They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and this series focuses on a single picture and what it brings into my mind. In this particular post I’ve chosen two photos (and written closer to 2000 words) on the topic of “otherness”. One picture is me at a work party with the other teachers I worked with in Japan and the other is of me and my students when I taught in New Orleans.
There have been a lot of times in my life where I have been the “other”. In fact, most of my adult life has been dominated my some form or other of “otherness”. Some have been more pronounced while others have been more subtle. Since this idea of “otherness” has captured the national attention recently, and for very good reason, I thought I’d offer my own perspective.
After High School, I went to Penn State, a state university in central Pennsylvania. I didn’t realize at the time nor think much about the fact that the vast majority of people there were obviously going to be from Pennsylvania. There were always sports team loyalties and conversations about differences in accents and dialect that mostly went over my head. It wasn’t until much later, having spent a fair amount of time driving through rural parts of the state and recognizing town names from people I went to school with that I realized how different their upbringing was from mine. When I think of my time there though, I think mostly about our school spirit and camaraderie – how our “sameness” around our love of Penn State, our obsession with wearing blue and white clothing and our never-ending conversations about the football team overshadowed, for me at least, that sense of “otherness”.
In my professional career as a tour guide, I have taken hundreds of people from around the globe on cross country tours of the United States. While it is obviously my home country, I have spent much of the last 20 years surrounded by international guests.
Hello Everyone,
Another week has come and gone here in Washington D.C. Time has taken on a different quality for me here. I’m very used variety in my life, so when I get a chance to stop and catch my breath, it’s actually kind of nice. Now I’m through the “catching my breath” phase and into a routine phase which I know is how most people’s lives simply are. It has its ups and downs, but more than anything the time just seems to slip away. I hope every week to at least have something to show for that week, but even if there isn’t anything tangible it’s another week of keeping myself safe and sane and another week of helping who I can do the same. Sometimes it’s the little things that can make a difference too. This week I saw my first lightning bugs of the summer and it reminded me of how magical these little critters are. How cool is it that they can just glow like that in the dark? When I used to guide night snorkel tours in the islands, I used to try and show people some phosphorescence in the water, but lightning bugs are way cooler than that. They fly and they glow. In my next life, it wouldn’t be a bad choice. On a completely unrelated note, my mother set a new personal record for rabbits seen on her morning walk this week with 16. Like I said, sometimes it’s the little things.
My week started with a relaxing Thursday. I’m sure I did things, but I can’t remember what they were. There are more of those kinds of days recently too. I did have a nice Zoom chat with some of my friends from college and it felt really good to laugh for a while. Friday was exciting because we tapped our recently brewed homebrew and I have to say it was pretty tasty. We sampled it alongside other beers of the same kind (Kolsch), and ours held up okay. We also brewed a fresh batch on Friday as well, an American Cream Ale this time, so we’ll see how that works out in a couple of weeks. It’s been bubbling away in the fermenter, so that’s a good sign. After all of the beer excitement, we enjoyed some nice weather outside on the patio with some snacks and an exciting game of Skip-Bo, one of our go-to pandemic card games. It wasn’t a bad Friday at all.
Saturday I met up with a friend for a nice walk down in Rock Creek Park, a wonderful National Park unit which splits the city down the middle along the natural valley formed by the creek. It was a beautiful day for a walk, and hence was a little more crowded than I would have liked, but we did okay. My friend brought her dog along and he seemed to enjoy the exercise as well. We sat for a while by the water and chatted away the morning and for a minute, it almost felt like normalcy.
I am not a protester. I don’t like chanting and I don’t want to carry a sign. I am, however, a historian and have spent a big chunk of my life studying U.S. history. I believe strongly in people’s constitutional right to protest and people need to be reminded that that right was not extended to black people in the U.S. until the 14th amendment passed in 1868, a full 80 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified. That amendment only passed under duress during Reconstruction.
One of my many projects is my podcast American Anthology, and one of my goals with that project has been to call attention to some of the lesser known chapters in the struggle for Civil Rights in this country. We all know about MLK and Rosa Parks, but for a lot of people that’s where things start to fade out. The struggle has been long, painful and bloody beyond belief, and didn’t end with the Civil War or Civil Rights. It has always been just about being treated the same, about having the same rights as white citizens of this country.
My normal goal on this blog is to give people a break from the news and politics with some beautiful photos, but one of the main goals of my podcast has been to help educate people about American History, and especially some of these lesser known chapters. If you want some easily digestible (though not necessarily pleasant or easy to hear) lessons on the struggle and how things have gotten to where we find ourselves today, I’d like to call your attention to some of the topics I’ve covered:
Episode 5 – N.C. – The Wilmington Insurrection – the only successful Coup d’etat in American History
Episode 7 – S.C. – Briggs vs. Elliott – the struggle for a single bus for black students – became part of Brown vs. The Board of Education
Episode 9 – TN - The Lynching of Ell Persons – 5,000 people showed up to this public lynching advertised in the paper. Sandwiches were sold…
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s a picture of me, Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert at the Warner Theater in D.C. and the story of how I came to meet these guys that night in 2010.
I’ve never been much on celebrity heroes. I’ve always thought it was a little strange that people will idolize a musician or an actor because it always feels to me like they are idolizing a character, not a person. Most rock stars and movie stars are playing a role and are very different when they are off camera, so to me it’s a bit like looking up to a character in a book like Atticus Finch or Tom Joad. On the other hand, there are people you come across at times in your life when you really need a hero and maybe their songs or their movies are the things that keep you going. Anthony Bourdain was that person for me.
After spending my twenties guiding multi-week tours of the U.S. all summer and spending my winters traveling the world, I finally gave in to the pressure to “grow up” and “get a real job”. Coupled with that was my desire to help out in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans which is how I found myself wearing a tie and teaching junior high school math. The times were tough as was the job itself, but it was the dramatic lifestyle change that affected me the most. After so many years on the road, I was all of a sudden faced with rent and bills and trying to make the most of my weekends. I’m not going to lie, “the real world” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I found myself struggling from paycheck to paycheck and from one week to the next. Going from my tour guide salary to a teacher’s salary seemed like a big jump, but after all of my bills it really didn’t leave much and I ended up getting a second job working three nights a week waiting tables. It was all a bit much.
The Battle of Gettysburg which took place from July 1st-3rd, 1863 would be the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. 170,000 men would clash over those three hot days in July and over 50,000 would end up dead, captured, wounded or missing. While both armies were looking for a fight, neither expected it to be in this tiny Pennsylvania town.
After his dramatic victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, General Lee decided to once again push north into Union territory. He wanted a decisive victory on Northern soil to try and force President Lincoln to the negotiating table. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia north, crossed the Potomac River and moved through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. The Union’s Army of the Potomac, still under the command of General Hooker, pursued. By the end of June, General George Meade had replaced Hooker at the helm…
The photos below come from a recent visit to Gettysburg National Battlefield, the site of the bloodiest and most well known battles of the war. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories
It’s been a warm week here in D.C. – summer has definitely arrived. I’ve had some nice days to get out and explore the city this week, but also some hot and humid ones and a few epic thunderstorms as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced summer in our nation’s capital, and there are definitely pluses and minuses. I will say that the lack of traffic anywhere at any time makes the heat of summer a little more tolerable. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, that lack of traffic definitely makes for cleaner air and clearer skies – something my camera sees even more than I do. That is one of the plusses of the situation. We’ve been enjoying some summer fruit too, which is one of the best things about summer anywhere. We’ve had beautiful cherries, watermelon, strawberries and others and I’m looking forward to peaches very soon.
Last Friday my stepfather made some wonderful homemade pizzas and we sat in the basement and played some games and listened to some music while we chowed down on a couple of pies. It was another great Forget-About-It Friday, which we are grateful for. This coming week we will tap our homebrew and see how it turned out, and begin our next batch as well – an American Cream Ale. I’m looking forward to having a taste and to keeping the brewing going while I’m home. It’s fun and there’s a (hopefully) fine finished product at the end. After the cream ale, I want to try something a little more complicated now that I’m getting my brewing confidence back up.
The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. My mom spent Saturday cooking up a storm and we had a wonderful dinner on Saturday night as well. Sunday I spent some time reading my new (to me) book about the Gettysburg Address which I’m really enjoying. I also got some photos edited and published from our trip to Antietam last week, and got some writing done as well. It was a pretty relaxing weekend all around, but it felt good to accomplish a few things along the way.
After being turned back south after the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee marched his army back to Virginia. Union General George McClellan was replaced by General Ambrose Burnside to command the Army of the Potomac, and President Lincoln urged Burnside to pursue the Army of Northern Virginia deep into the state and attack the Confederate Capital at Richmond. The major obstacle lying in their way was the Rappahannock River.
Burnside arrived at Stafford Heights overlooking the river and the small town of Fredericksburg in mid-November, 1862. He had sent orders to have pontoons at the ready to provide a means of bringing his army rapidly across the river. Tragically for Burnside and his men, the pontoons didn’t arrive for several weeks. Instead of crossing the river in boats or rafts, he chose to wait for the pontoons. By the time they got there, Confederate troops had dug in on the high ground south of the city called Marye’s Heights and behind a stone wall along a sunken road to the front of this position.
Union engineers worked through the night of December 10th to assemble the pontoon bridge, but their progress was slowed by Mississippi sharpshooters in town. A small group of Union soldiers crossed the river in boats and fought a battle to secure the streets of the town. They finally secured the town in late afternoon on the 11th, but it was winter and the daylight soon gave out. The bridge would be completed and most of the army would cross it on December 12th.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this series I’ve chosen one picture per post which brings out strong memories for me and has a story attached to it. This picture is of the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, California, the place I first watched the sun set into the Pacific.
I was as far from home as I’d ever been.
When I went to college, my goal was to work for the National Park Service. My major was Wildlife and Fishery Science with a minor in American History. I spent five years working on two degrees to prepare myself for my career, but in the days of the infancy of the internet I really didn’t know what that career would entail. While there, I worked in the banquet department at a beautiful resort hotel and golf course and made pretty decent money for a college kid. I was, therefore, pretty disappointed when I started looking for a real job only to find that the only Park Service jobs available to me were 3 month temporary positions in parks I’d never heard of making $8 an hour. I couldn’t believe it – after five years of good grades and two degrees from an excellent institution I was only going to make $8 an hour? That was significantly less than I was making in my current job. And in three months I’d have to start all over again?
I decided to think on it for a while and headed to my summer home of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In my first “real world” lesson, I had to sign to a one-year lease to get a decent place to live, and went back to work at the restaurant I had worked at the previous two summers. Over the next year I worked a lot, drank too much and made some really good friends, some of whom are still my friends today, but didn’t make a lot of progress towards any career goals. I’d like to say it was fun, but looking back it just seemed like it was at the time. There were some great days, but life after college was supposed to be different.
After a year of spinning my wheels I found myself no further ahead than I had been when I arrived. I cut my losses, packed up my bags and headed north. I went back to Pennsylvania for a while, and then headed to Ocean City, Maryland for a few days to see what the work climate was like there. Nothing seemed to be working out, so I finally gave up and heading home to D.C
Antietam National Battlefield was the sight of the bloodiest day in American History and one of the best known battle of the American Civil War. Along Antietam Creek just north of the tiny town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, 100,000 soldiers marched into battle on September 17th, 1862. By the end of that day almost 23,000 were dead, wounded or missing.
After a Confederate victory at the 2nd Manassas/Bull Run, General Robert E. Lee pushed into the North for the first time. The Virginia countryside had been ravaged during the first year of the war, and Lee wanted to give it time to heal, plus a decisive victory in the North might bring President Lincoln to the negotiating table.
On September 15th, 1862, Lee crossed the Potomac River into Maryland and dug in along the high ground west of Antietam Creek. Union forces under Commanding General George McClellan moved in from the east. At dawn on September 17th, the battle began…
The photos below come from a cloudy visit to Antietam National Battlefield, the site of the bloodiest day in the American Civil War. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories.
Hello everyone! 10 weeks later and I’m still here in Washington and with no end in sight I’m trying to make the most of it. It’s been another tough week across the country, and here in our Nation’s Capital, and I don’t want to downplay the significance of what’s going on so that’s where I’ll start this week. The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis saddens me greatly. If you are a regular listener of my podcast, you know that I don’t shy away from talking about racism in America and some of the horrible incidents which have occurred in our country’s history. Racism and violence towards minorities is not something which ended with the Civil War or the Civil Rights Act and it’s something which is an everyday reality for many of our fellow Americans. I try and keep politics and controversy to a minimum in this space, but there should be no controversy in this. A man was killed for no good reason and when that happens the person who did the killing needs to face the harshest of consequences. In this case, all the good cops should be leading the charge as what happened was a disgrace to the badges they wear.
Beyond that, I don’t know the answers. I wish I did. It’s been hard to watch the vandalism going on in my city and in my neighborhood. I wish that it hadn’t come to that, but I’ve been watching backlash for years over peaceful protests and sadly this seems to be what it takes to peoples’ attention. I’m trying to keep my ears open right now and really listen to what my black friends are saying. Their reality is different from mine and I acknowledge that and I am listening. I think the thing which affected me most was a tweet by Seth Green which said “Black people are literally saying ‘stop killing us’ and there are people saying ‘but…”. A change has got to come. What’s past is past, but there is still hope for the future.
With all of this weighing heavily on my mind, I’ve been trying to stay productive this week. I’ve been getting some photos edited and published and some writing done as well. I’m also making some headway on one of the books I’m writing, although it will undoubtedly take longer than I anticipated.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this series I’ve chosen one picture per post which brings out strong memories for me and has a story attached to it. This picture is a homework assignment given the Friday before Katrina hit New Orleans.
It makes me want to scream and cry at the same time.
I had wanted to go to New Orleans for a long time, but it always seemed so far away. I knew that New Orleans and I would be friends before I ever stepped foot in Jackson Square. Gaslights still illuminate the streets and doorways, music fills the sultry air and the smell of red beans cooking on the stove is still a Monday tradition. New Orleans assaults your senses at every turn as there’s always something new to taste, smell, see or listen to. I once heard it said that the mere mention of the words “New Orleans” can bring a smile to the lips of someone who’s never been there. I know it’s true because it was just that way for me. I made it there for the first time in the summer of 2000, my first year on the road guiding tours and went there dozens of times in the ensuing years. I loved it. New Orleans is the most unique city in the country and a big part of the amazing patchwork quilt that is America.
I moved to New Orleans in June of 2007, having accepted a job as an 8th Grade Math and Science Teacher at Francis Gregory Elementary School. I was there as part of the effort to reopen the school district in the wake of Hurricane Katrina which had devastated the city and shuttered most of its schools for 2 years. New Orleans had had one of the lowest performing public school systems in the country before the storm, and Katrina had made it exponentially worse. Most students had been behind already and then lost two years to the storm. I was teaching 8th Grade, but most of my students were 15 or 16 and most were functioning at a 3rd grade level in math. They could add and maybe subtract, but multiplication and division were a problem much less the algebra and geometry they were supposed to know. 8th Grade is a “high stakes” year, meaning if they didn’t pass their state testing, they wouldn’t go to High School. We expect the best teachers in this country to raise their students one grade level in a year. I was expected to raise them five grade levels, and that was only the beginning of the challenges I would face there.
On July 21st, 1861 the first major battle of the American Civil War took place near the town of Manassas, Virginia and just west of a meandering creek called Bull Run. The battle was supposed to be a quick and decisive one, and many congressmen and socialites rode out from Washington with picnic baskets to watch it unfold. 10 hours after the battle began, 900 young men lay dead on the battlefield and the bloodiest war in American history began in earnest. This first Battle of Bull Run at Manassas was also where General Thomas J. Jackson earned his nickname as General Barnard Bee commented to his men “There stands Jackson like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians”. By the end of the day, the Southerners had sent the Federals running back to Washington and won a major victory for the Confederacy.
Just over a year later, the two armies clashed once again near this critical rail junction just 25 miles from Washington D.C. For three days in August, the Battle of Second Bull Run at Manassas raged violently across the landscape. When the smoke cleared, 3,300 soldiers lay dead and the South once again claimed victory. General Robert E. Lee, now in charge of the South’s Army of the Potomac, knew that their breadbasket in Northern Virginia was running low, so he pushed the war across the Potomac River and into the North for the first time. The tides would turn at the battle of Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland. To learn about this next chapter in the war, check back for my next installment of the Civil War Chronicles, coming soon.
The photos below come from a cloudy visit to the Manassas National Battlefield, the site of two important battles from the American Civil War. Civil War
