First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Jim Rix, on bad-hair day

The purpose of a hat used to be to protect the head from sun in the summer and cold in the winter. Now it's to turn this

into this

without having to waste time in the morning taking a shower.

Chuck Smythe, in the Wallowas and the San Juans

I’ve been out running around. A week in the Wallowas (first photo below), 4 days at home, a week in the San Juans (second photo).
    I’m going to sleep for a week.

[Click to go see the Panorama]

James T. Carney, on campaign

Probably my biggest activity last month was going on a Civil War trip. This is an annual trip by a group of USS retirees—primarily Law Department, but some from the finance department. Each year we make a trip to a Civil War battlefield or, more accurately, a Civil War campaign.
    Although I have always been interested in the Civil War since I was a kid, I had always thought of it as a series of battles without any real thought as to why the battles occurred when and where they did. These Civil War trips have led me to a more sophisticated view of the War in the sense that we have focused on the campaigns (and strategy) which led to the battles as opposed to the battles themselves. Of course, some of this emphasis is dues to the fact that the age and physical condition of the group has precluded the kind of all-day hike one needs to really understand the logistics of the battle. Regardless, however, it is far more realistic to look at the Civil War (or any war) as a campaign with strategic objectives and battles as incidents (although tremendously important incidents) that occur along the way.
    One advantage of the campaign approach is that one realizes the significance of the geography. For example, standing on the Cumberland River beside Fort Donelson in Tennessee (which was the first of the three campaigns/battles in which U.S. Grant forced the surrender of three separate Confederate armies), one sees how the river was a broad highway on which the Union forces and Union gunboats could invade the South.
    I find that actually visiting sites of a campaign—or a battle—gives me a far better understanding of what happened than any written description. One of my most interesting experiences on these trips was a couple of years ago when we went to Pittsburgh and we walked the route of Pickett’s charge from Seminary Ridge to Cemetery Ridge. Although Gettysburg did not seem at the time the turning point of the War, the reality was that the Army of Northern Virginia never recovered from the losses it suffered there, particularly from Pickett’s charge. To paraphrase Churchill’s statement about El Alemain, before Gettysburg the Army of the Potomac never saw a victory; after Gettysburg, it never saw a defeat. While the fall of Vicksburg the day after Pickett’s charge may have been more significant from a strategic standpoint, Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg marked the beginning of the end for the Army of Northern Virginia and with that army, the defeat of the Confederacy.

James Knudsen, in towns all around

Tulare, San Diego, Millington, Oceanside, Ginowan, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Oildale, Hollywood, Salinas, Cheonan, Brentwood, Venice, Sherman Oaks, Highland Park, Sonora, Coronado...the list of places where I've lived, for a period of more than a couple of months, is fairly long. Well, it seems long to me. For the last week I've been in another place, Cathedral City, California. Cathedral City is home to the people who work in the posh hotels, restaurants and spas of Palm Springs. I'm here to provide assistance in caring for my dad, it's a two-person job.
    Today I took a short drive around Cathedral City, not my first. But today was unique because as I cruised the wide boulevards that criss-cross this bedroom community I asked myself, “could I live here?”
    Now, if there is one characteristic that applies to me it is adaptability. I can, I have adapted to all of the places I've lived. But there in lies a question- If one adapts is one at home? To adapt is to change one's appearance, lifestyle, habits. If you're at home you don't feel any need to adapt...do you?

The Rogers, in Costa Rica

Hello from Costa Rica! We haven’t done a lot of fun things this mouth. Janie, my wife, went back to the States for twenty days and I took care of a few projects that had been pending. She had a lot of good time with family, while I had the cat. The cat vanished for three days and I wasn’t looking forward to telling her the cat was gone, as it was her birthday. The cat came home Sunday morning. Look for a story later, which I plan to title “The Gringo Who Stole the Nino’s Gato.”

Typical rash of dengue fever

    After her return, I and a Costa Rican who lives up the hill from us bricked and screened in our front porch. Dengue fever is bad during the wet season and we like to have our coffee outside on nice mornings. Lot of work for an old men, but we knocked it out in a day and a half after Janie got back.
    We are planning on doing some traveling next month, should have more to tell by then.
                                        Pura Vida, Ed & Janie

Paul Clark, aka motomynd, in waiting

Paul Clark, aka Motomynd, reports his planned cross-country ride on a motorcycle, and a return trip to California in August so he and his wife can further research their planned move there, have both been pushed to the back burner by a much larger undertaking. No word yet what this more important project may be, but we do know Paul has been very busy blogging and writing articles about Edward Snowden and the NSA controversy for a variety of media outlets. We are wondering if he is possibly headed for Russia. We hope he isn't feeling the need to practice escape tactics for fear he may wind up with an extended stay as a "visitor" to Guantanamo Bay.

André Duvall, in Greensboro

After having a fantastic experience working at the UNCG Summer Music Camp for two weeks, followed by an intense historical piano workshop with fortepianists Malcom Bilson, Andrew Willis, and David Breitman, I am spending my final days as a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina. I am moving to Memphis, Tennessee shortly after the middle of the month. I will be working on my dissertation over the next several months, and I have good opportunity for private studio teaching and freelancing in the Memphis area during this transition period. Over the next two weeks, I'll be tying up many loose ends: selling furniture, helping the new person who is taking my position to transition into the new job, cleaning, visiting friends, visiting neighboring towns and state parks, and finally, packing. I will miss many aspects of my time here, but I will certainly have occasion to return for visits as I make progress with my document.

The Neumanns, in somber mood

The Pineapple people are a little maudlin after the death of a friend and won't be providing further July update.

Geoffrey Dean, in his thirteenth KMF year

For the 13th consecutive year I spent the month of July in residence at the Killington Music Festival in Vermont. Near the peak of Killington mountain, a popular winter sports destination but relatively unpopulated in the summer, I enjoyed mild temperatures and great chamber music performances (as both listener and performer) throughout the month. I also got to visit the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts in an early-July excursion with my parents.

Heading for the Whaling Museum entrance with my mother

A poster outside the museum
(Rotch-Jones-Huff House shown in upper right corner)
[Click to enlarge for reading]

[Click to enlarge for reading]

    Besides Vermont and Massachusetts, I infrequented the Baker-Berry and Paddock libraries at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. "Infrequented" because I only made it to Hanover twice this year, in contrast to 3 or 4 times in previous summers. Hopefully I'll have better luck, or planning, next year.

Morris Dean, in mind of whaling
    Following a visit with our son at the Killington Music Festival, we and he traveled down to New Bedford to see its whaling museum and the Bethel Chapel, where a plaque identifies the pew Herman Melville sat in before embarking on a whaling expedition in January 1841. Wonderful museum!

Panorama of New Bedford's harbor from museum observation deck [click to enlarge]

A poster at the Rotch-Jones-Huff House
[Click to enlarge for reading]

    And we learned that Moby Dick is given a public reading every January, a different person reading each chapter, and the whole reading (we were told) taking about 24 hours.
    Later in the month, my wife and I visited character Jack Cover and his wife at their home in North Raleigh. Jack was in good spirits and looking a lot better (we were told) than he had two weeks earlier. He ate well and enjoyed listening as Mrs. Cover told us about being arrested at a Moral Monday rally. But, as Jack would agree, he always his wife. We do too, and we have treasured our friendship with the Covers ever since we attended their wedding on December 21, 1991, in Charlotte.
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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

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