Tag: Musings

I prefer, should you wonder …

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

a shower to a bath, but indulge in hot tubs.

a hot tub to a sauna in the snow, not that I haven’t delighted in the latter.

religion that relies on questions more than answers.

discovery to fabrication. Accuracy more than cleverness.

Chocolate or candy?
White chocolate. Or dark, bittersweet.

Waffles or pancakes?
Either one, awash in melted real butter and local maple syrup. Better yet, a classic cheese omelet. Or baked pears or baked French toast.

To add the word ‘island’ to Grand Manan would be redundant

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Despite our many trips to Cape Cod back when I lived not that far away in New Hampshire, I never got around to visiting tony and history-laden Martha’s Vineyard or neighboring Nantucket. It’s an oversight I don’t want to repeat when it comes to Grand Manan, an impressive Canadian island we can see from some points here in Eastport, Maine.

I am hoping to get there this year. Even if I don’t, here are some high points:

  1. Its closest point on the mainland is the town of Lubec Maine, nine miles across the Grand Manan Channel. For mainland New Brunswick, it’s Blacks Harbor, 20 miles over the Bay of Fundy. Yet if you look at most maps of Maine, it doesn’t show up at all, despite its proximity. That part
  2. As the largest of the 25-plus Fundy Islands, Grand Manan is 21 miles long and has a maximum width of 11 miles, covering 53 square miles in all. (Campobello and Deer Island, which border Eastport, are the second and third largest, respectfully.) It’s home to 2,595 year-round residents.
  3. The principal way of getting there is by a 90-minute ferry ride from Blacks Harbour. Reservations are recommended, both ways.
  4. For comparison, Martha’s Vineyard is 20.5 miles long, covers 96 square miles, takes a 45-minute ferry jaunt, and has 20,530 full-timers; Nantucket covers 45 square miles, is a 2¼-hour commute by traditional ferry, and has 14,444 residents. Both of the Massachusetts towns are much wealthier than Grand Manon, where most folks eke out their living “on the water.”
  5. The economy is based primarily upon commercial fishing – lobster, herring, scallops, and crab – plus ocean salmon farms and clam digging.
  6. For the traveler, the island is largely a step back in time, with a single highway along the eastern half, where most of the modest residents live. That leads to the rest of the Grand Manan archipelago of nearby smaller islands such as popular White Head (reachable by a second ferry ride), Ross Cheney, and the Wood islands, plus countless surrounding shoaling rocks. Meanwhile, the rugged and forested western side, with 300-foot-high cliffs, high winds, numerous passages, coves, and rocky reefs, incorporates wildlife-rich preserves.
  7. Tourism, the second source of income, provides unspoiled ocean views, whale-watch cruises – rare right whale breeding grounds adjoin its waters – as well as kayaking, hiking, camping, photography, painting, and bird-watching with more than 240 species, including nesting puffins in season.
  8. Among the lighthouses to check out are Gannet Rock, Swallowtail, Southwest Head, Long Eddy Point, Long Point, and Great Duck Island. Not all of them are what you would call picturesque or prime condition. Not to slight them.
  9. Linguistically, “Manan” is a corruption of mun-an-ook or man-an-ook, meaning “island place” or “the island” in the local First Nations’ language. The suffix ook, meanwhile, means “people of.” French explorer Samuel de Champlain recorded the place as Manthane on a 1606 map and later changed it to Menane or Menasne – close enough in sound. So if Manan already means “island,” why be redundant? You don’t need to add “island” to the Vineyard or Nantucket, either – everybody knows what you mean without it.
  10. Grand Manan’s not for everyone. As one review said, “A long way to travel for nothing. Nice rocks but you can see those in Maine. Sea glass was hard to find and sparse. Very poor, depressed area. Lighthouses are ugly and there is nothing to really do other than hiking, which you can also do in Maine. Ferry stunk and was disgusting. Never saw any whales or seals. Nothing on the island except rundown shacks. All the online promotions are just hype. Waste of a day. … Go to Campobello island, it’s 100% better.” In short, sounds right up my alley for adventure.

The first permanent settlement, by the way, was in 1784 by Loyalists fleeing the U.S. at the close of the American Revolutionary War, a common occurrence across New Brunswick.

When elk move through my mind these days

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

They are a memory, more as an emblem and ideal than creature. I never tasted elk flesh, though I heard praises. Nor have I stroked the fur. What I’ve known has appeared only on the forest floor as track and scat – no ticks on the neck or patchy summer skin like the moose where I now live. That, and winter encounters viewed from a distance.

The deer who frequent our yard these days are so small by comparison.

Will I ever revisit the Pacific Northwest where I lived? Would I even recognize most of it?

Or was it all gone in the divorce?

She did have quite the tongue

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the official statement marking the death of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, President Jimmy Carter observed, “She had style, she had grace, and she had a sense of humor that kept generations of political newcomers to Washington wondering which was worse – to be skewered by her wit or to be ignored by her.”

Just listen.

  1. When her father was governor of New York, he and her stepmother planned to send her to a conservative school for girls in New York City. Curtly, Alice responded, “If you send me, I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you I will.”
  2. When her father became president after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley in Buffalo, she greeted the event with “sheer rapture.”
  3. She later said of her father, “He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening.”
  4. When a prominent Washington senator was discovered having an affair with a young woman less than half his age, Alice quipped, “You can’t make a souffle rise twice.”
  5. Most famously, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” She had that one embroidered on a pillow kept in her living room.
  6. On Calvin Coolidge: “He sprang from the grass roots of the country clubs of America.”
  7. Another quick character sketch: “He looks as though he’s been weaned on a pickle.”
  8. And one more: “Never trust a man who combs his hair straight from his left armpit.”
  9. As for Washington, D.C: “A town of successful men and the women they married before they were successful.”
  10. Through it all: “I’ve always believed that if you’ve got a good sense of humor, you can get through anything.”

Do note, her father was quoted: “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.”

The original wild child of the White House

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The eldest child of Theodore Roosevelt was renowned for her wit and unconventional ways even before she married Nicholas Longworth III, a Republican leader from Cincinnati who eventually became the 38th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here I was, planning to sample some of her sharp retorts but now feel compelled to offer ten points about her remarkable and long life to age 96 as a most remarkable observer of life in the nation’s capital.

Please consider this cut-and-paste biography.

  1. Alice Roosevelt was the only child by the future president’s first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, a strikingly beautiful and charming Bostonian banking heiress of deep Brahmin roots who died at age 22 of previously undiagnosed kidney failure. This death came only two days after giving birth to Alice and 11 hours after Teddy’s mother also died, all in the same house.
  2. Grief-stricken, Teddy turned his daughter over to his unmarried, elder sister, Anna. The infant dwelled in “Bammie” or “Bye’s” book-filled Manhattan house while on her father recovered on Western adventures. Once the child back under his roof after he remarried when she was three, he never spoke to his daughter about her mother. So deep was his despair that he tore pages from his diary and burned letters. Alas. Can it get more gothic than this? Distraught after her death, he almost never spoke of her again and prohibited mention of her in his presence. His autobiography even – imagine this – omitted her name. His daughter reflected this practice after her own marriage, preferring to be called “Mrs. L” rather than “Alice.” We can only imagine what her therapist would have made of this, had she had one. Or, for that matter, how the psychological impact affected his politics.
  3. Bammie somehow remained a significant influence on young Alice, though eventually from a distance after marrying and moving to London. Alice later spoke of her admiringly: “If auntie Bye had been a man, she would have been president.” Got that? Over her own father?
  4. As the daughter became more independent and chafed against her father and stepmother, her Aunt Bye still provided needed structure and stability. Late in life, Alice said “There is always someone in every family who keeps it together. In ours, it was Auntie Bye.” Does anyone else sense a writing prompt here? A historical novel, perchance?
  5. A celebrity and fashion idol by age 17, Alice’s social debut in 1902 was highlighted by a gown made of what was soon dubbed “Alice’s blue.” The dress sparked both a women’s clothing trend and a popular song, “Alice’s blue gown.”
  6. Scandalously, Alice smoked cigarettes in public, rode in cars with men, stayed out late partying, was spotted placing bets with a bookie, and had a pet snake named Emily Spinach – named after a spinster aunt and the green vegetable. (Her five half-siblings added a badger, guinea pigs, birds, cats, and dogs to the menagerie.)
  7. Her wedding in February 1906 in the East Room of the White House was the social affair of the season. The groom was 14 years her senior, a scion of a socially prominent Ohio family, and widely whispered to be a Washington womanizer. The event was attended by more than a thousand guests while thousands more crowded outside hoping to glimpse the bride. Alice wore a blue wedding dress – not white – and theatrically sliced the wedding cake with a sword drawn from an unsuspecting military aide.
  8. When the Roosevelts moved from the White House, Alice buried a voodoo doll of Nellie Taft, the new First Lady, in the front yard. When the Taft White House later barred Alice from her former residence, it was the first but not the last administration to do so. Next in line was Woodrow Wilson, who barred her in 1916 for a bawdy joke where he was its butt.
  9. In 1912, Alice publicly supported her father’s Bull Moose presidential ticket while her husband remained loyal to his mentor and fellow Cincinnatian William Howard Taft. During that election cycle, Alice appeared on stage with her father’s vice presidential candidate in Longworth’s own district. When her husband narrowly lost his House seat that year to a Democratic challenger – by 101 votes – she joked that she was worth at least 100 votes. Although her husband recovered the seat in 1914 and stayed in the House of Representatives for the rest of his life, Alice’s campaign against him caused a permanent chill in their marriage.
  10. During their marriage, Alice carried on numerous affairs. Best known was her long, ongoing liaison with Senator William Borah of Idaho. When Alice’s diaries were opened to historical research, the pages indicated that Borah was the father of her daughter, Paulina Longworth (1925–1957). Even in this sensitive situation, Alice’s famed “brilliantly malicious” humor was inescapable: she had originally wanted to name her daughter “Deborah,” as in “de Borah.” And according to one family friend, “Everybody called [the daughter] ‘Aurora Borah Alice.’”

Looking at mainland New Brunswick

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Americans, in general, know little about their “neighbor to the north,” meaning Canada, though where I live it’s actually closer to the east.

That said, I’ve been learning principally about its province of New Brunswick, with its border coming about a mile from our home.

Here are ten highlights.

  1. It’s one of the three Maritime provinces – the other two being Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island – and one of the four Atlantic provinces when Newfoundland, which includes Labrador, is added in.
  2. It was set off from Nova Scotia in 1784 when 10,000 Loyalists arrived in exile from the new United States at the conclusion of the American Revolution. They established communities like St. John, St. Andrews, St. George, St. Stephen, and Fredericton. Some of them had even dismantled their homes in New England, shipped them, and erected them anew.
  3. Half of today’s population of 850,000 lives in three urban areas: Moncton, St. John, and Fredericton. As a result, New Brunswick, rather than say Manitoba or Saskatchewan, is proportionally the most heavily rural province in Canada.
  4. Although the first attempted French settlement in the New World was on St. Croix River, 1607-1608, on today’s border with Maine, it was abandoned. Later French colonists, from 1629 on, created a unique society based on dyke-based cultivation of tidal marshes along the Bay of Fundy. French authorities referred to the region as Acadia.
  5. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 not only ended the French and Indian wars with the English colonies but also gave England unchallenged rule of the region, leading to the forceful deportation of 12,000 Acadians. Those who emerged in Louisiana became known as Cajuns. Enough remained in New Brunswick to make it officially bilingual today – the only Canadian province so designated.
  6. About 8.5 percent of the population speaks French only. It’s a dialect stemming from southwestern France and is distinct from Quebecois elsewhere in Canada.
  7. Two-fifths of the city of St. John was destroyed by a fire that broke out in June 20, 1877. Among the 1,612 structures lost were eight churches, six banks, 14 hotels, and 11 schooners. Nineteen people were left dead and about 13,000 people became homeless.
  8. Today the city is home to the powerful Irving Group of Companies, including the gas station chain.
  9. Tourism is also a major economic factor, with the Bay of Fundy and its world’s highest tides as a central attraction. The province also has 58 covered bridges, including the world’s longest, and about 100 lighthouses, not all of them active.
  10. Four-fifths of the province is covered by forest. The Appalachian range extends across the northern half of the province.

Rude awakening? Like at dawn?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

All this time spent online is not at all what I anticipated in retirement.

Perhaps, you know, rather than the lingering over coffee and an open newspaper or even a Bible and or deep meditation in front of a candle first thing each day.

I’m still seeking an ideal daily routine, or perhaps even a weekly one.

What are my goals at this stage of my life? I’d still love to have a champion for my literary ambitions.

For that matter, how will the renovations to our dwelling impact me? It should be easier to stay up later or take afternoon naps, for one thing, or even listen to music. Things were getting pretty crowded.

Many of my activities weren’t on the horizon, back when I was thinking ahead to my years of freedom. Blogging, choir, photography, and, for a while, swimming laps all came along after I left the newsroom. As was moving to this remote fishing village on an island in Maine, where 8 p.m. is the local midnight and dawn can start appearing around 3.

One option just might be rediscovering the joys of “simmering” abed in the morning, likely with (decaf) coffee and some light reading or journaling.

Now, if I could only purge some of my deadline-driven dreams that trouble my sleep.

 

Hand it to raccoons for wily ways

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Native to North America, these mammals with the distinctive bushy dark-ringed tail typically live about two years in the wild, weigh up to 20 pounds, and have babies called kits.

Here are ten more considerations.

  1. They’re known as Trash Bandits because of the black “mask” across their eyes and their ability to find treasures amid human trash, often by overturning garbage cans or lifting the lids loudly in the middle of the night.
  2. They’re nocturnal and, during the day, rarely venture far from their dens.
  3. They eat a wide range of food. Grasshoppers, mice, insects, frogs, fish, ground-dwelling birds and their eggs all fall on their menu, as do dead animals, nuts, berries, pet food, and the content of bird feeders. If you possibly can, do not feed them.
  4. They’re excellent climbers who will even shimmy up a pole to get those bird feeders. (It’s not just squirrels, then?) And their back feet can rotate backward to allow them to climb down trees headfirst. Maybe even those poles, too.
  5. That mask deflects the sun’s glare and may aid their night vision. It may also hide their eyes from potential predators. As if you want to know what they’re thinking.
  6. They seem to wash their food before eating it, even if there’s no water, though water does enhance the sensory awareness of the finger-like toes of their front paws. Those slender fingers are nimble enough to hold and manipulate food and objects that include doorknobs, latches, lids, bottles, jars, and boxes. Beware, they are one of the few animals that can open doors. So far, I haven’t heard of any plants with that skill.
  7. They are smart, maybe even more than the typical domestic cat. They’re noted for solving complex puzzles in captivity, as well as their frequency of escape.
  8. Unlike many creatures that have declined as human development spreads, raccoon populations have thrived in urban and suburban areas. Toronto has even been dubiously dubbed the Raccoon Capital of the World.
  9. They are the second highest reported carriers of rabies, exceeded only by bats, though few cases have extended to humans. They are also susceptible to raccoon roundworm, which can spread through feces to the soil and then pets or small children. They can also transmit distemper and leptospirosis.
  10. Their hearing can even detect earthworms underground. Do watch what you say.

In case you’re interested, their name comes from the Algonquian word “aroughcun,” translating as “he who scratches with his hands.”

Ointment? I was skeptical

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

When my plantar fasciitis and related ankle pain kicked in again, I assumed that the only real healing required extended rest.

Shoe inserts, a few exercises, and ibuprofen seemed to provide some relief, but I really don’t want to be taking one more pill in my daily regimen and, frankly, I wasn’t so sure that anything that would cover up what my body was trying to tell me was such a good idea.

Finally, I did cave in at my wife’s suggestion of Voltaren nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory ointment. I just couldn’t see how something applied to the surface of the skin could really reach far into the muscles. I guess all that Bengay smeared on me in my childhood hadn’t convinced me.

We buy ours in Canada, by the way, where the tubes that are offered are stronger and longer-acting.

So far, as I’ll crow, my attitude’s changed.

It even has me reconsidering some of the traditional treatments in the healing circles of our neighboring Passamaquoddy tribe. Pine tar, anyone? They say it works wonders.