Trains

For some unknown reason, last night my day dreaming turned to trains. First I recalled when I had taken trains. My initial experience would have been from Bristol to Philadelphia. At first with a parent, later alone. In the 1970s I traveled from Yardley to Philadelphia, usually got off at Penn station, sometimes Suburban or 30th Street depending where I was going. Some of these trips were shopping, museums, restaurants, or just explores. For more than a month in the 1980s I took an early morning train to my Local History program at the University of Pennsylvania. I sometimes got off at Center City and photographed my way to classes at Penn. When I retired in 2014 I began to take the train for what I labeled ”urban explores.” Sometimes I had a specific museum exhibit on my list but usually it was more serendipity. Follow a whim, return to a place I liked or discover a new corner of the city; have a nice sit down lunch at City Tavern, Old City or Chinatown. I should try to do these explores again.

I believe my first train trip to NYC was alone in 1964 (twice) to attend the World’s in Flushing. I had an Aunt and Uncle that lived there so after the train to NYC I took a subway to downtown Flushing. They would drive me to the fair grounds the next several days. I was a junior in high school. Interestingly my daughter Jenny made her first trip to NYC with a friend by train in her junior year. They headed to the Village where the friend’s aunt lived. Then shopping in Soho. Jenny decided to walk back to Penn station to save money. Amazing. Diane and I often drove to NYC, 2 hours, parked for 20$ a day. Later we took the train from Trenton but discovered Hamilton where parking was easy.

Occasionally I took a train from Boston to New Haven or NYC when visiting Diane in Carmel, NY. Diane would pick me up in New Haven or I would hitchhike to her home. Actually many times I just hitchhiked from Boston. If I went to NYC I could take the commuter line to Croton Falls where her father worked.

Several times I took a train from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. It must have been after my cousin moved to D.C. because I don’t remember any hotel stays and I don’t think they were day trips. The only New England train trip I recall was from New London to Trenton after sailing to New London on the Gazelle out of Philadelphia.

Probably my most interesting train trip was an overnight Diane and I took from Edinburgh to London. We got a small sleeping compartment, left about nine and arrived in early morning. Other European train trips were in Germany when I was chaperoning high school students. We traveled from Achen where we were staying to Berlin or Munich. I don’t recall any other European train trips with Diane, we always rented a car.

We’ve taken several tourist trains. Several times aboard the New Hope Ivyland. Once it was the Christmas special with Eli. And he then led us to Strasburg to ride Thomas the Train. Somehow we followed that up with a Thomas show in some large arena? The local New Hope ride was more appealing to me. Another local ride is the NJ River Line from Trenton to Camden. We took it once with another couple to go to the Fourth of July fireworks along the river between Philadelphia and Camden. Always meant to use it again but haven’t yet.

Trains feature in a lot of popular culture and there are committed train enthusiasts. My experience is limited. I loved the children’s book ”The Little Engine That Could” by Watty Piper. ”I think I can. I think I can. I think I can” I bought a copy in 2007, I suspect for grandson Eli. As an adult I was extremely fascinated by “Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene,” (1983) by John R Stilgo. Amazon describes it as:

”Pathbreaking examination of the impact of railroads on American culture and the built environment. Prof. Stilgoe focuses on how the railroads created metropolitan corridors that not only shaped the landscape but also American attitudes towards industrial might, exploration of the countryside and Nature, and the possibility of an ordered and beautiful future. Illustrated throughout with black and white photos as well as drawings.”

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I was intrigued with the idea of the railroad corridor shaping the landscape. I remember a trip I took to a switching tower in Morrisville where a friend of my father’s worked. Years later I went to the Morrisville yard to photograph; and made several trips around the Yardley station with abandoned structures from the coal age. I totally enjoyed exploring the High Line Park in NYC and the hign line in Philadelphia before it became a park (for two years Jenny and Rob lived along it.

“The Great Train Robbery” (1903) is the only film I’ve watched that immediately comes to mind. A train does feature prominently in Richard Linkleter’s 1995 romance ”Before Sunrise.” I don’t remember much about ”The Polar Express.” Of course there is the train to Hogwarts leaving from track 9 3/4. I’m going to try to read and watch ”Murder on the Orient Express.” I always been taken by the train stations and train rides taken by Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Trains: Christmas. My first model train set was a Lionel. I only had a simple oval track and basic set of trains. Somehow they were taken by my cousin Bill who was creating a more sophisticated layout. I started to buy HO scale. Each Christmas I set up a layout and added plastic buildings, trees, new track, had several engines and a variety of cars. It was always a pretty basic, amateur setup. In contrast my Aunt Carol (Flushing, World’s Fair aunt) had a real professional layout. She even photographed it and had articles published in model train magazines. I should write one of her sons to see if he has copies of the articles.

Thats about all my train memories but swimming in my mind:

Trains and boats and planes are passing by
They mean a trip to Paris or Rome
To someone else but not for me
The trains and boats and planes
Took you away, away from me

Maybe tonight I’ll daydream about planes or boats!

Multiculturalism

In 1998 Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr. wrote a revised and enlarged edition of his 1991 ”The Disuniting of America: reflections on a Multicultural Society.” It’s an interesting read today, especially with all the discussion about Critical Race Theory. I’ve written about CRT, see my recent blogs, ”Teaching History” (https://vprofy.wordpress.com/2022/01/17/teaching-history/) and “Inherit the Wind” (https://vprofy.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/inherit-the-wind/). “Maybe we still need to teach African American History” (https://vprofy.wordpress.com/2015/07/06/african-american-history/) from 2015 still relates.

Schlesinger is known as a liberal historian. I recall his name from his role as historian advisor to John F Kennedy. He thesis in ” Disuniting America” is a caution about maintaining the “Unum” with ”E Pluribus.” In the 1980s, multiculturalism, cultural pluralism, ethnic education, bilingual education were educational buzz words. Schlesinger warns that they were sometimes pushed to extremes. He cites Afrocentrism which sometimes replaced a much needed inclusion of the history of African Americans as part of American History. Afrocentrists pushed the envelope according to Schlesinger, African American history became African heritage. Schlesinger’s concern is that this presumed ”heritage,” any extreme ethnocentrism, damages our unity as a nation. Although he supports ethnic and racial pride, he also supports the “melting pot,” the mix of nationalities, races and religions coming together to create Americans. I hear, understand and sympathize with Schlesinger’s concerns but also have believed in the validity, even importance, of an ethnic identity, particularly for those non European Whites — Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics.

Schlesinger does not mention ”Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City (1970) by Nathan Glazer and Daniel P Moynihan. They write about the persistence and maintenance of ethnicity in NYC instead of the melting. I recognized their findings but always felt as generations passed there was a ”American ”melting pot.” While reading “ The Disuniting of America,” I remembered Beverly Daniel Tatum’s 2017 “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” 
She argued that Blacks and other groups did sit together for solidarity and identity and that it was positive and necessary. I found her argument compelling.

Although Schlesinger’s analysis is aimed primarily at what I will call radical multiculturalists from the left, he does comment on the monoculturalism from the radical right that glorifies the dominance of White European history and culture. For them there is no good pluralism. Depending on our point in history, they see Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics as a threat to America. The voice of White Suprematists if anything has gotten stronger since Schlesinger wrote. I wonder what he would have to say about todays Republican Trumpers who spew ”Make America Great Again.” The implication and sometimes direct message is Make American White Again.

As much as I support diversity and multiculturalism, I think Schlesinger’s cautions against any extreme separatism is good advice. The difficulty today is how to find common ground, when economically, socially and politically we are so divided. I’ll admit I have an extremely difficult time understanding and tolerating those that maintain the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, that we can’t trust the federal government, that Democrats are Socialists and that masks and vaccines are suspect. I don’t accept that this is just an opinion, protected by a belief in free speech. Truth must be a part of our unity and our pluralism. Lies and unvalidated conspiracies must be confronted.

Demonstrators attempt to enter the Capitol building during a protest in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021.

Maine letters

Yesterday I finished reading ”Chickens, Gin and a Maine Friendship: the correspondence of E. B. White and Edmund Ware Smith.” We’ve passed White’s house in North Brooklin, ME. It’s on the Blue Hill peninsula, just south of Mount Desert Island.

Our first trip there, about 1972, was a visit to “back to the earth” homesteaders, Helen and Scott Nearing. On the same trip we met their younger neighbor, organic farming pioneer, Eliot Coleman, on his Harborside, Four Seasons Farm. Over twenty-five or thirty yeats later we returned for the Blue Hill Fair. We stayed in a B and B. Jenny, Rob and baby Eli camped on the fairgrounds. Rob’s band the Kwait Brothers were playing Blue Hill. We returned to the Nearings property, now The Good Life Center and spoke briefly to Eliot Coleman still farming.

Another explore that trip was to Buck’s Harbour, an area made famous by children’s writer and Caldecott winner Robert McCloskey in his ”One Morning in Maine.” We recognized the scene immediately from his illustrations. McCloskey also wrote ” Make Way for Ducklings” (Boston Public Gardens), ” Time of Wonder” and ”Blueberries for Sal.” These were among our favorite children’s books, read to Jenny many times.

It was also on this trip that we located E.B. White’s house, scene of ”Charlotte’s Web,” the delightful story of Wilbur the pig and a barn spider named Charlotte. My father was taken with another of White’s children books, ” Stuart Little Unfortunately we didn’t get to go inside. Yankee magazine editor, Mel Allen did get a tour an in a 2017 article wrote:

“Mary enters the room. Within moments she connects the threads of their story with those of the previous owners, E.B. and Katharine White, who bought the farm in 1933 and moved here full-time four years later. Katharine died in 1977, her husband in 1985. “I’m sure you want to do the Charlotte’s Web thing,” Mary says, and quickly ushers me to the barn and sheds that once housed the Whites’ hay, sheep, geese, chickens, pigs and (of course) spiders, and probably a rat or two. The barn itself also provided the setting for one of the most beloved children’s books of all time.

The interior of the barn, looking out to the fields. Hanging in the doorway is the rope swing made famous in E.B. White’s 1952 children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web. Mark Fleming

We walk from room to room in what is possibly the most impressive and well-kept barn I have ever seen. There is that rope swing, immortalized in Charlotte’s Web as the one from which Fern and her brother launched themselves from the loft. Here’s where Wilbur’s trough would have been, Mary says, and “right here”—she points—“is the hole where I tell children Templeton the rat would scurry back and forth.” Light pours into the barn from massive windows the Gallants found in a salvage yard. “We think we have changed the barn for the best,” she says. Many of the improvements, she notes, had to do with “opening rooms up to more light.”

Every spring, Mary would arrive to open the house and ready the gardens for planting. For many years, in mid-June, a teacher from a school 90 miles away would bring her class to visit. “They sit on hay bales in the barn,” Mary says, “and we play the recording of Mr. White reading Charlotte’s Web. They swing on the same rope swing that they knew Fern had; they sit on the milking stool where Fern had sat. I wanted them to grow up remembering this day. I hoped one day they’d want to find Mr. White’s other writings.””

I had never heard of Edmund Ware Smith. He and his wife lived in Damariscotta, Maine, south of E.B. White. He was editorial director for the ”Ford Times” and wrote for other magazines. Smitty and Whitey made good correspondents. The letters span 1956 to 1967. They are chatty, humorous, personal. Both men in their 60s complain about sickness and aging. Both like a drink, especially gin. Both are fond of nature, fishing and are birders. Many letters are devoted to discussion of chickens. E.B. has a hen house; Smitty is constructing one. Eggs and meat. They discuss writing; commenting and reviewing each others work. There is some travel, to NYC. E.B. spends part of the year in Florida. It is delightful reading.

It is fascinating in this age of FaceTime, email, and texting to read written or typed post office mailed letters. Have we lost something? I’ll probably read other articles, books by them. I already ordered gin martini fixings from Philadelphia distillery. I think we’ve passed the hen house stage of chickens. But maybe we’ll get back to the fair.

Inherit the Wind

Last night I watched Stanley Kramer’s 1960 film, ”Inherit the Wind.” It’s a powerful film with a great cast. Spencer Tracy as Henry Drummond (Clarence Darrow in the real 1925 trial); Fredric March as Matthew Brady (William Jennings Bryan); Dick York as Bertram Cates (Thomas Scopes); Harry Morgan as the judge; Gene Kelly as a newspaperman and Claude Akins as the minister. The storyline is quite simple, a young Tennessee science teacher, Thomas Scopes is accused of teaching Darwin’s evolution in violation of Tennessee law. Enter national figures, Clarence Darrow as the defense attorney and William Jennings Brian for the prosecution. See the summary from the History Channel below.

It’s been almost 100 years since the real trial and in many respects we are still arguing the case. In school board meetings across the country there are screams about the teaching of Critical Race Theory; there are still book banning in schools. Anti-science sentiment is spreading. See my recent blog on ”Teaching History.”

July 10, 1925

Scopes Monkey Trial begins

In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to “teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” With local businessman George Rappleyea, Scopes had conspired to get charged with this violation, and after his arrest the pair enlisted the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to organize a defense. Hearing of this coordinated attack on Christian fundamentalism, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate and a fundamentalist hero, volunteered to assist the prosecution. Soon after, the great attorney Clarence Darrow agreed to join the ACLU in the defense, and the stage was set for one of the most famous trials in U.S. history.

WATCH: Rare Footage of the Scopes Monkey Trial 

On July 10, the Monkey Trial got underway, and within a few days hordes of spectators and reporters had descended on Dayton as preachers set up revival tents along the city’s main street to keep the faithful stirred up. Inside the Rhea County Courthouse, the defense suffered early setbacks when Judge John Raulston ruled against their attempt to prove the law unconstitutional and then refused to end his practice of opening each day’s proceeding with prayer.

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Outside, Dayton took on a carnival-like atmosphere as an exhibit featuring two chimpanzees and a supposed “missing link” opened in town, and vendors sold Bibles, toy monkeys, hot dogs, and lemonade. The missing link was in fact Jo Viens of Burlington, Vermont, a 51-year-old man who was of short stature and possessed a receding forehead and a protruding jaw. One of the chimpanzees—named Joe Mendi—wore a plaid suit, a brown fedora, and white spats, and entertained Dayton’s citizens by monkeying around on the courthouse lawn.

In the courtroom, Judge Raulston destroyed the defense’s strategy by ruling that expert scientific testimony on evolution was inadmissible–on the grounds that it was Scopes who was on trial, not the law he had violated. The next day, Raulston ordered the trial moved to the courthouse lawn, fearing that the weight of the crowd inside was in danger of collapsing the floor.

In front of several thousand spectators in the open air, Darrow changed his tactics and as his sole witness called Bryan in an attempt to discredit his literal interpretation of the Bible. In a searching examination, Bryan was subjected to severe ridicule and forced to make ignorant and contradictory statements to the amusement of the crowd. On July 21, in his closing speech, Darrow asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty in order that the case might be appealed. Under Tennessee law, Bryan was thereby denied the opportunity to deliver the closing speech he had been preparing for weeks. After eight minutes of deliberation, the jury returned with a guilty verdict, and Raulston ordered Scopes to pay a fine of $100, the minimum the law allowed. Although Bryan had won the case, he had been publicly humiliated and his fundamentalist beliefs had been disgraced. Five days later, on July 26, he lay down for a Sunday afternoon nap and never woke up.

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In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the Monkey Trial verdict on a technicality but left the constitutional issues unresolved until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar Arkansas law on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.