Tag: Musings

Moose on the loose

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This was going to be about squirrels, my nemesis in Dover, but now I’m thinking of Bullwinkle and his kin.

After all, I am living on Moose Island, not that I’ve seen any in town yet. But then I’m not seeing many squirrels here, either. Instead, it’s mostly deer.

Now, for the star of today’s show.

  1. Moose are the biggest member of the deer family and, unlike the others, prefer to be solitary rather than in herds.
  2. A bull can weigh in at up to 1,500 pounds, while a cow can be up to 1,000 pounds.
  3. Their broad, “open-hand” shaped antlers (not horns) can stretch up to six feet end to end.
  4. Calves stay with their mothers for a year or more but are weaned at five months.
  5. Their mothers are quite protective and have been known to kill bears with their kicks.
  6. They’re adept swimmers and can trot at up to 35 miles an hour, despite their slow-moving, sedentary, and dumb image.
  7. They’re a road hazard. They’re drawn to the pavement for the salt that’s been spread to melt snow and ice. And then they think they can outdo a car or truck, not that they don’t do some serious damage.
  8. A bull can eat up to 71 pounds of food a day – half of it aquatic plants needed to balance the bark in their diet.
  9. The fall mating season includes energetic fights between bulls over a desired cow.
  10. Their hide is often covered with a blanket of thousands of parasitic winter ticks, which stay attached for up to six months, sapping a moose of energy, blood, and hair. They’re the leading cause of death in moose less than a year old and diminish adult cow reproduction.

Some of my favorite food flavorings and spices

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

In my relocation, I’ve often been on my own. And that means fully recognizing my tastes in food, rather than relying on my wife’s memory of what delights me.

Let’s go.

  1. Real vanilla. And yes, I now know there are differences between Mexican, Madagascar, and Indonesian beans, which are really orchids. These are quite distinct from that artificial stuff, by the way. And for the record, I’m not a chocolate guy, but if you must, make it dark or white but not in-between.
  2. Butterscotch and toffee. I’m a sucker.
  3. Butter or olive oil. As my wife says, quoting others, fat carries the flavor. One, though, is better than the other in the cardio category.
  4. Garlic. Onions and I don’t get along, but this alternative is glorious, especially in the ones we’ve raised. It even saved our marriage.
  5. Leeks. Ditto.
  6. Miso. I’m fond of Japanese cuisine, OK?
  7. Rice vinegar. As I was saying?
  8. Sesame oil. Ditto.
  9. Rosemary. Maybe it’s the way it goes with lamb and other Greek dishes. Or simply the way we grow our own.
  10. Fresh, coarse, ground pepper. Anything wrong with the basics? Well, we could add parsley or basil here, if we wanted.

What would you add? Or maybe subtract?

 

How the Cocheco Mills reshaped Dover

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My history of Dover, focused on its Quaker Meeting, begins trailing off about the time the textiles mills prosper at the Lower Falls in the Cochecho River. There’s no escaping the fact that the mills completely reshaped the direction of the emerging city, then and now.

  1. The complex began with the Dover Cotton Factory in 1812, but the surviving buildings were constructed between the 1880s and early 20th century. The downtown is built around them. The mills even span the river below the falls.
  2. A clerical error in the company’s 1827 reorganization, as the Cocheco Manufacturing Company, dropped the second h from Cochecho, leading to ongoing confusing about the proper spelling of the river’s name.
  3. In 1828, the mill was the site of one of the earliest labor strikes in the nation, the first to be conducted entirely by women. They were protesting a pay cut.
  4. The mills brought waves of immigrants to the city, especially from Ireland, Quebec, and Greece. The complex eventually employed 1,200 workers, most of them women.
  5. At its height in the 1880s, the mills shipped 65 million yards of printed calico worldwide annually, with esteemed designs from the associated printing operation on the site of today’s Henry Law Park.
  6. The buildings were subject to disastrous fires and floods. They were also noisy and cold in winter, hot in summer.
  7. The company owned lakes upstream to ensure water power through the year.
  8. The mills operated as the Cocheco Manufacturing Company and then the Cocheco Mill Company until 1908, when the operation was bought by the Pacific Mill Works of Lawrence, Massachusetts, which shuttered everything in 1937. The buildings were then bought at auction by the city.
  9. In the early 1980s, entrepreneur Joseph Sawtelle purchased the largest vacant building in the county and began a visionary restoration that uncovered the boarded windows and led to offices, entrepreneurial incubators, and retail stores in the heart of the city. After his death in 2000, Eric Chinburg acquired the properties and added trendy apartments to the mix.
  10. The mills were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

Check out my new book, Quaking Dover, available in an iBook edition at the Apple Store.

Favorite canines from a non-dog lover

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Eastport is filled with dog walkers, even more than Dover was, and their perspicacity in making the rounds umpteen times a day amazes me. What else do they do with their lives?

Don’t count me as a dog lover. I grew up having cats. You never step in their poo or take them for walks. And now, rabbits. Ditto.

That said, here are some dogs I’ve had to deal with, one way or another.

  1. Grimm. The one in Mike Peters’ comic strip. I had a small role in getting it rolling. Still love the caustic humor.
  2. Rin-Tin-Tin. A frontier mascot in a TV series we watched back in the black-and-white days of TV. Gee, how could I forget Rusty, orphaned in an Indian raid, much less the fact his dog was a then-exotic German shepherd or their home was a U.S. cavalry outpost? I always wanted a pair of gloves like the lieutenant’s.
  3. Lassie. Another TV star. Gee, when’s the last time you saw a collie? They used to be everywhere, in no small part because of this show.
  4. Silas. Our neighbor’s German shepherd back in Indiana. He appears in my novel, Nearly Canaan.
  5. Sal. The big pit bull my younger daughter and her roommate rescued from a shelter. An amazing animal who had one unacceptable quirk. This story ends sadly.
  6. Our neighbor’s Irish wolfhounds. They would hang over the six-foot fence separating our yards and howl mournfully. Maybe they knew their lives were doomed to be short, a problem with huge dog species.
  7. Blue. Maybe you know the song? “I had a dog and his name was Blue, bet you five dollars he’s a good dog, too.” Get me the Kleenex.
  8. Pluto. The mopey Disney cartoon character, not Roman mythological ruler of the underworld. Back to childhood, naturally.
  9. Simon and Schuster. A pair of basset hounds walked around here by an aspiring writer and her dutiful partner.
  10. Snoopy. Back to the funny pages, we have Sparky Schultz’ classic and patient observer of human folly. I didn’t appreciate him until he was nearing the end of his run. I think Mike Peters’ wife had a role in opening my eyes here.

Honorable mentions to Fang in Harry Potter or Toto in Wizard of Oz. If only I were a fan of those works.

And then there’s Argus, Odysseus’ faithful canine in antiquity, despite the fact the Greek hero hadn’t fed him for 20 years. Oh, for such loyalty anyway! Some commentators note a contrast to problems our hero will face with his wife.

Tell me about your dogs. Please!

 

End of the line

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I do wonder about this scuttled auto ferry seen from a trail at Roque Beach State Park. It’s far from any center of population, and there’s no remaining top structure.

As seen at low tide.

Was it scavenged before being abandoned? Or even after? Did it fall victim to fire? Or a storm? Somehow it was run aground along what’s now thick forest.

 

Among our best guests in Dover

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Once the renovations are finished in our old Cape, we’ll be looking to pick up where we left off in Dover, back before Covid interrupted travel and entertaining.

In no particular order, among the guests we remember fondly:

  1. Primary election volunteers who often slept on our floors, including a Congressional chief of staff, a British journalist, an authority on smallpox and anthrax, and Muslim college students from Detroit.
  2. Chinese college students doing volunteer internships.
  3. The quirky, queer, Quaker comedian and performance artist and Bible scholar. Seriously.
  4. The retired economics professor and Friends committee colleague.
  5. My usual roommate at Yearly Meeting sessions.
  6. My best friend from my high school year, despite my living on the wrong side of the tracks.
  7. My former landlords in the Happy Valley.
  8. The other Quaker among Baltimore Mennonites and his wife.
  9. The Passamaquoddy traditional healer and his apprentice.
  10. My goddaughter, most recently from Germany, and any of her friends, including the one who grew up to become mayor of a notable Maine city.

Who have been among your favorite guests?

 

Signs we’re reverting to ghost-town status

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The indicators started showing up by the last week of August but are inescapable now. Eastport’s locking up for the winter.

As evidence?

  1. The passenger ferry to Lubec has already been hauled out of the water and is up on props in the boatyard for annual maintenance.
  2. The Tides Institute Museum is closed for the season, with the Eastport Art Gallery set to do likewise at the end of the month.
  3. I trot down to Horn Run Brewing and find it closed today. Gotta check the new schedule. Not that I expected its popular deck to be open all year. And other restaurants have curbed back as well.
  4. Nobody’s out on the Breakwater.
  5. Rosie’s hot dog stand is closed and its sign thanks us for a good summer.
  6. I haven’t seen a super yacht for a month, much less tied up at the dock.
  7. Most of the out-of-state license plates are gone, along with the luxury car models. It’s mostly Maine and New Hampshire now, and soon it will be about all Maine.
  8. Well, there is a sole convertible stubbornly zipping about – but just one, with its driver bundled up.
  9. There just aren’t as many folks around, period. At least the dog walkers are holding up their end.
  10. There’s an uptick in the number of houses for sale as some Summer People realize they can’t keep up with another year. And the places are staying on the market longer.

America’s largest cities in 1850

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The development of the West – meaning out to the Mississippi River, mostly – propels changes in the balance of population by 1850.

  1. New York (515,547) is without question the largest metropolis, boosted in part by commerce via the Erie Canal, transporting goods to and from the Great Lakes and Midwest.
  2. Baltimore (169,054) has leapt to second-place. The growing Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is a factor. The city takes advantage of being the closest Eastern Seaboard port to the Ohio Valley and its agricultural abundance.
  3. Boston (136,881). The textiles mills of New England have to be a factor in the city’s prosperity and position.
  4. Philadelphia (121,376). Its clout would be enhanced if its three suburbs in the Top 20 are tallied in, pushing it to second place.
  5. New Orleans (116,375). The nation’s center of gravity has shifted. Nearly as large is
  6. Cincinnati (115,435). Migrants from urban Germany make a difference.
  7. Brooklyn (96,838) is a thriving independent city just across the waters from booming Manhattan.
  8. St. Louis (77,860). Not just the gateway to the Far West, it’s also a center of urban German migrants.
  9. Spring Garden district, Pennsylvania (58,894). Adjacent to Philadelphia.
  10. Albany, New York (50,763) is active on the Erie Canal.

The next ten are also illuminating: 11, Northern Liberties district, Pennsylvania (47,223); 12, Kensington district, Pennsylvania (46,774); 13, Pittsburgh (46,601); 14, Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky (43,194); 15, Charleston, South Carolina (42,985); 16, Buffalo (42,261); 17, Providence, Rhode Island (41,513); 18, Washington, District of Columbia (40,001); 19, Newark, New Jersey (38,894); and Southwark district, Pennsylvania (38,799).

Altogether, six of the 20 largest cities are west of the Appalachians. Three of those are on the Ohio River. And, in contrast, New England has just two.