THANKSGIVING

This column was published yesterday in our local newspaper, as well as sent to me via e-mail. As our local paper has a small readership, I felt I ought to share it with a few more folks. (cross-posted at Composite Drawlings)


THANKSGIVING

By William Urban

Nathaniel Philbrick’s history of the Plymouth Colony, Mayflower (2006), is much more than a celebration of the voyage of Separatist Protestants from Holland and England to New England. It is a story of seven decades of courage, foolishness, bigotry and acceptance, adaptation, war, betrayals and survival.

The Pilgrims actually composed only half of the Mayflower’s company, and they had hoped to make a settlement farther south. Shoals and contrary winds, combined with exhaustion and illness, required them to land wherever they could. And Cape Cod was right there.

This was not an unknown site. About a thousand European fishing vessels were coming to the Maine coast to catch cod, and many crews had come ashore for water, fresh food and trade. Two crews had each kidnapped one Indian who would be important in the colony’s early days. In 1616 a Dutch ship unintentionally brought the plague ashore. Within three years up to 90% of the coastal Indians had died — an event that modern scholars of epidemics warn could happen in the modern world. Thus it was that when the Pilgrims came ashore in 1620 they found abandoned villages and fields, but almost no people.

The first year was so hard that half of the 102 settlers died. The second year more people came. Most of them died, too. It was like Jamestown, where new immigrants died almost as fast as they arrived; and news of the 1622 massacre at Jamestown threw the Pilgrims into panic.

Thus began the story of the shared lives and experiences of the Pilgrims, the Puritans who came to Boston in 1629, and the various tribes of Native Americans. The Pilgrims learned to adapt somewhat to their new circumstances, but not nearly to the extent the Indians did. The acquisition of European wares, weapons and ideas caused a veritable revolution in native life. And, as one tribe after another rose to prominence, the others combined with the Pilgrims and Puritans to crush them.

This led to the great tragedy of 1675-76, King Philip’s War. This conflict should not have happened, and once it started, it should have been confined to the one great tribe. Unhappily, racial animosities on both sides had spread too deeply — warriors and colonists feared each other too much for the leaders to control them, and the leaders were weak. It was, in terms of percentages, the bloodiest war in American history. The colonists were thrown back toward the coast, abandoning towns and villages; the Indians suffered about the same percentage of losses they had suffered between 1616 and 1619. Those who died from violence were numerous enough, but more perished from starvation or from cold and exhaustion while hiding from raiders.

In the end, the war to make the frontier safe only made it more dangerous. No longer were there Indian allies on the borders to keep Canadian Indians from striking without warning. Also, the war would perhaps not have been won by the Pilgrims and Puritans if friendly Indians had not joined them in the contest.

This last point offered one of the few moments of hope for a multi-cultural American future. I know that one of my female ancestors was murdered during this war. She had sent her children to the fort but had stayed at the farm to tend the animals. A century and a half later one of her descendants became a teacher (probably carpentry skills) for the Oneida Indians — and that is where I found him in the Census of 1840. Therein is another lesson. Time heals.

There is room enough for pride in the Plymouth saga to acknowledge the shortcomings of the immigrants and their children. There is also a need to recognize that prejudice and foolishness were not failures of the White immigrants alone. The responsibility of avoiding such catastrophes rested on everyone.

William Urban is a professor of history at Monmouth College and author of numerous fine books, both history and fiction.

Nothing to see here

No doubt everybody has heard about the "ugly tenor" of the McCain-Palin campaign as it seeks to defeat Obama-Biden in this year's elections. A reporter attended a rally of nearly twenty thousand supporters of the Republican ticket, and, from the midst of the crowd near him, he swears he heard somebody say, "kill him," in reference to Obama. Nobody else attending the event heard it -- none of the speakers, no Secret Service agents, none of the people the agents questioned. Just the lone reporter. The timing of the supposed "threat" occurred while Sarah Palin was en route to the event, still ten miles away in the motorcade, and, yet, media and Obama supporters (pardon my redundancy) seem to think she should have stood up right at that moment and said,"Hey, now, that's just wrong, ya betcha," and apologized for the perceived threat. Except that, there was no threat. Only one person perceived it.

And, on the topic of perceptions and preemption, how often have you heard the term "racist" being bandied about? Is it justified? How about when a twelve-year-old girl wears a t-shirt to school, the shirt reading "Go, Sarah, Go"? How racist is that? How racist is it simply to question a candidate's judgment? Was there overt -- or even implied -- racism in an ad showing pictures of him at his rally in Berlin, comparing him to a pair of celebutantes? Where was the racism in that argument? Which party brings up race as an issue at every opportunity? Which party pushes racial and ethnic divisiveness?

Meanwhile, this past weekend, the Straight Talk Express, campaign bus for the Republican presidential campaign, arrived at one weekend destination with a bullet hole in its window and several paint ball spatters. Last week, a pair of Obama supporters threw molotov cocktails at a McCain sign which was right next to a house, with total disregard for the well-being of those who lived there. Last month, a New York man was arrested for assaulting a McCain marcher with her own sign, beating her about the face and head with the board which held the campaign placard.

Or, if you prefer the less physical assault, take the case of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. Two weeks ago, the only people who had heard of him were his family and his plumbing clients. But then, Barack Obama entered Wurzelbacher's neighborhood while Joe was out in his yard playing football with his son. Obama invited him to ask a question, so Joe asked him, in essence, "If I work hard and improve my business so that eventually I can start taking in more than $250,000, why punish me for becoming successful?" Obama had a rare moment of candor, and gave a blatantly socialist response, "spread the wealth around." For the offense of making The One speak the truth in such a way that John McCain could use it against Obama, "Joe the Plumber" was subject to a full week of media scrutiny and exposure.

Ah, yes. The media think it's important that a private citizen's licence and tax status should be not merely viewed, but examined letter by letter for flaws. The media think it's important to expose Sarah Palin's attempts to have a drunken, child-tasering, abusive man be removed from the employ of the Alaska State Troopers until he can clean up his act (he is still a state trooper, by the way), and her suggestion that a man who had obstructed her administration in many ways might prefer a different government job, prompting him to quit and align himself with other political foes whose ambitions she had thwarted -- to the benefit of regular Alaskans. The media think it's important that we have a play-by-play of Palin family potty breaks and how much soap they use to wash afterwards. But nobody wants to talk about the tons of dirt under Obama's fingernails.

The media tell you that there is nothing important about the relationship between Obama and former-terrorist-current-radicals William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. How do they know there is no there, there? Because Barack told them so. How do they know that Obama doesn't follow the radical teachings of "G-D America" Jeremiah Wright, after attending his church for 20 years and only renouncing the words when in the midst of a campaign? Because Barack told them so. How do they know there is nothing important to the ties between Obama and partisan criminal organization ACORN? Barack told them so. How do they know there is nothing of importance to Obama's ethics violation as he took fees for appearances while still serving in the legislature of the State of Illinois? Barack told them so. They know McCain's followers turned ugly and threatening, because Barack told them so. It seems to me, there's a religious song in there, somewhere.

And we're supposed to take the media's "unbiased" word for everything. We're supposed to pay no attention to the little man behind their curtain. But this isn't Oz, and, even if it were, the powers were those of the people, and the the Wizard was a flim-flam man who took credit.

Out of a clear blue sky

Today it rains drowsily.

Seven years ago, on a clear day, when the air was crisper than I had seen it in years, I was awakened from a sound slumber by an attack on our country. My television speaker kept repeating, in Katie Couric's voice, "Oh my god. Oh my god." I rolled over to see what the cameras saw, and, from that day forth, my Tuesdays will ever be uneasy.

Two airplanes had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in downtown New York City.

No, wait. That's not quite what happened. That's just the perception of the moment. What really happened was that a handful of men from foreign lands, with a pseudo-religious agenda, had flown them into the buildings, murdering everybody on their respective airplanes and nearly three thousand others. Two other airplanes had been hijacked, as well; one of them flown into the side of the Pentagon, the other, by best estimate, seized back again by passengers and flown into the ground so that it could not harm any other innocents.

Doubtless anybody with access to modern information media will have heard the details of those stories repeated (some will say ad nauseam). I've seen enough replays of events myself that, were I to give birth at this late date, I suspect the images would be imprinted in the genetic code of my child.

What haunts me most is still that crystal blue sky. Over my head, as I walked to my parents' house, was an uninterrupted dome of azure: there were no clouds, no vapor trails, no hint of anything but eternity. The day was perfect -- but for that one glaring flaw.

What made matters worse was that the government grounded all aircraft other than the President's, so the sky remained clear and unmarked for the entire of the day. I tried to put a positive slant on the picture in my head: just think, it looks exactly the way it would have when the pioneers settled here, I told myself. I'm seeing something unique in this day and age of world travel, I prayed.

They say Air Force One flew directly over our town, that afternoon. I wasn't outside to see it. I had to stop looking at the skies long before that hour. The glare of perfection burned into my soul, the contradiction between it and the savagery of man, on our lands, too great that I hid from it all.

Grief still wells up in me this morning as the rains pool on the sidewalk outside. The shock is faded, but the sorrow remains, sometimes evaporating a little, but ever refreshed by the mournful cry of the city's sirens, by the rain of days' reminders.

And for all that, resting inside the pool of sorrow is stone cold fury. Before the first September of our new century, I could not have imagined my heart could hold space for so much of both at the same time. On the afternoon of the eleventh day, that month, I was held by fear as well; fear of further attack, fear for my family who were near the assault in the nation's capital, an unnamed fear of all the other unknowns. Today, the fear is gone. All else remains.

And I am grateful for the rains.

Government-sanctioned extortion

There's an interesting little ordinance that's making the grade in towns all over the area, these days. The ordinance has hit our charming Maple City, and is already making waves. This new ordinance says that the city may impound your car for a number of reasons, including drunk driving, drug possession in a vehicle, concealed weapon in a vehicle or driving with suspended license.

This particular ordinance was drafted purely as a "revenue enhancer" for each city which has introduced it. How does it enhance revenues? Well, if a person's automobile is impounded, there is a $500 administrative fee (the folks at the city hall desk aren't sure exactly what the money is for, but according to a Galesburg Register-Mail interview with Mayor Rod Davies, the aim is to garner enough cash to pay for the renovation or rebuilding of Monmouth's City Hall, finally moving them back out of the building which used to house the First National Bank of Monmouth). So, the city drafted a rule whereby the city can seize your car and extort money from you for its return.

Think I'm exaggerating the circumstances? Not really. The Register-Mail article does not mention this, but the new ordinance allows for seizure of vehicle from a driver, regardless of whether or not he owns the car. The city can impound a car driven by a teen, even if the teen was driving the family car without permission from the parents. That's a hard way to discover your perfectly normal teen has been sneaking out at night.

But that's not the worst of it.

The city can also impound the car driven by someone using a suspended license. It does not make allowances for whether or not the driver has knowledge of his own license suspension. It does not make allowances for whether or not a separate owner of the vehicle has knowledge of the suspension of the driver's license.

This past week, a case came to the city courts of a citizen of this community who allowed her nephew to drive a vehicle she owns. The nephew is a responsible teen, and she felt she could trust him to show good judgment. The teen is not old enough to drive with more than one underage passenger, so he allowed his older teen friend to drive when a third teen joined them. The older friend had a suspended license. Without going into the gory details, I will here and now say that, according to all accounts, nobody had ever bothered to tell the young friend that his license had been suspended. Not even when he was stopped on the street for riding a bicycle after dark without a working headlamp, only a couple of weeks prior, and had his license run through the system, -- never was he told his license had been suspended more than a month earlier, until he was accosted by a police officer while he was driving his friend's aunt's vehicle.

So, the police had the car towed. The officer informed the citizen, who had come to the scene when called by her nephew, that she had no say in it -- the car was going to the impound lot. When she asked the officer why it was being impounded, he informed her that the youth's license to drive had been suspended, and that was reason enough. City ordinance. When it was pointed out that the citizen had not known the youth's license had been suspended, the officer responded with, essentially, "Ignorance is no excuse."

At the police station and at City Hall, the citizen repeatedly queried about this ordinance and its enforcement in this case, and was told, "You should have known." Should have known that the young man's driver's license was suspended, that is. The youth had not been informed of it prior to that evening, so he had no knowledge. If he did not know his license was suspended, how could he inform others?

How, then, is a private citizen to know? We are not permitted to simply contact the Department of Motor Vehicles and "run" a license. We can't even get a copy of our own records, let alone those of somebody outside our families. And, yet, ignorance of suspension is no excuse. When the city says so, they can take your car. It will cost you $500 plus towing and storage fees to get it back.

Call me crazy, but it seems to me, there's something in the Constitution of the United States of America which prohibits unwarranted seizure of property. I'm urging the city to rescind or amend this dirty little cash cow, before somebody who has suffered this extortion gets wise, gets a good lawyer, and starts a class-action lawsuit. All it would take to forestall that trouble, I suspect, is the judicious use of the word "knowingly", or something similar, in rewriting the ordinance -- and, maybe, an apology and reimbursement to those who were ill-used before the change in language.

The city may not be able to afford a shiny new city hall building without it, but I'm pretty sure the public will be even less happy if they're paying for legal damages to the many who have already been extorted out of their hard-earned cash.

A long time-out

Last autumn, I had what could politely be termed a miscommunication with the editor of the local newspaper, the result of which was that he is no longer willing to print my words, regardless of their content. It appears that, for him, the source is everything. He will not print my work again. Period.

I am not complaining.

For several months, trying to put together a weekly column had become rather too great a burden for me to bear -- I had too many irons in the fire, so to speak. Add to that, I was suffering from a severe bout of political burnout. So severe was the sickness that it bordered on loathing for all news, even personal and family sorts. I was ready to chuck the computer, dig out my paints, and go hide in a cabin in the wilderness until I met the ghost of Charlie Russell. Instead, I joined a couple more organizations, made a few more friends, and found more ways to fill my already limited time.

Add to that, I traveled a bit (at the end of September), to meet some members of my family for the first time. I don't take kindly to being wedged into an airplane seat so that my knees are returned to the state of crunch they faced a decade ago, but the visit was worth every aspirin. I am pleased to say, them's good people.

I am still busy, with a newly-loaded social calendar and all the obligations which that will entail. There is also a continued search for lawful income, which may interfere with my creativity. And I am still frustrated over the length of duration of the presidential campaign.

But I do hope I will return to writing about current events, in the near future. After all, we do live in interesting times. Curse though that may be, it does make good kindling in which to spark a good discussion.

Meanwhile, for those who have asked after my work, I offer a postcard from AD 1911:

Thank you for your concern and support.

On giving thanks

One day a mother took her young son to the seashore. As the boy played in the sand, she stood only a few paces away, watching him. Still, she was too far away to do anything as a giant wave arose and swept her son out to sea. Immediately she raced out into the waters, but could not find him to rescue him.

Frantic, she looked up to the heavens and prayed, "Oh, Dear Lord in Heaven, please bring me back my precious baby!" With the next great wave, the boy was gently, miraculously placed into her arms once more.

Kneeling in the drying sand and holding the child close, she glanced upward once more and called out, "He had a hat!"

It may not be apparent to many people, but I'm usually a glass-half-empty sort of person. I'm the sort who, were I the mother above, would not only ask for the hat back, but probably complain about getting us both wet and salty. Being happy with one's lot in life is a direction I don't find comfortable. And so, it comes as some real surprise that, as this holiday approaches, I'm not only happy, but genuinely thankful for all the good which has come my way.

Let me enumerate a small handful of the highlights, from smallest to most precious:

• I introduced a new cat into my household, this summer. Over the intervening months, the older female has not accepted the change well, and has spent much of her time hiding or hissing. This week, she began sleeping beside me once more, and has even shown signs she will not try to kill the new cat. The first signs of peace are here.
• I live in a community which, like my older female cat, is averse to change. And, yet, it continues to show itself a haven for creative minds -- from the national and international success of our college's historians to the array of local artistic and musical talents (of which these links provide only a small sample, so far). It is hard to be cynical in the presence of such exuberant spirits.
• A summer storm brought down a tree in my yard, and, while my young neighbor's truck was crushed, the owner of the vehicle had been behind schedule and had not been in the truck at the time -- even though he "ought to have been." (In fact, most blessedly, nobody here was seriously hurt, and only one man was killed by the sudden storm.) All the heavy trees have been cleared from my land, now. As a bonus, with the trees gone, I have no need to rake.
• There is a chance that my most recent efforts to write my resumé will at least get my foot in the door of a career I have groomed for all my adult life. Even if it does not bring me a salary, it has taught me that my lifelong low self-image is not supported by family or fact. I may forget facts, but family will always be there.
• I have a good, kind, and loving family, some of whom I met only a few weeks ago, and others of whom made that meeting possible. For the first time, I spoke face-to-face with the daughter I gave up years ago. Not only did I meet her and her husband, but was pleasantly surprised to meet her daughter and newborn son -- she let me cradle my tiny grandson in my arms. How can one be anything but thankful and breathless and awed?

I don't think I'll ask for a hat to be returned.



May your Thanksgiving Day have as many reasons to give thanks -- if not more.

Doll Club small in numbers, big in heart

Warren County Doll Club currently has fewer than twenty members, but they manage to cover quite a bit of real estate, and share their love for dolls with as many as they can. That’s why they’re having a doll and toy show and sale November 17th, at Galesburg’s Oaks Senior Center.

The club, whose members come from five counties in two states, meet on the first Tuesday of each month to share common ground on their collectibles.

Founded in the mid-1970’s, two of the founding members, Maxine Hiett of Monmouth and Jan Speer of Kirkwood continue to participate in club activities today, often spearheading projects for the club’s members, including day trips to visit museums, shows, and special events.

Warren County Doll Club was once affiliated with a national organization, but went independent by the 1980’s. Since then, the Warren County Club has used funds from their modest annual membership dues -- which once would have gone into paying national dues -- to make regular donations to local charitable organizations such as Jamieson Community Center in Monmouth. Their Christmas meeting is also planned early enough that the members have a “gift exchange” in which each member brings a new doll or action figure, to be donated to the Jamieson Center Christmas Store.

Not only do these women collect rare, antique and other unusual dolls for their own pleasure, but some of them, like long-time member Esther Diehl of Kiethsburg, IL, take the time to restore and make dresses for older dolls which have seen hard times. Mary Sullivan and Vickie Johnson, both of Galesburg, have thriving businesses selling collectible dolls and figurines, and both still manage to find a vast number of others for their personal collections, as well. Members have favorite types, such as Kewpie dolls, Barbies, Madame Alexanders, and other well-known, well-loved dolls, as well as teddy bears, beanie babies, toy trucks and tractors, and even Santa Clauses.

Eventually, though, even the most ardent collectors run out of room for all the dolls and toys they love, and so it is with these ladies. They will be opening up some of their collections, modern and antique, for show and for sale on Saturday, November 17th, from 10:00 am until 3:00 pm, at the Oaks Senior Center (176 N. Farnham Street) in Galesburg. There will be no fee for admission to the doll show. Portions of the proceeds from their sale will benefit the Warren County Doll Club and local charities.

So, if you are still trying to find the perfect Christmas gift for a child -- of any age -- be sure you check out the Warren County Doll Club’s doll and toy sale. They may have just the item you need to put a smile on someone’s face. And, even if you’re not in the market for new or gently-loved, precious toys and collectibles, the members of the club invite you to come meet them, get to know them, and, maybe, join them in their passion for playthings. And although the value of a well loved doll is not measured in dollars; the members may be able to help identify your treasure and use published price guides to estimate value.

For further information on either the Warren County Doll Club or their November 17th sale, call (309) 343-8295, or e-mail scribblerr9@iwon.com with subject line “Warren County Doll Club”.