THE TALE SPINNER
Vol. XVI, No. 21
May 22, 2010
IN THIS ISSUE:Vol. XVI, No. 21
May 22, 2010
Carol Dilworth wraps up her description of a visit to Fort York
Judy Marriot writes about the history of lanterns
Zvonko Springer sends a parody of Kipling's "If"
Betty Audet forwards a story about coffee cups
Carol Shoemaker shares some children's statements about the ocean
The editor remembers an incident from a history class
Betty Fehlhaber, Bruce Galway, Carol Hansen, Pat Moore, and Tom Williamson suggest sites
Carol Dilworth concludes her account of her visit to
FORT YORK
The audio guide provided more details. The Englishmen who came out to help protect King George III's colony were often from very wealthy families. They could bring considerable personal belongings, and the dinner table, especially in the senior officers' dining hall, might be laden with as much as 10,000 pounds (that's weight, not value) of sterling silver for a meal. The junior officers did not enjoy the same comforts as their more senior counterparts.
The commanding officer had a dedicated cook for his family and this cook slept in the family's private kitchen. The furniture was more practical than decorative because it, along with the cooks, went with the troops when they travelled.Meals were prepared in several kitchens and almost everything was imported, including the claret. We discussed among ourselves how we would cook a huge roast beef, potatoes, and dessert in one oven. The only thing that we agreed upon was that we wouldn't be able to co-ordinate Yorkshire pudding in the schedule, even if there were still room in the oven. If the kitchens weren't enough to make us aware of the challenges, visualizing how the one well supplied the entire fort did.
There is a wonderful display of uniforms. I assumed that the variety of jackets, especially for drummers, meant that many of the uniforms were for ceremonial purposes rather than battle. Finally, in preparing this article, I realized that the drummers went into battle. I Googled (when did that become a verb?) and now know that the drummers' job included sounding the beat for the marchers. The drummers were often young children. The officers were very protective of these children and they carried the youngsters on their shoulders in dangerous situations.I found out that my family has a purely coincidental link to the fort's history. There is a Dorchester, Ontario, and a Lord Dorchester Secondary School in that village. In 1961, my family moved from Toronto to London, Ontario, when my father was hired as the first principal of this school. I remember him telling me about the then Lord Dorchester's letter to the school giving permission to name the school after him. (Thank you to my friend, David Skene-Melvin, for the following information about Lord Dorchester.) The Lord Dorchester of 1794 was formerly General Sir Guy Carleton, who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dorchester in 1786 as a reward for his services to the Crown. Lord Dorchester's last act as Governor General before retiring to England was to grant every person on the militia rolls the right to the terminal UE, for "United Empire", after his or her and all their descendants' surnames.
A second visit is probably a good idea, especially if I want to see the fort as it is currently presented. Major changes are planned as part of the 2012 commemorations of the War of 1812. The following article gives an idea of the proposal, and I hope that my description encourages you to visit.
Extracts from "How the Gardiner will help Fort York stand tall again; Expressway to stand in for vanished lake bluff in time for War of 1812 bicentennial", Anna Mehler Paperny, Globe and Mail, December 19, 2009.
"It's no easy feat to rejuvenate a 200-year-old national landmark in the shadow of a hulking concrete commuter artery.
"But the ambitious new vision for Toronto's Fort York would go one step further: Incorporate the Gardiner Expressway into a re-creation of the fort in time for the bicentennial of the War of 1812, one of the formative conflicts of Canada's history.
"The city announced the winning conceptual design for Fort York's visitor centre yesterday - a joint project by Vancouver's Patrkau Architects and Toronto-based Kearns Mancini Architects.
"It plans to build a steel version of the escarpment that defined the fort's 19th-century geography - making the 20th century Gardiner an integral part of the design and reinforcing the visual impression that these now-tiny buildings helped defend a country....
"Hemmed in by the raised expressway, railroad tracks and thousands of gleaming condominiums, once-imposing Fort York is reduced to a collection of squat brick buildings - utilitarian antecedents to an infamously utilitarian city....
"Over the next several years, the fort plans to spend more than $30 million in capital projects on infrastructure and exhibits, including artifacts - like the militia flags buried in 1813 to prevent their falling into U.S. hands - that normally don't see the light of day...."
http://nw-seniors.org/stories.html
Judy Marriott writes about
THE HISTORY OF LANTERNS
Early lanterns were purely utilitarian, often square and plain in design, whose original function was merely to shield a burning candle. Most were primitive in design and made from tinplate or sheet iron. Those made of the more expensive materials are extremely rare. Brass and pewter, for example, were forged into gun parts and moulded into bullets during the Revolution.
In the early days, the colonists went to bed with the setting sun or made do with fire light. One early improvement was the lantern, or "lanthorne" as it was known 200 years ago. Today lanterns mounted outside the home are both decorative and functional. They provide accent and ambient lighting for visitors who need to safely reach your door.
Streets in most American cities 200 years ago were lighted primarily by reflections from doorway lanterns. Few townships had established provisions for public street lighting. Boston was probably the first. In the early 1700s cressets or iron baskets hung from poles with pine knots as fuel and were used to light busy intersections. These were tended by night watchmen. Some towns passed laws making it mandatory for every sixth house to have a post lantern or a torch to provide the requisite illumination.
By the 1770s the city of Boston had large numbers of post lanterns of English manufacture lighting its streets. Whale oil was the fuel used. By 1751, Philadelphia's streets were also lighted, thanks to Benjamin Franklin. Ever resourceful, it was he who discovered that two wick tubes burning side by side a certain distance apart gave more light than two separate burners. Different fluids were also experimented with. One such fuel was camphene. It was a combination of turpentine and alcohol and burned very brightly, but was extremely dangerous.
The gas light era was introduced in America about 1800, while in Europe, London first switched to gas in 1807. The beautiful Westminster Bridge was lighted by gas in 1813; Paris streets in 1818. Several significant discoveries increased the brilliance of the gas light: pinching the end of the gas tube to a fan shape, mixing air with the gas before the point at which it was lit, and finally, surrounding the flame with a mantle of metallic oxide cloth until it glowed brighter than the flame were all important innovations in the quest for more light.
Legend has it that a windowless, pierced lantern was used to signal Paul Revere from the belfry of the Old North Church of the arrival of the British, a noble task for an ignoble lantern. We can be sure that such a lighting device could never have been seen from across the Charles River. Nevertheless, these pierced lanterns are named after the famous patriot and the legend persists.
ED. NOTE: I remember the lanterns that were used for outdoor chores in the lumber camps when I was young, while in the house there were coal oil lamps and gas lanterns. The gas lantern had mantles which were very fragile after being lit, and would fall to pieces if touched. Undoubtedly lanterns are still used in places where there is no electricity, like outdoor camps and remote farms.
Zvonko Springer forwards this parody of Kipling's "If":
INNER PEACE
If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs ...
Then you are probably the family dog!
And you thought I was going to get all spiritual with this, huh...?
In the same vein, here is advice on how we too can achieve
CALMNESS IN OUR LIVES
I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all use a little more calmness in our lives.
By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace.
Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started and have never finished."
So I looked around my house to see all the things I had started and hadn't finished.
Before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of white Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a bottle of Kaluha, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, and a box of chocolates.
You have no idea how freaking good I feel! Please pass this on to those whom you think might be in need of inner peace.
I'm definitely calm, just thinking about it. How about you?
Betty Audet forwards this story about
CUPS OF COFFEE
A group of alumni, all highly established in their respective careers, got together for a visit with their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about the endless stress of work and life in general.
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen and soon returned with a large pot of coffee and an eclectic assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal - some plain, some expensive, some quite exquisite. Quietly he told them to help themselves to some fresh coffee.
When each of his former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the old professor quietly cleared his throat and addressed the small gathering: "You may have noticed that all of the nicer-looking cups were taken up first, leaving behind the plainer and cheaper ones. While it is only natural for you to want only the best for yourself, that is actually the source of much of your stress-related problems."
He continued: "Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In fact, the cup merely disguises or dresses up what we drink. What each of you really wanted was coffee, not a cup, but you instinctively went for the best cups. Then you began eyeing each other's cups....
"Now consider this: Life is coffee. Jobs, money, and position in society are merely cups. They are just tools to shape and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not truly define nor change the quality of the Life we live. Often, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee. Enjoy your coffee!"
Carol Shoemaker says that these are not quite what she remembers from Marine Biology:
CHILDREN WRITING ABOUT THE OCEAN
This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly, age 6)
Oysters' balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)
If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don't have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (age, 7)
Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)
A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age 8)
My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and pots and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6)
When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7)
Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen, age 6)
I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy, age 6)
Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers. (Christopher, age 7)
When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6)
On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)
The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't drown I don't know. (Bobby, age 6)
My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
Carol Dilworth's story about Fort York reminds me of an incident in a class on Canadian history.
This was back when I decided to go to university and become a school librarian, after 25 years as a printer. I was working the night shift at the Vancouver Sun and going to City College during the day. I took only one course at a time, so it took me some years to work my way through the first year of university.
One of those courses was Canadian history, taught by a rather deaf professor who never seemed to hear the boys in the back row, who paid little attention to the class but filled their time with chatting among themselves. (When I say boys, of course I mean young men.)
At first when the professor asked a question of the class, I volunteered an answer if I knew it - and I often did because I had done the homework. After a while it became obvious that no-one else was bothering to answer, so I stopped volunteering too. The professor would look around the class, wait, then finally ask, "Mrs. Sansum?"
This was getting embarrassing, and I slumped lower in my seat each day, but the professor kept asking me for the answers.
Finally, one day he asked, "Who won the war of 1812?"
And from the back seats a voice growled, "Mrs. Sansum!"
The professor did not hear, but I did, and cringed. Now it seems funny; at the time it was anything but. As it happened, I did know the answer, which was obvious: the British won it, or Canada would now be a part of the United States, fulfilling their dream of "manifest destiny".
THIS WEEK'S SUGGESTED SITES
Betty Fehlhaber writes: I just found this web site and it kept me occupied (read wasted time) for a while. Perhaps your readers might also be amused by it:
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Pat Moore sends this one for pricing garage sale items:
http://www.stretcher.com/stories/09/09apr20a.cfm
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Tom Williamson forwards a URL for a video showing copy machine security risks:
http://www.wimp.com/copymachines/
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For some amazing dancing, go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apnNtpo81_g
You may also read this newsletter online at:
http://nw-seniors.org/stories.html
"If I have learned anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return?" - Margot Fonteyn
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