Sandburg's Lincoln

 

… General O. O. Howard’s right arm was shattered, and when he met General Phil Kearney, who had lost his left arm in Mexico, the two men shook hands on Howard’s saying, “Hereafter we buy our gloves together.”

 

…

 

In a little wilderness clearing at Chancellorsville, a living soldier had come upon a dead one sitting with his back to a tree, looking at first sight almost alive enough to hold a conversation. He had sat there for months, since the battle the year before that gave him his long rest. He seemed to have a story and a philosophy to tell if the correct approach were made and he could be led to quiet discussion. The living soldier, however, stood frozen in his foot tracks a few moments, gazing at the ashen face and the sockets where the eyes had withered – then he picked up his feet, let out a cry and ran. He had interrupted a silence where the slants of silver moons and the music of varying rains kept company with the one against the tree who sat so speechless, though having much to say.

 

…

 

Just two of many excerpts that appealed to me reading Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (found on pages 171-172 and 282-283 of my 1974 Dell paperback). O to write like that! I suppose a deep-depth sounding of poetry should coincide with the writing of the Great American Novel …

 

Thanksgiving 2022

Well, the girls had off for the week and the Mrs. took vacation time, so I did, too. We decided to motor directly east 1,100 miles to visit my mother-in-law in Hilton Head, South Carolina. We hadn’t been there since summer 2019, and she was celebrating her 80th birthday just after Thanksgiving.

To be honest, the trip had its ups and downs. The biggest up was my nine-day respite from work, especially after the intense effort I had to put in the week prior to get ahead of the curve on my return.

Other ups? The drive east was remarkably fun. Relaxing, scenic, low-pressure. I’m used to taking I-95 south from New Jersey to South Carolina to get to Hilton Head. That involves about a half-dozen toll booths, long patches of 55 mph speeding zones (the entire state of Delaware, for example), and driving through several megacities. The 10 miles before and after hitting Washington DC would take us two hours to get through with all the unpredictable traffic. This eastern commute through the northern parts of the Deep South held none of that.

On the way east. Coming back west, however, we were stuck driving in a raging gale force storm all afternoon, so that was a quite unpleasant white knuckler.

North-South was an 865-mile trip for us, and we’d do it in about 15 hours. This time we broke up the trip into two days, stopping about two-thirds in at a Marriott or a Holiday Inn. Going there we stopped in Montgomery, Alabama, and had a pleasant dinner in a bar and grill walking distance from the hotel. Coming back we stopped in historic Vicksburg, Mississippi, but, try as I might, I could not locate the Civil War battlefield before we were out of the area. I’ll have to get back there again sometime in the near future.

Speaking of historic Vicksburg, I did put away 190 pages of Carl Sandburg’s biography of our Civil War president, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. And I also found a trio of other paperbacks thrifting on the island with Patch: a gnarled, well-worn biography of Einstein, a gnarled and well-worn copy of Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and, believe it or not, a gnarled and well-worn Treasury of Greatest Poetry, the latter of which I read profusely before bed each night.

As usual, we ate like royalty. I had fish and chips, linguini bolognese, shrimp and grits, fish tacos, and, on Thanksgiving, the Mrs.’s awesome pumpkin pie (of which I ate perhaps 3/4). Thrice I did a morning walk listening to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, trekking along the perimeter of the cove where we stayed, and once Patch and I did an evening walk on the docks. The room we rented had a Bingo board game, which the girls had never encountered before, so we had to play that as a family three or four nights, complete with stupid challenges and duel-like allegations of cheating. The little ones also assembled a thousand piece puzzle. It was fun.

And yes, I did do some deep thinking.

Nana had a great birthday. My wife hooked her up with some Chanel bling and I bequeathed her my copy of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. (Nana is a retired architect and current reading enthusiast.)

The downs were the aforementioned drive home in the rain (much like driving with a fire hose blasting at your front windshield for four hours), a week of overcast and cool weather, a senior citizen who went horn happy on me as I was backing up out of a parking space. Our room was above a wine bar, and one night a patron tourist had a bit too much of the grape and woke my daughter up barfing below her bedroom window. But it was still great to be back on the island.

We’re staying local next month for Christmas, though we may drive out to see my sister-in-law and her family in Austin one day. This would be a return to where I saw the Museum of the Pacific War back in July. Though this time I’d like to check out something a little more … spooky. The Marfa Lights are way too far west (420 miles) but … the Museum of the Weird is located right in downtown Austin! Now if only I can persuade my family to go …

 

Some pics:

Thanksgiving Plans

  

Man, what a crazy two weeks it’s been.

I had a regular physical at the end of September with my new doctor. He’s a young Americanized Indian dude, very upbeat and positive, a runner, and very friendly and outgoing. My concerns all turned out to be of the “nothing to worry about but let’s keep an eye on it” variety. One thing he did want, since I haven’t been to a cardiologist in several years, was a complete “snapshot” of my heart.

My blood pressure was a little high, so, yep, he put me on the meds and the BP came down immediately. I also was a very good patient in that I actually followed doctor advice. For the month of October I avoided soda, pasta, sweets, and walked/lifted weights three times a week. Result? I lost ten pounds. On my follow-up visit just before Halloween he seemed very pleased with my results.

He also scheduled me for bloodwork, which came back “normal” for me: slightly elevated cholesterol and obnoxiously elevated triglycerides. Both should come down if I stick to my diet / exercise regimen over time. There’s a follow-up for that in March. Then I went to a cardiologist and she, after taking in my very detailed cardiac rap sheet, ordered me to get a very specific type of bloodwork done and referred me to another facility to get an image of my heart. I’m currently waiting on the results of both of that, though I haven’t had a heart issue in a very long time.

Well, enough of that, except to note that all this driving around to keep appointments kept me busy.

Work has been insane, too.

Basically I’ve had to do two weeks work over the past five days in order to make-up for, uh, my announcement to follow down below. To do this I worked a couple hours last Saturday, a couple hours Sunday, and clocked in an hour early every day. As a result, I’m exhausted, and had very little free time in the daylight. I’m starting to dream about spreadsheets.

Enough of that.

All this is to explain, meekly and humbly, the three week dearth of postings here.

So the big announcement … the family is loading the SUV and driving out to Hilton Head for the next nine days! We’ll be visiting my mother-in-law, celebrating her birthday and Thanksgiving, but we’ll also be staying in a room overlooking the bay with a balcony and various amenities, similar to the ones we’ve stayed in annually until this overhyped thing known as the Wu Flu shut everything down for two years. We’ll be back and the island will be at a peak capacity of 25% that of summer (due to being off-season with few tourists), so it’ll be very cozy and pleasant. Looking to do some extensive reading, relaxing, and thinking.

And no, I will not be bringing the laptop. So again there will be a dearth of posting, this time for nine days.

I have some thinking to do about my Great American Novel, about my belief systems, about my health and habits, and about what I want to accomplish in the third third of my life remaining. Hopefully I’ll have some paradigm shifts and zeitgeist shattering insights.

In years past I’ve been reading Dickens around Thanksgiving, but not so last year or now this year. I think Dickens and Thanksgiving forms a perfect trifecta with my parents’ house in Pennsylvania. Next year we’ll try for that, and I’ll bring one of the old English master’s works with me that I have not tackled. This year I’m going to try my hand with a bucket list item, Lincoln: The War Years, by Carl Sandburg.

Happy Thanksgiving all!