Write it Down

We live at a time when it easy to share every thing that is going on in our lives with anyone we want to share it with. We can text, tweet or Facebook (to name a very few) any information or pictures about what we are doing in our lives. These bits of information usually include brief statements about what we cooked for supper, which movie we watched, how far we ran that day or a quote we thought was inspirational. But with all this sharing, we never really communicate how we feel about the things we are doing. We end up leaving behind a list of facts instead of a complete picture of who we are. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy technology and share a lot of tidbits about my daily life through cyberspace. However, I still think it is important to spend time often with the older technology of pen and paper and record what we think and feel about the things we are tweeting and texting about all day. 

In his book, "The Greater Journey," David McCullough shared an example that illustrates the value of keeping a daily journal. During the 1830s many Americans went to Paris to study art, medicine, and literature because Paris was the hub of knowledge for these livelihoods at this time. Unfortunately in 1870 war broke out in Paris; violence and terror enveloped everyone living there as they survived a yearlong siege on the city. Many of the Americans escaped Paris by train, on foot and even in hot air balloons, to safe locations; only a few remained in the city. One individual that stayed was Elihi B. Washburne. He was the American minister to France so he had some authority to help the people of Paris during this time. Washburne spent every waking hour dealing with stressful situations, trying to protect, feed, and calm the citizens of Paris. Besides this work, he consistently worried about his own family's safety. They fled the city but he did not have any way of communicating with them. Washburne literally worked from the break of day until midnight every single day, with hardly a minute to himself.

Despite this exhausting schedule Washburne managed to write detailed entries in his journal every single day. Interestingly, Washburne was almost the only person in Paris who kept a detailed journal of what was happening during this time. Nearly all of the information we have about Paris during this siege comes from one man’s personal journal.

McCullough declared:

“No one could yet appreciate . . . the immeasurable value of the diary [Washburn] had kept day after day through the entire ordeal . . . writing often at great length late at the end of an exhausting, horrible day. The daily entries might have been abbreviated notes only, telegraphic in style, something to be ‘worked up later’ as a memoir. But Washburne was not so constituted. He wrote with clarity, insight, and such great empathy for the human drama at hand. If [Washburne’s] decision to stay [in Paris] and face whatever was to come had resulted only in the diary, he would have made an enormous, singular contribution” (McCullough, 328).

Journals are primary source documents. For a historian this means that the information found in personal journals is the best it gets. Journals allow us to read firsthand accounts of what happened to people during pivotal moments in history; as well as what their everyday lives were like. Each journal is also valuable because it gives a different perspective to a situation. So when these many perspectives are combined, a more complete picture of the past can be pieced together. Lewis & Clark, Adrian Van der donck and Alexander von Humboldt wrote some of my favorite journals. Their consistent entries record what they experienced and what their thoughts were about the adventures that unfolded before them.

I am also lucky enough to have some journals of my grandparents and others, which I treasure. Sometimes their entries are about doing laundry, being sick, or dealing with finance - seemingly common events. However, since they shared their thoughts about normal occurrences, their lives are not simply narrowed down to a list of what they did each day. Instead, their journals are a window into their lives, how they felt, what they worried about, what they enjoyed, etc. All of these details bring to my mind a broader image of who they really were and I feel like I know them better.

We will all be gone someday and none of us have power over this eventual ending. However, we do have power over what we leave behind. We can leave abbreviated sentences in cyberspace; or we can bestow a vivid, a full, and a living picture of our lives. An image we have carefully written, one that those who come after us can read, can reread, and treasure.

I've Always Looked Up

The night sky has always captured my attention. I remember a 4th grade slumber party at a friend’s house a few weeks before school started. We were outside under the stars with a huge bowl of popcorn talking and laughing. As the evening continued we noticed a lot of "shooting stars" and our conversations abruptly halted as we pointed to the bright flashes across the sky. I remember staying awake as long as I could to see just one more of those "shooting stars." I was certain we were the only people to witness the stellar event on that warm, summer evening. Since then I have realized that myriads of people were watching the night sky on that evening and knew there would be "shooting stars."

While I was attending Boise State University, I decided to take "Introduction to Descriptive Astronomy." I soon learned that the night of "shooting stars" I'd witnessed years ago was actually the Perseids meteor shower, which happens every year in the middle of August. Throughout the years I have slept out under the stars with my family during the annual Perseids meteor shower. We laid in sleeping bags and I talked about the stars, answered a few questions and then quietly lay there hoping to see every meteor I could as my family drifted off to sleep. This past summer during the Perseids meteor shower, only my husband and I were around so we stretched out on our backyard benches to watch for a little while.  As we talked and watched, a brilliant fireball shot across the sky from northeast to southwest. Its brightness lingered in the sky for a long time; the best of show for the evening.

A fortunate coincidence happened while I was taking the astronomy class at Boise State. NASA had launched the Voyager I and Voyager II spacecrafts years before, into our solar system; it was during the beginning of that semester that they reached Jupiter and Saturn. The historic part of the event was the fact that there had never been a space mission like it, and the pictures and information being sent back were all new to the world. We were observing things and learning facts that had never even been supposed.

Last year when I was teaching a unit on European Explorers, I explained how the explorers found their way using the stars in the night sky, and recently I was able to experience a bit of this for myself. My husband and I went on a hike into a wildness area in Oregon. It was not a trail we had been on and we started at the trailhead later than planned. Darkness came quickly and there was no moon out to light our way or help to orient us. The trail wound in all directions along and on top of a range of mountains. Before long, my internal compass was confused from all the direction changes in the dark and I could not distinguish which way we were going. Unlike the early explorers on the ocean, I had a path I could follow and my desire to know which direction I was going was simply for my own peace of mind. As we continued uphill I could tell that we were approaching the top of a ridge because I began to see stars beside me as well as above. When we got to a clearing, we turned off our headlamps and I could identify the constellations with their main stars, as well as the Milky Way. Those stars that I had looked up at for years instantly told me which direction I was headed. Seeing these familiar patterns in the sky fixed my internal compass and soothed my feelings of anxiety. As I gazed at my stellar companions that dark night, I got a very brief glimpse of how those early explorers must have felt as they sailed in the darkness; hoping to avoid sea monsters or even the edge of the world.

Since my days in college taking that astronomy course, I have continued to look up at the night sky. It is a frontier that continues to deliver new and amazing information that helps us understand our universe and leads us to ask more questions. A few weeks ago, my old teachers, Voyager I and II showed up in the news again. This time is was to say goodbye. These spacecraft are expected to leave our solar system sometime during the next few months. They will drift past the edge, where no known earthly object has yet been. They are no longer able to take pictures but are still recording and sending data to Earth.

So remember that the nightly show is available to anyone who wants to step outside and look up. People have been looking up for longer then we can imagine, trying to find their way on a long, bleak night through unknown territory. Others have found comfort in the consistency of the night sky. So whether you are taking out the garbage or bringing groceries into your house, take a few minutes to look up and wonder about the light that left the stars thousands of light years before.

The Ghost Army

World War II was a blend of strategies, battlefronts, and brave and warring men and women. Innumerable pages fill books about these individuals, but a group of creative and artistic men who participated in World War II recently captured my attention. These crews, known as the Ghost Army were not soldiers trained with assault weapons; instead they were actors and artists who successfully fought in World War II with an entirely different set of war tactics. Known by the Army as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, this 1,100-man Ghost Army started into action in June 1944 near Normandy. Their top-secret assignment was to use deception, trickery, and bluffs to save lives during World War II.

To accomplish this the Ghost Army set up their props from Normandy to the Rhine, staging twenty different battle deceptions while impersonating U.S. Army units in order to mislead the enemy. To accomplish this they used inflatable tanks, jeeps, trucks, and airplanes as well as giant speakers that broadcast sounds of artillery, troops, and fake radio transmissions. The author, Rick Beyer, stated that the Ghost Army traversed “the European Theater to put on a traveling road show of deception, two nights here, and a week there, with the German Army as their audience."

The camouflage engineers of the Ghost Army were responsible for the visual deceptions. Air compressors were used to inflate pump-up tanks, cannons, airplanes, trucks, and jeeps. After these were deflated they were hidden so they could not to be detected by air. The camouflage engineers from the Ghost Army could create dummy airfields, artillery batteries, motor pools, and tank formations within just a few hours. They also generated fake troop bivouacs that even included phony laundry hanging out on the line to dry.

The Ghost Troops also did some play-acting to mislead their enemies. At times their illusions involved driving trucks in looping convoys with just two men in the seats near the tailgate; this simulated a truck full of infantry under the canvas cover. Recorded sounds being played from the covered back of the vehicle assisted with the illusion of a full vehicle. Actors also posed as military police and were deployed at cross roads wearing appropriate divisional emblems. A few of the “ghost officers” simulated staff officers and generals, and visited towns where the enemy would be likely to see them. At times, actual artillery pieces and tanks were assigned to the Ghost Unit to make the imitations seem more realistic to the enemy from a distance.

The Ghost experts in sonic deception worked with engineers at Bell Laboratories. Before heading to Europe, this team went to Fort Knox and recorded sounds of armored and infantry troops. Sounds were recorded on state-of-the-art wire recorders, the forerunner of tape recorders. Once in Europe, these pre-recorded sounds were mixed to match the deception the Ghost Army was trying to make the enemy believe. On the battlefield, the sounds were blasted from huge amplifiers and speakers attached to half-tracks. These bogus sounds of battle could be heard fifteen miles away.

The United States Army gathered their Ghost Troops from the world of talented artists and actors. These men literally painted, sketched and acted their way across Europe during the war. The Ghost Army landed in France a few weeks after D-Day and ‘fought’ until the war ended. They staged over twenty battlefield deceptions and were usually functioning near the front lines.

Their first mission in France was to simulate a fake Mulberry Harbor at night using lights to entice German fire away from the actual troops. Next they assisted in confusing the German troops at Brest. Using speakers and pre-recorded sounds, the Ghost Army led the opposing forces to believe there were approximately 30,000 men nearby waiting to attack; far more than were actually there.

Members of the Ghost Army were talented artists previous to the beginning of World War II. Many of them spent their downtime while on the front lines, filling notebooks and journals with drawings of their surroundings, each other and their deceptions. After the war ended, the Ghost Soldiers continued in their chosen fields of artistic endeavors. A few recognizable names from the Ghost Army include: clothing designer, Bill Blass; sculptor Ellsworth Kelly; and wildlife artist Arthur Singer.

New Netherland, Sheep and Ice Cream

On April 15, 1660, Cornelis Jacobsz Van Leeuwen sailed from Amsterdam on the ship Bontekoe (The Spotted Cow). The ship was filled with families, soldiers and Cornelis’ employer, Roelof Swartwout; all were on their way to the colony of New Netherland.  After a few months at sea, the twenty-four foot wide ship, reached New Amsterdam, which today is New York City.  Swartwout was a farmer but had recently been appointed by the Dutch India Company to serve as a schout or sherrif in the town of Wiltwijck. He had been on business in The Netherlands and was returning on the Bontekoe to his home in the New World.

In the colony of New Netherland, a schout was responsible for keeping the town orderly, and free “from rabble and dicing,” and monitoring the weight of baked bread (Jacobs, 90). Carrying out these duty required him to be among the people of the town and attend meetings with other town authorities every fourteen days, expect during harvest time. During these meetings, various civil cases and disagreements were brought before the schout and leaders to be discussed and an outcome decided upon.

We do not know what Van Leeuwen’s exact duties were as he assisted Swartwout. Most likely, he was out among the people as well, observing the interactions of the colonists and stepping in when needed. For our purposes here, it is of interest to note that there was an individual with the name of Van Leeuwen, in 1660, who live in what would one day become New York.

In the late 1800s, near where Van Leeuwen had lived 200 years previously, a unique sight was beginning to unfold. The caretakers of Central Park in New York made the decision to grow and maintain a lawn. Many of us today may not understand the distinctive importance of this, but before the nineteenth century, not many people had lawns because it was simply too expensive to keep a “greensward” as they were called. There were basically two ways to maintain a lawn in the 1800s. First, a crew of people could be hired to scythe, gather and haul away the cut grass continually during the growing season. The second option was to keep a flock of sheep that would roam through the grass and nibble it down to keep it trimmed. The gardener of Central Park decided to use a herd of 200-300 sheep to do the job; he also employed a shepherd who watched over these sheep. Each morning and evening the sheep were herded in front of the beautiful building where they slept at night. Here visitors could watch them eat, look at paintings of different kinds of sheep and even examine sheep’s wool under a microscope.  All of the sheep along with their shepherd lived in this building until the 1930’s when it was changed into the Tavern on the Green Restaurant.

After decades of being in business, the Tavern on the Green has closed and the building is now being used as a gift shop for Central Park visitors. Various food vendors come and go but there are three mobile food vendors that are always set up on the outdoor terrace of the old sheep building. They are: Pera Mediterranean Brasserie, Rickshaw Dumpling Truck and Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream. Not only is Van Leeuwen’s Artisan Ice Cream one of New York’s best but it’s name also sounds quite familiar. I’m certain that Cornelis would be quite surprised with the transformation of his little town into what New York is today; and he might even enjoy an ice cream cone with his name on it.

Jacobs, Jaap. The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America (New York: Cornell University, 2009).

Science and Religion

Looking to the past one may find innumerable examples of how expanded knowledge leads to a better understanding of the world. Early mariners had maps of the Earth showing the known landmasses, oceans, sea serpents and the edge of the world that one would most certainly fall off of if they got too close. Then one day, a brave sailing captain navigated to the very edge of the map – and continued sailing. He and his crew did not fall to their deaths off the edge of the world; instead they kept gliding on into unknown waters, eventually finding land that was not recorded on any maps. This new knowledge changed what had been previously known, which in turn, led to even more discoveries and further knowledge.

We see yet another example in the field of medicine. To cure individuals of diseases and illnesses the practice of bloodletting was once used. It was believed that bleeding a person would help restore the proper balance of their bodily fluids and allow them to heal. Though surprising to us today, this was not a unique exercise but one that was used for almost 2,000 years by the Egyptians, Greeks, Aztecs and others as well as by doctors during the U.S. Civil War. Today we understand that bloodletting is not helpful to those who are ill. This new knowledge has changed the way medicine is practiced and thankfully, doctors no longer use bloodletting to cure illness.

These two examples demonstrate the provisional nature of scientific knowledge. We, as a species, are continually learning more about the world around us and as a result, we understand more how and why things work the way they do. Many times new discoveries require us to think and understand issues differently than we have in the past. Living during this time of continual learning and research requires us to keep up with what is new in our ever-changing world. We need to be aware and honest enough, to correct information, even from our own belief windows, that has become flawed.

I experienced an interesting event recently. My husband teaches science and is also a religious individual. Some people have asked him how he can ‘believe’ religion and science at the same time and he has explained that they complement each other; his growing knowledge of science has actually strengthened his spiritual beliefs. He was asked to give a talk in our congregation and he spoke about the importance of finding truth in our lives. He discussed how it is valuable to find truth in the secular world, such as in his science classroom, and how it is also vital to continue to learn spiritual truths as well.

A few weeks after his address, the leader of our congregation called my husband in and reported that a few members of the congregation had some concerns about the talk he had given. They were worried that my husband actually believed all of the science he taught in his classroom. After some discussion, he asked my husband if he could assure these few, fatuous members that he did not think all of the science principles he taught were true. I tried to keep my jaw from dropping and could not believe what I was hearing. As my husband respectfully refused to declare that the science he taught in his classroom was untrue, my mind I was immediately transported to a lavish room in Italy at the top of an ornate spiral staircase. The room, with its frescoed ceiling was filled with several persons who were decision makers as well as the individual they were cross-examining. The accused had spoken what were considered to be blasphemous statements, which he acknowledged to be true because of recent evidences he had discovered while studying and experimenting with them. The ideas he shared did not fit with the archaic notions that rattled around in the minds of the accusers so they were certain he spoke falsehoods. This individual’s blasphemous idea was that the sun was the center of the solar system and not the Earth. So on June 22, 1633 Galileo Galilei was convicted of the heinous crime of “having held and believed the doctrine which is false and contrary to the Sacred and Divine Scriptures, that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world” (Sobel, 274).

Galileo believed that there was much to be learned about the world around him and that is was prudent to continue to gain knowledge. In a letter to his friend, Castelli, Galileo stated, “I do not think it necessary to believe that the same God who gave us our senses, our speech, our intellect, would have put aside the use of these, to teach us instead such things as with their help we could find out for ourselves, particularly in the case of these sciences of which there is not the smallest mention in the Scriptures” (Sobel, 65). Galileo could see that truth could be found everywhere; both in secular and spiritual aspects of life and that those truths in the secular world did not threaten the truths of the spiritual world.

We live at a time with access to unlimited knowledge but do not always take advantage of it. The age-old battle between science and religion is not really a battle but a blending of truths from both arenas. By losing our fear of change and being brave enough to let go of outdated information we can expand our knowledge in so many more areas of our lives. As Galileo said about those who were against the truths he found through the lens of his telescope, “They seem to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts, not their diminution or destruction” (Sobel, 67). As we bravely go to the comfortable edge of our knowledge and then proceed beyond, we can learn more than we ever thought possible. We will realize that the illusory brink was never actually there and that a remarkable horizon is before us, leading us to greater truths in every aspect of our lives.

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Dava Sobel. Galileo’s Daughter. New York: Penguin Books. 2000.

The Dark Hours of the Night

In my part of the world, we recently ended daylight saving time. This change, combined with the shortness of the winter days, result in mornings and evenings that are unusually dark. With my life being spent more in the dark because of these seasonal changes, I have noticed details about the lives of earlier people who spent time in the blackness as well.

In 1743 there were four men who were left by their crew in the Arctic and spent six years there before being rescued. This was not a malicious act, on the part of the crew aboard the ship. It was simply an attempt to save the ship, its cargo and crew already on board from being crushed by the swiftly freezing ice. Being at the top of the world meant that during certain parts of the year the sun did not appear above the horizon for weeks at a time. These forsaken men mostly remained in their double walled hut during these endlessly dark days to keep from freezing outside and to avoid being attacked by polar bears. They believed if they slept too much, they would be more susceptible to scurvy so their “goal of health” was to keep themselves awake nineteen hours out of each 24-hour period. To keep them awake during the unimaginably long, dark days and nights, their choice of activity was knot tying. They each had a lengthy rope and sat near a dim light, tying knots in their rope, one after the other after the other. Once they had tied their entire rope in knots, they would untie each individual knot until the rope was back to its usable form. Then . . . they started tying knots in the rope again and the entire process repeated over and over again.  Just the thought of tying and untying knots in a rope in darkness makes me drowsy.

During the mid-1600s in the Colony of New Netherland there was job that was conducted entirely in the dark by the night watchmen. Each night at 9:00, they rang a bell, which was a signal for people to retire to their homes for the evening; then these men remained in the dark streets. At the beginning of every hour they stood at the corner of each street, shook a rattle and loudly called out the time. Their final call was made at 4:00 a.m. when they were done with their night’s work.

World War II brought blackouts across Europe. When enemy aircraft was detected, sirens would blast a warning and within a matter of minutes, all lights had to be extinguished, even lighting a match to a cigarette was prohibited. This requirement for instant darkness caused some dangerous circumstances. For example, if you were walking home in the evening and the alarms sounded, you would have to make your way home in complete darkness. This was no small feat, considering there may also be cars attempting to get to their destinations as well. By law, cars could not use headlights of any kind or even have lighted dashboards during blackouts. Besides keeping out of the way of moving vehicles, pedestrians also stumbled along unlit sidewalks, and walked into trees, lampposts and street furniture. During the first four months of the war, 4,133 people were killed in Britain, not by enemy fire, but as a result of the darkness of the streets during the blackouts.

Today when we open our refrigerator doors, we are able to effortlessly beckon more light then was available to an entire 18^th century home.  Previous to my learning about life in the dark, I often pictured families going to bed early each evening because it was too dark to accomplish anything by candlelight. This notion is simply not true. It was a lot darker then but this did not stop people from gathering around their candle at the table each night. Although they were engaged in individual pursuits, they were seated close together, side-by-side in the same room, enjoying the flame of the same candle. A mother might be re-sewing a patch on the elbow of her husband’s shirtsleeve sitting next to her young son who is playing with his wooden horse. The husband may be calculating the amount of seed needed for the spring crop and how profitable last years yield was while his daughter is working on a piece of embroidery beside him. Surrounding the candlelight, this family is not squinting or hunched over the candle to get adequate light from the small flame, because this is the light they expect and the one they are used to; they probably cannot really imagine anything brighter. Instead they enjoy their simple candle, their time to sit down and rest from their day’s labors and the chance to be by each other and share the events of the day and prepare for the next one. 

Whistling Past the Graveyard

My husband and I love to run along the forested trails near our home. We usually do this in the morning before work, and in the winter months this involves raingear and a headlamp. We start out running along the road towards the trail with streetlights shining above us but once we reach the trail, it is extremely dark. I concentrate on the beam of light coming from my headlamp to avoid downed branches and deep puddles but always keep glancing to the sides, looking in the trees for any movement or even a set of glowing eyes. Near the top of the trail, the sides of the small canyon move in closer and there are no wide spaces. As we turn the last corner at the top, there is a series of hollows made of bushes and trees. I always make some sort of sound and flash my headlight into the darkness to be sure nothing is hiding or sleeping there. We have seen wild animals along that part of the trail but nothing too fearsome – a rabbit, some deer, a few opossums and a flock of wild turkeys. However, I still get a bit unnerved in that area.

The other morning I had to get back earlier to prepare for the day, so I ran home and my husband continued on and ran the upper part of the trail alone. When he got back he said he did it because he just had to whistle past the graveyard that day. I was curious about that phrase and did some research on it. I found that in the Middle Ages and even into the 1800s, cemeteries were often built on the edges of a town. During these superstitious times, it was believed that the spirits of those buried there would come out at dusk to haunt any one who happened to be passing by. To escape these ghostly encounters, travelers would make loud noises or literally whistle as they walked past the graveyard to keep the spirits and their own fear away until they were past the cemetery.

Robert Blair who lived in the early 1700s, was a Scottish poet who was educated in the Netherlands and Edinburgh. He only published three poems during his lifetime and is most well known for his final poem titled “The Grave.” A portion of this poem mentions the idea of whistling past the graveyard:

            Oft in the lone church yard at night I've seen,


            By glimpse of moonshine chequering thro' the trees,


            The school boy, with his satchel in his hand,


            Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,


            And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,


            (With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)


            That tell in homely phrase who lie below.


As we look at amazing individuals from the past that have accomplished great things under difficult circumstances I think that we need to realize that they may have been doing a lot of whistling to make it though and keep going. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing everyday that scares you.” I think she was telling us to try to look beyond our current situations, no matter how challenging they may be and see where we could be if we just kept walking and whistling.

So, next time I run in the dark past the shadowy hallows, I will just whistle a little louder and enjoy the run. By the way, there is also a graveyard at the top of our running trail.