Saturday, January 25, 2003
CAMELS IN TEXAS?
Yes, for about ten years there was a rather large herd of camels resident in Texas. It is not just a tall-tale talkative Texans tell.
The idea of adapting the camel to transportation needs of the nation expanding into the southwest was set forth by a man born in Kentucky horse breeding country. Interest in building a railroad across that vast expanse of rough terrain to the prosperous gold fields of California was hampered by political complications and enmities. Nothing was being done, and, he, as the United States Secretary of War ordered Major H. C. Wayne to the Middle East to study and to purchase a herd of camels or dromedaries as they were called in those days.
The plan was to use the “beasts of the desert” to transport vital military supplies the Secretary of War was having trouble supplying to the west coast and the scattered posts along the way.
The Secretary was not a man given to whims. He had a hot temper according to those who had know him at West Point Military Academy, or during his term he served as U .S. Senator - 1847-1861. He was said to have been a man of strong convictions which, some thought, bordered at times on self-righteousness. We know him in a totally different context as Jefferson Davis, President-to-be of the Confederate States of America.
Wright bought thirty-three camels as an initial shipment. They came on a ship called the “Supply” along with several Greek and Turkish drivers. On May 14, 1865 the people of Indianola, Texas, saw the beginning of the U.S. Army's Camel Corps. In San Antonio the camels demonstrated how they could have two bales of Texas cotton affixed to their backs while kneeling and, then stand up with no special effort, and haul the bales elsewhere. They proved to be very impressive in many such tests comparing them to mules.
Texas was not, at that time, exactly over run with experienced dromedary drivers, so it was necessary to train men to manage the beasts. The camel proved to have many positive qualities. It could travel long distances, bearing heavy loads with little need for water and minimum requirements for forage. It could exhibit degrees of exceptional stamina but negative points also became apparent which doomed the project to failure.
A major one, oddly enough proved to be a physical problem. The soft padded feet of the camel were not at all suited to the rocky terrain over which they were expected travel. Sore feet and legs were obvious. The camel is not exactly the most joyful beast of the field to start with and even though someone may well have come up with a “camel-shoe” in time. The second important negative was that men did not take to being camel drivers at all. It is not a pleasant task and most men who trained at it were found to prefer mules. Camels and their drivers mutually detested each other it.
Another negative reason was that the nation itself was rushing quickly into a costly Civil War which would rend the country apart and threaten its very existence.
The Secretary of War had other things on his mind. The camels, at Fort Verda ,Texas, south of Keensville, became part of the Confederate army for a time, but at the end of the war became federal property. The railway builders had awakened to the needs of the west the camels were sold at auction in 1866. A few escaped and took to the western wilds where they were occasionally seen until well into the latter years of the 19th Century.
A.L.M. January 21, 2003 [c615wds]
Friday, January 24, 2003
WHERE R U?
One of the perks which comes my way regularly is my realization - again and again - concerning the diversity to be found among those of you who read TOPIC either now and then, or daily. Thank you for being visitors, too as well as hits.
There is a special thrill in seeing a new country pop up on the graphs, now and then. At the moment it lingers at the seven nation level, and each one is a gem in itself for me. I know how I found them, because I chose to place myself right here, but I wonder how in the world they managed to find me.
That reader in Lithuiania, for instance. Did he or she just go to google.com and ask for McCaskey Topic, or the other way around. Fine. But they had to have heard of it before, I assume. I have found that some of the essays I have done since May of 2002 have been picked up and are now included in information files concerning specific topics we discussed.. So, individuals looking for information on set subject, may chance upon this blog.
Or, I have found it a real blessing at the time I got started that some other bloggers gave me a friendly hand up by including TOPIC as a link to their own writings. Heath .for example in New England for link associations as well a giving me some helpful advice and assistance. There is a certain comradeship quality, I find, among bloggers despite our our vast differences in style and material..
This is curious blend of blogging I do, anyway. It is admittedly “old-fashioned” in that it is rather calm and sedate and, for the most part, entertaining with being faddist or shocking. It is different from the type of writing we find so popular today. I found the format very useful many years ago, both in newspaper writing and on radio, in particular,.The five minute things I did on radio for so long ago, were intended to be topical discussions taped and run either early morning or late evening – in cases at both times. The purpose of it all was to give a quick glance at an idea or informational novelty which the hearer would then use though out his or her workday as a jumping-off place for conversations with fellow workers.
I have seen and heard the idea work. When conversations start with such lead-ins as “I heard something on the radio this morning that hit me....” or, “Did you hear that guy on the radio last night talking about....” Some of them have been triggered by “Topic” and people have been been enriched with conversational values they like and seek.
TOPIC is way down the list of favorite blogs, I know. But I am pleased with its steady growth with your interest and help. There is a Comment or Reply box on the main Topic page. All that is required is that “a human hand insert the @ and your comments are on their e-mail way to me.
For the records, let me know where you are, and how you came to be a part of. my world.. I will say “thank you” in whatever language applies.
A.L.M. January 24, 2003 [c553wds]
Thursday, January 23, 2003
IT'S TRUE
Yes.
Many of us must plead guilty.
The charge: compelling our children to grow up too fast.
How do you plead? And,how important can such a choice be?
I think I am aware of the many excuses we can,
as adult individuals, use to justify our actions and attitudes. I've used a few of them myself.
Much of what we do, or avoid doing, seems to be founded upon a kind of adult peer pressure. That's somethings we find easy to apply to children's actions, but many adults – and you know a few of them yourself - are constantly being led around by what they see other adults doing. That becomes what might be dubbed the EDI Syndrome - “Everybody does it!” By some form of warped logic that makes it permissible.
At the risk of being branded as a thoughtless busybody, I venture to suggest a few ways in which we might achieve a measure of balance in our thinking.
I find it difficult to go along with any parents who are eager to form their little girl so she will grown up to be glamorous and seductive. They have her ears pierced, fit her earlobes with sets of gaudy earrings and bracelets for her wrists and ankles at every Birthday, Holiday, Store Sale or Guilt Trip they encounter. Most of this is for pre-school ages,after which it becomes a competitive thing. I do not favor teaching a little girl that painting her fingernails and toenails every color of the rainbow , nor do I think it wise for parents to dress her as living Barbie Doll. I cannot see them allowing her to choose what and when she will eat or forbidding her to have certain items in the almost-sacred name of “weight control.”
Little boys often have the same parental problems in modified forms. Dad buys the kid a gun before he can toddle. Sports activities loom large in the plans the father has for his son. He desperately strives to re-live the active life style he likes to believe he had at one time. I don't go for free reign of TV and Computer selection by either boys or girls,either.
I realize this places me well back into the pre-Woodstock era. I'm marked as a fuddy-duddy concerning the free life. And there was a time when that bothered me a bit; when I thought I was alone with such quaint feelings.
I am not alone, I have found.
More and more parents are coming to the realization that they are doing non-repairable harm to their youngsters by attempting to force their formation is such outward ways. The inner self is the parent's main responsibility. You know the proverb about bending a twig the way you want it to grow and a host of other such wise sayings. You are not expected to add the foliage and the colorful blooms as soon as the bulb sprouts.
A.L.M. January 22, 2003 [c497wds]
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
REPLY TO LETTER OF INQUIRY
You asked about the old Weyers Cave (Va) school building.
You were right in assuming that it was built bit-by-bit. The initial portion - the red brick, many-windowed structure facing the Keezletown Road on the north side was built the year I was born - 1916. And it has been growing and dying ever since.
I suppose I have a certain affinity with the old school even though I am not from this area, and never attended school there. We came into existence at about the same time and have witnessed many of the same eras even though we had always been apart. Many people I have come to know in later years, did go to school there - some for all the school they ever had ...first grade through the High School years.
It quickly became a community center and all sorts of gatherings were centered there. One of them, before my time in the area, has appealed to me as being a wonderful thing for a small, rural town in Virginia to have had.
Do you recall what the National Chautaquan movement was all about? In its waning days, these annual safaris by the learned seemed to visit smaller towns. They found they were welcome in Weyers Cave, Va. It became a regular site for the educational smorgasbord each year. The activities centered in and around the school building. The facilities of the school were used and large tents were erected in the area and at nearby sites around the town, for special educational productions which were really folksy lectures for the most part. I have talked with a number of residents who, for instance, told me this was their first real meeting with William Shakespeare. The visiting troupe always had a one-man Shakespearian works which used local talent to present scenes from various Shakesperian plays. The Chauauqua actors, artists and lecturers stayed with local families for the week-long visits.
The nationwide “FFA” - Future Farmers Of America started in a classroom on the first floor of this historic building. There is an historical sign a few miles south of town which attests to that historic fact.
` The add-on gym-auditorium building to the rear of the main structure was appended in the post-Depression '30's and , the Weyers Cave Ruritan Club, which met monthly in the old cafeteria-auditorium which they had helped quarry out of the basement of the old building brought about many such improvements with help from other hard-working local residents.
There was a livery stable in back of the school where the present day athletic field is located. Some students and teachers often come to school by horseback or in buggies and the riders left their mounts at the stable for day care. School buses came along in time.
The school prospered and grew to be a major influence in the area. I think it would be difficult to find a village school which had the dedicated support of local resident and civic groups anywhere. It became too large and the High School portion was moved to a new consolidated facility at Fort Defiance, Va. Within a few years the Elementary school too was moved.
The building is used today by a religious supply house which “Equip the Saints”.It has the unique purpose of funneling office supplies, furniture, computer and other such supplies to needy missionary locations around the world. There is a new church, too - just starting across the hall from the room in which the Future Farmers America first met.
Each room of the building has a history of its own it seems. It would take days to cover even a portion of the educational ventures of the youngsters who have been students within these remarkable but now “old-fashioned” walls.
I made reference to the school earlier as both “growing and dying” at the same time. Many changes have been made. I, for one, witnessed it continual growing beyond it's physical dimensions. Today it looms large in the lives of many individuals who were educated to vibrant living there.
A.L.M. January 21, 2003 (6-6-96GB) [c686wds]
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
CLUTTER
Few of us have escaped being trapped by clutter at one time or another. And it has probably been that way for generations, so the same techniques which worked years ago continue to work today if given a fair chance.
A main step is, of course is for each of us to be ready, willing and able to throw some things away, to discard them permanently and to make room for new items which will come along and demand special places for a time.
To combat clutter you have to provide room. You need adequate space depending on your life style.
Mark Twain investigated King Arthur's court at Camelot, and concluded that he needed a Round Table about the size of the average circus performance ring to seat and serve as many knights who were not at that time out and abou ”a'grailin'” or, busy bashing monsters. Talk about clutter! Camelot's matri d'hotel certainly had some real headaches. Think of that many iron-suited warriors eating roast beef a la carcass. It was hand-to-hand combat,too -no forks, only hunting knives and fingers. Mark Twain also noticed that there were at least, three dogs per man in the hall to keep the bones and spare parts from cluttering up the Camelot floors.
It can be that we are clutterers because of our habits and according to circumstances, and always keep a good sense of humor about cleaning up your clutter. To often we let it all become a burden we must bear. You probably know ,or have known homemakers who have undertaken house-wide Spring Cleaning campaigns not unlike the nation undertaking a full-scale war.
They tell me it is all easily solved to start with if one can be neat, live frugally, keep detail records of
every thing consistently, and deliberately keep sentiment out of daily living.
What a miserable lot that would seem to me to be!
I think I'd rather accept - and live with – a bit of clutter myself. Of course, I should also be able to do something about change when a friend speaks up and says: “If you will find a shovel for me, I'll help you dust this place!”
A.L.M. Januay 20. 2003 [c374wds]
Monday, January 20, 2003
MAKING THINGS
I often wonder. Do we still actively manufacture anything at all in the United States?
If you have asked yourself the same question several times in recent years as it has become more and more evident that very few of the things we buy are "Made in U.S.A." We all seem to know this is a transition which has been taking place, and yet, no one, it appears, has moved in any signficant manner to either stop it...or to, at least, slow it down a bit.
Somehow it seems totally wrong that we should permit,and even encourage such a transition when our economy has been suffering serious problems.I remember when I had close friends who worked in plants where items were actually made,finished products for the general market. No more. Other, than some small artisan-type operations, I can't think of very many people I know now who make products that will be sold sold locally. Food products, perhaps, and related short-term items, maybe. Drugs, chemicals, beverages and other such lines,but they are shortening year by year.
I have two pair of my favorite brand of shoes. It is a well-known name brand among shoes and I have the interesting informtion to poass alog n to others: "My shoes are not made in China!" So many styles of foowear for Americans pf all ages are now comig n to us from China that many assume they all do.Not so. My shoes are not made in China. They are made in India and have been for several years. Check your wardrobe. If you are in the same situation in whiuh I find myself to be, you have several sport shirts made in Guatamala, South Korea, Tiawan, Hong Kong, or from nations you never knew existed. You are wearing from Malaysia in a plaid design a Scot Highlander would wear with pride. Your heavy, quilted jacket is made in Bangladesh.
At the breakfast table you will stay closer to home because of the perishable nature of foods, but aseptic treatment processes are moving in on us speedily so the shelves displayed be doubled as far as food supplies are concered and foreign markets will be able to compete as longer periods of shelf life making previously perishable food products obtainable over a extended times.
Retailers here in the United States,for a time, seriously tired to re-build some of the American capability for manufacturing, but, one-by-one, they have all more-or-less given in to reality and now make no pretense of offering "Made in U.S.A " products. We have,in effect, priced ourslves out of our own markets largely trough higher labor costs.
We are buyers,now rather than sellers. We depend more and more on others to supply our commom, everyday requirments and this is going to have its long-range affect on many aspects of our lives the deeper we become involved.
A. L. M. January 19, 2003 [c 510wds]
Sunday, January 19, 2003
HOW MANY?
Percentages can serve well as guide lines, although it may be unwise to accept them as definite numbers.
Right now,we are concerned with the number of Arab Americans in our culture. It is related to the fact that we are being subjected to undue stress from an element of that group and we are using some strange figures on which to base our actions.
Much depends, of course, on who's figure we deem to be accurate. I doubt seriously if most Americans would take the count which might be gleaned from studies of our own census information, considering the accusations which remain so current concerning the true number of citizens in the nation.
If, for the sake of having somewhere from which to start, we accept the figures currently being made available by the Arab American Institute, in Washington,D.C. Provides some interesting figures concerning the religious backgrounds of the Arabic peoples in the United States.
Our present way of thinking is to simplify it all by assuming that all Arabic people in America are Muslims.Not so. Only twenty-three per-cent of the Arabic people in America are listed as being Muslim.
The largest religious group among Arabs in the United States is, by far, those of the Catholic faith. That figure is set at forty-two percent of the total. One must be careful, however, to point out that such a figure includes not only those of Roman Catholic background, but also those of two factions of considerable numbers among Arabic peoples world-wide. Some are of the Melkite division while others are Marmonites, depending on their backgrounds of either of Lebanonese or Syrian social and religious mores. They are not, of necessity, to be considered as a Catholic unit, but together, they constitute the largest religious influence among Arabic peoples in the United States.
There is also another twenty-three per cent group - those who belong to the Eastern or Orthodox faith which is of Greek tradition. They are about equal in number, then, to the total Muslims population. Also to be considered is a group of Protestants totally about twelve per cent.
It would seem wise to keep these figures in mind when we are trying to decide what we really think about the the present situations existing between the United States and certain Arabic states, groups and factions.
Many, no doubt, of those are here through choice and a with a sincere wish to live in freedom. Let's be very careful about those at whom we wave “big sticks”.
A.L.M. January 18, 2003 [c530wds]
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