Category Archives: History

Trekking Back (to the Past)

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Someone I met during the time I used to be a regular at morning business breakfasts told me the best decade of her life was between the ages of 50 and 60. The context of that revelation was my mention (at the time) that I wasn’t looking forward to turning 50. But, given her positive orientation—she was telling me that I had things in place to have a rousing decade of my own.

Back in January 2012, the future did seem bright enough to don shades. However, the subsequent years have disavowed me of that optimism. I think that decade for me has been a nightmare, really.

I’m not one given to nostalgia for the sake of being nostalgic. I do enjoy reading about the past, though. I’m a historian at heart and learning more about “the good ole’ days” is something I still enjoy in a life where joy has been diminished by time and tragedy.

I wrote a blog post about the past (back in the past) and I quoted a Danish author, Martin Lindstrom who wrote that consumers “in the face of insecurity or uncertainty about the future want nothing more than to revert back to a more stable time.” That would seem to be the time we’re living in. No?

When we were first told to shelter-in-place by our all-knowing governor, I was taking a class at USM centered on the Civil War and then, the Reconstruction period following a war that cleaved our country in two. Spending time immersed in reading and study focused on the middle part of the 19th century was strangely comforting—especially when all certainty in the present had been suspended. Continue reading →

Moon Shots

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Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Being old enough, I can actually say I was alive when it happened. I don’t remember much about it, though.

I imagine it was a topic of conversation in the house where I grew up. Did my parents watch it on their black and white television console? I don’t know.

This summer, I’m more apt to learn about current events from music, or related to the music I am listening to. I think it beat my former method of news consumption, relying on cable’s 24/7 cycles and never-ending Trump coverage.

Most Fridays (at least for a few more weeks), I’m usually at home, streaming Jon Bernhardt’s “Breakfast of Champions” slot on WMBR. I don’t know Jon, but by the kind of music he programs, I’m guessing we both have an affinity for mid-90s indie and that our interests in current bands/artists is informed by that period of time. I could be wrong.

Bernhardt featured a compilation called, The Moon and Back: One Small Step for Global Pop, along with a host of other songs related to the moon shot. Like most of his shows revolving around a theme, it was pretty cool, coming from a former DJ who took pride in putting together a radio show back in the day. A few songs into the show’s setlist, I figured out that there must be an anniversary related to the first landing on the moon.

The compilation tracks I’ve heard thus far are really good. I especially like The Nameless Book’s “AS-506” (track #13).

Along with the music, I found this article that I thought was well-written. It delves into why we fixate on things from the past and get all “geeked out” about anniversaries like these. The past does actually matter. Who knew?

I’m a bit like Larry Norman when it comes to celebrating the moon landing and nostalgia about it. Back in 1969, Norman was non-plussed about it and wrote “The Great American Novel” that touched on the waste or resources that the moon launch represented. Norman’s song creates a snapshot of that time that in my opinion is as powerful as anything Dylan wrote about the late 1960s. Unless you ran in Xian rock circles like I did for a time, you probably don’t know his music. Norman launches it with this line:

I was born and raised an orphan in a land that once was free
In a land that poured its love out on the moon

He goes on from there to offer a critique of a country that still gets its priorities upside-down, or worse.

Historical Site Critical Analysis-Maine State Museum

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[The following is my Historical Site Critical Analysis for History 122, a class I’m currently enrolled in at the University of Southern Maine. My choice of a site was Augusta’s Maine State Museum. I visited the site on Saturday, March 23, 2019. –jb]

The Cultural Building in Augusta, which houses the Maine State Museum.

The Maine State Museum in Augusta is one of the oldest state-funded museums in the U.S. The state’s allocation to maintain the museum as recently as 2014 was $1.7 million, which covers 80 percent of the museum’s operating budget. However, this amount is miniscule compared to say a state museum like the New York State Museum, which receives more than $20 million in state-directed funds.

Welcome to the Maine State Museum.

From a document I located online prepared for the Maine State Legislature in 2015, the museum’s chief purpose as a museum and center for learning is to be “the state’s chief institution for presenting and sharing the cultural and natural heritage of Maine, especially in relation to the use of authentic objects.”

I chose to visit the museum on Saturday, March 23, because I’d learned that a new exhibit would be opening that day. Women’s Long Road—100 Years to the Vote, commenced the morning I visited. This, along with the Maine + Jewish: Two Centuries, were two of the museum’s rotating exhibits that change during the year. Both represented elements of 19th century American history, so they would be perfect for fulfilling requirements of this critical analysis.

Both of these “new” exhibits were hosted in large “rooms” on the 4th floor of the museum. The museum occupies a portion of a large structure known as the Cultural Building that also houses the Maine State Library (on the basement level), and the Maine State Archives. Continue reading →

Poems All Month

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We’re 10 days into National Poetry Month and I’ve not made one mention of it. That’s a damn shame!

I never paid much attention to poets as I’ve alluded to before. Then, Mark was killed and I wanted to know more about why he was attracted to poetry and certain kinds of poets.

Someone wrote me that he thought poetry was “a thing” and maybe I should glom onto that. He didn’t think much of my “diary of grief” style.

I’m not a poet and never will be.

Did you know Herman Melville wrote more poetry than fiction? I didn’t until this afternoon when, after spending most of the day on my writing-for-hire, I employed my speed-reading prowess I first learned back in the day at LHS, from Mr. Barton. I managed to tear through three books on Melville, Ambrose Bierce, and Walt Whitman.

Melville was a poet: “Melville His World and Work,” by Andrew Delbanco

Continue reading →

Studying History Part I

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I have been time-traveling this week. History and historians allow all of us the privilege of looking back from where we came as a country and as a people. Thomas Jefferson has just been elected president and the Federalists are “barking” about it. Isn’t it true that the Federalists have always been a political scourge on the nation?

Thomas Jefferson in history.

Jefferson, our third president, wasn’t a perfect man. Is any leader without blemish or fault? History does inform us that his election represented a “victory for non-elites,” those non-Founders who represented the majority of Americans in the fledgling republic. Those damned Federalists once again were lamenting Jefferson and how his election represented a “slide down into the mire of democracy.”

Jefferson’s election was a “victory for non-elites. For Federalists, a slide “down into the mire of democracy.” He embraced “the politics of the masses.” He sought to convince the country that government answered directly to the people—this would lead to unity (national cohesion/union), not division (anarchy). Continue reading →

Doomed to Repitition

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I’m a bit early on my post that touches on Veterans Day. For most, I think it’s become just another holiday on the calendar that some don’t have to go to work for.

Time as a unit of measure marches on. This passage—known to those who study it as “history”—is too often ignored. Worse, men (and women) who ought to know better, dismiss it as mere dates, names, and numbers.

We know the quote, attributed to George Santayana, about ignoring our past. People love to quote it, and yet, those very same people—often learned and well-educated in a formal sense—rarely take the time to read and ruminate on the foundation that our nation, our ideals, and our form of government rests upon.

Books like this one expand our understanding of the past.

I spent a portion of October reading a splendid book about the 1960s. Southern historian Frye Galliard’s, A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost, offers an expansive unfolding of the time and key figures and events that framed one of our country’s most significant, and equally tumultuous decades. It took Galliard, a gifted historian nearly 700 pages to create this historical snapshot. He easily could have gone on I’m sure, but even at that length, the book is longer than most people are willing to sit with, even something so significant. It’s really too bad because I thought it was readable in a way that longer, historical tomes are often, not.

Tomorrow will be Veteran’s Day. This weekend, our ahistorical president, oblivious and ignorant to the symbolism and significance of the ending of World War I, performed like a petulant adult-child. This Orange Menace, who occupies our presidency, exhibited a truculence that was disrespectful to the country of France, his hosts, and he also was a sorry surrogate for Americans who remember the events of that horrible war, even if it was experienced during a long-ago history class in school. The president also demonstrated total disdain for the solemnity of Armistice Day, nor the memories of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in a war where more than 16 million soldiers and civilians perished. It’s quite likely he didn’t even know what Armistice Day is. Continue reading →

Day Exploring-Boba and Bánh Mì

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One

For a year, I wrote a monthly feature for the Lewiston Sun-Journal. It was called Explore. I’d spend a day in a Maine community and write about the place and the people who lived there. I’m not sure if they’re still online or not but I have some of them posted on my writing site. I especially liked this one on Wilton. The places became sources to write something more than the usual “town in the news” hack pieces. At least that was always my goal.

A bonus of these assignments was getting to work with a stellar editor in Mark Mogensen. Most local dailies don’t pay freelancers enough and I was forced to take my writing elsewhere. It was my Sun-Journal piece on Biddeford that led me to believe I could pitch it to a bigger paper. I did and my more involved feature landed on the pages of the Boston Globe nearly three years ago.

The practice I developed back then: spending the better part of a day in a particular place informed this post. As I was out and about in Lewiston last Friday, the thought of doing something like this on a semi-regular basis held some appeal. We shall see.

My initial thought was to go into detail and provide some personal history about me and Lewiston. Like being a seven-year-old second grader with a teacher who was overly demanding about my penmanship. It was 1969 and teachers had way more leeway in how they marshaled their young troops back then.

In the case of Mrs. D, it meant imposing her iron will on a young boy who was hyper and with no interest in mastering cursive writing. She died in 2006. I remember seeing her obituary and not feeling sad at all.

My Franco-American grandmother lived in Lewiston. My family visited her nearly every Sunday. My aunt who never married lived with her.

Immigrants like my grandmother were proud of their city. Her Catholic faith was important and a central element for her and most francophones and fellow French-Canadian settlers in Lewiston. If there is any doubt about the role of the Church in French-Canadian life in Lewiston, St. Peter and Paul Basilica, which sits like a sentry overlooking Lewiston (and neighboring Auburn) should tell you that religion was important to them. They made sure to leave a memorial to their faith. Funding for the church came from thousands of small donations given by Lewiston residents, especially the Franco-American community.

There is a lot more history about the Basilica I could cover, but I’m not really interested in doing so. Other family members have mined that vein if people are interested. Continue reading →

Death of a Statesman

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Death is never simple proposition. It becomes immensely more complicated when the person who has died is a public figure, especially a politician. That would be the late John McCain.

I won’t wax hypocritical about McCain, or default to hagiographic bromides that have begun and are inevitable with the death of someone as universally-known as the senator was. He was not my favorite politician, or a leader I was particularly enamored with. Partly this is due to McCain’s politics—they certainly sat to the right of my own.

But given all of that, I have been paying attention to the past year or so of his life. Once he was diagnosed with glioblastoma last July, a particularly aggressive brain tumor, I knew that this day was inevitable. McCain would succumb to cancer, and the accolades and tributes would begin pouring in.

One of the marks of greatness is dying with dignity and grace. In that regard, I’d say anyone with a shred of humanity would agree that McCain’s final year of his life was worthy of admiration. Continue reading →

Cycle of Life

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Last November we sold our house in Durham where we’d lived for 26 years. This felt like the start of a new chapter. It was, but the narrative soon turned dark.

Landing in Brunswick on a beautiful tidal cove was exciting at the time. Being new to town, I envisioned capturing elements of our new home with a series of post based on weekend forays about the place. Then tragedy intervened. Life along the cove became framed by abundant morning light that simply permitted holding on.

A mile and a half from our house there is an older cemetery. I knew nothing about it until passing while running one morning in December. My new route took me westward from our new place, out Coombs Road. I immediately knew the road to be an ideal alternative providing a side loop away from busy Route 24, where I could enjoy my surroundings and not worry about dodging cars and trucks roaring along at highway speeds.

Purington Road, which abuts the cemetery, also dead ends at a gate on the east side of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station. The road, like much of this area, is bordered by chain link fence and warning signs left behind when the town answered the military’s every beck and call.

From RootsWeb, I found this description of the cemetery, known as New Meadows Cemetery:

New Meadows Cemetery is located on Purinton Road and borders the Naval Air Station. This part of Brunswick was farming country known as New Meadows before the Naval Air Station occupied the area. Old records describe it as located on the North side of the road to Great Island, about three miles from Brunswick village. This road is now part of the Naval Air Station.

Doing a minimal amount of digging revealed that the area around Purington and Coombs Roads was once a thousand-acre town commons that was once the New Meadows neighborhood. There are historical records that show there were four homesteads dating back to 1739. What locals know about the area if they know anything is that it’s framed by the recent past following the Navy’s encroachment (and significant contamination) of 90 percent of this section of the community that formerly consisted of farms, grist mills, and brick and carriage makers.

Father and son, forever.

Continue reading →

Remembering Others

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I’ve written tributes about people in my life who were special to me. I think it’s important to discharge our debts of gratitude personally, and in some cases, publicly. I’ve tried to walk that out in my own life.

Having written two books about Moxie, the distinctly-different regional soft drink that has developed a cult following in parts of my native New England, I know a bit about the elixir’s history. I also recognize that there have been figures in that history that were essential in keeping Moxie’s brand alive.

If your curiosity about Moxie’s been piqued, I’d point you to a couple of blog posts. This one about Sue Conroy is one I’d highly recommend. Sue got me excited about Moxie and forced me to dig into the drink’s past. And then if you think you are good at math, there’s nothing quite like a little Moxie math. Continue reading →