Janice, finding time to catch up with your stories. This one I especially appreciate as I am trying to stay hopeful and appreciative of growing up and living in a Mayberry world that was and is an illusion for many.
Thank you for sharing your observations and your wisdom!
Thanks, Janice. Plenty to think about here. A bonfire would have needed to wait until the burn ban was lifted, so it's good that you went ahead with plan A. That said, I'm glad you held onto a chunk, if for nothing more than a reminder of where you've been.
Adding: Thank you for sharing my recent Chicken Scratch post, Janice. It's interesting that, since sharing that, I've seen related ideas cropping up all over the place. Maybe it's something we've long believed, or maybe it feels like all that's left to hold. Either way, I hope more of us will bear in mind what we share in common. Glad to be in this camp w/ you!
“This week and much of this year, I have found myself searching for less tumultuous days.”
I “hoard” memes like I used to “hoard” old newspaper clippings (but I digress). Believing that no thing is all one thing or the other, I keep two quotes on nostalgia. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.
“Nostalgia is a dirty liar that insists things were better than they seemed.”
“The fossil is not the animal. The fossil is not the bones of the animal. The fossil is the stone’s memory of the bones of the animal. And that’s a poetry older than words.”
I’ve been thinking about nostalgia over the past year or so. I’m beginning to conclude that our younger selves, and thus our memories, were naive. Life was simple because it had not yet been layered with the complexity of experience, and disappointment, and anxiety, and pain. The memory of first love is a smile across your face on a Sunday afternoon. A lifetime of marriage and children is so much more complicated. Grandchildren are the gift that let us visit the past while still living in the present. Mayberry seemed straight forward, but it was also a time of polio, segregation, and bomb shelters.
“My reaction, of course, is in regard to the complex and (to me) surprising decisions that this nation made based on the information presented. Who can we believe? Is there any unadulterated, unbiased fact?”
I’m a student of political science and a teacher of government and politics. I strive to view the subject objectively in both my public and personal life. I read and listen widely as a check against my own subjectivity.
I squeezed my lesson on populism in before the election. My students are mostly upper middle class and secure and frankly the populism of Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump has little effect on them. But, I remind them that populism speaks to people for a reason. A candidate can’t say, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” (regardless of the context) and not expect those people to feel threatened as they continue to experience economic and social hardship.
I once read an interview with Arnold Miller, the president of the United Mine Workers. Miller is often quoted as having said, “Our people work in the mines so their children don’t have to.” He was a little more specific in the interview. His goal was to make the cost of coal labor so expensive that the industry would be forced to modernize; and in the meantime, miners would make enough money that they could send their children to college. And while that sounds visionary, 40 years later, the best paying jobs in “coal country” are in the fossil fuel industry, if you can get one.
My frustration is with the seemingly inherent tone deafness and unwillingness of a certain political party to put forward a candidate that will win. All week we hear from the media about the 57% of college educated women who voted for Harris; what about the 43% who didn’t (that’s not a small number)? When we hear about Trump’s support from women, it’s to remind us they don’t have to tell anyone who they voted for. Instead, the media chooses to highlight the Trump voters who are not educated, without trying to understand why they support him.
Part of my school’s mission is, “To stand in solidarity with those marginalized by poverty and injustice.” We do a pretty good job and then some. We teach our students that as a community, we must find ways to not leave people behind. Populism pits those “without” against those “with less”, while the rest of us enjoy the advantage of our advantages.
I’ve read that shipwrights of 100 years ago never imagined that the boats they built would last 30 years, let alone 80 to 100 years. In the 1800s, a ship that traveled from America or England to India or China required a major overhaul before the return voyage. Moitessier preferred steel because it was easier to maintain. And then came fiberglass … built to last forever.
Our love of wooden boats, I’m confident, is rooted in something greater than nostalgia. Like a classic song that reminds us of an old friend and transports us back in time, wooden boats tug at our soul. Nature transformed, crafted by human hands, the sum of the parts greater (grander?) than the whole. Wooden boats are, like a fossil, our memory to the people who built them. Their craftsmanship is evidence of a different time.
I, too, appreciate this thoughtful and thorough comment. This line is particularly potent "Populism pits those “without” against those “with less”, while the rest of us enjoy the advantage of our advantages." It is disheartening that we are unable to recognize or prevent our attachment to pitting one group against another. I think about whether there is any other species that, given natural habitat and resources, is so bent on destroying not only its own environment but also its own kind. I haven't identified one yet. So we assume all others are incapable of the kind of strategizing and hoarding so common for us. Or are they all just so much smarter?
This has so much thought-provoking stuff in it I've read it again! I'm honored to be connected with you, especially as an educator. We all educate to some extent, but it's hard not to be, as you say, subjective.
We recall the good times and forget the worst because it feels better, I suppose. One of my best friends had a hate/dislike relationship with her mother and when she passed, there was this incredible ability to remember only the good times and not the cruel criticisms we all witnessed. Perhaps that is a gift of sorts. Maybe our experiences allow us that. I don't think college education is for everyone or an advantage for everyone. My husband has no formal education and yet I consider him my equal in earning power and judgement as well as many other categories, my quarter-million dollar Ivy League education notwithstanding.
People just stand and stare at the rebuild of our bow in progress. It is so complex, intricate, powerful. She does truly represent another time, but I stand by the idea that time and these vessels have been forgotten more than they are revered. I'm doing my best to guide people to revisit that history, the good, the bad and the ugly.
You are a wonderful person to have on my subscriber list!! Nothing better than hearing a perspective that expands the mind. THANK YOU. ~J
I remember that post. I had to revisit my comment. I thought I’d talked about something else (but what I did say was relevant at the time).
Your comment this morning about people “standing and staring” at the rebuild of the bow reminds me of a different story I shared with you about The Western Flyer:
“I have a fond memory from a few years back. I convinced my wife and children to stand and wait as shipwrights working on The Western Flyer pulled a bulky rib from the box where it had been steaming for hours. They hustled it into place and fixed the bottom end with a clamp. Using a come-along they coaxed it inward, adding clamps to hold it in place as it took its bend. When the last clamp was in place and they'd finished, we clapped. It was magnificent …”
To be witness to the “creation/restoration” is a humbling experience. Watching someone mix epoxy does not have nearly the same effect!
In trying to stay focused on the symmetry of “nostalgia and politics” yesterday, while trying to wrap it all in the theme of wooden boats, I left out “one last thought”.
I don’t think that the shipwrights of 100 years ago leaned toward sentimentalism (and it sounds like your shipwright has a practical streak of his own).
In Building Classic Small Craft, John Gardner says,
“In former times, when men rowed boats in the course of their daily occupations, depended on them for their livelihood and often for their lives, an intimate relationship existed between a man and his boat. Choosing a boat was serious business, somewhat on the order of selecting a wife. There was a wide field to choose from, and many factors to take into account …
It is no accident that such superlative watermen as Adirondack guides and Maine coast fishermen frequently built their own boats in bygone days. So much depended upon having a boat uniquely suited to their own individual needs and preferences that they did not trust the job to anyone else … To the fisherman, each boat had individuality, and each was as different in its own way as the man who owned it.”
They were practical men in practical times. Even in the early to mid 20th century, we are hard pressed to find a boat without an “iron jib”. Gardner includes a picture from 1913 or 1914 of a “powered fishing dory fleet” in Boston.
Perhaps unrelated to this week’s conversation, but surely relevant to the overall theme of your current writing, Gardner also said this:
“As others have often found in the building of boats, one is likely to come close to tears more than once before everything is shipshape and the job is finally and creditably done.”
Scott, This is so well written. Thank you. Our country needs more teachers like you and our states and nation need to recognize the real value of education. My eyes tear up when I see how schools have lowered their standards, so there is no failure which has ensured their will be little real achievement... I could go on and on. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts
When we bought our Cal35 at a marina on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, there was a big old wooden trawler two slips over from us. Poor old girl. She was unloved and maybe even abandoned. One morning, we crossed the bridge for some boat time and the first thing we saw was that the old trawler had sunken. It was sad.
Even worse, she was removed in chunks by a big excavator and piled into dump trucks for one last ride. I kept wondering why people can’t envision the potential, but I guess potential doesn’t mean much without determination and resources.
But at least one old boat won’t end up in a dump truck. Keep it up. It’s a labor of love.
Thanks Switter. There's a schooner at this yard right now, MIST OF AVALON, who has been down once...the passage of time wreaks havoc (on my stiff arthritic hands too!). Amazing, this outpouring of energy and money brings me such joy..... love it is. J
Josh Slocum’s Spray was an old hulk sitting on the hard and as I recall, someone gave it to him, so she was another labor of love and has a solid place in adventure travel history.
(It always amused me when I lived in the former Soviet Union to hear vessels referred to with male pronouns, but when you see photos of their coal or oil fired* aircraft carriers with the odd jump bows billowing thick clouds of black smoke, it does kind of have a logic to it. Their carriers are like cigar smoking, beer-bellied, cranky middle-aged men stretched out on a sofa.)
What a storied boat and a beautiful way to tell her story. With every piece you write, I understand better your deep connection with her. She is a lucky one too, to have owners that maintain and grow her legacy. Hopefully, as citizens, we can do the same for America.
I hope so, too! Truly. Certainly most people would have let our old girl go...thank you very much.
On a completely different topic, or not, Are you aware of the considered restrictions being considered for FL? Search Facebook Cruisers Rights saving Florida's anchorages ....there is a closed group that seems legit. West Palm Beach area has legislation that may restrict anchoring prohibitively.
Just found it last night so thought worth a mention. Safe passage.
Janice, finding time to catch up with your stories. This one I especially appreciate as I am trying to stay hopeful and appreciative of growing up and living in a Mayberry world that was and is an illusion for many.
Thank you for sharing your observations and your wisdom!
Love you!
Thanks, Janice. Plenty to think about here. A bonfire would have needed to wait until the burn ban was lifted, so it's good that you went ahead with plan A. That said, I'm glad you held onto a chunk, if for nothing more than a reminder of where you've been.
Adding: Thank you for sharing my recent Chicken Scratch post, Janice. It's interesting that, since sharing that, I've seen related ideas cropping up all over the place. Maybe it's something we've long believed, or maybe it feels like all that's left to hold. Either way, I hope more of us will bear in mind what we share in common. Glad to be in this camp w/ you!
“This week and much of this year, I have found myself searching for less tumultuous days.”
I “hoard” memes like I used to “hoard” old newspaper clippings (but I digress). Believing that no thing is all one thing or the other, I keep two quotes on nostalgia. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.
“Nostalgia is a dirty liar that insists things were better than they seemed.”
“The fossil is not the animal. The fossil is not the bones of the animal. The fossil is the stone’s memory of the bones of the animal. And that’s a poetry older than words.”
I’ve been thinking about nostalgia over the past year or so. I’m beginning to conclude that our younger selves, and thus our memories, were naive. Life was simple because it had not yet been layered with the complexity of experience, and disappointment, and anxiety, and pain. The memory of first love is a smile across your face on a Sunday afternoon. A lifetime of marriage and children is so much more complicated. Grandchildren are the gift that let us visit the past while still living in the present. Mayberry seemed straight forward, but it was also a time of polio, segregation, and bomb shelters.
“My reaction, of course, is in regard to the complex and (to me) surprising decisions that this nation made based on the information presented. Who can we believe? Is there any unadulterated, unbiased fact?”
I’m a student of political science and a teacher of government and politics. I strive to view the subject objectively in both my public and personal life. I read and listen widely as a check against my own subjectivity.
I squeezed my lesson on populism in before the election. My students are mostly upper middle class and secure and frankly the populism of Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump has little effect on them. But, I remind them that populism speaks to people for a reason. A candidate can’t say, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” (regardless of the context) and not expect those people to feel threatened as they continue to experience economic and social hardship.
I once read an interview with Arnold Miller, the president of the United Mine Workers. Miller is often quoted as having said, “Our people work in the mines so their children don’t have to.” He was a little more specific in the interview. His goal was to make the cost of coal labor so expensive that the industry would be forced to modernize; and in the meantime, miners would make enough money that they could send their children to college. And while that sounds visionary, 40 years later, the best paying jobs in “coal country” are in the fossil fuel industry, if you can get one.
My frustration is with the seemingly inherent tone deafness and unwillingness of a certain political party to put forward a candidate that will win. All week we hear from the media about the 57% of college educated women who voted for Harris; what about the 43% who didn’t (that’s not a small number)? When we hear about Trump’s support from women, it’s to remind us they don’t have to tell anyone who they voted for. Instead, the media chooses to highlight the Trump voters who are not educated, without trying to understand why they support him.
Part of my school’s mission is, “To stand in solidarity with those marginalized by poverty and injustice.” We do a pretty good job and then some. We teach our students that as a community, we must find ways to not leave people behind. Populism pits those “without” against those “with less”, while the rest of us enjoy the advantage of our advantages.
I’ve read that shipwrights of 100 years ago never imagined that the boats they built would last 30 years, let alone 80 to 100 years. In the 1800s, a ship that traveled from America or England to India or China required a major overhaul before the return voyage. Moitessier preferred steel because it was easier to maintain. And then came fiberglass … built to last forever.
Our love of wooden boats, I’m confident, is rooted in something greater than nostalgia. Like a classic song that reminds us of an old friend and transports us back in time, wooden boats tug at our soul. Nature transformed, crafted by human hands, the sum of the parts greater (grander?) than the whole. Wooden boats are, like a fossil, our memory to the people who built them. Their craftsmanship is evidence of a different time.
I, too, appreciate this thoughtful and thorough comment. This line is particularly potent "Populism pits those “without” against those “with less”, while the rest of us enjoy the advantage of our advantages." It is disheartening that we are unable to recognize or prevent our attachment to pitting one group against another. I think about whether there is any other species that, given natural habitat and resources, is so bent on destroying not only its own environment but also its own kind. I haven't identified one yet. So we assume all others are incapable of the kind of strategizing and hoarding so common for us. Or are they all just so much smarter?
It's confounding and does seem purposeless, doesn't it? To hurt, offend and kill over the differences (which are few) in religions most of all.
Good morning Scott,
This has so much thought-provoking stuff in it I've read it again! I'm honored to be connected with you, especially as an educator. We all educate to some extent, but it's hard not to be, as you say, subjective.
We recall the good times and forget the worst because it feels better, I suppose. One of my best friends had a hate/dislike relationship with her mother and when she passed, there was this incredible ability to remember only the good times and not the cruel criticisms we all witnessed. Perhaps that is a gift of sorts. Maybe our experiences allow us that. I don't think college education is for everyone or an advantage for everyone. My husband has no formal education and yet I consider him my equal in earning power and judgement as well as many other categories, my quarter-million dollar Ivy League education notwithstanding.
Were you a subscriber when I wrote THE WOODEN BOAT PHENOMENON? There is truly soul. https://janiceannewheeler.substack.com/p/the-wooden-boat-phenomenon
People just stand and stare at the rebuild of our bow in progress. It is so complex, intricate, powerful. She does truly represent another time, but I stand by the idea that time and these vessels have been forgotten more than they are revered. I'm doing my best to guide people to revisit that history, the good, the bad and the ugly.
You are a wonderful person to have on my subscriber list!! Nothing better than hearing a perspective that expands the mind. THANK YOU. ~J
I remember that post. I had to revisit my comment. I thought I’d talked about something else (but what I did say was relevant at the time).
Your comment this morning about people “standing and staring” at the rebuild of the bow reminds me of a different story I shared with you about The Western Flyer:
“I have a fond memory from a few years back. I convinced my wife and children to stand and wait as shipwrights working on The Western Flyer pulled a bulky rib from the box where it had been steaming for hours. They hustled it into place and fixed the bottom end with a clamp. Using a come-along they coaxed it inward, adding clamps to hold it in place as it took its bend. When the last clamp was in place and they'd finished, we clapped. It was magnificent …”
To be witness to the “creation/restoration” is a humbling experience. Watching someone mix epoxy does not have nearly the same effect!
In trying to stay focused on the symmetry of “nostalgia and politics” yesterday, while trying to wrap it all in the theme of wooden boats, I left out “one last thought”.
I don’t think that the shipwrights of 100 years ago leaned toward sentimentalism (and it sounds like your shipwright has a practical streak of his own).
In Building Classic Small Craft, John Gardner says,
“In former times, when men rowed boats in the course of their daily occupations, depended on them for their livelihood and often for their lives, an intimate relationship existed between a man and his boat. Choosing a boat was serious business, somewhat on the order of selecting a wife. There was a wide field to choose from, and many factors to take into account …
It is no accident that such superlative watermen as Adirondack guides and Maine coast fishermen frequently built their own boats in bygone days. So much depended upon having a boat uniquely suited to their own individual needs and preferences that they did not trust the job to anyone else … To the fisherman, each boat had individuality, and each was as different in its own way as the man who owned it.”
They were practical men in practical times. Even in the early to mid 20th century, we are hard pressed to find a boat without an “iron jib”. Gardner includes a picture from 1913 or 1914 of a “powered fishing dory fleet” in Boston.
Perhaps unrelated to this week’s conversation, but surely relevant to the overall theme of your current writing, Gardner also said this:
“As others have often found in the building of boats, one is likely to come close to tears more than once before everything is shipshape and the job is finally and creditably done.”
Been there … Cheers!
Scott, This is so well written. Thank you. Our country needs more teachers like you and our states and nation need to recognize the real value of education. My eyes tear up when I see how schools have lowered their standards, so there is no failure which has ensured their will be little real achievement... I could go on and on. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts
Thank you. Janice gives us plenty to contemplate … 😎🙏✌️
Good one, Janice.
When we bought our Cal35 at a marina on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, there was a big old wooden trawler two slips over from us. Poor old girl. She was unloved and maybe even abandoned. One morning, we crossed the bridge for some boat time and the first thing we saw was that the old trawler had sunken. It was sad.
Even worse, she was removed in chunks by a big excavator and piled into dump trucks for one last ride. I kept wondering why people can’t envision the potential, but I guess potential doesn’t mean much without determination and resources.
But at least one old boat won’t end up in a dump truck. Keep it up. It’s a labor of love.
Thanks Switter. There's a schooner at this yard right now, MIST OF AVALON, who has been down once...the passage of time wreaks havoc (on my stiff arthritic hands too!). Amazing, this outpouring of energy and money brings me such joy..... love it is. J
Josh Slocum’s Spray was an old hulk sitting on the hard and as I recall, someone gave it to him, so she was another labor of love and has a solid place in adventure travel history.
(It always amused me when I lived in the former Soviet Union to hear vessels referred to with male pronouns, but when you see photos of their coal or oil fired* aircraft carriers with the odd jump bows billowing thick clouds of black smoke, it does kind of have a logic to it. Their carriers are like cigar smoking, beer-bellied, cranky middle-aged men stretched out on a sofa.)
*or maybe even used car tire fired.
What a storied boat and a beautiful way to tell her story. With every piece you write, I understand better your deep connection with her. She is a lucky one too, to have owners that maintain and grow her legacy. Hopefully, as citizens, we can do the same for America.
I hope so, too! Truly. Certainly most people would have let our old girl go...thank you very much.
On a completely different topic, or not, Are you aware of the considered restrictions being considered for FL? Search Facebook Cruisers Rights saving Florida's anchorages ....there is a closed group that seems legit. West Palm Beach area has legislation that may restrict anchoring prohibitively.
Just found it last night so thought worth a mention. Safe passage.
J
Janice, Did you hear from Wally Moran ?