On an Immigrant Group

Moving to another nation can one of the most traumatic events in life even if one is leaving a bad situation and seeking a better life. A group of religious dissidents made the choice to leave their families and the way of life they knew and seek another place. These people, who had been persecuted for their beliefs in their home country, came to Holland to seek the freedom to live and work and worship the way their consciences dictated. In their home country, they had been marginalized and their livelihoods had been taken away, and they were so grateful for the opportunity to start life over again in Holland.

The small group settled in Leiden, near the university, and many of them quickly found work in the textile industry of that city. Others took up the trades and jobs they had previously had in their home country. The university made a strong effort to incorporate the new immigrants into the community; they offered free classes and training, they gave the group a place to meet to hold their religious services, and they provided language training as well to help the newcomers better fit into Dutch society.

For roughly a decade, the group flourished. But, then, they began to worry about the influence the open Dutch society was starting to have on their families. Their kids were growing up not knowing their native language. They were adopting Dutch mentalities and attitudes towards, well, everything, including inclusivity–the very inclusivity that had welcomed the immigrants in the first place. So, because of their own prejudices and intransigence, the religious refugees decided to move again as difficult as the move would be on their families and the group as a whole.

The United States would do well to emulate the Dutch with regards to how we treat those seeking the freedom to live the way they wish to live, whether they are from the US or immigrants seeking a better life. As we look at those things we are thankful for, we might do well to re-examine the basic freedoms of mankind upon which the nation was founded–the freedoms of life, liberty, and to pursue those things that make one happy.

Oh, that religious group? They looked for a place where they could raise their families free of any so-called negative influences, to create a society of their own choosing without any real oversight or control. And a place where their kids wouldn’t grow up wearing wooden shoes.

They chose Massachusetts.

You know them as the Pilgrims.

Happy Thanksgiving.

On an Old Guy

Stan is from the soil of South Dakota. Born and raised. Today, he’s one of the oldest residents to ever hail from the Mount Rushmore State. Being from such a relatively remote area, you might be tempted to think that Stan hasn’t been to many places, but you’d be wrong. Stan’s traveled far and wide across the globe. New York. London. And, as of today, as far as anyone can tell, Stan is in Saudi Arabia of all places. At least parts of him have moved there. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

You see, Stan was named after Stan Sacrison, a decent enough fellow who was out looking at prairie flora one day. It was Big Stan who took our Stan home with him after finding him lying exposed on the side of a sandbank in the grasslands of South Dakota. He was wrapped in a piece of burlap, and Big Stan took him with him. Adoption is always tricky, even in the best of circumstances, and people were indeed curious as to how, exactly, Big Stan came across the foundling. The authorities were certainly interested.

It seems that this type of situation isn’t that unusual in South Dakota; another such incident involved a girl named Sue who was discovered alone near one of the Sioux native tribal reservations in the state. In Sue’s case, she was taken in by an adoptive organization and institutionalized. There was a long legal case over Sue, as the natives claimed that she rightfully belonged to them, but the courts decided she was more of a “finders-keepers” type of situation and allowed the institution to keep Sue.

Meanwhile, Big Stan managed to keep what he jokingly and lovingly called his “little treasure.” But there were issues. Doctors studying Stan after he was brought in found that there were injuries to his back, and there were puncture wounds to his skull and neck. Yes, it was a good thing Big Stan found him when he did.

The problem for finding out more about Stan’s origins–and his death–is that his skeletal system was, well, incomplete. Big Stan didn’t find a human child in the South Dakota grasslands. He found skeletal remains. That’s why I said only parts of Stan are in Saudi Arabia. He was sold for millions of dollars to a private collector.

You see, Stan, like Sue, is one of the most complete T-Rex specimens ever discovered.

On a Patent Clerk

Having some experience in public administration, I can appreciate working in a government job like a patent office. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see new ideas, creative inventions, and even (especially) the wacky or offbeat patent application come across your desk? One such clerk in the Bern, Switzerland, patent office did not share this interest or excitement for his job.

No, he wanted to be a teacher. Instead, he had a wife and family to support, so he took the only job he could get. During his almost seven years in the Bern patent office, he did a great deal of thinking and writing about his academic concepts. Meanwhile, the applications continued to come across his desk, and he had to process them as they did.

One of the inventions was interesting for the first decade of the 1900s. It was the proposal to send the time across telephone wires. The concept, at least, sounds a bit like sending all other information electronically, a thing we take for granted today. But this clerk paid the ideas that cross his desk little attention despite how interesting they may be to us. No, he was interested in maybe pursuing his own patents, perhaps.

In 1905, the 26 year old patent clerk decided to use the time at work to further his own ends. He managed to formulate his ideas and write papers that would change the world one day, he believed. Meanwhile, the applications for patents began piling up on his desk.

Now, to be completely fair to our patent clerk, his uncle, a man named Jacob, had a small reputation as an inventor himself. The uncle came up with one of the best methods for measuring electrical usage–the power meter. He also increased the efficiency of the electric arc lamp, and he improved the mechanism of a spring-loaded friction wheel. One of those patent applications was made in that very patent office. So, to be someone who wanted not to process patent paperwork but rather create the ideas and items that would themselves be patented certainly ran in the family.

Eventually, the papers the clerk published got him noticed, and he was able to leave the prison of the patent office desk behind him. He was able, in fact, to achieve over 50 patents in his lifetime. Among them were a better refrigerator, a self-adjusting camera, a new type of women’s blouse, and more efficient compressor. Those alone would have provided most people with the satisfaction of being known as an inventor, right?

However, those inventions and patents are not really what we remember Albert Einstein for, are they?

On a Field Trip

In the late 1960s, I was in the first years of elementary school in north Alabama. The school system of our city was top-notch; the high school offered advanced placement courses (even courses on anatomy for students who wanted to pursue medicine) and the board of education was always erecting new facilities every few years. Field trips were part and parcel of the curriculum as teachers sought to expand our minds by making our classrooms not confined by the halls of the buildings but designed to include the wider world.

Thus, in 1970, the kids at East Elementary School in Cullman, Alabama, boarded buses and traveled about an hour north to Huntsville to see the newly opened NASA Space Flight Center. As a child of the ’60s, I remember growing up with the marvel of space travel on TV and in the news magazines and newspapers. As a 7 year old, I distinctly remember seeing the live feed from the moon. And, as Armstrong made his “giant leap,” I leapt with him.

NASA’s operations in Huntsville brought the world to north Alabama. Scientists and engineers from across the globe came there and made the city their hometown. It remains one of the state’s most diverse and forward-thinking cities because of this influx of talent and international perspective.

The museum there remains one of my favorites. For the young and impressionable me, to see the massive Saturn V rockets, to interact with some of the artifacts and displays there made me feel great pride in the accomplishments not only of my country but also of my species. As I grew older, one of my regrets is that my family moved from that area before I could go to Space Camp there.

We all have vignettes from our past that stick out to us about an event or a situation that probably should not be in our long-term memories but yet are there, fixed, and often recalled and mused over for the rest of our lives. There is one such strong memory of that day that stands above the others for some reason.

You see, as we excitedly filed off the buses and began to make our way into the large museum facility, the door was held open by a nice older gentleman in a suit who had a neatly combed head of hair. As he did so, the thing that has stuck with me for over fifty years is how he greeted us as we entered.

“Welcome, children,” Wernher von Braun said, smilingly.

On a Spaniel Puppy

Pat’s two daughters desperately wanted a dog. The problem was that kids under the age of 10 usually don’t understand the responsibility to come with pet ownership. All the girls knew was that puppies were cute, and they did not have one. Pat asked her husband about getting a dog for the girls, but he, as usual, didn’t really seem too interested in that issue. The household, after all, was his wife’s domain.

So, Pat mentioned to some people that if an appropriate animal could be found, she would like to get a dog, preferably a pup, for her daughters. The family lived in the metropolitan Baltimore, Maryland area, and, like a lot of young families in the early 1950s, they were living the American Dream. Pat’s husband was a veteran of World War II, like many of their friends, and he had gotten a government job in the Baltimore area after the war. The family moved there from California.

One day, Pat received word that a package had arrived for them down at the Baltimore train station, and the family drove down there in their station wagon to see what it was. Lo and behold, it was a crate, inside of which was a black-and-white spaniel puppy. The girls were ecstatic. Pat’s husband shrugged sheepishly and said he guessed that they could keep it if he didn’t have to do anything with it. The look on the girls’ faces told Pat that the family had a new addition.

Pat’s husband, by the way, was in some trouble at work at that time. Some of his acquaintances had accused him of mishandling government funds and even of taking bribes. To defend himself, her husband made an official statement saying very clearly that the family lived a very middle-class existence and that no fiscal malfeasance had taken place. He added, however, that the family did receive one gift: The spaniel puppy. He was also adamant that, because the girls loved the dog so much, that they would not be returning the dog.

The statement by the man was so sincere, and the sweet references to the girls and the puppy seemed so sweet and down-to-earth, that it served to erase all doubts that Pat’s husband was anything but an honest government employee.

Indeed, some people say that this speech by Richard Nixon saved his career.

On a Ruptured Appendix

Appendicitis is handled fairly easily by hospitals and doctors today, but that wasn’t always the case. Before the wide-spread use of antibiotics in the years following World War 2, the infections caused by ruptured appendixes proved to be over 80% fatal according to some medical sources. That infection–peritonitis–was the issue in this case.

Erik was said to be a stubborn man. His wife, Bess, said in later years that she had to beg and beg Erik to go to a hospital and have his appendix checked out. When he finally did go, and the doctors removed the appendix, it was too late. The ruptured organ had infected the stomach cavity. See the paragraph above to understand Erik’s chances of survival in this situation.

The stubbornness that characterized his hospitalization manifested itself early in the man’s life. He ran away from his Appleton, Wisconsin, home at the age of 9. At the end of the 19th Century, that type of thing was not as uncommon as it may seem. However, Erik ran away because his clergyman father and he fought with each other all the time. Dad had plans for his son, but Erik had other ideas about what he wanted to do in life.

Bess had been a blessing to Erik. The pair met and married in 1894. While they never had children (Bess, her family said, was infertile), she looked after a wide variety of pets the couple adopted throughout their marriage while Erik worked and provided for them.

In his hospital bed, Erik’s temperature reached 104 degrees. The stomach interior was septic. The doctors tried another surgery in an attempt to introduce some anti-bacterial serum, but it had no effect. “Bess,” Erik said, in the last words he would utter in this life, “I’m tired of fighting.” She held his hand as he passed. Erik became simply another statistic, someone who died of an infection that is easily dealt with today.

For the next decade after Erik’s death, Bess tried to make contact with her husband through seances and the use of mediums, but she knew that they were all fake, all charlatans. She wanted to prove that they were all crooks, in fact, and called them out when they couldn’t communicate with Erik. And, Bess also knew that Erik would have approved of her efforts.

Of course, we know Erik Weiss by his stage name.

You see, besides being a wonderful magician, Harry Houdini had also made quite a splash as a debunker of spiritualism.

On a Wondrous Creation

Bob’s greatest creation, to hear him tell it, was his two children. He and Kitty had a son, Peter, and daughter, a sweet girl everyone called Toni. As everyone reading this is well aware, families are tricky things. A song lyric from the 1990s says, “A family is like a loaded gun; you point it in the wrong direction, someone’s gonna get killed.”

Despite the usual turmoil surrounding families, Bob’s family had added pressures. First of all, Bob’s job was incredibly stressful and caused the family to move often. Secondly, there was tension between Kitty and her children. Kitty had issues with addiction, and those issues often manifested themselves by verbal altercations with her children. Toni developed polio. Bob, despite his deep love for his family, was largely an absent father due to his work.

All of that made Peter grow up with extreme shyness and anxiety of his own. Bob’s family was wealthy, so money was never an issue for them, but money can’t buy happiness or stave off all pressures from a family. Peter’s school career was not stellar, and this seems odd considering that both Bob and Kitty had excelled at school. His shyness caused him to be socially awkward. He preferred to be alone to having friends or even to spend time with anyone else, really. Peter had to leave his prestigious prep school and attend a public school where he barely scraped by.

However, Peter excelled at working with his hands. Today, he is a carpenter who lives in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico and is renown for his work. Sadly, Bob never really understood Peter despite his complete dedication to his son. The social awkwardness manifested by Peter was foreign to Bob because he never had such issues himself. He was at a loss to try to help Peter overcome his issues.

Bob felt conflicted, you see, because he was so worried about Kitty’s issues with alcoholism and the ongoing and increasing pressures he felt at work. Still, his children’s situations needed attention. The family moved to the Virgin Islands for a while because doctors said that the warm, moist air would help Toni’s polio, but that didn’t seem to help much. He contemplated getting Peter professional help, but his own bad experiences with therapy made him balk at that option.

Yes, Bob loved all his family, deeply. Bob died of cancer in the 1960s. Kitty suffered an embolism and died a few years later. Toni took her own life at the age of 33. As we said, today, Peter works as a carpenter in the mountains of northern New Mexico. He chose New Mexico because it was where the family lived for a short but important time in their lives, and he had good memories of that period of their lives.

Until the time he died, and, despite the issues that the family faced, Bob insisted that the kids were his greatest achievement.

You know Bob for another creation. You see, Robert Oppenheimer is best remembered for creating the nuclear bomb for the United States.

On a Doting Husband

Al loved his wife, Ines, so much and was beyond proud when she became pregnant. Ines loved Al just as much. Their family dynamic was similar to most families of their time, in 1908, in Rome. Al worked, and Ines took care of the house in the family. There was one exception to this normal division of labor, and that was that Al did much of the cooking in the family. In fact, while Ines was pregnant, Al made a point of catering to his wife’s every whim regarding whatever hankering or craving she had for food. His love was so great that he doted on Ines.

Occasionally, Al would create dishes made to his wife’s special orders. Her cravings seemed to center around dairy products. Now this point, it’s important for me tell you that Al worked with what he called “blondes.” Al’s blondes did not cause Ines any jealousy whatsoever. In fact, she encouraged his work with them. We will get back to that whole blondes situation in a minute.

Meanwhile, where were we. Oh yes. Al was making food for his pregnant wife. Ines had her baby, and, to Al’s great pride, it was a son. Of course, he named him Al, Junior. However, Ines had lost her appetite after the birth. Today, we might say she was living with post-partum depression. Anyway, Al had the great idea to combine his work with the blondes and his wife’s loss of appetite. It was a simple thing to do. All Al did was Take butter and cream and Parmesan cheese and put them over noodles. He served this to his precious Ines, and she could not believe how incredibly good it tasted.

You see, Al’s work was as a restauranteur. The family restaurant, Da Alfredo, did great business with locals, and, once he put this simple pasta dish on the menu, began attracting a large tourist trade as well.

You remember the “blondes“ I spoke of earlier? That’s what Al lovingly called his butter-filled thin noodles.

You know the dish that Al made for his pregnant wife to help her with her loss of appetite? The yummy and rich combination of Al’s blondes and his buttery cream sauce?

You call it fettuccine Alfredo.

On the Collection of a Debt

Vernon knew the type. As a funeral director, he was used to people in the south saying something like, “Mama may not have had two nickels to rub together, but we gotta send her out in style,” and then ordering the most expensive funeral the O’Neal Funeral Home could put on. And Vernon usually didn’t care, as long as the family, friends, a church–anybody–paid for it. Not that he was callous or greedy, mind you.

And that was the problem Vernon faced. Out of the kindness of his heart (some would later call him a sucker), Vernon had received a widow’s request for the finest casket the funeral home had. Well, he told the family, the finest box he had on display was the Handley Britannia model manufactured by the Elgin Casket Compnay. It was a mammoth thing, Vernon warned them, weighing over 400 pounds empty. Sounds fine, the family said. They asked that it be delivered to another location, and they promised payment…eventually.

Now, here it was, several months later, and Vernon still had no payment.

He made phone calls to the last number he had been given, but the widow had moved in the weeks following her husband’s death and left no forwarding address or phone number. He thought about hiring an attorney to pursue litigation to recover the expenses of the casket, but his innate kindness in the face of the bereaving family made him feel uneasy to pursue that option.

So, Vernon waited. Waiting, he had found, usually solved most issues one way or another. Either he would eventually get his money (unlikely) or he would begin to not care if he received it or not. However, that was no way to run a business, and the funeral home was not a charity.

Now, I have a thing about funeral homes. I’m not a fan, usually. Next to new car dealerships, funeral homes, at least in my experience, do everything they can to upsell families at their most vulnerable moments. There are exceptions, of course. Vernon O’Neal was one of those exceptions. He didn’t try to talk families into doing anything they wanted to do. For Vernon, what he did was less business and more ministry. Perhaps that why he wasn’t too worried about the expensive casket that he was likely to never see payment for.

On the other hand… well, the box retailed for $3,995…in 1963. Finally, after several letters and calls to this number and that one, Vernon O’Neal finally received payment. Almost a year later. And it did not come from the widow.

No, the eventual payment for the casket for President John F. Kennedy came from the United States government.

On an Unknown Assassin

The list of recent famous assassins is long. Sirhan Sirhan. Mark David Chapman. John Wilkes Booth. James Earl Ray. Lee Harvey Oswald. And those are only the ones associated with American assassinations. Famous historical assassins from other cultures include Brutus, Gavrilo Princip, and Charlotte Corday.

Someone once said that you can either be a famous person or the murderer of a famous person to be remembered in history. This is the story of an assassin we don’t remember, but history felt the effects of his murderous act. What’s interesting about this particular assassin is that we indeed remember the person killed.

Historians familiar with his story have circumstantial evidence that the murdered man’s wife and or son had a hand in hiring this unremembered assassin. Believe what you will. I happen to think the killer acted on his own. The main reason for this is, I feel, that the murdered man publicly embarrassed his killer, and, since the man’s pride was so wounded, he took his revenge by murdering the man who had shamed him.

To make matters even more, well, almost incestuous, is that the murderer had been hired as a bodyguard for the man he killed. That gave him access. The old police trope that murder requires means, motive, and opportunity is certainly in play here. The murderer had the motive (the public embarrassment), the opportunity (as a bodyguard, he had access), and as for the means, well, he chose to thrust a blade into the ribcage of his boss right before a public event–the marriage of the man’s daughter.

There is a problem with the motive part of the equation, however. It seems that eight years passed between the time of the humiliation and the murder. That is quite the long time for someone to wait for revenge. I can’t often remember what happened to me eight days ago, much less something that happened almost a decade in the past. Yet, we are supposed to believe that this eight year span was a time of waiting for the right moment. And the wedding was it.

The act was premeditated. The escape after the murder was clearly planned. Accomplices (who were later tried and executed) aided the attempted flight of the killer. Oh, and the killer himself was quickly caught and killed before he could testify as to his true motive and/or if the murdered man’s wife and/or son had anything to do with the murder.

That proved quite convenient. One reason historians suspect the wife as an accomplice in the murder is that, shortly after her husband’s death, she paid for a large memorial to be placed in the city where the murder took place honoring…the murderer.

You see, when her husband died, the now-widow’s 20-year-old son became king. This young man (who may or may not have been involved as well) went on to conqueror the known world over the next 13 years. You know her husband as Philip of Macedon.

You know her young son as Alexander the Great.