Downtown Bangor

Posted on May 18, 2026 by admin

“If you’re taking pictures of buildings, you should take one of that building over there,” an old man said to me, pointing at a building partly obscured behind the curve of the street. I had been taking pictures of buildings. A spring day had come to Bangor: the air was a pleasure, so was the friendly warm sun, and I was out and about among the short downtown blocks.

“Thanks,” I said, adjusting my position on the sizable downtown plaza, so that the building came into view.

Wow. As I often do, I looked into the building later. A little gem of the brick arts known as the Circular Brick Building, a no-nonsense Maine sort of name, or the Merchants National Bank building, after a long-time occupant. Part built in the 1900s, part in the 1920s, a bank till the 1980s, a mix of apartments and ground-floor retail since the 2010s, after some decades vacant.

A random old man’s recommendation was a winner. He was idling on a bench in the plaza, so I went back and told him I agreed that it was an impressive building. The man could have been from central casting: Get me an old Mainer in ordinary but not shabby clothes, and don’t forget the bushy white beard and pale pink face. It was a missed opportunity when I asked him whether he’d lived in Bangor his whole life. The comic Mainer answer would have been, “Not yet.”

Instead the old Mainer told me he had. Wouldn’t live anywhere else. Couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Didn’t want to go anywhere else. He implied he’d had enough of that during his time in the Army, exact years unspecified, and I didn’t ask when, though there’s a distinct chance a shooting war was going on then. That doesn’t mean he was anywhere near it, however. For all I know, he could have been a PFC excrement sanitation specialist (PFC-ESS) in Louisiana, to put it in the way the cinematic Patton didn’t, but the ’60s Army might have.

Anyway, he asked me where I was from, and long experience has taught me to say “Chicago,” and not something in any detail like, “Texas, but I haven’t lived there in a long time, and then I lived some other places like Nashville and Osaka, yes, the place in Japan, but it’s been Chicago for a long time now, except I actually live in the northwest suburbs.” Few people would hear any of that. Everyone pays attention when I’ve said Chicago (or Texas, the times I’ve said that). Somewhere years ago, I think it was a pudgy middle-aged Briton – you know, he looked a little like Benny Hill – who asked me where I was from. At hearing “Chicago,” he pantomimed shooting a Tommy gun.

When old man Mainer heard Chicago, he told me that soon after his discharge from the Army, he found himself in Chicago, in fact at the lakefront. He threw his Army ID into Lake Michigan. “Felt great to be out, but it was a problem, since that was the only ID I had right then,” he said. Obviously he made it back to Bangor.

The city’s got some fine streetscapes.

Some other handsome Bangor blocks and buildings.

Early examples of the art of the steel-framed highrise.

Paul Bunyan isn’t the only mural subject. This one is bees.

Because Bangor is known for honey production? I had to check and probably not much, the sort of thing that gets lumped in with “other” in the ag census for Penobscot County. These bees are bees for the sake of being bees. (Try that three times fast.)

“Bangor Beautiful partnered with Bangor Greendrinks to create a large bee-themed mural in Downtown Bangor during the summer of 2023,” notes the nonprofit Bangor Beautiful.”The artist Matt Willey is the founder of The Good of The Hive, a global mural project with the goal of hand-painting 50,000 honey bees, the number in a healthy, thriving hive. He has painted bee murals all over the world, including at the Smithsonian.”

I knew I got out of bed for a reason today: to find out that there is an artist whose obsession is bee murals. More than 11,780 painted bees so far, according to the artist. Eccentricity of the first order, and I salute it.

You can’t call Bangor bustling, but I’ve seen plenty more vacant downtowns. Business details, former and existing.

Temple of the Feminine Devine, eh? Not to be confused with the Temple of the Devine Feminine, an outfit in Seattle. I could make a Life of Brian reference here, but if you know that reference, you’ve already thought of it.

The unofficial Maine flag, and variations.

That flag failed to become official in the last election in a ballot question. No one in Maine cares what I think, but I think it should be made official again, but without disestablishing the current flag. Co-official, you could say. Maine would be unique that way. Also, no fixed pattern beyond a single pine tree and a single star to the upper left. Let a loose a proliferation of lone pine flags begin.

Bangor as a whole hugs the Penobscot River, but downtown clings to the much smaller Kenduskeag Stream, a tributary of the Penobscot.

A small island in the stream is a park.

The park sports a cannon captured at Fort Toro, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 1898.

It so happened that Rep. Charles A. Boutelle was the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs in the U.S. House at that moment, facilitating the war prize cannon’s permanent move to Bangor. Quite the career Boutelle had, per Wiki: “American seaman, shipmaster, naval officer, Civil War veteran, newspaper editor, publisher, conservative Republican politician, and nine-term Representative to the U.S. Congress from the 4th Congressional District of Maine.”

That’s not all. Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, Bangor favorite son, stands in bronze not far from the cannon.

“After Lincoln took office and even with the outbreak of the Civil War, however, Hamlin had almost no role in the administration, as was common for this period in history. Hamlin despised his new position as vice president. He missed being part of the political process and controlling patronage but felt it was his duty to serve. He also found presiding over the Senate boring and was frequently absent. Still, he was disappointed when the Republican Party dropped him from the ticket in 1864.” A curious, but all too familiar quirk of human psychology, in that last sentence.

The “diplomat” on the plinth refers to his posting to Spain in the early 1880s, named to the job during the brevity of the Garfield administration.

The New Jersey State House

Posted on May 3, 2026 by admin

At the appointed time, I waited in a hallway whose entrance was off the New Jersey State House complex courtyard, expecting the tour to begin there. I started wondering about that assumption after a few minutes, and no one else, official or tourist, joined me in the room. But soon a capitol employee, a woman roughly my age, said she would take me to the beginning of the tour, which was through a couple of closed doors and down a stairway. We made small talk along the way. She asked, without using the word specifically, whether I was a capitol enthusiast. I said yes.

“I’ve been inside more than 40 state capitols,” I said. “And this one is the most like a fortress.”

I think she had a wry smile, as if to say, I’ve heard that a lot. If not quite in those words.

I’d made the 11 am tour of State House on April 10. The capitol building is impressive, as capitols tend to be, and directly fronting a sizable city street, as they tend not to be.

About an hour earlier, I’d wandered into what looked like a public door on State St. in downtown Trenton.

An imposing kind of place, but for those of us used to standalone capitol domes, the New Jersey State House is an odd duck.

A security guard pushing my age told me that casual visits to the capitol were not allowed, off limits and strictly verboten. Actually, he didn’t exactly say any of that, but he made it clear I had to go to the visitor center entrance about a half a block away and register there for a tour, as my only option for seeing the interior of the State House. He was pleasant enough, but I think a little annoyed at having to explain that for the nth time. A sign explaining all that outside the entrance would be the way I’d have handled that informational task, rather than putting the onus on a bored security guard, but I’m not from New Jersey.

I went to the visitor center. The next tour was at 11, nearly an hour in the future. That allowed me time to go look for the capitol dome. I knew there was one, but it mostly wasn’t visible from State St.

I took a stroll around the capitol grounds – the complex – or better yet, the compound. Eventually, I spotted more of the golden dome. Even then, it seemed hemmed in.

I also had time to stroll the block on State St. near the capitol. Nice.

Back at the visitors center, I was escorted through the complex’s courtyard. There, I was told, was the best view of the dome. It still seemed a little distant.

Then came my short wait in the hallway. Regarding my comment about this capitol being like a fortress, the woman leading me to the group acknowledged that security was indeed tight, had been for a long time, and by law the state police (I think) were in charge of it – even the governor had to abide by its dictates.

I joined the tour group and spent the next hour or so in the State House. From what the guide (a different woman) said, and what I saw, I’d say the Wiki text about the capitol is spot on:

The State House has experienced numerous expansions and renovations to meet the growing needs of the state since its original construction. Designed by Jonathan Doane, the original structure has seen architectural inputs from other notable architects across the centuries….

The New Jersey State House is unusual among state capitol buildings in the United States, the majority of which are reminiscent of the U.S. Capitol. The building consists of two parallel structures connected by the dome-capped rotunda, resembling the letter H, with its long arm parallel to State Street. A long portico wing, added by [architect John] Notman and subsequently enlarged, extends west from the rotunda toward the Delaware River. To this portico, a number of architecturally dissimilar, unusually shaped structures have been added. These structures have been the subject of subsequent renovations to blend them with the original wing.

The practical upshot of the agglomeration that is the New Jersey State House is that it’s hard to find your way around inside. That’s my assumption, anyway, as we wandered the corridors and took stairs here and there. Guess a guide was a good idea, after all.

The best way to see the dome is stand under it.

The floor under the dome. Note that Liberty has a Phrygian cap, just as Prosperity (Ceres) has a cornucopia. Also, Liberty and Prosperity look the same. A cogent argument could be made that they are indeed twins: go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, as you please.

It’s a nice design for a state seal. Less so for a state flag, which I saw flying almost nowhere. At least it isn’t a state seal on a blue bedsheet.

About 10 years ago, this design won a competition for a new flag for New Jersey.

It’s a better flag, but does it really say New Jersey? Maybe the state’s distinctive outline, instead of a star? Anyway, the legislature hasn’t acted on flag redesign as yet.

The state General Assembly.

The state Senate.

More details from the capitol, such as fine secular stained glass, with a variation on the seal.

Many eagles.

Dragons supporting the balconies. Dragons?

Our guide also pointed out some capitol Easter eggs, to use a term the creators of such eggs – artisans whose names are lost to time – would not have used.

Such as an homage to a Great War solider, there on a staircase.

GTT ’26 Details

Posted on April 10, 2026 by admin

Time for spring break. Back to posting around April 26, when it might actually be spring in northern Illinois. There have been a few days recently when I’ve been able to sit out on my deck comfortably, which is my idea of spring, but not that many.

The recent trip to Texas seems like a while ago now. As usual, though, there were many details. A lot more than I can convey, but here are a few more.

Faces

At the National Funeral Museum in Houston, one display featured, chronologically, 20 photographs of Abraham Lincoln. The third to last one, from February 1865, is one you don’t see much.

On a wall in downtown Nacogdoches, familiar figures from Texas.

I didn’t work out who this was supposed to be, in downtown Houston. Better that way, I think.

Signs

This place in Austin, well known to Tom, serves most delicious tacos.

Bastrop: Cobbling runs in the family.

Belton.

Structures

A re-creation of an ancient Caddo home.

Durst-Taylor Historic House & Garden in Nacogdoches.

The Old Stone Fort Museum in the same town, which is made of stone, but was never a fort. On the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University. Recommendation to the university: if you want people to visit the place, provide just a little unrestricted parking. A little visitor parking anywhere on campus would be good.

Then again, the university seems determined to move the structure anyway — which might mean taking it apart, and then not putting it anywhere where because such a move would cost too much.

A place that has seen better days in Houston.

Downtown Lockhart.

The Southwest Museum of Clocks & Watches is permanently closed, alas.

Items

Cosmic in Austin is a bar and a collection of food trucks that surround an informal plaza with a lot of tables and chairs and shade. It’s a very pleasant place, and within walking distance of Tom’s home.

Houston manhole covers.

An artifact at the Old Stone Fort, but from San Augustine, and a hyperlocal soda bottle.

The New Mexico flag near Carlsbad NP.

Landscapes

Not just any landscapes, but within the Sierra Madera Astrobleme in West Texas. US 385 cuts right through the ancient crater for about eight miles, on the way to Marathon. You’d never know but for signs telling you that you’re entering the astrobleme, and one telling you that you are leaving it.

Memorials

The Houston National Cemetery.

RIP, Richard Allen Wilson. I don’t think that I’d ever seen an infinity symbol on a national cemetery stone. That, of course, made me curious, and I checked: it is one of the 98 various symbols that the National Cemetery Administration allows. The list is here.

I’m familiar with most of them, but not quite all of them, such as the Church of World Messianity, which is a Japanese new religion – it’s hard to keep track of all of those – and the Aaronic Order Church, which may or may not be part of the LDS movement, but in any case is an American sect. Hard to keep track of all those, too.

The NCA says: “No graphics (logos, symbols, etc.) are permitted on Government-furnished headstones or markers other than the available emblems of belief, the Civil War Union Shield, the Civil War Confederate Southern Cross of Honor, and the Medal of Honor insignias… Emblems of belief for inscription on Government headstones and markers do not include social, cultural, ethnic, civic, fraternal, trade, commercial, political, professional or military emblems.”

So (for example) symbols for the Loyal Order of Moose or some odd emoji or maybe a grawlix will not be considered, though as a comment about the Army, the latter would be funny.

Finally, a less formal memorial, but I’m sure just as heartfelt.

A memorial for Francisco Lin Herrera happens to be near the Giant paintings outside of Marfa. He died in an accident along that stretch of US 90. RIP, Francisco.

Conch Republic Nuggets

Posted on January 22, 2026 by admin

In Key West last month, we noticed the Conch Republic flag displayed in more than a few places.

More about the not-very-serious Conch Republic micronation, created in 1982, is in this Miami Take article. Curiously, the article doesn’t describe how the flag came to be, just that it was simultaneous with the declaration of the CR, which was a kind of protest against a surprise U.S. Border Patrol roadblock on US 1 at the entrance to the Keys. Still, the design works, and it’s something distinctively Key West.

Saw the very distinctive Sicilian flag in Key West, too, just off Duval, over a joint that promised southern Italian food.

The design is not only distinctive, but ancient. This is a silver drachma from Sicily, ca. 300 BC.

I digress. During one of our Key West walkabouts, we made a point of finding the southern terminus of highway US 1, which is at the intersection of Fleming and Whitehead streets.

A business taking advantage of its unique location. Locational branding, they might say in marketing.

Now that I’ve now seen the southern terminus of US 1, that clearly means I have to see the northern terminus. That happens to be in Fort Kent, Maine, so perhaps a summertime visit. A real epic would be driving the entire 2,369 miles between Key West and Fort Kent on that highway. People drive all of the 2,448-mile Route 66, and it’s not even a real highway anymore. I’ve been gifted, or cursed, with the ability to think up more long trips that I can possibly do.

Half a block away from the beginning/end of US 1 is the Monroe County courthouse.

A nearby sign says: The original wooden courthouse was completed in 1823. The county occupied most of the Southern Florida Peninsula. The county seat in Key West currently covers the Florida Keys, and portions of the Everglades National Park. The present red brick courthouse, built in a traditional county courthouse style, was completed in 1890. It features a 100-foot tall clock tower and is an architectural feature that can be observed from almost any part of Key West.

A traditional county courthouse? In the Northeast, yes. Looks like someone used one of those building-moving transit beams in Rocky Horror to transport an entire New England courthouse down to the Keys.

The courthouse grounds comes with this oddity.

At least, odd to me.

A kapok tree, ceiba pentandra. Odd to more than just me. Enough people that the city put a sign describing kapok trees, next to this example of one. The sign’s a bit worse for wear.

Java cotton is one name for its fiber, which surely evokes distant islands.

More Key West signs.

Is this not a handsome building? And looks solid enough to stand in any mere wind.

Formerly the island’s Custom House, Post Office, Federal Courthouse and 7th District Lighthouse Offices. Built – the early 1890s – when architectural beauty wasn’t considered in conflict with the practice of republican government. These days, it’s the Key West Museum of Art & History.

Sure, the chicken has been crossing the road for a long time now, but how often did you actually see it?

Pretty often in Key West, is the answer.

I’m hard pressed to think of any other North American town with footloose chickens. As in, on the streets and sidewalks. Not out in rural areas, but even there you don’t seem to see that many. Then again, the Conch Republic is only tangentially a North American town. North Caribbean is another way to describe it.

“When people stopped the laborious process of turning live chickens into Sunday dinner many decades ago, some backyard chickens gained their freedom,” notes Florida Rambler. “Other roosters were released when cock-fighting became illegal.”

So, for this rooster, his great- great- however many great-granddaddy was a champion cock, known to betting men from here to Savannah?

They’ve gone on to a career of being local color, these birds, with forays in behaving like pests in people’s yards. They are feral, after all, living in the lushness that is Key West. Was the chicken ever considered for the Conch Republic flag? Probably not; chickens don’t get a lot of respect from people, unless they’re dinner.

Silverton, Colorado

Posted on November 26, 2025 by admin

Cold winds rolled through northern Illinois today. Seven inches of snow are forecast for Saturday. What? Right, it’s winter. The winter solstice is just the shortest day of the year.

Back to posting on Sunday. Regards for Thanksgiving.

Something to upset PETA sympathizers.

Stroll down Greene St. in the mountain town of Silverton, Colorado, at least in mid-September this year, and you’d have had the opportunity to buy a hide for $300. We did, but declined. Still, it wasn’t just a Colorado detail, but a Western one. The West, where men are men and cow hides hang in the sun. As far as I could tell, you couldn’t buy a hide with Bitcoin, but I suppose you’d have to ask the seller to be sure.

Not five minutes after we’d parked off the main thoroughfare of Greene Street in Silverton, on a large side street, a steam locomotive hauling a valuable cargo — tourists — pulled into town, a block from where we parked. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge RR train from Durango had arrived. Instantly the streets around the train were thick with those same tourists who had paid roughly $100 a head for the scenic ride, though I suppose many, the majority maybe, had gotten a slight discount as seniors.

I assume the economy of 21st-century Silverton depends pretty heavily on these arrivals, at least in the warm months, as day after day the line disgorges its many passengers for their layover. No doubt the likes of High Noon Hamburgers or the Shady Lady or a lot of the other businesses in town wouldn’t be viable otherwise.

Blair St., paralleling Greene St. a block away. No need for pavement.

Greene St.

Lots to see on Greene.

Including the fine Colorado flag, flying at Railroad Art by Scotty, a seriously cool gallery.

“Railroad Art by Scotty presents the custom matted and framed collector Railroad Art Prints by renowned railroad artist H.L. Scott, III,” its web site says. “These are not photographs and they are not created on the computer. These are pen & ink drawings created by Scott using the technique known as STIPPELING or pointillism.”

One of the few buildings I’ve seen that clearly states its elevation.

The Grand Imperial Hotel. A lofty name to live up to, but probably posh enough to do so.

Restored to its 1880s appearance in the 2010s, no doubt at considerable expense.

As it looked in 1940, a photo from the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Photograph Collection.

More Greene St.

Greene is short, because Silverton isn’t very large, and so the street, now a road, soon heads for the hills.

The Hillside Cemetery of Silverton.

An apt name.

With a good view of the town.

Some sizable memorials.

More modest ones.

Echoes of lost men from another time. Beyond the outstanding beauty of a hillside cemetery in the flush of autumn, reason enough to visit the cemetery.

The Maryland State House

Posted on November 12, 2025 by admin

Yesterday I asked ChatGPT a question. I had my reasons.

Human (me)-generated question: How many U.S. state controllers or comptrollers have been honored with bronze statues?

Machine-generated answer (entirely sic): As of my knowledge cutoff in 2023, two U.S. state controllers or comptrollers have been honored with bronze statues:

William S. “Billy” McKeller (Tennessee) – McKeller was the Comptroller of the Treasury for Tennessee from 1923 to 1953. He was honored with a bronze statue that stands at the State Capitol in Nashville. The statue was unveiled in 1956, following his retirement.

Edward J. “Eddie” O’Neill (Massachusetts) – O’Neill was a longtime Comptroller for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was known for his tenure and service, and a bronze statue of him was placed at the Massachusetts State House.

Both statues honor the legacy of these public servants for their dedication and leadership in state finance and governance.

However, it’s worth noting that statues of public officials in general tend to be more common for governors, senators, or prominent historical figures, so the specific recognition of state comptrollers or controllers through bronze statues is quite rare. There may have been updates or new statues since my last update, so I recommend checking local state records or news sources for the most current information.

Wow, that’s a solid example of an AI hallucination. There may have been human beings named William S. McKeller and Edward J. O’Neill living at some point in Tennessee and Massachusetts, respectively, but neither of them held that office. See the Tennessee Blue Book for a list comptrollers of the treasury in that state. As for Massachusetts, comptroller isn’t a constitutional office, so a list of them is a little elusive. (The commonwealth has an elected “treasurer and receiver-general.”)

Just as dispositive is a list produced by the commonwealth that lists the artwork at the Massachusetts State House. A bronze honoring Edward J. “Eddie” O’Neill isn’t one of them.

That said, the machine is probably correct that “specific recognition of state comptrollers or controllers through bronze statues is quite rare,” but, considering that the machine’s examples are bogus, that ranks as nothing but educated speculation that I didn’t need ChatGPT to create for me. I can guess that myself.

Just as damning, however, is that the machine missed a perfectly real example.

During my visit to Annapolis, Maryland in late October, I chanced to meet Louis L. Goldstein. His memorial, that is, a bronze at the corner of Bladen and Calvert streets, about a block from the Maryland State House.

The statue is in front of the office building occupied by the state comptroller. Goldstein was comptroller of Maryland from 1959 until his death in 1998 and, it seems, a character. A character who was also a successful politician, which is an increasingly rare combination, unless you count those pretending to be wingnuts.

“Many recognized Goldstein as the state’s white-haired, robustly outgoing goodwill ambassador, a handshaker’s handshaker, passing out fake coins as souvenirs and bestowing his trademark greeting, ‘God bless y’all, real good,’ “ the Washington Post reported at the time of his passing.

More politicos should pass out fake coins. I have fond memories of the aluminum Silber Dollar we had around after the 1970 election in South Texas. It’s probably still around.

Admittedly one ChatGPT answer is a small sample size, but still – how is it that three years have passed since I asked the machine to come up with examples of a certain kind of real estate deal in the past, and it spat out five completely make up ones? Shouldn’t this kind of thing be less likely by now? Apparently not.

Never mind, Maryland has a handsome capitol, one built remarkably enough in the 1770s – beginning before the Revolution and completed in the throes of that war, in 1779.

The view from the steps. The small rally below, at a place called Lawyers Mall, is demanding that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to kick Avelo Airlines out of BWI airport, for its deportation flights for ICE.

Detail on the exterior: the obverse and reverse of the Great Seal of Maryland.

A cool seal, if you asked me. Including an Italian motto used, for obscure reasons, by the Calvert family. Fatti maschii, parole femine has drawn criticism, enough that the state has an innocuous “official translation,” which is fine, if a little silly.

Of course, Maryland also has a cool flag, the heraldic banner of arms of Cecil, Second Baron Baltimore, acknowledging the state’s founding as a proprietary colony of the Calvert family. It’s also worth noting that the flag wasn’t official until 1904, by which time the family had become merely a colorful part of History.

Unlike Delaware, Maryland’s capitol was open on a Saturday.

With a few volunteers talking to visitors.

The Maryland State House has the distinction of being the capitol of the United States, from November 26, 1783 to August 13, 1784. Two important events happened in the building during that narrow window: George Washington came before the Confederation Congress to resign his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris, which acknowledged U.S. independence.

Maryland doesn’t want you to forget that Washington stepped down in the state house. On display are artifacts and artworks to illustrate the point.

Including portraits of those who were there for the event. Some of those who were, I assume.

The scene itself, depicted later, and on display at the state house.

The speech. Washington had a gift for brevity. A more prolix (and vain) fellow might have gone on at length about the virtuousness of Cincinnatus — hint, hint, like a certain other man you might know — but I suspect he knew that his audience, and maybe posterity, would make the comparison without it being explicit.

Southern Loop Leftovers: SC & GA

Posted on August 14, 2025 by admin

Early in the recent trip.

The Buc-ee’s imperium marches on. On my way to Tennessee that first day, I stopped at the location near Smiths Grove, Kentucky, to visit its gleaming facilities. Business was reasonably brisk that Monday, but nothing like the bedlam on the Sunday, nearly two weeks later (on the trip’s last day), when I stopped on the way back home at the same place, for the same reason.

South Carolina

Had a pleasant walk down a non-tourist street on a Sunday in Myrtle Beach. Not a lot going on. The late afternoon light had a nice glow.

Myrtle Beach International Airport used to be Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, which began as Myrtle Beach General Bombing and Gunnery Range in 1942 for use by the U.S. Army Air Corps. It closed in 1993.

One legacy of the base is a cluster of military memorials near the perimeter of the airport – at a place called Warbird Park, which is fully accessible to casual visitors – that includes something you don’t see all the time.

It is one memorial among many.

As well as some of the aircraft that used the air base.

Found at a MB beach shop among the clothes and beach equipment. Nothing says Myrtle Beach better than skulls, no?

There was more. Much more.

In Columbia, the Basilica of St. Peter.

Mass was in progress in its impressive interior, so only a glimpse.

Georgia

An automated, Fotomat-style ice store in north Georgia. They’re not as common up north, with the closest of this brand to me (I checked) in Aurora, Illinois.

Twice the Ice is the brand name. Quick facts: there are about 3,300 Twice the Ice locations so far in the United States and elsewhere – water and ice “vending machines,” according to one page on the company web site. Another page on the same site puts it at over 4,000 locations, which just means part of the site isn’t being updated. Whatever the exact number, there are a lot, and most if not all are franchised, representing about 1,000 franchisees.

It’s automation we call all get behind. I don’t think the machines are putting ice handlers and baggers at local gas stations and grocery stores out of work, since who holds that specific job?

So far as I know, “Ice is Civilization” is not the company motto. But it could be. It was said with such conviction by Allie Fox in The Mosquito Coast.

Of course, by the end of the book and movie both, he was howl-at-the-moon mad. So maybe some other slogan. Then again, that line is one of the few things – besides the fact that Allie Fox goes nuts chasing Utopia – that I remember from either the book or the movie after about 35 years. So it’s pretty memorable.

After gassing up at a station in north Georgia, I parked away from the pumps near the edge of the property to fiddle with my phone for a few minutes. Just outside the car window, kudzu lurked.

Which got closer.

And closer. Man, it grows fast.

Not really, but I did see all that kudzu at the edge of the gas station property. Kudzu. Who hasn’t seen the walls of it down South?

“In news media and scientific accounts and on some government websites, kudzu is typically said to cover seven million to nine million acres across the United States,” Smithsonian magazine reported in 2015. “But scientists reassessing kudzu’s spread have found that it’s nothing like that. In the latest careful sampling, the U.S. Forest Service reports that kudzu occupies, to some degree, about 227,000 acres of forestland, an area about the size of a small county and about one-sixth the size of Atlanta.

“That’s about one-tenth of 1 percent of the South’s 200 million acres of forest. By way of comparison, the same report estimates that Asian privet had invaded some 3.2 million acres — 14 times kudzu’s territory. Invasive roses had covered more than three times as much forestland as kudzu.”

Yet kudzu is regarded as a particularly intractable invasive species. How is that? It grows well in highly visible places. Such as next to a gas station parking lot. Smithsonian notes: “Those roadside plantings — isolated from grazing, impractical to manage, their shoots shimmying up the trunks of second-growth trees — looked like monsters.”

Along Georgia 60 in Chattahoochee NF, Smokey Bear is still at his job.

One thing leads to another online, and Smokey eventually lead me to “Smokey the Bear Sutra.” Only takes a few minutes to read, and it’s a trip. Just like the song “Elvis is Everywhere,” there’s a founding document of a religion in the distant future, one that asserts that humans should never have given up worshiping bears.

Southern Loop Leftovers: TN & NC

Posted on August 13, 2025 by admin

Had a bizarre dream last night, which isn’t really unusual, since that’s the way of dreams often enough – but this one – let’s call it rich and strange. And lengthy. It kept going and going, involving an alt version of downtown Chicago, and alt version of the company I worked for in the late 1980s, though no one that I knew was there; a vaguely menacing, nighttime scene always, though it wasn’t a nightmare; a message that had to be relayed, somehow; a fictional character – a very famous fictional character – spoken of as if real, who eventually showed up after a funeral, laughing; and details that made me think, that’s too much of a detail. For a dream. Is this a dream? One detail involved a chipmunk peaking out of a hole in the sidewalk, or maybe the street; another was a globe that I could see but not get close enough to read well, though I really wanted to. But I did notice that the United States, on this globe, included British Columbia and maybe the Yukon Territory, and I woke up thinking that maybe that 54° 40′ or Fight business led to a real war, in which the U.S. prevailed.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this rich and strange dream is that fully an hour and a half after I woke on this bright summer morning in the northwest suburbs, in the waking world I know and inhabit, I was able to write the above description.

Tennessee

When passing eastward through Tennessee during my most recent interstate drive, I spent a little time in Knoxville, as mentioned, mostly to see the Sunsphere. To get to the tower from the free parking lot, I walked along part of World’s Fair Park Dr., with these colorful pastel houses visible on a small rise nearby. I was reminded of Rainbow Row in Charleston.

On the way back, I popped into the Knoxville Museum of Art.

For a brutalist building, a nice bit of work by Edward Larrabee Barnes (d. 2004). If it blackens and streaks in the future, as such buildings tend to do when exposed to urban air, its appearance might morph into something merely ugly. But it looks like it’s been kept clean enough since its construction in 1990. As a museum, KMA has a lot to recommend it, such as air conditioning, free admission and a not-too-vast collection specializing in something you aren’t going to see elsewhere, namely East Tennessee art.

Such as a piece by artist Patrick Deason. Ah, the optimism. Unless he’s being sarcastic.

The museum also has a porch with a nice view of downtown Knoxville.

On my return westward through Tennessee, I made a point of passing through Dayton, site of the Scopes Trial, now 100 years ago. There is a museum devoted to the trial in the handsome and nicely restored 1890s Rhea County Courthouse, though I arrived after it had closed for the day.

I look at pictures taken during the trial, and wonder how this multitude sat through it all, in an un-air-conditioned building. Guess like my grandma, as late as her last summer in 1970, they were used to it.

Before I got there, I heard a fellow on the radio discussing the (then) upcoming festival that Dayton was planning in honor of the centennial, as a bigger version of an annual event held in July. He might have been the organizer, I forget.

He pointed out that for many years Daytonites mostly wanted to forget about the trial – especially after the movie Inherit the Wind (1960) depicted the residents of Hillsboro, stand-ins for them, as fundamentalist bumpkins, at a time when the actual event was still in living memory. Which is nothing that Mencken didn’t do in 1925. Now the trial and Mencken and the movie are all part of that nebulous thing most people experience as the undifferentiated Past, and the townspeople have largely embraced the trial, according to the man on the radio. As well they should. It’s what Dayton, Tenn., has that no place else does.

On the courthouse square, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow square off in bronze. Bryan College paid for the former, the Freedom From Religion Foundation the latter.

North Carolina

I was stuck momentarily in traffic near the military installation formerly known as Fort Bragg and then known as Fort Liberty and now known again as Fort Bragg. The traffic sign hasn’t caught up with the latest flip-flop.

I stopped for lunch in Laurinburg, NC, at a storefront Chinese restaurant. Across the street, a tuxedo shop flew the Royal Banner of Scotland. Not something I’ve ever seen aflutter in the U.S. or anywhere, for that matter. But there is a school called St. Andrews University nearby, so maybe it’s not such a stretch. Make that was — the school closed just this May.

Wiki tells us: “As the personal banner of the Monarch, use of the Royal Banner of Scotland is restricted under the Act of the Parliament of Scotland 1672 cap. 47 and the Lyon King of Arms Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. 17), and any unauthorised use of such is an offence under the Act.” That has no bearing on its use in North Carolina, I’d say, considering how the Revolution turned out.

In New Bern, NC, this was a bit of a mystery at first.

Until I figured it out. A place for dogs to leave messages.

New Bern Ramble

Posted on July 21, 2025 by admin

While waiting to be seated for brunch on Middle Street in downtown New Bern on Juneteenth, Dan and I had time for a stroll. The day was warming up, but not quite to a scorcher, and the sidewalks along Middle and Pollack Sts. are often in shade. That part of New Bern, shady and old, is quite the charmer.

“New Bern, one of North Carolina’s oldest towns, retains the flavor of past centuries,” North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State (1939), p. 221, tells us. Information from the WPA Guide series is of course a little old, but mostly stands the test of time.

“The community, which processes a domestic architecture of charm and distinction, is spread across a bluff at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers, 35 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Massive brick townhouses, stately Georgian residences and wisteria-curtained clapboard cottages line narrow streets shadowed by oaks, poplars, elms and pecan trees. Many of the old streets retain their original brick pavements.”

All that would be downtown New Bern these days, as the town’s population – given as 11,981 by the WPA in 1939 – had expanded to 31,291 by 2020, according to the Census Bureau. So much of the town is actually late 20th-early 21st-century sprawl punctuated by parking lots and familiar retail.

Still, at the historic core, there is “domestic architecture of charm and distinction,” even now, with the older buildings mostly occupied by the likes of The Black Cat Shoppe, Faulkenberry Auctions, Anchored in New Bern (gift shop), Carolina Creations, Bear City Fudge Co., Curls & Lace Bridal Hair, and such restaurants as Cypress Hall, MJ’s Raw Bar and Grille, and Baker’s Kitchen, where we eventually brunchified (and it was delicious).

We visited a few shops and strolled by other spots, such as the former corner drug store credited as the invention-place of Pepsi-Cola.

A pleasant alley off Middle St. is known as Bear Plaza. Good thing living bears aren’t found there, but you are reminded of bears.

Bears are front and center as pawed, powerful symbols of the Bern towns, old and new, Swiss and American. As posted previously, the New Bern flag –

— looks a lot like the old Bern flag, with certain small but important modifications. Old Bern:

The WPA guide points out that the very first European settlers in the area were not in fact Swiss, though led by a Swiss. The colonists were German and had a harrowing experience getting here.

“The first settlers were survivors of an expedition of 650 German Palatines, Protestants expelled from Baden and Bavaria. Under the leadership of Swiss Baron Christopher de Graffenried, and aided by a gift of £4000 from Queen Anne of England, this group planned a colony in America. De Graffenried placed Christopher Gale and John Lawson in charge of the expedition.

“In January 1710, two ships sailed from Gravesend, England. Storms impeded the vessels and disease ravaged the voyagers, more than half of whom succumbed. A French vessel captured one of the transports as it entered Chesapeake Bay in April, and plundered the colonists. Fever further reduced the number and only a sickly remnant reached the Chowan River, where Thomas Pollock, a wealthy planner, provided them with transport to the Neuse and Trent rivers.”

De Graffenreid himself came a little later with some Swiss colonists, buying land from the Lords Proprietors of Carolina and paying off the local Tuscarora Indian chief as well. The natives were not mollified, however.

“In September 1711, the settlement was almost wiped out by a Tuscarora uprising. In the first attack, 80 settlers were slain. Lawson and de Graffenreid were taken to the Indian fort, Nohoroco, where Lawson was tortured to death, and de Graffenreid was held prisoner for six months. The war raged intermittently for two years, and the colonists were reduced such desperation that in 1713 many of them returned with de Graffenreid to Switzerland. The settlement made a new start on the leadership of Colonel Thomas Pollock, proprietary governor…”

Just one damn thing after another in early America. But the town survived, eventually becoming important enough to be the capital of North Carolina, as detailed yesterday.

Christ Church Episcopal rises above Pollock St.

Other churches clustered in the area, but Christ Church had the advantage of being open that weekday and holiday morning.

Back to the WPA guide, p. 228, on Christ Church: “[At the] NE corner Pollock and Middle streets, a weathered red brick edifice whose lofty, gold-crowned spire rises above great trees shading an old graveyard, was erected in 1873 upon the site of two earlier churches. The parish was organized in 1715 the first church was built in 1750. A Bible, Book of Common Prayer and silver communion service given by George II are retained, though royal Governor Martin attempted to take them with him when he fled town in 1775.

“When Parson Reed, the royalist rector, prayed for the king, lads prompted by patriot parents drummed at the door and shouted ‘Off with his head!’ This church was razed during the Revolution, reputedly because the brick had been brought from England. [Sounds like a likely story.] The second church was erected in 1825. Its outer walls were used for construction of the present building. In a corner of the churchyard fence, with its muzzle embedded in the ground, is the the Lady Blessington Cannon taken from the British ship Lady Blessington, captured in the Revolution.”

We didn’t see any embedded cannon, but on church land outside the Christ Church building were a cemetery and a playground. Not a combination you see much, but maybe there should be more places like that to remind us that the the arc of a lifespan is all too brief.

It’s a handsome Southern church burial yard, complete with magnolias and Spanish moss.

Included are stones reflecting older language usage, as you sometimes find in older cemeteries. “Relict,” as in widow, isn’t one you see much these days.

A wordy memorial. I hope the stone carver was paid by the letter.

But he’s notable enough: James Davis, quite a busy fellow in colonial North Carolina and later the state.

The Bridgehouse Museum, Chicago

Posted on May 28, 2025 by admin

Vexillologists, I understand, are fond of the Chicago flag. So are the people of Chicago. I’ll go along with them on that.

Walking along the Chicago Riverwalk last Friday, how could I say no to this?

By happy chance, I’d arrived at the Bridgehouse Museum, whose entrance is on the Riverwalk level on the Chicago River next to Michigan Avenue bridge, on a free admission day.

Actually not next to the bridge. The museum is part of the bridge, consisting of one of the four bridgehouses at each corner of the Michigan Avenue bridge, which houses the Machine Age equipment that raises and lowers part of the bridge. In full, it is the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum.

The museum tells the story of the bridge, completed in 1920, and the Chicago River, which has the distinction (among others) of having its course reversed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1909, during the heroic age of American civil engineering. The story arc of the Chicago River is that of a modern urban river beginning as a sluggish, marshy stream in pre-settlement times that gave way to periods as an open sewer and home to a welter of commercial docks and warehouses; long periods of unhealthy levels of pollution and its abandonment (mostly) as a working river; and more recent efforts to remediate the waters.

Mr. Dooley on the river as it was: “Twas the prettiest river f’r to look at that ye’ll iver see …. Green at th’ sausage facthry, blue at th’ soap facthry, yellow at th’ tannery, ye’d not thrade it f’r annything…”

The challenge posed by the river to the free movement of vehicles and pedestrians in downtown Chicago was solved by a raft of bridges, most of which are bascule, as is the one at Michigan Ave. The river sees the life of the city along its shore and on its bridges, and it has seen death, such as the almost comic collapse of the Rush Street bridge under the weight of cattle in 1863 and the nightmarish capsizing of the pleasure vessel Eastland in 1915.

The museum consists of five floors, each a smallish room connected by concrete steps. Brick walls and battleship gray floors form the dominate color palate of the place. There is a fair amount to read and images to see, with each room covering a different subject, such as the bridge itself and the ecology of the river.

A door from the first-floor room leads to a view of some of the steel equipment that makes the bridge move, such as this massive pinion.

Not everyone likes reading at museums, but I do. You just have to be selective. Some bridge facts.

A display about a time the Chicago River caught fire. Cleveland shouldn’t be the only place known for that, though of course the incident at the Cuyahoga was recent enough to be on TV news.

Antique bridge equipment.

Small windows in the bridgehouse offer large views, especially from the top levels.

The other three bridgehouses are visible, for one thing. Then I wondered: why four and not two, since the bridge has two leaves that are raised and lowered? Later, I found out that each leaf is actually two separate sections, divided in the middle of the road, so in fact there are four parts being raised and lowered in unison.

There are two reasons, I understand. One is that each quarter section is lighter, and thus easier to move. Another consideration is what happens when a ship hits the bridge — an incident apparently more common in the 1920s than now, with a higher volume of ship traffic on the river in those days. Even if the damaged section has to be raised for repair, its companion on the same side of the bridge can (probably) stay in place, so the bridge wouldn’t need to be completely closed, which would be disruptive indeed for the city.

All in all, a good little museum. I made a small donation. One complaint, though — and I see this much more than I used to — no postcards at the gift shop. Note cards, yes. But not postcards. If there had been reproductions of this one, I would have bought at least one.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

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