THE CHRISTMAS JACKET

I suppose everyone has a fragment of personal history which has the power to stand out among that unfolding landscape of people, places, and events we call “life”, for want of a more precise rubric. It has slowly dawned on me over the ever-circling years, that Christmas, 1949 was one of those moments.
For one thing, it was to be the last Christmas which would see all of my family together in the parlor of the Vermont country farm home which so recently had become our “home place”, warmed by a woodstove fueled by chunks of hard maple, cut, split and stacked by our own hands, in front of a glowing fir tree cut from our own property. It was a “good” time; I can think of no hovering cloud of worry or pending twist of destiny to spoil that setting. Then again, I was a high school senior, full of my teenage self, and filled with an innocent contentment with the small world I occupied; challenged at most by occasional outbreaks of teenage acne.
Word had been put out that in addition to some books, my Christmas list contained a description of a much-admired wool jacket, then popular with young hunters my age. It came in both red-and-black and green-and black checkered patterns. My “down-country” Aunt Molly – my mother’s older sister – ended up with the assignment. Unfortunately, Aunt Molly did her shopping among a clutch of upper-end, big-name New York City stores, not at Lamson’s Hardware where anyone would have known what a “Vermont checkered hunting jacket” was.
The long-and-short of it was that I got to display my not-unknown acting skills that Christmas morning, as I lifted from the colorfully-bound box, a finely-made, multi-colored, “kind-of-a-plaid”, half-length jacket. One hundred percent wool. With a zipper no less.
Despite whatever other social deficits may have been mine, I was the product of many years of careful tutoring in “gentlemanly manners” – especially where my mother and her sisters were concerned. I never allowed my disappointment to reveal itself, and dutifully wore the Christmas jacket when called for. Even in front of my pals. At the same time, I dared not buy for myself the prize I had been expecting, so as not to reflect badly on Molly’s thoughtful (though uninspired) selection.
Within a matter of months of that milestone family gathering, my whole world would change: a few days after my seventeenth birthday, I would graduate from high school, war would break out in Korea, and I would be enlisting in the recently-created United States Air Force. Just before Christmas, 1950, I raised my right hand to the square, and prepared for the long train journey from Montpelier, Vermont to San Antonio, Texas. We were told to take with us only the clothing necessary for the trip, and since it was chilly the day of departure, I wore the plaid jacket.
The Air Force Training Command was totally unprepared to deal with the sudden influx of volunteers descending on Lackland Air Force Base at that time. Long-abandoned, tar-paper-covered wooden barracks became our home, and my flight - # 6631 - was turned over to the eager hands of a pair of recently-recalled, former Marine Corps drill instructors, who not only shared the same last name of Larsen, but a determination to make our lives as miserable as possible while no one else was looking ! These guys were the product of a World War II Paris Island culture which is the stuff of legend. From day one, they were in the business of erasing any civilian contamination left clinging to us. “This is a time of war “ we were constantly counseled, “forget about home, forget about Mommy, make up your mind you’re never going to see them again !”
To reinforce that idea, we emptied our wallets of photos of loved ones, and abstained from writing letters for several weeks. AND. . . we were asked to surrender the civilian cloths we had arrived with, for donation to the Salvation Army. “From now on you are required by articles of war to wear only your uniform, so you will have no need for civies”.
And so I said goodbye to my gray, gabardine trousers, blue double-breasted shirt, other accessories and the all-wool, Christmas jacket. At last I was done with it – December, 1950.
It was a warm, lazy blue-sky-kind-of-day in 1955 when I received a mystifying phone call. By then, I was a happy “civilian”, married to my high school sweetheart, and already father of the first of our four children, living back in central Vermont. The call came from the Railway Express agent at the nearby train station, advising me that my “baggage had arrived”.
“Some kind of mistake” I replied. “I am expecting no baggage.”
Well”, the agent went on, “if you are S/Sgt. A.C.Cooper, USAF, AF11206059, it belongs to you; come and get it. There’s no charge.”
Sure enough, that’s what was stenciled on the side of the nearly-empty military barracks bag I found waiting at the terminal. More mystified than ever, I unsnapped the unsecured buckle, and turned over the sack. Out tumbled the clothes I had last seen in an old tarpaper building in Texas more than five years earlier. And last out was the many-colored Christmas jacket, staring up at me accusingly from the platform of the same old depot I had departed from on that great journey which would take me across the world, and into a lifetime still unseen.
I can think of several scenarios that might explain that intrusion into a life I thought I was in charge of, but mostly I didn’t try too hard. Every time we faced a family move, I would run across the old travel sack, and consider getting rid of it. After all, I didn’t plan to wear any of those old duds. And finally, I did get rid of most of it. All except the Christmas jacket.
A few years ago, on Christmas Eve, I pulled the woolen garment out of the closet where it seemed to have found a home of its own, and modeled it for our grandkids, after telling them the story which went with it. Somehow, it became for me, unknowingly, but undeniably, a touchstone – a simple inanimate object of inexplicable value. Holding it lovingly in hands which have not survived the years nearly as well as the old coat, has become a part of every Christmas for the past dozen years.
As I write these lines, my Aunt Molly’s gift hangs just within easy reach, on a closet knob in my writing room. And I realize, looking at it, that this Holiday season will be the 60th since that gathering in the old family farmhouse so long ago, the one which would be the last of its kind; the year of The Christmas Jacket.

THE ERA OF GREAT AIRSHIPS Part II

Perhaps the high point of that “Age of Giant Airships” was attained by the Graf Zeppelin, here seen in its hangar at Friedrichshafen, Germany

One of the lessons of history tells us that every great conflict produces in its wake a period of extraordinary scientific, industrial-commercial, and experimental activity. The years following World War I (The Great War), are no exception. Suddenly, any open country farm field could become a destination for one of the hundreds of second-hand “Jennys” powered by America’s “Liberty” aircraft engines now in the hands veterans and neophytes alike. Aviation had come of age, and the world was fascinated by the possibilities and drama of powered flight.
In the moment of time between 1924 and 1937, much of that fascination was focused on the giant, gas-filled rigid airships born in the creative mind and drafting boards of Count graf von Zeppelin (who had himself died of old age in 1917). They seemed like an answer to the challenge of trans-oceanic travel, offering passengers luxury passage without having to deal with days at sea. In 1929, the Graf Zeppelin flew around the world after establishing regular flights from its home field at Friedrichshafen, Germany to Lakehurst New Jersey, offering those who could afford the fare, 20 sleeping berths, a dining room and other amenities.
With the world’s first flight over the South Pole thrown in for good publicity, the “Graf” introduced regular transatlantic flights from Germany to Rio de Janero, Brazil, carrying up to 91 people on each 6800 mile-long trip, and cementing a close relationship between the two nations. In fact, over its nine-year operational diary, the giant, hydrogen-filled airship completed 590 flights, carrying 34,000 passengers millions of miles without injury to anyone. After its June 18, 1937 flight, it was allowed to quietly retire from service, and was finally broken up in 1940. Not bad, when compared against the very different history of rigid airship operations elsewhere.
The popular belief widely-held even today, is that the airship was doomed from the start because of the flammability of the gas which gave it flight – especially when that gas was in the form of hydrogen; the Hindenburg disaster often used as a reminder. What is now known is that it was the experimental surface paint which was the flashpoint that May day at Lakehurst. In truth, fire was not the greatest menace to LTA operations, nor was it America’s unwillingness to sell non-flammable helium the reason that the Germans didn’t have it. Airship design and operations was by its nature a very expensive undertaking even before filling the internal gas bags. Helium was heavier than hydrogen, and was a thousand times more expensive per cubic foot.
Actually a look at America’s experience with rigid airships brings us to the greater weakness waiting in the promising skies over planet earth.
ZR-1 Shenandoah: Broke apart in a storm front over Ohio, Sept. 1925 -14 died
ZR-2 Built for the U.S. in England. Broke up and crashed over Hull, U.K.
ZRS-4 Akron: Wrecked in storm off New Jersey coast, Apr.1933 – 73 died
ZRS-5 Macon: Damaged by storm, sank in Pacific off Pt. Sur, Cal. Feb. 1935 – 2 died
And then there was the world-wide attention brought to the famous British introduction of a new, cutting-edge design launched as the R-101, at the time the largest man-made object ever to be sent aloft. On its first, and heavily-publicized trip from London to India, it somehow managed to fly into the ground near Allons, France in a nighttime storm, October 4, 1930, where it burned. 48 died. There were 8 survivors.
It is worth noting that the U.S.S. Macon successfully served as a “mother ship”, launching and retrieving five pursuit airplanes from hangers slung along its underside. Another Navy dirigible, the U.S.S. Los Angeles avoided mishap, and was decommissioned in June, 1932 in good condition.
A “side bar” story to all of the above, involves the conflict which was going on at the time between the Army and the Navy over the question of which arm of the service should be home to a full-fledged air force. General Billy Mitchell, the most vocal officer in this debate took the occasion of the repeated Navy airship disasters to criticize Admiral Moffett and naval aviation itself for the mismanagement of the program. It was a public comment of his that led eventually to his famous court marshal.
It is doubtful we will ever again see those kinds of giants in the sky, but it is heartening to see one of those Goodyear blimps filming sporting events every now and then, and to wish I hadn’t lost –over the moves of a lifetime – a tube of ping pong balls which had crossed the Atlantic on the Graf Zeppelin.

THE ERA OF GREAT AIRSHIPS

It was a gray morning, that first Thursday in May, as a group of neighborhood friends gathered with me and my brothers in the expansive front yard of our New Jersey home. I was only four years old at the time, but the excitement of the moment has never been diminished by the passage of time in my memory.
Evidence that our vigil had not been in vain came first not from anything we could see or hear, but from a vibration that caused the ground beneath our feet to tremble. Next came the sound, and the cause of that resonance, the slow heavy beat of five powerful Daimler-Benz 16-cylinder diesels. It seemed forever before the bulbous, silver nose of the great airship came into view, just over the roofs of nearby homes, flying much lower than we had expected. Even the grown-ups around me exclaimed in wonder as little by little the full extent of the massive craft came into view. Living where we did, the sight of both rigid airships and their non-rigid and smaller cousins, the blimps, were not unknown. After all, Lakehurst, with its docking station was just a few miles away. But this was different. The Hindenburg was nearly the length of three football fields, and got its lift from more than 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen gas.
If a close-up view of the history-making giant wasn’t enough to stir emotions among onlookers, the red and black swastika which adorned the port tail fin was. While the Nazi symbol was a common image in newsreels and magazines, there was something discomforting about seeing it so boldly displayed in New Jersey’s peaceful skies, and over America, isolated from the gathering storm clouds of Europe. What we didn’t know, and couldn’t see from our vantage point, was that the opposite – starboard – side of the tail fin was painted differently – featuring the traditional and less menacing German national tri-colors. Wishing not to fan negative sentiments among New York City’s Jewish population, the Hindenburg crew was instructed to make its planned circling of the city so that mainly the politically-correct side of the ship would be seen by the waving crowds.
Growing up in a home with two much older brothers who were enthusiastic followers of human events and voracious readers, I was exposed daily to conversations, discussions and debates on a wide range of subjects. My father was a wounded veteran of The Great War, and a great-great uncle who lived with us had been born when the Battle of Gettysburg was being fought. Only years later would I be able to look back and realize that our home was a dynamic “class room” and I was an eager student. Which might help to explain why all these years after, I am sill captivated by moments of history. . . and the era of Great Airships.
Germany had been a world leader in aviation technology, and the giant “lighter-than-air” dirigibles were born there. German “Zeppelins” – named for Count Graf von Zeppelin, their pioneering “godfather” had actually dropped bombs on London in WW I. Paradoxically, the whole concept of a military role for aviation was spawned on the battlefields of America’s Civil War, where tethered gas-filled balloons had been used by the Union Army’s Signal Corps to observe enemy defensive strategies. President Lincoln had given permission for Prussian officers to travel with the Army of The Potomac as observers.
That May day, as enthusiastic crowds stood marveling at the sight of the mighty Hindenburg pass overhead, we might be excused for thinking that we were seeing a preview of the future, despite the fact that our own introduction to airship technology had been disastrous, with the crashes of all but one of our own rigid airships, as had England and Italy with theirs. But here was something more hopeful, a modern wonder capable of carrying transatlantic passengers between continents in great comfort and luxury in a matter of mere hours. After all, Germany’s famous Graf Zeppelin had already done that very thing for nine successful years, without so much as a personal injury to anyone.
What we didn’t know at that moment was that within hours, the Hindenburg would meet with disaster just miles from where we stood, and the era of the Great Airships would die with it.

The mighty Hindenburg bursts into flames at the mooring mast at Lakehurst N.J., on May 6, 1937, effectively ending the Era of Great Airships.

A GIFT FROM THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

Two American originals – cranberries and maple syrup – combine to make this double - crust pie a reminder of the first Thanksgiving. Recipe Below.

The story is still told among descendants of the Algonquin People of a young boy who aspired to become a holy man – a Shaman. He set for himself a spiritual quest to prove himself in the eyes of the Great Creator. He decided to bury himself partially in the deep mud of a swamp, and there to concentrate his mind and being solely on the desire of his heart. Although it was still fall, there occurred an unexpected early freeze, and he found himself frozen fast in place there in the wilderness of a northern bog. It is said that he would have died of starvation had not a miracle come, in the shape of a strange white dove, carrying something in its beak. From the sky, a red berry was dropped so that the lad could reach it. There followed many flights of the beautiful white bird, bringing berry after berry, until his friends were able to find and rescue the boy from the swamp.
It is thought that in these mercy flights, the dove must have accidentally dropped some of the magic berries, because the following spring, new and never-seen-before plants began to establish themselves in the swampy country which The People frequented in their canoes, producing increasingly generous harvests of the tart but wondrous berries. The fruit became an important ingredient in the pemmican which helped to insure food during the long winter months, and was the centerpiece of their harvest celebrations each fall.
And so when the newly arrived people with pale skins and blue eyes invited the Indians to a feast they held the year after their first arrival, Samoset and his friends introduced the Pilgrims to dishes made from the wild berries gleaned from the nearby ponds and swamps. The puddings and maple-flavored treats sparkling with the red fruit would become an annual reminder to the Pilgrims and their offspring, of that first enduring celebration.
The plant which produced the red berries was called Ibimi by the local Indians, but was renamed by the colonists who noted that when in the flowering stage, the waving blooms looked like the heads of the cranes who frequented the same waterways. And so they began calling them crane berries, a word which over the years was shortened to cranberries.
Today, cranberries are a major crop in several northern states, with Wisconsin and Massachusetts producing the lion’s share of the seven million barrels which will end up on holiday dinner tables across the country this year. They will be made into jellies, relishes, salads and fruit compotes in great variety, with a preponderance slipping out of cans bearing the Ocean Spray logo. At our southern Utah family Thanksgiving table, they will show up in a double-crusted baked pie, whose filling is based largely upon an old Algonquian recipe worth sharing.
Combine in a non-reactive saucepan: 3 cups fresh cranberries – 1 cup sugar – 1 cup maple syrup – 2 Tbs. flour – ½ cup boiling water – 1 cup currant raisins – 3 Tbs. grated orange peel – and a pinch of salt. Bring mixture to a simmer, stirring until the berries begin to pop open. Stir in 2 Tbs. of butter before setting it aside to cool while preparing your favorite pie crust recipe for a two-crust pie. Set your oven to 375 degrees. Line a 9-inch pie dish with the bottom crust and fill with the cranberry mixture. Cut the top crust into strips and lay a latticework over the top before crimping the edges and sprinkling some sugar crystals over all. Bake for 50 – 60 minutes, or until the crust is just lightly browned.
I can’t vouch for the authenticity of all Native American myth-stories, but whenever asked about the origin of the North American cranberry, I prefer to go with the version that features a magical white dove.

Here the annual harvest is underway at a New Jersey cranberry farm. More than 40,000 acres of cranberry bogs are cultivated across six states.

CRYSTALS MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD – THE STORY OF SALT Part II

Viewed from outer space, earth stands out from its sister planets in our Sun’s solar system as “the blue planet”, an appellation explained by the oceans which cover three fourths of the surface of our circling globe. Most of that watery expanse is saline by nature, and in earlier eons of time was probably even more so. Beneath the land itself can be found vast deposits of that same salt, left behind by receding oceans and evaporating lakes and seas as mountains were born and died, and time reshaped ancient landscapes. When placed within the context of a global environment which is friendly to life at every level, that salty element must be viewed as one of the greatest gifts of all.
In the previous article which introduced the subject, we looked at the pages of human history upon which salt has written its own particular passages. In this article, we will look at it more from the viewpoint of here and now. Where does our salt come from ? How do we make use of it ? Why do we care ? And . . . are there some things which might cause us to appreciate it just a little bit more ?
Most of the salt which flows into our commercial and personal lives today is mined from those underground deposits before being processed and refined to one extent or another. A very large percentage of mined salt finds its way into something like 14,000 different end uses – some of it, for example going unto our roadways to combat winter ice and snow, and into the water-softeners in many homes and businesses. In fact, some of the technology which laid the foundation for oil drilling and the mining of coal and mineral resources in modern times was born in long-ago salt mines.
In many parts of the world, salt is still produced the old fashioned way, by evaporating the water containing it, either by heating it mechanically, or allowing it to dry by solar action. Around Israel’s Dead Sea and Utah’s Great Salt Lake, solar evaporating ponds are major enterprises.
In the typical American kitchen, there resides somewhere near at hand a familiar round cylindrical box containing the basic family supply of what we call table salt. Chances are it is the same box our parents and grandparents had in their pantries bearing a “girl with an umbrella” label that was introduced back in 1914. Salt that did not stick together in clumps was a new idea then, made possible by an ingredient such as calcium silicate. And, because hypothyroidism was commonplace across much of the country bringing with it goiter growths in many sufferers, sodium iodide was added. The “iodized” table salt we take so much for granted today compensated for diets which were often deficient in naturally occurring iodine.
Because I have a love of food history, and spend a lot of time in our own family kitchen, I take a special interest in the whole wide world of culinary diversity available to the home chef today. The round blue box described above is ever-present, but I seldom make use of it because there are so many alternatives to choose among. Just as we grind our table pepper from selected whole peppercorns, we salt our food from large sized crystals of natural sea salt in a similar table-top grinder. My personal favorite is an additive-free, solar-dried sea salt from New Zealand.
It is said that the human tongue has 10,000 taste pores which are capable of distinguishing between five different areas of taste. The rear of the tongue, along with the soft portion of the upper palate are where we register saltiness. Sea salt has a more vibrant taste than most mined salt, and it takes less of it to achieve the desired effect on food combinations. On the other hand, the pink-tinted crystals mined from 200 feet beneath Redmond, Utah contain traces of associated minerals which give it not only its distinctive color, but a tantalizing flavor not found in any other salt.
Last week we enjoyed a dinner revolving around a flat brisket cut of beef which had been marinated overnight, then slow-baked in a low-temperature oven for five hours. Before marinating, I treated the meat with a coating of kosher salt to draw out some of the moisture, making it more receptive to the barbecue flavoring in the marinade. This process is known as “koshering”, which gives its name to the very sharp-edged salt crystals which work in a way other types of salt cannot duplicate. Thus, kosher salt has a special place on our pantry shelf, right alongside the non-iodized pickling salt we use for everything from dill or sweet pickles, to the corned beef roasts we cure in stone crocks every fall.
We take comfort from the knowledge that in the event of a prolonged power outage, our supply of preserving salt, vinegar and pickling spices assures us of a method of giving the contents of our inoperative freezers a second life. In such an instance, we might ourselves look upon these salty crystals as being “worth their weight in gold.”

Home made kosher dills ready to take their place beside peppery sauerkraut, corned beef and smoked salmon.
Photo by Al Cooper

A HANDFUL OF CRYSTALS MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD

Photo Caption: A hand-built stone cairn and nesting kettles near the town of
Seaside, Oregon mark the salt works which made the survival
of the Lewis & Clark Expedition possible.


It’s found in every home, can be purchased for pennies today, and is so commonly available that its historic value is all but lost in a long-forgotten history. Yet armies have clashed, kingdoms have risen and fallen, Empires lived and died because of it; merchant fleets been launched to trade in it, and distant shores explored in search of it. Access to it had the power to dramatically change human culture and the everyday life of people and even to influence the movement and settlement of entire populations.
Roman soldiers were paid in it, many illnesses were treated with it, and the liturgy of most religions were dependent upon it. And perhaps more important than all of this, the human family was finally able to store animal protein from one season to another, undertake travel over great distances with safe and reliable food supplies and extend the level of health and the duration of life itself.
Chemists identify it as sodium chloride, but to all of us, it is known merely as salt. It is so much a part of life, that to say it is taken for granted is a magnificent example of “understatement”. So universal was its value, that Roman soldiers of Ceasar’s legions were happy to be paid in it wherever they served. It’s probably from that humble beginning that we still use the word “salary”, or sometimes wonder if a person’s work ethic is “worth his salt”. Words such as “savor” and “salvation” are anchored to the old Latin “salarium”,and references to salt abound in the Bible.
Salt’s ability to preserve food, even more than its desirability as a flavor enhancer undergirded its world-wide value. In the days of the late Roman Empire, highways of commerce connected salt beds to the outside world: caravans made up of as many as 40,000 camels regularly crossed the 400 miles of Sahara emptiness to major trade centers such as Timbuktu. Small towns blessed with salt beds often became large cities, such as Saltzburg in Austria, and Cadiz in Spain, of which it was said “if there was no salt there would be no Cadiz”. Across England, towns near salt deposits were distinguished with the suffix “-wich”, thus places such as Norwich, Middlewich and Nantwich are accorded special mention in the Domesday Book. In pioneer America, salty creek banks were gathering places for wild game, and later for cattle, leaving a legacy of settlements with names like Beaver Lick and Lick Fork, Kentucky, and Big Bone Lick and Lick Lizard, North Carolina.
Long before the arrival of the Mayflower Pilgrims and other colonists on the New England shores, American coastal waters were well-known to European sailors. The abundance of fish on the Grand Banks and the Atlantic Shelf became a magnet to seafarers, and expeditions from Spain, England, France and Portugal had been tapping that largesse for more than a hundred years before the Plymouth Colony. (And that’s not counting Viking visits which probably date back to the year 1000 AD.) The weeks-long voyage from Cape Cod back to their home ports absolutely depended on the preservation of the cargo. The growth of the fishing industry was tied directly to, and in fact resulted from, the availability of salt. Religious practices also played a part. During the 16th and 17th centuries, European Catholics observed more than 120 “fast days” per year – that is days on which fish was the main dish. Result: Salt and codfish became one universally-recognized food staple. . . “salt cod”.
It is no accident that the first attempts at colonization along our northern shores were English. British fishermen were denied easy access to the salt flowing from Cadiz, and so were forced to come ashore in order to dry or smoke their catch, thereby making friends with native Americans, and learning of the conifer and oak forests which covered the land. It can be said that salt is a principle reason why the dominant language and culture of this country became English rather than French or Spanish.
I thought of all this on a recent visit to the Northwest, and a seaside stone cairn near Astoria, Oregon at the opposite end of the continent we call home. On January 2nd, 1806, a small group of men of the Lewis and Clark expedition were dispatched to that very spot for the purpose of establishing a salt works, where they could trap and boil down seawater. Not only had members of that “Corps of Discovery” become restive over the blandness of the food they had been forced to live on, but a fresh supply of salt was absolutely essential for the preservation of game and fish on the return trek ahead of them. Diary entries tell us that they celebrated the production of “three bushels” of salt in that encampment, at a moment in history when the rest of the nation did not even know if the expedition was still alive. As they had to ancient peoples, those glistening crystals must have seemed to them more precious than gold.

Note: The November 4th column of HOME COUNTRY will conclude this story of Salt, examining some of the 14,000 ways in which we make use of it today.

OCTOBER FESTIVALS ACROSS AMERICA

An Al Cooper Culinary Wish List


Oyster Festival – St. Mary’s County, Leonardtown, MD Oyster & Corn Chowder
National Lima Bean Festival – Cape May, NJ Key Lima Pie
Abalone Festival – Mendocino, CA – By reservation only; 1st 450; 7 months in advance
Louisiana Yambilee – Opolousas, LA - Praline-glazed yams (sweet potatoes galore !)
Apple Butter Festival – Morgan County, W.VA – a group activity w/ copper kettles & paddles
Peanut Butter Festival – Brundridge, ALA -where peanut butter was born – peanut butter chiffon pie
Gumbo Festival – Bridge City, LA – 2000 gallons, many varieties(crawfish, andouille,shrimp, chick)
Deutsch Country Days – Marthasville, MO – Kettle-cooked beef a specialty
Black Walnut Festival – Spenser, WVA-Civil war artillery shoot-out !1000 lb ox roast ;50,000 guests

Apple Butter Making

KEEPING THE FAITH ON MATINICUS ROCK

Twin lighthouses on Matinicus Rock with newer buildings as they would have appeared
prior to 1924 when the north light was dismantled. Double lights gave mariners an
unquestionable navigational reference point.

In the days before iron hulls and steam power, great sailing ships with acres of billowing sails and creaming wakes plied the busy sea lanes between the northeast coast of America and the ports of Europe along with countless smaller inter-coastal vessels in even greater numbers. Theirs’ was a dangerous calling. They had to deal not only with the stormy Atlantic and its unpredictable winds and currents, but a coastline studded with uncounted islands, ragged and invisible reefs and shoals, and bays and estuaries which were thought to be the very birthplace of nature’s densest fogs. By the 1850s, more than 320 lighthouses dotted the approaches to eastern seaports as aids to navigation, and by the end of that century more than 1200 would circle the nation.
It has been estimated that if the jagged coastlines of Maine and its 4000 islands were turned into a straight line, it would be equal to the entire circumference of the continental United States. Taking into the equation the busy seaports of Portland, Camden, Rockland and Boston, it is not surprising that 80 of those lighthouses were Maine structures, many of them situated on lonely, often remote offshore islands. Long before President Franklin Roosevelt gave the job to the U.S. Coast Guard in the 1930s, the construction, staffing and management of all those flashing beacons was the responsibility of the highly politicized, underfunded and somewhat unwieldy U.S. Lighthouse Service. The lights themselves were tended 24 hours a day by “keepers” who generally had their family to assist them. In fact these “lighthouse families” were expected not only to tend the finicky coal-oil-fueled lamps, keep the wicks trimmed, the crystal lenses polished, and the premises ship shape, but to be basically food self-sufficient in their “spare time”. They had to gather scarce firewood for cooking and heat, raise gardens if possible, and keep their storm-lashed buildings in good repair. And for island families, birthing, doctoring and home-schooling children went with the other jobs.
The most distant, remote, and stormy of all those postings was the station on Matinicus Rock, a 32-acre piece of wave-washed granite 25 miles out in the Atlantic from the port of Rockland, Maine. Its twin lights marked the approaches to the wide expanse of Penobscot Bay and for many, their first glimpse of America. Nary a blade of grass had a chance to grow on a wind-whipped landscape whose high point was only forty feet above high tide level on a good day. And on “The Rock”, there weren’t many “good” days. In fact landing a boat there was a tricky business any time, and meant riding a carefully-timed wave top onto a ramp
Abbie Burgess, herself an “island girl” born on Matinicus Island (five miles away from Matinicus Rock), was 14 when her father, Samuel Burgess became keeper on the Rock in 1853. Abbie, two younger siblings, and her invalid mother Thankful moved into the small dwelling perched between the two stone light towers and set up house keeping. Abbie quickly learned all the chores associated with the lights, and became her father’s assistant. Each light was powered by twelve lamps, whose hunger was fueled by the poorly-refined and dirty-burning oil which had to be carried up the narrow circling stairs from the oil house each day. Abbie’s one outside interest was her small clutch of chickens, which kept the family
in eggs and brought her much pleasure.
In January, 1856, Abbie was left alone to take care of the duties when her father had to launch his small boat and sail off to Rockland for medical supplies for his wife. On January 19th, a great storm struck leaving Samuel stuck ashore and 17-year old Abbie facing monster waves which covered almost the entire island. Anticipating worse, she moved her invalid mother and younger sisters, and all but one of her beloved chickens into one of the stone light towers before the keeper’s house was washed off its foundations and into the sea. It would be four storm-lashed weeks before her father could return, during which time Abbie kept both lights burning and her family intact. The 60 yards of separation between the two light towers must have seemed like a mile for the seventeen-year-old girl timing each trip to those moments when the action of an overwhelming sea permitted a sprint over the wet and slippery rocks.
In 1857, there was a repeat performance: Samuel had been forced ashore when the Lighthouse Service supply ship failed to come on schedule leaving the family without food. This time the storm and rough seas prevented a landing for three weeks, by which time Abbie was rationing her family to one egg and one cup of cornmeal mush each per day, while making the dangerous trip between oil house and lantern rooms to keep the lights burning once again.
In 1861, Abraham Lincoln became president and – as was his prerogative – he named Captain John Grant, a good friend, to be the new keeper at Matinicus Rock Light. (One has to wonder just how much of a “favor” such a posting really was !) Grant, together with his son and assistant Isaac knew nothing about their new trade, so Samuel and Abbie stayed on a while to teach them. Soon a romance blossomed between Abbie and Isaac, and a year later they were married. (A lighthouse keeper had the same marriage authority as a ship’s captain, so it can be assumed the couple never even had to leave The Rock, even then.) Together, Isaac and Abbie served that light until 1875, before being assigned to another island light. Four of their children were born on The Rock, and an infant named Bessie is buried there.
Altogether, Abbie spent 40 years of her life serving Maine’s lights and is still celebrated today as the “heroin of the lighthouse service”. For a home-schooled island girl who had seldom spent any meaningful time on the mainland, Abbie Burgess Grant reflected her commitment to personal education in the journals she kept over all the years of her all-too-brief life. In 1891 she penned these words: “Some times I think the time is not far distant when I shall climb these lighthouse stairs no more. It has almost seemed to me that the light was part of my life. When we had care of the old lard-oil lamps on Matinicus Rock, they were more difficult to tend than these at Whitehead.
Many nights I have watched the lights my part of the night, then could not sleep the rest of the night, thinking nervously what might happen should the lights fail.
In all these years I always put the lamps in order in the morning, and I lit them at sunset. These old lamps. . . on Matinicus Rock . . . I often dream of them. When I dream of them it always seems to me that I have been away a long while, and I am hurrying toward the Rock to light the lamps there before sunset. . . I feel a great deal more worried in my dreams than when I am awake.
I wonder if the care of the lighthouse will follow my soul after it has left this worn-out body ! If ever I have a gravestone, I would like it in the form of a lighthouse or beacon.”
Abbie died in 1892 at the age of 53., still keeping the faith.
In October, 1996, my nearly- lifelong interest in her story led me to a small woodland cemetery at Spruce Head, Maine, and to a small cast aluminum monument in the shape of a lighthouse. It was also my pleasure to correspond with her granddaughter, then living in Florida.
Matinicus Rock lights were 1st built of wood in 1827 on the orders of President John Quincy Adams. It was rebuilt from stone as twin lights in 1857. The north light was decommissioned in 1924, and the south light was automated in 1983. Today, The Rock is owned by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and protected as one of the last nesting grounds of puffins in the U.S. A small marble tablet marks the rocky burial site of Bessie Grant, age 2 years.


A self-confessed lighthouse aficionado, Al Cooper managed to visit Cape Blanco light at the westernmost tip of the continental U.S. and West Quoddy Head light at the easternmost tip within a matter of weeks one year. His favorite is Pemaquid Point light at New Harbor, Maine pictured above.

Photo by Al Cooper

AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN FIRESTORM

The summer of 1871 had been a hot and dry one for the people of the north-central states, and as October arrived, there was still no sign of the rain residents had been praying for since the almost-forgotten storms of May. Rivers and lakes were low and even the creeks and farm ponds were drying up. Men who had returned from the battlefields of the Civil War just five years earlier watched their crops wither and their woodlands turn to tinder.
The same railroads which carried northern timber to other markets, and brought needed goods back to the country boomtowns of northern Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois, depended upon locomotives whose fireboxes in turn burned huge quantities of wood and coal. No doubt many of the wild fires which kept local fire fighters busy that first week of the harvest month originated from the sparks tossed from the stacks of passing trains, while the most famous of those blazes may - or may not - have been caused by the sheer cussedness of Katherine O’Leary’s cow.
Whatever the real cause, the fire that broke out in a residential neighborhood of Illinois’ largest city on October 8th would forever after define the word disaster for Americans, and “The Great Chicago Fire” would dominate newspaper headlines for days and weeks after the actual event. Four square miles of downtown Chicago would burn and as many as 250 would die.
Ironically, just 240 miles to the north, at almost the same hour, a series of grass fires, pushed by the winds of an advancing cold front from the west, joined together to begin a march on the quiet village of Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Families gathering in their parlors for a peaceful Sunday evening or preparing for an early bedtime heard a terrible sound – like the noise of many thunders. Most would never have a chance to tell anyone else what those moments had been like, because by morning the town of Peshtigo no longer existed, and its 2200 people had been wiped away as if by a mighty hand.
Historians differ as to the exact number of deaths, in part because official records were also burned, but also because many of those who lived or worked there at the time had no surviving relatives who might even have known of their presence. More than 1200 were known by name, while 350 were buried in one mass grave. Because of the tornadic winds which fed the inferno, blowing over buildings, rail cars, and everything in their path, attempt at escape sent victims into wells, ponds and the Peshtigo river, where they were either drowned or cooked to death by water which boiled. Virtually every standing building, including the world’s largest wood ware factory was gone by ten o’clock that night !
Before it was done with its work, the most terrible fire in terms of human life, in America’s history would consume 2400 square miles – twice the area of Rhode Island – jumping the Peshtigo river itself as well as the waters of Green Bay. The rains finally came . . . the next day.
The conditions which brought about this nearly-forgotten disaster – “lost” against the overpowering media coverage of the Chicago event – have been much-studied, and are even known as “The Peshtigo Paradigm”. The writer, William Lutz, in his book “Firestorm at Peshtigo. . . “ says “A firestorm is called nature’s nuclear explosion. Here’s a wall of flame , a mile high, five miles wide, traveling 90 to 100 miles an hour, hotter than a crematorium, turning sand into glass.”
In the course of planning possible bombing strategies during World War II, the allies based the devastating 1000 plane incendiary raids against Dresden and Hamburg on just such studies. Those raids, as well as the fire-bombing of Tokyo matched anything done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The city of Peshtigo was rebuilt and incorporated in 1903 and is today the second largest city in Marinette County. Its citizens honor those who died, and the community’s connection with history in a Fire Cemetery and Museum.


Today, thousands of visitors each year tour the Peshtigo Fire Museum
and nearby cemetery as reminders of the Great Fire time forgot.

CLONES, CORN LAWS AND THE GREAT DYING

The nineteenth century was a time of commercial awakening across much of Europe, poised on the cusp of the coming industrial revolution as was the New World across the Atlantic. Mercantilism was more and more the “engine” which drove social, economic and political change, especially for Great Britain whose empire stretched around the globe. Government in London, increasingly sensitive to the threat of competition from abroad, and pressed by a Parliament dominated by landed gentry with strong ties to the profits of “empire”, began to pass protectionist laws designed to keep profits close to home; that is in the hands of Englishmen.
To the consternation of a minority of more farsighted legislators, a series of laws crafted to curb the importation of low-priced grains from America and elsewhere came into being. They came to be known as “The Corn Laws”, and they (and ironically their later repeal) would eventually lead directly to one of the greatest human tragedies of modern times.
On a map of the world, England and Ireland appear to be close neighbors, sharing not only a piece of nearly-contiguous geography, but a commonality in genealogy and governance. In the early 1800s though, English lawmakers saw Ireland as little more than an island of troublesome, largely-uneducated “foreigners” whose exploding population was a growing concern. They were largely tenant farmers who worked the land which was owned by non-resident English gentry; often no more than vassals to distant employers who often, had never even visited Ireland.
Traditionally, Irish farm folks had based their diet on bread and cereal made from wheat, oats, barley and what was known then as Indian corn. The grains had to be imported however, and when it was discovered that potatoes grew well in the usually unfriendly Irish soil and climate, a major dietary shift took place. By the 1830s, a typical Irish working man consumed 14 pounds of potatoes each day. As unappealing as such a limited choice might seem to our society today, it worked well for that time and place, especially because each family could grow most of their own year’s food supply themselves. And of course it was easy on the purse strings of the “land lords”.
The type of potato which had become the almost-universal choice was known as the “lumper”, a variety with South American roots which had proved itself well adapted to Ireland’s growing conditions. Because potatoes are reproduced vegetatively – that is by dividing the sprouts from one generation to the next – each potato and its progeny are actually genetic clones of their parents with identical strengths and vulnerabilities.
In September of 1845, a wind and fog-driven fungus blew its way into southern Ireland, and the leaves of potato plants began to turn black and rot. There is some irony in the fact that the resulting blight and its deadly consequences probably originated at the docks of England, where the fateful organism arrived in the holds of ships being unloaded there. It is generally agreed by plant scientists that the airborne fungus was phytophtora infestans, but all the people of Ireland knew was that the same mysterious disease that blackened the leaves had also infected the tubers they dug; if not already rotting, they shriveled and died before they could be bagged and stored.
The scourge quickly spread across the country, devastating much of the 1845 harvest, and in the following year. . . there would be no harvest. British Prime Minister Bobby Peel and John Edward Trevelyan, the man he put in charge of the “Irish problem” never really understood the magnitude of the “perfect storm” confronting that island people, and the “solutions” they put in place only made matters worse. Repealing the corn laws and making “Indian corn” available to the starving people might have been a logical step, but the decision to make the victims pay for that grain with money they did not have, and to assume that they would somehow be able to make the rock-hard kernels edible without the necessary equipment to double-grind it only made matters worse. Scurvy, rickettsia and other diseases resulted from the absence of vitamin C in the new impoverished diet and people did not have the strength to work. Unhappy landlords seeing their profits dwindle began evicting Irish families from their tenant-based lodgings by the thousand, creating a self-perpetuating road to poverty for much of the population. Some in Parliament saw all this as evidence that Ireland did not deserve nationhood, and that somehow, a reduction in population as thousands died in the streets of Dublin and other cities might actually serve a useful purpose. Some even declared it to be “divine intervention.
1847 came to be known as the year of “The Great Dying”, with more than one million deaths from starvation and the disease epidemic which followed.
In the wake of what the world came to know as The Irish Potato Famine, the outward migration of Irish citizens was born: By 1861, more than two million Irish immigrants arrived in Boston and New York, with others landing in Canada and Australia. Much of the bitterness which to this day colors the relationship between the British and the Irish can be traced to that piece of unfortunate history.
Hidden in all the more dramatic aspects of this tragic chapter is the lesson in biological diversity we should all have learned. The importance of maintaining a large gene pool of agricultural food crops as opposed to a dependence on a narrow spectrum of plant species is often overlooked in a trend toward “high production-high profit” agri-business.

Stuffed Cabbage

STUFFED CABBAGE

Outer leaves of cabbage (preferably Savoy type)
steamed until just tender enough to fold

Stuffing
¾ lb very lean hamburger
1 cup stewed paste tomatoes
1 cup corn kernels
1 medium onion finely chopped
1 bell pepper finely chopped
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup bread crumbs (home-made toast best)
2-3 cloves garlic minced
½ cup dry red wine (optional)
Sharp cheddar cheese for grating
Salt & pepper

1 cup favorite tomato sauce for top dressing

1 deep baking pan, 9X13 or similar capacity



In a large skillet sauté the onion, garlic and pepper just until softened before adding the hamburger. Make sure the meat is well separated and starting to cook , deglazing the skillet with the red wine as you go. Add the paste tomatoes, breaking them up with a fork to blend with the meat mixture. Allow some of the moisture to cook away, and add the corn. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool while steaming the cabbage leaves.
When the meat mixture is cool enough to handle, add the beaten egg and bread crumbs together with salt and pepper while the oven is preheating to about 350 degrees.
Make a cup-shaped container with two overlapping cooked cabbage leaves and fill with stuffing. Proportion out so that you have approximately 6 filled units to fill the baking dish rather tightly. Pour your favorite tomato sauce over the top. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake at 350 for about one hour. Then remove the foil, grate some cheddar cheese over each bundle and return to the oven for five minutes before serving.

A VIEW OF HISTORY FROM KLOOTCHY CREEK

Klootchy Creek, Oregon is one of the last remaining places
in the U.S, where remnants of a primal forest still stand.


When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark finally gazed upon what they thought was the Pacific ocean in 1805, they met not only the Clatsop people and a culture that reached back many centuries, but a primal forest that was even older. Crossing over the wide mouth of the Columbia river into what is today coastal Oregon, they encountered a maritime forest primeval dominated by trees whose canopy reached nearly twenty stories in height, sheltering a list of smaller flora and fauna which would soon fill their notebooks of new discoveries.
In an environment moistened by frequent rain and fog, gladdened by the warmth of Pacific ocean currents, and made fertile by an eon of decomposing forest duff, giant redwoods, Douglas fir, red cedar, hemlocks and Sitka spruce dwarfed what undergrowth managed to thrive in their protective shadows; the sound of an iron axe-stroke had not yet broken that green and fecund silence.
It is not known whether or not members of the Lewis and Clark expedition were led by their new Clatsop Indian friends to the area known today by the name of a pioneering family who later settled there, but Klootchy Creek is home to one of the “wonders” of this remarkable forest kingdom they noted in their meticulously-written journals.
About the time King John of England was bowing to the pressure of his lords and peers and signing what would be known as “the Great Charter” – or Magna Carta - a single seed dropped by a neighboring parent-tree was sending down tiny roots into a “nursery” of mossy undergrowth in that fertile and undiscovered corner of northern Oregon. The Sitka spruce whose genesis anchored it to that piece of human history would be a still-gangly infant when Marco Polo set out on his journey to Kublai Khan around 1260 AD, and not much taller when the Black Plague was decimating Europe’s human population.
When, in 1431, her jealous fellow-Frenchmen were preparing to burn Jeanne d’Arc on a stake driven into the ground at Rouen, the young tree was gaining meters in height, and beginning to take sunlight away from nearby competing growth, and it would be marking its 480th birthday as an Italian sailor and navigator named Christofori Columbus was setting sail on a voyage of discovery which would change the world.
When a group of mostly-English religious puritans sailed from Plymouth on a vessel known as a “sweet ship” because of the lingering ambiance of the Madeira wine cargo it usually carried, but remembered by its official name “Mayflower”, the spruce at Klootchy Creek was a gentle giant of middle age, and already over 150 feet in height.
The Sitka spruce puts on altitude faster than girth, but by the time the U.S. Constitution is taking shape during the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787, the once princely forest upstart is a portly king with a base diameter of many feet, having weathered nearly six centuries of hurricane force winds and nature’s ever-changing temperament.
In the decades to follow, Beethoven will write his fifth symphony, the “Star Spangled Banner” will fly over Baltimore’s Ft. McHenry, and a tall, spare, bearded president will dedicate a cemetery at a previously little-known crossroads village called Gettysburg. Two world wars will be fought, and world maps will be redrawn several times. And at Klootchy Creek, Oregon a tree which has been oblivious to it all will reach its zenith.
Before a lightning strike and a hurricane brought about its recent demise, the great Sitka spruce at Klootchy Creek had attained a height of 216 feet, a circumference of 56 feet, and an umbrella-like spread of 93 feet at its lofty top. A giant among giants, it became not only the largest tree in the state of Oregon where it is honored as a “Heritage Tree”, but undoubtedly the largest Sitka spruce in America.
Standing in this tree’s shadow today has been, for me, a journey through time.

REMEMBERING AMERICA’S ICE AGE

During the so-called “dog days” of high summer, we find ourselves either pulling ice cubes from those “old fashioned” and obstinate trays or – more likely¬ - listening to the clanking of the automatic ice maker churn out another batch, with increasing frequency. Among those modern conveniences we tend to take for granted is that device our mothers or grandmothers called the electric automatic refrigerator. It was not until the early 1930s that many American families plugged in that first white porcelain beauty with the prominent cylindrical compressor proudly enthroned on its top, and marveled at that first tray of ice cubes.
For three hundred years, America’s refrigeration – such as it was – depended upon a vast network of ponds, lakes and impounded rivers stretching across the northern tier of states, from which a veritable army of ice cutters worked each winter to harvest, store and distribute the nation’s supply of ice. This cumbersome business was streamlined somewhat in the 1820s when the “Boston Ice King”, Frederic Tudor hired an inventor named Nathaniel Wyeth. Wyeth developed a horse-drawn ice cutter and other ingenious machinery which reduced the cost of harvesting ice from 30 cents to ten cents per ton. By 1860, more than 97,000 tons of ice was being loaded on ships in Boston harbor each year to keep America’s food provisions fresh. Stored in large insulated ice sheds, huge blocks of ice fed the nation’s burgeoning food industry, spurred on by German beer brewing techniques which came here in the 1840s, as well as by a growing national “institution” known as ice cream.
Somewhere in the kitchen or pantry of virtually every dwelling place resided a piece of furniture known as an “ice box”, within whose insulated walls sat a chunk of ice, its drip, drip, drip the heartbeat of the kitchen. In small communities and large cities alike, the distinctive sound of the ice man’s ringing bell greeted every day. Driving a colorful wagon, or later, a Model “T” truck, leaving a trail of dripping melt water and shouting children behind him, the “ice man” delivered large chunks of crystal-cold ice from door to door. Clad in a leather apron and carrying a set of iron ice tongs, he became a fixture of everyday life, willing to share broken pieces of ice with the clamoring neighborhood kids of summer. In a city the size of Philadelphia, for instance, a single company employed 800 “ice men” at the delivery end of an industry tied to the need for household refrigeration, and completing a chain going back to a frozen pond months before and many miles away.
Even though my family owned a glistening new GE electric automatic refrigerator by the time I came along, some of the folks in our neighborhood didn’t. I looked forward to the coming of the ice man as much as anyone; the novelty of sucking on a “free” piece of melting ice was as exciting as accompanying him on his short cut across our yard on his rounds. (He also sold kerosene and coal for cook stoves from the back of his noisy chain-drive truck.) And perhaps most important, there was something reassuring about the predictability of an institution which I was too young to see as one more part of daily life which was dying.
Two other reminders of America’s ice age come to mind as each year we return to a stretch of coastal Maine which is close to our hearts. At the tip of a peninsula we frequent, near the village of South Bristol stand the restored Thompson Ice House, and the equipment and adjacent pond associated with an enterprise which prospered there for more than a century. We always stop there and walk around, admiring the beauty of the spot, and reflecting on the dedication of the local folks who care enough about the history of their community to have undertaken such an extensive restoration to honor their past, and who maintain it so beautifully. Each year – in the heart of winter – they even shovel the snow from the surface of the pond, fire up the old ice cutter, and re-enact an activity which connects them – for a few days at least - with a proud past. The ice which once came from that small pond supported the herring industry of the state of Maine, and even found its way to foreign ports.
And then . . . there comes our fifty-year “love affair” with the Luther Little and the Hesper, two double-masted schooners which once carried ice from Maine’s ponds bound for the ports of the world, including Africa; part of a fleet of specially-insulated sailing ships which became known far and wide. The two ice queens had ended their active sailing days tied up in the Sheepscot River in the village of Wiscasset, and there they began the final drift toward sleep which saw the wooden hulks sink deeper and deeper into the mud; each year of our visit finding them leaning more and more, then losing their masts, and fading away like the proverbial old soldier. It was both sad and proud. They were icons, their image even being the official emblem of the town, from the city hall to the doors of police cruisers. One expected that even in death, their oak skeletons would still be there to welcome visitors and gladden residents. Then. . . one day in the mid-1990s, after a stormy night on the Sheepscot, whoa ! They were both gone ! Not so much as a spar left floating to mark what should have been the grave spot.
We still love Wiscasset, but we will never get used to passing Red’s Hot Dog Shack on the left before turning our eyes to the right where for half of our lifetimes the Luther and the Hesper kept watch. Like the cargoes of ice they once carried, they have melted into history.

A GATHERING OF EAGLES

At mid-day on June 18, 1940, just as Big Ben began to toll the hour, Winston Churchill stood before a packed House of Commons to make an ominous announcement: “ . . . the battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin”.
It had taken the Nazi military machine only six weeks to roll over and defeat a well-armed but recumbent and politically-fractured France. With the miracle of Dunkirk, England had just barely escaped Hitler’s blitzkrieg by evacuating more than 338,000 of its now-precious Expeditionary Force from that country’s beaches at the very last minute. Now, with virtually all of western Europe, Norway, Denmark, Holland and the low countries under the Nazi heel, England stood alone. Across the English channel, the Germans were preparing troops, equipment and landing barges for Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Great Britain. Having made a temporary ally out of Russia, and with the United States committed to the policy of non-intervention, Hitler felt certain that even if Churchill was so foolish as to ignore the offer of a negotiated armistice, England would fall easily.
The only remaining obstacle to Sea Lion was English air power; air superiority had to be established before any invasion and occupation could hope to succeed. On August 1, 1940, Hitler signed the famous Directive No. 17, a fuehrer order directing the Luftwaffe to destroy the Royal Air Force, in the air and on the ground. What was about to take place was the first major military campaign in history to take place entirely in the air, and the outcome of this epic battle could change world history itself.
Herman Goring’s Luftwaffe had every reason to anticipate a swift and easy victory. They flew the Messerschmitt bf 109 fighter, one of the world’s best fighting aircraft, powered by a Daimler-Benz 12 cylinder liquid-cooled and fuel-injected engine which had proved itself in two years of aerial combat. Besides that, they possessed a cadre of pilots who had gained valuable combat experience in the Spanish Civil war and in the conquest of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and France. What was even more important, their numbers dwarfed England’s first-line fighter force nearly five to one.
In the early days of 1940, England’s RAF Fighter Command was made up largely of young pilots from college flying clubs, and a smattering of eager students from the volunteer reserves. On the other hand, they flew the new Supermarine Spitfire and the older but more numerous Hawker Hurricane, both powered by the Rolls Royce 12 cylinder liquid-cooled aircraft engine destined to become a mainstay of the Allied air war. (One of the technological ironies of this “stand-off” was that while the German engines functioned on the more-readily available 85 octane fuel, the British had designed an engine requiring 100 octane aviation fuel which could only be obtained from the United States.)
As the world watched the approach of this seemingly-lopsided campaign, a quiet but important recruiting effort was underway: experienced and highly-motivated pilots from many countries were arriving in London, ready to suit up in the distinctive dark blue uniform of The Royal Air Force. For obvious reasons, men from Commonwealth countries, such as New Zealand, Canada, Australia and South Africa were among the first, totaling nearly 300. The largest – and most-under-publicized – contingent of BofB volunteers came from Poland and Czechoslovakia; experienced and dedicated fighter pilots who had escaped the Nazi take-over after having flown courageously against a superior enemy force. Although their numbers represented a relatively small percentage of the 2900 airmen who flew for the allies during the period of July 10 to October 31, 1940, their “kill” ratio was extraordinary. In fact a Polish pilot was the leading ace of the battle, and the all-Polish Kosciuszki squadron accounted for 125 enemy planes shot down.
In America in 1940, the isolationist sentiment ran high, and a Neutrality Act passed by a pacifist Congress threatened stiff penalties for any U.S. citizen who sought to fight for a “belligerent” nation. Consequences for offenders included automatic loss of citizenship, a ten thousand dollar fine and imprisonment for up to five years. Despite this, seven American airmen flew for the RAF in The Battle of Britain. The story of one of these – Olympic Champion Billy Fiske – was featured in an earlier column (see NEIGHBORHOODS May 20, 2009). Fiske was also the first American to die in WW II.
While Fiske was wealthy, famous, well-educated and had close ties to England, a trio of Americans who also became “Eagles” were cut from a different mold and followed a far more twisty course. Twenty-three-year old Eugene “Red” Tobin had learned to fly in the 1930s, and had been lucky enough to glam onto a flying job near his Los Angeles home ferrying movie stars and VIPs around for MGM studios. Listening to the news, he felt certain the United States would ultimately be forced to fight Hitler’s Germany. Besides that, he dreamed of flying the world’s fastest fighting plane, the Spitfire. En route to Canada, he met another train passenger with the same idea. Born in Connecticut to white Russian immigrant parents, Andrew Mammedoff was a broad-shouldered bear of a man who had made his living flying acrobatics and “barnstorming” across the country in his own plane.
Mamedoff and Tobin would soon join up with Vernon “Shorty” Keough, a 29-year-old licensed civilian pilot from Brooklyn, N.Y. who was also a parachutist who had made 500 jumps at circuses and road shows. Together the three would suffer the agonies of cramped quarters on storm-tossed tramp freighters, a welcome in the form of gun fire as they tried to fly for the foundering French Air Force, and a last-minute escape across the channel to England.
On August 8, 1940, the three determined Americans would finally join RAF Squadron No. 609 at Middle Wallop and would fly their beloved Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. On September 18th, the three would be posted as “founding” members of No. 71 Squadron, the original “Eagle Squadron”, along with fellow American Art Donahue.
Pilot Officer Vernon “Shorty” Keough was killed in action on Feb. 15, 1941 on convoy protection duty. His body was not recovered. He was 29 years old.
Pilot Officer Eugene Tobin was killed in combat with a flight of Me-109s on Sept. 18, 1941. In his belongings, they found a total of about twenty-eight cents. He took with him the secret knowledge of his fatal case of lupus disease rather than endanger his flying career. He was 24 years old.
Pilot Officer Andrew Mamedoff was killed in action near the Isle of Man on Oct. 8, 1941. His body was never found. He was 29 years old. He was the first Jewish American pilot to fight against the Nazis in World War II.
In October and November 1941, No. 71 “Eagle Squadron” downed more enemy planes than any other unit of the entire Royal Air Force Fighter Command.
Fewer than half of all those allied pilots who helped to save England in the Battle of Britain survived the war. This column is dedicated to those “FEW” and the thousands who followed.


Lord, hold them in thy mighty hand
Above the ocean and the land
Like Wings of eagles mounting high
Along the pathways of the sky



Receiving their squadron pins are Andy Mamedoff, left
"Red" Tobin, rear, and 4'11" "Shorty" Keough who sat on
two cushions to fly his Spitfire fighter.

THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK THAT NEVER HAPPENED
By Al Cooper

When waves of carrier-based planes of Japan=s Imperial Navy appeared over a sleepy Hawaii early on the morning of December 7, 1941 ushering the U.S.A. into World War II, they were carrying out an ingenious war plan conceived by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. The premise behind Yamamoto=s plan (which he had only reluctantly proposed to his nation=s military leaders), was that by crippling the U.S. Pacific fleet and thus opening up our pacific allies and the west coast itself to attack, a largely isolationist America would quickly seek to negotiate a peace in accord with Imperial Japan=s plans for a AGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere@. He stressed his conviction that for his plan to work, the mission must be carried out in absolute secrecy, and the destruction of the Pearl Harbor facility and our Pacific fleet must be complete. To this end Admiral Chuichi Nagumo the operational commander was instructed to launch a second attack after rearming and refueling the planes from the first two attack waves.
Entire books have been written around the question of why Nagumo failed to launch the second attack, especially when he knew the crucial U.S. carriers were not present in the anchorage as believed. Of even greater import to America=s ability to recover quickly was the failure of the Japanese attackers to destroy the gigantic fuel reserves and dry dock repair facilities which were left virtually untouched. In Nagumo=s defense, wildly exaggerated claims of destruction by the returning aviators, the fact that his pilots were untrained in the nighttime landings the second sortie would require, and his fear that the Amissing@ U.S. carriers might show up and destroy his unprotected fleet at any time seemed to dictate the wisdom of withdrawal.
In actual case, Yamamoto=s grim predictions came to pass. Despite six months of absolute domination everywhere the rising sun flag was planted, the tide began to turn against Japan with Midway, Coral Sea and a series of air/sea engagements in which the forces of Imperial Japan were met by many of those same ships which had supposedly been destroyed at Pearl Harbor, and which had been raised Afrom the dead@ to fight again in one of the greatest engineering feats in world history. But there is another - seldom-told - story.
Realizing that the Pearl Harbor mission had fallen short of its goal, an equally ingenious plan unfolded in the far reaches of the northwest Pacific within two months of the December 7th foray.
(Here, it is worth noting that one of America=s great failures of the Pacific War was to totally underestimate the genius of Japan=s war-making industry, particularly in the area of aviation technology, the legendary Mitsubishi AZero@fighter plane being but one example.)
Accompanied by a Zero float-plane, a Kawanishi H8K Emily flying boat approaches the WW II fortress of Rabaul harbor in the southwest PacificFrom a seaplane base somewhere in the Marshal Islands, tons of bombs and torpedoes were loaded on three Kawanishi flying boats. Designated the H8K by the Japanese Navy, this remarkable airplane came to be known as theAEmily@ by American pilots, in keeping with the doctrine of giving male names to enemy fighters, and female names to bombers and transports. With a wing span of 125 feet and a flying range of more than 4000 miles at an altitude of nearly 30,000 feet, this four-engine amphibian was capable of carrying a sixteen thousand pound payload at speeds close to 300 mph. Out of respect for its two canons and at least four machine guns, it was usually viewed only from a safe distance by Allied pilots who called it the AFlying Porcupine@.
On March 4th, 1942 two (some accounts say three started out) Emily flying boats headed for Hawaii to finish the job Nagumo had started with such fanfare. Even with their amazing range, they needed to refuel for such a round trip, and so a rendezvous with two submarines, the I-15 and I-19, each carrying ten tons of aviation fuel at a remote atoll known as French Frigate Shoals was organized. A third submarine - I-26 - accompanied them as protection and back-up, while I-23 was stationed ten miles south of Pearl Harbor with a radio beacon and rescue capabilities.
Alas for the Empire of Japan, after extraordinary planning and coordination, the two flying boats arrived at the appointed place and time to find the entire Hawaiian Islands socked in by weather.
A second try was made two months later, but by that time, U.S. Navy code breakers were onto the French Frigate Shoals submarine station, and that effort too was thwarted. All part of the Pearl Harbor attack that never happened.

CAPTURING SUMMER IN A JAR

From glowing cling peaches to corn-and-bean
succotash, each jar is filled with bits of summer
and pieces of tradition.

Some of my earliest and most pleasant boyhood memories had their genesis in one particular corner of the cellar which ran under the hundred-and-fifty-year-old home place. My father had built a storage area made up of glass-fronted shelves salvaged from some previous location, and it was behind those hinged doors that my mother stored the bounty of woods, orchards and gardens – the provender which would grace our table during the cold weather months of winter. One of my great pleasures was to make my way to that corner, and count the jars of “canned” tomatoes, corn, beans, beets, fruit, pickles and relishes my mother had carefully lined up there. Some of my favorites were the tall quart jars of wild blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and huckleberries I had helped to pick myself – each jar just the right size to make one of Mom’s prized pies.
Behind each of those bail-lidded Ball jars was a story: the green tree snake I met up with picking huckleberries in a Jersey swamp; the smell of kerosene into which I dropped hundreds of Japanese beetles from our concord grape vines, the sheer labor of turning the crank on the food chopper from which poured the minced ingredients of Mom’s famous pepper relish, and the arm itch I always suffered from picking green beans and their yellow-wax cousins; the surprise rain storm which caught us when harvesting blueberries in the pine barrens, and my father’s devotion to Stone tomatoes, Country Gentleman sweet corn, and Early Wakefield cabbage; and then there was the salt shaker he carried in his back pocket for “sampling” good things from the garden as we picked.
In our extended family today, the rich chili sauce my mother taught me to make is every bit as much of a mainstay as it was in the household over whose kitchen she presided seventy years ago.
The ethic of “home canning” which is so much an American institution actually had its birth on the other side of the Atlantic. During the Napoleonic wars, France experienced widespread food shortages, especially during the winter months when even the traditional grains and other dry staples the world had long depended on became scarce. In 1791 the French government offered a prize of 1200 francs to anyone who could come up with a method of preserving otherwise perishable foods from season to season. Around 1809 an inventive citizen by the name of Nicholas Appert discovered that by heating fresh garden vegetables and fruit to various high temperatures before sealing them tightly in suitable containers, spoilage could be greatly delayed or halted. His experiments caught the attention of Peter Durant who patented the process in England in 1810. Neither Appert or Durant had any idea why this method worked; it remained for Louis Pasteur to discover what was first called “the germ theory”, finally identifying bacteria, yeast and mold organisms as the culprits which for tens of thousands of years had limited the possibilities of intra-seasonal food preservation.
At first the search for the “suitable container” led down several paths: earthenware crocks and jugs sealed with paper and wax; small-mouth bottles capped by hard-to-find corks of various sizes or tin cans with lids soldered into place. In fact it was a 26-year-old New Jersey tinsmith named John Landis Mason who came up with the idea of a threaded glass container, to which a metal cap with matching threads could be screwed down over a rubber gasket making an airtight seal. Here at last was a viable commercial procedure which could be duplicated in the home kitchen. Patented in 1858, the famous “Mason Jar” would revolutionize the science and practice of food preservation and lead to a succession of improvements and challengers. Mason’s main competition came in 1882 from Henry W. Putnam’s “Lightning jar” which featured a wire bail securing a glass cap over a rubber ring, a system which allowed the jar to exhaust air during the heating process, and yet be firmly tightened by depressing the loosened bail immediately afterward.
In 1885 the Ball brothers began manufacturing their line of canning jars, destined to become one of the two most well-known and long-lasting brand houses, turning out first bail lid jars, and then mason types. In 1903, with nothing behind him but $100.of borrowed capital and a deep religious faith, Alexander H. Kerr established his glass company in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, introducing a whole new concept with his two-piece cap and lid sealing system on the traditional Mason jar foundation. Despite the fact that over the years there have been more than 400 jar manufacturers serving America’s army of home canners, Ball and Kerr (now owned by a single corporation), remain the dominant names in a field which claims a one hundred year history and en epic which has seen an estimated 150 billion jars produced.
The popularity of home canning received a big boost with the advent of World War I, and a gigantic impact from the Great Depression years of the 20s and 30s, reaching an all-time high with Pearl Harbor and the food rationing spawned by the Second World War. During the 1940s, it is believed that up to 60% of America’s fresh and preserved perishable food came from home gardens and canning kitchens.
Today, at a time when some of the same economic issues face us, I take some comfort from requests from our grandkids to teach them the nearly-forgotten art of home canning. Meanwhile, I get the same thrill I felt as a kid each time we open a jar of last year’s corn relish. Now . . . if I could only find a patch of wild huckleberries.

Antique canning jars from a personal collection
reflect one hundred years of preserving history.
(Blue glass indicates age & silica sand origins.)

APPRECIATING FINE CHEESE

Here is a freshly-cut wedge of aged Dutch Gouda as the center piece of a luncheon plate featuring fresh figs, strawberries, grapes, apple slices and home-made whole-grain bread.

As the seasons change from spring to summer and from late summer to fall, a time-honored ritual is played out in Switzerland’s dairy country as the milking herds are moved, first from the barns and fields of the low country to the high pastures of flower-covered grass, and then back again before the snows of winter. Leading each procession is a special cow known as the Herrkuh, whose neck bell rings more loudly, and with a different tune than those of all the other herd members. The honor which goes with that clarion leadership role is further underlined by the hand-decorated leather strap, festooned with folk art and strung around her neck, and from which the bell bearing its distinctive number is suspended. In many villages that springtime procession will be preceded by a parade in which the Herrkuh is led through town bedecked in wreaths of flowers. It is also traditional to retire that number, and hang the bell-and-collar in an honored place on the barn wall when that animal dies.
When I sit down to a repast, at the center of which reclines a wedge of Swiss Emmentaler, nutty Gruyere, or an aromatic cube of raclette, I cannot help but reflect on the pride in tradition and passion for perfection which lies behind the road to my table that piece of dairy history has traveled.
I know of a French affineur and cheese-buyer, named Denis Prevent who travels between the mountain farms of Savoie regularly, searching for fresh farmstead-made cheese to stock the curing shelves of his cheese cave and, finally, his retail shop in Chambery. He looks for farms with south-facing pastures, whose sun-warmed wild flowers will add high flavor and color to the milk coming from the local herd. His grandfather, born in 1860, did the same thing, with a horse-drawn cart. Knowledgeable wholesale buyers from the U.S. and other countries have learned to seek out people like Denis who add one more key link in that international road to our dining pleasure.
I think back to the proprietor of a small-village country store in central Vermont, who took the time to explain to a teen-age farm kid why he ordered his huge wheels of Cabot Co-op cheddar by month and pasture number. “The best flavor”, he said,“comes from the summer clover grown in pasture No. 14”. That neighboring farm kid has never forgotten that random experience and a lesson in staying “connected” with the food traditions which dine with us at our tables.
High on my list of things to do this year, is a visit to Rockhill Farm and Creamery in Utah’s Cache County where a new chapter in artisanal cheese-making is going on. There Pete Schropp and Jennifer Hines are turning out some truly great hand-crafted cheeses from their small herd of six spoiled Brown Swiss cows – one forty-gallon batch at a time. In the meantime, I have already enjoyed sampling their Apple-smoked, and Lightly-buzzed offerings.
As promised in a previous column, here are a few recommendations for getting the most out of fine cheese.
• Always bring cheese up to room temperature before serving.
• When possible, buy your cheese from a monger who will cut your wedge from a
wheel.
• Between uses, rewrap the cheese tightly in new, clean plastic wrap for
refrigeration.
• Freezing is extremely harmful to cheese.
• With a bread accompaniment, choose a bread which matches the cheese.
The same advice applies when choosing a wine beverage.
• Natural companions for a cheese plate include slices of pear, apple,
strawberries,figs, dates, or a variety of olives. A dipping sauce of olive
oil and balsamic vinegar for fruit & bread goes well.

As one well-known chef has said, “cheese is the purest and most romantic link between humans and the earth.” I only wish I had said it first. !

ENJOYING THE BIRDS OF SUMMER

All during the cool days of late winter and early spring, we are treated to the gallantry of gaudy, red male finches, parading their avian testosterone in feats of vainglorious acrobatics above our rear deck. Below, their female audience busy themselves at the two hanging feeders overflowing with black oil sunflower seeds, feigning either a planned indifference or outright disdain for all the aerial foolishness going on. The finches come, seemingly by the hundreds, far outnumbering the juncos, sparrows and noisy red wing blackbirds who vie for our daily handouts, as we watch from our grandstand seats.
Because we overlook both a river and a pond, the coming and going of seasonal waterfowl is a constant in our observing hours, and it is not unusual for the latter to play host to more than forty or fifty Canada geese; and ducks in the hundreds. Now and again a pair of snow geese will overnight with us, seeming to fit right in. Three pair of great blue herons nest and raise young in our tall grove of cottonwoods each year, and pose for us on one leg apiece in their patient waiting game in the pond’s shallows.
Red-tail hawks and an occasional kestrel patrol all this activity, just in case they spot some easy pickings, and they favor the power pole in our back yard as a gazing gallery, a spot which also appeals to a barn owl we love to see and hear. Twice this spring we admired a pair of golden eagles who glided by us at house level as well as a single bald cousin.
At least one pair of geese we kept an eye on this spring, chose not to nest near the water, but on a high rocky hill where their young sang a noisy chorus at every take-off and landing by their food-bearing parents. We watched in amazement early one morning as a parade of two adults and seven baby geese picked their way down the hill, across our backyard, over rocky barriers and through the tall grass of an irrigated field to the safety of the water – and the launching of their first family swim.
With the arrival of summer, the picture changes, and so does the palette of nature’s colors. Bluebirds, swallows, fly catchers and swifts cruise the sage country on one side of our house, and yellow-headed and Brewer’s blackbirds join the ground crew under our finch feeders. Ever since the first of May, our two hummingbird feeders will have been under constant assault by first dozens, then hundreds of starved black throats, broad-tails and the occasional “lost” rufous. But. . . those busy hummingbirds no longer have an exclusive claim on all that hand-mixed nectar. About three years ago, some “wandering” orioles discovered our sweet shop, and apparently marked us on their built-in GPS system. To be exact, one pair of hooded orioles and another belonging to the Bullock’s race stopped by and did a taste test. They and their growing progeny are now our summer regulars, and between the two colonies we are probably feeding a dozen of these wondrously-colorful members of the blackbird family.
At one time, all orioles were labeled as “Baltimore orioles”, to which was later added a group known as “Northern” orioles. Because their ranges are subject both to change and overlapping, there have emerged the two races we see here in the southwest. Except for the Lazuli bunting and the western tanager, I believe our two oriole visitors are about the most beautiful of all American song birds. They bring an eyeful of delight to our back window. Along with their usual fare of insects and seeds, we are happy to supply their built-in sweet tooth with the nectar they love.
As well as a great sense of color, Nature also has a sense of humor, and proof of that is embodied in a big bird, who seldom resorts to flight, has been known to “knock” on our sliding glass door, and enjoys coming to watch the antics of our hummingbirds (hungrily and with malice aforethought) almost daily. So, along with a photo of one of our cherished orioles, I am including a shot of our favorite roadrunner “The Beeper”.



Al welcomes audience call-ins during his weekly radio program Provident Living – Home & Country heard each Monday at 4:00 PM on KSUB (590), Cedar City.