On occasions like this, it’s fitting even for citizens of a republic to say, Long Live the King!
Here’s the image of Elizabeth II that I like best.
That’s for strictly personal reasons: I picked the coin up in change in Australia over 30 years ago.
I was glad to see 50-cent pieces in circulation somewhere.
In 1780, the British commander at Fort Michilimackinac, which had been a French post on the mainland south shore of the Straits of Mackinac until the British had won it in the Seven Years’ War, decided to build a more defensible fort on Mackinac Island (and perhaps, one with a shorter name). He picked a bluff overlooking the lakeshore.
“Fort Mackinac, Michigan” by Seth Eastman (1872)
The fort stands there to this day, though in somewhat different form: a tourist attraction. As a tourist, I was duly attracted.
Note the Boy Scout. Turns out in visiting Mackinac Island, we were visiting a presidential site. It’s a slightly convoluted story, but well relayed by the island’s web site.
These days, a group of Boy and Girl Scouts raises and lowers about two dozen American flags across Mackinac Island each day during the summer. They also act as guides at the fort. The fellow at the entrance wasn’t the only one we saw.
He was the only one I talked to, however. Tried to, that is. I asked him why Boy Scouts were at the fort, and perhaps a career involving public interaction isn’t in his future, because he sputtered a few unintelligible words and looked at me as if I’d tried to talk to the guards at Buckingham Palace.
So I had to learn later that the flag-raising and other duties started “in 1929 when then-Michigan Gov. Fred Green commissioned eight Eagle Scouts from around the state as honor guardsman on Mackinac Island,” the island’s web site says.
The governor’s summer residence, by the way, is on Mackinac Island, very near the fort, though the house didn’t begin that function until 1944. We walked past it on the way to the fort.
Its formal name is the Lawrence A. Young Cottage, dating from 1902. Young was a successful Chicago attorney who had it built as his summer home.
The presidential connection? In 1929, one of the charter group of scouts tapped by Gov. Green was none other than Gerald R. Ford.
The scout barracks aren’t far from the fort, either. We passed those after we left the fort.
Inside the fort.
Besides the scouts, there were a handful of somewhat older folk in costume. I told this fellow he was wearing a capital uniform.
Unlike the scout, he was talkative, and able to tell us in some detail about the uniform, though I think he was a little confused about my use of the term “capital” to mean “fine” or “excellent.” An apt term for a spiffy 19th-century uniform, if you asked me.
There are some terrific views from the fort, as a pre-modern fort would have.
The historic buildings include the post HQ, bathhouse, soldiers barracks, officers quarters, post hospital, a storehouse, guardhouse and more. The rooms were stocked with artifacts and expository signage. More modern spaces included a light-meal restaurant taking advantage of those terrific views, a gift shop and bathrooms (authentic 19th-century Army latrines wouldn’t go down well with the museum-going public, I figure).
The fort is, I’ve read, one of the few surviving more-or-less intact from the Revolution and War of 1812, when it saw action. Later, as British Canada receded as any kind of threat, Mackinac’s usefulness as a military post did as well, but it lingered as U.S. Army property until 1895.
By that time, much of Mackinac Island had been designated as Mackinac National Park. Astute NPS observers might object that no such park exists, and they’d be right. Created in 1875 as the second national park, Congress dissolved it in 1895 and turned it over to the state of Michigan, which created its first state park that same year out of the same territory, including the now-decommissioned fort.
After I saw the fort, I read the story of its U.S. commander in 1812, one Porter Hanks. Lt. Hanks surrendered the fort without a fight, as he was hopelessly outnumbered. He and his men were paroled by the British forces. Wiki, which seems to be reasonably sourced, picks up the story:
“Lieutenant Hanks made his way to Detroit and the American military post there. Upon his arrival, superiors charged him with cowardice in the surrender of Fort Mackinac. Before the court martial of Lieutenant Hanks could begin, British forces attacked Fort Detroit. A British cannonball ripped through the room where Hanks was standing, cutting him in half and killing the officer next to him as well.”
That’s one way to get out of a court martial, but surely not how Lt. Hanks would have wanted.
It’s been two years since I’ve been to the theater. In February 2020, just before I went to California late that month, I took Ann to see Noises Off at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights, where we go periodically. Logistically, it’s more convenient than theaters in Chicago, though of course that didn’t stop us from going into the city in ’19 a number of times.
Noises Off is a British farce first staged in London in 1982. It was at the Savoy until 1987, but I wasn’t fortunate enough to see it during my ’83 visit. Rather, my friends and I went to see The Real Thing at the Strand, a Tom Stoppard play also from 1982, which I remember being amusing.
Noises Off is really amusing. I didn’t see it until ca. 1996 in Chicago, and it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen on stage. Actually, it still is. Laugh out loud funny, along with the rest of the audience.
The 2020 staging was also funny, but not quite as much as the first time around. Maybe because I was older; or the cast wasn’t quite as good (though they were good); or that I knew what to expect. Still, Ann seemed to enjoy it, and I certainly did, even if it didn’t quite have the same punch as my memory of it.
It occurs to me now that I need to start going to the theater again. Health concerns haven’t been stopping me for a while now. It’s just that I got out of the habit. So I’ll soon do my bit to support regional theater, as part of that pent-up demand.
Little wind today, which made the outdoors marginally better to experience. But not much. Tonight will be really cold, an illustration of the superiority of the Fahrenheit scale for everyday use, with 0 degrees being really cold and 100 degrees really hot.
I can’t remember exactly when I read it, but years ago there was an item in Mad magazine lampooning the midcentury notion — the quaint notion, as it turned out — that Americans were going to have a surfeit of leisure time in the future, including a vast expansion of the number of holidays. Millard Fillmore’s birthday was a suggested holiday.
Well, that’s tomorrow, and I have to work. That idea about leisure time didn’t pan out anyway. But I will acknowledge the 13th president’s birthday, because why not. Besides, I paid my respects to President Fillmore in person recently.
Today’s also a good day to acknowledge the expansion, ever so slow, of the public domain, eking out growth despite the rapacious efforts of certain media oligopolists whose mascot is a rodent. Works published in 1926 are now in the public domain.
I’m happy to report that The Sun Also Rises is one of those works, to cite one of the better-known novels of 1926. I could have quoted it previously, and in fact I have, relying on notions of fair use. Now all the words are freely available, no questions asked.
“Here’s a taxidermist’s,” Bill said. “Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?”
“Come on,” I said. “You’re pie-eyed.”
“Pretty nice stuffed dogs,” Bill said. “Certainly brighten up your flat.”
“Come on.”
“Just one stuffed dog. I can take ’em or leave ’em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog.”
“Come on.”
“Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog.”
“We’ll get one on the way back.”
“All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”
Speaking of life between the wars…
If that song doesn’t make you smile, what will?
Been a cold November so far, especially late last week, except for a few hours on Saturday afternoon. So I took a walk at the Chicago Athenaeum International Sculpture Park that day. It’s pretty much the same as ever, though of course a sculpture was added in 2019.
There’s still a side path through the woods.
As well as along water destined for the Mississippi.
That same day, I went to the Sears at the Woodfield Mall. It was about to close for good; it did so a few days later. So my stroll was through mostly vacant retail space, the ghost of a once-vast enterprise.
But not quite empty.
It was the last Sears in Illinois, the state formerly home to the Sears Tower. A retailer ending with a whimper.
I didn’t buy a rug. I will say that my lawn mower before the current one, a Craftsman, was a Sears acquisition.
Even further back is the cast iron table on our deck, purchased ca. 2003 at a Sears. Looks as solid as the day we got it, so like my cast-iron frying pan — bought ca. 1983 at a Nashville grocery store, not a Sears purchase — the table will certainly outlast me.
I was glad to see that Barbara’s Bookstore, a metro Chicago chain, has opened in the mall. I don’t go to the mall a lot, so I’m not sure when. The Barbara’s branch I remember best was the store in the lower level of the Sears Tower, which I visited sometimes ca. 2000-05 (gone now).
Up with the times, Barbara is, with a twist on the old retail warning.
Most everyone in the mall was masked. Otherwise, everything was about the same as any recent year. The crowds were thick, and I’m sure they’ll get thicker still as the days progress toward Christmas.
I interviewed a British retail expert not long ago, and she happened to mention the prospects of Black Friday retail sales this year in the UK. I’d heard before that is now part of British retailing, and I told her I thought that was funny.
“What’s the special occasion?” I said. “The fourth Friday in November?”
She chuckled. Like Japanese merchants importing Valentine’s Day, their British counterparts have imported Black Friday — and come to think of it, American merchants are doing their best to expand Día de Muertos in the United States. About a month ago, I saw a Día de Muertos-themed box of Pop-Tarts in a mainstream grocery store.
We also discussed American Halloween, which she said the British have taken to as well. I hope not to the detriment of Guy Fawkes Day, I said. Some customs have faded, she answered, such as a penny for the guy, but there are still bonfires.
Good. We see no reason/ why gunpowder treason/ should ever be forgot….
Last day of August, spent some time on the deck. A workday, so not a lot of time out there, but I did take the opportunity to finish the last of a six-pack curiosity we acquired from somewhere or other early in the summer.
Ginger beer. Bundaberg brand non-alcoholic diet ginger beer, whose bottle says twice — front and back — that it’s brewed in Australia. That fits. The only place I remember having ginger beer before was in that country, where I found it interesting, though not especially tasty. For its part, Bundaberg isn’t bad, but I’m not going to be a regular consumer.
Or be a drinker of the company’s rum, which it is better known for, at least in Australia. Rum production began there in Queensland in the late 19th century to take advantage of the local sugar industry to produce something Australians really wanted.
Odd thing about the bottle: though the ginger beer is brewed in Australia, and presumably in Bundaberg itself, another bit of text says: Bottled in the UK.
What’s that about? Vats of ginger beer go by container ship from Australia to the UK because… bottles are cheaper in the UK? Most of the export market is there, with a trifle making its way here? Something about EU regs, pre-Brexit? The ways of international logistics, now so tied in knots, are strange even in normal times.
A postcard I picked up in London in 1988 (probably). A postcard combined with a map. What could be better?
The tube as it was in 1985, according to the date on the card. The struggle to develop a useful diagram of the London Underground has a long and interesting history, something like London itself.
This was in a window we walked by in west suburban Wheaton not long ago. I like the neon. Who doesn’t like neon? Who doesn’t like gelato? I’d never had any gelato until I went to Florence. That was a great place to experience it for the first time.
We didn’t stop by for any gelato. We did buy a couple of most delicious pastries at a nearby place called Suzette’s.
I found this card in Peoria recently. Near Bradley U. Not at the store itself, but while picking up food at Jerk Hut, where we bought some tasty jerk chicken.
Interesting that the students of Bradley, some of whose parents weren’t around for the original iteration of hippies, would support such a business. Then again, the key might be in that now-obsolete code term tobacco accessories.
I heard a few seconds of an ad on YouTube recently featuring a young Brit walking along the Thames, with the Tower Bridge in the background, to make absolutely sure we know he’s British, as if his dialect didn’t tell us that. He said something along the lines that such-and-such was going “redefine the way you think about men’s makeup.”
Fat chance, ya limey bastard. I can sum up my thinking on men’s makeup in one pithy sentence that isn’t going to change: I’m never wearing any.
Got a press release the other day from someone — some automated mailing list — that doesn’t appreciate my commercial real estate beat.
“With #chlorophyll and #chlorophyllwater trending on social media, I wanted to put Chlorophyll Water® (the only bottled, pre-made chlorophyll drink on the market) on your radar, as it’s selling out in retailers across the country,” the release asserted.
“A favorite amongst Kourtney Kardashian, Rosario Dawson, Mandy Moore and Aly Reisman, Chlorophyll Water® is a plant-powered purified water enhanced by nature with the addition of Chlorophyll, a key ingredient and the distinct green pigment in plant life.”
I probably won’t be a consumer of that product, but who knows? Chlorophyll might be tastier than I think. Also, glad to report that I’ve only heard of two of those celebrities, only one of whom I can acknowledge has some talent.
Received some direct mail the other day promising better lawns through chemistry. It is spring, after all. As chilly as temps have been, it’s still green out there. Anyway, on the outside of the envelope, it says:
Dandelions. Crabgrass. Weeds.
Act now to stop those lawn problems and receive your 20% neighborhood discount.
Plus a FREE Core Aeration. See details inside.
Problems, you say? I say it’s biodiversity. The suburbs need it, too.
This is a gimme letter envelope I had to scan, from a statewide advocacy org with its eye on utility rates. I suspect the risk is pretty small, considering the distinct history of the two states.
You know, in some other context, some other organization might be sending letters screaming, Texas Cannot Become Illinois.
I was surprised recently to find Sink the Bismarck! on YouTube, gratis, no commercials even. Did the copyright lapse? So over the last few days I’ve been watching it as time allows. I think I rented it on VHS in Japan nearly 30 years ago, but I’m not sure; might have seen it later.
Considering that the ships are obviously models, this is a movie that’s improved — to modern eyes, used to better effects — by being on a small screen. Much of the story involves talking, and occasionally the exposition pops through (especially at the beginning), but on the whole it’s fast-moving and, in its way, suspenseful. The main actors all do well, especially the leads.
Also, it’s reasonably accurate in terms of its history, though since the movie came out in 1960, it wasn’t up to speed on the fact that British intelligence had cracked German codes, or that the men on the Bismarck scuttled her at the very end. No matter, it’s been a good diversion from the pace of work and the woes of the nation.
Some years ago, I scanned one of the pictures I took in London in December 1994, a streetscape. I forget where exactly. Something inspired me to scan it in black and white, which captures the December gloom all the better.
Not that London’s a particularly gloomy place, in December or any other time. But old movies on long-ago Saturday afternoons conditioned me to think of old London in foggy black and white, and I caught something of that in the image. Maybe not London in 1994, but 1934.
Looking at the image again, I noticed LOOK RIGHT painted on the edge of the road. Sound advice, I’m sure. When did that message start being painted to warn visitors whose first instinct is to look the wrong way?
A 1991 NYT article mentions the paintings in the context of pedestrian deaths in London, but it only says, “this city has always been tough on foreign pedestrians, who can often be observed at street corners wearing the slightly startled look of deer edging alongside a freeway. It was for them, mostly, that London officials years ago began painting reminders along curbs suggesting that pedestrians ‘look left’ or ‘look right’ before venturing into the street.”
Perhaps for the influx of U.S. soldiers during WWII. That would be my guess. Of course, the hazard is present for Britons visiting our side of the Atlantic as well. After all, Winston Churchill almost bought the farm in New York in 1931 because he failed to look the right (correct) way crossing a street.