I think she’s telling him the cook makes more money than he does

I’m going to explore the duties of servants like those at Downton Abbey who don’t really exist anymore. The great house that “plays” Downton Abbey on the show, Highclere Castle, still employs a butler, but  he manages tourism more than anything else these days.  Because my real interest is in Georgian and Regency eras rather than Victorian or later periods, I’m starting with 18th  and early 19th Century servants’ guides. So exact duties may not be just as seen in the later era, at least as depicted on TV.The butler is the first position addressed in the Directions for Men-Servants published in London in 1764. However, though he is listed first, he is not really described as the one who sets the tone for the household, as Mr. Carson does on Downton Abbey. His listed duties, in fact, make him something of a glorified security guard and bartender.  His first job is to manage the “plate,” that is, the silver. He must keep it locked up, not tell strangers where it is kept, and never send other strangers to fetch it when wanted, but bring it out himself and lock it up when finished, keeping the key in his pocket at all times.

His other duty is to guard the wine and liquor with similar care, and make sure wine glasses are clean. The rest of the “directions” explain the care to be used in wiping the glasses and polishing the silver, with instructions on pouring ale and wine. That’s it. I think I’m going to apply for this job. Either the rest of his duties were so understood at this time period that they did not require instruction or the butler was simply a trusted retainer who didn’t have to do a whole lot.

So was the housekeeper’s position just as easy? Not by a long shot. Of course the duties aren’t listed in the guide for men-servants, but neither is the position described in Hannah Glasse’s 1742 Servant’s Directory.  She is, however, described in Samuel Adam’s The Complete Servant of 1826.  According the recommended pay scale, the housekeeper is the highest paid female employee, but still earns less than the butler or coachman and one other male servant. The Adams guide gives 142 pages for the instruction of the housekeeper (compared to just 21 pages for the butler) dealing with everything from grocery shopping and butchery to making candy, perfumes, preserves and wine (yes, it was that important).

The butler’s duties in this later guide still seem to center around wine (I now understand Carson’s obsession with the pudding wine glasses) and he is still listed first among male servants. However, he is not the highest paid. That honor falls to the “French man-cook” who makes 60% more than the butler, more than three times the salary of housekeeper. I don’t know how much of the high salary is proportionate to being French, but I’d say if I was a cook, it would be worth learning to fake the accent.  So watch for that somewhere along the line in one of my future stories, where the French “man-cook” will be unmasked as a fake.

Next time– the footmen!

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Information in this article came from:

Directions for Men-Servants: How to Discharge their Duty with Fidelity, and acquire the Good Will of their Masters (London: Paternoster Row, 1764).

Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant: Being a Practical Guide to the Peculiar Duties and Business of All Descriptions of Servants (London: Knight & Lacey, 1825)

Photo courtesy of http://downtonabbeyonline.com

The Absinthe Drinker by Viktor Olivia (1901)

The Catonsville Herald Argus newspaper reported that inspectors confiscated about ten bottles of absinthe during the raids. Saloon owners were not arrested or charged with any offense, but all the bottles were emptied—and presumably not into the glasses of any patrons. Why did the Pure Food and Drug Department consider absinthe so much more dangerous than whiskey or gin or other spirits available in the saloons? Why was it outlawed when other spirits and even marijuana and cocaine were not?

And if it was such an evil drink, why can you find it lots of places today?

Absinthe is a distilled spirit made from aniseed, fennel and the leaves of Artemisia absinthium or wormwood. In the distilled form, it is not sweet and so it’s not a liqueur, although it is usually served with sugar to make it taste sweet. It’s strong – traditional absinthe has about 50% more alcohol than whiskey—but is typically diluted heavily with ice water. Despite its reputation as a hallucinogen, absinthe affects the drinker exactly the same way as whiskey or any other distilled spirit – drink too much and you’ll get drunk. Doesn’t sound too radical, even if it is often green from the herbs. So why the ban? It started with that reputation.

Absinthe was developed in the late 1700s, but it wasn’t well known until about 100 years later, when it became a popular drink among artists and writers in Paris. Public figures like Ernest Hemingway, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, and Oscar Wilde, none known for their conservatism or restraint, were all quite fond of absinthe, and helped give the drink it’s reputation for causing crazy reactions. Some say it was absinthe induced madness that caused van Gogh to hack off his ear. Up to this day, the drink has a reputation as having hallucenogenic properties, based partly on experiments done with wormwood oil in the late 19th Century and partly on word of artists and writers who described wild sensations after taking the drink. According to the Wormwood Society, the reputation continues even today because “modern marketers…exaggerate these myths, combine them with modern falsehoods, and use them as marketing gimmicks to lure the credulous thrill-seeker.*”

However, extensive study in the 1980s proved that although wormwood does contain the poisonous substance thujone, the amount that is tranferred into absinthe is so minute as to not pose a danger to consumers. If there were any hallucenations caused by the drink, they were most likely due to the poisonous copper salts added to give a green color to cheaply made absinthe.

After studies proved the spirit was no more dangerous than similar alcoholic beverages, the United States eventually lifted the ban on absinthe in 2007. However, regulations specifically prohibit marketers from using labels that “project images of hallucinogenic, psychotropic or mind-altering effects.”

So, nearly 100 years after that hometown raid, absinthe was finally legal in the United States. But much of what is commonly sold as absinthe these days is merely an inferior liqueur, according to the Wormwood Society and other afficianados. There are two methods of making absinthe, by distillation and the “cold method.” The distilled spirit requires a double distillation process that includes steeping the herbs which give the drink its traditional flavor and color. The resulting spirit is strong and not at all sweet. By contrast, the cold method or “mixed” absinthes are produced by taking a grain alchohol base and adding flavorings coloring and usually, a considerable quantity of sugar. Often these drinks are labeled as a “liqueur.”

Although absinthe has been legal for six years, it is still not very common in the U.S. For example, I don’t remember seeing any available at the Old Absinthe House in New Orleans. But last fall, the Blue Talon restaurant in Williamsburg offered five different types of absinthe. My husband was horrified when I ordered some made from a “150-year-old recipe.” In researching this article, I went to the restaurant’s online menu to see what it was I’d actually ordered. It was “Grande Absente, a French liqueur that the Wormwood Society rated at about two stars (on a scale of five). The reviewer described it as “not completely terrible.” It was served in the traditional fashion with a slotted absinthe “spoon” (that looks more like a cheese spreader to me), a sugar cube and a carafe of ice water. The waitress recommended placing the sugar on the spoon and pouring water over it to dilute and sweeten the drink. I of course had to try it straight first. It tasted a lot like licorice with a bitter twist. I guess that was the wormwood. It was fun to try and probably great for those times when you just want something a little different, but I don’t see myself taking absinthe on a regular basis, so don’t expect to see me hovering over an absinthe dispenser in a Paris café anytime soon.

However, when I visited my dad a couple of weeks ago, he showed me a bottle of absinthe he’d just bought. I’m not sure he has any absinthe spoons and he didn’t even have any sugar cubes. So maybe for Father’s Day I’ll get out some cheese spreaders, bang a few holes in them, and present dad with his own absinthe drinking set. Maybe the bottle he bought is the real thing! I’ll let you know how that goes…

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* that would be me – the credulous thrill seeker. Sigh

image:Viktor Oliva [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I don’t have GPS and my map was a little vague when it came to listing street names. So before too long we were lost. In Anacostia. In a minivan. I expected to explode from sheer stupidity.

However, my sixteen-year-old son, who was driving, wasn’t concerned. “It can’t be any worse than Baltimore,” he pointed out.

How do you think neighbors reacted when Frederick Douglass married his second wife, Helen?

And he was right. Anacostia, or at least the parts of it we drove through, looked like a pretty nice neighborhood. It was, however, still a neighborhood without any streets that matched my map, so I wasn’t really enjoying my tour of the area. Then I found a landmark that was on my map and we followed signs to the Frederick Douglass House. And there it was, a beautiful 19th Century house on top of a grassy green hill wreathed in flowers. Not exactly what I was expecting.

The house and visitor’s center are operated by the National Park Service. While the very helpful park ranger at the front desk of the visitor center poured over a map to figure out how to direct me to the road I was looking for, I grabbed a brochure and started reading. If only we hadn’t had 580 miles still to drive in our 600 mile journey, I would have toured the house and grounds right then. Instead, I made a promise to myself to come back and decided to write my first blog about a historical site that I’ve not yet seen.

The Frederick Douglass House in Anacostia is Cedar Hill. At the time Douglass and his first wife bought the house in 1877, the neighborhood was “whites only.” When I come back to tour the house, I hope to learn more about how the neighbors treated the Douglass’s. By that point in his life, Frederick Douglass was somewhat of a celebrity, having served as an adviser to Lincoln, launched his own newspaper and written two autobiographies. At the time he bought Cedar Hill, he was also beginning a term as U.S. Marshal in DC. So did the neighbors embrace his celebrity status? Or was he just not good enough? I hope to find out when I return.

Before my not-really-a-visit to his house, I had not known much about Frederick Douglass except that he was born in Maryland, worked in Baltimore, escaped to freedom and became very active in the abolitionist movement. That never struck me as remarkable, since it seemed natural for a man to speak out against the forces that have oppressed him. What I didn’t realize is that Douglass also worked tirelessly to further causes beyond his own realm. While in Europe on the run from slave hunters, Douglass championed the cause of Irish home rule. He worked to help the poor throughout the world, and when back in the United States (after English friends purchased his freedom) he became an advocate for women’s rights. After his first wife Anna passed away, Douglass married fellow activist Helen Pitts, who was white. What did the neighbors think of their mixed marriage? I’m hoping to find out more about that, too, when I visit.

I also want to find out what the “Growlery” outside is.

Don’t wait for my report. Visit the site yourself, even if only online at www.nps.gov/frdo. But don’t be afraid to visit the actual site in Anacostia, even if you’re driving a very suburban minivan. It’s a lovely neighborhood. And you can always get directions home.

Even the most ardent exercise junkies usually neglect to incorporate balance elements into their workouts. But balance, like muscle strength, is something you “use or lose.” Most of us lose a certain amount of our ability maintain balance as part of the aging process. It’s important to counteract that loss by regularly working on balancing skills. What good is it to have the muscular legs and Botox smooth face of a 20-year-old if you wobble and fall over every time you bend down to pick something up? As I said, to work your balance, you don’t need to break a sweat, so you don’t need to change into exercise clothes or worry about messing up your hair. And one of the best parts of balance training is that is also works your core muscles, to improve muscle tone around your waist.

It’s a simple as standing on one foot. Hold in your “stomach” muscles and work to maintain a steady posture. If this is easy, try raising the opposite foot a little higher off the floor. Do a series of kicks or knee lifts with the non-support leg. Or lean forward and raise the opposite leg behind you to counterbalance. Go slow, and hold in those core muscles.

You can easily add balance work to upper body training with free weights. For example, when doing bicep curls, stand on one foot and raise the opposite knee with each curl. Or while doing shoulder presses, stand on one foot, raise the opposite knee and extend your foot out to a kick on each press. You can start simple, and add on. Usually one side will be easier than another, but it’s important to work each side equally.

Another way to work on balance skills is to elevate to your toes. I find this a lot harder because of bone spurs and other foot problems, but it’s worth doing a little all the same. If you center your weight and rise up off your heels even a little, you have to adjust your posture so that your weight is evenly distributed. This helps improve posture, and of course also strengthens the core muscles and provides balance conditioning.

Of course, there are many more advanced options using balance balls and other equipment, but you don’t need to get fancy, you just need to get started. Just a few minutes two or three times a week can make a big difference. You may never be a prima ballerina able to balance on the tips of your toes, but you will look and feel younger and more confident.

The tragedy has been embellished over time, so it’s hard to know exactly what happened that night. It was in 1639, a few years after the second Earl of Antrim took up residence in the castle. Though the earliest castle buildings on this outcropping of rock on the north coast of Ireland were built in the 1300s, the most substantial living quarters in the Hall were much newer and elegantly appointed. Lord and Lady MacDonnell, though titled as the Earl and Countess of Antrim in Ireland, moved in the first circles of wealthier English society. (In fact, Katherine Manners, the Countess, was the widow of the Duke of Buckingham and considered the wealthiest woman in England at the time of her marriage to Randal MacDonnell.) Inventories from the time show that the castle was furnished with items such as scores of fine upholstered chairs, elaborately inlaid cabinets, a full library of books and telescopes and other scientific tools. Tall windows, unusual for the time, particularly in a castle, let in extra light.

But the Countess was not happy living at Dunluce. Apparently she hated the noise of the sea, and when you’re living on a giant pile of rocks surrounded by ocean and accessible only by a narrow bridge over the water, it’s pretty impossible to escape the sound of crashing surf. And it’s wet. And cold. The roar of surf and the salt spray in the air is intense. I love the ocean, yet after only a few minutes at the site, I realized the overpowering sense of the sea on all sides could become oppressive.

So imagine how ominous the sea sounds after you know it has claimed the lives of your kitchen staff? There’s actually some uncertainty now as to whether it was the kitchen or another chamber of the castle that collapsed into the sea, but a number of people were in the room when it fell, which indicates that the collapse came without warning. Legend says that only one boy sitting in the corner survived, while the rest of the room simply disappeared.

One aspect that accounts all agree on is that Lady Katherine MacDonnell refused to live in the castle after that and insisted on having a new house built away from the sea.

Dunluce Castle proved unlucky in other respects as well. The first family to own the castle was essentially tricked out of their holdings. The Second Earl was arrested by one of his own dinner guests and taken prisoner. In 1584, the castle was badly damaged by an English artillery siege. In fact, for hundreds of years, Dunluce and the land holdings around it were fought over as the English sought to subdue Ireland and reward Scottish families who were loyal to the crown. Some would say that is why Dunluce has no luck of the Irish – because it was taken from the Irish and given to “foreign” clans. But all clans are “foreign” if you look back long enough, and I don’t think Dunluce is any less Irish than Blarney or any other castle on Irish soil.

No less Irish, but maybe less lucky. Then again, if the owners of the other castles in Ireland were so lucky, then why are all of them in ruins?

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Photo courtesy of Old-Picture.com

Troop 306’s newest Eagle Scout waited 35 years to receive his official recognition.

Troop 306′s “newest” Eagle Scout Dave Warshaw flanked by his sons Bill (left) and Jimmy and wife, Gay

His story should be the basis for a movie, because it’s a heart-warming tale with a wonderful message. But the hero demonstrates the rather pedestrian traits of forgiveness, faithfulness, loyalty and long-term service—and exhibits none of the angry drama nor achieves the glamorous overnight success that seems to be required for an exciting movie.

That it is not exciting makes it no less wonderful, however.

In 1978, Life Scout David Warshaw of Troop 306 presented himself for his Eagle Scout Board of Review. Like other scouts before and after him, Warshaw had worked years for this day. Statistically, only about 2% of all boys who enter Scouting reach the rank of Eagle. To do so, a Scout must prove himself in a variety of leadership roles, advancing through the ranks of Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, and Life by serving and leading other boys in the troop and learning and proving new skills through the attainment of merit badges. A Scout must earn 21 merit badges before being eligible to become an Eagle, many of them requiring months of supervised work. After a Scout has earned the required badges and served in at least three major leadership positions within the troop, he is ready for the final element, the Eagle Scout project. This is a project chosen to serve the community that is planned and managed by the Scout, who must recruit crews to complete the work. When it’s finished, he evaluates the process and the work itself, and presents himself to a board of leaders who review his project and his career as a Scout and determine whether he is worthy to earn the rank of Eagle. It all must be completed before he reaches his 18th birthday.

Very often the Scout will approach the board as a raw jumble of nerves, and the members sitting in judgment may loom with stern demeanors and fire off seemingly endless questions. But in the end, if the Scout has truly done the work represented, he passes the ordeal and becomes an Eagle. His family and troop celebrate together with a special ceremony, the Eagle Scout Court of Honor.

Dave Warshaw may have been imagining his own ceremony that day in 1978 as he stood before the Board of Review. But something went wrong. Instead of congratulations, Warshaw was told that due to procedural errors, his Eagle application was not approved. Shocked and devastated, Warshaw returned home knowing that he was forever denied access to the brotherhood of those devoted to scouting.

No one would have blamed him for being bitter. No one would have blamed him if he had ranted against the Scouts and spoken out against them at every turn. Instead, he served them.

Fast forward to fatherhood. When his oldest son Bill enrolled in Cub Scouts, Dave took on leadership roles within the pack. He continued in pack leadership until his youngest son Jimmy bridged up to Boy Scouts – to Troop 306, the same troop that rejected him. Dave soon became Chairman of the Troop Committee, putting in hours every week to grow the troop and make the boys’ experience adventurous, positive and uplifting. He not only encouraged his own two sons to continue on the path of work and service to advance through the ranks and become an Eagle, he also enabled many other boys to do so. Today he still serves as an advisor to the troop, participating in events and leading outings. Has he shown any bitterness? No. It’s a great example of forgiveness in action.

And finally, his faithful service was recognized in what may be the world’s first ever surprise Eagle Scout Court of Honor.

As his birthday approached, Dave figured his wife Gay was planning something. There were a few too many text messages from people who would normally text him instead of her. So when he walked in to Dimitri’s restaurant last Saturday night, he expected to find a few friends and family waiting to celebrate his birthday.

The friends were there and the word “surprise” did not surprise him—but what did surprise him was that there were so many people and that two of them pulled him aside to put on the shirt of his scout uniform. Then they showed him the banner that read “Congratulations Eagle Scout David Warshaw.” This was no ordinary birthday party.

Thirty-five years later, Warshaw was finally awarded his Eagle pin. In fact, just like Dave, the pin had been waiting for recognition since the 1970s. Current Troop 306 Committee Chair Mike McDonal found the silver pin while going through boxes of scout stuff in Catonsville Presbyterian Church, which has hosted the troop for over 100 years. He knew Dave’s story and spent years working behind the scenes to convince those in headquarters to grant the award. The hard work eventually paid off, but once the success was achieved, McDonal and Warshaw’s wife Gay decided to keep the secret a while, until after the Warshaw’s youngest son had a chance to celebrate his own Eagle Scout Court of Honor. She planned the surprise ceremony for her husband on his birthday, and it may have been the best present he ever received.

All the Scout leaders in the room, all the friends, all the family—everyone there knew that Dave Warshaw epitomized what an Eagle Scout should be. They already considered him to be of that rank. Probably the only person in the room who didn’t consider Dave an Eagle Scout was Dave himself. But now it’s unanimous. Congratulations to Troop 306’s “newest” Eagle Scout.

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photo by Don Martin

The governing body concerned is, or rather was, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. That group, usually just referred to as the Episcopal Church, was formed after the American revolution when the Anglican churches separated themselves from the Church of England (or were kicked out, depending on who you talk to.) Clergy in the Church of England are required to swear allegiance to the King of England as head of the church, and that wasn’t going to happen with clergy in a country that fought for eight years to expel the authority of the king and his evil minions.

So now, 200+ years later, some of those congregations are voting to pledge allegiance to the Catholic Pope in Rome.

How can they do that? Why would they?

I don’t have a full answer to the first question. The Christian Post reports that the congregation voted to leave the Episcopal Diocese and join a Roman Catholic Ordinariate, which is a group formed for former Anglican churches who want to be part of the Catholic church while still retaining their liturgy and tradition. St. Timothy’s is not the first congregation to take this step–two others in the Baltimore area did so last year. The article includes a picture of the former Anglican priests being ordained as Roman Catholic priests, so presumably that is what will happen with the rector of St Timothy’s Church as well. Unfortunately, according to the article, the church will lose its extensive property as part of this move, since they were unable to “reach a settlement” with the diocese as other churches had done.

Why would they take such a difficult drastic move? I would have to say conviction. We’ve lived adjacent to the church (they literally own half of our front yard) for nearly twenty years and in that time spoken to various members, officials and three different rectors. As religion editor of the Catonsville Times, I read their newsletter every month for ten years and frequently interviewed members and staff about events and activities. All the people of St. Tim’s had one thing in common – a strong committed faith to serve the Lord in the manner that they thought best. Each time the governing Episcopal leadership voted in a manner contrary to their beliefs, it seemed like a knife in the side. I think finally they just had enough. They didn’t feel that they could serve God under the mantle of a church that they see as having strayed from the principles of Biblical teaching. (Of course, it was the Roman Catholic church’s straying from Biblical teaching that led the whole formation of the Protestant faith in the first place. These congregations are coming full circle.)

I will be very curious to see how this all works out — and who will take over my front yard.

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Information in this article comes from The Christian Post http://www.christianpost.com/news/md-episcopal-congregation-votes-to-join-catholic-church-90521/.

The title of the articles refers to Jeremiah 13:23

Jane's Island State Park: One of the views of Eastern Maryland I had to wait 25 years to see

My first attempt was so disappointing, however, that I pretty much gave up.  I had talked my roommates into accompanying me on the adventure. We drove across the dreaded Bay Bridge (see my post about bridges for my paranoia about that one) and endured creeping Eastern shore traffic through adorable towns full of adorable shops and adorable restaurants where we knew we could not afford to shop or eat. We kept going until we got to “the end” as I determined it – where a sizeable peninsula jutted out into the immenseChesapeake Bay. I couldn’t wait for that view of water all around, the sense of standing at the edge of the known world. But we never got there.

The roads all ended on private property in marshland with enough trees to block any view of water. At one point we got out of the car trudged through some swampy land to see… more marsh.

We turned around and went home. One of my roommates brought chiggers home with her. It was not what I’d call a successful outing. And I never again looked at the Eastern Shore of Maryland with the same sense of anticipation.

But that all changed last fall. A group of friends planned a weekend of camping at Jane’s Island State Park. I had no idea where it was, but I assumed there had to be water there somewhere or the guys really would have wasted their time loading a trailer with five canoes. It wasn’t til we were about half way there that I actually looked at the location on the map—and I wasn’t driving, by the way, although you shouldn’t put it past me to try. Anyway, Jane’s Island turned out to be WAY at the bottom corner of Maryland’s Eastern Shore– right there on the edge of the world, the type of place I used to dream about seeing. I didn’t get my hopes up. I was expecting views of marsh and nothing more.

I got more, as it happens. We did canoe past a number of marshy “islands” that seemed to be little more than grass stems clinging precariously to a slab of mud. But then we reached a narrow spit of actual land with strips of sandy beach on either side. We drew up the canoes and walked about ten feet to the other side of the island and we were at “the edge.” Water stretched out all around us, rolling continuously in gentle waves. The western shore was nowhere in sight.

A historic marker buried in the grass proclaimed that this was Tangier Sound, site of the “bloodiest battle of the American Revolution.” The Battle of Kedges Strait (also known as the Battle of the Barges) was actually fought more than a year after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. Most of us were taught that the war ended with that surrender, but in fact the fighting continued until 1783 in various places, and this was one of them. Commodore Zedekiah Whaley sought the help of a local militia commander when he realized the gang of loyalist pirates (known as “picaroons”) he was chasing was too big to handle with the few small vessels at his disposal.  Colonel John Cropper brought in 25 men and two more boats, but it wasn’t enough. One of Whaley’s boats was too slow to keep up and had to be sent back. Another one had its main gun explode when it fired its first shot.  Whaley’s ship, the Protector, got too close to the pirates and suddenly had all seven pirate vessels firing on him at once.  Spilled gunpowder ignited on deck and caused major chaos and the pirate vessels closed in and boarded. The other patriot vessels retreated and their commanders were all branded cowards, though a later inquiry cleared them of all charges. Whaley was killed in the fighting, along with 24 other men. 29 men were wounded which left only 11 men unhurt. Obviously this wasn’t the biggest battle of the war, but in terms of percentages, an 83% casualty rate is pretty high.

It’s very quiet in the sound these days, so it’s hard to imagine the bloody battle or big oyster canning industry that thrived all throughout the bay region. When colonists first sailed up the bay, oysters were so plentiful that they were used as a cheap food source for slaves and indentured servants, who complained about being fed the shellfish so frequently.

A cold, heavy rain hampered our attempts to explore Crisfield and the surrounding area after our canoe trip.  We did detour through the town of Princess Anne, a sleepy town full of Victorian houses with a colonial manor house set across from an old church. Having seen signs for “Beckford Manor,” we drove up close to the colonial house to read the historical marker on the front and then realized we were trespassing on someone’s driveway.  Beckford Manor was actually a modern housing development around the corner. In any case, the Princess Anne police station was also an extremely interesting stone building that made me think of what you might get if you asked Martha Stewart to design a dungeon.

After we got back on the highway I noticed another small collection of beautiful Victorian houses on a frontage road with no signs of a town.  The only commercial establishment was a convenience store and gas station on the highway itself. I decided that was the Eastern equivalent of a ghost town. Out in the wide open spaces of the West, when a business left a town, so did all the people, and the entire town went vacant. But in the more densely populated East, people remain behind when the businesses leave. You see town houses but no actual town. I’m not sure which is more melancholy.  But melancholy is still beautiful to visit, if you don’t have to live there. I look forward to exploring it all again – when the weather warms up.

Where I once viewed a football game as little more than a bunch of big guys knocking the sense out of each other, the moves and counter moves and strategy now remind me of chess more than anything else. Well, chess with consequences. Like in the Wizard’s Chess of the Harry Potter world, if your player is in the wrong place at the wrong time, he gets destroyed rather spectacularly. Because there is still that element of big men knocking the sense out of each other. I wasn’t wrong about it—I was just missing half of the picture. There is an intense strategy involved in deciding where to place and how to move the men on the field before they knock the sense out of each other. There are so many options, in fact, that even the commentators on a PBS talk show were discussing football strategy the last time I turned to the local channel. PBS. No opera, purple dinosaurs or evaluations of esoteric antiques. They were discussing football just like ESPN.

So I was wrong about football and I was also wrong about football players, or at least some of them. Back in high school, I thought football players were dumb jocks who swaggered around with an overpowering confidence they did not deserve. My opinion about that didn’t change until a few years ago when one of my son’s close friends went out for the football team. Since I’d known him for years, I knew he was a very intelligent guy and a terrific student. And he was about as far from over-confident as could be. He wasn’t even all that big. But he made the team and has played a lot because he understood the game and knew where he was supposed to be on that chessboard/field and what he was supposed to be doing. And I suppose he must not have been afraid of getting blown up if something went wrong.

Friends who knew me in high school would be shocked to know how much I enjoy watching this game of exploding chess known as football. But they’re just jealous because their team didn’t make it to the Superbowl this year.

Enjoy the game or the counter-programming or whatever else you choose to do this Sundaye evening. My heart will be in New Orleans with the Ravens. I just hope too many of them don’t explode.

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When I started looking for an image for this blog, it immediately became apparent that I am not the first person to spot similarities between chess and football. The game in the image I used, “Official Football Chess,” came out in 1967. It’s available online through http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/49158/official-football-chess.

There were more saloons than schools, hospitals, libraries parks or churches. Beer drinking was so popular that by 1910, the annual per capita consumption had risen to 21 gallons, with those prone to violence tending to drink more than their fair share of that average. So how was the ban on intoxicating beverages passed by Congress and ratified by the states so rapidly? World War I played a large role. The majority of brewers and a great percentage of beer drinkers were of German descent, and even though the companies might now be run by second and third generation Americans, prohibition supporters gained a lot of ground by arguing that it was unpatriotic to support the beer industry.

But while the old saloons closed and the word virtually disappeared from our language, inebriation did not. It just became more dangerous.

The saloons didn’t close right away, of course. The Amendment set a one year deadline before the ban would take effect, and those with stores of wine and spirits began hiding, hoarding and acquiring more. Supporters of the ban, which had temporarily been in effect during World War I, believed Americans would see the benefits of an alcohol-free society and soon there would be little need to enforce the law. They estimated enforcement costs at five million dollars a year.

They were wrong.  By 1923, Congress was being asked for over $28 million for enforcement, and estimates ran as high as $300 million a few years later.

Americans did not willingly give up their intoxicating beverages. They hid them. And they changed them.

Alcohol had to be smuggled in or made in secret.  Those who risked breaking the law to import the contraband wanted to maximize their profits. So they concentrated on distilled spirits, with a much greater percentage of alcohol. Profits were further extended by cutting the booze with other substances to make it go farther. Water would be obvious and noticed by patrons, so they often used something to give the drink a little kick, like industrial methanol or even embalming fluid.

Creative bartenders mixed the bad booze with fruit juice and sugary syrups to mask the taste.

But the poisonous affects were not as easy to hide. By 1926, 750 people in New York alone had been killed by toxic cocktails, and thousands more paralyzed or made blind from the concoctions downed in speakeasies and other underground drinking establishments.

And then there was the problem of the mobs controlling the supply. Instead of reducing crime, the ban on alcohol created an ideal incubator for the birth of organized crime. The ban was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933. It was called “the failed experiment.”

Many people draw parallels between the 1920s prohibition on alcohol and today’s current ban on illegal drugs such as marajuana. There is no doubt that today’s illegal drug industry supports organized crime now just as the illegal bootlegging operations supported crime bosses in the 1920s. Would repealing the ban reduce the strength of the drug lords enough to outweigh the harm that might be done from easier access to such drugs? Hard to say without a crystal ball.

I for one am glad I was born after 1933. I’d hate to live in a world without champagne and margaritas.

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Newspaper image courtesy of the Anti-Saloon League Museuem, http://www.wpl.lib.oh.us/AntiSaloon/