Words and Spaces
Writing — the words and the spaces between — has its place as therapy and confessional.
Posts
2005-09-07
Over the holiday weekend just passed, Beth and I were able to take Alex up to see the USS Cod. This is something I’ve been wanting to do since I first read a book about the submarine service back in 1982 when I was ten years old, so I was pretty excited about the whole visit. The first thing they tell you when you buy the tickets is “be careful”. The Cod is the only submarine currently on display that has not been modified from her wartime configuration. That means you walk through the same doors, up and down the same ladders, and through the same tight corridors that the sailors did when she went to war against Japan 60 years ago. Climbing down into the forward torpedo room you are struck by how tight everything seems - there is not all that much room to move around in, which can be a bit disconcerting because the forward torpedo room is one of the largest compartments on the sub.
2005-08-16
The quote below is from CS Lewis, author of the classic children’s series Chronicles of Narnia as well as such theological books as Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters, and was delivered in 1939. The calamity referred to is the Nazi aggression that was then sweeping over Europe in general and the invasion of Poland in particular. “I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life”. Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. Periclean Athens leaves us not only the Parthenon but, significantly, the Funeral Oration. The insects have chosen a different line: they have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the latest new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache: it is our nature.”
2005-07-28
Alex and I just returned from a quick trip to Gettysburg this weekend - it was the third time for me, and the first time for him. We met up with a friend of mine from San Diego, his daughters, and his parents at the battlefield for the bus tour and a tour of the museum and the cemetery and then went back to his parent’s house over near Breezewood, Pennsylvania to spend the night. Alex conducted a small seminar with Dan’s daughters Ellyn and Claire in the intricacies of catching the elusive northern firefly (amazing what they don’t have in San Diego - in a small way it seems to make up for that year around 72 degree weather!). Everyone had a good time, but my son can be a bit….er, overwhelming at times - but we got through the weekend and he was fairly good for being eight years old and a de facto only child.
2005-06-21
Here’s a brief excerpt from the essay “Some Mistakes of Moses” by Robert Ingersoll. It’s a sad but true fact that it seems that this passage is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it over 100 years ago. Some recent events - the Mohammed Teddy Bear incident, the NY Subway beatings, the Pope’s recent encyclical, and the hullabaloo surrounding The Golden Compass - prompted me to pull this up and re-read it. I have a number of thoughts on this passage, but on reflection it seems best just to let it stand for itself.
2005-06-21
I always knew that my Grandfather Schmidt served on a ship during WWII, but it was only in the past decade or so that I realized it wasn’t a Navy ship that he served on, but rather an Army ship. Recently we’ve been spending most of the time when we are together talking about his experiences during the war on the ships USACS Joseph Henry and USAMP Gen. Absalom Baird. Both of these ships were Army mineplanters, which were also equipped to lay cable. In the case of the Henry the majority of her work was cable laying in the Atlantic.