tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54880526776475281672024-03-05T17:57:31.574-05:00A Rolling CroneA blog on art and life after sixty by writer, artist and photographer Joan Paulson Gageby Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.comBlogger560125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-35406571141810796332020-11-18T14:36:00.000-05:002020-11-18T14:36:11.495-05:00<p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><header class="entry__header yr-entry-header" data-rapid-parsed="sec" data-yaft-module="huffpost-entry-header" id="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="headline js-headline" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><h1 class="headline__title" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: ProximaNovaCond-Extrabld, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 3.25rem; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 1024px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; visibility: visible;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">My Dinner at the White House</span></b><br /></span></h1></div><div class="timestamp timestamp--contributor timestamp--has-modified-date" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #757575; display: inline-block; font-family: ProximaNova, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; height: 20px; line-height: 1.375rem; margin: 5px 0px 7px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span aria-label="Published on March 9, 2016 03:55 PM ET" class="timestamp__date--published" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;">03/09/2016 </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span aria-label="Published on March 9, 2016 03:55 PM ET" class="timestamp__date--published" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> Reposted</span></span><span aria-label="Updated on December 6, 2017 10:22 PM ET" class="timestamp__date--modified" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> Nov, 18, 2020, because I'm citing this event and the dress below during the Worcester Historical Museum's celebration of the Little Black Dress.<br /></span></span></span></div></header><header class="entry__header yr-entry-header" data-rapid-parsed="sec" data-yaft-module="huffpost-entry-header" id="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="timestamp timestamp--contributor timestamp--has-modified-date" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #757575; display: inline-block; font-family: ProximaNova, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; height: 20px; line-height: 1.375rem; margin: 5px 0px 7px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span aria-label="Updated on December 6, 2017 10:22 PM ET" class="timestamp__date--modified" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div></header><header class="entry__header yr-entry-header" data-rapid-parsed="sec" data-yaft-module="huffpost-entry-header" id="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="timestamp timestamp--contributor timestamp--has-modified-date" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #757575; display: inline-block; font-family: ProximaNova, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; height: 20px; line-height: 1.375rem; margin: 5px 0px 7px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span aria-label="Updated on December 6, 2017 10:22 PM ET" class="timestamp__date--modified" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div></header><div class="entry__content js-entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: flex; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="entry__body js-entry-body" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: ProximaNova, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 3px 65px 0px 0px; max-width: 705px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 705px; word-spacing: 0px;"><div class="js-sharebar share-bar share-bar--sticky yr-left-rail" data-mobilepath="/us/entry/9411690" data-rapid-parsed="sec" data-sharingimage="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/default-entry.jpg?ops=1778_1000" data-sharingtitle="Dining With Nancy Reagan" data-sharingtweettext="Dining+With+Nancy+Reagan" data-sharingurl="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-gage/dining-with-nancy-reagan_b_9411690.html" data-yaft-module="huffpost-sticky-share" id="left-rail" style="box-sizing: inherit; 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padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="1" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0" href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2016-03-08-1457473356-4506980-smallGagesReagansNelliganPayton.jpg" rel="nofollow" style="box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="2016-03-08-1457473356-4506980-smallGagesReagansNelliganPayton.jpg" height="399" src="https://images.huffingtonpost.com/2016-03-08-1457473356-4506980-smallGagesReagansNelliganPayton-thumb.jpg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="550" /></a><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />
My mother always pointed to Nancy Reagan as the ultimate Lady, one who knew exactly how a lady should behave and never raised her voice or appeared inappropriately dressed. Sadly, my mother passed away in January of 1985 (of congestive heart failure, the same thing that took the former First Lady Nancy last Sunday) so she never got to hear about our first meeting with President Reagan and Nancy in October of 1985 and our second one—at a White House state dinner—the following March.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="2" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">It was the Reagans’ U.S. Ambassador in Charge of Protocol, Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt, who introduced us to the Reagans after Nick’s book <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Eleni </i> was published in 1984—about the life and death of his mother during the Greek civil war. Eleni was tried and executed by Communist guerrillas because she had organized the escape of her children from their mountain village. In 1985 <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Eleni </i>became a film starring Kate Nelligan as Nick’s mother and John Malkovich as the adult version of Nick, who, while a foreign correspondent for <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The New York Times</i>, researched the details of her death.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="3" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">Lucky Roosevelt gave a signed copy of <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Eleni</i> to the Reagans, who both said in interviews that it was the best book they read that year. They also enjoyed the film. In October of 1985, Lucky invited us to a glamorous dinner party given by her and her husband, Archie Roosevelt, a grandson of Theodore. The guest list included actress Glenn Close, author Jerzy Kosinski, and Abe Rosenthal, the editor of <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The New York Times</i>. I could not tell you what we ate, but here are some things I remember from that party: Lucky had to install $10,000 worth of new draperies in her house to satisfy the security people. On the night of the dinner, her street in Georgetown was closed, and behind every heavily draped window stood an armed guard. Nick and I both sat at the President’s table where he regaled everyone with anecdotes and funny stories filled with details—facts and figures rolled effortlessly off his tongue.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="4" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">One thing I remember is that, between the main course and dessert, the First Lady took out a compact to re-apply her lipstick. This was something that my late mother had insisted was not proper behavior, so I sent a silent mental telegram to heaven, telling her, “If Nancy Reagan can do it, then I can do it.”</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="5" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">As the dinner ended, both tables of guests moved toward the living room. I found myself walking beside the First Lady and I exclaimed to her “He’s such a marvelous story teller!” </span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="6" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">I quickly forgot my comment, but Nancy remembered it, because she noticed and remembered every detail and everything that anyone said.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="7" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">A few months later, early in 1986, Nick and I received an invitation to a state dinner at the White House to be given by the Reagans on March 18 “on the occasion of the visit of the Prime Minister of Canada (Brian) Mulroney and Mrs Mulroney.” I began an arduous search for a dress and, with Nick’s help, I settled on one with a long black skirt and a pleated white bodice, folded like a fan. We discovered it at a store called Sumiko, in Framingham, MA. It cost $700.00--more than my wedding dress--but Nick loved it and insisted I buy it.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="8" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">On March 18, 1986, in Washington, we inched forward to the White House door in a rented limousine and finally were welcomed by military aides who checked our passports. We were led down a long hall and into a room where the roped-off press waited and our names were announced. The aide with the microphone whispered to me “I like your dress”. I was in heaven. At the top of a staircase, aides handed us our table assignments. Nick was at table nine, I was at 11. Little did I know what a significant number it was.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="9" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">The U. S. Marine Orchestra serenaded us to the East Room, decorated with white tulips and flowering cherry trees strung with tiny white lights. We began to recognize celebrities, including ballerina Cynthia Gregory, Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli, columnist William F. Buckley and Prince Karim Aga Khan with Princess Salimah Aga Khan, who was wearing a double row of diamonds interspersed with emeralds as big as marbles.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="10" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">The orchestra broke into “Ruffles and Flourishes” as a voice announced the Reagans and the Mulroneys. The first lady was wearing a floor-length Galanos gown in wide horizontal stripes of sparkling gold and silver.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="11" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">They formed a receiving line which we were directed through, husbands first. (Unattended ladies, like Kate Nelligan that night, were provided with a military escort.) Then we headed toward the State Dining Room with tables decked with gold candlesticks, gold flatware and gold bowls of red and white tulips. And of course Nancy’s famous Reagan china service that cost $200,000 (but from private, not taxpayers’ funds.)</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="12" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">I was led to a table in front of the fireplace and when I saw Mila Mulroney led to a seat across from me, I began to realize—yes there he was! I was at the President’s table—an incredible favor to a non-famous person like myself.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="13" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">In retrospect I think it was the remark I made to Nancy about the President’s storytelling that won me that place, because I later learned that the First Lady herself handled every detail of the seating for every event.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="14" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">The others at the President’s table were: Walter Payton, the famous running back for the Chicago Bears, Allen Murray the chairman of Mobil, Donna Marella Agnelli, Burl Osborne, president and editor of the Dallas Morning News, and Pat Buckley, who sat next to the President, smoking throughout the meal. </span></p></div><div id="inline-newsletter_placeholder" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="inline-newsletter inline-newsletter--the-morning-email inline-newsletter--inlineWideBackgroundImage inline-newsletter--one-line yr-newsletter-box" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="newsletter-box" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: flex; flex-direction: column; height: 250px; margin: 20px auto; max-width: 630px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 630px;"><div class="inline-newsletter__inner" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: inherit; 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background-color: #0dbe98; border-bottom-left-radius: 20px; border-bottom-right-radius: 20px; border-radius: 20px; border-top-left-radius: 20px; border-top-right-radius: 20px; box-sizing: inherit; display: flex; height: 40px; justify-content: center; margin: 0px 0px 0px -20px; padding: 0px; transition: background-color 0.35s ease-in 0s, left 0s ease 0s, margin-left 0s ease 0s, width 0s ease 0s; width: 180px; z-index: 1;"><span style="font-size: small;"><input class="newsletter-signup__submit yr-signup-submit yr-track" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="7" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="subsec:newsletter-box;elm:btn;itc:0;slk:newsletters-subscribe" style="align-items: center; appearance: button; background-image: none; border: medium none; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: flex; font-family: ProximaNovaCond-Bold, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; height: 40px; justify-content: center; letter-spacing: 0.8px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; width: 180px;" type="submit" value="SUBSCRIBE" /></span></div></div></form></div></div></div></div></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="15" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once again President Reagan kept us entertained with non-stop stories. I was so rapt that, when a waiter stood behind me holding a bowl, the President had to gesture to me, saying, “You’d better take some salad.” He was telling a series of stories about ghosts his family had encountered in the White House—stories that I like to repost every Halloween <a data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="8" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:15;elm:context_link;itc:0" href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-ghosts_b_8432426" rel="nofollow" style="box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">on my blog</a>.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="16" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">I remember every detail of that evening—both the embarrassing ones and the glorious ones. Embarrassing: after dinner ended and everyone headed to the next room for demitasse and after-dinner liqueurs, I sidled around our table to see if I could snitch the President’s hand-lettered place card. As I closed in, the majordomo, a genial white-hair gentleman, handed me the place card. “Somebody always comes to get it for a souvenir”, he said, smiling.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="17" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">Glorious moment: after a concert in the East Room, the Reagans danced to tunes from Broadway musicals, played by the Marine Dance Band. Before the clock struck midnight, they started to head off toward their private quarters and, as they passed, the First Lady suddenly stopped and seized my hand and Nick’s saying, “We must have a photograph with the Gages before we go.” I lost the ability to speak. Nancy pulled Kate Nelligan and Walter Payton into the picture. Flashbulbs popped and then the Reagans were gone. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, at the stroke of midnight, I turned into a pumpkin.</span></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="18" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; width: 705px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">Here’s what I know about Nancy Reagan, who is now reunited with the love of her life: she noticed every detail, she was the power behind the throne, and my mother was right, she was a great lady.</span></p></div></div></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><br /></span></div>by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-20246445212323245912019-11-09T14:59:00.000-05:002019-11-09T14:59:20.243-05:00Part 2--Hunting for Cowboys and Indians
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On Weds., Oct, 30, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I published my first post about investigating three
Western-themed vintage Real Photo Postcards:<a href="https://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2019/10/hunting-for-cowboys-and-indiansthe.html">"Hunting for Cowboys and Indians-- Part 1"</a>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the post, I told how I tried (but
never quite succeeded) to confirm that the white -haired gentleman above was a
valuable image of Geronimo (or was it Sitting Bull?)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguzyxO15vnhPf17NxjFixwWutNziAVt5uOy9MhRWnJdEJAdN4fxvqn1lC56rKUVSjbkuwFACRbL_3OfCKGkvyU5LgdJcnqOwsZ-vddlbm2r8KoRSKyi27xY-G7tNvBXe4j6SZLraZrhec/s1600/rattlesnake+Joe+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="611" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguzyxO15vnhPf17NxjFixwWutNziAVt5uOy9MhRWnJdEJAdN4fxvqn1lC56rKUVSjbkuwFACRbL_3OfCKGkvyU5LgdJcnqOwsZ-vddlbm2r8KoRSKyi27xY-G7tNvBXe4j6SZLraZrhec/s640/rattlesnake+Joe+2.jpg" width="393" /></a></div>
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Now I've turned my attention to the
postcard of a man in a cowboy hat and leather chaps holding two very large
snakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's labelled “Rattlesnake
Joe, Souvenir of the Fair”. (I’m no expert on snakes, but I knew those snakes
he had wrapped around himself were not rattlesnakes—more likely boa
constrictors.) Thanks to this identification, I thought it would be easy to
track down the career and importance of “Rattlesnake Joe” and to find out if
he, like Geronimo, was on exhibit at the famous 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiTPozlxIgj-tZCZ1ITB67nLL0IjzcVTOwNMN-wkmvHT7HzIqqCNIY7AJgIL79xn7qZjfIoEqTb5OD1UGcpcJCkodO68TgxaY5eZsII25zxsqHvWKYUfBnjDor8-J6m-97wYqq5yBfApE/s1600/Westchester+Co.+Fair+-+Midway+%255Bbooth+of+Wild+Rose+and+Rattlesnake+Joe%252C+New+York%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="1600" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiTPozlxIgj-tZCZ1ITB67nLL0IjzcVTOwNMN-wkmvHT7HzIqqCNIY7AJgIL79xn7qZjfIoEqTb5OD1UGcpcJCkodO68TgxaY5eZsII25zxsqHvWKYUfBnjDor8-J6m-97wYqq5yBfApE/s640/Westchester+Co.+Fair+-+Midway+%255Bbooth+of+Wild+Rose+and+Rattlesnake+Joe%252C+New+York%255D.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It wasn’t that easy, after all, to
connect Rattlesnake Joe to the St. Louis World’s Fair, but I did find through
Google this great photo—it’s a 5 by 7 glass negative in the collection of the
Library of Congress, with “no known restrictions on publication”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you can see, someone has written on the
glass negative “Westchester Co. Fair Midway 7-89-15”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t figure out if those numbers are meant
to be a date, but online I found another view of this image—with those same
numbers-- and it’s been labeled “Westchester County Fair 1915.”</div>
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I love everything about this image:
“Beautiful Mermaid Captured Alive”, “Reptile Joe, the King of the Reptile World”,
and most of all the overhead sign saying, “Wild Rose & Rattlesnake
Joe”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was happy to see that Joe had a
lovely partner in his snake-charming act. The man with the big snake standing
on the platform does seem to resemble my Rattlesnake Joe on the postcard, but
in less flashy clothes. The man next to him with the megaphone is clearly
advertising Joe to the crowd, but the man on the ground in the business suit,
who appears to be holding a small snake, has drawn the attention of some of the
gawking young boys. (Is he holding an actual rattlesnake?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is he challenging Joe?)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4r_guizXtn3CCutJwfTlkpa3Tzgekd7ZdtLv7EPPW3m4ZiNtOGsYGByhkLTVUM90T0In5mUng0kaAGLoXO9xrRqXrkOGQ3TAKd4_mz27ynHum-XLbh8KEZMcDiOY-QXPswA6Uzs0RVXo/s1600/carnival-wild-rose-and-rattlesnake-joe-1920-mike-savad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="990" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4r_guizXtn3CCutJwfTlkpa3Tzgekd7ZdtLv7EPPW3m4ZiNtOGsYGByhkLTVUM90T0In5mUng0kaAGLoXO9xrRqXrkOGQ3TAKd4_mz27ynHum-XLbh8KEZMcDiOY-QXPswA6Uzs0RVXo/s640/carnival-wild-rose-and-rattlesnake-joe-1920-mike-savad.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With a little more detective work I
discovered that a contemporary artist named Mike Savad has colorized this
iconic image of a Fair Midway with all its excitement and drama (above).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he did a brilliant job of adding
color to the innate drama of the scene. And he’s selling prints of his
colorized work on his website, MikeSavad.com and fineartamerica.com.</div>
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My enthusiasm about my Rattlesnake
Joe postcard dwindled a bit when I tested my three vintage postcards to find
out if they were Real Photos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew
that Real Photo Post Cards (RPPCs) are far more valuable than postcards that
are printed-- like magazine and newspaper images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had read that in 1902, Kodak came out with
a preprinted post card photo paper back that allowed postcards to be made
directly from negatives, but a negative would only allow a limited number of
prints, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>while standard printing methods
can be produced in huge numbers.</div>
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According to “Old House Journal”,
“This technology allowed photographers to travel from town to town and document
life in the places they visited….Real Photo Postcards became expressions of
pride in home and community and were sold as souvenirs in local drug stores and
stationary shops.”</div>
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I also learned that the best way to
tell if you’re holding a Real Photo Postcard or a printed one is to look at the
image through a magnifying glass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
it’s a real photo, the image is solid, but if it’s not a real photo, the
magnified image immediately dissolves into thousands of tiny dots—just like
images in the newspaper or magazines.</div>
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Sadly, Rattlesnake Joe failed this
test as soon as I got out my magnifying glass!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My other two “Western” images—my (I think) Geronimo and the “Ancient
Squaw” both passed with flying colors—the shades of sepia (the Sioux Matriarch)
and gray (Geronimo) fading into each other without dissolving into dots. </div>
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I was disappointed that Rattlesnake
Joe didn’t pass the test, and was starting to suspect that he wasn’t any more
“Western” than I am. But I did find a duplicate of my Rattlesnake Joe card for
sale on Ebay—in worse condition than mine—for sale from “The Postcard Dude”
selling for $12.57, which is more than the dollar or so that I thought it was
worth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “Ancient Sioux Squaw” (I love
her beaded necklaces and the feathered stick she’s holding) and the Geronimo
RPPC could be worth many times Rattlesnake Joe.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXospwBBS-CvAAaBbQJs7nyONt1g0QxngBzSAhPcVgOV-NIvNJS98SxQVJ2TUNKDhcgbqTet19oM4xLsk6d2MxxXel8BxQ5zGxyrXAoQNur3d78-lSnztASpsjJcDcmPgya_sSXas4gk/s1600/low+rez+squaw+Squaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="990" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXospwBBS-CvAAaBbQJs7nyONt1g0QxngBzSAhPcVgOV-NIvNJS98SxQVJ2TUNKDhcgbqTet19oM4xLsk6d2MxxXel8BxQ5zGxyrXAoQNur3d78-lSnztASpsjJcDcmPgya_sSXas4gk/s640/low+rez+squaw+Squaw.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I learned that the back of a
postcard can also hold information about the age and maker of a postcard—even
if it’s blank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Check the printed “box”
where the stamp is supposed to go and look up the words and design on line at
“Playe’s Real Photo Stamp Boxes”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
stamp box of the “Geronimo” postcard below shows “Noko” is the maker, and if
you look on Playe’s, you see that particular design was used between 1907 and
1934.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkaPchoXSPmJfvd1roVtj74XAQLvTqbgVNcHnYmV_o_oCHlHa2lIaZoOIHkvxjNHuq1H6vDYcnMOa75BWH4klIlcZF9VG-sPBllXLxIWbgO0mEcZsv2yb03dHRuwYWZfXbHHFG-8kIA9Q/s1600/+oth+sides+Geronimo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="1304" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkaPchoXSPmJfvd1roVtj74XAQLvTqbgVNcHnYmV_o_oCHlHa2lIaZoOIHkvxjNHuq1H6vDYcnMOa75BWH4klIlcZF9VG-sPBllXLxIWbgO0mEcZsv2yb03dHRuwYWZfXbHHFG-8kIA9Q/s400/+oth+sides+Geronimo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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If there’s no name on the back, but
just a design, as in the Rattlesnake Joe card below, you can go to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Playle’s Real Photo Postcard Stamp Backs” on
line, which I did, but this design<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was
not there (because, as I learned, it’s NOT a real photo!)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfMDV3ZMiZ2N6t5Xe4sKxcYq46qE1da6aXwweH2i2U5RfWFg7Cf60YEYv7uLKFYuMhVfc6I9HJkFhB5AZVayHpwJ9DcYG7Hhw5KdYUW7uRq4QYNlPwozmhnuNgL7FgMAqhCJt8VoLvqo/s1600/both+sides+Joe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="1277" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfMDV3ZMiZ2N6t5Xe4sKxcYq46qE1da6aXwweH2i2U5RfWFg7Cf60YEYv7uLKFYuMhVfc6I9HJkFhB5AZVayHpwJ9DcYG7Hhw5KdYUW7uRq4QYNlPwozmhnuNgL7FgMAqhCJt8VoLvqo/s400/both+sides+Joe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The back of the “Ancient Sioux
Squaw” post card<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">, below, had the most information.
</span>First I looked up on Playle’s the particular KRUXO stamp box design and
learned it was used by the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>manufacturer
between 1908 and 1910.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I googled
the name of the photographer on the side: “Real Photograph by Holmboe &
White, New Salem, N.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>D.”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQc-YymLEfB5pAJo-cOPOjPPrEaDAqXZPVYqsDwI3dNUz8b6Armz64p10E0o__wti6N9EfTj_x1rDs4j3a0ALAGlcZ_1G34qvDyr59ouQw-muUl0jG8fXUje-L58gihfh2rodz6ziddGo/s1600/reverse+sioux+squaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="626" data-original-width="990" height="403" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQc-YymLEfB5pAJo-cOPOjPPrEaDAqXZPVYqsDwI3dNUz8b6Armz64p10E0o__wti6N9EfTj_x1rDs4j3a0ALAGlcZ_1G34qvDyr59ouQw-muUl0jG8fXUje-L58gihfh2rodz6ziddGo/s640/reverse+sioux+squaw.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I learned that Frithjof Holmboe was
born in Norway in 1879 and immigrated to Minnesota (just like my paternal
grandmother).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He became a photographer
and opened his first studio in New Salem, North Dakota in 1907.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two years later he moved it to Bismarck, N.D.
and became the state’s official photographer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So that tells us that the “Ancient Sioux Squaw” was photographed between
1907 and 1909.</div>
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Despite the fact that my three “Western” photo postcards will not make me rich, I enjoyed learning the stories behind these
images and exploring a different branch of photography that took
the newborn art of the camera out of the photographer’s studio and into our
expanding country’s early history. </div>
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</style>by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-71098326882691823692019-10-30T11:02:00.000-04:002019-10-30T11:02:15.837-04:00Hunting for Cowboys and Indians—The Story Behind the Photos
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlUkWGLoOLl6WX-imeiTj-PrEGvkTta4r-O3PmfraJmNdd7WM6cMK4AKiNnbuz_5cPU9Ndc1MKAs4UDegIcAJiOKg2NCDfFkK6QcLzNADg0ADZquAyODO-MsPljyn6oqDsGyTDRWkjngw/s1600/A.+3+western+post+cards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1302" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlUkWGLoOLl6WX-imeiTj-PrEGvkTta4r-O3PmfraJmNdd7WM6cMK4AKiNnbuz_5cPU9Ndc1MKAs4UDegIcAJiOKg2NCDfFkK6QcLzNADg0ADZquAyODO-MsPljyn6oqDsGyTDRWkjngw/s400/A.+3+western+post+cards.jpg" width="325" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About a year ago, at an indoor “yard sale” on a college
campus in Worcester, MA., I bought these three photo postcards for very little
money. (Can’t remember how much, but it was less than $20.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were: a sepia photo with the words
“ancient Sioux Squaw” marked on the negative, a man dressed as a cowboy holding
two snakes over the words “Rattlesnake Joe—Souvenir of the Fair”,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and a photograph of a white-haired man wearing
a white shirt , vest and jacket, with no identification at all, but I guessed he
was Native American and probably of importance, to be dressed in European style.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Let me say up front that I understand the name “Indian” is
offensive to Native Americans, because it’s not accurate, and even more
offensive is the derogatory term “Squaw” for female Native Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I
often have to use such words when researching antique photos in my collection,
because they were used to identify 19<sup>th</sup> century photos, since the
terms were in common use at that time.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I usually don’t collect postcards for several reasons:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m more interested in photos taken in the
nineteenth century (the earliest photographs) and photos on postcards didn’t
appear until the beginning of the twentieth century:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1903.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Also, postcard collectors number in the millions—it’s the third largest
collectible hobby in the U.S.—and at ephemera auctions they buy boxes of
hundreds of old postcards, which are worth pennies each.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no expertise in postcards and little
patience for sorting through them, but I do know that authentic vintage photos
concerning Native Americans and scenes of the Old West are always of greater
value than most. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(By the way, if you
find yourself in possession of a daguerreotype or any antique photograph of
gold miners in California --or maybe an original image of Jesse James’ dead body,
you can probably sell it to finance your retirement.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus began my hunt to determine the identity and value of
the three individuals in my “Western” postcards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(As any collector will tell you, this is the fun
part:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>trying to track down the story
behind your latest acquisition, hoping to find a nugget of gold amid all the
pebbles and stones.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Starting with the
white-haired gent, I typed “Indian Chief” into Google.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(How did I live before the internet?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My life through high school, college and
graduate school was one long trek from one library to another.). As soon as I clicked
on Google Images, I said, “Bingo!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
is Geronimo!”</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx77HRo3pUTNI_BSmdmZUg6UDcONRWdCfdOwkIfejj1DmvzPEZ9jEmE6iI0c7IZn4i2GPiQYDfAo1wvhE1YUWmjFsPUstNmQ2G9UerNH7FYUgyEylwNGpn0T4_rDQKYTc_C9myJ-QMdtQ/s1600/b.+geronimo+mine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="762" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx77HRo3pUTNI_BSmdmZUg6UDcONRWdCfdOwkIfejj1DmvzPEZ9jEmE6iI0c7IZn4i2GPiQYDfAo1wvhE1YUWmjFsPUstNmQ2G9UerNH7FYUgyEylwNGpn0T4_rDQKYTc_C9myJ-QMdtQ/s320/b.+geronimo+mine.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had heard of Geronimo, of course, but never knew the
fascinating story of his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will try
to sketch the highpoints. Geronimo was born June 1829. Became prominent leader
and medicine man from Apache tribe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1850
to 1886 joined fellows to carry out raids and resistance against U.S and
Mexican military in Mexico and New Mexico. His fellow Apaches thought he had
supernatural gifts, including foreknowledge. He had nine wives, the first one
named Alope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had three
children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She and the children and Geronimo’s
mother were all killed in a raid by Mexican soldiers in 1858.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1886, Geronimo surrendered to Lt Charles B. Gatewood, an
Apache-speaking West Point graduate who had earned his respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a prisoner of War in Fort Bowie,
Arizona, then exiled to Florida.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his
old age, Geronimo became a celebrity and appeared at World’s Fairs, including
the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, where he sold souvenirs and photographs of
himself and even buttons off his coat—sewing on new buttons overnight!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He died at the Fort Sill Hospital in 1909, at
the age of 80, still a prisoner of war.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Convinced that my guy was Geronimo, I set the photos and
research aside and recently came back to them, to write this blog post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in browsing, I came upon a photo of
Sitting Bull and said, “Uh oh! He looks a lot like my Geronimo!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting Bull, a Lakota leader born about
1831, <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #222222;">led his people during years of resistance to
United States government policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like
Geronimo, he was believed by his people to have precognition—after he had a
vision of his tribe achieving a great victory against Custer’s troops at the
Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 (also known as Custer’s Last Stand.) Here's Sitting Bull below.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit782HVeTg2urg29NPBBCCsKX7696W_I-NR8JmMmLVkln7SBAk6f_GuvPrvPQr670TMSQQArx-wiCz45yc9NGuiZnrK7o8v6g1pi_UEGQqpPqsfNhEs9e0QszlGUA72LVAeGVZIcUXbF8/s1600/C.+three+times+sitting+bull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="1440" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit782HVeTg2urg29NPBBCCsKX7696W_I-NR8JmMmLVkln7SBAk6f_GuvPrvPQr670TMSQQArx-wiCz45yc9NGuiZnrK7o8v6g1pi_UEGQqpPqsfNhEs9e0QszlGUA72LVAeGVZIcUXbF8/s400/C.+three+times+sitting+bull.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sitting Bull evaded capture
by U.S. soldiers until 1881 when he and his band surrendered to U.S.
Forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that he worked as a
performer with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, becoming, like Geronimo, famous
and feared.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ2RcdtwwyTD4zv9Qu_g9Jetkch4nLF89RznqqCWEV6BZTt5YYXJ4nT4kn0osqlWOFV1XBKB2YzKdWGNOOO7T139DM_ecM2Lcjzvpqq8dcwZoKNYmNOjF6KDclkosAteuLvWjlxpH-SEA/s1600/D.+3+times+Geronimo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="1600" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ2RcdtwwyTD4zv9Qu_g9Jetkch4nLF89RznqqCWEV6BZTt5YYXJ4nT4kn0osqlWOFV1XBKB2YzKdWGNOOO7T139DM_ecM2Lcjzvpqq8dcwZoKNYmNOjF6KDclkosAteuLvWjlxpH-SEA/s400/D.+3+times+Geronimo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But did I have Geronimo or
Sitting Bull?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (That's three photos of Geronimo above.) </span>I turned into my Nancy
Drew Girl Detective persona and started raking the internet for photos of both men
with white hair in their old age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it
didn’t work. I couldn’t find an elderly, white-haired Sitting Bull.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I had a moment of illumination, went to the
computer, and learned that Sitting Bull was shot to death by an Indian Agency
policeman who was trying to arrest him on Dec. 15, 1890.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting Bull was only 58 or 59—so he died
before his braids turned white!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcPYbhkE81lY-eI6CSr-ZrdDCnd4uTcpcTY5NFzWzJjtU4vW_UkYdu3qEb6c0KBbOpbml2JnadJDLjz2i177VVGcQOjyqbBDF9m4dmaniLjZfB8cbbhXpl-wgG-sPvq3vVJbNYlhaThs4/s1600/E.+geronimo%2527s+eyes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="900" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcPYbhkE81lY-eI6CSr-ZrdDCnd4uTcpcTY5NFzWzJjtU4vW_UkYdu3qEb6c0KBbOpbml2JnadJDLjz2i177VVGcQOjyqbBDF9m4dmaniLjZfB8cbbhXpl-wgG-sPvq3vVJbNYlhaThs4/s320/E.+geronimo%2527s+eyes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then I began to study with a
strong magnifying glass my photo of the white-haired gent. Looking very
closely, I saw he had what seemed to be two large warts just below his left
eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A clue!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I went back to internet photos of Geronimo
as he aged, and quickly learned that he had warts all right—a very prominent
one, but it was on the fullest part of his right cheek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s visible in many photos taken as he aged,
including the wonderful portrait of him below, taken by Edward Curtis in 1905.
Geronimo died at the age of 79. After he was thrown from his horse while riding
home, and lay in the cold all night, he died of </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">pneumonia<span style="background: white;"> on February 17,
1909, as a prisoner of the United States at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawc9iwtohxg0WuW_BCjpDQLQ1tZPRiypKYi_2gari4IujaBrKgckDQZB0cSPtU-jQenKdw4-WQn7HohyoWY06v1_NCuJlceb1hFzUd_hh20G4JEefKglHvTlGwzI3lcwVzPAEaefKiJQ/s1600/D.+Geronimo_by_Edward_Curtis%252C_1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="709" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawc9iwtohxg0WuW_BCjpDQLQ1tZPRiypKYi_2gari4IujaBrKgckDQZB0cSPtU-jQenKdw4-WQn7HohyoWY06v1_NCuJlceb1hFzUd_hh20G4JEefKglHvTlGwzI3lcwVzPAEaefKiJQ/s400/D.+Geronimo_by_Edward_Curtis%252C_1905.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So at this point in my
detective story, I can’t claim a verified Geronimo Real Photo Post Card, which,
according to the Price Guide of Stefano Neis would be worth $50 to$125.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Check it out at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="https://www.playle.com/realphoto/rpguide.php"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">https://www.playle.com/realphoto/rpguide.php</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ). But I’m not giving up yet!</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my next blog post I’ll
tell you what I discovered about my two other Western characters, as well as explaining how to tell when a postcard is a
valuable<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Real Photo Post Card (RPPC) or
a nearly worthless printed postcard. And what you can learn from the blank back
of a vintage postcard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stay tuned!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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</style>by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-27733325228836302492019-10-22T18:27:00.001-04:002019-10-22T18:27:53.548-04:00 “Watchmen” and The Smiley Face: The Superhero Goes Bad
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"> (</span></b><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Last Sunday HBO premiered its new
series based on “Watchmen”, the 1980’s 12-issue DC comic book series which has
been called “a masterwork” and “the greatest piece of popular fiction ever
produced.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That inspired me to publish
this excerpt from my (unpublished as yet) book—"The Saga of Smiley”-- about
the history of the Smiley Face symbol, created in 1963 by Worcester, MA
artist, Harvey Ball.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i>
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</span>With the appearance of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, </b>a12-issue series of comic books
published by DC Comics from September 1986 to October 1987, Smiley had metamorphosed
180 degrees from happy innocence (early 1960’s) to stoned euphoria (1970’s and
Acid) to complete evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is how Jon
Savage of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i> described the bloodstained<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>Smiley that became the symbol of the
series, appearing on the first and last page of the comics and, later, on the
cover of the graphic novel: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i>
used the Smiley as a visual metaphor for a narrative that examines guilt,
failure, megalomania and compromise with a corrupt power structure,” Savage
wrote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All is not well beneath the
idealized superhero surface, as the novel spirals into an existential crisis of
betrayal, mass extinction, the transience of human existence.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"> This is a heavy, deep critique and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, </b>created by writer Alan Moore, artist
Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins, is a whole lot weightier—and, some
would argue, more culturally significant—than your average comic book. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It revolutionized the comic book medium and
the popular perception of super heroes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the series was gathered into a trade paperback in 1987, bookstores
and public libraries began setting aside special sections for graphic
novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Time Magazine</i> praised it as “a
superlative feat of imagination, combining sci-fi, political satire, knowing
evocations of comics past and bold reworkings of current graphic format into a
dystopian mystery story.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>was the only graphic novel to appear
on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Time</i> magazine’s 2005 “All-Time 100
Greatest Novels” list. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Entertainment Weekly</i> called it, “A
masterwork representing the apex of artistry”, and Damon Lindelof, a creator of
the TV series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost</i>, [and the new HBO Watchmen series!] described it as,
“The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Watchmen</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"> is set in an alternate reality which
resembles the contemporary world of the 1980’s, but many things have gone
wrong; for instance, the U.S. won the War in Viet Nam, thanks to the assistance
of some of the six costumed superheroes who make up the eponymous Watchmen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, Richard Nixon has been re-elected
for a total of five terms. And Russia, jealous of the superior powers the Watchmen
give the U.S., is threatening to launch a nuclear war against America.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Over the years since they were first organized to maintain law and order,
the superheroes have become cynical and tired and increasingly unpopular among
the police and the public, so that in 1977 a law was passed to outlaw costumed
superheroes except those who are working for the government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the story unfolds, most of the heroes have
turned in their costumes and retired, but two of them are still employed by the
government: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Manhattan, who is
blue-skinned and all-powerful and capable of teleporting himself and anyone
else anywhere, including to Mars, and the Comedian, (kneeling above) who always
wears a Smiley button and who is described by Richard Reynolds in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Super Heroes</i> as: “ruthless, cynical and
nihilistic, and yet capable of deeper insights than the others into the role of
the costumed hero.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also still active,
but as a rogue superhero outside the law, is Rorschach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one knows what Rorschach looks like,
because he always wears a white mask with constantly changing ink-blots moving
over it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhck15-vhneQShzJChZBturbQRBP5SVPZ5LqroWRWBXxTeVRh1LXmkfnTI3kW732mGxa-rEYkmZ71-9WCqjH6IcptnxEUwA_lQIpttT_rNVAn6R6qeWHY8RpXUFQgcQ3amwXCM5WwEXAxg/s1600/+falling+comedian+and+Smiley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="990" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhck15-vhneQShzJChZBturbQRBP5SVPZ5LqroWRWBXxTeVRh1LXmkfnTI3kW732mGxa-rEYkmZ71-9WCqjH6IcptnxEUwA_lQIpttT_rNVAn6R6qeWHY8RpXUFQgcQ3amwXCM5WwEXAxg/s640/+falling+comedian+and+Smiley.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just before the beginning of the comic series, the Comedian has been
murdered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(In the film version you get
to see it happen, when a masked figure all in black slashes him, then tosses him through the glass window-wall of his apartment many, many stories above the street. His yellow Smiley button gets close-ups as it becomes tinged with the Comedian's blood and then clinks down on the pavement near his shattered body.) Soon Rorschach, the rogue superhero, arrives to pick up the button and begin investigating the murder of the Comedian, all the while keeping a journal of what he discovers and going around to warn his old superhero companions that their lives might be in danger.</span></div>
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</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Writer Alan Moore picked the Smiley Face as the symbol for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> for a number of reasons. He cited
satirical author William S. Burroughs as one of his main influences, saying he
liked his use of “repeated symbols that would become laden with meaning.” The
blood-stained Smiley face did just that. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The artist Dave
Gibbons, in drawing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i>
panels, often added symbols himself that Moore would not notice immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gibbons created the Smiley face badge worn by
the Comedian in order to lighten the overall design, and added the splash of
blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He later said that he and Moore
came to regard the blood-stained Smiley as “a symbol for the whole series” and
he pointed out its resemblance to the Doomsday Clock ticking up to midnight—another
prominent symbol in the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At the end of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> we
learn that one of the retired superheroes has killed the Comedian and
stage-managed the exile of Dr. Manhattan to Mars as part of a plan to save
humanity from an impending atomic war between the United States and the Soviet
Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He intends to fake an alien
invasion in New York City, killing half the city’s people, in hopes of uniting
Russia and the U.S. against this perceived common enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And although the others try to stop him, in
his hideaway in Antarctica, it’s too late; the death and destruction have
already been unleashed on New York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Doomsday clock has struck 12. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Literary analysts have called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> </b>“Moore’s obituary for the
concept of heroes in general and superheroes in particular.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moore himself said in 1986 that he was
writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> to be “not anti-Americanism
[but] anti-Reaganism”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He added he was
“consciously trying to do something that would make people feel uneasy.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plans to make a film of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> went through many different hands and scripts and studios
and potential directors. In 1986 producers Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver
acquired the film rights for 20<sup>th</sup> Century Fox.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alan Moore was asked to write a script, but he
declined. After spending more than 20 years in development hell, passing
through a multitude of scriptwriters, directors, studios and producers, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> was finally released on March
6, 2009 in both conventional and IMAX theaters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Watchmen grossed $55 million on the opening weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It grossed over $185 million at the worldwide
box office (and had a budget of $130 million).</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Smiley had been the cover, the symbol and the star in “the book that
changed an industry and challenged a medium,” as it says on the back of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> graphic novel. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inevitably Smiley’s worldwide fame and his ability
to symbolize everything from innocence to drugged euphoria to rabid consumerism
to dystopia brought him a flock of roles in film and television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though he didn’t get an Oscar nomination
for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i>, everyone in the entertainment
business wanted a piece of him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
Smiley went Hollywood big time.</span></div>
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</style>by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-63617963355875662652019-09-21T17:33:00.000-04:002019-09-21T17:33:13.634-04:00How Many of These Banned Books Have You Read?<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently I walked into The Tatnuck Bookseller in Westboro, MA
and was fascinated by this display titled “Banned Books Week, Sept. 22-28,
2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I photographed it!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ctfydC_Q5KtapHrlTqzudgawxuh11hnMf_1E54MVyyIlE9djt_rqOZS82nVl1CiD8TT2bE4lrleBvQL1GSgmy8fAVJBLzM4cXAvdZUfpoVRJjeTezAdg1lSMiDBOmBjqvOkKwsOYvM8/s1600/banned+books+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="860" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ctfydC_Q5KtapHrlTqzudgawxuh11hnMf_1E54MVyyIlE9djt_rqOZS82nVl1CiD8TT2bE4lrleBvQL1GSgmy8fAVJBLzM4cXAvdZUfpoVRJjeTezAdg1lSMiDBOmBjqvOkKwsOYvM8/s640/banned+books+2.jpg" width="552" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I’ve read
most of these, and Amalia has read the “Junie B. Jones” series and all of Harry
Potter.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUSIHcMd8DVSMOhOI34wAg3mf8yMT8jXN3hsAmryuVy2Oh89kEZfMl9A6LjwBBoBE5yWcBwl9LMLeYD-6BagS2xL4AVnnyVciDbA_iECRervu2yLmDVgWAUFHhTXuuGxv7rEEDXLLAOXY/s1600/Banned+Books+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="803" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUSIHcMd8DVSMOhOI34wAg3mf8yMT8jXN3hsAmryuVy2Oh89kEZfMl9A6LjwBBoBE5yWcBwl9LMLeYD-6BagS2xL4AVnnyVciDbA_iECRervu2yLmDVgWAUFHhTXuuGxv7rEEDXLLAOXY/s640/Banned+Books+1.jpg" width="516" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9wdca7YjTmADOmLAszUD7n4pzu6eMVe-5wzaV34QajvmoZSDeFAorMH_tK-nAHGc9P9h3IXOlfpPFxNOz2R56-jOvspcWEeuBrOxpFjnXKy9LsOWtvVpcy7y0Lj-WiaYvgejkShOL3o/s1600/banned+books+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="930" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9wdca7YjTmADOmLAszUD7n4pzu6eMVe-5wzaV34QajvmoZSDeFAorMH_tK-nAHGc9P9h3IXOlfpPFxNOz2R56-jOvspcWEeuBrOxpFjnXKy9LsOWtvVpcy7y0Lj-WiaYvgejkShOL3o/s640/banned+books+3.jpg" width="600" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was reminded of how, when I
was 18 in 1959 and coming home from a student trip to Europe, we all bought
banned books in Paris--the ones with blank yellow paper covers and the pages
you had to cut apart—and then read them on the boat and threw them into the sea
before we got to Customs in NYC. </div>
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There was "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and lots of Henry Miller and the Marquis de Sade. Wish I had kept those yellow paperbacks with the rough paper edges.</div>
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But how could anyone ban my childhood favorites, Jack London's "The Call of The </div>
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Wild"? And "To Kill a Mockingbird?" And "Tom Sawyer"? And "Grapes of Wrath"?</div>
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When I was small my mother told me I couldn't read "Gone With the Wind" until I was 21. So naturally I read it the next week. And loved it (as well as the movie.)</div>
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What banned books have you read and loved?</div>
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</style>by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-88521277243675892312019-08-07T04:10:00.000-04:002019-08-07T04:38:22.150-04:00About Our 11-Course, $600 Dinner<br />
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When you’re traveling, it’s the unexpected adventures that
can be the most fun (or the scariest—or both.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nick and I are currently staying at Costa Navarino Resorts in Messinia,
Greece, overlooking the Ionian Sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
my favorite resort in Greece for so many reasons, including their respect for
nature, the environment, and the people, animals and traditions of the
surrounding area. </div>
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When we checked in to Costa Navarino this time, we learned
that they now offered a “Funky Gourmet Summer Pop-Up Restaurant” -- an
“unconventional culinary experience” presented by the owners and chefs of the
two-Michelin-starred Funky Gourmet Restaurant in Athens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pop-up restaurant at Costa Navarino, I
read, is “located in the brand new Earth-sheltered Club house at the Bay [Golf]
club house.” Nick made us a reservation for Saturday night, to my great
excitement, because I had never ever eaten in a two-Michelin-star restaurant,
even (especially!) in my single-girl days in the sixties when I lived in London
and traveled frequently to Paris. </div>
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In our room in the Romanos section of the resort complex, I
found a magazine which had an article about the two young, married Greek
chefs—Georgianna Hiliadaki and Nikos Roussos--<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>who opened the “Funky Gourmet” restaurant in Athens in 2009, the only
restaurant in Greece to serve a degustation menu. (The couple originally met at
the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. They have two children,
aged four and almost two.) </div>
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Their first Michelin star came in 2012, the second in
2014.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now they’ve closed the Athens
restaurant temporarily, except for private events, and in November of 2020 they
will reopen it in the newly re-launched Athens Hilton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile they opened the pop-up version here
in Costa Navarino from July 8 to August 17, creating an all new 11-course menu
based on their research about the traditional cooking of Messinia. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the month of November, they will open a
similar pop-up restaurant in Salzburg, Austria.</div>
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The magazine article stated that “There’s something ‘funky’
about all of their dishes, be it the unusual shapes, colors, textures or
aromas.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was certainly true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The meal we enjoyed was made up of eleven
courses, and as we were told at the beginning, there were surprises and gifts
throughout.</div>
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After a ten-minute taxi ride to Costa Navarino’s newest golf
course, we were escorted to a table overlooking a stunning view of candlelit
tables, green swards, olive trees reaching down toward the bay, and stars and a
new moon overhead, appearing as the sun set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We were welcomed by two servers, a man and a woman, who would be the
main actors in the drama we were about to enjoy—explaining every course and
adding ingredients, including special sauces and spices, to our plates as we
watched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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The first surprise of the evening was the price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The servers handed us each a menu which
began, “M<b>ESSINIAN LAND, </b>Degustation Menu 220 Euros per guest, Wine and
Drinks Pairing 90 Euros per guest, <b>Picnic under the Olive Trees</b>
(Supplement 45 Euros per guest.)</div>
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Without a word to each other, we quickly decided to forego
the opportunity to begin our meal while sitting under the olive trees on the
sloping hill below for 45 euros. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also
chose to avoid the 90 euro pairing of a different wine with every course,
choosing instead a bottle of a local rosé to take us through the meal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(But two dishes were still presented with a
special wine that the chefs felt was an essential partner to that course.)</div>
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Our servers warned us, before the food arrived, that we
might be unwilling to try certain ingredients, namely fish roe, sea urchin
eggs, and lamb’s brains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I opted out on
the brains, but okayed the fish roe and sea urchin eggs, which I’ve had many
times in Greece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick, being Greek, is
fine with eating brains, not to mention the eyes of the roasted goat or lamb,
which are often given to the honored guest in his native land.</div>
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Then the drama began with a “welcome course” that was not
even on the menu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our servers brought us
each a wrought iron tiny olive tree supporting three small, round, crusty
appetizers called “travihktes” which they said were traditional in Messinia
(but probably not served exactly this way, with pure gold leaf on one, bits of
honeycomb that crackled like glass on another, and tiny marshmallows on a
third. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also included truffles and
caviar.) I thought they would be sweet, but the flavors hovered between sweet
and savory and were absolutely delicious!</div>
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Next course, housed in the first surprise gift of the
evening, was presented as a small wooden box with a clasp, on top of which was
burned: “Joan welcome to Funky Gourmet in Messinia!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick
received the same message, but written in Greek, welcoming “Nikola”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opening the boxes, we found in each one a
single “Dipla”. I think of Diples as a Greek version of fried doughnuts, but
this single Dipla was stuffed with something delicious (I think cheese) and
decorated with fruits, veggies and cheeses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And set on a bed of cut and dried figs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The servers whisked the boxes away, saying they would be given back at the
end of the meal, and they were—but now they were each filled with four small
bottles of “Navarino Icons”—the famous olive oil of the region-- combined with
different flavors</div>
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The third course, called “Kobe”, was a piece of watermelon
flavored with thyme, fleur de sel, and including cheese underneath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then a beef demiglace was poured over it, as
it sat in a large beef bone.</div>
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Course number four, called “Salad of the region” was
arranged to look like a summer wreath, and included orange, potatoes and quail
eggs, with siglino consommé poured over it.</div>
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The sun had slipped below the horizon and it was getting
dark as we were presented course number five—called “Kolokythokorfades
Ladera”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Kolokythi” means “zucchini”
and “Ladera” means cooked in olive oil, for which the region is famous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
this dish looked to me like a poinsettia flower that had been dried.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I knew that poinsettias are poisonous, so
hoped I was wrong!) I learned that this was a flower of the zucchini plant that
had been cooked and then dried for 24 hours in a desiccation machine, making it
flat, crispy and tasty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hidden beneath the
flower was an oblong thing that looked like a meatball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick said that it was delicious because of
the flavor of the hamburger, but it turns out that this was a vegetarian dish,
featuring quinoa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last touch was to
have an olive oil concoction poured over it.</div>
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Before course number six, listed as “Gourounopoula”, our
servers cleared the table and then covered it with brown parchment paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they brought in round plates decorated
with colorful (desiccated and edible) leaves and flowers, laid on a translucent
circle which we were told was edible rice paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the center was something that looked like
lasagna, but was in fact pork belly on top of what, I can’t remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And nearby was placed a pot of plum sauce
that we were told to add as we wished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then, around the table, were scattered crunchy things that we were told
were fried pork, also to be dipped in the plum jelly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no cutlery for this course, as we
were supposed to roll up the circle of rice paper and eat it all like a
taco.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was tricky, but, as
with several other courses, we were furnished with warm, damp towels to clean our
hands afterward. </div>
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<b><i>(Dear Reader, I’ve walked you through the first six
courses of our $600 meal and this is long already for a single blog post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tune in to my next post if you want to hear
about the final five courses in which we eat: raw eggs ,
“Clever Sea Urchin Eggs”, a sherbet that began as a Greek salad, and a dessert --one of three--that exploded!)</i></b></div>
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-->by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-55012089755911786772019-06-16T17:37:00.001-04:002019-06-16T17:37:25.832-04:00A Photo Tribute to Two Dads and Two Grandpa's<h2 class="date-header">
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I first posted this on Father's day in 2011, then updated it in 2015, when granddaughter Amalia was 3 1/2 and grandson Nicolas only 11 weeks old. By then, I wrote, my husband Nick had proved himself a supe<span style="background-color: white;">r Papou </span>(Grandfather), even to changing the occasional grandchild's diaper, something he never did with his own kids. </span></span></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgibrKyvl8nmn8XMyUMdfDQCJ9Y6OKTHTJzQcUtlam4a-uuF_Xl7zs2NzWTiRgU1V5CH3QXwfSXm8eeolYRmfnOnbE_mRbkxOjHgkKxqomyMDpB-TP3pLCGhzzCmGLgqiv3-R2hv34Jfhg/s1600/Nick+%2526+Christos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1270" data-original-width="804" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgibrKyvl8nmn8XMyUMdfDQCJ9Y6OKTHTJzQcUtlam4a-uuF_Xl7zs2NzWTiRgU1V5CH3QXwfSXm8eeolYRmfnOnbE_mRbkxOjHgkKxqomyMDpB-TP3pLCGhzzCmGLgqiv3-R2hv34Jfhg/s640/Nick+%2526+Christos.jpg" width="404" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial";"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Nick &; Christos 1972</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">When
our three children were born in the 1970’s, my husband Nick was not the
kind of dad who'd change diapers, take a kid to the park or coach them
in sports. But as these photos suggest, he was always an important
presence in their lives, ready to offer support, advice and
unconditional love when they needed it.</span></div>
<ol style="text-align: center;">
<li><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJviIBj1Eur97mx8IK-r2mcM60jpWy63DK_qSKG7VvZZvNc7uyn7uewMtX_BD_Iu3LTu662l8-1d55S-4HCsAqYk1AZafnAgCpy66Oi57FmacAM18Ab8Knu3EjUG4fmR5i2u4FJt2V5ys/s1600/Nick+%2526+Eleni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="658" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJviIBj1Eur97mx8IK-r2mcM60jpWy63DK_qSKG7VvZZvNc7uyn7uewMtX_BD_Iu3LTu662l8-1d55S-4HCsAqYk1AZafnAgCpy66Oi57FmacAM18Ab8Knu3EjUG4fmR5i2u4FJt2V5ys/s640/Nick+%2526+Eleni.jpg" width="424" /></a></li>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"> Nick & Eleni circa 1976</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">This
past week, President Obama launched the “Year of Strong Families” to do
something about father absence, which he experienced growing up without
a father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick experienced it
too, because, as he wrote in “A Place for Us”, he never knew his father,
a short-order cook in Worcester, MA, until he and his sisters arrived
in the U.S. as refugees in 1949 after their mother was executed during
the Greek civil war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick was nine years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His father, Christos, was 58.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kHuMbdcLTtV_b99Ks-7S1_jU7oKhpCAMnBzTMeV0fHfvBGy8zKZP7NUOipEmaQS6kwBpc7fuHthcnEszbPpD23rGEumPYtuaXrbV2raLa2omnF78-_KjOg7f1tHWfl9Ko0jyWj3SGzI/s1600/Nick+%2526+Marina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1459" height="526" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kHuMbdcLTtV_b99Ks-7S1_jU7oKhpCAMnBzTMeV0fHfvBGy8zKZP7NUOipEmaQS6kwBpc7fuHthcnEszbPpD23rGEumPYtuaXrbV2raLa2omnF78-_KjOg7f1tHWfl9Ko0jyWj3SGzI/s640/Nick+%2526+Marina.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"> Nick & Marina, circa 1979</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">My father, Robert O.<span style="background-color: white;"> Paulson, </span>was born in 1906 and died in 1986.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
my parents lived far away, he was not a real presence in our children’s
lives, but when we visited California in 1973 I took these photos of
him showing our son, Christos, his first view of the ocean, and reading
to him at bedtime.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">I only met my paternal grandfather, Par<span style="color: white;"> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;">Paulson,</span></span></span> once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was stern and completely deaf and the only way to communicate with him was by writing on a blackboard in chalk. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">But
my step-grandfather, John Erickson, my grandmother’s second husband,
had a special relationship with me during the years I lived near their
small town of Monticello, Minnesota.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"> I
still have a small garnet ring that once belonged to his mother. I
remember vividly how he taught me to shoot his rifle across the wide
Mississippi river, and in the spring, when it was time to get new baby
chicks for the chicken yard, he would take me down to the hatchery, pull
open drawers of chirping chicks and let me pick out the ones I liked.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"> Ida & John Erickson circa1952</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"> I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">n
the current "People" magazine President Obama wrote, “I grew up without
a father around. I have certain memories of him taking me to my first
jazz concert and giving me my first basketball as a Christmas present,
But he left when I was two years old.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">As
he knows, even a one-time memory—choosing chicks at a hatchery, showing
a grandson the ocean, reading a bedtime story or unwrapping a first
basketball can be a gift that a child will cherish for a lifetime.</span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">Now that we're celebrating Father's Day 2019, I have to add one more Dad to my tribute: Emilio <span style="background-color: white;">Baltodano,</span> the father of our <span style="background-color: white;">grandkids </span>Amalia, now 7 and Nico, 4. Emilio is definitely a <span style="background-color: white;">SuperDad</span>, like many young fathers today. He attends every school performance, and takes his kids somewhere virtually every weekend--fishing in Central Park at the Harlem <span style="background-color: white;">Meer,</span> the Brooklyn Zoo, Governor's Island, the Natural History Museum, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Of course every<span style="background-color: white;"> SuperDad </span>has a <span style="background-color: white;">SuperMom </span>beside him, and the photo above shows Emilio and Amalia at the Father's Day Brunch Eleni put together today to honor Emilio and her dad, Nick Gage, complete with goat cheese and zucchini <span style="background-color: white;">frittata</span>, lox, bagels and cream cheese, mimosas, and her famous Strawberry Cake. Papou Nick loved it!</span></i><br />
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-18617172230842396952019-05-06T16:56:00.000-04:002019-05-06T19:51:27.239-04:00Our Big Fat Greek EasterEaster is always the biggest holiday in the Greek Orthodox calendar, but this year we celebrated the best Greek Easter ever, because it brought together grandchildren from both coasts for a week of fun and adventures and getting to know each other.<br />
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Here's the crew--left to right: Stone Suire age 3 1/2 and his sister Eleni, 1, Nicolas Baltodano, 4, baby Gage Antonia Hineline--four months old and meeting her cousins for the first time-- and Amalia Baltodano, age 7. Stone and Baby Eleni belong to Frosso, the daughter of "Big Eleni" Nikolaides, who has lived with us for 40-plus years. Nico and Amalia belong to our daughter Eleni, and Baby Gage is the firstborn of daughter Marina, so they'll all grow up together, we hope, as loving cousins.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPY-_ZBDxo8anS0qcUf-4y8TFYY_jq2C5o4Xye-K2O-0oL_Ku3VrdOjGFoCcPTflOsNlCx3YtggROQt5FwUDtyYvgkQGMvtT897pYOF_x5jbTUpU7n0Mo75fexA9BDoZtIKu8z1yU6eig/s1600/2+babies+in+baskets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="1600" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPY-_ZBDxo8anS0qcUf-4y8TFYY_jq2C5o4Xye-K2O-0oL_Ku3VrdOjGFoCcPTflOsNlCx3YtggROQt5FwUDtyYvgkQGMvtT897pYOF_x5jbTUpU7n0Mo75fexA9BDoZtIKu8z1yU6eig/s400/2+babies+in+baskets.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Even though they were too little to join the egg hunt in the front yard, these two stole the show.<br />
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Eleni and her kids got to Grafton, MA, Friday night, (Emilio flew in later) and on Saturday they ventured to the Hebert Candy Mansion to see the Easter Bunny. Amalia's expression is meant to signal that she is highly suspicious of the identity of the Easter Bunny, but I warned her not to say anything that would make the Bunny feel bad, as well as the crowd of little kids waiting in line, and she complied. After the bunny, we got sundaes at the make-your-own sundaes bar.</div>
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On April 21, Eleni and Papou Nick went to church for Greek Palm Sunday and then we had carrot cake with one candle for Baby Eleni and four candles for Nico (he's lower left, behind Amalia), both of whom had recent birthdays.</div>
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That day was when Amalia began making Easter eggs with the "Egg-Mazing Egg Decorator" to use as place cards for all 23 people who would join us the next Sunday for Greek Easter. (This year it fell a week after Catholic Easter. The two Easters are sometimes on the same day, or as much as a month apart.) Amalia worked all week, customizing the eggs by asking everyone's favorite colors.</div>
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On Wednesday we all went to church for Holy Unction, which involves the priest putting holy oil on your eyes, mouth and hands, so that you will see, say and do beautiful things instead of bad ones. "Does this mean I can't say 'Poop' any more?" worried Nico, referring to his favorite dirty word.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPc-jIeVb_jPwvNDAeZrw527hxjXv02L-XEdqwSDhuNXhQJfax61e_cFihLcnbZs4YCe_fmJcah1xGqwjhiHYyNkWb9x0FXgpbUzFofrr-KV-TGePXR1t9P7hX8XtUZl6iknFBljGMLrU/s1600/Green+hill+farm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="1600" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPc-jIeVb_jPwvNDAeZrw527hxjXv02L-XEdqwSDhuNXhQJfax61e_cFihLcnbZs4YCe_fmJcah1xGqwjhiHYyNkWb9x0FXgpbUzFofrr-KV-TGePXR1t9P7hX8XtUZl6iknFBljGMLrU/s640/Green+hill+farm.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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On Thursday we went to nearby Green Hill Farm, a (free) petting zoo, and everyone met peacocks, llamas, goats, exotic fowl, miniature donkeys and horses and very fluffy sheep.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaoxoaIyVE3fF3MYRYbeH4EdFwY5XYKqPtayP0yIVRzIN2sCIUHYg2Dg6XuN0B7vSp6GcJVo0NzYScy-n61soLaGUbh_ZTzYtk_l4LKybf81d2XeKaSgG9qqP3vYDW56if9T7FX5G-RDo/s1600/making+red+eggs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="1600" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaoxoaIyVE3fF3MYRYbeH4EdFwY5XYKqPtayP0yIVRzIN2sCIUHYg2Dg6XuN0B7vSp6GcJVo0NzYScy-n61soLaGUbh_ZTzYtk_l4LKybf81d2XeKaSgG9qqP3vYDW56if9T7FX5G-RDo/s640/making+red+eggs.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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On Good Friday, daughter Eleni and "Big Eleni" Nikolaides prepared the traditional red eggs, making patterns on them with flowers and leaves held in place by pieces of panty hose wrapped around and tied with dental floss before the eggs are put in the dye. After they're taken out and cooled, the eggs are rubbed with oil to make them shine. The photo at right combines the red eggs with Amalia's striped ones.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0bhiQyP3anaS7xLL1qlSSvtnR-lSIlDRLHgltJnR-GswGzvg_IlXEGLweoawBXY2rlPN-nwMBMgUPHPV8UlxU4KuDzgJqmlZePy2H0Wg4wGWoSHfHx16pf8p2PjyhxOBwR5zihZ7pBA/s1600/Holy+Sat.+Morn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="739" data-original-width="1600" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0bhiQyP3anaS7xLL1qlSSvtnR-lSIlDRLHgltJnR-GswGzvg_IlXEGLweoawBXY2rlPN-nwMBMgUPHPV8UlxU4KuDzgJqmlZePy2H0Wg4wGWoSHfHx16pf8p2PjyhxOBwR5zihZ7pBA/s640/Holy+Sat.+Morn.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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On Holy Saturday everyone hurries to church for the "First Resurrection" after having fasted throughout Holy Week (or, for the very devout, for the seven weeks of Lent. The priests at St. Spyridon Cathedral in Worcester dramatize the joy of the moment by tossing bay leaves everywhere (which Nico tried to pick up) and giving out hand bells to ring (when the priest said so.). Then we all gathered at an IHOP to order the kind of breakfasts we've been forbidden until now--but no meat until after midnight.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlsB8M8y_eqyO4Rd9LHIU2kbNtKbRgAZLZCbC142za0aA_XeCoOpNQHReLc5Sz3eGHx7ndQjXSMcqXpvEshPy01aX4XVh2SHg1ODhyphenhypheneZP3rC-tKt2Mzg4QoKSB0ggo-Gio6gI8OjX6FA/s1600/3+moms+and+puzzle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1276" data-original-width="1500" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlsB8M8y_eqyO4Rd9LHIU2kbNtKbRgAZLZCbC142za0aA_XeCoOpNQHReLc5Sz3eGHx7ndQjXSMcqXpvEshPy01aX4XVh2SHg1ODhyphenhypheneZP3rC-tKt2Mzg4QoKSB0ggo-Gio6gI8OjX6FA/s320/3+moms+and+puzzle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Despite all the Easter preparation, these three moms, Frosso, Eleni and Marina, managed to complete this puzzle of Great Americans in time to photograph it, then clear it up to set the kids' table for tomorrow. Eleni and her father went to the midnight resurrection service, then came home to crack red eggs, saying "Christ is Risen!" "Indeed He is Risen!" and eat the traditional Mayeritsa soup. While everyone slept, the Easter bunny hid more than 150 eggs in the front yard and filled the five large Easter baskets with goodies (as well as five smaller baskets for the kids coming tomorrow.)<br />
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Finally it was Easter Sunday! Amalia found the golden egg on top of a pot of pansies. Then Tia Marina helped everyone open the eggs to discover what was inside.<br />
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Next everyone checked out their Easter baskets. Yiayia Eleni pointed granddaughter Eleni to hers. Nico admired his new disco cup (it flashes) and Amalia tried her new stick-on nails, while Marina and Baby Gage watched from the sidelines.<br />
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It was time to go to church for the Agape service followed by another egg hunt, this one in the church auditorium. St. Spyridon's was so crowded that we were sent upstairs to the choir loft, where we got a beautiful view of the congregation below, with everyone trying to keep their candles lit to take home. The patriarch of the family uses his flame to mark another cross on the top of the house's door. Amalia kept hers lit too, a tradition that always makes me nervous, waiting for the odor of singed hair. (Children get fancy decorated candles, called "Lambadas" at Easter, from their godparents.)<br />
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Back home the table for adults was set in the dining room. Amalia was thrilled to hear that she was going to be the boss of the kids' table in the living room (because she was three years older than anybody else.) She even wrote down a speech which began, "Hello, I'm Amalia and I'm the boss of the kids' table. If you have a problem, come to me. If you get bored, there is a paper with instructions and a coloring sheet..."<br />
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Then the feasting began: lamb, of course, spinach pie, chicken and rice pita, giant beans, Marina's special salad and so much more, ending with a dome-shaped Princess Torte from Crown Bakery. The party went on until Eleni and family had to leave for New York. Marina and Baby Gage flew out to San Francisco the next day, leaving two grandparents grateful for this best Easter ever, and hoping that we will all come together again as the little ones grow, to make more Easter memories.<br />
<br />by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-1503140939957242282019-03-30T15:47:00.004-04:002019-03-30T15:47:46.914-04:00The Seven-Year-Old "Poster Child" of Slavery<a href="http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/" style="display: block;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On March 12, W. W. Norton published <b>"Girl in Black and White</b>", subtitled <b>"The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement</b>", by Jessie Morgan-Owens, a professional photographer, scholar, Phd. and the dean of studies at Bard Early College in New Orleans. In the book, Jessie mentions how she and I met in Worcester in 2013, while she was in residence at the American Antiquarian Society researching Mary's life, so that she could see my daguerreotype of the little girl who became the face of the Abolition movement. In 1855, Mary was displayed on stage, taken to newspaper offices and her photograph was circulated to politicians and VIPs by Senator Charles Sumner--after Sumner and her escaped father and abolitionists in Massachusetts, including Longfellow and Thoreau, raised enough money to buy freedom for Mary and the rest of her family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The reason Sumner was eager to display the girl was because she appeared to be white, but was born into slavery. Jessie, in her book, decided to call the girl "Mary Mildred Williams" because "Williams" was the alias the girl's father chose when he escaped from Virginia and his daughter adopted it when she grew up. I call her "Mary Botts"--her slave name--in the essay below, because that's the name I first discovered ten years ago, while researching the identity of the girl in my dag. Many abolitionists and reporters called her "Little Ida May"--the name of a fictitious child in a hugely best-selling novel, published in 1854, about a white girl who is kidnapped, beaten and sold into slavery, suffering much until her father saves her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">When I
began collecting antique photographs about thirty years ago, I started out buying everything I could find. Then I began to specialize, gravitating toward early images
of children, twins (which I wrote about in a April 29, 2010 blog post:
“<a href="http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2010/04/diane-arbus-and-spooky-twins.html">Diane Arbus and Spooky Twins</a>”) and photographs reflecting attitudes
toward race and slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(For example, I wrote about the image of <a href="http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2009/10/scarred-back-of-slave-named-gordon.html">“The Scarred Back of a Slave Named Gordon”</a> in a post dated Oct. 2, 2009. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My information about that image was also printed in the New York Times book review of Oct. 4, 2009). This image was also widely circulated by abolitionists. My copy of it, below, is a hand-colored glass negative of the original black and white photo, probably meant to be projected in a "magic lantern.")</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">While
collecting slave photographs, I became fascinated with the “white slave
children of Louisiana” as I call the series of CDV (carte-de-visite)
photos of freed children from New Orleans who appear to be completely
white. These small, cardboard-mounted photos were sold in great
quantities by abolitionists during the Civil War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the back of each photo was printed: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
nett [sic] proceeds from the sale of these Photographs will be devoted
to the education of colored people in the Department of the Gulf, now
under the command of Maj. Gen. Banks.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">I had so many questions about these CDVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First,
why did the abolitionists go down to the schools of freed slaves in New
Orleans and pull out only those who appeared to be white, then send the
children up to New York and Philadelphia to be dressed in fine clothes
and posed in sentimental scenes for photos to sell?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why
did black-appearing children not get chosen for this? And how did these
former slave children feel about being taken away from their mothers,
paraded up north for the media like zoo animals and then sent back down
South?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(They even got kicked out of their hotel in Philadelphia when the owner discovered they weren’t “really” white.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Through
research, I’ve learned the answers to some of these questions about the
Louisiana CDVs, but today I’m only focusing on one photograph that was made, in 1855, about nine years before the Civil War CDVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a ninth-plate daguerreotype </span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-family: "arial";">that I bought on E-Bay in 2000</span> of a little girl in a plaid dress .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The seller, from Tennessee, included with this cased image information on where it was found. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“This…photograph was purchased at Headley’s Auction in Winchester VA, July 1997.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It came…out of the “Ashgrove” estate in Vienna, VA. The house originated as a hunting lodge in 1740 …and was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sold to James Sherman in 1850, who would never<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>own or hire a slave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He died in 1865 and passed it to his son, Capt. Franklin Sherman, Tenth Mich. Cavalry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Capt
Sherman’s wife Caroline (Alvord, a native of Mass.) came to the country
in 1865 to teach the children of the newly freed slaves.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The most
intriguing thing about this daguerreotype, of course, was the faded
inch-square piece of paper glued to the back of the case upon which
someone has printed<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mulatto raised by Charles Sumner”. I put
this image aside in 2000 along with the papers the buyer had sent me
about the Ashford plantation, and forgot all about them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Then, in November 2010, I had a visit from Greg Fried, a professor at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suffolk University in Boston who wanted to scan some of my photographs for a new web site he was preparing called<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mirror of Race” (<a href="http://www.mirrorofrace.org/">www.mirrorofrace.org</a>.) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">I showed him the Louisiana CDVs and the daguerreotype of the “Sumner-raised” child. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">After he left, I went on Google and typed in the words<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Charles Sumner” and “slave”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I discovered a short article from the New York Times dated March 9, 1855, which read:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">A
WHITE SLAVE FROM VIRGINIA. We received a visit yesterday from an
interesting little girl, — who, less than a month since, was a slave
belonging to Judge NEAL, of Alexandria, Va. Our readers will remember
that we lately published a letter, addressed by Hon. CHARLES SUMNER, to
some friends in Boston, accompanying a daguerreotype which that
gentleman had forwarded to his friends in this city, and which he
described as the portrait of a real "Ida May," — a young female slave,
so white as to defy the acutest judge to detect in her features,
complexion, hair, or general appearance, the slightest trace of Negro
blood. It was this child that visited our office, accompanied by CHARLES
H. BRAINARD, in whose care she was placed by Mr. SUMNER, for
transmission to Boston. Her history is briefly as follows: Her name is
MARY MILDRED BOTTS; her father escaped from the estate of Judge NEAL,
Alexandria, six years ago and took refuge in Boston. Two years since he
purchased his freedom for $600, his wife and three children being still
in bondage. The good feeling of his Boston friends induced them to
subscribe for the purchase of his family, and three weeks since, through
the agency of Hon. CHARLES SUMNER, the purchase was effected, $800
being paid for the family. They created quite a sensation in Washington,
and were provided with a passage in the first class cars in their
journey to this city, whence they took their way last evening by the
Fall River route to Boston. The child was exhibited yesterday to many
prominent individuals in the City, and the general sentiment, in which
we fully concur, was one of astonishment that she should ever have been
held a slave. She was one of the fairest and most indisputable white
children that we have ever seen.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">This discovery got my adrenaline going. I googled “Mary Mildred Botts” and learned that the white-appearing slave child who was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>admired by <i>The New York Times</i> was discussed in a 2008 book called<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Raising
Freedom’s Child—Black Children and Visions of the Future after
Slavery,” written by a University of New Orleans professor, Mary Niall
Mitchell, who (small world!) was someone I had communicated with six
years before while trying to research the Louisiana CDV’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I immediately ordered the book from Amazon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">When it arrived, I was stunned to find on page 73 a photo of Mary Botts that was <u>the mirror image of MY dag</u>. (The one in the book--also on the cover of Jessie's book) is from the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prof. Mitchell gave more explanation about why this young girl was photographed and brought north by Charles Sumner.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">By
the eve of the Civil War, abolitionists recognized the potential of
white-looking children for stirring up antislavery sentiment…Although it
was the image of a raggedy, motherless Topsy that viewers might have
expected to see in a photograph of a slave girl, it was the “innocent”,
“pure,” and “well-loved” white child who appeared, a child who needed
the protection of the northern white public.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The sponsors of seven-year-old Mary Mildred Botts, a freed child from Virginia, may have been <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the first to capitalize on these ideas, as early as 1855.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Her
story also marks the beginning of efforts to use photography (in Mary
Botts’s case, the daguerreotype, as the carte-de-visite format was not
yet available) in the service of raising sentiment and support for the
abolitionist cause.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(bold-facing mine.) </i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">“…In his own characterization of Mary Botts,” Mitchell continues, “Sumner set a pattern that other abolitionists would follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
a letter printed in both the Boston Telegraph and the New York Daily
Times, he compared Mary Botts to a fictional white girl who had been
kidnapped and enslaved, the protagonist in Mary Hayden Pike’s
antislavery novel <u>Ida May</u>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘She
is bright and intelligent—another Ida May,’ [Sumner wrote] ‘I think her
presence among us (in Boston) will be more effective than any speech I
can make.’”</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">This
comparison of Mary Botts to the fictional kidnapped white girl worked
well for Sumner and the Abolitionists and made the little freed slave
quite a local celebrity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prof. Mitchell quotes the diary of a Quaker woman named Hannah Marsh Inman who saw Mary Botts at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a meeting house in Worcester, MA (which happens to be where I live now).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On March 1, 1855, Hannah wrote: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Evening all went to the soiree at the Hall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Little Ida May, the white slave was there from Boston.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Sumner realized that he was on to a good thing and circulated <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>daguerreotypes of the child to prove her whiteness to those who might doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Keep
in mind—the daguerreotype process was the first one ever made
available—by Daguerre in 1839-- and the images “written by the sun” on
the silvered copper plate were considered undeniable scientific proof of
the sitter’s appearance.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Sumner
passed a daguerreotype of Mary Botts around the Massachusetts State
Legislature “as an illustration of slavery” and sent one to John. A.
Andrews, the governor of Massachusetts.(And Jessie, in her book, on page 133, traces the journey of MY dag from the home of an Abolitionist Massachusetts state senator to his daughter, who moved to Virginia to teach newly emancipated slaves. My dag stayed in the Ash Grove estate for 132 years until a woman from Tennessee bought it at auction, then offered it for sale in 2000, and it came to me in North Grafton, MA, coming full circle back to where it started.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Only a year after parading Mary Botts through New York, Boston and Worcester and dubbing her “The real Ida May”, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charles Sumner’s devout abolitionist views<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>led him to a crippling disaster, when, in 1856, he was so badly beaten on the floor of the Senate by South Carolina </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Representative </span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Brooks"><span style="color: #0c2ba4; text-decoration: none;">Preston Brooks</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who broke a cane over his head, that it would take years of therapy before Sumner could return to the Senate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">As
soon as I realized in 2010 that my dag of Mary Botts was one of the images used
by Sumner himself to advance the abolitionist cause, I got into an
excited e-mail correspondence with Professor
Mitchell, and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prof. Greg Fried,
who pointed out something I’d forgotten: an advertising card on the
back of my image showed that it was “Taken with the Double Camera For 25
Cents by Taber &; Co., successors to Tyler &; Co. Cor. Winter
&; Washington Sts. Boston”,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>while the mirror image belonging to the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Massachusetts Historical Society was taken by Julian Vannerson, probably in Richmond, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Virginia,
and seems sharper than mine, so mine must be a copy dag. (The only way
to copy a daguerreotype is to take a new daguerreotype of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each daguerreotype is one of a kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taber’s price of 25 cents sounds affordable, but at the time, the average working man made only about a dollar a day.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"> On March 7, Maurice Berger, who writes the Lens column for <i>The New York Times</i>, discussed "<b>Girl in Black And White</b>", calling it "groundbreaking." He quoted Jessie Morgan Owens as saying, "Mary's daguerreotype was one of the first images of photographic propaganda and one of the first portraits made solely to prove a political point."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Personally, I'm very grateful to Jessie Morgan-Owens for her decades of work and research, which put flesh and blood into my daguerreotype. I'm thrilled to know that this image, taken in 1855, that is part
of my collection, may represent one of the first efforts EVER to use the discovery of photography to touch people’s emotions and change
their minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This small image
of a seven-year-old girl may be an example of the first time photography
was used for propaganda, but it was certainly not the last. </span></div>
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-48134446772918224202019-03-23T16:05:00.000-04:002019-03-23T16:41:23.803-04:00The Shocking Story Behind Harvard's Slave Photos and White Slave Photographs <h2 class="date-header">
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<i><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Antique photographs of American slaves have been much in the news lately. Three days ago, on March 21, the front page of The New York Times
featured<span style="color: blue;"> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/us/slave-photographs-harvard.html">an article </a></span>and a large image of a black slave named Renty,
naked from the waist up--one of seven slaves who in 1850 were forced by
Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz to be stripped and photographed as
documentation for his theory that blacks and whites were descended from
different origins and that black people were inferior. The Times ran
the article because a woman who believes she is descended from Renty
has filed suit against Harvard, demanding that two of the 15 large
daguerreotypes are rightfully hers. Today, March 23, The Times ran a <span style="color: blue;">
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/arts/slave-photos-harvard-lawsuit.html">follow-up article</a> </span>debating the question: who owns the rights to a
photograph and to artifacts of African American history?</span></i></h3>
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<span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> Earlier,
on March 7, New York Times reporter Maurice Berger<span style="color: blue;"> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/.../photo-abolition-movement-girl-in-black-and-white.ht...">reviewed the book "Girl in Black and </a></span>White" by Jessie Morgan-Owens, about a seven-year-old
slave girl named Mary who appeared to be so white that Abolitionists in
Massachusetts, led by Charles Sumner, bought her freedom, brought her
up north and had her photographed in 1855, so that Sumner could
circulate to important politicians and newspapers her image, intended
to shock them that such a white-appearing child could be a slave. </span></i></h3>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;">From
its very beginnings in 1839, photography has proved to be a potent
propaganda weapon, used by both abolitionists and white supremacists to
touch peoples' emotions and win support for their cause. I've been
collecting vintage, historic photographs for some 40 years and writing
about them on this blog since 2009, often discussing images that have to
do with race. Today I'm re-posting an essay from March 7, 2012, in
which I discuss the background of the Harvard dags. In my next post I
will talk about my daguerreotype of the little white-appearing slave
girl who was photographed by Sumner and became the "poster girl" of the
abolitionist cause. </span></i><br />
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In <a href="http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2012/03/white-slave-children-of-new-orleans-why.html">my previous post,</a>
I discussed the recently-in-the-news photos of the “White Slave
Children of New Orleans” which portrayed only white-appearing slave
children, not black ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
explained how this apparently wrong-minded and politically incorrect
practice of the Abolitionists had originated nearly a decade earlier
with a daguerreotype of a white-skinned little girl named Mary Botts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
was purchased and brought north by her father (an escaped slave) with
the help of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts who paraded her (and
circulated her photographic image)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>around New England making her a celebrity described in <b>The New York Times</b> and other media.<br />
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In 1855, Sumner may have been the first to focus on white-appearing slaves to raise indignation against the practice of slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
worked so well that, after Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation of Jan.
1, 1863, Northerners and Abolitionists who wanted to support schools for
former slaves went to New Orleans looking for white slave children to
bring up north and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>photograph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Celia Caust-Ellenbogen of Swarthmore College,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
“Keeping these schools up and running would require ongoing financial
support. Toward this end, the National Freedman’s Association, in
collaboration with the American Missionary Association and interested
officers of the Union Army launched a new propaganda campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five children and three adults, all former slaves from New Orleans, were sent to the North on a publicity tour.</i></div>
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A full page of Harper’s Weekly’s Jan. 30, 1864 issue was devoted to this
engraving, which was based on a large-format photograph taken of the
group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Explaining the picture was a letter written by<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>C.C. Leigh introducing the stars of the new propaganda campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pay attention to how he keeps emphasizing the intelligence of the children.<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“To the Editor of Harper’s Weekly:</i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The group of emancipated slaves
whose portraits I send you were brought by Colonel Hanks and Mr. Philip
Bacon from New Orleans, where they were set free by General
Butler…REBECCA HUGER is eleven years old, and was a slave in her
father’s house, the special attendant of a girl a little older than
herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To all appearance she is perfectly white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her complexion, hair and features show not the slightest trace of Negro blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the few months during which she has been at school she has learned to
read well, and writes as neatly as most children of her age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
mother and grandmother live in New Orleans, where they support
themselves comfortably by their own labor…ROSINA DOWNS is not quite
seven years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is a fair child, with blonde complexion and silky hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her father is in the rebel army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has one sister as white as herself and three brothers who are darker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her mother, a bright mulatto, lives in New Orleans in a poor hut, and</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has hard work to support her family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CHARLES TAYLOR is eight years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His complexion is very fair, his hair light and silky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three out of five boys in any school in New York are darker than he.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet this white boy, with his mother, as he declares, has been twice sold as a slave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First by his father and “owner”, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alexander Wethers, of Lewis County, Virginia, to a slave trader named Harrison, who sold them to Mr.Thornhill of New Orleans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
man fled at the approach of our army and his slaves were liberated by
General Butler. The boy is decidedly intelligent, and though he has been
at school less than a year, he reads and writes very well. …”</i><br />
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The letter goes on to describe the adults in the group—two of them
chosen, evidently, because they had physical scars from their masters’
mistreatment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilson Chinn, on
the left, was branded on his forehead by Volsey B Marmillion, who
branded all his 210 slaves, and Mary Johnson carried the scars of 50
cuts on her arms and back –given by her master because one morning she
was “half an hour behind time in bringing up his five o’clock cup of
coffee”.<br />
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The little girl on the left next to Charley was described<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as AUGUSTA BROUJEY, nine years old. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Her
mother, who is almost white, was owned by her half-brother, named
Solamon, who still retains two of her children. ISAAC WHITE is a black
boy of eight years; but none the less intelligent than his whiter
companions. He has been in school about seven months, and I venture to
say that not one boy in fifty would have made as much improvement in
that space of time.”</i><br />
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The man on the far right is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the
Reverend Mr. Whitehead” who managed to earn enough as a house and ship
painter to buy his freedom and is described thus: “The reverend
gentleman can read and write well and is a very stirring speaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just now he belongs to the church militant, having enlisted in the United States Army.”<br />
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The letter in Harper’s ends by telling where the small CDVs of the
individuals can be bought for 25 cents each or the large photo of the
whole group for one dollar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
would have been a very good investment, for today the individual CDV’s
can cost several hundred dollars or more, and the only copy of the large
group photo that I have ever seen was in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum.</div>
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Three photographers took photos of the white slave children: Charles Paxson and M. H. Kimball <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in
New York, and J.E. McClees in Philadelphia (where they were kicked out
of their hotel when the manager learned they were not “really” white.)
The children were dressed in elegant clothing and posed with props—the
American flag, an ornate mirror, books which they were studying—to
appeal to the sentimentality of Victorian audiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(See my previous post.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kimball produced the most “shocking” photo (to Victorian eyes) of dark-skinned Isaac and white-skinned Rosa arm in arm .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Augusta was in only 2 of the 22 photos on record and Isaac in three, but Rosa and Rebecca are pictured in most of them.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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The most photographed and most popular of the “white slave children” was
Rebecca, 11 years old, posed in ever more stylish outfits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prof.
Mary Niall Mitchell suggests in an essay “Rosebloom
and Pure White” in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">American Quarterly, Sept. 2002</b>, that Rebecca fascinated the Victorians because she was closest to becoming an adult woman and the thought of her<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sexual vulnerability —a white slave girl who could be bought and sold and raped—fascinated and horrified the Northerners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly the white children were the result of masters raping the slave women who were their property. Professor<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mitchell repeats the famous quip of southern diarist Mary Chestnut:<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
“Every lady tells you who is the father of all the mulatto children in
everybody’s household, but those in her own she seems to think drop from
the clouds, or pretends so to think.”</i><br />
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Professor Mitchell writes in the same essay: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“In
the images of Rosa and Rebecca, a notion about white little girls as
pure and precious things may have been employed to redeem those viewers
who had yet to rally around the antislavery cause and encourage them to
act on the girls’ behalf.”</i><br />
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Finally, the Abolitionists photographing the “white slave children” were using the new and undeniably “scientific”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>medium of photography to battle the beliefs of the leading scientist of the day—Louis Agassiz—famous Harvard natural scientist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He claimed and tried very hard to prove “scientifically” that the Black race was an inferior and separate biological species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Kathleen Collins in “Portraits of Slave Children” in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“History of Photography”, July- September 1985</b>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The
anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould recently reconstructed Agassiz’ life
and thought from his unexpurgated letters in the Harvard University
Collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gould concluded
that behind Agassiz’ separate creation theories was an initial, visceral
reaction to contact with blacks, which left him with an intense
revulsion against the notion of miscegenation.”</i><br />
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Agassiz himself tried to use the science of photography to promote his
theories that blacks were a different species from whites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long before the civil war, he toured Southern plantations and had the owners bring forth the most “African” looking slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
1850 Agassiz arranged for J. T. Zealy, a daguerrotypist in Columbia,
South Carolina, to take photographs of African-born slaves from
plantations Agassiz had visited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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The slaves were stripped and photographed and these haunting daguerreotypes were sent to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agassiz at Harvard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
1976 they were found in a storage cabinet at the Peabody Museum of
Archeology and Ethnology. (To see these dags and read a brilliant
discussion of Agassiz’s racism and his use of the camera to debase his
subjects, go to <a href="http://usslave.blogspot.com/2011/10/black-bodies-white-science-louis.html">http://usslave.blogspot.com/2011/10/black-bodies-white-science-louis.html</a>. ) Here are two of the captions:<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
Zealy pictures reveal the social convention which ranks blacks as
inferior beings, which violates civilized decorum, which strips men and
women of the right to cover their genitalia. And yet the pictures
shatter that mold by allowing the eyes of Delia and the others to speak
directly to ours, in an appeal to a shared humanity.</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Agassiz
commissioned these images to use as scientific visual evidence to prove
the physical difference between white Europeans and black Africans. The
primary goal was to prove the racial superiority of the white race. The
photographs were also meant to serve as evidence for his theory of
“separate creation,” which contends that each race originated as a
separate species.</span></i><br />
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So the Abolitionists who photographed the white (mulatto) children of
New Orleans, arm in arm with a black slave child, and who emphasized at
every turn the intelligence and good behavior of these children, were
fighting fire with fire—using the new science of photography to refute
visually the beliefs of the country’s most famous scientist and other
racists who insisted that the two races should not and could not be
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-40970421399461933732019-03-18T13:19:00.000-04:002019-03-18T13:19:38.659-04:00Remembering Sixties Fashions--I Was There!<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>My previous blog post was inspired by a sticker book I bought for granddaughter Amalia--a very scholarly review of "1960's Fashions" published by Usborne in their "Historical Sticker Dolly Dressing" series. I re-posted an essay from years ago about "Horrible Hairdos of My Youth" and got a big reaction from my contemporaries who also remember those days of beehives and hair spray. So I thought I'd re-post another essay from the past, illustrating how I was a total fashion victim throughout the Swinging Sixties. (Hard to believe that in September I'll be going to my Edina High School class's 60th reunion, where we crones can trade stories about how short our minis were! This blog post below was originally inspired by my love for the "Mad Men" TV series.)</i><br />
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As the reaction to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mad
Men’s</b> season premiere last Sunday proves, today’s younger (than I am) generations
are fascinated with the lifestyle, the fashions and especially the presumed
decadence of life in Manhattan in the 1960’s.</div>
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For those of us who lived through it, the show brings nostalgia,
bittersweet memories of youthful foolishness, and frequent hilarity at anachronisms
that slip by, despite the dozens of people on the program who are working to
make every ash tray, cocktail shaker and plaid blazer authentic to the period.</div>
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I was 19 and in college when the 1960’s began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the summer of 1963 I graduated
from the University of California, Berkeley (English Lit.), and entered
Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism in the fall for a year-long Master of
Science program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My first
job after graduating was in public relations at Lever Brothers—in the iconic
Lever House on Park Avenue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
six months there, I moved a few blocks uptown to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>work at the Ladies’ Home Journal, at 54<sup>th</sup> and
Lexington (right across from what would be Studio 54 where Andy Warhol and
Truman Capote played.)</div>
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Yes, I did smoke at the time--in fact when I went to college
there was a “smoking room” on my floor in the freshman dormitory where obsessive students
like myself could sit up all night smoking, studying and living on Mars Bars
out of the vending machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
smoked from the age of 18 until at 29 I married a Greek-American New York Times
reporter who insisted I quit. (And I’m still married to him 42 years later.)</div>
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The thing you have to understand about the Sixties—and this
is starting to be portrayed on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mad Men</b>—is
that at some point in the decade there was a watershed moment when everything
changed 180 degrees:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> e</span>verything from
fashion, music and lifestyle to views on race, women’s rights, health—you name
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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When people talk about the “Swinging Sixties” they’re
talking about the last years of the decade, from about 1966 on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first part of the sixties was a lot
like the 1950’s—conservative, uptight, well-mannered (although archaic in
beliefs about sex, race, whatever.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Clothing was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>conservative
and preppy, fitted to the body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just look at the pleated skirts and man-tailored blouses that Peggy, the
secretary-turned-copywriter on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mad Men</b>
is still wearing in the season premiere, which takes place in 1966.</div>
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Here is a photograph of me in the spring of 1965 when I was
headed for the airport in Los Angeles to fly back to New York after a visit
with my parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you believe
the hat, shoes and gloves?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t have the photo as proof.</div>
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And here are two photos of me on the job in 1964 and
65.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can see that we are
rocking the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sculpted beehive
hairdo’s that were so lacquered with spray that they were un-squashable,
inspiring jokes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>about rodents nesting
within.</div>
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So we women all looked and dressed pretty much like the
earlier seasons of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mad</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Men</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then something happened. I’ve often pondered what it was
that revolutionized the Sixties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I left Berkeley in 1963 the Free Speech movement was just a-bornin’
and it slowly moved across the country bringing sit-ins and riots on campuses,
not to mention the surging of the Civil Rights movement. The Beatles came to
New York in 1964 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which was a cause
of great excitement at the magazine. And there was the Summer of Love in San
Francisco in 1967.</div>
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And suddenly hems rose to incredible heights while dresses,
once structured<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and controlled,
became loose on the body, like tunics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mad Men</b> premiere last
Sunday, when Megan, the new Mrs. Don Draper sang her French song and did her sexy
dance, which shocked and alarmed her colleagues and her new husband, she was
wearing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a black, flowing mini
dress that illustrated perfectly the new fashions and attitudes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything that had been up tight until
1966 soon became flowing and loose and very, very short.</div>
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In this photo from Feb. 1967, when I was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>discussing a magazine article with Ruth Jacobs on the
“Jewish Home Show”, you can see that my beehive has been replaced by a pseudo-Vidal Sassoon, asymmetrical bob.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though
you can’t see it, my A-line dress with a yellow stripe down the side is very short.<br />
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On April 1, 1968, I left New York and the Ladies’ Home
Journal to travel and work in Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was leaving partly to get away from the Greek-American reporter who, I
was sure, would break my heart. </div>
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As soon as I left New York, Martin Luther King was
assassinated, then Bobby Kennedy, then, a year later, Ted Kennedy drove off a
bridge at Chappaquiddick and the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charles Manson murders terrorized Los Angeles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From my vantage point overseas, it seemed
that my <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>country was literally
coming apart.</div>
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I had scored an editing job in London, when Swinging London
was peaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I met the Beatles, bought clothes
from Biba Boutique and shared a flat with three young women who were waiting to
turn 21 so they could get their hands on their trust funds. Meanwhile they got
up at four every afternoon and circulated from one club to another all night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, meanwhile, went to a nine-to-five
job and occasionally handed over my rent in advance when the girl who owned the
place got in a jam and had to be bailed out.</div>
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In 1969 I traveled to Greece, because I had reconciled with
the previously mentioned reporter, and he was vacationing there. I arrived with
a whole wardrobe of skirts so very short that he refused to introduce me to any
of his friends or relatives until I acquired something of a more respectable
length.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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My asymmetrical bob had grown into a French twist and, for
some reason, I seem to be wearing a ratty rabbit fur (or something) coat .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I won’t comment on the shoes, but it
all seemed very stylish at the time.</div>
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I went back to my job in my beloved London, but we
eventually agreed to marry (if I quit smoking), so in 1970, I returned to Manhattan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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On March 18, 1970, at least 100 feminists staged a sit-in at
the Ladies Home Journal, protesting the way the magazine’s mostly male staff
depicted women’s interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
occupied the office for 11 hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They held prisoner my highly respected boss, John Mack Carter, and the
managing editor Lenore Hershey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They even smoked JMC’s cigars.</div>
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Unfortunately I wasn’t there to see this historic moment,
because by then I was writing articles for the company's foreign
syndication service and working mostly at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I suspect that pretty soon I may get to see a similar feminist
sit-in in the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mad Men</b>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-68017328255932331232019-02-15T12:11:00.000-05:002019-02-15T12:14:53.007-05:00Revisiting the 1960's and Hairstyles from my Youth<h2 class="date-header">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <i> I recently bought granddaughter Amalia a sticker book from the Usborne Series about 1960's fashion history, and became fascinated reading it. I realized that I am a living fossil who experienced every fashion fad of that decade--especially in the two years ('68 and '69) when I was living in London and met Mary Quant. And I own a mini-dress that was worn by Twiggy in a fashion shoot--although I gave it to daughter Eleni, since I am no longer the size of Twiggy.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i> The sticker book inspired me to re-post this essay from nine years ago about my peculiar hairstyles of the period. I just wish I had as much hair now as I did then, and I don't go to the hairdresser twice a week any more--just once. I may even re-post a related photo essay about my memories of real-life sixties fashions.</i></span></span></div>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Horrible Hairdos from my Youth
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last
Thursday in <i>The New York Times</i> Style section, a page of photographs
showed the six steps to achieving a retro ‘60’s beehive hairdo.
According to a hairstylist at Bumble and Bumble “The key to make this
look modern and not too retro is haphazardness.” He had prepared the
models at Vera Wang’s fall show with “slightly messy” beehives with
tousled locks at the nape of the neck. According to The Times, “Amy
Winehouse offsets hers with tattooed arms.”<br /><br />Ever since “Mad Men”
ushered in a widespread nostalgia for the naughty 1960’s I have been
bemused as young people who were not born then celebrate that era of
sin, pointed bras and three-martini business lunches.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the
few skill sets I have down pat is how to make a beehive hairdo. The
sight of the “retro beehive” whisked me down Memory Lane, recalling the
sight of myself and half a dozen freshman girls lined up at the mirrored
wall in the dorm bathroom, carefully teasing our long hair until it
stood straight up. Lots of hair spray was involved. My daughters
think that I was solely responsible for the hole in the ozone layer due
to my lavish use of hair spray.<br /><br />No tousled retro ironic beehives
for us. Ours were as smooth and as stiff as a football helmet—hence all
the urban legends about girls who never took down their beehives and
ultimately learned that mice or something worse had nested within.<br /><br />After
teasing the hair into a state suggesting the Bride of Frankenstein, I
would carefully fold it into a high French twist, securing it with a
handful of hairpins and then, after using an afro pick to achieve
maximum bouffant-ness, spray some more.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my youth, a hairdo
would come into fashion and we all would immediately have to have it,
whether it was flattering or not. The first one I remember was the duck
tail (also called D.A. for “Duck’s Ass”), the signature of “greasers”
and their leather- jacketed girlfriends in the 1950’s. It took a long
time for me to talk my parents into letting me have one—I was about 13
at the time—and even longer to convince them to let me add the peroxide
streak that was<span style="font-style: italic;"> de rigueur</span> to go with it. I’m just sorry I don’t have a photo to show you how truly awful it looked.<br /><br />Even
more unforgiving was the pixie cut which I am told is now enjoying a
renaissance on celebrities like Victoria Beckham. Less glamorous people,
like me, ended up looking like someone who was just past chemo, or like
those French women who fraternized with the Germans and were punished
by having their hair cut off. I vaguely remember Jean Seberg as bringing
the pixie cut into fashion. The unfortunate photo of me here in my
pixie cut dates from 1958 when I was a junior in high school. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then
I went to college in Wisconsin and mastered the non-ironic beehive.
Two years later, in 1961 I transferred to U Cal Berkeley where I first
encountered full-out ethnic Afros and white men with Jesus hair and
beards. In graduate school in Manhattan, I remember other girls (not
me) ironing their long blonde hair on an ironing board to straighten it
and also setting it at night on empty orange-juice-concentrate cans.<br /><br />After
getting a Master’s from Columbia in 1964, I got a job in New York
women’s magazines and hung around with editorial assistants who were
dating those Mad Men types and drank martinis at lunch. I usually ate
lunch at my desk. <br /><br />Soon the Beatles came to the U.S. and Vidal
Sassoon cut Twiggie’s hair into an asymmetrical bob and we all had to
have some version of it. You can see my would-be Sassoon cut below. I
wish I still had that mini-dress and that brooch. The photo is dated
Feb. 1967.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Several
haircuts have become all the rage since then—think Farrah Faucett’s
feather cut and Jennifer Anniston’s whatever it was. And Kate Gosselin
revisiting Sassoon. But I got married and had children and never had
time any more to become a haircut fashion victim.<br /><br />Now my hair has
become so thin that I couldn’t possibly tease it into a beehive, ironic
or not. Twice a week, first thing in the morning, I go to my
hairdresser Roy Hurwitz of London Lass, because I am incapable of doing anything
with my own hair. He trained under Vidal Sassoon.<br /><br />Did you know
that Joan Collins always wears a wig because her hair is so thin? I’m
told she has 200 wigs. So does Lady Gaga, I think. Maybe wigs will
become the next Big Thing.
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-84974177479949791932019-02-11T10:24:00.000-05:002019-02-11T10:34:33.025-05:00Valentines in the U.S.--It All Started Here!<h2 class="date-header">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Time to re-post my annual</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">V<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">al</span>entine's Day essay.</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-size: small;">I see th<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">at in last year's New York Times there was<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a lo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ng
article about Valentines, including two photographs of Esther Howland
valentines--but no mention that she was living, and began maki<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ng, Valentines in Worcester, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">M</span>A!</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(I recently bought these English and German-made valentines at an auction--sadly, they are not from Howland or Taft.)</span></i></span></div>
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Worcester, MA, the once-bustling industrial metropolis 45
minutes west of Boston where I live, is enormously proud of its<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rather peculiar list of “famous firsts”,
including barbed wire, shredded wheat, the monkey wrench, the birth control
pill, the first perfect game in major league baseball, the first liquid-fueled
rocket and the ubiquitous yellow Smiley Face icon (starring in a soon-to-be-published tell-all book “<i>The Saga of Smiley</i>”, printed by the Worcester
Historical Museum and written by me.)</div>
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And every year about this time, you hear about how Worcester
produced the first commercial valentines in this country thanks to a
foresighted young woman named Esther Howland, known as the “Mother of the
Valentine.<br />
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Esther Howland (1828-1904) attended Mount Holyoke at the
same time as Emily Dickinson. She was the daughter of a successful Worcester
stationer and, in 1847, she received a frilly English valentine that inspired
her to ask her father to order materials from England so that she could
assemble her own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She then convinced her
brother, a salesman for the company, to show a few of her valentines on his sales
rounds.<br />
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The initial demand was overwhelming and
Esther gathered some of her friends to help her assemble the valentines, seating
them around a long table on the third floor of her home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The company was eventually earning $100,000—a
phenomenal success.<br />
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Esther is considered significant because, according to
historians, she was among the first commercially successful women overseeing a
female-run business, and she basically created the assembly-line system, paying
the local women “liberally”.<br />
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She introduced layers of lace, three-dimensional accordion
effects, and insisted that the verses be hidden inside--something you had to
hunt for. She had her staff mark the back of each valentine with a red “H”. </div>
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In the Victorian era, Valentines were wildly popular, and the
elaborate cards were scrutinized for clues—even the position of the stamp on
the envelope meant something. Often the valentine was intended as a marriage
proposal.<br />
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On Feb. 14, 1849, Emily Dickinson wrote to her cousin,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> “The last week has been a merry one in
Amherst, & notes have flown around like snowflakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ancient gentlemen & spinsters, forgetting
time & multitude of years, have doffed their wrinkles – in exchange for
smiles…”</i><br />
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In 1879—after 30 years in business—Esther Howland merged with Edward
Taft, the son of Jotham Taft, a North Grafton valentine maker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together they formed the New England Valentine
Co. (and their cards were marked “N.E.V.Co.”)<br />
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This is where
Esther Howland’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>title of “Mother of the
Valentine” begins to get a little shaky.</div>
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It seems, upon much study, that Edward Taft’s father, Jotham
Taft of North Grafton, a small village near Worcester, started the commercial
valentine business in the U.S. even before Miss Howland did,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but he didn’t like to talk about it, because
the Taft family were strict Quakers and Jotham Taft’s mother sternly disapproved
of such frivolity as Valentines. (Full disclosure—I live in North Grafton,
about a stone’s throw from where Taft worked.)<br />
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In 1836, Jotham Taft married Sarah E. Coe of Rhode Island
and two years later, they welcomed twin sons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But in 1840, one of the twins died suddenly, leaving Mrs. Taft prostrate
with grief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jotham decided to take his
wife and surviving son to Europe with him on a buying trip for the stationer
who employed him, and while in Germany, he bought many valentines
supplies—laces, lithographs, birds and cupids.<br />
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When he returned, Taft began making valentines with his
wife’s help, and in 1844—3 years before Esther Howland graduated from college—he opened
a valentine “factory” in North Grafton (then called New England Village.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But because of his mother’s disapproval, Taft
never put his own name on the valentines—only “Wood” (his middle name) or
“N.E.V.” for “New England Village”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
believed that Taft trained Elizabeth Howland as one of his workers before she
opened her own factory</div>
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Taft and Howland merged into the New England Valentine Co.
in 1879, and a year later Esther’s father became ill and she left her business
to care for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After he died, she
moved in with one of her brothers and she passed away in 1904.<br />
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Unfortunately, despite all the couples who presumably found
their true love thanks to Esther’s creations, the “Mother of the Valentine”
never married.<br />
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In 1881, George C. Whitney bought the combined business of
Taft and Howland and it became The Whitney Co, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which dominated valentine production for many
years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of cards laboriously made
by hand, Whitney turned to machine- printed valentines and eventually added postcards
in the 1890’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Whitney designs, featuring children who resembled the “Campbell Soup “ kids, were wildly popular,
although more often exchanged by children than adult lovers, and in 1942 the
Whitney factory closed, as a result of wartime paper shortages.</div>
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-46459234566185662862019-01-23T23:19:00.000-05:002019-01-23T23:19:29.082-05:00Magnificent Magnolias and A New Granddaughter!
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While Massachusetts grapples with record cold and snow, I’m
in San Francisco getting to know our new granddaughter, Gage Antonia Hineline,
who was born on the day before Christmas to daughter Marina and Jeff Hineline. </div>
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Since Wednesday was the last full day before I return to the
bitter cold of Massachusetts, Marina decided to take me and the Big Eleni
(Eleni Nikolaides, who is the honorary grandma to my three children, and is now
living with her own daughter and two grandchildren in Florida, but came to San
Francisco to help out) to the San Francisco Botanical Garden, to see
“Magnificent Magnolias—Now in Bloom, Mid-January through March.”</div>
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On the way there we passed some of the “painted ladies” of
San Francisco, which I’ve admired ever since I was a student at U Cal Berkeley
in 1961-1963. </div>
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I love magnolias, and was astonished to see that here in San
Francisco, magnolias are now in bloom everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The San Francisco Botanical Garden, in
Golden Gate Park offers, “the most significant magnolia collection outside
China, where the majority of species originate.” </div>
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At the entrance, one poster advertised the “Magnificent
Magnolias” exhibition and another warned us not to tread on the caterpillars of
the California Pipeline Swallowtail Butterfly, which is a stunning blue color
I’ve never seen before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Marina checked the map of nearly 100 magnolia trees—“from
the monsoon-influenced temperate forest of the Himalayas to the cloud forests
of Mesoamerica”-- with the Botanical Garden’s Staff member, while giant magnolia
trees (originally brought from Asia in the 1930’s or earlier) bloomed overhead
in white, pink and magenta, and visitors from around the world, including these
young lovers, admired the beauty overhead.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQRmBi1NGFOzK45qykA61g06mJmexdahIHF90syuduVyJBetLvhBShP2p67jWV4_DoLBIG9CCqPgKcp1XRUX364b0R9yFGVonGqEflSgZjG8EpQpYlhJNoN3pmuWMcmopXfewX2PRIJfc/s1600/Magnolias+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQRmBi1NGFOzK45qykA61g06mJmexdahIHF90syuduVyJBetLvhBShP2p67jWV4_DoLBIG9CCqPgKcp1XRUX364b0R9yFGVonGqEflSgZjG8EpQpYlhJNoN3pmuWMcmopXfewX2PRIJfc/s640/Magnolias+4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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This giant magnolia blossom, as large as a saucer, is
Magnolia compbellii “Late Pink”, “Introduced in the Garden from seed purchased
in 1934…in Darjeeling, India.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White and
pink blossoms covered the paths, and someone put these in one of the ceramic
pots that mark the gardens.</div>
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Marina kept her dog, Stamper, on a leash, and introduced her
to some visiting toddlers, while the “Big Eleni” pushed Baby Gage, blissfully
asleep, in her clever “Doona” carriage which converts into a car seat, so you
don’t have to wake the baby to put her in the car.</div>
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And here she is—turning a month old tomorrow, and already
melting our hearts with her smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Baby
Gage Antonia Hineline!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every bit as
magnificent as the magnolias!</div>
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</style>by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-56533945785588398872018-10-31T12:46:00.000-04:002018-10-31T12:47:42.437-04:00Reagan's White House Ghost Story (and Others')<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;">It's
become a Halloween tradition for the Rolling Crone to re-post the story
told to me by President Reagan of his own encounters with White House
ghosts and other haunting happenings experienced there through the ages. Wonder if the Trumps have encountered any of these ghouls as yet?</span></i></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY5vzu85cMNoEkWbMFGFy6El7B0M4UAOS2O1lzBcYUtvmRbg6XN7ktTLITo_c-UDKgQTui_PfXHXPBXrrrp6qrApN9xi_9ilXP0IZbyyKuSQBX-qeNlGPxFunLt3wUvOMAQSO76h4uYn0/s1600/Lincoln+ghost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="909" data-original-width="1260" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY5vzu85cMNoEkWbMFGFy6El7B0M4UAOS2O1lzBcYUtvmRbg6XN7ktTLITo_c-UDKgQTui_PfXHXPBXrrrp6qrApN9xi_9ilXP0IZbyyKuSQBX-qeNlGPxFunLt3wUvOMAQSO76h4uYn0/s640/Lincoln+ghost.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Ever since the White House was first occupied in 1800, there have been
rumors of hauntings, but I got this story direct from the President. No,
not President Obama (or The Donald). I first heard about the White House ghosts
directly from the lips of Ronald Reagan.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">It was March 18, 1986, and my husband Nick and I had been invited to a
state dinner in honor of Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The
State Dining room was filled with gold candlesticks, gold vermeil
flatware and vermeil bowls filled with red and white tulips. I had the
great privilege of being seated at the President’s table along with
Chicago Bears’ running back Walter Payton; the Canadian Prime Minister’s
wife Mila Mulroney; the president of the Mobil Corporation; Donna
Marella Agnelli, wife of the chairman of Fiat; Burl Osborne, the editor
of the Dallas Morning News, and Pat Buckley, wife of William Buckley.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">The President, a brilliant storyteller, entertained the table throughout
the meal and the story I remember best was about his encounters with
the White House ghostly spirits. Here is how I wrote it later in an
article about the dinner for the <i>Ladies’ Home Journal</i>: “According to the
President, Rex, the King Charles Cavalier spaniel who had recently
replaced Lucky as First Dog, had twice barked frantically in the Lincoln
Bedroom and then backed out and refused to set foot over the threshold.
And another evening, while the Reagans were watching TV in their room,
Rex stood up on his hind legs, pointed his nose at the ceiling and began
barking at something invisible overhead. To their amazement, the dog
walked around the room, barking at the ceiling.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">'I started thinking about it,' the President continued, 'And I began to
wonder if the dog was responding to an electric signal too high-pitched
for human ears, perhaps beamed toward the White House by a foreign
embassy. I asked my staff to look into it.'</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">The President laughed and said, 'I might as well tell you the rest. A
member of our family [he meant his daughter Maureen] and her husband
always stay in the Lincoln Bedroom when they visit the White House. Some
time ago the husband woke up and saw a transparent figure standing at
the bedroom window looking out. Then it turned and disappeared. His wife
teased him mercilessly about it for a month. Then, when they were here
recently, she woke up one morning and saw the same figure standing at
the window looking out. She could see the trees right through it. Again
it turned and disappeared."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">After that White House dinner, I did some research and discovered that
half a dozen presidents and as many first ladies have reported ghostly
happenings in the White House. It’s not just the ghost of Lincoln that
they see, although he tops the hit parade. He caused Winston Churchill,
who was coming out of the bathroom naked but for a cigar when he
encountered Lincoln, to refuse to sleep there again. And Abe so startled
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands that she fell into a dead faint
when she heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Lincoln
standing there.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I also learned that the Lincoln bedroom was not a bedroom when Lincoln
was President—it was his Cabinet Room where he signed the Emancipation
Proclamation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">It’s well known that Abraham Lincoln and his wife held séances in the
White House, attempting to contact the spirit of their son Willie, who
died there and who has been seen walking the halls.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">The ghost of Dolley Madison, wife of James Madison, appeared often in
the Rose Garden, which she planted. There is even reportedly a Demon Cat
in the White House basement that is rarely seen. When it does appear,
it is foretelling a national disaster. While the Demon Cat may at first
look like a harmless kitten, it grows in size and evil the closer one
gets. A White House guard saw it a week before the stock market crash of
1929 and it was also reportedly seen before Kennedy’s assassination in
1963.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Abigail Adams’ ghost has been seen hanging laundry in the East Room—she
appeared frequently during the Taft administration and as late as 2002
and is often accompanied by the smell of laundry soap.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Lincoln himself told his wife he dreamt of his own assassination three
days before it actually happened. Calvin Coolidge’s wife reported seeing
Lincoln’s ghost standing at a window of the Oval Office, hands clasped
behind his back gazing out the window (just as Reagan’s daughter saw a
figure in a similar pose.) Franklin Roosevelt’s valet ran screaming from
the White House after seeing Lincoln’s ghost . Eleanor Roosevelt,
Ladybird Johnson and Gerald Ford’s daughter Susan all sensed Lincoln’s
presence near the fireplace in the Lincoln Bedroom.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: small;">I’d love to find out if the Obamas ever encountered any ghostly
knockings, or if their dog Beau suffered the same alarming anxiety
attacks as Reagan’s dog Rex. Today, as the portals between this world
and the other world swing open, I suspect the White House will be
hosting a ghostly gala of the illustrious dead. I wonder, if Trump wandered down to the basement, would he encounter the Demon Cat?</span></h2>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">(If you have any personal paranormal experiences to report, let me know about them at: joanpgage@yahoo.com )</span></div>
</div>
<br />by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-40509522261992530132018-10-13T16:13:00.000-04:002018-10-13T16:13:36.596-04:00Update on Colette--Paris's Most Scandalous Woman<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Yesterday I saw the new film "Colette", directed by Wash Westmoreland and starring Keira Knightley as Colette. I absolutely loved it! It was thrilling to see the various adventures and scandals of France's most famous female author--whom I wrote about in a January post, based on five antique French postcards in my collection--brought to vivid life on screen, presenting scenes of decadent Parisian life and fashion circa 1900. I was knocked out by the accuracy of historical detail in the settings and fashions--including the theatrical scenes in the antique photos below. But <u>my</u> blog post, republished here, recorded even more of Colette's scandals than the film. That ends when Colette, having gained notoriety as an actress in the music hall, undertakes to write novels under her own name. But the film doesn't tell that Colette in 1912 married the editor of the newspaper Le Matin and had a daughter with him a year later, but that marriage ended when he learned she was having an affair with
her 16-year-old stepson Bertrand, child of his first marriage. Colette was 51.</i> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGWebiKJS95uf9VuzXWdUAmaO2RwFXcfNUX7EMyoTv-T3BIUkWViVdVfeYlwp-YmTimhN62zCUE2sI-qBVhq2qK86eWzqMybWpNsU9SE0jy_AU_5vazW11d93O_Gdip8oWDY0WR1vHak/s1600/upper+Colette.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1172" data-original-width="1600" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGWebiKJS95uf9VuzXWdUAmaO2RwFXcfNUX7EMyoTv-T3BIUkWViVdVfeYlwp-YmTimhN62zCUE2sI-qBVhq2qK86eWzqMybWpNsU9SE0jy_AU_5vazW11d93O_Gdip8oWDY0WR1vHak/s640/upper+Colette.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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When I first
bought this set of five French postcards dating from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fin de siècle</i> Paris, I didn’t realize that one of the actors in
this melodrama, named Colette Willys, was in fact <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>the</u></i> Colette--who wrote such books as “Gigi”, “Chéri”, and
the saucy series of “Claudine” novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was the single-named author (full name Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette), who
was called the most important woman writer in France and was nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.</div>
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These postcards
are advertising an over-the-top melodrama called “La Chair” (“The Flesh”),
which was the hit of Paris in 1907, and was presented throughout France for
four years and 250 performances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As is
stated on the cards, the actors were Christine Kerf (dressed as a man), Georges
Wague and Colette Willy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The photographs
were taken by a photographer named Walery, and the performance was a pantomime,
with no dialogue, but music by A. Chantrier.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2untvHqW77p6i8NYo9F1AgCXssj1BUgvxGJ7UO_3JU-xDyz32bssYiasO2Kq3J5IbqKRvk8hylq83R1o3OQYIDjgi4ArgQNSUBvWSFU0bZoA4f_wGWwMLMtpzpwRpfLhw7EDast5-8Zk/s1600/Lower+colette.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1185" data-original-width="1600" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2untvHqW77p6i8NYo9F1AgCXssj1BUgvxGJ7UO_3JU-xDyz32bssYiasO2Kq3J5IbqKRvk8hylq83R1o3OQYIDjgi4ArgQNSUBvWSFU0bZoA4f_wGWwMLMtpzpwRpfLhw7EDast5-8Zk/s640/Lower+colette.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The reason the
play was such a huge hit in Paris, selling out every night, was due to a
“wardrobe malfunction” more famous than Janet Jackson’s at the Super Bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In every performance, the actor playing
Colette’s lover, as he tried to stab her, would tear her blouse so that one
breast (the left), would be exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Surely this must be the origin of the term “bodice ripper”?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Throughout France, Colette’ breast was
celebrated in newspaper cartoons, poems, post cards that became pin-ups, and
gossip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eighteen-year-old Maurice
Chevalier, an unknown actor at the time, said that Colette’s breasts were “cups
of alabaster.”
</div>
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Here’s the plot of
the play:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hokartz, a smuggler (Georges Wague)
discovers his beautiful wife Yulka (Colette) has been unfaithful to him with a
handsome officer<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Christine Kerf).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lunges at his wife with a dagger and tears
open her dress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overwhelmed by her
beauty, he then kills himself instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQFwMQy8dleV43XufG-oELRGoRkajTPoNTJLwv2UxVE21pYctF2YbgeuVGXCscn2VejOtZ7lNeAhZKvhX10659lsgbe4ryhkg2mO0DtH1JAjYJGmY9ryG7Hypmxrp1VY9qaMpCaoGxKw/s1600/Colette+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="843" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQFwMQy8dleV43XufG-oELRGoRkajTPoNTJLwv2UxVE21pYctF2YbgeuVGXCscn2VejOtZ7lNeAhZKvhX10659lsgbe4ryhkg2mO0DtH1JAjYJGmY9ryG7Hypmxrp1VY9qaMpCaoGxKw/s640/Colette+5.jpg" width="408" /></a></div>
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I’m sorry my five
postcards don’t include the one showing Colette’s breast, but I’ll add that
photo –taken from the internet—at the end of this post.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9fYUUpnQtDeE3nt3dAhKlykTYrsk7M09jBj5syRSkpdxBNIc-QV8e1lCB_lYRwPrNz8lkrPc7GBWMOkppHmFNhQo1Y52AQMs6KC3Run7D12Xl11e27fuqeqfFTjjo8W3NupBIlueAo1c/s1600/Colette+reverse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="1320" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9fYUUpnQtDeE3nt3dAhKlykTYrsk7M09jBj5syRSkpdxBNIc-QV8e1lCB_lYRwPrNz8lkrPc7GBWMOkppHmFNhQo1Y52AQMs6KC3Run7D12Xl11e27fuqeqfFTjjo8W3NupBIlueAo1c/s400/Colette+reverse.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Having Colette’s
lover played by an actress in drag was as critical to the success of “La Chair”
as the bare breast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just months before
the opening of this pantomime, Colette appeared in another musical drama at the
Moulin Rouge, in which she passionately kissed the aristocratic Mathilde de
Morny, Marquise de Belbeuf, known as “Missy”, who was her lesbian lover in real
life, and was wearing mannish clothes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(The premise of that performance was that an ancient Egyptian mummy
comes to life, sheds her bandages, dances for and then kisses the archeologist
who found her.) That kiss caused a riot among the audience and the police shut
the production down immediately.
</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lesbianism among upper-class Parisian ladies
was much discussed and decried in the newspapers of the day, and Colette’s own erotic
interest in women was well known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
success of “La Chair” was a personal triumph for Colette because, for the first
time, she became self-supporting. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
first husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars, known as “Willy”, was a 14-years-older
author and publisher in Paris, and a notorious libertine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He encouraged his young wife to write a novel
about her schoolgirl days and eventually published it with his own name as the
author--“Claudine at School.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That book
and three more naughty “Claudine” novels became instant best sellers, but the
real author never profited from them. </div>
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Willy would lock
Colette into her study for four hours and not let her out until she had written
enough pages toward the next Claudine book. (Like Colette, Claudine began as a 15-year-old
girl from a small town in Burgundy who got in trouble at school and indulged in
lesbian affairs.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Willy and Colette
separated, they continued to see each other, but Colette constantly had
problems with money and poor health, until the success of “La Chair”.</div>
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Despite her
interest in women, Colette never lacked for male lovers throughout her long
life. By June 1910, Colette’s divorce from Willy was final, and she was acting
in another melodrama featuring nudity-- “Sisters of Salome”. In 1912 she
married the editor of the prestigious newspaper <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le Matin,</i> Henry de Jouvenal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She had a daughter with him in 1913.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The marriage allowed her to concentrate on her writing career and she
produced two well-received novels <i>Chéri</i> in 1920 and <i>Le<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blé en Herbe</i> in 1923.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both dealt with the subject of an older woman
falling in love with a much younger man.</div>
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Like most of her
novels, these books were drawn from Colette’s own experience. The marriage to
Jouvenal fell apart when he discovered that his wife was having an affair with
her 16-year-old stepson Bertrand, child of his first marriage. They divorced in
1924. Colette was 51. The following year she married her final husband, Maurice
Goudeket, who was 16 years her junior. By then she was considered France’s
greatest woman writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Colette’s husband
Maurice was a Jew, and he was arrested by the Gestapo in December of 1941. Thanks
to the efforts of Colette and the French wife of the German ambassador, he was
released a few months later, but the couple lived in Paris in fear of his being
re-arrested throughout the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1944
Colette published her most famous book, “Gigi”, about a 16-year-old Parisian
girl who is being trained as a courtesan but decides to get married instead.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtvpTgv-SjObe-XtqdtuhEhFfrmK0Z0il6DX6i5gLYYIPVLAggT6lVGmJTbQEjp1qT17DbBGp919UShXoxIIZxoLcVWAdeKxsAL0Sn4X8dyExjZXYe1A7ah_3ziiF2FjOG0aJnteKSnFA/s1600/Colette%2527s+breast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="374" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtvpTgv-SjObe-XtqdtuhEhFfrmK0Z0il6DX6i5gLYYIPVLAggT6lVGmJTbQEjp1qT17DbBGp919UShXoxIIZxoLcVWAdeKxsAL0Sn4X8dyExjZXYe1A7ah_3ziiF2FjOG0aJnteKSnFA/s400/Colette%2527s+breast.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Colette died on
Aug. 3, 1954, at the age of 81.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was
refused a religious funeral by the Catholic Church, but was given a State
Funeral—the first French woman to be so honored. She was enrolled in the Legion
d’honneur and buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
</div>
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-83158728295419485642018-10-08T18:35:00.000-04:002018-10-08T18:35:00.846-04:00Was Columbus Really Greek? <h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;">I see that Trump stirred up a lot of controversy on the internet today with his praise for Columbus as a hero. So I thought I'd add to the fuss by reprinting my post from four years ago that suggests that Columbus was in fact a Greek, from the island of Chios.</span></i></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUNEN5TTACMUGz-uH-1ex4u8qDXLzmME-JjwnBhkOdUnTzR8n7rlk3sdXwxRkH5bYIaUYpWK_FCEUnJaFnO7XILYqcn6WgVFXpWjkH9zxOYCjdeFdQgQ4vOLASDwRCKtL9rphZSy-8mPY/s1600/reception+of+columbus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="990" height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUNEN5TTACMUGz-uH-1ex4u8qDXLzmME-JjwnBhkOdUnTzR8n7rlk3sdXwxRkH5bYIaUYpWK_FCEUnJaFnO7XILYqcn6WgVFXpWjkH9zxOYCjdeFdQgQ4vOLASDwRCKtL9rphZSy-8mPY/s400/reception+of+columbus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Reception of Columbus by Ferdinand and Isabella" </span></div>
<br />
I realize I may sound like Gus, the dad in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"
who chauvinistically insists that everything originally came from Greece
and Greek culture, but a number of historians do believe that
Christopher Columbus was not Italian but came from the Greek island of
Chios, specifically the mastic-growing village of Pirgi. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (</span>Only on Chios will you
find the mastic tree, which produces a resin that has made the people rich
since the 14<sup>th</sup> century. ) <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3u_9GEjU_8GTSv16qceDIRpMaJxiCk2o0j59Y8bskqqriiraUt2Fd9-gSXQ4F7lt9z1YiOsViwWS4kONsgFs9tPFISAgZ5mHe2lXYBZjkf_OwPmF2Iy3T0HWkIeDcOxe1sualJ1e9p9Y/s1600/santa+maria.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="743" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3u_9GEjU_8GTSv16qceDIRpMaJxiCk2o0j59Y8bskqqriiraUt2Fd9-gSXQ4F7lt9z1YiOsViwWS4kONsgFs9tPFISAgZ5mHe2lXYBZjkf_OwPmF2Iy3T0HWkIeDcOxe1sualJ1e9p9Y/s400/santa+maria.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidT20Ta6fSBs4_vo1u4YcLXsLnrL24562YrCcByZI213wjPckucCsZXpZo3jTk5-uuKxrvT1j2UoMQOvaJ0MuAxn-n22KtXaSWxwN0qyVwOE43jP-osF6-vm_0Q7QF0NBFaC_uxqd5jVU/s1600/santa+maria.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span id="goog_734180056"></span><span id="goog_734180057"></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Santa Maria--Flag Ship of Columbus"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span> </div>
When I visited Pirgi on the island of Chios, I learned that many
families there still have the last name "Columbus". All the buildings
in Pirgi, even churches and banks, are decorated with a unique kind of
geometric patterns made by scraping away the top lawyer of white plaster
to reveal the darker color beneath.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTePJbWmHrtPENZH7cXBm9MosYtDkFZVWSoOCiZ3CANA84M3sOLiJ7ARrdzvu0lBcbqNwee82lnORRJUeJFGT_3Vnl9slQrlCGOLSFrSvO_pBVwBlfmwqhFCVVL17UuX19uCdAImqKOM/s1600/Pirgi+A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="552" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTePJbWmHrtPENZH7cXBm9MosYtDkFZVWSoOCiZ3CANA84M3sOLiJ7ARrdzvu0lBcbqNwee82lnORRJUeJFGT_3Vnl9slQrlCGOLSFrSvO_pBVwBlfmwqhFCVVL17UuX19uCdAImqKOM/s640/Pirgi+A.jpg" width="355" /></a></div>
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This decoration is called<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ksista</i> (“scraped”
in Greek) or, in Italian,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">scrafitti</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. </span>It is believed to have originated in Genoa and spread to
Chios when the island was under Genovese rule—from 1346-1566-- but it’s still
done today in Pirgi.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96Xa3xIZciC_mWAOV0fR74i2mZdbBiX4AEgue-9yCLpCuGX5uXjbxEgrsfmLraNomeu_L8dhno0QXuiAfSaxhN6sK6FajeFQ-Rx1yIKCMDr4YSqrWa7Z76FjGzDRFn42AYNOr-VykD_A/s1600/Better+landing+of+columbus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="990" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96Xa3xIZciC_mWAOV0fR74i2mZdbBiX4AEgue-9yCLpCuGX5uXjbxEgrsfmLraNomeu_L8dhno0QXuiAfSaxhN6sK6FajeFQ-Rx1yIKCMDr4YSqrWa7Z76FjGzDRFn42AYNOr-VykD_A/s400/Better+landing+of+columbus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"The Landing of Columbus at San Salvador</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">October 12th 1492"</span></div>
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Here are some of the reasons that historians like Ruth G. Durlacher-Wolper, who wrote "<i>Christophoros Columbus: A Byzantine Prince from Chios, Greece</i>", believe that the discoverer of the Americas was a Greek from Chios.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnR5ufW24dfld5lpPfLQKC66zKvvKsJcXBCobD_s-zTUuV8DG5WFMIvl1OhPXPk-XNUuhhhtSAgwbm2aJFkF6GQHuFlNBsybhQn0Djq3kc5ON8Zb1yShoMYGIuAqpiHQHt8xsj5Kwc31Q/s1600/triumphal+procession.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnR5ufW24dfld5lpPfLQKC66zKvvKsJcXBCobD_s-zTUuV8DG5WFMIvl1OhPXPk-XNUuhhhtSAgwbm2aJFkF6GQHuFlNBsybhQn0Djq3kc5ON8Zb1yShoMYGIuAqpiHQHt8xsj5Kwc31Q/s1600/triumphal+procession.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Triumphal Procession at Barcelona in Honor of Columbus"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span> </div>
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--He was said to come from Genoa, but the island of Chios was under
Genovese rule from 1346 to1566, so it was part of the Republic of Genoa
during Columbus's time.</div>
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--Columbus kept his journals in Latin and Greek--not Italian, which he didn't even speak well.</div>
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--He signed his named "Christopher" with the Greek letter X .</div>
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--He made notes in Greek in the margins of his favorite book--<i>Imago Mundi</i>, by Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly. </div>
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--He referred to himself as "Columbus of the Red Earth" and also wrote
about mastic gum. Chios is noted for its red soil in the south of the
island, which is the only place where mastic grows. <br />
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--The name "Columbus" is carved over many doors in the villages of
Pirgi and a priest with that name traces his family on the island back
more than 600 years.<br />
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<i>Whatever the truth may be about Columbus's origins, I wanted to
illustrate this Columbus Day blog post with some of the many scenes on a
bed coverlet that I have hanging on a wall near my computer. It was
sewn in redwork (also called "turkeywork") by a woman with the initials
"E M" in 1892 to celebrate the tetracentennial of Columbus's landing.
Whenever I look at it, I wonder at the many hours it must have taken her
to complete this tribute.</i></div>
by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-34044555963937930952018-09-25T19:16:00.000-04:002018-09-25T19:16:14.832-04:00Amalia’s Mermaid Birthday Parties
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Ever since her sixth birthday party last August (theme:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fairyland), Amalia has been planning for her
seventh birthday party, which she decided would be a mermaid party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her Mommy spent months on the internet,
tracking down treasures like mermaid necklaces and mermaid spoons and
personalized mermaid goody bags and a mermaid outfit for each guest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Amalia’s mermaid costume came in the
mail, she couldn’t wait to try it on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And she looked so happy!</div>
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Amalia insisted on having the party in August (her
birthday’s actually on August 26) even though many of her friends were still out
of town on Sunday, August 16, when six girls arrived, along with parents and a
couple of siblings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of them put on
their mermaid outfits at once, and then they got a complete “mermaid makeover”
with face painting by Amalia and Nico’s artistic nanny, Jennie, (who will be
leaving in October, when she has her own baby.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After the makeover, the girls decorated mermaid mirrors with shells,
played mermaid Bingo and “Pin the Tail on the Mermaid”, and had their Polaroid
photos taken in the photo booth to record the day.</div>
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There were snacks on the table—sandwiches and cookies shaped
like shells, seahorses and mermaid tails, veggies, including a hummus and
carrot octopus, and, finally, it was time for the cake, which Mommy and Amalia
had made the night before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Amalia made
the mermaid on the cake all by herself!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The mermaid piñata with blue hair was the centerpiece until it was time
to unload her treats by pulling on ribbons (so much nicer than beating them out
of her with a stick!) </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuBhQ_0CzsP3IEtOowEYNLHVzi5_fZJCt2hhDNY3uoRoc82n0Ch5QIBeGJFfFxBY0nP0XV_d6c9wqCJAaegAmrFidIvHfYfJnmJfyH-1badC3DhlfGUINXuYAeEzApGV069_B5-_xAtEY/s1600/birthday+food.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="1600" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuBhQ_0CzsP3IEtOowEYNLHVzi5_fZJCt2hhDNY3uoRoc82n0Ch5QIBeGJFfFxBY0nP0XV_d6c9wqCJAaegAmrFidIvHfYfJnmJfyH-1badC3DhlfGUINXuYAeEzApGV069_B5-_xAtEY/s640/birthday+food.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The New York birthday party ended, just like last year, with
the young mermaids throwing Yiayia Joanie out of Amalia’s bedroom so they could
open the presents and goodie bags in private.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY8P5DRIGRDZC4mqIreH9TX2X5jdcwjbWpA-tjPp-XH0dS7rPUk2cCJiX-5cdTBpNDbgVH3tI-mrMq9ox1l_z0yjekzuyaX4EfUFJTXz53ixoAuE1xjW0ZvP1K1IlyMVUFm4gd8qf3FVY/s1600/the+sorting+hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="1600" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY8P5DRIGRDZC4mqIreH9TX2X5jdcwjbWpA-tjPp-XH0dS7rPUk2cCJiX-5cdTBpNDbgVH3tI-mrMq9ox1l_z0yjekzuyaX4EfUFJTXz53ixoAuE1xjW0ZvP1K1IlyMVUFm4gd8qf3FVY/s640/the+sorting+hat.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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And then it was time for Amalia’s Massachusetts birthday
party in Grafton, attended by her extended family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On August 26, Amalia woke to a breakfast of
cupcakes topped with a candle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
she had spent the entire summer obsessively reading all the Harry Potter books,
she was wearing a nightgown based on Harry and Hermione’s Hogwarts school
uniform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then her aunt Frosso and family
gave Amalia her favorite birthday gift of all—a Sorting Hat, just like Harry
had at Hogwarts, which sits on your head and selects which house you are
destined for: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hat talks and its mouth moves, and Amalia
got chosen for Gryffindor, just like Harry Potter.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgisXz1O0Ku1UqsqvE9WwWUOKgiP9oRiiXNe0ZmrAoTpiVkpenbDAwiD3EsqlmKiV4zR33QUgkwzfcsjaWNCKCZCRZ4Td8V-7qWRn90t855Y3X0K1csKO_a0YPamuUOErNr0TJ43RXHBoU/s1600/group+and+hat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="990" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgisXz1O0Ku1UqsqvE9WwWUOKgiP9oRiiXNe0ZmrAoTpiVkpenbDAwiD3EsqlmKiV4zR33QUgkwzfcsjaWNCKCZCRZ4Td8V-7qWRn90t855Y3X0K1csKO_a0YPamuUOErNr0TJ43RXHBoU/s400/group+and+hat.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Then the rest of us had our chance at the sorting hat, as it
analyzed our nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yiayia Joanie got
Ravenclaw—(for students who are arrogant and intelligent.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeRR6TVAjbz_3P81mECVvBJS8lpUTv9e3djSfIcw6cwN5ihjjtBa3CtNBjl_Swc9yWm4u0T9jKPxBZ6k9Z-2S_JeuIjtas3lqQtC3tk06Zapv7sBKvgxNf0pg0ID9Ww_PoIvbvfQcXBmE/s1600/at+pool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="1600" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeRR6TVAjbz_3P81mECVvBJS8lpUTv9e3djSfIcw6cwN5ihjjtBa3CtNBjl_Swc9yWm4u0T9jKPxBZ6k9Z-2S_JeuIjtas3lqQtC3tk06Zapv7sBKvgxNf0pg0ID9Ww_PoIvbvfQcXBmE/s640/at+pool.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Soon Amalia and Nico were down by the pool, waiting for
people to arrive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalia checked out the
Emoji piñata.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWel6owjVqk5lrjgebN2GbyL08gjwyf0RdMnSD79zDUU6biR9sjqHWFOILx9IxwhuTxp2zcnXovOohatOh44QAOjqd3wbMtO1cUFP6lbX6CZcfV1kRCuLNA0KkI2JZCQDSbrqnMEJhU0/s1600/kids+and+cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="917" data-original-width="1600" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWel6owjVqk5lrjgebN2GbyL08gjwyf0RdMnSD79zDUU6biR9sjqHWFOILx9IxwhuTxp2zcnXovOohatOh44QAOjqd3wbMtO1cUFP6lbX6CZcfV1kRCuLNA0KkI2JZCQDSbrqnMEJhU0/s640/kids+and+cake.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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People came and splashed and swam like mermaids and ate pizza
and Greek salad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Emoji piñata was
destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then it was time for the
Mermaid cake and ice cream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cake
came from my favorite bakery—Yummy Mummy in Westboro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalia
had given the baker and designer a detailed memo on what color the frosting
should be—yellow and purple hair, blue for the waves, etc. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPtOJTFjiLmOCGiEcM_rehVPDrGYEk0RLVK1MGDzbsinu86sqvR6arywNrUotgi08NHXJJv2dtVmCFXXJe5j8zk3hnzfUNuGNi6N8wTvhd1X3BXKmXeR4osrvMfIDp5re4QyxVhHi-seg/s1600/blowo+candle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="1600" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPtOJTFjiLmOCGiEcM_rehVPDrGYEk0RLVK1MGDzbsinu86sqvR6arywNrUotgi08NHXJJv2dtVmCFXXJe5j8zk3hnzfUNuGNi6N8wTvhd1X3BXKmXeR4osrvMfIDp5re4QyxVhHi-seg/s640/blowo+candle.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Amalia blew out the mermaid tail candle and insisted on
cutting the cake herself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOnvH_N0AGzCUeYtev3rYqx7JIIkvkPPV2-MuzVNBsUebnaKHQMKrwwaQ9UZx-arwBJAGkoNfLmNYLn473VwJEMKpEfxUPjrAeeHazA9LIf5X4ilvXPH3A95tpMoigYCgSSHgZf5p5YD4/s1600/Group+E.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="856" data-original-width="1260" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOnvH_N0AGzCUeYtev3rYqx7JIIkvkPPV2-MuzVNBsUebnaKHQMKrwwaQ9UZx-arwBJAGkoNfLmNYLn473VwJEMKpEfxUPjrAeeHazA9LIf5X4ilvXPH3A95tpMoigYCgSSHgZf5p5YD4/s640/Group+E.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The celebrating went on all afternoon, but before it was
over, we assembled to take this photograph of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
will be a bittersweet memory, because we don’t know when we will all be
together again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marina and Jeff (at
left) were headed back to San Francisco. Eleni, Emilio and their kids, at right
(with Amalia clutching her beloved book) headed back to New York. And Frosso
and her family, including husband Sy, little Stone and Baby Eleni, as well as
her mom, the Big Eleni, are moving to Sarasota, Florida!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Meanwhile, Amalia is already planning her next year’s
birthday party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will it be a Harry
Potter theme?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stay tuned!</div>
by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-66496555197826749712018-07-20T09:42:00.000-04:002018-07-20T10:06:05.383-04:00Amalia and Harry Potter Travel Through Greece<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1P25ldHDrrqZcwD741LY_r5UrnFW2BlIEcljt-5fVrVZ_K4nK__Vzo0FCq4xtiPmYH2edb_FkajK4WorI2MVZNeBO6z297V7BW6fNLFIp_XXYn3I1At3jYLMmFEwWH5eDuSodtSs9JLU/s1600/Amalia+quilted+dress+happy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="1008" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1P25ldHDrrqZcwD741LY_r5UrnFW2BlIEcljt-5fVrVZ_K4nK__Vzo0FCq4xtiPmYH2edb_FkajK4WorI2MVZNeBO6z297V7BW6fNLFIp_XXYn3I1At3jYLMmFEwWH5eDuSodtSs9JLU/s320/Amalia+quilted+dress+happy.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are on our annual family summer trip to Greece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We” includes Nick and myself, also known as
“Papou” and “Yiayia”, daughter Eleni and her husband Emilio Baltodano, and
their two kids, Amalia, 6, and Nico, 3.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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As always, we are visiting significant family
destinations—Nick’s native village of Lia, the island of Corfu where we saw relatives,
attended a wedding, and where, eight years ago, Eleni and Emilio were married
in two ceremonies (Catholic and Orthodox).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This summer, as often happens, we also get to visit a previously unknown
place in Greece, because Eleni is researching and writing a travel article
about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two years ago it was Milos,
this year it’s Syros—an island of astonishing beauty and world-class
restaurants with incredibly good locavore cuisine.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But for each of the six of us, this odyssey through Greece
means something different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Eleni
it’s an exhausting list of beaches, restaurants, historical sites and hotels to
research.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Emilio, it’s a search for the
most challenging beaches, underwater caves, and sea life to explore with his
snorkel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Papou and Yiayia it’s the
delight of traveling with the grandchildren (even though keeping up with Nico
requires an Olympic class sprinter to catch him before he throws himself off a
cliff or into the pool) and also a continuous series of amazing meals, starring
exotic seafood (sea urchin salad, squid cooked in its own ink).</div>
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<br /></div>
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But for Amalia, who became obsessed with Harry Potter a few weeks
ago, and is doggedly reading her way through JK Rowling’s books about the young
wizard, the trip through Greece is simply an opportunity to read in a series of
scenic spots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her mother won’t let her
watch the films based on each book until she’s read the book first. Meanwhile Eleni
keeps trying to get Amalia to exercise her Greek language skills when meeting
people, and to record her travels in her “Travel Journal for Kids.” </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfpeNvfWLSRLR5cMBjzZqKBCPiE-e3srSnn4wMqbP3whK5ZcxWStKVaudMNFy04EpbwmAh20BE6r4u9fS3TYc_FDxMh1ITTL1l4CtU26f08afFz4nIrsaaRVXJrjtaicexGC0ivn8iGEw/s1600/reading+1+%2526+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfpeNvfWLSRLR5cMBjzZqKBCPiE-e3srSnn4wMqbP3whK5ZcxWStKVaudMNFy04EpbwmAh20BE6r4u9fS3TYc_FDxMh1ITTL1l4CtU26f08afFz4nIrsaaRVXJrjtaicexGC0ivn8iGEw/s640/reading+1+%2526+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been photographing Amalia reading at various spots, so
as to remind her where we went in the summer of 2018, in case she needs to
write an essay about “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” when she begins second
grade in the fall. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Amalia finished book four, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of
Fire” on the Emirates flight from Newark to Athens, the next flight to
Ioannina, and the journey up the mountain to her grandfather’s village of Lia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Above she’s delving into book five, “Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” in the village house where we stay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s ignoring the wall which contains some
of my collection of antique “karangiosis” shadow puppets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the right, she is sitting on the terrace
of our neighbors Dina and Andreas, oblivious to the view of mountains behind
her. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Amalia plowed on while ignoring her ice cream at the village
general store, then sitting in the courtyard of the village inn, in the company
of her grandfather, her brother and the innkeeper Elias Daflos. And when we drove down the mountain to the
swimming hole of Krioneri, to wade in the shallow river, she plunged into
wizardry instead. </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4j-SMtDXJBQANZjxW2iSQ6jh8HmO7Pw5xFAnxvVYHKZNuNZR2X8nbxQJ0bXrE6uKMhyphenhyphenFSNb2x9orEH-D4gX_5pHJId0f75ANvpofrWEaU3KACB2Y1Q6yEyESalGYVpSGLhCtRg-bLaKE/s1600/Reading+6%252C+7%252C+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="1060" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4j-SMtDXJBQANZjxW2iSQ6jh8HmO7Pw5xFAnxvVYHKZNuNZR2X8nbxQJ0bXrE6uKMhyphenhyphenFSNb2x9orEH-D4gX_5pHJId0f75ANvpofrWEaU3KACB2Y1Q6yEyESalGYVpSGLhCtRg-bLaKE/s640/Reading+6%252C+7%252C+8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From the village, we drove to Igoumenitsa, then took a ferry
to Corfu, but Amalia never stopped reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At our Air BnB apartment on the beach of Barbati Riviera, she made great
progress while perched atop a sleeping Nico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the taverna at Barbati, she was nearing the end of book five.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtbu5IMq9xKOiXycAcDdTqXuT3v3DZtF3ROQBH7JXKBZUQN0AXcxOrvhB36YLcGQCYiFz1K2y-L0KtDwiCTtyHRqI6AbcPxR3W9oW1OcQ0yLQ_q1eZhcAfp5H9oac5AMTkbocBh1LJWpw/s1600/Reading+9+and+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="805" data-original-width="1600" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtbu5IMq9xKOiXycAcDdTqXuT3v3DZtF3ROQBH7JXKBZUQN0AXcxOrvhB36YLcGQCYiFz1K2y-L0KtDwiCTtyHRqI6AbcPxR3W9oW1OcQ0yLQ_q1eZhcAfp5H9oac5AMTkbocBh1LJWpw/s640/Reading+9+and+10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> One day in Barbati we hired a boat, driven by Emilio, to
explore beaches, caves and sites on Corfu’s coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalia was intently reading while we had lunch
in a beautiful tavern at Agios Stephanos, but on the way back she actually
stopped reading because she was getting seasick.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJexJEQNuiB2SuzUBvTzacRQMBA1_bEvVq3F5HoOD-R7E5PnI2bTf_uT1dHY0fdjjPro1HnG_-QTK-qjYDHeam-lckvTJrEAzlhplM9p9g1qcUVNnm4hF7N-ol4VJ6fMYni4aHMTXkOG4/s1600/reading+11%252C12%252C13%252C14+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="1600" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJexJEQNuiB2SuzUBvTzacRQMBA1_bEvVq3F5HoOD-R7E5PnI2bTf_uT1dHY0fdjjPro1HnG_-QTK-qjYDHeam-lckvTJrEAzlhplM9p9g1qcUVNnm4hF7N-ol4VJ6fMYni4aHMTXkOG4/s640/reading+11%252C12%252C13%252C14+.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">By the time we left Corfu to fly to Syros, book five was
finished, but Amalia’s parents said they wouldn’t hand over book six, “Harry
Potter and the Half Blood Prince” until she had caught up her entries in the
travel journal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also wanted to write
some stories of her own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Tuesday,
Amalia and her mom took a taxi to the top of the medieval town of Ano Syros and
walked down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eleni explored while Amalia
wrote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the photo at right you can see
in the distance the town of Hermoupolis and the blue domed Church of St.
Nicholas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Later we went shopping in Hermoupolis and the grandkids sat
on the step of a store while Amalia wrote:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“My name is Amalia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My favorite
things to do are to read Harry Potter and to watch scary movies and lovable
grown-up movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My favorite colors
are….”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">All this industrious writing got Amalia the prize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her papi handed over<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince”
while they were visiting Vaporia-- the section of the city that once was a
center of shipbuilding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(There’s even a
cat café there to provide food and care for some of the island’s many stray
cars.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalia was quickly into the new
book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder where she’ll be by the
time it ends?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her mother recently asked Amalia what was her favorite place
in Greece so far on this trip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
reply, “A place where there’s nothing for you to point out to me.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">P.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time I try
to tell her some tidbit of fact or fable inspired by our surroundings, Amalia
says, “Yiayia, you’ve already told me that story 65,000 times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t tell it again.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then she’s back to Harry Potter.</span></div>
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-26099965839437350522018-06-02T13:11:00.000-04:002018-06-02T13:11:30.533-04:00Talking To Kids About Death<i>I just read a delightful essay in the current New Yorker by Rivka Galchen, called<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/04/mums-the-word"> "Mum's the Word"</a> which is about what she did when her four-year-old daughter began obsessively asking questions about death and dying. This is a challenge that many parents and grandparents have to deal with. It reminded me of an essay I posted on the Huffington Post and on this blog in November of 2015 when granddaughter Amalia was also four and started asking similar questions. I called it "Can People in Heaven See Us Down Here?" and was inspired by Galchen's essay to repost it now.</i><br />
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I thought that kids were about six years old when they started to grapple with the concept of death, but granddaughter Amalia has been obsessing about it since she turned four-- although she’s never had a close relative, or even a pet, pass away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s probably my fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a visit to her home in Manhattan, I once said something like this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“That book is by a man named Maurice Sendak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a very good artist and writes wonderful books, but he’s dead now.”</div>
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I could hear my daughter Eleni exclaiming from the next room, “Why would you say something like that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have no filter!”</div>
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It’s true. I was thinking the same thing myself, as Amalia asked, “Why is he dead?”</div>
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“Well he was very old,” I replied lamely.</div>
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“Like you?” she asked.</div>
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“Oh, much older than I am,” I lied.</div>
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I was also, according to Eleni, the person who introduced Amalia to the concept of heaven when she asked one day where my Mommy was and I replied “in heaven.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conversation ended there, but she must have been mulling it over.</div>
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On a more recent visit to New York, Amalia and her Mommy took me out to a restaurant for dinner on the last night before I left for home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the way to the restaurant Amalia suggested brightly, “Mommy, I’ve got a great idea!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should take Yiayia out to dinner on her last night with us before she goes to heaven!”</div>
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Hilarity ensued, although I assured Amalia that it was an excellent idea, but I wasn’t planning on going to heaven just yet because I wanted to dance at her wedding first.</div>
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Maurice Sendak aside, Amalia has been distressing her mother for months by insisting that she doesn’t want to grow up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She doesn’t even want to turn five.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wants to stay four years old forever.</div>
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This is a very scary thing to hear, especially for a parent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Amalia says it to me, I counter by listing all the good things she’ll be able to do when she’s older that she can’t do now—ride a bike, drive a car, even get married and have her own children.</div>
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Recently, after my recitation of the good things that come with age, Amalia conceded that she would like to grow up after all, but that she never wanted to be “Old like you, so that people look at the veins in my hands.”</div>
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The veins on the back of my hands were bothering Amalia even before she could talk very well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must have been when she was around two and really into putting Disney character Band-aids on everyone and everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day she pointed at my hands with concern, said “boo-boo!” and tried to put Band-aids on the backs of my hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I explained that it wasn’t a boo-boo, but just the way hands look when you’re old.</div>
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Amalia’s Mommy was wondering if she should talk to the child’s teachers, or a psychiatrist, about her obsession with death and old age, but I looked it up on line and discovered there are a lot of four-year-olds out there who don’t want to grow older and who ask disturbing questions about death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think they don’t want to grow older because their lives are so terrific right now and they sense that older people have to deal with unpleasant things like homework, exams, lack of money and social insecurities….and death.</div>
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Questions about death are disturbing to us because we’re wondering the same things our children are, and we don’t know the answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one does.</div>
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As for the question above-- “Yiayia, can people in heaven see us down here?” --I told Amalia that nobody knows the answer to that question for sure, but I was convinced that when I was in heaven—and I didn’t plan on being there for a very long time, because I’m so determined to dance at her wedding—when I was in heaven looking down, I’d see all the great things that Amalia was going to accomplish as she grew up, and I’d be so proud of her.</div>
by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-56544290126304373352018-05-22T14:57:00.000-04:002018-05-22T14:57:06.369-04:00Our Kitchen Thief in the Night--Part TwoIn my previous post, I described our week-long war of nerves with the mysterious creature who visits our kitchen table every night, picking out its favorites of the treats we leave, making them vanish, leaving anything he doesn't like, (popcorn and even a piece of cheese!) and then disappearing without leaving crumbs or droppings.<br />
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As I said in the last post, on Sunday night we left two "humane traps" which the animal had managed to burgle the night before, without triggering the open doors at each end of the plastic boxes to crash down and trap him inside. We also left a bit of cookie on the floor near the back door.<br />
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On Monday morning,--yesterday--I came downstairs to discover that the animal had again snagged the cookie pieces in one trap without setting off the closing doors, but in the second one, he was caught! And struggling to get out. He seemed to weigh nothing as the Big Eleni carried the trap to the farthest border of our property, near our neighbor's house. I had my camera ready to catch his image, solving our kitchen mystery once and for all.<br />
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The moment Big Eleni set the trap on the ground, the creature exploded out of it, shooting into the underbrush so fast that we didn't know what we had just seen. I insisted it was a small chipmunk, and Eleni insisted it was a mouse. It's so frustrating that our thief got away without us getting a decent mug shot!<br />
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Dejectedly, I left in my car to drive to New York, where I am now. Big Eleni threw away the trap the thing had been caught in but, I learned later, just to see what would happen, she put the other small trap on the table with cookie pieces inside. And this morning, she found that the cookies had vanished, without the trap being set off! Had our thief found his way back into the kitchen from our neighbor's yard, or are we dealing with a whole gang of very clever rodents?by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-37328409667294006622018-05-20T23:49:00.000-04:002018-05-20T23:49:52.855-04:00Our Kitchen Thief Comes in the NightIt started a couple weeks ago. A small bowl of Hershey's Kisses was left on the kitchen table. The next morning, all the Kisses were gone but their aluminum foil wrappers were strewn on the table, empty.<br />
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There were no mouse droppings and no crumbs. Those chocolates had vanished! Speaking as one who has had many dealings with house mice, I knew this was not normal mouse behavior. My Nancy Drew side kicked in. I was going to catch this animal red-handed. We started on Sunday, May 13, leaving some cookie pieces on a napkin. By morning all the cookie bits were gone, leaving no crumbs and no mouse droppings. It was a neat heist. <br />
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We (that's "Big Eleni" Nikolaides and me) began musing about a chipmunk--there are dozens in our yard--or a bird (I had heard flapping noises one night)--or a ghost--some of our recently deceased relatives had really loved chocolates.<br />
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Hoping to gather clues about our visitor, on the night of May 14--Monday--I placed two chocolates kisses and some cookie bits in the center of a wide circle of flour. By morning we discovered that the goodies were still there. It seemed some animal had ventured in toward the treats but then turned back, scared off by the flour. There was a tiny little hand print, which made me think "Chipmunk."<br />
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Big Eleni left some pieces of bread on the night of Weds. the 16th and the next morning, the bread was still there--one piece slightly nibbled. Our visitor didn't like bread.<br />
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We crawled around the floor with flashlights, and examined the ceiling's edges but found no holes where the creature could get in. Then Big Eleni found a hole on the outside of the kitchen's bay window and covered it with duct tape. You can see it was in a spot that a small creature without wings would find hard to reach. There was no corresponding hole on the inside.<br />
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That night we set out a virtual buffet for out kitchen thief--cookies, popcorn, almonds and one chocolate kiss. You can see what we found in the morning: the creature had removed all the treats except for the popcorn. Our visitor was a picky eater. And still no crumbs or droppings.<br />
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It was time to bring in the big guns. We put cookie pieces in two "humane traps" and a piece on one trap that has sticky guck so that when a mouse steps in it, he's stuck there. The box-like traps are left open at both ends, with some food in the center, and when a mouse walks in, both end doors slam shut and the animal is trapped inside, until you carry it far away and release the thing to the wilds. In the morning, we saw that the thief in the night had managed to remove one cookie piece from the box trap without making the doors come down (he must have reached in without stepping on the floor of the trap) and he (or she!) had also removed the treat from the sticky guck without stepping on it and getting stuck.<br />
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That was this morning. What we had learned so far was that the wily thief was smarter than we are.<br />
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So tonight--Sunday night--we have put out the box traps once again, making sure the cookies were right in the middle of the box--not close enough to grab--and we've put a single piece of cookie on the floor near the back door, just in case the thief can get in under the door.<br />
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Tune in tomorrow to see if we've made any progress in catching--or even identifying--the creature who comes in the night, who is starting to seem like our pet or a member of the family.<br />
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<br />by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-22997698693719873992018-05-12T15:31:00.000-04:002018-05-14T11:37:27.616-04:00Which Royal Tiara Will Meghan Choose?<i>We're getting down to the wire on the Royal Wedding that everyone's talking about. There's so much curiosity and excitement swirling about the ceremony uniting Britain's Prince Harry and America's Meghan Markle that even I, a notorious layabed, will be up at 6 a.m. next Saturday to watch the ceremony. (Today's New York Post printed recipes for scones to serve at your royal wedding breakfast party as well as the recipe for the Queen's favorite Chocolate Biscuit Cake, and I'm very tempted to make it.)</i><br />
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<i>One of the big questions about the ceremony is--not only what will the bridal gown look like, but also WHICH ROYAL TIARA will Meghan choose? This inspired me to re-post some sections of two blog posts I wrote earlier this year, discussing the weddings of Queen Victoria, as well as Diana and Kate. As you will see, Victoria was somewhat of a rebel, choosing a crown of orange blossoms instead of diamonds. And Princess Diana, at the last moment, decided not to wear the tiara her future mother-in-law, the Queen, had loaned her, but instead to wear her own family's Spencer family crown. Good thing we commoners don't have to make those tough decisions!</i><br />
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<i>Can't wait till next Saturday when we learn about Meghan's tiara and dress, as well as the other big question: how will Meghan's parents interact together, after all those years apart following a reportedly not-friendly divorce?</i> <br />
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With Prince Harry’s engagement to
American actress Meghan Markle set to climax in a wedding in St. George’s
chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19<sup>th</sup> and then Fergie’s daughter Princess Eugenie’s recent engagement to marry
Jack Brooksbank in the same place in the Fall, royal brides seem to be much in
the news lately.</div>
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Some of my antique wedding photos are
of royal brides. One of them is this small carte de visite (above)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of Queen Victoria when she was a 19-year-old
girl and ruler of Great Britain, marrying her first cousin, 20-year-old Prince
Albert of Saxe Colburg and Gotha in Germany. </div>
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The carte-de-visite photograph is a
process that was introduced in 1854 and became vastly popular until after the
turn of the century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> the “CDV”s
as they are called, were simply paper photographs mounted on a small piece of
cardboard about the size of a calling card.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were produced by the thousands and were very inexpensive and easy
to make in multiples—unlike the previous processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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By the time of the Civil War in the
U.S., just about everyone was collecting in albums the CDVs of their favorite
actors, politicians, heroes, royals, entertainers, freaks (including Tom Thumb
as well as Barnum’s other stars) and family and friends—both living and dead. Let’s
face it, CDVs were our first selfies! </div>
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Queen Victoria and her family were
among the most popular subjects for CDVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 1860 John Maryall, an American working in England, published 60,000
sets of his Royal Family album of CDVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Victoria herself avidly collected the small
photos and put them in albums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Back to the
CDV of Victoria and Albert as bride and groom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I originally bought it because I was amused that someone acquired the
CDV in the 1860’s and valued it so much that she cut a bit off the bottom and
placed the photo in the kind of ornate frame and matte that was earlier used
for cased images like daguerreotypes and ambrotypes.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I took the
photo apart from the frame and matte (which is something I always do, because
you can find all sorts of things behind the image if it’s in a case: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>locks of hair, written identifications, dates,
love letters, poems). </div>
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By now you have
realized, as I did when I took the thing apart—this is not a photograph!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s taken from an engraving of the royal
pair. And the artist, whoever he is, made them look a teensy bit better than
they did in real life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there’s one
more thing wrong with the image—Victoria did not wear a real crown on her
wedding day, but instead chose a simple crown of orange blossoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also had bunches of orange blossoms
attached to her gown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wearing not a
diamond crown but a headpiece of orange blossoms was a revolutionary step for
Victoria to make at her wedding, as was wearing all white.
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>FYI, because
I know you’re going to ask, Kate Middleton did wear a sort of crown at her
wedding in April of 2011; a diamond halo-style coronet, which someone said
was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“as understated as a headband of
diamonds can be.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an heirloom
made by Cartier in 1936 and originally bought by King George VI for his wife—the
Queen Mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was loaned to Kate by
Queen Elizabeth and includes 739 brilliant diamonds and 149 batons.</div>
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<i>(The next paragraph was wrong, as I soon found out!)</i> </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Princes Diana,
at her wedding on July 29, 1981, wore a much more visible and dramatic
crown—the Lover’s Knot tiara, which was made in 1914 using diamonds and pearls
from the royal family’s collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was given to Diana by Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding present. Kate has
inherited it and has worn it on several occasions.</div>
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Royal Brides, Part II </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last week I
posted about Queen Victoria’s revolutionary wedding dress, which broke with
tradition in 1840 by being white and featuring, not a diamond crown, but simply
a wreath of orange blossoms in her hair. I also included two photos and
comments about the crowns worn by modern royal brides Princess Diana and Kate
Middleton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I posted a photo of Diana and
wrote:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Princess Diana, at her
wedding on July 29, 1981, wore a much more visible and dramatic crown—the
Lover’s Knot tiara, which was made in 1914 using diamonds and pearls from the
royal family’s collection.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Turns
out I was completely wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As my sharp-eyed
daughter Eleni pointed out, that was not a photo of Diana in the Lovers Knot
tiara at her wedding, although it did become her favorite crown and the Queen
did loan it to her for the wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
at the last minute Diana decided to get married in the Spencer Family crown,
shown here.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">People Magazine</i>, “Like all good royal pieces, the Spencer Tiara is
actually made up of other pieces of jewelry... The current version – which is
constructed with diamonds shaped into tulips and stars surrounded by attractive
scrolls – was probably finalized sometime in the ’30s. It has become a popular
wedding tiara for the Spencer family: Diana’s sisters – Lady Sarah and Jane,
Baroness Fellowes – both wore the sparkler for their wedding days and Victoria
Lockwood, who was the first wife of Diana’s brother Charles, the current Earl
of Spencer, wore it when she married into the famed aristocratic family in 1989
(when little Prince Harry served as a pageboy). However, Diana’s mother,
Frances, did not wear the tiara when she married into the Spencer family in 1954.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(If you want to read my two "royal brides" posts in their entirety, here are the links:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2018/01/royal-brides-part-1-victoria-and-diana.html</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2018/02/royal-brides-part-iidianas-tiara-and_6.html </span></div>
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-31684171805317921472018-05-06T14:11:00.000-04:002018-05-06T14:11:36.988-04:00World Laughter Day and the Birth of the Smiley Face<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Because
today is World Laughter Day and we all could use a little help cheering up, I'm re-posting
the story of Harvey Ball, the artist from Worcester, MA who created the
original Smiley Face fifty five years ago and never made more than $45 from
his creation. Then, in 1999, disturbed by the crass commercialization
of the Smiley, Harvey created World Smile Day--the first Friday in
October every year--to promote the true meaning of the Smiley Face. So
like World Smile Day in October, today--the first Sunday in May-- is a good day to do a random act of kindness as Harvey put it--improving the
world "one smile at a time."</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">When three of Harvey Ball’s comrades were killed by a
wayward shell as</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> they stood next to him in Okinawa during World War II,
he did not ponder if fate had saved him for a greater
destiny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harvey, a tall,</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> lanky, laconic Yankee from Worcester, Massachusetts,
was not much given to introspection, socializing, talking, or even
smiling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when he</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> died in 2001 at the age of 79, Harvey had figured out
his purpose in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he
told<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>People Magazine</i> in 1998, “I taught
the whole world how to smile.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Harvey Ball, born and raised in Worcester, was the
creator of the</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> Smiley Face--that round yellow image that now beams
out from Wal-Mart ads, Joe Boxer shorts and internet icons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When, in December of 1963,</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> he picked up a black pen and a yellow piece of paper
and drew the world’s first Smiley Face, Harvey, a self-employed
commercial artist,</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> was working on an assignment from a Worcester
insurance company suffering from employee discontent after a merger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wanted a</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> campaign and buttons to raise company morale. They
ordered 100 yellow Smiley Face buttons and then, when those disappeared
almost over night,</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they ordered
10,000 more.</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Harvey later figured out that his compensation for
creating the Smiley</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> Face button for the Worcester Mutual Insurance Company
added up to about $45.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the lawyers for the company tried to copyright the</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> image eight years later, they learned that it was
impossible, because the image, reproduced 50 million times in the year
1971 alone, was in</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> the public domain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the mid-seventies, according to the curators of the Worcester Historical Museum, the image had fallen
out of favor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">But Smiley made a significant comeback in the late
1980’s when interest</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> in acid and other psychedelic drugs became a major
cultural phenomenon. The icon was embraced by trendy downtown club
kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who grew up</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> in the 1970’s—today’s most desirable consumer
demographic —view the image with nostalgia. (Some of them also think it was
created by</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> Forrest Gump, the fictional movie character.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When votes were taken by the U.S. Post Office for icons to represent the decade
of the 1970’s, the most popular image by far was Smiley, whose stamp
was issued in</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> 1999.</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Brothers Murray and Bernard Spain of Philadelphia
added the phrase</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> “Have a Happy Day” and took in a reported one million
dollars in sales of Smiley products in the first six months of 1971 alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1998, French Businessman Franklin Loufrani claimed that HE had
created the image in</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> 1971, and he proceeded to trademark the face in 80
countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When faced with Harvey Ball’s earlier creation, Loufrani
replied with a Gallic shrug:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>don’t care if he designed the
Smiley face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> promote, we own, we market.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Riled up by “the France guy” as he put it,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harvey in 1999 created</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> World Smile Day—the first Friday in October-- to
promote the true meaning of the Smiley Face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he trademarked it. Harvey said, </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“<b>World Smile Day</b>® is open to every person on the
planet. No matter what color they are, or who they might pray to, no
matter what country they live in. <b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1412370304190_3930">World Smile Day</b>®
simply asks each person to live the day with a generous heart, do one
kind act, to help one person smile. Acts of kindness and smiles are
contagious." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Every reporter who interviewed Harvey Ball asked him
the same question:</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> was he angry that he never made more than $45 from the
creation that could have made him very, very rich?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To every reporter he patiently</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> gave pretty much the same reply: “Hey, I can only eat
one steak at a time, drive one car at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not ticked off about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> mind getting up in the morning and going to work. They
ask me why I’m not upset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
just get satisfaction from it being so widely used and</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> that it has given so many people pleasure.”</span>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Even though he didn’t want to profit from it, Harvey
Ball did want</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> recognition for creating the image whose smile has
been called more famous than the Mona Lisa’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Smiley is one of the greatest</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> pieces of art ever created, as simple as it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s got a very, very positive message. Anybody can use it and reproduce it
and it reaches everybody regardless of language, religion,
nationality, all those</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> things--as compared to some of the art you get today
which you haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re looking at…I’m glad
Smiley came from</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> Worcester.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
city should make more of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because no
other city has this.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">After Harvey died in 2001 in Worcester, his son,
Charles, said : “He</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> was proud and pleased to have served his country and
raise a family…He died with no apologies and no regrets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His moral compass stayed on northh and never wavered." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">And he left us the legacy of a smile. </span></div>
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by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488052677647528167.post-18455081494903914902018-04-29T15:39:00.000-04:002018-04-29T15:39:40.421-04:00Remembering May Baskets and May Wreaths<i>(I see violets popping up in the yard, reminding me of the fun of
making and sharing May baskets--a spring ritual that seems to have faded
away with my childhood. I'm posting my annual essay about May baskets
and May wreaths below, and last year, a reporter from the Milwaukee
Sentinel, Anna Thomas Bates, interviewed me about my long-ago memories
of the custom. She posted an article in the paper with a
wonderful photograph of a little girl in 1947 hanging a basket on a door
knob and looking very much like I did back then, with my braids and
plaid jumper. Here's a link to </i><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/life/food/2017/04/23/may-day-tradition-worth-bringing-back/100380364/"><i>her article: </i> </a><span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span class="text_exposed_show"><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/life/food/2017/04/23/may-day-tradition-worth-bringing-back/100380364/" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.jsonline.com/<wbr></wbr>story/life/food/2017/04/23/<wbr></wbr>may-day-tradition-worth-bri<wbr></wbr>nging-back/100380364/</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;">Some sixty years ago, when I was a little girl in (first) Milwaukee, Wisconsin and then in Edina, Minnesota, on the first of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;">May we would make May baskets out of construction paper and fill them with</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;">whatever
flowers we could find in the garden or growing wild. We would hang the
baskets on the doorknobs of neighbors—especially old people—ring the
door bell, then run away with great hilarity and peek out as the elderly
person found the little bouquets on their door.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;">Thirty-some
years ago, when we moved to Grafton, MA, I continued the same
tradition with my three kids, but then they grew up and moved
away. Just
today I looked out at all the flowers popping up in our yard and
reflected that all the old people in our neighborhood had died. In
fact, I realized, the only old people left were my husband and myself,
so I picked a small May Day bouquet for us out of what’s growing—white
violets and purple violets, cherry blossoms, forsythia, wild grape
hyacinth-- and here it is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;">In
1977, when the children were all small (the youngest was one month old)
we moved from New York City to a suburb of Athens, Greece, courtesy of
The New York Times, which had made my husband a foreign correspondent
there. In Greece, even today, whether in the country or the city, on
May 1 you make a May wreath of the flowers in the garden. Roses are in
full bloom by then in Greece, along with all sorts of wild flowers. You
hang the May wreath on your door. It
dies and dries and withers until, on June 24th, St. John the Baptist’s
Birthday, the dried May wreath is thrown into a bonfire. The boys of
the town leap over the flames first. In the end everyone leaps over the
fading fire saying things like “I leave the bad year behind in order
to enter a better year.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt;">Here is daughter Eleni in 1980 wearing the wreath that was about to go on the door. Next to her is her sister Marina.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 19px;">In
Greece, even today, you’ll find May wreaths hanging on the front doors
of homes and businesses, although I don’t know if anyone still throws
them into a St John’s fire. In Massachusetts, the tulips
and forsythia are out, the bleeding hearts are starting to bloom, and
soon the lilacs will open, filling the air with their beauty and
perfume. But today I gathered a small bouquet of May flowers and remembered the years gone by.</span></div>
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<br />by Joan Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10504224017690336384noreply@blogger.com0