CAPE COD REPORTS, 2004 These Cape Reports were originally letters to friends and family. They were meant to follow the sound email policy of never saying anything you wouldn't want the world to read, but if you see something here that offends you, let me know. No offense was intended, and I apologize. Many last names have been suppressed, so as not to intrude in friend’s lives. You’ll have to sort out the characters by context, if you care. JANUARY February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December 16 Jan 04 Yes, it's cold. It was 7 below yesterday morning. I thought Nancy would call off our visit to Hyannis, but she just checked to see if the Honda place was open. We started off in a blizzard with all our winter gear but came into blue sky and sunshine (still seven below) by Orleans. This is not uncommon. Easy trip down a nearly deserted 6A. They had to replace rubber thingies on the axle so we were shuttled to the Mall for lunch. We seniors like to talk about our lunches. I usually have a bowl of hot and sour soup, but Cajun Chicken was offering a $2.99 Chef's Special (oh yeah) of honey dipped chicken with noodles. It was delicious, and my fat and sugar allowance for a month even though, reluctantly, I didn't eat it all. We're not sure why the ice floes aren't piling up the way they did our first winter here, some 5 feet thick! We'll check again today. We did see, at the height of the mini-blizzard yesterday morning, a very well-furred coyote trotting down the middle of Runway Lane carrying an unwary squirrel. Nancy is now reading Adam Nicolson's "God's Secretaries, the Making of the King James Bible," which I just finished. Fascinating book, full of ironies and sausage making. It was instigated really by the King and the Established church to enhance the majesty of the State against the Separatists and then used by the separatist Pilgrim Fathers to enhance the mini-states they set up in the colonies. -- It’s wonderfully rich and majestic language was apparently never the English of anyone, anywhere until AFTER its publication. We are both halfway through The Gothic Enterprise (which is not unlike the KJB enterprise in its way) and enjoying it. Clear, well-done. The Secret Life of Bees (group book for Monday) is wonderful, get past the depressing first little bit. Castles of Steel by Massie the 1914-1918 sea war a large well-done change of pace. I had a pain in my side for several months and finally had a CAT scan, which found nothing (that shouldn't be there), so presumably I will continue to live happily ever after for a while longer. But it does make one think. Is this what I want to do, where I want to be? Am I satisfied with my life, am I worthy of my relatively good fortune, shall I/we simply go on as before? You will be delighted, relieved, saddened, angered, or indifferent, according to your natures, that the answer to all of the above seems to be you bet. I mean, look up from your book and see a coyote walking down your street in a blizzard. As Lin Yutang would say, "Is this not happiness?" When I get online I plan to take a look at factcheck.org run from the Penn campus by Brooks Atkinson, to record and refute political lies. Sounds Sisiphusian. 20 Jan 04 The people of Iowa have spoke. I’m not surprised. We like Dr. Dean and don’t see him quite as a McGovern, but I think our Senator Kerry looks more electable to most people. I’m afraid it all depends on how well or badly things go in Iraq. Rather a dilemma, as one does want peace. Why do so many support Bush against their own best interests: genuine security, social programs, education, health care, etc? Many possible reasons, but I think it may be, sadly, that the majority of the world’s citizens have a biologically built-in mean streak and prefer being on the butt-kicking side at whatever personal cost. We went to an open house for Bill Delahunt, our Federal Representative, on Saturday, at the home of the Local Democratic Party Chair, who we now know. (We summered next door to them for some years without knowing it. It’s a small world here.) Delahunt was nice, supports all the right positions, and....is a politician. I guess you have to be one to be in politics. 75% real person and 75% front, they all have to appear larger than life. We liked Robert Reich when he came to Eastham, but he’s a poli sci prof at Brandeis and an unsuccessful politician. It’s nice here, cold but sunny. We saw something startling the other morning out at Coast Guard Beach. The ocean seemed to be smoldering. We learned later that this is called “sea smoke” and happens when the water is much warmer than the air. We’ve seen our coyote frequently. He’s very handsome in his slightly reddish winter coat. There’s talk the Cape coyotes may have a bit of red wolf in them. The other day he followed a hundred yards behind two women with a dog walking down the middle of our street. Our local expert, Peter Krull, says coyotes are concerned about dogs only as competitors, but as this dog was the size and shape of a muff [Remember them, small cylindrical fur covers, open at both ends in which the hands are placed to keep them warm?] I think the coyote may have had breakfast in mind. Once again we treated ourselves to not watching the State of the Union. We know the state of the Union. Switched on C-Span this morning and watched Tony Blair field questions in Parliament. Be fun to watch Bush try that. One does wonder why the increased partisanship, when the country seems so equally divided and both parties have moved to the right. I blame “them” of course. We are well and doing the same comfortable old stuff, writing, reading, and French groups, mild civic duties, walks, etc. We’re reluctant to leave the Cape but will be in Philadelphia this weekend and Florida the next. We plan to visit Sara at Virginia Beach in the Spring. John and Megan like working at Penn and taking courses. John is enthusiastic about archaeology. Sara likes working for PETA and life in Norfolk (one of the “ten least stressful cities in America” – well, maybe). Karen may be looking for a change of pace from social work. 22 Jan 04 You’re the only Republicans among my friends and relations. So, what do you think of the State of the Nation? Is everything just peachy, except for the war with the Klingons? I, of course agree with Molly Ivins that the President is making a “goddamned mess of our country,” with Granny D. that we’re entering the “longest, darkest night in our country’s history,” and with Teddy Roosevelt that “this country won’t be good for anybody until it’s good for everybody.” George Bush is the first president I’ve been afraid of. Specifically, with weapons of mass destruction about to become as ubiquitous as cell phones, security won’t be achieved by national defense or giving up our personal freedoms but by international agreement based on social and economic justice. Ben Laden is a pussycat compared to Mother Nature trashed and angry. And the gap between rich and poor is getting big enough to fall into. -- What I really want to know is why more of us don’t see this, but I guess that begs the question. So, why do you think we’re so evenly divided? David Brooks says 45/45, with presumably 10 percent passed out on the barroom floor. Do you know of any good recent books that explain this? Is it discussed in every political science textbook? Is it all a matter of self-interest (enlightened or bamboozled), as I gather it’s supposed to be? Or is it something built into the genetic code that we justify post hoc? My guess would be that political opinion is a bell curve like everything else, but with a two party system we have to make a choice, and, having done so, and because we see the situation as serious and are programmed to clump and follow leaders, we back up our decision with emotion and by moving farther to the wings. But I don’t know this. -- In Introduction to Sociology we were asked to explain some common “truths,” and having done so rather brilliantly, we were told they were all false. It probably works that way with politics. Be good to hear your thoughts. 24 Jan 04 I feel bad about canceling, which I know is silly. We’ve just had a nice visit and will see you in a month. Rhoda says one of the advantages of advancing age is a greater ease in chickening out. I remember a trip Nancy and I took in our VW bug when Sara was a toddler. We drove from Philadelphia to Boston to visit Maury and Dave because I had a computer seminar there, in a blizzard in 10 degree weather, passing cars and trucks in the ditch all the way. We though it was fun! But looking back it seems foolish. In general, I haven’t had much trouble accommodating myself to the impossibility of being two places at once, etc. I don’t understand excess, or people like Donald Trump. As a politician, I’d accept defeat too easily; it all looks so exhausting and unrewarding. But changing plans never feels good. Sorry guys. I’ll be curious about your courses and what books you’ll be reading. I’m such an education freak. I don’t understand why everyone, whatever their ability, isn’t consumed with a thirst for knowledge. All infants are, Nancy says. We can all learn fluent Chinese by the age of two, and we could all become scholars. What a waste. --------------- This is Meaty stuff. We disagree (or as you might put it, how could he still be so dumb!) but why? Our life circumstances and personalities are sufficiently similar to have allowed us to remain good friends. So, point for point: Our news comes from the Times, the News Hour, Washington Week, and C-Span. Our leftist colleagues insist the media are tools of the corporations, but the Times editorials seem well-balanced to me. I like Krugman, Herbert, and Friedman. Dowd is fun, and Safire is often on target. I read books but mostly history, and it may be that historians are still infected with the Marxist virus. I don't think anyone's saying we aren't militarily strong, although our performance in Afghanistan and Iraq hardly proves it. But if we're so strong, why shouldn't the rich/poor gap SHRINK! We've exported most manufacturing and are now sending service and skilled IT jobs abroad and bringing in quasi-slave labor to replace well-paid workers. Cape Cod is an ugly example, with high housing values, low wages, increasing homelessness, and imported labor. I'm not concerned about the end of civilization but with meanness now. Speaking of mean, Bush may have learned ruthlessness at Harvard but surely little else. Cheney, Rove, and Rummy may be able, but they don't represent ideals I recognize as particularly human. Their notion of strong government seems to be defense of the wealthy, not the welfare of all citizens. That part of government is being eviscerated. "War time," with the Klingons? Come on, we're not at war. Uncle Sam Wants YOU to Buy a New SUV. We're petulant because not everyone lets us have everything our way. My impression is that we're even foolishly admired abroad because of our material success and being emulated all too well. We're disliked because of our arrogance. I think personal information security IS a pretty general concern. The momentary threat may be from criminals, but the potentially greater threat is from corporate and government Big Brother. Back to why the split. You're suggesting that the Right are happy with their lives, and the Left are not? My impression is that there are contented and discontented, winners and losers, leaders and followers on both sides, but that many voters delude themselves that they're rich (or about to be rich) and will vote for Bush even when big cuts in taxes and services do them more harm than good. They feel threatened not by the guys above them but by the guys below them who might get some undeserved assistance at their expense. -- Personally we're happy as clams with our own modest good fortune. We're just sorry that so many in this country are ill-housed, ill-fed, and lack good medical care and access to education. Why would anyone not want life improved for others? Scarcity isn't the issue, it's distribution. We've long disagreed on this, but I think the planet has the resources to give everyone a decent life, but only if we work at it. The United States of America seems to be moving in the other direction again, concentrating wealth and maintaining a permanent underclass. Neither of us has mentioned the fact that the present administration and its strongest backers are fundamentalist Christians who seem to feel, among other unhelpful things, that we needn't husband the environment (remember James Watt?) because the Second Coming is just around the corner and will come as soon as Israel can be encouraged to take over all of Palestine. -- The End of Civilization? As our Leader would say, "Bring it on." ------------------- [JD’s comments] Hi there. Don't panic and don't take your economic reporting from the mainstream press. They're all good union men and probably unknowingly influenced by the Marxist prediction that the forces of history guaranty the collapse of western civilization in their lifetime. If we were not at our strongest we could not have taken out two countries half-way around the world. I shall try to take your questions one at a time. First the gap between rich and poor is not growing at a great rate. This is measured by something called the Gini coefficent which hasn't shifted much for decades. In fact it is hard to say just what is income in a society with so many transfer payments. We are in fact in a situation where the rewards for formal education are increasing relative to brute force and in order to keep up our quota of the poor we are importing them at a great rate thanks to the demise of national origins quotas in the 1960's and economic arbitrage. By using something called the labor theory of value Marx, thought he proved that fewer and fewer would own everything in short order. Hasn't happened yet, but each new crop of radicals of the left dusts the idea off. Note that Marx was a middle nineteenth century guy, and had he been right, history would have ended long ago. The analog is the first century Christians who saw the second coming right around the corner. In my view the interesting thing about the current Bush is his Harvard MBA. When I was more actively concerned with such things, it was said that one should never hire one because they would learn your business, memorize your customer list, leave, and then set up a new firm to out-compete you. Bush knows how to get able people around him and go fairly well where he says he's going. This means that there is less room for political bullshit. He's not going to parties and shagging interns, so the socialites are unhappy. Along the way, he is increasing the power of the federal sector. This always happens in war time. We are never going to be popular abroad because of our success in the things of this world. I don't think many foreigners thought we had the moxie to do what we've done. The political left feels that they've lost an issue. They're all for federal power, if they get to wield it which they feel morally superior enough to do. The influence of technology on the ability of those who don't like us to do real harm is a tough one. The genie is out of the bottle. Everyone of a noble cast of mind worries about civil liberties. None of them seem to be thinking about the uses of portable telephone numbers, medicare registrations, and a concentration of banking power to track and control. The identity theft problem is an example of the possibilities. We are evenly divided because so many of us are pretty happy with our relative deal in real life but so many want to view with alarm. We live in an affluent area down here, but I do not see many people who understand that they are the Rich that they profess to distrust so much. They seem to see the world in terms of a moral drama with their personal selves as the main player, and they want blame it all on the guy just above them on the income scale. Wishing it away will not eliminate the problem of scarcity or not enough to satisfy all demands. Real upscale people never talk about money and hard choices, but the world makes choices whether we will them or not. City people who do very little for themselves seem to me to be especially prone to this, and most reporters in the big time media live in cities and have great views from upper floors. If they ever did for themselves they have tried very hard to get away, although they may go back for Christmas once in a while. 28 Jan 04 So Kerry has the edge, and it’s still up for grabs. We’ve never been wild about our Massachusetts senator, but he may be the most electable. I’ve never seen any of the Dean anger, and he appeared to be smiling and having fun through the famous rant. Other times/places/people it would have gone unremarked. Personally, I’d prefer Dr. Steinberg to any of them. The promised massive storm in the East seems to have been delayed last weekend, but I gather we would have had some snow and ice in Philadelphia Monday morning. It was awfully cold to be driving 800 miles, so we don’t regret having put off our visit, especially as Sara can come in February. Our walk at First Encounter Beach Sunday was the coldest ever. Even Nanook Nancy didn’t think it was altogether fun. Perhaps we shall avoid blustery single digit hikes. -- We’ll try to be a little bolder for the February weekend, if necessary. We went to hear Bill Opel on The DaVinci Code after all, and he was good, drawing a big crowd. He emphasized how the vagueness of the evidence lets everyone, including the gospelers, recreate the Jesus myth to his own taste. For instance: Matthew, representing the priests, says the Romans killed Jesus; Luke, representing the people, says the priests; Mark says the people, and John, late and “spiritual,” says God’s plan. There were a couple hundred competing but not selected gospels, and even in the canonical gospels, there’s about as much internal evidence for Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and fathering a line as there is for the traditional account. It’s a more plausible story in many ways (all Jewish men were expected to marry by their mid-twenties) and does no harm to Christian belief. – Therefore the furor. I talked with Bob Koblitz, the poli sci prof, who feels the Bushies will succumb to their own hubris. He recommends, Kevin Philips, Wealth and Democracy. I’ve started to read The Soul of Capitalism, by William Greider: capitalism is the only economic system with the energy to support the contemporary world, uncontrolled capitalism and the values of society clash; government regulation can’t help; but the situation can be saved by many small fixes; well, maybe. I note that the Sunday Times Book Review section reviews seven respectable new anti-Bush books, America Unbound; the Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy being the most highly recommended. If only anyone read books! -- Maybe the executive branch will self-destruct. I finished Robert K. Massie’s, Castle’s of Steel. I conclude that war is massively dumb and ugly – naval officers on all sides fought for the privilege of riding their steel stallions to the bottom of the cold North Atlantic and taking a couple thousand less enthusiastic sailors with them. Brrrrr. The Fleet did keep Germany from embargoing England and by forcing Germany to begin unlimited submarine warfare did bring in the U.S., and so did win the war. Whoopie. I found the following at the dump: Berlin Diaries 1940-1945 by Marie “Missie” Vassiltchikov, and The Journals of May Sarton at Seventy. Contrasting memoirs. Missie was an intelligent and sociable member of the Russian nobility, impoverished in wartime Berlin but still hobnobbing with all the notables, anti-Nazi but survived working for the German Foreign Office. May makes beautiful prose out of minimal experiences, mostly other people’s gardens. Nancy likes May a lot and will take her to Florida. FEBRUARY 2 Feb 04 There and back again. After 45 years I’m amazed each time I survive air travel. The hardest part was getting up at 4 am, driving to Barnstable, and standing in a 17 degree breeze for ten minutes waiting for the bus. At the airport, automated check-in took 30 seconds. In compensation, security took 10 minutes, and I had to take off my belt. Delta Song provides free drinks and the chance to buy an $8 sandwich on cranberry/walnut bread. Surely Nancy isn’t the only one allergic to walnuts? We’d planned ahead with an 8-pack of peanut butter crackers for the trips and evening snacks, of which we still have two. The visit with Grandmother and Maury was excellent. Grandmother is very frail but in good health and spirits. Maury good too. Mease Assisted Living is quite nice and much friendlier than Regency Oaks, a better atmosphere all around, and located in a more or less real town. Nancy, Maury and I took a number of walks from Mease down to the marina, about a mile, through Dunedin’s artsy Main Street. Lots of attractive gift shops, galleries, and restaurants. We ate exceeding well, as always, and I did get my snook sandwich. (Any of several chiefly marine fishes of the family Centropomidae; also called “roballo.”) More-or-less-real in that if you want a drugstore, hardware, grocery, etc., you have drive several miles to a shopping center. We stopped at the Library, where Grandfather has a memorial brick and drove past the new Blue Jays stadium (in Maury’s rental car.) The streets and stores were strangely empty. Apparently the real tourist season doesn’t begin until February. We had trouble finding a breakfast restaurant on Saturday, having passed up Kelly’s Chickaboom Room, but eventually ate at Sam’s. It did rain a bit, we had umbrellas, and the temperature was in the 50’s and 60’s, not beach weather. Song was rather amusing about hawking $15 beach blankets on the flight from, (and back to!), Boston. Not at all sure we heard it right, but it sounded like Mike Schmidt’s Clearwater Phillies has been renamed “The Crash”. A better name for a ball team than an airline I guess. We had lunch for seven at Bon Appetit with Claire, Arlene, and mother’s companion Merle. Merle is very helpful to mother, and takes her out in her car several days a week. So it went. The touristic highlight was a walk north along Victoria Street, a narrow, potholed lane along the water north of the marina that is lined with grand, beautifully maintained 2 and 3-story Victorian houses, majestically set in gorgeous old Florida foliage. The potholes, we learned (but guessed already, being familiar with the same phenomenon on the Cape) are intentional, so this public road doesn’t become a tourist gawk. I was surprised when an expensive SUV pulled out of a drive, and the driver smiled and said good morning. Evidently pietons are okay. Here and elsewhere in Dunedin are a number of live oaks of much greater size and majesty than at Regency. One would suppose hundreds of years old. The comic relief highlight was the evening mother failed to turn off her portable phone (one of many signals of distress) and a nurse burst in with her key after a perfunctory knock, to find Nancy pouring scotch into her glass. Mother feels her reputation will have been enhanced. Nancy has made a hobby for the past 6 months of trying to recover $200 from Blue Cross for a bill she shouldn’t have had to pay. Everyone is nice on the phone, but nothing happens. She has decided it’s a worthy cause to devote her life to. It looks like Kerry will be the Democratic candidate. I fear it’s not going to be a pretty campaign. We just wish I didn’t have to start until September, the way the Brits do it, but I guess a presidential campaign has been running continuously in this country since George Washington. With brief breaks of course for important events such as the baring of Janet Jackson. 11 Feb 04 Our walks are strenuous, as we have to cut cross country to avoid the thick ice on the trails. We were coming back from Coast Guard the same way we’d gone when Nancy said, “Whoa, look at all the big bird footprints in the snow!” They had toes three inches long, like small dinosaurs. “Turkeys!” she said. Of course, but then we realized they hadn’t been there a half hour earlier. We followed them, and behold: twenty huge turkeys bustling through the woods. We’re trackers now. I read a history of Roman Catholicism in America. Few heroes on any side, alas. I’m reading “God’s Funeral”, loss of faith by the literati in the late nineteenth century. Almost finished “My Name is Asher Lev,” a second time for the book group Monday. A great novel about a Hasidic Jew who becomes an artist. It’s religion week. Nancy and I were both interested in Judaism before we met. We won’t convert (from what?), but envy a faith based on actions (rituals, kindnesses, justice and mercy), which are possible at least, rather than on beliefs, which are “writ in water.” We heard Noam Chomsky talk about US politics on Book TV. He was terrific. I used to think he was an extremist, but I guess the world’s madness has advanced to the point where he sounds quite reasonable Nancy really liked the lamb shanks we had in Florida and invented her own recipe, which was even better. Glad to share. We also did a vegan chili, our old recipe but with bulgar wheat, mushrooms, black as well as kidney beans, and V8. Excellent. We don’t go out to restaurants much, but we do occasionally indulge in something like 3/4 pound of shucked oysters. “We have a really tough kid who gets them in any weather,” says our fishmonger. It makes enough to have it again for lunch the next day. Once a year we have steak au poivre. And then once a year we have tomatoes and brie, and once a year we have... We aren’t wasting away. We wrote in support of gay marriage to our Mass legislators and the Boston Globe. Surprising support in the legislature, though probably not enough. We shall see. Nancy hung two more of her photos above the sofa and is pleased. I slaved at preparations for the Library book sale yesterday. A lot of work, but in the process I bought an almost new copy of Bill Bryson’s, “A short History of Nearly Everything,” a great book which Nancy and Maury liked too. I also picked up a pb copy of the “2002 Guide to U.S. Coins” for the archaeologist’s library. I’m rather booked up in fact. Nancy says, “You have six books on your table.” “No,” I say, “I have...hmmm six books on my table.” And another couple in the dining room. I just borrowed “Unsettled; an anthropology of the Jews, by Melvin Konner, an anthropologist at Emory, and “Paris 1919,” about the Versailles Treaty, by Margaret Macmilloan, a granddaughter of Lloyd George. I’m still waiting for Susan Neiman’s “Evil in the Modern World: which I’m hoping to make the source of a summer lecture. 14 Feb 04 We heard David Kirp on Book TV talking about his book “Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line.” Might be worth a look for aspiring academics. He was critiquing RCM (Revenue Center Management) for one thing, a technique Penn was using, and may still be, in which each department is a revenue center and must make a profit (why folklore, geology, sociology, etc. are gone). Libraries are common goods, utilities, and each dept contributes on the basis of their use (hence all the statistics taking and self-promotion). Talked about the British Open University where 180,000 students get an excellent “distance education”! Sally got her degree from the OU. Networking too, relevant courses all over the country which one should be able to take some for credit, without harming or angering local faculty. We don’t go out to restaurants much, but we do occasionally indulge in something like 3/4 pound of shucked oysters. “We have a really tough kid who gets them in any weather,” says our fishmonger. It makes enough to have it again for lunch the next day. Once a year we have steak au poivre. And then once a year we have tomatoes and brie, and once a year we have... We aren’t wasting away. I slaved at preparations for the Library book sale yesterday. A lot of work, but in the process I bought an almost new copy of Bill Bryson’s, “A short History of Nearly Everything,” a great book which Nancy and Maury liked too. I also picked up a pb copy of the “2002 Guide to U.S. Coins” for the archaeologist’s library, and a dozen other good books that were being tossed. I’m rather booked up in fact. Nancy says, “You have six books on your table.” “No,” I say, “I have...hmmm six books on my table.” And another couple in the dining room. I just borrowed “Unsettled; an anthropology of the Jews, by Melvin Konner, an anthropologist at Emory, and “Paris 1919,” about the Versailles Treaty, by Margaret Macmillan, a granddaughter of Lloyd George. I’m still waiting for Susan Neiman’s “Evil in the Modern World: which I’m hoping to make the source of a summer lecture. I’m reading another of Chaim Potok’s novels, The Book of Lights, about a Jewish chaplain in Korea, ca. 1956. Nancy and I were both interested in Judaism before we met. We won’t convert, but we admire a faith based on actions (rituals, kindnesses, justice and mercy), which are possible to perform, rather than on beliefs, which are “writ in water.” A quote from The Book of Lights: “What is of importance is not that there may be nothing. We have always acknowledged that as a possibility. What is important is that if indeed there is nothing, then we should be prepared to make something out of the only thing we have left to us—ourselves.” 28 Feb 04 I had an odd experience the other evening. It was nearly dark but light enough to see a large coyote trot up our driveway and cross the street to our neighbor’s yard. He stood there for a minute, so I quietly opened the back door and poked my head around the corner of the house. I saw there were two coyotes, the second even larger and quite reddish. They saw me instantly and stared at me. I stared back, probably not a good idea. I didn’t move a muscle for 3 or 4 minutes, but I finally got cold and went back inside. That’s my excuse. What were they thinking? I often wake up in the middle of the night, but I’ve learned to use the time. This week I got ideas for a Morris story about the Old Country Buffet, a poem, and a new last chapter for the Green Pig and the Windmills. I could think out the whole plot, but then I wouldn’t sleep, and I’d have forgotten most of it by morning. So I just think of the outline and go back to sleep. Last night I thought about the state of the world. This is always a mistake. The state of the world is never good. It’s been worse but never more visibly so. We didn’t see the Holocaust happen. We know too much now: interviews with boy soldiers in Africa, sex slaves in Plainfield, New Jersey, air pollution in Truro, John Ashcroft minding our manners, the President’s private war, Crucifixion: the Movie, and pocket WMD’s at Radio Shack. Polluted or not, the night skies over Cape Cod are often as sparkling as they were over Oklahoma and New Mexico 45 years ago. The ocean is different every day and always lovely but empty of ships except for the occasional LPG supertanker on its way to terrify Boston Harbor. Manet’s paintings of the sea were full of sails. The trophy homes go up inexorably, and we walk among them to the bay, a ghost village of million dollar summer cottages. Coyote tracks in the snow. Lacks only tumbleweeds. We read our books and take our walks. It’s more than enough for us, but it does the world little good. What can we do? Everyone says that. We write letters to the editor and email our congressmen. They send canned replies and ask for money. Our Representative Shirley Gomes got an earful on gay marriage. Perhaps she’ll think about it. A few brave souls have spoken against the Eastham Ocean Beach. A baby step forward, a baby step back. We watch Book TV. The CEO of Harper Collins talked about what an exciting time it is in publishing, e-books, p-books (paper!), all sorts of electronic media. We have a friend with poor eyesight who gets all his books over the web. I find most of what I want on CLAMS and have it brought to Eastham. – I’m having a tough time getting the book on evil though! Evil must be big these days. Perhaps, without the irony, it is a brave new world. We have evolution, the scientific method, the Internet, an unaccountable yen to understand, and our semi-indomitable selves. A good night’s sleep might be better, but you go with what you’ve got. – We heard Paul Fussell on Book TV. My old teacher, I like to say. He suggests the world has run on irony since WWI. I finished God’s Funeral, by A.N. Wilson. All the intellectuals thought religion was dead at the end of the 19 th century, but evidently it wasn’t. A few quotes: Ruskin: “...nothing prevails finally but a steady, word-wise labor – comfortable – resolute – fearless – full of animal life – affectionate – compassionate...”; “All art is praise...There is no wealth but life.” Ruskin, incidentally was thought “mad,” because he denounced vivisection and experiments on animals. Of Father George Tyrell’s humor, his good friend Maude Petre wrote, “God and His perfectly holy ones are without it; faulty man is less faulty when he possesses it. It is associated with the pathos of wrong-doing and short-coming, with the sad clear vision of those who gauge the puny efforts of man with the vast universe in which he moves.” The Catholic Modernists were short-lived heroes, ca. 1900-1910. Many/most contemporary Catholics could probably be called Modernists. But not the Pope and his advisors. MARCH 3 Mar 04 We always like Friday. We usually have no commitments, and Washington Week is on tonight. It’s sunny too. Simple pleasures. I must have said this before, but it’s odd getting our local news from a hundred miles away. Nancy is annoyed that Boston often ignores our weather. What good is cable if you can’t get New York, Philadelphia, or Paris? A beautiful 200 year old house, overlooking Salt Pond from the corner of Locust and Route 6, burned down yesterday. Route six was closed for six hours. What a mess. It’s sad. Better to have lost some trophy home, but they’re all alarmed, bonded, sealed, and defended against alien invaders. I had a talk with Dave Eagles’s friend Kenny Lewis, the 80 year old electrician. He says he’s given up on supervising non-professionals because it’s gotten too complicated with changes in the electrical codes. Putting in a new service requires bringing all circuits in the house up to code, and he doubts anyone else would touch it. It would have been fun, but I’ve fixed the electrical problem that inspired this in the first place. – Oddly enough, there was no electrical inspection in Springfield. I could do anything I wanted, and did. Someday we’ll pay to have a 200 amp electrical service here. The back porch project should be more rewarding aesthetically. There were about a dozen deck and porch books at the Library and a couple of videos. Guess what’s the most popular home improvement project around! Nancy would like a covered 5’ x 7’ porch, maybe at floor level, maybe with a storage bench. We shall see. The French group decided to have brief individual presentations each week, to make us all speak! My first talk will be on Manet. Evidently he could be considered the first Impressionist, although he never called himself one. He said, or inspired others to say, neat things like: “art is brush strokes and color, not representation”; “the canvas is not a window but a screen”; and “a painting is a surface covered by pigments; look AT it not THROUGH it”. Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar has been hanging over my head for decades. Not the way it hung over Esther Greenwood’s but as a threatening book title. I carefully ignored it when Julie Miller organized an exhibition of Sylviania at the Penn Library in the early 70’s. I finally read it for our book group. Perhaps Sylvia was nuts and Ted a bounder, but it’s more complicated than that. I wasn’t a brilliant young woman, and my father didn’t die when I was eight, but we were roughly contemporary, I know something about bright, mad girls at Smith, and I wasn’t sure what to do with my life either. I wouldn’t recommend the Army these days, but like Napoleon’s favorite generals I was lucky, and although when I got out I still wasn’t sure what to do, I could see by then it didn’t matter as long as I did something. I can see why Sylvia thought her book was a potboiler, why it got only fair reviews, and why it later became a classic and was compared to Catcher in the Rye. It’s funny, surreal, ungracious to the world around her, and, in context, terribly sad. It was published in January 1963. Sylvia killed herself in February. Nancy and I began a now nearly 41 year partnership in June. I don’t suppose a phone call from my room at the Philadelphia Divinity School could have helped. “You don’t know me, Mrs. Hughes....” Prozac? Churchill lived to 85 with “the black dog”, but he held his whiskey well, and had Winnie for 57 years and plenty to do. He had also probably the strongest personality since Charlemagne. Was Sylvia “just” depressed or schizophrenic? Would a less brilliant but nicer guy than Ted have saved her? Not necessarily, one suspects. Evidently there are a dozen fairly good books on Sylvia and Ted, but I already know as much as I care to. -- I can’t see blaming suicides. It’s we who seem to fail, although there may have been nothing we could have done. In Sylvia’s case, she not only had emotional problems but she was alone in London with two small children, almost friendless, freezing in Yeats’s drafty apartment, ill, and abandoned by her husband for another women. Sounds like a rotten deal, although, over the years, many people did try to help her, and she was definitely high maintenance. I wonder what the ladies will have to say about The Bell Jar. It’s certainly a feminist classic in its way. I thought New York in the 50’s was magic. The Bell Jar makes it sound septic. Forty years down the pike, and I feel so bad for her. – Nancy didn’t like it as much as I did, and I guess I didn’t like it all that much. Odd fact: at some point in the late fifties, Sylvia and Ted spent a couple weeks at “The Fo’castle”, aka “The Outermost House,” Henry Beston’s Coast Guard Beach shack that was washed away in the hurricane of ’78. We learned this from a book by Don Wilding, a sportswriter who’s now a member of the Fellowship. 14 Mar 04 Dear Mr. Brooks, My wife and I enjoy you on Shields and Brooks as an intelligent, compassionate, courteous, conservative. We're liberal democrats and agree with Maureen Down, that other purveyor of humorous hyperbole, the "the President is making a goddamn mess out of our country," so we often disagree with you, but we like you. Your op-ed column in the Times, however, seems heavy-handed and graceless, as if you're trying too hard to fill the role of wise-cracking conservative pundit. It's just not you. You come across as mean and not all that sharp. Saturday's column on Kerry is far from the worst example, but I have it in front of me. All of the Kerry quotes, although long and "nuanced," make reasonable sense, even out of context. The last quote, for instance, "We know...international norms," requires a long attention span, but it applies today. It's the President's and our biggest problem in fact. What we need in the age of pocket WMD's isn't a strong military "coalition" but rather (in Kerry-speak) to restrain our own arrogance and greed and to engage in an extended effort of diplomacy to achieve broad international agreement on the basis of social and economic justice. John Kerry is a politician. They all waffle a bit. George Bush is not a politician. He's a publically pleasant born-again spokesperson for the oil industry who, unfortunately, seems to be taking on an ugly life of his own. -- It's fun to be mean, but I'm not a respected national columnist. Unlike Kerry, we were against the war in Iraq because it appeared (and was!) unnecessary, the Patriot Act because it was (and is!) awful, and No Child Left Behind because it was grossly inadequate, but we aren't politicians, and many good people supported them until they saw how badly they turned out. Take a few lessons from Safire or consider sticking to TV. And please don't bash the French for being right for the wrong reasons. 19 March 04 For better or worse, the computer has become a window on the world and a considerable part of my daily life. After making coffee I get online and read the Times, check my email, and then listen to some French. If I remember, or have made myself a note, I may check something on the web. – I learned, for instance, that some 92 Honda Accords are going strong at 455,000 miles! This is encouraging. We have over 300,000 to go. I downloaded some excellent French text on Camus, and recorded a talk in French about children learning to read, along with the text. A volunteer reads ‘arry Potair to a class, in translation presumably, and talks with them about rats and mice. “En plus, moi, la souris, elle est grimpée sur ma main! » says a 6 year old. Nostalgia is such a trip. I cut out a Times article for my mother, “In Florida, Can 1950’s Motels Become Hip Enough to Survive?” It’s about the dozen remaining mom and pop motels along Gulf Boulevard in Treasure Island, Florida. Treasure Island Beach is where we swam in the 1940’s and my college friends and I stayed in the mid-1950’s My parents stayed in the same sort of “77 Sunset Strip,” “mid-century modern”, or “Googie” style motel a little further up the beach at Tarpon Springs, while their house was being finished in the late 1960’s. These were two-story, pastel cinderblock affairs, built around a salt water pool and with noisy in-room air conditioners that sometimes worked. The preservationists and the developers are battling it out in Treasure Island. “It’s friend against friend,” says Mayor Mary Maloof. The upcoming city commission election pits preservation candidate Alan Bildz against developer Barbara A. Blush. Names out of a Carl Hiaasen novel! Beach properties that went for $30,000 in 1964 now bring a million as a bare lot. A losing motel will be replaced by a 5-story condo, with $400, 000 apartments that can be rented out by their absentee owners for $175 a night. Ah, but only 5-story, not 15 or 20, because the “radicals” got a huge turnout in the last election and overwhelmingly passed a height limit. Much developer teeth gnashing. -- What will happen in Eastham? Stay tuned. Perhaps we, at least, will outlive the forces of darkness. I’m not quite as bad as Peter Trull, our local coyote maven, but I love the creatures. There’s an article about them in the latest “Sanctuary” the magazine of the Mass Audubon Society. A 4-year study of North American wolf DNA indicates that the red wolf, a remnant population of the Eastern North American wolf, hybridized with the western coyote to produce the significantly larger Eastern coyote. They pair for life, which is not all that long, alas. Only six percent survive trapping, hunting, poisoning, and automobiles longer than 6 years. They eat anything from mice and watermelons to deer trapped in deep snow and are quite fond of outdoor cats. Their populations are self-regulating, unlike deer, and they have huge territories, ranging up to 20 miles a night. Noble beast! The Fellowship program on Sunday was David Wright at the piano. We’d advertised it as David White, for some incoherent reason, but he corrected us gently. Could it be a stage name? Could he be billed as “Mr. Wright” at P’town supper clubs? He played 15 minutes of short classical pieces and then moved into his specialty, torch songs. He had a good voice. Odd at ten in the morning but very entertaining. The book group discussion of The Bell Jar was interesting and far reaching. One member told an amazing tale that we had heard only bits and pieces of before. Her husband is a retired merchant marine captain and she a teacher and a fine watercolorist. They sail the inland waterway and the Scandinavian fiords for entertainment. They have a son, now in his 30’s, who is gay and bi-polar and was an alcoholic. He went to Jones Beach to commit suicide but decided he was too fond of the ocean to be so disrespectful of it. He went to the George Washington Bridge at midnight, but a passing jogger stopped, talked him off the bridge, and took him by cab to a cousin’s house. After months of hospitalization and years of therapy, he studied to become a psychiatric nurse. Eventually he became the head of the nurse’s union. He keeps is disease in check with little medication by knowing the signs of an attack and getting help when he needs it. A real profile in courage, profiles actually. A lot of stories out there. 26 March 04 We had a delightful dinner and evening at the D’s. A nice house in agreeably spooky woods, and with a view of boats! Five scattered around the yard. We bombed out at ten. We were never late people and have become less so with the passing years. My parents always stayed up for the 11:00 o’clock news, and then got up at 6:00 to get my father on the Jersey Central for New York. Our children are night-owls. It’s the skip-a-generation syndrome. Finished with Unsettled; an anthropology of the Jews, by Melvin Konner Ph.D., M.D., a professor of anthropology at Emory. Basically, he attempts to show how the Jews shaped the world and vice-versa. And, as I’ve said, one of the many things I took away were his statements: “If you ask me, as an American Jew, what Israel should do now and in the future, I will tell you, as an American Jew, it is not my place to say. ... I haven’t earned the right to an opinion. ... But... Do the Jews...have a need for and a right to a nation in their own homeland? That is easy: Yes.” Actually I've read only the second half, from the 18th century.  I used to read everything from the preface to the bibliography, but Emerson says you should read like a marsh hawk, skim and dive for what you want.  Maybe, but I think now I'll go back and read the first half. I’m going to photocopy Konner’s four pages of “Further Reading.” I’ve read Paul Johnson’s A History of the Jews, Thomas Cahill’s The Gifts of the Jews, James Carrol’s Constantine’s Sword, Conor Cruise O’Brien’s The Siege, Irving Howe’s World of our Fathers, and a number of books he doesn’t mention, like several of Karen Armstrong’s, but he lists many others that sound good. The Seige really does seem to be the best overview. Alvin Rubinstein, told me about it, the professor of political science at Penn who summered in Eastham, an expert on the Soviet Union, who became increasingly interested in Israel after 1990. He and his wife had spent every Spring in Israel since his semi-retirement, and he was writing a book on it in the manner of De Tocqueville. He was also very discouraged by events since Camp David in the summer of 2000 and died of a stroke that winter. He spoke eight languages. Such people shouldn’t die. For irreverent comedy about the British, read Sue Townsend (the author of the Adrian Mole books), Number Ten, about Prime Minister Edward Clare, his wife Adele, and their bodyguard Jack Sprat. I didn’t care for the first chapter, but the rest was very funny. I see a perfect set of rabbit tracks out my window. Will the coyote be far behind? We saw an interview with Karen Armstrong on Book-TV Saturday. She was great. She looks and sounds a little like an aging and slightly battered Haley Mills. (Nancy disagrees about “battered.”). She was walking about her new book, The Spiral Stair, her religious journey from Catholic nun, through “free-lance monotheist,” to “religious seeker” (after an encounter with Buddhism.). She tried all the broad stairways and kept falling off. The program on Fresh-air Visitors was nice, but we aren't planning to take any.  We're still resting from our own excellent kids, but Nancy says maybe in a year or two. It’s a good program with plenty of support, but we’re not water or beach people, except to look at and walk on. Walk on the beach, that is.  The program has been running for 128 years, and it's needed more than ever.  Are we a great country or what? I forget if I mentioned the Science Times from last week. You may have seen it. Interesting article on the birth of proto-Indo-European. The biologists say 8,700 years ago. The linguistic scholars, like Don Ringe at Penn say much later. Also, the Pharaohs used human sacrifices in their tombs! So discovered David O’Connor and Laurel Bestock of NYU and Matthew Adams from Penn. An interesting article on “nanograss,” wolves have come back on their own in Northern Wisconsin, and women are more vulnerable to depression than men because they think. So it goes. We saw David Limbaugh, Rush’s brother on Book TV. The Liberals are out to get the poor Christians. We also watched Dick Armey in a symposium on Karl Hayek, the conservative economist. It was grim but interesting. I didn’t know Armey had a Ph.D., I think in Agricultural economics from Texas A&M. He motto is “freedom works” and “freedom is a gift from God.” Freedom works for some of us, for sure. He also repeated several times: “liberalism is shallow and arrogant; conservatism in deep and humble.” Like an outhouse, as my friend John once said. APRIL 2 April 04 I had the Army dream only once. We were married, and I don’t remember if we had children, but I was back in the Army for another two years! I didn’t know how it had happened, and I wasn’t happy about it, but, as I recall, I took it fairly philosophically. Sometimes the relief of waking up is almost worth the nightmare. I’m glad I’ve never had that dream again. Now I’ve had the Library dream. I was working in a large and unfamiliar Library and was asked for information on hummingbirds. I couldn’t find the encyclopedias. I asked my friend Ellen where they were, and she said “in the CT’s”. Encyclopedias are in the A’s, but I couldn’t find either. Then Dick Cheney came and told the woman how to find her information. It was a fair week for the righteous. It was nice to see the forces of evil squirm, but they’re already counterattacking: the Terrorism Chief was out of the loop when it came to terrorism! I wonder what sort of deal they’re making with Saddam to have him claim credit for 9/11? -- We tell our friend JFK to watch his back. So I’m obsessed. At 4:30 one sunny afternoon a large and handsome coyote stood in our front yard, ten feet from us, looking around coolly. He saw us watching him through the window, gave us a hard stare, and trotted off. They have splendid bushy tails. I’m most of the way through From Ape to Angel; an informal history of Social Anthropology, by H.R. Hays (an Eastham Dump book). I presume the title is ironic. It was published in 1957, nearly fifty years ago. Quite interesting, but I’ll look for something more current. We saw Lisa Jardine on book TV talking about her new book on Robert Hooke. She’s always entertaining and informative. The Brits are great talkers. They manage to sound authoritative and vaguely apologetic for troubling you to listen. We’re reluctantly looking at cell phones and thinking about coming aboard the 21st century. We spend a lot of time on the trails in all weather and thought it might be handy to have a way to call for help. A Verizon Wireless store opened in Orleans, so we stopped in and were handed a packet of ten pamphlets! We’d keep our landline in any case. – We saw an ad for a cheap cellphone to use just for 911. Might do that. 9 Apr 04 I now have a voicemail box. I used the cell to call Verizon and correct our billing address! I’m figuring it out. We carry it on our walks, and it can live in Nancy’s purse. The (young) woman at the Verizon store (like the Scotch Tape store) said, “Welcome to the cellular world. You’ll never be at peace again.” But she’s clearly talking about her own life. Sad news, the lot behind us has a For Sale sign. Aaaaaargh. It doesn’t mean a trophy home will be going up instantly, but like as not one will. Oh, well. We had five years of tangled woods. The coyotes will still use it as a thoroughfare. We need to plan another mall jaunt, to get the car serviced, so I can buy Evil in Modern Thought, to buy me my decennial denim shirt and N’s nightgowns, to check in Tooters (sic) for radios, and to price treated lumber at Home Depot. Maybe they’ll have the $2 special at Cajun Chicken. It’s the Easter Brunch this Sunday. That’s so U/U! We’ll bring baked beans, because I like them and Nancy doesn’t care. There was an article in the Cape Codder about Tim Barry of Tim’s books. He looks very familiar in the picture, but I can’t think from where. Perhaps the store. He’s 45, a former Boston Globe feature writer (maybe that’s where I saw his picture?) He lives in Wellfleet, and has stores in P’town (small) and Hyannis (large). Each year he buys about 50,000 books in Hyannis and 10,000 in P’town, and then sells them back to us at twice what he pays, but still not much. That’s sure a short letter. No observations on the meaning of life. Maybe some will come to me next week. Joe, at Writer’s Group, read half a story he thought up in the middle of the night, about waking up and finding that every one in (the US? the World? It wasn’t clear) has become a teenager. He wasn’t sure what happens next, but none of us thinks it will be a happy ending. Come to think of it, tell your congressmen we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq, and we should get out now. The Iraqi’s can darn well provide their own mayhem. 15 Apr 04 We enjoyed the Easter brunch. The food was a little weak this year, but we seniors don’t eat that much if we know what’s good for us and go mostly for the conviviality. We talked with our table mates about Karen Armstrong’s new book (I think I mentioned it), The Spiral Staircase (a reference to Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday”). Nancy has finished it and loves it. I’ve begun it and find it terrific. Interesting woman. Like Churchill, another magnificent “failure.” Bill mentioned a good web site which covers all the “true” news, with citations. I thought to myself, “the initials are C A P. I can remember that.” And I do! Now, if I remembered what they stand for.... We turned on the TV this morning and found John Dean talking about his new book, Worse than Watergate, the Secret Presidency of George Bush. Jim Jeffords is coming out with another one too. At least people with name-recognition are saying all the things we believe. Will it do any good? Who knows? CLAMS is a little short of serious books on anthropology and archaeology. I did see that Johnetta Cole (anthropologist and former President of Spellman College) has a book at the Chatham Library, Anthropology for the 90’s, which I’ll request. I found a brand new paperback of Jared Diamond’s, Guns, Germs, and Steel at the dump. This is a good book, which I’ve read, a best-selling anthropology/archaeology/ history of the last 12,000 years. Should cover it. Also a 400 page critical edition of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. A letter fragment fell out of it: “.... is working at an antiquarian bookstore in Boston and lives an odd, urban life in Chelsea. She is finally finding some friends with whom she can hang out, since her roommate, while very bright is an amazing droop. Someday she’ll start to save money for grad school we hope – and can paint in a community of artists without starving.” Plus ça change, eh? Amusing bit from France Culture: (An actionnaire is a “shareholder;”  affaires means “business,” coutera..cher “will cost a lot.” The other words are mostly cognates, and an historical quote.) C'est peut-être une victoire pour la démocratie actionnariale, mais ça coûtera sûrement très cher aux petits actionnaires d'Eurotunnel, prédit le FINANCIAL TIMES, le quotidien de la City a la formule qui tue, en français dans le texte et en référence aux propos d'un général français voyant charger la cavalerie britannique: "c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas les affaires".... I found myself worrying about something the other day. I have as little to worry about as anyone I know, but I see that I could still fill the “rest of my natural life,” and probably a fair amount of unnatural life as well, with numerous concerns. (“Your assignment, should you agree to worry about it....”) So, I tell a friend, I really should stop worrying about anything. An excellent idea, she agrees. Good luck! -- Sometimes I find myself in an unaccountable hurry as well. Hurry to get where? What’s the rush? A hurry to get something over with? A hurry to accomplish something? Neither bears close examination. Nancy has taken to watching Don Imus in the morning. He’s quite entertaining. We learned that Doris Kearns Goodwin watches “Law and Order.” As she says, we all have out little addictions. The cell phone is good. It encouraged me to call my sisterone evening, 9:00 being only 6:00 on the West coast. Nancy called her sister on Saturday. “I keep looking for the cord to fiddle with,” she says. “You don’t have to sit at your desk,” I say. “You could sit on the couch.” “I know,” she says, “but...” I wrote a new Morris story, about the Stop and Shop. The Stop and Shop really is a major player in our lives. Good day-old bagels? What soups are on sale? Anything good at the fish counter? What samples is the large lady giving out? (Just me for samples.) I should go to the writing group every week, if only to add to the critical mass, but sometimes it makes Tuesday such a long day. Writers group takes from 9:15 to 12:30, and French conversation from 1:45 to 3:30. I prefer one complex event a day. It’s the inverse of Parkinson’s Law, energy decreases to shirk the challenge. It used to take a great deal more to make me feel stressed, but stress has never been my chosen mode of life. I always studied long and diligently so I had to cram as little as possible and have never understood why people put things off, knowing a painful reckoning will come. So, some weeks I skip one group or the other, and some weeks I go to both. I'm more faithful to French, as it has a more obviously cumulative effect. 23 Apr 04 A rather inside letter for a fairly outside week. We hosted the book group Monday and had a good discussion of The Life of Pi. T.R. came, so there was another guy for the first time. He seemed to enjoy it. He has to download all his books in audio but can do that without much trouble. He played a little of his CD, by an excellent reader who did justice to the book. I hosted the men’s group Wednesday and wrote a Morris story about shopping at Stop and Shop in preparation. The writing group liked it. They’ve been a little cranky of late. We went to Hyannis to get a new clutch on Thursday but fortunately needed only new master and slave cylinders. In the process we went to the mall, and Nancy got The Spiral Staircase and I Evil in the Modern World, and respectively, a nightgown and a denim shirt. Miraculously successful shopping. I got the wood for Karen’s bookcase. Nancy finished Karen Armstrong’s, Jerusalem, One City, Three Faiths, a long history of the region and liked it a lot. Not her usual kind of book. We’ve both just finished Amrstrong’s Spiral Staircase. A neat book. “What is vital to all of the traditions, however, is that we have a duty to make the best of the only thing that remains to us – ourselves. Our task now is to mend our broken world; if religion cannot do that, it is worthless. And what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of all human beings, even our enemies.” from Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase. -- Not certainty, that’s for sure. We watched an interview with Bob Woodward about Bush and his total lack of doubt. Scary. Amstrong quotes Hodgson on the scholarly enterprise: “The scholarly observer must render the mental and practical behavior of a group into terms available in his own mental resources, which should remain personally felt, even while informed with a breadth of reference which will allow other educated persons to make sense of them. But this must not be to substitute his own and his readers’ conventions for the original, but to broaden his own perspective so that it can make a place for the other. Concretely, he must never be satisfied to cease asking “but why?” until he has driven his understanding to the point where he has an immediate, human grasp of what a given position meant, such that every nuance in the data is accounted for and withal, given the total presuppositions and circumstances, he could feel himself doing the same.” Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam. 1974, quoted in The Spiral Staircase. And speaking of such things. I’ve been reading selected articles from Johnetta Cole’s Anthropology for the Nineties, to get a taste for the field. Most of the articles are quite interesting. It was published in 1988, which sounds recent to me but was 16 years ago! She says in her introduction, “Anthropology stands out as the broadest in scope of all of the humanities and social sciences.” Well, of course! I think that’s pretty justified, although I’m sure other disciplines feel the same way, whether they make the claim or not. Biology for instance! I’m not sure I know what the difference is between anthropology and sociology. Articles: “Up the Anthropologist,” Laura Nader. Anthropologists must also study the political, economic, and social elites. -- Tourism: The Sacred Journey,” Nelson Graburn. Interesting but written in rather bland jargon. -- Religion in an Afluent Society,” Surajit Sinha. Christianity in Mapletown, USA supports and reflects the existing social order. This was written in 1966, and could describe today. -- In “Shakespeare in the Bush” the Tiv people hilariously explain Hamlet to the anthropologist. -- Johnetta Cole’s essay on “Women in Cuba” makes it clear why the Cuban Revolution was such a big deal. The people had been miserably poor, and women particularly badly treated, and almost all the wealth was owned by and benefited U.S. interests. MAY 1 May 04 We've had the wettest April on record, but I think it rained mostly at night here on the Cape. This morning it was above 40 degrees for my walk at 6:30, for the first time since the fall. It's been 80 in Boston, which is why we live here, not in Boston. One of the reasons. Really lovely weather these days, well into the Cape's reluctant Spring. Only the grass, the honeysuckle, and the garlic mustard seem really eager, and the bulbs of course. I cut our lawn. It took three minutes. The 75 cents worth of winter rye I planted in the fall seems to be a perennial. We saw three big deer on the Coast Guard trail, the first we'd seen there. But Enough of Verlyn Klinkerbourg. I finished Karen's bookcase. I struggled with Word for Window's prodigious label-making capabilities for several hours before giving up and producing 50 mailing labels for the ECEC with an ordinary 3-column document. I've put off the building permit for the porch until mid-May. We're still looking at good table radios. Everyone praises the Bose, which is Nancy's preference. Components give you more for less, but less becomes more the older you get. I've started a new novel. I'm reluctant to admit this to Rhoda, as she'll dislike it. She'll hate it in fact. It's a human novel, more or less adult, as adult as I get anyway, but it also contains children, religion, and talking animals. I was clearly marked for life by my father's stories of Elmer the elephant. The news is worse and worse. 5000 US and 17000 Iraqi casualties and no end. It took ten years and a million lives to get ourselves out of Vietnam, another place we needn't have gone, although that wasn't as clear then as this is now. It's too much like the interminable, pointless war in Orwell's 1984. Here's a ugly thought: why not outsource the whole thing? I find these mumblings about the draft very upsetting. I'll march. I'm halfway through Karen Armstrong's Buddha, partly for the benefit of my novel. She writes well about it. I think she may have Buddhist aspirations, as do several of our friends. I know the Buddha would say, "Well, what did you expect my friends, a rose garden?" But I say it's what we've got, and I'm not ready to give it up to the bad guys. Who are the bad guys? Well, that's the tricky part. We may be the bad guys. 3 May 04 Good spring weather finally. We saw a large white egret at the tiny vernal pool at Fort Hill. It looked confused. The Town Meeting Monday night was about as expected. We did vote to purchase some useful open space. An override for the town beach passed 249 to 139. We have to vote on it at the ballot box in two weeks. It will probably pass. We’re against it, but shouldn’t bother us much. They were talking about limiting passes to 4,000 “expensive” ones when our selectman friend Peter said, no way. Every resident who wants one can get one. There, I think, went the Beach Committee’s plan to have themselves a ritzy little beach club. 300 parking spots for 30,000 summer vistors! My mother reports that Evelyn Smith “June” Chenoweth, 80, or Dunedin, died April 3d. What are the odds of two in the same town! They met occasionally and were friendly but not really friends. Once “June” got a bank CD of my mother’s, and another time my mother’s ophthalmologist remarked on the amazing improvement in her eyesight. I should be surprised, I suppose, having discovered a plethora of Russ Chenoweths in the world. We read that Barnstable County has the worst drunken driving accident rate in the state. Evidently all those bumper stickers saying, “..., a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem.” are no joke. You’ll be glad to know we stay off the highways as much as possible and rarely go out at night. We drive moderately and defensively and keep both hands on the wheel, ready as possible for anything our teen, octogenarian, and pickup truck colleagues send down the pike. Yeah, we’ve observed who the worst offenders are. (“The bad guys” to use official U.S. Government terminology.) At the risk of offending, we might add urban New Yorkers in expensive cars. They’re probably just not used to driving. K’s bookcase has been assembled and disassembled and is ready to travel. 12 May 04 Thank you all for a delightful visit. It was strenuous but fun, and we made it home safely, our car still putting along well and ready for its 150,000 mile checkup. We ate enjoyably but only a little too much and saw agreeable and exotic sights. The Senior Menu “Fishamagig” and sundae at Friendly’s Friday night was just the right amount of super junkfood for our palates. I hope you have no trouble with the bookcase, Karen. John or Dave will advise re the 2 x 4 foot piece of 1/8th inch hardboard. I meant to include some small nails for it but forgot. It was great to see you guys well and prospering. Why this compulsion to discuss food? You’ll recall that when I was 12 my grandfather and I cherished the memory of the many meals we ate on our 6 week road tour of the West and could recount each one years later. I indulged in sausage gravy on a biscuit on Saturday morning, already a touch of the South. The drive down U.S. 13 to Virginia didn’t seem too long and was quite interesting. I’m sure rural Maryland and peninsular Virginia are nothing like beautiful upstate New York, Megan. Alas, the Chenoweths have lived most of their lives in the effete suburbs. I thoroughly enjoyed a year in Queens and another in West Philadelphia but have never lived in the country. Despite its laughable claim to a “rural character,” Eastham is more suburban than anything else. I did pay a two day visit one January to Glens Falls, New York, a dying mill town covered with dirty snow and surrounded by tall, dark, and threatening pine forests, a la Twin Peaks. I plead ignorance of the true countryside. That said, I found highway 13 funny, sad, and occasionally threatening. A carwash for Mother’s Day? If this is the local version of luxury, why not? Who eats at the roadside barbeques, locals or tourists? Why were the half dozen or so collapsed houses and barns we saw tightly held in the embrace of gnarled trees and vines just left that way, why not taken down, or is that the kind of compulsive neatness we learn in the suburbs? I note yearly that Eastham has lovely little “flower islands” at road junctions, but no one cuts the ugly weeds growing the length of the curb on route 6. Perhaps the elderly have too much time to contemplate such things. The 30 mile bridge/tunnel across the bay seemed a trifle “unnatural,” like being at sea without a ship, the tunnels sci-fi wormholes plunging under the bay without benefit of an anchoring island. Such frissons are good for us, no doubt, but as, with age, I become bolder with my fellow humans, I become more timid about nature. Norfolk/Virginia Beach is splendid. The parts we saw looked well cared for, extremely prosperous, and often brand new. I can see why you like it, Sara. Touches of Atlantic city, Cape Cod, Provincetown, Blue Bell, the big city, and the old South. We were pleased to see PETA’s attractively sited headquarters. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet Ingrid, but perhaps it would have been awkward, too much like sight-seeing, although I genuinely admire her. That was one tough cat we did meet! A cypress swamp, with knees and Spanish Moss, large turtles, and conveniently elusive water moccasins! Although if one had emerged to seize one of the illicitly free-range dogs... Much more to see some other time, the maritime museum, the gardens, Williamsburg, etc. We’ll be back. The battleship looked strangely small. Perhaps I was just imagining being trapped inside it. We’ll cook or seek out Thai food. Delicious. Nancy encouraged me to make meatloaf last night. Just a James Beard recipe, but it was quite good. We were pleased to meet Andy, who seems like a thoroughly nice guy, soft-spoken, smart, and laid-back. Your apartment is perfect, Sara. It didn’t seem small at all, perhaps because of the splendid view of ducks. I did note your bathroom window, John. Just forgot to mention it. Nice job! Our tiny “lawn” is 8 inches high again, some of it anyway. I imagine a wise farmer might say, “If you plant rye you get rye.” 20 May 04 Thanks much for the book, Mari: Laura Nader, The Life of the Law; anthropological projects, U.C. Pr., 2002. Includes: Evolving an Ethnography of Law; Lawyers and Anthropologists, Hegemonic Processes in Law: Colonial to Contemporary, and The Plaintiff a User Theory (the latter very much a Ralph Nader sort of chapter!) Laura is Ralph’s sister and looks like him. My lawyer friend Sid knows them and says she’s a lawyer too, as well as an anthropologist at U.C. Berkeley. It’s quite an interesting book, particularly to members of the ACLU. I’ll pass it along. Tom Friedman’s op-ed “Dancing Alone” on Thursday the 13th was right on the money. We’d been wondering about Tom lately, but maybe he was just trying to shame the Administration into behaving responsibly. Not a chance. I’ll send it for those who haven’t seen it. Now it’s uppity raccoons! There was a big one digging up our garden this morning. I hollered and banged on the door. Then I threw empty tin cans and small blocks of wood at him. He didn’t charge me with foaming fangs; he completely ignored me. He finally decided we had little to offer and left. We saw two turkey vultures, one flying low across the road carrying his carry-on. They are black with red heads, in case you come across one. We saw what we think was a female Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius) in the back yard. We’ll put out our hummer feeder soon. (A gas pump?) We bought an inkberry bush (Ilex glabra of the holly family) at The Farm. It’s a broad-leafed evergreen and very attractive. You know it, the big bush just beside our garbage cans in Oreland which attracted all the tiny bees! They’re also native to Cape Cod and found at the margins of bogs. At the dump today I found a mint condition hardback of Patrick O’Brian’s Desolation Island, NY Stein and Day 1979, with jacket. I’ll save it for you, John. Sara, thanks for the Mediterranean Pasta Salad recipe. It says roast, peel, and seed large green and red peppers, as per page 14, but you used a jar of red peppers, which seems much easier. I don’t recall that you used any green peppers. Did you? Thanks. We had a small potluck last night, maybe only 10, all around one table. It was really quite nice, one of those extended conversations that I particularly like. We thought it might be only hors d’eouvres, wine, salads, and deserts (we never organize), but a delicious dish of spicy chicken rolled in flour tortillas turned up at the last minute. The Lord will provide. I finally finished Fernand Braudel’s The Structures of Everyday Life; Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Vol. 1., which I had put aside for other projects. The chapters on sources of energy and towns and cities were particularly fascinating. Then I had to sew it back together with kite string as it had fallen apart. No a model of the bookbinder’s art, but it will do. I finished reading and taking notes on Karen Armstrong’s Buddha, in the Penguin Lives series. A good book, a sympathetic view of Buddhism, but it doesn’t cover the messy 2500 years since the Buddha’s death. I’ll have to look into that. This is in aid of my just-begun novel which is all about religion and which I plan to sell to the UU publishing House. How’s that for responsible (if fanciful) planning ahead? We saw a fascinating panel discussion on Brown v Board of Education on Book TV, led by Tavis Smiley, with Jesse Jackson, James Jones, Lani Guinere, Connie Rice (not Condi Rice!), Elaine Jones, and others. Wonderful intelligent discussion, but discouraging situation re education, of minorities and in general, 50 years after Brown. We had a good Book Group discussion Monday of Shaara’s Killer Angels and of war in general and terrorism in particular. The writing group liked “Morris sees the Light,” my attempt at an introductory story to the Morris series. Got a note from Ariane Boisseau. She’s leaving France Culture, but it will continue. Wanted to know if we knew anyone interested in a house exchange for her nice flat in Montmartre. I’ve asked what season. I’d love it, but a bit de trop for us I fear. Today we go to a mysterious funeral. First it was “bring finger foods at 4:00”, then in the paper it was a “potluck supper at 4:00, service at 5:00”, then in the paper it was “potluck supper 4:00-5:30”. He was a well known “activist.” A large crowd is expected (with demonstrators?). We may go early with cucumber sandwiches and slip away. We didn’t really know him, but we know and like his wife, also an “activist”. We are passivists. Well, we went, briefly. Such a scene! We went at 4:00 with our paper plate of dainty sandwiches, and the place was already mobbed, at least a hundred people. Flags and banners and a group of drummers seated on the ground in front of the Chapel. We squeezed our way in, slipped our plate onto the groaning food table, said hello to a few people we knew, wiggled our way back out, and gently faded into the sunset, all within about ten minutes. Noted a video camera, so I guess a service was to follow. Perhaps TV coverage. He was sort of famous. A valuable person who aroused various passions. Next Sunday I give my “Why Write” talk. I hope a few more turn up than for last weeks excellent talk on “Women Artists.” Today I’m a fighter pilot, a chihuahua, and Dracula in performance at the Council On Aging. 27 May 04 Mort’s funeral must have been a hoot. I picked up the 6-page program at the chapel the next day. The service ran from 6 to 6:30 and had been planned meticulously by Mort himself. In between testimonials there were musical performances and group singing of labor and protest songs, like “Joe Hill.” ( “...where workers stand up for their rights, it’s where you’ll find Joe Hill.”) -- I didn’t really know him, but he was one of the good guys. I saw a blacksnake today! Nancy walked right by it. She’s the one who usually sees snakes. The woman’s role, presumably. It was curled up beside the path, flicking its forked tongue at a tremendous rate and ignoring us completely. We watched it for a couple of minutes before it suddenly raced off to a meeting. I also saw a very speedy vole on my morning walk. It dashed across Runway Lane and hit noisily under some leaves. I could hear and even see its progress. I guess you don’t get a very big brain with a body the size of a cigar butt. It’s the second best time of the year on the Cape, the best being fall. The first real lushness of spring is hard to beat. It takes so long to get to it, and then it happens suddenly. But usually without the heat you get farther south. The lady slippers are up. They’re more obscene than beautiful but definitely a sign of spring’s fecundity. My three water barrels are full. 150 gallons of water waiting for the next drought. It gives me a feeling of security, and virtue. The “Why Write” talk at the Fellowship on Sunday went well and attracted a good crowd. Too bad they don’t throw money. It was essentially the same one I gave to the 7th grade at the Charter School, which they thought was amusing. I read a couple of short stories and talked about how I came to write at all. It was fun. I get to read another story, along with some other folks, at the end of June. Rhoda sent me the following. It is rather amazing. I remember vaguely from Linguistics 101 at Penn that we perceive the important words in a sentence, rather than taking them in left to right, which I suppose this is related. Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg: THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? We found a new mystery writer to add to our collection, for anyone who has the time or inclination to read mysteries. The author, Lisa Scottoline, graduated from Penn and Penn Law and worked for Dechert, Price, and Rhodes. (Nancy shared a hospital room just before Christmas a long ago with Helen Dechert, wife of the senior partner. Helen had her chauffer bring a box of entertaining junk from their attic for Nancy to wrap as stocking stuffers. You’ll remember the grotesque carved monkey-head with moveable eyes and jaw.) Her character Bennie Rosato, also graduated from Penn and Penn Law and runs her own law firm in Philadelphia. Good writing and good stories, but it’s the Philadelphia locales that make it fun, being chased up Locust walk by the police, etc. 4 June 04 Oi. The dear old Accord has expired. We had to be towed twice yesterday. And I had hoped for another 150,000 miles! Today we pick up our new light-silver Civic, with 5-speed, AC, and radio. We looked briefly at Toyotas (there’s an agency in Orleans), which only confirmed Nancy in her preference for Hondas. The trip to the dealer in Hyannis is, after all an excuse to have hot and sour soup at the Mall. Labeling PETA a terrorist organization sounds like the FBI Terrorist Unit in Boston that before 9/11 was reputed to be doing their covert surveillance at IRA Bars in Southy. Good for Senator Leahey. He has long been one of the better ones. Kayaking on the Elizabeth River sounds like fun but might be a little scary among the battleships. I wanted a canoe when we first moved to the Cape. That desire seems to have faded, which is just as well as we seem to have picked up a few more material needs and desires. I’ll track down the archaeologist-mystery writer Dana Cameron. I see there are a few copies in CLAMS. We are addicted to mystery writers. I think we’ve read most of Lisa Scottoline’s Philadelphia law scene mysteries now. They’re good, and fun, but Nancy takes exception to my complaint that the women are too reckless and self-destructive. (I’ll meet with the suspected murder in the empty warehouse at 3 a.m., to see whether he/she really is the murderer before I tell anybody where I’m doing. Etc., etc.) Well, maybe not quite that bad, but you know the drill. The “Tag Sale” was quite successful. We made nearly $1500, partly we think by piggy-backing on the “Eastham Ocean Beach” tag sale at the Green. (Ours was on Memorial Day weekend first.). I acquired 3 small coffee-shaded coffee mugs. “Your color,” Nancy says. Klutzy the Fox keeps chasing small furry objects through our front yard but never catches them. A crested flycatcher sat for a moment on top of the birdfeeder. Damn, says Nancy. I keep opening the broom closet even though I know it’s empty! I’m moving the exhaust fan into the attic and building an enclosure for it, and putting in a wall switch, all of which requires emptying the closet temporarily. The bricoleur strikes again. Means “Handyman.” “Handywoman” is bricoleuse. Nice word. I have a friend who made up a business card to that effect. 11 June 04 We watched a Book TV interview in which Tom Wolfe talked about his new novel. I forget the title, but it’s about life on college campuses today. He traveled all over the country, visiting colleges, fraternities, dorms, classes, etc., a skinny old southern aesthete in a white suit and string tie, but I guess simpatico. I haven’t read Tom Wolfe (or is it Wolf). I might look at this one. The Eastham Historical Society Book Sale was a bust. I got some great books last year, but this year when I arrived ten minutes before its supposed opening, it was already in full swing. Tim of Tim’s Books, and his cadaverous colleague from the P’town store had armfuls of the best. Oh, well. I’m running out of bookshelves anyway. It’s warm. I prefer cool, but the smells are good. Green things, salt marsh, sea, it’s all more agreeably odiferous in warm weather. With all the rain the grass is great. I don’t mean lawns, those icky putting greens of suburbia, but knee-high, shoulder-high wild grasses of all kinds. Today we go to Hyannis Honda to get our air conditioner. We were tempted to do without, but, with global warming and all, sometimes in the summer a mandatory drive can be grim. Ah for the good old days when all we needed was a shade tree and a glass of home-made lemonade. Overheard: Walking along Western Avenue, we approached an old couple from the rear. The woman was carrying a bag and a large serving spoon. She said to the man, “...the next place we have to put her ashes...” Kowloon? Capetown? -- In the customer lounge at Hyannis Honda we heard one of the desk agents say, “It’s the cat calling the kettle black!” We gave it ten seconds of thought, and turned to look at each other. The world is full of wondrous things. The air conditioner was supposed to take 3-4 hours. It took 7, but we had our books. I nearly finished Evil in Modern Thought. They drove us to the Mall for lunch. I talked Nancy into sharing a chicken and mushroom plate from the Manchu Wok. We agreed that it was delicious, the best Chinese food we’d had in a long time. She much preferred it to the chicken teriyaki we’d had last time and which I thought pretty good. Let’s hear it for fast food. I doubt that it was low in anything. The weatherman promised 3 days of almost 100% sun, so we decided to take a picnic to Bearberry Hill on Friday. Good decision: little traffic compared to the weekend and no one at the hill at all. Our notion of a picnic is wimpy. We eat in the car, because it’s comfortable, and we can listen to music. We also don’t have to schlep our coffee carafe. The hill was amazing, the bearberry squeaking with delight in the sun after a wet week, the ocean aggressively blue, and not a soul in sight. The walk through the Lilliputian woods was lovely, although the path was overgrown and we met a few ticks. I imagined a village of two foot high houses and a 4 inch stage coach coming down the path. The bog house looked good surrounded by the remains of an old fruit orchard in bloom and tall soft grass. We were admiring our minimal garden, which is pretty admirable this year, considering the amount of effort we put into it, when UPS drove up with the Bose. Yes, the Bose. Nancy has been considering this for years and decided this was the summer of our extravagance (the decade of our extravagance, perhaps the most extravagant thing we’ve ever done). I’m sure one could get better sound for much less, but it’s the efficiently of the thing which got her. Approximately 14” x 8” x5”, with a remote and, really, quite good sound. (Though John’s Sony boom box that we’ve been listening to for the last 5 years, isn’t bad.) She’d bought an E. Power Biggs organ recording at the Mall and played it. The Bose passed the test. Sitting in our living room and listening to music is, after all, approximately 1/3 of our lives here. After a week of Reagan mania, perhaps we can return to our lives. I guess he was a nice man. I guess he was a little brighter than we thought, though not much. It seems left-handed to praise him for NOT getting us into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (as Wolfie, Perle, and and Cheney were evidently, and maniacally, urging), but it is something to be grateful for. I hope he doesn't appear on the dime, but it wouldn't be unfitting. Roosevelt gave us government for the people. Ronnie ended it. Well, he was sure better than the fellow we have now, and who'd have thought it. 26 June 04 Google News is a pretty good summary. Clear and graphic headlines, grouped by topic, date-lined (4 hours ago, 1 hour, 40 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.) and linked to the actual stories in several newspapers. My morning logon may be getting out of hand: email, NYT, France Culture, TV Cinq, and Google News. One can certainly keep informed, but I’m not sure we’re wiser for it. Checking Courrier International online (http://www.courrierinternational.com), because Bruce has gone to France for the summer and taken his subscription with him, I read an article on weblogs challenging big media in the U.S. and ran across a reference to Arts and Letters (http://artsandlettersdaily.com/) “a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education,” edited by Denis Dutton. It’s a fascinating collection of serious articles. One could easily get trapped in the web. Bill Opel talked about parables on Sunday Traditionally, Biblical parables make a single point, but he pointed out that they tell more about the teller, the background, and the circumstances than any particular bit of doctrine. He, and we, told personal parables. His about driving up a mountain, being disappointed in the view, and seeing wildflowers on the way back down. Another about parking at a military function: He found his car blocked in. When the offending driver showed up, she was offended by his annoyance: there was no M.P. to tell her not to, there were no lines painted on the parking lot, and everyone else was doing it! Where’s the Categorical Imperative! Nina Opel told one about the U.N. of helpers that appeared instantly when she locked her keys in her car in an inconveniently illegal place in downtown Boston. Harry told a Buddhist parable at the Men’s Meeting. Two monks came to a shallow stream, where they found a woman afraid to cross. They carried her across, and she went on her way. The young monk then said to the older monk, “But we aren’t supposed to touch a woman, and we just carried one across this stream.” The older monk said, “You carried her across the stream. I left her on the other side.” Sandy Noyes came to the Fellowship. He’s been doing a photo essay about the world’s largest linen paper mill, which has just closed in Western Massachusetts. A 150 year old building that’s falling apart. There’s an adequate market for fine paper, but apparently not enough profit for the corporate owners. What a world. We bought two huge tomato plants and planted them in our big flower pots, the ones that held impatiens last year. You can’t eat impatiens. They seem to be thriving in the only really sunny spot in our yard. We saw a couple of wild swans on Great Pond, facing each other with their necks bent and their heads under water, making a perfect heart! Oh, la. JULY 7 July 04 We certainly enjoyed seeing everyone in the last two weeks. And of course the accompanying good food, quite a contrast with our normal slops and gruel! We’ll try grilled bluefish as available and are glad to have buck-and-a-quarter pizza dough added to our repertoire. Nancy is feeling steadily better. We walked yesterday and will again today. I ran into Ivan Ace at the book sale preparations, (his wife Mimi is currently President of the Friends of the Library). Ivan’s the tall fellow some of us met on the trails, who is in charge of trail maintenance for the Friends of the National Seashore. -- Lot of Friends on the Cape. Nancy is corresponding secretary for the ECEC Friends, a better initialism than Friends of the ECEC. – I mentioned Lyme and offered to help. He said go to it, we have permission from the CCNS to trim trails anytime we want. So I shall, taking due precautions. Found a few pre-sale books: A Traveller’s History of Scotland (1994) and A Treveller’s History of England (1998), nice, packed little paperbacks that might be good to carry. The spelling of traveler is presumably a British variant. The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950, by Hohenberg and Lees, Harvard, 1985, is interesting to me at least. Was This Camelot? Excavations at Cadbury Castle 1966-1970, by Leslie Alcock, NY, Stein and Day, 1972, seems, despite the title and the fact that it was “written for the enthusiasts”, a fairly detailed and serious presentation with 15 color plates, 95 monochrome plates, and 36 line drawings. Seems very quiet this morning. Presumably some of the holiday hordes have left. A ton more rain. The house is slowly being engulfed in greenery, not a bad way to go. I might have to cut my “lawn” again this summer. I will have to buy more gas and cut the Chapel lawn. Edwards for Veep? Probably a good choice. Who knows. So, back to magic realism and the pursuit of Evil. 11 July 04 I took the car on Thursday to get the air conditioner fixed. I thought it might be a loose wire, but it took them 3 1/2 hours to locate the problem. I really do think it would be more economical to install A/C in Civic DX’s and take it out in the few cases it’s not wanted. I imagine, though, that it’s a sales device to get folks to buy the more expensive models. It’s done, anyway, and I read and had a nice chat with Dave Payor, who occupied the neighboring recliner, while we sipped courtesy coffee and munched doughnut holes. He said the Library made $3500 on the book sale. It’s amazing that we can do that by recycling the same old books each year. I picked up some more good ones at the $3 a bag finale. I may stop in at the Historical Society’s sale this morning before the Fellowship. I’ve an easy way to add another 16 shelf feet of bookcases: the top shelf already in place in the guest room, and finishing the two top shelves in the living room. After that, 4 more shelves atop the existing 4 in the ‘computer room’ would add a further 16 and that’s it. From that point on, I’ll have to swap out old books to make place for newer ones. A good discipline, no doubt. If anyone is collecting in a particular area, I’ll be glad to keep an eye out. Retirement communities are good hunting grounds, as, sadly, book collections get broken up. I almost visited Tim’s Books Hyannis on Thursday, but the longer morning than planned and the need to stop at Home Depot, which is in the opposite direction, scuttled that for now. I wanted two grates for the attic exhaust fan and to price treated lumber. The grates are now installed above the broom closet, to Nancy’s satisfaction. She is very reluctant to let me cut holes in the walls and ceilings of THIS house. I can’t imagine why. Treated lumber seems to be available and not outlandishly expensive, so perhaps we’ll proceed with the back porch one of these weeks. It’s odd how that works. I just wake up one morning and start. Once started it continues until the end. But I haven’t started yet. The Fellowship this morning is puppets. Nancy doesn’t do puppets and will probably ‘convalesce’ another week. She still tires easily, but we do get in our walks, shopping, etc. The puppet mistress is a cousin of the Weber’s and a psychologist from Boston. I don’t suppose it made the papers down southwest, but Wellfleet’s fireworks exploded prematurely at noon yesterday. Fortunately there were no injuries. But also no fireworks. I’m surprised we didn’t hear it. We do hear Wellfleet’s fireworks, but I guess only when they explode properly up in the sky. Well, that’s the excitement at Cape Wobegone. Nationally, everyone seems to think Edwards a good choice, or at least the inevitable one. Fine with me. A trial lawyer who’ll sue the bad guys is certainly preferable to an MBA who’ll just fire the little guys. I assume all large corporations probably need to be sued on principle. -- The Catholic bishops deserve the Chutzpah Award for moral pontification from clay pedestals. -- Internationally, I saw a map of the Israeli wall. It seems generally to follow the ‘green line’, with room for negotiation. It seems to me that suicide bombers trump concrete when it comes to nastiness. We’ve managed by some fiddling with the cord to get our new radio to play BBC World News and All Things Considered, which are better than the evening news. I did get to the book sale, 15 minutes early, and naturally found it in full swing. Well, now I know. Tim and Co. hadn’t made it, and I found two nifty books, a new copy of Daniel Boorstin’s 800p. The Creators, and an excellent copy of The Treasures of Britain, a fat, slick semi-coffee table book of pictures, text and maps of...the treasures of Britain. Book collecting is a pleasant and relatively benign hobby, despite tales of NY apartments collapsing under the weight of books. I once visited a clergyman who had books in tall piles in many rooms of his house. A pile would occasionally collapse noisily in the night, rousting everyone out of bed. The puppet person was excellent. Absurdly, I kept trying to avoid eye-contact with Leonard (the hand puppet). Back home, Diarmaid MacCulloch was on Book TV. He’s the Oxford professor who’s the author of the truly splendid book on the Reformation that I’m now reading. Nancy and I agreed that he was fabulous. He mentioned the fact that U.S. foreign policy in the middle-east is much determined by the fundamentalist views of Bush and Rove. The Europeans are aware of this, even if we aren’t. 27 July 04 We’ve had a number of hummingbirds at the HB feeder this week. They go around and try all four little spouts, which is I guess what you have to do with flowers. The purple butterfly bush is now in bloom, a great stalk of tiny flowers with a very sweet but not overpowering odor The garlic mustard in the swamp has died down, but it’s evidently a great year for Indian mustard, which grows in profusion along the trail overlooking the marsh at Fort Hill. Workers have been cutting paths in the field all week. Not hiking paths I wouldn’t think, but who knows? If I can get to one I’ll ask. Overheard on Channel 5 News from Boston, the best of the three network news programs: whether or not he should live or die today’s climactic conditions people die inadvertently illegally permitted from buying a gun illegal counterfeiting had to drag fire hoses 10,000 feet, because the nearest fire hydrant was a mile away customer will be refunded increase the rise of a leading cause of cancer overweight is much more concerning investigation into the pregnant woman whose body preventative medicine female swans can lay eggs, but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll be fertilized he gained notoriety by reopening the failed mill bullets riddled a random truck [note: we try to avoid driving random vehicles] Bu then, the other day my know it all computer asked me: “Are you sure you want to send The Problem of Evil to the Recycle Bin?” Ancient Ireland, an Explorer’s Guide, by Robert Emmet Meagher and Elizabeth Parker Neave, Northampton, Interlink Books, 2004. Covers 4000 B.C.E. to 1200 C.E. AUGUST 16 Aug 04 All that southern weather has finally reached us in the form of heavy rain. We needed it and are glad to have it. It’s been in the 60’s at night. The sled-dog days of summer. We had to dash into the chapel yesterday morning through a deluge, but there was a good turnout for my talk on evil. Evil is big. I thought it went well. There were lots of comments and questions, and even Rhoda said it was okay. I feel pleasantly off the hook for now. No doubt some new topic will come along; it’s sort of an addiction. We walked in the swamp. We like to do this in the rain because it’s sheltered, and the wet and dark bring out the many shades of green and enhance the overall swampiness. No frogs. Why not? Isn’t this frog weather? Had a brief email from John and Megan. The trip’s going well, and they love Ireland. We’re surrounded here on the Cape by enthusiastic retired Boston Irish. I’ll share the good report on the motherland. We’re made our own, less exotic, reservations for Florida in November. I got up the nerve to do it online this time. It was easy and fairly cheap, although that may be more the time of year. JetBlue advises you to bring a sandwich! Seems sound advice. I hope they supply drinks. We’ve coordinated our visit with Maury, which is fun for all of us. Dunedin is a nice place to visit. Maury says John will be working full-time for Qualcom after September. One of the dot.coms that has survived and thrived. We’re having a memorial service for Bob Olson next Sunday. He died a few weeks ago at 89. He was a scientist, thinker, and viniculturist, and president for some years of the CC Wine Tasting Society. George Abbott died this week. He was in many ways our UU conscience. He and Rosemary had just celebrated their 57th anniversary. My mother and father had 57 years together too, as did Winston and Clementine Churchill. As my mother said years ago, it’s good living with your peers, they understand you, but, alas, they also tend to die off. We have at least a few friends who are younger than we are. Always a good idea. I’ve started reading the UC Press book Mari sent me, Maps of Time, an introduction to Big History, by David Christian. It’s well written and is the book I wanted when I went to college 50 some years ago, a splendid big sweep history that tells you roughly where we’ve got to, from the big bang to possible futures, in 500 pages: cosmology (not cosmetology), geology, archaeology, population and environmental studies, etc. A bit much, sure, but he makes a convincing argument that we need efforts like this, as scientific research becomes ever more specialized. -- I met someone whose daughter got her Ph.D. under Harold Bloom at Yale. Wow. – I also rescued The Reformation from the library and will continue from page 310 onwards. So many books. Bu no cats. We read the fine print in our Honda Civic manual today, about how our keys have a chip in them that turns off the anti-theft system and that you mustn’t drop them, put heavy objects on them, or get them wet. Something more to worry about! Drop your key ring in the Brazilian rainforest, and Honda has to parachute in a new key. 21 August 04 We’re delighted to hear that Megan and John are safely back with their cats, and that they had a good trip. We’ll hope to hear about their adventures and see some of their pictures, after they’ve had a chance to readjust to life on earth. It was down to fifty this morning! I had to wear a jacket for my morning walk. This is great, although we’re dreading the price our Eastham Discount Oil may quote for the winter. Hot is bad, temperate is boring, cold is expensive. There’s no pleasing us. I've now read the first 170 pages of Maps of Time, an introduction to big history, and it's fabulous. It's the clearest explanation I've ever read of the development of the universe, the origins and history of the earth, life on earth and the beginnings of human society. All speculative but based on the latest conjecture of the specialists. Maybe it’s partly the "plumbing" phenomenon, the fact that after you read two or three books on plumbing or wiring, suddenly the next book seems to explain it all, because you already know a lot of what it’s telling you. In any case, I recommend it, and it will be here on the shelf when I finish it. Nancy picked the book for our September book group meeting, Madam Secretary, by Madeleine Albright. Unlike many political autobiographies, it’s well-written and entertaining, funny actually. Nancy, uncharacteristically, had to read me a passage about every half hour. I’m well enough into it to agree. I did feel twinges of regret. Here’s a woman who had no easy life, but has managed to enjoy it thoroughly while making the fullest use of her educational opportunities in a way I feel I never did. I had a discussion with my sister about veggie burgers. We like Morningstar Farms Grillers Prime. They have a little more fat, and a lot more flavor than Grillers Original, 9g per burger, and 390mg sodium. Not that we spend too much time with the fine print. Does anyone have other suggestions? There are a lot of faux burgers out there, and we’re reluctant to try them at random. Also, Sara, you once recommended a chicken burger that I liked a lot. We tried the Morningstar Farms version, but it seemed smaller and less flavorful than I remembered. The Memorial Service yesterday for Bob Olson was rather enjoyable. Bob died at 89, after, as they say, a full life. His wife of 57 years had died a few months ago. It was really more of a memorial committee meeting. There were no prayers, no music, no readings. As at a Friends Meeting, people stood up and spoke if they felt like it, rarely for more than 30 seconds. Nancy spoke well. We learned about Bob’s volunteering in science classes, (he had a Ph.D. in chemistry), his activities with local health and wine growing organizations, his metal sculptures and windmill, and that he’s known in the community as Mr. Compost. We had the sense that his son loved but didn’t really understand him. His daughter clearly did. Then we ate and talked. There isn’t much better than eating and talking. Thanks for the postcard of St. Michan’s Church. What a lovely old building. I guess one could say they don’t build them like that anymore. I wonder if you noticed that there is a person walking towards the church in the narrow path in the foreground? He’s almost hidden by the tall hedge, and he’s quite bald on the top of his head. If here were fully bald, he might be the little round-headed man who often appears in Charles Adams cartoons, presumably headed for the crypt. Yes, Megan is very nice indeed to let you visit crypts full of mummies. It occurred to me to wonder just what crypts were all about, so I looked in the 1911 Britannica. I’d assumed the word was from Greek kryptein, to hide, as in cryptography, etc., but I see that crypts have a long history as archaeological features before they became subterranean Christian chapels erected around the tomb of a martyr and later serving to elevate the altar to make it visible to the congregation. And much, much more, as they say on the evening news. It’s a bit hot and muggy again, but we enjoyed a beautiful sunny and cool week, down to 45 early one morning. We walked on the flats every day as low tide advanced from early morning to late afternoon. -- Yes, Mari, definitely bring a light jacket and sweatshirt for Connecticut in September. Where is your writing conference? We’ve forgotten. I think crypts are fascinating, and I’m impressed with your knowledge, John. It makes the point that Homo sapiens sapiens can be revealed in any of a million ways. Funerary practices are only one of our many interesting activities. -- Alas, we must have a memorial get-together for George Abbot in September. His wife, Rosemary, was our rental agent 30 years ago. Good friends. The Fellowship is becoming a burial society, but such is life. Russell’s kitchen tip: you can freeze fresh Rosemary (the herb, not the rental agent) very effectively in a flat sheet of ice which just covers the herbs. Break off as much as you want to use. We did this after only a few weeks, and it was completely fresh. Don’t know how long it would last. We stocked up on Morningstar Farms Grillers Prime and bought Boca Burgers to try, vegetarian, not vegan. These are great for quick suppers. We like them as much as hamburgers, if not more, and they’re easier and presumably better for you. They also last much longer in your freezer without losing flavor. We saw historian Niall (Neil) Ferguson on Book TV, author of Empire and Colossus (the American empire), and many other books. He’s does a lot of “what if” history. Many historians eschew such folly, as it deals in conjecture, as if their work didn’t! I wonder too, if some resistance isn’t religiously driven. If the Lord meant history to work out as it has, how could it be otherwise? He meant the chad to hang. Another Book TV program featured The Great Divide, edited by John Sperling, about political polarization in the U.S. Fascinating stuff, but the message was that there is no undecided center, the country is split into separate “retro” (Republican) and “metro” (Democratic) nations, and the election will be won on turnout. There are more natural Democrats, but more Republicans vote. For example, 36 million eligible women don’t vote. We enjoyed a zany gray-haired female piano duo this morning. They played jazz and then sing-along tunes. I sang along, for the first time in my life as a bass, seemed to be on key, and enjoyed it. Another career missed. Oh, well. SEPTEMBER 9 Sept 04 There was an article in the Times a while ago on cooking bluefish, about how so many people dislike it and how to get around that. Oh, dear. We discovered marinated, grilled bluefish this summer and have served it to company more than once. We’ll mend our fishy ways. We give thanks to friends for going to the Sunday anti-Bush Demonstration in New York. We’re so glad there are people like them. We wish we had the energy. We certainly have the motivation. We saw an excellent panel discussion on Book TV Saturday: Mark Green, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Craig Unger, who wrote about the Bushes and the Saudi Royals, Sydney Blumenthal and Paul Krugman. Preaching to the choir, of course, but so beautifully. Krugman asked what we all ask, “Why don’t more Americans get it?” Krugman also talked about the whimpy media. The media would say: “President says Earth Flat. Views Differ.” There was also a terrific presentation by Arundhati Roy on her new anti-globalization book, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire. She was attractive, eloquent, and convincing, and the San Francisco Audience at the American Sociological Association was wildly enthusiastic. She’s the author of a very successful novel God of Small things. Her middle and upper class literary admirers shun her since she turned to political writing. Why do people not see that you can never really have something at the expense of others; and it won’t be good for any of us until it’s good for all? -- I looked up AR on the web; exotic life, no delicate flower. I’m enjoying God of Small things. Quite strange. I want to get Roy’s ...guide to Empire. Along the same lines, I’m 2/3 of the way through, and have been very much enjoying, Empire; the rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power, by Niall Ferguson. It’s well-written by a solid academic and full of lots of enlightening illustrations and fascinating facts. Ferguson’s a Scot, now teaching at NYU, a mild apologist for the British Empire and a severe critic of contemporary Empires, particularly ours. A stray thought I’ll pass along to anyone to the Eastham Selectmen: Eastham’s flower islands are lovely. The weedy curb that runs the length of Eastham on the west side of route 6 makes us look a bit like an industrial wasteland. I’m sure there are problems: Does the state own and control the curb and sidewalk? Is it too dangerous for volunteers to weed? Are there no safe chemical weed discouragers? Does the town not have funds for this task? Perhaps the C of C might encourage individual business owners to give a good example with their own stretch of curb. Or is this like the unimproved roads in town, and we really would rather folks turned up their noses at our fair city and went on to Wellfleet? That one I could go along with. Our duties change. I decided not to be a miller next year. A few hours volunteering is fun, but even rarely, seven hours a day for minimum wage is too much like work. In fact, it’s exactly like work. Sandy had an outpouring of serious gardeners for the Library grounds, so I’m off that too. I’m not a gardener; I’m a yard man. I’ll still keep the Fellowship grounds. Common Time should start up in October, under new management. I’ll be helping Nancy with various ECEC projects, including the Chinese Feast. The writing, book, and French groups should continue. Also we’ll be “keeping book” for the Fellowship this year, managing the use of the building by various groups. No fees of course, just “donations”, as we are a non-profit, religious organization. Well, we’re genuinely non-profit, if dubiously religious. Wonderful weather until today’s needed rain. “Cape Cod” weather. Fifty at dawn and 70 mid-afternoon. Sunny, clear, cool, and breezy. We walk on the beach again this week. Low tide at 10 today and marching ahead an hour each day. Noel Beyle’s “X days to Labor Day” sign is down, and the Cape has been returned to the natives. Well, sort of. The vast majority of us are Washashores, and the shoulder season soldiers on for another month. But is it quieter already, and cooler. A slow summer for rentals, we hear. We could see that, although there was plenty of traffic. – Remember the days when we saw the license plates of 40 states in 2 weeks? Now it’s rare to see anything but MA, RI, CT, or NY. A few NH, NJ, PA, VA, and Quebec. A few Florida snow birds. Economy and fuels costs, I suppose. Lots of Prius’s here. Just a couple of Hummers around town. Did see one Hummer limo, like a shoebox on wheels. After a long hassle, I got the Fellowship website up on a new host: 1and1.com. New address: nfuu.org Now we also have an email address. Editing is still out on my own site, but it finally came to me that I could try using FTP, and it works fine. Soon I’ll update the short stories and add the first chapters of an untitled novel for any kind soul to comment on. ------------ Suggested sound bites for Senator Kerry (they can also be turned around): John Kerry will fight terrorism through maintaining a strong military, seeking broad international cooperation and intelligence based on social and economic justice, and taking into account its root causes. George Bush says he will make additional preemptive military strikes against any country that he alone determines to be a threat, without waiting for domestic or international support or sound planning and intelligence. John Kerry believes women should continue to have responsibility for their own bodies, as decided in Roe v. Wade. George Bush wants to take away women’s reproductive rights, even in cases of rape, incest, a seriously damaged fetus, or a life-threatening medical condition. John Kerry believes in sensible gun control. George Bush wants once again to allow easy access to assault weapons to every criminal and crazies. John Kerry fought bravely for his country in Vietnam. He more bravely demonstrated against the war when he learned the government had lied and the war was an un-winnable disaster. George Bush used influence to get into the Air Force Reserve and shirked his duties even there. All his civilian military advisors managed to avoid service to their country. John Kerry will do what is necessary to provide affordable health care to all citizens. George Bush offers the elderly a modest reduction in the price of prescription drugs at a high cost to the nation, a medical savings plan for the wealthy, and a 17% rise in Medicare premiums. We cannot remain the only developed country in the world without universal healthcare. John Kerry would bring back fairness in taxation. George Bush has given a 2 trillion dollar tax break to the wealthiest 1% of U.S. citizens, to be paid for by higher state and local taxes and fewer services for middle and lower income citizens. He is promoting a highly regressive flat tax and a national sales tax which would place the greatest tax burden on the poorest citizens. John Kerry will make corporations keep jobs and taxable income in our country. George Bush encourages corporations to send them abroad. John Kerry tells the truth. The Republicans have lied about Bush’s military service, about the justification for invading Iraq, about the use of torture at Guantanamo and in Iraq, and about John Kerry’s proud military and public service record. John Kerry will protect our environment the way U.S. citizens want it protected. George Bush has rescinded most of the previous administration’s environmental regulations, to accommodate power, timber, and mining interests. He has allowed higher levels of air and water pollution. He wants to lumber our national forests, drill for oil in the arctic wildlife preserve, and permit off-road vehicles in our national parks. John Kerry is a Church-going Christian with high moral principles. George Bush is a fundamentalist whose domestic and international policies aim to bring the second-coming of Christ, as which time he and his small group of the faithful will be taken to heaven while all others will plunge into fiery Hell. John Kerry has a four decade record of service to his country. George Bush was a playboy, drunk, and druggie until fifteen years ago. He was led by the hand through an undistinguished business and political career into a fluke Presidency. John Kerry will make sure that our elections are honest fair to all parties. George Bush was appointed President by a narrow decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, after a severely flawed and fraudulent election which he lost by half a million popular votes. Four years later, the situation is worse. John Kerry will promote a fair and sensible immigration policy. George Bush has encouraged the importation of what is, in effect, union-busting slave labor. John Kerry, a decorated veteran, will see that veterans receive all their richly deserved benefits. George Bush has cut veteran’s benefits, even as he makes increasing demands on our military forces. John Kerry would have supported a strong military and kept a careful eye on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, while letting UN inspectors continue their increasingly successful work. George Bush had determined to attack Iraq even before 9/11. He knowingly relied on inadequate intelligence and rejected the advice of top military leaders, and nearly unanimous world opinion, in order to launch a poorly planned invasion which has proved costly in lives and resources to both the United States and Iraq. John Kerry knows September 11 brought us sympathy and support from nearly every country in the world. The Bush administration has turned that support into hate and fear. We shuddered to hear him say in his Convention address that he will fight terrorism abroad so he doesn’t have to fight it at home. Evidently other people’s soil is an acceptable location for death and destruction. Evidently he feels free to issue, in our name, an arrogant challenge to the terrorists to strike us here. John Kerry is a believing and church-going Christian who strongly supports the separation of church and state on which this nation was founded. George Bush approves of religious interference with a woman’s right to the control of her own body. He approves of giving federal money to faith-based organizations, of Christian prayers in secular schools, and Christian symbols in secular courts. George Bush approves of placing religious limits on scientific and medical research, and he would limit the aid which our nation can give to suffering people abroad on the basis of his own religious beliefs. John Kerry will support the United Nations. George Bush and his colleagues ridicule it. John Kerry will enlist strong and wise advisors and will give them all a fair hearing. George Bush has sidelined Colin Powel, the best diplomatic and military mind in his cabinet. John Kerry would use funds designated for nation security to fund first responders, make our ports and public transportation safer, support badly needed improvement in our intelligence organizations, and encourage international understanding. George Bush squanders our national wealth in an unpopular attack on a country without dangerous weapons or significant funding and bases for terrorists. John Kerry would deal realistically with North Vietnam, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. George Bush vacillates between angering and ignoring them. John Kerry is a strong supporter of the state of Israel. He will assure Israel of U.S. protection against attack by her enemies. George Bush supports the right-wing and ultra-orthodox parties in Israel who wish to drive Palestinian Arabs out of all of Palestine, an unjust course which will assure us international disapproval and the enmity of all Muslims and will end any chance for peace in the Middle East. A Jewish takeover of all Palestine is the goal of the fundamentalist religious right, as an important stage in bringing the Second Coming of Christ and the destruction of Jews and other unbelievers. John Kerry has been accused of flip-flopping because he views each problem or issue on its merits and makes his own decisions. George Bush expresses the ideas of his neo-conservative advisors and has had to change the justification for the invasion of Iraq four times. On Monday the war on terrorism can’t be won. On Tuesday it can. John Kerry is a hard worker. Geroge Bush puts in a lot of time back at the ranch, running on his treadmill and cutting brush. John Kerry will appoint truly unbiased federal judges. All of George Bush’s judicial appointments have been right-wing ideologues. John Kerry will cooperate with the U.N. and all peaceful nations of the world to restrict the spread of nuclear arms and other WMD’s. George Bush will act unilaterally against any nation which threatens to become a nuclear power or develop like weapons. He would make us police force of the world, the enemy of all, cowering behind massive, budget-breaking military forces and shielded by a Star Wars missile shield. This is fantasy, but it could be fantasy that destroys us. John Kerry will improve educational opportunities for all. George Bush’s promised Leave No Child Behind policy was an un-funded empty promise based on an unworkable theory of testing. The so-called Texas model has proved a disaster. The Patriot Act could have been a useful temporary measure in the hands of scrupulous leaders. It is a weapon against freedom and justice in the hands of the unscrupulous. John Kerry hopes and believes our economy will continue to improve, but if family income continues to go down, the gap between rich and poor continues to increase, good jobs continue to be outsourced, and workers continue to lose their benefits, then the administration’s policies are proved radically wrong. The attack on Iraq was simply criminal. It was planned for political reasons well before September 11, based on falsified information, poorly organized, continues to be costly in lives and resources, and has made us despised around the world and less safe than before. The notion of reinstating the draft to pursue this monstrosity is obscene. John Kerry would build a nation which is good for all its citizens. George Bush would build an “ownership” society, which would be good for the strong, the fast, the lucky, and the crooked. There is no “war on terror.” A supposed “war” by a nation of 300 million against a loose international organization of a few thousands, with a billion sympathizers in the wings, is bizarre. Military strength is necessary but insufficient to oppose terrorism. Terrorism has been with us for millennia. The difference today is that even a single individual can acquire and use a weapon of mass destruction. Our only protection will be to create a world in which few will want to do this. Terrorism by groups can be addressed only by broad international cooperation based on social and economic justice, and taking into account our own actions over the decades. John Kerry voted to support the President when he could believe the Administration’s claims. The President lied about the need to attack Iraq and planned an invasion and occupation so badly that it has caused much unnecessary death, destruction, and cost. We don’t need to abandon Iraq, nor should we. We need to acknowledge the damage we’ve done by our precipitous actions and to work with the rest of the world to bring good out of it. You folks must have read The Great Divide by now. It sounds like something to take to heart. My mother used to say, comb your hair, straighten your tie, and then forget about your appearance. You’re doing fine. Cheer up, and get on with it. 12 September 04 R replies to the contributors: I agree that nature and nurture form personality, and personality largely determines our beliefs. My father, raised as a hell-fire Lutheran, claimed to be a philatelist and pantheist. I’m currently a believer in evolutionary biology and an agnostic (in the sense of “don’t know” rather than “can’t know”) as whether there’s an end to our knowledge. I’m a pantheist in that existence seems to me to be mysterious and beautiful as well as grim. I agree with William James (and Camus) that although there’s no evidence that our life is free, significant, or valuable, we might as well live enthusiastically as if it were and try to enjoy the world and make it better. It’s a long time since I read Ryle. I believe he says that thinking of soul as a kind of incorporeal substance is a “category mistake.” It’s not a something, it’s how a something is and what it does. He also distinguishes mind from brain. Mind is located throughout the body and beyond it. Mostly he’s clever and amusing. I must find a copy of The Concept of Mind, which I loaned to someone long ago. I think that our self-consciousness, when it’s finally explained, will be found to be only marginally different from the awareness of animals from protozoa through apes, and possibly of plants, and, for all I know, of rocks, the wind, and the sea, quarks and strings. Fascinating but not “spiritual.” That said, I consider myself a “religious seeker,” in love with gap-toothed, aging-Haley-Mills-look-alike Karen Armstrong, who lives a life of near monastic solitude in London and wakes up each morning eager to see what excitement the day’s scholarship may bring. My own mystical/spiritual contribution is the thought that whatever happens can’t un-happen. All the great and small, loving, hateful, tragic and beautiful people, things, events, and feelings that ever were will always be. Value is created but not destroyed, and even if our universe disperses to a dull infinity or shrivels and winks out, no value is ever lost. In sum, we’re players in a Mega-Mahabharata, the mother of all epics, which will be forever told around celestial camp fires. -- How can that be, if there’s nothing to form and hold the ones and zeros? That’s the mystery and as good a one as God in Heaven. 16 Sept 04 We get hints of fall and then fall back briefly into soupy summer. We walked at Audubon the other day, and as we left the Goose Pond trail for the long stretch beside the marsh, we were confronted with thousands of tiny crabs. Never happened before in all these years. Rather than attack us, they parted like a bow wave as we walked along the sand, but it was a bit Hitchcockian. When we regained the trail, up past the mysterious long unused dingo den, we found it populated with tiny toads. Not thousands, maybe half a dozen. The Day of the Little Creatures? We were careful not to step on one. At least we weren’t barefoot, like my mother. The goldenrod is in bloom. We recognize only two of the hundreds of varieties, all of them nice. We watched/heard a concert on TV. That’s rare these days. It was a performance of the Brahms piano conterto by the Berlin Symphony at the Herodious Atticus Amphitheater on the south slope of the acropolis. Or was it the Odeon? It was splendid even though the sound on our TV isn’t great. I like going to concerts, but it’s so difficult and expensive that seeing one on television is almost as good, and in Athens better yet. I’ve nearly finished The trouble with Islam, a short book by Irshad Manji. She’s a delightful young Muslin Lesbian who is an author and Toronto TV personality (QueerTV). I mention her sexual orientation because it’s central to her existence at the moment. She’s also a Muslim refusenik. Not a heretic; she just insists on thinking for herself (in the Muslim intellectual tradition of ijtihad, or independent reasoning) rather than accepting the party line. She rejects the “few bad apples” theory of Muslim terrorism and says most Muslims don’t dare question conservative tradition. She points out the inherent contradictions in the Koran, both praise and damnation for the Jews and other faiths within a few lines, affirming and denying the dignity of women within a few lines. The Koran denounces homosexuality but says God created everything good and perfect. – And she says, after being kicked out of the madressa, (the Muslim school), she learned about Islam from Karen Armstrong! I’ve read most of Mary Oliver’s The Leaf and the Cloud, Pulitizer and National Book Award book of poetry. Well worth the effort. And poetry is an effort, for me. I got Colossus, the Price of America’s Empire, by Niall Ferguson through CLAMS. Starts well. We’ll see. Nancy’s been cooking. She made beef and tomatoes with saffron and a chocolate pudding cake for Millard and Rosemary, who will be staying with us tonight and going to the Fellowship tomorrow to hear Merrily the Photographer. I have to meet with some woman who wants the Chapel for a memorial service. Then we go to George Abbott’s service. There will be two cellists and a tree planting. And probably a big crowd, as George was in many ways Mr. Eastham. We liked George a lot. Free Prohosting is back and promises a new text editor. They sent me a nice note, in appreciation of my long use of their free service. Remarkable. They’re in Utah. Maybe they’re Mormons, like the Word Perfect folks, and there may be a price to pay some day, but they’ll be disappointed when they find I have no soul to barter. George’service was mobbed, but we’d come early enough to get seats. We kept them, as none of the standees appeared older and feebler than we. There were two lugubrious cellists, who I rather liked, and Noel Tipton, who we have heard mentioned often but had never met, played the ancient organ, and not terribly well. Bob’s service a few weeks ago was much simpler and more effective I though. Mort’s last month, (with the drumming group and the banners and such a crowd that we left our food contribution and went home), was elaborate, with a ten page program, prepared by Mort himself. Lessons to be learned here. We become aficionados of memorials, an age-related hazard. The visit with Rosemary and Mill was pleasant as always. They wear us out with their energy, 5,000 miles into a 9,000 mile road trip, their third this year. One was in Spain. Their new car had a talky navigational system that had trouble with our confusing local roads. We may have confused the calm female voice by including a few short cuts, but she’s supposed to recover from these glitches. (One can imagine a sigh and a resigned, “Well, all right, if you insist on having it your way you’ll need to go left at the nest corner.” But she never loses her mechanical cool.). – We all went to hear Merrily Lundsford the photographer, who was quite interesting. Her $4,000 camera has only 2.5 megapixels, which is fine for newspaper work evidently. Not sure what the high cost is about. Don Wilding says he has the same equipment, also supplied by his paper, as a sports writer for a Brockton paper. She has a good personal digital camera for vacations, etc., but she says, she associates photography with work! Her dream job, she says, but it’s still a job. Why fuss about souls? Why not? My limited observation is that most things, including pleasure, pain, and significance are somewhat subjective. Whether or not the classical Christian belief in the soul is true could be highly significant, but I think this so unlikely that to me it isn't. On the other hand, I find what people think about the soul to be very interesting, certainly as interesting as what they think about food, sex, or art. Finally, as the author of the Times article says, what people think about the soul affects how they live their lives, which is significant for all of us. Although not necessarily enlightening: Torquemada and Tom Dooley must have shared a belief in the soul, while Hitler and Freud presumably shared an unbelief. 30 September 04 Lovely day today, cool and bright. We’re set for a walk and lunch in Provincetown tomorrow with Barry and Lois. We find we like a bit of social life and bestir ourselves to arrange things now and then. We’re not as compulsive about it as neighbors we once had who felt cheated if they didn’t have some major event planned every weekend. That was long ago. Perhaps they calmed down. Yesterday was one of our more spectacular indulgences in Extreme Walking. We did the Red Maple Swamp in rain and a 40 mile an hour wind. We put our great big waterproof boots on, carried ineffective umbrellas, and found it wonderfully wet in the swamp. Nauset Marsh was a choppy lake, as full as we’ve ever seen it, the influence of a full moon and a strong northeast wind. We drove out to Coast Guard to see the 20 foot waves. Andrea Reed postponed our appointment to meet a prospective new director of Common Time. She had to go to Cleveland for the funeral, after a ten year battle with cancer, of the 26 year old daughter of her best friend. We agreed this was a parent’s worst fear. Kindly do your very best to outlive us! You requested a copy of the Frohock and Engel family histories, John. I decided to retype them with a few corrections and additions. I should have known better! The 10 p. double-spaced Frohock History is now 10 p. single-spaced and growing. I thought my father was just a bit careless, but I find that the record is complex and faulty. You’d think it would be simple mathematics. We have two parents, they have two parents. Nice and neat. But I had overlooked the painfully obvious. I have always thought of Thomas Frohock as my great, great, great, great, great grandfather, but he is, of course, only one of my 32 gggggf’s, one of your 64 ggggggf’s. The name is the only particular link, and we Chenoweths have lost even that. And, equally of course, we are only a few of the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Thomas’s descendants, given the family habit of having 10 and 15 children. And that’s only the New Hampshire Frohocks! An apparently even more prolific Thomas Frohock came from England before “ours,” to Bucks County Pennsylvania, and populated the south and the middle west. – My point, finally, is that, however much genealogical research others do, it’s never quite what YOU need. At any rate, I will persevere, my goal being not a genealogy but a story, anchored in fact as much as possible. I want to include the Lowes at well and maybe a bit of the Atkinsons. The Engle and Jenneman families will be a whole different saga. As will the Coates and the Canounes. Oh lord, isn’t this the classic preoccupation of the old and older? But it is fascinating. Some do genealogy for validation, I suppose. I can’t see how that would work really. Of which of my 32, 64, 128, 256, etc. forbearers, rich and poor, beggars and thieves, am I a descendent? None really, as I’m sure DNA becomes thoroughly scrambled in a few generations. My father found notoriety to be far more interesting in a relative than nobility. I was sitting in my chair the other evening, admiring my books. They are very comforting. Some I will read again, and some I won’t, but I know they’re there and roughly what’s in them ready to be brought to life by pulling them off the shelf and running the words and phrases though what remains of my mind, like planting dry grains of wheat found in an Egyptian tomb. My friend Sandy was coming from Western Mass to talk at the Fellowship about the book of spiritual writings his UU group published. (In this context “spiritual” means pretty much anything you want, honest, it does.) His wife couldn’t come, and he’d be alone at a motel, so we invited him to supper. He missed my second email, my messages to his cell phone and the motel, and left a message to me at a wrong number. (I consider the cock-up to be chiefly my fault for relying on email in the first place.) He called from Provincetown at 5:30, the time we‘d told him to come, and said he was on his way, with Bobby, his colleague and traveling companion. Is Bobby a woman, Nancy asked, mildly miffed at this point. His wife is named Wendy. They arrived at 6:15, booted and dirty from wandering the dunes and marshes of P’town, and Bobby proved to be a cheerful man in his 50’s who teaches photography at Framingham State College. They introduced each other to their wives 30 some years ago and have been photography buddies all their lives. Fortunately there was plenty to eat, and we had a very enjoyable evening. Sandy’s talk the next morning was excellent and much appreciated. And so it goes, nothing ventured etc. We very much look forward to our visit, seeing you all, seeing Andy again, and meeting your parents, Megan. And, of course, creamed sausage on a biscuit at the Springhill Suites! OCTOBER 3 Oct 04 I was asked for my thoughts on the meaning of our President being “a godfearing man”. I didn’t know; fundamentalist, born-again? I looked it up in the Compact O.E.D. I used to freak people out by doing this without a magnifying glass, and I still can with my right eye: Godfearing – That fears God; deeply religious. “A good, God-fearing man was he.” Gentleman’s Mag., Nov. 1835. “A grave and staid God-fearing man.” Tennyson, 1864, En. Ard. 112. Also: Godfright. Obs. god-fearing, devout. var. refs. ca. 1100 f. And from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:12-14; “Fear God and honor the king.” Epistle of Peter, 2:17; “We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world.” Otto von Bismarck. Our conclusion was that it means pretty much what you want it to mean and chiefly stands in contrast to humanists and papists and anyone else you don’t like. The web seemed to be unusually unhelpful here, but one might look at the following Brookings Press Briefing: ”God Fearing Voters, God Fearing Candidates: How Important will Religion Really be in the 2000 Election” http://www.brookings.org/comm/transcripts/20000920.htm “Seven in 10 voters say they believe it's important for a president to have strong religious faith, but 50 percent are uncomfortable when politicians speak publicly about how religious they are, which I think nicely sums up the two-mindedness that Americans have about this issue.” The P’town expedition was most excellent, one of those unrepeatable days when the planets are aligned, the sun warm, the air cool and crisp, and the light coming from somewhere outside the universe. Barry parked on Commercial street a mile short of town to avoid a parking lot fee, but really so we could walk in past the lovely little million dollar cottages, many with well-tended postage stamp lawns and gardens. Provincetown Harbor sparkled between the houses. We bemoaned a bit not having brought cameras, but Lois thought maybe cameras needed an expedition of their own. A camera makes you look, but it also ties you down. We stopped in a gallery and saw some remarkable photographs, better than the paintings, I thought. I know people once feared photography would be the death of painting, and I hear that some film photographers think digital has killed photography. The moral must be that, if it satisfies you, work in mud. Lois and Nancy were stopped by a stranger from Iowa and had a long political conversation. She was a democrat but couldn’t be too open about that back home. I guess she was so glad to be out of the political closet she had to tell everyone. Barry and I waited on a bench in front of the old library. The new library, in the museum along with the boat, will be nifty. Sandy knows the man who built the half scale fishing schooner. There’s no more than about three degrees of separation anywhere on the Cape. P’town wasn’t crowded, but it was still festive. We ate lunch at Bubbala’s and stopped in at Wa, as amazing and pricey as always. We paid a visit to Tim’s on the way back. There were some nice archeology books and a big paperback of Richard Rorty. There’s little of him in CLAMS. I miss having a truly academic library handy. Ah well, you never know what will turn up at the dump. We had sent Nancy and Lois on to Tims while Barry and I explored the Marine Salvage store. Nancy hasn’t gone in for decades. Even I find it claustrophobic. It’s mostly clothes now, with just a bit of old nautical trash for atmosphere. I bought a $2 belt made of OD colored webbing. A phony Army belt that doesn’t admit to being made anywhere at all. The 60 or 70 year old O.B. Coates memorial belt, calfskin on cowhide, was getting a bit peaked. I’d considered checking out the St. Joan of Arc Thrift Shop in Orleans, but this was clearly a better deal. Nancy mildly approves. Barry brought a notebook to jot down poetry ideas. I saw him jot a few. I’d meant to bring mind, for story ideas. There are some P’town scenes in The God Box (working title). I should always carry one, but there are so many things I should always do. Like always listen to French Culture in the morning. I usually do, and sometimes to TV5 (tay vay sank), which I understand some of. Bruce now gets TV5 on cable, at $15 per month and loves it. It’s a mixture, he says, like American TV, news, game shows, and soaps, but also good specials, and his ear is getting better every day. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be worth it for me. Maybe I’ll continue to improve. Another funeral. Joan Sparrow’s son died suddenly. In his fifties maybe, but ill for some years, and troubled we gather. Joan seems okay. She’s such a trooper. Line dancing at 80! She’s a pretty good poet and earned a Harvard B.A. a decade ago. She recently sold many acres of woodland to the town of Orleans. Imagine! Forty degrees out this morning for my walk. I wore my Michael Moore baseball cap. Nancy put the heat up to 65, and it went on! Gasp. We’ve prepaid Cape Discount Oil at a survivable price, but we really hope for a long Indian Winter. Get out the sweaters. Fortunately we don’t have to choose among, heat, food, and medical care. Too many do. We’re encouraged by the debates, but who knows what lurks in the hearts of the citizenry. Nancy is back from her ECEC meeting, so it’s time for the daily dance of the soups. What kind of soup would you like? I don’t care. What kind would you like? Well, we had chicken yesterday, so maybe beef, except that we’re having pot roast tonight, so how about pea? Do we have any black bean? No but I could make some. And so on. It’s really a rather pleasant tradition. 27 October 2004 Nancy, who’s had to become a Red Sox fan by default, is glad the Curse of the Bambino has been broken. Her only regret is that it was over too soon. She’d hoped the World Series could serve as an antidote to the Election for a little longer. At least Massachusetts isn’t a hotly disputed state. We hear about mostly local candidates. It was 40 degrees again this morning. I suppose it will be 40 now until next April, but at least it’s sunny today, and the foliage is about as peak as it gets around here, a lovely, subtle beauty, mostly poison ivy, Virginia creeper, bittersweet, some reluctant oaks, and the few beeches and maples. The marsh grass is green, gold, and brown at once. It ripples in regular waves in the wind, obeying various laws of physics. A few days ago at Coast Guard it was so windy that in the distance the grass tops looked like blowing smoke. We’ll pack a lunch and drive up (or down) to Truro and explore a little, stopping at the Atlantic Spice Factory on the way back. – We did. A splendid day. We found Small’s Swamp and the nearby marsh quite colorful. We also visited a new venue, Longnook Beach, a sizeable parking lot and a trail that leads to a low cliff, the result of heavy erosion this year. There was a strange, blocked off, paved road the climbed the dune 180 feet at 30 degrees or more. We walked up and found a fenced installation that claimed to have to do with air traffic control. We think more likely a death ray or communication with space aliens. We have a red squirrel at our feeder now, foxy red and halfway between a chipmunk and a squirrel in size. There is a very large, very white cat that prowls around our house. At his sneakiest, he stands out like a snowball. We hope the other small animals find his attempts at predation as amusing as we do. We went to the memorial service for Leonard “Woody” Sparrow, the 52 year old son of our 84 year old friend and fellow Fellowship member Joan Sparrow. Over 100 came and many spoke, but it was clear that few knew Woody more than peripherally. We’d never even seen him. He was a good artist and a troubled man who largely kept to himself, but it was clear that he cared about people and they cared about him. Homo sum, nil humani.. however it goes. We care a lot about Joan, a remarkable woman as I have mentioned before. Memorial services here are very informal in dress and organization. There may be music, pictures, and artifacts. People make brief, funny, and sometimes poignant comments, and then we eat. Such is life. I asked Martha the librarian about the Patriot Act and was assured that no record was kept except of current borrowing. The total number of books taken out is recorded, however, and we discover that I’ve taken out 1678 books in the last 5 years. There are some on Nancy’s card too, but we generally use mine to keep it simple. I’m afraid John Ashcroft may conclude that folks who read so many books must be up to no good. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be for our trip to Florida. At least it should be green this fall. It’s discouraging to look down from the air on a brown Florida. We look forward to seeing my mother at 93 and Maury. We’ll bring our own coffee and instant oatmeal to avoid a long search for breakfast. In spite of all they’ve done to it, I must admit that I still like Florida. Perhaps it’s nostalgia. It was a magic place to an 8 year old kid from St. Louis. Marion Valpey gave a talk on Sunday, “Grandma Goes to Sea”, about her Wellesley summer semester 26 years ago, when she was 42 and took a credit course at Woods Hole that included 6 weeks as crew member of a windjammer that sailed to Bermuda and up to Nova Scotia. Wonderful! (Especially of one could find a way to avoid actually getting on a boat.) Most of the crew members were in their teens, the children of privilege but quite nice, as such children often are. Marion has been invited to crew, at 68, on a brief filmed voyage out of Tahiti in January. She is agonizing over whether she is physically up to it. Climbing ratlines! As the promo for the course (still being given) says: “You ask, ‘Is the ship safe?’ ‘Are our children at risk?’ The answer to both is ‘Yes’.” Marion’s partner, Bob, was a marine at Okinawa, and after the war he and two companions took a small sailboat across the Pacific. Scares me to think of it, I said. Me too, he agreed. “We had no idea what we were doing, but at least we were drunk most of the time.” We hear (honest!) that the Kuchi tribes of Afghanistan are having some internal squabbles. I suppose if one tribe were to take over another, it would have to be called a Kuchi-Kuchi coup. “Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.” Vladimir Nabokov -------------- Last summer, John read two 10 page double-spaced documents my father had written on the Frohock and Engle families and asked for photocopies.  I saw that they could use a bit of editing and completion. Naturally, I overdid it, and they're now 15 pages and single-spaced. I used the materials my father had collected and did some web searching, particularly on the LDS Ancestry database, added a few players, and did no good to the pleasant myth that my great grandfather Engle was a Prussian baron who escaped to New Orleans to avoid the rabble of '48. According to the LDS 1880 Census, he and his father were born in Indiana. Oh well. The documents are largely outlines. I tell the stories of the Frohocks and Engles more fully in the unfinished novel Newhouse. The Coates/Canoune, Jennings/Loizeaux stories are based on Aunt Elizabeth's writings, a little web searching, and a bit of lore from Nancy, who's not particularly keen on looking back. If, some day, you have the time, please make any corrections or additions you like, and I'll incorporate them. I'd suggest to all, as with the other documents, look it over if you care to and file it away. I may produce new versions in time if I get new information. Perhaps someday I'll put all three documents on a CD, along with representative photos of the cast of characters, houses, etc. It's for a perishingly small audience, of course. Unless one were to presume that Andree Canon and Thomas Frohock, and each of the 1024 other couples who participated in producing our children, could have had at least four reproducing offspring (Thomas and Catherine had 15). Correct my fuzzy math, but in 8 generations shouldn't every 4th person we pass be one of our 64 million cousins? It's history, archaeology, archiving, and fun. It isn't validation; we don't stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, although George W. may stand on his dad's wingtips. We may or may not share some values but little more DNA than we share with the chimps. On the other hand, as Faulkner apparently said in an interview, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." I believe that. NOVEMBER 8 Nov 04 A more civilized Florida trip than some previous ones. We had sausage and eggs at the Hearth and Kettle and moseyed down to Barnstable mid-morning Thursday. At Sara’s example, we bought sandwiches at Subway and caught a 10:40 bus to Logan. As I’d done the online check-in, we had our boarding passes and went through an un-crowded security at Terminal E, which is primarily overseas plus Jetblue, and enjoyed Starbucks and sandwiches with a good view of terminal operations. Jetblue’s Airbus A320 was fine, though I’d think larger people would feel cramped. The 24 channels of TV are all the channels you don’t want, Fox, sports, travel, etc. The little map with the plane’s position, altitude, and air speed was nice to have. We learned that we flew at 41,000 feet and almost 600 mph some of the way. [We noted we were coming up on Virginia Beach on the return flight and saw the fiddlehead of Cape Henry. Said, Hi.] We knew we’d be too late for supper, so we had soup at the Tampa airport. Nancy had an impressive sports conversation with the limo driver and trainee. She can also have erudite conversations about business and finance, thanks to watching CNBC. Grandmother is tiny, frail, and very old, but not much changed otherwise. She talks and doesn’t listen but was glad to see us. She still likes Mease Manor, as do we, and sees her friends on a regular basis. She plays expert bridge and Pinochle and is trying to talk a friend into giving French conversation classes. Maury had arrived earlier and looks good. It was great to see her. -- I looked at the scrap books and photo albums. There is probably family history to be mined, but I was too tired to do it. Maury went to get a rental car Friday morning. Grandmother feared she’d be late to an emergency dental appointment and called a cab. The cab and Maury arrived at the same time, but the driver had the name wrong, so Maury took off with Grandmother while the cabby looked for his fare, which, naturally, was grandmother. I paid the cab, and he said he might as well take us to the dentist too. Very jolly. The dentist, having come in shorts and sandals just for Grandmother, left to do his yard work. The four of us went to lunch at Al Fresco on Friday, Grandmother having overcome her reluctance to go out without her broken partial bridge. It really wasn’t noticeable and didn’t seem to hinder her from eating. I had my first Cuban sandwich. Pretty good. [I apologize for the inevitable senior food critiquing. It’s pretty much what there is to do in Florida.] Maury, Nancy, and I walked down to the marina and back. I’d thought November was off-season, but the town was quite busy. The first pleasantly cool day since April the limo driver told us. In an article about Miami by a Peruvian author, I learned that Florida has two seasons: bearably hot and unbearably hot. But it was actually quite nice for our visit. Sunny and 70’s. Grandmother had no supper plans, so the three of us we went to the Country Boy restaurant, a half mile or so up Main. Independent, Greek family-owned, inexpensive, seriously un-fancy, and pretty good. It was like a time-warp back into the ‘50’s. The other customers also looked 50’s-ish (as opposed to 50-ish). Saturday was lunch at Bon Apetit. It was to have been a birthday celebration for Maury and Nancy with Clare and Arlene in attendance, but Grandmother scrapped that because of her teeth (or lack thereof). Nancy and Maury enjoyed their usual cold shrimp and fruit plate and I the snook sandwich. We were sort of ordered to visit the Dunedin Arts Festival that afternoon (on our own), but we found it absolutely mobbed. Odd. Similar events on the Cape would have a merely decent crowd. Our limo driver back to the airport was an interesting character, from Bergan County New Jersey 15 years ago, because he hates to be cold. He talked about the pre-Christmas buffet for 60 he gives each year. Sort of an Italian potlatch, in which he cooks 15 pounds of Italian sausage, 15 pound of meatballs, etc., etc. For Christmas, just the family (of 10) will have a buffet at Bon Apetit. It took us half an hour to get through security on the way home. Oh yes, while in Florida, Nancy pulled a small object from her purse, a tiny box many 1/2 inch square and 2 inches long. I t contained her grandfather’s pen knife! It (and we) survived the x-ray machine and manual search of her purse at Logan. We decided to leave it at Grandmother’s, in an envelope with Nancy’s name on it. Gasp. We did learn later that a friend of ours had his Swiss army knife simply confiscated from his pocket and didn’t go to jail for life. To Home Depot this morning to buy some plumbing, perhaps look in at Tim’s Books Hyannis, and slurp sweet and sour soup at the Mall. Ah, the joys. 15 Nov 04 Home Depot was a bust. They don’t carry cpvc, the plastic pipe you use for hot water, and sold no inexpensive electric drills. So we went to the Mall, where Nancy was successful in finding the books she wanted at B&N, and I bought a $20 drill at Sears. It’s made in China, but so are the $150 drills. -- Someday we’ll discover that we’ve traded places with the Third World and will all carry signs saying, “Investment banker; will work for food.” -- We had soup at the food court and stopped at a True Value Hardware in Orleans where I found what I wanted. So the plumbing operation will move along, slowly and carefully, as I replace most of our pitted copper pipe with plastic. The Chinese Feast on Friday night was a great success. The food, cooked by Bill Opel and his helpers, was fantastic as always, the best Chinese I’ve ever eaten. We helped serve and clean up, but this time we got to eat in a civilized fashion (we had, after all, paid for our dinners). I ate too much but not too much too much. Very pleasant. Between us, Nancy and I must know half of Eastham. Conversations are amusing these days, as casual acquaintances circumlocute in case you might be a closet Republican. Sunday’s program sounded bizarre, “The Aloha Philosophy,” a talk by Pamela A’Aho Aloha Brennan, Shaman. She turned out to be quite a nice Shaman and gave us all copies of “The Little Pink Booklet of Aloha,” by Serge Kahili King. In his picture on the back cover, Serge looks like a cheerfully dissolute old geezer, but the booklet makes mad sense, especially these days. The Aloha Philosophy is a reference to the attitude of friendly acceptance which supposedly characterizes the Hawaiian Islanders. “Aloha” meaning, hello, goodbye, love, and “the joyful sharing of life’s energy.” Quite so. It seems to consist in lots of blessing of the good stuff and going easy on criticizing, doubting, blaming, and worrying. I’ve enjoyed and indulged in some of the after-election qvetching myself, but I’d begun to sense it was a bit counterproductive. The 7 points of the Aloha Philosophy are: The world is what you think it is. There are no limits. Energy flows where attention goes. Now is the moment of power. To love is to be happy with... All power comes from within. Effectiveness is the measure of truth. -- All debatable perhaps, but It’d think productively so. I’ll send you the Little Pink Book. Pamela, by the way, is the best friend of the woman who runs Annie’s Book Shop and does a bit of business in pyramids and crystals. Book group was enjoyable. I like these ladies, smart, sensible, and kind to one another. Cathy’s husband Steve came too, as he’d read the book with interest, Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa. Most liked the book a lot but found some of it hard going. Nancy and I found the subject interesting but the writing disorganized and repetitive. I think many in our group aren’t used to reading good non-fiction. I’m puzzled by Winchester’s popularity. The Professor and the Madman, about the O.E.D. was also quite a bit of miscellaneous to-do about not so much. I finished The Faith of George W. Bush. I’d wanted to know how Bush and his coterie thought of themselves, and the book explained it nicely. A handsome, intelligent (though possibly dyslexic), and talented young man, Dubya grew up in the shadow of a father who was more intelligent, a better athlete, a war hero, and highly successful in business and government service. A genuinely tough act to follow. Dubya, not unsurprisingly, floundered badly until rescued by his wife and Christian fundamentalism. So, a clever and decent guy and about the last person you or I would want for President. Aloha. American Jesus; how the Son of God Became a National Icon, by Stephen Prothero of Boston University, is also interesting and rather more objective. -- There was a discouraging cartoon in the Cape Cod Times yesterday (I see the paper at the Stop & Shop), a bit surprising, too, as the C.C. Times endorsed Bush. A great muscular headless hulk, is hurtling along. A sign on his chest identifies him as “the American electorate”. All around him are wispy thought balloons: “the environment is being poisoned”, “my income is down,” “I can’t afford medical care”, “the schools stink,” “this pointless war in Iraq will go on forever,” etc., etc., and a big, central one says, “But He’s My Leader!” A new kid came to the French group. A 94 year old man who served in both the French and American armies in World War II and worked for the State Department and then 30 years for the U.N. in francophone countries. He spoke for an hour, and I was able to understand every word! (This is not always the case.) I’ve requested his autobiography from the Snow Library. 22 Nov 04 We hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving holiday. Ours was very quiet: I successfully re-soldered the pipe and stopped the leak, we took a rainy walk in the swamp, and we cooked Roman steak using our own Rosemary plant. A pleasant week in all. ------ Last Sunday was a delight. The Fellowship program was an honest-to-gosh sermon by a friend of ours, Gordon, a slightly mad Congregationalist minister who could be perfectly cast as Tom Bombadil, titled, “To Kiss the Joy.” The first thing I thought of was “Kiss my grits,” but it was really quite inspiring, and not altogether unlike “The Aloha Philosophy!” We had a nice crowd, some just to hear Gordon. -- Our speakers often bring their own cheering section. Well, it worked for Bush. – Gordon’s wife said he was a bit nervous about speaking to us, because we’re so cranky about God. He did mention Him several times, but actually we’re easy. The party down in Harwich Sunday night, given by Russian Mike (so-called because his novel is about Chechen terrorists and there’s also a Fisherman Mike) was thoroughly enjoyable. Most of the Chatham Writers Group and spouses came, although neither of the most successful writers, Rose and Sara. Sara’s a much published children’s author and a great critic. I’ve never met Rose, a former Barnstable County prosecutor who’s the author of a mystery series we like. Her plots are a little weak, but the writing and court room scenes are great. John had been away for a couple of months helping organize the Kerry campaign in Ohio. He was a bit down, naturally. He hadn’t sold his beautifully written novel either. He said that although he enjoys writing, he’s business oriented and won’t feel validated until he sells something. He took part in several demonstrations while in Ohio but couldn’t get arrested because, as he said, he was too old, too well dressed, and looked like someone who had a lawyer. We talked a bit about PETA, and I was interested to hear four people say they felt PETA was “right”, as we all stood around eating a delicious chicken pie. I’d never heard of chicken pie party. Nancy enjoyed meeting the cast of characters. Jean didn’t reappear this week at French. I hope he returns. Bruce brought a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau from Friends market. It was delicious, so Nancy and I bought some today. Remarkably, I found myself standing next to Bruce in the chaotic wine section of Friends. He helped us find some inexpensive 2003, which should still be fine, he said. I wondered if he didn’t look embarrassed. Did he think we thought he spends all his time ogling wine? Rats! The soldered joint on the 1 inch pipe has a tiny leak. I’ll have to re-solder it tomorrow. I do things like that only in the morning, when I feel most courageous. – A great haul at the dump, all in good condition: A French grammar, David Copperfield, Durrell’s Justine, Jane Eyre, The Great Bridge by David McCullough, The Republic of Plato translated by Harold Bloom, The Earliest Civilizations of the Near East, by James Mellaart, 1965, and Pre-Columbian Cities, by Jorge E. Hardoy, N.Y., Walker, 1973. 601p. I’ll have to build more book cases. DECEMBER 4 Dec 04 We had 5 inches of “ocean effect” snow. Quite an effect! I got to use my waterproof boots and my new long underwear. It’s location for real estate and preparation for winter walks. The swamp was frozen and snow-covered, a very different mode. -- Two doves sit on the top of our bird feeder and slowly become covered with snow. Doves don’t seem to be terribly bright. There’s a lot of nimbyish opposition to the wind farm. As requested, we sent the following testimonial to Cape Wind, who sent it on to a dozen or so legislators: “We're Cape Cod residents who have followed this project from the beginning and strongly support Cape Wind. The Environmental Impact Study seems to have been done thoroughly. The technology is widely used in Europe. Our energy problems are getting worse, and it's time we took a step in the right direction. We'd prefer not to see a wind farm six miles off Campground Beach in Eastham, but we'd accept it as a reasonable cost for making this kind of progress. We're sympathetic to those who have principled objections, but we feel they've been answered. Sometimes, in the interest of a greater good, we have to give a little.” I’ve almost finished Walter A. McDougall’s, Freedom just around the Corner; a new American History, 1585-1828. N.Y., Harper Collins, 2004. 638p. It’s the best U.S. history I’ve ever read, both enlightening and entertaining. McDougall is a Penn professor. The Penn history department used to be very quantitative. Is this post-something history? -- “In [the First Continental Congress] Puritans devoted to ordered liberty under God, Cavaliers wedded to hierarchical liberty, Quakers resentful of all civil and religious authority, and libertarian Scots-Irish first gathered together. It is a wonderment that no great stage play has been written about the Congress in Carpenter’s Hall, the evening debates in City Tavern...and their irresistible cast of characters.” McDougal, p. 228 -- I think my talk for next summer, should I give one, will be a one-hour American history, based largely on McDougall. I know American history in bits and pieces but have never had the whole sweep in my head. Seems like a good idea. Something that should have been done in 3d grade. This one is lined up for my next “reading” book. Maybe I’ll bring it to Philadelphia. Charles Freeman, The Closing of the Western Mind; the rise of faith and the fall of reason. N.Y., Knoff, 2004. 432p. I got sidetracked halfway through Keay, John. India, a history. N.Y., Atlantic Monthly Pr, 2000. 576p. but may go back to it. p. 126f. has a discussion of the use of numismatics in Indian history, almost the only evidence for long stretches. He’s also written a book on Indian archaeology. Erika talked me into reading Louise Erdrich’s, The Master Butchers Singing Club. I though it might be a candidate for the Book Group, but it was too depressing, too many unnecessary deaths. Nice writing, though, and some good quotes: “As Delphine watched, into her head there popped a strange notion: the idea that perhaps strongly experienced moments, as when Eva turned and the sun met her hair and for that one instant the symbol blazed out, those particular moments were eternal. Those moments actually went somewhere. Into a file of moments that existed out of time’s range and could not be pilfered by God.” I believe all moments go somewhere, or rather, stay just where they are. That and a nickel once bought you a candy bar. The book selection lunch was enjoyable. We have a good list for the coming year. I have to present Reading Lolita in Teheran in January. A very good book. Also, I’ve found a new mystery writer. Alexander McCall-Smith wrote The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, which are good but I’ve found hard to get into. However, he just wrote The Sunday Philosophy Club, a very witty and intelligent novel about Isabel Dalhousie who lives in Edinburgh and edits a philosophy journal. Delightful. McCall-Smith teaches Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He also worked in Botswana for some years. 28 Dec 04 Our Christmas visit to Philadelphia was splendid. It was wonderful to be all together at Christmas, for the first time in 5 years! Thank you for the delicious dinner and the lovely gifts. You all looked good and seem to be doing well in your various endeavors. Right on! As usual we enjoyed our strange home-away-from-home at SpringHill Suites, on top of the hill where Dave’s friend Matt used to rent an old house and Dave cut the grass. The view out over the Turnpike Interchange and the Plymouth Meeting Mall is suburban grandeur at its best, and the complimentary breakfast an increasingly guilty fat-fest. (For me, Nancy enjoys their excellent oatmeal.) There were only twenty cars on Christmas Eve, more on Christmas day, and the breakfast room was quite lively Sunday morning. They gave us a free Sunday Enquirer, mostly ads. We have the ride home down to a science. We fill the coffee carafe from the breakfast buffet. Nancy works the computerized sandwich selector at Flourtown Wawa like an expert, and we have gas, lunch, and drive-sharing stops scheduled. We know where the NPR and classical music stations are all along the route. What we weren’t expecting was the snow. The roads were clear all the way to the Cape but snow all the way, and the snow particularly beautiful in the sunlight. The snow-covered pines of Rhode Island, which bears an unlikely resemblance to Wyoming for long stretches, were spectacular in the late afternoon sun. The sun finally set somewhere in Barnstable, and we gradually became aware that this was no ordinary storm. Eighteen inches of heavy wet snow had brought down huge branches and even whole trees along 6A. We had to inch around utility trucks every mile or so. The road was badly plowed, or perhaps snow had drifted after the plowing. We held out a guilty hope that our nice neighbor had plowed our driveway for entertainment, but alas he was away for the holidays with some of his 9 children. We left the car in the street with its lights and blinker on and shoveled out a parking place in our driveway. One of the bird feeders was so filled with snow it bent its iron support to the ground. Many of our tree limbs are heavily bowed and we hope not broken. It looks terrific this morning. Will we spend the morning shoveling our drive or go out in the car and enjoy the scenery? Wait and see. I just enlarged the parking space and shoveled a neat path to it. Nancy says it’s supposed to melt in a day or so. Is this sinful behavior? Will the storm gods frown on us for not properly shoveling our long driveway? Age has it privileges. ---- Jari’s Christmas party was great and more bursting at the seams than ever. We’d go for the wild Atlantic salmon in mustard sauce alone. I ate sitting on the arm of a sofa, but it was a plump and comfortable arm. Jari knows everyone on the Cape and invites them all. I had a long talk with the husband of a book group member who is a serious bird watcher. He specializes in Latin America and says anywhere you go you can add 500 to a 1000 species to your life list. It’s a good excuse to travel. He’s a retired English teacher but doesn’t care for contemporary fiction. I don’t blame him, although I enjoy the small amount I’m encouraged to read by the group. It’s all experience. I also talked with a former soap opera diva about Westfield, which she says is now a Mecca for 6-figure 20-30’s yuppies. In my day, the young got out of Westfield asap. Oyster stew for supper. A bit of a splurge, but we love it, and it’s a third the cost of a modest restaurant. A lot of our friends go to restaurants together, which is pleasant, and we do it too occasionally, but we generally prefer to entertain at home, as hearing over the background din becomes more difficult with age. I noticed that Dave E. had his $50 hearing aid last Sunday. Maybe I’ll get one and just run a microphone to everyone at the table. Next event: New Year’s Brunch and White Elephant Exchange. We’ll have to hunt up a white elephant. Difficult in all this snow. love, r