Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
FEBRUARY 8, 2023 – Later known as “Catherine the Great,” Sophia Augustus was considered the most enlightened monarch of her era. Many historians today also conclude that of all absolute rulers of the 18th century, Catherine was a standout. I recently completed reading Robert Massie’s acclaimed biography of the thoroughly German princess who, by a …
JANUARY 31, 2023 – After nearly a year into the Russian war against Ukraine, I’m amazed that any people or buildings are still standing in the second largest (geographically) country in Europe. Russia’s brutal assault, prompted by delusions of imperial grandeur and fed by the age-old Russian tactic of quantity over quality, seems destined to …
JANUARY 21, 2021 – Recently, a college friend with academic credentials deeper than the seven layers of Troy uncovered a volunteer opportunity with the National Archives Citizen Archivist Project. The task involves transcribing old documents. As a PhD anthropological archeologist, he’s eminently qualified. In his email about it he wrote, “Transcribing some of these records …
JANUARY 16, 2023 – Of all our national shortcomings, the legacy of our Original Sin remains the most persistent contradiction of our basic stated operating principles; a contradiction with real, hard, extensive, corrosive consequences for all of us. The sine qua non of redemption is acknowledgment, yet many Americans still actively resist hearing, reading or …
JANUARY 8, 2023 – Movies, filled with dramatic distortions, embellishments and exaggerations, are often an unreliable source of historical information. Just as often, however, despite the lack of factual reliability, a film will stir the viewer’s curiosity and prompt further investigation of the historical record. That was the case when I stumbled across the 2014 …
DECEMBER 26, 2022 – I’m well into that paradoxical stage of life when the more I learn, the more I learn I haven’t. This is particularly true of my knowledge of history; not just what’s “fascinating” but what’s necessary for an understanding of the world and essential to counter repetition of its darkest moments. Some …
DECEMBER 14, 2022 – With less than two weeks before Christmas, I’m well into my annual panic over what to buy my spouse. My panic increases each time I see under the tree, another present bearing the tag, “To Eric.” I wanted to write about this panic phenomenon, but in researching the origins of the …
DECEMBER 11, 2022 – Currently, snow conditions aren’t optimal, but I’ve learned to adapt. I’ve found a loop of skiable snow in “Little Switzerland,” a 10-minute walk from our house. My course is only a little over a kilometer but has what every serious x-c skier needs: two straight-aways—one for “V-1” (poling with every other …
DECEMBER 4, 2022 – Surely you’re acquainted with the right-wing “America First Party” with the motto, “Fighting for Faith, Freedom and the Constitution to Put America First.” Likewise, you’ve heard of Holocaust-denier, Nick Fuentes, Trump’s recent lunch guest and instigator of the annual America First Political Action Conference (“AFPAC”). But how many people who encounter …
DECEMBER 3, 2022 – I’m currently reading Robert Massie’s acclaimed biography of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias. I’d first read it a decade ago, and as I’ve discovered with multiple books lately—including other Massie masterpieces: Peter the Great and Nicholas and Alexandra—a second reading heightens retention as well as comprehension. I read …
OCTOBER 3, 2022 – Today marks six weeks from “chemo-blast-off.” To celebrate, I took a long walk in nearby Como Park. As I admired the many trees that have become my friends, I contemplated the generations of park visitors who’ve also laid eyes on those oak, pine, maple, locust, chestnut, and cottonwood (to name a …
SEPTEMBER 24, 2022 – Blogger’s note: Perhaps it’s a good sign that 32 days post-transplant, I’m now able to be cranky with reckless abandon. (Trigger warning: take this post with a grain of salt.) Today between rainy periods, I got myself out of the house and hiked for an hour, including hill climbs at “Little …
JULY 18, 2022 – Over the weekend, while sitting on our dock, I watched cumulus clouds billowing upward over the lake. Earlier, when our six-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter was doing likewise and seeing dragons and unicorns, she’d asked, “How are clouds made?” I explained that when the earth warms by day, the moist, heated air near the …
JULY 14, 2022 – As a college freshman, I took a “gov” class. Elsewhere it was known as “political science,” but for reasons unclear to me then and now, “poli-sci” was “gov” at the Maine alma mater of such luminaries as Franklin Pierce, who, in case you forgot, became POTUS, and Melville Fuller, who was …
MAY 18, 2022 – After another day in Moscow, I traveled by train to Leningrad, then westward to Helsinki. From the Finnish capital, I steamed farther west to Stockholm. There I visited my cousin Anders before heading southwest to Malmö to see our cousins Merith and Mats-Åke. The November daylight in Sweden was short and …
MAY 15, 2022 – As the train approached Yaroslav Station in Moscow seven days after departing Khabarovsk, Sasha, my carriage attendant, and Yuri, chief of the train crew, found their way to my compartment. Yuri wanted to give me directions to the upscale restaurant to which he’d invited me for dinner the following evening. Sasha …
MAY 14, 2022 – When the train reached major cities like Perm, Omsk, Sverdlovsk, and Novosibirsk, I was amazed by the size of such places that prior to my trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway, I hadn’t even known existed. Each had a population of well over a million—larger than today’s combined population of the “Twin …
MAY 12, 2022 – (Cont. See 5/10/22 post) The public misbehavior of my two countrymen was unsettling. Throughout my formal education—and in life generally—I’d been no stranger to debate. But exactly how, I wondered, could two Americans aboard a Russian train become so locked in dispute as to lose all self-awareness—especially in the absence of alcohol? …
MAY 8, 2022 – My other prized souvenir from the Trans-Siberian train (see yesterday’s post) was the (real) silver, commemorative Russian tea glass holder impressed with an image of the Kremlin, “CCCP” (“USSR”), and “50,” marking the half-century since the (“glorious”) October Revolution of 1917. These exquisite tea glass holders were available for use aboard …
MAY 7, 2022 – If Russians readily conceded that they didn’t enjoy the same level of material prosperity as Americans, it was because the American military threat had forced the USSR to spend even more money on defense. This was a nearly universal sentiment—er, Communist Party line—among the Russians I met. The truth, of course, …
MAY 6, 2022 – Across my many conversations with Russians aboard the train, I endeavored to find consensus about one subject or another, such as national self-perception, for example, and impression of the United States, and most sensitive at the time—attitudes about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. One person’s opinion is only a data point, …
APRIL 27, 2022 – As I wrote in my letter home, “The aesthetic shortcomings of my accommodations, though, were compensated a thousandfold by the beauty of Leningrad itself . . . The gilded dome of the imposing St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the tall, narrow gold spire of Peter and Paul Fortress, and the striking gold tower-spire …
APRIL 19, 2022 – It was in Krakow—at the youth hostel where I stayed—where I experienced the most memorable theater poster-based “class” (see 4/12/22 post). One of the other guests, Jerzy, was a young artist from Lublin. He spoke slow but understandable English and our conversation attracted the attention of six Polish students at the …
APRIL 18, 2022 – From Gdansk I traveled to Warsaw, then to Krakow. This former capital of the Nazi’s General Government during WW II had largely avoided the crushing destruction that had befallen Gdansk and Warsaw. In Krakow, therefore, “old” meant “original”—not, “reconstructed after the war”—and in many places, “original” meant the 14th century (St. …
APRIL 17, 2022 – It was a Sunday in Gdansk, and from my contacts the day before I’d learned about the dedication of a memorial at Stutthof, a Nazi concentration camp 21 miles east of Gdansk. I learned what bus route would take me there, and hiked to the bus stop a short distance to …