Saturday, August 17, 2013

Going back

So, it's Saturday evening, we just got back from seeing Tamar in a play in Hadley,  MA - part of a camp she was in this week. We've been cleaning house - the mildew and mold got to Ellen when we returned - mostly in the bedroom, but also in the buffet - when you opened the doors of the buffet the odor of mildew was powerful. It hadn't been cleaned and oiled for a long time. So we took everything out, washed and oiled the wood, washed all the dishes, and put them all back in. Then I cleaned the bedroom thoroughly, we aired, sunned and washed bed linens, pillows, clothes, etc. It's better.

Let me go back to our time in Bartlett. I finally got photos of our bedroom at Maggie and Jerry's - the guest room there is, as Dan put it, a "trip down memory lane" because the walls are covered with photographs of family members going back for decades. It's neat being reminded of loved ones. We sleep pretty well there because there is a window fan and a ceiling fan.



Here is a picture of the outside of the house.

Maggie and Jerry Hochberger's house in Bartlett, IL

We helped Maggie & Jerry with coffee hour at their church Sunday morning, and afterward we inspected the work that had been done on the side porch at "Whitewood" - Stewart's old house where Becky lives. Dennis has been working on it. The house has nice lines and a lot of potential.



Monday morning we had our traditional breakfast at Richard Walker's Pancake House in Schaumburg. It's always a nice way to end our visit.






On the trip back we had a late-ish supper at the Aladdin Eatery in Oberlin - another favorite place to stop to eat - it has fabulous middle eastern food and we always get the lentil soup and falafel cakes, which are always good.

Interior of the Aladdin


We stayed at a motel in Barkeyville, PA Monday night and Tuesday we stopped just to look at the Kinzua Dam just east of there (pronounced kin'-zoo). It was first proposed after a devastating flood in Pittsburg in 1936, but it was 1965 before it was completed. I think it was a very controversial dam  -  it flooded a large area, including 20 cemeteries.

Back of the dam - showing the combination of earth and concrete

The dam produces a lot of electricity - and there is a huge reservoir that water is pumped up into as a reserve.


Tuesday we drove to Schenectady, stayed in a motel and Wednesday I did some research on places Shirley lived and worked there the summer of 1953. More on that later.


Thursday, August 15, 2013

We're home

DAY 54: Just a quick note to say that we're home - got in late Wednesday afternoon. We left Chicago Monday morning, had supper at the Aladdin Eatery in Oberlin, stayed in Barkeyville, PA Monday night, went by the Kinzua Dam Tues, stayed in Schenectady Tuesday night, did some research Wed morning in Schenectady at the Historical Society - related to Shirley's work in Schenectady the summer of 1953, stopped by to see our friend John Nissen in Manchester, VT and got home around suppertime. I'll upload some photos when I get a chance - lots to do when you first get home!! It was wonderful to sleep in our own bedroom once again.


Sunday, August 11, 2013

Trip to Chicago

DAY 49: Saturday, late morning, we drove into Chicago to meet my nephew Daniel at his new condo in north Chicago near the lake. We ran into a traffic jam on the Kennedy Expressway, so it took longer than expected to get there, but we made it ok and with Dan's help found a free parking spot on the street. We saw his apartment, had lunch at the delightful Waterfront Cafe, just a few blocks from his place, and then walked around nearby Loyola University Chicago, Lakeside Campus, which is quite handsome. It was great to be with Dan and see his very nice digs! We drove back on local streets and went through some very interesting ethnic neighborhoods, for which Chicago is famous: Indian and Pakistani, Jewish, Swedish, Korean, etc. Much more interesting and pleasant than the Expressway, and faster too!

Dan's building. He's on the 7th floor, in the back.

Dan's living room

Waterfront Cafe

Dan, me and Ellen at the Cafe

The Chapel at Loyola University

The drive to Bartlett

DAY 48 (Cont'd): After breakfast we headed "cross-lots" to Louisiana, MO, where we would cross the Mississippi. That took us by Mexico, MO where we found Ozarkland, a temple of kitsch.


I couldn't begin to photograph everything but here are some samples:

These could actually be useful!




Across the Mississippi we went through Pittsfield, IL in Pike County, founded by emigrees from Pittsfield, MA.  Lincoln practiced law here and debated Stephen Douglas on the Courthouse lawn.The courthouse today was built after :Lincoln's time, but it is striking:

Pike County Courthouse

We originally thought we would go through Decatur and see Millikin Place, a wooden-block-paved street where there are five or six very beautiful homes, including one by Frank Lloyd Wright. But we decided we didn't have time to go even a bit out of the way, so we went through Springfield and stopped just to look at the Lincoln Home. We didn't have time for a tour, but we promised ourselves we'd come back - there is a lot to see and do in Springfield!

Lincoln Home in Springfield, IL


Friday, August 9, 2013

Goodbye, Columbia

DAY 48: We're packing up and saying goodbye to our loved ones here in Columbia and heading for Bartlett, IL where we'll be back with other dear ones. Looks like we'll make a trip into Chicago tomorrow to see Daniel and his new place. We've had a lovely time here in Columbia. I spent much of the day yesterday with Katie: we had breakfast together at the Upper Crust bakery and then I did some shopping with her for her new place and got to hear all about her recent trip out East with her friend Jessica (meanwhile Ellen got to write postcards - always a welcome time). They had quite an adventure! Katie is pretty resourceful! We also heard about her four intense days working as a grip for a documentary film crew that was making an educational film dealing with the issue of bullying. She loved the experience and they loved her enthusiasm, quick learning and hard work. It was a 6am-9pm job (with breaks for meals), and she learned a lot and wants to do it again. It was under the direction of the woman who teaches film at Stephens College and Katie may be able to take a course there. In the evening we looked at her photos from the big trip east and Rob made a delicious meal of scallops, fresh corn on the cob, pea pods and salad. We also got better acquainted with Gertie (Katie's chihuahua) who is a sweet dog but also having trouble making the adjustment to a new place. Katie's housemates are having to be patient. Hope it all works out!

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

More Fossils/Days 45-46


If you have been following this blog, you know that a few days ago we visited the Fossil Butte National Monument near Kemmerer, WY. It is one of several places in the National Park system, which seeks to preserve the integrity of a site rich in fossils. Since fossils are by nature very old and have an inherent value as well as beauty, people are attracted to them and collect them. It is likely that without the effort to preserve these sites, they would eventually disappear. 

This visit a few days ago is not the first time we have visited a fossil site. Earlier in this trip we went to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon (see the post titled "John Day Country" for July 13, 2013), and last year we visited another part of the John Day site (there are three locations in all) - the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, which is very similar to the center and exhibits at Fossil Butte N.M. (See my post titled Thomas Condon, dated July 28, 2012. Condon was a Congregational minister who became a paleontologist in the latter half of the 19th century). And if you go back in my blog to August 13, 2010 ("Creation and Evolution") you'll find a fairly long discussion of the issue of the role which the theory of evolution (a theory in which fossils play a big part) has played in the development of religious faith, especially Christian faith, and the tension between modes of faith which seek to incorporate evolution and those that deny its validity, e.g., Christian fundamentalism and biblical literalism.

While we were at the Fossil Butte N.M., I began to think, perhaps a little more deeply than before, about the whole notion of a "fossil." I became curious about what people of an earlier time thought they were looking at when they found, and held in their hands, what today we call a "fossil" - i.e., the "fossilized" (i.e., "petrified") remains of a living creature which had lived millions of years ago. It must have been impossible for them to understand, in any way like what we think we do, what they were seeing . I asked the ranger about  this, and he had some things to say about people like Leonardo di Vinci, who already had some theories about the origins of "fossils' in the 16th century, and also about the biblical account of Noah's Flood, and how it was used in earlier times to "explain" how a "fossil" of a fish could be found on the top of a hill in the middle of a desert!  However, he was a little fuzzy about it all - as he readily confessed. So I went to the bookstore section of the visitor center and my eye immediately fell upon a book titled, The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Paleontology, by Martin J.S. Rudwick, published by the University of Chicago Press (not too shabby an outfit).  The blurbs on the back cover, including one by Stephen J. Gould (who said that this book had "rewritten (his) view of the subject,") seemed to recommend it, and a quick survey of chapters confirmed that it would probably answer my questions. So I bought it, and I've been reading it aloud as we go along, and indeed, it does address my questions and it is a very clearly written, very readable, and very fascinating discussion of how people have tried to understand what a "fossil" is, and how the intellectual climate of a given time has led them to one or another interpretation of the meaning of what they were seeing when they looked at a fossil.

            The term "fossil" means, originally,  "dug up" (from Latin fodere -"dig" > fossilis "dug up."). The early studies of "fossils" included a great many things, like, e.g., gemstones, minerals, and other inorganic materials, that would not be called "fossils" today. The book begins in the 16th century with a naturalist in Germany, Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), whose book, On Fossil Objects, was a preliminary survey of all sorts of things that had been "dug up" either by Gesner himself, or had been sent to him by other naturalists. Gesner organized these items into categories which he found useful, and many of them he illustrated with woodcut drawings. Gesner's work was cut short by an early death due to the plague, but his work incorporated three very important innovations of the time: (1) an encyclopedic effort to survey the entire field, using illustrations based on personal observation; (2) the development of actual collections - fossil "museums" - where other naturalists could examine the specimens for themselves, and (3) the creation of scholarly communities in which individual naturalists shared their work. All three of these innovations contributed in important ways to the development of modern science.

            In categorizing his "fossils," Gesner had to deal with three important factors: matter, form and position. I.e., what was the "fossil" made of, what was its shape and design, and where had it been found?  For example, let's say he is looking at a stone-like object (matter) shaped and marked very much like a shark's tooth, but much larger than what would be found in the mouth of any known living shark (form and design) found inside a rock on a hillside in central Italy (position). A modern paleontologist looking over Gesner's shoulder, so-to-speak, would have no hesitation explaining this object as the petrified remains of the actual tooth of an extinct species of shark deposited in the sediment at the bottom of a sea which existed millions of years ago over what is now a dry hillside. But for Gesner, that explanation would have been irrational and hard to imagine. As a philosopher/naturalist, he had at hand what were for him two much more plausible explanations. As a Renaissance humanist, he was a committed Aristotelian. Aristotle, and his successors, had developed the concept of  the "spontaneous generation" of a stone-like form "in situ," growing in a way analogous to the growth of a living organism, much as a stalactite grows in a cave. That it looked like a shark's tooth (albeit a very large shark's tooth), might be fortuitous (e.g., nature not infrequently creates a form that looks like another natural form or even a man-made object, without there being any causal relationship), or it might look like a shark's tooth because the "seed" of the form of a shark's tooth had been implanted in the earth either through a subterranean spring, or possibly as the result of a flood like the biblical Noah's flood. Also very popular in Gesner's time was a Neoplatonic explanation:  the entire universe is bound together, from top to bottom, by a mystical harmony, a "life force," which can create analogous forms at every level. Either of those explanations would have seemed more "rational" than the idea that the hillside he was standing on was once at the bottom of an ancient ocean populated by huge creatures no longer to be found anywhere on earth.

DAYS  45-46: We drove from Craig, CO to Colby, KS. We stayed last night st the Elk Run Motel:


The scenery on the drive through the Rockies was gorgeous:


We stopped in Arvada (a suburb of Denver) to visit my old seminary friend Robb Lapp, his wife, Jan, and their great-granddaughter, Aubrey, who is ten. Robb and Jan are raising Aubrey, not easy for a couple in their 80's!



We drove on to Colby, KS where we stayed at Budget Inn & Suites.


After Colby we took Route 24 east - we stopped in Cawker City, KS to see the Largest Ball of Twine in the World!



Cawker City has suffered the collapse of the family farm. The fields around Cawker City are flourishing, but the people have left, and the town is dying.

Main Street, Cawker City, KS

As we pushed on toward Columbia, MO we went through a storm. With the sun behind us in the west and the storm clouds ahead in the east, it was dramatic!


Monday, August 5, 2013

Fossils

DAY 44: Today was our departure day. We've had a wonderful visit, and we said goodbye to Paul, Jenny, Christian and Susan, Max

and to Gene


and headed down the road to Fossil Butte National Monument, near Kemmerer, WY. What an amazing place. 53 million years ago, Fossil Butte


was at the bottom of a large lake. There is an 18-inch layer of sedimentary rock about halfway up this butte which contains billions of fossils. They were first noticed in the mid-19th century. Since then they have supplied paleontologists with an incredible amount of information about what is called the Green River Formation. Many are of ancient fish. I liked this one of a 53-million year old damselfly:


The Visitor's Center had an interesting and educational exhibit in which as you drove along you traveled the time from the big bang to the present - c. 13 billion years, with each major development marked by signs. As I recall, each inch = 9 million years.


After a picnic we took a Scenic Drive with spectacular views


and then took a 1.5 mile hike on the Chicken Creek trail, which went up close to the Butte.

Looking down from the Butte to the parking area where we left the car.
After Fossil Butte we drove down by Flaming Gorge - another amazing spot


We drove down an 8% grade to Vernal, UT, and then over to Craig, CO, which is where we are now, at the Elk Run Inn. 





Sunday, August 4, 2013

A big event

DAY 42: Last night (Saturday evening) we attended what was clearly a big event for this area: the Demolition Derby which is part of the Lincoln County Fair. I had seen one demolition derby before in my lifetime. This one was a little different, in that the first few heats involved cars racing in a figure-eight: it was a lot more like bumper cars than pure demolition, though there were a lot of collisions. We left early because Max wanted to go home, but we understand from those who stayed to the end that the later heats involving pickup trucks were demolition pure and simple: trucks bashing into each other and the last one standing won. In the bleachers, it was standing room only, and it obviously was a huge event for the Star Valley. There was a little undertone of political theater too: the car that got the greatest roar of approval, and ultimately won the car heats ( much to everyone's delight)  had the word "Nobama" sprayed on the side.

We felt we were really slumming, but it it's own bizarre way it's sort of fun. I suppose it touches some deeply primal need vicariously to enjoy behavior that is normally forbidden. I know enough about the history of religion to know that primitive religions the world over included a festival - often at the New Year - in which all the usual rules were suspended for a day. Mircea Eliade, the great historian of religion, called it "the Myth of the Eternal Return." Civilization is temporarily "wiped clean" and you start over. But during that "wiped clean" phase, anything goes. Our culture's New Year's Eve celebrations and New Year's resolutions still have a vestige of that older ritual in them. Maybe there is an element of that in a Demolition Derby. There may also be an element of catharsis. The ancient Greeks believed that theater had a cathartic element that was essential for the successful continuation of society. Demolition Derbies are a form of theater. Maybe the impulse to smash things gets expressed vicariously and the roads are a bit safer as a result. Let's hope so.

Introducing the cars to the crowd

Running on the rim!

The winner! Battered but unbowed.

Another feature of the past couple of days was that Paul and Christian went kayaking on the Snake River. Susan dropped them off at the put-in spot, and then waited for them at the take-out a few miles downstream. Ellen and I went to an overlook for a Class 3 rapids inbetween,  called The Big Kahuna. We watched then come through, saw Paul's inflatable kayak get overturned in the rapids, watched him right it again, with Christian helping as he climbed back in. Before they came through, we saw a lot of others overturn as well, including some big rafts. It was almost another sort of demolition derby! I got a video of Paul capsizing:




And I got a nice shot of them resting after their ordeal and before they headed into the next rapids:

Catching a breather
One evening we had a lovely supper of chile and salad that Ellen had made (and cherries Susan and Christian brought), and it was the perfect temperature for eating on the back deck, which is shaded in the late afternoon. Gene and Claire, Christian and Susan, all joined Paul, Jenny, Ellen and myself, for a great meal (Max had eaten earlier and was upstairs playing in his room).

The buffet is ready

The group gathers: Claire and Gene on the left; Susan and Christian on the right; Paul has his back to the camera.

Paul and Christian help themselves

DAY 43: Sunday morning, Claire, Jenny and Max went for a little picnic on a nice spot on the Gray's River Road, and Max played in the stream. Paul and Christian went to a driving range and practiced golf swings. Ellen and Susan took the dogs for a walk and visited. I went to church at Star Valley United Church to say goodbye to pastor Steve Crittenden, who will be leaving in September for Twin Falls, ID. He shared with me the housing dilemma they face as a family. Neither the Star Valley church nor the Twin Falls Church has a parsonage, so they own a house at Star Valley Ranch, a nearby development, mostly retired folks (who form a large part of the congregation) but some younger families. He said that on their block, there are currently eight houses for sale! So, no likelihood of a quick sale. His wife and daughter will stay for at least part of the year to let their daughter finish high school. Steve will rent modest quarters in Twin Falls in the meantime. But it will be hard for them to relocate as a family until they can sell their home. He bemoaned the fact that churches have largely given up on parsonages.

My parents lived only in parsonages (my dad was a minister), and thus never built up any equity in a home, and when dad died, in 1957, they were living in the parsonage in Onawa, Iowa. My mother was penniless and homeless - she had to move out of the parsonage to make room for the new minister. She moved in with Shirley and me in the Dummerston parsonage. If they had owned a home, she would have had a place to live. It's a dilemma.

A couple of people at church said they wished I could come be their pastor when Steve leaves. I replied somewhat lightly that it would be a long commute! The next time we visit I may be asked to fill the pulpit, but it is also possible that by then they will have found an interim pastor.


Saturday, August 3, 2013

Access issues

DAY 42 (Sat., August 3): Internet access issues have been resolved. The router just needed to be rebooted. So today Ellen and Susan Gelletley went off to the Lincoln County fair with Max. I didn't quite get up in time to get on the train, so to speak.  I think Christian and Paul have a plan to do something on the water. Not sure what Jenny is up to. Maybe I'll just hang out, read and talk a walk, or maybe I can figure out a way to get to the fair.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Down time

DAYS 38-40: This has been a quiet time. Max has been running a fever off and on, and been alternately listless and full of energy, so he has not gone to play group since Tuesday and we've been looking after him during the day. This has made for a mostly low-key, quiet time. We watched Alice In Wonderland earlier today - the old Disney movie, which I hadn't seen for a long time. Short walks,  trip to the Library, doing little activities with Max to keep him amused, working on computer, reading. We went to the Farmer's Market in Alpine this evening. Paul, Ellen and I played Scrabble (Paul and Ellen tied for first). Christian and Susan arrived later this evening - they will stay in their van with Fritz and Ella. We'll do something tomorrow.