When Dad set type for the “Stars and Stripes” newspaper in Europe during World War 2, he suggested this for the headline of the VE Day special edition, and the editor agreed. A typesetter chose the headline, 75 yeas ago today. Well, the type was probably set 75 years ago yesterday, but let’s not quibble.
I have been trying to find something to write about today. In recent posts I’ve covered decluttering, which I could write more on but is actually boring if covered too much. Who wants to know about what I’ve thrown out today?
I could write about helping a fellow writer with a used computer, allowing her to write more efficiently during these times when she can’t get to the places where she used to use a computer. That wouldn’t be bad, and perhaps I’ll cover that in a future post.
I could write about The Teachings and how I’m doing with it. Again, I’ve written about that several times. While I’m making progress, I don’t really have much new to report.
Dad at the mobile Linotype unit in Italy in 1943. He was within sound of the guns, subject to enemy bombers if they ever came over. Note the pin-up girl on the machine!
None of those sounded good, so yesterday and earlier this morning I didn’t write anything. Then I realized what day this is. May 8. VE Day. Victory in Europe in World War 2. This was the day that the Stars and Stripes newspaper used the headline Dad suggested. He was setting type for the S&S in Marseilles, France. On May 7 the news came that the Germans were surrendering. The next day would be the end of the war in Europe. A special edition of the paper was called for. Dad suggested this for the momentous headline, and the editor agreed.
The S&S were put out in several places in Europe. Each place had its own editor, and each place put out a different newspaper, the stories being what the editor chose as being applicable to that area. So this was the headline from Marseilles, not from Paris, London, or Rome.
So, 75 years ago today, a Linotype operator chose the headline for the newspaper that marked the end of fighting in the European theater.
Waiting on someone to come get this rocking horse, but she never comes, is unsettling. Why don’t people come when they say they will? Do obligations mean nothing any more?
Well, after saying in my last post that I was about to re-start life, I find that more difficult to do than I expected. Why? Because of a heavy to-do list coupled with uncertainty, leading to unsettledness, leading to being overwhelmed by the forest and not being able to see the trees.
Where do I start, and how much do I say? I can get a lot done so long as I have a good to-do list
and a schedule. Even a long to-do list doesn’t put me off. What does put me off is lack of a schedule. Got 20 things to do? No problem; I’ll just schedule them. But when I can’t schedule them I have no idea what to do next. I get perplexed and flustered. The forest overwhelms me.
Part of the problem may be simple tiredness. On Saturday I did my usual tackling of to-do items. Trading accounting, checkbook, budgeting, and filing all went quickly. I got to work on decluttering, moving two large cabinets in the storage room, organizing things to remain for better placement on shelves, identifying more things to be discarded. I also spent 20 or 30 minutes shredding old work papers. Oh, yes, I also worked in the yard for an hour and a half, hauling an old wood pile back into the woods and pulling weeds from the rock yard. All this was sandwiched between three loads of laundry. With Lynda still convalescing I didn’t want to leave that to her.
So, by the end of the day I was beat. I sat out on the deck, trying to read but unable to concentrate. The day was hot (85 degrees) and that took its toll. I came inside with a few things to do but couldn’t do them. I wanted to take a walk but couldn’t do it because…
…I was waiting on a woman to come to buy the rocking horse I had put up for sale on Facebook marketplace. She contacted me Thursday saying she wanted it. Friday we made arrangements for her to come Saturday afternoon. I didn’t want Lynda to have to handle it, so I put off my walk. She didn’t come, didn’t message me. I did mindless things for two hours before messaging her asking where she was. She couldn’t come, she said, having been called in to work; could she come on Sunday? Sure, I replied, but I need to know when. She would message me 30 minutes before she would arrive. That was okay by me. My walks never take me more than 20 minutes from the house if I had to get back quickly.
So I fixed supper, worked on a jigsaw puzzle. I was out of energy. So much I could have accomplished in the time I was waiting on her. If she had just messaged me to say she needed to put it off a day I could have restructured my day, gotten my walk in, been able to rest comfortably, and not felt so unsettled for the sake of a $30 used rocking horse.
Ah, well, such is life. I did manage to spend a little time preparing to teach Life Group on Sunday. I also had just enough presence of mind to type edits on my novel-in-progress. Tomorrow I hope to get back to it. Except there’s an eye doctor appointment for Lynda, picking up an old computer of mine that’s been refurbished that I’m going to give to a retired missionary, stock trading, contacting a man about a roof, etc. At least I’m not going to worry about the horse. If she comes for it, fine. If not I’ll renew the ad and hope someone else sees it.
Meanwhile, time to fix supper and back to the jigsaw puzzle.
I’m not talking about the U.S. economy, about ready to begin emerging from the business shutdown to help slow the spread of the corona virus. I’m talking about me.
April was kind of a blur. I worked on and finished the genealogy/family history book. I did yard work. I did massive decluttering, getting rid of piles of paper, a score of empty boxes, five old computers. Some of that stuff is still in the garage, awaiting re-opening of the technology recycling center.
I took my wife to the hospital on the third, bringing her home on the 22nd after two operations and a difficult recovery. Now I’m her caregiver, though she is getting stronger each day and will be somewhat back to normal soon.
Now it’s May 1, my regular blogging day as well as the first of the month. It’s time for me to report on how I did on April goals and set some goals for May. But given how April was, I feel like I need to totally re-start things. I don’t know what the new normal will be, either in the world or in my life. Thus I’m not really ready to set new goals for my writing life. I guess, however, I can report on April progress.
Blog twice a week. I think I missed one day. Otherwise, I continued this through the unsettleness of the month.
Get as far as I can with the genealogy book. I finished this book. Yesterday I did a few tweaks. I still need one last proof, plus one last check to see that I have all events in the people’s lives covered. Plus I need to check the formatting to make sure the graphics insert properly. I may do that this weekend. Then, I head to publishing steps.
Spend at least some time in The Teachings. I should set a word goal. Let’s say 3,000 words is my goal for the month. All I did on The Teachings last month was re-read the first few chapters. Since the genealogy book consumed me, I kept this set aside. Maybe today and this weekend I’ll get back to re-reading the whole thing, and back to new writing next week.
Give my talk to the Village Lake Writers & Poets on April 8. This was to have been a virtual talk due to the ban on gatherings of over ten people. However, this was the day when Lynda was at her lowest in the hospital, and I found I couldn’t give it. I told the organizer I was willing to do it, but she said no, given the circumstances she would do something back-up and reschedule me.
Do some research into the next Documenting America book. Maybe it will just read the document I found. Maybe it will be to peruse the site that document came from and note other documents for use and at least skim them. I did nothing on this.
So there you have it. I’m not ready to set goals for May. Maybe I will be ready by Monday, or maybe not at all. As the U.S.A. looks to turn back to something normal, perhaps a new normal, so it is with me. Right now decluttering will take a higher priority than writing.
Look for my post on Monday. Perhaps I’ll have some clarity by then.
Is it the shut down of normal life due to the corona virus that is causing people to be so angry of late, including me?
We all know that fights can break out on social media. The only social media I do is Facebook (well, I just joined Next Door but haven’t gotten into it). It’s easy to witness fights there. Yesterday a friend shared something about injection of medicine into someone’s lungs. The original poster (not my friend, but a person unnamed) said she was a respiratory therapist, and that, while President Trump’s recent disinfectant comments were poorly worded he was actually spot-on for what the treatment is and does. She wasn’t saying that an effective treatment of corona virus has been found, but that the president’s question was actually of something worth considering. To show that she has no political agenda, she said she has never voted and isn’t even registered to vote.
Enter an acquaintance—I won’t call him a friend—who used to attend church with me and the one who shared that post. He said this: “This person needs to shut the hell up!!!! Not registered to vote, won’t vote, your [sic] not neutral your [sic] a moron sheep that has no right to share their opinion. No vote, no whining about anything!!!” That struck me the wrong way. First off, the respiratory therapist wasn’t whining, just sharing some of her experience. Second, I wasn’t aware the First Amendment had been rewritten to allow free speech only to those who voted. That’s the sort of thing I would expect in China. I replied to his comment with those sentiments. He then responded:
Dave is your head up your ass?
Sue is a friend, dear friend we can disagree or discuss a topic with out your two cents for sure!!!
He and I aren’t Facebook friends (not sure why, just never connected after life took us in different directions) and it looks like we won’t be. If he doesn’t think the First Amendment applies to all, we have little in common politically.
The other item of anger that helped define my week was in real life, not on social media. I lost my cool with someone who pushed my buttons (not my wife!). I let my anger loose in a phone call when the person once again pushed my buttons, for perhaps the fifth straight pone call. This person has always pushed my buttons and I’ve always controlled my anger much better. This week I let it go. I’ve since sent an e-mail of apology, but haven’t heard back yet. The person doesn’t regularly check e-mail.
So what caused my outburst? Yes, my buttons were pushed. Not one button but three by this person, three issues raised where he/she criticized me and my wife. It’s been happening for years, and I had finally had enough. But has the shutdown/lock-down/stay-at-home movement had a negative effect on my ability to deal with negative people?
I just read a post where someone was critical of some teenage girls who were out on a trail by a river and lake yesterday dressed in skimpy bikinis, more thongs. I agree with the poster that I’d rather not see such sights. I started to post in agreement, then stopped. I decided it’s just not worth it and moved on.
Life is good. God is good. There’s no reason to dive into these negatives. Controlling my own behavior is what I’m called to do, not to fix stupidity or wrong-headedness in others.
The Port Royal expedition was short, close at hand, and successful. The Quebec expedition was long, arduous, and conducted much too close to the harsh Canadian winter to be successful. Click on the image to see it larger.
I think I mentioned in a previous post that I pulled away from my creative writing to work on genealogy research and a genealogy/family history book. I suppose it is really more of a biography.
The subjects are Elizabeth Cheney and Stephen Cross, who married in Ipswich Massachusetts in 1672. Elizabeth is the youngest daughter of John Cheney of Newbury Massachusetts, who is my wife’s immigrant ancestor in her paternal line. Over the years I’ve gathered a lot of information on John and finally decided I should write a book about him. What the book would look like crystalized in 2015. It would be about him and his ten children who lived to adulthood. I decided I would start gathering data with the youngest child, since published sources I looked at had less about Elizabeth than her siblings.
From 2015 to 2016 I began that process. I found that there was actually a lot of information about Stephen Cross, Elizabeth’s husband. It’s unfortunate that, in the era they lived, the women didn’t leave as many footprints as the men. But there were a lot of footprints to find and assimilate. In a couple of months of occasional work, I had the part about Stephen and Elizabeth up to 60 pages, and I wasn’t really done.
Woah! Sixty plus pages for one of John’s children. That meant a possible 600 pages about the children. Add that much or more for John, and I was looking at a monster, 700 page book. That wouldn’t work unless I did two volumes.
Ipswich, on the north shore of Massachusetts, is an interesting study. It’s been nicknamed the Birthplace of American Independence for the stand many of its leading citizens took against the heavy-handed government of Edmund Andros.
I had another thought back in 2016. The Stephen and Elizabeth material could be expanded into a stand-alone book. I put this on my list of writing to-dos, then, my research fervor having been stated for the moment, I went back to my creative writing work, knowing someday I would get back to Stephen and Elizabeth, and later to her siblings.
“Someday” was March 25, 2020. I dusted off what I did in 2015-16, realized I had much more research I could do, and got into it passionately. When I research a topic the work tends to consume me. From the research I made three discoveries that, so far as I can tell, have been overlooked—or maybe “not found” is better—by other researchers.
First, Stephen was a coastal mariner. He bought a boat and plied the coasts from Maine to Connecticut, hauling freight. That has always been known by researchers. So has his part in the colonial naval assault against Quebec in 1690 as part of King William’s War. But researchers have missed that he was also part of an assault against Port Royal, Nova Scotia, two months before the Quebec expedition. Smaller, closer, shorter than the Quebec expedition, the Port Royal expedition was a huge success. Stephen Cross was part of it, not as a mariner, but as captain of a company of foot soldiers.
This seems to have been missed by all researchers. My research has turned up Stephen in close to twenty published works, sometimes as a “bit player” in a genealogy but sometimes as a key figure in a Cross family book, story, or major website. I’m not even sure how I found out about his Port Royal adventure. I suppose it came from researching the disastrous Quebec raid, which I learned was shortly after the successful Port Royal raid. Searching a narrative of that must have turned up Stephen’s name. It didn’t take much digging to confirm his participation and role.
The fact that he led foot soldiers at Port Royal caused me to question the nature of his participation at Quebec. Every researcher I’ve found said he captained the ketch Lark in that raid. However, in original sources about the Quebec expedition, his name doesn’t show up as the captain of that vessel. Instead, it shows up because he attended a war council the evening that they anchored in the St. Lawrence just down river from the city. Of the thirty-odd people who attended that conference, only two were among those listed as captains of the thirty-some vessels in the expedition. That conference was for the officers of foot soldiers!
This also seems to have gone unnoticed by other researchers. Of the seven captains of foot companies at Port Royal, five attended that Quebec war council, including Stephen. My conclusion is he was he again a captain of foot soldiers, not a captain of a vessel.
So why have other researchers thought otherwise? In Perley’s History of Salem is a statement “In August, 1690, the Salem vessels joined the rest of the fleet which were at Nantasket to sail for Canada…. The ketch Lark of Salem, commanded by Capt. Stephen Cross, had been in the expedition to Canada, and had returned to Salem this year, and the arms on board were deposited in Mr. Derby’s warehouse.” Perley’s source for this is the Massachusetts Archives, volume 36, leaf 33.
Alas, to sort this out I would have to see the folio in the archive. It’s possible that Stephen simply piloted the ship from Boston back to Salem, since he was an accomplished coastal skipper. Or maybe he took over the vessel at some point during the expedition and his name didn’t get added to ship captains. It’s possible that the portfolio would tell.
At this point I believe I’m right about Stephen leading a company of foot soldiers at Quebec.
The other thing I discovered seemingly not found by other researchers is less adventurous. About the time of his marriage, Stephen bought a sloop, the Adventure, and hauled freight and passengers in it. He had a partner, Samuel Cogswell, who died three years later. All of this is well-known and is included in other accounts of Stephen. What is new is that, after Cogswell’s death, Stephen took on a new partner, John Lee (or Leigh) of Ipswich. The relationship is clearly spelled out in some court cases beginning in 1678 and extending into the 1680s. Accounts of Stephen’s life prepared by others mention the Adventure and Cogswell’s role in it, but not Lee’s.
I must end this. The post is much too long and probably of interest to me and no one else. I just wanted to let you know how good it felt to research a topic—in this case a person—and break new ground, find something no one else seems to have found.
While my wife is in the hospital, following two surgeries, I’m keeping very busy. Yesterday I was so busy I forgot to do my regular blog post. Now, on Saturday morning, I’m still keeping busy. So busy in fact that I’ve not planned anything to say today. I need to sit down and make up a blog post schedule. Maybe if I write that on the to-do list I’ll get it done.
Meanwhile, back to the checkbook, budgeting, filing, yardwork, vacuuming the car, income taxes, paying bills, reading, writing, etc.
Twain’s miscellaneous writings published after his death: good to read but not worth keeping.
Some time ago I picked up a used copy of Letters From The Earth: Uncensored Writings By Mark Twain. Actually, I have another copy of this in the house which I saw while looking for something else on a bookshelf.
The book was pulled together posthumously by editors from writings Twain never published, things they found after he died. Like many authors, Twain started things, working toward some grand plan, then never finished them. Perhaps he realized the project didn’t make sense. Perhaps other things caught his interest. The editors found value in these writings and published it in 1938, more than twenty years after Twain’s death.
Thus, the book is a hodgepodge of materials, most of them dealing with religion and man, particularly relations between men and women. The Table of Contents is as follows.
Letters From The Earth
Papers of the Adam Family
Letter To The Earth
A Cat-Tale
Cooper’s Prose Style
Official Report to the I.I.A.S
The Gorky Incident
Simplified Spelling
Something About Repentance
From An English Notebook
From The Manuscript of “A Tramp Abroad”; the French and the Comanches
From an Unfinished Burlesque of Books on Etiquette
The Damned Human Race
The Great Dark
These vary in length from a few pages to fifty pages. Some I found interesting, if not illuminating. Some of his thoughts on women’s sexuality came from a different perspective and included things I’d never thought of. Some about sin and man’s relationship to God presented a skeptic’s or atheist’s viewpoint on Christianity. I don’t know if Twain was an atheist, but would conclude so just based on reading this book.
I found the article on James Fenimore Cooper’s writings overly critical. Cooper wrote a several decades before Twain began. Writing styles were different and had changed a lot in those years. This is the second piece I’ve read of Twain’s that pans Cooper. Not sure why Twain had it out for him.
I’m glad I read this as it tells me much more about Twain. I read almost all of it, skipping some of “The Great Dark” and most of the editor’s notes. I won’t be keeping it. Next time I leave The Dungeon for the Upper Realm, I’ll bring it with me and take it strait to the sale/donation pile. As a matter of fact, when I find that other copy of this somewhere on one of my many book shelves, it will go out as well. I’m not having a permanent Twain collection.
I won’t write much at the moment. I’m a day late with this post. While my wife is in the hospital and I’m unable to see her due to the corona virus outbreak, I’m keeping myself very busy so as not to go crazy. On Thursday, between the elliptical and the trails in our area I walked almost four miles. Yesterday I took a new trail near the house and walked three hard miles. That was after an hour and a half of yard work.
I was quite tired after that and didn’t accomplish much the rest of the day. I read and re-read portions of the genealogy book I’m writing, still not able to let it go and get back to my novel. I’m decluttering, but that means I have more clutter than ever. It will all come together when I finish deciding what to get rid of, but not yet. Actually, I can see some progress. Things are better organized if not eliminated.
Lynda is doing better. She had at least five or six complications from the surgery and general health issues and has slowly, with the help of an excellent medical team, worked through them. Right now the remaining problem is her stomach not draining. Some kind of blockage, perhaps in the small intestine, is preventing that. She’s had to have an n-g tube in for days now to drain her stomach otherwise she has extreme nausea from gastric fluids building up. Today they are supposed to do a test to see where the blockage is so they can do a treatment for it.
Keeping busy prevents me from going crazy with worry. I have prayed much, read much, worked much. I think it was Monday evening that, after an extensive time in prayer, I had a wave of peace come over me. I knew in that moment that Lynda wasn’t going to die in the hospital, that she would be coming home to me.
I must now get back to my work. I found on the table in my office a book I read but didn’t review on this blog. It’s a book I’m not going to keep, so I need to review it and take it to the donation/sale pile. Look for it on Monday.
Well, the title of this blog post is sure a true statement. I never expected something like this corona virus that would send the world reeling. I never would have expected a stock market meltdown such as we’ve had. And I never would have expected…
…my wife to be in the hospital. On Thursday she woke up to a painful abdomen. It wasn’t long before she realized it wasn’t just gas, that something was wrong. We monitored it, but the pain was tolerable so we went about our normal routine. That is, normal for being socially distant and close to sheltering in place.
Friday morning the pain remained. It had also hit her hard during the night. After a couple of hours we called her primary care physician and arranged a video appointment. That happened but with much trial and error. The doc decided she needed to come in for an office visit. They aren’t doing many of those due to the pandemic, but she said come in before 4. This was around 11:00 a.m. The lab called us back and said we should come in before 3 because they would leave early on a Friday with not a lot to do.
The doc decided she needed a cat scan, so they scheduled it for the Mercy urgent care facility closest to our house, at our request, because we figured we’d be going home afterward. The thing took almost four hours, at which time they said we needed to head straight to the hospital operating room. The problem was most likely a ruptured appendix. We did so, getting there at 6:00 p.m.
Of course, I couldn’t go into any of these places with her. I read in the car. We left so quickly in the morning that neither of us brought chargers and Lynda didn’t remember her new cell phone. Thinking there would be surgery that night (as we were told), I waited in the parking lot, thinking if something went wrong they would call me and let me see her. But Lynda called around 8:00 p.m. and said the surgery would be at 10 Saturday morning.
The surgeon then called me around 10 a.m. on Saturday. They took her early to surgery, got out the appendix laparoscopically, She would be in the hospital a few days due to antibiotics due to the rupture, all of which time I wouldn’t be able to see her because of the corona virus.
In video calls since then, I’ve learned that her heart went into a-fib, she’s quite nauseous, she has an air bubble in her stomach, and water on her lungs. During which time I can’t see her due to the pandemic.
So, today, Sunday, I kept myself busy. I studied for Life Group in case I had to teach (which I didn’t), I had quite a few phone calls and many messages about Lynda. I did some more genealogy research, and I accelerated a de-cluttering effort in the storeroom that I began about five days ago. I actually saw some progress on both research and decluttering today.
And, of course I prayed—much, even almost without ceasing. God has this under control, all of it. He has Lynda’s health, he had the world’s health, and he has my peace of mind.
The nurses told me today that Lynda isn’t in any danger. What she’s going through (except the a-fib) is normal after an operation. Her body just needs time to work through it.
So I will rest easy knowing the Great Physician has this. Amen.
Here’s what I had for my March goals and how I did relative to them.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Did this. Once I did a “can’t write much today” post, and once I didn’t get my Friday post in till Saturday, but I got them done.
Make significant progress on The Teachings, my novel-in-progress. I need to make this measurable, so I’ll set 20,000 words to be added this month. That means, at the close of March 31st, I should be at 32, 122 or better. Failed miserably on this when my genealogy book and research took over practically all my waking hours. I ended the month with around 23,250 words. Not awful, but not what I hoped for.
Make a final decision on what Bible study to work on this year. I decided this: it will be Entrusted To My Care: A Bible Study of 1 & 2 Timothy.
Attend three writing group meetings this month, two for Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista and one for Village Lake Writers & Poets. Due to the corona virus outbreak, two of these three meetings were cancelled. The first one, on March 4, we did at the Rogers library. The 2nd Wednesday Noon group will meet as a Facebook livestream followed by a Zoom conference this month, and I’m the speaker.
Spend a little time going through the genealogy book I started over two years ago. My goal is to make a judgment of how much work would be involved and whether I could publish it this year. I haven’t talked much about this on the blog. I’ll have to do a post or two on it. I accomplished this—big time. I’m working hot and heavy on the book, to the detriment of all other writing tasks, and it’s coming along well. Up to 88 pages and the end is not yet.
Republish the two stories in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series I didn’t get done last month, to add my current list of published works (and correct any typos I might find). Did this! All five Sharon Williams Fonseca stories are re-published with most recent data on my published works, as well as a correcting a few typos in each.
Continue reading for research in the next Documenting America book. This will include searching for available documents. I have a few already chosen, but more are needed. This month I may be searching for documents more than reading them. I don’t know if I can claim having done this or not. I found some new on-line sources and skimmed one and bookmarked the site. I guess I can claim it.
So, what about April? I’m somewhat uncertain due to this genealogy obsession that has to run its course before I can get back to other work. Thus I think my goals will be modest this month.
Blog twice a week.
Get as far as I can with the genealogy book.
Spend at least some time in The Teachings. I should set a word goal. Let’s say 3,000 words is my goal for the month.
Give my talk to the Village Lake Writers & Poets on April 8.
Do some research into the next Documenting America book. Maybe it will just read the document I found. Maybe it will be to peruse the site that document came from and note other documents for use and at least skim them.
That’s all for April. It will be a busy month, just not in the things I had on my master 2020 list.
