Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • Autumn in the Air

      Autumn in the Air

      One week after Labor Day Weekend and the air has changed.  The days have been getting shorter steadily for three months, but with the hot humid August it was very much summer.  The last few days have been more crisp and dryer.  Autumn is in the air.

      Summer still holds on stubbornly – and this week the temperatures will climb back to a level that warrants air conditioning.  But change is indeed in the air.  Sunrise is later, sunset is earlier as the northern hemisphere tilts towards the darkness.

      Yesterday, while pulling weeds and planting chrysanthemums I drove my spade into the garden soil and realized I’d caught hold of something more than soil.  Looking into the hole I realized that I’d caught a fat toad squarely in the middle.  An accident of wrong place at the wrong time.  The toad was burrowing deep into the soil to hibernate, and tragically picked the very spot I chose to plant a mum.  It looked intact – I removed it from the garden to the woods and despite the odds hopefully it survives.  I see a lot of frogs and toads in the garden and in the pool, but this was the first time I’ve dug one up.

      The garden has turned.  Most plants have gone to seed.  A few annuals like the dahlias are still cranking along.  Tomatoes and green beans are almost tapped out.  It’s harvest time for apples.  The garden knows what we all know – summer is almost over.

      2018 has been a year of change in many ways.  Family and pets passing away, divorces and separation for friends, new jobs for my wife and for me, increasingly independent kids, some friends moving further away, others getting closer.  Physically this is the first year that I can remember where my metabolism didn’t kick naturally into another gear as we hit summer.

      As the season changes I’m reminded that the blog has suffered.  I’ve lost the consistent contribution I’d aimed for.  Likewise I’ve lost the consistent effort to walk 10,000 steps, row 5,000 meters, do 100 pushups… etc.  Some things go well, other things fall short.  Such is life.

      The political climate has been such a distraction this year, and efforts to filter it all out have proven unsuccessful.  I’ve taken to deleting apps like Twitter or Facebook only to return to them.  The addictive elements inherent in smart phones and social media work on me.  Compartmentalization becomes increasingly difficult when the noise penetrates from all sides.  Ryan Holiday calls this outrage porn; addictive outrage over the latest affront to our moral compass.  Best to turn it off…

      This post, while brief, serves to shake me out of my self-imposed writing break.  It’s Autumn; summer mental vacations have ended.  It’s time to make a contribution to the world again.  A return to long form contribution.

    • Northeastern Forests

      Northeastern Forests

      I recently finished reading The Hidden Life of Trees, a profoundly interesting book that taught me something new about the forests and the tress around me than I’d ever thought possible.  The relationship of trees to the fungal network they’re connected to, the way the support each other with sugar through that network.  How they migrate over the years.  Incredible book.

      Of course, it got me thinking about the forests around me.  I’ve long appreciated the forests of the Northeast United States and Eastern Canada.  Driving north through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Western Massachusetts you ride through miles and miles of forest.  Upstate New York, for all it’s farmland, is still, or rather once again heavily wooded.  Even Connecticut and Rhode Island have heavy percentages of their land wooded.

      Encroaching developments eat into this magnificent green blanket, and the trees that once stood where developments are going up end up as firewood, lumber, bark mulch or paper products.  A little piece of me dies when I see lots being cleared.  I’m not opposed to development, I just greatly prefer the woods.

      I was talking to a friend of mine about a place where we once camped on New Year’s Eve.  We drove deep into the woods as far as his car could go in the deep snow and hiked in to a favorite spot of his.  We lit a bonfire and drank beer and listened to the coyotes in the still night.  I woke up in the middle of the night to embers melting into the plastic outer shell of my sleeping bag as my buddy stoked the fire up and howled at the coyotes.  We still laugh about that night almost 30 years later.  He mentioned to me that it’s now a development with hundreds of houses.

      I imagine that’s how the Native Americans felt when they watched the deep forests that generations walked through were felled for ship masts and houses.  Roads were cut in, and the sprawl began, rapidly displacing those who came before.  Through it the trees survived to fight another day.  Where once a farmer’s field lay claim to the land a forest has reclaimed it.  Most of the forests I drive through as I travel New England are new growth – reclaiming the land over the last century or so.  There’s a measure of hope in that, balanced with caution.

    • Bloody Brook

      There’s a tiny brook that flows from Searles Pond near Holy Family Hospital and feeds into the Spicket River just before it in turn feeds the Merrimack River in Lawrence.  It’s name betrays a violent history, long before Lawrence and Methuen become heavily developed urban environments.  Google has led me a couple of times to a very useful site that details the history of Methuen and some of the surrounding area that once was part of Methuen.  You can Magenweb here.

      The name Bloody Brook was said by George Frederick, late town treasurer and authority on Indian lore, to come from a terrific battle between the Agawams and the Tarrantines in the days before the English settlement. As near as white men could tell after they came, about September 1615 the Tarrantine Indians of Maine had a poor harvest so they invaded the Merrimack Valley to raid the fields,and naturally the local Indians resisted as best they could. It is said that clubs and stone axes, rather than arrows, were found in this area, indicating the closeness of combat. 

      The Tarrantines were part of the larger Mi’kmaq tribe of coastal Native Americans who lived from Maine to Newfoundland.  For them to make the long trip down to what is now Methuen to raid the fields of the Agawam speaks to their desperation.  There is another famous Bloody Brook that points towards the better-known history of conflict between the white settlers and Native American population.We hear a lot about the encroachment of European settlers in the area and the conflicts that arose with the Native American population as a result.  The conflict between tribes is a lesser known, but no less violent history of the land we live on today.  Names like this dot the map, just waiting for someone to remember the ghosts who once inhabited this land.

       

    • Straightening the Spicket

      Straightening the Spicket

      The Spicket River flows from New Hampshire into the Merrimack River in Lawrence, Massachusetts.  The river has changed over the years, particularly during the explosive development of Lawrence and Methuen in the Industrial Revolution.  By the late 1880’s the City of Lawrence had enough of the typhoid breeding ground that the river had become and decided to straighten the river.  Looking at the first map from the 1850’s followed by a Google map from 2018 you see just how much they changed the Spicket River in the Lawrence stretch.

      Unfortunately, they didn’t dig the channel deep enough and the river bed can’t handle the floodwater that were once absorbed by the natural flow of the meandering river that once flowed through the city.      Heavy rains combined with spring melt-off creates a flood plain that makes some areas of the city impassible.  Perhaps no place carries this burden more than Central Catholic High School, which sits right where the the flood plain once acted as a sponge for the river.  The city doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to correct the situation, so every few years there’s a lake where the CCHS parking lot once was.  The price of progress, or the price of poor engineering?

    • Good As It’s Been To Me: The Genius of the Avett Brothers in Four Songs

      Good As It’s Been To Me: The Genius of the Avett Brothers in Four Songs

      The Avett Brothers’s music is a lot like a tidal river; always shifting, complex and different.  Like many people I started listening as they hit a national audience with the I and Love and You album, then the Avett Brothers Live, Vol. 3 album and concert video, and finally when I got to see them live, where I learned just how electrifying they are with a crowd.

      I know what you’re saying, you’ve heard one or two of their hit songs, probably I and Love and You and Ain’t No Man, and maybe they’re okay but not your style.  Maybe you view banjo as a little too Americana for your tastes.  Well, if that’s the case then you’re missing out on some great music.  Like the songs themselves there are many layers to the Avett Brothers.  The songs are intricate creations built like melodic Penrose Stairs; uniquely complex but also highly listenable gems.  Scott and Seth – to me – are like Lennon-McCartney or John-Taupin in the way they feed off each other to build a memorable song.  Bold comparison?  Perhaps, but I believe their life’s work will stand up well against other legendary writing duos.  So here are four songs that illustrate the incredible range and complexity of the Avett Brothers:

      The Once and Future Carpenter  The Avetts craft songs that take you on a journey, and this song exemplifies that.  The central message is living your life following your own true north, so you don’t regret it on your death bed.  Old souls these Avett Brothers.  This kind of deep thinking about our mortality is usually reserved for the end of an artist’s career, not the middle of it.

      Forever I will move like the world that turns beneath me
      And when I lose my direction I’ll look up to the sky
      And when the black dress drags upon the ground
      I’ll be ready to surrender, and remember
      We’re all in this together
      If I live the life I’m given, I won’t be scared to die

      Pretty Girl from Chile  To really know the complexity of an Avett Brother’s song, look no further than this one.  The studio version is a roller coaster ride of deep climbs and plummets, hard turns and a racing heart.  A live performance adds a triple shot of espresso with a Red Bull chaser.  These are great musicians, and it takes a song like this to really hammer that point home.  From the moment Scott grabs your full attention with his piercing, evangelistic voice they’ve got you:

      I’m no more than a friend girl
      I can see that you need more
      My boots are on my feet now
      My bag is by the door

      This song has everything – starting with Scott’s powerful lead vocal and rapid fire lyrics to quick instrument changes that weave us between bluegrass, flamenco and alternative rock in the same song.  Seth is the engine behind this song with incredible range in his guitar playing and harmonies with Scott woven throughout the song.

      Laundry Room  There were big hits on the I and Love and You album.  The title track for sure, and Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise and Kick Drum Heart rightfully got a lot of airplay.  Great songs every one, but to me Laundry Room is the emotional core of this album.  The song that sneaks up on you, gives you a bear hug and won’t let go.

      Stop your parents’ car
      I just saw a shooting star
      We can wish upon it
      We won’t share the wish we made
      But I can’t keep no secrets
      I wish that you would always stay

      Lovely song that stays with you when you’ve let it into your heart.  The live versions I’ve seen just completely grab the audience and take them for a ride.  And every listen does just that.

      I am a breathing time machine.  I’ll take you all for a ride.

      No Hard Feelings  A masterpiece of looking at our own mortality and the dynamics of love and loss.  This song may ultimately be the signature song for the band, like Stairway to Heaven is for Led Zeppelin.  Neither band is a one hit wonder by any stretch, but respectively these songs demonstrate a pinnacle of creative writing for each band.  The Avett Brothers may yet top No Hard Feelings, but it feels like a song with the staying power and genius of Stairway to Heaven.  Look, I know the band isn’t at that Led Zep megastar level yet, and perhaps they never will be, but the point is they’re brilliant musicians and this song will be a highlight of their career catalog.

      When my body won’t hold me anymore 
      And it finally lets me free 
      Where will I go? 

      Sure, there are a lot of great bands out there making great music.  This one is my favorite of the last decade.  I could have picked four different songs with the same emotional impact.  There’s just so much to this band to love.  The harmonies between the two brothers is exceptional, and there’s a tightness to the band molded out of years of touring.  I’m looking forward to seeing where they take us next.

    • Boomtown: Lawrence, Massachusetts

      Boomtown: Lawrence, Massachusetts

      In 1845 the land along the Merrimack River that would soon be called Lawrence had a population of 104.  Five years later the population had exploded to 8,358.  By 1920 the population had swelled to a high of 94, 270.  All these people arrived in Lawrence as the river was dammed, canals were dug, brick buildings were constructed, and water was diverted to fuel the entire enterprise.  Water power moved everything, including the people who moved here for the work the mills provided. 
      Lawrence is ten miles downstream from Lowell, which was the most successful textile city in North America.  The Essex Company wanted to duplicate that success using the same Merrimack River water that Lowell used.  The first step was to build the great stone dam in Lawrence to better regulate the flow of water to the mills.  Next, as in Lowell, a power canal was built to channel the energy of that water to the mills.  This powerful water had to go somewhere, and it was directed through turbines that turned gears that turned leather belting that turned the looms that thousands of factory workers tended.

      And it didn’t stop with the loom workers.  The mills had to be maintained and grow.  The workers had to eat, and live somewhere, and go to church, and their children had to go to school.  Banks and hospitals and trolleys and parks and stores and houses and roads to connect it all grew like concentric rings out from the turbines.  Lawrence, like Lowell before it, became a boomtown.  Like Lowell, it thrived until cheap electricity and labor pulled textile jobs to the South and eventually overseas.

      Unlike Lowell, which has a major university and political clout in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that enabled it to rebound more quickly, Lawrence was lost without the manufacturing jobs for decades.  The loss of jobs led to an exodus of many of the people who were the backbone of the community, and that void was filled with poverty, helplessness, riots in the 1980’s, insurance scamming in the form of staged accidents and arson, and drugs and crime led to Lawrence being one of the least attractive places to live in New England.

      And yet the bones of the city are strong.  There’s beauty in the mill buildings and homes that the textile wealth brought to the community.  Looking beyond the criminal element, there is a vibrant immigrant community that is family-oriented, hard-working and chasing the American dream.  Lawrence is a city poised for explosive growth, just waiting for the next economic turbine to power it all.

    • Sensory Awareness

      Sensory Awareness

      While walking through the garden early this morning deadheading flowers and pulling weeds my left hand brushed up against the leaves of the potted Jasmine and the water resting on the leaves from the overnight rain ran down the back of my hand.  I didn’t see the water, nor did I see the leaves of the Jasmine, but I knew exactly what was happening at that moment.  The senses, when open to the world, inform us in ways both delightful or discomforting.  And both are valuable depending on that moment.  The senses detect a change of state and tell our brains when we ought to pay attention to something.

      Sometimes in summer I’ll walk Bodhi barefoot down the street at night.  This is of course fraught with peril as stones, acorns, glass or any number of other things may be lying in wait to encroach upon my naked feet.  But the payoff is feeling the warmth radiating off the pavement on a cooling summer night, and the variations as you walk from what was, hours before, a shaded part of the street to a part that had been in full sun.  Combined with the celestial show above and the ever-changing  sounds of a wooded nighttime New Hampshire Cul-de-sac in late July it becomes…. well, sensational.

      I’ve written before about the feeling of the water current flowing across your skin as you swim.  Or the rustling of leaves or pine needles on a breezy evening.  The sound of ice crackling on branches as the first light of day stirs the air.  The smell of tropical rain or winter snow well before you see anything falling.  The hot summer sun warming your skin as you air dry after a swim.  The scent of flowers hidden from view but announcing their presence.  The quiet stillness of a hike in the White Mountains alone with your thoughts.  The enticing smell of a wood fire at night, the mouth watering aromas coming when something is cooking on the grill, or the irritating smell of a neighbors cigarette smoke invading my space when I’m in my backyard (damned prevailing wind).

      The senses come alive when you’re outside.  So much more to take in of course, but its also being removed from the things that pull your attention away.  But for many walks outside in the past I’d have my earbuds plugged in and music blasting, and I’d be deep in my thoughts or in the lyrics as I power walked my way to whatever level of fitness I achieved.  And there’s a place for that too.  But so much of our lives today is electronic noise; political banter, pharmaceutical advertisements, canned sitcom laughter and electronic notification pings.  I’ve found that turning off the noise releases me from that burden, and I’ve taken to removing myself from as much of that as possible.

      America’s media diet is changing.  Mobility is everything now.  Traditional sources of information continue to evolve with winners and losers announced seemingly daily.  This week the New York Daily News laid off roughly half their staff in a cost cutting move by the firm that owns them.  Facebook lost $120 Billion in Market Value when they announced slowing growth.  Grabbing our attention is more critical for the survival of media than ever, and as a result the noise gets more shrill all the time.  Click bait “articles” and political extremism seem to get more in your face every day.  I’ve gotten to a point where I choose to turn it off and think, listen to music or a long-form podcast or read a book.

      I’m at an age where I’m living notable state changes.  The kids are grown up and doing their thing, building their lives and becoming more and more independent.  Friends are living through similar changes and time with them wanes as they focus on new businesses or checking off bucket list items.   Remarkable people in my life are passing away, living through divorce or separation, fighting cancer or depression or unemployment or the effects of aging.  And remarkable people are entering my life as our individual ripples across this surface of life intersect and change our trajectories.  Like a stone dropped into a still pond carries ripples across the surface long after they’ve disappeared from sight I still feel the ripple of people I haven’t seen in years influence my life and by extension those of people I interact with.

      I watch the ripples change their size
      But never leave the stream
      Of warm impermanence
      And so the days float through my eyes
      But still the days seem the same
                                                – David Bowie
                                                  Changes

      Social media is a way to stay in touch, but its not the same as spending a day on the side of a soccer field together, or gathered around a picnic table or a fire late into the night.  Such is change, and its not my first rodeo.  Similar changes happened when we went off to and then graduated from college.  Similar changes happened when we moved and raised children and built our lives around their activities.  The world is constant change, and I’ve come to accept that.  I take the additional quiet time as an opportunity to open up the other senses and feel what the world has been saying all along.  One thing I know for sure is it won’t be quiet for very long.

    • Dragonflies and Cormorants

      Dragonflies and Cormorants

      Today was a day of heavy rain in much of New England.  During a break in the rain I took a walk around the garden to assess things.  When you get a couple of inches of rain quickly it tends to knock down some plants and tree branches.  While I was looking at the garden I noticed a dragonfly clinging to a flower stem, wings spread wide and head moving around looking for predators or prey.  I think it thought of me as the former, but who knows?  Maybe it’s a really confident dragonfly and it was thinking of me as prey.

      The dragonfly reminded me of Cormorants spreading their wings to dry.  I’m sure the dragonfly was doing that as well.  I’m sure there are a lot of birds and flying bugs that exhibit the same behavior, but I honestly can’t think of any others.  Ducks and geese don’t seem to hang out with their wings spread wide.  Butterflies and moths may do it, but I wouldn’t know the difference.

      So to me dragonflies and cormorants have a connection.  Evolution has brought us to this moment when they’re both displaying a trait, while entirely practical, still seems rare in their respective species.  Does this interest anyone besides me?  Perhaps not.

    • Hummingbird Moths

      Hummingbird Moths

      The late July garden is buzzing with activity.  Even as the Bee Balm fades, the hummingbirds and bees are all over it, as well as the other flowers in the garden.  And there’s another visitor frequenting the garden lately; the Hummingbird Moth (Clearwing Moth).

      This moth looks and flies like a smaller hummingbird, and at one time I thought it was a really small hummingbird, but nope, it’s a moth.  Most moths are out at night.  Hummingbird moths are a daytime creature, and I’m grateful for that, as they’re beautiful and fascinating to watch as the flitter from one flower to the next.  Lately they’ve taken a liking to the purple balloon flowers, which get their name from their appearance just before they open up.

      Looking and flying like a hummingbird is both functional as well as great camouflage for this moth.  It’s not what it appears to be, but its built to be highly efficient as it dines on the nectar from the flowers in the garden.  There’s a lesson or two in this of course.  Sometimes you need to look closer at something to see what it really is.  Making assumptions about things offers little opportunity to understand what’s in front of you.

    • The Albany Plan of Union

      The Albany Plan of Union

      Ben Franklin looked around the colonies and saw that they were each operating independently from each other.  With the looming threat of the French and Indian War presenting a clear and present danger to all of the colonies, it made sense to form alliances for each of the colonies to support the other should a threat arise.  Franklin’s experience in Philadelphia, where he organized a militia and defensive positions on the Delaware River to protect the city from French Privateers who taking the opportunity to pillage coastal settlements.  He saw strength in unity, and used the example of the Iroquois as inspiration for likeminded individuals to organize and discuss the prospect of united the colonies.  Franklin published articles and the cartoon above in his Philadelphia Gazette newspaper, which had the desired effect of bringing together likeminded individuals to push for the unified colonies.

      Albany was chosen as a central place, and in 1754 delegates were chosen from several of the colonies to form the Albany Congress to discuss the union.  Of the 13 colonies, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maryland and Pennsylvania participated in the Albany Congress.  The delegates met at the Albany “Stadt Huys”, the original state house in the region.  This plan of unification was the first formal meeting on this topic amongst the colonies.  Ultimately England and the governors of the colonies proved too much to overcome and the proposal developed in Albany was refused, but the concepts discussed during the Albany Congress was the root of the United States that would form twenty years later with the Declaration of Independence.

      At Albany the delegates proposed a “Grand Council” and a “President General” from England as leader.  Concepts that would later become the United States’ Congress and President.  Another key concept that Franklin was developing around this time was representation as a prerequisite for taxation.  The colonies were either “English” and warranted representation, or they were an “enemy state” annexed by England.  This proved a catalyst for what happened two centuries later.

      While Ben Franklin was the most famous of the delegates in the Albany Congress, there were many influential people chosen as delegates.  One of the delegates from New Hampshire was Theodore Atkinson, who had risen to be a Chief Justice in the colony and also a Colonel in the militia.  Theodore Atkinson owned a farm in Plaistow, New Hampshire.  In 1767 the land that the farm was on split from Plaistow to form a new town called, of course, Atkinson.

      As a resident of Atkinson for 24 years I’d heard stories of Theodore Atkinson, but never made the connection to Benjamin Franklin that the Albany Congress represented.  It seems that my 2H18 reading list is already paying dividends.