I don't know if there are any statistics to vindicate my opinion, but I have an extremely deeply rooted opinion that hot weather, truly sweltering weather, makes people crazy.  And it's not just the whole 'three days in the desert and you start seeing ice cream stands' kind of crazy.  We've been topping 100 on the thermometer for the past few hundred years, or at least since the middle of July.  As if in synchronization, insanity begins to show glimpses of itself, finally revealing its face in all of its glaring glory just as the needle quivers over the '100' mark.  And then, when all outdoor activity is rendered impossible by threats of dehydration, heat stroke, and death, everyone simultaneously descends upon the library. 
If I or any of my co-workers actually knew how to play poker it is a given that we could never play each other; after a few days like these past few, we all know the stress induced tics and muscle spasms of the others.  In a group-therapy kind of way it brings us a bit closer together; something about the shared sympathy among soldiers as you watch a building full of heat-crazed 'people' rattling the bars of their cages. 
Think I'm exaggerating?  Let me take you down the rabbit-hole, then......

Just the other day, any typical day, we had a swarm of children, led by none other than Conan the Barbarian himself, fall on us in the wrath of boredom.  I grabbed my whip, chair and black top-hat.  "Don't turn that off, please!"  "Don't press that button!"  "Stay on your side of the counter, please!" "No running!"  "Don't stand up on the couch, it'll tip over.....Actually, you know what, go ahead.  Have at it with that one....."  "When did you last wash your hands?"  "Where are your shoes?"  "Where is your mother?!" "Don't point the scanner at your eyes unless you want grow up to be Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder......"  etc. etc.  Having sucked down about five bottles of water that day, due to the heat, I took a short break and walked back to the staff restroom.  The door was closed and I heard the sound of running water, and knowing that two of my co-workers were at the front desk, I assumed it was the third.  I walked back out to the desk, patiently awaiting my turn with some slight sense of building panic.  Suddenly, the third co-worker appeared.  Now, I'm definitely more of an English person than math, but I can count to four.  Being neither a math person nor Sherlock Holmes in the powers of deduction, I was still able to grasp that something was amiss....all four were at the desk, but water was running in the restroom......did I really want to know?  I knocked on the door, and, receiving no answer, proceeded to open it.  No one.  Nothing.  Only the toilet is making a rather strange sound......I removed the 'lid,' but saw nothing amiss.  I went back out to inform my boss, and was detained by a patron.  Finishing with the patron, I made my way towards the back, only to be met by a sound which seemed somewhat out of place.  I didn't know why, or even what the sound was reminiscent of....Then it hit me.  The eruptions of Mt. St. Helen and Old Faithful.  A new island being created in the tropics.  The sound of a toilet spewing water ceiling high.  Panic and disgust pushed aside, we combined efforts and attempted to stem the angry tide.  The floor was now half an inch deep; fortunately it was clean water.  4:30 found me with mop and bucket, swabbing deck.  As I'm attempting to soak up the remains of Hurricane Katrina of the public library, a co-worker stepped back and informed us that there had been a shooting in the neighborhood and the perpetrator was not as yet apprehended; the police suggested we lock the doors.  Great, I am shoe-deep in toilet water and now on lock-down.  At 4:30.  Thirty more minutes and I would've been home-free.  Just then I heard the metallic tinkling of the ice-cream truck making its afternoon rounds.  Playing, I kid you not, Christmas carols.  "Deck the Halls," to be precise.  It was like something straight from hades.  For some reason the metallic sound of mechanized music reminds me of some 1950's horror movie.  You can just see it: half a dozen or so All-American be-sweatered and saddle-oxford sporting Bobby-Soxers enjoying a day at the fair.  That same metallic tinkling commences, strangely juxtaposed and ominously foreshadowing the coming slaughter.  Finished with the floor, I went back to the counter, where my boss was, to inform her of as much, and ask if Public Works was on its way.  (Hope springs eternal.)  As I approached, I became privy to a conversation between my boss and a child who was in the act of asking my boss what her favorite swear word is......Today's not a good day to ask that, Tonto, you might get an answer.  I was called away by a man who needed to apply for a library card.  As I was filling out the information in our system, he began casually chatting.  "You know," he said, "I don't think I could work in a library....."  Apparently this was not a rhetorical statement, as he waited in vain for a moment for me to ask why.  "I would get too bored.....Just sitting here all day like this, and I don't really like to read that much......"

Today I began a P.G. Wodehouse novel; as I was reading I began to think how much of a book depends on the first lines, and likewise, how much depends on the last lines.  So, I began to think-what are some of my favorites?  There are of course, the standards: "It is a truth universally acknowledge, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."  "Two houses/both alike in dignity/In fair Verona where we lay our scene/From ancient grudge break to new mutiny/Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean." "All children, except one, grow up." "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..." "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."  "The Opera Ghost really existed." "It was a dark and stormy night." (Okay, just kidding about that last one......)  I started thinking, though, how many other, lesser known, but equally great opening and closing lines there are:  "Three hundred and forth-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago today the Parisians were awakened by the sound of loud peals from all the bells within the triple precincts of the City, the University, and the Town." (Hunchback of Notre Dame)  Although everyone knows the opening line from "A Tale of Two Cities," I personally think the last line is the most powerful: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."  (Of course this could have something to do with the fact that I have been completely in love with Sidney Carton since I was thirteen-I still think Lucy Manette was a total idiot for not marrying him......)  "When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.  It was true, too."  And, simply because this book scared the absolute be-jeebies out of me the first time I read it-"The offing was barred by a black band of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky-seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." ("Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad)  "Once there was a tree....and she loved a little boy." ("The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein-the absolute epitome of what every children's book should aspire to be.)  "Pain provides an opportunity for heroism; the opportunity is seized with surprising frequency." ("The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis)  "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing."  ("A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean.)  And, although it is a paragraph rather than a sentence, I also love the last paragraph of that novella, "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.  The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.  On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.  Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.  I am haunted by waters."  (Have to love it, don't you?)  "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."  ("The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" by C.S. Lewis)  "Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarreling and making up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently."  ("The Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis)  Another paragraph I love is from Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant"- "Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden.  He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child.  And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, 'Who hath dared to wound thee?' For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.  'Who hath dared to wound thee?' cried the Giant; 'tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.' 'Nay!' answered the child; 'but these are the wounds of Love.' 'Who art thou?' said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.  And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, 'You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."  "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 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."  "And for the support of this Declaration, with firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, or Fortunes, and our sacred Honour."  "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"  "It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measures of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
This is why, when writing papers all through my school years, the introduction and the conclusion were the most difficult to construct.  I mean really, with that level of precedent set, what can you really do with a paper on the effects of the Bon Marche department store on the retail world of mass-production consumerism?

(Atticus and Scout Finch, from To Kill a Mockingbird, the BEST book/movie ever in existence....seriously.)

Although I know it is now past Independence Day, and I therefore should be posting about history and our nation (that will come, never fear), I still have yet to post about Father's Day.  Let me just say, my mama is my best friend, but I think I'll always still be a Daddy's girl.  Plain and simple.  I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time and finding Atticus a very familiar character.  I'm not sure how he managed it, but my father was quite a bit like Atticus in that he did not expect my sister and I to behave like adults, but neither did he treat us like children, if that makes any sense.  It's one thing I've learned to appreciate very much as I've grown older.  However, there have been some amusing incidents between my father and I during those transitional years; I suppose it is just inevitable that parents will invariably revert to 'parenthood' no matter the number of years you've long since stopped wearing pigtails.  We were sitting around the dinner table one evening, my mother, father and I.  I was saying something to my mother, apparently in a very animated fashion, and, being my mother's daughter, I was using hand gestures to accentuate my statements.  Not "You'll shoot your eye out!" style gestures, just vague waves of the hand.  My father watches me for a moment, reaches across the dinner table, takes the fork out of my unresisting-due-to-shock grip, places it on the table and explains simply, "You'll hurt yourself."  The 'amusing' point of this story?  I was a full time college student managing a job at the public library and another at the college, two time-consuming jobs at church, and a few minor photography jobs on the side. This memory relapse is apparently common at some point to all fathers, as so deftly illustrated by this scene from "Father of the Bride."

It is common also, however, for daughters always to remain their father's daughter.  For some reason, I'm always more pleased when I can make my father smile than anyone else; it's always been that way, I suppose.  A couple of months ago I was sitting in the breakfast room in a hotel in Illinois and overheard a few words of the conversation next to me.  Two women were discussing 'Take Your Child to Work Day,' and how fun it was to pack a lunch for two and eat in the office.  I had to smile because it was so different from the lunches my sister and I shared with our father on those days.  My father is third generation lumber man, and so we grew up out of doors.  I think we stayed filthy as often as we stayed clean, and enjoyed every minute until we discovered it was considered 'work.'  We tromped through dense thickets of briars, slogged through marshy swamps, came home smelling of gasoline, machine oil and tree sap and covered in insect bites.  It was a great way to grow up.  It's why I became a librarian.  Anyway, every morning before we headed out, our father would give us the lecture: don't get around the machinery-they can't see/hear you and could easily accidentally slice you into deli meat, don't distract the workers and if a tree starts to fall, run like hell.  (Sorry for the language. And no, my father never swore in front of us, but that was the general idea, trust me; we could understand that even at that tender age.)  For lunch we would stop in the convenience store and get Lance crackers and a soda, drop the tailgate and feast.  It was glorious. 
My obssession with history began while listening to my father's stories of his father during the war, and his own experiences growing up during the tumultuous years after that horrendous event.  One story from my own childhood is one that only in the years succeeding has become amusing.  Growing up, I had nearly every orthodontic device contrived by man.  I once tripped the metal detector at the airport.  True story.  Anyway, one day, when I was in fourth grade, all of the bottom brackets of my braces, excluding the two on the molars, popped off, leaving the wire free.  It immediately hooked itself around the brackets on the top row of teeth, creating a synthetic form of lock-jaw.  Well, here's a pretty pickle.  I finally conveyed my emergency (in a non-vocal manner) to the teacher who immediately marched me to the front office and phoned my father.  What transpired afterwards, in the way of phone calls to the orthodontist I have no idea-my part in it picks up when my father actually arrived, in person, in the school's front office.  With a pair of newly acquired nail clippers soaking in alcohol.  I was instructed to lie down on the couch, like a shrink patient, which, trusting in my father's superior judgement, I did.  He then proceeded to do emergency orthodontic work in the head office, clipping the thin wire with the clippers and telling me to 'go back to class, we'd get more brackets put on tomorrow.'  Kid you not, you can't make this kind of stuff up, trust me.  Isn't it always nice to have inventive minds around to handle the unexpected?
There are hundreds of other stories about my dad I could share, but I suppose I'll wrap up by saying that Father's Day or any other day, I'll always love my Atticus dearly, no matter how old I get. 

(Just a note: since things are always better with a good soundtrack, I've added a few arrangements of some favorite hymns for this post.....I know, I know.....I'm a dork.....too late to change that now, though.)

In writing this post I am committing an historical faux-pas; relating things out of the order in which they happened.  Yet, it is the post which has been the most difficult.  It may sound insane to say that a vacation can be emotional, but for me, the entire trip to Illinois was emotional.  Perhaps it was due to the fact that each of the places we visited, each of the people we learned more about, had already claimed a portion of my heart and mind from a very young age.  C.S. Lewis was as dear a friend to me as any child could have, Lincoln, as I said last time, was a hero to a small child born over a hundred years after his death, and Nauvoo....well, if a city can, of itself, be dear to the heart, Nauvoo is to mine.  In Hebrew 'Nauvoo' means 'beautiful place' or 'place of rest.'  I suppose to the physical eye, it is a fairly typical mid-western town.  Not very prepossessing in terms of wealth, prestige or glamour.  Its beauty is of a different sort.  The history of Nauvoo is short, but not simple.  In 1839, after fleeing Missouri, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints settled on the banks of the Mississippi.  There they built from the swamps a home, a beautiful place, a place of rest.  There also they began, in 1841, the construction of a temple.  It sits on the highest point of land, overlooking the broad, majestic river.  Yet, the Saints were driven again to flee their homes, this time leaving behind not only buildings and stores, homes and gardens, but the beautiful place of rest they had sacrificed so much to build for themselves out of wilderness.  It was here also, that Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were taken from their families and carried to Carthage, from where they did not return.  The feelings one has, standing in a place such as this are indescribable.  I thought I would feel pain at the thought of the pain and loss which was endured, but I didn't.  The peace which was mixed into the mortar and stones, plowed into the fields, still remained.  As the Saints were driven to the banks of the Mississippi, they watched the temple they had built burn.  Yet, here I was, standing on the steps and looking at the same river they had been forced to cross in the month of February.  The temple was rebuilt.  People were once again able to enter its doors.  

My mom and I, on our last day, drove down to the place where the members crossed to the opposite shore; as I stood there, many things filled my mind.  I thought of the part, in Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant," after he has forced the children out of his beautiful garden, where they had been wont to play.  Wilde wrote, "They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside.  'How happy we were there,' they said to each other."  I remember watching the short animated film of that story as a child, and how, when the narrator spoke that line, the lonely longing of those words struck me.  "How happy we were there."  As well, I thought of the line from one of my favorite musicals, "Fiddler on the Roof."  The Jews are being forced from their village of Anatevka to wander where they will; some of the villagers are standing in Tevye's yard, saying their goodbyes.  One line always stands out to me-"Anatevka.  Where else could Sabbath be so sweet?"  The day was overcast and cool, but not unpleasant.  The grass was deep and green, tree branches trailed in the flowing river-how my heart broke for those who had left this beautiful place.  But, as we were standing there, listening to the peaceful lapping of the water on the shore, looking for the last time on Nauvoo, the bells of the temple began to toll.  A peace which carried with it a certain power of strength and courage became so tangible it was nearly palpable.  I myself, in only two days, had come to love this city, and the people in it.  There was Elder and Sister Wilson, a man who worked in the sandwich shop where we ate two or three times, and the countless others we had come to truly love, through their kindness.  It was indeed a beautiful place, with beautiful people.  I finally realized then, that the same reason the members had to leave was the same reason they could leave this place of rest.  One of the only consistent things about history is the human race's inability to reconcile differences of religion, therefore the early Latter-Day Saints were fleeing their homes.  Yet, because of that same religion for which they were being persecuted, they realized that the place of rest was not in the city they had built, but within the knowledge they had of their Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ.  This they could carry with them, even if they must leave behind their possessions and trust in His care, that they would find another place of rest, whether in this life or the next.  This may sound cliche, but it was an important realization for me to arrive at.  That realization was the peace which permeated that verdant corner of Illinois.  That was what made it beautiful.  It was re-enforced to me that, although this life is fraught with pain, loneliness, uncertainty, loss and fear, it is also full to the brim with love, kindness, beauty and, if we know to which source to look, peace.  Not a peace of mortal proportions, but a peace in the knowledge that we are indeed precious in the sight of Heavenly Father, that our pains and sorrows do not go unnoticed, nor our prayers unheeded.  They may not be answered in the manner in which we would like, but that does not mean they go unheeded.  

There is a book I have on my shelf, which, should the house suddenly spontaneously combust, and I only had a moment to choose which books to escape with, and it came down to this or my C.S. Lewis, I'm sure dear Lewis would understand.  It is called, "Shepherds, Why This Jubilee?" by Jeffrey R. Holland.  It is a book about Christmas.  Notice I didn't say, a Christmas book, but a book about Christmas.  Please forgive the long quote, but bear with me, it is worth it, I think.  

"As they made their way toward the temple that day, the Holy Spirit was resting upon a beloved elderly man named Simeon, one whom the scriptures describe as 'just and devout.'  It was revealed to this gentle and venerable man that he would not die before seeing the Messiah-"the Lord's Christ," as Luke phrases it.  The Spirit then led him to the temple, where he saw a young carpenter and his even younger wife enter the sanctuary with a new-born babe cradled in his mother's arms.  Simeon, who had waited all his life for "the consolation of Israel," took that consolation in his arms, praised God, and said: 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.  And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.  And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.' He was joyously happy.  He had lived to see the Son of God be born.  He had held the child in his very arms.  He could now die the happiest man in all of Jersualem, maybe in all the world.  But his joy was not of the superficial kind.  It was not without its testing and trying....his joy had something to do with 'the fall and rising again of many in Israel,' and with this child's life-or at least his death-which would be like a sword piercing through his beloved mother's soul.  We might well ask, "Was such an ominous warning, such a fateful prophecy, appropriate in this season of joy?  Surely such was untimely, even unseemly, at that moment-when the Son of God was so young and tender and safe, and his mother so thrilled with his birth and his beauty?"  Our answer is, yes, it was appropriate and important.  The true meaning, the unique and lasting and joyous meaning of the birth of this baby, would be in the life he would lead and especially in his death, in his triumphant atoning sacrifice and in his prison-bursting resurrection.  It is the life at the other end of the manger scene that gives this moment of nativity in Bethlehem its ultimate meaning.  Special as this child was and divine as was his conception, without that day of salvation wherein he would gain an everlasting victory over death and hell on behalf of every man, woman, and child who would ever be born-until that day should come-this baby's life and mission would not be complete.  Worse yet, without that triumphant atonement and resurrection he might have been remembered only as one born in abject poverty, scorned in his own native village, and tortured to death by a ruthless Roman regime that knew everything about torture and death.  But wise old Simeon understood all of this-that the birth was ultimately for the death-and it thrilled his soul that salvation was come.  Yes, for me the most important Christmas visitor of all may have been old Simeon, who, not in the absence of hard days and long years but because of them, would sing with us tonight at the top of his voice, 'Joy to the world, the Lord is come; let earth receive her King!...No more will sin and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground; he'll come and make the blessings flow, far as the curse was found.'"  

The same reason the inhabitants of Nauvoo were forced to leave was the same reason they could leave.  Although they stood on the banks and watched their homes burn, that burning could not destroy the knowledge they possessed.  That is what I learned from Nauvoo, the beautiful place, the place of rest.   

I am officially the world's worst travel writer-any ambition or hopes I had in that direction have now been officially discarded.  After nearly a month I have finally proceeded to the third or fourth day of the trip.  These days consisted of time spent in Springfield, home of Lincoln.  It was marvelous.  Yet, for some reason, I've been having difficulty in collecting my thoughts about this portion of the trip to construct a sufficiently coherent post.  It is not due to a lack of material, most assuredly.  Rather the opposite.  Lincoln is easily the most well-loved president.  Aside from Washington being numero uno, Lincoln is probably the only other president who could be placed in a chronological line-up.  ("Turn to the right!"-sorry, bit of an inside joke.)  What we fail to remember, however, is that he was so 'despised and rejected of men' that his election sparked the flame which became the inferno that devoured our country for four long years.  Four years in which two percent of our population died.  Think about that-two percent.  At Antietam more American lives were lost than in all previous wars combined.  At Cold Harbor 7,000 fell in twenty minutes.  This is sobering by any measures but especially so when you consider the crude weapons still employed.  We were on the brink of collapse and staring into an abyss of such profound darkness that all were shaken in their belief in their homeland and its ability to persevere and continue.  Its very existence was challenged.  I don't think anyone, including Lincoln himself, could have foreseen the hell through which they must pass, individually or collectively, to reach the opposite bank of civil war.  I do believe, though, that there were those, like Lincoln, who did more than simply try to survive.  They attempted to give the suffering meaning.  Ideas and ideals change, nothing in this life can remain stagnant and live, but some ideals become more purified by the suffering of trials.  Lincoln stepped onto the national stage a fairly young man with unproved ideas and convictions.  He left the stage an old man, tired out by proving those ideas and defending those convictions; ideas which had been altered to answer a higher cause and convictions strengthened by immense suffering.  Sometimes our heroes are not necessarily defined by what they achieve as by how they reach those achievements.  Lincoln was despised, mocked and hated in his own day.  He was ridiculed and lampooned, criticized and castigated, yet his conviction in the sanctity of human life and the necessity for unity among men never faltered, even in the face of great personal loss, loneliness and depression.  His talents and ambitions were used in the service of others (an admirable trait in anyone, but more so in a politician).  His kindness, forgiveness and patience were equally matched by his 'malice toward none...charity for all...firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right...' (from his second inaugural address, 1865).  My admiration is not for a president who won a war but for a man who willingly and with great dignity served those he had been called to lead, even at great personal sacrifice.

One of my favorite speeches of Lincoln's was delivered in 1838.  In its opening paragraphs, he describes how those who came before us fought to gain the liberties, freedoms and blessings we later generations were born into.  He then delivers one of my favorite paragraphs-"We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings.  We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them-they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a...departed race of ancestors.  Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know.  This task gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform."  (I adore that last sentence.)  In my opinion, that is some of the most beautiful writing ever constructed.  It gave me chills the first time I read it.  (In the next paragraph he goes on to say, " How then shall we perform it?-At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?  By what means shall we fortify against it?-Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!-All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.  At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?  I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.  It cannot come from abroad.  If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."  The prescience in that statement is a bit chilling, too, isn't it?  Remember, this was 23 years before the outbreak of war.)  Needless to say, I tried to soak in the experience of Springfield through every pore.  I may be accused, and not unjustly, of hero-worship, which is an extremely dangerous thing, but, like all hero-worshippers, I think I am justified in my admiration.
(It was a bit amusing-as we were standing in the lobby of one of the Lincoln Museum's theaters, waiting with the entire middle-school population of the state of Illinois, for a program to begin, I heard one very resigned sounding teacher bellow, "Lincoln, you need to stay with your chaperone!!!"  I just thought it was funny....)  So, here are a few pictures of Lincoln's Springfield. 

My initial intentions were to avoid vain repetition by posting tales of travel which have already been reported upon, as I am not a very adept teller of tales anyway. A genetic predisposition to exhibit signs of ADD prevents an economy of words and therefore dooms my attempts at storytelling to verbosity.  Tragically, however, I decided to write a bit anyway, just to be cruel.  Because I can. And because, glancing through as I was listening to my playlist for the blog yesterday, I noticed that I misspelled something.  Just for the record, I do know the difference between an ear and an era.  I did go to college and they did let me graduate.  
After leaving Hannibal, Missouri (every time I say that, though, I always think of Anthony Hopkins whispering, "Claaariiice?" through the bars of a jail cell.....kinda creeps me out, actually; anyway, to get on with the story...see what I mean about ADD?) we jumped in the car and headed towards Springfield.  It. Was. Amazing.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Before traipsing downtown we stopped at a small restaurant on Route 66.  It lived gloriously up to my expectations.  The Cozy Dog contained all the necessary elements-walls covered in old signs, license plates, signed pictures of celebrities hanging side by side with pictures of the proprietor's family, an old hand gas pump, and yellowed posters advertising the "Birthplace of the Corn Dog."  To polish off the effect was a group of old men grouped together at a back table, wearing baseball caps and plaid flannel shirts their wives have probably attempted in vain to dispose of on multiple occasions.  They were awesome.  They met three times a week, one informed us, all amateur ham radio operators.  They should be made someone's brain-trust, seriously.  Inspecting the signs along the walls, I was amazed at how far the medical field has advanced.  Let me explain: we now have penicillin, vaccinations, MRI, x-ray, ultra-sound, etc. to help us diagnose and treat various illnesses and complaints.  One sign for a 'remedy' had a list which consisted of three columns of ailments and conditions the symptoms of which it could alleviate.  For instance: malaria, eczema, rhuematoid arthritis, nervous prostration (my personal favorite), and la grippe, just to name a few.  Sometimes I think maybe the old-days actually  were less complex-just spray some Windex on it, it'll be fine.  After leaving the Fount of Youth and Health, we turned the GPS to Camp Butler Cemetery.  After a slight mishap and a missed turn, we found ourselves in the.....hmmm, politically correct term.......ghetto.  We're lost in the ghetto and we speak a foreign language.  Then, right on cue, the lovely mechanized voice of the GPS informs us that it has "Lost Satellite Signal."  Suddenly I found myself longing for the comfort of the model airplane and Joe the Pilot's all-too-cheery thumbs up.  The roads were packed dirt, crumbling steps clung to derelict porches that looked as if the health department wouldn't condemn because it is not illegal to have a compost pile.  We passed a similar 'house' which had been converted into the local beer joint, complete with Budweiser sign hanging out front, under which the waitress(?) stood taking her cigarette break and chatting it up with patrons.  At three o'clock in the afternoon. Anyway, we traversed the Wasteland of the Protestant Work Ethic and found our way back onto charted roads.  Five minutes after regaining the ability to breathe adequately we pulled into the gates of Camp Butler National Cemetery.  It began life as a military training ground in 1861, after President Lincoln called for troops to answer the call to save the Union.  It very quickly became a prisoner of war camp for captured Confederate troops.  It has become the final resting place for veterans of every war since. Interestingly, it now also contains the graves of German and Korean prisoners of war.  Interesting that all those who fought so fiercely against each other now reside in plots of ground side by side.  I don't know why, as it really has no direct connection, but for some reason a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes kept running through my head.  It is used at the beginning of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary (EXCELLENT, if you haven't seen it yet; my dream is to work with Ken Burns one day-I get unduly excited about his documentaries.)  "We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top.  In our youths our hearts were touched with fire."  There is just something artistic and poignant about those words. 
The next day, after recuperating from yet another near death experience, we headed for the land of Lincoln.  It was marvelous.  First we stopped in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.  When you ask my nephew, who will be two in the fall, 'how excited are you?' he squints up his eyes, balls his fists and tightens up his muscles until he shakes like an epileptic all while dancing on his toes.  That's how excited I was.  I was allowed to walk into the archives-I danced on my toes a little more.  Archives may sound boring and dry, but I like what FDR had to say about such things.  "To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things.  It must believe in the past.  It must believe in the future.  It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement in creating their own future."

In the atrium of the the building was an exhibit dedicated to the World's Fairs which have been held in Illinois.  This was extremely interesting as my boss told me of the time, in the thirties, when her own father was able to visit a World's Fair held in Chicago.  He came home and told the relatives all about this amazing new box which sported moving images and sound, no one believed in his stories about this so called 'television.'  There were also many pictures of the 1893 World's Fair, with which, if you have read Erik Larson's non-fiction work "Devil in the White City" you will be familiar.  And, if anything like me, freaked out and paranoid.  It is the history of America's first serial killer.  The history of how they built the White City was interesting, if you ever do read it-just skip the Criminal Minds-esque chapters.  Anyway, I was going to include the Lincoln Museum/home in this post, but I have much to say on that subject, and I fear I may have already rambled into the thickets of verbosity again.  Therefore, I will defer my raptures until the next post.  Aren't you excited?    

We (I) decided the  squirrel should be named Phoebus. Apparently cemetery squirrels are well-fed, and the name "Phoebus the Fat" just sounds like the nick-name of some lunatic Roman emperor, doesn't it? (It had been a long day-remember the ghetto...)

(In "Huck Finn House" in Hannibal, Missouri.  It was about the only thing in there, to be honest.)

Well, the festivities have come to an abrupt halt, reality has reasserted its icy grip. Yet, it is with some relief I write that sentence-it means I survived.  I have gazed into the gaping jaws of hell and not succumbed to all-consuming fear. If you've read my mother's blog, you are now familiar with the events to which I allude.  If you have not, let me relate, in condensed form, the terrifying experience of flying in a model airplane.  My mother and I decided some little while back that we wanted to visit Nauvoo.  This eventually became an 850+ mile car-trip around most of the state of Illinois.  We made it from the east coast to Illinois without much to disturb the delicate balance of brain functioning on three or so hours of sleep.  However, air travel within the state of Illinois is a horse of a different color entirely.  During the near-fatal 45 minute flight I myself ranged the color spectrum from hunter, forest, to pea-green.  Landing in St. Louis we were directed upstairs where we were to pick up our 'boarding passes.'  As we began the trek to the extreme ends of the earth, things began to eerily resemble the opening sequence of some cheap 1930's horror movie. The place was deserted.  Imposing metal grilles protected the entrances of long-abandoned stores.  The 'conveyor belt' for people ran headlong into a wall, which still bore the sign "Walkers to left.  Strollers not encouraged." hanging above the abruptly severed belt.  We descended into the portals of the mysterious and discovered the 'waiting area' for our airline.  Hello, Mr. Hitchcock.  How are you? Fancy meeting you here.  At the counter, Helen checked our baggage and handed us over to Lowell who informed us of the time we would be boarding, but not before we were asked to reveal our most well-guarded secret-our weight.  "Say what?" I asked a bit dumbfounded.  Apparently to even out the weight on the plane.  Presently, the time arrived and we boarded.  Joe, or maybe it was Brian, I couldn't keep them straight, turned around and informed us that the fire extinguisher was under Brian's seat.  Well lovely.  He also informed us that we might experience some turbulence, courtesy of the weather system which was on its way out.  "Fine," I thought, "I've been flying through the tail-end of this system since we left home; I've handled it alright so far."  Oh, the comfort of ignorance.  We began to taxi down the airstrip.  Joe flipped open his window.  Seriously.  I looked out and saw a gremlin on the airplane wing.  (Okay, maybe that last bit isn't true, but under the circumstances I wouldn't consider it entirely impossible.)  We hit a crack in the pavement.  I felt us hit a crack in the pavement.  "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."  We're. All.  Going.  To die.  I promptly pulled out my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and buried my nose in it, alternating reading with experimenting with Lamaze breathing.  You know how you hear the stories of those who have survived being shot keep the bullet(s) as souveniers?  I'm keeping that copy of Dorian Gray.  It still has fingernail punctures in the cover.  Joe was entirely too chipper to suit my mood; the one time I mustered the courage to glance up, the pilot was looking back, giving me a thumbs up.  I wanted to respond in kind with an alternate digit, but my fingernails were still imbedded in my book's cover.  I know there are no double yellow lines to drift over up there, but for pity's sake, look where you're going please.  There ain't no Hudson to ditch in around here, darling, just freshly ploughed furrows. I have to admit, though, when I finally did calm myself enough to look out the window, it was breath-takingly beautiful.  We were flying low enough (I was hoping dearly that we were supposed to be that low) to see the patchwork fields and miniature farmhouses and barns.  It was like looking at Mr. Roger's neighborhood.  We finally landed in Quincy and from there my  mom and I drove to Hannibal, Missouri, origins of probably America's most widely-known author, Mark Twain.  You know, it was funny to find out when I got a little older that he and another of my favorite childhood authors, Louisa May Alcott, despised each other with a passion.  She, for some reason, thought him loud and 'vulgar.' 

A display in his childhood home.  The child waving at the window is actually in the room behind me.  The rooms were all glassed off at the door, so the reflection of the representation of his most famous character appeared to be present in some phantom form in the room in which Mark Twain's statue stood.

I just thougth the sign was cool; it's kind of 1930's Depression-ear looking to me.

Looking through the open doorways of the "Huck Finn" house.

Not from Mark Twain's era, apparently, but close by.  We stopped at a small eatery on the famous Route 66.  I got a postcard and admired the history embodied in the idea, but I just can't eat a glorified corn-dog at 10 a.m., so I missed out on the gastronomical experience of Route 66.  I was still recovering from the death-flight anyway.  Next post will be about Springfield.  Be prepared.  I have a lot to say about Springfield, and its all "over-enthusiastic, history-dork, confessed hero-worshipper of Lincoln style" praise.   

This will eventually evolve into a Mother's Day post, but as my mother is not a fan of this particular holiday, I have to disguise it somewhat as a regular post.  I've recently realized from whom I received my distaste for any emotional situation which could potentially end with the phrase, "Let's all have a group hug."  However, even Bonnie Parker loved her own mother, bringing Clyde home to meet mama's approval, good luck with that. So, we all have to 'fess up sometime or other and admit we love our mothers.  Might as well, most women are their mothers to some extent.  

Being the youngest child, I have two mothers: my mother and my older sister, who is now a mother, and a much better mother than I could even aspire to become.  Motherhood is certainly not for the faint of heart.  At the first sign of grime-covered palms I go weak in the knees and promptly go bathe in hand sanitizer.  The mere thought of organizing a preschool aged birthday party forces me to sit in the corner with a paper bag and my head between my feet.  So, again, I say, motherhood is not for the faint of heart.  Which is why I'm so privileged to have not only one, but two great mothers.  The most wonderful thing about this is that not only are my mother and sister my own personal champions, but my closest friends.  

The other day my sister and I were talking and ended up discussing the 'old-school' songs we used to love in high-school and had forgotten about.  My German history professor once said that you know you're old when you make the statement that "Music was better when I was your age."  It is a sobering thought to realize you've arrived at old age.  (Either that or the world just moves a lot faster these days, highschool was this side of ten years ago for me.....)  Experiencing the, "Oh! Do you remember.....?" was actually a pleasantly nostalgic phenomenon.  Which is miraculous considering the fact that I loathed, despised, hated, had a deep-rooted aversion to the brutal torture of the euphemistic appellation of 'high-school.' (I was the stereotypically diffident, mousy kid with the frizzy hair, glasses and no working knowledge of cosmetics who harbored a secret crush on the wonderful smelling, surprisingly intelligent baseball player with the Paul Newman eyes who sat next to her in English/History class.  Frankly, looking back, I still think he was hot.  Anyway...)   I agree whole-heartedly with the man who said that in an ideal world we'd go straight from kindergarten to college.  Amen.  Anyway, I promptly came home and looked online for some of the songs from back in the day (hence the change in the playlist), and swam a bit in the waters of reminisce.  This wasn't as painful as I assumed it would be, conjuring up as it did flashes of repressed memories of those four years.  I've never been a currently fashionable person, so I always relied on my sister to keep me up to date on music trends (still do), so any of the good songs from our day were introduced to me through my sister.  I realized as I sat there listening that the good memories engendered by these songs were all linked directly to my sister.  Indeed, the only good memories of high-school were due to my sister.  She has always had great people skills, and so fell into a very socially eclectic group.  She could count among her friends models, valedictorians, talented actors, musicians and artists.  As well as being one of the coolest people I know, she is also the kindest.  Without any apparent reservations, she let me, the younger, socially inept sibling attach myself to the group.  It was my only salvation in high-school.  So, although she is not my mother, my sister stood in my mother's place in caring for me when my mother could not be present.

While meandering down memory lane I also began to compile a list of cd's to take with me on the upcoming trip with my mother.  My mother and I, if I do say so, make great travelling companions.  In fact I'm sometimes afraid that we have a little too much fun.  If any of you have ever seen Thelma and Louise, you'll know what I mean when I say that I'm occasionally alarmed by the fact that I could very easily imagine either of us running out of a convenience store, vaulting into the car, and making the statement, "You know Louise, I think I've got a knack for this sort of thing" as the other drives away in a furious cloud of dust and burning rubber.  How many other mothers can find it funny when you quote lines from a Coen brothers film in the middle of church, even if it is arguably relevant?  It has always made me indescribably happy when, from middle and high-school all the way through college, friends who were visiting said they loved being around my parents.  Not to brag, but my parents are pretty awesome, always have been.  Most of my interests stem directly from my mother.  I read because she read to me.  I sew because she made me beautiful Halloween costumes as a child.  I like classical because she listened to Beethoven and Handel.  I love photography because she tinkered with cameras.  I paint and repaint, redecorate and move furniture because I was once gone for three days and came back to a different colored room.  (I still liked it better green, by the way, mother....)  I've recently been getting quite often the statement that, "You look like your Daddy, but you have your Mama's personality."  It makes me smile every time.  So, happy Mother's Day to both mother and sister. "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always."  

  

 

I'll go ahead and 'fess up: the picture has nothing to do with the (long-delayed) post.  It just seemed like this post needed to start out with something bright and cheerful; I haven't posted in quite a while, as I've had no stories which would be very interesting to anyone else or which wouldn't make my niece hate me the second she hits thirteen, so I haven't written.  I finally capitulated to myself, however, and decided to write about something which I've been mulling over quite a bit lately.  It isn't funny.  It isn't witty (not that mine ever accomplish that, but you get the idea.....) It isn't cute.  It isn't memorable. Hopefully I won't make a fatal blogging faux-pas; I guess I'll see what the deep end of the blogging pool feels like.
Ever since I can remember I've been told that I take things too seriously.  My first grade teacher, whom I loved dearly, once told my mother that I was going straight from first grade to the old-folks' home.  Ah, well, 'fish is fish,' it is what it is, I suppose.  (Which anecdote is my way of apologizing in advance for being too serious, by the way.)  As long as I can remember as well the unfairness and injustice of this life has troubled me profoundly.  That people choose to be cruel cuts deep; the fact that some must struggle and never reach the heights others are placed in from the start seems so cruel.  Those who struggle with handicaps of a physical or mental nature, the presence of hunger when others throw away money on thousand dollar clothing accessories, children who must suffer because of the terrible judgement of others, lack of compassion, suffering caused by greed, somehow it all seems to be almost too much sometimes. (Not that I'm saying any of this makes me a kind or compassionate person, mind you, I suppose I'm just a wimp for letting it get to me.)
I was once told that if you don't stay up to date on the news it means you are choosing to remain ignorant of what is occuring in the world around you.  Well, sorry, but I just can't watch the news-I'd need a triple dose of Prozac if I watched it too closely.   So, when I read about the death of a homeless man who intervened on a stranger's behalf (passersby kept walking as they watched him die of exsanguination from his stab-wounds, one individual even rolled him over before walking on), it upset me terribly.  Authorities have recently made three arrests in the murder of a school-principle.  The idea that a car-bomb was left in Time's Square is terrifying, whether it was intended to detonate or not.  Again, I just don't need to watch the news.  Crazy is the only game in town, apparently.  Now, attending four years of college to study history, this does not come as a tremendous shock.  The only thing consistent about the human race, aside from its inconsistency, is the fact that it is overwhelmingly insane.  Period.  There are the creatively insane, who contribute positively; the academically insane, who don't realize that boundaries and accepted facts are unshakeable and therefore discover new things such as a heliocentric universe; there are the comically insane, who make us laugh; and then there are the simply insane.  These seem to be multiplying exponentially, spawned mainly by greed and hate.  A co-worker of mine has recently become very interested in the Holocaust, so we've spent quite a bit of time discussing the topic, and we generally end by asking each other the same things: how can eleven million people be annihilated voluntarily by their fellow men?  What happens within the mind which causes an individual, or a group, to forfeit their own humanity by depriving another of his human dignity and his life?  How and why do people allow themselves to descend lower than the 'unreasoning beast'?  We have the ability to reason and that is the use to which it is placed?
In spite of what it sounds like, we've had some very good discussions.  However, it has only added to the frustration.  Occasionally it becomes wildly and overwhelmingly frustrating that I cannot change the world simply through sheer will-power; the knowledge that I can't fix everything for everyone, or in reality, very little for very few becomes nearly too depressing.  Everyone always gives the example of ripples, you never know how widely they spread, but to be quite honest, that analogy doesn't help much.  However, these discussions have led me to ponder a few things.  I studied history in order to find a field in which I can teach others, whether in a classroom, a museum, or wherever I end up.  History is the collective memory of all mankind, and if correctly studied, teaches us how to be human, whether by good examples or terrible warnings.  Maybe that's a bit idealistic, but there it is.  We are what we have been but also who we wish to become.  History teaches us both.  Very few have changed the world, but many have quietly altered the course of those few.  There are more of the latter than the former. 
All of this 'pondering' has led me to many conclusions.  1. I can't change much for many, but I can change something for someone.  Think of the elderly people lost in the whirl of a modern world.  Smile and acknowledge them, it makes most of them very happy; trust me, I've experimented with it a bit.  2.  There are still those who will make harmful decisions.  I can't do anything to prevent this, but I can do something to help counteract those decisions, even the score.  3.  No kindness, however small is useless or ineffective.  All kindness creates an effect somewhere, somehow.  4. It isn't so important the kind of world I live in as the kind of person I choose to be in that world.
Two of my favorite poems are by Rudyard Kipling and Emily Dickinson.  I've had to go back and read them this week to remind myself of the things I learned from reading them. 

IF-Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies.  
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;


If you can dream-and not make dreams your master,
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a man, my son!


VI-Emily Dickinson
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.


With all of these discussions about the Holocaust, the last thing I thought of was a documentary many of you have probably seen entitled "Paperclips."  It was the story of a group of students from a very rural school who participated in a very interesting project which eventually became a national project which then spanned the Atlantic Ocean, reaching to Germany.  In a way, these children completed a circle that was begun by the grand-, or even great-grandparents.  During the second world war, some of those who protested the actions of the Nazis did so by wearing paper-clips on their lapels in imitation of the Star of David which the Jews were forced to wear.  The school-children decided to begin collecting on paper clip for each of the eleven million victims of the Holocaust.  It was a moving sight to see how the lives of so many were changed by the experience.  After the paper-clips were collected, the next step was to devise a way to display them.  Amazingly, they were given an item which suited the purposes and had a profound meaning.  It was a cattle-car, shipped from Germany, which had conveyed victims to the concentration camps.  The clip is from the journey and arrival of the car to the small school; maybe I'm just being a sentimental history wimp, but this part always makes me tear up.  I love what is said about symbols. The fact that something which was used for such a horrendous purpose could now be a symbol of humanity, kindness, forgiveness, even, gives one hope that even in a world where heroes are left to bleed to death on sidewalks, there are still those who give humanity its compassion and decency.  The song is absolutely beautiful to me, as well.  I'm sorry to have put everyone through this, but hopefully now, by putting it in writing, my brain can rest from it a bit.  I promise I'll try to have something funny to write about next time.