I love the story about your inept science teacher.
How many teachers have I known like this shaky man!
One reason I retired after 37 years is that I wanted to leave on my terms and at the top of my game.
I have observed too many teachers and professors staying past their prime when passions had waned, energy slowed, and thinking dimmed.
The result: wasted time for students, boring lessons, money wasted, respect diminished.
This thought from “Carolina Homespun” in the blog’s “Contributing Writers” section.
Today is Friday, June 1, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my fifty-fourth consecutive daily posting.
It’s 6.20am
A lovely day ahead.
On TV: “A Night at the Opera.”
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is a simple, delicious grilled dry-aged siloin. Yumm!
Readers’ Comments
That opening wow very humorous. But as you truly think about it, in this superficial world that would never occur, that’s why they invented back scratchers.
Wesley F
Website Tweaks
The new ‘Recipe’ page is so much easier to navigate.
Today’s Post: Grant prepares to confront Gen. Lee.
Congress passed a bill creating the position of Lieutenant General of the entire army, the head man in charge, and President Lincoln, long a fan of the General, appointed Grant to the position.
(Of course, waiting for assurance that Grant wasn’t planning on running against him in the upcoming elections, as is Gen. McClellan, former head of the Army of the Potomac.)
How does the newly-appointed Lieutenant General of the US Army begin his campaign to defeat the experienced and legendary Gen. Bobby Lee and his Army of Virginia?
Grant hadn’t the slightest doubt that he would win the war, especially after victories in the battles of Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. In fact, he had been thinking of a different way of waging the war against secession and sharing his ideas with those above him as well as his brain trust in his Army of the Tennessee.
In Washington to attend the ceremonies surrounding Grant’s appointment, Grant met with Gen. Meade and assured Meade that despite a strong lobby campaigning against Meade’s continuing as head of the Army of the Potomac, Grant was not going to replace him. Meade assured Grant that he agreed totally with Grant’s ideas and promised his unstinting obedience.
Grant shared with Meade his grand strategy, his superordinate or profound decision as we say in the Existential Catechism.
That strategy is to conduct the war as one army, attacking the Confederates wherever they are, making it impossible for units from one army to split off to reinforce another army under attack and needing help.
And a consequence of the need for the corps to attack, all available men must be brought to the front. Thousands and thousands of troops could be better employed moving from guard duty to the front lines. Or at least to move in the direction of an attack, to force the enemy to commit troops to face the perceived threat.
Grant noted that the South did not possess the manpower or the resources to rebuild their losses. A lot of battles; a lot of losses; an ever-diminishing enemy. The Northern army constantly replenished.
After the ceremonies, Grant, now the Lieutenant General, met with the President.
The first item on the agenda is a meeting of the minds on how to proceed with the war.
Lincoln was delighted to learn of Grant’s commitment to engage.
Lincoln had been pushing that idea for two years prior. No General could be found who agreed.
Beyond that, Lincoln disavowed any interest in strategy.
In fact, Lincoln advised Grant not to speak a word of his plans to him, because he, Lincoln, was not good at keeping secrets.
Then Lincoln mused about a strategy he developed himself.
Grant listened politely, and Lincoln’s ideas die aborning.
Nor, to the President’s great relief, does Grant ever discuss strategy with him.
Grant then returns to Nashville to meet with his southern brain trust, Sherman, McPherson, Logan, Rawlins, and the newest, Phil Sheridan.
The time this crew spent together was familiar but, as always, attentive to business.
Of course, Grant laid out his ideas to this army as he did to Meade.
Everyone was on board.
Grant informed the officers he would execute his duties as Lieutenant General in the East, with Meade’s Army of the Potomac.
Sherman would be at the head of the Army of the Tennessee, and Grant would take several of the officers with him.
Sherman so objected that Grant agreed to take only Phil Sheridan.
Grant moves to Culpepper, VA to be close to the Army of the Potomac.
He spends a lot of his time again and again explaining his grand strategy to his officers.
He distributes a map showing the positions and the objectives of every element of every Army of the North. Officers study it. Ask questions. Get clarifications.
Grant spends a lot of time removing some poor performing officers and promoting others.
As an example, he combines Army Corps that were undermanned, reducing the Corps number from five to three, and opening up the reassignments of Generals Sykes and Newton, the least competent in the group.
He appoints Phil Sheridan as head of the Cavalry and deals with that political fallout.
He spends a lot of time forcing manpower reassignments to reduce the wasteful use of soldiers.
He spends a lot of time on logistics, dealing with various departments that each had a hand in supplying the army on the march.
He assures the President that if he fails, he, Grant, will take the full responsibility.
Not everything goes well.
Gen Banks’ poor planning makes it impossible for him to join his army with Sherman’s in the attack.
A serious blow to Grant’s plans.
Banks being a personal friend, Lincoln will not permit his firing.
Grant makes adjustments, including the merging of Banks’ army and his elimination as head.
Men and equipment move into place, the winter passes, and May 3 approaches.
Launch day.
Post Scripts
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God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
dom
____________________________________
And the dog said, “Woof!”
Baby Kat’s eyes, nine months old those eyes, the same height as the dog’s eyes, Kat being in her stroller, her eyes enlarged with excitement.
She twisted her neck, asking me with her eyes, “What just happened?”
She not speaking yet, but reaching.
We were walking in the Public Garden.
At this moment stopped.
When the friendly, twenty-pound dog strolled over and said, “Woof!”
I walked to the front of the stroller and one-knee knelt.
“Daddy and baby Kat were walking and the dog came over.
“And the dog said, “Woof!”
She smiled.
She understood.
Her first story from a boundless trove of treasured stories.
I repeated the story.
Again and again in the park,
And when we got home, again and again,
And of course when I put her to bed,
Again and again.
Bedtime, now become story time.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Next day, back to the Public Garden, to double our repertoire of stories I knew she’d understand.
We started with a story review.
With the first dog that we saw.
Me kneeling in front of the stroller, eyes level with hers.
“And the dog said…”
Even if in fact this uncooperative canine said nothing.
She understood.
Of course.
After 122 repetitions.
What next?
Public Garden? Mallards.
Who doesn’t know that.
But the proud mallards not willing to quack on cue.
So I took the plunge.
I walked to the front of the stroller and one-knee knelt, pointing to the duck,
“Daddy and baby Kat were walking, and the duck came over.”
She looing from me to the duck and back.
“And the duck said, “Quack, quack!”
She looked at the duck and, miraculously, and parents do need the occasional miracle, off in the distance a mallard quacked.
“See, sweetheart. The duck says ‘quack.’”
She smiled.
She put three fingers in her mouth, stretched her cheek, and smiled.
She understood.
She looked at me.
For an encore.
For several encores.
And at bedtime, two stories.
Easy enough to add a new story every day.
With encores.
And not long before the stories gained complexities she could follow.
Later, at three-years-old, in her first pre-school, many a mother asked me how my daughter got so verbal.
“Woof!” my answer.
Today is Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my fifty-second consecutive daily posting.
It is 4.07am. Once in a while, I just can’t sleep. Tonight because I defied my body when it indicated I should get to sleep. I had obligations to pick up my daughter after her night shift as a waitress. Near 1.00am when I closed my eyes. At 3.00am I took another melatonin to see what I already knew. For me, melatonin is an aid when I am in harmony with my body’s wishes. It is not a prescription drug that violates the natural cadence.
So I’ve learned that if I am still restless @ 3.30am, I should get up. I can salvage most of my working day. I have my coffee with half a jelly donut and come to my desk.
Haven’t checked the weather. Look out the window. The nasty me speaking.
On TV: “No Time for Sergeants,” launching Andy Griffith to stardom.
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is leftover Chicken w Artichokes and Shallots.
Maybe. Feeling contrary. Thinking of my Double Chicken Broth with Ramen and Asian Chicken-Toss-with Leeks. Or a broiled steak. Charred rare.
Readers’ Comments
From Marc O, outing me:
Hi Dom,
Just got back from R.I.
Quick question: Where are you getting these movies? I’ve checked TCM’s listing and they aren’t show when you are posting. Are you watching another network, or are they taped.
By the way, I agree with you re: Marlene Dietrich. She was amazing in Blue Angel.
M.
Dom:
So Marc has discovered that I do not pay a lot of attention to the TCM movie timetable.
I don’t.
I keep a list of the movies I’ve seen and add in whichever is on top of the list.
Whether or not it’s actually on at the particular moment I am writing the blog.
Not important to me.
Oh, well.
Website Tweaks
Today is training day. Will work to organize the Recipe page in a continuing effort to slowly but steadily make the blog attractive.
Today’s Post, a chapter from my "Conflicted" saga
Dee has been asked by the police to help save an officer clearly possessed.
Dee as exorcist
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
9.00am, Saturday, 4 February, 2017
Despite the lack of a drum roll, the opening elevator doors presented a suck-in-your-breath tableau of four sixteen-year-old girls whose collective youth, beauty, and composure stunned not only the four-abreast, double-rank of police waiting by the elevator, but also the crowd of friends and skeptics gathered for the show. The girls, in sneakers, jeans, and tank tops, holding hands by their knees, stayed in place staring out at their audience as suited their personalities.
The presentation continued for a slow three-count ending with Laini stepping off the elevator into the small space between the two groups, declaring, “Good morning. I’m Laini.” She paused. “We’re here to help,” extending her hand in space.
One of the uniforms stepped forward and shook with her. “I’m Arthur Griffin, the union rep. We’re here to help you. Whatever you need. Because whatever you do for Officer Messer you do for every one of us.”
“May my friends step out?” her exaggerated innocence engendering an anxiety-releasing laugh that rippled through the blue ranks and put everyone at ease. The policemen stepped back as a unit into the assemblage pressing at the rear, unbalancing those closest, ignoring the outrage. Lori-Baby and Stella stepped out first, Sgt. Jesse, Lt. Sam, and Dr. Mike following them, a shield for Dee to step behind. Not so fast.
Laini, “So. Meet my girlfriends, Stella and Lori-Baby.” The two girls nodded. “Girls, Officer Arthur Griffin.” The girls shook hands without speaking.
Laini to Griffin again, “I believe you already know Doctor Mike, Lt. Sam, and Sgt. Jesse.” Collegial greetings rippled all around, encompassing the policemen at the elevator and many of the officers at their desks.
Laini, “And, still in the elevator is our dear Dee,” she inscrutable as she waved and stepped forward.
Given the build-up of Laini’s staging, the introduction electrified Griffin who, without invitation, stepped towards Dee, not seeing Laini step forward until she collided into him. Nor did he see Stella before she hooked his arm and spun him ninety degrees; nor Lori-Baby, who pushed him back into the body of the stunned police guard.
Griffin took a deep breath and raised his arms and hands to protect his head. “Sorry. I understand. Made a mistake. Sorry.”
Stella, looking first to Dee, asked Lt. Sam, “Now what happens? What’s the protocol?” Dee, Stella, and Laini stepped beside Lt. Sam to listen to the answer.
Lt. Sam, addressing Dee, “Messer’s in that room,” she following the line of Sam’s finger across the thirty-by-sixty-foot open office area holding two dozen police-occupied desks around which milled the thirty officials and officious intermeddlers, unwelcomed, trying to get comfortable, the police either ignoring them or shooing them from resting derrieres on their desks.
The room to which Lt. Sam directed Dee one of three side-by-sides, each having a four-by-eight bullet-proof window, the only one with its twelve-foot fluorescent ceiling fixture turned on. Inside, two guards respectfully maneuvered an orange-clad, handcuffed, quiescent prisoner to a seat in the center of the long side of an eight-by-three-foot table. Stella stepped close beside Laini.
“We can adjust the audio so that those outside can hear and see in. Or we can make it so that no sound goes either in or out.”
Stella bent into Laini’s ear, she answering. “They can look in; but no sound, in or out.” Stella bent into Laini’s ear. “And we won’t need the guards or cuffs.”
Lt. Sam to Officer Griffin, “Would you arrange that now?” Griffin spoke to the other policemen and one of them quickly broke off from the others to accommodate Dee.
Lori-Baby stepped close behind Dee and whispered, “Did you know Sister Mary Margaret would be here?”
Dee wrinkled her face. “She is? Weird! Get her over to say ‘Hello.’”
Towing a friend dressed in Franciscan browns, the pair escorted by two policemen, Sister Mary Margaret got through the press to Dee. “Sister Meg, this is a surprise.”
“I came officially, as an aide to the bishop. The Church wants its eyes on this. I’ve told him…”
Dee nodded and touched the nun’s cheek. “Okay, Sister. Good to see you. Sgt. Jesse, would you find a good spot for them? Sister, we’ll talk later,” Dee turning away, looking across the open space to the conference room where the unshackled prisoner rubbed his wrists.
“Doesn’t she want to meet the bishop? He’s such a fine and humble man,” Sister Mary Margaret saying to Sgt. Jesse as she swept the pair towards the viewing window.
Dee looked at Laini and nodded. Laini turned to Lt. Sam. “We’re ready.”
Lt. Sam faced the police guards and raised his hands for attention. “Hey, guys! Listen up! We’re going to move the girls to interrogation. Half dozen of us in front to clear a path; a couple behind so we’re not crowded.”
Officer Griffin leading, the parade pushed through the room shoving desks and bodies aside, stopping just outside the interrogation room – a disturbance at the rear of the ranks drawing their attention. “Mrs. Messer,” Sgt. Jesse whispered to Dee, “The wife.” A police-complicit path permitted the intruding woman, hidden inside a babushka, sunglasses, and turned-up trench-coat collar, wearing gloves and boots, and carrying a large pocketbook, to get to Lt. Sam, she saying, “Who are these teenagers to come here to gawk at my husband? This isn’t Saturday Matinee.”
The circle of girlfriends tightened around Dee but she stepped through the girls’ perimeter to Ms. Messer, extending her hand, “I’m Dee Mirabile, Mrs. Messer. I’ve come here with my friends at the request of Doctor Mike, Lt. Sam, and Sgt. Jesse. They believe that I might be able to help your husband.”
Joyce Messer ignored Dee’s hand, “Well, that’s nice. But why do you think you can help him when no one else can?” a flicker of hope colored and softened Mrs. Messer’s pale, drawn face.
“I’ve had successes in several instances like this. But to be successful, I need the prayers of everyone concerned for your husband’s well-being. Especially yours. Can I count on it?” her hand still extended.
"Are you an exorcist?”
“Is your husband possessed?”
Pausing, “How would I know that?”
“That’s what I believe I can discover. I’d like to try. May I?”
Mrs. Messer took Dee’s hand into hers, bringing it to her chest and squeezing it, stepping close to Dee and kissing her cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I want to believe. “Please help him, if you can – he’s a good husband and a good father.
“Who you see in there? That isn’t him. Something is terribly wrong.”
The two pairs of hand enfolded, Dee led Joyce Messer next to the viewing window saying softly, “Stay here and watch; pray.” She turned and beckoned, saying to Mrs. Messer when they got to her, “Sgt. Jesse and Doctor Mike will stay by you.” Jesse stepped up and took Joyce’s hand, nodding encouragement, putting her arm around Mrs. Messer’s shoulder, she resting her head and half-shielding her face on Sgt. Jesse’s shoulder. Doctor Mike stood on Mrs. Messer’s other side.
The guards had vacated the interrogation room before Dee, the last of the group to pass through the door that Griffin held open, stepped in, feeling not only the supportive, prayerful eyes of the police but also the Missouri-eyes of the hostiles as strong, challenging fingers pushing into her shoulders, “Go ahead. Show us.” Inside, blessedly more peaceful than the crowded office area, Dee sat on the only other chair in the room, directly across the table from the prisoner. Lt. Sam stood leaning back against the wall behind Messer while the free-standing girlfriends formed a tight semi-circle around Dee, one on each side, Laini behind the chair.
“Good morning, Officer Messer. My name is ‘Dee’ and I’m going to see what’s troubling you.” Dee’s psyche jumped into Messer’s head, while, absent a control center, her body collapsed. Lori-Baby and Stella, on either side, supported her while methodically arranging Dee’s arms securely on the table and shifting her body-weight forward, pillowing her head onto the crook of her elbows. When they stood up, they butted against her and waited.
Dee’s invasion an electric jolt and Messer bolted upright like his puppeteer had picked up the hand control and yanked his strings. He raised his contorted face to the ceiling, slammed his palms to his temples, and cried out. In slow motion he slipped from the chair and laid still on the floor in a fetal position, whimpering. Laini’s angry expression, her movement to the end of the table, and her threatening palms-up quelled Lt. Sam’s impulse to rush to help the fallen Messer.
First moment in the enclosed expanse of Messer’s mind Dee came upon a cavorting demon, a two-dimensional white shadow of a long, thin ballet dancer, the dancer, defying gravity, freezing in mid-step at Dee’s appearance.
“Who gave you permission to be here?” Dee immediately interrupting herself, “Actually, shut up. Don’t answer; don’t speak a word,” pointing a finger at the cowering shadow, like sitting a dog, freezing him in place while she rummaged through the jumble of thought-threads in Messer’s head, finding the one she wanted and following it.
His immediate family might number fourteen today except that years before his own birth three siblings had died in infancy. While Messer still very young, he not only lost an older brother, shot dead during a traffic altercation, but also a four-year-old sister, dead from a rat-bite induced rabies. Leaving a family of eight, counting Larry himself.
The living included his oldest brother – a school bus driver until his conviction on four counts of child molestation. He served six years before his release; recently rearrested on similar charges and returned to jail where he resides today and will for the foreseeable future. Two older sisters, two years apart, each gave birth before age eighteen, neither married, both now living with their mother, adding two to the family-count; earning money in a variety of ad hoc enterprises ranging from shady to mayhem. No fathers to be found by this time, not even Larry’s own who, after twenty-six years of marriage, went out for a drink and disappeared, along with the paycheck. His two younger brothers, roommates, both city workers in garages owned by the Department of Public Works, earned extra money by feeding desirable information to car thieves – for a fee. His mother, a Miniver Cheevy clone, sat in the dingy apartment kitchen most of the time, with a fifth of Four Roses and giant imperial-sized bottle of ginger ale, prepared to match anyone’s lamentation with two of her own, and a shot, waiting for her monthly disability check. Government scams, fabricated litigation, thievery, whoring, and hot stuff, all threads of the family cloth.
Excluding Larry Messer – he observant, quiet, confident but not aggressive, aloof from the clamorous goings on in his family’s personal underworld. Not a miscreant, Larry Messer; not he, the nun’s favorite at the parochial grammar school he’d attended tuition-free, they virtually abducting him, filling his time with extra reading, tutoring, and work around the church, including a four-year stint as an altar boy. Academically inclined, he earned a full scholarship to the Catholic Matignon High School, followed by another free ride to Boston College, assuring himself a superior education. After graduation, he entered the police academy, fulfilling a childhood dream. His mission: to protect John Q. from his family and others like them. Larry Messer not a miscreant – one of the good guys, he, studying hard to ace the sergeant’s exam. Until the incident.
Her rummaging took little real time, but enough, Sgt. Jesse later recounting to Dee, for Messer’s obvious pain to give cause to Dee’s detractors to stop her intervention, or rather to try – their efforts thwarted by the fervor of the newly-converted Mrs. Joyce Messer, supported by Jesse, Doctor Mike, and the steadfast gang of patrolmen guarding the door to the interrogation room. Even Captain John stood by his sergeant, refusing the mayor’s-office demand that he command her to stand down, although under his breath saying to Sgt. Jesse, ‘I told you, asshole!’ Sgt. Jesse later recounting.
Dee followed the thought-thread that led to Messer’s memory of the night his gun accidentally discharged, the moment of the arrival of the demon.
Officer Messer, driving hard in response to dispatch, his face reflecting the rapid red, blue, and white flashes of the lurid police lights, says to the apparition riding shotgun, “Who are you? How did you get here?”
“I’m here to help,” Dee. Officer Messer gassing the car through Brighton streets, kills the siren, brakes headfirst into a corner curb, throws the car into park, and jumps from the vehicle.
On the sidewalk, a squatting man brandishing a knife, leans forward on the balls of his feet, arms describing a circle in front of him. He twists, turns, and circles a bloody, unmoving body, warding off potential challengers from the small crowd gathered at a safe distance. “My kill,” he growls. A second garishly-lit police car arrives, siren cutting out, doors slamming.
Officer Messer, gun drawn, moves closer to the perp but Lt. Sam takes control, forging ahead of him. Messer takes his cue from Sgt. Jesse, she two steps behind Lt. Sam, flanking slowly to his left, gripping her cocked gun with both hands, poised to repeatedly shoot the perpetrator in the chest if he moves against her partner.
Lt. Sam, both hands in the air, slowly steps towards the lioness protecting her kill, the laughing perp establishing his creds: “I did this;” and louder, “My points,” his bulging, darting eyes underlining the intensity of his disconnect.
“You don’t need that knife, now,” Lt. Sam softly, edging closer, empty palms raised to the disturbed man.
“My kill,” says the perpetrator, “My points. Stay away.”
Dee, still the apparition, from just behind him says softly to Lt. Sam, “Points – what are they? Ask him.”
Another flashing police car brakes to a stop, cutting its siren and disgorging two more police officers who, guns drawn, rush forward. The first, a few steps ahead of her partner, stops abruptly behind Sgt. Jesse, adding her gun to the growing arsenal aiming at the perp, at that moment Lt. Sam saying, “No one wants your points. How do you get points? Who gives…,” and at that moment the rushing, catching-up partner trips forward and collides into Messer whose gun rises a tad and discharges a single bullet dead center into knife-man’s forehead.
Dee returns from Messer’s memory thread and turns to the demon sitting quietly, hoping to be forgotten, Dee destroying that hope: “He wants you out. Did I say, ‘Now?’”
Responding to the demon’s panic to flee his head, Messer muddles first to his hands and knees, and then to his feet, his knees buckling, locking, buckling again, his arms dangling, his head loosely circling his neck, his opened eyes having difficulty focusing, his fingers clawing at the table for support, slipping from it, grabbing at it again – all body parts functioning independently of each other. Messer stumbles backwards against the wall, sliding to the floor banging his ass. His hands carelessly resting on his lap, he looks around in wonderment: Ali Baba’s first visit to the thieves’ den; Alice in Wonderland; who am I; what am I doing here?
Taking the properties of an electrical surge shaped and lit like a comet tail, the demon bursts from Messer’s pores and whooshes twice around the interrogation room before exploding through the thick glass windows, driving ten thousand shards of glass before it. Whizzing through the overcrowded desk area, the demon-energy indiscriminately knocks mayor’s reps, district attorneys, Internal Affairs people, and patrolmen into each other, or the furniture, or onto the floor. Despite the closed elevator doors, the demon-comet tail vanishes into the elevator shaft, leaving a sulphur trace.
Dee, groggy at the return of her psyche, lifts her head like a drunk. Three sets of fingertips caress her. Laini produces a cold bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling water with a straw inside, holding the bottle. Dee takes three sips before resting her head on her arms again, her eyes half-open. Lori-Baby gently wipes the left side of Dee’s face with a damp cloth. Dee raises her face towards her and Lori-Baby completes the job, especially thorough and gentle when wiping the sweat from her eyes. Dee’s head falls back into her arms.
“You okay?” Stella, knowing the answer.
Without moving, “Yeah. Unsteady. Exhausted. Hurting all over.”
“So, normal,” Lori-Baby. Even Dee chuckled.
“Stop. It hurts.” Dee raises her head again looking for the water, taking four more sips, pushing herself back into her chair, looking over her girlfriends, Lt. Sam, Messer on the floor, the broken glass. “I’m good, thanks. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s good,” Stella, displacing Laini behind Dee, pressing firm fingers into Dee’s neck and shoulders.
“Nice,” Dee, resting her head again. “How’s Messer?” Dee’s eyes fully open.
Laini, “Probably time for his wife to tend him. You drove something out. Right now he’s in la-la land.”
“It was a demon. Easy enough.” A pause. “Okay, get her in,” pushing herself to a sit, holding the table’s edge. Laini left to bring in Mrs. Messer and Dee waved Lt. Sam over.
“Did you ever find out about points?” Lt. Sam clueless. Dee with some effort, “The perpetrator, the night of the incident, said, ‘My points.’”
Sam asking, “How…” catching Dee’s eyes flash anger, “Sorry. Points? No; nothing. None of us thought to pursue it.”
Dee nodded saying softly, “Okay. It’s time to go. I’d like to leave here without any speeches: no “Goodbyes,” no questions.”
“Understood. Are we done in here? Did we win?”
Dee, “He was possessed. No longer. He’s himself. I have nothing left to do or learn here; and I want to leave. I need to leave.”
“Thank you, Stella, my dear. Felt great,” taking Stella’s hand, swiveling, and, with Stella’s help, pulling herself to her feet facing away from Messer, her free hand grabbing the table edge.
Lt. Sam walked to the broken window and beckoned Arthur Griffin, “We’re ready to go.”
Joyce Messer stepped into the conference room and Lori-Baby motioned to her husband. Mrs. Messer took two steps towards him, stopped, and turned back to Dee, but she busying herself to exit, didn’t connect. Mrs. Messer continued to her husband, sitting on the floor beside him.
Dee looked out the jagged glass-rimmed opening in the wall: muted comments, movement in slow-motion, hands helping pull the fallen to their feet, a sprinkling of tears, some phone calls, many, many visible cuts, and, covering all, an inch-thick layer of glass shards looking like shattered icicles.
Sgt. Jesse stepped into the interrogation room, nodded after catching Dee’s eye, and left. Dee reached for the closest girlfriends, Stella and Laini, Lori-Baby following, and, as a unit, they stepped out into the office area, grouping behind their guard with Lt. Sam and Dr. Mike.
From his position at the head of the group, Griffin turned saying to Dee, “But don’t you want to say anything to your fans? Everyone’s loves you and is dying to hear what you did and how you did it. Dee, you walk on water…”
Lori-Baby, stepping past the other officers, shoved her hands into Griffin’s shoulders forcing him a step back. “Don’t you ever learn? Lead us out or get out of our way,” stepping forward, shouting into his face, the confrontation interrupted by the emergence of Joyce and Larry Messer.
Holding Joyce’s elbow, he stepped zombielike after her, his appearance without shackles prompting a cheer and a round of applause from everyone in the room. He smiled through his confusion, nodding, waving timidly, a mid-semester transfer student’s first-day introduction to his new home room.
None of the girls prevented Joyce from leaving her husband and approaching Dee, saying, “My dear, you’re leaving without saying goodbye? No. No. Give me just a moment, please,” Dee allowing Joyce to take both of her hands.
“How can we thank you? For what you just did for Larry and for what you did for me and our children, too,” bursting into tears, composing herself, “What did you do? How? Who are you?”
Pulling her hands free, Dee gently touched Joyce’s cheek with her left-hand fingers saying, “It’s done. It’s over, Mrs. Messer. Excuse me, but I really need to rest.”
“Was that a devil that came out of him?” someone from the crowd.
Dee to Joyce, “I don’t think we’ll benefit from trying to analyze what happened here. Take your husband home and love each other.”
“You’re blessed, my dear,” Joyce. “Are you shy? May I kiss you?” leaning into Dee, kissing her cheek. Then she grabbed the teenager and took her into a full embrace, Dee standing erect, holding Joyce’s elbows, Joyce saying, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Stella’s gentle hand on her shoulder told Joyce Messer to walk away; but as she did she repeated to everyone around her, “She’s blessed. She’s blessed.”
“Dee, we must speak with you,” someone from beyond the police guard.
Laini stepped in front of Dee and raised both arms ending the visit, “Another time. Sorry. Need rest.” Dee took arms again and Lori-Baby’s eyes prodded Griffin who shouted, “Heads up, guys. Let’s get them out of here.”
They started for the elevator. “Dee,” another call coming from outside the exiting wedge, that immediately joined by many other calls, all accompanied by more frantic shouts and more frenzied arms raising and hands waving, all ignored.
Still they came, “Dee! Dee!” Part of her wanted to smack them back into themselves. Part of her understanding. But the biggest part of her totally wasted from the ordeal, exhausted to sickness. Dee kept her eyes glued to the floor, fast-walking to keep up with the fast-moving police phalanx, gaining the elevators without incident.
Still the pleas, like the frustrated mayor’s rep who shouted over the crowd, “The mayor proud, thankful. Wants to meet you.” Dee stepped into the elevator which quickly filled with her girlfriends, Lt. Sam, and three of their guard – not Griffin, Lori-Baby’s decision – and waited for the doors to close before turning front. She rested her head on Laini’s shoulder. No one spoke.
One of the officers inserted a key that enabled the elevator to bypass any other floors, taking the crew express to the basement, and from there to the back door where, car running, Sgt. Jesse waited at the wheel to drive the girls to a subdued brunch at the Bristol Lounge, gluttony and plate-sharing the hallmarks of that meal: pancakes, waffles, steak, sausages, and eggs, fried, shirred, and scrambled, fresh orange juice and cortados.
Back in her room at the Spaulding, Dee headed straight to the bathroom, “Changing, then sleeping. Do not disturb. Exhausted.”
“Alright. But we want to see what our poor little rich girl bought,” Lori-Baby.
“Help yourselves,” Dee, and went into the bathroom. Seven minutes later she emerged carrying her clothes, a shower cap on her head and a towel around her body. She took off the shower cap and tossed her jeans and sweater on a chair, making her way through her girlfriends gathered around her bed, passing the loot, making space for Dee. She lay between the sheets, on her back, eyes closed, neither her face nor hair any the worse for the shower. Stella folded the quilt on Dee’s bed and set it on the floor, nodding to Dee’s “Thank you.”
“Dee, everything is beautiful,” Laini, “But this necklace – wow! Wow! Although it would help me a lot more than you,” holding it up for approbation; carefully passing it around.
“Do you think that I thought for a single moment that these things, ‘Mine, mine, mine?’ Except tonight: that choke, that dress: ‘Mine! Mine! Mine!’”
“Yes!” shouted Lori-Baby, pumping her arm.
“Dibs on our next event,” Stella.
“I hope you got seventy-five percent off these ticket prices,” Lori-Baby.
“I didn’t, alright? Not a nickel. But relax. My dad says the estate actually grew. Don’t ask, okay? No more babbling. Sleeping now.”
Laini lay down beside Dee on top of the sheet.
“Laini, did you notice this bed a single?
“Shhh! I’m tired,” Laini.
“Better not bump my hair or touch my makeover. Lie totally still.” Giggles. Stella and Lori-Baby each pulled a chair over to Dee’s side of the bed, taking off their shoes, slouching, and putting their feet on the bed in firm contact with Dee, the lot falling quiet and still.
While many stories appeared in the local papers regarding an incident at the Area A Police Station on Saturday morning, none had a solid attribution to match Jerry Butler’s, he a full-time student at Boston College Law School who writes occasional, but well-received articles for the Boston Globe under the heading, “Inside the…,” the article of this date entitled “Inside the Boston Police Internal Cleanup.”
After a basic introduction gleaned from first hand observations outside the police station, his article continued, “A source close to the spiritual counselor involved tells this reporter that she was called in to calm a disruptive police officer. She met with the officer and the result was miraculous: she returning him to his former kindly self.
“Coincidentally, at the precise moment of the officer’s liberation from the forces that seemed to control him, an explosion occurred that caused property damage and numerous cuts and bruises among the witnesses sent some of them to the nearby Mass General Hospital for treatment, no injuries resulting in an overnight stay in a hospital.
“Rumor has it that the bishop himself was injured but is alright. What was the Archdiocese doing there? The Church has refused comment on any part of this story.
“All charges pending against the officer, his name withheld, have been dropped and he is reinstated in full. This reporter could glean no further details from the source and urges readers to receive other reportage with a high degree of skepticism. Look to this column for additional accurate details as your reporter pries them loose And be sure he will.”
Not an hour after the article appeared, Jerry Butler got a call from his godfather, praising him for his reporting. “Well done, Jerry.” To which Jerry said simply, “Thanks for your help, Sam.”
Post Scripts
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God bless!
Be good.
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Love you.
____________________________________________
I think the impulse (drive? instinct? disposition? mysterious otherwise inexplicable at present tendency? ... any of these appeal more than others?) some humans have to explain phenomena that otherwise are, in fact, if only for now, inexplicable, especially for those folks in the general human state of profound ignorance of how the universe is – not how it works, or what dark matter is, or quantum physics, and like, uh, WTF is that? – by the existence of what are generally categorized as described only as spiritual in origin. And that require, call it what you will, faith, unquestioning belief, credulity, acceptance, and suspension of curiosity about most things except what certain higher-class minds like to call metaphysics, is the same impulse (DIDM...etc.) that makes the astonishment some feel about what other, OK, I’ll call them cynical, minds deflect from consciousness (largely for reasons of economies of using time productively) by calling them coincidences.
Today is Monday, May 28, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my fifty-first consecutive daily posting.
Time is 6.39am.
A bleak start of a day slowly to improve.
On TV: Bette Davis is “Jezebel.”
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is a Tuna fish Salad sandwich on delicious, crusty Italian baguette. Too many big meals lately. A recipe for the tuna is in the queue.
Today I will combine our Thought for the Day with our Reader’s Comments and Daily post. After today, find the blog entry on Herschel Adams’ page under “Contributing Writers.”
If anyone harbors the thought that reading is boring, permit Herschel Adams to straighten him out.
Here is the entry, from our friend Herschel Adams.
Dom
I think the impulse (drive? instinct? disposition? mysterious otherwise inexplicable at present tendency? ... any of these appeal more than others?) some humans have to explain phenomena that otherwise are, in fact, if only for now, inexplicable, especially for those folks in the general human state of profound ignorance of how the universe is – not how it works, or what dark matter is, or quantum physics, and like, uh, WTF is that? – by the existence of what are generally categorized as described only as spiritual in origin. And that require, call it what you will, faith, unquestioning belief, credulity, acceptance, and suspension of curiosity about most things except what certain higher-class minds like to call metaphysics, is the same impulse (DIDM...etc.) that makes the astonishment some feel about what other, OK, I’ll call them cynical, minds deflect from consciousness (largely for reasons of economies of using time productively) by calling them coincidences.
We allay anxiety that way, which seems, so far, from all evidence, to be an innate susceptibility of the animal known as human. You know, the naked ape. If there’s no apparent explanation, susceptible to that pitiful other condition we are subject to known as sentience and consciousness, well, it must be supernatural, and beyond our immediate apprehension using our so unreliable brains.
The better question for me is, do chimps and orangutans suffer from the affliction of recognizing coincidences? Their lives are seemingly, superficially so much less complicated than ours – for one, no internet, and for two, no so called “smart” devices – there are bound to be that many more of them. I mean coincidences. “Hey! I was just thinking how nice it would be if someone came along and began grooming that place on my back fur, between my shoulders, that I can’t quite reach, and is so freakin’ itchy sometimes, and whoa buddy! The next thing I know, there you are grooming me away... like you were just dying to do that? You know? Like?” Well, who knows? From all evidence, they do experience anxiety, so there’s some hope...
I also wanted, just to bring this back to earth, you remember earth, the planet we all are living on and trying to cope with as the venue that’s so troublesome, though not, it should be emphasized, because of any salient or even any recessive qualities of the planet itself, which would probably go along without us on it altogether (though differently, of course, not that we can suppose, except by imagining it – imagine: a sentient planet... not at all like a smart home – it’s even sensible of our presence, and, more’s the pity, even cares; unless of course, we embrace that Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon you gushed off about, and it makes us feel better positing in an Earth that thinks and feels and cares (above all).
So let’s get real and deal with real problems.
You see, you still have this internet problem, in that certain posts of yours, to which you find occasion to advert, namely posts about gin and tonic and, possibly, apparently, more spiritual matters, perhaps brought about by consumption of controlled amounts of said gin, well, those posts are just not appearing. Not anyplace I can find them.
Oh and one other thing, since we’re talking about the internet. It’s generally still conceded, albeit Donald Trump, alas, is still our president and has been for a year, four months, and about six days, that it’s, well, more civilized, old friend, if we are going to repeat the words, if only merely the express thoughts of someone else, that we provide attribution, or at least a reference to the original source.
I don’t know if this is the original source, but for sure, it sounds a lot like what you said, not verbatim, but close enough about the aforementioned Baader-Meinhof and allegedly related pehnomena: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/
Out-of-the-blue? Fess up. What made you think of it?
Coincidence? [eerie theremin music wells up, or maybe the Twilight Zone theme music...] I don’t think so. Though, I mean, speaking of synchronicity, coincidence, the internet...
What’s more interesting, as long as I’m in that frame of mind (which, let’s face it, is more or less, always... so waddyagot?) is how in the world did it get called Baader-Meinhof, as there’s nothing weird or scientifically inexplicable about that gang of evildoers, and whose exploits (we call them terrorist crimes) kind of raised an immense amount of heck in Germany, starting in 1970 – which you and I can remember, but, well, these up and blooming generations, who think, at best, that Baader-Meinhoff is the name of a band, and have no substantive, in fact not even any insubstantial, evanescent or fleeting, context for understanding history, never mind the concepts of coincidence and statistical probability.
But, just asking.
Herschel
From Dom to Herschel
Re: The genesis of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon-entry.
(Reminder to all: Baader-Meinhof syndrome is a mental phenomenon where one stumbles upon some obscure piece of information—often an unfamiliar word or name—and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly.)
So I’m walking to the Microsoft store at the Prudential Center to keep an appointment for technical support when I encounter a sign including the word ‘pedagogy, the third time I’d seen that word in the last twenty-four hours, ever since I’d looked it up: the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.
I recounted the episode to Tucker, my tech advisor at Microsoft, and he promptly looked it up, identifying the common experience as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
A bit of research on a variety of websites plus my own thoughts produced my Thought for the Day.
Not difficult.
Not brilliant.
But fun.
Post Scripts
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God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
_______________________________________________
Startled awake by the bone-chilling cacophony, she shot erect gripping the edge of the car seat: hundreds of bugs of every shape, size, and color slow-motion creeping and crawling, singing, screaming, and screeching; multi-layered, covering the front and rear windshields and side windows inside and out. More hundreds clambered across the interior car roof, falling, jumping, or pushed onto her hair, face, and shoulders – water scorpions, bed bugs, and other blood-suckers crawling under her shirt, squabbling over territory, stinging, biting, drawing blood, her red-dotted clothes and torn skin evidence of their savagery. From the floor, a solid flow of bugs climbed her legs, the avant garde already past her knees.
Suppressing a wave of nausea, Diana sucked in a breath and screamed, helicoptering her arms and rapid-stamping her feet against the invasion. She pushed open the car door but the seatbelt pulled against her torso and someone standing outside the car yanked the door from her hand.
Demanding her attention, pincers clamped her cheeks hard against her teeth locking her head, while a lilac-waft and a familiar encouraging whisper pierced the insanity, contradicting the insect attack. “Diana, Diana!” Ivy leaning in, nose-to-nose, “They’re gone, my dear. All of them gone,” releasing her grip, backing off.
Frenziedly finger-combing her hair, darting eyes confirming they indeed all gone, every last one of them, Diana looked up at Ivy’s familiar face and calmed, dropping her hands onto the seat by her thighs and slumped back. She took the handkerchief that Ivy offered and wiped the sweat off her face. Clutching the linen in her right hand, she slumped back again and closed her eyes, feeling the winter come through the open door.
“Close it.” Ivy did.
Today is Sunday, May 27, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my fiftieth consecutive daily posting.
It’s 6.13am and not a good day for barbecues and beaches, cloudy to rainy and a mere 55*.
On TV: Greta Garbo is “Queen Christina.”
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is “Chicken with Fresh Artichokes and Shallots,” recipe posted.
Readers’ Comments
I give you Marc on the Gin and Tonic posting:
Personally,
I prefer a lemon twist with my martini. And although there are a lot of good gins out there, to me Beefeaters is the standard. Can’t get more British than that!
M.
Website Tweaks
Structurally I am working on creating a rhythm of postings that are not as random as they’ve been.
Today’s post
An online, intermittent course on Wine Appreciation, pedagogy of the most boring variety. “Wine by the Glass” I’ve decided to call it. We’re talking about the look of the wine. We’ve discussed ‘brilliance,’ now to color. Find the wine tasting notes in Pages, Wine by the Glass.
2 TINT
Color is probably the easiest aspect of a wine’s appearance to discuss because all of us routinely both describe the color of objects and listen to others’ descriptions.
The rankest beginners may often supply exquisitely accurate vocabulary to describe the tints of the wine being examined.
An important difference between discussing brilliance and color is that words defining clarity and brilliance combine the three components of play-of-light: luminescence, transparency, and reflection.
The two components of color must be observed, enjoyed and discussed separately.
Tint, also called “hue,” is the specific graduation or variety of a color. The word “color” is frequently used when “tint” is meant.
Intensity measures the concentration of color pigment in the bottle of wine.
Wines that are deep because of the high concentration of pigment are often mistakenly described as having darker tints than they do.
Saturation is another component of color. It refers to the quality of color, its freedom from gray or white. Since this aspect of color is not a factor in wine tasting, we will not be discussing it.
Tint is synonymous with hue. We use color words to describe a wine’s tint, like ruby, garnet, straw, yellow, purple.
Many factors such as grape type, climate, soil, weather, region, vintage, vineyard, elevation, soil, drainage, and vinification combine to determine a wine’s tint.
Fermentation is the last variable affecting tint.
Once fermentation is over the wine’s tint is fixed.
Barring accidents or mishandling, the wine’s tint changes only as it ages, and very slowly at that.
TINT: PLEASURE AND INFORMATION:
With so many hues to please the eye, it's understandable that tasters take time to work the glass around light sources, delighting in the brilliance and the color tones exposed by the rays.
But besides pleasure, the wine's tint gives us substantial information about both the maturity and health of the wine.
The hues of both red and white wines slide down a continuum of shades as the wines age.
Once the continuum is familiar to a taster, the wine's maturity and health can be gleaned from its appearance.
In general, as red wines age, their tints move in the direction of whites: purple to red to orange to brown to amber.
As white wines age, their tints darken and move in the direction of reds: pale straw to yellow to gold to amber to brown.
Corton, a small, favored wine area of Burgundy, enjoys the rare distinction of producing both a world class red and a world class white, each proudly bearing the name Corton.
As the red Corton ages and lightens, it looks more and more like an aging white Corton, which darkens. With enough age, the two become indistinguishable from each other.
Tints follow a predictable continuum as the wine ages, like sample paint chip cards in a paint store. Given the background of a wine someone knowledgeable can predict with a fair degree of certainty what the wine’s hue should be at any given time.
And will know if the wine is following its normal course of if some deviation is occurring.
The Red Wine Continuum, from fermentation through old age.
Individual red wines will vary in hue within each stage, in the time that they take to move along the continuum, and in how many and which tints they display at one time in the glass.
Some of the factors that affect development were listed above and will be discussed in detail later in the text.
As in the ‘brilliance’ continuum, these color words are common, everyday words and should encourage us to focus on gradations, to use the words artfully, choosing them carefully from the continuum.
Purple: The birth tint of most red wines; the quintessential indication of a wine's youth.
More intense wines will lose the blue in their purple more slowly than less intense wines which mature more quickly.
Ruby: With some of the initial blue pigment fade out, the wine is moving towards maturity.
Red: With all the blue gone and the orange not yet arrived, the wine achieves the red shade commonly called "wine". The wine has lost its youth but has not yet peaked.
Brick: There you go! This is the welcomed color of red wine at its peak of maturity: a soft red in the bowl with gradation to orange at the rim of the wine.
Mahogany: A red with definitive brown overtones indicating at least full maturity.
Although as the wine ages as its health becomes more questionable, and its remaining red pigment diminishes in intensity, a tint of mahogany frequently indicates that although the wine is past its peak, it has plenty of life and interest remaining.
Amber-Brown: Gradations of extreme age.
However, many wines display this range of tints while still retaining some superb characteristics.
The amber-brown range of tints is the same for both reds and whites.
Note that only the highest echelon of fine red wines, properly handled and stored and kept for decades ever travel the entire continuum.
Most fine reds are either drunk long before their prime or simply don’t have the staying power.
Rose Wines: Continuum
There are four major groupings of rose’ tints.
Unlike the red wines that we've looked at, the differences in tints among rose’s are not caused by the aging process of the wine but by the grapes and the viticulture and vinification methods of the regions in which the rose wines are produced.
The range of colors offered by roses are among wines’ prettiest, giving rose’s their single superiority over reds or whites.
Rose: Wines in this grouping may range from pale red to medium cherry.
Blush: These pink roses are very much in vogue among Californian producers because of their beautiful color and unusually individual taste; they can extend to shocking pink.
Orange: These lovely rose’s can be coral or tangerine.
Onionskin: An orange color substantially more brown than yellow.
The ranges of the tints of white wines have less obvious differences than do the ranges of reds.
But nonetheless, there are several varied groupings into which the tints of the white wines fall.
As with reds, the tints of white wines change with age.
Greenish: White wines sometimes retain chlorophyll during fermentation and display a green tinge as an overlay to a straw or yellow in the glass.
Straw: This light but attractive color of many whites may be pale straw, straw, or dark straw. Yellow: These whites can range from pale to deep yellow.
Deep Yellow with Gold Tinge: This deepest color, usually reserved for rich dessert wines, is sometimes also attained by the biggest and fullest dry whites.
Gold: This is the opulent color of the richest white wines, which begin life with a gold tinge over deep yellow, and darken to gold as the wine ages.
Amber-Brown: Wines that begin life with full and rich tones develop attractive brownish tones with extreme, often excessive, age.
Post Scripts
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Just send the email address to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
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God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
_____________________________________________
Ever say, “That’s so weird, I just heard about that yesterday, and here it is again?”
The Badder-Meinhof phenomenon has taken you into the twilight zone.
A common phenomenon also known as the frequency illusion.
Newly-discovered concepts pop up again and again in your life and you feel a bewildering coincidence.
Weirder still is synchronicity, a highly meaningful coincidence, such as having someone telephone you while you are thinking about them.
Scientists say so what? A world as complex as ours invites frequent coincidences.
But our guts tell us that Baader-Meinhof and synchronicity strike so often and are so on target they cannot be explained away so easily.
Scientifically proven coincidences? or
Destiny: these events were meant to occur just as they did.
What do you feel?
Today is Saturday, May 26, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my forty-ninth consecutive daily posting.
I’m late. Computer issues. It’s 7.08am, but it’s Satyrday. Go back to sleep.
Another lovely day today.
On TV: Another Perry Mason legal drama, “The Case of the Lucky Legs.” Warren Wilson is the man.
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is Broiled-Grilled Halibut. So outrageously good yesterday I thought I’d have it again.
Readers’ Comments
I give you Janet Gilardi, responding to the Gin and Tonic post.
What~~~no olive juice and olives ??????
Here’s my recipe.
GIN MARTINI:
I do not use ice cubes or tonic water in the glass~~~it is an insult to the GIN !!
In a shaker, put as many ice cubes as you wish~~~~depending on how much gin is used,
put in enough olive juice to make it Dirty !! A shot of Dry Vermouth.
Carefully place 3 small olive/w/pimento onto a nice looking plastic toothpick. (not wood)
Let that sit for 1 3/4 minutes~~~stir lightly not shaken !! Do NOT put the olives directly into a beautiful Martini glass.
Place the toothpick across the rim of the martini glass (glass should be frozen whenever possible)
As the liquid disappears somehow ??? You will then have the permission (VERY SLOWLY) to dunk the olives inside the Love Potion !!
Good Nuff ?????
I AM OBLIGATED TO REPORT ~~~
BE VERY VERY CAREFUL~~~~~TWO of these will have you dancing on top of the Bar or Table !!!!!
Website Tweaks
Lots of work on the Navigation Page.
And more on the Pages, esp. the handling of the Conflicted manuscript.
Today’s post
How did an officer, serving in the Mexican War and then rousted out of the army for drunkenness, that former officer subsequently failing at farming and then failing in business, how did this officer in several very short years win appointment to the leadership of the entire Union army?
Here’s the narrative.
When the Civil War began and military experience was In short supply, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne pressured the Union Army to permit Grant’s return.
Grant’s first assignment was training Union recruits and shortly, in June, 1861, he gained promotion to Colonel.
Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont, who viewed in Grant an "iron will" to win, appointed Grant to “Commander of the District of Cairo, Tennessee,” a position he held from September, 1861, to Feb. 17, 1862.
Then came a series of battles that won Grant the attention of none other than the President of the United States.
Battle of Belmont
November 11, 1861
Not a militarily significant battle, each side lost 600 men.
Grant was defeated.
Pres. Lincoln noted with approval that here was a general not afraid to get his hands dirty; to inflict and to suffer loss.
This battle reinforced to General Grant giving battle whenever he had a sufficient number of men, was its own raison d’etre; and that hard fighting would bring success; and that there would be loss of life – sometimes appalling loss of life.
Reinforced to Grant that Confederacy could not survive a continual depletion of its armed forces since the South lacked the population from which it could rebuild its army.
Battle of Fort Donelson
February 12–16, 1862
Resulted in the capture of the Confederate fort near the Tennessee–Kentucky border.
The victory opened the Cumberland River as an important avenue for the invasion of the South, breaking the Confederacy's western line of defense. The victory secured Kentucky to the Union and opened Tennessee to Northern invasion.
Among his men, for his refusal to allow any other terms, the victory earned Grant the nickname of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.
And across the nation, Grant became a celebrity.
The Union success again thrust Grant under the nose of President Lincoln who elevated Grant, an obscure and largely unproven leader, to the rank of major general.
His support of Grant earned Lincoln a stream of criticism from Grant’s enemies who called him a butcher and a drunk.
Lincoln’s responded to all that he needed more generals as eager for combat as Grant.
Battle of Shiloh
4/6-4/7, 1862
Southwestern Tennessee.
The battle began in the morning with a surprise attack on Gen. Grant’s forces that confused the North.
Fighting that day was furious and favored the South. But despite having another hour of daylight, Gen. Beauregard did not pursue his advantage, and, citing his men’s fatigue, disengaged until the next day.
But Grant was reinforced during the night and in the morning counterattacked along the entire Confederate line.
Fighting was again furious but at the end of the day, the Confederates withdrew.
This had been the bloodiest battle ion American history.
In the aftermath of Shiloh, Grant's career suffered temporarily
Senior Commander Halleck combined and reorganized his armies, relegating Grant to the powerless position of second-in-command.
But Lincoln intervened, promoting Halleck to be general in chief of all the Union armies, forcing Halleck’s move to the East, and restoring Grant’s command.
Battle of Champion Hill
Fought May 16, 1863
The pivotal battle in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War.
Won by Grant, making victory in the subsequent siege of Vicksburg a foregone conclusion.
This action (combined with the surrender of Port Hudson to Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks on July 9) yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, who would hold it for the rest of the conflict.
Union Army commander Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee pursued the retreating Confederate States Army, under Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, and defeated the Confederates twenty miles to the east of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
The Union victory led to the Siege of Vicksburg.
Siege of Vicksburg
5/18-7/4, 1863.
The city fell on the same day as the Union victory at Gettysburg.
After the surrender of Vicksburg and the fall of Port Hudson in the summer of 1863, the Mississippi River came under Union control, cutting off the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas from the rest of the Confederate States, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two for the duration of the war.
The Union victory also permanently severed communication between the balance of the Confederacy and the Trans-Mississippi Department.
In recognition of his achievement, Grant was promptly elevated to the rank of major general in the regular army.
Chattanooga and Knoxville
November 23–25, 1863
Victory here gave the Union undisputed control of the state of Tennessee, including Chattanooga, the "Gateway to the Lower South."
The city became the supply and logistics base for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign.
In March, 1864, Grant was offered, and accepted, command of all Union armies.
Post Scripts
Would you like this daily posting to arrive in your mailbox?
Just send the email address to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to comment on a posting?
Mail the comment to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to view the blog?
Existential Auto Trip: www.existentialautotrip.com
God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
__________________________________________________________
SIGNATURE ROAST CHICKEN
So proud to call this ‘signature.’
It’s as stress-free as perfection gets.
It’s simple: no gravy, no stuffing.
It’s simple: no guesswork.
It produces crispy skin.
And juicy meat.
It produces the lovely color we look for in our roast chicken.
It’s amazingly delicious.
It’ as easy and surefire as the boiled eggs recipe we posted earlier.
And it comes out every time.
The recipe is Today’s Post.
Today is Friday, May 25, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my forty-eighth consecutive daily posting.
It’s 6.16am
On TV: A Perry Mason legal drama, “The Case of the Howling Dog.” Warren Wilson is the man.
I’m at my desk.
Dinner tonight is Broiled-Grilled Halibut, a technique we will definitely be learning.
Readers’ Comments
This from Colleen, “The Room to Write” page in the Contributing Writers Section of the Blog.
I chose it because it perfectly illustrates the cheerfulness of the author. Always a pleasure to be around, she.
Responding to the post of 05 24 2018 re: gin and tonic.
Good Morning Dom,
Well, I have to admit that while I haven't always read every one of your posts each morning--this one had me hook line and drinker! Maybe it's the proximity of the kick off to summer being this weekend. Maybe it's the fact that I actually like gin and tonic, although it is something I only drink once--maybe twice--a year at most. Maybe it was the curiosity of what "Dom's version" of the birds and the bees would be and how the hell it related to Billy Joel and making love to a glass with liquid it in.
However I was pulled into the journey I'm not sure, but I have to say it was a great piece. I appreciated it not only for its visual imagery but because of its frugal gourmet qualities. I love to get more bang for my buck--or in this case more buzz for my buck. I am going to try this one out and I even looked up that St. George's gin online. I usually go for Tanqueray, but it's for the same reason I usually vote for an incumbent: because the name is familiar not because of any knowledge of the quality behind it. But if there's a gin you're makin' love to, Dom--it must have been vetted (and I don't want to know how---haha:) and I'll just trust your vetting system over my incumbent system.
Ok, so at this point (like most writings) I'm just listening to myself think. I'll wrap up.
Enjoy your next gin and tonic! Here's the enjoying the simple things fully and not overdoing it.
Cheers,
Colleen;)
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Today’s post
The night before we cook and eat the chicken, prepare three aspects of it
Gather odd pieces for a stock to be made after we’ve eaten the chicken
The night before we eat it, wash and dry the fresh chicken.
Remove the neck and the giblets and cut off the wings.
Put all of these, except the liver, into a plastic bag and freeze.
Later, when we’re finished eating the chicken, we’ll use these pieces, with the leftover chicken carcass and other pieces, to make a small chicken stock which we’ll reduce to gravy richness with which we’ll supplement our container of chicken gravy..
Chef’s perk.
Saute and eat the liver as the chef’s perk.
Prep the chicken for roasting
Still at the night before.
Brush the chicken with a slurry of 2TB salt, 2TB of baking powder, 1TB onion powder, 1t garlic powder, 1TB freshly-ground black pepper, and 4TB water.
The air and the mix will dehydrate and break down the chicken’s exterior, preparing it for a good browning.
Set the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan and refrigerate the brushed, uncovered chicken overnight.
Roast the Chicken: the “At our Convenience Method.”
As soon as we wake up we can put the bird in the oven.
Don’t freak over the whitish color of the bird: it’s what we want to happen with the dehydration and seasoning.
Think crispy skin, nicely colored.
We’ll slow-roast the chicken in a 200* oven for 29 minutes per pound.
A 5.5 lb. chicken will spend 160min in the oven, 2hours and 40minutes.
When time is up, take the chicken out of the oven and loosely cover it with aluminum foil.
Note the absence of drippings in the roast pan.
They are where they belong: in the bird.
The whitish color hasn’t changed.
Go about the day.
Finish the Chicken
Finishing the chicken will take 45 minutes, including 20 minutes for the chicken to settle.
Set the oven rack on the lowest shelf.
Turn on the broiler.
Remember that every oven is different so we’ll adjust these times to our own ovens.
Trial and error is involved.
Before putting the roasting pan in the oven, be sure that the chicken breast facing the broiler is level.
I use a small thick bowl, tipping it into the end of the chicken that I want to raise.
Since the roasting pan is far from the broiler the heat won’t break it.
When the oven is hot, set the roasting pan with the chicken on that lowest rack.
Broil the chicken, breast side up, for six minutes.
Check the chicken after the six minutes.
Likely it will need a little more color.
Chicken still looking dry.
Desirable for this moment since we’re crisping the skin.
Return the chicken to the oven and continue to brown it until it’s evenly and attractively brown.
In my oven this takes only 2 more minutes.
Flip the chicken so the backbone is facing the broiler.
This side is usually level naturally.
Brown this side for 6 minutes.
Check it. My oven needs 2 more minutes to nicely brown the chicken.
Then lay the chicken on its side and brown that for only three minutes since the sides rest higher than the breast or backbone.
Flip it and brown the other side.
When all of the chicken is nicely browned, take the chicken out of the oven and check the temperatures of both the breast and the leg.
We are looking for approximately 125* for the breast and 135* for the leg.
The temperature will determine how long more to keep the chicken in the oven.
Before we brush olive oil all over the bird, notice and be proud of how dry and crispy the skin has become.
Delicious waiting to happen.
Turn the oven to ‘Bake’ and set the temperature for 500*.
Pour 3TB olive oil in a small bowl and thoroughly paint the bird all over.
Voila’.
Like magic, the chicken is beautifully golden-brown.
Return the chicken to the oven.
If the temperature readings were 125* for the breast and 135* for the leg, the hot roasting will only take 6 minutes.
But here we assume pinpoint control of the cook by adjusting the time of this final roast depending on the temperature reading.
Take the chicken out of the oven and check the temperature of the breast and the leg.
We are looking for approximately 150* for the breast and 155* for the leg.
Allow 20 minutes for the chicken juices to settle.
The temperature will go up by 5*, reaching the optimum 155* for the breast and 160* for the thigh.
Optimum final breast temperature is 155* and the thigh, 160*.
While lower than the USDA recommended, still higher than the 145* that kills the pathogens.
The result: Roast Chicken extraordinaire!
Succulent, simple, absolutely delicious.
We may serve the chicken as is, no gravy.
The juicy meat and the crispy, salty, seasoned skin easily stand on their own.
And for goodness sake, eat the delicious skin.
Calories?
Cut out the cream puffs.
Carving the chicken
Separate the leg by slicing through the skin and meat to expose the leg joint that holds the leg to the bird’s body.
Pull the leg away to expose the connection, finishing the separation by cutting at the joint with the bone knife.
Repeat this for other leg.
Cut off each of the wings by pulling each while slicing at the joint.
Separate the breast meat by cutting down alongside of breastbone, pulling the meat away as we slash and slice.
Repeat for the other side.
Slice the breast meat into rounds, like firewood.
Serve!
Post Scripts
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God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
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