Alexandersmap

    Month: March 2019

    • John Glover

      One of the biggest heroes for the American Colonists in the Revolutionary War in 1776 was a fisherman from Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Actually, he was more than a fisherman, he was also a cordwainer (shoemaker), rum trader, merchant and notably, the first Captain (of the Hannah) in the Continental Navy a later in the war he commanded forces at Saratoga and served with distinction there as well.  But it was and as the Commander of a brigade known as the “Amphibious Regiment” that John Glover became a legend in the history of the American Revolution.

      Glover’s group of fishermen and merchants saved the Continental Army twice in New York with strategic evacuations from Brooklyn and later from Manhattan.  These two evacuations saved the Continental Army from certain defeat against far superior numbers.  These weren’t the battle hardened troops of later in the war, these were undisciplined troops led by Generals, including George Washington, who were being outmaneuvered by the British Generals.  Glover’s fleet of small boats shuttled the entire army across the Hudson River to Manhattan and then to New Jersey in the cover of darkness.

      In December of 1776, Glover’s Marblehead men once again became heroes in shuttling the Continental Army across the frigid Delaware River to Trenton, and then back again with 900 Hessian POW’s.  Glover’s fleet pulled off some of the most impressive amphibious maneuvers of the war, equalling the British invasion of Long Island in seamanship, and perhaps surpassing the British with their sheer audacity.

      At some point I’ll update this post with pictures of John Glover’s statue in Boston and his home in Marblehead, Massachusetts.  For now, I’m taking a moment to appreciate this war hero, rum trader, merchant, fisherman and yes, cordwainer.  Glover is one of the legends of the American Revolution and should be more widely known today.

    • Woodpeckers and Daily Reading

      I’m trying to establish better habits – nothing new there, I’ve written about it before.  When I’m home, my morning habit starts with helping Bodhi get up and outside for a little relief.  I drink a pint of water and brew coffee while he’s outside, and read a little.  Simple start-the-engines stuff.

      I take stock of things.  Then read a bit of Daily Stoic, and a bit of Seth Godin.  Today, both had lines that stuck with me:

      “One day it will all make sense.” – Ryan Holiday

      “Whenever you find yourself blaming providence, turn it around in your mind and you will see that what has happened is in keeping with reason.” – Epictetus

      “We get what we remember, and we remember what we focus on.” – Seth Godin

      About the time I was reading the Seth blog I recognized that Bodhi had been out for awhile and it was time to help him up the stairs.  Walking outside, I heard the loud, rapid fire rap of a pileated woodpecker in the woods.  As if in response, I heard a second pileated woodpecker (they travel in pairs) making the same loud, rapid fire rap in response.  This repeated a couple of times before I went back inside, grateful for the reminder that not everything that matters is happening in my own head.

       

    • Gravesend Bay

      In the Southeastern corner of Brooklyn, New York is an oddly-named village named Gravesend.  The definitive origin of the name is lost to history, but it’s generally agreed that it comes from the Dutch phrase “Count’s Beach”.  This was part of New Amsterdam in the 17th century, and it remains one of the only place names in Metro New York that still holds a Dutch-origin name.  Go up the Hudson River and you’ll find plenty more.

      Gravesend is [sort of] famous for two things.  First, it’s the location of Coney Island Amusement Park, home of the gag-reflex hot dog eating contest every 4th of July.  Given the date this event happens there’s some irony in the second reason for Gravesend’s fame.  It was the site of the British landing in the summer of 1776 when the British and Hessian forces swept across Long Island and Manhattan and gained control of the critical New York Harbor and the lower Hudson River.

      On the morning of August 23rd, 1776 the British invaded America at Gravesend Bay.  By noon of that morning more than 15,000 British troops made an amphibious landing on the beaches there, and brought with them 40 artillery pieces.  They quickly moved into the interior of Brooklyn and taught General George Washington and the colonial army a lesson in strategic military moves.  Washington looked around days later and realized that there was no hope and evacuated his troops from Long Island.  That evacuation is a story for another day, but needless to say, the defense of the American colonies hadn’t gone as planned.  So on the 4th of July, when strange people consume massive quantities of hot dogs dipped in milk, think about American hopes for a brighter future being dashed in Gravesend in the summer of 1776.  It’s okay to look away when they show it.

    • Getting Smarter

      “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day – if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.”  
      – Charles T. Munger

      I’ve heard this quote a few times over the last few years, and try to live by this rule of consistent, incremental improvement over time.  But especially now.  Now I’m past the halfway mark on my hundred year odyssey.  I figure if family genes have anything to do with it I may suffer from some dementia at some point in my senior years.  I’m hoping that continuous learning combined with medical advancements in memory care multiplied by vibrant life experience will fend off the worst of it until I hit triple digits.  But hell, you just don’t know in this world do you?

      So every day I read.  Mostly non-fiction history or business books, but I mix in page-turner fictional novels along the way, and the occasional classic.  I read a daily dose of stoicism from Ryan Holiday.  I read a few articles in The Athletic or Sports Illustrated.  And God help me I keep an increasingly reluctant finger on the pulse of politics.

      And every day I write.  I journal a bit, but blog a bit more.  Life observations, history, conservationist ramblings, stoicism and hopefully some self-depreciating humor along the way.  Perhaps this will extend my memory and serve as a reminder should it falter someday.  Perhaps it will serve as the foundation for a book someday.  Time will tell.

      What I don’t do every day, but try to do most days, is to anchor my days in vibrant life experiences.  I’d be a fool if I said every day was vibrant, but every day offers experiences.  And I’m trying to suck the marrow out of each of them.  Hopefully I’ll remember most of it when I hit the century mark.

       

    • Snowy Lane Changes and Time Changes

      This morning we had a typical March snowstorm.  Heavy, wet snow that eventually turned to rain.  It was well-predicted that it would do exactly what it did.  Well, almost exactly.  The snow started a few hours earlier than originally expected, and that seemed to catch the world by surprise.  Throw in the “spring forward” aspect of Daylight Savings and the morning seemed upside down from the start.

      I spent the night on the Cape as I was worked late into the evening while trying to complete a project Saturday.  There was a lovely pink overcast sky but no precipitation, so I delayed my departure a bit longer to clean up the house a bit.  Leaving the house by 8 AM and believing the storm was tracking from the south, I had no idea that I’d be driving into a mess.  Even when sleet and snow started tapping on my windshield, I thought I’d eventually drive out of it.  Nope – it only got worse the closer I got to New Hampshire.

      With heavy snow well ahead of the plows, the roads quickly turned to crap.  The left lane was a fools paradise.  The middle and right lanes were each a pair of tire tracks, and the average speed dropped to about 45-50 MPH.  Passing very slow drivers involved slowing down, gradually crossing the chasm  of snow built up between the pairs of tire tracks, and then speeding up enough to move past the slower car.  Returning to your original lane involved the same procedure in reverse.  With that kind of drama it was no surprise that many drivers just opted to stay put in whatever lane they were in.

      Traffic was much heavier than you’d expect in a snowstorm like that, making me believe that I wasn’t the only one thrown off by the timing of the heaviest snow.  But despite the hazardous driving conditions, there were only two accidents on the route that I took through Boston – one on the Southeast Expressway and the other north of Boston in the Somerville area.  In both cases the cars were SUV’s whose driver’s clearly thought all wheel drive made them invincible.

      For all the driving I do, I only find myself in these kinds of conditions a few times per year now.  Weather forecasts tend to be more accurate, and experience has taught me to time my drives better.  Today was an exception, and thus a memorable morning.  Worst part of the drive was looking at the clock on the car’s dash and realizing I had to move it forward an hour.  But my car won’t let me do it while the car is moving so the lost hour mocked me the entire drive.

    • Routines & Systems

      “Routine is one of the most powerful tools for removing obstacles.  Without routine, the pull of nonessential distractions will overpower us.  But if we create a routine that enshrines the essentials, we will begin to execute them on autopilot.” – Greg McKeown

      I’m a big believer in established routines.  Unfortunately I’ve got a lazy routine established at the moment.  Not enough rowing, walking, burpees, and weights.  A few days ago I set out to re-establish a routine by starting small – ten burpees and ten push-ups.  Just do them at the same time every morning, just after I get up, and once the routine is established start increasing the workload.

      James Clear, in Atomic Habits, talks about focusing on a system, and not on goals.  I feel that’s about right too.  He also says it’s okay to miss, but don’t ever miss twice.  More good advice.  Of course, I missed more than twice, but who’s counting?  I should be.

      Last summer and fall I had a pretty solid routine that included fifty burpees per day, no matter what.  But then I injured my back, and that what mattered.  My back is back to normal again, but the routine of fifty burpees per day hasn’t reappeared.  Perhaps starting with ten and building back up again will do the trick.  After all, ten is way better than zero.

    • Algebra 1

      Deep in the recesses of my brain are memories of Algebra 1.  In the fall of 1980 I took Algebra 1 in a fragile state, and it didn’t end particularly well.  I’d moved to a town I wasn’t particularly fond of, went to a school with a bunch of people I didn’t know, and was taking a class that I was indifferent to.  If I excelled in English, History and other classes of the time, my fourteen-year-old mind just couldn’t wrap itself around Algebra 1.

      I would bring my homework home, ignore it as long as possible, try to tackle it when I was falling asleep, and bring it incomplete into school.  The Algebra teacher at the time had a tactic to ensure that students would do their homework; Public embarrassment.  He’d have as all march up to the chalk board and do one of the assigned problems for all to see.  So a row of us would shuffle up to the chalk board, and one by one students would finish the problem and sit down.  Until there was only one person standing, staring at an unfinished problem on the board.  That would be me.

      I’m not sure how many times we went through this exercise, but it was many times.  If the teacher was trying to shame me into doing the homework, it didn’t have the desired effect.  Instead I grew to hate Algebra 1 more, and became more reluctant to do the homework, and the cycle continued.  Rather than work with me, he seemed to be as indifferent to my struggles as I was to the subject.

      And then something funny happened.  I was moved into another Algebra class with a different teacher.  This new teacher had us do the problems in class, and helped us work through the problems when we needed him.  And when we finished our work he had chess boards in the classroom and we’d play chess until the bell rang.  So we all hustled to finish our homework as quickly as possible so we could play chess.  I got an A in that class and while I’ve never been a math wiz it broke the hex that was hovering in my head.

      I learned three things from that teacher.  First, that Algebra could be fun.  Second, that chess was a magical game that I quickly fell in love with.  And third and most importantly, learning takes commitment from both sides.  I own the responsibility for my initial failures with Algebra, but so did that teacher.  I don’t remember the first math teacher at all, but I can still picture the second teacher.  I wonder if the two ever discussed the quirky, quiet redhead who took Algebra 1 with them.  I ended up being one of the students marched up on stage in senior year to get academic awards from the teaching staff.  It was a long way from the Freshman Algebra 1 class.

    • The Corner of Broadway and Hudson

      One of the more significant street corners in American History is the intersection in Albany where Broadway meets Hudson Avenue.  This is the site of the old Stadt Huys where in 1754 representatives from several colonies met to discuss the Albany Plan of Union.  This group, known as the Albany Congress, consisted of a few famous men from the time, but the most famous of all was Benjamin Franklin.

      Coincidently this site, 23 years later, was also the location where the Declaration of Independence was first read in public.  Albany was a critical hub during both events.  In 1754 Albany was the edge of the wilderness.  In 1776 Albany was the center of the Northern Army’s efforts to repel the British Army, which was attempting to cut New England off from the rest of the colonies by seizing control of the Hudson River.

      Reading the Declaration of Independence in Albany had a galvanizing effect on the people who heard it.  Remember, Albany was under siege from all sides in the summer of 1776.  The British had swept over Long Island and Manhattan, and occupied New Jersey downstream.  They had just taken control of Lake Champlain to the north – a critical highway for troop movement from Canada.  And the Iroquois were allied with the British just to the west.  Albany was in a precarious position on July 19th when the Declaration was read.

      In 1876, according to The Friends of Albany History, a ceremony commemorating the centennial of the reading happened in this spot:
       “Before a gathering of “two or three thousand” Albany residents, the tablet, which was covered by an American flag, was unveiled by Visscher Ten Eyck (Matthew Visscher’s grandson.) The tablet’s reveal was greeted by hearty cheers from the crowd, patriotic songs, chimes from the steeples of nearby churches, and a 100-gun salute.”
       
      Tonight, almost 141 years since that ceremony, 241 years since the Declaration was read in this spot, and 263 years since Ben Franklin led the Albany Congress to draft the Plan of Union, I had a couple of pints across the street from the commemorative plaque and stone that marks the site.  There are many people in history whom I’d like to have met, but Ben Franklin is high on that list.  Since I can’t have a drink with him having two pints with a nod to history will have to be close enough.

    • Mystery Hill

      I live roughly a mile and a half from a place called America’s Stonehenge.  It’s also known as Mystery Hill, and I like that name a bit more because it infers that there’s much about the site that is unknown.

      Here’s a great description of the site from the mysteryhillnh.info web site:

      The Mystery Hill archaeological site, better known today as America’s Stonehenge, is situated on the exposed bedrock summit of Mystery Hill in North Salem, New Hampshire. The site consists of a core complex of 13 stone chambers, several enclosures, niches, stone walls, stoned lined drains, small grooves & basins, and other features which covers about one acre on the summit. Extending outward from and surrounding the core complex, are more stone walls, niches, standing stones, and two procession ways. Along the perimeter of the summit are four confirmed astronomical alignments. Below the summit on the slopes of the hill are a 14th chamber, two utilized natural caves, springs, stone walls, stone cairns, niches, standing stones, and other features. In total, the site covers about 105 acres.

      I’ve lived in close proximity to this site for twenty years.  And yet I’ve only visited it twice – once alone and once with my daughter.  If you’re an archaeological buff, an astronomy buff, or a mystery buff its a great place to visit.  I’m a history buff and like to understand the place I live in.  A large part of that is who lived here before me.  Mystery Hill has carbon dated evidence of people living in this area 7000 years ago.  Native Americans were most likely those people, and they most likely lived in the area well before that.  What we know for sure is that the Native American presence in the region was largely gone for a number of reasons by the time of the French and Indian War.  Colonial settlements continued to nudge further and further north and west and eventually the area because fully colonized, first as Methuen, Massachusetts and eventually as Salem, New Hampshire.

      About ten years ago a Boston television station did a live broadcast at America’s Stonehenge, and the weather person at the time, Dylan Dryer, laid down on the stone table that many people think was a sacrificial alter because of the drainage channels carved into it.  Maybe it was, maybe it was just the place where they cleaned up whatever they brought back from the hunt that day.  Either way, I thought it was interesting that she laid down on that spot.  Apparently there was no bad mojo as she’s now on national television and seems to be doing just fine.

      Look at Mystery Hill from a Google satellite map and the first thing that jumps out at you are the spokes of clear cut trees coming out from the center of the hill.  This was done by the people who manage America’s Stonehenge to provide clear lines of sight on the celestial points that are marked.  Whether this was done thousands of years ago by Native Americans or Celtic visitors or by a farmer in the 1800’s building off what was up on the hill I don’t know.  But I do know it’s impressive to see when you’re standing on the viewing platform.

      The other thing you notice when you look at that Google Satellite map is the encroaching development on all sides.  That’s accelerating with a development eating into the woods to the southeast of Mystery Hill.  I find this disappointing, but not surprising for Salem, New Hampshire.  The town seems to value real estate development and commercial space over conservation space.  But then again, Mystery Hill has been here before with waves of settlers clearcutting and farming the land around it.  And until some developer plugs condos on top of the hill it (wouldn’t put it past Salem) the site will continue to mark time one celestial year after the next.

    • Two Epic Marches in 1775

      During the early days of the Revolutionary War, there were two epic marches of heroic proportion.  Henry Knox’s Noble train of artillery in November and December 1775 was one.  Benedict Arnold’s march through the wilderness of Maine for the invasion of Quebec in September to November 1775 was the other, and the one that seems to have been lost to history because of Arnold’s turncoat future in the war and the immediate result from each effort.

      Benedict Arnold was the person credited with the idea of hauling the artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, which was occupied by British troops but under siege from the colonists.  The Generals recognized that a long, drawn-out siege was going to help the British more than the colonists, as reinforcements from England would be arriving at some point in the spring to try to eradicate the uprising.  Ships in Boston harbor weren’t going to leave just because militiamen were surrounding Boston.  Artillery was needed to encourage them to move on.

      Since Arnold was a little busy marching through the wilderness of Maine, it fell on Henry Knox to bring the cannon from Ticonderoga to Boston.  As with any travel in those days, using existing waterways was much easier than horse paths through the woods.  So bringing almost 120,000 pounds of cannon down the Hudson River to Albany made a lot of sense, but from there they needed to haul the cannon on sleds across ice and rough terrain all the way to the Dorchester Heights.  The hardest part of this overland trip must surely have been bringing them over the Berkshires roughly where Blandford, Massachusetts is today (where the Massachusetts Turnpike cuts through the Berkshires).

      Arnold by contrast sailed to the Kennebec River and up to Augusta, Maine, where he began his march through the wilderness to Quebec.  He started with 1100 men, and reached the St. Lawrence with about 600 starving men.  Some starved to death on the trip, and the rest abandoned the march and retreated towards home.  Arnold’s expedition was even more bold than Knox’s.  Yet the immediate results were very different.  Knox’s artillery chased the British out of Boston on what is forever celebrated as Evacuation Day in the city.  Arnold’s army reached Quebec and were met there by Montgomery’s troops who had come from Lake Champlain.  Ultimately they didn’t have the numbers or the artillery to lay a proper siege on Quebec, and they were eventually chased away as the ice broke on the St Lawrence and British reinforcements arrived to chase them down.

      Two men remembered differently in history.  Benedict Arnold’s name is forever associated with treason, but in the early years of the war he was a hero many times over.  Henry Knox would continue to grow his career in the Continental Army, becoming the Secretary of War for the United States.  His name lives on at Fort Knox.  Benedict Arnold doesn’t have any forts named after him, but the United States may not have won the war without him.