Dodging the Rain -- Joys of YouTube -- Back to the Paper Chase -- May 30

Another early morning (5:30) up and about.  Enjoyed returning to The Paris Wife.  For some odd reason I had the sensation of returning to the reading of fiction that I indulged in when I was in my early twenties.  And the "tales from the road" that McLain treats us to was vaguely like what I remember from some of Hermann Hesse -- but then he was also writing in the post-WWI era, too. Anyway I later on somewhat satisfied myself about spaghetti -- found a piece surveying the history of pasta at www.thenibble.com which suggested that "the Great Depression of the 1930s made inexpensive food like spaghetti a necessity."  So the jury is still out.  As far as "damned straight" and the other expressions that jarred me, well, I will have to do some library research on those!  Fortunately no others cropped up to distract me from the really excellent writing, so I made very good progress.  BTW, I found a nice photo of Ernest, Hadley, and their son on Wikipedia.  Much better than their passport photos!

***

And progress, once more at the exercise circle.  I looked through our big sliding glass doors into the backyard, filling with sunshine as the sun rose.  My energy level was back and I managed the 800 calorie burn easily.  Weighed in at 169.5 and felt like I had crossed some kind of Rubicon, heading for a destination where I want to be.

***

Completing breakfast I was out in the backyard, sans shirt in that wonderful warm sunlight, finishing off the backyard lawn.  It's remarkable how much rain we have received.  I puttered around with flower beds, attempting the near impossible feat of preventing an overgrowth of sweat peas which have been taking over our beds by the end of summer.  Lois Darrow, the owner (with her late husband, Dan) who resided here previously put in many beautiful perennials which we enjoy every Spring -- but I wish she hadn't planted sweat peas!  

I've been waiting to transplant some of our seedlings, and completed the fill up of all containers destined for our upstairs deck and got them moved indoors.  By 1 p.m. we were graced with another quite hearty downpour, and rain continued intermittently well into the evening.  It's bringing up our grass, alright, but mowing is required frequently just to keep up.

***

Apart from this blog, I have spent very little time on the Internet since I retired.  But this evening I did spend some time looking for music on YouTube.  I found several pieces I really like, but one fairly blew me away -- a Chet Atkins piece, Sunrise.  Very smooth and dreamy (not all of my sunrises are so glorious, because about that time I'm usually half-way through my situps!).  The piece brings to (my) mind a sense of freedom and carefree release from the burdens of everyday life (burdens that, trust me, a good many administrators feel keenly). 

For the past couple of years I've dipped into the free software offerings of giveawayoftheday.com, a site which offers legitimate, licensed software that can be registered and activated during one day only (once activated the software itself does not expire).  Occasionally they'll offer a selection a second time, but you have to watch for the "keepers!"  One program that I found on giveawayoftheday.com is called VideoGet -- it permits the capture of a YouTube video's audio track -- the sound files thus produced are not always the greatest quality fidelity, but passable.  Obviously one ought not make this a commercial venture (enough said!)

***

But, just so I couldn't be accused of playing around too much, I tackled filing away household bills and accounts.  A necessary evil.

Paris Enchants -- 75,000 and counting -- Former Colleagues -- May 29

So I'm getting into The Paris Wife.  The dialogue is sparkling and draws you in, with an interesting intimacy.  But then a shock to the system.  A word or phrase seeming somehow out of tune.  "Damned straight" and "fat chance" immediately come to mind.  Not unlike the shock of reading about a spaghetti dinner being prepared by Hadley Richardson (soon to be Mrs. Ernest Hemingway), in St. Louis.  The only way I can describe it is to refer to the movie, Somewhere in Time where Christopher Reeve manages to hypnotize himself into a turn-of-the-century setting, only to be brought back to the present when he finds a modern-day penny in his pocket, erasing the hypnotic effect of his time travel.  That's sort of the effect I perceive when the McLain's dialog seems to be polluted by more modern usage of words and terms.  I went so far as to consult my volume of Letters of T.S. Eliot (through 1922) just to see if the more colloquial use of language was evident.  It wasn't.  But then Thomas Stearns Eliot wasn't exactly all loose and unbuttoned about his writing, either!  I might be entirely wrong about the occasional term that seems anachronistic, it's just me.  Important thing is that I'm really glued to the book, which makes getting through a breeze!

My reading has taken Ernest and Hadley to Paris and their adventures in Europe.  I thought I'd see if I could locate their passport.  I have never seen a photo of Hadley (and the book doesn't contain one), and I knew that passports do contain photos. So here they are, from 1921:

The photos aren't that clear, unfortunately, but it is funny how you imagine characters to look, when told through the lens of a writer. 

 ***

Getting through the exercise routine wasn't such a breeze, however.  It was a trial and tribulation.  The weather was grey and I think I must get physically depressed when the weather turns.  I did everything I have been doing -- the 750 situps today totaled 75,000 for the year.  But for the three days of doubling up on the elliptical, I just quit at 600 (instead of 800 calories burned).  Not even the Rolling Stones energized me for that last lap!  

***

 In the afternoon Jen and I attended the retirement open house for former Ferris State colleague, Rick Christner, whom we get together with from time to time with friends in common.  The event was hosted in Wheeler Pavilion and was very attended.  I had the chance to catch up with quite a number of people I haven't seen for quite a while.  The honors for Rick are well-deserved and I'm glad we were able to share the afternoon with the Christner family.

***

Late afternoon, owing to the rain that's been pouring over us for the past several days, it was clear so I tackled the front and side lawns.  I've been nursing some bare spots with grass seed and most of it has come up nicely.  Ultimately means more grass to grow, but it's nice to have things looking sharp.

***

The Paris Wife, A New Low, and a Walk Around Town - May 28

I awoke early, 4:30 a.m., way before our coffeemaker prepares the morning brew, and surveyed the rooms that are getting more attention every day.  It felt good. Inasmuch as I'm returning to CMU next weekend for a Friends of the Library luncheon to honor and hear Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife, I thought I had better get cracking on the book.  So, with a relief that I wouldn't be treated to warfare and military tactics, I delved into it.  The wife in question is Hadley Richardson, first wife of the famous writer Ernest Hemingway.  McLain's work is one of fiction, but I immediately was drawn into it.  Very engaging way she uses a first person narrative (Hadley's voice) to convey the development of the relationship, but also much about her (Hadley's) life apart from Ernest.  I got through 40 pages in a flash and am confident that I can get to the end of it before the luncheon.  No foot dragging over the finer points of historiography!  (I was curious, though, when she described a spaghetti dinner being prepared by Hadley and her sister in St. Louis, in 1920, whether that was an anachronism -- whether upper middle class families consumed spaghetti in 1920 -- something for me to check on).

One thing I did check on was the wedding announcement of Ernest and Hadley.  Sure enough, I found it in a digitized newspaper.

Oak Park Leaves, September 17, 1921, p. 40

In those Chronicle of Higher Education issues I went through I found notice of the publication of Ernest Hemingway's early correspondence -- a herculean effort, apparently, and one that was destined to create a more balanced view of Hemingway, according to the editors.  I plan to ask Ms. McLain if she was guided or influenced by them...

***

Reluctantly I put down The Paris Wife and padded off to begin the exercise routine.  Managed to stay on the elliptical for 800 calories, third day running, and at weigh in, was at 170 even.  Fabulous.

***

I had in mind a brisk walk downtown but a storm rolled in with drenching rain.  By noon, though, the system was on its way out, though no sun peeped through.  I had a list of things I wanted to get at our local State Street Hardware store.  I also was looking for a new lens cap for my 35 mm camera, and wanted to pick up a bottle of Triple Sec, an orange liqueur that I occasionally add to my green or white tea.  So rain over, I laced up an old pair of walking shoes, threw on my hoody, grabbed a canvas bag for my umbrella (in case the rain wasn't quite over) and headed out the door.  The walk was brisk and it felt good to stretch out beyond the stride that my elliptical permits.  In no time I was across town and at my destination (MapQuest rates the one-way distance as1.01 mile), got my things (sans lens cap, have to try again) and instead of retracing my steps, went slightly out of my way to take the RiverWalk, a nicely done path put in by our city along the Muskegon River.  I regretted not having brought my camera for along the deserted route I encounter four Canada geese with eight or nine goslings.  

Arriving home I set to work at doing the little repairs around the house for which the trip provided supplies.  

The sun never shone, but better weather is forecast later in the week. We shall see.

Thucydides is History! Memorial Day and Fun with Garden Tools -- May 27

As predicted, upon rising I completed the History of the Peloponnesian War, which ends (no spoiler alert necessary) with the sentence: "He [Tissaphernes, commander in chief of the Persian forces of Asia Minor] first went to Ephesus where he made a sacrifice to Artemis..."  So ends the 605 page narrative (in the Penguin Classics edition I read).  To the end, Thucydides was true to his craft, meticulously reciting battles, ships, maneuvers, etc.

My crabbiness toward Thucydides in the final chapters of the work was not out of disrespect for his achievement (he himself said: "My work is not a pieces of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever." ), but only my personal lack of excitement over such renditions of military facts and figures, when it comes right down to it.

The events that transpired after the Athenian defeat in Sicily were numerous and complex.  Thucydides really does a remarkable job of keeping it straight, and managing to keep unemotional as city after city abandoned Athens, and Athens itself descended into ever more dire circumstances.  True, the narrative stops at 411 B.C. and the War continued on another seven years, ending in March 404 B.C. (after finishing the Rex Warner translation this morning, I skimmed Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War to see what finally happened at the end, when Athens truly was defeated), but it still boggles the mind that for twenty years Thucydides kept up a faithful account.

The translation I read includes an explanatory essay by M. I. Findley, and I reread it just so I could get some closure.  Finley quotes Dionysius of Halicanessus who observed "In his Introduction he (Thucydides) makes it clear that he has chosen a bad subject, for he says that many cities of the Greeks were desolated because of the War...The natural consequence is that readers of the Introduction feel an aversion to the subject, for it is of the misfortunes of Greece they are about to hear."  Absolutely true!  My own personal reaction -- not only to the Introduction, but to the work itself, is that it tarnished the mental image I had of Greece in general and Athens in particular.  My mental impression of the Golden Age of Athens is (was!)  toga-sporting rational philosophers walking among an army of scientists, musicians, artists.  I'm exaggerating a little of course, but the boundless imperialism of Athens really surprised me, in this work. And the bad deeds of a lot of supposedly good persons!

Finley also validates the tension I felt in reading Thucydides, but really wanting something else.  "The historian's data are individual events and persons; the sum total of their interrelationships is the historical process...Unlike the poet, he must get the events and the relationships right; exactly as they were, and not, in Aristotle's phrase about tragedy...as they might or ought to have been."  My rant about flesh and blood human beings yesterday was precisely that difficulty -- history is not fiction, so get over yourself, Cochran!

Finally, one other observation Finley makes about Thucydides rings true:  "to ensure maximum accuracy, he kept his narrative sections rather impersonal, making infrequent (though very telling) comments and allowing the story to unfold itself."  Very much so.  The contrast between Thucydides and Donald Kagan, is really stark, and I must say that I tip toward Kagan's interpretive approach as opposed to Thucydides' reportorial.

So I chalk this reading up to an experience necessary, though not without turmoil.  On to the next adventure!

*** 

For all the mental play that commenced the day, my exercises awaited.  For the second day in a row I extended my time on the elliptical to over an hour, burning off 800 calories, though I must say I began to tire at the end of it.  I was glad to move on to other things.

***

As it was Memorial Day I briefly recalled the military men in my family -- me (Army), my father (Navy), brother (Navy), paternal uncles (father's brother and brother-in-law), Navy.  Fathers-in-law (Army, and Army Air Corps).  My paternal grandfather's brother, Elmer Edwin Cochran served in WWI (Army), and my paternal great great grandfather's brother, Mathew Cochrane served in the Civil War (Army).  Fortunately, all returned home, intact.

Elmer Edwin Cochran (front) with fellow soldiers, 1918

Military Collar Pin Worn by Elmer Edwin Cochran, WWI

Believed to be Mathew Cochrane, my great great grandfather's brother, Civil War veteran

***

For a holiday, I felt sorry for those who were expecting nice weather for a picnic or an outing.  It was cloudy most of the day and chilly.  On the evening news I saw that snow fell in Vermont.  Strange weather.  I thought there might be some ambient sunshine out there and tried to get a little sun, but all I got was chilled, so bundled up and got to some chores.

I solved the mystery of my chainsaw -- my Internet download of instructions reminded me to check the direction of the chain on the saw -- I reversed it and it worked perfectly.  Last year I took a handsaw to a huge overgrown shrub which was reduced to thick stumps which resisted the hand saw approach.  The chainsaw made quick work of it and not only did I clear the space, but planted new dwarf English boxwood plants in the shrub's place.  

All in all a good day!

 

The Trouble with Thucydides and Mad about MOOCs - May 26

Hit the ground running this morning, leaving a mere 25 pages to go before finishing the History of the Peloponnesian War.  Even if I recoil (more than normally) over ol' Thucydides sparse writing, I should be done tomorrow.  What's my beef about his writing?  Well, I guess it's his hard-bitten realism.  At the drop of a hat people are killed without much ado.  Or go off to die and no mention is made of the loss, in human terms.

Last year I read both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and along the way enjoyed the movie Troy, with Hollywood's special rendition of Trojan doom and disaster.  In Homer and Hollywood (alright, I admit the latter got over the top at points) at least you've got flesh and blood beings to consider --  Defiant Achilles (Brad Pitt)

or Dutiful Hector (Eric Bana), readying himself for oblivion in a battle with Achilles.

I concede that Homer was writing fiction (sort of) and Thucydides struggled to get down "the facts ma'am, just the facts" (a phrase I know Jack Webb never actually uttered on Dragnet, but seems appropriate in relation to General T.).  But imagine a book full of these kinds of notations:

(Book 8, line 38)  After this agreement Therimenes handed over the fleet to Astyochus.  He sailed away himself in a small boat and was lost at sea.

Boom!  That's it!  No "search and rescue" launched to find him, no grieving widow or children, no tribute to how people regarded his untimely death.  Nothing.

However, unlike Homer whose quest wasn't for truth, per se, Thucydides probably had it on good authority that that's what happened to Therimenes.  Maybe that's all he could discover.  End of story.  

I guess reading some passages in Thucydides is like eating puffed rice, very bland fare without something to give it a more human flavor. C'est la vie!

***

I mentioned a few posts back that I had picked through a very large accumulation of Chronicle of Higher Education issues.  One of the subjects I was keeping an eye out for was the MOOC  (Massive Open Online Course) movement.  It's a new phenomenon, with Coursera.org in the lead, as far as offerings, but there is a growing list of MOOC providers.  

Personally, despite my long association with Academe, I think MOOCs offer the potential for a huge transformation of our society.  American librarians are credited (charged?) with breaking down the barriers surrounding access to information in the 19th century -- putting books in the hands of citizens whose meager incomes could never afford buying and accumulating books like the wealthy.  And of course, publishers then were not so pleased to see potential revenue slipping away as library users happily charged out reading material for free.

I guess you can say I'm an early MOOC adopter.  I heard about MOOCs on the way to work on National Public Radio last summer and decided to investigate Coursera.org.  Ultimately I enrolled last September in the Greek and Roman Mythology course taught by Professor Peter Struck of the University of Pennsylvania. I should say, I and 55,000 other students signed up!  

I had read the Iliad earlier in the year and this MOOC required, among other things, that we read the Odyssey in roughly three weeks.  Good discipline, that.  I enjoyed Professor Struck's lectures immensely.   You can occasionally catch him on the History Channel and other cable programs.  Also, his Ph.D. candidate graduate assistants who occasionally joined him on screen were like perfect Muses.

Trouble is, according to the reportage in the Chronicle of Higher Education, some faculty members are getting riled up about MOOCs.  There are several reasons, but the most obvious is the threat to their economic security (not at all unlike the threat posed by free public libraries to publishers and to subscription libraries in the past).    

At the present time MOOCs are searching for a secure funding mechanism.  The course I took was free (except I paid for my books, owned my own computer, had home access to the Internet, etc.).  Because it was free, there was a huge dropout rate.  In fact, fewer than 1% of the students who enrolled actually finished watching the video lectures, took (and passed) the quizzes, and completed (and passed) the essay questions.

No doubt MOOCs are for people who are self-motivated and can handle the modality of instruction.  

 

 MOOCs?  I like 'em!

Work - Pure and Simple May 25

Today was one of those days which doesn't conjure up soaring thoughts or fanciful notions of the decline and fall of the working classes. 

It's true, we don't hire out housework and lawn chores to others, and so, on occasion, there's nothing to do  but get in there and get it done.

Good news though, after rising, reading and exercising I weighed in at 170 1/2 -- we'll see if the extended exercises will keep working their magic.

But then it was off to the back yard -- weeding flower beds, cutting grass and putting down lawn lime, as the rest of the lawn, front and sides, have been treated.  I bought a small chain saw last year but had a devil of a time getting it to work after the first time using it.  I got it out and did manage to get it started and keep it going -- unfortunately the chain didn't engage properly so there's more research to do on it before I can use it to cut some stumps.  I went on the Internet in the evening and found some descriptive information about my make and model of chainsaw, so I have something to go on.

Returning to the house it was upstairs to my garret where unsorted papers awaited; I emerged after 1 a.m. not exactly triumphant, but a little more organized than the day before!

Not that my toiling outside or indoors is of any great physical exertion, but it does put me in mind of a poem that my favorite high school teacher, Raymond J. Rodrigues, a half-Portuguese, half-Russian young man born in New Jersey with whom I studied literature and creative writing , read to us once with great dramatic flair.  The poem was written by the Englishman Thomas Hood (1789-1845) and is entitled:

The Song of the Shirt

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread--
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

"Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work — work — work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's Oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!

"Work — work — work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work — work — work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

"Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch — stitch — stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

But why do I talk of Death?
That Phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear its terrible shape,
It seems so like my own —
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work — work — work!
My Labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread — and rags.
That shatter'd roof — and this naked floor —
A table — a broken chair —
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

"Work — work — work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work — work — work!
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
As well as the weary hand.

"Work — work — work,
In the dull December light,
And work — work — work,
When the weather is warm and bright —
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.

Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet —
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!

Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread —
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, —
Would that its tone could reach the Rich! —
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

***

 

When I lived in Germany (1970-1978) I picked up a book published before World War I which documented in pictures the lives of ordinary villagers from the Odenwald area (roughly north of Heidelberg and south of the city of Darmstadt).  This lady from the village of Rohrbach was probably not quite so desperate as Thomas Hood's woman, but hard work has no boundaries.

Probably should have saved this posting for Labor Day!

Your Elliptical is Your Friend and an Enchanted Afternoon - May 24

By Thursday afternoon (May 23, 2013) the weather had begun to improve, the clouds moved off and night fell on clear skies.  The atmospheric changes had a cost -- a frost advisory was issued the overnight hours -- at the end of May for Pete's sake!  But the sun I was looking for rose early -- by 5:30 when I got up today (May 24), the sun was beginning to show.  I made headway with the Greeks, nothing worth noting here, but at least the end is near, and I've got my eye on some other less dreary reading material.

I got into the morning exercises with an altogether better frame of mind this morning, remembering that the countdown of 750 situps begins with "1" and I just need to be patient.  I weighed in at 171 1/2 yesterday and felt good that I'm getting down to where I eventually want to be (mid 160's).  I save the elliptical for last and this day I abandoned watching my typical classic movie for listening to some rousing rock and roll.  It worked.  My elliptical's digital display panel shows how far you've gone and how many calories you've burned, and I usually work off my breakfast before actually having breakfast -- 400 calories. For the past several days I've extended to 500, and today, with the jazzed-up music pushing me on, went easily to 600.

The Elliptical Model I've Used for the Past Two Years

With that done, I was out of the house to work on the lawn.  The TruGreen lawn care guys were here on Thursday afternoon and aerated the lawn -- with plugs of soil and grass now peppering the landscape and sidewalks. There was much to do to clean up after them. And all this rain caused a new spurt of grass to contend with.  My task for the afternoon therefore was cutting, trimming, and adding a new load of lawn lime to keep that grass green and healthy.

It was chilly enough to keep on my shirt, but I did manage to carve out 45 minutes to enjoy a break to sit on our second story deck, thoroughly soaking in the rays, head to foot.  It put me in mind of one of my favorite movies Enchanted April (most assuredly a "chick flick" insofar as the major characters are women), which details the renewal of four women on holiday in Italy from a grim, wintry, post WWI London.  Joan Plowright is spectacular as the Grand Dame who probably has the most to gain from the trip.  All, even the men who are part of the scene, are transformed by the end of the movie.  There are many scenes of the gals simply soaking up the warm Italian sun, and it was a recollection of that part of Enchanted April which I associated with my few minutes snatched away on our deck.

Hey, this retirement stuff isn't so bad!

NB.  There are two versions of Enchanted April.  I like the 1992 remake much better.

Enough with the Rain! - May 23

My great grandfather, after whom my father, older son and I are named, was a multi-faceted guy, but a florist by occupation, above all.  For that, he left chlorophyll, not blue blood, in the veins of his descendants.  And I'm into plants.  I know the rain is good for them.  But I also enjoy seeing the sun once in a while, a favor sometimes stingily bestowed by Michigan weather.  And alas, today is one of those cloudy, rainy days.

I know my energy level was down because the morning exercise routine seemed to go on forever.  And I just couldn't get into those darned Greeks upon rising, either.

So, I took the day off from projects and parked myself in my downstairs library, read some of my favorite poetry, Samwise in my lap, white tea at my right hand. Paradise.

At points, putting aside a volume, I also meditated about how, as human beings, we open the aperature of our selves only so far (necessarily so, Facebook and social media notwithstanding).  Despite the 1960's invocation to "let it all hang out," I recollect the me of over 40 years ago and appreciate the fragility that needed guarding from the rough and tumble world. 

RMC in 1971

I admit I was a serious young man, but fortunately there were voices I could listen to and relate to -- Paul Simon's song "I am a rock, I am an island" was an essential touchstone for me.  I especially identified with the stanza that really pegged me:


I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island. 

Fortunately, I ultimately didn't get stuck away and separated from the wider world.  Opening that aperature worked both ways for me -- allowing light in, and allowing light out.  There's comfort in knowing how many good people are in the world, if you can only see them.

But when the world is cold and grey, like today, it's nice to know there's a place that always welcomes you back.

Greek Salad and Birthday Memorials - May 22

I made it to the last book of Thucydides this morning.  The Athenian defeat in Sicily is complete, the 40,000 man military force (army and navy) is routed -- dead, imprisoned in a rock quarry of unspeakable horror, sold into slavery, or escaped.  When they return to Athens, their countrymen refuse to believe the tragedy that has befallen them.  According to the notes included with the translation I'm reading, Book 8 of the History of the Peloponnesian War is in some manner disorganized and incomplete.  Thucydides can't be blamed too harshly -- his account extends more than twenty years, and this History stops short of the end of the war itself.  Either the old General expired of  natural causes, or his frustrated wife finally had it up to here with schlepping all his manuscript scrolls around Greece (General T. was in exile, after all) and did the old guy in.

More pleasant thoughts about Greece, or at least Greek cuisine, are on my mind as I ready for lunch with former colleague at Ferris State, John Duman, at a local restaurant.  My choice was a Greek salad with a good sprinkle of feta cheese.  I acquired a taste for feta when I spent three weeks with relatives in Bulgaria in the 1970's.  I accompanied cousins to the state-run markets where huge blocks of feta were chopped into manageable packages.  It was definitely a staple of their diet. 

Catching up with John and his doings was a mid-day high point.  He was a great fellow to work with and it's good to know he's okay.  By the time we finished the earlier rain showers had turned to a torrential downfall.  I passed on his offer to drop me at home and accompanied him onto campus in his truck (I was on foot, I haven't driven my car for over a week).  I could have chosen a better day for strolling around campus, but I was trying to remember exactly where that tree (whose seeds have not yet germinated) I spoke of earlier, is located.  Under an umbrella I found it just outside the Helen Ferris residence hall entrance.  Some of Ferris State's trees have sign plates indicating their species, but I didn't see one, and didn't spend too much time looking, since my shoes were getting soaked through.

Arriving home I finished off the dreaded Chronicle of Higher Education pick and purge, and readied a recycling load of newspapers and magazines that I've been working on for several days.  I couldn't get the boxes of magazines into the picture, but the point is made, the deed is done.

Toward the end of the afternoon I did something I haven't done in a long time -- touched the keys of our Roland digital piano/organ.  I learned to play the clarinet and trombone when I was in school, and several years ago when we bought the Roland I had every intention to play.  But without time and commitment...
So I ran some scales and played a couple of simple pieces -- tried to play a couple of simple pieces.  Here's another retirement aspiration that I'll be looking to satisfy!

 May 22nd represents a special occasion -- the birthdays of both my mother (1927-2012) and my paternal grandfather (1900-1959). 

My mother was raised by her maternal grandparents; her mother died the day after she was born and her father, a Bulgarian in the United States on a student visa, was unable to remain here.  In our family archives there are only a couple of photos of my mother and her father.  This was the last time she saw him in about 1931.

My grandfather, born in Logan County, Ohio, north and west of Columbus, was one of five sons; this is the "classic" family portrait of the fellows, with my grandfather the middle among the younger boys at the lower end of the photo.  The older two were half-brothers of my grandfather who moved to San Francisco before World War I and died there.  

Frank, Louis, Edwin (top), Harold and Guy Cochran

How different were the experiences of my paternal (Scots-Irish and German) and maternal (Bulgarian, Russian Polish and Ruthenian) ancestors, but in the blood of my veins, and the date on the calendar, they are united and related to each other in a unique way.

When it Rains...or, Bona Fortuna! May 21

Thucydides could really tell a story!  Like a freight train bearing down on a disabled automobile on the tracks, the juggernaut of the Syracusan military victory rolls on to sweep the Athenians from their their high and mighty status.  I'm almost to the end of Book 7 of the History of the Peloponnesian War and after a disastrous sea battle, the Athenian general, Nicias says "we must remember there is an unpredictable element of warfare" and, he tells his troops, he has the "hope that we, too may have fortune with us."  Before the battle got underway, Thucydides put a speech in the mouth of the Spartan general, Gylippus, in league with the Syracusans.  Gylippus observes of the Athenians that, in relation to this war in Sicily, the Athenians were "trusting in luck more than in good management."

Luck, good fortune, the favor of the gods.  Thucydides played this all for us earlier in his work.  Only then, the Athenians were in the superior position.  In Book 5 one finds the so-called Melian Dialogue which was supposed to have taken place in 416/7 B.C.  Then the Athenian military was facing the woefully under supplied residents of the small island of Melos.  In an effort to get the Melians to surrender, the Athenians declare:

"Hope, that comforter in danger!  If one already has solid advantages to fall back upon, one can indulge in hope.  But hope is by nature and expensive commodity, and those who risking their all on one cast find out what it means only when they are already ruined...Do not be like those people who...miss the chance of saving themselves in a human and practical way, and, when every clear and distinct hope has left them in their adversity, turn to what is blind and vague, to prophecies and oracles and such things which by encouraging hope lead men to ruin."

So the supremely rational Athenians, the Athenians who boasted Plato and Socrates,  get hoisted by their own petard! 

My morning reading leaves me at the beginning of the section that Rex Warner translated as "Destruction of the Athenian Expedition, 413."  The end is just around the corner.

Round about me, though, are the more mundane tasks of the day to look after.  Checking out our little greenhouse I find that fourteen of the eighteen plantings of hollyhocks have sprouted and are growing fast.

You can't quite appreciate the elevation without a different point of view:

 So far, the tree seeds are not budging.   I hope it's not a long wait!  Given the success of this endeavor, I grab a second "greenhouse" and plant up a batch of Cosmos flowers  we shall see what develops in a few days.

Meanwhile I have drilled the plastic canisters:

 I also hustled up our garden cart to the edge of our property line and filled it high with the gravel and pebble alluvium.  The cart wheels barely turn for the weight of the load.  

This isn't the first time I've drawn on this source for drainage for my plants, and I have a special screen to separate the good particles from the bad.  Soon, new plants!

The afternoon is moving into evening and I take a quick walk around the place to check out growth caused by the recent rains we've been having.  Shrub trimming is next on the list.

 

Athenians Fall at Epipolae (413 B.C.) and a Trekkie Redux - May 20

So I'm up early, 4:30, and glued to the final hundred pages that will take me to the end of the Peloponnesian War, or at least so far as General Thucydides allowed us to see in his account.  The scene is set at Epipolae, and the Athenians are boldly going where no Greek has gone before -- a night battle against the Syracusans and their allies -- and all hell breaks loose.  This is the beginning of the end of Athenian confidence on the ground and on the sea, and from here on, the path to (Athenian) defeat is increasingly certain.  I can't refrain from thinking: "overreach, overreach, overreach!"  What were these guys thinking?

Meanwhile, the minutes tick away, our house criminals join me downstairs.  Samwise nudges over for a few ear scratches then jumps up on the coach where I'm sitting and promptly drifts off, oblivious to the drama of

Greek against Greek settler that is filling my consciousness, and arousing my indignation.  "When will we ever learn?"

Frodo saunters around the room, resplendent in his showy fur, no trace of muskrat about him today!  He halts briefly so the mere mortal in his presence can snap his photo and moves on to his cat bed to likewise savor the early morning hours in his own private way.

Roiling through my mind are stray thoughts of Barbara Tuchman's March of Folly wherein she reveals a long history of misguided national policies, beginning with the Greeks, and Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, both of whom were criticized for their "rise and fall" theses.  But somewhere here there is a tipping point -- of going too far.  Spread out ahead in a sort of nauseating predictability is the death of Athenian democracy...

***

I'm a little more eager to get to my exercises this morning, and I emerge unscathed, something my Greek acquaintances could scarcely hope for 2,426 years ago.

***

A forecast of rain for the afternoon keeps me occupied on indoor projects, but I emerge briefly to gather supplies for my next foray into the greening of La Maison Cochran.  Over the winter I've been stacking up empty 2 quart containers for a planting on our 2nd story deck.  Our next door neighbors have a gravel driveway that is continuously being  weathered and swept down the gutter that runs along the long side of our street.  After 15 years of observing, they apparently have no intention to contain the drift of pebbles and gravel. Once I drill the bottom of these containers, I'm headed for the streetside alluvium and then the potting soil.

***

By half-past one raindrops are already falling and a quick recalculation of priorities puts the new Star Trek movie on the agenda for the afternoon.  So as not to spoil the movie, I'll just say that, in my opinion, it's not as good as some of the earlier ones of the franchise, but it's a decent contender for good old-fashioned escapist sci fi.

Arriving home I had the faint recollection that I had an artifact showing how long I have been watching Star Trek.  And, pulling out an old scrapbook, there is was, the TeeVee magazine with programs for the 1966 fall season.  It's glued opposite a campaign flyer when I ran unsuccessfully for president of my sophomore class at Edward W. Clark High School, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

Yup, there it is, the premier of Star Trek, Thursday nights at 8:30 pm on Channel 2, KORK-TV, an NBC affiliate.  When I see William Shatner hawking PriceLine these days on television I have to stop and remind myself that he is only a year younger than my father.  Shatner at 82, is nothing, if not a survivor.

Of Cat Baths and Porch Swings - May 19

Sunday is a day of rest - not!

With my new exercise schedule I spent more time at the task, well over 2 hours, but despite the more strenuous workout, I'm feeling no ill effects.

It's Spring, so the grass has already grown up high enough to spend a couple hours cutting the entire front and side lawns.  And water a bit, since no appreciable predicted showers arrived over the weekend.

Then on to those little projects -- like putting up the porch swing on our front porch.  I generally need to make a few adjustments once the thing's up (I discovered I was up one link too high after I took this shot), but now there's a place for repose when it gets a bit toasty inside.

After tackling the porch proper, I was in a clean up mood.  So, while the temperature headed toward eighty, our two criminals were on the hit list.

I don't recall T.S. Eliot in his "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" ever mentioned anything about bathing the darlings, but it is a task not for the faint of heart.  Actually, I was projecting my own trepidation -- I know well enough that the noise of a filling tub terrifies the critters as much as the water itself.  So I thought ahead and made sure there was a nice bath drawn before getting the varmints into the bathroom.

Mr. Frodo was first -- it was Sunday afternoon and he was snoozing.  He was not hard to get ahold of.  I talked fast and constantly to him as I dipped his feet into the water.  He was downright patient as I laddled cup after cup of water over his thick fur.  Then came the shampoo and the brush.  He didn't cry out or hiss, but was a perfect gentleman.  By the time it got to rinsing him off with fresh water he didn't mind the sound of the faucet, and we him ready for a pile of dry towels.

With other cats we've owned I have used a hair dryer to get them dry, but that is an even more perilous practice, so usually a bath awaits really warm weather to avoid a chill afterwards.

Mr. Frodo was looking more like a muskrat after his toweling off, but within an hour or so he was in good shape.  He spent time grooming in a warm corner of the living room and then disappeared to parts unknown upstairs, probably under a bed or in a closet.

***

Next stop was Samwise, who was already clued into what was in store.  He evaded my entreaties and skipped upstairs, but strategically gave up on the landing where I craddled him in my arms and carried him  to his Waterloo.  Samwise is the feistier of the two cats, and he was clearly less indulgent once his feet his the water.  But I smooth-talked him into submission and he, too, was remarkably tame once he got into the thing.  Samwise is also the smaller of the two, and when I turned on the faucet to rinse, he stood up on his hind legs and allowed me to rinse him thoroughly in the running water.  

He wasn't quite as bedraggled as Frodo after his toweling off, and eventually the two joined on the floor and attended to each other in their final grooming of the day.

I returned to some "sort, save, or toss" projects and thus ended a Sunday at the Cochrans.

The New Normal and the Treason of Alcibiades - May 18

When a life course is altered, it takes time for new patterns to emerge.  My weekday routine for several years had crystallized into a wakeup at 4 am, coffee and reading until 5, exercise until 6:45, then breakfast and off to work, a 45 mile commute eastward to Mount Pleasant, Michigan.  Weekends were always a little less structured, so I typically read a bit more before exercising and breakfast.

I haven't set my alarm since Monday, but mostly I've awakened no later than 5 -- Mr. Frodo and Samwise are frisky at that hour and gallop up and down our two stairways.  Sleeping through their escapades is about impossible. 

But this day, Saturday, after rising and reading, I'm began to alter (prolong) the 1 3/4 hour time for exercise to increasing the exercise component, bumping up my situps from 500 to 750, time on the elliptical by 25%, 25% more weight lift repetitions.  No commuting = more free time!  I spent a little time on YouTube looking for some more low impact routines to add variety to the morning grind.  We'll see how that works out.  

Meanwhile, I started this day on one of the house projects that was delayed last autumn on account of the weather -- 

Part of the frame of a backdoor had deteriorated over the course of several winters and had to be entirely replaced.  I chose an oak replacement over the pine that had been there previously.  In pulling off the wood some paint pulled off the siding, so a little priming precedes a final coat of paint for both areas.  This is the other side of the "new normal" coin -- an attempt to get some house or hobby project done every day. 

***

The reading routine that I mentioned earlier has served well as I have made my way through a number of more or less interesting tomes.  The routine was essential when I was enrolled in the Coursera.org course, Greek and Roman Mythology, taught by Peter Struck, of the University of Pennsylvania.  I will speak more about the MOOC movement in a later post.

Professor Struck had us read the whole of Homer's Odyssey in three weeks (and much else in the other seven weeks of the course).  While reading Homer I got to crazy idea that I should look into Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War.  I'm here to tell you, the experience has not glorified Athens and the Athenians for me! 

I'm a couple pages shy of 500 pages into this work, and everything is crashing down on the heads of Athens, embroiled in a war against Syracuse in Sicily, and against Sparta and her allies.  The heroic in Homer seems strangely absent in Thucydides. 

Thucydides introduces us to the Sicilian folly by reporting how a good many Athenians saw the war as an opportunity to gain riches for themselves and their city.  He also reports how some Athenian representatives later tried to woo the uncommitted cities of Sicily by citing Athenian good will (even though the historian prepared us, the reader, for the contrary view).  And now, as Athens streams into Sicily, we are treated to the treachery of Alcibiades, a disgraced and exiled Athenian politician and general, who goes to the Spartan Assembly and spills the beans on the "true" motives of the Athenians -- a pure imperial lust for power.  He tells his former enemies that Athens has a ravenous appetite -- first for Syracuse and Sicily, then Italy, Carthage, and ultimately all of Greece.   Alcibiades is so convincing that the Spartans and their allies are motivated to fight back, and as they do, the luck of Athens begins to fade.

Missing from Thucydides is the art, music and culture of Athens to soften the blow of this quite potent militaristic view, and slogging through one battle after another is not exactly my favorite past-time.  However, I'm this far, and will make it to the end, come hell or high water!

 Thucydides constant reference to cities in Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy make having a good map nearby a must.  Fortunately, when I was in Heidelberg (see "In the Weeds" May 15), I wasn't always quaffing the local brew!  In my first tour of duty I completed a B.A. in History and Political Science at the European Division of the University of Maryland's University College.   My fields were modern European and American political history, and one day I took myself to Heidelberg's Altstadt and visited one of the bookstores serving the University of Heidelberg community.

 It was there, at Koester's, on June 8, 1971 that I picked up the book that I'm still using, almost 42 years later!






 

Paper Chase and a Night Out - May 17

Never let it be forgotten that the orderliness one see's in a library is due largely to the constant attention of human agents (staff and assistants) to put things in their place.  Despite my having been on a distribution list for the weekly Chronicle of Higher Education at work over the past four years, we also get a subscription at home.

Somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory I recall a lampoon about someone who collected National Geographic magazines and one day the poor collector expired when an enormous stack of those yellow-bordered magazines collapsed on top of him.  It was a satire, not worthy of an urban legend.  But the point of the matter is that the Chronicle of Higher Education arrives every week, and like the fabled National Geographic guy, they can easily do you in.

So I decided to tackle a stack of the COHEs -- tearing out the occasional article of interest for archiving.  I parked myself on our living room floor, in front of our fireplace, nice cup of hot white tea brewed to perfection nearby.  Wasn't too long before one of our denizens joined me on the floor to "help."  This is Samwise.

His partner in crime is Mr. Frodo.  We've owned the two criminals for about 2 1/2 years now, having rescued them from an uncertain future at the Mount Pleasant animal shelter (HATS).

At some future point I'll allude to the articles I've been selecting, but for now, give some credit to those stalwart guardians of print (and digital!) resources who keep them neat and organized!

***

Our evening out was to attend a fundraiser for our local art gallery (ArtWorks) in Big Rapids.  

 It was a well-attended event with many Ferris State University persons there with whom I spoke, announcing news of my retirement from CMU.

 

In addition to eating, viewing and bidding on items for sale by silent and live auction, several artists were present demonstrating their work.  I spent some time talking with Kym Nicolas, a potter who has been working in clay since she was 17.  It was fascinating to see her work.  One of my many retirement fantasies is to learn how to throw a good pot!

 

Of Thanksgiving and Hollyhocks - May 16

Though only three days have passed since I departed CMU, I still feel as though this is just a vacation.  Inasmuch as I didn't take much vacation time in a block very often, this free time is going to take some getting used to. 

While there was still an opportunity to do some outdoor work in the morning, later on in the day I had the pleasant task of handwriting thank you notes to well-wishers and colleagues.

One of the several presents I received Monday was from friend Beth Krueger.  It succinctly sums up my professional career and present situation in life!

Before dinner I was out again, this time making a second pass at getting a bed of hollyhocks going under our south-facing windows.  My previous attempts saw the seeds wash away, so this time I was employing a new strategy -- a mini greenhouse to start the seedlings.

 I discovered that the seeds I bought didn't fill all the pellets in the "greenhouse," so I went rummaging to find an envelope with a couple of seed pods that I picked up from a tree on Ferris State University's campus.  I identified the species at the time but have since mislaid it.  I think they are Sycamore seeds.  The attraction of that particular tree is that it is identical to ones that used to surround Lincoln Elementary School in Prescott, Arizona, where I attended grade school in the late 1950's - early 1960's.

My brother and I did not receive an allowance as kids, but earned our spending money from mowing lawns, selling flower seeds, etc.  Because of our thrifty habits, I looked for ways to stretch meager resources.  I began collecting Popsicle Pete points and wrote away for their premium catalog.  I saved enough points to get a roll film camera with detachable flash unit.  One day in the 6th grade (1962) I took it to school and snapped several photos, including this one with Scott Hveem, Ray Hill and Steven Matthews in the foreground.

And this one, of Josephine Parra, Julie Gilbert, Marilyn Watts, and Debbie Balmus:

The trees that are behind the girls are of the same variety I found at Ferris State, and the seeds of their Midwest cousins are now planted in my mini greenhouse. 

Time will tell if I can germinate a long-ago memory of growing up in the Grand Canyon State!