Early in San Francisco's history (the early 1850s), the Chinese community was highly regarded as moral, hard-working, thrifty, and dependable, a source of stability with a relatively low crime rate. In an era when skin color was destiny, the Chinese were nearly considered white men, and superior to some white men (e.g. the Irish). They were thought to represent a new partnership that would civilize the west, merging Christian and non-Christian forever. It is not by accident that Chinatown occupies the same neighborhood where San Francisco was founded, around Portsmouth Square.
Times change.
Since most Chinese immigrants were sojourners, intending to go home once they made their pile, they had little incentive to integrate, learn English, or change their mode of dress and ponytail. Self-contained communities are often thus. Look how Europeans behaved in Shanghai. This engendered a sort of suspicion, which encouraged racism and led to resentment and hostility. Before long the Chinese were considered a threat to "real" Americans' wages, their efficiency an affront to white ambition, their misunderstood culture a threat to common decency. Populist politicians and newspapers grabbed the mob by these sensitive short hairs, and bad laws and bad times followed.
I'm interested in the earliest days, when a hopeful light shone on a young community. Temporary good times are always interesting. They contrast sharply with the popularly-held image, and then lead to the drama of the down-slide; which in San Francisco's case was long and dark. Chinese remained in a second-class status well into the 1900s.
"Chinee" is considered a racist term. I'm not sure it should be, not in terms of its origin. I have heard a Chinese person say "Chinee". This is because the Chinese languages often de-emphasize closing consonants. In those many words that end in "ng", for example, the "ng" is heard much less when spoken by an Asian than by an American. While in Shanghai I tried to learn some Chinese and one of my greatest difficulties was in hearing those subtle word-endings. I wanted it spelled out in my alphabet so I could know how to form my mouth properly: Is that syllable "muh", or "mung"? My ears couldn't tell me.
And so when an American in 1853 heard a Chinese man say "Chinese", he heard him say "Chinee", and no doubt thought it both humorous and a useful sort of shorthand to mimic what he heard when referring to men from China. Not strictly very polite by modern standards, but not evidence of a pernicious racism either. Using it today would be taken as such, of course.
Same goes for "Chinaman", I suppose. It doesn't offend me at all. You wouldn't expect it to, but "Dutchman" is more or less the same when referring to us Germanics, and I simply don't mind. Indeed, the only person I know who ever says "Chinaman" is 3rd-generation, straight from Guangdong through Angel Island. Of course, he's a Bay Area kid and not subject to strange racial insecurities.
What I don't entirely get is why "Oriental" is taken as offensive. "We're not Oriental, we're Asian." Well, yes, if you must be accurate. It's true that "Oriental" means "eastern" hence reduces a people to being of a geographic aberration. Taken that way, I can see the problem. But it's a minor one, if you take our current civilization as being an outgrowth of both ends of the Eurasian continent. We only got here by different means: You by orienting yourselves to the Golden Mountain, and us more or less by occident.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Exciting Lunchtime
I left at twelve eight and went to the big box bookstore. Shelves had been rearranged since my last visit. Books and people filled the space. The books were on lines of shelves. The people were spaced evenly among them. Mostly women, schoolgirls, men of retirement age. Once I walked in I felt like leaving to go find a quiet space to write. But there is no such space, so I stayed.
I found a book in the section for 19th Century American history and took it to a deep and well-worn leather couch. I read about Theodore D. Judah’s career in the 1850s as a brilliant civil engineer. People thought him monomaniacal on the subject of a Pacific railway. Eventually he earned his fame by solving the problem of crossing the Sierras. I learned that as a side job, while in California between bouts of learning how to lobby for railroad funding in Washington City -- a place then obsessed with the looming problem of secession and war -- he laid out the railroad that briefly ran within a mile of my house. Nothing is left of it now but a short causeway in the park, and a cut in someone’s yard down near the old Lincoln Highway bridge.
I am fascinated by details and remnants. I examine the landscape as I pass it by for signs of changes made to its natural flow. An old weed-filled railroad cut excites me. So do the foundations of a long-gone bridge, or a long-forgotten roadbed scarring the hillsides above.
At the end of the chapter I put the book away and went outside. My car radio clock said it was one oh four. Time to go back.
I found a book in the section for 19th Century American history and took it to a deep and well-worn leather couch. I read about Theodore D. Judah’s career in the 1850s as a brilliant civil engineer. People thought him monomaniacal on the subject of a Pacific railway. Eventually he earned his fame by solving the problem of crossing the Sierras. I learned that as a side job, while in California between bouts of learning how to lobby for railroad funding in Washington City -- a place then obsessed with the looming problem of secession and war -- he laid out the railroad that briefly ran within a mile of my house. Nothing is left of it now but a short causeway in the park, and a cut in someone’s yard down near the old Lincoln Highway bridge.
I am fascinated by details and remnants. I examine the landscape as I pass it by for signs of changes made to its natural flow. An old weed-filled railroad cut excites me. So do the foundations of a long-gone bridge, or a long-forgotten roadbed scarring the hillsides above.
At the end of the chapter I put the book away and went outside. My car radio clock said it was one oh four. Time to go back.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Cabeza
Recently somewhere else I said I needed to quit the online life. There are good reasons for that. Very good reasons. Maybe someday I'll write a blog post about it.
Not today. The online world is still good for a few things. Yesterday afternoon as I ambled slowly back to the office after being dismissed from jury duty -- I was dismissed for good reason, and ambled very slowly -- I stopped at Borders and browsed History and found a book that told me about the amazing adventure of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. The early years of European exploration of the outer world are fascinating, not least for the aura of magic and wonder that surrounds every account. This one attracted me not only on its own merits but the time and place provide for a fanciful connection with an idea I've been percolating for some time in the way of historical fiction. Wanting to know more, I looked him up today on the web, and found someone made a movie. Reading a review of the movie, it's fairly clear that my standards for accuracy in historical fiction are ridiculously high. I'll keep to them anyway.
This was supposed to show that the online world is still good for something. It does not. All of this would be more effectively pursued with pencil and notepad at the library. All right then. Adios. And yes, up top, that was an attempt at humor.
Not today. The online world is still good for a few things. Yesterday afternoon as I ambled slowly back to the office after being dismissed from jury duty -- I was dismissed for good reason, and ambled very slowly -- I stopped at Borders and browsed History and found a book that told me about the amazing adventure of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. The early years of European exploration of the outer world are fascinating, not least for the aura of magic and wonder that surrounds every account. This one attracted me not only on its own merits but the time and place provide for a fanciful connection with an idea I've been percolating for some time in the way of historical fiction. Wanting to know more, I looked him up today on the web, and found someone made a movie. Reading a review of the movie, it's fairly clear that my standards for accuracy in historical fiction are ridiculously high. I'll keep to them anyway.
This was supposed to show that the online world is still good for something. It does not. All of this would be more effectively pursued with pencil and notepad at the library. All right then. Adios. And yes, up top, that was an attempt at humor.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Benicia in Nine Minutes
I went down to my mother's house to help with something and on the way home could not resist what I can never resist which is taking pictures of stuff.
The old train station is down by the water because in olden tymes the train coming to San Fran from points east (Chicago and that) came out onto this causeway and rolled aboard what were for awhile the world's biggest ferry boats. Here is a very cool description of the affair with lots of pictures. (And what's with the palm trees? They don't belong within two hundred miles of here. Gadz how transplanted palm trees annoy me.)
A short walk back towards old town Benicia brings one to this odd collection of nautical cast-offs.
The bridge in the distance carries I-80 across Carquinez Strait, through which a sailor will find San Francisco Bay and eventually the open sea.
It's an interesting neighborhood, the heart of old Benicia, which at its founding was expected to become the great metropolis of the continental edge. Rivers and roads all converged here, and in fact it was the state capital for a little while. But the village of San Francisco somehow attracted the people and the business and Benicia remained a small place, renowned for shipbuilding and other things, but largely unknown outside California.
The Capitol served as such for a short time in the early 1850s, then a courthouse, a fire station, a number of other things, until finally it settled into its natural role as a Site of Historical Interest. Round back are some lovely plants from when the ancient houses nearby were not yet part of a museum. The wisteria is over a century old, but no one knows how much: taking a core seems a bit risky. Lovely, iznit.
Here are some of the random non-topical sorts of pictures we take on a nearly daily basis. Capitol pillars; flower man; biplane kite.
A rather arresting house that always catches my eye; and a bird who maintained his perch until I'd driven out onto the street. I shot a video but Blogger took too dang long to upload it so never mind.
The old train station is down by the water because in olden tymes the train coming to San Fran from points east (Chicago and that) came out onto this causeway and rolled aboard what were for awhile the world's biggest ferry boats. Here is a very cool description of the affair with lots of pictures. (And what's with the palm trees? They don't belong within two hundred miles of here. Gadz how transplanted palm trees annoy me.)
A short walk back towards old town Benicia brings one to this odd collection of nautical cast-offs.
The bridge in the distance carries I-80 across Carquinez Strait, through which a sailor will find San Francisco Bay and eventually the open sea.
It's an interesting neighborhood, the heart of old Benicia, which at its founding was expected to become the great metropolis of the continental edge. Rivers and roads all converged here, and in fact it was the state capital for a little while. But the village of San Francisco somehow attracted the people and the business and Benicia remained a small place, renowned for shipbuilding and other things, but largely unknown outside California.
The Capitol served as such for a short time in the early 1850s, then a courthouse, a fire station, a number of other things, until finally it settled into its natural role as a Site of Historical Interest. Round back are some lovely plants from when the ancient houses nearby were not yet part of a museum. The wisteria is over a century old, but no one knows how much: taking a core seems a bit risky. Lovely, iznit.
Here are some of the random non-topical sorts of pictures we take on a nearly daily basis. Capitol pillars; flower man; biplane kite.
A rather arresting house that always catches my eye; and a bird who maintained his perch until I'd driven out onto the street. I shot a video but Blogger took too dang long to upload it so never mind.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Pampanito
I've slept aboard a couple times, thanks to Scouting. Bay waters whisper against the hull, and Bay mist and diesel fumes drift about. A ghostly light from the City's distant nightlife comes down through the fog. Boys run and play and parent chaperones snore. Blood in hair is not uncommon, the hatches being short and rimmed with steel edges. The parent who's still mostly a kid wanders through taking pictures incessantly, imagination all ahead full. It is extraordinarily tight quarters.
A sweet story about a man who got to see it again: Aussie comes to S.F. to see sub that saved him.
U.S.S. Pampanito -- Pix I've taken over the years:
A sweet story about a man who got to see it again: Aussie comes to S.F. to see sub that saved him.
U.S.S. Pampanito -- Pix I've taken over the years:
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
In Tribute to a Quiet Hero
Recently attained one hundred years of age, the last survivor of those who kept the Frank family safe for over two years of the Nazi terror, and preserved young Anne's diary.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Two Hundred
I have a lot to say about both Darwin and Lincoln. They were born the same day. Darwin was to humanity the more important man. Lincoln had his points, obviously. Yes indeed, lots to say. And no time! Time enough just to express my regrets that I haven't the time.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Don and his Mom's Excellent Adventure Through Time and Space
I had a fun time with my mom a couple days after Xmas. Fun times together were always rare for us, just because of how time and chance put us together. But I love her and as someone three to the fourth she keeps pretty active and I’m proud of her for that. She’s a docent now and then at the Asian Art Museum in the City and I went with her to check it out. We took BART. The station happened to have sign showing where we were going.
First, the interesting part. The Kabul Museum held treasures of inestimable value recalling four thousand years of urban culture, including rule by Alexander and his generals, the empire of the Kushans, trade routes between Rome and China, and many other epochs in that country’s rich and turbulent history. In the mid 1990s it was used as a military base and largely destroyed. What was left was ransacked by the Taliban. In 2003, when a semblance of stability returned to the country, it was found that many of the most valuable objects had been stored away in metal boxes in the basements of the Presidential Palace. Museum staff had done this at great personal risk to save the collection. Now the collection is touring the world, where it is probably safer than in Afghanistan.
The critter in the main hall was cute.
Now, it’s a little known fact that Don of What Is Hip is a reincarnated soul. You scoff! But look at the past lives I found in the ancient art of this land traversed by the footloose peoples of old. It’s like a photo album of snapshots from my former days.
For example, those wonderful palace parties! The lyre music, the smiles, the fetchingly unabashed adornment with naught but body jewelry. Oh, and the pyramidal cakes, who could forget?
Oh my gods, I can’t believe they carved this picture! It was so funny! Basically, when she got down -- and she was so hot! –- the couple behind her were all, I mean, and that’s me on the left, there was a mix-up of, you know, I mean we were all pretty gone by this time, it like flew apart and we’re all holding the pieces. I about died. I guess you pretty much had to be there.
Here’s me playing baseball in the uniform of the Begram Ball Bashers and yes, it was cold that day.
This shows how no matter how quietly I come to bed, she always gets woken up. Here she is bitching me out while I’m getting set to brush my teeth. I’m not sure why there’s an elephant floating above her ass, probably represents the dream she had when I first tip-toed into the room. Note the large Bactrian toothbrush.
Some things never change, such as dancing like a fool a la Burning Man. And yep, you guessed it. Another cold day.
I think these chicks were on 'ludes. The chick to the left was all, Hi. Hi. That was it, she kept saying Hi. She was hella fine, too, if you don’t mind a little gummatous necrosis. You can sorta see the attitude, though, can’t you? They were all like, we’re too hot for you. So I was all like, later, bitchiz.
Sometimes it’s surprising how much later later can be.
When I took this picture, Mom came up and said, “Yes, they are.”
My photographic skills didn’t quite catch the essence of the depiction here, but trust me: They are. And all wrapped up in each other while they’re at it. Geez, you two. Get a realm.
My mom gave the talking tour, by the way, to tourists and jewel thieves and whoever else was wandering through, and did a fine job of it. Later we walked past the old opera house to a cafe for lunch, and took the F for much of its route (see my bitchin’ picture atop a recent depressing post), and pushed our way through crowds of Fisherman’s Wharf tourists, whose basic nature hasn’t changed since Mark Twain’s day, and generally enjoyed our favorite city as one cannot help but do, however arbitrary the timing, locations, and weather.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Obamanic Relations
According to genealogical research summarized here, our President-elect is distantly related to the following people. It all goes to show if we all had professional genealogists tracing connections, we’d realize we are all FAMILY.
And all this just from his mother's side.
I only put names of people I’ve heard of, and I put them as I know them.
Yeah, I know, finding all these links was a terrible waste of precious NaNo time. Sue me.
And all this just from his mother's side.
I only put names of people I’ve heard of, and I put them as I know them.
Yeah, I know, finding all these links was a terrible waste of precious NaNo time. Sue me.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Requiescat
Went to the Civil War again this weekend.
“During the 1860s, following a death in a family, once the funeral was over and the family felt emotionally ready, an announcement would be sent out as to what day they would be ‘at home’ to receive visitors. At that time, friends would call upon the bereaved to offer their condolences. This would allow the family to set a time when they would be ready to face others, and would allow friends an opportunity to visit briefly without feeling they were intruding upon the family.”
- The Journal of the National Civil War Association, Vol. XXX, No. 10, October, 2008
Ken’s widow wore a dark green hoop skirt and a fetching bolero hat and sat with family under a canvas shade. She was in her early thirties. When the company came to visit, in our suspenders and foraging caps, black ribbons pinned to our vests, her eyes filled.
“I met him two years ago,” I said. “He made quite an impression.”
“He does that,” she said.
We had cake and lemonade, served by a large caring matron who was all love and bustle, and chatted with other friends and family. It was interesting how genuine the moment could be in spite of anachronistic dress and manners. Well, the couple met and married as re-enactors, and she had a particular love for the Victorian era, or some aspects of it, and she was surrounding herself with one of her support networks.
I felt the sadness, as one does around the mourning, and thought of loved ones gone, and for a moment would have fallen to crying. But it was my loss less than anyone’s, for I knew him least. So I had more cake. Someone said it was the hardest thing he’d done in so many years re-enacting. I didn’t understand what he meant: There was nothing to do but be with her a little bit, show her the company that her husband was a part of missed him and cared about her. I wondered if he meant he was one of those men who find it difficult when faced with emotion so immediate and graceful. Or maybe I missed something else entirely.
We remembered him in other ways too: set aside an empty chair in camp, wore hats askew as he would do when marching off the field. People are peculiar creatures. Other than that, though, we mostly did the weekend: drank, sweated in heavy blue coats, ignited black powder in the direction of men in gray, took a rest playing dead, drank some more, listened to very old-time band music, endured uncomfortable shoes, slept in canvas tents, ate out of an iron pot, and leaned back on hay bales with our feet near the fire, tin cups full, watching fireworks go off among the warm farm-country stars.
There are a lot of parallels between Burning Man and pretending it’s 1863. Ren Faires too, no doubt; but I will have to be happily unemployed before there’s time to add that too to the mix. Meanwhile, I'm grateful to sometimes have precious moments that can be captured forever, because a time will come before we know it when they will be no more.
“During the 1860s, following a death in a family, once the funeral was over and the family felt emotionally ready, an announcement would be sent out as to what day they would be ‘at home’ to receive visitors. At that time, friends would call upon the bereaved to offer their condolences. This would allow the family to set a time when they would be ready to face others, and would allow friends an opportunity to visit briefly without feeling they were intruding upon the family.”
- The Journal of the National Civil War Association, Vol. XXX, No. 10, October, 2008
Ken’s widow wore a dark green hoop skirt and a fetching bolero hat and sat with family under a canvas shade. She was in her early thirties. When the company came to visit, in our suspenders and foraging caps, black ribbons pinned to our vests, her eyes filled.
“I met him two years ago,” I said. “He made quite an impression.”
“He does that,” she said.
We had cake and lemonade, served by a large caring matron who was all love and bustle, and chatted with other friends and family. It was interesting how genuine the moment could be in spite of anachronistic dress and manners. Well, the couple met and married as re-enactors, and she had a particular love for the Victorian era, or some aspects of it, and she was surrounding herself with one of her support networks.
I felt the sadness, as one does around the mourning, and thought of loved ones gone, and for a moment would have fallen to crying. But it was my loss less than anyone’s, for I knew him least. So I had more cake. Someone said it was the hardest thing he’d done in so many years re-enacting. I didn’t understand what he meant: There was nothing to do but be with her a little bit, show her the company that her husband was a part of missed him and cared about her. I wondered if he meant he was one of those men who find it difficult when faced with emotion so immediate and graceful. Or maybe I missed something else entirely.
We remembered him in other ways too: set aside an empty chair in camp, wore hats askew as he would do when marching off the field. People are peculiar creatures. Other than that, though, we mostly did the weekend: drank, sweated in heavy blue coats, ignited black powder in the direction of men in gray, took a rest playing dead, drank some more, listened to very old-time band music, endured uncomfortable shoes, slept in canvas tents, ate out of an iron pot, and leaned back on hay bales with our feet near the fire, tin cups full, watching fireworks go off among the warm farm-country stars.
There are a lot of parallels between Burning Man and pretending it’s 1863. Ren Faires too, no doubt; but I will have to be happily unemployed before there’s time to add that too to the mix. Meanwhile, I'm grateful to sometimes have precious moments that can be captured forever, because a time will come before we know it when they will be no more.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Life Death Life
I fought in the Battle of Fresno a couple of years ago (the material at the dead link is reproduced below). Or Battle of Kearney Park, depending I guess on which side you were on. I’m planning to go fight it again in a couple months -– damn this see-saw war that never ends. Didn’t we show ‘em last time?
I learned a thing or two. How to fall into line. How to keep “farb” out of sight of the general public. How to wear suspenders and a straw hat while sitting on a hay bale, listening to fiddle music, and passing around a pewter flask of Bushmills. I also learned how to have fun when I die.
There was a soldier named Ken who positioned himself behind me in line and whispered instructions. I’d had a quick one on one lesson from the drill sergeant, but that sort of thing doesn’t stick. The time to really learn how to do something is when you’re out in the hot sun, hundreds of people watching, your fingers fumbling for the paper-wrapped cartridges as you struggle to get loaded in time for the command to fire and then quickly change positions according to the arcane instructions encoded in the movement of the guidon. Ken picked me out as a newbie and took it upon himself to keep me from going too many steps in the wrong direction, see that I was ready to fire when needed, and did not fire out of order when delivering a volley. In other words, he went out of his way to keep me from embarrassing myself before the crowd and the other men.
He was the dramatist of the bunch. The unruly soldier, the jokester, the card who talked back from formation through unmoving lips while everyone else suppressed laughter. He shouted insults at the enemy and howled when he charged. He also died with a grand clutching of the chest, rifle flung wide, and a fearless fall to the ground, so hard sometimes that he bounced. Why not, he said, give the folks a show.
He died for real a week ago, thirty eight years old. Out at a lake with his family, standing in waist-deep water, he suddenly fell and was gone before they got him to shore. A sudden heart failure -– myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, the sort of thing that can happen unexpectedly to any of us. I knew him very briefly, but his family, now having to rebuild from the shock, is in my thoughts as I hope for the best possible path for them going forward (like me, he was unreligious, and his family does not ask for prayers).
In honor of his memory and his love of the hobby, I’m reproducing here the story I wrote for the unit newsletter. Reading it reminds me of him, and that all of us really need to live while we have the chance.
We grouped under the trees or sat on tables in the shade. No one took off their kepis. No one talked much. It was enough to watch and wait.
A bugle call drifted down from the other end of the field, followed by the thunder of hooves. Sunlight glinted on sabers clashing. Horses milled about. Pistols cracked in the distance.
Sweat collected across my brow. I watered up from my canteen. The muzzles of cradled rifles were black against the sunlit grass.
Cannon faced each other from either end of the field, just in front of the trees. They spoke and a shock wave hammered past. Great booms echoed into the sky. White smoke billowed up into the sycamore trees. An artillery volley – great explosions in sequence from one end of the line to the other – was followed by a drift of applause.
An orderly galloped up from the rear and spoke to the lieutenant. The lieutenant barked orders.
“2nd Mass! Assemble at the guidon!”
We lined up by twos, shoulder to shoulder, carbines at the carry. They lay barrels up and triggers forward in the crooks of our right arms.
“By twos! March!”
The ground shook as the cannon roared. Cavalry galloped past. We walked into the open, two dozen of us in blue wool jackets with yellow piping and black leather across our chests. Upon command, we spread out into a broad front, marching forward two deep, lines dressed to the guidon. Ahead, less than a hundred yards, the shade of a few trees held men watching us, men in butternut and gray, men loading their muskets.
“Skirmish lines!”
We spread out further into a staggered formation.
“Halt! Load!”
Somewhere else, rifles were firing. Somewhere else, men were shouting. Somewhere far away, people clapped and a public address system droned unintelligibly. I concentrated on loading my carbine: open the breech, blow into it to remove any stray powder grains, reach around to the pouch in the small of my back, fumble about for a handmade paper cartridge, stuff it into the barrel, close the breech and cut off the tip of the cartridge, half-cock the weapon, fish around in my cap pouch for a firing cap, insert the cap, and then shout “Loaded!” I had only learned all this an hour before and did not know the terminology, only that it was all done with the right hand (the wrong hand for me) and I was deathly afraid of dropping things or jamming them up. But it worked, and the first sergeant yelled:
“Volley by file from the right! Ready!”
We fully cocked our weapons …
“Aim!”
… took a bead on the rebels nonchalantly slinging their ramrods and observing our maneuvers …
“Fire!”
… whereupon the right-most trooper squeezed the trigger, then his mate, then his, and so on down the line from right end to left, a quick succession of black powder explosions, bang bang bang bang bang. When I squeezed the trigger my rifle kicked and banged and a cloud of white smoke joined all the other clouds of white smoke making a battle haze over the field. It was a good feeling, as firing a rifle always is, not unlike swinging a bat and making contact with a baseball; but in this case there were no projectiles, just powder, and the rebels in front were too busy reloading their muskets to pay us any mind; for they had fired too, and I hadn’t noticed.
As infantry units joined the fray to the beat of their small pipe and drum corps, and more men and guns entered into things, the artillery went largely silent lest any shock waves create a safety hazard. Though nothing like real battle, the action was driven by orders from the rear brought by orderlies on horseback and delivered via the leather lungs of elected officers and NCOs, and to a simple and inexperienced trooper the chaos was nearly complete. Only my desperate never-ending attempt to understand orders, stay in line, and not jam my borrowed black-powder rifle provided structure. All else was noise and smoke. We ran here, lined up there, retreated this way, then that; rallied; fell back; fired at will – “Pour it into ‘em, boys!” – aiming above the heads of the enemy if they were too close, happily drawing a bead right into their faces if they were far enough away. Now and then an amateur dramatist on one side or the other would wheel in pain and collapse into the grass, to lie still and pathetic and get some rest exactly as learned in the city parks of our universal playtime as nine-year-olds. I noticed that the veterans preferred to die in the shade.
We had entered the fray early. By the time I was finally able to raise my head and look at the lay of the body-littered battlefield, units were clumped all over, lined up in the characteristic fashion of the middle of the 19th Century, in rows and columns most efficient for pikes and muskets but not so clever when up against fast-loading carbines and rifled cannon and grapeshot. The Federal infantry had been pushed back towards the rear and were massing for a final defense, but we did not join them. As a dismounted cavalry unit, we did not line up well with infantry. Instead we were tasked with flanking the enemy. They didn’t think much of this, and thickened their line. The roar and concussion of opposing lines of rifles going off within ten yards of one another was made all the more fun by our exposed position. All re-enactors have a natural sense of theater, and it seemed wrong somehow to be exposed and outgunned and to not suffer any cas–
“Aahrr!”
I fell backwards to the ground, almost gently, not as though I had just had my guts torn out by a minié ball but strangely as if I was simply trying to avoid damaging my friend’s carbine. I lay still on my back with my face in the sun, my legs at an odd angle, and listened to the sounds of battle – endless rifle fire, the crack of pistols – men shouted orders and insults – a horseman galloped past my head – I saw him glance down at me over his moustache in that fraction of a second – the odd cannon blast – the unidentifiable sounds of men and equipment – metal clashing, leather creaking, booted feet drumming the ground – an unexpected lull incongruously filled by a breeze rustling the leaves overhead.
And then silence, or rather silence’s distant cousin: the echo of the last shot fading away through the trees; and from over in the 69th New York, halfway across the field, someone called out in an Irish brogue:
“Ye derrty bastards! Ye killed Kenny!”
But laughter was short-lived, as something was happening. Over my eyebrows I saw only men standing in rank, hanging by their feet from the grass that met the top of my head. In the distance there were voices, spoken firmly but civilly. I couldn’t make out the words. A silence settled over the field – I heard my heavy woolen coat move as I breathed – and from a place as far away as ancestral memory, a clear-toned bugle slowly sang Taps.
In the hands of a competent bugler, it is a haunting tune, with plenty of room for expression. This was in the hands of more than a brigade bugler; it was played by a musician. It sang of respect for the dead, of rest, of an end to strife; and especially, on this sunny day, it sang of surrender.
When it was over and had drifted beyond the trees, two thousand actors and thirty thousand spectators were completely silent for a strong half minute, until as if brought in on the tide, a wave of applause rose from beyond the ropes, and cheers and huzzahs, and the dead rose, and our unit reformed and marched through the crowds to camp, raising our kepis to the ladies and anticipating a seat in the shade and something cold to drink.
I learned a thing or two. How to fall into line. How to keep “farb” out of sight of the general public. How to wear suspenders and a straw hat while sitting on a hay bale, listening to fiddle music, and passing around a pewter flask of Bushmills. I also learned how to have fun when I die.
There was a soldier named Ken who positioned himself behind me in line and whispered instructions. I’d had a quick one on one lesson from the drill sergeant, but that sort of thing doesn’t stick. The time to really learn how to do something is when you’re out in the hot sun, hundreds of people watching, your fingers fumbling for the paper-wrapped cartridges as you struggle to get loaded in time for the command to fire and then quickly change positions according to the arcane instructions encoded in the movement of the guidon. Ken picked me out as a newbie and took it upon himself to keep me from going too many steps in the wrong direction, see that I was ready to fire when needed, and did not fire out of order when delivering a volley. In other words, he went out of his way to keep me from embarrassing myself before the crowd and the other men.
He was the dramatist of the bunch. The unruly soldier, the jokester, the card who talked back from formation through unmoving lips while everyone else suppressed laughter. He shouted insults at the enemy and howled when he charged. He also died with a grand clutching of the chest, rifle flung wide, and a fearless fall to the ground, so hard sometimes that he bounced. Why not, he said, give the folks a show.
He died for real a week ago, thirty eight years old. Out at a lake with his family, standing in waist-deep water, he suddenly fell and was gone before they got him to shore. A sudden heart failure -– myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, the sort of thing that can happen unexpectedly to any of us. I knew him very briefly, but his family, now having to rebuild from the shock, is in my thoughts as I hope for the best possible path for them going forward (like me, he was unreligious, and his family does not ask for prayers).
In honor of his memory and his love of the hobby, I’m reproducing here the story I wrote for the unit newsletter. Reading it reminds me of him, and that all of us really need to live while we have the chance.
* * * * *
We grouped under the trees or sat on tables in the shade. No one took off their kepis. No one talked much. It was enough to watch and wait.
A bugle call drifted down from the other end of the field, followed by the thunder of hooves. Sunlight glinted on sabers clashing. Horses milled about. Pistols cracked in the distance.
Sweat collected across my brow. I watered up from my canteen. The muzzles of cradled rifles were black against the sunlit grass.
Cannon faced each other from either end of the field, just in front of the trees. They spoke and a shock wave hammered past. Great booms echoed into the sky. White smoke billowed up into the sycamore trees. An artillery volley – great explosions in sequence from one end of the line to the other – was followed by a drift of applause.
An orderly galloped up from the rear and spoke to the lieutenant. The lieutenant barked orders.
“2nd Mass! Assemble at the guidon!”
We lined up by twos, shoulder to shoulder, carbines at the carry. They lay barrels up and triggers forward in the crooks of our right arms.
“By twos! March!”
The ground shook as the cannon roared. Cavalry galloped past. We walked into the open, two dozen of us in blue wool jackets with yellow piping and black leather across our chests. Upon command, we spread out into a broad front, marching forward two deep, lines dressed to the guidon. Ahead, less than a hundred yards, the shade of a few trees held men watching us, men in butternut and gray, men loading their muskets.
“Skirmish lines!”
We spread out further into a staggered formation.
“Halt! Load!”
Somewhere else, rifles were firing. Somewhere else, men were shouting. Somewhere far away, people clapped and a public address system droned unintelligibly. I concentrated on loading my carbine: open the breech, blow into it to remove any stray powder grains, reach around to the pouch in the small of my back, fumble about for a handmade paper cartridge, stuff it into the barrel, close the breech and cut off the tip of the cartridge, half-cock the weapon, fish around in my cap pouch for a firing cap, insert the cap, and then shout “Loaded!” I had only learned all this an hour before and did not know the terminology, only that it was all done with the right hand (the wrong hand for me) and I was deathly afraid of dropping things or jamming them up. But it worked, and the first sergeant yelled:
“Volley by file from the right! Ready!”
We fully cocked our weapons …
“Aim!”
… took a bead on the rebels nonchalantly slinging their ramrods and observing our maneuvers …
“Fire!”
… whereupon the right-most trooper squeezed the trigger, then his mate, then his, and so on down the line from right end to left, a quick succession of black powder explosions, bang bang bang bang bang. When I squeezed the trigger my rifle kicked and banged and a cloud of white smoke joined all the other clouds of white smoke making a battle haze over the field. It was a good feeling, as firing a rifle always is, not unlike swinging a bat and making contact with a baseball; but in this case there were no projectiles, just powder, and the rebels in front were too busy reloading their muskets to pay us any mind; for they had fired too, and I hadn’t noticed.
As infantry units joined the fray to the beat of their small pipe and drum corps, and more men and guns entered into things, the artillery went largely silent lest any shock waves create a safety hazard. Though nothing like real battle, the action was driven by orders from the rear brought by orderlies on horseback and delivered via the leather lungs of elected officers and NCOs, and to a simple and inexperienced trooper the chaos was nearly complete. Only my desperate never-ending attempt to understand orders, stay in line, and not jam my borrowed black-powder rifle provided structure. All else was noise and smoke. We ran here, lined up there, retreated this way, then that; rallied; fell back; fired at will – “Pour it into ‘em, boys!” – aiming above the heads of the enemy if they were too close, happily drawing a bead right into their faces if they were far enough away. Now and then an amateur dramatist on one side or the other would wheel in pain and collapse into the grass, to lie still and pathetic and get some rest exactly as learned in the city parks of our universal playtime as nine-year-olds. I noticed that the veterans preferred to die in the shade.
We had entered the fray early. By the time I was finally able to raise my head and look at the lay of the body-littered battlefield, units were clumped all over, lined up in the characteristic fashion of the middle of the 19th Century, in rows and columns most efficient for pikes and muskets but not so clever when up against fast-loading carbines and rifled cannon and grapeshot. The Federal infantry had been pushed back towards the rear and were massing for a final defense, but we did not join them. As a dismounted cavalry unit, we did not line up well with infantry. Instead we were tasked with flanking the enemy. They didn’t think much of this, and thickened their line. The roar and concussion of opposing lines of rifles going off within ten yards of one another was made all the more fun by our exposed position. All re-enactors have a natural sense of theater, and it seemed wrong somehow to be exposed and outgunned and to not suffer any cas–
“Aahrr!”
I fell backwards to the ground, almost gently, not as though I had just had my guts torn out by a minié ball but strangely as if I was simply trying to avoid damaging my friend’s carbine. I lay still on my back with my face in the sun, my legs at an odd angle, and listened to the sounds of battle – endless rifle fire, the crack of pistols – men shouted orders and insults – a horseman galloped past my head – I saw him glance down at me over his moustache in that fraction of a second – the odd cannon blast – the unidentifiable sounds of men and equipment – metal clashing, leather creaking, booted feet drumming the ground – an unexpected lull incongruously filled by a breeze rustling the leaves overhead.
And then silence, or rather silence’s distant cousin: the echo of the last shot fading away through the trees; and from over in the 69th New York, halfway across the field, someone called out in an Irish brogue:
“Ye derrty bastards! Ye killed Kenny!”
But laughter was short-lived, as something was happening. Over my eyebrows I saw only men standing in rank, hanging by their feet from the grass that met the top of my head. In the distance there were voices, spoken firmly but civilly. I couldn’t make out the words. A silence settled over the field – I heard my heavy woolen coat move as I breathed – and from a place as far away as ancestral memory, a clear-toned bugle slowly sang Taps.
In the hands of a competent bugler, it is a haunting tune, with plenty of room for expression. This was in the hands of more than a brigade bugler; it was played by a musician. It sang of respect for the dead, of rest, of an end to strife; and especially, on this sunny day, it sang of surrender.
When it was over and had drifted beyond the trees, two thousand actors and thirty thousand spectators were completely silent for a strong half minute, until as if brought in on the tide, a wave of applause rose from beyond the ropes, and cheers and huzzahs, and the dead rose, and our unit reformed and marched through the crowds to camp, raising our kepis to the ladies and anticipating a seat in the shade and something cold to drink.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Benicia Under Wraps
Way back in the beginning of time, they thought the little town between River and Bay would become the great City of the West. But the businessmen went down to San Francisco and the politicians went up to Sacramento, and Benicia has been a nice and small if occasionally busy little place ever since.
But even though it was the Capitol for only a few months, they do preserve its remains.
They have other ways of protecting other buildings.
Evidently so they can crumble in dignity.
But even though it was the Capitol for only a few months, they do preserve its remains.
They have other ways of protecting other buildings.
Evidently so they can crumble in dignity.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Old Castles and Stormy Skies
This would make a nice header for a web page, if I needed one. Our favorite city as viewed from Alameda. Specifically, from the aft edge of the flight deck of the U.S.S. Hornet CVS-12, last Sunday. Pier 3 at the Alameda Naval Shipyard is also where Doolittle's Mitchell bombers were loaded onto U.S.S. Hornet CV-8, whence they steamed across the Pacific to surprise Tokyo in April 1942. CV-8 was sunk the following October. CV-12 was commissioned in 1943, served with distinction, was later retrofit to become CVS-12, among her other duties picked up the Apollo 11 and 12 astronauts after splashdown, and was finally decommissioned in 1970.
Here's the Hornet as viewed by a crowd of awed teenagers about to spend the night.
Nearby is this weird-looking thing, the back end of a heavy lift ship.
Old relics of war can be the most peaceful places.
Even with a comically angry F-14 aboard.
