The Wedding of the Century

But first. An apology to our leaders in Washington. In a recent blog I stated that they were not fit to run a flea circus. I should have been more specific. They are unfit to run a flea circus with actual fleas. They are eminently qualified to run to run one where the impresario cons the rubes into believing they are seeing what are really imaginary fleas. One argument for constantly re-electing these chumps is to keep the bunco artists all in one place. It's hard enough to buy a good used car without having to deal with ex-congressmen.

So the wedding of the century. I love western Massachusetts-you can hardly hear the Bostonians congratulating themselves on being the Hub of the Universe. The wedding took place in Westfield at a beautiful new Catholic Church. We have a great variety of church architecture here in Easton, but the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Westfield is truly spectacular with an outstanding blend of the traditional-exquisite stained glass- and a modern layout that somehow seems more welcoming than old fashioned churches. Perhaps it was the semicircular design that was a startling break from the old linear approach of churches and cathedrals. The church also featured lovely warm-toned woodwork and thoughtful detailing-for example the exterior shutters had cutouts in the shape of the chalice used in the Mass. The wedding ceremony was performed by an old family friend who had baptized the bride. Once, forty years ago, I had been a groomsman in a traditional Polish Catholic wedding and expected a lot of kneeling-(actually I mostly remember kielbasa, pierogies and beer at the post-reception reception), but while forgoing the kneeling, yesterday's ceremony was warm, charming, and worthy of the mystery of the sacrament.

The reception was at the Log Cabin at the foot of Mount Tom. A place I was first acquainted with also forty years ago when I bus I was riding home from UMass was diverted over the mountain and down the very road by the restaurant! The reception dinner was wonderful with a remarkable ending. The traditional chocolate mousse desert hid a fabulous raspberry sauce under the mousse. One should be warned of these things because most adults approach mousse with respect and small spoonfuls. Folks that thought it was puddin' dug right in and hit the raspberry jackpot with a good dollop of chocolate!

I'll be spending the next several weeks editing the video footage shot by my crack team of cameramen while waiting for the returns from the still photographers who do a much better job of shooting weddings than videographers. Better lighting with the flash, better composition from a skilled photographer, and no loud background music are all reasons to prefer the wedding album to the wedding DVD. However,  I will be encouraging the happy couple to restage the reception dancing in a well lighted studio as an Easton Community Access Television reality show called Find the Dancing Teachers.

Early Blog

  I'm videoing a wedding Saturday so I'm writing this very brief posting on Friday evening. With the passage of the Boehner Bill, it is becoming increasingly likely that the Republicans will win the game of Washington Chicken. Raising the debt ceiling will apparently come about only with substantial service cuts and no revenue enhancement. This is an ideological trick not good fiscal policy. A responsible solution requires both adjustments to the tax code and cuts in discretionary spending and entitlements like Medicare and Social Security. Once again the little guys look like they are going to be sold out by the very people, Republicans and Democrats, they sent to Washington to represent them. Hamstrung by the Republican Big Lie Propaganda Machine, it seems unlikely that President Obama has the national prestige to reject an 11th hour package that dramatically cuts spending without equally dramatic reform of the tax code. God Save the United States of America because we are in the hands of leaders who shouldn't be running a flea circus let alone a great nation

John McCafferty

John McCafferty remains a man of mystery. Born in 1843 he doesn't appear in the 1850 federal or 1855 state censuses for Easton. He doesn't appear to have lived in any of the Ames tenements. Chaffin, however, writes as if he is familiar with the man. As noted yesterday, McCafferty died on July 10, 1899 and is buried in the Immaculate Conception Cemetery. A check yesterday showed he died of accidental drowning, but whether that occurred in Easton or elsewhere awaits the discovery of an obituary.

Chaffin notes he left college in Worcester in April, 1861 when he was 18. This would be Holy Cross founded in 1843 by the Jesuits under the auspices of Boston's Bishop Fenwick when Protestant opposition prevented him from starting the school in the capital. The valedictorian of the first graduating class in 1849 was James Healy, the son of a slave, who became the first African American bishop. This is interesting because Protestant Abolitionists were often "down on" the Catholic Church for failing to take a stand opposed to slavery. Tuition was expensive-$125 per year in 1843 so McCafferty would have had to have come from a family that was more well off than the average Irish family of the time or had a scholarship or patron. I've been unable to determine whether Holy Cross was exclusively aimed at producing members of the priesthood in its early years, but it seems that many graduates did go on to to become members of the clergy. Was it patriotism or the desire for an adventurous life that caused a bright young man to drop out of school and join the service?

In the Star Trek universe the USS Cairo is an Excelsior class starship. That would have been an adventure for Mr. McCafferty! However, he joined the USS Cairo that was a City class ironclad, designed by James Eads at Mound City, Illinois. The ironclad was 175 feet long and displaced 512 tons. Designed for river use, it could operate in only six feet of water and make 4 knots. If Chaffin is correct, McCafferty was assigned to the ship, then owned by the US Army  in April, 1861 when it was still being built. The ship was officially commissioned only in January of 1862, however. Again, according to Chaffin, McCafferty transferred off the ironclad in April, 1862 to join another river ironclad, the New Era. If McCafferty was on the Cairo when Chaffin said he was, he participated in the capture of Clarksville and Nashville, Tennessee in Febraury, 1862. After McCafferty supposedly left the Cairo it became the first ship in world history to be sunk by an electronically detonated mine on December 12, 1862. Here's a picture of the USS Cairo:

 The Cairo was raised in 1964 and the rich trove of artifacts now resides in the National Park Service's Vicksburg National Military Park. You can view these really interesting relics here.

The National Park Service  has researched the shipmates who served on the Cairo. These records tell a different story about John McCafferty. According to the NPS McCafferty enlisted on April 4, 1862 on the Cairo, the date Chaffin has him transferring to the New Era. The record calls him a landsman-he became a cook so check out those cooking artifacts-who had been born in Boston and enlisted from Boston. He was 19, had no occupation, and was described as of fair complexion with brown hair, blue eyes and standing a Napoleonic 5 feet 2 and three quarters inches tall. By the way, the downloadable PDF file of the crew list, available at the link above,  also includes many pictures of the ships artifacts.

So, with apologies to the Cairo, today's research blows Chaffin's story right out of the water! He joined the ship just as it was headed into its most important action not at the relative easy work in February. And when did he join the New Era? Do we have another Lyman Wheelock here? Wheelock was the last Revolutionary War soldier to die in Easton, but he moved to town after his wartime service. Stay tuned!

The Start of a Civil War Mystery

John McCafferty died on July 10, 1899 and is buried in the Immaculate Conception Cemetery on Canton Street. According to Chaffin's History of Easton  McCafferty "left college at Worcester, and entered service in April, 1861, on the USS Cairo, and afterward on the USS New Era, and has remained in the navy most of the time since." His record of Civil War service men says McCafferty was on the Cairo from April, 1861 until April, 1862 when he joined the crew of the New Era. A military record found at Ancestry.com notes that John McCafferty joined the navy on April 4, 1862 as a "landsman" and continued in service until April 3, 1865. During his term of service he was appointed a "Full Ship's Cook" His age in 1862 was listed as 19 which means that when he died he was only 56 years old. So far that's all we know about Mr. McCafferty.

A Catholic boy in college in 1861 might have been a first for Easton. His service during the war was on riverboats not regular seagoing vessels. The fact that he mostly remained in the navy at least until 1886 is interesting since many Easton veterans simply returned home, often to their pre-war jobs. Did he continue in the navy and serve as perhaps the only Easton enlisted man in the Spanish American War? We'll spend tomorrow looking a little more deeply into this mysterious man-I promise some interesting finds!

Massachusetts Grown and Fresher

This time of year I often eat several vegetarian or near vegetarian meals a week. The UMASS Extension Service is certainly making that easier. Every Tuesday they have a representative at the NRT Farmers Market providing samples of a vegetarian recipe. The idea is to promote buying local produce-"Massachusetts grown…and fresher!" Yesterday's recipe for salsa was a simple twist on an already simple recipe:

Cool Summer Salsa

1 large cucumber (1 cup) peeled, seeded, and diced

1 orange, peeled and diced or one small can mandarin oranges

1 small tomato, diced

2 green onion or scallions, minced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (adjust amount to taste)

1 tablespoon olive or other salad oil

2 tablespoons lime juice

1. Wash and prepare vegetables and orange

2. In a small bowl, combine all ingredients

3. Use as a chip dip or spoon over grilled chicken or fish.

The Mass. Dept. of Agriculture would be proud of me. I bought a cucumber and some large orange cherry tomatoes from Farmer Val and got scallions and tomatillos from Farmer Adam's assistant Ann. Yup, I changed the recipe replacing the orange with the tomatillo. I also added some of Karen's Cumin and Coriander Rub, a minced slice or two of Vidalia onion and a little salt. It was great. Hard to describe the taste of tomatillo tart with an underlying sweetness. They are related to the husk covered "ground cherries" that have become popular at Farmer's Markets in recent years. I didn't have a chance to get to the supermarket so the tomatillos replaced both the orange and the lime juice. A half a cup of the original recipe has only 60 calories. I served it with a big bell pepper stuffed with Bell's stuffing, onion, mushroom, and some blue cheese crumbles.

 Patrons of the NRT Farmer's Market should know that Marie Pray's famous peaches were available at the market for the first time on Tuesday. She will have more on Saturday. By the way, Langwater Farms fruit trees may begin producing as early as next year.

Fields and Box Turtles

I haven't seen the environmental report for the proposed field on Chestnut Street yet, but people who have seen it say that the land has only the same background level of minerals you'd expect from areas of igneous rocks. All of the northern half of town has igneous bedrock. Most people don't realize that while the major minerals in granite are harmless there are trace amounts of heavy metals and even radioactive elements. There's even gold in "them thar hills," but in amounts too small to bother with. Over on Elm Street extension, there are the remains of a silver mine dug by some overly optimistic investors in the early 19th century.

I love the idea, proposed by Meredith Keach and Nick Ventresco, to name the new Chestnut Street recreation area for Edwin Keach who was killed in a tragic accident there a few years ago.

Yesterday I promised a quick summary of the Massachusetts Wildlife article on Box Turtles. We have an Ornate Box Turtle, a subspecies from the Plains states, at Sheep Pasture. Francine is her name, and the fact that some pet store had her for sale is one cause for the decline of this species across its range. In Massachusetts we're at the northern edge of the Eastern box turtle's range, something that helps make the reptile rare here. Box turtles are only terrestrial turtles, and they get their name from their ability to shut themselves up completely in their shells. Unlike painted or spotted turtles they are not tied to often protected wetlands. Instead they prefer the same land we like to build houses on. Despite having the cruising speed that handicapped them in that famous race with the hare, box turtles travel miles in a year. Last year a box turtle was discovered on one of the trails of Sheep Pasture. Tragically, a week later the poor beast, which could have lived more than a century, was crushed by a driver on Route 138. Mowing for hay is another cause of mortality. Another problem is that Box turtles are very attractive animals which causes both big and little people to want to take them home and make them pets. If you find a box turtle, take pictures and leave it alone. The only exception to that rule is when you see a turtle in the road. If you can do it safely, take the turtle across the road in the direction it was going. Turtles are stubborn and will turn around and try to recross a road if they are not moved in the direction they were going. Both box turtles and spotted turtles can be picked up to move. The third traveling species is the snapping turtle-I carry a snow shovel in the car to help those guys across the street.

 And yes, the unwillingness to change direction and the desire to ignore changes around them by shutting themselves up in a shell are traits that make them a better mascot for the new Republican Party than that darned elephant.

Massachusetts Wildlife

Just a short post today about an interesting magazine published by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife It's called Massachusetts Wildlife and it's published quarterly for $6 per year. The magazine touches on the full mission of the Division from the traditional hunting and fishing to wildlife conservation and rare species with full color articles. You can subscribe at www.mass.gov/masswildlife.

This quarters magazine has articles on a wily turkey, smallmouth bass fishing, Big Brown Bats, and the Eel River Headwaters Restoration Project. My two favorite articles feature parasitic plants and box turtles.

Parasitic plants need a connection to other plants to live. At Sheep Pasture I have discovered two parasitic plants. One is Indian pipe, also called ghost plant. Here it is:

The plant is completely white because it's incapable of photosynthesis. Indian Pipe is parasitic on certain fungi that have there own symbiotic relationship with the roots of certain trees. The fungus gets its nutrients from the tree roots, but improves those roots ability to absorb that nutrition. The Indian pipe just takes its nutrition from the fungus without giving anything back. Needless to say, a parasite that feeds on a fungus that feeds on a tree root needs an ecosystem that has long been undisturbed so Indian pipe is found in areas that have been woodlands for decades if not centuries. A relative called pinesap which can be identified by its yellow or red flowers may also be present at Sheep Pasture. Both pinesap and Indian pipe are members of the same plant family as blueberries. The adaptation to give up photosynthesis allows the plant to grow in total shade. Indian pipe can be found in Easton's woods rigth now.

The other parasitic plant I've seen at Sheep Pasture is dodder. Dodder looks like a yellow or orange Silly String sprayed over a plant. It is a member of the Morning Glory family. When a dodder seed germinates, it sends out a tiny root and begins to grow towards the odor of a green plant. If it touches a green plant that can meet its nutritional needs, the dodder generates a suction cup device called a haustoria that pierces the green plants vascular system. Once attached, the dodder root dies and the plant becomes completely dependent on its host. Unlike Indian pipe which doesn't seem to harm its host, dodder can take enough nutrients to kill a plant, reduce its resistance to plant diseases, and even spread plant diseases from one plant to another if it is attached to more than one plant at a time.

Of course, none of this is what the article is about. That's what makes Massachusetts Wildlife so interesting-you almost always learn something. Here I learned that there are parasitic plants that, while still connecting to others with haustoria, are capable of photosynthesis. This group of plants is very rare, and the article documents attempts to protect them from invasive species and other threats. These plants, called louseworts, are generally swamp lovers. Since they can perform photosynthesis, their "happiness" depends on finding a host that can provide nutrients without shading the plant out.

All the parasitic plants mentioned here still produce flowers and seeds just like "normal" plants.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at box turtles among a variety of topics.

Now's the Time to Remove Invasives

 Yipes, that was an intense thunderstorm yesterday. Certainly not the worst storm I've ever been in that honor goes to a thunderstorm where I had to rescue friends stranded in the middle of a flooded D. W. Fields golf course. Yesterday's storm did seem to have the greatest concentration of lightning strikes I've ever seen as North Easton was hit again and again as I was driving around with Maggie. Dime sized hail was a relatively rare event as well. Luckily, Maggie's Pomeranian fearlessness extends to thunderstorms. She didn't even complain when she got drenched through the partly open truck window.

Luckily things cleared up for the afternoon because we had a group of high school kids who had been attending this week's New England Student Leadership Conference at Stonehill coming to Sheep Pasture to help with invasive species control. Sheep Pasture has a problem with invasives. Some like honeysuckle were actually planted by Mr. Olmsted while others apparently moved in from other sources. Mrs. Elyse Ames Parker, who donated the property, came from the Rachel Carson generation of environmentalists so she preferred that pesticides and herbicides should be avoided whenever possible. A recent study by the New England Wildflower Society has suggested declaring the invasive war lost and only defending a few areas of importance from the invading hordes.

Our general plan is like King Canute trying to hold back the tide without even the Divinely Granted Majesty of Kingship to help. We cut back growth where we can, then cut the same stuff back a few years later. Roundup is applied only to poison ivy, only in limited areas, and only if mowing fails to remove it. Poison ivy is ubiquitous at Sheep Pasture today perhaps due to the plants preference for increased carbon dioxide.

Yesterday we had 38 dynamic young people from all over New England to help rid our Rhododendron Trail from invasives. The problem was to choose plants that the rookies could recognize and that weren't part of the trail's original planting like barberry. We chose four target plants: glossy buckthorn, Japanese knotweed, Winged Euonymus, and bittersweet. Each are standouts. Buckthorn has an easily recognizable bark (dark background heavily speckled with lighter dots) and right now larger plants are covered with fruit. Here it is:

If you remove the plant now, you should cover the brush pile so birds can't get at the fruit. The kids took care of the major outbreak along the trail and unfortunately discovered dozens of smaller plants along another trail. Luckily buckthorn can be easily pulled up by the roots when young. At home application of Roundup to the cut stem would kill the plant.

Hard to believe but Japanese Knotweed was once planted as an ornamental. Here's what it looks like:

The plant can almost magically regenerate from the root. The best way to get rid of the plant is using herbicide when the plant is in flower, but even that might have to be repeated for several years. We, of course, cut and pulled. Interestingly, saltwater at concentrations similar to seawater have been shown to be effective in killing the plant.

Winged euonymus used to be a popular ornamental in Massachusetts where it's known as Burning Bush for its fall color. Unfortunately it proved to be highly invasive and is now banned for sale here. Branches of this densely branching shrub have a corky wing that makes it easily recognizable. Peg Hoffman and I have been working to remove a large patch of this plant along the road across from the Stable Barn-suddenly you can see into the woods!

 As with buckthorn, roundup applied to the cut trunk usually kills the plant. 

The last plant we attacked was bittersweet. This heavy twining vine is a tree killer that didn't need an ID as we fought for half an hour trying to free a young hickory from its clutches. There are two species, one native. Phil Benjamin, our forester, recommends removing both species whenever found.

The student leaders worked incredibly hard and loaded our large dump truck twice. To give you an idea of the extent of the invasive problem-the two truck loads were collected in a strip eight feet wide and about a tenth of a mile long.

 

Foodie Pot Pouri

Ever notice how tropical countries have the spiciest food? I visited Hayashi's Japanese restaurant on Thursday and had a big bowl of their Spicy Dumpling Soup. This is apparently the Japanese version of the Chinese Hot and Sour Soup without the sour part. A delicious meal and somehow the heat on the inside made me feel cooler on the outside.

Val Sousa from the NRT's Farmers Market had a new variety of tomato plant for sale this spring. It's a cherry variety that was produced specifically for drying. Probably could have sun dried them in about 15 minutes outside yesterday, but this morning I'm following the instructions for oven drying. This calls for the tomatoes to be split on a light bed of kosher salt in a 200 degree oven for between 2 and 3 hours. We'll let you know how this works. Seems like it should work for other cherries and even small Roma varieties

Sun-dried tomatoes are an essential ingredient in my Deadly Health Burger. The Smoky Bones restaurant chain is featuring a build your own burger special with some unusual ingredients. The Deadly Health Burger, trademarked by me yesterday, is a turkey burger on a multi-grain bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, sun dried tomato, fried mushrooms, beef brisket, and buffalo chicken hot sauce.

Have you noticed the number of new varieties of squash, cucumbers, and eggplant that have been becoming available over the last few years? Adam at the NRT Farmers market and the Gerry's at Gerry's farm seem to have introduced the most new varieties with Gerry's particularly strong on eggplant varieties and Adam willing to try just about anything, but with lots of different squash. I've been trying different cucumber varieties after I discovered that small pickling cukes taste better in a salad than traditional large varieties. This year I'm growing a small yellow cuke that is supposed to have a slightly citrusy flavor. If you've never tried a cucumber sandwich, I'd recommend it. I toast an artisanal bread spread with a little mayo, Cavendish Greek Seasoning, and thinly sliced cukes and Vidalia onions.

It's dinosaur week at Sheep Pasture Summer Camp. Just wondering, if birds are actually theropod dinosaurs, did roast T. rex taste like chicken?

Look for golden beets as a new addition in a raw vegetable tray; just peel and slice. The sweetness of the beet is a great flavor addition to the usual carrots, celery, and bland zucchini. Folks tell me that raw red beets are good also.

An Archaeological Dig

Largely forgotten in the Googlecentric world is About.com. Before the development of search algorithms, the most common way to search the Internet was to go to a directory that was set up like a card catalog in a library. About.com went one better and essentially set up a directory with a reference librarian standing by at the head of each category. About guides continue to maintain the directory and serve as reliable scouts for interesting stories within their topic. In a sense the guides were among the first bloggers. Kris Hirst, the archaeology guide at About, posted an interesting and well organized story about a dig at Pine Springs Camp in Texas. The heart of the story is a photo essay that documents the use of Pine Springs by both the Apaches and the Buffalo soldiers sent to defeat them. Buffalo soldier is the name given to the African American troops that served in the west by their Native American foes. If you follow the photo essay, you'll learn how the Apache Wars were really fought. The troopers were at Pine Springs to deny the waterhole to the natives in an attempt to "pacify the hostiles." The differences in the way the two cultures camped at the site says a lot as well.

Three movies come to mind on this topic. Two are by John Ford. The first, of course, is The Searchers (19560 with John Wayne. The story of a bigoted Civil War veteran hunting the group of Apache's who stole his niece, this is western that transcends the genre and is generally recognized as one of the top 100 American films. The other John Ford film is Sergeant Rutledge starring Woody Strode. This is a western inside a court room drama as a buffalo soldier is accused of rape and murder. This one transcends genre as well, dealing with issues of class and race, and it is one of the first Hollywood films to have a strong positive black role. Sadly, because in 1960 America was still a Jim Crow country, the movie was shot on a small budget with B list actors beyond the excellent Mr. Strode. The last movie to consider here is Jimmy Stewart's Broken Arrow from 1950. This film offers a sensitive portrayal of the Apaches (unfortunately, all played by white actors) and is a dramatized version of actual events. Three films definitely worth a look.

Congress Can't Solve The Budget Crisis, But You Can

  I bought a video at a documentary film makers convention that suggests that the Tea Party is sponsored by billionaires as a way to get the marching morons to support the rich. I think I'll pull that one out and watch it on August 2 if the country defaults. If you don't put the blinders of liberal or conservative ideology on before you start or if you're not on some lobbyists payroll, balancing the budget with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases isn't that hard.

Way back in November, 2010 the New York Times published an interactive game that allowed you to balance the projected deficits of 2015 and 2030. You can still play the "game" here, and I urge all citizens to give it a try because it gets around media hype to look at a variety of real proposals for change.

The projected deficit for 2015 is 418 billion dollars while the projection for 2030 is 1.345 trillion dollars. The Hands plan is a mix of 43% tax increases and 57% spending cuts that actually creates a surplus of $78 billion in 2015 and $234 billion in 2030. I didn't cut foreign aid, earmarks, or farm subsidies although I'd advocate for reform all in those areas. I also didn't cut programs for national parks, education, etc.  My first cut reduced the number of federal employees by 10% through attrition. I cut the nuclear arsenal in half, but didn't reduce the size of the army, navy, or air force. I didn't even cut money for controversial defense projects like the F-35. Veteran's benefits were also untouched. I took a gamble and reduced the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 by 2013 for an initial savings of $51 billion.

In human services I capped Medicare growth starting in 2013. Annual savings by 2030 are estimated at $562 billion. Growth would be the percentage of Gross Domestic Product growth plus 1%. No other changes in Medicare. In Social Security I'd raise the retirement age to 68 and reduce benefits by limiting COLAs for the top 40% of retirees. I'd also use a more conservative calculation of cost of living increases.

In taxes I'd bring back a conservative version of the estate tax. In my initial proposal I created a two tiered capital gains tax, but looking back I wouldn't make any changes there since the savings are minimal and we going to be running a surplus anyway.  Next I'd increase the payroll tax on incomes above $106, 800. I'd also add a tax surcharge of 5.4% on incomes above $1 million. I'd eliminate loopholes and lower tax rates as proposed by the non-partisan Bowles-Simpson Commission. Finally I'd add a Carbon Tax to fight global warming as well as add revenue and a Bank Tax to finance the next bailout of those too big to fail and too stupid not to cheat. According to my chart this allows us to avoid restoring the money lost to the Bush tax cuts, but if that became necessary I'd do it across the board-its only a 2% tax increase despite all the whining about it!

Not the most exciting blog ever, but perhaps the most important. Please go and play the game and then kick the next Congressman or Senator you see in the ass.

Jane and Mark and Me

As any reader of this blog has probably figured out, there is an inexhaustible sea of shallowness here at the Curiosity Shop. So it should come as no surprise that I have never read Jane Austen or, to any great degree, Mark Twain. Not even the Cliff notes of yesteryear or the Sparknotes of today. There is a difference in my lack of literary accomplishments since I have seen every Jane Austen movie ever made. I love Ms Austen's subtle take on society, people, etc.. It's those 18th century sentences, so elegant and so long that turn me off to the books-why couldn't she write more like Hemingway? My favorite Austen is 1995's Persuasion (not the 2007 TV version). The remarkable Amanda Root played the "plain" Anne Elliot.

 
How could so many people underestimate this incredible character? Not ultimately, the sea captain Frederick Wentworth played by Ciarán Hinds. No need for a spoiler alert, but the final scene is a well shot, wonderful visual summary of the whole film. Hinds, by the way, is one of the finest actors working today. See him there in a romantic role, or as Caesar in Season One of the TV series Rome, or as a corrupt 18th century villain in Amazing Grace.

As you can see, I prefer my Austen in movies although I do have a TV version of Emma awaiting a view. That miniseries version stars Romola Garai, another British favorite of mine. See her in 2003's I Capture the Castle. Here's a PR photo.

Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3 would have been so much better if Romola got the heroine's part instead of that wooden Keira Knightly. There's a look on that face that would have given Captain Jack Sparrow a run for his money.

Twain is more difficult for me. Dialect which is charming to hear is a pain to read. Then there's the humor. I admit it, I'm glum. Then there are the innumerable children's versions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn even though we know that Huck is one of those Great American Novels. Twenty or more years ago public TV did a series of Twain's lesser writings for TV: Life on the Mississippi, Innocents Abroad, The Mysterious Stranger, The Man Who Corrupted Some Place or Other.  They made me want to read Twain, but I just never did. Today I read a humorous yet thoughtful review of Twain's Autobiography which is the genesis of this blog. Makes me want to read Twain again. Sigh, so he's back on the bucket list somewhere after white water rafting, but before Paris, way before Paris. Paris comes just before weedwacking my backyard in 100 degree heat.

Here's the article that made me think of Jane Austen, and, hey, we do research here at the Curiosity Shop so here's Sparknotes list of movies important enough to have Sparknotes for. Start your film school experience there! No really, you could do a lot worse than actually viewing these films.

I am Varitek

OK, I'm not, but the Globe had a quiz on their website to help you find out which Sox player you are most like and Varitek came up for me. I was expecting J. D. Drew, but it's a personality not a performance test.

Things are very quiet by my back door, but two catbirds are constantly going into the bushes there with bugs in their mouths. The dapper little catbird, the raspy voiced cousins of the mockingbird, is not normally a quiet bird so there must be a nest in there. Catbirds nest very close to the ground so being quiet during the nesting season helps to keep predators like cats away. The problem comes at the fledgling stage when momma and poppa slow the feeding down to entice the babies out of the nest. The last time this happened in my yard we had two days of squeaks and meows before the kids got the idea it was time to leave home. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is becoming more and more an invaluable resource for amateur birders. If you want to learn more about catbirds or any other American bird visit their excellent website.

Native tomatoes, beans, and corn have joined blueberries as the most coveted local produce available at our farmstands. What useful plants are available in the wild? One of my favorites is orange jewelweed. This is a common plant of our wet woodland edges. It's a relative of the typical garden impatiens. Like impatiens the tiny seed pods explode when touched giving the plant it's other name touch-me-not. Here's what the plant looks like:

The plant actually has two methods of reproduction. The showy flowers require cross pollination, but each plant also has non-showy flowers that are self pollinating. The cross pollinating flowers are the ones that explode sending their seeds to new soil where the conditions may be different from where the plant is currently growing. The cross pollination can potentially produce the genetic diversity needed to adapt to the new condition. The self pollinated seeds has the same genetic components as the parent so it is already adapted for success on the spot where the parent grew. The showy flowers require a long tongued bee or butterfly to pollinate it. Bumblebees sometimes cheat by eating a hole in the base of the flower to get to the nectar without picking up the plant pollen; once a hole is drilled other smaller short tongued insects will steal nectar from the hole.

Watch for a rarer pale yellow species of jewelweed which is present at Sheep Pasture along with extensive stands of the orange variety.

You may have heard that the crushed stems and leaves of the plant can cure poison ivy rashes. Scientific tests have shown this not to be an actual cure, but the cool juice of jewelweed is soothing until you can get a more efficacious remedy.

Cold Case in Nova Scotia

  The Eastman Genealogical Newsletter put me onto a mystery at an 18th century fort in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. The article in the Annapolis County Spectator is definitely worth a read. It tells an interesting story of forensics and historical research that discovered the identity of a soldier who may have drowned in his attempt to desert in 1784. The story includes pictures from the exhibit related to the research.

  The soldier's arm bone was discovered back in 1994, but it was only recently that his identity was more or less confirmed. This is another example of how the world of historical research is shrinking due to the computer and the Internet. Recently, I was able to tell a family about all the people who lived in their home on Elm Street, including a shovel worker who was killed in action during the Civil War, thanks to the survey research paid for by the CPA. The core of this survey work comes from census and other genealogical material that has recently become available online.

The purpose of the survey that has become a boon for researchers like me was to help the Historical Commission better implement the Demolition Review Bylaw. The bylaw requires a determination of significance for any home over 75 years old before a demolition delay can be applied. For example, a renovation project on Pond Street was determined to be historical significant because it had been the home of one of the first documented Irish immigrants to Easton. Just as the Jenny Lind neighborhood became the home to early Swedish immigrants, the Pond Street area was the focal point for early Irish Americans. The Irish spread out through town quicker than the Swedes, however. Irish families were found in every part of town by 1850 even though the greatest concentration would remain in North Easton for another generation or two. All this has a wider significance because, sadly, Easton had a strong anti-immigrant bias that showed itself first in the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s and then in the KKK of the 1920s.

The survey will be expanded south along Center Street this year and the Furnace Village area will also be done, replacing a much more superficial study done in the 1980s. Hopefully, local researchers will be able to add depth to more thorough surveys done by professionals in the 1990s.

This week the Historical Society will be setting up its new research computer with a high speed Internet connection and a big screen TV to follow shortly. The goal is to make all this new information readily available. With the research library moved downstairs and the renovation of the South Room as a potential classroom completed, I hope we can sponsor a renaissance of local history in Easton. As we learned at the dedication of Povoas Park on Saturday, local history in Easton is more than the story of the Ames family.

A Great Day in Easton

A wonderful Saturday in Easton actually began on Friday when I wheeled my new 96 gallon recycling container up to the house. The wheeled beast is the Abrams battle tank of trash receptacles dwarfing both the regular trash container and the little wheeled cart I recently bought to supplement my green recycling boxes. Single stream recycling is a great idea and I think I have several trash cycles coming up where I'll need every gallon of the new container.

On to Saturday! Jeff Hammond had reminded me that the Friends of Easton Gardens was having a weeding party at the Rockery and Italian Gardens. A horde of about twenty friendly gardeners did indeed descend on the Italian Garden to remove a lot of weedy growth. In three hours this beautiful garden was restored again to its high summer beauty. There's lots of color in the garden at present with two varieties of hydrangea, lavender, and roses in bloom. The Italian Garden is a wonderful addition to the library complex and the Friends of Easton Gardens is a great new addition to organizations in town. The group that was there on Saturday united folks from their 30s to their 70s an enviable range for any group. A couple of hours spent weeding is a great way to make a contribution to the future of the town.

Around 11 I joined about 50 people for the dedication of Povoas Park on Center Street. The Povoas-Pires family came together to give the town a beautiful new pocket park. The family donated the land, the design and the organizational ability and the CPA and Town Meeting spent a little money to get the job done. The sidewalk along Center Street is a hidden asset of the town. This route and the continuation along Depot Street to Five Corners is the most used walking/jogging, stroller path in town. Having a pocket park with benches, shade, and a water bubbler for man and beast gives people a spot to stop, rest, and talk to their neighbors. The dedication ceremony itself was a fun event with lots of family pride on display. The little park is a nice tribute to the Portuguese families that made the neighborhood their home in the 1920s and after.

The final event of a great day in Easton occurred in the fields of Langwater Farm. Over a hundred people joined the leasees of the farm in celebrating their first year in operation. In that first year 18 acres of land has been put into production and four greenhouses have been built. Proceeds from the event went to Land for Good, the non-profit organization that had matched the farmers with the Ames property. Delicious food from the farm, great conversation, and hayrides through the fields recalled an earlier era. Brief speeches emphasized the vision of David Ames and the Ames family to bring back agriculture to Easton. In the year since the opening of Langwater Farm, Stonehill has opened its own student based farm to provide produce to nearby food pantries, and the town has created an Agricultural Commission to educate people about the benefits of farms and community gardens. Stay tuned as this local produce concept really begins to take off we'll have more blogs about it in the future.

But We Already Have a Four Corners

As the construction company of Howard, Howard, and Fine (Hey, Moe looks like we hit another pipe, but this one has Curly ten feet in the air on a gusher of water!) continue their outstanding work at Five Corners, questions have emerged. Important questions. Like when this work of engineering genius is finished will there still be five corners at Five Corners. If the Five Corners Historical Sign has to be removed for truthiness purposes South Easton will lose another major tourist attraction, a major blow to an area hit hard by the closing of the dump.

Rest assured cracked researchers are deeply involved in this case! It seems that Five Corners never existed anyway. It should actually be Three plus Two Corners which, of course, even in South Easton adds up to Five. Look at it this way; the northern part of Bay Road runs into Depot Street just before Depot hits Foundry and the southern part of Bay Road at the lights. OK, that might make it Four Plus One Corner, but it still adds up to Five. One suspects that some South Easton booster, perhaps associated with Josiah Keith's Tavern or Joel Drake's or Rohdin's store, created the name to entice folks to come down from North Easton to look at this unnatural wonder. The fact that so many tourists slid off the road at Dead Man's Curve and had to be towed was just a big bonus for the locals.

So, concluding the first part of the sermon, moving the northern part of Bay Road a few feet to the east doesn't really change anything except you'll now be able to dart across traffic directly into Dunkin Donuts.

By the way Four Corners has its own Historical Sign at Highland Plaza.

Your eye team also interviewed the gas company employee who marked the gas pipe at Easton's Big Dig, and he says he marked the gas pipe carefully. However, someone in the construction company, Larry or maybe Moe, scraped the road down taking the paint indicating the pipeline with it. So the theory that lots of things pipes and other flotsam and jetsam including the lost treasure of Josiah Keith might be down there and not known about by Dig Safe goes by the boards. No need for treasure hunters to descend on the area and add their own random holes. Trust me someone rolls a dice each day to learn where Mass DOT should dig another hole.

Old timers will tell you that the back-ups down 106 towards Mansfield have not yet reached the record length seen before the completion of 495. In those days the line of stopped traffic stretched all the to the Mansfield line. Unfortunately, those traffic snarls only occurred on summer weekends while the current disaster happens on a daily basis. Readers may have noticed that we have a recession going on. Add that to the Big Dig and some popular Easton institutions may not make it to benefit from the "big improvement" in transportation. Talking to a business owner just south of the Five Corners, he expressed concern that his business might not survive to the end of the year.  So hitch up your mule teams, pretend to be pioneers moving west on the rutted dirt roads of yesteryear, and continue to support the businesses at Five Corners! 

A Naval Aviator

As OA's Mock Trial coach, one thing you see is the component parts of a lawyer's job since no one player gets to do every part. The person who does the opening statement needs a different set of skills from the person who does the closing. It's the difference between a speedy lead-off hitter and a slugger in the five spot in a baseball line up. The team's clean up hitters are the cross examiners. Attorney's doing direct examination want to make their clients look good. They get to prepare everything in advance and if their careful not asking objectionable questions everything is sunshine and roses. Cross examiners live on the edge, the witness is against them, and the opposing attorney will do anything to protect that witness. Cross examiners train to ask leading questions-ones that only have a yes or no answer and which are banned from direct testimony. Cross examiners have to think on their feet, change at a moments notice, and if they are not careful they will ask the dreaded one question too many and blow an entire case out of the water. With all due respect to many fine student attorneys, the two greatest cross examination attorneys in OA Mock Trial history are Lindsey Manning and Stephanie Hoffman. Lindsey is now a first rate attorney who is in the process of relocating from New York to a big firm in Boston. Stephanie flies F-18s for the Navy.

Stephanie was an outstanding student at OA. A gifted writer and a dedicated runner as well as a Mock Trial star, she won an appointment to Annapolis. While there her competitive nature pushed her to excel in things from triathlon to aviation. When she graduated she had the option of flying jets for the Navy or helicopters for the Marines. She chose jets. Stephanie quickly became carrier landing certified. Since I've never been able to land a flight simulator on solid ground, I can't imagine the co-ordination it takes to land a jet on a deck that is bouncing up and down and pitching side to side. Stephanie has used her flight skills off carriers in the Persian Gulf. Recently, Lt. Hoffman became Lt. Latham when she married a fellow pilot as you can see from this recent photo of a woman and her plane.

Cleo is her call name just like Tom Cruise was "Maverick" in the 1986 classic Top Gun. The F18 is a multi-purpose jet capable of flying at nearly twice the speed of sound. In October Stephanie will be going to the Top Gun school in Miramar, California where she will be learning advanced dog fighting techniques. As of 2009 only 10 female navy pilots had been to Top Gun so Stephanie is a real pioneer. I'm very proud of her achievements as you might be able to tell, and as someone who has done a number of military biographies of Easton people, Stephanie and her Easton contemporaries-Lauren Harrington, Matt Bourne, Andy Salisbury, to name a few, certainly have done a great job upholding the town's patriotic traditions.

Scotch

Brewing began by accident. Some ancient poor person left her dough out to rise for too long and the yeast turned all the sugars in the batter into alcohol. Too poor to throw the stinky mess away, she baked the sourdough bread and whiled away the baking time drinking the left over bread water. That's one scenario for the orgins of beer, but archaeologists have begun to discuss the possibility that the invention of bread was an unintended byproduct of beer making.

Distillation, the process needed to make any kind of whiskey, could not be discovered by accident since it needs some kind of apparatus to succeed. By definition, distillation is any process that separates liquids by using differences in their boiling points. Now I have to mention that some youth group members at a church in Easton nearly 50 years ago discovered you can also separate liquids through differences in their freezing points as well. The October cider left in the church fridge until December had gone "bad," but instead of dumping the brew down the sink it was put in the freezer through sheer laziness. Cider freezes at around the freezing point of water. Alcohol doesn't freeze until past 100 degrees Fahrenheit. One should note that the ones who tried January's apple jack got both a buzz and a case of diarrhea.

Wikipedia notes tells us the people of Central Asia invented freeze distillation in "Mongolian Stills" during the Middle Ages, but the process did not become universally popular due to climate limitations and the fact that the process concentrates toxic varieties of alcohol like methanol and fusel alcohol along with the ethanol. So for all you folks that doubt Wikipedia as a useful source of information, I say I'd have been a lot happier if we had it 50 years ago!

Anyway, the ancient Greeks learned to distill water, but where things went from there is hard to determine. The earliest evidence for distillation of alcohol comes from the University of Salerno early in the 12th century AD. Is anyone surprised that the process for making booze was developed on a college campus? Since wine has a higher concentration of alcohol then beer, the first distilled beverage was almost certainly brandy. But wine is comparative expensive so beers made from wheat, barley, and rye quickly became the basis for most distillation. Irish whiskey was already in production by the end of the 12th century.

The first mention of Scotch whisky is a reference in 1495 to a friar named John Cor who was a distiller. There are claims, of course, that Scotch was actually distilled as early as the 11th century in monasteries, but these claims can't be proven. I'd still bet on those Italian college kids. Note that Scotch whisky is spelled without the "e." It is believed that in an early version of Wheel-of-Fortune, the traditionally penny-pinching Scots, were too cheap to buy a vowel.

So what is Scotch? A malted Scotch whisky is made of 100% barley seeds that has been mixed with water and brought to the point of germination. The malt is then dried and ground into a flour which is fermented and then distilled. Things get decidedly more complex, however. For example, you can mix in other grains, malted or unmalted, or use unmalted barley to create "grain whiskey" as opposed to "malt whisky." Scottish law requires the use of a pot still for malted whisky meaning that you distill a batch and then have to clean out the pot and start a new batch. Continuous distilling processes have been in use in the liquor industry since 1831 and grain whisky can be made in a continuous still.
After all the distilling is done-most Scotch is double distilled while most Irish is triple distilled-the whisky is placed in second hand barrels to age for at least three and usually eight years. Note again, the Scots aren't about to use new, costly barrels when ones used to age sherry or bourbon are available second hand! The aging cask provides scotch its characteristic color. The famous smokey taste of scotch comes from the peat used to dry the malt. 

For those that are still with us, I'll now explain the different categories of scotch and call it quits for the day. Any whiskey that is made from only malted barley in a pot still at one distillery is a "single malt whisky." The term single refers to one distillery. Single grain whisky is made from multiple grains (or unmalted barley) in a continuous still but at a single distillery. Then there are the blends.

In the USA you can buy single malt scotch-the most expensive whisky with a special cachet like a vintage wine, blended whisky which is a mix of malt whisky and grain whisky, or blended malt whiskey which is a blend of only single malts. There are enough single malts and blends to keep you sipping for years. Taste runs from relatively sweet and smooth with little smokiness to dry, peppery and very smokey. Just like wine knowing the history of the bottle adds to its taste. As I mentioned yesterday, my preferred "regular" scotch is Johnny Walker Green. It is a mix of about 15 single malts all of which have been aged at least 15 years. Four single malts make up the bulk of the blend: Talisker and Caol Ila two sea side distilleries balanced by two Highland malts produced on the river Spey, Cragganmore and Linkwood. Hard to describe taste-its well balanced and substantially better than many 12 year old single malts like the all-to-popular Glenlivet. Perhaps the next time we get together on scotch we'll look at the other Johnny Walker blends and the single malts that go into them, but no more scotch talk for awhile-tomorrow a story about a home town girl who has made good in today's navy.

I ran into a frequent reader of this blog who suggested starting a series of articles on beer or scotch. I immediately repaired to Pop's to check out the possibilities. Where to start? I don't suppose anyone is  interested in my opinion of Bud Light, but there seems to be an infinite number of craft beers being produced in the bathtubs of every neighborhood in America. Everyone wants to become an American success story like Samuel Adams, that's the contemporary beer brand not the failed colonial brewer, but rather than produce a brew to compete with Bud, they've decided to focus on single bottles with a sticker price of $4 and up (and up). Now, just to be sociable, I do drink my fair share of beer even though as a diabetic I should be limiting both alcohol and carbohydrate consumption. Still, it doesn't strike me as a healthy project to undertake an in-depth study of beer.

My Uncle George introduced me to scotch whisky. Uncle George had gotten into the wide world during that little dust-up with Germany. Family legend notes D-Day was delayed until Uncle George got to England-he was a quartermaster sergeant on the last ship out to supply the invasion. After the war he stayed on in Washington ostensibly in the Department of Defense. He never said much about his job beyond mentioning he worked out of Langley, Virginia if you catch my drift. If you don't, let me mention that scotch doesn't have to be ordered "shaken not stirred."

In honor of Uncle George I have a small collection of single malts with a few bourbons and one outstanding Irish thrown in. I've continued the family tradition of scotch by running a tasting for the younger cousins at a recent family reunion. Sadly, outside my family, too many younger folks don't like booze that tastes like anything other than fruit juice so fine scotch is becoming more of a niche market for musty professors hanging about in dark paneled rooms in tweeds. That's OK, I  guess, I've always wanted a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a pipe, and a cultured British accent, but scotch distillers have started to "dumb down" the flavor of their drink to attract a younger audience.

Despite the exorbitant cost of a 750 ml. bottle of whisky, an occasional series on scotch (and other whiskey) is possible since I can try it by the glass. I know that restaurants make a lot of money on liquor sales. A particularly fine sherry at a local tapas restaurant goes for $8.50 a glass while the bottle, when it can be found, costs under $30. Still, the mark-up on scotch seems particularly bad-I once had a special edition of Oban that ran to $30 a glass and a blend, Johnny Walker Blue, goes for $26 a glass at the Stone Forge. Neither lived up to the cost. The best price to taste value I've found is Midleton, a Irish whiskey found at McGuires for $15 a glass and worth every sip. If anyone knows where to find 200 ml bottles of single malts let me know that would help cut costs on this project.

I love my Midleton, Clynelish, Glenmorangie, and Lagavulin and will share the taste, history, and geography of these interesting brews some day, but my drink of choice is a blend of 15 year old single malts called Johnny Walker Green. Explaining the difference between single malts, blended whisky, and blended malt whisky is probably a good place to start a study of scotch. So tomorrow one more note on the subject before return to the pattern of complete randomness that is the key feature of this blog.

Terroirism

No the title isn't a misspelling. It's a foodie concept from the French term "goût de terroir" or taste of place. It's the belief that some food from some place is better than any other example of that food from anyplace else. This came up yesterday at a meeting of the Agricultural Commission Study Committee. John Grant mentioned Hadley asparagus which once upon a time was considered to be the best in the world. I heard this forty years ago when I was in graduate school at UMass. Sadly, hardly anyone grows asparagus in Hadley anymore because of cheap competition from elsewhere. People aren't necessarily willing to pay a premium for the best because for most people asparagus tastes pretty much the same.

The folks in Vidalia, Georgia aren't going the way of the Hadley asparagus farmers anytime soon. People can certainly taste the difference between a Vidalia onion and the typical yellow onion. Vidalia's taste difference is all about terroir. The dirt in that part of Georgia is particularly poor in the miniscule amount of sulfur found in soil elsewhere. Sulfur is what the onion uses to make itself smelly and sharp. Other farmers have jumped onto America's desire for a sweet onion, and you can now get them year round, but each other variety is a little different from the true Vidalia.

The idea of terroir comes from the wine business in France where hundreds of small farms produce the same variety of grape. Differences in soil, slope, and orientation to the sun affect the grapes as do the varieties of yeast that cause fermentation. Hence, the different tastes of the great bottlers of the same types of wine-and the differences in vintages. In California with larger farms and, until recently a more scientific approach to winemaking, wines could be made with less influence of terroir. Viola! a more consistent taste and lower prices. With apologies to the wine snobs among us most people can't taste the difference in wine just like they can't taste the difference between Hadley asparagus and the California variety.

Many cheeses are like wine and depend on terroir. Most folks can taste the difference betweeen roquefort, gorgonzola, and Stilton blue cheeses

Maple sugar, it turns out, is also influenced by terroir since the final taste is achieved by bacteria in the syrup which varies from sugar stand to sugar stand. No one is suggesting vintage labels for syrup, but fans of the sticky stuff all have their favorite brands based on individual taste.

Locally, sweet corn varies dramatically from farm to farm depending on soil conditions. People who have tasted corn from many farm stands believe that Gerry's Farm in Brockton sells the best sweet corn around.

The other idea discussed at the Ag meeting was foodshed.  Just like a watershed provides water to a region, a foodshed is a certain relatively small region that can supply a large proportion of that area's food needs. One point of this for farmers in Easton is that they might do better producing, say, the best  cucumbers rather than being generalists and trying to produce a wide range of average farm produce. The foodshed idea depends on folks agreeing to "buy local" for higher quality, however. Otherwise the cucumber producers of Easton could be swamped by a freight car load of Florida cukes arriving right at harvest time. In that case they would have done better as generalists.

We're coming up on 2,000 page views for the Easton Curiosity Shop. We've had views from England, Austria, Romania, and several other European countries as well as Brazil, India, and Australia. Thanks readers!

A Special Connection

As I mentioned yesterday new Apps are available that let you search special databases of photos. The picture above is a photochrom, a handcolored photo from the turn of the century. It's the west entrance to the inner quadrangle of Stanford University around 1901, pre-Earthquake of 1906. Does it look a little familiar?  It should. When H.H. Richardson died in 1886, a trio of his young assistants stayed together to finish his two dozen remaining assignments. These were George Shepley who had married Richardson's daughter, Charles Rutan, who married Shepley's sister, and Charles Coolidge, who married someone outside the firm. The trio stayed together after the Richardson commissions were finished and, according to Wikipedia, "continued to work mainly in the architectural vocabulary of Richardsonian Romanesque although with less imagination–for instance, Richardson's asymmetry disappears."

In 1888 Leland Stanford commissioned the firm to join with Frederick Law Olmsted to design the university named for his son who had died at age 16. Stanford, you may remember, was one of the Associates who financed the building of the Central Pacific and whose corruption made the Credit Mobilier scandal look like a schoolboy prank. The postcard here shows off the Olmsted landscaping very well; he also established the general layout of the school. I find the building to be very interesting. It combines the round arches and red roofs characteristic of Richardson's work with a definite Spanish flair picked up from California's own Mission style.

I'm not sure about the lack of originality-Richardson might get more credit for originality than he truly deserves if you look at commissions like railroad stations where he has multiple examples. Shepley, Coolidge, and Rutan adjusted to a changing customer demand as symmetrical colonial and classical revivial styles supplanted Richardsonian Romanesque. Here in Easton they contributed the 1904 Bank/Post Office building that blends Richardsonian elements with the symmetry of the 1896 Oliver Ames High School building.

Shepley like Richardson died in his 40s. When Rutan died in 1914, the firm was reorganized as Coolidge and Shattuck and then as Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbot from 1924 to 1952. The Children's Wing of the Ames Free Library was designed by that firm. Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott is the company name today, and it was that firm that designed Stonehill's new library

A Successful and Healthy Salad and Special Access to Great Photos

I attended a pot luck lunch the other day and my job was to create a salad. Here's the recipe I invented. It was a big hit:


1 cup sliced strawberries
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup Fairpoint Organic Sugarfree Dried Cranberries
1/2 cup finely chopped Vidalia onions
1/2 cup Jeremiah's Cherry Wood Smoked Blue Cheese
Food Club Tortilla Strips
Old Cape Cod Raspberry Salad Dressing
Lettuce, torn into forkable pieces

The strawberries came from California, but the blueberries were from Val Sousa, a farmer at the NRT Farmer's Market. Fairpoint runs the organic cranberry bog on Bay Road and also sells at the Farmer's Market. The sugar free cranberries are covered with apple juice before drying and make a much better snack then Ocean Spray's Craisins. The lettuce came from my own garden.

I mixed the berries and onion in a tupperware container before going to the lunch. I then tossed the remaining ingredients together at the pot luck and served. One participant in the pot luck is allergic to nuts so I used the tortilla strips for a little crunch and found it an improvement over walnuts or pecans. Old Cape Cod Raspberry Salad Dressing has sugar as a main ingredient, but a lot of raspberry dressings have nut oil so I had to avoid them. The Old Cape Cod Dressing did an admirable job melding the flavors.

You might have heard about color matching to make salads. Each color fruit or vegetable comes with its own mix of antioxidants, vitamins, or other positive nutrients. Red comes from lycopene. In the body lycopene plays a role in protecting the skin from sun damage and has been shown to have some effect on reducing the risk of heart disease and asthma. Black and blue fruits get their color from anthocyanins and have been shown to increase cardiovascular health and prevent short term memory loss. Researchers at Tufts believe blueberries may even promote the growth of new nerve cells and help the brain respond better to incoming messages. Cranberries and blueberries have long been known to prevent bladder infections as well.

Despite containing some saturated fat the cheese in the salad is an important source of protein. Protein should be included in most salads, but especially in salads that are being used as a summer meal because protein gives the body a long feeling of fullness. It also turns out it costs the body on average about 10 calories to digest a 100 calories of food, but it takes 20 to 35 calories to digest a hundred calories of protein compared to about 6 calories per 100 calories of fats or carbs. Thus, protein gives you a big discount when you are dieting.

If you have a MacIntosh computer, one of the big events of recent weeks has been the opening of the App Store for grown up computers. The App store was originally created by Apple to  sell mini-programs for the IPhone and IPad. At any rate the store gets deeper and deeper by the day. Yesterday I discovered an series of Apps from Marc Rochkind that has organized all sorts of old photographs into easily searchable categories. Many of these shots are available at the Library of Congress, but trust someone who has used that site, it's not user friendly. The most significant collections are  the thousands of photos taken by Dorothea Lange and Ben Shahn (and a couple of othe less famous photographers) for the Farm Security Agency during the 1930's and early 40's. These are classics of American photography. Here's an example:

This is a Ben Shahn shot of a blind beggar selling newspapers outside a grocery store in 1935. How can you not love a photo like this that shows the great determination of the subject and yet is also composition of great artistic merit.  You can look in the reference section of the App store for Marc's apps or you can visit his own website here.

Saturday Mix

I never voted for a winning presidential candidate for 20 years before picking Bill Clinton and regretting it. That means in 1976 I voted for Gerald Ford instead of Jimmy Carter. The sad passing of Betty Ford yesterday gave me an opportunity to think about the Fords. The Fords represented the kind of Republican that used to characterize the GOP before it fell off the edge into its own lunatic fringe. Supporters of small town America with down-to-earth values, the Fords were the first couple America needed in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and the debacle in Vietnam. Solid on foreign policy and willing to thoughtfully compromise on domestic issues, Gerald Ford's reputation should grow among historians in coming years. Betty Ford will also hold a high place among First Ladies for her willingness to speak out on issues and her frankness about personal problems. Just heard a sound bite of her advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment. Their qualities are greatly missed in America today.

And no I didn't vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980. That was my John Anderson vote. Hoorah for Jimmy Carter, America's greatest ex-President. Who's the competition there? Perhaps John Quincy Adams, the non-Founding Father, who fought slavery as a Massachusetts Congressman after his single term in the White House. By the way, Michelle, Daddy John Adams, the Founding Father, was the first President to live in the White House. He is also according to legend the only President caught skinny dipping in the Potomac. Story goes John had been dodging a female reporter who knew he liked to cool off with a swim. She sat on the neat pile of Presidential clothes until she got her interview.

Also sad to hear about the end of the space shuttle program. Say what you will about the cost/benefits of the space program (certainly better than the cost/benefits of perpetual war), yesterday's final launch is a symbol of American decline. It's a tip of the iceberg thing-we now have to ride Russian rockets into space just as the Chinese are kicking our ass in solar power research and other countries are taking over in other areas of scientific research that were once dominated by America.

WBZ radio broadcasts the President's weekly radio address at 6 am and 10 am with the Republican response at 7 and 11. The Republican view comes from a different Congressman or Senator each week so while it generally hews to the party line occasionally you can hear some leader who really provides food for thought. Not this morning, however. Maybe things would be more interesting with a five minute weekly debate between the parties. Choose a topic on Wednesday, select a Senator or Rep who knows something about the topic from each side, and give them a minute to present their side and a minute to rebut the other side. Don't let Barney Frank talk more than once until all the other Democrats speak at least twice.

The NRT  Board of Directors met a couple of Saturdays ago to develop a vision for the next five years in three areas: Education, Conservation (at Sheep Pasture), and Agriculture. I got the job of collating the individual and group comments on these subjects. Don't know if we'll follow through with a full survey to members and townspeople, but you, dear readers, have an opportunity to comment. If you are a member or a visitor to Sheep Pasture, drop me an e-mail at edh1620@gmail.com commenting on the strengths and weaknesses you see, and any new ideas you might have or old ideas that you'd like to bring back.

$5,985. That's the check that came from the State's Abandoned Property Division on Thursday thanks to a friend who noticed my name on the list. You can try your luck here.

Did you know that the proven reserves of natural gas will only last another 63 years? Who is the biggest producer? What does this imply for the US? Take a look at this interesting interactive graphic from General Electric. Did you know that Sheep Pasture's Oliver Ames was once on GE's Board of Directors?

The Road Home

Of course, yesterday was the day I had the family truck at Furnace Village Garage on Bay Road. I dropped it off around 8 and had a nice uneventful two mile walk home. Around noon I had to go from Sheep Pasture to the headquarters of the North Easton Savings Bank. By the way, now that the headquarters is in South Easton any hope of a name change? Knowing I'd get snarled in traffic going down Depot Street, I decided to continue my exploration of the outlands. Did you know that Chestnut Street turns into Stearns Avenue in Mansfield? Eventually, I decided to sneak from the bank down Highland Street only to find a police officer on the corner of Highland and Bay directing traffic that had been redirected onto Highland from South Street. No problem. I made it to the garage-traded the car for the truck and made arrangements to come back at 4 to pay for the service.

Coming back, that was the mistake. As a veteran of the high school expansion I can tell you that despite Dig Safe, if there is a gas pipe at a construction project, someone will break it with a backhoe. It happened yesterday around 2 at Five Corners. This time I had decided on a southern approach to the garage because I was coming from home. I should have known something was up when Officer Kwan was directing traffic at the intersection of Foundry and Prospect. As I passed down Prospect, the line of traffic coming from Bay Road stretched three quarters of the way down the street. At the corner of Bay and Prospect there was another officer fighting traffic-no chance for me to make a right turn. Down Bay into Norton and then a cross street to 123 at Gold's Gym. Back to Highland and another police officer at the corner. There I learned of the gas leak, but did get a chance to get to the garage.

With business taken care of, I decided to go out for dinner.  Given the traffic situation, the Chateau in Norton was the only choice. Great, after a leisurely dinner it was back down Bay Road to Prospect which was now backed up all the way to Bay. So it was turn in a driveway, back to Norton, over to Gold's Gym, down to the lights at Hannafords and a right turn onto 106 to get to South Street. Big mistake-another line of traffic. Turn around, down 106-did you know Stearns Avenue turns into Chestnut Street. Stop at the field on Chestnut to check out the clean fill then on to North Easton (I figured Center Street probably ended with a line of traffic at the monument) and home down Route 138.

I figure I'll have to drive through the NEW! IMPROVED!! Five Corners until I'm 90 to save the time I lost yesterday. Two other points-the police officers involved in traffic work yesterday did an excellent, very professional job under very difficult circumstances. Second, having Officer Kwan at the dangerous intersection at Prospect and Foundry made we wish that the traffic light there was the project that was being done this summer. That project will save lives. Not sure what the Five Corners project will do except eliminate a corner and give Dig Safe a better idea where our gas pipes are.

The Casey Anthony Case

I was late to the Casey Anthony case only watching a "48 Hours" special after the verdict. This morning an interesting article appeared in the Christian Science Monitor about the evidence in the case. The crux of the problem appears to have been connecting Casey Anthony to the death of her daughter Kaylee. That problem was made worse by three mistakes in the investigation. First, the police failed to respond to a report that human remains were found near the Anthony house in August despite the fact that a neighbor called for three straight days. When the body was finally found in the same spot in December, forensic evidence had degraded. The police also failed to use the most advanced DNA testing on two crucial pieces of evidence, duct tape found with the skull, and maggots discovered in the trunk of Anthony's car, that might have tied Casey Anthony to her daughter's death. Even if that evidence was produced, however, it would have been difficult to overcome the defense's contention that the little girl drowned, and the family panicked and hid the body. Folks I've talked to feel that this might be a case of television's CSI series influencing  people's perceptions of what evidence is required to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt. It seems to me that the circumstances taken together outweigh the problems with the forensics, but do juries in death penalty states now require absolute scientific certainty in order to convict? If the death penalty was off the table, would the jury have found Casey Anthony guilty? Probably not. The jury apparently had the option of convicting on manslaughter charges which don't carry the death penalty and don't require proof of premeditation. They also could have convicted on reckless child endangerment charges. In fact, given Anthony's bizarre behavior after the death, I'm shocked that the jury didn't convict on some form of child abuse.

This verdict is a perfect example of the difference between "not proven" and "not guilty." Not proven, of course, is the famous and controversial Scotch verdict that has been available to that country's jurors since 1728. Based on the limited statements by jury members, it seems that most believe that something fishy happened in the Anthony house, but that the prosecution couldn't pin down what it was beyond a reasonable doubt and the jury was unwilling to apply common sense in the absence of scientific absolutes.  Hopefully, upon reflection, many of the people who are criticizing the jury will come to understand that "not guilty" isn't the same thing as "innocent." One hopes that Ms. Anthony realizes the same thing as she goes off to write the inevitable book and have another baby.

In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash

Barbara Tuchman in her classic history "The Guns of August" documented how the leaders of Europe carelessly drifted into World War I while everyone was away on summer vacation. I get that feeling with the Debt Ceiling Crisis. If things go bad in the negotiations between the pols who seem more intent on setting up the election of 2012 rather than solving this crisis, then the Great Recession will look like a picnic. Clearly, Republicans are right when they say we can't blithely raise the debt ceiling and go on spending money. The Democrats are equally right when they say we must raise taxes in order to cover part of the deficit. In normal times this would be the basis for a compromise, but a compromise means both parties have to trust the other and we live in the Age of Distrust.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who follows town politics. A poisonous distrust seems to pervade the coffee shop cabals who will tell you that something shady is going on whenever town government tries to do anything. One of the latest "plots" is the CPA sponsored playing fields on Chestnut Street. Now the root of the problem is that there are people in town who get in a lather whenever the town spends money on anything. But unlike higher levels of government where they can decry any spending as taking "our" money to help "them," here the majority of people at town meeting believe we are using our money to help ourselves. Thus, other arguments are needed, and in this case it is a rather egregious one: the land where the fields will be built are fatally contaminated with industrial waste. As a town leader says "It's as if they believe we'd poison our own children" in order to build the fields. In fact, the belief that the town is covering something up is so pervasive that someone sneaked onto the property and took their own soil samples (although the belief is the trespasser actually was not on the property in question). The CPA Committee voted up to $2,000 for soil tests at the site about five times what the private citizen spent on their tests, but one wonders whether the "other side" will trust the results of something paid for by a part of town government.

Mr. Endruinas, who is building the fields, has invited strict scrutiny from the CPA as they are being built. He has asked members to visit at any time and ask any questions they might have. I think we may even have the ability to temporarily stop the project until our questions are answered. I visited over the 4th of July holiday. Admittedly I was trying to find a route to Mansfield around the Five Corners, but I did stop and spend time at the Big Dig. The questionable land  is being removed by the construction which has dug down about 10 feet in an area about the size of a soccer field. While there was certainly junk and construction debris dumped on the site, the huge mound of soil excavated from the hole looks a lot like, well, dirt, the same sandy looking soil that underlays most of Easton. I'll keep checking back week by week as I continue my search for a northwest passage to L. L. Bean, but I certainly see no reason to distrust the building of this project.

At Town Meeting the neighbors expressed concern about the potential traffic situation on Chestnut Street. Chestnut is allegedly a standard sized street, but it seems as narrow as a country lane in Vermont. Part of the reason is that stonewalls and shrubbery are located very close to the shoulder of the road. Years ago the Historical Commission tried to have the street declared a scenic road so I'd never want to remove the old walls to widen the street or put in unnecessary sidewalks, but I think if we really listened to the neighbors their concern was that visitors to the fields would park along the street making it too narrow to use. I agree, but let's trust the town to do the traffic and parking studies necessary to make this work. As explained to me there is certainly room to expand the parking area if it is needed.

There's a big difference between irrational  or self-serving distrust and Ronald Reagan's famous formulation "doveryai, no proveryai." Trust, but verify. 

Esplanade Concert Review

In the old days (two or three years ago) the Globe would have a review of the Boston Pops Esplanade Concert in the paper the next morning. Now the edition that reached the hinterland on Tuesday morning was probably published Monday afternoon. Thus, dear reader, as a public service I will write a review of last night's televised spectacular. In the interests of full disclosure I will tell you I have no training, experience, or ability as a music critic; I'm surprised the Globe hasn't tried to hire me.

Each year we are told that this year's Pops Concert is better than the year before, and finally they may have delivered on that promise. The military choir which performed with the orchestra throughout the evening was outstanding. The soloist who sang the National Anthem gave one of the most thrilling performances of that difficult to sing piece I have ever heard. The Pops orchestra was in good form throughout the evening despite the challenges of having Lionel Ritchie (who knew Nicole Ritchie's dad could sing?) drop out at the last minute. Their first time performance of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was a fine choice well performed. With its classical overtones, it should stay in the Pops repertoire. The concert featured two patriotic singalongs. The first, early in the evening, featured some more modern tunes that didn't seem to go down as well with the crowd as the traditional songs that were saved for the national audience in the last hour. The orchestra was in top form for the 1812 Overture. I've been told the Pops has two versions of the score including a shorter version for rainy nights. The crowd got the full version last night, and it rang all the emotional changes that this old warhorse is capable of. The traditional Stars and Stripes Forever never quite seems to reach the heights that Arthur Fiedler could take it to, but last night's performance was enhanced by having had the regular Esplanade flag flown in Kandihar, Afghanistan earlier in the year.

Sorry I missed the name of the soloist who performed early in the show. He is in town for performances of Porgy and Bess and his two songs showed a powerful classically trained voice with a warm tone. Michael Chiklis doesn't have a classically trained voice, but he is more of a singer than many actors and did a good version of his own song. Martina McBride is one of my favorite country music singers. I have to admit that my taste in country includes Faith Hill, the Dixie Chicks, Martina, and a small dose (or is that toke?) of Willie Nelson and nothing else. Martina is the champ with 41 cuts on my IPod and her studio work is fine stuff indeed. She does a great job with typical country songs like "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road," but her best work shows social concerns absent from most country tunes. Last night she performed three songs, God Bless America, and two of her own "Independence Day" and "This One's for the Girls." GBA was well done with McBride's trademark vocal power and range. Her own selections connected with the audience, but suffered a little in comparison to the recorded versions-probably due to the late connection with the orchestra. I would have loved to have been there to hear her in person, however.

The fireworks were very well done with a strong connection to the music. The finale version of the Star Spangled Banner was a fitting and spectacular conclusion to the program.

One gripe. Doesn't anyone ever listen to the lyrics anymore? Springsteen's "Born in the USA" is a angry tune about a poor guy who gets screwed in Vietnam and has no job when he comes home. Accurate storyline, but how did that become the power anthem of the present? McBride's Independence Day uses patriotic words ironically in telling a story about a wife who burns her abusive husband to death when he's asleep. My Mock Trial teams have tried "burning bed" defense cases twice and the defendant has lost every time. Come on, people, check out more than the catchy music and the title.

If you get a chance to see a replay of the concert, it's definitely worth a space on your TIVO machine.

Fireworks

Happy 4th of July! Just a brief entry today in remembrance of George Plimpton. Mr. Plimpton was the multitalented grandson of Oakes and Blanche Ames of Borderland. His mother was Pauline Ames. A writer, editor and sometime actor, Mr. Plimpton was a great lover of fireworks. Amid the dozens of books he wrote or co-authored his excellent book on fireworks is apparently out of print. In 2008 he was the subject of a biography George, Being George which is a collection of quotes from 200 friends and family members. On the Plimpton side he was the son of Francis Plimpton a successful corporate lawyer and the grandson of the founder of the Ginn publishing company. My favorite quote in the biography comes from Plimpton himself-"Mother rather looked down on Father, but, after all, he wasn't an Ames." Ironically, back in the 18th century, a young Oliver Ames may have gotten some of his training as a shovel maker from a Plimpton ancestor.

Mr Plimpton had a well deserved reputation as a bon vivant and charming conversationalist, but the day I met him he was cool and distracted (I was young and excited). Overcome with emotion, he was touring the Borderland mansion one last time before giving the speech that would mark the opening of the estate as a public park. The speech included fond reminiscences of his grandfather and grandmother. Plimpton, you may remember, became famous for writing books about his experiences as Everyman competing with pro athletes, and on that day he remembered Oakes Ames skill as a baseball pitcher-a wicked curveball- and a tennis player.

You can go to our library and take out the Nero Wolfe Mystery DVDs to see Plimpton the actor in 10 episodes. He was also the reader of George Templeton Strong's diary in Ken Burns Civil War series. Or you can picture him looking down on the Esplanade tonight for the fireworks show.

The National Bird

The story is that Ben Franklin wanted the turkey chosen as the national bird. His view was that unlike the eagle which goes around killing things in many countries, the turkey is unique to the New World. One does not know if Ben knew much about turkeys such as  their unique and individual personalities. While some turkeys attack motorcycles, others like Big Tom at Sheep Pasture, are friendly public figures.  Hunters know the turkey as a wily and sagacious bird, but that dumpy body shape just didn't reflect the can-do attitude that the Founding Fathers wanted to project. So in a spirit of compromise not seen among today's Foundering Fathers, the original FFs settled on the Bald Eagle. It had that eagle attitude but the white head made it uniquely American. If the FFs had vetted the Bald Eagle, that diet of fish and carrion might have been a deal breaker, but Mr. Audubon was a few years in the future. Over the first two hundred years Americans did their best to shoot and then poison the national symbol, but things are better now and you may actually see the Bald Eagle here in Easton.

Now, it's not may place to second guess the Founding Fathers, we have the Supreme Court for that, but it seems to me they missed a real marketing opportunity in not naming the bluebird as the national symbol. Like the flag, bluebirds are red, white, and blue. OK, more blue, red, and white, but still they're the right combination. Bluebirds are spectacular at eating bugs so its only a scale issue between them and real eagles knocking down bunnies. Unlike eagles and turkeys, bluebirds are colorful and charming something a more mature nation like ours today would want to promote especially if we could drop that "bombs bursting in air" thing for something more singable like "This Land is Your Land." The kicker is that the Bluebird is a true blue American put upon by those damned Immigrants, the starling and the house sparrow. That should make them a Tea Party favorite, and Bluebirds want to be left alone to catch bugs for their families and not have big government looking into their bird houses! Oh, wait a second, the Bluebirds at Sheep Pasture have been accepting handouts of mealy worms for years. Ah, that's it-Bluebirds: Too Big to Fail!

All joking aside the Bluebird is a wonderful bird brought back from threatened status by the concern of people like Bob Benson, an Easton resident who got a wonderful story in the Globe South section on Thursday. Easton resident Herb "Doc" Everett and Bob Hurd of Wild Birds Unlimited on Belmont Street were founders of our Bluebird Trail and have also been untiring supporters the little birds for years. We should also mention Chet Raymo who identified and wrote about a residual population of bluebirds at Sheep Pasture many years ago. That small population gave Bob Hurd and Doc Everett the idea for beginning the program that expanded the Bluebird population throughout Easton, Stoughton, and Norton.