Aviano Air Base

In October of 1993, I was part a team of 15 airmen who performed two weeks of active duty for training at Aviano Air Base, Italy. Two of the airmen were airwomen and I had an assistant, Master Sergeant Stephen K. Y. Lee.
Sunday
We flew from San Francisco to Philadelphia where I looked for the AMC counter to provide military assistance. First we looked in Terminal D, then we hauled our bags for 40 minutes to Terminal A, then I picked up the white courtesy phone and called to ask where the AMC folks were and we hauled our bags back to Terminal D. The essence of leadership is to project confidence that you know what you are doing at all times.
Airport food prices were sky-high–$8 for a hamburger–so I ate crackers and peanut butter at the USO inside the terminal.
Monday
From Philadelphia we flew to Lajes Field in the Azores where we were encouraged to stay on the aircraft because of the heavy rain and darkness outside. After a 90-minute stay on the ground, we continued to Aviano where we landed at 0815 and received our work and billeting assignments.
Aviano was a forward deployment base for sorties over Iraq and Kuwait so we had lots of Marine aircraft and lost of Marines sharing facilities with us.
Mildred and Ava were assigned to Tent B-2 and the rest of us to Tents D-3 and D-4, except for Carlos, whose girl friend flew over and rented an off-base villa for the two of them.
Trying to understand the shower tent scheduling gave me a headache–three categories and four shifts for each category. Women, enlisted and officers/senior NCOs were expected to shower at separate times, which I suppose made sense. I wouldn’t want a private staring at my privates.
Rain in northern Italy in October was intermittent day and night.
Tuesday
I bought 94,000 lira for $60 and we went to Tussi’s off base where I spent 30,000 lira for dinner. Carlos introduced me to his girl friend, Wendy, and invited me to join them on off base tours between work shifts. We signed up for a USO day trip to Venice on Saturday and gave ourselves that day off.
Captain LaSheer, base Marine commandant, sent word that he wanted to see me. He informed me that everyone in the Marine compound (tent city, where we were billeted) who wore a flight suit was an officer and told me that "Hey, man" was not an acceptable greeting for an enlisted man to give to an officer and maybe I wanted to talk to SSgt Easter about that.
Aviano was built during World War II as an Axis base for Italian operations and was constructed in two sections. The flight line was about two miles from the main base in order to protect the infrastructure from bombs directed at the operational portion of the base.
Wednesday
Our liaison, SSgt Taylor, issued us a staff vehicle for Senior NCO use. Steve Lee and I drove up the mountain to Pian Cavallo, a ski resort. We had an espresso then drove back down the mountain to Pordenone. We parked in the financial district and walked around. It was like Rodeo Drive. We sat at a table in a restaurant, reviewed the menu and the prices, and quietly left before the waiter came. If I were in the U.S., I would have been embarrassed but I took solace that we were only ignorant foreigners and did not have to live up to Italian expectations.
We stopped at a pizzeria on the way back and I ordered a Calzone–mushrooms, cheese, prosciutto and a big ball of buttermilk curd–Yum! We had cappuccino for dessert and spent 15,000 lira for the meal.
Back at base, the Marines were having a toga party. Pretty scary.
Wednesday
This was picnic day for the 608th Air Logistics Squadron. We wore civilian clothes to attend a Cajun-style affair with some good local wine for those going off duty.
Afterward I went to Verona with Carlos and Wendy. We drove for three hours and arrived at 4:30 pm.
We walked around the Roman arena, still in use for night plays during the summer, and went downtown after dark. Juliette’s balcony was on display, with an opportunity to drop coins into a slot in the wall.
We sat in the Centro and drank cappuccino and returned to Aviano about 10 pm.
Thursday
I borrowed a broom and dust pan from the Billeting Office to clean our tent and signed a hand receipt for it.
SSgt Taylor, Marty, invited me to his house for dinner. I bought a couple of six packs of Heineken to take and a bouquet of carnations for his wife, Elma. Her parents lived with them, Keith and Betty, and people came in and out all evening. Betty cooked corn, butterbeans, potatoes, macaroni, chicken, beef, apple cake, peach cobbler and cherry cheesecake. Marty served a Spanish red wine and drove me back to the tents after dinner.
Saturday
After breakfast at the chow hall, we boarded the bus at 0730 for Venice. Ava and Mildred ran a little late. They were showering when we left the tents for the chow hall so Gary Soriano drove back from the chow hall to pick them up.
We had bright sunshine as we rolled away from base and the Dolomites to the north were peaked with snow.
We met our guide, Michael, at Piazza Roma and took a water taxi to the beginning of the walking tour. Michael took us to the "last truly authentic gondola shop" where the family turns out two boats per year. They showed us tools and materials and explained procedures and history.
We walked through the city, visiting Santa Maria de la Salute, Piazza San Marco and the church of St George of the Greeks and took a gondola ride across the Grand Canal.
Michael took us to his favorite caffe for lunch and we had salad, pasta, bread and wine and I chose a cheese lasagne for entree. Next to us, three tables of Italian men in suits had a great time, singing, cheering, shouting, tables filled with white wine and lobster.
Rain fell after lunch as we walked through the Doges palace courtyard and across the Bridge of Sighs. Inside St Mark’s Basilica, we paid 2,000 lira to view the gold altar screen behind the sepulcher.
The Arsenal was a highlight. It was the first modern application of assembly line techniques and standard parts. The Venetians could build a war galley from keel to completion in four hours, then send it down the canal past the chandlery building and outfit it in six hours and sent it seaward on its mission. Since they used standard parts of the same size, they could be repaired anywhere in the world that had a Venetian base.
At the end of the tour, Michael faded away and disappeared before anyone knew he was leaving.
We waited in front of the Hotel Danieli for the Number One vaporetto to take us back to the bus. As we waited, I strode inside the hotel with purpose and a steely gaze and made my way back to the rest rooms, then out a side door to avoid the doormen.
Back out front, Omar Salvarado mentioned that he needed to use the rest room so I took him inside. We did not fool the doormen a second time–they intercepted us and escorted us back out the front door.
The vaporetto made 14 stops along the Grand Canal before dropping us at Piazza Roma. While Michelle rounded up the bus, we bought hot roasted chestnuts for a little snack.
We arrived back at base about 7:30 pm and drove to the Western Caffe in Aviano for pizza and wine before returning to our tent and going to bed.
Sunday
We slept straight through until the 0500 alarm, showered and headed for work. No one was on duty when we showed up at 0600 because the weekend shift starts at 0700 so we went to breakfast at the chow hall.
Steve Lee mopped our tent and I returned the broom and dust pan to Billeting in return for my hand receipt.
Seven of us took the Suburban to Pordenone for Chinese food. Steve thought he could order for us since he is Chinese but our hosts had been in Italy for a few generations and spoke only Italian. We persevered in our desire to order large portions to share rather than individual dinners and had a wonderful meal. The bill was 161,000 lira, $107, which we split equally after Mildred paid with a traveler’s check.
Monday
Steve and I went to the NCO Club for lunch and it was great–tortellini soup and veal scallopini and a chunk of Gorgonzola for dessert, the best cheese I’ve ever tasted.
Steve and Mildred and "E" (SSGT Easter) and I drove to Trieste after lunch to see Miramare, Maximilian’s castle. I took the car up to 160 kph on the autostrada, stopping for occasional toll booths.
We arrived at the castle at 4:40 pm, forty minutes after it closed, so we walked about the grounds and took photos of the sun sinking into the Adriatic.
We drove into downtown Trieste and parked at the harbor opposite the downtown square and chatted with a young man who gave us some history of Trieste and some of his views about world politics and American policy.
After an espresso on the square, we drove back to Aviano for dinner at Vecchio’s, which is closed on Mondays. We went across the road to Da Genio and I had gnocchi a la Gorgonzola with trout and white wine.
Tuesday
After taking care of Air Force business most of the day, Steve and Mildred and I drove to Austria and had dinner in Villach in the Alps. Snow appeared beside the roadway up higher but no ice.
We ate at the Romantik Restaurant/Hotel–venison in cranberry sauce and mashed potato balls fried in sliced almonds and a soup of sour cream with bits of beef. The town was pretty much closed down for holiday. I asked the maitre’d if it was customary to tip and he said it would be appreciated.
Wednesday
Steve and Mildred and I left Aviano at 1:30 pm and drove two hours to Slovenia. At the Donino toll exit, a carabiniere waved us over and told us that my ID card was not sufficient for driving, I needed a potente internationale. We all nodded vigorously and said okay and he let us proceed.
The Slovenian border guards were reluctant to allow us into their country. Mildred told them we would spend only a couple of hours so they let us pass.
We drove to the tip of the peninsula to Pran and spent an hour or so walking about the waterfront. I found an ATM that converted a 10,000 lira bill into 740 Slovenia somethings. We had an espresso and bought post cards and took photos, then drove to Portorosso after dark.
Steve and Mildred bought candy from a shop on the main street and I bought a piece of hand-painted crystal.
We found a nice waterfront restaurant for dinner, with Italians in the booth on one side of us and Germans on the other. The waitress accommodated all languages presented.
Mildred had scampi, Steve beefsteak and I ordered calamari. First course was fish soup, full of baby calamari, clams, fish and one shrimp. Next was fried calamari stuffed with green pepper followed by fried calamari with butter and garlic. The waitress served us fiery schnapps after dinner with ice cream.
We had no difficulty crossing the border to return and arrived back at Aviano just before 11 pm.
Thursday
This was the last duty day for day shift. Swing got off Wednesday night and planned to go to Austria.
Carlos’ car was broken into Wednesday at Miramonte and Wendy’s passport was stolen. They planned to go to Milano Friday to get another.
Captain Carver gave us a certificate of appreciation for our two weeks of work, a rare honor, and several people were singled out for individual recognition.
We hosted a dinner at Tussi’s for our active duty counterparts. Tussi began with misciotti, a five-sauce pasta, then barbecued ribs, chicken and sausages. The final course was a glass of grappa, very smooth. Carlos treated everyone to flaming Sambucco.
We went afterward to the NCO Club and celebrated our superior rating with champagne and cognac.
Friday
Steve, Mildred, Stanley John, John Foster and I had breakfast at the chow hall and took off for San Marino. I had the great idea of avoiding toll stations by taking scenic Route 309 south from Mestre through Ravenna. The truckers prefer that route also so we spent several hours breathing Diesel smoke. We arrived at San Marino at noon, the beginning of siesta.
The country is 24 square miles, rising to a mountainous peak in the center. That is the site of three towers and the old city, built in the 13th Century. We parked near the top and walked about for several hours.
When siesta ended, we paid 3,000 lira to tour Tower One and admired the view of the Adriatic Sea and the Dalmatian coast, which we could not see because of the haze.
We left about 4 pm and took the autostrada back through Bologna and Ferrara. We stopped at an Auto Grill for sandwiches.
Traffic through Bologna was stop and go approaching the toll plazas. We finally got back to Aviano at 8:00 pm and went to Vecchio’s for pizza and gelato.
Saturday
We took a bus to Marco Polo airport in Venice and flew to San Francisco through Frankfort where security was very tight. In fact, they concentrated so hard on what might be in our baggage that they lost track of where it was supposed to go. We arrived in San Francisco 24 hours before our duffel bags did.
So that was that. Another successful annual tour, working hard and earning the gratitude of the active duty folks for helping them fulfill the Air Force mission.

Anacapa Island

Fourteen miles west of Ventura Harbor, Anacapa Island rose from heaving waters like the peg end of a thole pin–straight up-and-down cliffs with no place to dock. Timing the ocean’s surge in the tiny landing cove, our captain placed the nose of his boat against the rock and rammed the engines forward full thrust.
Crew people shouted at us to hurry, one at a time, over the bow onto the flooding steps of a rusty ladder and up to safety, a platform constructed on a rocky ledge just above the tops of the breaking waves. Mrs. Davis thought this was quite thrilling.
After a moment to catch our breath, we climbed a combination of ladder rungs and concrete steps to the top, the grassy plain that makes up the surface of the island.
Our voyage from Ventura Harbor took just over an hour and we arrived at 10:30 a.m., escorted by a pod of dolphins surfing in the bow wake.
Atop the island, we walked past noisy throngs of nesting seagulls to the headquarters building and met Dave Begun, a volunteer naturalist, part of a group of about 30 who assist the park service. Dave briefed us on Anacapa’s natural history, beginning with the intriguing observation that the Channel islands are so important as nesting habitat that "There would be virtually no sea birds in Southern California if it were not for these islands."
Anacapa is three islands, East, Middle and West. Boats are allowed to land at two of them; West Anacapa is off limits to the public. It is home to the largest known breeding colony of California brown pelicans, about 8,000 couples, and they require solitude in order to nest.
East island, where we landed, consists of about 100 acres and is the breeding site for 10,000 Western gulls. They come in March and stay until September. The female lays 2-3 eggs and the chicks hatch in May. Within six weeks they're the same size as their parents but they are a different color–a dirty brown–until they reach full plumage in about four years.
Gulls mate for life and share duties raising their chicks. One sits on the nest while the other one hunts and brings food back to the nest. The red spot on the parents’ beak is called the pecking target. When chicks peck at it, the parents know they are hungry and regurgitate food for them.
Anacapa and Santa Barbara are the west coast’s primary bird breeding islands because neither has fresh water; hence, no predators. Gulls get most of their water from their food source. A secondary source is salt water because they can excrete salt through glands. In a pinch, they can also fly to the mainland for a drink.
Dave gave us a primer on island life as we walked west toward Inspiration Point.
Most of Channel Islands National Park is under water. Two major ocean streams meet here and generate more diversity of sea animals in Santa Barbara channel than anywhere else in the world. The confluence of cold and warm currents causes a churning and stirring up of nutrients that enriches the water with food for birds and sea animals. Blue and humpback whales feed in the channel all summer long. A total of 28 species of whales and dolphins inhabit the area and Dave told us that we were liable to see a whale at any time.
The north side of Anacapa is closed to fishing and the south side is open, under the theory that north side nurseries will replenish the south side fishing area, and that seems to work.
Mice, lizards and salamanders are the only animal species native to Anacapa but this was not always the case. Naturalists have found mammoth remains in sandy areas of the channel islands that are 4-5 feet high. Dave told us that the isolated breeding area of islands causes small species to grow larger and large species to grow smaller, so you eventually have pygmy mammoths and dwarf elephants. Taken to extremes, he said that at one time, on the Komodo islands, large lizards ate dwarf elephants.
Man’s intrusion has changed island ecology in extreme ways. Since 1600, the Age of Exploration, 60 to 70 per cent of the world’s species extinctions have occurred on islands and were caused by rats escaping from ships.
Anacapa has no trees and most of the island is covered by non-native plant species. In a mistake that compounded itself, the Coast Guard brought rabbits to the island in the 1930s. After the rabbits ate the vegetation, ice plant was brought in to control erosion. We have now discovered that ice plant poisons the soil by injecting salt from the air so it is being systematically eradicated.
Buena High School students from Ventura come to the island to pull out non-native plants as part of an ongoing science project. They dry the ice plant and spread it on trails for dust control.
Santa Cruz buckwheat is one of about 150 native plants found on the islands that occur nowhere else on earth.
Anacapa’s most famous plant, Coreopsis, normally blooms from mid-March to mid-April. We missed it this year, however. Early rain the previous October was followed by a spell of warm weather that fooled the six-foot plants. They bloomed and peaked in February and went dormant early. When they are in full bloom, the golden glow is visible from the mainland.
The oldest North American human remains discovered so far were found on the Channel Islands, a 13,000-year old female femur. Peak population on the islands was 2,000 spread among several dozen villages going back at least 9,000 years. The Chumash people left the islands in 1820 and joined the mission system where 90 per cent of them died of disease.
Anacapa lighthouse, completed in 1932 was the last lighthouse built on the west coast. Only two residences remain on the island now–housing a park ranger and a full time maintenance man. Rangers work a week on and a week off, changing out every Wednesday.
Since there is no natural fresh water on Anacapa; two 55,000 gallon redwood tanks store the island’s supply of water. They are refilled about every two years by a tanker ship. Solar panels charge batteries that are converted to AC power and the maintenance tractor runs on recycled vegetable oil.
The island has lots of solitude and sometimes people react in peculiar ways. Dave told us that the strangest incident occurred several years ago. A female ranger noticed that a camper was acting strangely and she was frightened enough that she locked herself into the visitors center overnight. The camper was gone in the morning. He had completely vanished and was never seen again.
Dave ended his tour at Inspiration Point, the west end of the island which has views of Middle and Western Anacapa. Gail and I walked around the north perimeter and back to the campground in the middle of the island where we had a picnic on one of the tables, serenaded by several hundred hungry gulls.
After lunch, we walked to the lighthouse at the east end, then back to the small museum in the headquarters building and looked at the exhibits there. By the time we had traversed all the walking paths on the island, we logged just under four miles.
It was time to leave then, and we boarded the boat much as we had disembarked in the morning–closely following crew instructions and timing our scrambles over the bow to the flow of the waves crashing into the cliff.
A pair of humpback whales escorted us partway back to Ventura Harbor, breaching and blowing and sounding as the sun set behind them. We felt as if we received more than our money’s worth for the day’s trip.
INFORMATION BOX: The Channel Islands are a National Park (http://www.nps.gov/chis/homepage). Island Packers (http://www.blogger.com/(http://www.islandpackers.com/anacapa.html) operates the transportation concession to Anacapa. Cost is $38-42 per person for day trips that allow up to five hours on East Anacapa. Other trips, including whale watching and overnight camping support, are available–telephone 805-642-1393.

The Blue Haired Ladies of Branson

October 21, 2007
Sunday
We rested.
Monday
We left Pleasant Hill in a pouring rain and drove south to Shell Knob, new home to Gail’s brother David Walters and his lovely bride, Diann.
Dave drove us into Arkansas to see the sights. We toured Berryville and Eureka Springs, home of the historic Crescent Hotel, built in 1886. Eureka Springs is a fabulous village, built around hot springs on tree-covered Ozark hillsides. It was Monday in late October and we did not see a single vacant parking space on the streets.
Tuesday
Dave drove us through Mark Twain National Forest past Shepherd of the Hills Historic Homestead and Observation Tower to Branson. The town was packed, though David said that summers are even more crowded.
Theatre after theatre, hotel after hotel–Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede across the street from Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.
Observing billboards and marquees answered the question, "Where have all theold rock and rollers gone?"
We visited the Bass Pro Shop and White River Promenade. Imagine a store large enough to contain trees, a fishing stream, a salt water aquarium and a four-story waterfall. Three thousand fishing rods and enough guns to outfit Blackwater. More outdoor clothing than REI.
Bass Pro has forty-three stores nationwide and twelve more under construction, under the sole ownership of Johnny Morris of Springfield MO. No stockholders, no board of directors. Even California has one, in Cucamonga, and two more a-building in Bakersfield and Manteca.
Dave took us to lunch at Devils Pool Restaurant in Big Cedar. Johnny Morris owns that too. Not just the restaurant, but the cottages, lodges, marina, golf course, stables, spa and sauna.
On a Tuesday afternoon in late October, Falls Lodge did not have a vacant room.
After lunch, we drove back to Shell Knob and inspected the S.S. Dianna, Dave and Diann’s tri-pontoon pleasure boat. They dock at a marina that is a short golf-cart drive from the Walters estate on Table Rock Lake, 43,000 acres, 745 miles of shoreline,.
Wednesday
Gail and I got on the road at 0200 and drove a thousand miles to Gallup.
Thursday
On the road again at 0300. West of Needles, we passed a convoy of Arizona fire engines on their way to Southern California.
Barstow was full of smoke from the wild fires and so was Bakersfield but we didn’t slow down. Eight hundred miles today and home in time for supper.

Happy Cows Make Blue Cheese

October 19, 2007
Friday
Our first Toyota driver on Thursday, Martin, who delivered us to the Lincoln Museum, was so intrigued by our story about Maytag Blue Cheese that he called me later in the day on my mobile phone with an urgent message. He had two passengers with him, Mr and Mrs Griggsby, who make cheese upstate near Nauvoo.
Martin put Mr Griggsby on the line and Mr Griggsby told me that he had worked with the University of Iowa team when they perfected the method of making blue cheese out of cow’s milk, the methodology that launched the Maytag Dairy Farm into the cheese business.
Mr Griggsby was well acquainted with the Maytag Dairy Farm and he wanted us to come visit his place so he put Mrs Griggsby on the telephone to give us directions. She did not quite do that, giving me just a list of towns they were near and her telephone number if we want to call again for directions.
She also said that their children are trying to get them to move to California so it may be that it is already too late for us to plan a visit to their farm.
Today we drove across Illinois and Iowa to Newton and the Maytag Dairy Farm and filled up out bags with wheels of cheese.
Then we drove south to Kansas City and on to Pleasant Hill to the home of Anne and Steve Busch, family members through marriage, to spend the weekend. Uncle Tim joined us from Fort Smith.
Saturday
Steve drove us to Liberty and we went past the Jesse James Bank Museum, where Frank and Jesse James and the Younger brothers performed the first daytime bank robbery in the United States in 1866.
Then we drove to the James farm, now a county park preserving the farm and cabin where the James family grew up.
The cabin was built in 1822 and purchased by Robert and Zerelda James in 1845. Robert went to California in 1850 and died in Placerville. Zerelda lost the home, remarried a couple of times and eventually moved back into the farmhouse with both her old and her new families.
Hired by the railroad to stop the incessant robberies of their baggage cars, Pinkerton agents tried first to infiltrate the gang. Clay county was still full of southern sympathizers who protected the James family and two of the agents turned up dead, one of them eaten by hogs.
A group of agents attacked the farm in 1875 and threw a firebomb through a window. The explosion killed Jesse’s younger half-brother and severed Zerelda’s arm. This incident turned public sympathy in favor of the James-Younger gang members with interesting results.
The railroad that hired the Pinkertons negotiated with Zerelda and finally gave her a lifetime pass. She used it as often as she could and rounded up as many people as she could to accompany her for free passage. When she died, she was on the train and our guide believes Zerelda would have been delighted that she put one last spur into railroad management.
The other result was that the Missouri legislature came within a few votes of passing a bill that praised the gang members and would have given them amnesty.
Zerelda lived in the house until she died in 1911, 29 years after Jesse was murdered "by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy to appear here," part of the inscription that she engraved on his tombstone.
Frank inherited the house and lived in it until he died in 1915. Both Zerelda and Frank ran the farm as a tourist attraction. Jesse was buried in the front yard where Zerelda could keep an eye on the grave and tombstone to prevent souvenir hunters from defiling it while she maintained a trove of souvenirs to sell.
Frank’s wife continued to live in the house until she died in 1944. Jesse’s grandchildren then inherited the house and lived in it until 1970 when they sold the farm to Clay County. Jesse’s great-grandchildren are still alive.
We went to the Westport Flea Market for Kansas City’s Best Hamburger, a ten-ounce patty cooked to order and "dressed the way you like it," washed down with a cold draft Boulevard beer.
We then visited the National World War I Museum and Liberty Memorial of Kansas City. The Liberty Memorial Tower is 217 feet high. We took the elevator to the top and walked around the observation deck and observed Kansas City below.
Inside the Museum we passed through exhibits commemorating the war.
Between 1914 and 1919, 65 million soldiers fought and nine million of them died. After the first two years of warfare, one-third of the men on each side had been killed. World War I killed one-third of French males between the ages of 18 and 31.
In 1917, Germany’s foreign minister sent a secret telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico instructing him to propose that Mexico join Germany in a military alliance against the United States. British agents intercepted this telegram and turned it over to their American cousins. This, combined with Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against non-combatant merchant ships, persuaded Woodrow Wilson to ask Congress for a declaration of war.
American intervention turned the tide and changed the world and American boys ("How will you keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?") forever. An unexpected event, however, was that, after spending time in France and Paris, American soldiers returned home and found out they could no longer buy a drink in their own country.
We had dinner in a gas station in Kansas, at a place called Oklahoma Joe’s. People lined up out the door for piles of pork and beef and beans and slaw served on paper towels and a tray.
It isn’t really a gas station any more but you couldn’t tell that until you drove into the parking lot and smelled the glorious scent of barbecued meat. Management has preserved as much of the interior of the service station as possible while adding a kitchen and a serving counter and a blackboard listing combinations of ribs, chicken, sausages and beef. Confronted with irresistible temptation, we ate again.

Land of Lincoln

October 18, 2007
Thursday
We entered the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum shortly after 9:00 and went to the Grant Theater and saw a presentation, The Ghosts of Lincoln. This was an exploration of the place that history has in our lives and why historians have preserved Lincoln memorabilia.
In the Union Theater we saw Lincoln’s Eyes, a study of how the events in his life shaped his face and his eyes. A mask imprint of his face in 1865 looked more like a death mask than a life mask, a marked difference from the laugh lines that marked his face in 1861.
The Museum provides Mrs. Lincoln’s Attic as a playhouse for children, but lacks a means for locking them inside.
We watched a Tim Russert coverage of the candidates and issues of the 1860 Presidential campaign, concluding that the campaign issues were inconclusive. I was reminded of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s assertion that Lincoln positioned himself at the 1860 Republican convention to be, not anyone’s first choice, but everyone’s second choice. When the delegates deadlocked on the initial votes for the Republican Presidential candidate, Lincoln became the obvious choice.
The cafeteria listed on its menu food items named after characters in Lincoln’s lifetime. My favorite was the George McClellan Chicken Sandwich.
We watched a map of the United States that represented the Civil War in four minutes, one week equals one second. Week by week, battle by battle, the casualties mounted up to more than 1.3 million American men killed, wounded or imprisoned.
Major Henry Abbott wrote a letter to his mother in April 1864 and he quoted from a conversation that he had with General Meade–"among other things, Uncle Abe is tender-hearted about shooting a deserter but that he was perfectly willing to sacrifice a thousand brave men in a useless fight." Politicians want to be generals and generals want to be politicians.
At the time Lincoln took office, one in seven Americans were slaves. Lincoln always went back to the Declaration of Independence for inspiration as to what constituted a democracy, that "all men are created equal..." and to him that meant that slavery could not stand in a democracy. He was opposed to slavery from childhood, to the point of exclaiming that when he heard a man support the institution, his reaction was that that man should be the first enslaved. This is an ignoble sentiment out of character for Mr Lincoln and I take that as an indication of his deep feeling for the matter.
Slavery, though, was not the casus belli. It was union, whether any State had the right to break away from the country, and it was this issue that ignited men’s passions to fight a war. Lincoln recognized that, even though the war began over dissolution, slavery was the root cause and the great evil that prevented the two sides from living together. He knew that eventually the country would come to see that as he did. He was willing to lead the country away from slavery but he had to wait until the people were ready to be led. And that epiphany, like any change, was dramatically difficult for people to accept.
So difficult was the subject that Lincoln had to walk a fine line between the Abolitionists who demanded an end to slavery and the great majority of people who did not see the need. At the beginning, he used the Constitution for political cover, justifying the war on the basis of the compact agreed upon by all the States and dodging the morality of the slavery question by referring to its Constitutional roots and his obligation as Chief Executive to uphold the Constitution. He had faith that, eventually, as the war deepened, public opinion would come around to match his own, and he was right.
The President labored for more than a year over the words and timing of his Emancipation Proclamation. He received good advice from his cabinet and followed it. Surprising as it may seem, public reaction was mixed–some said it went too far, others not far enough. Frederick Douglass said that Lincoln didn’t free any slaves, that he had no power to free slaves in the Southern states; that the Northern states had no slaves; and that he exempted the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware and Maryland for fear of alienating those citizens to the Union cause.
In the end, Mr Lincoln got his way. Congress passed the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery in 1865, just before the end of the war.
Lincoln’s funeral train carried him from Washington back to Springfield starting April 21st and finishing May 3rd, 1865. The route covered over 1,700 miles and stopped for twelve major funeral processions in different cities. The trip took fifteen days. By the time it was over Lincoln was seen by more people as a dead president than he had been as a live candidate.
We walked through an exhibit exploring the question, "Was Mary Todd Lincoln Insane?" Mary Todd’s mother died when she was six and her father immediately married a stepmother who favored her own children over Mr. Todd’s.
Her second son, Eddie, died when he was three. Her third son, Willie, died when he was twelve. Her husband was assassinated as he sat beside her at Ford’s Theater on the happiest day of their lives. Her fourth son, Tad, died as they returned from Europe after being forced out of Germany by the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.
She was vilified by the American press during her tenure as First Lady for faults that they found with her behavior, never paying attention to the improvements she made to the White House or to Washington society.
When she exhibited inappropriate and dangerous behavior to herself, her first son Robert took her to court to protect her by having her declared insane so that he could place her into a private institution. After four months, she made her way out of the institution and tried to regain her physical and mental health in Europe. She became physically incapacitated and returned to the United States to live with her sister until she died.
Ryan picked us up after lunch to drive us back to Toyota where we had the Sienna serviced. Ryan was excited that we were from California because it is his dream to move to California. It is also his dream to have a house in Colorado where he can look out the back window at trees.
Ryan asked if we had ever been to Orange County because he heard that all the roofs in Orange County are the same color. I told him I believed that is true in Irvine but I did not know about the rest of Orange County.
Ryan asked if it is legal to run neon car lights in California. He said that you can install different colored neon lights underneath your car frame, red, green, yellow, any color you want, but if you light them up while driving in Illinois, you get a ticket. He heard that in exotic states like California and Texas you can drive with your neon lights on. I confessed ignorance about this issue.
Ryan told us that he had a car wreck recently when he was driving his car at 140 mph and a truck pulled out in front of him and he hit the back and flew off the road and totaled his car. He thinks he won’t do that again, and especially when he is driving customers to the Toyota dealership. I surmised that he must have been wearing his seat belt when he flew his car into the bayou since he had no bandages or casts, or none that we could see.
After retrieving our van, we went to Lincoln’s house on Jackson. The National Park Service operates the house and still honors Robert Todd Lincoln’s stipulation that the public should never be charged a fee to visit the house. NPS has purchased and refurbished neighborhood houses to represent the view that Lincoln would have had of his neighbors in 1860.
Springfield is full of Lincoln ghosts. His presence is everywhere. A few blocks from the residence is the Lincoln-Herndon Law Office, across the street from the Capitol building. Lincoln spent a lot of time in the building, as an elected representative of the people, as a paid employee of the State and as a barrister practicing before the State Supreme Court. He ran his campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination from the Governor’s reception room on the second floor. He debated Stephen Douglas in the house chamber and there gave the speech that made him a national figure in 1858, that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
And, in the end, he returned to Springfield and to the Capitol building. During the 24-hour period when Lincoln lay in state at the Springfield Capitol building, the guards counted 75,000 visitors and they estimated that another 25,000 waiting in line at the end of the viewing period. This was at a time when the population of Springfield was 16,000.
Who is buried in Lincoln’s Tomb? We drove to the Oak Ridge Cemetery to find out. It was closed for the day, but we already knew the answer–Abraham, Mary, Eddie, Willie and Tad. Their eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, is buried in Chicago, where he made his career and his fortune.
Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, born in 1904, died without issue on December 25, 1985, the last living Lincoln descendant, thus ending the Lincoln line.

New York and Ohio and Illinois

October 15, 2007
Monday
We drove to Watkins Glen State Park, in Watkins Glen at the foot of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes district of New York. Watkins Glen is a 1 ½ mile gorge cut through limestone by Glen Creek over the course of 12,000 years.
Morvalden Ells started charging visitors to walk through the gorge in 1836. The government of New York resented private encroachment on public enjoyment and took over the attraction in 1906.
The gorge rises 500 feet during the course of its ascent on 800 stone stair steps. Gail and I walked about a half mile, perhaps 200 stair steps, and, deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, valorously returned to the park and had a picnic lunch on a bench beside Glen Creek.
We drove up the east side of Seneca Lake and visited wineries, seduced occasionally by signs saying that local wines had won gold medals. We were fooled twice, then bypassed the rest until we arrived at Lamoreaux Landing, which we knew from a previous visit produces superior wines.
We finally rolled into Geneva and checked into our hotel there, in spite of road work that reduced the entry to a graveled street leading to an iron plated ramp into the driveway next to a transient bus station.
Tuesday
We drove from Geneva to North Canton, Ohio. We arrived at Harry London Chocolate, home of the Chocolate Hall of Fame, in time for the 2:00 tour and found out that 1-800-FLOWERS now owns Harry London.
We paid three dollars for the tour and received a two dollar discount in the candy store afterward, a solid blow for capitalism.
Afterward we found our hotel in Canton, checked in and prepared for a long drive the next day, into a new time zone.
Wednesday
We drove to Springfield, Illinois, stopping for gasoline in Rantoul, former home of Chanute Air Force Base where I spent my 21st birthday and corresponded with my future bride, Gail.
As we drove through town, we passed a brick building that displayed two signs, "Cold Beer" and "Open for Breakfast." A fantastic combination.
We checked into the Statehouse Clarion and the desk clerk gave us certificates for free drinks at their bar. That was a nice treat, to show their appreciation for all the trouble we went to to arrive in Springfield.
After cocktails, we ordered Pizza Surprise from Papa John’s for room delivery and that was the end of our day.

Where It All Began

October 14, 2007
Sunday
An 1868 employment ad displayed in the Hall of Fame said, "Notice to First Basemen–the National Club of Washington are looking for a first baseman about here. They have been to Brooklyn, but they were not successful in obtaining one. Terms–First rate position in the Treasury Department: must work in the Department until three o’clock, and then practice at base ball until dark. ‘No Irish Need Apply.’"
Cooperstown was founded by and named after Judge William Cooper, the father of author James Fenimore Cooper. The Village of Cooperstown was established in 1786 and incorporated as the "Village of Otsego" on April 3, 1807; the name was legally changed to "Village of Cooperstown" in 1812.
Baseball is the name of the game in Cooperstown. The streets are lined with souvenir shops, baseball card shops, a wax museum, DiMaggio’s hot dog stand, The National Pastime, Cooperstown Cards and the Where It All Began Bat Company.
Gail and I were first in line at 9:00 to enter the hallowed halls of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
The Special Baseball Commission, in 1908, after three years of studying the matter, stated that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown in 1839. This was based partially on a letter from Abner Graves, who claimed to be present when Abner Doubleday invented the game 70 years earlier.
In 1934 an antique baseball was found in an attic in a trunk believed to have belonged to Abner Graves. This became known as the Doubleday Baseball and was put on exhibit in Cooperstown.
In 1936, Ty Cobb received more votes than Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth to lead the first class of inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The National Baseball Museum opened its doors in 1938 and was dedicated in 1939. By that time 25 members had been elected to the Hall of Fame. The eleven still living traveled to Cooperstown to attend the dedication.
In an exhibit entitled "3,000/3,000 Club," we discovered that Rogers Hornsby, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams did not hit 3,000 career base hits. Cy Young, Christy Mathewson and Warren Spahn did not throw 3,000 career strikeouts.
Twenty-seven men have hit 3,000 or more base hits. Fifteen pitchers have struck out 3,000 or more batters.
Heading the list of hitters is Pete Rose with 4,256; second is Ty Cobb at 4,191.
Nolan Ryan has 5,714 strikeouts, more than a thousand more than second-place Roger Clemens.
Every team has retired uniform number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson.
As my friend Wayne Wegner probably knows, David Wells and Don Larsen, who have pitched the Yankees’ only two perfect games, both attended Point Loma High School in San Diego.
The official team histories say that the Atlanta Braves were founded in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings, making them the oldest major league baseball team. I thought the Cincinnati Red Legs were the oldest team but evidently I was mistaken so I checked Google.
According to Google, the Cincinnati Red Stockings were America’s first professional baseball team, beginning March 15, 1869. After an undefeated season, 65-0, and going on to win 130 consecutive games, they finally lost to the Brooklyn Atlantics in 1870. Cincinnati fans immediately stopped coming to their games (I thought New York was tough) and the team moved to Boston where they became the Boston Red Stockings in 1871. Cincinnati got another team in 1882, also named the Red Stockings and currently known as the Reds.
So that’s the rest of the story. You guess which team came first.
After spending the morning at the Hall of Fame, we visited the Ommegang Brewery and tasted Belgian ales. They were good.
Then we drove to the Cooperstown Brewery and tasted American ales. They were also good.
Back at the Tunnicliff Inn, we met Frank, the owner, in the lobby and chatted with him a while. The inn was built in 1802 and does not have a level surface. We set our suitcases in the center of our room on the night that we checked in and watched them slowly roll to the far wall. Frank bought the place in 1992. He says his next project is to upgrade the furniture.
Downstairs, below ground level, is the Pit, a lively restaurant that attracts local families and serves beer by the pitcher and beef by the pound.
After dinner, we went to our room, watched our suitcases roll and prepared for bed.

The Really Rich and Famous

October 12, 2007
Friday
Samuel Ward McAllister originated the "400" as a reflection of the capacity of Mrs Astor’s ballroom, which accommodated the "400 people in New York who really mattered." McAllister’s private mission was to be New York’s tastemaker, as part of his lifelong desire for personal recognition. He is considered to be the one person largely responsible for turning the seaside resort of Newport into a destination for the status-seeking rich families of the Gilded Age.
The "400" still exists as a social benchmark according to people who think they know.
We began our day with a van tour of Newport. Our tour guide, Mary, told us that lots of the houses are really old. Doris Duke refurbished about 200 of them in the 50s and they are rented to people who can afford them.
Mary took us on Bellevue Avenue, Ochre Point and Ocean Drive where lots of rich and famous people still live. We passed a mansion owned by Merrill Lynch IV, whom we help to support, and a mansion owned by John Holland, CEO of Fruit of the Loom, who supports us.
I took a photo of a lighthouse that Caroline Kennedy owns. It is on the Auchincloss estate that she inherited from her mother.
After the van tour, we drove back to Bellevue and toured a few of the old estates that are open to the public under ownership of the Preservation Society of Newport County.
The Breakers was built by Richard Morris Hunt for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, grandson of the Commodore, and finished in 1895. It is considered to be the quintessential representative of Newport Society of the Gilded Age. It is 65,000 square feet and 70 rooms, though more than half of the rooms were servants’ residence and off limits to the family.
Cornelius’ daughter Gladys sold the building to the Preservation Society but the family still owns the furnishings and her grandchildren still spend summers occupying the third floor, which is not open to visitors.
Rosecliff was built by Stanford White for Theresa Fair Oelrichs, daughter of one of the four partners in the Comstock Lode. It is used a lot for movies and you can get married there if you want. A heart-shaped grand stairway is a signature backdrop of the building.
Marble House is another of Richard Morris Hunt’s works (as is Biltmore in North Carolina) built for Cornelius’ little brother, William, which he gave to his wife Alva for her 39th birthday. The Vanderbilts spent $11 million to build the house, $7 million for 500,000 cubic feet of marble. The ballroom walls and ceiling are entirely covered with 22 karat gold leaf.
Alva divorced William four years after receiving this gift, married Oliver Hazzard Perry Belmont and moved down the street. She used Marble House as a storage shed for her art pieces and she did her laundry there.
The Astors’ Beechwood Mansion is listed as "the place where American Society began," ruled by Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor who married the brother of John Jacob Astor III and assumed the title "The Mrs Astor" upon the death of her sister-in-law. This mansion is still privately owned and our tour was led by costumed actors who pretended that we had arrived for a party in 1925. They showed us the house and gave us some history of the family, some of "the dirt."
They introduced us to Cole Porter and his wife, and remarked on their humility, traveling with only two servants. They also noted that the family was staying longer in Newport than the normal season, which used to end September 1st. The reason was that Rhode Island did not agree with the provisions of the Volstead Amendment and took pains to not enforce Prohibition.
We ended the day on that sober note and returned to our hotel for cocktails and dinner.
Saturday
We visited the fourth estate on our package ticket, the Elms, constructed in 1901 by Edward Berwind, who, in spite of my never having heard of him, in 1900 was considered to be "one of the 59 men who ruled America." This made him an important member of Newport’s summer society, though certainly not on an equal footing with Mrs Astor.
A carriage house and stables on the edge of the property were converted to a garage when the Berwinds began using automobiles. The head coachmen became the family driver but he never learned how to back up so they installed a large turntable in the garage.
On our way out of town, we stopped at Green Animals Topiary and Gail toured the manicured gardens while I read a newspaper. Then we drove through Providence and across the Adirondacks to Cooperstown.

Storm Front

October 10, 2007
Wednesday
After spending the night in Hyannis, we caught the 0930 ferry to Nantucket, where Billy Joel wrote about modern island life,

"I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"

And I'm cruising through Long Island Sound

I have charted a course to the Vineyard

But tonight I am Nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday

And left this morning from the bell in Gardner's Bay

Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home

Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone

So I could own my Downeaster "Alexa"

And I go where the ocean is deep

There are giants out there in the canyons

And a good captain can't fall asleep

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes

I know there's fish out there but where God only knows

They say these waters aren't what they used to be

But I've got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"

And if you work with the rod and the reel

Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis

And I still have my hands on the wheel

Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"

More and more miles from shore every year

Since they told me I can't sell no stripers

And there's no luck in swordfishing here

I was a bayman like my father was before

Can't make a living as a bayman anymore

There ain't much future for a man who works the sea

But there ain't no island left for islanders like me"

As we crossed the Sound, a man approached Gail and gave her a package of post cards, saying, "I saw you were writing cards and thought you’d like some of mine." They were beautiful photographs of Nantucket and each one credited Thomas P. Benincas Jr.
We went to the table where Tom was sitting and thanked him and he introduced his wife Mary. They work at Yale and spend holidays on Nantucket where he pursues his real passion, photography. They were on their way over for a ten day stay in a rented house.
The MV Eagle docked at 10:30 and we dragged our bags to Seven Sea B&B (the address is 7 Sea Street, get it?)
Gail of Gail’s Tours picked us up at 1:00, after we had lunch at the Brotherhood of Thieves.
Gail said she is sixth generation on Nantucket. She took us first out to Brant Point and showed us the summer home of the heiress of the Heinz family fortune, who shares occasional residence with her current husband.
Down the street is the efficient Gilbreth house where twelve children learned the Morse code while sitting on the toilet. (If you don’t get this, just ask.)
Most of the houses on Nantucket look alike, which is done on purpose. A local mantra is "Gut fish, not houses," as an effort is made to preserve the gray, shingle-sided homes built by the whalers who settled here in the 1800s.
The oldest surviving house was built in 1686 by Tristram Coffin for his grandson Jethro. The Cabot Lodges have a home here as does Tommy Hilfiger. John Steinbeck wrote East of Eden in a house named Eden East on the south shore.
We went by Sankaty Lighthouse which was jacked up and moved last week away from the eroding cliff. Lots of houses are going through the same process as noreasters tear away the shoreline. Gail also showed us one of the many cranberry bogs. The sprayed bogs are full of cranberries. The organic bogs are choked with weeds.
After the tour, we wandered around the downtown shopping area and out onto the wharves. We had trouble finding shot glasses and T shirts amongst the shops that cater more to people who buy Peter Beaton hats and Nantucket Looms cashmere sweaters.
We had dinner at Rose and Crown Grog Shop, two for one entrées and home of the Goombay Smash, "fruit juices and lots and lots of rum." I also sampled Nantucket’s Cisco Brewery’s Whale Tail Pale Ale.
Thursday
Matthew Parker served us a healthy breakfast at Seven Sea and we caught the MV Iyannough back to Hyannis. The captain pronounced the name several times but I never did get it.
We drove to Sandwich, the oldest village on Cape Cod, through a neighborhood signed "Slow Children" and "Blind Drivers," not a good combination.
At the Heritage Museum and Gardens, we toured the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame.
The league was founded in 1885 for college players. Of 20,000 applicants each year, 300 are chosen to play among the ten teams. They play for no salary and must provide their own housing, food, transportation and find part-time work. They are required to show up at the ball park every morning at 7:30 and to be in their own beds at 11 pm. The league practices no tolerance for misdeeds.
Local people take them in and mentor them and care for them and businesses are glad to provide employment.
One-third of major league players who played in college went through the Cape Cod League, about 200 of today’s players. One in six Cape veterans make the big show. Nomar Garciaparra, Will Clark, Thurman Munson, Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, and Carlos Pe a played for such teams as the Orleans Cardinals, Chatham Athletics, Brewster Whitecaps and the Cotuit Kettleers.
Our host, Joe Star, was an Iwo Jima veteran and was making plans to attend a reunion with five other survivors next year.
Also on the grounds of the Gardens was an exhibit entitled "A Short Life and a Merry One, Pirates of New England," whose title was taken from a quotation by Captain Bartholomew Roberts in 1721, "In an honest Service, says he, there is thin Commons, low Wages and hard Labour; in this, Plenty and Satiety, Pleasure and Ease, Liberty and Power; and who would not ballance Creditor on this Side, when all the Hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sower Look or two at Choaking. No, a merry Life and a short one, shall be my Motto."
We had lunch at Daniel Webster Inn and drove to Rhode Island, a short drive but a merry one.

Life On The Island

Monday
We drove to Falmouth, birthplace of Katherine Lee Bates who wrote America the Beautiful on Pikes Peak, and found the ferry terminal for Martha’s Vineyard. We rode the MV Nantucket across the sound and docked at Oak Bluffs just after 10:00.
After dropping our luggage at the Madison Inn, we took a bus tour of the island. The first celebrity name drop was Peter Norton at 87 Ocean Avenue, a house renovated in the 90s by Bob Vila and featured on his show.
Steven Spielberg filmed almost all of Jaws on Martha’s Vineyard, in Edgartown. This was the home of the island’s whale ship captains in the 1800s. Foremost among them was Valentine Pease, who once took Herman Melville out on a voyage.
Vincent House is the oldest on the island, built in 1672.
The permanent population of Martha’s Vineyard is 16,000 and it grows to 130,000 in the summer. The crush of people is so dense that cruise ships are forbidden to dock in July and August. A lot of the visitors are day trippers, however, and disappear at a quarter to five when the last ferry leaves.
MV sits atop a natural aquifer and has 150 fresh water springs and creeks that are replenished by rainfall. Most of the island, however, is considered dry–Edgartown and Oak Bluffs are the only towns that permit liquor sales. Restaurants in the other villages are BYOB.
The west side, "up island," is mostly agricultural. Don’t think, though, that you can just come in and buy land and start farming. David McCulloch, Walter Cronkite and Carly Simon are some of the people who can afford to buy Martha’s Vineyard farms.
Under Massachusetts law, beachfront property ownership is recognized to the low tide line so most of the Vineyard’s beaches are off limits to the public. Of 120 miles of coast line, more than 100 are privately owned.
After the tour, we walked around Oak Bluffs in and out of gift shops. Most were fixing to close for the season so they had specials on shot glasses and coffee cups and you could get a T shirt for two dollars.
We had dinner at Sharky’s and curled up in our bed afterwards listening to rain drops on the roof.
Tuesday
A 7:00 bus took us to Vineyard Haven where we boarded the trash boat, an unscheduled freighter that provides the earliest possible ride back to the mainland. We shared the boat with a garbage truck and a livestock trailer that was full of angry bull.
We chatted with a golf pro who manages a country club on the island whose membership fee is $350,000. He was on his way to his other job in West Palm Beach where he works seven months of the year.
We spent the rest of the day on Cape Cod driving to Provincetown, the first landing point of the Pilgrims. Someone has erected a 252-foot Pilgrim Memorial tower on a hill in the middle of town. I circled the parking lot and took a picture without having to get out of the car.
We stopped at the Cape Cod Lighthouse in Truro. It was jacked up and moved in 1996 to get back from the eroding cliff but it is still in Truro.

Down East

October 6, 2007
Saturday
We drove away from Bar Harbor hugging the coast all the way to New Brunswick. It was our wish to visit Campobello Island and, yes, it is in Canada. We did not anticipate that when we restocked our traveling wine cellar in Bar Harbor.
A Canadian Customs officer gave us a stern lecture about transporting alcohol across the border and let us go "this time."
At the Roosevelt Campobello International Park Edmund S. Muskie Visitor Center, we discovered that the island was named after the benefactor who gave it to Captain Owen, whose name was Lord William Camp(o)bell(o). Get it?
James and Sara Roosevelt brought their one-year old son, Franklin, to Campobello for the first time in 1883. James and Sara purchased four acres of land and built a three-story cottage in 1884. From that year until 1921, Franklin spent every summer on the island, sailing, hiking and picnicking.
In 1909, Sara Roosevelt purchased a neighbor’s 21-room cottage (you need lots of rooms when you have five children and six servants) and gave it to Franklin and Eleanor as a wedding gift. True to her character, she retained title to their home until she died in 1941.
It was on Campobello that Franklin contracted polio in 1921 and, after that, he visited the island only three more times during his life–in 1933, 1936 and 1939.
We drove from the park to the north end of the island. The tide was out so I was able to cross an exposed causeway and walk to the East Quoddy Lighthouse. Gail stayed at the picnic area and watched a Minke whale that the visitor center hostesses told us had been trapped for three days inside a fish pen.
Fishermen had enclosed an area with netting in order to hatch and raise bait fish. We noticed that the pen had a large opening to the sea that the whale was ignoring in favor of diving, sounding, cavorting and, perhaps, eating.
Returning across the International Friendship Bridge, we met a lady at U.S. Customs who had us open all the doors of the van so she could poke around inside. She became highly agitated at my pill dispenser and ordered us pull over for a more thorough search by a colleague. She threw a brochure into the car as I started the engine that she said would explain to me what I had done wrong.
It turned out that I needed to produce original prescription bottles. After I did that, everyone calmed down.
I’m glad that nobody found the pepper spray that I forgot we had in the console.
Sunday
We found out that LL Bean in Freeport never closes, staying open 24/365. At ten o’clock on a Sunday morning we could not find a parking space . We eventually parked a couple of blocks away and walked to the Flagship Store, past the Fishing and Hunting Store and the Hiking and Biking and Kayaking Store.
We found a few things to buy, stood in line to pay, and got out of there.
We drove through Kennebunkport at noon. The streets were thronged with people enjoying the great weather.
At the Lighthouse Depot in Wells, we found three buildings full of lighthouse stuff that we did not buy.
We watched baseball playoffs after supper. People around here are crazy about the Red Sox. I wish them well.

The Maine Thing

October 4, 2007
Thursday
We awakened to a deep-throated fog horn and the sound of water lapping on the shore beneath our window. Gail opened the door open and lit the fireplace and we watched ghostly boats bobbing in the bay.
After breakfast in the Reading Room (cinnamon apple crepes and lobster and havarti cheese omelet), we walked to Main Street and bought souvenirs and USA postage stamps. Then it was time for lunch so we got a lobster roll at Bubba’s and carried it back to the hotel and ate at a picnic table overlooking the water.
Mrs Davis needed dessert so we went to Ben and Bill’s, the original home of Bar Harbor’s lobster ice cream, for a cone of pumpkin pie and chocolate cherry chip.
At 4:00 we walked the Shore Path to the end and back, then had cocktails in our room and dressed for dinner.
The chef’s special dish in the Reading Room was lobster pie, so what were we going to do? At least he did not offer us lobster ice cream for dessert.
Friday
After another Reading Room breakfast, we took a 2 ½ hour bus tour of Acadia National Park, driven by Heather, who once worked at Anacapa Island National Park and even became pregnant and delivered her first child there.
Mount Desert Island is the third largest island off the each coast, after Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard. Locals pronounce it "Dessert" to mimic the French accent of Samuel de Champlain who named the island in 1604.
Verrazano wrote about these lands in the 1500s and compared them to the Acadian lands of Greece. That’s what Heather told us. I never heard of the Acadian lands of Greece and all I know of Verrazano is that he was both Strait and Narrow. (A little geography humor.)
We drove first to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, 1,530 feet high, arising straight from the water, the highest such rising north of Buenos Aires, according to Heather. Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the United States that the rising sun lights every morning, according to Heather.
Heather noted that a gull that flies over the sea is called a sea gull and a gull that flies over the bay is called a bay gull.
We looked down from the summit of Cadillac Mountain onto a cruise ship that arrived in the night and disgorged this morning 2,600 tennis-shoed, gray-haired geezers onto Bay Harbor’s sidewalks.
Heather told us Bar Harbor is named after the sand bar that is exposed at low tide and connects the town to Bar Island. You can walk across when the tide is out, spend some time and walk back. If you spend too much time, though, you have to wait six hours for the next low tide. Heather said it’s a great place to take a date.
Somes Sound is the only fjord on the east coast, that is, it has cliffs both above and below water level. It almost bisects the island.
A wildfire in 1947 burned a third of the island down to mineral soil and destroyed many summer homes. Birch, beech and maple trees are the pioneer species that have grown back since then. Eventually they will provide enough shade to promote the growth of spruce and fir, which is Maine’s climax forest, according to Heather. When they grow high enough, the hardwood trees will die because they are shade-intolerant. Eventually the spruce and firs will grow so thickly that their lower branches will die and become kindling for the next wildfire.
Rudolph Bruno built the High Seas, the only mansion that survived the 1947 fire. His childhood sweetheart in Germany agreed to marry him on three conditions–that he buy her a large diamond, build her a mansion on Mount Desert Island and give her a first-class ticket on the world’s most luxurious cruise ship, scheduled to sail across the Atlantic in 1912.
We stopped next at Thunder Hole, just a murmur today because the swells were small. The Labrador Current protects Maine from hurricanes. Cold water robs them of their energy but the coast is still hammered by giant swells during the season.
Heather told us about the many miles of carriage roads the John D Rockefeller Jr built to preserve the carriage industry on the island after automobiles began to encroach at the beginning of the 20th Century. As we passed the aromatic stable, she was reminded of an old song, "She was only the jockey’s daughter but all of the horsemen knew ‘er."
John D. Rockefeller Jr came here in July, 1908, and a month later his son, Nelson, was born on the Shore Path near the Bar Harbor Inn.
It was interesting to me that the original John D. and Cornelius Vanderbilt and their friends built summer homes off the South Carolina coast, on Jekyll Island, and their children went north for their summer homes, to Newport and Maine.
Jordan House was built in 1845 and is today the only restaurant in the National Park. It is also a starting point for many of the island’s trails and welcomes dogs to its outdoor tables on the lawn overlooking Jordan Pond. I guess anyone is welcome as long as they can pay the tab.
Jackson Laboratory is the number one employer in Hancock County and supplies three million mice a year to experimental laboratories all over the world. The lab is a pioneer in genetic research.
Heather told us that most of the town closes down for the winter after tourists stop coming here. Only a few businesses stay open–a motel, a bar, the supermarket and the one-hour photo shop.
After the tour, we went to The Thirsty Whale and had a beer and chatted with a young man who makes racing shells and kayaks that will be used in the Beijing Olympic games.
Back to our room, we dressed for dinner and went to the Terrace Grille for a Maine Lobster Bake. We expected to see Robert Goulet any minute, singing about June Busting Out All Over with a chorus of people clapping and throwing seaweed on the fire, but it was just us and a bunch of hotel guests sitting beside the water and feasting on fish chowder, mussels, clams, corn, potatoes, lobster and blueberry pie.

New Scotland

September 30, 2007
Sunday
We returned to Wood Islands to catch the morning ferry to Nova Scotia. No bridge toll for us.
The ferry departed at 0930 and arrived in Caribou at 1045. We drove up the west coast to Glenora, the only single malt distillery in North America.
We had lunch in the pub room to the music of a fiddler and guitarist in a performance optimistically billed as a ceilidh, which is actually a rather more exuberant Gaelic social event that includes singing, dancing and storytelling.
We toured the distillery and learned why Scotch whisky is important here. Twenty-five per cent of Nova Scotians are of Scottish origin, a result of the Highland Clearances that took place after the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
At the end of the tour, our hostess poured a wee dram of Glenora Gold, modestly priced at $79 a bottle. It tasted a lot like Scotch.
From Glenora, we drove to North Sydney and watched the departure of the overnight ferry to Newfoundland, checked into our hotel and prepared for the next day.
Monday
We finally succumbed to the call of Tim Horton’s, a ubiquitous Canadian version of McDonalds, for coffee and breakfast. It was better than McDonalds.
From North Sydney we headed up the east coast of Cape Breton following the Cabot Trail, past Ocean View Cemetery (as if it makes a difference). We took a ferry across St Anne’s Bay for $5, sharing the deck with an 18-wheel truck and a utility van.
We stopped at Cabot Landing Picnic Park which commemorates John Cabot’s landing on the Canadian shore on 24 June 1497.
At 10:52 am, we stopped at the end of the road in Capstick, at the northern tip of Nova Scotia. This was as far from California as we could drive, 6,527 miles from home, and from now on, every mile would take us back toward the Central Coast.
We passed a hostel in Cape North that looked friendly enough.
Le Gabriel in Chéticamp served an Acadian lunch. The restaurant is named after a character in Longfellow’s Evangeline, a story about the expulsion of the French from Nova Scotia in 1759.
More than an expulsion, it was ethnic cleansing. The English loaded the French inhabitants onto ships, men and women on separate vessels, and relocated them all over the world. Many Acadians migrated down the east coast as far as Louisiana, which was Spanish territory at that time. Spanish authorities welcomed the Catholic French settlers.
Later, small groups were allowed to return and to settle in dispersed villages. Fourteen families who were originally expelled from Gran Pré founded Chéticamp.
Tuesday
We drove to Halifax to sample the wares of Alexander Keith Brewery on Lower Water Street.
Alexander Keith arrived in Halifax in 1820 with a brewmaster’s license and a dream. Three thousand English troops stationed in Nova Scotia were entitled to a ration of a gallon of beer a day and no one in the province at the time made a potable brew. Alexander Keith filled the void and built the foundation for a brewing dynasty that survives today.
Our guides were young ladies dressed in 1863 costume who played the parts of lasses of the period and regaled us with stories and songs of Halifax in the middle of the 19th Century.
We had lunch next door at the Red Stag Tavern, haddock and chips and pints of ale.
Wednesday
This was our last day in Canada, a sad day leavened only by thoughts of things to come. We hit Tim Horton’s for breakfast, then the Atlantic Superstore for maple syrup, in case we decide to make a maple syrup pie for Thanksgiving.
We used the last of our Canadian stamps that we bought in Calgary three weeks ago to send post cards home.
Then we drove to Peggy’s Cove, a tiny town (population 40) perched on granite boulders at the end of a peninsula. Peggy’s Cove lighthouse is the town’s post office. Three tour buses were parked next to the gift store and lots of their passengers were on the rocks taking pictures of everything in sight. Seven more buses drove in on the narrow, winding road as we were leaving.
Outside town was a memorial to Swiss Air Flight 111, honoring the 229 men, women and children who perished off shore on September 2, 1998.
We drove south to Yarmouth to catch the Cat, a twin-hulled ferry that traverses the Gulf of Maine three times a week. On the way, we passed a sign that warned of a "Hidden Driveway," but we didn’t see it.
At Yarmouth we pulled into Rudder’s Seafood Restaurant and Brewpub, two of our favorite things combined in one place.
After lunch we lined up to board the Cat, along with 129 other vehicles and 501 passengers. On the main deck, we found a duty-free gift shop, a pizza bar, a movie lounge, a casino and a sports lounge.
It took three hours to cross to the U.S. at 55 miles per hours and saved us 750 miles of driving.
We docked in Bar Harbor, Maine, at 6:20, and lined up for Customs. The two hundred bus passengers had to debark and walk through the Customs line individually.
At 7:00 p.m. we checked into the Bar Harbor Inn. I mentioned my cousin’s name and the desk clerk gave us complimentary tickets for a lobster bake.