The Absorbing Errand
"True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand." - Henry James
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Shenango Valley Trolley/Time Line
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
On this particular visit we had lunch at my favorite place in Oakland and then set off for the Phipps Conservatory. I was kind of on the fence about whether this was a good way to spend the day, I really had no idea what to expect. I was stunned by the overpowering beauty and sheer magnitude of what has been put together there. I was delighted with the visit, and would encourage anyone who is in the area to pay the Conservatory a visit. I doubt it will disappoint you.
The Phipps Conservatory is a two acre Victorian greenhouse that was a gift to the City of Pittsburgh by philanthropist Henry Phipps Jr. Phipps was a partner of Andrew Carnegie in the days of Carnegie Steel. Like Carnegie, Phipps believed that along with wealth came a moral responsibility to use some of that wealth to benefit the public at large. He built the conservatory at Oakland in 1893 at the edge of Schenley Park. Since then literally thousands of botanical specimens, both common and rare, have been added to the Botanical Garden's collection. The Conservatory houses a Palm Court, an Orchid Room, a Butterfly Room, a Tropical Fruit and Spice Room, a Desert Room and several more interior displays. Outside there is a Japanese Courtyard Garden, A Kid's Discovery Garden and an Aquatic Garden.
We were also fortunate enough to have gone when they had fine glass work by Dale Chihuly and Hans Godo Frabel both on display as we caught them in the process of moving the Chihuly display out and the Frabel display in. All very nice.
In all I took over 100 photographs, some of which I offer here as a slide show. This is the first slide show I have created in this manner so please forgive me if it goes horribly wrong...
Friday, April 24, 2009
A Tale of Two Well(e)s
Back in 1938 one of the most eagerly awaited radio shows of the week was the Chase and Sanborn Hour that aired at eight o’clock on Sunday evenings. This program featured, as many of the shows at that time did, interludes of band and dance music to entertain the listeners. What the Chase and Sanborn Hour had that the others did not was the duo of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. The show was extremely popular and was far and away the champion of all Sunday evening broadcasts. One would think that a ventriloquist act would lose some of its magic over the radio, but it was popular.
On the evening of October 30th, 1938 countless families gathered around their radios at eight, like they had every Sunday night, to hear Mr. Bergen and his wooden friend. At about twelve minutes after the hour, Nelson Eddy came on the air for a musical performance. Today we may grab the remote and fly through the channels looking for something more interesting to enjoy while the interlude was on the air. The radio listeners of the day dial surfed, and a good many of them at that. Most ended up on CBS expecting to hear the Mercury Theater on the Air show. What they heard caught many of them about as off guard as people can be.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Carl Phillips again, at the Wilmuth Farm, Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. Well, I hardly know where to begin, to paint for you a word picture of the strange scene before my eyes, like something out of a modern Arabian Nights.
Well then, the listeners thought, what could be so important in New Jersey that would force the regularly scheduled program aside for a live news flash. Maybe we better leave the dial alone and find out what is up.
I just got here, I haven’t had a chance to look around yet. I guess that’s it. Yes, I guess that is the… thing, directly in front of me, half buried in a vast pit. Must have struck with terrific force.
Military airplane crash or possibly, worse yet, a secret weapon from Nazi Germany?
The ground is covered with splinters of a tree it must have struck on its way down. What can I see of the object itself doesn’t look very much like a meteor, at least not the meteors I’ve seen. It looks more like a huge cylinder.
What the unwitting audience had fallen for was a carefully and brilliantly organized hijacking of the radios of the country that night. The coup was the brainchild of Mercury Theater producer Orson Welles. His show had been consistently haunted with poor ratings because of Chase and Sanborn’s dominance. Tonight however, he would hold the dial surfers in his spell for the next hour and beyond.
The dramatization was of the science fiction novel “War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The story was followed very loosely, with the dialog, geography and technology updated to fit a 1938 audience (the original was first published in 1897). By the time that the fictional Martians started emerging from their cylinders and wielding their lethal heat ray an amazing amount of the listeners began to take it as an actual news story. Panic ensued across the country. A mass hysteria about the Martians advancing on New York threw the entire city into gridlock. The aliens were shooting down planes, vaporizing people and emitting a black poisonous gas that was instantly lethal. What was the use of going back to the other network to fact check these claims? It was far easier to panic and run.
Eventually, at one point in the show, CBS broadcast supervisor Davidson Taylor had received so many reports of the mayhem that he stormed into the studio and halted the play, much to the displeasure of Welles and partner John Houseman. They were to make an announcement immediately that the program was not live news, merely a dramatization of a classic book. The players were led to believe that there were thousands dead in the panic when in actuality nothing but a few bruised bodies, and more than a few bruised egos had been collected throughout the night.
This is Orson Welles ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that the “War of the Worlds” has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be, the Mercury Theater’s own version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying BOO!
Then it was over. People went home feeling very foolish indeed for having been so gullible. The public was outraged over the incident, but as is common with many pranks and practical jokes they regained their sense of humor and laughed at themselves. Orson Welles was tagged a irresponsible broadcaster, then an inexperienced young entertainer and finally a genius. He of course went on to create one of the greatest films of all time, “Citizen Kane”. Undoubtedly that night in New York was what launched the young man's occasionally brilliant career.
One would think that you could never pull this prank off again, but it has been attempted a few times. On Halloween 1968, WKBW radio in Buffalo, New York reworked the skit for their own use and put it on the air. A full twenty one days before the broadcast the station ran an announcement about the coming program every hour on the hour to avoid any panic. Still the Buffalo police fielded nearly four thousand phone calls resulting from panic over the show, and the Canadian National Guard sent troops to the Queenston, Peace and Rainbow Bridges to make sure the aliens did not cross.
Unfortunately another broadcast in another part of the world ended tragically. In February of 1944 a Ecuadorian radio station in Quito attempted the broadcast the play with no advanced warning. The play was being preformed in the El Comercio building that also housed the capital’s newspaper. That night the result was the same in one respect, thousands of citizens frightened out of their wits running around the city. Quickly the radio station announced that the show was a hoax, at which time the citizenry went directly to the El Comerico building and began to riot. By the time it was over the building was burnt to the ground and twenty radio station employees were killed.
Could we be fooled by this same hoax today? I think that we are far too advanced and informed to accept a story of this caliber without fact checking the information we would be receiving and immediately identifying it as a joke. We are the most sophisticated, technologically advanced people who have ever lived. We have the internet to call upon for these questions.
Those folks listening breathlessly to the horrors being witnessed in Grover’s Mills were the most sophisticated and technologically advanced people who had ever lived back in 1938. The radio was their internet, but very few took the time to turn that dial…
Italicized script denotes actual transcript of the 1938 Mercury Theater broadcast.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Lets Make a Deal
Let’s play a little game.
Four lasts of rye
Four fat oxen
Eight fat swine
Twelve fat sheep
Two hogsheads of wine (63 gallons each)
Four tuns of beer (a tun was approx 283.5 gallons)
Two tuns of butter
One thousand pounds of cheese
A complete bed
A suit of clothes
A silver drinking cup
I recently read a wonderful book on the ginseng trade called “Ginseng, the Divine Root” by David A. Taylor which reminded me of the Tulipomania story that I had read years ago in a book titled “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” by Charles MacKay. This work was first published in 1841 and many of the examples and accounts used in this post are from this work. The book has chapters on manias caused by slow poisoning, alchemy, Nostradamus, mesmerism and many others. I would encourage all to read both of these works, they are quite interesting.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Old News, New News
On November 28th, this year’s version of the “Black Friday” kickoff to the holiday shopping season, the senseless violence and disregard for human life manifested itself again. A Wal-mart employee was trampled to death by over zealous bargain hunters in New York, and a gunfight erupted in a Toys-r-Us store in Riverside California leaving both gunmen dead. When shoppers were informed of the employee’s death and asked to clear out of the New York Wal-mart, several customers protested that they had waited hours outside to get in and continued their shopping. In Riverside, the gunmen having been the only killed or wounded in a toy store full of adults and children is somewhat miraculous.
Why can’t we as a society just go back to the “good old days”? My belief is quite simple. There were no “good old days”.
I believe that these types of senseless violence are nothing new at all. I think that incidents like the ones described above have always happened in some form. I think that the major difference is that we have access to so much news that some think that it this kind of tragedy is a modern day phenomenon.
My premise is this. All of these awful things that we hear about now, chances are we would have been unaware of not so many years ago. A murder, child abduction or senseless tragedy that takes place today is on CNN and hundreds of other news outlets in minutes. Everyone around the globe sees the event unfold, sometimes with live video feeds. A child abduction or shots fired by a disgruntled employee in small town America that is front page news in 2008, may or may not have made the half hour national news broadcast in 1978, and may not have appeared a newspaper two hundred miles away in 1918. But it still went on.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Transylvanian Saxons
For Michael and Jordan……
Transylvania. The word alone brings to mind lightning plagued castles, darkness and fog, and a pale man with odd teeth wearing a black cape. If asked, most people will inform you that Transylvania is a fictitious land that was created by Bram Stoker as a scene for a story. It was never a real place, or was it?
Back in the 10th century, after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, a land called the Hungarian Kingdom arose between the Byzantine and German Empires. The people of this land were called Magyars, and they were a pagan and aggressive people. The Magyars terrorized western Europe in the first half of the 10th century, looting and burning villages as far away as Spain and northern Germany. In 955, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I handed the Magyars a crushing defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld and ended the Magyars raiding days for good. This defeat was taken as a omen by the Magyar leader Duke Geza, and he converted to Christianity and organized a state.
As the country grew geographically, a problem arose for Geza’s son who was baptized Stephen I. His expanding kingdom did not have enough population to settle on, develop and defend his widening borders. A large portion of the land he had conquered was called Transylvania, or “land beyond the forests”. Stephen had a unique plan to solve his border problem, he would invite citizens of other countries to settle in these lands. He would entice them with land ownership, unheard of for commoners in feudal Europe, and by granting privileges and perks to these guest settlers. Each group could negotiate a deal with the rulers, and the privileges granted were many.
One such group came from Germany sometime around 1200. The Magyars were very short on skilled tradesmen and miners to take advantage of the many natural resources to be found in Transylvania. The German group filled the need perfectly and were able to negotiate a particularly good deal with the Magyars. These settlers were and are still known as the Transylvanian Saxons. For centuries the privileges given to these settlers were honored by whomever ruled Transylvania at that given time.
In 1526 Transylvania fell under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and again the Saxons were well treated, but wars with the Habsburg Monarchy landed Transylvania in their control in 1683. For the next two centuries the Transylvanian Saxons would be systematically stripped of all special privileges due to the Habsburg obsession with uniformity. The Monarchy believed that there should be no ethnic separation in their dominion, and all citizens in Transylvania were pushed down to the same social and political standing as the lowest subject. All were equal and at the bottom of the barrel except the ruling class, just as the Habsburgs liked it. The final insult came with the absorption of Transylvania by Hungary. The Saxons now had no independent identity, no political clout and no country to point to on a map. In 1867 they were treated to the coronation of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef as their King.
Things had deteriorated indeed.
For further information visit:
http://www.saxonlodge.org/
http://www.atsaxons.com/
Upper Picture: Saint Stephan of Hungary, or Stephan 1 from Wikipedia
Lower Picture: Alliance of Transylvanian Saxon fraternal organization logo, Cleveland Oh.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Mr. Hume's Honorable Absorbing Errand
This past week I had the good fortune of spending yet another week of vacation time at Cape May NJ. Cape May is amongst my favorite places to be on the planet. A laid back atmosphere, clean beaches, wonderful food and spectacular Victorian architecture are just a few of the many pleasures that the resort town has to offer. Through a system of rigorous saving and financial wizardry on the part of my wife we were able to return to our beach getaway for the seventh time. We never get tired of the town. I doubt we ever will.
One of the things that we put aside at least one evening to do on every visit is to attend the flag ceremony that takes place at Sunset Beach every evening from May to the end of October. This beach is one of the most beautiful places to watch a sunset on the east coast. The scene is a fitting backdrop for a deeply touching event that has been a labor of love and deep respect for a very special man that I had the honor to speak with on this trip.
Our story starts in Collingswood New Jersey where in the 1930s three boys became very close friends. These boys were Joseph Hittorff, Walter Simon and Marvin Hume. As is the case with most groups of school friends there came a time when schooling was over and each boy had to choose a path to follow into adulthood. For Joseph and Walter the United States Navy was the path chosen, and for Marvin it was college.
A few weeks before Christmas of 1941 Marvin Hume’s life, along with the lives of all Americans, was changed forever by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. This attack robbed Mr. Hume of both of his boyhood friends, Ensign Joseph Hittorff was aboard the USS Oklahoma and Seaman 1st Class Walter Simon was assigned to the USS Arizona. Serving his country in the wake of this cowardly attack was a moral imperative for the heartbroken Hume. He left school and served in the Navy for three years, during which time he saw firsthand the horrors of warfare.
When Mr. Hume finished his service he took a job with McDonnell Aircraft as an engineer, but a lifelong love for minerals, gemstones and fossils led him to abandon aeronautics and open a mineral and fossil shop on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Business at the store was good, and Mr. Hume expanded his business into the wholesale of fossils and minerals to other retailers. One of his customers was the owner of a stretch of beach and gift shop in West Cape May named Preston Shadbolt. One day while making a delivery to Shadbolt’s shop, Mr. Hume was asked if he would be interested in purchasing the property because Shadbolt was ready to retire. A price was set, and a gentleman’s deal was sealed with a handshake that very day.
Preston Shadbolt was an avid Kate Smith fan, and each night when he took the flag down from the old wooden flagpole he played her rendition of “God Bless America”. It had become a tradition over the years, and Mr. Hume assured Mr. Shadbolt that this tradition would continue at Sunset Beach. Marvin Hume not only continued this tradition, but expanded upon it to make it what it is today.
He decided that he would put a twist on the ceremony, and at the same time honor his lost boyhood friends and all other soldiers who fought, and some who died for their country in WWII. Mr. Hume put out a single advertisement in the paper asking if anyone had a casket flag of a veteran that they would like to have flown and taken down with honor at Sunset Beach. This was the first and only ad he needed, flags were being offered at an astonishing rate by families, and some donated by various veterans organizations.
The ceremony, which begins about fifteen minutes before sunset begins with the reading of a brief biography of the individual veteran who is being honored that evening. Then a moment of silence followed by Preston Shadbolt’s favorite “God Bless America” by Kate Smith. Then the National Anthem is played and then Taps as the flag is lowered and taken into hand by Mr. Hume and members of the veteran’s family if they are present. Otherwise help is requested from other veterans present, who step forward proudly to participate in the somber, touching tribute. Then the assembled crowd is left to watch the sun set, with perhaps a different perspective than ever before. I have attended this ceremony numerous times, the experience defies description.
When I decided to post this story, I went to Sunset Beach to search for Marvin Hume. I found him in the fossil and mineral shop surrounded by wind chimes and beautiful quartzes and geodes and fossilized creatures. I was able to speak with Mr. Hume for about twenty minutes, in which time I heard a collection of wonderful stories. I could easily have listened for hours, some stories of war, some of honor and sacrifice and some of Cape May history. He even told me proudly that he was responsible for getting Paul Tibbits, pilot of the Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb, to come to Cape May to promote his newly published memoirs.
“He told me “Marv, Cape May is such a small place” and I told him I would get a large crowd to come. He ended up signing books for five and a half hours”.
“I told people, this is the guy who ended that war.”
So, the ceremony goes on. It will resume sometime this May, as it has under Marvin Hume for 35 years now. At an amazingly spry 87 years old Mr. Hume continues to lower the flag personally every night that the ceremony takes place. He has enough flags already to cover most if not all of 2009.
“Sometimes I don’t come in until five or six in the evening now, at 87 it takes its toll.” he says.
We walked outside and took some pictures. When it was time to leave I shook his hand and told him what an honor it was to meet him. Of course he deflects all praise that he receives by telling you that the men who those flags belong to are the ones who deserve all the honor, he is simply doing what is right. He has remained dedicated to that principle.
I still consider it an honor to have met Marvin Hume.