Perhaps the most notable character to inhabit the 1900s desert West was “Cactus Ed” Abbey, who died a few years before we took the first of our many trips to the Southwest. We loved what he saw and worried about its sustainability as well, but we were, sort of, part of the problem. Abbey worried… Continue reading On “Cactus Ed”
Review of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’, The General in His Labyrinth
I meant to read this book many years ago, but never got around to it. In a way, I am glad of that, as it resonates more, I think, the older you get. I came away acknowledging that the author really deserved his Nobel Prize for Literature. The novel, The General in his Labyrinth is… Continue reading Review of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’, The General in His Labyrinth
The Medium of Writing and Dunbar’s Number
Writing provides a way to transmit messages accurately into the future, but it also has the side-effect of increasing social cohesion by homogenizing and stabilizing a ruling class, as well as by distinguishing one society from another. The medium of writing, according to the late Marshall McLuhan, has a greater effect simply by just being… Continue reading The Medium of Writing and Dunbar’s Number
The Unlucky Inventor
The oils from different coals require different treatment. The oils of Albert coal (ashphaltum) [New Brunswick, Canada], Boghead coal [Scotland] and Breckenridge coal [Kentucky] are easily purified, while the oils from ordinary American, English and Scotch cannels, require more skill….The author has made more than 2000 experiments in reference to the manufacture and purification of… Continue reading The Unlucky Inventor
Involuntary Servitude
There is a notion, common in human history, that it is acceptable to force some people to labor for their sustenance alone, while others make use of the difference between the value of the forced laborers’ production and their sustenance. Reasons for justifying this involuntary servitude include national necessity, the fate of captives in war,… Continue reading Involuntary Servitude
Annie Wittenmyer
I ran across this tale while researching Annie Wittenmyer’s life in Iowa for my The Yankee Road trilogy. It is an interesting glimpse into army life in the American Civil War 160 years ago. Extract from: Annie Wittenmyer, UNDER THE GUNS: A WOMAN'S REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR, Boston: Stillings, 1895. A WOMAN WOUNDED IN BATTLE,… Continue reading Annie Wittenmyer
Retailing “Yankee Notions”
Every inhabited part of the United States is visited by these men. I have seen them on the peninsula of Cape Cod and in the Neighborhood of Lake Erie, distant from each other more than six hundred miles. They make their way to Detroit, four hundred miles farther, to Canada, to Kentucky, and, if I… Continue reading Retailing “Yankee Notions”
Don’t Fence Me In
As the frontier pushed west past Chicago in the 1840s, a problem appeared with the change from forest to prairie: the need for fencing. Farther east, wood for fencing was easy to come by, but the prairie was nearly treeless. The most common kind of fencing on the Illinois frontier was a large bush called… Continue reading Don’t Fence Me In
Havana Dreamin’
I wrote this 6 years ago, before President Trump more or less established the Status Quo Ante in US Cuba relations. This is a lightly revised piece from then. I knew Cuba in the old days before President Obama unleashed the second American invasion of that Caribbean island. This one was not a military one,… Continue reading Havana Dreamin’
Amelia Jenks Bloomer: A Yankee Woman Goes to Iowa
Amelia Jenks was the daughter of Ananias Jenks, who was born in Yankee Rhode Island around 1786. He was a woolen clothmaker by trade who migrated, first to Oneida NY and then south to Homer, in Cortland County, on the eastern margins of the Finger Lakes. Here he operated a woolen mill and married Lucy… Continue reading Amelia Jenks Bloomer: A Yankee Woman Goes to Iowa
Old Professor by the Sea 