Message from an Iroquois Guide

The Iroquois guide sat quietly in the pine bark room, filled to the rafters with artifacts, out of place ones like the bison head and longhorn skull and recent ones like a dug out canoe discovered at  lake bottom.  Hand designed historical posters lined the walls along with letters, stories, headdresses, pelts, and beaded wampum. 

Basket-topped sticks resembled a stand of cat tails, the precursors of today's lacrosse sticks.

But the most interesting artifact wasn't an artifact. 

The guide. 

He was scanning his phone when we entered the room and after a while asked if we had any questions.  Quiet, observant, and wearing a worn denim shirt, he looked like anyone else, except for his shorn head and waist length braid which grew from a small patch at the base of his neck.

In the next room I was reading the Creation Story when I heard him talking. 

I wondered about the museum. Disorganized and cluttered, it seemed a haphazard collection in need of a curator.  A letter on the wall addressed the First Nation people about the decline of their culture and way of life. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin headed a poster across the room, acknowledging the Iroquois Confederacy's influence on our fledging democracy, their freedom of speech and belief in elections, principles of a league of Native Americans dating back to the 15th century.

The Iroquois Confederacy was a name given by the French; they call themselves the Haudenosaunee or the "people of the long house" and the English called them the League of Five Nations. The nations from west to east are Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk and they lived in the region of present day New York State. The union of the five nations dates 200 years before our democracy with the sixth nation, the Tuscarora, joining in the 1700s. 




The museum guide belongs to the Mohawk nation and his name means Mountain Snow.  His grandmother gave him this name, a right held by the oldest woman in the clan. Unlike western tribes, the name is not earned but given at birth. Men marry and move into the woman's tribe.

"Snow" explained that the Haudenosaunee women elect their chiefs and have the right to impeach them after three warnings.

They settled disputes by playing a game which could cover a mile and last days and evolved into the modern sport of lacrosse. Young men have energy Snow said, and they could burn it off this way without war and death.  Fleet-footed messengers ran relays across the five nations form Buffalo to Albany, 240 miles in three days.  Runners created foot trails, paving the paths for centuries, paths which became today's roads and highways.  (Running systems, American Indian link)

Mohawk or Iroquois Trail, Link to history of trail

Snow pointed to a map on the wall of the Iroquois/Mohawk foot trails, well worn paths which became the routes for the colonists, settlers, and traders.  He also pointed out the wampum belts constructed from white and purple beads which were carved from quahog and whelk shells.  An important record of significant events and history, the belts tell a story. 

Iroquois Five Nations wampum belt

The flag of the Iroquois represents the Hiawatha wampum belt. The belt is comprised of thirty eight rows, having a heart as a great tree in the center, on either side there are two squares, all are connected with the heart by white rows of wampum. The belt is the emblem of unity among the Five Nations.  Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse site, Read more here.

The English language, Snow explained, is linear but Iroquois is different.  Symbolic and at times concentric in its depiction, the language consists of pictographs.  He pointed to a belt tacked along the top of the wall which encircled the room and said it would take three days to tell that story. 

The vast collection of artifacts and stories belonged to Snow's grandfather, Ray Fadden or Tehanetorens who established the museum.  On some visits, a guide or docent will tell a legend or story from the wampum belts. "The Story of the Monster Bear, the Giant Dipper" is shared here along with the pictographs, explaining the familiar constellation.  (Link to Iroquois legend of the Great Bear)

I purchased two of his books, Legends of the Iroquois and the Roots of the Iroquois.  (Link to books on Goodreads)

In the closing chapter of the first book, Nadine Jennings wrote:

Some exhibits originated in the early days of the museum; some are new.  Once seated on narrow wooden benches, surrounded by more exhibits than one could possibly absorb in a single afternoon, visitors are treated to "messages" delivered by a member of the Fadden family.  These messages stress the contributions made by Native Americans to American culture and life style, such as foods, medicines, and the American form of government.  (Legends of the Iroquois, p. 108)

This was my reaction to the sheer volume of stuff in this four room long building.  How much better would it be if it were presented differently?  Is it complete, fair, and accurate? Museums present skewed information and this is perhaps no different.

But the "message" resembled the messenger: quiet, thoughtful, full of history. The presentation was not linear or organized like U.S. museums.  But it makes me rethink my understanding of "American" history.

 

Six Nations Indian Museum, link to site

 

Einstein On Classic Literature

Somebody who reads only newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.

There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of antiquity that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly extricate themselves from the superstitions and ignorance that had darkened life for more than half a millennium.

Nothing is more needed to overcome the modernist's snobbishness.  

*Written for the Jungkaufmann February 29, 1952 and included in Ideas and Opinions

Last summer I read C.S. Lewis and in his writing, he recommended alternating contemporary reading with the classics and it seems he is in good company.  Einstein believed there were "only a few enlightened people" in a century and their work is worth reading. 

Regarding the Middle Ages, perhaps Einstein refers to the Greek thinkers of antiquity who helped bring an end to 500 years of ignorance.  Stoics like Epictetus come to mind  (link to letter Epictetus, Life is a Festival).

My 1954 copy of Einstein's Ideas and Opinions has notes on the inside and back covers, something you won't find with a shiny new edition and a treasure I found at the local book-swap. This collection is the most important of his general writing.

Link to the book, Einstein's Ideas and Opinions

Media content today is disturbing on many levels and it's essential to think about what is important to you and choose your own content.  Sensationalism drives media ratings and the depravity of a lot of popular programming is motivation enough to unplug.  (Read more here Cherokee Folktale)

Read the writing of thinkers like Einstein or Epictetus and writers like Cervantes or Austen. (Read Austen, Train Your Brain).

Choose to hang out with the greats. 

See No Evil - Poet Billy Collins

The Trouble with Poetry was wedged between Annie Proulx's Close Range and the Peterson Field Guide, making up a lifetime of books, purchased, not borrowed or lent, but loved enough, standing one by one like a row of sentries flanking the mantel, guarding two wooden boxes now filled with the ashes of its owners. The ashes belong to my children's grandparents.

But whose book was it, his or hers? 

I pulled the slim volume from its post, ran my hand across its cover, wondered who held it last and what it meant to them.  Distinguished by its modern jacket and lack of dust, the poetry collection was published in 2005 by Billy Collins.



Book inscription:  "My idea of paradise is a perfect automobile going thirty miles an hour on a smooth road to a twelfth-century cathedral." -- Henry James  (Link to book)

Busy friends say they don't have time to read books, so I suggest short stories. Better, try poetry.  Try Collins.  There's time at the breakfast table or waiting in the car or before bed.  It will reach you, surprise you, touch you. 

It will change you.

Here's a favorite from this collection.

See No Evil

No one expected all three of them
to sit there on their tree stumps forever,
their senses covered with their sinuous paws
so as to shut out the vile, nefarious world.

As it happened,
it was the one on the left
who was the first to desert his post,
uncupping his ears,
then loping off into the orbit of rumors and lies,
but also into the realm of symphonies,
the sound of water tumbling over rocks
and wind stirring the leafy domes of trees.

Then the monkey on the right lowered his hands
from his wide mouth and slipped away
in search of someone to talk to,
some news he could spread,
maybe something to curse or shout about.

And that left the monkey in the middle
alone with his silent vigil,
shielding his eyes from depravity's spectacle,
blind to the man whipping his horse,
the woman shaking her baby in the air,
but also unable to see
the russet sun on a rough shelf of rock
and apples in the grass at the base of a tree.

Sometimes, he wonders about the other two,
listens for the faint sounds of their breathing
up there on the mantel
alongside the clock and the candlesticks.

And some nights in the quiet house
he wishes he could break the silence with a question,

but he knows the one on his right
would not be able to hear,
and the one to his left,
according to their sacred oath--
the one they all took with one paw raised--
is forbidden forever to speak, even in reply.

--Billy Collins

"Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry doesn't have to traffic in obscurity or incomprehensibility - qualities that are perhaps the real trouble with the most 'serious' poetry." (Book jacket)

I agree. 

Collins tells us that evil exists but so does good.

If we shut our eyes and ears to one, do we not shut them to the other?  To see the "russet sun," we suffer the sight of a "man whipping his horse." The blind monkey remains and the other two desert him, leaving him with a false belief, not only in his blindness to the world, but the knowledge that the others were true to their oath.

I set aside Collins's book and the rest I collected in boxes.  A few of the more decorative less interesting titles I arranged on either side of the mantel. The bare shelves were more than I wished to bear.

There is poetry in the connection: the three monkeys, this book on the shelf next to the mantel, both boxes of ashes. But there is something even more singular.

My son took from his grandma's desk three small bronze monkeys, sitting on a circular case, housing a magnifying glass. They differed from the wise monkeys in this way: one held binoculars to his eyes, another had a bull horn against his mouth, and the last cupped his hands wide behind his ears.



One other favorite:

Flock

It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenberg Bible...required the skins of 300 sheep.
-from an article on printing

I can see them squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed,

all of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike

it would be nearly impossible
to count them,
and there is no telling

which one will carry the news
that the Lord is a shepherd,
one of the few things they already know.

- Billy Collins

English teacher Chris Hart said: "I think reading poetry is one of the most important things anyone can do, and that reading slowly, and with deliberation, is a balm for the soul."  He asks if Collins intends the reader to pity the sheep.  Read his analysis here:  Analysis of Flock

 

* Collins was the United States Poet Laureate and is Distinguished Professor at Lehman College (Link Poets.org Bio). He is one of the most popular, best selling, and well-regarded poets today.  He was asked by the Librarian of Congress to write a poem to remember the victims of 9/11 which he read at a special joint session in September 2002.  It is titled "The Names" and is heartbreaking.  YouTube link:  Billy Collins reads The Names

** As Poet Laureate, Collins instituted the program Poetry 180 for high schools. Collins chose 180 poems for the program and the accompanying book, Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry—one for each day of the school year. (Wiki)  Link to  Poetry 180, A Poem a Day for American High Schools

 

Hiking Mt. Colvin, Blake Peak, Nippletop, & Dial

The gate to heaven is a tunnel of birch trees.




There is no photo of God's Gate but this silver birch forest offers a glimpse

My family has been hiking several years and we set a modest goal for our first overnight trip: to hike 4 of the 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks.   Total distance was over twenty miles for two days with a lot of elevation change because of the mountains. (List of Adirondack Peaks and Details on the 46 High Peaks)

It was the first time we carried full packs.

This means we carry food, sleeping bags, extra clothes, tents, and a bear bag in addition to our water, filters, first aid, extra socks, sleeping pads, sunscreen, bug spray, and the list goes on.  (Here's a standard checklist, Backpacker magazine)

Bear bag to protect food, another hiker said his canister was clawed

The first day we hiked into the wilderness to set up camp, dropped off all we could then hiked to Mt. Colvin and Blake Peak.  Our pace slowed to a crawl on the trip back so we had to hike with headlamps, a memorable experience which we told our children we provided free of charge.  I fell once, gashed my leg, and lost my hiking shirt but we got in at 9:20 p.m. 

The next day we broke camp, hiked Elks Pass, and climbed Nippletop, an aptly named peak.  We did this with full packs, all of our gear. I took Advil that morning and found my shirt hanging on a branch. Hikers are great people.

Nippletop summit is 4620 feet and most of the last half mile was a vertical rise of boulders, tree roots, and rock face. My sleeping pad caught on branches, the weight of the packs bent us forward, shoulders ached, blisters developed.  My husband's pack looked like he was carrying another person piggyback and I worried about his health. I also worried about making it home during daylight.

Soaked in sweat, we made it to the ridgeline, dropped our gear, treated blisters, changed socks, and practically jogged the 0.4 miles out and back to the summit. 

We made good time to Dial Mountain, so we stretched out on the warm rock, ate lunch, and bathed in the wind.  The weather was remarkable.

Photos of a summit can never do it justice: the expanse of sky, the air, the perch on top of the world.

Resting on Dial Mountain with a view of the Adirondack High Peaks

It was downhill from here. 

That's the problem.  Downhill is hard for me, so I popped more ibuprofen at lunch because my feet and joints ached.  My husband gave me his hiking poles but I was inexperienced and awkward.

Muscle fatigue, the additional load, and the decline caused jammed toes and painful joints. 

Somewhere in this misery, we began a slight ascent which was a welcome relief.  A young stand of birch grew on Leach Trail after the 1999 fire.  The gradual rise, stone and moss lined path, and the chalky white tree trunks were otherworldly.

I never witnessed anything like it.

The dropping sun sent shards of light into the leaves, twinkling like thousands of green butterflies above the cream colored trees.  The trail meandered back and forth up the shoulder of Noonmark Mountain.

I leaned my head on a birch, its smooth cool bark cupped in my hands, and I looked back at my family, framed by the trees on the trail, and it was like looking down from heaven. I walked on until I came to a massive rock, glowing white in the dying light.  The crest was a broad rocky outcropping and it gave us the most spectacular and sweeping views. 

We weren't sure where we were. Did we take a wrong turn?

The funny thing is this.  The guidebooks, trail logs, and maps barely mention this; it wasn't part of any objective or goal.  We simple came into it.

My phone is my camera and it was powered off.  I didn't take pictures.  None of us did, we were too tired.  In an old fashioned way, I'm glad.

The vision is scored in my mind. 

Much of the 1.6 miles down from there was soft ground, though steep and craggy in spots.  It was excruciating because my feet were shot. The children were strong and one stayed with me, refusing to leave my side as I descended at a slug's pace. 

Like us, each child struggled during the hike, but their challenges were not only physical. A hot spot on their feet, fatigue, fear of the night, fear of bears.

We hiked 23 miles up and down mountains and climbed and descended 4000 feet together.  This trip marked our 20th peak.  That means 26 left to go.

*  The closest thing I found to God's Gate was on photographer Sean Carpenter's website who also happens to hike in the Adirondacks.  His photos are worth your time: Link to Sean Carpenter's site.

You get a line and I'll get a pole, an unlikely catch

Summer.

Mountain lakes, wilderness hikes, fishing. 

E.B. White who is known for Charlotte's Web was a notable American writer.  His essay "Once More to the Lake" was first published in Harper's magazine in 1941 and explains this summer ritual.

One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August. We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond's Extract on our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside of that the vacation was a success and from then on none of us ever thought there was any place in the world like that lake in Maine. We returned summer after summer--always on August 1st for one month. I have since become a salt-water man, but sometimes in summer there are days when the restlessness of the tides and the fearful cold of the sea water and the incessant wind which blows across the afternoon and into the evening make me wish for the placidity of a lake in the woods. A few weeks ago this feeling got so strong I bought myself a couple of bass hooks and a spinner and returned to the lake where we used to go, for a week's fishing and to revisit old haunts.  (Once More to the Lake, Link to full essay)

So in 2010, we joined the urban exodus into the wilds to escape the boxed confines of the office and an overscheduled home life; we rented a camp on a lake in the Adirondacks.  We didn't get ringworm, but my daughter found a leech on her leg, my son got mono, and bad spirits haunted my husband's dreams.  But, like White wrote, "outside of that the vacation was a success."

And there was one other thing. 

Each year a lure manages to plant itself somewhere besides the fish's mouth.  Once the lure jumped from the fish into my husband's hand; the fish was freed but my husband was caught.  Another time my nephew cast his lure and the arc of the line reached behind and caught my brother's head. 

There's a display case full of lures in the hospital with two of ours.

This year is no different.

My husband took the children on the boat last night.  He grumbled how it took 40 minutes just to get the lines together and start casting.  They got a bite or two.  My teen said the only thing they caught was the boat. 

Which was true at the time. 

This morning he called us all to the boat. Hurry! In the water was a bird, tangled in line, a hook in his beak, the triple hook in his wing.  He must have seen the twinkle of the spinner in the air, thinking it was an insect because it was attached to an upright pole.

The gull was larger than we realized up close, its wings splayed out awkwardly, its head turned at an angle from the hook. 

We brought him in with the net and cut the line but had little success getting out the hooks.

Unlikely and unlucky catch

 

I told my husband he only had to leave the boat to bring in the summer's first catch but he didn't find that funny.  The children were beside themselves with angst. 

There was an animal hospital outside of Lake Placid but the poor creature might have been there for hours, weakened from the fight.  So we went to the local vet. 

We entered with the gull wrapped in a towel, only its head showing.

The office was empty except for the receptionist and a man in scrubs who announced before I could close the door, "We don't treat birds."

That ruffled my feathers, so I took a breath.  He's a vet, I reminded myself.

"This is not our pet," I said.

The receptionist said we should try the DEC, the Department of Environmental Conservation or some other agency.  My husband didn't turn away, proceeding to the counter instead, the tangled bird held securely in the towel.

We were quiet as the vet glanced over. 

"I guess we must leave him to his fate then?" I said to the vet.

The vet disappeared, moving heavy-footed about the rooms.  We followed him into an exam room which he left. We could hear him.  He returned and told us to shut the door.  My husband held the bird down as the vet clipped and removed the hook in the beak, tore the plastic off his instruments, instructed my teen to hold the wing out.  He clipped the other three hooks and dislodged them from the wing, deftly and swiftly.  The lure rested on the metal table, four hooks next to it. 

He asked if we were visiting town.  He checked the wing and told us there appeared to be no breaks, directed us to take it to the lake and release it. 

The floor boards creaked on the way back through the lobby.  The overweight receptionist hadn't moved, but said goodbye, a smile hiding behind her expression.

The vet disappeared again. 

We left 15 minutes after we came and the office was empty still.

Was he embarrassed?  Maybe.

It's not always easy to do the right thing.

But he did. 



All clear for Spotty the juvenile gull



"Once More to the Lake"

 










Spirits at the Blind Tiger: Signs & Superstitution 2

Charlene told me Beth's old music group was playing at the Blind Tiger on Tuesday evening, June 17th. Sometime after they began, Tim suggested they play Beth's Waltz.  But Beth hadn't played with them for a long while and no one could remember the tune. (Link to Blind Tiger Pub )

Blind Tiger is slang for an illegal drinking establishment. 

They played their fiddle tunes and country dance music, the usual repertoire.  There were spirits enough to go around at the pub, but during prohibition customers would pay to see such animal curiosities and receive a "complimentary" drink.

The night before the gig, Beth had trouble breathing and had been coughing a lot.  So she saw the doctor the next day.  After dinner, she lay down for the evening, held Tiffany's hand and smiled at her, making humorous expressions, grateful for her loving care.     

After the musicians began their first set, Beth's Waltz came into Johanna's head.  She told the others and played the melody which Charlene had composed. 

They played Beth's song throughout the evening and they remembered it at the same time that Beth took her last breath.

June 17, 2014

Beth's spirit was in the Blind Tiger that night and maybe her friends were with her too.  She left this worldly existence, smiling and grateful.  And she left with song.




Composed by Charlene Thomson for her friend Beth

A few years ago, Beth told my daughter Cara to bring her violin on her next visit.  Beth loved to play instruments and this was her latest and last musical endeavor.  Fiddle is a violin and refers to the type of music played, old-timey stuff like folk and bluegrass. 

Itzhak Perlman plays violin; Beth played fiddle.   

One evening she instructed Cara to get her fiddle so they could play. Cara shared music from school, but grandma had something else in mind.  She gave her a fiddle book and then she opened up another violin case.  She walked to where I sat in the recliner and handed me a fiddle. 

I have played piano since I was five and I played violin but only through high school.  I had not played the violin for over 20 years.  I declined, explaining that I couldn't remember the fingering or the bowing or even the strings. 

Beth didn't move.  She was a force to be reckoned with and her physical strength mirrored her personal strength. 

I shrugged. Took the fiddle from her and set up a music stand.  I can read music and fiddle music is simpler than my piano music. 

Cara played well enough and I managed the finger positions but had trouble with the fourth finger.  Beth didn't care.  She told me fiddlers could play open strings.  She told us to make mistakes, have fun. 

We played oldies like Angeline the Baker, Amazing Grace with harmony, and Shady Grove. 

We played for hours, sitting in her living room, three fiddlers from three generations, not putting the fiddles away until close to midnight.  I have not forgotten that evening.  I see my daughter, her grandmother, and my reflection in the window, connected through music, through love.

It was magic.

My husband shook his head, astonished.  He kept saying, "I didn't know you could play violin." 

I didn't know I could play either.

Beth did though.  She believed in us and she knew we could.

Cara played fiddle on stage for her sister who danced an Irish jig the next year. 

Both of us played with Beth's brother during a jam session after the funeral.  I played with Beth's music group this weekend. 

And together Charlene and I played Beth's Waltz. 

I wished I played with Beth and her group when she was alive.  But I thank her.  For her spirit, the "fiddles" and most of all, the love.


** For the not so superstitious, read earlier letter Signs, Superstition, & Life.

What's in a Name?

After the funeral service, we got to talking about names.  Uncle Harley told us about his mother's.  One day his grandfather was standing on a bridge in Rochester, watching boats and ships go by, and a vessel came out on his side.  
 

Printed in large letters along its side was Firmina.  

 

I had wondered about this name given to a baby from the Toole side of the family. Firmina has Latin roots and means firm, steadfast. As it turned out, no one used her name; she went by Dot.

Her sisters were named Gladys, Viola, Lucille and they are throwbacks to an era, but I'm not sure how popular Viola was even then.  Maybe the idea came from the family's love of music.

At the memorial service, Mary talked about names. She was born on Christmas Eve and given her name Mary Carol. As a child she thought everyone's name ended with an "eee" sound like Mommy and Daddy and her own name Mary.  So Beth was Bethy to her.  And she always will be.  Mary named her daughter Julia Beth after her sister. 

Here's the rub:  they did not call her Julia, they called her Julie. Jul-eee.  The whole family calls her that, except for Beth who called her Julie Beth.

After the service, a guest introduced himself to her and said, "So you must be Julie Bethy."

That evening, ten of us sat in a circle, enjoying various levels of drink, discussing names, true names of people we knew or met.  Julie mentioned a guy she knew in school, Justin Drinkwater, which is not so notable until she told us his middle name is Case.

Justin Case Drinkwater.

Going through old albums, Julie's mom pointed to a picture of Harry's wife who was a family friend. She hadn't given his name much thought.   Then Julie said, "Mom, his name is Ball. Harry Ball."

It regressed from there.  

And the laughter was the deep-in-the-gut kind with tears.  We needed it.

Harley told me about the time he took my eight year old daughter for a "not too fast" ride on his motorcycle.  She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her helmet against his back, then said a name over and over.  

"Angelina Ballerina.  Angelina Ballerina. Angelina Ballerina."

 Angelina Ballerina by Holabird & Craig  -- Book Link

 

And I don't need to tell you the make of motorcycle Harley rides.  As I looked around the circle of family in the evening glow, I noticed the emblem on my brother's white shirt.

Harley Davidson.

"Repeated Injuries and Usurpations" July 4, 1776

A family friend told me that every year on Independence Day, her family read the Declaration of Independence.  Each took turns until they read the document in its entirety. 

I thought that was an excellent way to enjoy the day's events and will try it in our family.

It's not long, though a good portion enumerates "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the King of Great Britain.  These are worth noting when several seem perilously similar to Tyranny experienced in this day and age.

Take time to read and decide for yourself.


** The text below is a transcription.  The founders' eloquence of handwriting go hand in hand with eloquence of thought.  See earlier link on handwriting:  Handwriting is the Foundation for Communication & Thought.

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated: Column 1 Georgia:    Button Gwinnett    Lyman Hall    George Walton Column 2 North Carolina:    William Hooper    Joseph Hewes    John Penn South Carolina:    Edward Rutledge    Thomas Heyward, Jr.    Thomas Lynch, Jr.    Arthur Middleton Column 3 Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton Column 4 Pennsylvania:    Robert Morris    Benjamin Rush    Benjamin Franklin    John Morton    George Clymer    James Smith    George Taylor    James Wilson    George Ross Delaware:    Caesar Rodney    George Read    Thomas McKean Column 5 New York:    William Floyd    Philip Livingston    Francis Lewis    Lewis Morris New Jersey:    Richard Stockton    John Witherspoon    Francis Hopkinson    John Hart    Abraham Clark Column 6 New Hampshire:    Josiah Bartlett    William Whipple Massachusetts:    Samuel Adams    John Adams    Robert Treat Paine    Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island:    Stephen Hopkins    William Ellery Connecticut:    Roger Sherman    Samuel Huntington    William Williams    Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire:    Matthew Thornton

Page URL:  http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

U.S. National Archives & Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001, • 1-86-NARA-NARA • 1-866-272-6272

Do What You Love, a Teen's First Job

My 15 year old daughter got her first job. OK, she's had jobs before like babysitting and chores.  But this is her first real job, complete with I-9 and tax forms.  She also had to go to the bank to get a letter for direct deposit.

So what's she doing?

Here's the fun part.  She helps her coach run the school's volleyball camp.  It's her second summer and most of the campers are 10 to 14 years old with 17 girls attending some sessions.  She goes every day because she loves the sport, but this year things are different.  It turns out the school pays counselors for helping coaches. 

Volleyball Camp, Warm-up dig

She announced one evening, "I'm getting paid to play volleyball!" 

We fixed up the bike with a basket so she can cycle with her gear the two miles to the gym and voilà.  She's self reliant and employed!

Camp is three hours each day and she finishes today, her fourth week.  At ten dollars an hour, she earned $150 a week for doing something she loves.  And, that's a nice bit of money for a teen. 

She had a few questions when she got her first pay stub. 

FICA deductions for Social Security & Medicare, a combined 7.65%

Two deductions from her earnings were taken out, OASDI and Medicare, often referred to as payroll taxes.  The first is Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, or Social Security, at 6.2% plus the Medicare tax at 1.45%.   She paid 7.65% or $17.21 of her $225 to the government. 

I put my hand on her back and welcomed her to the workforce, then told her she's lucky she didn't have income tax withheld.

Quotes du jour:

“The law of work seems unfair, but nothing can change it; the more enjoyment you get out of your work, the more money you will make.”  Mark Twain

“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”   Winston Churchill

** Here are the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) provisions on child labor: Child Labor Bulletin 101 . I listed standards and permissible jobs below, like lifeguards and baggers. To learn more about other age groups go to the link.


[excerpt from the Child Labor Bulletin 101]

Minimum Age Standards for Nonagricultural Employment

14 Minimum age for employment in specified occupations outside of school hours for limited periods of time each day and each week.

16 BASIC MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT. At 16 years of age, youth may be employed for unlimited hours in any occupation other than one declared to be hazardous by the Secretary of Labor.

18 Minimum age for employment in nonagricultural occupations declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor.

Wage Payments to Young Workers

• Unless otherwise exempt or employed under conditions discussed below, covered minor employees must be paid at least the statutory minimum wage for all hours worked.  
• Employees under 20 years of age may be paid $4.25 per hour during their first consecutive 90 calendar days of employment with an employer.
• Certain full-time students, student learners, apprentices and workers with disabilities may be paid less than the minimum wage under special certificates issued by the Department of Labor.
• Employers of “tipped employees” must pay a cash wage of at least $2.13 per hour if they claim a tip credit against their minimum wage obligations. If an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s cash wage of at least $2.13 do not equal the minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.

The following is the list of jobs the Secretary of Labor has determined will not interfere with the schooling, health, and well-being of 14- and 15-year-olds and therefore MAY BE performed by such youth. Any job not specifically permitted, is prohibited.

1. OFFICE and CLERICAL WORK, including operation of office machines.
2. WORK OF AN INTELLECTUAL OR ARTISTICALLY CREATIVE NATURE such as but not limited to computer programming, the writing of software, teaching or performing as a tutor, serving as a peer counselor or teacher’s assistant, singing, the playing of a musical instrument, and drawing, as long as such employment complies with all the other provisions contained in §§ 570.33, .34, and .35.
3. COOKING with electric or gas grills that do not involve cooking over an open flame and with deep fat fryers that are equipped with and utilize devices that automatically lower and raise the baskets into and out of the oil or grease. NOTE: this section does not permit cooking with equipment such as rotisseries, broilers, pressurized equipment including fryolators, and cooking devices that operate at extremely high temperatures such as “Neico broilers.”
4. CASHIERING, SELLING, MODELING, ART WORK, WORK IN ADVERTISING DEPARTMENTS, WINDOW TRIMMING and COMPARATIVE SHOPPING.
5. PRICE MARKING and TAGGING by hand or by machine. ASSEMBLING ORDERS, PACKING and SHELVING.
6. BAGGING and CARRYING OUT CUSTOMER ORDERS.
7. ERRAND and DELIVERY WORK by foot, bicycle, and public transportation. Except such youth may not be employed by a public messenger service.
8. CLEANUP WORK, including the use of vacuum cleaners and floor waxers, and the maintenance of grounds, but not including the use of power-driven mowers, cutters, trimmers, edgers, or similar equipment.
9. KITCHEN WORK and other work involved in preparing and serving food and beverages, including operating machines and devices used in performing such work. Examples of permitted machines and devices include, but are not limited to, dishwashers, toasters, dumbwaiters, popcorn poppers, milk shake blenders, coffee grinders, automatic coffee machines, devices used to maintain the temperature of prepared foods (such as warmers, steam tables, and heat lamps), and microwave ovens that are used only to warm prepared food and do not have the capacity to warm above 140 °F.
10. CLEANING KITCHEN EQUIPMENT. Minors are permitted to clean kitchen equipment (not otherwise prohibited), remove oil or grease filters, pour oil or grease through filters, and move receptacles containing hot grease or hot oil, but only when the equipment, surfaces, containers and liquids do not exceed a temperature of 100°F.
11. CLEANING VEGETABLES AND FRUITS, AND THE WRAPPING, SEALING, LABELING, WEIGHING, PRICING, AND STOCKING OF ITEMS, INCLUDING VEGETABLES, FRUITS, AND MEATS, when performed in areas physically separate from a freezer or meat cooler.
12. LOADING ONTO MOTOR VEHICLES AND THE UNLOADING FROM MOTOR VEHICLES of the light, non-power-driven, hand tools and personal protective equipment that the minor will use as part of his or her employment at the work site; and the loading onto motor vehicles and the unloading from motor vehicles of personal items such as a back pack, a lunch box, or a coat that the minor is permitted to take to the work site. Such light tools would include, but not be limited to, rakes, hand-held clippers, shovels, and brooms. Such light tools would not include items like trash, sales kits, promotion items or items for sale, lawn mowers, or other power-driven lawn maintenance equipment. Such minors would not be permitted to load or unload safety equipment such as barriers, cones, or signage.
13. THE OCCUPATION OF LIFEGUARD (15-year-olds but not 14-year-olds) at traditional swimming pools and water amusement parks (including such water park faculties as wave pools, lazy rivers, specialized activity areas, and baby pools, but not including the elevated areas of water slides) when properly trained and certified in aquatics and water safety by the American Red Cross or a similar certifying organization. No youth under 16 years of age may be employed as a lifeguard at a natural environment such as an ocean side beach, lake, pond, river, quarry, or pier.
14. Employment of certain youth under specified conditions inside and outside of establishments WHERE MACHINERY IS USED TO PROCESS WOOD PRODUCTS. See page 24 of this guide for information on this exemption.
15. WORK IN CONNECTION WITH CARS AND TRUCKS if confined to the following:
    • Dispensing gasoline and oil.
    • Courtesy service on premises of gasoline service station.
    • Car cleaning, washing, and polishing by hand.
    • Other occupations permitted by Child Labor Regulation No. 3, BUT NOT INCLUDING WORK involving the use of pits, racks or lifting apparatus or involving the inflation of any tire mounted on a rim equipped with a removable retaining ring.
16. WORK IN CONNECTION WITH RIDING INSIDE PASSENGER COMPARTMENTS OF MOTOR VEHICLES except as prohibited on page 5 of this guide or when a significant reason for the minor being a passenger in the vehicle is for the purpose of performing work in connection with the transporting—or assisting in the transporting of—other persons or property. Each minor riding as a passenger in a motor vehicle must have his or her own seat in the passenger compartment; each seat must be equipped with a seat belt or similar restraining device; and the employer must instruct the minors that such belts or other devices must be used. In addition, each driver transporting the young workers must hold a valid state driver's license for the type of vehicle being driven and, if the driver is under the age of 18, his or her employment must comply with the provisions of HO 2 (see page 10 of this guide).

 

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino was the most translated Italian author of his time and a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Published in 1972, Invisible Cities (link to book) is considered Calvino's masterpiece.  It's a slender 165 page volume, but beware.  The words and the imagery and the stories are potent, so proceed in small doses.  It will stay with you long after you've taken it in, and you must stop to let it have its effect before taking more.

Calvino divides the novella into nine books and I recommend one book at a time, if need be, one city at a time.

The story takes place in Kublai Khan's garden and each book begins and ends with a discussion or meeting between the aged emperor and Marco Polo.  In between, we read accounts of cities, the cities Polo enumerates for Khan.  The accounts and meetings are a scant page or two, three max. 

 

 

The Tartar Emperor Kublai Khan and the Venetian traveler Marco Polo

 

Calvino's writing was experimental narrative, breaking the bounds of writing for that time.  We see this in Polo's accounts of fantastical cities which lack a traditional storyline.  The gestalt or the collection when considered as a whole suggest that the city is as much imagination as it is a physical reality.

Here is how the book opens.

Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his.  . . .

It is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption's gangrene has spread too far to be healed by our scepter, that the triumph over enemy sovereigns had made us heirs of their long undoing.  Only in Marco Polo's accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern, through the walls and towers destined to crumble, the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites' gnawing. (Book 1, opening, Invisible Cities)

Polo describes cities for Khan which are part of the vast empire he rules, an empire he wants to possess.  But can anyone ever possess a kingdom? or even a city? 

Polo describes Euphemia where the merchants from seven nations meet to exchange goods.  They can conduct trade anywhere in the empire but what "drives men to travel up rivers and cross deserts to come here" is  what happens "at night, by the fires all around the market  . . . at each word that one man says -- the others tell" and later, when they have left, they can summon these memories "one by one  . . on your return from Euphemia, the city where memory is traded."

Cities are visual, spatial, but they are also temporal, existing throughout their histories.  The cities of our memory are different than cities in reality.  But how much can anyone ever see of a city? standing in it, it stretches and turns, extending beyond the corner or beyond our sight. 

Then there is a city like Irene, just in the distance. It changes upon approach for the herdsman who knows the Meadow, the Green Slope, the Shadowed Grass, the places in between; the cities are only visible on the horizon, some place far away.  If you saw Irene "standing in its midst, it would be a different city."

Mount Tabor in Israel and the herdsman

So Khan asks Polo if he ever saw a city such as Kin-sai, the recent conquest and ancient capital which they visit together. Polo says he never imagined such a city.  Then he reports on his travels.

Khan was not tired so Polo told him stories of the cities until the sun rose, a feat like the famed storyteller Sheherazade and the 1000 stories she told over as many nights to the King.

Like Sheherazade, Polo concedes at dawn, "Sire, now I have told you all the cities I knew."

Then Khan asks about the one city Polo never mentions.  Venice.  Venice is Marco Polo's home.

And Polo said: "Every time I describe a city I am saying something of Venice."

This statement is not at once clear to Khan and he demands to hear of Venice when he asks.  Polo says that in order to distinguish the qualities of other cities, he must "speak of a first city that remains implicit." 

And that is a truth for Khan and for us all:  we see through the lens of our own knowledge, experience, and ideas.  Polo realizes that and goes further.  "I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little."



Kublai Khan's Empire at the end of his reign and Marco Polo's route in yellow

Polo tells Khan about Adelma, where "never in all my travels had I ventured as far." Perhaps this opening prepares us for the horrors to come, for the sailor Polo sees on the dock, the man he "soldiered with and was dead." The fisherman was the same old man from his childhood visits to the wharf, surely among the dead now, or the fever victim on the ground, reminding him of his father's final throes of death, or the girl on the balcony who was "identical with one in my village who had gone mad for love and killed herself."

I thought: "You reach a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask." (Cities & the Dead, Book 6)

And Calvino shows us that the people we meet yesterday or today, in this city or in that city, in old forms or in new forms, begin to resemble those we once knew.  That, eventually, as we grow older and older, we fashion the "suitable mask" for every face we encounter.  It reminds us of someone we once knew.  "Perhaps Adelma is the city where you arrive dying and where each finds again the people he has known.  This means I, too, am dead."

In the final book, Khan asks Polo if he will repeat the same stories for his people.  But Polo does not answer as he expects.  He says that he may speak and speak, but the "listener retains only the words he is expecting."  And we infer that this resembles his visits with Khan in this way: "It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear."

When Khan declares that he recognizes cities better on the atlas than in person, Polo answers:

"Traveling, you realize that differences are lost; each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.  Your atlas preserves the differences intact: that assortment of qualities which are like the letters in a name." (Book 9, Opening)

Cities, as Calvino depicts in lyrical expansive prose, are ultimately constructs of the mind.  And, like Marco Polo's accounts, these cities are ideas, forms, and creations which find their beginnings, their framework in Venice, or our own home cities wherever they may be.