Going-to-the-Sun Road

Posted on September 22, 2024 by admin

No point in burying the lead. Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier NP is famed for its splendid mountain scenery, and for good reason.

The road is also an epic feat of civil engineering. With its large pullouts for auto tourism, it dates from what you might call the golden age of road building in national parks, which was spurred by the prospect of auto tourism. Beginning about 100 years ago, that is, and a key factor in making Glacier a tourist magnet over the years.

Nearly or over 3 million visitors have visited each year since 2016, except for 2020. In 2022, Glacier was tenth-most visited of the 63 national parks.

On August 24, we drove westward on the two-lane Going-to-the-Sun Road, which winds across Glacier for 50 miles or so. Hard to believe that such a poetic name is government sanctioned, but so it is, named for the nearby Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, which in turn had been named that by the remarkable, and mostly forgotten, James Willard Schultz. Apparently he took it upon himself to name features in the future Glacier National Park long before it was a park, which it became in 1910, with President Taft’s signature on the bill.

The eastern entrance to the road has a visitor center, which flies two flags of nearby nations, along with the Stars and Stripes.

The less familiar one is the Blackfeet Nation.

The Blackfeet Reservation, at 1.5 million acres, is half again as large as Glacier NP, which comes in at about a million acres. The reservation is due east of the park, and in fact they share a border on the eastern side of the park. Indeed, much of the park was part of the reservation until the tribe was obliged to cede the land in the 1890s.

Another digression: “The Chief Mountain Hotshots are a Native American elite firefighting crew based out of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation located at Browning, MT with Glacier National Park as their backyard,” the Bureau of Indian Affairs says.

“The Chief Mountain Hotshots are a highly trained self-sufficient hotshot crew working in wildland firefighting. On average, the Crew works 15-20 large fire incidents and travels 10,000-20,000 miles a year.” More about the hotshots is here.

All good to know, but I’m glad there were no wildfires in the vicinity for them to fight. As the road passes along the north shore of cold-water Saint Mary Lake —

— clearly there has been some wildfire.

The road rises from the lake, elevation 4,484 feet, toward the Continental Divide at Logan Pass, elevation 6,646 feet.

Logan Pass is the kind of place we would stop, but there was no available parking. This pic was taken by a photographer named Ken Thomas, who thoughtfully put it in the public domain.

No trucks or RVs allowed on the road, since they wouldn’t fit in some (many) places. That doesn’t keep drivers off the road, however. During the warm months when it’s open, Going-to-the-Sun is a busy place.

Even so, much of it still has that classic mountain appeal of low traffic.

Except when there are knots of traffic. Just a few.

Mountain scenery has a broad appeal.

Toward the east end of the park, the road parallels McDonald Creek for a number of miles before it connects with Lake McDonald, the larger of the park’s two major lakes, and the lower, at 3,153 feet elevation. Some of the creek has more of a river look.

Closer to the lake, the creek is rocky.

The water is bound for the Flathead River, a tributary of the mighty Columbia. We stopped at a wooden bridge across the creek.

Pedestrians can cross, but a sign warns that horse traffic has the right of way.

Not something you see too often. I assume that’s horses with riders, as part of a horse-riding trail, though maybe wild horses might have the right of way too. Like bears or moose, they’re large and might insist.

Helena, Montana

Posted on September 17, 2024 by admin

Missing a hike around Devils Tower meant we had time for other things, including a fine second breakfast in Hulett, Wyoming (pop. 300+). I asked the waitress what it was like a few weeks earlier, during the Sturgis Rally.

“Crazy,” she said, adding that the rally started on her third day on the job, for that extra measure of crazy.

She and her husband and daughter had been living on a boat for five years until recently, she also said, including a sail through the Panama Canal once. She mentioned that almost in passing, as if five years on a boat is something people often do, followed by relocating far away from any oceans. Though not Sturgis-busy, the place had more than a few customers, so I wasn’t able to get more detail.

We had time to look around Sundance, Wyoming before we left. Turns out Harry A. Longabaugh spent some time in the local jug for a bit of thieving near Sundance, and so he became known as the Sundance Kid. The town of Sundance (pop. just over 1,000) wants you to know this, communicating it to passersby with a memorial in the town’s main municipal park.

Despite his long history of criminal shenanigans, that was apparently the only time he was imprisoned. Guess you can get away with a lot when you have the dashing good looks and vim of a young Robert Redford.

The drive from Sundance into Montana and on to Helena took up most of the day on August 21.

Billings, Montana, bears further investigation if we’re ever out that way again. All it takes to impress me sometimes is a terrific lunch, and that we found at Spitz Mediterranean Street Food in downtown Billings. It didn’t seem like a chain – and I’d never heard of it – but there are about 20 of them, and it seems that Billings can support one. Other locations are in such usual-suspect retail markets as southern California, Denver, Portland, Ore. and DFW.

We spent the night in Helena and woke the next morning to more than a hint of a wildfire in the air, from elsewhere in Montana, but less than an air action day.

We planned to drive to the entrance of Glacier NP that day, but we couldn’t leave the capital of Montana without seeing the capitol. Front and back.

Inside.

Stained glass is a little unusual in a capitol, but not unheard of.

Murals are more common. Some clearly from an earlier period.

More recent murals depict scenes like this, the cooperative spirit between native and settler women.

On display in the Montana House of Representatives chamber – and the reason its door is always locked, to protect it, a sign said – is the painting “Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross’ Hole,” by Montana artist Charlie Russell (d. 1926). It is a highly esteemed work of his.

In situ:

Only a few blocks from the capitol is the Cathedral of St. Helena, which is undergoing exterior renovation.

It was open.

Some magnificent stained glass.

Before leaving town, we visited downtown Helena.

Soon we made our way to N. Last Chance Gulch Street, which is a pedestrian thoroughfare. At least, that’s what Google Maps calls it.

The Helena As She Was web site says of this street, in answer to what its real name is:

“The answer is: Both. Last Chance Gulch is the name of the actual gulch in which gold was discovered in 1864. The thoroughfare which was built down the Gulch was originally named Main Street. It remained that way for some 85 years, until July 20 1953, when acting Helena Mayor Dr. Amos R. Little, Jr. signed an ordinance officially changing the name of Main Street to Last Chance Gulch. Both names are still used locally for what was once the grand thoroughfare of Helena’s business district.

“Last Chance Gulch meanders as it does because it was originally routed between mining claims; it was not designed that way to lower fatalities from stray bullets, as some promotional literature has claimed.”

Stray bullets, eh? Helena wouldn’t be the only place that trades on a history of (fortunately) long-ago violence. That kind of thing is a dime a dozen west of the Mississippi, and not unknown to the east.

Along N. Last Chance Gulch. And there is a S. Last Chance Gulch, though we didn’t walk that far.

We found Taco del Sol on N. Last Chance Gulch. Unlike Spitz, a standalone operation.

If you want tasty nachos in Helena, Montana, Taco del Sol is your place.

Devils Tower National Monument

Posted on September 16, 2024 by admin

Days are still fairly long in mid-August, so spending some time at Badlands NP before driving to Wyoming wasn’t a bad idea. As long as we got to our campsite with some light left, setting things up wouldn’t be difficult.

I’d checked the weather for our destination, Devils Tower National Monument, and the only time rain was expected was the late afternoon on August 19, exactly when we would arrive. Ah, well. Nothing to do about that but press on.

Skies were cloudy and the wind was up by the time we got to Wyoming.

The monument isn’t far from the border with South Dakota. Take I-90 to Sundance, then US 14 and then a short stretch of Wyoming 24 to the monument. Soon after we got off the Interstate, that ominous gray cut loose some fierce rain, so heavy at times that it was best to find a wide place in the road to stop and wait for it to pass. That happened more than once as the rain variously intensified and slacked off.

Even so, we got the the entrance to the monument – and the campground just outside the entrance – well before dark. No worries. Did it snow here while it was raining on us a few miles away?

No. That was hail. Some fairly big hailstones, too; not quite golf ball-sized, but not too far off the mark. We went in to register to find that the campground had lost its power.

“Storm knocked out your power?” I asked the clerk, a middle-aged woman. It had, she said, and done a lot of other damage, including to vehicles parked in the campground. She also explained that the places where tent campers go was probably covered by melting ice. She offered to do a refund for the day’s worth of camping we’d paid as a down payment on two days — as soon as the computers were up again.

And she did. Cell service was possible in the area, to my surprise, and I looked into a couple of motels in Sundance, about 20 or 30 minutes away. The Bear Lodge Motel had what we needed: two nights at a middling price. The motel was a comfortable independent with a fairly traditional streak when it came to motel décor and amenities, though (damn it) no bottle opener attached under the sink outside the bathroom and no Sanitized For Your Protection ribbon. Nice beds, though, and bathroom for that matter.

The next morning was clear and after a simple breakfast in the room, we returned to Devils Tower with the idea that we’d hike the trail that circles the tower. This time I had the leisure to document the approach to the monument.

Soon we discovered that the monument was closed. People from their cars and tour buses found out the very same thing.

I asked a NPS ranger at the entrance about it, and he said that a lot of trees and maybe rocks and other debris had fallen on the road inside the monument, and he didn’t know when it would open again – though he guessed not today, stressing that that wasn’t the official word. I thanked him and we figured, not today was about the size of it.

We wandered around a bit, taking a look at the thing. “Bear Lodge” is the translation of native names for the tower. The reference to the Devil was a Victorian-era creation (another of the four fonts of the modern world, and a particularly big one).

Impressive. If I understand what I read, scientific opinion isn’t quite solid on the exact process that caused the rising of the tower, but there it was: an igneous tower rising over sedimentary plains. Lording over the plains? There’s nothing that can’t be anthropomorphized.

Speaking of which, bipedal and stretched-body space aliens of a distinct green hue can be found in the main gift shop outside the entrance (not a NPS shop).

Remarkable, the ongoing influence (though admittedly minor) of a movie that came out nearly 50 years ago. Guess that shows the value of putting a catchy tune in your movie.

I hadn’t thought about that movie in years, much less seen it. In fact, I’ve seen it only once, as a new movie in late 1977, in those heady first months of having a drivers license, which meant I could take girls out. I did to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, though I’m not quite certain now which girl I took.

If you asked me, the gift shop had too much space alien bric-a-brac and not enough Teddy Roosevelt. His name is on the presidential proclamation creating the monument, the very first one under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

I sent a picture of the tower to my old friend Tom.

Tom responded with a text: *Hears the movie theme to Close Encounters*

Me: Looking at the gift shop, you’d think there was a permanent alien settlement on top.

Tom: *Looks around shiftily.* Isn’t there? Have you actually been up there to find out? They could have their own Starbucks up there for all we know.

Me: The truth is out there.

Tom: And it might be caffeinated!

Badlands National Park ’24

Posted on September 15, 2024 by admin

A little over 19 years ago, we visited Badlands National Park, which is easily accessible from I-90. Our visit ended up being short.

Lilly wasn’t impressed. Could have been the heat. Must of been pushing 100 F. pretty hard. Also, the austere beauty might have been lost on a seven-year-old.

On the afternoon of August 19 this year, conditions were dry and warm at Badlands, but not oppressively hot. This time we spent a few hours longer.

At the entrance, I also made an investment in my future travels. One that has already paid off: an America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass, of the Senior Lifetime variety. You need to be 62 or older to get one, but if you are, the NPS employee at the entrance station can issue you one on the spot. If I can keep track of the physical card – which is exactly the same size and composition as a credit card – I can use for admission to NPS units until I go to that jurisdiction beyond federal oversight, namely the Great Beyond.

All for $80. Considering that vehicular admission to this particular park is ordinarily $30, I was already on my way to my money’s worth. Later on just this trip, we used the pass for admission to Glacier National Park (ordinarily $35), Olympic National Park ($30), Craters of the Moon National Monument ($20), Grand Teton National Park ($35) and Yellowstone National Park ($35). A good deal. You’d think the government was encouraging old people to travel.

I don’t need the encouragement.

“For hundreds of years, the Lakota people have called this area mako sica, which literally translates to ‘bad lands,’ the NPS notes. “When early French fur trappers passed through this area, they called the area les mauvaises terres a traveser (‘bad lands to travel across’). Since the French trappers spent time with the Lakota, it is likely that the French name is derived directly from the Lakota one.

“The Badlands presents many challenges to easy travel,” the NPS publication notes wryly. (Government pubs get to be wry?)

Except, of course, for the road that dips into the park and runs through the North Unit. Other parts of the park, which extends to the southwest away from the reach of paved roads, look remote indeed.

“When it rains in the Badlands, the wet clay becomes slick and sticky, making it very difficult to cross. The jagged canyons and buttes that cover the landscape also make it hard to navigate. The winters are cold and windy, the summers are hot and dry, and the few water sources that exist are normally muddy and unsafe to drink. These factors make the land difficult to survive in, and evidence of early human activity in the Badlands points to seasonal hunting rather than permanent habitation.

‘In 1922, when Badlands was first proposed as a national park, the suggested name was Wonderland National Park!”

One more detail. A little more bad in the badlands.

No buboes so far, so I figure we’ve avoided the plague for now. But I can’t say I wasn’t warned. In case you’re curious: The three most endemic countries for plague are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru, according to WHO. Not South Dakota, at least not yet.

Return to Le Roy, Home of Wausaneta

Posted on August 1, 2024 by admin

It so happens that Moraine View State Recreation Area is only a few miles north of Le Roy, Illinois, a burg I passed through more than five years ago. At that time I made the acquaintance of Wausaneta, an imaginary Kickapoo chief. His statue has stood in Kiwanis Park in Le Roy for more than a century now, gift to the town of the wealthy crackpot who dreamed him up. I mean, gift to the town of the spiritualist and leading citizen who communed with Wausaneta those many years ago.

As of Sunday, the statue of Wausaneta still stands in Le Roy’s main square.

I didn’t remember the carved stump tree nearby.

Panther Tree, it’s called. The local high school mascot is a panther. The reason I don’t remember it is because it wasn’t there until late 2019; I came in March of that year.

While Yuriko dozed in the car, I took a stroll down Main Street, learning that this isn’t the only Le Roy.

Most of the buildings are occupied by one business or another. The former Le Roy State Bank is now the Oak & Flame Bourbon Hall.

Every town worth its salt had an opera house, once upon a time. In this case, that time was 1892.

The Princess Theatre had an abandoned look, but its web site that says that Horizon: An American Saga is playing there once a day until August 3. Only $5 for seniors and children, and $6 for adults, which might be what it’s worth.

“Marcus West, son of Simeon West, built the Princess Theater in 1916,” the web site says. Simeon West was the aforementioned wealthy crackpot.

“Architect Arthur L. Pillsbury designed the brick theater with limestone accents. The first movie was Tennessee’s Pardner on November 21, 1916. The original theater was a silent movie house with piano accompaniment, as talkies did not make their debut in Le Roy until 1931. A grandson of Marcus West recounts that West’s daughter, while in high school, substituted as piano player when the regular player was unable to accompany the film.”

This building looked genuinely empty. Not only empty, but still sporting a Trump-Pence sign, already a relic of yore. It has a future as a hipster bar, maybe.

Guns & Glory.

Guns & Glory offers firearms, cleaning, repair, concealed carry classes, and Bibles.

“We are probably the only gun shop and religious book store combined that you will find,” its web site says. “We believe we can provide the two most important things to protect you – ‘God and guns.’ ”

Used to be the First National Bank. And a Rexall drug store.

Someone went to some lengths to blot out the Rexall name, but not enough to efface it completely, if you know what you’re looking at.

I believe the drug store in Alamo Heights where I bought comics in the early ’70s was a Rexall, but I’m not quite sure. At some moment after I left town, it disappeared. That same dynamic happened so much that the brand now enjoys only a whisper of its ’50s coast-to-coast retail glory.

The McLean County Museum of History

Posted on July 30, 2024 by admin

Revel in the obscurity: Details of posters advertising a regional brand of candy that hasn’t been made in years, created by a commercial artist no one has ever heard of, on display in a large town few people visit.

Bloomington-based Beich Candy Co. was the candy maker, and the posters advertise its Whiz Bar, whose slogan – until inflation made it obsolete – was “Whiz, best nickel candy there iz-z.”

The posters are behind glass at the McLean County Museum of History, and thus hard to photography in total without glare. But details work out nicely.

We visited the museum on Saturday morning.

“These posters were created by Don Shirley (1913-2001) for States Display, a local commercial art business,” notes the museum. “He was an artist and illustrator.”

A Prussian immigrant by the name of Paul F. Beich founded the candy company that carried his name. Beich Candy Co. lives on as a unit of Ferrero, with a candy factory in Bloomington (recently expanded), but Whiz seems to be no more. A chocolate-marshmallow-peanut confection, it sounds something like a Goo-Goo Cluster.

An even deeper dive into Beich Co. is at an Illinois Wesleyan University website. It’s the story of a food technologist who worked for the company, one Justin J. Alikonis.

“He designed and patented, among other things, a marshmallow-making machine, the ‘Whizolater,’ named after the Beich flagship candy bar, the Whiz,” the site says. “With no moving parts and operating solely on pressurized air, the Whizolater could make 1,400 gallons of marshmallow or nougat per hour.”

As local history museums go, McLean County is top drawer, with enough displays and artifacts to inspire all sorts of rabbit-hole expeditions, besides 20th-century candy making in central Illinois. Such as friends of Lincoln who otherwise would be lost to history.

He even looks a little like Lincoln, but maybe that’s just 19th-century styling.

Otherwise obscure incidents in McLean County history make their appearance as well, such as one in 1854, when a mob of Know-Nothings smashed 50 barrels each of brandy and cherry bounce, and 50 casks each of “high wine,” gin and whiskey taken from groggeries in Bloomington, according to the museum.

I had to look up cherry bounce. For those who like their neurotoxins sweet, I guess. The Know-Nothings were destroying the alcohol – “washed the prairie” with it, said a contemporary account, though perhaps some of it was squirreled away by thirsty Know-Nothings – presumably because it was associated with immigrant saloons.

A flag. For union and liberty.

A replica of the one carried by the 33rd Illinois Infantry Regiment, which has its start comprised of teachers and students and former students at Normal University (later ISU), with university president Charles E. Hovey as its colonel.

Most local history museums have oddities, and so does McLean County.

It’s a little hard to tell, but that’s a large chair. Though I’m six feet tall, my feet barely touched the ground. “Yes, please sit here!” its sign said. “The owners of Howard & Kirkpatrick’s Home Furnishings places this oversized chair outside their store to draw customers inside.”

The displays and artifacts are one thing, but what really makes the museum sing is its digs in the former courthouse.

Especially the former courtroom.

In which hangs a portrait of Vice President Adlai Stevenson.

The courthouse dates from the early 1900s, a time when officialdom at least believed that the physical structures of republican government ought to have a touch of grandeur.

Bloomington Ramble ’24

Posted on July 29, 2024 by admin

Want good soft serve ice cream in an unpretentious setting? Look no further than Carl’s Ice Cream, a plain-looking shop deep in the heart of Bloomington, Illinois. Also, look for its anthropomorphic soft serve cone rising over the parking lot.

Yuriko and Ann had strawberry, I had chocolate. Carl’s in Bloomington – there’s also one in Normal, with an ice cream muffler man outside – was an early afternoon stop on Saturday. We spent part, but not all of the weekend, in Bloomington.

Something we (I) also had time to do was take a better look at the impressive three-legged communications tower in downtown Bloomington. It’s visible for quite a distance, and makes me wonder, why aren’t more communication towers this interesting?

Much of the day was hot, or at least very warm, and sunny, a prelude to heavy rains early Sunday morning. So Yuriko was content to stay in the car – with the AC running – when I took in a few closer views of tower.

Pantagraph articles about the tower are paywalled, but snippets poke through from search engine results:

In the last 30 years of telephone, radio and other network service, the Tower Center became a sort of landmark for downtown Bloomington, lovingly nicknamed the city’s “Eiffel Tower.”

Bloomington’s ‘Eiffel Tower’ changes hands after 30 years

The McLean County Center for Human Services Recovery Program is gaining a new home beneath the iconic 420-foot communications tower in Bloomington…

Another source tells me that the tower dates from 1989. The Tower Center is the two-story building under the tower, now belonging to McLean County.

After the rain cleared away, late Sunday morning was as toasty as Saturday had been, but more humid. I decided against a walkabout at the Park Hill Cemetery in Bloomington. It’s good to ration your time under those hot and copper skies.

Still, we drove around a bit through the cemetery. Not a lot of memorial variety, but not bad.

Now I can say I’ve seen Mike Ehrmantraut’s grave. But not that Mike Ehrmantraut, of course. The fellow offed by Walter White, being fictional, must have an equally fictional grave.

Adjacent the cemetery is the sizable Miller Park, which includes the Miller Park Zoo. We didn’t want to use our ration of intense sunlight at a zoo either, but in the park itself.

When you see a steam locomotive in park (and its tender), you really ought to get out and look.

Three million miles. So the train could have, with the right track, gone to the Moon and back a number of times, provided it took its own oxygen to keep that engine going.

And what would the display be without a caboose? Partly because that’s just a fun word to say.

Ignorant fellow that I am, I didn’t know the Nickel Plate Road, so I looked it up later. Once upon a time, it was a major regional RR, spanning northern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Miller Park features a sizable war memorial.

In its vicinity are some retired weapons of war, such as a captured German 210 mm Krupp Howitzer (in better shape than this one).

As well as a WWI tank. Created for that conflict, at least. An M1917 light tank. Apparently none made it to the front during the war, but were put in service for a few years after the war by the U.S. Army.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of those on display. I’m reminded of my great-uncle Ralph. I understand — from my mother, and maybe even grandma told me this — that he was in a tank corps in France, with the American Expeditionary Forces. Such a posting is said to be fairly dangerous, and I believe it. Supposedly, Ralph was poised to go to the front at the time of the Armistice, which might well have saved him.

Letters, 1969

Posted on July 28, 2024 by admin

The great volume of paper letters from my mother to me didn’t begin until I went away to VU, but there were a few before that, such as when I visited my aunt and uncle and cousin around the time of a certain historic event 55 years ago now.

Considering how old it is, the letter is in pretty good shape. Only slightly yellowed.

I believe Sue and Ken and Ralph had come to visit us in San Antonio in mid-July, and I went back with them for a visit to their home in Ardmore, Oklahoma, that happened to coincide with Apollo 11 landing on the Moon.

I’m positive we were driving to Ardmore on the 20th, because I remember hearing about the impending landing on the radio, and a discussion in the car about whether it would happen by the time we got to their house. I might have been eight, but I knew what was going on. I had watched the launch and was following the mission closely. As it happened, “Tranquility Base here, the Eagle as landed” moment was not long after we arrived at their house.

Moon walk or no, life on Earth goes on. My mother wrote another letter on July 27.

My mother said they were coming to pick me up on the 31st, as I’m sure happened. From there we took a driving loop around the South – from Oklahoma through Arkansas and Tennessee, reaching the northwest corner of Georgia before turning back and heading through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana before returning to Texas.

The Great Southern Loop, I called it retroactively. Maybe 20 years later. Or the Great Southern Loop of ’69 even later, to differentiate it from the Southern Solo Loop of ’09 or the more recent ones of ’19 and ‘21. It’s hard to keep track sometimes.

He May Ride Forever ‘neath the Streets of Boston

Posted on June 24, 2024 by admin

Something I never thought of until today: you can buy booklets to hold fortune cookie fortunes. One at Amazon promises 10 pages that hold 40 fortunes, for $12.99. That came to mind, or rather set me looking, when I happened across another fortune I saved:

Magic time is creale when an unconventional person comes to stay.

I supposed “created” was meant, but in any case that sounds like the pitch for a sitcom episode.

I’m not buying a fortune holder. Those little slips will be tucked away with my business card accumulation: five holders so far, holding some hundred number of cards. Many are restaurant cards, some dating back to the ’80s. Others include a sampling of hotels, museums, shops, even a few churches.

Also, transit cards. I got a kick out of this one.

I used it during my most recent visit to Boston in 2018. Previously the system used metal tokens, but of course those are gone. CharlieTickets and CharlieCards were introduced in 2006.

Charlie was the sad-sack (and poor) protagonist of the song “M.T.A.,” which I know well. That is, the Kingston Trio’s 1959 recording, but not so much about its background. So naturally I had to look into it.

“The text of the song was written in 1949 by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes,” writes Jonathan Reed, once a student at MIT. “It was one of seven songs written for [Walter] O’Brien’s campaign, each one emphasized a key point of his platform. [He was running for mayor of Boston that year.]

“One recording was made of each song, and they were broadcast from a sound truck that drove around the streets of Boston. This earned O’Brien a $10 fine for disturbing the peace.”

The Kingston Trio got ahold of it a decade later and it sounds like they had fun with it. Clearly the song endures locally, enough to receive a sort of official recognition by the modern MBTA.

The Pearl Incident

Posted on June 19, 2024 by admin

The run of 90° F. (or so) days will run a little bit longer, see below, but as usual for summer in this part of the world, that kind of streak won’t have the staying power you see in certain other summertime places I’m familiar with, where 100° F. days line up in a seemingly endless array.

A site that sends me email sent a link to a Juneteenth article today with the slightly annoying headline: “5 Black History Landmarks in the U.S. You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.”

At least the publication included “probably.” But I checked, and I’d heard of four of them. Mostly they were not great unknowns. The Ebenezer Baptist Church was on the list, for instance. C’mon.

Still, I will give them their due by informing me of an event I hadn’t heard of: The Pearl Incident, which involved the unsuccessful escape attempt in 1848 by 77 slaves sailing from Washington City on a schooner called The Pearl. There is a plaque noting that fact “in the bricks of Wharf Street,” according to Wharf Life DC. If I’m ever in the Wharf district in DC, I will look for it.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: History