Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • Seeking Adventures

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Good old Henry David Thoreau, planting seeds of wisdom throughout Walden.  There are stretches of this book that are tough to digest, but when he’s on point he’s a brilliant sage.  I’m glad that I’ve come back to Walden, and will spend more time on the book overall soon.  For now, there’s this quote to ponder.

      Rise free from care before the dawn…
      I’ve been off and on again with that early to rise thing.  For years I prided myself on getting up very early indeed.  But approaching midlife (for me that meant 50) I started “sleeping in”; not setting my alarm, waking up at 6:30 naturally instead of making myself wake up at 5 or 5:30 AM.  No, I’ve come to value sleep.  But now I just go to bed earlier.  No use staying up late to overindulge myself on television, junk food, alcohol, social media or other nonsense.  No, early morning is my time, and this habit I’m re-establishing (day 23!) of working out, reading and writing is a hell of a lot better than that other stuff.

      … and seek adventures.
      Well, I can certainly embrace that idea.  Adventure means different things to different people of course.  For me it means accepting a little risk in life, seeing new places, trying new things, stretching myself in new ways and generally getting on with the business of living an interesting life.  But life is about balance, or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.  I’m okay with balance, but with the scales tipped towards adventure.  I’ll have time for balance when I’m unable to do the things that must be done.

    • From Bloody Pond to Winter Street

      During the French and Indian War the pristine Lake George saw some horrific battles for control of the lake.  The British and French continued attempts to push each other out of the region with force.  The Battle of Lake George in 1755, the siege on Fort William Henry in 1757, the Battle on Snowshoes in 1758 and countless skirmishes in between let to high body counts on both sides.  One relatively small battle in 1755 illustrates just how bloody the fighting was.

      The New Hampshire Provincial Regiment, consisting of a company of men led by Colonel Nathaniel Folsom (including Robert Rogers in his first battle) plus another 40 New York Provincials under Capt. McGennis came across the baggage and ammunition that the French had left protected with a guard.  They quickly overwhelmed the guard and waited for the larger force of French Canadians and their Indian allies to return.  Late in the afternoon a combined force of roughly 300 returned to the camp and walked into a field of fire from the New Hampshire and New York milita.  In this battle over two hundred men were killed, and subsequently rolled into the pond, which turned red as the blood of the French, Canadians, Native Americans, and colonial militia mixed together in the water.  Enemies returning to the earth together.

      McGennis didn’t survive the battle.  Folsom did, and would go on to participate in other battles of the French and Indian War, and then took up arms in the Revolutionary War.  Folsom and John Stark were both leaders in the New Hampshire Militia.  Folsom  was a delegate representing New Hampshire in the the Provincial Congress and ultimately the Continental Congress.  By all accounts I’ve read he led a life of service to New Hampshire and the country.

      I visited the Winter Street Cemetery to visit Major General Nathaniel Folsom.  I wasn’t sure where his gravestone was when I got there, but looking around I noticed that there weren’t that many that had American flags posted next to them so I used that as my starting point.  I walked around that cemetery for 40 minutes reading each gravestone.  Most of the Revolutionary War veterans had a similar shape and size, with the unique badge carved in the front.  And yet I couldn’t find Folsom’s gravestone.  Folsom was a hero of two wars for the American Colonies, he must have a flag, right?  No flag.  Perhaps it blew over in the wind, or someone took it, or someone forgot to place one next to his gravestone to honor him.  Who knows?

      My time was limited, and I still hadn’t found Nathaniel Folsom.  But I did find the graves of his fellow Revolutionary War veterans, and read the family names of the people who were his neighbors and friends.  And finally it was time to go, and as I stood near the gate I thought I’d just walk down the middle one last time and try an area I hadn’t recalled walking past in my search… and there he was.  His was quite literally one of the very last gravestones I came across.  It’s almost like he wanted me to pay my respects to the rest of the people in the cemetery before coming to see him.

      Like other roadside monuments, the small memorial on Route 9 in Lake George, New York, crowded by motels, auto parts stores and a sushi restaurant, called out to me as I drove by.  It led me to read more about Nathaniel Folsom and eventually to my visit to his home town and final resting place.  For all that he did for his state and his country, his grave is modest – no different than those of other soldiers from the Revolutionary War buried nearby.  If these two modest monuments bookend his life, they served their purpose by helping me get acquainted with this gentleman from Exeter.

    • Finishing What You Started

      This morning I find myself in Hopkinton, Massachusetts for a meeting.  Being typically early offers benefits beyond being late.  Today it meant a quick visit to the starting line of the Boston Marathon, which has been the traditional starting place for the race since 1897.  I’ve watched the finish of the marathon many times, particularly those years when my wife ran the race, but I’ve never seen the start in Hopkinton other than watching it on television.  The race was a week ago so the paint is still fresh on the starting line.  And just like on race day this year, the road is wet from all the rain we’ve had.

      I’ve crossed the starting line and the finish line once in my life, but I wasn’t running.  I did the Jimmy Fund Walk 12 or 13 years ago.  I raised money of course, but otherwise I did the walk with little fanfare and no family or friends lining the course for me.  Young kids at home at the time, soccer game that day, and frankly it’s a walk-a-thon it wasn’t the running of the marathon.  Some things don’t warrant much attention I guess.

      I was commenting on the string of jobs I’ve had since that Jimmy Fund Walk.  Outside of a five year gig at one company, I’ve had two-year stints at three different companies, and I’ve been at my current company for one year.  I like small companies with a level of risk in them.  I also like the flexibility that comes with sales jobs, as I’ve documented recently.  But I always intend to finish what I’ve started and keep pressing ahead trying to make things work wherever I land.  I hope to be at this company until I retire, but you never know.  I have learned from each place I’ve been, even if I haven’t gotten rich at any of them.

      If I wasn’t in Hopkinton today I wouldn’t have sought out the starting line.  I’ve driven by the exit a million times without a thought of stopping in.  But here I was today, thinking about the start, and that walk back in 2006 or 2007.  Hell, I don’t even know where the medal is I got that day.  I’m happy that I finished what I started of course, but for all my ghost dancing I don’t live in the past.  I move along, believing that slow and steady wins the race….  or at least gives you a fighting chance of finishing what you started.

    • John W. Weeks

      Today is Earth Day, and a good opportunity to celebrate the life of John Weeks.  You may not know John Weeks, but if you’ve hiked in the White or Green Mountains in New England you’ve directly benefited from the Weeks Act, which was designed to protect the headwaters of rivers in the eastern United States.

      Weeks made his fortune in banking, became Mayor of Newton, Massachusetts and then steadily advanced in politics first as a United States Representative and then as a Senator.  He became Secretary of War after World War One.  His most notable accomplishment in his political career was the passage of the Weeks Act, which he had introduced to Congress on March 1, 1911.  More than 20 million acres of forest were protected with the passage of this Act, including the White Mountain National Forest, Green Mountain National Forest, Allegheny National Forest and others.  There’s also a State Park named after him near his summer resort in Lancaster, New Hampshire.

      As a rower, I’ve known John Weeks’ name without realizing the things he’d accomplished in his life.  The Weeks Footbridge connects the Harvard University campus at a critical bend in the Charles River.  Critical because if you’re racing in the Head-of-the-Charles Regatta this particular bend in the river combined with the choke point of the bridge arch and some very aggressive coxswains, leads to some notable collisions under the Weeks Footbridge.  It thus became a popular spectator destination.

      So while I know his name from the bridge, I’ve come to appreciate him through his Weeks Act and the preservation of lands that I’ve come to love.  On this Earth Day, with so many weak politicians in Washington doing nothing notable except protecting their careers, it’s nice to reflect back on a different kind of Week.  I’ll be sure to toast the late Senator next time I’m hiking in the Whites.

    • Crown Point

      The strategic importance of Lake Champlain during the early colonial years when the French and British and later the Americans and British were wrestling for control of this region is well documented.  Controlling the flow of supplies and men along the lake was critical, and the French chose a point of land where the lake narrowed significantly on the southern end to build Fort Saint-Frédéric in 1734.  This gave them both a foothold of consequence at a choke point on the lake and a launching place for attacks into British territory.  They held this ground until 1759, when Jeffrey Amhert’s 10,000 man army marched northward from Albany to take it.  The French destroyed Fort Saint-Frédéric as they retreated, but the strategic importance of the location wasn’t lost on the British.

      When Amherst’s army reached the destroyed French fort, they immediately set to building a much larger fort next to the location of the original.  In fact, if you look at satellite  image of the location you can see the faint outline of the French fort right next to the larger British fort that replaced it.

      Walking around on this site you feel just how exposed you are to the elements.  For the soldiers stationed here, it must have been brutally cold in the winter.  The large fireplaces for the upper and lower floors in the officer’s quarters must have been heavily utilized during those winter months.  Officer’s quarters were much nicer and the fireplaces much bigger than those of the enlisted men.

       

      Ultimately Crown Point fell into disrepair as the threat from the French disappeared and threats from the Native American population moved further and further west.  The strategic importance of Crown Point was also diminished by the decision to strengthen Fort Ticonderoga closer to where Lake Champlain and Lake George overlap.  The other concern about Crown Point was that it was set on a peninsula, and thus soldiers manning the fort would become trapped there should the land it connected to be controlled by the British and their Native American allies.  That proved a salient point as the Continental Army was barely controlling the lake at this time let alone the western lands adjacent to Crown Point.

      Walking along the top of the earthworks the British built, it’s easy to see just how clear the sight lines were for the cannon overlooking the lake.  Ironically the fort was never directly assaulted and never fired a shot at a passing ship as far as I can tell.  The Green Mountain Boys overwhelmed a skeleton crew manning the fort in 1775, shipped many of the cannon to Boston (along with many from Ticonderoga), and then the Continental Army opted to abandon Crown Point in favor of what they believed to be stronger ground at Ticonderoga and Fort Independence in 1777.  The British took back control of Crown Point and held it until the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783.  This was the last hurrah for Crown Point, and it fell further into disrepair until it was declared a National Historic Site.

      I’ve walked the grounds of Crown Point once in the spring, and hope to get back there sometime when they’re open for tours.  Perhaps I can combine a visit with one I’m planning later this year for Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Independence.  I’d also like to hike up Mount Defiance to round out my knowledge of the campaign and to complete my tour of this region.

       

    • Backyard Observations on this Easter Sunday

      The deer are 50 yards away moving silently in the woods.  Their movement betrays them as much as their flicking white tails.  Another few weeks of spring buds leafing out and I won’t see them at all.  We glance at each other occasionally just to keep tabs, but otherwise go about our business in our own ways.

      The red wing blackbirds call out in the forest, no doubt telling each other how close I am to the feeders they hungrily raid.  They travel in packs, those blackbirds, and they make quick work of the seed.  There’s a chorus of other songbirds surrounding the yard.  I can pick out a few, others blend together.  A lot of conversations this morning.

      Writing this I’m buzzed by a fat bumblebee flying over to the flowering Mountain Laurel.  A squirrel circumvents the yard eying me warily as it makes its way to the base of the feeder, looking for the seed the blackbirds toss aside as they pick through for the juiciest meal.  A chipmunk scurrying along the fence joins the squirrel for an easy meal.

      Human neighbors are using this time for chores.  I can hear the hum of a pressure washer a few doors down, and hammering of something or other nearby.  My chain smoking neighbor’s phlegmy cough invaded my space and I brace for the smell of her cigarette wafting over the fence.  Some things aren’t welcome.

      The air cools quickly as the warm sunshine gives way to overcast skies.  The day changes quickly, and I’ll take it as it comes.  We have places to go, family to see.  I’m reluctantly getting up and heading inside.  So much to do on this Easter Sunday.

    • Pruning

      “Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have.” – Paul Graham

      Spring is a good time to assess the yard, clean up the debris that accumulates over winter that was covered over in snow, fix things that need fixing, and prune the trees and shrubs to clean up any winter kill and promote growth of healthy new shoots.  I’ve gotten better at pruning over the years.

      I watch less television than ever.  I moved all my social media apps into a file called Time Suckers.  I deleted Words With Friends and other such games.  I steer clear of negative people who infect the air with poisonous rhetoric.  I eliminate a meal more often.  I’m not a monk mind you, but I’ve gotten better at pruning over the years.

      Instead, I write more than I’ve written since college.  I exercise every morning even if just a little bit.  I read immediately after exercise, even if just a little bit.  I research the places I go and look for interesting things to see and do there and try to get to those places and then write about them to help me remember what I saw and learned during my visit.

      I’m more present in the moment.  Not just the easy stuff like smelling the roses when they’re in bloom, but the harder stuff that’s easy to ignore.  I wash the dishes, sweep the floor and do the laundry.  I call old friends and family more often, and try to see them when I can.  And in work break out of the familiar routines and make new contacts, learn new skills and push myself out of the comfort zone.  I’ve gotten better promoting growth over the years.  And savoring the time that I have.

      I was going to end this blog post right there, and in fact did publish it.  Then I read Brain Pickings today and apparently I’m not the only one thinking this way today.  Maria Popova tackled time management in her own way, with quotes from Walt Whitman, Seneca and others.  So instead of ending this post on my own observations, I’ll lean in on Seneca to wrap up this post:

      “Set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which til lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands…  Certain moments are torn from us… some are gently removed…. others glide beyond our reach.  The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.” – Seneca

    • Lake George, 1757

      When you stand along the shore of Lake George and look to the northeast on a quiet April day as I did recently, you’re struck by how beautiful the lake is.  Lake George still looks pristine, surrounded by conservation land and state parks.  The Adirondacks rise up in the distance.  Lake George, like the finger lakes to the west and Lake Champlain to the north, is a long and sometimes narrow body of water, very much like a river.  It was the primary transportation channel for countless generations of Native Americans and the French and English settlers who came after them.  A relatively short portage to the Hudson River to the south and Lake Champlain to the north made this body of water a critical link in the chain.

      There were several battles and skirmishes on this lake in the early colonial period, but two stand out during the French and Indian War.  Just beyond the farthest point of the lake you can see in this picture the lake jogs eastward and narrows to a point of land where it turns northward again.  This spot is called Sabbath Day Point, and it was here on July 23, 1757 that 350 New Jersey provincial soldiers (the “New Jersey Blues”) on a reconnaissance mission were surprised by hundreds of Indians who paddled out and attacked them in their boats.

      “The whoops of our Indians impressed them with such terror, that they made but a feeble resistance; two barges only escaped; all the others were captured or sunk. I have 160 prisoners here, 5 of whom are officers. About 160 men have been killed or drowned.” — M. de Montcalm to M. de Vaudreuil. 

      On August 3, 1757 this pristine view of the lake terrified the troops stationed at Fort William Henry, as hundreds of bateau boats and canoes filled the lake forming a massive fleet rowing and paddling right towards where I was standing when I took this picture.  They laid siege on the fort for six days until they forced the British to surrender as their cannon began to overheat and fail and the French artillery breached the walls.  During the surrender a horrific massacre ensued as the Indians descended on the men, women and children surrendering to them looking for their plunder and scalps.  That’s a story for another day, but there’s an excellent account of it from The Lake George Examiner worth reading.

      I’ve looked out on this view of Lake George a few times over the years and it always fills me with awe at how beautiful the lake is.  It’s hard to imagine the horror experienced by those soldiers in the summer of 1757 close to where I’d been standing.  The Indians who committed the massacre – or their tribes – would suffer their own horrors in the years to come.  There’s an inevitable friction that comes with expansion, and as Native Americans, the French, English and others wrestled for control of this continent violence would continue to escalate.  This beautiful waterway, as with so many other beautiful places around the world, was once the center of violent conflict.  And 1757 was a particularly dark time for this lovely place.

       

    • Battle Hill at 50 MPH

      Located on Route 4 in Fort Ann, New York between the Champlain Canal and Battle Hill is an unusual monument to the Revolutionary War battle that took place here on July 8, 1777.  You’d be forgiven if you miss it as you cruise on past at highway speed.  I only knew about it from a rest area attendant who described exactly what to look for.  As with many historical markers, it tells a story if you stop long enough to listen.

      While the tablet is barely noticeable as you speed along, Battle Hill is of course much larger, and the land above the highway sign is in the beginning stages of historic preservation.  For now, there’s only this simple marker, mounted on the ledge cut into Battle Hill in 1927, when cars came by much less frequently than they do now.  The tablet is decorated with American flags, which serve both as a tribute to those who fought here and as a way to visually find the tablet recessed into the ledge as you’re driving by.  I had to double back and park across the highway from the sign in a small pull-off.

      The Battle of Fort Anne started with defeat and retreat, as the Continental Army (mostly New Hampshire met) retreated from Fort Ticonderoga and then Skenesborough.  General Burgoyne hoped to cut off this retreat and landed 200 soldiers let by Lieutenant Colonel John Hill.  The American’s made a stand at Fort Anne, bolstered by the arrival of reinforcements led by Colonel Henry Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, who provided key leadership in the battle despite being wounded.

      While not the largest battle in the war, Fort Anne served to delay the British on their march to take Albany and create an unbroken water route from Canada to Manhattan.  This delay was critical for the Americans.  It’s was Burgoyne’s biggest mistake; instead of sailing his army right down Lake Champlain and Lake George and storming into Albany, he got sidetracked chasing retreating soldiers.  He won the battle, but helped lose the war as the delays of Fort Anne and defeat at Bennington set the stage for a larger defeat at Saratoga.  That set the dominoes in motion as the French would eventually join forces with the Americans, upping the ante significantly.

      Two interesting footnotes from the Battle of Fort Anne were the use of deception on both sides.  The Americans planted a fake deserter who convinced the British that the Americans had more than 1000 soldiers at Fort Anne waiting for them, which led them to wait for reinforcements instead of attacking.  Not to be outdone, when the British were running out of ammunition and on the verge of being overrun in the battle, a British quartermaster named John Mone used Indian war cries to make the Americans think that a much larger force of reinforcements were rushing in.  This allowed most of the British to retreat safely.  I’ve read about some of these events, but as with everything a visit helps you get a lay of the land and if you’re lucky hear the whispers of history over the roar of the traffic wizzing by.

    • We May Never Pass This Way Again

       

      What good is livin’ a life you’ve been given
      If all you do is stand in one place? – Lord Huron, Ends of the Earth

      I was in Rutland, Vermont today and had to be in Burlington several hours later.  So naturally I wanted to check off some historical ghost dancing while I was in the area.  There’s a direct route to Burlington from Rutland – drive up Route 7.  I chose a more roundabout way to get there that added an hour of driving and another hour of walking around and seeing what I came for.  I’ll write about each stop over the next few days.

      One stop that proved futile was the primary objective of my side trip.  I’d hoped to make a quick stop at Fort Ticonderoga to look around a bit.  Unfortunately it doesn’t open until May, which of course means I’ll have to find another reason to detour through this part of the world.  The Lake Champlain/Lake George waterway was the superhighway into the interior and served to transport several armies back and forth between the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War.  Fort Ticonderoga was an important link in the chain of fortifications defending this route.  Alas, I’ll have to dance with it another time.

      One of the joys of travel is finding the unexpected.  I found plenty of unexpected on this trip, and that hour of driving out of the way turned into two extra hours in the car.  I don’t regret the extra time, and will gladly trade off some of my evening hours tonight and some of my day off tomorrow to pay back that time for work.   Seals and Crofts had a soapy hit song in the 70’s called We may never pass this way again.  That’s how I feel about these side trips: I’m there anyway, why not dance with the local ghosts?

      Such is the freedom a sales job affords me.  As long as I don’t abuse the privilege, a side trip when I’m in an interesting place is a worthwhile investment.  Making calls along the way means that I’m killing two birds with one stone.  The inner critic tells me not to waste valuable selling time on such pursuits.  Will side trips make me rich in sales?  Definitely not.  Will it give me something more important than money?  I think so.  Balance is the key of course.  Work hard, play hard and all that.  Or at least make the most of your opportunities on both sides.