Yesterday was miserable; today was glorious, brisk and brightly sunny. I rode my bike to State Department. Most of the ice and snow from yesterday was melted. Only on the bridges did it persist. I had to be a little careful with the slippery wet leaves, but these disadvantages were compensated by a strong tail wind, perfectly placed. The only time I had to head into the wind was coming down the bike trail parallel to Route 50 and that I welcomed. It is a steep downhill. With the strong headwind all I needed do to slow to a safer speed was sit up a little straighter and catch the wind.
I went down to State to see who I could see and what I could learn. I suppose you could call it networking if I was a little more organized about it. I did have a goal of talking to the folks at Canadian affairs office. I have lined up a “gig” (I don’t much like that word, but it is descriptive of how I work these days) helping with the Columbia River treaty negotiations. This is the treaty between the USA and Canada that concerns the flow of the Columbia River. It is a wonderfully complex system that features woods & water, as well as stakeholders in American states, Canadian provinces and Native American nations. My part of this work will be prosaic, but I think the subject is fascinating. I just love anything involving woods, water, mountains, fish, wildlife and dams and I hope to get a few trips to the region. Always liked Montana and some of the negotiations are supposed to take place in Vancouver, a place I have long wanted to visit.
My first picture is the slush covered bike bridge over Leesburg Pike. The bike path itself was almost completely free of ice, but on the bridges it persisted. Second picture is Gordon Biersch at Tysons. Chrissy and I went out there for supper and beers. I just neglected to get the usual beer drinking pictures, so on the way out I got the sign. Not as good, I know.
I never got to know my mother after I was an adult. She died when I was seventeen. So my memories are seen through the eyes of a child or at best a teenager. The one thing that I remember very clearly was that I was always sure that she loved me. Everything else is less important after that and I know that she shaped a lot of my character.
Our house was the center of family activity while my mother was there. She had three sisters (Mabel, Florence & Lorraine) and two brothers (Harold & Hermann) and we had much of the extended family, minus Harold, who I don’t remember ever meeting. The family didn’t get along with his wife, Sophie. I don’t know why. All the other aunts and cousins would come over to play cards. Usually the cousin would come too, so while I had only one sister, I feel like I had lots of siblings. I really don’t know what card games they played. I just recall the constant chatter of a kind of mixed German-English. “Wat’s spielt is spielt” and “now who’s the high hund?”
Ma
As I wrote above, I didn’t get to know my mother as much as I would have liked to and I am astonished at how much I don’t remember or maybe never knew. Kids are rarely interested in their parents’ life stories until they get older, maybe because they just cannot believe their parents were ever young enough to have anything interesting to say. Besides, kids in my generation spent most of their time outside and away from the house. Parents and children have much more intense relationships these days, if for no other reason than that they are together when parents drive the kids everywhere and arrange various teams, trainings and activities. We didn’t have a car and we didn’t belong to any organized activities. I spent most of my days hanging around outside with my friends who lived nearby and I didn’t ask much.
I know she was born Virginia Johanna Haase (Mariza has her middle name). Her father was Emil and her mother was Anna (Grosskreutz). She grew up on the South Side of Milwaukee and married my father after the war, as they always called World War II. Of her childhood, I know little. Her father was an engineer who remained employed throughout the Great Depression, evidently a rare achievement. My father’s family was less fortunate.
Virginia was an unenthusiastic student in HS and dropped out of Bay View HS (same place I later went) in the tenth grade, but she always encouraged education for my sister and me. She worked at Allen Bradley during WWII but not long enough to get Social Security benefits. After she married my father, she no longer did any paying work, besides occasionally free-lance catering with her sisters. My mother made really good German potato salad, which was always in demand at family gatherings.
Virginia Haase was phenomenally good-natured and I remember her always cheerful. My father told me that he was lucky to get my mother to marry him, since she was extremely popular because of her open personality. She later became a woman of substance, as you can see in the bottom picture. My father was fond of big women, so I guess they had a good thing going.
My father enjoyed beer every day, but Ma drank only a little and only once a year at Christmas. She had one bottle of Gordon’s Gin in the downstairs refrigerator. She had a drink at Christmas and that bottle was down there as long as I remember, only gradually emptying. It was still half full when she died.
Sad to say that my most vivid memories come from the end of my mother’s life. I was riding my bike up to the Kettle Moraine State Forest when my mother went into the hospital for the last time. It was a big trip that I had planned for a long time. My parents kept my mother’s urgent condition from me so as not to ruin my camping trip. When I called from the pay phone at Mauthe Lake, my father told me that ma was sleeping. I thought that odd. She always wanted to talk to me, but didn’t think that much about it. When I got home she had gone to the hospital. I never saw her again.
We talked on the phone, but my mother didn’t want us to visit her in the hospital during the last days. I feel guilty about that still, but it was a good decision. She wanted us to remember her from better times and I do indeed remember her healthy and happy instead of what I imagine it must have been after the chemotherapy and ravages of cancer. My father got a call from the hospital about dawn on the day before my mother died. I heard him talking on the phone and inferred what was happening, but didn’t come out of my room when he went to the hospital. We didn’t handle the whole thing very well, but in retrospect I am not sure how it would have worked out any better if we did things differently. I lived in dread the whole day, but she didn’t die that day. I know it is illogical but I convinced myself that she would be out of the woods if she only survived the day, that one more day.
But miracles happen only on television & in the movies.
They cut down the last of the big elm trees soon after Ma died. I thought it was symbolic and I paid special attention. She loved those trees and felt bad as they succumbed one-after-another to the Dutch elm disease until there was only one left standing. The tree by the alley was the last survivor near the house, and Ma was happy to have at least one left. It was in its yellow fall colors as I watched it fall to the ground. It was a pleasant fall day with wispy clouds.
I don’t want to end on this sorrowful note because that is not the end of the story. Among many other things, my mother left me a special legacy. Ma followed my various interests and encouraged them. All I needed to do was mention an interest and soon a book appeared.
I thank my mother for all the books on dinosaurs, ecology and history. Even more important, she gave me the gift of reading itself. A well organized or impressive child I was not, but my mother had confidence in me anyway in a way that only a loving mother can.
My first grade teacher put me into the slow reading group and I lived up to her low expectations of me. My mother complained to the school, essentially arguing that I was not as dumb as I seemed and my problem was not that the reading challenge was too great, but that it was not great enough to hold my interest. She convinced my teacher to put me into a higher reading group. Although I couldn’t meet the lower standards, I could exceed the higher ones with Ma’s help. She made flash cards and we studied not only the day’s lesson but also anticipated the next one.
Being able to do more but not less – this kind of paradox is not uncommon. I wonder how many kids w/o mothers as good as mine were/are trapped by the gentle cruelty of low expectations. Ma saved me from all that. She just expected me to succeed. I did, by my standards at least.
Thanks Ma. Without you, I would be nothing. I wish you could have met the grandchildren. They would have loved you. It has been decades since we talked. Memory fades, but I have not forgotten that I was so very lucky to have you there for me.
George Washington was good manager and smart investor. He diversified his crops and always looked for profitable enterprise. Among them was a grist mill and – partially based on the – a distillery.
Washington: A Man Who Appreciated Good Spirits Washington was fond of wine and spirits. He also favored porter beer. He opened the grist mill and distillery later in his life. It soon became a big profit center. We did not learn much about Washington’s booze making enterprise when I was in grade school. There was some effort to keep the whole story obscure, as temperance movements, & even prohibition came to prominence. It wouldn’t do to have the father of our country a prominent boozer and booze maker.
Washington was an extraordinary person. We know Washington the general, Washington the president, even Washington the explorer & surveyor. Washington the builder and practical businessman seems way too much for one man, but this is also a very impressive part of this life, and it was the source of most of his joy. In a less revolutionary time, he would have been content to work his farm and industries. Even as president, he got regular, detailed reports from his plantations (plural) and industries.
We know a lot about how Washington ran the place by these reports and Washington’s replies. He never stopped running the show and it was clearly his passion.
The Distillery Reopened The distillery was reopened in 2007. They asked for donations from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and within a few hours had millions of dollars in donations. Good PR. The distillers were able to figure out recipes for Washington’s whiskey by looking at records of the types of grains that went into it. The first batches of whiskey were not good; they are learning and improving.
Whiskey Flavor is Mostly Oak and Char Newly distilled whiskey is clear and not very good. Whiskey takes years to age to get its flavor. MOST of the flavor (60%+) and all its color comes from the wood in the barrels. At temperatures rise and fall, the whiskey is absorbed by the wood and released. Whiskey barrels are always made of white oak and for American whiskey they can be used only once. There is a brisk after market for barrels. Some of them are used by Scotch makers, who do not have the new barrel requirement, and lately some are sold to craft beer brewers. The need to age whiskey is one of the barriers to entry to new distillers, since they have to wait some years to sell product. In Virginia, you can get decent, but not good, whiskey in two years. The minimum for reasonable smoothness is four years. Standard is seven and you can go to about ten years to get the best. It takes longer in places like Scotland because of the cooler weather. Scotch is not much good until it is at least 12-years-old and gets it best at around 18. After that it becomes more expensive but not much better.
Setting the Mash We got to watch the distiller “setting the mash.” They mix the grains with nearly boiling water and stir it all together. Then they let it cook, i.e. start to ferment. Sweet mash relies on new yeast to make the product. Sour mash, which is more common, takes some of the mash from earlier batches. Sour mash can have a more consistent quality. More details about the distillery are at this link.
What is art? Setting the mash is a form of performance art and the act of making whiskey in the traditional way is an art in itself. Consider what it means to create art. We can appreciate paintings and sculpture for the finished product that we can see. But more of the art is related to its production. That is the “act of art” and the act of creation is often more meaningful than the creation itself. Creation of something like whiskey is meaningful to the creators and those around them.
Part of finding meaning in life, as search we should all be making, is working toward excellence and a state of flow, where things just fall into place. We have all experienced this but find it hard to express. What we are doing is less important than the rigor we put into it. A craftsman finds this meaning in making his furniture, pottery, beer or whiskey and seeking excellence in the production. You may seek intellectual excellence. I find great meaning in my forestry. Whatever it is, it is important that it be challenging and NOT all under our control. That is the art. We are responding to changing conditions to create the end we have in mind. The people working at the distillery are artists.
My first picture is me in front of the wheels that work the grist mill. Next are from the distillery. the techniques and tools are like those of Washington’s time.
Crashing, banging, feeling queasy & nearly fainting. These are some of my impressions of the crash-bang course I completed yesterday. I hope I never need to most of what I learned, and I am happy to report that I have never needed any of the more dramatic lessons yet. Much of the less dramatic lessons are good sense. Stay away from bad situations. Don’t make yourself predictable to crooks or nefarious types. Be aware of your surroundings. Common sense too often not commonly applied.
Security is central to all our success, but I do worry that we make a fetish of security to the detriment of other parts of our important work. Diplomacy means getting out, meeting and talking to people. Most of these people will be good or at least okay, but some will be questionable or even nefarious. Most of the places we go will be benign and even pleasant, but some will be unsafe. Even with the most circumspect and careful diplomats will run risks if they are doing their jobs right, and even if we do all the security right, some of us will be hurt and some of us die.
My colleagues and I, we look preposterous in our body armor and oversized helmets. We are awkward when we wear the gear and clumsy putting it on. We don’t do well crawling under the simulated smoke and some of us feel light-headed even looking at pictures of horrendous wounds. I know that I quietly closed my eyes when they showed bloody stumps or sharp objects protruding from parts of the body they do not belong.
But I am proud of my colleagues and proud to be among them. After they learn all the risks, they are still eager to go out and do diplomacy, meet those good people are risk meeting the bad. Some are going to the high-risk posts like Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan or Yemen, but there is always some risk. Nobody expected the embassy bombings in Kenya or Tanzania. As long as I am on this topic, let me emphasis the contribution of our Foreign Service National staff. They are also State Department employees of contractors. They work in their own countries for us. They are often truly on the front lines and when our facilities are attacked they are often the ones injured or killed.
And the kids are okay. Most of the people in the classes are younger than I am (it is hard to be both older than me and still in the FS), and many are new officers. I don’t like it when they are called snowflakes. Old people always think young people are not as good as they were. They are wrong. Every generation has its heroes and this one is responding to its challenges too.
Well, that is my editorial comments. Now for a little of the personal impression. I won’t go into detail, as we are not supposed to.
The part that sounds the most exciting, but I do not much like is the driving. It is okay when I am driving, but I get motion sickness when I am a passenger with all the weaving, fast accelerations and abrupt stops. It was fun to ram other cars. When I did it before, it hurt more because I did it wrong. You have to accelerate just as you hit the other vehicle. That way inertia is on your side. You are being pulled back by the acceleration and so when you hit and are thrown forward it is just kind of equalized.
The emergency medicine was scary. We are not trained treat most wounds, but just preserve life until competent people come along. The key to this is the tourniquet. Most of what I learned about tourniquets is wrong and much has been changed in the last few years. The misinformation came from good sources based on experience in World War I. The thought was that cutting off the blood supply caused gangrene. Doctors observed that many of the wounded with tourniquets developed gangrene. Their problem was with the sample. The ones they saw had lived. The ones w/o the tourniquets were dead. The gangrene came from infections. It is true that a tourniquet can cause damage by starving the tissues of blood and oxygen. But it is not like the blood is likely to get where it is needed anyway. The reason you need the tourniquet is because the blood in coming out through a wound. It is not going to nourish the tissues if it spills out onto the ground.
We learned that the ugliest and most gaping wounds are not always the most important and that internal bleeding can be at bigger threat than the blood we can see. They showed a picture of a guy who died from his heart being impacted by a fast stop and his seatbelt. He seemed okay but died the next day from internal injuries. The lecturer said that old guys like me didn’t have to worry about such things. That begged the question, and somebody asked why. The answer was the old guys are too fragile. We don’t die the next day, because the initial impact kills us.
Now for the bang part. The impact of the shock wave, even from a small explosion, is impressive. I could easily tell the difference between the Glock, AK, M-4 and shotgun when I heard them right after each other, but I don’t think I could do it just hearing one of them in isolation. It is also very hard to tell the direction.
One thing that is clear – and I think something they want to as a take-away – is that it is a lot easier to imagine what to do than do it. Under time pressure and stress, the world is a lot different. It was hard even when we knew the threat was not real and the stress was artificial. Consider if you had a real physical wound. I have never been under angry fire. In Iraq I heard distant bangs a few times and once observed “celebratory fire,” a crowd shooting into the air, which can be dangerous since what goes up must come down. But I was often nervous walking on the streets, even with armed and trained Marines all around me, or riding in the armored vehicles. I know it affected my judgement. They want you to think about the danger before the danger is manifest, since it is too late after. I took a variation of this course way back in 2007 when I was on my way to be a PRT leader in Iraq. This is what I wrote about it back then. I wrote the above before rereading the below. Some things are different; a lot is the same.
September 23, 2007 A Car Sick & Melancholy Resident of the Twilight Zone September 20, 2007 Today was the kind of day I will look back on with some fondness, but it was not a good day. I can liken this experience to going to the amusement park and getting to ride the roller coaster – ALL DAY. I am in W. Virginia for evasive driving training. It was good at first. We did some driving on slick surfaces. It was fun to skid around and not too hard for me. Next was also fun, driving around the racetrack dodging orange plastic cones. I did that well too. But then one of my car mates got sick and threw up out the window. I figured that if he was sick, there might be a reason. After that I felt sick myself for the rest of the day. Of the 28 people in my class, about half of us got sick. It was very jarring. We had to avoid objects and break rapidly. It did not like the smell of exhaust and burning rubber. Hardest for me was driving backwards. I have never been good at backing up and doing it at high speeds is scary for me. Suffice to say, I drove over a few cones. We also had to crash into other cars and ram them out of the way. This was interesting. It is not something you get to do very often w/o pushing up your insurance rates. Tomorrow the bad guys will attack us and we will have to respond by evading driving out of danger. Like so many things relating to Iraq, it will be good to HAVE done, but not good to be gonna do. I think this will become my catch phrase. September 21/22 It was more fun today. I did not get sick. We had to evade and escape. I did that okay. I enjoy it a lot more when I am not sick, but I am really glad it is over. At the end of the day, the instructor blew some things up, including an old car, to show us how the different explosions look, sound and smell. That was cool. It is interesting how you can feel the shock waves. Once again my joy in seeing such strange things was mitigated by the knowledge that such things may no longer be so strange in my future life. Going to these courses makes you a little paranoid. Security guys take some pride in their ability to stimulate unease. They kind of look down on us ordinary guys who do not find the world so immediately threatening. I understand that the situation in Iraq is dangerous and I admit that there are times for vigilance even in America. But I am glad that most Americans can live most of their lives in a state of general unpreparedness. Isn’t this what we want from security? It is a great advantage to be able to walk down the streets of home lost in our own mundane thoughts. I hope that we can help the Iraqis get that back soon and we have to make sure Americans do not lose it – the right to be distracted, the right not to pay attention, or maybe just freedom from fear. I also called to confirm my milair flight from Amman to Baghdad. They are efficient there. I am on. They said they will inform me of the “show time” when the time gets closer. I am in that funny twilight zone right now between my former and future lives. I still have to do a few things for IIP/S and I still am the director. People are asking me for decisions and I still have authority. But there is not much left. I will be in Iraq by the end of next weekend. Now I am going through all the “lasts” at least for a long time. Mariza came down for her last visit before I leave. I went to Arthur Treacher with CJ for the last time this morning. Tomorrow I plan to run for the last time along the upper bike trail. On Monday, I will ride for the last time to work on my bike. Unfortunately, I will not have the time to go down to my forest. I think it will be a lot bigger when I get back. Those trees grow really fast. It is a melancholy time. The feeling has nothing to do with Iraq. This is always the case before a PCS move. I think of all the things I have become accustomed to doing that I will not do for a long time to come, maybe for years, maybe forever. Iraq will be quite an experience no matter what. It will be good to have done it.
I am at the crash-bang course. Not supposed to write about details and not allowed to take pictures. I have to take it so that that I can spend more than 44 total days overseas. I have no current specific plans to do so, but this is a kind of a advance down payment in case something comes up. The certification is good for five years.
The training is not much fun, but there is beer here and good colleagues to drink it with. Since Mariza wrote about how I like beer and others have seen so many pictures of me glass in hand, I have been thinking about my relationship with the golden liquid. I do indeed like the taste of beer, but it is the social aspect, the ritual that I enjoy. I am carrying on an ancient tradition passed on by my father and passed to him by his, nigh onto the middle ages.
Rituals are important. I am not saying that beer drinking is some sort of mystical philosophy, but it is one of those things that lubricates life and relationships. I know that some people feel that way about wine or fine foods, or any number of human activities. My first picture shows some beer drinking with a couple of colleagues. The others are from a walk I took around my Fairfax neighborhood on Saturday. Pictures 2 & 3 are Dunn Loring woods. #4 shows some suburban fall colors. The last one is near the Metro. Planning is done well. You have the necessary parking garage, but it is insulated by a “sleeve” of retail and restaurants. Parking garages are ugly, but when they streets are protected from the eyesore by useful businesses, it is good.
Still at crash-bang, so do not have much to say, since I am not supposed to share details. Suffice it to say that today we trained in simple defense and how to get out of burning buildings. I am (I think) the second oldest guy in group and I am pleased to say that I did okay. I do not really think I could fight off a serious attacked nor very heroically get out of a burning building, but I could deal with the minor versions of these things.
Had a few beers with colleagues. I like my FS colleagues. We have an odd set of characteristics and this is a group where I fit in reasonably well. My younger colleagues did some karaoke. They had a good time and it was good fun. My picture is a bit out of focus, which is probably a good thing. They said it was okay to post the pictures, but maybe better not to be identified. Funny that they even supply the singers with a cardboard guitar for air guitar playing.
Did my first Forest History Society board meeting. It was very interesting and I think the FHS does very worthy work. Everybody was very nice to me and my fellow board members are great people – smart and committed.
My gentleman of leisure portfolio keeps me pretty busy. It was/is the way I designed it. I am not busier than I was when I was working, but there is often a greater diversity of activities. I do to lectures, study lots of books & tapes, participate now on two boards of directors, still get to work overseas for State Department and do my forestry. All of this is great and “retirement” is working out better than I planned. I guess I am feeling a little tired.
I expect that I will get over it. I often felt like this after an official trip or speaking series, even if, especially if, it was successful. It was kind of like, “what next?” When I worked for the FS, I had a defined job and somebody who could kick me in the rear, at least in theory, if I slowed down too much. Now I have only what I create and there is no push. Well, enough of the end of trip angst, seen it before and will see it again. The angst never wins.
My pictures are from our last day in Durham. I had the usual beer. Chrissy did an old fashioned. Next two are Durham street scenes. Last is the floor at the restaurant “Mother & Sons” Trattoria. I took it by mistake, but I thought it looked good.
I am down in Durham to join the board of directors of the Forest History Society. I went for the orientation today and we visited the future society headquarters.
The Forest History Society has an extensive collection of books and documents related to forestry. They also publish books and videos about forestry and ecology.
This is the Forest History Society webpage, gateway to blogs, publications, and videos. The pictures are from the new headquarters. As you can see, it getting on toward being done. There is a lot of exposed wood and the structure is wood, as befits the mission. Lots of the material is donated by forest product industry. Notice especially the beautiful ceilings made out of southern pine.
One thing holding up the completion is the shortage of labor, especially skilled labor. I am hearing this all over the place. Unemployment is so low that it is hard to get anybody to do hard work, or sometimes skilled work. We are facing that problem planting and harvesting trees, and evidently with building too.
We also have our customary beer (or in this case for CJ wine) drinking pictures.They had a dinner for the board members that Chrissy and I got to enjoy.
Chrissy came with me to the farms today so she could take pictures of me with my trees to give perspective of size.
First two pictures are my longleaf pine in Freeman, planted in 2012. We (DoF Adam Smith) burned them in February 2017. Next two are from the SMZ. There are some very big loblolly there, beautiful. Last is one of the baby longleaf (2 years old) on the Brodnax place.
I mentioned the longleaf and had pictures of how they had grown. The first two pictures are t2-year-old loblolly from the Brodnax place. Last is the 22-year old loblolly recently thinned in Freeman. Good to show the size with a human scale. The 2-year-olds are doing very well. As you see, some are more than six feet high and they are coming over the brush. You can well understand why people plant loblolly. They are so easy.
Chrissy & I are in Durham, NC for a meeting of the Forest History Society. I am interested in forests and I am interested in history, so I am going to be on the board of directors of that organization.
The Forest History Society has a research collections on books and documents related to forests and ecology. They also publish a magazine on forest history and one on ecological history. They are just finishing a new headquarters. I expect to see it tomorrow and will include some pictures and texts. Durham is the home of Duke University. The city was in long term economic decline, but has been doing better since it became part of the research triangle. Recently, it was featured in the book “The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation.”
Anyway, we got to Durham this afternoon. Seems a nice place there are lots of places to get a beer and we visited two of them.
The first, featured in the first two pictures, was the Bull & Burger. Next we visited “Taproom.” You pay by the ounce and fill your own cup. We tried a few different kinds and then settled down to a game of shoots and ladders. We used to play this game as kid. It is only random chance, but there is moral lessons. If a kid does good things, he climbs a ladder. If she does bad things, she slides down the shoot. As I recall, I won.
Chrissy & I went down to Smithsonian to unlock the wordhoard in a day-long program by Professor Anne Curzan, a linguist from University of Michigan. The real title was English Words: Etymologies and Curiosities. I just liked “wordhoard”. It is the old English for vocabulary. “He dipped into his wordhoard and said …” Another interesting phrase was “ban hus” or bone house. That means body. Professor Curzon read from old English. It is clearly a foreign language, but if you listen very hard you can perceive it is your language down deep. There never was a pure English (or any other language) but English has a birth year – AD 449. That is the tradition date when the Anglo-Saxons crossed over to what would become England. Of course, they brought with them their Germanic language and it did change immediately when they crossed the water, but the separation began.
The Romans abandoned the province of Britannia. They just could not hang on, as barbarians streamed across the imperial borders and when in 410 the Visigoths sacked Rome, the emperor decided to cut Britannia loose. The Britons were not very warlike after nearly 400 years of Roman protection. W/o the Roman legions they could not defend their borders against barbarians and pirates who raided the coasts. So, they made the unwise choice of inviting German mercenaries to do their fighting for them, these were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes from what is now northern Germany and Denmark. They did a decent job dispatching the local threats, but they decided that they liked Britannia so much they would keep it. They send word back to their cousins that the land was good and the inhabitants weak. So began England (land of the Angles) and the English language. This was the start of a long process that is not finished. English is truly a promiscuous language. The first English mixed liberally with Norse, brought by the Vikings. The Vikings raided and burned, but then they settled in large numbers. At that time Norse and English were still somewhat mutually intelligible. Much of England became bilingual and a kind of blended language. Norse contributed lots of words to English and caused the grammar to become simpler
as the non-native speakers dispensed with some of the more arcane forms.
England after around 800 was more a part of Scandinavia, culturally and linguistically, than it was western Europe. This changed in 1066 with the Norman Conquest. The Normans (as the name implies) were themselves of Viking stock, but they were by that time French speaking. French became the prestige language in England for the next four centuries. There were never very many Normans in England, but the ran the place and their language ruled too.
The interesting illustration shows the subordination of English. In the field, where they peasants work, the big grazing animal is a cow (English). When it comes into the castle it becomes beef (French). In the pen, it is a pig. When it comes into the castle it becomes pork. Same goes for sheep and mutton. In fact, you can see it in lots of words. An English peasant might live in a house. The Norman rich guy lived in a mansion. When it got really classy, it became a domicile. Domicile shows the other influence – Latin.
Latin came into the language all through its history, as it was the language of the Church and of educated elites, but there was a big jump following the 15th Century. Writers and others wanted to “improve” English, so they coined new words. You can see this happening in Chaucer and Shakespeare later.
I have gone on a little too much with the history. She also talked about how we develop slang and how the language changes and continues to change. Word meanings change, sometimes even turning around. We all have our peeves about particular words, but it can be a losing fight.
I personally dislike it when people use the word utilize. There is almost no case where simple use is not a better choice, but people think the longer word is more sophisticated. Professor Curzan mentioned the differences between among and between and said that the difference between imply and infer is lost for the masses. Young people are starting to use because as a preposition. Language changes.
Great living in Washington because there are so many programs like this.
My pictures are from Smithsonian. The last one is just me on the Mall. I know it looks like an old west stance. It is the hat that does it. Since I became “hair denied” I began to wear hats. Now I feel naked w/o one. The brimmed hat is great, keeps the sun out of your eyes and the rain off your face and neck. You can see why they invented them. But the risk is looking like an old west guy. I can stand that, but I will avoid standing like that in pictures.
Washington and Virginia are into one of the two best times for weather. First is April-May and now mid-September to mid-November. October is the best month of the year. You need neither heat nor air conditioning. Just open the windows at night, and you can be comfortable outside all day long.
On Sunday, I took advantage of the great weather to visit Great Falls with my old friend from Norway, Doron Bard. We used to hike and ski together when in Norway in the early 1990s. Great Falls is only 12 miles from Washington.
Today, I rode my bike to meet my IIP colleague, Tim Receveur. We had lunch as Circa at Foggy Bottom. They have a great outdoor place to eat and drink beer. I got there way early. I usually give myself a lot of time, but I was also helped along by a strong tail wind. I took advantage to read my book, “Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution.” It is a good book about convergence, contingencies and the latest developments in evolution. The study of evolution had now become an experimental discipline and scientists think that it may happen a lot faster than the glacial pace postulated for so long. In other words, we can see it happening. This is good news. It means that life can adapt better to climate change and other rapid environmental disturbances. My pictures show Great Falls, Washington today and photos from Circa, before the crowds arrived.
