Jesse Goes to Africa - Collection 3

A 3rd collection of pictures from Jesse's trip to Uganda.
































More to come...

Jesse Goes to Africa - Collection 2

A 2nd Collection of pictures from Jesse's trip to Uganda.
































More to come...

Jesse Goes to Africa - Collection 1

For a few days in a row, I'm going to post 10 pictures from Jesse's trip. I only know one of the people that he went on the trip with and I don't know what is going on in the pictures because we haven't had a chance to go over the pictures, so you are going to get my best uneducated guess as to what each picture represents.

I do mean uneducated. Everything I know about Africa comes from watching the movie Shaft in Africa*. A movie with the tagline: "THE Brother Man in the Motherland."

A movie with great dialogue like:

Shaft: Look, why don't you get rid of that jolly giant over there, so you and I can get down to the finer strokes.
Aleme: Oziot has guarded me since I was a child. Sometimes I think of him as my living chastity belt.
Shaft: Damn! Man that size, baby, that's a whole lot of chastity!

This conversation goes on for a little bit longer, but I invite you to experience its full greatness by picking up your own copy of Shaft in Africa.




It appears that Jesse must have flown out of the Kansas City or St. Louis airport because I believe this picture must have been taken in Missouri.



I'm assuming Salodin means Dairy Queen. As long as they have Dilly Bars, I'm in!



It is just nice to see a picture of a bunch of kids and none of them are wearing Crocs!



There is a scene in the movie Gone with the Wind where Rhett brings back the latest fashion from Paris for Scarlett. Scarlett does not know how to wear the new hat. Rhett quips: "This war stopped being a joke when a girl like you doesn't know how to wear the latest fashion."

I think what Jesse was trying to say with this picture is: "Years of genocide and civil war stopped being a joke when these orphans don't have a choosy mom to choose them Jif."






What I really like in this picture is the combination of kids that are trying to throwdown the badass vibe and the kids that are just being silly.



Jesse introducing Ugandan kids to the Fonzie pose.


I think Jesse is teaching them the awesome power of spirit fingers.






Dave and Jesse showing off the Little White Lye Soap that kept them clean and manly smelling during their mission trip.

10 more pictures are on the way.

*I also learned everything I know about being a man from the original Shaft.

The Outer Limits

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits. - The Control Voice

The Outer Limits is one of my all-time favorite television shows. The following pictures are inspired by that show and its 1960s special effects.



This is Jay. You are probably wondering why he looks so cocky. It is because...



Jay can control electricity or fire, whatever you believe to be more plausible.



He can slowly turn into electricity.



Until he appears to be an electric man.



Or he can shoot it out of his fingertips at his enemies.


The good news, is I have similar powers...





I think I might just have to crack out my The Outer Limits DVDs this weekend.

Raise a Glass

I went to a fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association on Friday night with Sara and Amy. It was an interesting evening. The basic point of the night was wine tasting and art for sale.

I don't drink, so I mostly looked at art.

However, there was one point where I was sitting at a table waiting for Amy and Sara to comeback with food. It was then that I meant one classy dame.

Three people approached the table. A dude, a lady I will call Ms. Manners and the Classy Dame.

Ms. Manners said, "Can we sit at this table?"

I replied, "Yes."

Classy Dame answered, "You don't have to ask him if we can sit at this table. This is our table. We were here first. I marked this table. I peed all around it."

I replied, "How lovely."

Here are some pictures from Sara from the night.






Amy and I



Sara and I





I am by no stretch of the imagination a fan of Grant Wood, but I am a fan of wooden cutouts that you stick your head through.






Sara and Amy





This particular piece of artwork really stood out to me. This is not a particularly good picture of it, but that is most likely for the best. The artist had made mosaic type pictures out of old magazines. All of the pictures were like the one to the left. A nice picture of people or of flowers or something. But then I came upon this picture. A picture of a catfight that included a depiction of both sets of mammaries and the "V" of one of the combatants. Nicely played artist. Nicely played.























It was certainly a memorable night.

Lousy with People

I spent a good portion of Sunday at Ledges. Unfortunately, the place was packed, but I was able to take some photos.



























































While I was sitting on the Lost Lake Trail, a gust of wind blew that baby bird out of a tree and onto the trail. A few minutes later, I was several feet away taking pictures of bullfrogs, when an elderly couple and their dog came walking down that trail.

The dog didn't even break stride while scooping the baby bird into its mouth. The elderly couple spent quite some time pulling that bird out of their dogs mouth and then removing its remains from the trail with a pair of sticks.

Sore Feet

On Friday night I went to an American Diabetes Fundraiser with Sara and Cousin Amy. I have more to write on that little evening, but I will wait until I get the pictures from that event from Sara.

After we left the event, Sara and Amy agreed to accompany me on a small photo excursion.

Here are the results.















































It was a good thing that the predicted thunderstorm never came.

The Hero of Africa

He raped the whole country of morality, of integrity. He implemented a trend of corruption in a people who were not corrupt. He raised a generation of people who wanted to steal rather than to work for personal gain.
-Robert Kayanja, Miracle Centre Cathedral in Kampala, Uganda

That is a quote about Idi Amin, the Ugandan military dictator of Uganda from 1971-1979. Amnesty International estimates that he had close to 500,000 people killed during his reign. He had members of the Acholi and Lango ethnic groups massacred. Bodies flowed down the Nile in such numbers that they clogged the Owen Falls Hydro-Electric Dam.

He described himself as "The Hero of Africa". It has been 30 years since Amin was removed from power and things have improved little since then.

It was into this country that Jesse recently went for two weeks.

But the good news is that he is back.





And he endorses the experience he had in Uganda.

I would like to share the two emails that he sent me while he was in Uganda, now that he is safe back in the Cyclone State.

Email 1:

Bennett,

I decided to type a letter prior to getting access to the internet so I could write more. :)

The flights were SO long and we had to make an unexpected stop in Rwanda before making it to Entebbe really late and then had to drive to Kampala. I was not prepared for the desolation that this entire area is. The hostel we stayed at the first night was on all dirt roads that have potholes bigger than Taylan. There are baboons, longhorns, goats, and children walking to school to fit on a road that is so thin it is very difficult to even fit our van on. There are cell phones spread throughout the people but they are so antiquated that they can barely call between Ugandans. We had to drive all around to find a “cyber-cafe” to email yesterday and the lady was very short with us and wanted us out. We haven't found a way to get to a phone yet but are going to look tonight.

The weather has been great so far... 85 with no humidity. Yesterday was the first day really and we went out the orphanage / school / and church. We met so many people but the language barrier has been pretty great but they love having us here. Everywhere we go there is such a push to make people aware of AIDS and prevention. Our first day was spent in Kyampologoma was the first real stop and it was so unbelievable. 550 children attend a school that just 20 years ago was covered in the remains of the dead from a terrible battle between Idi Amin and Moseweni's rebels. Our pastor said that 30% of the population has HIV. Of the orphans we met 30 have full blown AIDS and 6 more have HIV. The government has posters everywhere even in places where I would think would be inappropriate. There are baskets of condoms everywhere you turn. Yesterday the village we were in slayed a goat and for us to eat... did NOT taste like chicken. We also had an opportunity to be a part of a huge coming of age ritual. The circumcision of a young man. Oh my word... not prepared in the least for this visual imprint.. I thought it was a standard ritual dance and then there was this erotica dance between this young man and girl and then all his friends came and threw charcoal on him all over and rubbed it everywhere. Then he placed a large branch behind his head and the elders came up with a knife and made the cuts with less than surgical precision. This immediately led to sharing in the feast of the goat. That afternoon we got to play with the orphans and school kids. That was incredible to say the least. They just wanted to shake hands with us in that 80's movie handshake. Then just tell us all about them and although we could not understand, they just loved to be listened to. Finally, that night a couple of us were asked to share from the Bible and we had a translator to share with the kids. I wasn't expecting to talk but I thought about Olivia as they asked me to talk and I shared Psalm 139 verses 1-8 as these kids feel like they do not matter but God cares about them and knows each one of them by name, the number of hairs on their head, and that they are no less important to him than we are. Verse 7 talks about where we can go to flee his presence. Nowhere. God is present everywhere and in every situation no matter how dire or how blessed. He has a plan for each of us and we need to be prepared for him to work out the details in how you will get there. This trip is a perfect example. 3 and a half years ago I wouldn't have even known Uganda was more than a country in Uganda.

I didn't sleep at all last night, not sure if the time change is the cause or if is the fact that I am waiting to talk to you all. As soon as I can, I will. Today we move further north and have experienced our first dealings with police inspection. They are not excited about our heading closer to Kitkum and Gulu. Our mission is not to be detoured.

Please keep our group in your thoughts and prayers. I will write more soon but I need to prepare for the day ahead.

Bennett, please share this with others who might be interested. Please don't post this on Facebook as Kelly is already nervous about this trip and this will not ease her nerves :)

The connection speed is way too slow to send pictures much less video so I will put this together when we return.

Love you brother and will talk to you soon.

Quote of the trip so far.... The whole world should be duty free!

Email 2

Hello Gentlemen,

Today was long, long, long and yet I wanted to write you and tell you that I miss you and hope things are going well. We have visited so many places. Orphanages, churches, and schools. To get to all of these places we have 13-15 of us packed into a 12 passenger bus for an hour to 3 hours on roads that can only be called privative and not suited for travel. We have met so many incredible people and the children here are so happy to see us. So many have never seen a white person in their lives and some of the children run away crying scared. We build a church yesterday out of sticks, mud, and a metal roof. We had to dig the dirt up, water it, and stop the mud to make it consistent and then pack the mud into the walls. It is amazing. The elders said that “they didn't think that whites were kind to work”. They were amazed that despite our skin color, that we are indeed the same. They were blessed as were we to be a part of this.

So many children have lost both their parents to AIDS and even more have lost 1 parent. The number of children with HIV is unfathomable and just kills me. Yet they smile, sing, and dance for us when we come into their villages.

Our team has eaten so many odd things this trip from goat, to cassava root, to animals I have no idea what they were before they were slaughtered for us. The food is abysmal but they are serving us the best of what they have as their guests so we smile and eat with our hands. I am ready for a tropical snow! The pineapple is plentiful and is what is keeping me going though :).

I got to give the sermon yesterday in front of a about 200 people and while incredibly nerve racking, it went well and there was much response. Amazing to see that regardless of language, the message hits the heart the same.

I miss you all,

Jesse

He is already planning a return trip to Uganda.

Sedulous

Once a year I get together and have a meal with Mark Wolfram. Unfortunately for me, I only get to see Mark once a year because he spends most of the year in Taiwan teaching, doing mission work and publishing The Taiwan Times.

Wednesday night was that night.

Mark met me in Boone on his way back to Des Moines from a trip to Minnesota, where he got to hear the initial recordings of Lesser Known Saint's new album. I know. I'm jealous as well.

I gave Mark a tour of my house and showed him the vast amounts of vegetables and berries in my backyard that I have been wasting. I introduced him to the Friend Wall, where he was most impressed by Nader's picture.

After touring my home I gave him a quick tour of historic Boone. I showed him the birthplace of Mamie Doud Eisenhower, the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad, Mt. Boone,Christopher D. Bennett's house of worship (where he worships, not where he is worshiped), the Boyhood Home of Christopher D. Bennett (Mark and I communed as he shared my anger about how the yard, house and my old basketball court have fallen into complete and utter disrepair) and where the first home of Christopher D. Bennett used to stand.

Finally I introduced him to the world's greatest thin crust pizza AKA the pizza from Bellucci Pizza House in downtown Boone.

Once there, Mark enthralled me with stories about his recent trip to China. He visited Tiananmen Square. I was disappointed to find out that they don't have a blow up or cardboard set of tanks sitting in the Square so that tourists can get their picture taken re-enacting the iconic image from the 1989 protests.





Wasted opportunity China!

He also got to visit The Forbidden City, which isn't so Forbidden any more.

He also got to hike several miles of The Great Wall. He even had a picnic on The Great Wall. That makes me almost as jealous as I am about his preview of the new Lesser Known Saint album.

I always like to talk to Mark about how the major news stories over here are perceived in Taiwan.

The biggest story since we last got together was the 2008 Presidential Election. He told me that in Taiwan, they were very pleased with Obama's election. Although most of them seemed to think that Obama was running against Hillary Clinton. McCain got very little news coverage and fortunately, Palin got zero news coverage.

We then discussed Mark's future. He is going back to Taiwan on August 17. He is giving consideration to this being his last year in Taiwan. His sister has two children now and he would like to be a part of their lives. He recently finished certification to teach ESL, so he may just come back to the States to be a teacher next year. But he is also considering teaching in an International School. I can't wait to see what Mark's next adventure will be.

After the meal, we engaged in our annual tradition of getting our picture taken together. This is our 4th Annual-Annual Meal. The first year we ate at Bennigan's. I love their Monte Cristo so! The last 2 years we ate at The Machine Shed. The last 2 years, the picture has been out of focus. I did not want this to be a third consecutive year of a blurry picture.

In the morning I contacted Jay and he agreed to meet us to take our picture after our meal.

So please enjoy not 1, but 2 pictures of Mark and I in focus.








I can't hardly wait until our 5th Annual-Annual Meal.

Another Reason to Hate Abercrombie and Fitch

Tuesday was the birthday of Ernest Hemingway. He is one of my favorite writers, along with Nathaniel West and Salinger. I borrowed this from The Writer's Almanac because I found the information about The Moveable Feast to be fascinating and previously unknown to me.

It's the birthday of Ernest Hemingway, (books by this author) born in Oak Park, Illinois (1899), the Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such books as The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

Both U.S. presidential candidates of 2008 cited Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) as one of their favorite books. It's about an American teacher, Robert Jordan, who volunteers to go fight in the Spanish Civil War against Franco's Fascists. Robert Jordan is wounded in battle and contemplates shooting himself with his submachine gun to end the intense pain, but when the enemy comes into sight, Jordan does his duty and delays the approaching Fascist soldiers so that his own comrades can escape to safety. And then he dies.

John McCain wrote a book in 2002 called Worth Fighting For, a phrase taken from Robert Jordan's dying monologue. McCain writes about how the character of Robert Jordan has always been dear to him, from boyhood through the time he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. McCain said about Hemingway's fictional character: "I knew that if he were in the cell next to mine, he would be stoic, he would be strong, he would be tough, he wouldn't give up. And Robert would expect me to do the same thing." During the campaign, Obama told Rolling Stone magazine that For Whom the Bell Tolls was "one of the three books that most inspired him."

Hemingway committed suicide in 1961, shooting himself in the head with a double-barreled, 12-gauge shotgun, while wearing a robe and pajamas in the foyer of his Blaine County house.

He had a turbulent personal life. He told people that he despised his mother. He had been married four times and involved with many other women. He was often unkind to other writers whom he knew, and wrote vicious portraits of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, which were published in his memoir A Moveable Feast.

His memoir was actually published posthumously by his widow, Mary Hemingway, in 1964. She edited extensively the memoir manuscript, patching stuff together from various sources. She included things he'd explicitly stated that he didn't want published, and excluded other parts of his unfinished memoir manuscript.

This month, July 2009, Scribner is releasing a "restored edition" of Hemingway's memoir. The new edition is edited by Sean Hemingway, the grandson of Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, a woman who was much maligned in the edition of the memoir edited by Mary, the fourth wife.

Sean Hemingway is a curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he has edited other anthologies of Hemingway's writing. He is including parts of the original manuscript that Mary had cut out, passages that he says show his grandfather's "remorse and some of the happiness he felt and his very conflicted views he had about the end of his marriage" to Pauline. The new edition, he says, is more inclusive and portrays his grandmother in a more sympathetic manner. Sixteen thousand copies of the new edition of A Moveable Feast are being printed in the first run, and Scribner is also releasing new editions of all of Hemingway's novels with redesigned covers.

Hemingway said, "The writer's job is to tell the truth." In A Moveable Feast, he wrote: "I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, `Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say."
There's a legend that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to create a six-word story, and he said, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Inspired by this, an online magazine invited readers to submit their own six-word memoirs, a collection of which was published by Harper Collins in 2008 as Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Six-word memoirs include: "All I ever wanted was more" and "Moments of transcendence, intervals of yearning" and "They called. I answered. Wrong number."

I recently returned Shannon's copy of Six-Word Memoirs. It is a fascinating book and I recommend to anybody.

What is my 6 word memoir?

Feel free to guess.

Future Road Trip Master?

Brandon got his driver's license this week.








I believe that when you reach a certain age, you are required by social norms to make a few certain cliche jokes when certain events occur.

One such event is when somebody gets their first driver's license.

An aged person should give out the warning that goes something like this:

"Stay off the streets. Brandon has his driver's license."

Then another elder statesman ups the ante with the predictable rejoinder:

"Stay off the sidewalks, too!"

I am allergic to cliches and cheap humor, so I refrained from making any of these jokes. Besides if family history is any indicator, it is only trees that have something to worry about.

Boone County Fair

This is not meant to be in any way shape or form meant to be bragging. It is merely meant to be informative, since not everybody makes it to the Boone County Fair.

I wanted to enter a couple of pictures in the Boone County Fair "photography contest". As it turned out, I didn't have time to order 2 new pictures, so I selected 2 8x10s out of a stack of about 25 8x10 I have stored in a manila envelope for just such an occasion.

Even though I didn't order any new pictures, but only entered a couple of pictures that are a couple of years old, I still couldn't seem to find time to mount and mat the pictures. Luckily, Vest from work was willing to do that for me.

Here are the pictures I entered:








The orange flower picture got a Blue Ribbon.

The black and white bus picture got a Purple Ribbon for Outstanding Home Department Project or something like that.

I have a fairly firm rule about never entering a photo in more than one contest, but I was distressed to find out when I got home late Sunday night when I was putting the pictures in their bag and putting them in the trunk, that I had entered the orange flower picture in the 2007 Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.

That frustrates me and lead to a re-organization of the trunk. Even though that kept me up until 2 in the morning.

Kountertop

I've posted some pictures from Kountertop's performance on Ames on the Half Shell on Friday.

The weather was a bit chilly but it was a solid evening.





For more pictures from Friday night, click on the link below:


Kountertop

Happy Birthday Alexis!

Friday was Alexis' birthday.





Happy Birthday Alexis!

The Most Tolerable Third Party

A little before the 4th of July, I purchased a box of sparklers. I had some thought of what I wanted to do with them, but seeing how I'm never at home and few people visit me at night, I had not much of an opportunity to do what I wanted to do with them.

Then a few nights back Sara came over and I got to light up the sparklers and do a little playing. Although I have to confess, lighting these cheap sparklers took quite a bit more effort than I would have expected.

Here are the results of what happened after these buggers finally lit.




















Although I love my backyard, I really hate the street light that constantly bathes it in light. It really makes night photography a drag.

Yet There is Method In It

On Saturday, after going to the gym, helping Becky move, having lunch at Papa Chubby's, touring Andree's new dig but before going to Jeff's birthday barbecue, I went down to check out Midnight Madness.

On my way from the car to the event, I took these pictures:














Once I got to where the competitors were congregating, I snapped a couple more pictures.



I believe that Logan was trying to throw down the badass vibe in this picture. It is a family trait of men with Bennett genetic material.



There is no doub about this one. Brandon is definitely throwing down the badass vibe in this picture.



Geri D. showing off her time clock. I made a deal with Geri that if she walked Midnight Madness next year, I would walk it with her. I don't know if this is a "real" deal or if this is the type of deal I made with Becky last year where she was supposed to hold me accountable for volunteering for Special Olympics. I did not volunteer for Special Olympics.



I'm not going to describe this picture. In fact, there is only one regular reader of this blog that will even understand this picture. I hope they enjoy it.


Once the race got started, Becky joined me and I took a few more pictures of the competitors.



The beginning of the 5K.



Willy



Willy nearing the finish line.



Logan



Blake (The World's Best UPS Guy)



Scott


It was an interesting event.

DFDA54

So the garlic might not have been the last mystery of my backyard. I still didn't know what color my lilies would be when they bloomed. I got that answer late last week.








Although I'm not in love with the color, it is satisfactory enough. At least they aren't something as cliche as tiger lilies.

Happy Birthday!

Today is the birthday of some very special people!

Happy Birthday to all of them!



Derrick Gorshe

For more pictures of Derrick: Click on Me



Jill Gorshe


And of course...



My Nephew Logan


For more pictures of Logan: Click on Me

New Digs

"Home is where you hang your head."
-Groucho Marx

On Saturday, Baier and I finally got to see Andree's new digs.





It is a pretty sweet house. It includes a double decker deck. I already want to have parties there.

Bonne Finken

Friday Night Bonne Finken played Ames on the Half Shell. Here are a couple of images.

















For about 50 more images, click on the link below:


Bonne Finken & the Collective


This Friday the band will be Kountertop.

Happy Birthday Jay!

I think I'm going to create a hybrid of the 2 birthday salute styles that I have tried in the past.

Happy Birthday Mr. Janson!



Jay in Kalona



Jay Carving Pumpkins



Jay in Beautiful Downtown McCallsburg



Jay in Kelley



Jay-Working It in Ottumwa (Rob Gorshe Admires His Work)



Jay Boozing It Up in Mankato



Jay in the Stephens Parking Lot after Watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof



Jay at the Iowa State Fair



Jay in Clinton with a Couple Dudes He Knows



Jay and Some Dude in Colo


But I do have more pictures of Jay in the Snapshots Gallery. But you can also click on the link below to find about 20 more pictures of Jay.


Jay Christopher Janson


There is also a random picture of Bill in the mix as well.

4th of July

I had a pretty great 4th of July!

I woke up in the morning and headed to Ames at about 9 am. I met Shannon and her cousin Matthew for a pretty sweet breakfast of biscuits and gravy that Shannon made.

Then I headed over to Jen and Derrick's to drop off some cherry ice cream I made the night before for their annual 4th of July barbecue.

I got to Bandshell Park at about 10 am and worked on Ames on the Half Shell until about 7 pm.

I got a few photos of the event, but I'm just going to post my 5 favorite.



Peg and Angie with Mike Butterworth of The Nadas



Me with Teresa and Logan



Me with Willy



Geri D. re-enacting the stamping of Matthew's Tongue



Matthew and Shannon's Annual 4th of July Portrait (Destined to be used as a Facebook Profile Picture with the cute part cropped out of it.)


After Ames on the Half Shell, I headed over to the fireworks firing grounds. Lighting off fireworks was quite a bit more dramatic this year. I saw quite a few fireworks do things that they weren't supposed to do.

Becky signed up to do fireworks, but after the very first one that Shannon lit blew up only a few feet in the air and flew all over the shooting area, she changed her mind.

I have to admit, that was pretty exciting. The next day I talked to Melissa. She did security for fireworks, so she wasn't at ground zero. She told me that when she saw that first firework blow up and shoot fireworks all over the area, she said a little prayer. But figured everybody must have been okay, because the fireworks didn't stop.

Shannon never knew that her firework malfunctioned, but that is part of the training. You don't watch your firework.

After a couple of minutes, Becky changed her mind and joined in the fun.

Here are a few pictures from the fireworks:



Scott showing off our massive amount of communication technology we had a ground zero.



Hammering Rebar. Rebar is hammered in between mortars to prevent them from falling over and firing into the crowd. Or worse, at the shooters. This is an example of what went wrong in Charles City last year. They used rebar, but they only hammered it in a few inches into asphalt. Because all the mortars were chained together, when one mortar fell over, they all fell over.

Joe unpacking fireworks.



The 10 minute warning. This was the very first firework that Becky ever lit.



Last year, Sara asked me what fireworks look like from the other side. I don't have a good answer for that question, but this is what fireworks look like from underneath.



Shannon lighting a 5 inch shell. The 5 inch shells were the biggest that we lit off this year. I think this is actually my favorite picture from the day. Even though I'm sure critics will claim that it is slightly derivative of my earlier work.



This is an example of what it can look like when something goes minorly wrong. It might look to some people like this is a series of fireworks going off, but it isn't. This is what it looks like when a firework doesn't go up high enough before it blows up. It comes back to the earth before it has completely burned up. The strange thing about this picture is that if you look closely, you can see aluminum foil on top of the mortars. These are the grand finale mortars and they are covered by aluminum foil in case something like this happens. All the grand finale fireworks are fused together, so if 1 of them goes off, they all go off. If you look even closer, you will notice that there is not aluminum foil covering all of the mortars. This happened while people were removing the foil and getting ready to set off the Grand Finale. If you look very close, you can make out Joe on the very right side of the picture. Shannon was also in the middle of this, but she does not appear in the picture.

The Grand Finale going off.

There are a ton of other great pictures from the day. I suggest you either click on the picture below or the link below and check them out:




4th of July

It was a great and safe fireworks show. It was a spectacular show and nobody came close to getting injured!

I concluded the evening hanging out with some wonderful people at Jen and Derrick's barbecue. I didn't leave there until a little after 2, but I still woke up in time to usher at church. Take that sleep! Who needs you any way?

The Price They Simplified

I kind of hate historical inaccuracy to a degree. I read something about an email that has been frequently forwarded about the hardships suffered by the men that signed The Declaration of Independence.

It is sad enough that most people think we "declared" our independence on the 4th of July. That happened on July 2.

It is sad enough that most people think the Declaration of Independence was signed on the 4th of July. That mostly happened on August 12, mostly.

Perhaps you have received the following email:

The Price They Paid

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.

Standing talk straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July Holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: Freedom is never free!

I hope you will show your support by please sending this to as many people as you can. It's time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.

The original author of this email asserts that patriotism is not a sin. I think all of you know how I feel about patriotism, but while patriotism may not be a sin, I think the jury might still be out on whether or not sending out stuff without doing your research is a sin or not.

If you get this email, you might consider attaching some researched facts to the email and sending it back to where it came from:

Origins: In the waning years of their lengthy lives, former presidents (and Founding Fathers) John Adams and Thomas Jefferson reconciled the political differences that had separated them for many years and carried on a voluminous correspondence. One of the purposes behind their exchange of letters was to set the record straight regarding the events of the American Revolution, for as author Joseph J. Ellis noted, they (particularly Adams, whom history would not treat nearly as kindly as Jefferson) were keenly aware of the "distinction between history as experienced and history as remembered":

Adams realized that the act of transforming the American Revolution into history placed a premium on selecting events and heroes that fit neatly into a dramatic formula, thereby distorting the more tangled and incoherent experience that participants actually making the history felt at the time. Jefferson's drafting of the Declaration of Independence was a perfect example of such dramatic distortions. The Revolution in this romantic rendering became one magical moment of inspiration, leading inexorably to the foregone conclusion of American independence.

Evidently Adams was right: So great is our need for simplified, dramatic events and heroes that even the real-life biographies of the fifty-six men who risked their lives to publicly declare American independence are no longer compelling enough. Through multiple versions of pieces like the one quoted above, their lives have been repeatedly embellished with layers of fanciful fiction to make for a better story. As we often do, we'll try here to strip away those accumulated layers of fiction and get down to whatever kernel of truth may lie underneath:

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

It is true that five signers of the Declaration of Independence were captured by the British during the course of the Revolutionary War. However, none of them died while a prisoner, and four of them were taken into custody not because they were considered "traitors" due to their status as signatories to that document, but because they were captured as prisoners of war while actively engaged in military operations against the British:

George Walton was captured after being wounded while commanding militia at the Battle of Savannah in December 1778, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge (three of the four Declaration of Independence signers from South Carolina) were taken prisoner at the Siege of Charleston in May in 1780. Although they endured the ill treatment typically afforded to prisoners of war during their captivity (prison conditions were quite deplorable at the time), they were not tortured, nor is there evidence that they were treated more harshly than other wartime prisoners who were not also signatories to the Declaration. Moreover, all four men were eventually exchanged or released; had they been considered traitors by the British, they would have been hanged.

Richard Stockton of New Jersey was the only signer taken prisoner specifically because of his status as a signatory to the Declaration, "dragged from his bed by night" by local Tories after he had evacuated his family from New Jersey, and imprisoned in New York City's infamous Provost Jail like a common criminal. However, Stockton was also the only one of the fifty-six signers who violated the pledge to support the Declaration of Independence and each other with "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor," securing a pardon and his release from imprisonment by recanting his signature on the Declaration and signing an oath swearing his allegiance to George III.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

It is true that a number of signers saw their homes and property occupied, ransacked, looted, and vandalized by the British (and even in some cases by the Americans). However, as we discuss in more detail below, this activity was a common (if unfortunate) part of warfare. Signers' homes were not specifically targeted for destruction — like many other Americans, their property was subject to seizure when it fell along the path of a war being waged on the North American continent.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

Abraham Clark of New Jersey saw two of his sons captured by the British and incarcerated on the prison ship Jersey. John Witherspoon, also of New Jersey, saw his eldest son, James, killed in the Battle of Germantown in October 1777. If there was a second signer of the Declaration whose son was killed while serving in the Continental Army, we have yet to find him.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

This statement is quite misleading as phrased. Nine signers died during the course of the Revolutionary War, but none of them died from wounds or hardships inflicted on them by the British. (Indeed, several of the nine didn't even take part in the war.) Only one signer, Button Gwinnett of Georgia, died from wounds, and those were received not at the hands of the British, but of a fellow officer with whom he duelled in May 1777.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Before the American Revolution, Carter Braxton was possessed of a considerable fortune through inheritance and favorable marriages. While still in his teens he inherited the family estate, which included a flourishing Virginia tobacco plantation, upon the death of his father. He married a wealthy heiress who died when he was just 21, and within a few years he had remarried, this time to the daughter of the Receiver of Customs in Virginia for the King. As a delegate representing Virginia in the Continental Congress in 1776, he was one of the minority of delegates reluctant to support an American declaration of independence, a move which he viewed at the time as too dangerous:

[Independence] is in truth a delusive Bait which men inconsiderably catch at, without knowing the hook to which it is affixed ... America is too defenceless a State for the declaration, having no alliance with a naval Power nor as yet any Fleet of consequence of her own to protect that trade which is so essential to the prosecution of the War, without which I know we cannot go on much longer.

Braxton invested his wealth in commercial enterprises, particularly shipping, and he endured severe financial reversals during the Revolutionary War when many of the ships in which he held interest were either appropriated by the British government (because they were British-flagged) or were sunk or captured by the British. He was not personally targeted for ruin because he had signed the Declaration of Independence, however; he suffered grievous financial losses because most of his wealth was tied up in shipping, "that trade which is so essential to the prosecution of the War" and which was therefore a prime military target for the British. Even if he hadn't signed the Declaration of Independence, Braxton's ships would have been casualties of the war just the same.

Although Braxton did lose property during the war and had to sell off assets (primarily landholdings) to cover the debts incurred by the loss of his ships, he recouped much of that money after the war but subsequently lost it again through his own ill-advised business dealings. His fortune was considerably diminished in his later years, but he did not by any stretch of the imagination "die in rags."

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

As one biography describes Thomas McKean (not "McKeam"):

Thomas McKean might just represent an ideal study of how far political engagement can be carried by one man. One can scarcely believe the number of concurrent offices and duties this man performed during the course of his long career. He served three states and many more cities and county governments, often performing duties in two or more jurisdictions, even while engaged in federal office.

Among his many offices, McKean was a delegate to the Continental Congress (of which he later served as president), President of Delaware, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and Governor of Pennsylvania. The above-quoted statement regarding his being "hounded" by the British during the Revolutionary War is probably based upon a letter he wrote to his friend John Adams in 1777, in which he described how he had been "hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove my family five times in three months, and at last fixed them in a little log-house on the banks of the Susquehanna, but they were soon obliged to move again on account of the incursions of the Indians."

However, it is problematic to assert that McKean's treatment was due to his being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. (His name does not appear on printed copies of that document authenticated in January 1777, so it is likely he did not affix his name to it until later.) If he was targeted by the British, it was quite possibly because he also served in a military capacity as a volunteer leader of militia. In any case, McKean did not end up in "poverty," as the estate he left behind when he died in 1817 was described as consisting of "stocks, bonds, and huge land tracts in Pennsylvania."

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

First of all, this passage has a couple of misspellings: the signers referred to are William Ellery (not "Dillery") and Edward Rutledge (not "Ruttledge"). Secondly, this sentence is misleading in that it implies a motive that was most likely not present (i.e., these men's homes were looted because they had been signers of the Declaration of Independence).

The need to forage for supplies in enemy territory has long been a part of warfare, and so it was far from uncommon for British soldiers in the field to appropriate such material from private residences during the American Revolution. (Not only were homes used as sources of food, livestock, and other necessary supplies, but larger houses were also taken over and used to quarter soldiers or to serve as headquarters for officers.) In some cases, even American forces took advantage of the local citizenry to provision themselves. Given that many more prominent American revolutionaries who were also signers of the Declaration of Independence (e.g., Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris) had homes in areas that were occupied by the British during the war, yet those homes were not looted or vandalized, it's hard to make the case that the men named above were specifically targeted for vengeance by the British rather than unfortunate victims whose property fell in the path of an armed conflict being waged on American soil.

It's also a common misconception that the signing of the Declaration of Independence was the event that triggered the Revolutionary War, so the signers were directly responsible for whatever misfortunes befell them (and their fellow Americans) as a result of that war. The war actually began more than a year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence — revolutionary events involving armed conflict, such as the battles of Lexington and Concord, the seizure of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain Boys," the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the capture of Montreal by General Richard Montgomery, all took place in 1775.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

The tale about Thomas Nelson's urging or suggesting the bombardment of his own house is one of several Revolutionary War legends whose truth may never be known. Several versions of this story exist, one of which (as referenced above) holds that Nelson encouraged George Washington to shell his Yorktown home after British Major General Charles Cornwallis had taken it over to use as his headquarters in 1781:

Cornwallis had turned the home of Thomas Nelson, who had succeeded Jefferson as governor of Virginia, into his headquarters. Nelson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, had led three Virginia brigades, or 3,000 men, to Yorktown and, when the shelling of the town was about to begin, urged Washington to bombard his own house. And that is where Washington, with his experienced surveyor's eye, reputedly pointed the gun for the first (and singularly fatal) allied shot. Legend has it that the shell went right through a window and landed at the dinner table where some British officers, including the British commissary general, had just sat down to dine. The general was killed and several others wounded as it burst among their plates.

Other versions of the story have Nelson directing the Marquis de Lafayette to train French artillery on his home:

The story goes that the new Virginia Governor Thomas Nelson (who'd been held at Yorktown but released under a flag of truce) was with American forces that day. Lafayette invited Nelson to be present when Captain Thomas Machin's battery first opened fire, as both a compliment and knowing Nelson lived in Yorktown and would know the localities in the riverport area. "To what particular spot," Lafayette reportedly asked Nelson, "would your Excellency direct that we should point the cannon." Nelson replied, "There, to that house. It is mine, and . . . it is the best one in the town. There you will be almost certain to find Lord Cornwallis and the British headquarters."

"A simultaneous discharge of all the guns in the line," Joseph Martin wrote, was "followed [by] French troops accompanying it with 'Huzza for the Americans.'" Sounding much like the Nelson legend, Martin's account added that "the first shell sent from our batteries entered an elegant house formerly owned or occupied by the Secretary of State under the British, and burned directly over a table surrounded by a large party of British officers at dinner, killing and wounding a number of them."
Still other accounts maintain this legend is a conflation of two separate events: Thomas Nelson, acting as commander in chief of the Virginia militia, ordered a battery to open fire on his uncle's home, where Cornwallis was then ensconced. Later, Nelson supposedly made a friendly bet with French artillerists in which he challenged them to hit his home, one of the more prominent landmarks in Yorktown.

Whatever the truth, the Nelson home was certainly not "destroyed" as claimed. The house stands to this day as part of Colonial National Historical Park, and the National Park Service's description of it notes only that "the southeast face of the residence does show evidence of damage from cannon fire."

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

Francis Lewis represented New York in the Continental Congress, and shortly after he signed the Declaration of Independence his Long Island estate was raided by the British, possibily as retaliation for his having been a signatory to that document. While Lewis was in Philadelphia attending to congressional matters, his wife was taken prisoner by the British after disregarding an order for citizens to evacuate Long Island. Mrs. Lewis was held for several months before being exchanged for the wives of British officials captured by the Americans. Although her captivity was undoubtedly a hardship, she had already been in poor health for some time and died a few years (not months) later.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

John Hart's New Jersey farm was looted in the course of the Revolutionary War, and he did have to remain in hiding for a while afterwards. However, the claim that he was "driven from his [dying] wife's bedside" as his "13 children fled for his lives" is dramatic fiction. The British overran the area of New Jersey where he resided in late November of 1776, but his wife had already died on 8 October, and most of their children were adults by then. He also did not die "from exhaustion and a broken heart" a mere "few weeks" after emerging from hiding — he was twice re-elected to the Continental Congress, served as Speaker of the New Jersey assembly, and invited the American army to encamp on his New Jersey farmland in June 1778 before succumbing to kidney stones in May 1779.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Lewis Morris (not Norris) indeed saw his Westchester County, New York, home taken over in 1776 and used as a barracks for soldiers, and the horses and livestock from his farm commandeered by military personnel, but he suffered those deprivations at the hands of the Continental Army, not the British. Shortly afterwards his home was appropriated by the British, but Morris and his wife reclaimed the property and restored their home after the war.

Philip Livingston lost several properties to the British occupation of New York and sold off others to support the war effort, and he did not recover them because he died suddenly in 1778, before the end of the war.

What should we take from all of this? The signers of the Declaration of Independence did take a huge risk in daring to put their names on a document that repudiated their government, and they had every reason to believe at the time that they might well be hanged for having done so. That was a courageous act we should indeed remember and honor on the Fourth of July amidst our "beer, picnics, and baseball games." But we should also not lose sight of the fact that many men (and women) other than the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence — some famous and most not — risked and sacrificed much (including their lives) to support the revolutionary cause. The hardships and losses endured by many Americans during the struggle for independence were not visited upon the signers alone, nor were they any less ruinous for having befallen people whose names are not immortalized on a piece of parchment.

Source: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

Compassion

Last Sunday in church Phil quoted from Henri Nouwen's book Wounded Healer. The quote struck me as being somewhat profound, so I thought I would share it because it is something that I have been thinking about all week.

Compassion is not pity. Pity lets us stay at a distance. It is condescending.

Compassion is not sympathy. Sympathy is for superiors over inferiors.

Compassion is not charity. Charity is for the rich to continue in their status over the poor.

Compassion is born of God. It means entering into the other person's problems. It means standing in the other person's shoes. It is the opposite of professionalism. It is the humanizing way to deal with people. Just as bread without love can bring war instead of peace, professionalism without compassion will turn forgiveness into a gimmick.

Henri Nouwen is a Catholic Priest who fought severe depression and found great comfort in serving God, and by seeking to understand others in the midst of their "stuff".

I have not read Wounded Healer, but it will be the next book I look into.

Happy Birthday Jen!

Happy Birthday Jen!





For more pictures of Jen, you can visit the Snapshots Gallery or click on the link below:


Pictures of Jen Ensley-Gorshe


Admittedly there are a few random pictures of other people taken on her wedding day scattered through this album.