Sarah Angleton's Blog, page 6

Irrelevant to Mental Development

On December 21, 1913, a journalist by the name of Arthur Wynne started a fad and angered a lot of librarians. Wynne worked for the New York World where he served as editor of the “Fun” section of the newspaper. Looking for something different to liven up the section, Wynne drew inspiration from a variety of word puzzles he’d encountered and came up with something he called a word cross puzzle, involving clues for placing words into blank squares that made up a diamond pattern.

Readers liked it, even when it was later renamed a crossword puzzle. In fact, they liked it so much that they flooded library reference desks to seek answers, which led to the general grumbling of librarians that serious researchers and scholars were being pushed out by frivolous puzzle doers engaged in what the New York Times (home since 1941 to arguably the most famous of gold standard crossword puzzles) called nothing more than “a primitive sort of mental exercise . . . irrelevant to mental development.”

Image by Marjon Besteman from Pixabay

Regardless of the naysayers, Americans were hooked, and as the world grew darker through the start of World War I, these silly little word puzzles became a moment of levity in the midst of the heaviness found throughout the rest of the newspaper pages. Within a very few years, most newspapers across the United States and many throughout the world were regularly printing crosswords.

In 1924 Simon & Schuster began publishing its big book of them, which led to the formation of the Amateur Crossword Puzzle League of America, a collection of dedicated crossword enthusiasts who set out to lay down some (much needed?) ground rules that standardized the puzzles.

I honestly didn’t know there was an Amateur Crossword Puzzle League of America before I began researching for this post. I also hadn’t known the word cruciverbalist, which in case you ever need to know while working on a crossword puzzle, is the proper term for a crossword enthusiast. I am not a cruciverbalist, but I know a few of them, and if I have more important things to put off, a crossword puzzle isn’t the worst way to waste a little time.

And so it is that on this one hundred and tenth anniversary of the modern-day crossword puzzle, just four days before Christmas when you’re probably starting to panic a little about all those holiday things you need to get done, I decided to gift you with a primitive sort of mental distraction that will be entirely irrelevant to your mental development. You’re welcome.

All of these clues are taken from frivolous information found in posts of Christmas past from this blog’s archives. Of course you can always rush out to your library reference desk, too. Just please don’t tell the librarians I sent you.

Not for a Million Years: An Encouragement

On December 8, 1903, then director of the Smithsonian Institute Samuel Langley attempted to send a piloted heavier-than-air flying contraption into the sky. It failed, and prompted a New York Times editorial that expressed a hope that Langley might put his substantial scientific prowess and attention to better use. The Times, it seems, subscribed to the opinion of George Melville, Engineer-in-Chief of the US Navy, who wrote adamantly that fanciful flying machines were “wholly unwarranted, if not absurd.”

It also wasn’t the first time Langley had failed to send a piloted heavier-than-air flying contraption into the sky. That was on October 7th of 1903, when his “aerodrome” first crashed into the Potomac. Two days after the incident, an earlier New York Times editorial compared the development of human flight to the evolution of bird flight and predicted that it would take “from one million to ten million years” for man to accomplish the same thing. 

Daniels John T, Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The very day that editorial hit the newsstands Orville Wright recorded in his journal that he and his brother Wilbur had begun assembly of their version of a piloted heavier-than-air flying machine. Sixty-six days later (one-hundred twenty years ago today), their Kitty Hawk Flyer crashed into the sand after only 3.5 seconds of sort-of-flight. 

But then after a few days for repairs, on December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers took turns successfully piloting their Flyer four separate times making them, according to most experts, the first people to do it, just barely beating that New York Times prediction by one million years minus sixty-nine days. 

My son told me this story, several months ago now, and I tucked it away for another time. I share it in this space today, on the anniversary not of the Wright brothers’ success, but on their initial failure, because from time to time I think we can all use a reminder that no matter the absurdity of our goals, or the lack of faith from those around us, or the small failures we encounter along the way, the day may be just ahead of us when we will take flight.

Not a Nut

In January of 1942, Pennsylvania dental surgeon and amateur inventor Lytle S. Adams had a big idea to share with the United States government. Like many Americans, I’m sure, in the weeks following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Adams had big feelings to work through, a strong sense of patriotism, and an overwhelming desire to help defeat the darkness then spreading through the world.

He knew just how to do it, too. All he needed was the attention of President Roosevelt and about a million bats.

Mexican free-tailed bats emerging from Carlsbad Cavern. Nick Hristov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A recent vacation to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico to watch thousands upon thousands of bats take flight and begin their nightly bug-hunting expedition had inspired Adams to wonder if a million bats might carry a million tiny incendiary devices to roost in a million hard to reach places within the flammable buildings throughout Japan.

Adams happened to be acquainted with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and so when he sent his cruel, disturbing, and possibly kind of genius idea to the White House, it made it to the president’s desk where Roosevelt wrote in a memo: “This man is not a nut. It sounds like a perfectly wild idea but is worth looking into.”

With approval of the project, later known as Project X-Ray, Adams began assembling a team of specialists from a wide variety of fields. The list included mammalogist Dr. Jack von Bloeker, as well as Harvard chemist and inventor of napalm Dr. Theodore Fieser. It also included a pilot-turned-actor, a one-time hotel manager, a fitness expert, a former gangster, a lobster fisherman, and a couple of high school student lab assistants, which sounds a bit like the set up to a joke. And in case you forgot, it’s worth mentioning again that the project leader was a dentist.

The team got to work and designed a tube carrier that could hold 1,040 Mexican free-tailed bats, kept just cold enough to maintain hibernation during transport, deploy a parachute at four thousand feet above the ground, and open to release the newly awakened bats, each with fifteen to eighteen grams of napalm glued to their furry chests.

Upon testing, some of the bats dropped to the ground having never woken up, and others flew off into the sunset neglecting to roost, but the bat bombs weren’t entirely unsuccessful. They did burn down a mock Japanese Village. Unfortunately, a handful of accidental releases also managed to completely destroy the Carlsbad auxiliary airfield.

Then after the not-yet-perfected project got shuffled around from branch to branch within the US military for a while, another secret weapons project came to light. While the atom bomb was certainly no less cruel, disturbing, and possibly genius than the bat bomb, it did overshadow Project X-Ray, which was cancelled in late 1944, much to the relief of a million Mexican free-tailed bats.

I don’t often write in this space about the more serious moments in history, at least not very directly, but today marks the anniversary of one of the deadliest attacks ever committed against the United States, and the beginning of this nation’s official participation in World War II. This year more than any other, I feel connected to that moment in history. Largely that’s because this past summer my family and I visited the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Honolulu.

There we stood silent above the watery grave of the USS Arizona where the bones of many trapped servicemen still lie, and watched as small amounts of oil bubbled up to the surface of water that eighty-two years ago today was covered in flames. It’s a somber place that leaves one with big feelings to work through, a strong sense of patriotism, and an overwhelming desire to help defeat the darkness now spreading through the world.

Because I don’t know about you, but to me the world is feeling like a pretty dark place right now. I’m certainly not prepared to assemble a motley crew and sentence a million poor little bats to death, but I can almost understand the sentiment behind Lytle Adams’s big idea. I might even agree with Franklin Roosevelt’s assessment that the man was perhaps not a nut.

Lemons for Christmas

I’m a big fan of lemons. I don’t mean that I cut them open and suck on them like a crazy person. I acknowledge that they are sour and, on their own, pretty gross. But I do use lemons quite a bit when I cook, to cut that fishy flavor this corn-fed Midwestern gal doesn’t always appreciate, or to add a bit of acidic zing when the mood strikes and I want to feel a little fancy and channel my inner Food Network star.

Last year for Christmas my husband even got me a couple of small lemon trees in pots to grow in a sunny spot off to the side of my kitchen. Over the summer, the trees enjoyed the hot soupy atmosphere of our Missouri back deck (as did I), and now that it’s turned cold again they have settled back indoors, leafier and prettier, and probably no closer to actually producing fruit.

Fancy. Image by -Rita- und mit from Pixabay

That’s okay. They’ll get there. Or they won’t. I’ll have fun trying anyway, and in the meantime, I can always buy a nice California lemon at the grocery store. I pick them out carefully. I like my lemons on the larger side, heavy for their size with a slight give when gently squeezed and with a nice fragrance.

I’m good at picking out lemons. Both at the grocery store and, unfortunately, at the car lot. I posted once before about our 2020 Subaru Outback, not long after it left us stranded on the side of the interstate while on family vacation with about twenty thousand miles on the odometer and a transmission that had catastrophically failed, leaving us down a vehicle for more than a month. I wish I could say that after the transmission issues the car hasn’t given us any more problems. Alas, it’s been something of a lemon. And not the kind that makes fish taste better.

It’s been a lemon more in that way that a mid-nineteenth century guy might have referred to a tart or undesirable woman. Or like the way a person in the early part of the twentieth century might refer to getting a rotten deal. Or an awful lot like when, according to Mental Floss, a used car dealer was said in the Oakland Tribune in 1923 to be pleased that he’d finally gotten rid of a lemon.

Not my dog. Or my car. Image by AI ART made in Germany to produce images for people from Pixabay

To be fair, the salesman who sold us our Outback probably did not knowingly sell us a lemon. It was brand new at the time, and Subarus have a reputation of being solid, reliable cars that hold onto their value. I mean their ads tend to feature good looking adventurous people driving into rugged landscapes with their good looking adventurous dogs, tails wagging and tongues and ears flapping happily out the rolled down windows. “Love,” they say, “Is what makes a Subaru a Subaru.”

They certainly don’t label their vehicles as lemons, like Volkswagen decided to do in 1960. The printed ad displayed the image of a new, seemingly perfect (though vaguely ridiculous as the VW Beetle has always been), car labeled: “Lemon.” The ad copy went on to explain that an imperfection in the chrome strip on the glove compartment that wouldn’t likely have been noticed by the consumer, had caught the attention of one of the 3,389 quality inspectors, and that the car had been deemed unfit to sell until the problem could be corrected.

The yellow ones even kind of look like lemons. Vauxford, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The conclusion of course, is that a company with this level of attention to detail could be trusted to produce a car that will not only hold its value, but will also probably not result in a mandatory programming recall, a not-yet-covered-by-recall $1400 repair to its engine, a class action lawsuit regarding a parasitic battery problem the company has yet to find a solution to, an inexplicable break down at the intersection four blocks from home the day before Thanksgiving, and a family stranded on the side of the interstate when they should be on their way to the lake.

Despite being the project car of Adolf Hitler, Volkswagen and its Beetle enjoyed a good reputation among American consumers for a long time following the lemon ad campaign, though feelings toward the company have maybe soured a little since it got caught cheating on its emissions testing a few years back.

Subaru also has inspired a lot of consumer loyalty with its reputation for quality and service. I know that because every time I mention how frustrated I am with this car, I am flooded with comments from other Subaru drivers who absolutely love their cars. Even the tow truck driver on the day before Thanksgiving when mechanic shops are preparing to close down for the long weekend, told me how much he loves Subarus as he loaded my incapacitated car onto the back of his truck and a police officer directed traffic around us.

I realize it’s not Christmas yet, but this really couldn’t wait. When the day arrives, we’ll put a bow on it or something and pretend to be surprised.

And I get it. Sort of. We owned a previous Subaru Outback and it was a great car. We had lots of adventures in it with our good looking dog whose ears and tongue flapped happily out the rolled down window. Well, before he got carsick anyway. He’s not a great traveler.

But this year for Christmas (and for many Christmases and birthdays and anniversaries to come I suspect), instead of lemons, which I’m almost confident my trees will one day produce, we have traded in our 2020 Subaru Outback and purchased a Honda CR-V. The car has a great reputation, and I’m feeling hopeful that this Christmas, I’m not getting a lemon.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful for many things, including:

A loving family.A comfortable home.Turkey.International readers who don’t mind being wished a happy Thanksgiving today even though they are not specifically celebrating the act of giving thanks.Neighbors who refuse to plug in their Christmas lights until tomorrow. I guess the other neighbors, too. Readers near and far who are patient with me when I blow off blogging in favor of eating turkey with my loving family in my comfortable home where the Christmas lights will not be plugged in until tomorrow.

So Many Ways to Say Mustache

There are several things happening right now in my corner of the world. First, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us and though I am not participating this year, I know lots of writers who are. I am cheering from the sidelines. Go! Go! Go! Also, despite my non-participation, I, too, find myself eyeballs deep in a novel project, working on the other end of the process toward the final draft. I’m currently on the cusp of getting the manuscript into the hands of several excellent beta readers and daily vacillating between the belief that this is shaping into a great read and the certainty that I am a no-talent hack. So, I’m right on schedule.

Good luck to all the NaNoWriMos! Image by free stock photos from www.picjumbo.com from Pixabay

Also going down is the annual premature Christmasification of the Thanksgiving season. I don’t think it’s actually any worse this year than it has been for the last several, but maybe it is. With inflation making life a little more difficult for folks these days, perhaps the retailers are pushing a little harder into their best money making time of the year. I pretend to mind, but I must not as I have begun to consider some possible gift ideas.

Perhaps because it is also No Shave November, my gift-giving ponderings have been drawn toward Englishman Harvey Adams, who joined his family’s pottery business in 1861 and changed the world of fashion forever. Or at least for several decades, because what Adams did was cleverly solve a problem that was plaguing parlors throughout the British Empire where fashionable gentlemen found themselves melting into their teacups. 

Driving the ladies wild. Image by geri cleveland from Pixabay

The height of gentlemanly fashion was, of course the mustache (or moustache, if you happen to be a British gentleman), required as part of the British military uniform, and preferred, evidently, by the ladies. But it wasn’t that simple, because if you were going to wear a lip sweater, you also had to engage in some fancy grooming practices and you needed to have a few tools handy, like comb, scissors, dyes, and enough wax to give your facial hair that natural look and feel of molded plastic.

The problem with all of that excessive grooming became apparent at tea time, when the steam rising from a dainty cuppa could turn a carefully coiffed cookie duster into a messy, melting glob of goo. Then comes along Harvey Adams, genius inventor of the mustache cup with a small guard inside to protect a man’s sculpted masterpiece of a lip doily from the hot liquid inside the cup. And the trendiest gift of the holiday season was born.

By 1885, mustache cups were everywhere—widely manufactured and in use throughout the British Empire as well as the United States—and Adams had grown wealthy enough to retire from the pottery business. 

Richard Huber, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The mustache and its accompanying teacup enjoyed popularity until World War I when grooming a glorious stache became more difficult in the trenches and a well fitted gas mask seemed more important anyway.

Lip foliage has made a comeback, though, as is evidenced both by how easy it is to find a lengthy list of mustache slang on the internet and by how many products have surfaced this almost-holiday shopping season designed for men and their mouth brows.

Despite how it may sound, I tend to like nicely trimmed facial hair, though I definitely don’t share the Victorian and Edwardian obsession with waxed, sculpted, and dyed snot catchers. Still, I do have at least one mustachioed loved one on my shopping list this season. After No Shave November is over, maybe you will, too. Thanks to the genius of Harvey Adams, I think I may have an idea.

The Phantom Blog Theory

In 1991, German historian Heribert Illig discovered a discrepancy that shocked the world when he suggested that around three hundred years of human history never actually existed. To draw this conclusion, Illig looked at the comparatively scant archaeological evidence from the years 614 AD to 911 AD, the presence of Roman-type architecture in Europe that clearly doesn’t date as far back as the Roman Empire, and that one weird time glitch created when Pope Gregory XIII decided the Julian Calendar wasn’t far enough behind the times.

Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC, a structure that is super Roman and therefore serves as evidence that there’s closer to 1400 years of phantom time. Michael Jimenez, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The theory goes that buddies Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII conspired to shift time in order to make their own lives and legacies more auspicious.

And it clearly happened just that way, because in 1582, Pope Gregory’s astronomer pals calculated that they could correct the Julian calendar, created in 45 BC, by subtracting a day for every one hundred and twenty-eight years. It was a solid plan until they rounded to ten, thereby correcting the calendar dating all the way back to the year 325 AD, the year of the Council of Nicaea.

That might be a little tough to follow, but don’t worry because in the 90’s, Illig did the math. What he realized is that 128 times ten is 1280, which leaves 347 years unaccounted for between 45 BC and 1582, as if it never happened at all. And the Phantom Time Theory was born.

To say that Illig shocked the world might be a little bit of an overstatement, but his theory did raise some historians’ eyebrows for a minute. And I can sort of understand why, because I have definitely experienced my own version of phantom time.

Silly theory or not, I gotta admit “phantom time” sounds pretty spooky and cool. Image by lidago from Pixabay

You see, five hundred and ninety-eight weeks ago, on May 9, 2012, I posted to this blog for the first time. I admit that at first I didn’t know exactly what I was setting out to create, but what it ended up being was a quirky mashup of history, as viewed from a slightly ridiculous angle, and my life, as viewed from an entirely ridiculous angle.

My aim was to blog once a week, realizing that some bloggers work on a much more ambitious schedule, but acknowledging that with the general demands of a busy life, I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with more. So, without any idea what I was doing, I got started and blogged once a week, for the next eleven-and-a-half years.

Now, if we do the math, that means that today’s post is my five hundred and ninety-ninth in this space. Not too shabby. Except that, according to the number-crunching monkeys at WordPress, this is my four hundred and twenty-fourth post. That sounds way less impressive. And it leaves one hundred and seventy-four weeks unaccounted for, as if they never existed at all.

What happened to those weeks? Well, any number of things might have occurred. It’s possible I was working on a book, or maybe I bumped my head and forgot to post, or I might have spilled a drink on my computer, or I could have blown off blogging and gone to a water park instead. That does sound like something I might do. Or is it possible that those weeks simply didn’t happen and I’m actually a little more than three years younger than I thought?

Yeah. I like that. I think I’m going to assume that’s what has happened here.

Now, I realize that some of you particularly astute readers might question my conclusion by suggesting that time was still passing for you during those missing weeks. Perhaps some of you even posted to your own blogs during the unaccounted-for one hundred and seventy-four weeks, leading you to believe that you have some sort of evidence that time kept marching on even without my contribution to the blogosphere. I mean, I guess if you’re that egocentric, your point could maybe be a little bit valid.

History-schmistory. This looks like way more fun. Image by cafrancomarques from Pixabay

That’s also the best argument against the Phantom Time Theory, which didn’t have most historians scratching their heads for very long. The theory assumes that the presence of 5th to 8th century artifacts from other world cultures sheds no light on whether or not time existed in Europe during the same period. It also relies on the impossibility that anyone in a later era might mimic an architectural style of an earlier era. Both of these assertions are a little hard to swallow.

Then there’s the astronomical evidence. While Otto III, Sylvester II, and Constantine VII were busy conspiring, it seems they forgot to reschedule the comets and eclipses reliably observed here on earth. So, maybe Europe just blew off history for a few centuries in favor of a trip to the water park. For the rest of the world, however, I think it’s safe to assume that time kept on ticking.

In a Roundabout Way

About a week ago, the worst thing that can ever happen to a community happened in my town, and it has been absolute pandemonium ever since. Everywhere I go I hear the cries of the people, from the grocery store checkout lines to the ladies’ locker room at the community center. And don’t get me started on the city’s Facebook page, where many comments contain exasperated emoji faces, excessive exclamation points, terrible grammar, and sometimes even ALL CAPS.

People are pretty upset, and it’s little wonder why, because last week, after months of public notices, published plans, and inconvenient construction, an old interstate ramp connected to the town’s main commercial thoroughfare was suddenly closed and replaced with a new one that includes, of all things (and I’m sorry if this is too upsetting for your sensibilities), a roundabout.

Oh, yeah. That looks easy to navigate. Arpingstone at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I know. It’s difficult to process. I’ll give you a minute.

The dreaded roundabout can trace its roots, as well as its generally bad reputation, back to the mid-nineteenth century when French Emperor Napoleon III decided to give the streets of Paris a makeover. Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann was chosen for the job, and the city underwent a major overhaul to its public works, including the Place de l’Étoile (today known as the Place Charles de Gaulle) which circles around the Arc de Triomphe.

The circle, which has no lane markings, serves as the convergence point of twelve roads that all empty straight into it. Traffic traveling around the circle must yield to incoming traffic and those vehicles that have made their way into the innermost portion of the circle have to stay there probably forever.

Fortunately, I’ve never driven it, but when I attempted to find a graphic demonstrating what the traffic pattern should ideally look like, the best I could do were some videos of rush hours nightmares and a delightfully helpful list of tips that include “be a little bit pushy” and “know what your insurance covers.” Of course there have long been terrible traffic circles in other places as well, including the US and, as Clark Griswold demonstrated in the 1984 film National Lampoon’s European Vacation, in the UK.

But in 1966, the traffic circle got an overhaul itself thanks to British city designer Frank Blackmore who developed a newer, friendlier roundabout in which traffic entering from soft curves, yields to the traffic already moving around the circle. When implemented, his design reduced accidents, and maybe after a while didn’t seem like the worst thing ever.

In 2016, Carmel, Indiana received the International Roundabout of the Year Award from the UK based Roundabout Appreciation Society. This isn’t a picture of the winning intersection, but I did think it was worth noting that there is such a society that gives out such awards. Image by Roberto Ramon Diaz Blanco from Pixabay

Then in 1984, when the English had been happily driving around in circles for nearly two decades, American engineer Leif Ourston reached across the pond with a possibly slightly over-the-top appeal, suggesting to Blackmore that as Sir Winston Churchill once asked America to join Britain in a struggle to protect democracy, it would be lovely if Britain might join us to bring the love for the roundabout to America.

Since no one could say no to an appeal like that, Blackmore agreed. The two toured the nation’s cities, proposing their safer alternative to stoplight-controlled intersections. Perhaps predictably, complaining people shouted them down everywhere they went. Some even held protest signs that included excessive exclamation points and ALL CAPS!!!!

It wasn’t until the city of Las Vegas agreed to give it a go and placed two roundabouts in a residential area of the city that they made any progress at all. The number of accidents went down and the incidences of roundabouts crept up throughout the US, leading the town of Carmel, Indiana to become the roundabout capitol of the nation with upward of 138 of them serving a population of just under 100,000 spread over an area of forty-nine square miles.

See? Easy-peasy. Loginname, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I bet the citizens of Carmel did their fair share of grumbling at first, though I imagine they’ve gotten used to it by now. It’s hard to spend too much time arguing against an 89% reduction in traffic delays, a 56% reduction in stops, a 29% reduction in carbon emissions, a 28% reduction in fuel consumption, a 38% reduction in accidents at intersections (which account for 50% of traffic accidents nationwide), and a 90% reduction in fatalities at intersections.

I think folks in my town will eventually accept their tragic fate as well. This is, after all, not our first brush with these horrid circles. Just a quick count in my head comes up with at least six other roundabouts in town that I drive through regularly. I suspect there are more than that, each one initially met with righteous anger by local skeptics who grudgingly admitted after a while that it maybe didn’t seem like the worst thing ever.

People do come around, if in a somewhat roundabout way.

Thinking About the Roman Empire

I’ve been at this blogging thing for going on twelve years now, which is long enough to lose a little steam, and also to not always remember what territory I’ve already covered in this space. I am pretty sure, however, that in the first eleven years, I never once wrote specifically about chickens*. Now in year twelve, I have so far found myself writing about them twice.

Oh, maybe this is why all of the men are thinking about the Roman Empire! Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s not that chickens aren’t fascinating creatures. I’m sure they are. I just never realized they held much of a significant role in history. That is until we all started thinking about the Roman Empire so much.

Actually, maybe you haven’t been thinking about the Roman Empire all that much lately. It started as an Instagram post turned Tik-Tok trend with a couple of Swedish influencers challenging women to ask the men in their lives how often they think about the Roman Empire. An oddly large percentage of men responded that they do think about the Roman Empire fairly often.

I’m a little late to the game because I don’t spend a great deal of time on either Instagram or Tik-Tok, but still several of the men in my life have played along and posted more than once that they are thinking about the Roman Empire again, which in turn makes me think about chickens.

Because chickens were pretty important to the Roman Empire, particularly the sacred chickens from the Greek Island of Euboea, whose opinions on foreign policy held great sway. Rightly so, because there was at least one incidence when their advice was not taken and disastrous results followed.

The story goes that during the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage, Roman consul and naval commander Publius Claudius Pulcher decided to attack the Carthaginian fleet at in the harbor of Drepana off the western coast of Sicily. As one evidently does while in Rome, he consulted the sacred chickens.

He asked his friendly neighborhood pullarius (Latin for chicken priest, just in case that ever comes up in conversation), who offered feed to the chickens and waited to see what would happen. If the chickens decided to eat, that would have been a sign of good luck. If not, then perhaps Pulcher would have been better off planning his attack for another day.

It seems reasonable to assume that if these creatures don’t feel like eating, it might be an ominous sign. Image by Emilian Robert Vicol from Pixabay

On this particular day, the chickens did not prove hungry, but Pulcher was not going to be told what to do by a bunch of bird-brained soothsayers. He allegedly responded to the chicken priest’s report that if the chickens didn’t want to eat, perhaps they could drink, and he ordered them all thrown overboard. He then went on to suffer the greatest naval defeat of the war and returned to Rome in shame.

It turns out that thinking about the chickens may be a worthwhile endeavor after all. If you spend much time thinking about the Roman Empire, they’re bound to come up eventually. Maybe even twice in only a few months.

I don’t know that I would say I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the Roman Empire, at least not as much as many of the men in my life apparently do. But I would bet that the time I spend writing blog posts about chickens is above average.

*After writing this post, it occurred to me that I did write about Mike the Headless Chicken once, back in June of 2016. You can begin to see why the topics are not coming as easily these days.

When Life Hands You Apples

In the late sixteenth century French Jesuits brought the first apple seeds to America and by the time missionary John Chapman became the legendary Johnny Appleseed in the late eighteenth century, the fruits were already a pretty important part of American culture. Apple pies were on their way to becoming as American as they were ever likely to get, and the hard cider was flowing.

Image by Michael Strobel from Pixabay

Then came the increasing influence of German immigrants who brought with them an enthusiasm for beer. Barley grew well in the US. It was a quicker and cheaper crop, too, and recovered more easily when it occasionally fell victim to the whim of the temperance movement. Apple trees began to decline, beer surged, and apple cider became the drink of the backward-thinking country bumpkin.

That’s probably why, during the presidential campaign season of 1840, a Democratic newspaper insulted the Whig challenger to the Democrat incumbent Martin Van Buren by stating that you could “give [William Harrison] a barrel of hard cider. . .and he will sit out the remainder of his days in a log cabin by the side of his ‘sea coal’ fire, and study moral philosophy.”

The insult turned out to be a pretty big misstep because the US was in the midst of an economic depression that had occurred under the watch and policies of Van Buren and his Democrat predecessor Andrew Jackson. People were stressed and were perhaps feeling nostalgic for better days, even longing for a return of the hard cider they’d previously dismissed.

I mean, the man might have been a little hoity-toity, but he was as American as hard apple cider. Albert Gallatin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Harrison, who’d been raised as a wealthy and well educated Virginian with a pedigree every bit as hoity-toity as Van Buren’s, embraced hard cider which paired well with his reputation as a western hero of the War of 1812. Yes, it was maybe a little disingenuous, but when life hands you apples, you make hard cider.

That’s what we’ve decided to do this fall at the Angleton house. Shortly after moving into our current suburban home more than ten years ago, we planted three apple trees, of different varieties. One started producing a pretty good harvest the first year or two. The others took a little longer, but now all three are going strong and we are drowning in apples.

This is not a terrible problem to have. We share a lot of them with friends, family, neighbors, and food banks. With the rest, we get creative. Over the years we have canned applesauce, made apple butter, baked pies and cakes and muffins and doughnuts. Our apples have been the star of salads, hors d’oeuvres, main dishes, and snacks. The only thing we hadn’t done was make cider because we didn’t think we had the right kind of apples to make it work.

But then we found a stovetop recipe that isn’t too picky and it turned out really well. The next logical step then was to try our hand at fermenting it, because it felt like just the kind of thing nostalgic Americans should do.

If you didn’t know better, you might almost think we know what we’re doing.

Turns out it’s not that difficult. It does require some precision and care and a bit of patience. Our first batch isn’t quite through its initial fermentation yet, but as best as we can judge from all our recently obtained YouTube expertise, it’s coming along nicely so far.

Hard cider worked out for Harrison, too. He defeated Van Buren in an electoral college landslide, becoming the oldest person ever elected to the office (a record that has definitely been broken since) as well as the first to lay claim to a campaign slogan.

His success didn’t last, however, because after delivering the longest ever inaugural address (a record he does still hold), in the cold, without even stopping to take to his bed, he developed pneumonia and just a month later, became the first US president to die in office, after the shortest term ever served.

I do hope we have better luck with our hard cider.