First Memorial Day

Evidently a number of towns claim to be the first to celebrate the first Memorial Day, but according to David Blight, a Yale historian who has done extensive research of this event, the distinction goes to the African American community of Charleston, SC. The event was held May 1, 1865 as over 10,000 residents, mostly African Americans, gathered to honor the fallen African American Union soldiers. The families gathered for sermons, singing, and picnics at the Planters Racecourse (now Hampton Park), which had been the site of an open air Confederate prison where 267 Union troops died. The soldiers were originally buried in a mass grave but members of local African American churches re-buried them in individual graves that were later moved to national cemeteries. The South refused to honor the day officially until after World War I when the day was designated to honor fallen soldiers of all wars, not just the Civil War. I never heard this story until a few years ago. As we take time today to honor all fallen soldiers, I think it is important that we also remember the origins of this day.

A young, unidentified Union Soldier.

"Only The Devil And I Know The Whereabouts Of My Treasure And The One Of Us Who Lives The Longest Should Take It All"....Blackbeard

Damnation Seize My Soul by Chris Collingwood. I saw a great copy of this painting once, with perfect lighting, and it seized my soul.

Off the coast of Beauford, NC an anchor has been hauled up one last time... almost 300 years after its last drop. It is the anchor from Queen Anne's Revenge, the pirate ship of the famous Blackbeard. The once French slave ship was renamed and became Blackbeard's stollen ride after its capture. The ship met its demise before it's famous owner, having been run aground and abandoned a few months before Blackbeard's death in 1718.

The anchor of Queen Anne's Revenge being hoisted from NC waters last week. The wreck, which is the largest off North Carolina's coast, was discovered in 1996. Recovery has been ongoing since then.

The mad-eyed Edward Teach was born in Bristol in 1680 and grew up to be the most famous marauder of the West Indies, North Carolina and Virginia. Pirates were admired as romantic heroes even during their own lifetime, glossing over the fact that most were brutal sadists. They lived outside the law and were free from constraints in those hard times when everyone else seemed to be catching a flogging. They accepted their fate--that their lifestyle led to an exciting, but usually short life with a career that ended in one or two years...usually at the end of a rope.

A pirate captain only kept his position if he were popular, successful and feared. He had to stand out in a crowd, and this Blackbeard did well. He was said to be tall, strong, hairy, wild, brave, and a flamboyant dresser. He wore brightly colored silk scarves over his shoulders with flintlocks tied to the end. He braided his beard, which grew almost up to his eyes, and tied the braids with colored ribbons. He put slow burning fuses in his hat which he would light right before going into action. He was a constant drinker who believed a drunken ship was a happy ship and said that without alcohol, the "rogues are aplotting." He was said to have tormented fellow pirate, Stede Bonnet, once inviting him on board, getting him stinking drunk, then convincing Bonnet's waiting crew to elect a new captain.

The Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1718.

But it did indeed come to a quick end after he was mortally wounded by volunteers of the Royal Navy led by Robert Maynard at Ocracoke Inlet. It took 25 wounds to bring him down, including 5 gunshots and a slit throat. During those times, if you killed someone famous, there were no photos or press to prove it, so Blackbeard's head was cut off and hung from Maynard's ship's bowsprit as it sailed back to Virginia. But Blackbeard had the last hurrah as it was reported by those present that his headless body, when thrown overboard, swam around his killer's ship three times before sinking.

A canon recovered from the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge. Blackbeard had plenty of warning that he was losing his ship, so his booty was removed and taken ashore. Artifacts from the recovery will be on display at the NC Maritime Museum.

Look Homeward Angel: Part I

I am re-reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel and find that when people who have not read the book ask me what it is about, I never feel like my explanation is enough. Well maybe these words from TW can help explain...

Thomas Wolfe, From a letter to his sister, 1937:


"I agree with you when you say that bitterness is one of the things in life that kills....There is another thing in life that is hard to bear that fortunately you do not know much about---that is loneliness....I think I learned about being alone when I was a child about eight years old and I think that I have known about it ever since. People, I think, often mean well by children but are often cruel because of something insensitive or cruel in their own natures which they cannot help. It is not a good thing, however, for older people to tell a little child that he is selfish, unnatural and inferior to the other members of his family in qualities of generosity and nobility, because a child is small and helpless and has no defence, and although he is no worse than other children, and is in fact as full of affection, love and good-will as anyone could be, he may in time come to believe the things which are told him about himself, and that is when he begins to live alone and wants to be alone and if possible to get far, far away from the people who have told him how much better they are than he is....I can also say that the habit of loneliness, once formed, grows on a man from year to year, and he wanders across the face of the earth and has no home and is in exile, and he is never able to break out of the prison of his own loneliness again, no matter how much he wants to. So with all your troubles and misfortunes of the last few years you can be thankful being alone has not been one of them."




Wolfe's original title for LHA, even before the second title of O Lost, was The Building of A Wall. Now I understand why.

"Look homeward Angel now and melt with ruth:

And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth." (John Milton, Lycidas)

The Droste Effect: The Ad That Keeps On Giving

From Season 4 of Madmen:


Sally: I just felt like I was going to heaven, except I don't believe in it.

Glenn: You don't? Then what happens when you die? Nothing?

Sally: It doesn't really bother me, except that it's forever. When I think about forever, I get upset. Like the Land O Lakes butter has that Indian girl...sitting holding a box. And it has a picture of her on it holding a box, with a picture of her holding a box. Have you ever noticed that?

Glenn: I wish you wouldn't have said that.

Like Sally from Madmen, for most children, infinity is a serious matter. You reach the point where your brain allows you to look beyond the confines of everyday life and you suddenly have infinity staring you right in the face and it's there to stay.

This implied infinity of images has a name, the Droste Effect, named for the Droste Cacao company which used the effect in their advertising in 1904. If you look around you, it's used more than you realize. Why? What better way to have the vision of your product continue in the observer's mind forever...the ad that never ends.

Smile...you've just been Drosted.

Armadillo Skills

"Don't hate me, I have skills."



There is just something appealing to me about any animal that comes with its own motor home on its back, causing me to have great affection for turtles, roly poly's, and armadillos. Due to the cold winters in upstate SC, the only time I managed to see an armadillo in the wild was on a visit to Florida when my uncle's dogs were engaged in an armadillo round-up one night. But the armadillo is broadening its horizons and he has rumbled his way to parts of South Carolina. Whenever I drive to Charleston, there is a swampy area on I-26 where there is almost always an armadillo casualty on the side of the road. I always perk up at "Armadillo Swamp" with mixed feelings of excitement at a sighting combined with sadness for the demise of this "little armored one." I think there is a lack of respect for this animal who ranks around the same area on the animal respect scale as the lowly possum. It seems we like to demean any creature that becomes an easy victim of our automobiles....make it their fault. But don't be so flippant if you do run over the nine banded armadillo, because I have discovered that this is a little mammal with skills.

For example, their proliferation (in spite of the automobile) is partly due to their ability to practice delayed implantation of their fertilized eggs, timing their babies births at favorable environmental conditions. They are also one of the few animals to exhibit Polyembryony-the single fertilized egg always divides to produce four genetically identical offspring.

When startled, the nine banded armadillo can leap straight up in the air, sometimes three or four feet in the air, as a defense mechanism. That would be like a human jumping 20 feet into the air. Well no wonder they fall victim to automobiles...the headlights keep them busy jumping. I'm surprised they don't end up coming through windshields.

The armadillo has two water skills. Since their armor makes them heavy, they will sink of course. That's no problem though because they can hold their breath for about 6 minutes giving them time to casually walk across the bottom of small bodies of water. If the water is too wide for the six minute skill, they have the ability to inflate air into their body enabling them to float for long distances.

The armadillo shell has many uses... such as a back for the Charango (an Andean lute), baskets, wine holders, and the stylish pocketbook seen above.

When I read that they could be housebroken, I felt the familiar urge to try to capture one, but remembered they also have the rare ability to carry leprosy. It seems they have the skill to lower their body temperature to adapt to long periods without much nourishment, making their warm bloodied bodies the same cooler temperature as human skin.

So, let's quit dismissing this animal, giving him our human diseases, and casually running him down with our automobiles. Don't become hardened like a Texan, be mindful that he is an animal with skills.