Tag: Smiles

Now for Machias

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The governmental seat for sprawling Washington County is the town of Machias, or “bad little falls” in the river where it meets an arm of the Atlantic. Well, others have suggested the Passamaquoddy term would be more accurately rendered as “nasty” or something I suspect is much worse. From what I’ve seen, going over the cataract at the tidal line in a canoe or any other kind of boat would have been fatal. Not that I want to tempt anyone to prove me wrong, like those who have actually gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

That said, let’s look at some more facts about the town and its neighboring East Machias, Machiasport, and related neighborhoods.

Centre Street Congregational Church, erected in 1836.

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  1. It’s pronounced “maaah-chEYE-us,” the central syllable running along the lines of a hardened SHY.
  2. Washington Academy in East Machias is not only among the oldest boarding schools in the country, but thanks to publicly-funded tuition students from neighboring towns, it’s also the largest high school in the county. It does attract an elite from abroad. Go Raiders.
  3. The state university branch campus is often ridiculed but definitely working toward an upgrade.
  4. An initial English attempt at settlement in 1633 was rebuffed by a French attack, creating a gap of more than 120 years.
  5. Machias is the birthplace of the U.S. Navy, and its inaugural victory was won, in part, with pitchforks. I’m not kidding. Look it up. I’ll even suggest it as a plot for a comic opera. Notably, Passamaquoddy Natives were instrumental on the colonists’ side.
  6. It briefly flourished as a lumber exporting center in the late 1800s.
  7. ATV riders will find a great entry to the Downeast Sunrise Trail here. The path follows an old railroad line.
  8. The flea market atop the causeway on U.S. 1 can be delightful, especially Earle’s fresh seafood truck toward weekends. I do have to wonder how the reconstruction of that crossing will affect tradition.
  9. Its emergency room and hospital are often favored over those in Calais. I won’t get into the details.
  10. We do love the general store and natural foods emporium. As for the tiny movie theater? Still on our to-do list. Best wishes.

 

There are things about aging I really don’t like

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

Oh, my, facing this can be painful.

  1. My mountain climbing days are past.
  2. I’m not as flexible as I was, and my sense of balance is unreliable. It’s even led to feeling queasy on heights, a realm I once fearlessly loved. And a fall late at night can be terrifying.
  3. Along with spidery thin hair.
  4. As for the bladder?
  5. Slower mental recall, along with hearing.
  6. Declining mojo.
  7. Can’t get warm in winter. Or autumn. Or early spring. I’ve always been cold-blooded, but geez Louise!
  8. Being addressed as “Sir” by polite female teens. I am, after all, emotionally still 17.
  9. The shrinking horizon of life goals and dreams. Like is that best-seller ever going to happen, really?
  10. All the damned pills in the morning.

Gee, and we haven’t even gotten to an inability to understand pop “culture” or the appearance of varicose veins.

Does anyone else savor cornmeal mush?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

It was a favorite breakfast when I was growing up in Ohio, but not an everyday offering.

First, it would be served as a hot cereal, and afterward, after hardening in bread pans, it would be fried in slices and served in melted butter and syrup.

I still remember the reaction when I was head chef (briefly) at the ashram and served it for brunch. It was vegetarian and fit into that part of our yoga practice. But half of the staff and guests were openly baffled. What is this stuff? It wasn’t anything like the buckwheat kasha they’d introduced me to. The other half, though, delighted in it.

It’s still not an everyday dish in my household, but I still relish the moments when it comes up.

My wife, of Southern roots, is more familiar with grits – a variant – and also the Italian polenta, which is much more expensive for no understandable reason.

The one place I’ve seen it on the menu is at the Bob Evans restaurants, where it’s deep fried and typically sells out early in the day.

Cornmeal does show up in my novel The Secret Side of Jaya and on many supermarket shelves, especially under the Hodgson Mill label, reflecting some distant relations of mine who went back to inserting the “g” into our surname.

So where, if at all, do you use or eat cornmeal? It was a basic foodstuff of much of early America. 

 

America’s most celebrated wildlife artist was a Frenchman

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Or more accurately, the bastard son of a Frenchman in Haiti.

Yet, despite the iconic honor given his name, few have seen his legendary work in its full glory.

I’m speaking, of course, of John James Audubon, in the anglicized version of his name.

While I had viewed his work behind glass framing in art museums, nothing prepared me for my hands-on encounter with the four folio print volumes. That happened in Indiana University’s rare book Lilly Library when a librarian interrupted to ask if I would help her return two of the volumes to the cart so she could take them by elevator back to the stacks.

Yes, they really did need two people to move. As I’m seeing now, the books measured about 29½ inches by 39½, otherwise known as double elephant paper, the 435 prints being the same size as the original drawings.

We decided to take a peek and were both blown away. It was as if the birds had been pressed full-size onto the plate. You could actually see the veins in each feather. And that was, it turns out, a copy of the original. Oh, yes, and each species was presented full size, with some favored vegetation.

As for the color? Unbelievable. You have no idea how much is lost through any glass.

We both admitted it was too much for a single viewing.

Well, we had an acquaintance who was terrified of blue jays.

Now, for ten more facts.

  1. As an 18-year-old, Jean-Jacques Audubon was sent to Pennsylvania on a false passport to avoid conscription into Napoleon’s army.
  2. A feud originating during his research in Kentucky closed off American support for young Audubon’s work. Instead, his backing came from England, where subscribers underwrote the classic Birds of America.
  3. One bookseller claimed it would never succeed because the book took up an entire table to view and would render other volumes useless.
  4. A reduced-size two-volume collection, a gift from my younger daughter, has me appreciating the radical design and style of many of the images. There was no way, after all, to approximate the original color, yet any approximation opened other dimensions.
  5. He worked from actual specimens he had shot and killed, arranged in lifelike settings.
  6. He did create a controversy regarding the smell of turkey vultures, or what some of us call buzzards.
  7. Some of the birds he discovered remain a mystery.
  8. He’s known mostly by copies of copies or even additional copies, each time diluting the impact of the originals.
  9. He had nothing to do with the national Audubon Society or its Massachusetts and New Hampshire spinoffs.
  10. He’s buried in New York City.