THE GARDEN FENCE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

As the first large land battles of The “Great War” (World War I) took shape in 1914 on the recently-invaded fields of Flanders, and the armies of the “Allies” prepared to go up against those of Germany and Austria-Hungary – soon to be known as “The Central Powers” – the military experts of the day envisioned masses of mounted cavalry in the thousands, with banners flying and lances deployed easily dislodging the invaders huddling in their earthen trenches. The British, French and Belgian field marshals had failed to give proper thought in their grand-planning to the two weapons which were poised to change the very history of warfare. The machine guns hidden behind concrete bunkers were bad enough, but the most tradition-shattering surprise came in the form of coiled rolls of barbed wire which stopped the assaulting troops cold, cost millions of lives, and rendered mounted cavalry forever obsolete.

            Ironically the thousands of tons of barbed wire being unloaded daily behind the German lines sprang from an American invention which dated back to the day in 1873 when an Illinois farm wife challenged her husband, Joseph F. Glidden, to find a way to keep his livestock out of her garden. In order to make Lucinda Glidden happy, Joseph borrowed some of her hairpins, and began weaving them between two twisting wires. Certain he was onto something, he modified a hand-operated coffee grinder into a moving spool onto which two strands of wire were rotated while sharp bits of metal were inserted with each revolution. In 1874, Glidden was awarded a patent on his “barbed wire” invention, setting off a manufacturing enterprise which would spawn 570 competitors, and make Joseph Glidden a wealthy man.

            Long before barbed wire found its way onto the battlefields of Europe, its appearance in America had changed the way the herds of cattle roaming the “open range” of the west would fit in with the changing landscape and the very use and ownership of land. To the Native American way of thinking fencing was anathema as was private ownership and control of the vast prairies and grazing lands. The very concept of fenced boundaries helped bring about the enmity and conflict that followed.  It can also be argued that barbed wire, (and later the coming of the railroad), brought the age of the cowboy to an end, both consequences far beyond any outcome the humble inventor could have foreseen.

            Framed in a “shadow box” just above my writing desk is a short length of rusted barbed wire, retrieved from one of the world’s most infamous boundaries – the “demilitarized zone” (DMZ) separating Communist North and free South Korea.  It was presented to me by the appreciative Republic of Korea.  I look at it every day, and often think back to a time when my life and the lives of my buddies depended on the coils of “concertina” wire surrounding the tiny piece of battle-scarred soil our tiny unit of Americans occupied. Thank you, Joseph Glidden!

CAMP 18 – A CENTURY OF LUMBER JACK HISTORY

The present day town of Elsie is little more than a small clutch of buildings surrounded by a majestic forest of towering Douglas fir and cedar in northwest Oregon. What gives it honorable mention in my travel journal and photo log is an adjacent tourist attraction known as “Camp 18”, a veritable treasure trove of lumbering history, lovingly assembled over a period of years from old timber camps all over the Northwest by a handful of motivated history buffs dedicated to outfitting and preserving an open-air “museum” recalling an industry and a way of life long departed.

            “Camp 18” strikes a familial chord for me, since my own father – also long departed – grew up in just such a working environment in the years bridging the 19^th and 20^th centuries and preceding World War I which took him out of the tall timber he loved. Even before he was old enough to draw a pay check from the logging companies of the day, he and his twin brother spent their boyhood summers cutting cedar shakes while living “hardscrabble” in a trapper’s cabin deep in the still-primal forests of Washington. I grew up listening to his stories of timber camp life, log jams and train wrecks, where his world was made up of “tree-toppers”, “whistle punks”, mule “skidders” and “river pigs”. By the time I and my three brothers were 9 or 10, we each had our own axe – which we were expected to keep sharp and free of dings – and knew how to hold down one end of a two-man cross cut saw. Once we were ensconced on our own heavily-wooded country place, we also learned how to build a “corduroy” road of split limbs to facilitate the skidding of logs from the hillside to the roadside, a construct known in old loggers’ terms as a “skid row”.  (By happenstance, just such a name was given to an early street in Seattle in honor of its origins but as the class of inhabitants on that thoroughfare went downhill over the years, the denomination “skid row” took on a far different meaning.)

            At the center of the Camp 18 complex stands a 180-foot tall rigging “spar” which immediately calls to mind my father’s deep respect reserved for the “toppers” of his day; a special breed of lumber jacks whose job it was to climb tall trees, trimming off all the branches as they ascended, finally – and courageously – cutting off the very top of the tree as they stood in their climbing stirrups hoping they would not fall with it. The “spar” would then become the derrick and anchor for the hoisting, dragging and loading of logs skidded to within its reach.

            Thinking of all this, I am not convinced that the fact that I live in a home built by hand from squared-off cedar logs harvested from America’s great Northwest is entirely a matter of coincidence.

Photo No. 1     By the time this photo was made in 1905, more than 500,000 men were tied to a culture which both emphasized masculinity and resisted modernization.   (Oregon Historical Society)

 

Photo No. 2     At the center of “Camp 18” and the activities which once took place around it, a hand-trimmed-and-topped spar reaches 180 feet into the Oregon sky.  (Al Cooper)

 

Photo No. 3     In the years before gasoline and diesel engines, and long before chain saws revolutionized the logging industry, “Steam Donkeys” such as this one at Camp “18” were an important source of power. This one, built on skids, could be moved from place to place.  (Al Cooper)

 

Photo No. 4     Whether to feed thirsty “Steam Donkeys” or even locomotives at the end of a rail spur, large quantities of water           had to be stored in laboriously-filled gravity-flow reservoirs such as this one. (Al Cooper)

 

Photo No. 5   With hand-cut notches still intact, an old tool shed/shelter still stands at “Camp 18”.

CHILI PEPPERS – A GIFT FROM AMERICA’S ANCIENTS

  What Columbus and his explorations discovered in the New World was not the gold and silver of their dreams, but a treasure destined to save the world from starvation, or at the very least, a terribly boring diet.  Along with the potato, tomato, the turkey, chocolate, vanilla and a dozen new vegetables and fruits, they took back to Europe a combination which had served the native people of this continent for uncounted generations as their “holy trinity” of core foods: corn, beans and squash. These three wonder-foods are nutritionally rich, life-sustaining and can be preserved from season to season.  Of course all by themselves they can be rather bland and unexciting in the flavor department. But the native people of Mexico and our own southwest had come up with a wonderful solution: enter the chili pepper, members of the capsicum family endowed with a depth of flavor, sweetness and heat which would tickle the world’s pallet forever after. all by themselves

            It was probably a physician named Diego Alvarez Chanca, on Columbus’ 2nd visit in 1493 who was responsible for seeing the potential for medical value in this new plant and who took it back to Spain. It soon found its way to Spanish colonies in India and Portugal (where it was known as pimenta), and quickly became an essential ingredient in indigenous diets as well as a major trade item.

            With a history dating back at least 6,000 years, the very word chili has its origin in the ancient nahuatl language and is a reflection of the Mayan culture and their agriculture.  As I traveled the back roads of Central America some years ago, I reveled in the almost endless variety of beans and peppers on display at open-air street markets, with each area or district giving its name to a particular favorite: thus the jalapeno from Jalapa, the poblano from Puebla, etc.. I also found that nearly every family and household had its own culinary specialty and distinct notions of what was just the right variety of pepper or peppers for that dish. While staying for stretches of several days at a time with the Mejilla family in Puebla, I would come to appreciate the individual argument for each of numerous chili choices, with the wonderful memory of a delicious mole containing seven different kinds of chili pepper (along with raisins, ground peanuts, freshly-made chocolate, and chunks of turkey meat).

            For the modern-day home chef deliberating over the question of if and which chili pepper to use, it is important to understand something of the hotness and flavor peculiarities of each variety, and some of the preparation options worth considering. The “heat” found in a chili is most intense in the seeds and internal ribs – both easy to scrape or wash out if desired. (Keep your fingers away from your eyes when working with really hot specimens.)  A pharmaceutical chemist named Wilbur Scoville, experimenting with the chemical capsacin in 1912, developed a scale for measuring the comparative level of hotness of each member of the capsicum family with the hotter examples assigned a higher number.  Today the “Scoville scale” is well-known to serious cooks and remains invaluable in making culinary decisions. My favorite flavor-enhancer, the Poblano is a relatively-mild 1,000 to 2,000 Scoville units, while the serano which I approach with much greater caution can run as high as 23,000. The habanero – the small, somewhat wrinkled orange chili you will see on most grocery shelves – can score anywhere from 100,000 to 350,000 on Dr. Scoville’s measuring stick, and commands great respect!

            By the way, the naga-bih jolokia – or “ghost pepper” – from the Assam region of India rings the heat bell at more than one million Scoville units: explorers beware!

            Shopping for chili peppers can be somewhat confusing inasmuch as many - maybe even most – supermarkets persist in mislabeling their displays; even those who by their very ethnicity should know better.  For example, my much-cherished Poblano is frequently labeled “Pasilla”, which it is NOT.( And that same Poblano becomes an “Ancho” when it is dried.) What’s more, the real Pasilla is actually a “Chilaca” before it is dried. The much-favored “Chipotle” is in reality, a “Jalapeno” which has been dried and smoked, and sauces made from it have become immensely popular in the kitchens of great chefs.

            I regularly make a Cuban-style black bean soup for which I fire-roast, sweat and peel one fresh Poblano for its rich pepper flavor, and a single fresh jalapeno for its well-balanced heat. Roasting chili peppers over grill flames (along with a handful of freshly-picked Roma tomatoes if you wish), not only brings out an entirely new level of flavors, but adds just the right touch of “smokiness” to the other ingredients in one of the simplest but most ancient of soup combinations. With a dollop of sour cream on top, this time-honored “marriage” is an inexpensive, yet elegant family pleaser.

From left to right: Habanero – very hot;  Serano – medium hot; Jalapeno – light heat.

Highly adaptable, the fresh Poblano – perfect for stuffing in “Relanos”  (above), becomes the Ancho when dried (below).

Often mislabeled, the true Pasilla, long and narrow is shown with the much blockier shaped Ancho/Poblano. One can be substituted for the other in recipes.

LOVE STORIES – PART II “UNTIL TUESDAY”

The bonding that takes place between members of the canine world and their human partners has left its tracks through uncounted centuries of time. Whether as hunter-gatherers, in the tending and herding of livestock, standing guard against all kinds of danger, trekking through snowfields and wild country or merely as unfaltering companions, dogs have been intimate members of human society. In
“Part I” of this series, we considered a dog-human “love story” which had its genesis in a chance meeting. The companionship we will examine today in “Part II” of this series has little to do with “chance” and has ramifications far beyond the heart-warming tale itself.

            For as long as America’s youth have marched off to war, they have come home to us scarred by their experience – often in ways which are not immediately evident or easily treated. I for one believe the adage that says “there is no such thing as an unwounded combat veteran”. Having grown up in the home of a father who carried such wounds, and having added to that my own experiences and those of my close companions in a faraway war, I was deeply affected by this book I can only describe in a fleeting and abbreviated way in these few paragraphs. I can say at the outset that the story told by former U.S. Army Captain Luis Carlos Montalvan under the title “UNTIL TUESDAY” takes its place among my list of

recent “favorites”.

            The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way in which our Military have responded to their demands differ in one important way from nearly all other conflicts, in that our fighting forces have been subjected to numerous and all-too-frequent deployments, some troops returning to combat two, three, four and even five times!  In the deepest days of World War II, this phenomenon did not often occur. Moreover, to a greater extent than ever before (except for the American Revolution), the brunt of the fighting has fallen upon repeatedly-activated National Guard and Reserve units.

            It should not come as a surprise that our returning combatants have often been exposed to both physical and emotional trauma, with neither time nor resources for adequate rest, diagnosis and treatment for what has come to be known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. (The high suicide rate among this segment of our society is just one of many painful consequences.)

            Luis Carlos Montalvan came back from his second tour as a wounded, highly-decorated career Army Captain, his vertebrae damaged beyond repair, his brain traumatized by serious and repeated concussion and his mind addled by exposure to the suffering of Iraqi children he was unable to save from a cruel fate and whose expectant faces he could not erase from a troubled sleep. Along with his PTSD came a severe case of agoraphobia, and a fear of people and places that kept him a prisoner of his tiny Brooklyn apartment and the bottles of booze to which he had surrendered. And that was the way it was until Tuesday.

            “Tuesday” was a Golden Retriever Montalvan was introduced to by an organization known as the Wounded Warrior Project, one of a handful of young dogs trained to be service companions by selected  long term prisoners in New York State’s Penitentiary system – a program called “Puppies Behind Bars”.  Preparing service dogs to be companions for PTSD victims requires about two years of intensive training, and an investment of more than $25,000, even before they meet their potential partners; in this case through a group of dedicated professional trainers with the acronym ECAD. Only then is the individual dog fitted - through a rigorous matching process - to the candidate with whom the final training regimen will begin.

            “Tuesday’s” story is particularly touching, since both “Tuesday” and Luis were “wounded warriors” in their own way, and each needed the other in negotiating challenges worth reading about. It becomes “Tuesday’s” duty to anticipate his partner’s every need, from guiding him through New York’s crowded streets and subways, opening doors and drawers, and bringing him home when memory has flown, to reminding him to take his medications and protecting him when a panic attack is approaching. When Montalvan is accepted into Columbia’s vaunted School of Journalism, it is “Tuesday” who takes him to and from class each day, and it is “Tuesday” who shares the triumph – and a matching cap & gown at graduation.

            Altogether, “UNTIL TUESDAY” is an inspiring love story as well as a reminder to us all to enlarge our personal understanding of the special citizens who live among us – those wounded warriors – who have paid a dear price to fight our battles. And especially should we be accommodating to the presence of service dogs attending to their loving duty.