Random Reflections

The Spanish Tragedy

2009-07-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

Thomas Kyd was a contemporary of Shakespeare or more specifically a playwright who preceded the Bard both chronologically and artistically. Kyd's most famous work was "The Spanish Tragedy," a revenge tragedy which was apparently very successful on the Elizabeth stage. The work has multiple revenge themes including a character named simply revenge, who provides a chorus like function commenting on the action of each act.

The tragic hero the play is Hieronimo who serves at the court of the King of Spain without being of noble blood himself. Hieronimo's son, Horatio is murdered by two of the characters among other things to end his romance with Bel-Imperia, the female lead. Understandably upon discovering the murder and the murderer, Hieronimo vows revenge which he first seeks unsuccessfully through the "system." Undeterred by this obstacle, he proceeds to achieve his goal through the use of a play within in a play.

If the latter sounds familiar, it is, of course, a mechanism that Shakespeare will use in "Hamlet," another, more fully developed revenge tragedy. In fact, a great deal of Kyd's significance in the history of drama is how much of what happens "Hamlet" - the use of ghosts, the play within a play is seen in this earlier play. There has also been speculation, although without any documented evidence, that Kyd was the author of the Ur Hamlet, an earlier version of the play now lost.

Last weekend I listened to a BBC archived broadcast of an interview with noted Shakespearean scholar Jonathan Bate and two other scholars about revenge tragedies from Kyd through Shakespeare. Bate made the point that in the case of "Hamlet," as in much of Shakespeare, the original source material has been given a much more in depth treatment. According to Bate, much of what is considered to be Hamlet's vacillation about revenging the death of his father is his inner debate about the right and wrong of revenge. That's an issue that is of some interest - much of the intellectual/moral world where I have spent a lot of time suggests that revenge is an empty human motivation that doesn't produce the benefits one expects. Reading "The Spanish Tragedy" showed me how revenge can escalate far beyond the original issue, perhaps making its value somewhat questionable. It will now give me an additional perspective on "Hamlet" which I expect to see at least once this fall.

Marling Hall

2009-07-02T09:30:00.001-07:00

"Marling Hall" is the third of Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels set during World War II. We learn the period covered by this story at the very end when mention is made of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The novel concludes with a detailed depiction of the Christmas festivities at Marling Hall. This all done in the spirit of Christmas that Thirkell captured in "Northbridge Rectory" when she wrote (my words, not her's) that the problem with Christmas is that it separates people who want to be together and brings together people who should always be kept separated.

In this novel Thirkell introduces a new family, the Marlings as well as a number of other new characters. However, the story also serves to re-introduce the Leslie family who were at the heart of "Wild Strawberries." The Leslies have aged with David Leslie back to his old tricks making himself a love interest with little effort of his own. The love story revolves primarily around Lettice Watson (nee Marling) who was widowed at Dunkirk. Thirkell creates another 2/1 dynamic as well as the possibility that there will be no resolution at all.

Most of this familiar to the reader and I would put the novel somewhere in the middle in any rankings of her work. The war time novels do feel somewhat "choppy" as my buddy DT would say, but I will see how I feel about that after reading the last two which should arrive from Amazon in the next day or so. The thing that really stuck out for me in this book came early on with little real impact on the main story. One of the minor characters, Ed Pollett, who is gifted with machines, but apparently of limited mental capacity takes the obligatory physical for military service. The doctor who is apparently even more limited doesn't recognize or doesn't care about Ed's problems and tries to label him as prime military material.

At this point Sir Edmund Pridham intervenes and Ed is spared something that could easily have been the end of him both physically and mentally. One got me about this was not what happened, but how Thirkell describes Ed and those like him. She notes that Sir Edmund "took an immense pride in all country idiots," protecting them against harm because he regards "them on the whole as part of our National Heritage (as indeed they are.)" This is followed by several more paeans to village idiots - the language is incredibly blunt and judgemental, something that would never be accepted today. The bluntness is even more shocking given the understated, almost non-verbal communication used by many of the characters in Thirkell's novels.

Yet in spite of the blunt, cruel words, there is a caring here for people like Ed that is quite touching. Sir Edmund has no official position in all of this, he is simply a leader in the county and takes personal responsibility for a group that it would be quite easy for him and others to ignore. This just reinforces my belief that there is a lot more depth to Thirkell's work than meets the eye - the stories are not just light hearted satires on the middle and upper classes with too much money and too little to do. I still have a long way to go to finish all of her books, when I do, I plan to read some criticism of her work that I think shares this idea - that the books can be ready at several levels.

Setting the Record Straight

2009-06-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

Editor
Civil War News
234 Monarch Hill Road
Tumbridge, Vermont 05077

Dear Sir or Madam:

Scott Boyd’s article (“States Lagging on 150th”) in the June issue of Civil War News calls needed attention to the slow pace at which states are working on the upcoming Civil War Sesquicentennial. There is, however, at least one state whose name needs to be added to those already in the field – New Jersey.

Since the fall of 2008, members of the New Jersey Civil War community have been meeting to plan how our state might observe the 150th anniversary of this watershed event in our nation’s history. Our group has been drawn from roundtables, re-enactor groups, educators and authors (including Civil War News columnist Joe Bilby).

We have named ourselves the New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee and are working under the auspices of the New Jersey Civil War Heritage Association. The NJCWHA is a not-for-profit organization with a long record of working in this area. While we are not an official state commission, the committee was endorsed by Governor Jon Corzine at the end of 2008. In his proclamation, the Governor called on all “state and local government agencies, as well as non-profit organizations and educational institutions” to work with the committee on this important anniversary.

The NJCW150 Committee has been working on a website (NJCW150.org) which will be operational early this summer. Initially the website will feature biographies of 150 prominent New Jerseyans from the Civil War era. The subjects of these brief essays include soldiers and civilians, black and white, and men and women giving a sense of New Jersey’s broad participation in these events.

A number of other projects are in various stages of development. These include several possible publications, educational programming, re-enactments and other ways of honoring these brave men and women who made such important contributions to our state and our nation’s history. We hope to collaborate with the appropriate groups in other states as well as publications like Civil War News throughout the course of the sesquicentennial.

Sincerely yours,

John G. Zinn
Chair, New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee
Verona, New Jersey

Cheerfulness Breaks In

2009-06-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

Finishing "Cheerfulness Breaks In" brings me close to one-third of the way through Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels. In some cases these stories of country life in England before, during and after World War II can be read out of sequence without any real loss. However, that is not the case, in my view, in this one which is basically a continuation of "Summer Half," which centers around life at the Southbridge School.

One of the main characters in that novel is Rose Birkett, daughter of the head master and in my mind one of the most obnoxious characters in English fiction. This novel begins with her wedding, followed mercifully by her departure for South America, appearing only brief thereafter through letters to her parents.

In the last few Thirkell novels that I read, I have noticed a pattern of a series of episodes seemingly without a lot of significance until all the sudden at the end the significance becomes very clear. This novel followed that pattern, but with the significance magnified by the fact that this is the first of her books that takes place after the beginning in World War II. Apparently written in 1940, the time frame of the book appears to cover what has become known as "the phony war." This refers to the period between September of 1939 when England declared war on Germany and the spring of 1940 when the first real fighting broke out. The book ends at the time of Dunkirk with a reference to someone having betrayed the British army - a reference I didn't and don't understand unless it is supposed to mean Neville Chamberlain.

While I wasn't surprised by something significant happening towards the end of the book, I was surprised by the scale and also the abrupt inconclusive ending. Going against my rule of reading series in sequence, I had already read "Northbridge Rectory" which follows this book in the series and also covers a period relatively early in World War II. I thought "Northbridge Rectory" was a really good book about interpersonal relationships, but the war seemed to have little real impact on the story. So while I expected something to happen at the end of "Cheerfulness Breaks In," I assumed the war would still be kept at a distance especially given the period covered. That was not the case, however as two of the main characters marry right before the man is ordered overseas and the book ends with his wife receiving, but not opening a telegram that may have brought terrible news.

Although I have read the next book, I don't recall anything that reveals the outcome of the telegram. I may go back and reread this book both to find out whether the end of the story from the prior book is revealed and also to see if there is anything else of significance that I missed because I read the book out of sequence. One of the few things that has concerned me about Thirkell's novels seemed to be either nothing but happy endings or anything of negative nature being kept "off-stage" as it were. That certainly isn't the case in this book so that I look forward to the remaining World War II books with even more anticipation.

Writing Update

2009-06-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

Like my reading goals, my 2009 writing goals were fairly simple - finish the five New Jersey base ball team histories well before the May deadline and then get the Lloyd letters out to potential publishers by Labor Day. Interestingly I am well ahead of schedule on both goals, but things are no longer that simple. One of Carol's friends said something like "Life is what gets in the way of the plans you make" and there is certainly some truth to that in this case.

I sent my five pioneer project histories off in February long before they were due in May. Then at the end of beginning of June, I got an e-mail from Peter Morris suggesting that I might want to take the introductory material from one of the histories and expand it into a full length chapter. After reviewing what I had, this made a lot of sense, of course, it also meant one more round of edits and revisions to all five team histories. It didn't take too long, however and all the material was e-mailed out last week so that should be pretty much done, although there is always the possibility of more edits.

On the Lloyd letters, I have been pleasantly surprised that editing these letters of a 33rd NJ sergeant has gone much more quickly than I would have thought. Barring something unforeseen, I think another week or so should have this manuscript ready to be sent out - certainly no later than July 1st. So if nothing else had come up, I would be finished with my 2009 writing goals almost two months ahead of time. My original plan had then been to take the fall off from any writing projects both to take a break and to think intentionally about what comes next. That, however, is where life got in the way not just once, but twice.

The first change happened when I heard that proposals were being requested for editing a book about Ebbets Field which would be part of a McFarland & Co. series on historic ballparks. Paul and I discussed this, decided to submit a proposal and recruited a good team of contributors. The proposal is now in the hands of McFarland so at this point all we can do is wait. The second thing is something I have written about before regarding a book on early base ball in New Jersey. This had been of interest for some time, but a conversation at the SABR 19th Century committee conference in Cooperstown and another book on early base ball convinced me that I have a call to write such a book.

This book will be a lot different than the team histories I have done for the Pioneer Project, but a lot of the research I did for that project can be easily transferred to the new book. I already have an outline in mind and plan to at least try to work on this simultaneously with the Ebbets Field book if that happens. In the latter project I will only be writing one chapter so while it will be plenty of work, it will be a different kind of work. I could actually get started on the New Jersey base ball book now, but since I won't be taking the fall off, I am going to at least take a break as soon as the Lloyd letters are in the mail. At least that's the plan, hopefully life won't get in the way again!

Reading Update - June

2009-06-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

My new year's resolution for 2009 reading was fairly simple, keep track of the books that I read over the course of the year. Since the task was simple, I have managed to do so without much difficulty for almost the first six months of the year. With less than two weeks left in the first half of the year, I have finished 25 books. I am currently reading three books at present and it is highly likely that I will finish all of them by June 30th giving me almost 30 for the first six months. If I maintain that pace it would work out to close to 60 for the year. Since I have never done this before, I have no basis for comparison, but I think I would be satisfied if I hit that number.

Obviously it would be easy to build up the numbers by intentionally choosing books that were short, easy to read or both. Thus far, I have avoided that temptation, basically reading what I want to read. Something that I am very pleased about is that I have done a good job of reading the books I have purchased this year rather than allowing them to lie around gathering dust.

Two of the books I am currently reading fall into that category - Jonathan Bate's "Soul of Age" - his biography of Shakespeare's ideas and the latest in the Angela Thirkell canon - "Cheerfulness Breaks In." Once I finish the latter work, I just have to read "Marling Hall," another Thirkell novel and I think I will have read everything I bought this year. "Cheerfulness Breaks In" was written in 1940 about life in the fictional county of Barsetshire during 1939 - the first year of World War II - the part sometimes known as the "phony war." Many of the characters in this book appeared in some of the earlier novels, confirming my thought that they need to be read in sequence.

The third book currently underway is part of an effort to read myself through my own library - this time with David Halberstam's last book, "The Coldest Winter" about the Korean War. I bought that book not that long ago, but it has been on the shelf for sometime so I am glad I am working my way through it. Actually work isn't really a fair word, Halberstam was such a good writer that his books read like fiction. Reading this book while thinking about my own writing has made me try to understand something of how he does ,what he does. Part of it, I think, goes back to his experience as a newspaper reporter which helped him write in a more reader friendly style. I can't draw any other conclusions as of yet, but it is certainly something I will think about some more.

But in any event, that resolution has been well kept and while it may sound simple, it is the first time that I have ever done it. In my next post, I will do a similar check in on my writing goals for 2009 and see how things stand in that arena.

Exorcising The Demons

2009-06-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

These days I am at some level a Mets fan because they are the National League team in New York - the spiritual descendants of my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. Like the Dodgers, blue is one of their primary colors and now with the new Citi Field, the Jackie Robinson rotunda and other things reminiscent of the Dodgers, the connection is even stronger.

There is another level, however, which the connection to the Dodgers is just plain depressing - some of the things that have been happening on the field. The way the Mets have collapsed in the heat of the pennant race the last two years is all too similar to classic Dodger collapses of which the 1951 disaster (pictured above left) is probably the best/worst example. While no where near as important, the just awful way the Mets lost to the Yankees (it had to be the Yankees) on Friday night on Luis Castillo's error brought back too many painful memories of past Dodger debacles.

While I know many Brooklyn fans gave up on the Dodgers after their move to California, I remained a devoted Dodger fan for many years thereafter. It wasn't easy following a team 3000 miles away especially in the days before cable television, ESPN and other expanded sports programing. Even though they had moved so far away there were still some similarities in the on the field problems of the Dodgers. While not as well known as the 1951 calamity, 1962 was not a lot a different. I wasn't a baseball fan in 1951 (finally something I was too young to remember), but I remember 1962 all too well which was eerily similar to Branca/Thompson debacle. The Dodgers blew a seemingly safe lead the last week of the season, led the third playoff game 4-2 going to the bottom of the ninth only to lose when among other things, Stan Williams walked in the eventual winning run.

As noted 1962 isn't as well remembered as 1951 and, I think, one of the reasons for that is because in 1963 the Dodgers exorcised that demon as well all of the demons from prior horror stories forever. Once again in 1963, the Dodgers led the pennant race into September, this time beat off a challenge from the Giants only to be threatened by a Cardinal team that won 19 straight games going into late September. Even though the Dodgers had won 12 of their last 19 their lead was down to a single game before a three game series in St. Louis. As in prior years the newspapers and fans were talking about how the Dodgers would choke and lose the pennant at the very end of the race. But this time, the Dodgers swept the Cardinals and won the pennant by six games.

That was important, but by itself was not enough to exorcise the demons of the 1962 and beyond. Waiting in the World Series were the hated and feared New York Yankees, winners of the last two series. As today, there were more Yankee fans than Dodger fans including one particular obnoxious Yankee fan at Wayne High School, who regularly belittled the Dodgers and their star pitcher Sandy Koufax. While we Dodger fans believed in Koufax, he, and these Dodgers, had never faced the Yankees in the World Series. Any doubts we may have had ended quickly when Koufax set a new World Series record striking out 15 Yankees in the first game of the Series at Yankee Stadium. The next day at school, the obnoxious Yankee fan opened his locker to find a full length picture of Sandy Koufax staring him in the face.

It got even better after that as the Dodgers went on to sweep the Yankees in four straight games including another Koufax gem in the last game. It wasn't the Dodgers first World Championship, but because of the way it happened, it had more far reaching effects than the first two. The Sporting News described it best with the comment that the Dodgers had banished the choke up label forever. And that is true, 1963 is a dividing line in the history of the Dodgers, today no one thinks of the Dodgers of a team that always falls short, that breaks down or collapses under pressure. That's not to say that there haven't been bumps along the way. I have this vague recollection of the Dodgers being upset in a World Series a few years later by some obscure team who's name I forget. Anyway the Mets took care of that bunch a few years later in another World Series, but I digress.

Although the last thing I should be thinking about at this point is another book, I think there is a real story here. How the disaster of 1962 and all those prior disasters were ultimately redeemed in just one season - winning the 1963 pennant race and sweeping the Yankees in the Series. The Mets are in a similar situation today, they need to exorcise the demons of the past two plus years. The bad news is that they have to do it themselves, no one can do it for them. However, that is also the good news - they can do it by themselves!

The Harder Right

2009-06-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

Like most people (I think), when I read fiction I like happy endings and I like to see people get what they deserve or not get what they don't deserve. That seems only normal, we wish well even to fictional characters and few of us like to see someone get something they don't deserve even in a make believe world. At the same I time I am troubled by books, or more accurately series of books that have only happy endings where everyone gets what they deserve. This especially bothers me in Jane Austen's work and to a much lesser extent in Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels.

That being the case, it is not surprising that I loved "An Autumn Sowing" by E. F. Benson, which, once again, I discovered through the good work of Elaine over at Random Jottings. In "An Autumn Sowing" no one, especially the two main characters, seems to have a happy ending or get what they deserve. In his introduction to the edition I read, John Norwich suggests that Benson started out to write satirical light fiction and the book somehow got away from him and that certainly seems possible.

This is not to say that the book is a deep tragedy with people losing their lives or anything like that gruesome. Rather it is about finding true love (as opposed to physical passion), but then losing it because of choosing the hard right over the easy wrong. The latter line is from the cadet prayer at West Point - "Make us choose the hard right over the easy wrong." In this case it is more a question of choosing the hard right over the hard wrong, but that decision eliminates any happy endings.

Yet it is interesting that while he doesn't have happy ending, the main character, Thomas Keeling is a better person because of the love he both gives and receives (again love, not physical passion). In one instance, after taking a harsh vindictive response to being wronged he reverses himself making him more the "gentleman" than the "gentlemen" who wronged him. More important, however, is his relationship with his daughter Alice who at the end of book has her own unhappy ending. Up until his own experiences, Keeling, no doubt thought of himself as having a daughter, at the end of the book he is more concerned with being a father. Having and being are concepts developed by the philosopher, Eric From - the point being that, in my case, I cannot have a son, I can only be a father. While Keeling doesn't articulate it this way the book ends with him playing a much more positive role in his daughter's life.

I am not trying to suggest that from this point forward, I only want to read books without happy endings, but rather that I like to see some kind of balance. After all in real life there are many people who don't have happy endings or get what they deserve in certain aspects of their lives. - I certainly know my share and I am sure others do as well. That doesn't mean, however, that their stories are tragic or without interest - in fact, their stories are part of what life is all about and are of interest in their own right. I understand that E. F. Benson wrote almost 40 books, "An Autumn Sowing" was my first, but it certainly won't be my last.

A Book For Everyone

2009-06-09T04:03:00.000-07:00

Last night before a successful (seven books sold) and enjoyable talk at the Wyckoff Historical Society, I was talking with one of the members about books on the American Revolution. I was able to suggest two books by David Hackett Fisher that he had never heard of - "Paul Revere's Ridge " and "Washington's Crossing," both in my mind classics. I think anyone who enjoys reading also enjoys those moments when they can introduce others to good authors and good books. Most of the time that tends to happen with specific areas of interest - the American Revolution, the Civil War, Shakespeare etc.

If that is true, and I think it is, then perhaps the highest compliment one can pay a book is the belief that it can be recommended to anyone, which is my feeling about "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows. As noted in an earlier post the book was written by Shaffer and then revised by Burrows (her niece) when Shaffer became terminally ill. The book is about life on the Island of Guernsey (above left) during and immediately after the German occupation during World War II. In fact the present of the book is 1946, a year of no small importance in my life. Guernsey is an island in the English Channel actually closer to France, but with a population wise enough to align themselves with England.
Because Guernsey is an island, the German's were able to maintain a higher level of control during the occupation, for example islanders who evacuated their children to England were unable to communicate with them until the Germans left.

The title of the book refers to a ruse used by Elizabeth, one of the main characters, to get a group of islanders out of a tight spot. Out after curfew with no good excuse, she tells the Germans, they are part of a literary society and were coming back from a meeting. In order to validate their excuse they have to then form such a society which forces many in the group to start reading books that they would otherwise never read. To their surprise they find out not only do they enjoy it, but what they read helps them cope with the difficulties of the occupation. One of them, for example, says that if he only knew the following quote from Shakespeare, "The bright day is done, and we are for the dark," that it would have kept him from despairing so much. I think Shakespeare has the ability to do that in a number of different ways which helps explain his universal appeal.

At first I was a little reluctant to read this book because with one brief exception it takes the form of letters, but once I got into it, I found it worked really well. One such letter to an author, Juliet Ashton, alerts her to Guernsey, the Society and the lives of the islanders during the occupation. She is ultimately drawn to the island, the people and their efforts to pull their lives back together. Some parts of the book have "A One Fine Day" feel to them - what was saved by England winning the war and why, therefore, it was so important. But perhaps even more appealing are the characters, both Juliet and her mainline friends as well as the people of Guernsey - without much difficulty one gets caught up in their lives, anxious to find how it will all come out.

I was shocked to find out that both authors are Americans, I don't know how an American could so perfectly capture British life, although I am not sure I would notice any errors. But given the overwhelming praise the book has received, I doubt that there were many, if any. The only thing that wasn't appealing about the book is the recipe for Potato Peel Pie -Barrows in her afterword writes that she advises against trying to make one, and with good reason. The book is, as I say, one I recommend to everyone and it is hard to give it more praise than that. In fact, the best review of the book would probably consist of only two words - read it!

"Baseball's First Inning"

2009-06-07T06:43:00.001-07:00

"Baseball's First Inning" by William Ryczek is the last volume of his trilogy about the early years of base ball (19th century spelling). Ryczek has worked his way backwards starting with the period dominated by the first all professional team, the Cincinnati Redstockings, moving to the post Civil War years ("When Johnny Came Sliding Home"), and now on the founding period.

Of course, the further one goes back the harder it is to write with any authority. There is the well documented history of the Knickerbockers, but there is obviously something before that, but no one has yet found it. I have already written earlier posts about what I think are two of the biggest positives of this book - the author's new way of looking at old data and how thinking in time helps us to understand the 19th century rules that vintage base ball players and fans find troublesome.

Having now read the full book (as well as "When Johnny Came Sliding Home"), I think this is a valuable book in giving an overview of the game's early years. As Peter Morris has pointed out authors writing about the early years of baseball face a very difficult balancing act because the early game was so decentralized. As a result simply recording the details of the game in different areas can be almost unreadable, while anything too general runs the risk of adding nothing new to the story. In the case the author has done a good job of striking that balance and provides important background information for those looking for the basic story or researchers who need a framework for their more specific area of interest.

As is probably very clear by this point, my primary area of interest for early base ball history is New Jersey. In that regard, I don't particularly care for how Ryczek has treated New Jersey in both of the books I have read. In "When Johnny Came Sliding Home," I think he puts too much emphasis on the negative aspects of the Irvington Club making them look too much like a group of ruffians. While the Irvingtons certainly had their rough edges, my own research has certainly found plenty of examples of how they observed the common courtesies of the game. In this book, the problem is not so much what is written about New Jersey, but rather how little is included in the story and how little importance is attached to what is written. For example, the Liberty Club of New Brunswick's 1861 upset victory over the champion Brooklyn Atlantics is presented as evidence that the Atlantic's did not have a "memorable year" becuase they lost to the "lightly regarded Liberty Club." There is no mention of what the victory might have meant to the New Jersey team.

To be fair, part of this has to do with perspective. The author's focus is on the big picture which in those days was the New York and Brooklyn teams. Still I would argue that New Jersey teams played a significant role in the era which is not reflected in either of these books. This reinforces the feeling I got at the 19th century base ball conference in Cooperstown that I have a call to write a book about the early days of New Jersey base ball. That sense of call got even stronger this week when I had an e-mail from the editor of the pioneer project suggesting I add an introduction to the team histories that I have already written. Looking at my research files, I found some good material and am now working on that introduction.

All of this has made me think that I need to move this project more on to the front burner or more accurately on to the front burners. There is another book possibility that I hope will be formalized very soon. My thought had been that book first and then the NJ base ball book. I am now wondering if it would be possible to work on two books at once especially since my role in the other one would be more editing than actual writing. It's something that will definitely require further thought.

24 & 5

2009-06-05T06:09:00.000-07:00

Back in early April when Paul and I went to our first game at the new Citi Field, I calculated the total of major league baseball stadiums where I had attended a game. I qualify it by attending a game because I have been to a football game at the Diamondbacks stadium and took a tour of the Astros' stadium in Houston. The tour in the latter park included the opportunity to sit in the dugout, but unlike the stadium in Phoenix, I still want to go back to Houston for a game.

With Citi Field, my total had reached 23 (Paul's is a little higher), it isn't as easy a calculation as one might think because multiple stadiums for the same city have to be included. Yesterday both numbers went up as I made my first visit to the new Yankee Stadium (above left). I was somewhat surprised to realize that I have now seen five different teams play in two different home stadiums. There are, of course, the two New York teams and the Phillies, all of which isn't that surprising given where I live. But I have also seen two games in the home ballparks of the Cincinnati Reds and the Detroit Tigers. In the case of the Reds that was a fluke of the schedule as by coincidence we made a trip there the last year the Reds played at Riverfront and then intentionally went back the next year to see the Mets play at the Great American Ballpark. In the case of Detroit, it is due to my professional baseball fan cousins living in Michigan, we have made multiple trips to both Tiger Stadium and the new Comerica Park.

I think the approach that ownership took to the new Yankee Stadium is interesting. Once you are inside the park, there really isn't a lot of difference between the old and the new. I am sure there are to purists, but it didn't look or feel that different and I am confident that was intentional. The part of the stadium inside the gates before you get the seats, however, is dramatically different, much bigger, much more open - my companion, a college age Yankee fan found it majestic, almost cathedral like. Certainly that makes attending a game a lot more enjoyable - access to everything was easier and getting out was remarkably simple especially since we were sitting in the upper deck.

My overall sense of it is that Yankee fans will really like it - it maintains the memory and feel that it is important to them while improving the other aspects of attending a game. That is after all the team's market and it makes sense that ownership did everything possible to please that market. At the same time as a non-Yankee fan, it doesn't have the same kind of appeal to me that other new stadiums have. I really like Citi Field primarily because everything about it is new and different I am sort of a Mets fan, but that doesn't explain why I have enjoyed my two trips and want to go back more this year. The same is true of Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, I will go back because of the Stadium. That will not be the case with Yankee Stadium, although I will be going back this year with my cousins and most likely with Paul as well.

I am also very glad that I went yesterday, it was good to reward someone who has given me a lot of help on my research projects and I always like seeing the numbers go up. With trips to Chicago and Milwaukee scheduled for July, I should be at 26 this year - four more than a year ago. I don't have any ambition to see all the parks, but still probably have at least another 1/2 dozen that I would like to see. Of course, there are also a lot of minor league parks as well - so many stadiums - so little time!

"Of Books There Are No End" - Thank God for That!

2009-06-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

Last night I finished the excellently conceived and equally excellently written "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I plan to write at least one post about this book, but for now want to reflect on something that Annie Barrows wrote in the afterword to the paperback edition. Barrows (Shaffer's niece) took over when her aunt was too ill (she died in February of 2008) to complete the substantial rewriting required by the publisher.

In the afterward Barrows makes the following comment:

"The only flaw in the feast is that it ends. If I could
have anything I wanted, I would choose story, without
end, and it seems that I have a lot of company in that. I
have received many letters from readers all over the
world bemoaning the fact that the book comes to an
end."

This is, of course, a dilemma faced by all readers both about individual books and also series written by the same author. Barrows offers a partial solution (there is no complete solution) when she suggests that the book does continue every time two people talk about it. There is certainly truth in that, but there is something else to be kept in mind - something that I have been thinking about in my reading of Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels.

As anyone who reads this blog can tell, I am ripping through those books, six so far in 2009. They are both a quick read and addictive to the point that I get some sense of withdrawal if I am not reading one. And while there are no new Thirkell novels coming out, the fact that there are close to 30 in the series means it will be a while before I face the last one. But the question still remains should I slow down and spread them out more gradually - at the current rate I will probably finish them at the end of next year.

I have thought about that, but decided against it for two different reasons. One (and it's not the most important) is that we all need to remember that we don't have unlimited time to read every book that we want to read. More importantly for me is something that I have realized from following Elaine's blog, Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover. In the past year Elaine has written about close to a dozen authors that that I had never even heard of, much less read. Every time I have followed one of her recommendations, I have enjoyed it immensely.

Just this past week Elaine wrote about a book by E. F. Benson entitled "An Autumn Sowing," which she praised highly while at the same time mentioning that it was out of print and hard to get. I went directly to the Internet and was fortunate enough to find a copy that arrived just yesterday - while I was at it I also ordered the next two Thirkell novels as well as "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," which is now out in paperback. According to the introduction to "An Autumn Sowing," Benson wrote close to 100 books in his lifetime so if I enjoy this one, as I think I will, there will be plenty new material for the future.

Following Elaine's blog has made me realize what perhaps should have been obvious, while each author's work is finite, the total universe of good books is infinite. Anyone who enjoys reading is always going to find more authors that he or she enjoys. So, in other words, the fact that "Of books there is no end," is really not the problem, it's part of the solution!

Four Words Are Worth a Picture

2009-06-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning when Carol and I entered St. Paul's Church in Paterson for the annual Pentecost service we were greeted by what sounded very much like music from the classic Simon & Garfunkel (above left) song - "The Sounds of Silence." The reason that it sounded so much like "The Sounds of Silence" was it was "The Sounds of Silence." The music was used as a setting for a sung version of the Lord's Prayer which was haunting and in my case, at least, brought back a lot of memories.

For someone who spent the late 60's and early 70's in college, graduate school and the army, the music of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel captured certain feeling and events in very effective ways that were hard to explain. One thing in particular that came to mind yesterday were four words from a song called "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" - the words are "Sail along silver bird."

I have not idea what their intent was behind those words, but for me they capture perfectly a picture of my time in Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam. During the Vietnam War most of us got there and came back by airplane - a 20 hour flight from between Seattle, Washington and either Saigon or Cam Ran Bay. The U.S government contracted those flights out to commercial carriers so I went to war on either Pan American or American Airlines - I am not sure which. Of course, in the army, we had our names for everything, I don't remember if there was a name for the planes that took you to Vietnam (if there was it was probably unprintable), but the planes that brought you home were called "freedom birds."

In Cam Ranh Bay where I spent my entire tour of duty without leaving the peninsula once, except for R&R in Australia, there wasn't much in the way of scenery. It was basically sand, sand and more sand set off by some scrub vegetation. On top of that the buildings weren't much to look at, for the most part think basic Quonset hut. I distinctly remember one sunny Sunday morning coming out of the officers mess hall very early and seeing a "freedom bird" leaving Cam Ranh airbase on the way to Tokoyo and then back to the United States. Immediately those four words from that Simon & Garfunkel song came into my mind and have stayed their ever since. Seeing a "freedom bird" was a big deal, we would sometimes leave our office just to watch one - obviously we wished we were on it, but it at the very least it gave us a sense of hope that our time would come.

I am also reminded by this of one thing about the flight to Vietnam, as I say on either Pan Am or American Airlines. Throughout the flight we got the typical messages from the stewardesses and the cockpit that happen on every commercial flight. As we got into the last leg of the flight passing over the Vietnam countryside on the way to Saigon, I kept hoping there would be some acknowledgement of where we were going and/or what we were doing. But I hoped in vain, it ended the with typical commercial hoping we would fly their air line again.

I suppose in some ways that was a metaphor for the entire Vietnam experience, if you weren't part of it, the rest of society just went on with their lives. When I came back from Vietnam in January of 1972, I set about finding a job, of course in each interview there were questions about what I had just been doing. Almost without exception when I said, I was just back from Vietnam, the unspoken body language was pretty much - "how come you were so stupid that you couldn't find a way out." The bitter veteran can almost be a cliche and I am not trying to be like that, but that reaction was clearly there. Of course since then there have been a lot of efforts to try to appropriately recognize Vietnam veterans, but it was fairly ironic last year when at three different major league baseball games all veterans were asked to stand. Ironic because that was three more times than I had been honored in the previous 36 years - as I have come to learn irony is not as enjoyable when you are recipient!

Lobster Shells, Baseball Cards and Other Artifacts

2009-05-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

In the Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery, "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club," Lord Peter insists on seeing books owned by one of primary suspects in the case. He explains this to his great and good friend, Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard when he says, "Books, you know, Charles are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em then we grow out of em' and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development."

I thought of this today while continuing my ongoing quest to bring some degree of order to our attic. We moved into this house on Memorial Day weekend of 1977 and we have certainly accumulated enough stuff. My current task is sorting through a lot of Paul's belongings - when he was here at Christmas we reached some general agreement on parameters which I am now implementing and finding some interesting things.

Today, for example, I found a bound copy of his senior English thesis at Bates. The subject was the minor characters in James Joyce's "Ulysses." Of course, I set that aside to share with DT. It's not everyone who has an equal grasp of Shakespeare, Chaucer, the Beowulf poet, Wordsworth and Joyce as DT does. Once he reads it perhaps, DT and Paul can discuss some of the finer points of this enigmatic work.

The main thing I have been going through, however are baseball cards, literally hundreds and hundreds of baseball cards. Of course like everyone else in my generation my parents threw away almost all of my baseball cards helping to create the scarcity that drives up the prices of those cards today. I checked this first with Paul so the purging is all done with his approval. I have to be careful going through the cards because mixed in with his are the few of mine that survived like the 1959 Sandy Koufax card pictured upper right. In addition to the Koufax card I was surprised to find cards for Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Don Drysdale which have to have some value today.

As I was working on this today, I realized that what I am really doing is going through the artifacts of the early years of Paul's life. All those cards, many housed in notebooks and organized in boxes are the tangible evidence of something that was a major priority in his life for a number of years. There's an folk song - "Puff the Magic Dragon" that has a line to the effect - "Dragons live forever, but not so little boys." And just like so many little boys, including myself, Paul is no longer that little boy, but has left these metaphorical lobster shells behind him. They all can't be kept, of course, but getting rid of these things also means getting rid of that evidence and to some extent those memories.

As a result as I go through these things, I do consciously try to save some things, if nothing else to help maintain those memories. Some of the connections like the baseball cards are obvious, but I find other things where only Carol, Paul and/or I might remember the significance. Today in another box of Paul's things, I found an Essex County jurors badge - it took a minute, but then I remembered why it was there. It dates back to one of my first stints on jury duty when he was very young. For some reason he was fascinated by the badge and wanted me to give it to him when I was finished even though you were supposed to turn the badge back in at the end of your time. Of course, I kept the badge and it has been around ever since, I doubt if he remembers how important it was to him all those years ago. So as I go through this process, I am constantly making decisions about what things should be kept - for some reason, the badge wasn't a very difficult decision.

Before Lunch

2009-05-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

I thought that I had noticed a pattern in the last two or three of the Angela Thirkell novels that I have been reading with great enjoyment. Most of the book is taken up with the semi-comic comings and goings of a large cast characters, some of whom have appeared in the earlier novels. Then just when I thought it would never happen, a serious issue or issues arise the resolution of which brings the story to a more or less satisfactory conclusion.

Most of these elements appear in "Before Lunch," the last of the series to be written prior to World War II. Indeed this, of the all those read so far, seems to have more of the characters from prior novels including tying up some loose ends from other stories - in one case without the characters in question saying a word. The caption on the book cover (above left) calls this "a glorious social comedy of rural England," which is certainly true, but in my opinion doesn't go anywhere near far enough.

As noted in the first paragraph, most of the novel seems to be taken up with the social comedy aspects of the story. But once again just in the nick of time, the serious issues arise - in this case they seem to be more about what to do when one makes a commitment in a relationship, but then realizes it is a mistake. As usual these issues come out of love triangles or, as I call them, 2/1 dynamics. The the end of the book is taken up with resolving these issues "before lunch," which happens in typically elegant Thirkell style. However this time there is more, at the very end one, and probably two, of the characters are in a great deal of pain. Exactly why isn't explained and, while one can infer, the logical inference seems hard to believe. This answers the one concern I have had about Thirkell's novels - fairy tale endings with everyone more or less happy. It will be interesting to see if there is some further explanation or resolution of this pain.

Something else that is interesting about Thirkell's novels is that while they are stories of the gentry and upper classes, the servants are presented as developed characters who hold their own with their masters and mistresses. These relationships were part of rural life in England during the period, Thirkell couldn't have changed that reality, she could, however, have chosen to ignore the servants, but to her credit doesn't do so. As noted this is the last of the novels set in pre World War II England, it will be interesting to see how Thirkell treats this issue in her post war novels. From some fiction I have read recently (especially Mollie Panter Downes - "One Fine Day," the unwillingness of people to continue in those servant roles forced a major adjustment on the middle class/gentry during the post war years. However, I still have to read my way through Thirkel's 4-5 novels set during the war itself - so many books so little time!

I Get Into the Game (At Least Metaphorically)

2009-05-26T05:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Carol and I drove down to Newtown, Pennsylvania for a vintage base ball game between the Eureka and our "mother" club the Flemington Neshanock. The match was organized as part of the town's Memorial Day observation and they did a great job of promoting it. The crowd looked to be somewhere between 2-300 by far the largest crowd I have ever seen at a vintage game. In fact, there had to be more people there than have attended all the other games I have been at combined. Brad Shaw, the President of the Neshanock, says that the best way to schedule is as part of an event and yesterday certainly illustrated the truth of that statement.

For those of us who are historic purists there were some unhistorical features of the day including the National Anthem (probably began during WWI) and singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (no either than 1908). However since the vintage base ball postage stamp to the upper right also uses baseball's theme song in an uhistorical way I suppose I can't complain to much. There were also some baseball trivia questions for those in the stands some of which were absurdly easy - "When was the first World Series played?) (bad) and "Which team has won the most World Series? (by far the worst - both because it is so simple and because the answer is so depressing).

The venue was spectacular, a field with a grass infield, well maintained with plenty of shade all around. Once again the Eureka got off to a slow start and lost to the Neshanock, but it was a good game. One thing that always strikes me about vintage games is the combination of adapting to the old rules (1864 in this case) and remembering some aspects of the game that probably have never changed. In the latter category are things such as how one bad play can lead to a disastrous inning, not making the first or last out of inning at third, and the importance of getting runners into scoring position with two out. On the other side are things like 3 balls for a walk, batters/pitchers getting a warning pitch before balls and strikes are called, any ball caught on the bounce being an out, underhanded pitching, and not being allowed to over run first base.

Because of the travel involved, most of these games tend to take a whole day. Almost without exception the day before the game, I start thinking about how else I could use that time. Yet from the moment I get there I enjoy the whole experience. A big part of that is just the fun of being back participating in a game I love, the game that I played more than any other growing up. I wish I had known about vintage base ball at least 10 years ago when I could have still played and it might have been possible to make it a father and son activity. At least this time part of me did get into the game - one of our younger players didn't have a uniform so I lent him my shirt so he could play. Anything (well almost anything) for the team!

Lest We Forget

2009-05-23T12:57:00.001-07:00

Today is the 38th anniversary of the worse day of my life. Some may find it difficult to make that statement with such clarity, but for me to this point there has never been any doubt. On May 23, 1971, I left my parents home in Wayne, New Jersey for army duty in Vietnam. I had to fly from Newark airport to San Francisco, go to a base in Oakland, California where I would board a plane for Seattle, Tokyo and ultimately Saigon.

I couldn't face the idea of my parents driving me to Newark Airport so I asked a long time friend of mine (still a friend today) to take me. As he turned his car around to pass my parent's house on the way to the airport, the only thought in my mind was that this might be the last time I ever saw my parents, sister or the house I grew up in. It was a beautiful spring day like it is today, a Sunday, and all I could think of was what felt like the unfairness of being on the way to war while everyone else had more pleasant things to do. It got worse on the plane to San Francisco - I enjoy irony, but I have come to realize that irony is a lot less enjoyable when one is the target. On the plane was someone who I went to graduate school with - he had done everything in his power to get out of the draft and had succeeded. Now he was on his way to San Francisco for vacation and job interviews. When he heard where I was going, his body language was as if he was accompanying my coffin - just great.

Many years later when I came to write "The Mutinous Regiment," I began one chapter just after the regiment had fought its last battle with the following words:

"If life is unfair, little in life is less fair than war. In every war some go through
combat unscathed to live long and full lives, while others, for no reason besides
luck or chance, die without ever having had the chance to live."

In addition to the reasons already mentioned, this has been on mind because I am close to having the William Lloyd letters ready to go to potential publishers. Lloyd was a sergeant in the 33rd who left the largest collection of letters of any member of the regiment. One of the characteristics of his letters is their total honesty, anything he thought or was unhappy about, he wrote about it. While working on this I have tried to remember that he was only 21, married for about three months when he enlisted in the 33rd, his wife couldn't have been much older. Imagine being that young and trying to cope with adjustments and stress that seems almost unimaginable. Lloyd's story has a happy ending, not only did he survive the war, he lived until 1928.

Yet that's just the point about the unfairness, Lloyd was in every battle and every campaign, lived to tell about it and live a full life thereafter. Another 163 members of the regiment weren't quite so fortunate - they never had a chance to live. The fact is that it is unfair and that can never be changed. To me that means at least two things - war has to be really justified before bringing that kind of unfairness into play. There is no doubt in my mind that the Civil War was such a war which brings in the second issue. The fact that it is so unfair to those who give their lives, it is even more important that we never forget those "who gave their lives that that nation might live," not just in the Civil War, but all wars.

Edward II

2009-05-22T04:31:00.000-07:00

In some previous posts I noted that I had read in several places that Shakespeare's early work was influenced by interaction with his contemporary, Christopher Marlowe. I had certainly known about Marlowe, but had never knew much about him, nor had I read any of his works. That changed last night when I finished Marlowe's one English history play, "Edward II."

The historical Edward II was probably one of England's worse kings - catering to favorites, in conflict with his nobles to the point of the Civil War. The end result was Edward's deposition in favor of his son, Edward III who would go on to be a great medieval king. Interestingly Edward II's, father and his son were both great English kings. After his deposition, Edward II was brutally murdered, for medieval kings giving up the crown usually meant giving up one's life as well.

The first two acts of Marlowe's play focus on the conflict between Edward and his nobles over the kings favorite - Gaveson - a relationship that Marlowe makes pretty clear was homosexual in nature. What struck me about these first two acts was the frenetic nature of the pace - Gaveson is recalled from exile, barely arrives and is exiled again, just leaves for exile and is recalled again and then on his return is condemned and executed. Trying to visualize it on the stage made me feel like it would be like watching a movie where the film is being shown at too fast a speed - sort of like the Keystone Cops.

In fact, that was sort of my reaction to the first four acts - they were episodic in nature at a pace that seemed to allow little time to develop anything in any depth. Surprisingly all of this seemed to change in Act V. At this point Edward has been deposed and is in prison while his queen and Mortimer are plotting his murder. All of the sudden the action seemed to slow down, creating drama about the events and making Edward appear almost sympathetic which is no small feat. There are similarities between the both the historical and the dramatic Edward II and Richard II. I have always found Richard II to be about as unsympathetic a character as there is, but Edward goes even beyond that with his obsessions first with Gaveson and then with Spencer.

One of the things I noticed in reading the introduction to the play was critical commentary suggesting that "Edward II" is really not a history play because it doesn't address any of the issues typical of that genre. Rather it is the story of people who just happen to be in those positions - perhaps if the characters weren't kings and nobles, nobody would care. I think there is something in that view of the play. I didn't come away feeling I had learned anything about kingship or leadership as I do in Shakespeare's plays. The lessons appear to have more to do with the dangers of obsessions with someone or something. Edward II's obsessions seem extreme, but that may be artistic license to make a point. In any event I came away with another reminder of the importance of balance in one's life - an important lesson for anyone, king or not.

Discerning the Lack of a Call

2009-05-20T05:06:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a post where I said that a casual lunch time conversation at the 19th Century Baseball conference in Cooperstown convinced me that I had a call to write a book about early baseball in New Jersey. With the past few days, it has also become clear to me that I don't have a call regarding another possible book topic - Andrew Jackson and his war against the Second Bank of the United States.

I have written before about how this is a topic that I have been interested in since high school, primarily for two reasons, nothing that I have read has ever explained how the bank operated and there seemed to be so many arguments that the bank was a good idea. Over the past six months, I read Robert Remini's "Andrew Jackson and the Bank War, as well as Jon Meacham's Pulitzer Prize wining biography - "American Lion." (Sometime I may write about my reaction to the latter book winning that award). In both cases, the author's did not explain how the BUS (pictured above left) worked nor did they give (in my opinion) any good explanation of why the bank was a bad idea. The merits of the bank just get dismissed by saying the issues were really political.

I decided to keep reading about this to see if there was, in fact, a call to try to write a book about the topic. My next book was Thomas Govan's "Nicholas Biddle: Nationalist and Public Banker," basically a biography of Biddle as a banker. Govan's book had been criticized by Remini (the dean of Jackson scholars) as being prejudiced, a complaint that I sometimes think can be made against Remini. Reading the book gave me a little more sense of how banking worked in the 1820's and 1830's, but it still seems a very complicated topic. More importantly was the portrayal of Biddle, for more than half the book, it certainly seemed as if he was far from the evil figure portrayed by Jackson and then subsequent biographers and historians.

However as I read on it seemed like Biddle was indeed guilty of some of the things he had been accused of, some of which Govan admits and some of which he seems to excuse. For some reason, as I read the second half of this book, I lost a lot of my interest in the topic. As noted I think it is a very complicated one and it also appears that a lot of the original source material, especially the records of the bank, do not survive. More than these things though is that my interest, almost passion, for the subject took a big hit. It may come back, but it doesn't feel like it now.

In any event recognizing the lack of a call is a sort of negative clarity which isn't such a bad thing, but it helps simply things. It also isn't like I have a lack of potential writing projects, I am very hopeful about the Ebbets Field book, still have to finish editing the Lloyd letters and have a clear sense of a call on the New Jersey baseball book. There are some smaller projects in the offing as well including a chapter in a book about New Jersey and the Civil War plus the possibility of contributing something to a book about the greatest baseball games of the 19th century. Beyond or behind all of this is another possibility for a book on a much larger scale - a book about Charles Ebbets, Brooklyn and the Dodgers. In a lot of ways the Ebbets Field book would be a way to pursue that further so here is hoping that works out and I continue to get more clarity about what I should and shouldn't be doing.

Thinking In Time

2009-05-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

After Sunday's vintage games on Central Park's North Meadow, I was walking to the subway with one of my Eureka teammates and we started discussing some of the different rules of the 19th century game. For example, I mentioned that I don't enjoy watching the 1890's overhand game (or the 1880's game either for that matter) primarily because it is not a lot different from the modern game. As a result the experience loses its uniqueness and is little different than any older group of men (and sometimes women) playing baseball.

There is, however, one significant difference between the 1890's game and the modern one - the foul strike rule. Under this rule, foul balls are not strikes thereby significantly increasing the potential length of any at bat. I believe this was a big controversy at the end of the 19th century since players like John McGraw would endlessly foul off pitches until they either got a walk or a pitch they wanted to swing at. I don't like that rule either so for me 1890's games aren't unique and they have at least one rule that prolongs the game unnecessarily.

My teammate, however, had another rule, he didn't like - one in use in the 1860's and 1870's - the bound rule, especially as how it applies to foul balls. Through 1864 any ball caught on a bounce was an out, after 1864 through the 1870's, the rule still applies to foul balls. As my teammate mentioned from a hitter's standpoint, little is more sickening than tipping a pitch - thinking it is just a foul ball and then watching the catcher come up with it on the bounce and realizing the at bat is over. As a score keeper, its a wrinkle I have to keep an eye on or I end up missing outs.

I was thinking about all of this because of something I read in William Ryczek's new book, "Baseball's First Inning." He was talking about the typical experience of those playing vintage baseball for the first time and how frustrated they get with it, leading to comments about certain rules being stupid. According to Ryczek the best response is, yes ,it is a stupid rule and that is why they changed it. This reminded me of a reality of historic recreations like vintage baseball, we operate under the disadvantage of realizing how the game has changed and evolved. The pathfinders of the early game were unhampered by that knowledge and so they are playing and thinking about the game, especially how it can be changed and improved. Those attempting to recreate or re-enact look at the game from an entirely different perspective that makes it more difficult to get a sense of what it was like to know only the beginning.

That may or may not be of great significance to some one who is only try to re-enact history. It can be much more important for those trying to write history - it's the old thing about 20-20 hindsight. It is far to easy to be critical of those who came before because they made decisions and took actions with less information and less time for consideration. Another example of this was the last panel discussion at the Civil War conference, Carol and I attended in Richmond last month. The last discussion was on looking forward to the election of 1860 knowing only what was known in 1859. As a result Abraham Lincoln was hardly mentioned in the discussion because he wasn't considered to be that much of a factor. This whole way of thinking in time is something for me to keep in mind with all of my historical writing.

Getting there (and back) is half the fun

2009-05-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

Back in 1964 when Shea Stadium and the New York World's Fair opened simultaneously and adjacent to one another, there was a commercial that said that half the fun was the subway special that took you there. I was reminded of that today when I traveled to the North Meadow of Central Park (pictured above left) in New York City for the second day of the annual Gotham Cup. The Gotham Cup is a vintage base ball festival that draws clubs from up and down the east coast, from as far away as Providence and Maryland.

My team, the Eureka, played two games today, the first at the ungodly hour of 9:00 a.m. I remember going through the North Meadow almost three years ago as part of the New York City 1/2 Marathon, but today was the first time I was conscious of the magnificent quality of the grass and what seemed like unlimited baseball and softball fields. I got there about 8:20 and there were already games going on as far as the eye could see, which was pretty much the case until I left a little after 4:00.

Recently I have started using the New York City subway to get around in Manhattan, usually after driving and parking at the Port Authority. It has worked pretty well and with the AIDS walk going on in the same area, driving didn't seem like a real great idea. Getting to the Port Authority early on Sunday morning, was no problem, I followed the signs to the C train, used my Metro Card and all of the sudden saw a sign that said "No C trains - 5/16-5/19. My confidence took a big hit, but below that statement was the question - "How does this effect me," followed by directions to take the A train if you wanted to go uptown. Sure enough about 10 minutes later the A train arrived, I took it to 96th Street and Central Park West and arrived at the North Meadow.

With the uncertain weather forecast, I was focused on the possibility of rain and didn't pay too much attention to the temperature so I was fairly cold most of the day, especially when the wind picked up. As noted our first game began at 9:00 and it was somewhat reminiscent of last week's Mets-Braves game that Carol and I attended. It was a back and forth affair that we finally lost 11-10 in the bottom of the 11th inning, an exciting well played game.

Unfortunately, due to the vagaries of the schedule our next game wasn't until 2:15, giving us almost 3 hours to kill. There were other games going on at the time so I watched them including an overhand game by 1884 rules - the first time I had seen this version of base ball. Like the underhand game no gloves are allowed in the field, with the one exception being the catcher. The really strange rule, however, was six balls being required for a walk. If they used that rule today, games would last four hours.

Finally our second game began about 2:30 against the host team, the Gotham club of New York City. It was another well played game that we lost, this time 10-6 after being tied 6-6 going into the 7th inning. Although we have lost all five games this year, we have been in every one and could easily have won one, if not both games today. I hope the players don't get discouraged because we don't seem to be that far way.

The second game didn't end until a little after 4:00 and I was sure it would take me forever to get home. By the time some of my teammates and I reached the subway station it was 4:17, to my surprise, I pulled into our driveway almost exactly an hour later at 5:17. Carol didn't seem too impressed with that, but it surprises me that I could go from 96th Street and Central Park West to Verona in just 60 minutes. The subway ride may not be half the fun, but it certainly works pretty well and I am glad that I have been able both to understand and use it on a more regular basis.

The Brandons - Angela Thirkell Strikes Again

2009-05-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

As I read my way through Angela Thirkell's novel, "The Brandons," I thought that this was one book that was just a light story of the gentry in the English countryside with nothing really serious to say. I had the same feeling through much of "Summer Half" and, once again, I was wrong. In the editions, I have been reading, "The Brandons," is one of the longest and it took a long to time to get to the serious bit, but it was there none the less.

The character in question is a Miss Morris who is serving as companion to the elderly, eccentric and infirm Amelia Brandon. The daughter of a widowed clergy man, Miss Morris apparently served as his unpaid administrative and sometimes pastoral assistant. Once he died, she was left without money and/or a career and had to resort to serving as a companion to a succession of elderly ladies. Based on how Thirkell describes Miss Morris' experience, it sounds like the 1930's version of having the Victorian situation of governesses.

As noted, in this book Miss Morris is serving that role for Amelia Brandon, who in addition to her other characteristics is very wealthy and living on a large, but unattractive estate. The remaining Brandons are Lavinia Brandon and her two children, Francis and Delia plus a cousin named, Hilary Grant, who is conveniently living and studying with the local vicar, a Mr. Miller.
Amelia Brandon has a large fortune to dispose of and no immediate heirs so one of the questions is who will inherit, an especially interesting question because the obvious male candidates, Francis Brandon and Hilary Grant both want nothing to do with property. When Thirkell does resolve the question, she does so with a Dickensian twist that is not without humor.

But as noted earlier what was of most interest to me was the situation with Miss Morris who is once again without a "home" when Amelia finally does die. There are, of course, financial and romantic aspects to this which get full treatment, but more important from my point of view was that the work Miss Morris did for her father was clearly a calling. Thinking about it much of her frustration with her current situation doesn't appear to be either the romantic or financial side, but rather the frustration of not being able to do what she does well and loves to do. The exploration of that issue by itself was important, something I have found in each of Thirkell's novels.

"The Brandons" is also full of the Barsetshire characters from other novels and while it isn't necessary to read them in order, I do think it helps. The book also has an interesting 2/1 dynamic or love triangle where both Hilary Grant and Mr. Miller are infatuated with Mrs. Brandon whom, at some level, seems oblivious to the whole thing. It wasn't the most attractive part of this novel, but on reflection, it was probably used as a vehicle to help both Grant and Miller come to a better understanding of themselves and what they both want and need. Most, if not all, of Thirkell's novels end with a series of engagements or marriages. In "The Brandons," the different situations seem headed there, but not with quite that level of closure. I am not sure whether that was intentional understatement or there are some surprises ahead. The only way to find out will be to read on, with "Before Lunch" next up on the list.

New Analysis of Old Data

2009-05-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Supposedly when George Eliot was writing her first novel, "Adam Bede," the publisher sent her a letter asking about the topic. She responded by saying she didn't want to answer that question because she believed that art was not the subject, but the treatment of the subject. "Adam Bede," by the way is still my favorite Eliot novel. My cultural companion, DT prefers "The Mill on the Floss" since he thinks using dental floss for a building foundation shows the Victorian early appreciation of environmental issues.

I have always liked Eliot's position on this and it came to mind again as I was reading William Rcyzek's new book, "Baseball's First Inning." I was first introduced to Rcyzek's work in "When Johnny Came Sliding Home," a history of the game in the immediate post Civil War era. The author had previously written about the first professional teams so his latest work represents the the last volume in a trilogy basically written backwards - sort of like Shakespeare's approach with his two sets of four history plays. Since Rcyzek looks at the early days of baseball from a larger perspective, his work helps me set a context for the work I am doing on early New Jersey baseball.

I am only about 50 pages into the latest book, but it was the author's treatment of the question of who invented baseball that made me think of Eliot's position on art. Rcyzek doesn't offer any new information, but he analyzes the existing information in an important and helpful way. Basically he says that if we look at baseball from a genealogical perspective, everything that comes after the New York Knickerbocker Club (pictured above left) can be more or less traced back to or through that club. The Knickerbockers were founded in 1845 and played their first game or match a year later.

The problem, Rcyzek notes is what happens when anyone tries to move back earlier than the Knickerbockers. As he notes when the Knickerbockers wrote down the rules for the first time (or the first set that has survived) they were obviously working of some form of baseball game since their rules don't provide a full explanation of how to play the game. What no one has been able to do is prove or document what game it provides the basis for the game that they codified. That game which may never be found would be the missing link in baseball history on the national level. Like most people who have studied or thought about the question, Rcyzek doesn't believe that any one person invented baseball, rather it gradually evolved. Yet his perspective on the Knickerbocker's is both interesting and helpful.

As noted my own research focuses on early baseball in New Jersey where the proximity to New York City certainly was important. The current beliefs are that the first New Jersey club was the Newark club founded in 1855 and the first game or match was played that season. I believe, but have not yet been able to prove that the Newark club was not the first club, I think a Jersey City club is a more likely candidate. I started looking a week or so ago at 1854 newspapers to see if I can find a game for 1855, no luck so far, but it would be like the missing link of New Jersey baseball history and is, therefore, well worth pursuing.

I Don't Care if I Never Get Back (Well Almost!)

2009-05-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

In our book about the 1916 baseball season, Paul and I argue the season was important because it represented baseball at its best. We looked at the issue in terms of a season and concluded that close pennant races, controversy, record setting performances and teams that never quit are some of the elements that make baseball such a great game. Interestingly we didn't look at that on the level of individual games - what is that makes one game, baseball at its best.

I thought about this after Carol and I went to today's Mets-Braves game which I believe was one of the best games that I ever attended. That same sentiment was expressed by a number of people on the return trip on the LIRR (upper right) after the game. The Braves won 8-7 in 12 innings in a game that featured a grand slam home run, over 20 hits by both teams, a number of double plays and both managers using almost their entire rosters. After the Braves went ahead in the 12th, Jose Reyes just missed tying it again and then was left on third base when Gary Sheffield struck out looking on one of the wickedest pitches I have ever seen (with the benefit of watching it on television when we get home).

Usually when people talk about what makes an exciting game, they tend to focus on pitcher's duels. I still remember an epic Roger Clemens - Pedro Martinez match up on Sunday night baseball one Memorial Day weekend - I was also fortunate enough to see in person a Bob Gibson - Tom Seaver duel, won by Seaver and the Mets. Roger Angell once wrote something to the effect that pitcher's duels make the most exciting games because they force managers and teams to maximize their creativity since runs are so few and far between. There is a lot of truth in that and I certainly enjoy that kind of game much more than some the softball like scores that many American League teams tend to play - remember I am an old National League guy.

Yet at the same time, I have to say that in person, I do prefer games with some hitting. One thing that was interesting about today's game is that in spite of the scoring and extra innings, the game moved along - 12 innings 8-7 in 3:46 isn't too bad under today's standards. I guess for me a big issue continues to be the American League's use of the designated hitter. While it doesn't seem like it should make that much difference, the absence of that one relatively easy out just seems to make it too easy to score runs. I think it also contributes to what I think has always been more or less the norm in the American League wait for someone to hit a home run instead of trying to make things happen. The Mets so far this year remind me of an American League team because I think that is the way they play even with all the offense they generated in this game.

Almost as enjoyable as the game itself was the feeling that I am starting to deal with my anxiety about traveling to and from games. For some reason, I always worry about getting out afterwards to the point that it influences how I choose to travel and thinking when, or if, to leave early. Some of that anxiety is due to bad past experiences, for example taking an hour to get out of the parking lot at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last July 4th - putting up with that knowing you have a two hour ride afterwards is not pleasant. But a larger part of it is just some unexplainable worrying that might have made some sense when I was working and had limited free time. Now however, in retirement it's not like I have that many places I have to go or things I have to do by certain times. I kept telling myself that throughout the day and was comfortable staying the for the whole game, recognizing that if we got home at 8:00 rather than 7:00 it was no big deal. I am very grateful for what feels like some progress because I really like Citi Field and hope to get there on some kind of a regular basis.

West Point

2009-05-12T05:24:00.000-07:00

Supposedly the motto of Princeton University (in Latin, of course) means "in the service of the nation" or words to that effect. I once read a column in the New York Times that claimed that it really meant "boy do we have networks." Since I don't understand Latin and am not that interested, I will leave it up to others to debate what it really means.

However, this year I have gotten a sense of how beneficial networks can be. My work on the New Jersey Civil War 150th Committee has introduced me to a number of dedicated and helpful people including the good folks at the Phil Kearny Civil War Roundtable especially Joe Truglio, the group's leader. Working with them and speaking at their March meeting has led to three other speaking (and book selling) opportunities, one last February in Rockland County, last night at the West Point Museum and next month at the Wyckoff Historical Society.

Last night's talk was to the West Point Chapter of the Company of Military Historians. This group has chapters throughout the country and as the name suggests they meet to hear presentations on different aspects of military history. The meeting was at the West Point Museum which is actually not on the grounds of the military academy itself, but rather located not far from the main gate. A few of them hosted Carol and I for dinner before hand and I had the opportunity to talk with the chair who is very active in the study of civilian and women's issues related to the Civil War. Since this will be an important part of the New Jersey 150th anniversary observations, she could be a very helpful resource.

The talk went well and I sold five books which was especially gratifying. I have come to realize that I shouldn't have expectations about how many, if any, copies I will sell and just take it as it comes. As I noted in a recent post, I have learned that it is my job to write the books, not sell them. I will still take advantage of opportunities like these, but will be careful about how far I will travel to do so. West Point is probably a little further than I would normally want to travel, but the opportunity to go there was one that I would not pass up. I have been to West Point many times over the years, primarily for Rutgers football games, but when I was in college, I was there as a basketball and baseball manager. On one occasion we had the opportunity to have dinner in the dining hall an opportunity that doesn't come along very often in life.

I have now given my basic talk about the 33rd New Jersey enough times that I don't need a lot of practice and preparation time. Up until last November the talk consisted of telling about the regiment's troubled beginnings and then an overview of its service. At a talk to a New Jersey CWRT where I sold only one book, I realized that I was telling too much of the story leaving little incentive for anyone to buy the book. Since then I have changed the second half of the talk to focus specifically on the Atlanta campaign, leaving a lot of other material for people to read about in the book itself.

Interestingly last week in the Rutgers library I found an article about the 33rd's second regimental reunion on September 5, 1892. The article indicated that they chose early September for the reunion because it was the time they left Newark and the time (a year later) that they entered Atlanta with the rest of the triumph Union army. Unintentionally on my part, I had decided to focus two periods that the participants themselves thought were especially important - a nice feeling of connection with them. I would like to do more research on the 33rd especially their post war lives - I am not sure if there is another book there or not - I am also wondering if there is another New Jersey regiment whose story needs to be told - we will see.

"Oh to be in England"

2009-05-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

Initial planning for our next trip to England began today over a Mother's Day lunch at Pal's Cabin in West Orange. Tentatively set for late spring of 2010, this will mark our fourth trip to the land of my ancestors, the most recent being the Shakespeare marathon in early 2008. This will be shortest turn around for a trip to England which is a sign of how much Carol and I both like it there - no small statement for two people who are not the most enthusiastic travelers.

The givens for this trip are visits to the homes of my ancestors - Audley in Staffordshire, Horsley/Nympsfield in Gloucestershire and the city of Worcester. The last time we visited Gloucestershire I wasn't sure that my ancestors were from Nympsfield so this will be our first visit to the place where the Window/Winder family lived for generations before moving to Horsley and then Worcester. The other given is a return to Stratford-on-Avon perhaps for a play, but definitely for a visit to Warwick Castle which is only eight miles away - we should have visited it in 2008.

Up until now, the only other place under serious consideration was Dartmoor (pictured above right) because of its connection to the classic Sherlock Holmes' story, "The Hound of the Baskervilles.'' Now one of England's largest national parks, supposedly it is possible to find the sites that Conan Doyle used in writing his story of death and terror on the moor - "Beware the moor during the hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted," - you can believe we will take that seriously.

After some reflection over the past few days, we have added to the list the Lake District in northwestern England and the city of Salisbury, especially Salisbury Cathedral. The latter place gave Anthony Trollope the inspiration for his much beloved Barchestershire novels and both the Cathedral and the city are supposed to be well worth seeing. It also helps that Salisbury is on the rail line to Dartmoor. The Lake District is supposedly one of the most beautiful places in all of England with a lot of opportunities for walks over spectacular country. It is also a large area and I was trying to think of how to focus that part of the trip and realized last night that the best approach might be to focus on the great English poet, William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage in the village of Grasmere from 1799 to 1808 when he apparently wrote most of his greatest poetry. Apparently Grasmere is right in the center of the Lake District so a brief (1-2 day) stay in the area would allow us to learn more about Wordsworth as well as go on some long walks throughout the area. I am not sure about how my poetic partner, DT, will feel about me stepping outside of the Elizabethean era but given the openess of his mind, he will be as fond of Wordsworth as he is of Shakespeare. In any event, as they say in England, it is "early days" yet, but it is exciting to start thinking about this trip which will take a lot of planning and thought.

Brooklyn and Ballparks - Continued

2009-05-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

Reflecting some more on Walter O'Malley's move of the Dodgers to Los Angeles makes me wonder if the Brooklyn owner may have been ahead of his time, ahead in an unhelpful way - looking for a new ballpark for a sitting team. What I mean by that is building a new ballpark for a team that was staying in the same city.

The first two decades of the twentieth century marked the beginning of the concrete and steel era of ballparks where club owners could replace the inadequate and dangerous wooden ballparks with new larger structures that were not at such great risk of fire. Of the 16 major league teams in existence between 1900-1920 all but a handful built new parks during that period or became tenants in one - the Yankees leasing of the Polo Grounds from the Giants is an example of the latter.

With the exception of Yankee Stadium (early 1920's) and possibly Cleveland, the only new ballparks built between 1920 and 1955 (let's say) were facilities for teams that had moved. Of the Dodgers direct competitors in the National League, the only club playing in a new ballpark were the Braves after their move to Milwaukee. That, of course, for O'Malley was the case in point, a team that hadn't offered much competition, moving and becoming an instant competitor with record setting attendance. Looking at the overall situation, however, it seems that little was being done in terms of building new ballparks for existing teams. Even after 1955, it is almost 15 years before the new stadiums are built in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia - all of them unattractive and relatively short lived.

Given the difficulties building a new ballpark almost any place, consider the difficulties O'Malley had building Dodger Stadium as an example, makes me wonder if combining those challenges with an idea that was probably out of fashion was just too much to overcome. After reading "Forever Blue" and thinking about it, my feeling is that it is simplistic to accept the evil image of O'Malley, especially the one created in the media. It was his misfortune to offend a number of articulate and visible writers. Certainly there is enough blame to go around for what still must be considered the tragedy of the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. However, it is also, I think a mistake to conclude O'Malley had no choice, as mentioned in the earlier post the success of Fenway Park and Wrigley Field shows that it can be done even without much parking.

It is somewhat ironic to be thinking about all of this at the same time that two new stadiums have opened in New York City. I have been to Citi Field once and will be there again this week, I like it and the Mets certainly needed a new ballpark. It looks like I will be going to the new Yankee Stadium a few times this year, from what I can see of it on television, it looks like they tried to make it exactly like the old one, but much more fan friendly. If so that would make it the only one of the new generation of stadiums where the new stadium is so similar to its immediate predecessor.

That similarity may be part of the reason that a New York Times columnist, Harvey Araton or Ira Berkow - I think, wrote a column surveying fans at Fenway Park (above left) about how they felt about their 1912 vintage park. Almost to a person they liked things as they were and had no desire for a new ballpark leading the writer to question the wisdom of building the new Yankee stadium. It's a fair question when the new park is so much of a replica of the old one. I also have to say, however, that attending a game at Fenway Park has its challenges.

Because Paul and Sarah live in the Boston area, I have been there many times, probably 15-20 and once the novelty has worn off, it is certainly not the most fan friendly venue. I am not a big patron of concessions at ballparks, but I do need to get out of my seat once and while - in a lot of locations, to do that for any basic human need, means missing an inning even with how long it takes to play an inning today especially in the American League. I am going to stop here because if I don't, I will go on to all the other things I don't like about the modern game which even with its faults is still my favorite.

Forever Blue - One Owner - One Team - Two Cities

2009-05-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

In writing the latest version of the Brooklyn Dodgers much lamented departure from Brooklyn in 1957-58, Michael D'Antonio had full access to Walter O'Malley's papers and related documents - apparently the first writer to have used this resource. This material enables him to more fully develop the revisionist version which I read for the first time in Michael Shapiro's, "The Last Good Season" - the story of the 1956 baseball season, my first season of active baseball interest. I use the word revisionist in a non-judgemental way, this piece of history like any other should be subject to revision if new material and perspectives become available.

According to this version, the true villain of the piece is not O'Malley, but rather Robert Moses, a perhaps even more controversial figure than O'Malley. For decades Moses who never held elective office and seldom, if ever, paid government positions was the final authority on all development projects in New York City. According to his biographer, Robert Caro, the primary reason that Moses had this power was his ability to get things done. That is, the failure of the elected officials to build highways, housing, parks etc, enabled someone who could, to acquire and hold this vast power over the city. Certainly the picture painted in D'Antonio's book confirms this view, Mayor Robert Wagner and other government officials seem singularly inept in dealing with the situation. It is hard to visualize today how a New York City mayor could survive allowing sports institutions like the Dodgers and Giants to leave town.

Some of the blame is also laid at the feet (perhaps literally) of the Brooklyn fans who didn't go or stopped going to Ebbets Field - one particularly striking image is empty seats at the sixth game of the 1952 World Series when the Dodgers had a chance to win their first World's Championship. Given the success of the Dodgers in the late 1940's and 1950's, declining or static attendance is hard to understand. But this is also where the revisionist story breaks down to some degree. One reason that O'Malley has been, and probably always will be, criticized for moving the Dodgers is that his was a preemptive strike.

With, I think, one exception every other shift of a franchise was due to years of poor attendance and little or no fan interest - the Giants are a striking example. While Dodgers attendance may have been disappointing or falling behind the competition, the team was still very successful financially. The moved was more based on potential losses and a future lack of competitiveness and that will always be hard to justify. Ironically the only other example, I can think of, where a team abandoned a city where it was doing well was the Braves move from Milwaukee to Atlanta. Ironic because it was the success of the original move from Boston to Milwaukee that escalated O'Malley's belief that he needed a new stadium.

Another problem which is offered with the benefit of hindsight is that it appears that the possibility of rebuilding or renovating Ebbets Field may not have gotten adequate consideration. Certainly it is not considered in any depth in this book or others on the subject. In addition to the inadequacies of the stadium itself, the pressing issue was supposed to be the lack of parking that would deter all of those Brooklynites moving to the suburbs from returning for games. Yet two of today's most successful stadiums are Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago, both built in the same era, both with very little parking. Indeed I have stopped driving to Mets games even though there is plenty of parking so this may not have been the crucial issue it seemed at the time. One wonders what could have happened at Ebbets Field had some real creativity been applied to that option - the issue of renovating old parks vs building new ones will be the subject of a further post.

As I read "Forever Blue," I thought that there wasn't much in it that I hadn't read in Shapiro's book. One exception was the difficulty O'Malley had building Dodgers Stadium which if it was in the other book, I don't remember it. Certainly the owner of the Dodgers found that to be no easy task, but at least he had some political leaders who stood up for him and his team. Yet in spite of what was not a lot of new material and even with knowing the ending, the book held my attention. D'Antonio uses the material from the O'Malley archives to give a fuller, more balanced picture of this controversial figure who becomes far more human than the unfortunate caricatures developed over the years. It is certainly a book for every Dodger fan, Brooklyn or Los Angeles and for anyone interested in the history of the game.

Better Late Than Never

2009-05-07T12:09:00.001-07:00

My intellectual buddy, DT, and I agree on most things, but one place where we part company is on libraries. I think libraries are one of our greatest institutions while DT moved to his community because of the library (they don't have one!). I have to admit, however, that I came to the belief fairly late. In fact, I am sad to say that in the past ten years, I have spent far more time in the Alexander Library at Rutgers (pictured above left) than I ever did as an undergraduate in the 1960's.

Some of that time has been spent finding books on the different topics I have been working on, but literally hours have been spent in the microform department reading old newspapers on microfilm. The Alexander library has one of the best collections of newspapers in the state and, I would guess, also in the region. For example, they have full runs of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, a Chicago newspaper and the Washington Post which greatly facilitated our research on the 1916 baseball book. I have also made extensive use of this collection for every other topic I have researched, ranging from the Civil War to various topics in baseball history. If, and when, I ever stop working there, they should probably retire my copy card.

Today I made a relatively brief visit to the library and worked on the following:

1. Biographical information on Nathan Barnert for the biography project of the NJCW150 committee. Barnert was a Jewish immigrant from Germany who settled in Paterson during the Civil War period, made a fortune supplying uniforms to the Union army and then gave away a lot of that fortune to charities and religious causes in the Paterson area. For example, Barnert Hospital and Barnert Temple were both named after he and his wife.

2. Biographical information on Madaline Williams, the New Jersey state assembly woman who the organizers of a Civil War centennial commission meeting in Charleston, South Carolina tried to bar from the conference hotel because of her race.

3. Researching early base ball games in New Jersey as part of the nationwide Protoball project which has its goal to tabulate all base ball games played in 1860 or earlier. The earliest documented game in New Jersey was played in 1855 so the holy grail, so to speak, would be a game played before that. Today I looked through two months of the Newark Daily Advertiser from 1854, but found only a couple of cricket games.

4. Researching reunions of the 33rd New Jersey, someone gave me pictures of reunion medals for the regiment with dates on them so I looked for newspaper accounts. I didn't find too much, but did learn that they tried to have their initial reunions (1891-92) in early September which was the anniversary of both their troubled departure from Newark in September of 1863 and the fall of Atlanta a year later. Since my basic talk about the regiment focuses on those two events, it was interesting to see that they did much the same thing.

Of course, while there I also made a quick tour of the stacks picking up books on Shakespeare, Marlowe and Andrew Jackson's war against the 2nd Bank of the United States. Will I read all of them? Probably not, but since they are on loan at no cost, there is no real downside. And one thing is for sure, I will be back there often enough that it won't be inconvenient to return them!

The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare

2009-05-06T05:19:00.000-07:00

My cultural buddy, DT, is always telling me that to fully appreciate Shakespeare, I need to study his work in context. Of course by context, DT means his opinion, but even considering the source the idea still has merit. For example, in the last two books, I have read about Shakespeare there has been several references to the idea that much of Shakespeare's early work was in response to the work of Christopher Marlowe (pictured above right). Shakespeare's need to respond to Marlowe ended when Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl - that's the kind of story that would appeal to DT.

In an effort to work on the whole context issue, I just finished reading Irving Ribner's book - "The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare." While written a long time ago, I found it very valuable in terms of understanding the whole genre of the the history play. Among other things the book helped me to understand how the history play evolved. I think there is a tendency to think of many things as just starting one day - that someone gets a brainstorm and just decides to start writing plays about English history or to invent baseball -things like that. My guess is that in reality that seldom happens, that almost everything evolves from something else - why, for example, would anyone believe that one person, like Abner Doubleday would one day just invent baseball. It is much more reasonable to believe that it evolved by people making adjustments with what they had to work with, in that case other bat and ball games.

In the case of the history play, Ribner shows how it is rooted in the different kinds of plays that preceded it such as morality plays or chronicle plays. Then the playwrights of the Elizabethan age took those forms and adapted them to meet their own needs and, one suspects, the demands of both the public and patrons. The plays of that time, or any time for that matter, were also influenced by the beliefs and norms of that time. For example, a primary purpose of history for the Elizabethans was to teach, especially to teach lessons relevant to the current time. This was a higher value than historical accuracy so the liberties that Shakespeare and others took with English history were completely reasonable if it was done to help teach an important lesson.

Reading this book is also leading me to think that my basic idea for a book about the history plays would probably not work. My thought had been a book looking at the plays in regnal order to try to analyze what Shakespeare believed about kingship or, in other words, leadership. While Ribner's book has another purpose, he also says much of what I was thinking and I am sure there are others who have done the same. Given the centuries of Shakespeare criticism, it is unlikely that I am going to come up with something new especially without the benefit of a graduate education.

While any such book was not imminent, I need to do some more thinking about this. One question is whether just because you are interested in something you need to write a book about it. Or perhaps the book needs to be different - less emphasis on academic scholarship and instead writing about the importance of these plays to me as sort of a combination memoir and book promoting their interest to others. In going through some of Paul's stuff from a college theater trip to England, I found the program from "Henry IV, Part I" from an RSC production in 2000. A lot of emphasis in the program is placed on the father and son aspect - I have written before about how that alone would make the play a good introduction to Shakespeare for high school students, especially in all male private schools.

As I said, nothing was imminent here so a change in direction is not necessarily a bad thing. I will continue to read about Shakespeare, his history plays as well as going to see them. In the latter regard I have pretty much decided to take a trip to the Blackfriars Theater in Staunton, Virginia this fall for a production of "Henry IV, Part I," possibly in conjunction with a visit to Harper's Ferry. In addition I plan to start learning more about Christopher Marlowe and his approach to the history plays as part of getting even a better sense of context.

Pomfret Towers

2009-05-05T05:19:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, "Pomfret Towers" was my introduction to the Barsetshire novels of Angela Thirkell. I am now trying to read all of them in sequence and the end of "Summer Half" brought me to this one which I had read out of sequence. While I usually don't read many books more than once, I decided to do so in this case (and will do the same with "Before Lunch") because I didn't remember that much of the story.

I did remember that some of the action centered on a weekend house party given by Lord Pomfret at his ancestral home, but I had forgotten how much, indeed more than one half of the book. As usual there is a connection between the characters in this novel and Thirkell's other novels. In this case, Lord Pomfret's sister is the Lady Emily of "Wild Strawberries," an earlier novel in the series. In addition to being siblings, the Pomfrets have something tragic in common, both of them lost their eldest son to the carnage of World War I.

Obviously that is sad in both cases, but in the case of the Pomfrets it raises other issues as the Pomfrets have no other children so there is no immediate heir to the family's wealth and estates. The next in line is an elderly, unloved man in ill health so the real heir apparent is a young man named Gillie Foster. Most of the story in "Pomfret Towers" centers on who he will marry and unlike the 2/1 dynamics set up by many authors in these situations (including Thirkell), this time there is actually a 3-1 dynamic. Obviously there can only be one "winner," and not surprisingly, Foster makes the right decision which is confirmed by the lady's response.
Interestingly though at the end of the story, the two who weren't asked (and probably aren't disappointed by the fact) are in what are clearly "to be continued" situations. I think I know how one comes out, it will be interesting to see about the other.

As I got to the end of this book, I thought that this time Thirkell would not include the two things that I had seen in the last two novels, "August Folly" and "Summer Half" - unspoken masculine communication to resolve problems and a deeper issue somewhat below the surface. I was definitely wrong on the first one because at the very end there is a situation where one of the male characters expects a "homily" from another, but the issue is again dealt with in an unspoken way.

I am not sure about the deeper issue - in "Summer Half" at first I found Rose Birkett to be such a caricature that it was hard to take her seriously thus, I thought, weakening the book. The longer I thought about it, however, the more it seemed that she was presented in that way as a vehicle to present a deeper issue. In that case, the danger of unhealthy relationships. In "Pomfret Towers" I was put off by Alice Barton who's timidity and shyness seemed to be as much of a caricature as Rose Birkett. I did remember Alice from my first reading and for some reason, it didn't put me off that time. Thinking about it now, I wonder if the extreme shyness of Alice is again a vehicle for consideration of some deeper issue - if it is, the issue isn't clear to me at the moment. But it may be that part of Thirkell's skill as a writer is to portray these almost caricature characters to allow the reader to consider deeper issues - perhaps different issues depending on the reader and how he or she interprets the book. Something to think about as I move on to "The Brandons."

Making Sense of John Brown

2009-05-04T05:32:00.000-07:00

While I prefer to make up my own titles for posts, in this case I am borrowing the title from the Virginia conference panel discussion because I think it best describes the issue. As I wrote in the last post, the second morning workshop was about Virginia and the south in 1859. About one-third of the discussion focused on the slave trade in Richmond and while the panelists eventually moved on to other topics, for me the morning ended with this sense of the omnipresence of slavery, and the perhaps even more depressing thought that few, if any, thought it was wrong. And that those who did think it was wrong couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it.

Enter then for the first afternoon session, a discussion about John Brown, someone, who has title suggests, we have a hard time understanding. On the one hand, Brown brutally murdered five slaveholders in Kansas during the struggles over whether that state would be slave or free. Then at Harper's Ferry in October of 1859, he launched a raid on the Federal Arsenal designed to free slaves and steal weapons and ammunition for further attacks. Apparently Brown's original plan was to stay at Harper's Ferry only long enough to accomplish those two objectives and then retreat back into the mountains to begin a series of terrorist attacks on slaveholders. For some reason, Brown did not follow his original plan and stayed long enough for Federal and state authorities to capture or kill the entire party.

Looked at from that perspective Brown was a cruel murderer as well as a traitor who took the law into his own hands. Yet at the same time, Brown was someone who had committed his life to do something about a monstrous evil, an evil that most people were willing to ignore or at the very least accept. Given that situation it is hard to understand how slavery could have been ended without violence or war. There was some speculation in the discussion that Brown decided to stay at Harper's Ferry because he felt that he could best serve the anti-slavery cause by being a martyr to it. Supposedly between the time of his capture and his execution, Brown wrote over 100 letters designed in large measure to bring attention to the evil of slavery and the need to do something about it. One question raised in the discussion that was never answered was why did the state of Virginia allow him to send all those letters that gave more ammunition to the abolitionist movement.

Perhaps the real difficulty in making sense of John Brown lies in the question of whether it is ever legitimate to use violence to fight evil. Some of Brown's contemporaries who usually thought otherwise seemed to think it was appropriate in this case. For example, Henry David Thoreau, one of the leading proponents of civil disobedience and pacifism supported Brown's actions. Still no matter, how great the evil, even if violence is the only solution, it seems hard to justify taking the law into one's own hands. And yet, it is hard to see how slavery would have been ended without war - certainly nothing in 1859 suggested there was any other alternative. It is a question that may very well be unanswerable suggesting why 150 years later, it is still so difficult to make sense of John Brown

"If Slavery isn't wrong, nothing is wrong"

2009-05-03T05:27:00.000-07:00

The Virginia Sesquicentennial conference last week consisted of four panel discussions. I wasn't sure what to expect from the format, but this experience showed that when it is done well, it is a great approach, something that could be applied to almost any subject. In each case the President of the University of Richmond, Ed Ayers (himself a Civil War scholar) led a discussion among four panelists each of whom had a lengthy resume of Civil War scholarship.

The one topic that I thought would be of least interest to me was about Virginia in 1859, primarily because it would be of more local interest. Yet like the rest it turned out to be a fascinating discussion especially the 20 minutes or so that was devoted to the slave trade in Richmond (picture above in an 19th century drawing). Apparently the records of one slave trading company survive and one of the panelists had analyzed the figures. As I remember them, this one slave trader reported annual volume of about $2 million (about $40 million in today's money) and this was only one of four or five large slave trading operations in Richmond.

As the discussion went on, it made it clear how the slave trade permeated every aspect of Richmond both its economy and its society. No matter what aspect of life the panelists talked about it seemed clear that the slave trade was accepted as a normal business and there was no one who opposed it in any significant way. To me, at that point, the tone was almost one of despair when one of the panelists finally said that he had grown up in the segregated south which was another society that tolerated something that was morally wrong. This led to some discussion about the idea that there is something in human nature that allows us to accept or at least tolerate things that we know are wrong.

My immediate reaction when I heard this was to think of something that I read somewhere about Shakespeare's play, "Richard III." The critic, whoever, he or she was, said that one of the major points of the play is the importance of resisting evil. It just demonstrates once more the broad application of Shakespeare to almost every human situation.

This discussion brought home as clearly as anything I have heard heard or read about the horror of slavery. Thinking about it, my sense is that slavery was such a terrible institution because it draws on three of the worst human sins - racism, greed and lust - the latter because of the way black women were further exploited by white men. Each of these sins is powerful by itself, combined together they would have incredible power. For example, if blacks are inferior and worthy only to be slaves, then there is every reason to exploit them for both economic and sexual reasons. Seen like this, Abraham Lincoln's quote which is the title for this post seems even more accurate and appropriate.

This panel discussion was the second of the two morning sessions, the next immediately after lunch was entitled "Making Sense of John Brown." The discussion about slavery put the John Brown discussion in context and set the stage for that difficult issue - something that will be the subject of the next post.

A Quiet Saturday

2009-05-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I was telling a friend of mine how I was going to manage all of the different things I am involved with. My final comment was that I would have to be careful not to take on too many things. That earned me a withering look of disbelief. I don't know why people complain about those who don't understand them, I have a lot more trouble with the people who do understand me.

My activities today gave plenty of support for that look of disbelief. The day began at 7:00 a.m. as I drove down to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for the annual meeting of the Connie Mack SABR chapter. I was there to give a brief talk called, "The best of times, the worst of times - the Phillies and the A's in the 1916 pennant races," and also to sell books - the goals were not necessarily in that order. This was the first time I have spoken about the 1916 book, it was well received with at least a half of a dozen people complimenting me on it. However, it was like the operation that succeeded, but the patient died - no one bought the book. This is the first time that I have tried to actively sell a book and I am realizing it is not a good idea - my job is to write them, it is the publisher's job to sell them. I do plan to continue to give talks about my books, but will be a lot more selective as to when and where - especially where.

From there I drove to Washington's Crossing State Park on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River for the annual Spirit of the Jerseys State History Fair. I had two purposes in going to this event, the first was to attend part of what was supposed to be a baseball game between the Neshanock and my beloved Eureka. Unfortunately once again, Eureka attendance was a problem and the game was basically a Neshanock inter-squad game. There are some real concerns about our ability to continue the Eureka which would be a real shame. Hopefully we will be able to keep it active to some level while we recruit more players.

Once that game was over, I went to the booth of the 12th New Jersey Civil War regiment to find one of my counter-parts on the New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee - a film producer. He wanted to tape a public service announcement about the committee and its work with me as the spokesperson. It was interesting as he had me walk past a group of re-enactors talking about the upcoming anniversary and its importance. We did it in two takes so I guess it was all right - supposedly it will appear on Comcast in South Jersey and possibly on NJN as well.

All of this would have been a pretty busy day in its own right, but it followed a week where I went to a game at Citi Field with Paul, down to Elkton, Maryland for a vintage tournament followed by two days in Virginia for a sesquicentennial conference. At the moment I don't feel too tired from all of this, but the good news is that there is nothing of this magnitude on the calendar for a while - the challenge will be to make sure that it stays that way. Wait a minute, was that another withering look of disbelief?

Opening Shots of the Sesquicentennial

2009-05-01T05:50:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday, Carol and I attended the Virgina Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission's signature conference on America in 1859. It was stated frequently that this was the first event of the observation of the 150th anniversary, not just in Virginia, but nation wide. If so, it got off to a good start and I will write in more detail about the content of the program in future posts.

Today, however, I want to focus on the history not of the Civil War, but of Civil War anniversaries. While we were driving home, Carol wondered about what the Civil War Centennial observations were like. That led me to tell her one part of the story that I learned about in working on the New Jersey 150th, but which is probably not that well known.

For the centennial observations, New Jersey like other states appointed official government commissions that in addition to planning New Jersey observations represented New Jersey at the national level. In April of 1861, the national commission held its annual meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, the site of the first shot of the war at Fort Sumter. One member of the New Jersey commission was Ms. Madaline A. Williams, the first African-American woman elected to the New Jersey State Legislature as a member of the assembly. Because she was black, Ms. Williams was denied accommodations at the hotel that was to host the conference. Protests reached the White House where President John Kennedy intervened saying that the commission which was funded by the government had an obligation to be sure that every was treated equally. Incredibly (or perhaps not), the commission's executive committee initially refused to change its plans before ultimately moving the meeting to the Charleston Naval Base.

Thinking about that incident after attending this conference demonstrates that today we live in a very different country. The panels that discussed the issues at the conference were made up of very diverse voices especially from the African-American community. The topics did not dodge the tough issues especially the session that focused on Virginia in 1859, about 1/3 of that session was devoted to a discussion of the slave trade in Richmond. The discussion vividly illustrated how the slave trade was enmeshed with every aspect of Virginia society and that there were few if any voices raised in opposition. It couldn't have been an easy discussion for Virginia residents and all the more credit to those who planned and carried out the conference for their commitment to honesty and integrity.

Just the difference between how the country looked at the Civil War a 100 years later and how we look at it now 150 years later demonstrates how important the War remains today. More about this in future posts over the next week.

Summer Half

2009-04-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know if my reading speed is increasing or if it is just a co-incidence that I seem to have finished two books in almost record time (for me anyway). First there was Trollope's mammoth, "The Way We Live Now" and now my latest in Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels - "Summer Half." I finished the latter book in about two or three sittings, the final one in a motel room in Richmond, Virginia. At first I didn't think I would like this one as much as the others since the scene was a boy's boarding school and one of the things I like about Thirkell are her depictions of country life.

However, once again I was surprised because as I got into it, I really liked it, not as much as "August Folly" or "Northbridge Rectory," but it was still very enjoyable. There were, of course, some of Thirkell's characteristic lighter touches - reference to other characters or locales in her books, similar referrals to Trollope's Barsetshire series and, for the second straight book, a reference to one of Shakespeare's history plays. The latter item in this book comes early on when Lydia Keith, a loud and precocious adolescent makes reference to something being covered with "bubukles and whelks and knobs." In the text the quote is recognized as being from Shakespeare without any further identification so that only those who are passionate about the history plays like DT and myself would immediately recognize it as Fluellen's description of the ill-fated Bardolph in Act III, Scene 6 of "Henry V."

The references to Trollope's novels are either direct or subtle. Very direct is having the current Dean of Barchester named Crawley and identified as the grandson of Josiah Crawley, who appears in "Framely Parsonage" and is one of the major characters in "The Last Chronicle of Barset." More subtle is naming a minor character Bunce after John Bunce a friend and supporter of the Rev. Septimus Harding in the book that got all this started "The Warden." A similar approach is taken to the current references - appearing in this book in his late teens is Tony Morland who is a younger and less attractive child in "High Rising." Far more subtle is having the Birkett family (along with the Keiths, the major families in the novel) occupy Northbridge rectory for the summer vacation - that being the site of the book of that name later in the series.

In addition to these lighter touches, I also noted the repetition of two more serious things. One has to do with males expressing sympathy and help to other males in indirect subtle ways. In "August Folly" a father uses this approaches to console his son about underachieving at university, in this book, more than once teachers or administrators at the school do this to help students out of difficult moments. I am probably not expressing this well, but basically the idea is that one male recognizes another male is in difficulty and says or does something to help them out of that difficulty without directly mentioning the issue. Given the difficulty males often have talking about their problems it may very well be the best approach - I was interested to see it again and also interested to see it used by a female novelist.

Thirkell's novels tend to be light, very easy reading, something that helps me and, I suspect, others to relax. But this is the second time that I recognized something deeper and more profound. In this book it has to do with Rose Birkett's engagement to Philip Winter, Rose being the 18 year old daughter of the head master and Winter a 25 year old student very dedicated to the students and the study of Greek. Rose has almost no redeeming qualities, while apparently very attractive, she has little or no intelligence, is extremely flighty and is now engaged for the fourth time. As soon as she is engaged she proceeds to flirt with every male within sight making Winter very jealous and unhappy in the extreme.

At first I not only disliked Rose and Winter, but found the whole thing very unrealistic especially Rose as described in the novel. But then I started to wonder if perhaps Thirkell is using her a means to end - specifically the vehicle for making Winter miserable and behave badly. Perhaps this is offered as way to allow or encourage the reader to think about unhealthy personal relationships of any kind and the importance of either avoiding or ending them. To behave as Winter behaves is to have almost lost all contact with reality possibly the way we act when we are obsessed with something or somebody, perhaps when we allow our whole sense of well being to be caught up in how someone else behaves or treats us. Not to say that isn't important, but like everything else it has to be kept in proportion.

In any event, as I read my way through these novels, my enjoyment increases with each one. Next is to reread "Pomfret Towers" and "Before Lunch" both of which I have read before, but remember very little about. It is especially nice to know that I have so many more to read.

On to Richmond

2009-04-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

This week Carol and I are off to Richmond, Virginia for an all day Civil War conference sponsored by the Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. Not surprisingly Virginia is well out in front of all states on their observation and commemoration of the 150th anniversary. Besides economic reasons, they have good historical reason to be starting now since the 150th anniversary of the John Brown raid takes place this year. I decided to go to this conference because I think it is important to show the New Jersey flag and demonstrate by our presence that New Jersey is at work on this as well. As far as I can tell from the Internet, we are ahead of all other northern states.

I am sure that I will write at some length about this after we get back, but the trip is also spurring memories of a different time in my life, May of 1970 probably because the time of year and the destination are roughly the same. Some 39 years ago on May 18th, I left my parents home in Wayne, New Jersey to go on active duty as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army (2nd Lt's bars above right). As I think about that now, I realize how poorly prepared I was to make that trip and start a journey that would last for the next 20 months passing through Ft. Carson, Colorado and Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam.

For example, I fairly sure that day marked the first time that I had ever driven outside of the state of New Jersey, in fact, it may have been the first time that I had ever driven on the New Jersey Turnpike - if it wasn't the first time it was pretty close. After leaving New Jersey, I drove through Maryland, around Washington, D. C. on the way to Ft. Lee, Virginia in Peters burg, Virginia, the home of the Quartermaster School (about 20 miles south of Richmond). Other than a college basketball trip to Florida, it was the first time I had ever been in the south. Ironically those of us from the north were unhappy because we were in the south, while the guys from the south were unhappy because they were in north. Actually that's a pretty good metaphor for Petersburg, I never knew anyone who like it there.

There is another even greater irony to my military service. As I said, I was unprepared for the experience of just being on my own so far away from home, but at least at Ft. Lee, I was just going to school - can't do too much damage there. Later that summer, I took an even longer trip, driving from New Jersey to Colorado Springs, Colorado to join what would become the 4th Infantry Division. Quartermaster School helped me adjust to some degree to army life, but the real army was a different story, once you had those bars on your shoulder, you were expected to do what was necessary without excuses or explanations. Probably like most 2nd Lieutenants, one time, I tried the "I wasn't that kind of officer" excuse and got the response, "You are now, figure it out." Trust me, I never tried that excuse again.

The irony is that for 20 month period in the army, I had more responsibility and authority than I would have again for years in civilian life, at a time when I was especially unprepared for it. I remember how frustrating it was in my early days in banking where you couldn't even make the most basic decisions by yourself - things that you wouldn't think about asking someone permission for in the army.

I have been back in the Richmond area once before, on a Civil War trip with Carol and Paul when Paul was in middle school - long before I thought about writing a book about the Civil War. For some reason that trip didn't prompt these kind of memories, even though we did visit Ft. Lee which we most likely won't be doing this time. Based on what has happened so far this trip will be different, leading to more memories and most likely even more reflections.

Keeping Score In Two Centuries

2009-04-26T17:14:00.001-07:00

When Paul and I were at yesterday's Mets' game, we did both did something that we have done as long as I can remember, we both kept score. My memory is that I taught myself how to keep score using a baseball guidebook and experimenting with a few games on television. I don't think my father taught me, but he may very well have helped along the way. Paul tells me that I taught him how to keep score one day while we were watching a game on television. I do know that I have taught some other people how to do it, including Carol who now likes to do a few innings at almost every game we go to. While I have known how to keep score for a long time, I hadn't done it on a regular basis until I started to take Paul to games. I am not one of those who keeps track of every detail, I do it because it helps me to stay focused on the game especially with all the dead time in today's games.

What brought this to mind is that after going to the Mets' game on Saturday with Paul and keeping score in the modern system, on Sunday I went to Elkton, Maryland for a vintage base ball tournament in my capacity of tally keeper (score keeper) for the Newark Eureka. Like most things about the game score keeping in the nineteenth century was very different than today's standard approach. While Harry Chadwick would ultimately introduce a scoring system not unlike today's, in the early days, the tally keeper kept track of only two things outs, or hands, and runs. That makes it sound very simple, after all there is no need to keep track of balls and strikes, how batters made out or got on base.

But as I said, the game is different and you have to pay attention. The best illustration of how that is so is the fact that in the 1860's and 1870's foul balls caught on the bounce were outs. I realized this early on when a batter foul tipped a ball that was caught by the catcher on one bounce with the batter back on the bench before I realized there was an out. Baseball then as now was a very subtle game.

Today the Eureka played two games, one against the Elkton Eclipse and one against the Havre de Grace club - a first year team. The Elkton club is really good, last year they pounded the Eureka and they had done the same to the Flemington team only yesterday. So it was a sign of progress that the Eureka lost only by a score of 12-6. The second match was an exciting back and forth affair that was tied at 14 after 8 innings. Unfortunately, the Eureka were wearing down after about five hours in the sun and Havre de Grace scored five times in the ninth for a 19-15 win. While the Eureka start off the season 0-3, there has been some real progress from last year.

As as been the case with every vintage game I have participated in, I had a great time. Taking part even as a tally keeper takes me back to my earliest days with baseball. Like most people, I guess, I played it before I ever went to a game so that days like today even more so than yesterday have elements of nostalgia. There is a teaching concept called hands-on-learning, learning by working with objects rather than text books. Well in many ways that is what vintage baseball is all about, men, and some women - witness Havre de Grace's catcher, using the objects of the old game (uniforms, bats, balls etc) and not using objects of the new game (gloves - a fad that will never catch on!) to play the game the way it used to be played. You learn a lot about how the game has changed as well as how it hasn't, just by watching. I look forward to the rest of the season with great anticipation.

Citi Field - Major League Ballpark Number 23

2009-04-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

Today Paul and I attended our first game at Citi Field, the new home of the Mets. By my count that makes 23 baseball stadiums where I have seen a major league baseball game (sometimes I have my doubts whether what I have seen in Baltimore is major league baseball). That includes two ballparks for the Mets (as of today), the Phils, Reds and Tigers. Paul is a couple ahead of me, but he wants to see a game in every park which is not my goal. I have also been in both the Diamondbacks stadium and the Astros facility, but did not see a major league game there. With the new Yankee Stadium plus Milwaukee and the White Sox field to come later this summer that will get me up to 26. Not close to my cousins who will visit their 50th ballpark this year, but not bad all the same.

Both Paul and I liked the new stadium. The Ebbets Field like outside along with the rotunda were very nice touches - even though I never made it to Ebbets Field. After that to me the park was very much like Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia, especially the way the upper deck seats that we had were laid out. It is interesting to see a new ballpark at the same time that we have prepared a proposal to edit a book about Ebbets Field. Reading a chapter in the first book in the series about Forbes Field, one of the writer commented on how when PNC park in Pittsburgh was built, Pirate fans liked the nostalgic touches based upon Forbes Field. Yet when Forbes Field (as well as the rest of that generation of stadiums) was built, the prevailing attitude was not nostalgia, but looking forward to celebrate the new technology.

I understand that a number of Mets fans are unhappy with Citi Field. Part of it has to do with the sacrifice of the ability to see some portions of the field so that seats could be closer. Our seats, for example, were down the left field line and we couldn't see into the left field corner. There is also apparently some dissatisfaction with all of emphasis on the Dodgers and not enough emphasis on the Mets' traditions. The latter point is fair and should certainly be something that can be fixed.

The dissatisfaction with the emphasis on the Dodgers is, I suspect, to some degree due to the fact that the Giants and Dodgers have been gone for more than 50 years and only a minority of today's fans remember seeing them play. It needs to be remembered, however, that the Mets are the heirs to National League baseball in New York, something that goes back into the nineteenth century. I think the longest four years of my life as a baseball fan was the period 1958-61 when there was no National League baseball in New York and all we could do was root against the Yankees. I remember when the Mets started in 1962, as horrible as they were, I wanted to watch them over the Yankees, something my father couldn't understand even though he was no Yankee lover.

Mentioning my father reminds me again of the long four generation tradition of male Zinns being baseball fans. Paul and I have shared so many baseball memories dating back to his first Mets game in 1986 running through today. I had a chance to go to the Mets third game at Citi Field, but couldn't go because of a conflict. I was really disappointed at the time, but now I am really glad that Paul and I were able to go there together for the first time. It was made even more special by the fact that we met outside the stadium and walked through the Jackie Robinson rotunda for the first time together - another great father and son memory.

The Challenge Completed

2009-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

My last book for the Victorian Challenge is Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now.” As I understand it Trollope wrote this book in the early 1870’s at a time when he was very disillusioned with life in England. At over 900 pages in the Oxford Classic version it is also a very long work even for Trollope. Surprisingly it was a very quick read for me, just under three weeks. Usually I can read a Trollope novel relatively quickly, but never at the rate of about 300 pages a week.

The introduction to this edition (which as always I read after the novel) suggested that the first half is very much an indignant satire of almost every aspect of English life, but that the second half settles down to be a more typical Trollope novel as the fates of the characters work themselves out. A big part of the story is the career of the mysterious financier, Augustus Melmotte who in spite of a questionable history, is sought after by everyone because of his supposed great wealth and financial acumen. In an online Trollope discussion group I saw something to the effect that this part of the novel is about a sort of natural dislike for those who make money from money. My reaction to that it is that the like or dislike should to some degree be based on exactly how the money is made.

In this novel, as in almost all of his novels, Trollope uses what I call two-one dynamics or what might be more typically called love triangles. The difference is that I counted at least four such triangles, some of which even overlap. For example, Paul Montague is in a competition with Roger Carbury over the hand of Hetta Carbury while at the same time Montague is the male interest in a dynamic between Hetta and the mysterious and dangerous Mrs. Hurtle. All of these are not exactly situations where two people are competing for the third, but in each case there is a three way dynamic at work.

What I found fascinating in this novel is that in one of these dynamics, Trollope crosses class lines. This concerns Ruby Ruggles, basically a commoner who is sought after by John Crumb, a dealer in meal and pollard at the same time that Ruby is infatuated with the ner-do-well baronet Felix Carbury. The rest of the female characters in these dynamics are struggling to marry for love not money or to avoid marrying because of their money. Interestingly Ruby ultimately comes up against the same issue – can she maintain her independence without marrying for financial reasons even though unlike the middle to upper class characters, she has at least some options as to how to support herself.

One of the things that I like about Trollope’s work is that at the end, the result is not all happy endings and/or each character getting what he or she deserves. Novelists who consistently make that happen (Jane Austen, in my opinion) create a world that isn’t real enough. True to form Trollope, once again, avoids that kind of situation, but does ends some character’s stories showing them to be working through their disappointments which I thought was a nice touch.

I am grateful for the challenge and the structure of the Victorian Challenge. It enabled me to finish George Eliot, start Elizabeth Gatskell and continue with Anthony Trollope. Fortunately there is still a lot more to read!

Hearing a Call

2009-04-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons that I went to the nineteenth century baseball conference in Cooperstown is that I thought it would be important to meet others working in the field. The whole conference was very worthwhile and I did get to meet a number of other people ,some of whom have done a great deal of impressive work. An unexpected side light to all of that was a clear message about a book that I need to write.

Over lunch a number of us were talking about our research interests and I mentioned that I was working on a number of New Jersey team histories for the pioneer project (1855-1868). Another person mentioned that he was working on the Nationals of Washington D.C., one of the premiere teams of that era. I commented that they had come to New Jersey at one point to play the Irvington club. He responded by saying, "I bet we won," as graciously as possible, I said "As a matter of fact, you didn't." That led into my telling a little bit of the famous story of how the Irvington team conned the noted Brooklyn Atlantics to visit them early in 1866 and handed them their first defeat in three years and 43 matches. A somewhat controversial club, the Irvingtons were a dominant team in 1866 and 1867 before two of their players went on to join the famous Cincinnati Redstockings.

This reminded me again of how little is known of New Jersey history. Besides providing one of the first regular venues for baseball (Elysian Fields in Hoboken), New Jersey teams played a significant part in the games early days. Yet as this example testifies, someone knowledgeable about the field didn't seem to consider the possibility that a New Jersey team could pose a real threat to another prominent team.

As I have written before, the fault lies here in New Jersey, if we don't tell our own history who will. As soon as that exchange took place it was clear to me that this was a call, that I need to write this book about early baseball in New Jersey. Exactly where it falls in the scheme of things remains to be seen, but my work for the pioneer project gives me something of a framework. I am also working on the Protoball project which is an attempt to compile a record of all baseball games played before 1861 - continued work on that can help provide the research material for that period of the book.

Yesterday as I was thinking about this post, John Thorn, a noted baseball historian, proposed on the nineteenth century e-mail list that everyone submit their nominations on the greatest games of the nineteenth century. I wasn't the first to respond, but I was pretty quick in getting out the Irvington's famous victory over the Atlantic plus two important games played by the Eureka club of Newark. I am going to do my best to be a voice for New Jersey in this arena.

Baseball Hall of Fame - Always Something New

2009-04-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

I have lost count by this point as to how many times we have been to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, but it must be well into the 20's. Yet for all those times, there always seems to be something new. Part of the reason for that lies in the full title of the institution which I was careful to give above. The Hall of Fame itself is a relatively small room with the plaques of all the members that doesn't change that much or take that long to see.

The museum itself, however, is another matter. Like any good museum it changes exhibits, takes advantage of technology and uses the items in its collections. An example of this is the exhibit about ballparks that has been in place I would guess for the last five years. One of the highlights for me are three virtual ballparks, South Grounds in Boston (1890's), Ebbets Field and Comiskey Park. While Ebbets Field is an obvious attraction, I am even more fascinated by South End Grounds which was a state of the art wooden ballpark that burned after only six season. The museum staff created the virtual images of this ballpark using surviving pictures, of which, I recall there were only about a half-dozen or so.

Another reason that I always find something new in the museum is because my interests change over the years. One of the main permanent exhibits is one that traces the history of the game from the nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth. It has great artifacts and the part covering the period 1900-1960 depicts the baseball that I grew up with and the baseball that I read about. Up until about two years ago, I don't think I ever paid much attention to the nineteenth century portion of the exhibit, but that as has all changed beginning with the writing of the "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916." I guess that is because in 1916, the nineteenth century wasn't that long ago and many of the sources we used in that book referred back to the late 1800's.

That new interest has been magnified by my involvement in the Newark Eureka vintage team and especially by writing the histories of five New Jersey teams for the pioneer project. One exhibit that I have seen countless times is a display of game balls won by the Eckford club of Brooklyn during the 1860's. The practice in those days was for the winning club to take the game ball, bronze it and then display it in their clubhouse. While it was hard to see all of the balls on display, I did see one from a match between the Eckfords and the Newark club - one of the teams that I wrote about it. Pretty cool to see an actual ball from a game that long ago related to a team I had researched. One of the great things about the pioneer project is it will preserve the histories of these early New Jersey clubs.

There was also, by the way, one other thing new in the Hall of Fame, its captured in the picture above - "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916," on sale in the Hall of Fame bookstore. That was more than a little moving!

Like Father Like Son

2009-04-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, just before the 19th century baseball research conference opened at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, a man approached me and asked if I was the one from Verona, New Jersey. When I said, yes, he told me that while he now lives in New Hampshire, he used to live in Bloomfield and proceeded to ask me some questions about Verona. I then tried to confirm that he had lived in Bloomfield and he said yes, "I grew up there, I went to Bloomfield High School."

That led me to ask what Junior High School he went to, thinking for sure he would say South Junior High, but to my surprise, he said North. My response was to say, my father was a teacher at North for a hundred years. He said, "Not Hank Zinn?" - I said, "Absolutely." The man then told me that he had played basketball for my father and how my father didn't like any fancy play, just the basics.

Later in the day, he was kind enough to buy a copy of Paul and my book and he said he remembered something about playing for my father. Apparently the team only lost two games that season both to South, the other Junior High in Bloomfield. The first lost had been a close two point defeat at home, but then in the rematch at South, North had played poorly and lost by 20 points. To make matters worse on the bus ride back to North (which probably took all of 15 minutes) the players started to laugh and sing and joke around. According to this gentleman that provoked an outburst from my father like nothing any of them saw before and they won all their remaining games just to be sure that they never saw it again.

I didn't tell him that when I heard him mention the laughing and singing after a loss, I could feel myself starting to get mad at them as well. I never played or managed for my father, but all of the coaches I ever worked with through High School and College were the same way. To behave that way after a loss was worse than the defeat itself, it meant a lack of respect for the game and ultimately a lack of respect for oneself. It still annoys me to no end when I see athletes, especially at the college or high school level behave like that. To quote an old Charlie Brown cartoon, "Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything." The point is that to act as if a loss doesn't matter is to act as if what you are doing isn't important and, if so, why are you doing it.
To me the long term value of participating in sports is how it carries over into how we live our lives - inappropriate behavior in sports makes it less likely we will learn the things we need to learn.

While I wasn't surprised by how my father reacted in that situation, it wasn't something we ever discussed. He would never have told us at home about such an incident, but that aside, it's something I never remember us discussing. So after all these years it is interesting to know that we shared those values. Upper left on this post is a picture of the 1938 High Bridge soccer team, my father is the one in the bow tie (always a natty dresser!). That in itself is an interesting story, he went to High Bridge having never played or coached soccer, yet in his first season his team won the county championship, a feat they repeated the next year. While not in any way the same thing, I had a lot of success coaching Paul's recreation league soccer teams, again a sport I never played. Maybe some things are the genes after all!

A Romantic Weekend in Cooperstown (Where Else!)

2009-04-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

There is an old Heineken beer commercial with two men talking, the dialogue goes something like this:

1st Man - What did you get your wife for your first wedding anniversary?

2nd Man - I got her this great washer and dryer.

1st Man - You can't give her something like that for your first anniversary, you should take her some place romantic.

2nd Man - Do you think I should take her to Cooperstown?

I don't know how much beer that ad sold for Heineken, but it is a commercial that has no little irony for Carol and myself. We first took Paul to Cooperstown in 1986, that was before baseball memorabilia took off, my memory is that there were one or two such stores in the whole village. We have gone back on a regular basis, many times with Paul (through college), but now continue to go there almost annually ourselves. While Cooperstown is well known for the Baseball Hall of Fame, the village also hosts two other excellent museums, the Farmer's Museum and the Fennimore Cooper Art Museum.

Over the course of our visits Carol has become as interested in the Farmer's Museum as I am in the Hall of Fame. In fact, I think at some level, she enjoys going to Cooperstown even more than I do - as witnessed by her comment after a brief one day visit - "I need at least two days." The suggestion that she likes it more than I do is typically greeted with skepticism by some cynical people (ie, women), but it is true.

By coincidence this year, the Hall of Fame hosted a 19th century baseball research conference, the day before our anniversary. So our plan was that I would go to the conference while Carol did what she liked and we even got to joke about the "take her to Cooperstown" aspect of the trip. Our plan had been to drive home the night of the conference, but then we got an e-mail about a program that night at the Bump Tavern (pictured above) which is part of the Farmers Museum. The program included dinner, talks about the tavern, and some 19th century musical entertainment.

After a little reflection, we decided to stay an extra night in Cooperstown and make that our anniversary celebration. It was well worth it, it was a very enjoyable evening, it was a way of experiencing living history in a relaxing and friendly atmosphere. We had both felt that this might be our only visit to Cooperstown this year, but we both came away wanting to go back - even if it isn't our anniversary! When I told a friend the Heineken beer commercial story and the irony that Carol likes Cooperstown as much, if not more, than I do, the response was you are really lucky. I am indeed and not just because of Cooperstown!

Jackie Robinson - 62nd anniversary

2009-04-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first regular season game as a Brooklyn Dodger, thereby breaking the color line that dated back to the 19th century. Of special note in this year's observances was the dedication of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda at the Mets' new ballpark. Paul and I will be there a week from Saturday and I am really looking forward to it. I have to say I am very impressed with how Major League baseball has honored Robinson's memory - retiring his number 42 for all major league teams was an inspired idea as is the now standard practice of every player wearing 42 on April 15th.

I know my buddy DT doesn't want to hear this, but I am not old enough to remember Jackie Robinson's first year with the Dodgers. My only years of really active rooting for the Brooklyn version were 1956-57 and Robinson retired after the 1956 season. Looking back, however, I do know that the fact that it was a player on my favorite team who broke the color line had a lasting impact on me. Oddly for someone who grew up in the whitest of suburbs and didn't really know any blacks until I was in my 40's, the issue of equal rights for blacks (and for everyone else for that matter) has always been very important to me. Had it not been for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson, it is very unlikely that I would have done things like send Paul to a minority high school in Newark and/or spend over 20 years of my life as a member of an inner city church in Paterson. Those and similar things have been very positive experiences for me and, again, I owe it to the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson.

Last night I watched the Mets' game and then the first inning of the Dodgers' game. Early in the Mets' game, Rachel Robinson was in the booth - I can't believe she is 86 years old, I think we need to see proof! I remember hearing former Dodger pitcher, Joe Black (first black pitcher to ever start a World Series game) say that Jackie Robinson had two things going for him - his faith and Rachel Robinson. And long since his death, she has not just kept his memory alive, but kept his work going.

The Dodgers game was announced by Vin Scully who as actually an announcer with the Brooklyn Dodgers so he knew Robinson first hand. I don't think he was with the Dodgers in 1947, but he told a story of how when the team was in Cincinnati, the death threats reached the point that everyone was concerned. Supposedly the Dodgers had a team meeting and outfielder Gene Hermanski said, "I know what we can do, we can all where number 42," at which point the locker room broke up in laughter - the point being that except for Robinson, they were all white. Scully then said, I never thought I would live to see the day when everyone did where 42, but here we are. A great story, well told.

The other thing of note was an article in yesterday's New York Times about how impressed Jose Reyes' of the Mets was that Robinson had stolen home 19 times in his career - somebody once described it as baseball's most exciting play. That, of course, led to his most controversial steal of home in the first game of the 1955 World Series, Yankee catcher Yogi Berra still insists Robinson was out. It is amazing how long that controversy has lasted, for three reasons, it was so long ago, it had no impact on the result of the game and, above all the fact that Robinson was clearly safe!

William Lloyd Letters - The So What Factor

2009-04-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Last week I noted that I had finished a very rough first draft of the William Lloyd letters - Lloyd served with the 33rd New Jersey throughout its service in the Civil War. The goal, of course, is to publish these letters and one of the things that I have to work on is what I call the "so what" factor. Given how many Civil War letter survive what is it that makes Lloyd's special or unique enough to merit publishing?

One way of approaching this question is to look at Lloyd within the context of his peers. How was he similar or different from his fellow soldiers - both factually and in terms of how he is revealed in his letters. I am going to pursue that basically by using some of the work done on the characteristics of Civil War soldiers and seeing in what ways - Lloyd was similar or different. For example, at 21 and married, he was somewhat younger than the norm and different in that most of his peers were not married.

However, I have also been thinking about Lloyd within a much larger context - the context of men anywhere at any time that serve in the military in war time. There are probably historical/anthropological works on this that look at all the data and do a scientific analysis which is fine. But I have been thinking about it more in relation to how Shakespeare depicts soldiers - specifically in Henry V, a play that spends a lot of time, not so much fighting, but rather talking about war. One of the many reasons for the timelessness of Shakespeare's work is the way that the topics he writes about and how he explores them in relationship to universal themes.

The particular thing that I am thinking about in Henry V, is the scene in Act IV the night before the battle of Agincourt. Leading an exhausted, hungry and badly outnumbered army, Henry tells his nobles he needs some time on his own, and tries to go off wearing a cloak that disguises his identity. Before he can go anywhere, however, he has three different encounters. The third is with three common soldiers, Michael Williams, John Bates and Alexander Court. This is reportedly one of the few times in Shakespeare that common people are given first and last names which some believe indicates their views should be listened to carefully.

Supposedly such encounters between common people and a disguised monarch or leader had two purposes before Shakespeare wrote Henry V. One was to allow the leader to see how much his men loved and worshipped him, the other was as a means for the common people to speak directly to their king, in which case he would always grant their wishes. Shakespeare, however, uses this encounter in a very different way - everything that Henry says the soldiers contradict especially Williams who in the end insults Henry to the point that the two agree to fight a duel if they survive the battle. Williams contrariness continues even after the battle when in peril of his life, he realizes that he had challenged the king himself and tells Henry it was his own fault for being in disguise.

My point here is that Williams and his two fellow soldiers are as contrary as they can be, yet as far as we know they are loyal soldiers who do their duty during the battle. That is very similar to the picture we get of William Lloyd through his letters - he is almost always contrary to authority, complains a lot, and describes a lot of nonmilitary like behavior. Yet at the same time, Lloyd ultimately does his duty and does it well. We know this because he is put into a leadership position (Sgt) at the beginning of his service and stays in one until the end of the war, even being promoted to Lieutenant when the regiment is mustered out of service.

What I think is universal here is that any victorious army and, therefore, any successful general has to rely to some extent on soldiers other than those who are die hard patriots fighting for the cause. In other words, those who don't want to be there in the first place, but ultimately choose to do their duty. Even Henry in his much smaller, rigidly structured army notes that. "There is no king, be his cause never so spotless, . . . . can try it out all with unspotted soldiers." This is even more true in large armies like the Union army in the Civil War. So what I am thinking here is that the "so what" factor of Lloyd's letters is that they give a picture of that kind of soldier - not the ideal warrior, but the one whose performance is essential for the army to be successful. An idea that needs a lot more thought and work, but which I think has some potential.

Tartuffe - Broadening Our Horizons

2009-04-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

Back in February I wrote about a trip that Carol and I made to the Pearl Theatre Company's production of Twelfth Night in the East Village of New York City. The primary motivation for the outing was to see my god-daughter, Emily Ewing, who is doing an internship with this non-profit theater group. Emily's mother was my close friend, Edie Ewing who died this past December after a long and courageous battle with breast cancer. After that play we had dinner with Emily and she suggested we broaden our horizons with one of the Pearl's non-Shakespeare productions. We agreed on the assumption that she would again have dinner with us afterwards.

Yesterday was that outing where we saw the Pearl's production of Tartuffe by Jean Baptiste Moliere, a 17th century French playwright. Tartuffe is a satire largely about a religious hypocrite who gains power over a wealthy man through his (Tartuffe) piety. In fact, Tartuffe is a hypocrite who is deceiving the wealthy man both for money and because he lusts after the man's wife. The play was apparently suppressed by the religious establishment in France when it was first produced.

This marked our third time at the Pearl (the other time was to see Hamlet) and once again we came away very impressed with this theater company and especially their regular group of actors. Of a cast of 12 about half were also in Twelfth Night and three others were also in Hamlet. The one who sticks out for me is Sean McNall who we have now seen play Hamlet, Feste in Twelfth Night and now Camis in Tartuffe. Talking about him over dinner both Emily and I agreed that we would love to see him play Hal/Henry V - he is an actor of great range and he would be great in those parts.

Unfortunately Emily's internship ends in June, but I think it likely we will continue to go back to the Pearl. I am waiting with some anticipation to see what their 2009-2010 season will look like hoping against hope that they will do one of the history plays. Carol and I are both very glad that we took Emily's advice that we should broaden our horizons!

Writing Update

2009-04-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

This has been one of the most unusual weeks of the about 15 months that I have been "retired." It is the first week in that time that I have had no meetings or other commitments, especially evening meetings. Part of the explanation is that a lot of what I do is church based and this being Holy Week, the secular side of the church kind of shuts down. That also makes it difficult even to do church work at home as information, follow up etc. from the church office isn't that easy to do.

As a result this has been a week to concentrate more fully on writing and reading and it has been productive in both areas. A lot of the reading has been focused on "The Way We Live Now" by Anthony Trollope, the last of my three books for the Victorian challenge. It is about 900 pages long, but for some reason I have been flying right through it, well past half way and enjoying it as well.

However, it has been the writing that has really gotten the most attention and it has been a very productive week - to the point that after doing one more thing, I think I am going to take off until Monday. Of course, a lot of that is involuntary, Easter has its own schedule and tomorrow, Carol and I are off to the Pearl Theatre in New York to see another play where my God-daughter is the assistant stage manager. I expect to write about that within the next few days.

There have been two focal points for the writing - the proposal for the Ebbets Field book and the editing of the William Lloyd letters. The proposal for the Ebbets Field book is due by May 1st, but it should go out of here well before that. I am very happy with the team that we have put together, five published authors with a good background in baseball, Brooklyn and ballparks. How's that for alliteration - DT would be proud. I think the proposal has gotten better in each draft, the input of the contributors plus the thought process has really made a difference. I am really excited about this possibility and very much hope we get the project. The process has also led me to think again about another book possibility - something that would combine a biography of Charles Ebbets, a history of the Dodgers from 1883 to Ebbets' death in 1925 and how the team became such a community institution. The Ebbets Field book could help set the stage.

I have also made quite a bit of progress on the William Lloyd letters. Lloyd was a member of the 33rd New Jersey and something like 40 of his letters survive. About two years ago, a special friend introduced me to her God-son who volunteered to transcribe the letters themselves. He did a great job (he is now part of the potential Ebbets Field team) and I have been working on editing them. To my surprise I have already finished a rough first draft, there is still a lot more to do, but I should meet my self-imposed deadline to get it off to a potential publisher by September 1st. I am going to intentionally take a break from that project to think a little bit more about the best way to do this. I keep seeing or feeling a connection between William Lloyd and the attitudes/actions of various soldiers in "Henry V," so I need to think about that some more. DT may have some thoughts as he usually does with anything regarding Shakespeare.

My non-fiction reading this week has been related to another possible book project. I have posted before about the possibility of a book about Andrew Jackson and his war with the Second Bank of the United States. My next step in pursing that was to read the biography of Nicholas Biddle, the President of the bank and Jackson's adversary. It would be an exaggeration to say that I can't put it down, but I am reading it with a lot interest in the subject. I think there are some related themes here that could make for an interesting book - the wisdom of populist attitudes towards banks, attitudes about people who make money from money, how the BUS actually worked and our relationship to material things. I need to keep reading and thinking about this as well as the larger Brooklyn book, no matter what happens with the Ebbets Field book - so we will see what happens, but I am grateful for such a productive week.

Remembering What's Really Important

2009-04-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a phone call from the Director of Development at St. Benedict's Prep in Newark asking if I would help out with their search process for a new head of their finance department. I was glad to do so, Paul Zinn is a 1997 graduate of St. Benedict's and St. Benedict's is a wonderful place. As the Assistant Headmaster said to one of the candidates, "our mission is to provide a top flight education to those who can't afford one."

Being back at St. Benedict's reminded me of many things and, while there has been a lot of turnover, it was good to see some of the people who played an important part in Paul's time there. All of this reminded me of when we were going through the college search process. Paul had been accepted at Bates and we went to a reception for new students in New York City. The then head of admissions told me that Bates had targeted St. Benedict's as a place where they wanted to recruit students and they hoped Paul would be the pioneer in that regard. Paul did go there and it was definitely a great experience for him.

While I had heard of one other St. Benedict's graduate going to Bates, the assistant headmaster told me the story of the most recent Gray Bee to go to Lewiston, Maine. From what I understand this young man literally had no functioning immediate family - one parent missing, the other with major substance abuse issues. When it came to the financial aid application documentation, there was literally nothing available - ultimately all they could come up was a photo copy of a welfare check. Fortunately Bates was true to its word and accepted the young man and, I assume, gave him the necessary financial aid. Just to confirm how much the student was on his own, the assistant headmaster was the one who took him to school last September.

The search for the finance position went very quickly and I certainly hope the person works out. I don't know that I contributed that much to the process, but it was good to be re-connected to the school. I hope I can find other ways to help out now that I have been reminded once again, what is really important.

The time is out of joint

2009-04-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

Other than some rain outs, most major league teams were in action yesterday. One of the classic debates this time of year is whether the pitchers are ahead of the hitters or vice-versa. It is one way of wondering when players will get into mid season form. Unfortunately there is already one aspect of baseball that is already in mid season form - the length of games. As much as I love baseball, this is one area where I think the game is going backwards.

Yesterday's Mets-Reds opener lasted 3:17 in a game where only three runs were scored and the Reds only had three hits. Not surprisingly, the Yankees-Orioles game was even longer at 3:31, although it seemed like it lasted over four hours. I suppose the
10-5 score mitigates the latter game, but American League games, especially Yankees games always seem interminable to me.

It doesn't have to be this way, the classic example that I have used is the Brooklyn Dodgers-Boston Braves 26 inning game from 1920 - the longest game ever played in terms of innings. That game lasted about 3:45, in other words, they played almost three games in just 15 minutes longer than it took the Yankees and Orioles to play one. I realize that is a obscure example from a different era of baseball, but I found a more modern example the other day. In preparing to submit the Ebbets Field historic ballparks proposal, I was looking at the first book in the series about Forbes Field. It has the box score from the classic seventh game of the 1960 World Series between the Yankees and the Pirates which Pittsburgh won on Bill Mazeroski's ninth inning home run. The score of the game was 10-9, it was the seventh game of the World Series and it took all of 2:36 to play!

Some might object to my concern on the basis of why would you want to see less rather than more baseball. My point is, however, that you don't see more baseball, you see the same amount of baseball, it just takes a lot longer to play it. Last year at Phillies/Marlins game, Carol asked me why the games take so much longer - I told her to focus on how much time is wasted by batters stepping out of the box between pitches. Changing that alone would make a big difference.

Two years ago we were at a minor league game in New Hampshire with Paul and Sarah. One of the pitchers took so long between pitches, that it was as if he didn't want to throw the ball. Thinking about that later, it occurred to me that he was being trained to throw that way. The idea must be something along the lines that you can control the game more by slowing it down. Yet that certainly isn't the way great pitchers work - they work fast to keep hitters off balance. Again changing that philosophy would make all the difference in the world.

I don't want to seem negative about opening day - one of the highlights of any season. But this has bothered me for a long time and, unfortunately, I don't see it getting better. On a more positive note, I know that my Shakespeare buddy, DT, enjoyed the Yankees-Orioles game because for at least for one day, the Orioles are in first place and ahead of the Yankees. Let the games continue, but could we please move it along a little!

The Play's the Thing - A Visit to the Past

2009-04-05T05:24:00.000-07:00

My set of DVD’s of the BBC’s “An Age of Kings” series arrived in Friday’s mail. While my plan is to watch the whole series in regnal order (the order in which the events take place), I decided to watch a few selected scenes among other things to test my memory of something I saw almost 50 years ago. I chose somewhat by random three scenes – the great tavern scene in Henry IV, Part I, the band of brothers speech in Henry V, and the scene at the end of Richard III when Richard is visited by the ghosts of those he had killed on the way to the throne.

My memory of the great tavern scene was that I didn’t like it, primarily because I didn’t like Falstaff. While I still see his shortcomings very clearly, I can also now see how attractive he is as a character and just how funny he really is. Seeing the scene for the first time at the age of 15, I don’t think I was old or mature enough to appreciate it. Now I recognize the brilliance of the scene, just how funny and enjoyable it really is – perhaps one of the greatest scenes Shakespeare ever wrote. Hal is played by Robert Hardy who has had a long and distinguished acting career and certainly plays the part well. I didn’t know the actor, who played Falstaff, but he was good and the scene was as good as any other versions that I have watched.

Interestingly I had no memory at all of the band of brothers speech in the Age of Kings version. What I did remember was how disappointed I was at how short the actual battle scene is in this version. Now having seen Robert Hardy give the speech, I have to say I was disappointed, part of that is probably because to me every other version I have ever seen pales in comparison to Kenneth Branagh’s version in his movie of the play. My memory of the fight scene was exactly on target, the scene of the fighting at Agincourt lasted probably less than a minute and takes place primarily in Henry’s imagination. I think one of the reasons I was so disappointed all those years ago was that the battle scenes in Henry IV, Part I were so effective. Of course, I realize now that in the latter play the fight between Hal and Hotspur is crucial to the play while in Henry V the issue is not Henry’s valor, but how he inspires others to fight for him.

Finally I watched the ghost scene in Richard III primarily because I remember it as the most effective version of that scene that I have ever watched. My memory was accurate and it didn’t disappoint all these years later. While he tries to sleep the night before the battle of Bosworth Field, Richard is visited by the ghosts of his victims. Each of them tells Richard to “Despair and Die,” it is a lot easier to work in the ghosts in a film version, but even Olivier’s movie (which I hated) doesn’t come any near as close in its haunting realism.

As I watched these three scenes and thought about them, I started comparing them in my mind to other versions I have seen over the years – some as recently as last fall. At first I was disappointed to think that in some ways I have seen them done better at other times. But then I realized the importance to me of “An Age of Kings” is not that they were necessarily the best Shakespeare I have ever seen, but rather it was my first experience with Shakespeare. Regardless of whether they were the best, they were the first and they were good enough to keep me interested for almost five decades. That is more than sufficient reason to honor them and to watch them again – something I look forward to a great deal.

Opening Day - 2009

2009-04-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

Usually it seems like it takes forever for the start of the baseball season to get here. While there was some sense of a wait this year, it all became a blur over the past few days. A blur of the past, present and future.

Today marked the opening match for the Eureka Base Ball Club of Newark which played the Flemington Neshanock at the Somerset Patriots home field in Bridgewater (pictured here). It was the first time that I was actually on the field at one of these minor league type stadiums, it was nice, but it didn't feel as intimidating as I thought it would.

It was an interesting match, played by 1864 rules where the major difference is that any batted ball caught on a bounce is an out. It changes the game dramatically as what would be line drive singles today are just ordinary outs. Most 19th century games and their 21st century counterparts are high scoring affairs, but today was exactly the opposite. I am not sure if pitchers were ahead of the hitters early in those seasons, but the cold wind today reminded why opening days in those days was usually in June. Of course, as somebody reminded me, on the other end, they played through Thanksgiving.

Today the Neshanock got off to a 2-0 start in the first, a lead they extended to 5-0 after six. The sixth was the only really bad defensive inning for the Eureka which is a hopeful sign. Last year too many times one or two bad plays let innings and games escalate out of control. The Eureka rallied in the 7th for three runs and then tied it with one out in the ninth. Having the last at bat is always crucial in baseball and it was today as the Neshanock scored quickly to with the match. The game didn't end though as in the 19th century, the bottom of the ninth was played regardless of who was ahead. There was no more scoring, however, so the Eureka dropped their first match of the year 6-5.

It was however, a close match, the Eureka seem to have improved and hopefully it will be a good year. While I could have done without the wind, it was great to be out on a base ball field again and great to see some of the guys who I got to know last year. I am really glad that I decided to get involved in this - I wish it had been around about ten years ago when Paul and I might have been able to play together, but you can't have everything.

The other reason that baseball sort of came on the scene like blur is the opening of the new stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets at the same time that I have been working on the proposal for the Ebbets Field historic ballparks book. I am especially interested in the Mets new stadium with its Ebbets Field like features especially the rotunda - Carol and I have tickets to a game on May 13th and I am really looking forward to it.

As part of my preparation for the proposal, I have been reading the first book in the series which is about Forbes Field. Apparently the relatively new PNC ballpark in Pittsburgh has some nostalgic features based upon Forbes Field. At some point in the book, one of the writers mentions how those kind of features are sort of a nostalgic look back at what is felt to be a simpler time. However, as he points out, when Forbes Field opened in 1909 that was not how people then looked at it - they thought of it as a modern ballpark with many features that incorporated the latest technology. An interesting thought when preparing (hopefully) to write about Ebbets Field - trying to look at it going into the future rather than looking back at it from today.

Clearly I am ready for the 2009 season!

State Budget Hearings - The Assembly

2009-04-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today, April 2nd was my day to testify at the State Assembly budget hearings on behalf of the Historical Commission grant program which, in turn, funds the New Jersey Historical Society budget. This is the second year that I have testified at both the State Senate and Assembly budget hearings and for whatever reason, the two experiences are very different.

I don't think it has anything to do with party as the experience is the same across party lines. The purpose of the Senate hearings appears to be to allow anyone who wishes to, to get their position on the record. Most people testifying end up reading their testimony and the times I have been there, there have been few, if any questions from the senators. I am not trying to be critical, it is just so different from the Assembly.

At the beginning of the Assembly budget hearings, Assemblyman Lou Greenwald, who is the chair, asks people not to read their testimony. Rather he suggests that it would be better to use the allotted five minutes for interaction with the committee. At another hearing, I heard him say that what comes out of that dialogue is often used by the committee members in their own deliberations. That makes the experience more challenging, at least for me, but it certainly does seem to be a productive approach. Below is my written testimony which I kind of summarized verbally, I felt the testimony went fine, but I could have done a better job in the dialogue that followed. At the end Assemblyman Greenwald said we needed to have more dialogue and so I plan to pursue that. It was a draining experience, but one that was important.

"I am here to testify about funding for the Historical Commission’s grant program. I want to start by thanking this committee not just for the opportunity to be heard, but equally important the chance to be part of a discussion. In times such as these the more inclusive the process, the better the chance of finding the best solutions for the problems that face our state.

During the trying times of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said that “we must learn to think anew.” That idea seems just as relevant in these difficult times as it did then. Thinking anew today about the state budget can mean many things, two that seem particularly appropriate are the ideas that tax payer dollars must be spent in the most cost effective way possible and that we should all be focused on strengthening our state’s economy. I believe that New Jersey’s history organizations can make important contributions in both areas.

I hope that we all agree that it is important for our school children to learn about the history of their community and their state. If so, then clearly strong history organizations can help to teach that history in a cost effective manner. If school children in Paterson or Bordentown are going to learn about the history of their communities, surely it is more cost effective to use resources and programs developed by history organizations rather than have each school district develop their own programs. As we move beyond the local this becomes even more true, if school children in Camden County and Monmouth County are going to learn about the history of their region, then again it must be cost effective to have multiple school districts drawing on the resources of county and state historical organizations.

Strong history organizations can also make an important contribution to our state’s economy. The strongest history organizations are those that develop strong programming which generates revenue which is in turn used to generate more programming and so on. In that way history organizations become a strong economic engine – an engine that helps not just that organization, but also the local and state economy as well. This can be especially important in difficult economic times like these when many families are looking for less expensive vacations closer to home.

The operative word in what I have said so far is strong – strong history organizations can make the contributions that I mention. Unfortunately most New Jersey history organizations today are not strong, and many are in serious danger of not being able to carry out their mission. Just one example, is that the New Jersey Historical Society, the only state wide history organization has been closed to the public since the middle of February. We plan to re-open soon, but the crisis remains. Our problem is not that our costs are too high, but our revenue is too low. The 25% cut proposed in the 2010 budget will have a devastating impact not just on NJHS, but on all history organizations. I urge you to restore the proposed cut – please help New Jersey history so that New Jersey history can help New Jersey."

A Case of Identity

2009-04-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

Recently I was talking with a long time friend about a program he was working on to help improve the quality of life in a New Jersey community. In that situation one of the problems is that the community does not have a sense of its own community identity. That would be sad in any situation, but it is particularly sad in this case because the community has a rich history that has apparently been forgotten. Unfortunately much the same thing could be said of our state – we lack a sense of our identity, in large measure because we don’t know our own rich history.

At least part of the reason for this is that New Jersey history is not adequately studied in our public schools. Unfortunately there is now a very real risk that the situation will get worse. The State Board of Education will shortly consider new guidelines for teaching social studies in the our state schools – guidelines that put less, not more emphasis on New Jersey history.

In fact, according to a number of social studies educators, the new guidelines hardly mention New Jersey beyond the Revolutionary War. Among other things this could eliminate the teaching of New Jersey’s role in the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, industrialization and immigration. Especially upsetting to me is the possible elimination of teaching about New Jersey in the Civil War. With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War just two years ago the timing couldn’t be worse. This is especially true since an all volunteer group, that I am fortunate to chair, has put New Jersey in the lead among northern states in planning for the observation of this anniversary.

Just one sentence of a joint statement by social studies educators speaks volumes on this issue. “The 1947 New Jersey Constitution made radical changes in state and local government and brought the state to the forefront of progressive reforms that provided a model for other states to follow.” How many of us know anything about that? Yet, it is something that should make all of us proud to live in New Jersey. Couldn’t such justifiable pride help shape our identity as a state and, therefore, help us be the kind of state we can and should be.

Time is running out on this issue as approval of these standards could come as early as this month. This is a time for action. Please write the Commissioner of Education who serves as the Secretary of the State Board of Education at State Board of Education, 100 River View Plaza, P.O. Box 500, Trenton, NJ 08625.

An Age of Kings

2009-03-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

In a number of posts, I have written about how my introduction to Shakespeare and English literature came through a BBC television series called "An Age of Kings." Televised first in England live in the late 1950's, they were shown in the United States during the winter and spring of 1961. After the initial series was over, I do remember seeing at least some of the episodes a few years later. Since then, however, they have been unavailable in any format - a period of almost 50 years.

As a result it was fantastic to read on the Shakesper e-mail list that the full 15 episodes are now available via DVD. Bless Hardy Cook for his work in maintaining this list, there was apparently a story in the New York Times last week, but I missed it. The news was so exciting that I immediately went to Amazon.com and ordered the full set which should be here in about a week. Of course, my next step was to send an e-mail to my cultural buddy DT, as expected his reaction displayed new levels of his feelings about Shakespeare. If I read the Amazon website correctly, John Barton's series on acting Shakespeare which has also been unavailable for some time, will be issued in June.

The Age of Kings series included some great actors early in their careers beginning with Sean Connery as Hotspur. To me he has always been the ultimate Hotspur, far better than Tim Piggot-Smith in the BBC version or Ethan Hawke in the 2003 Broadway hit. The only one who came close in my mind was Lex Shrapnel who played the part in the RSC productions we saw last winter in Stratford. In fact, Shrapnel was great in a variety of parts in the plays including Williams in Henry V, young Talbot in Henry VI, Part I, and Richmond in Richard III, but I digress. In the Age of Kings series, Robert Hardy (pictured above) was my introduction to Hal/Henry V, I remember his performance as creating a positive image of the character and I look forward to seeing it again. Pictured with Hardy is a young Judy Dench as Princess Katherine of France, long before she would go on play several other English queens.

I look forward to the arrival of the these DVD's and revisiting something that moved me almost 50 years ago and still does so today. I am sure it will be the subject of future posts.

Live and Learn

2009-03-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

In the British television series "As Time Goes By," one of the story lines is that the male lead, Lionel Hardcastle is writing a book called, "My Life in Kenya." When the book is published, the
publisher, Alstair Deacon arranges a book signing at a London bookstore. In preparing Lionel for the event, he tells him that he has planted some people on the line, who will wink at him, meaning that they really don't want to buy the book, they are just there for appearances.

I probably should have thought of something like that for my book signing this past Saturday at the Town Book Store in Westfield. My sister and nephew were there to provide moral support and since we forgot our camera, my nephew saved the day with the picture to the right.

When this book came out, I contacted about a half-dozen or so independent bookstores in New Jersey about a possible book signing. I got two responses and this was the only one that came to fruition. I was there two hours, had three lengthy conversations and sold two books. When we got there, a man talked to me for a good 20 minutes, but he apparently thought I was going to give a talk and left without buying a book. Another man talked to Carol and I for some time, he said he wasn't that much of a baseball fan, but bought a book to support local authors - bless him!

Then just as we were thinking of ending it early, a woman came in, interested in her grandfather who played for the Brooklyn Tip-tops of the Federal League as well as (I think) the Phillies and the Yankees. The Federal League was a third major league that lasted for about three years, dying out after the 1915 season. I was able to give her some ideas on where she could find information about her grandfather and she very graciously bought a copy of my book.

I entitled this post, "Live and Learn" because that is what I am basically doing with this book. When "The Mutinous Regiment" came out, I was to busy to try to promote it much and I didn't want to get involved in selling them myself. Now with more time, I am trying different things to see what happens. Thus far the really productive approach is where I give a talk of some kind that builds interest in the book. To this point it has primarily been Civil War Roundtables, but I have some baseball talks scheduled and I think that will progress. I am attending the 19th century baseball conference at the Hall of Fame on April 18th and there will be a book signing for any authors attending at the bookstore so we will see what happens. In any event thanks to Anne Laird, the owner of the Town Book Store for the opportunity and we will continue to live and learn.

Best Seller # 2 - "The Yankee Years"

2009-03-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

The second best seller that I finished this week was Joe Torre and Tom Verducci's account of Joe Torre's 12 years as Yankee manager. This is not a book I would have even considered buying, but after Paul Zinn bought it and read it, he was kind enough to loan it to me. Having read it, I have to say that I don't understand why Joe Torre did this and that I have lost a great deal of respect for him for having done so.

The shocking revelation of this book is that the Steinbrenners and their coterie didn't appreciate everything that Torre did in his years as Yankee manager, offering him a degrading contract that he had no choice, but to reject. If anyone reading this is not shocked by that revelation, neither am I - that was all very clear when it happened back in October of 2007. Since it was so clear then, there doesn't seem to be much reason for this book. I will say, however, that if what Torre wanted to do this to clearly tell his side of the story and publicly criticize the owners for that treatment, it wouldn't bother me at all. I greatly appreciated Torre's comments at the time ,criticizing the idea that any Yankee season that ended without winning the World Series was a failure. That philosophy shows a lack of respect for the game, something that is very important to me.

Unfortunately the book doesn't stop there, it seems to have two further agendas, to further praise Torre's record as manager and to get back at anyone else who wasn't part of his first teams of grinders. Why anything more needs to be said about how good a job Torre did as Yankee manager is beyond me, but apparently Torre and Verducci think so. What was really incredible to me how the book tries to quantify how many games better Torre made the Yankees in at least two seasons.

In a book with constant criticism of Brian Cashman for becoming too enamoured with statistics and forgetting in Torre's words that the game "has a heart," the authors try a similar approach to confirm Torre's contribution. I forget the specific season, but the book takes the Yankees statistics for that season and use Saber metrics to determine that the Yankees should have only one X number of games. Since they actually won about a dozen more than that, the difference is obviously due to Torre - "the game has a heart indeed!"

The criticism of Cashman goes hand in hand with that of Alex Rodriguez who is clearly the anti-Christ of this story. Cashman may have let Torre down and Rodriguez may have been a disappointment, but what is the point of Torre saying so in print. After all what made Torre so appealing as a Yankee manager was that he was above that kind of the thing, a star of calmness in the chaos of the Steinbrenner galaxy. There is an old locker room cliche that "what you say here, what you do here and what you hear here, must stay here." That kind of an attitude was what made Torre admirable - team first and all that kind of thing. Why he would go against that so dramatically is a mystery - unless, however, that in spite of what Torre says, it is really about the money. The book has some appeal as an account of life on the inside of a major league team, but frankly I don't think it is worth the time or the money.

Best Seller #1 - The Lost City of Z

2009-03-28T05:59:00.001-07:00

I don't usually choose books by looking at the best seller list, but ironically, I have just finished two books that are well up there in today's New York Times Book Review. The first is David Grann's "The Lost City of Z," which I purchased based upon both the topic and the very favorable review in the Times. I made a similar purchase of Adam Cohen's "Nothing to Fear" and regretted doing so. The good news it that I read that book almost right away instead of putting it away for some future unknown date, but after reading it I realized that I just as easily could have waited and borrowed it from some library.

After that experience, I purchased "The Lost City of Z" with more than a little trepidation that it would end up with the same feelings of dissatisfaction. However in this case it wasn't just the favorable review it was the topic of searching for an ancient civilization that appealed to me. Whether it is Heinrich Schliemann's search for the Troy of the Iliad and Odyssey or H. Rider Haggard's novels such as "King Solomon's Mines," such stories or possibilities have always fascinated me. Especially from the perspective of an armchair explorer.

In this case David Grann tells the story of British explorer Henry Fawcett's obsession with finding a lost city in the depths of the Amazon jungle - a city he named "Z." Grann tells the story by alternating Fawcett's story with his own (Grann's) story of researching Fawcett. This is not limited to academic research in archives, but Grann's attempt to follow Fawcett's route on his last journey. Since Fawcett, his son, and another young man disappeared on that journey in 1925, there are really two searches - one to find out what happened to them, the other for the city of Z.

One thing that Grann accomplishes is to end any illusions anyone might have about the glamour and romance of jungle exploration. His description of the risks from dangerous insects alone was enough to make me wonder how any one survived such expeditions, even before worrying about other animals, starvation, and hostile natives. Some of these are repeated on Grann's own journey perhaps illustrating his own obsession, if not with Z, with telling the story.

As I read the book, I wasn't sure that it was a good purchase. After all how could Grann or anyone hope to find out what happened to Fawcett more than 80 years after he disappeared. Certainly neither he nor his companions could still be alive and it was equally unlikely that any traces of them could have survived that long as well. However after all his research and journeying, Grann reasons his way to the most likely explanation, one that is hard to refute - almost an application of Ockham's Razor.

On the larger issue of the city of Z, however, Grann ends up with something much more interesting, a satisfying ending to such a quest. An ending that suggests that one of the first challenges is such an enterprise is to be clear about what it really is that we are looking for in the first place. The ending brought the story full circle and made me glad not only that I had read it, but that I had bought it. I would recommend the book for anyone who has an interest in stories of discovery - especially reading them from the comforts of home.

August Folly

2009-03-26T04:51:00.000-07:00

After finishing "Mary Barton," my second book in the Victorian Challenge, I decided to take a break and read one of Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels - "Wild Strawberries." As noted in that post I had started that book several times, but couldn't get into it. Once I did, however, I enjoyed it which led me to tempted to go on to the next of these 29 novels - "August Folly."

I gave into temptation and I am glad I did, thus far "August Folly" is my favorite of the half dozen or so that I have read to this point. The story takes place in the little village of Worsted which according to the map in my copy is in east Barsetshire almost at the opposite end of this mythical county from Rushwater Manor, the site of "Wild Strawberries."

The story focuses on three families, the Tebbens, Deans, and Palmers. The latter two families are related and are well off financially while the Tebbens live a middle class life, but struggle to do so. The events in the book take place in the summer and sort of revolve around an amateur production of a Greek tragedy - thus the picture on the cover. Like all of Thirkell novels the book is funny and contains "This England" moments typically subtle descriptions of the beauty of the English countryside.

I also like the literary references that are sort of planted in the book appealing to those who get them, but in no way insulting to those who don't. There are several allusions in this book to some of Thirkell's other novels, one of which concerns a bull being brought from the Leslie's home at Rushwater Manor which was a frequent topic in "Wild Strawberries." There is an incident where the bull momentarily threatens a young child and Richard Tebben intervenes to prevent the crisis from getting worse. Reluctant to tell his parents the full story, the Tebben cottage is overrun with people exaggerating the story including the number of bulls involved. When the really story is finally told, Thirkell notes that "the bulls in buckram dwindled to one." This is a reference to the great tavern scene in "Henry IV, Part I," when as Falstaff tells the story of being "robbed" the number of thieves in buckram grows exponentially with each sentence.

All of this is very enjoyable and at some level escapist, but as I noted in my post about "Wild Strawberries" there is a deeper side to Thirkell's writing. This is even more fully developed in "August Folly" where the author takes us deep into the minds of a number of the characters to understand their desires, fears and to some extent sadness and loneliness. This is especially true of Charles Fanshowe, a bachelor, an Oxford tutor and close friend of the Deans who spends part of the summer with them. Deeply a part of the Dean family, Fanshowe is more than a little lonely, but has a hard time coming to grips with the need to decide what he wants and then pursue it. I am not doing true justice to this, but my point is that Thirkell has created characters who are fully human and, therefore, sympathetic. In the past I have been critical of Jane Austen's work because every character gets what he or she deserves. The same can be said of Thirkell, but it doesn't both me anywhere as much - perhaps the explanation is her ability to create such sympathetic characters.

Now in spite of all Thirkell temptations, I will go on to "The Way We Live Now."

Going Back Home Again

2009-03-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday night I had the opportunity to speak about the 33rd New Jersey at the monthly meeting of the Phil Kearny Civil War Roundtable. The PKCWRT meets at the Wayne library - my family moved to Wayne when I was eight and I went through the Wayne public schools attending what was then Wayne High School in the early 1960's.

In addition to everything else that happened in the early 1860's, those were the years of the Civil War centennial. While I don't remember extensive media coverage at the time, those were the years when I became interested in the Civil War. I remember reading historical novels about Antietam and Gettysburg when I was a freshman and then moving on to Bruce Catton's "This Hallowed Ground" in American History through literature.

Since the Wayne library is literally across the parking lot from Wayne High School, this was a way of coming full circle. Over the years I also borrowed enough Civil War books from the Wayne library which added to the effect. It was nice to be back in Wayne, but it would have been nice to be with this group regardless of where they met. Joe Truglio, Bob Gerber, and Henry Ballone from this roundtable have been early and enthusiastic supporters of the New Jersey Civil War 150 committee and are helping move the whole process forward in very positive ways. I look forward to working them and another member of the group, Sylvia Mogerman as, we continue to work on this important anniversary.

The talk was well received and both Carol and I enjoyed the evening. My basic talk on the 33rd continues to evolve. I continue to use the opening to talk about the formation of the regiment and where the name "Mutinous Regiment" comes from. Recently I have substituted talking about the Atlanta campaign for an overview of the regiment's service. It works well, but I am still tinkering with it. If I can figure out the technical issues, I would like to think about using my computer to include pictures of some of the key battle sites, a case where a picture would well be worth a lot of words. It looks like I will have the chance to keep working on that aspect, before the program, I received another invitation this time for a group that meets at West Point - something I am really looking forward to doing.

New Jersey State Budget Hearings - The Senate

2009-03-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

The New Jersey State budget works on a June 30th fiscal year. That means that the budget process begins with the Governor proposing a budget in February and March which the legislature has to act on by June 30th. Unlike other states there is no provision for delaying budget adoption or adopting a deficit budget so the June 30th deadline is hard and fast.

I have had a particular interest in the state budget ever since I became involved at the New Jersey Historical Society. NJHS does not receive direct state funding, rather it and other historical organizations apply to the New Jersey Historical Commission for grant funds. Since 2004 the Historical Commission has received its grant funds from the hotel/motel tax. This means that the funds do not come from the state income or sales taxes so that state residents pay very little if any of these costs. That would only be the case where state residents stay in hotels or motels in New Jersey.

The law did not mandate how much of this tax should go to history and the arts, allowing each governor and legislature to make that decision as part of the budget - to the extent the funds don't go for those purposes they can go to other state budget expenses. When the change was made a poison pill provision was added to the law. Under that provision if funding for history and the arts falls below a certain level, the tax then lapses. The purpose was to provide some minimal level of funding for history and the arts. The state FY 2010 budget presented by the governor proposes funding under the poison pill level minimum. Theoretically that means the tax would lapse, but apparently the administration will introduce something in the budget bill suspending or changing the poison pill.

Along with the rest of the history and arts community, I think this proposal is outrageous. So once again, I am involved in trying to get the budget changed. Each year we have had some success, how we will do in this climate is hard to say. Below is my testimony at today's state senate budget hearing at Montclair State, I will give more or less the same testimony to the assembly budget committee next week. I will have more to say about this, but this is an introduction.

"I am here to testify about funding for the Historical Commission’s grant program. As you know the proposed budget would cut funding for the grant program by almost $900,000. As you also know a cut of this magnitude will bring funding for the grants program below the legally mandated minimums.
The proposed cut comes at the worst possible time. This is true at many levels, but I want to focus on two aspects of the economic impact of the proposed cuts. However long the overall economy has been in recession, I believe the not-for-profit world in New Jersey has been in a recession for a much longer time. All sources of revenue for history organizations have been declining for some time. In response to that decline history organizations have been forced to down size their organizations, cut back on staff and, therefore cut back on programs.
The hard times and the resulting down sizing have continued to the point that it is no exaggeration to say that history organizations in New Jersey are on the brink of disaster. Expenses can be cut only so far before there is insufficient money to produce programs. Once that happens leaving only institutional maintenance, other sources of revenue will also dry up, putting some history organizations out of business perhaps for good. The loss of jobs will be one more blow to our state’s economy.
But this is not the only issue, a lack of financial support for history organizations means missing opportunities to help our state’s economy. History and other not-for-profit organizations do not return to health through cutting expenses. Rather they do so, by developing high quality programming that generates revenue, using that revenue to develop more programs, which, in turn generate more revenue and so on. This helps not only the history organization itself, but the economy both locally and across the state. At a time when financial circumstances will force many families to vacation closer to home, can we afford not to provide them with a less expensive New Jersey alternative?
Let me give just one example of what I am talking about. The 150th anniversary of the Civil War is just two years away. The commonwealth of Virginia has appropriated almost $3 million to plan their observations plus creating a government commission with state employees. We in the New Jersey Civil War community take this anniversary just as seriously, but we are taking a different approach. In developing that approach we have had a lot of help from the Historical Commission and, in particular, Marc Mappen. We have formed a not-for-profit volunteer group to lead in this effort. Our work has been endorsed by the Governor, but there will be no request for government funding for administrative expenses.
The Historical Commission’s grants program, however, could be a very important source of program funding to do things to help attract tourism and bring revenue to New Jersey. Insufficient funding of the Historical Commission will mean failing to take advantage of these opportunities. I ask you to restore the proposed cut in funding to the Historical Commission’s grant program. Please help New Jersey history organizations so that we can help New Jersey."

Ebbets Field Project - We Have A Team

2009-03-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

About a week or so ago, I wrote that Paul and I were considering a second father and son writing project. The idea came from a request for proposals for a book about Ebbets Field (pictured above right) to be published by McFarland and Co. as part of an historic ball parks series.

The good news is that Paul and I have decided to submit a proposal which is due to the series editors by May 1st. The most important thing in getting this organized is finding contributors who will write some of the chapters in the book. The even better news is that we are making real progress in putting together what I think is an impressive team. I don't want to mention names at this point, but two other published authors have agreed to be contributors so that with Paul and myself, four members of are team have already been published. I am in the process of talking to two more people both of whom are good writers and could round out our team in an exciting way. There is, of course, no guarantee that our proposal will be successful, but it looks like we will be able to make the strongest case possible.

While focusing on this, I am also moving ahead with the William Lloyd letters project. Lloyd was a member of the 33rd New Jersey, for whatever reason, more of his letters survive than for any other member of the regiment. I am now focusing on preparing commentary and footnotes for the letters. More research is also needed on Lloyd's long post war life (he died in 1928). I hope to have that manuscript ready by the end of the summer.

Of course, just to keep things interesting, there will be a meeting next week of the New Jersey Civil War 150th's book subcommittee to begin discussions about a book about New Jersey and the Civil War. Reading and writing some of the short bios for the website has reminded me of the many stories out there that should be told. There are two that especially appeal to me, one would be about Lincoln's two railroad trips through New Jersey, one on the way to his inauguration, the other his funeral trains journey on the way to Springfield. The second would be about the Newark newspapers during the Civil War, that could be called "A War of Words." There were three daily newspapers during this time, the Mercury was pro-war, the Daily Journal vehemently anti-war and the Daily Advertiser, more middle of the road. I think there is a real story there. Another possibility is an article about the two presidential elections in New Jersey - there are a lot of myths out there as to why Lincoln failed to carry New Jersey in either election - a well researched objective article would have some real value.

Originally the idea was that 2009 was to be devoted to Lloyd letters and then a break from research/writing. It doesn't seem to be shaping up that way, but all of the above is exciting and well worth pursuing.

Wild Strawberries

2009-03-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

After the complexity and length of Daniel Deronda followed by the intensity of Mary Barton, I decided to take a break by reading the second of Angela Thirkell's 29 novels about the mythical
English county of Barsetshire. Barsetshire was, of course, created by Anthony Trollope for his six Victorian novels about the Church of England. Thirkell adopted it as the locate of her novels which begin in the 1930's and run through the 1950's. Frequently the literary descendants of characters from Trollope's work appear in Thirkell's stories. I didn't notice any in Wild Strawberries, but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

I have realized that I have been reading these novels out of order which isn't a major issue, but isn't the way that I like to do things. So now I have gone back to the beginning and had a hard time getting started on this one. I had begun a number of times, but couldn't get past the first chapter. The story focuses on the Leslie family and I think I was turned off somewhat by Lady Emily Leslie, the matriarch who's approach to life is best described as chaotic. However, once I got past that first chapter, I was, once again, hooked and read it over the course of three nights.

Like all Thirkell novels the only real plot is how the romantic lives of the characters will turn out. This story is a little different than others I have read in that the author does not rely as much on a 2/1 or 3/2 kind of dynamic among the characters. Rather there are an equal number of relationships and, therefore, an equal number of possibilities. Thirkell also does a good job of keeping the character's own views either confused or hidden so that while I thought I knew how things would turn out, it certainly held my attention.

At one level Wild Strawberries can be read as a light comedy of life in the English countryside between the wars. But on another level some of the main characters live with real pain. The Leslies' eldest son was killed in France during World War I, in the book, his son turns 17 reminding his grandparents painfully of their loss. On the day of the birthday party Lady Emily recalls "the vision to which she had so steadfastly barred the way rose before her: her first-born, wandering somewhere beyond life, wanting her, thinking she had forsaken him, not knowing that it was he who had left her to grow old without him." Likewise her second son, John, still mourns the death of his young wife, yet at the same time losing his memory of her because "Time devours everything." This darker side of the character's lives sometimes rests below the surfaces, rarely is front and center, but sometimes intersects with the lighter aspects in a powerful way.

Finally I think Wild Strawberries is what I will now call a "This England" novel. There is a book that I haven't read called - "The Long Weekend, England Between the Wars." To me that implies some combination of trying to recover what was lost during WWI while gradually descending into the abyss of the WWII. I sense that spirit in this book. To her credit Thirkell does this in a way that captures not only "This royal throne of kings," but also "This happy breed of men," (and women) as well as "This earth, this realm." That is it captures the spirit of everything that is England, to the extent that an American can understand that spirit.

I am already looking longingly at the next book, August Folly, I have to figure out a way to blend this kind of book in with my other reading. I also plan to re-read Pomfret Towers and Before Lunch which I read out of sequence, but don't remember. So basically that means there are about 26 to go, when I do finish them, I know I will be disappointed that there aren't any more.

"Mary Barton" - "Books such as this cannot fail to be of value"

2009-03-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

The above epigram from Victor Hugo's classic novel, "Les Miserables' could also apply to Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel. Set in the city of Manchester during the industrial revolution, "Mary Barton," is as MacDonald Daly points out in the introduction to the Penguin edition, really two novels. The first tells the story of the radicalization of John Barton as he watches his fellow mill workers and their families suffer as factory owners watch with indifference, if they watch at all. The second part is more of a melodrama as the reaction to terrible crime threatens to engulf "Jem" Wilson, Mary Barton's lover, as well as Mary herself. Gaskell apparently wanted to call the work, "John Barton," but her publisher forced her to change the name.

There was certainly plenty of drama in the second part which easily held my attention, but in my view it is the description of the plight of the workers and their families that makes "Mary Barton" an enduring work. Gaskell shows clearly, if not graphically, how poverty and death were omnipresent for these families. Ironically Daly seems to fell that Gaskell does not go near far enough with possible solutions for these problems. Ironically because the book was apparently not well received by the Manchester mill owners and other leading families who made up the congregation where Gaskell's husband as an assistant minister. That kind of contemporary reaction illustrates the importance of books like "Mary Barton" in its own time. The Victorian reading public would have consisted primarily of those in a position to do something about similar situations in real life. The book could also have sent a message to the workers themselves, but my guess is that they were both less literate and less able to afford books.

The book's relevance to its own time does not, however, guarantee relevance for future generations. That relevance can, I think, be seen in how it can keep things in balance for those of us who love Victorian fiction more than 100 years later. Many, if not most, of the leading novelists of the time focused on the upper and middle classes with the working classes somewhat invisible. Reading "Mary Barton," like much of Dickens, gives us a better sense of the larger picture. As a direct descendant of the Winder (Worcester) and Proctor (Audley) families, this balance is especially important to me on a personal level. Reading this book reminds me that the working class characters are my ancestors in literary or symbolic form. Certainly the late 19th century members of those families did not cross the ocean by boat because things were going so well in England. Reading about the struggles of the workers in "Mary Barton" gives me a better sense of what my ancestors lives were really like.

I am really glad that I read this book and I look forward to reading the rest of Elizabeth Gaskell's work. After that is, I finish the Victorian Challenge by reading Anthony Trollope's "The Way We Live Now."

Talking about the Civil War

2009-03-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

One of the comments frequently read or heard about Shakespeare's "Henry V" is that it is a play about war. In fact, it is really a play about talking about war. There are far more battle scenes in "Henry IV, Part I," and/or the three "Henry VI" plays. Actually after having just seen "Twelfth Night," I would say that the comic duel scene in that play is more like fighting than what we seenin "Henry V."

This came to mind as I was thinking about my ongoing interest in the Civil War especially as I work on some of the short biographies of prominent New Jerseyans of the Civil War era. My interest in the Civil War goes back at least as far as high school (which happened during the Centennial observations) and like most people, my focus was pretty much on the battles. Now even though I have written a history of New Jersey Civil War regiment, I find that while I am still interested in the experience of New Jersey's soldiers, I am much more interested in the non-military aspects of the war - must be my pacifist conscience speaking.

As I have worked on these biographies, I have realized the important things that were taking place on the home front during those years and the diverse group of people who were involved. Take for example, Edward N. Fuller (picture above) who was the editor of the Newark Daily Journal, the Democratic paper of New Jersey's largest city. Fuller was vehemently anti-Lincoln, anti-war and probably quite racist as well. He was naturally detested by the Republicans, but, in fact, many of the Democrats came to loathe him as well. Fuller finally went too far when he advocated resistance to the 1864 draft which led to his arrest, but wisely not his martyrdom.

Another example is David Morrill who was the chaplain of the 26th New Jersey. Morrill helped recruit the nine month regiment and volunteered to serve as its chaplain. It didn't take long for him to become disillusioned by the incompetent leadership that plagued much of the Union army in the 1862-63 period. Unlike most people, however, Morrill had a pulpit (albeit not a wooden one) for his feelings - his role as a correspondent to the Newark Daily Advertiser. He wrote with frequency about his frustrations which resulted in severe criticism from New Jersey Republicans who tried to have him removed from his position. Fighting back, Morrill stressed the truth as an important value especially when men were risking their lives for their country.

Both of these stories give a sense of the complexity of life in New Jersey during the Civil War. It doesn't denigrate the contributions of the soldiers in any way to claim the importance of all of this in understanding New Jersey's Civil War history which can, in turn, help us to understand New Jersey today.

Rabbits, Ducks and Jonathan Bate

2009-03-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is a play on words from a relatively well known essay by Shakespearean scholar, Norman Rabkin - "Rabbits, Ducks, and Henry V." The rabbit/duck reference, of course, refers to the famous optical illusion, one version of which is shown here.
Tilt your head one way and the figure looks like a duck, tilt it to the other and it looks like a rabbit. Rabkin used this optical illusion to show how, in his opinion, "Henry V" can be seen as both a patriotic and an anti-war play.

Last night I finished reading, Jonathan Bate's "The Genius of Shakespeare" which I posted about a few days ago. That post talked about one chapter in the book where Bate brilliantly shows how the history plays create a "This England" that can be seen both as the monarchs and as the people. As noted, my concern was that Bate seems not to consider the possibility that Shakespeare brings these two aspects of England together through the "Band of Brothers" speech.

Now having read the last chapter of the book, entitled "The Laws of the Shakespeare Universe," I have more of an understanding of why Bate either didn't consider this or didn't write about it. Much of the chapter focuses on how it took the development of quantum physics, specifically the idea that two contradictory things can exist simultaneously - "both and" as opposed to "either or" for Shakespearean criticism to fully appreciate the genius of Shakespeare. My running and cultural buddy DT will really appreciatioe the Quantum physics bit, since he loves science almost as much as Shakespeare.

To me Bates seems to be saying that a lot of the genius of Shakespeare has to do with how these rabbit/duck illusions permeate his work. "Henry V" is a patriotic play or "Henry V" is an anti-patriotic play - in this theory, both are there and can be seen, although not simultaneously. I do agree that ambiguity is part of the appeal of Shakespeare, primarily because the characters are more fully human. But I part company when Bate writes that the genius of Shakespeare "is certainly not the wisdom that can be extracted from Shakespeare" or at least as far as the history plays are concerned.

Unlike Shakespeare's other work the eight plays that make up the two tetralogies represent a specific focus on a specific period of English history (1399-1485). I think it highly unlikely that Shakespeare devoted that much time and effort to exploring his country's past without having some wisdom that he was trying to communicate. As noted in previously posts, I think the eight plays, especially looked at in the order they were written, represent his attempt to explore national leadership. The genius in these plays lies, I think, in that exploration and the conclusions that come from it. The ambiguity, the both/and,whatever it is called, is part of what makes the plays about real people facing real problems.

My goal remains to write a book about the history plays exploring Shakespeare's exploration of those issues and to try to discern what his conclusions were. It is a little disconcerting to read someone who has a lot more knowledge and expertise than I do discounting the "wisdom," but that just increases the challenge and my resolve. Supposedly someone told the great English actor Alan Howard, that "Henry V" is intended to be ironic. Howard's response was something along the lines of - "Well they haven't had to play it have they?"

Father and Son - Book Two - A Possibility

2009-03-07T05:41:00.001-08:00

In a post last week I wrote about how Paul and I have been discussing working together on another book. We had been talking about another season history, but there were a lot of negatives in terms of the amount of work involved and other priorities. To my surprise another possibility came up this week that has some real potential.

Potential and possibility are key words in this context as there is a competitive process involved. Through SABR (Society for American Baseball Research - for DT who hates acronyms) I read that McFarland & Company (publisher of both of my books) has issued a request for proposals for a new series about famous baseball stadiums. One of the stadiums in question is none other than Ebbets Field (pictured above), the legendary home of my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. It is to my lasting regret that I never got to Ebbets Field, but as someone pointed out to me, it certainly wasn't my fault - I was only 11 in 1957.

Anyway what McFarland and the series editors are looking for are proposals from potential editors who would write a chapter or two, but more importantly would organize a group of writers who would contribute articles and work on oral histories from living eyewitnesses. While it would certainly take some work, it sounds like something that would be manageable for Paul and myself. So we are going to try, I will start working on the basic proposal which is due by May 1st and we will see what happens. Ebbets Field was opened in 1913 so some of the research done for "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" gives us something to build on. Paul's interviewing skills developed at three different newspapers will also be an asset. It would be great if we can do this - both in terms of the topic and the chance to do another father and son project.

This England

2009-03-06T09:38:00.000-08:00

"This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea, . . .
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England"

I was first introduced to these lines from Shakespeare's "Richard II" sometime during my freshman year in high school, probably as part of the television adaption of the history plays called "An Age of Kings." They have aptly been referred to as the most famous words ever written about England and they certainly had their impact on me, creating an almost mystical type view of the home of my maternal ancestors.

Ancestors is probably a key word in this context because, while I am of English descent, I am a citizen of the United States and proud of that fact. Yet it was this early introduction to the history plays that gave me an abiding interest in the land of the Winders, the Proctors and all the others who made up those families.

I have had cause to think again of "This England" while I have been reading Jonathan Bate's'"The Genius of Shakespeare." Written by one of England's leading Shakespearean scholars, this book is highly recommended but hard to come by in the United States, even in major academic libraries. I was able to get a copy over the Internet and the positive recommendations were well founded. Bate has a lot of interesting insights into Shakespeare such as how his plays are in some ways a response to the work of Christopher Marlowe.

However, to me the best chapter in the book, by far, is the one entitled "The National Poet." In this chapter Bate sets out to refute claims that Shakespeare is solely the voice and champion of the establishment by proving how Shakespeare's vision of "This England" was a broad one encompassing the land and its people. He does this in large measure by stressing the important roles of every day people in the two parts of "Henry IV" and "Henry V." A prime example of this is Michael Williams who is presumptuous enough to debate the disguised Henry V on the eve of Agincourt. The fact that Williams and his two comrades have both first and last names is evidence to some of their importance to Shakespeare.

Bate then goes on to write about a World War I era writer Edward Thomas who wrote and collected writings with this broader view of "This England." He brilliantly concludes the chapter by showing how Thomas may have gotten this view from his reading of Shakespeare and how it influenced his attitude as a British army officer. This is, as I say, brilliantly thought out and written, yet it surprises me that Bate (who knows far more about Shakespeare than I do) doesn't see something very similar within "Henry V" itself.

Like many critics, Bate takes the different scenes in Act IV individually, without looking at or commenting on how they might be interpreted as a whole - a gradual progression. First, the disguised Henry's encounter with the three soldiers suggesting they aren't much interested in his cause and don't believe his claim that he won't be ransomed. This leads to Henry's bitter soliloquy on ceremony and his desperate prayer that God will "steel his soldier's hearts." But then when the scene switches to the morning of Agincourt, Henry delivers the stirring "band of brothers" speech that rallies his heavily outnumbered army to defeat their French enemies.

Looked at as a whole, it seems to me that Shakespeare is showing how the young king gradually learns how to provide the leadership necessary in this crisis, a crisis largely of his own making. The "band of brothers" speech is full of images of that larger view of "This England" which I believe Henry has gradually come to claim as his own. Some critics who recognize this possibility claim that the speech is only contrived rhetoric that has no meaning after the battle, I disagree, but that is something for another day.

One thing that anyone reading Shakespeare's history plays has to remember is there are certain historical facts that he couldn't change. No matter how much critics and others would like Henry not to invade France and claim the French crown, the fact is that he did and Shakespeare cannot change that. I believe the main issue for Shakespeare is how did Henry lead his army to victory against such great odds. The author chooses not to use material available to him in his sources that gives credit to the king's tactics and/or his personal bravery. In addition unlike almost every other history play, the nobility is almost written out of the play to allow more voice for both the king and the common people. "Henry V" is indeed evidence of Shakespeare's broader definition of "This England" and, I believe intended to show how one king used that definition to his and his country's advantage.

New Jersey Civil War 150

2009-03-04T12:07:00.001-08:00

I haven't written much recently about the work of the New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee, but the group continues to be very active. Having gotten the organizational issues done as well as adopting vision and mission statements, we are on to working on specific projects.

The first thing that will become public is our website, www.njcivil150.com which should go live before the end of the month. At the beginning it will consist of a front page and links to other Civil War sites. Then we will gradually start posting short biographies of 150 prominent New Jerseyans from the Civil War era. We plan to continue to work on lists of 150 - 150 locations, 150 events etc.

Our committee is now working on writing these biographies and I thought of writing one on Charles Deshler who was mentioned in "The Mutinous Regiment." The current draft of the biography is listed below, but it can hardly do justice to the breath of Deshler's life. A drug store owner in New Brunswick, active in national politics, editor of two New Jersey newspapers, literary critic, business and civic leader. Yet in addition to all these achievements, he stands out in the Civil War for his two month mission of mercy to visit wounded and sick New Jersey soldiers in what was then called the west. Deshler was active in the Know Nothing movement which opposed immigration and Catholicism, yet many of the soldiers he visited had to have been Catholic immigrants.

My guess is that Deshler's name is little known today, even in New Brunswick where he was a community leader in many different areas. Part of my hope for the work of our committee is that we can help to honor New Jersey's men and women from the Civil War era so that their stories will be remembered. It is a great honor and a great responsibility for me to serve as the chair of this committee.

"Charles D. Deshler was born in Easton, Pennsylvania on March 1, 1819, but moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey as a child. He was apprenticed into the drug store business as a teenager, ultimately becoming the store owner. Originally a Whig, he became very active in the Know Nothing party before becoming a Democrat. Switching careers, Deshler became the editor of the American Standard, leaving that paper for an editorial position with the Newark Daily Advertiser.

Although not a big supporter of the war, Deshler provided invaluable service to New Jersey soldiers and their families in the summer of 1864. During the Atlanta campaign, a large number of men from New Jersey regiments were in western hospitals suffering from wounds and disease. The distance from the state made it extremely difficult for officials and families to communicate with the men, much less attend to their care. Appointed as state military agent, Deshler spent at least two months visiting some 275 men in Tennessee and Kentucky. In addition to arranging furloughs, pay, clothing and other necessities, he provided New Jersey newspapers with soldier’s addresses down to the specific tent so their families could contact them.

After the war, Deshler returned to New Brunswick, where he was active in civic, business, and educational affairs. He also did literary work for Harpers and wrote two books about poetry. Deshler’s long life ended in New Brunswick on May 10, 1909 at the age of 90."

"Everybody talks about the weather"

2009-03-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

When I was an adolescent, I remember my father (a junior high school teacher) putting a quotation from Mark Twain (below left) on a piece of poster board for use at his school. The quote was something to the effect that "When I was 14 my father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around. However by the time I was 21, I was amazed how much my father had learned in the interim." At the time I couldn't figure out why my father liked the quote so much, by the time I was the father of an adolescent I understood completely.

Twain's lines are like that, another was (again paraphrasing) "What bothers me about the bible isn't the parts that I don't understand, it is the parts that I do understand." All of this was brought to mind by thinking about another Twain quote in relationship to yesterday's snow storm - "Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." I learned once again yesterday never to anticipate the weather - prepare for it yes, but anticipate it, never.

My experiences with running have taught me this lesson and I would have thought I would have remembered it. More than once there was a forecast for heavy rain early in the morning so I either didn't get up to run or got up looking for a reason not to run, when, in fact, the promised/threatened rain never materialized. As a result I developed the attitude that if I am scheduled to run, I plan on doing so and don't anticipate that the weather will be a problem. That's probably part of why I have become an AWR (all weather runner) unlike, for example, DT who has been known to consider a slight drizzle, the Johnstown flood, but I digress.

I haven't been running recently while awaiting an appointment with the podiatrist which was scheduled, of course, for Monday morning at 8:30. With a forecast of a foot of snow, I was sure that the office hours would be cancelled (foot problems don't tend to be medical emergencies). So once again, I anticipated the weather and was wrong. I should have set the alarm early enough to allow me enough time to get there, if the storm wasn't as bad as forecast. Of course, it wasn't, we had only a couple of inches of snow and with adequate time, I could have cleaned off the car and gotten there on time.

I was not pleased as this realization set in about 7:45. So now the appointment is off for another week and I can only hope that I have learned this lesson once and for all. We may not be able to do anything about the weather, but we can certainly prepare for it or, at least, prepare better than I did this time around.

Farewell to February

2009-02-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

Over at Random Jottings, Elaine is writing about harbingers of spring including pictures of tulips. Unfortunately here in New Jersey there is a winter storm watch in effect for Sunday night into Monday with the threat of 8 inches of snow. Carol and I are just back from visiting Paul and Sarah in Massachusetts where the prediction is up to 20 inches - as Carol said, "we are out of here!" On these visits we stay in Concord which is famous both for its revolutionary war history and for the famous writers who have lived there over the years - it is a very nice place and well worth visiting.

On Friday, we took a side trip to Harvard (or as DT calls it - the St. Leo's of the north) to visit the Lincoln exhibit at the Houghton Library. To me the most interesting thing in the exhibit was part of Lincoln's reading copy of his first inaugural. The first draft of the speech was written in Springfield and printed so that Lincoln could work on revisions which he did during his long journey to Washington. This is also the speech that was greatly improved by some suggestions by William Seward - Lincoln's Secretary of State. On display was the first and last page - the last page was key because it showed the famous peroration of the speech ("the better angels of our nature"), handwritten on to the printed copy.

We had our usual dinner and breakfast with Sarah and Paul which was very enjoyable and both of them are doing well. Paul and I made a visit to a local independent bookstore to talk about a possible book signing regarding "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916." While the owner was certainly pleasant, he wasn't very optimistic so it remains to be seen whether anything will come of it - ultimately it is up to Paul.

While there we did establish some basic parameters for a 2009 baseball marathon. We were introduced to this idea a number of years ago by two of my cousins who are basically professional fans. Our most memorable marathon was in 2001 when Paul and I went to California and saw seven games in five cities over a seven day period. The 2009 marathon will be somewhat more modest. The focal point will be seeing both the Cubs and White Sox play in Chicago and a side visit to Milwaukee to see the Brewers. We have been to Wrigley Field before, but the other stadiums will be new to our list. I think Paul has been to over 20 stadiums while I am in the high teens. The aforementioned cousins have been to 49 major league stadiums - I said they were professional fans.

Paul and I also talked about the possibility of working on another book together, possibly a history of the 1889 baseball season. This is before the American League was founded when the National League and the American Association were the two major leagues. There were close pennant races in both leagues - the Dodgers and St. Louis in the American Association and the Giants and Boston Beaneaters in the National League.

Any such project wouldn't start until the second half of 2010 and I am not at all sure it will happen. I have been thinking a lot about future books and since I don't have unlimited writing years left, I have focusing on what books do I especially want to see completed. Right now the two main ones are a book about early baseball in New Jersey (1855-1870), no book about that period has been written and it should be. The other one is a book about Shakespeare's history plays - this is something I have a lot of passion about - the premise that these plays have important messages for all time and the idea that they very enjoyable - simply a lot of fun. No decision has to be made at the moment, but that's where I am at the moment.

So it is farewell to February and hello to March. I have a talk about the 33rd New Jersey coming up plus I am scheduled to teach a class about the 33rd at the Life Long Learning Program at Caldwell College. And, of course, there is the New Jersey Historical Society, St. Paul's Church and NJ Civil War 150 - all of which will keep me plenty busy. Retirement is great, but I continue to work far too hard!

Remembering the Heroes - Part II John (1849-1939) & Maria (1853-1945) Proctor

2009-02-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month the totally unexpected discovery of a picture of my great-great paternal grandfather, John Zinn, prompted a post on our immigrant ancestors as family heroes. Although it was not on my immediate agenda, I made a trip to the Hackensack public library looking for the newspaper the picture appeared in and, I was sure, other new information about my Zinn ancestors. Of course, in research little goes as one expects and the trip turned up absolutely nothing. I should have remembered that Hackensack didn't have daily newspapers in the 19th
century and the only weekly papers didn't have photographs at all, much less the one I was looking for.

However subsequent to that I made another discovery, not quite as dramatic or groundbreaking (in my little world), but still important. One of the genealogy websites that I subscribe to had added a number of Trenton newspapers from the 1880's through 1922. This opened up a fertile and very accessible source of research on my maternal side.

My mother was the daughter of Mary Proctor and James W. Winder both of whom were born in England and came to this country as children with their parents in the 19th century. Both families, who I am sure didn't know each other in England, settled in Trenton, New Jersey - a city closely connected to the pottery industries in England. They became relatively prominent residents of New Jersey's capital city so that a search for their names turns up a fair number of articles.

I am gradually working my way through the Proctors, John and Maria (pictured above on their 54th wedding anniversary in 1929) came to the United States in 1881. They made the trip with their three children, all under the age of five, and with Maria about six months pregnant. They had six more children in this country so with a family of nine, one of their names is in the newspapers of the era on a regular basis. John Proctor himself was one of eleven children and, as far as I know, the only one to leave England. The conventional wisdom is that they left England for economic reasons which is probably true although I wonder why they were the only ones to leave. While John and Maria lived in Chesterton in Staffordshire, their families (Proctors and Lingards) have very deep roots in the neighboring village of Audley.

English census data lists John as a carpenter or joiner and a number of his ancestors were wheelwrights. According to one source, a wheelwright was a much more skilled trade than being a carpenter. In any event, John apparently started out as a carpenter in Trenton, but gradually expanded into becoming a general contractor. Starting in the 1903-05 period there are numerous newspaper listings of the building contracts he has been awarded. Once I finish the research I will try to analyze the scope of his work, but it seems like he had a fairly sizable business. I also found that his son John Lingard Proctor apparently played some baseball in that same period, at shortstop - a position that I also have some experience with - it must be in the genes. I was surprised to learn that John himself was pretty active in politics beginning after he had been here only about 10 years.

I still have a lot more to go through here and since John and Maria lived until the 30's and 40's, I hope the site will continue to add more years. Unlike the case of my Zinn ancestors, I have been to both Audley and Chesterton - worshipping in the church where John and Maria were married, walking on the street they lived in and, hopefully, taking a picture of their house. The morning we left Audley in 2000, I tried to put myself in John's position as he loaded his three children, his pregnant wife and their belongings into a wagon on the way to the train on the way to Liverpool and ultimately America. Neither John nor Maria could have had any idea what they were in for, what it would be like and it would it work, and yet they did it - which makes them heroes in my book.

2009 Reading and Writing Goals - 2009 - First Check In

2009-02-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

At the end of 2008, for the first time in my life, I established some personal goals in the areas of reading and writing. As we close in on the end of February, I thought this would be a good time for a first check in. In terms of reading, the goal was simple -keep a record of every book I read so that at the end of the year I will know how many books I have read and be able to choose my favorites.

So far so good, I keep a notebook handy where I faithfully write down each book read. As of today there are six and while it is possible I may finish "Mary Barton" by next Saturday, I tend to doubt it. At that rate I will read about 35-40 books, somewhat less than my estimate of 50, but that is somewhat due to focusing on some longer books - especially "Daniel Deronda" at almost 700 pages. 700 pages of what is not the most accessible writing. "Mrs Fytton's Country Life" on the other hand took only two days.

As noted earlier this month, I want to fit in some lighter reading, if I can work this out so that I can read it along with other things, not instead of as happened with "Mrs Fytton." What seems to work best for me is one work of fiction and one of non-fiction, the question is can I expand this to include lighter works like Angela Thirkell's novels. Another concern is something my cultural buddy, DT, pointed out to me recently. Since the summer I haven't been reading much Shakespeare criticism which is essential for a number of reasons. As result I am about to try a new strategy - one work of serious fiction ("Mary Barton" at present), one of non-fiction (to be decided), a piece of light fiction (the next Thirkell novel) and a few pages each day or so of Shakespeare criticism (Jonathan Bate's - "The Genius of Shakespeare" which I just started tonight).

My first writing goal was to finish the final editing on "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" which was done on time and the book has now been published. The second was to finish my five team histories for the pioneer project history of early base ball clubs by March 1st. That is right on schedule as I have only a final proofread to go before sending them on to the editor. I find final proofreads very difficult - after reading my own work a certain number of times, it is hard to pay sufficient attention. But I will do my best and then get them off more less on time.

The next step is to finish editing William Lloyd's Civil War letters by the beginning of the 2009 Rutgers football season. In addition to the editing I still have to do some detailed research on Lloyd's lengthy post Civil War life. Once that is done the next step is to take a break from all aspects of book writing and focus on family history in anticipation of a 2010 trip to England. This schedule may be thrown off somewhat by a new project being considered by the New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary committee - a book of essays/articles about New Jersey and the Civil War.

Although I am focused on all of this it is hard not to spend time thinking about other book possibilities. One issue is whether to try something of larger or broader interest or to focus on narrower related topics especially those related to New Jersey history. For example, the work on the pioneer project could easily be expanded into a history of early baseball in New Jersey. To my knowledge no such work has ever been written and it should be.

At the same time working on a topic of broader appeal like a major league baseball season was very enjoyable. There are a couple of other baseball topics, but there are other areas of interest as well. I have been reading portions of Allen Nevins' classic "The Ordeal of the Union" to learn more about the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Among other things it brought Lincoln back into politics and it seems to be a major issue that has not had a full length book treatment. And then there is, of course, Shakespeare - a book about the history plays. That's one book that I definitely want to write - something I have been passionate about for almost 50 years - the question is when is the right time.

I don't want to be morbid about it, but I am 62 years old so I don't have unlimited writing time ahead of me. So I have to be intentional and make some tough choices. Most of the time I feel that the Shakespeare book should come next - starting in 2010, but it doesn't take much to get me interested in some of the other possibilities. Decisions - decisions. So I guess where we stand at the end of February is on target in terms of the goals, but with a lot of thinking to be done. A DT time if there ever was one.

Nothing to Fear

2009-02-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

I bought Adam Cohen's new book about the FDR's 100 days in a weak moment - "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" had just been published and I decided to reward myself with actually buying a new book. This book had just been reviewed in the New York Times, receiving very favorable comments other than what was felt to be unfair treatment of Herbert Hoover's efforts to deal with the depression.

After finishing the book last night, I realize that this is one of those books that is interesting to read, but not necessary to own. As the Times critic noted it is informative because of the picture it gives of the contributions of Roosevelt's inner circle especially Frances Perkins, Raymond Moley, Henry Wallace, Lewis Douglas, and Harry Hopkins. Of this group I had heard of all, but Douglas although I knew very little about the rest.

Wallace's part in the book focuses on his role as Secretary of Agriculture dealing with the farm crisis. Wallace went on to be FDR's vice president in 1940 and, if he head not been replaced with Truman, would have been president when Roosevelt died in 1945. As the New Deal developed Wallace became more and more liberal to the point that he was ultimately accused of Communist or leftist sympathies. This is not the picture shown by Cohen so it was a helpful correction of that portrayal.

I did know that Frances Perkins was the first female cabinet member, but was not aware of the extent to her life long struggles for the rights of working people. According to Cohen, she had a major part in pushing the reluctant Roosevelt towards massive public works projects as part of the solution to the depression. There were two things I was very surprised to learn about Roosevelt - the first was that the inclusion of FDIC insurance in the Glass Steagal banking act was done over his objection and threatened veto.

The second and more important is that the second major piece of legislation of the 100 days was a bill giving the president and, therefore, Douglas, broad powers to cut government spending. One of the enduring lessons of the New Deal and Keynesian economics was the use of government spending including deficit spending to improve bad economic times. Yet Roosevelt came to office pledged to cut government spending and for a long time supported Douglas' efforts to do just that. Had there not been a banking crisis requiring the first legislation to focus on banking, this would have been the first law proposed in the New Deal.

Cohen's major point is that the New Deal and especially the 100 days represented a major turning point in American history. Afterwards no one would argue that government had a responsibility to help citizens in need - there might be different Republican and Democratic approaches, but the premise would never be questioned. The ideal or value of rugged individualism was gone forever.

Like a number of books I have read recently, "Nothing to Fear," presents the story of a brief, but important period in American history. It, therefore, makes that history more accessible to the main stream reading public who would not endure a full length history of FDR's 12 plus years as president. Such books have less appeal to me because I prefer the more in depth approach when I am very interested in something. However, the New Deal is not one of my major interests so it may be just as well that I read this small part of the story. Now if I had only been smart enough to borrow it from the library instead of buying it and having no further use for it.

"Daniel Deronda" - Further Thoughts

2009-02-17T06:08:00.000-08:00

I want to post some further thoughts on “Daniel Deronda,” but in fairness want to note that some of what follows reveals some of the plot so the reader is warned!

At the end of his introduction to the Oxford World Classic edition, Graham Handley writes about Grandcourt’s final effort to humiliate Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn married Grandcourt for financial reasons, knowing full well that Grandcourt had fathered children by a Mrs. Dasher, who he had refused to marry. In his will, made after his marriage, Grandcourt declares that if Gwendolyn does not “provide” him with a male heir that the bulk of his estate goes to his son by Mrs. Dasher. Gwendolyn receives only the use of the undesirable house where the Dasher family is exiled and 2000 pounds per year. Gwendolyn’s family and other supporters are greatly disturbed by this poor treatment.

Gwendolyn herself knew of the provision for the Dashers, but was probably not aware of what was left to her. But to everyone’s surprise the only question for her is whether to accept anything at all from Grandcourt. This is not the first time Eliot’s work where a female character has to make a choice involving money and love. I am thinking particularly of situations in “Middlemarch” and “Felix Holt: The Radical.” In those cases if the character chooses love, she loses the money or at least a significant amount of money. Here Gwendolyn first chose money over love (or at least some future possibility of love), but in the end values her integrity more than money.

As anyone who reads nineteenth century literature knows, these were not easy decisions. Middle class women without independent means had few acceptable means of earning a living. The most traditional being the unenviable lot of a governess which is, in fact, the choice Gwendolyn spurns to marry Grandcourt in the first place. A consistent thread throughout Eliot’s writing is that women should listen to their conscience, not financial need, in making such decisions.

This is especially interesting to me since in the Clarendon edition of “Adam Bede,” Eliot is quoted to the effect that her primary audience is young men. That certainly was a major theme of “Adam Bede,” which was her first novel, but it also continues throughout her work. It is certainly fair to say that the experiences of the young men in “Daniel Deronda” are also intended to speak to that audience. Although I did not enjoy this novel any where near as much as her other work, Eliot still has something important to say, both to her time and to ours.

"Daniel Deronda"

2009-02-16T14:27:00.000-08:00

For random reflections on George Eliot's last novel, please go to www.victorianchallenge.blogspot.com

The Pearl Theatre - The Acting's the Thing

2009-02-15T16:13:00.000-08:00

One of the advantages of living so close to New York City is the easy access to such a broad range of cultural opportunities especially with regard to the theater. However it can still be a challenge, even for someone who reads the New York Times everyday, to find some of the excellent offerings that don't receive extensive media coverage or attention. A case in point is the Pearl Theatre Company located on St. Mark's Place in the East Village.

Back in the fall of 2007 there was a very brief, very positive review in the Times of this theater's production of Hamlet. I don't remember what it was that appealed to me, but I think it was probably something along the lines that the production was basic Shakespeare without so many of the changes that add little and to me take so much away. In any event, Carol and I saw the production one Sunday afternoon in October and it was great and at very reasonable prices. Especially noteworthy was Sean McNall in the title role.

Our experience made me pay attention to the Pearl's web site and their annual schedule of classical plays typically including one Shakespeare play, although we had not gone back since Hamlet. Then in one of those grace filled moments, my God-daughter Emily Ewing became an intern at the Pearl after graduating with a theater major from Smith College. Emily is the daughter of my close friend, Edie Ewing who died this past December, I was honored to speak at her funeral and posted that eulogy on this blog.

One of the commitments I made to myself after the funeral was to do a better job of staying in touch with Emily. She suggested we come to a play at the Pearl and she would have dinner afterwards. So Carol and I did so this past Saturday, Valentine's Day to see the company's production of Twelfth Night. I have to admit that I went with the idea that I was not going to like the play. To date my interest in Shakespeare has been pretty much focused on the history plays with some excursions into the great tragedies. My only prior experience with a comedy was The Merry Wives at Windsor which I really didn't enjoy. I think there is only so much comedy to be found in mistaken or hidden identities which to me pretty quickly degenerates in slapstick.

So after going into this exercise with a bad attitude it was no little surprise that I found that I really enjoyed the show. It was very funny with the identical twin confusion not over done. Once again I was greatly impressed with the quality of acting by the Pearl's company. Sean McNall moved from Hamlet to Feste the fool and played the part brilliantly. Also on hand from the Hamlet production were Robin Leslie Brown (Gertrude/Maria) and Dominic Cuskern (Polonius/Malvolio). The rest of the cast was new to me, but they were all good and I especially enjoyed Bradford Cover as Sir Toby Belch. He very took a Falstaff like approach to the part which I greatly enjoyed.

After the play we were fortunate enough to have dinner with Emily which gave us a great opportunity to understand what goes on behind the scenes (literally and figuratively). It's natural,I think, to underestimate how much is really involved in making the whole thing work and work, not just once, but throughout the run. Emily told us that at the same time Twelfth Night is going on the company is rehearsing for its next production Tartuffe - all of which sounds exhausting to me. She suggested broadening our horizons by coming back for that play and I think we might do just that.

Just before we went to dinner, Emily introduced us to Shepard Sobel, the retiring Artistic Director. When she told him that I was her God-father, it was a wonderful feeling, one of many high points of a great afternoon and evening. Emily sent us home via the R train to the Port Authority and our car - a total trip of about an hour - pretty good to the East Village. The Pearl is a Pearl and I highly recommend it.

Looking For Lincoln

2009-02-15T15:17:00.001-08:00

I know that I have mentioned that my running buddy and fellow Shakespeare connoisseur, DT, is a greater believer in brevity. Since he tends to apply that belief more to others than himself, I usually don't try to pay much attention to his wishes. However, this post about the PBS documentary Looking for Lincoln is going to be different. I have written quite a lot about our sixteenth President since starting this blog so I only want to make a few comments about this almost two hour show that aired on February 11th, the eve of the Lincoln Bicentennial.

Hosted and written by the African-American scholar, Henry Louis Gates, I had some trepidation about what the show would be like. At the Lincoln Forum in November I heard something about positions that Gates was taking about Lincoln that sounded like buying into the view that Lincoln was a racist and not worthy of the the high reputation that he holds today. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case. It was a very even handed effort to understand Lincoln especially from the point of view of an African-American who had inherited the worshipful views of earlier generations of Afro-Americans, who was now coming to terms with statements and actions of Lincoln that were not inspired by the "better angels" of his nature.

The show took the form of Gates traveling to many Lincoln sites, doing research and talking to Lincoln scholars and others including Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. One thing that I found important was when Doris Kearns Goodwin told Gates that the posthumous hero worship given to Lincoln was certainly not his fault or his responsibility. By the end of the show it seemed like the election of President Obama had helped Gates to see Lincoln in a more objective, but still positive light.

The one major criticism, I had of the show is that there were times when it seemed like Gates was trying to treat the Civil War and the issue of slavery as if they were two things that just happened to be going on simultaneously rather than two things that were intertwined with one another. Since college I have always believed that slavery was the cause of the war, states rights and other issues not withstanding. There always seemed to be a comprise out of those other places where state rights and union broke down, but this was not the case with the slavery.

As an amateur, little-if at all, known historian I also have to admit to some jealousy as to the access that Gates enjoyed. It reminded me of something about Jon Meacham's book, "American Lion." In the acknowledgements Meacham thanks his fact checkers - all six of them! Since I only have one fact checker, proof-reader etc, I hope I can be forgiven some level of envy. In Gates' case the advantages of this kind of access was graphically illustrated when he is show reading one of Lincoln's note books, without the protective gloves required by almost every museum and, is at one point, shown lying on a couch reading the invaluable historical document. Still the show was well done and I think it will help the general public get a fuller picture of this great man.

Remembering the Heroes - John Zinn (1827-1897)

2009-02-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

On Sunday afternoon, after finishing my post on "Mrs. Fytton's Country Life," I had a few minutes to kill and innocently did a google search on my name. To my surprise up came John Zinn followed by Hackensack Bergen County. Since my grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were all named John Zinn and lived at least part of their lives in Hackensack, this was of no small interest to me. I immediately went to the site and found that in 2007 someone had posted on a genealogy board about a picture that they had of John Zinn and
Philip Shafer recognizing them as the last surviving charter members.

The person who wrote post confirmed that Philip Shafer had lived in Hackensack and he surmised that John Zinn did too. The post said that the picture was from around 1880 which suggested pretty clearly that this had to be my great-great-grandfather, John Zinn who was born in the village of Maar in the province of Hesse in Germany in 1827 and died in Hackensack in 1897.

Since I had never seen a picture of this ancestor I was more than a little excited and e-mailed the person who wrote the post as quickly as these aged fingers could type. Since the post was from 2007 all kinds of horrible thoughts went through my mind, suppose the person had a different e-mail address, suppose they had moved or even worse died. Fortunately my e-mail did not bounce back which was a good sign and I then waited more or less impatiently.

After 24 hours my patience was rewarded with an e-mail and the attached picture which I think has to be from the Bergen Record. The person who had made the original post had gotten the picture from his mother who didn't know what it was that the two men were surviving charter members of. Based on the research I had already done it seems pretty certain to me that this refers to the Third Protestant Reformed Church of Hackensack which was formed in early 1858. Surviving minutes of the church's initial meetings name both men as founders - in fact, the first officers of the church. There is no small irony to the fact that my ancestor was the treasurer of the church since I spent about 25 years as the Treasurer of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark and am still the Treasurer of St. Paul's Church in Paterson. The fact that my maternal grandfather, James W. Winder was also a church treasurer adds even more evidence to the idea that there is something hereditary at work.

Obviously I would have been very grateful to find a picture of any ancestor, but this John Zinn is no ordinary ancestor. Born in Germany in 1827, it appears that in the spring of 1849, he endured a seven week ocean voyage in a wooden ship arriving in the United States on July 3rd. I have never discovered why he left Germany, but it seems reasonable to believe that after the unsuccessful revolutions of 1848, he decided to seek a new life in a new land. By 1850, he was married and the father of another John Zinn and the rest as they say is history.

About five years ago I attended a conference on genealogy where the keynote speaker was John Colletta, the author of "They Came In Ships: A Guide to Finding Your Immigrant Ancestor's Arrival Record." A very engaging speaker, John made two important points. The first is that we should try to find pictures of the ship our ancestors came on or of at least a similar ship so that we can ask ourselves - what were they thinking about spending all that time in a ship like that. More important was his second point, when he said that the ancestors who made the fateful decision to come here, endured the journey and the hardships of a new life in a new land are the heroes of our family histories. All too frequently we think heroes have to be great warriors or leaders who did big things on a big stage. It is nice to know that every family has its own heroes.

While it wasn't on my immediate agenda, this find, no not a find, but a gift, has got me thinking about some trips to the municipal library in Hackensack where they have old issues of the Bergen Record on microfilm. Thinking about it the picture probably marks some anniversary of the church's founding so it probably makes sense to start around 1893 and work backwards. However long it takes, I am confident I will learn more about my family's history and for this gift and what it can lead to, I am very grateful.

Mrs. Fytton's Country Life

2009-02-07T18:48:00.000-08:00

I should have realized that if I was going to factor in a third book of lighter reading on top of heavier fiction and non-fiction books that one possibility was getting caught up in the lighter reading and neglecting the other. Sort of a path of least resistance approach to reading, which come to think of sounds like DT's approach to life, but I digress. That possibility
is exactly what happened as after finishing "Diary of a Provincial Lady, I moved on to read and finish Mavis Cheek's, "Mrs Fytton's Country Life," while making very little progress in "Daniel Deronda."

This is another novel about life in an English country village, but this time more modern - probably about the 1990's. Angela Fytton's husband has divorced her and married a younger woman. Part of Angela's strategy to get him back (don't ask) is to move to a small village in Somerset. Among other things this means the two teenage children from their marriage will move in with her former husband and wife numero dos producing, as expected, chaos and tension.

Cheek has thereby created a two for one dynamic in this case, the first and second wives in conflict over the one husband. This is resolved in what seems to be a highly improbable manner especially since it is not clear if all parties are aware of the resolution.

I could take or leave this part of the book especially since some of it has far more detail than I needed to know. Of far more interest to me was another major theme of the book, an in depth exploration of English country life. First Cheek establishes how physically difficult that life was especially for women. It reminded me of Robert Caro's first volume of his biography of Lyndon Johnson where he describes the difficult time women of the Texas hill country had doing basic washing and ironing in a world without electricity. One of Johnson's first political achievements was convincing the Federal government to electrify the hill country even though it didn't meet their population density standards.

Having established this Cheek goes on to look at two different approaches to those trying to move back to that life. One is that of Dave the Bread and his wife, Wanda who basically try to cheat local residents with fraudulent goods made to look like original country products - for example bread bought commercially and promoted as being home baked. The other, in a lot more detail, is Angela's attempt to go back to that simpler form of country living. As she proceed step by step, Cheek raises and answers interesting questions about the basic integrity of doing this.

When I first started reading this book, I thought it was going to be a slapstick novel something like the Chevy Chase movie, "Funny Farm." A situation where unsuspecting people move into the country only to find a eccentric characters who help deflate, if not, defeat their dream. However, this was not at all the case in "Mrs. Fyttons Country Life," the intersection of Angela's efforts and those kind of scenarios with her neighbors are limited and don't usually bring the two things into conflict. This allows the story to build towards it conclusion which, if not satisfying in terms of the human relations (especially the 2/1 dynamic), is very satisfying in terms of exploration of English country life. Now its back to "Daniel Deronda" and no more light reading until it is done.

Discerning a Call

2009-02-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday, Carol and I went to the Rockland County Civil War Roundtable in Pearl River, New York where I had been asked to speak about my book "The Mutinous Regiment: The Thirty-third New Jersey in the Civil War." This is probably at least the sixth different talk I have given about the 33rd, but it was a very different experience in a very positive way. Since then I have been trying to figure out why it was so different and whether there is a message there about my focus for the future.

One thing that was different was that I changed the talk. In every prior presentation I have talked about how the regiment was formed, where the name the "Mutinous Regiment" comes from and then given a summary of the regiment's experience. After the last talk I gave back in November at a New Jersey group, a woman complimented me on the talk saying that I had told "the whole story." That stuck with me because that night I sold only one copy of the book which I thought was unusual for a group focused on New Jersey's role in the war.

Thinking about this, I decided that I shouldn't provide quite so much information and thereby give people more incentive to buy the book. The Pearl River meeting was the first time I tried the new approach which was to follow the story of the regiment's founding with a more in depth presentation of the Atlanta campaign and the regiment's role in that campaign. That night I sold 11 books, six before the meeting and five afterwards. I don't want to jump to conclusion that the change in the speech accounted for such a dramatic difference in sales, but I think it played a role.

The meeting was also very different in that the group was really engaged in the question and answer period which became almost a discussion - it had to have lasted close to 1/2 hour - as long as the talk itself. Carol certainly made a difference during that discussion, suggesting additional information I should add such as talking about the letters of William Lloyd. So there were some different elements present, but I am not sure how much they were a factor individually or collectively.

Thinking about it today, I think that the change in the presentation made a difference not because I didn't tell the whole story, but because the story I did tell was dramatic - and the story of the Atlanta campaign is interesting. The experience has led me to wonder if I have a gift for this kind of thing - taking a factual story and telling it in an interesting way that gets people interested both in discussion and in buying books. By a gift I mean something that is God given, not something that is due to something I have done.

All of this has made me wonder if this is some kind of a secular call as to what I should focus on in the near future. I greatly enjoy research and writing as well as making presentations about what I have found. At this point at least the idea of concentrating on this has some real appeal both from the enjoyment and some potential financial rewards. I want to be careful, however, not to get carried away with something that may have been a passing fancy. I do know that I have been somewhat frustrated recently about other things limiting my time for writing, but also for simply working on promoting and speaking about both books. It's something that needs some thought which I certainly intend to give it!

Diary of a Provincial Lady

2009-02-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

Clearly and obviously different books are read at different paces. If that needed any confirmation, and it probably didn't, that I started "Diary of a Provincial Lady" (almost 400 pages) on the 30th and finished it yesterday, February 2nd is further confirmation of this fact. As noted in the last post this is another of Elaine's suggestions and once again she is right on the mark.

The book purports to be the diary of a lady living in the English countryside around 1930 who appears to be struggling to maintain an upper middle class life style on a very inadequate income. Pictured in the club chair to the right is her husband, Robert -sleeping/reading the Times. It doesn't appear that Robert has any kind of paying job or if he does it is never mentioned. In addition not doing much, Robert seldom has much to say no matter what the situation or what his wife says to him.

Early in the book that leads to one of the many diary entries where having written something the provincial lady then puts down a mental note or query to herself. In this case she asks whether it is possible that even if her husband doesn't say anything, he may actually have been listening. Such comments/questions fill the book and are usually both funny and honest. There really isn't a plot to the book, merely a series of scenes where little seems to go as the provincial lady plans, but everyone survives none the less.

This is not in any way to suggest the book is not worth reading, in fact, I fully recommend it. The characters, the humour and the endless trials and tribulations of the household and the village make for relaxing reading. The setting of most of the book is the English countryside - I think it was in Elaine's post about such books that I first heard about it. While we learn much about the characters in this locale, we don't learn much about the setting itself which was something I missed.

As an American who has always lived in the New York metropolitan area, I am not sure what the attraction of the English countryside has for me. But I know it is real both in what I read and the last two times that I visited England - especially the villages in Staffordshire and Gloucester shire that my ancestors came from. Elaine has written how much she also loves these books, but has also noted that she probably couldn't tolerate living in one. Ultimately that would probably be true for me as well, although I would guess that with today's technology one could live in such a place and not experience the limitations of the past.

I believe that E.M. Delafield wrote some further books about the provincial lady in other locales. While I probably won't enjoy them as much as this one, I will take a look at them. In the meantime I am moving on to Mavis Cheek's "Mrs Fyton's Country Life" while still working my way through "Daniel Deronda." I have gotten a little bogged down in the latter book and we will see if I am as positive about it as I am about the rest of George Eliot's work.

The Two "R's" - Reading and Retirement

2009-01-30T15:37:00.000-08:00

The other day when we were running in the pre-dawn darkness of Verona Park, DT was commenting on the difficulty of staying current on all of the reading we are doing - Shakespeare one week - Beowulf the next, followed by academic commentary on both. According to DT one of the main problems is that after he reads for about 20 minutes on top of a full day of work, he starts to nod off. Actually that's sort of what the rest of us experience sometimes during one of his think tanks, but that's another story. In fairness to DT he is a senior partner in one of the largest law firms on his street so his practice keeps him fairly busy.

Although I didn't say it the time, I understand the problem and to some extent still experience it myself. While I am doing a lot more reading in retirement, it still presents its challenges. A big part of that is timing, with some modest exceptions during the day, I usually don't try to do much reading until the evening. I kid about it, but I am actually working pretty hard in retirement, the difference is that it is primarily on things that I want to do. But I still have these feelings about work before fun, which in practical terms means working during the day and reading at night.

The problem is that much like DT after I read for a while, I either start to nod off or have a hard time concentrating. Part of that is the content I am reading, I like George Eliot's work, but she isn't the most accessible author of all time and the almost 700 pages of "Daniel Deronda" has its challenges. The other book I am reading at present is Adam Cohen's new book "Nothing to Fear" which is the story of the first 100 days of the New Deal. That's actually easier reading than "Daniel Deronda," but it's definitely not light reading. Although my father used to read 4-5 books at a time, I pretty much find two is my limit - one fiction, one non-fiction.

One of the things I am realizing now is that I need to add a third book, something that is lighter and easier reading. To that end I just started reading E. M. Delafield's "Diary of a Provincial Lady." Once again this was a suggestion from Elaine at Random Jottings and once again she was right on the money, it is hilarious and a relaxing read. The other thing that I need to do is to break up my reading during the day a little bit - read some in the morning, some in the afternoon as well as in the evening. That should allow not only more time for reading, but the time will be a whole lot more productive.

So once again DT although mistaken was helpful. As Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson in the "The Hound of the Baskervilles," - "in your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth."

President Obama's Inaugural Address - Part II

2009-01-25T06:19:00.000-08:00

Things have been quite hectic here for the past few days. With the unexpected arrival of "The
Major League Pennant Races of 1916" and trying to wind up the Pioneer Project, it has taken longer than anticipated to get to this second post on President Obama's inaugural address. While disappointed with how I felt the length lessened the potential impact overall I felt it was a good and important speech. As with my disappointments, my positive comments are based upon what I will call the Lincoln standard - Lincoln's speeches and commentary on those speeches.

In my last post I mentioned Ronald White's book "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural." In that book White writes about the importance of a speaker understanding the mood of his/her audience and speaking to that mood. This is apparently based upon Aristotle's theories of rhetoric (I would have written Plato, but fortunately DT corrected me). In any event I think the President spoke to the things that are the minds of the American people such as terrorism and the economic crisis in a way that showed he understands the mood of the American people without offering specifics (which would have been inappropriate), but in an even handed way. One example of this was his early comments on the economic crisis which he attributed to the greed of some, but also a collective unwillingness to take difficult decisions. In speaking in this way the President acknowledges the concern placed blame where it belongs, but avoids the trap of making the issue and, therefore, the solution too simple, thus allowing himself plenty of room for developing specific approaches.

While this was well done, as previously mentioned, the really important part of the speech for me was its closing. The similarity to Lincoln's approach with the Gettysburg address is to me too great for this to be a coincidence. In Gary Wills classic book "Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America," the author writes that Lincoln changed the way Americans thought about themselves, arguing that the founding values of the country were found in the Declaration (all men are created equal) not in the Constitution which does not mention equality. In another book about the address ("The Gettysburg Gospel"), the author stresses that the speech was a war speech directed at the north - the message being simply that the war in spite of all its horrors had to go on.

Combining these two ideas, brings us to the position that the war had to go on because of what it was really about - equality without distinction or qualification. Lincoln thus linked that crisis with revolutionary values. President Obama, I think, used a similar approach connecting the current crisis to the revolutionary spirit. Of that spirit Bruce Catton once wrote that "at the core of the American effort was an unconquerable toughness." No where is that toughness that spirit better evidenced in December of 1776 when as the British historian, George Trevelyan observed never in history has such a small group of men used such a small period of time for such an impact on the history of the world. The point being if that generation of Americans could do it so can we.

There seems to have been some post inaugural discussion about exactly what the President was referring to with this quote. I didn't recognize it at the time, but as DT reminded me it is from Thomas Paine's "The Crisis" - remembered for the famous line - "These are the times that try men's souls." That of course means even a closer connection to New Jersey history. No one knows exactly where Paine wrote that essay, but it was clearly in New Jersey during the "retreat to victory," there is some speculation that he wrote it in Newark by a campfire.

Finally a cautionary word about inaugural addresses. Supposedly John Kennedy when preparing his own inaugural read all of the speeches of his predecessors. He was reportedly shocked to find that some of the most highly respected presidents had given some of the worst inaugurals and, perhaps even more surprisingly, some of the least regarded had given some of the best. Ultimately of course, the old idea that what we do is more important than what we say applies to inaugurals as well. DT is fond of quoting a saying attributed to St. Francis - "Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words."

How's the Book Going? - It's Here!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-22T08:48:00.001-08:00

Breaking News - "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" has been published!!!!

President Obama's Inaugural Address - Part I

2009-01-22T05:51:00.000-08:00

My running buddy (and intellectual buddy) DT (Deep Thinker) is an incredibly generous person. Just one example of this is how each December he spends time thinking up resolutions for the rest of the members of the running group. All designed to make for a better world, especially for DT himself. This generosity carries over to some of his favorite quotes from Shakespeare. While Macbeth is his special area of expertise, DT is particularly fond of a line from Hamlet - "Since brevity is the sole of wit, I shall be brief." DT really treasures brevity- especially in others.

All of this came to mind as I was thinking about President Obama's inaugural address to which I have two reactions - one a disappointment, the other positives. The disappointment is about the length of the speech and how it therefore, in my opinion, weakened it.

It's not that a speech of 20 minutes or so is inordinately long, it is more the question of length in inaugural addresses. Inaugural addresses are typically thought of as not being the time or place to get into a lot of detailed proposals. Rather they are an opportunity for a statement of vision, goals, values etc. or a discussion of one major subject. Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural is an example of the second kind of speech which reportedly lasted about 35 minutes. The focus of the speech was secession and Lincoln justifiably took the time for a detailed statement on the issues and why the nation should remain united. President Obama might have done something similar with the economic situation, but understandably he probably felt the need to address a broader spectrum of issues.

Lincoln's second inaugural which supposedly lasted only seven or eight minute, some 703 words.
Ronald White in his book, "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural" provides some excellent analysis of this kind of speech. One of his main points is that the opposite of verbosity is not brevity, but precision. And here lies what I felt was the weaknesses in the new President's speech. If the one in depth issue approach is not chosen, then it is important to be brief. Failing to do so creates the risk of falling into platitudes and cliches and/or providing a laundry list of values, vision that lacks the power it might have otherwise had. Unfortunately I found that to be true of much of the early part of the speech.

On the other hand, things changed towards the end of the speech. My thoughts on that and the good things in the speech (of which there were plenty) in a second post because I have still not reached the "soul of wit" goal that DT has set for me.

President Obama's Inaugural Address and New Jersey history - Perfect Together

2009-01-20T12:04:00.000-08:00

If I am going to write much about President Obama's inaugural address, I want to wait to read it and think about it, but there is one thing I can't resist saying. I thought the ending where he went back to the darkest days of the revolution and the battle of Trenton was inspired. My guess is that it is to some degree a Lincolnesque touch. Lincoln used the Gettysburg address to tie the Civil War into the Declaration of Independence. In the same way our new president tied our current problems to a time when the American spirit triumphed in the face of far greater odds. Even if that opinion is not correct, I just want to remind all of us where that happened - not in Massachusetts or Virginia, but here in our state - our New Jersey!!!

"Team of Rivals"

2009-01-20T05:01:00.000-08:00

One of my goals for 2009 is to keep a written record of all the books that I read this year. That's not hard to do in January, but I need the discipline of starting now. Last night I finished my second book, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prize winning "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." Finishing it reminded me of something that DT has pointed out several times recently - the trend towards authors writing a biography or narrative that focuses on specific issues and doesn't get bogged down in detailed academic writing. DT has always been a little cynical about academic writing.

Of course, the key to such writing is choosing the best point or points to focus on. Goodwin has always been good at this kind of thing, but in "Team of Rivals" she takes it to a whole new level. By focusing not just on Lincoln, but his cabinet (some of whom were his rivals for the Republican nomination) the reader learns about these complex characters and how they both helped and hindered the Union war effort. Perhaps more importantly we get a fuller picture of the multiple challenges that Lincoln faced as a minority president.

Of particularly emphasis and importance is how Lincoln was able to ignore the verbal "slings and arrows" of others, including his cabinet, in order to bring their gifts to bear on the Union cause. One of the best examples of this is his bringing Edward Stanton into his cabinet as Secretary of War although years before Stanton had been unconscionably rude to Lincoln when they were ostensibly working together on the Reaper case. One can only imagine what it would have been like if the hypo sensitive Andrew Jackson had been president at this time - regular duels between the president and his cabinet members. This may an illustration of a point I tried to make about Lincoln in another post - that this was a time where the man and the moment met - there were few other people before and since who could have led the country through this struggle.

I am reminded of something I read in Alan Jones' "Journey into Christ." Although I couldn't find the exact quote it is about an image that Jones found in Buddhism - the image of a bowl that holds all of our frustrations, bitterness, hurt from unfair treatment. We hold this bowl in front of us and the question is will we empty it on to the ground or pour it back into ourselves - thereby magnifying those negative feelings even more. Thought about like that the right course is obvious, but it is much easier to say than to do. If Lincoln dealing with such vast matters could do this perhaps there is a lesson for all of us.

It is important to also say that what Lincoln accomplishes in this way is without wavering on his principles. As Goodwin and other writers have shown convincingly, this is not adopting the lowest common denominator or allowing everyone to follow their own course. Lincoln hold firmly to his principles no matter what their cost.

One other thing that I want to praise about this book is how the author writes about the last days of Lincoln's life. If Greek tragedy is watching the main character struggle against a fate that they can't avoid, the last part of "Team of Rivals" dramatically portrays a president, a cabinet and even a nation thinking and hoping that as the war winds down better days are ahead when the audience knows otherwise. This magnifies the ultimate tragedy even more - brilliant writing.

Beowulf - The monsters

2009-01-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

Last summer I was re-introduced to "Beowulf," the early English poem which I had read part of in high school. I read the Seamus Heaney translation that came out some years ago and I enjoyed it a great deal. Trying to understand Beowulf is even harder than trying to understand Shakespeare and not just because of the language. As my intellectual friend, DT (Deep Thinker) and I were saying the other day, while there is no surviving documentation of Shakespeare's intentions, we at least know something of his sources which along with some other things gives us some guidance.

With "Beowulf" on the other hand, we don't even know the poet's name, much less what he read so there are few, if any, clues about his intentions. At some point in reading the poem last summer I was introduced to a famous essay by J. R. R. Tolkien (pictured left) about "Beowulf" called "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," which supposedly revolutionized the scholarly debate on "Beowulf."

One of the challenges of reading academic essays is that they are often written in an esoteric language that is almost impossible for the lay person to understand. I realize that some shared technical language is often necessary, but sometimes it severely limits those who appreciate the content. Yet I often find that if one avoids becoming concerned with understanding every word, one can find a lot of information that promotes a better understanding.

I had the opportunity to read Tolkien's essay over the past two days and other than some phrases in Latin and early English, his essay is fairly free of the more esoteric academic language. According to Tolkien many critics believed that the unimportant material in "Beowulf" is at the center of the poem (that is occupying a lot of space) while the important things are on the fringes. In this view the unimportant things are monsters - specifically Grendel, Grendel's mother and the dragon. Tolkien believes this view is wrong because the monsters are the important things in the poem - the primary means of exploring what for the poet are the important issues.

It seems clear how such a position could revolutionize "Beowulf" criticism. The monsters then become important symbols or metaphors, but symbols or metaphors for what. Interestingly Grendel and his mother are both connected to Cain, according to the bible, the first human born of a man and a woman. Tolkien refers to Grendel as being the enemy of God, yet in the bible, Adam says that he received Cain from God and then even after Cain kills Abel, God forbids anyone to kill him in for his crime. So there seems to be some inconsistency in Tolkien's position.

The dragon, on the other hand, who mortally wounds Beowulf before being killed by Beowulf is seen by Tolkien (or at least as I understand it) as a symbol or metaphor for death - for our own mortality. The issue then seems to be knowing that this final defeat awaits all of us, how to we respond to that defeat. The way Tolkien seems to phrase it if the dragon is faced heroically, the dragon wins the victory, but not the honor. I am not sure if this is intended by the poet or by Tolkien to extend to all of us, but with the recent death of my friend Edie Ewing, it certainly connects with some of my recent thoughts.

It is fascinating how something so ancient can still speak to us today. I am getting interested in learning a lot more about "Beowulf" and also turning my attention to the new translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" that I purchased about a year ago. It looks like DT and I will have a lot to talk about.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

2009-01-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

For the past five years I have been part of a running (running - not jogging) group that meets weekday mornings at 5:30 a.m. in Verona Park. The other day one of the more intellectual members who we will call "deep thinker" or DT for short asked me a question about mystery
stories. Usually literary conversation with DT is about his fascinating theory regarding the witches in Macbeth. But this time, he was looking for suggestions on mystery fiction.

A number of possibilities came to mind beginning with Dorothy Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, "The Nine Tailors" considered by many, including Sinclair Lewis, to be the greatest murder mystery of all time. Another possibility was Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone," technically not the first full length mystery novel in the English language, but effectively so. While these are great works that anyone would enjoy I fell back another classic, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

I first read this Sherlock Holmes classic when I was in the fifth or sixth grade and I have always regretted reading it that early in life, for at least two reasons. The first is that it scared me to the extent that I couldn't sleep at night. My mother then read it and said she understood why I couldn't sleep. The other reason is that I was far too young to understand or appreciate the intricacies of the plot, but by the time I was old enough I already knew what happened. On reflection now my negative feelings about having read it at such an early age have changed. While I might have appreciated the plot more when I was older, I don't have any confidence that age would have helped me figure out the mystery. In reading all 60 of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories, the only one I ever figured out was "The Adventure of the Speckled Band."

By coincidence I was on the web site of the Harvard (the St. Leo's of the north) Library the other day looking for information about a Lincoln symposium as part of the Lincoln bicentennial observations. I was surprised to also find information about a Conan Doyle symposium in May due to the fact that this is the sesquicentennial of Doyle's birth. It sounds like something that I might very well want to attend.

Both of these things happening more or less simultaneously re-awakened my interest in reading Sherlock Holmes stories. A couple of years ago Paul and Sarah gave me one volume of the new "Annotated Sherlock Holmes.'' In addition to having all of the stories it contains footnotes with a lot of commentary and background information. I started reading the introduction the other night and plan to start off with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in the near future.

Like most readers there are always some books and stories that I like to reread. Once again I got an idea about this from Elaine at Random Jottings who makes re-reading books and series of books a regular part of her reading schedule. I plan to do that at as well and there is no better place to start than by returning to a world where "fog rolls through the gas lit streets, a hansom cab waits at the door and the game is always afoot." Of course as DT knows the phrase "the game is always afoot" is drawn from Shakespeare - a popular line in Henry V's "Once more onto the breach" speech, but I think it appears earlier in "Henry IV, Part I."

Fiction - the Acid Test

2009-01-13T16:49:00.000-08:00

To me the acid test (a chemical test for true gold) of a writer of fiction is the ability of the author to create characters who's life experience are completely different than their own. For example, I really liked the late Bebe Moore Campbell's novel, "Brothers and Sisters" because as an African-American she created white characters who were not stereotypes. The same thing would be true of a white author writing about African-Americans and this idea goes beyond race.

As noted in an earlier post, I think Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) is a great writer well up there with all the great novelists. I am currently reading "Daniel Deronda," her last novel for the Victorian challenge and about about 200 pages into what is almost a 700 page book. I enjoyed the first part which is about a young woman in a structure that seems to be almost a parody of a Jane Austen novel including a line that seems to be almost a commentary on the famous opening line of "Pride and Prejudice."

The second section of the book turns to the title character who was already introduced as a young man. It picks up his story at the age of 13. While there is no resemblance between Deronda's life and my own, I found myself completely identifying with his feelings. It was almost scary the way Eliot as a woman who had not children of her own, could capture so perfectly the feelings of a young adolescent male. I have no idea where this book is going, but at the very least it illustrates why I think Eliot is such a great writer - she passes the acid test by producing literary gold.

The Challenge Begins

2009-01-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have written a number of times in this blog about how Elaine from Random Jottings has been a great source of authors who are new to me. Now I have something else to thank her for. About a week ago, Elaine wrote that she was

going take the Victorian challenge. I asked for more information which as always she gladly provided.

Organized by Alex from Paris, the challenge is to read from three to six books either about the Victorian era or that take place in the Victorian era. Since the Victorian novel is one of my primary reading interests this is something I had to sign up for. In my case it provides some structure for my reading and also helps me to achieve one of my goals - reading my way through the books that I already own.

The challenge began on January 1st and runs through June 30th. Given everything else that I have going on, I decided for once in my life to start modestly so I signed on for only three books. My choices are "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot (pictured upper right), "The Way We Live Now" by Anthony Trollope, (pictured center) and "Mary Barton" by Elizabeth Gaskell (pictured immediate right). Another reason for picking only three books is that both "Daniel Deronda" and "The Way We Live Now" are fairly lengthy.

Trollope is one of my favorite authors, I have read almost 20 of his novels which puts me about half way through his works. Gaskell is a new author to me so I am looking for a new experience. In the case of George Eliot, I have read all of her novels except this one and "Romola" which I think I am going to pass on.

I think Eliot is one of the greatest writers that I have ever read and the first 150 pages of this book has done nothing to change my opinion. I forgot to mention is that the other part of the challenge is the opportunity to post about one's reading on a blog(victorianchallenge.blogspot.com) that Alex has setup. I am not sure how I am going to work that with this blog so we will see how this develops. Anyway on with the challenge.

"American Lion" - Part III

2009-01-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

In "American Lion," Jon Meacham understandably focuses on the political aspects of the bank war and does not try to explain how the Bank of the United States (BUS) operated, how it impacted the economy and/or its impact on the average person of the time. In trying to write a book of less than 400 pages about someone like Jackson it would be almost impossible to get into that kind of detail. I didn't expect anything different, but I am still left with those and other questions unanswered and, thus far, unable to find a book with those answers.

Meacham does write about corruption issues in the bank and various inappropriate ways that it tried to influence public policy. At one point Meacham writes about how a congressman from North Carolina was originally anti-bank, but voted for the re-charter supposedly because he had received a $20,000 loan from the bank. If true this was clearly inappropriate. Yet while I did not see it in Meacham's book, I know I have read elsewhere that when Jackson had the federal government's deposits moved from the BUS to various state banks, the majority of those banks were, in fact, banks that supported Jackson. State banks it should be remembered were banks with state charters, they were private businesses and this kind of behavior doesn't seem any more appropriate than that attributed to the BUS.

Meacham does repeat a story that I had never heard before which suggests an almost paranoiac attitude on Jackson's part. Jackson's then Secretary of the Treasury, William Duane refused to go along with removing the federal deposits from the BUS so Jackson fired him. Nothing wrong with that, but supposedly afterwards Jackson believed that Duane was a secret agent for the BUS put into his cabinet to support the bank's interest. Given that a number of Jackson's supporters in the bank war (inlcuding his Vice President Martin Van Buren) opposed the removal of the deposits this seems like a highly irrational response on Jackson's part.

In his review of Meacham's book for the New York Times, Andrew Clayton, history professor at Miami of Ohio, praises the author's work, but suggests that an opportunity was missed to "reflect on the nature of American populism as personified by Jackson." As I understand it Clayton is questioning what happens when someone elected by the majority of the people thinks and acts as if his positions represent not just the majority, but the entire people. He then specifically asks "Was the United States better off without the Bank of the United States?"

I think that to answer that question one has to understand more about the bank and how it functioned in the economic world of its day especially its impact on every day life. It seems like the bank may have combined central bank functions (today's Federal Reserve) with commercial bank for profit functions. Under the best of circumstances that could lead to confusion about which function takes priority and how public funds held by the bank are used. But that doesn't mean that the best solution is simply to destroy the bank without anything to go in its place.

I guess what I am trying to say is that what I have read about the bank war seems incomplete. And until the issues raised here and in other posts are researched, analyzed and written about I am unconvinced that the bank was the evil that Jackson and others considered it to be. I would also like to see more analysis on the claims of the corruption of the bank and how it tried to inappropriately influence government and public policy. As noted previously the amount of energy I feel about this may be some kind of "calling" to take this on as a book, but as promised, no decisions about future books will be made until the end of 2009. I think my next step is to read Nicholas Govan's biography of Nicholas Biddle (President of the BUS - pictured above) and Bray Hammon's book about banking in the ante bellum United States. Until then at least this should be the last post about Andrew Jackson .

"American Lion" Part II

2009-01-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

In his book "American Lion," Jon Meacham understandably concludes that Andrew Jackson's greatest triumph was holding together the young country during the secession crisis of 1832-33.
Certainly Jackson's leadership at this time deserves high praise, combining clear warning that he would use force if necessary, but also giving South Carolina a way to back off while preserving some semblance of dignity.

While Meacham's praise for Jackson is well founded, it led me to reflect on what would have happened if someone other than Jackson had been president at that crucial time. In other words was this a meeting of the man and the moment such as Lincoln and the Civil War where it appears that no one else could have done what Lincoln did.

Historical speculation of this kind is both fascinating and risky. Suppose, for example, Jackson had died either between 1824 (the corrupt bargain election) and 1828 or some time during his first term as president. This was certainly a possibility as Jackson was in his 60's and not in good health.
It seems reasonable to conclude that in either case the presidency would have most likely been occupied by John Quincy Adams (right) and/or Henry Clay.

It would be hard to argue that either man would have been less than a Unionist than Jackson and both had qualities that Jackson lacked. The issue in 1832-33 was the tariff, but there already those in South Carolina who felt that the real underlying issue was slavery. As Meacham points out Jackson was a whole lot less interested in enforcing the constitution when it came to the right of abolitionists to send material through the mail to South Carolina. Adams, on the other hand, was opposed to slavery and his tenacity and skill in fighting the gag rule in the House of Representatives suggests that at the very least his position on the Union would have been more consistent and contributed to the anti-slavery cause.

No less committed to the Union than Adams or Jackson, Clay was a major force in the compromise that resolved the 1832-33 crisis as well as in the compromises of 1820 and 1850. Although a slaveholder, Clay was opposed to the war with Mexico that produced the territories that became the hot button issue of slavery expansion. Robert Remini has speculated that had Clay been president instead of Polk that the war would not have happened and the slavery issue might not have escalated so dramatically. He mentions other historians who believe that had Clay won what was a very close election that there would not have been a Civil War.

All of this is, of course, just speculation and is not to denigrate Jackson's role in resolving the secession crisis over the tariff. However it is still interesting to note that in Adams who was a president and Clay who could have been president there were to other leaders just as committed to the Union as Andrew Jackson. One more post to come on this book as I can't leave off without mentioning the bank war.