DC Reflections

Tremendous tour guide brings Louisa May Alcott to life at Orchard House home

Concord, MA -- Our Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House tour guide, Beth, captured my and my wife's attention from the second we entered the 19th century author's home. Her passion for the subject was palpable and she made it clear from the onset that Won-ok and I weren't going to just tour a farmhouse that was the setting for a famous novel; we were going to genuinely get to know the writer who lived there.

Orchard House

I confess I knew next to nothing about Alcott before today except that she was friends with my dear friend Henry David Thoreau -- the person we took this vacation to see. Won-ok knew as little as I did until we made a serendipitous visit (that turned out to be the first of many) to the Concord Free Public Library. The place is packed with material by and about its literary rock stars. Won-ok perused the engaging children's section and spotted a number of Alcott books including Little Women.

"I grabbed that book and started reading that and her bio," she told me a few hours later, as we compared notes about who had more fun reading that night. "I was touched by her writing and her life story. I could already tell that she was a feminist and a very decent human being. Then I decided to read a book of her short story collections. The Brownie And The Princess was so sweet. It made me feel like a little kid again."

Won-ok's eyes lit up again on our Orchard House tour when Beth pointed to a shelf full of Alcott books that had been translated into other languages. Turns out that she was much more familiar with the Korean title of Little Women.

Her new bond with Alcott grew stronger with each room we visited. Beth told us about Alcott's life-long commitment to serving other people. Among her many other humanitarian efforts, she was a strident abolitionist whose family housed a fugitive slave on the Underground Railroad for a week. Alcott's unselfishness came despite the fact that she herself endured poverty throughout her young life -- which forced her to work a variety of hard jobs from an early age. She also had to move 22 times in 30 years. She stepped away from her burgeoning writing career to head to the Washington D.C. area to serve as a nurse during the Civil War. She spent six weeks there before being struck with typhoid and forced home.

Louisa May Alcott

"She was in pain for the rest of her life," Beth told us as we stood by Alcott's bedroom desk. "She even taught herself to write with both hands. She would write for hours and hours each day and then collapse."

I glanced at my own perfectly healthy hands and realized that I clearly have no excuse for not doing more with my own writing. 

Beth told us the story of how Little Women came into existence. I was the only one in the room who didn't know that the book was a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood but we were all mesmerized by the unlikely success of it. Beth shared that Alcott had so little confidence in the idea of her book that she wrote Part 1 just to show her editor that he wouldn't be interested and that no one else would care. Her editor quickly told her that she was right. Alcott's 14-year-old niece got a look at it, though, and she absolutely loved it -- prompting Alcott to change her tune.

Me, Won-ok and tour guide Beth

"Part One was instantly popular and it sold out right away," Beth said. "It became so popular so fast that people started knocking on the front door here. The success of her book amazed her. When Louisa came home with a check from her publisher, she couldn't believe it."

I felt a little bit indignant on behalf of Thoreau, whose works didn't exactly fly off the shelves in his lifetime. Beth grinned at me and my "Thoreau Sauntering Society" T-shirt from the nearby The Thoreau Society gift shop at Walden Pond and tried to give me a historical nugget to make me feel a little better.

"America was coming out of the Civil War," she said, gently, as if she were easing her way into telling a child that Santa Claus isn't real. "Her book wasn't this treatise on transcendentalist philosophy; it was a simple book about girls getting angry with each other."

Thoreau's flute at the Concord Museum

That made sense to me. Even I can only absorb so much transcendentalism at a time. I was also happy enough just to be spending time in yet another place Thoreau frequented. Beth told us that he spent a lot of time in the Alcott home and regaled me with stories about him playing the flute there. She also introduced us to the poem, Thoreau's Flute, that Alcott published in The Atlantic after his death. She wrote it from that very bedroom in which we stood.

The literary part of my brain wasn't the only one spinning. One of the many great things about a tour of a home like the Orchard House is that it opens up all kinds of new avenues for learning, like the Orchard House's monthly "Welcome To Our Home" Living History Tour with a costumed guide. Play 19th century games and sing parlor songs? We'll come back for that! This town is even hosting a Little Women Week" from from Dec. 15-22, 2019 dedicated to the book and the upcoming release of the Little Women Columbia Pictures movie starring Meryl Streep, Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson. The line-up features a wide array of activities and events for all ages. Won-ok would love to make it back for the Luncheon Tea with Louisa May Alcott at Colonial Inn. Orchard House Executive Director Jan Turnquist will portray the author. (OK, I should be honest here: I wish I could attend this, too.) 

I make my living as an estate liquidator and antiques and collectibles dealer so I totally geeked out on seeing a house full of period furniture in context. I was able to picture Alcott and her family living with their beautiful, then-modern furniture -- which we now call American Empire style antiques, among others. I also loved studying the more modest furniture like Alcott's blue-striped dresser made by the humble touch of a craftsman who clearly wanted to make pieces that were pleasing enough to the eye but affordable. 

Beth broke me out of my antiques daze when she made a point about the lack of equality women faced in that era.

"Louisa made more money than Twain but couldn't vote," she said.

Silence hung in the air.

Beth said that Alcott invested her earnings wisely in railroads and real estate and spent her money and her life taking care of three generations of her family -- continuing to write and to fight for justice and equality on multiple fronts.

"Caring for people was in Louisa's DNA," Beth said.

Won-ok's favorite site of our vacation

Giving high-energy tours was clearly in Beth's. We told her that we were outright historical tour snobs and that hers was one of the best we had ever taken. She made Louisa May Alcott absolutely come alive for us and she instantly inspired us to want to get to know the big-hearted author even better.

We gave Beth a hug goodbye and exited the Orchard House with adrenaline of learning pumping through our veins -- Won-ok with an armful of Alcott books from the gift shop and me with the sound of Alcott's poetry and Thoreau's flute playing in my head.

Christopher Lancette is a former journalist with a life-long love of all things Boston and Concord. He and Won-ok Kim own Orion's Attic, an estate liquidation, antiques and collectibles company in Silver Spring, Maryland. The two plan to return to New England as fast and as often as possible.

Paying our respects at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

 

Honoring Vietnam Veteran John Young -- My Hero, and America's

[It is my honor to share here the remarks I gave at the funeral of my uncle, Sergeant John Young. May this small tribute honor him, the 9th Infantry Division, Charlie Company and everyone who served our country in Vietnam.]

Picayune, Mississippi -- I knew there was something special about my Uncle John Young from the time I was knee-high to an infantry rifle. My earliest memories of him came from the old Atlanta airport in the early 1970s. My mom and I would go to the airport and wait for him to come in. He was easy to pick out from the crowd because he was always wearing his Army uniform, not a wrinkle on it or him.

People would stare at him and all the colorful stuff on the chest and shoulders of his uniform. My mom would start sobbing. Uncle John appears, mom starts crying – that’s how it went. When he went back into the airport, more crying. I’m not completely sure I remember exactly the parting words he shared with me each time as leaned down to look in my eyes but I’m pretty sure it must have gone to the effect of, “Take care of your mom, Neph.”

From the time I was a little boy until the last time I saw him, he always called me that – Neph. I in turn also eliminated syllables and called him Unc.

As I grew a little older, I picked up little hints about what made my uncle special. I’d hear the grown-ups use words like “hero” and say that he had served his country in some place called Vietnam. I didn’t really know where or what that was or why everybody tensed up whenever the word was mentioned but, whatever Vietnam was, I knew it had to be important. I knew it had something to do with who my uncle was, what made him special.

I hit my teen years and began to recognize there was also something secretive about him. He was always deep in thought, as if he were in some place other than in a room with me. He didn’t talk a lot – very unlike my mom and Aunt Susan. I sensed a certain tension in him and even as I hit my 20s, it was not something I felt comfortable bringing up with him or my family.

I just put the bits and pieces gleaned from my family together as best I could. I had a rudimentary understanding of the Vietnam War by that point from what little my high school and college spent on the subject but mostly from watching TV, movies and reading about it. 

I very clearly learned other things about my Uncle John that made him special. It didn’t take me that long to figure out he was perhaps the smartest man I ever met. He didn’t read books: He consumed them. He had the intellect to read one book one time and then explain it to me in a depth and context that was more riveting than even my best history classes. He and I shared a great love for history.

I also began to recognize the writing gene I was born with may well have come straight from his DNA. The former journalism major didn’t share much of his writing with me but the little he did left me spell-bound. The “hero” image began to take shape, in fact, when I realized he did not go to Vietnam because he got drafted. He could have deferred his service because he was in college. Instead, inspired by President Kennedy, he voluntarily chose to enter the Army and go to Vietnam. I cannot imagine having the courage of convictions to make a similar choice when I was in college.

Throughout my uncle’s life, he was a patriot. He did not believe in letting someone else go do impossible jobs in his place. He believed it was his duty to fight for what his country asked of him.

Throughout my 20s and 30s, I so desperately wanted to ask him to tell me about his experiences in Vietnam but I didn’t have the courage to do that, either. I knew the place birthed in him demons that he would spend much of his adult life battling and I wanted to know about that, too, but I was just the little nephew. How do you ask someone to open up about Vietnam?

I’d get glimpses of it from time to time. Once, we were sitting out in front of my aunt’s house in Minnesota. The two us were probably debating the issues of the day when all of a sudden he disappeared again. Not physically, just mentally. He started staring at his hands and rubbing furiously them against each other as if he were trying to wash something off of them.

“Neph,” he said, “You don’t know what these hands have done.”

We sat there in silence for I don’t know how long. I desperately wanted to find words to make him feel better, as if I had any remote idea of what he was talking about – but he was my “Unc” and I couldn’t stand to see him in pain like that.  He certainly wasn’t much of a hugger so that option was absolutely not on the table.

Most of the moments we shared together were not that dark, though. He often used his intellect to help me crystallize my own thoughts. As a grown man sitting with him after dinner one day in Georgia, I was talking to him about my uncertainty about the next part of my career path. I was giving him pros and cons about different options and my anguish about having such a hard time figuring out what was next for me.

“Neph,” he said. “You don’t like to get jobs. You like to enlist!”

He was exactly right. I only liked working for causes, for employers with missions I believed in with my whole heart – and there was no sense in this old dog trying to learn new tricks.

In my 30s and 40s, we spent most of our time together in person, on the phone and with email debating the big issues of the day.  Man oh man could we debate some politics – him the gun-toting conservative, me the screaming liberal.

I’m not quite sure that “debating” is the right word as that sort of implies that there was a fair competition – as if I might have ever won one. Neph always came out on the short end of the stick with him.

He’d inevitably make a point that made me go quiet, one I could not defeat. After a lunch some years ago, he left me so stumped that I told him I’d have to come up with something. My poor girlfriend Won-ok over there didn’t see me for a week; It took me that long to come up with a response that I sent him by email.

The breakthrough I always longed for with him, though, finally came. It came because of Professor Andrew Wiest and his book, The Boys of '67. My uncle became a guest lecturer in Wiest's classes at the University of Southern Mississippi, lead summer sessions in Vietnam with him and served as the launching point for the book.

“To my favorite nephew,” Uncle John wrote in the beginning of his inscription. I’m reasonably certain I’m his only nephew but I’ll take it! “I’d write what I really feel,” he continued, “but then I’d be all weepy. Good luck in all that you do.”

I was the one who wept: I wept for 367 pages.

I’d read a few chapters and sob hysterically into Won-ok’s arms. I’d let a day or so pass, muster up the strength to read more, and then sob hysterically into Won-ok’s arms. I was starting to get the hang of my mom’s routine.

I now knew what my Uncle’s hands had done, what they had to do, and what all the Boys of 67 had to do to stay alive. I also learned for the first time the things he did to save the lives of other men.

I grieved for my uncle. I grieved for the men America lost and for the ones who made it home. I wanted to hop on the next plane down here to Picayune, break the John Young rules, and hug the stuffing out of him.

The book, of course, was such a hit that it got turned into a TV documentary on the National Geographic channel, which caused Uncle John to come up to Washington D.C. where I live twice within a relatively short time.

We spent our first visit sparring about politics and national events as we ate lunch. I remained dazzled by his intellect. I didn’t know why the restaurant closed so quickly after lunch, I told him – until we both realized they were now closing after DINNER. Time had just flown by. Turned out he did not think Hillary Clinton was a particularly nice lady.

The last time I saw him, Won-ok and I took him out to dinner. At the very end, Uncle John made a joke and laughed. I had to hide my face for a second, as a tear shot from my eyes. Won-ok knew it and asked me about it the moment we dropped him off at the hotel.

“I’m in my mid-40s,” I said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him make a joke and laugh.”

That book and his relationship with the professor and all the reunions with his Army buddies had changed his life for the better and given me the chance to get to know a new Uncle John for the first time. The old sergeant had discharged his demons.

At the end of that dinner, I decided to break rank. I gave him a hug. How a man of his slight physical stature could have performed the feats I now knew about, I have no idea.

He survived the hug.

For the first time in my life, I thanked him both for his service to the United States and for being my uncle. Though such words made him squirm in his boots, I told him he was a hero – mine, and America’s.

 

Finding more than a bargain at the Colonial Market Fair 2017 in Ellicott City

I drove north to Ellicott City on June 11, 2017 feeling a little bit sheepish -- and maybe a tad embarrassed, too. I've been a student of the American Revolution most of my life. I fell in love with the subject in fifth grade and the passion is still with me as I push 50. Yet there I was, a resident of Maryland for 10 years but making only my first visit to the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum that sits in Catonsville. That's just a stone throw or two from Old Ellicott City, Maryland.

I knew that Banneker played a key role in mapping the newly formed District of Columbia but that was about all I knew -- at least as the day began. I pulled into the complex to attend the Colonial Market Fair 2017 and became spellbound the moment the mouth-watering scent of bread cooking in an 18th century earthen oven wafted over me. It smelled like heaven.

My stomach already grumbling, my brain developed hunger pains just as quickly. I entered the museum building and fought against a sudden onset of Attention Deficit Disorder, though I often refer to my own affliction as Attention Surplus Disorder. I like to concentrate on ten things at once. I heard fife and drums echoing from outside. Inside, I saw all kinds of displays I had to check out. I grimaced in pain as I examined a table full of antique surgical "instruments." I moved from exhibit to exhibit before entering the main room dedicated to Banneker. I had no idea that he was the first African-American giant of science, that he was an exceptional astronomer or that he published superb almanacs. I didn't know that he was a powerful advocate for the abolition of slavery.  

I headed outside to throw myself into all the action taking place there, transporting myself back in time more than two centuries in the process. The fife and drum corps continued playing with military precision, giving way to a man playing a stringed instrument resembling a mandolin. Skilled tradesmen and women wove baskets, made soap, crafted fine leather bags and gunpowder horns, stitched cane chairs, and lovingly made dolls for children. Yet other people toiled away making corn brooms, cleaning laundry, and using wood to craft tools and other necessities. I perused displays of jewelry, fine lace and candles.

Bang! A soldier in the distance fired a musket and nearly sent me flying out of my shoes.

A town crier rang a bell and directed people to a wide array of entertainment. I turned to my girlfriend Won-ok and asked her to film a video clip of me introducing the fair in case we ended up shooting a segment or two for a YouTube channel I've long dreamed of launching -- a place to tell the stories of the fascinating faces and places we encounter all the time. (Watch the Colonial Market Fair opening video.) We shot the intro and continued our stroll through the 142-acre grounds. A man walked by who quite resembled the namesake of the historic site.

"Are you Benjamin Banneker?" I asked.

Indeed he was. I asked him if I could interview him, recognizing that we HAD to launch Faces and Places TV that very day. Banneker kindly granted this one-time scribe's request. Won-ok and I would go on to film a total of eight segments by day's end -- essentially a whole episode of a TV show. Watch all eight Colonial Market Fair 2017 videos here. Banneker told me about his early life, the arduous task of using astronomy to help map the new federal territory in the dead of winter and the importance of education.

"I didn't attend school for very long but I was able to read," said Banneker, whose 21st century name is Bob Smith, a professional actor and storyteller out of Baltimore. He remained in perfect character throughout our chat. "I had access to books. As long as you can read, you can learn to do anything." (Watch the Banneker video.)

I thanked Banneker for his time and walked away elated from the unexpected encounter, the chance not just to learn about history from the pages of a book but to literally shake hands with it. I was pumped and ready for more!

A song caught my attention, spilling out over the field -- from a voice deep in pain, one crying out to God above for the strength to survive. The voice belonged to songstress Brenda Tucker, who shared her gift of Negro Spirituals with all who would listen. She sat down with us afterward and conveyed why it's so important to her to sing those songs.

"You put yourself in the place of the person who created the music, those who sang it," she said, the brim of her hat occasionally giving way to her beautiful deep, dark eyes that conveyed as much pain and hope as her words. "They were out in the fields picking cotton and picking tobacco, working in the rice fields and working as domestics. They were out in the fields in the hot, burning sun and they had to keep going. So you put yourself back where your ancestors were." Tucker's words did exactly that, causing her to break out into a spontaneous song -- "Lord, How Come Me Here."  Goosebumps sprouted on my arms and I had to fight back tears. You have to watch the video. You have to hear her sing. (Watch the Tucker interview.)

Emotionally spent, I turned to something a little easier on my soul. I chatted with book artist Martha Edgerton about book binding in the 18th and 19th centuries. I'm a rare book collector myself and collect the American Revolution. I always love seeing the old tools of the trade. Turned out that Edgerton also currently has an exhibition of her work on the subject of slavery on display at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum on Pratt Street in Baltimore. That will be next on my list of places to visit. (Watch the Martha Edgerton interview.)

Mysterious forces then pulled me to the display of "Edmund Howarth," a natural philosopher whose trade is "the collecting and trade of natural curiosities." I saw taxidermy squirrels, little alligator heads, animal bones and a seemingly infinite number of oddities tucked inside specimen jars. He quoted his hero, American scientist Charles Willson Peale, in telling me that "Nature is simply a book and we are meant to read it by turning its pages." Howarth (a science educator and living history instructor whose modern name is Dean Howarth) pays further homage by assembling his own library of natural wonders. (Watch the Dean Howarth video interview.)

I spotted a man in plain white garb approaching a tent to perform. Branch Morgan III is a retired school teacher with a passion for sharing his love of historic African and African-American rituals and the origin of dance. He brought the whole crowd up to join him in "The Ring Shout," a ritual practiced by slaves who moved around in circles shuffling their feet and clapping their hands. They did not cross their feet, Morgan stressed. That would be dancing, and that was the devil's work. Morgan told me that slaves often had to wander deep into the woods to perform "The Ring Shout," lest slave masters see them and think they weren't working the slaves hard enough. The thought left me speechless. (Watch the Branch Morgan III interview.)

The day drawing to a close, I made my way back inside the museum for a pit stop between the 18th and 21st centuries. I met Justine Schaeffer, the director of the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum. The fair marked her last day at the post with the Baltimore County site. I didn't know until that moment that the place was run by the county. I tipped my tricorn hat to her and the county for a job exceptionally well done. I asked her what she'll take away most from her tenure at the historical park.

"I think it's an appreciation of the accomplishments of a free African-American man and what that means to us today," she told me, with a life-sized Banneker figure listening in. "He was a man who overcame obstacles throughout his life at a time when most people with his skin color were enslaved. There are messages in his life for each of us. There are things for older people, that we can accomplish things in later decades ... for younger people, who can overcome those obstacles to achieve [their] goals ... his message as a human being, those universals that drive us all. It has been an honor for me to be here, to learn about him and to teach others about him." (Watch the Justine Schaeffer interview.)

Her words hung in the air as I exited the museum and made my way out of the Colonial Market Fair 2017. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say on-camera, how I was going to sum up the profoundly moving day that I had just spent with Benjamin Banneker and colonial America. The impact of it was moving through me like the slow, undulating spiritual I heard Tucker sing. I asked Won-ok to just hit record on her phone and that I would say whatever came from my heart. (Watch the closing thoughts video.)

Lyrics from another Negro Spiritual I heard earlier came to me -- "Lord I've Been Changed." I used that thought in my closing and called it a wrap. Even after Won-ok and I returned home and spent all night producing the videos, though, I knew two things for certain: I'll absolutely return to the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum on a more regular basis -- and that doing so will continue to change me in ways I can't yet fully imagine.

Christopher Lancette is a former journalist and avid history buff with a particular passion for all things American Revolution. He would be honored if you helped spread this post far and wide so that more people may learn about the life and times of Benjamin Banneker and appreciate all those who give their time and talent to educating people about history.

 

 

 

 

Searching the streets of Civil War Boston for a woman I've never seen

[This is a piece I just published at OrionsAttic.com about some very special rare books I just obtained. I start the piece here and would be honored if you clicked on the link at the bottom of the piece here to read the full story.]

I did some more time traveling this week, going back to Boston early in the Civil War and hanging out there through 1880. I even met a woman whose name I still do not know, a woman I can’t stop wondering about.

Boston in 1862 was filled with tension. Business leaders like everyone else were frightened by the onset of what Boston Almanac for 1862 editor George Coolidge called “the Great Rebellion.” The name of the war, of course, depended on whose side you were on. Traditionally a a straight-forward business directory, the 1862 version is filled with ads. I peruse yellow-tinted advertisements for Chilson’s Double Oven Cooking Range, Davis’s Hot-Air Radiator, Oak Hall Cloths and Clothing, Wheeler & Wilson Medal Family Sewing Machine, Hunnewell’s Eclectic Pills and so many more products and companies.

Coolidge’s introduction of the 1862 almanac, though, turns grim quickly — painting a scene of tension about the economic challenges of publishing it at the onset of the war. He extols the virtue of listing New England soldiers’ (volunteers) names and towns for posterity:

At the time of the outbreak of the rebellion, in April last, it became necessary to decide what plan to pursue in the compilation of the Almanac. The General Business Directory, which had always formed so important a part of the book, would not save it from the destruction which threatened to overwhelm all business pursuits. The advertising interest could not be relied on, as before, for support. No profits accrue from sales at the low price for which the book is sold. Should the publication be abandoned, or suspended, or issued at the risk of serious loss? It was decided to make the Almanac the interesting record of the Great Rebellion that it is now, keeping the price of it the same as before, and to trust it as a ship cast upon stormy seas. It could at least convey to other times the roles of those honorable man who sprang to the defense of our national liberty at the instant of its assault.

Read the rest of this story and meet a mysterious woman at OrionsAttic.com.

Broken treaties with American Indian Nations, and a new Thanksgiving tradition?

I turned a corner at the National Museum of the American Indian last week and found myself staring at the cherubic cheeks of Henry Knox -- George Washington's Secretary of War and one of my all-time favorite Revolutionary leaders. I've got a love a man who starts his career as a Boston bookseller and propels himself to extraordinary heights in Washington's army and then his cabinet. I've also got to love a man known for standing for his convictions.

Before my eyes even pulled back to see the context of the larger exhibit I had stumbled upon, I saw my man Knox going on record yet again to make his humanity clear. He spoke about the territorial dispute between the Muscogee Indians of my old home state of Georgia and the fledgling United States:

"The Indians being the prior occupants, possess the right of the soil," he said. "It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent."

I stepped back to take in the bigger picture of the exhibit -- "Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations." (The exhibit opened in late September of this year and will run until 2018.)

The word "humanity" quickly escaped my mind as it is rarely ever associated with how colonists-turned-Americans treated Native people ... the people our forefathers slaughtered, uprooted and nearly reduced to extinction. I'm still not sure why we don't more often use the term "genocide" to describe what we did to American Indians. What other word is there when one group of people systematically tries to wipe another group of people off the face of the earth?

"We want nothing from you but justice," Muscogee Alexander McGillivray said in 1785. "We want our hunting grounds preserved from encroachments. They have been ours from the beginning of time."

Knox and the Washington administration at least initially tried to do the right thing so solve the land disputes with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. And by dispute I mean that Americans wanted all the land and thought that Indians should have none. We thus went to our go-to move: We signed an elaborate peace treaty between Georgia and the United States and the Muscogee Indians, celebrating the event with an elaborate signing ceremony, gifts from the President of the United States to local chiefs, great fanfare including front page stories in newspapers and maybe even handshakes all-around.

I love Article 6 and Article 7 of the 1790 Treaty With The Creeks, one of the first this country signed with American Indians: "The United States solemnly guarantee to the Creek Nation, all their lands within the limits of the United States to the westward and southward of the boundary described in the preceding article. If any citizen of the United States, or other person not being an Indian, shall attempt to settle on any of the Creek lands, such person shall forfeit the protection of the United States and the Creeks may punish him or not, as they please."

Put another way: "We'll take more of your land and stay here, you take that and stay there," the treaty essentially said, "until we want more land. Then we will just run you over again. If you don't like it, you can completely abandon your language and culture and assimilate to our ways, or we will either kill you or march you across the country until many of you drop dead."

That's essentially what happened in Georgia. The Muscogee upheld their end of the bargain while we found every way possible to dishonor the agreement. We then committed the Muscogee Nation Removal from 1827-1838, when we made some 23,000 men, women and children march 750 miles to Oklahoma. Think Congress and the President are despicable in 2014? Try 1830, when they passed The Indian Removal Act and sent American Indians along "The Trail of Tears."

I spent that day at the museum with a visiting friend of mine and his new bride Austin, both from Georgia. We ate lunch together in the museum cafeteria, which by the way is one of the very best places in all of Washington to eat lunch. The museum serves a wide variety of freshly cooked, mostly healthy and authentic cuisine representing Native American cuisine from across the country. Austin told me that her mother reached a point some years ago in which it became too morally difficult for her to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal. She believed that doing so flew in the face of the larger historical truth -- not the quaint little slice of it we all like to picture on that day about colonists sitting down with Indians -- of United States/Indian relations.

Austin's mom cooked up a new way to honor what the holiday means today and also pay homage to the Native People we persecuted. Gone are the turkey and trimmings, replaced by the most accurate kinds of various Indian foods she can make. Austin's family still gathers to enjoy each other's company and to give thanks for the blessings in their lives but they do so in a way that acknowledges the spirit of the people we wronged to get here. (That's just one group of people we treated shamefully, of course. There's a long list but we're talking about Thanksgiving and Native people here.)

I love Austin's mom's idea and plan to incorporate it into my own Thanksgiving this year. I won't quibble over what percentage of the meal is genuinely Native American my first time out of the box. This will take some practice and experience to master. It's the thought and effort that count.

"When you act and speak you must think of all of your relatives -- known and unknown," said modern-day Muscogee Indian Hiyvtke in 2001. "You must also remember the plants, the animals, the living things, and the ancient ones -- those who have gone before you."

I may even set an honorary place for my cherubic-cheeked friend. Henry Knox died in 1806, nearly a quarter-century before the U.S. passed The Indian Removal Act. He was a good man and I would like to honor his memory, too. 

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D.C. War Memorial gets funding but deserves something more: people

Not that I have anything against the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial but the D.C. area's lonely tributes are the ones I love the most. My heart goes out to them because they stand for so much yet receive so little. 

I couldn't help but feel pangs of sadness every time I walked or rode my bike past the D.C. War Memorial that honors District residents who gave their lives during World War I. While the World War II Memorial basks in perfectly appropriate adulation within but a few minutes walk, the D.C. War Memorial sits there wondering if anyone will pay it a visit. Will people remember the fallen or what they died for? 

I knew I had to write about the site the moment I read that Uncle Sam was stepping in to give the D.C. War Memorial some badly needed restoration. My piece on the D.C. War Memorial in American Legion magazine is online now and the print version is on the way. I imagine that the spirits of the people honored there would appreciate you giving the piece a read and heading out to say hello when the work is done. The World War I Memorial Foundation would, too.

Another under-appreciated site every American should visit is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution in Alexandria. 

On a day in D.C. like today when the snow is pouring down and the cold is sending us all inside to our comfortable, heated homes, let's take a moment to remember all the soldiers who trekked barefoot through snow and ice during the Revolution on through those who fought in the trenches during World War I. Then let's go pay a visit to the lonely memorials honoring what they did.

Photo courtesy David DeJonge of World War I Memorial Foundation.

 

Depression at the Renwick Gallery: Japanese internment camp art

I went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery across the street from the White House to a learn a little bit more about art. My girlfriend and I have started a little side business buying and re-selling art, antiques, home decor and furniture and I thought some additional education would serve our wallets well.

I did not expect to be hit by an emotional curve ball.

"The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese Internment Camps, 1942-1946" grabbed my attention. (The exhibit ends on Jan. 30 and you should make plans to attend immediately.) I saw all kinds of things -- ornate wood carvings, knives, alters, statues, paintings, model ships, weaved baskets, and a baseball jersey made from a mattress cover that was used by a pitcher in an internment camp league.

A drawing on a piece of notebook-sized paper stopped me in my tracks: I saw a man falling to the ground with bullet wounds as he tried to reach through a barbed wire fence to rescue a stray dog. The man, I read in the accompanying text, was deaf. He did not hear the American military police office ordering him to put his arms back inside the fence.

I stood there, speechless, staring at the drawing for about 10 minutes. I forced myself on to the rest of the exhibit but I kept going back to that drawing. I wrote a note in the guest book expressing my appreciation for the chance to learn about a part of American history I knew very little about.

I didn't realize how many internment camps my government built, how many innocent people it imprisoned in a knee-jerk reaction to Japanese aggression during World War II, how long it kept people in those camps and how horribly we treated them while they were there. I could almost feel the deaf man's blood oozing around my tennis shoes.

The impact that exhibit made remains with me. I suspect it will be etched permanently on my conscience -- as clearly visible as the lines in the Depression glass I bought recently for my business enterprise.

I hadn't really taken the time to research the glass but the trip to the Renwick put me in the studying mood. I learned a little more about what the term meant ... that companies during the Depression distributed pieces of glass to entice consumers to buy their products. Buy a box of oatmeal and you might get a very beautiful cereal bowl. Go to a movie, get a candy dish. A number of companies made the glass in various patterns and all kinds of colors. It didn't take long for me to identify ours thanks to the Internet. We own, at least for now, the "pineapple and floral" pattern, also known as "Number 618", made by the Indiana Glass Company from 1932-1937.

I only knew from books and stories told to me by my grandparents what the Depression was like. I can not imagine how hard it was to survive that era. I sorted through the glass, holding each piece gingerly as I examined it. I made note of the number of each piece in the two boxes and dutifully recorded them on my inventory list. I counted a total of 60-plus pieces -- plates, relish platters, cups and saucers, candy dishes and more. The total estimated retail value for my $6 auction steal came out to close to $400. I decided we should keep a few pieces for ourselves.

By that point, I didn't care as much about the money as I did the tactile education on American history. I wondered about the people who made the glass and the people who obtained it. I wondered what it would look like if I could go back in time to a dinner with that family. What were they like? How were they surviving? How did they manage to put food in those dishes? Did my own grandparents eat off glass just like that?

Maybe tonight I should grab a pineapple and floral glass and offer a toast to everyone who endured the Depression and to all the Japanese Americans who as the name of their internment camp infers "bore the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience."

 

 

No apology needed: Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery

Moments after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Vice President Joe Biden stepped to the podium inside the marble white Memorial Amphitheater and told a story about a wounded veteran he met. The man's legs were gone and one of his hands were mangled.

The soldier reached up with his good hand to the triangle above his bed, hoisted himself into a sitting position and apologized: He said it was his intention to greet the vice president by standing and saluting.

Tears shot from my eyes and air flew from my lungs. 

I wasn't the only one gasping -- or crying. Sitting beneath a brilliant blue sky amid a sea of red, white and blue, everyone of us felt the power of Biden's words. Old soldiers got misty-eyed, civilians of every age and hue wiped their eyes. Even children too young to understand what war is seemed to sense they were experiencing a hallowed moment on even more hallowed ground.

Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery packs a punch. That's why I went. Experiencing that day at that site had long been on my list of must-have life experiences. Now I think I'll make at an annual tradition.

Spending the day there was my way of paying tribute to my grandfather Wilbur Young, who fought in World War II and whose sailor's hat sits in a place of honor in my home along with the bullet casings from his 21-gun salute funeral. I went to honor my uncle John Young, one of the countless unsung heroes of Vietnam. I went to honor my kid brother, Gregory Lancette, a newly minted Navy man who graduated from boot camp this summer. I also went to thank the millions of men and women I've never met who have placed their lives on the line for this country.

Biden asked the crowd if we knew what was the most frequently asked question he received from wounded soldiers. Several possibilities raced through my mind but I wasn't even close. The vice president said the number one question he gets is this: "Sir, can you help me get back to my unit?"

Tears erupted again and I thought I was about to start sobbing. A little girl broke my concentration when she sprinted away from her young veteran parents in record speed. I threw out my right arm to scoop her up and swing her back to mom and dad. A flag in my shirt pocket fell to the ground but got scooped up so fast I couldn't see which of the nearby men in uniform retrieved it. I blinked twice and wondered if the flag pickup had been a figment of my imagination.

Biden and other speakers including Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki trumpeted some good news -- faster and better benefits and long-overdue increases in all kinds of programs for veterans among other things. He also issued a notice to all who seek to do us harm, saying that we will never shrink from danger and that we will never be defeated.

In between speeches, a member of "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band belted out songs that took me to a place where no music ever has. His voice reached into my guts and lifted me as high as the flags draped behind the speakers and guests of honor. Soldiers saluted, colors retired, canons fired and the service ended. 

Silence enveloped the amphitheater. I chose to walk back down to the Arlington entrance instead of waiting for the bus, drifting off in thought again. I wished that more employers would close on Veterans Day so that more people could attend ceremonies honoring those making the ultimate
sacrifice. 

I saw a plot of land being prepared for a new section of graves. I thought of America's men and women bravely wearing uniforms that day -- doubting that any of them had the remotest idea that they will soon lay there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Hanks got it wrong

Tom Hanks got it wrong. Forget baseball: There's no crying in ... history luncheons.

The last thing I expected on the final day of the Organization of Historians annual meeting in D.C. was to well up over a chicken something at the Dupont Circle Hilton. That was before Allida Black stepped to the podium to talk about her life's mission of heading The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at George Washington University. Roosevelt dedicated her life to the fight for democracy and human rights and the project named for her continues that legacy by developing young minds. Black already had me in the palm of her hands while making Roosevelt's case that democracy may fade or grow based on the job we do educating students. 

Then the self-described "gleeful agnostic" read Roosevelt's war-time prayer.

Dear Lord, Lest I continue my complacent way, help me to remember that somewhere, somehow out there a man died for me today. As long as there be war, I must then ask and answer am I worth dying for?

A tear sprang from my right eye and I gasped for air.

I've never heard a more beautiful answer for why we should study history and appreciate what our predecessors have done for us. Truth be told, I didn't know anything about Eleanor Roosevelt before today as she's well outside my expertise -- the American Revolution. I certainly didn't know that Roosevelt lead the effort to create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that set the standard for what all human beings are entitled to. Black, though, helped me make connections.

"You can not talk about the Declaration of Human Rights without talking about the Declaration of Independence," she said, every sentence of her remarks filled with intellect and compassion. I can easily imagine how fired up students get when she teaches them how to examine the facts of history "critically but with respect."

I wasn't the only one affected by Black's words.

"I felt a strong connection to what she was saying," said Lauren Vanderpluym, a young teacher at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago. "Eleanor is one of my heroes. Hearing some of Allida's stories about her successes through the Eleanor project is empowering."

After the luncheon, I thanked Black for her remarks. I tapped my heart and told her it was the most inspiring luncheon I have attended in my career. 

The next time my friends ask me why studying history is so important to me, I'll direct them to Eleanor Roosevelt and Allida Black.

Read More From The OAH Meeting:

Part 1: Historians descend on D.C.

Part 2: Historian heroes in D.C.

Historian heroes in D.C.

Add West Springfield High School (Virginia) history teacher James Percoco to my list of America's unsung heroes. On day three of the Organization of American Historians' annual meeting, I learned about the work he has put in for nearly 20 years teaching an applied history course.  Students start by hitting the books and then head into the field to gain hands-on experience -- often learning to tell the story of an important place through the perspective of someone who was there.

"We create student historians and they tell the story about that person," Percoco said.

To date, his students have contributed more than 30,000 man-hours to historic sites, museums and history agencies in Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. They've also been inspired to pursue a wide variety of history related careers in areas including curatorial work, museum studies and teaching. 

I love initiatives that provide multiple benefits in one nice package. Percoco's labor of love helps students strive for greater academic success, gives them a chance to bring history to life and opens doors to rewarding career opportunities.

Percoco, though, is just one of an iphone full of unsung heroes I've met so far this week. To name just a few:

• Patsy Fletcher, an independent historian in the District, works with communities in the Northeast and Anacostia River areas to help them preserve their history. Her company, THREAD (Training, Historical Research and Economic Development) has helped numerous neighborhoods do everything from interpret sites to produce neighborhood histories that prevent their contributions from being lost to the pages of time.
• Lee White, executive director of the National Coalition for History, left his legal career to advocate for history. Working with some 60 national and local organizations across the country, he fights for causes including much-deserved funding for the National Park Service and National Archives and Records Administration, greater transparency in government, and stronger support for history education.
• Senior Editor Elizabeth Sherburn Demers works with Potomac Books to give sometimes overlooked authors a chance to tell powerful stories. A copy of Following the Drum: The Women at Valley Forge drew me to Potomac's booth in the exhibitor area. I've written about Following the Drum before. Many people don't realize the role women have played in every war in our history and I wish every American patriot would buy a copy of that book. Buy two, actually, and give one to a friend.

I've got a reporter's notebook full of the contributions other heroes are making. I hope to win the lottery soon so I have time to write about them all. And there's still one day left at the OAH meeting.

Read More:

OAH Part 1: Historians descend on D.C.

OAH Part 3: Tom Hanks got it wrong