Halloween isn't for Kiddies Anymore

I suspect the craze for Halloween among American adults has its roots in the Millennial Generation who seem to embrace any excuse for a party.  Pretty soon they are going to be celebrating Hump Day each week with a little get together featuring that amusing wine.  Yes, I know, I sound like a curmudgeon raining on the parade. Seriously, do we actually need to spend $300 million dollars on pet costumes?  I found that little nugget in a timeline of Halloween I read in a magazine the other day.

It turns out our American Halloween has some pretty shallow roots.  Costumes started up in 1912, and handing out candy really got going in the 1920's to minimize property damage caused by 'tricks'. The zenith of 'kid Halloween' was, of course, the 1950's when the Baby Boomers were children.  On a personal note, collecting candy on Halloween was one of the twice a year days I actually GOT candy.  With careful husbandry, judicious trading after the actual trick or treat trip, AND a clever hiding place my little brother couldn't find, I could stretch my Halloween candy to Easter - if Easter came early enough.  Any Easter Sunday in April meant a candy famine for me.

My mother didn't believe children should eat candy.  It rotted teeth, and it was too expensive to buy frivolously throughout the year.  Most 1950's middle class mothers had similar beliefs.  Growing up during the 1930's many of them had no dental care as children, and they vividly remembered the pain of tooth decay.  My mother was missing several jaw teeth - pulled as a result of advanced tooth decay when she was very young.  That said, they could not deny their children candy on Halloween night and in Easter baskets, but they could hold the line to those two days.

That made Halloween the third best day of the year. (The first two best days were your birthday and Christmas, duh.)   Halloween was unsupervised night time activity; a once a year thrilling occurrence.  Because of the era, outside daytime play was pretty much always unsupervised, but when dark fell, every kid I knew was expected to be in his or her house.  During the school year, there was supper, some possible lightweight homework, usually less than 10 minutes in duration, and family watched TV on one of the three channels until bath and your rigidly set 'bed time'.  Trick or treating on Halloween got you a pass from the routine schedule.

My brother and I, together with our selected neighborhood friends, roamed blocks on Halloween night collecting the loot. Our only restriction was we weren't supposed to cross a street with a traffic light even if the woman on the other side of the forbidden street was giving out homemade popcorn balls and caramel apples.  With dozens of houses on long blocks of suburban subdivisions, this was not really a hardship. Ninety percent of the porch lights were on and open for the important business of passing out candy.   No information passed faster among trick or treating children than the skinny about a household giving out chocolate bars or homemade treats.  Getting anything chocolate was a 'score'. There was lots of Double Bubble being passed out on a Baby Boomer Halloween night.

The real hardest thing was waiting for dark, and in my house that meant full dark.  We couldn't go out until it was truly night time.  Only the five year olds went out when it was twilight.  Nobody under the age of five trick or treated.  Parents didn't have either the time or inclination to follow their kids around on Halloween.  Who would answer the doorbell?  During Baby Boomer times, you could easily hand out candy to more than 100 kids.  It was also an unwritten rule the year you left elementary school, trick or treating days were strictly OVER.  Still, by 1965 (the end of the Boomer era) Americans were spending $300 million on Halloween.  Go back to the first paragraph:  TODAY we spend $300 million on pet costumes.  Oh, for the simple times when dogs stayed in the back yard, and cats minded their own business wherever they chose dropping by occasionally to eat.

In reality the adult fascination for Halloween is the outcome of traditional trick or treating being severely curtailed by mostly rumors of poisoned candy and sharp objects inserted into apples, and the uneasy feeling our children were not safe on the streets.  Awful things only have to happen once - like the one guy who put explosives in his shoes - and now we all have to take off our shoes to get on an airplane.  Even though poisoned candy is mostly an urban myth according to Joel Best, a sociologist at Delaware University who specializes in candy tampering legends, the documented 1974 poisoned pixie sticks in Deer Park, Texas, killed Halloween for every child in America, and changed who really gets to celebrate.  Those poor dressed up pets are just the big losers, well, after children that is.
 
Dressing up in some rented costume, drinking too much, and competing in a meaningless costume competition with your friends is just too much trouble for me.  I celebrate Halloween with my own bag of candy corn (first sold in 1951) - Brach's, of course, made with real honey, and I enjoy it, but not nearly as much as the stuff I tramped blocks and blocks to acquire.  So, Happy Halloween, and for Pete's sake, give your pets a break and leave off dressing them up.  Of course, that's so hard to resist with websites like this one giving you evil ideas:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1221&bih=652&q=halloween+pet+costumes&oq=halloween+pet+costumes&gs_l=img.3..0l5j0i5l3j0i24l2.1363.5002.0.5202.22.18.0.3.3.0.336.2146.1j6j4j1.12.0....0...1ac.1.56.img..7.15.2160.BXbEqHdPjs8#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=8cjN5x0ZMyMTFM%253A%3BnybINvh58ipcQM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.i-mockery.com%252Fhalloween%252Fbag%252Fpics%252Fpet-costumes14.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.i-mockery.com%252Fhalloween%252Fbag%252Fpet-costumes.php%3B391%3B308          

 

           

Eating People

Now, everyone who thought they were going to get sexual tips, you can leave this site right now! When I titled this Eating People, that's exactly what I meant.  We just came back from the site where the Donner Party was marooned for the winter from October 1846 until April, 1847. This was unplanned, and when the wagon train occupants ran out of food, they turned to cannibalism.  "Donner" is still a code word in American western history for eating people.  If you are horrified, think about how much more
horrified the uptight 19th century Americans were.  Some members of the Donner party became infamous, and a few were persecuted their entire lives especially the man suspected of murdering for his next meal.  Others were able to put the event behind them and became leading citizens of California.  Still other survivors were haunted their whole lives with what was probably PTSD.   In that record breaking winter, there was at least twelve feet of fallen snow on the ground and drifts even higher.  Even if they could have reached the ground to try and bury the dead, it was frozen solid.  Thus, the bodies weren't buried, and it was pretty apparent to the rescuers in April of 1847 how the 48 left alive of the 87 who got stranded managed to still be breathing when rescue arrived.

The Donner Party expedition was a comedy of errors, misjudgment, and ignorance from the beginning,  The wagon train dawdled across the plains even though they got a 'late start' on the journey to California.  Then, they took a 'short cut' off the newly blazed Emigrant Trail even though they were repeatedly warned not to do so by experienced mountain men and guides.  They rested as the fall progressed for days at a time, and finally, Mother Nature threw a 100 year winter at them.

When they reached the base of the mountains, there were multiple attempts by the entire party to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains at what today is known as "Donner Pass".  Each time, the group was unsuccessful, and the snow continued to pile up.  When it became clear they would be wintering at 7000 feet in elevation, they didn't immediately collect as much food as possible before being snowed in.  Then the game animals stopped moving around and hibernated.  These people didn't even manage to master fishing in the lake.  One factor which is difficult to calculate as to how much it attributed to this tragedy is these people were terrified.   Early on even before they were in dire trouble, they began to bicker and quarrel.   They resorted to murdering one another over trifling issues, and as a group showed a total inability to pull together for the common good.  

In the depth of winter, the strongest members of the Donner party tried to 'walk out' over the pass to get help.  Many of these people became stranded in the snow, and they definitely resorted to cannibalism to survive. Meanwhile, hampered by the bid for California independence, and the Mexican American War, it was hard to find rescuers on the Western side of the Sierra Nevadas who would even attempt the trip

You can see the glacial boulder that formed the 4th side of this cabin

over the mountains in the dead of winter once the plight of the Donner wagon train became known. Rescue was attempted in fits and starts.  The families left at the Donner Lake camp ate the oxen hides off the roof of one of the cabins in desperation.  This picture is a representation of what one of the three cabins built for the winter looked like.  The plaque in the above picture is mounted on the glacial boulder that was the fourth wall of the Murphy cabin.  

Eventually, the last living person at the Donner camp was rescued in April of 1847.  Supposedly, he had a pot of human flesh simmering over the fire when the rescuers arrived.

The Donner party cannibalism was originally downplayed in the Eastern newspapers because of the building fever of westward migration.  The year after the Donner disaster, migration was dampened, but the slacking off of emigrants had more to do with the Mexican American War rather than the Donner horror story.  Nothing however could have contained the westward migration once the news of the California gold discovery reached the East.

Americans love lurid stories, and George McGlashan, a 19th century Truckee newspaperman, recognized a good story when he heard one.  He interviewed every single surviving member of the Donner Party repeatedly, and over years of interviews, each person old enough to recall the terrible events of that winter confirmed many instances of cannibalism.  In 1879 McGlashan documented it all in a book which further spread the notoriety of the Donner wagon train.  Since that first book, several more have been written over the past 150 years. In the 1880's, McGlashan was the person responsible for spearheading the establishment the memorial we visited which eventually became a California State Park.

In terms of who survived, no one under the age of 6 was left alive at the end of that winter.  No one survived who was over the age of 49.  More women than men survived.  Historians have reasoned more women survived because they stored more body fat.  Best survival rate was among the children between the ages of 6 and 14.  Children were fed human remains first, and cannibalism  may have enabled their survival. The facts are still murky about who ate whom.  No gnawed human bones were found in the remains of the fireplaces.  There were no carefully preserved recipes handed down to the next generation.  As McGlashan became more intimate with the survivors, however, it became apparent each group resorted to eating human flesh to survive.

Today, the notion of eating human flesh just makes us shudder.  There have certainly been human civilizations who had cannibalism embedded in their culture often as a practice during war or as a religious ceremony.  There are suspected cannibalistic tribes still in New Guinea or the depths of the Amazon rain forest. Cannibalism  is such a taboo in the 21st century there are no recipes or helpful cooking hints to be found.  No one considers human flesh the ultimate delicacy.  There is no butchering chart.  You won't find wine pairings or side dish suggestions.  However, the reality finally accepted by the starving Donner party members was meat is meat.  They chose survival rather than the moral high ground, and I strongly suspect each of us would too if found in their dire straits.

The ultimate irony is the spot where the Donner wagon train was stranded is gorgeous.  The pass they couldn't cross ultimately became the pass the Pacific Railway was built across as the race to build a transcontinental railway finished up right after the Civil War.  Interstate 80 was built over this pass. If you want to see what it looks like today, here are the pictures.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115478608971584948192/albums/6065713509372425361?authkey=CPDg29nn2cLuRg

            

101 Objects

I'm a public library connoisseur.  One of my first acts when we move into a new town is to get a library card.  At last count, I have eight active library cards.  I would have eleven, but three libraries cut me off.  (Oh, by the way, anybody got a NRH library card number I could borrow?  I will only use it for on-line audiobooks.)    I've found every library has its strong points no matter how small it may be.  For instance, my current library, El Dorado County Public Library, South Lake Tahoe, California, has this nifty magazine box in which patrons donate magazines and the library resells them for a quarter apiece.  I bought a Smithsonian Magazine from the box the other day in which the main article was "101 Objects that Made America".  That bad boy had my name all over it.

It was fascinating to read about what other people think of as iconic.  Icons in America can be so loaded when there are so many cultures and ethnic groups clamoring for inclusion.  I was a little intimidated by #1 which is 'the buffalo' as portrayed on the Buffalo Nickel.  It wasn't the buffalo that was the problem - it was the essay written by David Mamet to kick off the article.  Gosh, to be able to write like that.  There were some 'objects' which had essays accompanying them like the Mamet essay on the buffalo.  Some of the essayists were famous - Martha Stewart wrote about the Singer Sewing Machine.  (I think I write just as well as she does, at least.)  Frank DeFord wrote about Negro League Baseball.  Others weren't famous, but still experts in whatever field the object represented.  

As I worked my way through the article, I kept thinking, "We've seen that."  Then I began thinking, "Well, how many of these things have we seen?"  And Drake's quantitative nature has rubbed off [after 40 plus years of intensive training], so I started counting....  It turns out we've actually seen fifty-nine of the one hundred and one objects.  The rarest?  Hmmm.... the actual American flag from 1814 - the one that flew over Fort McKinley.  You know, the flag Francis Scott Key wrote that song about?  The most beautiful?  The Audubon book, Birds of America.  I was surprised it was so big. Turns out the reason is because all the birds are life sized. The object which completely gobsmacked me once I understood its significance: Clovis Points.  The one I haven't seen I want most to see:  The Aids Quilt.

So as not to keep you in suspense; here's the list with asterisks beside the ones we've seen.

Buffalo*, pre-historic Duck Decoy, Bald Eagle*, Coastal Redwood*, Stegogaurus skeleton*, Audubon Book of Birds*, Passenger pigeon*, John Wesley Powell's life preserver, Bierstadt Painting*, Neil Armstrong's Spacesuit*, Lewis/Clark Compass, Gold Nugget, Polio Vaccine, Dark Matter Spectograph, Scopes Trial photograph, Ben Franklin's Experiments, Burgess Shale, George Catlin Paintings*, Smithson's will,Walt Whitman photograph,  Bell's Telephone*, Remington Typewriter*, Marian Anderson's fur coat, FDR's microphone*, Nat Turner's bible, Langston Hughs' poem: "The Colored Soldier", Middle Mississippi Mask, Andy Warhols' "Michael Jackson", Cesar Chavez's Jacket*, Louis Armstrong's trumpet*, Nam June Paik's Electronic Superhighway*, Justice O'Connor's robe, Telstar*, Lincoln's Top Hat*, Appomattox Table & Chairs*, Gordon photograph*, George Washington's Gilbert Stuart portrait*, Susan B Anthony's gavel, Red Horse's Drawings of Little Bighorn*, Greensboro Lunch Counter*, Predator Drone*, Bell Iroquois Helicopter*, Enola Gay*, Wright Flyer*, Wonder Woman comic, White House charred timber, Colt Revolver*, Clovis Points*, Singer Sewing Machine*, Levi's Jeans*, Cotton Gin*, Eames chair*, Eniac Computer*, Edison light bulb*, Kodak camera*, Morse telegraph*, John Bull Locomotive*, Model T*, Discovery space shuttle*, Ration ticket, Pueblo jars, "This Land is Your Land" recording, suitcase from Japanese Internment*, AIDS Quilt, Emergency Money, John Deere plow*, Negro League baseball*, Psychedelic sign board, Chuck Berry's guitar, Irving Berlin's piano, Barbie*, R2D2*, Teddy Bear*, Ruby Slippers*, Michael Jordan's jersey*, Ali's gloves & robe*, Richard Petty's stockcar, Spirit of St. Louis*, Novus Orbis map, World Trade Center sign, WWI gas mask, Fallout shelter, Mash sign*, Pocohontas portrait*, Giant panda, vintage California wines, USS Maine bugle, USS Oklahoma stamp, Stained glass shards [Birmingham bombing], LBJ's pen [Civil Rights Act], Harriet Tubman's hymn book, Stamp Act proof, The Pill*, US Olympic Hockey Jersey*, Geronimo portrait*, John Brown Daguerreotype*, Thomas Jefferson's desk*, piece of Plymouth Rock*, Clipper Flying Cloud*, original Star Spangled Banner*.

An Unexpected Terrorist Attack

As everyone knows, we are at Lake Tahoe, one of those absolutely most beautiful places in America.  I'm sad to report this area has been attacked by a terrorist.  No, there was no bomb, or crashing

airplanes, or silent chemical weapons released into the water system.  No, this area is being bombarded by smoke as a result of a raging wildfire set by an arsonist.  Oh, I should say 'alleged' arsonist because after all the man who has been arrested for setting the fire is only charged, not convicted.  The fire was set on September 13th, and now on September 24th, 90,000 acres are burning with 12,000 homes currently at risk.  The wildfire is large enough to be seen from space.

To give credit where it's due, Drake is the one who has equated the setting of this fire with a terrorist attack.  He's absolutely right.  The fire is projected to intensify today due to the gusting winds.  I'm hoping no firefighters are going to die trying to bring this fire under control.  Last week the same weather conditions forecasted for the next few days tripled the size of the fire overnight. Oh, and to make matters worse, what's burning is the El Dorado National Forest, and FYI that belongs to ME and YOU and EVERY AMERICAN.

Something we've really enjoyed at Lake Tahoe is the air quality.  Clear and clean in the green with lots of oxygen as only forests can produce.  Now, each day's air ranges from orange (unhealthy for the sensitive) to red (unhealthy for everyone).  And we're lucky because the actual location of the flames is fifty miles to the west over a 7000 foot mountain.  However, when the wind blows from the south/west, smoke pours over the peak into the Tahoe Basin.  We're south of the Lake and west of the fire, so we've been living with haze and light smoke.  The people on the north side of Lake Tahoe and in Reno, Nevada, are living intermittently in what must seem like volcanic ash conditions. Today, the smoke is moving as far north at Boise, Idaho.

The only other exposure to a wildfire we've had was several years ago when we were on a family vacation to southwestern Colorado.  We were at Mesa Verde National Park when lightening started a fire inside the park, and the Rangers evacuated the park. As we joined the caravan of evacuees, we actually drove past huge pine trees that were flaming like giant torches.  I was most happy to be gone. We might have to make the same choice here cutting our visit short.  Unfortunately, the people who live here permanently are just stuck.  I just hope the powers that be prove their case and throw the book at the arsonist.      

Design Creativity

To be creative is to be human.  Creativity has helped our species survive through the eons.  Having a big brain is great, but it's using it is what has pushed us up the food chain and helped us win the evolutionary crap shoot.   Perhaps that accounts for our great admiration of creative people.  We still need creativity to feed our souls.  I think that's why we especially admire creative artistic talent. Everyone has a favorite book or song or in my case, painting or sculpture.  I'm so fortunate to actually know someone who is a working artist.  Like any other artistic endeavor, being creative takes not just inspiration, but actual work.

Kit has gotten interested in electronic design over the past few years.  She's representative of a new generation of artists who can finally reach an audience through the internet.    The best thing about an electronic design is it can be transferred to almost anything.  For instance, last Christmas she wrapped all our presents in paper printed with one of her designs.  She works with a company that offers printing of her designs on a variety of products including fabric.  If you haven't figured it out yet, Kit is Sarah Lynn's mother-in-law, and my friend.

She's entered an on-line contest being sponsored by a design website called Bags of Love.  One of her designs appears on a sheath dress, and the company is offering a prize of over 600 pounds (that's about a $1000) to the designer whose dress garners the most votes.  I'd like for you to check it out and, of course, vote for Katherine Wilson's dress.  Here's how you find Kit's dress - and hopefully cast your electronic vote for it.  It's going to be easy; she has the best design.  I couldn't click directly into the contest, but I found the voting page by clicking on the Bags of Love home page.  Scroll down and look for "Gift Services" on the left side of this page and click on "Contest.  Here's the home page:

http://www.bagsoflove.co.uk/

Scroll down and find the Katherine Wilson's dress and vote for it.  It's easy, and we'd love to see her win.

 

Gratitude Challenge - Day Five

I'm sitting on our elevated redwood deck looking out over a pine/spruce forest with a view of the mountains surrounding the Lake Tahoe Basin.  The sky is azure and the clouds are the color of white the manufacturers of Tide lust after.  There's a slight breeze, and the temp is in the 70's.  I'm so grateful we stepped out, left the security of Hurst, and have had the pleasure and privilege of being able to enjoy a smidgen of the width and  breath of this country.

I'm very grateful there were enough people in the previous generations to understand these things are irreplaceable, and I'm equally grateful for the people in the upcoming generation who are committing themselves to not only keeping our national treasures maintained, unpolluted and unspoiled, but trying to spread the idea of wherever someone lives the resources and beauty are finite. 

Fall, New England, Profile Lake

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Finally, I'm grateful for the filmmakers of in depth documentaries who use pictures and words to bring the sense of who we were and we are to everyone.  I'm going to finish the 'gratitude' challenge with just a few pictures which illustrate my gratitude for our lives over the past five years.

Lake Tahoe, California

Redwood Trees, Muir Wood, California

Pffeifer Falls, Big Sur, California

Big Sur, California

Virginia, James River

Shenendoah Valley, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia

Maymont Japanese Garden, Richmond, Virginia

Yale from the Grove Cemetery

Logan Pass, Glacier National Park

Mystic Seaport, Connecticut River

Mammoth Springs, Yellowstone

Black Sand Beach, Hawaii

The "Needles" at Seal Rock, Oregon

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Shoshone Falls, Idaho

New York City from the top of the
 Empire State Building

Picture Lake in the Cascade Mountains, Washington State

Fog rolling in over San Francisco Bay

Luray Caverns, Virginia

The Franconia Notch, New Hampshire

Arizona Desert (enhanced with a Chilhuly glass sculpture)

Gratitude Challenge: Day 4

It's 9/11.  For my generation and our daughter's generation, it's like saying December 7th.  I just got an email from a friend I was teaching with that day telling me in retrospect she is so grateful to have been with friends that day.  We all remember where we were, and what we were doing.  The first time I saw the video of the plane flying into the tower, my initial, irrational, interior mental response was, "That can't be real.  That's got to be a special effect."  A fleet second later, my stunned mind comprehended it WAS real, and my second thought was, "The world just changed - forever."

Like Christine, I'm grateful I was with friends that horrible day.  I'm also grateful our principal banned the use of all TV's and radios at my school that day.  The idiot principal at LD Bell High School, Sarah's school, let the TV's in every room blare non-stop 'news' and pictures all day long.

The instant school was over for me that day, I burned up the freeway driving at breakneck speed getting to Sarah's high school to pick her up.  I never picked her up - not cool, you know for a teen's MOM to pick her up like she's some little kid.  Not that day.  Sarah Lynn was just a few weeks short of being sixteen years old, and she was never so glad to see her mother in her entire short life.  For you see, today I am so damn grateful my daughter is alive.   Sarah had been standing on the top of the World Trade Center in July, just two months prior to the attacks.  Today, I say a prayer for all the mothers who aren't as lucky as I was.

It's 9/11.  Thirteen years later it's still as senseless and enraging as it was on the day the towers fell.