mr. obama, i'm voting for you!

i just got my new voters registration in the mail and none too soon (i'll admit i was starting to get worried!). so it is official, i'm voting for obama!

building breaking rebuilding

boston, nice to see you again.

city of big shoulders, until next time.

(i'll let Carl Sandburg say what i think of you)

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

hello

chicago. nice to see you again.

Hell(o).

From Indiana. Where I saw this sign.

the oldest.

I have a new Johnny Appleseed / Apple Blog.
Check it out here.
I've gotten to be pretty close with my fruit stand at the Davis Farmer's market in Somerville, MA near my house. I ride my bike over after I get out of work, laden down with an empty messenger bag to be filled with goodies. Wednesdays, because of this market, are really my favorite day of the week. And since Amber and I decided to begin eating an apple a day, like the doctor ordered, I've begun liking it even more.

At the market, I've been picking up one or two varieties of apples a week. The buzz about the bumper crop of apples has been all about New England, as the wet wet summer we experienced is due to allow huge crops of apples, big, lovely, flavorful. The man who works at my fruit stand remembers me and smiles, crinkly around the eyes and with a slight overbite. He asks how I liked the (insert last weeks apple choice), recommends another type, and then some other fruits and vegetables with similar flavors "not that you have a sweet tooth, but you appreciate sweetness." Last week it was Fortunes (purportedly spicy, sort of like they were already filled with pumpkin pie spices) and Swiss Gourmet (my new favorite, creamy and like I remember apples tasting). This week, I walked away with Northern Spies (to make a cake) and Roxbury Russet (pictured above).

Here is the kicker about the RR, it is the oldest apple in America. Not an antique apple (that is, one brought from England), but the first known to be cultivated in the US, in the town (now neighborhood) of Roxbury. The apple is not attractive by our standards of apples, it has a strange skin texture, almost fuzzy like a peach, and is thick skinned, small, brownish, and hard as a rock. Certainly no red delish and thank god for that. No surprise, but eating this apple waiting for the train back from Brandeis this afternoon, I feel connected to America in a way that I really enjoy, in a sincere, honest way. In a way that I'll perform again tomorrow and the next day while I eat these apples.

Where are the sources?

My great collaborator wrote the following text about a frustration we've been hitting lately while researching Johnny Appleseed. Michael Pollan alludes to a legislation stating that settlers received land so long as he planted 50 apple trees. However, there was no source. We looked back to the first real book written on Johnny Appleseed, Robert Price's Man and Myth, but almost the same language was used without citation. We find it in a few more secondary sources, almost the same...but where is the source.

Amber writes:

Looking for the source text of the oft-quoted notion that planting an orchard and holding it for five years fulfilled the Northwest Territory Ordinance stipulation of improving lands, I called the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio. The fact that this museum is in Urbana makes an odd full circle, as Katie and I met and began working together in Urbana, Illinois. And Katie did her thesis project on the historical links between the two cities. Moving into this project, we didn't realize we would land back in an Urbana.

I talked to the director of the museum, Joe Besecker, was just walking out of a class on Johnny Appleseed. I told him I was looking for the original text that stated planting an orchard qualified settlers to hold lands. He said, yes, planting an orchard established permanency. I agreed, but asked again if he had the original document that explicitly stated this. I said I had assumed it was in the Northwest Territory Ordinance, but it is not there, just a term to call for "improvements". When I asked him about where he found the specifics of this language, he said Dr. Price wrote the definitive book on Johnny Appleseed. He went on to day Dr. Price spent 30 summers doing research and it is the only book he wrote. I said I read it, but it did not supply a source. He state that the Dr. Price is the definitive text they use and the class had just been studying the business practices that Johnny had of going ahead of settlers and planting trees to sell them when they arrive to improve the lands.

This was getting circular and I kept asking, in differing terms if he knew the source of that legal understanding of improving the land. After a bit of round and round, he said he did not and it was possible people were re-quoting Dr. Price.

He did say the great great or great great great great grand son of Johnny's father did quite a bit of research that refutes the claim that Johnny's father we denied lands after his military service because of some accounting booboos, aka theft, under his watch. Joe Besecker is kindly sending this to me, so we may know more soon.

Joe invited me to visit the museum, which he assured me has many documents I would enjoy. He openly stated he was somewhat overwhelmed by the inventory of the museum. This is so common in small museums that do not have the resources to properly deal with all their holdings. He was a math professor before being a director and openly states he has no library experience. In his voice was the wee hope I might want to come and do some sorting. Living in my own house, filled with documents of my past, I know exactly how her feels.

the original maverick

technically, it is this guy.