She was paralyzed by polio as a young girl. She had to wear leg braces and use either crutches or a walker to walk from that point forward. As I heard in a fairytale version of her illness, she was playing near a stagnant pond when it happened: She became very tired while wading in the water to catch a frog, fell asleep on the pond's edge, and could no longer walk when she woke up. From that point on she rarely left the house. She did, however, occasionally go on small errands without help. One of my earliest memories is of visiting her with my father. When we arrived at her house she was in the front yard picking dandelion leaves for a salad.
Of course, her low state of mobility left her unfit for marriage. She eventually lived alone and supported herself by sewing, stitching, and embroidery work. With no children to take it, I ended up with her diary after her death in the 1990's.
Quoting from the diary:
________________________________________
1928
Jan. 1: A man, our first company
that’s good luck. G. St. Fair cold windy
Jan. 6. Finished the 13 hand’kys. send
them. Was glad I finished.
Jan. 11. The 13 unlucky hand’kys came
back today, because I had a small
written slip in it. Will keep them
to get my moneys worth but .I
feel lighter now that I need not
do any more eye straining
work on more hand’kys.
Not enough cash in that work.
Jan. 12. Still melting but windy.
Took the Xmas tree down yes-
terday. The same work to do
always.
Jan. 13 – I baked my first cake in
this year. “Devilsfood.” cloudy &
a little colder. Finished my 3th
butterfly today. G. H. here this morning
on business. cake turned good
Got a letter from the girls.
Baked 3 rye breads. Churned
________________________________________
Jan. 14. Washed my hair. Dusted &
sweep. Fogy & muddy. Pa. got two
pigs. Wish my hair would
always stay like after they
are washed.
Jan 15 – Sun. passes like always
never a change. I crochet in
the afternoon & read in the eve-
ning. Mr. Mrs B. were here
in evening. I am trying to
play the harmoica but it
takes long to learn. Hope I
will be able to put some
tune in it soon. cloudy & colder.
Jan 16. A little snow last
night. cloudy. A card fromet.
crocheted.
Jan.17. cold windy & the sun is
shining. Washed today. Invited to
suprise stripping party on J.
S. Got Sears new Sring & Summer
________________________________________
CLIPPING INSERTED HERE:
A PRAYER
FOR
COURAGE
by Grace Noll Crowell
God make me brave for Life–
Oh, braver than this!
Let me straighten after pain
As a tree straightens after the rain
Shining and lovely again.
God make me brave for Life–
Oh, braver than this!
As the blown grass lifts, let me rise
From sorrow, with quiet eyes,
Knowing Thy way is wise.
God make me brave – Life brings
Such blinding things.
Help me to keep my sight,
Help me to see aright
That out of the dark – comes Light.
________________________________________
FLIP SIDE OF INSERT:
but David was first, after all. It
of triumph. “I’ve – won – Edda”
he village, Harriet? There’s that blue
l we’re short of, and Aunt Clare’s
hday coming ever so soon. I shan’t be
inute – really!”
urely the sunlight had lent her courage.
had never asked such a thing before.
seus – in the shape of nature – was
ely breaking Andromeda’s chains.
Harriet’s deep-drawn sigh shivered the
like glass. “Oh, well!-- Yes, I sup-
e so! And bring in a paper, Edda – a
ure paper! It’s years since I saw any
________________________________________
catalogue of all the nice things.
Wonder what new things I’ll
get? I baked the cake for the party
Jan. 18. Sun is shining & seems
like spring. Party was large
last night. Eatables were
hardly touched. I ironed clothes
this forenoon and mended them
this p.m. Made my bed just now.
The story “Blazing Horizon” ended
yesterday & the new story “Canary Murder”
started today.
Jan. 19 – It looked so beautiful
when it started to snow this
morning just covered the ground
and then stopped it is still cloudy
and windy. It is slowly melting.
I wonder if the dream I dreamt
last night will come true it
be good if it partly would, and
better still “all.” We got “Wards
catalogue. good styles and
many other things in it
________________________________________
that would be nice to have.
but are out of reach. Ma & Pa
are still working in the woods.
I am baking wheat & rye bread
today. I did not sweep the
floor this morning yet but
will in a short while. I
think I will call you “D”
I started to read “The Keeper
of the Bees” last night.
a cold bitter wind started
this afternoon. drifted a lot.
Jan. 20 – If was so cold all
day nearly zero. We got a letter
from the girls today. Sis still
on her place. Sun was shining:
I finished my fourth butterfly
motif & washed the linen to
the blue prints but now I have
the best part to do.
Jan. 21 – Sun is shining &
still so cold. Did the
________________________________________
same house cleaning. I am
keeping a record of some of my
dreams to see if they will come
true. “The Keeper of the Bees”
is very interesting but “Little
Women” is still more interesting.
Jan 22. The sun was shining
but it was a little warmer.
I got the linen ready to hem -
stitch. We had no company
today
Jan 23: Weather same as yesterday
A. K was here and nearly talked
till dinner. Started hemstitch-
ing
Jan 24 – Snowed some. Colder.
Jan 25 – Cold but sunny. Pa went
to the mill. The stories “Silver Slippers”
& Garden Oats” are good, they run
in the good Housekeeping now.
We got it yesterday. I have been
useing Epsom salts to was my
face in the evening for about a
week and it seems to help. “It
must because I want to look
my best now and not wait
________________________________________
because I don’t want to wait.
If other girls can have their
beauty when they are young
I do to.
Jan 26 Today I and Winnie start-
ed to take yeast Foam it’s also
to help clear our complexion.
“O”D.” I am hoping with all
my might that it will.
Jan. 27. Pa paid taxes today at
jergensen. D. today I didn’t do
no hemstitching I made a pond
Lily but it did not turn out
right.
Jan 28. Today is cleaning day
again the week gos so fast.
This morning it was 10o below
zero. I finished “The Keeper of the
Bees” this evening. It was real
good at the end.
Jan 29. It was again so cold &
the sun shone to. I gave my feet
a bath yesterday too. Did quiet
a little hemstitching today.
________________________________________
Jan 30 – Still so cold. I finished
hemstitching my table center today
now to put the butterflies on the
corners. Ma is making a rag
rug she as not been feeling
well for a few days. Baked
a fruit cake to-day.
Jan 31: cold and cloudy. I sewed
the butterflies on ready to button
hole them on & did some of that to.
I have not been able to write
anything very nice this month
D but hope in the fallowing one
I will do better and be able
to write better things.
Feb. 1. Sunny cold. drifting.
Baking rye bread. Pa was to
school met G. H. on the way and
made a day of it. We washed.
Feb. 2 = cloudy. Ma went but to
work again stayed in doors
so long. Pa to the mill. I
hope to finish buttonholeing
________________________________________
…
LAST 2 PAGES ARE HERE UNDER
________________________________________
Winifred also was there 2 months
1932
Mar 5. O**nele Albert died today
May 20 Pa, I, Winnie & Earl drove
to Columbus in our buick .
Our car broke down going to
Madison. Winie & Earl went home
Sunday. Pa, I & Aunt Lizzie
Wednesday. Stayed four days to long
1933
Jan. Shirley has been in Evenston
since to first of Sept.
Feb. 3 Grandpa Died.
Feb. 6. His funeral was today.
Mar. 22. Sister Adelia had
prematured twins.
April 9. I stayed at Adelia’s
two weeks.
May. Winnifred is engaged to
Darenee J.
June 13 – 24. Uncle Gus, Aunt
Hattie & Ralph, Mr & Mrs Harman
Born & daughter were here from N. D.
________________________________________
Sept 14 – Winifred was married.
Sept 27 – 30 – Earl was to see Worlds fair.
June 29 – 1934
Adelia & Fred have a baby girl.
Oct 14 – Carl & Pa went to North Dak.
for a week. Cousin Emma’s funeral.
1938
June 9. One year ago Pa, Shirley,
myself and cousin Martha Fass
left for North Dak.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
An Aborted Letter to a Relative in Trouble (Circa 2008)
I am writing to you now not as my niece, but as a young girl who reminds me of my aging and what I think I learned in the process. Now, sitting here in my basement apartment, I acknowledge that I am only 30 (or 31 – can’t remember at the moment) and hopefully am far from mature. But perhaps all the better – I left your age not so long ago. And, despite my twenties with their ridiculous half aborted love affairs and job worries, my early teenage years – the years you are fitfully exiting now – leave the greatest impression in my mind. I made decisions then I’ve been coasting on ever since. Decisions made in relative ignorance that were, frankly, more a product of luck and blind rebellion than foresight. I would like you to make your decisions with better information.
I certainly want to impart you with any wisdom I may have to give. But this is also a blatant attempt to convince you that you are loved. I have difficulty understanding intellectually that being loved should make a difference, but I understand, personally, that it does. I have experienced deep and persistent belief in the impossibility of my worth. And, despite the fact that this should not matter – that I firmly believe we have a responsibility to be productive and useful no matter what our emotional state – I acknowledge that attempting to work in loveless circumstances is crushing and often futile. But you now have physical evidence that you are loved – this letter is written for you out of love.
When you were a baby I often stayed with you so your mother could sleep. You had fits and cried often, but I was usually able to comfort you until she woke up. You were my first experience with a new, demanding life. Thank you.
THE PERSONAL
I want to write to you now about your mother. And I point out that I am qualified. I also know her as a mother – I am as much your brother as your uncle. Until the age of 6 or 7 she lived with me as a second mother. And although she wasn’t really my mother, it was pretended and believed. I recall your uncle D. and I being her children in countryside bars. She was joking, but me, D., and the bartenders believed her well enough. At home it was the same. Whenever your grandmother was busy your mother would fill in.
Because she was my mother too I understand your interest in her. When you were younger you would ask us about her, curious about everything. It reminded me of my own childhood. On many occasions I recall hiding near the entrance of our house waiting for her to get back from her many dates. She was beautiful and always out.
I would climb
I certainly want to impart you with any wisdom I may have to give. But this is also a blatant attempt to convince you that you are loved. I have difficulty understanding intellectually that being loved should make a difference, but I understand, personally, that it does. I have experienced deep and persistent belief in the impossibility of my worth. And, despite the fact that this should not matter – that I firmly believe we have a responsibility to be productive and useful no matter what our emotional state – I acknowledge that attempting to work in loveless circumstances is crushing and often futile. But you now have physical evidence that you are loved – this letter is written for you out of love.
When you were a baby I often stayed with you so your mother could sleep. You had fits and cried often, but I was usually able to comfort you until she woke up. You were my first experience with a new, demanding life. Thank you.
THE PERSONAL
I want to write to you now about your mother. And I point out that I am qualified. I also know her as a mother – I am as much your brother as your uncle. Until the age of 6 or 7 she lived with me as a second mother. And although she wasn’t really my mother, it was pretended and believed. I recall your uncle D. and I being her children in countryside bars. She was joking, but me, D., and the bartenders believed her well enough. At home it was the same. Whenever your grandmother was busy your mother would fill in.
Because she was my mother too I understand your interest in her. When you were younger you would ask us about her, curious about everything. It reminded me of my own childhood. On many occasions I recall hiding near the entrance of our house waiting for her to get back from her many dates. She was beautiful and always out.
I would climb
Friday, July 2, 2010
LOT Polish Airlines: An Object Lesson in Efficiency and Customer Service
On June 5, 2010 LOT flight 007 from New York's JFK airport to Warsaw was scheduled to begin boarding at 5:30 pm. Around the scheduled boarding time an announcement was made that the flight would be delayed. At 6:00 pm the status was updated – passengers were to expect additional information on the flight status in another 30 minutes. There was no announcement at 6:30 pm, but around 7:00 pm we were told that there was a technical difficulty with the airplane, and that we would be updated in an additional hour. These once-hourly delays continued for about 3 more hours during which time we were not offered any water, food, telephone calls, e-mails, or reliable information. Finally, at about 10 pm, a new and more concrete announcement was made letting us know that the flight would leave at 11:55 pm.
As my wife and I now had about two hours before departure and had not had anything to eat or drink since lunch, we decided we would go buy something for dinner after the 10 pm status update. We weren't away from the gate for more than 40 minutes. However, upon returning to the gate we found it empty. There had been no announcements! Furthermore, there was no information about our flight at either the gate or at the common departures board. Fortunately, while attempting to find out what happened to our flight we passed by a group of familiar faces (from the previous 4 and a half hours of shared waiting). The other passengers for our Warsaw flight were waiting at a new gate (Gate 23). Again, if we had not happened to recognize some of the other passengers by chance, we would have never found this out since no announcements were ever made!
Things only got worse. As it turned out, Gate 23 had no loud speakers (or so we were told at least – a flight to Spain at the gate right next to ours was making announcements in the usual manner). Thus, the LOT staff proceeded to make additional announcements by having what appeared to be their youngest and most inexperienced staff member stand in the middle of the roughly 200 flight 007 passengers and attempt to talk over the crowd. The young staffer didn't speak nearly loudly enough, nor did she or any of her coworkers make any attempt to stand on a chair, find a megaphone, or do anything else to establish any aspect of authority and visibility. Worst of all, some of the announcements were only made in Polish! Friendly passengers had to translate for everyone else. Understandably, some passengers -- many of whom were traveling with babies and small children -- began to get frustrated. The entire LOT staff, except for one young gentleman, seemed like they had no experience whatsoever in handling a situation like this. They were incapable of restoring order within the increasingly irritable passengers and generally appeared both flustered and confused about how to handle the situation.
During this entire period of time (from 5:30 pm until almost midnight) nothing was offered to the passengers, not even water. There was a 16 year old girl traveling by herself who had diabetes and was on an insulin pump. Her cell phone had run out of batteries and she could not make a call to her parents to let them know her situation. I lent her my cell phone, but what if she had not asked me? The very least the LOT staff could have done would be to give people a way to call loved ones, friends, coworkers, etc.
Due to the staff's mismanagement of the crowd and the inability of most travelers to hear what small amounts of information the staff did attempt to give out, a few passengers became restless and began to yell at the employees. Instead of taking charge of the situation and giving clear and concrete details about the flight status, anticipated delay times, etc., around midnight the LOT staff instead began to take passengers' boarding passes and then send them down an escalator into another group of (the previously mentioned) passengers boarding a flight to Spain. It was very crowded and somewhat difficult to exit the escalator without being dumped on top of other passengers already waiting below. This all seemed extremely unsafe – thankfully no accidents occurred.
After getting downstairs we noticed that there was not only still no water, but also no restrooms there. The LOT 007 passengers were held in this condition for an additional hour. Eventually it became clear that we had been sent down to this pre-boarding area more as a means to keep the increasingly angry passengers out of the main terminal than to actually get them onto the airplane. Again, no announcements were given until a single employee told us we should come back up to the main terminal again (now without valid boarding passes). The next day we learned that some of the passengers were even boarded on a bus to the plane only to be turned back after having to wait in the bus for about an hour.
Upon returning to Gate 23 in the terminal once again, we were told we would be given hotel rooms because the flight was officially canceled and rescheduled for the next day at 2 pm (the time was now after midnight). No alternative flights or refunds were offered! No phone calls, e-mail access, or other communication methods were offered either. I had no way of informing my coworkers in Europe that I was now surly going to miss the first day of the conference I was traveling to attend.
The passengers wanting a hotel were asked to let the staff know. The hotel request process was done by a single staff member who answered the phone and checked peoples' names from a printed out list while four of her LOT coworkers stood behind the counter and looked confused. Of course, no order was maintained and people crowded in front the counter to try to hear and register. This terribly organized process went on for about half an hour. At approximately 12:30 AM, June 6, we were told to go back out through security to catch a bus to a hotel. Upstairs, however we had to go through an almost identical hotel request process over again with one of five employees distributing people to hotel rooms (while the other four employed talked, joked, and played with their cell phones nearby).
Upon arriving at the designated bus pickup sight, we waited an additional 2 hours for a bus. Finally, at approximately 2:30 am, two buses arrived to take us to a Holiday Inn. The buses did not have enough room for all the passengers, so many of us had to stand in the isles between the seats (these were not city buses – there was nothing to hang onto). At approximately 3 am, after one of the buses attempted to leave passengers at the wrong hotel, everyone had finally arrived at the designated Holiday Inn somewhere in Brooklyn. It took an additional hour for us to actually get into our room.
My wife and I were placed in a room with the previously mentioned 16 year old girl who was traveling alone – quite scared and extremely exhausted, and another man who was also traveling alone. We decided to split the beds up by gender, so I slept with the solo male traveler while my wife slept next to the 16 year old girl (after calling her father – with our own phone – to explain the situation). Needless to say, this situation was highly uncomfortable, and both my wife and I slept in our clothing. The legal ramifications of leaving a minor alone in a room with several strange adults aside, I would like to emphasize the general point that leaving minors in hotel rooms with total strangers is unacceptable.
The next morning we awoke from our highly uncomfortable slumber to learn that buses had been scheduled to pick us up at the hotel and take us back to the airport at 11:00 am. At 11:15 am two buses arrived at the hotel. Unfortunately, as the night before, the two buses were too small to hold all the passengers. However, this time the bus drivers refused to break the law by letting us pack an extra 30 people into the isles. Instead, these 30 individuals – including my wife and myself – were left behind after extracting a promise from one of the bus drivers that he would come back for us. He never came back. More than an hour and a half later we were still waiting at the hotel. It took a polish speaking passenger repeatedly calling LOT to have anther bus scheduled to come pick us up. In the mean time, scared of missing the 2 pm flight, about 10 passengers used their own money to take cabs to the airport. Around 2 pm the last 'bus' finally arrived to take the remaining 17 passengers to the airport. Unfortunately, it was not a bus at all, but a large van which could seat 10. Thankfully, however, the driver allowed all 17 of us to squeeze in. My wife and I shared the front passenger seat. At one point my wife had to bend down and hide herself as we drove past a police officer on the freeway. However, we were simply thankful to have a chance to possibly catch the flight.
When we arrived at the airport about 2:30 pm we were chastised by a LOT employee for holding up the flight! Rushed through security, we finally arrived at our plane nearly a day after the originally scheduled boarding time. Of course, in true LOT style, we did not leave immediately thereafter. Instead we spent another nearly 3 hours on the runway waiting for the plane to be filled up with gas before taking off. Why the flight had not been filled up with gas before the new 2 pm departure time is beyond me. During this entire period of waiting for the bus, getting to the airport, and waiting for refueling we were offered no food, water, phone calls, or anything else. In fact, my wife had to argue with a LOT staff member to get the poor 16 year old girl with diabetes given some water and a snack!
I would like to conclude by telling you that this letter was written during a delay of our return flight to the US (LOT flight 003 from Warsaw to Chicago). The delay was ultimately 3.5 hours long, causing us to miss our connecting flight in Chicago. We had to stay over night again...
As my wife and I now had about two hours before departure and had not had anything to eat or drink since lunch, we decided we would go buy something for dinner after the 10 pm status update. We weren't away from the gate for more than 40 minutes. However, upon returning to the gate we found it empty. There had been no announcements! Furthermore, there was no information about our flight at either the gate or at the common departures board. Fortunately, while attempting to find out what happened to our flight we passed by a group of familiar faces (from the previous 4 and a half hours of shared waiting). The other passengers for our Warsaw flight were waiting at a new gate (Gate 23). Again, if we had not happened to recognize some of the other passengers by chance, we would have never found this out since no announcements were ever made!
Things only got worse. As it turned out, Gate 23 had no loud speakers (or so we were told at least – a flight to Spain at the gate right next to ours was making announcements in the usual manner). Thus, the LOT staff proceeded to make additional announcements by having what appeared to be their youngest and most inexperienced staff member stand in the middle of the roughly 200 flight 007 passengers and attempt to talk over the crowd. The young staffer didn't speak nearly loudly enough, nor did she or any of her coworkers make any attempt to stand on a chair, find a megaphone, or do anything else to establish any aspect of authority and visibility. Worst of all, some of the announcements were only made in Polish! Friendly passengers had to translate for everyone else. Understandably, some passengers -- many of whom were traveling with babies and small children -- began to get frustrated. The entire LOT staff, except for one young gentleman, seemed like they had no experience whatsoever in handling a situation like this. They were incapable of restoring order within the increasingly irritable passengers and generally appeared both flustered and confused about how to handle the situation.
During this entire period of time (from 5:30 pm until almost midnight) nothing was offered to the passengers, not even water. There was a 16 year old girl traveling by herself who had diabetes and was on an insulin pump. Her cell phone had run out of batteries and she could not make a call to her parents to let them know her situation. I lent her my cell phone, but what if she had not asked me? The very least the LOT staff could have done would be to give people a way to call loved ones, friends, coworkers, etc.
Due to the staff's mismanagement of the crowd and the inability of most travelers to hear what small amounts of information the staff did attempt to give out, a few passengers became restless and began to yell at the employees. Instead of taking charge of the situation and giving clear and concrete details about the flight status, anticipated delay times, etc., around midnight the LOT staff instead began to take passengers' boarding passes and then send them down an escalator into another group of (the previously mentioned) passengers boarding a flight to Spain. It was very crowded and somewhat difficult to exit the escalator without being dumped on top of other passengers already waiting below. This all seemed extremely unsafe – thankfully no accidents occurred.
After getting downstairs we noticed that there was not only still no water, but also no restrooms there. The LOT 007 passengers were held in this condition for an additional hour. Eventually it became clear that we had been sent down to this pre-boarding area more as a means to keep the increasingly angry passengers out of the main terminal than to actually get them onto the airplane. Again, no announcements were given until a single employee told us we should come back up to the main terminal again (now without valid boarding passes). The next day we learned that some of the passengers were even boarded on a bus to the plane only to be turned back after having to wait in the bus for about an hour.
Upon returning to Gate 23 in the terminal once again, we were told we would be given hotel rooms because the flight was officially canceled and rescheduled for the next day at 2 pm (the time was now after midnight). No alternative flights or refunds were offered! No phone calls, e-mail access, or other communication methods were offered either. I had no way of informing my coworkers in Europe that I was now surly going to miss the first day of the conference I was traveling to attend.
The passengers wanting a hotel were asked to let the staff know. The hotel request process was done by a single staff member who answered the phone and checked peoples' names from a printed out list while four of her LOT coworkers stood behind the counter and looked confused. Of course, no order was maintained and people crowded in front the counter to try to hear and register. This terribly organized process went on for about half an hour. At approximately 12:30 AM, June 6, we were told to go back out through security to catch a bus to a hotel. Upstairs, however we had to go through an almost identical hotel request process over again with one of five employees distributing people to hotel rooms (while the other four employed talked, joked, and played with their cell phones nearby).
Upon arriving at the designated bus pickup sight, we waited an additional 2 hours for a bus. Finally, at approximately 2:30 am, two buses arrived to take us to a Holiday Inn. The buses did not have enough room for all the passengers, so many of us had to stand in the isles between the seats (these were not city buses – there was nothing to hang onto). At approximately 3 am, after one of the buses attempted to leave passengers at the wrong hotel, everyone had finally arrived at the designated Holiday Inn somewhere in Brooklyn. It took an additional hour for us to actually get into our room.
My wife and I were placed in a room with the previously mentioned 16 year old girl who was traveling alone – quite scared and extremely exhausted, and another man who was also traveling alone. We decided to split the beds up by gender, so I slept with the solo male traveler while my wife slept next to the 16 year old girl (after calling her father – with our own phone – to explain the situation). Needless to say, this situation was highly uncomfortable, and both my wife and I slept in our clothing. The legal ramifications of leaving a minor alone in a room with several strange adults aside, I would like to emphasize the general point that leaving minors in hotel rooms with total strangers is unacceptable.
The next morning we awoke from our highly uncomfortable slumber to learn that buses had been scheduled to pick us up at the hotel and take us back to the airport at 11:00 am. At 11:15 am two buses arrived at the hotel. Unfortunately, as the night before, the two buses were too small to hold all the passengers. However, this time the bus drivers refused to break the law by letting us pack an extra 30 people into the isles. Instead, these 30 individuals – including my wife and myself – were left behind after extracting a promise from one of the bus drivers that he would come back for us. He never came back. More than an hour and a half later we were still waiting at the hotel. It took a polish speaking passenger repeatedly calling LOT to have anther bus scheduled to come pick us up. In the mean time, scared of missing the 2 pm flight, about 10 passengers used their own money to take cabs to the airport. Around 2 pm the last 'bus' finally arrived to take the remaining 17 passengers to the airport. Unfortunately, it was not a bus at all, but a large van which could seat 10. Thankfully, however, the driver allowed all 17 of us to squeeze in. My wife and I shared the front passenger seat. At one point my wife had to bend down and hide herself as we drove past a police officer on the freeway. However, we were simply thankful to have a chance to possibly catch the flight.
When we arrived at the airport about 2:30 pm we were chastised by a LOT employee for holding up the flight! Rushed through security, we finally arrived at our plane nearly a day after the originally scheduled boarding time. Of course, in true LOT style, we did not leave immediately thereafter. Instead we spent another nearly 3 hours on the runway waiting for the plane to be filled up with gas before taking off. Why the flight had not been filled up with gas before the new 2 pm departure time is beyond me. During this entire period of waiting for the bus, getting to the airport, and waiting for refueling we were offered no food, water, phone calls, or anything else. In fact, my wife had to argue with a LOT staff member to get the poor 16 year old girl with diabetes given some water and a snack!
I would like to conclude by telling you that this letter was written during a delay of our return flight to the US (LOT flight 003 from Warsaw to Chicago). The delay was ultimately 3.5 hours long, causing us to miss our connecting flight in Chicago. We had to stay over night again...
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Life Imitating Art
A photo recently taken through a rain covered window by a Greek acquaintance, V.M., in Minneapolis. It reminds me of an impressionistic landscape painting.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Jabberwocky chortled...
I have recently been traveling which, as any veteran traveler knows, necessitates the reading of at least one good book on the various trains, planes, and buses which move one about the landscape. During my reading on this particular trip I discovered that one of my favorite English words -- chortle -- was invented by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem "JABBERWOCKY" written sometime before 1871. Some thoughts and questions follow. However, for ease of reading, I will first reproduce the poem here along with some interesting comments taken from Martin Gardner (a well known logician, philosopher, and educator). Quoting from "The Annotated Alice":
I found Jabberwocky particularly interesting on this trip for two reasons. First, I am in the process of very slowly learning a second language at a somewhat advanced age (by language learning standards, at least). Reading Jabberwocky reminded me of trying to understand conversation in my too-be second language. That is, attempting to decipher a series of mysterious sounds linked together by a few known words, gestures, and contextual evidence about what was probably being discussed. Many of the words in Jabberwocky -- including chortle -- have essentially been defined by analyzing the poem in a fashion similar to my attempting to understand a funny story in my future-tongue. If my memory serves me correctly, this experience is also similar to learning to read for the first time. Learning new words during reading is, it seems to me, a inductive science based on the evidence of the general story arc together with the immediately surrounding known words. Given Carroll's interest in children, is it possible he was consciously attempting to reproduce the experience of a child reading through his nonsense verse?
Secondly, I find the nonsense verse interesting for the same reasons alluded to by the last three paragraphs of the preceding quotation. I have known math instructors who tried to break students' confusion over the use of variables in algebra by using smiley faces, Greek letters, or even small pictures in place of the standard unknown variable name 'x'. The point: A '2' by any other name still smells as '1 + 1'. What we call the numerical quantities in equations does not matter in the least as long as our naming convention is consistent. The concept of temporarily using arbitrary names for unknown objects about which we currently only have clues seems to be the real (and possibly only!) difficulty students have in learning algebra. And science?
Possibly students, deep down, do not like algebra due to the fact that it implies their own language is entirely arbitrary. Or, possibly students do not like algebra because they would rather watch TV than do their homework.
JABBERWOCKY
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicher-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgabe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is an obvious similarity between nonsense verse of this sort and an abstract painting. The realistic artist is forced to copy nature, imposing on the copy as much as he can in the way of pleasing forms and colors; but the abstract artist is free to romp with the paint as much as he pleases. In similar fashion the nonsense poet does not have to search for ingenious ways of combining pattern and sense; he simply ... takes care of the sounds and allows the sense to take care of itself. The words he uses may suggest vague meanings, like an eye here and a foot there in a Picasso abstraction, or they may have no meaning at all -- just a play of pleasant sounds like the play of non-objectives colors on a canvas.
Carroll was not, of course, the first to use this technique of double-talk in humorous verse. Has was preceded by Edward Lear ... Since the time of Lear and Carroll there have been attempts to produce a more serious poetry of this sort -- poems by the Dadaists, the Italian futurists, and Gertrude Stein, for example -- but somehow when the technique is taken too seriously the results seem tiresome...
Jabberwocky was a favorite of the British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington and is alluded to several times in his writings. In New Pathways in Science he likens the abstract syntactical structure of the poem to that modern branch of mathematics known as group theory. In The Nature of the Physical World he points out that the physicist's description of an elementary particle is really a kind of Jabberwocky; words applied to "something unknown" that is "doing we don't know what." Because the description contains numbers, science is able to impose a certain amount of order on the phenomena and to make successful predictions about them.
"By contemplating eight circulating electrons in one atom and seven circulating electrons in another," Eddington writes, "we begin to realize the difference between oxygen and nitrogen. Eight slithy toves gyre and gimble in the oxygen wabe; seven in nitrogen. By admitting a few numbers even "Jabberwocky" may become scientific. We can now venture on a prediction; if one of its toves escapes, oxygen will be masquerading in a garb properly belonging to nitrogen. In the stars and nebulae we do find such wolves in sheep's clothing which might otherwise have startled us. It would be a bad reminder of the essential unknownness of the fundamental entities of physics to translate it into "Jabberwocky"; provided all numbers -- all metrical attributes -- are unchanged, it does not suffer in the least."
Jabberwock has been translated skillfully into several languages...
I found Jabberwocky particularly interesting on this trip for two reasons. First, I am in the process of very slowly learning a second language at a somewhat advanced age (by language learning standards, at least). Reading Jabberwocky reminded me of trying to understand conversation in my too-be second language. That is, attempting to decipher a series of mysterious sounds linked together by a few known words, gestures, and contextual evidence about what was probably being discussed. Many of the words in Jabberwocky -- including chortle -- have essentially been defined by analyzing the poem in a fashion similar to my attempting to understand a funny story in my future-tongue. If my memory serves me correctly, this experience is also similar to learning to read for the first time. Learning new words during reading is, it seems to me, a inductive science based on the evidence of the general story arc together with the immediately surrounding known words. Given Carroll's interest in children, is it possible he was consciously attempting to reproduce the experience of a child reading through his nonsense verse?
Secondly, I find the nonsense verse interesting for the same reasons alluded to by the last three paragraphs of the preceding quotation. I have known math instructors who tried to break students' confusion over the use of variables in algebra by using smiley faces, Greek letters, or even small pictures in place of the standard unknown variable name 'x'. The point: A '2' by any other name still smells as '1 + 1'. What we call the numerical quantities in equations does not matter in the least as long as our naming convention is consistent. The concept of temporarily using arbitrary names for unknown objects about which we currently only have clues seems to be the real (and possibly only!) difficulty students have in learning algebra. And science?
Possibly students, deep down, do not like algebra due to the fact that it implies their own language is entirely arbitrary. Or, possibly students do not like algebra because they would rather watch TV than do their homework.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
My Blog Oath
I feel like a complete hypocrite blogging. Previously, whenever blogging has come up in a conversation, I have likened it to daytime talk shows, where people, feeling magnified into minor gods by mass media, behave like sloppy, self-important, public drunks. I usually also bring up the fact that, since long before the internet existed, acquisition librarians the world over have been employed full time to winnow through mountains of publications, trying to determine what is actually worth saving for posterity. The sheer volume of voices online has made any such equivalent internet endeavor utterly pointless. Aside from controlled access professional databases, the internet’s use as a reliable reference tool is clearly limited.
I realize that the visibility of potentially valuable open access material is now almost entirely up to the collective whim of unqualified end users. As we’ve been told countless times, it’s a bottom-up system, an inductive, even democratic, one. This is inevitably frustrating for anyone trying to use it as a source of definitive, trustworthy information, but I ultimately concede that heterodoxy is evolutionarily superior to orthodoxy, just as biodiversity is undeniably healthier than monoculture. Here’s my single contention regarding placing the onus of estimation upon the end user: I don’t think anyone can truly know how to process and evaluate all the noise unless she has first learned how to sit in silence and have serious, honest, thoughtful conversations with herself.
So, why have I decided to add yet another voice to the cacophony? Because I was asked to. That’s it. I would prefer not to, but I find it less painful to share an occasional thought with complete strangers than to disappoint one of my brothers, one of the “three thinking.” I don’t generally eat meat either, but if I am a guest in another’s home I eat what is offered. I can cook whatever I want in my own home. If, however, my host is interested in knowing what I think of the meal, I will respectfully share my thoughts with him.
To the point: I promise to blog only if I feel I have something useful to share, and I promise to be as brief as my conscience allows. I will try not to be too noisy. I will treat the internet as if it were another’s home in which I am a guest, as if, in fact, it were everyone’s home.
One of Three
I realize that the visibility of potentially valuable open access material is now almost entirely up to the collective whim of unqualified end users. As we’ve been told countless times, it’s a bottom-up system, an inductive, even democratic, one. This is inevitably frustrating for anyone trying to use it as a source of definitive, trustworthy information, but I ultimately concede that heterodoxy is evolutionarily superior to orthodoxy, just as biodiversity is undeniably healthier than monoculture. Here’s my single contention regarding placing the onus of estimation upon the end user: I don’t think anyone can truly know how to process and evaluate all the noise unless she has first learned how to sit in silence and have serious, honest, thoughtful conversations with herself.
So, why have I decided to add yet another voice to the cacophony? Because I was asked to. That’s it. I would prefer not to, but I find it less painful to share an occasional thought with complete strangers than to disappoint one of my brothers, one of the “three thinking.” I don’t generally eat meat either, but if I am a guest in another’s home I eat what is offered. I can cook whatever I want in my own home. If, however, my host is interested in knowing what I think of the meal, I will respectfully share my thoughts with him.
To the point: I promise to blog only if I feel I have something useful to share, and I promise to be as brief as my conscience allows. I will try not to be too noisy. I will treat the internet as if it were another’s home in which I am a guest, as if, in fact, it were everyone’s home.
One of Three
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
An unanswered e-mail to Dan Savage
Hello,
Before I begin I would like to say I am a fan. I enjoy reading your column and, at least most of the time, find your advice spot on.
I am writing on behalf of my brother -- with his disinterested permission -- who is a homosexual with a good professional job living in a small Midwestern city. My main motivation for writing is that my brother is lonely, having trouble finding a long term partner, and that I'm both sick of hearing him complain and would also like him to be happy.
Here is the problem: He is fairly conservative in that he is interested in, essentially, being the equivalent of some other gay guy's 50s housewife. He would like monogamy, stability, romance, and intellectual stimulation -- or at least what passes closely enough to these in the real world -- with another man. And, he claims that it is basically impossible to find a gay man who is interested in these things. According to him, gay men are, on average, even more prone to infidelity, instability, and shallow character traits than the average straight guy (especially the sort of outdoorsy hippy-type straight guys he has a tendency to form highly unrewarding crushes on).
I have two questions: First, is he correct about gay culture generally promoting greater levels of infidelity, etc.? Thinking back to some of the straight locker and bar room conversations concerning women I have listened to over the years, I find the idea that gay guys are even more likely to cheat, etc., than straight guys a bit hard to believe. Second, and more importantly, what, short of moving away from his career to a bigger coastal city, can my brother do to find a wholesome homosexual life partner? The bar and internet dating scenes are apparently not too helpful in this regard...
Thanks,
Brother Whiny, But Nice
Before I begin I would like to say I am a fan. I enjoy reading your column and, at least most of the time, find your advice spot on.
I am writing on behalf of my brother -- with his disinterested permission -- who is a homosexual with a good professional job living in a small Midwestern city. My main motivation for writing is that my brother is lonely, having trouble finding a long term partner, and that I'm both sick of hearing him complain and would also like him to be happy.
Here is the problem: He is fairly conservative in that he is interested in, essentially, being the equivalent of some other gay guy's 50s housewife. He would like monogamy, stability, romance, and intellectual stimulation -- or at least what passes closely enough to these in the real world -- with another man. And, he claims that it is basically impossible to find a gay man who is interested in these things. According to him, gay men are, on average, even more prone to infidelity, instability, and shallow character traits than the average straight guy (especially the sort of outdoorsy hippy-type straight guys he has a tendency to form highly unrewarding crushes on).
I have two questions: First, is he correct about gay culture generally promoting greater levels of infidelity, etc.? Thinking back to some of the straight locker and bar room conversations concerning women I have listened to over the years, I find the idea that gay guys are even more likely to cheat, etc., than straight guys a bit hard to believe. Second, and more importantly, what, short of moving away from his career to a bigger coastal city, can my brother do to find a wholesome homosexual life partner? The bar and internet dating scenes are apparently not too helpful in this regard...
Thanks,
Brother Whiny, But Nice
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