William Cullen Bryant: To A Waterfowl

 By Craig: I don't read a lot of poetry. I mostly read novels, history and science books. However, certain poems strike my fancy. One of these is W. C. Bryant's To A Waterfowl. I am not certain when Bryant wrote it, but I imagine it was one of his earlier poems. To me, it is his best. A man stands on the shore near dusk and observes a waterfowl. Bryant doesn't specifically tell the reader what kind. It doesn't really matter. I assume it is a goose, or perhaps a duck. Gracefully, it glides through the cold sky until it finally its majestic form amalgamates with the inky darkness of the evening. 

What is Bryant attempting to convey? It is a metaphor. The observer, at first feels the loneliness of the bird. However, he soon comes to realize that the bird is not alone. It is being guided by nature, or God. It might be alone, but it is not lost. The observer, then realizes that, like the bird, he too is guided by a higher power. Below is the poem in its entirety.

To A Waterfowl

By: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler’s eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,

As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek’st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-

The desert and illimitable air-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart

Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

A Lost Moment in time: Cyrus J. Clapp & the 6th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment

By Craig: I have been reading a lot about the American Civil War lately. I don't know why except that it appears that we might be close to another one. I have stated many times on this blog that I abhor the politics of the 21st century, with the partisan bickering and illogical reactions of events that lead to mass hysteria I almost long for the days of medieval castles with Kings and Queens. It was a romantic time...or was it? For most people life was harsh and brutal, but  

    I am a member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Yup, my grandfather was a member, my great grandfather was a member and my great-great grandfather was a veteran of the 57th Massachusetts Infantry and GAR member. I have his GAR medal along with a medal from an encampment that he attended back in the 1890s. I also had a great-great-great grandfather that served in the 1st Rhode Island Cavalry. Both of these men survived the war, and lived for many years after it. I have always been patriotic. I don't apologize for that. I was a boy scout and then a marine. My family has a history of serving in the military, on my mother's side in the United States, my father's side Great Britain. Both flags are displayed in my library. However, out of all my family members that have served in the military in the course of the last two-hundred years from Waterloo to the present, I have found only one who actually died in action. He was my uncle. His name was Cyrus Jones Clapp and this is his story.

    Cyrus J. Clapp was born April 28, 1839 in Leicester Massachusetts. His parents were Lovell Clapp and Martha Jones. Cyrus was named after his maternal grandfather Cyrus Jones (1791-1846), who was a veteran of the War of 1812, and a hero to boot. Cyrus Jones was commissioned Captain of of a company in the 3rd Regiment of Infantry, 1st brigade, 12th Division of the Massachusetts State Militia. At the time, Maine was still part of Massachusetts. Captain Jones delivered a load of specie in a four-ox team in the winter from Portland to Canada, which must have been quite an adventure. 

    Cyrus J. Clapp had two brothers, Charles, born in 1840 and Albert born in 1841 and a sister Eliza Ann born in 1843. Leicester was a small New England mill town at the time. Cyrus' father worked in one of these mills and also worked his trade as a carpenter. Cyrus would have attended the local school with his brothers and possibly have known about the Leicester's Underground Railroad stop. Did this play into his future decision to enlist during the Civil War? I do not know. I wish that I did, but I will never know, unless a letter surfaces one day. Tragedy struck Clapp family and Cyrus when his mother passed away suddenly on February 01, 1847. Her cause of death is listed as "Brain Fever." This is an archaic term that was used to denote any number of illnesses that effected the mental state of a patient. In all probability Martha Clapp died of an infection due to either Meningitis, Encephalitis or Scarlet Fever. It was probably quick and sudden and it gave no time for Lovell Clapp to prepare for the care of his family which he almost certainly could not do himself as will be shown. Martha was only 28 years old when she died and Cyrus was not yet 8 years of age at the time. 

    The family must have been distraught at this event and it would change Cyrus' life. Lovell was now a single father of 4 children between the ages of 3 and 7. In order to support them he would have to work. Who would watch the youngest ones while he provided for the family? Cyrus, as the oldest was not yet 8. Too young to take care of his brothers and sisters. The children were sent to live with other families. Cyrus was sent to live in a boardinghouse in Oakham Massachusetts, a very small town a few miles to the northwest of Leicester. He attended school there and must have helped earn his meals and lodging by doing odd chores around the house and property, probably supplemented by his father who was living in nearby Templeton. It is probable that he visited with his father at times, but it must have been hard. It was 20 miles from Templeton to Oakham and this was in the days before rail travel was common. He would have probably hopped on the back of a wagon and hitched a ride if he wanted to visit his father. 

    Fort Sumter was attacked on April 12, 1861 and Cyrus enlisted in the 2nd Regiment Massachusetts Infantry shortly after this, probably in response to Lincoln's call. It must have been a sense of duty, or tradition that called him to arms along with an opportunity and a chance to make something of himself. He mustered out of the 2nd Massachusetts as a Private and then headed to Rindge New Hampshire where his younger brother Albert was living. While he was there he decided to enlist again, this time in the 6th New Hampshire Infantry. 

                                                    6th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment

    Cyrus enlisted in Company K and when the Company was filled reported to Camp Brooks in Keene. The Regiment left Keene on Christmas 1861 on a train bound for Norwich where they boarded the steamer Connecticut for their journey south. It was to be the last time that Cyrus ever saw New England and he must have realized that there was a chance that he would never return. 

    The 6th N.H. landed on the coast of Cape Hatteras on January 12, 1862. A lot of the men were sea sick as they had run through a patch of bad weather. They were held as a reserve unit along with the 48th Pennsylvania. The 6th's first battle was at South Mills on April 19, 1862. Engaging the 3rd Georgia, they put that regiment to flight with only one killed and two wounded. They joined the 1st Brigade of the 9th Army Corps. 

To be Continued.... 

    

 

Our Dystopian World.

 By Craig: I write, read and run. Most of my reading and writing material is historical. I am really not into this century. In fact, this century, which had so much promise in the last century is a huge disappointment. They can't handle it. We are now almost a quarter of the way through this century and our civilization seems to be in decline. I am not surprised. People are spoon fed too much information. It is information overload. Most of it is not real. What is real, is often distorted or not factual. I don't watch the news. If I wanted to watch propaganda, on news networks like CNN, FOX or MSNBC I would watch old dystopian science fiction movies. We still live in a tribal society. Despite advancements in technology, not much has changed since the days of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. People are still angry and mad and violent. 

Sometimes I feel as if I were meant to live my life on the little white sailboat in Thomas Cole's painting The Titan's Goblet. I could sail around all day, and at night, live on the perimeter of that world in the small house in the background. Beyond my little world would be the world of everyone else. I might hear noise from down below. The rabble fighting and killing each other. Then, for a while, there would be silence. Then it would start all over again. The process repeating itself over and over and over until one day the Earth overheated and the noise would finally cease. The Earth would groan and mumble at this minor inconvenience called humankind but finally it would belch, and it would become free. 

Sometimes I feel like Washington Irving. I'll stand behind a bush in a garden and watch a garden party but not take part. I am an observer. Nothing more, nothing less. Besides my novel writing (which hardly anyone reads) I spend my time hustling for money to pay for my son's college and playing Immaculate Grid (Does anyone remember Kevin Stacom?) I recently celebrated my 55th birthday. Where is life taking me? The caption under my High School yearbook photo says "I'm on my way. I know not where." 37 years later I still don't know. Where is this blog post going? I don't know...

A Lost Moment in Time: The Forgotten Man on the Porch

By Craig: While the world endures hurricanes, earthquakes, threats of nuclear war and murders by gun violence, I can sit and marvel at the absurdity of it all. Hurricanes and earthquakes are nothing new. I have experienced both...well that is if you consider a typhoon the same thing as a hurricane. It is merely a matter of semantics. By no means do I mean to trivialize these catastrophic events. I only mention them to put them in perspective as they relate to time. How many people today remember the Johnstown flood? (none) or the Hurricane of 1938? (very few) Even the memory of more recent tragedies like Hurricane Hugo in 1989 is slowly being swallowed by time. One would have to be in his or her early thirties to have a memory of it. One day the same thing will be said of the recent catastrophes in Turkey and Brazil. Those places will recover, and the events will slowly amalgamate into the past with the rest of Father Time's ghostly memories. The people that experienced them will tell their children of the hardships that they endured. Truth will be speckled with embellishment and the stories will eventually pass from living memory into a footnote in history. Why was that recent protest about? Did it really matter? Ramble...Ramble...Ramble...Then there is the man on the porch...

The black and white photograph is so old that it seems to be crumbling inward from the perimeter towards the center. Of course, the condition was not helped much by the fact that it spent nearly half a century in a moldy box in the damp basement of my grandmother's house. The photo was taken some time in the early 20th century. If I were to make an educated guess, I would say it was snapped during the Coolidge administration. A nice white house is the subject of the photo. The shutters seem old and in need of repair. Ivory climbs up the side of the porch. I cannot say if it is a front porch or a back porch. Then, in the shadows under the overhang, sits a man. Who is he? What is he doing? 

I cannot tell. Time and living memory have erased anything about this photograph. I only know that my 80-year-old father, who is now suffering with the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease and dementia found the photograph, along with dozens more in his mother's basement back in 1988. Some of the photographs were stuck together.  Only a few were spared the ill effects of time. Some of them were wholly obliterated by mold. My father, when he was younger, thought the man in the photograph might be his Great-Grandfather Anders Jacobsen, a Danish immigrant farmer who died in 1924, or possibly one of his sons. My grandmother never would say. If she knew, she died with the secret. Not that it matters. The man in the photograph has long ago given up his mortal cares. He now survives, hidden in the dark shadows of a porch of a rustic farmhouse, tethered to existence by the obsessive inquiry of a man who may or may not be his great-great grandson. 

"I once existed," he calls out from the past. "Don't forget me!" 

Is he calling out in Danish or English? Perhaps both? 

The haunting photograph will linger in my memory until one day I too shall succumb to time's inevitable calling.   

Ouida: Signa

 By Craig: I read a lot of books. Most of the books I read are from authors long dead. Authors mouldering in their graves for decades or even centuries. Their voices muted but not wholly extinguished. One of these authors of yore was a prolific writer in the late 19th century. Maria Louise Ramé AKA 'Ouida' as she preferred to be called, was the author of numerous novels and short stories. I was familiar with a few of her stories. When I was a young boy, I read A Dog of Flanders. I had almost forgotten about her and indeed it had been many years since the name 'Ouida' had even crossed my mind. It came back to me when I came across her once again while reading about one of my favorite writers, Jack London. I have read a good portion of London's work and read that one of the reasons he decided to become a writer was after reading Ouida's book Signa. I had never heard of this book, but since London thought it was such a great novel, I decided to give it a try. I was not disappointed!

Signa was published in 1875 while Ouida was living in Italy. It tells the tale of a young genius named Signa who listens to the sounds of nature and sings at the country church. Signa plays the lute and has a melodious voice. Though he is a peasant, he is unlike the other young people in the town. He cares nothing about toiling the land. He would rather sing with the birds and dream of the music that forms in his head. He lives with his opportunistic uncle, Lippo and his wicked aunt Nita who thrash and abuse him on a daily basis. Signa seems to accept his lot in life until one day he sees a violin in a shop window and becomes obsessed in obtaining it. 

Signa's origins are unknown to him. At a year old, he is found by his uncle's Bruno and Lippo during a flood next to his dead mother, Pippa who had tragically fell to her death off a cliff. Lippo, of course, is married and has a brood of children while his older brother, Bruno lives alone on a hillside farm, sulking in misery, years after the death of the woman he once loved. Most of Signa's life is harsh and brutal except for the time he spends with his uncle Bruno who makes it his life's quest to do right by the boy. Bruno is a solitary man who spends his days working the farm and doting on the boy who becomes a sort of obsession to him. Bruno lives for Signa, but Signa lives for his music. 

Signa is also friends with Palma and Gemma, two sisters who live in the village. Palma is a plain hardworking girl and who secretly loves Signa, but the boy's affections are directed at the selfish and beautiful Gemma who makes him do things (like stealing) that are otherwise foreign to his character. One day, Bruno takes Signa to the city where a painter hears the boy sing and paints his picture, telling him that one day he will be famous. He gives Signa the money that he needs to buy the violin that he has longed to possess. However, when Lippo and Nita find out that he has spent the money on what they consider a toy, they are furious. Nita attempts to beat Signa but the boy finally fights back and injures Nita who swears revenge. Signa knows that if Bruno finds out that Lippo and Nita have been beating him that Bruno will kill his brother. In order to protect Bruno, Signa runs away, taking the opportunistic Gemma with him. Bruno finds out that Signa has gone and is devastated. He goes after them and eventually finds them about to embark on an ocean voyage under the insidious enticement of a scoundrel that uses children for his own monetary benefit. Signa willingly returns with Bruno as long as he promises to not hurt Lippo. Bruno then shelters the boy from his brother and as the years roll on Signa becomes restless. After an argument with Bruno, the man destroys his beloved violin in an act of rage. Bruno almost immediately regrets what he did and makes up for it by sending the boy to study music in the city. Eventually, Signa becomes famous for his operas. His travels back to Bruno and the farm become less frequent. The ending is a classic tragedy in the vein of a Shakespeare play. 

The novel is written in a stylish prose that was common for the time but this in no way takes away from the story. In fact, it is the descriptive scenes of peasant life and nature that add to the novel's mystique. The character development in this book is beyond exceptional, especially Bruno who carries the novel and is one of the great personas of literature. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story and rank it as one of the best books that I have ever read. It ranks up there in my estimation with Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge and Daphne Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn as one of my favorite novels. It is hard to believe that this timeless book is almost forgotten today. In fact, there are very few reviews of Signa that I can find online. If you get a chance give it a try. 

                                                                   Ouida

The Player

By Robbie: My dad and I were spending a usual day roaming through the antique malls in the Gaston county area. As I was looking around,  I saw the usual stuff. Typically, what you might find in these certain establishments are the belongings of either a deceased individual or someone trying to sell a hand crafted product. I always see the typical Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe posters and vinyl records; jewelry of a woman who roamed the earth in the days of yore and even old works of art that have gone unappreciated. Perhaps, maybe the art they created didn't make sense to anyone else, but it did to the artist who created it. Sometimes these places really are sad, but nostalgic.

 

However, on this day I stumbled upon something interesting. It caught my eye as I gazed around the crowded stalls. It was a small trophy.  It was a Best Supporting Actor award given out by the Little Theater of Gastonia to a one, Mr. Chuc Presley-Clubb. Immediately I began to wonder, who was this man? Obviously he gave a marvelous and noteworthy performance; at least according to the trophy which was dated in the 1996-1997 season. However, I wondered why his award was being sold in an antique mall? And why for $21.95? This didn’t make sense, so I did some investigating. A quick google search  found that Mr. Presley-Clubb died on the 2nd of November 2018. Although I did not know this man I felt a little sadness in my heart. I did a little more investigating online and I stumbled across a video recording of a scene of the play that he had won the award for in the late 1990s. I watched it with unusual interest. The guy was funny! This, however, was the only record of any performance that he ever gave. At least that is all that I could find. When I looked at the views it had a respectable 5.8 thousand! I assume that after he died  at  the relatively young age of fifty two, his family and friends reminisced and watched the video. Now, here I sit today, reflecting. I am probably the only person who isn’t in his family that has any interest in watching it. 

As it has been three years since his passing; Knowing very little of him and being only able to see clips of his performance I wondered what he wanted in life. Perhaps this was the start of an acting career that he had dreamed of pursuing or maybe he was just intrigued like so many others and said why not try out? What have I got to lose! Nevertheless, although Chuc Presley-Clubb did not make it to the status of Elvis Presley, he still did something. He accomplished something. He made people laugh! In life we look too much at the big things that we forget about the little things that make our existences tolerable. Mr. Presley-Clubb might not be entertaining people today, but I know this; based on the laughter and merriment in the audience that day back in 1997 season, Chuc did what he was good at. He fulfilled his purpose in life by making other peoples evenings a little bit better. Isn’t that the reason why we act? A real actor should be doing it for the craft and should not expect an enormous amount of praise for the work. Even though I don’t know how Chuc really was as a human being, I will say this. He did what he had to do in the time in which he was living. Some people affect the world in big ways and others in little ways. It doesn’t really matter which way you do it, because in the end we all face the same fate. Chuc, at least for one night of the fifty two years he spent on planet earth, accomplished something that he enjoyed doing and others enjoyed watching. He left the world a little better for it.

Welcome Robbie Hipkins to Craig & Jay's History of Anything!

 I welcome my son, Robbie Hipkins to Craig & Jay's History of Anything. Robbie is a senior in High School and is an aspiring actor and writer. His first post is Bubba and His Path. I hope you enjoy it!

A Lost Moment In Time: Bubba & his Path

 By Robbie: I can recall many fond memories from my formative years of a dog named Bubba. Bubba was not like most dogs of the modern day. Throughout the dog's entire life he lived and strolled with leisure around a certain quartet of houses where my father lives in North Carolina. I can distinctly remember the first time the dog came barging through the garage door like I was the intruder and this was his house! Indeed, it really was his abode. My dad didn't know it, but he came with the house! The dog lived a life of repetitiveness. His day would consist of going back and forth between four different houses. While visiting these houses he would get his daily dose of food from each of the suckers that lived there. Afterwards, he would most likely go hunt a squirrel or two, or collapse on the floor of whatever house he chose where he would let out a big fart; that would cause people to sometimes, on rare occasions, feel dizzy and faint!! 

 I choose to call this little snippet, Bubba's Path. Bubba, as long as I have been a resident at Hillside Drive, had always been there. It was as if he were a permanent resident that belonged to this street, and if removed would cause chaos and unbalance. I used to think: what is going to happen when the great Bubba finally dies? Could it be that Bubba is beyond death? That's impossible, I used to think, he has to die. He is an old dog! Probably as old as me and I am only a teenager! Finally, one day my question was answered. After almost a week of not seeing Bubba, my family and I began to get worried about what happened to the dog. We were told by our next door neighbors that Bubba had to be put down, because of the amount of pain he was in. At first, this made me cry, and it still does a little to this very day. The great Bubba of Hillside will no longer take his path around the quartet of houses on Hillside Drive. He has taken his final journey. Time has stopped ticking in his world. However, the memory is not gone. For as long as there are those alive that remember Bubba, he will not easily enter into the realm of oblivion. Nevertheless, one day, after living memory passes there will be no one to remember him; a big, friendly black dog with a full belly who left his mark. On that day, the only memory of Bubba would be if one happened to catch a glimpse of a ghostly canine strolling down the street, forever on his path.

Elements of Time: Ripley's Comic Digest # 1

 By Craig: I have been collecting things since I was a small boy. My twin brother Jay was the same way. We collected baseball cards, stamps, coins, running medals and ribbons and of course, comic books. I can remember the excitement of waiting for the next issue of The Unexpected, or the House of Mystery to be released. We would ride our bikes to the next town where there was a small bookstore and check to see if the latest issue had arrived. We would also canvass the local flea market (Rietta Ranch in Hubbardston MA) and sometimes find old back issues of comics for a nickel or a dime. Some of these comics were in rough shape, with detached staples or simply missing the covers completely. We did not care. We were interested in the content inside of them. We would read anything that we could get our hands on that was interesting to us. Sometime during the summer of 1979, Jay and I found a table at the flea market that had a box of old comic books that peeked our interest. Inside the box were two old comic digests from the early 1970s. One of them was Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery and the other one was Ripley's Believe it or Not! Of course, we had to have them and I do not even remember how much we paid for them. A quarter a piece perhaps? We were only 10 years old and in those days, a quarter was worth a lot more than it is today, especially for a kid. I can remember the day well. We brought them back to our house and took turns reading them. 

At some point, I don't remember when, the Boris Karloff digest disappeared. It must have been years ago, as I do not recall having seen it since I was a kid. My brother Jay kept the Ripley's digest until his death 3 years ago and it now resides with the rest of my comic books on a bookcase in my bedroom. As you can tell from the image above, this comic is well read. In fact, it is so well read that it appears that we almost devoured it! I picked it up just recently and read it again. The back cover is gone, swallowed by the ravages of time, or perhaps my brother mixed it with his oatmeal and ate it. Surprisingly, I still remember most of the stories in the book. There is the tale about old Simon who carry's his weighted sins in a large bag on his back. He is the subject of ridicule by the townspeople who throw rocks at him and mock him as he passes through. He is eventually murdered by a scoundrel named Langley who believes that Simon is carrying gold and silver in the bag. What Langley does not realize is that he is now destined to carry the bag weighted with his own sins. Another tale tells the story of Mary Walker who is murdered by two men in 1631 and convicted on the testimony of a ghost! Then there is the story of a French officer named Steingal who is warned of his impending death in battle by a dream. The last few pages of this story have been torn out of the digest. Did my brother add those to his oatmeal? I can still see my twin brother pedaling down the road in front of me, sometimes standing in the stirrups as he coasts down a hill with his wavy red hair blowing in the wind. He turns around and smiles.  

Existentialism, Martin Heidegger & Sein Und Zeit

By Craig: I am a cynic. I find it hard to believe anything without proof and even then I am dubious. I am currently plugging through Martin Heidegger's Sein Und Zeit. It is a book about 'existence' and 'the state of being.' I can only read so much of it before laying it down and picking up something else, but, nevertheless, it is fascinating. What is time? How does it relate to existence and life? I have been asking myself this question since I was a little boy.

If one turns on the news today, it is fraught with danger, warnings and other unpleasant things. It is mere observation of events that are existing or not existing relative to the temporal state of ones own existence. One own existence is an aberration. A fleeting moment in time. Macbeth said it best and I quote:
              Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and                 then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

This is nihilism in its finest moment. But, thankfully, nihilism in its true, pure, and unfettered form cannot ever exist. Even as I examine the words that I just typed, it dies before it ever has a chance to live. The reason for this, is that existence itself is based on awareness. Without awareness or consciousness nothing can truly exist. Matter itself becomes irrelevant and meaningless just as the words that I just typed and the contradictions that I just found by reading them. Are we not all contradictions? Each day we plod onward toward a future that will one day be swallowed up by time's perpetual and infinite corridor, yet we continue to move along the linear plane as if we had some stake in it. The future, as a term and concept, is meaningless and at the same time isn't. How can this be? Infinity makes time meaningless. It is the one constant, the numerator and the denominator divided by zero.

"Where am I going with this? I do not know. I am still waiting for Godot to meet me at the tree of existence and tell me.

A Lost moment in time: Rudolph Zallinger & the Dumpy Dinosaurs

By Craig: I have always had a fascination with things prehistoric. When I was four years old my parents bought me and my twin brother Jay a Marx Dinosaur playset for Christmas. The dinosaurs came in three colors; mint green, white, and chocolate brown. I can remember memorizing the names of the dinosaurs and setting them up on the coffee table in my grandfather's den. Usually we would split them up, sometimes I would have the green ones and my brother would have the white ones or the brown ones. We would form them up in battle lines as if they were human armies. The anachronistic cavemen that came with the set would never fare well. They would almost always be the first victims of the battle. Sometimes, however, the dinosaurs themselves might speak and instead of fighting would band together to form a civilized society. The Tyrannosaurus Rex would team up with the Hadrosaurus, Stegosaurus and Dimetrodon to form an alliance against the killer canine that would take the form of my grandfather's dog Charlie. One day, the mint green Tyrannosaurus disappeared and my brother and I searched high and wide for him to no avail. Then, one day the following spring we found him in the tall grass in the back yard. He had become the savage victim of Charlie's canines! Or perhaps it was our dog Coco that chewed him up. It must have been an undignified and humiliating experience for T-Rex to be reduced to an unrecognizable mass of plastic by the teeth of an evolved mammal!

One day my father brought home a book Willy Ley's "Worlds of the Past" illustrated by Rudolph F. Zallinger. We must have been 5 or 6 when we received it and my brother and I devoured it. We were enthralled by the illustrations. There was Elasmosaurus with its long neck and sharp serrated teeth looking like the top of the food chain in the ancient Cretaceous sea. Pteranodon's flying like birds over a choppy sea hunting for food while a Mosasaur waits for a chance to snag one within its crocodile like mouth. Two Tyrannosaurs fight over the bloody carcass of a freshly killed Hadrosaur while volcanoes erupt in the background. Then there is the massive Diplodocus that peers behind him, possibly sensing the approaching danger of a pack of Allosaurs. All of these illustrations left vivid imprints in my mind and nearly a half a century after first seeing them they are still there.

My brother Jay also enjoyed the work of Zallinger and even procured a copy of his "The Age of Reptiles." The original is in the Yale Peabody museum in Connecticut. He also was able to somehow acquire a Zallinger autograph which I now have and proudly keep in my library. In the last 75 years since Zallinger was painting his prehistoric murals paleontologists have come a long way in determining what the dinosaurs were really like. Zallinger portrayed them as slow, lumbering creatures that plodded along through the Mesozoic like present day Americans after gorging on cheeseburgers and super sized fries and soft drinks. The thinking now is that they were not at all slow, torpid creatures, but very energetic and even acrobatic!

I still have my copy of Worlds of the Past and every now and again open it up and get almost as much enjoyment looking at it today as I did 45 years ago. The crayon marks are still visible from when either me or my brother decided that it was a good idea to scribble in the book. One day I will pass it on to my son, who will hopefully pass it on to his kids and eventually the original owner along with the memories will be long forgotten in the dark recess' of time.

A Lost moment in time: Lepidodendron & the Hubbardston Library.

By Craig: I say the word often. Sometimes I might go a few months without it rolling off my tongue, but it always comes back. It has always been like that. At least since I first saw the word when I was about 8 years old. I must have struggled with it at first. L-e-p-i-d-o-d-e-n-d-r-o-n. Numerous syllables and not a word that an average adult would know, never mind an 8 year old. But I was different. I had an obsession with certain things that I found interesting. I had to know all about something, or learn as much as I could about the subject that interested me. In this case it wasn't so much the word Lepidodendron as the artists rendition of what Lepidodendron was.

When I was in third grade our class would walk to the library next to the school in Hubbardston Massachusetts. I would immediately gravitate to the science or history section. There were a number of books that interested me and I would find myself flipping the pages of these books and immersing myself in the pictures and captions below them. I was particularly intrigued with one book in particular. It was called The Forest. It was one of the books in the Life Nature Library, a series of books written for young adults, or merely any lay person interested in a subject and wanting to get a better understanding of it without diving into too much technical jargon. Perfect for me. I am not a scholar and never will be. I get bored with one subject and eventually turn to something else. However, I always find myself going back to the same things. Case in point...Lepidodendron.

So, what is Lepidodendron? The casual reader probably doesn't have the foggiest notion what it is. I bet if my 8 year old self could return to his classroom of 1976 or 1977 and ask any of the teachers if they knew what Lepidodendron was I would get some puzzled looks. In the golden days of fossil hunting, strange stones were found in the coal beds that appeared to show the fossilized skin of an ancient reptile. However, it wasn't long before it was determined that the scale like fossils were not anything from the animal kingdom. They were the fossilized impressions of ancient trees that lived in the Carboniferous Era some 300 million years ago. Hence the name Lepidodendron. Literally meaning "scale tree." These trees were prolific and dominated the ancient swampy forests of the Carboniferous sharing their world with giant dragonflies and other primitive life. Lepidodendron trees rose to heights of nearly 100 feet and though prolific for millions of years, they eventually died out and became extinct sometime during the Triassic.

I must have checked The Forest out of the Hubbardston town library dozens of times in the 6 years that I attended elementary school. One of the images that I clearly remembered from this book was an artists depiction of a Permian forest with the scale like fallen trunks of Lepidodendron in the foreground and a rainbow arcing across the ancient sky. I must have studied that image every time that I borrowed that book. I left grade school in 1980 and forgot about the book. However, over the next 35 years or so I would occasionally find myself saying the word Lepidodendron. Sometimes it would just roll off my tongue for no apparent reason, and I wondered why it would just pop into my head at random times. Walking across a muddy Okinawan field with the Marines in 1987...Lepidodendron. A few years later in 1993 working on a train signal...Lepidodendron. In Paris on my honeymoon in 1997...Lepidodendron. The birth of my son in 2003...Lepidodendron. At the bedside of my terminally ill twin brother Jay in 2018...Lepidodendron. Just now...Lepidodendron. Am I the only one who does this?

A few years ago Jay received a box of books from someone, and in it there just happened to be a few of the old Nature Library books including The Forest!! I had not seen this book in nearly 35 years and suddenly here it was again. It brought back a flood of memories and when I opened it up I was 8 again. I found myself sitting alone at one of the tables in the Hubbardston town library. It was then that I realized what it was about Lepidodendron that caused it to stick in my head. It was extinct! For millions of years it had been forgotten as if it never existed. Then one day the fossils that were found brought it back to life. One day Lepidodendron will disappear again. This time for good, just as humankind. the earth, the sun and the whole galaxy will one day vanish into the recesses of time's lonely corridor. It is an unsettling thought, but I must have imagined something like it when I first stared at its lonely and forgotten life in the pages of  a book some 40 years ago. Now I remember. One day I too, like Lepidodendron, will be forgotten. I find myself looking up from the page at a blank space on the wall and then casually looking back at the fallen trunks. Lepidodendron... Lepidodendron...Lepidodendron...

A Lost Moment in Time: Walter Johnson & the Baseball that Circled the Globe

By Craig: I watched some of the World Series between the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros which finished up recently. To be honest with you I just couldn't get into it. First of all the games are on way too late for me. They don't start until after 8:00pm and sometimes don't finish up until after midnight. I am an early riser. I am often awake at 430am and going to bed after midnight does not fit into my schedule. Second of all, I find it hard to get into watching any professional sports these days. I don't know if it is all the money involved in it, or if it is the arrogance that some of the players present that turns me off. Maybe it is a combination of both. Not to say that these problems didn't lurk around in the past, but all the same, sports has lost its mystique with me.

The World Series did, however, bring to the surface of my mind something that I had not thought about since I was a child. My grandfather was a huge baseball fan and especially a lover of the  Boston Red Sox. However, he had a vast amount of knowledge about the history of the sport in his head that he enjoyed passing on to me and my twin brother. Some of the things that came out of his mouth, however, were totally absurd. He was a master storyteller and we would sit there for hours listening to his stories or “dreams” as he called them. He would always start one of the tales off with the phrase “I had a dream!” He would then start into the tale which was most of the time something that he would think up on the spur of the moment, but sometimes he would insert real historical figures into the tale. He would also tell us that the tales were real life events that actually occurred at a remote time in his past. During the summer of 1976 we were staying at a cottage at Wells Beach on the southern Maine coast. My grandparents came to visit us one weekend and of course my brother and I were thrilled because it meant that my grandfather was there to tell us his “dreams.”

I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was almost eight years old. My brother and I started collecting things the previous year. I think it started out with bottle caps. We would scour the roadsides looking for them and were always thrilled when we came across a rare one that we had never seen before. Our collection grew and then we found comic books and baseball cards. This was back in the day when a kid could ride his bike down to the corner store and buy a comic book, pack of cards, a candy bar and a drink for under a dollar. I can remember one day I opened up a pack of cards and found one that was different from the rest. It was a black and white image of an old ball player named Walter Johnson that played for the Washington Senators in the early part of the 20th century. I had never heard about him, or the team that he played for which did not exist anymore. I took the card to Maine with me and showed it to my grandfather. His face lit up and I knew that another yarn was going to come from his mouth.
"Walter Johnson," he said. "Was the greatest pitcher to ever play baseball."
We were sitting on the porch at our cottage overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. He pointed out at the sea and told us that Walter Johnson's arm was so strong that he once threw a baseball clear across the ocean and it landed in Ireland. I can remember thinking to myself that this was quite an impossibility, but at the same time imagining that it really did happen. However, my brother and I were quite unprepared for what he told us next. He told us that Walter Johnson could throw a baseball so fast that he once threw one at such a rate that it went into orbit around the earth. "Believe it or not." he said. "It is still traveling around the world over 50 years later." He told us that some times on a clear night you might see it streaking across the sky like a meteor.

I can remember looking up at the sky and searching for it, not really believing that I would see it, but at the same time hoping that I would. Even today when I look up on a cool crisp evening and see a meteor flashing across the heavens, I think of Walter Johnson's blazing fastball, and my grandfather's absurd but magical tale of an impossibility fit only for the realm of mystical imagination.

A Lost Moment in Time: Stamp Collecting & Ribbon Candy

By Craig: The other day I was going through my old humpbacked trunk with its brass bands and latches. It has been in my family for generations dating back to the 19th century. It has seen better days. The rope handles have long since disappeared and only the brass fittings remain. This is fine with me. It's days of being loaded onto trains or stagecoaches are now generations in the past. I first became acquainted with the trunk when I was a toddler. It sat neglected in my grandfather's musty attic. To get to it my twin brother and I would climb a narrow set of creaky stairs and push open the ancient door with its rusty hinges that groaned loudly every time that we opened or closed it. The trunk contained old letters and business correspondence from another time, along with old moth eaten clothes, toys and other stuff that escapes my memory. We enjoyed twirling the small brass stars on top of the trunk to see who could spin them faster! It was definitely a strange form of entertainment, but we reveled in it! When we walked into that attic it was like walking back in time. I previously wrote about this magical place, which you can find here:

https://crhipkins.blogspot.com/2015/03/william-mckinley-in-my-grandfathers.html

I will therefore not bore the reader with a repetitive description of the place. Anyway, the trunk eventually found its way into my mother's house and from there to my house where it now resides in my library. I do not have a clue as to what happened to the priceless heirlooms that previously lurked in the chest. I shudder to think of their fate, but I know that when it was in my mother's possession it contained old clothes. Mind you, it wasn't the Victorian or Edwardian style that had previously rested in the box, but 1970s bell bottomed duds and wide collared shirts. When I took possession of the trunk it was my turn to dispose of these ugly artifacts and when it was empty it became the home for my stamp collection and old family photographs that date back generations.

I became interested in stamp collecting (Philately) at an early age. My grandfather would take me and my twin brother down to old Mrs. Coe's mansion to entertain her. She was a wealthy widow over four score in years and had trouble walking. My grandfather would bring her groceries and help her around the house. I can still remember her impressive stately home with its marble staircase that had a chairlift attached to the railing. Mrs. Coe would sit at the bottom of the stairs and watch us play. A 20th century Miss. Havisham! My grandfather would give us rides in the chair and we would wave to the smiling Mrs. Coe who dotted on us. Sometimes she would tell us a story about the old days that always fascinated us. Before we left, she would always give us some old stamps, and gingerbread or  ribbon candy and ordered us to brush our teeth after eating it.

Mrs. Coe passed away when I was about seven or eight years old and my grandfather went quietly to his grave shortly after that. Before he died he gave me his stamp collection, and along with the stamps that I received from Mrs. Coe, I amassed quite a collection. When I was about ten or eleven years old I found a price guide and was amazed at how much some of the stamps were worth! Recently, I found an updated guide and was astonished to see how little the stamp prices have moved in the over 40 years that I have been collecting them. It is all about interest in the hobby. Stamp collecting is dying and there are very few who engage in it today. I learned a lot about history from the stamps that I collected.

Today, when I visit my ancient trunk I twirl the stars and imagine my late brother Jay on the other side doing the same thing. My son will one day inherit the trunk along with the stamps, but what about the memories that come with it? He will in turn hand it over to his children and it will go on in perpetuity until one day it might end up in a lonely landfill somewhere, the memories lost with it! I still think about the long dead Mrs. Coe and when I get near the trunk I swear that I can sometimes detect the familiar scent of freshly made gingerbread, and taste the sweetness of ribbon candy...the senses acute with nostalgia, and a time now lost as the days, months and years continue to roll forward...

A Certain Encounter: Sir Francis Drake

By Craig: I have often wondered what a person from another century would think about life in the current one? I recently read a biography of Sir Francis Drake, the 16th century English explorer, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, privateer and hero of the Armada. Drake was, and still is a controversial character. In one sense he was nothing more than a pirate and an opportunist who took advantage of his social standing, and with a bit of luck and skill managed to reap a fortune. In another sense he was a hero to a nation who was the first of his country to circumnavigate the globe, and later on played a large role in defeating the great Spanish Armada. 21st century historians and the average person have a tendency to judge people from another time period by relating them to their own. This is looking at things blindly and subjectively. The mores of society along with the cultures that they belong change over the course of time. Certainly there are certain maxims and beliefs that have mostly been adhered to throughout the ages. Murder, for instance, has never been highly regarded. Neither has thievery or treason. However, the degrees as to how these crimes are interpreted has evolved over time. Drake has been accused of some of these crimes by some modern historians who cannot look past their own time.

I believe that I first heard about Sir Francis Drake when I was in elementary school. My grade school teacher was an avid historian and spent a whole class on Drake and his adventures which included his raids on New Spain and his part in the Great Armada of 1588. I was intrigued. My teacher made Drake come alive and sort of glorified his life. I can clearly remember pretending to be Drake on the deck of the Golden Hind, sword in hand (usually a big stick) swapping blows with my twin brother, who frequently, but not all the time got the best of me!

My mind wanders back to the late 16th century. I am a child again, but serve as a cabin boy on the Revenge. I can see Drake standing on the bow of the ship. He has just ordered the cannons loaded and is preparing to fire on the Spanish war ship San Martin. I can see the frantic sailors on the San Martin scrambling to man their battle stations. Hatches open and cannon prepare to fire on the English fleet. I am  anxious, but not in the least bit concerned. Francis Drake is present. His name causes panic to spread among the ships of the Spanish fleet under the Duke of Medina Sidonia. King Phillip has a bounty on his head. He is the plunderer of the Spanish treasure ships, and is directly responsible for enriching Queen Elizabeth's coffers as well as his own at the expense of the Spanish king. He stands there on the deck stroking his red beard, a hint of a smile on his grizzled face. His confidence in his own abilities is great, and his reputation has taken on a life of its own. The order to fire is given and there are great explosions followed by giant puffs of blinding smoke. There are screams and the loud din and smell of battle is overpowering. I find myself being hurled across the deck of the ship. I can taste blood in my mouth, but I am still alive. I look up and can see the billowy sails of the Revenge, and then there is Drake still standing on the bow looking out toward the great Spanish crescent. He looks over at me and smiles.

I come back to reality. I am on the back deck of my father's house, stick in hand. It is 1977. My twin brother Jay stands on the railing waving his stick at the imaginary line of Spanish galleons. A large white pine in the backyard becomes the mast and sails of a Spanish ship. I have become Drake. My twin brother has manhandled a log onto the deck and pushed it through two of the boards to act as a cannon. I give the order to fire cannon and there are loud sounds coming from my brother's mouth. Otherwise, it is a quiet day. It is late summer, maybe early autumn. Somewhere, I can hear the sound of a morning dove's call. I am still hearing it today.

A Lost Moment in Time: 1976, Fred Lynn, Butch Hobson & a Trip to Fenway Park

By Craig: The final score said it all: Athletics 7 Red Sox 6. The date was Sunday August, 22 1976. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was getting ready to celebrate my 8th birthday in a few weeks and my grandfather and father wanted to take my brother and me to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox. This was my first time going to Fenway, and I can clearly remember being excited. My grandfather was also looking forward to it. He was a boy when the Red Sox had last won a World Series, and I can remember him telling me about Red Sox legend Harry Hooper, and of course the Sultan of Swat, the legendary Babe Ruth who was at that time known more for his pitching than his batting.

It was a magical sunny day when we arrived at the park and my grandfather told us that we could each buy a batting helmet. There were three teams available to choose from. There was the Red Sox, of course, but then there was the Athletics and the Orioles. My brother immediately chose the Athletics helmet and I picked up one with the Orioles logo. My grandfather was confused.
"We are here to see the Red Sox!" He said. I can still hear his voice booming. "Don't you boys like the Red Sox?"
I cannot remember how we responded. I can remember cheering for the Red Sox, but my brother and I always had to be different. Every kid had a Red Sox helmet. No one had one with the Athletics or Orioles logo on it. He mumbled something, but reluctantly shelled out the money to the vendor and we walked away smiling, with our prizes atop our heads. My father had bought seats along the third base line. They were good seats, but the sun was a scorcher that day. As a fair haired ginger I never fared well in the sun as a child and still do not to this day. I do believe that the helmets helped us some.

The ballpark that day was alive with action. It is strange how after all these years I can remember only snippets from that day. Images impressed into my mind forever.
"Cracker Jacks! Get your Cracker Jacks!"
The smell of hot dogs and beer.
I can still see the field of play. Before this day I only knew the players from the cardboard cutouts sold in packs at the store, or from watching them on television. Now here they were come to life for the first time! There is Bill North of the Oakland Athletics. I can see the name on the back of his jersey. N-O-R-T-H. He was standing at the top of the dugout leaning on a bat. I have his baseball card! Then there is one of my favorite players Fred Lynn of the Red Sox. The image is as clear today as it was on that day 43 summers ago. He stands at home plate, bat in hand. He is angry with the umpire for a called strike. His young face illuminated by the afternoon sun. I can still hear the sound of that ball entering the catchers glove. Reluctantly he walks from the batters box back to the dugout. There is Yaz and Bert Campaneris. Campaneris is everywhere. He is destroying the Red Sox at the plate and in the field. Then there is the rookie Butch Hobson, another one of my favorite players. My grandfather is heckling him.
"Quit throwing like a girl!"
Hobson seems to look over his shoulder toward the taunts. Does he really do this? Or did I only imagine it?

We left the ballpark early. It was a Sunday and my father had to work in the morning. The game went into extra innings. I was mad and my brother was mad! We wanted to get Fred Lynn's autograph, and maybe meet Butch Hobson. My grandfather told us that they probably wouldn't want to meet us anyway because we were wearing Athletics and Orioles helmets. I felt bad. To this day I still feel bad. We should have gotten the Red Sox helmets. We disappointed my grandfather, but I realized why he let us get the other helmets and I smile. He died a little over a year after this game, and we never went to another one with him, but we didn't have to. It is the memory of this one sunny summer afternoon that lives on. It was a magical time now almost a half century in the past. As we left that day and headed out into the street I heard the sounds of the ballpark receding in the distance. I can still hear it today.

Elements of Time: Roman Soldiers Comic Book Ad

By Craig: Ok, where do I begin with this one. As some of my readers know, I have been a comic book guru since I learned how to read. My readers might also know that the comic books that I read are not typically of the superhero genre, although there was an occasional exception. For instance, I always enjoyed reading the Fantastic Four, and the old Marvel Two-in Ones starring Ben Grimm (AKA The Thing) who always managed to find trouble wherever he turned. I especially enjoyed it when he got his own comic book in the early 1980s. I don't think that it lasted that long, but I enjoyed it while it did. When I made it to high school I lost interest in comic books, and only returned to them a few years back when my son was in elementary school, and I started to live vicariously through them again. They seemed to transport me back to another time, a simpler time. At least simple for me. My parents might not have thought so, but to me it was a good time.

One of the things that always fascinated me about comic books back in those days were the ads. I previously wrote about the famous Sea Monkey ad a few years back in a post that you can find here https://crhipkins.blogspot.com/2014/02/elements-of-time-sea-monkeys.html
In 1976 my twin brother Jay approached me one day and said "look at this!" I can still remember the excitement in his voice. He handed me a copy of Grimm's Ghost Stories which in those days was published by Gold Key comics. I looked at the comic that he had given me. The cover showed an elderly man holding a knife over a ghost sitting in a wheelchair. The caption read "His brother was dead-but that wasn't enough! His ghost had to die too!" I remember looking at it and then Jay told me to turn it over. I was amazed at what I saw. It was a full page color add of a battle scene from ancient Rome complete with chariots, catapults and archers. At the top in bright red ink it said 132pc Roman Soldiers Set. Underneath this bold print it gave a vivid description of what you might be able to do with this set of soldiers.
2 Complete Roman Armies! Fight again the battles of the old Roman Civil War-Roman against Roman! Or mount your own attack against a town or city. Every piece of molded plastic-each on its own base. Two complete armies, one in blue, one in yellow! Your satisfaction guaranteed or full refund! 
Of course, I have no recollection of reading this fine print, especially the part where it states "satisfaction guaranteed." At eight years of age we hardly knew what this meant. No! Even if we did read this part of the add we merely glossed over it. It was not important. The fascinating battle scene is what had our attention. In the foreground was a muscular soldier holding a sword out in front of him, his mouth wide open as if he were issuing a command, or perhaps he was so intent on meeting an opponent that he was in the process of a barbaric yawp as he charged at his victim. For his opponent would surely be a victim as this soldier could never die. He was Julius Caesar or Augustus. He was too formidable a force to ever lose his life in battle.  I could only imagine how the next scene would play out! And wait! The best part was that Jay and I could decide the outcome if we rushed a filled out coupon along with $2.25 to Roman War Soldiers in Westbury N.Y!!

This was a no-brainer. We simply had to have this playset. The only trouble was how we would come up with the formidable sum of $2.25 to get it. I have absolutely no recollection of how we managed to get come up with the money. I do remember at about this time going door to door selling seeds and pens and hustling for cash so that I could buy comic books and baseball cards. Perhaps this is how we came up with the money, or maybe it was the dollar that our grandfather gave us every week when we went in to visit him in the city. I do not recall, but it doesn't really matter. What I do remember is Jay stuffing two well worn dollars and a quarter into an envelope along with the coupon and licking a stamp. We placed it in the mailbox, pulled the red flag up and waited. It was unbearable! Every day we would wait for the mailman Mr. Meagher, and then rush down to the mailbox to see if the package had arrived. One day, as if a miracle had just happened it arrived. The package was nothing fancy. A small white box that fit into the mailbox, but we immediately knew what it was. It had arrived from Westbury N.Y.! It was addressed to Jay Hipkins of Ragged Hill Rd. I tried to grab at it, but Jay was quicker and snatched it, and took off running toward the house with me in full pursuit. I remember the day as if it happened only yesterday because it was on a Saturday and we were going to Vermont. I followed Jay into the house and he was already attempting to tear the package open as if it contained the holy grail! Dumping the contents onto the counter we stared at it. I can only imagine the expressions on our face when we saw what the package contained. It must have been one of confusion and disappointment. 

"Is this it?" I can remember thinking. My twin Jay repeated this same question in his mind as the disappointment turned to anger.

"This is a rip-off!" I remember Jay saying. 

In front of us were these cheap thin yellow and blue pieces of plastic that fraudulently claimed to be Roman Soldiers! What we did not know at the time was that we had learned a valuable lesson in marketing. 

"Do not always believe what you see!"

What did we expect? Did we actually believe that the Roman soldiers would look like the heroic warriors captured in the ad? Looking at the ad today I am brought back in time over 4o years. As I stare at the ad some part of me still believes that it just might be able to come to life. The screaming warrior charging forth with his sword drawn rushes past the border of the page followed by other fearless helmeted soldiers slicing their way off the page until the colorful battle rendered in ink is finally complete, leaving a dusty blood soaked battlefield behind.

 I can still see my brother's disappointment and can still see him attempting to set the soldiers up on the counter in the kitchen. Half of them would not even stand on their bases. I do not recall what happened to them. I imagine that they disappeared in the closet and, eventually found themselves tossed in the garbage during one of our many moves. A quick search of E-Bay found these cheap pieces of my childhood memory selling for a lot more than $2.25. Today they are considered nostalgic items and I imagine that if my brother Jay were still alive today he would once again be anxiously awaiting the arrival of a small white package. This time purchased not under an illusion, but for sentiment and memory of a time now lost. 

Astrolabe: A Novel by Jay S. Hipkins

By Craig: I have been plugging away on a novel. I came up with the idea the day after my brother's death. It was an epiphany of sorts. A surreal moment, as if my twin brother Jay was speaking to me from another world. The novel is a sequel to his novel Astrolabe which he finished only weeks before his death. It will be called Adalbert. The setting is mid 12th century France and England during the reigns of Louis VII of France, and Henry II of England. It takes place twenty years after the events in Astrolabe, and focuses on the youthful adventures of Astrolabe's son Adalbert. It is chock full of action and adventure with knights, castles and even a sea voyage into the icy waters of the northern sea where our protagonist encounters a massive sea serpent. A few of the characters from Astrolabe return in the sequel including Robert de Langton, Asperia and the good priest Adonorus. I am almost finished with the rough draft. I hope to have it completed by June. If you are into reading medieval fiction start with Jay's book first. I promise you a good read! Please visit my website at www.hipkinstwins.com where you can link to our books on Amazon.

www.hipkinstwins.com

A Lost Moment in Time: The Humble Fisherman and Typhoon Dinah 1987

By Craig: He had seen the war. Not the recent ones in the middle east, but the big one that engulfed the whole world in the 1940s. He had been a young man then, but when I met him in the spring or summer of 1987 he was no longer young. I was in the Marines, on Okinawa, serving in a Medical Battalion as a combat lineman. My job was to help wire up the camp and tend to the generators that brought power to the much needed medical equipment in the field. I was a lance corporal then and would spend weeks on end in the bush. I lived in a barracks when not in the field, and therefore had ample time for liberty. I would often walk off the base into the town and out into the countryside. I didn't have a car but I did not mind walking. I could walk for miles and it wouldn't bother me. I loved walking...I still do. Sometimes I would walk down to the beach and walk along the shoreline. There were not too many Marines that far out in the country, so I would sometimes get strange looks from the locals, but all in all I did not feel all that uncomfortable. One time I chanced upon a small shack nestled in the dunes off the beach. A patchwork door covered the entrance. There was a small row boat outside of it. It was a fisherman's boat. Whoever lived here was definitely living a humble existence!  As I approached the shack which was half built into a dune like a dugout, a toothless old head peeked through the door and a skinny old man with bronzed skin appearing much like worn leather ambled out into the sunshine. He was wearing a pair of shorts and I doubted if he had worn a shirt in years. I greeted him with a friendly wave not wanting to intimidate him as I was fully aware of the reputation Marines had on the island.
I only knew a few words and phrases of Japanese so I acknowledged him in his native tongue. He spoke only a few words of English, but with sign language and strange gesticulations, coupled with the few words that each of us knew in the others language I was able to understand some of what he said to me during our short conversation. I took it to understand that he had worked on one of the American military bases after the war. He had no family, at least that is what I remember...unless my memory is faulty. It has been over 30 years since our brief conversation. I thought about my native country and the stark contrast between there and here. You would never see a humble fisherman allowed to sink a dugout inside of a sand dune on a beach. The tycoons of the world would lay claim to it and send this toothless survivor out into the streets.

A few months after this encounter with the humble fisherman I found myself on a remote guard post a mile or so from the main camp where our battalion had set up. For a few days word had been floating around the camp that a typhoon was approaching, (Typhoon Dinah) but its exact path had yet to be determined. It was finally concluded that the storm would either brush by the island or hit it head on. The decision was made pretty fast. We were to evacuate by mid morning. I don't recall how it happened, but sometime during the night I was ordered to the guard post which was at a junction of two muddy roads. A temporary gate had been set up to allow vehicles to pass or not depending on who they were. My companion this night was another lance corporal. I knew him only vaguely as one of the Motor-T marines. He was a native of Pakistan. The two of us got along well and were actually fortunate to get this post as it required very little work. It had rained in spurts during the day. Every time there was a downpour I was drenched to the bone, but then the sun would come out in a blaze of heat and dry me off. Another cloud burst and then the sun. It was a pattern that had kept up all day, but by night there wasn't a cloud in the sky and no wind. It was the calm before the storm! Throughout the evening, trucks carrying men and equipment evacuated in orderly fashion. Sometime during the evening we noticed that it had been a long time since we had seen a vehicle and began to wonder if we had been forgotten. At about this time we heard a rumbling of wheels and a truck's headlights appeared much to our relief. It was the commanding officer of the camp and his driver, a colonel whose name I have long since forgotten. He stuck his head out the window and he said.
"You marines need a lift?"
It was a comical scene that would never happen in this day and age. About a year after this in 1988 a young marine lance corporal was forgotten at a remote post in the California desert. By the time that his unit had realized that he was missing they had already returned to their base at Camp Pendleton. A search eventually found his body. He had died of exposure to the elements. A congressional investigation found the Marine Corps to be negligent and the procedures were radically changed to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.

After returning to the barracks we prepared for the typhoon the best way that we could. We sealed the windows and tied down everything that had the potential to become a flying missile in the wind. To this day I can still hear the wind howling and whistling thinking that at anytime the roof might blow off. When it was over, there was surprisingly little damage except for some downed trees and power lines. Mercifully Okinawa received only a glancing blow. If it had hit us dead on it could have been catastrophic. Still, there was damage. A few days later I returned to the beach to seek out the old man to see how he fared during the storm. When I arrived at the location that I thought the shack had been located it was not there. At first I believed that I was in the wrong place, but as I walked further along the shore I realized that I was in the right area. The shack had obviously been washed away in the typhoon. There was no sign of his boat, only a well worn and battered oar half buried in the surf. For a while I can remember just standing there thinking about how fragile life was. What had become of the old man? Did he move to a place of safety, or had he been washed away by a wave? It was a surreal moment for me. If he had been washed away who would know about it? Who would care? He was a human being. To this day I often think of this old man. His smiling toothless weather beaten face looking at me as if to say "Don't forget me. I once existed." Sometimes I wonder if he really did exist, or if I just imagined the whole thing during one of my lonely peregrinations around the island those many years ago. Life is tenuous as is the conscious element that comes with it, which at the end of any experience, all that is left are the fragmentary images of a dream.

                                                             Typhoon Dinah 1987

Lon Chaney: Laugh Clown Laugh

By Craig: I have finally gotten around to updating this blog. It has now been nearly 5 months since my twin brother's death, and figured that it is time to get on with life. My 14 year old son has been spending the summer with me and we have been watching a lot of old classic movies from the silent film era. I have always been interested in the nostalgia behind these films which for the most part were made during the days of my grandparent's youth before 1930. My brother Jay was an avid fan of the silent film, so perhaps my interest of late is his influence coming through to me. Perhaps I am channeling a bit of him from beyond the grave! I have spent the past 5 months working on a sequel to my brother's novel, Astrolabe which he published a few weeks before his death. I am about a third of the way through it. This is part of the reason that I have not updated this blog, but I now find that it is time to keep it going.

The other day my son and I watched Laugh Clown Laugh. The movie was released by MGM studios in 1928. It stars Lon Chaney Sr. and a young Loretta Young. The movie starts out slow, but picks up its pace and has a climatic melancholic conclusion. Chaney stars as Tito, a performer in a traveling carnival show who goes by the stage name of Flik. One day Tito and his fellow travelling performer and friend Simon, who is played ably by Bernard Siegel find an orphaned girl who has been abandoned by the roadside. Tito adopts the girl whose name is Simonetta (later played by Young) and becomes a sort of father figure to her. As she grows older she develops into a fine performer in her own right. Tito admires her and his feelings for her change from being a father figure to one of love. However, he is afraid to tell her due to obvious reasons. The main one being that he does not want to risk losing her which he fears will happen one day. He is also a man nearing two score and ten, and could conceivably be the age of her grandfather.

Simonetta eventually meets the wealthy Count Luigi Ravelli played by Nils Asther. Tito meets Luigi in the doctors office. The irony of their meeting is that Tito is a clown who makes people laugh, but is himself a miserable wretch who is incapable of laughter due to his quiet and hidden love for Simonetta. Luigi has a condition that causes him to laugh too much. The two men become fast friends, believing that each can help the other. Of course, neither of them know about the others feeling for Simonetta. Luigi and Simonetta fall in love much to Tito's dismay who feels betrayed by his friend. After Luigi and Simonetta agree to marry the young woman returns to Tito, and realizes that he is distraught and finally comes to the conclusion that he has feelings for her other than fatherly ones. She does not want to break Tito's heart, and decides to call off the marriage to Luigi and marry Tito instead. It is a noble thing to do, and after she leaves to inform Luigi, Tito becomes morose and contemplative. He knows that Simonetta loves Luigi, and wants to see her happy, and that he is being selfish. He meets Simon for a rehearsal and Simon is surprised to see Tito dressed up in his clown outfit. Tito insists on doing a dangerous stunt and falls to his death from a tightwire. His last words as he lay dying on the ground were about Simonetta.

Laugh Clown Laugh is a movie about forbidden love. Chaney is superb in the part as Tito. One of the more poignant scenes in the film occurs when Chaney (dressed as Flik) becomes immersed in thought and is surrounded by scores of laughing heads. They are phantoms of faceless and anonymous people who are there to see him perform. But they are vapid, empty, and meaningless to him. They are nothing but images of some temporal existence which finds laughter for some brief moment on the linear plane of time. As I watched this part of the film I became engrossed with these phantom heads. Who were these people? What became of them? This movie was filmed 90 years ago. Whoever they were... one thing is certain. They are long dead. In all probability their descendants (if they had any) do not even remember them. Yet here they are...their jovial faces forever anonymous caught forever in one of the things that we all strive for...A little laughter and fun.

                                                                Lon Chaney Sr. as Tito