Celebrating spring

After having lunch with the "hooligans" Sunday I picked up the parkway just off Detroit Road and immediately descended into the valley created by the Rocky River. By way of explanation for those readers not from the Cleveland area...this stretch of green called the Rocky River Reservation is just one of numerous parks connected by a parkway that is called the Emerald Necklace, since it encircles the Cleveland area just like a necklace. It truly is a jewel, providing wonderful green and open spaces so urbanites can get back to nature for a time.

One walking trail is designated as a wildflower path and provides an outdoor display with photos and explanations of the different types of wildflowers. This is a photo of Virginia bluebonnets.

I had it in mind to stop at the Rocky River Nature Center as I often do, but as I approached it I determined that some special event was going on since the parking lot was overflowing onto the parkway. What a pleasant surprise it was to find that there was a nature/art show in progress.

I spent most of the time there enjoying a "close encounter" with a variety of raptor birds (owls, hawks and an eagle), thanks to the presentation by a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Castalia called Back to the Wild. Some had been injured sufficiently that they could not be returned to the wild so they are used for instructional purposes.

Several years ago this bald eagle was found lying on the ground by a man out looking for Indian artifacts. It was determined that it had contracted the west nile virus and had lost its vision. There were numerous dead critters laying around it but it was significantly underweight. They think that its mate brought it food but it could not see it and eagles do not have the sense of smell. It is sad to see these amazing birds tethered and unable to soar the heights, yet they continue to serve us with valuable lessons.

Young hooligans and old farts

That’s what we call our inter-generational “get-to-know-you” endeavors at church. Those who want to participate sign up and indicate their age (or age range) and they get paired up with someone in a different age bracket for lunch or coffee or whatever.

The church is Community of Hope (“One church, three locations”) and I’m at the Lakewood location which was just launched in October. (www.cohnorth.com). They asked for a handful of folks from the other locations to come to Lakewood for a few months to help get it started. I came and never left (although I still visit the Broadview Heights service once in a while to keep up with folks there).

The demographics of the Lakewood group is predominantly college age and twenty-somethings with the rest of us being people closer to my age range. So since I don’t qualify to be a young hooligan in this situation, that means I’m the other one.

Presumably the idea is that those who’ve been around longer have gleaned some wisdom that would be of value to younger folks, and in turn the young hooligans have a lot of energy and enthusiasm and a passion to make a difference, which can be contagious. In fact, those are the primary reasons I’ve stayed at Lakewood. It lifts my spirit just to be around them.

Today after church I got together for lunch with Jody and Leslie (both young hooligans). As it turns out, it seems like we have more in common than not. We all are working in creative endeavors. Leslie is an editor for a publishing company and Jody is in an art-director type of position with American Greetings. I could feel a resonance among us as we talked about how we go about our work and life.

I couldn’t help but tell them about the connection I feel with the generations that have gone before me, and especially those ancestors who expressed their faith in their diaries and letters. On the front page of the Hester-Stough Genealogy book (compiled by my grt-great grandfather, Martin M. Hester) is a verse from Psalm 90:1--Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

My perch

This is one of The City Mission's five buildings on the main campus, an apartment building that we've partially converted to office space. The five of us in the Development Department occupy the top right apartment, each with our own room. That means getting great exercise trekking up and down the flights of stairs, either by way of the exterior stairs at the back of the building or the interior stairs at the front. I think my office is the best space even though it's the smallest because for at least half of the year I look out into a tree full of leaves. My nephew who dubbed me a "tree hugger" (and that I am) will appreciate that.

Three of the offices look out over the roof top of the building next door, looking west for a view of the downtown landscape. From here you can see those toothbrush-looking lights sticking up over The Jake (aka Progressive Field). It's also a pretty decent spot to watch some of the maneuvers of the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels as they practice in the airspace over Cleveland in the days just prior to Labor Day weekend. The front office looks out over Carnegie Ave and the thousands of vehicles streaming past every day, headed east towards the Cleveland Clinic or University Circle or beyond, or headed west towards downtown or to the freeway entrance ramps.

Over the last several days I've been checking on the progress of the leaves every morning on the way up the exterior stairs. Here's what they looked like today, photographed close-up from the stair landing. They're growing so fast it almost seems like I can detect the change from day to day.









This is the view from my window... not much to look at yet, but it won't be long. Every so often I break from my long stints at the computer, stand up, stretch and look out the window. Sometimes when I'm thinking about how best to write the next sentence or paragraph, I stare blankly out the window while my mind is reconfiguring different ways to express my thoughts. It sure beats staring at that blinking cursor.

The guy in charge of facilities once threatened to cut down this tree, something about it encroaching on a fence. I in turn "threatened" him (well, sort of). I say, the tree was there first.

Genealogy Pt 2

Since writing the previous entry on genealogy (on April 19) I’ve been thinking about why so many of us are fascinated with our roots. In spite of all the letters and diaries my family has pertaining to our ancestors (or perhaps because of them), I still find myself wanting to understand more of what life was like for them. I wonder what it would be like to reach across the generations and compare our lives with one another. And then to think that I carry within my genetic makeup a little bit of each one of them. Could it be that my grt-grt grandfather Loren Webb’s affinity for journalism came down through the line to me? But that’s a subject for another time.

In the opening pages of the Phillips’ genealogy book this poem is offered as a reflection on the study of our family trees:

Come walk with us,
Back through the vista of the years
Which our ancestors knew. We seek
The trails which they once trod
To find the spots where they once dwelt.
And while we search abandoned haunts,
Read wether’d stones and turn the musty pages
Of the past, their spirits come alive
And walk with us. We learn of them;
Their lives, their loves, their hates,
And with this knowledge learn
To understand ourselves. For each of them
Has given unto us a part. We owe them this:
That they shall be remembered for that gift.
Fern Stokes Eller

And then there are all those "begats" in the Bible, now stated in contemporary language... "Abraham was the father of Issac..." and so on. An online concordance lists 139 begats in the King Jame Version. Undoubtedly the most astounding genealogical record in the Bible is Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ancestry. He opens his book with an accounting of names for each of 42 generations. Being that he was formerly a tax collector he must have had an affinity for numbers, so he sums it all up in saying there were "...fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile, and fourteen from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah." (Matthew 1:17 NLT).

Genealogy was a big deal to the Jews of the day. They took pride in being a descendant of Abraham. Their scriptures said that their coming Messiah would descend from the line of David. Matthew (a tax collector turned disciple) basically wrote this book to his fellow Jews to prove that Jesus was the Messiah.

Just like all of us, Jesus’ family tree had within in it some "characters," the kinds of folks that most of us would gloss over in recording our own family histories. There are so many accounts in scripture of how folks messed things up but it wasn’t as if God had to keep adjusting his plan accordingly. His plan just kept marching on through all those generations in spite of, and especially because of their failings.

Cleveland Hungarians

One of my coworkers today mentioned something about her Hungarian heritage so I thought now is a good time to post one of my Hungarian photos. Several years ago I did a photo essay on the Hungarian population in Cleveland which at that time was the 3rd largest in the world, following Budapest and Toronto.

I think my first stop was St. Emeric's church (on the near west side near the West Side Market) where children attended Hungarian school in the evenings, getting grounded in their language, history and culture. I am grateful to the many people who graciously welcomed me into their lives, homes and festivities. I even attended a church service at St. Emeric's all spoken in Hungarian.


This is one of my favorite photos from the project taken at their annual festival. With the stage elevated to about shoulder height I could easily achieve a floor level perspective. Then through all the flurry of dance steps I caught a glimpse of the little girls sitting on the back side of the stage awaiting their turn to dance. I waited for the right moment then clicked and I knew I had it.

This photograph is one of four I had published in a coffee table book entitled Cleveland: Continuing the Renaissance.

Genealogy

That’s a broad subject for my family so settle in for a longer read on this blog entry. Right off the top I want to express my deep appreciation for those ancestors and relatives who have considered it a priority to do the long hours of research and write things down.

Towards the end of his life, my great-great- grandfather Martin M. Hester compiled the history and genealogy of the descendents of the Hester-Stough families, starting with his great grandfather, John Lawrence Hester born in “about” 1738 in Germany. It was published in 1905 and totaled 366 pages, complete with biographical sketches, indexes and photographs.

 My grandfather Webb Hester (that's him and me in the photo) also did genealogical research and must have spent a great deal of time determining a direct connection to Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. Only in the last five years has my cousin Jonathan Webb Deiss verified that Webb’s conclusions were correct. We have documentation that Webb was pursuing the publication of his research but he was not able to complete the pursuit.

Meanwhile, someone on my Dad’s side of the family published a book on the descendents of the William and Elizabeth Phillips family, them being my great-great-great grandparents, William born in 1766 in Pennsylvania. Since it was published in 1986 I am in it.

Dad has entered over 3,000 names in the family tree software on his computer, along with birth and death dates, marriages, children and so on. He’s entered information on other family branches in addition to those mentioned above. We can go back at least a few generations on most of the branches. I think the branch that goes back the furthest is 14 generations. Besides all that we’ve got scans of photographs of great many family members, including a daguerreotype of my great-great- grandmother Francis Hannah (Holmes) Webb.

My parents and my mother’s cousin, David Hester have a sizable collection of letters, diaries, other documents and various artifacts, many of which have been retrieved from the attic of the Hester homestead where descendents still live.

Once we made that wonderful connection with my cousin Jonathan, our collection of family historical documents expanded greatly thanks to his many hours and days of research. Our family also is grateful to Matthew Burr of the Firelands Historical Society who painstakingly transcribed my great-great-grandfather Loren Webb's civil war diary. The photo on the left is a display that was at the Firelands Museum pertaining to my grt-grt-grandfather with his portrait and some civil war artifacts.

Mom and Dad have traveled over hither and yon to get photographs of tombstones of people in our family tree. Mom remembers that on many of those days a cold winter wind was blowing across the hill top as they wandered around looking for names on weathered stones. That's Mom and me with Loren Webb's stone on a nice day at Woodlawn Cemetery in Norwalk, Ohio.

Every now and then we’ll get in the car and take a little driving tour of the places my relatives lived and the land they farmed and the stories that go with all that, like when my Dad's Grandfather Schneiter would have enough of the family gatherings and take off for home on foot across the fields.
One of the places frequently visited is the Webb Settlement, the name given to the area near Norwalk, OH settled by David Webb and his sons in 1820/21. David was my grt-grt-grt-great grandfather. (Photograph and research on this attributable to Jon Deiss).

Sometimes it seems like the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. Everything you read or look at raises more questions. Once you start on this quest it can just go on and on but what an adventure it is. Dad often tells the story of going to visit my Mom before they were married and they would sit and listen to her Dad’s stories. Mom would say, “Let’s go someplace.” And Dad would say “We already are someplace.” But today he wishes he had listened to a lot more of Webb’s stories.

Wonder

As I go on in life, day by day, I become more of a bewildered child; I cannot get used to this world....

I could wish my days to be bound each to each by the same open-mouthed wonder.

Robert Louis Stevenson

So many stories, so little time

Seems like I have a lot more ideas for things to post on this blog than I have time to write. Maybe you feel that way about reading all of them. You certainly won't hurt my feelings if you don't read them all. Just select the ones that pique your interest and let the rest go.

Usually at least one or two new ideas come to mind every day so it doesn't look like this is going to let up any time soon. Most of the posts take me at least an hour. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I may work the words over a couple times then fiddle with the placement of the photos then sometimes I have to check the facts for accuracy. There are some that I know are going to take even longer and they have to wait til the weekend. Until then...

Sensory memories

I heard someone say yesterday that they had a memory of a particular place smelling like Old Spice, Camel cigarettes and soup. The place was the "old Mission" and the person was Linda Rohler, daughter of one of The City Mission's previous directors, Clifford Gregory and his wife Angeline. I hope to be getting more of the details surrounding that memory as we continue the process of collecting stories and memorabilia in preparation for our 100th Anniversary in 2010.

One of my own sensory memories came to mind this morning as I heard the furnace kick on just as I was about to get out of bed. How distinctly I remember laying in bed at my Grandma and Grandpa Phillips' house and hearing my Grandpa shoveling coal into the furnace. Then when he hung up the shovel I could hear it swing back and forth awhile.

Then there's Grandma Phillips' homemade biscuits or cornbread sittin' in a little sauce dish, slathered with butter and saturated with homemade maple syrup. There's nothing like it. There's a guy that Dad knows that makes maple syrup and Dad helps him with it, especially the taste-testing part. But I'll let him tell that story. Its quality is judged not only by its taste but that wonderful golden color, showcased in a maple-leaf shaped bottle on the sill of my mother's bow window.

Out of all my wonderful memories of Acadia National Park in Maine, one stands out as primarily a sensory experience. A sandy beach, night-time and not a street light within miles. No moon, just ba-jillions of stars prickling the dark canopy above. Hearing the waves of the Atlantic Ocean roll in at my feet, feeling the mist, yet straining my eyes in the darkness to see what was flooding my other senses. But all I could see of the ocean was the point at which one of the brighter stars reflected off the waves. Being so close to something so majestic and powerful, yet not being able to see it was an astounding experience, one that still leaves me wishing for words that would rise up off the page and create the sensation of being there again.

Such scenes have inspired writers for thousands of years. Here's part of a song written by the psalmist David who became king over all Israel in 1003 BC:

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. Psalm 8: 3-5 NLT.

Remembering and forgetting, Pt 2

Pursuant to what I wrote in the April 6th entry about monuments honoring soldiers, I've been seeing them everywhere. Just yesterday on the way back from camp I saw 4 small town monuments just along Rte 45 between Rtes 88 and 166. Even the little 4-way stop called Rome had one.

On the way back through I had the time to stop at a few of them. In Orwell I found a large grey plaque listing all those in the area who had fought in the Civil War, listed by the regiment they served in. "For all they were and all they dared, remember them." was near the top. Those words, "remember them" kept recycling through my mind the rest of the day.

Another plaque adjacent to this grey one honored the military career of General Chaffee, whose birthplace was Orwell. After surviving the Civil War he remained in the army, served in several other wars and finished his 45 year military career in 1906 as the United States Army Chief of Staff.


In Bristolville I found what is claimed to be the first Civil War Memorial in Ohio, erected in 1863. With everything else that was going on at the time, I wonder who was keeping track of whether it was the first one. Along the base of the monument is inscribed "Defenders of the Union." In front of it is an Ohio Historical marker and on the front corners of the little town square were two tall monuments with names of those who had served their country inscribed on both sides of each.

There was a cub scout pack meeting in the park shelter, being led by a den mother (like my Mom used to do). They’re probably too young to understand the significance of these monuments but lets hope that the Memorial Day ceremonies and their school history lessons will teach them well.

Horse story

At the end of my April 5th entry and mentioned that my Dad has a good horse story that maybe I could get him to tell again (he actually probably has several such stories). He since has told me that maybe he'd save that story for his own blog (not yet in existence). I say, great idea!

Until then, here's a story I picked up yesterday evening. It may not be good as Dad's story but its still good. Returning home the "back way" from The City Mission's camp, right where Rte 88 turns south (joining up with 528 for a short distance), something caught my eye off to the right. The low angle of the evening sun glimmered off the damp freshly turned sod of a plowed field. Then I saw the three-horse team being driven by an Amish farmer. I went up the road, turned around and came back, parking in the buggy lane.

By the time I got turned around he was on his way back up the field towards the road. I made a few photographs, but mostly just watched. As the team came up to the road and proceeded to turn back down the field again, the farmer and I made eye contact, we smiled and greeted one another.

I was struck by how quiet the whole process was. All that could be heard was the jingle of the harness, the snorting of the horses and a word or two of command from the farmer.

It also struck me that with one draft horse weighing in at an average of 1600 pounds, how easy it was for the farmer to control all that power.

"When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark...." James 3: 3-5 NIV

Cemeteries

Here I am with my brother following my Grandpa Webb Hester around an overgrown cemetery. I've been told that he always wrote notes on little pieces of paper and stuck them in his shirt pocket. Presumably he did the same with interesting epithets. I think this photo was taken somewhere in the Smoky Mountains. My Dad says it was next to a little church called the Little Hope Baptist Church. Somewhere we have a photo of that, too. We thought it was such an interesting name for a place that should be offering abundant hope, unless it was for people who had little hope and needed their hope restored....?

I am fascinated with cemeteries to this day. I think of the many possible stories buried there.

I have made quite a few photographs of cemeteries including this photo, using infrared film and a special filter. It makes foliage and grass look white. This was taken in the cemetery next to the Veterans Home in Sandusky formerly known as the Soldiers and Sailors Home.

An untimely death

After writing yesterday's entry about soldiers dying so far away from home, I thought of this story about my great great grandfather Loren Webb whose chronic illness brought him to an early death. (You will find an excerpt from his Civil War diary in my March 31st entry). At the time of his death he was en route from Florida to Ohio. He was living in Florida in hopes that the climate would ease his symptoms. He suspected that he was near the end of his life and was hoping to see his daughters one more time, but did not make it.

With many thanks to a distant cousin (third cousin once removed, to be exact) and genealogical researcher extraordinaire, Jonathan Webb Deiss, our family has scans of many documents pertaining to Loren Webb (and others, too). He tracked down this newspaper clipping of one of the obituaries of Loren Webb, written by Rev. McFerrin who was one of the most famous preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Loren was a preacher with the Methodist Episcopal Church North. (The manner in which the Methodist Church split over the issue of slavery is a story for another time...)

Especially note the transaction between the two negating the division between the north and south.

The date of his passing is February 20, 1880 at the age of 41. [Loren's name is misspelled throughout].

Death of Rev. Lorin Webb. - Kind Deeds and Comforting Words
The following letter kindly sent to us from Rev. Dr. M'Ferrin, Book Agent, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Nashville, reached us too late for our last week's number. The generous hospitality shown by our brethren in Nashville will be greatly appreciated.
On Thursday morning, Feb. 19, a stranger called at the Publishing House, Nashville, and asked for a Methodist minister. The undersigned answered... (some of the remaining sentence is missing).

The stranger said, "There is a Northern Methodist preacher at the Louisville depot in a dying condition, and he wishes to see a Methodist minister. Rev. Mr. Rudisill is not in the city." I went immediately to the depot and found Rev. Lorin Webb, of the New York East Conference - as he reported himself - in the last stage of consumption. I was introduced by some fellow-passengers whom he had met on the train. Said Mr. Webb, 'I know you. I want a place to die.' He was too feeble to be taken to a private house, but was carried into a room at Linck's Hotel, just adjoining the depot. Here he lingered until Friday evening, half-past six o'clock, when he died in great peace.

He reported himself on his way to Norwalk, Ohio, to see his two daughters, his wife having been buried in Florida. On Saturday morning I had his body and baggage shipped to Norwalk, Ohio, to the care of C. S. Herrick, a relative, where his children reside.

He was very rational to the last and died in full hope of everlasting life. He said when I met him, "I sent for a Methodists preacher; we are a band of brothers every-where." And I replied, " Brother, we are one in love; and here we, in the hour of trial, know no North, no South." He was fully appraised of his condition, and died full of faith.

He had every attention necessary for his comfort. The proprietors of Linck's Hotel treated him with marked attention, and the servants were kind and obliging.

Drs. Menees and Summers offered medical treatment, but he was so far gone that no remedy could reach his case - he was only soothed in his last hours. The Young Men's Christian Association gave help in watching and waiting.

It was sad to see a brother die from home and away from his family, but the friends of Christ were present, and, above all, Jesus was there to give him the victory.
J. B. M'Ferrin

Remembering and forgetting, Part 1

It seems to be human nature that we tend to forget things that need to be remembered and we remember things that it would be better to forget.

We even have a national holiday, Memorial Day to help us remember. It began way back at the end of the Civil War to honor the fallen Union soldiers. For many of us today its simply a paid holiday to get together with family and friends and have a picnic. Yet in thousands of villages and cities across this great nation people gather round in public squares and parks and cemeteries for the purpose of remembering. Veterans who were fortunate to come back from battle serve as the colorguard, a wreath is laid at the monument, remarks are made, then the gun salute. Finally, the mournful solemn sound of "Taps" played on a trumpet. It's a sound that can send a chill down your spine, or a tear to the eye..... to consider what it might have been like for these fallen heroes to have taken their last breath in a desperate and lonely place so far away from home.

"Lest we forget" is inscribed on the bottom of the monument erected last year in the park next to the library in my home town. Its in remembrance of four of my brother's buddies/peers that came back from Vietnam in a casket:

Tom Gopp
Gregg Heidrich
Claude Howard
Larry Walton

The polished stone is so reflective that this photo had to be taken at this angle in order to see the names, as opposed to seeing the photographer's image in the stone. Seeing our own image reflected in a monument honoring fallen heroes can be a reminder to all of us, that it was for us, for all of us collectively, that they died.

The tradition of erecting monuments of remembrance dates back thousands of years. When God delivered the nation of Israel across the Jordan River in about 1406 BC, finally bringing them into the promised land, they were instructed to pile up 12 stones, one for each of the 12 tribes. "We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4: 6-7 NLT)

It could be said that all of our history books were written for the sake of remembering. The recounting of critical points in history can have a powerful effect as was illustrated in Erin Gruwell's story of the Freedom Writers. When she intercepted a racial caricature being circulated around her classroom and compared it to the Nazi caricatures of Jews during the holocaust, she was appalled to learn that many of her students had never heard of the holocaust. She then had the class view the film, Schindler's List and read the Diary of Anne Frank. Students who were simply trying to survive the battlegrounds in their homes and neighborhoods began to connect in meaningful ways with people in other kinds of battles, from distant times and places.

The history of the Jewish nation from the time of slavery in Egypt to David's reign as recorded in Psalm 77 was repeated over and over from one generation to the next, so as not to forget... "I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us. We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders...."

My home town

I was looking for something else on my computer and found these reflections on my home town, a slice of life of small town America at the Labor Day Festival, 2006. It captures a little bit of what makes me who I am today. A year later I captured some the annual festival on film, hence the photographs. This is a little bit longer than I'd usually do for a blog entry but editing out anything would detract from the whole.

Labor Day, 2006
Sitting on the enclosed back porch of the house where I spent all my growing up years, and have come "home" to in the many years since, we watched the annual parade of John Deere and International Harvester farm tractors pass by, hauled on trailers and flat beds pulled by an assortment of pick up and semi trucks. Dollar signs rolled in my head thinking about the many thousands of dollars wrapped in those rigs.

"Do ya want to go down?"

"Nah..."

We tossed that back and forth a few times, then finally I said I would go if they wanted to go. So we did. We drove down, even though it’s only a few blocks, cause by the time we walked around there, it would be too much to walk back. Roeder greeted us at the gate and made sure we had a close-up parking space. Without blinking an eye, they gave us all three, Mom, Dad and I the senior citizen admission rate. I may be eligible for AARP, but I sure don’t look like a senior citizen. Doesn’t bother me, though.

We walked across the drive and through the remnants of the old playground I used to play on as a kid. All that remains is the metal framework for the kiddie swings and horse gliders, and the concrete base where the tall metal sliding board used to be anchored. The base for the teeter totter and merry-go-round is probably there somewhere too. On the other end of the space kids played on a colorful climbing apparatus with all the modern day safety features built in. We might have fallen off a few things, skinned our knees or pinched a finger, or got sick to our stomach or dizzy on the merry-go-round, but somehow we survived all those many wonderful hours of playing there.

Across the other drive and past the shelter where the African-American 2nd United Methodist Church used to cook up barbecued chicken dinners every year, sits a huge barrel-type barbecue device, run by a couple black guys, and on their pick up it says, "Ribs by the Bay, Sandusky, Ohio." Dad had them open up the pit, filled with split chickens and racks of ribs. He approved of the looks of them and said maybe we’d be back.

Pick-em-up trucks had backed into the fence all along the track and folks put their lawn chairs up in there for a good view of the tractor pulling. In between, guys that even Dad calls geezers were lined up in their lawn chairs, along with an assortment of younger folks too. We remembered how our cousins, the Schneiters used to go down early every Labor Day to get a prime parking spot for their pick up. Dad struck up a conversation with someone and Mom and I walked around to the opening in the track where people cross over to sit on the bleachers. After a while Dad joins us too, having come around the track from the other side. Enroute in got sucked into buying a $5 raffle ticket from Graph, for a picnic table to benefit the renovation of the clock tower on the Methodist Church. He’s in the process of painting the picnic table we already have, so I’m not sure what we’d do with another, probably let someone else have it.

On the end of the track sat the long trailer-like device with the weight on it and a cab attached high up on the back, where one or two guys sit, getting pulled down the track one way, then, putting the wheels down on the front of the trailer, they reverse it back to the starting point. The front end of this thing gets attached to the tractors and as it gets pulled, the weight slides along a metal track that runs down the middle of the trailer.

One guy on a John Deere pulling a scraping device was preparing the surface of the dirt track, and another guy on (I think) an International Harvester, pulled another device with a row of several smooth tires all in a row, then the New London Fire Dept. yellow pick up driven by my fellow class mate, Dick Rowland, with another guy perched on the tailgate, came along with a water sprayer. That must be partly to keep the dust from blowing around and partly to make the surface of the track just so.

The tractors pull by categories of weight that they’re pulling and whether or not their tractor is "modified." Some guys had bar cages around the sides and back of where they sit on the tractor, presumably because the thing could tip backward and somehow that would protect them. A couple guys even wore a helmet.

A skinny guy with long beard getting dustier by the minute, was in charge of the stop and go flags on the front end of the track. He pulls back the red flag and holds out the green one, and the tractor driver starts revving his engine. It gets louder, the rear wheels dig in and the front wheels lift up off the ground. Some guys have weights attached to various places to keep it from rearing back too far. White smoke belches out of the smoke stack on the front end of the tractor. Then gray smoke, and depending how how modified a tractor is, black smoke. If you’re interested in preserving your hearing, you might consider covering your ears against the screaming of the engine as it passes by.

There appears to be a little bit of technique to shifting just in the right way and the right time to get the maximum power going for the pull. Above all the noise, you might be able to hear the announcer as he gives a running account of the distance traversed and how many more feet the guy has to go to claim first place in the competition for his particular class. You can hope that the wind blows just right so the smoke blows up and over the bleachers, but a good part of it settles down on the crowd. Dad makes a comment something about black lung. The tractor driver keeps pulling until the wheels start to spin, and sometimes at that point the front end of the tractor rears up. If the driver isn’t happy with his distance and thinks he can do better, he has the option of going around and giving it another try.

The device being pulled automatically tracks the exact distance pulled in feet and inches. It used to be that guys with posts and measuring tapes would run back and forth to measure the pulled distance, then another tractor would have to come and pull the weights back to the other end. Now the whole process goes a lot faster, theoretically, but they never have started on time and somehow the event consumes most of the day and promises to give many hours of entertainment.

In the middle of it all, Mom remembers the advertising byline of John Deere. "Nothing runs like a Deere," she says.

Besides the excitement of watching tractors go up and down the track, you can eavesdrop on all the nearby chatter about crops and farm animals. Then there’s always the interesting parade of people passing by and a few here and there that we know and talk with or at least wave to. Some are wearing heavy work boots, blue jeans and John Deere tee shirts, which would seem to give away that they are probably farmers. Many look like they could use a good hair cut, tufts of hair poking out of their sweat stained caps.


A small group of folks that look like they’re related to one another stand off to the side of the bleachers. One tall skinny guy holds a trophy with a chrome plated tractor on the top. A while later I look over and see a toddler in a stroller holding on to the trophy and everyone’s staring down the track, straining to see through the dust and smoke, listening to the announcer on how the next competitor fared in his bid for first place.

There’s a ball game going on directly behind the bleachers and a few homers sailed over the fence, and one even came over the bleachers and on the track. Dad instructs someone at the end of the bleachers to keep watch for the balls so we don’t get konked in the head.

Kelly comes by with his second wife. He ran the greenhouse that used to sit behind our house, across the drainage ditch, where my brother Bob used to work. So Kelly sits with us a while and with him, his second wife. He talks about the summer being too short, and now he’s back to driving school bus again. He hired two Amish boys to help him put new windows in his house. He thinks he’s going to try to make hay this week, depending on the rain situation. We get an update on all 5 of his kids, spread far and wide, and none of them came back home for the holiday weekend.

After about an hour and a half, Mom and I get tired of the noise and the hard bleachers and took off walking. The junior prom committee is running the lemonade stand so we get some of that, even though I know it’s going to be too sweet for me. Right next to it is Dor-Lo’s pizza a mainstay at all the local festivals for as long as I can remember. We look over the raffle drawing prizes and sit on the bench outside the re-located train depot, drink our lemonade and watch the goings-on. After a while we decide to check out the Hileman building where an assortment of flowers and produce are lined up with blue and red ribbons attached. The Garden Club had crafted a pretty nice looking quilt for a raffle drawing, constructed of squares made by the members.

That’s where Dad finds us. He gives us the car keys and announces he’s going back to the barbecue pit to get us some chicken to take home. We drive out the back way, and seeing all the cars parked in the outlots, we’re doubly grateful that Roeder showed us special favor in getting a close-up space. We turn up White Ave, driving past where Grandma used to live. They’ve enclosed the front, have put on nice yellow siding and put up a nice big garage.

Throughout the afternoon and especially driving back to Cleveland, I think that this agreeable little slice of time in a small rural community, my home town seems a half a world away from the central Cleveland neighborhood where I work. My home town is quiet for the most part, except for the trucks that rumble down highway 60 past the front of our house, and the distant train whistles that sometimes sound so close when the wind is blowing just right. There are lots of big houses and big yards and big trees, some of which I remember being planted when I was a kid. There are folks who know each other and take the time to help their neighbors out. If we hear a siren, we look out the window when it passes by and wonder if its someone we know.

Being surrounded by farmland, and largely populated with people who were or are farmers, there’s a deep sense of connection with the land. We know first hand what "home-grown" means, having picked tomatoes and green beans in our own back yards. We grew up going to the county fair every year and participating in 4-H. We went to school with kids who belonged to the Future Farmers of America, and had already done morning chores on the farm before coming to school.

Continuing the drive back to Cleveland, right about where Rte 20 becomes a divided highway I see that the tops of the trees are golden, the last rays of the day’s sun give them a warm cast. As the four lane divided highway turns into Interstate 480 and 8 lanes, I can see a beautiful golden glow in the western sky in my rearview mirrors. Labor Day is ending for another year. Up ahead I see intercontinental airliners flying over I-480, coming in for a landing at Hopkins.

I think about the work week ahead. My office is surrounded by blacktop and concrete and structures. Many of the people who come to The City Mission have led lives in such stark contrast to my own. A fairly significant percentage have never seen the outside of a city. They wouldn’t be able to discern a green bean plant from a pepper plant unless.... " [That's where my thoughts ended back when I wrote this in Sept. 06 so I'll leave it at that.]

"Back when I was a kid..." we watched horse pulls on Labor Day. Draft horses that are bred for strength and agility pull loads down the track. Dad has a story about the superior strength of the horses his family used on the farm. Maybe I can get him to tell it again.

Photography

A friend said she hoped I would be posting some of my photographs on my blog. I'm not sure where to start. I have hundreds of photos. I have been taking pictures since I was a kid. I'm not saying how many years that's been.

Here is a photo of my brother and I on a family vacation. Note we are both holding cameras. Behind us is the Mackinac Bridge which connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. (At 5 miles long it is currently the third longest suspension bridge in the world. )

After many years of working in the social service field I decided to go back to school in photography to see if I could make it in the field. Within a couple years of that I was in a Cleveland Bicentennial photo exhibit at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It was put on by a group of women photographers, many of whom had their own photography business/studio. What a blast that experience was! Each of us also put photos and our bios in a time capsule at the Western Reserve Historical Society to be opened in 100 years. Within a short amount of time I also was published, with 4 photos in a coffee table book entitled "Cleveland: Continuing the Renaissance." More about those experiences later. I'll have to find the negatives and get some digitized. I also worked 5 years as a portrait photographer. I made a living at it, although not a great one. I really liked doing it but it takes a lot of energy.

Photography is a part of my job at The City Mission. I recently did a couple of photo shoots at Laura's Home, our program for homeless women and children. We needed some fresh photos for a new Laura's Home brochure. Once we have the brochure posted on our web site I'll post a link so you can see how my photographs were laid out in the brochure. Besides photographing women involved in various activities I also did a few family portraits. It was great fun and reminded me of my time working in the studio.

I am best at photographing people. Aside from some occasional portrait type photos I enjoy capturing people going about their daily lives, a photojournalistic approach. My camera has gotten me into some interesting places and circumstances. I once traveled on a oar freighter (from Lorain to Cleveland), chronicling the people and activities on the freighter. Believe it or not, it was a 10 hour trip, ending at LTV steel. That's a whole other story.

As I scan through some of my CD's looking for a photo to post here I decided on one of my favorite photos of my parents, Dad in his army jacket and Mom in her wedding suit, taken not quite 2 years ago. It was one of those instances of discussing the extra little roll around the waist and wondering if they can still get into something they wore decades ago. Note that the clothes still fit pretty good. You can see frames hanging all over the walls... lots of family photos and a few of my nature photos enlarged. Everyone's high school graduation photos hang together in one place around a grand old clock.

The first 35 mm camera I used was Dad's Argus. I used that in a photography class I took at OSU. Dad took lots of photos when we were growing up and on our vacations. He was pretty good at it, although he won't admit it. I treasure them all. He usually shot with slide film which is harder to do. There's very little room for error. If you don't get the exposure right, there's no fixing it later. I fondly remember all the slide shows he put together. Some of the slides now have been made in to prints and are displayed in the many photo books Dad has put together. By now he has run through several printers and probably hundreds of ink cartridges.

Is it any wonder that I'm so into photography?

Here I am being excited about something. Isn't it fun?

April 6, 1862

From the ephemeris [diary] of Captain Loren Webb
The Battle of Shiloh (also known as Battle of Pittsburg Landing)

"Sunday, 6th
Pleasant [weather]. This morning at daylight we heard firing on our advance line. We soon determined that it was a general attack and we were soon ready. The firing grew terrible and our line was driven in. Our Regt. was then taken to the left of our forces and soon we were engaged with a strong force. Our boys took cover behind the ridge and kept our place for a long time. The rebels brought up fresh troops twice but could not drive us. They then brought forward a fresh line and charged bayonet on us and routed us. We then retreated to our camp and washed our guns and got ammunition and went in again. This time I was wounded in the right foot. Lieut. G. W. Williford in the knee. The battle raged all day the whole length of the line, but the rebels were in great numbers and drove us at all points. By night we were closely hemmed on the river bank, but the gun boats now commenced shelling them while our boys worked on them in the front and they were obliged to fall back. They fell back about two miles. There were many interesting (events) transpired during the day that I cannot mention, but much bravery was displayed. I saw several of my men fall dead and many more are missing. Col. Phillips was several times wounded, but it is hoped not fatally. 19 of 26 officers that went into the battle killed or wounded. I had but 20 men the second time that I went into action. I was early wounded and have not seen my co. My foot has swollen much and is quite painful. All is suspense, but now Buell's forces appear on the other shore. Tis dark."

Coming home

A coworker reflected today that we're all homeless in a sense..... It made me think of this poem by G.K. Chesterton, referred to as The Christmas Poem

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done...
To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,

To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Everybody is a story

"Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much any more. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other's stories again."
Quoted from:
Kitchen Table Wisdom
by Rachel Naomi Remen
http://www.rachelremen.com/ktw.html