Author: Jnana Hodson

In downsizing to a remote fishing village in Downeast Maine, this eclectic writer feels everything's coming together.

ENTWINED IN THE DETAILS OF PERSONAL FINANCE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’m not sure any lover could have accompanied me all the way in the repeated moves from the orchards of Washington state to the seacoast of New Hampshire. The Rust Belt relocation came in part because my now ex-wife’s only aunt and uncle lived there, and we needed to be near family; as it turned out, what I really got from that stopover was an experience of Old-Order Quakerism and the swirl with another, in the aftermath, who I later followed to Baltimore.

Curiously, without her, I could have relocated anywhere in the Northeast while working as a field representative, but I wouldn’t have developed any of the Mennonite sides that continue. Events often are a mixed bag, aren’t they?

All of that got stirred up returning to the recorded files years later, well into my remarriage. You know, that part about applying to schools.

Just about the time you think the academic institutions know every intimate detail of your life and history, they want yet another detail. At least our younger one was accepted at her only early choice, which also came through with a huge scholarship.

Such a relief, after the tony prep school she’d applied to a few years earlier.

As said, all the details. I was beginning to think they knew more about me than I did. Ever feel humiliated? Or simply groveling?

ANYONE ELSE PLAYING BINGO?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Leave it to Stephen Colbert to come up with a way of staying awake through the Republican National Convention telecasts. It’s a set of unique BINGO cards you can download and play.

Seriously.

Just look at one and see if his team isn’t covering the bases. Invite your buddies or strong-arm some of the family to sit down and watch the show together. Gee, maybe it’s the one way of making a party out of this political party’s Cleveland circus.

HEEDING THE GHOSTS OF CLEVELAND

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

If anything erupts in Cleveland, we may see smoke harking back to the crowded hotel rooms of an earlier era. Or its blue-gray floating past us might be another specter altogether.

In selecting Quicken Loans Arena for what was supposed to be the coronation of Jeb Bush as its presidential nominee, the Republican Party had no doubt intended to do more than woo a crucial swing state in the November election. The spotlight would have been on the turnaround of a big city not long ago called “the mistake on the lake,” noting its 1969 fire on the polluted Cuyahoga River and the massive 1978 default on municipal loans as well as the struggles of its once-proud professional football and baseball teams. The mighty industrial hub had indeed fallen on hard times, especially as domestic steelmakers collapsed and turned much of the Midwest into a Rust Belt around the same time many whites fled the city for the suburbs, leaving a host of racial challenges in their wake.

Unlike Detroit, Cleveland can point to some progress, which will no doubt be touted. As for manufacturing, it’s bound to be another issue. The city’s once mighty corporations are largely gone. Ghosts of a sort.

There is an irony, though, when we look at the city’s history and the controversy surrounding the presumed nominee, Donald Trump. We’ve already heard rumblings about a brokered convention or of king-makers clustering over cigars in smoky hotel rooms to deal themselves out of a deadlock. Cleveland has a history there, with industrialist Mark Hanna recognized as a key Republican player. Will these ghosts raise their spooky heads?

In the years after the Civil War, Ohio produced seven American presidents. Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, William McKinley, and Warren G. Harding came from Cleveland’s half of the state, flowing into Lake Erie, while Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, and William Howard Taft came from the southern half, dominated by Cincinnati along the Ohio River. Two of those presidents were assassinated. Still, the Buckeye State was a beehive of invention and enterprise, positioned between the East Coast and booming centers like Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis to the west.

Hanna wasn’t the only big money player, either. Remember, John D. Rockefeller, co-founder of Standard Oil Co., grew up and lived here, too, and even after antitrust suits broke up his monopoly, the city was long the headquarters of petroleum giant Sohio (Standard Oil Co. of Ohio), before it got gobbled up by BP (British Petroleum).

Cleveland’s proximity to Pittsburgh meant the big players could indeed meet over expensive cigars. It was, after all, steel baron Henry Clay Frick, a Rockefeller aide, who said of Theodore Roosevelt after the 1904 election, “We bought the son of a bitch, but he wouldn’t stay bought.”

There may well be other ghosts. Robert Taft, the conservative standard-bearer from Cincinnati, for one, in his bitter loss to the more moderate Dwight D. Eisenhower – there’s always that question of ideological purity – or of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare haunting the party and nation.

Of course, the very mention of loans in the convention site name itself will raise other suspicions. This thing keeps circling back to money, to say nothing of an inflated ego that brags of being loaded. Even Jeb and his record campaign treasure chest might be seen as ghosts running through this convention.

This is getting pretty ghastly, indeed. And we’re still a long way off from Halloween.

BEGINNING TO FEEL SOME SYMPATHY FOR CHRISTIE?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

There’s something pathetically tragic in New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s fall from good graces in the Donald Trump camp, and I hope the situation grows in public awareness.

As news stories surface regarding the reason Christie was knocked from the vice president spot on the ticket, it becomes obvious he won’t even be considered for the other top plum he desired, Attorney General.

The reason?

As the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Charles Kushner, who pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering in 2005. Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison. Oh, there were sordid details in what included a nasty family fight for the Democratic Party supporter. All of which might have given the Trump ticket some creds in its upcoming battle with the Clintons.

Alas, Kushner is the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared – the husband of Ivanka, a husband-wife team that makes up his two closest advisors. And Jared, by all accounts, adamantly opposed Christie, no matter what he might have brought to the race.

Think about it. Christie is denied a spot because he’s fought illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. What does this say about Trump himself? His values? His practices? Even, now, his family?

For months now, Christie has been the most prominent Republican official in Trump’s camp. And now he’s cast as a pariah? For acting in the public interest? For fighting corruption? What kind of Justice Department do you think Trump would permit? One based on retribution, no doubt. One-sided, at all costs. Makes me think of Nixon’s back in the Whitewater years. Makes me also see John Kasich as a successor to another Ohio Republican of personal integrity, Bill Saxbe, who had the courage to stand up to Nixon and in the end, helped take him down.

You might see it as a warning to others to stay away from this platform. Why would any other elected Republican want to rally around this ticket? It’s an ominous sign, indeed. Please stay tuned, as they say. To something other than Fox.

WHY I’M SKIPPING MY HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

With the 50th anniversary of my high school class graduation coming up next month, I’ve found myself debating whether to attend.

Some of the conflict is spurred by tight personal finances these days – the event’s 900 miles from where I now live, a 15-hour drive each way in an auto that already has 270,000 miles on its odometer. Flying and then renting a car would be more practical but also more expensive. And that’s before we get to the event admission and related costs. Frankly, I’d rather spend the money on a couple of weekend escapes with my wife.

Scheduling adds its own complication. The reunion’s set for shortly after the annual session of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, where I’ll spend an intense week in Vermont attending to Quaker business. Add to that that my local Friends Meeting is planning its own retreat right the same time as the reunion. That’s a lot of time away from home just about the time the ocean here is finally warm enough for some brisk swimming. Why would I want to be in hot, humid Ohio when I could be at a refreshing seaside in nearby Maine?

When I broached the subject with a fellow choir member, he turned the focus slightly by asking if there was anyone I particularly wanted to see and talk with and then told of his own experience at his 10th anniversary class reunion where he found himself brushed off by those he wanted to speak with and was then stuck amid those with whom he had nothing in common. This had me realizing I’ve been out of touch with everyone for decades now, and when I tried to reconnect via email a decade ago – after the 40th reunion – there was no acknowledgement. My curiosity about what’s happened to many of the members has found answers online. More than anything, I’m sensing, is that any inclination to attend is being compelled by a perceived duty – I did hold some leadership roles as editor-in-chief of the newspaper and in a handful of clubs.

As I ponder the event, I’m also realizing my high school years were not particularly happy or even intellectually stimulating, apart from a few special teachers. Do I want to open those emotions, then?

Or would I want to go simply to brag, “Look how far I’ve come since!” I’m not sure that would be particularly welcome or rewarding.

Any advice? Or similar insights to share? Is this even a necessary rite of passage? Do tell!

THERE GOES THE SURPRISE, TRUMP

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

So it looks like Donald Trump is going with Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate, rather than his hairstylist, as I previously predicted. For now, I’ll stick with “looks like” for the simple reason that Trump is known to flipflop endlessly and loves to cry out, “You’re fired!” Besides, nothing’s set until the convention votes.

More fascinating to watch in the short term is what happens with rumored bridesmaids New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Will Trump file suit against them on some pretext? The mere figure he’d name would be telling or at least amusing. Will they even stick with him in the coming campaign, or will they distance themselves in the name of preserving whatever political capital they assume they still possess? Yes, the glamor of being courted must have been intoxicating, but the rejection would seem to seal their careers as passe and outdated. Tarnished. Well, used merchandise, as folks used to say, back in the constipated era Trump keeps invoking.

As for Pence? All eyes are watching. Well, maybe not at the convention. That part of the story suspense has already been spoiled. There go the ratings. Maybe the networks will interrupt with some big announcement from Hillary Clinton or, better yet, President Obama. Just what was Trump thinking, anyway? Maybe he wasn’t such a great television genius after all. Or does he have some “reality” shtick still up his sleeve?

Pence, uh? Like Trump-Pence? Well, I have been running this year with a political theme of “Trumpets of the Coming Storm,” based on a line by John Greenleaf Whittier. Maybe now it morphs into “Trump-Pence of the Coming Storm.” Or “two pence,” as in cheap.

WITH GRATITUDE FOR THE INSPIRATION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know the disclaimer, “Any resemblance of the characters to real people living or dead …” Something along the lines of purely unintentional.

But let’s be frank. The fiction is that you can create a character without having someone real in front of you, somewhere in your past or present. No, you need flesh and blood somewhere. Anything else would be a caricature.

It’s a special problem when you’re composing in a semi-autobiographical vein. You’re trying to be true to the dictum, Write about what you know. The details, especially.

(Oh? What, then, makes it fiction? Other than changing a few dates?)

Admittedly, the personalities work best when you take your inspiration and abstract it, so that a real individual would no longer recognize himself or herself – or those who were no way involved will imagine they, themselves, were.

And, by way of further confession, I’ll note that my most recent outings have led me to new characters lacking immediate introductions for me – but I’ll know them when I meet them if I haven’t already come across them here and there in pieces.

But back to the argument at hand.

I have one character, Nita, who runs through four of my five Hippie Trails novels and is a major character in the new one I’m writing, set years later. She was inspired by impressions I had of a friend’s girlfriend – or more accurately, mostly his impressions conveyed to me at the time – as I sat down to draft a half-dozen years or so later. She becomes a catalyst for much that happens around her.

In reality, we all drifted away.

And then, a few years ago, I met her again.

Nothing like I’d remembered. Or the idealized character in my fiction, now infused with another two or three people I’ve met. The lines blur.

I can say this person never did X, Y, or Z, unlike the character. Or that these two worked together on a controversial project or became known for certain accomplishments. In fact, she doesn’t resemble the other one at all, not anymore, if she ever did.

Still, it’s an eerie feeling. Something other than deja vu. Something still spurring gratitude for the inspiration.

For more on the series, click here.

~*~

IN THE WEB OF COLONIAL DISSIDENT HISTORY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

As I reviewed of Dover’s early (and admittedly tangled, hazy) history recently, I was struck by a reference to several early settlers who had been banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony amid the Antinomian Controversy to the south.

In a flash, my mind leapt from 1638 to 1662 when three Quaker women arrived, preached, and were banished by Major Richard Waldron.

The Colonial histories traced an underlying religious tension in the New Hampshire settlement arising between the Anglican affiliation of the colony’s charter holders and the Puritan convictions of many of its earliest settlers. That, in itself, suggests serious political and social differences as the two institutions of belief and action conflicted. After all, the Parliamentarian armies that would defeat and eventually execute King Charles I were largely Puritan, as was Oliver Cromwell, who ruled Britain as Lord Protector from 1653 to 1658.

Beyond the Anglican/Puritan rivalry for power in New England, however, was another struggle, the role of a trio of dissident voices and their followers in New England in the mid-1630s.

The new readings did change one of my premises. Rather than having all three of the dissident voices being from Salem (closer to Dover than is Boston), their residences were more diverse. Only Roger Williams (c. 1603-1688) had a Salem connection, and that was as a controversial pastor between his tenancies in Boston and Plymouth. He was banished in 1636 for “sedition and “heresy” (note the linkage of politics and religion) and left to establish the colony of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations to the south, as well as the first Baptist church in the Americas.

Next was Samuel Gorton (1592-1677), banished in 1638 after ministry in Boston and Plymouth. He fled to Portsmouth, Rhode Island, before settling Warwick on the other side of Narragansett Bay. My postings at my Orphan George Chronicles blog about Robert Hodgson and his wife, Alice Schotten, take place largely in Portsmouth, and Alice, as a descendant of a Gorton follower, inherited a large parcel of Warwick. So these histories begin to overlap and even get personal for me.

The third dissident voice was Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643), the daughter of an Anglican cleric and the wife of a prominent businessman. She was banished in 1638 after leading home Bible study groups for women that were both popular (even among the men) and, to the ministers, “unorthodox.” Her theology became the focus of the famed Antinomian Controversy that challenged the conventional Calvinism held by most of the Puritan clergy. Reputedly, the “Veritas” in Harvard University’s crest comes from the cries of the judges, asserting their orthodoxy over her offending testimony, as she was taken from the courtroom at her banishment. She soon settled Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where Robert Hodgson would land in 1657 as an itinerant Quaker minister and remain when many of the Hutchinson’s followers joined in his Quaker faith. Hutchinson, however, had already moved on to the Dutch colony on Long Island to avoid continuing Puritan persecution before she and most of her family were slain in an Indian attack.

All of this ran through my head when I came across the reference in John Andrew Doyle’s 1887 The English in America: The Puritan Colonies, Vol. I: “After the persecution of the Antinomians, some of the victims took refuge at Cocheco,” an early name for Dover. Could this have provided fertile ground for the three Quaker women 24 years later? I think so.

The plot thickens when looking at the history of First Parish Church (United Church of Christ) in Dover, which divided into two hostile camps when one side of the congregation preferred two of the Antinomians as ministers over the more orthodox alternative. This was one the courts had to settle. Add to that an Antinomian leaning in nearby Exeter, and I’m left wondering all the more. Throughout its history, New Hampshire has always been at odds with Massachusetts – and here’s one more example.

The fact is that a third of the population of Dover quickly joined with the Quakers after their initial exposure to the new movement. Resentments do, after all, linger, and those chafing under an imposed authority just may break away, given an alternative. As much as we Friends like to think our early message and witness alone were sufficient to sway new adherents to our cause, I’m left considering how much of the attraction came from altogether different motivations. Think, for instance, of finding yourself always outvoted at town meetings; how much of a threat is actually felt when your right to vote is taken away as a result of your religious affiliation?

For that matter, how much of a similar situation is unfolding in the current political scene we’re viewing today? Are there lingering hostilities that have been buried only to resurface today? I’d say it’s worth considering.