likeness he sought to model the story he had decided to portray, and the future of my business career seemed to hang on the success of my mission. That became a longer story than I wish to recite today, but in the end, we found the right subject, the painting was completed, and the full-page result found its way into National Geographic, Saturday Evening Post, and many other national publications. The large original oil still hangs in the company’s corporate headquarters, and the only-known miniature is in front of me as I write.
At a time when so many seem uncertain about our national identity, I call to mind sitting over a quiet lunch with Mr. Rockwell and seeing the sadness he felt at what he lamented as our failure to pass on to a new generation that simple, undisguised love of country he had tried to capture and share with others. He told me of the feelings that overcame him the day he delivered the last of his 321 magazine-cover paintings to the publishers of Saturday Evening Post and the end of a seventeen-year relationship with a dying breed of editors. I can think of no one who worked harder to shape a positive and uplifting view of ourselves as my erstwhile friend who was often cast aside by critics and fellow-artists as a “mere illustrator”.
Norman Rockwell possessed an ability to “see” things that others would pass by. Walking through an industrial Kansas workplace and puffing on his pipe one day, he clasped my arm and, pointing to a worker I knew well (Charlie Rider), asked excitedly “who is that man?” Then searching Charlie’s time-worn craggy face he said “I would like to know his story”. I had the feeling that you could not long hide secrets from this tall, slim American whose eyes had the ability to read faces and hearts. He loved the “genuineness” of “real” people and disdained the artifice and pretense of those we might think of in today’s society as “cool”. I asked him once if he had any favorites among the 4000 works he had produced over the years. Without much hesitation he named “The Four Freedoms” series he completed in 1943 and “Saying Grace”, a 1951 Post cover which happens to be by own favorite Rockwell work.
Norman Rockwell passed away at Stockbridge November 8, 1978 at the age of 84, and I miss him both as a great American who left us better off because of what he gave us, and as a personal inspiration. He was a true “gentleman”. He was honored with our country’s highest civilian honor “The Presidential Medal of Freedom” in 1977, and in a 2001 Sotheby’s auction, his painting “Breaking Home Ties” sold for $15.4 million. Not bad for a “mere illustrator”.


An Al Cooper “treasure” a dedicated studio photo shows Norman Rockwell working on the large original oil painting mentioned in this article.