Tag: Musings
Sometimes a small city can have a big impact
Bangor, Maine, has about the same population as Dover, New Hampshire – 30,000-plus.
But it’s the center of a wide region and has the spotlight to itself. In fact, though I live a 2½-hour drive away, it’s the place we often turn to for what many folks take for granted.
Here’s some perspective.
- It’s where the Penobscot River meets the ocean, so historically it was the world’s leading producer of lumber, which was floated down from the North Woods, milled, and then packed on ocean-going ships.
- Well, that did lead to Old Money, which can be seen in the remaining stately homes and churches built by lumber barons in the 19th century.
- The river also separates the city from Brewer, which adds another 10,000 or so to the metro population and provides some of the services and products we seek.
- Not just the mall and big-box stores, though some of them do deliver way out to our fringe of the state. Don’t overlook new auto dealerships and their service departments, either. Well, we do have one dealer out here in Sunrise County, but it’s not Toyota.
- The vast Northern Light Eastern Medical Center on the bank of the Penobscot River is the hub of an integrated health system spanning much of the state. Frequently, that means this is where your specialist is.
- Bangor International Airport. It’s where you have to go if you need to a commercial airline connection or are meeting an arrival.
- Media. Starting with the Bangor Daily News and Maine Public’s studio.
- University of Maine in neighboring Orono. Well, its impact spills over into downtown Bangor, should you be looking for funky.
- By the 1880s, Bangor was also a leading producer of moccasins, more than 100,000 a year. Should that be a footnote?
- The downtown was struck by major fires in 1856, 1869, 1872, and 1911 – the last one destroying the high school, post office, custom house, public library, telephone and telegraph companies, banks, two fire stations, six churches and a synagogue, about 100 businesses and 285 residences.
As for romantic attraction?
Yeah, this is the big day for roses and chocolate and those mood-drenched candlelight dinners. Let’s put it all in some perspective.
- Historically, it overlaps an ancient three-day Roman festival that included drunkenness, nudity, sacrifices of dogs and goats, and slapping by goatskins intended to heighten fertility. It was something the early church tried to deflect by invoking Saint V.
- As for the saint? The bio gets mysterious. Did the man really exist? Or was it eight?
- The oldest printed card, 1797, cited a day the sender desired to “be your Valentine.” Whatever that meant.
- The Quaker Cadbury chocolate company introduced the Valentine’s Day heart-shaped box in 1861 but failed to register the design. Copycats soon piled on.
- About a billion cards are sent for Valentine’s Day every year, second only to the 2½ billion at Christmas.
- Nasty cards have also been part of the tradition. Ever get a “vinegar Valentine”? Anyone else intrigued?
- It’s big business – by one count, $27 billion pre-Covid, with candy – mostly chocolate? – the biggest gift, followed by cards, roses, romantic dinners, and, for ten percent of recipients, jewelry. Not that you’re limited to just one category. And I’m not sure if the ranking is by the quantity of each one or by the amount spent.
- As for that jewelry? Much of it takes the shape of engagement rings – with six million being presented on the day every year.
- In Japan, women are expected to give the chocolate.
- Teachers receive the most cards, maybe because children age six to ten, exchange the three-fifths of the cards overall.
So far, I haven’t found perfumes, love potions, or aphrodisiacs on the list.
A few diamond jubilee reflections
Yeah, a big Seven Five. Amazed I’ve survived so long, considering much of the stress and upheaval earlier.
The achievement comes with a burden of feeling I’ve failed to accomplish so much of what was expected of me – even without appropriate resources or support – as well as an amazement at the twists my life has taken along the way.
Perhaps that’s a generational issue many of my peers feel. Please weigh in.
Meanwhile, the serious political crisis in America’s future leaves me feeling utterly terrified. Quite simply, we failed to preserve the republic, with the assault coming not from a Commie left but rather by the know-nothing, no-saying, me-first, destroy-it-all right – those who would conserve nothing, despite the label they cling to. Along with their superrich allies.
Let me admit that at one point in my development I would have claimed to have been a Goldwater Republican. These folks are way to the right of that, like the hoards that destroyed Rome. Yes, ready to sack and ravage. Could they be the dreaded zombie hoards awaiting in the ultra-wacko wing?
I was amused recently by a Project Runway Junior’s challenge that had the teens trying to define themselves (blame my beloved elder stepdaughter for my even watching the streamed series). How would I have seen my core at age 14 or even 17? Quite simply, I’d say we were all so confused.
So here I am, once again pondering how we ever wound up in this state.
Personally, it’s been what I’ve seen as a zig-zag journey, building from what I heard in a poetry reading by John Logan in the very early ‘70s.
Much of what evolved in my encounters can now be found in my novels and poems, though my last third – and most fulfilling – years are yet to be expressed, apart from flashes here at the Red Barn.
In short, I’ve moved far beyond my expectations of things like Paris Review and the haute literary scene or some upper middle-class comfort.
There were 25 years in my native Ohio, most of them early but with two returns to other corners, one in my 20s and another a decade later. But they ended in ashes.
To my surprise, there are 42 years in the Northeast, 36 of them in New England. Well, technically Maryland isn’t quite Northeast but as Eastern Seaboard, I’ll include it.
Throw in four years in the interior Pacific Northwest, four in southern Indiana, and a season in eastern Iowa.
Plus a childhood I’m finally admitting was dutiful, not “happy.”
Many people my age find themselves living more and more in the past. I, in contrast, want to live more and more in the present – having dug out through so much of what has guided me here, to the easternmost sliver of the continental U.S.
When I’m 80, I will have lived half of my life in the Northeast.
Unless another twist pops up before then.
I really hate the excuse, ‘Well, it’s my truth’
Quite simply, to make truth subjective muddies the water and likely denies the existence of any external standard of measurement. Or, from another perspective, to impose “my truth” will quickly make everything unreal. End of argument, if you must.
Or, for perspective, Donald Trump manages to negate the rest of us and all science. The world becomes flat, OK? And insanity rules.
In contrast, the concept of a universal Truth exists as a perfection outside of our individual perceptions. It’s something to reach for. You know, the way one and one is two, no matter what. (Except, maybe, in some higher mathematics that nevertheless remain rigorous.) It’s the basis of logic, so without it, everything is illogical. You know, one Truth. As in either/or.
I do wonder if that imposes a monotheism, even when coming from Greek philosophers. One God rather than some chaotic, even neurotic, confusion.
To say, however, “It’s my reality” is far more on target.
Yes, “My reality” in contrast to “My truth.” I can buy that. Now we can talk. After all, feelings are real, even when they’re wacko. And dreams, however fleeting, are another reality.
Through that, too, I have come to recognize times when both sides in an argument are right as well as when both sides are wrong. Forget Aristotle here.
For now, let me point you to my booklet Seeking After Truth, available for free on my Thistle/Finch blog.
With an air of discovery
“We’ll see what we see.”
Things I wasn’t expecting when I started drafting my newest book
Yeah, I know about the adage, “Write about what you know,” but I’ve come to see that advice needs to be balanced by “write about what you want to know.”
What we might call a creative tension. If you’re a writer, I hope that helps.
My latest book, which started out as a humble and brief profile of Dover’s Quaker Meeting but turned into a contrarian New England history, could be presented as one example.
I mean, Dover is still seen as a shadow to neighboring Portsmouth, which is much smaller and more uppity. Get real!
Back to the book at hand and the research that’s gone into it. Here are some things that surprised me.
- Thomas Roberts as a cofounder of the settlement, rather than William Hilton. That alone alters the traditional telling.
- The Devonshire connection, which gave Dover a much different culture to build on rather than the one the Puritans presented.
- The extent of New Hampshire’s role as a haven for dissidents and misfits.
- Puritans as less than monolithic. They were primed for revolution but full of insecurities.
- Richard Waldron’s power in Boston. He was more than a rich hick in the sticks.
- The crucial impact of a few key provision in New Hampshire’s agreement to come under Massachusetts management. A male didn’t have to be a member in good standing in the town church in order to hold land or to vote in town affairs.
- Dover Friends Meeting as one of the seven oldest in America. It has a more prominent place in Quaker history than has been recognized.
- Early English resettlement of Maine after the French and Indian devastations coming around 1730 rather than 30 years later.
- Dover’s textile mills’ predating those in Lowell, Lawrence, and Manchester. In fact, the founders of Lowell looked to Dover for inspiration. In other words, we weren’t a small, insignificant mill town.
- The Sorcerer who was a member of Meeting. You’ll have to read the book to find out about him.
Order your copy of Quaking Dover at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.
As long as we’re looking at dreams …
Since the Red Barn is excerpting from my personal Dreams Journal this year, we might as well also consider a few things about the phenomenon itself.
- They’re some of the best movies you’ll ever see, at least if you like Fellini or Wes Anderson. Think entertaining, personal, and surreal.
- They typically have one foot in the past and the other in the present. Thus, when I dream about trying to make a deadline in the newsroom, which I left a decade ago, I’m likely to be anxious about something else I’m facing today.
- If you’re encountering a nightmare but conscious enough, try looking straight into it. In my experience so far, it will shy away from revealing the evil things it portends.
- Dreams exist somewhere outside of normal moral restraints and thus must be accepted as such. You shouldn’t wake up feeling shamed or guilty.
- They’re windows into the unconscious and subconscious mind and emotions. It’s an entirely different reality and true in its own way. That is, dreams can run around your ongoing self-denial.
- Recurrent themes can open deep perspectives into ongoing mental and emotional states.
- If you’re working on any psychological issues, your dreams can run about six weeks ahead of surfacing into awareness.
- As for the quality of your visions? Do you dream in color? Or tones of gray?
- Is there dialog? As in, who’s doing the speaking?
- Beware of what you watch before just before bedtime. A recent spate of binge-viewing of Community led to some really strange sleep.
A few things that surprised me about early Dover
In researching my new book, Quaking Dover, new findings pointed me in fresh directions. Sometimes they came in examining something I knew a little about already. Here are a few:
- Dover was a wilder place than you’d expect. At one point, it was a haven for harassed leaders and dissidents from Massachusetts, and for decades its frontier was torn by massacres, raids, and scalpings — much longer than anywhere in the Wild West.
- Despite its upstream location on the Piscataqua River, Dover emerged as New England’s third oldest permanent settlement and the seventh oldest in the United States. That makes New Hampshire the second-oldest state in New England, rather than Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, or Vermont.
- The earliest mills were for sawing wood rather than grinding grain. Shipbuilding and shipping, requiring barrels and boxes, were major industries. Food could be imported.
- Dover nearly had the first Baptist church in America, but its minister fled town, along with some followers who established Piscataway, New Jersey — named for the Piscataqua River.
- Edward Starbuck, sire of the surname in the New World, was elder of the town church until he ran afoul of its practice of baptizing children and its objections to the length of his hair. He left Dover to become a founder of Nantucket, where his family became well-known Quakers. His son repeatedly returned to Dover.
- The Quaker movement arrived in Dover earlier than has been acknowledged. Two of the three men hanged in Boston had visited Dover less than a month before — the third had been in town the previous year. Shortly afterward, three women missionaries in Dover were tied to the tail of an ox cart, banished, and ordered whipped in every town to the south. Even so, a third of the population of Dover soon identified as Quaker.
- Women were coequals in the Quaker movement, illustrated by many of Dover’s recorded ministers over the years.
- Early settlement of Maine was largely across the river from Dover. Access by water was more like crossing the street nowadays. Kittery House, named after a manor in England, sat in today’s Eliot, opposite Dover Point. Its proprietor, Nicholas Shapleigh, gave crucial protection to Quakers. Dover Quaker Meeting had meetinghouses in both Eliot and Berwick, close to the homes and farms of many members. Later generations of Dover Friends fanned out across the state, where their surnames remain quite visible.
- John Greenleaf Whittier was famed across the country as an abolitionist and poet, but Whittier Falls and Whittier Street in Dover were named for his uncle. The poet’s mother, on the other hand, grew up as a member of Dover Meeting and married in its meetinghouse.
- Landmark Tuttle’s Red Barn, a popular market at what was proclaimed America’s oldest family-owned and operated farm, was home to generations of Quakers. That “oldest” distinction is challenged by descendants of Thomas and Rebecca Roberts, themselves with a Quaker identity and founders of the Piscataqua settlement itself.
Order your copy of Quaking Dover at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.
There’s one outstanding King of Maine
The popular (and how) “king of horror” has long deserved kudos for getting so many people to read, period, especially in today’s mass-media and marketing saturation. (I refuse to say “culture.”) Plus, there’s evidence he’s a much “better” writer than his top-selling novels reflect, given his appearances as a poet under pseudonyms and a few rogue novels. He’s quite conscious of structure and a bigger picture, for one thing.
Add to that poet Donald Hall’s observation that New England has a gothic nature, which King has played in spades, and King’s own comments about today’s publishing scene in his duels with the critics, often with advice I wished I’d been able to apply to my own work, but mine remains what it is.
All I’m saying is don’t underestimate him.
- His upbringing, should you care, would easily fill a dark series of stories all on its own. Somehow, he managed to get back to Maine.
- His wife, Tabitha Spruce, seems to be much more of a muse and guiding spirit than has been acknowledged. They met in college at the University of Maine and are still married. She stayed with him through a period of heavy alcohol abuse followed by recovery and sobriety.
- He’s said he married her “because of the fish she cooked for me,” and his favorite foods are salmon and cheesecake.
- Often critically dismissed as a commercial, pop-culture writer – horror, supernatural, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy fiction – King nevertheless embodied a seriously dedicated author who spent long hours day after day at the craft. He had good reasons to return fire at the more elite literary side of the profession.
- He’s never left his blue-collar background. Witness his longtime residency in Bangor, Maine, where you can live in one of the city’s classic big mansions and still be one more regular guy.
- Despite his wealth, his politics lean left. He and his wife are active philanthropists – ranking sixth among Maine charities. It’s said no deserving child in Maine is denied a college education, thanks to the King scholarships.
- He’s an avid Red Sox fan. And a daughter’s a Unitarian-Universalist minister. Wanna talk about being a New Englander?
- His life was changed by an afternoon accident in 1999 when he was struck by a minivan while walking along a highway that left him severely injured and sent him to Florida to live through our harsh winters. Still, he writes on.
- He’s claimed to not use cell phones, though that was a while ago. As for other technology? There’s his recent spat with Twitter, which tried to charge him for contributing content for the platform – rather than the other way around.
- His 65-plus books have sold more than 400 million copies and spawned countless films, TV series and miniseries, and comic books. And still he’s advocating for the better royalties and advance payments to entry-level authors.
The King home in Bangor is a popular tourist attraction. A tree trunk outside has been transformed into a wild sculpture.
Jnana's Red Barn 