A Work Progressing

Things pop up, from time to time, and very unexpectedly. My nieces are cleaning out my eldest brothers home. He doesn’t live there, no one could. It’s possible that he invented “hoarding”. He certainly had a head start because he was “dumpster diving” for decades. In fairness, he once built a two story cabin in the woods with found lumber, windows, fixtures, and pool tables.

He has a nice in-law cottage with his youngest daughter, and he rarely goes back to his home with treasures. I don’t think they would let him.

Thoughtful as the girls have always been, they found some stuff that they thought I would like, and packed it up, shipping to me first class. It was some photos, some documents, and several old newspapers. One paper in particular was from my home town, The Richmond Independent. This paper is what I grew up with. It was swallowed by one of those communication conglomerates, and nothing was left but memories.

My godfather, my namesake, was a printer at the paper, so I always felt a deep connection. Even for a bookish teenager, the writing was pretty good. There was one feature that stood out. A customer could have a free two line ad in the classified section, if the item you were selling was $50 or under. In the 1950s or even 1960s, that was pretty cool. All sorts of interesting things ended up being listed.

So naturally, when I got this newspaper in a box with others, I immediately looked for the “Bargain Counter”, section 601. I suppose it should be the bargain column, but…

The very first item gave me pause. It listed an engagement ring, appraised at $200, selling for $50 cash. Call after 5:30pm. Three or four things to think about. This was Dec.4, 1954. Didn’t everybody deal with cash? Maybe the seller feared some sort of a trade deal. Secondly, call after 5:30 implies a working person, probably a hard-working person that needed the cash. And lastly, what is the story behind this broken engagement? Typical breakup, ghastly accident, troubled second thoughts? It was only two lines, but I spent several minutes thinking about the possibilities.

I was actually looking for something very specific, very important. It wasn’t there, there were toys, bicycles, furniture, ovens, and fur coats, but not what I was looking for.

Another rite of passage for a sixteen year old was to get your drivers license, buy a car, park it in the driveway and smoke cigarettes with your friends. If the car actually ran, then you would “drag the main” at .25 cents a gallon, and buy a Giraffe at Gordon’s (think Orange Julius) at the end of the night.

It all hinged at being able to buy a vehicle with grass cutting salary, or saved allowance. That’s where the “Bargain Counter” came to fame. Dozens and dozen of my friends and relatives brought their first car from the classified 601 column. And now I have my very own copy, and there isn’t a car listed. Wait….

The next to the last item, a 1936 Buick, good tires, good condition, $40

Wow, not even the full $50. We would have ten dollars for gas, that would last the whole summer!

Yep, reminders pop up when you least expect them.

It’s a right of passage. You are first a child, and you think like a child. Your parents are simply there, providing everything you need, or you cry louder. Later on, your parents become people, but they are so ignorant. Somehow, even later on, they become brilliant, and sometimes wise. It makes you wonder if they were the same people.

My father was different than my brother’s father, and both of us never even met my oldest brother’s father. It was the same man, but ten years difference between the first two boys, and then seven years difference between the last two, this made quite a difference in personality and energy.

I was shocked to find out that my father was a jock, a five sport athlete. He was an outstanding baseball pitcher, played in the minor leagues all over the Midwest. He once pitched three games against Satchel Page, won one. He was pretty constantly batting .390’s, sometimes in the middle .450s. He also boxed, he had massive heavy hands, I don’t recall his record but, I would not want to receive a punch from those hands. He had a college scholarship for football, but the Depression hit right after high school, so he looked for work. He was an good bowler. When I was growing up I remember only one plaque on the wall, it was small, maybe3x5 inches, metal, engraved with the score of his “Eleven in a Row”. He liked it because the first frame was a spare, and the next eleven were strikes. He never gave up. And then, lastly, there was/were horseshoes. Pretty big things, more popular when there were still horses around.

I did know about the bowling, I was raised in a bowling alley. My father was always in at least two leagues all the while I was growing up. That meant most Friday and Saturday nights we would all go to the bowling alley for a few hours. It was fun hanging out, peeking in the adult pool parlor, reading comics, talking with my mom. We could always tell when my father was ready to bowl. He had this technique of standing at the line, staring at the pins, then he would raise the ball with both hands over his head, step forward to swing the ball back, another step forward to release the ball about an inch from the floor. He had a gentle curve, but it went right in the pocket, and the sound of ten pins flying in the air, the ball hitting them, the pins hitting each other, everything bouncing off the three walls of the alley… it was deafening.

He never taught me to bowl, or to box, or to play baseball (maybe a few games of catch), and definitely didn’t teach me to play football. I did toss some horseshoes but they were massive, and heavy. I tried to imagine the size of horses that they would fit.

It wasn’t that I was deprived, my father was simply done with these things. He taught me camping skills, tried to teach me fishing (boring), he really taught me archery, and we would go out to courses often. I still have the first bow that he bought me. The biggest thing was that he taught me sailing. He never sailed a boat larger than 12 feet. Mostly he would convert some old rowboat with matching side-keels, and a makeshift mast with a tarp. Finally, my oldest brother gave him a sailing dinghy from Norway. That was the boat I learned on. I did take him out on the 30 ft. Yankee. I think he liked it.

So, back to the beginning, who was this man who was forty years old when I was born? He was pretty well read in high school, but read mostly dime novels when I was home. He didn’t talk much, and played solitaire a lot. There is a family joke that he wore the spots off his cards because he played so much. It isn’t a joke. He had a deck that he liked so much that the ink was gone. He could only tell the cards apart by the faint indentation left by the printing press. Ghost cards!

Most people define themselves in social situations by the careers that they choose. Except, most people rarely choose their careers, unless they are very lucky, or extremely driven. The average persons falls into something, then stays because it isn’t too bad, and the money is good. My father was a welder. He came west to build ships during WWII. I think he learned something about welding, working for the Conservation Corp for a few months in the middle 1930s.

When the war ended, he applied for a job at Chevron Standard Oil, as a boilermaker. He made, and repaired boilers. They boil a lot of oil at Standard Oil. I went to Richmond Union High School, our mascot was an oil can. We were “the Oilers”.

Apparently, my father was a master welder, and could weld any size pipe, connecting to different sizes of other pipes, and at any angle. He would cut the ends of a pipe, with a matching hole in the other, then seal it with a single matching bead. I learned this from one of his co-workers. He didn’t teach me welding either.

I know he had a hard life, his father left the family when he was young, and he had several step-fathers that were a disaster. Another family story is that he hid in a flour barrel fearing for his life. His final years in high school he lived with his older sister, and that was fairly common in large families.

I knew a little about his former work life before he became a welder. He found a job at a meat packing plant in Fargo, North Dakota. The Armour Meat Company had a large plant on the west side of town. I asked him what that was like. He said it was okay, he rose through the ranks and became “the Hammer”, the guy with a sledgehammer, hitting cows between the eyes. I may have been ten years old at the time. I don’t think I talked to him about that for at least another ten years.

When I did talk to him again, he said he thought it was far better, and more humane than using a pistol. They had changed policies after a while, and gave him a .22 pistol. Every now and then the cow would not die, and it was a mess. For years he had hit them with a hammer, and no problem. He finally asked for another job.

Apparently he had also started to pitch baseball for the company team, and they were winning! He negotiated a raise, and a position on the company’s police force, or he would leave the team. The police force also provided services to the city. He rose through the ranks pretty quickly, and with those massive fists, he became Chief of Police for Fargo, ND. He never saw the movie Fargo.

So my dad was a LEO (law enforcement officer) for a time. I remember playing with this huge badge that he kept hidden in the garage.

All this, and I still say that I have a hard time knowing my father, I’m not certain that it’s anyone’s fault. It was just a different time, and a different generation.

This blog started because I recently received a gift of some old documents from family members. Lots of old newspapers, and there were three certificates with my father’s name in impressive Old English letters. The certificates were from the Armour Meat Company in three categories; Beef, Hogs, and Sheep. In each category there were eight or nine skill areas that actually had a numbered ranking, supposedly out of a hundred points. My father scored mostly in the 90’s, but none lower than an 85. He had 98 in hog curing, 97 in hides.

The skill areas were killing, skinning, offal, coolers, pelts, casings, sausage, curing, smoking, and cutting. I was grossed out like I was ten years old, but I knew him a little more.

Being retired, I have the unique privilege of doing basic research to support my claims.

I have spent many years hiking in the High Sierras, Nevada desert, Yellowstone Park, Washington North Cascades, and Oregon’s Three Sisters. Not just your normal weekends, but backpacking for a week or two at a time (mostly weekends by count). I think by conservative standards I have clocked somewhere around 11,000 hours.

Now of course, this includes sleeping, eating, and resting…so let’s say we cut the number in half. That means 5,500 hours of staring at a map, trying to find ribbons in the trees, deciding with my gut which trail to choose, sometimes making my own trail when there wasn’t one.

In all those hours I have never been lost. If I had, my bones would still be out there, in summer sun, and winter snow.

In fairness, I have been woefully misdirected for a few days… but never lost!

A few months back, I was driving home alone at night. I wasn’t using my brights in the neighborhood, and we live far back, so there are multiple turns, left and right.

They are arranged in a pattern that you memorize if you are returning from the normal route. But there are several ways to come home, and several patterns to remember. I must point out that there are no street lamps and on moonless nights it is a challenge.

So, on this night I made several left right left turns, and then suddenly I was at a dead end. Not the right dead end, but a completely different dead end. I can now understand the drunk that entered a stranger’s house because he was tired. I was tempted.

But I don’t drink! I also had no clue to back out to where I had made the mistake. I resorted to firing up my GPS, and I was only blocks from my home.

Okay, I still wasn’t lost, because I got home.

We all have “brain farts” where we can’t remember a name, or some sort of common data. Once, in high school I forgot how to spell “a”, and I couldn’t even remember the first letter. (That sounds like a stroke now!) But I recall it was a significant day when my father-in-law could no longer visit us, because he couldn’t remember, and that was in the daytime.

With age, it can creep up on you, there is an issue with various forms of dementia. It probably is at the back of most people’s minds until it suddenly presents its self as a serious question.

I’m not obsessing about it because I have taken a few steps to get a little warning.

A few seasons back I got a present of a large collection of Sudoku puzzles. A very thoughtful gift, because someone had noticed that I play Sudoku on my phone/iPad.

What they didn’t know is that I hate Sudoku. I’m not a big game player in any case. All the PlayStation stuff, or even Mario, just passed me by.

But Sudoku was different, it had numbers associated with the timing and strategy of play. I fail miserably at the strategy, but I have been consistent in the numbers.

If I score somewhere close, plus or minus, to 80,000 then I probably won’t get lost driving home. It’s a great check on my system. If I forget a book title, or a name, then I play a round of Sudoku, and everything is fine!

Isn’t it amazing how well we neutralize our fears? Now, if only I could remember where I put my phone.

I’ve been thinking about brain cells. Obviously they are in the brain, so…the thing that I am, is safe behind a skull, which used to have a cushion of hair around it. Is male pattern baldness the first step to eventual oblivion? Is the brain in danger?

Then it occurred to me that a certain percentage of brain cells may have escaped and taken up residence somewhere else. We talk about “gut feeling”, is it really “gut thinking”? Or, what about the heart? Why is it that the lungs never get feeling/thinking credit? Or perhaps the tip of the little finger on the left hand? Could millions of brain cells decide to migrate to the little finger, knowing that age has exposed their native “homeland” to danger? They are “brain cells” after all, they could think of these things.

As always, Google search can offer some suggestions…

Aside from the structural tissue and blood vessels, the brain consists of two types of cells, neurons and glia cells. Neurons have this wonderful electrical ability to pass information from one cell to another. Neurons group together in nuclei, and are connected to other nuclei by tracts. Their “homeland” is the cerebral cortex. However, neurons exist throughout the body and fall into three categories: sensory, motor, or interneurons. Sensory is massive throughout the skin, and they send messages about the world back to the brain. Motor neurons are in the heart, intestinal system, diaphragm, and glands. They assist in the primary functions of those tissues.

Glia cells are the most numerous and mysterious. They assist the neurons but nobody is quite sure of everything they do. I’ll just repost this paragraph because I’m not certain how to reword it.

“Glial cells are the supporting cells of the neurons. The three types of glial cells are astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and ependymal cells, known collectively as macroglia, and the smaller scavenger cells known as microglia. Glial stem cells are found in all parts of the adult brain. Glial cells greatly outnumber neurons and apart from their supporting role to neurons, glia – astrocytes in particular have been acknowledged as being able to communicate with neurons involving a signalling process similar to neurotransmission called gliotransmission. They cannot produce an action potential as generated by a neuron but in their large numbers they can produce chemicals expressing excitability that exert an influence on neural circuitry. The star-like shape of the astrocyte allows contact with a great many synapses.”

Very suspicious, and maybe glia does some thinking as well. I bet that if some independent minded neurons left the brain, a good many glia cells would follow and help set up camp wherever they went.

Interneurons provide the inter communication between the sensory and the motor neurons. So, knowing this… which neurons think? I’m betting that thinking and communication are linked, it makes sense that interneurons throughout the body provide some sort of “thinking”. We somehow accept a “gut feeling”, but what about the skin? If you say no, then why does your skin “crawl”?

Your lungs appear to be somewhat empty of neurons, but the diaphragm has a bunch. Ever catch your breathe? Taste, hearing, smell and sight also has tons of interneurons, but we never (or rarely) give credit for them thinking. There maybe something special about smell neurons connecting to memory storage.

The possibility of brain cells intentionally migrating to safer parts of the body is intriguing, but going to the extremities seems not logical. Stubbing your toe, or getting your hand caught in a door is proof enough that it is dangerous out there.

My bet is that the “colonists” would head for the “Vagus Nerve”. Look it up, it’s a spinal nerve, completely protected by the torso, with quick exits to all the major populations of interneuron activity. Apparently there is a major collection near the tail-bone, where it is no longer needed to wag something.

Perhaps we can “think” from our butt in future decades.

Is it fair that some of my hero’s/heroines may not be entirely historical? I have written before about my attraction to individuals who made impacts coming from an isolated existence.

Temujin is a perfect example, his tribe nearly wiped out, living alone outside of the community, with only his mother able to help him. Eventually he challenged the leader of a small clan. He won, then he used those men to challenge a larger clan, he won. This repeated over and over, like a winning streak at a roulette table, Temujin became a man of importance and the tribes renamed him Genghis Khan.

My personal favorite is Harald Hardrada. His life story sounds like an action movie. Wounded at age fifteen when there was a battle for the Norwegian crown, and the victor tried to kill all the remaining contenders. Harald escaped to Kiev, ended up in Constanople, fighting for the Emperor, grew rich. Harald then used his wealth to return to Norway to take back the crown. At the age of fifty he set his eyes on the crown of England, and died trying to take it. His defeat ended the Viking Age. He also managed to kill 2/3rds of the English army, which made it much better for William the Bastard, to become William the Conqueror at Hastings two weeks later. The world changed because of the life and death of Harald Hardrada.

There was a time that was called the Dark Ages, only because there wasn’t much written that survived, plus this was before great strides were made in all forms of human effort. A driving force at the turn of the millennia was Hildegard von Bingen, 1098-1179. Many scholars believe that her intelligence, and grasp of new possibilities far exceeded anyone on earth, even to include Einstein and Hawking. She was given to the Church at a young age, but it did not hide her talents.

She wrote music that is still played, she wrote and illustrated a botanical encyclopedia, she was a healer, an adviser to kings and emperors, she was the first woman to begin and run an abbey. She was also a pioneer in math, and was one of the first to popularize the Arabic numeral system. Imagine trying to do trigonometry with Roman numerals. The world was different because of Hildegard.

I can think of dozens of individuals that just made one difference, but we don’t know where, or what their name might have been. The first person who made fire, and was able to teach others. The first person to tie reeds together to make a craft for the water. The first person to attach a keel to their round bottomed boats, for better directional stability. The first person that harnessed the wind with woven material acting as a sail. The first person that made standardized marks that became a written language, the first person that turned a chant of grunts into music and found instruments to accompany the song.

The list of first is truly endless if you think about it. We also look to individuals that took on leadership responsibilities, to protect the people and begin to create culture and civilization. This is a hard category became with power comes so many abuses. I do have my favorites however.

I’m very fond of two Romans who had absolute power, and when they were done, they retired and went back to their farms. Cincinnatus, or Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, was a Roman statesman, 517-430 BC, who accepted the role of Dictator offered by the Senate in a time of crisis. He solved the problem, then resigned. Another problem occurred and he did the same thing, he did not profit from ultimate power.

The other Roman was Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, or commonly known as Sulla. He was not a better person than Cincinnatus, but he was offered the Dictatorship. The difference was that he decided later to seize it on his own. It was the first time that a general used his army to seize ultimate power. He was brutal in enforcing his reforms. Yet, he fulfilled his promise and gave up power to retire to his villa. Roman historians were not kind in retelling how he spent his retirement. Later historians said that Sulla provided the model for future military takeovers.

His rival, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, described Sulla as having the cunning of a fox and the courage of a lion – but that it was the former attribute that was by far the most dangerous. This mixture was later referred to by Machiavelli in his description of the ideal characteristics of a ruler.

He wrote his own epitaph carved on his tomb, “No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” This was also his personal motto, “no better friend, no worse enemy.” Maybe I like him because he might be a relative.

By far, my personal favorite king/leader is Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Mauryan Dynasty in India, 321–297 BC. Alexander the Great was taught by the philosopher Aristotle, he conquered much of the world until he invaded India. He found the Nanda Empire too strong, his men rebelled, and Alexander turned around, leaving a few satraps in charge.

Chandragupta was also trained by a philosopher named Chanakya, he conquered the Nanda Empire and beat the Macedonian Satraps that Alexander had left behind. His rule was amazing and changed the Indian sub-continent forever. He truly was in same category as Alexander, and Charlemagne, yet most people in the West barely know of him. What I find fascinating is that at the end of his reign, he gave it all up, and became a monk. He also repented of all the violence that occurred while he was building the Empire, and eventually became an ascetic, stopped eating, and died.

The man is worth studying.

Yesterday I wrote that the biggest threat to history is the lack of truth. Will Durant, an eminent historian, once said that history is mostly guessing, and the rest is prejudice. This is similar to “History is written by the victors.” It may be true in some cases, but is this a general truth?

Unfortunately, it is almost completely true in the “Classic History” category, where scholars dived deep into source material. My daughter reminds me that “truth and evidence” for the professional historian is barely two hundred years old. So what drove the classic historian before that? Patronage and ego!

One of the great mysteries in history is the event that occurred in the late Bronze Age. There were hundreds of cities that had archeological evidence of being destroyed within a very short time in a broad are of the world. Cities and cultures that had been developing for a long time didn’t just slowly morph into sleepy villages. They were burnt entirely to the ground with thousands of arrowheads in the ash. There was only one superpower the survived the assault. Egypt!

Egypt had a complex writing system, and artisans trained in illustrative ability. They could have documented what had happened, and instead, a giant temple complex provides a blank slate for Pharaoh Ramesses III to record his “victory”. To his credit, he did seem to fight off the invasion, but this rest of the known world was in chaos. Egypt was highly involved in trade, there were connections made, and markets established. Egypt had no place to sell her goods, and no place to buy the goods they required. Ther may have won the battle, but it was the first stage of a long decline. If “truth and evidence” had been applied maybe the decline would have been shorter, and less steep.

So what do we know from the temple of Medinet Habu? It appears that the attackers were a confederation of different peoples. Today’s scholars simply lump them together as the “Sea Peoples”. Ramesses gives us some names, and even illustrates the differences in dress, armor, and facial characteristics. Later Pharaohs even hired some of these tribes as mercenaries. Unfortunately there was no effort to record where they came from, or what was there purpose. They were simply pirates and barbarians looking for plunder and delighting in destruction. We are not even sure that some of the tribes even existed, perhaps Ramses inflated his enemies to give himself more credit. It is no accident that the officially approved style of illustration was to represent Ramses as a giant twenty times larger than the other individuals in the battle.

I can understand this, there is no question where Ramesses stood in the thick of battle. If you look at the Bayeau Tapestry of the Battle of Hastings , it can be hard to spot William and Harold.

Some of the Sea Peoples are quite different from the Egyptians, with feathered headdresses and horned helmets. Not the great horns of the Wagnerian opera, but small goat horns, or small disks on a stem. we know them as the Peleset, Sherden, Deneen, Ekwesh, Lucca, Shekelesh, Teresh , Tjerker, and the Weshesh.

The only definitive statement was their connection to the sea. Like the Vikings centuries later, they showed up suddenly, with no warning, fought hand to hand, and with bows and arrows. The late Bronze Age had highly developed chariots powered by horses, they were destroyed by lightly armored runners with javelins.

This “propaganda” was repeated thousands of times by the victors as history was mostly about war.

The first great historian, “the father of history” was Herodotus, 484 BC. His book The Histories, a detailed record of his “inquiry” on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars. The bulk of his writing has been verified by scholars and archeologists. Herodotus did receive some criticism by Athenians in his own time. They called him a “storyteller.” It is true that Herodotus included many fanciful tales in his book, as supplemental material. He did provide the caveat that it doesn’t mean that he believed it, he was just repeating what he had been told. At one of the Olympic Games in Athens, Herodotus read the entire Histories to the crowd, and they cheered him on with great applause.

The other great Greek historian was Thucydides, 460 BC. There is a great deal of difference between the two historians. Thucydides was much more “scientific” and did not record “facts” told by travelers in taverns. Thucydides was also a general so he had an inside perspective on warfare.

We actually only have three or four authors whose works have survived. There were many more historians that we known only by their names, not the actual books. The third Greek historian was Xenophon, my personal favorite. His book, The Anabasis, is about the ten thousand Greek mercenaries that found themselves trapped in the middle of Persia, having to fight their way back to the Black Sea and safety. Xenophon was a minor leader of the troops, but after the Persian had murdered the Greek leaders at a banquet, Xenophon was elevated to lead the remaining men back to Greece. The book was essentially about the journey and difficulties faced when behind enemy lines, but was very informative about the customs of the times. Xenophon was also great friends with Socrates.

If war and military exploits were the subjects of Greek historians, it didn’t change much with Roman authors. Livy, Strabo, Plutarch, and Tacitus stand out for me. It’s true that much of what they wrote was the military victories of Rome, but they also included snapshots of daily life. Fortunately we have quite a few lesser known author’s works.

The interesting one for me is Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Jewish War. Josephus had the unique perspective of having been a former Jewish general who had been captured, then worked with the Romans to put down the rebellion. He was rewarded by citizenship in Rome, a villa, and protection by powerful leaders. The fact that he reported on the destruction of Israel and the beginning of the Diaspora, was in his favor because his readers were Roman.

Because I’ve introduced Rome, I have to mention the historian that organized the best concise history of the fall of Rome, Edward Gibbon. His book, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is a Western classic. What most people do not know is that Gibbon is not a modern writer, he was born in England in 1737, and published his book in 1780. He a perfect example of the Enlightenment of the times, but later critics question the central reason that he presented for the cause of Rome’s fall. Gibbon believes that Christianity was the reason of the collapse. He specifically states that the wealth of the Church siphon off money that could have been used the beef up the military to stave off the barbarians. Remember, he was an Englishman in the late 1780s, and no friend to the Catholic Church.

Recent historians have traced the negative stories of the Crusaders to Gibbon. In his view the Crusaders were pawns of the Popes, and the Crusades were entirely caused by the Church. From that premise, the Crusaders were pirates, interested only in greed, power, and regions bigotry. There is no doubt that some of that is true. Modern scholars now believe that the Crusaders were also motivated by a number of issues, including a desire to protect pilgrims. Muslim invaders had invaded Spain and created independent states, the Crusaders also invaded to create the Latin States. It was the way of the world.

I jumped right through the medieval period, bypassing many historians that I have enjoyed. My favorites are:

Gregory of Tours (538–594), A History of the Franks

Bede (c. 672–735), Anglo-Saxon England

Adam of Bremen (later 11th century), historian of Scandinavia, Gesta

Anna Komnene (1083–1148), Byzantine princess and historian

Ambroise (fl. 1190s), writer of verse narrative of the Third Crusade

William of Tyre (c. 1128–1186)

Snorri Sturluson (c. 1178–1241), Icelandic historian

Templar of Tyre (c. 1230–1314), end of the Crusades

Of the Modern historians, I haven’t decided on my favorites. I’m fond of Carl Sandburg’s work, and Will Durant. But there are so many, and so many with specific agendas. I have trouble enough with my own agendas.

In Genesis, Adam spent a great deal of his first days, naming everything that he saw. This is a good thing. Asking for the “whatcha-ma-call-it” can present some amazing results. Existence can be broken down into discrete objects. It is a tree, or a bush. It can also be a redwood, or a primrose. This does not come with genetic evolution. It is entirely conceived by humans thinking, and breaking things into manageable chunks. Fish swim, birds fly… uh oh.

Okay we do have flying fish, and penguins swim, but these are exceptions. And sometimes birds walk, and fish walk… more exceptions. Structured naming is still a difficult process. A little historical background…

In pre-history people seemed to function with one name. The name could be passed down from generation to generation. It could be an object, an animal, a characteristic, or possibly even a place name. Sometimes the culture was large enough that further naming was necessary to differentiate one individual from another. Often this was done by adding the father’s name as a second name. This became a classic standard in the Scandinavian naming pattern. My name is John, my father’s name is Edwin, so I could be known as John Edwin to be set apart from all those other Johns. Except that in the Scandinavian system the addition of “son” would be added, so I would be known as John Edwinsson, my brother would be Robert Edwinsson. My sister could be similar, or she could also be Gayle Fargo, because she was born on a farm in Fargo. Girls would generally use “datter” or “dotter”, so it would be Gayle Edwinsdatter. Then, shorter constructs were used, like “sen” or “son” for boys and “dtr” for girls.

This went on for hundreds of years until sometime in the late 1800s the patronymic style of naming in Scandinavia faded away. The “last name” became fixed. Today, only Iceland still uses the patronymic system.

The European and American naming system often uses three names, first name, middle name, and last name. The last name is the family name. The middle name could be anything, but often it is remembering a relative, or close friend. The first name could also be a family tradition. Many German families rotate two names from brother to brother, Frederick William, and then William Frederick. This doesn’t sound very organized but the source for most of the three name patterns was very organized. It was the Roman naming system.

In fact, the tri-nomen pattern was the most obvious sign of Roman citizenship. It started as a bi-nomen system with less than twenty different names used for the personal name, the praenomina. This identified each member of even large families with a personal connection. The second name was the nomen, or the family name, sometimes called the gen. This looks very similar to a standard that we have now. But even the nomen was limited.

As Rome grew, and the republic turn into the empire, Romans added a third name, the cognomen, a very complex name that served many purposes. The cognomen was at first a nickname, then it became hereditary and the aristocracy used it to further differentiate their families from others.

What is interesting is that generally, there were no more than twenty male names, and twenty feminine versions, that were used in combination for all Roman citizens. A scribe, or a clerk, knew everything about the individual by knowing the “nomens”.

Today we pride ourselves in knowing the “trinomial nomenclature.” of botany. Rome lives on!

I love history, but I don’t often question the “why” of history. In some way, I delight in knowing something that is important, but widely ignored. Is this an ego thing or is it a process of bringing attention to something important? The most often used quote is from the writings of Winston Churchill “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But he wasn’t the first to ponder the concept.

Edmund Burke is often misquoted to say, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” What he actually wrote was, “People will not look forward to prosperity who never look backward to their ancestors.” George Santayana is credited with the aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Burke may have started the conversation, Santayana simplified it,and a politician made it popular.

Edmund Burke is widely misquoted by the way. The other “quote” that he may never have said, is “The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. This might have been a mash-up of Thomas Jefferson’s, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Scholars have not found this quote in his published books, the closest is “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice, in a contemptible struggle. “. That’s a lot of words for a declarative sentence.

A little Google search on history quotes gave me the following…

1. “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.”, Napoleon Bonaparte

2. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”, Desmond Tutu

3. “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”, Confucius

4. “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”, James Baldwin

5. “History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.”, Ambrose Bierce

6. “The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.”, Franz Kafka

7. “What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.”, Victor Hugo

8. “History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.”, Alexis de Tocqueville

9. “History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice.”, Will Durant

10. “History is a race between education and catastrophe.”, H.G. Wells

11. “History is a vast early warning system.”, Norman Cousins

12. “A myth is far truer than a history, for a history only gives a story of the shadows, whereas a myth gives a story of the substances that cast the shadows.”, Annie Besant

13. “Isn’t history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?”, Emile Cioran

14. “History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.”, Lord Acton

15. “Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.”, Hermann Hesse

I think Hesse has it right. The very concept of humanity is the purpose of history. Yes, we should use it to learn our mistakes, but we may make the mistakes for a long time before learning. This is not a formula but a process.

The essential problem of history is about truth. History documents change, but the truth of change is elusive. Have we honestly looked at what we have gained, and what we have lost? After that, we need to look at the price we pay.

In many ways, history is used to punish others. This can change almost overnight, leaving people confused and disoriented. Generally, no one looks to the agenda of those who wish to punish. Is it simple revenge? Is it justice? Or is it just another tool in the quest for power?

To simplify Hesse’s statement to the most simple- “History is an attempt to discover a recipe for better tasting food.”, John Diestler

I gather my utensils, my appliances, raw materials, supplemental ingredients, and then I write down what I did. If it is good then I save it, if it is not good, I save it so that I won’t go down that road again. This is what is so often missed about the quotes of history. The mistakes are many, and yes we need to save them for reference. But the successes are what we can give to others, recipes for the future!

Phoenicians sailed nearly around the world before we even knew the extent. Scholars asked “How did they do that?” You don’t have to invent help from “ancient aliens”. You just have to invent an alphabet to write the truth! They sailed near the coast and wrote down the days, and the descriptions of the shoreline. Then they doubled checked on the way back, gave their “book” to another captain, and he went a little further and added to the book. And he checked the accuracy on his way back. Later on the Portuguese called the books of “sailing directions”- rutters. Eventually the word described the rudder that determined the direction the boat would go.

So maybe, “History is the Rutter for movement in the world.”

2/1 = .5, 3/2 = 1.5, 5/3 = 1.666, 8/5 = 1.6, 13/8 = 1.62, 21/13 = 1.615, 34/21 = 1.619, 55/34 = 1.6176, 89/55 = 1.61818, 144/89 = 1.61797

Math is an exact science, carried out to infinite sequencing, such as pi. The same is true for the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. The ratios above are expressions of lengths to widths that have eventually been called the Golden Mean, or Divine Ratio. (The curious thing is that as the ratios continue, the “Golden Mean” approaches the mathematical formula of the Fibonacci Sequence. They are related!)

Supposedly these ratios create a rectangle that is the most pleasing to the natural eye, so that compositions in art or architecture are said to have these ratios imbedded in them. To a certain extant this may be true.

Classic photography has taught the rule of thirds for decades upon decades. Then, the more advanced courses modified it to 8/5s. Basically meaning that the best division of a rectangle is to divide it into 1/8s and then draw a line at 3/8s or 5/8s and that gives the “best” dividing line. The ratio is 1.6, and the most accurate Fibonacci sequence is 1.61797. We used to that this is “Good enough for government work”.

The “Golden Mean” and the “Fibonacci Sequence” are said to be a part of a standard composition practice. It may be true in a sense. We compose things to patterns that are most familiar. Because these ratios are so similar in so many images and objects, we are certain to find them as ongoing patterns in our own work. But in general, the exact nature of the mathematical basis is rarely found in art or architecture, approximations yes, exact no.

The one area that appears to have the most accuracy is in nature. The pattern of leaves and seed pods seem to reflect the formula with the most accuracy, far more than random chance. Unfortunately, the most famous example of the appearance in nature of the Fibonacci Sequence is the Nautilus Sea Shell, and that probably is not true. It is a spiral but not as exact as other more naturally occurring Fibonacci spirals. The controlling factor appears to be rain and sunlight. The Fibonacci Sequence give the optimum distancing to give each leaf/seed the most exposure.

So why do we see this ratio in art/architecture? It most certainly has been intentionally used in some cases. Mostly, the ratio we see is the “learned patterned”. We see repeated ratios of television/monitors, magazines, architectural facades. Sometimes they are so close to 1.6 we just assume that it was intentional. In point of fact, there isn’t a “perfect rectangle”, only the most observed rectangle.

Even still, I intentionally use the 8/5s ratio in my photographs and my artwork (when I remember that I can, hehe)

I was thinking about Venusians. Venus had been an early target for space probes, but we haven’t been back there in decades. Why? Perhaps because the probes sent back all the important information we needed. Perhaps it was because the Soviets beat us there with the first of many probes.

Perhaps because the surface is so harsh that nothing sent there lasted more than 54 minutes. Why go back?
If there were life, it would be life unlike anything known on this planet. Perhaps a little bit like the life found around the sulphur vents in the deep ocean.

Yes, the Venusians, if intelligent, would have very little in common with us.

I wonder what any other life forms would think of us? I’ve learned that we are heterotrophs. In fact, all animals and most fungi are heterotrophs.

Fancy word for life forms that live by eating other life forms. This is not an encouraging fact for creatures from another planet. Where are the boundaries?

I mean, let’s just say that Venusians are found to be intelligent, but also the best tasting, high protein, gluten free, low calorie, low fat, low sugar, non-allergic, food that provides all the essential nutrients and vitamins. Literally the perfect food!

Okay, sure, they are intelligent, but they don’t have to have a first name, (my current rule for the question, Is it edible?) And their thoughts, stories, philosophies, might have no relation to anything we can understand. But somehow we found out that Venusians make a great barbecue. And there is also a tremendous amount of Venusians, almost inexhaustible because there are no heterotrophs on Venus.

Hmm, decisions, decisions. By the way…autotrophs do exist. Most plants do not need living food, but that does not mean that they are safe. We find most autotrophs quite tasty if prepared well.

It might be said that vegetarians are kinder because the only eat plants. Kinder? Eating defenseless autotrophs, plants that can’t even run away?. Heterotrophs that eat other heterotrophs seems more fair. At least for the main entree.

Gotta stop thinking, I must be hungry.

(Reposted from 2017)