My daughter has suggested that some of the money spent filming DUNE in Jordan could have been spent learning from locals the correct pronuncialtion of Shai al-Hulud. Pronounced as SHAY Hulud it means "eternal Thing". Pronounced as SHY Hulud, it means "eternal tea." [Think as in Russian 'chai']
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Thursday, November 11, 2021
At the Eleventh Hour
... of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the guns in
Europe fell silent at last. The United States built a wall inscribed
with the names of 58,220 servicemen killed or missing in the nine years' war in Vietnam, more than twice as many as in three days at Gettysburg.
The AEF doughboys engaged the Hun from Oct 21, 1917 to Nov 11, 1918 and suffered 116,516 killed or missing, i.e., about twice as many total as in Vietnam and 13x more on a yearly basis. No wall was ever built for the doughboys and no memorial became official until 2004 -- in Kansas City. A DC memorial was dedicated in 2021, but is not finished yet.
 |
| Pfc Harry F Singley, 304th Eng. AEF |
"It was on Sept. 26 when the big drive started in the
Argonne Forest and I saw all kinds of things that I never witnessed
before. We started out on the night of the 25th. At 9 o'clock we
commenced a tank road and worked our way almost to the German's front
line trenches. At 2:30 one of the greatest of all barrages was opened.
It was said that between 3500 and 4000 guns, some of them of very large
calibre, went off at that hour just like clock work. We worked on this
road under shell fire until about 3:45 and then went back until the
infantry went over the top at 5 o'clock. We followed with the tanks.
That is the way the Americans started and kept pounding and pushing
ahead until the great day on Nov. 11. ...
It was some life. I am proud that I went through
it, for nobody on the Hill [i.e., Fountain Hill, PA] will have anything on me... I was a little
with sneezing or tear gas. It made me sick but I remained with the
company for I did not like to leave my detachment at any time for if
something would happen, I thought, there would be plenty of help. I
felt much better in a few days. A small piece of shrapnel splinter hit
me below the knee. Otherwise I was lucky. ..."
 |
| Cadet Flynn (seated) Older . brother James was in the Navy |
TOF's other grandfather, Francis T Flynn (Sr), at eighteen, was in the cadet corps at Catholic University in Washington DC. As he later recalled,
So while I was working on this piece-work job [making artillery shells for the French Army at Ingersoll-Rand], the principal of the high school, Sr. Felicita, called me on the telephone and told me, she said, "I sent your credits to Catholic University and you can be admitted without a College Board or any sort of examination, provided you are voluntarily inducted.
So this was in the month of June and away I set sail. I was down at Catholic University then from June until New Years. ... [W]e were snowed into taking an ME course, because they were short on officers. They said, "If you take this ME course, you will get to Camp Meade quicker. The seniors will go first, then the juniors, then the sophomores, et cetera, y'know. But if you take the mechanical engineering course, you'll see action quicker than you would if you took any other course. What I really wanted to take was Philosophy and Letters and there was only one guy who held out for that... He later became a monsignor.Note that "you'll see action sooner" was regarded as an enticement. And also that the Pop-pop of TOF was really into Philosophy and Letters. Then, when the Armistice broke out, his parents begged him to stay in college. "We'll find the money somehow." But he thought he was much smarter than they -- unlike 18/19-year olds today -- and took the train back home. It was, he thought later, the biggest mistake of his life -- except that he married the Girl Next Door (literally) and produced my father, which from TOF's point of view was of considerable importance.
 |
| Sgt. Tommy Flynn |
Since Armastice Day has become Veterans Day, let's scope out the veterans in my family and the Marge's include the following. Not all have been named.
The Vietnam War
Sgt. Tommy Flynn,
CAC team Papa Three, USMC
"The idea was to somewhat integrate with the Vietnamese people in order to gain their trust and friendship and ultimately military intelligence that would help us find the bad guys. It sounds good, and at times it was probably very good, because the Vietnamese were helped with schools and sanitation and protection from the Viet Cong. But it was also an extremely dangerous assignment. CAC soldiers lived near a village and survived mostly on their own. It was a small compound that was flooded when it rained and was overrun several times by the Viet Cong. On one such occasion, Mr. Flynn was severely wounded in the face, neck and thigh. He spent weeks in several hospitals and then a hospital ship with his jaw wired shut, before being mistakenly sent back to the war. He was given a choice; he could work in the rear or go back to his CAC squad. He was either a little nuts, or little bit more brave than most of us, because he chose to return to his squad.###
 |
| Joe Flynn was discharged as corporal |
Pfc. Joseph Flynn,
5th Eng. Btn., 5th Marine Division, USMC
My father served on Iwo Jima and in the Japanese Occupation. The photo
on the left is the only time he ever wore dress blues. It was actually a false-front "uniform" used only for the picture.
On Iwo Jima, he went in with the first wave along with his captain. He was to establish battalion liaison and take the word back to his unit.
During the fighting, he had a number of close shaves. In one case, a Japanese shell hit right in front of
him while he was bringing anti-tank grenades from the dump to the front, and the explosion lifted him up and sent him hurtling through the air
to land on his back. He was totally numb and deaf and thought he was
paralyzed. But gradually feeling and hearing returned and when he
checked himself, he had not gotten so much as a scratch. He ought to have gotten a Purple Heart, but this was Iwo Jima, and you had to bleed to get such a medal.
During the Occupation, he had the dubious privilege of walking through the middle of Nagasaki not long after it was nuked.
Afterward, on two occasions, he was offered the opportunity to be brevetted to officer and sent to OCS. This was because of the initiative he had shown on several occasions during the battle. However, he was anxious to return home and get on with the urgent business of becoming my father before my mother (a/k/a the Sweetheart of the Seventh Fleet) could be tracked down by the aforesaid admirers of her morale-boosting snapshot.
###
The Great War
Pfc. Harry Singley,
304th Eng., 72nd "Rainbow" Div., AEF
My
grandfather on my mother's side went "Over There" and served in the St. Mihel, Meuse-Argonne Offensive. This was the offensive in which the famous Lost Battalion was cut off and surrounded. His narrative appears at the beginning of this post. He was a
combat engineer, which means he had to build things in the middle of
battle. The Great War was the first "industrial strength" war and nobody
at the time thought it was the first of a series. They thought it was
the "War to End All Wars," so there was still a touch of innocence and idealism about
the whole endeavor. None of us grandkids ever heard him talk
about his experiences. Like most of the Silent Generation, he was
markedly silent on the whole thing. ###
The Flynns arrived in the US after the Civil War and while the Singleys and Schwars arrived a decade earlier, none of them were in it, so far as I know. Nor do we know of anyone involved in the Indian or Spanish-American Wars, so, at this time we turn to the maternal ancestry of the Incomparable Marge!
US Civil War
Pvt. John H. Hammontree,
Co. H, 5th Tenn. Inf., US Vol.
 |
| Evacuation of Cumberland Gap |
John fought in the Campaigns of Cumberland Gap, Stones River, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Atlanta. He was shot in the left leg during the attack on Confederate positions at Resaca. He seems to have been returned to duty in time for the Nashville Campaign. After the war, he died of complications stemming from his wound.
Creek War (War of 1812)
Pvt. James Hammontree,
Capt. Duncan's Co. of Col. Bunch's Regiment (2nd Regt., East Tennessee Militia).
 |
| Battle of Horseshoe Bend |
Andrew Jackson's official report of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (27 March 1814) mentions that "a few companies" of Colonel Bunch were part of the right line of the American forces at this engagement. The muster rolls list some casualties from this battle in the companies led by Captains Moses Davis, Joseph Duncan, and John Houk. Other men from this regiment remained at Fort Williams prior to Horseshoe Bend to guard the post -- provision returns indicate that there were 283 men from Bunch's regiment at the fort at the time of the battle. James' brother William was also at the battle, and his brother Jacob had been in a previous militia regiment. There were a variety of more distant Hammontrees in other theaters of the war.
Later, when James had died, his widow Nancy had a heck of a time trying to collect the pension that was owed her. Bureaucracy is not new.
The Revolution
Pvt. John Hammontree,
Capt. John Mountjoy's Co. of Foot, 10th Virginia, Continental Line.
James Hammontree's great uncle John enlisted in the 10th Virginia at an
unknown date and may have seen action with the 10th at Brandywine
and Germantown before entering winter quarters at Valley Forge. In
January 1778, he was reported "sick in camp" and he died there on 24 Feb
1778.
Pvt. Harris[on] Hammontree,
Capt. Wm. Cunningham's Co. of Foot, 1st Virginia, Continental Line.
The 1st Virginia has a long ancestry, and exists today as the 276th Eng. Battalion of the Virginia National Guard. John Hammontree's younger brother Harris Hammontree enlisted in the 1st Virginia on Feb. 12, 1778, after the regiment had gone into encampment at Valley Forge. In April and June he was reported as "sick," but unlike his older brother, he survived. He likely participated in the battle of Monmouth in June 1778 after Baron von Steuben had trained them. Most of the regiment was captured by the British at Charlestown, South Carolina, on May 12, 1780, but Harris may not have been with the regiment at that point. He was killed by Indians on the Virginia frontier, 25 July 1781.
###
And that takes us back to as early as any US Veterans Day is likely to cover. The closest TOF himself came was two years of Army Artillery ROTC, so he knows how to call suppressing fire down on you. However, a wise military classified him 4F. Had they drafted him, two years of ROTC would have made him a corporal.
 | |||
| SSgt M Flynn with Sweet Sharon at the Caisson Ball. Don't ask. |
Monday, October 4, 2021
All Hail, Dr Stapp
I had heard about some of this when I was a quality/reliability engineer, but the story is still fascinating.
Monday, August 30, 2021
Adam and Eve and Ted and Alice
A discussion meandered past TOF's optics the other day and put him in mind of a post of his from way back in 2011. This proved at the time to be a favorite among TOFian followers and racked up large numbers of eyeballs. So, TOF bethought himself to tweak the writing a bit and repost it.
"I’ve always maintained that this piece of the Old Testament, which is easily falsified by modern genetics (modern humans descended from a group of no fewer than 10,000 individuals), shows more than anything else the incompatibility between science and faith. For if you reject the Adam and Eve tale as literal truth, you reject two central tenets of Christianity: the Fall of Man and human specialness."
Adam and Eve discover
they are naked.
Human race follows.
Now, by "literal truth" Coyne undoubtedly intended "literal fact," since a thing may be true without being fact, and a fact has no truth value in itself. I do not know Dr. Coyne's bona fides for drawing doctrinal conclusions or for interpreting scriptures, although he seems to lean toward the fundamentalist persuasion of naive Biblical literakism. Nor am I sure how Dr. Coyne's assertion necessarily entails a falsification of human specialness (whatever he means by that). I never heard of such a doctrine in my Storied Youth(^1) though it is pretty obvious from a scientific-empirical point of view. You are not reading this on an Internet produced by kangaroos or in a language devised by petunias, so there just might be something a weensie-bit special about humans.
It is not even clear what his claim means regarding the Fall. Neither
the Eastern Orthodox nor the Roman Catholic churches ever insisted on a
naive-literal reading of their scriptures, and yet both asserted as
dogma the Fall of Man.(^2)
Now modern genetics does not falsify the Adam and Eve tale for the
excellent reason that it does not address the same matter as the Adam
and Eve tale. One is about the origin of species; the other is about
the origin of sin. One may as well say that a painting of a meal
falsifies haute cuisine.
Still, there are some interesting points about the myth of Adam and Eve
and the Fall. Not least is the common Late Modern usage of "myth" to
mean "something false" rather than "an organizing story by which a
culture explains itself to itself." Consider, for example, the "myth of
progress" that was so important during the Modern Ages. Or the equally
famous "myth of Galileo" which was a sort of Genesis myth for the
Modern Ages. With the fading of the Modern Ages, these myths have lost
their power and have been exploded by post-modernism or by historians of
science. Before we consider the Fall, let us consider the Summer.
No. Wait. I mean the Summary.
___________________________
(^1) storied youth. Literally. My brother and I wrote stories when we were kids.
(^2)
Makes you wonder what their actual reasoning was, if it was not some
backwoods 19th century American reading an archaic English translation
of some Greek texts.
Sunday, August 15, 2021
Help!
I used to receive notification by e-mail whenever someone posted a comment here.
Quoth the raven, Nevermore.
I used to be able to delete spammish comments, but this button has disappeared.
Quoth the raven, Nevermore.
Consequently, some recent posts have gotten swarmed by spam comments. This can't be good for Blogger;s marketability,
Does anyone know how to restore these abilities?
Some Favorite Ditties
I was mulling over some favorite tunes, and decided to make me a list. It soon grew faster than a politician's spending. Herewith, said list, If anyone can find the commonality around which these songs cluster, they are welcome to try. I tried to keep it down to one tune per songwriter, but all you have to do is say "Dylan," and you see how impossible that is.
In no particular order. (The tunes constitute an unorderable set,)
- Scott Joplin. Maple Leaf Rag. New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra. Bonus link: Digital recording by Joplin himself!
- Porter Steele (et seq. Alphonse Picou) High Society. New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra. Jelly-Roll Morton's version is here.
- Bob Dylan. A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall. But also Like a Rolling Stone although I am not the biggest fan of his put-down songs. Then there is the quirky Xmas song: Must Be Santa.
- Tom Paxton. Outward Bound. Which sounds to my ear like a song about marriage. Back in the day, being a natural contrarian, when everybody was gaga over Dylan, I took a special interest in Paxton. So, I like too many of Paxton songs to list. Just a few: Leaving London.and his classic The Last Thing on my Mind.
Are you going away with no word of farewell?
Will there be not a trace left behind?
- If you ever find yiurself in Munich... O München, Mein München.
- Staying with the Germanic theme: Ein schoenes Fleckchen Erde.
- Orange Blossom Special played by Earl Scruggs & Foggy Mth Boys or Charlie Daniels Band:
- Beach Boys. Sloop John B. Great polyphony!
- Moore's beautiful Irish song. Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms (I could not find Treasa Ni Chathain's version on-line.)
the heart which has truly loved never forgets
But as truly loves on to the close
- Billy Joel. Just the Way You Are, which is Joel's take on the same sentiments just expressed by Moore, Technically, this was the Incomparable Marge's favorite song, but how could I leave it off?
- Simon & Garfunkle. Sounds of Silence. Paul Simon is another one of those who could have had multiple entries up here. "The Boxer," "Goin Home," "I Am a Rock," etc. But I am weary of looking up links.
- Preservation Hall. O Maryland, My Maryland. But I could have put "Gettysburg March" here instead.
- Wolfe Tones. We can't have a list like this without a few rebel songs. The Boys of the Old Brigade or The Broad Black Brimmer. Not that I'm partial to the IRA in either it s Marxist (official) or its nationalist (provo) forms.
- Finbar Furey. Madame Bonaparte. The Irish Pipes have three sets of pipes. The chanter, the regulators (which play chords with the wrist) and the drones. Listen closely to this set dance and you can hear how Furey brings each one in in sequential stanzas.
- Turlough O Carolan. As long as we're talking about real Irish music, try Carolan's Concerto or Fanny Power. by the last of the great blind Irish harpers.
- Theodore Bikel. Katyushka or At Volgi na Dona. for nyemnogo Russiya music.
Bruce Daigrepont. Laisses Faire or La Valse de la Riviere Rouge. because why leave out the French? - East Side Dave. My Pennsylvania Home.
- Michael Cooney. John Henry played on a twelve string guitar.
- Tommy Makem/Liam Clancy. The Rambles of Spring.
Here's a health to one and allI left off longer pieces, like Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and the Act I Finale to Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan, which at one point has seven distinct voices doing their own thing, yet blending into a great whole. I also left off hymns and anthems like Alleluia, Alleluia, Let the Holy Anthem Rise. or Columbia, Gem of the Ocean, with its great line:
To the big and to the small
To the rich and poor alike, and foe and friends
Thy banners make tyranny tremble.If only, right?
Friday, July 9, 2021
It's 1776. Do You Know Where Your Ancestors Are?
TOF intended to post this for the 4th of July, but the Friday within the octave of the Glorious 4th will have to do.
The World of 1776.
We have previously looked at the worlds of 1920, 1870, and 1820; that is. the Singularity (1870-1920) and the Fuse (1820-1870) that lit it. Technically, we should now look at the world of 1770, but the Revolution is close enough.
The 1770s were not too much different from the 1820s, except that railroads were not even a glint on the horizon. Frank;in has only recently discovered that lightning and the 'electrical fluid' are the same thing. The Leyden Jar (an early capacitor) was invented only thirty years ago. But electricity is as yet only a curiosity. For now, the world is powered by wind and solar, and thus is energy-poor, especially for the poor. Messages travel only as fast as a courier on horseback or a schooner. Stagecoaches are the usual means of long distance travel. A few canals have been dug in France, England, and the Germanies, Captain Cook has discovered Australia.six years ago, (The Australians always knew it was there) fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette has arrived at the French court.and married Louis-Auguste (who will later became King Louis XVI). Rubber has been discovered to remove pencil marks, to the joy of students everywhere. The first partition of Poland has begun.
Friday, July 2, 2021
The White Family
The Incomparable Marge stemmed from families long-resident on this continent and who participated in most of the American Experience. Her Hammontree ancestors were in Tidewater Virginia by 1723; the Hollands, also in Virginia by 1724. In 1723, the Helms were in Bucks Co, PA prior to moving to North Carolina. The Goss family were in North Carolina by 1755, the Tams in Delaware by 1776. Marlow was born in Kentucky in 1808. Johnny-come-lately Harris, appears in Tennessee by 1819. Margie always got a chuckle out of anti-immigrant agita. As far as she was concerned, they were all immigrants. One of her ancestors had married a Choctaw woman.
She had ancestors in the colonies; in the Revolution (one collateral ancestor died at Valley Forge, another survived.) They traveled west when 'west' meant the Great Smokey Mountains and rubbed shoulders with Sam Houston and Andy Jackson in Tennessee, They were Southerners who wore blue in the Civil War. They headed farther west in covered wagons, various families touching down at various times in various states: Arkansas, Missouri; Ohio, Indiana; Georgia and Louisiana, converging finally, in the Red River Valley, then Choctaw Nation. Along the way were Confederate terrorists (A collateral ancestor perished in the Great Hanging, when Confederate rangers hanged Union sympathizers in Grayson County, TX), outlaws, sheriffs and posses, and shoot-outs.
And so, we come to the Whites.
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
Margaret Louise White (1943-2021)
Margie was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the only child of the late Claude Lee White and Elsie Vera Hammontree. The Whites can be traced back to 1823, in Wake Co, NC, if not to 20,000 BC at the Bering Straits. The Hammontrees can be traced to the late 1600s in the Tidewater country of Virginia.
Everything you've ever read about the American Experience happened to her people, from Valley Forge to Horseshoe Bend to Resaca, covered wagons, Indian raids, the Nations, Quantrill's Raiders and other bandit gangs, sheriffs and posses, shoot-outs on Main St (though not the quick-draw face off), and all what have you,
Elsie died when Margie was six, and Margie was raised by her widowed father, with the help of her grandmother, Ora Vanora Harris Hammontree and a flotilla of aunts, uncles and cousins.
Her father was a teamster and drove armored cars for a bank delivery service. Sometimes the owner, feeling sympathetic, gave permission for Claude to take Little Margie on his runs, so that the Marge was literally "rolling in dough" in the back of the armored car.
Margie's childhood home
One time, on a picnic, she was menaced by a sidewinder, but her father's friend blew it away with a six shooter. (In case you're wondering why country folk carry guns.) Another time, facing a water moccasin in a rowboat, she levitated into her father's arms. Another time, she was chased by a passel of hogs (yes, passel) and took refuge in a tree. The pigs kept her treed until the farmer, a friend of her father, came and drove them away.
Her grandmother had been a Holy Roller. Their meetings, with all their tongue-speaking, scared the be-jabbers out of Little Marge. Other uncles and aunts were variously Presbyterian or Episcopal or Methodist. There seemed no rhyme or reason to it. As far as Margie remembered, her daddy was an atheist.
Then one day, she accompanied a friend to a Catholic Mass and she was awed by the "smells and bells" and the sense of rootedness and tradition. She took lessons and converted, in the process converting also her grandmother. Catholics also spoke in tongues: viz., Latin. Oddly, when her classmates learned she would be going to the Catholic high school the next year, all the snob attitudes changed. She must be something special to be accepted there.
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| Sr. M. Philomena, SSM |
Placed in the mother-house in Milwaukee, she was trained and assigned to elementary school instruction, second and fourth grade in Thiensville, WI. Dealing with children was another skill that would later prove invaluable in management. Later, she was assigned to the hospital in Roswell, NM. No, she didn't see any aliens.
She stayed eight years with the Order but never took permanent vows. She left in 1965 when her temporary vows expired and worked in admissions at Marquette University. The apartment house where she lived was later the residence of Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal. It was torn down due to the infamy and no longer exists.
 |
| Disapproving of open housing |
Afterwards, she worked at the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance company. One day, two of her co-workers, Sally Mortenson and D'Arlyn Marks, invited her to dinner at their commune, where, she caught the eye Michael, and the rest is history.
 |
| Margie met Mikey at the House |
Once in Boulder, CO, ensconced in the Cavalier Apartments, just a couple blocks from the Math department of CU, Margie found a job with an NML agency south of Denver, beginning her lifetime of driving long distances. She loved driving, possibly because her father had been a Teamster. What she hated was traffic jams and would often drive 10 minutes out of her way to avoid a 5 minute delay. She had internalized all the roadmaps long before anyone came up with GPS.
In 1974, 1+1=3, and Sara entered the equation. It was a long, difficult labor that ended in a C-section. They hadn't decided on a name until her gurney was being wheeled past the waiting room and, half-sedated, she gasped out "Sara Margaret."Late the following year, Dennis was born. There was never any doubt that he would be named for Mike's late brother, so no last minute dramatics.
Never has a mother mothered so thoroughly. There was nothing they needed that she did not st least attempt to provide. In later years, she would cross the country at anysign of an illness or other need in her children.
Afterwards, she segued into banking at Central Bank of Denver, where she acquired advanced certificates from the American Institute of Banking and for a time became the AIB governor. She wound up at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Denver branch, where she worked in Check Processing (Does anyone remember checks?) and became a computer system analyst, back when "computer" meant mainframe. Along the way, she finished her education at Regis College with a degree in Communications.
In 1976, at an AIB convention in Phoenix, she watched from her hotel room while Clint Eastwood's bus was shot up filming The Gauntlet. In 1978, she took her kids to visit the set for the miniseries Centennial, which was built near Denver. Later, in NYC, she watched them build a faux subway station outside the Federal Reserve Bank for the Bruce Willis flick, Die Hard with a Vengeance. She loved watching movies, especially indies. It was one of Marge and Mike's favorite joint activities.
She loved New York. Every year, she took her daughter to see the Nutcracker, the Tree, et al. There were trips to the Met, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, the Museum of Natural History, to restaurants and so on.
The Fed of NY transferred its Check Processing to East Rutherford Operations Center, NJ. Margie
planned and conducted Check Processing's move, setting up the rooms, the sorting machines, phone portals, cabling, and so forth. She was known to get on hands and
knees under the flooring to check on cable connections.And she had to do this while maintaining check processing operations.
Some of her best friends were from her work, among them Julio, who secured tickets to sundry plays, musicals, and operas -- from a revival of Oklahoma! to a modernized version of The Mikado, by way of Carmen.
Mike's job and avocation both provided her with travel opportunities. She accompanied him to Ireland and Scotland, and to Vienna and Budapest. When Mike was tied up conducting a seminar, she took a day-trip to Prague. She toured Italy with her father-in-law and brother-in-law. She also visited various cities within the USA (SFO, LAX, ORD, BWI, DCA, SAT, et al.) often accompanying Mike on a consulting job or to a science fiction con.
The end was swift, gentle, and unexpected. She began to complain about a pain in her hip that gave her trouble walking. The orthopedist suspected arthritis, then bursitis. Then, one day, she could not get up from sitting, it hurt so bad. So, with some reluctance, she let herself be taken to the hospital. [She hated to be a bother to other people.] There, they took an MRI and discovered stage 4 kidney cancer. They placed her in a Skilled Nursing Facility and started a regime of radiation treatments. The doctors envisioned her going home once she had mastered walking and steps. At one point, with a walker, she took 16 steps.
One Monday, Sara took Mike to visit Margie, and she was cheerful, if a bit tired, and they talked for an hour or two. On Tuesday, Mike's cousin [and Margie's good friend] Mariellen went to visit her and found her similarly alert and talkative. On Thursday, the nurses could not wake her.
The SNF summoned the Emergency Squad, but by the time they arrived. Margie was once more awake and conversing with the technicians as they prepped her for transport. Sara and Mike went to sit with her in the Emergency Room, by which time she was asleep once more. When Mike spoke to her, she opened her eyes and they got real big. Then, they closed again. Sean and Danna had come up from Philly and we all went over to the hospital when she was transferred there.
After a time, Sean drove Mike back to the house to rest. Someone -- Sean, Sara, or granddaughter Noelle -- would come in the morning to bring me back. Mike lay down and, shortly, the phone rang. Mike knew even before he answered what the call was. He had heard the ban sidhe crying before he picked it up.
Margie's great heart was stilled and the prettiest smile on the planet had faded at last. At least from this material world. She smiles forever in our hearts.
She left was two months shy of her 50th wedding anniversary. It won't be nearly so much fun without her.
Her greatest pleasure lay in making others happy.
Thursday, June 17, 2021
The Vanishing American
Land O Lakes once had a likely label on their butter tubs and sticks, It showed a pleasant landscape with an Indian "princess" holding a sample of their product. Keen eyes could make out that the product had the same logo and that, therefore, the image was recurive, ad infinitum, albeit imperceptibly.
TOF has no objection to pleasant landscapes, only to implicit aversion displayrd toward an ethnic group. He notices that sports franchises are permitted to enshrine Vikings, Buccaneers, Raiders, and sundry other avatars far more threatening and stereotyped than a wee, harmless lassie. But they cannot cheer for and show devotion to an Indian avatar.
American Indians are not alone in being ethnically cleansed from the public square, of course. TOF gives matters another 15 years before the next generation of Besserwissers begin protesting the absence pf certain groups from advertising logos.
Sunday, May 9, 2021
Happy Mothers' Day, All You Mothers.
In honor of Mothers' Day, TOF will present a parade of Mothers, starting with:
1. The Incomparable Marge, from Tulsa, OK, who is the mother of the TOFsprings, shown here in their cute-and-innocent versions:
 |
| Sara, a/k/a Dear in the Headlights |
 | ||||||||
| Dennis: Wait, What's Going On Here... |
2. Elsie Vera Hammontree
(1924-1951) of Quinton, Oklahoma
 |
| Elsie and the Marge |
From here on, pictures are few. Elsie was the daughter of....
3. Ora Vanora Harris (1901-1967) was born in Chickasaw Nation. She married one of the innumerable John Hammontrees. She mothered The Incomparable Marge after Elsie died young. Ora's mother was...
4. Sadie Frances Holland (1884-1918), who had been born in
Louisiana and moved with her parents to Chickasaw Nation in 1898, where
the married Charlie Harding Harris. Sadie was the daughter of...
5. Annie Eliza Helms (1861-1939), who had been born in Lee Co., Georgia of North Carolinian parents. She married Henry Thomas Holland in Louisiana, then after his death in the Civil War, moved to Chickasaw Nation.. She was the
daughter of...
6. Gatsey Helms (c. 1826 - after 1880) who was born probably in Mecklenburg Co., North Carolina, married Henry Michael Helms there and emigrated to Alabama, then to Georgia.
Further than which, research falters.
1. Rita Marie Singley (1924-1993) a/k/a "The Mut," born in Easton, married Joseph Francis Flynn of P'burg.
 |
| Mut, displaying her bona fides as a mother |
2. Helen Myrtle Schwar (1896-1952) a/k/a "Big Mom," born in Nockamixon Twp, Bucks Co, PA, married Harry Francis Singley of Fountain Hill, and moved to Easton.
 |
| Big Mom, with her smaller brood: Mut in arms, twins Ralph and Paul below |
She was the daughter of....
3. Frances Hungrege (1870-1926) who married Joseph Francis Schwar
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| Frances: I'll see your five and raise you ten Big Mom on far right |
4. Magdalena Rieß (1836-1901), born in Niederhausen in the Grand Principality of Baden, emigrated to America in 1852 on the ship Pelican State out of Liverpool for New York City. She settled in the immigrant community in Nockamixon, where she married Conrad Hungege.
 |
| Magdalena Riess, No family shots |
She was the daughter of....
5. Franziska Stefan (1799-1856) who lived her whole life in Oberhausen/Niederhausen, Baden [nee Farther Austria]. She was
the daughter of...
6. Maria Anna Pflüger (c.1772-1845), whose mother appears to have been
7. M. A. Schwörer (1729-???) who was the daughter of
8. Franciska Lang (1710-1771)
At this point, even German record-keeping falters
and it may be that some records were lost during the Napoleonic wars.
This barely touches the mothers of TOF and Marge, who comprise fully half of our ancestry!
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
In the Belly of the Whale: Role Call
Introducing Detective Chief Inspector Bùxiè deSōuxún
on the Preview Page
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Sing a Song of Singleys
The Singleys, of whom my mother was a one, came originally from Oberhausen (now part of Rheinhausen) in the Breisgau of Baden. The Breisgau is the land between the Rhine and the Black Forest, and was formerly part of Farther Austria, i.e., Hapsburg lands far to the west of Austria. When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved at the end the Napoleonic kerfufffle, the Breisgau was ceded to Baden..
The name Singley has been spelled with a wonderful diversity, both here and in Baden. Among the variants have been Zengley, Zengli, Zängle, Zangl, Zaengle, Zenglin, Sengla, et al.. Die Zange means "pliers," "forceps," or "tongs." The "-li" ending is the southern German take on the standard German diminutive "-lein" e.g. Hans >Hansl.
The first Singley of whom we have definite knowledge was
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Another excerpt
In the Belly of the Whale.
Introducing the Big Dhik
on the Preview Page (see list in left column)
Monday, January 25, 2021
In the Belly of the Whale: Role Call
An excerpt from In the Belly of the Whale, a novel-in-progress, can be found on the book and story preview page, linked on the left. It is one of a series of vignettes introducing various characters. These characters may or may not make it into the final draft.
A new excerpt has been posted at the same link.
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Ancestor hunting.
Ancestor
hunting is not for the faint of heart, and the further back one goes, the
scantier the clues that come to hand. Even the Absolute Monarchs of the Enlightenment did
not think to keep track of their subjects in as much detail as the modern Scientific
State. If they sought you out at all, it was only for tax purposes, in which case the name of the ratepayer and the acreage occupied was sufficient unto.
Vital statistics were the provenance of the churches. Compare, for example, the data scraped for the 1790 Census to that of the 1940 Census.
But as Aristotle recommended, you start with the more certain and better known and proceed toward the less certain and lesser known.
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Be Afraid; Be Very Afraid. Please.
"[T]he whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
-- H.L.Mencken
"Never let a crisis go to waste."
-- Saul Alinsky
Psychology Today has told us that "a moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among many people that some evil threatens the well-being of society." It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue – usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media." Such a panic does not mean that that there is nothing to worry about. There really were Stalinist agents in the US Government when Joe McCarthy rose to denounce them. (We know this because the fall of the USSR led to many files becoming public -- for a while -- and names were named.) But the panic sets in when people begin to see Russians behind every tapestry or potted plant. It is the panic, rather than a rational caution or skepticism, that leads to overblown responses.
- An event, condition, episode or person is defined as a threat to the values, safety and interest of the wider society.
- The media then amplifies these apparent threats through inflammatory rhetoric These portrayals appeal to public prejudices, creating villains in need of social control (folk devils) and victims (the moral majority).
- The publicity surrounding the threat creates a sense of social anxiety leading to a public outpouring of concern.
- Government then responds to the public outcry and frames the alleged threat as being symptomatic of a wider social malaise that must be addressed.
- The moral panic and the responses to it transform the regulation of economy and society with the aim of tempering public outrage.
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In The Belly of the Whale - Now Available
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